this morning

I had a phone appointment with Dr. J.

It went well.

It's a little difficult to not have face-to-face conversation, but we were still able to communicate effectively.

We are so thankful for Dr. J. He is incredibly knowledgeable and wise, but also genuinely compassionate and kind.

I am going to do another round of IV tigecycline this month. At first Dr. J was going to have me move on to Merrem, but when we talked with him about how much improvement we've seen with tigecycline, he opted to have me do one more cycle.

I'm glad to do another round, as I know it's been very effective. But I'm also dreading the miserable nausea that goes along with it. Hopefully it won't be as intense, as it will be the only IV drug I'm on. Plus, I am done with Babesia treatment. Hooray for no more Babesia meds! My Babesia symptoms have lessened a good deal and the remnants are most likely caused by my dysfunctional autonomic nervous system.

In September, Dr. J will have me do a round of IV Merrem and maybe Levaquin with it, or Levaquin in the following month.

More IV cycles than any of us anticipated, but it really makes sense with the positive results we're seeing. Stopping IV after this cycle feels too soon for all of us. Some of my lingering symptoms indicate the need to go a couple more cycles since we've seen such benefit in the past two months.

Cognitively, I'm still a mess and we've seen little improvement. In fact, some days it gets worse. But Dr. J is confident that it will improve over time - there's just so much inflammation caused by the bacteria itself and the die-off, hence the bizarre neuro and psych symptoms I've been having.

A couple more rounds of IV meds will be very beneficial, as they're able to penetrate the blood brain barrier to kill off the infections in my brain a great deal more effectively than oral abx.

Dr. J suggested some herbal tinctures that might help reduce the inflammation and clear out toxins (Burbur and Pinella).

So there's a summary of what's going on. I wanted to post this right away before I forget most of the details :)

today has been rough with neuro symptoms worsening, but I'm in good spirits