2022 Was a Real Eye-opener in Winning my Battle with Lyme Disease

I’m winning my battle with Lyme Disease. “Winning” is an active, ongoing term. It doesn’t mean that the battle has been won, but it does mean it’s going in a positive direction. And 2022 was a real eye-opening year for me in winning my battle with Lyme disease. I’ve learned a lot.

If you’ve been following this blog, you will recall that back on April 14, 2022, I published an article, Is Air Pollution Making My Chronic Lyme Disease Illness Worse?

In that post, I examined the possibility that air pollution was making my condition worse, or perhaps preventing it from improving.

Climate Change

Over the years of trying to stop losing and start winning my battle with Lyme Disease, I have travelled to various

places in Canada and the United States for various reasons. Always lurking in the back of my mind on those trips was the question of whether or not a change of environment would make a difference.

I spent days and weeks at a time at higher elevations than our home. We travelled to warmer and drier climes. We went through very wet periods as well as extended dry periods on the south coast, all without any change in my condition.

The only thing that seemed to make a little bit of difference was sunlight. I usually felt a little better on sunny and brighter days, than on the usual dark, dreary, grey days of the coastal winter. But it was never a very spectacular change. Generally, Lyme Disease has made me tired all the time. But the weariness was worse on the dark and dreary days.

A Very Noticeable Difference

As mentioned in the aforementioned article, we made a trip to the subarctic community of Dease Lake, BC, in the summer of 2019. It is about 1750km (1100 miles) north of Vancouver, BC. Dease Lake is about 7 hours by road from any major community, including Whitehorse YT, Terrace BC, and Smithers BC. Hazelton is about 6 hours away with a total population of about 8000 and very little industry. The only other nearby community over 400 is Watson Lake YT, a 3-hour drive away, with a population of about 750 and no major industry.

What I noticed in early July of 2019 in Dease Lake was that all my symptoms almost completely disappeared. The fatigue and pain were almost unnoticeable. But once I reached the south on our return trip, they began to return. Even by the time we reached Highway 16, which runs east across western Canada from Prince Rupert, the fatigue and pain were again very noticeable.

But for that brief window of time in Dease Lake and the area, I felt great.

Consulting with My LLMP

As mentioned in previous posts, my LLMP (Lyme Literate Medical Practitioner) is a Naturopathic doctor who

the province of BC has licensed to prescribe antibiotics when necessary. Naturopaths are required to pass a qualification exam to get this particular license, and BC is the only province in Canada that does this.

Important Note

Not all Naturopaths are the same. You need to be very careful who you trust with your health. Naturopaths in many jurisdictions are not under the same kind of strict and narrow protocols that medical doctors are under with their colleges. This is why they can treat chronic or long-term Lyme Disease without fear of losing their licenses. But on the downside, they can also resort to some very strange and even mystical practices that could offer little to no improvement to your health.

Check before you start paying to see a naturopath. Ask at least the following three questions.

1. What do you think Chronic Lyme Disease is? (Many naturopaths, just like many medical doctors, do not believe it is real. They believe in other things, such as bad diet, not enough sleep, bad auras, spiritual imbalance, etc. No, I am not making it up. I’ve been through every one of these and more before I met my LLMP.)
2. Ask if they are licensed to prescribe antibiotics. If they are not and you have active long-term Lyme Disease that has not been properly treated with a long course of properly prescribed antibiotics, and often several different kinds, you need to keep looking. I have been researching everything I can get my hands on about Lyme Disease since 2008 and have talked to countless people who were convinced they had been cured by some dietary protocol or other non-antibiotic or natural medicine. Every single one of them who is still alive, many who thought they were cured, is now either dead or sicker than ever. The bacteria that cause Lyme Disease cannot be eradicated with any known natural product, including natural antibiotics.
3. How many people have you cured of chronic or long-term Lyme Disease? Be very wary of anyone who claims to have cured anybody completely. I have talked to a lot of people, chased down endless leads, and followed up with many people who have been to some very popular and well-advertised clinics that make some pretty strong claims about curing the disease. NOT ONE PERSON I KNOW OF WHO HAS GONE TO ONE OF THESE CLINICS HAS BEEN CURED. But sadly, some have died.

My Naturopath

My naturopath saved my life. I am convinced it was an act of God that led me to him. I was almost completely bedridden, having a really hard time doing anything. He quickly put me on multiple courses of antibiotics over several years. With each new course, my health would almost immediately start to improve and then would plateau after anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

Every time I went off antibiotics, my health began to go downhill again after about two weeks to two months. My LLMP would then prescribe something else. He did a lot of research to see what others were using with any success. He is a hard worker!

A long haul

After several years of this, I went on a final round of antibiotics, this time delivered by injection into a big muscle. This was an antibiotic that stayed in the body for a longer period than conventional oral antibiotics. My health improved quite rapidly on that one, but after a couple of months, I was much better, but the improvements stopped.

