Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative Lime Solutions with Dr. Carl Feld. I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us. We have some phenomenal information that could save lives. I am Dr. Michael Carlfelt, and with.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Me, I have my co host, Tanya Hobo.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: You're going to need to tune in to what's going on today.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: The information is unpacked.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: So, yeah, don't step away.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: So excited. Let's go ahead and get this started.
Welcome to integrative line solutions with Dr. Carl Feld. And today we are here with Eric, and we're so excited to have you. And I've been looking forward to kind of hearing your long journey because I know it's definitely been a journey. So, so glad you joined us. Thanks for joining.
[00:00:56] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Well, I'm really excited because you're a rock climber, you're like an athlete and top of your game. And then all of a sudden, what happened?
[00:01:10] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it didn't happen quickly. It wasn't so noticeable. But I do remember about probably now, like 1112 years ago, 2012 is when the first symptoms came on. And for a couple of years in a row, I felt like I was getting the flu, like three, four times a year, and slowly started to realize, well, you're not supposed to get the flu that often. And I went to numerous doctors and I lived in Connecticut then, which know ground zero. You would think that more physicians would be in the know. But I went to my physician, my just primary care, and kept complaining of pins and needles and achy joints and the typical early symptoms and, oh, it's fine. You're probably just using your phone too much while you're getting the pins and needles or it's all normal stuff.
And then it just progressed worse and worse because of rock climbing. I'm out in the wilderness quite a lot. And so probably in that from 2010 to 2012, I probably pulled 30 to 50 ticks off of me, and I told my primary care of that. So eventually he gave me a couple of weeks of doxy and was sure that if I had it, that would get rid of it, which, of course, we know isn't the case.
And then time went on and I started getting these intense sugar cravings, which were, like, abnormal. I mean, I could not eat enough sugar and feel satiated. And I later learned that that's kind of the bacteria sending signals somehow to your body. I was also craving alcohol. I was drinking more than normal and kind of doing things that weren't healthy for my body to be a really good host for this disease, and things were going downhill slowly.
And then I was in the hospital for two weeks with Lyme carditis, almost went into cardiac arrest.
The liner was so swollen and filled with fluid.
Even in the hospital then, I kept saying, I have Lyme disease. I have Lyme disease. Oh, that's nothing unrelated. Don't worry about it. And then afterwards, when they finally figured out what's going on and were draining my heart, that's when they kind of sort of admitted it could be related.
And then I came to find out later that Lyme carditis is a thing, and I still was kind of in denial until about 2015. Was the heart the Lyme carditis? And then 2017 ish is when I went to my first Lyme literate doctor, and it was almost like he had to grab me by the shirt.
He's like, eric, you are really sick, and you need to start figuring it out now. Otherwise it's going to get a lot worse. And as soon as I heard that, I was like, yeah, this explains everything that's been wrong with me.
Psychiatric, neurological, things were going wrong. And then as soon as I kind of accepted and acknowledged it, it seems like the next three years, it really got worse.
I don't know if I'm going on too much right now, so maybe I'll take a pause here and see if you guys have any questions.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: No, that's great. I'm curious, though. So at that point, before the Lyme literate doctor, you did the doxy, and did you still think that it was Lyme at that point, or it wasn't in your mind at that time because doxy had taken care of whatever that was. So there's got to be something different.
[00:05:26] Speaker D: Yeah. I believed my primary care physician. Foolishly, I did. I went to psychiatrists.
I went to the primary care with the chest pain, and he said, oh, it sounds pulmonary, because it would hurt when I would breathe in deeply. And so he's like, you go see my friend who's a pulmonologist. And I had to wait, like, a month for that appointment. So this whole time, this stuff is getting worse. And after that whole thing, I just never went back to that physician again.
I thought about after the hospital, after the Lyme carditis, calling him and kind of giving him a piece of my mind, but I just let it go. And then I realized, okay, I need to find better providers. And Lyme kept feeling like it was a possibility, but I really part denial and then part younger, feeling like I was invincible.
