[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative Lyme Solutions with Doctor Karl Felt. I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us. We have some phenomenal information that could save lives. I am Doctor Michael Karlfeld, and with me, I have my co host, Tanya Hobo.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: You're gonna need to tune in to what's going on today.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: The information is jam packed, so, yeah, don't step away.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: So excited. Let's go ahead and get this started.
Hey, listeners, this is Tanya, the co host of integrative Lyme Solutions with Doctor Carl Felt. We've got some exciting news to share with you over the next few weeks, you will notice some changes, and let me just say, starting May 1, be sure to go over and follow me on my very own brand new podcast, Lyme and beyond with Tanya. Also, be sure to stay here and follow your favorite, Doctor K.
Welcome to Integrative Lyme Solutions with Doctor Carl Felt. I'm super excited to have our next guest.
She has obviously been through her own Lyme journey, and, you know, sometimes we struggle afterwards to share our story and be vulnerable and vocal about it. And so I'm just super grateful that she trusted in us, and she's here today to share her story, to get it out there, because our voices need to be heard. So we appreciate you for joining us. Welcome, Naomi.
[00:01:40] Speaker D: Thank you both so much for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Well, this can be so wonderful.
And you told me that this was the first podcast that you've done post your healing journey with Lyme.
[00:01:56] Speaker D: Yes.
There's a certain element of shame that I felt throughout my illness, in part because it seemed like such an invisible illness to anyone around me. Right.
And so, throughout the time that I was sick, I was either feeling shame at thinking I was sick, because there's a long time that I thought I was a hypochondriac.
And so when I felt like I couldn't show up professionally or personally, I thought it was almost like a moral failing on my part that I just wasn't mentally strong enough to do it. And even when I own two businesses and I would show up to my clients, and when I would go visit my clients, my husband oftentimes would have to drive me because I had such bad fatigue, exhaustion, and dizziness that I was too scared to drive on anything faster than 20 miles an hour. So he would drive me there, and there would be times when I would just be bawling up until the minute I had to get out of the car. I'd clean myself up. I'd go visit a client. And then in my mind, I had this internal clock. I know I've got maybe, like, ten minutes left before I pass out. I got five minutes left. I got to end this meeting right, race back in the car, flip back, and then just be balling the whole way home and just feeling like, if my clients only knew. If they only knew what a struggle it was for me to show up. And it wasn't until recently, about a month or two ago, when I decided to create this video of my journey, because I knew I had finally come out the other end, you know, a little backstory. I've actually considered myself pretty much recovered for about three years now. But for about. Yes, it's a big thing, because for about ten years before that, I was nearly bedridden, and I was only popping out for these client meetings, and I'd had to schedule them, like, once every few weeks because it would take me days to recover from that.
And so it wasn't until I created this video really recently for myself to show myself the progression that I realized that this wasn't something to be ashamed about, that it was actually something to almost be proud about, that we persevered, we got through it, and a lot of tears were shed.
But I've actually watched it myself. It's been more for me than for anyone else to remind myself that I've gone through the tough thing.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: That's so incredible. I mean, so great, and it's.
[00:04:38] Speaker C: Well, okay, so this is a perfect example of when I tell people when they go through their Lyme journey, right? So they get. Well, like, their symptoms are gone, they feel good, their brain works. There's a whole nother emotional side of it that you have to unravel.
[00:04:57] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:04:58] Speaker C: And I say that so strongly because I think that people that don't, they get sick again or they really can never get past that, that true PTSD. So I'm glad. Like, whatever it was, whatever it works for people is fantastic. And obviously, what worked for you was just probably hitting that little post button on Facebook, and then once it was there, you're like, wow, I'm in. This is good.
[00:05:28] Speaker D: And.
[00:05:28] Speaker C: Cause I do. I say it all the time. Like, doctor K is probably a lot stronger than me, physically, definitely a lot taller than me, but I'm stronger than him. Like, I am stronger than anybody who has not conquered Lyme. I do. I say it all the time, and I mean it, and I'm not gonna disagree.
Okay, good.
[00:05:47] Speaker D: I'm glad we had this discussion.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: I'm glad you can just agree with me.
[00:05:53] Speaker D: I mean, there was a lot of fear. You know, originally when I first posted it, I posted it on a channel that basically only had like 60 people on there. It was like a low lift. And then a couple hours later, I was like, you know, I'll post it to my Facebook that has more people. And finally I knew when I had started to really get over that Hump was on the Monday. I told my husband, I said, you know what? I think I'm going to post to LinkedIn, which for me, again, you know, I own two companies, to actually put it out there that I have this thing that most people never knew I suffered from. Right? But, and he, he was hesitant. He said, are you sure you want to do that? And I finally said, look, I'm actually, I'm actually through it. I've come out the other side. And I just, in posting it in the first couple of places, realized how much shame was attached to it. And if there's someone that doesn't want to work with me because I had Lyme or because I'm post, you know, I'm in the recovery of Lyme, then fine. That that's fine. At least this way I'm being authentic. They know everything about me. I've got nothing else to hide. Right. And it just took off. So much pressure, and it was such a release that I will say I got a tremendous amount of support. So many people did not know, first of all, that I had gone through it.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: You were a good actress.
[00:07:11] Speaker D: It made me realize also that I probably could have leaned on more people when I was really in the thick of it, that I didn't give them enough credit, as much as I should have.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: And do you feel so some of the people that have responded, have they been client of yours, or is it just kind of the community?
