[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative Lyme Solutions with Doctor Karl Feldt.
[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. You're gonna need to tune in to what's going on today. The information is jam packed, so don't step away.
Well, today is such an incredible treat. I have Doctor Amy offit. She is the current president, president of ILads, and. Thank you so much, doctor Offit. This is going to be amazing.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: So, tell me a little bit about ilads, because obviously, that is an organization that is very important for people battling Lyme, and it's really been a source of information and guidance for so many physicians that are helping our Lyme community out there.
[00:00:57] Speaker C: Sure, of course. So, about 25 years ago, a group of concerned physicians and researchers decided to put together a group that they named ILads, which stands for the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.
They did this because they were finding that they didn't have a lot of resources to back them up on treating patients differently than some of the other approaches.
And they were, in fact, probably getting a little bit of criticism for some of their treatment application, and they felt that they needed to sort of come together and put a little more, I guess, numbers or weight or science behind what they were doing, because several of them were noticing that patients just weren't getting better with the usual approach. And unfortunately, that goes on to this day, as you're well aware. But so that was 25 years ago. And, I mean, I just look up to all of those people that started the organization and have persisted through the years with more learning, more education, more collaborating, more networking.
And I'm just. I'm so grateful to them that about ten years ago, I was doing some education myself in integrative functional medicine. And during. I've told this story on a couple other podcasts, too. But during a particular weekend, one of my favorite professors started talking about Lyme disease. And I even at that particular time, thought, oh, that's sad. I'm going to waste this day because we don't have Lyme disease in Texas. Because I'm in Texas. Right. Then he went on to explain that it should be part of the consideration in almost anyone who has a chronic inflammatory issue.
And it's not always the cause by any means, but it can be the cause. And if it were treated, we could avoid a lot of sometimes very long suffering patient stories. And so after that particular educational experience, I came back to my clinic, I had my nurse call the patients that popped into my mind during that day, and all of them had the same panel. This is just a small panel of a pattern that indicated that they might have a chronic infection. And so one at a time, I had them come in, and I started to treat them. The problem was, all I had for my treatment options were really just.
Just one protocol. And, of course, as you know, one protocol does not fit everyone.
So then I started seeking other ways to treat these patients, and that's when I found ilads. I made a few phone calls, and someone said, why don't you go to an ilads meeting? And I was like, what's ilads? And so I went, and I just felt, you know, like they were my people, and I understood what they were sharing, and I saw their vision and their. Their mission, and I just kept attending the meetings. And then, you know, after meeting a few people, a few years went by, and they asked me to be on the board. And then a few years, a couple years into that, they asked me to serve as the president. And the way Ilads does the officers is they have, you do two years as the president elect and then two years as the president, and then two years as the immediate past president, which is really, I think, a great way to do it, because even the first two years on the board, I was still learning so much just about how an organization works. And, you know, what you can and can't say and can and can't do. And so here I am. I assume the presidency officially in Boston in the fall at our 24th annual scientific meeting. We'll have our 25th annual scientific meeting this year in San Antonio in November. And we're actually having a fundraising dinner that everyone who wants to support ilads is invited to attend.
And then, of course, we'll have a conference and hope to offer, you know, new, cutting edge information that's very science based regarding vector borne, tick borne diseases and these chronic inflammatory conditions that we're all trying to figure out how to treat.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: And these conferences, is that open for everybody or just physicians?
[00:05:35] Speaker C: So we have found that opening it to any clinician.
So we have pharmacists, we sometimes have veterinarians, we have physicians, we have nurse practitioners, pas, naturopaths. We have a large mixture of people. And then we also kind of have the academic side researchers.
Like, it's such a beautiful group of people that all come together with different backgrounds and different interests. And I love how we really come together, because we all have in common that we want to understand better and help better with patients who have these kinds of conditions, but we have a lot of different approaches.
