OT: I know in the past you said you and your husband had lyme five times and overcame it. But as a writer who in part specializes in science & now knows this infection firsthand and all the permutations and all the medical research good bad and indifferent, I think it is likely that you (and perhaps some of your good friends) still have it. One can seem cured and have a persisting subclinical encephalitis that manifests as headaches. I know this personally because about 2.5 years into lyme I began to get horrible migraines. They cleared up with proper treatment. I knew they were lyme-induced because I understand the infection, which can lie latent for a long time and/or manifest in many unusual ways. The wonderful doctor where I got hyperbaric oxgyen, learned through treating lymies and researching it in depth what the infection was all about, and came to realize that her entire family was infected, each showing symptoms in different ways. Her husband, for instance, can still bike vigorously, but lyme and bartonella affected his heart, so that sometimes his heartbeat slows down as low as 26 beats a minute. He has other heart irregularities. That's the only obvious symptom. Doctors had no idea and were going to perform an invasive diagnostic procedure on him. She figured it out because lyme can cause heart block and cardiac problems. Then she had the entire family tested and all had tickborne infections, all multiple infections, explaining a range of very different ailments (including the kids). To protect the family she is shutting down her practice and moving to Arizona. But during the last few years she has listened to symptoms and diagnosed many friends and acquaintances in the area correctly--all had no idea.
Here it is in Newsweek, that should be convincing:
msnbc.msn.com
Some people probably do get cured with a few weeks antibiotics, but just as many think they are cured and that other symptoms that crop up months or years later are unrelated. But this is not true. Spirochetes have latency and lyme, like another famous spirochete, can be quiescent for a while until it gets to a later stage. It also can disseminate into the CNS within 48 hours of infection, and once there, it's pretty well protected from a few weeks of oral antibiotics. In addition, most ticks in Connecticut and the northeast are coinfected these days, with erlichia, babesia, bartonella, and maybe mycoplasma. It is an epidemic, no doubt about that.
Hope you consider this a favor someday. The best lab for testing is Igenex, Quest is no good. |