[00:07:30] Speaker D: Both. Both friends. I mean, I had people who, for people who haven't seen the video, the first part of my video, it shows me in a series of basically hospital visits. I was just in the ER all the time, and then it shows me kind of recovering it. But for the first 20 seconds, it's the hospital visits. So I will say so many people reached out immediately. They didn't wait till, like, the 22nd mark. They're like, oh, my gosh, she's in the hospital. I had my hometown pastor called. My father said, you know what? Your daughter's in the hospital.
And it made me realize, oh, my gosh, these people genuinely care. The first thing they did was try to reach out to me.
And then I told them, go ahead and keep watching. It gets better.
[00:08:09] Speaker C: It goes to show how many people really don't read all the way through. Wow. So what do they call it? I feel like Doctor K, we have, like, an exclusive. Is that what they're called with Naomi?
[00:08:21] Speaker D: This is an exclusive?
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah, this is really. Yeah, we feel honored.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:27] Speaker D: For sure. For sure.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: So, yeah, and this really shows the support. So, I mean, for a lot of the Lyme sufferers out there, by keeping it to themselves, they're missing out on all these people that are there wanting to help and creating a community around you.
[00:08:47] Speaker D: Absolutely. I mean, like I mentioned before, it's. Sometimes it's a bit of an invisible disease. Cause as much as you can tell someone, I'm tired, you know, or I hurt or I'm nauseous or I'm dizzy, they're like, okay, well, yeah, you're tired. We're all tired. We're getting older, right. And you try to explain to them, like, no, when I say I'm tired, I'm saying, I'm making the decision, am I going to shower today, or am I going to walk to the living room to watch tv today? Right. I can't do both. I either have to shower and immediately get back in bed, or I can sit up and be with the family for a little bit in the living room. It's a different kind of exhaustion that people just really can't fathom.
And like you said, I mean, there's. There's people that will help, but, you know, and I put it on myself as well, because I try to put the brave face on. So all I think, most of my friends, they just thought, well, Naomi's not very social. She comes out, like, once a month for about an hour, tops, and then she goes back, and apparently she's just really busy or something like that. And it's because I didn't share it, because, quite frankly, for the longest time, I didn't. My Lyme diagnosis didn't actually come for 16 years. Wow. And I got a positive PCR test, and then I actually did the CDC testing. But even with the CDC testing, I only got four positive bands.
And so anyone who's familiar with the testing, you know, you need the five out of ten, but the ones that are most indicative of whether or not you have Lyme are actually not even tested for. Right. And so the bands that I got, though one was Lyme sensitive, which is, like, with a flagella, and, you know, and meaning that it would pick up Lyme, but it could also be something else, anything else, with a flagella. And then three of them were Lyme specific, meaning you're probably only test positive if you have Lyme, but because there's this kind of arbitrary requirement that you're only positive for Lyme if you test positive for five of the bands out of the ten, indiscriminate of which of those bands they are, in my mind, I thought, okay, am I faking Lyme? I can't tell you. To this day, I still sometimes have that feeling, did I fake Lyme? Even though I also had a positive PCR test, which is almost impossible to get a positive PCR test, right.
But even in moments when I was really bad, and I'm sure a lot of other people have had this experience, too, where you might have a period where you, like, for four, 4 hours, you feel good. And when I say like 4 hours, it'd be like 4 hours, maybe a month, or every couple of months, all of a sudden you wake up and you feel relatively good.
And during those 4 hours, I would kind of. Instead of, like, truly enjoying it, I would kind of berate myself, like, look, you must be fine. What are you doing all this other time? You're faking this illness, and then, sure enough, about 4 hours later, that strength or energy would wear off and it would come back. And then I'm like, oh, my gosh, why didn't you just enjoy those 4 hours?
Right? And so it was this constant mental battle.
I mean, the physical toll is undeniable, but I think the mental toll is just as hard, if not harder.
[00:12:02] Speaker C: Absolutely agree.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:04] Speaker D: Hello, dear listeners.
[00:12:05] Speaker E: This is doctor Michael Karlfeldt, your host of integrative lime 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 Carlfeld center. We believe in healing naturally, effectively, and holistically. Thank you for tuning in into integrative Lyme solution with doctor Karl Feldt. Remember, true health is not just the absence of disease, it's achieving the abundance of vitality. Let's discover yours together.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: And so you're dealing with this for 16 years before you were able to get a diagnosis?
[00:14:12] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: And so you're running two businesses successfully during this time?
[00:14:19] Speaker D: At that point, only one business. I started the second one just a couple years ago. But, yeah, running the one business pretty successfully, not scaling majorly, because, again, I always felt like I was the limiting factor. And if people only knew even the thought of bringing on more employees, I felt responsible for them. And what if there's a day that I can't show up? Right? On those days that I can't show up? Those are the days that I would work in bed until two or four in the morning, doing the work that someone else could probably do in 4 hours.
But how could I explain that to employees that I'm putting in the time, I'm doing everything that I can. So it really did hold me back in a lot of ways. And now I feel like it's almost like a rebirth. And I'm kind of testing out what I can do.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: That's so cool.
[00:15:06] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: That's, you know, it's just really deep. It really is deep.
That's a lot in, you know, hindsight. Like you said, take your business away from it. Just if you could have leaned on some of the people that love you during this journey, it could have been not a different outcome, but the journey definitely could have been different. But it's hard to do, and it's really hard to do when we're not even sure if we're sick, right? Like, we're not sure if we believe our specific things, because most of us get told many times that there's nothing wrong with you. It's in your head. And so then we start believing that. And then, like you said, when we get this miraculous 4 hours a month of feeling semi normal, we're like, well, we can't be sick if. How can I feel so great right now? And then, oh, my gosh, I'm this hypochondriac. I'm so, so much. So much. It's a lot.
