Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative Lime Solutions with Dr. Carl Feld.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: We have some phenomenal information that could save lives. I am Dr. Michael Carlfelt, and with me, I have my co host, Tanya Hobo.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: You're going to need to tune in to what's going on today. The information is unpacked, so, yeah, don't step away.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: So excited. Let's go ahead and get this started.
Welcome to Integrative Lyme Solutions with Dr. Carl felt. And today we are joined from a mother and son all the way from London. We've got Natalie and her son Mateo is the one who battled this journey. So we are so excited to have you guys here. We know it's late over there, so thank you so much for joining us.
[00:01:02] Speaker D: Thanks for having us.
[00:01:03] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Well, I'm excited because I didn't know that ticks existed outside of the east coast here in the United States. So they're in England as well?
[00:01:17] Speaker D: Yeah, they're very much in England. Apparently, they're in every region of England, according to a recent study. And I've also been told that they're in lots of the places the English like to go on holiday, like Portugal and Spain and even Dubai and places like.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: Yeah, they truly are everywhere.
[00:01:37] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:01:38] Speaker C: For people.
You read things online, you're like, oh, well, there's only ticks in lime, Connecticut, because that's where it started. Right. So some people literally believe that the ticks don't roam outside of the. So, definitely not.
[00:01:57] Speaker D: And where we live that we have two very large deer parks, Richmond park and Bushy park. So I think there's even more ticks there. Apparently, there's 6% of the ticks in these parks carry Lyme because of the deer. So, yeah, it's not the best area to be living in, in terms of.
[00:02:19] Speaker E: And even close to these parks, it's probably quite easy for ticks to move around, because if they attach to a squirrel that can go into people's gardens, I guess, and transport the ticks around there.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:35] Speaker D: Because they travel on different things, don't they? They travel on mammals, birds, not only deer and sheep, but that's what we're finding out. They travel on different animals, and then.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: You have mosquitoes that bite the deer or sting the deer, and then they sting a human. And now you've been inoculated.
[00:02:57] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. And it's strange because the deer don't get Lyme disease, do they? But then they can still carry the tick, which then has the borrelia bergdiferi bacterium, which, if it's injected into a human bloodstream, will then create Lyme disease. So even though the deer will show no symptoms at all, unfortunately, if we get bitten, we can show the symptoms, which is unfortunately what happened to my son. So we live very close to two deer parks, and we've been on holiday in the areas of Europe where there are ticks, so we don't actually know where he got Lyme disease or even.
[00:03:37] Speaker E: When it could have been. No, many years before I started showing symptoms, because the time where I actually started showing symptoms was quite confusing time. It was straight after I just recovered from pneumonia.
So I was quite beaten down from that.
And then some symptoms still started showing even after pneumonia. So that was very confusing. I felt like I needed, and my mom felt like I needed more antibiotics, even though I apparently recovered from pneumonia. So we were wondering what that was. So there was a long, confusing stage where we didn't know what was happening.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: I bet it was. And I think there's so much talk about, especially like, recently with COVID being out there, people that can get know type of a pretty severe illness, it can trigger the Lyme in your body. So. Yes, Mateo, I agree. Like, maybe you had it long before then, and then getting sick with your know, kind of could have ran your body down and then it reared its ugly head. So we just sometimes never know. Right.
[00:04:56] Speaker D: Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that's what could happen. That stimulates the virus within you, because Mattio's doctor says something about the fact that pneumonia could have been injected at the same time or something as a pathogen with the ticks bacteria, or it could have just been that his immune system was down, so he had a particularly bad bout of it or developed it. I guess that's similar to what you were saying, is that right?
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
You have one. It's like chlamydia pneumonia is a common co infection with Lyme, which impacts the respiratory.
But also the other option is exactly what you're saying is that having an infection, whether it's Covid or pneumonia, or it can be a stressful time in your life that suppresses your immune system and then a pathogen that may be hanging out that your immune system normally can battle and suppress, all of a sudden, the immune system is not able to. So now it starts to go haywire and do its thing.
So it could have been either one of those.
Ahead, go ahead.
[00:06:20] Speaker D: I was just going to say the NHS, the National Health Service here in the UK, basically only gave my son the diagnosis of pneumonia. And then when it continued, there wasn't any suggestion from those medical professionals that Lyme could be a possibility as an underlying cause for the continued chronic fatigue and malaise that he's had. So instead, he was given a diagnosis of chronic fatigue me, and that was his main diagnosis for the full seven years. He was ill. He's now fully recovered, which is obviously why you've invited us on the show, but he was never given, and still to this day, has not been given a full diagnosis of Lyme disease on the NHS, even though our local doctor does believe it was Lyme and the private medical doctor. So chronic fatigue me was kind of. Is it quite common, I think, for people to be given the chronic fatigue me diagnosis and not a Lyme one, even when they're Lyme sufferers?
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's a big common diagnosis, and it doesn't always need to be Lyme. When you have that Epstein Barr cytomegalovirus, it can be a number of different pathogens, XMRV.
I know Dr. Judy Mikovicz talk a lot about that in her books. Tainted vaccine supply with XMRV.
So there are a number of scenarios, but with Lyme, you also have a number. You have the body Ache, there's kind of over and above just a chronic fatigue.
