A Lyme Disease Blog Sharing Support & Awareness

Give, Risk, Live - Some 2018 Thoughts From My Drafts

12/16/2020

I wrote this blog post in May 2018 but I never published it, until now. Sometimes I would have a stream of consciousness that poured out onto paper, but it didn't feel "good enough" to publish so I kept it as a draft. Today I want to share this 'imperfect' post, not just for myself but for anyone else who might need it. I speak a lot on this blog about having a blind faith, and mine comes from God. It doesn't mean I didn't suffer mentally with the toll of fighting an illness 24/7 for years and years on end. You'll see all of that in the post below..

It’s amazing to me how life can feel like it's simultaneously going so slow, and yet it passes by so quickly.

I saw a quote recently that said, “it never occurred to me that one day I’d wake up sick and never get better.” It stopped me in my tracks because of the poignant sadness, truth & heartbreak that it held in those words. Healthy me never could have imagined that anything would last longer than a week-long virus/flu. Growing up every illness I ever had went away with a little rest, Dayquil & some TLC. It certainly never occurred to me that one day I would wake up with a “summertime flu,” (what we now know was Lyme) and never get better. However, I want to add an addendum to the word “never.” The word never for me means right now, in this moment, as I type these words. But the word "never" has taken many forms for me throughout the course of my illness, from diagnosis to present moment.

Let's take a trip down memory lane to the time when I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. I spent approximately the next 4 months in deep denial. Although I was educating myself by reading a lot & watching the documentary ‘Under Our Skin,’ I wasn’t willing to admit that what was wrong with me might not be a quick fix. I tried to live by myself hours away from my family & continue on with everyday life. Finally I was so weak, emaciated and sick that I begrudgingly moved home in January 2012 to get full time care and begin treatment. But here’s the kicker... at that time I left 90% of my things in my apartment and only took winter clothes home with me. Why? Because I was sure I’d be all better and back to normal by summertime. I can’t tell you how DEEPLY I believed that to be true. When summer rolled around and not only was I not better but I was actually doing worse, I conceded that I might need some summer clothes (even though I never left the house). And while my sweet dad drove 3 hours each way to pick up my summer clothes which I would never wear, the rest of my stuff still stayed put. I still paid rent, I still had the majority of my belongings there, and I was stuck in denial. I think it was maybe a year after I left that I finally got the rest of my stuff out, but honestly it could have been even longer. All I know is that at some point I crossed over from “I’ll be well soon” into “wait, will I EVER be well?” This phase happened right around the time when I experienced depression for the first time in my life. Suddenly I felt this feeling of panic that my life might be forever changed, and my gut reaction was to fight back. There is a control freak in me that refuses to rest until I feel like I’ve tried everything. I went through a period of many years where I read and researched endlessly in an effort to save myself. I had plenty of Doctor’s working with me, but I had to know all the cutting edge research for myself to feel like I traveled every possible avenue.

And here I am years later with that same gut reaction, although slightly altered. I don’t want to believe, accept, or allow into my mind the thought that I won’t heal. And by heal I mean fully and deeply have my life back. Not a halfway life where my battery is always halfway empty, and one small misstep or skipped supplement sets me into a flare. But while I wish to put that thought out of my mind, it’s always lingering just out of reach of my consciousness. Some days I wake up, look around, and think “this might be as good as it’s gonna get.” And while the selfish part of my brain demands more, the rational part of my brain reminds me that it’s also been much worse. There is a war going on in my mind on any given day throwing me from sadness, to anger, to determination, and lastly, understanding.

Now what I’m about to say is going to make sense to some of you, and will seem very out there to the rest of you, but I’ve (mostly) made peace with whatever outcome I get. And that’s because I believe in a God who has a purpose for my life even when all I see and feel in the moment is suffering. I know that God can see the big picture of my entire life, and somehow in some way there is a reason for what I am going through. That reason may not be crystal clear to me now (or ever), and it might be multi-faceted. But He has a purpose for my life and I believe that to be true whether things are going good or things are going bad. I think that God uses circumstances to grow us and grow the people around us, and some of the biggest change comes from the hardest moments. So while my determined and hard working spirit refuses to believe the textbook definition of "never," I also know that if that happens to be God's will for my life then He knows better than I do. But it doesn't mean I stop trying, and it certainly doesn't mean that I will resign my life to an acceptance of a reality that I do not yet know to be true.

So as I lay here in my bed too weak to even walk down the stairs by myself, I keep fighting... for a semblance of a life. And if I get it I promise to never take it for granted. Not for a single second. Life is so short and so precious, there is no time to waste living in any other way than what is authentic to you. The world tries to make us fearful to be honest with one another or to chase our dreams. I bought into that lie for much too long, and I know I never will fall into that trap again.

I watch humans worry so much about what others think about them. I watch them withhold love from people out of fear of rejection. Why? For what? If I could give one message to anyone out there who is healthy, it's this: Love others, be bold, live in a way that takes risks. Put your heart on the line again and again, even if someone tries to convince you to lock it up. Give, risk, live. Because I promise that if it all got taken away from you right now, you'd spend a lifetime wishing you could do it over.

xoxo,
Christina

9 Comments

What I Did For Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) - An Out Of The Box Treatment

9/27/2020

6 Comments

I am assuming that if you're here reading this then you are familiar with what POTS is, so I am not going to get deep into the "what" and "how" of it in this post. However, if you'd like to know more I would suggest reading about it here.

POTS was one of the first conditions I was ever diagnosed with before I knew I had Lyme. POTS stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. This is a syndrome, meaning it is more like a collection of symptoms vs an actual disease with a treatment plan. Basically, it is a thing that is happening to your body, but you must find the root cause of why it's happening. POTS is merely a clue, but it's not the whole answer.

However, back when I was diagnosed in 2010 it did greatly benefit me to know I had POTS because I was able to get on medication (Midodrine), drink a lot more water, and purchase prescription compression stockings. All of those things made my life more bearable at the time and prevented me from passing out every time I stood up, or fainting due to a high heart rate when I was vertical. The trouble was, those things were merely a band-aid. As the years went on and I became more ill with Lyme disease, the symptoms of POTS got louder and louder. By the time I had moved home for treatment I had a heart rate of 140+ from merely standing in one spot.

In 2012 I became completely bed-bound and had to stop taking Midodrine because you are only able to take that if you are up and active. This left me with only compression stockings and fluids to help propel me anytime I needed to stand. And truthfully those were of very little help in the big scheme of things. I would drink endless amounts of Vega Electrolytes and water, salt everything to oblivion, and yet I still found myself chronically dehydrated with very low blood pressure. For many years this continued on, but the issue of POTS went onto the back burner because 1. I had more severe issues to handle/deal with, and 2. I hoped that treating the Lyme would fix everything. I now know that the dysfunction the Lyme caused on my autonomic nervous system couldn't be reversed as quickly and easily as I thought by just killing the bacteria, and I would need to go back and repair the damage it left behind. But, more on that later!

The thing about POTS which a lot of people don't quite realize is that it can be much more severe than just feeling lightheaded when you stand. When your heart is not able to adequately pump blood upwards the consequences are far reaching. For example, if I were to eat something and then I would go sit on a couch where my legs weren't elevated I would get awful stomach aches and have trouble digesting my food. Why? Because my body couldn't get as much needed blood to my stomach and thus digestion suffered, and thus I had horrendous stomach aches. Other times, the pure fatigue caused by my heart working overtime to keep me halfway upright sitting on the couch was too much to bear. Yes, you heard me right... I would get exhausted just by sitting on the couch, and it took huge effort.

So, what did POTS look like for me? I had:
1. Fatigue
2. Nausea/Digestion issues
3. Low blood volume
4. Low blood pressure
5. Chronic dehydration
6. Heart palpitations
7. Lightheadedness & dizziness
8. Headaches/migraines
9. Exercise intolerance
10. Fainting when standing
11. Cold hands and feet
12. Shortness of breath
13. Purple/spotted legs when standing

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but as you can see POTS was far reaching. Sometimes it would get triggered just from sitting up in my bed (when it was at its most severe state), other times it would get triggered from things like sitting on a couch, attempting to take a walk, or simply standing. My sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system was an absolute mess, and it did a poor job of controlling my autonomic nervous system to work how it should. Most people don't think twice about standing up because they know their heart will do what's needed to keep them upright. For those with POTS the task of simply standing in one spot is often met with promptly fainting.

I had tried many treatments throughout the years, including being enrolled in a clinical trial in 2011. A wonderful Doctor at the University of Kentucky Cardiology Clinic told me about a trial being done on POTS patients which would require me to do specific strength exercises which kept my heart-rate in a certain range for specific amounts of time. Ultimately I did not get to finish the trial because when I went to a physical therapy clinic to help me do the program (it must be supervised due to risk of injury), I was turned away due to not looking "sick enough" for them to help me. I then tried to take the program to a personal trainer, but that went horribly and I had to bow out. The premise of the clinical trial however was to focus on strengthening the leg muscles so that they can more efficiently pump blood up to the heart. Seems easy enough, right? Wrong. The tricky part of exercising with POTS is that all exercises must be done recumbent or in the water (zero gravity), otherwise it could make things worse. So while strengthening the legs is key, it must be done in a lying down position, and the heart rate must be carefully watched so it doesn't backfire. While I wasn't able to finish the clinical trial myself I did reach out to my Doctor later on to get the results of it. It showed that a huge percentage of patients saw their quality of life improve and symptoms decrease by the end of their program. This always stayed with me because I knew the key would lie in circulation within the legs, and I tucked away that piece of information.

What Helped The Most

1. Discovering ORS drinks
I'm going to get into how I stumbled upon an accidental treatment, but let me first lay the ground work here by discussing two other key details to improvement. Hydration is absolutely crucial here, and will likely continue to be crucial for anyone with POTS no matter what. But what you need to know is that all electrolyte drinks are not made the same. I urge you to read this in-depth blog post I wrote about hydration and what it means to be volume depleted. Most electrolytes on the market today (many of which are sugar free) are doing almost nothing for you. When you have POTS you need to raise your blood volume and you need the sodium to get into your cells. They make a kind of drink called "Oral Rehydration Solutions" and this is used in third world countries where access to IVs are non-existant. These drinks work as well as IV fluids, but you need to get the right kind. My blog post is explains this in much more specific terms than I have room for in this post. So if you haven't yet, please go read.

Let me just say that prior to discovering ORS drinks I could not go even 1 month without needing to have an IV line placed. And when I got IV ports placed I had it in for 4-5 days and received around the clock fluids, lactated ringers, and electrolytes. I felt my best after I had the IVs, and I did my absolute best to keep up with hydration myself so I wouldn't need it again. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn't do it, and inevitably I would be back to needing another IV within a few weeks. However, since finding ORS drinks and drinking them religiously every single day I have not needed an IV placed for hydration in ONE YEAR. That is huge for me! Especially because I have Crohn's disease as well, and that by itself can lead to massive fluid loss. In the past a Crohn's flare would immediately land me in bed with an IV no matter what. Now a days I can sail straight through a flare with ORS drinks, and having a flare doesn't mess with or worsen my POTS. I recommend either Ceralyte 70 or Hydrant ORS drinks, as they are the very best.

2. Recumbent leg exercises
I touched on this briefly above, but I used to do things like bicycle kicks while I laid in bed. Of course, when I was very ill I was unable to do it, so this only came into the picture later on down the line when I had the ability to do so. This is not a requirement, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else out there finds themselves bed-bound and wondering if they can do anything to strength their legs. I would do sets of 10 bicycle kicks while lying flat, and I started off by doing just 10 every other day. I worked my way up to doing 3 sets of 10 every day. Then 3 sets of 10 twice a day. I would also vary it by sometimes swinging/kicking my legs out of the side instead. I have no way of telling if this actually helped with the POTS, but I do know it helped combat muscle wasting and atrophy that I had from being bed-bound for so long. If anything it stopped the progression of muscle weakness and built back up what was lost from being unable to move for such a long period of time.

