Healing EOE: How Mold, Lyme, and Stress Were the Missing Pieces

When doctors told Winona Miller she had eosinophilic esophagitis (EOE) after a round with a prescription allergy support, the story could have ended there: a chronic, inflammatory disease of the esophagus managed with medications and restrictions. But Winona kept asking the deeper question — why was her immune system reacting in the first place?

Her search led to hidden mold in her home, lingering Lyme disease, strep and viral infections, and the role stress played in her symptoms. Over the course of an intermittent two years, she walked through mold remediation, gut healing, NET, functional testing, and finally immunotherapy — watching her singing voice return, her digestion calm, and her energy stabilize - even her chronic neck pain resolved.

In this conversation, we trace Winona’s journey from that first clarity call in late 2022 to her current season as a student practitioner. She opens up about the hardest moments, the surprising wins (like cracked heels healing as her body detoxed), the role of emotional healing, and what it’s like to raise children while navigating chronic illness.

Whether you’re living with EOE, mold exposure, or Lyme, or you just need hope that healing is possible after years of frustration, Winona’s story will encourage you to keep asking “why?” — and to keep walking forward.

Instagram: @heyheyelizabethmae
Website: www.heyheymae.com

Transcript

Elizabeth: 0:00

Hey, you're going to be okay. I'm Elizabeth Mae and my functional health practice helps people heal when they've exhausted traditional options. When no one else can figure your health challenges out, my team helps you resolve symptoms and restores your health. You're listening to my podcast where we'll hear stories of healing chronic illness from a root cause approach. We are back for another week of talking through how you're gonna be okay. We are gonna talk with our guest today and explore some new ideas in the autoimmune and immune inflammatory diagnosing community, if you will. We're going to talk through mold and Lyme. We're going to talk through EOE. That's kind of our hot button chronic inflammatory issue. What is EOE? It's chronic inflammatory eosinophilic esophagitis. And it's exactly what it sounds like. It's inflammation of the esophagus where white blood cells, caudisonophils, are building up. They're causing swelling and soreness in the throat. And so now we have this localized immune response. You already know that I want to know why. We want to figure out why is the immune system going and showing up someplace isolated there to the throat? What is it addressing? Why is it happening? I don't really find that when we do clarity calls with children and adults, we're hearing lots of EOE, that it's just a happenstance thing or it's something that you have to live with. There's a reason that the immune system has been stimulated to have that extra cellular production locally into the esophagus. So we're going to talk through today kind of a layered story. Winona is a client of mine that we have worked through in various healing seasons, several different layers of things, and I've gotten to work with her family too. And I just think it's really interesting and a great story because she is a lady who already takes great care of herself. She eats well. She feeds her family well. She's got really great strategies for handling sickness and stuff that pops up. She came to us working through a really good little protocol already, but we needed to loop in data and another set of eyes to kind of bring pieces in that hadn't been explored before and get us to a new better place with healing and our care kind of started a long time ago so November 2022 is when we started with a clarity call and I just kind of want you to walk us through where were you at that point what brought you out of your working on yourself figuring things out strategizing on your own to wanting to work on your health with our team what was going on for you at Even

Winona: 2:41

going just a smidge back before that, I'm someone that the reason I was on my own, you know, I just made up protocols are like, I'm going to take this, I'm going to take this because, like, I knew there was something off in my body for years, I had just bloating, heart palpitations, anxiety, could not handle stress at all with my body. When my boys were younger I was just I wish I could go back in time and because the mother that I was then was just not a healthy one and when I moved to Louisville from Pennsylvania I all of a sudden had like extreme allergies so I was taking Benadryl at night Zyrtec in the day nasal spray like a steroid nasal spray and then allergy eye drops I would have to do that literally every single day just to function. And then I developed what I found out was also silent reflux. So I had reflux coming this way and I had severe allergies and drainage coming this way. And I was starting to lose my singing voice. I sing at church. And so I was like super hoarse. I could not sing. I had to take time off from singing. And I, you know, When people, you know, how do I say this? You always want the insurance route before you want to pay out of pocket. And so now I wouldn't because in the long term, it did not pay off. It cost me more and more of my health. But I would say go the root cause route first, people. But so I went to an allergist. And they, you know, tried to put me on a proton pump inhibitor, Prilosec, that gave me severe stomach pain. And I like knew, I was like, this is not right. You're taking away my stomach acid. I don't know. And then they gave me sublingual allergy drops for all the allergens because I was allergic to a ton of things, all outdoors, basically all trees and grasses and all the things. Started taking the allergy drops on a trip to Brazil to visit family and that's when like everything came crashing I just kept getting like each day on that trip I just kept getting more and more throat pain and like clearing my throat and it almost felt like when I would swallow that I had like ulcers or little sores all the way in the back of my throat like it was extremely painful to swallow and I just kept doing the allergy drops and when I came back from that trip I noticed whenever I ate dairy I finally connected the dots and dairy was the common food I would get like these throat spasms where I felt like I was choking which was super scary and when I went back to the allergist and told them what was going on they said that it was eosinophilic esophagitis that was you know results of the drops it was a side effect of the drops and so they prescribed a steroid for me to swallow mixed with honey which is like you know you can guess what happened after that was like a raging yeast infection in my esophagus which was very very painful I think that was like one of my lowest moments I just remember seeing sitting on my bed crying and just feeling like, why is my body so broken? Like, what is wrong with me? And a couple of ladies from church, like two different people had mentioned your name. And so that's when I was like, I'm done with regular medical care. Like I need to change my direction. And that's when I called you.

