Hello, I'm Dr. Andrew Arnold, Chiropractor and this is Stephen Bloomer's story. I have had the pleasure of
adjusting Stephen over the past few years, a truly, genuine, lovely man.
Recently Stephen took the time to share with me the latest update on
what has been a long struggle. He has asked me to post his story at
will, and use his real name. He wants as many people as possible to read
his story in the hope that if they maybe suffering and not know why,
his story may give them some hope. If you would like to get in touch
with Stephen please call me at the clinic and I will pass on your
details. Thanks for reading.
The start
In 1999 I
was required to spend some time on an Army training area outside of
Rockhampton, Qld. This was not unusual as I had been in the Army since
1982, but this time things went a bit different. In the months
leading up to this exercise I had been working extremely long hours and
on this exercise there was not that much for me to do. A few days into
the exercise I started feeling tired. At the time I put it down to
the hours I had been working and that my body was just taking the
opportunity to have a rest, but it was more than that. I was sleeping
at least 14 hours a day and I was unable to make it through the day
without an afternoon nap. At the conclusion of the exercise I returned
to the Enoggera military base, Brisbane Qld, but the need to sleep
continued.
In Jan 2000, I was transferred Perth, WA, and the
need to sleep came with me. Within a few months I saw a doctor about
my tiredness and he diagnosed me with depression and commenced me on
antidepressants. This medication seemed to help initially, but I was
never right. My Army career continued into 2001 where I was again
transferred, this time to Townsville, Qld. It was at this time that an
old knee complaint which I had been living with for years started to
get worse. We could not understand why, but the pain grew. The
surgeon said they could fix me and within a couple of weeks I was in
hospital for a minor operation on both knees. The operation seemed to
help and my pain was gone until a couple of months later when I started
exercising again. The first time I started running I made it about 5
paces before I fell to the ground. The pain was back, but worse than
before.
In December of 2002, after 20 years of service with
the Army I moved to the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria,
where I started my new life with my wife and young children. I still
had those aches and pains in my knees and I was still taking the Zoloft,
but in 2004 those pains started to get worse. No matter what I did I
seemed to be unable to get relief from the pain that got worse every
month. The pain was unusual and the only way I have been able to
describe it is that it feels like someone has a flat tipped screw driver
jammed under my knee caps and is now trying to use that screw driver to
prise my knee caps away from my knees.
During this time there
were a few other things happening in my life. The most notable and
memorable was tonsillitis. This was not normal tonsillitis, in that
it took two complete rounds on penicillin to bring this under control.
It did not end with this and I ended up getting tonsillitis four times
that year and each time it was just as bad as the first and with that
much medication other things started going wrong.
The treatment
I visited my GP for help with my constant knee pain and he referred me
to a knee surgeon/specialist who organised xrays and an MRI scan. His
comments stick in my head to this day, “You have damage, you have
problems, but the total of your damage does not equate to your level of
pain you are experiencing”. By this time I was relying on a walking
stick and had started taking pain killers to remain mobile.
The
next visit was to a rheumatologist, looking for signs of arthritis, but
nothing was found. The months went on and the visit to various doctors
continued and knee replacement surgery was considered but not acted on,
due to my age. I then started trying to live with this pain and
extensive physiotherapy was started. I understood the reason for the
physiotherapy and gave it my best, but try running around a small
swimming pool with those screw drivers under both knee caps, continually
pushing out, trying to push your knee caps off your knees, it just
messed me up more. I was having trouble getting people to understand
how much pain I had.
It was now about two years on and by this
stage I was on eight Panadeine Forte a day and I was spending a lot of
time in a wheelchair. I would survive work with the pain killers and a
walking stick but I was in such a mess that by the time I got home I
was wheelchair bound for the rest of the time. The pain killers seemed
to only take away about 10% of the pain on a good day and did not help
at all on a bad day, even basic things like cleaning my teeth would be
so painful that I would have to psych myself up for it. At this time
it was suggested by doctors that the problem might be psychological
again. The doctors thought the pain was all in my head. One of the
things backing this was that we had noted that when we went on holidays,
camping, that I had less pain and I was less reliant on my wheelchair.
I knew it was not in my head, but what other reason was there for
this? Then my brain started to go into a fog. It was put down to the
pain medication, but I knew I could not think straight and my family
was also noticing that things were just not right.