And then part explaining the symptoms away for something else or trying to find some other reason. And it wasn't until that LLMD looked at my labs and was like, you're CDC positive, which is the worst, and we could send it off to igenics or whatever the other labs. But he's like, you're sick. You've got to treat this. And that's the guy who started me on long term antibiotics, and I started that route, and then I left long term antibiotics because I didn't feel like it was the right path for me.
[00:07:06] Speaker C: Well, so many times during our journey, we want to reach out to those doctors and say, hey, look, you were so wrong. First of all, line is real. Chronic line is real. Two weeks of doxycycline is not even going to touch it. We want to tell them so many things.
[00:07:27] Speaker D: Yeah, I went to a.
An infectious disease doctor who told me I need to go to a psychiatrist.
I went to a neurologist. You need a psychiatrist. I can't help you. And that's just the worst, because I'm like, listen, I've never been depressed in my life. I've never been on psych meds for anything. So why can't I walk? Why can't I stand upright sometimes?
It's not a mood thing.
It's almost like, well, we don't know. I wish they would just have a different tact, especially in that. Especially in Connecticut, telling them that I pulled 30 to 50 ticks off me. I'm having telltale Lyme symptoms. Why not just be like, this is not something I can help with. Maybe you should try a Lyme literate doctor instead of. You're crazy. Get out of my office. I can't help you. It's just a terrible feeling when you're in that bad of shape, and all the doctors that everyone's referring you to are telling you you're crazy and that your pain and your suffering isn't real. It's in your head. It's terrible.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: It's fascinating how they filter out the possibility of Lyme with two weeks of doxy, and if that didn't take care of it, then there wasn't Lyme or the CDC, which, I mean, in your case, you were, know, western blood positive, which hardly ever happens. So those are the two filtering. So in your case, you were then CDC positive. You did the two weeks of doxy, and that should have taken care of it, and that's as far as they go. And now you have this whole group of people just like yourself that are just suffering instead of exactly what you're saying. Why not send them to somebody that's helped this type of group of people in the past? Because obviously they can't.
[00:09:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I can understand how, like what you said. Tell me you can't help me. Tell me you can't figure it out. Don't just tell me I'm crazy. But for these doctors, after you tell them about all the ticks you pulled off, that's what's mind blowing, especially in Connecticut. Right? Like you, I mean, can they not at least just say, you know, it's a possibility? Let me send you somewhere that knows about it's.
[00:09:58] Speaker D: It. There are some that do. Like, I had a friend in Connecticut who just suddenly fell ill, and he had an infectious disease friend who tested him immediately, and they gave him iv antibiotics. And I'm like, why couldn't that have happened to. Some are. Some are all about it. And that wasn't even, like, a known Lyme literate just, it was a friend, and they knew what to do. So, yeah, it's shocking how few people know about it, especially in Connecticut. It makes me fearful for people around the country because it's obviously not, just not geographically limited. These things hop on animals and birds, and maybe it started there, but it's everywhere. It's in Europe.
It's crazy to me because you would think that you were asking for heroin or something when you're trying to get five weeks of doxycycline from a doctor. But they'll prescribe you like. Yeah, they'll tell me to go to the psychiatrist, and that psychiatrist will gladly give me six different pills to deal with my psych issues, which are not really psych issues, and those things have tons of side effects. But for an extra couple of weeks of antibiotics, the risk reward there to me is a no brainer.
A few extra weeks, I'll take the probiotics, and let's just make sure it doesn't turn into one of the worst late stage illnesses of all time. I mean, I don't get it.
[00:11:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And you know what's crazy is, of course, you're probably on the line. Groups like, I am, too. I don't see it quite as much in the last couple of years, but for several years, people would go on there and say, hey, I just pulled a tick off my kid or my husband. What do I do? And we're like, go and get six to eight weeks of doxycycline. They're like, we only get it two you know how many people would comment on there? Go to one clinic, they're going to give you two. Go to the next clinic in another town and tell them the same thing. And I'm like, this is crazy.