Elizabeth: 7:03

Yeah. And I think it was interesting start too, because you were kind of like in the middle, like sometimes we would meet and you were like and I went to the doctor and it went like this or I had the biopsy and it went like this and I always hesitant to push back on diagnoses for lots of reasons I don't think that they're illegitimate I think that a lot of times in the autoimmune space we have a lot of autoimmune diagnoses they don't really explain any kind of root cause they just label which variety of autoimmune cell activity we have and that was kind of one of the first places where as we take You're always listening to things. And there were little flags that you'd mentioned kind of that started piecing the puzzle together. You'd had a lot of strep as a child, a lot of frequent antibiotic use. In the last year before we kind of had met and started meeting, you had some chronic sinus infection issues. You'd been on antibiotics then. You mentioned you had Raynaud's phenomenon and that would kind of come and go in severity, but definitely was a consistent thread for you from early teenage years. a lot of neck pain. And so we started by just working through a GI map, which is a stool test to check bacterial environment. It helps us see fungal levels in the body too. We already clearly had fungal issues going on once that yeast infection in the throat started. We also looked at a food sensitivity test and that's not something that I really jumped to right away. I think food sensitivities are an expression of an immune system that's struggling or imbalanced. But where you were, it was like, I mean, pretty sick. Like as far as you were so uncomfortable, like it was really difficult. And we won't talk about like swallowing and throat difficulties. Like that is a discomfort that really threatening. It does not feel good at all. So we brought that in to identify foods very quickly that were creating that IgG cell proliferation. They're creating an immune response in the body. We really just use it to squelch information, to learn about things that are promoting the issues that are going on. And when that test came back some of the foods on there sometimes will map a certain direction for me where I'm like those are all things that are fungal feeders those are all things that are bacterial feeders and for you we kind of lean the fungal direction we had cantaloupe and corn and dairy and honey and wheat was there and sweet potato and none of those things are bad things outright but when they group together those are foods that either go moldy quickly or can feed mold and fungus stuff and that was a conversation we had too during the during the clarity call was Do you think your mold exposed at all? And you pretty quickly said like, no, I don't think at home, but maybe at work there had been an incident and kind of been dealt with. And so we tabled that and said, you know, like, let's just run an ERMI at home. An ERMI is an at-home dust test. It's really the main thing that we kind of jumped to first to see about mold in the home. And I kind of want to hear, like, how was that process for you? You guys did the ERMI. You got results back. We went over it. Like, what was the pathway there once we started diving into mold at home

Winona: 10:11

um well i should say we probably would have never done the ermi unless you had recommended it because we were just adamant like there's no mold in this house um but we did the ermi and it ended up being you know sky high levels of mold which was disheartening but also just good you know something you need to know so we took care of it and remediated it So that was, ended up being a positive thing for sure.

Elizabeth: 10:45

Yeah. And a couple of episodes before this one has aired, I've gone through a lot of mold chat. We've gotten to speak with a couple inspectors and that was the process that you guys walk through. I know that you, we did the army that showed us five really toxic molds, including some stachybotrys, chatamonium, wallamia. So like some pretty hefty stuff and a lot of run of the mill aspergillus. We do live in the Ohio Valley. We, have humidity issues here for sure um and so next step was to move towards inspection i know you guys use the iep group which some of their um team is talking on the podcast and kind of explored inspection but i just kind of want to hear because you guys did work with them and you got the full inspection what was it like getting that report did you feel equipped did you feel confused did you feel like you knew what was going on or how how was it how was that process

Winona: 11:38

no it was a very clear report. It said exactly what needed to be done. It was very thorough. He definitely knew what he was doing. Yeah.