You can have other symptoms as well along with it. What did it all look like for you, Mateo? I mean, you had the malaise, you had the chronic fatigue. What else was going on?
[00:08:31] Speaker E: Honestly, it was a very hard time because we were completely in the deep end. We didn't know anything that was going on.
I was very tired after that. Feeling like that, after pneumonia as well, was very tiring and had a lot of headaches. It was a big shift because I'm normally quite an active person. I do a lot of sports.
I used to like running around in the parks and stuff. I still like it. I'd gone back to that, doing runs and stuff now and going to the park again, even the same parks where I might have got the tick bites, but it doesn't stop me.
[00:09:20] Speaker D: You just put the spray on?
[00:09:22] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:09:22] Speaker D: Every single time you go.
[00:09:24] Speaker E: Yeah. Or I wear longer around my legs, trousers, track de bottoms.
[00:09:33] Speaker C: Yes. That's good, because a lot of people, they get a little PTSD from being sick and they get afraid to go outside, so you're way too young to stay indoors, so I'm glad you're out there. And, yeah, you wear proper clothing and use your spray and you have awareness now, right? Like, you're very aware of your surroundings and stuff, so good for you for getting back out there.
[00:10:00] Speaker D: Yeah. I don't think you've had any PTSD. I think myself and his brother, who's now asleep because he.
[00:10:06] Speaker C: You had it for him.
[00:10:08] Speaker D: We did. We were literally traumatized by seeing him.
He was so bad at one point. At his worst, he was completely bedbound for a year.
He started from being this really kind of active, football loving, energetic, always on the move, didn't even want to sit down to eat type of boy, to just being tired all the time. School kept ringing me up and saying, can you pick him up? He's tired. And I said, oh, but I think he's better now. And they were like, no, he's still feeling ill. And they just wasn't like him. He was very sociable, very popular, always running around, always making friends, whenever went on holiday, no issues at school, really lovely school, and just got worse and worse. The point where he was doing part time schooling afternoons, 1 hour, and then just couldn't even go to school and couldn't do the stairs, just continual headaches all day. And it was really upsetting for me because I just didn't know what was going on. And to be honest, my fear at the time. I didn't tell you this at the time, did I, Matthew? But I was worried that you were dying or something. I thought there was some kind of undiagnosed leukemia or stage four cancer or something that some other. Because those are the kind of symptoms that were presented that other children with the chronic fatigue group were coming out with.
And I knew it wasn't normal for me to have to carry my son to the loo, which was like 3 meters from his bedroom at some point, and administer him with ibuprofen every single night, and end up giving him CBD oil as well, to try and calm his nerves and his anxiety. And he would, like, cry at bedtime to me over and over, cry, mummy, mummy, I'm too tired. I'm too tired. I can't do tomorrow. I can't do tomorrow. And I had not to say. And it was just devastating seeing him like that. It really was horrible. And it took a long time to kind of accept when he started in treatment that things were going to change and that it was so slow. But, yeah, it was definitely traumatizing seeing my son in that way.
No one wants to see their child that young go through something like that. Horrible.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: No. And, Mateo, tell us, how old were you? When you got sick?
[00:12:38] Speaker E: It was one month before I turned ten. So I was like, actually, well, that's when I got diagnosed. I was a little bit early than that, but I was kind of like nine ish or eight. I think it was nine.
[00:12:52] Speaker D: Yeah, maybe because when you say diagnosed.
[00:12:55] Speaker E: Do you mean with the chronic fatigue or with pneumonia?
But honestly, the stages at the beginning were the hardest because it was just such a big shift. But later on it started changing.
It was hard because I liked all those things before, but then it was kind of like a new me. It was made kind of. I kind of had to just work with what I had.
[00:13:30] Speaker D: Kind of got used to it.
[00:13:31] Speaker E: Yeah, I kind of got used to it.
[00:13:32] Speaker D: And I worked with for me to see, because I was glad that, in a way, you didn't know what you were missing, the fact that you got so used to that small, tiny. Just being in your room. But. Sorry, carry on.
[00:13:43] Speaker E: How did you do that? But later on, though, when I was changing, I was trying to make the most of things I have because I had a lot of time. So then recently, I think it's always good if you're kind of restricted in that way or someone's really ill, find something to work on still, or give you happiness or still find hobbies. I think it's important to still find hobbies and build on those hobbies, because even though you're maybe ill in the home, you might have more time. You might have some advantages compared to other people, like your own age that are at school. Because since I had more time around two years ago, I started really getting into photography just as I was getting better, because I always wanted to photograph nature and I had a lot more time on my hands to learn about that. And it was completely no stress or anything because it was just at my own pace. I was just learning at my own pace. And it was really good because it was no stress, just learning at my own pace.
[00:14:57] Speaker D: You could follow your passion uninterrupted.
[00:14:59] Speaker E: And I just built it up. And by the time I was ready to go and I just started photographing it at my window, some birds like a very small lens. And I was even enjoying that just at the window I started going back to because for a lot of years, I didn't even like looking at nature or going out my window because it was like just before I got ill minded.
[00:15:26] Speaker D: You.
[00:15:27] Speaker E: Yeah.
By that time, I felt like I'm ready to go back in.
