Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative lyme Solutions with Dr. Karl Feldt.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I am so excited about the show.
[00:00:07] Speaker A: That we have ahead of us.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: We have some phenomenal information that could save lives.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: You're gonna need to tune in to what's going on today. The information is jam packed, so don't step away.
Hello. Thank you so much for joining Integrative lyme Solutions with Dr. Karlfeld. I am your host, Dr. Michael Karl Fe Belt. I've been in clinical practice since 1987. I've seen pretty much everything under the sun, worked with so many different Lyme patients, and I know what a devastating disease this is. That's why I'm doing this podcast to make sure that you are armed with the information that you need in order to be able to be successful in your struggle with Lyme. We'll be featuring authors, doctors, professors, and also people like yourself that have gone through the journey that you're going through, that have been where you've been and is now on the other side. And they get to tell their victorious story as to how they battle Lyme so that you can implement that in your life as well.
Be sure to like us and write a review on whichever platform that you're listening on. What that does is it enables other people to see us more so that they have access to this information as well. So I'm so excited that you're tuning in and get ready for this upcoming show. It is going to be amazing. Well, I had the absolute pleasure of having Adrian Nolan Smith with me here today. So thank you so much for being with me and spending some time with me.
[00:01:50] Speaker D: Yes, thank you so much. I'm very excited to be on your show. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: So you're someone that, you know, you and family members, you know, Lyme hit you at a very early age. I mean, do you mind sharing a little bit about that?
[00:02:06] Speaker D: Yeah. So I was diagnosed with lyme, probably about 11 years old. My younger brother is three years younger than me, and so he was diagnosed around age 7 or 8, and his symptoms were much more severe than mine. But I think a lot of doctors had told my mother, you know, he has learning disabilities.
He.
All of his debilitating, like, joint pain in his knees was just growing pains. She got that a lot.
She would end up in the emergency room with him a lot. And they would just say, you know, nothing really to do here. Nothing's really wrong, or that we can find.
And when he was finally diagnosed and we spent summers, well, it's. It's Rampant all over Long Island, Connecticut, whatever. But we had just started to spend summers renting a house in Lyme, East Lyme, Connecticut. So we must have easily gotten it at that time. And there was a, there were no, nobody was doing tick checks. It was so early, you know, it was not really part of it.
And when he was diagnosed, my mom then looked at me who was having a lot of back pain and joint pain and also fatigue, extreme fatigue, much more than any 11 year old girl should have, and said, let's get her tested. And then we were both diagnosed. So I'm not really sure when there was a bite for either of us, you know, and how long we had it. They think my younger brother, because we'd been renting a house somewhere in Long island or Connecticut since he was born in the summer, could have had it since he was like, you know, two years old or something, three years old, because it had affected his development so much.
So his case was much more severe.
I was really only acutely sick with Lyme for about two years, but it was. Well, you know, the antibiotics did not work for either of us and we were on a lot of them. But then, so my mom, you know, this was sort of pre Internet.
She just had to kind of research through literature and word of mouth and different doctors. She had heard about how to get better from chronic Lyme without antibiotics or rather when they didn't work. And so we did a lot of different treatments, which I'm happy to share if you want to know what they were.
But mine took about two years and then by the time I was about to 13, I think I was, I was better. My younger brother took a lot longer to heal because I think he was a lot more sick. But he's 37 now, thriving.
You know, I think his gut may never quite be, you know, he still, he still has, I think he's more sensitive his immune system to things, but overall he's a healthy guy so it can be done.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: And, and I'm, I'm just, I mean even in Connecticut, I mean, what I hear is that it's still hard to get a Lyme diagnosis. I mean, it's still.
So how are you able to get about doing that? I mean, how, how did they start looking for Lyme in know, in your brother?
[00:05:30] Speaker D: Well, I think my mom, after enough, you know, visits of like, we don't know what this is and this was in the, let's say this was in the mid-90s, she found a lime literate doctor in Greenwich, Connecticut.
So we traveled to this guy, and he was, you know, really focused on Lyme, and so he had tested both of us. The testing is, as you know, still extremely inaccurate. I don't even think, like, Igenics, which is a better Lyme test. Right. That. That didn't even exist. I don't think it was just the. The Western blot, I think, which is very inaccurate and very speculative because it's like, oh, you might have enough bands, you might not, you know, but it was. I think it was enough for both of us for him to say, this is what's going on. Let's. Let's treat it based on a combination of symptoms and the testing. But certainly no, you know, Lyme test at that time was like, a slam dunk about what's going on.
So. Yeah, but, I mean, my fatigue was like. I remember going on a trip with my mom when I was 11 and having to just sleep on every. I think it was Sue Rome maybe, and sleep on every park bench we could find. I mean, I could not walk or keep my eyes open. And we were there for, you know, a week. And it wasn't jet lag. I just. And I could not get to school on time. I was exhausted. I just needed, like, you know, 10 hours of sleep every night and would just be trying to lie down everywhere I went, which was definitely not normal.
And my back and jaw and I just had a lot of joint pain. And it was very similar to my brother's symptoms, too. And so it just seemed clear to the doctor, as well as with the testing, that that's what was going on.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: And so your mom was the one that was kind of suspecting. And then we're trying to find somebody that was skilled enough to be able to identify it. It sound.
