What Is Lyme Disease and It’s Co-Infections?

I was not familiar at all with Lyme disease until I was diagnosed with it in December 2005.  I wish I would have known so I could have gotten the proper treatment in the beginning of my symptoms.  So, to make this easy for you to understand just how important it is to get the proper diagnosis and treatment at the first signs of a tick bite, I am sharing my story with you.

I was asked my a well meaning family member:  “Didn’t you know it was a tick bite?”  So, what if I would have known or not known.  I grew up with dogs and being in the woods on camping trips with my family.  My Dad hunted and fished and would take us with him each year and we loved being outdoors to explore and be a kid!

We always were pulling ticks off ourselves and our dogs.  My parents never knew what a deer tick was either and never educated us on the effects of one biting you.  I was a sickly child from the age of 4 and was always sick once a year and down in bed for a month at a time.  So, growing up with illness was just a part of my life.

I had a spider bite me in my early 20’s and found out it was a poisonous one called a “brown recluse” here in Florida.  The only thing that saved me from a life of misery at that early age was a co-worker who overheard my conversation with a friend at work and she told me what it was and to get on penicillin right away and to call my doctor.

The funny thing is a spider bite and deer tick bite look the same.  You get a red ring around the bite area and then your life becomes a living nightmare after about a few weeks of not getting on penicillin.  So, I watched the site and unlike a spider bite the red ring went away, so I thought whew! it was not a poisonous bite after all!

It was a month later that I came down with flu like symptoms, so again I did not connect the dots back to the red ring.  From there it was a range of crazy things happening in my body as the infection spread in my immune system.  My blood pressure dropped down dangerously low, that I would get dizzy and have to lay down for hours.  My heart was palpitating and skipping beats.  I had a mild heart attack and went to the ER with chest pain, but they did not see any problem and sent me home.

I started loosing weight like crazy and went from 138 to 98 in 6 months.  The doctor’s did not know what was wrong because all the tests came back normal!  My cortisol levels were off the charts showing extreme pain but again from what!!!!  A friend at that point told me of a Chiropractor that did natural treatment and I went to see her.  She did help me to a point, but after 5 years of treatment and not getting well, we knew she could never help me get back to normal.

Last year I started loosing weight again out of the blue and she could not help me. She knew it was my kidney’s but did not know how to stop the problem.  I contacted so many friends and doctors again looking for help.  I found a friend that knew of an MD that was trained in all forms of medicine and I started seeing him in August 2013.  I can not tell you how good it felt to have someone tell me: “Do you want to get well?  Then, I can help you get well”.  We can even get rid of the Lyme disease out of your bone marrow!”

So, if you ever see a small tick on you or near you run to your doctor and get on penicillin for 1 month.  Write down the day you stop taking it and keep a close eye on how you feel.  If you start having weird feelings of pain in your body and shaking in your muscles, you have Lyme disease.

Get back to your doctor and take more penicillin and doxycycline for another month or two.  Find a Lyme literate doctor for treatment.  Any other doctor can kill you if they do not treat it in the right order.  It gets in your brain and bone marrow and is an auto-immune disease.  Which, means it can kill you when you are trying to kill it off.  It is no laughing matter.  Take this seriously and be safe when you are near dirt, grass and woods.

My next post will be how Lyme can be transmitted to others.  So, stay tuned!

Marsha Jaramillo’s Lyme Disease Medical Fundraiser

I have been battling Lyme disease since December of 2004.  I was diagnosed in December 2005.  After, medical tests left me weak and worse off than when I started I have lost down to a shell of the woman I used to be. 

Do you know anyone who has the disease?  It is not like any other disease, it slowly eats away at your insides and inbeds itself in your immune system making it hard to kill.  It is an auto-immune disease and can kill you if you don’t have the right doctor treating you.  There are only 2 Lyme literate doctors in the state of Florida where I live.  Neither, of them take insurance and are over 2 hours from my home.

I can not travel by car for more than an hour and then I am down in the bed for days afterward trying to recover from the nervous system stimulation disturbance it causes in my body.  I have found a Lyme literate alternative doctor that is only 35 minutes from my home and he has helped numerous people get a normal life back from being on deaths door and that no other doctor was able to help.

I now have a new doctor and a new re-found hope of getting a normal life back.  I go in for treatments every 6 weeks and the cost is from $600.00 to $800.00 every visit.  It is not covered under insurance and we have exhausted our sources for funds.  So, we have set up a fundraiser and are asking our family, friends and you, total strangers to help me get my life back!

I set up the fundraiser on Give Forward a great site that helps families like ours raise money to cover medical expenses.  We hope you will open your heart and help us win the battle against Lyme disease and it’s co-infections.

I am doing everything physically possible that I can do to help my dear husband support my illness and ongoing care giving needs.  I have several shops on Etsy that are set up to also help us raise funds.  You may visit them at these links to also give us your loving support.

Pioneer Fundraiser, Jeanpatch Holistics, Beeswax Holistics, Luv Personalized Gifts, Gift of Month Club and My Secret Compartments

We thank you in advance for your generous donation and hope you will receive many blessings in return for your act of kindness!  Please, visit our Give Forward Fundraiser page at this link, click here!

30 Minutes of Sun A Day Can Change Your LIfe – Who Knew!

Getting 30 minutes of sun a day can change your life, really!  Getting sun helps your body produce vitamin D3, a vital support to your immune system and so much more! Join me on my 30 day challenge to change my health and change my life.  My vitamin D3 is way below normal. 

Supplementing alone will not help.  Getting 30 minutes of sun a day on your face, hands, arms and back will make all the difference in how you look, feel and think.  Check out this list of other benefits you can receive from getting daily sunshine. Here is some content I found on a health website:

“Vitamin D — specifically the form D3 — is the only vitamin your body makes itself. It’s fat-soluble, which means your body stores vitamin D in its adipose tissue — in its fat. And, if you want to be specific about things, this vitamin is actually a hormone.

Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, increase bone density and reduces the risk of soft, weak bones, as well as bone fractures. It also helps with the body’s bone development and muscle function, helps keep the immune system healthy, and helps keep insulin, calcium and phosphorus levels in balance. And emerging research is finding promising associations between our vitamin D consumption and decreased our risk of developing a variety of conditions including autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammation, certain cancers and diabetes.”

See what I mean, there is more to Vitamin D3 than I thought.  I have several testimonials that I want to share with you from my Mom and daughter’s results after 30 days of daily sunshine.

First, let’s start with my Mother, 71 years old, suffers from diabetes, kidney disease and high blood pressure.  Her D3 was below normal even with years of supplementing.  After, 30 days of daily sunshine her vitamin D3 is now in the normal range. She feels so much better and her posture shows it.  She looks like 60 not 71!  Her skin is tan and glowing and she smiles now more than I’ve seen her do in years!  She also suffers from bi-polar and her depression is so much better and her attitude!

My daughter is 23 years old and suffered from depression.  After, 30 days of daily sunshine, she now feels better, sleeps better and her recurring quarterly virus has stopped!

I suffer from Lyme Disease, Celiac disease, insipid diabetes, auto-immune disorder, multiple chemical sensitivity disorder, asthma, allergies, peripheral nerve disorder and more!

I started my new journey of daily sunshine yesterday and got my first dose of 30 minutes in the sun.  Join me on my journey back to health and find out how I do after 30 days of daily sunshine.

I’ll report here monthly with my doctor’s report and how I feel.  My weight is 102 pounds and I need to weigh 140 pounds.  If getting my vitamin D3 back to normal changes my health, think what it can do for you!

See you next month!