Health Update – March 2017

29 Mar

 

What a month! Spring is starting to show up here and we are so very ready for it. I’m dreaming of a small container garden and getting the landlord here to spruce up this yard of ours (he’s also a landscaper.) This time last year I had roses on my bush, it’s definitely a delayed spring!

Well, on to the topic of fighting this Lyme disease.

fightinglymemigraines

Migraine app notes – I’ve had 7 attacks, lasting in average of 72 hours. So, while they’ve absolutely been lasting longer, I’ve had 6 attack-free days. Which I believe is a record! I’ve been getting an average of 7 hrs of sleep each night – this doesn’t typically account for the getting up a few times and tossing and turning. I’ve taken 38 Clonidine. They happen 80% of the time between 12pm and 12am (ha! so helpful,that). Average level is 7.9. Top three auras/prodrome are fatigue/achiness, headache and weakness. Top three triggers are neck pain, interrupted sleep and lack of sleep. Top three symptoms are jaw pain, neck pain and throbbing pain. Frequent start positions are the same as usual, temples, eyes, jaw and base of neck.

( Comparing to last month, I added one attack-free day and the pain increased slightly while the duration rocketed up.)

Overall Health/ Treatment: Some days I feel like I’m starting to do better – and then the little evil bugs laugh and do a stealth attack. I’ve had a few symptoms ease/disappear which is wonderful. I’m going to keep my notes from this month instead of re-typing them. =)

3/18 note  – started taking iron again today – at 5 ml 2x a day to get used to it. am continuing taking antibiotic (doxycycline) for another 2-4 weeks to see if it helps or not. started a probiotic ( sacro-b) what with taking the antibiotic longer.  went off of: garlic, ehb, epo. Finishing my bottle of Silver, then going off it too. dr suggested i start having bone broth. she also wants me to do a metal toxicity test, i’ll do it after i get back from bend next week. since we aren’t making any headway with what we’ve been trying, she wants to go a different track. Dr also wants me to start taking butterbur. need to start taking the xiao chai hu tang again.  –pain has been awful these past two weeks, plus i got sick and then started my cycle a few days after getting over the cold. migraines hit hard in evening and sometimes i wake up with them in am. have lost 1.6 lbs last two weeks.

3-24 – started back up on doxycycline on the 20th. As well as the sacro-b. Upped my iron to 15ml a day on the 22nd. Taking phosphorus 1-2x a day. Needing melatonin to sleep still. Pain is definitely worse in evenings. Still daily migraines, tmj and calf/feet tenseness and a bit of cramping. Migraine seems to ease a bit more quickly the past few days. Skin is clearing up again, hopeful it’s the antibiotics and it’ll stay clear. Able to focus again, have even been writing.

3-29- ceanothus – trying 3 drops am, 2 drops aft, 1 drop  eve to see if it helps with the evening migraine and fatigue. have gained back the weight I’d lost.

Migraines: They have increased in intensity without hitting 10 at all, I don’t think! that’s cause for celebration, folks. This past week-ish they seem to respond to treatments a bit better. The rest of the month, they were resistant to everything.

Digestion/TMJ: Once again, my digestion is off. Looking forward to stocking the house with healthy options and see if I can get it to calm down again. TMJ… I’ve been clenching/grinding so much lately that my teeth hurt most of the time. The jaw pain is normal now. Finally rescheduled my appointment with the ‘jaw doctor’ as I’ve labeled her, since I had to cancel my last  appt when I was sick. (anyone else find that statement ironic, ‘when I was sick’?)

Sleep: I’ve been needing Theanine or Melatonin to get to – and stay – asleep. It’s frustrating since I was able to get off of it for a while. BUT! The night sweats have gone away.

Memory/Brain Fog: Brain fuzziness (a step down from fog??) reappeared while I was in Bend. Over-stimulation perhaps? It was strongest on my birthday, sadly. Gives one the sense of not being present. I’m hoping this eases soon.

Vision: My eyes still frequently get blurry, or just take a bit longer to focus than they should. It hasn’t progressed though.

Feet/Leg cramps: The cramps are random and maybe once a week now. Typically it’s just tenseness – which can be distracting and painful on their own. Sometimes soaking them in epsom salt helps.

Dizziness: This got worse recently, but I haven’t been watching my salt intake.

Joint Pain: This has mostly shifted to my knees/ankles. I’m so thankful that it has left my fingers – that was the worst for me.

Fatigue: This is still a struggle. Like I said above, I’m gonna try taking 1 drop of Ceanothus  to see if it helps.

~I have started following some fellow lyme disease sufferers/warriors on Instagram and in talking with one of them the other day, I learned that ‘they’ have recently learned that you can get Lyme, not just from ticks, but from other nasties like mosquitos, fleas and spiders. SPIDERS, people. I’ve been thinking back on my symptoms lately and kept getting stuck on the timeline of when I was in Culinary school and got a rather awful spider bite on my cheekbone. It swelled up so bad that it impaired my vision. Now, I grew up in an older house and got bit all the time so I didn’t think anything of it. But now…. It doesn’t really help much, other than to mentally be able to put more of a year on it. By then, I’d had migraines for a few years but after that… everything started to crash. Literally.

That’s all for today folks, I’m gonna rest and then – hopefully – get out to go grocery shopping!

Happy Wednesday,

Laura

 

4 Responses to “Health Update – March 2017”

  1. Read Between the Lyme March 30, 2017 at 3:15 am #

    Reblogged this on Read Between The Lyme and commented:
    From Laura over at The Start of a Good Life.

    Like

  2. Read Between the Lyme March 30, 2017 at 3:18 am #

    Hi Laura, I reblooged this post over on my blog. It sounds like you are making progress!! I went through a couple years where I had migraines 1-2 times a week due to Lyme. I had never had one before. They suck BTW! But finally, I guess because of treatment, they have diminished!! I have one maybe once every 2 months now. So keep doing what you are doing. 😘

    Like

    • Laura March 31, 2017 at 10:43 am #

      It is hard to see any progress, but I’ll take the chance that there is some! Oy vay, migraines are terrible. I can’t wait for just a few a month. Thanks for sharing my post! I’m always hopeful that some of what I share can help someone else fighting this battle.

      Liked by 1 person

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A Musing Maverick

Ilse Davison

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