Elizabeth: 11:49

Yeah. And then you guys were able to hire a separate remediation company. I just remember things happening really fast. Like I was looking through my notes and I'm like, we started in November and I think you were done with remediation maybe by January or February. Like you were on top of it for sure. Like you were solving the problem. Oh yeah. No lingering around with that. But I respect I respect that a lot. And I think, you know, sometimes families are able to do that and sometimes it's a little longer process, but you guys, I think a lot of it was localized to the basement. Is that right?

Winona: 12:19

There was also, um, God intervened with a toilet being overflowed all through the night situation. And, uh, it kind of pushed our hand. That's fair. So it was like a huge silver lining that that happened. Yeah. I'm like, oh, guess we have to get rid of everything.

Elizabeth: 12:42

That's pretty gross and non-negotiable. I don't know. I don't think I remembered that. So you guys, we worked through remediation. You were starting dietary changes and we were also kind of delving into some of the emotional things and journey you'd been on. And you already know that I'm a big believer in immune triggers. And I kind of want to unpack that a little bit, like the context of life, because you'd probably been living with the mold for a decent period of time it doesn't just show up overnight you guys have been that's your home that's where you live you on your house you've been there um so what else kind of had been things going on contributing to where you were

Winona: 13:22

uh my dad had when lived in Florida he had a stroke and I flew there and basically in like the blink of an eye my whole life changed I had my boys were still young at that point and I flew there brought him here um and just began being like the sole helper and caregiver for him got him in rehab you know it was just this long process and then COVID happened and he um needed nursing care he was in a nursing home and so COVID happened and we were separated like we couldn't even touch each other oh emotions um yeah it was uh one of the hardest things I've ever it was like just ripping my heart out and just I kept trying to figure out like can I can we bring him here we'd have to like you know put him in the downstairs I don't know but I just to his doctor and he reassured me no that would not be wise anyway that was hard and then he ended up passing away thankfully he passed away after the restrictions were lifted and we were able to visit and be with him and even though like I am a Christian I believe in Jesus and my dad also was a believer and I think part of my Christian culture was that or a belief system was that because he was a Christian and I believe he's in heaven that I'm really not supposed to be sad and I kind of like just shoved that down and there was just so much emotion and pain wrapped around that I was just ignoring and like all my symptoms got worse after after he passed away. So that was the emotional picture of where I was when like Brazil and the EOE and all that happened was in the midst of all that.

Elizabeth: 15:38

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Winona: 18:12

I wish everyone can do an ET and I recommend it to so many people that I meet but I was having flashbacks so I was with my dad when he passed away it was beautiful like it was a beautiful moment actually but I would just be sitting at my microscope at work and I would just see I just with having these flashbacks of like the moment of some passing just I could not get rid of it my brain was just like forcing it into my mind at random times and I would just burst out crying regularly and so my very first session amenity we she was like do you just want to dive in with your dad or do you want to work your way up I was like no let's just dive right in and so we did some work and um over that and the way it works is you know you see what emotions are connected with that event or like what the um different events that happened in your past or in your childhood that are connected it's hard for me to explain but um and where you're holding that in your body right where you're holding different trapped emotions in your body basically it sounds very woo woo it's not um so after the very very first session, those flashbacks never happened again. It was wild. It was shocking. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. And I kept going for a while and I still do sessions here and there as I need to, but yeah, it's amazing.

Elizabeth: 19:59

It is. I'm glad that we had a moment for that. And I know we're off track from care, but it is really important. And when you have a I wouldn't say that's worse but if you're having flashbacks like that is creating the same stress response in the body pretty close to the original stress response when it actually happened and that can be such a blocking factor and can be something that really just like weakens your overall body strength to work on healing and so you being willing to work on those things and kind of get some freedom emotionally I think really also helped your body work towards healing and working through what it needed to so like I said you kind of really work through things fast. Like we started in November and you're like, we're remediating and I'm having this, you had your biopsy during that time to see about the EOE. You've been on a vacation in there somewhere. But I think by the time we moved into April, which was towards the end of our meeting, things were different than when we started. And you're just looking through your notes, like the sore throat piece was gone. Your singing voice was a lot better. And I think you did repeat testing right around the reflux at that point or somewhere in there with a GI doctor is

Winona: 21:12

that right yes I did some crazy tests where I had to wear this hard probe that was like in my stomach for 24 to 40 I think it was 48 hours I have a picture of myself it was I'm like what is this life what am I doing but what's cool is that test it found that I did have a weakened sphincter and but I had no reflux because at that point we had already been working together for months and I was feeling so much better. So there was no like acid going through the weakened sphincter. So I thought that was, that was cool.

