[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative Lyme Solutions with Doctor Karl Feldt. I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us. We have some phenomenal information that could save lives.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: You're gonna need to tune in to what's going on today.
[00:00:16] Speaker C: The information is jam packed, so don't step away.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Well, it's such a pleasure to have you here today, doctor Mariah Hinchy.
I know you have such a cool journey, and you do so many cool things in regards to Lyme. So thank you so much for chatting with me.
[00:00:37] Speaker D: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: So you started your journey on becoming a naturopathic doctor, and this was before knowing, really, about Lyme or thinking about Lyme and more kind of wanting to do natural principles, right?
[00:00:56] Speaker D: Yeah. So it just. Well, actually, it was a pretty long journey. It started out with me not really knowing what I wanted to do, and for a few minutes, I wanted to be a physical therapist. And so I ended up, because it was a very competitive school to get into being a PT aide at a local physical therapy office, and they had a lot of massage therapists there, and I kind of got introduced into massage therapy, and I figured that it would be a good way to be able to continue to work while I was going to school because I couldn't afford not to. And, um, it would only enhance my skills as a physical therapy, because back then, physical therapy was a very hands on profession instead of kind of what it's turned into now. And so, um, I took two years off from UConn, and I went to school for massage therapy, and I fell in love with eastern medicine, so the whole philosophy of prevention, um, but also using botanical medicine and tapping into the meridian systems. And then, you know, here's a shocker. Like, you know, you are what you eat, food is medicine, lifestyle matters, all of those things. And so, um, I came out of massage therapy school actually wanting to do acupuncture and nutrition, and I wanted to do this combination of, like, psychotherapy while the person was on the table having body work because of the mind body connection, and I wanted to do acupuncture, and I was like, holy cow, I'm going to be in school for, like, 20 more years. And so then one day I was working as massage therapist on the weekend, and this woman came in and she was like, oh, I'm so stressed about finals. And I was like, oh, what are you in school for? And she said to be a naturopathic doctor. And I was like, well, what's that? I had no idea that they even existed. And she said, well, you know, we do nutrition and botanical medicine and acupuncture. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? And literally, from that moment on, I was like, I'm going to be a naturopathic doctor. And, yeah, so here I am.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: So it's almost like all the little pieces, you want to do this, do this, and this. And there was a profession that actually had it all in one place.
[00:03:09] Speaker D: Yes, yes.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: That's so cool. So, so on this journey. So how. What was the first time you got exposed or learned about Lyme or started thinking about Lyme?
[00:03:22] Speaker D: So my little brother had Lyme when he was probably, like, seven. He was a soccer player and his knee swelled up and lo and behold, it was lyme disease. And he took a course of antibiotics and, you know, supposedly that was it. Like, he was better. And I. When I was somewhere between, like, ten to twelve, my mom can't remember, I was bit by a tick, um, a deer tick. And so I went through the whole process of having to go and have my blood drawn and starting antibiotics, and then, you know, the phone rang, like, four days later and was like, great news, you're negative. Stop the antibiotics. And then, you know, at the time, we didn't know any of this, but I just developed, like, these very bizarre fear OCD, just bizarre symptoms that were kind of explained off by adolescents. And, you know, and then I kind of went on to have, I guess, a pretty normal, you know, middle school, high school, college career. I definitely was nowhere near debilitated, you know, at all, by any stretch. And it wasn't until, I guess, where, when I really learned about Lyme disease, I had a patient in the clinic who had chronic Lyme and babesia, and she had been on tons of oral antibiotics. She failed IV Rosefin, and she was still very, very sick in her early twenties, walking with a cane. And we spent a good, like, nine months until I graduated using a combination of various chinese herbal medicines as well as, you know, nutrition, lifestyle. We were doing hypo or hyperthermia, peat baths, constitutional hydrotherapy, castor oil packs, things like that. And, you know, she had told me before I graduated that she felt that this course of action was helping her a lot more than any of the antibiotics had. And so I really am thankful for her and that experience because, you know, this isn't like naturopathic doctors are just taught, like, oh, this is what Lyme and vector borne disease really is. We're not, you know, we were taught. I remember the exam question from clinical diagnosis. It was like little kids playing in the tall grass. They got Bull's eye rashes and their joints hurt, and they took 21 days of doxycycline, and miraculously, they were better. You know, that's what we learn in school. That's what most people learn in school. Only a lot of people don't learn 21 days of doxy. They learn ten to 14, which is one of the reasons why the infection becomes chronic. You're under treating.
So that. She was my biggest eye opening moment to the fact that vector borne disease is definitely not what we are taught. It is.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: And that's the issue. A lot of times. I mean, patients go and they have the bullseye rash, they get the course of antibiotic, and then later on, they still have all these symptoms. But because they were treated for Lyme, they are not constantly, they, you know, Lyme disease is not looked at again because they feel what Lyme disease was already treated, and now it's got to be something else, right?
