The Dr. Hyman Show - How To Recover From Chronic Lyme And Tick Diseases with Dr. Todd LePine

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases often go undiagnosed or are misdiagnosed. This is partially because Lyme mimics other illnesses such as the flu, manifesting as diverse symptoms including headaches, muscle aches, stomach ulcers, constipation, and joint pain, making diagnosing and treating Lyme very difficult. Left unchecked, Lyme symptoms can worsen, creating a long-running inflammatory response and autoimmune illness. Lyme disease, or borreliosis, is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which can proliferate to every area in your body. The good news is that with some work and effort, you can successfully treat Lyme disease. In this episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with Dr. Todd LePine to discuss the Functional Medicine approach to identifying and treating chronic Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. Dr. LePine graduated from Dartmouth Medical School and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, specializing in Integrative Functional Medicine. He is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner.  Prior to joining The UltraWellness Center, he worked as a physician at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, MA, for 10 years.  Dr. LePine’s focus at The UltraWellness Center is to help his patients achieve optimal health and vitality by restoring the natural balance to both the mind and the body.  His areas of interest include optimal aging, bio-detoxification, functional gastrointestinal health, systemic inflammation, autoimmune disorders and the neurobiology of mood and cognitive disorders. Dr. LePine teaches around the world, and has given lectures to doctors and patients at   American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM), Age Management Medicine Group (AMMG), the University of Miami Integrative Medicine Conference, The Kripalu Center in Lenox, MA, and is on the faculty for American Academy of Anti-Aging  Medicine (A4M).  Dr. LePine is the head of the Scientific Advisory Board for Designs for Health and a consultant for Diagnostic Solutions Laboratory.  He enjoys skiing, kayaking, hiking, camping and golfing in the beautiful Berkshires, and is a fitness enthusiast. This episode is sponsored by AirDoctor. We need clean air not only to live but to create vibrant health and protect ourselves and loved ones from toxin exposure and disease. Learn more about the AirDoctor Professional Air Purifier system at a special price at www.drhyman.com/filter In this episode, Dr. Hyman and Dr. LePine discuss: Why conventional medicine doesn’t acknowledge chronic Lyme disease Why chronic Lyme and other tick-borne illness can present, or exist along with, conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue system, autoimmune issues, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia, multiple sclerosis, SIBO and other gut issues, depression, and more What syphilis can teach us about Lyme and other tick-borne illness Conventional vs Functional Medicine testing, identification, and treatment for Lyme Using botanicals, herbs, sauna, and sunshine exposure to treat Lyme Can you get rid of Lyme? Off-the-grid therapies for Lyme including stem cells, exosomes, hyperbaric oxygen, hyperthermia, ozone therapy, and peptides  For more information visit drhyman.com/uwc Additional Resources: “7 Strategies To Tackle Lyme Disease” https://drhyman.com/blog/2015/10/09/7-strategies-to-tackle-lyme-disease/ “Getting to the Root Cause of MS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” https://drhyman.com/blog/2017/05/08/getting-root-cause-ms-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/ “The Myth of Diagnosis” https://drhyman.com/blog/2018/05/04/the-myth-of-diagnosis/ “Innovative Treatments for Chronic Disease Not Available in the US” https://drhyman.com/blog/2018/12/12/podcast-ep31/ “My Journey to Functional Medicine” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2019/03/20/my-journey-to-functional-medicine/

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. The symptoms do not appear overnight. It's a slow process. So it's not like all of a sudden one day you're going to feel bad. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and that's Pharmacy with an F, a place for conversations that matter. And if you or someone you know is suffering from a chronic infection

with a tick-borne disease, such as Lyme disease, babesiosis, or lichia, barnella, which is a big mouthful, otherwise known as chronic Lyme, then you should listen carefully to this conversation because it's one of the most important conversations that doesn't get had in traditional medicine. And I'm here with my colleague, friend, and partner at the Ultra Wellness Center, Dr. Todd Lapine, a brilliant doctor, went to Dartmouth Medical School. He's board certified in internal medicine. He's someone who's found functional medicine even before I did back in the early 90s.

We would go way back and work together at Canyon Ranch. He teaches around the world, is a leading thought leader in the field of functional medicine, and he's just an all-around great guy, and we are going to talk about Lyme disease, which we both have had, by the way, and are both doing pretty good. So that's the punchline. There is a way out. It's not through the traditional doorway of six weeks or three weeks of antibiotics, and

that's it, and otherwise you're just a complainer and malingerer, right, which is what our typical approach is in Lyme disease. So to the podcast thanks mark thanks for having me okay so we both live in tick country here yeah absolutely in fact i had one crawling on me the other day i was playing in my garden i was like i'm working on my garden like got in the house and like seeing my desk i was like see what crawling my god he didn't attach yet but i was like you dirty little they're coming out yeah so, let's just talk about the elephant in the room. Is there something called chronic Lyme disease? And why does traditional medicine not think there is

and think everybody's just a whiner and complainer with psychological issues? I think it's the concept of what is a disease, really. In Jeff Bland's book, The Disease Delusion, it's how we look at disease. And most doctors are trained to think that when you have an infection, you have a fever, you're sick, you've got to take an antibiotic, lower the fever, and then it's done. And chronic Lyme disease is a stealth infection. And as you mentioned before, it's really not Lyme disease, it's tick. And chronic Lyme disease is a stealth infection. And it's, you know, you mentioned before, it's really not Lyme disease, it's tick-borne illness. And so you have to think, not only could it possibly be Borrelia burgdorferi, but other species of bacteria that cause Lyme

and other co-infections, like you mentioned, Babesiosa, Bartonella, and the others. So you've got to really sort of think about what is it that may be driving these chronic-type symptoms. And I have seen patients walk through my door with a 15-year history of, quote-unquote, fibromyalgia, which is not a diagnosis. It's like a cough. Or chronic fatigue. Or chronic fatigue. It's a symptom, not a disease.

