Podcasts about Bartonella

In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Neil Nathan about the intersection between brain symptoms and complex illness. Dr. Nathan has practiced medicine for over 50 years. He is one of the leading experts in complex chronic illness and mold toxicity — author of the bestselling Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and Chronic Environmental Illness and The Sensitive Patient's Healing Guide. I am grateful to call Dr. Nathan a mentor and colleague. His pioneering work has been responsible for my healing from chronic illness, as well as that of many patients I've treated. Together, we co-lead a small peer group (within the larger mentoring group he provides with Marie Matheson, ND), supporting practitioners who treat those with complex chronic illness.In this episode we discuss:03:43 – Dr. Nathan's path to understanding complex illness11:20 – Why complex illness is rising and underrecognized19:30 – Why new medical ideas take decades to reach patients23:15 – Mold, Lyme, and long-COVID: the “big three” root causes25:58 – The limbic-vagal-mast cell “trifecta”30:31 – Are some people born more vulnerable?44:39 – The risk in “just do limbic retraining” advice47:35 - Biochemical contributors49:26 – Structural root: jaw and cervical instability53:58 – Differentiating Between Mold, Lyme & Long-COVID58:49 – A message of hope, and where to learn moreFull Transcript belowYou can find Dr. Nathan's books, consultations and mentoring program through his website at neilnathanmd.com. If you'd like to help get this information out into the world, please consider liking, sharing, or commenting.Until next time,CourtneyCourtney Snyder MDDr. Courtney Snyder MD is a holistic and functional child and adult psychiatrist and host of the Holistic Psychiatry Podcast and can be found at courtneysnydermd.comMedical DisclaimerThis podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult your own physician for any medical issues you may be having.Full TranscriptDr. Nathan's Path to Understanding Complex Illness03:43Courtney: I'm so glad we're doing this, and I feel like it's long overdue. As you know, in the mental health space in psychiatry, there's a lot of recognition of a dysregulated nervous system, threat response in the body, but oftentimes that's attributed to external forces or trauma, and not necessarily internal threats that we see, obviously, in complex chronic illness, which we'll be talking about. There's also not the recognition of the relationship between physical symptoms and brain-related symptoms. So I know you're going to help us connect a lot of these dots. As we sort of just lay the groundwork for what complex chronic illness is — when in your path did you start to recognize the distinction, when was the beginning of your work and appreciation of complex health issues?Neil: Okay, there are two answers to that question. First, when I went to medical school, my hope was to become a healer. And I was very disappointed that when I got there, I realized they weren't going to teach me to be a healer. And back then I used to question my professors at medical school — why do you do it this way, and how is that? And I kept feeling in all of our interactions that we were missing something. And my professors would go, “Okay, Mr. Wise Guy, smart guy, what are we missing?” And I'd go, “I don't know, I just know we're missing something.” Later I would come to recognize that we were missing the emotional and spiritual component to whatever was affecting people in their illnesses. And I have language for it now — I didn't then. The person in medical school who influenced me the most was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who I view as my main mentor in medical school. She, unlike anyone else, had a one-and-a-half-hour seminar once a week. Back then there weren't video cameras — you were in a small confined room with a two-way mirror, and you're sitting there watching someone do this. And she would simply interview one of her patients. She was a psychiatrist, but she was the only one in medical school who demonstrated how to really listen to people, how to really communicate with them, and not have this standard review of systems — here's my questions, here's your answers, and that's what I do, and this is what I write up. She was really listening. She was trying to really take in, okay, what happened to you, and what's going on with you? So I would want to give her credit as a role model to change how I learn to listen. Okay, that was step one.I'm going to fast forward to the early 1980s. And I am, at that point, the medical director of a regional pain clinic. And we are starting to see a whole bunch of patients who had this complicated process of fatigue, unrefreshed sleep, irritable bowel syndrome, and pain migrating all over their body. And back then we called it fibrositis. Now we call this fibromyalgia. And so whenever medicine encounters a thing that they don't know what they're looking at, it's psychological until proven otherwise. And people would get therapy, and they would take antidepressants and anti-anxiety agents. Didn't help much. And so it became clear to me that we didn't understand what this was at all. It was not psychological. Something was going on in their bodies — now I recognize it as an inflammatory process. Back then there was no concept of that at all. And then, slowly, in the early nineties, we began to find pieces of the puzzle to understand what was triggering fibromyalgia. I was working back then with Jacob Teitelbaum, who did a lot of work with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, and we both independently came up with an understanding that a deficiency of magnesium, DHEA, adrenal issues, thyroid issues, sex hormone deficiencies, GI dysbiosis, and food allergy — if we looked at those and treated those, the majority of people with fibromyalgia got cured. It was different for different patients. It was not like there was one thing that caused it. And as time evolved, we began to realize that there was lots of other biochemical imbalances in the body that would contribute to this kind of a process that represented chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.We discovered that Lyme disease and coinfections was a huge piece of that. And later still we discovered that mold toxicity was a huge piece of that. And so my understanding of the complexity — and it's not really confined to chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia at this point, we're really talking about almost all chronic illness — with a huge psychological component to that. So we've begun to understand this as essentially some version of inflammation. And if we start to really dig into what are the potential causes of that inflammation, we can make a huge impact for them. So this is a multi-year evolving understanding of how a person's genetics, biochemistry, physiology impacts their whole being in every way. And that inflammation extends to the nervous system, contributing greatly, if not causing directly, a large number of what are now called psychiatric diagnoses.Courtney: Right. So even among those patients that you were seeing — you were seeing, I'm assuming, depression, anxiety, brain fog?Neil: Yeah, the vast majority of our patients with mold toxicity have brain fog and anxiety, depression, OCD behaviors, mood swings, depersonalization, derealization. I mean, all of that is super common in our patients.Complex Illness Is Rising — and Underrecognized11:20Courtney: Do you feel like this is more recognized now — or do you feel like the number of people being hit with these complex health issues is increasing — or both?Neil: Both. I would love to say that the medical profession is increasingly recognizing all of this as important, but that recognition is coming very, very slowly. The majority of folks out there, if they were to list the symptoms that they had, their doctors would basically look at them like, “I have no idea what's causing it, so this must be in your head.” And that is the message they're getting from their physicians at this point. So many patients are being gaslighted, so many patients are being told it's in your head. And the repercussions of that are the family is hearing that same message, and the families become less supportive of those people, because they're saying, “This is not real, so why would I support you? This is still in your head, go get your head fixed.” And they're wrong, and it's really a travesty. But so yes, very slowly, this awareness is growing. There are now more medical meetings that I'm aware of where psychiatrists can learn more about this than there were ten, fifteen years ago, for sure. But not enough — it's still not enough.The other part of that is some of the main triggers for this inflammatory process are increasing. So we're seeing more and more mold toxicity, we're seeing more and more Lyme and coinfections, partly because the environment that we are all exposed to has gotten extremely increasingly toxic. So it's now known, for example, that there are 350,000 new chemicals in our environment than existed 70 years ago. The vast majority of those have never been tested for safety in human beings. So human beings have a tremendous amount of chemical exposure that they never had before. Human beings have a tremendous amount of EMF, electromagnetic exposures that they never had before in the history of the human race. So these exposures are cumulative. Our major organs, like our liver and our kidney, that have to deal with toxicity, are overloaded. And so, yes, we are seeing an epidemic of a whole bunch of these conditions. In children, we are aware that autism has skyrocketed — it went from one in several thousand kids to one in thirty kids in many states now have autism. And forgive me, but the pediatric profession is not taking this seriously. It's like, “Yeah, that's sad, it's unfortunate.” It's like — really, you don't want to look at this? This means one in every three kids born are getting autism — does that not concern you? But, forgive me, the medical profession is very slow to embrace new information, and that is really to the detriment.We're seeing an epidemic of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, all of which involve neuroinflammation. We've seen already an epidemic of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. And all of these things are interrelated, because — yes, I'm supposed to be an expert on mold toxicity, and I probably am — but mold toxicity doesn't exist in a vacuum. You have mold toxicity as one of multiple environmental toxins we're being exposed to. It is simply one of the most common, the easiest one to diagnose, because we have tests for it. We don't have tests for the hundreds of thousands of chemicals out there. We're just beginning to be able to have some tests that will tell us what's in someone's body that might be making them sick.Courtney: Right, right. And I would imagine that this typical medical model of looking for one cause to autism, one cause to dementia — it's a completely different way of thinking. When you get away from that and you look at complexity of the human body, that way of thinking holds back the research, it holds back any progress.Neil: What I think is helpful for people to look at is: we are all uniquely, biochemically, genetically different. And so the same inflammation in one person could trigger cardiovascular disease, and another person could trigger Alzheimer's, and another person could trigger chronic fatigue. So we need to take a step back and go, okay — and this is not a brand new idea. For the last ten years, there are many papers in the medical journals that are saying chronic illness is almost certainly an inflammatory process. Now, it hasn't really integrated into what people are being taught in medical school or in their residency program. But this is not a brand new idea, and there's tons of medical research documenting that.What behooves us as physicians is to look at every human being and go, “Okay, this is your named chronic condition — what are the triggers for you?” We have to kind of be like a medical detective and dig in and go, okay, what's triggering your inflammation, so I can treat the cause — not put a band-aid on it, which is, forgive me, in the psychiatric field, taking antidepressants and benzodiazepines. That's a band-aid. It's a helpful band-aid, it could be a very important band-aid, help someone to function. But you really need to be looking at, okay, I have this great band-aid, but wouldn't it be nice to actually cure this? And I think that would be, for me, to your audience, Courtney, my take-home message — which is always look for the root cause, because it is possible that we will find that root cause, and you won't have whatever name you've been given, depression, anxiety, OCD, for the rest of your earthly life. Maybe.And I've treated thousands of people successfully here. So this is not — I've had one or two successes here — we're talking thousands of people that have responded to this way of practicing medicine, with fabulous results. People who've been literally bedridden, incapacitated by their illness, are now out there working again and being with their family and living full lives. So that's the take-home message.Courtney: Right. Which makes it so satisfying to treat. And I mean, I can speak to that, having experienced it personally. But at the same time, you do get pushback from other areas of medicine that don't give it necessarily credibility, even though people, on the other side, are thriving and healing, and it's really amazing.New Medical Ideas & Research Take Decades to Reach Patients19:30Neil: You know, the history of all science, including medicine, is: new technology, new drugs are fast-tracked to get into our lives. Ideas, not so much. Typically it takes a generation — twenty, twenty-five years — for a new idea to come into acceptance. And the first reaction of any science, medicine included, is to get into denial, which is, “There isn't enough data to support this concept, and I can't be perceived as practicing bad medicine by embracing a concept that isn't proven yet.” But that means that all of their patients are going to have to wait twenty years — until suffering — until that person goes, “Now there's enough evidence, now I can learn how to do this, and now I'll begin to help you.” I'm not wired that way. I'm wired that if I have a suffering person, and I have something that I can offer them that might help, I'm going to try it. I'm going to do it in the safest way I know how, but I can't leave someone dangling for twenty years and say, “I'm sorry, I have to wait until my profession figures out what to do.” That's not me.I worked at the medical school at the University of Minnesota Duluth for eleven years. And I was not only on the faculty, but I was on the committee that determined what new information was put into the curriculum. For example, AIDS was just coming into vogue at that particular point, and it was obvious that we needed to have courses on AIDS for the medical students, because this was big. What a lot of people wouldn't understand is that each department in a medical school fiercely guards its time allotment. Everyone gets a certain number of hours, and they're not open to adding new things or giving up any of their time slots for anything new. And so what I would watch is, as new information came into the medical school, each department fiercely refused to add any new lectures in their department, or give up any of the time that they had to anybody else to add that information. So we're talking about university politics now — this is not even medicine, this is people guarding their turf. And I don't even think that would occur to any consumers, that that would happen like that — well, certainly, why would that happen in a medical school? Well, it's because human beings are responsible for each department, and they guard their own turf. So it's a kind of an insidious process about how new information isn't embraced by the profession, to go into the medical school curriculum.Mold, Lyme, and Long-COVID: The “Big Three”23:15Courtney: I want to come back to what you were saying about inflammation being at the core of chronic illness and complex chronic illness. And when it comes to complex chronic illness, whether it's SIRS or mast cell activation from mold or Lyme, we talk about multiple systems being affected — the central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, endocrine, skin, just you name it. If the inflammation then is from a source of oxidative stress or a major insult — would you say that mold toxicity is the most common, or would you put Lyme or now even COVID on a par with that, as far as the deepest roots causing the inflammation? Not that the chemicals, metals, and everything else we're being exposed to aren't at play.Neil: In my experience, those three are the biggies — mold toxicity, Lyme with its co-infections, and long-haul COVID. Those are the three most common. Of those, in my experience, mold is the most common, and the one that has to be treated first if you have some or all of them. So, for example, in people who have long-haul COVID or Lyme, often their body will not respond to that treatment optimally until you first get the mold out. So there's a little hierarchy of what we do, in what order. And then within that hierarchy, there's also an order in which we do things for people to respond optimally. So, for example, mold toxicity will trigger — and Lyme and Bartonella will do the same thing — limbic dysfunction, vagal nerve dysfunction, and mast cell activation in most of our patients. Not all, but in most. And the longer they have it, the more likely those things are going to get triggered. Once somebody does not feel safe — and the systems that we have in our body to monitor that safety and to keep us safe are the limbic system, the vagal system, and mast cell activation — we have to get the body safer, or it will not be able to take what you need to take to treat mold or Lyme or long-haul COVID. People will literally shut down — their limbic system will essentially go, “Mm, I see what you're trying to do there, and I can't let you do it, because I'm not sure that's safe.” And it will literally not allow people to do it.The Limbic-Vagal-Mast Cell “Trifecta”25:58Courtney: So with one of those, or a combination of those, on board, these threat mechanisms would be kicked up — mast cell activation, limbic system dysfunction, autonomic nervous system dysfunction. If they look similar, or a timeline isn't easily helping parse out what might be primary, how able do you feel to make the distinction — versus if mold is present, starting there?Neil: If we look at our patient's symptoms, they will point us clearly to whether there's a limbic or vagal or mast cell piece, to be specific. The limbic system's job involves primarily monitoring and regulating and keeping emotion and sensitivity in check. So any symptoms that involve those two things are limbic almost by definition. So on the sensitivity side, if someone describes an increased sensitivity to light, sound, touch, smell, chemicals, EMFs, food — they're already telling me my limbic system is dysfunctional. In some ways it doesn't matter what the cause is; if someone has this increased sensitivity, regardless of the cause, I know we have to treat their limbic system first.On the vagal side, the symptoms would primarily run into symptoms that involve the autonomic nervous system, which would involve things like temperature dysregulation, palpitations, insomnia, POTS, blood pressure dysregulation, or symptoms that involve the gastrointestinal tract, because the vagus nerve controls almost the entire intestinal tract. So any GI symptoms — gas, bloating, distension, reflux, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain — again, that would lead me to go, the vagus is involved here. So by listening to my patient's symptoms, I can immediately know what's dysregulated here, and what my first treatment arm will be — to get the limbic and vagal systems back up and running again at a safer level, because otherwise our patients aren't going anywhere. They can do binders and antifungals and antibiotics for Lyme, and they will get worse. Their body will basically go, “I know I might need that, but why are you doing that? I can't even get to a place of safety to respond. I'm on self-preservation mode here.”And in the mast cell category — again, all of the same symptoms that could be mold or Lyme or long-haul COVID could also be mast cell. Again, it's a multi-systemic process. A tip-off, which I find very helpful, is if someone describes a symptom that comes on immediately after eating, sometimes while eating. Nothing causes that kind of reaction that fast except mast cell activation. Allergy — and most people, if they do have some symptom that comes after eating, they're going to be thinking, “It must be what I ate, what did I just eat?” But it's not food allergy, it's mast cell activation. In that context, many of our patients have already observed that they can eat a particular food one day and have a very strong reaction, and the next day, same food, nothing. And they'll go, “That doesn't make sense — if this was allergy, I ought to react the same way every time.” And so that is classical mast cell activation, which fluctuates. So — for the first part of your question — that's what I'm looking for. When I take a history, when I talk with patients, I'm going to really dig into: are they already manifesting symptoms that clearly tell me what we need to do first, to get them safer, so that now they can respond properly to the treatment that will really get at their root cause.Are Some People Born More Vulnerable?30:31Courtney: I know you take deep timelines when you meet with someone, so you're really accounting for a lot. But one of the things that I think about a lot is: who is most vulnerable? Do some of us come into the world already with a vulnerability similar to Elaine Aron's highly sensitive person model? And then maybe there's trauma, early attachment disruption — and already vulnerabilities — but then the toxic load that we're all experiencing. But then something like mold or Lyme then hits. And then, all the years and all the patients you've seen — I'm curious how many you feel already had sort of a vulnerability. Not that they ever had to really become sick necessarily, but already had a vulnerability.Neil: Honestly, I would say most. Our limbic system evolves from the time we were in our mother's uterus, so that almost no one has had a perfect childhood. And so whatever someone has had to deal with in childhood — it could be recurrent ear infections or throat infections, or it could be a surgical procedure, or it could be parents, both of whom worked and they didn't get enough time, or they could be abusive parents, sexually, physically, verbally abusive — whatever someone has been exposed to, that forces their limbic system to have to deal with it. Because that's the job of the limbic system, is to keep you safe. So your limbic system is basically going, “Okay, I'm just a little thing here, what do I need to do to cope with this?” And so their limbic system slowly, inexorably, becomes more and more hypervigilant to protect them. Let's say someone had an alcoholic parent, and they would come home, and you were never sure what their status would be — and so you'd kind of hold yourself back from that, which is, “I've got to see what this person is showing me, is it safe for me to come up and give them a hug, or do I want to hang out in my room for a bit until whatever this is settles down?” That's the beginning of this limbic hypervigilance process. And then it just goes on through life. So that if you've had difficult relationships, or surgeries, or severe infections, or anything in the physical or emotional or spiritual plane, a betrayal of some type — the limbic system becomes slowly more and more and more hypervigilant, when the straw hits the camel's back. And that straw could be COVID, or Lyme, or mold toxicity, or another infection of some type — that's the straw that breaks the camel's back. At that point the limbic system goes into shutdown, which — we know the vagal system goes into shutdown, literally, that's something the vagal system is trained to do. It's “okay, we are so unsafe that I'm shutting down my systems here.” And so that predisposes to illness. But I want to tie that back to inflammation, which — a lot of people don't understand that the vagus nerve, for example, controls inflammation in the body also. There are branches of the vagus that go to the spleen, to the gut-associated lymphoid tissue, and to the thymus, all of which are major immune organs. And if the vagus is dysfunctional, inflammation can rage out of control. So again, this comes back to understanding this complexity of inflammation, and how we need to both understand it and know where it is we want to look to get at that inflammation. So there is a profound interconnected limbic-vagal-mast cell piece. Each totally connects to the other. There's an interaction between the thousand biochemical mediators that mast cells make and the nervous system itself. So I call this interconnection the trifecta, which is: you can't just treat the limbic system in a vacuum, because if you're not also looking at the vagal and mast cell system, your treatment may be a little bit helpful, or it might not even work at all, until you combine all three — so that you really understand this is a package deal here, in terms of how we work with it.There was one more piece I wanted to add, Courtney, to understanding the inflammation piece: whether or not someone gets mold toxicity or Lyme or COVID depends on how robust their immune system is. So you could have a family living in a moldy environment — one person is really sick, several are a little bit sick, and one is not sick at all. And the one who's not sick at all can easily go, “I'm not sure what's wrong with you all, but I'm fine in this environment, it can't be my environment because I'm fine.” And what they're not understanding is: yes, they are fine, as long as their immune system stays robust. For the others, they were at risk for all of these conditions because their immune system took a hit. And for many people who were living in a moldy environment, during COVID, for example, when we isolated and people were spending twenty-four hours in their home rather than the eight hours out, they were many now being exposed to more mold at home than they were before. I don't think people began to think about that or look at that. So in that environment, whether or not they were affected depends on the hit they took. Now, the things that will hit an immune system to weaken it, and allow whatever's there to manifest, are: COVID was a biggie, any severe infection, a surgical procedure, childbirth, menopause, or any emotional upheaval will weaken that immune system, and then the immune system loses containment, and now we are off to the races. So what I try to convince people who are living in a moldy environment who are well is that they're living with a ticking time bomb. Should they take an immune hit, they will be just as sick as their family member who they're kind of lording it over, which is, “I'm not sick, what's wrong with you?” You'll be right there yourself if you take that hit — to try to help them understand, yeah, you're okay for now, but once your immune system weakens. So I'm trying to tie together the immune system, its ability to regulate inflammation, and this whole process here.Courtney: Right, right. Which I guess is why we call it complex, complex illness.Neil: It is the way human beings are. We're not making up a new word of complex illness — illness was always complex. We're just beginning to understand how complex it always has been.The Limits of Treating Symptoms Alone44:39Courtney: Right, so there's communities out there addressing mast cell activation. There's communities out there addressing POTS and dysautonomia. Communities out there addressing OCD and more obvious limbic-type issues. And then there's the whole mental health field. And the dots aren't getting connected. I mean, I've yet to see someone with OCD — I think it's like eighty to ninety-five percent have mold toxicity as part of the picture.Neil: You know, an example — and I won't name names — is there's an eminent pediatric physician who is very well known for his work in autism, who thought he was ADD his whole life until he recognized that he had mold toxicity and started taking antifungals, and all of a sudden his brain went online and he doesn't have it anymore. So that's just a very clear example of what you're talking about. And what we are talking about is: it's absolutely essential that all people who work in the medical field, all healthcare providers, embrace this complexity, because if you're only working on a piece of it, you will help some people to a certain extent, but you will not help people optimally. I mean, that is the absolute bottom line.The understanding that mast cell activation was huge came in 2016, when Larry Afrin wrote his book, Never Bet Against Occam. It was a huge game changer. When I read his book, it was like, “My goodness, I've been missing this in my patients.” And the whole world embraced this information, so that every medical center in the country now has a mast cell activation clinic. However, they're looking at it as a single thing with a label to it, and they're treating it just that way. They have not recognized that if they don't add limbic and vagal work to it, their treatment is not going to be adequate. And so, yes, they're helping people, but absolutely not optimally. And to make it worse, very few of those clinics have recognized that what's causing mast cell activation, which absolutely needs to be treated, is mold toxicity and Lyme. So people go to these clinics and get a certain amount of help, but they're not being treated comprehensively, which is a pet peeve of mine — which is, come on, if you're going to have a clinic, understand the whole interactions of whatever name it is you're working with. If you're going to be an ENT specialist, understand everything that impacts that area. If you're going to be a cardiologist, understand everything that impacts it. And we just don't see that. We see people kind of in their little box — “No, no, I've learned this, this is what I do, this is how I work” — and it's just unfortunate that they're not looking at the bigger picture.Courtney: Right, I think add to that PANS and PANDAS, because in psychiatry, people feel like they're deep diving because they're getting to PANS and PANDAS. It's like, okay, you've got to go deeper than that, because even those conferences, they talk about the need for treating relapse, and it's just going to keep reoccurring.Neil: I mean, they're using IVIG to help. That's nice, but they're not getting to cause. And we know when PANS and PANDAS first emerged on the scene, it was all about strep, and that was the focus for a long time. But as time emerged, it was very clear that this was a neurological inflammation triggered — here we go, broken record — Lyme, mold, other infectious agents had to be looked for. And if we treated those, you could cure PANS. It wasn't something that needed IVIG for the rest of your earthly life.Courtney: Even among those, would you say very often mold is underlying the mycoplasma, the candida?Neil: I think mold is one of the most missed components to illness that I can think of. If I have a goal in life, it would be to raise the consciousness of our profession as to the importance of mold toxicity, how common it is. We're talking millions and millions of people who are not diagnosed, because their doctors don't know about it, and therefore are not making the diagnosis. I'd love to see the consciousness get to the point that someone would present with these complicated stories and a doctor would say, “Why don't we think about mold toxicity?” That would be the most important thing I would have done in my career.Courtney: Yeah, well, you're certainly raising awareness.Neil: I'm working — it is slow. As we said, I'm working on a twenty-year generational issue here.Courtney: You've mentioned that the underlying source needs to be addressed, but the nervous system and immune systems need to be addressed. So one of the things that comes up with limbic system retraining is: I've had people hear the message that if they just address their limbic and autonomic nervous system, then they wouldn't need to address what I see as an ongoing threat, such as a mold toxin. So I'm hoping you can speak to that, and the importance of these programs, despite that.Neil: Sure. A couple of the better-known limbic retraining programs, the coaches get a little bit zealous about — “limbic retraining is so important, this is all you need to do alone, don't even do anything else, just do limbic retraining.” And I suspect that there are a handful, very few, but a handful of people who've gotten well just doing limbic retraining. If, for example, if you had mold toxicity, if it was relatively new, if you had not colonized, and you moved out of your mold exposure soon, it is possible that the limbic retraining would help reboot it to the point that your immune system rebooted itself and you'd be fine. I believe there are a few people like that. The vast majority of people who have limbic dysfunction — you need to do limbic retraining and vagal retraining. You may also need to do mast cell retraining, and please look for the cause of that. Those are downstream effects, those are not named diagnoses that you treat alone and it fixes it. Please look for at least mold and Lyme, which are the two most common things that are triggering this at this point. And people are getting the wrong message if they think they need to do it in a vacuum. To make it worse, they're being told, “No, no, just do limbic retraining, that's all you need.” And the truth is, no, you need to combine limbic retraining and vagal rebooting and mast cell activation most of the time. And of course you've got to get back to cause.Courtney: Right, I mean I try to liken it to — if they were in an abusive relationship or toxic relationship, they wouldn't just limbic-system their way out of that, if there was an external threat.Biochemical Contributors47:35Neil: No, you've got to fix what's primary here. I want to add to this discussion — we're focusing on inflammation from toxins and infections, but there are also other biochemical issues, some of them downstream, that need to be looked for and addressed in order for people to recover completely. So, for example, Lyme and mold will trigger kryptopyrrole issues, or imbalances in the ratio between zinc and copper, or they'll trigger methylation issues super commonly. And I just wanted to expand this discussion — I know it's complicated enough, but I don't want to oversimplify it either — that there are other biochemical things that we want to be looking for, because they're treatable, and they will help people to heal faster, if we're also addressing methylation, the need for zinc, the need for magnesium or B6 — those are common components of this whole process here. And so I just want to kind of tie that all together for a moment.Courtney: No, I'm glad you did, because those are topics that I talk about here, so it's important to connect those. The other thing I see, because I integrate the Walsh approaches with treating people that have complex health issues, is zinc seems so amazing when it comes to mast cell activation — making sure that's optimized. As well as connective tissue — and that was something else I wanted to ask you about — is structural issues that can be impacting the autonomic nervous system. I just see a lot of people — I inquire about it because I had it myself — but who have upper cervical instability as part of this whole picture.Structural Contributors49:26Neil: Again, all of these things are interrelated, and the physical structure can prevent people from moving forward in several different ways. One is the structure of the jaw and the face — the body puts a priority on teeth occluding properly. And if the teeth don't meet just quite right, and the jaw is a little bit out of structure, people often talk about TMJ — the body basically freaks out, it goes into sympathetic overdrive. And for some patients — it's not common, but I've seen several dozen — where the jaw had to be realigned by a combination of dentists specially trained in this work, working with osteopathic physicians, to realign the jaw. Often in those patients, they couldn't respond to the limbic and vagal treatment until their jaw got realigned.Same thing is true with what you're talking about, as cervical cranial instability, which is basically a weakening of the ligaments at the base of the skull, where it attaches to the first cervical vertebra. Now, these are all again intertwined — for example, it begs the question of what weakens those ligaments. And the answer is: if you have mast cell activation, some of the materials that the mast cell makes weakens the ligaments. So the ligaments get weak, and where the skull attaches to the first cervical vertebra, instead of being pulled apart, like ligaments do, it collapses. And that influences the blood flow to the brain, the nerve flow to the brain. And again, the body recognizes that as a priority, and often you can't get that better — you can't get limbic and vagal response until that gets fixed.So there are a bunch of structural issues that also need to be looked at, when people become overly sensitive and are not responding properly. And there's more in that area. So, for example, there's a chapter by Tasha Turzo, who's an expert on the jaw structure. There's a chapter in there by Andy Maxwell on cervical cranial instability. So that book would give people a really good overview of how complicated things are, and they might, chapter by chapter, get a clue of, “I haven't looked at this piece yet.” I mean, we haven't talked about oxalate or salicylate imbalances, which can add to that. So I just think that is a resource for folks that could really help them understand how they've gotten where they are, and understand the path out.Courtney: Right, right, because not everyone has all of these areas, but certainly could be held back or have a unique something that they could be getting relief from early on in the process. So I think it's both, to the degree that people are able to learn, and your book Toxic, too — it's like an encyclopedia, even if someone doesn't read straight through it, they can go to the mast cell section, or they can go to the Bartonella section.Neil: It was intended to be a readable way to understand this complexity, because it basically will talk about almost everything we've talked about today, and help people to get better understanding. I mean, we've talked about the bigger picture today. We didn't talk about, okay, how do you diagnose Lyme, how do you diagnose mold toxicity, how do you diagnose long-haul COVID, and most important, because this is very complicated, how do you decide which of those is the biggest player that you want to address first?Distinguishing Between Mold, Lyme & Long-COVID53:58Courtney: Right, I have shared resources on diagnosing mold toxicity. Would you comment on your last point — how do you recognize, are you using specific testing that you want to reference, the RealTime?Neil: I do. But I would emphasize, we're taught in medical school that if you really listen to patients, ninety-five percent of the time you will make the diagnosis by history alone. And I don't want to get too focused on testing, because listening to the patient and having them describe in detail what they're going through will really give you the little pieces you need to tease it apart to a certain degree. That's only possible to a certain degree, because there's a huge overlap between the symptoms of Lyme and Bartonella and mold and long-haul COVID and mast cell activation. Huge overlap. So there's little teeny pieces that will tend to lean more in one way than another. And honestly, that's what's required from all of us, literally years of study, to really get a handle on — someone will say something, okay, that's much more of a mold symptom than it is a Lyme symptom, something else. So I do encourage people, if they think they might have mold, to get a urine mycotoxin test. That has revolutionized our ability to make these diagnoses.Courtney: Would you still set RealTime as the preferred? That's what I've communicated to this audience.Neil: I would. Any test can help make the diagnosis, but for follow-up testing, the only one that's been really consistent is RealTime. And you want a follow-up test, so you want to know what your baseline starting is, and then you want to know, okay, am I getting these toxins out of my body? From my perspective, you know that you're done treating it when that RealTime comes back reading not present in every category. We have better tests now for Lyme than we've had in the past. Years ago, our tests were inadequate to say the least. And the CDC recognized years ago that the tests were so inadequate that it was basically a diagnosis made by a physician by examining all of the history and information that you had. That was enough — you didn't need a lab report to make the diagnosis of Lyme disease. A new test that I'm particularly fond of is Bruce Patterson's fourteen-panel cytokine test. This is a test that measures cytokines, which are the molecules of inflammation — cytokines are made by your immune system to deal with, or fight, different inflammational causes. And so what Dr. Patterson has discovered is there's a pattern of cytokines that we see with long-haul COVID, which is different than the pattern we see for Lyme. And I'm working with him now on the pattern for mold. So we can literally look at that test and look at, okay, what is inflaming this person primarily now, because I'm looking at that inflammational pattern, and I can literally read that. Some of my patients will have all of those on a particular test, or only one, but it really helps tease apart what is — I call it public enemy number one for my patient, what do I need to address as root cause right now. So our science is improving as we go here.A Message of Hope — and Where to Learn More58:49Courtney: And that's huge. Before we go — I think all of your books, but I'm thinking specifically about Toxic and The Sensitive Patient — all the information you generously share gives people a lot of hope who've been struggling out there. And I think your mentoring and teaching so many of us helps extend some of that reach. Is there anything you'd want to convey to people out there in the throes of chronic illness who are feeling hopeless and not getting the feedback from their doctors that this is something they can get beyond?Neil: Sure. My take-home message is always: everything we talked about today is treatable. Is there hope in there? You bet there is. But if you are not getting the help you need from whoever you are seeing, find someone who understands these things. For example, I do have on my website a list of physicians that I've trained over the years that I'm comfortable that they really know what they're doing — it's a growing list. There's someone like Courtney, who's been trained for years to do this, she's good at it. Find someone who knows what they're talking about, so that you can get someone who does embrace this complexity, and will look at it in its entirety, and then get you moving in the right direction, doing the right things in the right order. To me, this can be done. I mean, I have personally helped to cure four or five thousand people with mold toxicity, and an equal number of people with Lyme disease. So we can help the vast majority of people that we're seeing. So, regardless of how long you've been sick, if you haven't been properly diagnosed and you haven't gotten the right treatment, you can be helped.Courtney: Right, right, that's great. And for physicians out there who are interested in learning more about complex chronic illness — are there resources you would point to? I'll be sharing your books, because I think those are great references — but also how people can find what you're doing currently.Neil: Sure, my books — particularly with this discussion, Toxic and The Sensitive Patient's Healing Guide would be the two most appropriate. I would add that I have just finished writing a book on this whole subject of inflammation. It's currently being edited, I hope it'll be out by early next year. So if you stay tuned to my website, I'll let people know when that's going to be available. And I think, Courtney, what you're referring to is: I do have a mentorship program for healthcare providers. We now have three hundred and fifty-plus people in the mentorship program, it keeps growing. You were in one of the first groups — we started with eight, and then people kept wanting to get in on it. So we welcome people to join. If you go to my website, which is simply neilnathanmd.com, there's a whole thing which talks about the mentorship and how to sign up for it. So I certainly welcome people who want to learn more.Courtney: And then you offer consultations and professional consultations also?Neil: I do. My consultations — I am, at this point, since I'm semi-retired, not seeing people directly. But I do offer consultations with a patient and their primary treating physician — so we all get on a Zoom together, and we will go over the details of that person's history and their lab work, and I will help outline a treatment program that looks to me like it will get people well. And actually, Courtney, I actually do a lot of that — I'm not really retired, my wife will tell you. I stay pretty busy. I love helping people. I love being able to take this complicated information and tease it apart, so that I can help people to understand what they need to do, in what order, in order to get better.Courtney: And we're all grateful — grateful that you've followed your path, because so many people have benefited personally and professionally. So thank you for bringing your wisdom and expertise, really appreciate it.Neil: You're very welcome, happy to do that.You can find Dr. Nathan's information, consultations, and mentoring program through his website at neilnathanmd.com. If you'd like to help get this information out into the world, please consider liking, sharing, or commenting.Until next time,CourtneyCourtney Snyder MDDr. Courtney Snyder MD is a holistic, functional, and environmental psychiatrist for children and adults. Find her at courtneysnydermd.com and on the Holistic Psychiatry Podcast on all major platforms.Medical DisclaimerThis podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult your own physician for any medical issues you may be having. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit courtneysnydermd.substack.com