[00:07:48] Speaker D: Yes, exactly. Yeah. She had kind of done enough research about the symptoms that we had, or at least my brother had to narrow in on that. And then when they diagnosed him, they looked at me and thought, maybe that's what's going on with her, too.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So this. This doctor, then, after, you know, blessings be that actual Western blot showed positive.
That. That's amazing.
So this doctor, when he found this out, you know, so what. What were kind of the steps that. That you had to take? And was he treating both of you very similar?
[00:08:28] Speaker D: Well, he was Lyme literate, but he wasn't holistic. He was, you know, mostly just treating with antibiotics, and so he did that. I think both of us were on some courses of, you know, doxycycline or Some long term antibiotic.
Neither of us had symptom alleviation after that. Like we were still, you know, both still sick. So that was, that was definitely a sign that my mom took to find a different kind of doctor.
And through a lot of communication and, you know, research, I think talking to people in Connecticut whose somebody in their family had been affected by Lyme, she was able to find a more holistic set of doctors and just treatments. It was, There wasn't one doctor. Like, we ended up going to a hyperbaric oxygen therapy center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a couple weeks that she had heard about and we spent.
That was over the summer, I remember. And there was another summer, I, I think of two Lyme summers I had that were kind of consumed with treatments, trying to get better.
And the other summer we went and did this, you know, very strange. It was colostrum bovine colostrum therapy, I guess it's called.
In Mankato, Minnesota, this tiny town that had a dairy farmer who was really a hero, I mean really a put his neck on the line with the FDA because it was, it was an orphan drug phase. So it wasn't, it was still being studied. So it wasn't legal, but it was being studied. There was some evidence there that it could be effective.
And you know, you would have to inject your blood into the cow and then drink the colostrum from the cow.
So it's very. It was odd, but I will say that was really the turning point in our recovery.
We, we took all this frozen colostrum home and every day we would like swish it around in our mouth and drink this colostrum.
And we did that for a few months, but we both started to get a lot better between the hyperbaric oxygen and that. And then we did a lot of.
We. We saw a Chinese herbal therapist in Queens, because I grew up in New York City who had all these like antibacterial herbs in these really intense teas that we would drink every day. I mean, they were like the thickest sludge. And our whole house would smell like this. You know, it was just roots being steamed and all these herbs into these sludge like teas that you would drink every day. And it was. Oh, I would just hold my nose and do it like that. I think was effective over a long period of time though, and, you know, tons of supplements and really changing our diet.
You know, my mom was making us wheat free before the word gluten was ever a thing.
We always shopped at these really tiny, obscure Health food stores all over New York City and knew every kind of specialty supplement shop in New York, like all these places, you know, so it was a real journey. I mean, we did a lot, but it's very hard to say obviously what was the most effective therapy we did because we were doing so many. But I will say, you know, after two years, I was okay. So some, some combination or maybe one of them stood out, who knows as effective enough to. To get better.
[00:12:24] Speaker C: Hello, dear listeners, this is Dr. Michael Karlfeld, your host of integrative Lyme solutions. Today I'm excited to share an exclusive opportunity from the Karlfeld center, where we blend healing power of nature with groundbreaking therapies to combat Lyme disease and its associated challenges.
At the Karlfield center, we're not just fighting Lyme. We're revolutionizing the way it's treated with cutting edge therapies like photodynamic therapy, full body ozone IV therapy, silver IVs, brain rebalancing, autonomic response testing, laser energetic detoxification, and more. We aim to eradicate Lyme. Our approach is comprehensive, supporting your body's immune system, detoxification processes, hormonal balance, and mitochondrial health, ensuring a holistic path to recovery. Understanding Lyme disease and its impact is complex, which is why we're offering a free 15 minute discovery call with one of our Lyme literate naturopathic doctors. This call is your first step towards understanding how we can personalize your healing journey, focusing on you as a whole person, not just your symptoms. Our team, led by myself, Dr. Michael Karlfields, is here to guide you through your recovery with the most advanced diagnostic tools, individualized treatment plans, and supportive therapies designed to restore your health and vitality. Whether you're facing Lyme disease head on or seeking preventative strategies, we're committed to your wellness. Take the first step towards reclaiming your health. Visit us at thecarlfulthcenter.com or call us at 208-338-8902 to schedule your free discovery call. At the Karlfield center, we believe in healing naturally, effectively and holistically. Thank you for tuning in into integrative lyme solution with Dr. Karlfeld. Remember, true health is not just the absence of disease. It's achieving the abundance of vitality. Let's discover yours together.
[00:14:25] Speaker D: What year was this?
I think the two years I was very sick were like 1996 to 1998.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, there's, there's not a lot at that time. I mean, that it's. Yeah. Health food stores are Very limited. And. And, yeah, knowledge was very limited. And, yeah, it was amazing that you. You found hyperbaric. I mean, that was incredible.
[00:14:52] Speaker D: Yeah. That's why we went all the way from New York City to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
We were, I think, living in, like, a Motel 6 for two or three weeks, just going every day for several hours to go in the hyperbaric chambers.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: And. And did you. When you were doing that. Yeah. Were you noticing an effect after, or was it kind of that. That you think that. That create a little bit of a foundation so the other therapies can. Can work even better.
