No Panacea for Lyme but diet is critical
// Filed in: Lyme Disease Diet|Lyme Disease Doctor
Do you have a Lyme diet that you swear by? I find my own diet morphing to include almost no gluten, and I do feel better. Gluten-free labels are popping up everywhere and it seems to be a trend with legs. Even the mainstream grocery stores seem to offer more choices every day, and recently, several of my friends have casually mentioned how much better they feel on a GF diet. A recent story in Salon.com claims that only about one percent of the US population can't tolerate gluten and yet one-quarter percent is steering clear of it. How important is gluten-free food in a Lyme diet? Do your symptoms get worse when you eat it? It makes me feel bloated and icky, but I've only recently noticed that.
For women reaching menopause, Lyme symptoms can blend in really irritating ways with the Seven Menopause dwarves, as Suzanne Somers calls them: Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Bloaty, Sleepy, Forgetful, and Psycho, aka All-Dried-Up.
Somers promotes gluten-free foods and hormones to help manage the Seven dwarves. I write a fair amount about diet and good nutrition because I've seen firsthand that a diet full of nutrients and whole fresh foods is crucial to the healing process. Adding fresh vegetables and a modicum of fruit, loads of greens, lean proteins, and entirely cutting out sugar has benefited my healing process more than I can say – even though the internal medicine doctor I saw while in an acute stage of Lyme declared that my “diet had nothing to do with it.”
I'm here to tell you that it does. It's not the only thing, but it's one of the things that we can control, change, modify and design to promote our own healing.
Bear in mind the distinction between eliminating illness and living a life of wellness. That's an important difference, because you aren't always going to be sick, and you aren't always going to be healing from Lyme. Some day, I hope very soon, there will come a moment when you will feel better. You'll feel like your old self again! The moment might slip away, but it will come back. And then the intervals between the good moments and the bad moments get smaller. You find yourself re-engaging with life again. You still relate to people suffering with Lyme, yet don't define yourself as being sick anymore. There'll come a time when the brain-fog will burn off for good, like a hazy morning sky before a clear day.
This recognition that you are well again might happen in one moment. Or it may happen, as it does for a lot of us, over a long period of time. I think of it as emerging out of the ocean after swimming a great distance from some other land mass. You aren't lifted out, you don't suddenly jump out, but instead you walk slow-mo through the water towards the beach.
You'll be a new person, the same essential you but changed forever, because that's just what happens to those of us who get swept away on this journey of illness and healing. And when you emerge and know that you have, that's the moment to set a course for a life lived with vibrant presence, vigorously dedicated to wellness.
There is no panacea for Lyme, but then, there are no panaceas for anything! Even your Lyme doctor can't perform miracles. We can't fix everything with a Lyme diet. Personally, I found that sticking with a diet of whole, organic, fresh foods and eliminating sugar and now gluten, has given me a real boost toward the shore. Stick with it. Never give up!
All of us want to get better, and so many people with Lyme are good people, deeply invested in helping each other. With that in mind, I want to suggest that we follow these two rules:
For women reaching menopause, Lyme symptoms can blend in really irritating ways with the Seven Menopause dwarves, as Suzanne Somers calls them: Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Bloaty, Sleepy, Forgetful, and Psycho, aka All-Dried-Up.
Somers promotes gluten-free foods and hormones to help manage the Seven dwarves. I write a fair amount about diet and good nutrition because I've seen firsthand that a diet full of nutrients and whole fresh foods is crucial to the healing process. Adding fresh vegetables and a modicum of fruit, loads of greens, lean proteins, and entirely cutting out sugar has benefited my healing process more than I can say – even though the internal medicine doctor I saw while in an acute stage of Lyme declared that my “diet had nothing to do with it.”
I'm here to tell you that it does. It's not the only thing, but it's one of the things that we can control, change, modify and design to promote our own healing.
Bear in mind the distinction between eliminating illness and living a life of wellness. That's an important difference, because you aren't always going to be sick, and you aren't always going to be healing from Lyme. Some day, I hope very soon, there will come a moment when you will feel better. You'll feel like your old self again! The moment might slip away, but it will come back. And then the intervals between the good moments and the bad moments get smaller. You find yourself re-engaging with life again. You still relate to people suffering with Lyme, yet don't define yourself as being sick anymore. There'll come a time when the brain-fog will burn off for good, like a hazy morning sky before a clear day.
This recognition that you are well again might happen in one moment. Or it may happen, as it does for a lot of us, over a long period of time. I think of it as emerging out of the ocean after swimming a great distance from some other land mass. You aren't lifted out, you don't suddenly jump out, but instead you walk slow-mo through the water towards the beach.
You'll be a new person, the same essential you but changed forever, because that's just what happens to those of us who get swept away on this journey of illness and healing. And when you emerge and know that you have, that's the moment to set a course for a life lived with vibrant presence, vigorously dedicated to wellness.
There is no panacea for Lyme, but then, there are no panaceas for anything! Even your Lyme doctor can't perform miracles. We can't fix everything with a Lyme diet. Personally, I found that sticking with a diet of whole, organic, fresh foods and eliminating sugar and now gluten, has given me a real boost toward the shore. Stick with it. Never give up!
All of us want to get better, and so many people with Lyme are good people, deeply invested in helping each other. With that in mind, I want to suggest that we follow these two rules:
- First, heal well.
- Second, through diet, physical exercise, attitude, work, relationships and in your spiritual or religious practice: live a life dedicated to wellness.
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