Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative Lime Solutions with Dr. Carl Feld.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us. We have some phenomenal information that could save lives.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: I am Dr. Michael Carlfelt, and with me, I have my co host, Tanya Hobo.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: You're going to need to tune in to what's going on today. The information is unpacked. So, yeah, don't step away.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: So excited. Let's go ahead and get this started.
Welcome to Integrative Lime Solutions with Dr. Carl felt. And our next guest. Not only does she have my mother's name, Linda, but she's also from kind of my neck of the woods down in northern California. So it's amazing how all of our paths cross like this. So, Linda, we're so excited to have you and to share your journey with us. So welcome.
[00:01:03] Speaker D: Thank you for having.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: You're a little nervous about going through the journey. So I'm curious, what's the nervous aspect about talking about it or remembering it?
[00:01:19] Speaker D: The remembering it. In fact, I've kept since 2016, when I was diagnosed, I've kept, like, a brief journal and I started to go back and look at it and thought, I can't do that.
I just can't do it.
I just try to move on and not remember that. So I think Tanya found me because there's a lime success story group where I wrote my story and it took me over a year to finally write it because people kept asking me. It's just know.
So I didn't put in a lot of detail. Trust me, I've been through a lot. I try to focus on going forward in what's positive because I've been on the other side and it's not fun.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Well, I certainly do really appreciate you joining us because I know getting through that journey, so many people want to block it out because it was beyond a living hellish nightmare.
It's hard to explain. So my hope is that you sharing with us maybe is going to kind of release some of that worrisome about being drugged back down into it, and maybe it's going to give you kind of a different outlook on it, being able to say the words out loud and kind of go down that memory lane of your journey. And it may be therapeutical for you and to have other people be able to hear your courage coming forward, sharing, and maybe it'll allow them to do it, too, because our voices truly need to be heard, especially our guests on the show, because you guys have conquered it. And that's the hardest thing to do. And so when that happens, we want you guys to come on and share with us, because people need to hear that there is hope. You go from bedbound to not knowing your name to running on the beach. I don't know. Let's get our life back.
[00:03:33] Speaker D: Well, haven't done that yet, and we.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: Need to share it. So we're excited to hear your journey again. I hope it brings you nothing but positive things. Don't want anything negative from this, so, yeah, we're excited to hear it.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
Tell me a little bit, where did it start?
Where did you start to feel symptoms that you were wondering about, or when did it happen?
[00:04:06] Speaker D: So my start is kind of fuzzy.
I lived in Ohio, then I lived in Maine, then I lived in California, then I lived in Pennsylvania. And over that time, I'd had a lot of issues, but I kept going because I was pretty healthy. And we were in California, and I looked back at the very beginning of my notes for 2016. That was as far as I got. And I went to my fabulous primary care doctor and said, I still feel bad. She'd been doing blood tests over the years. I still feel bad something's wrong. I'd had surgery after surgery and all kinds of weird stuff, and she actually saved me. And I tell her that every time I see her. She tested me for Lyme. Unbeknownst to me, I got all my results. I had the neutrophil issues and all the other stuff and all the viruses we all have, and it said I was positive for Lyme. And she looked in her notes. She said, I have another patient with Lyme. Let me give you the doctor's name. And while I was waiting to see the Lyme doctor, she put me on. I think what we read some burescano paper, like, to take doxycycline and septin or something like that. I don't even remember. And that's what we did while I was in a holding Pattern.
And I think my story is different from other people's because I didn't drag around for years going from doctor to doctor to doctor. And where I was diagnosed in Sonoma County, Lyme is endemic. It's one of the hot spots. In fact, the mosquito vector had a sign on the billboard on the side of the road saying, lyme disease is crazy. Protect just ridiculous here. Protect your not ridiculous. Lyme disease is prevalent here. Protect yourself from ticks.
So I didn't get dismissed quite as often as many other people did.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: That is so fortunate, because we have so many people that they're decades sometimes before they get the appropriate diagnosis and before their appropriate treatment.
She did save your life. And so here she finds out it's Lyme, you find out it's Lyme, and she connects you then with a Lyme literate doctor llnd.
[00:06:34] Speaker D: And I was actually CDC positive. If I would not have been CDC positive, I don't know what my journey would have been. Probably like everyone else's, but it's really unusual, because like everybody else, I never saw a tick. Nothing.
But what did happen when I finally got into my Lyme doctor, we thought it was a new bike, because I remember laying in bed, saying to my husband in the morning, something bit me in the ankle, itched something bit me again the next day, changed the sheets. I said, there must be a spider in the bed. And it all went downhill from there.
