Disclaimer: because pictures of bacteria and parasites and viruses and all sorts of bugs are often creepy and upsetting, I decided to add cartoon eyes to all of them. That is NOT an accurate representation of Borrelia burgdorferi.
Among my various issues, Lyme seemed to be pretty tangential, and I never ever connected the dots and considered Lyme in all my ME/CFS years. What should have tipped me off was a) everything started with a huge bite from an unknown insect in the fall of 2003, exhibiting the typical bullseye rash.
I was young and I didn’t think much of it – there was no tick (maybe a spider?) and I didn’t give the rash much importance. The bump was huge and lasted a month, but I had other life problems, international moves, and getting a bite in the countryside seemed like a minor occurrence, or so I thought.
Coincidentally, a couple of months later I began to feel less strong, came back from swimming lessons dragging my feet and too tired to eat, and after 6 months I came down with a massive flu that met all the criteria for the typical ME/CFS onset (which was most probably Epstein Barr reactivating).
I was left with unthinkable fatigue, swollen glands that progressively got worse instead of improving, the first signs of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (I began reacting to various products that had never bothered me before), and after 3 more months I was in excruciating neuropathic pain after the slightest exertion, while at the same time a bunch of frightening symptoms involving every system of my body appeared out of nowhere
I din’t think about that bite again until 11 years later, when I discovered that my symptoms were practically identical to neuro Lyme symptoms, and I went to find the appropriate tests (in Arminlabs, Augsburg).
According to the tests, Lyme was just a small piece of that giant puzzle, there was “some” infection but not a lot, while EBV and Coxsackie were off the charts, and later I discovered that a thriving community of parasites and an actual mold had taken up residence in my bowels.
I decided to treat Lyme first, manly because that was the only part I knew about. I At the time I was not aware of Dr Klinghardt’s advice to treat multiple infections going from the larger guests (worm-like kinds of parasites) to the smallest, which meant mold, lyme and finally the viruses.
The problem was also that I had no idea that something like parasites existed. After a couple of months of treatment, they came out of hiding, probably bothered by the new herbal protocol, so in a way the healing process proceeded in the same way Klinghardt recommended.
When it came to choose a treatment, I had some options that I had picked up here and there, from the excellent advice of Dr Schwarzbach at Arminlabs, Dr Klinghardt’s website, and various forums.
My options were:
1. conventional antibiotic treatment
2. the Buhner protocol
3. the Cowden protocol. (Another one, the Hayden White protocol, I excluded because I couldn’t get the medications).
I immediately ruled out antibiotics, because of my generally terrible reaction to most pharmaceuticals, and obvious gut dysbiosis.
Many people benefit from early antibiotic treatment (which would be best), or ever, if their body is up to it, from long courses of antibiotics, but I didn’t see myself going that route.
My first source of information about antibiotic treatment was Dr Horowitz’s book about Lyme
Dr Horowitz was one of the first doctors to recognize chronic lyme infections and develop a proper protocol. What’s more, in recent years, even Horowitz has come to include other infections in his program, and now sees Lyme disease as a complex system of co-infections, the same way that Cowden and Buhner do.
Read more about Horowitz books here LINK
The second option that I considered was the Buhner protocol.
Stephen Buhner is a well known herbalist, who wrote many books on herbal antivirals, herbal antibiotics and who devised a Lyme protocol that seems to be very popular and effective.
I particularly love his non-herbalist writings (although everything he writes about is somehow related to herbalism, or its source, that is Gaia, Mother Earth.
You can find his short articles here.
Much has been written about his protocol, so I just wanted to share this interview (it stuck with me because of the zombie ticks, but nevertheless it’s a good interview)
As much as I trusted the Buhner protocol, being often on the move (even before mold avoidance) made it difficult for me to store large jars of herbs in dry dark places, also as a very clumsy and distracted person mixing my own remedies of potent herbs (some with serious side effects) just didn’t seem like a good idea.
