Well folks, I (Jesse) recently realized that it has been six months since I last updated you on my journey battling Chronic Lyme Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. Spoiler alert! I’m alive and everything is fine!
Last time we talked I told you I was going through a series of several IV therapies (Ozone, High Dose Vitamin C, and Glutathione) to help put my Lyme Disease in remission, and subsequently my Ulcerative Colitis. The general purpose of these treatments was to stimulate my immune system to kill the lyme bacteria and then flush it out of my system so it would stop wreaking all kinds of havoc! Well, let me just say I was pretty naive to think the process would be as smooth as I had described… (Hey, I can dream right?!)
It’s been a long six months, filled with many ups and downs. Let me start by saying that the treatments did help. After 6 weeks of treatments, my blood infection markers were retested, showing slight improvements, however, around that same time my UC started to flare even worse. I started seeing blood in my stool, undigested food, frequent trips to the bathroom… oh, and I also
got Hand-Foot-Mouth disease on Easter weekend because my doctor thinks that the high doses of vitamin C may have reactivated a dormant virus. Yeah, trying to sleep with ice packs strapped to your hands and feet is no picnic…
At this point, my doctor and I decided that it would be best to take a break from treatments and allow my body a chance to heal. The treatment course was just too intense and too fast to handle. I went back on steroids to “calm the storm” and tried to resume life as normal, but how could I, knowing that I was basically back to square one with no real end in sight?
Over the summer I started seeing a new gastroenterologist, who recommended I get a MRI of my abdomen to see how the inflammation was doing and if there was any small bowel involvement. While waiting to schedule the MRI, I started a new treatment program with my integrative doctor to focus on healing my intestines and “resetting” my cells to work more efficiently, known as Exosome Therapy. If you’re curious, I encourage to do some research on your own. I am not a doctor and this treatment, while clinically studied, is still new and slightly experimental.
I got the MRI done after doing two Exosome treatments and I am thrilled to say that the MRI came back showing UC activity to only the lower 30% of my colon and no small bowel activity! YAHOO!! This is a significant improvement from the colonoscopy I had done the year prior, which showed severe disease activity in over 80% of my colon. Granted it’s not a 1 for 1 comparison, but improvement is improvement!
So… all of this to say that I have now received three exosome treatments and am having completely formed stools, one or two bowel movements a day, some days without any bleeding, and significantly decreased amounts of mucus! So it looks as if my UC may be on the road to remission. While the exosomes get to work on healing and “resetting” the cells of my intestines, they are also working on my immune cells, which may help them fight the Lyme disease more effectively. I plan to get my infection markers retested in two months, so I’ll let you know what they say!
Till next time…