[00:15:23] Speaker D: That. I'm gonna say I don't remember.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that's okay.
[00:15:26] Speaker D: A long time ago, but, you know, I'm not sure.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: No, no, that's okay. And I'm really curious. So just to kind of reiterate, the gentleman with the cow, so he would take your blood, and he would inject that into the.
Into the cow with a thought, then that the cow would then be exposed to your Lyme or the pathogens, and then in response, would then create colostrum to then fight those infections.
[00:16:03] Speaker D: Correct. Yeah.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: That's fascinating.
So, yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:07] Speaker D: I mean, you can. There's, you know, if you look it up, I'll, you know, Google it or use ChatGPT to see the history of it, but it's called bovine colostrum therapy, and it's, you know, been studied and used for variety of things. Not just Lyme, but that's what.
That's what we did.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: I actually. I mean, I'm familiar with bovine. I mean, colostrum, you know, use it all. All the time, and I'm familiar with a lot of things, but that's actually a new one for me. I'm really. Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating.
[00:16:41] Speaker D: I think that most people know about colostrum therapy is just like, colostrum is super healthy. So you could just take colostrum, you know, to kind of overall health, but it's obviously very different. The blood injection and then the antibodies for your particular disease or set of pathogens.
But, you know, it really.
It makes sense to me as an adult. Even though it was definitely something my mother had found and I was 11, it wasn't really up to me, but that now. Now I've breastfed two children, and certainly, you know, I was told by my lactation consultant that if my child had an illness, you know, the. The saliva on the areola and the nipple would be communicating to my body the antibodies to create for this illness.
And so, you know, that Makes sense to me. Obviously, we were not sucking on the cow's udder, but the, the saliva bringing that into the body and into the bloodstream is the same idea. So I, I believe so. I think that it makes sense to me how that would work.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, to me it makes absolute sense and. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why it's so important to, to breastfeed, you know, because that will really give the child the immune system that they need as they're developing because of that effect where the saliva really triggers a production of whatever immune component that's needed in the breast milk for that child to do. Well.
[00:18:26] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a magical, It's a superpower that mothers have to treat illness just simply by getting the communication about what's going on and then creating the medicine. It's. It's really cool.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: And, and so did you and your brother have different cows then?
Out of curiosity, question.
[00:18:50] Speaker D: I bet we did. Yes.
I don't remember exactly, but I bet we did.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. No, interesting. And, and yes, with the Chinese teeth. I mean, everyone and everyone in the neighborhood knows when somebody is real Chinese blend like that with all the roots and things.
[00:19:09] Speaker D: I know. Oh my gosh, they were so crazy, those.
The taste and the smell and the whole thing. But, you know, there's a reason, I mean, liquid as, you know, gets into the bloodstream so much faster and more effectively than something going, you know, just in capsule form. And so something about the freshness of those herbs was more powerful and more potent and packed a bigger punch than just dehydrating them and, you know, putting them into capsule form. Apparently that's what was told to us, so that's why we were doing it that way. But I would have loved to just be able to take it in capsule form.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's. That's the easy way out.
[00:19:54] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: For the whole.
[00:19:56] Speaker D: Definitely the only, you know, 1112 year old having play dates and my friends being like, what is this smell in your house?
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
Having to drink that sludge and then.
[00:20:08] Speaker D: Having to drink it like, okay, yeah, let's go to my kitchen, have a snack after school and like, hang on while I drink this horrible tasting sludge.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Put the spoon in and it still stands straight up, you know.
[00:20:22] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: So, so doing, I mean, while doing this, I mean, did you do what, what do you remember feeling from these different things? I know this was a very long time ago, but you kind of remember a little bit of the process of how you're feeling as you were going through this.
[00:20:44] Speaker D: I think my mom kept trying treatments when we weren't really getting that much better, you know, so she kept at different things. And so I think it was a cumulative effect of, like, all these immune supporting, well, treatments that both supported our immune system's ability to make the Lyme dormant, but also things that killed off the Lyme bacteria or spirochete. And, you know, at some point she eased up once we were feeling better.
And I can't remember which summer was which, you know, if it was the hyperbaric treatment and then the colostrum or. Or vice versa. But I do remember at some point in, when I was in eighth grade, when I was 13, feeling like, okay, I can play on the basketball team. I can get to school on time.
Ish.
I can not need to sit down so much. My back was not so painful. My joints were not so painful. So, you know, my mom still kept up with a diet for us in high school, you know, middle school and high school that was far, far healthier than anybody else we knew and made us still take tons of supplements and stuff. But I think by my sort of eighth grade second, you know, two years into the thing, she let up on the teas and we never went to go stay somewhere new for new treatments. And I was feeling a lot better. And she felt like, all right, you're in the clear here. And I'm not sure if we ever got additional Lyme testing to show. It was not really, but it was clear that, you know, we were starting to be able to function more as normal kids.
So.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah, and diet wise, I mean, you're saying kind of wheat free before it was popular.
What else do you remember about your diet at that time?
