Screen Shot 2018-01-31 at 9.18.48 PM.png

Healing Venom

February 16, 2018 by alicia gbur

So this last summer I met a girl named Giuliana. She was a student at a local college here called College for Creative studies. Giuliana works with a variety of medium including 2D digital, traditional, and mixed media. She enjoys incorporating experimental, abstract, and surreal themes in her work.
She heard that I was stinging for Lyme and she asked if she could do a documentary on me. It was a two-part study. One part animation and one part filmed interview. I wanted to share with you her beautiful work. Here is the short animation she completed. She is super in tune and interested in the bees and was fascinated that I was using them for therapy. I’ll keep you posted when the second part comes out. I say the more awareness, the better! More about Giuliana here https://www.giulianacascardo.com

HELLO!

January 31, 2018 by alicia gbur

Oh my goodness, it’s been so so long since I have posted! It was a crazy busy year! I got married, got a new puppy, did extensive home renovations, shot weddings and yes…. I'm still stinging!
I felt like I needed to take a break from posting as it was status quo in that dept. And well it kind of still is.
I can't believe its been two years since I started! Sometimes its hard to see improvements when they happen in small increments. Often you need to take a step back to see the forest for the trees.

I’ve started to workout and do yoga and do long daily walks with my pups. I’m determined to get my body back. I'm starting to feel a bit more like a normal person. More in this world.
My dizziness, dare I say is almost gone as of late….. I don’t want to jinx it by saying it.
Let us say that after going through a super stressful year -I had minor downs but seriously got through it like a champ.
Planning a wedding is super stressful, and stress to a person with Lyme is like kryptonite! Don’t get me wrong I had some hiccups and I ain’t symptom-free yet.
So I sting on sting and sting on.

I do have a lot to share from this past year so I’ll start with the pretty fun stuff and share some pics from our wedding.
We had a stellar day with friends and family. So many traveled up north for our little woodland gathering and even my best friend got ordained and married us. We got hitched at Epicure Catering & Cherry Basket Farm in Northport MI. The venue is a farm to table kinda place and cooked everything right there on location. Killer. We were so worried about it being too cold as just a week prior the nights were in the 30’s, but it ended up being the hottest day of the summer clocking in at 94 degrees all thanks to hurricane season. The night was perfectly balmy and was the most beautiful setting for an outdoor affair. As you can probably guess Christian and I worked insanely hard to make the day everything we envisioned. Christian had me balling my eyes out with his vows, and it solidified that I married just the right man. Oh and as you can probably guess... yes, I did bring my bees to the wedding.

Photos: Phil Chester

Bone soup

January 07, 2017 by alicia gbur

It's freezing out let's face it and anything I can do to warm up I'm all for it. Bone broth is a great way to nourish the body and to help fix a trashed gut. Those of us with autoimmune issues most likely have a compromised microbiome and have a hard time absorbing minerals and vitamins. Many factors can lead to this, such as heavy metals in your system, sensitivity to mold and mold susceptible genotypes, the overuse of antibiotics, GMO's, too much sugar in your diet, processed foods and so on and so on. If you suffer from constipation, diarrhea, brain fog and muscle aches, food sensitivities, skin problems and more there's a chance your gut needs a little attention, maybe a little bit more than a little maybe a lot. Honestly you may have leaky gut, and that certainly should be addressed. Making bone broth a daily routine is one way to start doing this and here is a little info why.

As explained by Sally Fallon:3

"Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulfur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons--stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain."

I'm an Eastern Bloc gal and I love my soup. One of my favorite books growing up was stone soup. My amazing grandmother and my beautiful mom were always making all kinds of creative soup recipes. My mom was more adventurous and would make fun gourmet type soups and my grandmother who was Romanian always made beet soup, better known as borscht. And to this day it's still one of my favorites. But let's get back to the bone broth thing! Yes, it's a trend today but a damn good one for many reasons. It's easy to make, although I know a lot of people get intimidated but it's seriously as easy as making anything in your slow cooker.
Let's go! Head of to the store and get an organic chicken. While you are there ask the butcher for some chicken backs, feet or necks. They usually have them in the back. Stores like Whole Foods have them out with the chickens or you can go to your local farmers market find an organic farmer, and I guarantee you they will have these things. Rub some savory spices and salt on it and bake on 400 degrees for an hour or so and have it for your dinner. Carve off the rest of that meat and set it aside for your lunch tomorrow. Take the carcass and the rest of the bones and add those parts to your slow cooker. I prefer to use an Insta pot. I've read that your standard crock pot can contain lead and I don't need any more of that in my system, so I've opted out of this device. If you feel like it, drizzle some olive oil on it before and re-roast for twenty minutes to bring out more minerals. Add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a tablespoon of Celtic sea salt- that's the real wet gray stuff by the way. Program your cooker to low and slow. I put it on the lowest setting for 20 hours and when that 20 hours is up I do it two more times for a total of three days. Scoop out the bones and strain. That's it!

Now let's get fancy... I add super yummy things to my bone broth like garlic, kale, roasted pine nuts, brussel sprouts. Eat up! Try to do this every day for a month see if you notice a difference. You can do this with beef bones as well I just get three or four large marrow bones from the farmers market and do the same thing I do with the chicken. The beef broth is a more intense, and it honestly can be an acquired taste. It's very primal, so I choose to turn my beef broth into beet soup and damn it is tasty!