[00:06:32] Speaker D: And in my case, so I think, you know, I had gotten a blood test about four or five days after we found the tick. And so in retrospect, it's like, well, that was too soon for my immune system to manufacture the levels of igms that would be detectable on the Eliza or the western blot, right? And that's if you're even lucky enough to get to a western blot, because most physicians just order, you know, the EIA or the Eliza, and then it reflexes to the western blot if it's positive. And so if you haven't had about three weeks, at least go by since the bite and you're using a conventional laboratory, you are most likely going to test negative. And then the doctor says, well, we ruled Lyme out, and it's like, no matter what happens, unless you get a bullseye rash, you don't have Lyme.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: And so tell me, because this is a big, big question in regards to, you know, for all the Lyme people out there, when. When should what test be used? I mean, when, you know, so you mentioned four days is too soon. You know, what kind of window would be the best time to do western blot? And is it at certain time that window closes and western blot is not useful anymore?
[00:07:55] Speaker D: So I would say, you know, with, in the early phases, I think that it would be more important to do a white or a cbc with differential, because whenever some, you know, any sort of organism comes into the body, you will see, hopefully, an increase of white blood cells. Um, specifically, you could see, like, a change in, like, the neutrophils or the lymphocytes. Um, additionally, you might see things like high sensitivity c reactive protein or c reactive protein. Very rarely, ESr, like these various inflammatory markers go up, you know, so they can give some early feedback as to what's going going on. There are labs out there that can do a c six peptide, and then there's also labs like in factolab that does t cell analysis. So those sort of things would be good for early detection.
When it. Or clues as to something inflammatory, you know, or infectious is going on, changes with the immune system, really, when it comes to using, um, and I say conventional. And then I, you know, I kind of, like, cringe because none of the conventional testing, in my opinion, is accurate at all. And I'll explain why in a moment. But, you know, if we're going to do Eliza's or western blots or immunoblots again, you really need to wait that kind of like, three to four week period where you're going to have peak production of igm, and. And then the iggs are gonna get up to where they're detectable, and that really happens between four to six weeks. So I don't really recommend using a western blot because there are various viruses that can cross react with some of the markers from a western blot. And I do recommend doing an immuno blot because there isn't as much cross reactivity there with the various KD proteins.
And again, with an immunoblot, you do want to wait that appropriate, like, three to four week period of time to test the issue with using a conventional laboratory. And I'm not trying to throw, like, quests under the bus, but they're the one that most people know of is that they're typically just looking at Borrelia Burg Daphori. And so that's looking at one species of Borrelia. There's about 20 species of borrelia that cause Lyme disease. And so that's kind of like me saying, and I have a very silly analogy, but it's like me saying, here I have a box of 20 crayons. They're all different colors. Reach into this box and pull out a crayon, and you reach in, and you pull out a green crayon, and I go, okay, cool. I'm going to test you using a test that can only see a red crayon. And so I'm going to come to you and I'm going to say, well, you don't have a crayon because it's not red. And you're going to say, are you crazy? It's a green crayon. So it's like we're taking this very, very specific test, looking for one species, and we're extrapolating that and we're generalizing it, saying, okay, you don't have Lyme disease. And it's like, you could have Borrelia miyamoti, you could have Borrelia aphazela, you could have Borrelia californensis, you could have all of these different species of Borrelia that cause Lyme disease, or the tick borne relapsing fever type of Lyme disease. Um, so that's one of the bigger issues with using a conventional lab. Additionally, no test for Lyme disease, tests for co infections. Right? So these are completely different bacteria. Right. It's the difference between, like, apples and oranges and bananas. They're all fruit, they're all vector borne, but they are completely different types of fruit. And so if we want to look at Babesia, we need to test for babesia, and that's a parasite, and there are different species of babesia, so we can't just look for one. Same with bartonella. And then we have ehrlichia anaplasma, chlamydia pneumoniae, mycoplasma brucella, and then we have viruses like the Powassan virus. So there's all of these different things that these ticks can carry. And doctor Joseph Burascano, you know, he says it's nature's dirty needle, and it really is like, whatever those animals have inside them that that tick has fed on, that is what it's going to give to you. So it's, you know, it's funny, I've had doctors say to me, oh, it's impossible for someone to get all of those infections from one tick bite. And the likelihood that they've been bit, you know, ten times, to get all these different infections is preposterous. And it's like, no, it takes one tick bite, you know, it's like sharing iv needles. You're going to get, like, whatever that person has in their system.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: Hello, dear listeners. This is Doctor Michael Karlfeldt, 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 Karfeld 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 iv's, 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 minutes 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, doctor Michael Karlfilz, 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
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[00:14:52] Speaker B: So having said, I mean, here you're counting all these potential borrelia, all these possible co infections. So how can a person know? I mean, so here you have individual deal with the brain fog, pain, fatigue, all these common symptoms. So what would be the best course of action for a person to explore as to what's really going on and what they're infected by.