[00:22:47] Speaker D: I know we never had, like, well, the irony of the bovine colostrum, but we never had really, like, cow cheese around or. Or milk or anything like that.
She was aware of, like, dairy being inflammatory. I think we sometimes had goat's milk or, you know, sheep yogurt or stuff like that, but overall, we didn't eat a lot of dairy. We had more like nut milks and stuff like that.
We ate a lot of. We took a lot of supplements. We ate a lot of vegetables.
We.
Yeah, I mean that. We didn't really have treats. Like, we couldn't really have packaged snacks or.
I remember this horrendous carob chip cookie that just crumbled in your hand the second you ate it. That was like a big treat.
We drank a lot of tea overall, like, you know, just as a family, always not Necessarily Chinese or herbal teas for lime, but just like a lot of ginger tea, a lot of tea.
So a lot of freshly made soups, things like that. So I mean, we still had, you know, we had red meat, we sometimes we. I remember like a pesto tornolini that was store bought being a popular dinner item, or spaghetti and meatballs. So there was still some traditionally American kid food, but it just was always, you know, made of a different flour or, you know, something that was more from the health food store and not necessarily what a conventional American household would have been eating. So, yeah, we did all that. And I do remember having some new health issues pop up when I went to college from eating all the nonsense in the cafeteria.
So it was really remarkable how much having that food at home kept me well throughout high school and how easily, just a few months into college, I had like, health issues pop up, which I then, you know, it was like a new phase of my health journey to understand those and heal those too, and work with a naturopath. But it was very eye opening how much the food had played a role in keeping me well.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's such a foundational thing and, and yes, you can do all these herbs and all these other therapies, but, you know, the diet is, is that foundation you gotta, you stand on in order to be able to allow all these other things really to, to work effectively.
[00:25:42] Speaker D: Yep. I, I was, I think by my sophomore year I was just kind of sick of feeling crummy, but I still was living in a dorm and I would go once a week to a Whole Foods. I was, I went to, to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and I like 10 minutes north of Hopkins with all like, you know, like the moms in the Baltimore county, whatever, and just like loading up on all this fresh, good food and making my own meals because even when the room had like one tiny hot plate and like a mini fridge, because I just. The cafeteria food was so bad and I was desperate to feel better.
Yeah.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: And, and I'm sure once you started that you, you, you know, you felt a whole lot better right after.
[00:26:30] Speaker D: Yes, well, there was definitely an education period. Like, I don't think I really understood all the different things that I was putting in my body that were so bad for me and apart from the cafeteria food, until maybe my like junior senior year of college. But also coming back to herbs, I worked with this naturopathic doctor and I remember I had lost my period for two years and I was on this journey to get it back and she had given me some, I was studying, I was going to study abroad in Shanghai and she had given me a lot of these antifungal, antibacterial, anti parasitic herbs and that was all I did because I really couldn't change my diet much living in China. I just was eating, you know, whatever and, but I took, I brought all the herbs and I was taking them very consistently the whole like, you know, it took me about six months, but four or five of those months I was living in China and it came back and it was, you know, it's been completely normal ever since I was like 20 years old and I'm 40 now. So um, that was really remarkable to me because I, I didn't change my diet. I was eating a whole bunch of random things in China and it was just taking the herbs for those and some supplements, but mostly herbs for about six months. That, that really helped it to come back. So the power of herbs for lime and, and other things is pretty extraordinary.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: That's incredible. And, and you really haven't had any kind of relapse, you know, from age 13? I mean, yes, you felt crummy. Yeah. During college, you know, with what you're, you know, with the dietary and yes, you were exposed to who knows what in China. Yeah. But you had that kind of protection, herbal protection.
But lime wise, you haven't really relapsed in any way. You've been pretty much fine since age 13, it sounds like.
[00:28:31] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: That's amazing. And, and your brother, I mean you said that his was a little bit more challenging.
[00:28:39] Speaker D: So he had a harder journey for sure because he was a lot sicker than me and was on, you know, and so I think he continued with new and different treatments, you know, after, after I did. But he was still able to, you know, go from this like debilitated kid, always screaming in pain from joint pain and really not being able to focus at all. And a lot of, you know, what we call brain fog, but with a seven year old boy, they were just calling it, you know, ADHD or learning disabilities or both.
But he was able to, you know, became an excellent, you know, amateur tennis player in high school and you know, was able to exert himself, which is always great, without being bedridden from Lyme and continued to just kind of build up and improve his immune system. I think probably being on such heavy antibiotics for many months at a time when he was really young, you know, I think like 7, 8 years old had a long term effect on his body. Like he's Much more sensitive to gut related problems and has some skin rashes here and there that, that can flare up. But he's really been determined throughout his life to, you know, continue to, to heal them and improve them. And he's doing great now. So.
So yeah, I think he's, you know, even for people where it's been a long portion of their life that they've been on a quest to get better, like he's. Each year he gets a little bit better and a little bit less illness affects him and that kind of thing. But I know like when he got Covid or things like that, it would be really debilitating. Like he would need many months to really build back up his immune system. Whereas, like I had hardly any impact from getting Covid. So I think his, his gut and his immune system is, you know, had more damage than mine did at that age.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, your, your gut is so developing at that time and then to really wipe everything out with antibiotic at such an early age. I mean, that, that's, that that's just going to have long term consequences no matter what. And it's just hard to, hard to. When you miss that period in your life, you know, for that development in your gut, it's hard to kind of recover and it just takes so much more effort.