So we have found that our lectures are very oriented toward high level, clinical, data driven information. So we don't typically have patients there. I mean, sometimes we'll have patients there who are, you know, nurses or doctors, but it also gives the doctors a chance to really just focus on learning. And, you know, I think all of us love our patients, but if we had patients in the room while the doctors were learning, I think it would be challenging to keep our attention focused on the educational component of, of the meeting. So we have been starting to have, we've had them a couple of years. We do sometimes have some patient oriented webinars, and we like doing that, but we really are more of a, we feel like our main role is to educate clinicians in treating tick borne diseases, not so much, even though we advocate for patients in that way. We're not actually directly a patient advocacy organization by, you know, by our mission criteria. So as much as we love the patients, like, really the focus of the organization is to educate, you know, all of the doctors out there and all of the clinicians out there who are seeking this kind of knowledge.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: And how do you feel, I mean, you mentioned that in the beginning it was a challenge in regards to the perception of Lyme disease in the medical community.
How do you feel that it's, and I know it's still a challenge, but how do you feel that has shifted during all these years that you've been involved in ilads?
[00:08:00] Speaker C: So I think the patients are the best source of forward momentum.
And, in fact, when I have patients that call the office and maybe they don't live in Texas and they still want care and they don't want to travel, I tell them to find the most caring physician they can in their local community and have that physician call me. Like, I will take those calls. I will hold the hand of that clinician, like, for as long as it takes to help that patient get better care.
And it's just a very slow, one at a time process.
And I do think once you learn these things, they are complicated. But it's where the real transformative health comes, is when someone is able to get off of a bunch of medications that are just trying to cover up symptoms and really get to the root of why they're sick. And so, I mean, I'm all for symptomatic, symptomatic measures, too, but it's very rewarding. It's a little challenging because, like, in my practice, I don't try to see a large number of patients every day because it doesn't fit the approach. And I think that's where a lot of physicians get stuck there in a medical model where they're trying to see a lot of patients in a day, which means really our only power is in the prescription pad, you know, like, what else can we do in five to twelve minutes, you know?
So, and I'm sad that that's just the state of the masses, but it, unfortunately, it is. But patients are going to be the ones, in my opinion, that drive this further in a good direction, and they already are. I mean, they are pushing for better care. They're pushing for, you know, better testing, better, really, just better recognition. But I still meet all the time seasoned, smart physicians who are very resistant to this, you know, to even entertaining the thought that there might be a background infection causing their patients to be sick. Cause it's so different. It's so different than the way that it was originally approached. I almost wanted to cry when I first learned about it because I, I didn't really know how to substitute it for the way that I was already practicing, but I could see the good in it, so I just kept on and, and I'm so grateful for all the doctors who held my hand and helped me, and we still, I still call other doctors all the time. I love collaborating with, with them and sharing tough cases and asking questions and getting input and ideas and, you know, I do some training, but even when I do training other doctors, I always learn a lot from them. And like, like I said to you earlier, before we came on, I learned a lot from patients. Patients will bring me something new they discovered and I'll go read about it. I'll ask them questions. Sometimes they even bring me articles.
And it's just so interesting that we get to collaborate like that.
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[00:13:15] Speaker B: So how do you, when a patient comes to you and they present with symptoms that you start to suspect Lyme or some chronic disease, chronic infection or tick borne or anything in that direction, what is your kind of step by step approach in order to be able to investigate that?
[00:13:40] Speaker C: So the very first thing, which I think is the most important thing, is I take a very careful, lengthy, detailed history.
I ask them to start as early as they remember having any health problems with that particular point in time. And then, and sometimes they were born with health problems or their mother, you know, like, this is congenital in the. Sometimes they haven't even considered that. But if they can, a lot of them will say, I was fine until I was 17.
I was on a trip, or I was, you know, training for a triathlon, or, you know, like there's some sort of event that was either an exposure or a stressor or both. And then I just haven't felt the same sense. And they'll start to describe how things unfolded over time. And I just try to record that as their story along a timeline. And then, of course, some of them have never even had a lab to look for an underlying infection. And others have had so many labs, they bring four inch ring binders full of pages and pages and pages of records, and they're still just not better. And so I try to meet them where they are. If they haven't had any treatment, sometimes I'll start them on something. I also consider the severity, because I'll have someone with very mild symptoms, but say their mother or brother or sister had really severe, chronic, long suffering inflammatory disease from Lyme. They'll be afraid they're getting it. I like to address their concerns with something that's not quite as aggressive versus the person that's not able to function or work or walk around on their own, you know, very different approach, but trying to tailor it to them. And sometimes, you know, there are multiple different labs. I always share the decision making with the patient as to which lab we choose, because there are pros and cons of all the different lab options out there.
