The Basics. What you NEED to know if you are fighting Lyme Disease.

There are some very important things that you need to know if you are fighting Lyme Disease.

1- A HEALTHY DIET IS CRUCIAL


Your diet is crucial to your health and recovery.  If you are sick, the most important thing you can do for yourself is start learning all you can about nutrition and how to feed your body.  When you are sick from this disease, anything you put in your mouth should be nutrient dense and healthy with no exceptions.  This means whole foods and no processed foods.  Read labels and cut out any foods that contain chemicals in the ingredients that you can't read.  You will be surprised what you find out about the food you are eating when you start reading the nutritional labels.  Try to stick with fresh, organic, whole foods as much as you can.

2- NO SUGAR


You MUST avoid sugar.  Sugar feeds the Lyme bacteria.  There is NO exception to this rule.  Natural sugars are okay, like whole fruits, but NO FRUIT JUICE and keep the natural sugars to a minimum.  There are also natural sugars in some healthy things like Greek yogurt but that is okay.  Go with the plain yogurt instead of flavored and sweeten it with stevia.  Flavored yogurts have lots of added sugars.  Just remember, you are trying to avoid added sugars.  You won't be able to avoid them completely but stick with things that have 5 grams of sugar per serving or less and limit them on a daily basis.  Read labels and be aware of how much sugar you are consuming.

If you are taking antibiotics, avoiding sugar is even more important.  Too much sugar along with antibiotics equals yeast problems which can cause a whole new set of issues and symptoms if it gets out of control and if you are woman, this not something you want to deal with if you catch my drift.  Trust me.

3- VITAMINS AND SUPPLEMENTS ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT


Treating your Lyme Disease will require you come at it from at least three different angles- medical, natural and nutrition- and any good Lyme Literate MD will agree that you need to approach your treatment plan from both a medical and natural perspective and nutrition is key to regaining your health.  One helps the other and neither works as well on their own.

If you can find a naturopath who does live blood microscopy, that is the best thing you can do.  Looking at your blood cells, the naturopath can tell what vitamins and supplements your body needs and make recommendations.  In my opinion this is much better than just going into a health food store and guessing what you need or what MIGHT help.

There are many natural things that help Lyme treatment tremendously and I will highlight some of what I've learned about specific helpful supplements in other blog posts.

When taking vitamins and supplements it is important to buy a reputable brand.  Get them at a health food store you trust or order them online from a reputable company that provides quality products.  I get most of mine from Vitacost.com.  They have excellent, quality products at a price you can't beat.  Please note, I am not advertising here.  I am just sharing what I have found to be the best and most cost effective for me and I will be doing a lot of that to help out as many people as I can.

4- NOT ALL DOCTORS ARE AS EDUCATED IN LYME DISEASE AS THEY SHOULD BE- AND YOU NEED TO EDUCATE YOURSELF.  


If you get bitten by a tick, suspect you have Lyme Disease or know you have Lyme Disease, your choice of doctors is very important.  It is very important that you find a LYME LITERATE MEDICAL DOCTOR.  This basically means a Lyme specialist but they are referred to as Lyme Literate MD's or LLMD's.

Lyme Disease is a very political and controversial disease.  There are two very different schools of thought on Lyme Disease and Chronic Lyme Disease among doctors.

One one hand, there is the IDSA (Infectious Disease Society of America) that believes that all cases of Lyme Disease are cured with 3 weeks of antibiotics and that there is no such thing as Chronic Lyme Disease.  Personally, this infuriates me because it is so obviously wrong.  If you want to see how wrong it is, just start talking to some Chronic Lyme patients like me and you will see how real Chronic Lyme Disease is.  I bet it won't be hard for you to find a Lyme Support group that meets in your area and you can go meet some of these people and see what they've been through.  And three weeks of antibiotics hasn't cured them.

On the other hand, there is ILADS (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society).  This a group of doctors who take another approach to Lyme Disease and it's treatment.  They believe Chronic Lyme Disease exists and understand that it takes more aggressive antibiotic therapy to treat it.  You can learn more at their website by clicking here. (http://www.ilads.org/)

If you are suffering from Lyme Disease, it is very important that you find a LLMD and avoid infectious disease doctors who follow the IDSA guidelines.  Do yourself a favor and educate yourself on the difference of these two organizations and see for yourself what the differences are and where the their loyalties lie.  Start by watching the movie "Under Our Skin" and then start learning what you can about the conflict of interests among the IDSA treatment guideline panel.  Even the State Attorney General in the State of Connecticut has launched an investigation into this issue.  Click here to learn more and keep learning all you can.  Your life is at stake.  You will learn very quickly that you MUST educate yourself and become your own advocate.