[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative lyme Solutions with Dr. Karl Felt.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: We have some phenomenal information that could save lives.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: You're going to need to tune in.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: To what's going on today.
[00:00:16] Speaker C: The information is jam packed, so don't step away.
Hello.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining Integrative lyme Solutions with Dr. Karl Feldt. I am your host, Dr. Michael Karlfeld. I've been in clinical practice since 1987. I've seen pretty much everything under the sun, worked with so many different Lyme patients, and I know what a devastating disease this is. That's why I'm doing this podcast to make sure that you are armed with the information that you need in order to be able to be successful in your struggle with Lyme. We'll be featuring authors, doctors, professors, and also people like yourself that have gone through the journey that you're going through, that have been where you've been and is now on the other side. And they get to tell their victorious story as to how they battle Lyme so that you can implement that in your life as well. Be sure to like us and write a review on whichever platform that you're listening on. What that does is it enables other people to see us more so that they have access to this information as well. So I'm so excited that you're tuning in and get ready for this upcoming show. It is going to be amazing.
Well, I am so pleased to have Anna Brennan with me today. She is the author of Ultra Parent Thinking. And thank you so much for spending some time with me today.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: Thank you, Dr. Karlfeld. I'm really happy to be here.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: I mean, your book is so fascinating and you have gone through quite a journey in regards to discovering what's going on in your families, why things are taking place in your family. So if you don't mind telling me a little bit about your journey. I mean, it essentially it starts with your four children. From my understanding.
[00:02:23] Speaker C: It does, yes. Thank you.
Yes. Well, my story has a happy ending in that my kids are better now. They still see a Lyme specialist. Three of them do. But they are so different from the fragile, unhealthy kids they once were, which is the beginning of our. Of our journey. And I'd say it started really in 2009. I had three kids at that time in 2009, and I thought that parenthood was just extra difficult for some reason for me. And my kids just, they had digestive symptoms. They were beyond Colicky. When we think of a colicky baby, we think the baby cries fussy for a while, but eventually calms down and is okay.
Well, my kids just would cry NonStop, especially my second one. And he started falling apart really when he was exactly two weeks old.
So once we got beyond that so called extreme colicky stage, things still didn't get better. The digestive issues still didn't get better.
The behavior was just atrocious.
They couldn't sleep. They were very, very picky eaters. Not just a little bit picky, but very picky. And then they had pain, which was just really bizarre too.
So eventually, after I was three kids deep okay with the neurological, behavioral, digestive issues with these three children, I went into my pediatrician's office and I asked her what's going on with these kids. And I brought with me at that time a book that I was reading. I just, I don't know how, I don't remember even Dr. Carl, how I stumbled on this. It might have been by way of food sensitivities because I did find out that my daughter was very sensitive to red food coloring.
So I brought along with me a book about autism spectrum disorders.
And I told the pediatrician, my kids, all three of them seem to have many symptoms that I'm reading about in this, this book.
And she was very, she was very, just unrelatable really to us in that she rolled her eyes and she let me know that I could not accurately diagnose, if you will, these children. These children I lived with and took care of 24, seven, you know, and you know, I was not qualified to make an assessment about their symptoms. Right. So the way I see the story now though is I really thank God for that woman, I really do.
Because had I had someone else or had I had, had she been a little bit supportive of me and had she said I can do something beyond your daughter's allergies that she said all I can take care of out of all these symptoms I had on a paper for her was my daughter's allergies. That's it. She couldn't do anything for the bloating, for the pain, for the nothing else. Just, you know, not the headaches, nothing, just the allergies. Anyways.
So had she said, I can do something for your daughter and your other, your boys as well, more than allergies, I would have stayed with her and I would have just been strung along, you know, and we wouldn't have found the person who actually for one, saved my kids lives.
And Recovered them and really help them be the person, the people they are today. And I'm forever grateful to that, to that dear physician.
So after we left that pediatrician and I searched for someone who specialized and I thought, well, it's got to be autism. What else could it be?
We came across. That's when I came across that dear physician.
And he also happened to be a Lyme literate physician, thank goodness. Yes.
So not only did he support my kid's immune system right away, not only did he get rid of some of the toxicities that were absolutely keeping them from comprehending things like how to write their name or memory problems, things like that, he also tested them for Lyme. And I can remember when he told me about Lyme the first time he told me. And I just thought, what the heck is that? I had no idea what Lyme was. Certainly didn't know what a co infection was, of course. No. And I thought, ticks, they can't be harmful because I've seen ticks, I know what ticks look like. I've always been in some, at least remote contact with ticks all my life. So I'm sure they're not a problem because look at me, I'm fine, you know, And I remember him handing me a pamphlet on Lyme disease, a good pamphlet.
And he said, let's, let's test for tick borne illnesses. And sure enough, I had Lyme, my husband had Lyme, my four kids had Lyme, all four of them. And I never saw a tick bite on any of us.
It's very likely that my youngest was actually bitten by something. Again, I never saw anything. I always made sure that my kids were outside as much as possible in the greenery, which is what I think we should be doing even now. But I made sure that they were jumping in the piles of leaves in the autumn. And I would put my babies, all of them, I would put them down in the grass to get them used to the grass. They may or may not have had a bath that night, you know, So I just thought ticks are something that, that live on dogs. And that was it.
I. It never would, it had occurred to me that, that they would live on deer mice or on birds, let alone humans. So that's where we started with Lyme.
And I got better, my Lyme got better because I just happened to be doing the same or similar, not the same protocols as my kids on my own, not directed by our physician, but just on my own. When I found out, oh, my daughter and my son got Better. When they took oregano oil, I took oregano oil. When my daughter couldn't handle the red food coloring, I stopped with the red food coloring for everybody.