Learn about lyme/bartonella/coinfection testing & diagnosis with CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics, Nicole Bell.We dive into WHY standard Lyme disease testing can miss cases, what IgM and IgG antibodies can—and cannot—tell us, and how direct-detection methods such as PCR and urine antigen testing differ from ELISA, Western blot, and FISH testing.We also discuss:Why a negative Western blot does not necessarily rule out Lyme diseaseThe difference between antibody testing and direct pathogen detectionWhy testing for Borrelia, Bartonella, and Babesia mattersHow IgM cross-reactivity can complicate test interpretationPersistent infection versus post-treatment Lyme disease syndromeWhy multiple positive antibodies do not always mean multiple active infectionsThe emerging connection between infections, neuroinflammation, dementia, and cognitive declineWhy insurance coverage for advanced testing remains so difficultHow to advocate for yourself when a diagnosis does not explain your symptomsThis conversation is a powerful reminder that receiving a diagnosis does not necessarily mean you have found the root cause. Chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, dementia, and even PCOS describe patterns of symptoms-but the bigger question is: WHY are those symptoms happening?My Website & Work with Me: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/faithandfit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.upliftfitnutrition.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email for coaching & phone consults: laceydunn@upliftfitnutrition.com & fitandfaith@gmail.comFind Galazy Diagnostics at: https://www.galaxydx.com

What happens when a young woman who grew up surrounded by horses and the outdoors develops a mysterious red ring after spending a summer working at a horse camp in West Virginia—but no one recognizes the possibility of Lyme disease? In this episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, we sit down with Hannah Green, a Lyme disease survivor, advocate, and author from England whose international Lyme journey stretches across the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. Hannah is the author of My Lyme Success Story, a book documenting her personal experience with chronic Lyme disease, the research she conducted while searching for answers, the approaches she believes helped her recover, and the lessons she learned about listening to her body along the way. Tick Boot Camp first met Hannah after she traveled from England to Connecticut for the Lyme Warrior 10th Anniversary Gala, where patients, researchers, clinicians, authors, advocates, and Lyme community leaders gathered for an evening centered on science, advocacy, connection, and hope. Hannah's story is ultimately about much more than one treatment or protocol. It is about missed warning signs, years without answers, becoming her own researcher, learning to trust herself again, and refusing to give up on the possibility of getting better. Growing Up Around Horses—but Knowing Almost Nothing About Ticks Hannah grew up in southeast England and spent much of her childhood outdoors. Horses became one of her greatest passions, and she eventually trained professionally in riding, horse management, dressage, and eventing. She was also deeply interested in animal health. Hannah spent time working around veterinary medicine and learned about fleas, lice, worms, botflies, equine influenza, strangles, and other conditions affecting horses. Yet one subject was almost completely absent from her education: ticks and Lyme disease. Despite spending years around horses, dogs, cats, veterinary environments, fields, and the English countryside, Hannah remembers receiving virtually no meaningful education about ticks or the infections they can transmit. The West Virginia Horse Camp and Hannah's Possible Lyme Exposure At approximately 19 years old, Hannah traveled alone from England to the United States to work as a riding counselor at a horse camp in West Virginia near the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a major adventure for someone who describes herself at that age as extremely shy. Hannah suddenly found herself responsible for a cabin of young campers while teaching multiple horseback riding lessons each day. She loved the experience. But the camp also introduced Hannah to something she had never encountered before: ticks. Hannah remembers discovering engorged ticks attached to horses grazing in long grass. After asking what they were, she and other staff members were shown how to remove them. Removing ticks from the horses soon became part of their regular routine. What Hannah does not remember receiving was comprehensive education connecting those ticks with the potential risk of Lyme disease in humans. She recalls being warned about hazards such as poison ivy and rattlesnakes, but she does not remember meaningful tick-bite prevention training for counselors or campers. There was a Lyme disease pamphlet in the staff area, but the information Hannah remembers most strongly involved severe neurological complications such as seizures and paralysis. She did not come away understanding the broad range of symptoms that could develop or recognizing how important an expanding rash could be. The Red Ring That Was Dismissed as a Spider Bite Years later, while reconstructing her medical history after finally learning about Lyme disease, Hannah remembered something important from that summer. She had developed a distinctive red ring on her lower leg. At the time, Hannah says someone told her that it was probably a spider bite and that she should simply keep the area clean and watch it. The rash did not significantly hurt or itch, and it eventually disappeared. No one, according to Hannah's recollection, asked whether she might have been bitten by a tick. She did not connect the rash with the ticks she had been routinely removing from horses, and she did not connect it with the Lyme disease pamphlet she had briefly seen. Hannah believes today that this may have been the event that began her Lyme disease journey. For practical prevention and early-action information, read the Tick Boot Camp Tick Bite Blueprint. The First Sign Something Was Wrong Hannah initially remained extremely healthy and active after leaving the United States. She returned to England and attended Aston Business School near Birmingham. But approximately six months after her time at camp, she began noticing unusual problems with her knees. She was a runner and initially assumed she had simply overtrained. Her knees would ache and sometimes lock, particularly when walking down gentle slopes or moving at certain angles. Cold weather could make the discomfort worse. Because Hannah had been a competitive runner and lifelong equestrian athlete, healthcare professionals often attributed the symptoms to physical activity and wear and tear. She was told variations of the same explanation: runner's knee, overuse, muscle imbalance, or consequences of years of athletic activity. Yet Hannah was still a young woman, and the symptoms continued. Over time, joint problems began appearing elsewhere. Her elbows became involved. Her lower back became increasingly problematic. A diagnosis of scoliosis provided another seemingly logical explanation for some of her pain. Hannah kept adapting and pushing forward. She even completed the London Marathon, although afterward her knees became so painful and locked that she struggled to walk normally for approximately a week. When Her Health Finally Collapsed After university, Hannah continued traveling internationally, including spending time in Borneo and eventually completing a round-the-world trip. Then, around 2006, everything changed. After developing what appeared to be a significant viral illness, Hannah says she never fully recovered. Her shoulder became extremely painful and effectively froze. What followed was no longer an isolated problem with her knees or back. Hannah describes developing a growing collection of debilitating symptoms that included: Severe fatigue and exhaustion Joint and musculoskeletal pain Digestive problems Insomnia Anxiety Depression Episodes of intense anger or rage Memory problems Progressively worsening neurological and systemic symptoms Difficulty maintaining normal work and daily activities She describes the illness as feeling like a combination of flu, glandular fever, and malaria. Instead of resolving, her symptoms continued getting worse for approximately six years. Trying to Keep Working While Becoming Increasingly Ill Hannah attempted to continue working despite her deteriorating health. She worked with horses and also painted portraits professionally, but even limited morning work became increasingly difficult because of overwhelming fatigue. She frequently needed time off and struggled to explain what was happening because she did not understand it herself. Later, while working in a tea shop, Hannah began noticing that her memory was also being affected. She describes 30 or 40 symptoms gradually accumulating, with insomnia, chronic fatigue, and mood changes becoming some of the most difficult to manage. Meanwhile, repeated medical testing failed to provide an explanation. Several doctors told Hannah that her results were normal and that they could not find anything wrong. She says she did not necessarily feel directly accused of imagining her illness, but over time it became easier to stop discussing what she was experiencing because she felt that people were not truly hearing her. Moving to Australia While Searching for Answers Hannah eventually moved to Australia, hoping that a different environment and lifestyle might improve her health. She would spend approximately a decade there. Initially, the excitement of the move helped her keep going. She settled in tropical Darwin and started a graphic design company. Then her health crashed again. During the first wet season, Hannah became severely ill and spent significant periods in bed. Eventually, even working a few hours per day from home became too difficult, and she had to close the company she had built. She developed severe food reactions and describes being bedridden for seven to ten days at a time. Her relationship also ended during this period. Hannah describes eventually losing her business, her apartment, her ability to ride horses, much of her independence, and a significant amount of weight. At her lowest point, she says she would sometimes visit the stables and simply hold herself against a rail while watching the horses because she no longer had the strength to ride or even interact with them normally. The Chance Conversation That Changed Everything One day at the stables, another person noticed how ill Hannah had become. Hannah explained what was happening, and the woman told her about another horse rider with similar symptoms who was seeing a doctor who periodically traveled from Perth to Darwin to work with patients experiencing chronic fatigue and unexplained illness. Hannah and the other woman both scheduled appointments. After reviewing Hannah's extensive symptoms, the physician told her he believed she had late-stage Lyme disease. Hannah says subsequent testing through Australian Biologics was positive for Borrelia. The diagnosis triggered a flood of memories—the ticks on the horses, the pamphlet in West Virginia, and the unexplained red ring on her leg years earlier. For the first time, Hannah felt that the scattered pieces of her story might belong to the same puzzle. Lyme Disease, Co-Infections, and Alternative Testing Hannah continued exploring her illness through a combination of conventional and alternative approaches. She describes undergoing PCR testing through Australian Biologics as well as bioresonance and autonomic response testing. During the interview, Hannah says these alternative assessments suggested possible Borrelia strains, co-infections, active viruses, heavy metals, parasites, yeast overgrowth, gut inflammation, and other abnormalities. Among the infections discussed during her journey were Borrelia, Bartonella, Babesia, Rickettsia, Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, and Chlamydia, as well as viral findings including Epstein-Barr virus. It is important to distinguish Hannah's personal experience from established clinical diagnostic standards. Bioresonance and autonomic response testing are not established replacements for validated medical testing for Lyme disease or tick-borne infections. Hannah is sharing what practitioners told her and how those results influenced her personal recovery decisions. Choosing a Different Lyme Treatment Path After receiving her Lyme diagnosis, Hannah says the physician treating her wanted to begin an aggressive multi-antibiotic protocol. Hannah decided not to pursue that approach. She was already extremely weak, her digestive system was severely affected, and she was concerned about medication side effects. Instead, she asked whether there were other options and ultimately chose to spend several months researching Lyme disease treatment approaches around the world. Her family and friends were frightened by the decision, but Hannah says she felt strongly that she needed to find a different path for herself. That decision became the beginning of the recovery strategy she would later document in My Lyme Success Story. Building a Staged, Whole-Person Recovery Plan Hannah describes her recovery not as one treatment, but as a staged process. Working with naturopathic practitioners and combining their guidance with her own research, she focused first on what she describes as improving her body's overall terrain before directly targeting Lyme and co-infections. Her personal strategy included: Reducing environmental stressors Simplifying her lifestyle Changing her diet Supporting gut health Addressing issues practitioners identified as heavy metals and parasites Reducing inflammation Using herbs and supplements Using binders and detoxification strategies Experimenting with bioresonance Meditation and nervous-system calming practices Emotional and trauma-focused work Creating an environment where she felt safe enough to recover Hannah emphasizes that the sequence mattered to her. She believes preparing her body first made it easier to tolerate later interventions. The Diet Change That Gave Her Hope Diet became one of the earliest major changes in Hannah's recovery. Based on the recommendations she was receiving at the time, she adopted a highly individualized, low-inflammatory Paleo-style diet. She says that after approximately four weeks of changing her diet and focusing on cleansing and lifestyle interventions, she felt better than she had in four years. That improvement became a major psychological turning point. For the first time in years, Hannah had tangible evidence that something she was doing might be helping. From there, she continued gradually working through the other areas she believed were contributing to her illness. Herbs, Bioresonance, and Individualized Treatment Hannah experimented extensively with herbs and natural products. She describes using BioPure Quintessence, a herbal tincture containing ingredients including Japanese knotweed and Andrographis, after another product did not feel appropriate for her. She also describes using binders and other detoxification strategies while gradually increasing the intensity of her treatment. Bioresonance became another major part of her personal approach. Hannah says she used a portable device at home for approximately six months and also used bioresonance testing to help guide decisions about foods, herbs, and supplements. She reports that, through the overall combination of approaches she was using, she went from being largely bedbound to symptom-free in approximately 11 months. That is Hannah's personal account and should not be interpreted as evidence that the same interventions will produce the same results for another person. The Story Behind Hannah's "Lyme-Busting Drink" One memorable moment in the interview involves something Hannah jokingly calls her "Lyme-busting drink." Hannah says she gathered several antimicrobial ingredients in her kitchen and intuitively selected ingredients to combine into a homemade preparation. She later took the mixture to her naturopath, who tested it using the bioresonance method they were working with. Hannah says the mixture tested strongly for her. The larger takeaway from this part of the story is not that listeners should reproduce Hannah's homemade mixture. Rather, Hannah uses the story to illustrate just how individualized and experimental her own recovery process became. She repeatedly emphasizes listening to her own body and adjusting what she was doing based on how she felt. Learning to Trust Her Body Again One of the strongest themes throughout Hannah's interview is intuition. Years of unexplained illness can cause people to question themselves, especially after repeated normal tests or medical appointments that fail to provide answers. Hannah says she never entirely lost the belief that her body was telling her something important. When she was told nothing could be found, she continued searching. When one explanation did not make sense to her, she kept looking. And once she finally received a diagnosis, she approached recovery with the same determination. Rich identifies this as one of the most powerful parts of Hannah's story: despite years of confusion and dismissal, she continued trusting her own observations enough to keep investigating. Mindset, Spirituality, and Asking for Help Hannah also describes a major shift in her mindset and spirituality. For much of her life, she had been fiercely independent and believed that she could solve any problem herself. At her sickest, that changed. Hannah remembers lying in a dark room, sometimes barely able to lift her head, and finally looking outside and simply asking for help. She describes this as a turning point. A housemate later gave her a book about the Law of Attraction and introduced her to meditation. Hannah says these ideas reawakened something she remembered from childhood: a strong belief that mindset, intention, and action could help shape the direction of her life. She began meditating regularly and eventually built up to approximately 45-minute sessions. Whether listeners share Hannah's spiritual framework or not, the interview makes clear that hope and belief became important psychological resources during a period when her physical circumstances gave her very little reason to feel optimistic. Trauma, NLP, and Emotional Healing Hannah's recovery eventually expanded into emotional and trauma-focused work. She describes exploring Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, after reflecting on experiences from earlier in her life. One particularly powerful realization involved her premature birth. Hannah was born approximately three months early and spent significant time in an incubator, separated from her mother. During a later meditation experience, Hannah says she suddenly connected that early experience of illness and isolation with what she was experiencing as an adult. She later participated in NLP-based work that involved revisiting and reframing those experiences. Toward the end of her recovery, Hannah also explored Faster EFT, combining tapping and other emotional-processing techniques. She says she realized that even after becoming physically healthier, she had developed significant fear about leaving her home and becoming ill again. After working through some of those fears and other emotional experiences, she felt more capable of re-entering normal life. For Hannah, physical recovery, emotional recovery, mindset, spirituality, and lifestyle became deeply interconnected parts of the same journey. From Bedbound to What Hannah Describes as Fully Recovered Hannah says she eventually went from being largely bedbound to symptom-free over approximately 11 months. She attributes that change not to one single intervention, but to the sequencing and combination of approaches she personally used. She emphasizes reducing inflammation and other stressors first, then gradually addressing the infections and other issues she believed were affecting her. Her experience shaped one of the central messages she now shares with other Lyme patients: recovery does not necessarily have to happen through the most aggressive approach available. She encourages people to work with knowledgeable practitioners, move carefully, and allow the body time to recover. As she says during the interview, she believes there is value in "slow, steady, gentle" healing, while also emphasizing the importance of appropriate medical supervision. Why Hannah Wrote My Lyme Success Story Once Hannah had recovered, she began organizing everything she had documented during her illness. Her background made that process unusually natural. Hannah had experience in graphic design, photography, writing, editing, and copywriting. She had also meticulously recorded what she tried during her illness—partly because she wanted a record in case she ever became sick again. Eventually, people began encouraging her to write a book. That became Hannah Green: My Lyme Success Story. Hannah says she wrote the book for several reasons: To document what happened to her To explain her experience to family members in England who had been thousands of miles away during the worst of her illness To process the trauma of what she had been through To organize the research and strategies she had collected To help other Lyme patients who might find value in her experience The book includes Hannah's story, the approaches she personally tried, her research, and practical resources including meal plans, shopping lists, checklists, and educational information intended to help patients and families better understand Lyme disease. Learn more about Hannah, her book, and her resources on her website: Hannah Green: My Lyme Success Story Meeting Hannah at the Lyme Warrior 10th Anniversary Gala This Tick Boot Camp interview began with an in-person connection. Hannah traveled from England to attend the Lyme Warrior 10th Anniversary Gala on May 9, 2026, at Saybrook Point Resort & Marina in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Tick Boot Camp partnered with Lyme Warrior to help photograph, document, and amplify the event. The gala brought together Lyme patients, advocates, researchers, clinicians, authors, families, and supporters for a night focused on research, advocacy, humor, music, community, and hope. Hannah attended alongside other members of the Lyme community who traveled from England, including Kirstie Haysman, Ms Great Britain 2026. The night included appearances from leading Lyme voices including Dr. Eva Sapi, Dr. Monica Embers, Dr. Richard Horowitz, Dr. Myriah Hinchey, Nicole Bell, Jesse Ruben, and many other advocates and community leaders. Read Tick Boot Camp's full coverage of the event. A Lyme Story Across Three Continents Hannah's Lyme journey crosses three continents. She grew up in England. She believes her Lyme exposure may have occurred while working with horses in West Virginia in the United States. Her earliest symptoms emerged after returning to England. Her illness eventually became severely disabling. And in Australia, Hannah finally received the Lyme diagnosis that gave her a framework for understanding what had happened. Australia also became the place where she developed the personal recovery strategy she later documented in My Lyme Success Story. Hannah eventually returned to England in 2019 to spend more time with family. Her international experience underscores an important reality: Lyme disease does not respect borders, and gaps in tick awareness, diagnosis, and treatment can follow patients across healthcare systems. What You'll Learn in This Episode In this episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, Hannah Green discusses: Growing up in England surrounded by horses and the outdoors Why she knew almost nothing about ticks despite extensive equestrian experience Traveling alone to America as a shy 19-year-old Working as a horse-riding counselor at a West Virginia summer camp Removing engorged ticks from horses without understanding the possible human health risk The Lyme disease pamphlet she remembers seeing at camp The red ring on her leg that she was told was probably a spider bite Why she now believes her Lyme exposure may have occurred in West Virginia Developing unusual knee problems after returning to England Years of migrating joint and back symptoms Running the London Marathon despite worsening knee problems The viral illness after which her health dramatically deteriorated Digestive issues, insomnia, chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, rage, and memory problems Trying to continue working while becoming progressively sicker Repeated medical visits that failed to explain her illness Moving to Australia and eventually becoming largely bedbound How another horse rider helped connect her with the doctor who diagnosed Lyme disease Borrelia and the co-infections discussed during her journey Her experience with PCR testing, bioresonance, and autonomic response testing Why she declined the multi-antibiotic protocol initially proposed to her The three months she spent researching treatment approaches around the world Her staged approach to lifestyle, diet, gut health, and other interventions The low-inflammatory Paleo-style diet she says produced an early improvement Her use of herbs, binders, naturopathic care, and bioresonance Her homemade "Lyme-busting drink" Creating an environment dedicated to healing Learning to trust her intuition Meditation, spirituality, and asking for help Trauma work, NLP, and Faster EFT The fear of leaving home even after her physical health improved Why she believes mindset is critical to recovery Why she wrote My Lyme Success Story Her advice for people newly diagnosed with Lyme disease Why she believes patients should not give up on the possibility of healing Hannah's Advice for Someone Newly Diagnosed With Lyme Disease Near the end of the conversation, Hannah shares several lessons she wishes more people understood early in their Lyme journey. First, she encourages people not to panic. She believes a recovery mindset matters and that people benefit from knowing that others have gotten better. Second, she recommends finding a practitioner you genuinely trust and who looks at the person as a whole rather than focusing on only one symptom. Third, she emphasizes consistency and persistence rather than continually jumping from one protocol to another. And finally, Hannah advocates for a gentler approach when appropriate, saying that the body may need time and a sense of safety in order to recover. Her advice reflects her own experience rather than a universal medical prescription, but the underlying message is powerful: stay engaged, keep learning, work with qualified support, and do not surrender hope. Why Hannah Green's Lyme Success Story Matters Hannah's story is not presented as a universal Lyme disease treatment protocol. It is one person's experience of becoming severely ill, searching for answers across multiple countries, experimenting with approaches that felt appropriate for her circumstances, and eventually reaching a level of health that inspired her to describe her journey as a Lyme success story. Her experience reinforces several important messages for the Lyme community: Tick education matters before a bite ever happens. Not everyone remembers finding an attached tick. An expanding red rash deserves careful medical evaluation. Lyme symptoms can evolve and involve multiple body systems. Migrating joint symptoms can be an important part of a patient's history. People with unexplained chronic symptoms deserve to be heard. Recovery journeys can be highly individualized. Emotional and psychological support can coexist with treatment of physical illness. Community can help replace the isolation that so often accompanies chronic illness. Hope matters. Healing is possible. Final Takeaway Hannah Green's Lyme disease journey began long before she knew she was on one. A young woman from England traveled to America to teach horseback riding, encountered ticks for the first time, developed a mysterious red ring that was dismissed as a spider bite, and returned home feeling healthy. Then the clues slowly appeared. First her knees. Then other joints. Then her back. Eventually, after another illness years later, her health deteriorated dramatically. What followed was a long search for an explanation that eventually took Hannah across the world and into an intense process of research, experimentation, self-advocacy, emotional healing, and recovery. Today, she has transformed that experience into My Lyme Success Story in the hope that what she learned can help others ask better questions and feel less alone. Her exact path will not be everyone's path, and the approaches Hannah believes helped her should not be interpreted as medical advice or a universal treatment plan. But the larger message of her story belongs to the entire Lyme community: keep asking questions, keep learning, find people who take your experience seriously, and do not give up on the possibility of healing.

In this episode of Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill, Dr. Jill Carnahan sits down with researcher and collaboration architect Nikki Schultek to explore an often-overlooked contributor to chronic disease: persistent infections and their impact on inflammation, immunity, and the brain. Drawing from her own experience with severe chronic illness, Lyme disease, Chlamydia pneumoniae, and autoimmunity, Nikki shares how her personal health journey led her into research and a mission to connect scientific disciplines that too often operate in isolation. Together, they explore the emerging concept of the pathobiome, the potential infectious drivers of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, the challenges of diagnosing persistent infections, and why understanding the body as an interconnected ecosystem could transform the future of chronic illness research and treatment.

Send us Fan MailWhat if you're doing all the “right” things for your health—eating well, exercising, taking supplements—and you're still tired, inflamed, foggy, or struggling to recover?The missing piece might be more fundamental than another supplement or wellness protocol.It might be oxygen.In this episode of It's Hertime, Cody sits down with Brad Pitzele, founder of One Thousand Roads, to explore the connection between oxygen, mitochondrial function, cellular energy, inflammation, recovery, and healthy aging.Brad didn't come to this work because he was looking for his next business idea. He was trying to get his life back.After facing autoimmune arthritis, Lyme disease, Bartonella, debilitating fatigue, brain fog, chronic pain, and malignant melanoma, Brad began looking beyond symptom management and became deeply interested in what was happening at the cellular level. His journey eventually led him to Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) and red and near-infrared light therapy—and ultimately to founding One Thousand Roads. (One Thousand Roads)In this conversation, Cody and Brad break down something most of us rarely think about: it's not enough to simply breathe oxygen. Our bodies also have to deliver it and our cells have to be able to use it.They explore how oxygen participates in mitochondrial energy production, why someone can have a normal pulse-ox reading while still asking different questions about oxygen delivery and utilization, and what chronic inflammation, circulation, aging, and metabolic health may have to do with the bigger picture.Brad also explains EWOT—Exercise With Oxygen Therapy, which combines exercise with breathing concentrated oxygen to increase oxygen delivery during increased metabolic demand. (Dr. Haley)In this episode, we talk about:• Brad's personal journey through autoimmune disease, Lyme, Bartonella, melanoma, chronic pain, and fatigue• Why oxygen is so important for mitochondrial function and ATP production• The difference between blood oxygen saturation and cellular oxygen utilization• Why you can have a “normal” pulse oximeter reading and still have more to consider about cellular energy• What EWOT is and what an actual session looks like• Why exercise is paired with concentrated oxygen• EWOT vs. hyperbaric oxygen therapy• How red and near-infrared light interact with mitochondrial pathways• Why Brad combines red light therapy with EWOT• Oxygen, circulation, inflammation, recovery, and healthy aging• The potential relevance for women dealing with fatigue, metabolic changes, exercise intolerance, perimenopause, and menopause• What researchers are learning about hypoxia and the tumor microenvironment—and why supportive therapies should never be confused with cancer treatment• Where EWOT fits alongside sauna, cold exposure, breathwork, exercise, red light, and other popular biohacking tools• Simple ways to support oxygen delivery and cardiovascular health without buying any equipmentOne of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that sometimes we become so focused on finding the next supplement, medication, biohack, or protocol that we overlook the foundational systems our bodies depend on every second of every day.Because before your body can repair, recover, adapt, or create energy, your cells need the raw materials—and the ability to use them.This conversation will make you think about energy and healing in an entirely different way.CONNECT WITH BRAD + ONE THOUSAND ROADSSpecial offer for the It's Hertime community:Access the One Thousand Roads listener offerWatch + learn more from Brad:One Thousand Roads on YouTubeLearn more about One Thousand Roads:One Thousand RoadsLearn more about EWOT + Red Light Therapy:One Thousand Roads Education HubThis episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease. EWOT and red light therapy should be considered supportive wellness modalities, not replacements for appropriate medical care. Talk with your healthcare provider before beginning oxygen-based therapies, particularly if you have cardiovascular, respiratory, or other medical conditions.Did you learn something new today? Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and share this episode with all the girls you love. We would appreciate it if you'd also leave us a rating and review on iTunes.Want to join our Mixhers Girl community and keep this conversation going? We'd love to hear your thoughts, feelings and experiences! Join us HERE!Join Mixhers email list and be the first to have access to new products and be the girl in the know!Follow Cody Instagram:@codyjeansanders

In this episode of Unstress Health, Dr Ron Ehrlich and Dr Marty Ross explore a different way of thinking about mental health. Rather than looking only at psychiatric symptoms, they discuss how chronic infections, inflammation, mold toxicity, gut microbiome disruption and metabolic dysfunction may intersect with conditions such as depression and anxiety. Dr Ross shares observations from his clinical experience treating people with chronic Lyme disease and related conditions, including the possible role of neuroinflammation, cytokines, the blood-brain barrier, tryptophan, serotonin, mitochondria and the limbic system. They also discuss Long COVID, tick-borne infections such as Borrelia, Bartonella and Babesia, challenges around testing in Australia, and why listening carefully to a patient's history can be such an important part of healthcare. ◉