Accidental Treatment

I know that most of you are here for the good stuff, so I promise I won't leave you in suspense much longer! I will quickly just give you a backstory on how I got to this place. So, it was late 2018 and I began dealing with severe restless leg syndrome. When I say severe I mean that the crawling/jerking feeling was so intense that I would spend all day shaking my legs around, and it even spread up into my thighs and arms. I could barely sleep, I could hardly function, it was so uncomfortable that it felt almost painful. I had a non-stop buzzing sensation in my feet & calves that would drive me insane. It felt like an itch you can't scratch that went deep into my muscles. I wanted to claw my skin off, and I spent so much time aggressively massaging my calves that I had bruises all up and down everywhere.

I tried everything imaginable for the RLS. I even bought this machine that would squeeze my calves so hard that my legs almost went numb because that felt better than the deep itch from RLS. It gave me moderate relief when on but nothing sustainable. I bought this other contraption called Restiffic which put pressure onto certain spots on the ball of the foot, and that could take it down a single notch, but again, not sustainable. I did foot baths, I used essential oil rubs, I used weighted blankets, and I tried every supplement known to man for RLS as well. You name it, I did it. I was a desperate person living on 4 hours of sleep a night, and this went on from September of 2018 until I found my accidental treatment around January of 2019.

My poor bruised legs

A collection of things I tried

Leg squeezing contraption

When I tell you that I was exhausted and desperate for relief you have no idea how much I mean that. I would have tried anything on planet earth. This is when my mom stumbled upon a study for RLS which showed that using near infrared light therapy helped ease RLS in a large number of patients. This had to do with how it helped micro-circulation in a way that no other treatment could. Immediately I knew I had to try this because all the other avenues had failed me so I began to research. The study itself had patients do three 30-minute treatments on their lower calves per week, for 4 weeks. This meant I would need something which could provide continuous near-infrared light to my calves. I went on the hunt and realized this was going to be much tougher than I thought because all the devices I found were medical grade. Therefore they were 1. Very expensive, and 2. Could only be purchased by a physician. It turns out that these devices are usually bought and used in a clinical setting where patients come in to use it X amount of times per week, much like infrared saunas or ionic foot baths. I found myself in a bit of a predicament living in a small town without access to anything of the sort. However I was determined, so after consulting with my Doctor who would oversee the treatment we decided to invest in a HealthLight system and do it at home. This was not cheap, and in most cases you could just go to a clinic nearby to get this treatment done. But for the situation I was in at the time it was really my only option. In all honesty I'm glad I own it because I did need it for much longer than the 4 weeks due to the fact that it ended up being hugely useful for the POTS. You can actually buy it online now, if you're interested the link is here (I get zero commission).

So now it's January of 2019 and I finally got my hands on a HealthLight system. As you can see it's basically worn like a boot which curves up and around your calves. You simply hit "start" and let it do its thing. I did it every other day for 4 weeks initially, and it did in fact help with the RLS. I would do it when the RLS symptoms were the worst because the heat and infrared lights felt incredibly soothing to my calves. I kept it up after the 4 week mark because it was working, and while I had made some headway I still had a long way to go. I did another 12 weeks still doing it every other day, and it made an even more marked improvement on RLS symptoms. But do you know what else I realized? It inadvertently helped the POTS as well! My legs weren't as purple when I was standing, my heart rate wasn't through the roof when I was just standing so I was able to cook and bake in the kitchen for longer periods of times, and I wasn't nearly as lightheaded when I stood up. On top of that things like my digestion improved when I was seated, and I didn't feel nearly as tired from being out of bed in general. I was honestly shocked because that was not the intended purpose of the light therapy, but it was unbelievably useful.

Near Infrared Light Therapy

Near infrared lights work for patients with RLS because it affects the micro-circulation within the legs. If I had to guess I'd say it was also incredibly useful for my POTS for a similar reason. I do not have any kind of scientific information on this, although I wish I did. I couldn't find any kind of published info on using HealthLight for POTS or near-infrared light therapy for POTS. I did find some info via study on how NIR light stimulated the release of an endothelium dependent vasodilator and rescues vascular dysfunction in some patients. I found another research paper discussing how NIR helps microcirculation as well, but again not targeted to POTS.

All I can tell you is that during that time I did absolutely nothing else new other than the HealthLight system. That's it. I didn't even discover the ORS drinks until June-ish, but adding that into the mix made my improvement skyrocket. After the first 16 weeks of using it every other day I went down to 1-2x a week and kept up with that for several months. Since then I would say my POTS symptoms are only about 25% of what they used to be, and I attribute that to the HealthLight and the ORS together in tandem.

The results are sustainable, but I'm unsure yet if they are permanent. I stopped using it around late July 2019 and still felt like the results of it were kept much the same. I used it again around the end of October at 3x a week for another month when I felt some more racing heart/fatigue pop up and it nipped that in the bud. Since then I will pulse it in here and there even if I feel okay just to keep up progress. It certainly can't hurt, and I own it so why not?

Since I don't know the science behind it I don't know exactly how often/how long a patient would need to use this for it to make a difference in their POTS. However, if you have a Doctor who is willing to oblige you, and you've tried everything else to no avail, then I would highly recommend it at 3-4 times a week for at least 20 minutes. If you could commit to 12 weeks that would give you enough time to see if it will make a difference for you. I believe that you can email HealthLight directly to ask them for a referral or directory of providers who use their system if you wanted to find someone that way. Oh, and definitely get your hands on some ORS solution in tandem!

This light therapy system popped up unexpectedly in my life and made such a massive difference for my symptoms that sometimes I'm still shocked that more research isn't being done on it. I want to be clear again that during that time I was doing no other treatment for POTS, I wasn't taking any new supplements, and nothing else changed. AND the results were sustained and also improved further when I added in the ORS along with it. Since circulation is such a huge part of POTS I suspect that by improving the microcirculation within the legs it allows the blood to pump/flow better.

Okay, shew this was long! I hope that this information could be useful to someone else in need. I apologize for the length, but I always like to be thorough. If you have any questions please leave them below and I will get back to you. Alternatively you can also email me at cskova01@ladyoflyme.com if you want to speak more directly.

xoxo,
Christina

6 Comments

Keep Going.

7/14/2020

14 Comments

I can't tell you how often I look around now and think to myself, "thank God I didn't give up, thank God I kept going." Many times it felt downright impossible. Many times I was past the point of exhaustion, and way past the point of countless disappointments. I couldn't take another letdown, another flare, another loss. The pain was too much, the trauma was overwhelming. In those moments the thought of a life lived without level 10 pain seemed as real as a fairytale. It's taken 8 long and arduous years for me to get to this point where I look back on the hell that I endured and feel a sense of gratitude that I survived.

All of this is to say if you're reading this right now and you are in the trenches of darkness, keep going. You might be in the middle of the longest and darkest tunnel without an end in sight. Keep going. You might feel like you've given years of your life to fighting and it can't possibly improve. Keep going. I spent the greater part of 8 years completely bed-bound, often too weak to wash my own hair or even chew food. I thought this disease would surely kill me by slowly sucking the life out of me year by year. I know how never-ending things can feel, and how very real that sensation of despair is. Trust me when I tell you that I wanted a way out many times, and only now am I eternally grateful I didn't get it. You will prevail, you will overcome. Don't let this darkness squash your hope or dim the light on your dreams. Keep taking each step, one by one, no matter how small.

Please hear me... there is a way through. Keep going.

xoxo,
Christina

14 Comments

Why Can Sun Exposure Make You Feel So Terrible?

6/1/2020

10 Comments

If you find yourself feeling drained, feverish, or down-right sick after spending any amount of time in the sun, this post will help shed some light on why that occurs. It's not as easy as saying it's just the heat, because the core issue with sun exposure goes much deeper. While this can happen to anyone, I'm going to be focusing more so on why those with chronic illnesses seem to have trouble with the sun/UV rays.

There are so many "strange" things that come along with chronic illnesses. I say strange, because they are things you wouldn't think apply to the issue at hand, but somehow they do. One of those things is a sensitivity to the sun, or a sun/heat intolerance, which I often see in Lyme patients. I myself have always been someone who loves spending time in the sun, and prior to being diagnosed I had a very tough time at the beach on family vacations. I would spend minimal time in the sun, but every time I did (even if it wasn't even that hot), I had flu-like symptoms hit afterwards. It didn't seem to matter if I spent all my time in the pool never feeling hot at all, the after effects of the sun would be there for the rest of the day irregardless of how I tried to mitigate the heat aspect. This was all prior to being diagnosed, and during a time when I was still able to function relatively normally.

As you can imagine, the sicker I got the lower my tolerance became to the sun. At first I tried to bypass the issue by only getting sun exposure on cool days. But even then the issues arose. I could go outside on a day when it was 55 degrees but the UV index was 8, and even if I spent even 15 minutes outside shivering I would still go inside and develop all the classic flu like symptoms. Basically, this happened devoid of all heat. Heat, or my body overheating, was not the culprit and I knew it. In fact, my hypothesis was further proven when I tried to get my necessary sun exposure via a UV light lamp. I diligently used UV lights, and do you know what happened? Over the course of months I diligently used the UV lights (meant for tanning), and I never got a tan no matter what I did. But the one thing that always happened was the presence of flu-like symptoms.

I started reading about nutritional deficiencies or other things which would prevent someone's skin from tanning. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever experienced in my life, and I knew it tied into my issues with the sun somehow. As the months and years passed I kept pushing myself to try and spend time in the sun because my Vitamin D levels were abysmal. I couldn't raise them with oral supplementation, and it was becoming a big problem in terms of my treatment. I needed optimal Vitamin D levels to have success with the immunotherapy I was doing. So I soldiered through many days of sun exposure, and even with natural sunlight I could still only burn and never tan. And yes, I always felt miserable afterwards.

Well, after years of this madness I finally got some answers! I want to preface this by saying that if you have heat intolerance then just know that this is an entirely different thing. It's also not a sun allergy, so if you have a proper sun allergy then it's also an entirely different thing from that.

So what's happening?

First, let's talk about what cytokines are. If you've been keeping up with the Covid-19 news, you have likely heard of cytokine storms. Many of the sickest Covid-19 patients have high levels of cytokines in their blood, and they tend to massively peak in the evenings, often causing a sudden crash due to a surge of cytokines in what's known as a cytokine storm. Cytokine storms are incredibly dangerous and often fatal. Now, the thing here is that cytokines in and of themselves are good. They are compounds which activate immune cells, and they do good work in small amounts. The trouble arises when they go haywire and start to overproduce. You see this on a smaller scale in autoimmune conditions, where the immune cells are abundant and misfiring so they begin to attack the body. Crohn's is a great example, because in that the immune system becomes over activated and starts to attack the lining of the colon. The same happens with Hashimoto's which attacks the thyroid, and RA which attacks the joints.

Cytokines are great in small doses and where they are needed. But, cytokines also equal inflammation. From WebMD, "A cytokine is a signaling molecule that is secreted from immune cells and certain other cell types that promotes inflammation. Inflammatory cytokines are predominantly produced by T helper cells (Th) and macrophages and involved in the up regulation of inflammatory reactions." Basically, the very mechanism of cytokines comes along with massive inflammation. This is why cytokine storms are so dangerous and can prove to be fatal when they get started. The amount of inflammation that they create is far too much for the body to handle.

Now, going back to the sun. As beautiful as a tan looks it is actually a response to damage being done to the skin. When you go out into the sun your body forms thymine dimers, which damage the DNA in your skin cells. This damage is what can lead to skin cancer if it goes unchecked, but in most cases your body is able to repair the damage itself. When the UV rays hit your skin it triggers cells to create melanocytes to produce melanin. Melanin is the brown pigment which creates the look of a tan, and it is the body's way of protecting the skin from burning/further damage. Basically, the UV rays damage the DNA in your skin cells, therefore your skin is actively making melanin to prevent further damage from occurring.

So, how does the skin repair the damage to the DNA that happened in the first place? It does so by releasing cytokines en masse to start the repair process by telling other cells it's damaged. Basically the cytokines (inflammatory compounds) are released and begin calling on helper cells to come fix the damage that's been done. Now imagine this process happening all over your body which was exposed to the sun. The flood of cytokines is what makes most regular people feel so tired after sun exposure, but for someone with an underlying chronic illness it is much more severe.

