Hey everyone I'm new to these forums. What I'm not new to us depersonalization disorder. It has severely impacted my life for the past 5 years and I just turned 21. It was caused by smoking weed and having a traumatic experience while being high just like many if you. When I woke up the next day, everything seemed foreign and lifeless/emotionless. After all these years of struggling socially and scholastically, I found my cause. BARTONELLA. It was activated in my body during the truama. A strain of bacteria that is commonly found to be a coinfection with people with Lyme. Most of us have this infection, but never get triggered to activation until something severely tragic and traumatizing happens. I'm going to boldly predict and state, that I think most of us have either bartonella, Lyme, or other coinfections. Testing for these are tremendously inaccurate too as the standard tests fail to successfully detect it more than half the time. If you think about it, it is highly unlikely that some of our symptoms like eye floaters, static vision that occur after rthe onset of do are caused by hormonal or neurological In balances. Hopefully I gave some hope to people and I urge everyone to look into these things. Even if youve been tested. I know I'm. It a very good writer, I do have some brain fog that impacts my ability to think, and wish I could add more detail. Btw, do any of you have weird stretch marks like diggings Amy place odd on your body? That is tell tail sign of Bart.
Dpd and everyone's infection
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Welcome to the forums KY23. You bring up some excellent points and your story sounds all too similar to mine. I recently found out I have Lyme & babesia after I have been in this strange zombie depersonalized state for over 10 years now. It has been a complete mystery as to why I suffered from dissociation, brain fog, and a myriad of other cognitive problems. Ultimately, I felt like a freak of nature with this alien condition where I can't speak or think normally and I used to be very creative.I can safely say that it destroyed all aspects of my life including social relationships, academics, career, dreams and passions, and more. My symptoms were triggered simply by doing a lot of cardio exercise when I was 18 and lost 10 to 15 pounds. My body and immune system viewed the sudden weight loss as stress and trauma and reactivated infections that were in a semi-dormant state. After all, exercise works by hormesis so in other words stressing your body makes it stronger in the long run but that wasn't the case for me. The major twist is that I first experienced detachment, derealization, and brain fog when I was 4 and this is when I suspect I got originally infected. Now it feels like I have a lobotomy as I can't think at all. I am scheduled for a SPECT brain scan next week so I will see what is happening to my brain. I don't think people realize what tick born illnesses can do to the brain so I hope to bring more awareness to this issue.
Excellent man very excellent. It gives me hope because I truly believe that's what happened to most of us even if tests don't show because as I stated in my original post, Lyme and related infection tests are unreliable mainstream. I just hope people will see my post and explore this as a possible cause to them because my depersonalization was caused by something that I have in common with a lot of other people on here. Well, I hope you finally get to feel better. Also, if you could let me know how your treating your infections. I'm doing stephen buhner's bartonella herbal protocol.????
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if it was bartonella did you experience problems with skin?
Autonomic , I essentially diagnosed myself when I found out that random stretch marks that I never had are a symptom of bartonella. Then I looked into it and bartonella causes depersonalization and many people officially diagnosed with it experience depersonalization just like everyone that comes to these forums. My stretch marks came out of no where and we're on my inner thigh. Ive always been athletic, maintained a healthy weight, and grew steadily, so it made sense that the stretch marks were caused from the bacteria. My other symptoms matched, static vision, eye floaters, anxiety, which all appeared after the on set of depersonalization. Hope this helps
Autonomic space monkey. Also, mainstream protocols for testing are grossly unrelaible , so your family healthcare or your normal doctor is illiterate in this along with many other things. My recommendation would to see a llmd, Lyme literate doctor as they are the only doctors that are versed in bartonella , Lyme, ext and have the right testing.
So far I have been prescribed the antibiotic doxycycline for the Lyme and anti parasite med Mepron for babesia. As of now, my symptoms haven't really improved unfortunately since I have been dealing with these infections for such a long time. Depending on what the Spect brain scan reveals I may get prescribed IV antibiotics though considering my symptoms I think it's highly likely there are going to be abnormalities. Contrary to what the mainstream believes, Lyme & coinfections are not easy to diagnose and even more difficult to treat for people who have been undiagnosed for so long. Indeed I hope we all can feel better. I have came across a study where Oregano Oil & Cinnamon Bark Oil are more effective at killing Lyme than RX antibiotics. But this is an test tube study only which hasn't been validated in humans yet.
