Lyme Testimony:

One Success with the Buhner Protocol  

I can’t say for sure where my Lyme story begins, because my brothers remember watching our father remove a tick from the back of my neck when we were young children. It was after being moved to upstate New York by my husband’s company in the nineties, though, that my health problems began in earnest, despite the fact that I didn’t put it together at the time. 

Mine is not an unusual story, unfortunately. I remember having a flu-like illness, descending almost into delirium when the fever was at its height. Within a year I began to have bouts of depression, but I found they were less serious when I didn’t eat wheat products, so I thought I must have developed gluten intolerance. 

As years went on, though, the depression became more serious. I became disorganized and antisocial, then haunted by suicidal ideation. I was given counseling and put on meds. With them I could function, barely, but I was miserable, even though there was really nothing wrong. I had intense heart palpitations, but my doctor told me they were nothing to worry about. Because of neurological problems I was unable to hold a real job. 

I tried to get well. I meditated, journaled, chanted, exercised, and took a number of supplements, all in an effort to get somewhere near normal again. Nothing worked. 

A couple of years ago I developed difficulties in walking. It involved muscle weakness and a feeling as if some muscles were continually clenched. I was tested for MS, but tests were negative. I saw an eye doctor for a sudden increase in floaters. My family doctor found a heart murmur. Instead of having periods I just began to bleed a little every day. Examinations showed no problems. My knees and hands started to hurt more and more--age, people said.  

This past spring, though, it got to the point where pain in one of my knees interfered with my life. I could no longer take walks, a central enjoyment of my life, and going down steps had turned into a slow and excruciating process. I went back to the doctor and was tested for lupus and Lyme. Both tests came back negative, so the doctor said it was just arthritis and all they could offer was physical therapy. The PT didn’t help. 

About this time, we went on a vacation to visit family in Massachusetts. The visit included some time in the woods, and a few days later I noticed a small engorged tick on my husband’s back. I removed it and threw it away. Everyone said not to worry about it, but after we got home my husband became deathly ill and wound up in the hospital where he was diagnosed with acute babesia. (He was treated and so far seems to be recovered.) At home after visiting hours I scoured the net for info on tick-borne illnesses and the pieces of my puzzle began to fit together. 

Since I’d tested negative for Lyme, I knew my doctor wasn’t going to prescribe antibiotics. I was considering seeing a Lyme literate doctor, but I stumbled on info about S. H. Buhner’s book Healing Lyme and was intrigued. I’d admired him for a book I’d read about plants, since plants had been a lifelong interest of mine, although, oddly, I’d never thought much about using them medicinally. 

I ordered Healing Lyme and after reading it I decided to try the protocol. I started the herbs pretty much all at once, but at low levels, building dosages week to week exactly as he describes in the book. Along with the core protocol I bought and took herbs he recommended for joints and for neurological problems. I took andrographis, resveratrol from Polygonum cuspidatum, cat’s claw, turmeric/bromelain, devil’s claw, eleuthero, nettle, gotu kola, and teasel tincture. All in all, over the months it has probably cost me about $500. 

The die-off was disabling at first. I thought I was dying and nearly went off the herbs, but at some point, I don’t remember just when, it began to pay off. I began to be able to get up from a chair without using my arms. Going down stairs got easier and easier. Walking the two blocks to the post office wasn’t a daunting painful journey. Finally I was able to get out my bike and ride again!  

And it wasn’t only that. My mind began to clear. Social situations, which for years had filled me with fear (I used to tell my son, ‘It’s like I have worms or bugs crawling around in my head!’), came more and more easily. Deep paranoia, which used to come and go, wreaking havoc with my relationships, dissipated. I can’t say I’m fully recovered and I don’t expect I’ll ever get back my lost memories, but I definitely live with less fear and self-loathing, more ease and joy. 

Will it last? I don’t know. Right now I’m grateful for all the progress I’ve made and I’m not as afraid of problems that might appear. I know that if the medical profession doesn’t have a cure for something, that doesn’t mean it can’t be cured, or at least improved. 

One other thing I want to mention is a little flaky-sounding, but I think I should share it because it may have played a part. Some months before my husband landed in the hospital I read a book that recommended a visualization practice in which one imagines floating in a boat to a small green island populated by gentle caregivers in white robes.  

I visualized them welcoming me to the island and led me to a combination spa/hospital where they performed gentle but powerful processes of healing and renewal. They permeated my body with a substance that regenerated my cells to a youthful state and they reached into me, pulling out barbed wires and dark clumps of some substance so that energies could flow freely throughout my body and self. They washed me with herbal waters and pulled my body into alignment. 

I did the visualizations several times a week, but I can’t say for certain they helped make me well. I do know that it was after I’d been doing them for a while that I came upon the information about the Buhner book. Could it have been a manifestation on the outer plane of the healing I’d been receiving on the inner? Who knows? But I continue to do it from time to time and I will use it again for any illnesses I encounter. 

I’m incredibly grateful to Spirit, to Stephen Harrod Buhner and to many other people and plants for this huge improvement in my health. I hope that many, many people get to experience this kind of improvement, no matter what healing protocols they use. Each day of good health is a gift! Never give up.