Elizabeth: 21:56

Yeah. It was kind of fun because we're working in along the way you would have random testing data. I care if we get on a call and you'd be like, and I had this done and this is what the result was. And I was like, like probably an expensive way for us to find out, but really interesting to kind of track my guidance clinically and your progress. So it was kind of, I don't know, it was kind of like a spoiling thing for me, but there were still things hanging out. The Raynaud's was still pretty consistent in the hands. I think the neck, your neck pain was still there at that point.

Winona: 22:32

Yeah.

Elizabeth: 22:33

Yeah. Stiffness, like the muscular kind of stuff,

Winona: 22:35

but knee pain also

Elizabeth: 22:37

knee pain. Okay. Okay. So definitely some things, but the thing we started working on, the EOE part, the throat, the reflux, the voice, that kind of stuff was better. And we probably, I didn't talk to you much for like six months or so here or there. You started popping it on Instagram and Messenger. And we kind of talked about like, hey, the mold's gone. We've done some detox and drainage. Like you were able to get back to hot yoga. Like you were able to physically get back to things so that's always a sign for me that like that is that's a lot right for you to be able to do and you were doing it but there were still things hanging around and so I think you'd worked with another practitioner brought up EBV which is Epstein-Barr virus and we kept talking and I kept saying yeah EBV might be there but I think there's probably some other pieces of the puzzle saying that's not going to be that the whole thing so tell me about kind of that phase and when we got back together and where you were and what you were experiencing it's So I

Winona: 23:38

kept just getting sick and I would have these episodes and actually it would happen all the time now that I think about it, but I just didn't notice as much. But I would just have the days where I felt like I was coming down with something and, you know, feel kind of warm and would have to lay down and I would cancel, you know, if I was there in the graduation party, I have to go to be like, sorry, I can't go I'm not feeling well and like to the point where like people I feel like didn't really believe me they thought I just wanted to cancel on this but I would just have these days where I just didn't feel well but then like the next day I would feel fine and then I you know got COVID so many times I've gotten COVID many times and then I started getting like these intermittent just fevers and I just I felt very off I felt like shaky jittery like on the inside if that makes sense and it just felt like something bad was going to happen if I didn't do something more yeah so you just kept saying I think there's something more and I just didn't want to do it

Elizabeth: 24:57

and that's okay anything else for a while although you've been through and mold remediation I don't care how much mold you got or you don't got going through that is like, it's such a thing and it can be exhausting to keep healing, but you, you kind of brought up the ABV thing. And I was like, sure. I mean, do ABV labs. Like just, that's a traditional, anybody's going to order those for you, but run them with total immunoglobulins because you were still having food reaction things where you were like, I know I was looking through labs and there was the one coconut IGE because you kept having a coconut. And I was like, Yeah, maybe coconut's a problem this week, but like, it's not the problem. You're going to keep having cyclical things. And the IGEs on that came back as nothing. You were right. The EBV was raging for sure. And I think we kind of kept messaging, talking. We met at the end of January to review those EBV labs that you'd had run. And then we found, I mean, the EBV was really high, but you kind of also shared some like, these are my food reactions I'm still having. Energy's okay. my neck's really tight after the last time I had a flare and I'm now having like some lymph swelling. Yeah. Am I blinking? Like there was something like a lymph, like maybe you, do you recall what I'm talking about?

Winona: 26:16

I don't, I think I was having the swollen lymph nodes, the swollen lymph nodes with the fevers. And I remember you were making posts about Lyme and EBV. You're making like posts about chronic infections and I would read it and go, Oh my God, That's me.

Elizabeth: 26:36

Yeah. Yeah. I do it. Well, some other flags for me, we were like really sensitive to radiation at work. You work in a lab and with a microscope and you were like, I just don't feel good when I'm there. Like I feel very sensitive. And you mentioned two cat's claw because you had to use some herbals. Like I said, you were, you were good at doing that. And you were like, that really changed my energy so much. And I was like, yeah, probably a strep um it's probably a strep component and the neck thing is still giving very much lime and you were saying you're you were flushing and the fever part so cyclical fevers can be limey but also we finally got to do the full pathogens panel in march we did and it did come back with the ebv which we already knew um parvovirus was on there which is something i think does not get enough air time parvovirus is the cause of fist disease you got flushing to cheeks. You can have kind of like the cyclical where you feel like you're coming down with the flu kind of vibe. And they were really high. And what else was on the test? What other things did we learn? Lyme. And strep. Yeah. Yeah. That was really kind of the total picture. And so at that point you were like, okay, I'm recouped. I'm ready to do another season. And we started with drainage and we moved into that immune therapy processing And one of the things that was kind of consistent for you were these food reactions. Sometimes it was coconut. Then we started into peanuts. There was just like an all over the place, random protein sometimes, but not always.

