After a third relapse that lasted nearly a year, I was successfully treated in late 2025 by a doctor who properly diagnosed me and addressed the multiple pathogens I was carrying.

On two separate visits, he took blood samples and examined them under his own microscope.

“You no longer have Lyme disease,” he said after the first examination.

“There’s no Lyme. Congratulations. Call me when you get to India,” he said happily after the second.

Based on 50 years of medical experience, he was confident I was in the clear.

Returning to India

On February 1st, 2026, I successfully returned to India, where I was based before all of this happened.

On one level, it didn’t make sense. Given what I went through, India is probably the last place you’d choose for a post-illness destination. It’s loud, fast-paced, unpredictable, and full of environmental stressors.

On another level, it made perfect sense.

Living with Lyme disease for nearly seven years, and enduring destabilizing relapses, created a side condition — not exactly PTSD, but something I’ve come to understand as “nervous system sensitization.”

I fought a war, and on multiple occasions, when I thought that war was over, it began again, requiring further investigation and treatment.

This harrowing journey taught me I was unsafe, so I began guarding against potential threats, especially those I believed could impact my symptoms or progress.

For stretches, I cut off walking. Working. Talking normally. At one point, I had to wear noise-canceling headphones just to leave the house. I could barely tolerate being around people, and the list goes on.

You’re not safe. That mantra became ingrained in my mind, priming my nervous system for danger even if none existed.

From February 1st to now, I’ve experienced a steady expansion, made possible by leaving my comfort zone and my mom’s home in New York, which had become a safe but limiting cocoon.

That’s why India has been so healing. It has forced me beyond protective mechanisms I couldn’t maintain. By stretching past them and seeing that nothing bad happened, I’ve more or less learned, “I’m safe.”

My capacity has grown in kind to the point where life has resumed a new sense of normalcy.

Expansion — Hiccup — Expansion

With that said, there have been intermittent “hiccups,” as I call them, or contractions along the way.

When things feel off, symptoms spike, or my baseline suddenly changes, it’s like an alarm goes off immediately. My first thought is that I’m relapsing again, and my life is going to collapse.

This brings anxiety, an urgency to fix things, and fearful projections about the future. Though it feels endless in the moment, these episodes do pass sometimes requiring several days.

I’ve learned these swings are part of healing, specifically, my nervous system re-training itself to trust life again.

One started about three days ago after reviewing emails from late 2019 to early 2020, which was one of the darkest periods of my life marked by increasing symptoms, fear, and things slipping beyond my control.

It got to the point where my mom had to start writing emails for me because I couldn’t bear to look at a screen or even be near one. Reading those emails, especially the ones she had to write, opened an emotional door to that time.

Though I was fine in the moment, even curious, later that day it started.

My main symptom spiked (a chronic pain that lives around my right temple) at night, and I woke up in the morning with anxiety that I hadn’t experienced in some time.

Reading the emails triggered me, as I had somewhat anticipated.

This happened to coincide with an extremely hot day here, when it was over 110℉, which made me feel “woozy,” lethargic, headachy, and even a little nauseated.

All of this fueled the sense that something was wrong, as my brain flagged these symptoms as old threats returning.

The intensity of this particular wave reached a point where I found myself saying out loud, “Who will catch me if I fall?” with tears streaming out of my eyes.

At certain points throughout the day, the whole thing would resolve, and it was then that I could recognize that I was not going into descent but, rather, riding a wave.

Up and down it went like this until yesterday evening, when I came back to myself.

“Move On”

Though these episodes are scary and, honestly, unwelcome, I see that they’re helping me relearn to trust life. The threats my mind expects aren’t appearing, so I’m slowly letting my guard down and allowing myself to embrace living again.

They also remind me how intense my Lyme experience was and of all the support I received. This softens me, keeps me humble, and reminds me that the journey, primarily, was a tool to help me serve others.

The last time I spoke with my treating doctor, he said, “Move on with your life.” (I was actually in such an episode of contraction when I called.)

He doesn’t mince words, and he wouldn’t have said that if he wasn’t confident I was OK.