None of them are perfect.
I am excited that there is a little bit of a trend toward electron microscopy where you're looking for the actual organism in the patient's blood.
It's just that doesn't test for every organism. So there's definitely some things that could be missed. But I even have some patients that they taught me out of the diagnosis of Lyme disease in the first few minutes, and they really just have a digestive issue that needs a different approach, and I'm sure you see that as well.
So sometimes protecting them from getting that. I don't really like the labels we use anyway, but trying to really sort out each person's unique circumstances and background.
So step one for me is a big, long, deep, detailed history, which takes a lot of time, but that's where really, all the, all the gold is for me. I can tell a lot from a good history, and then I'll do a physical. I mean, sometimes it's funny, the patients will show me while they're talking, like they'll point, you know, to their fingers blanching or that they have a rash or things like that, but doing a good physical exam, talking to them about basic foundational health habits, like their nutrition and their sleep and their stress and their movement patterns, all of that feeds into developing a treatment program for them, or really a workup and treatment program. And so that's why it's not the same for every patient, and that's why it takes more time. But also, at the end of getting to work with someone, usually they're not on a whole lot of medicine, they're probably on a few supplements, but they feel better, function better, and that's the whole reason to go to work every day is in hopes that that can happen for more of the patients.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's exciting to see, when you start to unravel and you see changes in the individual, and you see functionality coming back, and all of a sudden they start to regain life again. I mean, obviously that's what drives us.
What makes it so exciting as a physician.
What are some of the kind of tell tell signs? I mean, you mentioned that when I was 16, I was on a trip, and then all of a sudden you mentioned some of that. But what are some other kind of telltale signs that make you start thinking Lyme versus something else?
[00:18:46] Speaker C: So it does happen sometimes that they have a history of being somewhere outdoors and then becoming ill shortly thereafter.
Sometimes they have a rash associated with it. It's not always a bullseye rash. A lot of patients don't have a bullseye rash, and a lot of patients don't remember a tick bite. But I was getting ready to do a presentation within the last year, and I was trying to find some pictures or videos online of ticks, which are really disgusting. But when I was looking through all the. All the pictures I could find, there are some. They're hard to put in a slide, but if you actually watch some videos, they're low quality. But on the Internet, where people even sort of focus in on some webbing under the end of a park bench, like where you would put your arm if you were to sit on that bench, and there's just several little tiny ticks in that webbing.
I just think a lot of people get bitten and they just don't know.
And I get asked a lot by patients if mosquitoes carry it.
It's funny, I read an article once here from a doctor who worked. She was a professor at the veterinary school at Texas A and M, who studies Lyme disease in primarily dogs.
And she did a tick dragging study where she took several of her students out and they put on the chaps that are sticky and walked through the tall grass and collected a lot of ticks, took them back to the lab and analyzed them, and several of the ticks did carry Lyme disease.
And so, like, I just emailed her really to encourage her, for her, you know, to say, thank you for your work. We need to know, like, people need to know that it does exist here and in the veterinary community. They don't really seem to question it as much as in the human medical community. But I did ask her about mosquitoes, because she, you know, she's able to analyze the gastric and oral contents of a tick and be able to say that there is the presence of a certain bacteria there. I said, what about mosquitoes? And she said that in Europe, they had demonstrated borrelia spirochetes in mosquitoes, but they hadn't demonstrated that they could be transmitted to humans. So then I thought, that's interesting. So what do you have to do to show transmission to humans? And she said, well, I guess she would have to know that someone did not have it and put them in a closed environment with a mosquito that was carrying it. But who's going to do that? I mean, or how can you be sure? I don't know. So I'm not saying mosquitoes carry it. I. You know, it's debatable.
But I think we get spider bitten, we get flea bitten, we get tick bitten, we get mosquito bitten.