[00:31:23] Speaker D: And I think he must have had undiagnosed Lyme longer than me is what we think, because he just had symptoms for longer. And so that also probably played a role having Lyme so early just running rampant in your body, you know, maybe three, four, five years old for several years, whereas I don't know if that was the case for me. So I don't think so.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: I'm just impressed by your mother. I mean, the resilience and the, that, you know, willing to go completely out of the box and, and kind of hunt down whatever it is that, that could possibly be beneficial that were essentially cutting edge at that time. I mean, now it's more common but, you know, cutting edge at that time.
[00:32:11] Speaker D: Oh yeah, she was a real, she, she actually passed away like 15 years ago. But she was a real warrior. And she, I mean, the number of weeks she spent just in the middle of nowhere with, you know, my brother and I so ferocious about the fight to get us better without any thought about, you know, her own time in life and all of the research and all of the doctors and it was, it was her job. I mean, and, and she had my older brother too, so she had three kids. But she was really dedicated and did not poo poo anything. You know, she was always open to understanding how a potential treatment could work and never judged anybody. You know, a book by its cover. Like some of, you know, some of these people, you were like, you're gonna treat me with something. You know, the whole white coat didn't impress her. She was like, I'm interested in who wants to heal my kids. I don't care what you look like.
So she was really a real.
What's the word? Like tiger mom. She was, she was ready to fight for her cubs.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. That. That's. I'm sorry. Sorry to hear that she passed away. I mean, that's. Yeah, that's. Yeah.
How so you. Then you.
You kind of joined. There's a global Lyme alliance. You become part of that. You know, why did you make that decision? What, what does that organization do?
[00:33:49] Speaker D: Well, I don't know if I would say I joined it exactly. It's just a non profit that's really dedicated to Lyme disease research, around treatments and around better diagnostic testing, but also around being a resource for finding Lyme literate doctors and trying to create a community around Lyme littered doctors and share all of the findings and you know, things that can help doctors become more aware about symptoms. When people come in to think, ah, I should test for Lyme or this is probably Lyme or something like that.
So that organization actually one of my mother's best friends whose children are also affected from Lyme, also from this summer community in East Lyme, but they, they lived in Greenwich and so I think that was actually how we found the first Lyme literate doctor who helped to diagnose us was through this friend of my mom's and she is. Has been a longtime board member of the global I'm alliance. And so she got, you know, me and my father to really pay attention to it and to support it and, and Once I launched WellBe, my platform where I was speaking about really root cause medicine and these chronic diseases and how to heal from them holistically and, and really root out solutions that didn't destroy your immune system in the process, she urged me to, you know, talk about Lyme and to speak at the global Lyme alliance annual gala.
So yeah, that's my connection to the global Lyme alliance.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: So what with your understanding now, you know, all the education, all the research have you done, you know, where do you feel if you're going to say of all the therapies out there in regards to Lyme I mean, what. What do you feel moved the needle the most in regards to that for me, for you, or what. What is out there, what you've seen? Just being kind of engaged in the health community.
[00:36:01] Speaker D: Yeah. So I. Do you know Dr. Bill Rawls.
I've. I've interviewed him on my podcast, and I. I would say, in speaking with him and all that he's seen with Lyme, and he's always been very committed to the fact that herbs, antibacterial herbs, work very well to kill off lime, but it's. And it's very inexpensive compared to other treatments, but they just take a very long time, and you have to do it very consistently, and it can be a couple of years.
And they don't kill off anything else in your body because they're brilliantly designed by nature to just go after the bad pathogen and not destroy the rest of your gut flora. So, you know, that's something that I've always sort of. It's not that sexy, but it's consistent.
It's, I think, slower than a lot of people. You know, a lot of people are like, I don't want to be sick with these debilitating symptoms for years. Like, that's not okay. I have children. I have a job. I have all these things I need to do.
And so in that case, there's, you know, jumping into some other therapies that might be able to boost the immune system faster or kill off the Lyme faster, as far as those. I know some people are having really good success with, like, peptide treatments. Of course, hyperbaric oxygen was helpful for me.
I know that some people are.
I mean, I don't think anybody's really doing the bovine colostrum therapy that I did, but obviously, I got better, so I would say that was pretty effective.
But. But I. You know, I always recommend that people, if they think they have Lyme or they. They have been confirmed to have Lyme, and it's chronic to just get on Lyme, killing herbs and stick with it for a long time. And they can always add in more expensive treatments if they're financially able, or they can go travel to somewhere to stay for three weeks or whatever. But at the baseline to get those herbs in and start to work the magic is usually what I. What I think is good. A good plan.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I love Dr. Rawls. I mean, he is very much about, you know, like, you're saying, the natural way of doing things and also, you know, supporting cellular health, mitochondria, all of these different Things to, to really support your body, to be able to handle infections and rather than just kind of always killing. Also recognizing that the health of the host is important as well.