Exactly. Unexplained autoimmune issues, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis. So just like syphilis, which is also a spirochetal illness, Lyme disease is the great mimicker. Wow. If you know the history of medicine, way back when, when syphilis was very prevalent, it could mimic anything and everything. And Lyme is the same thing that's it that's an incredible insight that people think you know Lyme disease you get the bullseye rash maybe you get arthritis Lyme arthritis or Lyme heart disease you know it's acute illness you

know if you get neurologic Lyme it's a thing they diagnose it and they give people IV antibiotics but there's very little appreciation that if someone comes with Parkinson's disease or MS that you should be thinking about a tick infection. It's not even on the radar for most doctors. But in functional medicine, we do think differently. Yeah. And if you actually go back into the history of understanding syphilis, there used to be primary syphilis, which is the acute infection.

Then you would have secondary and tertiary syphilis. It would appear years down the road as dementia and Tabes dorsalis and problems with balance and all different kinds of things. So you've got to have a broad, a broad understanding of how these things affect the body and then the immune system. Maybe it's not chronic and acute. Maybe it's primary and secondary line. Exactly. That's another way. Right. It's how you want to word it. Exactly. Yeah. So, so, you know, what is a typical approach to thinking about Lyme disease and how did traditional doctors diagnose it and treat it? And what, what is the,

the general perspective? The general perspective, and I think this is the CDC criteria is basically you go to your doctor and you get a, what's called a two-tiered testing. First is what's the ELISA screen test, and the ELISA is just a screening. It's an antibody test. It's an antibody test, enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent antibody. And if that's positive, then you then reflexively go to a Western blot test,

which is supposed to be more sensitive, and also it's more expensive. And this standard of how you diagnose Lyme disease is this two-tiered approach. And the unfortunate thing is if that's negative, which 50% of the time it is, you are going to be missing Lyme disease in a lot of your patients. So you might as well flip a coin. So I almost don't even do that. If it's positive and you have a clinical history, then it's helpful. But 50% of the time, it's not going to have a clinical history, then it's helpful. But 50%

of the time, it's not going to be helpful. Most of them, you know, acute disease. I mean, I remember working in Nantucket in the ER and I remember seeing so many patients coming with Lyme disease, but they had acute Lyme. They had a fever, they had joint pain, they had a rash, you give them antibiotics, three weeks, they're fine. And the truth is a lot of people will get Lyme disease and get treated and they're fine or they get it, it's not an issue. And I think that there's a subset of patients that are uniquely susceptible to the adverse consequences of these tick infections, whereas others are more resilient. Do you find that too? Absolutely. And you bring up a really good point. In fact, I just had a paper about people who have mannose binding lectin deficiency. Are you familiar with that, Mark? That's a mouthful. Yeah, I heard about it.

Right. So I'm actually, it's relatively new to me. And there's a condition, which is Manos binding lectin deficiency, which you can draw on a routine lab test. And people who have this are more susceptible to developing infections like urinary tract infections and upper respiratory infections and lo and behold, chronic Lyme disease. So now I'm starting to actually check for this in my patients. Are you finding it? Oh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. The other thing that is also, and I'm not exactly sure of the mechanism for it, but

patients who have hypermobility, sort of a form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. And for whatever reason, those patients tend to have it a little bit more uh more difficult to eradicate and that may be related to the fact that lyme is predisposed towards going towards connective tissue and they have a connective tissue uh disease or a mild form of it so what's the typical like approach traditional medicine they just give them three weeks antibiotics and you're done yeah i, the traditional approach is anywhere between one week to a month of antibiotics, and then you're done, and it's the end of discussion. I can't tell you the number of times that I've gone to. And if you're still sick afterwards, the doctor goes, well, it can't be Lyme.

Exactly. And then they call that post-Lyme syndrome. There's a whole diagnosis called post-Lyme syndrome where your testing may be negative. You still have symptoms despite the standard of care treatment, and you fall into this nebulous category. Is it an ongoing immune reaction? Is it the body's still trying to fight the infection and you're not seeing it on the lab testing, et cetera? Yeah. And so what is the approach to post Lyme syndrome in traditional medicine? There is none.

There isn't. There is none. There really is no treatment. I mean, that's sort of where, you know, if patients are fatigued, they may get provisional. If they're having problems sleeping, they're going to throw Ambien at them. If they're depressed, they'll get some Prozac. Polypharmacy. Polypharmacy. And that's iatrogenica imperfecta. One of my favorite terms. So most of the time when... What does that mean, Todd? Yeah, that is basically iatrogenic is the doctor does it.

So a lot of times... It's caused by a doctor. Right. So a lot of times, I mean, Mark, you and I have seen it with patients come into us and the problem is the doctors were treating them. So number one is stay away from doctors. Oh yeah, it's true. Some of them.

Yeah, for some of them. Exactly. Yeah. So it's really, you know, a very problematic issue. And I would say if there was one condition that I could erase from the planet, it would be tick-borne illness. It is one of the biggest scourges on humanity ever. Absolutely. And it causes so much suffering. Needless.

So needless suffering. It's so underdiagnosed. It's not well appreciated by traditional medicine. No.. So needless suffering. It's so underdiagnosed. It's not well appreciated by traditional medicine. No. And it's really real. And it does masquerade as all these other problems. So you mentioned a few of them, but it can cause all sorts of autoimmune diseases. It can cause all sorts of gut issues. It can cause all sorts of neurologic issues and mood issues. It can cause, like you said, neurodegenerative diseases. It can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, depression, dementia.

I mean, I had a guy come in with Capgras syndrome, where you kind of mistake everybody for somebody else. You go and know who your wife is, and you just have these weird... He had like neuro-Lyme. Neuro-Lyme, yeah. And about three other co-infections, and we treated him with antibiotics, and he got better. Yeah.

I had another patient who had all these MS symptoms, and she saw the best doctors at Cleveland clinic and they're like, no, you have MS. And she, she hadn't ended up having Ehrlichia, which is a tick, one of those tick-borne infections that gave her doxycycline for six weeks.