[00:16:08] Speaker D: I'll tell you one time when I was finally making a turn for the better, not because my body had gotten better yet, but we finally were gaining some ground on figuring out what it was. Cause I got missed. That's the thing, is, you get, I think everyone who goes through Lyme, or almost everyone who goes through Lyme, you get diagnosed with so many different things beforehand, right? And then you tell your family, we figured it out. It's lupus, it's Sjogren's, it's ra, it's, oh, just wait.
[00:16:33] Speaker C: She'll come back with something next week, right?
[00:16:36] Speaker D: And then they're like, okay, well, last week you said it was this. And I'm like, I know what it sounds like. And it got to the point where my husband, you know, he was supportive in this is like, he.
Right up until towards the end, I got so tired of going to doctors. Not tired. I was so disheartened that he would be taking me to the doctor's appointments, because at that point, towards the end, the dark before the sun comes out kind of thing, I would be just crying. Cause I was like, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go to another doctor and be told I've got yet another diagnosis, but really, there's no cure.
But when we finally found a Lyme literate doctor made all the difference in the world. And I remember going in there, and my husband was with me, and he happened to have a really bad cold. And my doctor had gone through this battery of tests, and she had them in front of all the results in front of her. And all I could see was the pages were just full of red. All your numbers are just off. And so I was just trying to make a light of it, because throughout, I was trying to find the silver lining. So I was trying to make light of it a little bit. I said, well, I guess all my numbers are bad, but the silver lining is at least I have a strong immune system, because look at my husband. He's, like, coughing up a storm over here, and I've got none of this. And she goes, no, no, you have, like, no immune system at this point. You probably are carrying six or seven viruses, and that's why you're, you know, it's adding to that viral load. It's adding to the fatigue that you're feeling. It's just that your immune system's so weak, you can't even put up a little bit of a fight to show the symptoms.
And that was like it never had again. It never had occurred to me.
[00:18:24] Speaker C: And that was explained very well. Yes, yes. Because a lot of us were like, well, I don't ever get sick. I don't ever. Well, now we know why.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. The fever, their runny nose, the coughing, all of that is body's immune system actually doing what it's supposed to do to clear out the pathogen. So if you never have that. Yes, a lot of. A lot of patients come to me because also, in addition to Lyme patients, I have.
I work with cancer as well, and they come to me and say, well, I've never been sick a day in my life.
And that's probably why you deal with something very severe now, because you haven't. The immune system hasn't kicked in and cleared something out.
[00:19:11] Speaker C: It's almost like that, what do they call it?
Reverse psychology. Right? Like, that's kind of how, I guess, our bodies act when we think that if we don't get sick, well, we're just super, super healthy, but when, in fact, that's not the story at all.
[00:19:31] Speaker D: Right. When I got my first cold, I actually celebrated it.
I was so excited that I finally, like, meaning that I first displayed symptoms, I was like, okay, we're making ground.
Yeah, I celebrated that one.
[00:19:46] Speaker C: Yeah, that's funny. You said, every once in a while, I'll get a cold. And I'm like, tanya, don't be frustrated. Like, this is a good thing that you're getting a cold. Like, just take it.
[00:19:55] Speaker D: Cause you had it before.
[00:19:56] Speaker C: We think weird, right? We think weird.
[00:19:57] Speaker D: Just weren't fighting it. Yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, so take us back. So do we need to go back, like, 16 years, or how far back do we need to go? When kind of things started taking a turn in your life and what did it look like? What were your symptoms? And then hindsight. Do you remember being bit by a tic?
[00:20:20] Speaker D: So it was in the year 2000. I was in New York City in grad school, and I was really athletic, and I played on several different sports teams, including one which was flag football. It was pretty physical, and I was always out in the park.
I was hiking a lot, too, at the time. There's actually, like, now looking back, there's three or four areas that I was in that are known places that have Lyme ticks, and I'm just sitting there wearing shorts and tevas or tennis shoes or whatever, oblivious to what's going on around me. But with all these sports, I would have bruises on my legs, because some of them were, you know, contact sports. And I do vaguely recall getting what I thought, because I remember thinking, this is a really interesting bruise. I've got a bruise inside of a bruise. How does that happen? Right.
I didn't realize what it was until, well, quite frankly, I didn't know it was Lyme till 16 years later. But I didn't realize I was really sick until one night. My body just basically gave out, and I was violently ill all night and just weak and nauseous from that point on. And I remember going home for the holidays to visit my family and not realizing that I had lost a tremendous amount of weight until I saw my parents face. And still, even then, it hadn't occurred to me until I jumped on the family scale, because I didn't have one and had lost a considerable amount of weight. And over the course of the next year, I lost 50 pounds. And just to give you an idea, you can't see me, but I'm five foot six, and I was about 80, 85 pounds. Oh, yeah. And it's, you know, the thing is, I just remember thinking, oh, I must have had some kind of flu or food poisoning, and why am I not getting over this? And the immediate symptoms were, I had anxiety, I had depression. I was constantly nauseous. My stomach was a disaster. Heartburn like you wouldn't imagine. I can remember if I tried to. The way I think of it is if I tried to take something like your typical heartburn medication, my feeling is that my body thought it was in some type of balance, and so when I tried to take something to suppress it, it would kick in more acid, and it hurt so bad that I couldn't even cry. Like, you couldn't move.
My mom would put her hand on my back, and she swears that she could tell that it felt like it was swollen back there. And I don't. I don't know that it was, but it was that painful. I just could not move.
