Why Can’t I Get Better: A Book Summary For Lymie Brain
I think Horowitz intends to confuse you by leaving cliff-hangers and putting information in the wrong chapters. I’ve heard that his consultations now cost well over $1000, and I just don’t understand why he would do that to desperate Lyme patients. I would LOVE for a Horowitz patient to come forward and tell me he helped, was worth every penny, and that now you are in remission and not dependent on an array of drugs. I think the problem with a lot of LLMD’s is that they make lots and lots of money on herbs and prescriptions that they give you. So while I am not saying that herbs and medications are unhelpful, I do think that we should all strive to be as independent as possible – independent from tens of dozens of ingested pills as a means of survival. I’ve done it (been a pill popper by necessity that is), I don’t regret being on a thorough protocol when times were dire, but I am also relieved to be quite functional WITHOUT all those pills after months and years of slowly weening myself into an independent women *queue Destiny’s Child.*
But I’m getting off topic.
If you have had a chronic infection for a long time, you may know of Dr. Horowitz as a bit of a “celebrity.”
His book Why Can’t I Get Better is extensive and full of insight but many people find it scattered and hard to get the most out of the info. This is the Lyme book that people seem to get their panties in a bundle over, so here it is in a nutshell:
- The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) believes Lyme is easily diagnosable and treatable.
- The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) believes blood tests are unreliable and 30 day antibiotic regimens are insufficient.
- The Lyme Disease Association (LDA),
- The Lyme Disease Research Alliance,
- The Tick-Borne Disease Alliance (TBDA),
- And various Lyme support groups have joined the fight.
Horowitz, first an internist and now an LLMD, and belongs to the ILADS camp. He combines medical science with what he’s learned by listening to over 12,000 Lyme patients. He thinks modern medicine is wonderful for treating acute disease but not chronic diseases. He has allegedly seen antibiotics help patients regain pre-disease health but relapse when they come off, and so his treatment is not just to kill the bugs, but to heal the body.
According to Horowitz, chronically ill patients often have pathogens, immune dysfunction, environmental toxic loads, hormone imbalances, mitochondrial dysfunction, allergies, sleeping problems and psychological problems. His 16 point differential diagnostic map goes into more detail.
The 16 things to work on:
- Lyme and co-infections
- Immunity
- Inflammation
- Environmental toxins
- Nutrition
- Mitochondria
- Endocrine system
- Neurogenerative disorders
- Mental state
- Sleep
- Autonomic nervous system and POTS
- Allergies
- Stomach issues
- Liver
- Pain
- Exercise
Diagnosing Lyme
- We can use ELISA, Western Blot, DNA PCR testing, LTT, or cultures
- Click for details.
- Lyme has a preference for eyes, brain tissue, glial cells, heart, collagen, muscle fibers, and membranes around the joints.
My views do not align with Horowitz on the extensive use of pharmaceutical. I may be biased, but I have done fine without any pharmaceuticals. Educate yourself on the dangers of antibiotics before use. Regardless:
Horowitz claims:
- Patients notice a decrease in pain when put on tetracyclines, quinolones, penicillins, or cephalosporin antibiotics for other infections. Or they may first experience a herx.
- Many don’t improve with a month of doxycycline or Rocephin.
- Keep patients on sugar-free diets and supplement with acidophilus and saccharomyces boullardii.
- Take enzymes for biofilm, as antibiotics don’t work on biofilm.
- Antibiotics don’t guarantee Lyme-free babies in utero.
