Hi Sharon, thank you so much for that extensive post. Wow! Well, I can say I have most of the symptoms, but again they coincide with so many other things too like candida/mercury and the list goes on.

I have had this problem since 2003. I live in New zealand, so I didn't think it likely to be lyme. I do not know about ticks? The only thing I know is oneday I had a tickling, moving sensation in my lower leg. And I kept looking down and seeing nothing but a strange looking small dark freckle that I don't recall having before.

I ignored it, but finally I couldn't and kept looking down and couldn't see it moving, but could feel it. I picked away at it and whatever it was, was under the skin and I did get it out, but didn't know what it was.

Again, so many things could have occured that might have been responsible for this chronic and permanent infection, that it's mind boggling! Perhaps it was a combo and all hit me at once.

I do most definitely have light sensitivity, so bad I have trouble driving sometimes. I have exercise intolerance and if I do it, I get symptoms of acute virus, like sore throat, fever, swelling in the eyes and glands, flushing of the face, coughing, worse mental symptoms, extreme exhaustion and basically become incapacitated. I have no real ability to control candida....

So who knows what happened? Mercury I definitley had, could that have made me vulnerable to all these things and in the end one thing after another got me. When I first developed the infection, I had problems with going off-balance, had chill like sensations and movements going through the head area (brain?), and then body. I slurred my speech and had trouble typing or writing. Everything slowed down. But then other things happened later, like horrible fears, no protection against external toxins (it would get me in the brain almost immediately). I felt like I had a form of meningitis, or just like the blood brain barrier protection area had been damaged. Just amazing what happened.

If anybody is interested, I just found this yahoo group on the net.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/lymestrategies/

They talk about a Salt and vitamin C way of addressing Lyme and believe it's more effective than cat's claw (samento)...But after what you said Sharon, I am interested in trying a bit of cat's claw, just for curiosity sake to see if there is any herx type reactions....I just do not have the money to get full treatment or seeing a doctor ongoing for this.

Perhaps I can get some testing, I dont know.