And slowly, I got a little bit better. They did put me at that time. I do remember being on doxycycline, but a very short course of it. I don't think I ever heard the word lyme at that time. They just said, we know you've got something. We're going to throw some antibiotics at it. But when I say a short course, I think it was less than, like, ten days to two weeks. Two weeks kind of period, right? And I got a little bit better because I had youth on my side, but I constantly felt nauseous. I knew I always felt fatigued. I knew I always felt dizzy. But at what point can you. How long are you allowed to keep saying that? Until you just sound like a broken record. So I just kind of dealt with it, even though I never felt good. And people who knew, like, if I'm quiet, they knew I didn't feel good. And I think for them, they're just like, well, when is Naomi gonna get over this thing? Right? And that's where I think the shame really was kicking in, because why wasn't I getting over it?
And it wasn't until we decided to start our family and I got pregnant with my daughter, and all kinds of things happened. It was a very. It was a rough pregnancy, to say the least. And it ended with preeclampsia. I mean, the pregnancy didn't end. I have a six inch. It was a successful pregnancy.
[00:24:09] Speaker C: Thanks for clarifying that.
[00:24:11] Speaker D: Sorry about that. But, I mean, like, we. I had to give birth early because I had preeclampsia, and I'm someone. To this day, I still. The one symptom I do have is low blood pressure. So it seemed a little bit odd that I would have such high blood pressure during pregnancy.
And I say this in the nicest way possible, but the only way I can think of it is that my daughter took everything good I had to make her. And if I. You know, that's exactly how it should be. I'm glad it took everything I had, but in the process, it destroyed my body. And that started the period of basically ten years of almost complete bed rest.
I just. It was just like. That was like the tipping point, and my body just couldn't recover. And I tried.
I can remember my husband saying to the doctor, like, look, you know, because it's frustrating for everyone around you, right? It's not. You're suffering from it, but your family wants to help you, but they don't know how, and they don't even know if it's real, quite frankly. And I remember he was giving my doctor a deadline. He's like, I need to know. We need to make her healthy. By what date can I expect her to be healthy.
And, you know, he said, we tried. We went for a walk the other this, you know, this past weekend, and she had to keep stopping because she's saying she's dizzy and she feels like she's going to pass out. And when is that going to stop? Right?
And the doctor is looking through my test results, and he said, mister Wilhelm, I'm not sure how she walked in from the parking lot today. In fact, from this point on, I'm going to insist that she come in on a wheelchair. And it was at that moment, that was the first time that he realized that this was actually serious, that this whole time, I had been gutsing it out.
Sorry.
The tough part to remember is the guts get out.
It's the stiff upper lip, because I would never expect my daughter to do that.
And I think sometimes if we just treated ourselves as nicely as we would treat someone else, that would go a long ways.
Right. We're just adding to that burden that we put on ourselves when we're just trying to guts it out. But I think so many people suffering from Lyme know exactly what I'm talking about.
[00:26:38] Speaker C: Yep, I definitely do.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:43] Speaker D: Sorry, did not mean to be a downer.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: No, you are not a downer. And this is, you know, like I said, we chatted just briefly before the show, but I think that this really can be kind of like a little therapy session. You know, some people get afraid to talk about their journey, especially when they've been well for ten years. They're like, oh, my gosh, I can't go back ten years. But sometimes it really is just good for us to. To say the words out loud. And you talked about this in the beginning of just sharing, you know, slowly. And that can be different. We're typing that out on a keyboard, right?
So that is very different than actually hearing the words come out of our mouth.
And I can relate. Like, I'll randomly talk about something that all of a sudden, I'm, like, crying about. I'm like, whoa, I haven't done that in, like, five years. Like, why was what? You know, I don't know. And it's okay. What it shows is that we're being real and we're being raw, and we're sharing what we went through. And all that does, Naomi, is those listeners out there that are really struggling right now.
You're giving them some solid proof that they can resonate with, that they can grab onto. So, not that I'm happy you're crying or that you're stumbling right now, but trust me when I say it's making a big impact on those listeners. It is.
[00:28:22] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, that. That Facebook group where you found me, the Lyme success stories, you know, because when you're first going through it, and when I first realized I had Lyme, I found, you know, some other Facebook groups that say, okay, you know, it's something about having Lyme right in the area, and we first are on those groups, and you're hearing about other people who have the same symptoms. There's almost this, okay, thank goodness I'm not the only one. I'm not crazy. There's, you know, there's support, but there is a certain element of. Even on those days when you think you're getting a little better, you can't help but empathize with the people who are going through it. Right. So even if I'm having a good day and I'm looking at those stories, it can't help but bring you down a little bit because you feel so bad for that person. Right.
And so, mentally, there's a certain element of compartmentalization that I had to do to get through, and part of it was going to that group, the success stories, even though at that point, I had no idea what success would be or ultimately, I hadn't even started yet on my real journey of recovery. But just knowing it was possible, that's all I needed at that moment, is I needed to know it was possible. Cause I knew how bad it could be. I didn't need anyone to tell me that anymore.
[00:29:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why. I mean, that's why our podcast is great. Like, it's all success stories. You know, we wanna hear all the horrible stuff, but then just know, I assure you, at the end, we're gonna talk about how amazing you are. Right? Like, it's the best part of it.
[00:29:57] Speaker D: Absolutely. I feel. And I've said this many times, but I feel younger now than I did in my mid twenties, like, my joints. For someone with Lyme, I mean, you'll understand this. You have just usually terrible joint pain. I have zero joint pain. I have less joint pain now than when I played varsity sports in college. That's awesome.
But it was because of all the steps we took to get better, right?
[00:30:23] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:30:23] Speaker D: So it's possible.
[00:30:25] Speaker C: It's so possible. We have too many success stories. Share with us. It's possible.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: And so can you just kind of go through the symptoms you're dealing with? You had the extreme fatigue, you had the joint pain.
