[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative Lyme Solutions with Doctor Karl Feldt.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: We have some phenomenal information that could save lives.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: You're gonna need to tune in to.
[00:00:15] Speaker C: What'S going on today.
[00:00:16] Speaker D: The information is jam packed, so don't step away.
[00:00:24] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining integrative Lime Solutions with Doctor Karl Feldt. I am your host, Doctor Michael Karlfeldt. I've been in clinical practice since 1987. I've seen pretty much everything under the sun. I worked with so many different Lyme patients, and I know what a devastating disease this is. That's why I'm doing this podcast, to make sure that you are armed with the information that you need in order to be able to be successful in your struggle with Lyme. We'll be featuring authors, doctors, professors, and also people like yourself that have gone through the journey that you're going through, that have been where you've been and is now on the other side. And they get to tell their victorious story as to how they battle line so that you can implement that in your life as well. Be sure to like us and write a review on whichever platform that you're listening on. What that does is it enables other people to see us more so that they have access to this information as well. So I'm so excited that you're tuning in and get ready for this upcoming show. It is going to be amazing. Well, Doctor Tom Moorcroft, this is always, this is our third one doing this here in the lime integrated lime solutions, and it is for a reason. You're a man that I highly respected. You're a man of vision and a huge amount of knowledge. You're a trainer of practitioners and in this area. So thank you so much for spending some more time with me.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: Well, thanks so much for having me, Michael. This is so fun. It's really so great to be able to get out here and spread the awareness and give people some really good, actionable tips. And anytime I have a chance to hop on and just have a chat with you, I'll take that too. So I'm really excited.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Awesome. Awesome. So one of the things that we wanted to kind of essay as the capstone for the other two sections that we did, or other two interviews that we did, and please, everyone listening in, please go back to hear Doctor Moorcroft's story and all the amazing things that he's done. But we really wanted to have people to get actionable steps, know, what can they do what are some of the tools that, that you have seen are the best tools? And, you know, what does a protocol, what can that look like? And dosages and, you know, how to, when to pivot. How to pivot and all of those things.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, what a, what a broad.
A broad canvas we have here to chat about. I mean, you know, the first thing I'll say is, just, like, if you think you have Lyme and you have those acute symptoms that we've talked about so much, get in front of somebody who's willing to have a conversation. Early diagnosis, early treatment, that early intervention is really critical to help minimize the risk of chronic Lyme. I'm really fond of saying you can't have chronic Lyme if you've never had Lyme. So I think it's really important, like, don't blow it off in the short run, but if you have chronic Lyme, one of the things we need to recognize is that Lyme's been around for over 13 million years.
The oldest human infection is about 5300 years ago. So there's a whole bunch of conspiracy theories about things that may have happened off the coast of Connecticut and Long island. It's possible, but the other thing is, Lyme's been around way longer than human beings, or borrelia spirochetes, those bacteria that cause Lyme. So some of their tricks are to reproduce very slowly. So Lyme, I've seen all kinds of numbers, but the average in scientific studies, like in, at least in test tubes, is reproducing approximately every three weeks one time.
So when we look at, in contrast, at the strep, that reproduces somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 times a day.
So you're like, okay, 13,000 times a day, once every three weeks. I once screwed around. I said, well, if I was going to take, like, an average, like, say, five to seven day course of amoxicillin for strep, and I wanted to make a ratio based upon reproductive cycles, how long would I have to treat someone with Lyme disease to have the same amount of antibiotic coverage per sort of unit of reproduction, and it would be approximately 667 years.
So, obviously, that's not possible, right?
So the one thing we know, and I think that the reason I start here, is there's some groundwork we have to understand. We know that if we get prophylactic treatment in a mouse, that's approximately equivalent to 19 days of doxycycline, whether you have Lyme anaplasmosis or Lyme and anaplasmosis, that's 100% effective, then we go, okay, what else do we know? Well, if we infect a monkey for four or six months, and the best studies we have are six months, and then we treat them with a month of intravenous antibiotic and two months of oral antibiotic, we cure a whopping 27%. So, this is the work of Monica embers out of Tulane. And so we don't really know what to do between time. Just got the tick bite and six months. Right. We know that from some of Monica embers work, that around four months, it's looking just as bad as six months, right.