That's when everything, just the avalanche of symptoms that everybody has. But I think that I lost my train of thought.
[00:07:20] Speaker C: We were talking about being CDC positive, because CDC positive, most of us aren't. Correct.
[00:07:26] Speaker D: Right.
I still lost my train of thought, but sometimes that happens. You can probably relate.
[00:07:32] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: You say kind of the avalanche of things, symptoms like everyone has.
[00:07:39] Speaker D: Oh, that's right. Okay, so now I remember when we went to the Lyme doctor, we assumed it was a new bite, and she pretty much threw everything at me because I had every symptom imaginable. And then it dawned on me, thinking back a year or two later when I actually had a functioning brain again, I forgot that 20 years earlier, I'd been diagnosed in sonoma county with lyme disease. And I remember they gave me doxycycline, and I went into the office and said, I've got burns on my hands and they swollen. Stop taking it. So I probably was way chronic by the time we thought it was a new bite. So throwing everything we had at it to try to get me well didn't work well for me.
I spent a year in bed with my husband, pretty much taking care of me and doing everything, and it didn't work well for me. It was too much for me. I couldn't take mepron, I couldn't take alineia, I couldn't take the doxy. Everything was just falling apart.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: So they really kind of hit you with the whole cocktail all at once to kind of COVID all the different co infections.
Again, when you say it went downhill, so did that mean, obviously you're in bed, exhausted, couldn't do anything pain wise, how are you doing there, brain? How is that functioning?
Tell me a little bit about those.
[00:09:10] Speaker D: I had it all, and thinking back, I read so many articles that say the gut is the key to your brain, and I actually think it's true because my gut has been better for the last year or two, but I think so much of it was because I think my gut just couldn't take all those treatments. And I think that's what made things worse for me. Maybe had we tried one thing, I could have done it, but it just wasn't working for me. I was so sick then from the antibiotics, I started to have, like, what is it? H. Pylori and sibo, and then I had dental issues, and then everything happened.
So then none of the orals were working. I just couldn't tolerate them. We tried a couple of herbals, but I think actually the alcohol and the herbals was a problem, too.
We tried some intramuscular shots and I am so sensitive. I was absolutely in agony and we couldn't do it. So she switched me to iv. Antibiotics pulsed, and that was a game changer for me. That got me out of bed, that got me some quality of life.
But then when you stop that, eventually everything comes back again.
So I guess a couple of years went by and went through the emergency room a couple of times, ended up in the hospital, just traumatic things.
And I think through all that, I ended up with PTSD, like trying to set up the IV antibiotics, and the hospital says, yeah, we'll help you, you can come here, we'll do the infusions. And then the day of they say, yeah, we're not going to help you. You have to go to our infectious disease doctor first, which we all know he's not going to help me. In fact, I think he was the first one that told me Lyme disease is hard to catch, but easy to cure.
It's one of the biggest lies ever, right?
[00:11:15] Speaker B: It's like the infectious disease doctors. I don't know why they even have that title, because it seems like they're not able. Because they don't believe in parasites, they don't believe in mold, they don't believe in.
[00:11:30] Speaker C: Exactly. Do they do what?
[00:11:32] Speaker D: Do they believe in bubonic plague or something?
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
Covid.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: That's all it must be. Covid.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah, probably not. I really haven't heard of it.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Probably.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: I haven't heard of a successful and productive meeting with an infectious disease doctor yet, whether it's Lyme or anything else.
[00:11:57] Speaker D: Actually, I never had one.
I got the guy on the phone or something and he said that, and I said, I'm done. I'm not even going to waste my time or my effort. So the first time, with the IV antibacts, I got lucky.
My husband's insurance, I was on his insurance because I wasn't able to work at that point. And they covered it. The second time, I don't think they covered it. Maybe we paid for it. And I actually had friends help me out with the peripheral line. We would pulse, we would do a peripheral every week for maybe six weeks.
And that, again, was a game changer for me. After kind of languishing for a couple of years, got better again, no problems with my stomach, with the iv. And then that went away again. And my llnd, my Lyme literate naturopath, said, why don't you try the cowden protocol?
Which I was actually making progress on until month eight, when everything fell apart.
I mean, I was so sick, I couldn't eat. My weight was really low, and I realized it was the alcohol and the tinctures.
So I went out and I bought myself a book called Healing Lime by Stephen Buhner. And as best I could, I tried to read it, and it wasn't easy. And I decided I was going to switch to powdered herbs.