To work the system just to get antibiotics so that we don't turn into a chronic Lyme patient.
[00:12:17] Speaker D: Yeah. Meanwhile, they were given opiates out like candy.
It's just crazy. And part of the crazy thing is that even though I was CDC positive, I still couldn't get health insurance to pay for anything. So health insurance did not recognize Lyme as an existing disease after the two weeks of doxy. And then when I tried to get life insurance, they recognized it as a deadly illness. They wouldn't insure me. So how does that work?
It's polar opposites, and it's whatever suits them best. So, yeah, it's nuts. I just read recently that they've finally recognized chronic Lyme as a thing through the CDC. So I guess it's baby steps. They raised it from 20,000 infected a year, which stayed there for, I feel like, over a decade, and then it went up to 400,000 overnight, which is still probably well understated.
And then I remember reading, learning somewhere that a lot of the CDC members that write the guidelines for Lyme, which is the two weeks doxycycline, they own patents on certain proteins or vaccine attempts or parts to vaccines that they hope to cash in on, and that's a conflict of interest that is probably related to the way they're drawing up these guidelines.
So, yeah, in a weird way, I'm grateful that I got Lyme, even though it was the worst experience of my life, but it really opened my eyes to a lot of what goes on in healthcare. I work in healthcare, so, yeah, just seeing how corrupt some of these institutions are. Then I learned the FDA is more than 50% financed by private corporations, the ones they're supposed to regulate. You really realize, and I wouldn't have learned this otherwise, that you have to be your own advocate, you have to research your own path medically, and use the experts, but make your own decisions, get second opinions, and don't believe whatever you read on page one of Google, necessarily. It just doesn't work like that. Especially with chronic illness. Broken bones, trauma doctors are great, but when it comes to chronic illness, we're really bad at it. In this country.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: We are. I mean, it's atrocious. It's absolutely atrocious.
You're right.
And we learned a little bit of that, kind of, like, during the COVID crisis, that there were no treatments for Covid until the vaccine came. So every possible things that were helping for Covid were not acknowledged. And in fact, it was rejected and made sure that it was gaslighted just because they knew they were waiting for the know, the vaccine. And so I'm wondering if it is very similar with Lyme, like what you just mentioned, that they have something in the works. There's some kind of patent that some company that has relationship with FDA that they're trying to drive forward. And because of that, then there's really another type of treatment is not allowed.
[00:15:47] Speaker D: Yeah, it's true. I mean, the treatment that ended up working for me, that poor guy, his license was in jeopardy. He had to go to court. He spent a fortune fighting for the ability to continue treating.
And according to the licensing board, it was a fringe treatment with no evidence. And from what I understand, a lot of his patients came to bat and he won. So, in one of the rare cases where he was allowed to continue doing what he's doing. But, yeah, if you don't have a pharmacological solution or medical device or something that's going to make a big company lots of money and you're using natural means or less invasive or less pharmacological means, then that's a threat to these large corporations that stand to profit a lot. So they don't want certain treatments out there. I'm sure of learning. I tried rife for a while as well, and learning about royal rife, I think, was his name and what he went through.
Yeah, it's crazy how many possible treatments there are that will help people that are just swept under the rug because they're not really making people money. And then the practitioners that use it have to be really discreet about it, or if they are going to give you the five weeks they don't want five plus weeks of antibiotics, they don't want anyone to know about it because they don't want their license to be in jeopardy. And it's a shame that that's how the system works.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
Initially, you found this Lyme literate medical doctor, but were you looking for a Lyme literate, or he just happened to be one as you were on your journey?