Really, in that zero to four month range is when we want to get people. So after that is really what I think we're talking about when we talk about chronic Lyme, right? Um, because we have some data to support. One is we probably need longer courses of antibiotics than we're used to. As I say, duration is often key, right? And it's because of the reproductive cycle. And then we look at Lyme, we go, okay, well, how does it persist in the body? Well, one is it reproduces slowly. Two is it hides a lot of. It's been known to go in the white blood cells almost like a dog. If you have a dog and you go walking out the park and you're not paying attention, and it's like rolling around upside down in some dog poo, so it smells like that. Spirochetes have been shown to go inside of white cells, kill the white cell, essentially roll around in the poo, and come out. And under a microscope, it looks like a spirochete, a Lyme bacterium, but to your immune system, it looks like a white cell, so it essentially cloaks itself. So it's smart, then, if the environment is inhospitable, it might create a biofilm, right? So a whole bunch of them congregate together and. Or some people call it a microcolony, but there's, like, fat and all kinds of other gobbledygoop in there, and it's a protective mechanism, and that might need two to 500 times the normal antibiotic dose to penetrate. So, obviously, we don't want to give people 200,000 milligrams of doxycycline a day, so we need other strategies. And then they have round bodies. It essentially, insides out, rolls up into a ball like an armadillo. And most of our antibiotics don't work for that. So then the good news is we know of a few medications that can work in these categories. And we know of a lot more herbs. There's a lot more research on herbs in the last, like five years or so that we start to know how to penetrate those. So we also know that the lyme spirochete has a cell wall. So it's kind of like wearing a shirt or having skin. And we also know it has innards or intracellular. Right. So we have antibiotics that work on, say, the skin by disrupting it and melting the outside protective layer, and then can be susceptible to other things. But then we also have intracellular agents that go inside of the cell to disrupt the internal organs of organs, if you will, of the spirochete. So a lot of times you'll hear people say, like, hey, we got to get a cell wall agent, then we need an intracellular agent. And if you have a co infection, more than one infection, like, say, maybe you have a concurrent bartonella infection, we might need two of these intracellular agents. So when you look at a medication protocol, if we just chose Lyme for a minute, someone might choose like a cefuroxime, amoxicillin or ceftinear as their cell wall agent. Then they might go to something like a doxycycline or minocycline in there, or tetracycline could be one of those as well. It's a little. You have to take it a little more. So a lot of people don't use it. But like azithromycin and chlorathromycin, and they're kind of the big drugs we're using intracellularly. Now, if we're adding, if we have other co infections, we might be adding like, azithromycin plus rifampin for doxy, excuse me, for Bartonella, we may do azithromycin and bactrim or septra for that, but we're combining different things because some bugs need more than one drug and some bugs have, you know, Lyme, you could potentially get away without more than one drug, but you're probably going to be doing it for a long time. So we just start to learn where it works. And then from a Lyme disease perspective, if we're looking at the round body or the cell wall, or I should say the cyst form, people are using like tinidazole or metronidazole to go after that. And these are things that can be used for a couple weeks at a time and then stopped, or maybe just three weeks out of every week with a four day break. So that's where if you're listening to people talk about this, and I know one of my mentors, Doctor Horowitz, always said, one from column a, one from column b, one from column c, that's cell wall agent, intracellular go after that round body form. And so that's important. And you know, but biofilms, we don't have a lot of information on what happens. Now, I've talked to borrelia researchers or, you know, so that they're the ones that are looking at these bugs that causaly and they're like, there's no fibrin in a borrelia biofilm yet. Almost everybody you talk to says, hey, use this fibrinolytic to break down your biofilm. And it's not to say other biofilms may not have it, but Lyme ones don't. But what's really cool is fibro analytics work for a lot of people. The question is why? So these researchers are actually looking into the why. And a lot of us, like potentially you and I are using these things because we see them work clinically, even if we know that the reason we used to think they worked doesn't. And thats really what I think is so interesting, Michael, these days about Lyme is so much new research about what works.