[00:15:23] Speaker D: So all of this because of the way that it causes immune dysfunction and can suppress the immune system's ability for the b cells to make antibodies. It really has to come down to a clinical diagnosis. And these labs should be used as kind of supportive evidence or, you know, correlation that the person has been exposed. But I think it's something like, and I don't know, the statistic 100%, but it's around 5%, I believe, of patients are seronegative, meaning they don't make antibodies and they don't test positive on tests. So that being said, you know, there are some telltale or hallmark symptoms. And I want to say, with all of this stuff, you know, especially Lyme, it infects every single cell of the body, and it causes cellular dysfunction. And so you're going to see symptoms that are multicellular system. And so a lot of people feel like their body is falling apart, and they are literally going crazy. They're a hypochondriac. Um, they're depressed, anxious. They feel like they're just out of touch with reality because, like, one day their knee hurts so bad that they can't stand on it, and as quickly as it came, it leaves. And then, like, their shoulder hurts or their ear hurts, and then they've got, you know, nausea or heartburn or weird stomach stuff, and then that goes away, and they start having palpitations or tachycardia, racing heart, uh, shortness of breath, you know, all of these things as it ping pongs around the body. And one of the hallmark signs that I see is, like, immune system impairment that gets worse, kind of, like, with each cycle. And so patients will come in and they'll say, I have these episodes, and then I feel fine for days or weeks, and then I have these episodes. Right. Um, so, like, poor wound healing. Someone has surgery, and they're not healing in the rate their doctor would expect them to. Or, you know, they strain or sprain something, and it's not healing correctly. Catching every cold or every flu or every. Everything. You know, things like that, to me, are telltale signs. So, Lyme likes to go to your weaknesses and really kind of prey on them, because it's almost like a free buffet, because the inflammation breaks down the collagenous tissues and the connective tissue and the extracellular matrix and releases the exact nutrient profile that these spirochetes need to live, and not only live, but thrive.
And so, I guess with Lyme, it's like Lyme can cause anything and everything, and you should multisystem. When it comes to babesia, babesia loves the red blood cells. So, again, babesia is a parasite. It likes to live in the endothelial cells, so in the blood vessel linings, and it likes to live in the liver and the spleen. So those are its four, like, favorite areas to inhabit. And in severe babesia cases, it can cause anemia.
It can cause, like, this weird air hunger, shortness of breath, but it's weird, shortness of breath. Like, I remember I would run out of breath talking, and I'm like, I go hiking and I'm fine, but I cannot sit here and have a conversation without running out of breath, or I can't go up the stairs without being completely winded. So, like this weird air hunger, or like this sighing, or like this labored breathing feeling like you can't get enough air in. And that's because of how it impacts the red blood cells. Babesia can also cause pretty significant anxiety, ice pick headaches.
Let me think, what else?
Rib pain, chest pain, night sweats. Sweats in general. Those, to me, are the biggest telltale signs of babesia. And then we have bartonella, which can cause a lot of pain in the soles of the feet or calves. It can cause strange, like shocking, like very strong shocking, shabbing, almost stabbing, almost like spark, like pains in the body, similar to when someone has mycotoxin issues.
It can cause a lot of psychiatric issues, a lot of rage, depression, anxiety, panic attacks out of nowhere overnight. Um, and bartonella has this characteristic rash, um, that is called striae. And it looks like stretch marks, but they don't follow the normal dermal planes of stretch marks, and they tend to kind of migrate around the body. Um, so that's something to look out for. And then another is like these strange nodules, um, along the, um, the outer surfaces of the extremities. And then with anaplasma, you typically get a really strong headache, like a headache like no other and a pretty significant fever at onset. Um, and anaplasma, as well as. As the rickettsias, can be very life threatening. So it's really important to be on the lookout, um, for these symptoms and, you know, really know, you know, jumping back to Lyme, that EM rash occurs in less than 20% to 40% of patients with Lyme, and it can take anywhere from three to 30 days to appear. And by the time you've had the spirochete borrelia inside of you for 30 days, it is already disseminated, you are already going to have cardiac neurological manifestations of this disease.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Yeah, so talk about that. So here you're talking about the testing for it. It needs to be after x amount of weeks. The bullseye rash may not show up for x amount of time, but the treatment needs to pretty much be done immediately. And that immediate treatment, you do suggest antibiotics or more kind of herbal attack at that time.
[00:22:04] Speaker D: So it depends is what I would say. Um, I tell my patients, always send your tick out to be tested, and I encourage patients to do this as quickly as possible, you know. So I love tickreport.com. they are at Umass Amherst. I believe that they do the most thorough testing, just from my experience.
Um, so if you FedEx overnight your tick to them, their turnaround time is 48 to 72 hours. Now, I was always taught that you have about a three to four day window from when you got bit to get on the appropriate antibiotic to prevent. To prevent Lyme disease. Um, I don't know how quickly that window is for anaplasma. And, you know, getting on doxycycline isn't going to affect babesia or any of the viruses. Right? So antibiotics only work against bacteria, not parasites, not viruses, not funguses. Um, so again, like, my, my advice is send the tick out to be tested, be vigilant about symptoms, um, symptoms coming on. And then I always advise my patients to go on an herbal arsenal. Um, and what I recommend my patients do comes straight out of Steven Buhner's book, Healing Lyme. And really, it's taking a myriad of herbs that basically have four, you know, I would say I could boil it down to four purposes. Number one is that this bacteria gets into the body and alters the immune system's function through a series of cytokines. And so those are basically just inflammatory chemicals. And so it starts with increasing something called nuclear factor kappa beta, and then the map case, and then the interleukins, like one and one, beta and six and eight, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. And there's a handful of herbs that can inhibit these inflammatory cytokines. And those herbs are japanese knotweed, cordyceps, and chinese skull cap. Then these herbs use the stimulation of various enzymes in the body to break down the connective tissue and the collagen to feed themselves, but also to travel out of the bloodstream into, you know, the joint space and the connective tissue where it loves to live because it has tons of food and it can evade the immune system. And so these enzymes are agrokinase, collagenase and hyaluronidase. And we can inhibit those two enzymes, again using japanese knotweed, but also ashwagandha. And Ashwagandha is very protective of the adrenal glands through an effect, an infection and times of chronic stress.
