It’s been a crazy week since I last posted a blog. I’ve been trying all sorts of things, intentionally, to get the Lyme bacteria to come out of hiding. My efforts have definitely paid off. I’ve been feeling awful for all or part of most days. I guess that’s a good thing. I’m herxing when I coil for Lyme.
Meanwhile, I’ve changed up my Bartonella routine (again) now that I’m back to having two coils. All my misbehaving has led me to learn more about what symptoms the Bartonella causes in me, including joint pain, which I’d always ascribed to Lyme. Live and learn.
I finally tried raw milk. It was part of my bad behaving–consuming cow milk products. This would be a boon to the diversity in my diet…though all I really want is ice cream!
Moo
Last Saturday I purchased some freshly milked cows milk from a local dairy that sells at the nearby farmers market. I’m not much of a milk drinker. I don’t think I had any straight milk (not in cereal or hot chocolate or something) since I was in high school. It was alright. My husband, who is much more of a milk drinker, thinks this milk is absolutely fabulous. I might agree if I had something to compare it to.
The reason I’m trying raw milk is that it contains bacteria from the cows that helps to digest the milk. Seems straightforward. I know there are risks that it is contaminated with other bacteria as well. I’m hoping my digestive system is strong enough to deal with small amounts of not-so-beneficial bacteria. In any case, it’s worth a try.
The funny thing is that I read, years ago, that the reason to drink raw cows milk is that it has enzymes that can break down lactose and casein, making the milk more digestible. In comparison, pasteurizing milk denatures those enzymes. The only bacteria that was part of the discussions was the pathogenic bacteria. But what attracts me to raw milk now is that it has beneficial bacteria that might make a home in my intestines and my digestive tract more diverse and more balanced. I suspect that the probiotics are what makes raw milk seem like such a miracle for city kids with autoimmune problems.
I won’t be drinking raw cows milk every week, but I may buy half a gallon once every month or two for the next year.
By the way, the result of drinking it the first time was my first normal bowel movement in a long time. That was nice. I’ve been able to eat cows milk cheese a few times (as part of my experiment in behaving badly) without getting any headaches. So far, this experiment has a positive outcome.
Bartonella Update
When I was restricted for two weeks to coiling with only one coil, I had to improvise a new Bartonella coiling schedule. What I learned was that I started herxing again when I coiled only once a day on each area but for a longer time. So now that I’m back to coiling with two coils, I’ve revised my coiling plan. Now I do five minutes on each side of my head in the morning and seven minutes on the top and back of my head at night, recognizing that these areas overlap. I’m continuing to coil my spine for six minutes on each of the three parts (upper, middle, lower) in the morning and four minutes on each spinal location at night. That’s the main change. (previous protocol)
I’ve also given up on coiling my outer thighs separately. It didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Plus, the new coils get pretty heated up after 18 minutes, 20 minutes if I don’t need time to move them around. (The ten or so seconds to readjust the coil in a new location over and over add up.)
(Draft 6)
Coiling frequency: 832 Hz
Morning (total 38 minutes):
- Head: each side, 5 minutes per
- Spine: upper, middle, lower, 6 minutes per
- Liver, 5 minutes
- Spleen, 5 minutes
Midday (total 36 minutes)
- Between legs: thighs, knees, calves, 2 minute each
- Feet through coil, 2 minutes
- Each ilium front, 2 minutes
- Each hip bursa, 2 minutes
- Lower abdomen/pubic bone, 2 minutes
- Each side of ribcage plus the adjacent arm, 2 minutes
- Shoulder front and neck, 1 minute on each side
- Shoulder blades, 1 minute on each side
- Each ilium back, 2 minutes
- Butt (underside), 2 minutes
- Each butt cheek (up towards the iliac crest, for the joint and muscles), 2 minutes
Night (total 36 minutes)
- Head: top, back, 7 minutes per
- Spine: upper, middle, lower, 4 minutes per
- Chest including heart, 5 minutes
- Abdomen, 5 minutes
Doing the revised full protocol has meant that the herxes are somewhat more pronounced again. But before I get ahead of myself, the herxes have calmed down a lot over the past month. At this point, I’m still having digestive disturbances, mild kidney pain, bladder pain in the mornings, sore and swollen glands in my neck, tension in my neck, shoulders and upper back, and tingling spots on my arms and legs. With the increased coiling, I’ve also had hand and foot pain for a few days (though it’s already starting to go away), increased kidney pain, and a new outbreak of butt acne. All in all, the herxes are getting less noticeable, but are still present. Beyond the herxes, the only thing I notice about Bartonella, besides the continuing food issues and ringing in my ears, are periods of fatigue and emotional turmoil. I suspect those will be the next to go.
