Welcome back to…
This is My Lyme Life: Dr. Alyssa (Chapter 6)
My final blog of this series is a bit emotional for me. As excited as I am for you to read the next contributor’s tale, I will miss sharing my story and hearing from everyone directly. This has been such a wonderful experience for me, and, I believe, an important part of my healing. If any of you would like to share your story about battling Lyme and/or other tick-borne diseases, please don’t hesitate to contact me. It is a cathartic and rewarding experience.
Chapter 6 of the blog also means it is week six of antibiotics for me. Therefore after this week- I am happy to say- I can bid farewell to azithromycin. I will, however, continue on with the herbal remedies. My older guy and I are doing well on our drops, increasing the amount weekly, and eventually, a second time per day. I am very pleased with his progress and I am happy to report I have been feeling consistently good this week myself.
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As people have read the blog and reached out, there is one thing that seemed to come up in many discussions. No matter what everyone tried, it seems true healing only happened when they detoxified the body. For some it was through herbs. For others, it was found through cleaning up the diet (no gluten, no dairy, no chemicals, etc.) Still others used things like foot baths and infrared saunas. And often the ones who did it all had the best results..
My detox regimen has always consisted of lemon water, herbs, clean eating (lots of greens, no gluten, very little dairy, and limited processed food) and sweating on a regular basis. A few days ago I got to try out one more detox powerhouse, the far infrared (FIR) sauna.
Far infrared (commonly referred to as just infrared) saunas are quite different from traditional saunas. Traditional saunas use a stove-like heater to heat the air. As the temperature in the air rises, it eventually causes your body temperature to rise. In order to cool itself, the body sweats. To elicit this response, the temperature inside a traditional sauna needs to be significantly higher than that which is necessary in an infrared sauna. Besides that, the method by which infrared saunas heat the body is quite different, and this is apparently where all the health benefits lie.
Infrared saunas utilize heaters that warm the body in the same way sunlight does, recreating the longer wavelengths that are a part of the invisible portion of the sun’s spectrum, known as infrared light. (A little 7th grade science lesson for you: The visible portion of sunlight is what we know as Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet, and what the naked eye sees as white light. The full electromagnetic spectrum- as it is called- goes from radio waves and infrared on one end, through the ROYGBIV visible light, to ultraviolet, x-rays and gamma rays on the other. The spectrum is differentiated by the size of the wavelength and frequency of light, with red light, infrared and radio waves boasting longer wavelengths but less energy than the other end of the spectrum. You’re welcome. Now back to the information at hand.) These far infrared wavelengths, which the FIR saunas utilize, can penetrate the skin and directly raise the core body temperature. Heating in this way- from the inside out if you will- affects us on a cellular level. The claimed benefits from this process include detoxification, improved circulation, lowered blood pressure, pain relief and decreased belly fat, among others.
My experience in the FIR sauna was a wonderful one. I was inside one type of unit that also had visible spectrum light bulbs, which you could switch from red to yellow to violet, or any color you desired. The infrared heat was warming and very beneficial. I already love to sweat, so this was heaven to me. It was my first go-around, so I was only in for 30 minutes. I started sweating about half way through, which I was told is common the first time. I felt my joints relax pretty immediately in there, even before the sweat started. Thankfully glass is allowed inside, so I was able to drink water as needed. Also, since I am on a Lyme protocol, it was suggested I take chlorella (a blue-green algae) or activated charcoal before going in to act as a binder for anything I may detox from my cells. The theory is that the toxins that leave your cells need a transport out of the body so that they don’t take up residence in another area. Made sense to me. And no matter what, I felt great after.
I look forward to exploring this further in weeks to come. I am hoping to get in weekly, or at the very least bi-weekly. Whatever method is available to you, I think the bottom-line is that without proper detoxification, healing from Lyme and other tick-borne diseases becomes all the more difficult.
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With that, I bid you all somewhat of a farewell. I say “somewhat” since I will still be writing to introduce next week’s contributor (and may pop in to update you all) but I will no longer be telling the story each week. She will be. And I think you will really appreciate her tale. It covers a more than 15-year-span of illness and misdiagnoses, but, thankfully, ends with a proper diagnosis and continued healing. Until then…
Yours in Good Health,
Dr. Alyssa Guglielmo