What if the experiences of thousands—or eventually millions—of Lyme disease patients could help the next patient find answers faster? In this episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, we sit down with siblings Carter Bradsky and Payton Bradsky, co-founders of LymeLess Health, to explore their family's extraordinary Lyme disease journey and the technology they're building to help other patients navigate complex chronic illness. Lyme disease didn't affect just one member of the Bradsky family. Their mother became severely ill and largely bedridden while searching for answers through the conventional medical system. Carter later developed debilitating neurological and psychiatric symptoms while preparing to play college basketball. Payton experienced seizure-like episodes, was diagnosed with epilepsy, lost her driver's license, and struggled with cognitive dysfunction while beginning a promising career in technology. Their experiences ultimately inspired a much bigger question: What if Lyme patients didn't have to start from zero? That question became LymeLess, a precision care navigation platform built around an AI companion named Ella. The goal is to help patients organize complex medical histories, track symptoms and treatments, recognize patterns, prepare for medical appointments, find Lyme-literate providers, and make better use of the enormous amount of information generated throughout a chronic illness journey. A Family's Lyme Disease Journey Carter and Payton explain that their family's Lyme journey began with their mother around 2015. After relocating from South Dakota to Arizona, their mother progressively became sicker. Despite extensive medical evaluations—including care through major medical institutions—the family struggled to find an explanation for what was happening. At one point, her symptoms were attributed to psychological causes. Everything changed through a chance encounter. While attending an event surrounding Carter's high school graduation, their mother discussed her symptoms with someone familiar with Lyme disease. That conversation led her toward a Lyme-literate provider and ultimately toward the answers the family had been searching for. Her experience would later become critically important when both Carter and Payton developed their own unexplained illnesses. Carter Bradsky's Lyme Disease Story Carter was preparing for his senior year of high school and planning to play college basketball when his health began changing. During a period that also included significant emotional and physical stress, Carter began experiencing symptoms including: Brain fog and cognitive dysfunction Memory loss Dissociation Depression Anxiety Changes in his ability to function academically and athletically Because his mother had already traveled the Lyme disease diagnostic journey, she recognized similarities between Carter's symptoms and what she had experienced. That awareness allowed Carter to reach a Lyme-literate provider relatively quickly. He describes undergoing combination antibiotic therapy with herbal support and eventually reaching remission after approximately 1.5 to 2 years. His experience became an important lesson that would later influence LymeLess: Having someone Lyme-literate helping you navigate the journey can dramatically change how quickly you find the next right step. Payton Bradsky: Seizures, Epilepsy Misdiagnosis, and Lyme Disease Payton's illness presented very differently. During her senior year of college, after an intense period of stress, illness, dehydration, travel, and lack of sleep, Payton experienced what appeared to be a seizure. She was subsequently diagnosed with epilepsy. The diagnosis changed her life. Payton was placed on powerful anti-seizure medication, lost her driver's license, struggled cognitively, and found herself unable to use the brain she had relied upon throughout her life as an engineering student. This was particularly frightening because she had already accepted a job at Google and was preparing to begin her career in technology. Her family once again questioned whether there might be another explanation. That eventually led Payton toward Lyme and tick-borne disease testing and treatment. Unlike Carter's relatively shorter journey, Payton's recovery became a much longer process involving years of treatment and numerous providers. Her experience illustrates one of the central themes of this episode: There is no single Lyme disease presentation—and there is no single recovery pathway that works for every patient. From Lyme Patients to Technology Founders The siblings eventually brought very different professional backgrounds together to create LymeLess. Carter studied finance and data analytics at the University of San Diego before working in technology, media, and telecommunications investment banking in New York City. Payton studied computer engineering and entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley before spending approximately five years at Google, working as a software engineer and product manager. Her experience in technology—including exposure to privacy, security, and regulated data environments—would later become particularly relevant when designing a health platform handling sensitive patient information. Both siblings eventually left their careers to tackle a problem they understood personally: Why does navigating Lyme disease so often become a second full-time job for the patient or caregiver? What Is LymeLess? LymeLess describes itself as a precision care navigation platform designed around the patient. Instead of leaving medical information scattered across patient portals, paper binders, lab reports, physician notes, symptom journals, and a patient's memory, LymeLess is working toward creating a centralized longitudinal record of the patient's journey. The platform's AI companion is called Ella. Patients can use Ella to help: Organize their health history Track symptoms over time Track treatments and supplements Record reactions and potential triggers Upload medical documents and laboratory results Identify patterns in symptoms and treatments Prepare for doctor appointments Surface relevant resources and research Find Lyme-literate providers Remember previous treatment responses Better understand their evolving health journey Carter describes one user's characterization of Ella as a "second brain" for when Lyme brain makes remembering and organizing everything difficult. Turning the Lyme Disease Binder Into Usable Data Anyone who has navigated chronic Lyme disease knows about the binder. Years of: Bloodwork Imaging Specialist reports Medication lists Treatment protocols Symptom histories Diagnostic testing Hospital records Patients frequently carry enormous amounts of information between specialists, yet a physician working within a short appointment may have only minutes to understand it. The conversation explores whether AI could become a bridge between these two realities. Instead of expecting a physician to read hundreds or thousands of pages, AI may eventually help synthesize a patient's history into the information most relevant to that particular appointment. LymeLess currently allows patients to upload digital documents and images of physical records, while the company is working toward easier bulk uploading and potential integrations with electronic health record systems. The LymeLess "Warrior Report" One important feature discussed in the episode is the Warrior Report. Patients can export information from LymeLess into a report designed to help communicate their health journey to their provider. Carter and Payton envision this concept becoming considerably more sophisticated in the future. One possibility discussed is a provider-facing experience in which clinicians could interact with a patient's organized information, review relevant research, and ask questions in language and formats designed specifically for medical professionals. Longer term, LymeLess is exploring clinical decision-support concepts and potential integrations with electronic health record platforms. Ella Is Not a Doctor Carter and Payton emphasize an important distinction throughout the interview: Ella is not intended to replace physicians. LymeLess is not positioning Ella as an autonomous doctor that diagnoses disease or prescribes treatment. Instead, the goal is to help patients: Understand their own information Recognize patterns Surface questions Find relevant resources Organize their medical histories Communicate more effectively with their healthcare team The ultimate medical decisions remain between patients and qualified healthcare professionals. Can AI Help Patients Recognize Patterns? One of the most exciting possibilities discussed is AI's ability to analyze enormous amounts of information. Lyme and tick-borne disease patients frequently experience changing combinations of: Neurological symptoms Psychiatric symptoms Pain Fatigue Inflammation Treatment reactions Food sensitivities Environmental triggers Co-infections Medication and supplement responses Patients may recognize individual events but struggle to see patterns unfolding across weeks, months, or years. Payton explains that Ella is being designed to combine patient-specific longitudinal information with curated research and educational resources. The goal is not simply to answer a question at one moment in time, but to understand that question in the context of the patient's broader journey. Learning From Other Lyme Patients The conversation then expands beyond individual patient tracking. Could anonymized patient experiences eventually help identify broader patterns across the Lyme community? Carter describes a long-term vision for a community intelligence layer that could potentially help patients, providers, and researchers learn from real-world experiences at scale. Instead of every newly diagnosed patient beginning at zero, future patients could potentially benefit from patterns identified among people with similar symptoms, diagnoses, treatment histories, and responses. The siblings discuss the potential for properly anonymized and de-identified information to eventually contribute to research while protecting individual patient identities. Lyme Disease Research and Real-World Evidence The episode explores an even larger possibility: Could longitudinal patient data help accelerate Lyme disease research? Traditional clinical trials are essential, but they can be expensive, geographically limited, and slow. Meanwhile, Lyme patients are already trying enormous numbers of treatments in the real world. The challenge is that much of that information disappears. One patient tries a treatment. Another patient tries something different. A physician discovers something useful in clinical practice. Patients discuss experiences in Facebook groups and online forums. But those experiences rarely become structured research-quality data. LymeLess hopes eventually to help close that gap. Potential future applications discussed include: Identifying promising treatment patterns Generating real-world evidence Identifying potential clinical trial candidates Helping researchers determine which therapies deserve formal study Supporting decentralized research Connecting patients with clinical trials Helping researchers study complex combinations of Lyme disease, co-infections, and overlapping conditions Lyme Disease Is More Than Borrelia Another important research discussion centers around the complexity of the Lyme patient population. Many patients aren't navigating Borrelia alone. Their health picture may also include: Bartonella Babesia Other tick-borne infections Mold exposure Mast cell activation Dysautonomia Inflammation Neurological dysfunction Genetic differences Environmental exposures By collecting longitudinal information across complex patients, platforms such as LymeLess could potentially help researchers study the combinations and patterns that traditional Lyme research may not fully capture. Protecting Patient Privacy Health information is extraordinarily sensitive, and the episode includes an extensive discussion about privacy and security. Payton explains that protecting patient data has been considered from the beginning of LymeLess' development. According to Payton, LymeLess uses: Encryption at rest Encryption in transit Zero-data-retention policies and agreements with vendors powering the platform Patient control over their information De-identification and anonymization approaches for broader data use She emphasizes that patients should be able to benefit from AI technology while still understanding and controlling how their information is used. LymeLess and the Doctor-Patient Relationship One of the most interesting themes of the conversation is that technology could potentially improve—not replace—the relationship between doctors and patients. Patients with complex chronic illness frequently arrive at appointments carrying years of medical information. Doctors, meanwhile, may have extremely limited appointment time and may not have extensive training in Lyme and tick-borne diseases. That can create frustration on both sides. Could better-organized information help? The conversation explores how AI-generated summaries, longitudinal symptom tracking, research resources, and eventually provider-facing tools could help physicians understand complicated patients more quickly. Rather than telling patients they must become their "own doctor," the goal is to help patients become better-informed partners with their healthcare team. Can LymeLess Help Health Coaches? The siblings also discuss the growing role of health coaches in complex chronic illness. Because Lyme patients often need significant support between medical appointments, health coaches can help patients organize treatment plans, make lifestyle changes, and navigate day-to-day challenges. LymeLess could potentially serve two populations: Patients who cannot afford ongoing human health coaching may gain access to a more affordable form of between-appointment support. At the same time, professional health coaches may eventually use technology like LymeLess to organize information and support more patients efficiently. Carter's Mold Illness After Lyme Remission The episode also takes an unexpected turn when Carter shares a recent health setback. After reaching remission from Lyme and tick-borne disease, Carter moved into an older apartment in New York City's SoHo neighborhood. Over time, he began experiencing: Brain fog Severe fatigue Cognitive problems Word-recall difficulties Nervous system dysregulation Increasing sensitivity to caffeine Anxiety Eye floaters Initially, he questioned whether Bartonella or another tick-borne infection had returned. Testing eventually pointed toward mold exposure. Environmental testing of his apartment reportedly identified numerous types of water-associated mold, and subsequent testing contributed to his decision to address mold illness and leave the environment. He describes temporarily moving home, focusing on recovery, reducing caffeine and screen exposure, exercising, using sauna, and continuing to work with his healthcare team. Importantly, Carter says subsequent testing did not indicate reactivation of Lyme, Bartonella, or Babesia. His experience reinforces another reason he believes longitudinal health records are valuable: When symptoms return years later, knowing exactly what happened during previous illnesses and treatments can provide important context. Discovery, Active Treatment, and Maintenance Payton describes three broad stages LymeLess is designed to support: Discovery Someone has experienced a tick bite or unexplained symptoms and is trying to determine what should happen next. Active Treatment The patient has a diagnosis and is navigating treatments, symptoms, reactions, providers, testing, and progress. Maintenance / Remission The patient is doing better but still wants to understand their health, recognize potential triggers, remember previous treatment responses, and protect their progress. This makes LymeLess potentially relevant beyond the period when someone is acutely sick. Genetics and Precision Medicine The interview also explores another future direction: incorporating genetic information. Genetics can influence: Detoxification Methylation Medication responses Nutritional needs Inflammatory pathways Other aspects of individualized health Carter and Payton discuss a future in which genetics, laboratory testing, patient history, symptoms, environmental factors, and treatment responses could contribute to increasingly personalized health navigation. Their larger vision moves from precision care navigation toward precision care and, eventually, increasingly individualized precision medicine. How Much Does LymeLess Cost? At the time of this interview, Carter and Payton describe LymeLess as offering a one-month free trial, followed by a subscription of approximately $15 per month. They also discuss working toward making portions of the platform available more broadly and maintaining a scholarship program for people who cannot afford the subscription. Carter explains that a portion of subscription revenue is intended to help support that scholarship program. Turning Lyme Disease Into Purpose The episode ultimately becomes about much more than artificial intelligence. Both Carter and Payton discuss how illness changed their lives. They describe fear, isolation, cognitive impairment, uncertainty, faith, family support, and the challenge of trying to continue school and demanding careers while sick. They also discuss something we talk about frequently at Tick Boot Camp: finding purpose through suffering. Payton continued developing her engineering career while undergoing treatment. Carter describes spending long periods alone in church during college, trying to quiet his mind and understand what mattered most. Eventually, their experiences gave them a problem they felt compelled to solve. Their mission with LymeLess is ambitious: Learn from the unique story of every patient so future patients don't have to navigate Lyme disease through the same degree of trial, error, expense, and luck. Key Topics Discussed Carter and Payton Bradsky's family Lyme disease story Their mother's long diagnostic journey Medical dismissal and unexplained chronic symptoms Carter's neurological Lyme symptoms Brain fog, memory loss, anxiety, depression, and dissociation Payton's seizure and epilepsy misdiagnosis Neurological and psychiatric Lyme disease symptoms Lyme disease remission and recovery Lyme disease and co-infections Bartonella and Babesia Mold toxicity after Lyme disease AI and Lyme disease LymeLess Health Ella AI companion Precision care navigation Symptom and treatment tracking Longitudinal patient health data Medical record organization The Lyme disease "binder" Patient-provider communication Warrior Reports Lyme-literate provider matching Clinical decision-support technology Electronic health record integration AI pattern recognition Patient privacy and healthcare data security De-identification and anonymization Real-world evidence Lyme disease clinical trials Patient-generated health data Artificial intelligence and medical research Health coaching and Lyme disease The financial burden of chronic Lyme disease Genetics and personalized medicine Precision medicine Faith and chronic illness Post-traumatic growth Finding purpose after Lyme disease Life after Lyme disease Learn More Explore LymeLess and Ella Listen to more Tick Boot Camp Podcast episodes Explore Tick Boot Camp interviews with Lyme doctors Recently bitten by a tick? Start with the Tick Boot Camp Tick Bite Blueprint About Tick Boot Camp Tick Boot Camp is a Lyme disease awareness and advocacy platform built around a simple belief: people navigating Lyme and tick-borne illness deserve validation, community, better information, and hope. Through conversations with patients, doctors, researchers, advocates, and innovators, we share the experiences and emerging ideas helping move the Lyme community forward. You are not alone—and healing is possible.

What Blocks Brain Recovery After Stroke: The Exposures Nobody Tests For Introduction In 1987, Dr. Robert Hedaya found an office he loved. It overlooked a stream and a forest, and it had a balcony. Within about an hour of arriving each morning, he would become tired and mentally foggy, something he describes as unlike him. It took him time to work out what was happening. The building had mold. He is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center and a pioneer of functional medicine psychiatry. He had spent his career studying why brains underperform. And he still didn’t see it until it was affecting him personally. That story is worth sitting with, because it goes to the heart of a question most stroke survivors eventually ask: if I’m doing the therapy, the exercises, the sleep, the diet, why am I still stuck? Why this question matters more than any rehab program When Dr. Hedaya returned to Recovery After Stroke for his third conversation with Bill Gasiamis, the topic was not a new treatment. It was the opposite: the things that get in the way of treatments already working. His argument is structural. After a stroke, the brain rebuilds by growing new connections between neurons. That process is physical. It requires materials, energy, and an absence of interference. If something is interfering, no amount of repetition in a rehab gym will overcome it. So the useful question is not only what helps my brain recover but also what blocks brain recovery after stroke and whether any of it is happening in your own house, your own mouth, or your own bloodstream without anyone having looked. Dr. Hedaya raised three: mercury, mold, and Lyme. Mercury: how a metal stops neurons from branching Picture a neuron as a tree in winter: a trunk with branches extending outward. After a stroke, under the right conditions, neurons grow new branches to make new connections. To do that, the cell has to lay down a structure for the new branch to grow through. It uses a protein called tubulin, small oval molecules that link together into a tube, the way Lego pieces connect to form a ring. Mercury interrupts that linkage. Dr. Hedaya points to footage from the University of Calgary, filmed in 1999, showing the process under a microscope: the growing nerve branch shrivels and retracts within seconds of mercury exposure. It runs about two and a half minutes and is worth watching, because seeing it is more persuasive than reading about it. Where does mercury come from? Two main sources. Dental amalgam fillings, the dark grey ones, were largely phased out from roughly the 1970s onward, which means people now in their fifties and sixties are the most likely to still have them. And fish. Mercury accumulates up the food chain, so large predatory fish such as tuna and swordfish carry substantially more than small fish. Sardines, anchovies, herring, and mackerel carry very little, and bring DHA and B12 with them, the raw materials neurons need. Testing involves a baseline urine sample, then a challenge dose of DMSA (a sulfur-containing compound), then a second sample. A jump between the two indicates mercury was being stored and is now being pulled out. If you have amalgam fillings removed, Dr. Hedaya is emphatic that it should be done by a biological dentist who follows a protocol: preparation with sulfur-containing compounds beforehand, a dam in place during the procedure, and rinsing afterward. Removal done badly can expose you to more mercury than leaving it alone. Mold: the ceiling Dr. Hedaya says he has never seen broken This is his strongest claim, and he states it without hedging: he has not seen anyone fully recover from a neurological problem while living in a mold-exposed environment. His estimate of the ceiling is around fifty percent improvement. There are two separate things at work. The spores the visible organism. And the mycotoxins, which are molecular, airborne, invisible, and travel far beyond the patch you can see. They inhibit mitochondria, which is how cells produce energy, and they increase oxidation, which is hard on neurons. You cannot rule mold out by smell or by looking. Dr. Hedaya has every patient run an ERMI test Environmental Relative Mold Index. You mark ten areas in the home that don’t get cleaned, wipe them down, leave them for a month, then collect dust with a supplied cloth and send it to a lab. He uses Mycometrics. The second test asks a different question: is your immune system actually reacting? A lab such as MyMycoLab measures IgE (an immediate response, within minutes to hours) and IgG (a delayed response that can begin a day or two later and persist for weeks). You then compare which molds are in your home against which ones your immune system is responding to: Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Chaetomium, Stachybotrys, and others. In Dr. Hedaya’s experience, the two lists usually overlap. Remediation is where it becomes expensive and inconvenient. Cleaning the visible growth achieves little on its own. You have to find the water: poor grading, a roof leak, blocked downspouts, a badly installed HVAC system, damp ductwork, because if the water source remains, so does the mold. As Bill put it in the conversation: there is no point putting a year of work into a rehabilitation program and then walking out of it into a moldy house. The cost of remediation is real. So is the cost of never getting past fifty percent. Lyme disease: the great imitator Lyme is a close relative of syphilis, which was historically called the great imitator because it could present as almost any disease. Lyme behaves the same way, and a single tick can carry around twenty pathogens that affect humans, including Bartonella and Babesia, both of which drain cellular energy. Dr. Hedaya’s issue is with the testing. It relies on antibodies, and antibodies take weeks to develop, so testing soon after a bite returns a negative that means nothing. The result is also reported as a binary against an optical density threshold: above the cutoff you have it, below it you don’t. His comparison: a blood glucose of 120 is not diabetes; 121 is. The line does not reflect biology. He also rejects the common reassurance that a tick embedded for under 24 hours is safe. His word for it was “insanity.” Where to start Asked which of the three to address first, his answer was immediate: mold. Mercury needs no test to begin acting on; switch to smaller fish, eat more cruciferous vegetables, garlic, cilantro, and greens, and you are doing something useful whether or not you had a problem. Test in six to twelve months if you want to know. Lyme comes last, unless you have had a recent tick bite. And mold has to be dealt with before Lyme treatment is worth attempting. How to raise this with your doctor Dr. Hedaya’s advice here is practical, and it applies well beyond this topic. Don’t arrive with a theory. Arrive with a literature review. He suggests using SciSpace over PubMed; ask it for a literature review on the effects of mold on the human nervous system, and it will assemble one in fifteen or twenty minutes. Print it, along with a couple of the underlying papers. Then add the step most people skip: ask it for the counter-argument. Ask why mold might not be a factor in brain function. You are not there to win. You are there to have a real conversation, and a doctor is far more likely to engage with someone who has already tested their own position. If they refuse outright to order the testing? His view was blunt: find another doctor. Getting out of your own way None of this replaces rehabilitation. It removes the obstacles to it. That distinction matters, because the work you are already doing is not wasted; it may simply be running into something invisible. Checking your fillings takes a minute and someone willing to look in your mouth. Testing your house takes a month and a cloth. Neither is a treatment. Both are ways of making sure the treatment can do its job. This is the third conversation with Dr. Hedaya on this show. The first covered photobiomodulation and laser therapy (https://recoveryafterstroke.com/photobiomodulation-stroke-recovery/). The second covered hormones, thyroid function, and fatigue (https://recoveryafterstroke.com/hormones-and-stroke-recovery-dr-robert-hedaya/). Both are useful companions to this one. If you want a fuller framework for thinking about recovery, Bill’s book The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened walks through ten tools for recovery and personal transformation. You can find it at https://recoveryafterstroke.com/book. And if this show has helped you, you can support it financially at https://patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Footer Disclaimer This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan. Related links: Dr. Hedaya’s practice First conversation, photobiomodulation Second conversation, hormones The mercury video, University of Calgary Background on that video ERMI mold testing lab Mould antibody blood testing Tick-borne and Lyme testing Literature reviews in minutes Research database The toxins textbook he mentions The post The Things Getting In The Way Of Your Recovery – Dr. Robert Hedaya appeared first on Recovery After Stroke.

What if the biggest obstacle to healing Lyme disease isn't just the infection—but the body's inability to feel safe enough to recover? In this inspiring episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, Dr. Meagan Bonnot shares her remarkable journey from being a chronically ill patient with debilitating symptoms to becoming a naturopathic doctor dedicated to helping others recover from complex chronic illnesses. Drawing from both personal experience and years of clinical practice, Dr. Bonnot explains why healing Lyme disease requires far more than simply killing bacteria. Together, Matt Sabatello and Dr. Bonnot explore the critical roles of nervous system regulation, detoxification, trauma recovery, frequency medicine, herbal therapies, and faith in creating an environment where true healing can occur. Dr. Bonnot also discusses how her clinic, Deeper Wellness, integrates biofeedback technology, individualized treatment plans, and functional medicine principles to help patients restore health. Whether you're newly diagnosed with Lyme disease or have struggled with chronic illness for years, this conversation offers practical insights and a hopeful reminder that healing is possible. In This Episode Dr. Meagan Bonnot discusses: Her personal battle with chronic Lyme disease Why Lyme testing often misses patients Childhood trauma and chronic illness connections The importance of regulating the nervous system Frequency medicine and AO Scan technology Herbal protocols for Lyme disease Detoxification before antimicrobial treatment Brain retraining and neuroplasticity Faith, resilience, and healing Practical strategies patients can begin immediately Meet Dr. Meagan Bonnot Dr. Meagan Bonnot is a naturopathic physician and the founder of Deeper Wellness, where she helps patients with Lyme disease, mold illness, Bartonella, chronic fatigue, autoimmune conditions, and other complex chronic illnesses. After spending years searching for answers to her own debilitating health challenges, Dr. Bonnot discovered that lasting recovery required addressing much more than infections alone. Today, she combines functional medicine, naturopathic therapies, herbal medicine, nervous system regulation, detoxification strategies, biofeedback technology, and personalized care plans to help patients restore health from the inside out. Her mission is to help patients understand that the body possesses an incredible capacity to heal when given the right environment and support. Dr. Bonnot's Personal Lyme Disease Story Long before becoming a physician, Dr. Bonnot experienced many of the same frustrations faced by Lyme patients today. Growing up, she struggled with chronic asthma, allergies, fatigue, digestive issues, and recurring illnesses. Despite years of medical evaluations, no one identified the underlying causes of her declining health. Eventually, she developed worsening neurological and systemic symptoms that conventional medicine struggled to explain. Even Lyme testing failed to provide clear answers. Rather than accepting that chronic illness would define her life, she pursued naturopathic medicine and began investigating the deeper drivers behind persistent disease. Her own recovery ultimately became the foundation for the clinical approach she now uses with patients worldwide. Why Killing Lyme Isn't Always the First Step One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding Lyme disease is that recovery begins with antimicrobial treatment. Dr. Bonnot explains that many patients simply are not physiologically prepared to tolerate aggressive treatment. If detoxification pathways are impaired or the nervous system remains trapped in chronic fight-or-flight mode, antimicrobial therapies may overwhelm the body rather than support healing. Instead of asking: "How do we kill Lyme?" She encourages practitioners to first ask: "Why is this person's body unable to heal?" That subtle shift changes the entire treatment strategy. The Four Foundations of Healing Throughout the interview, Dr. Bonnot outlines the sequence she frequently follows when working with patients. 1. Regulate the Nervous System Chronic infections, emotional trauma, prolonged stress, and toxic exposures can leave the nervous system stuck in survival mode. When the brain continually perceives danger, healing becomes significantly more difficult. Dr. Bonnot discusses techniques that help patients restore regulation, including: Adaptogen herbs, such as those from Supreme Nutrition & VerVita Breathwork Mindfulness Gratitude practices Restorative sleep Faith Emotional healing Lifestyle changes Brain retraining programs Consistency over perfection 2. Open Detoxification Pathways Rather than forcing detoxification, Dr. Bonnot emphasizes gently supporting the body's natural elimination systems. These include: Liver Kidneys Lymphatic system Digestive tract Skin Cellular detoxification Supportive therapies may include: Hydration Nutrition Sauna Red light therapy Movement Lymphatic drainage Herbal support Creating efficient detox pathways helps reduce inflammatory burden before antimicrobial therapies begin. 3. Address Infections Once patients are better prepared, treatment may include targeted therapies for Lyme disease and common coinfections. During the discussion, Dr. Bonnot references herbs frequently used within naturopathic protocols, including: Japanese Knotweed Cat's Claw Cryptolepis Houttuynia Chinese Skullcap Artemisia Reishi Adaptogenic herbs Rather than applying identical protocols to every patient, she individualizes treatment based on symptoms, testing, history, and response. 4. Retrain the Brain Healing often continues long after infections have been treated. Many patients continue experiencing persistent symptoms because their nervous systems remain conditioned toward chronic survival responses. Dr. Bonnot discusses the importance of neuroplasticity and brain retraining approaches that help the brain learn safety again. She explains that recovery frequently requires healing both the body and the brain simultaneously. Frequency Medicine and AO Scan Technology A unique portion of the interview explores frequency medicine and biofeedback technologies such as the AO Scan. Dr. Bonnot explains how these technologies may help identify physiological imbalances and guide personalized wellness strategies. Rather than replacing conventional diagnostics or clinical judgment, she views frequency-based tools as one component of a comprehensive functional medicine approach. She stresses the importance of integrating patient history, laboratory findings, symptoms, and clinical experience when making treatment decisions. The Connection Between Trauma and Chronic Illness Another major theme of the conversation is unresolved trauma. Dr. Bonnot discusses how childhood experiences, chronic stress, and emotional wounds can influence immune regulation and nervous system function for years. While trauma does not cause Lyme disease, it can influence how the body responds to infection and recovery. Healing often requires addressing both physical and emotional health. Faith as Part of Healing One of the most personal portions of the interview centers on Dr. Bonnot's faith. She shares how her spiritual beliefs helped sustain hope during periods when improvement seemed impossible. Faith, purpose, gratitude, and community became important parts of her own healing journey and continue influencing how she cares for patients today. Key Takeaways Throughout this conversation, Dr. Bonnot reinforces several important messages: Healing is rarely linear. Every patient is unique. Nervous system regulation matters. Detoxification should support—not overwhelm—the body. Lyme disease treatment should be individualized. Emotional healing often supports physical healing. Recovery requires patience and consistency. Hope remains essential throughout the healing journey. Listen Now If you've been searching for a more comprehensive approach to healing Lyme disease and chronic illness, this episode provides valuable perspectives from both a physician and former patient who understands the journey firsthand. More Lyme Disease Resources: Podcast Physician Interviews Lyme Disease Testing Educational Resources About Tick Boot Camp Tick Boot Camp is dedicated to educating, inspiring, and empowering the global Lyme disease community through conversations with leading physicians, researchers, advocates, and patients. Through hundreds of interviews, Tick Boot Camp shares practical information, emerging research, and real stories of hope that remind listeners they are not alone—and that healing is possible.

You don't have to live in the woods to get bit by a tick. It can happen in your backyard, on a walk, even pulling weeds in your own garden. In this episode of The Art of Living Well Podcast®, Marnie and Stephanie sit down with Ali Moresco, a tick-borne disease survivor, healthcare publicist, and one of the most recognized Lyme disease advocates in the country. Ali spent two years searching for a diagnosis before learning she had Lyme disease along with several co-infections, and she's turned that experience into advocacy work that has helped shape federal tick-borne disease legislation as executive board chair of Project Lyme. Ali walks through what those confusing early years of unexplained symptoms actually looked like, why standard Lyme testing misses far more cases than most people realize, and the practical prevention and removal steps worth knowing before your next walk outside. She also shares what her recovery has actually required over the better part of a decade, including where the treatment protocols and research are headed next. Whether you spend your weekends on the trail, garden in your own backyard, or just want to know what to actually do if you find a tick on you, this conversation will change how you think about prevention. Key Takeaways: Lyme disease is present in all 50 states, not just the East Coast Standard two-tier Lyme tests can be 64-78% inaccurate, especially in the early weeks after a bite Fewer than half of people infected with Lyme ever develop the classic bullseye rash Never burn, smother, or otherwise irritate an attached tick — use fine-tipped tweezers and pull straight up Save a removed tick in a bag or jar; some states and universities offer free tick testing Alpha-Gal syndrome is a tick-borne meat allergy that can also cause fatigue, brain fog, and gastro symptoms Symptoms from a tick bite can surface years later, often triggered by an unrelated stressful event or illness Recovery from chronic tick-borne illness is rarely linear and often requires a combination of treatments tailored to the individual person Episode Breakdown with Timestamps:  00:00   Introduction & Meeting Ali Moresco 01:03   Does Ali Still Enjoy Being Outside After Everything She's Been Through 02:51   Life Before Lyme Disease Was Part of Her Vocabulary 07:23   The Timeline From Tick Bite to First Symptoms 08:53   The Two-Year Path to Diagnosis 10:39   Why Standard Lyme Testing Misses So Many Cases 13:40   What Her Lowest Point Actually Looked Like 17:28   The Biggest Misconceptions About Tick Bites 19:43   Beyond Lyme: Other Tick-Borne Conditions on the Rise 20:34   Understanding Alpha-Gal Syndrome 22:31   Babesiosis and Bartonella, Explained 23:24   How to Actually Prevent Tick Bites 26:36   Prophylactic Antibiotics After a Bite 27:49   The Right Way to Remove a Tick (and What Never to Do) 29:46   What to Do With a Tick After You Remove It 30:58   Can Symptoms Show Up Years After a Bite? 32:47   Reasons for Hope: New Research on the Horizon 35:55   Inside Project Lyme's Advocacy Work 37:48   What Treatment Actually Looks Like Long-Term 44:03   The Daily Habits That Help Ali Stay Well 45:34   Where to Find Ali and Her Work 46:28   "What Does the Art of Living Well Mean to You?" Guest Links: Instagram: instagram.com/alitmoresco  Moresco PR: amorescopr.com/ali-moresco Project Lyme: projectlyme.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feeling tired, inflamed, or stuck in a cycle of cravings? Join our 7-Day Fall Vitality Reboot starting September 27 and discover how much better you can feel with simple daily habits and a supportive community beside you every step of the way. Click here to save your spot: https://l.bttr.to/fNSbn --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe to our Substack to get episode updates, wellness tips, and personal reflections from Marnie & Stephanie delivered straight to your inbox. Grab your free Midlife Travel Resilience Checklist here. If you love the show and want to support what we're building, consider a paid subscription for $30 annually. https://theartoflivingwell.substack.com/ Follow & Connect: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theartofliving_well/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theartoflivingwellpodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-art-of-living-well-podcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theartoflivingwel/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gym3jOPdSHwrpM1BmxyJz Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-living-well-podcast/id1482050468  Connect with your Hosts: https://www.theartoflivingwell.us/about-us