By this
time I knew I could not keep working, with both my difficulty in getting
around work and my lack of brain function I could see that there was no
way I was going to be able to keep going. My boss was good and
helpful, but I worked in information technology and if your head can not
function, it’s just not going to work. Suicide became a real option.
Mortgage stress and school fees for my young children were the only
things keeping me going.
Relief (for a while).
So I
went back to the GP to get another prescription for penicillin (yes I am
still getting tonsillitis during this) but I could not get in to see my
normal GP. The GP I did see, to this day I believe “he saved my
life”. He gave me the prescription for the penicillin but more
importantly he wanted to know why I had trouble walking. I told him my
story and he gave me the name of a naturopath. He said that this
naturopath was good with both natural medicines and normal western
medicines and that it would be worth me getting this looked at from
another angle.
A few weeks later I visited this naturopath with
my wife. She spent about 60 minutes with me and did a number of tests.
Not the normal type of blood tests that I was used to, but tests none
the least. Near the end of the visit she detailed that I had become
“intolerant” of a number of foods. Not allergic like anaphylactic, but
that every time I was eating these foods I was effectively poisoning
myself. My stomach was seeing these foods as poison and that this was
effecting all of my body.
We walked away from that meeting
thinking that this naturopath was a ‘nut case’. The testing was
ridiculous. But she had not asked me to buy anything obscure. She
did not ask me to pay anything other than a reasonable fee for her time
and she had outlined what food I was able to eat. We decided to give
it a go as we had nothing to lose and the diet began. I was allowed
meat, green vegetables, fruit and a couple of other things as long as
they did not contain any dairy, wheat, artificial flavouring or
additives and a long list of other things. Alcohol was forbidden.
We
were not expecting to see any changes, but a good healthy diet can not
hurt. Right? Within one week of being on the diet I no longer
needed the wheelchair. It was wrapped in plastic and stored in the
garage. After another two weeks I had given up the walking stick and
the pain killers. I went from eight Panadine Forte a day to none in
just two weeks. I had my life back.
My New Life
The
changes in my life were amazing. I went from being pushed in a
wheelchair to chasing my children around the garden. I also had my
brain back, I was able to think again. The fog had gone and we
understood why I was always better when we were on holidays, it was the
change in diet when we were away. We soon learned how to live with my
diet but my next problem started, starvation. Not starvation in the
true sense, but I could just not get enough food to keep me going.
There are only so many apples you can eat in a day and over the next 18
months I lost about 20kg. I was weighing less than I did when I joined
the Army at the age of 17 and eating away from home was problematic.
We had learned that if we were out I could eat plain boiled rice (not
the flavoured type from a Thai or Japanese takeaway) or hot chips
(without any seasoning). One time I was so hungry and I was unable to
get enough food, so I had some potato wedges, without the sour cream. I
reacted badly. About 15 minutes after eating the wedges I was dizzy
and having trouble with balance. Within the hour I was home, in bed
and in a pool of cold sweat. My body was shaking uncontrollably and I
could not stop it. I was in bed for two days and it was another day
before I was able to go back to work. I had learned the lesson of
straying from the diet.
A new hope
Things were starting
to go wrong again. We did not know what the cause was but I was
starting to get infections and have other issues with my body. Then
Channel 7’s Today Tonight ran a story about a group of naturopaths who
specialised in allergy issues. What the heck, let’s give it a go. If
we thought the last naturopath was crazy then the only way we could
explain this group of naturopaths was as ‘one step left of witchcraft’.
Their testing and treatment of me was bizarre and just not logical.
They confirmed that I was intolerant of the items detailed to us over a
year ago, and then added a lot more. They gave me one treatment and we
left with both my wife and I agreeing that we were not going back.
I
don’t know how to explain the next day, but it started with me going to
the toilet. Not wanting to go into too much detail, but I did a poo
like I have never seen before. It cleaned me out and I felt better. I
felt stronger. I ended up going back to the clinic and being treated
for all of the foods that I was reacting to and I started to get my
life back. After about 3 months I was able to eat normal foods, go to
restaurants and start doing things again. The strange infections also
stopped.
Life continued and I was cured, so we thought.
About a year later things started going downhill, but we could see what
was happening and we headed back to the naturopath. We were advised
that I was again reacting to a number of items that included coffee,
alcohol, eggs, diary and wheat so I immediately went back onto the diet
and I was treated over the next few months to get my body back on track.
Drinking alcohol was always an issue, but if I reacted to beer I
found that I could drink wine. When I started reacting to wine I would
switch to Drambuie.
