Lemon or Lyme? Part 1

Chronic illness steals more than your health—it can rob you of your identity and everything you once loved. For Shira Haid, a classically trained musician and clinical massage therapist, the onset of multiple tick-borne illnesses, including Lyme disease, marked the beginning of a devastating transformation. What began as extreme fatigue in 2014 quickly spiraled into debilitating pain, cognitive dysfunction, and the loss of her independence.

The road to diagnosis proved maddening. Despite having a physician father actively helping with her care, Shira endured nearly two years of deteriorating health before finally discovering the root cause. Along the way, she faced shocking examples of medical gaslighting—being accused of drug use, labeled a "Lyme loony," and even receiving suggestions from a doctor about how she "should kill herself next time." These experiences highlight the profound ignorance and dismissal many chronic illness patients face when seeking help.

Perhaps most heartbreaking was Shira's disconnection from her artistic self. "For a very long time, my thought process was what is the point? There's no point in my artwork anymore, there's no point in doing music anymore, because that's over," she reveals. This creative death felt as painful as her physical symptoms, leaving her a shell of her former self.

The financial reality of chronic Lyme disease compounds these challenges. With insurance companies refusing coverage—even after the CDC's recent acknowledgment that Lyme can be chronic—Shira estimates her family has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on treatments. Not everyone has this privilege, leading many patients to attempt creating their own treatment protocols out of desperation.

Yet through therapy, nutritional changes, and gradually reconnecting with her creative passions, Shira has begun the slow journey back to herself. When she finally sang again after years of silence, the experience brought tears and a flood of emotions, reminding her of the person she once was and could be again.

Have you experienced medical gaslighting or the grief of losing parts of your identity to illness? Share your story in the comments and join our community of resilient chronic illness warriors helping each other find a path forward.

Are you living with a chronic illness and want to make your voice heard? Rare Patient Voice connects patients and caregivers with research opportunities—so you can share your experiences and get paid for your time! Your insights help drive real change in healthcare.

Let's Get Started - Rare Patient Voice

Chapters

• 0:16 Meeting Shira Haidt
• 2:43 Early Symptoms and Seeking Answers
• 7:50 The Creative Identity Lost
• 17:25 Medical Gaslighting and Misdiagnosis
• 27:06 Financial Burden of Chronic Illness
• 34:45 Weight Loss and Nutrition Journey
• 37:50 Episode Closing and Part Two Preview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome back to my Spoonie Sisters, and today we are diving into a story of resilience, reinvention and reclaiming identity after chronic illness. Our guest, shira Haidt, is a musician, a composer, writer and artist whose life took an unexpected turn when she was diagnosed with multiple tick-borne illnesses, including Lyme disease, babesia and Bartonella. Now, that's a little bit of a mouthful. Before getting sick, shira was a clinical massage therapist living independently in Chicago, balancing her career with her love for the arts. But when her health declined, she was forced to give up everything Her career, her independence and even her ability to create. For years, she struggled not just with her physical health but with the medical gaslighting, financial burdens and emotional toll that come with chronic illnesses. But now, after a decade-long battle, shira is rediscovering her voice, both literally and figuratively. She recently launched Lemon or Lime, a vlog dedicated to raising awareness, sharing resources and building a supportive community for those navigating life with chronic illness.

Speaker 1: 1:25

In this episode, cheryl opens up about her journey from losing everything to slowly rebuilding her life. We talk about the challenges of getting diagnosed, the struggle of being dismissed by doctors and the power of reconnecting with creativity after illness. She shares the inspiration behind Lemon or Lime, how she is regaining her physical strength, and what it means to show up for yourself, even on the hardest days. If you've ever felt unheard, dismissed or like you've had to start up for yourself, even on the hardest days, if you've ever felt unheard, dismissed or like you've had to start over from scratch, this conversation is for you. So let's dive right in.

Speaker 2: 2:02

Hi Shira how are you today Great? Thank you so much for that beautiful introduction.

Speaker 1: 2:07

And Lenea. Thank you for joining as well. Hopefully Andy can make it. If not, she's with us as in spirit. Can you share?

Speaker 3: 2:14

a little bit about yourself, your passions, background and what led you to where you are today.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Well, I got my BA in theater. I got another BA in radio talent and production. So I didn't start in the sciences. The sciences were not, didn't seem like it was a possibility for me, even though medicine is in the family. And so, after you know college, then I went back to school for clinical massage therapy and that was really my first real exposure to a lot of the sciences. Because of the clinical program that I did, it was required to do biology, physiology, kinesiology, tons of anatomy, so I really got a great foundation for learning about the body.