[00:15:34] Speaker D: I remember when you couldn't even handle the light. Do you remember when you have to wear sunglasses every time you went out and then thought we were being a bit fussy about it, but then we found out that that is a sign, the light sensitivity.
Yeah. And then he went on to win a photography award, Royal Park's young photographer bird photographer of the year award, for one of his photos. So that passion that started from the bedroom window that went out to the park was really.
[00:16:02] Speaker E: Yeah. But I think it's so important that if someone's ever in this situation where they're quite restricted, they find, like, a hobby or something to be very passionate about that they can still work on, give them some life and fuel them a bit. That is hard time.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: Fantastic advice. Absolutely.
And congratulations on your award that you won.
[00:16:26] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: And I do. I think it's a chance to learn something at your own pace. There's no requirements, there's no agenda of your learning process. But I tell people all the time, and people tell me all the time that having Lyme disease going through this really changes us.
But I also think that there are good things that come from it. And so in your case, I'm going to speak a little for you, if you don't mind. But I think in your cases, you discovered this thing that you're very good at, and you probably never would have had you not been sick and restricted to your room. So we got to look at all those positives for why we go through what we go through.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: So I'm curious.
[00:17:15] Speaker D: Sorry. Now he does editing. He watched all these tutorials. You don't actually stop watching the tutorial. He'd really studied it in such detail.
[00:17:23] Speaker C: That's awesome.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: That's amazing, because this started about two years ago and you mentioned you were sick for about seven years. So what were some other hobies you were doing?
[00:17:34] Speaker E: Prior to prior, I was doing gaming when I was completely bedbound. I just didn't really have many other options when I was very serious about that, when I was ill and I was still bedbound and very tired, I actually won a bit of prize money. It was just a small amount, but on a tournament on gaming. So I'm passionate about things that I think it's good because at that time, I wasn't well enough to do photography or do photography in the park, so I had to do something like that. And that was before I discovered that. But I guess it all just depends on what stage you're at, what you're able to do.
[00:18:19] Speaker D: And some family members weren't that supportive, were they, of the whole gaming thing? But I kind of thought, well, it makes him happy. It's not much that makes him happy. He's in a lot of pain. And actually, we started to realize it was a connection, wasn't it, with the outside world, with the players. And it was also a substitute for that testosterone fueled kind of football that he loved. He was then able to game, and then he was tired afterwards, but he was able to do those little chunks. And later, you always said, thank you so much for letting you do that, because I had a lot of pressure on me not to let him do that. And lots of medical professionals were like, he needs to get dressed. He needs to go out. He mustn't go on the iPad. He mustn't do this. He mustn't do that. And every time I got flu, I thought, when I have flu, I lie in bed and I look on my iPad, and I watch Netflix and my guilty trash. So why are we putting this pressure on this boy who's not fully diagnosed, and we don't even know why he's ill, and he's clearly in.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it sounds like you made the right decision, mom, by letting him do that. And I think probably it was really good for his brain, the interaction, because you're obviously talking about this virtual gaming world that I don't really know anything about it other than my nephew used to do it. But there's something about that. But, yes, that interaction, but then just that brain having to use your brain to do your hands to move the game and stuff like that had to have been, I think, really good, because some people get so bad that their brain just doesn't work. So it was probably great that you kept that actively working.
[00:19:57] Speaker E: Yeah. And it felt like, honestly, some of the doctors wanted to keep you stopping from doing any of those things they wanted you to.
Because I feel like Lyme disease doesn't really have.
Probably not enough research. In a lot of communities, there's not enough very good professionals on Lyme disease that know what they're doing. Really?
[00:20:25] Speaker D: Experts. Yeah.
But we were lucky to find one, weren't we?
[00:20:29] Speaker E: Yeah, we were lucky to find one.
[00:20:30] Speaker D: But I remember the day I told Matthew that we'd managed to get to the top of the six month waiting list. He cried his eyes out. I said, we're flying to Dublin from London. And he said, no, mommy, please, no. No, please. I can't. I'm too tired. I'm too tired. And I said, no, Matthew, please, you've got to trust me on this. This is a really good doctor. He's part of the Lyme. He's a Lyme literate medical doctor, part of Iliad's association.
That's like a network. And I said, we'll have the lanyard, the sunflower lanyard. I don't know if you have that in the US, but you have this thing you can wear around your neck to show you got disability.
And my said, would have a wheelchair throughout the whole time.
And then you asked to not stay the night there. You wanted to come there and back in the day, which is a bit crazy, but that's what you wanted, so that's what we did.
I met amazing doctor there, and that was really the start, wasn't it, of the progress.
It was just incredible, the antibiotic treatments.
[00:21:36] Speaker E: Even at that time, I didn't realize. I thought I was like, I didn't even want to be disturbed or anything. I wanted to keep on trying to recover, but I didn't realize that that was a big thing. And I'm happy my mom dragged me through that, just because it was definitely worth it.
[00:21:55] Speaker D: But I was worried as well, because we went into family that took antibiotics, so I was worried about the gut health. And there's a lot of, like, I was going to say, propaganda, but it is true. The antibiotic resistance is a problem for low level infections. But now I know that Lyme disease, being a very bad bacterial infection, needs a very high dose of antibiotics. And so having three a day, which is what he was prescribed, was full on. And remember you felt really sick, and I kept saying, are you okay? Can you keep taking it? But you somehow went, yeah, I think it's helping me. Do you remember?
