I have a story to tell. It's funny.... in a twisted sort of way.We moved to Missouri, where land is cheap and you never have to water your garden, in order to homestead and become self-sufficient.
Last year, while working in the yard late in August I picked up a tick and got Lyme’s. I ended up with half my face paralyzed. After doing some natural stuff I decided to take amoxycillan which is okay with breastfeeding.
(Photo: 7 months after the right side of my face being paralyzed. Still a little droopy.)
I stayed inside the rest of that fall as I wasn’t feeling well and was pretty down on being in the yard. The garden became over grown with weeds. We never did get out there to clean it all up even. (Now I am not too eager to deal with ticks or chiggers for that matter.)
There I was, recuperating and only going from my house to the car and the week after I finished the antibiotic I picked up another tick. I sent it off to a lab for testing (since that is cheaper than a blood test.) It came back positive.
Since I’d just taken amoxycillan, I didn’t want to take it again. And since I was nursing my 6 month old I didn’t want to take something stronger.
So as of this week I am experiencing arthritis in my elbow. Now I have to decide what to do. Do I stop nursing and take stronger meds?
This isn’t so easy a decision even though my babe is just over a year. t I truly believe that nursing him could save his life. He was only very sick once this winter (though he did experience several one night fevers as my kids often have.) At those times I am always so grateful that I am nursing. If he had been on formula or drinking milk he most likely would have been even sicker with various illnesses that breastfeeding prevents.Nursing my babies has always given me confidence that they would overcome their illnesses without needing medications or becoming dehydrated.
Besides, nursing is so cheap and in any kind of emergency situation it is VITAL. (Normally I would nurse the baby until age two-three.)
So we have no insurance and after having myself treated for Lyme’s and 6 of our children (except the baby) tested for Lymes we owe about $1200 now since we are self-employed and can’t afford insurance. 
To make things even worse, a few months ago in the dead of winter during a cold spell I went a few days without bathing the baby and only changing his outer clothes not his undershirt. When I went to bathe him on a warmer day I found a huge tick on him and I just about cried. How in the dead of winter do we have to deal with this!?!?!? (Likely a tick came in with the dogs that we’d feed in the house.)
So we came out here to free ourselves and we’ve gained debt and now we’re ill and not looking forward to gardening at all.
It is very frustrating as 2 of my children tested positive and despite taking antibiotics (which I have rarely ever given any of them before) they still have Lyme’s symptoms.
I wonder if I should douse our place with bug killer and forget the chicken eggs? I know we need to get guinea hens but I haven’t been able to handle the difficulty of raising them yet. We have chickens which do help with the ticks, but we have sooo many here it is crazy.
When we first moved here, before we moved in, I went to the trash cans and the can was COVERED with ticks, similar to when a trash can is covered with ants. The chickens have helped incredibly, but there are still plenty of the incidious cridders.
I just don’t know if the country is synonymous with them?
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14 comments:
Insurance and health care are so frustrating! Have you applied for Medicaid (or Medicare--always confuse the two) and/or your state CHIP program? I know we almost qualified last year when we had a temporary gap between insurance policies, and we only had one child. Anyway, that might really help with your health expenses if you can get your whole family, or at least all your kids, covered.
It's Rixa BTW--I'm logged on with a different account right now!
Don't have more kids than you can support - one or less per parent is all the earth can support.
Great answer anonymous. Thanks for all that "wisdom."
You appear to completely lack all common sense, so let me help.
1. You are "self employed", so therefor can't afford insurance? Loads and loads of people are self employed, but they earn enough to care for themselves and their families. "Self-employed" does not automatically mean there is no possibility to carry insurance. It takes planning and work. Get some TODAY.
2. Medicaid and CHIP are code words for "living off of other people". They should only be temporary, one-time resources; not your backup for when thing go wrong. Things will always go wrong.
3. As for not treating your children when they contract a life threatening at worst, life altering at best, disease like Lymes, simply because you want to be some sort of earth mother?
SHAME. ON. YOU!! Get those kids to a clinic TODAY.
4. Take a bath. Bathe all of your children. Regularly.
5. And yes, get some bug spray. Spray the house, the car, the barn, the dogs, the kids. And for goodness sake, SPRAY THE CHICKENS! The birds you got to "control" the ticks are actually the main food source for the ticks! Duh!
Hope that helps. You seem like a nice person, just lacking in every day common sense. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but your kids are suffering and need someone to step in and help you see that.
Too bad all these bashers leave anonymous comments.
1) We aren't on medicaid, food stamps, or even WIC.
2) We are self-employed and establishing a business after having moved cross country. This does make it difficult to purchase insurance.
I asked for constructive comments, not your judgemental criticism. Everyone's life circumstances are different. You have no consideration or empathy.
3) How do you think we've incurred all the medical bills you dummy. Of course we've given the kids the treatment they need you blind bozo.
It is *ME* that has not gotten fully treated because I am NURSING my baby.