When we go over to the herbal perspective, theres a lot of work that came out of Johns Hopkins in particular. And we look at cryptolepis, japanese knotweed, which is polygam cuspidatum. We look at polygonum, sorry, yeah, polygam cuspidatum, chinese skull cap or scutellaria bicolensis, cat's clawmentosa. Those things are really powerful against Lyme. And what's interesting about cryptolepis in particular is that it's actually tested to be stronger than doxycycline or cephuroxime against growing forms of Lyme. And it's funny when we talk about like strep, we talk about exponential growth or logarithmic growth, because it's just like which, so which in Lyme disease is once every two to three weeks. So you're kind of like, well, so it's funny when I say growing forms, but you know, it's interesting. So it's actually been at least in a petri dish, test tube setting and a lab. It's better than antibiotics and it's the only single substance ever tested to prevent Lyme from regrowing.
So a lot of. Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: So how, why wouldn't you do that one rather than antibiotics then? I mean, since it is better?
[00:12:12] Speaker C: Well, we don't have studies in mammals to confirm, and we do have some studies that once show grapefruit seed extract is great for Lyme, round body cyst forms. Then we have another one that says, does nothing. So we have two studies and they both show completely different. So it needs to be repeated. But I think it's a great question. So, in my practice, let's assume chronic Lyme. If somebody comes in six, eight, often several years, you know, months, often several years of symptoms, and we diagnose them. I often start with the herbs because I know when I give them antibiotics, one is I don't want to give it to them long term if I can help it. And I also know that if they've been sick for a long time, they probably have a lot of persistor load because they have persistent disease. So I'm just saying, like, herbs typically have less side effects unless you're allergic to them, and you can be allergic to a lot of things. Most of the herbs I'm talking about, we don't have a lot of allergy. So that's good. Side effects are usually positive, not negative, in them. Cause they whole herbs do all kinds of other beautiful things like, you know, bring down inflammation and protect your brain. I mean, uh, chinese skull cap, like protects your liver, protects your gut, protects your heart, protects your brain, and, oh, by the way, it kills Lyme disease. Babesia duncani and bartonella Hensley. Hey, I mean, why not? So a lot of what I do is I start with herbsen, and if I need to, I have to, I layer in the antibiotics.
We just don't have the studies to show how to combine everything because there's not a lot of great money in infectious disease research. So I'll often, and even in my acute protocols, like, I feel like acute is where you need antibiotics. But I'm giving cryptoleptis and skullcap in particular early on just to prevent these problems. And even if somebody's doing a prophylactic treatment, I might just do like a minocycline in the middle of summer so they don't get sunburned, along with liposomal cryptolepis. So that way im getting the best of both worlds and maybe im minimizing the possibility of chronic lyme. So in that chronic individual, some people need to start with antibiotics, severity disease, their personal preferences. But im always trying to layer everything together. But start when I can. I start with the herbs because theyre gentler, they have fringe positive benefits, and they work. So I think that thats really the key is we have liposomal crypto, I love liposomal stuff, any of these nano emulsions where essentially we're shoving the herb into the fat.
There's a couple of studies showing four to five fold increased absorption through the gut. And then after we do that, then we believe that we have better intracellular penetration and better biofilm penetration from liposomes. So I use a lot of liposomal cryptolapis and liposomal cat's claw, and then I'll use either tinctures or whole herb extracts of chinese skullcap and japanese knotweed.