Speaker 2: 3:08

I was working and, like you said in the introduction and like you said in the introduction, completely independent in Chicago, really enjoying my freedom and my independence and my life. And you know the problem with clinical massage therapy as much as I loved it was the fact that I couldn't make a living just doing that one job. So I added another job in 2014. And it was in 2014 that I started to not feel good and at first, me and my parents, we all thought that what I was feeling was just extreme fatigue and just being worn out because I had been working so much and I was working seven days a week. I never had a day off, maybe, like once a month I'd have a day off. So it really wasn't. There was no work-life balance at that point. But when I first started to feel sick, the first thing that I felt was this extreme, extreme fatigue, and immediately I thought well, this kind of feels like how I had mono in college. I felt this tired, so I immediately go to the doctor to get checked for mono. But it was negative. So I talked to my parents. I would talk to them every day, sometimes more than once a day, and so they were very in the loop as to like what was happening.

Speaker 2: 4:34

After the extreme fatigue, the next symptom was pain like muscle and joint pain, which I'd never really had. But my clinical massage therapy brain was telling me well, maybe I'm not taking care of myself, I'm just overworking myself to death. So I started putting things into my life, like getting a massage for myself, which a lot of therapists forget to do, going to physical therapy twice a week. I went to a nutritionist and tried different diets, and even though I was putting in place all of these positive things that logically should have started to make me feel a little better, I wasn't feeling better, I was feeling worse and the symptoms just kept coming.

Speaker 2: 5:21

It was like it was the floodgates just opened. At first it started as a little trickle and then it just kept going. My dad at the time he's retired now, but he was a practicing physician so whenever I called my parents, his brain is working and thinking okay, what is the problem here? Yeah, so he kept having me go to my doctor or go see a specialist, or here I'm going to mail you this test to take it home and mail it in, and then we'll get the results back. It was about a year and a half of all of that and I was getting worse and worse and worse and we just couldn't figure out what it was.

Speaker 3: 6:07

Even having your own father as a physician, he was even struggling. Father as a physician, he was even struggling. And that I mean, I think that puts perspective in to those patients that don't have physicians in their family. You understand, absolutely no, they're most of them.

Speaker 2: 6:23

Do try, not all of them, but most of them do right. And, of course, you know my dad. He's really trying because he's hearing me yeah, as I'm a baby and like he's hearing me struggling and they lived up in Wisconsin at the time, so they were a couple hours away, so it got really bad. When I went to stay with them, it was supposed to just be like a two week break, you know, and leading up to the year and a half that I was just kind of going downhill. I woke up one morning and I couldn't move. It was too painful to move. So I and I remember it was December 15th 2015. It's like a date I will always remember.

Speaker 2: 7:10

And my mom I called my mom right away and I'm crying because I'm having trouble moving and getting out of bed. And she says okay, I want you to call your jobs all work and let them know that you have to take a medical leave of absence. And she said I will come get you lay in bed as long as you need to, and when I get there, we'll just pack a bag for two weeks and you'll just come up and rest. And that was 10 years ago, nine, 10 years ago. I've been with them ever since.

Speaker 3: 7:42

So I see in your background you have music and theater and writing and visual arts. How has that creative outlet shaped your identity before and then now?

Speaker 2: 7:54

So before it was my entire identity. I have, you know, sometimes I had a lot of creative people are like this. Sometimes I have trouble verbalizing what I want to say or how I'm feeling, and that's when art comes in. You know, because there are. You know, I can sketch something. I do more abstract work, so I can sketch something. That is is how I would describe myself at my core. But even that last year and a half, two years that I was on my own before I got sick, I had already stopped playing my music and I had already stopped writing. And then after and I was so afterwards, when I was finally living with my parents, I didn't touch the piano and I didn't touch my paints, or, you know, pick up my sketchbook or look at any of my notebooks, it was like it was like all a reminder of everything I had lost and a life that I started playing my music again and I've actually written some new music, which is something I haven't done in a decade.

Speaker 1: 9:18

That's so tough. That's so tough, I think, when there's something that we love, that we enjoy and we're passionate about and all of a sudden we're finding this new normal and we're feeling like these things are ripped away from us. There's not really a great way of describing that. Right, your life has changed forever and now it's like okay, do I? Do I try to get back into these things and and find a way that I can implement them in my life again? Or do I have to find something else to be passionate about?

