Lyme Disease and Chronic Fatigue: Connecting the Dots

This episode is brought to you by Functional Nurse Academy

An often overlooked cause of chronic fatigue is chronic Lyme disease—a complex condition that is frequently missed in conventional medicine. Approximately 2.5 million Americans suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), yet the traditional medical model rarely investigates underlying causes, focusing instead on symptom management with medications that do not address why patients are unwell.

In this episode, I share my personal journey of overcoming chronic fatigue syndrome through a functional medicine approach that addressed underlying chronic Lyme disease.  I also discuss ongoing concerns surrounding guidance from organizations such as the CDC and how current diagnostic and treatment frameworks for Lyme disease can contribute to missed diagnoses and inadequate treatment. 

Functional medicine training for nurses:

• Interested in becoming a functional medicine nurse?  Join Melissa live at the next webinar www.functionalnurseacademy.com/webinar-registration
• Learn more about the Functional Nurse Academy https://www.functionalnurseacademy.com

Functional medicine training for all other healthcare specialties and health and wellness coaches:

• https://www.christianfma.com

This show is also syndicated every Tuesday at 10am EST on The Nurses Report on America Out Loud Talk Radio 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello and welcome to the Functional Nurse Academy podcast. This is your host, Melissa Schreivetter, owner and founder of the Functional Nurse Academy. Well, it is great to be here with you all today. So this was a topic that I just felt really called to go over with today because this is something that I suffered with for a long time. I have talked about how I went through a nightmare with both conventional medicine and functional medicine. And yes, I did eventually find a functional medicine provider that did help me, but I had to go through so many providers to get the help that I needed. And it shouldn't be this hard. So I really wanted to get this information out to you all because I think that everyone knows someone who is suffering. So today I primarily wanted to talk about chronic fatigue. There are so many people that they are struggling to survive. They are not thriving. And there's this, there's approximately two and a half million Americans that are diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. But those are just the individuals that are diagnosed. A lot of people who are experiencing chronic fatigue are gaslit by their medical providers. So now I wanted to go over some of the common causes why someone may be experiencing chronic fatigue. And again, you know, if you are running yourself to the ground and you are not sleeping enough and you're not eating well, of course you are going to be experiencing some fatigue. But this chronic fatigue uh disorder is kind of like, well, again, I don't even want to call it a disorder because something is causing it. If you have chronic fatigue, you want to investigate why, because when we get into our heads that, like, oh, I have this chronic condition. When you start to believe that your condition is chronic and it's not treatable, we have even seen this in the literature, just like we see the placebo effect. We also see the nocebo effect. We've even seen in clinical studies where they have studied the nocebo effect and they actually gave chemotherapy drugs to one group. And then the other group, they gave them a placebo pill, like a sugar pill. But then with the placebo group, they told them, hey, these are the side effects of the chemotherapy drug that you're getting. And the individuals that believed that they were getting that chemotherapy pill and believed, oh, these are the side effects I may be experiencing, started to actually exhibit side effects of the chemotherapy drug, even though they were not receiving it. And one thing that is really specific about it was some of the individuals receiving the placebo were losing their hair like they would if they were getting the real chemotherapy drug. So again, if someone's in the placebo group and they're like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm tired from the chemotherapy pill. I can see how docs may be like, well, that's just in your head. How do we explain this physical manifestation of symptoms such as hair loss when you're just getting the placebo? So that is how powerful the mind is. And you know, you really must believe in your heart, mind, and soul that your body has the capacity to heal. And I think one of a tremendous deficit in, you know, healthcare is when providers in their white coats are telling people, well, you have this chronic condition and it's permanent, and we're just gonna keep you comfortable with medications. So anyway, um, when we talk about um how chronic fatigue is characterized and and things like that, um, and when we when we look at this through the functional medicine lens, we know that with chronic fatigue, it is complex, it's multifactorial, and it is commonly characterized by persistent and debilitating fatigue that is not alleviated by rest. And it often comes with a wide range of other symptoms, such as cognitive, cognitive difficulties, muscle pain, and even sleep disturbances. When I was really sick and chronically fatigued, the best way I can describe it to you guys, um, you know, if anyone has had, say, the flu or something, like a bad case of the flu, and while you're sick, you have this debilitating fatigue because your body's dealing with the flu. So the body is like, okay, yeah, um, you