Tunnel Vision Can Be Dangerous To Your Health

by Scott A. Forsgren

Many people view Lyme disease as an infection with the spirochetal bacteria known as Borrelia burgdorferi. They move through their healing process with a sole focus on eradication of this one organism, but often find that their healing process has become just a process and somewhere along the way the “healing” never happens.

Most LLMDs, and many of us that are struggling with Lyme, will recognize that Lyme disease is a multi-factorial illness that includes numerous co-infections that many will know. These include Babesia, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, Mycoplasma, and a host of others. For more information on co-infections, refer to my article “Lyme Disease Co-Infections: Lottery Anyone?” in the August 2006 edition of the Public Health Alert.

Sadly, it has been my experience, however, that there are many other contributing factors to chronic illness. The stage has to be set over months and years for many of us to become significantly impaired if infected with Borrelia burgdorferi. It has been my experience that these are often overlooked by the majority of those battling the disease as well as many of the doctors that are providing our care.

I think of “Lyme disease” like the seesaw that many of us used to play on when we were kids. It is about balance. On one side of the seesaw we have those things that are good for us, those things that help us to balance out the bad. On the other side, we have the bad things. Some of these bad things may include: heavy metals, viruses, parasites, mold, pathenogenic bacteria, mycoplasma, hyper-coagulated blood, chemicals and other toxins, nutritional deficiencies, food allergies, emotional baggage, geopathic stress and energetic disturbances, dental infections and certainly Borrelia and Lyme co-infections.

The more of these that sit on the bad side of the seesaw, the more that health shifts in that direction. Once it moves past an equal balance on both sides, it quickly shifts towards ill health. When we have ill health, it is important to evaluate all of the factors that can once again influence that state in an effort to shift the balance back to one that is favorable. For me, this means both removing some of the “bad” influences on my health and adding more of the “good”. At some point, the balance can once again shift to a more favorable place.

Heavy metals may be one of the more complex areas of chronic illness based on my experience. Many doctors don’t consider the true significance of these substances and what they do to our bodies. Many doctors also don’t know how to effectively or properly address them. Though conventional tests showed no significant issue, I continued to test for metals using a testing technique which I place significant confidence in called Autonomic Response Testing, or ART. I recently started what appears to be just the right combination of heavy metal treatment agents, and aluminum is already pouring out. If I had not continued looking, I may never have known that this was also an issue that needed to be dealt with.

Parasites are another area that is often overlooked. I have heard countless stories of doctors that have sent known parasites, even tapeworms, to parasitology labs for a report only to find that the submitted sample was “negative”. The parasite itself was pushed aside so that the sample could easily fit on a slide to be viewed under a microscope. In many other countries, parasites are seen as a more significant issue and testing and treatment more readily available.

I personally have done several tests in the past two years from labs that are viewed as the best in the country and all came back “negative”. I subsequently had been tested energetically using two very different methodologies and both found parasites were also an issue. An opportunity later arose to have testing performed by a visiting doctor from Nigeria and those results showed two types of parasites were present. With those now being addressed, the balance has an opportunity to shift, if even in a small way, once again in the desired direction.

Hypercoagulated blood can often be another important issue that requires investigation. It is not uncommon for Lyme and its co-infections, especially Babesia, to provide signals to the body to produce more fibrin, which then thickens the blood. The fibrin acts as a protective layer behind which the microbes can hide and further avoid appropriate treatment. There are tests and treatments (Heparin and Rechts-Regulat are the two which I have used to date) that may help address the hypercoagulation issue. In many cases, these may be necessary to ensure that the treatments that are otherwise being used actually get to where they need to be in order to address the chronic infections.

Removal of various toxins (detoxification) is another key area that should be a part of any Lyme treatment program in my opinion. There is often a collection of toxins in the body that may not get appropriately shuttled out of the body without agents such as chlorella, cholestyramine, and others. Lyme itself produces neurotoxins, which can circulate in the body for years in certain individuals even if the Lyme infection itself were entirely removed from the body.

I have found that various detoxification-supporting options can greatly help reduce the body’s total load. Some of these include chlorella, FIR sauna therapy, coffee enemas, castor oil packs, detox footpads, colonics, and numerous other interventions.

Beyond parasites, heavy metals, hyper-coagulated blood, and the numerous toxins which may be present in those of us with Lyme disease, it is important to look at all of the areas mentioned earlier in this article. We must each find which ones may be part of those items, which are pushing our state of health toward the bad. It takes time to work through all of the potential factors, and in my opinion, few doctors are capable of doing this on their own.

It may seem as though there are numerous areas that need to be investigated and dealt with, and in my opinion, that is often the reality of Lyme disease. Without addressing the various other issues, the Lyme component may be allowed to persist. It may be these numerous other factors that allows Lyme to entrench itself in our bodies in the first place and create a state of chronic ill health. There are likely an equal number or more people that are infected with Borrelia burdgorferi that are entirely asymptomatic. They likely have not had enough of these assaults to the body over time to allow it to shift the entire balance.

Just as important as getting rid of the bad is adding those things, which can be good. These promote the healing process. Many of these are common sense and yet often overlooked. We must consider drinking enough pure water, getting exercise compatible with ones ability, supplying appropriate nutrition and supplementation, and possibly most important, getting the proper amount of restful sleep.

It can be overwhelming to consider all of the things, which may need to be addressed, but the rewards are well worth the effort. It doesn’t all have to be done today, or even tomorrow, but the more that one can move away from the pitfall of tunnel vision and begin to see the whole picture, the more opportunities one will find to help shift the balance back to where we all want it to be.

Note:

Scott Forsgren has battled Lyme disease for the past ten years. He shares his story on his web site at http://www.BetterHealthGuy.com.