Amber Nadine’s Lyme Hack:

“Hey, what’s up? My name is Amber Nadine and I have been fighting chronic Lyme disease for seven years now. I was diagnosed with it when I was 16. And I am now 23. Um, I think the biggest mistake that I ever made, was going off of my Lyme medicine. So what happened was, I was 19 years old, and I was feeling great. I had been on my medicine for a while I was like, You know what, I don’t think I need this anymore. I think the Lyme is gone. And because of, you know, I was going to a natural doctor. So the medical bill wasn’t covered by insurance. So going there and trying to like having to pay that bill all the time was not really in my budget or my family’s budget. So I was just like, you know what I feel I don’t see a need to go back. I’m just gonna go off of the medicine and see what happens. So, I started to live as though I had never had Lyme disease. I, you know, ate all kinds of junk food. I was always a rough player like I like when I say that I was when I was a kid me and my cousins would just like, play hard like boys because my cousins were all boys. So I would always play like one of the boys. So that summer, I was babysitting my cousins a lot. And I went away and with my friend and went to the beach, and I got stung by a jellyfish. And what happened in my body that my doctor later described to me, was all of the antibodies that were fighting off the Lyme while I was off of my medicine went to fight the jellyfish sting. And it stopped fighting the Lyme disease. So the Lyme disease got worse. And I started having a really hard time breathing. I remember taking my cousins to Hershey Park. I live near Hershey. So we went to Hershey Park and they were walking like 20 feet in front of me and I was walking like a turtle huffing and puffing, like, why are you guys walking so fast? How is this possible, but it was actually me that was going slow. And I remember saying, you know what, guys, I can’t continue walking through the park. I have to take you guys home. So I took them home, came back to my house and I got my inhaler. And I tried to like breathe into it. Because my allergist had said that maybe I had allergic reactions, so they gave me an inhaler for like an as needed basis sort of thing. But my inhaler did nothing for me at that point. And typically it would have. Um, so then after that in like a month later, my grandma was in the hospital and she was having a procedure done and they had brought her back to her room after having the procedure done. The nurses were like, you know, taking care of her and everything. And in the morning, I had drank ginger tea. So, I was just like, all of a sudden, like, I don’t feel good, you know, and my mom told me to sit down. So I did and I was thinking maybe I’m hungry. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel good. So I can remember reaching for a pack of mixed nuts that was on her windowsill and I went to open it and everything went black. And it wasn’t until after that, like the next thing that I remember was waking up to my mom screaming overtop of me. I was now on the floor. And apparently what had happened was after everything went black, I stood up and fell face down onto the ground and stopped breathing and started turning blue. My eyes were wide open. So later, my doctor told me that I had developed an allergic reaction to ginger. And that was what caused me to pass out. And that was kind of like the final straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, and just needed my body to reset itself. So I had to go back on the Lyme medicine but it was on a lower dosage because my body couldn’t handle it as much because I would herx so, way more easily than I had before. And I’m still on that same dose today. That was back in 2016 that that happened. And it’s now 2020. So I’ve been on that same dose for four years because my body just can’t take a higher dosage. So my advice to you would be to just, you know, if you’re having complications with the medicine or if you feel like the medicine has worked, and you you don’t need it anymore, don’t stop it without consulting your Lyme specialist or whichever Lyme doctor you go to because it can be very detrimental if you still need it and you go off of it. Or if the medicine that you’re on isn’t working for you, cuz I’ve had that happen to me to where I was on a medicine that didn’t work for me and I needed to switch. Don’t say, Okay, this isn’t working and just go off of it. Be sure to like, go and try and find something else that works, you know, never stop searching for something to help you because you know it can be life threatening. So, just stay safe, be aware. But don’t be scared. Don’t let fear take over your life because I’ve been there too when it’s not worth it, but live your life. Stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy. And God bless. And thank you so much to everyone at Tick Boot Camp for letting me be a part of this. This is an honor.”