Tortoise, not the Hare.

November 26, 2016 by alicia gbur

Summer has come and gone; the fall has blown by, and we are finally in the cold season.
Fall was off the charts busy for me! I did it, I survived my wedding season while stinging.
I had back to back photo sessions, winterized five beehives, started an indoor observation hive, and I have begun to plan MY wedding. I just don’t know how to slow down; it's not in my soul.

How have I been feeling? Up and down with a few more ups than downs - like I had a few days of feeling pretty amazing- but still have some lows. I want to say to you… I’m a new woman. But no such luck yet. Light is leaking through the cracks, and I have started to feel a bit more like my old self in some ways. I have been more creative; I can enjoy music a bit more, and I can concentrate on things a bit easier. And drumroll please....I have some great news on current labwork. It's concrete proof that the bee venom is working. I can feel it too, my muscle pain has been down! Although it’s more like the tortoise, not the hare.

There are leaves on the ground so let us talk mold, specifically because my labs relate to it.
Do you remember that I told you in past posts that this stuff is complicated? Let me remind you.
Mold is the catalyst for many many many of us with autoimmune issues. For some, it’s the tipping point and the sticking point on moving forward to healing.
It’s not the only sticking point but it's one big pain in the arse. It’s also a topic that keeps coming up over and over in my online groups because many of us are running into roadblocks and finding out we have mold issues, so let me try and explain this again without getting too deep.

The HLA gene, detoxing and so forth.
So I have the dreaded gene mutation: Double Mold. These are my specific numbers: 7-3-53 and 13-6-52A

I have a genetic mutation that doesn’t allow me to properly detox mold, therefore, causing inflammation and all kinds of other crappy issues in my body. Dizziness, brain fog and body pain are some of the specifics in my case.
The toxins put off by certain kinds of mold ( Cladosporium, Penicillium, Aspergillus and Stachybotrys) are types of mold that can send my system into overdrive and are further complicated by Lyme and those nagging co-infections. This my friend is a recipe for disaster. Now you will probably ask- well isn’t there mold everywhere? The answer- hell yeah there is. Leaves on the ground, plant matter, water damage in homes and even in the food we eat. Can you avoid them all? No. Can you navigate a handful? Yes. It gets tricky and can send you to the looney bin trying to figure it all out.

For a detailed explanation and FAQ’s read here because I cannot explain all of this myself.
http://www.survivingmold.com

Well, the hope is to get my immune system to stop freaking out. I feel that by getting the infections down, balancing the immune system and being careful about my environment are all ways to do it. The looming question is will bee venom bring and keep my immune system in balance? and how do I think Bee Venom is helping me. Let me share a few quotes.

"Bee Venom Therapy (BVT) is a classic example of the homeopathic principal, which states that a substance that produces the symptoms of a disease is a cure for that disease. Rheumatic diseases result in swelling, pain and inflammation. A bee sting causes the same symptoms. The sting stimulates the immune system to relieve the inflammation caused by the bee venom, while relieving the symptoms of the rheumatic disease at the same time. Bee Venom Therapy stimulates the immune system through the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands. This therapeutic effect stimulates the immune system rather than suppressing it, completely contrary to the effects of many drugs."
~ Charles Mraz, Health and the Honeybee, Queen City Publications, 1995.

"HOW IT WORKS | Bee venom has a powerful stimulating effect on the circulatory system. Increased blood, lymph and oxygen are vital components in focusing the body’s healing attention to a particular somatic region. Besides, by opening the capillary walls, venom facilitates improved elimination of toxins and metabolic waste matter in the tissue as increased activation occurs at the sting site. This increased circulation and intensified oxygenation also helps to destroy bacterial growth enabling a return to greater balance and homeostasis."

Before starting BVT, my numbers were not in the normal range. Over and over I tested and NEVER within range. I'm in month eight of Bee Venom Therapy; it's the only protocol I'm doing along with binding toxins by using charcoal and clay and my numbers on specific lab tests for mold illness are normal now!!! Not all are normal, but they are inching their way there. Dear lord lets hope they hold!!! I have a feeling they will bounce around but I pray my body learns to calm itself down permanently through use of bee venom.

I also had a brain MRI called the NeuroQuant to see what role mold is playing vs. Lyme. A NeuroQuant links mold illness to structural changes in the brain. Mold is my main problem. This does not mean I don't have Lyme, it just means mold has caused more inflammation in my brain than Lyme. Can this be corrected? Yes.

Here are my scores:

NeuroQuant: Mold 5 Lyme 0
MMP9: was 431 and now is 279 (Normal range is under 300)
CD57: was 78 and is now 92 (its getting better! * note this is not a test for mold but a test for chronic illness)
MSH: was 14.1 and now is 36 (normal is 35-81)
ECP: was 38 and now is 4 (Normal is 2-10)

See below for explanations on these labs and/or click links above.

MMP-9
Normal Range: 85-332 ng/mL
Matrix metallopeptidase 9 (MMP-9) is an enzyme that in humans, is encoded by the MMP9 gene. Proteins of the MMP9 family are involved in the breakdown of extracellular matrix in normal physiological processes, such as embryonic development, reproduction, and tissue remodeling, as well as in disease processes.
It has been implicated in pathogenesis COPD by destruction of lung elastin, in rheumatoid arthritis, astherosclerosis, cardiomyopathy, and abdominal aortic aneurysm.
MMP-9 delivers inflammatory elements of of blood into subintimal spaces, where further delivery into solid organs (brain, lung, muscle, peripheral nerve and joint) is initiated.