My goodness, magic happened. I was able to fall asleep. You know, I didn't know that I had insomnia. You know, I couldn't sleep. But I never called it insomnia. And I had chronic fatigue for at least 30 years. Never called it that. But sure enough, I was able to have energy again once I changed my diet. Took a few supplements here and there that were. That were critical for me. And I think, for me, I think the Lyme and the co infections that I had and have, they're more mild than what my kids went through. So I think I somehow I got a pass on that. Where I could function as long as I was vigilant about my health.
And when I slipped, that's when I was super achy. That's when I had the digestive issues. I had to be very careful about what I ate and still am today. So that's. That's a long way around. But that's how we enter Lyme.
In my book, Ultra Parent thinking. I don't mention the word Lyme or autism or it's another one. I don't mention that. I don't mention the diagnoses for a couple of reasons. One is it's not a medical book. I have never gone to any medical school or anything medical.
So I didn't want to put something out there that I wasn't trained to speak on.
And the other reason is I found that we don't really stand just in the Lyme camp.
And it's almost like that game of Twister where you have one hand over here on the yellow circle that might be lime. Right. Then you have another hand over here on a red circle. Oh, that's, that's. That's. What is it? The relapsing fever? I forget the full name of it. Tick borne. Tick borne Relapsing.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: That's what my. My youngest has. So that might be there. And then. Oh, you've got to kind of contort your body and twist over and get a foot somewhere, you know, on. Somewhere on the autism spectrum, but not quite autism. And. And then there's the ocd. So. So in my book, I try to just simplify it to. I'm really trying to help parents who have kids with. I just say health issues.
And if you're a Lyme person, I'm sure your audience would recognize the symptoms when they read about my daughter when she was so achy that after school days she would sometimes just lie on hardwood floor and it was cold, but she was so achy and so sensitive that even the couch was too uncomfortable for her. It was cold, but she didn't want a blanket because she couldn't stand the feel of that blanket on her. I think your lime, I think people in your audience will know. Aha. I know what's wrong with that, kiddo right there. It's so obvious, you know? And then I think also, Dr. Kaufman, the people who are in the autism community who do not know about Lyme or maybe don't have Lyme, they'll also be able to recognize symptoms with my son, my son's plural, especially one in particular when he goes way down his OCD bouts.
[00:13:29] Speaker D: Hello, dear listeners, this is Dr. Michael Karlfeld, your host of integrative Lyme solutions. Today I'm excited to share an exclusive opportunity from the Karlfeld center, where we blend healing power of nature with groundbreaking therapies to combat Lyme disease and its associated challenges. At the Karfel center, we're not just fighting Lyme, we're revolutionizing the way it's treated with cutting edge therapies like photodynamic therapy, full body ozone, IV therapy, silver IVs, brain rebalancing, autonomic response testing, laser energetic detoxification, and more. We aim to eradicate Lyme. Our approach is comprehensive, supporting your body's immune system, detoxification processes, hormonal balance, and mitochondrial health, ensuring a holistic path to recovery. Understanding Lyme disease and its impact is complex, which is why we're offering a free 15 minute discovery call with one of our Lyme literate naturopathic doctors. This call is your first step towards understanding how we can personalize your healing journey, focusing on you as a whole person, not just your symptoms. Our team, led by myself, Dr. Michael Karlfields, is here to guide you through your recovery with the most advanced diagnostic tools, individualized treatment plans, and supportive therapies designed to restore your health and vitality. Whether you're facing Lyme disease head on or seeking preventative strategies, we're committed to your wellness. Take the first step towards reclaiming your health. Visit us at thecarlfolcenter.com or call us at 208-338-8902 to schedule your free discovery call. At the Karlfield center. We believe in healing naturally, effectively and holistically. Thank you for tuning in into integrative lyme solution with Dr. Karlfeld. Remember, true Health is not just the absence of disease. It's achieving the abundance of vitality. Let's discover yours together.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: And those ocd. What does that look like? What does.
[00:15:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, yes. Well, my son. Well, three of them have. Three of them had ocd. But for my son, for example, he would just be so anxious and say, for example, when he was really little, and I would. I would be. When he was a toddler and I would be holding him and I try to just walk down six steps, for example, from our upstairs to our next level, I'd walk down six steps holding him. And if I would, at the end of the step, turn on a light or turn on. There was a light switch there. If I turn on or off that light switch at the wrong moment for my son, he would just explode in a meltdown. You know, one time I timed how long it took me just to hand him a bowl of peaches he was going to eat, and it took 20 minutes. 20 minutes?
[00:16:35] Speaker B: 20 minutes. Just a hand. A bowl of peaches.
[00:16:38] Speaker C: Yes, because. And at this time, we weren't treating him for ocd, but. But I was trying to just hand my son his bowl of peaches so he could just sit down and eat it. He didn't like the way I handed it to him because he wanted his little hand on the bowl at just the right moment. But he couldn't articulate to me, mom, I want my hand on that bull. You know, he was too upset. Instead, he would just get upset and he would say, do it again. That's what he classically would say, do it again. So I would hand him the bull again, do it again. And he's just crying and, you know, getting upset. Another example of this is when he would get in.
Get in his. His car seat in the van. And I, by this time I had. Well, I had probably all three kids, maybe the fourth by then. When he would get in his car seat, he would want to enter the car seat from a certain angle and he would want to fit in it just right. And if it didn't feel right or if the timing was off again, meltdown exploded, you know, just. Just awful. And. And we have to do it again at the grocery store or any store. He would.
I remember he would be in the stroller and if I went through the grocery. The checkout too quickly for his liking. Now, mind you, he wasn't saying, hey, Mom, I want this to take exactly 4 minutes and 30 seconds, you know. You know, from beginning to end. Instead, he was too little. And of course, he wasn't going to do that, but instead he was observing. And if I went through the grocery line too quickly for his liking or what. Yeah. Then he would, he would start crying and he would yell, do it again in the grocery store. You know, I have, I have several stories in my book about him.