Then obviously, we want to use antimicrobials. And so when we don't know what that tick had, I think it's important to use broad spectrum antimicrobials where we are focusing on, you know, hitting the bacteria, the parasites and the viruses. And so I like to use a combination of houtunya, again, chinese skull cap, cryptolepis, and sweet annie and japanese knotweed. And so you're hearing me say a lot of these herbs over and over again, which is awesome, because so many of these herbs have side benefits, right? They have these other synergistic actions. Like japanese knotweed, protects the endothelial cell, inhibits most of those enzymes, inhibits about half of the cytokines and its anti gram negative bacteria. So, so much I think that you can do to try to slow down the movement of this infection through the body if the tick had it, um, without unnecessarily going on antibiotics and, you know, potentially disrupting your microbiome, leading to other, you know, problems for no reason. Because I think it is somewhere the last time the, the state of Connecticut did a, um, did a study where they collected all of these ticks, and I think it was something like 46% of the black legged ticks carried borrelia. And so, you know, that's about half. So even though it's like, yes, it's very, very common. And, you know, we, we see a lot of it. There are a lot of uninfected ticks, too. And where I live in Connecticut, out in the country, you know, there are so many tick bites, and if somebody went on a, on an antibiotic every single time that they got a tick bite or found a tick on themselves, it just wouldn't be good for their health, in my opinion. And there was a study done, you know, claiming that one dose of doxycycline at the time of a tick bite prevented Lyme disease. And that study was flawed for so many reasons. Yet many medical professionals around me in this state and all over the country are following the instruction of that very, very flawed study. So, you know, for anyone who's listening, please, that study was flawed. One dose of doxycycline at the time of a tick bite does not prevent anything.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's the thing is that, you know, doctors out there, which, which obviously an individual, they, they go to their, you know, and trust their doctor and the advice that they get and the knowledge that these doctors have, I mean, they just don't, they don't have the bandwidth and how to know how to deal it, even in states like Connecticut, where Lyme is so prevalent. So I'm curious. You said 46% had borrelia, but then we're talking about all these other co infections. So did they test everything in those ticks?
[00:28:42] Speaker D: They did, and they even found, you know, like the Lone Star tick, just to put that out there on the record. But I honestly don't remember the stats off the top of my head as far as, like, how many had Babesia, Bartonella, et cetera?
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But at least 50 plus percent were uninfected of anything. So that people.
[00:29:03] Speaker D: Well, of Lyme, I don't. I can't say that that was 50% had nothing.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Okay.
And the beauty with, I mean, like, the different supplements. Yeah. The herbal herbals that you recommended, I mean, they have so many additional benefits for the body. So it's not just that it goes after Lyme or babesia. It supports, like, japanese knotweed is one of the best, most potent resveratrol containing substance out there. So it's all these other side benefits that comes along with it.
So it sounded to me. So do you have kind of a certain. When you have a patient coming to you and they are, they have these kind of multi system.
Obviously, then based upon symptoms, you are then saying, probably babesia is a picture. Probably Bartonella may play a role, and then you kind of bring in support in that area. Do you have a certain kind of step by step process and how to move a patient through their Lyme journey?
[00:30:13] Speaker D: Yes.
So, to address the first half of that question, so if the patients test positive for any tick borne disease, then I will typically treat for co infections or for everything else that they are symptomatic for. For, again, because there's no test that's 100%. So if someone is testing negative for babesia, even through a company like igenix, and they are having air hunger and they are having drenching sweats, and they are having ice pick headaches, guess what? I'm treating them for babesia. Um, especially if I'm seeing issues, like with their hematocrit, their hemoglobin, they have low ferritin, et cetera, like, if they don't have outright anemia. And so the beauty with using the herbs is that I just picked the herbs. Let's say they tested positive for Lyme only. Okay. But they're symptomatic also of babesia. I'm going to choose herbs that are going to cover both lime and babesia. Um, now, if we're using pharmaceutical antibiotics, the regime is very, very different, because, again, you have to use prescription antiparasitics like atovaquone, maybe is the thermiacin, which is also an antibiotic, or. There's a lot of studies that have now come out about the effectiveness, effectiveness of tifenaquin. Right. And so those don't really treat borrelia. The organism that causes Lyme, those treat babesia. So you're going to have to be on, like, this regime for babesia, but also this regime for treating borrelia, which includes, you know, if. If it's chronic, using triple antibiotic therapy. So that you're addressing the modal form, the intercellular form, and the cyst form, and that boils down to being on, like, four or five prescription antibiotics and antiparasitics at once, which is extremely hard on the gut and the body. Um, you know, so when you're choosing, when you're working with the herbs, you can choose the herbs that overlap because there's so many side benefits. So, like, cryptoleptis, for example, is anti bacterial, both gram negative and gram positive. It's anti plasmodial and it's anti parasitic. So you're hitting a good number of microbes using cryptolepis. And cryptolapis has also shown to be effective against the persister cells, which are the cells that are extremely hard to kill. So I just kind of wanted to put that out there before I dive in.