Speaker 2: 9:46

Well, and and when I was in the thick of it and at my worst, my mom because she knows me so well, we're like best friends she just she kept saying to me why don't you go play the piano, or what? Because my parents had a baby grand. Why don't you go play the piano? Why don't you write some music? Why don't you? You know, she even mentions like why don't you see if there's any like community theater around here or something? And I just kept shaking my head, no, no.

Speaker 2: 10:18

And finally one day she asked me why don't you want to do your music anymore? And I said because there's no point. You know, when you're in such a deep dark place and you can't see any light down the tunnel, it's just black and you don't know when or if this nightmare will ever end. For a very long time, my thought process was what is the point? There's no point in my artwork anymore, there's no point in doing music anymore, because that's over. This is my life. Now I'm going to be sick and it was really just a lot of therapy that brought it, helped me to bring it back and helped me to put all of that back into my life, which I feel has made me feel more like myself again for the first time in a long time.

Speaker 3: 11:02

I'm so glad you were able to get back into your music because I have friends that have different talents like that and you can tell when they're not doing it how much it affects them and they don't see it because they don't realize it's just part of their world, it's part of their normal and not having it. I'm sure that affected you. I'm so, I'm glad that you're writing again and playing, even if I actually have.

Speaker 2: 11:27

Yeah, totally, totally, and I actually. So I was lived with my parents for and I still am living with them. So it's been a long time. It's been 10 years now. So I think it was once I was diagnosed and started treatment and it had been a couple of years. I had been in therapy for a couple of years.

Speaker 2: 11:46

I was up in Wisconsin with my parents and I didn't have any friends. I didn't have anyone there that I knew that I wanted to hang out with, and so I would kind of tag along with my parents whenever they would go see their friends. And one of their friends, her name was Linda. She was a retired music teacher, and so one of the times my parents and I were over at her house, she just kind of nudged at me and was like so your parents tell me that you're a singer. And I said, well, I was. And she said you know, ever want to just sing something? Call me and you can come over and we'll jam a little bit. And it took me a couple of years to actually take her up on her offer did I went to her house and I didn't have any of my music books on me, because all of my stuff.

Speaker 2: 12:43

My entire apartment had been in storage for eight years at that point, I think. And so she says that's okay, I have tons of music. And she says how about we just warm up first? So any singer out there knows you have to warm up before you start singing. It's like athletes stretching kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 12:58

So I start doing my warm up and once I get up to my sweet spot of my range and you have to understand, I was classically training in opera for six years, so I'm like like I don't just sing in the shower kind of singer so we get up to my sweet spot, where I feel the best, and then I started crying and Linda was like, are you okay? And I said it's been a really long time. And then she asked me you know, would you mind if I ask why you haven't done any of your music in this long? And I said to her too, because I didn't see a point. I think a lot of people, anyone who becomes depressed, it's easier to let those things fall away, all the things that you loved, because you're in such a deep hole that you can't imagine those things, finding joy in those things anymore, as opposed to doing them and seeing a life that doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 1: 13:58

And I think sometimes we don't even notice that these things are dropping out of our lives. Sometimes we're very aware, but occasionally they just kind of fade. And then one day it's somebody asking why haven't you been doing X, Y or Z? And that's when it clicks Wow, Wow, Like I haven't done this in forever. Now you're over at her house and you're doing these warmups. How did?

Speaker 2: 14:21

you feel. You know, maybe this is how runners feel when they run. When I sing, it's like a warmth throughout my whole body.

Speaker 2: 14:30

So I think, yeah, like I think there's endorphins flying and there's, you know, all kinds of good chemicals and those chemicals I hadn't seen them in a while, the good chemicals. So it was kind of an aha moment like man, I really do have to put this back in my life. But the thing is with me is I will only full out sing my opera and I will only do my belting with musical theater. I'll only do that when my parents are at home. It's just a weird thing that I have.

Speaker 2: 15:01

But yeah, but it does bring back something. It is got to a place. I got to a place where it was a nice reminder of who I am at my core and you know what this is important to bring back into my life. But yeah, I think since I sang at my parents' friend's house, linda, that's when I started to just kind of try and put these things back into my life. And I think that doing the things that I love again, paired with the therapy I love again paired with the therapy, I think that is what has made me feel like myself again.

Speaker 1: 15:48

Okay, so before discovering that you have Lyme disease, you were diagnosed with several other conditions, such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. How did that affect your trust in the medical system?