Winona: 28:13

Collagen. I feel like high histamine foods would sometimes give me like twinges of sore throats.

Elizabeth: 28:19

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And because we would feel like a little EOE vibe coming back or not, or what is that? And collagen is really important too in relation to Lyme because Lyme actually likes collagen like that's why it goes and burrows in our connective tissue and so for some people ingesting collagen or collagen rich foods can cause a little bit of a flare so just like an interesting little rando fact there but we started immune therapy process pretty quickly because one on is always on the get it done route and tell me some things that you notice like once we started what symptom loads were like popping up as you work through that pathogen specific immune therapy what What were you noticing? I think

Winona: 29:04

the biggest thing, and you kept telling me I was having the mildest reactions of anyone you had ever. But it didn't feel that way to me. It felt sometimes intense, but mostly headache. But I also would have a headache all the time before, so much so that my children would be when I'd say, stop, guys, I have a headache. They're like, you always have a headache. So headache. and just really fatigued and like achy, but it really wasn't too different from how I just always felt, which is I think why it didn't feel hard. It just felt like normal life.

Elizabeth: 29:46

Yeah.

Winona: 29:47

Yeah.

Elizabeth: 29:47

So in the beginning you had, you would say random pieces like the, that anxiety jittery feel that you mentioned earlier, like that was something that was present a lot in the heart racing. You would notice like towards bedtime, but it, like Lyme anxiety is such a thing and it crosses over with the tachycardia. Like that's pretty common. We'll have heart racing. And for you, they would come at more towards the evening, which histamines laced into that issue. I could have easily been like looking at your whole case and be like, well, you just have MCAS. Like there's a lot of histamine going on. You get these heart rates, these food reactions, but that was not the root of it. That was part of the symptom load. Um, I think too, sometimes the shortness of breath would come with the Boba kit, you would have that with the Babesia and, um, Bertonella stuff. And the EMF sensitivity, I think was one thing that held on for a long time. You, um, mentioned one time you're using Brian's phone to call for pizza. Do you remember

Winona: 30:50

that? I do. Tell me. I couldn't even, we were somewhere where I couldn't really put it on speaker, which is, I always put my phone on speaker because I don't want to put it by my head. But yeah, when I put his phone here, it's like, it was like hurting. It was super uncomfortable.

Elizabeth: 31:10

Bartonella and Lyme together, sometimes Bart will do that by itself, but I think it's such an important thing to talk about because it's so random. It makes a cell phone feel like it is attacking like the inside of your eardrum. There's like a shaking, jittery, like I have kids too who have Bartonella and they cannot handle sounds of other people. And sometimes it's that misophonia type thing where you're like your chewing is on my nerves but it is next level when emfs and electronics get involved and that is a big flag for me if those sort of things are going on with somebody we know we got to look down the bart we got to look down the line path because it's it's something that's a big increase and it's it's a weird thing to talk about too right because emfs are like they're not new but like our awareness around them is and there's the whole 5g conversation all these things whatever don't care absolutely your nervous system can become so very sensitive that EMFs can really be a big, big bother. So, um, I think some of the early things you said to, you know, like you noticed when you would have a massage, you got a big headache afterward and you'd be really tired. And so that kind of told us like, Oh, we're moving some lime out bodies processing that knee pain started to be a little bit more intermittent. Like it would pop up, but it would also go away. And then, um, probably June. So you started, I think May towards the end of the second month and You started to say like, I've not really had like my histamine throat little twinges that you just mentioned in a while. And you were starting to have different knee leg pain. Some of that shin pain that's classic for Bartonella was popping up here and there. And then how do you feel like maybe the throat and EOV vibes, like did they resurface during immune therapy? Did they go and stay away? Did they seem to only be connected to mold or was there a limey component with like some of the swallowing discomfort like what do you make of that stuff now that you've gone through kind of your seasons

Winona: 33:07

um i feel like it was mostly with the mold and like my toxic bucket just overflowed doing the subline mold drops um i think the line like the neck pain like i used to not be able to move my my neck at all um it used to be like super super tight and hard to move and so that was a huge change after immunotherapy