[00:38:44] Speaker D: Yes, yes. And right his, I remember, I think his first book was called, or one of his first books was called Unlocking Lyme. And then he wrote another one just a couple years ago, all about cellular health and how if your cells are damaged from a poor diet or from a bacteria that's been able to get in to them like Lyme, really empowering the cells to be healthy and to heal with movement, with proper diet, with hydration, with sunlight, vitamin D, all this stuff and putting in antibacterial herbs that will look for and kill off lime, your immune system will eventually tip that seesaw back into being in control and go after the Lyme itself to make it dormant versus just only killing but never really having a stronger immune system.
Maybe you would kill off Lyme, but some tiny bit remains and then flourishes because your immune system hasn't been able to conquer it or some other pathogen comes in and you still don't have great cellular health. So then that one, whether that's mold or whatever else is common, takes you down. So I really, his message on that resonates with me that it's a two part approach to strengthening your immune system and also to kill off.
So the irony of course with antibiotics is that they don't, they wipe out your immune system. So it's, it's not at all a two prong approach. It's, it's really compromising.
So you know, I try to avoid them as much as possible in my own life and for my children. But you know, I do know if somebody spots a bullseye on their stomach and they can get a quick antibiotic fix and make sure the Lyme doesn't get embedded, like that's fantastic. You know, they can do a gut healing protocol afterward to you know, with probiotics and, and other things to try to replenish the, the flora that's been killed off. But that's a really, you know, lucky situation compared to most of us where we didn't see a bite and it was several years before we understood what was going on.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Yeah, and, and multi rash. I mean, yeah, if it's a quarter or third, you know, it's not that often that you get to see it. So yeah, it becomes more count symptom symptomology and then obviously then after that if you can confirm by testing, great.
But a lot of times just symptoms, you Know, analyzing the symptoms can, can be enough, you know, to start treatment and address.
[00:41:22] Speaker D: And I think there's been a lot more awareness, which is great lately, about saving the tick if you find a tick and sending it for testing. Because I've, you know, I have small children now, I have a lot of friends with small children in Connecticut, Long island, whatever, and they know about my experience with Lyme. So a lot of them text me right away when they find a tick. Including my brother and sister in law found several ticks on our, my nephews this summer here.
It was a very bad summer for, for ticks here especially.
But they all are really good about saving it, removing it correctly so that you can save it and then watching the area for rashes, watching the kid for symptoms and getting it tested and stuff like that. And a lot of times it comes back as not a deer tick and doesn't necessarily have lime. Sometimes it does, which is great, so that they don't rush to treat.
And some of these labs are also doing a great job testing at the other tick borne illnesses too, so that even if they don't find Lyme, they're telling them what else is in it and what you should try for that. So I think that part of the Lyme process has gotten a lot better as there's been more awareness even if the diagnostic testing hasn't really improved that much.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
And you said removing it correctly. Yeah. What, what does removing it correctly mean?
[00:42:56] Speaker D: Like removing it with a tweezer up so that the legs are not still in the body, in your body. Because then once the tick embeds they, you know, they, they use their legs to really like get into your body. And so if you were to just like try to wipe it off or something, you could be leaving parts of the tick still in your body. And so, and it just makes it harder as a sample to test so. Or not as a sample, as a, as a physical thing to test the, you know, to get what they need out of the tick to understand what's, what diseases are in it. So you know, if you see it on your arm, taking a tweezer and really just like removing the entire thing up, you can get the whole tick and you can put that into a plastic baggie and send it off to a lab that tests ticks for different illnesses and then you can have much better peace of mind of what's really what got into yourself or your child before rushing to, you know, treat with antibiotics if you don't need to.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's Perfect. So you shouldn't put a match on. On the. The rear of the tick. That. That's not the way to go about it.
[00:44:16] Speaker D: Well, I think that would also burn off your arm hair and be painful. So. No, just tweezer, just up. Put it in a bag.
[00:44:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And. And that's the thing, is that if. If you do anything kind of harsh to the tick, then it will essentially just kind of vomit into you, and then you. You get all those pathogens and things that. They're in the stomach of the tick, you know, and so that's really not what you want to do. Yeah. So slowly just kind of pull it straight out with a. With a tweezer is tempting.
[00:44:47] Speaker D: Yeah. Almost like a splinter. Like, just really trying to get the whole thing out as best you can by going up.
I've only found one, and I know it was a deer tick because it was so small.
One tick on me as an adult, and I was, you know, terrified, knowing everything I know. And I remember it was on my inner thigh, and I was going to the bathroom right before I went to bed. It was very. It was like 10:30 at night, and I had been taking a nature walk with a friend in East Hampton and just taken the ferry back to Connecticut. And, you know, I think Long island might be the worst of all because the deer are, like, kind of trapped. You know, Nantucket, they say, for the same reason they. You know, once they get on there, they just reproduce. And there's just. Well, not just deer, but all the other animals, too.
So that's just my theory. I don't know exactly. But anyway, I had it from a. From a walk in Long island and thought it was a.
I don't know, piece of dirt or something. And so I, like, kind of, like, flicked it with my finger and it started walking. And I was like, oh, my God. I. I just got very panicked and just, like, went like this. And so it fell on the floor. And then I was terrified because I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, it's gonna crawl onto me or somebody else who's walking on the floor.