And like all our symptoms went away. Yeah. And I'm, I don't love antibiotics, but sometimes you have to use them. You have to use them. And you know, I think,

I think having an open mind to who are those patients who are just not getting better? There's a whole subclass of them who really struggle with these chronic issues that are undiagnosed, that nobody can figure out. And there's a lot of approaches to this. So we do different kinds of diagnostics here. And functional medicine has a very different approach. How would you sort of define the approach for functional medicine? The approach for functional medicine is actually listen to the patient. I think the best thing you can do is take the time and you can't do this in five or 10 minutes. Uh, as you, as you well know, Mark, you have to really be astute. You have to

listen really well. And you also have to have the clinical experience where you've seen a lot of patients and you can sort of put the pieces of the puzzle together. Cause this is like, this is not a, you know, a 50 piece jigsaw puzzle. This is a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. Yeah, often, right? And it, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to do a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle in five minutes. It takes a while. My wife can do it in like half an hour.

Yeah, right. She's good. So you've got to really listen well. And then a lot of the confirmation of the Lyme is, in my opinion, done by advanced testing. Like the test that I really like and we use here is the Eli spot testing, which basically is checking for the immune system's response to the bacterium. How is that different than an antibody test, which is what traditional medicine uses? Right, exactly.

So an antibody test is, say, for example, you get a polio vaccination. You are going to develop polio antibodies. Okay, if I test you right now for polio antibodies, you have polio antibodies. Does that mean that you have polio, the disease? No. Okay. In chronic Lyme, some patients don't develop antibodies, so those antibodies actually go away over time. So the antibody test is negative, especially in chronic Lyme, some patients don't develop antibodies. So those antibodies actually go away over time.

So the antibody test is negative, especially in chronic Lyme. And if somebody has had the disease and the antibodies are positive, does that still mean that they still have the disease or is the disease gone away? So you're sort of up in the air. You're in this nebulous area. And that's why I think combining the clinical history with some of the more advanced testing, like the Eli spot test, where you actually take the person's blood, expose it to the antigens, the proteins that the tick has, or the other co-infections that are there, and see

the live cells immune response to it. So this is based upon memory T cells and the production of compounds like interferon gamma is your innate immune system your innate immune system your your primary so there's like two kinds of immune system right there's one that's like the old ancient immune system and you're born with it you're born with it and that just like reacts to everything you know sort of like carpet bombing and that's why maybe the symptoms are so bad with this and then there's the antibody which is more like the smart missile, or called adaptive immunity, that actually targets specific bugs. So it's a memory cell.

So you get a memory cell to measles when you get the measles vaccine, so you don't get measles. This is different. This is just more of a widespread immune response. And you can't measure it through typical tests. That's why this Eli spot is so unusual. It helps us to determine what's going on. Exactly.

And then one of the other tests, which I also use, and again, it's not really, this test by itself is not diagnostic of Lyme, but the CD57, which is the natural killer cell. And we measure the overall level of the natural killer cells in patients. There are many conditions that can cause low natural killer cell function. So things like chronic Epstein-Barr virus may do it,

HIV virus, cancer, et cetera. But Lyme is also one of those. So if a patient comes in with symptoms consistent with chronic Lyme and they have a low CD57 count, that ups the threshold for their probability of having chronic Lyme clinically. And then we also do the natural killer cell function test, which is not only the level of the natural killer cells, but are these cells actually able to do their thing?

Are they able to kill pathogens? That's really important. I have this theory after seeing so many hundreds and hundreds of these patients is that the Lyme and these chronic tick infections are kind of like AIDS in a way. They suppress the immune system. Absolutely. And they sort of hijack it and it makes your body unable to fight it. So what I've been finding, I don't know if you see this Todd, but

so many of these patients don't just have chronic Lyme, but they have a whole host of other things that destabilize your system. And it may be things that the body could handle when they're normally, everything else is okay. There's heavy metals, there's gut issues. There may be mold issues. There may be nutritional factors. So there are all these things that are complex web of causative factors that don't get untangled with traditional medicine. And sometimes you need to treat all these things to get people back to normal. Absolutely. Yeah. And you bring up a really good thing. So that patients who have chronic mold, so anybody who's out there, and if they have the diagnosis of mass cell activation syndrome, if they have the diagnosis of POTS, postural orthostatic

tachycardia syndrome, where when you get up, your heart rate goes up high. If you have other symptoms like dysautonomia, which is part of POT um if you have uh these types of things go along with someone who's got chronic lyme they sort of go together the other one which we see a lot of is also a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth i actually went to a talk given by a gastroenterologist and all of a sudden he was seeing all these patients with sebo okay when you and i went in our training i never used to see cc i mean you had somebody with irritable bowel, but SIBO is now rampant. Yeah, it's true. It's really true.

Exactly. Interestingly, in patients who have chronic Lyme disease, because Lyme bacteria is neurotrophic, in other words, it heads towards nervous tissue and affects nervous tissue, also connective tissue, that you get what is termed Bell's palsy of the gut. Yes. Bell's palsy is when your face gets paralyzed. That's one of the symptoms of acute Lyme is you'll get a paralysis in your face.

And your face will go limp. In fact, one of my first cases of a severe case of Lyme disease when I had a private practice was a patient who I'd met to the hospital with acute Bell's palsy that was caused from Lyme disease. And the term Bell's palsy of the gut, so any patients who are out there, anybody who has refractory bad small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, think of Lyme because this gastroenterologist, it got on his radar. So he started checking all of his patients for Lyme and lo and behold, they had it. Yeah, I had a patient who had a little different syndrome, but she had severe constipation. She could only go with colonics and heavy duty

medication. And it turned out she had Babesia, which is another tick infection. And that is known to cause autonomic dysfunction of the gut, a paralysis of the gut essentially, which is what she was suffering from, which is fascinating, right? Wow. Yeah, it is. So we see all these variable presentations and we do have a questionnaire we use called the MSIS questionnaire, which is the multiple immune, whatever, deficiency, whatever questionnaire,

symptom questionnaire, and it helps us to sort of make track of all these very weird symptoms that people have. You know, I've got tingling, I get palpitations, I get headaches, I have my achy, this and that, and you get this whole list of symptoms, and if people have a high score, it's likely that they have some issue.