And that's what I did. And I actually remember trying to figure it all out, and somebody helped me. I remember crying when I trying to order stuff. I didn't even know what to do. And I think that's the reason I continue to help, even to this day. I'm really willing to help people with Buhner, because I think that's what saved me. There's another doctor I really like, Dr. Bill Rawls. And what stuck, I've read his books. What stuck with me was he said, treating Lyme with antibiotics is like killing a mosquito with a fire hose.
And that was the case for me. It really was.
Along the way, I had tons of testing done, like stomach testing and heavy metals testing, and I found out I have the gene mutation. So apparently I don't detox well, so everything just makes me sick. But with herbs, they work for me. But I lived in Santa Rosa, and we had fires in 2017 where a large portion of our city burnt to the ground in the middle of the night. And that was more trauma, having to flee from that. And I realized that mentally, you can heal the physical, but you have to heal the mental. And there was just too much trauma there. And then after that, we'd have to evacuate because there were more fires and more fires. And my Lyme doctor said to me. You know what? I think you got to move.
So we picked up and moved to southern California in the desert, and there's no ticks on the vegetation here because everything has a thorn and it's too hot for ticks, probably, although they live in the arctic and sand doesn't burn. So I have low stress here. I really focused on my mental well being. Had a whole lot of therapy for at least a year or two, and I think for me, that was the last piece that after being here for about a year, I realized I was actually having good days.
And I thought, these herbs are the way to go. And I think the mental piece of it was a big deal because you wallow at the bottom of the line pit for so long, it's hard to come out of that. And I think, for me, that was the last piece, and I couldn't do it with the trauma of the fires, and my trauma was fire and evacuations, but other people have similar traumas. Maybe it's a family situation or you're living in mold or whatever. So I guess that's why I think that's relevant, even though other people don't live in a wildfire zone, although a lot of people do now.
[00:16:18] Speaker C: Wow. That's definitely very relevant. So I lived in paradise.
[00:16:24] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, I hear you.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: So you know how that went down. Yes. In that trauma of that fire. I've been in treatment for three years, and that retriggered my Lyme again. So, yes, it's good to get out of there, but I'm glad that you brought up the healing part of it, because I do.
Lime is like literally peeling an onion. And you think you're all the way done. No, you need to get down to the little bitty thing till there's nothing, because that is the final piece, I think, is to heal the trauma that we went through and to try to get away from avoiding having PTSD, avoiding being petrified, to go out into the wilderness. We need the outdoors in our life, and so many of us are scared of that, and we shouldn't be.
Right?
[00:17:21] Speaker D: Sidewalk.
[00:17:22] Speaker C: Yeah. You're a sidewalk girl now. But I do. I just think it's a big piece to our healing journey, is healing out the emotional part of things that we go through. And like you said, it doesn't have to be a fire trauma. It could be family trauma, because we hear that a lot in these journeys, that there's a lot of toxicity within their families when they're going through this journey.
[00:17:46] Speaker D: Right. And I didn't experience that and I think looking back is when you get a better perspective on it, when you finally start to feel better. And then the first year I started to feel better, I was like, what if it comes back? What am I going to do? And you just have to try to move on.
But it's just not easy when you've been traumatized. And then you think, well, am I. Well, it's hard to say because I was eight years older or seven years older. It took me seven years to get out of that bed and finally live my life. And it's like, I know things won't be the same.
So I try not to look back at what I lost. I look forward to what I can do, but I don't know.
If I never had lime, I don't know where I'd be right now because I'm eight years old, seven years old, eight years older, yeah.
So I just try not to focus on that.
And I will say, I have a wonderful partner that took care of so many things, including moving us down here. And I only ever had. I still remember this. I only ever had one doctor, really. Poo poo Lyme. I went to a dermatologist, and he said something about Lyme, and he wrote a paper, and he was an expert. And all I said to him was, oh, you drank the CDC Kool aid? And he didn't say another word. And I never went back to him.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: It's fascinating. Yeah. You write a paper, now you're an expert.
[00:19:22] Speaker D: Oh, he was an expert. And then he left the room, and his intern. I said, that guy's a moron.
And she just smiled at me. I don't know what she was thinking.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: She probably agreed internally, but she couldn't probably.
[00:19:39] Speaker C: I wanted to kind of touch on what you just said about, are we well? Do we stay well? We lost all these years of our lives, and I think that it definitely changes us going through this journey, but I really think that a lot of positive things can come from it.
We tend to get very in tune with our body and kind of know what feels right, what feels normal, and we learn a lot of tools, a lot of different things that work for us, a lot of different ways to detox at home, different nutrition, not necessarily diets, but guidelines to go by of what's healthy for us to eat. And so I say this because if you're well and you're starting to feel your body off, listen to your intuition, listen to your gut, and take a step back a little bit and bring out all those tools that you've learned.