Nevertheless, even now, months after treatment and continuing to expand, I still don’t fully trust that I’m in the clear. The thing is: bad things can happen at any time, and we don’t have the control we think we do.

This understanding is helping me to release further because if something bad does happen, I’m not helpless. I’m not alone. I can and will deal with it.

Despite these fearful loops, I’m moving forward toward my dreams, with a growing sense that this chapter is behind me.

Original artwork by: SarjanArts.com.

I started a 28-day course of Cefuroxime Axetil (Ceftin) the evening after receiving a diagnosis of Lyme disease from Dr. Kane.

A couple of months later, during a consultation, a holistic Lyme practitioner I ended up working with looked at me puzzlingly after I shared that I was given this prescription.

“Ceftin? Why did he give you that?”

This practitioner preferred Doxycycline, noting its “intracellular penetration.” “Doxy,” as it’s known, is more commonly prescribed for Lyme disease, although the CDC recognizes both as appropriate first-line treatments.

Dr. Kane informed me about the common GI-related side effects of diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting associated with Ceftin, but I experienced none of them. In fact, I barely noticed a thing while taking it.

(Interesting aside: This was about six months before the COVID lockdowns. At the time, none of us knew what was coming, and everything was about to change.)

Did I Start to Feel Better?

I never actually felt “bad” in terms of being ill, fatigued, flu-like, etc. And this was true throughout the journey.

Lyme, with its inflammatory effect on multiple joints, was affecting my functionality (e.g., I had to stop going to the gym and doing outdoor work). Still, I never felt bad, so it’s hard to answer this question properly.

Did those issues improve? No, not really.

As each day passed, I kept wondering, “Is there going to be some kind of symptom outbreak again, like there was in July?” There wasn’t, so that probably means something was working, but whether that was from the antibiotic is difficult to say.

I kept living my life thinking that, at some point, things would just go back to normal.

A Coincidence

In those days, as reflected in my email exchanges with Gary, I found myself thinking something “deeper” was going on, meaning spiritual or subtle.

I even considered past-life explanations because I have a scar on my back that looks like a surgical incision. The thing is, I’ve never had surgery, and never had an accident that would explain it.

I mentioned this to my friend Bertrand, an evolutionary astrologer who had been giving me readings since my early 20s. He was another person, like Gary, whom I projected a kind of paternal authority onto because of his truly gifted ability to understand your inner world.

It was easy to hang on to his every word, and on this subject, he said without equivocation, “That scar is from a past life. It’s as if someone betrayed you and stabbed you in the back.”

I didn’t fully believe it. But I didn’t dismiss it either.

For that reason, during the second week of antibiotics, I attended a five-day past-life regression training led by Dr. Brian Weiss (author of Many Lives, Many Masters) at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York.

Not because I wanted to learn the technique, but because he guided group regressions, and I thought something might be revealed, such as about the scar, its origin, maybe even about my case of Lyme.

Nothing like that came up.

But one detail stayed with me. On the first day, he spoke about the idea of snake venom as medicine, which also showed up in a regression he conducted on a participant.

(Two months prior, I had a vivid dream involving a snake that bit me, which I wrote about in the first article.)

This was one of the first of many coincidences I noticed during my six-year experience with Lyme. I didn’t expect them, and I didn’t go looking for them. But when they happened, they gave me a felt sense that what I was going through wasn’t entirely random, and that I wasn’t completely alone in it.

Considering how isolating and scary the journey was, these coincidences or “signs” were a kind of medicine and helped me keep going.

“They Don’t Work”

Three days after finishing the round of Ceftin, I returned to Dr. Kane’s office for a check-in.

Before that, I took time to write down the many symptoms I was still experiencing, which the doctor didn’t seem to pay much attention to, apart from saying, “OK” and examining my knee for effusion.

Since Dr. Kane was in a hurry — as I would come to learn was common among many of the medical practitioners I saw — I went through the list quickly, raising issues that weren’t met with the same level of concern.