Now, it may not be 100%, but your odds are higher. And often people won't remember having a tick bite. They won't remember having a bullseye rash. They won't remember an acute infection. And you can live in Hawaii and have it. Yeah. It's everywhere. I live in Arizona.

I can't get it. Exactly. Exactly. It's everywhere. And it's everywhere i live in i live in arizona i can't get it exactly exactly it's everywhere just like you know with global and exactly and just just like you know with the covid virus we see that the vector for the spread of the code virus is the airplane it's not it's not a mosquito it's an airplane all right and how many of us travel and fly in planes we go all over the place there's also a theory and that's why it's good that the airlines have checked it? Yeah, exactly. So also there's a theory that Lyme may also be sexually transmitted. And I've had some privy to some people have done some small studies on checking for the DNA of Lyme in sperm, and it's been identified. So just like syphilis was actually sexually transmitted, I think there are in some cases Lyme may actually be sexually transmitted.

So there can be transmission from the mother to the uh to the baby also maternal fetal maternal fetal transmission so you really have to think about it and just because somebody doesn't live in an area like the northeast of america you know lime connecticut was where it all started and the interesting thing about that is that it was an astute clinician who said all of a sudden I've got all these kids with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which is a rare condition. You never see that. And he had a whole clustering of it. Then he said, well, why is this happening? We just label it as juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. That's an autoimmune disease, but it's also infectious, right? Most autoimmune diseases, I think, probably have some type of infectious origin.

Because of microbes, for example, in your gut. Yeah. So leaky gut and all that. Yeah. Hey, everyone. It's Dr. Hyman here. Now, I know we're all focused on being as healthy as possible during this unprecedented time. And that means drinking clean water, eating loads of anti-inflammatory foods. And it also means keeping our homes clean. Now, I've been doing my best to keep my family safe while indoors. And for me, this means using an air filter. Now, we know that toxic air particles can contribute to cardiovascular disease, lung disease, and even neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. These toxic particles come from cleaning products and stoves and pet dander and air fresheners and house paint and furniture and so much more. And that's why it's super important to filter our indoor air with the highest quality filter around. And a few years ago, I found Air Doctor, which is an air filter that's made by Ideal Living. And I loved it so much

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You definitely want to take advantage. So head over to drhyman.com forward slash filter to access the deal. Thanks for tuning in. Tell me about a patient or two you've had with Lyme disease and what you did to figure it out. Or chronic, was chronic. And when people say chronic Lyme, I think that the term really refers to chronic Lyme and co-infection. Yeah. Chronic. Yeah. Chronic.

Often people have multiple ones. I've had people have all four. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. It's because the ticks can carry multiple bugs. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I think the ones that you probably see the most, or at least I, in my, in my experience, I've seen the most are Lyme with Bartonella and Babesia. Yeah. Those are probably the bigger co-infections. Who was admitted to a psych hospital for psychosis and had Lyme and co-infections as a trigger for that. Just like, you know, it's like syphilis can cause madness.

Well, Lyme can cause madness too. Neuropsychiatry. Exactly. And it's not on the radar of neurologists. It's not on the radar of psychiatrists. Everybody's in their silos. And that's what's so different about functional medicine is that we look at the whole picture.

We look at, I joke that, you know, we're holistic doctors because we take care of people with a whole list of problems. And I think that that is what's unique about functional medicine and about the Ultra Wellness Center is that we don't just take things at face value. We dig deep into figuring out the why and why people are suffering. So if someone comes in with MS, we're not thinking, oh, you have MS. We're thinking, you have inflamed nerves. Why are they inflamed? And then what are the causes? It could be heavy metals. It could be a nutritional deficiency. It could be gut issue. It could be tick infection. It could be multiple things. So I would say, if you know the name of your disease, you don't really know what's wrong with you. You just know the diagnosis, but not the cause. Exactly, Mark. You hit the nail on the head. It's called label it, treat them, and street them.

That's really what happens. Name it, blame it, tame it game. That's Sidney Baker. Exactly. Good old Sid. And so that approach where somebody comes in and you've got five or 10 minutes, and then you just want to treat the symptom, whether it's anxiety, constipation here, take your Miralaxia later without thinking, well, what's causing it. And, and you know, I think that, you know, I always go in to every patient with a Zen mind. Like I have no preconceived bias. I think we all have some type of cognitive bias. Cause you know, I sort of seen that before that kind of thing. But I always, I, I, it humbles me because every time i see patients i'm always learning yeah i'm always learning as much as as much as i know the more i know is the more that i know i don't know it's so

true i feel like more and more ignorant the more i practice uh more humble uh and keep learning about things and learn from my patients because they're the biggest teachers and we call it practice because you're practicing i mean mean, that's, that's, so tell us about some of these cases that you've had. Yeah. I mean, I had one case recently, it was a young girl in her late twenties and she came to see me and she had, she was very organized and she was also chronically ill. And I asked her, you know, when was the last time you felt well? And she goes, I can't remember. Wow.

And she had a whole laundry list of symptoms. She had fog she had fatigue she had insomnia she had sort of acne type symptoms uh she had a lot of bloating she was having uh joint pains and she had seen multiple specialists um you know she saw saw even a few uh integrative specialists And she was just at a standstill. And she came in with a very organized, thick binder. It must have been five inches thick. Call that chart of Megali. Chart of Megali, exactly. Chart of Megali.

A big chart. And actually, because she was so organized, it really made my job easier. And I was able to take the time to speak to her and review all the records. And I saw that in her chart that she had a testing way back when for Lyme, but it was sort of like equivocal and it wasn't really addressed and treated properly.