I think that's the great thing about going through this, is that we do take in so much valuable information about our bodies, about natural herbs and remedies and modalities that are out there that can help heal us. And many times something will happen to me, and I'll think, well, gosh, Tanya, why didn't you grab that thing out of the drawer and use. It's. But it's those things that we have that can help us. And who knows? Maybe now, Linda, that you're coming out of your shell a little bit and sharing with us. Maybe this is going to be your new passion that you want to do, is to help the Lyme community, and, gosh, what a positive thing that would be.
So I just think we really can reevaluate and look at things so much differently than we can not ever having Lyme.
[00:21:41] Speaker D: Well, I can tell you something funny. One of the times I ended up in the ER, I think it's when my guts were bleeding. There was, I think, a traveling doctor or something, and he said to me, and he was talking to me, and he said to me, are you a physician?
[00:21:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:57] Speaker D: He actually thought I was a doctor because I don't know what I was talking to him about. But I must have been somewhat impressive in my weakened state that I knew so much about, probably medical in my body more than I ever wanted to know.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: See, my point exactly. I always said I could be a doctor, a pharmacist, and a therapist. I just have no licenses for it.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: I'm curious.
So you studied all these herbs?
Steven Buhner said that he's not with us anymore, but what he brought to the world is just amazing.
How did that process go about? I mean, what herbs did you learn about, and which herbs did you try, and which herbs did you have failures with, successes with?
Tell me about that journey, because I think that'd be really fascinating.
[00:22:55] Speaker D: Well, once I finally figured out what his full protocol actually was, I thought I'd just go to one place and buy all the herbs and be good to go. And then I realized it doesn't work that way because they run out of herbs. Not everybody cares all the herbs. Some herbs only come in tinctures.
I did not want herbs from China because I didn't want to expose myself to any heavy metals because I already had so many issues with that, with mercury. That was beyond where their chart even went.
So I finally ordered the basics. I ordered cat's claw. I ordered japanese knot weed andrographis, which that's another quote I remember from a brilliant man. And he said the taste of that made me cry. So I learned early on to put that in capsules.
I did the collagen, the protocol, because my joints aren't good.
I'm not sure that actually helped me at all, though. And I pretty much bought everything and got going. And it took me forever because I'd started an 8th of a teaspoon and then I'd feel horrible. And you're supposed to do it three times a day and it's remembering to take it and what to take and when do I add in the next herb? And I guess I eventually figured it out.
There were some people in. There's a buhner Facebook group. And by the way, I'm a big fan of Facebook groups. Not for medical advice, but just like help with the protocol or whatever.
I learned that I cannot take japanese notweed. It's way too estrogenic.
I like cat's claw. I did stuff for my brain like the other. What's the other cat claw. There's like something tormentosa and there's a one that begins with an r. I don't remember.
And then I did like kudzu and astrologists and ashwagandha to try to help balance out my mental. And it's hard when you finally get up to five or six herbs and then something happens.
There's no way to really tell what caused it because you can never just change one thing. If it's your diet, if it's that you exercise more, if it's that you're under stress, if it's a new herb, if you increased an herb, if you dropped an herb. I never really figured it out. I kept a diary, a food diary for years and years and years and never actually figured out what all my problems were from until recently. Apparently it's histamines. I can't eat cheese. Can't eat any kind of aged cheese. But anyhow, back to herbs.
That's one of the ways. Well, that's how I actually knew last year that I was getting better because I have ADHD and it was gone for a lot of years.
And I said, oh my gosh, it's back. I'm so happy.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Yeah, when the brain is shut down, you can't have in a hyperactive.
[00:25:59] Speaker D: It wasn't even working. I couldn't read.
I just couldn't do anything.
[00:26:05] Speaker C: Funny how we'd be excited to have ADHD back, right?
[00:26:09] Speaker D: Exactly.
[00:26:10] Speaker C: Never thought we'd say that. It's a good thing.
[00:26:16] Speaker D: And I would tell people I used to be smart.
Aside from all the physical stuff, I think it's hard when you lose your brain ability. Like the brain fog. That's a hard one. But anyhow, back to herbs. So I never thought I'd knew about herbs. I knew nothing about them before I started this.
I never thought I'd be able to help anybody with herbs. I never thought I'd believe in herbs because I didn't know anything about them. And it's just amazing.
It's the whole fire hose mosquito thing. You can blast everything, and as soon as you turn off that fire hose, those mosquitoes are coming back. Herbs just keep constant pressure on all the forms, from the cyst to the biofilm, from the spiral cut. They just change form. And if you don't keep that constant pressure on them, I don't know how you can get them under control.