What else?
[00:30:44] Speaker D: I had Sibo you know, the gut lining. My gut lining was destroyed. And. Really bad case of sibo, brain fog. I mean, there are days when I could barely form a sentence.
And let's see, I actually started writing this down. I compartmentalized this so much. I was like, I gotta even recall what some of my symptoms were, but it was just a lot of nausea. Like, I don't think there was a day that went by that I wasn't sick one way or the other. Not to get too graphic, but it was constant every day.
And so then that really takes a toll. Like, I'd never had anxiety or depression up until I got Lyme.
[00:31:27] Speaker C: We blame it. It's all Lyme's fault for everything. Me either.
[00:31:31] Speaker D: I never had any of it. And I was told so often because people didn't understand, and I didn't understand, they said, you know what? I bet if you just got, you know, some variation of if you just got mentally tougher, your stomach problems would go away, because this anxiety up here is causing your stomach problems. And in reality, when I healed the gut lining, it, at that point, it almost. It wasn't overnight, but it almost felt like it was overnight. The anxiety melted away.
And all this, you know, all the tricks you do to be like, just try to stop a panic attack in its tracks or do this or do that. And you think, if I could just get better at this, if I could get a handle on it. Right? No, it was when I healed the gut that healed my brain.
And to this day, I know when I've accidentally had, for example, so I avoid dairy and gluten.
And part of the recovery was, I don't. Do you still want me to talk about the symptoms? Cause I jumped right into recovery. No. No.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Yes. Did you cover the symptoms or those all symptoms?
[00:32:32] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, so anxiety, depression. I mean, when I was at 20 or in 2000, I was on 28 different prescriptions. There wasn't a part of me that wasn't broken.
And I don't think I could recall all the different diagnosis. There were so many at that time. And just think about, like, all the different side effects that you would have from that many prescriptions. Right. So I can't even tell you which one was actually a true Lyme symptom and which one was a side effect.
[00:32:58] Speaker C: Right? Yeah.
[00:33:00] Speaker D: But the prominent ones, the ones that lasted for 20 years, was the. Not the depression so much, thankfully, because the depression actually scares me more than the anxiety does. But initially, it was severe depression, anxiety, all the GI problems that you can think of so, sibo, diarrhea, vomiting, just heartburn doesn't begin to describe it.
Massive weight loss. Just every part of my body hurt. It didn't have to be a joint. It could be in the middle of my shins. Right. Everything hurt. Extreme fatigue, brain fog. I think those are the ones that stood out. And this just general feeling, like you just feel awful all the time.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: And the medication you're on, I mean, I mean, not needing to remember the names of them, but what type of medication was it? Like anti inflammatory, anti nausea, anti thyroid medication? Where were all the different.
[00:34:03] Speaker D: I never got on thyroid medication, only because I knew from my studies in my undergrad that for me, at least for the medications that they were proposing, that once I got on, I couldn't really get off. And so I'd be, I guess, feeling non committal. That was the one that I said, I'm not going to go down that route because I still had hope. This is early on now, when you're in your twenties and you think, okay, I'm going to kick this soon, right? I still had hope. So I didn't get on the thyroid medication, but really all the symptoms, or all the medications were to treat the symptoms.
There were several rounds of antibiotics, but they all were like a week, ten days, maybe two weeks, and spread far enough apart that I think all it did was probably destroy all my good gut bacteria and didn't really treat much of anything, quite frankly.
And then everything else was symptom based. Okay, you've got this heartburn. We'll give you two or three medications. Oh, I did. I had allergies all of a sudden. I never had allergies before, but now I have allergies, so. So they gave me all the medications for allergies and I think I picked up dry eye and all those. So it was kind of systemic, it was everywhere, but it was very, very much just attacking the symptoms and not the source.
And that carried on until 2015, 2016. Mycebo had gotten so bad, and again, I had lost. I got down to about 80, 90 pounds, or maybe not that much. I think I was down to like 100 pounds. Sorry, I don't know why it does it, but I got down to about 100 pounds. And, you know, this post pregnancy, I lost the weight way too quickly. Right. That's the only reason why I was still 100 pounds is because I just had a child.
And so my doctor, who's, I don't want to name names because I still think very highly of him, but he's a world renowned expert on Sibo, and he put me on Xifaxin, which is even with or even with insurance. It's like, a mean. It's a pretty expensive medication to be on for a week. And for anyone who's gone through Sibo, you probably know you go in for regular testing. I think it was like quarterly testing, where you sit in a room, they give you a shot of sugar, basically, and they have you blow into a tube, into a bag, and they measure the levels of either hydrogen or nitrogen, whatever gas is formed from the bacteria that's in your upper intestines. Right. So I purposely have forgotten all this at one point. I knew, and I've said, I've got to let this go.
And I remember talking, you know, talking with the other people in the room, because you're in the room with, like, eight other people, and we all look gaunt because none of us can keep any nutrition and thinking, okay, well, at least we finally figured out that I have Sibo. We didn't know I had Lyme, but we know I have Sibo. This is gonna get fixed. And then realizing that everyone in that room had been doing this for years, and that was depressing to me.
[00:37:05] Speaker C: For years, and they're not fixed.
[00:37:07] Speaker D: Yeah, and they're not fixed. Right.