Speaker 2: 15:57

Oh, I mean. So my dad's a doctor and my mother's a psychotherapist, so I have always had a high regard and respect for people in the medical field because I know how much training they have to do. I understand all that. So I've always kind of had them up on a pedestal. But when I was getting these diagnoses like fibromyalgia, I even got diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. What the doctors didn't know was that I was a clinical massage therapist. I know what those things are because many of my patients had fibromyalgia or plantar fasciitis and so I knew what those looked like. And the picture of fibromyalgia or plantar fasciitis did not describe what I was feeling. So I would you know, sometimes I would just kind of nod along and say, okay, sometimes I would politely disagree and say you know, this is not plantar fasciitis. But a lot of doctors don't like when you correct them, which I'm sure you all have had experience with.

Speaker 1: 17:09

How did medical gaslighting that you experienced, how did it impact your mental health and your self-perception?

Speaker 2: 17:16

I think that it made me worse. I think it was almost like all of these digs over a period of time. It starts to chip away at you when it keeps happening over and over. And I remember the first time a doctor said to me that I was on drugs. I must be on drugs. I started laughing at the guy and he was like you think this is funny? And I said you don't understand. I am like the most straight laced person. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do anything. I said so the fact that you think I'm on something is kind of funny. And I said, and I bet I said no, no, you're convinced that you know this about me after what you just met me three minutes ago. I bet you can't even pronounce my name without looking at the computer screen right now. But you're certain that this is true, that you have me pegged. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:08

And I remember the guy. He leaves the room for a minute and I figured, ok, we're, we're done, because I just insulted him and he comes back in with pamphlets of drug addict support groups. So I kind of like pushed them away back to him. I said I don't need these. And he says yeah, you do. I said no, I don't. And I threw them down on his keyboard and I left. But the crappy thing, the really infuriating thing, was that I had to pay for that visit. The really infuriating thing was that I had to pay for that visit. That's the part that I'm like man. I can't even stick it to this guy because I have a co-pay and he's still going to get paid, even though he insulted me and just threw out a label after meeting me for three minutes. But that wasn't even the worst.

Speaker 2: 18:56

The second time I was accused of being on drugs was when I had already gone to visit not visit live with my parents. I had been with them for I don't even know how many months. I remember I just packed a bag for two weeks. So my parents started coming with me to doctor's appointments because at this point it was really in a bad way. At this point in my illness we still didn't know what was going on. I was having trouble walking and I was having trouble speaking. So my parents would come with me because I couldn't speak for myself at this point and I couldn't make decisions. I was just in a constant fog and my cognitive abilities were just not there.

Speaker 2: 20:06

So we're sitting in this exam room with a infectious disease doctor and again we don't know what's going on. But my dad, he starts talking doctor to the infectious disease doctor and is letting the doctor know like okay, here's where her white blood cell count, and here's this. And we checked this and this was negative. And this was negative. And so, and then we gave the guy a whole list of all the meds that I was on and all the supplements that I was on.

Speaker 2: 20:36

And then the doctor says I would like to ask Shira about her sexual history. So if you wouldn't mind, could you two go out in the hallway and just give us a minute? And my parents looked at me and I just nodded my head like yeah, that's fine. And so my parents went out into the hallway and immediately the doctor turns around, puts his face in my face and says okay, tell me what you're on. And again, I'm having trouble speaking at this point. So I just pointed to the computer screen and I said we gave you what I'm on, like all of the meds. And he says no, no, no, not that Street drugs, what are you on?

Speaker 1: 21:22

Okay, so this happened to you not once, but twice.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Two different doctors what the hell is wrong with them and I can't remember what I said. I may have said nothing because, again, I was having trouble communicating at this point, but as soon as we left I told my parents what happened and I said I'm never seeing that man again. So I have been gaslit in different ways. The being accused of being on drugs happened at least twice, but I've been accused of all kinds of other things. I've been accused of all of this being psychosomatic, as if this is all like a hypochondria situation or oh, you must be looking for attention. And I always thought that I just had really crappy luck with doctors, because I always got these jerks, you know. And it wasn't until after I got diagnosed and a few years after that, that I finally found a community online of other Lyme's to talk to that I finally understood and realized that other people were experiencing the same thing, and what I was experiencing was called medical gaslighting, and it was incredible not in a good way, but it was incredible to see that, oh my God, this doesn't just happen to me, it's not just bad luck. Other people are experiencing the same thing. So that means that this is a systemic issue in the medical community that they jump to label, criticize, shame, instead of either figuring out what the issue really is or, two, saying you know what? I don't think I'm going to be able to help you, but let me give you the name of someone or refer you to someone who might.