And then also I should say black walnut hauler juglans. Nigra is often used in a lot of these lime herbal combos, but we found that it wasnt good for growing lime, but its still really good for those persisters. Only challenges. Being a tree nut, I have seen some people with allergy to that, so I often leave it off just so I dont have to remember to double check tree allergies. I mean I do all, you know, were all checking the allergies all the time, but you dont want to accidentally, you know, oh add one more herb. But those herbs work so well. And the other benefit I think that people should know about is you can titrate herbs a lot more, meaning you can start at a lower dose and move them up. Now in an acute setting, I usually hammer people because it's like you need a therapeutic dose right away, but in this chronic indolent, like probably lower level infection that's making all these smoldering immune problems and inflammation, definitely have that room to slowly titrate people up. So whether it's liposomal and it's in a pump, or a lot of times at the pumps, ill like unscrew it and take a couple drops off the straw until they get to about five or six, which is about a pump with a lot of the quicksilver and biocide and stuff, its great, you can titrate everything so you have greater control over it. But yeah, we make our cocktails based upon the evidence. Theres also some great combination herbs from people like beyond balance and Byron White, and research nutritionals, as well as others that are using kind of essentially sub therapeutic doses of the herbs in a synergistic blend. But a lot of that's based on clinical experience, historical herbal use, and then some energetic testing. Whereas I usually start with the evidence based ones where we know what a therapeutic level will be and we get to that, and then we use these as a background, but all of them have the possibility of working and you don't have to expose them to as many antibiotics. You know, like 15 years ago, it was like we were beating people up with antibiotics, and then we did a little herbs just because they helped. And actually, for me, I did a lot of antibiotics and then I needed an herbal to actually get finished. But now we can do more herbals and then finish with antibiotic if you need it, but less often, you know, I love it.
[00:17:15] Speaker D: 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 were not just fighting Lyme, were revolutionizing the way its 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
[email protected] or call us at 208-338-8902 to schedule your free discovery call at the Karlfold center. We believe in healing naturally, effectively and holistically. Thank you for tuning in into integrative Lyme solution with doctor Karl Feld. Remember, true health is not just the absence of disease, it's achieving the abundance of vitality. Let's discover yours together.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: So for a person that's chronic Lyme. Yeah, so you're talking about cryptolapsis and then also chinese skull cap. So what is kind of a safe dosage to start with? I mean, how, when you say titrate up, what can that look like?
[00:19:33] Speaker C: Most of the time, cryptolepis can be found from supreme nutrition in a capsule, but it's very hard to get in a capsule, and they're the only ones that really have enough in there to do anything. But a lot of the lime core botanicals, biopure, even woodland essence, have really nice tinctures, with the exception of sort of the beyond balance product line, because of the way they're developed. I tend to like to use alcohol based tinctures because they're extracted in a particular way. And so we're looking for a one to five extract, and we're typically, in that case, our standard droppers. You're looking for about 40 drops three times a day as a target. So for a lot of my people, if I get them like a Lyme core and I get them on cryptoleptis, I'm like, okay, I'm going to want start at five drops three times a day, and then go to ten, and then go to 1520 and so on, like every five days go up. When I look at all the others, it's about the same. That's roughly equivalent to about 1500 milligrams of dry herb per day. So that's kind of like where, where we're targeting.
And then if I use a liposomal being four or five fold more absorbable, I've used the cat's claw. And more, much more recent, thankfully. Finally, after forever, liposomal cryptolepis came out through quicksilver. But I'll usually say get to two pumps twice a day. Two pumps is going to get you about 375 milligrams. But then we're now quadruple to a five fold increase on that one. So through the absorbability. So it's kind of even going two pumps twice a day is going to be even higher than if you had done it the, the other way, the standard tincture three times a day. So that's kind of how I do. I might start with one pump a day and then go to one twice a day, and then two in the morning and one at night, so to speak. And if they're super sensitive, like I said, you can unscrew the straw and just start with one drop and then go to two. And each pump is about five to seven drops, depending upon how aggressively you squirt it. You know, I had one guy was like, oh, it's seven drops, it's seven drops. I go, you said five. I go, well, if you're like, you know, yeah, you might get a little more. So.
But thats sort of the general ballpark for most of those. And then a lot of people use artemisinin. Theres some decent evidence in Babesia and in Lyme that artemisia anua is the whole or sweet Annie is that whole herb thats usually were aiming for more. Around 800 to 1000 milligrams a day. And if I use a liposomal formulation like I use artemisin and essentials thats going to be more like getting you know 50 milligrams a couple times you know capsules like two twice a day. So you're like 200. But again that's going to be 200 a day is going to equal eight to 500 if you use dry herb.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah I love it. And one of the issue for a lot of people obviously as you're on this journey you're talking about people that are super sensitive and their immune system is very fragile. It gets you know, hyper reactive.