MSH - Melanocyte Stimulating Hormone
Normal Range: 35-81 pg/mL
Alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone (MSH) has multiple anti-inflammatory and neurohormonal regulatory functions, exerting regulatory control on peripheral cytokine release, as well as on both anterior and posterior pituitary function.In mold illness, MSH will be too low in over 95% of patients. This means increased susceptibility to mold illness, ongoing fatigue, pain, hormone abnormalities, mood swings, and much more. MSH is a hormone, called a regulatory neuropeptide, and it controls many other hormones, inflammation pathways, and basic defenses against invading microbes. Without MSH, bad things happen; chronic sleep disorders with non-restful sleep develop, and endorphin production is reduced, so chronic pain follows.

ECP
These indirect tests also can show signs of effective killing of Babesia and Bartonella organisms. These labs are IL-6, IL-1B, TNF-A, VEGF and ECP—Eosinophil Cationic Protein. ECP is the substance used by eosinophils to literally kill large parasites.

And there she goes!

October 01, 2016 by alicia gbur

Ellie’s visit was fast and furious.
Last week I hosted a meetup for people with Lyme disease that have an interest in using Bee Venom Therapy (BVT). Us Michiganders were excited to meet the one and only Ellie Lobel. And who is Ellie Lobel you ask? She is a crusader and nomad for the use of Bee Venom Therapy in the recovery of Lyme. If it weren't for the bee's Ellie wouldn't be here to share her incredible tale of survival. In an earlier post, I put a link up explaining her story. Here it is again - "How a bee sting saved my life." I encourage you to read it.
Everyone has a story, right? If you have Lyme, you most definitely have a story. Getting a diagnosis in the first place can make a headline. Some people go on for years and years of suffering before they figure out what the culprit is. They lose their closest relationships, their financial standing, and sometimes even their life. Ellie has created the bee bus mission to try and give people a choice for healing. She has been traveling across the country for 18 months educating people about Bee Venom Therapy. Most of us have tried everything, and we feel as if this is our last ditch effort. There are so many people that I’ve met with incredible stories of endurance.
Ellie drove up, unpacked her stuff as we waited to see how many people were coming. Notices were blasted to various groups to spread the word. Incredibly 20 people showed up at my doorstep. Traveling from Grand Rapids, Lansing and all over the metro Detroit area. Faces I've never seen before, some that I had only corresponded with via the Internet and a few closer friends all eager to learn more and get started. It's strange these days how you can have so many friends online that you have never met in person, yet there is the feeling that you have known them forever. Some of the people that showed up were very ill and others that are floating the gray atmosphere trying to overcome a foggy and painful existence.

I should also mention a few friends joined us that have come to about 95% healing with bee venom therapy! A real testament to the strength and pure will to overcome and live a full life again. Ellie started the presentation with a little video about herself as she waited on the sidelines. Everyone quietly watched and listened to her mission before she burst out into the room with tenacity.

Ellie talked about supplements to take while doing the therapy to assist the body through detox and nutrition. She explained about the supplies that would be needed to get started like the Epi Pen, tweezers to catch the bee's as well a home to house them for use and she also spoke of her trials and her ability to recover. There were many, many, questions and concerns naturally as well as the sheer passion for getting underway.

The evening closed with people wanting to try a test sting. Four people got started successfully and are now are on their way to doing BVT. It was a social night that ended fairly late. New friends were made, and there were laughter and excitement in the air.

Ellie spent the night, and so did my friend Megan who drove two and a half hours to attend. Us gals had breakfast in the morning together, and then Ellie drove off in a cloud of dust to her next destination. Her energy was nuclear, seriously one of the most energized people I've ever met in my life. It took a few days for me to recover Ha Ha Ha. It looks like our little Detroit bee venom community is growing and I hope everyone in this group makes 100% recovery. Upward and onward Ellie Lobel! Donate to her cause by clicking the link. -Bee Bus Mission.

The Dearth

September 22, 2016 by alicia gbur

It's been a long hot summer and as the days shorten there is desperation in the air. My girls went from being mild-mannered to hot tempered. They are now in preparation for the fall. The bees are guarding their honey and defending the hive. These last few weeks have been spent moving beehives from school and preparing a new location at home for them. But as the sun sets the nectar and pollen slow, behaviors change from sweet to sassy. There is a new frantic quality in their flight, and their tiny voices go from gentle hum to a roar. In the twilight, we taped up or hives loaded them onto a truck and moved them from school. We toasted to an empty bee yard and a prosperous semester. I went from walking into the class as a newbie in March to knowing what a brood box is in September. Our lessons in beekeeping have led to a fun year and a wild ride into the depths of bee keeping. It's bittersweet as our final class approaches, and we say goodbye to the farm and new friends. It's time to do what is next. Our last few lessons in class are to be spent learning how to prepare for the cold months ahead. The new challenge is making sure they survive through the winter by feeding, treating for mites and battening the hatches.