[00:22:30] Speaker E: Yeah, I think it's because I needed something strong. Antibiotics, it's a tough thing, Lyme disease.
[00:22:43] Speaker D: You hated it in the early days.
[00:22:45] Speaker E: There are probably other ways of dealing with it, but, I mean, for my case, I needed antibiotics.
[00:22:53] Speaker D: You're really good because you kept going with it, but you felt so sick.
[00:22:55] Speaker E: Yeah. And I had to take other things to try and help because antibiotics basically wipe out everything, even the good cells. So it kind of makes you a bit tired again and makes you a bit sick again and kind of runs you down again, but it kind of is like a restart a bit, like refreshes.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: So when you say felt really sick in the beginning, what was that? What was that like?
[00:23:22] Speaker E: Yeah, it was really like a very weird sickness from when you take antibiotics or, like, a lot of antibiotics.
Yeah, it's not a great sickness. It feels like, very weird. You can't really help it that much. But part of me just knew I had to go through it.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: What's it like?
[00:23:43] Speaker D: We had these little things we did for him. Like, there was the infrared sauna, epsom salt baths. Do you remember?
[00:23:50] Speaker E: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:51] Speaker D: Which one? That kind of helped you feel a bit better.
[00:23:55] Speaker E: The infrared sauna was really nice.
That might just be preference, because I like heat and stuff, but I was.
[00:24:01] Speaker D: Trying to do all the detoxing up there. I was trying to like, yeah, we had this pad that someone, a homeopath, gave us, naturopath. And then I bought, like, massive ten kilo sacks of epsom salt. And every day, Epsom salt bath. When he felt too bad, I was like, right, get in the bath. And all these other things, like very strong probiotics, super eight probiotics.
[00:24:25] Speaker E: Honestly, I kind of forgot about all this stuff.
There were so many different things that would chuck them, try and help.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: That's a lot. Very overwhelming for an adult, let alone a child.
That was a whole lot. But, yes, you're right, antibiotics can do a lot of damage to your gut, and sometimes we wonder if it's doing more damage than it's doing good. And in your case, that was the journey that you needed to go down, but yet you supported it with these other alternative things like the sauna and the Epsom salt baths. And what else did you guys do?
Did you guys do any herbs?
[00:25:17] Speaker D: Yes, before we had the Lyme literature doctor involved, the private specialist, I tried so many different things like homeopathy and loads of different vitamins and all sorts, but when it was nice to have him, then he's just told us really strictly these three antibiotics, LDN, NAC, I think, and a few other things like turmeric, things we're already giving. I was really impressed with how many different nutritional supplements were suggested alongside the antibiotics. And then after 18 months of the antibiotics, he kind of had a shift of energy at the beginning, and then he kind of plateaued where it didn't seem like that was that much happening, and then there was kind of gradual increase. So after 18 months, which feels really long when you're suffering, he got to a point where the doctor said, now I think it's time to move over to herbs, herbal antibiotics.
So that was then. When we moved from the doctor in Dublin was Dr. Jack Lambert, and then we moved from him. He referred us over to Monica Wilde at Napier's herbalist in Scotland, and she then prescribed herbal antibiotics, which I thought were going to be so much more gentle, were actually really strong, too. And you felt really sick on them as well. Do you remember?
[00:26:46] Speaker E: Yeah, I remember that. But, I mean, I don't know if it's different from. Maybe it varies from person to person, but yeah, some of those herbal things are pretty like, honestly, I had some sickness from the Lyme disease or chronic fatigue anyway, so maybe it might have just been exaggerated even more by some of those things. I don't know.
[00:27:08] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a good point, because I remember being so scared. What's the antibiotic going to do to your gut? And I remember distinctly that you started eating better, putting on weight, getting your appetite back once you took the antibiotics. And I wish someone had told me that. And then I looked into it and I saw that because the Lyme affects your GI tract and the spirochetes can, I think, I'm not a medical professional, but they do something there that affects your appetite.
That's what causes a suppressive of appetite and issues in your gut, and that's much greater than any antibiotic could actually do. So that's what happened with you. So it was a bit of a relief. So even though you felt sick, you were eating better than you were when the lime was taking over your body, basically. And then with the herbal, you said it wasn't as strong as the antibiotics, but it was so gradual. And I remember we had these routine meetings with the herbalist. Remember it was during COVID So it was over a video call, and she would go through this long list of things that Matthew had.
The sore throat, the burning feet. There were so many things. The brain fog, the funny rashes. It had so many symptoms.
And then gradually there'd be less.
[00:28:25] Speaker E: Yeah, it just started going down. And there's probably so many symptoms that I had that I just forgot I even had now.
And even on the different stages, there was so many different ones.
I trying to think now, some of them. Some of them was like me being very dizzy. I used to be very dizzy.
Like a bit faint, almost, kind of. Yeah, a lot of things.
[00:28:51] Speaker C: It's hard to remember.
It's hard to remember all that because we're thinking we're dying anyways.