Antibiotics for cell wall formation:
- Penicillins
- Cephalosporins
- IV Vancomycin
- IV Primaxin
Antibiotics for cystic forms:
- Plaquenil
- Grapefruit seed extract
- Flagyl
- Tindamax
Antibiotics for intracellular forms:
- Macrolides
- Quinolones
- Tetracyclines
For more from Horowitz check out:
- Horowitz on inflammation
- Horowitz on deciphering Lyme from autoimmune disorders
- Horowitz on co-infections
- Horowitz on how sleep weakens immunity
- Diagnosing Lyme in a nutshell
(My Opinion About This Book)
Hey, if I hadn’t read and re-read it, I would be curious. So if you really want to check out this book, I have affiliate links on my website you can use to go to Amazon where you can get a used copy at a low cost – preferably one that’s already been highlighted by it’s previous user. But if you don’t want to go through the annoying, confusing hassle of reading this book, my notes are succinct and I leave my opinion out. And if I do impose my opinion within my Horowitz pages – I try to make it clear that it’s opinion time.
Hi 🙂 I just stumbled across your website and appreciate the info. However, I’d like to correct a mistake in this article.
You write, “Horowitz, first an internist and now an LLMD, belongs to neither camp.” [In reference to the IDSA and ILADS]. This is wrong. Dr. Horowitz *clearly and without a question* belongs to the ILADS camp. He is a founding member of ILADS! Just felt the need to point this out 🙂
Thanks Julia. I’m pretty sure I changed this and got back to you awhile back, but the non-techy goof I am, I have since crashed my blog and was left with an outdated backup to restore.
I’m pretty sure I have read or tried to read every Lyme book published in the last i8 years and your little inexpensive book says it all and more!!! The best books I have are written by Drs. who have had tick borne disease and you!!! Thank for this terrific book……Dian
Wow Dian, your kind words have made my day. I wrote that book and this blog after coming out from many hard years, grateful to see the light and inspired to help. I feel like it’s been so long now since I’ve had to deal with Lyme personally that I can no longer be “a voice” in the field (which is why I rarely publish new content) but I am really happy that once upon a time, I wrote my take on real, legit, lasting recovery. Emphasis on lasting. For me personally, those tools I wrote about paid off long ago and writing that book made it all worth it. I’m so glad that you enjoyed it and I hope there is something in there that you can use to your advantage, be it for yourself or a loved one. Thanks again and a million. Best, Yessi
Yessi, I just discovered your website and am reading this years later in Feb 2018! I’m 25 and I live in Toronto and have been treating Lyme by an ND with antibiotics prescribing rights in BC who I really do like. All my symptoms had been gone for several months and I had stopped treatment, but one has returned recently and has thrust me into a period of fear and depression. Thank you for sharing your personal resources. I just got your ebook on Amazon.
T.dot represent! Several months symptom free is absolutely something to celebrate – cheers to that. Stopping treatment is scary. It’s a wait and see game and it’s not always easy to decipher between Lyme relapses and general body-run-down. I don’t know enough about you to give you an accurate response but I will speak from personal experience. I dealt with Lyme for…years – years of autonomic neuropathy and brain fog and dizziness and joint pain and doctors visits. Sometimes it feels like a distant memory, but I’ve also had colds and tired and achey days and honestly, these moments of weakness scare me. They take me back to my worst days and then I start to think “Shietttt….Lyme is back,” and then a few days later my cold is gone, or I get enough sleep, and I start to feel healthy again. So sometimes that fear is crippling – so much so that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Stress is no joke. Try to stay positive. It’s not uncommon to have a weakened immune system post-abx. Have a strategy. Document how you’re feeling for a few days. Try alternatives such as immune support, sleep, nutrition, some supplements such as vitamin C, B, D, or amino acids such as tyrosine. Try to maintain all the healthy habits you had built while you were in treatment. You’ve come pretty far already so that’s great and your chances of staying in remission are good. I think the most important thing of all is to keep a fighter mentality – be in it to win it, it’s a marathon and all that jazz. Stay strong and have no fear! Check in with your ND soon and shoot me a message if ever you have any questions!
