When Lyme disease goes untreated, you could face long-term consequences. Lyme disease seems to be the most misdiagnosed, underestimated disease in America today, despite there being hundreds of thousands of new cases each year.
Even the Center for Disease Control agrees that the number of Lyme disease reported cases is likely low. The reason? Lyme disease is not a priority consideration during a doctor evaluation. Not because doctors are not capable, but because the symptoms can mimic so many other ailments. And if you do not currently have a tick on your body or a rash associated with a tick bite, family doctors tend to overlook the possibility of Lyme disease.
The doctors who test for Lyme right away are limited due to the dysfunctional tests available in America.
Two Lyme Disease Tests
The ELISA and the Western Blot tests are the main tests doctors have today to test Lyme disease patients. These tests are accurate less than 50% of the time.
The two tests, even when used together, test for antibodies of Lyme disease in your bloodstream. Antibodies are tricky and quickly learn to hide within your system. Meaning, if they are in hiding when your blood is tested for Lyme disease, your test results could come back as negative.
That’s right; you could test negative but have Lyme disease. Some doctors refuse to test further or treat Lyme symptoms if you receive a negative test result. This can be dangerous. It allows your Lyme disease to move from acute to chronic, creating a lifetime of problems for your physical and mental health.
You must be an advocate for continued Lyme disease testing and treatment. You can start by known signs and symptoms that can often appear with Lyme, symptoms that may be classified as the flu or depression, or other disorders. If you have these symptoms and no other treatments are working, seek the help of a Lyme literate doctor immediately.
Signs and Symptoms of Untreated Acute Lyme Disease
Soon after you are infected with Lyme disease, you may start to notice symptoms like fever, runny nose, sweats, and body aches. You can see how easy it is to confuse these symptoms with the flu. And because not everyone will find a tick on their body or see a rash, you may not connect it right away with Lyme disease.
But you should. It doesn’t hurt to be tested for Lyme, and even if you’re ninety percent sure you have the flu, push for a Lyme test. You could be experiencing recurring symptoms from a previous misdiagnosis.
The longer your Lyme disease is untreated, the greater your symptoms. The flu-like symptoms may strengthen, as well as an increase in joint pain. Any joint on the body can become inflamed by the bacterial infection associated with Lyme disease.
Signs and Symptoms of Untreated Chronic Lyme Disease
Acute symptoms can turn chronic after several months of going untreated. Chronic Lyme disease can be debilitating, preventing you from functioning in activities you once enjoyed. As the bacteria spread throughout your body, so does inflammation.
You may begin to feel numbness and tingling in your limbs, dizziness, shortness of breath, tremors, respiratory infections, frequent sore throats, and severe stiffness in your neck. Headaches can become migraines; the brain or spinal cord can become inflamed, facial paralysis and heart palpitations also appear.
Mentally, you can experience severe depression, anxiety, paranoia, rage, and even hallucinations.
The longer you go with an incorrect diagnosis and without proper treatment, the harder it can be to eliminate your symptoms.
However, just because they may be hard to eliminate, it does not mean impossible.
The first line of treatment for anyone with Lyme disease includes the use of antibiotics. Unfortunately, depending on how long your Lyme disease went untreated, antibiotics may not be enough.
The good news is that there are many new alternative treatments and therapies for Lyme disease sufferers showing great success. Alternative medicine in the fight against Lyme disease should only be administered by a Lyme literate physician.
Why a Lyme Literate Doctor?
Working with a Lyme literate doctor is essential to success in overcoming your symptoms. While most doctors are familiar with the disease, Lyme literate doctors have specialized in it. Meaning, they have more knowledge of newer treatments. They have the cutting edge equipment to perform the latest treatments in their office. They can create a protocol of multiple alternative therapies based on your specific symptoms rather than a generic, one-size-fits-all antibiotic treatment.
As you already know, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment that works because symptoms are different for each person with Lyme disease. Further on are a few therapies with great reviews.
Alternative Treatments for Lyme Disease
Hyperthermia utilizes your body’s temperature to fight infection. When you have fevers, that is when your body goes to work fighting off bacteria that can make you ill. Uncontrolled fevers can be risky if the temperature rises too high. However, controlled hyperthermia is medically supervised to help your body reach a high temperature slowly and boost your immune system.
Chelation is a detoxifying process that removes toxins from the body. Oxygen therapies use extra oxygen as a medical process to treat over 100 diseases, including Lyme disease. Apheresis can be used to replace your infected blood and plasma with clean, healthy, and usually donated blood and plasma. Nutraceuticals are products created from foods and herbs that offer antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals that can help boost your immune system so you can fight off infections.
Biofilm eradication protocols, parasite inactivation, and immune modulation are additional treatments. You may even opt for IV therapies in which your doctor can give your immune system great strength by sending Vitamin C, Silver, and other antioxidant properties straight into your bloodstream.
Conclusion
Reach out to a Lyme literate doctor today to create the right protocol that will offer you relief from your Lyme disease symptoms. You do not have to suffer the rest of your life. There is help.