And honestly, the turning point for me was my father, unrelated, had gotten sick. He actually got sepsis, and he was 75. And the hospital said, you know, look, he has, like, a 50 50 chance, but luckily, he came in so healthy. He was strong, athletic, ate well, and so we think he'll survive this. And at that point, I'm taking this, you know, antibiotic. And my doctor had put me on what I call the anti diabetic diet. He wanted me to eat everything that was white. He even said, like, if you eat cake, I don't want you to eat expensive cake. I want you to get the cheapest sheet cake you could find because I want it to digest on your tongue. I don't want it to even get down to your intestines. And so, for a while, it did alleviate some of the symptoms. I didn't have all the bloating and whatnot. But you feel awful because you're not getting any nutrition. But I didn't dare eat a salad. That would. That would make me violently ill. Right. Anything with any kind of roughage would just make me violently ill. But when my dad got sepsis, it dawned on me. I was like, hey, you know, when I'm his age, will I survive sepsis? Not that I think I was gonna get set. But I was like, will I be strong enough on my present regimen? And I knew I wouldn't be. So what I decided to do is I was gonna repopulate my gut biome. And in the course of all this, the doctors had. I tried different things. You know, herbs. They tried Alinea. They even talked about putting me on chemo. But quite frankly, I was too scared. I'd been sick for so long that the idea of it getting worse before it got better just couldn't handle it. So I said, let me make sure that I'm doing everything possible myself before we try that. And I had probably read at least 50 books on nutrition because I couldn't do much else. I'm just going to be sitting in bed anyways. And I decided to try an elimination diet to first get rid of the things that were kind of hurting me for the time being. Because even my doctor said, look, I don't want you. I want you to stay in bed rest. I don't even want you to go for a walk. You have so much inflammation. That exercise that would normally be good for someone else is too much for your body. You need to actually just put out the fire first.
So I went on bed rest, and then I started juicing. And I can only take about this much juice, like maybe a thimbleful of juice every third day when I first started, and I was juicing, like kale, carrots, celery, a little bit of apple and lemon. And I slowly built that up over time to finally, I could drink a whole glass, and then finally I could eat a salad.
And that along with the. You know. And when I went back a year later and went through that whole testing for Sibo again, my doctor was. And I tested negative. And he was so excited. He said, this is amazing. We're going to use you as a case study. You're the first person that we've cured on this regimen. And I had to break the news to him that I hadn't taken his antibiotic for at least a year.
And to his credit, he said, okay, so, you know, what did you do? And I explained it to him. And to his credit, he didn't just. He didn't pooh pooh it. He said, you know what? I actually believe that that could cure somebody. But the thing is, is that this study that we're doing is being paid by the pharmaceutical company, so we can't use you.
And I said, I appreciate that, and I don't need to be part of any study, but just know that every single person that's sitting in that room, they're not just a number. They're not just part of a study. They're genuinely suffering.
So, to the extent possible, please share it with them. Right. Because this is their life. This is what they have to deal with day in and day out.
But, yeah. So it started this regimen of basically eliminating things and then putting back food. I was using the walls protocol. I was like, what can I give to my body to essentially give it the nutrition to rebuild itself, including things like collagen and whatnot, magnesium.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: And Tara walls, she's a dear friend, and it's amazing what she's done, what she's brought.
[00:41:21] Speaker D: Right, with Ms. It's amazing. I mean, her own recovery from MS, if you think about it.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:27] Speaker D: So, yeah, and I will say, I do want to. I do want to say something, because I learned this along the way, that certain foods that you consider healthy, just be careful because they might be high in histamines. I landed in the ER twice because I was eating liver with kimchi.
I was like a liver with kimchi combination because it tasted good to me. They're both, you know, one's a fermented food, and the liver is also very high in histamines. I landed in the yard twice, and I realized, okay, first I have to take a DAO supplement, and then, because you get kind of like a mast cell disorder, right? Activation.
So those are, like, the stumbling blocks. I had to, like, learn along the way to kind of tweak it. And now I can pretty much. I can eat anything. It's just that I know that if I'm gonna have a lot of high histamine foods together, I definitely need to take the supplement, and I probably won't do that for, like, three meals in a row. And you can hear the signals your body's giving you. Right. Or you can feel them, and, you know, you got to cut back on some things.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:28] Speaker D: But I still don't eat gluten, dairy. I don't really drink alcohol, and I don't drink much caffeine either.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: And that's, you know, for listeners. Yeah, the dao, it breaks down the histamine. So there are a lot of different companies out there that has those kind of products.
They also can bring in things, different probiotics that help to break down histamines.
And also, you have the peptide KPV can be very helpful as well.
And then Quercetin. Some people do well on that.
[00:43:02] Speaker D: I do, too.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: So those are little tools out there to navigate the space.
And what else are we saying? Yeah. So, yes, for people out there, that's kind of what.
Yeah. Naomi was mentioning.
[00:43:21] Speaker D: And there's one other element that I really want to stress, because you mentioned before that sometimes I had to make the decision between whether or not I was going to shower or do anything else. And for me, if. If I was going to have a flare up, if things were you going to get really bad, it's because I was exposed to heat. And so a big game changer for me was having, at the end of every shower, I would end it on the coldest possible setting. And for, like, three minutes, I would just stand under there and completely brisk.
[00:43:55] Speaker C: Dave, you're strong. You're.
[00:43:57] Speaker D: I'm telling.
[00:43:58] Speaker C: You're all the words. I've tried it. I've tried it for, like, 2 seconds. And that was when I was. Well, and I'm too, I guess. Wait a minute. Did I not just say earlier that I'm the strongest of the strong? Okay, here I am, you know, contradicting myself. Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. I don't know how people do it.
