I have written at some length on here before about misdiagnoses. We believed for many years that my daughter was suffering from hypothyroidism and other related endocrine problems. She was tested and treated privately in Britain and Belgium for those conditions.
However, we were wrong. We didn't dig deeply enough.
She did indeed have endocrine problems along with a myriad of other symptoms, but we now know they were caused by chronic LYME DISEASE and other chronic infections picked up when she was a child, and carrying through to adulthood.
We also discovered that these infections can affect any and every tissue in the body, and if left untreated can cause very serious and long term problems which become difficult to eradicate.
Recognition and treatment of these chronic stealth infections is woefully slow in the UK, but thankfully in the USA they are light years ahead of us and can provide us with much information.
This article by Dr. Axe may be of interest to some of you who are not responding as you would like to your thyroid treatment.
I urge you to read it and note paragraph 2 in particular.
It's sometimes very difficult to get to the root cause and so many things to throw us off track. Can't say I've found my root cause - although I suspect it was 'just' (haha) leaky gut. I had positive antibody tests to all sorts of weird stuff. Out of kilter systems can read weird. Diet and T3 are my solutions.
Lyme is growing in the UK - glad to hear they're further ahead in the US. Biofilms - fascinating things. Thanks for the article.
Things are much improved, thanks Marz. Still some way to go, but it's such a relief to see some of Caroline's sparkle back. She is an amazing person. x x
I remember some of your posts when I first joined this forum, it is good to hear your daughter is finally finding some improvement in her health.
My daughter was tested for Lyme through a lab. in Germany, it came back negative but they said she tested positive for Chlamydia pneumonia.
She takes T3 which has helped, but she still has lots of symptoms. Do you happen to know if the Chlamydia pneumonia is one of the chronic infections that has an effect on the thyroid and endocrine system.
There are many infections (bacterial, mycotoxins and viral) that can be associated with Lyme Disease, and these can include the chlamydia group. Some people do not contract Lyme Disease but can have one or more of the coinections which can be harder to diagnose than Lyme itself. It's something that really needs the help of an expert Lyme literate doctor and sadly there are none in the UK. Is your daughter on any treatment apart from the T3?
The fact that she reacted to doxycycline does rather suggest that she might have Lyme Disease. She was probably experiencing a Herxheimer reaction, and in those circumstances it's very important to reduce the dose and not take a higher dose till her body can cope which may take a short time or many weeks.
I have no experience with stevia so can't comment I'm afraid.
I'm looking up a few book references that might help and will get back to you. Jane x
The best advice I can give you is to suggest that if at all possible to go to see a Lyme literate doctor in the USA. I'm not going to pretend it's cheap, but that's what we and hundreds of other UK patients (many of whom we've met out there) have done. It's expensive, but it's so worth it. I'm sending you a PM with more information and reading suggestions. Jane x x
Wonderful article, Jane. I hope this proves to be a real therapy. I had my own Stevia plant last year but didn't know how to use it as a fresh leaf. I should have put it in the blender. It tasted much better than the processed ones. Glad you are making progress though it is quite a challenging illness. Wishing you the best.
Hi, there is a herbalist, Julia Behrens who is based in Brighton. She specialises in Lyme and co-infections. She has people from all round the UK and Europe go to see her. If you contact her, can I advise you keep your narrative quite short in your email - she has lots of people contact her and tends to pick those she thinks will put the work in. It is an 18 month protocol. Also, get the books by Stephen Harrod Buhner - you will see one of them has the chlamydia co infection as well as the others.
I was very impressed, having attended a workshop with her recently. She is passionate and motivated to track down and deal with all that arises. Lyme is a tricky devil who hides and mimics.
Hopefully the links will work, otherwise, just put his name into Amazon.
Hello, Thanks for this. I have replied to Lucylocks by PM with the Buhner book you recommend, and the lady in Brighton may be worth following up. Hopefully Stevia may be the answer for some as well. For many of the people we've met a course of heavy duty antibiotics (sometimes by IV) has been the only course of action, with additional herbals to attack biofilms in particular. Some have additional problems of mycotoxins, viruses, MCAS, etc. I think that if this were an easy disease to treat there would be a one size fits all solution and that would be great, but sadly all patients are different and require different approaches. Hopefully the lady in Brighton is having success. If so that would be GREAT for UK patients. Jane x
Yes, it is definitely a mix of lots of different protocols- Julia uses different ones depending on what bit of the tricky devil she is hunting down. Works with your Gp too. I have notes somewhere of some of the things she uses but it does include antibiotics, different supplements etc as well as herbs.
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