You see, on a day to day basis most Lyme patients (and other chronic illness patients) are already dealing with too much inflammation in their body. The mass amounts of inflammation already present on a day to day basis is higher than it should be, and it sets the threshold for extra inflammation quite low. I'll use myself as an example. Although Lyme disease is the main component, it led to several autoimmune conditions as well as mast cell issues. Both of these can come with added inflammation which is a battle to bring down on a daily basis. For myself, and others in a similar situation, it is very easy to set off a cytokine reaction that goes haywire. If I eat a food which I have an intolerance to my body creates so many mast cells and inflammatory agents that I will not only have a stomach ache, but I will also have a migraine and a fever. This is because the inflammatory process in my body has a quick trigger, and a small push can create huge body wide problems. I cover this in length in another post here, but when you already have underlying inflammation issues the threshold to push it over the top is very low. With these patients, when the body calls for cytokines it can't just send a few, it has to send a whole army. It's a bit like barely putting your foot on the gas pedal but being shot out at 100mph.

This is much the same with the sun exposure. The DNA damage calls for cytokines to repair it, but 1. too many cytokines get released at once, and 2. It adds to the burden of inflammation already present, and together this can push it over the edge. And what are some symptoms of body-wide inflammation in the body from too many circulating cytokines? You guessed it, it's pretty similar to how you feel during a flu. Aches, chills, malaise, fatigue, headaches, loss of appetite, fever, etc. In fact, once I learned about this I tried taking Advil (an anti-inflammatory) after sun exposure, and it did actually mitigate the symptoms some.

This is why it's the sun exposure itself, and not the heat, which can cause problems for patients with underlying chronic illnesses. The sun exposure, which in turn creates DNA damage is to blame for the influx of symptoms from UV rays. While it's fair to say that heat intolerance may play a role in some instances and may add to the problems overall, it isn't the main underlying issue if you have problems with the sun specifically.

Some of you may be wondering if I ever figured out why I could only burn (and not tan) from the UV rays. Short answer: not really. It seems like there was some kind of deficiency which was preventing my body from making melanin, and instead I just burned. A burn is simply inflammation, and once the inflammation itself went away I was left with non-tanned skin underneath. As I have gotten better this has improved for me. I tolerate the sun much better now, and I am able to tan. I don't know exactly which specific deficiency caused it, and I wish I knew. But my ability to produce melanin did correlate with how sick I was, so that's pretty interesting to me.

I hope this blog post has been informative to someone out there. I know that being out in the sun is difficult for many patients due to the heat aspect. But sometimes even in the spring or fall time when there isn't as much heat there can still be issues for many people. This should hopefully explain why that's occurring, and bring some clarity surrounding the issue.

xoxo,
Christina

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When Parody Becomes Reality

4/17/2020

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I think I was in the 6th grade when The Truman Show came out, and as an adult I sometimes still stop and ask myself if perhaps I am living in my very own version of the Truman Show. Of course I know that life is often just comical in its timing, but I have my moments where I throw my hands up and yell, "come on!"

We're living in a time where parody is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from reality. If I created a quiz with half made up headlines and half real headlines and asked you to pick out which is which, I bet most of you would fail. And I'll tell you what... I did not imagine that after everything I've survived and fought through that at somehow I would be sitting here in 2020 fearful that a rouge virus from halfway across the world might be my demise. Truly, I find this current turn of events to be utterly baffling. If this blog post seems like I'm writing it while I'm a bit frazzled then good, because I hope my tone is coming through via my words. Even though its been weeks since this new normal has descended onto the world, I have yet to wrap my mind around how nuts it all is. I cycle between feeling 1 of 100 different emotions on a daily basis, but they all circle back around to disbelief.

I think I share my sentiments with many of you who are reading this now. If you have any kind of chronic illness then you've likely lost a lot over the years: time, friendships, jobs, opportunities, etc. You've likely also had to fight through grueling treatments, isolation, and countless sleepless nights battling pain. Lord knows I have been through the depths of hell over the years, and the one thing that always kept me going was hope of a renewed life. Otherwise, why do we do it? We get up each day and face the hardships because we think perhaps this will be the day that things turn around and we can get back pieces of what we lost.

And I'll be honest, I'm the kind of person who always plays through various worst case scenarios in my brain because I like to be prepared. 99.9% of the time the worst case never happens, but at least I feel ready for whatever curveball life might throw my way. Trust me, I have thought about every nightmare situation that could pop up and derail my path to success. I've thought about what life might be like under a million random circumstances. However, the one thing I most certainly did not plan for was a global pandemic with a highly virulent virus that plays Russian Roulette with its victims. When I hear about even healthy robust adults who are dropping like flies (and no one knows why) it sends a chill down my spine. I'm no fan of viruses, but I am significantly less of a fan of unpredictable viruses with no known cure.

I want to bring my sarcasm back around to some seriousness here. For most healthy Americans there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In the coming months the economy will open back up, and life will slowly resume again. But for those of us who are high risk, we are put on pause. Until... until when? Until a vaccine is developed in 2021? But who knows if it will even be safe for those who are much more susceptible to serious side-effects from vaccines. Okay, so then until a treatment is proven to be safe and effective for all, and enough doses are manufactured to be a viable option? And what happens until then, we stay locked in our homes living in fear of touching anything from the outside? Not to mention some people will lose their jobs because they can’t go in to the office safely. The only other option is to risk it and go back out into the world, but then we would quite literally be flipping a coin on our lives. I bet even a year ago a headline describing this very scenario would have been deemed parody, but yet here we are. It's a situation straight out of a poorly written movie script, but we're living it in real time.

If you can't tell, I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated because I can't believe I am in this position where I fought endlessly for the very life I have today, but all of it is hanging in the balance due to a mysterious virus we barely understand. No one can agree upon where it originated from, how it might mutate, how to treat it, do ventilators help or hurt, do certain drugs help or hurt, do genetics play a role, etc, etc ad nauseam.

I'm going to end this by saying that if you feel incredibly frustrated by the lack of answers for those of us with preexisting conditions then you're not alone. The very things most of us need to manage our illnesses such as blood work, scans, tests, nurses, home health, etc. are also the things which put us the most at risk. Walking into a hospital for any of the above or even having a nurse come to our home (after they have been in other patients homes), is terrifying. So many people will go without care, or tests, or answers, and that will stay paused for a length of time that is unknown. Many people will get sicker, have flares, and be left self managing their own care. This will go on until it's unsustainable, and at that point it becomes a high risk game of "do I try to stick it out, or do I go to the hospital and chance it?" Unsurprisingly, neither of those options sound particularly appealing to me.

I know this post has been sassier than usual, but my patience has run clear out. Whatever well I had used prior to sustain my level headed calm has been sucked bone dry, and now I'm just alternating between feeling mad and complete denial. The best part of my day is the first 2 minutes after I wake up when I'm not quite alert enough to remember the pandemic going on. Ahh yes, those sweet sweet 2 minutes of blissful naivety, how I cherish them so.

But let's end on a more hopeful note, shall we? When I'm feeling exceptionally bummed out I like to remind myself that just like this virus took us by surprise and upended all of our lives, it's also possible that it exits the same way. There could be an extremely successful treatment for everyone just around the corner that will stop this nightmare in its tracks. And that my friends is how I manage to sleep at night. I remind myself that in February I was living my day to day life blissfully unaware of what was to come in March or April. And so now I try to live blissfully aware of what might be in the pipeline this summer. Fingers and toes crossed. Until then...

xoxo,
Christina

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This Is What Long Term Birth Control REALLY Does To Your Body..

11/4/2019

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If you read my last update post about my Thyroid issues you probably heard me briefly discuss how I recently got off of my hormonal birth control. I was using the Xulane (previously Ortho Evra) patch for 11 years at the time when I stopped it cold turkey. I was initially put on birth control during the period of time when I was not yet diagnosed with Lyme but I was very symptomatic. I was in college full time and working 20 hours a week and was I having horrible periods that made me miss school and work every single month. I had so much on my plate at that time that I needed a quick fix. I couldn't handle periods from hell on top of everything else I had going on, so I was put on birth control. I first tried oral birth control but my stomach was not having it, so I went with the patch. It helped tremendously and made my quality of life a lot better... at first.

When I started birth control I went into it thinking it would be a short term thing. Breast cancer runs in my family and estrogen based birth control increases that risk big time, so I was very aware of the need for this to be a temporary solution. What I didn't know at that time though was that my health would continue to decline and I would need the stability of birth control long term. That's exactly how I got to the place where 11 years later I was still on the patch. I always had so many chaotic things going on with my health that I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. I wasn't prepared then to go through the transition off of birth control (more on that later), and I definitely wasn't prepared physically to go back to those old torturous periods of years past.

So, what changed? Well, throughout the years I was in my many situations with Doctors who told me that many of my problems wouldn't be able to be fixed until I'm off of birth control. And that's because birth control does so much more to the body than women are led to believe. For starters, a lot of people don't realize that birth control works by tricking your body into thinking it's pregnant. Now imagine that you are on it for years, that's years that your body is stuck thinking it's pregnant. Why is that a problem? Because when the body thinks it is pregnant it uses up and depletes certain minerals, vitamins and nutrients to critical levels. Think about prenatal vitamins and why they are important for women to take during pregnancy. Furthermore, the body is not made to be stuck in a state of false pregnancy, and thats where you run into issues with something called Estrogen Dominance. This happens when the hormonal ratio of Estrogen is off balance in proportion to Progesterone, and it comes with a whole slew of health problems. You already know that birth control comes with the inherent risk of breast cancer due to the large amounts of estrogen it puts into the body; but when it's done long term it can create complete havoc. Not to mention, estrogen is hard to detox from the body and gets stored in fat. So the excess of it doesn't just get magically removed from your body each month. It builds up.

Here's a sampling of symptoms/issues that Estrogen Dominance causes:

Uterine Fibroids
Endometriosis
Allergies
Fatigue
Fibrocystic breasts
Infertility
Irritability
Breast cancer
Uterine cancer
Ovarian cancer
Cervical Dysplasia
Thyroid dysfunction
PMS/PMDD
Ovarian cysts
Autoimmune Disorders
Increased blood clotting
Acceleration of aging

So, as you can see, not a great list. Estrogen Dominance was just one of the issues I was dealing with due to long term birth control. On top of that I had a lot of really troublesome thyroid issues that were unable to be resolved, and I talk more in depth about it here. Tied into that were vitamin deficiencies that I could not fix no matter how much I tried to supplement. I was dangerously low in zinc, ferritin, magnesium and some B-vitamins, and all of those get robbed by birth control. Therefore no matter how much I was trying to replenish my body with those nutrients they got used up instantaneously and I stayed stuck in the red. Ferritin and zinc are also critical nutrients for the thyroid to function properly so it was a vicious cycle. I tried to fix my thyroid in so many other ways, but nothing ever worked and I was being thrown back and forth between Hypothyroid and Hyperthyroid symptoms. It became abundantly obvious that if I didn't get off of birth control I would never be able to properly fix my chronically low Ferritin, Zinc, B-vitamins, magnesium and more. I saw chronically low because these levels have been rock bottom for years.

As if that wasn't enough I also learned a really sobering statistic about birth control while reading a study. It has a high correlation for causing Crohn's disease. You know, the fun disease I was diagnosed with a little over 2 years ago... neat. The study says, "Estrogen based contraceptives have been associated with an increased risk of Crohn's disease since the 1970's." No one knows exactly why contraceptives trigger IBD's but researchers think its due to an out of whack immune system, increased leaky gut, and imbalanced gut bacteria, all of which happen because of birth control. That would have been fantastic information to have had before I was put on birth control, but these are the pieces of information that women aren't being given. Progesterone only birth control does not have the same risk of causing Crohn's disease, nor does it come with the risks of deep vein thrombosis or increased breast cancer. Yet, this was never presented to me as an option. There is a culture of just throwing birth control at women for every single ailment without looking into if its a good fit or what kind of long term problems it can cause.

Circling back to some points I made above, I mentioned that birth control completely wreaks havoc on gut bacteria and leads to leaky gut. On top of that it can also cause SIBO, and chronic Candida problems. That's all because birth control inherently messes with gut bacteria, and gut bacteria not being in check is the root cause of all the other issues listed above. Several studies discuss this, and they have found that for whatever reason hormonal birth control just naturally depletes the good bacteria needed to have balanced homeostasis. This also would have been fantastic information to have before starting birth control considering I have had chronic stomach problems even prior to developing Crohn's disease. Many women battle candida that is persistent and resistant to treatment, or long standing SIBO and leaky gut that won't resolve properly only to later find out it was all tied to their birth control. It's unavoidable that birth control will affect your gut health, and it played a role fro me in years and years of trying and failing to properly solve a lot of my G.I issues.