[00:29:03] Speaker E: True. And also even, like, the reason why my mom was saying that her and my brother might have a bit more, like, PTsd than I do from it is because it's weird. I kind of just fully moved on from it, from being ill.
I don't really remember some of the parts of it that. Well, it was quite a long time. Yeah, maybe that's what my mom thinks. I might have blocked it out. And it definitely could be true.
[00:29:37] Speaker D: He couldn't really remember waking up at 02:00 a.m. And I remember him crying at the worst point. 02:00 a.m.. Coming, mummy. My headache, my head, really bad migraines, things like that, and coming to the table and then not being able to cut up his food himself.
I remind him things like that and he doesn't really remember and he goes, oh yeah, I just wondered whether you.
[00:29:57] Speaker E: Yeah, I only remember a few moments from those times. Even though they happen so many times happen daily.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So you say he was so tired he didn't have the energy to cough up his food.
[00:30:14] Speaker D: No.
As a mother you just gradually doing more of them and then you suddenly think, hang on a second, this is so not right for a ten year old, eleven year old boy. And then we did get an occupational therapist round and he gave us these foam knife and fork which helped, which they're kind of like a normal knife and fork with an added thicker foam handle. And they helped a little bit. But I did have to cut his food for him. Remember you couldn't carry a plate, the table at one point back and forth. He couldn't squeeze a toothpaste onto a toothbrush. He couldn't turn the door lock. I had to get a special disability door lock thing that you can turn the door now.
[00:30:59] Speaker C: Matteo, do you remember when you couldn't do those things was because you were in pain or your body was so fatigued and so weak that you just couldn't do it?
[00:31:15] Speaker E: I think it was because my body was so weak and so fatigued. I would say I couldn't do it because even though it was like a painful journey, it was more like a sharp pain is like that hurts like sharp pain, but it's kind of like painful, like painfully long journey. That's more what it was like, a long journey of fatigue.
[00:31:43] Speaker D: Chronic discomfort?
[00:31:44] Speaker E: Yeah, chronic discomfort.
It was like a different type of pain. It wasn't like a short, sharp pain, it was like a long, slow pain.
So that's what it was like. But yeah, later on when I got ill, though, I did kind of adapt to it a lot.
When people started asking me, oh my God, I can't believe still for this long, it's like even though I'm still with the same illness, I still change, I still adapt to it. I still find my own way, find my own groove to it.
[00:32:26] Speaker D: You dealt with it, you became very resilient and gritty about dealing with it, which I was really proud of. Your mindset. And a lot of people commented on that.
[00:32:37] Speaker C: I say it all the time, probably in every show. I think. I think that anybody who goes through Lyme disease, like, we're just the strongest of the strong. So on the other good note, now that you're this amazing photographer, you are strong and resilient. You went through this at a very young age, and seriously, I think it's going to pave a different path for you in your life. Like, we are just tough. We're tough and we don't let anything get us down. And so life is not going to knock you down for long, if it does at all. So that's another positive to the Lyme disease. Right. We got to find those little positives to it.
[00:33:17] Speaker D: I totally agree. Tanya. Sorry. We're going to say something.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: No, go for it. Go. Natalie, I was just going to say that.
[00:33:23] Speaker D: I said to Matthew, and you never get in a bad mood anymore, and he says, if I get in a bad mood, I just go for a run in the park. I just go for a jog. I just go out, I go see my friends and play football. And I just think, wow, because of what he's been through, you see, he knows what it's really like to suffer and go through something difficult. And it inspires me.
[00:33:44] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that gave me goosebumps because that's a lot to learn at a young age like that. But it is true. You definitely learn to not sweat the small stuff because I kind of don't really care what's going on in the day. Nothing can be worse than just laying in bed thinking you're dying. Everything is better than that.
We do. It's hard to be in bad moods and it just really changes us.
I'm excited that maybe that's not the right word. I'm very sad you went through what you went through, but I'm excited that you're well now and that you've just come so much further than a lot of people ever do in life.
Just mentality wise, I think it's just a great thing.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: How did the first run in the park feel? Like when you did that the first.
[00:34:39] Speaker E: Time, it felt so good, especially. Honestly, I would say the thing is, it kind of wasn't like the first run in the park. It was more like the first two minutes sit in a bench, then go home in the park, kind of because it was kind of like the transition from, like, honestly, even at the beginning, I was just at the window. I was enjoying things just at the window. And then the move to the park was magical for me, because I've always liked nature. And then going to the park like that, early days in the park, like a new world, going back in the nature really helped, and I recommend people do that when they're recovering or when they're at the right stage. Yeah, I think it helps, and I think it's actually scientifically proven as well, isn't it? The thing with, in hospital, they have a window with green outside, it can help you recover.
[00:35:32] Speaker D: Yeah. There's more research coming out at the moment proves that nature can be healing. Yeah.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: I had a radio show a while back ago. It was a gentleman that wrote a book exactly on that. And children and being out in the forest and in nature, and the impact that it has on their brain, their development, and obviously, emotionally, nature cure is. So, Natalie, I'm curious.
So at some point, then you started to look towards and. And then booking a trip, then to a doctor in Dublin.
