Slipping?

I've been cramming cranberry juice down my gob the last few days. It's not the most pleasant sensation - drinking real cranberry juice - especially given how expensive it is. Can you imagine, $12 for a medium jug of juice? That's not the sugar rich cranberry 'juice' of my youth. Of course the juice is unpalatable on it's own and needs to be mixed 50/50 with apple juice to get it down. Then again, it is starting to do the trick and is more than worth it if it means avoiding the doctors office.

There was a moment last summer when I had realized that my illness had taken too much of my day. Keeping a journal of my symptoms was good, but it also reinforced the attention I was giving to the bacteria. I didn't want to give the spirochaete the satisfaction of having all of my attention so I made the effort not to think about them. The thought was that if I stopped paying attention to the illness I would speed up my recovery. I don't know if it was working or not on the physical side of things, but emotionally, I liked not thinking about it. That's probably why I slowed down on my blogging the last few months.

Up until the end of November / beginning of December, I think there was a noticeable improvement month to month. Energy and balance were my primary symptoms. I figure the balance problem is due to the arthritis in my jaw making my ears grumpy, but no-one has looked into it yet. Chemical sensitivity was noticeably less during the fall, and I was slowly reintroducing foods back into my diet that previously made me seriously ill. Brain fog was still around but predictably linked to my blood sugar and time of day - so if I was well fed in the morning, then I could interact like a normal human being (or a very close approximation of one). I had even entertained thoughts of not needing to visit the specialist in 6 months or so. That was a bit premature on my part.

Since around the second week of December things haven't been going so smoothly. I wonder if it's the stress of the season or the lack of sunlight. I suspect it has something to do with my new treatment plan. Maybe the nasty Lyme bugs are fighting back. They say that if you are feeling rotten that means the bugs are dyeing off. One can only hope.

Current symptoms include: major brain fog. Poor response to stress. Fatigue. Insomnia alternating with sleep walking. Joint and other pains. Loss of dexterity. Poor concentration. Digestion is actually improving and I haven't loss too much weight over the holidays so that is good. But still, Dad thinks I'm slipping back quite quickly. I think it has something to do with the treatment. The current herbs/medicine is designed to target the infection in the brain and nerves - thus explaining the concentration, stress, and pain issues. I also suspect the new toxic binders (from mini shrimp like creatures that start with the letter 'c') is insufficient to deal with the bacterial die off, thus the waste management issues necessitating the copious consumption of cranberry juice.