need to rest because we need to recover. That is how I felt for several years, where no matter how much I would sleep, I was just exhausted, dragging my feet every day. And, you know, you kind of you're in a way forced to adapt to this because again, like say that you have the flu and you're fatigued, everyone knows you're sick and no one wants to be around you because you have the flu and you're contagious. So no one's really expecting much from you. They're like, yes, leave them alone. They're sick. But when you're dealing with something like chronic debilitating fatigue and you're still expected to go to work and take care of your children and take care of your home and, you know, be present at social events and things like that, it was a very miserable experience for me. And I had some days where it was really hard for me to get out of the bed. I mean, I had days where I would sleep for 10 to 12 hours and I was still exhausted all day. And I even had days where, you know, in the middle of the day, I was like, I can't keep my head up. Like I'm I'm exhausted. And I would go and lay down in the bed and sleep for like over three hours. And I remember my husband going in there, like checking on me to make sure I was okay. But it's really challenging to live like this. And um, what is just so frustrating is if you do not seek outside of the conventional medical model for care, there's just not much that's going to be offered to you. So the conventional medical model says that, and this is from the CDC, which again, whenever I source anything from the CDC guys, I'm like, this is from the CDC. Take it with a grain of salt. But anyway, some things that they say about chronic fatigue syndrome is that there's no cure, there's no approved treatments, and symptoms are managed with medications. Causes are unknown. I'll tell you right now, that's total BS. It also says that they do recognize that there's a potential link between chronic fatigue syndrome and infections. Um, but screening for such infections is not recommended. That is something else that just angers me so much because my what was at the root of my chronic fatigue was Lyme disease. And the reason why I am better now is because I had a finally found a good functional medicine doctor that knew to test me for Lyme disease based on my sentence. I clearly had Lyme disease. And then I was able to get treatment for that condition. And it totally changed my life. I think back to like how I feel now. And, you know, I can go to sleep at a normal time. And when I wake up at like 6:30, I can just wake up and get out of the bed, you know, and I think back and I'm like, okay, I'm 39 now. And I think about how I was feeling when I was 32. And I just I really don't know how I was functioning back then because I remember how bad I felt and how horrible it was. And so now some other things here. Uh, it says that medications used to treat the symptoms are SSRIs. Remember, those are medications like your Zolac, your Well Butrin. I did a show a couple of weeks back about how the initial that the study, which was called the Star D trial, were finding that how that trial was run was, well, looks to me like it was fraudulent, but it was either fraudulent or it was run by idiots because they had people in the trial that never had depression. And then at the end of the trial, they were like, look, this person doesn't have depression. It worked, but it's like, well, that person never had depression to begin with. But there's a lot of deficits in that. So um with SSRIs, we're actually seeing that they have very, very serious side effects to them. And they may not work much more than a placebo, and they actually increase the individual's overall um rate of things like um cardiovascular disease and things like early mortality. So um they also will prescribe CM C and central nervous system stimulants, CNF stimulants, and um, those are going to be things like Adderall, which again have a lot of serious consequences and side effects, and do not fix what is causing the chronic fatigue. And um they also say here, and this is always fun. I always like to look at what the CDC is saying about things like nutritional and herbal supplements. Um, this was something that I actually um I have used um as like an adjunct therapy um to heal my body. And um it basically says be aware that many treatments that are promised as cures for chronic fatigue syndrome are unproven, often costly, and could be dangerous. Which again, you know, more people in our country die from the use of pharmaceuticals than they do from herbal supplements. It's interesting how the system is like, no, no, don't take the herbs, don't take the vitamins, it could kill you. And again, I do understand that this uh the supplement industry, it is unregulated, right? But um, the makers, the uh manufacturers of vitamins and supplements, if they make something that is dangerous and it kills someone, you can sue them. You can't do that for something like a vaccine. But anyway, so you know, if you are using, say, herbal supplements or nutraceuticals, but you are purchasing them from a responsible source, such as a medical dispensary. You know, for an example, the dispensary that I use as a practitioner, everything that is on there is chosen by a medical advisory board. And those products have also been third-party safety tested. So they're very high quality. Now, when we talk about um, you know, other root causes, you know, I mentioned that in functional medicine, we understand it is absolutely multifactorial why people have these conditions. You know, um, if you are dealing with chronic fatigue, you weren't born this way. You