Elizabeth: 33:37

I think that's one of my favorite things sometimes you'll talk on socials and you'll talk about how you didn't know that your neck pain didn't have to be a thing because you have a job where you're like looking down at a microscope so there is some physical positioning where it would be logical to think like well that's why her neck hurts but the before and after on that piece very different and stiff neck absolutely connected to Lyme but also also when you've got inflammation in the throat and you have lymph blockage and lymph overload, all of that can really happen. And it's not just a structural thing. So sometimes when I do calls and people are like, I go to the chiropractor all the time that manages my neck. Look, I love a chiropractor. I mean, I really love them. But also if you're having to go one, two, three times a week to remain functional, there's more going on. But in the middle of all this too, talking about more going on, you were like, I feel like I want to change and move and do different work things. And you started into nutrition school about halfway through there. So you started a balanced immune therapy and going back to school. How was that season for you? What, what, and we were also, I think we started working on some kiddos in your house. So there was like a lot all at one time. Yes. It still feels that way,

Winona: 34:51

but yeah, I, I feel like that is the one thing that has, changed my life from immunotherapy is that i think pre-immunotherapy i would not have been capable of doing what i'm doing and managing the stress and all the like the desire to move forward i felt very stuck and trapped like in my own body and in my own head and thoughts um so yeah i went to nutritional therapy school or i graduate in a month and um super thankful for that and yeah was concerned about my family because I know you can pass down Lyme through to your babies in utero and yeah definitely wanted them tested

Elizabeth: 35:46

yeah and it was in that season around NTP school and I was looking back through my notes you were doing NET so that emotional release technique and therapy and you were like there's just a lot coming up right now like I'm so starting school like I'm able to do that my whole family seems like they have Lyme also we've gone through this whole mold journey I am also doubting whether or not I'm capable of doing nutrition school because I've not had energy or focus like this and it's still kind of here and there and everywhere because you were still in process um and there was a lot going on but also you stuck with it and so did your boys um once you got through to the end of immune therapy Let's kind of talk about like, where were you there? Were you still struggling with the food reactions? How did your body feel? What things kind of changed there at the end?

Winona: 36:43

think the big difference like my headaches no headaches um no more like random sick days um that's big i used to not be able to like lunge side to side because of like my knee pain was so badly i can lunge like way far down on both sides now um yeah just energy just more clarity of mind i think And, um, I don't have food reactions like I did. Um, I can do collagen. I can do, you know, coconut and I think I'm still healing a little bit in my mind of being afraid of dairy. Like I think my body can handle dairy. Um, I'm in the butter phase, so I'm using butter. No problem. Um, And if there's like some cheese on some food, I still like move it away. But I think so. I think I still have some work to do. Just like feeling like, no, I'm okay. I can eat the cheese. So I'll get there.

Elizabeth: 38:02

If you've been wanting to transform your health but don't know where to start, I've got you. My full-color cookbook is much more than recipes. It's a 300-page crash course in healing through food. You'll get 125 plus gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free meals the whole family will love, plus step-by-step guides on shopping smarter, improving digestion, and making your kitchen a healing place. It's gorgeous, practical, and designed to make healthy living simple. Grab your copy at heyheymay.com slash cookbook and start changing your health one delicious bite at a time. Yeah. It's really hard because it's like, you're interesting story where like there is a chronic illness thread. And a lot of times those of us who really take really great care of ourselves don't do it because we're just trying to be exemplary. But there is that still small thing that you mentioned at the beginning where you're like, I just don't feel all the way, right? Like something's just always been there. And that drives us to take good care of ourselves. So we don't dip into illness, but getting away from living that way for so many years. And then even if we just shrink down 2022 to late 2024 um that's a long season to have dealt with the mold thing to work through the infections part like you were in chronic illness for that time and just as with anything like your brain gets used to this that or the other way of being and we get kind of stuck there and when you've had food reactions it's really hard to be like i'm gonna try that food again because like maybe i could have that terrible all day long experience i had once before but it is something that comes in time and it's something that we really push clients to like once you're to a place where we know you're better and we know you've worked through the stuff like you do have to keep doing that hard emotional piece of like unraveling what you went through and challenging yourself on new stuff and I think those are parts of working through chronic illness that we don't talk about enough because one we can't other people don't understand and two I mean it's not fun to be the girl who can't eat the cheese at the potluck or who can't have the coconut and the cashews. And we also can't do whatever else it may be. It creates this very like other thing and it's very isolating and it takes a while to kind of work back through that for sure.

Winona: 40:21

One thing I wanted to say that I feel like doing the tick-borne test gave me is that it's just an appreciation for my body because I used to speak really harshly about my I used to say like I'm just frail that you know when the zombie apocalypse happens just throw me out and let me be the zombie distraction because you know I'm not going to make it anyway because I'm you know I'm just so frail there's I'm just weak and I'm frail and when I saw the tick-borne test and saw all that my body was dealing with like my body was working hard for me Like it was working so hard for me and like just a completely like an appreciation for it and for how God designed me. And that was huge. That's been a big change for sure.

