well lyme is such a hard thing to test for but i am pretty sure i do not have it. i was tested two times - the elisa test and the western blot - and both were non reactive. supposedly none of those tests are very accurate though, especially if it has been in your system for a really long time. some people have to get a spinal tap for a positive test result because it never shows up in there blood.

there are a few reasons i thought i had it. first of all i have been bit by ticks several times in my life. once by a smaller tick that we weren't sure if it was a deer tick or not - that was about ten years ago and i was given a round of Antibiotics for that one. then i had 4 or 5 on my head all at once from a fishing trip in the woods but they were just regular old ticks (which are believed to carry it now too). this was two or three years ago. apparently lyme can lay dormant in your system for years and go undetected - it can be brought out later in life during periods of high stress or it can just become active in general whenever it feels like it. well i had been taking doxycycline for a year and a half (god time flies!!) for mild Acne and decided to go off of it because it didn't really seem to help anymore anyways. plus i just kept thinking it can't be good for me to be on drugs all that time so i wanted to stop. little did i know that there was something called candida that can ruin your whole life!!

anyways, doxy is one of the Antibiotics used to treat lyme and i got very sick within two weeks of stopping. i kept asking docs if you could get sick from all that Antibiotic use or go through and withdrawal symptoms and they said no. i was diagnosed with viral labyrinthitis - an inner ear infection - because i was having light headed spells and all kinds of balance problems for a few weeks. but then i just continued getting different crazy symptoms after that and eventually they were so unexplained that the only thing we could think of was lyme. i thought that maybe it was dormant and the doxy brought it out by starting to kill it or something to that effect. well then through a lyme disease board i learned about candida since many lyme patients have it due to long term Antibiotic use. and then i realized candida symptoms and lyme symptoms are almost exactly the same. and it just made more sense since i had been on Antibiotics for so long.

there was one holistic/environmental medicine MD who i saw about lyme disease and he also suspected yeast and put me on diflucan. well i had a reaction to it after two weeks of being on it. broke out in a severe rash from head to toe and had to go on prednisone to clear it up. so then i just started ignoring the docs and treating it myself through diet and started to get better. and i don't think the candida diet could prevent lyme symptoms so it can't be lyme since i have gotten a lot better.

anyways, that is very short version of a long series of events/docs/medical tests i went through before realizing i had candida. now i am just so upset that the docs prescribe antibiotics so freely. i kept asking if it was dangerous to be on antibiotics that long - and i kept getting "oh no, not at all, it's PERFECTLY SAFE!" - lying bastards! so now i am sicker than i have ever been in my life and i was such a healthy girl before this. now i am afraid i will never be me again - but i am obviously not alone in this so it is nice to have people like you on here to talk to and get advice from. really i honestly am so much better now - most would never know anything was wrong with me now since i am so much happier and energetic and my symptoms are much milder when i do get them. i was so depressed and scared and crying all the time just a few months ago when i couldn't figure out what was wrong. thank god for the internet - even though at times, it had me in a panic in the last few months LOL. i thought i had MS and a million other horrible things so i guess i should just be lucky that i can treat this.

oh one more thing i didn't say was that i was on cipro for a UTI when all of the symptoms really kicked in. another really bad bad drug that finally knocked me over the edge - i think part of my problem is i had an adverse reaction to that also. apparently it is a very powerful drug - another thing which i was not warned about - and it can cause many of the symptoms i have been having as well. i can't remember if i talked to you about this before or someone else here on the boards. so i think i have a combo of candida and probably some permanent side effects from the cipro. : ( don't ever take that drug or any in the fluoroquinolone drug/ Antibiotic family unless absolutely necessary. avoid at all costs cause it can be really devastating! at least candida can be fixed or at least controlled. some never recover from an adverse reaction to the cipro. i have read horror stories!

yes i was having acute pain as well - usually the next day after exercising lasting for a few days. i would get sharp pains in my spine on the lower right side, and several other escalated symptoms, including the bruising. i seem to be doing much better now. i ran around last weekend with my brother for about two hours throwing the football and just messing around. i woke up so sore on monday i could hardly move but it was actually the GOOD kind of pain!! the kind you get from a good workout and your muscles are sore cause you haven't worked out in so long...i haven't felt that in a long time. i felt great actually! so that was what made me decide it was time to get back to the gym. i am going to start detoxing in the sauna there for 15 min every night too after my workout.

i haven't started Liver Flushing yet. i don't know why but i have been scared to do it. plus i keep reading you have to cleanse parasites first and the bowel and all these different things. i just get so overwhelmed that i don't know where to begin. i could use some advice on this cause i really wanted to try to start. i was thinking of doing a juice fast starting after thanksgiving to clean out my bowel. i don't really agree with all of those bowel cleansing kits. i don't like putting stuff in my body when i don't know exactly what it is or what it will do. i would rather go all natural if possible. i don't know if i can go without real food for that long but i will do anything to get my health back!

what recipe are u using for flushing?? thanks!