And so I said, I'm going to put this on the back burner. Let's check your CD57 count. Let's see what it is. So I did sort of standard approaches to her initially and empirically um and she also you know had limited resources in terms of spending money but you know the one thing that flagged it was her cd57 count was low and as i said that's not a diagnostic of line but it makes me suspicious the immune system is not functioning properly yeah i was like oh i'm gonna check it just to see because i was in sick country i'm like i was a little tired and i thought i was working too hard and it was like 30 which is I'm going to check it just to see because I was in tick country. I'm like, I was a little tired and I thought I was working too hard.

And it was like 30, which is normal is like 120. Yeah. And I was like, whoa. And then I was like, ah. Then I followed up with a tick test. I was like, I had positive and a PCR positive. I just sort of ignored it. I didn't even look at it for like six months or whatever.

Oh, my test came back. I wonder what happened to that test. And I was like, oh, shoot. I have Lyme disease. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right. And I did a PCR test, which we didn't talk about, which is a test you can do to actually happened to that test and i was like oh shoot i have lyme disease yeah yeah exactly right i did pcr tests which we didn't talk about which is a test you can do to actually look at the

live yeah polymer chain reaction yeah and it's what they're using for coven 19 which tells you the virus but it's if it's if it's positive you got it exactly yeah it's yeah exactly it's pretty it's pretty diagnostic um and so anyway so that is uh the testing that I ended up doing on her was the T-cell memory test, the Eli spot test. And that came back positive dramatically. Like she had said, there were a couple of the antigens and hers were like beyond the measuring point. So she was having ongoing, you know. Really greater than, you know. Yeah, greater than.

They couldn't measure it. And it was just a relief for her to realize that, you know, this is not in my head because she was starting to be treated like someone who had, you know, malingering syndrome. I mean, you know, she was struggling to get an answer for all of her myriad symptoms that doctors just could not put the pieces of the puzzle together. Yeah, I always say, you know, if you have a bunch of problems and symptoms and you go to the doctor uh and the doctor's like well

your lapters are fine i can't find anything wrong it means one of two things either you're crazy or the doctor's missing something yeah and it's nine times out of ten maybe you know 99 times out of 10 out of 100 the doctor's missing something and it's because we're not trained how to think this way, like we do in functional medicine, which is what we do here at the Ultra Bono Center in Lenox. And we're not trained how to navigate to the cause. So we just like, oh, you've got this diagnosis. We know what drug to give you,

but we don't really know how to think differently about this disease from the root cause perspective and how to restore health. And that's what we do. And you sort of saw the clues. You saw the smoking gun, which is a CD57. You dug deeper. And then what did you do for her? Well, I actually put her on a course of doxycycline antibiotics. And I actually combined that with silver. And I don't know if you've used that, but if you actually... Silver sort of turbocharges the effects of antibiotics uh some doctors actually give it intravenously but i've had a fairly good success orally yeah yeah so i've i combined

argentine 23. like yeah the silver salt not the colloidal silver but the uh the nanoparticle silver like argentin 23 or uh i used silver cylinder in her particular case i think they're they're they're pretty much identical and uh she had a very good response uh with that and then i also added in some artemisia which they they use um uh for malaria yeah it's an herb an herb exactly it's an herb exactly and in fact they actually won the nobel prize for that a couple of years ago and And that helps with the other forms because the tricky thing about Lyme is that Lyme can take the regular bacterial spirochetal form, cell wall deficient form,

and also the round body form, which is the more chronic. Yeah. So they're different forms, right? Exactly, yeah. And the organisms can go into this stealth mode where for a while they're sort of sitting. They don't want to get caught.

They don't want to get caught. Exactly. By your immune system. Exactly. And Lynn Margolis, who was the wife of Carl Sagan, wrote an excellent article about Lyme and round bodies. Yeah. Really? Yeah.

You haven't read that? No. She was incredible. She discovered the whole mitochondria connection. And the symbiosis theory. Yeah. Yeah. Andosymbiosis theory. And she was a protist. She actually studied these very ancient bacteria and had a real good insight into these organisms.

Because, you know, just like the COVID virus, the COVID virus does not kill people by itself. No, it's the immune system's response to it. Right. So it's how intelligent, if you will, our immune system's responses. And there's a lot of people who get bit by a tick and they're otherwise healthy, they're exercising,

and it doesn't bother them at all. Yeah. You know, they're sort of... I think that's probably why I didn't feel so bad. Right. I think because I ate well, I exercised, tried to take care of myself, and I was sort of in an equilibrium. I didn't feel awesome, but I thought, oh, this is just I'm working too hard,

traveling too much, not sleeping great, like whatever. I sort of dismissed it. Right. But I was like, oh, wow. This is real. And a lot of our patients are struggling because they have other issues too. Yeah. Well, and not only that, but the symptoms do not appear overnight. It's a slow process.

So, you know, it's not like all of a sudden one day, you know, you're going to feel bad. Especially you may get bitten. Your immune system deals with it. And it's sort of sitting in stealth mode for years or months. And then all of a sudden your immune system is compromised because you're not getting enough sleep. You're burning the candle at both ends. And then all of a sudden it can come out, if you will, and reactivate.

So what happened to her? Did you give her antibiotics? Did you give her artemisia? And then I put her on. I followed. Argentine? Yeah, my typical approach, and actually there's a great paper, I don't know if you saw it, about the use of botanicals. So these are herbs which are oftentimes used just like antibiotics.

Now, there are some doctors who will use antibiotics for months or even years. And I've actually seen some of these patients. And I think if you're really sick, perhaps giving intravenous antibiotics can be helpful to sort of cut down on the number of the organisms and to deal with acutely. But at the same time, a lot of antibiotics affect the gut microbiome, they affect mitochondria. So it's a double-edged sword.

Yeah. I mean, we used to work at a place called Kenya Ranch, which is a health resort, and I call us resort doctors. Yeah. The doctors of last resort. So we often see the patients who see everybody else come here after they've done all these other things, including these two years of antibiotics, and are just a mess. yeah the doctors of last resort so we often see the patients who see everybody else come here after they've done all these other things including these two years of antibiotics

and are just a mess exactly and we have to fix them yeah exactly yeah and uh so there was a paper that just recently came out looking at the use of botanicals in patients with uh with lyme disease uh uh growing and then non-growing forms of Lyme disease or the round body forms. And they found a variety of different herbs. The top ones were Japanese knotweed. Yeah, which is like, actually has resveratrol in it, which turns out is a very high, very high in resveratrol, healthy aging compound. Yeah.