And for each story that I put in there, whether it's my son with OCD or whether it. How my other son was at. At school and his kindergarten experience at my daughter with her with the headaches, etc and seizures.
For each story, what I try to do is give some optimistic point to it. So, yeah, for the whole book. Because what I found was that whenever I was learning about something new, like for example, my second son has allergies to milk and to peanuts, he developed, he had an allergic reaction right away when I gave him his first bite of something that had peanuts in was a year and a half. And it didn't take him long to swell up. He had hives on his face and a little bit on his neck. He had swelling in his throat. His eyes, his eyes were swollen and he had that immediate reaction to the peanuts that were in there. And I knew it was peanuts because I was aware of every single thing that kid ate. So I knew this was something new.
So when I was reading about peanut allergies, for example, I would hear, I would read stories about just these devastating. Just these horrible, horrible stories about children dying from, you know, anaphylactic shock.
And I thought, okay, it's really important to read those stories so that they know what happens. And I think it's also the way to kind of honor those children so that they didn't, you know, they didn't die in vain. We're going to learn from them. We're going to kind of bless them as we read their stories.
But also, it was just so frightening, you know, as I was. Yeah. As I was trying to guide my son through his experiences. And there were peanuts on the Christmas table, you know, for when we went to Christmas, you know, I. I was just so.
Just kind of paralyzed with fear a little bit when I would read stuff that was too scary. So I thought, okay, if I were to write a book, I am, I am determined to put some optimism in there or at the very least, some strategies on the mental strategies. Yeah. On another perspective, a different way to see this. So, for example, with my son with the ocd, one of the stories I have in there is about when I was helping him through his middle of the night routine, which was a plate had to be the right size plate too. There was a particular plate of cashews, so raw cashews. None of my kids for some reason were allergic to nuts, thank goodness, or eggs, but they were allergic to peanuts. He was allergic to peanuts instead.
So I would put the cashews on the plate just as he wanted, on the kind of the rim of the plate. And then honey had to go in the middle, raw honey was in the middle so that he could dip a cashew in and eat it. And this routine would take place anywhere from 1am to 3am around in there because he would wake up and his blood sugar would be dropping. You know, he'd wake up hungry, scared out of his mind and. And I was right there always. And he would want his snack and I'd have to hurry and get with it, you know, with him being careful walking down those steps that, you know, going through all those little rituals that I knew he demanded. That's what his OCD demanded of him. And the story as I told then I would put the cashews on the plate, the honey in the middle, and I knew exactly how to do that. Almost like, like deactivating a bomb, you know. You know, all those precise steps and once in a great while he would throw in a twist that I wasn't ready for something new. And I have to quickly get used to it, you know.
And I remember, you know, when, hey, when I was typing that story, I thought, you know, this is a little sad, this is a little dark. And it really was, writing the book was very emotional for me as well. I had to just kind of counsel myself through it. And when I was typing out that story, I thought, you know, I do remember, I do remember the clock, the kitchen clock. And it was this, this, just this old fashioned, I think it's called analog, those clocks. And it would tick, you know, and typically I can't stand the sounds of ticking clocks. You know, if there's an alarm clock, I'll find it and I'll take the battery. I cannot stand it or unplug it. Well, I guess the plugged in ones aren't ticking like that, but anyways, so this kitchen clock was ticking, ticking, ticking. And I thought, you know, it's almost like a heartbeat.
And that clock is really on my side here as a mom as I'm trying to just not lose my mind as you know, and I'm tired and this kid is trying to eat his sticky cashews without dripping honey on himself or he'd be really upset, you Know, and I thought if I just focus on that clock, it's saying you can do this, you can do this.
And that really did help. That was one of the strategies that I put in, in the book.
And throughout the years as my gosh, we've been at this, you know, aggressively getting on my kids health issues aggressively since 2009, but. 2009, yeah, my daughter was born in 2005, but aggressively getting, getting on top of these health issues since 2009.
I thought, you know, I've been at this a while.
I might have something to offer other parents who are going through this. I'm not going to give them, I'm not going to tell them what herbal remedies, you know, to give their child. I can't advise them on some of the protocols, the other protocols that we did. But I thought, darn it, you know, there is one thing I'm most definitely qualified for and nobody can say that I'm not. And that is I am the expert of my four children that right there. And I thought maybe if I tell the world the stories, the opinions and the strategies that I used to get my kids through those toughest years when they were little, maybe that will help inspire other parents to create parallel strategies that work for their child.
Is what I learned was that we cannot really be the expert on someone else. Not accurately anyways. You as a medical professional can from a medical standpoint. But when it comes to at home, when that mom or dad is at home at 2am trying to figure out how to calm down there child who's melting down or is in pain or can't, you know, whatever it is really that parent, as that parent is the expert, they are in the expert seat. And they need strategies that they can implement right there, right there and then.
Because we can't just, we can't always pick up the phone and drive an hour somewhere to figure something out. We've got to get those strategies right away in that moment. So, so that's what I did. I spent five years while I was ready raising my children. I spent five years clicking away at the computer at really weird hours of the night too sometimes, you know. And I compiled a list of strategies, opinions and stories of my children. And I just pumped a lot of hope into a little easy to read book for parents.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: So I love it. And the thing is, I mean it seemed like you have four children and they all had different challenges that you had address in different ways. So it's almost like there were four sets of strategies dealing with Four sets of ish. I mean, yeah, symptomologies, I should say.
[00:27:16] Speaker C: 100%. Absolutely. Yes.