How do they navigate that? Is that just they navigate it by going slow? Or do they bring in other support as well to control some of the immune reactions?
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Yeah I mean I think there's a couple things and there's detoxification support. There's anti inflammatory and immune modulating supports everything from you know pro resolving mediators which are kind of fish oil extracts that are antiviral and immune modulating as well as anti inflammatory to you know curcumin and all kinds of different natural things, modifying your diet, all this kind of stuff. Which is why it's so important to really work with a practitioner who's well trained because it's almost like a sushi menu, it's like huge. And there's a million different options. Which one's right for you? Comes down to, you know, your preferences, to practitioners preferences and experience.
So I do, you know and then there's peptides and homeopathics and all kinds of other detox support.
I'm a big fan of liposomal glutathione not regular non liposomal because it doesn't get absorbed out of your gut. You're basically wasting your money with the supplement.
But there's a lot of really good ones out there.
And outside of that though I think that it's about understanding what's happening with your nervous system. And a lot of us have heard of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Parasympathetic is rest and digest and recover and having joy and hanging out with your friends and like you know and then there's the. Oh my God I'm driving, you know I'm driving down the road. The little puppy, like, runs in front of my car, slam in the back, you know, and that's your fight or flight, so you need to be ready to do that. And the problem is, when you get chronic infection, you tend to get in fight or flight more than you need to be. So once the puppy's safe and the little kid who ran after the puppy is safe, you can calm down, right? You don't need to be in that mode anymore.
And. But what's interesting is I usually use the example of a saber toothed tiger because for some reason, I like them, but. And it's like if you're at a camp around the fire with your friends, and the saber toothed tiger comes in, right? And then you turn and you go, I can kick your ass. You're like, I can win.
That's fight, right? And then if you're like, oh, dang, that's not good. But I can run away, and I'm probably going to get away. That's like, I can flight and I can win. A. But the problem is, if the saber tooth tiger grabs you in its mouth, now, you're like the chipmunk that you saw your neighbor's cat grab outside. It was scurrying, scurrying, scurrying. And then as soon as it grabs you, you can't win anymore. The only real option you have is to freeze, right? And so our chronic petely ill people kind of go between that fight or flight, and a lot of them dabble in the freeze or get stuck there. And that's where your immune system goes down more. You start to see your friends or your family who are sick withdrawing. Or maybe you experience this yourself, and people aren't looking at you when they're talking and they're mumbling and you can't hear what I'm saying. And that's kind of like that free state and that just every. What you're seeing externally and hearing is what happens to their gut, their immune system, their brain. It kind of shuts down the protect itself and not move a lot. So now, this is the key for all the other stuff we talked about.
The challenge is the body right now is in a reflex protective mechanism. That's your reptilian brain. It just wants to keep you alive and comfortable. But to your nervous system, comfortable is your comfort zone, not necessarily feeling good. And so if you feel like dirt but you're still alive to pass on your genes, that's good with your nervous system, right? Or at least that aspect of your nervous system. So then what I need to do is in order for you to move out of that, you have to create new comfort zones. The problem is the only way to do that is to get uncomfortable. But the nervous system don't like that. Right? And so here's the challenge. So there's this cool concept called hormesis. It's kind of like if you don't use it, you lose it. This is the like, you go to the gym and you stress out your muscles, or you go running to train for a marathon and you stress your muscles, but then you relax, you stress your muscles and you rack so you can grow. That's how the human body works. We have to stress it. The question is how much stress and how can I take that stress of heal that is necessary for healing and pair it with the nervous system.