4) We do bathe regularly. When I got bit by a tick I had come in and bathed. Despite bathing the tick still bit me.
5) Bull! The chickens don't have ticks on them! They eat them! The dogs have ticks. Our cats don't even hardly get ticks.
6) I am a nice person and you don't need to leave your snotty comments here.
Hello there,
Lyme disease is a serious illness (even mortal) that should be treated correctly with antibiotics. No other remidy will cure it. The bacteria that produces it will not go away unless a well programed treatment is put in place. Probably your arthritis comes from that, also.
Therefore, I would counsel you to get a doctor and go over your story and treatment. The fact that you are breastfeeding should be taken into account, but should not be a barrier. However, that should be done with medical advice.
Breastfeeding is good, but is not a panacea. The mother must be well fed, particularly with calcium and iron and vitamin rich foods. And it does not do for immunisation against the most common diseases. Please don't leave your child without that.
Lyme disease, as you have seen, is carried by ticks. There is no vaccine. Unless you erradicate ticks reasonably well in your place, you will always be at risk. In fact, it can be passed on by fresh dairy products (i.e. cheese) from infected animals. Therefore, pasteurised milk is a must.
Here in Spain we have a state run, universal health service that gives comprehensive health care to all citizens, no matter how rich, poor or in the middle. We do it at a considerably less cost than the USA private health assistance (6% of GDP vs. 17%). While it is not a perfect system, it gives a reasonably good and timely attention. That is called solidarity, and community building, not "living off people". In fact, it is bailed out bankers who live off people and the government, by many more lives that we can live. I think that you should campaign and lobby so that such dramatic situations don't happen again. Your actual situation brings only despair and sadness and verges on the social crime. The overhaul that president Obama is planning goes in that direction, but he must get support from people so that no American is left without the right to a normal health care.
Iñigo, I totally agree that our country should provide health care to all its citizens, that should be a foundational right as EVERYONE needs it. I also don't believe it is "living off of people."
As I said already, we don't accept any kind of government financial assistance, but we pray our government will adopt universal health care.
In my research I have read that lyme's can't be passed through milk. That there have been no cases of lyme's passing through any animal milk. Nor have there been any cases of it passing through breastmilk.
Hi Susana,
Diamatacious earth should help with the ticks. Get food grade and sprinkle it in the coop, rub it in the dogs fur, and feed it (a tiny bit) to the dogs.
Altrua Healthshare is something you really ought to look into. We use it, and it is very inexpensive comparatively.
You could pump and dump your milk so you don't loose your supply while you are on antibiotics, and then resume nursing afterward.
Erin
Thanks so much birthathomemom for the very helpful comment. I will try the diamatacious.
We've looked into altrua and a great company for dental, and for right now, it's still not possible. Establishing a business in a new area during a recession is a killer.
AS for pumping and dumping, I just don't know if I could realistically do that for a whole month. But it is something to seriously think about.
Thanks
I had great success with the protocol described in the book Healing Lyme by Stephen Harrod Buhner. It's a thoroughly referenced work, very scientific, but with plant-based medicines.
Susan:
I really think you need to get some guineas. Guineas are not nearly as hard to care for as chickens and they are much hardier. They tend to eat bugs and ticks out of your garden rather than going for your garden itself. And they can be housed with your chickens.
I also highly recommend that you keep your grass mowed if you don't already. That way the ticks are easier to spot by the chickens and guineas.
If you have any leaf litter around, you will want to get rid of that. That's a good place for ticks to hide.
When you are outside, wear light colored clothing and if you wear pants, tuck them into your socks before you go outside.
And the biggest thing is to do your best to discourage deer from around your house. Deer are the big carriers of ticks with Lyme disease. And believe me, I know how hard it is to get rid of deer - we have tons of them here! There's a whole herd that lives across the road from us and another herd that lives just down the road from us.
When you get a tick, take it off with tweezers and then treat the affected area with alcohol. If you don't use alcohol, then something like apple cider vinegar would probably work - it's good for itching too.
Hope this helps!
Sandra
I forgot to say that I know someone in our ward is hatching guineas with an incubator. I don't know when they are due to hatch but if you want to send me an email or give me a call, I'll give you her name and number. She lives up by Maysville I think.
By the way, I'm not the nasty anonymous that posted before. I tried to use my blogger account but it wouldn't accept my password. I would never say such nasty things. *sigh*
Sandra
The person who told you to get DE to control the ticks is 100% correct but please when you get it, get the FOOD GRADE DE> the other diotamaceous earth is laden with pesticides. Food grade DE can be fed to your dogs to prevent worms and can even be fed to humans. Sprinkle it around you home on the exterior. YOu can even use it in your home around basement foundation walls etc this will keep out spiders, ants etc...
2 years ago I got Lymes too. I know how you feel. I used the heavy drugs and was done in 30 days. I was not breast feeding at the time however as my kids are 16 and 13 ;)
I am sorry you had to go through that!
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