So, when I'm working with a patient, I like to say that even though a lot of times people are so relieved to find that a tick borne disease or vector borne disease is the underlying cause of all of their symptoms, but for me, it doesn't stop there. So I say, okay, well, these organisms make your body hospitable to them, and they get your body and your immune system to actually work for them instead of for you. And in doing that, they create a whole bunch of other underlying causes. And so my sort of treatment starts with an investigation of figuring out what are these other underlying causes. And a lot of times it turns out to be toxicity, you know, from the various biotoxins from the organisms, but also from having increased intestinal permeability and the body constantly reabsorbing and recirculating these toxins into systemic circulation. Then with the. With this increased permeability, or leaky gut, we end up not breaking our food down completely, and the food is getting in, and then that's causing an immunogenic response, response, creating more inflammation, creating more permeability, leading to mast cell symptoms, you know, and further inflammation. And it's just like this big cycle, this big ball of wax, right, that that needs to be dealt with. And, you know, I won't go down, like, you know, the. The whole other rabbit holes of what else could be going on. Um, but obviously, there can be hormone imbalance and all sorts of other things. And so you really just have to act as a good functional medicine doctor and figure out the pieces of the puzzle for that person sitting there in front of you. So I typically always do a micronutrient panel that analyzes what's inside of the cell. I don't really care what's gotten into the bloodstream, I care what's happening inside of the cell, because that's where a majority of your biochemical reactions happen. And if you're deficient in various vitamins, minerals, you're not going to be able to have functioning enzymes that take what you ate and convert it from a into b into c into d, and really making like, what your body needs to make to function properly. And then, you know, I say we live in an extremely toxic world, and the only thing that we really, and I mean really can control is what we're putting in our mouth. And so we can do a good job of saying, let's do like, you know, autoimmune paleo diet that is stocked rich with all of, like, you know, the healthy fats and the phospholipids and all of the phytochemicals and all of, you know, all of the essential amino acids and fatty acids and all the things that we need. But if for some reason, your immune system has targeted broccoli and onions as foreign invaders, and every time you eat that, you're causing immune distraction or overreaction, or you're mounting an inflammatory response and making excessive iggs or igas or iges, guess what? Now that food's poison. And so I feel like we need to remove these things from the person's life, because really it boils down to correcting the immune dysfunction. So I'm going to kind of skip ahead. I believe that it does not matter how many or for how long you take pharmaceutical antibiotics or antimicrobials or herbal antimicrobials, if you do not recover the immune system, you're never going to be able to stop taking your antimicrobials. And you're going to be one of those statistics that once you have Lyme, you always have Lyme, and you're going to go through the ebbing and flowing of flares and on and off treatment for the rest of your life. It's the immune system that has to come in and stop these organisms from replicating and put them into remission. And so really, everything that I'm doing is focusing on returning balance and normalcy to the immune system, which I think heavily relies on managing the inflammation and healing the gut. I think it all goes back to the gut, because if our gut isn't functioning properly, we can't absorb nutrients, we cannot digest, and we also cannot detox. And the more toxic we are, the more inflamed we are, the more oxidative stress, the more cell damage, the more immune dysfunction in general. So, again, it's like this. It's this big giant ball of wax. And if these infections are the ones driving all of this, obviously we can't ignore the infections either. We have to be shrinking the load of the infection while we're doing all of this other stuff.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: So it's kind of a multi prong approach that you have. And obviously, that's why it's so important to work with a practitioner like yourself, because it is a just all these string of yarn, ball of yarn that you have to kind of untangle a little bit at a time and then do it from several different angles, and then seeing how the body's responding and then address. So it becomes a very individualized journey. And that's why it's important to have somebody like yourself on, you know, as part of your team.
So one of the. And it's kind of an important point, I think that, I mean, you've made a lot of important points, but one of the things is that, you know, patients feel, well, I just want to kill all the Lyme, I want to kill all the Babesia, get rid of all of that, and they feel that that is the solution. So once I've killed it, then I'm fine. But what I'm hearing you say is that it's not really the infectious agents, per se. That is the biggest issue. We want to bring down the infectious load. It is more than managing the immune system, managing the inflammatory processes, and then restoring cellular function, like checking, make sure do you have the nutrients that you need there in order to be able to, you know, function the way that that it should? I mean, am I correct of that, or do you feel that, yes, we got to kill it, so it's all gone?
[00:39:38] Speaker D: I feel like we have to do both. And I don't know that there is any pharmaceutical or herbal antimicrobial that is going to be able to wipe it out 100%. So, you know, I would say the goal is, is that you're shrinking it to the lowest possible load of organisms, and you've rebuilt the immune system to the point that it can handle whatever that load is.