Allt fler oinbjudna besökare tar sig in i våra hem. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app. Skadedjur har alltid krupit vid människans sida. Forskare tror att de blodtörstiga vägglössen fanns redan i stenålderns grottboningar. Genom historien har olika typer av ohyra inte bara gett oss kliande bett och förstört våra matförråd, utan också orsakat några av mänsklighetens mest förödande sjukdomsepidemier.Under några decennier på 1900-talet, när en rad nya och kraftfulla bekämpningsmedel gjorde entré, såg det ut som att människan äntligen höll på att vinna den tusenåriga kampen mot krypen.Men segervittringen blev kortvarig. Skadedjuren är tillbaka. De blir fler, de sprider sig till nya platser – och de har blivit allt svårare att bekämpa.Programledare och producent: Anna Lillkung och Wendela AntepohlOrdlistaVektor – en organism, till exempel en råtta eller en kackerlacka, som för över smittämnen mellan varelser.Patogen – ett sjukdomsframkallande smittämne, till exempel ett virus eller en bakterie.Mikrob – en organism som är så liten att den inte syns med blotta ögat, till exempel ett virus eller en bakterie.Resistens – en organisms förmåga att stå emot yttre påfrestningar, till exempel en bakterie som utvecklat motståndskraft mot en eller flera typer av antibiotika.KällförteckningMedverkandeThomas Persson Vinnersten – Biolog och entomolog på AnticimexLisa Sarasohn – Historiker och författare till Getting Under Our Skin: The Cultural and Social History of VerminBobby Corrigan – Skadedjursbiolog med fokus på gnagareÅke Lundkvist – Professor i virologi vid Uppsala universitetTuomas Aivelo – Assisterande professor i biodiversitet och samhälle vid Leiden University i Nederländerna och grundare till Helsinki Urban Rat ProjectJose Pietri – Docent i mikrobiologi och entomologi vid Purdue UniversityBöckerGetting Under Our Skin: The Cultural and Social History of Vermin (Lisa T. Sarasohn, 2021)Rats : A Year With New York's Most Unwanted Inhabitants (Robert Sullivan, 2004)Plagues, Poisons, and Dead Rats: A Multispecies History (Lucinda Cole, ur boken The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature, 2020)Never Home Alone (Rob Dunn, 2020)Artiklar/källor i urvalSkadedjur i byggnader – en kunskapssammanställning (Malmö universitet på uppdrag av Boverket, 2025)Challenges in current pest management practices: Navigating problems and a way forward by integrating controlled release system approach (Singh et al., Chemical Engineering Journal, 2024)How pest control has changed in 100 years (Rentokil, 2025)Studie: Myror lika bra som gifter mot skadedjur (SvD, 2022)“They're always there”: resident experiences of living with rats in a disadvantaged urban neighbourhood (BMC Public Health, 2019)Increasing rat numbers in cities are linked to climate warming, urbanization, and human population (Science Advances, 2025)Reconsidering the “War on Rats”: What We Know From Over a Century of Research Into Municipal Rat Management (Corrigan, Himsworth, Byers, m.fl, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2022)Surveillance of Emerging Rodent-Borne Pathogens in Wastewater in Taiwan: A One Health Approach (Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, 2024)Bedbugs Could Be More Horrifying Than You Think. They might be capable of spreading disease, recent research shows. (The Atlantic, 2024)Anticoagulant rodenticides and resistance development in rodent pest species – A comprehensive review (Journal of Stored Products Research, 2020)Public Health Significance of Urban Pests (World Health Organization, 2008)Rodenticide Toxicity (StatPearls Publishing, 2026)Increasing rat numbers in cities are linked to climate warming, urbanization, and human population (ScienceAdvances, 2025)Public and media interest in bed bugs – Europe 2023 (Current Research in Insect Science, 2024)Large-scale structure of brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) populations in England: effects on rodenticide resistance (PeerJ, 2015)”Hysterisk” ökning av klädesmal (Sveriges Radio, 2015)Second hand–trend bidrar till att fler har problem med pälsmal i hemmen: ”Var extra noga om du köper möbler” (Smålandsposten, 2023)De äter på mattor och kläder – så blir du av med klädmal (Göteborgs-Posten, 2024)Revenge of the clothes moths: as numbers boom, can they be stopped? (The Guardian, 2019)High prevalence of hepatitis E and rat hepatitis E viruses in wastewater in Gothenburg, Sweden (One Health, 2024)Lessons learned from bat and rodent reservoir hosts of zoonotic viruses (Trends in microbiology, 2026)Human ectoparasites and the spread of plague in Europe during the Second Pandemic (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2018)Yersinia pestis: the Natural History of Plague (Clinical Microbiology Reviews, 2020)Disruption of the microbiota affects physiological and evolutionary aspects of insecticide resistance in the German cockroach, an important urban pest (PloS one, 2018)Case not closed: arguments for new studies of the interactions between bed bugs and human pathogens (The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2020)Microbiome differences between human head and body lice ecotypes revealed by 16S RRNA gene amplicon sequencing (The Journal of Parasitology, 2020)Do bed bugs transmit human viruses, or do humans spread bed bugs and their viruses? A worldwide survey of the bed bug RNA virosphere (Virus Research, 2024)Competence of Cimex lectularius Bed Bugs for the Transmission of Bartonella quintana, the Agent of Trench Fever (PLoS Negl Trop Dis., 2015)Ratmageddon: Why rats are overrunning our cities (BBC, 2025)‘Perfect rat storm': urban rodent numbers soar as the climate heats, study finds (The Guardian, 2025)Global population divergence and admixture of the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) (Biological Sciences, 2016)Highly Pathogenic Leptospira Found in Urban Brown Rats (Rattus norvegicus) in the Largest Cities of Sweden. (Vector Borne and Zoonotic Disease, 2015)First evidence of Seoul hantavirus in the wild rat population in the Netherlands (Infection Ecology & Epidemiology, 2015)Pet rat harbouring Seoul hantavirus in Sweden (Eurosurveillence, 2013)Seoul Hantavirus Frequently Asked Questions (Wisconsin department of health services)Leptospira Status in Sweden during the Past Century, Neglected and Re-Emerging? (Microorganisms, 2023)Bed bug infestations: prevalence, correlates, and cross-sectional association with psychological symptoms in a large sample of tenants in Montreal, Canada (BMC Public Health, 2025)Anticimex: Trendbrott för vägglöss – 19 procent fler saneringar 2025 (Anticimex, 2026)Rats infest Gaza's tent camps, biting children and spreading disease (Reuters, 2026)Reconsidering the “War on Rats”: What We Know From Over a Century of Research Into Municipal Rat Management (Frontiers in ecology and evolution, 2022)Cockroaches as urban pests: Challenges, public health implications, and management strategies (One Health, 2026)HURP: Helsinki Urban Rat ProjectHow did the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak start? Scientists are investigating new scenarios (Science, 2026)A timeline of the hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship (AP, 2026)Hantavirus outbreak linked to cruise ship travel, Multi-locations (World Health Organization, 2026)Sjukdomsinformation om hantavirusinfektion (Folkhälsomyndigheten)Mjölbaggar erövrar studentboendet: ”Inte mitt hem längre” (SVT, 2025)Silent Carriers: The Role of Rodents in the Emergence of Zoonotic Bacterial Threats (Pathogens, 2025)8 av 10 stockholmare har sett råttor (Anticimex, 2019)Silverfiskar vanligast men inte så farliga (Hem & Hyra, 2017)MusikGeoff Barrow, Ben Salisbury – Dream RealityCristobal Tapia De Veer – Pain SpeedballKid Loco – Theme from the Graffiti ArtistMarcus Bagalà – Duco in Mara's RoomCliff Martinez – I'm in the PinkMarcus Bagalà – Frets: Problem, After ProblemMartin D Fowler – 1 Ships VIIRamin Djawadi – Winter is ComingAlberto Iglesias – TreasureCliff Martinez – Save Some For UsJocelyn Pook – Driving to PrisonCliff Martinez – I'm SickAlice Cooper – PoisonCliff Martinez – Placental RepairJessica Dannheisser, Adele Roberts – Parade of the GeeseCliff Martinez – Speight Lived HereOchre – Midsummer Nice DreamMarcus Bagalà – Wires: WinchimesMichael Andrews – Peter and SylvieK2 – Bexar BexarCliff Martinez – Navy FuneralMike Patton – Murder is WorkMartin D Fowler – 1 Ships XIITrent Reznor, Atticus Ross – Empty Places (Reprise)Cliff Martinez – Same SweatpantsCristobal Tapia De Veer – The PublicJeff Beal – I think I Smell GasTrentemöller – Take Me Into Your SkinTrent Reznor, Atticus Ross – Clue OneKyle Dixon, Michael Stein – ElevenStar Hopper – Through the HeliopausePaul Leonard-Morgan – Anderson's ThemeMartin D Fowler – 1 Ships IIIJon Brion – You LearnThe Mariachis – La Cucaracha

Could some of the changes we associate with aging actually involve declining oxygen utilization?In Episode 147 of The Dr. Haley Show, Dr. Michael Haley speaks with Brad Pitzele, founder of One Thousand Roads, about Exercise With Oxygen Therapy—better known as EWOT.Brad's interest in EWOT began during his own struggle with cancer, autoimmune illness, chronic Lyme disease, Bartonella, chronic fatigue, severe foot pain, and declining mobility. After trying numerous approaches without meaningful improvement, he used his mechanical-engineering background to build an EWOT system of his own.Brad explains what he experienced after using the system consistently, why he believes oxygen utilization deserves more attention, and how that personal journey led him to establish One Thousand Roads.In this episode, you will learn:• What EWOT is and how a typical session works• Why concentrated oxygen is combined with exercise• How oxygen utilization may change with age and inflammation• The proposed relationship between circulation, capillaries, oxygen, and cellular energy• How EWOT differs from ordinary supplemental oxygen• EWOT compared with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT• Whether the benefits come from oxygen, exercise, or both• What an EWOT session may feel like• Which forms of exercise can be used with EWOT• Why sessions commonly last approximately 15 minutes• How often Brad recommends using EWOT• What to consider when comparing EWOT systems• The difference between 5-liter and 10-liter oxygen concentrators• Why reservoir capacity, mask quality, component safety, and customer support matter• How EWOT may be combined with red light therapy• Potential applications involving exercise performance, recovery, VO2 max, healthy aging, and chronic health challenges• Why EWOT should not be presented as a cure for cancer or other diseasesABOUT BRAD PITZELEBrad Pitzele is the founder of One Thousand Roads, a wellness technology company focused on Exercise With Oxygen Therapy and red light therapy.Brad's work grew from his own experience with serious health challenges, including cancer, autoimmune illness, chronic Lyme disease, fatigue, pain, and limited mobility. He credits EWOT and red light therapy with helping change the direction of his recovery.Combining that experience with his background in mechanical engineering and business, Brad now works to make these technologies easier to understand and more accessible. He also hosts conversations with experts in chronic health recovery, biohacking, and longevity.Learn about Brad's special listener offer:http://onethousandroads.com/drhaleyRESOURCESLearn about EWOT—Exercise With Oxygen Therapy:https://www.onethousandroads.com/pages/exercise-with-oxygen-therapyLearn about Red Light Therapy:https://www.onethousandroads.com/pages/red-light-therapy-educationExplore One Thousand Roads EWOT Systems:https://www.onethousandroads.com/collections/ewot-systemsOne Thousand Roads YouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/@OneThousandRoadsHQVisit One Thousand Roads:https://www.onethousandroads.com/EPISODE TIMESTAMPS00:00 Are You Aging—or Losing Oxygen?00:55 Meet Brad Pitzele02:20 Brad's Health Crisis and Search for Answers06:00 Discovering EWOT and Mitochondrial Health07:43 Building His Own EWOT System09:47 Recognizing Predatory Wellness Marketing11:29 Lyme Disease and Bartonella Explained15:57 When Illness Becomes a Catalyst for Change18:22 Can EWOT Cure Cancer? Responsible Claims19:05 Oxygen, Inflammation, and Aging22:05 The Origins and Proposed Mechanism of EWOT24:00 Exercise Alone vs. Exercise With Oxygen28:18 EWOT vs. Supplemental Oxygen and HBOT36:44 EWOT Explained in 60 Seconds37:38 What an EWOT Session Feels Like39:17 The Best Exercises and Who Uses EWOT42:20 Session Length, Frequency, and Safety45:11 How to Compare EWOT Systems48:18 5-Liter vs. 10-Liter Oxygen Concentrators50:30 Masks, Sharing, and Cleaning51:48 Combining EWOT With Red Light Therapy54:02 VO2 Max, Recovery, and Potential Benefits57:15 Where to Learn MoreHALEY NUTRITION LISTENER SPECIALListen to the episode for the current listener coupon code, which may be used at:https://haleynutrition.com/THE DR. HALEY SHOWDiscover more episodes, videos, transcripts, and show notes at:https://drhaley.com/Subscribe to The Dr. Haley Show on your preferred podcast platform and share this episode with someone interested in oxygen therapy, biohacking, exercise recovery, chronic health challenges, or healthy aging.MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: This podcast is provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.Brad Pitzele's recovery story reflects his personal experience and should not be interpreted as a guarantee of similar results. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before beginning EWOT, supplemental oxygen, a new exercise program, red light therapy, or another health intervention—especially if you have a cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological, or other medical condition.

What if the fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, or mysterious symptoms you've been chasing for years weren't caused by stress, aging, or burnout—but by a tick bite you never even noticed? Lyme disease is one of the most misunderstood illnesses in medicine. But Lyme is rarely just one infection—it's often part of a much bigger picture involving co-infections, immune dysfunction, inflammation, gut health, and environmental triggers. In today's episode, I walk through a functional medicine approach to Lyme disease and tick-borne illness, including: Why Lyme disease is so often missed—and the hidden role of co-infections like Babesia, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, and Anaplasma The limitations of conventional testing and treatment, and how functional medicine looks beyond the infection to understand why some people recover while others remain chronically ill The role of herbs, antibiotics, gut repair, detoxification, immune support, and mitochondrial health in a comprehensive recovery plan What the latest evidence says about emerging therapies like ozone, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and hyperthermia—as well as practical strategies to prevent tick-borne illness in the first place Lyme disease isn't always just an infection—it's often a whole-body disruption. By addressing the underlying drivers of inflammation, immune dysfunction, gut health, and cellular resilience alongside the infection itself, you give your body the best chance to heal and recover. Resources Mentioned: Track your metabolic health with Function Health: https://functionhealth.com/mark (Use code MARK2026 for $50 off your membership.) Have a question you'd love answered on Office Hours? Submit it here (0:00) Introduction to Lyme disease, overview, and Dr. Hyman's experience (4:13) Functional medicine's approach and comprehensive treatment strategies (10:51) Innovative therapies for Lyme disease (14:08) Managing die-off reactions and restoring gut health (17:18) Supporting the immune and nervous systems; prevention strategies (19:29) Future research, persistent symptoms, and conclusion (21:15) Alzheimer's disease, neuroinflammation, and call to action

What if the greatest obstacle you ever faced became the very thing that inspired thousands of others? In this inspiring episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, Matt Sabatello sits down with Talan Yorn, an 18-year-old American Ninja Warrior competitor, Lyme disease advocate, public speaker, author, and founder of Lyme Ninja. Born with congenital Lyme disease, Talan has never known life without chronic illness. His journey has included years of debilitating symptoms, neurological complications, mold illness, multiple tick-borne co-infections, extensive treatment, and even spending years bedridden. Today, Talan is proving that healing is possible. Through determination, perseverance, and a relentless refusal to give up, he transformed his life from being too sick to attend school into competing on national television as an American Ninja Warrior while using his platform to inspire hope throughout the Lyme community. This episode is a powerful reminder that recovery is rarely linear—but with the right support, persistence, and belief, extraordinary things are possible. Meet Talan Yorn Talan Yorn is an American Ninja Warrior competitor, Lyme disease advocate, author, public speaker, stunt performer, ninja coach, and founder of Lyme Ninja. Diagnosed with congenital Lyme disease at just seven years old after years of unexplained illness, Talan has dedicated his life to raising awareness for Lyme disease while encouraging others facing chronic illness to never lose hope. Learn more at Lyme Ninja. Read his inspiring memoir, Overcome: A Lyme Patient's Journey to American Ninja Warrior. In This Episode Matt and Talan discuss: Growing up with congenital Lyme disease Receiving a childhood Lyme, Babesia, and Bartonella diagnosis after years of unanswered questions Living with PANS, neurological symptoms, and immune dysfunction The impact of mold illness on Lyme recovery IVIG, functional medicine, antibiotics, and long-term treatment Going from bedridden to competing on American Ninja Warrior Becoming "Lyme Ninja" Advocating for Lyme disease awareness nationwide Finding purpose through adversity Growing Up with Congenital Lyme Disease Because Talan contracted Lyme disease from his mother before birth, he never knew what it felt like to be healthy. Throughout his childhood he struggled with fatigue, joint pain, fevers, headaches, insomnia, vomiting, and difficulty walking while doctors repeatedly dismissed his symptoms as "growing pains." Everything changed after his mother was diagnosed by Lyme-literate physician Dr. Steven Harris, leading to Talan's own diagnosis at age seven. Finally having answers allowed his family to begin the long journey toward recovery. Talan reflects on what it was like growing up believing his symptoms were normal simply because he had never experienced life without Lyme disease. Watching other children run, play, and participate in sports while constantly battling pain and exhaustion shaped much of his childhood and fueled his determination to one day overcome the disease. Navigating Complex Lyme Disease Beyond physical symptoms, Talan discusses the profound neurological effects Lyme disease had on his life. Along with Lyme disease and multiple co-infections, he developed PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome), OCD, anxiety, insomnia, emotional dysregulation, and episodes of overwhelming rage that were later understood to be driven by neuroinflammation. His story offers an important reminder that Lyme disease can affect far more than the joints or muscles. In children especially, behavioral and psychiatric symptoms may be signs of underlying infection rather than isolated mental health conditions. To learn more about pediatric Lyme disease and PANS/PANDAS, listen to Dr. Somer DelSignore. Treatment, Remission, and Mold Illness Over the course of more than a decade, Talan pursued a comprehensive treatment approach that included antibiotics, herbal medicine, functional medicine, IVIG, immune support, nutritional therapies, mold detoxification, and more recently peptide therapy. After years of treatment, he experienced approximately six months of remission and finally enjoyed the active childhood he had always dreamed about. He played competitive baseball, built friendships, and discovered what life felt like without constant symptoms. Unfortunately, that progress came to a sudden halt after repeated exposure to mold-contaminated homes. The mold triggered a severe relapse, leaving Talan bedridden for nearly three years and forcing him to stop attending school. During this difficult period, IVIG became an important part of his recovery after doctors discovered significant immune dysfunction and extremely low white blood cell counts. Combined with removing mold exposure and continuing treatment, Talan slowly began rebuilding his health once again. For more discussions about mold illness and chronic Lyme disease, explore Tick Boot Camp's interview with Dr. Jill Carnahan. From Bedridden to American Ninja Warrior As Talan slowly regained his health, he returned to a dream he had carried since childhood—competing on American Ninja Warrior. Watching the show as a young boy inspired him to believe that ordinary people could overcome extraordinary obstacles. Years later, after spending nearly three years bedridden, he finally began training. Progress was slow. Every workout required careful pacing, and many training sessions were followed by days of recovery. Still, every small improvement represented another step away from illness and toward the life he wanted. After three years of dedicated training and competing in Ninja Warrior competitions around the country, Talan earned a spot on Season 17 of American Ninja Warrior, advancing to the semifinals. More importantly, his appearance introduced millions of viewers to the realities of Lyme disease and showed patients around the world that recovery is possible. Becoming Lyme Ninja As Talan's athletic career grew, so did his passion for advocacy. He created Lyme Ninja to combine his love for Ninja Warrior with his mission of bringing hope to the Lyme community. Through social media, public speaking, coaching, and interviews, he encourages patients to keep fighting, even when recovery feels impossible. Learn more at Lyme Ninja. Read Talan's memoir, Overcome: A Lyme Patient's Journey to American Ninja Warrior, where he shares his remarkable journey in greater depth. Expanding His Advocacy Competing on American Ninja Warrior gave Talan a larger platform, but his mission extends far beyond the obstacle course. Today, he partners with several leading Lyme disease organizations dedicated to advancing research, expanding patient access to care, and increasing public awareness. Talan has worked with the Center for Lyme Action (CLA), advocating before Congress for increased federal funding for Lyme disease research and public health initiatives. Learn more about the Center for Lyme Action: Episode 378: Center for Lyme Action – An Interview with Bonnie Crater Episode 196: The Bionic Woman – An Interview with Meghan Bradshaw Talan is also a grateful recipient of a treatment grant from the LymeLight Foundation, which helped him continue his recovery and athletic journey. Today, he gives back as a LymeLight advocate, encouraging other young patients and families facing similar challenges. Learn more about LymeLight: Episode 324: LymeLight Foundation – An Interview with Phyllis Bedford Western Medicine Fails a Nurse's Family – An Interview with Ashley Marba More recently, Talan has partnered with Project Lyme, which sponsors his advocacy efforts and athletic competitions, and collaborates with Global Lyme Alliance to educate the public and inspire others through speaking engagements, media appearances, and community outreach. Final Thoughts Talan's story is one of extraordinary resilience. Born with congenital Lyme disease, he endured years of debilitating illness, neurological complications, mold exposure, immune dysfunction, and countless setbacks before gradually reclaiming his life. Today, he continues to manage his health while competing as an American Ninja Warrior, coaching young athletes, advocating for Lyme disease awareness, and inspiring patients around the world. His journey reminds us that healing is rarely linear. There will be setbacks, detours, and difficult days. But with perseverance, the right support, and hope, remarkable progress is possible. As Talan says throughout his advocacy work: "Never give up. Never back down. Never stop fighting." Listen to Episode 572 of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Explore more inspiring conversations by visiting our Doctor Interviews, Researcher Interviews, and the Tick Boot Camp Blog.

Dr. Edward B. Breitschwerdt is a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. He is also an adjunct professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, and a Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM). Dr. Breitschwerdt directs the Intracellular Pathogens Research Laboratory in the Institute for Comparative Medicine at North Carolina State University. He also co-directs the Vector Borne Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory and is the director of the NCSU-CVM Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory. Breitschwerdt's clinical interests include infectious diseases, immunology, and nephrology. For over 30 years, his research has emphasized vector-transmitted, intracellular pathogens. Most recently, he has contributed to cutting-edge research in the areas of animal and human bartonellosis.

Today's guest is the genius and gem of a human- Dr. Richard Horowitz! Dr. Richard is board-certified internist, published researcher, pioneer in integrative medicine, and creator of the MSIDS (Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome) model. He is also a 2x best selling author and one of the foundational doctor's helping people finally taking their health back from chronic disease. Today we discuss how his MSIDS model provides a systems-based framework for understanding how chronic infections, gut dysfunction, environmental toxins, immune dysregulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormonal imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, and other overlapping stressors contribute to persistent illness- and how you can help diagnose AND treat to get your health back. We also discuss various items such as:-Why some get Lyme and some don't-Why some get long COVID and some don't-What holds people back from healing-The foundations you need to ask yourself when trying to heal your bodySome random nuggets of wisdom in this podcast include:Lyme/Alzheimer's link: First published reversal of Alzheimer's biomarkers in a chronic Lyme patient after 9-week dapsone protocol. Bartonella identified as a major driver of long COVID, neuropsychiatric illness, and immune suppression; transmitted via cat scratches, fleas, mites, spider bites — not only tick bites. Emotional trauma / limbic dysfunction blocks biological recovery; limbic retraining (EMDR, DNRS, Primal Trust) is often required before other treatments become effective. Glutathione depletion enables COVID-19 (and other viruses) to replicate; blocking NF-κB and stimulating NRF2 pathways provided protection during the pandemic. Autism biomarkers (neurofilament light, P-tau) appear in children before symptom onset — same Alzheimer's markers found in adults. SO you can say- we get deep and nerdy!!Find Dr. Horowitz and his new book at:https://cangetbetter.com/His questionnaire hereFind his publications and research hereTo preorder his book - go hereMy Website & Work with Me: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/faithandfit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.upliftfitnutrition.com⁠⁠⁠⁠Email for coaching & phone consults: laceydunn@upliftfitnutrition.com & fitandfaith@gmail.comOrder my book ⁠"The Women's Guide to Hormonal Harmony" ⁠on amazon! 

If you've been handed a diagnosis and quietly accepted it as your future, this is a different way to understand how the body actually heals. For seven years, Celinne chased cystic acne across dermatologists, elimination diets, and every remedy she could find. Never knowing the real driver was undiagnosed tick-borne illness. When the diagnosis finally came (Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia), she'd already been told what most people are told: this takes years to heal, if you heal at all. Eighteen months later, her labs came back with no trace of it — a result her former client and doctor, naturopathic physician and tick-borne specialist Dr. Carrie Chojnowski, says she'd never seen. What changed the biology wasn't the medicine alone. She treated the illness as a teacher and cleared the story underneath the symptoms while the science did its work. In this conversation, Celinne and Dr. Carrie open the full case — how tick-borne illness hides and gets missed. Why a diagnosis was never meant to be a prognosis, and how changing the energetic blueprint of a story can reorganize what shows up in the body. You'll hear what becomes possible when you stop handing your future to a diagnosis and start listening to what your body is actually saying. Healing Lyme Disease. ON THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Hear the lab result that stopped her doctor cold 06:17 Trace how seven years of cystic acne hid an undiagnosed infection 12:41 Learn why so much tick-borne illness goes undiagnosed 15:04 Meet Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia as personalities at a party 26:07 Unpack the "bomb and shrapnel" reason people are told they can't heal 32:53 Sit with the belief that we choose our illnesses as teachers 40:53 Define the metaphysical — and how it lands in the body 56:42 Reclaim intuition: why no one should hand you your prognosis 1:07:00 Get the testing behind a result that read as "never had it" KEY IDEAS:

Dr. Deb Muth 00:03What if symptoms that have been dismissed for years aren’t all in your head, but signs of an underlying tick-borne illness or complex chronic condition that needs a different kind of care? Today, we’re talking with Ginger Southley DNP, one of the leading voices in Lyme disease, mortgage, and tick-borne illness care. She brings decades of clinical experience and a deeply patient-centered approach to some of the most misunderstood conditions in medicine. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting-edge approaches to healing, and empower you with the tools to take charge of your life.I’m Dr. Deb, and today we’re diving into the complex world of Lyme disease, co-infections, more jellins, and the deeper factors that can keep people stuck in chronic illness. If you or someone you love has been struggling with unexplained symptoms, fatigue, brain fog, pain, or a long road to answers, this episode is for you. So, as usual, grab your cup of coffee, tea, or whatever helps you settle in, and let’s get started on today’s journey toward deeper healing.You guys can put one of the ads in here, that’d be great. No. There we go. Because otherwise, yes, we’re going to get chatting, and we’ll forget. I pre-recorded the intro part, so we can just dive in, and I can ask you, like, how you got into this, and then we can start our conversation again. Dr. Ginger Savely 02:01Okay, I can’t remember what I said last time, but that’s alright, I’ll just… Dr. Deb Muth 02:04So, we need to protect them. Well, welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness now. I have a dear lady, Dr. Ginger. She’s being so gracious because we already goofed up our first recording we did on Riverside a few months ago, and she’s been gracious enough to come back and join us again and do it all over again while we’re actually recording. So, Dr. Savely, welcome to the show. Dr. Ginger Savely 02:26Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Dr. Deb Muth 02:30Dr. Ginger, tell us a little bit about how you got involved with tick-borne disease and Morgellons, because you are truly a legend in this world, and I’d love for everybody to hear your story. Dr. Ginger Savely 02:42Well, I just to very briefly go over, I got into the tick-borne diseases because my daughter was so very sick with it, and I started learning everything I could, and the next thing I knew, I was picking it up in my… population, I was doing primary care, family practice, and I was picking it up in that group. And then word got around, and next thing I knew, I’m treating a lot of tick-borne disease, became 50% of my practice, then 70% of my practice. And then, a few years into it, I started having, well, first of all, Dr. Harvey, who was a Lyme doctor in Houston, Texas, he and I were constantly communicating about things and comparing notes, and he emailed me and said, have you seen any patients with you know, blue fibers coming out of them? And I said, I don’t think so, but I’ll start looking for it. So, then I did, and I started asking all my Lyme patients about it, just, have you had any unusual things come out of your skin?And once I asked them, then, lo and behold, a certain subset of them said, well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do have that, but I’ve just learned not to mention it, because people think I’m crazy, so I just never, you know, say a word about it. And so I started picking up a lot of these patients, and you know, of course, since I first came at this by way of tick-borne diseases, Lyme, etc. I figured, okay, these people I know have tick-borne disease, so let’s treat that and see if maybe their immune system recovers to the point where they can handle whatever this is causing the Morgellen’s disease. And so that’s the way I approached it at first, just treating underlying infections, since I had no idea what was causing more dilins. I just noted an association with Lyme disease. And so, I put out a paper about 20 years ago. I published a paper that had to do with Basically, one thing… the main point of the paper was correlatingLyme disease with Morgellins, saying that 97% of my Morgellins patients ended up having Lyme or another tick-borne infection. And, so this is… this is the first publication that basically kind of made that correlation, you know, between the line. And I think it’s been taken out of context a lot, misinterpreted. I never for a minute said that Lyme causes more gelins, not at all, and we… that’s a leap way too far for us at this point. I just noticed an association. So, whatever that may mean, who knows? But, you know, certain illnesses, like, for example, AIDS patients are famous for getting thisCarpacea sarcoma. And it doesn’t mean AIDS causes that sarcoma, because other people get it too. It’s just highly associated with the tooth, so… We might be talking about a disease that’s highly associated with tick-borne infections, or maybe it’s caused by a co-infection that we don’t even know about. Or maybe it’s something entirely different, and the tick-borne diseases were just suppressing the immune system to the point where The person succumbed to whatever this was whenever they got into contact with it.And so, I began, you know, just experimenting and trying different cocktails of things to see what would work. And as I began to treat, I realized that The more jealous patients did notget better with a Lyme protocol. They got better when I used a Bartonella protocol, a specific group of antibiotics that’s used to treat the Bartonella infection. Now, again, I’m not saying for a minute Bartonella causes more gelin, but I’m just saying that when I use the treatment for Bartonella, that’s when I get the best results on my mortgageellin’s patients. And I also have noticed that my Morgellen’s patients tend to have other symptoms that are typical Bartonella symptoms, like a lot of the neuropsychiatric symptoms, neuropsychiatric, sorry, and the, the streaks that they’ll get on them, the red tracks. Spontaneous scratches, all that. So those we do see on our Bartonella patients that don’t have more gelin.So, I started… it was… my early patients were, I would always say, you’re the lab rats, because we’re just experimenting with everything, and they were more than willing. I mean, these people were so desperate, they were so miserable, and so… upset by the way they’ve been treated by the medical establishment, that they were, every one of them, at a point of saying. I don’t care what you give me. it… if it… even if it kills me, I’d rather be dead than have to deal with this, you know? Dr. Deb Muth 08:07Try something, right? Dr. Ginger Savely 08:08That’s pretty drastic, I know, but that’s where they were. They were at a point where, I don’t care, I’ll take any risk just to do this. However, I’ve always been using FDA-approved medications, and, you know, it’s just… naturally, I’m treating, sort of in my own, kind of invented way, because there’s no textbooks you can go to for this, there’s no algorithms, there’s no treatment protocols for this, because more than half of the medical world doesn’t even believe it exists. So, we… you know, I looked very carefully at all these patients in my office with magnified, lighted magnification, and I was seeing amazing things. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. Sometimes the hair on the back of my neck would stand out when I would see these things, because You know, bright blue fibers are not supposed to be coming out of the human body. And I would even pull at them with the tweezers, and, you know, they would not come out, so it wasn’t like a matter of they were just stuck on there, you know, from fabrics or something, as dermatologists often claim is the case. Dr. Deb Muth 09:24I had a patient once with Morgellons, and she got a magnification glass that she could attach to her phone, and she, like, took pictures of what was coming out of her skin and video recorded it and sent it to me, and oh my gosh, it’s crazy. crazy how these things come out. And if you don’t see it under a microscope like that, it’s really hard to understand what’s going on. Dr. Ginger Savely 09:48Exactly. And, you know, what we’ve always said is dermatologists usually carry about a 12X scope in their pocket, but you need really more like 60X to see this stuff, because very rarely can you see it with the naked eye. I mean, sometimes you can, but you do need that lighted magnification in order to see it. I do have some patients come to me, they have all the symptoms more jealous, but they say, I don’t think I have fibers, and I said, well. but you… have you really looked with magnification? They said, well, no, I just thought I’d see them, and I… so then it turns out they actually do have them, but… Yeah. So I… I’ve been fascinated mostly then in treating these patients by how… diverse each patient is, because I can develop a protocol that’s working fantastically on this patient, and try it on the next patient. It doesn’t work at all. Dr. Deb Muth 10:49So… Dr. Ginger Savely 10:50So, it’s just back to the drawing board, every single patient. And of course, there’s a huge variance in degree of severity of this illness. I have everyone… everywhere from people who are totally functional, going to work, and just have this annoying thing going on, all the way to people who are just completely marred and disfigured and can’t even get out of bed. So, you know, of course, there’s quite a difference there, and naturally, it’s a lot more difficult to treat the more severe cases. And often with the more severe cases. Our best hope is reducing symptoms significantly to where they’re tolerable. But in the very severe cases, I don’t think I’ve ever had a person yet get 100% well. But I do have plenty of others that have gotten 100% well, but maybe they wouldn’t fall into the most serious category, you know. So, but I, I’ve, tried everything. I have tried… antifungal protocols, antiviral, anti-helminthic, and, you know, just… I’ve tried it all, I swear, I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t tried. And, you know, sometimes you hit on what works for that patient, and it might not… it might be a surprise.I had one patient, I’d been trying the antibiotics with her, we weren’t getting anywhere, and then I just started treating her with itraconazole, an antifungal, and she just… got so much better. And I think probably because in that case, one of her main immune challenges was some… she was probably exposed to mold, she had probably had colonization in her sinuses or wherever else in her body of the mold. So, that… I think if you can find the main thing that’s… really dragging the immune system down and work on that thing, then hopefully you’ll lighten the load on the immune system to where this Morgelins can take care of itself. Because we do know a lot of people get it and barely get sick at all. A lot of times, people will tell me their spouse, or… their child, or somebody says, oh, they’ve had, like, two tiny lesions, and they’ve had a couple of fibers, and basically, that’s it. So, by that, I’m assuming that You know, this is something that usually only those who are very immune-challenged actually come down with. And that’s what I’ve found through the years, that they are immune-challenged. I’ve had AIDS patients with this. I’ve had people on high-dose corticosteroids because they had an immune… some kind of autoimmune problem.I’ve had several organ transplant patients, because they’re given strong immunosuppressants to… so they won’t reject the organ. So, it’s not 100% Lyme patients, and that’s the thing where I disagree with some of the researchers who are trying to propose the idea that Morgillon’s is a dermatologic manifestation of Lyme. No, I mean, I know how to diagnose Lyme disease. It’s a clinical diagnosis. I have patients that not only are just zero, zero nothing on hygienics.They have not one single symptom of tick-borne disease. When you give them antibiotics, they don’t hurt, because they don’t get better. There is no indication that they have Lyme or co-infection, but they have all the awful skin stuff. And in fact, I have found through the years that those people are kind of my hardest ones to treat, because I don’t know what to work with. You know, I don’t… I don’t want to give them all these antibiotics for tick-borne disease if they don’t really have that. Dr. Deb Muth 14:54Right, hard to find that initial trigger, right? That’s what we’re always looking. Dr. Ginger Savely 14:58Yes, exactly. That industry. Dr. Deb Muth 15:00If we can’t find the initial trigger, how do you know where to start? It’s like a guessing game. Dr. Ginger Savely 15:04I know, so… and of course, the other thing I’ve discovered through the years is that Another immune challenge that is common to all these patients is mold toxicity. So, if I don’t… can’t find any particular infection to treat. Then I… I start thinking about the possibility of… that the patient is mold toxic, that they are… they are living in now, or previously lived in, a moldy home, or maybe they… sometimes they work in a moldy place. Dr. Deb Muth 15:38to him. Dr. Ginger Savely 15:39And for, you know, one quarter of the population, this can be… these mycotoxins are just huge immune suppressants. And so. I used to test that genetic haplotype test that Dr. Shoemaker does. I used to do it on all my more jealous patients. every single one of them came out mold susceptible. So after a while, I just stopped doing it, because I kind of got the point. And also, you know, it’s an expensive test, and insurance often doesn’t cover it. So, But anyway, that… that is… excuse me, I gotta take a drink here, my mouth is dry. Okay, so, alright. Now, of course, I have to figure out where I was. What were you saying? Dr. Deb Muth 16:27We were talking about mold in Schumacher. Dr. Ginger Savely 16:28Oh, yeah. Dr. Deb Muth 16:30for that. Dr. Ginger Savely 16:31Yeah, so you know, mold is the big thing now, right? I mean, I know you’re looking at… we’re all looking at it. I’ve been in the Lyme world long enough to remember back when we didn’t, and we were always so baffled by some of our patients just didn’t get better. Why aren’t they getting better? I’m doing the same thing with them. They’re not getting better. And then come to find out is, you know, they had this, these mycotoxins that they… their body was not able to detox. You know, these people can’t detox the mycotoxins on their own, so… They’re… they’re quite an immune suppressant if you’ve got those going on, so… There’s other things that hold people back from getting well, of course. I find that my PTSD patients can’t get well unless they’re really actively working on the PTSD by going to therapy groups, whatever, you know, it is.I find that people who live in a smoky home where people smoke… well, I don’t even take patients who smoke, because that’s just so counterproductive. to getting well, but sometimes you could look at a home where everybody’s smoking, you know, and that passive smoke, too, is so bad, too. So… and then, of course, I’ve got people, unfortunately, that may be living in abusive situations and can’t get out, and that is also another thing that just halts the treatment.So, you know, everybody… a lot of times people will get online and say, you can never get well from this, don’t even believe anybody that says you can get well. Well, you know, that might be the case in your case, because we don’t know all the various immune challenges you have. But every single patient is different, and that’s why I really can’t publish a protocol or anything like that. Dr. Deb Muth 18:23Yeah, because… Dr. Ginger Savely 18:24it’s kind of more of an art than a science, almost. You know, you just have to feel your way through it, but I… through the years, I have, kind of. start… I found that there’s two antibiotics. If I start with those two, I’m pretty much always going to get some kind of a good response, and that is, a sulfa drug and clarithromycin, the two of them together. Now, that’s not all I do, but that’s a starting point, and I often tell other doctors, look, if you’re going to refer them to me, get them started on those two drugs, you know, just… that’ll already help some. Yeah. And now, of course, a lot of people are allergic to sulfa, so then we have. Dr. Deb Muth 19:10to go. Dr. Ginger Savely 19:11We have to go with something else. But there’s… there’s a lot of different combinations, but basically, I’ve found that, like, if I really go after that Bartonella, and I do a combination, like, the sulfa. doxycycline and, rifabutin, for example. Those… those really get us somewhere. But it’s not… never a quick fix, you know, it’s… it takes a lot of patience, because It’s… it’s slow to get over this. Dr. Deb Muth 19:42Yeah, it seems like, you know, a lot of what we’re talking about in the tick-borne world these days, too, is immune system, right? And there’s so many new things that we’re learning. I was having a conversation with one of the docs from Invita Medical, and they were saying they are seeing a lot of their Bartonella patients are developing cancer. And so all of these things that suppress our immune system, and there’s so many in the world, right? Do you think that’s partially why so many people get overlooked and misdiagnosed when it comes to a tick-borne illness or a mortgage illness? Because they’re… they’re not looking at the root, they’re not looking at the immune system, they’re just kind of looking at symptoms, and of course, everybody thinks these people are crazy, because they have so many bizarre. Dr. Ginger Savely 20:26Symptoms, you know. Well, you know, I always tell my patients, like, if they have to fill out a form or something saying what they have. I always say, say you have Bartonellosis, because Lyme is a trigger word, Magellan’s doesn’t exist. Yes. So, just put you… and you know, when they take that to another doctor. 9 times out of 10, the other doctor doesn’t even know what that is. Dr. Deb Muth 20:52they don’t… Dr. Ginger Savely 20:53They know what cat scratch disease is, they know that name, and that’s an. Dr. Deb Muth 20:58cute. Dr. Ginger Savely 20:58Bartonellosis. But if you say Bartonella to them, they’re kind of confused. And so, in a certain sense, that’s kind of a good thing, because it’s better than it being a knee-jerk reaction, like, get out of here, you’re crazy. Dr. Deb Muth 21:13Time doesn’t exist, what are you talking about? Dr. Ginger Savely 21:15Oh, right. Dr. Deb Muth 21:16Right, it’s… Dr. Ginger Savely 21:17It’s just a… it’s a trigger word, too, but they’re kind of baffled with the Bartonella, like, oh, wait a minute, what is this? Dr. Deb Muth 21:23Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 21:24Yeah, that’s always, I think, a good approach to do. But, yeah, I’m always pointing out to my patients that it’s a lot easier to catch Bartonella than Lyme, because there’s so many… there are more different vectors for Bartonella than any other vector-borne infection. So, there’s a number of different bites you can get where you can get Bartonella, and I notice a lot of my patients start having more gellens after a flea infestation, and flea… fleas can give you Bartonella, correct? Dr. Deb Muth 21:58Huh? Dr. Ginger Savely 21:58Cat scratches can, too. A lot of them will bite. Dr. Deb Muth 22:01noceums? Dr. Ginger Savely 22:02It’s like, and in fact, who knows? We don’t even really know all the ones that could possibly give Bartonella, so… Bartonella needs to be really high up on the list of the differential, and it’s not on the list at all with, you know, most. Dr. Deb Muth 22:20Hmm. Dr. Ginger Savely 22:21I don’t even think infectious disease doctors, but certainly not primary care doctors. So, I don’t know what the connection is with Bartonella. It may just simply be, coincidentally, the same things that treat Bartonella, treat this, who knows? The thing is, to say anything like. so-and-so causes more gelands, we’re not even close to being there, you know, in terms of the little research we have. Sure, we have research that shows the presence of certain pathogens in the lesions. But correlation does not equal causation, so we don’t know what that means, that they’re there. But interestingly, they’re about… I think I put this in my book, even, that they’re about, 15 different kinds of skin lesions, where if the patient has Lyme you can biopsy the lesion, and you’ll find Borrelia, the spirochetes, the causative agent of Lyme, in the lesions.So, did the Lyme cause those? nobody knows, because Lyme bacteria loves to go to the weakest part of the body, and so it’s gonna go to any, like, a lesion, it’s gonna go there, because it’s a weak part of the body, so… it may be there just for that reason. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s causing it. So, lots and lots of work to do in terms of research on this, but it’s very difficult, because, you know, money, we don’t have money for it, and . Dr. Deb Muth 24:07Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 24:08There’s no… Dr. Deb Muth 24:08There’s money behind it if we don’t have a drug to fix it. Dr. Ginger Savely 24:10Oh, yeah, that’s true. I mean, you know, we just can’t really get anybody interested in it, like CDC, or… you know, they just are… they did such a… you know, they… they just didn’t really put their heart into doing that one little research study they did. They used all the wrong patients. They didn’t even have an inclusion criteria for the patients, and so they actually… admitted patients to the study that, yeah, they didn’t have more tones. You know, they basically admitted everybody who’d been in with something itchy. You know, of course, a lot of those people didn’t have itchy, so it was… it was so crazy. But, yeah, I feel very… constantly very frustrated that… nobody’s really looking into this, because it is amazing what it can do. I have patients with big holes in their faces, you know. I have a patient who developed, cervical cancer while I was treating her. She had the treatment for it. And it all started out, though, when the doctor saw a huge lesion on her cervix, and when trying to get a little scraping, like to do a biopsy. it just… a hole opened up. Just a hole. Dr. Deb Muth 25:31Gosh. Dr. Ginger Savely 25:32And this is what happens to a lot of my patients, is, like, they develop, kind of, craters in their face. deep holes. Dr. Deb Muth 25:39So… Dr. Ginger Savely 25:40There are so many aspects to this disease. I mean, it’s way more than just the fibers, the filaments. Right, exactly. There’s so many other odd things that’s going on, you know, they all have this sort of a sticky thing all over their skin. Biofilm? I don’t know, but, you know, that’s… they all complain about that like a black tarry stuff coming out of their skin. All the different things that come out, too, you know, they look like, some of them look… do look like little tiny white maggots, and so you can kind of see why people… Do think that they have some kind of an infestation, because an infestation means when you have something along the lines of a, you know, flea, lice, you know, that sort of thing. But many, many patients come to me convinced that that’s what they have. I don’t know, maybe some of my patients do have that as well, but some of the symptoms are very unique to Morgellins, and primarily one. The one symptom that is totally unique to Morgellons is these filaments of different colors that come out. And you can compare Morgillins to, in fact, I did in my book, to any number Of, dermatologic manifestations, and… you can find them that are almost exactly like it, but always the one difference being that Margellis has the fibers, and that other diagnosis does not. So, many of my patients have been misdiagnosed with one of those other things, because the… I think the… the dermatologist or whoever gave the diagnosis wasn’t really looking carefully and didn’t really believe the patient when they said they had filaments. They usually think, oh, they’re just from your clothes, they’re just stuck in you. Dr. Deb Muth 27:32don’t know, they, they don’t. Dr. Ginger Savely 27:34Yeah. Dr. Deb Muth 27:34unfortunately. Dr. Ginger Savely 27:36But they don’t have the curiosity either, which is mind-blowing. Dr. Deb Muth 27:40I know, right? Dr. Ginger Savely 27:41Yeah. If it’s… Dr. Deb Muth 27:42Just kind of straightforward, black and white, that’s all I do. So, Dr. Ginger, how do we help patients feel believed again after being dismissed so long and by so many doctors that. Dr. Ginger Savely 27:55Yeah, huh? Dr. Deb Muth 27:56just don’t know, just don’t know what they don’t know, but they’re trying to be helpful, and unfortunately, sometimes they’re not. They’re hurting the patient by telling them that this is all in their head, or… Dr. Ginger Savely 28:06Yeah. Dr. Deb Muth 28:06It’s just. Dr. Ginger Savely 28:07I mean, of course, we just need some more… much more education of the doctors, right? Dr. Deb Muth 28:13Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 28:13They’re the ones that really need… but there are some things that patients do need to be very careful about, and this is just all in the world of learning how to tiptoe around doctors. One thing, never say the M word. If you go in, never say… don’t even suggest it. Just go in there, like, kind of dumb, like, oh, you know, I’ve got this thing going on, what do you think it is? You know, you don’t want to do that. You don’t ever want to suggest a diagnosis either, just act stupid, because that way… They’ll really look into it, you know? Dr. Deb Muth 28:49Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 28:50You suggest a diagnosis, then they get irritated, and they just don’t want to even look into it any further. So, you do just sort of have to play dumb a little bit, and just go, gosh, what could this be? I can… you know, and tell the symptoms. Now, even my patients have done that, though. they… a lot of times, they feel, maybe the doctor doesn’t say they’re crazy, but they just feel like they’re kind of brushed aside, like, yeah, well, okay, just put some cortisone cream on it, or, you know, that kind of thing. And I think that just sort of speaks to what’s happened in our medical system lately. I’m very disturbed to hear the stories of people saying they… they… the doctor spent very little time with them. Seemed rushed, didn’t even look at them, didn’t even touch them, certainly didn’t look a magnifier. And it’s… I’m very distressed by the state of healthcare in our country, how this is happening to people. People feel very, very disillusioned with healthcare nowadays. They don’t trust doctors anymore, because, you know, they’ve loved. Dr. Deb Muth 29:58Right. Dr. Ginger Savely 29:58Right. So many times, and so, yeah, I don’t know what we’re gonna do about that predicament. Dr. Deb Muth 30:05I know, my mother-in-law’s 86, and she told me when she went for her physical last year, they… they never took her clothes off, they didn’t even listen to her heart or lungs, or feel her liver, nothing. There was… I said, well, that’s not a physical exam! Dr. Ginger Savely 30:19You know what that is? It’s a Medicare wellness check. Dr. Deb Muth 30:22That’s a… Dr. Ginger Savely 30:22You have to get a Medicare well… but all… this is a Medicare wellness check. They ask you, like, 5 questions. Have you fallen? You know, da-da-da-da. They ask you the questions. I think they weigh you and, you know, review… So, no, it’s not a real physical, it’s just something to make Medicare happy. But, yeah, I know people start being overlooked as they get older. They just kind of, you know, we’re old, whatever, you know, so they don’t… they don’t worry so much. And I’ve had patients as old as… I guess my oldest patient with this was 88. And those… those older people are so miserable, too, when they have this, and they really are just not so much told they’re crazy, but just kind of, whatever. Yeah, their doctors are just not… not particularly interested in what’s going on with them. Dr. Deb Muth 31:17You’re old, what more do you expect? I hear that a lot from my older clients, that that’s. Dr. Ginger Savely 31:21And they’re. Dr. Deb Muth 31:21old. Dr. Ginger Savely 31:22I remember when my father lived to be 94, and the thing that frustrated… and he was a PhD in physiology, so he’d actually worked with MDs a lot, and… Dr. Deb Muth 31:32Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 31:32He, he, he used to get so angry, about, about that whole situation, you know? It’s… he, would often say, you know, I go to the doctor, I complain about a pain, and they laugh and say, what do you expect? You’re 90. You know, and my dad was always very active to the end, and he didn’t… it was unusual for him to have the pain, and you know, it should have been looked into rather than just… scoffed at like that. Dr. Deb Muth 32:03missed. Dr. Ginger Savely 32:03It is a problem, you know, in our system, and you don’t find too many specialists in advanced care, in geriatric, whatever you want to call it. I’m… I’m fast approaching that age myself, so I hate to use the word geriatric I think I’m technically geriatric right now, but I can’t… Dr. Deb Muth 32:25We’ll just bypass, that’s just a number. Dr. Ginger Savely 32:27Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, so… Dr. Deb Muth 32:32Andrew, this is a great conversation. I always like to end our show with one last question, and this is always a doozy, so you’ll have to put your thinking cap, or you’ll have to calm yourself when I ask this one. If there was one thing you could change in our medical system today, what would it be? Dr. Ginger Savely 32:52that… Well, it would all have to do with insurance, because insurance is the thing that’s making doctors feel so rushed that they can’t really take time and listen to the patient and properly examine them, because in order to make enough money, with what insurance reimburses them, they just have to, you know, move them in. Dr. Deb Muth 33:12knowing that. Dr. Ginger Savely 33:13And so, you know, if doctors were given… and I bet some of them would really enjoy being able to spend more time with the patient and really listen, but they just can’t because of the way the way it’s all rigged up with health insurance. And so, I want… I want to think that doctors would be happy to do that if they were able to, but, you know, that’s the thing is, I remember writing a paper, even when I was in my undergraduate. about the importance of validation, and this is way before I knew anything about Morgellons, but it was just, like, a big deal to me, like, you know, people need to be listened to and heard, and not brushed off, and validation… You know, when people are validated. they already feel 50% better. It’s just, you know, people will say that after the first visit with me, and I haven’t even done anything yet, that they already feel better, because somebody’s finally taking them seriously, and listening to them, and really… caring, and that’s… I mean, shouldn’t that be basic to all healthcare? I would think it should be, but it’s just not always the case these days, I see. Dr. Deb Muth 34:31Yeah, I agree, I agree. Well, for people who are listening to us, and they’re like, I want to talk with her, I want to meet her, how do they find you? Dr. Ginger Savely 34:41Well, the email address is Lyme DC, Lime, L-Y-M-E-D-C as in District of Columbia, that’s where my office is, limedc at gmail.com. And that is, the address to ask for a new patient packet. I am still accepting new patients. Usually takes a couple months to get in, but I have people fill out paperwork first. sometimes… I mean, I accept most patients, but there’s occasionally, when I look at the history, if they’ve already been to 15 other Lyme doctors, I might not. But, you know, I just like to know in advance as much as I can. Dr. Deb Muth 35:24Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 35:24about the patient, because it’s very hard to… you know, I… I can’t really give advice to Mordellin’s people who just talk to me briefly, because, oh my gosh, I need to know so much, I need to know… Dr. Deb Muth 35:34I’m. Dr. Ginger Savely 35:34so much about their history, and their… I mean, it’s just… and I think people get frustrated with me because you know, come on, just give me… give me some tips here real quick, and I was like, it’s so dependent on your story. It’s so individualized that I can’t… I don’t feel even good about trying to give advice to somebody just randomly out of the blue like that. And it… I guess maybe it makes people frustrated and makes them think, oh, you just want the money or something. No, I mean, it’s a lot of responsibility for me, what I do. I’ve been doing… I’ve been taking care of more jealous patients for 25 years. It’s put me at very high risk. I’ve been investigated before by my board, and I’ll tell you, it was not… not a very pleasant thing to go through. And so I said, yeah, I have to keep a little bit of a low profile, and, you know…Yep. And so, people just need to understand that if somebody is taking care of their mortgage, that the healthcare provider who’s taking care of them, they’re taking a personal risk, because they’re doing something that’s not accepted. By the general medical population and by their regulatory board, and so they could very well be called out and even lose their license for doing it. Dr. Deb Muth 36:58Yeah, very much so. It’s good to… to point that out, because these doctors, we’re all putting our neck on the line to help these patients, and sometimes the patients don’t appreciate that or don’t understand that, and they can put us in arm’s way without… sometimes without realizing it, sometimes on purpose. Dr. Ginger Savely 37:16You know, most of my patients, though, are just… they’re so protective of me. You know, they go to the ER for something, and then they’ll say, well, who’s treating your… Dr. Deb Muth 37:27anonymous. Dr. Ginger Savely 37:27so-called Mordellins. well, don’t worry about it, I have a good provider. You know, they just won’t even give my name. But like you say, sometimes accidentally it has happened, and then I get a call from some ER doctor, and it’s usually ER. Dr. Deb Muth 37:44remote. Dr. Ginger Savely 37:44room doctor yelling and screaming at me, and, you know. Dr. Deb Muth 37:48Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 37:48Like, oh… Dr. Deb Muth 37:50Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 37:50So… Dr. Deb Muth 37:51It’s unfortunate, isn’t it? I had a patient recently see another GI doctor who said, if I prescribed 3 different antibiotics at one time, I’d lose my license. And I’m like, oh, well, not really, but… and, you know, and it upset the patient quite a bit, because now they look at me and they think I’m doing something wrong, because the conventional person told them that it was a problem, and it’s really sad how those things happen. Dr. Ginger Savely 38:16Well, this is something that’s really gotten me very annoyed lately, is when pharmacists see things prescribed that they’re worried about, their job is to contact the doctor and say. Dr. Deb Muth 38:28Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 38:29Are you really sure about this? You know, no, what they’re doing is scaring the patients to death. Dr. Deb Muth 38:35Right. Dr. Ginger Savely 38:35They’re saying, okay, here’s what your doctor gave you, but I’m just going to warn you, I mean, geez, taking all those at once, gee, I wouldn’t, you know, and that’s the way they’re talking. So then they lose faith in me, and they don’t realize I’ve been doing this so long, and I’ve had so many thousands of people take this. I know from experience not going to hurt them. But, you know, the pharmacist just read it in a book somewhere, so they assume that it’s going to be awful for. Dr. Deb Muth 39:02Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 39:02But that’s… that’s very unprofessional of them to do that. That’s not really their job to do that, but I… it’s happening a lot, I see that. Dr. Deb Muth 39:11happening a lot. Instead of just picking up the phone and calling the doctor. They’re, like you said, upsetting the patient, or calling the board, or those kinds of things. And what happened to that professional courtesy and that exchange of our knowledge bases? You know, I’ve gone to the pharmacy and picked something up, and the pharmacist looks at me, he says, I don’t know what this drug is. And it happened during the pandemic, when I was prescribed hydroxychloroquine, and I’m like, you don’t know what hydroxychloroquine is? Dr. Ginger Savely 39:41Pharmacist? I was like… Dr. Deb Muth 39:43Really? And it was an older pharmacist, and I was like, really? And I… I was like, at first I thought, are you just saying that because you don’t understand why you’re giving it to somebody, or are you saying that to hope that I say something different? Dr. Ginger Savely 39:57Yes. Dr. Deb Muth 39:57Really surprising to me how many medications… Dr. Ginger Savely 40:00Question? Dr. Deb Muth 40:01Yeah, yeah. How many medications the pharmacist really claim they don’t know anything about, or they don’t know how to use it? That’s their job, to know about. Dr. Ginger Savely 40:10Sorry, it’s. Dr. Deb Muth 40:11It’s very scary these days. Dr. Ginger Savely 40:12I’m seeing a lot more incompetence in pharmacists, so many scary mistakes being made all the time now. All started with the pandemic. Yep. Ever since the pandemic, pharmacies are making tons of mistakes. Dr. Deb Muth 40:25Yeah. Dr. Ginger Savely 40:25I remember getting so mad at one one time. I said, look, you have one of the two careers where you’re never, ever allowed to make a mistake. Air traffic controllers and you. Dr. Deb Muth 40:35That’s right. Dr. Ginger Savely 40:36Unfortunately, I’m sorry for you, but you cannot make mistakes. Dr. Deb Muth 40:40Yeah, they can’t. I mean, it can be deadly for them, and they do. Dr. Ginger Savely 40:44Yeah. Dr. Deb Muth 40:45Unfortunately, I think, you know, it’s who they’re hiring, it’s the corporate aspect of the pharmacy these days. Dr. Ginger Savely 40:52Probably so. Dr. Deb Muth 40:53Yeah, it’s a… it’s a big mess. Dr. Ginger Savely 40:55Well, I don’t… I didn’t mean this little part here to scare people. I’m sorry about that, I didn’t… didn’t intend to do that, but I just feel like one thing I would do… I do, is if I… if you go pick up a prescription, don’t walk away from the counter yet. Look at it. Look at the bottle, make sure… Dr. Deb Muth 41:17Hmm? Dr. Ginger Savely 41:18That’s what you’re supposed to get, that the quantity’s right, that everything’s good. Dr. Deb Muth 41:23Because once… Dr. Ginger Savely 41:23you walk away from the… you don’t have any recourse. Right. So before you even leave, you know, just… just check it out and make sure. That’s right. And a lot of times, people are given the wrong quantity, or any number So, they. Dr. Deb Muth 41:36They don’t tell you that your insurance won’t dispense the full amount. Dr. Ginger Savely 41:40Right, they just, they just… Dr. Deb Muth 41:41They don’t have it all on stock, so they’re only giving you a partial fill. They won’t tell you any of those things, and then you. Dr. Ginger Savely 41:47Right. Dr. Deb Muth 41:48Call and get that information from them after the fact, and it’s not fun to try to do that, for sure. Dr. Ginger Savely 41:53Oh my gosh, no. I hate calling pharmacies. Dr. Deb Muth 41:56I know, me too. Well, Dr. Ginger, this was such a great conversation. Is there anything else you want to leave our listeners with before you and I sign off? Dr. Ginger Savely 42:04I just want them to have hope. That’s the most important thing. Because many patients with Morgellons do give up hope, and there’s a high suicide rate in this group. And, you know, don’t… don’t give up hope. Don’t give up. There’s… there are people out there who can help you. I’m not the only one. There aren’t many of us, but there are some other I would be able to refer you to if I can’t take you on. And, you know, just… Just know that there are those of us out there who believe in this, we know it’s real, and we’re just desperately trying to see what we can do to help. Dr. Deb Muth 42:46Well, thank you for all your years of support and patient-centered approach. It’s definitely a blessing to have you. Thank you. Dr. Ginger Savely 42:54Alright, thank you so much for having me. Dr. Deb Muth 43:01Where am I? Thank you so much for joining me today on Let’s Talk Wellness Now. Dr. Savely’s decades of experience working with Lyme disease, co-infection, and Morgellins, and your compassionate, patient-centered approach. are such an important reminder that healing starts with being heard, believed, and truly understood. If this conversation resonates with you, I encourage you to share it with someone who may be searching for answers and hope on their healing journey. Remember, complex chronic illness is not something you have to navigate alone. For more information about Dr. Savely’s work, visit her on her website, and we’ll put those links below. And until next time, I’m Dr. Deb, reminding you to take care of your body, mind, and spirit. Be well, and we’ll see you on the next episode. The post Episode 273 – The Hidden Truth About Morgellons, Lyme Disease & Bartonella | Dr. Ginger Savely first appeared on Let's Talk Wellness Now.

If you've been told your labs are fine but you still feel terrible, this episode is for you. Dr. Pamela Cipriano is an ILADS-trained nurse practitioner who spent ten years watching her own son deteriorate from undiagnosed Lyme disease — dismissed by doctor after doctor — before she finally figured out what was wrong and healed him herself. In this conversation, she breaks down why standard Lyme tests are practically designed to produce false negatives, what the HNK-1 natural killer cell count reveals that most labs miss, and how a co-infection called Bartonella is quietly being misdiagnosed as ALS. She also gets into the Lyme biofilm problem — why even IV antibiotics can't touch it — and the stevia + serrapeptase protocol that finally broke through for her son. Plus, her emerging research on ivermectin for Bartonella, and what she's seeing with seizures triggered by Herxheimer reactions. If you or someone you love has unresolved neurological symptoms, autoimmune markers that don't quite add up, or a history of tick exposure, this is a conversation worth your full attention. Find Dr. Cipriano at thepracticeofhealthandwellness.comFor the complete show notes, links and transcripts, visit inspiredliving.show/252

Dr. John Kim was 33 years old, a practicing functional pharmacist who thought he was living a healthy life, when he walked into the ER with chest pain and was told he was probably fine. He wasn't. An 85% blockage in his LAD, a stent, three days in cardiac ICU, and a month later — a positive test for Bartonella, sky-high aspergillus antibodies, mycoplasma pneumonia, Epstein-Barr, parasites, and severe mercury toxicity traced back to childhood. Two years to clear the Bartonella. Six months for the mold. And a complete reinvention of how he practices medicine. In this conversation with Freddie, Dr. Kim breaks down what functional medicine is getting dangerously wrong right now — the supplement stacking, the endless detox protocols, the practitioners who skip the nervous system entirely — and lays out what actually has to happen first. Heart coherence before supplements. Nervous system regulation before binders. EMDR before mold remediation. And a lipid panel that actually includes lipoprotein A and APO B instead of just chasing LDL numbers. The second half of this episode goes deep on biotoxins and cellular damage in a way you won't hear in most wellness spaces. Dr. Kim explains the cell danger response — why the mitochondria shifts from making energy to playing defense, and why so many people with MCAS, long COVID, Lyme, and autoimmune conditions are completely stuck in that state — and what it actually takes to get out. He breaks down how toxins like heavy metals, mold, and BPA bind directly to DNA in what's called a DNA adduct, why plasma therapies and standard detox protocols don't reach that level of damage, and what does — butyric acid, TUDCA, and a sequenced approach that rebuilds the cell membrane before asking the body to clear anything. He also covers the IGL epigenetic blood test from Germany, protein misfolding, and why the goal of any good practitioner should eventually be to never see their patient again. Find Dr. John Kim at drjohnkim.com and on Instagram at john.pharmd.   Episode Highlights - [00:00] – Dr. John Kim shares the heart attack that changed his life at just 33 years old. - [07:30] – Why clean cholesterol and normal labs didn't prevent a life-threatening cardiac event. - [08:36] – The heart markers beyond cholesterol that deserve more attention. - [10:36] – Heart coherence, gratitude, and how nervous system regulation supports cardiovascular health. - [15:07] – Understanding the Cell Danger Response and why chronic illness gets stuck. - [20:22] – A practical healing hierarchy for mold illness, MCAS, and chronic inflammatory conditions. - [24:59] – Why circadian rhythm may be the most overlooked free intervention in health. - [37:46] – The problem with treating lab results instead of treating the person. - [44:24] – Should people order their own functional lab testing? The benefits and limitations. - [53:57] – A real-world story showing how heart coherence transformed chronic anxiety in six weeks. - [55:59] – The truth about plasmapheresis, detox culture, and expensive biohacking trends. - [01:01:58] – Why lasting healing requires resilience—not lifelong detox protocols.  Connect with Dr. John Kim: Website: https://drjohnkim.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john.pharmd My Circadian App: https://mycircadianapp.com Upgrade Your Health LightPathLED: https://lightpathled.pxf.io/c/3438432/2059835/25794 Code: beautifullybroken Silver Biotics Wound Healing Gel: https://bit.ly/3JnxyDD 30% off with Code: BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN MaxGen Labs: https://maxgenlabs.com/BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN StemRegen: https://www.stemregen.co/products/stemregen?_ef_transaction_id=&oid=1&affid=52 Code: beautifullybroken CONNECT WITH FREDDIEWork with Me: https://www.beautifullybroken.world/biological-blueprintWebsite and Store: (http://www.beautifullybroken.world) Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/freddie.kimmelYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@beautifullybrokenworld Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So many of you have asked me about Lyme disease and mold, and today I'm bringing you someone who has studied - and lived - them both.Tricia Soderstrom spent two years chasing a diagnosis while her joint pain, fatigue, and cognitive fog got dismissed as "normal pregnancy stuff" and then "just getting older." When she finally tested positive for Lyme, her doctor gave her the real news: she'd likely had it a long time, probably had co-infections too, and this wasn't going to be quick.In this episode, we get into:Why standard Lyme tests miss the diagnosis roughly 70% of the time — and why a negative result doesn't mean you're in the clearWhat co-infections like Bartonella and Babesia are, and why they change your treatment entirelyWhat happened when Tricia's kids started showing symptoms too, and how a single dose of "prophylactic" antibiotics can quietly sabotage future testingFour and a half years on antibiotics with zero nutritional support — and what she wishes she'd known before starting that protocolThe mold connection neither of us expected: how it can make Lyme symptoms worse, and why "the inspector said it's fine" isn't always true (we've both heard that one)Learning to live outside again without holding your breath every time you walk through the grassIf you've ever been told "your bloodwork is normal" while your body told you something else, this one's for you.Find Tricia at aboundinginhopewithlyme.com, and follow her @aboundinginhopewithlyme on Instagram and Facebook.You can find Laurel Brennan @rootcauseology and www.rootcauseology.com

Download Chapter 1 of Breast Implants, Explant Surgery, and Breast Implant Illness — FREE → https://robert-whitfield-md-pllc.myklpages.com/l/ScrLbh——————————————————————————Episode 175 Dr. Robert Whitfield sits down with Dr. Kim to unpack one of the most overlooked drivers of chronic illness — mold toxicity and its impact on the cell membrane, mitochondria, and lymphatic system. Dr. Kim shares his own health crisis (a heart attack at age 33 caused by undiagnosed Bartonella and mold toxin exposure) and explains how mycotoxins like aflatoxin, ochratoxin, and gliotoxin damage cell membranes, disrupt bile flow, fuel biofilm formation, and contribute to neuroinflammation, mast cell activation, and parasitic susceptibility. The conversation dives deep into the science of cell danger response, phospholipid membrane repair, drainage pathway support, and why aggressive detox protocols can backfire without proper preparation. Dr. Whitfield connects these findings to his clinical work with breast implant illness patients, including PCR testing data showing biofilm formation on breast implants and its relationship to environmental toxin exposure. Topics covered include: How mold toxicity can mimic cardiac symptoms and trigger misdiagnosis The role of phospholipids, SPM-based fish oil, and essential fatty acids in repairing damaged cell membranes Why biofilms form and how they protect bacteria, mold, and heavy metals from the immune system The gut-liver-bile connection and enterohepatic recirculation of mycotoxins Nervous system regulation, mast cell activation, and why "safety" must come before aggressive detox Practical guidance on binders, glutathione precautions, sleep hygiene, and pre-surgical detox protocols—————————————————————————— Ready to take the next step?Book a Discovery Call → https://discovery.drrobertwhitfield.com (https://discovery.drrobertwhitfield.com/)Learn about the SHARP Method (Strategic Holistic Accelerated Recovery Program) → https://www.drrobertwhitfield.com/sharpJoin Dr. Rob's Circle (private community, 390+ members) → https://drrobscircle.com (https://drrobscircle.com/)——————————————————————————Dr. Robert Whitfield, MD, FACS is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Austin, Texas, specializing in breast implant illness (BII), explant surgery, and holistic surgical recovery. He has performed 2,000+ explant procedures and patients travel from 40+ states and 15 countries to work with him.#BreastImplantIllness #Explant #SHARPMethod #ChronicInflammation #BreastImplantRemovalPinned Comment Grab Chapter 1 of my book completely free — it covers what breast implant illness actually is, the 3 steps I use with every patient, and a real patient story. No fluff.→ https://robert-whitfield-md-pllc.myklpages.com/l/ScrLbhComment SHARP below if you want more on surgical recovery.