Speaker 2: 23:12

So again, I've lived with my parents for 10 years now when this kept happening to me, with different doctors and different things have been said. One doctor told me how I should kill myself next time. I know, I know the first thing that I did when this guy. I was meeting him for the first time because I was looking for a new neurologist, because we had moved. And on the intake form they always ask you please list all your medications and please list all the supplements you are taking. So when you have Lyme disease, there's a really long list. So that is always what gives me away as having some disease. So the doctor looks at it and goes what are you taking all this for?

Speaker 2: 24:08

And I said I'm being treated for three tick-borne illnesses, and I purposely don't say Lyme disease out of the gate, because just the words Lyme disease scares the crap out of doctors. It's a very weird thing to have happen and it happens a lot, unfortunately. So when I say three tick-borne illnesses, they're a little bit more accepting of that. But he said Borrelia burgdorferi, what's that? And I said that's Lyme disease. That's when he flipped the switch and changed his tune. He called me a Lyme loony. What he called me a Lyme loony and he said you know, whoever's treating you is just scamming you for money.

Speaker 2: 24:51

I was trying to be very polite but also firm with him. I said look, the fact that you don't know what Borrelia burgdorferi is tells me that you don't know anything about Lyme disease, because that is basic, that's what it's called. So then he said oh well, there's no ticks around here, you know that right. And I said that's actually not true. There's ticks. I said we're in the Midwest, there are a lot of ticks here.

Speaker 2: 25:15

And I said does it help to say that this is not a clinical diagnosis? I actually have blood work that shows that I have these diseases. And so then this man he looks again at my medication list and he sees one of the medications that I'm on for my migraines and he says well, I want to get you off of this. And I said well, I don't want to get off of it, because that has been reducing my headaches each month, and he said you know? First he asked me. He says have you ever attempted suicide? And I said yes, and he says you know, all you have to do is take a bottle of this and you're done, you're gone. So, needless to say, I reported that man to the state. Of course, I never heard anything about it, so he's probably still working, but it's really alarming to hear how doctors treat people with a chronic illness, especially if they don't know anything about the chronic illness.

Speaker 1: 26:17

What was the turning point where you decided to trust yourself and to keep searching for the right answers and the right practitioner?

Speaker 2: 26:26

Certainly, with tick-borne illnesses it's very hard to find a practitioner. A lot of it is word of mouth and just doing your own research online ILADS, which is the International Lyme and Associated Disease Society. They have a search function on their website so that you can find a practitioner, but every practitioner is unfortunately not in this list. So I literally have found my current one I found through a Google search and once you've had it a while, you kind of know what you're looking for in a way, and I always call the practitioner's office to ask a couple questions like what guidelines do you use? What do you treat solely with antibiotics or do you do a combination of antibiotics and herbals? Those are things that are important to ask when you're looking for a practitioner in the tick-borne illness field. It was the second practitioner that I had was actually it was because of him that I got diagnosed and I'm not going to say his name because he doesn't actually work in the field anymore. During COVID he kind of left his tick-borne disease practice and started treating COVID patients. But when I had come up with my parents, to my parents and was staying with them and you know we're going to doctors probably once a week I am sleeping 20 some hours a day and, like I said, I was having trouble walking, speaking. I just was not there anymore.

Speaker 2: 27:58

My dad, who was still practicing at the time, he went to a conference and at the conference he ran into this guy and the two of them kind of became buddies. They were lunch buddies together at the conference and so my dad started sharing with this man all the things that were going on with me. And this man was listening and he said you know, your daughter may have Lyme disease. So the man recommended a book. I actually have the book right here. This is like the Bible for us. It's called why Can't I Get Better by Dr Richard Horowitz.

Speaker 2: 28:34

So the guy suggested that you know, we get this book, and so my dad did. He read through it and there was a questionnaire by the same doctor, dr Richard Horowitz, that is actually used kind of as a diagnostic tool, because the other diagnostic tools don't work so well. This questionnaire is pretty comprehensive. So reading this book and of course I couldn't read it at the time because of how foggy I was but this man, he guided us to this book and he guided us to this diagnosis, even though when I was still in Chicago, I did get a Lyme disease test, but it was negative, and that happens a lot with the current diagnostic tools, which is a two-tier testing. A lot of people get false negatives or false positives and it's really not accurate, but for some reason the CDC still recommends using it, even though it doesn't have a very good track record.