Many times I thought, you know, if you took, for example, the symptoms that I remember, my kids physician would write, you know, right after, you know, during their visits, write their symptoms, you know, et cetera, on a paper, one per kid. I thought, you know, it would be so appropriate to write those on transparent sheets. Four transparent sheets, one for kid, and just put those on top of each other. Because with four children, even though each is unique in some of their symptoms, each one just bumped into the next. You know, each symptom bumped into the next kid's symptom. So, for example, my daughter. My daughter was prone to aggression due to her Lyme and other issues.
And she was just the neatest, most beautiful little girl, Very, very smart. But she. But she. Unfortunately, due to her symptomology, she had aggression. And she would shove her brother off, her little brother off his office chair, off his bike as soon as she got off the school bus, you know, and she was in kindergarten, she was hungry.
And so her symptoms affected his symptoms, you know, and then his. Whatever his symptoms were, he was the one with the severe ocd. Well, all the kids had to let him put on his shoes before going out the door because at first, because if they didn't, he was going to have a meltdown and nobody was going to be somewhere on time. You know, all those symptoms kind of bumped into each other and it was quite chaotic, and it was my job to try to sort all these out and be fair about it, which is. Which is really hard.
You talked about how each of them must have had different symptoms. Yes, yes. And that's the tricky thing with Lyme, as. As we all know, because for one, okay, one had severe ocd, he would lose his speech from time to time. Severe digestive issues.
Allergies. Allergies, as I said, to peanuts and to milk.
When his blood sugar would drop, that's when the meltdowns would start.
So that was him. And then the other one, my other son, he could go for long periods of time without eating. He. And when he did eat, he wanted his. He wanted his food. He was a picky eater as well, but he wanted his food. Charcoal burned, really dark eggs, scrambled eggs chopped up really tiny and just burn those eggs till they're black. That's how he wanted to eat them. Yep. He. He. He wanted. He liked. He loved meat. So chop up, you know, ground beef, for example, really tiny pieces, charcoal, it black. That's how he ate that, and if it wasn't burned, he wouldn't eat it. You know, he would starve himself rather than eat something he didn't like.
So. And his symptoms, he was very, very, very beyond shy. That's what led me also toward that autism spectrum angle. I wouldn't have thought Lyme had anything to do with that, you know, and my daughter, she was very prone to aggression. She would have seizures, also, many seizures. She had them at school, and I only observed one at home that was a little bit larger.
She was just very, very spacey, slurring her words.
She's a very good reader, good at math as well, but she couldn't. She couldn't make sense of a simple saying I had on my shirt.
She was very prone to headaches, but she was an extroverted kid, just outgoing like crazy. She loved new things, adventures on the playground. She would try to climb on top of structures instead of just in them. And, yes, and we would have to. I would have to take them from playground to play playground. You know, this week would be this playground. Another week would be at a different park. Because she just gets so used to the playground that she would try to get on top. She would try to get on top of the slide canopy, you know, so. Yeah, but each kid had different symptoms.
And I think my message then for your audience is that if you think that your child is just a little bit off the bubble, if they're not, you know, they have a few questionable symptoms and you don't really think it's a big deal, you know. Well, they're just very, very particular about their food. And. Yeah, so they've been. So they've been constipated since they've been a baby. That's not a big deal.
Or. Yeah, they have some severe allergies, but we can take care of that. If they have these suspicions, I would recommend to see somebody like you look into those more, become educated on what could be behind that. Because a child is supposed to be happy, healthy. They're supposed to be sturdy, just rugged as heck. They are supposed to be able to play in the dirt, run through, sit in the grass, jump in the leaves. They're supposed to be able to function and just get on with it, be a little sloppy and scrappy with it, and move on to the next year of their life. They're not supposed to be getting these idiosyncratic symptoms, and then they get a little worse, and then they have a few more. So that's what my advice would be. You Know on that, on the symptoms. Yeah.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: And how did you as a mother, I mean, it's challenging enough to have one child that, that is dealing with these kind of issues. Here you have four and obviously lack of sleep, lack of, I mean that. And continually around the clock, you know, needing to be present, needing to be patient, needing to figure out, you know, how can I adjust how I do it, you know, so that my child can be, be happy or functioning or be able to eat or be able to, I mean, how, I mean you mentioned kind of watching the clock, but, but how did you survive? I mean what, what did you do? What was your, your kind of mentally. How did you get through all of that?
[00:33:58] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it was a gradual process. And I say, as I say in the book, there was a point early on where I thought, you know, I want to just kind of smudge out what's going on. I want to just kind of really deny it and pretend like it's not, it's not really happening, you know, and, but I thought, you know, if I, if I do that.
And this took a lot of reflection. I think that's the biggest thing. A lot, a great deal of reflection is number one, just thinking about what's going on, being very absorbent. But anyways, I, I did come to, I did come to a point early on where I thought if I try to just as I, as I call it, smudge out a little bit of how awful our day is, you know, just get on to the next. Okay, that's a bad day. Get on to the next. Kind of like that. If I have that attitude, then what I'm really doing is I'm, I'm smudging out years of my kids lives because as a parent you're not just invested in your own life with a few, you know, with your, with little kids, you, you are responsible for their happiness, really, their well being. So I thought, I can't think of for example my, my son's infancy when he would just cry, like cry so much. I couldn't just think of my son as just this baby who cried all the time. I had to think. He also was an infant growing infant who smiled sometimes. He was also an infant who was very calm when I ate the right foods because I breastfed my kids when we were babies. He was also very calm once in a while. And I had to at the very least find a way to appreciate each day because my life was linked to theirs.
So that's one of the things I did and I mentioned reflection. I Did a lot of reflecting.
