Nutrition, Food Sensitivities, and Lyme Disease
When it comes to nutrition for Lyme disease treatment, we know that every person with Lyme disease and/or tick-borne illness experiences different symptoms.
For some, joint pain, brain fog, and fatigue are the most prominent issues. Others develop food sensitivities and gastrointestinal or digestion complications. To make matters even more complex, these symptoms can have cyclical causation—the brain fog or joint pain could be caused by food triggers, for instance.
We often see food intolerance or sensitivities arise with our patient who have Lyme and co-infections. Lyme is stealthy bacteria and this disease is often referred to “the great mimicker.” It can create food sensitivities by having the body start to recognize certain foods as invaders. This causes the immune system to fire every time that food or allergen enters its system, causing inflammation and other symptoms.
Food sensitivities are highly individualized and as such, each person’s treatment is specific to their condition and how to foster healing. That being said, it can be helpful to remove some top contenders. For most people, the simplest initial step can be the removal of gluten and dairy. This lowers the immune load and can start the process of repair, as the body stops attacking these possible irritants. Additionally, it can always help to introduce foods that promote healing and fight inflammation.
It’s important to pay attention to your particular symptoms and how you respond to any changes in foods, life-style, eating patterns (fast vs slow, for example), sleep habits, and movement. Working with the right practitioner who can take all this information into account is key because we know that in order to solve the problem and start feeling better, it's rarely as easy as taking a pill or adjusting one hormonal imbalance. Everything is connected. And that’s what makes each of us so wonderfully and uniquely magnificent.
