Checkpoint: Blood-work after three months of treatment
First Checkpoint!!
Remember in the Blood and Weed post when I mentioned that I was going in for blood-work? Well, the results are back, and there's good news and bad news! Here are the changes and updates I have to report after being on treatment for nearly three months:
Good News:
"Glucose, Serum" is down from 91 to 79, which means that my body's ability to stabilize blood sugars is increased, and my body has a better metabolic response than before
ECP, a chemical that whose presence was tested for to check and see if I have Babesia (a common co-infection with Lyme), is low. Which means that I either don't have Babesia or so little of it in my body that it's nearly all gone
"Complement C4a" is down from 612.7 to 574.0, and my "Complement C3a" levels are in the middle ground at 101.9, both of which means that the inflammation in my body is decreasing
The Bartonella and Babesia microti Antibody Panels have come up negative, which means I may have neither co-infections! However we're gonna play it safe and continue to treat them just in case its a very small amount left over that can grow back
Galectin-3 levels are low, which is good! Galectin-3 is an indicator of the presence of "biofilms", which form when bacteria adhere to surfaces and begin to excrete a slimy, glue-like substance that can anchor them to all kinds of material (so, not good).
Not So Good News:
Because we knew the Lyme was present when we did blood-work this time around (as opposed to last time, where we just did searching albeit "overall" tests), we did further tests that probed more into co-infections of Lyme, whereas before we were just testing for Lyme. We discovered I had two significant viruses that were present in my body, but not active:
Mycroplasma Pneumoniae IgG Abs (on a scale of 0-320, I am at 432 U/mL)
EBV Nuclear Antigen AB, IgG - also known as Mono (on a scale of 0-21.9, I am at 112 U/mL, so VERY high)
Now even though the MP and Mono viruses are in my body, this doesn't mean they are active. If they were, then I would've had Mono for 10 years straight. And if that's the case, I am in possession of the most resilient human body I've ever seen. But in all likelihood that's not the case, so instead these 2 viruses are simply squatting inside me and distracting my immune system from properly counteracting the Lyme bacteria. So, because of this, from here on out I'm going to be taking medication that will aid in ridding my body of both dormant viruses so that I can continue to fight my CLD.
Apart from the two viruses, everything else is really good news! My doctor told me that if she didn't know any better, she'd have thought that the two sets of data from the blood-work were from different people. So all in all, progress is being made, and hopefully within another 3-6 months I will be rid of the majority of the Lyme in my body!