[00:17:54] Speaker D: Yeah, as I started suspecting more and more that what I was dealing with was Lyme, I started going onto the forums and never heard the term LLMD before, and then thought that was a thing. And then I kind of think I put it aside for a while, and then when the symptoms really came up again strong. I remember searching for an LLMD near me. I think I used the global Lyme alliance, one of the sites where you can search for llmds. And turns out one was located literally across the street from where I grew up. And I don't know why that felt good to me, but I picked him. He was also probably the closest one.
He was great, very fascinating man, very brilliant guy. Did a lot of research, had microscopes in his office, and I think he published a bunch online. But he was traditional long term antibiotic therapy and then some supplementation.
And I remember he gave me a test because I was still in denial when I went into his office, and he had me do these balance tests, and I couldn't believe how bad I was at them. That was like when I first realized, oh, my God, I can't even do these simple. If I got pulled over, they would think I was drunk, probably because he was telling me to touch my nose, stand on one leg, things like that. And I couldn't do it for the life of.
Yeah. And then when he was like, eric, you're to. This needs to become your primary focus. So I did about eight months of long term antibiotics. I was doing injections, and it was various antibiotics. I can't remember the names of all of them, and he was, like, rotating them. But I just felt at a point in my gut, I guess, literally and figuratively, that it wasn't the right solution for me.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: So how did you respond to it? What was your experience going through it? I know after eight months, you felt there was time to shift, but did you herx a lot? Was that you feel horrible? Did it feel better? No change what happened?
[00:20:19] Speaker D: Yeah, I definitely herxed a bit, and I felt like everything was getting worse and worse. And part of that could have been because I hadn't wisened up to all of the ways that I can help my immune system and my body get stronger. So I was still eating bad.
I wasn't doing self care, I wasn't meditating, I wasn't doing exercise. If I just didn't feel well, I would lay around and do nothing.
So then I switched to a naturopath that I met who healed his own Lyme through herbs and diet and lifestyle, and that felt better for me. Felt like I was in a better place.
I read a lot about the antibiotics destroying the liner of your gut, and then also the problem of long term antibiotics being, if I need them for something else, then it may not work.
And then leaky gut can turn into a host of other problems. So I tried the natural route with him for a while.
And at the time, I thought I was back up to like, 70% because I had been sick for so long, I forgot what being healthy was. Right. So I was really at about 50%, but I told everyone 70 because, wow, this feels great. I can walk again, I can talk again, I could do some sports every now and then, but I was still really sick.
Yeah, I was only about halfway there and lingering there for a while, and that's when I went on to the Facebook. I feel like this is how I did it. But I think it was the Facebook Lyme success stories website or forum. And my analytical brain was just like, I'm just going to look through years of posts of what worked for people, and I made a spreadsheet, and I just wrote all the treatments down that people were having success with. And I remember sot was on there.
Immuno, what's that one?
I don't know why I'm blanking on it now, but low dose, an idea to do that?
Yeah, I think I still have it somewhere. And then I eventually stopped. I didn't go as far as I wanted to. Low dose immunotherapy, that's that one. LDI, they call it, and then LDn, which I did try for a little bit. Low dose naltrexone. That didn't really do anything for me, but I kept hearing this thing, limestop. Limestop.
And then I researched it, and I remember in the beginning, I'm like, what is it, though? I don't understand. What is the guy actually doing? And then I reached out to some people that claimed to have success with it, and they explained that he was using magnets and lasers to kind of retrain your immune system to recognize and fight the infection. And by that point, after about eight to ten years of being sick, I had been sold snake oil plenty of times. I remember this one doctor I went to in Connecticut, quote, lyme literate, he actually sold, man, I was in a terrible state. Then he sold me some deodorant looking stick that I was supposed to rub on my taint area, like in between my anus and my scrotum every day. And that one deodorant thing was $120. Then he sold me these little bottles of water that must have been like 6oz max. And they were apparently naturally struck by lightning and would help heal me. And I just bought these things and I brought them home and showed them my wife, she's like, what? And I try not to shoot anything down now, but it was a little wonky. And then I went and looked at some reviews, and some other people were upset with paying this fortune for this kind of voodoo type stuff. So I went back and returned it. They said, we don't normally don't. I was like, listen, I've spent way too much money on this disease. I didn't open anything that you gave me, but I can't be spending $300. Those little waters were, I think, 80, $90.
