Erin

Hi everybody. What a do baby boo. Happy Tuesday. Damn. What a Tuesday again? What

Josh

the hell is wrong with us?

Erin

Listen, it all revolves

Josh

around childcare. Oh my goodness. In-laws. Maybe think about being available on something outside of a Tuesday.

Erin

Listen, you need to stop hating on Tuesday. Tuesday's a fine day.

Josh

It's just a slug

Erin

wow. Hurtful. It is what it is. How are you

Josh

on this Tuesday? Nope. What's lighting you up today? Oh, what's light me up? Get outta here dude. We had a whole conversation about this. True.

Erin

It's true. Okay. What's lighting me up today is that we started our day with a Five mile walk. It was 65 degrees blue skies. It was glorious. There we go. Talking about the weather.

Josh

No, but this is different. But it hit, yeah, it slapped us all over the face. Ugh.

Erin

It was glorious. We talked the time. It was great. So what, I guess you're great, what you can do when you don't have a fire,

Josh

you when you're inlaws are watching your daughter on a Tuesday,

Erin

they're going to the state fair. So that's cute. Yeah. What's sl you up today? Hmm. Dude, that's

Josh

still your answer. Sorry. You totally did. I had that one on deck too. Is there something in my teeth? You keep looking at my teeth. You just have

Erin

beautiful teeth. Thanks. I'm admiring

Josh

them something that lights me up. Dude. This freaking salt and stone deodorant has got me. High right now. I know we are not sponsored by then yet.

Erin

This is not an ad, but I'm very, yeah. I'm gonna manifest that collaboration. But damn,

Josh

do we smell good?

Erin

I will never wear perfume again. Wow. This deodorant smells so

Josh

good. I wouldn't go that far, but I just,

Erin

we smell good. Keep getting whiffs of myself. Like, I'll raise my arm to fix my hair and be like, Hmm. Who is she? Like, Usually I really avoid my armpits. Yeah. Because I've always worn, at least for the last five or 10 years, natural deodorant. Mm-hmm. And I'm just gonna be honest the stuff doesn't work usually.

Josh

Like Yeah. This one's hidden. I know. Usually used Hawthorne still great. Yeah. But it's not a dry deodorant. It's like a gel. Yeah, it's like a gel. And so like my armpits would get weird. Kinda like gooey. Yeah. Ew. Pissed. And it didn't like help with sweat at all. Sure. It just masked the BO until noon. Yeah. Reapply. Well this one, I know somn don't tap into our dms. This

Erin

shows what like a nerd I am with nothing better to do, but I've already texted multiple people being like, yo, you gotta buy this

Josh

deodorant. It's so good. So that has laid me out.'cause I'm sitting down here being like, damn, we smell good.

Erin

What sin are you using? The one that I, the sandal and something. Yep. Vir. Vir. Yeah. And then I'm using the other two and they're just lovely

Josh

at the same time. No, I alternate. That's why, that's why you love it.

Erin

Speaking of smells, on our five mile walk this morning, Josh loves to give compLyments and it's like one of my favorite things about you. We were on a walk and this woman was in front of us. Our pace was

Josh

like, we were pushing, we were like speed walking. Yeah, for sure. So we were coming up on this old lady pretty quick.

Erin

Yeah. But apparently she had a nice odor, Josh. Yeah. She was for sure we're in perfume. Yeah. So when we passed her, he was like, you smell great. And I

Josh

said, you smell lovely. Oh.

Erin

And she looked at him like,

Josh

what the fuck? She had no idea how to receive that. I'm probably the first person in 15 years that's told her that

Erin

that's taken the time to sniff her and say,

Josh

you smell lovely. Well, we were downwind y'all, she was wearing like a blue floral shirt with blue capris. She was cute and white and blue tennis shoes. Yeah. she was enjoying her walk. She was, but we were downwind and I could smell her perfume, not my style. Sure. But if you're gonna put that much perfume on, you better gotta compLyment. I'm gonna compLyment you. So I said, you smell lovely

Erin

today. You actually had to say it twice because I think the first time she was like,

Josh

there's no way he's talking to me. He wasn't talking to me. That young man wasn't talking to me. He was talking to the woman that was right next to him. Yeah. Nope. I was talking to you, my lady.

Erin

So you made direct eye contact and said, you smell lovely

Josh

today. Yep. And she was like, you can smell me from behind. And I was like, yes. And it smelled good. It's a compLyment. Receive it.

Erin

Anyway, it was great. Yeah, it was pretty good.

Josh

So smells clearly light me up. They do this book that we're still reading. It's great. The interesting piece about all of this is I felt like I figured this out over an extended period of time on my own. Yes. Maybe the hard way maybe, but classic Josh,

Erin

you learn by doing, which is facts very much your learning style, which is why school didn't work for you. Yes. It's why you've literally started a million businesses. Yes.'cause that's just, that was business school for you. Yep. And I think the same thing is true for all the spirituality stuff is like you just try things. Yeah. You experiment. You find what works or what doesn't work. And now all these books that we're reading, you're like, wait, I did that intuitively,

Josh

I do this. Yeah. Wait, that's in my meditation. Yes. Wait, like, I built out this meditation, right? And I have all these ims and the entire book's, like say I am Yeah,

Erin

yeah. I, I do this all those I am statements the universe like has to abide by Yes. Is what we're learning. And so when you were healing and you were saying, I am healed, all the things, the universe had to abide. It worked. And it's like you have to say it with full conviction, I think is the

Josh

trick. Yeah. And over time, you convinced your brain.

Erin

Yeah. Repetition is key. And so that's what you a hundred percent. How long do you think you spent doing like affirmations or mantras?

Josh

In

Erin

hours? Yeah, like maybe break it down per day. What would it average to when you were at your peak? Oh my goodness.

Josh

Hours.

Erin

Hours a day. Really? Oh yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Was all of that in like meditative states or

Josh

was it just the day in the morning? It was meditative states and then every time I heard an airplane go over. Mm. I love that. Do you? That's, thanks.

Erin

Sorry. Okay. That

Josh

was a little weird. Got really sentimental. Aw. Okay. Rewind Teenie Pie. Nope, I'm leaving that in. I edit this podcast. Nailed. Okay. Go on. That did feel weird. Yep. Did. I was like, and then like, do you have a sentimental piece with airplanes? I do actually. We live semi close to a private airport, so like propeller planes and things like, that'll fly over. And so every time I heard it, I would do affirmations. I think,

Erin

because when we moved here and When we moved into this house, first of all, we bought this house on FaceTime from out of state, which was terrifying. Yep. Meaning when we first saw the, in the inside of the house, like in person, we were signing papers to take the keys. Yeah. And there was no going back at that point. After that day we came back in to, we were gonna redo the floors and do a couple things. And the place wreaked of cigarette smoke, like it smelled like people had been smoking inside for somebody been smoking for years. cause she did. Yeah. Not the people before us, but generations ago. And then there was also a gas leak in the back there Sure. Was yard that was gonna be like thousands of dollars. anyway, there was all these things that made me feel wildly anxious. Yeah. And what the fuck did we just do? Yeah. oh, and then another thing was that airplanes kept flying over our house. It was like every 10 minutes. And I was like, oh no, that's gonna be so disruptive. I hate that. But over time that became a thing for me too, where I was like, okay, every time I hear an airplane, it's gonna remind me to be present and grateful. I don't even hear'em anymore. Yeah, me either. Yeah. They just blend in. But. Yeah, that's why I went, oh yeah, I used to do that. Sorry,

Josh

go on. So now everyone knows. Thank you for that. Anyways, it's been fun to read that and be like, oh, I do that. I had to maybe learn it the hard way, but now you're learning it. Because you learn via books.