Once again, I went off the antibiotics and waited. I was not my old self (pre-2007). But this time, I did not crash after being off antibiotics for a while. That was more than 5 years ago, and I have never crashed.

However, I still had to fight fatigue and pain every day and was on both high-dose Gabapentin and Bupoprion to deal with the pain (and that was only enough to keep me sane).

A new theory

But after our trip north in 2019 and a lot of thought, I consulted with the doctor to see what he thought about air pollution as being one possible culprit that was keeping my body in a kind of endless cytokine storm, where my body continued to fight the “ghost” of an enemy that was no longer active in my body. A cytokine storm is an immune response, where a hyperactive immune system continues to respond to the effects of an infection causing pain and fatigue, even after the infection itself no longer exists or is greatly weakened.

My own theory, which I ran by my doctor, was that, due to my immune-challenged system, air pollution that might not be noticeable to the average person was like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, overloading my system and not allowing it to properly heal.

He thought it was a real possibility and encouraged me to pursue the idea.

A Drastic Change

We would not have moved to a tiny subarctic community on the chance it would improve my health. But over the last decade, we had already become more and more convinced that it was time for us to make the move. That’s why we were in the north, to begin with, in 2019 and noticed the change in my health.

Both my wife and I have a powerful burden for the people of the area. The entire region is the Tahltan nation. It has been heavily exploited especially for its big game and minerals over the last century and a half. During that time, the British and Canadian governments did much to destroy the language and culture of the people who have lived in the area for millennia.

We have been given the abilities, education, resources, and above all, the desire to help reverse this trend and restore the language, which is integral to the preservation of culture. Kathy is an anthropologist working specifically in language preservation and restoration and we are both learning the language.

This meant that moving to the area was the right move, and in fact, a necessary move. It would be purely an academic exercise if done any other way.

So, in the spring of 2022, we sold our place in the south and bought a “fixer-upper” in Dease Lake. We landed here with all our stuff and our pets at the end of June.

There was a huge amount of work to do, which included a lot of travelling, as the nearest place to buy everything we needed was a 7-hour drive away in Whitehorse. We needed a new roof, which I had to install, as there just isn’t anyone to hire here, at least in the time frame we had.

We also had to upgrade the insulation, clear out all the outbuildings, re-roof a shed, and get enough firewood for winter. We had put in an order for firewood before arriving here, but that fell through when our supplier had something come up that made it impossible to meet the demand this year.

And right in the middle of all this, Kathy and I got COVID-19 (which I don’t recommend at all!).

A New Life

You could easily imagine all this completely overwhelming my system, and admittedly, I did overdo things.

But my health improved drastically! I noticed a change the first day, even as we were driving north. By the time we got north of the Fraser Valley, I realized I just didn’t need my midday pain medication.

In fact, after getting on the 6:20 am ferry from Langdale, we drove to Hazelton, landing there a bit after midnight. The fine folks at the Robber’s Roost motel waited up for us and took marvellous care of us.

We made it to Dease Lake the next day, and after unloading, made a whirlwind trip to Whitehorse to drop off the moving truck and get back to Dease Lake for a meeting that Kathy had to attend.

It was an incredibly busy summer and required a LOT of physical work. I admit it’s taking a long time for my left elbow, wrists, and knees to recover from the punishing I put them through. But the terrible pain and fatigue have all but vanished, and I no longer take any medication of any kind.

We both use supplements for our health, especially our joints as age does take a toll on everyone, but the days of needing prescription meds for Lyme Disease are gone. It is amazing. And as a bonus, we just love living here. We love the people, love the scenery, and love the climate. The winter days may be cold, but they are bright and beautiful, and the cold is easy to deal with.

Daylight

I believe that the lack of air pollution has to be the reason for the big change in my health. I have eliminated anything else after spending time in many other places. The only thing that is unique here is the almost complete lack of air pollution. Even the trade winds from Asia that carry a lot of soot, among other pollutants, tend to cross far to the south of us.

I do notice a slight difference in how I feel with the shorter days of winter. It is now December 13th. Sunrise is getting closer to 10 am, and sunset is getting closer to 3 pm every day. But even the shorter days are much brighter because of the snow cover than the wet and dreary days of winter on the south coast. I still feel far better than I have felt in the South since coming down with Lyme Disease in 2007.

I have not totally won my battle with Lyme Disease, but then nobody wins their battle with age, either. But I am winning my battle with Lyme Disease, and that is more than enough for me!

Never give up. Never quit trying. Remember that no matter how bad you feel on your worst day, there’s someone in this world who really needs you! When you can’t keep going on for yourself, keep going on for that person!

Today I’m winning my battle with Lyme Disease. Yet not so long ago I still had a very difficult time getting up in the morning and an even worse time starting to do anything. Today I’m getting up first in the morning, and getting more done than I have for years. There is hope for you!

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