That was that. Our encounter was over. I left the office with a summary of the visit and a one-page explainer on Lyme disease, advising me to watch for tick bites and noting that symptom resolution could take six to eighteen months.

While taking antibiotics, I picked up a copy of Healing Lyme by herbalist Stephen Buhner. I began diligently following his well-known protocol after learning that antibiotics alone don’t necessarily lead to a cure.

As I was leaving, I mentioned that I was taking herbs to Dr. Kane, and he said dismissively, “They don’t work,” and “Stay off the internet.”

I went back home with my paperwork, no scheduled follow-up, and no further guidance.

There was no thought at all that things could get worse. They did.

Over the course of two years, I experienced a steady stream of shifting symptoms that pointed to a serious health condition. Yet, I interpreted them as signs of healing. As I look back, the warning signs were there all along — I just couldn’t accept that I was getting sick.

April, 2017 - Rural Kenya

Up until this time, I had no real health issues. I was healthy and fit, with no reason to think that was going to change.

About two months before my 40th birthday, I was nearing the end of a stay in a rural farming village in western Kenya. I own land there and have development plans through my non-profit.

One evening, out of nowhere, I was struck with this intense episode of chills, to the point I was convulsing under a couple of blankets in bed.

The chills would come and go until they finally stopped, leaving me feeling drained and weak.

The next day, I went to a hospital. The attending doctor suggested a stool sample to test for a viral or bacterial infection — a step that, in hindsight, would have been wise. Obviously.

(Years later, I would get diagnosed with three parasites, including Ancylostoma duodenale or hookworm, which is endemic in Africa.)

I dismissed the doctor’s advice, thinking, “A stool sample? Really?!” It didn’t seem serious, so I wondered why I should bother. Instead, I asked for a pill, as I was used to doing during my extensive travels in India when minor illnesses came up.

She looked at me curiously, as if to say, “Okay... if that’s what you want.”

I don’t know what she prescribed, but it worked. I recovered and moved on.

This event turned out to be the beginning of something much bigger than I expected.

July 8, 2017 - Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

After a brief stay at my mom’s home in New York’s Hudson Valley — the Lyme capital of the world — I returned to India, where I was living on the campus of an NGO. On my first morning back, I woke up with a fever.

Well, I had quite a welcome reaching India. Started Sunday night with a medium-grade fever... going hot to cold to hot, sweating, etc. I went to the doctor on Tuesday morning, who prescribed some basic medicines.

I went to the doctor again today, this time we did blood work, which came back entirely normal but with an official diagnosis of “viral infection.”

I don’t know though... Something, again, tells me it’s deeper.
- Christopher (Emphasis added.)

That’s an excerpt of an email I wrote to a longtime friend and healing practitioner, Gerard (Gary), who, at the time, was overseeing an herbal, toxin-elimination program of mine based on a certain type reading.

The fever I mentioned lasted an entire month and was eventually treated with antibiotics. It’s worth noting that the prescribing doctor wanted me to see an infectious disease specialist, which I refused to his overt consternation.

I shared many of the symptoms I was experiencing around this time with Gary, which I now believe — but can’t say for sure — were the slow and gradual onset of Lyme disease, and definitely not something “deeper.”

The exchanges I had with him reflect part of what was happening at the time, i.e., they were one thread of a broader set of conversations.

As symptom after symptom showed up, I believed and wanted to believe I was experiencing either something of a spiritual nature or detoxification reactions from the herbal protocol, also known as a Herxheimer reaction (or “Herx”), a term I would come to hear way too often.

“I agree it is deeper, and I’m not surprised as your system is pushing things out.”
- Gary (Emphasis added.)

In essence, “What you’re experiencing is healthy and part of a cleansing process.”

That take, given with the best of intentions, was untrue — and dangerous, because I believed and wanted to believe it.

Outsourcing My Authority

I don’t want to get into my entire family history, but it’s relevant here to say that my parents divorced within days of my birth. My mom raised me on her own.

Time with dad, Al Lowman, was relegated to weekends and eventually none at all. Due to a severe case of COPD, he passed away when I was in my mid-20s.