It's really not fun to think about.
And we should be outside, and we should be interacting with our environment. It's part of what makes us healthy. It's just if we get overexposed or we are getting exposed during a time when we're vulnerable, that we can have these things develop. I think a lot of people, I almost think everyone's been exposed at some point in their lifetime. It's just a matter of, as the host of those organisms, how strong are we to keep them quiet? And if something else is going on, like sleep deprivation or extreme stress or extreme malnutrition or extreme, you know, whatever the extreme is, I think sometimes that's when these things will just decide to become active and really cause a lot of problems. So, I mean, I think fleas are probably a bigger problem than most people realize as well. And when I talk to patients about that, I tell them it doesn't have anything to do with your hygienic, your hygiene in your home. I mean, I think when you walk through grass in your yard, there are squirrels and there are animals that are in your yard at night. You don't know what's really all there, and we don't want to be avoidant completely of the outdoors. So I don't know how I got on that topic exactly with you, but I think everyone does get exposed, and trying to figure out when and then what happened afterwards helps to start to piece back together what's most likely causing the biggest problem.
So the rash, the history, again, certain patterns of blood flow issues, certain kinds of symptoms, like constellations of symptoms.
Migratory arthritis pain or migratory muscle pain can definitely be Lyme disease. So it should rise to the higher on the list of possibilities. I think there's a lot of Bartonella causing a lot of problems. I treat that quite often as well. I have a lot of patients here that have handled horses or live on ranches, and I'm not saying that their horse carries it, but just being around a lot of different animals, I think probably also raises, just raises my suspicion to consider that there's a possible infection going on in a particular patient and.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: A lot of patients, and they have. You got the borrelia, and then you have co infections that come along with it. I mentioned Bartonella.
There are a bunch of other ones as well.
Is there a hierarchy of, when you see these different infections showing up on a test, do you tend to go towards one first versus the other, or is it just whatever symptoms that expressing itself that you feel would be related to one of those infections?
[00:25:01] Speaker C: I almost always cover most.
I know that's a vague answer, but it's kind of nice that if I were to be treating someone for bartonella, the therapy somewhat closely covers Lyme disease. It's not 100%, but you can add one or two therapeutics to either regimen. Like if I am treating a patient, for instance, for Lyme disease, but I'm suspicious they have bartonellosis, I can add one or two more things to that original regimen.
I usually just separate it by a couple of weeks, as long as the patient's able to tolerate it and go ahead and add it into their treatment plan.
Baby is a little different because the therapeutics are so different, it's harder to have that overlap.
Although lots of doctors, for a long time have used things like azithromycin along with mepron or etovaquone product type products to cover both, or doxy azithromycin and something like Mepron. I do that sometimes.
I try to also assess patients for what their preference is, because some patients really do not want to take antibiotics or they've already tried them. So I've had to, even as an MD, learn a lot about just different herbal options, even. And they. They help a lot of people. I mean, I've had some patients not touch an antibiotic and get well. I've had other ones that were completely against antibiotics, and at the end, they end up using them and they get well. And so that's part of just tailoring it to the patient and kind of meeting them again where they are and trying to work with them, with their own personal beliefs. And, I mean, if a patient comes in already expecting a therapy or wanting a therapy, if it makes any sense in the context of what I think is wrong with them, I will often go ahead and help them engage with that therapy.
And at the same time, I'll say, if this doesn't work, will you let me try this and this? And I'll give them a few weeks of trying the therapy out. So many of them have been sick for so long already, and then others will say, I don't want you to explain anything. Just tell me what to take.
And so trying to help them just navigate through a lot of those decisions is a big part of why it takes so many minutes, a couple hours sometimes to see a new patient.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: And you mentioned antibiotic versus kind of herbal or natural things.
And, yeah, each person is unique. I mean, is there a direction? Let's. Let's say that they have no preferences. Would you rather just kind of jump into antibiotics first and to kind of clear out a lot with that and then follow up with herbal? Is. Is that. Is that. Does that tend to be your tendency?