[00:44:17] Speaker D: It's a game changer, I'm telling you. Really? Because I started it when I was still, you know, I wasn't recovered. And I remember the first time I thought it was an accident. I went and took a shower, did end it on the cold, and I was, like, vibrant. It felt like I was vibrant for the rest of the day, and it continued that route. And to this day, I consider myself to be fully in recovery. I play 18 to 24 games of beach volleyball a week. Right. It's hot. You're sweaty. But I know that if I'm ever feeling. Feel like I'm maybe triggering anything, I just immediately ice myself down and it stops anything in its tracks for me.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a. It's an amazing anti inflammatory. It's fantastic to regulate the immune system. Yeah.
[00:45:03] Speaker C: So keep talking. Keep talking me into this, because I hear about, you know, people get in these ice baths, and they do. But a lot of times they say that just at the very end of your shower, just turn it to cold. And I don't know what it is.
[00:45:16] Speaker D: But it's hard to do stuff at first.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: That shiver.
Yeah.
[00:45:23] Speaker D: Oh, it'll be so cold. Like, it'll. I remember thinking, is this healthy for me? Because it's almost like it'll, like, knock the wind out. Yeah.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: It's shocking. It's gonna give me a heart attack or. I don't know.
[00:45:33] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:45:33] Speaker C: Well, that's good to know.
[00:45:35] Speaker D: Totally recommend it.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. That's 18 to 24 volleyball games a week.
[00:45:43] Speaker D: Beach volleyball. Beach volleyball.
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Beach volleyball.
[00:45:45] Speaker D: It's tough. You gotta have your sand legs. Yeah.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that. Yeah, I remember when I was living out in Santa Monica, I used to go up to the beach outside of, like, Malibu area. And every Sunday we met a group of guys and I. And it's exhausting.
It is. Yeah. It's fun game, but doing it on sand is just a different. It's a different level.
[00:46:13] Speaker C: I'm sure it is, because, I mean, even just walking on the sand or, like, it's just an exertion more than just walking down the street. So I could. I do remember the first time I reached out to you, Naomi. She's like, I'll get back to you. I'm playing beach volleyball. Like, wow, I love it.
She definitely must be. Well, yes.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Two businesses and 18 to 24 games of beach volleyball. And children. Yeah.
[00:46:40] Speaker D: Life is good now.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:42] Speaker D: You know, it's not to say. And I. You know, even when I think that, you know, like, oh, goodness, what. What if I'm jinxing myself or.
[00:46:48] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:46:49] Speaker D: What if my. What if my hubris is so much that, you know, that this wouldn't come back next week?
I don't think it will. But if it does, what I've learned is you have to enjoy the good moments. Because when the bad moments come, you're gonna feel awful anyways. Right. So don't bother tainting the good moments. Enjoy while you've got it. Right.
[00:47:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:10] Speaker D: That's kind of how I live, is.
[00:47:11] Speaker C: That if it does, like, look at all this knowledge you've gained over the years.
[00:47:17] Speaker D: Right?
[00:47:17] Speaker C: Like, you know, your body, you know, what you need to do to get well. It is a scary thought, but we truly have to get out of our own heads and not live in fear. Because a lot of people do. Like, they're petrified to go hiking or, you know, go out in any area that's wooded or leafy or anything. And we can't be that way. But I get it. Like, I don't ever want to go back to where I was ever.
But we can't live in fear of it. And so I think that that's part of dealing with that emotional side of it once we get well. And I also think that dealing with everything and, like, truly getting to the core of our foundation and building it strong, I think, is what's going to play a huge role in us staying well.
Because I know a lot of people kind of go back to their old ways, like, you know, and it's truly a lifestyle, but it doesn't have to be a bad one. Not at all. You know, everything in moderation. But I just. There's just, you know, certain things that I found along my journey that I love, and I talk about kaleidosilver and sista's tea all the time. Like, they're my two favorite things, and I will forever, every day take them until the day I die. Do I need them? No, I don't think so. But you know what? I love them, and so they can't hurt me. So I find a couple of things I like, and I'm like, okay, that's just like, my little regimen forever. And I'm good with that.
[00:48:48] Speaker D: I think there's a lot of that. I mean, there's.
Yeah, I think you have to find what works for you. I think there's some, you know, general tenants that probably would help not only people with Lyme, but people just getting older, having other illnesses. You know, anytime you're going to reduce inflammation.
Right.
And then eat healthy. I mean, I think that's the silver lining, is that Lyme forced me to adopt a lifestyle that's going to serve me later in life.
Right. And so just like what you were saying, like, people ask me all the time, for me personally, like, I don't. I don't have gluten, because when I accidentally get gluten, and it happens very rarely, it's like, you know, maybe once every couple of years kind of thing, I'll get this rush of anxiety. 20 hours later, it'll be like this flood, and I don't identify it with anymore because I can feel it coming on and trace it back. Yep. 20 hours ago, we went to this place. I think there was, you know, some contamination or whatnot. But once you've come out, the got other side, when people say, well, don't you? Don't you miss these things? I'm like, not as much as I'm happy to not be sick anymore. Right? Yep. Sick. Being healthy feels so good that it far outweighs anything that I'm giving up. But it is a commitment, especially when you're first starting out to kind of follow the regimen. It is a commitment. So, for me, I felt like I had hit almost rock bottom to be that committed to do it.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:50:17] Speaker D: And that's where I was.
[00:50:18] Speaker B: Can you.
As we're kind of getting closer towards Jan, can you just kind of go through some of the kind of main components. I mean, you talked about the controlling histamine, talked about your gut, once your gut was healed and your brain all of a sudden start to function, talked about the cold, cold exposure. What were some of the other kind of main things that you feel that this is what turned it around for me.
[00:50:52] Speaker D: So in the beginning, especially, I was really careful about eliminating any kind of processed foods and sugar, not including fruits. I still got some sugar and fruits, but even then I was kind of watching which fruits I was eating.