So, to recap: I was on birth control for 11 years, I had many nutritional deficiencies because of it, I had serious thyroid trouble that was not resolving because of it, it contributed to my long term G.I issues, and I had developed estrogen dominance which was causing a whole host of symptoms and imbalances in my body. Oh, and it may have led to developing Crohn's disease.

What now? Well, most of you would say, "Why don't you just stop it then?" The thing is, I had been trying to come off of my birth control for almost a year before I finally stopped, and I was discussing stopping it at least 2 years before that. The reason I couldn't do it sooner, even when I desperately wanted to, is because stopping long term birth control is a struggle on the body. I don't just mean a minor inconvenience either, I mean it causes full on chaos. If you google "coming off of long term birth control" you will find article after article from otherwise healthy individuals describing what kind of hell they went through. The body suddenly has to fend for itself after having hormones regulated for years on end. This is called "Post Birth Control Syndrome" and it lasts 4-6 months. Here's a sampling of symptoms:

Amenorrhea (loss of menstruation)
Heavy, painful periods
Acne, cystic acne, rosacea
Migraines
Hair loss
Depression
Blood sugar dysregulation
Anxiety
Depression
Mood Swings
Leaky gut
Gut dysbiosis
Inflammation and other immune imbalances
Hair Loss
Nausea & vomiting
Rebound symptoms

If you're wondering, yes, this is a case of "you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't." I'm well aware that those symptoms sound awfully similar to that of Estrogen Dominance. This is exactly why I am writing this blog, because very little information is given to women about what happens to their body when they are given birth control long term. And even less information is given about how hard it can be to then stop. I made the mistake of trying to prepare myself by reading blog posts and articles of what other women went through when they stopped their birth control. I read stories about women who had months of heavy bleeding and cramps that were so bad they missed weeks of work, or migraines that completely put them out of commission. Then in the end many of them couldn't take it any longer and they went back on birth control to make it stop. Mind you, these stories are coming from otherwise healthy women, not women who have an underlying chronic illness.

Because of my chronic illnesses my body already doesn't handle any kind of minor hormonal shifts well at all. My body is so unbelievably sensitive to hormonal changes that in the past if I changed my birth control patch even 12 hours late it would create hormonal problems most people wouldn't feel, but I would get days of migraines, severe nausea, loss of appetite and a mast cell flare up. Any kind of hormonal shift in my body would be so much more intense than a normal healthy person, and therefore I had the fear of God put into me after reading various blog posts.

This is why it took me so long to take the plunge. I needed to be stable enough to handle the 4-6 months of possible chaos that would come. In fact, I first tried a method where every 2-3 months I would cut off a small sliver of my patch in order to slowly wean me off. This was a horrible idea, and I do not recommend it. Every time I cut off a small piece the hormonal changes took me 2-3 months to adjust to, and each time it was awful. Also, once I got to about 60% of my patch being cut off I was creating more problems for myself with breakthrough bleeding, sore breasts, and non stop PMS symptoms. I finally got the courage to stop once and for all, and that was in early July of 2019.

In order to keep this post from being too long I'm going to end this here. In the next post (coming in a few days) I will detail in depth what happened when I stopped birth control cold turkey, and where I'm at now in November 2019. Don't worry it's won't be a terrifying post like the one I read prior. I learned a ton along the way, and I have a lot of tips to share on how to make the transition as smooth as possible.

As a closing thought I want to add that I understand why some women need to stay on birth control long term. Many women have endometriosis or PCOS that makes it imperative. Other women might be like me and are stuck on birth control because they aren't stable enough health wise to come off of it. There is 0 shame in that, and I'm not trying to change anyones mind about birth control in general. I just wanted to share the info that I was never given but wish I had. I want to share my story in case someone else is in the same boat and needs a life raft to safely get off. I've been through it, I understand, and I want to help.

Until next time,
Christina

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Health Update: Let's Talk Thyroid Hormones and Testing

10/11/2019

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This is the first in a series of Health Updates I will be posting. It's been so long since I've done one of these blog posts, and I have a lot to discuss! To be honest a lot has gone on but it was difficult to make sense of because as you'll see many different issues tied into one another. When I was in the midst of it all it felt like I was working on a giant tangled ball of yarn. I kept trying to find the first loose string to pull so I could begin to unravel the problems and fix them one by one. I pulled many of the wrong strings with trial and error before I started to find my way out.

One big long standing issue for me has been my thyroid. Many years ago I had a goiter on my thyroid and was diagnosed with cycling Hashimoto's and Graves Disease. I saw a specialist at the University of Louisville who understood complex cases and I trusted that he would know what to do. It really wasn't until a few years later that I realized this was not the case. I had my thyroid radiated (partially killed off), and was put on Synthroid (T4) but I never felt well on it. I kept telling him that I didn't feel right and he kept telling me I was fine because my lab work said I was fine. I trusted that, and told myself I guess I was wrong. This went on for quite some time until I realized the only lab marker he was drawing on me was the TSH level. He judged everything on that one number, and when it was "in range" he considered that case closed. I was furious when I realized how much had likely been missed, and not long after I fired him as my endocrinologist. As the years went on and I had more mysterious health issues (which I now know were Lyme related), my thyroid problems kind of went on the back burner. I got my levels as close to stable as possible, and even though they weren't perfect I felt like it was 'good enough' considering I had bigger fish to fry.

Fast forward in time, and within this last year my thyroid had come to the forefront yet again. My labs were very bizarre, with markers showing I was both Hypothyroid and Hyperthryoid at the exact same time. For example I had high Free T3 (showing hyperthyroid), yet also high TSH (showing hypothyroid). In fact my Free T3 was consistently elevated no matter what I did. There were other strange anomalies too with the Reverse T3 and T3 uptake. Nothing made sense, and I also felt pretty awful. I had symptoms of hypothyroid as well as symptoms of hyperthyroid, and anytime I tried to go up on my Synthroid I thought my heart might explode. No one could make any sense of it, and I was left in a limbo. Here is a sampling of some of my confusing blood work that I was dealing with.

When you have Hashimoto's or other thyroid conditions there are certain nutrients that are necessary for the thyroid to function properly. These vitamins and minerals play a direct role in converting the T4 to useable T3 and helping the T3 to properly find its way to receptor sites. There are many different thyroid specific nutrients, but two big ones are Ferritin and Zinc. Zinc is connected to thyroid function in more than one way: if low, TSH will not be made and this will result in low levels of thyroid hormones T4 and T3. Zinc is also an essential part of an enzyme deiodinase, which converts T4 into a functional T3. If zinc is low or missing from the body, T3 cannot be made. Also, low zinc levels correlate with the increased levels of autoimmunity, as seen by high amounts of anti-thyroid antibodies (TPO and Tg) in thyroid patients - Boost thyroid. My zinc levels were very low; serum Zinc was 0.49 (range 0.66-1.0), and stayed low despite supplementing it heavily. Nothing seemed to make a dent, and I had chronically low Zinc for years on end, so I knew that was playing a big role. Moving on to Ferritin: low ferritin can cause the T3 to not get into the cells, and raise Reverse T3, can decrease deiodinase activity (slow down conversion of T4 to T3, can affect the first two or three steps of thyroid hormone synthesis by reducing the activity of the thyroid peroxidase enzyme, and can affect the body's ability to break down thyroid hormones for use. My Ferritin level was also very low; 4.9 (range 11-300). I also supplemented Iron orally and transdermally with little to no luck in raising my levels.

This is when I hit a wall. I had spent months trying to fix these deficiencies in hopes that it would resolve the chaos of my thyroid to no avail. Around this time I also started to become sort of intolerant to my Synthroid. When I would take my usual dose I felt awful, so I had to cut back on it. Cutting it back made me more hypothyroid, but it felt like a better alternative than the awful hyperthyroid symptoms I got when taking more Synthroid. Everything was a mess. So, when I got the opportunity to take my case to a world-renowned Endocrinologist I was elated. I felt like someone would finally take my complex case and help make sense of it. Well... that's not quite what happened. His suggestion? Remove my thyroid all together. Yup... ill spare you my thoughts on his suggestion.

So here I was, feeling pretty hopeless and lost. I got to searching far and wide for another Endocrinologist, and I knew I needed an Integrative physician who would take a look at me as whole and help me understand what to do. Finally I found one, and she helped me make sense of all of my chaotic lab work. She said that I did not have a conversion issue, meaning that the T4 is properly converting to T3, however the T3 is unable to get into my cells which is why I have such high Free T3 levels. If you recall, low Ferritin levels can create this very problem, however I couldn't raise those levels, so we tried another approach. Dr. E wanted to switch me off of Synthroid and so first I tried a desiccated thyroid, but I had an allergic reaction to that. Next we tried a pure compounded T4 and that did not agree with my body what so ever (heart palpitations, racing heart, sweats). Then we decided to go back to Synthroid and try introducing pure T3 little by little. It took a few weeks to find the right formulation of T3, but once we found it I started taking a low dose twice a day. I know it seems counter intuitive that if I have high Free T3 in circulation already, why would I want more T3 right? I asked this same question and Dr. E said that similar patients responded well to pure T3 in this form better than the T3 that had to be converted from Synthroid. So, I gave it a shot. At first it went okay, but was never able to raise my dose up to anything that would be useful, because every time I tried I would have more strange symptoms and heart trouble. I would later learn that patients with low Ferritin do not tolerate T3 only medications, and that seemed to be my problem. After a solid 5 months working with Dr. E and trying many variations of things (many I didn't even list here), we were no closer to a solution. In the mean time I was feeling worse and worse, with a TSH level so high it wasn't even able to be measured by the in house lab.

Around this time you might be wondering why I have such stubbornly low Ferritin and Zinc. I was wondering the same thing. Where was all my Ferritin and Zinc going? How is my body using it up so quickly that I was always depleted? I had many other nutritional deficiencies with this same problem, and I didn't seem to have an answer for a long time. That is, until I learned that birth control chronically robs the body of both Ferritin and Zinc. And well, I had been on birth control for the last 11 years. I suddenly started learning about all the awful things birth control does to the body, including robbing it of B-vitamins and clogging up receptor sites on cells so that the needed T3 can't attach to them. When we sat down and mapped out all the areas that my body was struggling, birth control was the culprit in pretty much every single place. I was put on the patch (Zulane), which is a much higher dose birth control, in 2007. At the time I was given it because my periods were atrocious. I was missing work and school while in college, and I couldn't function for a week every month. I had a lot of other health problems going on too, and being put on birth control was an easy fix. It took one trouble off the table so that at least I didn't have to worry about chaotic periods. After that I just stayed on it because later on I was too sick to stop and risk going back to those horrific periods. I liked that my hormones were consistently balanced, and I didn't think too much about it.

I will have an entire separate post talking about going off of Birth control after 11 years, how that went, what it did to my body, etc. But for now, I'll just tell you that this year I finally took the plunge and stopped cold turkey. I was dreading it, because if you read about people stopping birth control after long periods of time the stories you'll find are not very uplifting. It is a rough road while the body adjusts, and its rough even for people who are otherwise totally healthy. Knowing that I had so many other things going on with my body and that it could be a complete nightmare totally freaked me out. But it freaked me out more to stay on it after I knew all the chaos it was causing in my body.

Since stopping the birth control a lot has changed, and I'll go over all my test results in detail below. Physically the edema and puffiness I've had around my face for years is slowly disappearing, my skin is less chronically dry, and I can feel the deep painful fatigue lifting a bit. I'm sure as time goes on I will notice other details that were all linked to this hormonal mess improve as well.

I share my story so in depth because what happened to me is not uncommon in the world of chronic illness. When you have a chronic illness of any kind it puts a huge strain on the body. The stress can often wear down the adrenal glands and many people don't even realize that their thyroid is taking a beating as well. Low thyroid levels can cause a laundry list of symptoms and make it much tougher for the body to recover or bounce back from day to day stress. And that's not to mention that Hashimoto's cases are on the rise as well. It is so important to check-in on your thyroid health, because truthfully a lot of Doctor's don't think to do so. I can personally attest to this, as my thyroid health was often pushed to the side and deemed as 'not super important' when in reality it was incredibly important. You have no idea just how much work the thyroid does until you realize that every single part of the body requires thyroid hormones to function.

