Living with Lyme disease has been no picnic. The disease is hard to understand, and even harder to diagnose.  Some days, it feels like my body has forgotten what it’s supposed to do and how it’s supposed to feel, so it’s just winging it.  And many days, I feel like that too.

It’s easy to get caught up in the disease.  To get caught up in feeling hopeless, helpless, and like you’ll never feel better.  I’ve been there.

Living with Lyme disease sometimes means feeling exhaustion from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.  Some days, I wake up with joint pain or a migraine.  Other days, I get tingly fingers and toes, tremors, awful brain fog, and loss of cognitive function to the point where simple math is too much for me to do in my head.  And when I’m really not having a good day, the Lyme showers me with heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and difficulty sleeping.

Sometimes my depth perception decides to go crazy, which means that I can’t drive anywhere during that time.  I learned that the hard way after sideswiping a car in a parking lot.  That was an expensive lesson, but I’m thankful it was minimal damage.

It’s not easy living with a disease that causes such a wide range of symptoms with virtually no pattern to them.  The only pattern with Lyme is that it flares about every 4 weeks; so I can expect to have an increase in any of my symptoms for about 5 days every month or so.

Mainstream doctors tell us that treatment options are limited.  They recommend 7-10 days of antibiotics after a bite, when in reality, it should be 6 weeks of antibiotics, if you’ve just been bitten.  They also tell you that you don’t have Lyme if your test comes back negative, which is not true.

If you don’t remember being bitten by a tick, then it is even more difficult to get a doctor to take you seriously.  This is beyond frustrating, considering that tick nymphs are the size of a poppyseed, and are very difficult to detect.  They can also attach in places like your back and scalp, where you won’t even notice.  So if you don’t remember being bitten by a tick, that doesn’t mean anything.  I don’t remember either.

Living with Lyme disease is exhausting.

For Chronic Lyme, herbs are the best treatment plan, but they are rarely recommended by doctors, and they’re not covered by insurance.  Herbs have the ability to penetrate our cells in a way that antibiotics are not able to, allowing them to access the Lyme spirochetes where they are hiding.  But even with herbal therapy, it’s a long road back to health.

Living with Lyme disease is not a walk in the park.  But hear me when I tell you- it’s not a death sentence either.  You may have it for life, but you don’t have to suffer for life.  You can help your body to fight back with the right tools.  I did.  And so did many others.

You don’t need a positive test to heal your Lyme.  You don’t need long-term antibiotics.  You don’t need your doctor to agree with you.  There are plenty of other doctors out there that are willing to listen to your concerns; see one of those.

You need the determination to not give up.  The willingness to wake up every day and make your own meals from real, whole foods.  The dedication to moving your body, taking detox baths, and giving up junk food.

Your body can’t fight back against Lyme if it’s too busy fighting back against what you’re feeding it.

Love yourself enough to fight back against Lyme disease.  What is your “why”?

Update Notes:

This post was originally written in May 2017.  It was updated in May 2019.

I am not a doctor and this information should not be considered medical advice, it is educational in scope. You should seek the advice of your own medical professional for your own situation.