[00:28:13] Speaker C: So, if I have, I would say there's a few other questions I would ask before deciding. Like, obviously, um, you kind of already covered what their preference was, but say they've tried antibiotics before. I might just go the other route at first. Um, and sometimes I even combine them. Sometimes I'll put them on, you know, cryptolepis and doxycycline, you know, and, like, it really is a. I call it trial and observe. It's a trial and observe process. Um, and I usually have my patients use something I call an inflammation score tracker, where I have them every day record their level of five main symptoms, because most of my patients have, you know, their categories, but pain, cognitive issues, sleep issues, energy issues, and fatigue. Pain, sleep, cognition, I usually forget. Cognition.
That's the one I always forget I said pain.
Anyway, I'll think of it when I quit trying to think of it, but I have them track every day, and if they don't have a lot of pain, they have more of some other problem, like, you know, weakness in their legs. I'll have them just mark that one off and put weakness so that I can track their progress. So, as we start each new therapeutic, I'm having them give me a zero for none, one for mild, two for moderate, three for severe. And I'm looking for the trend because I don't even remember how I felt two weeks ago on a Tuesday afternoon. And it's, you know, I have found it challenging to have a patient come in for follow up and to say, how are you feeling? And they might say, I'm a lot better, but they don't look a lot better. Or they might say, I'm no better, but then their mom might say, oh, you're sleeping so much better than you were. It's just so. It's so subjective and so variable, and sometimes they're not better. And then I feel like we should erase the chalkboard and start again, you know, with something different. And so I'm not opposed to any part of a toolbox, and if it fits the right patient. I use a lot of herbals in little kids. I do antibiotics, too, but I try to be protective of their digestive flora. And in my own observation, I haven't noticed that things like allicin or oregano, I mean, I don't use it for a long, long time, but I haven't noticed those things to cause as many issues with diarrhea or rashes or, you know, thrush or things like that that I do with antibiotics. So it kind of depends on the age of the child, what they've already tried, their tolerance. The other thing that's challenging in kids is, can we get them to take it or not? Like, herbs are not the easiest because some of them don't taste very good. So trying to find creative ways to get those dosed is the other part of the consideration.
But I use both, and I've had good outcomes with both, and I've switched back and forth between both approaches with several patients.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: And you mentioned earlier a little bit talking about lifestyle changes like sleep and eating and those type of things. And do you feel that people start to incorporate those more aggressively and really find good, healthy habits, that that's where the needles start to move a little bit more? Or do you feel that it's more these different therapeutics that tend to do it?
[00:32:13] Speaker C: I think if they really have an active infection, they will notice an improvement in some of those chronic symptoms after they get it onboarded and are a little bit accustomed to it.
But if they. If they're still. I'll just give you an example. If they still eat fast food all the time and drink a lot of sugary drinks, I find it very challenging to get them feeling much better, even if I give them a lot of therapeutics to kill infection. So at some point, we have to talk about that.
And I think it's interesting.
Some patients, that's all they really need is to clean up their nutrition, and they would feel so much better. And they.
I mean, I know there are probably people listening that are like, I wish that's all that was wrong with me. You know, I have those other perfectionistic patients too, who, like, never touch anything that's not, you know, approved under the auspices of good nutrition. But sometimes it really is very simple. And I actually, not too long ago, I had a patient. Well, he's not even a patient. I just met him at the pickleball courts, and he is an older pickleball teacher. And he asked me, because I'm a doctor, he said, you see my hand? And it was just a little pill rolling tremor, kind of an early little tremor like you might see in someone getting Parkinson's. And I think he's close to 80, but he teaches people how to play pickleball. And I said, why don't you come see me at the office and we'll try to look into it? And he's like, well, what do you do? And I kind of said to him, you know, I look at your habits and I look at your exposures, and I look at your history, and we try to figure out what might be causing that. And he's like, well, what do you mean, my habits? You know, he asked me a few more questions, and in our conversation, it came up that he really likes diet doctor pepper. And I just said, like, it might be that there's something in there that is making this worse. And so he went home, he talked to his daughter. He cut them out. And I didn't see him for a while. Probably six or eight weeks later, I saw him again. And he could not believe that his little shake that he had was gone because he stopped drinking artificially sweetened sodas. He also cut out chewing gum, and he put some sort of packet, artificial sweetener in his coffee. He stopped that, too. And I don't know of it each of those, which one it was. But, you know, he didn't even see me at the office. He just got the idea and then took and ran with it. And I was so happy for him. So I wish it was always that easy for people. It's certainly most patients that we see. It's not anywhere nearly that easy. Um, yeah, you know, I see them. I see them get better sometimes. If, like, I think the hardest ones are the kids who are real picky, if have a really picky child, um, to try to get them to. To eat something besides, you know, cereal, fruit snacks, chicken nuggets, and cheese pizza is really challenging, especially if they've. That's kind of all they've ever known.