I apologize for not blogging this last month. The end of summer is insanely busy for me. I wrapped up the last of my summer weddings, phew!
I have seen some improvements in treatment such as less hip pain, and I had 11 straight days straight without dizziness. I've managed to travel up north three times this summer and have had fewer days where I wanted to rip my head off and throw it down a ravine. Some bizarre new things have popped up but thankfully left. I recently experienced strange skin rashes as well as bladder pain. I do believe this is Bartonella rearing its ugly head. You may think it's a bad thing that new symptoms have appeared, but it's a good sign. These infections cannot be addressed in a chronic state they must be made acute to be eradicated. Bee Venom does just that. It's not fun, but sadly it is a necessity.

Besides the four beehives that Sandhya and I have at her house, I decided to adopt a new one to bring to my home. A couple from class decided they no longer wanted to do beekeeping, so I purchased their hive. Christian managed to get stung six times while moving this hive. I lightly chuckled because I secretly wanted him to understand what I go through three times a week. On a positive note, he said he felt pretty good the next day after getting stung so there you have it.
He built a cute pen temporarily on the side of our garage before we construct the portal for wintering my hive IN the garage. Oh! Did I forget to mention that I have to access my bee's all year long? Yep, I do..... and so now comes the tricky part. The long season. The first few days were crazy here at home with the new beehive in tight quarters, and I worried that my neighbors would panic about thousands and thousands of bees added to their neighborhood, but so far they've been pretty fantastic about it. The bees have been nuts flying around the yard but have managed to settle in just fine. Stay tuned for the new construction!

Off with her head!

August 14, 2016 by alicia gbur

The experience of taking classes for beekeeping this summer has been invaluable. My student hive lost the original queen and has not managed to regain a new healthy one again this summer.
At first, I was super sad that my hive suffered this loss. It made me feel like a mama bee failure. But I quickly learned that its the name of the game with bee keeping and any anything goes. It's mother nature doing her thing. In fact, it taught me that there is so much to learn about beekeeping its nuts.
My queen wasn’t working fast enough, so the bee’s killed her and made a new queen. That queen went out to mate and never returned. The workers drew up another queen cell and another emerged, she was the world's tiniest queen, she laid one egg! She quickly disappeared, and another queen appeared! The jury is still out on her, and I’m still waiting……..

It propelled me into learning more advanced techniques. If I didn’t have that experience, I don’t think I would be prepared to answer all of the questions and meet the challenges that presented throughout the season. I made new friends this summer and Tim, one of our instructors has been critical in handing down his experience and expertise.

Besides our student hives, Sandhya and I started another nuc (short for nucleus) we purchased from an Amish couple at Turtlebee Farms. You truly have to hedge your bets and not place all your bee’s in one basket so to speak, because you never know how productive a hive will be. I need to ensure I have at least one strong colony going into winter for therapy, so diversity is the key!
We drove out on a lovely summer twilight to the country and picked up the kit. Tim and Kathie are very cool people living a quiet and simplified life. It was a fun experience. Tim was calm with the bees, handled the frames without gloves and without a suit. His hands and hive tools were worn and made for lovely photographs. Sandhya and I took the nuc back to her house and set it up in her garden.
I also purchased two additional nuc's from Tim our instructor. Our family is growing into a million tiny workers.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

August 07, 2016 by alicia gbur

I did it! I've reached ten stings. It took a while to get here, but here I am in all its burning glory. Ten stings three times a week for the whopping total of thirty.
I will tell you that summer bee venom is much hotter than winter bee venom! Yeehaw!
I worked up slowly and cautiously. With each new session I witnessed some fascinating and strange things. For a while when I was at six stings I was having emotional bouts. One minute I was crying and the next minute I would have fits of uncontrollable laughter. Christian thought I was going mad. Some other interesting reactions to the stings included air hunger, stiff neck, tooth shocks and sensitively, a panic attack, more energy, clear head, stomach issues, red scratches and patches that appear and resolve, increased joint, foot and muscle pain, dizziness, head pressure, brain fog and more. Some call this a healing crisis. Nancy, one of our bee venom group leaders, shared this post, and it's worth a mention.

"A healing crisis occurs when the body tries to expel toxins at a faster rate than they can be properly disposed of. The more toxic your system is, the more severe the healing crisis may be. Healing crises are characterized by a temporary increase in symptoms during the process of detoxification. You may actually feel worse for a time and conclude that the detox program is not working. However, the opposite is true. The symptoms are a sign that the treatment is effective and that the body is cleaning itself of all the old, hidden, accumulated toxins...."

You get retracing of symptoms as you are killing the buggers. It's not fun, but sadly it's the way it goes, and there is no way of avoiding it entirely. It's always a good idea to try and up your detox when you feel these things coming on, but sadly nothing can take it completely away. I'm in for the long haul God willing and hope to come out better, smarter and wiser and healed.
Here are some photos of a sting session taken by our friend and fantastic photographer Jenifer Boris.

FYI - The black marks on my back are eyeliner so we can mark where we are going to sting and make sure we stay in a straight line! I ice before, so it burns less, and it is not an uncommon situation to have a session before band practice, so we usually have a few friends that are around hanging out!

Tiny terrorists

July 31, 2016 by alicia gbur

This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and you won't believe it. It's a beautiful day, and I'm feeling alright. I decided to do a bit of gardening. I love my garden.

