Week Four Summary

I've now been taking very small amounts of fly agaric mushroom daily for four weeks, in an experiment to see if and how it might relieve some of the symptoms of my chronic Lyme disease (neuroborreliosis). This post will summarise the whole first month, as well as Week Four.

The first two weeks I was eating small pieces of frozen mushroom, around the size of my last little finger bone. Once the tincture was ready I moved over to that, finally settling on a dose of 1-3 drops 3 times a day. This is usually 3 drops when I get up, 3 drops late morning and 3 more drops late afternoon.

The mushroom has had an amazing effect on me over the last month. My chronic fatigue, poor cognition and dementia are so much improved, I really feel like myself again. I can walk for miles, read and evaluate what I've read, keep up with conversations and enjoy being with people again. It really has been nothing short of miraculous.

Even during Week Four, my physical and mental faculties have continued to improve. I'm now reading five books at a time, devouring the information contained within them, remembering every word. A month ago I couldn't read at all, as I didn't have the cognition to figure out what was being said, or the memory to build meaning. Yesterday I ran for a few hundred yards. During most of the summer I couldn't walk even 50 metres.

Before I became disabled and my life fell apart (four and a half years ago), I worked as a computing lecturer. For the first time since then, I feel I'm not far off being able to lecture again. In the last couple of weeks I've picked up my work developing mobile phone apps, which I'd had to stop in early summer, as my brain just wasn't functioning.

There is no mystery to how this works. As I understand it (albeit perhaps incorrectly) the borrelia bacteria produce neurotoxins that congregate in the brain stem. There they block signals in the acetylcholine receptors, causing symptoms such as chronic fatigue and dementia. The muscarine in the fly agaric enables the signals to get across, overcoming the blocking effect of the neurotoxins. Hey presto, you can think, walk and live again.

I'm not claiming that fly agaric is a cure for Lyme disease or any other condition. But it certainly seems to have huge value in treating the worst symptoms. I've read that it also has anti-microbial properties, so perhaps using it longterm might reveal further benefits. Right now, you would have to prise it out of my cold dead hands to get it off me.

Yesterday I started on heavy duty antibiotics, which seems to be the only treatment that can seriously reduce the amount of borrelia bacteria infesting someone with Lyme disease. I shall continue to take the fly agaric though, to counteract the worst symptoms, and see what it can do. If I do stop taking it for a day, I do start to go back to being a zombie again. The plan is to have one day off a week though, to monitor remaining Lyme symptoms without the influence of the fly agaric.