Doxy(cycline) Blues

You never know when something that you share, may prove beneficial to others.


Doxycycline and the Doxy(cycline) Blues:


Every once in a while you have a BINGO moment, one of those where what you hear or read, bounces right back at you, as if it were mirror reflecting your own life or experience. Today, I read a section of a book on Lyme. BINGO!

As background, my first LLMD informed me that my case was so complex that I was going to have to proceed very slowly with all of my treatment. I arrived on her doorstep so ill that I was unable to comprehend a good deal of what she shared with me, but luckily, for that meeting, I wasn't alone. Anyway, I'm keenly sensitive to most medications, have inordinately strong reactions to both those and even supplements. Anything that's not natural, is apt to cause problems for me, and even natural remedies are a challenge for me. I spend a lot or most of my time feeling what I can only describe as toxic. Toxic from head to toe, through and through. I've never tolerated antibiotics in the dosages that are generally given in the treatment of Lyme and its coinfections. When I departed this doctor's care for another LLMD, she sent me a brief note stating basically the same thing about taking things extremely slowly and wished me luck in my care.

I need to expand my Lyme library, and have been looking at a couple of books that might be of some value to me. It's time to consider a new path in the treatment of my Lyme. As I browsed books today on Amazon, I found an interesting bit of information concerning treatment of Lyme and coinfections. It concerns the use of doxycyline and one physician's viewpoint (amongst a compilation of valuable viewpoints by other Lyme practitioners), gathered from his Lyme practice. This concerned the complications that may arise from the use of doxycycline to treat Lyme. Interestingly, women were found to be more prone to these complications than men, but anyone whose body is overwhelmed with a number of coinfections tends to have similar difficulties in handling doxycyline. The excerpt below, sounds exactly like me. I wonder if any others will see themselves in this...

From the book, Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: 14 Lyme Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies. This quote from, Steven Harris, M.D.

"It can also be diffcult to treat patients if they have a lot of co-infections, such as Bartonella, Mycoplasma, Babesia and Ehrlichia, or if they are quite ill with predominant symptoms of one or two of these co-infections. Such patients tend to get very strong reactions to treatment, which means that I can't hit their infections as directly as I would like, as they will get too sick. Doxycycline, in particular, creates this type of scenario, particularly in women. So while it may be an effective medication, I don't like to use it in patients that have multiple, or severe co-infections. Many practitioners like to start with doxycyline because it's cheap and metabolized mostly in the colon (instead of the liver and kidneys), which means it's fairly easy on the organs. It also has great activity against Borrelia, Anaplasma, and Ehrlichia and is somewhat effective for treating Babesia, Barotnella, and Mycoplasma. But, I find that people just "tank" if they take doxycycline when they have a lot of co-infections."

Traditional Lyme treatment isn't successful for everybody. Some end up seeking alternative therapies  and finding success there. I think that I'm beginning to fall into the "other" category. 

Lymedaze and Getting started. What's writing got to do with it?

It's going to help to know that at present I'm typing on a phone. Far from ideal. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a new iPad in hand. Oh, and I have Lyme disease.

I've read other blogs about Lyme disease, but up until now I never saw that as an avenue for me to take. I guess I either felt that others had more to share, or maybe I didn't realize that it was okay to share my little story. I mean, what's so interesting about my life after all? Well, a lot, I think.

I've decided that it will probably help me to have a place of my own where I can share my thoughts and feeling with others. This is that place. After a lot of searching I've realized that I have to create my own space. I've tried paper journals and even journaling on a support site, but this is different. I feel as though this more connects me to the outside world. At least that's part of my hope for this journal, though I have no particular expectations about this blog.

Living with chronic Lyme disease is the biggest thing I've ever done, other than loving others in general, trying to make some small difference in the lives of others, as well as raising my lovely, accomplished daughter. But I need a place to express all the feelings that go along with this baffling, cunning, and debilitating disease. These are the kinds of feelings that often don't know they're there, or reveal themselves even to the owner, until that person starts to write and their inner workings begin to crack open just a bit, and allow the writer a glimpse of what's actually going on inside. Actually, that's always what happens when I write and I'm supposing that this is true for others. Does your writing give birth to itself, right before your eyes?

I know that I'm not alone in all of this, though of course there are times when I feel deeply alone,  When I read another Lyme blog where the writer expresses something along the lines of having a rough few days or even weeks, I feel very much alone. My Lyme isn't like that, at least not yet. I don't have a bunch of supportive friends who understand. I have one amazing friend who really works to understand more than anyone else I know. I also know that my daughter does a lot more to try to understand and help than I will ever know. Sometimes the best help comes very quietly packaged.

But, I have this disease that had taken my life, as I once knew it, from me and landed me here tonight, awake, exhausted, and in a lot of pain. I took an Epsom salt bath and I suspect that the water was too hot and landed me here, flat on my back, thumbs popping away on a keyboard that isn't real and wondering where I go from here.

That's my start, for better or for worse. I hope to not only explore my own world, but to look into others and in the process help both myself and the friends that I've yet to meet.

Oh, and I'm about to be living alone again and I definitely need a dog. (Shhh! don't tell my cat, but I really do!)