So that's why I like herbs.
Once I stopped the alcohol tinctures, I haven't had no problems with stomach issues.
I don't worry about getting C. Diff.
I won't tell you that one.
It's just so much better for me. They're gentler on my body, and I can tolerate it. And the book gives you a wide range of what's a person's full dose. The full dose for me, for most of my herbs was only ever half of a teaspoon, which some people take two tablespoons.
But for me, it was a half a teaspoon. And I did that for probably two or three years, maybe. I don't even know. And then when I realized I was feeling better, the book never told me what to do when you're feeling better. So I decided I'd only take the herbs twice a day. But of course, I was paranoid that everything would come back, but it didn't. And then I started weeding out some of the herbs I didn't think I needed. Japanese knotweed. I ejected long ago.
I kind of rotate them around. I'm not sure I exactly know what I'm doing. I kind of go based on symptoms.
I've recently taken out ashwagandha because my sleep has never been good and it's bad again. So I thought, well, maybe it's the ashwagandha. I'll take that out for a couple of weeks and then see if it makes a difference.
It's funny, I told my husband, oh, great. I traded lime for a hip replacement. Just when I started feeling better, my hip fell apart, and I was terrified because I don't want any parts in my body that can attract bacteria. And I also had to stop taking my herbs. So you go to the orthopedic office, and you have to give them a list of all your medications. And I'm giving them all these things, and they typed out, like, I don't know, 40 or 50 things, and just kept saying non formulary, non formulary. So I had stopped taking all that. And of course, I was scared the lime would come back, and it didn't.
And then I wasn't exactly sure which herbs I knew cat's claw, turmeric. I wasn't sure which herbs were blood thinners, but I didn't want to. After hip replacement, you take baby aspirin or whatever to make sure you don't get blood clots. And I was afraid of taking any herbs that would have been more than the required or more than the suggested blood thinning. So I didn't take them for a while, and it was okay. I went back on them.
So I think I'll always take herbs.
I don't know that I'll ever go off of them. I probably focus less now on killing, though, and more on trying to strengthen my immune system and maybe help my gut. My gut was destroyed. I can't take any probiotics at all. So I try to eat well, other than chocolate, and I just try to do the right thing. I can't be completely sugar free because I have to have chocolate. I can't be gluten free, because sometimes I need, I don't know, a cookie.
But I do the best I can. And I feel like maybe the herbs will protect me. Like, I like andrographis encapsulated, and I like rodiola, and there's a few others. And actually, Dr. Rawls, I have buhner's book. It's a little hard to read if you're not really.
I don't know. It's a little complicated. Let's just say that Dr. Rawl's books were a little easier to read. He actually had a chart, and I kind of went and picked down the chart. It's like, oh, I think I'll throw in some milk thistle to help protect my.
I guess that one was kidneys and that was liver. Milk thistle for your liver. And then I had some kidney issues go wrong. So I thought, I'll throw in nettle, stinging nettle, to try to maybe help support my kidneys. So that's just kind of how I do it. Now, you were saying that you're more aware of your body, I think I tend to be too aware and I'm too hyper tuned into absolutely everything that happens, so I try to back off from that.
When I started having kidney issues and my blood work was all over the place, I just tried not to focus on it, and I thought, well, I'll take an herb that'll kind of COVID that, and I don't have to think about it all the time, and I don't have to think, oh, where's my kidney? And does it hurt?
[00:31:48] Speaker B: That's just me and bringing in the nettle done for the kidneys. Did the numbers improve?
[00:31:56] Speaker D: I never went back and tested everything.
I actually think I have. Thank you, Lyme. I have orthostatic hypotension, and I have to drink a lot of water. And I live in the desert, and I'm not sure if I wasn't maybe drinking too much water.
They tell you to drink half your weight in ounces, and I should have been drinking about, I don't know, what's 140? I should have been drinking 70oz, and I was drinking in the 90s. So I cut that back and the numbers got better. So I don't know. Again, you never just change one thing? I don't know if it's because I quit drinking less, if it's because I add in the nettle, I'll never know. I'd love to know.
Don't know.
[00:32:44] Speaker C: Well, I have so much to say on the last of all of this. I don't even know if I can remember it all. First of all, I love that you went out of your box and went into this herb thing, right? Because I think so many people. And again, there's a time and place for antibiotics. If you get a fresh bite from a tick, by all means, go and jump on some antibiotics. No.
[00:33:09] Speaker D: Get your doctor.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: You need more than a week. Okay. Get on eight weeks, whatever it is.
[00:33:14] Speaker D: Right.