Thyroid Testing... What's Changed?

One of the most frustrating things about thyroid problems is that it requires a ton of lab work and a ton of blood draws. When I was first diagnosed with Hashimoto's and we were trying to find the right dose of Synthroid I had to get my blood drawn every other week. Then it changed to monthly, then bi-monthly. But I have never gone longer than that in between testing. This last year with all the hoopla going on I had to get even more frequent testing. It's really important to see the changes happening with thyroid levels and to monitor it over time. Having it charted is also very useful, and can help provide a clearer picture. Furthermore, if you are changing things up (new meds, new dose, new supplements etc), its even more crucial to keep an eye on what that is doing to the thyroid markers. Even though its necessary my veins do not love it.

I recently learned about a company called Paloma Health who specializes in all things thyroid, and they offer at home thryoid testing via a finger prick. I was obviously very intrigued right off the bat, because the thought of not having to go through all the work of getting blood drawn was music to my ears. Furthermore I thought it would be useful for others who read my blog that might be in the same boat. So I decided to test it out for myself and document it all in case anyone else is interested. The kit tests TSH, Free T4, Free T4, and TPO antibodies (to check for Hashimoto's). They also offer a Doctor consultation via video for $9 more, so if you want to have a board-certified Doctor on board to review your results, create a custom treatment plan, ask questions to, and prescribe you medication they can do all of that! Thats what, in my opinion, really sets them apart. It's all very impressive, and at a $90 price point it's also incredibly affordable. I easily pay that much (even with insurance), each time I get my blood drawn at the lab. Furthermore, you can also still turn this into your insurance for reimbursement, and it is HSA/FSA eligible. All of the labs who handle the testing for Paloma are CLIA-certified and accredited or enrolled with the College of American Pathologists. Their results have been thoroughly tested to have >95-99% correlation, so this is a company you can trust for accuracy. Those were all really important details to me, so I also wanted to make sure and highlight it. You can get a kit in 46 states (NY, NJ, Maryland, & Rhode Island aren't included due to state laws).

I asked Paloma for a coupon code to share with you all and they gave me one for 50% off - ladyoflyme4paloma (case sensitive). I don't get anything if you use that code, meaning I don't make any money, it's not an affiliate code, I don't get money off my own kits etc. It's purely a 50% off code given generously by Paloma Health for you or anyone you know if you decide to try it out.

The kit arrived on a Thursday and I did my test that same day. I opened up the box, and everything I needed was inside. It came with two finger lancets, gauze, bandaids, alcohol wipes, instructions, and the test pad. The process was incredibly simple and took me a total of 5 minutes. I pricked my finger and collected blood inside the 5 circles on the white pad. After that I popped it in the pre-paid envelope and sent it off the next day. I thought back to all the times I sat in a phlebotomy room getting stuck 5-6 times while they tried to find a vein, all to test these exact same markers. And boy oh boy did I wish Paloma Health existed back then because wow. The ease of it honestly already had me sold. My results were back exactly one week from the time I sent it off, and I sent it off on a Friday. It probably would have been even quicker if I didn't ship it on a weekend, but that is still an incredibly fast turn around time. My results are below.

As you can see my TSH, Free T3, Free T4 have all normalized since being off of my birth control for quite a few months, which is consistent with my past lab work. The only thing that hasn't improved is my TPO, which is pretty elevated. My autoimmune conditions have been on the fritz lately, and that includes the Hashimoto's. I love that their dashboard explains your results, what they mean, and how it affects body etc. That is incredibly helpful, since most standard lab results only give you a number and call it a day. Since Paloma has board-certified physicians who order and review each test I received a phone call the next day to discuss my elevated TPO. This was a really nice unexpected touch, and it was a much more personal experience than I've ever had from thyroid testing before. I could tell that they really cared and wanted to offer help or guidance. They are more than just a basic at home testing company, they really are an end-to-end online medical practice with specialized thyroid doctors and nutritionists on board to assist every step of the way. They even have a nutritionist who can help you manage your thyroid health via diet and lifestyle changes. I wish they existed back when I was diagnosed and had some pretty awful experiences with Endocrinologists, but I'm glad I found them now!

I actually had some lab work done yesterday (checking other things), and I requested that my thyroid markers be checked as well for the purpose of this post. I wanted to show you all how they match up for anyone who might be curious.

That's all for Part 1 of this Health Update, I will have the next parts in the coming weeks. I can safely say that for the first time I feel like I'm headed in the right direction with my thyroid, and it's been such a huge relief. My next steps will be working on lowering that TPO (Thyroperoxidase) number, because it's just recently became an issue for me after years of it staying in the normal range. I'll keep this blog posted on how things change with that as well!

If you want to read Part 2 of my update on hormones, continue reading here

xoxo,
Christina

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I'll Be There For Youuuuuu ...

9/26/2019

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Hello all! I have quite a few comprehensive blog posts in the pipeline, but for now I wanted to pop on here quickly to share this new shirt design! This is definitely a niche design and will only make sense if you've watched the show 'Friends', but it came to me one day while watching the show and I knew it had to be made. The text I used on the shirt is the classic 'Friends' font, and the text beneath it is stylized the way that each episode of 'Friends' is stylized. Each episode of the show begins with "The One..." and so I used that to put my own spin on it to say, "The One Where We Find A Cure." I thought it was cute, so here it is! If you are a fellow lover of this 90's comedy and want to purchase this tee, it is available on Amazon Prime in short sleeve and long sleeve both (for Men, Women & Children)!

As always, you know the drill, 100% of these proceeds benefit the LymeLight Foundation and their incredible work!

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Detox Guide: ALL The Best Detox Methods Ranked (Most Gentle to Least Gentle)

7/25/2019

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Detox Guide: ALL The Best Detox Methods Ranked (Most Gentle to Least Gentle)

There's one thing that goes hand in hand with Lyme Disease, and that's Detox. Detoxing while you are treating Lyme Disease is crucial, and it's necessary if you are in any stage of treatment.

For those of you who might be new to Lyme, let me explain a bit more. Lyme Disease is caused by the Borrelia Burgdorferi bacteria, which is a corkscrew shaped bacteria that has a habit of burrowing its way deep into the tissues of the body. When you begin to kill this bacteria with antibiotics of any sort it releases toxins as it dies. This is a strange analogy, but if you've ever encountered a stink bug you'll know that when you kill them they release an awful odor. This bacteria is much the same, but when it dies it releases a cloud of toxins into the blood stream and surrounding tissues. Your liver, kidney & lymphatic system work really hard to get these toxins out of your system, but there is often an overload of toxins which can't be cleared fast enough on its own. So what ends up happening is that these toxins build up, stick around in your body, and start to cause some pretty terrible symptoms. This is called a herxheimer reaction, and it typically feels like an extreme flare up of your symptoms or like you have a really really terrible flu. Herxheimers have landed people in the ER, and can get very severe, so detoxing is of the utmost importance.

A herxheimer is normal and par for the course of Lyme Disease treatment, because no matter how careful you are the bacteria inevitably release more toxins than your body can naturally clear. It's one of the unavoidable parts of Lyme treatment, but in a way it's good because you know that your treatment is working. Pretty much every Doctor who treats this disease tells their patients, "it will get worse before it gets better," and that can't possible be more true.

I am often asked for suggestions on detox methods: which ones are the best, which ones are the most gentle, and which ones are my favorite. So today I thought I would do a round-up of the best detox methods I have found, along with step by step info on how to use them all. Through the course of my Lyme journey I have used a ton of methods, and I've pretty much tried it all.

I'm going to group these methods into categories, and also give it a rating from Low-High on how gentle it is. Some methods are very gentle and others are more hardcore (for more intense detox). Every body is different, and at my most fragile I only tolerated very gentle detox methods. So, you know your body best and will be able to pick which feels right for you.

Burbur Detox - Very Gentle

Burbur is hands down my absolute favorite go-to detox method, and it's one I have used for years on end. I have a whole blog post about it, but for now I will summarize its method of action. Burbur is an herbal plant extract which has a unique ability to help drain the liver, kidneys and lymphatic system. The liver helps you detox by dumping out bile which contains toxins; the kidneys help flush out toxins via urine, and the lymphatic system is your system of lymph nodes whose primary job is to rid the body of waste. When you take burbur it very gently initiates each of these systems to start up and begin to work. You can feel the positive effects of burbur quite quickly, usually within 30-60 mins (sometimes less). Burbur comes in a tincture, and the instructions for use are to take approx 8-10 drops and place it into about 4oz of water. Slowly sip this over the course of 15 mins. You may do one cup every 15 minutes until you feel better. Burbur works very quickly for me, is gentle to use on an empty stomach at any time, and has always consistently provided me with relief. I can't live without it. Some people like to use Burbur along with Pinella, which is a brain/nerve detox. I use Pinella on occasion, but it can be a bit more harsh so it's not recommended if you're in a really fragile state. NutraMedix sells Pinella on its own, or in a pre-mixed Burbur/Pinella combo.

Epsom Salt Bath - Very Gentle

Epsom salt baths can be done two ways: either in a proper bath, or via foot bath. I have pretty much exclusively done foot baths due to the fact that I have heat intolerance, so a full on bath leaves me feeling pretty crummy. You get the same benefits both ways, so it's just a personal preference. Many people find a whole bath soothing because epsom salt also soothes sore muscles, but if you are intolerant to heat, don't own a bathtub, OR just want an easier method then a foot bath works the same (and uses less epsom salt). Epsom salt is essentially just magnesium flakes, but it works by stimulating the liver to dump bile. Epsom salt comes in two forms: Magnesium sulfate & magnesium chloride. Many with Lyme disease (and other chronic illnesses) have a MTHFR mutation which doesn't do well with sulfates. Therefore I always recommend using magnesium chloride flakes, which is also more pure. The method for Epsom salt baths (and the trick to it), is to add a few cups into water + add in some baking soda as well. The two react to each other and will fizz up at first then completely dissolve. What is most important though is that you use enough magnesium to your water ratio, or else it won't get into your system. The way this works is essentially via osmosis, and you need a high enough magnesium ratio in the water to create a "pressure" so to speak that pushes its way in through your skin. This is why I prefer foot baths, because they require less magnesium. If you do a full bath you will need to use much more. When doing a foot bath I do 2 cups of magnesium flakes with a sprinkle of baking soda. You will need to do the bath for about 20 minutes to get the full effect, and I generally find it very relaxing. I used to put the foot bath up on my bed and lie in bed with my feet in it. So even if you are bed-bound it's a really easy and gentle way to help your body detox.

Lemon Essential Oil/Lemon Juice - Very Gentle

Lemon and lemon essential oil have long been used to help detox, especially to help rid people of "water weight." Lemon juice works by stimulating the kidneys to work faster and therefore it helps detox via that method. This is an alternative to burbur if you don't have any on hand, but in my experience isn't great on an empty stomach (it's quite acidic). Lemon essential oil however is not acidic, rather it is alkaline, so can be used at any time, even on an empty stomach. Lemon EO works to stimulate the liver and kidneys both, and is best used by adding 1-2 drops to a glass water bottle and drinking it throughout the day. You do not need a lot of the essential oil because it is already incredibly concentrated. You must put it into a glass water bottle (not plastic), because the oil can corrode plastic and you don't want to be ingesting any of the plastic byproducts. Water and oil do tend to separate by nature, so you need to remember to shake up your bottle each time before you drink. Since you already have to drink water throughout the day, adding a drop or two of lemon EO helps make it taste better and as a bonus it will help your liver and kidneys detox as well. It's gentle, it's easy to do, and it isn't harsh by any means. Tip: Get a high quality essential oil that is food grade, NOT simply aromatic grade. Food grade means that it can be safely ingested. I recommend young living brand as I've been using it for years, and a 15ml bottle will give you about 250 drops.