Probably drove my husband nuts a little bit in this area. But I knew that I was the one who had to do, had to deal with my kids problems at home. Yes, we had our dear physician who helped us a whole bunch. But I was the one who had to make sure that they were going to take their nasty herbals. You know, it took, it took many hours a day just to get them through all their stuff. You know, I had to make sure that they were going to do their glutathione or whatever, you know, whatever protocol we were doing.
And what I really did was I developed strategies that I kind of developed them by accident.
For example, one of them, one of my little go to strategies which it seems kind of silly when I think about it, but what we tell ourselves, what's really going on in our heads, the narrative, we say sometimes the narrative is silly, but we're all in. We believe it 100, you know, we believe silly narratives like, oh, I'm never going to get better. Well, we are going to get better, you know, but sometimes we think we won't and we believe it. Well, one of the things that I did was I thought, you know, I want to yell at my daughter in this moment because she, for example, ripped. This is one of the things she did. She went upstairs because she had a stomachache and she went upstairs and she got the pack of paper towels, it was a jumbo pack of paper towels. And she ripped all those paper towels off their, off their rolls, you know, and it's, I mean, it's not like she broke anything. You know, it's this silly thing she did. Oh, well. But when I saw it in my busy day, I thought, oh my gosh, what do you think you're doing? You know, you know you're not supposed to do that. You know, I just wanted to just verbally attack, attack, attack.
And she did many things like that often.
But instead, instead I thought, you know, what if I take a moment, just a tiny pause, the micropause. And I thought, this is my silly thing here. I thought, what if I pretended as if she had an attorney representing her and this was a case, you know, what if. Yeah, I mean, kind of funny. And I thought, what would her attorney say if I barked at her? You know, because if I matched her emotion, then she was going to get even worse. And that's what she would do. She would listen to my tone, as all kids do. So instead I thought that attorney, that a little attorney, you know, I just kind of think I have a little attorney on my shoulder or behind me, you know? You know, and that attorney would say, hold on, you know, because what you say, I'm going to use against you. So that's one of the silly little strategies that I use. And I tell you, profile. That attorney example worked so well. It worked every time I used it, and it was only something I knew about in my head. Nobody else knew how crazy I was acting, you know.
And then I put in many little strategies like that. For example, I liked to shop at thrift stores because we were trying to save money. All our money went into seamless socks in organic food, and into and into paying out of pocket for pretty much everything. You know how that goes. So at one. At one time, when I got some jeans for my. My son, in the pocket of the jeans was this little. About this. I mean, about the size of a quarter, this little piece of Velcro, and it said the word best on it in capital letters. I have no idea what it came from. I don't know if it was a. A sight word a little boy needed to learn, I have no clue, or if it was last name. But I. I looked at that little piece of Velcro and when. When I brought it home, or when I brought the pants home, I saw it and I put it on the counter and I thought, you know, it's almost like a button. So then I would use that. That little thing. I. I mean, that worked like a charm. D. I. When I needed to reset my mind because I was getting a little too frustrated, you know, the sounds in the house or, you know, kids, kids screaming or whatever, you know, or something went wrong.
I would go over to. Over to the counter. It was on the back of the counter. And I would think, okay, you're gonna reset. To myself, I would say, you need to reset and you need to try your best in this situation. Okay? And then I would physically push on that. That little Velcro as if it was a button, and I would actually feel like I was resetting. You know, I would. I mean, and I think, you know, the book that we get, well, nowadays, it's probably electronic, but we used to get that parenting book that. What to expect when expecting, you know, and what to expect, you know, first, however many years or whatever it is.
Those books did not have a chapter on this. They should have come with a little Velcro vest. They should have come with a little plastic figurine that represented the attorney. You know, those books that my grandparents could have written a chapter on back when they were raising kids in a different environment, different time, I don't think they were as bothered by the exploding line that we have today.
My grandparents could not have written what I needed to learn.
Now.
There was no chapter in there on how chapped my hands were going to get from washing my hands so many times because I was dealing with diapers, because my kids should have been potty trained, but they weren't potty trained yet because of their digestive issues. Then on and you know, and other issues. There was not, There was nothing written on that, you know, and the other, the other thing I think about is we all have what we call now systems in place. System, systems of operating. You know exactly the protocol that you're going to use when you come into your clinic. You know where you're going to wash your hands. You know what you're going to do here procedurally, right? You've got systems in place for efficiency.
Parents, parents have systems in place as well. And it's how we're going to pick up our kids from school, how we're going to efficiently get food on the table, you know, who's going to go to what basketball game, etc. Those are systems. But the way I see it and the way I saw it with my kids was that a parent needs systems already in their, in their mind.
They need a protocol to follow that is personal.
That is personal to them, individual to them. So that, for example, for me, it was. I would visualize a flow chart. There weren't any words on it, but I would just picture this really basic flowchart. So when my son would have a meltdown, I would have a picture of a flowchart in my head and I would think, okay, he's having a meltdown. Let's go through this. Let's go through this list. If this happens, then I do this. If that happens, then I do that.
If I can't resolve his issue quickly, then I'm going to immediately look around the room and make sure the environment is stable. If my daughter is climbing up something, I need to tell her to get down so that I don't have additional things to worry about. You know, stabilize the environment.
So that's the system.
And in my book, I try to, I try to spell out exactly what I was thinking in that particular moment when, you know, when I bumped into failure. Because you're going to bump into failure so many times as a parent. It's really a stepping stone. That's what failure is. Step, you step there and Then you go up from there. And I try to spell out exactly what I was thinking in certain situations.
