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15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

bostonglobe.com

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Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you have long Covid, you should do some research about CIRS (Chronic Inflammation Response Syndrome). It is a condition caused by exposure to toxic mold from water damaged (inside or out) buildings. There is growing evidence that there isn't actually a separate condition for long Covid, but rather it is Covid-triggered CIRS. (Lyme can trigger it too). (Note: only about 25% of people are genetically susce…

Throwing all your stuff away seems wasteful.

How kind of you to say.... If you do much research on the topic, you will find that this is the standard advice. It is almost impossible to remove (especially for any porous surface). People with CIRS can by symptomatic even from dead mold spores.

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you have long Covid, you should do some research about CIRS (Chronic Inflammation Response Syndrome). It is a condition caused by exposure to toxic mold from water damaged (inside or out) buildings. There is growing evidence that there isn't actually a separate condition for long Covid, but rather it is Covid-triggered CIRS. (Lyme can trigger it too). (Note: only about 25% of people are genetically susce…

Thanks for writing this up. How did you figure out it was toxic white mold, or rather, what tests helped you get there?

Largely it was a multi-year process trying to find the source of all my symptoms. Eventually, I found someone posting on a Reddit forum about long Covid and they suggested to someone that they have problems with mold exposure instead. I collected dust from my house and sent it off to be tested. The test came back with an UNINHABITABLE result for Aspergillus versicolor (a highly resilient and ubiquitous indoor mold frequently found in water-damaged building materials like drywall, carpet, and ceiling tiles)

You can't really test for it in blood or urine unless you are currently under super high exposure. Unfortunately, most doctors have never heard of it and have no idea what to do. Some don't believe you because all your bloodwork is fine. It finally clicked for me when I realized that I had 20 of the 21 most common symptoms and had had a roof leak a few years before (since fixed).

I have an extreme heat intolerance now too so I only feel okay when cold and overly hydrated. I started pushing the vitamins above after eating peas one night and magically feeling human again 30 minutes later. Even though your levels may be "normal", the mycotoxins prevent uptake so you have to flood your system and hope enough gets through. I also make sure I'm getting enough vit C, B and D in my diet. I even do things like buying a specific coffee that is tested for mold. A lot of foods sit around collecting mold before they get processed into food. These mycotoxins (not live mold) will get bound to the bile in your gut naturally. Bile is energy expensive for your liver to make so it is highly recycled as it helps you break down fats in your guts. You can do a lot more reading in the ToxicMoldExposure Reddit.

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#163

I didn’t discover that ticks were a problem until I was in my mid 20s, and had been rolling around in deer-filled brush for years. Either I got very lucky, or have a chronic tick-borne disease. I’ve been battling unexplained anxiety, fatigue, poor sleep and cognitive decline throughout my 30s. I’ve had every blood test under the sun, numerous sleep studies and tried every vitamin. I’ve had no answers and no change. S…

Signed up to post this. So I have been on this journey with my daughter for the last 7 years, she is now 25, but only got a Lyme diagnosis less than 2 years ago, has been suffering since she was 18. It’s not just ticks, mosquitos and spiders can apparently carry the bacteria (there is not a lot of consensus about the causes of Lyme, there is the bacterial school of thought and a viral theory). This if the fringe of s…

This is a great story, and your kindness shows to a random stranger on the internet so I want to commend you for that.

Adding to it, I want to share a bit of my story and some words that could help as well.

I haven't ever checked for Lyme diagnosis, but I've experienced symptoms that are diabetes adjacent and cured those through diet and other experimentation. Through the last 10 years of so I obsessed over and reversed various medical illnesses that were said to be incurable, since for that exact reason as you said "conventional options have been exhausted". In my journey I met one man who exhausted many treatment options for Lyme and his success strategy looked as follows: a) he took EMF seriously and rebuilt his home for EMF minimization (happy to share strategy and solutions for you more here, I follow a cheap mans version of his more expensive work), b) he would take particular vitamins and other nutrients, and c) Rife therapy. He had an expensive plasma machine that would send particular frequencies into his body through light plasma (more expensive Rife frequency modulation end of things) but many machines exist that are cheaper. Spooky sells these machines, some of the solutions include PEMF which I believe are electricity based. I've used their remote frequency machines and also a scalar version for overall health and haven't had to use them since. My experience with Rife is limited. My basic drivers for health now are grounding for inflammation reduction (feet on grass every so often, or grounding mats), EMF reduction, information management (try notification zero and how it affects your biology: no notifications on your phones or devices ever and that includes notification bubbles - Calls from loved ones OK), and diet/food/water/sleep. I'll also use a Schumann tuned set of tuning forks I have 2 sets one that use a weight vibration and another that uses just the sound. my sleep and stress improve considerably when I use the forks, and I believe they have an affect like grounding but on the frequency end only. When I was first starting this journey, I would do pure cold showers in winter months and kept the practice for years, it was the first time I noticed a big shift in my health and wellbeing that lasted and also kept my mood elevated for a while after. I have also used more expensive cold baths, cryotherapy, etc and I think they can all approach and work for the type of Hypothermia treatment that geekfeatures is mentioning. My intuition is experimentation with these first, 3-5x a week, would mimic a similar process in the body to the hypothermic heavy therapy and may even be triggering it at a similar level to the paid therapies.