Dry Skin Brushing - Very Gentle

When you aren't able to get a full lymphatic massage, dry skin brushing is the next best thing. It is, as it's name implies, the act of gently brushing your skin while dry. But, there is a specific method to it. Your lymphatic system is the main waste removal system inside of your body, and you can feel your lymph nodes swell up when it is having a hard time moving properly. Even if you don't feel enlarged lymph nodes it's incredibly helpful to get the lymphatic system moving because it can get sluggish easily when it's working around the clock. Dry skin brushing is very easy, all you need is a dry skin brush (which is very affordable), which is made of special bristles that gentle exfoliate and drag the skin. The trick to dry skin brushing is that you need to brush in the direction of the lymphatic system. An easy way to remember is to brush everything towards the heart. You will want to go the correct direction, or else it won't work (and might leave you feeling worse). I attached a graphic above that is helpful to reference, but once you do it a few times you will get the hang of it. Dry skin brushing is incredibly gentle and gets your lymphatic system moving quite rapidly. Make sure that you drink a lot of water after brushing in order to help your body flush out all the toxins that get mobilized.

Charcoal Poultice - Very Gentle

I first discovered charcoal poultice's a few years ago during a time when I was very ill and having lots of issues with my pancreas and liver. I wrote a full blog post here if you'd like to read more in depth. But for the purpose of this post I will just explain how it works & what you need to do. A poultice is by definition: a soft, moist mass of material, typically of plant material, applied as a hot medicament to the body and kept in place with a cloth. The purpose of a poultice is to draw things out from the skin, and is often used in areas of inflammation. Imagine it like a charcoal patch that sits over the liver or pancreas. Activated charcoal is a very powerful binder, they use it in ER's for people who have alcohol poisoning or have ingested some form of poison because it binds onto toxins and safely removes it from the body. For the purpose of this poultice it will be used on the outside of the body, because it has those same properties when it is driven into the skin with heat. Doctors use charcoal poultices over the liver to lower liver enzymes from an over burdened liver, or over a pancreas for an over worked pancreas. Both of these organs can really struggle during a herxheimer, and some people find themselves with high liver enzymes in the hospital if they aren't careful. I was in a similar situation when I discovered the poultice, and it's ability to pull toxins out and bring relief. I know it seems a little out there and far fetched, but you have to trust me on this. When you've tried everything else and your organs hurt, and you hurt, you will attempt anything. That's how I was, I was desperate when I tried this, and much to my sheer surprised it worked so well. My low grade pancreatitis resolved, my liver pain resolved, and I felt like my body had a huge toxic burden removed.
How to do it: You will need pure activated charcoal powder for this, and its crucial that it is pure powder without any fillers. Then you take about 1-3 tbsp charcoal powder and mix it in a small bowl with some water (go teaspoon by teaspoon), until you create a paste. You want it to be thin enough to spread, but still thick enough to stay in place where you put it on your skin. You have two options to application: either put it directly on the skin, or take a cheesecloth material and put it on your skin, and place the paste on top. I will warn you that the paste does stain the skin temporarily, but putting it directly on the skin is stronger than via the cheesecloth. The cheesecloth however is an easier clean up, so it's up to you. I always did it via cheesecloth, and I still got a great result. Then over top of the paste you will place a wet warm paper towel (enough to cover the area), then a piece of Saran Wrap to seal in the moist heat, and finally place a heating pad on top of all of that to keep it warm and drive it into the skin. Lie like this for 20-30 mins and then remove. It's as easy as that! This can be done 2x daily and is incredibly gentle yet very powerful. It will pull the toxins out and unburden your liver/pancreas.

Activated Charcoal & PectaSol - Gentle

Activated Charcoal is most commonly taken orally in a chewable tablet, pill, or powder mixed with water. Activated charcoal is a powerful binder which works by latching onto toxins and holding onto them until they make their way out of the body. This is an important step, because when the liver or lymphatic system dumps bile with toxins in it and you don't flush them out of your body quickly enough then much of it can get reabsorbed. Using a binder such as charcoal helps prevent the toxins from reabsorbing while they are on their way out. There are many different binders out there, and out of all of them Activated Charcoal is the most gentle. For starters it won't give you too powerful or quick of a detox to where it will make you sick or overburden the body more. It is not that strong in comparison to other binders, but I still marked it just as "gentle" because for some people who are in an extremely fragile state even that can be too much. In my experience I haven't ever not tolerated charcoal, but others have so it is important to note. Since charcoal is one of the most gentle binders you need to take a few tablets to get full effects. It can easily be taken on an empty stomach and won't cause any upset. Like many other binders it can cause constipation, so you want to drink plenty of water with it. I recommend at least 8oz of water per tablet you take. Another comparable binder to charcoal is pectin, which is derived from citrus fruits and also helps latch onto toxins and shuttle them out. Pectin is pretty mild in strength as well, but it can cause some stomach upset in sensitive individuals if taken on too empty of a stomach. Pectasol is a really popular brand of Modified Pectin (not just any form of pectin will work), but it's a bit pricey in comparison. You will have to find which works best for you.

Molybdenum - Gentle

There are many different toxins created in the body during a die-off or herxheimer reaction. A common one with Candida die-off and often with Lyme also a neurotoxin called acetaldehyde. This toxin accumulates in the brain, spinal cord, muscles, tissues and is difficult for the body to properly detox out. Therefore it leads to a whole host of unpleasant symptoms such as: rashes, muscle pain, joint pain, weakness, fatigue, brain fog, migraines, depression, memory loss, nausea, and the list goes on and on. This neurotoxin in particular can make you feel really crummy, and it's molybdenum (a trace mineral) which is required by the body to make several important enzymes that allow your liver to neutralize and eliminate acetaldehyde. You do take in some molybdenum from food, and some multivitamins contains it as well. However, during a die-off your body will use that up quickly, and supplementing it becomes crucial. The best form of molybdenum to use is Glycinate Chelate. There are many molybdenum products on the market, and I have tried a few, but by far the best is made by Seeking Health (Optimal Molybdenum Drops). The reason for this is that it's very concentrated, and you need such a small amount to get benefits. One single DROP contains 25mcg which is 56% of your DV. During a herx the recommended dose is 100-300mcg. It's very easy to reach that with 4-12 drops under the tongue. Other varieties of molybdenum require you to dilute it in water and you need to drink a higher overall volume. I rated this as 'Gentle' because the right brand is very gentle, but some others I tried were harsh on my stomach and not tolerated what so ever on an empty stomach. Thats why I prefer this sublingual variety because it goes around the stomach. Also, some people have reported having too fast of a detox from it, but to that I say they likely took too much. Start with 2 drops (the daily value) and see how you feel, then slowly increase. Taking a big dose all at once isn't wise with any supplement until you know how it works with your body. I found the Seeking Health variety to be very well tolerated.

Milk Thistle - Gentle

Milk Thistle might have a funny name, but it's actually a plant from which a powerful herb is derived. The active ingredient in Milk Thistle, silymarin, is the star player here and what performs the difficult task of detoxing the liver. Dr. Axe explains it as, "Milk thistle benefits work by drawing toxins out of the body and protecting the liver from damage. Silymarin, which is a flavonoid derived from the milk thistle plant, has been used in traditional medicine as a natural remedy for diseases of the liver because of its potent antioxidant activity." Studies have also shown that there is an improvement in overall liver function and inflammation when people with liver disease take Milk Thistle. The compound silymarin helps to clear free radicals, lower inflammation in the liver, and in turn helps the liver to regenerate.

How much should you take? If you want to do a more powerful liver detox then 150 milligrams one to three times a day is good. But for ongoing liver support, a dose between 50-150mg daily is best. You know your body best, so adjust it based on how you feel. I recommend a lower dose liquid supplement so you can adjust it easily as needed. I also love a good Milk Thistle tea, this works just as well as a capsule supplement.

Lymphatic Massage - Medium

For starters, lets discuss what the lymphatic system is. The lymphatic system is a network of tissues and organs that help rid the body of toxins, waste and other unwanted materials. The primary function of the lymphatic system is to transport lymph, a fluid containing infection-fighting white blood cells, throughout the body. The vessels are connected to lymph nodes, where the lymph is filtered. In summary the lymph system picks up fluids and waste products from the spaces between the cells and then filters and cleans them. As you can see the lymphatic system plays a huge role in detoxing the body. When the lymph system gets backed up and sluggish its unable to do its job properly. Herbs like burbur help to drain and move the lymph fluid, but a stronger cleanse can be accomplished by a lymphatic massage.

A lymphatic massage is like a regular massage, except it is altered to be more gentle and surface level. The massage therapist will also massage in a way that moves the lymph fluid up towards the heart in the way it typically flows. This means they will work up the legs, up the arms, up the stomach and down the chest. You need to make sure that your massage therapist knows what they are doing and specialize in lymphatic massage, because someone who is uneducated in it could make things worst by using too much force. I ranked this as 'Medium' because you have to make sure you are very hydrated before hand and then stay very hydrated afterwards too so that your body can flush out the toxins that have now been mobilized. If you don't do this you may end up feeling worse. There are also some people that feel like they flare up for the first 24 hours and then get much better afterwards. Everybody is different, and you do need to be careful and start slow. I received lymphatic massages from 2 different massage therapists, and one did an amazing job that helped me while the other just made me feel worse. Sometimes it requires trial and error.

Bentonite Clay & Cholestyramine - Medium

These two are both binders (like Charcoal and Pecta-Sol), but they're a little bit stronger. If taken too much or too fast they can cause a toxin dump that only flares up symptoms, so I put them into the Medium Category.
Bentonite is a light grey colored clay that consists of volcanic ash called "Montmorillonite." Because of this it contains a high amount of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, sodium, and potassium. On top of that it has the ability to absorb and remove toxins, heavy metals and impurities from the body. It comes in two forms: 1. A powder you need to mix into 8-16oz of water and drink 2. A pre-mixed ready to take liquid that you mix a tablespoon of into about 4oz of water. It comes down to preference, but they both do a great job. This is a stronger detox than charcoal, but not too strong. Just make sure you are drinking plenty of water with it and start slow. When you start to latch on to toxins its a careful balance, because if you do it too quickly your body will dump more toxins out of the tissues and into your blood stream to fill it back up. This can quickly get out of hand, so I recommend starting at about 1/4 of the dose on the bottle and working up.

Cholestyramine is a prescription powder that was originally created for those with high cholesterol. They soon realized it was also really helpful for patients after gallbladder removal by soaking up the extra bile that may irritate the stomach. During this process they noticed that it did a fantastic job of absorbing bile and holding onto all the toxins in it until its excreted. I would say Cholestyramine is the strongest binder of them all, and my favorite too. I wrote a whole post about how it works HERE. Cholestyramine is very useful for mold illness too, as it holds onto mold toxins and helps flush them out of the system better than any other binder. It is a prescription, and typically comes in packets from the pharmacy. However the trouble with those is that they contain a lot of sugar and fillers that often make patients detoxing feel worse off. It is recommended to obtain Cholestyramine only from a compounding pharmacy where it is pure and without any filler. This is what I have done, and its allowed me to use smaller amounts and achieve the same results. It's crucial to start slow with Cholestyramine because it's strong at first, but once it gets working it works amazingly well.

Coffee Enema - Medium

I gotta say, this detox method was by far the hardest for me to understand. I have of course heard of colonics and I always had mixed feelings about it because they really mess with the colon flora, the mucus lining, and electrolyte balance. I think at first I assumed that coffee enemas might also bring a similar danger, but I finally came around to doing some research and learning more about how it works. I do want to mention that if you have an IBD then this method can be a little dicey, and I don't know that I would recommend it. But that is of course a personal decision.
If you are sensitive to caffeine you might have a thought to simply use decaf coffee instead, but it won't work. Oddly enough the caffeine portion is exactly what's needed to make the whole process work. However, the coffee used for enemas isn't the same as what you would get at Starbucks. It's completely different, relies on high amounts of cafestol & palmitic acid (to open the bile ducts) and is balanced in a way that the caffeine content is just right. As always though, if you have a heart condition and are sensitive to caffeine then proceed with caution.

