Sunday, December 2, 2012

Much Thanks

I had a really enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday and I have alot to be thankful for. I have great friends and family that I was able to celebrate the holiday with. Things have been busy at work for both my hubby and I, but that is a good thing and we have embarked on one of the busiest months of the year. I made the conscious decision to cut back as much as possible on appointments with practitioners this month, but I won't be able to eliminate appointments entirely. I've had many positive improvements in my health recently, but there is still a long road ahead. 

I continue to be thankful for Cordyceps, which in my case has an effect of dampening Th17. I had a recent visit with my Naturopath and the update on the investigation into Lyme is that between my lab results and my survey, there is enough information to warrant treatment, but there is no definitive diagnosis. I'm really okay not arriving at a definitive diagnosis, since treatment will be aimed at boosting and modulating my immune system and ultimately aimed at helping me to feel better. That said, we are also waiting on lab results for 2 different markers, CD57 and C4a. CD57 is typically found to be low in individuals with chronic Lyme and C4a is sometimes high in individuals with chronic Lyme. The focus of treatment depending on what the results are will be to get these numbers into a better range. The numbers don't typically move gradually with treatment, but suddenly move once treatment has truly been effective over a period of time. At this point we are hoping the labs provide additional information that will be helpful, still there will be no diagnoses, just more or less suspicion about Lyme. 

My new treatment will consist of balancing my T helper cells with high concentrated doses of Turmeric and Resveratrol. These will help to balance Th1 and Th2 and dampen the negative affects of Th17. My new protocol also includes a combination supplement that will balance the way my body utilized Nitric Oxide Synthases (eNOS, nNOS, iNOS). I will also be taking a  supplement that will help my body to recycle the Glutathione that already exists in my body, since supplementing with straight Glutathione is usually very ineffective because the body has a tough time metabolizing oral Glutathione. Most of my protocol is based on much of Dr. Datis Kharrazian. Here is a helpful link that does a much better job of explaining: Nitric Oxide Modulation

In addition I will be making weekly visits to the infrared sauna, which will help to enhance the treatment. Here is a great article about the positive effects of infrared saunas for chronic Lyme patients: Infrared Sauna

In January, I will also add another gut healing protocol. during my appointment with my Naturopath, she told me she had recently attended a seminar by Dr. Kharrazian and he talked about autoimmune individuals. Over time, many autoimmune individuals develop and autoimmunity to their own gut lining (not Chron's or Ulcerative Colitis). His suggestion was that individuals with autoimmune conditions should do a quarterly gut healing, because autoimmune individuals end up with leaky gut from time to time if they don't do a regular maintenance of gut healing... so begins my regular gut healing in January. I will not be able to eat dairy, grains or nightshades during the 6 week gut healing. This should be a cake walk for me since I have done all of this in the past for a much longer period of time. 

I'm excited to start my protocol and I'm hopeful there will be more improvements. I will keep you posted on the progress.

I wish all of you a happy, blissful holiday season!