Elizabeth: 41:23

I think that's really interesting. And I think too about before I met you and you were caring for your dad and going through that and also still being a mom and being a wife and doing life like and doing life in a body that was struggling to keep up with dealing with those infections like you did all of those things all at the same time and your body was there for you and then when you got through the things that you needed to do it was kind and it chose to crash then and not in the middle of those times when you were really needed and i see that so often and that's really cool and also it's important for us to yield when we have that still small voice that's like um You're probably not going to make it in a zombie apocalypse and something different here that we got to eventually address and see, because if we don't, and when we don't other things impact our health and can lead to kind of crash times. But, um, We talked a little bit about your boys and just the, the line can be passed in utero and that we did eventually work through, um, the same process with your boys. Just give me a, maybe just a little summary of how you saw that be helpful and change. Cause they're young, strong guys. exercise, healthy, like playing sports. Not, not maybe who would think of as frail and like struggling with Lyme disease, but what did that, what did that bring about change wise? What would you learn there with them?

Winona: 42:46

It was more so with my older son. He, when he was young, he was this like, super curious super loud and boisterous like we called him the viking because he was just always like screaming and running and breaking stuff but just really curious and loved you know to learn and then as he got older we noticed just his personality just completely changed and he became super like almost this was closer to the teen age years where he you know almost showed very little emotion at all and had this like even his eyes look glazed at one point I remember sitting at the pediatrician's office and they were my two boys were sitting side by side and I just remember looking at them and like just being terrified because I felt like we were losing him like he just looked like he wasn't even there and so when we got the test back I mean I wish we could have done the testing and the immunotherapy years ago for him but still beneficial and he ended up having strep like super high strep and the pediatrician confirmed because she ran strep titers and they were sky high and so strep was a part of the story and Lyme and after doing immunotherapy he especially because my younger son there wasn't a huge outward outward signs of infections but he I think I messaged you one day it seems like his sails are unfurling just coming alive like we're seeing glimpses of the old person so that's been huge and he's you know normal teenager driving happy it's smiling, laughing. So very much worth

Elizabeth: 45:01

it. of especially strep infection when strep titers are really high. There's a lot there. The immune system gets dysregulated and creates inflammation in the brain and the child can feel like they're in a fog. They can also have various psychiatric issues, whether it's anxiety or depression, a whole host of things that we can go listen to the Pans Pandas episode that kind of walks out what does it look like to have infections in the body that are creating brain inflammation. Though with him, it was fun because I do calls with the kids as much as we can and it in the beginning he was very close off and like, and then we moved into like more talking and then he would be talking to all of you. And then he was just like much more present alive. And it is, it is like watching a person like unfold again and become like not trapped and under the cloud of the brain inflammation. And he was especially fun when, cause he was boys are this way too. Cause they are like, who's this lady in the computer in the beginning. And there's even more of a closed off. And then we move into getting to see them be healthy, but I guess my big question you kind of already answered was, would you do the immune therapy process again for you or the boys? And maybe what was the hardest part of that process, even though it was good?

Winona: 46:37

Definitely would do it again. It was worth it. I wish we would, like I said, I wish we would have done it years ago. I think the hardest part is, is people not understanding what you're doing or what you're going through. That's probably the hardest but thankfully we had each other but we I think we just felt like we are different we're we're these people over here doing this immuno like I even had to do any tea about my immunotherapy before I started because I was just feeling like here I am with my box of stuff to try and fix me and it just felt like burdensome I felt like I was a burden to my family I felt like I was a burden to everyone So just feeling like, here we go. You know, I don't know. I think that was probably.

Elizabeth: 47:34

Yeah. How do you feel like your family was loved well in the journey through chronic illness and immune therapy? Was there anything that sticks out that you're like, you know, this is a great way that we were like taking care of or met or seen?

Winona: 47:49

Like I said, I think unless you know someone who's done it, it's really like you cannot understand so I think mostly probably in-laws that helped support us you know to help us pay for it and then also just I feel like in your calls you were very good at speaking life into people and being encouraging I know like so many times you would say something that would just like fill me or like just make me feel like I've got this or to

Elizabeth: 48:29

keep going. that part of like the pensive anxiety about outcomes is plus like how you're feeling day to day is sometimes really hard to navigate depending on person and mood and all of those things. And, and then there's the clinical part where we want to talk through, like, why is it happening and those sorts of things too. And it can be interesting. And I may be not always the most encouraging and I also pretty good at tough love. And sometimes that process needs that and it stinks, but that's helpful for me to You kind of touched on the financial piece and you started out talking about, you know, there's the insurance based option that we all kind of want to go through. And then there are other options. But looking back now to kind of joint questions, was a financial investment worth it at this point? And all the four people in your household have walked through the process where we are now. And also, how was our approach different in ways that mattered from all those other paths that you went down as you were trying to explore? or like what's going on and how do I get better?