While coiling for Bartonella, I learned something new. I’ve been eating some wheat, which makes my knuckle joints and my knees hurt a lot and makes them stiff, too. I always assumed it was Lyme. But when I coiled the sides of my head for Bartonella, I held the coil vertical with the corresponding hand. After five minutes of coiling, my knuckles were almost fine. The pain had been reduced to a level where I only noticed the soreness if I paid attention and squeezed and opened my hands repeatedly. It was pretty amazing. Meanwhile, coiling my spine for Bartonella got rid of the knee pain. Not something I expected, but a very remarkable event. I’m glad I’m trying all these foods. Maybe I can keep activating Bartonella and kill it more efficiently.
Behaving Badly
What do I mean by behaving badly? Mostly, I was doing the things that make me feel sicker: eating wheat, cows dairy, and malvin containing foods like corn. Oh, and staying up late. These things make my body feel pretty bad. I assume that they cause inflammation and depress the effectiveness of my immune system.
First of all, my activities have been delicious and have an edge eating forbidden fruit. (Well, that’s actually literal!) Staying up late, not as a result of insomnia, just to watch episodes of Burn Notice, has the feel of staying up late when I was supposed to be in bed, back when I was a child. It’s been fun.
The results have been more than noticeable. My abdomen has been continually swollen. I’ve had some kind of inflammation in my trachea that felt like the beginning of bronchitis. I was an emotional wreck for four or five days, very depressed and perpetually upset. The aches and pains in my muscles returned. My joints have been popping occasionally. My energy has bottomed out (which is why I didn’t blog all week). I’ve been feeling miserable.
I coiled for Lyme last Saturday and was mostly okay. Then between the increased symptoms and the herxing, I was out of commission Sunday through Wednesday. As in, I didn’t do much of anything. I didn’t get out of the house every day (not even to check the mail). I was not so good.
I coiled for Lyme again on Wednesday. It got rid of the inflammation in my trachea. Coiling over my liver made me immediately sleepy. Yesterday and today I’ve been sleepy in the afternoon, but otherwise, my attention and concentration have increased. I’ve had more energy in the morning–before the afternoon sleepies kick in. I’m kind of okay.
So I continue to misbehave. Since my wheat sensitivity seems associated with Bartonella, I’m not avoiding it anymore. Instead, I eat and coil. Eating dairy is okay, so far. I can’t tell if that is the cause of my belly-swelling, but there don’t seem to be other negative effects. Eating corn, avocados, and strawberries (and other malvin containing foods) is probably making the belly problem worse, but even that is starting to die down. Not gone, but less.
Spinach was next on my list to test out. I had a big spinach salad last night. That didn’t work out so well. It gave me a pretty intense, distracting headache within 30 minutes, that lasted until I fell asleep for the night. I did my usual nighttime Bartonella coiling, but it didn’t relieve the pain. I even tried coiling my head and abdomen for Lyme, which also had no effect. So spinach is still on my list of food sensitivities, foods to be avoided. This makes me sad, but I can live with it for now. More importantly, it turns my attention to the possibility that I have another infection waiting to be treated. Oh boy.
Three Reasons to Behave Badly
I suppose I shouldn’t call it “behaving badly” but I truly do feel naughty when I bite into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread. There are some good reasons to do what I’m doing, now that I’ve reached this point in my healing process.
First, for me to consider myself truly well, I would have to stop taking 30+ pills a day and cease avoiding every yummy food I love. (It’s not like I want to eat junk food, I’m talking about eggplant parmigiana!) To get to that point, I’m going to have to start doing it in reasonable steps and deal with the infections that these foods wake up. I’ll have to make sure I give my body the necessary tools to digest these foods. And I’ll have to see which ones are permanently inedible and which ones I can get well enough to consume.
Second, I’m taking a cue from Cure Unknown, by Pamela Weintraub (a great book about tick-borne illnesses). In it, Weintraub says that one of the possible ways to get rid of Lyme for real and forever is to take iv Rocephin until after all the symptoms are gone. Then take care of healing the damage to the body. Then let the Lyme come back. Let it reach full capacity to the point that it disables the person. Then hit it hard with iv Rocephin again. Supposedly, letting the bacteria come out of cyst form will give the Rocephin a shot at killing them all. I’m skeptical that this would somehow avert forming cysts again, but that isn’t the point. The goal is to coax all or most of the cysts to become active, which I’m doing by letting inflammation build up and ceasing to upregulate my immune system during a time of the year that Lyme infections flare, then kill the bacteria while they are active. That’s what I’m trying to do. (And, as a result, the Bartonella seems to be waking up and giving me a chance to kill it more effectively, too.)
Finally, I don’t want to hit a plateau. By this, I mean never really getting rid of all the symptoms, plus having to coil for Lyme a few times every year when the symptoms come because if I don’t I have the long, slow, grueling downswing as symptoms increase in frequency and intensity. I stopped herxing for Lyme in September, right when I should have been having a flare. So it was time to do something drastic to take the next step forward in eradicating this infection from my body. “Behaving badly” was the best thing I could think of doing.
Categories: healing process, Herx reactions, using the coil machine
Tags: bartonella, food allergies, intestinal microbiota, lyme, probiotics
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Coiling for Lyme 