Apparently there's over 1500 different studies that have been done on this that have figured out that from your baseline, the optimal amount of strain that you should put yourself under is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% to 30%, right? So that's like 2030. If you were walking a mile and you wanted to get to the next level, that's like walking. Now the next level is walking 1.2 miles. That doesn't sound so hard, right? The first mile sounds kind of hard, but that last, .2, not a big deal. But that's optimal for your body. Right. And so this helps us in two main ways. One is if I push you a little bit and on average you're getting that 20%, your body's like, I'm a little uncomfortable, but I feel kind of safe. I'm a little uncomfortable. I feel kind of. So you're not too much? Because so many of us have seen. I've seen people where I like, super fix them. It's like two months and they're like, I'm 90% better. And like a week later they call me and everything falls apart. And what I think is happening is their nervous system freaked out because it was too much change.
So we have to go a little slower. And then when we look at that 20% to 30%, it also instructs us that there's a point of diminishing returns on our protocols. So if we see somebody, they're getting better, they're getting either better, getting better, and then you go to the lime doc. Who wants to go even harder? It's like for some reason in our profession, everybody thinks more is better. The bigger the Herxheimer, the better. Yada, yada, yada.
Not always. Sometimes it is, but a lot of times we're going up towards that 25, 30%, and then we passed. And in the beginning, we start to come down before we crash, we just slip a little. And instead of feeling like we're getting that good momentum, we're losing a little momentum. And then the doctor goes, well, hey, I wonder, is the protocol wearing off? Is there a co infection coming out? Is it become resistant? And I'm like, maybe you're doing too much. Maybe back down on the volume a little bit and let them come back up to optimal, because it's essentially a curve that goes up and it falls down before you crash. And so theres this place where this can be instructive to practitioners is like, you want to push but not too much, 20% to 30% above their baseline. And that also, if you go to the gym analogy or the training and athletics analogy, you also need to give them days of recovery. So they dont need 20% every day. They need about 20% on average and check in. And this is why all this, like, limbic retraining, amygdala retraining, vagus nerve stuff helps. The biggest thing is even that you have to push them, but not too hard. And one of the things also recognize is you kind of start up here in parasympathetic, and then you go to fight or flight, and then you go to parasympathetic, and then you go to fight or flight, and then if you get into the freeze mode, as you're coming out of the freeze mode, guess what? You got to go through fight or flight again to get to parasympathetic. So a lot of our patients feel like shit. And I go, oh, my God, it's not working. And I'm like, how long has it not worked for? Like, yesterday or over the last. You know, like, I had somebody call me literally this morning. Like, our daughter has gotten better in the last six months, gone to more school. Granted, half of that was the summer, but, like, literally more school than she's done in the last several years.
And then she missed one day, and they were freaking out. I'm like, well, she got exposed to a virus. Her body needs a little bit of a break. It may be is that she's been doing so well that she's going back. So instead of being down here, going back and forth, she went to here, and now she's going to there.
So we have to look sometimes and not be hyper reactive. Just how Lyme is one of these things that really takes its time to learn about you and grow and cause problems. That's how we should think about treating you. We're not treating strep, were treating Lyme. I mean, unless we're treating both and that's a different story. But just learn from the bug. I tell people all the time, love your Lyme because if you don't love lime and then also ask it to leave, um, but if you don't love it, you're putting all this negative energy to hold it in place. But part of it is, what are you trying to teach me? A lot of us learn something from our chronic illness, but also just as a practitioner. And the patient. What? How learn from how Lyme lives in you longer. It doesnt play hardball really. I mean it hides and stuff, but mostly its more patient than we are. So if we learn patients then were less reactive. Now, obviously, if you have a medication or an herb side effect or youre treating acute Lyme, something happened, stuff happens. But generally speaking, I find that people are way overreactive in this field. Need to calm down and take a step back, look at it like Lyme disease would, because that's what we're fighting. We're not fighting something that's rapid, you know, and shooting, you know, missiles at all different ends. Lyme's just like, I'm gonna hang out. You're going over there, I'll go hang out over here.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: That's awesome. So, and, and I think that's the issue with a lot of Lyme, Lyme patients. And I think, like a lot of Lyme doctors as well, is exactly what you're saying, is that they, they feel that hitting harder is better. But it sounds to me like we need to modulate the nervous system, and if we hit it too hard, we're going to throw off that nervous system and we're going to end up in that fight or flight or freeze mode. And we're then not going to be able to achieve what we're wanting to achieve.