I've been through it. So then going into this magnet laser, I was like, is this going to be another one of those things? It's hard to have confidence in treatments after you hear so many stories and people are trying to lure you in, and when you're suffering, you'll do anything to stop it.
But there was too many success stories from too many people that I know were actually sick with Lyme, from the forums and people who I'd met going to these Lyme conventions or what have you. So I was like, all right, it's working for these people. I'm going to go. It's cost effective.
So my whole family went out there, and I got northern Idaho, right? Yeah. Dr. Smith, from what I see, I'm still a member of the limestop forum. I try to stay active on both lime and the lime forums and limestop, because I always remember when I was sick, people who. It was always people who were sick on know, and every once in a while, somebody who was healed would give some advice, and I was like, oh, man, I wish there was more people like that versus just us sick people complaining all the time. And so I always vowed, if I ever get better, I'll stay active and try to come back and give advice or just support when I can. So I still do that.
[00:26:31] Speaker C: We so appreciate that more than you know. And just like podcast, that's what it's for, is to not only give that hope and inspiration, but just to share different ways that people healed from Lyme.
Backing up just a moment, when you said all these crazy things that you bought and bought into, it's hard. It makes it really difficult when you're trying to explain to people that are suffering with Lyme that maybe it's time to think outside the box. Maybe it's time to get away from the antibiotics, switch to something more natural. Well, for many of us, that is a whole new world. We don't know anything about it, and so everything kind of sounds crazy to us.
You've just said some of the craziest things I think I've heard. But how do we know? We don't know. And so we're trusting these doctors to sell us their voodoo stuff and then realize we just got taken.
Gosh, even these natural people are making it hard for us to trust, to know what to do. It's so sad.
[00:27:45] Speaker D: It is. Yeah, it is. And thanks to you guys, by the way, for doing what you do. Just like me staying on the forums. It's great that you do this to help people, and I'm glad to be on, but, yeah, there was a lot of people out there that took my money and didn't help me. I'll just leave it at that.
It's true suffering. And when people are suffering, they'll throw money at anything if it could possibly work.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: So you went to limestop, then Dr. Smith with magnets, some supplements, and then also the lasers.
How was that?
What did you notice? What changes did you see?
[00:28:38] Speaker D: Yeah. So going in, I was super skeptical, and my naturopath, the good naturopath, is kind of like a hippie shaman type of guy. So he was like, eric, if you're going to go do this, you need to believe in it. If you doubt it, it will probably disrupt the healing or prevent it, maybe. So just try to embrace it. And so I did. I tried to go in with a positive mind, and not a skeptical mind treated me.
I did it over two days, the first round of treatment. And after that second day, I had a crazy reaction. I was shivering uncontrollably. I remember being in the hotel room with a blow dryer, just blow drying my face while I was under the covers, just trying to get every bit of warmth I could.
Was even nervous. I wouldn't be able to travel back. So I don't know if call it a herx or whatever, but it was definitely a reaction. And then I got back, and it was just temporary. It was almost like a quick day of freezing cold and then some other symptoms that drummed up. I tried to go. Infrared sauna was one of my best detox and just treatments for when I would feel bad with any Lyme symptom. Go in the infrared sauna, and I always feel better afterwards. So they had one out there that I would go to regularly, which really helped during the treatments. It was at like a spa or massage center of some sort.