Winona: 49:57

Yes, it was definitely worth it. Would do it again, 100%. And I think the main way that it's different is it's not a Band-Aid. It's not just putting something on top of it that's potentially gonna cause some other side effect. And I think that's the big thing that made me decide to do nutritional therapy school is because I'm a cytologist I help diagnose cancer and so just seeing cancer like every single day and just people being thrown into this like wheel of treatment that is just like you know I don't know it's very despairing sometimes and so I wanted to be like you like you were such a big inspiration to be like i want to help people because there is a better way like to get to the root cause and foundational health instead of just like and also seeing the whole person then you're not just seeing like symptoms or labs you're seeing like what are your emotions like what's your stress level how are you sleeping how are you pooping like just real questions are you chewing your food slowly like no doctor is going to ask you that like how are you are you breathing yeah yeah before you are taking some deep breaths before you eat your meal like just seeing being seen and seeing a whole person i

Elizabeth: 51:37

love that and i also have just always loved and i've been curious to see like where this path will go because you've always been very curious and some clients really enjoy my uh scientific riffing on like why this is happening let's talk through the biochemistry of this and other people are like please stop just tell me what I need to do next but you are in the curious category and also just job wise like there has to be a toll and an awareness that is very different around the threat of illness to us when you're looking at cancer cells all the day every day and also a skill set that brings about a different awareness around cellular function and immune function I've always been kind of curious and used to say to our practice manager who's in the room with me all the time like I wonder what's going to happen here. I wonder what she's going to do. I wonder what's going to be made of this journey that she is on in a big way. But I do want to kind of end and wrap up with like, where can people find you as you're starting your own journey of serving other people in the nutritional therapy community? And, and maybe just a little bit about like what, what your focus is as you're moving into that space. And I know you're just getting started, but I also know you're a lady with a plan and interests. I think it's interesting to hear about that too. Yeah,

Winona: 52:56

I'm a baby NTP right now, or soon to be baby. But my Instagram is Abounding Wellness. That's what my company will be called. And website in the works will be AboundingWellness.com. I want to help people with foundational health just... you know, our bodies were designed to heal. And food is a huge part of that. And as NTPs, we're taught, you know, the foundations, digestion, hydration, sleep, blood sugar regulation, that's going to be huge. And I also am going to start Oncology Nutrition Institute to be certified for that starting in January. And yeah, I'm really excited to work with people who have had a cancer diagnosis and don't want it to come back or are currently walking through cancer and just other people also that are just fatigued and bloated and tired and all the things.

Elizabeth: 54:08

The cellular immune issues. It's interesting and I love that the immune piece has kind of collided with your cellular interest and cancer is an immune system issue and so I'm really excited to see what your experience of learning how we can amend an immune system to work more, how it was designed to be working before infections kind of took over and where that'll collide with your daily microscoping at work and the things that you've learned there. So I really appreciate you sharing and taking the time, especially to delve into some of those personal emotional pieces, because I think it's really beneficial for us to be able to see our own problems and other people who have have overcome them and to be able to understand roots that they have so that we'd be willing to take a risk on those roots to be able to get to a better place. So thanks for sharing with us. And thanks for trusting your family's care to us too. It's been really fun to get to know all of you and to be able to see progress over a few years and now to get to not see you anymore because you don't need it anymore, which is the best part. So I miss seeing you, but I also am really glad that there's not a need for that. So

Winona: 55:18

thank you. so much and we just we chat on the insta

Elizabeth: 55:23

we'll keep it connected all

Winona: 55:29

right your monday questions are where it's at it's like a little webinar i'm like oh

Elizabeth: 55:35

we're about to learn a bunch of stuff yeah it's fun it's a good element for me to to give my scientific explanations that some people don't want to listen to in session oh

Winona: 55:45

i love it you know i'm there there for it

Elizabeth: 55:49

thanks for listening I hope you're leaving encouraged, curious, and hopeful. If you learned something, I'd love for you to share this episode with a friend. Hey, we're all healing together. You can learn more about my practice, our team, and what it's like to work with us at HeyHeyMay.com. I teach lots on Instagram and answer questions each Monday. My Instagram handle is at HeyHeyElizabethMae. You can watch these episodes and more on our YouTube channel at HeyHeyMae. Learn about and enjoy our homeopathic line at HeyHeyHomeopathics.com. Happy healing.