[00:32:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it really is. It's just. And it's not to say that there's not places for high dose or super advanced protocols. I mean, I use them, I treat them, but I. But it's all kind of dosed based on what that patient needs. Like you said, it really is about. We talk about titration. I need to titrate all my stuff to that person. And even if it's a medicine, that's probably best to be started at not a lower dose because of the way they work. I still know, hey, I might have two or three dosing opportunities rather than like 45, like I would with an herb. I still have to start to think about that. And sometimes now, the other part is, sometimes in our field, we go way too slow, and the patient's like, if they feel anything uncomfortable, they don't want, they're, oh, no, no, no, I'm flaring. Well, I'm not saying you need to have a nuclear Armageddon happen in your body, but do you need to feel uncomfortable to heal? And the answer is yes. It doesn't mean that you have to feel horrible, but I mean, you already feel horrible, you know, I mean, you have chronic Lyme disease, so, like, but the difference is, chronic Lyme disease horrible isn't going anywhere. If you feel a little bit worse for a week or two, and its in conjunction with your doctor or your other healthcare practitioner really saying, yeah, this is kind of the time to push, feel a little more uncomfortable, because on the other end of it, youre going to feel better, right. And the problem, so many of these people flare up so much, and I think its because we either push too hard or we dont push enough. We get afraid or were not, you know, and, you know, we need to, like, theres a balance point and theres no, and the one of the things that drive the conventional system nuts is theres not a one size fits all treatment for this. And so what I tell people all the time is, when I started to go on my healing journey from Lyme and Babesia, it was six years into chronic illness, and I had no label, I had no idea what it was. I did have a label of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue for my primary. So I basically gave him the bird because I was like, I told you joint pain, brain fog, and fatigue, and you told me you have joint pain, brain fog, and fatigue. I'm like, great, thanks.
Because the problem was, it didn't help me know what the cause was, which meant I had no understanding how to fix it. But I started on this journey, and really back against the wall, I doubled down on myself. I knew down this path, like you said, when I tell my story, I knew down that path I was going to get more chronic Lyme. And at the time, I didn't. Thankfully, I didn't even know what the name was, but I'm like, if I go that way, I might not get there, but it's gotta be better than this crap. So I went that way, and it was just little by little, little breathing as a yoga practice. And then over months and my body started to open up and I could touch like my shins rather than barely, my kneecaps. I started to be able to do this practice and then my body's like, oh, that food, that doesn't make you feel good. Bring the food out. Now I'm able to sit. I was able to really get back in my body through this physical practice and this breath work practice, and really start to feel more calm. And when I did that, then I was, I got like, in two years I got about 70% better. Now, I still needed four years of treatment to get the other 30% done. But literally 70% of my symptomatic relief and my healing came from what I did myself, you know, and now this is a while back, you know, because right now I had like a twelve and a half year healing journey. And as we speak, I'm 13 years asymptomatic from Lyme disease, which most people will often also tell you isn't possible, but it is. But the take home message, Michael, really is that it's, you have so much more control over your healing than most people give you credit for. Even our functional medicine docs are like, you got to do this, you got to do this, you got to do this. Well, that's on my store, that's on my store and this is on my friend's website. Those tools are helpful, but it's like the habit of each and every day. Doing the going to bed a little earlier, you know, getting up and setting your intention for your day, having gratitude at the end of the day for how your day went. Eating a little better today than you did yesterday. You dont have to wholesale change your diet yet, but just start on the process.