And then the other top one was cryptolepis. And then the other one was cat's claw um and these are actually found in various formulations out there there's various treatments out there you might be aware there's the cowden protocol there's the brunner protocol uh so just to back up a little bit traditional medicine three weeks antibiotics you're done uh then there's the sort of group that uses like long-term two years of antibiotics which is a little out of the box and then there's the whole herbal protocols which you're going to get into now so so what are the kinds of categories of herbal protocols you mentioned cowden what other kinds of things yeah there's a there's a there's a cowden protocol and then there's uh the bruner protocol uh which

is he's an herbalist and uh he has uh his uh herbal tinctures there's a byron white uh protocols um and then there's a dr zhang protocol and i what i would say is that i don't think he's a chinese doctor chinese doctor chinese herbs yeah chinese herbs yeah and with one of the most a lot of garlic a lot of garlic exactly garlic garlic is phenomenal keep away uh vampires and lime and biofilms and biofilms yeah garlic is very powerful in biofilms. And biofilms. Yeah. Garlic is very powerful in biofilms. And it's a great thing. I eat garlic almost every day.

I really do. Yeah. Oh, I do too. But this is like a whole next level. I mean, you're basically taking super concentrated garlic pills. And if you live with someone or you have friends, you'll know it. They're going to complain. concentrated garlic pills and if you live with someone or you have friends you'll know it they're gonna complain it's time for you know the moment i would say you could use perfume maybe that's it i don't know right and i think the sparkies don't like it they don't like it either they can crawl

out of you what was that that uh zoolander movie where he had the the new uh scented uh cologne garlic that was kind of like what it's kind of like what it is. So what happened to this young lady? So she is in the process of recovery. You know, she's not 100%, but she's dramatically feeling better. And there is some thought also that when people have chronic Lyme disease, that you never 100% get rid of it. What you do is I think you get the levels of the Lyme in the bodies down,

and then you also improve the immune system, which is, you know, we always do a lot of immune support, things like medicinal mushrooms, which have been shown to increase natural killer cell function, exposure to sauna, infrared light therapy has also been helpful, just also getting out into the sunshine vitamin d i oftentimes will check vitamin d in these patients and they're oftentimes low and one of the things i tell my patients is that there is such a thing as healthy sunshine and sunshine exposure does put sunblock on your face and the rest of your body you can be you know naked exactly yeah and and there's there's really very very healthy benefits for immunomodulation with sunshine exposure, not just vitamin D, but sunshine exposure with ultraviolet radiation.

Absolutely. Yeah. Light is powerful. Yeah. So she got better? She is. Yeah, absolutely. She's on her way to recovery. She's relatively recent. But she's one of many patients that I've seen. And in her case, hers was really interesting because she had this whole combination of POTS.mobility so she had this sort of ehlers danlos type syndrome which i said is oftentimes associated uh with people who tend to get chronic lyme um she had uh bloating which is a form of bacterial overgrowth so she had a lot of these types of uh to fix everything else so the thing is with Lyme, with these patients, we don't just treat the Lyme. We treat their whole system.

So whatever else is going on, heavy metals, gut issues, nutritional deficiencies, hormonal problems, we'll sort those out and that'll help them become more immunoresilient, which is the goal. Yeah, resiliency, absolutely. So Todd, do you think that it's possible to get rid of Lyme? I think if you get an acute infection and you catch it early enough, yes. You know, are we able to get rid of bacteria? Our bodies are, I call our bodies our chimeric organisms. We carry around, you know, billions of bacteria inside of us,

along with various viruses. So we're always exposed to these organisms. So it's our immune system. We're not sterile, you mean? to these organisms so it's our immune we're not sterile you mean we're not sterile exactly we're not sterile that's it we have the skin microbiome we have the oral microbiome we have more than that like we have all these other infections we could have cm cytomegalovirus and epstein-barr virus and we could have pneumocystis crinian you know bacteria we can have all sorts of low-grade tb and all these things that are hiding in us yeah that are just of fine. Like we don't, they don't bother us. But then when our immune system gets nuked by let's say AIDS or by Lyme, which I think is the new AIDS, it actually creates this

havoc where we can't cope with it anymore. And that's when things start to break down. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we do live in a symbiosis. We have bacteria on our skin, we have it in our mouth, we have it in our gut, and along with viruses. And when our immune system is immunotolerant, in other words, it tolerates these organisms, and they're not in the wrong compartment, if you will. And that's actually one of the other things that Lyme does. Lyme goes into the interstitial department, into the connective tissues. Yeah. And the immune system is not out there it hides out exactly hides out that's there yeah exactly and i think that's why those the people who have hypermobility tend to have it more because for whatever reason their connective tissues is um is not normal and

perhaps the immune system can't get in there as well you know i just sort of this whole question of can you get rid of it is an open question and And I kind of tend to agree with you. It's really about learning how to create amino resiliency and put it down. And often we'll see these Eli spot tests come back negative. Like once they get treated, they're not really immune system isn't reacting to it anymore. Exactly. Maybe it's gone. We don't really know a hundred percent, but I just remember this patient I talked to this week who had Parkinson's disease. And he also had multiple tick infections and Lyme disease. And the neurologist was like, didn't pick it up, didn't notice it. And we've been treating him for years. And he was successfully treated for,

and I'll get into that in a minute. But his neurologist was like, I've never a patient with Parkinson's this long, who's doing this great. You're not getting worse. You're stable. You're regressed in your symptoms. It's just incredible. And you know, with him, you know, he was tough and you've got these patients with these tough diseases like dementia or MS. You kind of need a more aggressive approach. It's someone who has brain fog, a little achy, tired, insomnia is one patient. People with these more really serious conditions need more aggressive therapy. And I don't know if you've experienced it, but over the years, I've sort of really opened to what's happening in this space