Erin

I love a syllabus, I love a teacher, I love a test. Yep. All those things. All the things that you don't,

Josh

so it's fun seeing you have like aha moments. Yeah. You're like, oh my gosh. Highlight. Oh my gosh. Highlight, oh my gosh. Highlight. And I'm reading being like, this is, I is hysterical.

Erin

I, all of my spirituality books, power of Now, untethered Soul, this new one Happy Pocket Full of Money, probably 60% of the words in the books are highlighted. That's how Yeah. Like much, they're blowing my mind.

Josh

Yeah, there you go. Put'em into practice. Yep.

Erin

That's the hard part. So what are we talking about today, Blach?

Josh

We're talking about the bitch of a disease called Lyme. Wmp.

Erin

Wom. And first and foremost, can we all just take a moment to know that it is Lyme? Not

Josh

without an Ss.

Erin

Not lys. Lys.

Josh

It is just Lyme from a tick or any blood sucking insect ly, not Lymes. We

Erin

repeat Lyme, not Lymes,

Josh

actually, just in the past month. Multiple people in person and in my dms,

Erin

Lymes. Lymes. I know. Very smart. Doctors who call it lys drives me, Don. But I assure you, drives

Josh

me bonkers. Donkers. It drives me donkers. Okay. Keeping that one in too. Lyme disease. That's what we're talking about today. I feel like, you know, we're knowledgeable about the topic

Erin

topic. Josh has some lived

Josh

experience and you have some book experience. Yes.

Erin

We've both learned a lot. I wouldn't say I am an expert, but I know more than I did three years ago. That's

Josh

for sure. Fact. And you may have line, but your body's doing okay with it. Yeah. So here we go. We'll talk about that too. Yeah.

Erin

So we wanna start, first I think not everybody is familiar with Lyme. If you have heard of Lyme, you probably have heard of it. In relation to like the bullseye rash. If you get a tick bite, and yes, that is something that

Josh

Can happen 25% only.

Erin

Yes. So there's lots of myths about. Lyme disease. First lemme just say, so Lyme is the most prevalent, tick-borne or vector borne is another word for that. I say vector borne because it, we are finding now that it's not just ticks, it can also be carried by mosquitoes. Spiders, yes. Blood sucking insects. Yes. Biting insects. Blood sucking. Blood sucking. But these, I don't think spiders, I think take that out. I don't think that's true.

Josh

Spiders don't suck your

Erin

blood. I don't think so. They give you venom.

Josh

Oh. Oh. But, oh, see, I'm learning. You are. Wow. I'm keeping that in.

Erin

There you go.

Josh

Yeah. So it's not, to my knowledge, it's not all blood sucking insects. It's insects that exchange a bite for saliva in your bloodstream.

Erin

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not an insect like person. Keep going in this.

Josh

Okay. Are you still here guys?

Erin

Okay. This is going great. So it's the most prevalent, most common vector-borne illness in the United States. And it is caused by a bacteria called Borrelia Bergy and it has sounds like Harry Potter. It does all of the Lyme and co-infections to me sound like Harry Potter spells.

Josh

There's not sponsored by them, by

Erin

Harry Potter. Yeah, there's Borrelia, Burgdorferi, there's Bartonella, Babesia, Anaplasma, Erlichia, Ricketsia. They all have a magic spell to them. It's like Italian sort of. But it is transmitted via tick or mosquitoes or We're also learning that it can be transmitted in utero, like from mom to baby. I think we're

Josh

another blood sucking

Erin

the biggest parasite of all. But I think we're hearing more about it because there's been some celebrities with Lyme and it's just coming more to,

Josh

It's finally being talked about more.

Erin

Yes. Because it's so prevalent. I should have looked at the numbers, but hundreds of thousands. Yeah. And. There's reasons for that many some of which are, first of all, we know that it's not just ticks anymore. It can be mosquitoes, which of course are everywhere. Historically it was thought that Lyme is really only, in the northeast, so Connecticut and Vermont and areas like that. But these ticks, these deer ticks that carry Lyme and co-infections, which may be started there. But they can be carried on like the specific species of songbird, I think, that migrates. And so as these birds fly, they then drop these ticks. And so now they're everywhere. They're in they're, they're in 49 of 50 states at this point. What's the 50th? Hawaii? So we're moving there.

Josh

No way. Are you serious? Of course. There's no Lyme. There's

Erin

no Lyme. To. To date. I'm sure at some point it will happen, but holy shit. Yeah. What are we doing? I know. Let's all move to Hawaii. But yeah, so it's everywhere now. It's not just in the northeast. There's lots of other myths about Lyme, which we'll get into here in just a bit. But, in its acute form, it will cause things like fever, fatigue, myalgia is like aches and pains migrating. Joint pain is the hallmark symptom of Lyme. we know that if Lyme is not treated or adequately treated, which happens, Most, if not all the time. Yeah. Because again we'll get there in just a bit, but it can then really impact like the nervous system, the heart, the joints. It's Borellia is like this kind of corkscrew shape and it likes to burrow into connective tissue So it can really affect joints, connective tissue, cartilage, things like that. But it's very skilled at evading both our immune system and antibiotics. And that's the conventional treatment is if you go, first of all, if you're lucky enough to even be told that you might have Lyme,

Josh

if you have typically from a bullseye rash, which is only 25% of people that get it. Exactly.

Erin

And also I never saw

Josh

a bullseye rash. No. But I've never even seen a tick on me.

Erin

Yeah, and bullseye rashes, first of all, they don't always look exactly like a bullseye, so it could be an atypical presentation, like more of a splotchy looking thing. It doesn't always look like a perfect target, which I don't know if you remember, but you've had lots of bites For sure. That have crazy reactions. Yeah. Throughout my life I had those. Yeah. Yes. So that I do think is related. I don't know that they were bullseye rash per se, but Right. Another thing is that often people like the scalp is a really common place to get a tick bite. And so you're not gonna necessarily, if you've got hair, see bullseye rash there. That makes one of us. Yeah. We would've seen it on Josh. Yep. but yeah it's estimated now that only a third or less of people that develop Lyme do get the bullseye rash. So it's really not a good diagnostic indicator at all. Yet, you will still find doctors who are adamant that if you don't have a bullseye rash, there's no way you have Lyme. So they're 25%. Right. There's no way you have Lyme. Actually screw them is what they probably would say.

Josh

Yeah. They, you actually don't have"Lymes".

Erin

Yeah. So it's a very poorly understood disease process in our experience. You have to find. What is called like a Lyme literate doctor to get any decent care in the conventional world for Lyme, which is really unfortunate because nine outta 10 times those people are not covered by insurance. They're super expensive. And even then you don't always get to the root cause of things. If, just depends on the doctor, yeah. But, I wanna talk more about your experience and then I'll chime in with the Okay. Nerdy stuff. But, back in, when was that? 2017? June, July, 2016 was

Josh

my first symptoms. 2017 is when I tanked.

Erin

And often not always, just depending on the person and what's going on. Lyme can present in summer months just because that's when ticks are thriving. Mine did. Yes. So talk to us about that first, I don't know if you remember back when good old doctor. Yeah. Not to be named, diagnosed you with Costochondritis and like on from there. Yeah.

