Yesterday I did my first full Bartonella coiling protocol. I coiled three, count ’em one-two-three, times yesterday. (The full protocol is here.)
It was an act of bravery. I was rather nervous about coiling that much. I was afraid I would get so restless I might not sleep for a few days. But that isn’t what happened.
The regular morning coiling generated the normal amount of restlessness, tempered by the Lyme flare’s contribution of being very tired. Then the midday coiling made me really jittery. I was pacing around the house. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t concentrate. I went up and down the stairs trying to find something to settle on. I couldn’t read or write or watch tv or crochet. I kept interrupting my husband but couldn’t focus on a conversation. It was annoying.
After a few long hours, I settled down. When I did the nighttime coiling, I got wired for about twenty minutes. Then I slept well. A long, deep, groggy sleep. I woke up once with odd dreams and a night sweat. It was more than the usual Bartonella sweat, but less than a typical Babesia sweat. I’m not sure what to make of it. I had more long dreams in the morning.
Today, I felt like I was still reeling from all the Bartonella coiling. My nerves were on edge. I felt more sensitive to pain and cold and heat and vibrations and sensations generally. My abdomen was somewhat swollen. My appetite was low and I was somewhat nauseated. But the thing that bothered me the most was a pain on each hip, near the bursa on my outer thigh, which was very sharp and radiated down my leg.
This happened last Thursday only on the left side. That time, the pain got more and more intense then shot down my leg followed by muscle contractions (convulsions in one leg). It was odd and frightening. But the convulsions only lasted half a minute, after which the pain subsided.
Today the pain was bilateral and never came to a head. It lasted much of the day.
Bartonella Plan Heading Forward
I can’t coil three times a day every day for Bartonella. I wish I could. But I need to coil for Lyme sometimes, and there just isn’t enough time in one day to do it all. Plus, it is a lot of strain on my body to process that much of a toxin load.
The plan for now is to coil for Bartonella three times a day as often as I can, coiling twice the rest of the time. If I’m coiling for Lyme, I’ll skip the midday coiling. If I’m too toxic, I’ll skip the middle coiling. That’s the best I can come up with.
My guess is that even coiling only twice a day, I would eventually get rid of Bartonella. The third coiling session kills off an even greater amount of the infection, hopefully meaning I will suffer more in the short term to end the suffering altogether much sooner.
Lyme Hurts
I’m dealing with the Lyme flare as best as I can. It makes me tired. It makes me sleepy. It makes me hurt. My pain level has gone up a lot in the past few days. I’ve been really tired (which makes me fear an early return of Babesia, but I haven’t tried coiling for it yet) and listless. Mostly, I want to lie around and do nothing…except right after I coil for Bartonella.
I keep reminding myself of this time last year. The pain level was worse and lasted more of each day. I was much more tired for more days in a row. I had more headaches and digestive discomfort. I was more disabled than I am now.
These days, my shoulder cracks and pops multiple times each hour. My jaw pops and aches. My back hurts. All my joints ache. I knew it would come back. I just don’t like it.
But I can handle the herx level enough that I coil my whole body for Lyme in one day (like today) and I can repeat it every five days. As the herxes get less, I’m considering doing it every four days or even every three days. I bet that would get this round over with much faster.
I’m hoping that my pain level goes down pretty soon. It distracts me and reduces my enjoyment of everyday activities. I remind myself often during the day that this will probably last only a month or two before I have wiped out the current flare. Then I hope to have a break until the end of the summer.
Similarities
I was musing today about what each of my three infections is like. I have a different perspective now, after being able to isolate which illness causes which symptoms. I was never able to do that on antibiotics. The coil machine is a remarkable device, and I think changes the course of the illness progression. It also provides a different experience on the road to recovery.
Anyway, I think Lyme best fits the description of fibromyalgia. The biggest issues are pain, fatigue and digestive upset. Of the three, pain is the most characteristic. I’m referring to joint pain and muscle pain and headaches. I have pain in lots of the characteristic fibromyalgia points, especially during a Lyme flare.
Babesia seems most like chronic fatigue syndrome. Fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, weakness, breathlessness, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, low blood pressure, searing headaches. For me, it also included chest pain and night sweats.
Bartonella seems most like irritable bowel syndrome combined with a mood disorder and a neurological disorder. There are so many digestive tract problems, some contradictory and alternating, others constant: diarrhea, gas, constipation, swollen abdomen, nausea, etc. Then there is the jittery restlessness and lack of concentration plus insomnia. And to top it all off there are all these strange nerve pains and heightened sensory perception.
Of course the other syndromes don’t quite fit my experience of the tick-borne infections. But I find it fascinating how much they overlap.
What doesn’t fit into all this is the lack of nerve function I had in my legs for years. I couldn’t get them to move of their own accord, though I could use my arms to move my legs and the joints were loose enough. I had some muscle atrophy, but not nearly as bad as one might have expected. To this day, I don’t know which infection caused the leg problems or if they resulted from a combination of Lyme and Bartonella. I don’t think I’ll ever know.
Detox
Over the weekend I took myself to the gym for a 15 minute session in the sauna. On Monday I sat in a sea salt plus epsom salt bath. Both got me sweating but not overheated. I try not to get too hot because it makes the Lyme infection go dormant…which I unwittingly learned in the fall. Granted, it makes me feel better in the short term, but it pushes the attainment of my long term goals further away.
I’m drinking my daily kombucha, lemon water, lots of water, and taking antioxidants. I’m spending time on the biomat. I’m resting as needed. I took welchol over the weekend. I’m sure I’m not doing enough, but juicing is beyond my energy (and concentration) level at the moment. I hope to get back to it tomorrow.
Categories: Herx reactions, using the coil machine
Tags: babesia, bartonella, lyme, symptoms
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Coiling for Lyme 