and trying to understand the kinds of therapies that actually are regenerative, that actually activate the body's capacity to activate its immune system and to heal rather than trying to clobber it with a drug or even an herb. And the herbs can be great. I use herbs and I feel like they work for a lot of patients. But I feel like there's another class of therapies that's emerging that I think is where the money is for these chronic problems that are just resistant. Now, a lot of times with functional medicine, we'll get people better just using the basics. Lifestyle, treat the basics. But there's a group that just doesn't get better. And this group, and people have been sick for decades or really struggling. And I've sort of explored a whole bunch of different things. And what I'm finding is there's a lot of therapies

out there that are sort of off the grid. And the three that are the most, well, I mean, four that are the most seeming prominent and potentially effective are stem cells and exosomes, which are sort of derivatives of stem cells, that seem to help the body heal. I've had a bunch of patients

who've gone and done that, not by mere recommendation, but as a functional medicine doctor or any doctor, you should really listen to your patient. So when they come telling me this worked, that worked, not by recommendation, but as a functional medicine doctor or any doctor, you should really listen to your patient. So when they come telling me this worked, that worked, I pay attention, especially when there's nothing else that's working. I'm like, what did you do?

Tell me about it. Where did you go? What did you see? What happened? Tell me about it. I want to learn. As opposed to most doctors, like, well, that can't be true. I didn't learn about it in medical school.

It was spontaneous remission. Oh, that. Right, right, right. I've heard that so many times. It was spontaneous remission. Oh, that. Right, right, right. I've heard that so many times. Spontaneous remission. I gave a talk at Harvard once, and this guy who invited me was a friend who was a doctor at Harvard.

And I was talking about an autism case that completely, completely reversed. And there was a pediatrician, you know, in the audience. And he's like, well, it could just be spontaneous remission. And then my friend got up and said, you know, it may be,

but it's weird that Dr. Hyman has had like five spontaneous remissions in his practice in the last month. It was very funny. So anyway, with these other treatments, stem cell exosomes one, I think hyperbaric oxygen is another because stem cells help your body heal and repair itself. Hyperbaric oxygen just puts oxygen under pressure, hyperoxygenates you,

which when oxygen is a therapeutic medicine that can help kill infections, basically, you know, people say sunlight's the greatest disinfectant. Well, oxygen is one

of the greatest disinfectants. Absolutely. And so hyperbaric oxygen, when you go in a tank and you sit there for two hours and you go to like dive underwater

equivalent, you know, atmospheric pressure, then there's um treatments that are being used in europe and in mexico which are not available here yeah and some of our colleagues like jay lumber is using this for als yes yeah which is thermal tunnel thermal tunnel hyperthermia yes which i personally experienced because i was i'm always trying stuff and i went to santa vive in mexico i did a podcast about this i did hyperthermia where they literally put me asleep and they heated me up to 107 degrees so i was toasty and todd's like his eyebrows are going up you're still alive yeah i'm still alive

i'm not a ghost and and baked to a crispy crunch i was like i'm all cooked i'm good i just did a little hot dog bun i'm'm fine. You can eat me. And then they gave me antibiotics for Babesia, which I had, and Lyme at the peak of the fever, because it sort of flushes everything out. That's what fevers do. That's what I say. And so it's hyperthermia treatment. And this patient of mine who had Parkinson's went and did that. He said it was a game changer. All of his Lyme symptoms went away, his joint pain, his fatigue, all these other issues. Parkinson's got better. So I think that can be a therapy,, all these other issues. Parkinson's got better. So I think that can be a therapy, although it's very controversial.

It's used a lot in Europe and Mexico. I've sent patients who I have done everything I know how to do, and they just won't get all the way better. And so they go there, and they get better. Nine times out of ten, it's impressive. So your two thoughts here, Mark, and not to interrupt you, but because you're getting my brain going. And I have one more last thing. And you're talking about hyperthermia.

Well, guess how they used to treat syphilis. They actually used to inject malaria to patients to develop a high fever. Really? That was an old way of treating syphilis. See? Yeah, exactly. Everything goes around. The other clinical pearl, and I learned this from a rheumatologist who ended up becoming a Lyme specialist because a rheumatologist see a lot of rheumatologic conditions.

She said, ask your chronic Lyme patients, when was the last time you had a fever? Somehow or another, I think her theory was that the organism sort of hijacks the immune system such that your fever response doesn't. That's so true. You know, I remember when I had chronic fatigue syndrome and I had Lyme, which I didn't know I had, was years ago. I never got a fever. I never got sick. Exactly. Exactly.

Like I just never got like that kind of... And that's a very important question that I ask my patients is when was the last time you had a fever? And it's like, well, years, years ago. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And the last therapy, which is something we do here at the Ultra Wellness Center,

which is very controversial but is used a lot in Europe, and actually there are countries like Italy and Spain and China that are now using it for COVID-19 very successfully, is ozone therapy. Yeah. And it's been around for a long time. It's sort of not very well known in the United States. It's medical ozone therapy. We think ozone is bad, yeah, because it's the ozone layer. Yeah, it's got of not very well known in the United States, medical ozone therapy, we think ozone is bad,

yeah because the ozone layer and ozone. Yeah, it's got negative connotations. It's bad for your lungs and it's terrible for your lungs and cause respiratory fibrosis and you know, scarring and hurting of your lungs, not good. But when you do it intravenously or rectally, it has a profound effect on one, being germicidal, which kills the bugs because it's an oxidant,

and two two it activates your own body's immune system to fight things and it activates your antioxidant systems and when i was really sick i did it and i found the most extraordinary results from it and i i've had multiple patients who've used it and actually i was hearing about this years ago from people i kind of dismissed it i did too i first heard it like oh it's crazy right i heard about this people were doing it and even as a functional medicine doctor i was like oh that's a little wacky and and yet these patients were saying to me you know mark the only time i really got better was when i did ozone yeah and i was like uh maybe it was something else i would sort of dismiss it but then when i got sick

