Pain Acknowledgement

Here is what has been said to Lyme patients regarding illness..."You just need to get up and get moving." "Get over it." "Gee, I wish I could stay in bed all day and do nothing." "What's your problem?" Here is what would be much more healing and helpful..."I'm sorry you are in so much pain." "How can I help you feel better?" "Yes, what you're going through sucks."

Sometimes, what a person needs, is to have the pain in their soul, the break in their heart, the physical aches in their body acknowledged and validated. We are a culture that says, "It will get better, get over it, move on. You'll find someone or something better. You'll be fine." But this does not allow space for the hurt to be recognized and in being recognized start the healing process. Sometimes what we need is to hear, "Yes, your pain is real, what has happened is awful and it may never be ok. And that is ok." Somewhere in the acknowledgement of "not ok," healing can begin.

Why It Takes So Long to Recover from Lyme Disease

Like everything with Lyme disease, recovery is slow and it's a fight in every phase.  I'm healing in layers, inch by inch and I can see progress across the years, not the days or weeks.  I continue to rife which I believe has kept me off of antibiotics since August of last year.   I continue to seek herbs and supplements to add to my protocol and to take things out that I no longer feel are helping me.

I started physical therapy a month ago thinking that I would be able to jump right in to a regular workout.  My mind still thinks I am the athlete I used to be but my body knows better.  After one set of arm raises I was exhausted and my back and arms burned.  I am once again reminded how sick I have been.  After an upper body workout I get sick and I believe it is die off from any bacteria that is still lingering deep in my joints and muscles.  My feeling is that when I went on i.v. antibiotics the drugs killed whatever bacteria was in the blood, but the rest of them ran for their lives burrowing into my joints and tissue.  I could feel them when it happened, it felt like bugs moving under my skin.  I have been told that is not possible, but I know what I felt.  The reason I'm still unwell is that the bacteria that burrowed deep into the tissue and formed cysts is now coming out and I am continuing to kill that off with the rife.

I'm doing another therapy called I.M.T (Integrative Manual Therapy) and find it is helping me on some level.  I'm not exactly sure how it works, and at this point in my healing have learned to just trust if something is making me feel better.   I feel calm after a session and the therapy has stopped two migraines from lasting their usual five days.  It also seems like it is helping my adrenals to re-balance. 

It takes so long to recover from "Lyme disease" because Lyme is just one part of the problem; there are co-infections to treat, any viruses that have now been unleashed, fungal infection (candida that may have already been present but exacerbated by antibiotic use), hormonal imbalances, thyroid and adrenal issues, mineral deficiency, heavy metal burden or toxicity and now food intolerance and chemical and environmental sensitivity.  This is not the case for most patients treated right away.  This is my story and the many patients who went months or years misdiagnosed or undiagnosed.  Left unchecked, the Lyme bacteria wreaked havoc on many other body systems.  Read Dr. Richard Horowitz's excellent book, "Why Can't I Get Better?" to understand more about this complex set of symptoms and disease. 

Personally it has taken me six years now to get to a place where I am feeling well more days than not.  I still have about ten days a month in which I am really unwell, sometimes I have a day or two in bed.  That is why recovery is slow and long; it is not a constant upward trajectory towards wellness and then one day it is gone.  It is an upward swing followed by a downward plunge, followed by another upward swing, followed by another low.  The mental gymnastics required to keep up with these unpredictable physical changes are exhausting on another level; I wake up feeling positive but by mid-day I'm aching and feverish so any plans for the day have to be cancelled.

I keep moving forward because I've learned there isn't really any other choice.  Even though the forward progress is maddeningly slow, it's progress in the right direction.