[00:33:14] Speaker C: But other than that, if you're not getting better and you're working at this, think outside the box. There are so many ways that we weren't raised to believe we could get well.
We go to the doctor, we take what they give us, and we get better. That's how we're raised.
[00:33:34] Speaker D: And you get better fast when he gives you the pill, too.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: Right?
[00:33:38] Speaker D: Not like herbs. Right.
[00:33:40] Speaker C: And I just think that people need to think outside the box, because I never in a million years ever thought I would take or do some of the things I've done on this journey, but it's all of what saved my life. And it sounds like, for you, too. And we talked about the good things coming from Lyme. You are so in tune with your body. You're like this master herbalist now. You're like all this. You have an issue. You have the tool in your toolbox to do something about it. I understand you can get hyper focused on it. Just be aware of your body. Don't be a hypochondriac. Right? Don't be that. Just be aware of your body and trust in what you're putting in it to fix and heal what you have wrong.
You've learned so much because you're so full of all of this knowledge that you're sharing with us. I love it, but I think the.
[00:34:34] Speaker D: Difference is so many people will say, oh, I tried herbs. You can't just go get one bottle of something and take it for three weeks and say, it didn't help me. It just doesn't work that way. It's not like doxycycline or it's not like an antibiotic. When you have an infection or something, what do they always say? Slow and steady, you just have to stick with it. Herbs are gentle on your body because they don't work overnight. It takes a while.
I don't know. Maybe people aren't patient. Maybe they're used to western medicine that just gives you a pill and you feel better right away.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: They kind of are, yeah. And I tell people, too, that we all know that this journey is very expensive, and we spend a lot of money on different things that, like the alcohol and the tinctures for you, that didn't work for you. And then people think, oh, my gosh, I just wasted all of my money on this. Not necessarily your case, but a lot of other people. I'm like, don't throw away what you have, because that might be your ticket in six months, once you fix this in your body or once this changes in your body, just because something doesn't work for you right now doesn't mean it's not going to be beneficial to you down the road.
[00:35:48] Speaker D: See? And I would just tell them to double boil it or buy glycerites.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: Don't know what double boil it means.
[00:35:58] Speaker D: Yeah, to remove the alcohol, because I can't take, like, any alcohol, a little bit of champagne, but I just can't tolerate any tinctures. And people say, oh, leave it on the countertop for an hour, the alcohol goes away. No, it doesn't. If you put a glass of vodka on the countertop, it's not gone in an hour.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: Well, it might be at my house. No, I'm kidding.
[00:36:17] Speaker B: It evaporates.
[00:36:20] Speaker D: It evaporates faster in your house.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: It's amazing how that works.
Like you're saying, and it is fascinating with people say, I tried herbs and it didn't work. I mean, I have people that come up and I tell them to do, they get a colder flu and I tell them to do Achina and said, I tried echinacea. It doesn't work. And I said, well, how much did you do? Well, I took these gummies and I took a few of these gummies, and I didn't get instantly better. So now Achina won't work. And so it's always about the dosage. And then also you have in regards to, would somebody say, well, I tried pharmaceutical and didn't work, and they took maybe an antidepressants when they should have had an anti inflammatory.
They all have different functions. And same with herbs, they all have different functions. You got to find the right one and you got to explore and see how your body is responding to the different things like you're doing, bringing something in and seeing, how does this feel being in tune with your body? What is happening in my body? Is it changing anything?
Should I kind of materially push a little bit harder or should I bring something in to support it?
There's so many different options, so you can't just draw a line. So I did this and didn't work.
[00:37:47] Speaker D: I tell people, you can't just dabble in it. You either got to do it or not do it. And that's like your echinacea thing. You can't just take a few gummies and say, it doesn't work.
[00:37:56] Speaker C: Yeah, there's no black and white with it for sure. And while we're kind of on this topic, something I just want to throw out there, because I know that sometimes people go know, they get a dozen different things that they're supposed to take, and they just take it all. And you know what? That's great. Maybe Dr. K would tell me to do that. I don't know. I don't know what people do. I don't know what people say. But for me personally, I don't go in and take ten different things all at the same day. I just don't do it. If I have a protocol in front of me, I will take one thing, maybe two, depending on if I know what they are. I know a lot about it. I might take one or two and I wait three days, and then I'll add in one or two more. Because we are in tune with our body. And I want to know if I'm going to have a reaction. I don't want to think, I just can't do that. Protocol, it doesn't work for me because of whatever reason. At least this way I can say, you know what, this particular thing, this doesn't set right with me. Can we remove this? Can we add something different? So you're not negating the whole entire protocol that you're working on, because you took all ten of these things at the same time. And you're like, I'm out. I can't do it. If you stagger them and slowly add things in, then you'll know if you're having a reaction and you'll know to what specific one. And maybe we can modify it instead of just flushing everything down the toilet.