But I've seen some parents do it. It's pretty impressive, honestly. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: No, no, that was perfect. I was just going to mention I had kind of a similar patient that had not Parkinson's like syndrome, but the complex pain syndrome and just pain all over. And all we did was just cut out the diet sodas and the pain went away.
Yeah. Sometimes instead of just chasing an infectious agent, then also looking at some of these other factors become really important as well. Cleaning up your diet and getting rid of these toxic exposures in addition to it becomes really important.
I'm curious, since ilads, you bring in the latest and the greatest.
They all become kind of like a research hub. What are some of the newer opinions and studies, and what are some of the new directions that we should consider and look at in regards to Lyme?
[00:36:43] Speaker C: So I alluded to this earlier, that the testing is always one of the most sought after topics when people come to our events that we hold, like our scientific meetings, because there's so many labs competing with each other and the technology is advancing as time passes. I mean, there are so many people out there these days working on a newer, better test for Lyme disease.
And I feel like I get an email or a text message at least once or twice a week from someone that I've met or trained or, you know, trained with, or who's curious, who will send me, hey, do you think this test is good? Or, hey, do you think that test is good? And a lot of times I really just don't know yet, you know?
And so I think there's always emerging improvements in the area of testing.
And when we have people are sending abstracts or, you know, even doing poster presentations, a lot of times they are related to new testing technology. So that's always something to look for when people are coming to the meeting. It's like, what's going to be new? Kind of, in the, in the testing world. The hardest part is I read that about every two minutes a new medical journal article is published, and it takes about 17 years for about 14% of that to be applied. And that's right now. So all this research is amazing, and we need it. We really need. You know, ILads has really been trying to focus on something we've nicknamed internally, the big data project. But it's where we would take several clinical centers.
You know, just, for instance. I would be. I could, I would love to participate in this. So just say I was able to start to enroll a few patients in a really, an observational clinical trial, and then track their therapeutics and track their outcomes, including testing variables, which test we choose. And then if we took the data from several clinical centers and used more modern statistics to analyze that data.
We have a lot more of that available to us than we used to.
We would hope to be able to publish that, which I think would be helpful out in the real medical world, where I call it the real medical world. It's really like the commonplace medical world where no one gets tested and no one gets treated for any type of chronic infections.
So we're always working on that. We've had some, a couple of donations that were related to that. We've got a more active committee working behind the scenes to get that up and going.
So, you know, that's not going to be there at the fall meeting. But, you know, we have people that come and talk about new therapies like phage therapy. We always have different people talking about, you know, newer approaches that use herbs.
We have a lot of great naturopaths that speak at our meetings, and I always love their presentations because I think they can be beautifully blended with the other things we have access to. And, you know, here in Texas, we don't have a very big presence of naturopathy.
I wish we did. I wish we had more of that to be able to collaborate together.
But I think I really look up to some of our frequent lecturers because they share such good information.
So as far as, like, what else is new? You know, there are some new compounds out there that are good for mast cell activation. There are a couple of antibiotics on the horizon.
I mean, I use IV's in my practice. A lot of our doctors don't use a lot of IV's.
We will have some lectures on some of those things this fall. We're always trying to find new people to do webinars. We kind of use our webinar time and space for things that maybe we're still early in the development of looking at something. And we try to save our or annual scientific conference for things that are already published if we can, you know, get things that are published to be presented at the meeting so that we have a really sound scientific basis for it.