Hat’s off to you for a clearly written, straight forward web-site with all of the pros and cons. I am weighing in on Dr. Horowitz and your request to explain “how he helped, was worth every penny, now you are in remission and not dependent on an array of drugs.” In short, he did help, was worth it. I have been in remission for four years. I still take supplements, including some antimicrobial herbs. When I go off of them, symptoms do creep back, but my life is completely back to normal and would not be without him. I was very, very sick.
Typical story; misdiagnosed despite many tick bites yearly. I stayed with local practitioners and was initially furious with Dr. H’s huge fee and two year wait, so I didn’t put my name on the list. (His office is now closed to new patients.) That was a mistake. Sick in 2005, diagnosed in 2010, fighting it with every modality and doc, and sicker, I finally called. They got me in on the first opening. Here’s what I didn’t understand from the outside. My first appointment was four hours long. Short of going to the Mayo Clinic, I’ve never experienced such detailed attention. No stone unturned. Nor did I walk in the door and get stamped LYME. He doesn’t assume that because you have a lot of typical symptoms and you’re in his office it’s Lyme, but looks at any and all possible disease. His patients, by the time they get there, are seriously compromised. He hits everything he sees all at once. It’s a little like being on the beach on D-Day. He was on top of hormones, diet, Lyme infections, co-infections, sleep, inflammation, and every-everything that was out of whack. He did a much better job at my whole body than my internist, a much better job with my hormones than my Ob-Gyn, a better job with sleep (which had been destroyed by the disease,) than my sleep neurologist, etc. Once in, he saw me every month, at first, following every symptom and adjusting. Each appointment was as long as it needed to be, and followups often ran to two hours while I was still really sick, and that was with being highly organized. Was it expensive? Horribly. But a four hour appointment puts that $1000 into prospective. Should every Lyme patient be able to afford treatment. Absolutely. The problem is that there are so many things going wrong, therefore so many modalities needed to treat, it gets outrageously costly. And we know insurance companies cover as little as possible. Then again, lots of Lyme treatments aren’t verifiable, and insurance companies don’t want to pay for anything that isn’t 100% provable. Dr. Horowitz’s blood tests again left no stone unturned, and the initial diagnosis looked at everything from vitamin counts to genetic conditions, Lyme yes, but he reached as far as he could, making no assumptions. His protocol was overwhelming–it completely took over my life. Yes, he’s very expensive, and yes he sells supplements, which is both worrisome and helpful, (though a lot of doctors are less overtly in bed with drug companies,) and yes, I wish his book wasn’t so all over the place. The title to the next edition, YOU CAN GET BETTER, looks like it corrects some things. He’s not interested in selling as much as getting everything he knows down in one place so that other patients and docs can use that knowledge. Since he’s no longer accepting patience, that’s doubly true. He was great about consulting with local docs when acquaintances couldn’t afford him or couldn’t get there. Right now, he’s spending more time getting info out to other doctors and defending Lyme needs in Washington D C rather than seeing individuals.
As you know, having Lyme is being lost in a deep and overwhelming swamp. Dr. H’s books are about getting as much info to as many people as he can. His Facebook page keeps up on all of the current research. And bottom line, he stayed on me relentlessly until he got me well. It was a decade if illness, four and a half years from diagnosis, a year and a half of that intensively with Dr. H. But he gets the credit. My life is my own to live. He was amazing, and lightyears beyond the other doctors (bless them all).
Diana, it’s so good to hear your success story and perspective as a patient of Dr. H. He really does look at the entire anatomy of an individual and adjust treatment plans accordingly. And yes – those protocols are overwhelming/life-consuming jobs, almost, and they are well worth the blood, sweat and tears. My apologies for not seeing your comment sooner. I appreciate the praise for the website I’ve built but I, too, have been in remission for years and years and I suppose I am no different than many other ‘recovered’ people who just want to move on with life. But it’s always good to remember the struggle and I am so grateful to have your story here for others to see that recovery is possible. Real recover that lasts and lasts. It requires everything you’ve got…every goddamn thing, but that’s why they call us warriors.