That's how I roll.
[00:39:30] Speaker D: I agree, because, you know why? Because we made the mistake of taking too many things at once and paid the price for the day or two days. And then you learn not to do that. And I'm always telling people, like, start with an 8th of a teaspoon of one, then go to a quarter. Then if you can do a quarter for seven days and you feel good, then add another herb and continue to increase that one a little bit. You don't buy the full protocol. Like somebody will say, I took three droppers full and I feel awful.
You're only going to do that once.
[00:40:06] Speaker C: And then you learn, right? And I'm telling you, some of those herbs, they're no joke. Like when you can read on it and it says one drop three times a day, I'm like, one drop? What could that possibly do? Crypto, trust me, it does something.
Don't just say, I can't do one, I'm going to do five or ten. No, you'll highly regret it.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Right?
[00:40:27] Speaker B: You had that effect with crypto lepsis.
[00:40:30] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: Did you go up too fast? Did you just start too fast?
[00:40:36] Speaker D: Yeah, I probably went from three drops to five drops to ten drops. I lost my mind and I didn't throw it away. I just backed off and went back to what I knew I should have been doing. But I guess I was in a hurry. And yeah, I learned. Alkal to gold, to the rescue.
The miracle drug.
[00:40:55] Speaker C: Right? I hear so much good stuff about that. And I didn't know anything about that back when I was going through my journey. But people talk about that all the time, about how it's just a total.
[00:41:06] Speaker D: Life saver I don't know why, but for me, that always made me. I haven't taken it in years, but always made me feel better. I don't know why. Yeah, I don't even know what's in it.
[00:41:20] Speaker C: I know, and I've never even taken Alka Seltzer in general. But it has to be the gold.
[00:41:25] Speaker D: There's something.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: Dr. Kate, can you shed some light on this? Because people talk about this all the time. I'm like, gosh, I wish I would have known that.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: And it is fascinating because I've seen that many times. And exactly what you're saying. It's got to be the gold. And you can kind of argue, well, it's very alkalizing, but there are a lot of things that are alkalizing that neutralizes acids. Obviously, when you're killing things off, the different pathogens are going to secrete acidic substances that impact your neurological system. So then you say, well, I get alkalized, but baking soda, for a lot of people, does not do it. Regular Alka Seltzer doesn't do it. But somehow something in the gold does a trick.
[00:42:14] Speaker D: I don't know what it is.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's fascinating to me. And I can remember back, like, 30 years, 30 years ago, where people took alkal cells or gold and they felt much better.
[00:42:31] Speaker C: That's just crazy.
[00:42:33] Speaker D: It's just like a miracle thing. I don't know why I would tell everybody starting up just buy that.
[00:42:37] Speaker C: Yeah. No, that's a great tip. It is.
[00:42:41] Speaker D: That and pickled ginger for nausea. I don't know. Pickled ginger works for me. Yeah, I see that stuff by the jar.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah, obviously. That's fantastic for me. For anybody. Any kind of nausea or gut issues. That's fantastic.
[00:43:03] Speaker D: Well, because it's either pickled ginger or you're going to take bottles and bottles of pills for nausea, which that's probably not good either.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: Well, I mean, when you're nauseous, you don't want to take bottles of pills.
[00:43:16] Speaker D: Right.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: You want to sip. And even if you don't have pickled ginger, a lot of people do. Well, just with. You got to do weak ginger tea, you don't want to do strong one. You just do weak ginger. So you just kind of do four slices of the root ginger, and you just kind of simmon that for a few minutes and then sip that. And sometimes just putting a little bit of honey makes it even more effective.
[00:43:43] Speaker D: I've done that, too.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's whatever. And each one got to find their own what works for them. And it's interesting. What works for one is not necessarily the trick for somebody else, but you got to play around and see what works for you.
[00:44:04] Speaker D: Well, I would rather do things more gently. Like, I do not take Advil or Tylenol at all. I take Arnica montana pellets.
That's the other thing with hip replacement. I was a little worried about all the things I'd have to take.
I went to great lengths to find out what antibiotic I would have to take. Afterwards, I talked to my Lyme doctor. She said, yeah, it's fine. You're only taking three doses after the iv stuff they give you in surgery. And they gave me stuff to protect my stomach because I had to take some pain medicine. And I don't know, it all worked out okay, but I like to do things as gentle as possible. Like, if I didn't have stomach issues, I would take Arnica. And if that didn't work, then I would take an advil or something. I would never just go right to the big guns, although I'm not sure Advil is big guns, but it's bigger than Arnica Montana pellets.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you have like, white willow bark that you can try. You have, obviously, the cbds. You have Valerian skull cap, those type of things.