Though I learned a lot from my dad, I did not have a father in the traditional sense or a consistent male role model growing up. To say the least, it left a void and unfulfilled needs that persist, probably even to this day.

After reviewing the email exchanges between Gary and me, it’s clear that: 1) I did not want to acknowledge what was happening or seek proper medical attention, and 2) I inadvertently placed Gary in a paternal role, allowing his understanding to take precedence over mine.

“If Gary thinks it’s X, then it’s X.” That was my mental model, and the pattern would continue for years, also with others I looked up to and believed could get me out of the trouble I was in.

This outsourcing of authority — combined with this relationship dynamic — was as unsafe as it was vulnerable, and later became the subject of agonizing self-recrimination and regret.

Red Blotches, Red Flag

Here’s another snippet from a check-in email that really highlights the issue:

Though I’m sure they’ve been there, nevertheless, this morning I noticed I have about a dozen red blotches located mostly on my trunk, front and back, and a few on my forehead. I attached a photo of one of them. - Christopher (July 10, 2017)

To view the attachment, click here. (Secure Dropbox link.)

Thanks for the update. I’ve had similar things. Toxins coming out from everywhere.
- Gary (Emphasis added.)

I get a sick feeling in my stomach now, reviewing this exchange, because the blotches were a serious red flag and a probable indicator of early Lyme disease. And no, they hadn’t “been there,” as I was trying to convince myself.

I was taking medical cues from someone I trusted deeply — not from a doctor who would have been concerned and intervened immediately.

(Sidenote: Gary was a steady and deeply supportive presence throughout the journey who helped me in a way I can’t fully put into words, particularly in the later stage.)

There was a real possibility, given my travel patterns, that had I seen an infectious disease doctor as recommended on multiple occasions — even while in India — I would have tested positive for Lyme disease, been treated, and possibly avoided having my life derailed.

A few days later, I wrote to Gary:

The doctor wants to refer me to an Infectious Disease specialist for further examinations... if there is some underlying bug, I’d rather treat it holistically, and of course, they don’t really embrace the concept of this issue potentially being a healthy detoxification.
- Christopher (July 18, 2017)

He replied:

That would be great to see an infectious disease MD, as well as getting checked for parasites. - Gary

See: The truth surfaced more than once. I just didn’t let it in.

In the end, I was filtering out what I didn’t want to hear and chose to believe a healing process was going on, because it made me feel like something meaningful — or “deeper” — was happening.

It wasn’t. Not in the way I understood it then.

An Avalanche of Alarms

The email exchanges and the emergence of symptoms continued in this way up to my diagnosis in 2019. It’s astonishing to read these excerpts now — and more so that I kept investing in a false explanation of them.

September 3, 2017

Sharp, split-second shooting pains that seemed to emanate deep in my skull.

September 30, 2017

Slight tingling sensation in the liver area when I bend forward. The right eye twitching is still there.

October, 2017

I can’t really open my mouth because of tension in the right jaw.

January, 2018

I am grateful for going over the situation with you because I can, at least, better wrap my mind around everything and know nothing is wrong. (Emphasis added.)

(I wrote that email after another brief visit to the US, where I saw Gary in person. After another reading, I believed the symptoms were directly tied to the herbal protocol — and that it was working.)

March, 2018

Just about every day, something is inflamed... in the shoulders, around the knees, ankles, in fingers, etc.

This response really stood out:

I keep thinking that each of these episodes is a removal of toxins, heavy metals, viruses etc. It is amazing and obviously God’s grace. - Gary (Emphasis added.)

Truth be told, I wish somebody during this time had put their foot down and said, “Christopher, you need to see a doctor.” Gary was not the only one witnessing what was happening — there were others.

To me, we were both reinforcing a story that kept us from seeing what was actually happening.

December, 2018

I can’t walk more than 50m.

(That was because my ankle had swollen up out of nowhere, which I now know can happen in early Lyme.)

If I could go back with 20/20 hindsight, I would have gotten that stool sample, seen a doctor when I was in the US in 2017, and at the very least, followed through with seeing the infectious disease specialist in India, as I had been advised.