3) I was then left with the last one: the Cowden protocol, another herbal protocol, which used a couple of the same herbs as Buhner’s, but in nice ready made bottles and simple instructions for 9 months.
here is a nice lecture by Dr Cowden, explaining it all
and this is another excellent interview with Dr Cowden by Scott Forsgren, better known as Better Health Guy, from betterhealthguy.com, His website is one of the best resources about Lyme disease and treatments around.
This is the interview
The Cowden protocol rotates herbs to treat different issues (the same way Buhner’s does), some herbs specifically for Lyme and others against parasites, viruses, as well as general immune modulators, biofilm busters and last but not least various detoxifiers.
The main problem was the price, really unaffordable for me.
At the time there was a considerable discount on the whole nine months, which they extended to a further three months, if you were referred to the protocol by a Lyme doctor. I found one where I was living in Berlin, he wrote the letter, and I was in. I am very grateful to Nutramedix, the company that sells the herbs, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. I hope that they still offer that program.
That problem settled, I received several boxes of bottles, I set in place a complicated system of reminders and colourful postIts all over the kitchen, Memento-style, to get all the dosages at the right time (because you have to take different herbs multiple times a day on an empty stomach, it was a bit tricky), and I enthusiastically began treating.
I rarely experienced die off, but when it happened it was mostly because of parasites messing things up. After the 8 months of treatment, constantly interrupted by gallbladder episodes ultimately caused by the parasites, and then by having to treat the parasites, a good third of my old neurological symptoms were gone.
As I had to treat the parasites for a long time afterwards, I tend to think that the disappearance of those specific symptoms was a result of the Cowden protocol, and not just treating parasites. In particular the constant wired feeling all and tinnitus and some very disturbing sensations in arms and legs that iI had for many years, years before the parasites took over and that had become very rare since my remission but were still lingering. So, my experience with the Cowden protocol has been overly positive and I still keep some of the herbs for emergencies.
4. Another treatment I discovered only years later is something that I used (and still use regularly) to treat parasites, but when I came across it it was recommended as a Lyme treatment.
This simple but extremely powerful remedy is known by the common name of Turpentine LIN, you can find here all about it (well, all I know about it). LINK
If the lyme problem comes back, I think Turpentine, or as they call it now, Pure Gum Spirits of Turpentine (I imagine they changed the name to avoid anyone ingesting the chemical version from the hardware store instead of the natural one), would be my first line of defense.
5. and 6. Two other treatments that I discovered only later were Ozone therapy LINK and the Rife machine / bioresonance approach, otherwise called frequency healing LINK. Both approaches are quite valid and generally without side effects, and they hold the advantage that they can work on multiple coinfections at one time.
I forgot to mention that diet also played a very important part – during treatment, I moved from a mainly macrobiotic (vegan + grains) diet to a Paleo inspired diet LINK, more precisely the Wahls protocol, LINK to help with nerve regeneration, but before/during my first remission I was happily vegan.
Let’s remember that I received proper treatment only a good 5 years after I had gone into remission from all the general anti inflammatory catch-all treatments I had done thinking I had ME/CFS, so who knows how much higher my blood tests results would have been before years of diet and alternative therapies.
Klinghardt stresses how it is important in the case of Lyme to address heavy metals toxicity, but I had done that already years earlier. Find here all my treatments for heavy metals toxicity. LINK
A priceless resource has been the Lyme Summit, LINK I managed to follow it since its first edition, I think it was 2017. Every year has excellent talks and if you manage to follow it online, during the days of the event it is for free. The event is not available anymore, but you can find some notes here and here
To conclude, for me the Cowden protocol worked quite well, but there are other valid approaches too. New tests after 2 years showed close to no Lyme, and I am satisfied with that. The above symptoms haven’t come back (fingers crossed).
These are all my treatments for Lyme, thank you for reading!