That's a big move. Then you must be fairly certain that this is a direction we need to go, rather than all the other directions that I'm sure the chronic fatigue groups are talking about. So what made you kind of make that big move to fly to a doctor? It's not just a doctor you had right by around the corner. I mean, you had to fly to them. And that's a lot of trust and a lot of knowing that this is where you needed to go.
[00:37:00] Speaker D: Well, I'm a kind of a parent that does a lot of likes to research, so I did a bit of research, but I joined an online group for a social media platform and a chronic fatigue me group with parents of children with chronic fatigue me, and a Facebook group, and it had parents from all over, mainly from America and Europe. And one of the parents on that group called Nuret Baron, I asked if I could mention her. She basically, one day she mentioned that her child was getting better and he had very similar symptoms to Mattio, and then he was doing the hoovering, because we laugh about it now, because it's a specific post where she photographed him doing the hoovering. And I thought, if he's doing the hoovering, then that must be really must have made progress. And I kind of said to her, what happened? And she was opening up online and saying about, well, actually, we found out was underlying Lyme disease.
And I asked her some more questions and she very kindly spoke to me through messenger. And then she suggested I look at Iliad, the association, the Lyme Disease association, where it has lots of different medical professionals so I just started looking more into it. And I also joined the Lyme Disease UK Facebook group and they have, like, patient reviews for different doctors. And I started to realize there aren't that many expert, really well reviewed doctors.
And I started to find out about the controversies around the testing. I found this lecturer from a canadian professor to his students, medical students. It's like one and a half hours long. I watched it and the canadian professor said that the two tiered system of testing in England was flawed because it was an antibody test and you might not have antibodies while you're suffering. So we all know that now because of COVID but this was pre Covid, and that we need that in London and England. You have to get the antibody test before you can have the blood test. And then looking into even deeper, going to a Lyme disease conference I went to, I found out that you can also have clinical symptoms alone and your Lyme disease may not show up on any blood test anyway. So that kind of like, inspired me to look into it. And I guess it was. Some people were saying to me they did think it was a bit random, that I was just going to get a blood test done for Lyme disease, but we didn't have that many options and you did have all the symptoms.
And I think my gut, you know, they've just. I don't know your gut feeling. I just thought, let's just give this a go. But that wasn't easy to get done. I had to go again. I asked the NHS, they wouldn't pay for it, they wouldn't entertain it, they said it was highly unlikely. They asked for the top infectious disease. Even though he'd been under the pediatrician for two years, they declined. And even though he'd been with a chronic fatigue unit and he was so bad, he was so severe, that he couldn't even get into the hospital, his appointments, they wouldn't entertain it. So I found out about Armin, who are a german lab, and I went to a clinic in central London, expensive clinic, and they said they would courier a blood test to Germany from the. I went to a private local GP and asked if they'd do a blood draw. And he wasn't sure about doing it. It was a lot of blood, do you remember?
[00:40:46] Speaker E: Yeah. So basically it was a lot of blood.
And I remember I was getting a bit nervous. But the thing is, honestly, I feel like it wasn't the blood test that was that bad, but it was like me, I was just very weak at that time. It was quite an early stage for me in my illness. It was good that we went and did it early, obviously, but I was pretty weak then. And when we actually were taking the blood test, I was like, we're thinking maybe I should have some water or something. And I was going to have some water. And then I fainted.
[00:41:22] Speaker D: Yeah, and banged your head in the doctor surgery, which I think. And the doctor was even more worried then and was like, are you sure this is necessary? And I was like, just, yes, it is. Please, I must go back to him and tell him about your.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: See, I told you it was lying. Yeah, go tell that doctor.
[00:41:41] Speaker D: Well, I didn't know, but I wondered. Yeah. So anyway, then it got corried off to Germany, waited the results, got the results back. When we got the results back, then we went back to the doctors again in England, and the GP, that's the local general practice doctor, they were, you know, but it's a german test. And I said, germany's like, you know, not exactly worse. They're better, basically, than the medicine here. And they said, we can't quantify it. We don't know for sure.
[00:42:15] Speaker C: Because it was from Germany.
[00:42:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
And I said, just suppose it is, right, what would you be your treatment? And also, look. And they could also see that the blood cells were low, the killer blood, white blood cells.
And they said, okay, we'll give some antibiotics. Just.
They agreed they would. So he had some interim antibiotics. And then I asked them to again go to the infectious disease doctor specialists, and they again said, no, it's highly unlikely, even with that blood test. So that's when I then went to the private Dr. Lamberton in Dublin and sent him the blood test and waited for his waiting list and called every single week asking for a cancellation. Is there a cancellation?
Is there a cancellation? Until there was. And that was just before the lockdown, because I remember we were driving when we took you in the airport. I was wearing gloves and I wasn't wearing a mask. It was at early stages where people were being careful what they touch, but not wearing the mask. So it's quite good timing, wasn't it?
[00:43:21] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:43:22] Speaker C: And that was the doctor that took you six months to get into?
[00:43:26] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:43:27] Speaker C: And Mateo didn't want to go, and your mom was dragging you because she waited a long six months to get in there, you were going.
[00:43:36] Speaker D: And the next thing that I had to drag him into doing was physio. Do you remember? Yeah. After about. Towards the end, the last year of his treatment, he wasn't really doing that much, but he was feeling a lot better.