What I will say is that a huge part of our immune system relies on our microbiome. And so the conundrum for me, and the AHA moment for me was, how can we even have a prayer of fixing the immune system while we are on heavy duty pharmaceutical antibiotics that are destroying the gut biome and causing an increase in other opportunistic bacteria that we don't want in the gut, as well as Candida and other fungal bodies.
So that is when I kind of realized this. That's when I decided to stop doing integrative care and really move over to only using naturopathic functional medicine, herbal lifestyle protocols, because the herbs don't act against the microbiome in the same way that the pharmaceutical antimicrobials do.
And it's kind of like, and I'm not against using antibiotics, and I'm not against using antibiotics in the beginning, especially, and I am certainly, let me make this abundantly clear, not against using antibiotics. In an acute infection, they are indicated. Okay, so don't get me wrong, but in a chronic infection, there is going to come a time in every patient's treatment where they hit that crossroads where the pharmaceutical antibiotics have to go, because, again, you're not going to recover the immune system while you're on them. And it has to be this phenomenon where we're shrinking the load while we're simultaneously building the immune system so that the immune system can stop it from overgrowing. Um, it would be great if we could tackle the infection and then tackle the inflammation and then heal the gut and then fix the immune system. But unfortunately, it's not linear. It's like this all kind of has to be done at once, in my opinion, in what I've learned over the past 17 years. Um, you know, and we haven't even talked about biofilms. Right. So these infections are super smart, and it kind of sounds crazy to talk about, you know, a bacteria or a parasite being smart, but they are, and they're smarter than our immune system in a lot of these ways, and they're way smarter than antibiotics are.
And they build these forts inside of the body that are known as biofilms. Most different bacteria build biofilms, and it's a way of walling themselves off from the immune system and also from medications. So a lot of the medications that we use cannot penetrate biofilms. So we have to use agents to break down and dissolve the biofilms so that the medicines can actually get underneath and get to those bacteria that are hidden. And we also have to make sure that we're using things that are effective against these persister cells.
So, yeah.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: And the fascinating with biofilm, I mean, this fascinated me when I was learning about it years and years ago, is that in addition to the protective mechanism, it's like a communication network as well, you know, where they can kind of communicate with each other through these biofilms. So it has, in addition to kind of the quorum communication that these pathogens have inside of you, it's also becomes an additional network, which I thought was fascinating when I was learning that. So, yeah, biofilm is a big, big deal in addition to everything else.
[00:44:06] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think you're alluding to this, too. But that, like, the thing, too that's important is, like, all of these, and all of these infections, all of these microbes, they. They work in synergy with each other. So the more microbes you have inside of you that don't belong there, the worse all of this is going to be. Um, and I use the analogy with my patients, it's like straws on the camel's back, right? And the camel's back is your immune system, and we have all of these various viruses and bacteria and parasites and fungal bodies and all of these things. And the more you have, the easier it is for them to live inside of you and cause immune dysregulation.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: And they all learn from each other with that quorum sensing we're talking about. So that if one of those pathogens are figuring out, well, if I behave in this way or secrete this chemical, then the immune system is reacting in this way, which is beneficial to me. And then that information that get relayed to the rest of everybody, and now, all of a sudden, they have an additional upper hand in how to deal with the immune system and proliferate.
[00:45:18] Speaker D: Yeah, it's crazy.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, I would love to hear. I mean, we talked a lot about your naturopathic expertise and all your learning, but I would love to finish with your journey. Meaning you yourself dealt with Lyme, and what did that look like? What did that journey look like?
[00:45:44] Speaker D: So it really, I would say, started. Like, I knew that it started when I was probably about 36 years old. And so I was already very busy. I was a very busy naturopathic doctor, and I was Lyme literate, and let me think. So at that point, I was basically diagnosing and referring out to other Lyme literate doctors, kind of like in my state, and I was kind of doing all of the things to hold down the fort, so to speak. So, you know, trying to prevent Candida and Clostridia and, you know, address the gut as much as possible and just kind of keep everything as good as possible while patients were undergoing, like, this triple antibiotic therapy. And so all of a sudden, I. Well, I was going through a vast, a very stressful time in my life. Um, and I also sustained, um, a few more tick bites. I was doing a lot of hiking and rock climbing and. And things like that. And so I started getting these really crazy, I ice pick sort of headaches. Um, I was getting a lot of brain fog. I started having a lot of night sweats, um, trying to think what else, like back pain, knee pain, um, and insomnia and anxiety. Those were really, really big, too. Um, that those came on and got worse, sort of, as this went on. And, um, it was funny because I was talking to one of my patients who I was friends with, and she was like, God, it sounds like you have lyme disease. And so, you know, I. I got tested, and lo and behold, it I did. And so I ended up going and doing 18 months of antibiotics, and I actually had borrelia, bartonella, babesia, mycoplasma, and chlamydia pneumoniae. And so I was on 18 months of, um, it was a majority was a tovaquone, um, bactrum, azithromycin.
