Babesia – Gone? Gone? Gone?!!!

Never Give Up Hope. Love this sweet drawing by Dave at Lyme Loonies!

For my non-Lyme Disease followers bear with me. This is REALLY BIG stuff!

January will be three years from when I began treatment for an under-treated case of Lyme Disease (bacterial infection) and about 1 ½ years after starting treatment for Babesia (red blood cell parasite) – both of which I contracted from a tick bite in May of 2011.

We did an intensive round of Babesia treatment this summer when I relapsed a few months after the finishing the first round. I am excited to say I have had ZERO Babesia symptoms for about 5 months!

The big thing with getting the Babesia taken care of is that it helped my body to better deal with the Lyme. Two infections at once can be overwhelming for the immune system.   I seem to be doing quite well with little to no sign of active Lyme symptoms after going off of everything in response to an angry tummy. (No shock to have tummy troubles after 18 months of antibiotics!) Being able to maintain with no herbal support is a BIG HAIRY DEAL!!

I do have some lingering damage from the Lyme Disease that I’m hoping over time will continue to heal. There is always the question with Lyme whether you can actually kill it after a long term case or whether it just goes into remission. Never-the-less I am moving forward with a happy heart and will continue to do everything I can to help my immune system to stay strong.

joy! joy! joy!

Hip-Hip-Horray!!!

My Babesia Treatment (for my fellow Lymies)

Like everything with tick-borne diseases, you have to find the treatment that works best for you. I opted to treat Babesia with herbals given that my symptoms were relatively mild and the side-effects from the commonly used pharmaceuticals can be pretty brutal. (The Lyme was treated with 18 months of antibiotics as well as herbals.)

Round 1 – Used Cryptolepis, an herb commonly used to manage malaria. The symptoms cleared pretty quickly. Because my symptoms were similar to peri-menopause and being a woman of a certain age there was still a SMALL question of whether I really had Babesia or not. (Babesia testing is only 30% accurate, so in a word, pretty useless).

Round 2 – Used Cryptolepis again. Symptoms cleared pretty quickly again. (This is clearly NOT peri-menopause!) To ensure complete treatment we continued the Cryptolepis with the addition of Sida, Alchomea & Polygonum in the tincture for another 3 months and also added in Copmine capsules by Zhang.