So, now do coffee enemas work? When you fill an enema up with coffee and start to let it flow the hemorrhoid veins absorb the caffeine. From there it goes up (very quickly) to the portal vein which carries it right up to the liver and gallbladder. Once the liver receives the caffeine and palmitic acids it immediately reacts because the caffeine is an irritant to the liver. This makes the liver open its bile ducts and start dumping bile out quickly. Since toxins are stored in the liver this process of draining the bile from the liver dumps all of it out into the stomach so it can be shuttled out of the body. For best practice drinking a binder after a coffee enema will help soak the toxins up so that they cannot be reabsorbed while its making its way through the intestines. Also, many people ask if you can just drink coffee instead and get the same results and the answer is no. It must be given via an enema because there is a direct portal to the liver and it's the only way this process works. It's also a quick process, taking less than about 20 minutes. If it's your first time I recommend a Coffee Enema Kit that will have everything you need, and also Enema Coffee which is balanced and made only for enemas. I marked this as 'Medium' because it mobilizes a lot of toxins all at once, and you have to be ready for that.

Zeolite - Medium

Zeolite is a volcanic mineral, high in silica and alumina tetrahedra. What makes it a go to for detoxification is its honeycomb-like crystalline structure that traps toxins in the body. Think of Zeolite as being a molecule with many chambers inside of it. These chambers hold a negative charge, which attracts positively charged toxins as it travels through your body. You could say its a bit like a toxin magnet. The crucial aspect of Zeolite though is that you buy one which is properly cleansed. As it comes from volcanic substances, not all of the supplements are completely pure. You need pure Zeolite in order to ensure its safety. I ranked this as 'Medium' because it has also been shown to activate the immune system, which is someone in a very fragile state could lead to even more herxing. It should be used with caution and started slowly to see how the body adapts.
I prefer to use the Zeolite spray because I trust that it is pure and the nano particles absorb very well, but many people prefer a powder form that they mix themselves.

Castor Oil Pack - Medium

When you hear about Castor Oil your mind might immediately go to Ricin (a poison) and wonder how on earth this is safe. I want to reassure you that you will be using this externally on the skin, not internally. But even if it is used internally it's considered safe by the FDA up to 1 Tablespoon a day. Ricin is found in castor oil, but in very low concentrations. Pure ricin that can be a poison is extracted from the beans and put into its own pure concentration. So, no worries, you will be safe! However, as a warning you should never use this method if you are pregnant.
Next up lets discuss how this oil is used, and then I will explain the logistics of why it works. Castor Oil packs are made by taking a piece of wool cloth and coating it in castor oil. This is then placed on the abdomen (usually directly over the liver), covered with a piece of Saran Wrap, and then topped with a heating pad to drive the oil into the skin. You lie like this for about an hour to let it work and then clean it off of your skin. It's a relatively easy process, but its also a messy process. Castor oil is sticky and will stain clothes so you need to use towels underneath you and wear old clothes. The good news however is that you can re-use the castor oil pack over and over by storing it in a sealed glass container without needing to add more oil to it.
So, how does it work? When the castor oil is applied topically over the abdomen it is absorbed through the skin into the tissues. With the use of the heat it helps drive the oil even deeper so it's able to increase lymphocyte production and increase the circulation of the lymphatic system. Using it over the liver also stimulates the liver the dump bile, so you get a two in one benefit that way. I marked this as 'Medium' because it can also cause a quick detox, and if you are in a very fragile state it might be a bit too much for your body. It's not harsh by any means, but it's somewhere in the middle of the intensity scale.
Castor Oil packs come in a really handy kit that has everything you need in one place, which makes it very convenient. This is what I have and I like it because I also trust the purity of this brand to be very clean. Alternately you can also buy the items separately and make your own kit if you'd like, but the kit is pretty inexpensive. Just remember to use old towels and clothes when you do decide to do it!

Ionic Foot Bath - High Intensity

An ionic foot bath is created by using a machine with conductive arrays and placing that array into a tub of water which has sea salt in it. A patient puts their feet into the water and the machine in turned on. A direct current goes through one end of the array, through the salt water, and comes out the other end. This current creates positive and negative ions which do two things: 1. help to pull (like a magnet) the toxins out through the skin 2. latch on to cells as the current travels through the body to pull toxins out of them. During this process the water changes colors, and some people say that is direct proof of the toxins that are being pulled out. This has been disputed, but if you look past that and look at some science based results then you can see it definitely works. If you have heavy metals for instance, it does a fantastic job of detoxing the body of them. Tests have shown that by measuring patients heavy metals prior to an ionic foot bath and then testing it a few days after, they see that there is a huge dump of heavy metals in their urine after the foot bath. No one is exactly sure how this mechanism works on a cellular level, although it is hypothesized that the charged ions coax the heavy metals out of the tissues. Either way, it certainly works for many people and brings them great relief.
I rated this as 'High Intensity' you can actually feel a small shock when the machine turns on, because its sending an actual current through the body. Just like the salt water is needed for conduction with the array, our bodies are also largely made out of water and electrolytes. This provides the perfect atmosphere for the currents to travel through. I would not recommend this to someone who is very sensitive or ill. There are also some warnings about pacemakers and the such which would make you unable to use the machine.

Many clinics have foot baths which you can pay for by the session. These are typically the higher end machines. There are also some modest priced models out there which you can purchase for at home use. If you want to do these often then owning one will be a better value. A warning through, if you buy a very cheap or inexpensive unit there are risk that it might make you feel worse off. That's because the difference between a $100 model and a $1500 model are the frequencies which are produced. The right frequency should put your body into a parasympathetic state of relaxation and detoxification. The cheaper models though are no better than a 9-volt battery with some copper wires, as they often produce a frequency that stresses the body, puts it into fight or flight mode, and only shuts down detoxification. So always read reviews and be choosy with which machine you use.

Infrared Sauna - High Intensity

I will begin by saying that infrared sauna's are not for everyone. Some chronically ill patients are so sick that they can't sweat (it's more common than you think). If you are someone who can't sweat or has trouble sweating, do not try this. On the flip side, you might think that a condition like POTS would be badly triggered by the heat, but its actually a very dry heat vs a humid heat so I found it to be much more tolerable. In fact, it someone doesn't even feel nearly as hot as it is. That being said, if you have heat sensitivity approach this with caution.
Infrared Sauna's work simply by creating a kind of infrared ray that heats your body up by penetrating very deep. This deep penetrating heat goes into your tissues and gets them to dump their toxins into the blood stream. Also, as you sweat you are releasing all the toxins currently circulating in your body as well. This is a very effective detox method, but it is definitely 'High Intensity.' For starters, since it heats up your entire body it will dump toxins from your entire body out too. You need to be ready and prepared for this by staying very hydrated and making use of binders. However, if you are new to detoxing then I do not recommend this at all. You need to go slow, because a sudden dump can make you feel awful. If you tolerate an infrared sauna though then it can be a real miracle worker, and most people report feeling better about 24 hours after a session (once the toxins have cleared).
You have a few options to accessing an infrared sauna. Some gyms and spa's offer them in packages, so you can do that if you have a location nearby. You can also buy your own infrared sauna for your home because they come in two sizes: 1. Wooden Units 2. Portable Units. I had enough room in my home for a stationary wooden unit (this is the one I got), but the portable ones work just as well and do cost less. Some people prefer the portable units actually because your head is left out and they can tolerate the heat better if their head stays cool. It's all about personal preference!

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All About Hydration - What you DON'T Know About Electrolytes & Why There Is A Better Alternative!

6/19/2019

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If you have Lyme, POTS, an IBD, or really any chronic illness where you struggle with staying properly hydrated, please read this post! I have known I had POTS since way before I ever knew I had Lyme, and yet somehow this vital piece of information was something I just learned. As someone who researches so obsessively about everything (especially my medical conditions), I really couldn't believe how much information is often left out around the topic of hydration and electrolyte balance etc. This is a long post, but please trust me, if you struggle with dehydration or any of these conditions this is critical info to have.

So, a bit of a back story about me. It took me 5 years of misdiagnosis to finally learn that I had Lyme disease as the underlying condition for all of my struggles. During that 5 year journey I met a lot of Doctors who were trying to uncover the link to all of my symptoms, and one of these Doctors led me to a diagnosis of POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). I won't go into the condition in-depth, but you can read more about it here. This condition is a "Syndrome" and that means that it is a presentation of symptoms caused by something, but the cause is unknown. So it wasn't really an end-all be-all diagnosis per se, but rather a clue about what was going on in my body. It was however a very helpful piece of information for me, because there are some medications you can take to control POTS. My goal at the time was symptom relief, because life had become very grueling while I was in college. POTS is a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which is what controls your heart and how it pumps blood throughout the body. For example, when I stood up I always felt faint and had to pause to catch my breath and my heart was constantly racing trying to keep me up right, etc. There is a lot more to POTS, but for the basis of this post I will keep it very surface level.

Many of the things one can do to ease the symptoms of POTS are: drinking more water, eating more salt to raise sodium levels, wearing compression stockings, strengthening the legs so it pumps blood to the heart more efficiently, and prescription medications such as Midodrine (which was a life saver for me at the time). I did everything imaginable that one can do to help POTS. I upped my water intake big time, I salted everything heavily, I got prescription compression socks, I got prescription medications, and I enrolled into an up and coming study at the time for POTS patients. I saw Doctors who specialize in POTS in Kentucky, and also all the way across the country in California. I really believed if I just found the best of the best to help me then I would somehow be fixed. While I found experts in this field (at the time POTS was a very niche diagnosis and not very well known), I still got the same general advice as listed above about staying hydrated, except one Doctor suggested I drink electrolytes too. Still, nothing really solved all my problems, and I was receiving IV's to try and pick me back up when dehydration was constantly creeping in. In fact, I have needed hundreds of such IV's over the years due to POTS which was later complicated by a Crohn's disease diagnosis.

My past history is relevant because I feel like those who are diagnosed with POTS get the most tips about hydration, but in my opinion it is still very lacking. Even with Lyme Disease, your body uses up a lot of magnesium & potassium and yet there’s minor information highlighting the importance of drinking electrolytes. In comparison, with Crohn's disease there is even less information or open discussion surrounding dehydration. I don't think I have had one conversation about that topic with any medical expert regarding Crohn's disease and that truly baffles me considering an active Crohn's flare depletes a lot of electrolytes and fluid. With all the conditions I have been told I had, the only one that got any emphasis on "staying properly hydrated" was POTS and even that was lacking. For one, not all electrolytes are created equally, and furthermore drinking your run of the mill electrolytes is not enough when you are losing lots of fluids day in and day out for long periods of time. I would say the topic of fluid loss is perhaps most relevant for those with IBD's or IBS, but it also goes for patients going through cancer treatment, or any other chronic illness where loss of fluids is applicable. For me, the fact that I had underlying Lyme/POTS complicated the issue tenfold. Not only was I already someone who struggled to stay hydrated without Crohn's, but once that came into the picture it left me incredibly reliant on IV hydration and my veins were taking a beating.

Now I have seen my fair share of advertising on social media about various electrolyte brands who promise to be the very best on the market. And I have done a lot of research looking for electrolytes that aren't full of fillers, corn syrup, corn glucose, or loads of sugar. Time and time again I have only landed upon a few which fit the bill, and I used to think they were the best I could get. I should note that while I drank electrolytes daily for years on end, my potassium, magnesium and chloride were always at the rock bottom of the scale. I could not understand how on earth that was possible, but I chalked it up to a common POTS problem and quite frankly I never though that much about it.

It wasn't until recently that I had been in the worst and longest Crohn's flare to date that no matter how much I drank my electrolytes, I was still showing symptoms of dehydration. With each passing day of my flare I was going further and further down the rabbit hole. I could not understand how I was drinking two liters (or more) of water and electrolytes and yet I still felt very dizzy when I stood up, my heart was acting up, I would tremble if I exerted myself too much, my hands were ice cold all the time, and I could barely stand for 2 minute without almost fainting. Those symptoms lasted for weeks and were growing worse with each passing day. I was really starting to worry, and I thought I had something seriously wrong. Remember, I was drinking loads of electrolytes every day, so it did not dawn on me that I could actually be dehydrated even though my symptoms all seemed to fit.