Josh

So it was summer around July where I started to have some more prevalent symptoms, but the months before that, it started to gradually occur where I had shortness of breath, which was weird. I was very healthy, very athletic. I was a personal trainer right before I got sick. So the shortness of breath was weird. I'd run up the steps and I'd be like, why did that wipe me out? Then I started to have weird joint and muscle pain. Which we thought was Doms, delayed onset muscle soreness where I was like, maybe I'm working out way too much.'cause I was pushing my body. I was doing CrossFit and I was working out multiple times a day, so I was like, maybe I need to back off on that cause I'm overusing my body. Then my chest started to hurt that chest pain was weird. It didn't feel muscular and it didn't feel like I had pulled something, doing any type of yard work or workouts or anything like that. When I went to the doctor, he was like, yep, this is Costochondritis. And I was like, oh sweet. thankfully it's not anything worse and prescribed newsflash wasn't.

Erin

for that, he prescribed high dose. High dose. Ibuprofen. Ibuprofen and rest. I believe at the time you were also starting to get those night sweats. Really bad. Like probably three to five times a week.

Josh

The night sweats got so bad. I'd literally soaked through the sheets and threw my outfit, like my shirt or whatever. Yeah. You'd have to change in the middle of, I was having to wear shirts to catch the sweat'cause it was soaking through the freaking mattress. Yeah. And I would have to have two separate outfits next to my bed because it would happen multiple times in a night. Yeah. Waking up drenched, like you could ring out the t-shirt, my boxers, everything.

Erin

Yeah. So for that, the doctor wanted to get a chest x-ray to make sure you didn't have tuberculosis, which I appreciate. I guess that's a good thing to rule out. But yeah. Hindsight, all of this can and was eventually explained by, Lyme and co-infections. Yeah. The shortness of breath is like classic Babesia. That like air hunger feeling where you can't get a full breath or,

Josh

which we'll talk about co-infections.

Erin

In another episode, yeah. We're gonna focus more on just Borrelia on Lyme today. But it is good to know that Lyme pretty much never is going to show up on its own. There's always gonna be some frenemies involved. And there's a lot of them, so we can devote another episode to those. But yeah, those were the starting places for you.

Josh

Yeah. This was before we knew anything about holistic medicine at all.

Erin

Yeah. We were health

Josh

conscious, but Yeah. But nothing more than that. We were heavily in the westernized space, so that's all we knew where to look. We did blood work on me and my testosterone was through the roof and my liver enzymes were high. I got a phone call from the doctor telling me to lay off the partying on the weekends and maybe consider. Skipping some doses of testosterone. Meanwhile, I had probably lost 20, 25 pounds at that point, was literally skin and bone and had zero energy, which was probably the next biggest symptom. My energy plummeted. Yeah. And it was difficult to even stay awake or get out of bed. Then the nerve pain came, and then there's all these, snowball effects that happened, but then you're not getting answers. People are telling you it's all in your head. And then the anxiety just went through the roof. Yeah. Which was probably a catch 22, because I know anxiety comes with Lyme, but then you aren't any answers. So then you're like, what is wrong with me? Like my body is literally attacking itself. Yeah. And that's when my body turned into my enemy, which wasn't what the right mindset. My body was just working really hard and giving me signals to focus on it. And then it just tanked from there.

Erin

Yeah. The shooting pain was wild. We would try to describe it to our doctor and he was like, I guess we could send you to a

Josh

like, And it wasn't like somebody pinched me. It was like somebody was pulling on my nerves. So it wasn't like somebody flicked my ankle or flicked my arm and it would just be at random every second of the day. So it'd be like in my ear and then in my arm, and then in my chest and in my stomach and in my leg, and then in my face, it just would. Go all over the place. It was

Erin

wild. Yeah. And probably like classic Lyme, like what most people think about is more so joint pain. Migrating joint pain. One day it might be an elbow, the next might be a knee, the next might be your hip, then your ankle, whatever. But it's really important to understand that Lyme it's known as the Great Imitator, or the Great Mimicker for a lot of reasons. the symptoms can be so vast and so confusing depending on the person, depending on the kind of whatever toxic sludge you've got rolling around in there. Oftentimes we see people with Lyme also have some degree of mold illness. Yeah. Or inability to metabolize or clear out mold, whether that's a genetic predisposition or, yeah. definitely like lifestyle wise. Again, you said you were working out a ton. Mm-hmm. I know this is when you were just starting your new business and you guys were Yeah. A lot of stress slammed. And you've always been a very like, kind of balls to the wall kind of a guy. Yeah. So I think that probably left you somewhat vulnerable as well. But it can look so different depending on the person, depending on your variety of toxic sludge that's rolling around. What

Josh

seems to be a common denominator across everyone that we're seeing with Lyme and even my story is that it ends up being mystery symptoms that don't go away.

Erin

Yes. So chronic mystery illness. Yeah. And often what happens then if we would have pursued other diagnoses, we would've gotten all those rule out diagnoses such as probably fibromyalgia was in your future. We had talked about it with the doctor. Yeah. Probably chronic fatigue syndrome was in your future. There was a point where you were having lots of weakness in one side of your body. Yeah. So I was a little bit nervous that MS was gonna be a diagnosis that we would accumulate. It's just all these mystery symptoms mm-hmm. That don't often make a whole lot of sense. Yeah. If that sounds familiar, if that's something that you're dealing with, definitely look into Lyme and co-infections and or mold illness. The tough part about

Josh

that, even with Lyme literate doctors, is that there's multiple variants of Lyme that exist. And only a few of them are tested. So I was tested for Lyme 3, 4, 5 times, also expensive. They would all come back negative. Every single one

Erin

of them. Which, let me talk really quick about the conventional testing for Lyme because it's bogus, so traditional what you would get if you went to any old doctor and asked for a Lyme test mm-hmm. You would get the elisa, which is like a kind of a screening and or then the Western blot is the gold standard. And we know now that those two tests have a less than 50% accuracy rate when it comes to diagnosing Lyme, which is just great. Let's, why don't we just flip a coin instead? It's awful. There are more sensitive testing options now through like functional and Lyme literate doctors that have, they test for a lot more markers or bands of Lyme and co-infections, which can be. For sure. More accurate. But, at the time we had none of that knowledge and so we just kept getting the screening like that Elisa and or Western Blot. I don't think we even got to the Western blot.

Josh

Yeah. And then they'd look at us crazy and we'd ask them to test all of these different types of things. Lyme being one of'em, and they would reluctantly scan for it, but it was the same test every single time. Yeah. So it would come back negative.

Erin

Yeah. So just know less than 50% isn't a great option. Like I would pursue other routes. We of course were drawn to bioenergetics and that is the route we went. Because I wasn't super eager to get a diagnosis per se. Like That wasn't the most important thing to me. The most important thing to me was for you to get well. Yeah. I do understand some people really want a diagnosis because for insurance purposes definitely helps the person that's

Josh

sick. Yeah. That's for sure. It makes you feel significantly less crazy. when Lyme finally came back on the results, it was just like, Exhale because it was like, okay, I know that I'm starting to get better and stuff, but now this makes so much more sense. And so many people have told you that it's in your head. Yeah. That over time you're like, is this in my head? Yeah. Like maybe I am just batshit crazy. having something that you could be like, yeah, I have Lyme. Or, yeah, I'm working through mold or whatever, just is a huge piece of the healing equation because you can identify it now, making it become your identity. Yeah. Is that is where it gets really unhealthy. But initially it's just the biggest exhale.