Very interesting about cinnamon and bark tree oil. I know lyme can be very tough to treat after it being chronic for so long but I believe that nature has answers for us as well. I also know many people who have improved from chronic lyme after hitting it with iv antibiotics, normal anyibiotics. I would recommend looking into Stephen buhner's Lyme protocol, and talk with your doctor about including some of his herbs into your protocol. It couldn't hurt and I think they don't interfere with any medications.
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Michelle, please share whether the symptoms you experience are solely cognitive and psychiatric in nature.
Michelle, I hope I'm not overstepping here, but when I was treated for these conditions, I was informed by my Lyme doctor that, for the treatment of babesia to be successful, you have to couple the Mepron with another antibiotic (I believe that it was bactrim, but I can't remember positively. I'm confident that it wasn't doxy though). I was also informed that I had to take them for 5 months, and COULD NOt MISS A SINGLE DOSE, or we would have to begin the 5 month treatment all over again. So it might be worth your while to look into that. I know the science of Lyme treatment isn't the greatest, and different doctors do treat differently and believe different things. But just thought I'd point that out for you.
It is the opinion of ILADS - the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society - that Lyme can manifest in purely psychiatric and cognitive ways. The Lyme lipoproteins are hydrophillic meaning that they are attracted to fatty cell membranes, including the brain myelin which is made of fat by definition.
I have been undiagnosed for over 10 years, and as of now most of my symptoms of cognitive/psychiatric such as dissociation, waking up and having no connection to my past or the people around me, feeling like decades of memories have been erased from my brain, no thought process, anhedonia, emotional numbing, social withdrawal, and many more glorious symptoms which make life not worth living.
Other symptoms I have/or have had are sleep problems, both insomnia and hypersomnia, random foot cramps, heart palpitations, hormonal imbalance, unrelenting fatigue, aversion to physical movement, etc.
I have only been treated for babesia for a short period of time for 2 weeks along with azithromycin. One thing is that the med is bloody expensive ($1000 Mepron, $400 generic). But most importantly, even though my testing was strongly positive for babesia, I really do not have the classic babesia symptoms now such as air hunger and shortness of breath so my main focus now is treating the Lyme which I am on IV Rocephin. I will say that I did do 40 sessions of Hyperbaric Oxygen about 6 months ago and I can't say that it had a positive lasting effect, maybe even a slightly negative effect. I hear that babesia lives on oxygen so that may be a reason for these lackluster results.
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Babesia is a tick borne parasite that infects red blood cells. It causes Babesiosis, which can be diagnosed by identifying the parasite in a sample of red blood cells. It is very treatable, according to the CDC.
Bartonella is a bacteria that primarily infects the lining of veins. It can originate from cat scratches and other sources. It is also treatable with antibiotics. When it is comorbid with Lyme disease, a 4-6 month
course of antibiotic treatment may be necessary to rid the individual of the infection. If DP/DR is caused by either of these infections, then successful treatment of the infections would resolve the DP./DR.
Since successful treatment of either of these conditions is readily available, is someone saying that their DP/DR was resolved in conjunction with that treatment?
Or, not?
Bartonella is a bacteria that primarily infects the lining of veins. It can originate from cat scratches and other sources. It is also treatable with antibiotics. When it is comorbid with Lyme disease, a 4-6 month
course of antibiotic treatment may be necessary to rid the individual of the infection. If DP/DR is caused by either of these infections, then successful treatment of the infections would resolve the DP./DR.
Since successful treatment of either of these conditions is readily available, is someone saying that their DP/DR was resolved in conjunction with that treatment?
Or, not?
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Thank you for your comment, Michelle. Having suffered from stable DPD for the past 15 years, I have recently attempted to gather information regarding the possibility of Lyme disease manifesting in purely psychiatric symptoms but found it difficult to locate any case reports wherein symptoms were not multi-systemic. and so the stance of the ILADS is encouraging in a sense. I am now looking for a specific reference on the ILADS website.
I would like to inform those suffering from the disease that Dr. Thomas Levy, of the orthomolecular-medicine school, had reported successful treatment of chronic Lyme cases with IV vitamin C in daily doses of 100 g. for the duration of a month. Dr. Levy also believes it is possible for liposomal vitamin C in a dose of approximately 20 g. to be equal in efficacy to 100 g. of IV vitamin C, if not more efficacious.