And I couldn't find it anywhere. You know, we have dark wood floors, so it was, like, impossible.
So I was very scared and nervous, but it wasn't on me anymore, and luckily it hadn't embedded yet. So I. You know, obviously, if you flick an embedded tick, it's. It's probably not going anywhere. It's, like, in you.
So I was lucky in that I didn't end up taking any antibiotics because I know it wasn't embedded in me, but I always wish I had not done that so I could at least take it and put it in a bag and see what was going on. But again, if it's not embedded in you yet, it doesn't. You can test it, but it's sort of a waste of time because you were. I was in the clear. It was, it was lucky I didn't have anything yet, but it was, I would say, at least seven hours after I had gone on that hike. So it just goes to show, I mean, you do have some time from. Not everybody is the same, but from when a tick might be on you and crawls very slowly up you, if it comes from a walk or something on your foot to actually when it's embedded.
So don't panic because it could be not even embedded yet, or it could be just recently embedded and you can sort of watch to see if anything happens in your body on that local spot. I mean, you obviously have a lot of recommendations on this too. So do you agree?
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and, and there are other tics. I mean, you have the, the fever, you know, the, the relapsing fever.
And those are. Can be a little bit smaller and they actually don't even need to bite. You know, they're kind of small and jelly, you know, softer kind, you know, so there are, there are other types of ticks that. It can go faster. Yeah. If you find it. But if it's just kind of a normal tick, like what you're seeing.
Yeah. And if it hasn't embedded, then great.
I probably still would do kind of some anti lime. Yeah. If you want to do like the cat's claw or just do, you know, something just to kind of do that for a couple of weeks and hit it hard and just to make sure that your immune system is up and running. And obviously if you have a bullseye rash and it has really. If you see that it has been embedded, then yeah. Doing antibiotic like doxycycline, you know, hit. Hit it hard for a couple of weeks immediately is a good thing.
[00:48:33] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, that's what I have been told. And regurgitate to people too, with if they can. And I have had friends, you know, pull up their shirt and say, is this a bullseye? And I have to say, yeah. Yep. I would go immediately to get something that sure is. So you can see it. But a lot of people don't, of course, because your hair, you know, the back of your butt, you don't look at Often. Right. So there's plenty of places that you just wouldn't be looking. And then the time passes and the rash is no longer there and then that's that. So it's hard to.
Yeah, hard to find those.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: So tell me about. Well, me. I mean, you, you started that. I mean, you're obviously, you must have been influenced, but by your mother, you know, with everything that she was putting you through and the impact that that kind of medicine had.
I mean, you went through, you got your bachelor from John Hopkins and then you got a master in Business administration.
And here you are then doing a well made platform focusing on root cause medicine.
[00:49:42] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I certainly didn't think I would be in the health world. When I graduated from college, I worked at IBM. I was not at all involved in health stuff, but I remember trying to convince my boss's boss to overhaul the cafeteria at corporate headquarters because I found the food so unhealthy and trying to overhaul the water system because I was like, this is full of bad stuff and we need to purify it. And people's productivity and their brain health will be better if we had some more omega 3 foods at the cafeteria. And like, you know, it all went on deaf ears, but obviously it was there because I was just 23, 24, trying to have those conversations.
And I decided to go to business school. Honestly, it was sort of a random decision and sort of maybe a way into another career because I was not really my job and the people I worked with was very nice at IBM, but I was like, well, I stay here forever. I don't really know what I want to do next. And so a lot of people in my team had gone to business school, so I sort of like, okay, so I did that. And actually my mother had, it's a long story, but she had gotten a mental illness and it was very acute and bad situation when I was in my early 20s. And so she passed away just as I was turning in the applications for business school, like within a week or so of, of the deadline for two weeks. And so it really changed how I was applying and what I thought I might be going for. And I immediately was like, this conventional healthcare system is so broken and especially the mental health care system within that, and there's no interest in healing.
It's just symptom suppression.
And you know, once you're in the grips of it, especially the mental health care system, it's like impossible to get out, or not impossible, but very difficult.
And the insurance, in bed with the psychiatric Hospital, it was just a mess and the drug companies all in the mix.
I felt like who could actually get out of this alive? You know, it's really a mess.
So I went really thinking about that a lot and thinking about how I could solve some of those problems.
When I was in business school with, through business and I ended up really, I worked at a health tech company and I worked with hospitals on chronic disease management programs after business school for three years because I just felt like I want to see the whole system from the inside.
And it was exactly as I thought.
And so I finally said, you know, I can't do this anymore. I've always known that this is a mess and I'm done gathering information and I want to go disseminate what I've learned to people. So it really started as an awareness platform and then grew into working with people privately as a holistic patient advocate and building some programs around, you know, coaching other people to be holistic patient advocates, but then also around healing yourself and all the things that we do every single day. You know, I say the 100 choices you're making a day are healthcare. You really, in most situations, you know, getting to the root cause of illness. I think there are some fabulous medical professionals like yourself who are holistic minded and can really help people with testing and their own experience. Zero in on some things they may not have realized or known anything about, but then the work is on them. Then it's really an inside job for the most part to do all the things every day consistently that will heal your cells and kill off illness or kill off, you know, pathogens that are creating illness in your body. And it's a mental, emotional, spiritual and physical experience to do that.