I let my guard down for one second, and I go out in my backyard in the fucking suburbs literally for a half-hour. I'm wearing pants, my socks are tucked into my boots and my shirt is tucked into my pants. I come back inside, lay down on the couch, run my fingers through my hair and feel what seems to be a scab on my head. I freeze, then panic and a sheer wave of horror runs over me because I know, I know what it is, It's a TICK! I jump up and start screaming. Ruthie lets out a bark and starts bouncing around after me. I run upstairs and part my hair, look in the mirror and sure as shit on the side of my head by my temple is a tick attached to my scalp. I honestly don't know how I managed to do this... shaking and screaming I grab tweezers, wedge them directly under the head, pull straight up and dislodge the bastard. A piece of my scalp comes off with it, I throw it in a plastic bag and have a meltdown. It's alive. It's a female dog tick, and I hate its guts. How has this happened to me three times! I'll tell you how. It's becoming a pandemic. Also, I must be a tick magnet! What do I do next? I grab a bee and sting my head around the bite..... umm yes I stung my head to try and stop any bacteria from the tick from spreading. And no it was not fun. Then I bagged it, tagged it and sent it off for testing.

I sent the tick to the Bay area Lyme Foundation. They are a place that came recommended to me because they test for free, but little do I know they're so backed up and inundated with the amount of ticks sent in this summer that it took longer than a month for me to get the results back, not the ten days promised on their website. In the meantime, I start swallowing doxycycline for six weeks as a prophylactic just in case it's caring Lyme disease.

I cannot afford to get anything new- remember I told you that ticks carry a laundry list of pathogens? Just because I have Lyme already doesn't mean I'm exempt from getting more crap - I cannot afford to get more crap. There are more than 300 strains of Lyme and many many co-infections.
Speaking of crap why should you give a crap? Do you like to go outside? Do you like to sit in the grass? How about a picnic, a stroll through a nature center, a hug from your dog or cat. My friend Donna, who lives in Pennsylvania, found a tick behind her son's ear this summer after a family hike. Look at what happened! He was one of the lucky ones. They found the tick. And her son had the bull's-eye rash which indicated infection. He also got cellulitis. Thank God she found the tick and that he presented with the bulls-eye rash. He was treated and is OK. The best way to stay protected is to be proactive. Do a quick tick check when you come in and put on a tick spray when you go outside. I slacked on this when I was gardening. Why? I didn't think it would happen in my own yard. I was wrong. I will talk more about prevention later and provide some helpful tips.

I have even heard of people that have been bitten by a tick sitting on a subway or in Central Park. Could it be that our demise will be from a vector-borne disease? Could we be taken down from a bug not a bomb? Excuse me if I sound dramatic. Can you blame me?

Fear or Fearless

July 24, 2016 by alicia gbur

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind. How I've managed to get through it all is beyond me. My band FAWNN had a record release (did I mentioned I'm in a band?) I shot three weddings, managed to travel up north for a family reunion with my bees, and I stung while looking out over beautiful Lake Michigan. I even kayaked. Thank you, tiny bees!

One of the reasons I contemplated not doing Bee Venom Therapy was fear. It's an intense therapy, and I was scared that I would be too sick to do anything (see Herx). I feared that I'd be even more restricted than I already am because I'd have to sting on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and that I wouldn't be able to travel anywhere let alone perform with my band. Oh, and I was afraid of being stung by a flying insect... hello! I never know how I'm going to feel from day to day or honestly from minute to minute. Any Lyme treatment is going to be like that, so I'm always living on the edge. I could be totally fine one second, and then a wave of hell comes over me and shuts me down. I used to be a social butterfly. I was out all the time. Now it's hard to connect with people, and it is a struggle actually to listen and engage at times, so I stay at home a lot. Sometimes it feels like I have a big fat dark monster sitting on my brain. When I first started treating with antibiotics a few years ago, I got so sick. It was the night of a show. I didn't know what was happening, but I got up and played the show regardless and immediately left.

The band was scared, and I was horrified. Shortly after that, I ended up in the hospital with chest pains thinking I was having a heart attack, and I even wore a heart monitor. I felt like I could barely lift my arms and had crushing fatigue, I couldn't eat and got down to 112 lbs. I would wake up shaking with panic attacks and end up standing out in the snow to calm myself. This unpredictability became life as I knew it. Those were the darkest of days. I have decided to change that. If I let fear control me, then it wins. If I let fear control me, then I wouldn't be traveling on this road to find healing. Move over fear there is no room for you anymore.

Dear diary

July 10, 2016 by alicia gbur

I remember when I was 12, and I got my first diary. It was silky white with a little dancing bear on it. A diary was the thing every girl wanted at the time. I remember trying to make a point to write in it every night. Digging through boxes in the basement I found it!

My first entry started like this- “Dear Diary or Notebook, today is December 7 it is 12:00 midnight. Today is my birthday, and I had friends over, Colleen, Liz, Kim, Wendy, Shelia, and Cathy. We had pizza dinner and played many games, it was great having all my friends over. I got many presents, and this is one right now. This diary….” Pretty awesome to read through it and get the perspective of my life at the time. I even saved my ticket stub to my first rock concert….. Black Sabbath!!!! Oh and also I was boy crazy… some things never change.

I decided to keep a journal through my journey doing Bee Venom Therapy. Christian made me this awesome body stamp so that I could map out my stings.