Anyway I'll stop there to keep this limited in word count. Feel free to reach out here or personally via hello@mannan.is and good luck.

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You owe it to yourself to learn about Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). It can be caused by lyme but is more often due to exposure to water damaged buildings. It is treatable and the science is backed by peer-reviewed academic papers. https://www.survivingmold.com/legal-resources/publications/p... Reasonably priced lab testing can be obtained without jumping through insurance hoops: https://www.moldco.co…

Nearly every person you have shared CIRS info with was formally diagnosed with CIRS by a doctor? Or were you the one diagnosing them?

I'm not a doctor. I just recognized symptom clusters consistent with my personal experience and shared information that would hopefully lead them to reach for effective treatment. Additionally, I only speak up when someone expresses frustration that their health provider has no clue what is going on.

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#165
For me, vigorous exercise, riding my bike, running, jumping rope, has always made me feel better mentally and physically whether it was a pathogen funk or just life and feeling down or symptomatic as some describe below. I always check my kids and myself after hikes, especially in tall grass or shrubs. I've found ticks here and there over the years. The cathartic effect of high-intensity exercise where you push yourself to what you think is your limit is amazing for your physical and mental well being. The old Sufi saying, "Movement is life; stillness is death" is my mantra. I have friends who avoid hiking for fear of ticks and Lyme disease. It's a shame, since being outdoors in the sun, smelling the woods, and taking in the views while walking are priceless. Movement over pharmaceuticals.

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this. Better: ZapStick!

I actually searched for things like that after posting. It's already a thing*, in many different variations. Some use piezo-electrics, advertised as 'battery free'. And countless other stuff, many with some variation of Zap(p) in their names. *Sort of, didn't see small 'passive' ones powered by USB. Edit: Thinking about it, one could abuse and modify one of the countless e-vapes for it? Small enough in most cases, an…

This is your ticket to $$$. All you need is a friend with Steve Wozniak-like capability and Bob's your uncle.

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually searched for things like that after posting. It's already a thing*, in many different variations. Some use piezo-electrics, advertised as 'battery free'. And countless other stuff, many with some variation of Zap(p) in their names. *Sort of, didn't see small 'passive' ones powered by USB. Edit: Thinking about it, one could abuse and modify one of the countless e-vapes for it? Small enough in most cases, an…

This is your ticket to $$$. All you need is a friend with Steve Wozniak-like capability and Bob's your uncle.

Not interested in $$$/€€€. Already have enough of those. As a personal project probably. But not commercially. That would be too much of a hassle. Which I also have enough of, already ;->

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That feels very defeatist, if life only gets worse then I might as well just end it. I prefer to think it's something unexplained and it just shows up more in older people because more things have happened to them so they're more likely to have encountered whatever the cause is.

The whole trick to life is that none of this matters and if you can hold it together long enough it’s still enjoyable to be alive and to die.

Emotionally integrating that outlook is easier said than done. It's also just one of many healthy outcomes of an existential crisis.

Re: 15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test

#170
While this at-home test kit is neat, there already are solutions to this problem which are likely more beneficial to the overall awareness of tick-borne illness. In the US, one can send a tick (alive, dead, in shreds) to Penn State’s tick research lab via usps and get results in just a few days. Customers can select what results they’re looking for, as ticks don’t solely carry one “lyme disease” marker.

I would feel better sending a tick that i pulled off of myself or my pets to a dedicated research lab rather than buy some one-off test kits which don’t contribute to the overall incidence rate of tick-borne illness.

I even sent a tick that I found in a potted plant from home depot (never attached to me) which turned out to carry rocky mountain spotted fever. I only sent that random tick in just to see if it carried anything, and since seeing the report from Penn State Ive wondered if i had contracted RMSF what my medical journey would have looked like, since i live on the opposite side of the continent from those ticks and i had found it mid-December. That would have required a Gregory House differential diagnosis where I live.

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