Sorry, Prozac Doesn't Cure Lyme

May 13, 2008

by Sue Karr

          It attacked without warning. Brain fog, slurred speech, and profuse sweating knocked me out of circulation. "Normal" doctors tested and couldn't see the cause. Stress triggered the symptoms. Coping with life became impaired. It first appeared a week after a mission trip where my husband and I helped build a church school in Belize. Surely God could have prevented this, but then I wouldn't have learned the lessons he knew I needed to know.

          I admit anger filled me when I returned home. We lived in the city and while we were gone my stepson had purchased forty-two chicks, housing them in his bedroom, the one next to ours, without permission. The chickens moved to grandma's farm within a week, but four ducks soon replaced them, again without permission. The fluffy babies were cute, but I could not see it because my husband refused to remove the barnyard animal to the garage or backyard for several weeks. If you have never had ducks in the house, do not try it.  Among other things I will just say that ducks, even ones contained in a two by four foot iguana cage are prolific poopers and teen aged children are not always frequent cage cleaners.

          I do not think the anger made me sick, or even the aroma wafting out from under the bedroom door, but I suspect it changed my body chemistry and fed what grew inside me.

          Sweats and chills overpowered me, but the lack of fever baffled the doctors. My symptoms persisted for a day, then I would have three or four good days. I whined that it seemed sort of like malaria, but not malaria. Besides I had faithfully taken my malaria prevention. I asked if malaria had a cousin, but my doctor called my sickness an anger problem with reoccurring depression. I filled my Prozac prescription on the way home and stopped at the health food store for some strong herbs. I already took Premarin for pre-menopausal symptoms brought on by a hysterectomy. Six months later my sweats, chills, brain fog, and more had slowed to a stop and nothing bothered me. I didn't exactly feel numb, but I didn't care about things that usually would have made me speak up. I rarely felt happy either. I didn't exactly feel like a walking dead person, but as though I looked at my life from a distant place, one ruled by facts and no emotion.

          I did notice that I had strange pains moving around in my joints and that I fell and sprained my ankles and knees regularly. That put a stop to my exercise program, but I didn't care much. Prozac was like that for me. When I asked my HMO practitioner why the falling kept happening, he looked at me like he would a clumsy teen and said, "I don't know." Had I been in his place I might have said the same thing, but I knew something was wrong.

          A year after my "remission" started I experienced my next bad spell. Several months later another. I didn't think of them much because my doctors assured me I was angry and depressed, not sick and the antidepressants and hormones helped me believe them. Soon the symptoms came monthly but when they reoccurred weekly, I knew it was more than emotional.

          The incident that may have kept me from the Alzheimer's unit happened at church in the ladies' rest room. One of my chronically ill friends told me about her new doctor and and new diagnosis. After listening to her symptoms gongs sounded in my head. I didn't want to say to her, "I feel like that too." So I kept silent until I replayed the conversation to my husband on the way home. He invited her and her family over the next week and she insisted on giving me her doctor's name.

          That day I felt terrific. I didn't think the "thing" would ever be back. Three days later I called her. With slurred speech I confessed I couldn't find his number in the phone book for Wayne Anderson of Gordon Medical Associates. http://www.gordonmedical.com The next weekend I learned my pastor's wife also went to this doctor for the treatment of Lyme Disease. She was not chronically ill. This doctor was the best on the west coast at the time for Lyme Disease, short of traveling to the University of San Francisco to see the doctor he had studied under. She had researched it.

          Testing Lyme and its co-infections is flaky. There are over thirty strains of Lyme, each requiring its own test or false negative results occur. With one insect, usually a tick, but can be a mosquitoes in the tropics, as was my case, eight co-infections can also be contracted. My strongest co-infection was Babesia. The symptoms for this disease are not common or frequently studied by American doctors unless they seriously research Lyme. Also, there are many strains of each co-infection which muddy the testing process. I was given an herb, artemisinin, a modified product of the common herb, sweet annie.

          I was told that if my symptoms worsen, that would mean that I had Babesia because the toxin dump from the dead hybrid of a protozoa and bacteria (a "cousin" of malaria, my doctor told me) would make me sick. If I did not have the co-infection, nothing would happen.

          I reacted severely and thus began my treatment. Often I wondered if the cure was worse than the disease, but I had to do it. If Babesia is allowed to grow unchecked, it eventually takes over the brain and mimics Alzheimer's Disease.