So anything that was going to be inflammatory. So the sugar, the gluten, dairy in the beginning, I don't do it now, but I was doing intermittent fasting as well, just to give my stomach more time to be able to heal in between the meals. I know that intermittent fasting can actually be taxing to some people, so I don't necessarily recommend it for everyone. And like I said, I don't do it now. But at the time, my gut was in such a. Was so leaky that I needed to give it that chance. So that. And collagen was a major thing to help heal the gut lining.
And it sounds counterintuitive, but again, I had to cut out all exercise for a while just to put out that fire.
Turmeric, lots of turmeric was very helpful even now for energy. If I feel like I'm low on energy, turmeric is the first thing I go to, but it also reduces inflammation.
When the sibo was really bad, I was on a low fat FODMap diet. I mean, there was a time when I was very restrictive and necessarily so, but low fodmap, no sugar, no gluten, no dairy. It's kind of like, what?
[00:52:12] Speaker C: It's a brutal. It's really brutal.
[00:52:14] Speaker D: Right? What can you eat?
The dao? I'm looking at my list here because I don't want to forget anything. Magnesium, cold showers. I had the binders and detoxifiers, especially in the beginning, and then lots of water.
You know, like, I think I was also probably perpetually dehydrated because I was too exhausted to go to the restroom.
And so I let myself get dehydrated. And now I'll drink at least 64. I'll get up to 128oz. I'm also playing a lot of sports, and it's. I feel amazing with the water. So I think that was one of those things that I was unintentionally doing.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: To myself was dehydration and any kind of. Because a lot of people go with these different herbs and things, you know, to go after lime, go after parasites, go after mold and any of that that played a role in your protocols?
[00:53:07] Speaker D: Yeah. So, Berber, Pinella, Quercetin, the binders, the pectin. Right. And actually, we had mold in our house. So one of the things we did was we.
We got our house tested for mold and had it. Had the sections removed and, like, new sheetrock and everything put up because of it. I think that one played a large part, too. I will say. At that time, I was kind of going at it with, like, all guns blazing. So I was doing a, you know, I was taking care of the mold, I was changing the diet. I was including all this additional nutrition and whatnot. So can I point my finger into one or two things again? I think the cold showers honestly helped quite a bit, and then reducing the inflammatory foods and exercise initially. And then even when I was bringing the exercise back in, I had to start out very slowly.
I had to essentially make sure that my body had that toe hold so that I wouldn't overwhelm it each day.
And even now, I have to think about, like, okay, because I would actually get a herx reaction when I first. When I. When I wasn't yet recovered, before I knew that I had Lyme, I would go out and try to play. Sorry about the thumbs up that keeps happening, but I would. I would go out and try to play, and I would talk about being bedroom. I couldn't even lift up my arms. Like, I'd be fine that day, but for like, three or four days after that, my temperature would drop to scary levels, like 94, 95 type thing. My blood pressure would drop. I couldn't lift up my head. It was really bad. But it's because I just absolutely taxed my body and with the cytokines and whatnot that, you know, I think prior to having, you know, being pregnant with my daughter, I had tried to play a little bit of sports during that time.
The theory that my doctor, my LMD, and myself that we came up with was heating my body up to a certain extent each time, was almost keeping the lyme in check. I felt awful doing it made me nauseous every single time, but it was keeping it in check, and I did it on a daily basis.
When I got pregnant with my daughter, in the beginning, I had subchorionic hemorrhage, so I was put on a bed, on bedrest at that point. And it was the first time that I was truly on bedrest. And I think that gave the lyme the opportunity to basically go full force unchecked in my body.
Yeah. And then during the pregnancy, I mean, I was having, like, seizures. I was having then preeclampsia. I mean, it was a rough pregnancy, so the exercise. Yeah. What?
[00:55:58] Speaker B: Yeah. What a blessing to. To have the fruit. I mean, it's a rough pregnancy, and it's horrible, but you know, that you. The fruit, you have your. Your child.
[00:56:10] Speaker D: Yeah. She's. And she's healthy. She's incredible. She's absolutely worth it.
[00:56:15] Speaker C: That's the best part. Yeah. Oh, I love it. You know, and you just got to look at it as a blessing. Like, you know, maybe if this doesn't. If the pregnant. If you didn't get pregnant and it didn't shut down your body, maybe you never would have dug further, and maybe you would still be sick because you don't even know you have Lyme. So got to look at all these things settled for.
[00:56:36] Speaker D: I probably would have settled for just a 20% life or 40% life.
So hitting rock bottom was actually a blessing.
[00:56:46] Speaker C: Right. Right.
What a story, Naomi. And you did so good. Like, I'm so proud of you because I know it can be hard. It can be hard, but it can also be freeing. So I hope tonight when you crawl in bed, you kind of think about it and just. You're happy that you did it. Like, you're happy that you voiced all that and shared with us, because we truly do need your voice out there. We've got to have that hope and inspiration, because, I mean, there's a lot of listeners out there that are. They're on the end, they're on the edge of the cliff, and they see nowhere to go but down. And we want to change that. We want to give them a different outlook. And stories like yours and people like you, sharing is what's going to give it. So thank you. Thank you.
[00:57:32] Speaker B: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
[00:57:35] Speaker D: This has actually been very cathartic. I appreciate it.
[00:57:38] Speaker C: Love it.
[00:57:39] Speaker B: I've loved every moment. I mean, what a story. Thank you so much. Naomi.
[00:57:52] 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. 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 Tanya on Facebook at Lime Conquerors mentoring.
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 Karl Feldt.