Erin

And I think for us, again, if we would have pursued the conventional diagnosis, I'm sure we could have gotten there after, 15,000 more dollars and five more months and et cetera. We were content with the answers we were getting via bioenergetic testing, even though that's not diagnostic information, it was plenty for us to get rolling. Yeah. But just keep in mind, and this is not me trying to dissuade anyone from pursuing like a Lyme literate doctor, I think they can be super helpful for people, especially with really complex cases. But I talk with so many people who even working with a Lyme literate doctor, even getting the Lyme diagnosis, there are still points along the journey where you will feel gaslit and you'll feel like, okay, I had this diagnosis, but then I got this test back and now I'm like, is it even Lyme? And so I just don't put all your eggs in that basket, I guess is what I wanna say.

Josh

The other thing with Lyme literary doctors, which there. All meaning well, and there's no mal intent, but like we talk about all the time, there's bioindividuality and how you need to heal. And so you may have the exact same Lyme as I do, and that doctor's gonna prescribe the exact same protocol because that's what he or she has seen work. In the past for the majority of his or her patients. It may work for you, but you're gonna go through hell because it's not the sequence of healing in the chronological order that your body wanted potentially. Yeah. Which I found that out the hard way, doing a metal detox prior to attacking different foundational pieces. I was in a panic attack for two months straight. Yeah. Yeah. It's not that the doctor is intending for you to go through hell, it's just all that doctor knows based on the data that they've worked with in the past. So having that bioindividuality, which we prefer to use bioenergetics. Hence why we started Ruti. Allows you to get a really specific protocol for your body and your body only, and begin to do long-term healing. The other thing that I see with some line literate doctors is you're gonna get relief pretty darn fast. That's the whole goal when you're in SS o s, but the long-term is really difficult until you get to the ultimate root causes of everything. So yeah, Lyme came up, what, three or four scans in for me. Super impactful, and I started to attack it really quick. There were so many things after that came that probably caused my body to be an s o s before I even got Lyme. E B V strep, herpes. Yeah. The list goes on mold A Lyme litter doctor, if they're not taking into consideration all the other root causes that may potentially be keeping your immune system preoccupied you're not gonna heal

Erin

all the way. Totally. And Lyme will always be a marathon, not a sprint. There's just absolutely no way to clear Yeah. Lyme and co-infections quickly or overnight. Yeah. And the conventional treatment, like especially if it's an acute, if you have an acute Lyme infection borrelia infection, likely you'll get two to eight, maybe 12 weeks of antibiotics. for some people that's enough for the majority. It's enough to suppress it, if that makes sense. So like you'll feel better. But there's research out of Harvard recent research that shows that Borrelia within 72 hours is able to be antibiotic resistant. So crazy. So you're getting these week long protocols of antibiotics and within three days Lyme's like, fuck you. Yeah. That's insane. I know. So that's why I always really loved like the herbal homeopathic route. We're able to tweak it, switch it up, and really prime your body to do the work because at the end of the day you can get bit by a tick and get Lyme and get really sick. Yeah. Because your body has areas of vulnerability, and that's maybe not for everybody. Maybe you're perfectly healthy and you just, you get smacked by Lyme. I think that's also can happen. But more often I think there's a vulnerability that exists. Like you said, that your immune system is distracted by X, Y, and Z. We're living in a chronic state of stress. We're eating the standard American diet. We're not sleeping. we have other infections that are dormant or latent that can and will replicate when they're able to. and so Lyme is less so a Borrelia problem. It's more so an immune system problem. Yeah. And if you're not addressing that piece, if you're just smacking it with antibiotics over and over again, you are actually setting yourself up for more vulnerability because we're sending that brelia deeper and deeper. Mm-hmm. It's getting smarter along the way. Mm-hmm. It's learning how to resist those antibiotics. Yeah. And also your immune system Then, and you're fucking with your microbiome along the way. You're like, let's kill all the bacteria. Even the good stuff. And we know that our immune system lives in our gut, so taking, four months of antibiotics is going to cause some issues there. Sure. Now that's not to say it's, bad for everyone. I think people do heal with antibiotics with Lyme, so I don't wanna like dissuade people from doing that if it feels aligned for you, but for us, it just wasn't an option.

Josh

So Oh, we were way too far gone for

Erin

that. Yeah. even the few. Weeks of high-dose ibuprofen, I remember being like, really un uncomfy with. just knowing that any treatment that is suppressing a symptom Yeah. Or just suppressing a microbe or a pathogen without addressing the root cause or the vulnerability that set you up for that infection in the first place. It's not treatment like is a temporary treatment. It's not gonna address the underlying root causes. Yeah. Okay, so you were having shooting nerve pain, anxiety, insomnia, night sweats,

Josh

the list goes on. Yeah. It's infinite. It felt like every single week a new symptom was coming. And hard. Yeah. It wasn't like, oh, my back's starting to hurt. All of a sudden I wake up and have 50 knots visible. Yeah. All over my back. Mm-hmm. I'd be like, what the hell is that? And then all of a sudden, the next week I'd wake up and there'd be shooting nerve pain down my legs and I couldn't stand up. And the next week I was so fatigued that I couldn't take a shower. I was taking rag baths because for some reason the shower was causing me to go into like a spiral and I'd be out for three days. All of a sudden, foods were bothering me. Mm-hmm. Everything I ate was bother. It

Erin

just was. You were often feeling like you were about to pass out at any given moment. Oh, it was terrible. Yeah. Vertigo would set in, the world would be spinning. Yep. Yeah, it

Josh

was gnarly. It really was.

Erin

Do you remember panic attacks for days? Oh, I was just gonna say, do you remember the Uber ride that you had to take?

Josh

So there's one time, so my anxiety was through the roof. Erin's a nurse. She's working night shift, so I was alone at night. she was like 12 hour shifts. Yeah. So I'd like. Obviously be anxious for her to leave. I would have insomnia. So from like two to 4:00 AM I was awake every single night, guaranteed. So then I'd be up alone with my thoughts and symptoms while she's working in the NICU or whatever. one night I wake up in a complete anxiety attack, like full out anxiety attack because I have nerve pain, I have nerve pain shooting down my left arm and my chest. Is killing me. obviously I'm having palpitations, so I'm like, shit, I'm having a heart attack. This is it. I'm having a heart attack and I'm texting Erin being like, I'm about to die. I'm about to have a heart attack. And she's like, ah, like did you take gaba? Which really helped me during anxiety. Are you like trying to calm yourself down? I'm like, I'm having an anxiety attack, but I'm also having a heart attack right now. And we only had one car at the time. Aaron had it at the hospital where you needed to be. Yeah. Aaron was like, go to the er. And I'm like, I'm not calling 9 1 1. Go to the er like I'm having a heart attack. I'd be dead. Anyways,

Erin

that's the middle of the night. So you can't like ask a neighbor to drive you. Yeah,

Josh

it's literally 2:00 AM So I call an Uber, the dude picks me up, we're driving and he has no idea that I think I have, I'm having a heart attack or that I'm in an anxiety attack. he's like, can I sing for you? And it's 2:00 AM y'all. 2:00 AM. The dude starts blasting country music and is belting these lyrics at the top of his lungs knowing he's taking me to the er. I wonder what he thought. He didn't even ask me. He wasn't like, is everything okay? I just got in and he is like, okay if I sing. I was like, okay.

Erin

It was probably the best thing for

Josh

you at the time. Yeah. I definitely calmed down. Yeah. That was Angel. It was hysterical. Honestly, I just needed a human. Yeah. I just needed somebody to be like, okay, I'm safe now.

Erin

Did you ever watch Touched by an angel growing up? Totally. That was, that was your angel?