And I go through a little bit spiritually, what I. What I was feeling as well. I don't touch a huge bit on that, but a little bit. And then I also say physically what I was going through. And it all relates to a system, a procedure to follow that's going to change per situation. But after a while, you get used to seeing the patterns and you say, okay, I've seen this before. This reminds me, you know, this reminds me of some other time, you know, so that's what I did.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: And that's what's so great. Because here you are then in the. In a seemingly hopeless situation. And when you're in that kind of a lost and don't know what to do, you know, there's so much energy that that's required to continually have to figure out what to do at the moment. So by having those systems, then you can kind of relax and rely upon. And this is familiar. And yeah, it doesn't require as much energy in that situation. When you're dealing with a screaming child or dealing with your daughter, you come up there and, you know, paper towels all over the place or whatever it may be. And it also brings.
I would say it's just empowerment. Yeah. Because you then have tools at your hand that you can use when you're looking at a situation. It's very difficult.
[00:46:04] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I titled my book Ultra Parent, and that's how I thought of myself.
It seems a little boastful, it seems a little lofty, but really, we have to go back to that narrative we're telling ourselves that no one else has to hear. It's just within our own mind.
And a parent of. Okay, here's how I say it. A parent of a neurotypical child or a child who doesn't have health issues, they don't have Lyme, they don't have whatever it is, you know. Yeah. Their child does not have something like that.
That parent.
That parent has a lot of grace. Meaning that parent can afford to not be on it all the time.
If they, if they make. If they do something wrong, minor, you know, minor wrong with their child, you know, say they. I'm trying to think of a specific example. But if something goes wrong, it's really no big deal. Their child is going to be okay, you know, but for. For us parents of children who have some sort of chronic illness or, or any other kind of health issue, for us, nine times out of 10 what can go wrong does go wrong, you know, it really does.
So we have to have more stamina than just a regular, a typical, a typical parent.
We have to have, I would say we have to be fortified in ourselves and we have to, for example, with the Lymangle, we have to be able to stand beside our child as our child's in pain sometimes and we have to be able to detach a little bit so that we can have pause and we can look at that situation, look at our child and think, okay, what can I do to help?
But we don't want to get so far detached that we don't have empathy for them. And in between that detachment and that. Yeah, in between detachment and having empathy, really there's a very uncomfortable spot. And that is that, that is the spot where we parents of kids with health issues have to exist.
And we are there so, so often through the day and often during the night. And we have to exist there with that child. But at the same time pull back a little bit and be able to see. Okay, okay, I see my child is in pain.
Is it because of a die off? Is it because they, I need to get them to the emergency room. Is it because of something that I just fed them. Is it, you know, we have to go through that whole checklist and we have to be strong enough not to crumble. And with my own kids, I wasn't that good at that when, when they were little. You know, I had to learn that it takes a lot of training to be an ultra parent. You know, not just a parent, but an ultra parent.
It takes a lot of training.
So for example, when my, when we switched from just the regular diet that we had, which was pretty much anything that fit in their mouths, they were allowed to eat, of course they made sure they ate their veggies, but still they were allowed to eat whatever it is, you know, I thought was good nutritional food. Well, when we switched to gluten free, casein free, so milk free and soy free when we switched to that, I remember my son, he was just a little guy at the time. He was watching someone else eat something and, and I forget what that person was eating. It could have been spaghetti or something like that. And my son just stared at her watching this. And I could almost read, you know, read his mind because I could tell from his, his little face he really longed to eat that food. But mom wasn't gonna let him. I was not gonna let him touch that food. He was gonna eat whatever weird food I brought that day for him and that was it.
So he was watching this person eat this food and I was getting a little teared up just watching this because at that time I was still, I was still not able to detach. I just didn't know how to do it. And he said to this person, he said, he said, I eat that, I eat that too. He said, yeah, my mom makes that for me too, you know. And of course, you know, I just thought, oh, you know, I'm such a horrible mom, such a horrible person, you know.
But when I. Yes, but years later when I reflected on that example, I thought, wow, that little guy, that little guy has some strategies, he has some life skills. That's what that is. So what I needed to do then was see from a different perspective, hey, he's got some strategies there, he's able to deal with that situation. And I had to approach it the same way.
One of the things that I used to do with them, for example, regarding the food, when we'd be at the grocery stores, I would have my kids in the big grocery cart and they love to go over and see the baked goods, you know, those, those pretty cakes, those, you know, those really nice pastries. And they knew I wasn't going to let them eat cake. I let alone buy those, but I wasn't going to let them. Meat cake, right? I hadn't learned yet how to make a good cake on the, at that time it was specific carbohydrate diet, that's the one we were working on at the time.
And at first I felt sorry for my kids, you know, I got these poor children, they're not allowed to eat this cake, you know. And people around me, I got so, so many, so many comments. Why don't you let your kids enjoy their childhood? Why don't you let your kids eat this and be a normal kid, you know, Etc. And I was thinking, well, either going to vomit afterward, they're going to, you know, have horrible stomach pains, it's not going to go well. So how about if I feed them something that helps them thrive. But I couldn't convince people of that anyways, so back to the grocery store. What I would do then instead of feeling sorry for them when I realized I'm, I'm, I'm feeling too sorry for, for them, what I would do is I would push our cart over to the cakes and we would look at those cakes and admire them as art.
And then at home my kids had some rice based play dough. They would make those cakes at home then, so then it was another way to see that, because there was no way I could compete. My food, food would never, still cannot compete with the. With how fun food looks on other people's plate, you know, So I thought, okay, my kids have to learn some life skills. I need to help them with that. Let's see those not as edible. Let's see those as art. That was another strategy I used.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: And how did you deal with. I mean, so here you're talking about other people looking at what you're doing, commenting and then saying, why don't you do this, why don't you do that?
How did you kind of deal with those people? I mean, did you have then a kind of a selection of people that were closer to you that you and people that used to be your friends that now all of a sudden really couldn't be your friends because they were kind of a. Projecting their. What they think should be done onto, you know, obviously was ignorant projections because they weren't living what you were living. Yeah.
[00:54:11] Speaker C: So how.
