Re: Chronology - Any advice would be appreciated
Matt,
I have a story very similar to yours. I went to India, got sick, took antibiotics, and have gotten sicker over the past 7 years with the EXACT same symptoms you have. But in addition, everytime I took doxcycline, I tore a tendon somewhere in my body. You are going to need to do a parasite cleanse. But first, you need to look at these sites and download the pdf's.
http://www.antibiotics.org/
http://www.antibiotics.org/resources/side-effects.pdf
http://fqresearch.org/
http://fqresearch.org/pdf_files/60day_cipro_study.pdf
there is also a yahoo forum where you can talk to other with the EXACT same symptoms or worse as you. Most of them are sick from Flouroquinalone antibitoics (Cipro, Levaquin, any ending in floxin). But the cipro study pdf I posted the link to is a CDC study that shows that doxycycline produces the same side effects as cipro.
I was sick after India. Hernias, skin rashes, fatigue, weight loss, joint problems, etc. But it got worse when I went to a regular old MD. He had me submit a stool sample to check for parasites. the results were a 'slight imbalance of the flora' nothing more. He gave me doxycycline. I am a musician and while practicing, started to develop tendon pain in my hand. And carpel tunnel, insomnia, muscle twitching, brain fog, etc. Since I was sick from before the doxycycline, I didn't supspect it and just thought more symptoms of my mysterious illness were coming out. The MD didn't make the connection either. From that point (three years after India) I deteriorated even more. The tendons and ligaments everywhere in my body began to hurt. The fatigue was so bad that when I after I ate I had to lay down immediately because I didn't have the energy to digest food. The muscle twitches got worse. Etc. Over the next three years I saw every kind of practitioneer under the sun. MD, OD, nutritionists, accupnture, Shamans (Amazon- Ecuador), Ayurveda counselors, Herbalists, Cranial Sacral therapists, Chiropracters, Etc.
Not one helped or even suspected what was going on. Fast forward to just this last Jan. I had an infection and went to a regular old MD. And got doxycyline. And took it. And couldn't sleep. And felt pyschedelic all the time. And noticed a great increase in tendon pain and muscle twitching.
Finally I though: "maybe it's the doxycycline" And put: doxycycline, insomnia
into google. And saw a page that said doxycycline not only causes insominia but also tendon ruptures. And I found those links I posted above.
It all made sense. The antibiotics I took in India were Levaquin (a flouroquinalone) and the doxycyline I took back in the states wrought havac on my body, not mention ending my ability to play music, which was also my career.
So at that point I decided I wanted no more of orthodox medicine and that my liver must be polluted from these poisons that they gave me and I ignorantly and trustingly took.
I decided to begin a series of liver flushes to clean out my liver.
After the 6th flush, I passed a 4-6 inch worm, an intestinal fluke of some sort. Okay, I have parasites too. That led me to this forum. I am about to do a huge parasite cleanse.
I got a double whammy in India. I picked up a nasty parasite and took a horrible poison given to me by a doctor. The poison made it very hard for my body to cope with the new invader.
Back in the states, I took more poisons, further harming my liver, but never doing anything about the parasites. And here I am having lost 7 years of my life to this. Bed ridden at times.
Regarding the antibiotics. Stop taking them immediately. They will only hurt you. It takes awhile for them to clear out of your system. 3-6 months is what people report. Coffee makes things worse. At least cut down to 1 cup a day.
They make it so that you can't metabolize the caffeine and it just stays in your system. Be careful about what you eat. Even now, certain foods exacerbate my symptoms. Regular consumer grade meat in the US, is treated with the same antibiotics that are poisoning people. So when you eat that stuff, you are re-poisoning yourself. There's more about all this at the forums.
But mainly you need rest. Don't push your body to do anything that hurts. It really is weak and you can permanantly injure yourself.
Once your symptoms calm down, I would do a few liver flushes and a kidney cleanse. There is a book by Andreas Moritz that outlines a good procedure for that. Then you are probably going to need to do a Parasite cleanse followed by more liver flushes. I know, it seems so strange and unneccessary, no. I thought the same thing. I looked at these forums back in the day after India. And thought there was no way these things were effecting me and that I had parasites or needed to do these flushes.
But I deteriorated to the point where I had to do something and there was no help from the outside. Then it was: What else can I do, I might as well do a bunch of these flushes.
Regarding Orthodox medicine and MD's. You won't get help there. I left a lot of my story out because of carpel tunnel. But they are trained to not understand, not listen, condescend, and of course give you more pills.
They may be good people, they may have paid a lot of money to study in a University. But the current 'medical' structure in place will not provide an avenue for you to resolve your problems.
Alternative medicine is just as bad, though the answers are in their literature.
You have to heal yourself. Inform yourself. Reason yourself. Listen to your body. Give it a chance to heal. Don't take any more pills.
the body is designed to heal and given the right environment, it will. But you have to give it that environment.
I did the hair test. Elevated aluminum, arsenic, and nickel. I tried the Candida diet and was miserable. I had my metabolic profile taken by an MD 3 years after India. Slightly low B12, which I am sure is worse now.
I said the same thing. I don't have Candida. I don't have heavy metals.
Let me tell you another story. My wife also has the same worm. How do I know? She passes one in every bowel movement she has that follows an enema. So we took one, put it in a jar, brought it to a clinic, and asked them to find out what it was. They asked if she could submit a 'stool' sample instead. We said : that is a stool sample. they reluctantly took the thing, sent it to a 'lab' and the test came back "no parasite found'. Everypart of what was sent was a parasite. There wasn't even any feces to dig through. Just a 5 inch intact worm. They they asked for a stool sample so that next time they could get an accurate result.
That's what you are up against. You can't trust the results of the tests you have done. Not even the alternative hair tests.
You may have Candida as well. It would naturally proliferate in a body that is being subjected to antibiotics. But its probably not the main cause of your troubles. Just something you will have to deal with at some point.
You may have heavy metals. Its impossible not to be subjected to them in this day and age. Again, not the cause, but their presense could be making it hard for you to cope with both the antibiotic poisoning and parasite you probably have. And you may have to include something to help with that before you can fix these new problems.
Parasites love a toxic body.
But you can easily cleanse all these things together.
Your body will heal but you have to take the time to change its internal milieu so as to affect a rejuvenation.
I hope this helps. Feel free to e-mail me or if you want I can give you my number.
Besides my wife, my friends and family didn't understand what I was going through and certainly thought I was crazy for suspecting the antibiotics.
Joseph