Josh

Yep. Spirit guide right there in the flesh. Do you remember what song?

Erin

Oh,

Josh

It was Sheryl Crow. Oh yeah. Love. It was just like song after song of Sheryl Crow. Interestingly enough, Shel Crow has Lyme. No

Erin

way. Yeah, it was for sure an angel. Holy shit.

Josh

That's crazy. My whole body's in chills right now, so. yep. I took an Uber to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack. Aaron met me at the hospital'cause she worked in the children's hospital right next

Erin

door. Yeah.

Josh

So we get there, they shave off two spots on my chest, slap something on, and my heart is fine. Y'all classic.

Erin

Lyme classic. You go to the doctor and you're like, look, I have X, Y, Z symptoms. More like A, B, C, D, E, fg. Yeah. H I JK. M O P symptoms and they'll get labs. First of all, can we talk about labs for a second? Sorry, I'm interjecting. Go for it. I think people need to understand how the quote, normal lab values are derived. I think that's very important to understand. So what all that is, it's not clinically or research backed necessarily. It is just an average of all people aged like 18 to 50 something. I don't know. It's just the average. And so that's what we call normal healthy quote unquote, quote unquote fine is what they say. but that value, like that range that they consider quote fine is always changing because humanity is getting at least in the US our health is declining rapidly. Yeah. So like those values are not fine anyway. But even when you're outside of the quote, fine. Like when it shows up red on your lab results, At least for us, eight outta 10 times when that happened, they'd be like,

Josh

I wouldn't worry about it. I, I think you have mental issues. Yeah. It's in your head. Yeah. Like you're lay off the testosterone. You're 22 years old, I think you're fine.

Erin

25. I still need to look whatever into why most of your labs. I've gone back just out of curiosity and they're like, oh, that's why that was there. And that's why that like you're liver enzymes, like not surprised at all. Yeah. I think your white blood cell count was off at one point. Not surprised at all. Yeah. Which just for people listening, if you do have a white blood cell count that is either below five, That would suggest a chronic infection of some sort. So sometimes that is poo-pooed. Don't poo poo that. And then if it's greater than eight, that's suggested that there's like an acute active infection. So anyway, just something to keep in mind. Noted. But the testosterone one, I never went back and really looked into why that would've been the

Josh

case. I've seen a couple Lyme forms about it, talking about testosterone being high in guys. I think it's not talked about a lot with guys. Oh. Because I think ultimately what it is, so I think a lot of the outspoken lis or anybody in the chronic illness space aren't men. They're all women. Yeah. Yeah. So testosterone's gonna look different and not gonna be talked about. But multiple forums that I've read and connected with guys that have Lyme also have

Erin

had high testosterone. Weird. Okay. I wanna look into that. Why? Because in my brain I'm like, I feel like it would be low testosterone. Yeah. Because your body's under so much

Josh

stress. But another random one talked to me a little bit about,'cause you were literally just telling me about this. Yeah. If you can't see me right now I have tattoos everywhere. Mm-hmm. I did when I got Lyme, interestingly enough, I would get sick close to around the times I would get tattoos. And when I would get tattoos, I wouldn't get like one, I'd get like a sleeve or something like that. I always go big anyways when I would get really sick, especially when we'd get into the colder months. Who knows why my tattoos would raise.

Erin

Yeah. They would tell me a little bit about that. the ink would puff up and be like, yeah, it'd be like three D uhhuh. A three D tattoo. Yeah. personally, I think it's an immune system thing, because at the same time every single bug bite you would get would be like enormous. Yeah. It would like grow or it would almost look like cellulitis. Sure. Like you would get, remember you'd get those red streaks, uhhuh, from bites. Yep. I think your immune system was just Over and underperforming. Yeah.

Josh

But it would be old in the wrong list and new tattoos. Yeah. It wouldn't just be like my brand new tattoos. My old tattoos would

Erin

raise. Yeah. And they'd be kind of

Josh

itchy. Right? Not itchy. You just noticed that. Okay. I think because they were raised. Yeah. It'd like rub against stuff.

Erin

Sure. I also think that, hindsight maybe we love tattoos. I wish I could be covered in them, but now I feel like I know too much and I don't really want to get a bunch of them. But not all ink is created equal. A lot of tattoo ink has obviously like heavy metals and other things in it. Yeah. So I do think it was your immune system just reacting to all the toxins. Good times. But yeah. Your tattoos have not been raised in since I healed. Yeah. Yeah. Years. Yeah, that was a weird one. I'm trying to think of other just bizarre symptoms that you would complain of that we had no answers for at the time that now we're like, oh.

Josh

I think it's irrelevant because I had so many other things working against me too. It wasn't just Lyme, it was co-infections, mold strep. E B V was really, hard for me to work through when I was healing herpes mold. Did I say mold? You did say mold. Did I say E B V E B V. Strep. Did I say strep? Strep sucked. Yeah. So, Yeah, and then I also didn't have foundational detoxification, so everything was just all up and around. Yeah. Which is why when I did the heavy metal detox, I essentially just unearthed things that have been sitting in me for and it had nowhere to go except for an anxiety

Erin

attack. Especially with liver markers like you had, I can't remember exactly where your enzymes were at, but they were elevated. Got it. Mm-hmm. Which, shows stress in the liver. I read recently, like one in three or something. Adults has fatty liver right now, which is insane. Like that. That's crazy. Statistic is terrifying for the United States, but it is very prevalent now to have an underperforming or stressed Gotcha. Liver because there's just so many toxins, cast oil, that shit. Yeah. We love castor oil, but there are, I mean I think there's like over plus and it's, that number is always increasing every day. Gotcha. Chemicals that are in our environment that our liver is forced to process. Yeah. So there's that. So even if you're eating like perfect, clean, organic, et cetera, there's some things that are just unavoidable. Sure. Because we live where we live, we're alive. Yeah. The vast majority of people who are eating even like a healthy version of the standard American diet. Yeah. I mean, Our food just has crap in it. It has chemicals, it has preservatives, all of these things which our liver has to process. So we're just asking our livers to do more than ever before. And they're struggling. They're bogged down. Yeah. And so when that happens, your liver cells literally turn into like fatty cells like fat globules, and then those cells are no longer functioning liver cells. And if that's not addressed, it eventually turns to like cirrhosis, which is irreversible. How does this have to do with Lyme? because it's clogging that drainage funnel. So the liver and the colon are kind of your two biggest, ways that your body Gotcha. Removes toxins and excretes them out. Okay. So if that major drainage pathway is clogged, if your liver is, Not functioning because it's fatty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you're gonna hold onto a lot more toxins and over time that bucket is gonna overflow and you're gonna have all the many symptoms. Yeah. That's interesting. And just leave you more vulnerable to like, if and when you are exposed to Borrelia Sure. From a tick or mosquito or whatever. Yeah. You're just more at risk of Yeah. Developing chronic illness

Josh

from that. Yeah. Yeah. Recently the C D C came out with a study and maybe it was just a statement, essentially saying that there's a specific tick that's causing people to have the inability to process red meat Alpha Gal. Alpha. Can you talk a little bit about that? What the hell that is and why? Who knows why the C D C's talking about this now? Back that up. More and more people are talking about it, so this is good. I don't even care if it's with mal-intent at this point. At least people are talking about tickborne illness. Yeah. The New York Times just came out with mm-hmm. a post that highlighted three or four people with chronic illness. The most of them had Lyme in some way, shape or form, and were sharing their stories. So it is good that these things are coming out and starting to be talked about. I know a lot of people in the holistic community kind of poo-pooing it, or even just utilizing it to build more fear mongering and maybe even calling CC. Worse than what they are or whatever. But people are starting to talk about this now. Yeah. And the fact that the c D C is even bringing this up means that we have a really big problem. Yeah. And even if it's has something to do with something else that we don't know, who gives a shit Tickborne illnesses are being talked about right now. Mm-hmm. And it's prevalent throughout the United States. Everyone now probably knows somebody that has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, regardless of if they're chronically ill or not. Yeah. But can you talk a little bit about what the C D C came out with?