i figured it out and and i've been using it with these patients, and it's so remarkable. Now, I don't know if it actually is curative. No. But it definitely knocks it down, and it activates your immune system. So it changes the equilibrium. So maybe, and then you don't feel sick. Yeah. So I think there's these other therapies, whether it's stem cells and exosomes, hyperbaric oxygen, hyperthermia, ozone therapy, that can help a lot

of these really sick patients that are not getting better. What do you think? Mark, and the other one to put in your black bag is peptides. Absolutely. A good friend of mine, Dr. Ed Lee, who I call him the peptide guru, he's opened up my mind to peptides. And unfortunately, right now, and this is actually, I hope this goes out on the podcast, is that right now the FDA is trying to take away peptides as a therapy for integrative doctors. And they're going under the guise of the compounding regulations. These peptide therapies, which are basically, um, you know, around 40, uh, amino acids in length specifically for Lyme disease and for immune function is one particular peptide called thymus and alpha, which is amazing at immune modulation.

So thymus and is like your thymus gland. And early on our in our um on our life we have very large thymus glands and interestingly you know who are the people right now who don't die from the covet infection children under the age of nine because their immune system is so active exactly and it's sort of it's intelligent and resilient is really what it is yeah because you know i mean we always think of like i'm going to make a stronger immune system. Well, that's sort of like autoimmunity where your body like overreacts. And I think that having a good response with your immune system,

I call it an intelligent immune system response, is directly tied in with thymus function. And as we get older, our thymus gets less. And that's one of the theories is that the active, healthy immune response in kids nine and under they don't die of covet it's the adults right it's sort of causing immunoresilience or immunoresilience rejuvenation exactly it's waking up the immune system and so peptide uh i personally

have not used that in uh lyme disease although yeah i not yet exactly i will it's coming i can hear it exactly exactly yeah and uh so that another thing. And so there are other tools and there is no one size fits all. I think ozone, hyperthermia, peptides, hyperbaric oxygen, all of these things have their place. the same and i think this is my experience is that this is super customized based on the patient personalized on on what their illness and symptoms are how they respond to different therapies so we don't start off with the big guns we start with simple things which often will work for a lot of people yeah but then we have a whole toolkit of things to work from yeah that sometimes i'll just use herbs sometimes i will use antibiotics sometimes i don't sometimes I'll just use herbs. Sometimes I will use antibiotics. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'll use ozone therapy first. It just depends on what I'm seeing. And I think it's really important for people to understand who suffer from these chronic

problems that there is a solution, that there is a way to diagnose it, that there are a lot of novel treatments out there that are not being used by conventional medicine, and that people can get better from this. Right. And the big thing is, I look and look at these treatments, these alternative treatments, is really sort of the risk-benefit ratio. You know, what is the benefit and how much risk is it?

Yeah. And hyperbaric oxygen is really pretty... Safe. It's very safe. Exactly. And ozone is very safe. Peptides are safe. Exactly.

Hyperthermia, you know, is maybe a little more risky. Yeah. But depending on the risk-benefit, if you're super sick and it's not as risky as maybe taking antibiotics for two years. Exactly. And, you know know stem cells are pretty safe if they're on your own stem cells Exosomes are safe. So there's a lot of these things have a good benefit ratio

And I think you know, it's really it's sort of an equation of is there a scientific rationale for this? Is it you know has some evidence of clinical effectiveness? Is it safe and What are the costs? Exactly, yeah. You know, and so we put that calculus together. We go, okay, well, these are the kinds of things we can try. Yeah, and you're like me, Mark. You always are like, you know, what is the scientific evidence of this?

We always are like, what's the mechanism? How does this work? Because we're intellectually curious, and we've been trained in biochemistry. And I always tell my patients, you know, if swinging a dead chicken over your head cures you that's great because i don't know how it works but if it works there's no there's no harm in it it's gonna swing the dead chicken exactly i haven't used the chicken cure yet but i'm gonna put it in my toolkit well todd thank you so much for listening uh to this podcast everybody and thank you todd for being on it you know if you

suffer from any of these problems we at the ultra wellness center here are very skilled and experienced in treating these complex chronic issues that nobody else can figure out we now do all our consoles virtually we can see people in-house but they don't need to come in and we do lots of treatments with ozone or other therapies ib nutrition we do peptides and so. And we really do help people navigate this landscape from a very, I think, balanced perspective. We're not extreme. We're very thoughtful, very methodical. And we look for the evidence where it's there and we push the envelope where we can, where it's safe. And we see some really remarkable turnarounds for people who've been really sick for decades sometimes. So I'm just so happy that everybody's listening to this

and that if you know someone who has some kind of chronic mysterious illness or has diagnosed with chronic Lyme or other co-infections, there is a way out. And sometimes it takes not the first person you see, not the 10th person you see, sometimes it's the 15th person. But I would not give up and i would not you know sign off on your life until you really dug all the um pull out all the rocks and looked under them and i'll leave also mark with with a ray of hope because a lot of people who are like this don't

have a ray of hope and i'll always tell my patients you know that little bit of humor is always good to say there's light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train coming at you that's a good one we'll leave you with that there's light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train coming at you. That's a good one. We'll leave you with that. There's light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train. And there is hope. And I don't want people to give up hope because we really, we, you know,

I, you know, one of the most frustrating things I hear in medicine is we don't want to give patients false hope. And I don't think that's a good statement because for the most part with functional medicine, there's always something to do. There's always a way to improve someone's health. You may not fix everything all the time,

but you can definitely see dramatic improvements, and so I think this is really why we're here, why we're at the Cultural Wellness Center, and it's why I do this podcast, to help people understand that there are different ways of thinking about health and disease and how to create a healthy humanity. So thank you all for listening.

Thank you, Todd, for being on the podcast. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family on social media. If you want to come see us at the Ultra Wellness Center, go to ultrawellnesscenter.com. And you can go to the Get Started page and teach all about what we do and how to get connected. And please share this with your friends and family. Leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm

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and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine

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