know, what happened that has caused this in your body? You know, I mean, for me, before I ended up having um the fatigue issues, I had I had a lot of just random symptoms, you know, all throughout my early 20s, a lot of mystery symptoms. But again, my symptoms, they were annoying. It was frustrating, but they weren't debilitating until I had my first beautiful baby. But anyway, when a woman is pregnant, you experience a shift of your immune system. Well, now for me, before I, before I even got pregnant, I had an undiagnosed autoimmune condition. I also think I did have um underlying Lyme that was causing issues. But again, you know, our bodies are so magnificently designed. We have like trillions of microorganisms in our bodies. We're literally bags of bugs. But if you have a healthy immune system, that healthy immune system is going to keep things that you've been exposed to under control, like Epstein Barr virus, varicella, which is known as chicken pox. I mean, we have all these things we've been exposed to that um, you know, may be dormant in the body. Um, and then there's also things like lime, you know, when I was a child, I used to go to outdoor camp all the time. I have, I'm sure I've been bitten by all kinds of ticks and other bugs and things like that. And what happened is after I had the baby, I had an immune system shift. I had um a significant flair of autoimmune, finally got diagnosed with Hashi Matos. But at that time, I think I had some underlying lime that basically blew up and was out of control. And then it took me after all of this happened, and I'm like suffering and going to so going to, you know, conventional docs that just did not help me. They were totally useless. And I go to holistic providers and they're pushing supplements on me and restrictive diets. And it took me three years bouncing around to all these different practitioners that were basically taking my money, not helping me to eat lime. So I meant three years not knowing I had it. And then after I got diagnosed, you know, I did try the treatments that um my provider had recommended. Uh, he recommended that I be treated with either um a combination of antibiotics and herbal therapies and other nutraceuticals, or um, he said what was less effective but still worked was just herbal therapy um and nutraceuticals. And I had a very strong, which I believe this was from God, had a very strong feeling, had that discernment not to take the antibiotics. I didn't feel good about that. So I declined the antibiotics and I went on the herbal protocols. And with Lyme disease, it is one of those conditions that when you are killing off the Lyme, you are going to experience a significant die-off reaction. So it's one of those conditions that when you are being treated for the Lyme, you get much worse before you get better. I could not handle the herbal therapies, couldn't do it. So I tried that for about a probably about two years. Um, just different things to try to treat it. Then I finally did 10-pass ozone, which is a treatment used widely out in Europe. You can access it here in the US, but it's more expensive. But ozone is basically um anti-microbial. It's also supportive of the mitochondria and all these great things. And you basically um will go to a medical clinic, they mix your blood and ozone, and then they infuse it back into the body about 10 times um each session. So um I did the 10-pass therapy. I did several sessions of this. It was really expensive. Finally got relief. I was like, I was feeling better. And then I also went to a clinic. There's two clinics in the US that do this. It's called Lime Stop. It's like an inner, I don't even know how to explain how this works, but it is a totally energetic treatment for Lyme disease where they basically are directing the immune system at exactly where the infections are in the body. And then the end goal is that your immune system will kill off these infections. So um, that is actually what worked for me. But I will say I went up um to Wisconsin for treatment and I, you know, felt okay. Cause again, I had already done the ozone. And my goal was, I was like, I'm sick of being sick. I'm gonna throw the kitchen sink at this and I'm gonna get better, right? So um, but anyway, I I knew the ozone had made a difference, but it didn't complete I knew it didn't completely knock it out, you know. So I went to LimeStop. And then I remember it was two weeks after I got back from Lime Stop. I felt like I got hit by a bus and the chronic fatigue was back full force. And again, that was me going through the die-off of all of the Lyme. And when I went back from my checkup at Lime Stop in three months, they told me that I cleared the Lyme, but my body was super inflamed and nutrient deficient from clearing the Lyme. Because again, you know, Lyme disease is like setting off a balm in the body. And then when you kill the Lyme disease, Lyme doesn't like that. So it's it's like even magnified. So a lot of people, when they're treated for Lyme disease, you know, even after the infection has cleared, then, um, or is at, you know, acceptable levels to where it's not going to be causing a lot of issues, even after that infection is cleared, um, a lot of people feel terrible because we know that Lyme disease causes a lot of dysfunction in the body. And again, I don't like to say, oh, it's permanent dysfunction, da-da-da, because I do believe that God can heal our bodies. Um, but the body takes time to heal. And there is this like really well-mount, well-known um Lyme disease physician. His name is Dr. Hereowitz. And he has one of the best analogies. I love this analogy. And he's basically saying that, like, you