Back After 2 Years

And what about Lynn Messer?

Dear faithful readers, 

I’ve looked forward to being in contact with you again. Hopefully, you noticed the new design and web address. If not, please take note that the domain name changed to crisisresourceadvocate.com. Since I’ve volunteered as a crisis resource advocate for over a decade, I decided to have my website name reflect my passion. I have spiritual alertness and compassion after years of suffering. They allow me to see, hear, feel, and understand the challenges and heartaches fellow survivors face.

I’ve been missing in action for the last two years because I had cancer I shouldn’t have had in a place where it shouldn’t have been. The biologic Humira, which I was taking for auto-immune diseases, caused it. Biologics are not for me. Now I’m on to battling other illnesses that make my cancer seem like a walk in the park.

For several years, I thought I might have Lyme disease, but the doctors always told me the test results were negative. So instead, I was diagnosed with more auto-immune diseases by multiple doctors.

We are our own best advocate.

My three pages of weird symptoms have led me to at least twenty different specialists over the last six years. I’ve had dozens of mysterious symptoms through the decades, but it wasn’t until something wreaked havoc on my memory and nervous system that I forged ahead to a Lyme literate MD. When I showed the past test results to the Lyme MD, he told me the results were positive and that I have tick-borne diseases, which more testing confirmed. 

It turns out the CDC requires that testing show certain bands for the strain of Lyme that originated in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Very few people have that strain of Lyme, so most patients test negative even when other bands show up on the report. Lyme (Borrelia burgdorferi) subdivided into multiple borrelia species as it migrated all over the country. My lab results showed the Lyme DNA was in my blood along with other ‘body’ parts of the tick bacteria, but not the Old Lyme version.

Stress, trauma, accidents, and surgeries triggered the tick bacteria out of hiding, and through the years, they grew into demon-ish beasts living beneath my skin.

For good or bad, my symptoms can change by the minute, hour, or day.

I have had dozens of additional weird symptoms since starting multiple medications, herbals, and supplements, but after my first nine months of treatments, I’m seeing progress, so I’m ready to re-engage my brain. I’m back, and I’ll start posting on subjects I know well. 

I bet you didn’t know: 

• Ticks can run from our foot to our head in 6 seconds or less.
• Ticks feel our body heat and are especially drawn to our breath.
• In a Yale study, 85% of people with tick-borne illnesses didn’t see a tick and never knew they had a bite. 
• Ticks don’t have to embed in us to give us a tick-borne disease. 
• Chemicals in the tick’s saliva numb our skin (so we don’t feel them bite or embed) and inactivate the fist-response portions of our immune function, protecting the tick and the microbes it carries. 
• Antarctica is the only place on earth that doesn’t have ticks. 
• Ticks can survive up to -42 degrees. 
• We shouldn’t eat raw fish or drink raw milk. They can contain tick-borne diseases because heat or pasteurization hasn’t killed the bacteria.
• We should wear gloves when handling raw meat.
• Many doctors will tell you that you have at least 24 hours to find and remove a feeding tick before it transmits an infection. FALSE.
• Doctors will also tell you that only deer ticks transmit Lyme disease bacteria. FALSE. Many ticks carry Lyme and several coinfections. One tick can carry several illnesses.
• Several Missouri doctors tell me we don’t have disease-carrying ticks in our state. FALSE. The state has multiple universities tracking, researching, and labeling different ticks and the diseases and coinfections each is found carrying.
• We shouldn’t allow our pets to lick us.
• If you have 4 or more chronic illnesses, you should consider seeing a Lyme Literate MD, (LLMD).
• If you suspect a tick-borne disease, you should only see a Lyme literate MD.

Public service announcement: 

If you have an embedded tick, always pull slowly with tweezers until it backs out. NEVER try to suffocate them with anything because it will cause them to regurgitate their microbes into your body. All ticks carry microbes. The possibility they’re carrying a form of Borrelia (Lyme) is relatively high. When bit, call your doctor, per CDC standards, and ask for a 14-day supply of doxycycline. The immediate treatment decreases your chance of contracting a tick-borne illness. (I did this over the last 14 years after every tick, but I already had borrelia (Lyme), and I needed long-term treatment). If possible, place the tick in a baggie with a wet cotton ball. Write the date of the bite on the outside of the baggie. There are options for tick-borne disease identification testing by mailing the tick/s to: Ticknology or TickCheck.

Do this!

Use Permethrin on your clothes (never on your skin), hat, shoes, tent, camping gear, lawn chairs, backpack, and about 10 feet around the perimeter of your tent or the door to your camper. Permethrin burns the tick’s legs and incapacitates it. The tick will die 1-2 minutes later. Use an essential oil based bug spray on your skin, and remember that Deet DOES NOT protect against ticks. However, ticks hate oregano oil, so add a lot of oregano essential oil to your bug spray bottle. Studies are currently considering the potential of oregano oil to kill ticks. When I ingest oregano oil, I have a major kill-off (Herxing) of tick bacteria in my system, and I have to take extra care to detox my body of the dead bacteria to avoid severe disabling pain and other symptoms.

Ticks Suck (literally and figuratively)

The most frustrating aspect of all the tick-borne illnesses and auto-immune diseases is the energy I lacked while parenting my two youngest children. My daughter, who is the firstborn, received most of my vitality. I’m glad she and I could do so many activities, clubs, group Bible studies, trips, and parties together before the illnesses completely knocked me off my feet. It was good that my boys were homebodies who enjoyed hanging out with friends and participating in church functions, which didn’t require physical energy I didn’t possess. My husband likes a slow pace, so he’s fine with my lack of get-up-and-go compared to the Energizer Bunny version of myself.

I’ve likely had Lyme with the Babesia and Bartonella coinfections since I was preschool age or earlier, which means I unknowingly passed it to my kids in utero. 

Lynn Messer

Lastly, I want to talk about Lynn Messer. (Type Lynn Messer into this website’s search bar to find past articles about Lynn). I know she is dear to our hearts, and I still pray that questions about her death will be brought to light on this side of heaven. 

Years ago, I asked Detective White, “I heard Kerry Messer say in a radio interview that in the hours before Lynn disappeared, she was sitting on the bed cutting empty plastic water bottles in preparation for VBS the next day. Can you verify if plastic water bottles were recovered from their bedroom?” Detective White answered (let slip, I think), “We can’t discuss the crime scene.” 

Unless there is an arrest, I won’t be writing about Lynn’s case any more, but please know that I’m still praying for #JusticeForLynn. If a new development arises, you can also look for information on the Facebook page: Find Lynn Messer II or Truth Seekers Open Forum.

That’s all for now. If you know of someone in a difficult, destructive, or dangerous marriage, please send them a link to my website. At the bottom of the Blog, Contact, and About pages are links to several helpful resources. 

Warmly,

Carolyn