Healing Late Stage Lyme Disease

This article is a detailed resource for anyone who is struggling from a known is suspected case of Lyme Disease. I share my journey of recovering from crippling chronic fatigue, autoimmunity, and dysbiosis caused by Lyme Disease.

Here you will find:

• The exact supplements and tools I use (with links) 
• Information about how to get tested safely and reliably
• How I healed the mental, emotional spiritual components of the disease

It took me 7 years from the onset of my symptoms to getting a diagnosis. Unfortunately, most tests done in North America are only 57% accurate and most doctors are not Lyme literate. So there are many people who are suffering with Lyme and told by Allopathic Medicine that their is either nothing wrong with them (as was my case), or they are misdiagnosed with one of the many diseases that present with the same symptoms as Lyme, such as fibromyalgia. 

The ELISA and Western Blot two-tier testing protocol recommended by the CDC has a sensitivity of only 57.6%. The EliSpot test from ArminLabs in Germany is the gold standard of Lyme testing with 94% accuracy. 

I received my Lyme EliSpot test kit from Ananta Health in Calgary. When I ordered my test last year it was just under $800.

Testing Safely

If you’re going to get tested, plan to have someone drive you home after and increase your intake of iron, protein and water (the building blocks of blood) before and after your test so that your body can better recover from the blood draw.

When I finally did receive a diagnosis, I was told it would take 1-2 years minimum to get it under control, and that there was no cure. Needless to say, I decided to do my own research.

The first link I found on Google was for a specialty clinic in Arizona where they work with you Monday to Friday for 8 hours a day, giving you a variety of treatments and antibiotic therapies. It was $40,000-$80,000 USD, and even if I hadn’t lived in Canada with a 37% exchange rate I wasn’t in a position to drop that kind of money. I also found that while their treatment worked for many, it didn’t work for everyone and some patients had a recurrence of symptoms. 

I went on to research local doctors and treatments in my city, from the suggested weekly Hyperbaric oxygen chambers at $300-$500 per session, to the $6000-$10,000 in testing for the various Lyme coinfections, to brain scans, to IV drips… the list went on. I was starting to feel like the only way to manage this would be in paying the equivalent of putting a kid through college. So feeling overwhelmed and stuck, I asked my researcher extraordinaire husband to scour the deep recesses of the internet and see if he could find some answers. And he did. 

The Lyme Healing Trifecta

After searching through reddit post after reddit post, there were three things that were giving people their lives back:

1. Tick Immune Support by Samsara Herbs

Even though I’m in Canada, it’s worth paying the extra shipping from Amazon.com as it isn’t available locally. I typically order 3-4 bottles at a time and they cost me $150 CAD monthly at the full dose. 

You’ll see the difference it’s making in peoples lives if you read the Amazon reviews. You’ll also see the advice to start with a single pill and work your way up, and it is crucial that you do this. It took me over a month to titrate up to the full dosage, and in the first 1-2 weeks I experienced a severe Herx reaction with fever, sweats and fatigue. So plan to allow yourself the essential space needed to heal when you start taking these herbs. The Herx reaction will dissipate as your body adjusts.

I will say that adding these herbs has been THE BIGGEST piece of the puzzle when it came to regaining my energy. At the time of writing this, I have been taking them for 3 months and I am now able to climb hills and feel power in my body again. Stairs are no longer my enemy. I no longer have “down days” where I’m too sick and tired to do anything, nor do I need anymore afternoon naps on the couch. I can carry heavy gear while shooting a 9 hour wedding and feel fine the next day. When I shot a wedding this time last year it took me weeks to to only semi-recover from the physical exertion. There have been multiple times that I’ve cried in relief and gratitude for being able hike with my husband and dogs, for having the energy to see friends and do things in the evening again, for being able to do chores around the house, and for being able to show up in my business and for my clients the way that I’m called to. These herbs have given me my energy back and I am truly grateful to Samsara herbs and every herbalist involved in creating them.

1.5 Biofilm Disruptor

Along with Tick Immune Support, I’ve also been taking Biocidin. My functional nutritionist suggested I take this for C. Difficile treatment, but after some research I’ve found that it’s mainly suggested as a supplemental Lyme treatment. Among other things, it acts as a biofilm disruptor. Biofilms are created by pathogenic bacteria, yeast, and viruses as a way to replicate and hide from the immune system. A biofilm disruptor essentially breaks down the protective barrier the bacteria put up, making herbs like Tick Immune Support more effective. I take 10 drops 30 minutes before meals 3X a day. It works out to $150/month + shipping.

