Marshall Protocol, Lyme and my presonal progress

Recently, it's been suggested that I look into the Marshall Protocol (MP) for the treatment of Lyme. I know just about nothing when it comes to the MP, and for some reason find researching it to be even more confusing. I'm certain that's just because my brain has given up on me and decided to take the decade off. Whether that's the last decade or the one just started, remains to be seen. The down shot of it is that even this simple introductory video as to how the protocol is suppose to work, remains too complicated for me today. I'll have a go at watching it tomorrow morning when the coffee is still fresh enough in my system for the brain to function.

Why bother looking at other treatment methods? I am pleased with my current treatment plan: a mix of allopathic and holistic medicine. I've shown improvement overall. My bad days now are better than my best days were a year ago. Although I'm not entirely certain if the meaning comes across right in that last sentence. The progress is slow and I don't see the improvement when I look day to day or even week to week. But if I compair where I am to where I was this time last year or the year before, I'm definitely on my way up.

I adore my specialist and I think that if it was not for said doctor, I wouldn't be ... well, I don't know if I'd be dead, but when talking to my GP today, it was suggested that I probably would just be an unfortunate lump of stuff in a hospital with tubes going all in and out of me.

My GP and I were mulling back and forth about all the things that I've tried and what has worked and what hasn't. It's the most wonderful thing to have a doctor of any kind who asks you your opinion.

What do I think worked best so far?

I think that the single biggest thing was a physician (my GP) who showed me that I wasn't making it all up. It's not just that I was listened too, it was that this doctor did the tests and showed me, yep, that blood work explains why you have this symptom. Not just with the Lyme, but with health things that I was afraid to bother my old doctor about. Even things that I thought were normal - you mean not everyone's jaw goes click, snap, and clunk; produces pain and get's stuck open when yawning? It's the confidence to know that my body was indeed telling me something that I value most about this experience.

I think that second is my change of diet. I've gone to extreme measures to change my eating. I eliminated just about all my favourite foods including chocolate. I didn't just give up foods willy nilly, I used one of those blood test immune response things and eliminated every food that had an IGE and IGG response. I did that for a few months then added them back one at a time to see if I could tolerate any of them. I am convinced that this step alone slowed my decline enough for other treatment to take hold.

Change in my environment, including getting rid of chemicals has been another huge help. Though this is a lot harder to keep up than my change in diet. Even I forget that I get horribly sick when exposed to too much of certain substances.

Up there with things that have done the most good is my specialist. I think this has been a big help and that my specialist has acted professionally and shown good results. I wish the improvement was faster, but I was told it would take time.

So if I am happy with my specialist why seek out other protocols? There is always the grass is greener theory - I want to make certain I'm doing all I can to get better.

Also, this new protocol is available in Canada so I wouldn't have to leave the country. It would also mean a day trip rather than an overnight stay. Apparently it would be more affordable as well.

There is also a few things I would like to have different in my currant treatment. This is just because of my own personal view on life. The thing is, I have behaviour traits that I don't much like. Some of these traits I've trained myself to overcome but there are other's that I just can't find a way around. For example, I avoid painful actions. I gave up toffee long ago because it caused jaw pain. I like toffee well enough but, without telling myself, I just gave it up one day. I actually remember the specific day - someone offered me some of that really nice English toffee and I said no thank you even though I was hungry and something sweet seemed just what the doctor ordered. It was an unconscious choice. With my brain taking the decade off, I seem to make a lot of choices unconsciously these days. For example, it hurts to swallow so I forget to take my pills. If I have a lot of pills to take each day, then I forget them more and more. But, if I have only a few pills, then I take them faithfully. There is a direct correlation between pill quantity and frequency of forgetting or something like that.

That paragraph kind of got away from me there. The point was that when it comes to behaviour that I don't like there are two approaches: modify the behaviour and if/when that fails, modify the environment. I would like a treatment course that takes into account that I do get substantially more nutrition from my diet than the averaged patient. I would also like that treatment plan to take into account this pill/forgetting correlation thing-y.

When it comes to this Marshall Protocol, there are things in my history that suggest I might be the right candidate for it. Not that I am saying that I understand it and I also want to make it clear that it was not recommended that I try it. It was recommended that I research it and here is why: I have always had sun sensitivity. I don't sunburn and I don't suntan. I do feel faint if in the direct sun for too long. Vitamin D makes my right side hurt and upsets my digestion. I also seem to respond poorly to foods that are suppose to reduce inflammation.

There were other things as well, but this much blogging in one go, after such a long period away from writing has taken its toll. I don't even know if I've managed to say anything worth while, but what else is new?