Those. Those were, like, the three biggies. But, like, there was a wail that I was on, like, rifampin and on and off doxy and all of this other stuff. And so I responded really well. My symptoms were completely gone after about a year. But every single time I tried to stop taking those antibiotics, my symptoms would come back within a couple weeks. And it was very, very puzzling to my Lyme literate doctors. And there were three different ones that I worked with because they were like, that's just not, like, not possible that it would come back that quickly, but it was. And so, you know, then I started thinking, like, oh, my God, I must have a brain tumor. And I would wake up at 03:00 a.m. and my brain would run, and I'd be, like, sweating and freaking out. And so one morning, I got up, and I started searching. Well, this was after getting an MRI, and I didn't have a brain tumor, but I started searching. I thought about that woman, that young girl that I had treated in school. And so I got up, and I was like, hey, you idiot. Like, you're a naturopathic doctor. Like, what are you doing? And so I started searching. I'm almost, like, embarrassed to say this but, like, I started searching for natural cures for Lyme disease. Hello. And I came across Steven Buhner's work, and he was having a seminar, like, within the next couple weeks, an hour from where I lived. And he, you know, was from New Mexico. And so it was just like this weird kismet sort of thing. And I went to his. Well, first I ordered all of his books, and, like, had read two of them by the time I got to his seminar, met him, ran into a dear friend of mine, Doctor Frank Aada, who started lime core botanicals with me, you know, several months or a year later. And anyways, I started corresponding with Steven Buhner and started doing his herbal protocol. And with six months, I was off of antibiotics and, you know, knock on, would have not had to go back on. Um, and slowly, I started using those protocols with my patients and spent a good five years doing integrative treatment because, hey, that's what worked for me until I had that aha moment about the microbiome and the immune system and not being able to get this into remission. Notice I'm not saying cure, because I don't use that word, because if you're going to say cure, I think you better have darn good proof, right, that there's none of it there, but that you needed to fix the immune system to get it into remission. So that is a super long story in the shortest possible way I can put it.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: So the fascinating thing with me, because then you. You've seen people that have gone kind of the antibiotic route, and they do the treatment with Lyme there, and then you have the group that do kind of the herbal route, and is there a difference that you've seen between these two groups in regards to symptom management or being symptom free or no evidence of disease or you want to use?
[00:51:12] Speaker D: I'll back up a bit. So. So, you know, I kind of mentioned, like, so then I started doing this integrative treatment, right, where I had a Lyme literate doctor doing triple antibiotic therapy. I was doing all of the lifestyle, functional medicine, herbal piece of it. And so then Stephen Buhner started putting my name out there that I kind of knew what I was doing, treating Lyme and using his protocols. And so we got an influx of patients calling that wanted to be treated with herbs. And I spent a good amount of time, I'm almost, like, embarrassed to say, trying to convince them that no, like, they had to do this integrative thing was where it was at. And, you know, I had patients that were like, I can't tolerate antibiotics. I'm allergic to antibiotics. I don't want to do the antibiotics. Taking antibiotics are against my religion, like, all of the things. And so over the course of about two, three years, I had these two self selected groups of patients. One, and it was the bigger one that was doing integrative treatment, and then another that was doing just the herbs, functional medicine, lifestyle stuff. And what I saw was that on average, patients were spending less time on treatment in the second group, the functional medicine, lifestyle, herbal medicine. And the point that really hit me was, you know, you'd have these patients in this integrative group, and a myriad of things could happen. They would get c. Diff, they'd have to go off antibiotics, or they would start having nausea, vomiting, or their liver enzymes would go up, or. Or they just were like, I can't do this anymore. Right? And then they would transition over into the herbal only, you know, group to then all of a sudden start getting better and better and better, and a majority of them getting weaned off of their herbal protocols and not relapsing. And so that was around the time when I had that sort of aha moment, because this was back when, like, I mean, not that we haven't in functional medicine known about the microbiome for, you know, for decades, but this is when so much of the research was coming out about how important the microbiome is, like, for everything, especially immune system. And so, I don't know, like, this light bulb went off, and I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I feel like that's the missing link. Like, that's why people just cannot stop the antibiotics without relapsing. That's why I couldn't stop the antibiotics without relapsing. So they would transition over to the herbs and then go through the whole thing. So then, as a practice, the three of us doctors there were like, what are we doing? Like, most of these patients were waiting three months to a year to get into, because in Connecticut, I could not prescribe antibiotics. And I was very upset about that for a decade. And I thought about all the different ways and things I could go back to school for to be able to have prescription rights in the state of Connecticut. But I'm going to digress for a moment. Like, to me, that was a huge blessing because I was forced to learn what I learned because my hands were tied. And if I could just prescribe, that's probably what I would still be doing right now. So I was forced to learn what I consider is a better way. And so.
Sorry, let me get back to my train of thought. So. So it was that realization that, like, it's the immune system piece, we're not recovering the immune system, and I don't care what infection we're talking about. You know, people think antibiotics just take an infection to zero, zero organisms, and it doesn't, it just shrinks the infectious load, and then your immune system comes in and gets the rest of it out of the body. And because Lyme breaks the immune system, we can't look at it that way.