Then I came home, still subconsciously skeptical, but trying to embrace it. And then I had gained. At that point, my normal weight is like 155, 150. At the time, I was 195 pounds because I was just eating leading up to that, eating so much garbage, so much sugar, alcohol intake, all that stuff. And when I got back from limestop, at that point, actually because of the naturopath, I started fixing my diet, but it was only like, probably a couple of months in.
And anyways, when I got back, I lost 40 pounds in probably like two and a half weeks.
And it was just coming off like crazy. And I called limestop and I called my naturopath and I was like, I'm getting a little nervous. This is insane. And it was all like, inflammation, water weight. I went all the way down to 145 and then it balanced out and then I came back up to my normal weight. But yeah, all this, and I never realized how inflamed I was. Like, my face, my arms, everything was just inflamed. And I was carrying a lot of this water weight. And then also right around then is when I really changed my diet. And I hope this isn't too gross for the audience, but I just remember probably a good 1520 pounds of extra stuff in my intestines that was just probably living and stuck there for a while. I just kept going and going to the point where it almost felt like I was poop out organs.
But, yeah, the combination of that and fixing the diet and the treatment, that's when I really realized, whoa, this is a physical change that's happening. After this treatment.
And then the healing began, I went to my follow up, which, if I remember correctly, it's four months after the first treatment, and then it wasn't until eight months after, which is why I go back on that form, because a lot of people freak out. It's been a month and I still feel terrible. And I tell them, for me anyways, it was about a month for every year I was sick, a month to a month and a half. Eight months is when I started feeling better. Like, really noticeably better. And then it wasn't until about the year and a half point where I was like, I am healed. And during the first eight months, I felt the battle going on. It was crazy. Like, I felt this war going on between my immune system and the bacteria and co infections.
And then I'll never forget there was a period, I don't remember at what point it was, but I was like, it's winning, I'm winning, it's happening.
And I just started feeling better and better, getting things back.
But, yeah, looking back now, I have a normal life. I'm so grateful. But the worst of the worst I was in bad shape.
I couldn't drive for a while. I would get lost in my own neighborhood.
I lost the ability to write with a utensil for a while.
One of the weird ones, which I don't know if you've ever heard, but most people haven't, is I went for two months where I couldn't stand the sensation of fabric touching my hands or feet. I was actually wearing rubber gloves in bed. I wouldn't let my heel touch the floor of in a car, the carpet. I wouldn't let my heel, even with shoes on. Just knowing that something on my extremities was touching a fabric would drive me nuts. Like fingernails on chalkboard.
Yeah, tinnitus, the whole thing. So I was in rough shape.
The Lyme carditis. And now, looking back, I'm just so grateful for that treatment and to be able to share it.
My wife's mother's brother, so her uncle is also in the woods all the time, got really sick with Lyme disease, and he has no money, and I paid for his flight and treatment to go out there. That's how much I believe in it. And he's doing great now as well.
Yeah. Forever grateful for that one.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: That's awesome. So, right now, is there anything that's still lingering, or you just feel good?
[00:35:16] Speaker D: So afterwards, my adrenals were near dead.
So when I really, truly felt Lyme gone, co infection is gone, but I'm having this weird anxiety. Still no physical symptoms. It was all nervous system type stuff. I felt like whenever my adrenals should do what they're supposed to do, it felt like it was dry firing. I don't know how else to explain it.
I don't know why I didn't think of it for a while, but finally I was like, oh, adrenals. I should probably get them. I didn't even know you could test adrenals at that time, so I should probably get those checked out. I found somebody here.
Luckily not.
What is the name of the doctor that specializes in adrenals? It begins with an e, doesn't it? Endocrinologist. Is that.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Yeah, an endocrinologist. But they wouldn't really know. It would still be kind of a natural doctor that works on the endocrine system. So I would ask for somebody to do what's called the ASI. It's adrenal stress index. It's a saliva test.
[00:36:31] Speaker D: That's what I did.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:33] Speaker D: Yeah.