Erin

Yeah. I've definitely noticed more people talking about Lyme and co-infections too, which is really cool, And I get the. Frustration from like the holistic, from functional medicine community against the C d C and other, institutions, because it hasn't been helpful thus far. It hasn't, The dismissiveness, the, like overlooking of this huge epidemic, really. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think we're about to find out in the next five to 10 years. Yeah, I agree. Like how much this is really impacting

Josh

people. We're seeing it

Erin

in Ruti. Yeah. But even, I just, I have to wonder, of course, this is not like a research backed claim, but just from your experience and from all the people that I've seen now with Lyme and co-infections who are able to heal and yet have been given Diagnoses like Ms a l s mm-hmm. alzheimer's, like all these things. I just, you have to wonder with the way that Lyme attacks nerves in the nervous system. Yeah. It just makes so much sense to me that it could be at play in a lot of these diagnoses. Mm-hmm. But the information, you know, when you talk to most doctors or if you were to, look at information from like the C d C and things like that, it almost feels. Deceitful or it's just, it's a little fishy. Yeah. If I'm being honest, there are certain diagnoses. It's just so interesting to me that, so Lyme, chronic Lyme in particular is one of them. Not so much acute Lyme, I think people are in Yeah, all backgrounds are, can get on board with acute Lyme. But chronic Lyme is one, Pandas is another one. Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strep. That's a mouthful. But these disorders, unless you're going to a person who really specializes and has done a lot of research in these things, the rest of them. It's like they get their guards up. I don't know. At least that was our experience. It's like you mentioned it and they're like, Nope. Never. That doesn't exist. Yeah. That's not a credible diagnosis or whatever. Sure. When you have doctors and other practitioners finding and providing real help and healing to people it's like, why can't we get on board with these things? Yeah. That are clearly issues in the community So I get the backlash against the C D C. Yeah. I don't necessarily care to be a part of it, but I understand the frustration. Yeah. But what you're talking about Alpha Gal. is a sugar, it's found in meat. you think like red meat is what I at least think about. And I'm certainly not an expert in Alpha Gal syndrome. it can be very serious, can be life threatening. But when people, once they're bit by this tick, if they have this syndrome, they just essentially don't tolerate any red meat or sometimes even dairy products and things like that because it has this sugar in it. And their immune system attacks that. Gotcha. So again, it's just another immune system. Dysfunction.

Josh

Just another symptom with tickborne illnesses. Yeah.

Erin

But that's enough nerdy stuff for me. I wanna hear more about your experience.'cause I think that's what people really resonate with at the end of the day. If we had heard a story like yours Yeah. Before or during we were experiencing that, I think it would've been hugely helpful and probably maybe shortened our journey of a smidge. Yeah. So we talked about some of the symptoms. Let's talk a little bit about,'cause we know, like I mentioned, Lyme really loves the nervous system, the brain. Talk me through like the sort of psychiatric side of things. What were some of the mental health issues that presented? Yeah. With Lyme, it's a rollercoaster.

Josh

The doctor visits that we would have would focus on that. They would be like, are you depressed? Be like, yeah. Do you have anxiety? Yeah. It's definitely in your head. After the list of symptoms that we would give them, so it started to get draining. When we probably went to 10 different doctors and everyone was giving me the same answer over and over and over. You go do your own research. Yeah. Which also isn't helpful. Google isn't gonna be super resourceful. At least it wasn't what, seven years ago? if you look up

Erin

chest pain and left arm pain. Yeah.

Josh

It didn't help. Yeah. so the mental side started to get really taxing. You start to second guess yourself and then you get so weary of playing the guessing game. Yeah. And we did that for seven years. Of just. Possibly having hope of being like, maybe this is it, and then getting really sick again and crushing that hope. And then you'd even see a functional doctor who was literate and blank and you'd think, oh, maybe this is it. And they would hyperfocus on this, and they would make you spend thousands of dollars, and you had so much hope that you would just spend those thousands of thousands of dollars only to end up getting sicker and sicker. it got to the point where I would have really, really dark thoughts to the point of suicidal thoughts and ideations, because I had lost all hope. I know at the beginning it probably was more exclusively Lyme. Symptoms, but then it was just a snowball effect because my immune system and my toxic bucket were just completely overloaded. I'm sure many other toxins were then either activating or reactivating inside of my system, and it was just symptom after symptom. The mental side of it was probably, for me, one of the more difficult symptoms that existed inside of my chronic illness journey. I have a really high pain tolerance. I also can push my body to the limit, like in workouts and CrossFit. I loved CrossFit because I would literally push myself until my body couldn't go anymore. Maybe one of the reasons I got sick, but I could tolerate a lot of that. Did I get weary of it and tired of it? Absolutely. But. I could push through nerve pain. Yeah. I could push through. You can't push through mental illness and yeah, it's, it just exists. And so you can't be like stopping being anxious. There's, it doesn't

Erin

work that way. You can't think yourself out of

Josh

disordered thinking a hundred percent. So like when I would have nerve pain or even fatigue and I'd be like, I need to take a shower. Fuck it. I would go take a shower and push through it and maybe reap the consequences after, but I could push through it. When you're in a full out panic attack or fully depressed, you can't just pop out of that or push through it. It doesn't work that way. That's when I really got into the mindfulness game, which my body was still in s o s when I started to get into the mindfulness, I just knew I needed to calm down my nervous system.

Erin

Yeah. It was like an intuitive, you just were like, I think I need to listen to calm music and meditate. Yeah. Like once an hour and see what

Josh

happens. Yeah. So recently I've been talking to people. With that regard I know I'm more rigid and I know I don't do anything half-ass. I know that's my personality, but these things helped. I would do meditation as soon as I woke up, I had decreased all negativity in my life. I would Meaning like media forms or, oh, yeah. We wouldn't watch scary or negative movies. I wasn't even listening to like rap or hip hop, which was my jam before, and I was just eliminating all negative energy that existed all around me. Stopped hanging out with certain people. Like I went all out with it. Mm-hmm. Another thing that I would do, even during work hours, every hour on the hour for 10 minutes, I would literally just lay on the floor with my eyes closed, listening to I don't know what kind of music. Binaural beats or something. Probably. Yeah. Just instrumental. Yeah. I started to see a difference. I started to see my nervous system calm me down. I would still have these symptoms, but I wasn't fully in an anxiety attack at all times. I also started to recognize the power of my mind. How I was talking to myself, the things I was considering when I would get really, really sick. The suicidal thoughts would come in the darkest times, and it always would. But the more I worked on the mindfulness, the more I felt like I had tools to combat the deep, dark thoughts. would bring me out of it, Mindfulness in this for sure. Changed my life, but you have to take into consideration that there are physiological things working against you. Yeah. And so yeah, my mindfulness game was pretty on. When I'd get be sick, then I'd get lackadaisical and get off of it, and then I'd get sick again and be back in my mindfulness. But it wasn't taking it away. I just felt like I had a little bit more of a toolbox. Right. To not necessarily defeat it. Just counter it with something positive. So it wasn't until I started fully healing through bioenergetics did I start to notice my anxiety disappear and my depression, or even negative thoughts and my social ability started to increase and things like that. So it takes time Yeah. To get to that point. I could pinpoint certain toxins that I was taking care of. Borrelia being one of them, where once I was done with my Borrelia series therapy, which is just a homeopathic protocol that comes up inside of remedies. I would, I noticed 50% of my anxiety was gone. Yeah. I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. I literally in a week was like anxious and then not. Yeah. It was crazy.