know, having Lyme disease is like having, you know, three nails on your foot. Okay. So you have, say, for an example, one nail is a Lyme disease, the second nail is the co-infections, the third nail is like all of the like inflammation and the stress that causes the body. When you're going through the treatment, um, say that one nail is taken out and then they're like, here, fill out this form. Do you feel better yet? No, you're not gonna feel better because your foot still hurts and you still have two other nails. And then say you go back and then the other two nails are removed. Um, do you feel better immediately? No, because you still have like holes, like wounds in your foot from those nails. Your body needs to heal from it. So we need to be patient and understand that. So now I did mention, you know, with what was the one of the massive fat factors that was making me so sick and thank the Lord I was able to be treated, you know, because if I did not have the resources or the knowledge to seek outside of conventional medicine, I really don't know what condition I would be in right now. Now, um, some other uh causes, mitochondrial dysfunction, nutrient deficiencies, environmental toxins, psychological stressors. And again, usually if someone has a condition like chronic fatigue, um, it's not usually just one thing. It's not gonna be just nutrient deficiencies. It's not gonna be just an environmental toxin. To give you an example, environmental toxins such as, I don't know, aluminum hydroxide that is injected into people. That is something that can stress the immune system. When the immune system is stressed and becomes imbalanced, then we can see reactivation of things like chronic infections. We then know that chronic infections, such as Lyme disease, can deplete the body of essential nutrients such as zinc and manganese. And then we know to have a healthy mitochondria, which is the basically the energy powerhouse of the cell, you need enough nutrients for your mitochondria to properly work. Now, this is something else that there are multiple studies that support that there is an association between low cortisol slash HPA, which is hypothalamus pituitary access dysfunction. That's basically, you know, your brain, you have this wonderful pituitary gland that God gave us. The pituitary pituitary gland then sends signals to your adrenal glands, which are these little glands that sit on top of your kidneys. Those little glands secrete cortisol, which is your master stress hormone. Now, whenever I had my cortisol tested, which is the most accurate way to do that, is going to be a multi sample test. That way you can see what your cortisol pattern is throughout. The day. And mine was always, sometimes it actually was clinically low. Other times it was just very borderline. It was very suboptimal low. And again, when somebody has low cortisol, we want to ask why. Like I would never test someone's cortisol and then be like, oh, it's low. Okay, here's some adaptogenic herbs, even though we know adaptogenic herbs can help and have been studied and for the most part are very safe. I know that that individual does not have a deficiency of an adaptogenic herb, but I know that things like adaptogenic herbs that are nutrient dense and have been shown to help the body's stress response is an excellent tool to use to help to bring the body back into homeostasis while we are researching why is your cortisol low? Because in certain examples of chronic infections like what I was dealing with, the Lyme disease was causing so much physiological stress in my body that my brain was like, okay, you are sick. You need to heal. So what we're gonna do is we are going to just slow down your signaling to your adrenal glands. That way you're gonna have a hard time producing cortisol that you need to, you know, feel um lively and to have energy. That way you're forced to just sleep all day. But um, that doesn't really work for a lot of busy moms, you know. So I know that when I was dealing with this, I had to push through. I had responsibilities. I couldn't be on the couch all day, you know. So a lot of people will end up drinking coffee and doing other things that will help to give them that temporary energy, but then it's at a cost because we're not addressing the root cause. So um now, also, this is something else that um you guys may have heard the term adrenal fatigue. That is something else that the conventional medical model is like, no, that's not a thing. Um, but um, I will say um I don't really like the term adrenal fatigue because it's more, I think the more accurate term is actually like adrenal dysfunction. And most of the time when we have adrenal dysfunction, it is because of the HPA access issues, um, which can occur when the body is just so overly stressed. Now, um, it's about time for us to pause for a break. When I come back, I really want to talk more on Lyme disease because there has been a just plethora of horrible false information coming out from the CDC about Lyme disease, which I really do believe is causing so many people to go under the radar and not be diagnosed with this terrible condition, which we know is one of the great mimickers of diseases. I do want to pause for a moment to remind our listeners. This show is also syndicated on America Out Loud Talk Radio on the Nurses Report radio show and podcast. So you can also find me there on any major app. Hello and welcome back. This is Melissa Schreibfadder, and I am coming to you today with a really important topic. There are so many people suffering unnecessarily in our country from mystery diseases, from things like chronic fatigue, brain