When I started looking into it, I heard or read that endocrinologists will not recognize adrenal fatigue, they'll only recognize complete failure where they need to give you medicine forever or operate or something. So I found a nurse practitioner who was specialized in hormones and the endocrine system, and she gave me. She ordered the saliva test, and she said, you are. Out of everyone I've ever done this to, the closest to Addison's disease as I've ever seen without having it. She's like, you need to get this under control right away.
So she put me on steroids. Very similar to the LLMD story. She put me on steroids. I was on those for about six months, didn't feel any improvement.
And she was a little perplexed by that, too.
And then turns out an ICU doctor friend of ours here, we moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, about a year and a half ago. So this is just when I was dealing with the. Well, I started in Connecticut with the adrenals and then told him what I was doing. He's like, I don't think you should be on the steroids. Let me help you. And he was raised by two chiropractors. A chiropractor. And, like a naturopath, his mom was. So he's got the MD, but he really appreciates natural, less invasive forms of healing. So he gave me this regimen with supplements and was really adamant about meditation, positive self talk, getting enough sleep, and chewing my food really well. So alleviating, not putting stress on your body through digestion and other means, just eliminate as much stress as possible so that they can heal.
And now I'm great.
None of that. There's another thing that I want to mention, because I don't want anyone to fall down this trap. When I was dealing with the anxiety and the adrenal issues, somebody recommended kratom to me. Have you guys heard of kratom or kratom? Some people pronounce it's a. It's a southeast asian plant leaf that has very similar, later come to learn, very similar effects to opiates. It affects the same receptors. It's not classified as an opiate, but I remember taking a dose of that, and I'm thinking, oh, this is natural. This is a plant. Should be fine.
And immediately alleviated all the symptoms that came along with my adrenals, which I didn't know were problematic at the time. And so I used it regularly for a while. And then when I just stopped taking it one day or for two or three days, I started to have withdrawal symptoms. And that's when I started realizing that this is not a good thing. And then I found a forum of people that use kratom, and there was people that were on there that had been addicted to opiates, been addicted to heroin, and said, it is harder than anything they've ever had to quit. And I had the same experience, although I've never done heroin, so I don't know how hard that is to quit. But it was extremely difficult. I had a very lengthy, tighter schedule. I was tapering. I had all these other supplements to take to alleviate the restless leg and the insomnia, and then come to find out it can really affect your hormones. A lot of people have thyroid issues on taking kratom. So I think that exacerbated whatever issues that Lyme had left me with my compromised adrenals.
So, thank God that's out of the system and everything. Now.
After Lyme, I never had problems sleeping. Lyme gave me the worst. I couldn't fall asleep. I couldn't stay asleep. And then the adrenals were also part of that. Now I can sleep fine. I don't take any pharmaceuticals. I take, like, a multivitamin. And I'm still taking a few things for the adrenals just for extra safety, but that's all done.
I'm good. I'm like a normal human again. It's wonderful.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Well, congratulations, Eric. This is awesome.
[00:41:22] Speaker C: I love, love. I hate to hear how sick people are, but I kind of like to hear it on the podcast, because I want people to realize you can be on your deathbed and still get your life back. You just got to think outside the box and mindset, have your mindset set right that you can do this, and positive thinking and so many other things.
So happy you're good and healthy, and thank you so much for sharing with us. We really appreciate it.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks so much, Eric. This was awesome. This is awesome.
[00:41:54] Speaker D: Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you guys for having me. Thanks for what you do again, and keep it up. I'll be listening to your episodes for sure.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Well, thank you. Thank you.
[00:42:04] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: 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 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, lyestream.com. For Lyme support and group discussions, join Tanya on Facebook at Lyme Conquerors mentoring Lyme warriors if you'd like to know more about the cutting edge integrative of Lyme therapies my center offers, please visit thecarlfellcenter.com. Thank you for spending this time with us, and I hope to see you at our next episode of Integrative Lyme Solutions with Dr. Carlfeld. Close.