[00:55:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's a key. And I see that since I work, you know, both with Lyme and, and cancer, you know, I always see kind of the correlation where we have patients with cancer and they hit with chemo and they think in their mind that that's going to kill all the cancer and it doesn't. And after, what's going to have to clean up the rest? Well, it's immune system, so it's the same thing with Lyme. You hit it with antibiotic and you think it's killing everything. Well, it doesn't. What's going to have to clear it out after? Well, the immune system. Yeah. So you always have to come back to that and then kind of support normal, healthy, functioning immune system. And like you're saying, the gut, you get all these different components that you need to really look at in regard to the immune system. So.
So you. So you started on a supplement company as well, then? So tell me a little bit about that. I mean, why, why what, what is available there?
[00:56:06] Speaker D: Sure. So we have a myriad of products that I put together based off of the recommendations of Stephen Buhner, mostly. So all of the herbs that he talks about and recommends in his books, we have, most of them are in tinctures, which are fluid extracts. We use organic sugarcane alcohol and distilled water to macerate the herbs. Um, I strongly believe in using the whole part of the, part of the herb that's indicated. So, for example, you brought up japanese knotweed and resveratrol earlier. Um, you know, using resveratrol from japanese knotweed when you're treating lime is, is absolutely far better than using it from, like, you know, the skins of grapes. But still, I think using standardized extracts are missing the boat, because there are a handful of other constituents in the root of japanese knotweed that are helpful in dealing with lime, and they work synergistically. And so that synergism of all of these other constituents are actually going to enhance the effectiveness of the resveratrol. So I am just very passionate about using therapeutic doses the appropriate number of times a day to keep cellular concentration, using the whole part of the desired part of the herb, so that you get that synergism, and really following traditional botanical medicine in the preparation of all of the herbs. You know, I am a bit of a control freak, and I took this into my own hands because, you know, a lot of these herbs are coming from places all over the world and they're not necessarily regulating. And I certainly didn't want to put something in my body, my family's body, or my patient's body that was going to make them sicker or more toxic. And also, there's so much counterfeit stuff out there that I wanted to know that I was giving all of these people, you know, the what I said, I was so down to the species, because just like there's different species of Borrelia, there's different species of all of these different plants and herbs, and if you're using the wrong species, you're not going to get the desired effect. Um, and then also there was a lot of backwater issues. And, I mean, you want to see someone really freak out and lose their mind. Like, tell a lyme patient that they can't get, you know, their treatment for three months. I mean, it's just, it's cruel. Like, it's just not okay. And so that's why Doctor Aida and myself kind of took it into our own hands to make this. Um, we have a handful of encapsulated herbs as well, and then we have a lot of ancillary products that are problem focused, you know, so products that I think are the best at helping to heal the tight junctions and leaky gut, um, and aid in detoxification or cell damage, mitochondrial function, et cetera.
[00:59:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Love it. Well, what an amazing research.
And you also do kind of educational events as well, right? You're putting together a conference in October, from my understanding, yes.
[00:59:43] Speaker D: So we do the annual Lyme bite symposium, and that this year is in mystic, Connecticut. It's on October 25 and 26th. We have 16 different Lyme experts and, you know, MDs, NDs, DOs that are speaking on various topics ranging from, like, mycotoxins, um, pans and pandas, pediatric lyme care, um, unfortunately, suicide and bipolar, as well as other mental health disorders. And then really, the importance of, like, recovering the immune system. How do you get your body detoxing? And we have a lot of awesome sponsors who are going to be there with what I would consider these ancillary modalities like oxyhealth with our hyperbaric oxygen therapy, relaxed sauna with the far infrared sauna, centropics with their pema mats so their frequency mats, so there's so many other adjunctive therapies too out there. And my goal is really just to educate as many people who will listen as to proper diagnosis, testing and treatments that are available out there.
[01:01:04] Speaker B: So that's amazing. That's amazing. Well, doctor Hinchey, this has been awesome. You're bringing so many tools and so much empowerment to people's lives, especially for the Lyme community is really in need, and to have someone like yourself to bring this message forward and supply tools that they can use, that's really amazing. So thank you so much.
[01:01:31] Speaker D: Thank you so much for having me. It's honestly been a pleasure. I love doing this.
[01:01:35] Speaker B: Thanks.
[01:01:44] Speaker A: The information this podcast is for educational purposes only, and it's not designed to diagnose or treat any disease. I hope this podcast impacted you as it did me. Please subscribe so that you can be notified when new episodes are released. There are some excellent shows coming up that you do not want to miss. If you're enjoying these podcasts, please take a moment to write a review and please don't keep this information to yourself. Share them with your family and friends. You never know what piece of information that will transform their lives. For past episodes, and powerful information on how to conquer Lyme, go to integrativelimesolutions.com and an additional powerful resource, limestream.com. for Lyme support and group discussions, join Lyme Conquerors mentoring Lyme warriors on Facebook. If you'd like to know more about the cutting edge integrative of Lyme Therapies MyCenter offers, please visit thecarlfeldcenter.com. thank you for spending this time with us, and I hope to see you at our next episode of Integrative Lyme Solutions with Doctor Karlfeldt.