Stability
The cycle of good
health for about six months to a year followed by what we could only
call “outbreaks” continued for years. We knew that as long as we
budgeted to go back to the clinic for a series of treatments once or
twice a year that we would be able to keep our lives going what was
generally considered as normal. Planning several visits to the clinic
before any holiday enabled safe travel, but the outbreaks continued and
each time they were different. Sometimes my knees would get bad and I
would be back in the wheelchair for a couple of months, once I got
shingles, other times I would get infections in strange places that
should not be written about. Each time it was different, but we always
knew that my knees would be the weak spot. My wife and now teenage
children renamed me ‘Disease Boy’ and by this time, the wheelchair was
always at the ready.
Diagnosis
In March 2013, my wife
noticed a strange shaped lump on my neck. With my army service and the
time I had in the sun it was thought to be cancer but a quick biopsy
showed it to be a granuloma annulare (yep I did not know what that was
either, google it if you want to). We were told not to worry, but this
got my wife reading and we soon identified that these were a random
autoimmune response and that it was common amongst people with the
autoimmune disease like Lupus. Further reading and we could see how my
symptoms over the years were close to this and we thought we had an
answer and back to the GP we went for a referral to a rheumatologist.
The
rheumatologist acknowledged my issues, but stated that my symptoms did
not indicate Lupus, and he referred me to an immunologist. I told my
story again to the immunologist at Melbourne’s Alfred hospital. For
over 10 years I have been telling my story to doctors and they all
acknowledged I was sick, but they all told me to go away. I was sick,
but not in their specialty. This doctor was different. He was an
arrogant bastard but he did something different. He told me that he
had no idea what was wrong with me but be promised to not give up.
More blood was taken but still no answers. He then asked me to go
away, stop seeing the naturopaths and to get sick. He wanted me to
have symptoms.
In Jan 2014 the symptoms started and by March of
that year I was starting to hurt in more ways than one. I could not
stand for more than a couple of minutes, I am back in my wheelchair and
the infections started again. Having a couple of beers gave me a
hangover that lasted to well into the afternoon of the following day. I
headed back to the Alfred and I was told I had a positive blood test
for Lyme disease. He would not tell me much more, other than I had to
now see a doctor who specialised in infectious diseases and that he
would organise the paperwork. I went back to the car and cried. I
don’t know if this crying was relief for finally having an answer, or
something else but I know that I have cried a lot over the last 10
years.
Now I am heading back to the naturopath to get my body
back into the best possible place it can be before I start treatment, as
the treatment is said to be devastating. When they kill the bug it
causes it to implode and release toxins that attack the central nervous
system, but that is a story that is yet to come.
Why?
What is Lyme disease? If you want a formal definition you can find it
on the internet, but in short terms it is a disease that is spread by a
tick that is about the size of a pin head; so small that most people
never know that they have been bitten. This disease has been
identified in medical journals as “The Great Imitator” as many with this
are wrongly diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s,
Rheumatoid Arthritis and psychological disorders . It starts with flu
like symptoms and if treated at that stage all you need is a standard
course of antibiotics. If not treated in the initial period the
disease locks itself into your brain and other organs (which is why it
is not easy to find with a blood test, it’s not in your blood) then
things get more complicated. Once it is at this stage there is no
cure, only hope for remission. The treatment can last for years and
cost thousands of dollars a month.
The reason my symptoms were
not spotted for so long is that as far as the Australian government is
concerned, there is no Lyme disease in Australia. As a result there is
no information getting out to doctors. My GP was amazed that I was
even tested for Lyme disease, but after the research that I have done,
there are 10s of thousands of people in Australia with Lyme disease.
In America it is estimated that for every 1,000 people correctly
diagnosed with Lyme disease there are another 10,000 not diagnosed, and
each year approximately 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported in
America. See the first youtube clip below to see the issues of getting
treatment in Australia and the second clip to see an inspirational story
of a young girl with Lyme disease.
Do you know someone who is chronically ill? Get them to ask the question, “What is Lyme?”
Further information is available at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se2wanLhoL8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KISKYTJ6Ow
http://www.tiredoflyme.com/so-you-have-a-friend-or-family-member-with-chronic-lyme-disease.html#.UzSlpfmSySp
http://www.lymedisease.org.au/
http://www.livingwithlymedisease.org/
You can contact our Naturopaths by calling 59985445 or
visit us online for more information