After years of debilitating symptoms and searching for answers, Adam was diagnosed with Lyme disease.What began as a personal health battle eventually led him down a seven-year investigation into chronic illness, immune tolerance, the history of Lyme disease, and the research behind his book, The Sleeper Agent. In this conversation,Adam shares his personal journey, explains why Lyme disease can be so difficult to diagnose, discusses the role of co-infections, and explores the historical research that shaped his investigation into Plum Island and the work of Erich Traub. Topics include:• Lyme disease• Chronic illness• Tick-borne diseases• Immune tolerance• Multiple co-infections• Plum Island• Erich Traub• The Sleeper AgentIf you enjoyed this interview, the extended Waiola Plus conversation goes much further.On the Waiola Plus side, Adam discusses Operation Paperclip, biological warfare, historical biodefense programs, vaccine history, public health, chemical warfare, intelligence connections, and many of the controversial subjects that could not be included in this YouTube version.If you enjoyed this interview, the extended Waiola Plus conversation goes much further.On the Waiola Plus side, Adam discusses Operation Paperclip, biological warfare, historical biodefense programs, vaccine history, public health, chemical warfare, intelligence connections, and many of the controversial subjects that could not be included in this YouTube version.If you want the complete interview, join the Waiola Plus community at:https://www.patreon.com/wakeupwithmiyaYou can also become a YouTube Member for extended interviews and bonus content:https://www.youtube.com/@WakeUpWithMiya/joinAdam's website:https://thesleeperagent.comMahalo for watching. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and share this episode with someone who might find it interesting.BUY ME A COFFEE LINK Support the Show & Stay Connected:Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/sensiblehippieJoin My Patreon for ad-free episodes & exclusive content: https://Patreon.com/WakeupwithMiyaIf you're joining Waiola – The Plus Side, please subscribe through a web browser (Safari or Chrome) instead of the Patreon app — it directly supports the show.Mahalo nui loa for supporting independent work and helping keep this platform growing.Shop my Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/profile/amzn1.account.AGYOPCXXGH6MN5RVAKGQWVZUZLEA/list/26B87RB4FZ9W2?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_aipsflist_6BWRT43TH4MY2NM2XD6XWant to be on the show or suggest a guest? I'm looking for guests who can speak on human trafficking, the paranormal, occult symbolism, hidden history, spiritual warfare, ancient mysteries, and specific military stories involving covert operations, secret programs, psychological warfare, unexplained events, and firsthand accounts.Email me at: Miya@wakeupwithmiya.comFollow Me Online:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WakeupwithMiyaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/WakeupwithMiyaExclusive Discount!Shop at LVNTA: https://lvnta.com/lv_IcTq5EmoFKaZfJhTiSUse code OHANA for 20% off!Listen on Your Favorite Platform:Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and everywhere podcasts are available!RATE & REVIEW:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wake-up-with-miya/id1627169850Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0UYrXCgma1lJYzf8glnAxyMusic Credits:Beginning: "Echoes in the Shadows" - DKEnd Music: “Crazy” - EkoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wake-up-with-miya--6339129/support.

The Diagnosis Your Doctor Is Too Afraid to Make You've been depressed, exhausted, foggy, and in pain for years. You've tried the antidepressants. You've done the workups. Everything comes back normal. But you are not normal. You are not well. And nobody can tell you why. What if it's Lyme? Dr. Terri sits down with Pamela Cipriano, DNP, APRN — a functional medicine and Lyme disease specialist who trained under one of the country's leading Lyme experts — to have the conversation most conventional doctors won't. From a teenager who spent two years in a psychiatric facility before anyone thought to test him for Lyme, to the political reality that doctors in Texas can be reported to their board just for making the diagnosis — this episode exposes why one of the most common tick-borne diseases in the country is also one of the most misdiagnosed. The symptoms of Lyme overlap almost perfectly with depression, anxiety, hormone imbalance, autoimmune disease, and neurological disorders. That's not a coincidence. It's a diagnostic crisis. If you've been chasing answers and hitting walls, this episode is for you. What you'll discover: Why the standard two-tier Lyme test misses the majority of cases and what patients should be asking for instead [12:23] How Lyme can hide in the body for decades before a stressful event triggers full-blown symptoms [06:09] The teenager misdiagnosed with a psychiatric disorder who spent two years institutionalized before anyone tested him for Lyme [20:19] Why doctors in Texas risk board complaints just for diagnosing Lyme disease and what that means for medical freedom [08:18] How Lyme symptoms overlap with hormone deficiency, creating a compounding diagnostic blind spot [31:15] Co-infections like Bartonella and Babesia: what they are, why most doctors aren't testing for them, and how they change the treatment picture [28:15] The connection between Lyme, mold toxicity, and chronic illness and why the best providers look at all of it together [33:47] How to find a provider trained to properly test and treat Lyme when only a few hundred specialists exist in the entire country [39:14] You are not crazy. You are not anxious. You may just not have the right diagnosis yet. The Dr. Terri Show is presented by EVEXIAS Health Solutions.Learn more and find a provider near you at evexias.com Connect with Dr. Terri:

My guest Nicole Bell is the CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics and author of What Lurks in the Woods. She came to this work after her husband's Lyme disease — along with co-infections Bartonella and Babesia — was misdiagnosed as early-onset Alzheimer's. He passed away in 2022. In this episode, we talk about why the standard Lyme test misses so many people (hint: it's 30-year-old technology that relies on antibody detection from a pathogen that actively suppresses your immune system), what co-infections like Bartonella and Babesia actually do to the brain and body, and how Galaxy Diagnostics is using urine-based antigen testing and digital PCR to find what older tests can't. We also get into the myths that keep people from getting the right diagnosis — including why only 14% of Lyme patients get the classic bullseye rash, why Lyme is present in all 50 states, and why finishing a round of doxycycline doesn't mean you're in the clear. If you or someone you love is dealing with unexplained mood changes, cognitive decline, chronic fatigue, anxiety, or joint pain — this conversation is worth your full attention. For the complete show notes, links and transcripts, visit inspiredliving.show/249

Could Lyme disease or co-infections be contributing to gut symptoms that aren't improving?In this episode, Dr. Crane Holmes and the turd nerds break down Lyme disease and common co-infections - including Bartonella and Babesia - and how they can impact not just the gut, but the entire body. We explore how these infections can present as chronic digestive issues, brain fog, inflammation, and multi-system symptoms that don't respond to typical treatments.In this episode, we discuss:What Lyme disease actually is (and why it's often misunderstood)The role of co-infections like Bartonella and BabesiaHow these infections can affect the gut, nervous system, and immune systemWhy symptoms often go beyond digestion (brain fog, fatigue, joint pain)When to consider Lyme or co-infections in complex casesChallenges with testing and diagnosisTreatment approaches, including antimicrobials, herbs, and biofilm supportThis episode is for anyone dealing with chronic gut symptoms, unexplained inflammation, or complex health issues that haven't improved with standard approaches.Music provided by Blue Dot.

What happens when chronic Lyme disease takes away your health, your confidence, and even your sense of self? In this deeply emotional and inspiring episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, Jasmin Perdomo shares her powerful 12-year journey through chronic Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, debilitating neurological symptoms, medical gaslighting, emotional trauma, and ultimately — rediscovering herself through poetry, faith, and healing. Raised in New Jersey and once a hyper-athletic young woman, Jasmin never imagined she would one day become bedridden, unable to walk without holding onto walls, crawling from her bed to the bathroom, and searching desperately for answers no doctor seemed able to provide. But through unimaginable suffering came transformation. Jasmin opens up about: Living years undiagnosed with Lyme disease Severe neurological Lyme symptoms including vertigo, memory loss, facial paralysis, and heart complications The emotional toll of chronic illness and divorce Her experience with aggressive antibiotic protocols and Herxheimer reactions Why detoxification, nervous system healing, spirituality, and creativity became essential parts of her recovery How poetry became her lifeline during the darkest moments of her journey This conversation is raw, validating, and hopeful for anyone navigating Lyme disease, chronic illness, trauma, or identity loss. In This Episode You'll Learn Jasmin's Early Lyme Disease Symptoms Jasmin describes how unexplained fatigue, tachycardia, heart palpitations, vertigo, ringing in the ears, slurred speech, and neurological symptoms slowly overtook her life while living in Puerto Rico. The Reality of Medical Gaslighting Like many Lyme patients, Jasmin spent years searching for answers while being misdiagnosed, dismissed, and prescribed medications that failed to address the root cause of her illness. Chronic Lyme Disease and Emotional Trauma The episode explores the connection between stress, trauma, emotional suppression, nervous system dysregulation, and chronic illness progression. How Poetry Became a Healing Tool While bedridden, Jasmin returned to writing poetry — something she loved as a child — and discovered that creative expression became a powerful emotional detox and survival mechanism. Buy Bittersweet Body: a Poetic Memoir, Jasmin's debut poetry book, inspired her life's mission: to illuminate the invisible in a visible world. The Importance of Detoxification and Nervous System Healing Jasmin discusses the therapies that helped her most, including: Sauna therapy Binders Meditation Faith and prayer Journaling Acupuncture Gentle movement Emotional release through writing Learning to Receive Help One of the most moving parts of the interview centers around Jasmin's struggle with independence, vulnerability, and learning how to accept support from loved ones during her healing journey. Key Takeaways From Jasmin Perdomo's Lyme Journey Healing from Lyme disease requires addressing the physical, emotional, and spiritual body. Detoxification can be just as important as antimicrobial treatment. Creativity and self-expression can become powerful healing tools. Nervous system regulation matters in chronic illness recovery. You are not weak for asking for help. Healing is possible — even after years of suffering. Quotes From This Episode “Poetry saved my life. It gave me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when I couldn't breathe.” “When my body became a stranger, writing helped me remember who I was.” “You are not weak for asking for help.” “Healing isn't just physical. It's emotional, spiritual, and deeply personal.” About Tick Boot Camp Tick Boot Camp is a Lyme disease advocacy platform dedicated to helping people liberate themselves and others from Lyme disease through education, validation, community, and hope. Through powerful conversations with patients, doctors, researchers, and healers, Tick Boot Camp reminds listeners that they are not alone — and that healing is possible.

Dr. Pamela Cipriano shares her journey from being an ICU nurse to a trailblazer in functional medicine. She discusses her personal experiences with Lyme disease, the importance of hydration, nutrition, and the impact of chronic illnesses. Dr. Cipriano emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to health, focusing on root causes and lifestyle changes, while also sharing insights on the effects of COVID and the importance of proper diet and hydration. In this conversation, Dr. Pamela Cipriano discusses the implications of vaccination, particularly in relation to health concerns and the effects of spike proteins. She emphasizes the importance of Vitamin B12 and mitochondrial function in overall health, while also addressing oxidative stress and innovative therapies for chronic conditions. The discussion extends to the future of Lyme disease treatment and the challenges in diagnosing and treating Bartonella, highlighting the need for proper education and awareness in managing tick-borne diseases.   For Audience Join the other 20,000+ high-performers getting weekly insights on biological reversal, exponential strategies, and Life Energy optimization→ https://start.gladdenlongevity.com/subscribe If you're ready to measure your 60+ biological ages and build a personalized reversal plan, apply for a discovery call here → https://start.gladdenlongevity.com/apply-now   Use code 'Podcast10' to get 10% OFF on any of our supplements at https://gladdenlongevityshop.com/!      Takeaways   ·       Dr. Cipriano transitioned from nursing to functional medicine to help patients achieve better health. ·       Her personal experience with her son's Lyme disease shaped her focus on chronic illnesses. ·       Chronic diseases often have triggers that can be identified and addressed. ·       Water intake is crucial for overall health and disease prevention. ·       Nutrition plays a significant role in managing inflammation and chronic diseases. ·       Avoiding processed foods and sugars is essential for maintaining health. ·       The quality of food, including meat and dairy, impacts health outcomes. ·       Functional medicine requires a thorough understanding of a patient's history and lifestyle. ·       COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of diet and hydration in recovery. ·       The healthcare system often prioritizes medication over holistic health solutions. Vaccination can lead to health problems in some individuals. ·       Spike proteins may persist and cause long-term health issues. ·       Vitamin B12 is crucial for nervous system health. ·       Mitochondria play a vital role in cellular function and energy production. ·       Oxidative stress accelerates aging and cellular damage. ·       IV therapies can significantly aid in recovery from chronic conditions. ·       Bartonella can mimic severe neurological disorders like ALS. ·       Proper testing is essential for diagnosing tick-borne diseases. ·       Education is critical for effective treatment of Lyme disease. ·       Innovative therapies are emerging for chronic health issues.       Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Pamela Cipriano 01:32 Journey into Functional Medicine 02:52 Personal Experience with Lyme Disease 04:55 Understanding Chronic Illnesses 06:57 The Importance of Water and Hydration 13:43 Nutrition and Anti-Inflammatory Foods 19:28 Insights on COVID and Long COVID 20:26 The Impact of Vaccination and Health Concerns 21:53 Understanding Spike Proteins and Their Effects 22:38 The Importance of Vitamin B12 23:54 Mitochondrial Function and Health 25:53 Oxidative Stress and Its Management 27:45 Innovative Therapies for Chronic Conditions 30:37 The Future of Lyme Disease Treatment 32:55 Bartonella: Diagnosis and Treatment Challenges 39:56 Navigating Tick-Borne Diseases   To learn more about Dr. Pamela Cipriano: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Pamela.Cipriano Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/practicehealthwellness YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.pamelacipriano1329 Website: https://www.thepracticeofhealthandwellness.com   Reach out to us at:    Website: https://gladdenlongevity.com/     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Gladdenlongevity/    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gladdenlongevity/?hl=en     LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gladdenlongevity    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5_q8nexY4K5ilgFnKm7naw    

What happens when your body starts to heal, but your mind is still trapped in survival mode? In this episode of hol+, Dr. Taz sits down with Amy Kurtz, certified health coach, patient advocate, speaker, and author "But You Look Fine", for a powerful conversation about chronic illness, Lyme disease, medical gaslighting, nervous system trauma, and what it really means to heal.Together, they explore Amy's 20+ year journey through unexplained pain, chronic symptoms, misdiagnosis, and the search for answers that finally led to a diagnosis of late-stage neurological Lyme disease and co-infections. Amy shares what it was like to be told her labs were normal while knowing something was deeply wrong in her body, and how years of invalidation shaped her relationship with her health, her identity, and her trust in herself.Dr. Taz and Amy also discuss why so many people live in the “gray zone” between sick and well, especially when symptoms are invisible, complex, or hard to explain. They unpack why normal labs do not always mean optimal health, why Lyme disease can be missed for years, and how chronic illness can impact relationships, career, emotional safety, and the nervous system.This conversation offers a grounded and hopeful look at what happens after illness, when the body may be improving but the mind and nervous system are still bracing for the next crash. Amy introduces her concept of Medical Trauma Brain, or MTB, which describes the anxiety, hypervigilance, fear, and survival patterns that can remain after chronic illness, cancer, stroke, chronic pain, or any major health crisis.If you're listening to this and thinking, “I know something is off in my body, but I don't know where to start,” join the Circle here:

What if your body already has everything it needs to heal and unresolved trauma is the only thing standing in the way?In this episode of What Happens in Vagus, Dr. Stephanie Canestraro sits down with Peter McLaughlin, a certified hypnotherapist who put his chronic lymphocytic leukemia into remission in 2003, without chemotherapy. Peter's journey began in the wreckage of a life running on pure adrenaline: a demanding Wall Street career, a two-hour daily commute, three young children, and an office one block from Ground Zero on September 11th. When his body finally gave out, his leukemia diagnosis became the catalyst that set him on a path toward subconscious healing, hypnotherapy, and a complete understanding of the mind-body connection.Together, Peter and Dr. Stephanie explore one of the most overlooked truths in chronic illness: that emotional trauma, including small, seemingly insignificant moments from childhood, gets stored in the subconscious mind and continues to drive the body's stress response for decades. Because the subconscious has no concept of time, a humiliating moment in third grade or a cry left unanswered in a crib can still be activating a fight-or-flight response in your body today. This chronic activation of the autonomic nervous system suppresses immunity, disrupts hormones, stalls digestion, and creates the environment in which disease takes root.Dr. Stephanie also shares her own healing journey from a Lyme disease and Bartonella infection that attacked her nervous system and went undiagnosed for over a decade, to the functional medicine interventions, precious metal IVs, and reconnection with her body's inner wisdom that finally brought her back. Together they connect the dots between nervous system dysregulation, frequency medicine, and the extraordinary capacity of the human body to heal when given the right tools.✦ In this episode:• How chronic stress and emotional trauma directly contribute to serious illness• Why childhood events your conscious mind has "forgotten" are still running your nervous system• What hypnotherapy actually does and how it clears emotional toxins from the subconscious• Why you cannot heal in fight-or-flight mode and how to shift into rest-and-digest• How cortisol signals your body to hold onto fat• 432 Hz healing music, binaural beats, and frequencies that regulate the nervous system• Applied kinesiology, muscle testing, and pendulum work as tools for inner wisdom• Peter's work with professional athletes and how childhood trauma shows up on the field• Precious metals (gold, silver, platinum) and their role in healing chronic infection• The placebo effect as proof of the mind's power to heal the body✦ Find Peter McLaughlin:Website & healing tracks: blueskyhypnosis.comYouTube: @blueskyhypnosis✦ About Dr. Stephanie Canestraro:Dr. Stephanie is a chiropractor, functional medicine practitioner, and chronic illness survivor. Her practice and this podcast are rooted in one belief: that the body is designed to heal, and that the vagus nerve is the master key to making that happen.Let us know your thoughts on this episode hereFor any further information, feel free to email us at info@vagusclinic.com.  Our team is happy to help.  We offer 20-minute complimentary health calls, and you can sign up for one here.

This is episode 83 of the Love, Hope, Lyme podcast. This podcast does not replace medical care. If you're struggling with Lyme symptoms, please seek proper medical care. The pdf of Love, Hope, Lyme: What Family Members, Partners, and Friends Who Love a Chronic Lyme Survivors Need to Know is always free for chronic Lyme survivors. Reach out to Fred Diamond on social media for your copy.

In this episode of the Gladden Longevity Podcast, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden speaks with Nicole Bell and Jennifer Miller from Galaxy Diagnostics about the challenges and advancements in diagnosing and treating tick-borne illnesses, particularly Lyme disease. They discuss the personal journey that led Nicole to become the CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics, the complexities of the immune response to Lyme, and the innovative diagnostic approaches being developed to improve patient outcomes. The conversation also touches on the implications of co-infections and the future of research in this critical area of health.   For Audience Join the other 20,000+ high-performers getting weekly insights on biological reversal, exponential strategies, and Life Energy optimization→ https://start.gladdenlongevity.com/subscribe If you're ready to measure your 60+ biological ages and build a personalized reversal plan, apply for a discovery call here → https://start.gladdenlongevity.com/apply-now   Use code 'Podcast10' to get 10% OFF on any of our supplements at https://gladdenlongevityshop.com/!      Takeaways ·       Nicole Bell's personal experience with tick-borne illness led her to Galaxy Diagnostics. ·       Lyme disease can be misdiagnosed, leading to severe consequences. ·       The immune response to Lyme is complex and can lead to chronic inflammation. ·       Genetic predispositions can affect how individuals respond to tick-borne pathogens. ·       Innovative diagnostic methods are being developed to improve detection of Lyme and co-infections. ·       Urine samples can be effective for diagnosing Lyme disease. ·       Co-infections like Bartonella can complicate treatment and diagnosis. ·       Early diagnosis is crucial for effective treatment of tick-borne illnesses. ·       Research is ongoing to better understand the relationship between tick-borne pathogens and mental health. ·       Galaxy Diagnostics aims to change the standard of care for tick-borne illnesses.     Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Tick-Borne Illnesses 05:04 The Journey of Diagnosis and Treatment 09:50 Understanding Lyme Disease and Its Challenges 14:53 The Immune Response and Genetic Factors 19:54 Innovative Diagnostic Approaches 24:53 Co-Infections and Their Implications 29:55 The Future of Tick-Borne Pathogen Research   To learn more about Nicole Bell/Galaxy Diagnostics:Email: nicole.bell@galaxydx.com Website: https://www.galaxydx.com/   Reach out to us at:    Website: https://gladdenlongevity.com/     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Gladdenlongevity/    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gladdenlongevity/?hl=en     LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gladdenlongevity    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5_q8nexY4K5ilgFnKm7naw       Gladden Longevity Podcast Disclosures Production & Independence The Gladden Longevity Podcast and Age Hackers are produced by Gladden Longevity Podcast, which operates independently from Dr. Jeffrey Gladden's clinical practice and research at Gladden Longevity in Irving, Texas. Dr. Gladden may serve as a founder, advisor, or investor in select health, wellness, or longevity-related ventures. These may occasionally be referenced in podcast discussions when relevant to educational topics. Any such mentions are for informational purposes only and do not constitute endorsements. Medical Disclaimer The Gladden Longevity Podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services — including the giving of medical advice — and no doctor–patient relationship is formed through this podcast or its associated content. The information shared on this podcast, including opinions, research discussions, and referenced materials, is not intended to replace or serve as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Listeners should not disregard or delay seeking medical advice for any condition they may have. Always seek the guidance of a qualified healthcare professional regarding any questions or concerns about your health, medical conditions, or treatment options. Use of information from this podcast and any linked materials is at the listener's own risk. Podcast Guest Disclosures Guests on the Gladden Longevity Podcast may hold financial interests, advisory roles, or ownership stakes in companies, products, or services discussed during their appearance. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Gladden Longevity, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden, or the production team. Sponsorships & Affiliate Disclosures To support the creation of high-quality educational content, the Gladden Longevity Podcast may include paid sponsorships or affiliate partnerships. Any such partnerships will be clearly identified during episodes or noted in the accompanying show notes. We may receive compensation through affiliate links or sponsorship agreements when products or services are mentioned on the show. However, these partnerships do not influence the opinions, recommendations, or clinical integrity of the information presented. Additional Note on Content Integrity All content is carefully curated to align with our mission of promoting science-based, ethical, and responsible approaches to health, wellness, and longevity. We strive to maintain the highest standards of transparency and educational value in all our communications.

Are you doing everything "right"… but still feeling exhausted, inflamed, or stuck? In this episode of The Coach Debbie Potts Show, I sit down with Brad Pitzele, founder of One Thousand Roads, to explore one of the most overlooked drivers of energy, recovery, and resilience: Oxygen at the cellular level. After facing autoimmune arthritis, malignant melanoma, Lyme disease, and Bartonella, Brad found himself searching beyond conventional approaches when his health continued to decline. What he discovered is something many high performers—and especially midlife athletes—often miss: Your body cannot produce energy, repair tissue, or recover effectively without proper oxygen delivery and utilization. In this conversation, we break down the science and real-world application of Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) and red light therapy, and how these tools can help improve mitochondrial function, reduce inflammation, and restore energy. We also explore how poor oxygen utilization may be contributing to fatigue, brain fog, slow recovery, and metabolic dysfunction—even when you're training, eating well, and doing all the "right" things. In this episode, you will learn: What Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) is and how it works The connection between oxygen, mitochondria, and ATP production Why fatigue and brain fog may be linked to poor oxygen utilization How red light therapy supports cellular energy and recovery The concept of an "oxygen deficit" and its role in chronic inflammation How oxygen supports detoxification through the lungs and movement Why high performers often get stuck in a "survival mode" state Practical ways to begin improving oxygen delivery and recovery capacity Free Resource from Brad Pitzele: The Synergistic Power of EWOT & Red Light Therapy www.bradtalkshealth.com https://www.onethousandroads.com/pages/podcast Connect with Brad: Website: One Thousand Roads Instagram: @onethousandroadshq If this episode resonates with you and you are ready to stop guessing and start testing your metabolism, energy systems, and recovery capacity: Schedule your Discovery Call at: www.debbiepotts.net The Coach Debbie Potts Show is designed for high-performing individuals in midlife who want to improve metabolism, build strength, restore energy, and optimize longevity by addressing the root cause—not just the symptoms.

In this episode of Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill, Dr. Jill Carnahan welcomes Dr. Richard Horowitz, one of the world's leading experts in chronic illness and tick-borne disease, to discuss the groundbreaking science behind the MSIDS model and its implications for conditions ranging from Lyme disease to Alzheimer's. Dr. Horowitz shares revolutionary findings connecting chronic infections, inflammation, environmental toxins, gut dysfunction, and immune imbalance to persistent disease. He also discusses a surprising breakthrough involving Alzheimer's biomarkers and chronic Lyme treatment using his innovative dapsone protocol. This powerful conversation explores how addressing the root causes of inflammation and chronic illness may transform the future of medicine and offer hope for patients struggling with complex, unresolved health conditions.

After a serious heart attack with no conventional warning signs, Dr. John Kim went searching for answers. He was shocked to find what conventional testing never unearthed: he was unknowingly fighting a Bartonella infection, a heavy mycotoxin load and parasites. This was when the pharmacist turned functional medicine practitioner learned the role cellular energy plays in health breakdowns, and, vitally, in healing.  In this episode, you'll learn about cell-danger response and the connection between biotoxins and mitochondrial dysfunction (did you know if your cells are healthy they repel parasites?!). Dr. Kim shares his best tips for cellular healing (butyrate, phospholipids and sunlight) and walks us through the steps he takes his own clients through: taking stock of your individual environment, healing your nervous system, detox pathways, strengthening the microbiome, and building resilience so you can live your life. Chapters 2:54 Dr. John Kim's Heart Attack Story 4:11 His Struggle with Biotoxins 9:11 Cell Danger Response 11:00 The Impact of Mitochondrial Dysfunction 14:01 Mold Toxicity and Its Effects 19:49 Detoxification Strategies and Methodologies 24:00 The Encore Method for Healing 29:02 The Importance of Circadian Rhythms 32:15 Harnessing Sunlight for Cellular Health 36:09 Optimizing Cellular Function and Detoxification 45:30 Creating Cellular Resiliency 47:03 The Role of Emotional Health in Detoxification 49:22 A Simple Exercise to Increase HRV ------  Follow Doctor Motley! Instagram TikTok Facebook Website Connect with Dr. John Kim: https://www.drjohnkim.com/ https://www.instagram.com/john.pharmd/ ------  * Are you looking for simple, non-invasive sound therapy tools for treating anxiety, or providing balance? You can get $100 off a WAVwatch with the code DRMOTLEY: https://wavwatch.com/pages/doctor-motley *Join Doctor Motley's newsletter for TCM insights and regular podcast updates: https://www.doctormotley.com/ *Do you have a ton more in-depth questions for Doctor Motley? Check out his course on emotions and the body in his membership. You'll find other courses full of his expertise and clinical wisdom, plus bring all your questions to his weekly lives! To try risk-free for 15 days click here: https://www.doctormotley.com/15

What happens when your country's medical system refuses to believe you have the disease that's destroying your life? In this episode of Integrative Lyme Solutions, Dr. K sits down with Lachlan Onegin-Ward, a marine biologist and wildlife conservationist from Australia who contracted Lyme disease after being bitten by 17 ticks on a snake-spotting trip south of Sydney. What followed was a years-long battle not just against Bartonella, Rickettsia, and Babesia — but against a medical system that handed him antacids instead of answers. Lachlan shares the raw reality of fighting Lyme disease in a country that officially denies its existence, navigating a healthcare system that left him bedridden, seizing, and unable to move his arms — all while spending tens of thousands of dollars chasing a diagnosis. He opens up about the neurological relapse triggered by COVID, the PTSD of living with an invisible illness, losing close friends who couldn't understand what they couldn't see, and the grassroots mission he's now on to make sure no other Australian has to go through this alone. Key Takeaways: 0:00 Introduction  3:00 17 tick bites, one wildlife trip  8:10 Australia's medical system denies Lyme exists  13:20 Triple co-infection: Bartonella, Rickettsia, and Babesia  18:00 COVID triggers seizures after 11 seizure-free years  25:00 The financial toll of chasing treatment in Australia  30:30 Podcasting to fill the awareness gap  34:00 Invisible illness and the friends who disappeared  Schedule a Free 15-Min Phone Lyme Consultation at The Karlfeldt Center: 208-338-8902 Resources: Lyme Disease Association of Australia - https://www.lymedisease.org.au/ Tick Science Alliance - https://ticksciencealliance.au/ IGENEX - https://igenex.com/ Let's Get Aussie Wild / Corona and Lyme Podcast (Spotify) - https://open.spotify.com/show/0xRfQ3zKvuivkgtBEiFuxf Medical Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or replace professional medical advice. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider regarding any medical condition or treatment decisions. ____________________________________WORK WITH DR. KARLFELDT:The Karlfeldt Center offers the most cutting-edge and comprehensive Lyme therapies available. To schedule a Free 15-Minute Discovery Call with a Lyme Literate Naturopathic Doctor, contact us at:

Your cells are starving for oxygen, and it's silently driving inflammation, fatigue, brain fog, and accelerated aging. This episode reveals how pairing Exercise with Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) and red light therapy supercharges your mitochondria, reverses pseudo-hypoxia, and unlocks a level of human performance most people never experience. -Save up to $500 (through 5/17) at One Thousand Roads: https://www.onethousandroads.com/Dave -Watch this episode on YouTube for the full video experience: https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAspreyBPR Host Dave Asprey sits down with Brad Pitzele, founder of One Thousand Roads and one of the most credible voices in oxygen therapy and red light therapy. Brad didn't come to this work through a lab. He came to it through desperation. After battling autoimmune arthritis, melanoma, and Lyme disease, he rebuilt his health from the ground up starting in 2016 by targeting mitochondrial function when he could barely walk. Eighteen months later, he founded One Thousand Roads to bring these tools to everyone still searching for a way out. Together, Dave and Brad break down the unified theory behind oxygen therapy and red light therapy, two of the most powerful and underrated tools in biohacking. They go deep on pseudo-hypoxia, the condition where your blood oxygen looks fine but your tissues are starving, and explain why this hidden dysfunction sits at the root of chronic fatigue, inflammaging, fibromyalgia, long COVID, and poor sleep optimization. They also cover the endothelium, nitric oxide, arterial stiffness, pulse wave velocity, and why your morning biology might be the most honest readout of your metabolic health. This is essential listening for anyone serious about longevity, anti-aging, brain optimization, functional medicine, mitochondria, metabolism, and smarter not harder approaches to human performance. You'll Learn: What EWOT is and why elite athletes and biohackers use it to flood tissues with oxygen in 15 minutes How pseudo-hypoxia silently blocks energy production and drives chronic illness Why stacking red light therapy immediately after EWOT multiplies results for both How mitochondrial dysfunction connects to endothelial aging, microcirculation failure, and systemic inflammation The role of nitric oxide in arterial flexibility, vasodilation, and real anti-aging markers like pulse wave velocity Why your lungs are your biggest detox organ and how oxygen therapy supports that process How ketosis, fasting, and cellular energy interact with EWOT and red light for maximum benefit What LED lighting is doing to your mitochondria every single day and how to fix it How to build an affordable at-home EWOT setup for around $2,500 Thank you to our sponsors! - Danger Coffee | Grab yours at DangerCoffee.comand use code DAVEPOD at checkout for 15% off. - ENERGYbits | If you want a simpler, smarter way to support your body… this is it. Head to ENERGYbits.com and use code ASPREY for 20% off your order. - Suppgrade Labs | Grab your DAKE and Minerals 101 duo at shopsuppgradelabs.com and use code DAVEPOD for 15% off today - Cowboy Colostrum | Get your gut right by going to cowboycolostrum.com/asprey for 25% off of your entire order. Dave Asprey is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade brings you the knowledge to take control of your biology, extend your longevity, and optimize every system in your body and mind. Each episode delivers cutting-edge insights inhealth, performance, neuroscience, supplements, nutrition, biohacking, emotional intelligence, and conscious living. New episodes are released every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday (BONUS). Dave asks the questions no one else will and gives you real tools to become stronger, smarter, and more resilient. Keywords: Brad Pitzele, One Thousand Roads, EWOT, exercise with oxygen therapy, oxygen therapy, red light therapy, infrared light therapy, pseudo-hypoxia, mitochondria, mitochondrial dysfunction, biohacking, longevity, anti-aging, human performance, inflammation, inflammaging, microcirculation, endothelium, glycocalyx, nitric oxide, arterial stiffness, pulse wave velocity, capillary health, cellular energy, ATP production, aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration, VO2 max, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, brain fog, autoimmune disease, Lyme disease, Bartonella, long COVID, mast cell activation, detoxification, lung health, sleep optimization, metabolism, functional medicine, ketosis, fasting, red light bulbs, LED lighting, light therapy, wavelengths, near infrared, oxygen concentrator Resources: • Save up to $500 (through 5/17) at One Thousand Roads: https://www.onethousandroads.com/Dave • Get My 2026 Clean Nicotine Roadmap | Enroll for free at https://daveasprey.com/2026-clean-nicotine-roadmap/ • Dave Asprey's Latest News | Go to https://daveasprey.com/ to join Inside Track today. • Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/discount/dave15 • My Daily Supplements: SuppGrade Labs (15% Off) • Favorite Blue Light Blocking Glasses: TrueDark (15% Off) • Dave Asprey's BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com • Dave Asprey's New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated • Join My Substack (Live Access To Podcast Recordings): https://substack.daveasprey.com/ • Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com Timestamps: 00:00 – Trailer 01:41 – Welcome Brad 03:01 – What Is EWOT? 05:27 – EWOT vs. Hospital Oxygen 06:51 – Longevity & Inflammaging 11:42 – Pseudo-Hypoxia 12:57 – Red Light Therapy 15:47 – EWOT + Red Light Unified Theory 18:00 – Nutrition, Ketosis & VO2 Max 19:56 – Stacking EWOT & Red Light 22:01 – Equipment & Cost 26:00 – Junk Light & LED Problems 30:51 – Sunlight & Nitric Oxide 32:36 – Endothelium & Microcirculation 38:49 – Arterial Stiffness & Pulse Wave Velocity 43:29 – Lungs as a Detox Organ 45:04 – EWOT for Long COVID 47:58 – Wrap-Up See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Cheryl sits down with Brad Pitzele to unpack a long and complicated health journey that began with early autoimmune symptoms and escalated into psoriatic arthritis, debilitating fatigue, and eventually melanoma linked to immunosuppressive treatment. Frustrated by a system that offered only escalating medications and limited answers, Brad began an intense period of self-experimentation and research. His turning point came after a Lyme disease diagnosis, one that helped connect years of seemingly unrelated symptoms. This ultimately pushed him deeper into understanding the root causes of chronic illness, especially the role of mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation. From there, the conversation shifts into the tools that helped Brad reclaim his health, including exercise with oxygen therapy (EWOT) and red and near-infrared light therapy. He explains how both approaches work at a cellular level to improve oxygen delivery, support mitochondrial function, and reduce inflammation. Thseare are all mechanisms that have implications for conditions like chronic fatigue, autoimmune disease, multiple sclerosis and even cardiovascular health. This episode is a deep dive into resilience, curiosity, and the power of continuing to search for answers when conventional paths fall short, offering both practical insight and hope for anyone navigating complex or unexplained health challenges. Connect with Brad at One Thousand Roads. Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. Takeaways Chronic symptoms do not always have clear answers and standard care often focuses on managing symptoms rather than addressing root causes Mitochondrial health plays a central role in energy, recovery, and overall resilience and when it is compromised nearly every system in the body is affected Inflammation and low oxygen levels go hand in hand, creating a cycle that can worsen chronic illness over time Exercise with oxygen therapy works by increasing oxygen delivery to tissues and may support energy production and reduce inflammation Red and near infrared light therapy may enhance mitochondrial function by increasing cellular demand for oxygen and boosting energy output Combining oxygen therapy with red light can create a complementary supply and demand effect at the cellular level Healing from complex or chronic conditions is rarely quick and consistent cumulative inputs over time matter more than short term fixes Self advocacy and curiosity are critical when navigating unexplained health issues or when conventional approaches fall short Small improvements over time can rebuild momentum and hope even before full recovery is achieved Simple inputs like oxygen, light, and movement can have powerful effects when applied consistently and strategically Watch on YouTube Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript Cheryl McColgan (00:00)Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan and today I am joined by Brad Pitzley and we are going to talk about some of his health history. He has a really interesting background with some challenging diseases and scenarios that he went through. And you know, like many of the guests on the HealNursery podcast, he just has a health journey that he wants to share with people and kind of what ended up actually helping him. Because so often people go down these roads with different conditions and they just have a lot of trouble finding out number one what it is, number two if there’s anything that can help them feel better or how to treat it. And so I think Brad’s going to have a lot of really interesting things to share with us today. So Brad, if you could just maybe start by, I don’t know how far in the way back machine you want to go, but kind of just, you know, give us a little bit about your health journey. And as we go along, I’m sure I’ll have some kind of questions to fill in for everyone. Brad Pitzele (00:50)Yeah, I had weird health things going on since grade school. I was diagnosed with psoriasis, but then I had other weird things that just kind of came and went. We’d go to the doctor, they’d give it a label. It would last for a while. There was no treatment for said label and then it would kind of just disappear and then I’d move on with life and then a year or six months or whatever, something else might pop up. But it really kind of started to come to a head. Um, probably around 2010 or 11, I started to develop autoimmune arthritis, what was considered psoriatic arthritis, which is, it’s basically like rheumatoid arthritis, but it’s what you get with psoriasis. Um, and they started to test all sorts of different drugs on me. The first sets didn’t work. Then they put me on, um, some immune suppressive drugs. They gave me relief for like maybe six months and they’d start wearing off and they would double the dose and they’re. I was kind of worse off when it wore off and then it would kind of bring me up a little bit. And then was kind of like I was taking a stair step into, you know, into a worse and worse place. And I was on those drugs for probably about two years. And then I developed melanoma. And that’s one of the side effects of the drugs is it’s got a high risk of cancer and specifically melanoma. So that was kind of a, a jumping off point for me. I, during that period, I also started to develop weird other symptoms. Like I started to get stiffness in the back of my legs. had tremendous brain fog and energy issues. had pain in my feet and I would take this back to the rheumatologist and I’d be like, this is, is this part of the, this disease? assume. he was like, no, that’s not part of the disease. And I was kind of shocked and like, well, it feels like part of the disease. It’s kind of, you know, it’s just. Cheryl McColgan (02:38)All right. Brad Pitzele (02:41)another symptom of whatever’s going on with me. But he didn’t really acknowledge that. And then when I got cancer, I went back to him and I was like, Hey, you know, I’m really afraid I’m like, if I keep taking these drugs, more risk of cancer. I don’t take these drugs. I, you know, I die, cripple crumpled up in a ball in the corner, so to speak. And he was kind of like, no, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Yeah. I think we’re just going to try another drug in the, the, the same category. And that was like, just started having alarm bells in my head. Just started shouting at me. was like, either path feels like it’s very bad. And I was a, I had a young children at the time. I was a relatively new father and that was even more scary. I was kind of the single income in the household. And I just started like, I’m like, what happens if these things happen to me to not just me, but my family. and that’s kind of when I started jumping off and like doing my own research and trying to figure out what I call a third path for because neither of those really made sense to me. Cheryl McColgan (03:40)those both sound like not very good options. I’m just kind of curious when you were going back to the doctor with these things, kind of two questions here actually. One, and I think I already know the answer, but one, were drugs the only answer that this doctor was able to give to you? And secondly, I think having the cancer being a known side effect of the drug is really interesting. you ever talk about what the mechanism there is or anything to know about that just for people with curiosity? Brad Pitzele (04:07)Yeah, so yeah, mostly it was drugs. He did also offer me injections of steroids into some of my joints. He was very skilled at it, because he said it was gonna be very painful. It wasn’t that painful, but steroids turn off your immune system. And it’s the same thing with some of the drugs I was on. One of them was a… I won’t call brand name, but it was a TNF inhibitor. TNF stands for tumor necrosis factor. And it’s basically in a component of our immune system. And so there was some research done and they found that if they turned off that component of your immune system, hey, the pain and symptoms go away. Unfortunately, as the name alludes to, it kills tumors. when you turn it, we all have cancer in our Cheryl McColgan (04:49)Yeah Brad Pitzele (04:52)body. Like right now as we speak, everyone has it. It’s just our immune system is able to kill it off and so it never really gains a foothold. But once you start tipping the balance of the scales, obviously, you know, it can run amok. And that’s what happened in my case. Cheryl McColgan (05:08)Yeah, very interesting. also it just brings up so many other questions that I’ll have to go down a rabbit hole after we’re done with our conversation. But so you had these things, you didn’t have good relief, you were still having symptoms, then you got cancer. And I assume obviously you had to get treated for that at that point. Was that really the turning point for you to just be like, I’ve got to find some other way to manage this? How did how did things go from there? Brad Pitzele (05:30)Yeah, it was, and I’m not gonna tell you it was a fast turn for me. It took me several years. But I mean, from there, I just started reading anything I could. I read books, I was out on the internet, I was in chat groups talking to other people who had similar symptoms, Facebook groups, Googling on PubMed, looking at research, so many rabbit holes I ran down. I was joking, I’m recovering engineer. ⁓ I got my undergraduate in mechanical engineering, so I’m very analytical by my nature, I suppose. Research didn’t scare me, and I just was reading anything I could. I wasn’t gonna… Cheryl McColgan (05:55)You Brad Pitzele (06:07)You know, wait for them to find something in the research and then try to translate it 20 years later. Like that does me no good. and I tried everything. I did a lot of self experimentation, everything from complete changes of diet, supplements, so many, mean, different modalities, all sorts of weird stuff. Sometimes my family looked at me pretty good side, I when they saw some of the stuff I was doing. but you know, when you’re, when you’re really desperate and. things are getting worse and worse. And particularly when you also feel this responsibility and obligation to your family, you just, it’s not even just about you. You’re like, what do I do? I like, I’m gonna disappoint all these people and life is not gonna be good for them. I just told myself, I’m not allowed. know, like this is absolutely not allowed. This is not gonna happen, but it kept happening for a few more years. And then, I ended up at a doctor’s office and he tried all sorts of things. Nothing was working. He was an MD, but he was non-insurance, so was integrative. And he was trying all sorts of alternate modalities on me. Even the things he was sure were gonna do anything, nothing was doing anything. He’s doing testing on me, nothing was popping. And then he suggested I do a Lyme disease test. I remember thinking, I’m like, doctor, I don’t have Lyme disease. I’m like, I’ve never been bitten by one of these ticks. I’ve never had that bullseye rash thing. I’m thinking to myself, I don’t have that. But I was kind of like, you know what? And it was expensive test at the time. It was like 500 bucks. Insurance didn’t pay. But I was like, you know what? I’m gonna pay the 500 bucks. I’m gonna do the test so he can see it’s negative and we can get him off this Lyme thing. We can get to the real deal because it’s not Lyme. And sure enough, it came back that I had Lyme disease and one of its co-infections called Bartonella, which is the infection that causes cat scratch disease as well. And I was so shocked. went back to him. was like, doc, what’s the chances this is a false positive? I don’t think I have it. And he was like, Brad, it’s a urine PCR, which means you have the DNA of those bacteria in your urine. What do you think is the chances it’s, it’s false positive? I’m like, got it. Cheryl McColgan (08:12)Not. Brad Pitzele (08:14)And that’s when it finally started to hit. ⁓ Cheryl McColgan (08:16)Well, just for people that aren’t familiar, I think everybody’s kind of heard of Lyme disease at some point, maybe Bartonella, but what did that kind of mean to you at the time? Like I’m sure once you got that diagnosis, you wanted to learn more about it. Were you thinking that that explained some of the things that you had up to this point or how did that mesh into the whole symptom profile? Brad Pitzele (08:36)Life disease is incredibly challenging. for a variety of reasons. One, it’s very difficult to get under control. There’s a lot of folks in America and across the world, quite frankly, suffering with it right now. The other reason it’s tough is there’s not a lot of doctors willing to treat it. There’s this whole stigma about it. What makes it particularly difficult is there’s this question on if it actually exists in some doctor’s head. It’s like the weirdest thing in the world. We know there’s this infectious agent, we know it infects humans, and yet when a human comes to the doctor and says, I’ve been infected by it, they’re like, are you sure? And so you kind of get, I think the term I hear often is medical gas lit. And on top of that, doctors, for legal reasons, often don’t want to touch it. So my doctor didn’t want to touch it. And he was like, look, you have to go to a Lyme specialist three hours away. I recommend him as best I can. And it was a long waiting list to get into this doctor’s office. And while I was waiting, just… I was relentless, you I just couldn’t sit here and let myself deal with all this. It was a three month wait. And so I just started reading voraciously on Lyme disease to your point. was reading all sorts of research. I was reading books on it, a lot of books on the, like the science and what was happening to your body mechanically. And it was actually pretty eye opening because when I started to read all these symptoms, I was like, I started to piece together all these pieces, the puzzle that happened to me in my childhood, ⁓ things that happened Cheryl McColgan (10:12)Mm. Brad Pitzele (10:13)more recently, things that the rheumatologist couldn’t explain, but now we’re clear as day what was going on. And so the jigsaw puzzle started to fall into place for me. So it was kind of an epiphany from that perspective, yeah. Cheryl McColgan (10:29)Yeah, that’s got to be the waiting had to be one of the hardest things, I’m sure. then once you finally got to him, did he because he was specialized in Lyme specifically, did he have any solutions for you? Or then was it somewhere that you still had to go to go down the road? Brad Pitzele (10:42)No. You know, the disappointing thing is, I ended up, the whole family was diagnosed with Lyme disease, not just me, my children and so forth. So we all carted in the car down three hours from, I live in Dallas area down in Austin. He had a lot of things to say to us. It was kind of stuff I’d already read. Most of it I’d already tried. know, supplements I’d already run through myself and like it became cost prohibited both the time and the visitation and we just didn’t get anywhere. So we probably visited him. five or six times and then I was like, okay, well this is not, know, and was, each time it was kind of clear, like his tools were somewhat limited. And so then it was time to kind of, while I was doing his stuff, I was also just actively experimenting. was, you know, was a, you know, a test dummy every set, every second of it, because again, you know, you just can’t wait, you know, come back in two months. You’re like, if this thing doesn’t work in a few weeks, I got to, I’ll keep doing it, but I’ll add other things. See where I go. Cheryl McColgan (11:46)Right, well, I’m sure once you knew that your whole family had this issue that probably made you want to solve it even more, not that it wasn’t enough for you to solve it for yourself, but now you’ve got other people in your family that you want to feel well, you know? Brad Pitzele (11:53)Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. was definitely set heavy on my mind. Just I didn’t want the kids to have to go down this path. Cheryl McColgan (12:06)So this kind of leads us into this whole backstory into the sign that’s behind your head right now, 1000 roads, because you kind of did that many roads to get here, right? And so what did you come across? I thought that was like one of the best business names I’ve ever seen, the way, knowing the backstory. But anyway, what was it that you found in the research or what led you to kind of, there’s a couple of things that did end up helping you, which is awesome, because I think now we’re going to share this with people because Brad Pitzele (12:16)Yeah, that’s right. you Thank you. Cheryl McColgan (12:35)Like you said, there’s plenty of people out there with Lyme disease. There’s plenty of people out there with unexplained illnesses or things that are affecting them. And, you know, there are some interesting tools that do work, worked in your case. So how did you end up finding what actually ended up working for you? Brad Pitzele (12:50)Well, I eventually started doing a lot of research on all sorts of things. And one thing that stuck with me was mitochondrial health. I hear more and more folks talking about it in recent years, which is great, but this is probably about a little 10, 12 years ago. It really wasn’t a well-spoken about area. the more I researched about mitochondrial health, the more I realized this is at the root of everything. So for your listeners, the mitochondria are this little organelle, this little subset inside all of your cells that produce the energy. And they’re extremely fragile. And when they get damaged or they’re not working efficiently, nothing works efficiently because everything takes energy, right? Us talking takes energy, thinking takes energy, moving our muscles, our organs working take energy, repair our immune system, all of it. And so often when you’re dealing with chronic health conditions, particularly when you’re dealing with an infectious agent or even cancers, they go after our mitochondria. because they kind of take the power down in the system and that gives them a leg up on our immune system and our defenses and it allows them to kind of I would call it just burrow deeper into our biology and you know shift the biology to be more favorable towards whatever that is. So for me it that was kind of an epiphany and I delved into a couple tools and the first one was something called exercise with oxygen therapy. also known as EWOT, E-W-O-T. No one was really talking about it. It was kind of the small little thing, not a lot of information out there. And then there was a second one, more folks have heard of today, which is red light therapy, and really red and near infrared light therapy. And they both work through mechanisms that help the mitochondria restore itself. Cheryl McColgan (14:45)Yeah, the exercise, I was looking at the photo on the website of the EWOT contraption and I’m kind of having a hard time conceptualizing. think what, and actually before we go into that, let’s address this other question that came up in my mind when I was looking at the contraption, because I’m like, okay, the thing that most people are probably somewhat familiar with nowadays is a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And that is used in cancer treatment. think it was, Dr. Seyfried has this thing, and you might be familiar with him just like. through your mitochondrial research, but it’s called like a press pulse thing that they use with cancer patients. And it has to do with ketogenic diet, because you’re starving the cancer of sugar. And then also this hyperbaric oxygen therapy. That’s, that’s all just kind of a weird aside for people that are hearing this, it really has nothing to do with this conversation. But it’s interesting to look up. But for your thing, the hyperbaric works in one way. And I think people like you can visualize it, because you go in and you kind of just lay down. And that’s what it is. But this And when people go to the website, they’ll see it. It’s kind of, looks like a big balloon or a box. So guess I’m having trouble kind of conceptualizing how do you even use that or, how do you exercise with that? That’s a very long winded question, but hopefully we’ll get there. Brad Pitzele (15:47)Yeah. Sure. Well. Yeah, that’s great. So I think it’s two questions. What is it? How does it work sort of thing? Exercise with oxygen therapy at its principles really simple. It simply involves doing any sort of exercise, preferably something that gets your heart rate up, generally cardiovascular exercise, while wearing a mask and breathing near pure oxygen, so about 93 % oxygen. So to your point about how does the contraption or the EWATS system work, it works as, it’s like this, there’s actually a device called an oxygen concentrator that can produce an endless supply of oxygen. You plug it into the wall and you flip the switch and it takes the oxygen in your room, which is probably at like let’s say 21 % at sea level, and it purifies it to 93 % oxygen by separating out the other gases, the nitrogen and the argon. which is great, but these machines that you can plug into your wall, your home outlet, they produce only five or 10 liters of oxygen in a minute. And when you exercise, you can easily use 50 or 60 liters in a minute. So to get a 15 minute session in, you can easily use 900 plus liters of oxygen. And that machine’s only putting out at the best 10 liters of it. And so every minute. And so what we do is we take that machine and we fill a large reservoir to a thousand liters. So think of it as about six feet, five and a half, six feet squared. It looks like a big pillow. And we fill that thing with oxygen. Now to like dimensionalize this for folks, a thousand liters of oxygen is similar to the amount of oxygen you’ll breathe in an entire day. And we’ll fill this, this, you know, bloom, what we call a reservoir with oxygen. And then we’ll attach a hose with a mask on the end of it. Put the mask on and you just breathe out of that reservoir. of water. So again, in that 15 minutes, you can take in a whole day of oxygen. It’s really a massive amount. Now, how does it compare to hyperbaric oxygen? That’s a really good question. Hyperbaric oxygen, at its core, what you do is you get inside of a chamber, they pressurize it, and that forces more oxygen through your lung membrane and into your blood. Now, Once it gets past your lung membrane and into your blood, your, what happens in hyperbaric oxygen is it goes not just into your red blood cells, because if you look at your red blood cells right now, which are the parts of your blood that are designed to carry oxygen, they’re at capacity. Like you can put a little pulse oximeter on your finger and it’ll say 99 % or 100 % or 98%. And so there’s not room for more oxygen, but what hyperbaric does, and EWAT does the same thing, is it actually forces oxygen into your blood plasma. Now blood plasma is this clearish brown liquid, it’s effectively water plus plus, that all the red and white blood cells ride on. And so it can actually turn that into an oxygen carrying vehicle inside your blood, something that normally doesn’t carry very much oxygen. And that’s through a process called Henry’s Law, which goes beyond human biology. It’s really just a chemistry law that says, you take an insoluble gas and enforce it on top of an insoluble liquid, it’ll force the gas to go into solution. In this case, the gas is oxygen and the liquid is blood plasma. Now, in hyperbaric oxygen, the body tries to get back into balance. It notices there’s a surplus of oxygen in the blood. And so your body tries to regulate, go back to homeostasis by using something called vasoconstriction, which means your blood vessels constrict. They get smaller to allow less of that oxygen through. So your body is naturally fighting against delivering that oxygen. In spite of that, you deliver a large dose of oxygen to the tissues. In IWA, what we do is we come to the opposite. Instead of using pressure to force more oxygen into and through your lungs, we use exercise to pull it through. So when you start exercising, your body immediately recognizes that it needs more energy. And the gating factor in producing more energy is oxygen. We all in this Western world generally get enough food. It’s just we’re… When you’re exercising, there’s not enough oxygen. So when it notices this, you have all these physiological changes, right? You start breathing faster and deeper. Your lung membrane actually thins out to allow more oxygen to pass through. Your heart starts beating faster. Every beat is deeper. Your blood vessels actually dilate. They actually open up to allow larger blood flow through them. And then when you exercise, naturally, actually, your blood pressure goes up. And most of us think, no, high blood pressure is bad, but in exercise it’s actually really good because the more pressure inside your blood, that differential between the pressure in your circulatory system and the tissues is like a driving force that drives the oxygen out of the blood and into the tissues. we do EWAT, we’re taking advantage of all those physiological changes to allow us to take in oxygen very quickly and deliver it deeply into the tissues. in a 15 minute EWAT session, you could take in as much oxygen as you would in a hyperbaric session in 90 or more minutes. It’s really quite a large dose. Cheryl McColgan (21:09)Wow. then what about, so how does that affect the mitochondria? Does it just give them more energy and kind of helps them repair quicker? Or what’s the connection between mitochondrial health and the EY? Brad Pitzele (21:16)Thank This is actually the really fascinating part. And this is the thing that really got me more interested in it. EWAT was founded actually in the 1960s and 70s. There was this prolific inventor named Manfred von Arden. He was a German physicist and inventor. He invented the scanning electron microscope. He helped commercialize television technology in the 1930s. And he got interested in oxygen in 1960s and 70s because there was a gentleman named Warburg in the 1920s who had proven that he could take any cancerous cell, any regular cell and turn it into a cancerous cell simply by depriving it of oxygen. And the reverse was true. So Von Arden got interested in that, wanted to start experiment with oxygen, simply trying to reverse cancer. And along the way, what he discovered is something really powerful about our circulatory system, which is as we age, this thing we now refer to as inflammation happens inside our bodies, this slow, gradual increase in inflammation and that affects every part of our body including our circulatory system. But our circulatory system is actually kind of a weak link. At the very end of your circulatory system is your capillaries and they’re incredibly thin and they’re actually the component where the oxygen and the nutrients gets transferred from the circulatory system to the tissues. So you’ve got these really thin capillaries, thinner than a human hair, actually smaller than a red blood cell. In order for a red blood cell to get in a healthy capillary, it has to fold over like a taco to get in because it can’t fit in normal if it’s fully expanded. So there’s not a lot of room for error. And when you start having this inflammation, it causes blockages in the capillaries. So when that happens, you lose circulation downstream. You have what I call a brownout. All the cells on the other side of that inflammation are no longer getting red blood cells, they’re no longer getting oxygen. Luckily, our body does have a backup generator and that’s called anaerobic respiration. Anaerobic respiration is when they create energy without oxygen. But the problem with it is multi-fold. Number one, it only can produce about 5 % of the energy, it can produce what has oxygen. So immediately the cells are like powering down, they’re not able to do all of their essential functions. problem is it produces a massive amount of metabolic waste and free radicals and those things damage our mitochondria because our mitochondria are incredibly fragile as we spoke about earlier and they’re right at the heart of it wherever you’re producing energy you have some free radicals but now when you shift over to anaerobic all of a sudden you’re just spitting out all sorts of damaging chemicals if you will and it has no energy so it has no way to actually clear it and so it becomes I kind of call it’s like a doom loop, which is it starts with dysfunction the dysfunction causes more free radicals which causes more damage and dysfunction and Soon enough, you know, you’ve got these kind of almost zombie cells. They’re just having a hard time Doing anything and then when you do IWA what’s amazing is the oxygen because it’s Inside the plasma it can get through those blockages. So it immediately starts to feed those downstream cells the oxygen they’ve been starving but more importantly than that immediate fix if you will is they cause an anti-inflammatory effect and this was another like big aha in my healing journeys when I realized There’s plenty of research on this. Anywhere in your body you have inflammation, you have the hypoxia, which is the fancy medical term for oxygen starvation. So inflammation means local oxygen starvation. And anywhere you have oxygen starvation, you have inflammation. They go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. And so when we restore oxygen, even in the circulatory system, we can turn off that inflammation that’s happening in our capillaries, reestablish normal blood flow. So you get done doing your EWOT sessions. And Von Arden discovered this. had elderly people, he looked at their capillaries and their throughput, and he had them do just a couple sessions of EWOT, and they came back weeks later, and their microcirculation was still reestablished to more youthful levels. So he was able to open them back up where red blood cells were able to deliver oxygen. really at the root of it all is, you know, every chronic illness you can think of, it has inflammation. Right? mean, there’s not one Alzheimer’s, cancer, autoimmunity, the list goes on and on, name one and it has chronic inflammation. And there’s actually, there’s a gentleman, Arthur Guyton, he wrote the textbook, Medical Physiology, and every doctor any of us has ever gone to had to use that medical physiology book. when they went to medical school, it’s been the standard across the world for over 50 years. And he has this great quote where he says all disease at its root is lack of oxygen. And it’s really true because once the mitochondria break down and we start having inflammation, all the negative effects come from downstream from that. And so that was kind of my. Aha. Light bulb moment, which is if I can turn my mitochondria on it, and I can turn down the inflammation and eventually turn off the inflammation. then like my body will have energy to get ahead. can start to repair itself. It can start to detoxify the immune system. Then we’ll have energy to do everything it needs to do and help, you know, kind of kick on and start to fight a good battle, so to speak. Cheryl McColgan (26:58)Yeah, I mean, I want to go back to how this actually helped you and how you actually found one and all that stuff. But my brain is just going, the one thing that I keep coming to hearing your explanation, and that was an amazing explanation, by the way, for lay people, I can tell you’re an engineer or so. The system where you’re talking about going all the way to the capillaries, I heart disease is the number one killer, right? And we have, I think a lot of it is the chronic inflammation that you’re talking about, but. Obviously once that process is already done, you’re describing how the capillaries can’t get any red blood cells. So to me, it would make perfect sense that this might be not only did it help you in your disease process with Lyme disease and the arthritis and everything, but it seems like it would be pretty amazing for cardiovascular patients or people that don’t have good blood flow, like that on top of the mitochondrial benefit. Brad Pitzele (27:41)Hmm It’s actually, we are helping folks with everything from autoimmunity, cancer, Lyme, long COVID, chronic fatigue, Parkinson’s, heart disease, so many things, because if you can turn off the inflammation and you can give the body energy to heal, it will do just amazing things. That was kind of like the shocking thing to me when I first got into it. was like, wait a second. Like every time I was treating myself as a pin cushion and trying something new, I always had to the question like, what if this doesn’t work? and like what damage could I be doing? know, because there were things that were a little bit risky to be quite honest, where I found out risks, you know, a little bit too late for my liking. But this was one where was like, it’s oxygen. And like, so it was kind of shocking when I started looking at the benefits and I was like, this is kind of crazy that we’re talking about something as simple as oxygen with all these health benefits. But yeah, we’ve had folks with all sorts of different chronic cardiovascular conditions Cheryl McColgan (28:31)Right. Brad Pitzele (28:48)Now, there’s a lot of health benefits to it, but the other crazy thing about oxygen is there’s all these athletic performance benefits. And this is important because directly to your cardiovascular component, which is actually a lot of Olympic teams have used EWAT to improve their athletic performance. because athletic teams are very science driven, there’s some really good research on it showing it improves VO2 max, reduces recovery time. improves short-term memory, it improves power output, et cetera. And all of this is really due to being able to fuel our cells and our muscles more, and also helping clear out all that metabolic waste, because that metabolic waste primarily develops when you have a shortage of oxygen when you’re exercising. Cheryl McColgan (29:34)Amazing that something so simple could be so hugely beneficial. So once you finally saw this, you’re like, Werber knew this about cancer and this guy’s onto this exercise with oxygen thing. Like, well, how do you do it? Where do you get it? Like nobody’s ever seen this before. I think like you’re saying the athletic teams might have it and stuff, but I mean, I’ve certainly never been anywhere where I’ve seen like, hey, get EWOT therapy here. So how did you find it? Brad Pitzele (29:56)Yeah, it’s really, really kind of a rare thing. 15 years ago, it was incredibly rare. There really wasn’t anywhere to go. You could find it occasionally. You might find it in a chiropractor’s office here or there or some sort of recovery clinic. Nowadays, they’re more widespread. So there are places that do it, doctors, chiropractors. But for me, there were a couple of folks selling it, but they were… I didn’t have a whole lot of faith. There was no customer reviews. was no customers talking about it on chat. It was just them as the company and they, a lot of them spoke in superlatives and like marketing speak that it just didn’t make me feel really comfortable. And they were very expensive too. you know, they were maybe the cheapest was 5,000 and the most expensive one I saw was 25,000. and it was this kind of cross hatch of I didn’t have confidence and geez, that’s a lot of money for this next experiment when the last Cheryl McColgan (30:31)yeah. Brad Pitzele (30:49)26 behind me didn’t do anything or 57 or whatever it was. So that’s when I kind of decided, did a little bit more research and decided I was going to try to build my own. Cheryl McColgan (31:00)Yeah, was thinking that I was like, I was an engineer, the next thing would be like, can I just build this? So that’s what you did, obviously, right? Brad Pitzele (31:06)I did it out of necessity because I just didn’t have faith. I built my own. didn’t think it was, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think this was gonna be my solution. Nothing else was. And I started doing it and… You know, slowly but surely I started to walk out of that basement, that proverbial basement. I just kept taking steps up and up. At first it was subtle and then it was kind of all at once sort of thing where I was shocked. You know, was like things like, my gosh, my brain fog’s gone. I’m like focusing in a meeting or I just got down on the floor and played with the kids and I don’t need to lay in bed for two days in pain. And you know, slowly but surely I just felt better and better. And it wasn’t until I saw that same doctor again, and he was like, wow, you’re like a year later. And he was like, wow, you’re so much better. What did you do? And I told him, and he’s like, wow, would you consider selling them to my patients? And that was kind of the, you know, jumping off point where I was like, well, gosh, yeah, maybe we could help other people with this. Cheryl McColgan (32:04)Yeah, that’s awesome. I’m so glad, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s always an interesting thing on podcasts because sometimes you get, I think not on this particular podcast, but other ones, it’s like people that kind of are just selling stuff, you know, or snake oil things or whatever. But what I really love is when there are people that, you know, had their own health problem, they dive into the research, they try it all there, use themselves as an experiment as a pin cushion, as you said, and then they find something that actually works. And then they they make it so that they can share it with everybody else. don’t just keep it to yourself, because I’m sure it kind of felt like a miracle at the time if something finally worked for you. Brad Pitzele (32:41)You know, it really was. I was, because the hardest part is also when you’re in these groups and you’re talking to all these other folks and they’re like, oh, try this, nothing worked and then this worked. And you try that thing and it didn’t work. You you try 57 other different things, as I was saying, and you kind of just start losing any hope. You’re like, I don’t think, I think I’m just that case that there’s nothing that’s going to work. But yeah, when you do find it, it’s, yeah, it’s obviously life changing, even having hope and like, I always tell folks like when you’re really sick, it’s not about, you wanna get to 100%, like 100 % is amazing, it’s the dream we all have when we’re sick, but. more important than 100 % is like feeling better this week than last week or this month than last month because at some point when you’re in it, you just lose a lot of hope and it becomes kind of this like the spiral downward that you just don’t believe in anything and it just lowers you spiritually I just say. And having something to know like, hey, Yeah, it still kinda stinks, but like, remember a month ago it was worse, and so like, now you’re like, yeah, I can’t wait to see how I’m gonna be two months from now, you know, or where am gonna be by this summer sort of thing? Like, it was, it’s kinda the exact opposite. It’s kinda like this hope spiral, if you will. Cheryl McColgan (33:55)Yeah. Well, it’s kind of that’s something that I think it’s good to point out for people too, is that, you you mentioned there is all this research on this. There’s a lot of good science to back up mitochondrial health, that’s kind of mitochondrial health is kind of a long game. And it’s kind of something that you have to continually do not over, you know, just a few days and you’re going to feel so much better. It’s week after week, month after month, the more that you support your mitochondrial health, the more chance you have of really feeling better. So it’s not just this thing where you can try it for a week and you’re like, that doesn’t work. You have to keep up on it for a while, right? Brad Pitzele (34:24)Yeah. Yeah, you’re absolutely right in general speaking. mean, we have… people come to me and they ask like, how long am I going to have to do this for? I tell them is, I can’t say how long until you get to the top of the mountain, so to speak, but I find that most folks who get to the top of the mountain, they feel so good when they do it, they don’t ever want to stop. And some of those folks never really exercised, they hated it, but now they’re like, it’s like 15 minutes, I do it three or five times a week, and I feel amazing, so why wouldn’t I do it? And we talked about that capillary thinning, Cheryl McColgan (34:52)Mm-hmm. Brad Pitzele (34:58)That’s actually a chronic thing that happens to all of us in Western society. And so this is something that’s anti-aging at that very kind of cellular level. So I recommend it for folks, but. I guess for me when I was really sick, always say one of the hardest parts was the ceremony is this what they call them. Counting pills every night, doing this protocol, doing that protocol. You keep adding, like if there’s 10 more minutes in your day, you add 10 more minutes of some protocol that you’re hoping will make you feel better. And then you get to a point where you realize you’re spending six hours of your day, you know, just all you’re doing is these protocols and it just becomes overwhelming. like, even if I felt better, what’s the purpose of all I’m doing is going from from the sauna to the this and I’m doing this pill and I’m doing that. And that’s kind of the, what I found, one of the things I really loved about EWOD was it was something I could do consistently in my home, 15 minutes a day. And it helps with your mitochondrial health. It helps with detoxification. It helps with energy. So it’s like, multiple, it’s kind of multifaceted in the way it benefits you. relatively short period of time. Cheryl McColgan (36:07)Yeah, and you mentioned, and I want to be respectful of your time. know we’re kind of getting a little bit long here, but one of the other things when in respect to mitochondrial health is red light therapy. And there’s also a ton of great research on that. And so I kind of wasn’t surprised when I went to your website that that’s something that you also got into. I mean, I think that’s when you look at the number and the breadth of research on that, I think it’s pretty undeniable that it is good for people that serves a real purpose, that it does help the mitochondria. So at what point, Brad Pitzele (36:34)Yeah. Cheryl McColgan (36:35)after you found the EWAT, I’m assuming you kind of got on this mitochondrial health thing and then maybe stumbled into that stuff. that how it went or is there something else? Brad Pitzele (36:44)Yeah, I started looking at it early on, probably about six months after I was doing EWOT, four to six months right in there I’d say, I started doing Red Light. So you’re right, there’s like tens of thousands of peer-reviewed research studies out there and what it does. They work really interestingly together. Because we mentioned EWAT, when you do it, you increase the supply of oxygen massively, right? It’s a day of oxygen in 15 minutes. So you’re flooding your body with oxygen. And then if you do red light immediately afterwards, what it does is the way it primarily works is it increases oxygen demand in your mitochondria. So it forces the mitochondria to suck up more oxygen. And when they do that, they produce more energy. So any of the research you read on red light whether skin health collagen growth bone mental, brain health, me, athletic recovery performance, healing in general, it all comes from the same thing, is that it’s just forcing our mitochondria to suck up more oxygen and produce more energy. So if you compare those two, you compare them at the same time, you first drive a massive increase in supply of oxygen, and then you increase the mitochondrial demand for it, and so you get this kind of one-two punch. The interesting thing is why I think we need it in today’s society as well is we’re actually deficient on red and near infrared light. And the reason is, if you look at the sun, the sun is full spectrum. has everything from ultraviolet and the blues through the reds and the near infrareds. So when you go outside and it changes throughout the day, early and late in the day, you get more of those reds and near infrareds. And at high noon, you get more of the blues. unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, over time as as ⁓ species, we’ve moved indoors and we started using indoor lighting primarily and we spend more and more time there. And then more recently, we’ve switched from incandescent to LED lighting. Now, LED lighting is very energy efficient and one of ways they make it incredibly energy efficient is they take out all the reds and the near infrareds that we experience as heat because obviously you don’t want your lighting to heat your room. You don’t want it to, everyone sees that as energy. waste and to that extent you’re trying to use it for lighting it can be. However, that puts us in a place where we spend a lot of time bathed in blue lights and not really getting enough of the reds and the other parts of the spectrum. Cheryl McColgan (39:27)Yeah, that’s another interesting rabbit hole for people to go down if they haven’t already is just the, you know, changing out some of the lighting in your home or using specific lighting for certain scenarios, like in your bedroom and towards night as you’re getting ready to go to sleep. But anyway, I just want to clarify one quick point there, because I’m envisioning, that was actually what I was envisioning when you started talking about the synergy between red light and the EWAT. So do you like do your EWAT with the red light panel like in front of you or do you just do it right after? Brad Pitzele (39:53)Yeah. I prefer to do it right after. The challenge with doing it right on you is to get the best benefit from red light. Red light works on something called a biphasic dose response, fancy science term, which just means the benefits over time look like a bell curve. So too little, you won’t get any benefit. There’s kind of like a just right where you get peak benefit. And then if you do more, it starts diminishing in benefit. It doesn’t harm. It’s just a waste of time, right? So you spent five more minutes to get less sort of thing. Cheryl McColgan (40:21)Mm-hmm. Brad Pitzele (40:22)with exercising in red light is one, I like to get as much skin exposure as possible so you’re hitting as many mitochondria as possible. And two is you’re moving. So sometimes you’re close to the light, sometimes you’re further away. And so you’re not really able to kind of measure that dose effectively to get inside that biphasic kind of peak zone. Cheryl McColgan (40:43)Okay, no, that makes a ton of sense. Although I still am going to put this out to you that, maybe you put at least on, you know, the little face mask while you’re exercising. I feel like you can attach it to the oxygen part, you know, and just put a red light around it. Maybe that’s a little too, maybe that’s a little too much. But anyway, well, Brad, this has been so wonderful. And I just appreciate you so much sharing your whole journey and then how you came to find this. Brad Pitzele (40:51)There you go. It makes yours waterproof. That’d be fun. Cheryl McColgan (41:09)If people want to connect with you online or learn more about EWOT and learn more about Red Light, where’s the best place that they can find you and connect with you? Brad Pitzele (41:17)Yeah, go to 1000roads.com slash Cheryl and we have a great offer for your listeners. They can check out. You can also ⁓ go to our YouTube channel. put out weekly videos. 1000roads, HQ is our channel. It’s all spelled out, O-N-E-T-H-O-U-S-A-N-D-R-O-A-D-S.com. Cheryl McColgan (41:25)Awesome. Okay, awesome, and all that will be in the show notes for everyone, so don’t feel like you have to write it down. But Brad, again, thank you so much for coming and sharing your knowledge today, and I really appreciate it. Brad Pitzele (41:46)Thank you so much, Cheryl.