Erin

Was there ever a time,'cause I remember it being very, it just seemed so obvious to me that your mental health stuff was all a symptom. Yeah. Because you had so many symptoms. I'm like, of course. That's just another symptom. He, you never struggled. No. Before that

Josh

I was, I barely had negative

Erin

thoughts. You were so positive. Yeah. To a fault. But I'm curious to know, because there is definitely like psychiatric family history. Sure. Within your family, was there ever a time where you thought maybe this is in my head. Absolutely. Really?

Josh

Oh, I mean, quickly into the journey. I had multiple occasions where I was convinced that I was just creating these symptoms. Wow. Yeah. And no offense, but it felt like you thought that too. Really? Yeah. So many doctors, we were like fully integrated into the westernized medicine. You were working at a hospital as a nurse. We had never considered anything outside of westernized medicine. We hadn't had to, thankfully. But when that started happening, and then every westernized doctor was telling me that, it was all in my head. we were combative of it. We were like, no, this can't be right. 10 in. You never told it to me, but it felt that way. Mm-hmm. Where you were starting to believe that maybe this, we don't have any answers. Everything looks normal on your labs outside your testosterone and liver. E B V and Lyme are coming back negative What else can it be, but in your head? Yeah. Is kind of

Erin

what it felt like. We talk about repetition being so important with the I am statements, but it goes the other way too. If you hear it from 10, 20, 30 people Yeah. That there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. Yeah. You're gonna start to think there's nothing wrong with me. Even though deep within, I think both of us, we may have faltered or questioned along the way, but I just, I was like, there is no way like

Josh

all of this, the tough part about Lyme too is there's flareups. Yeah. So it's not like you're constant years and years and years in. you'll be sick for six to eight months and then all of a sudden you'll have like a random couple months where you feel semi back to normal. No rhyme or reason. I mean, I'm sure there is scientifically, but in my brain there's no rhyme or reason. Yeah. And then you plummet and get sick again. So then you're like, I. Yeah, it was a really good season. It was spring. Yeah. And we were coming out a winter everyone was doing really well. Business is great. I'm not as stressed, is this in my head? Yeah. And then things would happen where the heat would come and I'd be super discontent and work would be crazy and all these things. And then I'd tank. So then it would start to be like, maybe I am controlling all of these symptoms. Do you think you contributed? Well, It didn't help. Sure. That's for sure. I mean, adding stress and even I don't do well in high humidity at baseline. All of these things, I was pushing myself in workouts, those things weren't helping. Sure. I also wasn't on a mindfulness game or anything like that, but I think flare ups come and go based on your toxic load. And if you're not super conscious about that, it's not gonna matter anyways because your odds are high that your detoxification isn't on par either. So you have so many things working against you that odds are high. You're just gonna go into flare ups anyways. maybe they were more severe because of the certain scenarios that I was in. The worst one that I had was in Covid. Yeah. And I was freaking the shit out because I was sick at baseline. So getting covid felt like a death trap to me. Yeah. for sure, I was stressed, I was anxious, I was worried. I had already pretty much gone into a flare up at that time. I felt like I was destined for

Erin

death. I re, I remember,'cause I at the time was working at, a children's hospital and I worked in what's known as the float pool. So I would just go wherever I was needed within the hospital every time I worked. And so of course when Covid happened, we basically just made these makeshift covid units on whatever floor we could. And of course the float pool was gonna staff those units. And so I pretty much exclusively worked in a covid unit that entire time. And every time I would get home, Josh would make me like, change in the garage. Like I would just come in the house naked and then take a shower immediately. He's like, keep that covid outta here. Yeah. But just, yeah, I mean it definitely was scary that time. Yeah.

Josh

I was so sick at the time that I thought anything added onto my immune system wasn't gonna go over well. Yeah.

Erin

And you kept asking me, you're like am I immunosuppressed like with Lyme? And Yeah. Because people were telling me that. I would always reassure you that like No, you're fine, you're fine. From a lab work perspective, you're not immunosuppressed per se, like your white count and your, you know, a n C and stuff like that Yeah. Was in a fine range, but quote, fine. Yeah. But, realistically speaking though, what happens with chronic Lyme, it does turn into more of a, an autoimmune presentation. And so to some degree you can be immunosuppressed and some people are more so than others. Yeah. Of course. It just depends on the person and the scenario, but, I was just trying to keep your, anxiety as well as possible.

Josh

The other difficult piece in all of that too is it felt like nobody was listening to me.

Erin

Yeah. Especially during Covid, it was just like alarm

Josh

bells everywhere. Not even covid. My entire chronic illness. Yeah. Even functional medicine doctors we were spending five to$600. Per 30 minute sessions. Yeah. Not on top of every single time they would tell me to take a new supplement that cost another 150 to$200. Yeah. We were spending thousands of dollars a month on my health and I wasn't getting better, and it just felt like nobody was listening to me. Yeah. They would hyper focus on something that rang in their mind based on a symptom that I said. Mm-hmm. And was like, oh, it must be adrenal fatigue. Mm-hmm. Or it must be in your brain, or whatever. So it got to the point where it felt like even you being an advocate, nobody was fucking listening. Yeah. it made me hopeless. It made me feel like the system was broken. Mm-hmm. And that. Nobody actually cared. Mm-hmm. Because I wasn't quote unquote treatable and nobody had the time, nor do I necessarily blame them'cause everyone's fucking sick. But nobody had the time to take to figure out what it would have been. Yeah. Without me spending 10, 2 50 grand. Mm-hmm. In a matter of a few months to just be a test subject for a doctor willing to take the time. Yeah. So if you're sick right now and doctors are saying that, I'll believe you. Yeah. I like, regardless of if it's in your head or not, like those symptoms are real. They're happening. You're experiencing them. Mm-hmm. I will be your advocate. I will listen to you and be there for you because it got really lonely. Even my friends were like not fully believing it. I knew they weren't.'cause sometimes they'd only see me with no symptoms. Right. So, yeah. Lyme's an asshole.

Erin

It sure

Josh

is. Real quick, just so even for me, you say it's a corkscrew, is it parasite? It's a bacteria.

Erin

Bacteria. Okay. And it, what can happen is when it gets to that chronic state, so when it's past the acute infection if it's able to get past your immune system, it will burrow deep within your body where Yeah. And it likes certain areas of the body. Yeah. So the heart is one place. Some people can get, Lyme associated endocarditis, I believe. Sure. It also loves the brain and the nervous system. So that's when we see symptoms like, weakness, nerve pain, Anxiety, brain fog is a big one. Or like memory loss. Like people will all of a sudden feel like they can't remember their address fact or Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. That happened me a lot.

Josh

Y'all we'll talk about co-infections'cause uh, honestly, a lot of my symptoms that I got relief from going through healing were from working through

Erin

co-infections, actually. Yeah. Babesia, Bartonella, those are really common ones. Yeah. And they can wreak a lot of havoc on the body for sure. But Borrell in particular will burrow into, whether it's heart, brain, or. Connective tissue, so collagen joints, a lot of times we'll see like arthritic gotcha symptoms, but lots of pain. Some people also develop another kind of nervous system symptom can be that really intense pain. Meaning like fibromyalgia, pain, where it's like even the very light touch of your clothes, the weirdest feeling makes you want to scream. Yep. And so that is very confusing, of course, like what is going on. And then of course, fatigue and just all those like low energy symptoms.