And he used to have physio in the hospital, and it totally put him off because it was a horrible experience. He had to go in there. They just sat him on a lay on a bed, told him to move his legs around. He was knackered and he hated it.
But then what happened was, again, in lockdown. The neighbor in her eighty s was having physio over zoom over online platform for ten minutes. And I thought, this is what Matthew needs. So I went to the pediatrician at our local hospital and said, can Matthew please have online physio? And she said, yeah, I don't see why not. And so the community physio started doing five minutes, building up. And again, you found it really painful at the beginning. Remember when you said you didn't want to do it?
[00:44:31] Speaker E: Forgetting was hard. Yeah.
[00:44:33] Speaker D: But then I remember saying to you, I remember saying to Macio, remember on the tv, on the movies when people have crashes and they can't walk, and the physio is saying, come on, just take one more step. I said, it's like that.
Your muscles aren't working anymore. Just do a little bit, a little bit each day. And it was even just like a few heel raises. Do you remember those physio exercises you used to do?
[00:44:57] Speaker E: Honestly, they were like very simple, small little exercises just to build me up a bit. And I found them very difficult, even the little simple ones. But after all of that, it was all worth it. Once I was in the garden playing some football, again, not even like.
[00:45:14] Speaker C: Yeah, and I think that's great for the listeners because there's a lot of us that are in bed and we think we can't do anything. And just 30 seconds of something, move your ankles around your wrists, whatever it is that you can do, there's something that you can do. And it may seem very small and pointless at the time, but your proof that little by little, you're going to get that strength back, because it really is. There's a phrase that if you don't use it, you lose it or something, right? That usually happens when you get older, but I think it works for Lyme disease, too. So you got to keep moving those body parts around for sure.
[00:46:01] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely.
[00:46:03] Speaker E: Or if you don't, if you have a time like me where I completely stopped doing anything, you got to build it back up. And there were many times where I tried actually building it back up, and then I went back in too quickly.
[00:46:18] Speaker D: Or something like that.
[00:46:21] Speaker E: You have to be careful when you're building up and make sure you're building up a steady pace and you don't dive back into the defend too quickly.
You got to make sure you build up steadily.
[00:46:34] Speaker D: You became really good at pacing because when other doctor medical professionals tried to get involved with the baseline and charts just didn't work. He had to learn himself what his body was telling him, and he learned to pace himself. And that came with emotional maturity, which is hard when you were younger. As you got older, that became a bit easier. But at times, those physio exercises, I myself was wondering if they were doing anything, because when you're on the stage where you're in the home all the time, it doesn't feel like someone that you're making progress. And it wasn't until you went to the garden that after, like nine months of physio and he made it to the garden, it was like, I felt like he's getting somewhere. And then a few months later, like six months later, when you made it to the pool and were doing the playing beach ball, remember, with your friends in the pool, just like a light beach ball, remember that being a massive thing? I mean, now he's off badminton and he plays football with a local football team and things. So from being bedbound and not wanting to do heel lifts to that, that's incredible.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: So nine months to get into the garden and then six additional months to, can I hit a beach ball?
That's perseverance.
And it just shows that, like you're saying, obviously, it's hard to see the change from day to day, because just being able, if you break down each step, nine months, you're looking at nine times 30. So 270 days of doing exercises just to be able to get into the garden, that's impossible to see those small little changes from day to day.
[00:48:28] Speaker D: You have to really trust the physio. And they were really good with the chronic fatigue. They were like, oh, we're not sure if you're ready for hydro because of the water, the sensory heat and light. And we were like, ok, these guys know what they're talking about. They're considering light and heat, so they're chronic fatigue. Think. And then your monica, your Herbalist, said, slow and steady wins a race. And then we knew that it was okay. The crashes weren't, it was more slow and steady. And I think having someone like Dr. Lambert, who's such an expert and so good at what he does, you could trust that trust. We could kind of relax. I think the worst part is when you don't know who to listen to. You don't know what to follow. You're trying every single thing like we tried. Is it mold? Is it wheat? Is it diet? Is it this? Is it that? And what we found out was when he was suffering from the Lyme, he had lots of sensory things. He was allergic to chewies. Remember when you couldn't eat avocados? But since he's better, he's not having that sensory issue anymore.
[00:49:26] Speaker E: So unknown people don't know about what to do.
[00:49:30] Speaker D: Yeah. And then all the judgment. As a mother, you're judged. People are like, oh, he's still ill. He's still ill, and now he's better. They're like, oh, wow, well done. He's better. Amazing. But I'm the same person, and we're the same people. And actually, we needed the support when he was at his worst and he wasn't getting better.
We really feel it. But that's why we're here today, to help give hope to parent carers and anyone out there who hasn't yet found the right treatment for them to find that right treatment.
[00:50:07] Speaker C: Yes, I know it's different for different people.
[00:50:09] Speaker D: Our neighbor opposite, she didn't get on with antibiotics, and she got better just with nutrition and herbal and natural. But you can heal that way, too. Apparently, you did need the antibiotics.