          After four months on antibiotics, my second co-infection Bartonella, became strongest, and its symptoms flared. My brain fog and memory problem became less in issue. I experienced severe strong joint pain etc. The six months on Ciprofloxacin followed. Next parasites had to be treated, a common occurrence with Lyme and long periods on antibiotics. Then came the overpowering fatigue, the feeling of "pins" moving in my joints, and for me, also nausea. Finally Lyme Disease became my strongest disease.

          I was told that even though several things could be wrong at the same time, the immune system deals only with the symptoms of the strongest infection. Once it is under control or gone, whatever is stronger takes over as the immune system's target.

          Because my doctor is a naturopath as well as a physician's assistant, he uses the best of both worlds. After a year on antibiotics, I was able to try some herbal and homeopathic remedies which worked as well or better for me.

          At the beginning of my treatment my doctor prescribed DNA testing. It revealed that my body could fight the Lyme pretty well, but the Babesia would be very difficult to irradiate. That was also a factor in prescribing herbal remedies. The test also revealed that my body fights mold with difficulty. The doctor assured me that mold and yeast problems would surface before the end. I did not know what that meant, but he wanted to prepare me for the possibility.

          Lyme and its co-infections do not like to die. They have a unique ability to hide or change to confuse the immune system. Some acted like wolves in sheep's clothing, invading a white blood cell and hiding and appearing as harmless to the immune system. Some encyst, others mutate into a form that the current medication cannot kill. Sometimes the organisms burrow deep into the brain, joints, or other organs to come out again when the environment is more "friendly". So I would have periods of possibly weeks free of symptoms, and then they would come back.

          Because the medications, herbs, and homeopathic remedies all killed much of my Babesia, Bartonella, and Lyme Disease, attacking the bugs that came out of hiding is similar to having cleaned the house of insects, but a few were left and they must be killed before they multiply and take over the house again.

          That is why the short month-long antibiotic treatment programs authorized by most HMO's is not effective. However, insurance companies do not want to pay for years of treatments. The only time the short treatment of antibiotic is effective is when it is given shortly after (a few weeks or couple months) the tick or other insect bite is inflicted.

          How I wish my doctors had known to give me that treatment, but these days the trend with my HMO is to give antibiotics only when a test proves it is needed. I was given every test they could think of, but the strain of Lyme I carried was not the one they tested for and they did not think to test for Babesia or Bartonella. These infections are rare. The chances of me having them were slight.

          I like to write short thoughts and quickly draw spiritual conclusions from the experience. This sickness was too long lasting to explain quickly. People don't know how to act around someone who is sick "all the time". A lot of my friends have moved on to others more active. Many times I could have used help, but pride and the hope that I would soon feel better and take care of my responsibilities kept me from asking very often. For the first year, no one came to see me. I was an elder and used to visiting the sick. I never thought of it for many months, then on a down day the thought festered in my mind. (Once four young people came to see my step son and his wife and because they were not at home, they stayed to sing and visit with me. It meant a lot. Many of them were the ones who came to our Bible Study that has met in our home for the last year and four months.)

           The spiritual conclusions? Someone told me that perhaps there was a lesson my husband needed to learn. That night I admonished him to get it together in case that was it. Nursing is not his forte, but he did make me toast, fetch medicines, and run the vacuum around a few times in the last couple years.

          So what did I learn personally? I have no doubt about the sinister nature of the character of the devil. He and his cronies invented Lyme and its co-infections. I also have become totally dependent upon God. I believe that is a necessity for surviving the tribulation of the final days before Jesus comes to take those who believe in him home. I might not have learned or remembered the daily total dependence thing had I been cured following the first or even second time the elders anointed me. I do believe God is healing me, sometimes using doctors knowledge and cures. I praise God for each day when I can think clearly and have bright intelligent eyes. I praise God for the good days and for the strength to survive the bad days.

           Incidentally, I no longer take Prozac or Premarin. I am not often angry or depressed. It does happen occasionally with cause. I have my emotions back. I do not feel like a walking dead person or numb. I no longer tell anyone that will listen at my HMO, "Sorry, Prozac doesn't cure Lyme Disease." I am not furious with the doctors that did not see that I had Lyme soon enough to spare me this two-and-a-half year nightmarish, roller coaster ride. My doctor assured me that before they didn't know. Research is sketchy, lacking double blind studies on treatments. However, I heard that the HMO doctor that made my depression/anger diagnosis had gone to a Lyme conference my doctor attended. I pray a greater awareness and understanding of Lyme Disease is ahead so I won't keep finding books on Lyme Disease dedicated to those who were told "it's all in your head".