Many factors help Lyme persist in your body despite treatment. I ran into a few of them they set back my recovery. Don’t let mysterious complications block Lyme healing. Find a doctor or get someone on your team who understands the intricacies and knows the order and how of treatment. All this can take time, but clearing out sneaky complications might be an essential part of your healing path.
I was reading another article in the main press about how symptoms persist in some people even after treatment. Many sources now say the key to straight forward success in healing from Lyme with antibiotics is early detection and treatment. I believe this and teach on prevention, protection, and early detection. It is not enough of an answer.
If you are among the many who went for months or years without diagnosis or treatment, like I am, the easy early route to healing is moot, no longer possible. You and your health care team, then need to unravel the puzzle to feel your best, treat complications, and build wellness. Part of the puzzle comes from other infections, digestive, inflammation, and detox problems.
3 Areas That Block Lyme Healing
Immune System Too Taxed
Because we tend to look at the body in pieces instead of as a whole, we miss the impact of accumulated effects on the systems in our body that support wellness. It is essential to look at how things impact the whole if you are not responding to treatment. Different people have individual issues that block Lyme healing. Here are items that delayed my recovery.
Parasites
Parasite infections are much more common in the United States than most people think. Parasites burden your immune system and create stress. Pinworms, giardia, and head lice are typical parasites you hear about that bother but rarely kill people. Overtime parasite infections generate illness in the body, can wear you down and allow for pathogenic bugs like Lyme and coinfections time to become entrenched. Parasites, particularly worms, create a shelter that will enable bacteria to hide from antibiotics and persist after treatment.
Leaky Gut
Leaky Gut, also known as intestinal permeability. Your gut is supposed to let fully digested nutrients into your bloodstream to nourish and repair tissues. In leaky gut undigested materials also flow through and create inflammation and confusion in your immune system. Unprocessed foods leak out of the digestive system into the body at large. Because these foods are too big and not in a form the body recognizes as self, the immune system creates an inflammatory response and mounts an active attack on food and surrounding tissues.
Leaky gut often does not resolve on its own, it can create escalating digestive upset, food allergies, inflammation, and contribute to autoimmunity over time. Intestinal permeability throws off digestion, complicates Lyme treatment and blocks Lyme healing. Most people can resolve or improve unhealthy gut with changes in diet, supplements, and the help of an expert.
Detoxification Overload
Things are dying all over the place in your body, cells, pathogens, and parasites. When they die and decay, they exude toxins your body has to clean up. In Lyme inflammation is raging, creating adding to the stream of death and waste. All this starts to add up and stress out your clean up systems. Your immune system gets tapped to recognize the dead stuff and remove it, and lymph gets clogged from all the traffic.
Clogged Lymph
Puffy eyes, Cankles or swollen ankles and swollen hands all indicate lymph congestion. Lymph is the interstitial fluid in the body that our organs float in. This liquid transports waste to collection areas for processing. Lymph does not have an independent pumping system but gets help from blood flow and muscle action to keep moving.
Congested lymph slows toxin removal to a crawl. Lymph does not get filtered or cleaned often enough, and all the problems get worse. If you are sick, you want healthy lymph on the job in your body. Here are suggestions to support healthy lymph.
Methylation problems
Many processes in the body involve a chemical reaction called methylation. Conversion of waste for disposal is one of them. Methylation is a chemical process that adds and moves methyl groups CH3 to block reactivity and make the substance safe for elimination. Some people have genetics that does not support active methylation. You get by, when healthy, but when your system is overloaded, this can cause problems.
People with methylation issues, detoxify more slowly. They can feel more herxing reactions, aches, and fatigue. Inability to remove toxins from your tissues can block Lyme healing. You may need to work with a healthcare provider who is knowledgeable about detox and supplement your diet with additional sources of methylated B vitamins, to support your detox pathways. I did.
Liver Overload
Every bit of food, supplements, medicine, and waste gets processed by the liver. The liver is a fantastic workhorse for our body. Lyme increases the pharmaceuticals, supplements, and wastes your liver has to process. In the liver, toxins get changed chemically into compounds the can flow safely out of the body in urine or feces. Heavy-duty antibiotics, in particular, put extra stress on the liver. You may be getting blood tests every month to check liver function. If so, it is to check that your liver is handling the extra load of work.
Liver support is an important follow up to illness or long term antibiotic use. Work with your health care team to be sure your liver gets the support it needs. Check here for simple dietary tips to support the liver.
The purpose of this article is to share and educate on Lyme disease recovery strategies. The information provided on this website is not a substitute for professional medical care, treatment, or advice. All the material here is for information purposes only. Always share strategy and work with your health care team.