I track my daily symptoms, my daily detox routine, what reactions I get to the stings, what I ate, and just plain life stuff. I can also track how many stings I’ve done to date. Because Lyme makes my brain foggy and can affect my memory at times I need all the help I can get. I think it will be cool to look back in time at all of this.
I’d also like to add that when I sting certain areas of my spine I’ve gotten super interesting reactions on the body which correlate to the meridian. Looking at a spine chart, it's amazing how certain areas of the spine link directly to a different part of the body. For example, while stinging the T7 area on the spine which links to the pancreas, duodenum, stomach, liver, spleen, gallbladder, and peritoneum I had strange abdomen pains directly following treatment. Here is a diary entry from a session once I had reached four stings.
“Wednesday 2/3/16/ week three day two - Stung at 5 PM- Major Herx one hour after stinging. I felt a wave of hell shoot over me. I am shaky, and I have a sub temperature of 97.2 (Lyme loves to keep your body cold. It cannot tolerate hot temps- most people with Lyme have very low body temperatures and are generally cold all the time) I had a panic attack, air hunger, sternum and chest pain and I’m uneasy. I have slight facial numbness, and I’m cold as hell! I have tooth pain in my molars, and I’m agitated. This lasted for about 4 hours intensely and then semi-intense through the night. Did not sleep great.”
What a ride.

Ticked off

June 26, 2016 by alicia gbur

I want to take this post to talk about how evasive this disease is and how so little is known by health practitioners regarding it. When you hear the name Lyme disease you think bulls eye rash right? Did you know that only roughly 30% of people even get the rash and fewer than 50% even recall a rash? I never got one. Case and point. In fact, I never even saw a tick on me the first time I believe I got infected. Yes, I said the first time. I was reinfected four years ago, and that's what tipped the scales. It all goes back to a camping trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the 90's. My best friend Sharon and I did a backcountry camping trip to one of my favorite places on earth- Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We hiked in several miles to our campsite and stayed for about a week. It was an amazing girlie "Thelma and Louise" experience.

On our way back I started to get a fever and got very sick. Like sick sick. I rode it out. Weeks following that I started to get cold sores. I had never gotten one in my life. I blew it off. Months following that I had horrible insomnia issues and night sweats, and then came debilitating back and neck pain issues. Still, I blew it off. See a pattern here? I just keep brushing away these random symptoms and shook them off as facts of life. I didn't listen to my body. I was also a lot younger and dealing with family issues with my mother. Down right survival, I suppose with zero time for myself. But if I had known what to look for I might not be where I am now. Years and years passed. I would get occasional bouts of vertigo, and I also had a bit of hearing loss in one ear. Well, I am in a rock band so what could I expect right? I shook the back pain off and the tingling in my legs. I figured it ran in the family. I guess it's genetics! I'll just see a chiropractor and keep things in check. And so on and so on. Flash forward. Maybe six years ago I get a weird patchy rash on my body one summer. Kind of splotchy, didn't hurt, didn't itch, I saw the dermatologist, and she dismisses it as a virus and sends me off with a steroid cream (Bartonella anyone?) and here I am still bumping along. Christian and I meet, and we are now in a relationship. We are fresh out of long term breakups... stress! Start up a rock band... stress! Partying like rock stars... stress! I start working in the film industry shooting twelve hours days in dilapidated buildings... stress, mold! Travel overseas to Italy... stress and partying! And just before our trip to Italy Christian and I are up north and hiking in a tick endemic area, and I find a tick on my leg. Naturally, I freak out, hit it off my leg (wrong) and then proceed to DISMISS IT BECAUSE IT WASN'T ATTACHED FOR 24 HRS AND I DIDN'T HAVE BULLS EYE RASH! And I heard you can't get Lyme disease unless it's attached for 24 hours according to the CDC guidelines. BULLSHIT!!!!!!! OK so, I'm back from Italy, and I get a horrible sinus like infection and start losing hearing in one ear. I also am having some other weird random things happening like facial twitching and tingling, heart palpitations, sternum chest pain, burning scalp sensations. I start googling these things together and what keeps coming up but Lyme Disease! So I made a doctors appointment to get a Z-pack or something and have him run an Elisa test to see what the "F" is up. The rest is history. It came back positive, and my world changed.

Bee delivery day!

June 17, 2016 by alicia gbur

Oh man, it is bee delivery day!!! My hive is ready to go. She’s a beaut. I have my smoker, hive tool, bee suit, gloves and bee brush. We have also made the syrup to feed the bees today. They will need all they help they can get in early spring.

This day was amazing. There were bees everywhere! Christian came to take pictures to help me document. He was a brave soul because he didn’t have a bee suit. He was very Zen about the whole experience, even when he had bees in his beard. We learned how to install bees into the hive and learned how to put the queen cage properly into the hive. This is intense! I hope my queen is properly released and does well. The queen comes in a queen cage and the bees eat their way through the candy cork at the end to release her. She is in the cage so the bees can get acclimated to her. I’m so in love with my bees and so happy I took this class. I also felt decent for six days this week! I only had one dizzy day. I’ll take it and thank you bees! Click in for the full gallery.

Boxed in

June 17, 2016 by alicia gbur

Maybe you are wondering how I get the bees to use for my treatment. Apitherapy (the use of products derived from bees as medicine, including venom, honey, pollen, and royal jelly) is the proper name for Bee Venom Therapy. Many people order bees in the mail believe it or not. There are places that supply bees for this exact purpose. I have added a few to my resources page. I get my bees from friends of mine who have hives on their property and who also use bee venom for their treatment. You will meet them later.