But we sometimes, I call them emerging therapies or emerging trends. And all of us are curious when we treat these kinds of patients, because we're always looking for something else to help those who haven't been able to tolerate or respond to the other therapeutics we know. So I hope that answered your question.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great. So, in testing, you're absolutely right. I mean, a lot of that has been a big challenge since obviously, the regular traditional medical testing of Lyme is not as accurate as we like it to be. So then to be better at testing become such a key in order to be able to validate the diagnosis.
So what are some of the kind of labs that are still standing pretty strong in regards to accuracy or that the community feel that these are the ones that we should rely on a little bit more when doing our diagnosis?
[00:42:39] Speaker C: So I will say, I don't always speak for eyelids on this in particular.
I think within the Ilads community, I mean, Igenix has been around a long time.
They do a great job, they're a great lab, and I do use them sometimes for sure. The challenge I will sometimes have with that particular lab is just cost to the patient.
So then, you know, I also, I also love tlab and Galaxy Lab, which T Lab is a research lab, but they're actually looking for the presence of the organism. I mentioned earlier that, you know, every lab has its pro and its con. So igenix is a good lab, but it's expensive. T lab is a good lab, but it has a limited number of organisms for which you can check your patient, and it is a little bit expensive also. But I do like that lab. I feel like that's going to be one of the labs that once it's actually commercially available, we can almost use to say, there it is, and then now it's gone or not, it's not showing up. I don't know. I'm hoping for that. That's, you know, I like to follow clinical signs more than labs personally, even in other parts of health, outside of the chronic vector borne diseases. I mean, if someone's feeling a lot better and looks a lot better, if their lab doesn't necessarily show it, I'm still going to have them keep doing what they're doing most of the time. But, you know, Galaxy is a great lab. I mean, kind of. I think a lot of us think of them as more focused on bartonellosis, but it's a good lab. It's just also kind of expensive. And when patients have already spent a lot to take care of themselves, like, it's nice to have some less expensive labs, you know, I mean, I think I have accounts with most of them and have tried different ones for different patients. I've definitely, you know, vibrant wellness gets some criticism because they haven't been around as long, and some people don't think that their technology has been as well validated as some of the other labs. And maybe they're overly sensitive. Like, I don't really know. What I, what I know is that sometimes a patient can afford that lab and they can't afford any of the other labs. And so if, if it helps to get a lab, I mean, it's definitely a better lab than doing it at one of the, you know, quest Labcorp type lab offerings.
I have used them as well, and I, like, I haven't been dissatisfied with their lab. I know, like, I think it's also part of helping the patient navigate through the process of getting evaluated and treated that sometimes we have to choose things that we might not choose the same for every person.
But I've, I've been able to use that lab several times to kind of have a little bit of extra information to put together the puzzle of the patient. And so those are, you know, those are the ones that I use personally. I, and, you know, they're, they've been one of our supporters and sponsors. Igenix has as well, Galaxy has as well. And there are good people at all of them. You know, they're good people at all those labs and they want to do good things. So I'm being a little, like, nice across the board, but I feel like there's almost a time and a place for each of them in certain circumstances.
And that's the way that I kind of look at them when I'm trying to decide what to do for a patient.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And the beauty with. Yeah, and I agree. I mean, the vibrant lab, you get a huge amount of information for not as much money. Yeah. Which is nice. And you get to look at the, you know, so many different, of the lime variety, borrelia varieties, and bartonella and babesia and different viruses and. Great. And so it gives a nice kind of lay of the land a little bit. Yeah.
[00:46:50] Speaker C: So sometimes, sometimes I will, I do give some of my patients iv SoT therapy. I don't know if you've used that much, but they, the lab that makes the SOT will take a vibrant panel. And so if I have a positive and it fits the patient clinically, I can use that. And honestly, budgeting wise, save the patient a little bit of total budgetary cost by thinking it through in that way. So that's definitely, you know, very appropriate for certain patients in certain circumstances. And I've used that a lot and it's been largely helpful to the patients, which is where my focus is mostly is on patient care.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Do you mind kind of in the closing minutes, just explain a little bit what sot is because, I mean, that may be something new for a lot of listeners, sure.
