Amy Z's Biography

Amy Z is a 27 year old Lyme patient that lives in Cincinnati Ohio. Amy has Lyme Disease, Babesia, CPN, Mycoplasma, Bartonella and Erlichia. Amy's doctor also suspects that there may be some foreign (tropical) infections that she may have picked up from internetional volunteer work based on her initial and recurring symptoms.

Amy struggles with a variety of symptoms, but the currently the symptoms that give her the most problems are severe fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, peripheral neuropathy and severe GI problems. She has nausea, gastropareisis and functional vagal neuropathy.

Amy fell ill very suddenly upon returning home from a medical mission trip to the mountains of Ecuador almost 5 years ago. She was a new RN graduate and had just recently passed her boards. She had a job that she loved, was active in her church and was very excited about her future. Life as she knew it suddenly changed when she fell ill. Of course her doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. Amy went to them with severe GI problems and they progressed rapidly to involve neurological as well as flu like symptoms. She was never able to return to her full time job.

Even though Amy had abnormal test results, her doctors still weren't able to figure out what had caused the damage much less the severity of her symptoms. She saw specialist after specialist, but no one could help her. Amy tried everything in and out of the book to help relieve her symptoms including: acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, chiropractic, functional medicine, homeopathy, and naturopathic medicine. Some of them helped temporarily, but none of them stopped the progression of her illness.

After four years, she began to lose her vision. Amy grew so weak she felt as if she would die if she didn't find help soon. At that point, her Naturopath suggested that Amy might have Lyme Disease and insisted that she see an LLMD for treatment. Finally, she saw Dr. H in NY last summer and the ND was right. Much of the last year has been trial and error trying to find just the right protocol. Amy had a PICC Line placed this past spring and started IV Rocephin and combined that with several oral medications. She praises God that she is finally noticing progress with that combination of meds. It has renewed her hope that she can and will be well again.

Amy wants you all to pray that God will continue the good work that He has started by continuing to heal her. She wants God to guide her doctor in the treatment decisions especially since her GI symptoms have come back recently. Amy thanks God for how he has provided for her over the last few years. She could not have made it with her own strength. She feels it is truly a miracle that she has been able to work at all during this time. Please pray that God will continue to provide for her financially as she is single and only able to work part time to provide for herself.

Amy is now having to appeal her insurance company for IV coverage so she could use prayers that God will continue to move in her behalf. There was confusion by the insurance company and they have now denied two months worth of coverage and she is currently paying out of pocket for IV coverage. It is also her prayer that as God heals her that he will grant her with new hopes, goals and dreams. That He will put His will in Amy's heart so that she will only follow Him. Amy had given up on a future being sick so long. She needs God to guide her. She just wants to please God and in all that she does she wants to glorify, honor and obey Him. She wants her life to be useful for His purpose. She really misses being active in her church and community. She wants to be ready to "Go" when God says "Go."