I want my own hives that I can tend to and use my own bees for therapy, I also want to learn how to make honey and more. But there is a huge learning curve. Today I painted my hive boxes and made them all pretty for my bees. Of course with a little help from Ruthie. Sandhya and I have 21 boxes to paint! We are each having a hive at school for the year and one at her house. We have our work cut out for us.

Detox or die

June 17, 2016 by alicia gbur

I feel like I spend my life in a bathtub. My routine evolves around detoxing and my body depends on it. Epsom salt baths, far infrared sauna, milk thistle, lemon water, apple cider vinegar in water, activated charcoal are only a few things that I do that help me feel better. You see it's not just about killing the Lyme it’s about getting that shit out! This sickness is the cruelest of the cruel. Not only do you feel awful twenty-four seven but when you’re killing it off you feel seven million times worse! Your body just cannot process all of the toxins that the bacteria give off when they die. There is a term for this and it’s called“The Jarisch–Herxheimer reaction (Herx)- this is a reaction to endotoxin-like products released by the death of harmful microorganisms within the body during antibiotic treatment.” And it’s not just antibiotic treatment it's any type of killing protocol. In fact, it's probably why a lot of people stop treating or don't want to treat. When I was first diagnosed and that's a story within itself I had no idea of what was going to happen once I started to take antibiotics. Boy was I in for a big surprise. I still have PTSD from it.

You have to help your body out in any way you can. Food is a huge part of that too. What you put into your body matters people. Give it a hand. Hell, even if you don’t have Lyme disease your body is probably overburdened and screaming with toxins from the world we are living in. I love food and cooking and I can credit my mom for teaching me that. She was an amazing cook and almost never let us eat sugary treats . She would say - "If you want a snack go pull a carrot out of the garden and rinse it off with the hose.” When we were kids we would love eating carrots or celery dipped in vinegar and salt. That’s what we had when the other neighborhood kids were running around with King Dongs and Twinkies. Not gonna lie, sometimes we wanted that Twinkie. But I’m glad we were raised the way we were. I do believe it has saved me from more suffering. My latest obsession is celery juice and eating frozen wild organic blueberries. Celery is incredibly alkalizing, it equalizes the body's PH and is also a natural anti-inflammatory among many other things. Wild blueberries are great for immune system support, tissue repair, digestive cleansing, extraction of heavy metals from your system and more. They help clear my head and give me energy. I will continue to touch on more detox throughout.

Giving back

June 08, 2016 by alicia gbur

I am super excited to tell you that I am taking up beekeeping! Because I have decided to use Bee Venom Therapy for Lyme I feel I should be giving back. Yes, a bee dies when it stings you. Yes, I have thought long and hard about it, cried about it and ultimately decided that this is the right thing to do. By the way I forgot to mention we only use honeybees for therapy. Not yellow jackets or bumble bees.

The average life span of a honeybee is about 6 weeks give or take. The worker bee literally works herself to death in the summer foraging for pollen. “Workers are the only bees that most people ever see. These bees are females that are not sexually developed. Workers forage for food (pollen and nectar from flowers), build and protect the hive, clean, circulate air by beating their wings, and perform many other societal functions.”

My friend Sandhya and I are taking classes through SEMBA (Southeastern Michigan Beekeepers Association) The classes are held at Tolgate Education Center and Farm and run from early spring to early fall. Our first class was overwhelming to say the least. It lasted about 5 hours and we have 5 instructors that speak on a rotating basis. Clay, Richard, Winn, Bill and Tim. All with their own take on things and each one quirkier than the next. This is gonna be fun.

There are about 40 people in our class and they range from young to old. It’s pretty cool to see so many people wanting to take up backyard beekeeping. Sandhya and I decided to assemble our own hiveware. Some people ordered them assembled but we decided we wanted to learn the anatomy of the hive and all of it’s parts. And when I say parts man are there parts!!!! Sandhya is a natural with the power tools. I however am not. Good thing I have her around… Today we assembled our Brood Boxes. "Definition. brood box. (Noun) In beekeeping, the portion of the hive in which the queen is allowed to lay eggs and create a nest. Separated from the "supers"(where only food is stored) by a perforated screen through which the queen cannot pass." Its early spring if you can't tell by our flannels but we can hardly wait for bee delivery day in May!

Sting man

June 08, 2016 by alicia gbur

You know you have a good man when your fiancée volunteer's to be your sting buddy. Meet Christian. He is an amazing human. He is artistic, patient, sweet, calm and open minded. He says he believes in the bees. He told me that he has a good feeling about it and that he feels closer to me because he can take part in helping me heal. Might I also add that he is a great bee wrangler. He caught eight bee’s in under 3 minutes. Booyah!

You are probably wondering about things like, doesn’t it hurt? Where do you keep the bee’s?, How do you get a bee to sting you? Do you just stand in a room and let the bees swarm around and hope you get stung? How does this work? How many stings do you need to do and for how long and where? Doesn’t the bee die after it stings you? How did you hear about this and how do you know it works? What if you are allergic!? I’m also sure you are saying to yourself…. This chick is weird.

Here is a little info on how it goes. I would also like to say I didn’t invent the process- there is a phenomenal story in which you can read about here.