There’s no way to know but things might have turned out differently.

July, 2019 — Tivoli, New York

After the week described in the previous piece — when symptom after symptom broke out — I finally took action. I searched online and found a local medical practice with an infectious disease department.

“Which doctor do you want to see?” said the representative on the phone at the clinic.

“Whoever. I don’t think it matters,” I said.

“Ok. You will see Dr. Curtis Kane on August 19th. He’s the best infectious disease doctor in the area.” This was the first time I had made a doctor’s appointment in the United States in more than 20 years.

It all felt very new to me, and I was surprised I had to wait three weeks to see him.

A Fishing Expedition

I explained to Dr. Kane what had happened in July. A medical student examined me, and then I was asked a series of questions — some slightly invasive (had I ever smoked crack? No).

“This could be 10,000 things,” he said. “We’re going on a fishing expedition. Go down the hall to the lab where they’ll draw thirty vials of blood. Come back in two weeks for the results.”

Then, as an afterthought, he said, “Peace.”

Peace?

It caught me off guard. The word didn’t quite match the man — or at least, not how I expected him to speak. It was my first hint that Dr. Kane was a little quirky, though clearly sharp.

I left the clinic with a two-page lab requisition filled with codes and lab names that looked like Greek to me. I turned to Google to look them up. I saw that he was testing for several infectious diseases, including HIV, and to my great surprise, also Leukemia and Lymphoma. Really?

I didn’t see that he was also testing for Lyme disease and related co-infections because these still were not on my radar.

That’s when it hit me — something serious could be going on.

Arriving at the lab, I was scared because I knew how much blood was to be drawn, and needles have always made me squeamish.

Oh, the familiar tourniquet and needle prick — “little pinch” — of a laboratory blood draw that would become all too familiar. Vial after vial, the phlebotomist at the lab drew one after the other. Plunk. They dropped into the plastic containers, so many of them.

Two “sticks” (a term I’ve always recoiled at) and 30 vials of blood later, Dr. Kane had everything he needed to understand what was going on.

“You ‘Just’ Have Lyme”

September 4, 2019 — Kingston, NY

Test result day. I found myself full of anxiety again, driving from Tivoli to the clinic to get my results, so much so that I thought I was going to pass out.

Checking in, I was weighed (do you find that annoying too?), and the RN took my blood pressure, which was high at 130 over something because I was so nervous. With kindness, the nurse told me to take a “yoga breath” and brought me into Dr. Kane’s office, where he was waiting with at least 15 pages of lab results.

“What are you so worried about? You just have Lyme,” Dr. Kane said, without any sense of irony.

What!? Lyme disease? Seriously? That thing everybody else except me gets from ticks? I was dumbfounded because I knew next to nothing about the disease, despite growing up in New York, where Lyme is endemic in many areas. And I certainly did not remember a tick bite.

After reviewing the rest of my results, which were all normal except for a very high Sedimentation Rate (a marker of muscle inflammation), Dr. Kane informed me that I would take 28 days of the antibiotic Cefuroxime Axetil* (Ceftin) and come back in two weeks for a check-in.

He also shared some of the digestive side effects of the drug, and that in 10% of cases, Lyme becomes “disseminated,” warranting further intervention.

I’ll get to that later because I was in that 10% of cases.

By this point, my mom had arrived at the doctor’s office. When I told her it was Lyme, she teared up — relieved it wasn’t anything worse, and assuming, as many do, that it would be easily treated. I assumed the same.

Off I went to CVS down the road and picked up my prescription — one 500mg tablet in the morning and one in the evening, taken 12 hours apart with meals.

That will do the trick because I “just” have Lyme, right?

I would find out it wasn’t so simple.

* I don’t know why Dr. Kane prescribed Ceftin instead of Doxycycline, which is often the preferred first-line of treatment for Lyme disease.

I returned to the United States after a routine visit to Kenya, where much of my nonprofit work is based, and drove up to my mom’s new home.

