I’m about a week into using the Alfons Ven protocol. It has been a roller coaster in so many ways. Some days, I’m more symptomatic than I’ve been in months, days that feel like the worst of the autumn relapse. Other days, I wake up ready to get out of bed and do lots of things. It feels like I’m cycling through each of the symptoms I’ve ever had, in short, intense bursts, then moving on to the next symptom.
Tuesday was great. I went to Santa Cruz. I did a few errands. I met up with a friend for lunch. I worked on my writing class at the library. Wednesday, I started the day with a two-hour, ugly headache. I was sleepy and needed to rest and nap in the afternoon. In between, I was moody and worried, so I thought I might as well start my taxes. By the evening, my headache was back, though not as bad, and my abdomen was distended, stretched out and sore. Thursday, I spent the whole day in a daze. I felt like I never woke up because the brain fog was so bad. I found myself sitting on the couch listening to the radio, not knowing what the story was about. The fog didn’t lift until 9pm, giving me an hour to be awake before I got ready for bed.
Today, I feel less foggy, but my vision is off and I’ve been nauseated since I got up. I’m also having the kind of psychological herx that makes me think everything is hopeless. I’m fighting the feeling this time.
Hope and other slippery feelings
When I started using the coil machine, I was incredibly hopeful. Antibiotics and anti-malarials had gotten me past the worst part of the trifecta of tick-borne infections: Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia. I was walking around without a cane. I had days when I wasn’t too tired and too foggy to do anything. But I was still a mess, in a lot of pain, and wondering if these drugs were going to help me get any better. I had “plateaued,” though I was still very low functioning.
Enter the coil machine. I spoke to someone who was having real success with it. Her life had changed dramatically by using a coil machine. When I was ready to give it a try, I did. My life has changed dramatically, no question about it. My daily level of functioning has fluctuated, with some really good weeks and months, some months of relapses and difficult herxes, and some in between times, when I was symptomatic but able to have several good hours most days.
I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve lost hope that the coil machine could get me back to a level where I could hold down a job. But there are some pieces I haven’t been able to figure out. I’ve worked on Bartonella for four of the five years I’ve had the machine, and I still haven’t had a remission. As I got further with Bartonella, the other infections would become active, over and over again. Then I’ve had a suspicion that I have some other infection or parasite that I’m not coiling for because I don’t know what it is. I assumed that when I got to a remission of Bartonella, I would move on to the next culprit. Yet, I have no plan to figure out what it is that I would need to eradicate.
The coil machine has gotten me very far, and it might have gotten me further still, but I was no longer convinced that it would get me to the end.
After I spoke to other people who have used the Alfons Ven remedies, I started to feel hopeful again. Beyond hopeful, I was eager to try them and was fantasizing about finally being free of these infections. I daydreamed about getting up in the morning and not immediately noticing something on my body that hurt to the point of distraction. I imagined not spending the morning writing and exercising instead of slogging through the fatigue that makes me want to get back in bed as I fight to stay upright and focus on something despite brain fog. I imagined having the energy to bike to the post office or the library. I imagined doing volunteer work for a bit until I could find a job, or better yet, finish editing my novel and work on getting published. It was fun to live with hope for the ten days between when I ordered the remedies and when they arrived.
As soon as I started taking the first remedy, FLUOX, I started to feel less symptomatic and more alive. The feelings of hope went into overdrive. I imagined contacting every person I know of who has a tick-borne illness and telling them to try the Alfons Ven remedies. I imagined contacting my former doctors and other health care practitioners and telling them to about it. I imagined that the other remedies that are available on the Alfons Ven websites would help my parents with the chronic problems of old age. I imagined getting the pet remedy for my cats who have a case of worms that won’t go away with the standard deworming drugs. I couldn’t stop thinking of how great it would be if this stuff worked.
When I added in the second remedy, CHIM, I came back to earth. I think I’m herxing from the way the symptoms cycle through. Having the opportunity to feel bad again reminds me that there is no quick fix to these infections. I’ve put my hope on hold for all the other people. Let me get through this first.
As hope slips away in the ugliness of brainfog, fear begins to take hold. The fear is not that I’ll waste six months on a treatment that doesn’t leave me any better than when I started. Somehow, I’ve made peace with the fact that this might help without actually getting me to the finish line. The real fear is that it will do nothing. Nothing is much worse than merely not working the way I hope it will. Nothing would mean giving the infections a free pass to proliferate and retrench for six months while I’m treating with sugar pills and energy medicine. That’s scary. That’s where the fear lands.
I’ve only signed on for two months, so far. And even in this first week of CHIM, I’ve been having a variety of shifting symptoms. The changeability of the symptoms helps to keep hope from completely slipping from my grasp. When I do little to nothing to treat the infections, the symptoms linger and slowly increase. Very little changes rapidly without some external stress to the infections. I haven’t given up, not yet, but I’m being honest about how I feel as I try something new and strange.
The Rest of the Treatments
When I started the Afons Ven remedies, I had a list of other pills and potions I planned to take. I’ve scaled back. For now, I’m not coiling at all, not even the few minutes on my pancreas. I decided that it was both too soon to work on it, if uric acid is the problem, and too complicated. I couldn’t start all the supplements and detoxing agents, not all at once, but I’ve been figuring out how to add them in, one at a time, without driving myself crazy.
The first thing to do was determine if uric acid is a measurable problem in my system. So I got a uric acid test (a simple blood draw), and I expect the results next week. Second, I started on the supplement to reduce uric acid, just in case, while I wait for the results. Third, though actually first chronologically, I started taking chanca piedra drops in warm water before breakfast (generally at least 30 minutes). This has helped my kidneys calm down.
Fourth, I started taking Aviva, which comes with the Alfons Ven remedies, 20 drops in water, twice a day. It is supposed to help with the type of detoxing one needs to do with the FLUOX and CHIM remedies. It tastes like reishi, which isn’t one of the ingredients.
The last thing on the list is to take a zeolite supplement to help the detox process. I haven’t quite worked it in, but I find it is on my mind today.
Beyond the remedies, I’ve been doing yoga some days. I’ve been doing my best to eat well, lots of fruit, vegetables and protein. I’m drinking more water than I had been for a while. I’m taking time to rest each afternoon, even if I don’t nap. It helps to respect that my body has a lot going on inside.
One of a pair of ring necked doves I saw when walking around the block.
I’m forcing myself to go for a walk whenever I’m not sleepy. In fact, I’m going for a walk right after I finish this post. Walking is good for a million reasons, which is why I persist despite my foot troubles. Sometimes I see something beautiful. There are buds on the trees, even flowers on some of them in my neighborhood. Earlier this week, I saw a pair of doves on my block. Hope or no hope, it is a pleasure to be alive.
Categories: Alfons Ven Lyme Package, healing process
Tags: babesia, bartonella, menstruation
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Coiling for Lyme 
Dear Rose, could you please tell us how the Van Treatment is going on? I hope you are doing so well and all sorts of other things, that you don`t have time anymore for your website.
I wish that were the case! I just posted the next update.