This special Tick Boot Camp Podcast crossover features the full International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) webinar recording, “At the Frontlines of Chronic Illness: Conversations with ILADS Experts.” In this dynamic panel discussion, leading clinicians and specialists unpack why Lyme disease and other infection-associated chronic illnesses are so misunderstood, why testing fails so many patients, and what it really takes to heal—brain, immune system, mitochondria, and terrain included. Moderated by Rich Johannesen (Tick Boot Camp), the panel delivers practical insights and hopeful, patient-centered guidance for anyone navigating complex chronic illness—whether you're a patient, caregiver, clinician, or advocate. Featured Panelists Chris Winfrey, MD — Psychiatrist; Medical Director, New Image Wellness Nicole Bell — “The Lyme Disease Engineer”; CEO, Galaxy Diagnostics Tania Dempsey, MD — Medical Director, AIM Center for Personalized Medicine Melanie Stein, ND — Naturopathic Doctor; Author focused on cellular wellness and healing terrain Host/Moderator: Rich Johannesen (Tick Boot Camp) ILADS Intro: Ali Moresco (ILADS) Episode Highlights ILADS Mission and Why This Webinar Matters The webinar opens with ILADS' mission: improving diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease and associated illnesses through research, education, and policy. ILADS emphasizes physician training and patient-centered care, while also supporting the educational mission of ILADEF. Rich frames the night as a rare opportunity to hear from experts working at the front lines of complex chronic illness—especially for patients who've been dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told their symptoms “don't make sense.” Segment 1: Brain Health, Neuroimmune Illness, and Why Lyme “Feels Like Dementia” Chris Winfrey, MD Dr. Winfrey introduces a core theme: Lyme is not only an infection—it often behaves like a neuroimmune illness. Key takeaways: The brain is a high-energy, high-immune-demand organ, uniquely vulnerable to infection-driven inflammation and toxicity. Lyme can disrupt brain function through: Blood flow issues Synaptic dysfunction Myelin damage Network-level disruption, not just “neurotransmitters” He describes brain function through networks that Lyme can destabilize: Default Mode Network (internal reflection) Salience Network (switching between networks) Central Executive Network (planning/organization) Action Network (execution) Autonomic Network (regulation) Limbic Network (threat/fear response) The result: patients often describe “brain shutdown,” confusion, cognitive impairment, and even dementia-like symptoms. A major reframing: Emotions are not “non-physical.” They are measurable physiological states. Lyme-driven nervous system injury can create emotional disturbance because the biology is disturbed. Segment 2: Poly-microbial Infection, Fight-or-Flight, and the Belief-Healing Loop Winfrey + Rich Discussion Rich frames humans as spiritual, emotional, and physical beings, and asks how chronic infection impacts both body and emotional resilience. Key points: Lyme can cross the blood-brain barrier and affect virtually any organ system. The nervous system becomes a “central battleground,” and measurement is hard because nervous system dysfunction isn't captured well by simple bloodwork. Rich and Dr. Winfrey explore how illness disrupts perception, decision-making, and our ability to interpret the world—especially when gut function and intuition feel “offline.” The healing paradox: Chronic stress and “fighting your way to healing” can backfire. Dr. Winfrey emphasizes that healing requires a parasympathetic state—rest, digest, repair—and that this often involves acceptance, surrender, trust, and safety. Segment 3: The State of Testing—Why So Many Patients Test Negative Nicole Bell (Galaxy Diagnostics) Nicole shares her personal motivation and professional mission: testing determines treatment, reimbursement, and belief—and too many patients are failed by existing tools. Indirect testing (antibody testing): The standard approach relies on antibodies—meaning it depends on the immune system behaving predictably. But Lyme and other stealth pathogens evade and suppress immune responses. Even in controlled research models, two infected subjects can show completely different antibody patterns. Immunosuppression (illness severity, medications like steroids, immune dysregulation) can reduce antibody reliability. Direct testing (pathogen detection):Nicole contrasts Lyme testing with illnesses like COVID—where you use tests that look for the pathogen itself (PCR/antigen), not just antibodies. Why direct detection is hard in Lyme: Pathogens can be low abundance They can be tissue-sequestered Sampling matters Why urine can matter for Lyme: Lyme may not stay in blood, but it can shed proteins/antigens that filter into urine. Galaxy's approach includes methods to capture, concentrate, and detect those markers. New diagnostics focus: Genus-level screening for the “3Bs” (Borrelia, Bartonella, Babesia) Reducing guessing when symptoms overlap and co-infections “masquerade” as each other Segment 4: Immune Dysfunction, Mast Cells, and Why Antibody Testing Can Go Haywire Tania Dempsey, MD (AIM Center for Personalized Medicine) Dr. Dempsey explains the immune system through two major branches: Innate immune system (fast, primitive defense) Adaptive immune system (antibodies, longer-term response) Mast cells as first responders: Mast cells detect “danger” and release inflammatory mediators (histamine and many others). In chronic infection, mast cells can remain persistently activated, releasing hundreds of inflammatory compounds. Why antibody tests fail (two patterns): Immune suppression → insufficient antibody production → false negatives Immune chaos → excessive, inappropriate antibody production → confusing positives - Positive Lyme bands “everywhere” - Positive autoantibodies without classic autoimmune disease patterns - “Everything looks positive” because signaling is dysfunctional Her central philosophy:It's not only about killing the bug. It's about fixing immune regulation so the body can actually clear or control infection. She also names the broader context: modern toxic load (mold, plastics, pesticides, “forever chemicals”) primes the immune system into dysregulation before infections even arrive. Segment 5: Advanced Immune-Modulating Tools Therapeutic Plasma Exchange + SOT Dr. Dempsey discusses therapies she's excited about, especially for complex, stuck cases: Therapeutic Plasma Exchange (TPE / plasmapheresis): Removes plasma (where antibodies, inflammatory mediators, and “garbage” accumulate) Replaces with albumin (and sometimes IVIG) Concept: reduce inflammatory burden + toxic load to reset the terrain SOT (Supportive Oligonucleotide Technique): Molecular targeted approach designed to reduce replication of specific pathogens More targeted than “wide-net” antimicrobial approaches Used strategically after lowering inflammatory/toxic burden She emphasizes: not for everyone, not a universal cure—but promising enough to merit formal publication. Segment 6: GLP-1 Agonists and Mast Cell Stabilization “Brain-melt” moment, revisited Dr. Dempsey explains why drugs commonly known for diabetes/weight loss may have immune benefits: Mast cells have receptors for GLP and GIP hormones Patients showed improvements beyond weight: cognitive function, inflammation, immune stability She describes: Semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) Tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound) Emerging triple agonists (GLP-1/GIP/glucagon pathways) Her clinical approach has moved these agents earlier in care plans for immune stabilization in select cases. Segment 7: Cellular Healing, Mitochondria, and the Terrain Melanie Stein, ND Dr. Stein brings it home: healing often stalls when we focus only on killing pathogens, but don't repair the cellular damage. Core concepts: Lyme damages cell membranes, disrupting what goes in/out and how cells communicate. It contributes to mitochondrial dysfunction, reducing ATP (energy currency). If cells stay in “alarm mode,” healing remains blocked. Cell membrane therapy and terrain support: IV and oral lipid support (phospholipids, phosphatidylcholine, omega fatty acids) Personalized support based on lipidomic patterns Supportive therapies to reduce oxidative stress and “toxic fats” Focus on signaling safety to the body—so repair can resume Cell Danger Response:A key theme: even after infections reduce, the body may remain stuck in a persistent defense state, requiring cellular and nervous system support to exit “danger mode.” Regulation Before Eradication Panel Reflection Round As the panel closes, several themes converge: Limbic system + autonomic nervous system regulation is foundational “Regulation becomes before eradication” Healing requires safety, predictability, and nervous system calm Chronic illness can block our ability to connect—especially in relationships—because survival physiology dominates Dr. Dempsey adds that limbic retraining / nervous system reset is often the first step she starts with in her practice. Question and Answer Highlights Lyme and Cancer? The panel notes emerging signals connecting tick-borne illness and certain cancers, but emphasizes that more research is needed to determine causality. Herniated discs, connective tissue, and chronic infection The discussion highlights potential links through: connective tissue disruption collagen damage mast cell mediators (enzymes that affect tissue integrity) infection-driven inflammation Cross-reactive antibody results (example: Brucella) The group explains how antibody testing can produce confusing results due to immune dysregulation and cross-reactivity—another reason why interpretation and test methodology matter. Nasal testing / sinus terrain While not a mainstream Lyme diagnostic route, the panel references nasal/sinus colonization (especially with mold-related or chronic inflammatory patterns) as a terrain factor that can influence recovery. Resources Mentioned Center for Lyme Action – State of Lyme Disease Research paper (Nicole Bell collaboration) ILADS Provider Search International Lyme and Associated Diseases Educational Foundation (ILADEF) Donations (supports education and clinician training) Final Message to Listeners This episode is a reminder that Lyme disease and infection-associated chronic illness are not one-dimensional problems. The path forward often requires: better diagnostics immune regulation nervous system support cellular repair personalized care and hope that the body can recover when the right puzzle pieces come together

In this powerful in-person interview at the Tick Boot Camp studio, Matt Sabatello sits down with Dr. Somer DelSignore, DNP, a board-certified pediatric practitioner specializing in Lyme disease, tick-borne co-infections, PANS/PANDAS, autoimmune and neuroimmune disorders, autism-like regression, and congenital tick-borne illness. This episode is essential listening for parents who have been told to “wait and see,” families who have seen multiple specialists without answers, and anyone trying to understand how infection, inflammation, immune dysfunction, and nervous system imbalance can impact a child's brain and development.

This week's stories: *Bartonella Hides in Cat Scratches — and It Might Be Why You Feel Like Garbage A stealth bacterial infection transmitted by everyday cat scratches and flea dirt has been quietly linked to chronic fatigue, brain fog, and neurological symptoms for decades. Dave breaks down how Bartonella slips past standard testing, why it's almost never on a conventional doctor's radar, and the specific PCR protocol you need to actually find it. Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ *High Tyrosine Levels May Be Cutting Years Off Men's Lives A Mendelian randomization study of 270,000 UK Biobank participants found that elevated tyrosine is causally linked to nearly a full year of lost lifespan in men — with zero effect in women. The culprit appears to be an inflammatory oxidation pathway that men metabolize very differently. Dave examines what this means for every guy stacking L-tyrosine nootropics or eating high-protein keto. Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41045493/ https://www.aging-us.com/news-room/high-tyrosine-levels-linked-to-shorter-lifespan-in-men https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2026-02-27/study-suggests-one-common-amino-acid-may-affect-how-long-men-live *Blue Light Blocking Contact Lenses Are a Legitimate Vision Upgrade ALTIUS Vision's tinted contact lenses aren't just blue light filters — they cut chromatic aberration by 53% and improve motion tracking and contrast sensitivity in ways that software filters simply can't replicate. Dave covers the mechanism, who benefits most (screen workers, TBI recovery, gamers), and how to find a provider. Sources: https://altiusvision.com/chromatic-aberration/ https://altiusvision.com/science-of-altius/ https://www.westvalleyvision.com/-altius--performance-tinted-contact-lenses *Taurine Plus B Vitamins Actually Moves the Needle on Motivation A randomized crossover trial found that a daily stack of taurine, B6, folate, and B12 sustained effort-reward motivation and cut cognitive lapses significantly compared to placebo — and the mechanism runs through glutathione production in brain astrocytes. Dave breaks down why this combo works when either ingredient alone doesn't. Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41889717/ https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2026.1711478/full https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2026/03/23/taurine-and-b-vitamins-bost-motivation-and-focus/ *30 Seconds of Smelling Flowers Resets Your Nervous System Research out of the Monell Chemical Senses Center confirms what your grandmother knew: a slow, deep floral inhale measurably lowers heart rate and activates the parasympathetic nervous system — and it works because olfaction bypasses the cortex entirely and hits the limbic system directly. Dave makes the case for building a daily scent ritual. Sources: https://time.com/ https://www.southtabor.com/healthy-living-tip-stop-and-smell-the-flowers/ This episode is designed for biohackers, longevity seekers, and high-performance listeners who want mechanism-level clarity on infection-driven cognitive decline, amino acid optimization, sensory performance, and evidence-based supplementation. Host Dave Asprey connects emerging clinical research, Mendelian randomization data, and real-world protocols into actionable frameworks for extending healthspan and sharpening performance. New episodes every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Keywords: Bartonella cat scratch infection, Bartonella brain fog chronic fatigue, stealth bacterial infection biohacking, tyrosine lifespan men, L-tyrosine risk men longevity, Mendelian randomization amino acid aging, blue light blocking contacts, ALTIUS vision chromatic aberration, performance contact lenses TBI, taurine B vitamins motivation RCT, taurine folate brain health, glutathione astrocytes focus, smelling flowers heart rate stress, olfaction parasympathetic nervous system, floral scent limbic system, biohacking news, longevity research 2026 Thank you to our sponsors! - GOT MOLD? | Go to http://gotmold.com/shop and use DAVE10 to save 10% and see what's in your air. - MASA Chips | Go to https://www.masachips.com/DAVEASPREY and use code DAVEASPREY for 25% off your first order. - iRestore | Grow thicker, healthier hair back naturally. Use code DAVE at irestore.com. Resources: • Get My 2026 Clean Nicotine Roadmap | Enroll for free at https://daveasprey.com/2026-clean-nicotine-roadmap/ • Get My 2026 Biohacking Trends Report: https://daveasprey.com/2026-biohacking-trends-report/ • Dave Asprey's Latest News | Go to https://daveasprey.com/ to join Inside Track today. • Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/discount/dave15 • My Daily Supplements: SuppGrade Labs (15% Off) • Favorite Blue Light Blocking Glasses: TrueDark (15% Off) • Dave Asprey's BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com • Dave Asprey's New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated • Join My Substack (Live Access To Podcast Recordings): https://substack.daveasprey.com/ • Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro 00:37 – Bartonella & Cat Scratch Disease 02:06 – Tyrosine & Lifespan in Men 03:37 – Tinted Contacts & Visual Processing 05:56 – Taurine & Motivation 07:25 – Floral Scent & Nervous System Reset See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Frédéric Roscop, French-born osteopath and founder of AEQUIL, joins the Tick Boot Camp Podcast as our first-ever in-studio international guest, flying in from London to Long Island to share his personal battle with chronic Lyme disease—and the breakthrough that reshaped his life and career. After decades of unexplained symptoms, misdiagnoses, heart inflammation, neurological dysfunction, and failed treatment attempts across multiple countries, Frédéric discovered that killing microbes alone wasn't enough. His recovery began when he shifted focus from chasing pathogens to restoring the body's foundational terrain—supporting immune regulation, detoxification, cellular function, stress physiology, and energetic balance. In this deeply reflective and technical conversation, Frédéric shares how childhood tick exposure in rural France, years of undiagnosed Borrelia and Bartonella infection, and repeated medical dead-ends ultimately led him to develop a patented biotech system designed to help others reset their foundational wellbeing. What You'll Learn in This Episode Growing Up in Tick Territory Frédéric describes growing up in rural France, frequently covered in ticks as a child—long before Lyme disease was widely recognized in Europe. Early symptoms included: Chronic insomnia and hyperactivity Digestive dysfunction and blood sugar instability Visual disturbances and light sensitivity Emotional instability and neurological symptoms Recurrent inflammation At 16, following general anesthesia for a broken nose, he experienced what he now recognizes as a major Lyme “crash,” leading to cognitive decline, emotional dysregulation, and worsening physical inflammation. Heart Inflammation & Athletic Collapse By age 17–18, Frédéric's promising volleyball career ended due to inflammatory joint disease and recurring pericarditis (heart inflammation)—which would return six times over the next 15 years. Antibiotics temporarily improved symptoms, but the root cause remained unidentified. “I Didn't Even Know What Lyme Disease Was” As a young osteopath in practice, Frédéric recalls a patient asking whether her symptoms could be Lyme disease. At the time, he had never been trained on it. Years later, another patient was hospitalized with Lyme-related encephalitis—triggering Frédéric's realization that Lyme might explain both his patients' suffering and his own. This episode includes an honest discussion about: Medical training gaps Diagnostic limitations The importance of humility in healthcare Why the doctor–patient relationship must be a partnership Diagnosis: Borrelia, Bartonella & More Specialty testing eventually revealed: Borrelia Bartonella Viral findings including Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) Heavy metal burden (notably elevated mercury) Frédéric began aggressive antibiotic and detox protocols—but experienced severe gut collapse and worsening terrain. Despite trying treatments across Europe, the U.S., China, India, and Switzerland—including antimicrobial, herbal, and integrative approaches—he improved only marginally. The Turning Point: It's Not Just the Bug — It's the Terrain Frédéric revisited the foundational debate in medicine: Louis Pasteur: It's the germ. Claude Bernard: It's the terrain. His breakthrough came when he shifted focus to rebuilding: Gut function Cellular membranes Detox pathways Nervous system regulation Emotional and energetic resilience Rather than focusing exclusively on killing microbes, he asked: Does the body have the capacity to self-regulate and self-repair? From that question, AEQUIL was born. What Is AEQUIL? AEQUIL is a biotech wellness system built around a patented technology Frédéric calls Liquid Intelligence — a formulation combining: Structured/dynamised water Botanicals Vitamins and electrolytes Biochemical and biophysical support The system supports: Brain, heart, gut, liver, and immune foundations Detoxification and lymphatic flow Stress physiology Emotional and energetic regulation The AEQUIL Deep Reset System Maintain (Foundational Support) A daily liquid formula designed to nourish the body's core systems and support cellular regulation. Suggested use: ½ teaspoon morning ½ teaspoon evening Reset (Deep Reset Protocol) A structured approach to support: Microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites) Micro-toxins (detox pathways) Micro-traumas (stress and emotional stagnation) The protocol is phased to reduce Herx reactions and build resilience gradually, with many users reporting a noticeable physiological shift around weeks 8–10. Everyday Support Wearable patches and digital wellness tools (affirmations, breathwork) designed to support mood, sleep, energy, and immune balance during recovery. Core Message of This Episode Chronic Lyme recovery is rarely about one silver bullet. It requires: Restoring foundational systems Supporting detox and immune function Addressing nervous system and stress patterns Recognizing both biochemical and energetic influences Frédéric's story is one of humility, evolution, and transformation—from a practitioner unaware of Lyme disease to a global wellness innovator working to support both patients and healthcare providers.

In this episode of Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill, Dr. Jill Carnahan explores the growing science behind brain inflammation and its connection to chronic illness with Dr. Eboni Cornish. Dr. Cornish, Associate Medical Director at Amen Clinics and Treasurer of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, shares how underlying inflammation in the brain can drive symptoms often labeled as psychiatric, neurological, or behavioral conditions. Together, they discuss how mold toxicity, chronic infections, gut dysfunction, hormone imbalances, and environmental toxins can disrupt brain health and lead to symptoms such as brain fog, anxiety, depression, personality changes, and fatigue. This powerful conversation highlights the importance of identifying root causes of neuroinflammation and offers hope for individuals struggling with complex chronic conditions through advanced diagnostics, functional medicine strategies, and personalized care.

In this powerful and science-forward episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, host Matt Sabatello sits down with Amy Proal, PhD, a leading microbiologist whose work is reshaping how the medical community understands chronic Lyme disease, post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD), ME/CFS, and Long COVID. Dr. Proal brings a rare combination of deep scientific expertise, lived experience with chronic illness, and real-world clinical integration, offering listeners clarity on why so many patients remain sick long after standard treatment ends — and what science is finally doing about it.

In this groundbreaking episode of the Tick Boot Camp Podcast, we interview Dr. Jayakumar Rajadas, a Stanford Medicine researcher who has discovered multiple breakthrough therapeutic candidates for Lyme disease, Babesia, and Bartonella. His work includes the discovery of Disulfiram's effectiveness against Lyme and Babesia, Azlocillin's potent activity against Lyme and Bartonella, and advanced targeted drug-delivery systems designed to preserve the gut microbiome. Dr. Jay's research has been featured in TIME Magazine (Azlocillin) and Forbes (Disulfiram), and connects deeply with the work of leading Lyme researchers, including Dr. Monica Embers (Tulane), Dr. Kim Lewis (Northeastern), Dr. Kenneth Liegner, and Dr. Brian Fallon (Columbia University). This interview delivers hope, science, and unprecedented detail on what may become the next generation of Lyme disease treatments. Key Topics Covered 1. How the Stanford Tick Initiative Sparked a New Era of Drug Discovery In 2012, Stanford launched a major initiative in response to community demand for better Lyme treatments. Dr. Rajadas was selected to lead drug development, focusing specifically on persistent/chronic Lyme disease, where few researchers were working. 2. Understanding Borrelia: Active vs. Stationary Forms & Why Chronic Lyme Persists Dr. J explains the three key survival modes of Borrelia burgdorferi: Active Phase The bacteria are replicating and metabolically active. Easier to kill with standard antibiotics. Stationary Phase Bacteria reach population limits and slow down growth. Represents early persistence mechanisms. Persister Forms Triggered by stressors like antibiotics (e.g., doxycycline). Bacteria fold into round bodies, spiral forms, or compact “cement-like” protective balls. These forms: Shut down metabolic pathways Resist penetration Survive antibiotic exposure Why Doxycycline Can Fail Doxycycline can induce persisters, causing Borrelia to form impenetrable protective shells rather than die. This is why many patients initially feel better, then relapse. 3. Disulfiram (Antabuse): Lyme + Babesia Breakthrough Featured in Forbes One of the biggest scientific shocks of the last decade: Discovery Through Stanford's high-throughput screening of FDA-approved drugs, Disulfiram emerged as a top hit. Clears Borrelia (including persistent forms) Clears Babesia — a major advantage over standard antibiotics Does NOT harm the gut microbiome Is already FDA-approved and widely used for alcohol aversion therapy Highly potent but requires careful dosing due to side effects in inflamed patients. Why Some Patients Improve, and Others Suffer Chronic Lyme patients already have heightened inflammation. Disulfiram is a powerful molecule whose polymorphic forms behave differently in different people. His lab developed: Less toxic formulations Buccal & sublingual delivery systems Rectal delivery options These may reduce neuropsychiatric side effects reported by some patients. Clinical Connections Dr. Kenneth Liegner pioneered clinical use and published cases Dr. Brian Fallon conducted NIH-listed clinical trials. Many clinicians now use Liegner's protocols. Real-world example: Matt shares the story of Brooke Stoddard (Generation Lyme), who regained his life after Disulfiram treatment under Dr. Liegner. 4. Azlocillin: The Antibiotic That TIME Magazine Called a Gamechanger If Disulfiram is the Lyme and Babesia weapon, Azlocillin may be the frontline tool for Lyme and Bartonella. Why Azlocillin Is Revolutionary Eradicates both active and persister forms of Borrelia. Destroys doxycycline-induced “cement ball” persisters by drilling into their vulnerable cell-wall synthesis pathways. Proven effective against Bartonella when paired with azithromycin, based on research by Dr. Monica Embers (Tulane) . The Cell-Wall Vulnerability Breakthrough Persisters STILL must maintain minimal cell-wall synthesis to survive. Azlocillin exploits this tiny vulnerability: It penetrates the protective sphere Breaks the “cement wall” Forces the bacteria out of hibernation Kills them rapidly This discovery is one of the biggest scientific leaps in Lyme research in a decade. The Delivery System That Protects the Gut Microbiome Azlocillin is extremely hydrophilic, making absorption difficult.Dr. Jay fixed this by creating: A magnesium-lipid nanoparticle formulation Designed to release in the upper intestine Avoiding the colon (where most microbiome lives) This allows: High bloodstream absorption Minimal microbiome damage Oral availability of a drug previously only available via IV Why Azlocillin May Be Better Than Disulfiram Hits Borrelia + Bartonella Stronger anti-inflammatory effects No polymorphism issues Fewer side effects Potent against persisters A company is preparing to bring his oral formulation to clinical trials by next year. 5. Loratadine (Claritin): The First Clue from 2012 Before Disulfiram and Azlocillin, Dr. Jay's lab identified Loratadine (Claritin) as a manganese transporter inhibitor of Borrelia. Why it mattered: Borrelia uniquely relies on manganese, not iron. Blocking manganese uptake may weaken the bacteria. The discovery went viral, with many patients reporting improvement even at OTC doses—though the binding affinity was weak. This project introduced the concept of drug repurposing for Lyme to the scientific community. 6. Melittin (Bee Venom) — The Micro-Needle Patch Alternative Bee venom therapy is widely used in the Lyme community, but risks stings and allergic reactions. Dr. J is developing: Melittin micro-needle patches Delivering the active peptide without stinging Using dissolvable, painless needles A safe, controlled, pharmaceutical-grade delivery approach This could modernize bee venom therapy and make it more accessible. 7. Mechanism of Brain Fog & Fatigue in Lyme: A Major Breakthrough Dr. Jay's lab published a neuroscience paper demonstrating: Outer Surface Protein (Osp) Nanoparticles Borrelia sheds lipid-coated outer membrane particles. These form stable nano-vesicles that: Enter the bloodstream Cross into the brain Cause mitochondrial dysfunction Reduce ATP production Result: Brain Fog, Fatigue, Cognitive Dysfunction This explains why neurological Lyme can persist even after bacterial levels drop. This work ties strongly to ongoing research at Columbia University under Dr. Brian Fallon. 8. Collaborations With World Leaders in Lyme Research Dr. J's research intersects with: Dr. Kim Lewis (Northeastern University) Reproduced and validated Disulfiram findings publicly. Helped launch interest in persister-killing therapies. Dr. Monica Embers (Tulane University) Demonstrated Azlocillin + Azithromycin effectiveness against Bartonella. One of the world's foremost experts in persistent infection models. Dr. Kenneth Liegner Early clinical pioneer of Disulfiram therapy. Published stunning recovery cases. Dr. Brian A. Fallon (Columbia University) Leading psychiatrist specializing in post-treatment Lyme. Conducted planned Disulfiram clinical trials. These collaborations form a powerful network accelerating treatment development. 9. New Anti-Inflammatory Discoveries: Galangin & More Dr. Jay recently co-authored a 2025 paper on: Galangin (Thai ginger rhizome extract) Which may reverse cardiac inflammation and fibrosis His team is also exploring other nutraceutical molecules for chronic inflammation relief in Lyme patients. 10. Dr. Jay's Personal Story of Illness and Hope He reveals for the first time: He was diagnosed with Stage 3 Multiple Myeloma Lost the ability to walk Suffered unbearable pain After cutting-edge therapies and research, he is now in full remission His message to Lyme patients: “There is ALWAYS hope.”

High Yield Bacterial Disease Review:Cholera (Vibrio cholerae) Chlamydia (Chlamydia trachomatis) Gonorrhea (Neisseria gonorrhoeae) Bartonella henselae (Cat scratch disease) Botulism (Clostridium botulinum) Campylobacter (Campylobacter jejuni) Diphtheria (Corynebacterium diphtheriae) Acute Rheumatic fever (Group A Streptococcus) Rocky Mountain spotted fever (Rickettsia rickettsia) Tetanus (Clostridium tetani)Review for your PANCE, PANRE, Eor's, Physician Assistant exams, USMLE, NCLEX, nursing exams.►Support the channel by joining and becoming a member! (Thank you so much!)►Paypal Donation Link: https://bit.ly/3dxmTql (Thank you!)►INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cramthepance/►YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZCILePJ-E17txF-ObXlFKwIncluded in review: Cholera (Vibrio cholerae), Chlamydia trachomatis, Gonorrhea (Neisseria gonorrhoeae), Bartonella henselae (Cat scratch disease), Botulism (Clostridium botulinum), Campylobacter (Campylobacter jejuni) Diphtheria (Corynebacterium diphtheriae), Acute Rheumatic fever (Group A Streptococcus), Rocky Mountain spotted fever (Rickettsia rickettsia), Tetanus (Clostridium tetani), Major and Minor Jones criteria, Doxycycline, Azithromycin.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cram-the-pance--5520744/support.