I keep my bees in a thing called a bee buddy. It’s a cute little box with a queen pheromone scent and honey feeder in it to keep them calm, fed and happy.

I always have an Epi Pen ready. I started with a test sting to make sure I was not anaphylactic. I sting on the back. Your spinal nerves feed the body, so the venom reaches out from there.

OK so the test sting is in, I take the stinger out right away and wait 20 minutes. My throat didn’t close, and I was ready to go. I then did a full sting by letting the stinger stay in for 20 minutes. By the way, throat closure is a true anaphylactic reaction, whereas swelling around the sting is not. In fact, that’s what I want to see. I will explain later. My goal is to reach ten stings eventually. I sting three days a week with the weekends off. To get the bee to sting you, you simply grab the bee lightly with long tweezers and place it on the skin. It WILL sting you. If it doesn’t want to sting, gently tap the bee on the rear.

There are studies currently being done about the effects of bee venom against Borrelia (Lyme).

A compound in bee venom called melittin is being studied by UNH's Lyme disease research group headed by Eva Sapi, associate professor of biology and environmental science. Lyme disease is caused by the bacteria Borrelia and can shift between different forms in the body, which is part of what makes them so hard to kill. Sapi's lab is testing different bee venoms on all forms of the bacteria, and so far, results from preliminary work done by one of her students look “very promising.”

Name game

June 08, 2016 by alicia gbur

Let's have a quick chat about the name Lyme disease. I think it would be better categorized under an umbrella called “tick-borne infections” I don’t want you to glaze over with too much information. It’s easy to tune out mainly because it’s such a complicated health condition. We are a pill popping society and tend to think very linear when it comes to treating conditions. It seems like every commercial on the TV is a pharmaceutical add. There’s a pill for this and a pill for that. Well let me tell you there ain’t no “magic pill” for Lyme, and it’s many cohorts.

When a tick bites you, it can and very often will transmit a slew of other infections into your bloodstream. Here’s a fun little list. I have at least 5 of them.

Ehrlichia and Anaplasma

Other Co-infections

Again, that’s just a few. It can also cause your system to go haywire and trigger auto immune responses to the mold called MARCONS (Multiple Antibiotic Resistant Coagulase Negative Staphylococci) which in turn causes CIRS (chronic inflammatory response syndrome) and yes I have this too. Overwhelmed yet? I thought so. Let us switch gears for now.

OK so here I am driving home with a box of bee’s, my back is burning a bit, but my head is clear. Normally I’m dizzy and have been almost daily for the last two years. Imagine feeling like you have had a few glasses of wine but without the fun of drinking the wine and socializing with friends. Not the party I want.

Well after I got stung my head became crystal clear, dizziness was gone, and I had more energy. Weird right? I’m revved up, kinda excited and still scared to death. What have I gotten myself into?

Just say the words

June 08, 2016 by alicia gbur

I have Lyme Disease. There. I said it.

I’ve only told a few people what has been going on with me these last few years. I’m a private person and tend to keep things to myself. I also don't like to show weakness. I've always been a tomboy, and I'm pretty darn stoic. And let's face it if you don't say it aloud maybe it doesn't exist.... Ah, good old denial.

I don’t like to complain about myself, and I have always been a person that muscles through. I’ve had a lot of shit to sift through in life. I lost my mother and sister to alcohol and drug addiction. I was the primary caretaker for my grandma for the last six years of her life. And now this, a mystery illness to many AND when I say to many I don’t just mean you and me, I mean to doctors and infectious disease specialists.

Sometimes things sneak up on you and elude detection and blow past your basic awareness and your better sense that something is amiss. Lyme is tricky like that. It's a real sneaky bastard. You bump along dismissing this and that. Perhaps that bout of vertigo is normal, or you say to yourself everybody gets back pain, or those facial twitches must be stress.... then the list starts to pile up, and it gets in the way and brings you to a halt. But I digress- more on this later.

Last summer I did a lot of gardening. There was an unusual amount of bees in the yard. They even followed me from window to window when I went inside. Driving I saw bumper stickers with quirky beekeepers slogans. Then I met a couple during a monthly meeting at a Lyme disease support group I attend. They introduced themselves and shared their story about stinging themselves with bees to combat Lyme. At first, I thought they were off their rockers. I’m sure you can imagine- stinging yourself with bees!? My god, are you crazy? But then I started to listen to them, watch and soon became amazed at their results. I began to research Bee Venom Therapy; I joined Facebook groups that have thousands of people using Bee Venom to heal from this wretched disease. I was intrigued.

You see, when you are sick, and you have tried over and over again to become well, and nothing seems to work you reach a point, a point where you will try ANYTHING to feel like yourself again.

Where to begin...

June 08, 2016 by alicia gbur

I can tell you it started on a winter night driving down a dark country road with a box of bees on my lap and two stings to my back. Let me preface this by saying I'm not a writer and I'm terrible at talking about myself. Perhaps that's why I chose to be a photographer in life. So Instead of a lengthy intro, I will give you short narratives on why I'm here sharing this with you. I would also like to say that this is not just about me, but about the people I've met, the journeys we are on and how they are shaping me. This is also about daily life and what I'm doing to recover, simple everyday things that get me by and make me smile. Thanks for joining me on my weekly journal, admission and photo essay. Let's do this.