[00:54:12] Speaker B: How did you deal with that?
[00:54:14] Speaker C: Absolutely. I do have a whole chapter on that. And I. What do I call it out? I don't know. Outsiders is how I think of it. At least I have a whole chapter on that. You know, different ways. My husband was really good about saying to me, he said, look, those people who don't believe you or who, who just are skeptical of your parenting because people just thought that I was a bad parent. I got that all the time. I was just. I just didn't know how to parent, you know, even when I had four, I just didn't know how to do it. Everybody else knew and innately how to do this thing, but I didn't, you.
[00:54:53] Speaker B: Know, And I know even some, you know, single people that never been married and never had children, they all of a sudden are experts.
[00:55:01] Speaker C: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I was an expert. Honestly, I think it's karma that I had these children because I was an expert before. And I thought, well, I'm going to have children who behave well. That's for darn sure. You know, on my. My kid's not going to be like that. Get over there. You know, And I had, I had those kids, for example.
Oh, my husband. That's what I was going to say. My husband used to say to me, look, those people are not going to, years from now, come back to you. They're not going to look you up and find you and say, you know what? You were right, I was wrong. That comment I said about you on January, you know, whatever, 2010, you know, you're not going to come back and say that. So he said, you better find a way to let this go.
And that was helpful.
Other things, I do have strategies on that one. For example, grocery stores we spent. We spent once a week, we'd have to go to a store, grocery store or whatnot. And I remember this one clerk we would accidentally get. I tried to avoid. Avoid her as much as I could, but we got her. And she just. I think really looking back, she probably just had some issues herself. She probably need to be one of your patients, and she would have had a happier life, you know, and she just seemed so disappointed that I showed up and she would be so slow, and we needed to get through those. Those get through the grocery aisles rather quickly.
So I remember thinking, you know, she's not really here to wreck my life. She just doesn't know what it's like to be in my shoes. So what if I see her as a character the way you see a character in a story, the way you view a character in the story? What if she's a character? She's a minor character. What if I'm the major character? And thinking like that helped so much. So I applied it to many, many people in my life. People who came and went and people who stayed. Many, many people. Because if you think about it, if we think of people as characters and in a story that allows them to kind of move freely, they might learn. They might learn something later. They might not come back and tell me about it, but they might learn something later. And I think. And I think that will happen. We saw that with. With COVID How many people learned things that they didn't know before about health.
And you never know what.
What their life is, how their life is going to be and who they're going to be in contact with and what they're going to learn. So what if I just see this moment in time, that particular clerk or that friend or that family member or whoever, that person is a character in a story, and it. They haven't made it to say if they haven't made it to chapter six yet, you know, and when they get to that or the sequel of whatever, you know, whatever it is, and that allows. That allows a little bit of forgiveness as well, because you're. You're never going to.
You're never going to be able to project on other people precisely what you want, nor should you.
Sometimes.
Sometimes I just had to limit my visits with people, you know, some. Sometimes this is one technique I used to do sometimes when somebody would say something to me like, your kids aren't even fun to watch. That was really an interesting one. You know, they're not fun to babysit. Sorry, you know. Oh, well, I would, sometimes I would, would answer people with my mouth closed. I would just close my mouth and behind, you know, behind my lips, I would say, you know, like if they say, I think your kid, your kids are spoiled, I would say to, I would say to myself, no, they're not. You know, no, they're not spoiled. But I wouldn't answer that to them.
Just whatever I could do to just, just maintain my own own sanity.
And with that, what I've noticed is that it's almost, it's almost when you're going into these health endeavors, it's almost as if. I think of it as three phases.
Yeah. The first phase is where you are just thrown into this like you're on an island. You don't know where you are. You can't explain how you got there. I mean, that so much the case with wine. And you're really, you really fall for things so easily. You know, things that, that don't work sometimes.
And then the next level is level two, where you're starting to get some protocols that work. Maybe you've changed your diet, you've got, gotten rid of the starches, you've gotten rid of the sugars, and you're starting to have some more energy because of that.
Maybe you've gotten past a few of those hurts that you were experiencing in phase one. So at that level, you're, you're getting better and you're getting smarter, but you're still so vulnerable because you haven't seen enough yet. And at that level two, at that level two, it's, for example, when, when we went gluten free. Free. Okay, Gluten free. That's the thing. Rice forever, you know, rice and meat forever. Right. Well, that, that worked for a while and then we had to get rid of the meat because I told you about my son burning, you know, wanting all his food charcoal. And it became just meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. And the rice wasn't helping them either.
So level two is where you know just enough to be dangerous. You know, you know enough, but you haven't, you don't have this multi pronged approach. You can't come at something from all different angles. You can come at it just from the angles that you learned so far.
And then the level three is where you can actually, as a parent, you can step away from your child for a little bit, and they're probably not going to regress, or if they do regress, you, you're resourceful enough at that point where you know who to talk to, you know what protocols to implement, or you know where to go to research what to do, and you can get back on track.
And it's that I would say at level one, of course, nobody's an expert yet. Level two, you feel like an expert. You really feel like I've made it, my kids are better or I'm better, whatever the case is, everybody else needs to do what exactly what I did, and everybody will be fine, you know, and then you. If you make it past that, because not everybody makes it past level two, even, I would say, even some physicians we went to did not. Did not make it past level two. I can tell you stories about that.
But if you do make it past two and you get to level three, it's at that point where you realize, you know, when. When other people say things about my kids and I have to justify why my kids can't stay up so late for Christmas, you know, or whatever it is. It's at level three where you say to yourself, okay, I'm a stable, smart person now. I. This is not about my ego anymore.
This is not about my reputation as a parent.
I'm going to let go of that and allow them to actually believe that I'm a bad parent. It's okay.