Everything came to a head recently when I had what I consider one of the most terrifying nights of my life. For about 48 hours prior I developed a lower pulse, a thudding heart, shortness of breath, chest pain/tightness, and when I stood up (even very slowly) my heart felt like it would explode out of my chest. I thought maybe I was developing pericarditis again, so I tried not to worry too much because my pulse ox looked okay. Fast forward to the night in question and things started to deteriorate quickly. My heart rate did this thing where it was very low (50's, which is super low for me), and then shoot up to the 120+ range and then drop back down again. This would happen very quickly, within 2 minutes total. Then, it happened again, and again, and again, finally hitting over 135 while lying down and climbing higher. My pulse ox meter got so high it couldn't even go any higher. I reached the top threshold that it was able to measure so I can't even tell you what the highest number was that I got to. When I put my hand on my wrist to feel my pulse it was going to fast I couldn't even count the beats. Listen, I understand that to someone out there these numbers might be no big deal, but for my body and for what my heart rate and blood pressure typically is, it was astronomical. Not just that, but the actual bodily sensation of my heart beating this fast was the scariest thing I have ever felt. My head was cloudy, I could barely speak, parts of my body felt numb, and I genuinely thought my heart might stop all together. No I am not being dramatic, when this happened I was alone and I could barely grab my phone to call my mom so I did not know what to do, which way to turn, and I've never felt anything like that in my life.

At that point we sprung into action because it was obvious something is seriously wrong. I will spare you all the step by step details here, but the crucial things like a blood clot were the first to be ruled out (thank God). Judging by my CBC it looked like I was dehydrated, but I couldn't grasp how that was possible. This my friends, is when I learned the lesson that I have finally came here to share to you all today: Volume depletion and dehydration are two totally separate things.

One more time: Volume depletion and dehydration are two totally separate things.

You can be drinking plenty of water and not be technically 'dehydrated' by the definition, but you can be severely volume depleted and have very similar symptoms. Volume depletion, or extracellular fluid volume contraction (ECF) occurs as a result of a loss of sodium. It comes from your typical suspects such as diarrhea, vomiting, excessive sweating, diuretics, kidney failure etc. Because water crosses plasma membranes in the body via something called 'passive osmosis,' a loss of sodium quickly results in water loss in your cells (extracellularly). Basically, a loss of sodium always causes a loss of water in the body, especially on a cellular level. This is why POTS patients are told to eat so much salt, with the theory that more sodium means more water in the body. The main gist here is that every cell in your body needs water to survive, and when you lose sodium the water gets sucked out of those cellular spaces and your overall circulating volume decreases. When you simply drink water it takes a lot of time and work for that water to actually get INTO your cells. It first has to go into your stomach, and using osmosis it must be taken up and distributed into your cells. But not all of the water gets soaked up (ill explain more on that later), which is why when you drink a lot of water at once you will usually have to pee really soon after. Most of it passes right through you. That's why severely dehydrated patients are given an IV because that goes directly into the blood and into the cells that desperately need it.

Volume depletion is referring to the water that is actively in the cells. You can drink loads of water orally and yet if it can't get into the cells you will still be volume depleted. How is that possible? I'm glad you asked. If you look at any electrolyte drink on the market today you will notice that they all contain sodium and then some kind of sugar (glucose). In the past I actually wanted completely sugar free electrolytes, and honestly those are as good as useless and I'll explain why. Glucose is needed to increase the absorption of sodium in your intestines. This discovery that sodium transport and glucose transport come together in the small intestine to accelerate the absorption of water was a huge discovery that changed the way we rehydrate the human body. However, this balance of sodium and glucose is very specific. Just having any ole amount of sodium and glucose in an electrolyte drink is not going to be enough. In fact many drinks like Gatorade that are loaded with sugar will only dehydrate a person more, because your body doesn't know what to do with all that sugar and the gut can't absorb electrolytes if there is too much sugar. This is a very crucial balance.

From rehydrate.org
"Glucose enhances sodium, and secondarily, water transport across the mucosa of the upper intestine. For optimal absorption, the composition of the rehydration solution is critical. The amount of fluid absorbed depends on three factors: the concentration of sodium, the concentration of glucose and the osmolarity of the luminal fluid. Maximal water uptake occurs with a sodium concentration from 40 to 90 mmol/L, a glucose concentration from 110 to 140 mmol/L (2.0 to 2.5 g/100 mL) and an osmolarity of about 290 mOsm/L, the osmolarity of body fluids. Increasing the sodium beyond 90 mmol/L may result in hypernatremia; increasing the glucose concentration beyond 200 mOsm/L, by increasing the osmolarity of the solution, may result in a net loss of water. CHO to Na ratio should not exceed 2:1 in these solutions."

Basic electrolyte drinks do not follow these standards or have these properties. They simply do not. So it is questionable how much of the actual electrolytes in the drink are even being properly absorbed. This is when I was led to information on Oral Rehydration Solutions (or ORS for short). ORS is a solution that was discovered and is used by the World Health Organization and the Military to rehydrate people who do not have access to an IV but are severely depleted. They use them in developing countries which face diseases like cholera or dysentery or out in combat zones because they are able to rehydrate as well as an IV. There are strict guidelines for what kinds of drinks can call themselves an ORS, because it must have a specific osmolality and sodium to glucose ratio (as discussed above). Do not be fooled by some brands who call themselves "Oral Electrolyte Solutions" to try and sound similar, because that is not the same thing. Oral Rehydration Solutions must meet certain criteria to get that qualification. These solutions force the electrolytes like sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride to all be absorbed in the stomach along with the water itself which can then get into the cells that desperately need them. Remember, if the sodium can not get into the cells then the water can not get into the cells, period. This is why you can be drinking loads of the wrong electrolytes and loads of water and still have issues with volume depletion and be symptomatic.

When I got my hands on an Oral Rehydration Solution, the difference was shocking. When I would typically drink my electrolytes/water it all went straight through me, but when I drank a liter of ORS I didn't go to the bathroom for hours and hours. That's because it actually got absorbed, and the change was incredibly noticeable. I used two packets in 16oz of water per day, and by day 2 I felt like a different human being. Drinking an ORS feels genuinely comparable to when I would get a lactated ringer IV in the past. I can't help but think how many veins I could have saved had I known this information sooner. While yes, there were still some times when I couldn't physically get water down and I needed an IV (and might still need that), there were other times when I needed an IV because my standard electrolytes just weren't quite enough.

You might ask yourself why standard electrolyte brands don't just fix their ratios and get the official ORS qualification. And the answer to that comes down to money. It's pricey to create these solutions that are perfectly balanced and pass the test to become ORS. You are looking at about $2.50 per packet of ORS compared to maybe $0.50 a stick of basic electrolyte powders. Other times companies don't want to go through the work because for most average people a simple electrolyte works just fine. It's really a much smaller population who have medical conditions that force them to seek out a more potent form of hydration. You will need this more potent ORS if you are someone with a chronic illness that warrants it, someone who loses a lot of fluid and electrolytes on a regular basis due to a medical condition, or the elderly who fall into the trap of dehydration very easily. The scope of where ORS was primarily used and focused was in developing countries or in the military and other places that it was a necessity. That left the market for ORS in the United States pretty small, and thus very few people actually know it exists, where to get it, or why it is superior.

I know this has been long, but theres a bit more info that is really important. I want to quickly discuss the two types of ORS on the market, and some of the studies showing which of the two are superior and why. I also want to recommend two brands (after excessive trial and error), so if you made it this far stick with me a bit longer!

The WHO and Red Cross use a very standard Oral Rehydration Mix which comes in a packet and tastes pretty bland. It gets the job done in developing countries, but as I was reading about the WHO brand of ORS I came across some journals and studies discussing the differences between Polymer based ORS and basic ORS, and which was superior. Polymer based ORS are those who have a base such as rice, or another short chain polymer. These studies were looking to see if a short chain polymer would increase the rate of absorption in the intestines. Specifically, they were looking to see if they could make absorption noticeable better. This study by the NIH looked at 4,284 participants and compared those who used P-ORS and those who used standard ORS, and came to the conclusion that Polymer based ORS was superior. Another study echoed those sentiments by saying that Polymer based ORS had a better recovery rate by day 3, shorter duration of diarrhea, less ORS solution use, less stool output, and better rehydration.

This information is important, because if you go out onto the great worldwide web and look for classic Oral Rehydration Solutions you will find a few. The trouble I found with 90% of them is that they contain either corn based glucose, maltodextrin (also from corn) or Sucralose instead of just classic cane sugar glucose. I only found one that was very pure and only used cane sugar, lime juice powder, and the needed sodium, potassium, magnesium etc and it's called Hydrant. Right off the jump this was my pick, and it is genuinely great. I would recommend Hydrant in a heartbeat if you want a classic ORS that will work great and not be full of useless junk. But, as I learned about polymer based ORS I realized that I was still missing out on having the best of the best and I was on a mission to get it. And let me tell you, it is not easy to find it online. It took a lot of digging to finally find the one single company that sells to average consumers. Polymer based ORS is not something you just find floating around out there, and I actually found 2 others who only sell to healthcare facilities strictly.

Before I go any further you should know I am not sponsored by any of the companies I have discussed. I am not being paid by them to write this, and I never got anything for free or in return for doing a write up. I researched all of this information by myself tirelessly, and bought everything with my own money.

The only company I found who creates polymer (rice) based ORS is called Cera, and they are actually the official supplier of ORS for the United States Air Force. In the early 2000's their Ceralyte 70 drink was put to the test by the Uniformed Services University and the researchers at Ft Detrick, Maryland. This P-ORS worked so well, and is so effective, that in 2005 the US Air Force Surgeon General testified before Congress to the efficacy and effectiveness of it, calling for its use. It was put into all United States Air Force IFAKs and pilot SERE kits shortly after. Thankfully Cera decided to create a product that the public can use as well, and this is how I discovered them. Cera has 3 levels of ORS depending on your needs. Their Ceralyte-50 is a lower potency then their Ceralyte-70, but they are both incredible. Then they have the Ceralyte-90 which is for severe cases and only to be used for short periods of time in severe situations. Their formula uses rice as the polymer, and the ingredients are very pure. For example their Lemon Ceralyte-70 bottles contain: water, rice syrup, (sodium, potassium etc), citric acid, citrus flavor, and stevia. Their drinks come in individual sticks as well as pre-cartoned beverages. I prefer the pre-cartoned beverage because it has the best taste and packs a punch in a small container. The Ceralyte-70 has 404mg Sodium and 200mg Potassium per 8oz, compared to two of my favorite old go-to electrolyte drinks which only had 55mg and 100mg of sodium respectively. Not to mention, neither of my old electrolytes had any glucose source. NONE. They only had Stevia. So it didn't matter how much potassium, magnesium or zinc was in either of them, because very little likely ever made its way to cells as evidenced in years of blood work that showed I was depleted.

I honestly can't believe how long it took me to learn about volume depletion, and how long it took me to learn about ORS. It is so superior to standard electrolytes, and it feels like some kind of hush hush underground secret that very few patients actually know about. I had to sit down and write this post immediately when I learned all this info and saw how it worked in my own body, because I wish I learned it sooner. I wish I didn't have to go through what I went through to lead me down this path of knowledge, but I'm just grateful I got here. I am not saying that if you are someone who depends on IV's and has a port or PICC line that this can replace your daily saline IV's just because it is "as effective as an IV." I do not know your situation or needs personally to be able to say anything that radical. Sometimes the IV's are needed to flush toxins out of the body, or to be used if one can't take in fluids orally etc. They are still incredibly vital. But I am saying that it is very possible that if more patients knew about the option of ORS and were able to give it a chance (especially those with POTS), that perhaps it could have spared them a more permanent port to begin with, or at the very least a few less trips to the ER. At a bare minimum I would guarantee it would spare a lot of veins and a lot of unnecessary needle sticks.

Okay, that's finally the end! Sorry for the length, but I really sincerely hope that this was informative for those of you who are in the same bus as I am. If you have any further questions please leave them in the comments below, and I will do my best to help! I currently drink both Ceralyte 70 in the cartons and also Hydrant. I add the Hydrant packets to my 16oz water bottle every day because I find that I drink much more fluid in general when it has the ORS in it because I love the taste. Then I also drink an 8oz carton of Cera. Some days if I am having trouble drinking enough (due to tummy troubles) I'll only do the Cera because thats my non negotiable drink, but most days I will do both! Thus far I have been able to keep up and stay well hydrated while in the midst of a Crohn's flare.

xoxo,
Christina

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