Ticks and Lyme Disease: Antibiotics

Chapter 1: The Bite
Chapter 2:  The Next Steps
Chapter 3: The Basics of Lyme
Chapter 4:  Antibiotics

Antibiotics are a mixed blessing.  Properly applied, they save many lives and have extended the estimated length of life for those who have access to them. But the regular over-use of them can be horrible on the body and taking them unnecessarily can cause sneaky illnesses to adapt to them and become stronger.

Please don’t get me wrong – I am so very thankful for the opportunity to have antibiotics. This does not change that I hate the way that they make me feel while I take them. The epitome of first world problems?  Yeah, I think so…but spare me a moment to vent.

I feel gross.  My billions of happy little gut flora are all miserable and dying, and my candida issues have flared up. I’m having to watch my sugar and alcohol intake.  I feel depressed, angry, moody, and just a wee bit stabby.

I’m tired, exhausted, fatigued, not getting enough sleep, even when I am down for 8 or more hours each night. I have been living on candied ginger and carb-heavy foods because I am nauseous and that is all my body wants, which isn’t helping make me feel any healthier.

I’m photosensitive, even more than usual.  Even without antibiotics, I have to amp up my sun avoidance techniques since I break out in hives from being in direct sun for even just an hour. Long sleeves and broad hats are required, but with the Doxycycline, it only takes ten minutes of solid sunlight on my skin to cause me to break out and itch for days!

I’m angry and grumpy. My patience levels are at an all-time low, and I’ve been grinding and clenching my teeth, biting my tongue to keep from snapping at people unnecessarily, and wanting desperately to turn to unhealthy escapes like too much beer, wine, or smoke to dull my feelings. My poor puppy and human loves are so patient with me right now…hopefully, they won’t hate me before this is all over!

Okay.  Done with the rant…back to counting my blessings in order to ground, center, and go on with this process with a whole heart.

Image from LymeDiseaseGuide.org

I’ve just picked up my prescription for a second bottle of Doxycycline, and if my updates on Lyme disease are coming slowly, please bear with me. Healing is not always an easy process, but I’d rather walk through this fire now than allow it to slowly consume me over time, leaving me sore and broken in mind and body.

That reminds me, gentle reader, that I did not share with you the long-lasting potential psychological problems that Lyme disease causes in many chronic cases. This is the article that made Eric and I stop and think twice about Lyme disease, as he is affected just as much psychologically as he is physically, and we had seen scant few references to what it can do to the mind.

The Final Chapter – Chapter 5:  Western Medicine

More Reading and References:

UNF Researchers Make Big Discovery About Lyme Disease

“Dr. Kerry Clark, University of North Florida associate professor of public health, and his colleagues have found two species of Lyme disease bacteria previously unknown to infect humans in patients. These two Lyme disease species, Borrelia americana and Borrelia andersonii, were found in symptomatic patients living in the Southeastern United States. “