The plan was to stay just a few months before heading back to the field.

July, 2019 — Tivoli, New York

Looking back, I now realize I had been carrying Lyme disease since early 2015, missing all the warning signs. I’ll share more about this in a later post.

About a month after my 41st birthday, I clearly remember this disturbing week when the “dam broke.”

My immune system, no longer able to defend itself, gave way. The symptoms arrived one after another with speed.

My left knee swelled up, and I could barely walk. My right elbow ballooned to the size of a golf ball. I bought braces for both wrists, as something strange and painful was happening to them.

Next, my shoulders started behaving abnormally — it felt like one of them had glass shards in it. My right ankle had electrical, pulsing sensations. Plus, more.

One morning that week, I woke up in a state of inexplicable anxiety. No trigger — just a wave of fear. I tried to go about my day and even got on the lawn mower, but I had to stop quickly. Something wasn’t right.

I called my mom, who rushed home from work, and I briefly considered going to the ER, but chose not to. My primary doctor told me it was likely a tension headache. My forehead even appeared swollen.

It’s clear this was neurological Lyme making a push. Had I gone to the ER, I probably would have been diagnosed with it much earlier. But I wasn’t ready to accept that anything bad was happening.

My functionality steadily decreased, and I could no longer ignore what was going on.

And in the middle of this stretch, I had an intense and symbolic dream I still remember vividly.

The Snake Dream — Poison as Medicine

I saw a snake thickly coiled around my neck. As I tried to pull it off, it bit me. Dream over, I woke up and had physical sensations around the bite area from the dream.

Reflecting, as someone who loves symbolism and philosophy — and who even has two snake tattoos — I can begin to see the meaning in that dream.

Snake venom has a long history of medicinal use in different cultures. Symbolically, snakes — as in the rod of Asclepius — are associated with healing and medicine.

Over time, I came to understand that Lyme disease — and the harrowing journey it took me on, which brought me to my breaking point — was never out to punish me, though it often felt that way. Its purpose was to polish me.

That means I’m a better person now than I was before Lyme. I’ll also explain this later.

In essence, the dream was telling me, “Don’t resist this. Resisting only makes things worse. The snake is here to help, not to hurt.” I couldn’t have understood that then, but after six long, challenging years of navigating this disease, I can say it’s true.

If I had known then what I know now, I might have worried far less about this life-altering — yet frightening — experience.

Welcome to There is Life After Lyme where I will be chronicling the path I took that ultimately led to me getting my life back.

Who This Publication is For

Anyone navigating the dizzying corridors of Lyme disease — or another chronic illness — who needs a voice reminding them it’s possible to find their way out of the maze.

It is also for anyone who believes that adversity, no matter how painful, can be a great teacher and healer.

Why I’m Writing It Now

I understand my story may be useful to others walking a similar path.

Enough time has passed for me to see the journey with clearer eyes, outside of the crisis of it all.

I feel duty-bound to share what I learned.

And finally, writing will help me process the experience and connect with others walking this road.

What You Can Expect Here

Pure emotional honesty — as much as I can muster — and an authentic recounting of what I experienced, shared with your upliftment in mind.

Perhaps a little humor and lightness along the way, because it wasn’t all bad.

A new post every 1–2 weeks.

No advice. No protocols. No sugar coating.

And no marketing nonsense. Just the story. This publication will always remain free.

My Prayer and Aspiration

I aspire for There is Life After Lyme to become the most thoughtful first-person archive of Lyme recovery online.

It will be a continuous, reflective account of a life-altering illness, written from within the experience.

And, of course, for you to find solace here and, perhaps, the oxygen to keep going all the way to the other side. It exists.

One Last Thing

It’s worth saying this clearly: my case turned out to be more severe than most. What followed is not what happens to everyone with Lyme. Many people are treated and recover without having to go through what I did.

If any of this resonated and you’d like to follow along as I share reflections from this journey, you’re welcome to subscribe below. If you know someone navigating Lyme disease or chronic illness, feel free to share this with them, too.

THANK YOU. 🙏🏻