[00:47:49] Speaker C: We're actually going to have a workshop on it on the Sunday at our conference. We're going to have some of the people out that have used it, I would say more than anyone else, it stands for supportive oligonucleotide technique, and it is an antisense strand technology where it's basically, you have to have a positive test indicating a patient has the presence of an infection.
We draw the blood, the blood goes to grease. The lab in Greece does analyze that blood for the presence of the pathogen that's suspected as well, which is kind of a nice little backup. And then if it's appropriate, they send the therapeutic, which is like a microcrystallinized powder in a sterile bile that we reconstitute and give to the patient in the form of an iv.
I've probably done that for a little over 100 patients and over, you know, the last couple of years, and sometimes it makes a very significant difference.
I have a patient.
I have the patient who I treated for a year and a half with antibiotics, who was doing great, but every time we stopped them, he would start to have relapsing symptoms. He was going away to college, and he said, you know, he told me in the office one day, I don't know how I'm going to take all these things at college. Like, he felt great when he was on them, but then as soon as he would stop, he would start to have, you know, more inflammatory issues, more anxiety, more sleeplessness.
And so I just told his mom, I was like, we can, we can try sot for him. And Bartonella was his biggest, his biggest issue. So I ordered a sot, Bartonella sot for him, and we gave it to him in August. This was, I think, about two years ago. And I saw him at Thanksgiving. He was out of school and home. He went to a college about 3 hours away, and he was off of everything and doing great. And he said, can I have another one of those over Christmas break? And I was like, I don't even think you need it right now. I think we should just watch and see how you do. Um, but the idea is that the therapy prohibits further replication of the organism. So, you know, obviously you have to know which organism you're treating for it to be the right therapy, and it does not do that with everyone. I mean, I think that's true of all therapies. Like, it doesn't help everyone. But I've had. I've actually had several patients notice some significant improvement over the four to eight to twelve week window following getting an iv sot.
I have one patient who has had eleven of them and she's so much better than when we started, but she's got kind of like with her.
I tried to tell her like, I don't think you need an sot for every single thing you've ever tested positive for. And she's like, yes I do. You know, she's got, she's a little obsessed that way so, you know, and that's been over probably since three years ago. She's probably had about eleven and she's doing great. But I think she's also just fearful of losing her improvement and that gives her like a little sense of preservation. And so, you know, I think, you know, it's not necessarily easy to find someone that does it. Although I every, I feel like every month I hear two or three more people who are starting to offer it in their practices and I've been really pleased with it. I'm not the first one to start something new, but once I hear a few people using it and having some benefit, I will selectively try it and then watch and see for myself and if it seems to be helpful and you know, you have to do about a 40 hours training to be able to offer that therapy in your practice, which I think is good.
And then, you know, applying it appropriately is very important too. So I'm really excited. We're going to have a Sunday workshop at our San Antonio meeting that's devoted to sot and also mast cell activation and how that inner relates to the Sot therapy as well. So hopefully if any patients are out there listening, send your, send your doctor to the conference and they can learn more about it.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: So I love it. Well doctor offit, this has been amazing and thank you for all the wonderful things that you're doing and that you're the, you know, pushing forward for, you know, all the, all the people out there that are suffering that are needing, needing help, you know. So, yeah, because this is a Lyme is such a frustrating disease for so many people and, and we really need, you know, lots of physicians that are aware and educated and can do things appropriately. So thank you so much for, for stepping up and helping in that way.
[00:53:07] Speaker C: Well thank you for doing this podcast.
I'm really proud of you for taking it on. I think people who do podcasts make it seems like it's easy, but I know that it's not. So thank you for what you do as well. I really am happy to meet you today and happy to get to be on with you.
[00:53:26] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Thank you.
[00:53:35] 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 Lyme, go to integrative limesolutions.com and an additional powerful resource, limestream.com. for Lyme support and group discussions. Join Lyme Conquerors mentoring Lyme Warriors Facebook if you'd like to know more about the cutting edge integrative of Lyme Therapies MyCenter 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 Doctor Karlfeldt.