[00:50:25] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And it's just like your friend on the chronic fatigue Facebook page that you found, it was her speaking out and spreading the awareness about Lyme that triggered you to have him checked. And so that's what it's all know. It really takes a village in this community for people to talk about things and how you got a diagnosis and what the symptoms were and different treatment options, because not everything works for everyone. So I'm glad you guys are speaking out and sharing, because there's a listener out there that really needed to hear this today. I'm sure of it.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: And it's important, like you're mentioning, and we hear that again and again, it isn't just one path. There's so many different ways that people have achieved health while battling Lyme. And so some people do it through antibiotics, some people do it through herbs, some people do it through silver. Some people do it through ozone. Some people do it through working on the mitochondria, some hormone. I mean, so there's so many different ways out there. And that's what's great, because if one direction doesn't or one way doesn't move the needle, then there are other directions you can go. So there are options, and there are hope. There's hope.
[00:51:54] Speaker D: Yeah. And Nurit Baron has a group of her own now, mums and dads of kids with limes, and she asked me to be admin on the group and we still chat and we know. I'm so thankful to her. And her son's also better.
[00:52:10] Speaker C: That's amazing. And another thing I say all the time, too, is the great friendships you build through it. I know it wasn't your personal journey, but it was the next thing, right, your son's journey. And you do. You build those relationships with others that are struggling, because, like you said, you didn't get a lot of support from your family and your friends. Sometimes the only people that really trust you are the ones that are going through it themselves, which is sad, but I get it. Like, Lyme disease kind of sounds crazy when you describe all the random things going on in our body. An outsider looking in would be like, yeah, they're a little crazy. I can see that. I can. That doesn't make it okay. They shouldn't be that way. So we're just going to lean on those that have gone through it and are going through it and that understand us.
[00:53:02] Speaker E: Yeah. And speaking about the parents that are making friends because of Lyme disease and stuff like that, it kind of just shows. And you were saying that even though they're not going through it, it's almost like they are almost going through it, too, because it's very connected. Even when I had it very badly, my mum and my brother were almost like. It was kind of like we were connected. They were also kind of getting a lot of the bad stuff, too.
[00:53:36] Speaker D: Yeah, we put in a lot of weight and my son's immune systems went down. The brother got ill a lot. My teeth were terrible. They're hygienist. It was affecting my stress levels and financially as well.
[00:53:50] Speaker E: It doesn't just affect me, affects everyone around me.
[00:53:52] Speaker D: Yeah, but you fixed you worse. You were the one that really experienced awful symptoms, which I don't know if you realize, if you'll really understand until you're older, just how bad. Someone stopped me in the street and said, we've never had illness like this, and he's that young and he's been that ill and it kind of really hit home to me how bad he had been. But you take it all in your stride now.
[00:54:21] Speaker C: He does.
How old are 16?
[00:54:26] Speaker E: I'm 16.
[00:54:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Wow.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Such a warrior.
[00:54:29] Speaker C: Right? Way above his years, for sure.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Natalie and Matteo, this was wonderful. Thank you so much, and thank you for staying up late in the wee hour for doing this. And this is such an important message of hope and resilience and to fight through and know that there's an end and there's hope.
[00:54:57] Speaker C: Yes. We so appreciate you guys, and you gave some great tips, mateo, for people finding little hobbies, finding what they can do. So you're really going to make some change out there in some of these listeners. So if anything, lots of hope and right, like, because you're the guy, I'm telling you, you're pretty amazing. So we appreciate you guys so much for speaking out and spreading the awareness that we need.
[00:55:25] Speaker D: Thanks for having us.
[00:55:27] Speaker E: I hope people set goals, find their groove, because sometimes you just have to find your groove. It might take a lot of time at the beginning, but once you get adjusted, and then you'll find your groove and set goals, find things you enjoy.
Even small things can be very amazing to you when you're in stages like that.
[00:55:53] Speaker D: And don't give up hope. Just believe that you can get better.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: I'm just curious, in finishing, you're talking about goals. So obviously you've had a lot of time to think of goals. So what is a goal? Kind of looking at yourself, like ten years from now, what does that look like?
[00:56:16] Speaker E: You know, I mean, I've got like, I'm. I'm happy to do like many different things now, but something in particular, maybe win some, even hopefully some bigger awards, even in photography?
Definitely. Hopefully I can do well in my gcses, even though I've had a lot of time off, but I'll try my hardest.
And, yeah, hopefully I find the right path.
That's what I'm hoping for. Find the right path for me one.
[00:56:50] Speaker B: Day and just getting to live in the moment and experience life and just live in the day.
Well, thank you so much. Thank you.
[00:57:01] Speaker C: Absolutely. Thank you, guys.
[00:57:03] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: The information this podcast is for educational purposes only, and it's not designed to diagnose or treat any disease. I hope this podcast impacted you as it did me. Please subscribe so that you can be notified when new episodes are released. There are some excellent shows coming up that you do not want to miss. If you're enjoying these podcasts, please take a moment to write a review and please don't keep this information to yourself. Share them with your family and friends. You never know what piece of information that will transform their lives. For past episodes and powerful information on how to conquer Lime, go to integrativelimesolutions.com and an additional powerful resource, limestream.com for Lyme support and group discussions, join Tanya on Facebook at Lyme Conquerors mentoring Lyme warriors if you'd like to know more about the cutting edge integrative of Lyme therapies my center offers, please visit thecarlfelcenter.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.