If that’s outside of your budget, before this I was taking 1 pill of Biolfilm Defense 30 minutes before breakfast, or 90+ minutes after a meal in the evening. The bottle lasts 2 months, costing $42/month + shipping.

2. Infrared Sauna

The body can withstand temperatures that Lyme and other pathogenic bacteria cannot. Infrared heat can penetrate deep into your tissues, helping your body sweat and detoxify itself. Most people finding a lot of benefit from IR Saunas were using them daily or at least multiple times a week. Knowing myself, I would only do this if it were convenient, so I purchased an in-home solution.

I ordered a Sauna Wrap that I typically use 1-3 times a week as needed. If I’m starting to feel fatigue or malaise, I’ll do a sauna session and I regain my energy and mental clarity after one use. The one I ordered on Amazon is no longer available, but there are several similar options. Like all things, read the comments and reviews to be sure it’s the right one for you. 

3. Hot Yoga

This was my first step to healing, and it was the third methodology that consistently helped people overcome Lyme based on numerous Reddit threads. The combination of heat (see #2 above), therapeutic movement, and mind-body-heart connection has given me a sacred space to release emotions, heal my spirit, and find the warrior within me.

At first, I only had the energy for yin yoga, which is a process of relaxing into restorative postures and holding them for much longer, allowing the body to release tension, detoxify, and recharge. For months, I went to yin yoga and cried for most of the class. 

I’m a shamanic healer and I’m very comfortable dropping into inner journeys for self healing. It became very natural for me to enter healing journeys with my spirit guides, my inner child, and my past lives while my body let go of tension and I was held in the healing energy of the sacred space.

Eventually, I became strong enough to do Flow and Traditional styles of yoga, which activated my yang energy and helped me rebuild my strength. I now go to yoga multiple times per week and my body has come to crave it.

As I write this, I am still healing but I now have my energy and my life back. The next stage of my journey is healing my gut from the SIBO, H. Pylori and C. Difficile that became layered on top of the Lyme. But now that I’ve found and began treating the underlying Lyme behind these infections, my body has the strength it needs to come back into balance.

Treating the body, mind and spirit holistically

I googled “How I healed Lyme disease” and found Amy Scher’s book, This Is How I Save My Life. In Amy’s book, she talks about her struggles with neurological Lyme and how it took 7 years to accurately diagnose, after having been diagnosed with a false negative years prior.

Her treatment of antibiotics and weekly hyperbaric oxygen chambers weren’t killing the Lyme bacteria, and over time she became unable to walk. She went on to do stem cell therapy in India, which significantly helped her, but upon testing again after treatment it didn’t fully eradicate the the Lyme bacteria.

Her complete healing didn’t happen until she made the necessary changes in her life to find happiness in who she is authentically. Not trying to be someone else, not pretending that the things that hurt are ok, but facing them, healing them, and living authentically with who she is.

This has been an essential part of my healing journey too. In the beginning, before I even knew I had Lyme and was simply sick with a mystery illness, all I could do was lie on the floor of my hot yoga studio and cry. I cried and cried and cried. I grieved the loss of the life I once new, I grieved the intense loneliness and isolation that comes from chronic illness, I held my inner child, I brought healing to my past lives. I kept returning again and again because at the time it was the only thing that helped.

That practice created a crack in the doorway to my own healing that creaked open a little bit more every time I allowed myself to feel. I then went on to use the tools I teach my students to understand the spiritual cause of my illness and how it was trying to serve me. I told it why I no longer needed it; that I’m ready to live my life fully.

The internal shifts I made created a willingness in me to get tested, which led to the discovery of the herbs my body needed to heal. And from there, I went on to be shown all the ways that my life needed to change in order to access the happiness that my body needed to fully heal. 

My husband and I are now on what we call relationship 2.0, having let relationship 1.0 come to an end. And as we navigate a new and much deeper bond, I witness the poison of loneliness and resentment that I had carried in my heart from our first relationship fall away. With each layer that falls away, I meet a wave of awareness that tells me “you heal when you are happy”. And I know this to be true.

This article is for education purposes only and not medical advice. If you have or suspect you have Lyme Disease you should seek the support of a Lyme literate doctor to help you on your healing journey.