Josh

It in layman's terms for Lyme, let me just give it to you in layman's terms that bacteria is a bitch. That's it. Yep.

Erin

Yep. Belli is a bitch. Yep.

Josh

We hate it. We hate it. It's the worst, but. Ruti saved my life

Erin

bioenergetics for the win. Bioenergetics for the win. And I know we talk about this a lot, but Lyme has a way of reaching the soul for sure. Yep. I think about transformation that we've been through in the last three to five years. Yeah. You would not be the person you are today. Absolutely not without

Josh

Lyme. Nope.

Erin

this has brought depths to you

Josh

mm-hmm. That you did not have? I feel like I'm tapped into something that's completely outside of

composer-1nn139x89_editor-clip_clip_josh-erin_2023-aug-01-0317pm_pick_a lane

myself.

Erin

Yeah. For sure. I know we talked a lot about like the psychological symptoms. Was there something aside from bioenergetics, of course we've talked a lot about that and its role in your healing. Mm-hmm. Was there something that you feel like clicked along the way that switched you from being like, Hopeless to hopeful or

Josh

Was there any inside the healing journey? Yeah, the healing journey is also not a walk in the park. I think some people don't understand that when they're signing up to heal. And a lot of times when you're in flareups and then you're not, you're like why do I need to heal? I'm not sick anymore. And then a flare up comes well, that was me too. In order to heal, sometimes you're gonna have to go through your darkest days that you have had in order to get to the other side.'cause your body's gonna work. as you're going through that you start to find yourself being more and more resilient? Mm-hmm. Because you're getting stronger and stronger. There are some rounds, specifically if you're utilizing bioenergetics, where it's gonna be hell. And then you'll come out of it and be like, whoa, I don't have this symptom anymore. It's like a little light and you're almost waiting for the symptom to come, and it never does. sensitivities change or the anxiety was hands down. One of the biggest. Yeah. Where all of a sudden, not all of a sudden I gradually noticed my anxiety. During my healing, there were points where I couldn't lift my head up. I remember eating dinner with my head, literally on the table. Yeah. light sensitivity or sound. I would literally, after work, have to just go lay in a dark room. Because Zoe talking would set me off and she wasn't even doing anything. She was just Mm-hmm. Loud as she does and or music or anything. All of a sudden, none of that bothered me. And then it got to the point where I was maybe, I don't know, seven scans in where something monumental happened where I remember my brain turning back on. But when I was done with that round, I had no anxiety. Gone. Mm-hmm. And even thinking about it didn't make me anxious because what would happen is I wouldn't have anxiety, but then I'd think about having anxiety and then I'd have anxiety, thinking about anxiety where now I could talk about anxiety and be with somebody with anxiety and I'm not gonna get anxious. Mm-hmm. I don't feel it at all. Yeah. that's when I was like, oh shit, something's working here. Mm-hmm. And I think I'm beating this. Depression wasn't one that I struggled with as much as anxiety. Anxiety was uh, just terrible. Mm-hmm. But then I would notice that my nerve pain was gone and things like that. When that started to happen, I think I dove deeper into everything else outside of chronic illness. Sure. There was the community that helped me through that, but I started to recognize there was so much more out there in the world. Like from a spiritual perspective, everything. Yeah. Mindfulness, spirituality, every, I know I've said this before and I know it may be like something many won't receive, but for me, chronic illness, I think this was like fucking past lives or parallel lives, or passed down from generation to generation, and I needed this to wake up. It was like a

Erin

cosmic

Josh

wake up call. Yeah, yeah. This was my Kundalini awakening. Yeah. it was the only way that my consciousness was going to wake up how it needed to wake up. it happened over time of me recognizing that, Lyme and the style of healing that we chose a K a Ruti, Required to have a level of open-mindedness that didn't exist before I was sick. Yeah. So many people were telling me it was this or that, or this or that, and it made me realize that there was so much closed-mindedness in the medical space, let alone the world, and I started to have to just be okay with whatever came my way. Open-mindedness. Like I don't care how somebody heals, I'm totally open to it. Mm-hmm. And I don't care how people find relief. Totally open to it. Bioenergetics work for me and we see it working for hundreds of other people right now, but that doesn't mean that it's what you need Sure. To heal and I'm totally open to that and ready to celebrate that if that's what is your freedom. That when I started to be able to say that kind of thing, with religion and then spirituality and even mindfulness and how people are approaching life and just being totally open to anything. That was, I think, when. I

Erin

shifted. Yeah. You like loosened your grip on life a little bit. Yeah.

Josh

That was part of the breath work session, I think too. Yeah. But my mind had to get there in order for that breath work session to happen, in my opinion. Sure. I was doing breath work sessions, over and over, and there was progress. But I think it was the experience of chronic illness and then going through the healing process and talking to people and just choosing to be more open-minded towards literally everything that allowed me to get to the breathwork session that released my grip. I gotta download, yada yada. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot to take in this podcast. I know we literally wanted to just talk about Lyme, which for the most part we did. Lyme is intense and

Erin

it's intense and it like reaches every part of a person. So it's, we can't just talk about the bacteria. Yeah.

Josh

And honestly, anybody that's suffering with chronic illness, period, meaning a symptom that either can't be diagnosed or a symptom that may be diagnosed but can't get rid of, it's impacting not only you, but everyone around you. Yeah. it's a ripple effect the opposite way too. As soon as you start to heal, people start to notice and it's a ripple effect too. Yeah. So I encourage you not to give up. I encourage you to continue to have hope, if you lose hope, literally just text me. Mm-hmm. Because I am a walking example. That you can beat chronic illness because I was literally planning to end my life and Not because my mind got so dark, I didn't wanna live the way I was living. It felt purposeless. Yeah. here I am fully alive and healed. Yeah.

Erin

So, I think the first really, truly the first step toward healing, if you do nothing else, work on that belief that you can and actually already are healing. Mm-hmm. without that, your subconscious is just gonna keep sabotaging left and right. And whether or not you're aware of that. Like I think that happened often with us. Like we both had this subconscious is this working? Like that's for sure. We had to just I. No questions. You're healing. You have to choose. if you're not quite there yet, if you can't say okay, I'm healing. At least get to the point where you can say, I can't heal. That's a great starting point. Yeah. And if you need evidence of that, just listen to all the other podcasts of Josh. Talking about how it's

Josh

possible. And if you want some bioenergetics. Yes. I know this great company called Ruti. And if you go listen to the episode part two of Bioenergetics, I'm pretty sure there's a code in there that you can use to get a discount.

Erin

Yes. Yeah. We would love to work with you, help you find healing.

Josh

Yeah. And at a minimum celebrate you.'cause you deserve it. Yeah. Yes. I don't care where you're at in your journey. Yep. You're resilient. You're strong, you're powerful. You're a badass motherfucker. Anyways. Love you guys. This was a good one. Hopefully you learned something. Yeah. If not, you did. I know you learned something

Erin

ending. These are always so

Josh

tough for me. I love it. Erin. I'm gonna say you cringe. You don't even

Erin

know what to do. It's the same way in every conversation. Like show. How do we end this? Love you guys.

Josh

Love you too, boo. Love you too, boo. Bye bye.