And those little things like to me, that going 70% of your healing you have control over. And when you want to get out of fight or flight, the best thing to do is just to sit down on your bed at night, go, hey, I'm breathing and I feel it coming into my heart. I feel my chest moving around my heart. I'm wow, you know what? Now that I'm breathing and focused on it, who do I love? Or what thing do I love the most in this world? Whether it was a memory from before, because I don't feel too good right now. Maybe it's something in your life, like your little puppy dog or your baby that you love, or maybe it's something you cannot wait to do in the future, but just breathe, holding something you love in your heart and thats like a gratitude practice. And when youre breathing, thats actually been shown scientifically to increase your heart rate variability, which in English basically means that your immune system works better. Youre more resilient to stress, youre more resilient to infection, and youre anti aging. I mean, you cant beat it and its free. And then lo and behold, its going to help you go to sleep and youre going to sleep better because youre going to be more parasympathetic. And if you do this for four to seven days, youll be amazed. The first couple of nights, youll be like, yeah, whatever. And your conscious mind would be saying, no, no, no. But then you fall asleep and you actually start to sleep better. And you wake up in the morning, wow, todays a little bit better than yesterday. And youre like, oh, wait, I noticed todays a little better than yesterday.
And its like I was talking to someone earlier today, like when I first started doing yoga. Im kidding you not. It is a 90 minutes practice. Astanga yoga. I could go like and bend over for about 90 seconds. There was not much going on. But my teacher was like, you always do 90 seconds or 90 minutes. It's six days a week. You take the noon, the full moon off. Other than that, there's no excuse. Do your practice and but what he said is like, once you can't do something, you stop and you breathe for the rest of the time. So I was doing like 88 and a half minutes of breathing six days a week until my body started to open up. And it was infuriating, Michael, like, literally, like, I'm like, this shit sucks. But all I know is that that shit down that road there sucked more. So I did it. And then a couple of weeks in, oh, it was a little easier, and I started to feel a little, oh, wow, I did three minutes today.
But it's like, so all of it, so many of us are type a. We're like, gotta do it right away. That's not how this works. You heal. One of my osteopathic mentors said, we always asked him how he got such great results, and he said two main things. He goes, move in the direction that's more life full.
And so it's like, does it feel more alive or less alive? Does it feel more contracted or more expansive? And then the other thing is, he said, move at tissue speed, move at the pace of the body.
And for some people with certain injuries, that was fast. And other people is like really slow, which people like me don't like, really slow. I learned to like it, but I didn't understand it. So your healing journey is your own. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Learn from them, hear them out. But just because this fixed two people that, you know, on the Facebook group doesn't mean it's right for you. You could ask your doc about it, but the thing is, like, your healing journey is so unique in your own and get interested in it, not just like what it's supposed to be, you know, what are you taking every day, but really, like, where's this journey taking me?
And that's where I learned all this. And like, I could say I lost twelve and a half years of my life, but I wouldn't have the growth and the learning I do today. Whether or not I treated Lyme or not, I'm a completely different human being and almost all of it's better.
So, I mean, and I would have.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Gotten to know you.
That's a true story. Yeah.
[00:40:54] Speaker C: Well.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: Well, Tom, this is awesome. This is exactly what I was hoping we'd be able to do, so that people out there are able to have kind of more of a structured understanding of what the journey looks like and with some of the tools that are there. And obviously, like you said, just because these are, this is generalized information and each person needs is unique and they need to be able to have their own journey. And like you mentioned, got to be interested in your journey because it is fascinating and like, yeah, I was interviewing somebody else for another podcast I was doing, and they, you know, reminded me, you know, don't waste a good crisis. You know, a good crisis is there to learn. Yeah. And so, and that's with lime. You know, don't waste this opportunity because it's here to teach you something and we just don't know it yet. Even though it sucks right now, you know, the learning is there. Well, Tom, this was awesome. Thank you so much.
[00:41:58] Speaker C: Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it so much.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: The information this podcast is for educational purposes only, and it's not designed to diagnose or treat any disease. I hope this podcast impacted you as it did me. Please subscribe so that you can be notified when new episodes are released. There are some excellent shows coming up that you do not want to miss. If you're enjoying these podcasts, please take a moment to write a review. And please don't keep this information to yourself. Share them with your family and friends. You never know what piece of information that will transform their lives for past episodes, and powerful information on how to conquer 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.
