If Pain Had a Sound: The Hunt for Relief is Riddled with Hope and Madness

Katie Liljedahl's Lyme story
By Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Written by: Katie Liljedahl, Lyme patient

BAL Spotlights Series

 

Katie’s journey with Lyme disease, as recounted three years ago, highlights the ongoing challenges faced by those affected by this debilitating illness. Despite her perseverance and a wonderful support system, Katie continues to grapple with intermittent flares. However, amidst these struggles, Katie has found a new home and a new love, demonstrating resilience in the face of adversity. Her story serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need to improve Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment, ensuring that others do not endure similar hardships. By amplifying voices like Katie’s, we strive together towards a future where Lyme disease is easy to diagnose and simple to cure, allowing individuals to reclaim their lives and pursue their passions without the burden of infection-associated chronic illness. 

Spine strangled, muscles on fire, bones buzzing
I will migrate within you
I am relentless
My address is your body
This is the kind of pain that rages silently in
the caverns of marrow and suffocates hope.
It gyrates and bangs clamors and rattles
A parasite upon the soul~
it drowns out the voice of God.

– Katie’s journal; August 16, 2012

Alternative Treatments for Lyme Disease

By Bay Area Lyme

KP StollerBy KP Stoller, MD, FACHM 

Dr. KP Stoller MD, is a Fellow of the American College of Hyperbaric Medicine (FACHM) and co-founder of the Hypberbaric Oxygen Clinic of San Francicsco (HBOSF). Having treated patients with Lyme disease for more than two decades, Dr. Stoller is an advocate for Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment (HBOT) and other alternative therapies for patients battling post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD). He wrote to Bay Area Lyme to share his experience and expertise.

(Note: Bay Area Lyme Foundation is a research and informational organization, not a medical entity. The Foundation does not advocate or endorse any particular treatment or clinical approach but is devoted to the sharing of information and the facilitation of new research in hopes that better diagnostics tools and therapies can be discovered. Please consult your physician or clinician for more information about specific or individual treatments.)

Manganese Dependence

“In 2013, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute discovered that the Lyme-causing Borrelia burgdorferi organism is manganese-dependent, because it substitutes manganese where almost all other organisms use iron for survival. By using manganese, the Borrelia is assisted in evading the immune system, which typically responds to foreign pathogens by starving them of iron. Further, manganese is important for the human body (helping to monitor blood sugar levels, supporting production of collagen for tissue repair, and even helping the central nervous system to function properly) and there is no easy way to shut down the manganese supply to these organisms.