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Dr Thomas Levy sounds like an interesting fellow. He was board certified in internal medicine and cardiology, but gave up his practices to work for a dentist who was promoting nutritional treatments (Vitamin C) therapies for diseases for which modern medicine has no cures.
He then went on to aquire a law degree to defend his alternative treatments. I don't believe there is an orthomolecular medical school. The terms orthomolecular and medicine are not compatable by today's standards. Perhaps orthomolecular and nutritional school is more accurate.
Someday, Dr. Levy will be regarded as a man ahead of his time, or a quack looking to make easy money selling vitamins and supplements. Levy was once an Associate Professor at Capital University of Integrative Medicine, which was allegedly founded by a fraud and operated
as a diploma mill generating worthless degrees before it closed. "Despite '15 years of research' Dr Levy has not published a single peer-reviewed article on the link between vitamin C and disease.
Believing vitamin C can prevent and cure all disease may cause life-threatening delays to people starting genuine medical treatment. "
He then went on to aquire a law degree to defend his alternative treatments. I don't believe there is an orthomolecular medical school. The terms orthomolecular and medicine are not compatable by today's standards. Perhaps orthomolecular and nutritional school is more accurate.
Someday, Dr. Levy will be regarded as a man ahead of his time, or a quack looking to make easy money selling vitamins and supplements. Levy was once an Associate Professor at Capital University of Integrative Medicine, which was allegedly founded by a fraud and operated
as a diploma mill generating worthless degrees before it closed. "Despite '15 years of research' Dr Levy has not published a single peer-reviewed article on the link between vitamin C and disease.
Believing vitamin C can prevent and cure all disease may cause life-threatening delays to people starting genuine medical treatment. "
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heres my situation: i got chronic but fairly mild dr in childhood around age 7-9 and it was quite obviously linked to my family situation back then. It got a lot worse 2 years ago through a mental breakdown.
BUt: i did have a fuckton of ticks as a child, was always in nature n stuff.
I wonderder if lyme or any related disease could be causing the dr but the thing is that i dont have any physical issues at all, in fact im way more healthy than most people i know.
So my dr is also purely a mental phenomenon where i just feel incredibly spaced out/dreamlike/not present.
Is it really likely that lyme could becausing this especially giving my fairly traumatic childhood situation?
my healh anxiety is just getting triggered if you understand^^ id like to hear your thoughts
BUt: i did have a fuckton of ticks as a child, was always in nature n stuff.
I wonderder if lyme or any related disease could be causing the dr but the thing is that i dont have any physical issues at all, in fact im way more healthy than most people i know.
So my dr is also purely a mental phenomenon where i just feel incredibly spaced out/dreamlike/not present.
Is it really likely that lyme could becausing this especially giving my fairly traumatic childhood situation?
my healh anxiety is just getting triggered if you understand^^ id like to hear your thoughts
I remember thinking about doing the hyperbaric oxygen, but not really hearing very good results, combined with the time and financial commitment that takes just made it not worth the effort. Walking up to the corner store is a momentous torturous experience so having to go in for many many sessions was just not up my alley.
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Don't they have tests for Lyme disease? Yes, they do. Take it out of the realm of the theoretical and hypothetical, and get some answers.
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. The test used most often to detect Lyme disease, ELISA detects antibodies to B. burgdorferi. But because it can sometimes provide false-positive results, it's not used as the sole basis for diagnosis.
Western blot test. If the ELISA test is positive, this test is usually done to confirm the diagnosis. In this two-step approach, the Western blot detects antibodies to several proteins of B. burgdorferi.
And so, take the ELISA and if it is negative, you don't have Lyme. If it is positive, get the Western blot test to ensure it is not a false positive.
Now, you know whether you have Lyme or not.
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. The test used most often to detect Lyme disease, ELISA detects antibodies to B. burgdorferi. But because it can sometimes provide false-positive results, it's not used as the sole basis for diagnosis.
Western blot test. If the ELISA test is positive, this test is usually done to confirm the diagnosis. In this two-step approach, the Western blot detects antibodies to several proteins of B. burgdorferi.
And so, take the ELISA and if it is negative, you don't have Lyme. If it is positive, get the Western blot test to ensure it is not a false positive.
Now, you know whether you have Lyme or not.
If only it were this easy. Numerous studies have shown that this standard two-tier testing misses culture-confirmed cases of Lyme (active infection) anywhere between 40% and 60% of the time. Unfortunately Lyme testing is nowhere near as confident as HIV testing, for example.
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