[00:45:10] Speaker D: Valerian stinks.
That's right up there with andrographis. I have some of that in a jar. And my cupboard stinks because of that stuff. If I open it up, I'm going outside next time.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: It's like old socks.
[00:45:24] Speaker D: It's bad.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it is bad.
[00:45:25] Speaker D: Didn't tell me that when I bought it. It's bad.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: There are some pretty bad things we have to endure during that journey, for sure.
[00:45:34] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:45:36] Speaker C: Like, we can't be weak, right?
I've been putting a little bit of celtic salt on my tongue in the morning and drinking some water to hydrate my body faster.
And I told somebody, and they're like, ew, you would put salt on your tongue? And I'm like, if that was all I ever had to put in my mouth, I would be so happy. Like, you would never survive lime. If you ever get lime, just go jump off a bridge. I don't know, because you're not going to make it.
[00:46:08] Speaker D: I drink sludge twice a day.
[00:46:11] Speaker C: Right?
[00:46:11] Speaker D: It's sludge.
[00:46:12] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:46:13] Speaker D: Water. It's sludge. My husband look at me and say, how can you do that? It's like, how can I not?
This is nothing.
[00:46:21] Speaker C: That's the answer. Yeah.
[00:46:23] Speaker D: How can we not?
[00:46:26] Speaker C: And it's not an acquired taste, trust us. No, it's really not.
But we do what we got to do to get better.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Yeah. When, you know, the option is being in bed for seven years versus that. You pick that.
[00:46:40] Speaker D: Right. I'll drink.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: Exactly. Well, this was amazing. Thank you so much, Linda. This was so.
Yeah. What are some kind of last tips or words that you would like to say to people out there that are going through the type of journey you've gone through?
[00:47:02] Speaker D: I would say that I have been there and if I can get better. You can get better.
You can't just wait for somebody else to make you better, though.
If your brain works or if your brain doesn't work, have somebody help you. You have to learn about Lyme disease. And you can't just go to your family doctor and think they're going to make you well or go to quick care or urgent care.
You have to be your own advocate. I guess I would say that about all medical, but you can get better like everybody else. I thought I was going to die. I thought my life was over, and it's not. You just keep plodding along and you'll have a good day, and that's what will keep you going. Or you'll realize you can go to lunch with a friend and maybe the next day you're in bed, but you can do it again. You can get better.
You just got to keep going.
[00:47:59] Speaker C: That's perfect. Keep going. Don't stop.
Can't say it any better than, yep, drink that sludge.
[00:48:05] Speaker D: Drink that sludge.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Drink that sludge and keep going.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:48:12] Speaker C: Linda, thank you so much for sharing your journey. And you're just a wealth of knowledge, and it sounds like you just kind of taught yourself this, and that's what we do when we go through this journey. We have to be our own advocate in every way possible. So. Absolutely, if you can do it, so can the next person. Exactly. So happy you got your life back. Thank you so much for getting outside your box a little bit and sharing your journey with us. And I hope it helped you. If anything, I hope it just kind of reiterated to yourself that you're very knowledgeable about what's available to you. You're very knowledgeable about your body, which is so important. So I think you've created a great ending to your story. So thank you so much for sharing. We appreciate you.
[00:49:05] Speaker D: And I didn't cry.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: You did.
And I think it's important also when people dealing with PTSD, recognizing that they've gone through the journey, they've learned all these things, so they have now the tools that they didn't have when they started the journey. So it's almost like looking back as an adult to a child that's gone through yourself, as a child that's gone through trauma, that now I have the strength of the adult, I have the wisdom of an adult, and I have what I experienced at that time.
I now have the tools to deal with. So I don't have to be afraid of that anymore.
[00:49:45] Speaker D: Exactly. It's all about the tools.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:48] Speaker C: If you can remember to use.
[00:49:50] Speaker D: Yes, right.
[00:49:52] Speaker B: Open that drawer.
[00:49:53] Speaker C: I got to open that drawer more often.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, Linda.
[00:50:00] Speaker D: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:50:09] 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 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 lime, go to integrativelimesolutions.com and an additional powerful resource, limestream.com. For lime 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 thecarlfieldcenter.com. Thank you for spending this time with us, and I hope to see you at our next episode of Integrative Lyme Solutions Lucians with Dr. Carl Fowler.
