Episode 50: Fifty, fifty, I wish I wasn’t so sickly!

Photo-onycholisis, or just another way to say doxy sucks

All 3 are affected, the ring finger the worst (typical, I read)

In the last week, I started noticing the nails on my right hand were slowly but progressively unsticking from the nail bed. Nothing dramatic was happening, and my nails didn’t feel soft or brittle, but this was getting painful and made me wonder if I should brace myself for my nails falling off. After everything I have been through over the years, this did not seem over the top or paranoid, but I was obviously coming at it from a firm place of “oh heeeeeell no” and hoping it wouldn’t be something I’d have to deal with. Given the fact that I am on many antibiotics, I am also always on the look out for potential issues brought on by that, notwithstanding giving my body all the support that I can (daily varied probiotics and probiotic foods, real food diet, supplements, rest and relaxation, etc.).

Jan and I started devising theories to make sense of it, knowing that nails are dead and can be a way for the body to rid itself of impurities, so we hypothesized that this was just part of the shedding of all the byproducts of pathogens and/or toxicity in my body. This is probably not entirely false, probably not entirely true, but I don’t think it was such a bad hypothesis at all (albeit extremely reductive).

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Episode 40: Battery low, no backup

Episode 32: A chat in the park

Not to confused anyone, when I say 100% of my thoughts and feelings are guided by the illness right now, I mean to say that I blame Lyme disease and treatment for essentially all of the anxiety and the depression that I have been going through in recent weeks. This is an important distinction I wish to make because it is very much a physical issue, even though it happens in the brain area. I have been anxious and depressed in my life because of negative thought patterns and other issues, and this is not what is happening right now. It’s a hard sell, I know: what I am going through is hard and depressing, so I should be depressed, right?

I have to strongly disagree. Throughout a lot of this, I have mostly been in high spirits. Of course I have moments where I get sad and upset about my circumstances (daily), but that is not the same. Life truly is beautiful. I have experienced lots of joys and human connections throughout the last few months and I am grateful. I’m also quite content with myself and proud of how I am holding up. Again, a hard sell, but the truth nonetheless.

Of course, when in a depressed state, I have lots to cry about because my life is objectively kinda crummy right now. But my brain chemistry is simply messed up because of my treatment, more specifically due to the effects of Doxycycline killing off pathogens in the brain. It makes me have anxious and depressed feelings and thoughts, and I fight all day not to buy into them. No, I do not mean to feel this way and I do not think myself into feeling this way. And no, this is not a question of will power. Depression and anxiety themselves are not a question of will power, either. But it’s also very important to differentiate Lyme-induced mental issues from psychological issues.

Episode 31: Quick check in

Episode 29: Me and the Doxy II (Buscando el sol)

Episode 28: Three great things

Episode 27: Weekly pills, pills, pills

Episode 26: ANTs on the brain

So, yeah, self-deprecating. But the word I was looking for was self-defeating.

And ANTs don’t buzz… they crawl. Creepy f*$?&*! crawlers…

ps. If you’re wondering if my anxious brain thinks I did a shitty job with this video, well, there’s your answer. 😉

Episode 25: Me and the Doxy

First a side note: when I say that this “robs me of the very things I hold dear”, this is meant figuratively. I only mean that it robs me of the optimistic, peaceful, positive and loving disposition that I have. Given the poor state of my affairs, however, that’s pretty much all that I’ve got, and all that I have control over.

As I mention, last night I upped my Doxycycline dose to 300 mg. This is my third attempt at getting up higher than 200 mg, as both the first and second experiments ended abruptly after 3 days, after reaching an unbearable level of anxiety.

Episode 23: Energizer lymie

Episode 3: Vade retro anxius

Anxiety is worrying obsessively about what on earth I will say in my next video, completely disregarding the fact that I’ve done it before without too much difficulty, while simultaneously being overwhelmed by the large number of things I want to say, all the while telling myself that I’m really not so smart to be worrying about this at all because it is supposed to, after all, be a pleasant and positive activity.
Peace of mind is telling my mind “thank you for sharing”, sitting down and just pressing record.

Anxiety is starting this video 3 times in a row. The first time, stopping angry because I am not expressing myself as well as I know I could (my speech and verbalization abilities have been noticeably affected in the last 10 months). The second time, stopping to burst into tears because the physical tension was mounting inside me and I just really couldn’t manage to speak right. Then I took a long deep breath and sat still for a second.
Peace of mind is pressing record for a third time and deciding to talk about anxiety.