Is Lyme disease curable?
Lyme disease occurs when a person is bitten by a deer tick infected with the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. The tick transfers the bacteria into the person’s bloodstream, where it grows and spreads throughout the body. The sooner a person is diagnosed and treated, the higher the chances of successful results.
Unfortunately, many people do not receive treatment early due to several reasons, including the following:
- Physicians misdiagnose Lyme disease because the symptoms mimic other conditions.
- Tests for Lyme disease are highly inaccurate and produce false negative results.
- People wait too long to seek help for their symptoms.
- The bullseye rash, a sure sign of Lyme disease, does not always appear.
Treatment Depends on Lyme Disease Stage
There are three stages of Lyme disease. The first stage, early localized Lyme disease, is when you want to receive treatments involving antibiotics, preferably through intravenous therapies. Medicine is delivered directly into your bloodstream to attack bacteria where it is living.
If your symptoms progress to stage two, early disseminated, or stage three, late disseminated, you will benefit from advanced, alternative Lyme disease treatments. Finding a Lyme-literate doctor is a must. They are experts in infectious diseases and have modern equipment and advanced techniques to help you feel better.
Treatment Depends on an Accurate Diagnosis
Lyme-literate doctors use more effective testing methods for Lyme disease than the standard ones available today, including:
- Advanced Microscopy
- Live Blood Analysis
- Cerebral Spinal Fluid Extraction, Culture, and Analysis
Doctors also test for co-infections often accompanying Lyme disease, which must be treated to eliminate painful symptoms.
Alternative Treatments for Lyme Disease
After diagnosis, a Lyme-literate doctor will create a comprehensive treatment plan based on how Lyme disease affects you. Fortunately, numerous options are non-invasive and can be done on an outpatient basis, such as the ones below:
Therapeutic Apheresis
Apheresis is a process of exchanging unhealthy blood with healthy blood. Using special equipment, your doctor may extract your blood, clean it, and return it to your body. Or they may extract your unhealthy blood and replace it with donor blood. This simple technique eliminates Lyme bacteria by removing the blood in which it thrives.
Hyperthermia
A natural way your body fights infections is with a fever. However, having chronic Lyme disease changes how your immune system reacts to infections. Natural fevers cannot eliminate the bacteria, and eventually, the fever subsides.
Hyperthermia is when your doctor raises your internal temperature safely and slowly to produce a high temperature to help the immune system eliminate Lyme bacteria and co-infections.
Biofilm Eradication Protocols
Lyme bacteria protect themselves from destruction in many ways, one of which is by building biofilms. They are tiny shields that block them from detection and from being flushed out of the system by antibiotics and the immune system. To get rid of bacteria, your doctor must first create something to eliminate the biofilm. Your Lyme-literate doctor will develop your protocol.
Detox Therapies
When you think of detoxing, you may think of fasting or cleaning the digestive system. However, detoxing for Lyme disease requires much more. Your doctor will create a detox plan that eliminates unhealthy toxins, foreign substances, heavy metals, and more. The goal is to lower inflammation so your immune system can function correctly.
Elimination methods include homotoxicology, where agents bind to toxins, allowing them to be flushed out of your system. Chelation sends claw-like agents to attach to heavy metals and making them inactive and eventually flushable from the body. Purification protocols, such as mud cataplasms, coffee enemas, infusions, compresses, lymphatic drainages, and dietary changes, are effective in detox.
Antioxidant Therapies
Glutathione is found in every cell of the body. When low, someone can experience depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Also, when glutathione is low, free radicals appear, disturbing the nervous system and brain functioning. They also cause inflammation.
Glutathione keeps the body functioning properly when levels are balanced, eliminating toxins and lowering inflammation. Advanced hydrogen therapy is a complementary method to eradicate oxidative stress by inhaling oxygen that will reduce the toxicity of pathogens.
Finding the Right Doctor for Lyme Disease Treatments
Finding the right doctor is not something you should rush. There are specific characteristics that set some doctors apart from others. Because Lyme disease can be so devastating, you want to find the best Lyme-literate doctor. The “best” may not be in the United States or Canada, but don’t let that deter you. After all, you deserve the best treatments available.
Not all insurance plans cover alternative therapies. Therefore, you must find a clinic where you can get the most effective treatment for the cost. Sometimes that means traveling outside the country, at least for the initial treatments.
Below are some must-haves of Lyme-literate doctors:
- Education and experience from accredited institutions.
- Board certification and a license in good standing.
- Member of nationally recognized associations, such as the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS).
- Contributor to the research and education of Lyme disease.
- Collaborates with experts in the United States.
- Provides references you can call to inquire about their services.
- Works with renowned labs for testing processes that can’t be done in the clinic.
- Connects you with someone who can help you plan your trip to their clinic.
When to Contact a Lyme-Literate Doctor for Treatment
Symptoms will vary for each person bitten by an infected deer tick, depending on the stage of Lyme disease they are experiencing. If you can answer “yes” to any of the following questions, it is time to seek a Lyme-literate doctor:
- You have headaches, flu-like symptoms, facial paralysis, joint swelling, and pain.
- You identified a bullseye rash on your body.
- A physician treats your symptoms, but your health is not improving.
- You know your body best and feel you have been misdiagnosed.
- You feel your current doctor is not working hard enough to find a source of your symptoms.
Is Lyme disease curable? There are many treatment options to help combat the disease. It’s up to you to fight for the best treatment provider. You deserve it.