Speaker 3: 29:39

Okay, so the financial burden of chronic illness is often overlooked a lot in the health industry and in our lives. How have you navigated the challenges of accessing treatment that isn't covered by insurance?

Speaker 2: 29:56

Yes, yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up, because, even though the CDC came out in late 2023 and admitted that, oh yeah, Lyme disease can be chronic, For years and years they were saying, no, it's not chronic. All of these patients are crazy or they're making it up or they're complaining or whatever. So the CDC has finally admitted yes, this is chronic. Now the problem is that insurance hasn't caught up to that and so every single thing that a patient needs to combat tick-borne diseases is not covered. So that means blood tests, that means doctor visits and follow-up visits, and then all of the medications, which I actually just put up on my Instagram what my meds look like. I have an entire pull-out cabinet and then a drawer on top full of meds, and those are current meds. So, seeing that people should understand that every single thing is paid out of pocket Insurance companies even if you submit to insurance companies afterwards like a super bill or something from your practitioner, they're not going to cover it because you're being treated for Lyme disease or another tick-borne disease.

Speaker 2: 31:16

I think part of that is misinformation and misunderstanding that these diseases are serious. They're life-altering and oftentimes debilitating. Many people who come down with a tick-borne disease, many people have to quit their jobs. Many people end up on disability, like myself. Many people start to have to need mobility aids and all kinds of assistance and the fact that all of that assistance is not covered. It's awful, and luckily my parents have been in a position that we have been able to afford everything out of pocket. It's probably, over the last 10 years, been tens of thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point, and people are going broke because they can't afford this and once they stop treatment or maybe they couldn't start treatment to begin with because it's not covered they get sicker and sicker. So it's really not good. I wish that insurance companies would change their tune and recognize that these diseases are serious and debilitating and people need help.

Speaker 3: 32:29

Yeah, I understand that Even with RA there's stuff I use that's not paid for by insurance.

Speaker 2: 32:38

It doesn't make any sense. I think we all have different diseases.

Speaker 1: 32:41

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:42

We use tools that make us feel better, because medication isn't always the complete answer to feel better. Right, right, I feel bad that every person with Lyme disease isn't covered, which is ridiculous. That's another story.

Speaker 2: 32:57

There are a lot of people who try and do this themselves. I don't know how they're doing it. I've heard of people using chat, GBT to create a protocol because they can't afford to go to a professional. So they're trying to do it themselves, which I mean. I've been studying this stuff for a decade now and I still wouldn't be able to do it. I can understand a lot of these concepts, but to try and build a protocol and then continue to adjust it depending on how your symptoms ebb and flow, it to me would be impossible. But I know people do it because that's the only option.

Speaker 3: 33:36

Exactly it is. So that kind of goes into my next question about nutrition. I'm going to make it kind of a two part. You've lost. So you've said you've lost 70 pounds after gaining over 100 in the early stages of your illness. I can understand that I have lost about that much over the last few years. Awesome, so it's hard. Oh my God. Yes. What has helped you the most to prioritize your health again, and how does nutrition play a huge role in your chronic illness management?

Speaker 2: 34:10

So with tick-borne diseases as well as a lot of other chronic illnesses, an anti-inflammatory diet is recommended. You know a lot of us with chronic illnesses we have a lot of inflammation because our bodies are tripping out, and that is the body. But more than one practitioner that I've had has wanted me to add animal protein because a lot of the meds that I'm on work better with animal protein. So, despite my love for animals, I have put back some animal protein. I eat poultry now, but that is the food.

Speaker 2: 35:04

The intake and what you're intaking has been the only way that I was able to get down on the scale Because, like a lot of people with chronic illnesses, exercising is just not possible.

Speaker 2: 35:18

A lot of us have that post-exertional malaise. A lot of people have that, and my problem was not only the malaise afterwards and the extreme fatigue, but it would be pain for days afterwards and even if I wasn't doing anything very rigorous, if I was, just my mom kept trying to get me outside and like walk a block. It was very hard to do because it was so painful. And so most of the weight that I have lost has been more about portion control, which is hard, because I love bread and sandwiches and sweets and you know. But yeah, I gained so much fat, all the good stuff. I gained so much weight, you know, because of the illness. And then I also was living with mom again and mom is an amazing baker, so she was baking all the time trying to make me feel better. So I'm sure that the cookies and brownies didn't help, but not moving was the biggest problem.

Speaker 1: 36:19

We have so enjoyed having you on Shiraira. Thank you and actually surprise. We're going to have you come back next week for part two. Stay tuned and until next time, don't forget your spoon.