And I think for your, Your audience listening, it might be very, very hard to even conceptualize that because they're probably in the thick of it. They might be at that level, level one, where they're just trying to figure out what the heck happened in their life. And all they want to do is get that same life or that life they had. They want that back so badly, they want to get off the island, back on the mainland as soon as possible, you know, but this is a transformation.
And that's one of the things that I. That's one of the ways I think about it, too.
Being a parent of a child with health issues, being an alternate, is really about changing who you are.
And nowadays we hear all the time, you're good enough as you are. And that's true. It's. It's true for everybody. We were born perfect. It's absolutely true. But when it comes to being able to lead that child through those. Those health issues, it's not enough. You aren't enough. And you have to fortify yourself. And how do you do that? Well, one of the ways is you take inventory of your habits. What are you doing that's in your way? You need to look at your habits because you're probably doing some bad habits. Even if it's just like I did and ate way too much chocolate, you know, and I'm super sensitive to chocolate and oxalate, you know, so it's probably a no, no for me. But, man, that was my go to. And when I was frustrated with what was going on, I would just grab chocolate and eat it like crazy or drink a bottle of healthy soda, you know, I mean, the soda without preservatives and coloring, it was healthy, right? So that's the way. That's the way I would cope sometimes. But really what that altered parent needs to do is say, I'm going to be. I'm going to actually be true to myself and be stable, smart. I'm going to be healthy. I'm going to be healthy mentally, whatever that means for that person. I'm going to be healthy spiritually because that's critical as well. And I'm going to be healthy physically.
And that, that part, I think for me, that one came last.
It was easy for me to be healthy spiritually. It was. It was not. It wasn't easy. But I was able to figure out how to be healthy mentally.
But that last piece, that physical, physically healthy and all three actually work together in the Trinity. But to be physically healthy takes time.
You can't just.
You can't just.
I can't. Okay. For example, when my kids would have a meltdown, I would do something that I would call meditation, meditation on the go. And I would. I would sometimes focus on their little fingers and I would, you know, just. Just to. Just to give myself pause there during the meltdown. And I would think, okay, instead of being so frustrated with them while they're crying and I see their tears just pouring down their face and their face is getting red and they're screaming and they're, you know, squeezing their hands. I would look at those, at their little, little fingers and just reflect, you know, and sometimes that would be a trigger for me to calm down.
So that's a mental component and probably spiritual too. But to add that physical component in where why we have to exercise too? I mean, that's not fair, you know, how are my supposed to do that when I'm tired? But it's so critical. And I do touch on that. In fact, the second to last chapter is my journey on that. When I pulled a muscle in my back and I had to try to, you know, try to figure that out. And I wanted, I so wanted easy solutions. And when I went to one professional as a chiropractor, he was very helpful in helping me with my back. And, and I asked him, what can I do to prevent this? I mean, I've got kids, I got to be able to lift them up and carry them. And I expected this man to say these, you know, do the Superman stretch, do these stretches, and you're going to help your back.
And he said, stretches are good. But he said, you need to, you need to lose the fat that's encasing your spine.
And I just thought, you can't say that to me. I gave birth to four children. I'm entitled to be a little bit chubby around the middle. And you don't know how busy my day is. You know, you have no idea what it's like to be me. That's what I was thinking.
But darn it, he was right.
I mean, I really needed to pay attention to my physical well being too.
Because these parents, man, we have to physically help maneuver our children sometimes even when they're way beyond babies and toddlers.
When my youngest, for example, when she would go through her lime bouts, she went through a little difficult time where she would, she would lie down and she couldn't sit up and she couldn't walk to the bathroom because she was in too much much or because her stomach was in too much pain. She also had a lot of laminar throat, so she was too nervous to move. So when she had to go to the bathroom, I would help her get onto a beach towel on the floor. She was already on the floor on blankets, but I'd help her get on the beach towel and I would drag the beach towel very slowly all the way to the bathroom and help her out, you know, help her up.
But that was physically demanding and very hard on the back. And that child was a teenager. She wasn't, you know, she was heavier. So I want to emphasize to your audience members that if you're a parent of a child with health issues, it's so important to get your mental and your spiritual, but, and your physical health where it needs to be because you will function better for your child.
[01:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's all true. It's so true. And exactly what you're saying is that, you know, when, when you're in that place and you feel you have the excuse, and you do have the excuse, you know, that you're, you're not getting to sleep, you're you know, around the clock. Yeah. And then you're exhausted and mentally fatigued and thinking that I don't have time, I don't have the energy to do these things. But like you're saying, I mean, these are lifesavers, you know, these are the ones that allow you to be able to continue. Yeah. And that kind of a high functioning state.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Anna, this, this was amazing. I mean, this was amazing. And I mean all of this is in your book, Ultra Parents Thinking.
[01:09:50] Speaker C: Yes, Ultra Parent Thinking. Yeah.
[01:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, wonderful then. And people can get that on Amazon, I would assume, right?
[01:09:57] Speaker C: Yes, it's on Amazon. It's also on my website, ultraparent thinking.com I'm on Instagram a little bit and I'll try to put more out on that. And if anybody wants to reach out to me directly by email, they can do
[email protected] but yes, the book is. The book is available on Amazon as well.
[01:10:23] Speaker B: Wonderful. Well, Anna, thank you so much. This has been wonderful and you're truly a warrior.
[01:10:30] Speaker C: Oh, thank you for this opportunity, Dr. Karlefelt. Without you, I wouldn't be able to get the word out. And I really appreciate what you do as well. Thank you for the opportunity.
[01:10:40] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much. Thank you.
[01:10:49] Speaker A: The information that's 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 Lime Conquerors Mentoring Lime warriors on Facebook. If you'd like to know more about the cut cutting edge integrative 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 Dr. Karl Feldt.
