Is treating Lyme with herbs and acupuncture possible?

First off a Lyme&#39s diagnosis is rarely extremely clear except in the most obvious of situations so I wouldn&#39t get too hung up on the idea overall. It&#39s a "diagnosis" that is rampant in alternative medicine circles and personally I am very leery of it and of those outside of the western medical profession who diagnosis it as such. That said, Chinese Medicine does not treat Lyme&#39s or any other western medical condition per se but patterns of illness, so properly applied your western diagnosis is meaningless (see What Does Acupuncture Treat? for more information on pattern treatments vs. western symptomatic treatments). In other words your practitioner will focus more on your overall set of signs and symptoms and treat all of those at once rather than going after specific medical complaints.

With regard to lyme&#39s specifically - Lyme&#39s and associated symptoms can be treated but with any of the immune/auto-immune based complaints the time frame is very unpredictable. Personally I have treated some awful cases of Lyme&#39s (again technically treating their underlying TCM diagnostic patterns of which lyme&#39s is just one aspect) particularly when I practiced in the northeast where it is far more common than in Chattanooga where I practice now and the majority of my patients have full resolution of symptoms. In fact, one person drove through a year or so ago from Boston on their way to Florida just to thank me again. That said, the more complicated symptoms that a person presents with the more important it is to see practitioners who regularly work with complicated cases (not one or two, but regularly) and these are harder to find admittedly. I would suggest, however, to be patient with who you have around as 3 months to a year or longer would not be unexpected, but again, within a reasonable time frame you should see obvious results in your symptoms. Some of your palpitations, etc. should have changed significantly within 2 months of treatment (although you don&#39t say how often you have gone or anything about what you have done herbally so it&#39s hard to say if you should be better in anything other than general terms). I would suggest, however, if you have seen no changes at all within that timeframe that you should see another practitioner.

It is within the realm of Chinese Medicine to help you but with these conditions there is a less clear time frame than with many of the more common complaints people see an acupuncturist for. In most cases, however, within 8-12 treatments at the most you should have significant changes in at least some of your related symptoms (which are from a Chinese Medicine perspective largely related anyhow).

From the few symptoms that you have mentioned you most likely have what we call Kidney Yin Deficiency from a Chinese Medicine perspective and perhaps some other patterns (you can have multiples). That is really what the treatments are aimed at resolving. If you look at the broad range of medical conditions that can be associated with Kidney Yin Deficiency for example (see on the kd yin page linked above) you will see how Chinese Medicine can often make you seem a lot better off (or at least better understood) than your list of seeming random symptoms might indicate.

Possible to consult with who? Your doctor, or Dr. Zhang? I actually emailed Dr. Zhang a couple of questions several weeks ago, and his responses to me were very short. He more or less said, "You need to discuss these things with your own practitioner," although, to be fair, he could have just not wanted to give up any information for free, which is understandable. Glad to hear you&#39re doing so well! I would do pretty much anything to be able to get rid of my cognitive issues. I can deal with the never-ending headache that I have, the chest pain, the tremors, the dizziness, etc....but not being able to think clearly and basically feeling like an idiot when I&#39ve always been such a cerebral person (never that great with physical activities, but was always pretty sharp mentally) is devastating.

Thank you for your reply as well, yyh_staff. Lightning Pearls is actually the formula I&#39m on now. I was saying that I don&#39t think the formula he recently ordered for me is another Freuhauf concoction, but it might be. I just saw the bottles he looked through when he was checking to see if he had the new formula in stock before ordering it, and they didn&#39t appear to have the Classical Pearls logo on them. The palpitations are a weird thing because I actually don&#39t experience them all that often. I have nagging pain and/or pressure in the center of my chest quite often (I&#39ve actually had it pretty nonstop for the past about 6 weeks), but I only experience the palpitations maybe once a month. To be fair, I&#39m not sure that they&#39re palpitations, as I&#39ve never had a doctor diagnose me with them. I just know I get a feeling like my heart jumped followed by a sinking feeling, and everyone I&#39ve ever described this phenomenon to has said it sounded like palpitations. I would have no problem going in for acupuncture once or twice a week; it&#39s just a matter of financial feasibility. The other acupuncturists in the area that I know about charge the same rate or higher. I chose the guy I&#39m seeing because he struck me as the most clinical and "down to earth" that the area has to offer; the others in the area seem very into new agey kind of things, or they sell a bunch of detox products and such on their websites, which makes me uncomfortable. That said, I have wondered whether I would see better results if I saw someone who used other things I&#39ve heard of like cupping and moxibustion. The guy I&#39m seeing has only ever used needles on me without any electrical stimulation or anything else I&#39ve heard of other practitioners doing.

I think what I&#39ve decided is that I&#39m going to stick with this guy until the end of the year, and then if I don&#39t see any significant benefits, I&#39m just going to kind of give up on seeking answers. If my condition worsens, then I guess I&#39ll seek out other avenues. Frankly, I don&#39t have any reason to believe it WON&#39T continue to progress because the issues that I have did not all begin at once but, rather, have gradually appeared over the past decade. But I&#39m pretty exhausted from seeing doctor after doctor to no avail, too, and I&#39m never going to save up enough money to move out of my dad&#39s house if I keep tossing money at practitioners who can&#39t do anything for me.

That&#39s one of the interesting aspects of Chinese Medicine and how our body works. People can appear to be weak but it&#39s actually because parts of their body are running more and working harder than they need to be - like a part stuck with the on switch activated. Otherwise things like coffee would be a miracle cure for all cases of tiredness. Instead for many it overstimulates certain functions while giving them temporary energy boosts and overall leaves them drained - creating a unhealthy cycle of low and acutely high energy. This is also why you have to have a clear diagnosis with many of the Chinese Herbal Formulas. Things are not always what they seem logically.

All that said, Chinese Medicine is a very good modality for your conditions but it can take awhile. Once it starts to unravel, however, things go fairly easily and reliably after that. It&#39s just making those deeper initial changes that start the process that can be difficult. I wish you the best in the process.

Intriguiging. All of this terminology makes me want to study Chinese medicine so that I can understand it, lol. Maybe I will if it winds up working for me. Anyway, hope my practitioner is on track with his diagnosis, then! I feel like it would take a miracle for anyone to be able to come up with an accurate diagnosis for me because my symptoms are very inconsistent; it&#39s not like I have the same symptoms from day to day or the same tongue picture or whatever. Like, he said that I had a little bit of a coat on my tongue the first time he saw me. Then he said it seemed to mostly disappear. Then one visit, he was surprised to see that it was really thick. Then the next time, it was mostly gone. So I imagine that&#39s frustrating.

We&#39ll see. Fingers crossed. Thanks for your well wishes.

I am sorry to hear it did not help you. True, it took me almost a full year to be symptom-free which I am now. Started with the Zhang protocol next to acupuncture and I improved a lot, almost 100% the old myself. Even my chinese doc was surprised.

Hopefully your Igenex test will solve at least part of the mystery. Keep your mind and spirit for later, you still might need it. :) I know from experience how easy to loose hope, I did many times and it was my luck only that I found this chinese guy who is the most caring doctor I ever had.

In case you are positive for Lyme and co, I can recommend you several very good Facebook groups where you can find answers and solutions.

Take good care of you,

Anita