And so I kind of, you know, my philosophy is like you're, you can 90% heal yourself. As you know, Dr. Rawls would agree, and he did.
And sometimes more elaborate treatments can really be helpful and speed up that process. Like some of the things that my mother found for us and I'm sure some of the things that you find for your patients who are desperate to be better sooner.
But it's still a day to day slog of just eating right, keeping the poison out, drinking a lot of clean water, you know, taking the herbs, moving naturally, being in sunlight, having a great community, hugging your loved ones, having a sense of spirituality, like all of that is what heals healthy cells and not having to much environmental toxicity coming at you in your home, or getting rid of mold if that's causing issues, et cetera. So A lot of my platform on WellBe is just helping people know about all of that and doing the things that they can to create the healthiest environment they can in their body and in their home, to never get illness or to reverse any illness that might be there, while also helping them connect with holistic practitioners and doctors like yourself to maybe get that diagnostic testing that would help them to see what's the root of the problem. Because I know for me, when I see evidence of a particular thing I need to change me making that change is much easier.
For example, I've had a thyroid condition and it really wasn't until I had a stool test that showed non celiac gluten sensitivity that I committed very aggressively to being gluten free. Before that, I had sort of a, you know, here and there kind of thing when I felt like it, instead of like, no, this is very important. So some people say you don't even need testing to really start to heal your body. You can just start with all the things I mentioned.
But I think for me and for certainly for others, some of these lifestyle changes are really challenging and to really commit to them, it's great to see some evidence that, like, yeah, that's my problem or one of them I have to be serious about. So I still think that that's the most important piece that doctors and practitioners can play. And of course, also coming up with great plans and protocols that give people guidance on exactly, you know, what, what they really need to be doing, because there's an infinite number of herbs and supplements and things you can be doing. So it's extremely overwhelming. So having some plan can be great.
But again, at the end of all of that, it's still an inside job and they still have to do all the work each day. And so my platform, I hope, helps people with a lot of the awareness around that and those things, those changes that they can make, a lot of which are free or very inexpensive, that don't involve doctors yet, while also, you know, showing them great doctors on my podcast and articles on my site and helping them connect to those kinds of doctors. Because I'm like, even your regular dentist, you have nothing wrong with, you should be biologic and holistic. Like, why would you even get involved with the kind of doctor who's not going to look at you holistically, whether it's for, you know, a GP or a dentist or, you know, anybody else? So I think that's really important. I'm like, let's give business to these kinds of professionals. Let's not even entertain the other kind, the, the out of date kind that's treating or. Or suppressing symptoms as their really only mode of, of treatment.
[00:57:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, let's, let's use our ball and dollars to support the things that are really restorative and regenerative and, and they can find your, your platform then@get wellbe.com, right?
[00:58:02] Speaker D: That's right. So get and then w l l b.com or you can google my name Adrian Nolan Smith and you'll probably get to it as well.
But I have hundreds of interviews of fantastic doctors like yourselves and patients who have had incredible healing journeys with many different chronic diseases, including lime and a lot of other programs and resources. I actually I built a non toxic product database re for my clients a couple years ago that is now morphed into something that thousands of people buy just annual access to because it makes it so easy to find non toxic things in every aspect of your life with easy links for ordering that. I never expected that to be something I would be offering or building when I started this, but it's just kind of turned into something that has been really helpful for people because doing all the research when each time you need to buy something is very time consuming and people are busy so they just, you know, want, want something trusted with ratings and scores and links for ordering. So that's something else that's been very popular on the site.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, all those things are so needed and yeah, people are so.
It's so hard to navigate all of this. So then to have one location where people can go to assess and see what they are exposing themselves to, that's phenomenal. Well, this has been amazing.
I really appreciate you taking this time and being with me today. And so Adrian, thank you so much for everything you're doing because I know that you have the brilliance to do what many different things, but you're here supporting people on their health journey and to me that is phenomenal. Thank you so much.
[01:00:01] Speaker D: Thank you so much. Yeah, it's also fantastic to meet you and hear about all the great work you're doing and supporting people in the same way. So thank you for everything you do.
[01:00:14] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:00:22] Speaker A: The information this podcast is for educational purposes only and it's not designed to diagnose or treat any disease. I hope this podcast impacted you as it did me. Please subscribe so that you can be notified when new episodes are released. There are some excellent, excellent shows coming up that you do not want to miss. If you're enjoying these podcasts, please take a moment to write a review. And please don't keep this information to yourself. Share them with your family and friends. You never know what piece of information that will transform their lives. For past episodes and powerful information on how to conquer lyme, go to integrativelimesolutions.com and an additional powerful resource Lime Solutions for Lyme Support and Group discussions Joint Lyme Conquerors Mentoring Lyme warriors on Facebook. If you'd like to know more about the cutting edge integrative Lyme therapies my center offers, please visit thecarlfeldcenter.com thank you for spending this time with us and I hope to see you at our next episode of Integrative lyme Solutions with.
[01:01:27] Speaker D: Dr. Karl Feld Bell.