fog, neurological issues, autoimmune conditions, you you name it. And one of the common factors in a lot of these conditions is the chronic fatigue component. And and remember, you know, our bodies were designed by God to heal, but our bodies need energy to heal. And when we have these like underlying stealth infections, such as Lyme disease, that are present in the body. They're causing all kinds of issues, but they're not diagnosed and they're and people are just not being treated appropriately for this. So um I mentioned before we meant to break that Lyme disease is also kind of nicknamed the great mimicker of all diseases because it can cause or be associated with multiple other conditions, including chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis and MS-like symptoms. There's actually a big wig Lyme disease functional medicine doctor named Dr. Klinghart out in Europe. He says consistently that all of his MS and ALS patients are testing positive for Lyme disease and co-infections. Now, um, Bell's palsy, heart conditions, um, there's actually something called Lyme Carditis, which can cause a regular heartbeat and heart block, arthritis, neuropsychiatric disorders, autoimmune conditions, meningitis and succolitis, chronic inflammatory response syndrome. That's another condition that I had due to the Lyme. That is, thank God it is resolved. Um, HOTS, SIBO, hormonal imbalance, eye disorders. I mean, just the list just goes on and on and on. And there's probably other conditions that we don't even know about that is caused or is associated with Lyme disease. I remember when I was really sick and I was going to holistic providers who, you know, I think that some of them maybe did have good intentions, but then just didn't really know what they were doing. And then I think that there were other practitioners that they were fixated on selling some protocols and making some money, you know? But um, pretty much every practitioner, they were like, oh, you've got you've got food sensitivities. Oh, you need to go on this really restrictive diet. So my diet was like incredibly restricted. And then when I tried to reintroduce certain foods that, for example, healthy foods like legumes, nuts, seeds, nightshade vegetables. If I introduced anything that I had originally taken out of my diet to do the autoimmune paleo diet, which I really don't recommend, I would have a reaction to that food. And it was, and and the practitioners I was working with, they were like, oh, well, you're sensitive, so you just can't have it, you know. So my diet was so restricted. I was still really sick. And turns out I was having hyperreactivity to foods because I had chronic inflammatory response syndrome from the Lyme disease that was overburdening my system and causing all this oxidative stress and histamine release and inflammation and causing all of this uh dysfunction and intestinal permeability and all of these things. And what I really needed was to have this infection treated. Now, some of the common symptoms, and I mentioned before that like, and this is one of the reasons why when I was really sick, um, and I wasn't with good providers, I was bouncing around to all these different holistic providers, not getting any help. I never thought to research Lyme disease because I always thought, like, well, I wasn't, I don't remember being bit by a tick and I didn't have the bullseye rash because the CDC is spewing false information for which they have no studies to reference this. Um, this is just so atrocious to me. Um, they have on their website, these little idiots at the CDC that are useless, um, they say that a bullseye rash occurs in approximately 80% of Lyme disease cases. And that is BS. Okay, even like other Lyme um disease organizations are reporting that, you know, this rash only occurs in about 10% of individuals with Lyme disease. And then I, you know, I went to the CDC website and I'm reading their nonsense. And I was like, okay, where's your reference, CDC? They don't have a reference for this. I scoured their site. There is no reference for this. They literally just say things and put it on the website. And then we have our run-of-the-mill conventional docs that still believe that the CDC is like godlike. And, you know, if they say something, yeah, that's like, you know, that's the light, the truth in the way. Um, they don't utilize any critical thinking. And so they have these suffering individuals that come in and they're like, well, did you have a bullseye rash? Patients usually don't recall that. And they're like, well, it's not Lyme. And the CDC also spews more BS when they're like, oh, um, yeah, acute Lyme disease, like right after someone gets infected, that can be easily treated with, you know, 10 to 14 days of doxycycline. Um, we also know that's not true. So in some cases, it can be treated effectively, but 10 to 14 days for an acute infection may not be enough. And you want to take care of that infection early and aggressively so that the infection does not go chronic, because once it goes chronic, it is a beast to get rid of and it causes all kinds of issues. So another thing that the CDC says that is crazy is um they're saying things like, you know, for years they did not recognize chronic Lyme disease. Um, now, with you know, the occurrence of things like long COVID and stuff like that, they're finally recognizing that there is a little something called PTLDS. They recognize chronic Lyme as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. And they're saying that this is basically, it's basically like long COVID, but like it's like long Lyme disease. And they're saying that, you know, they really don't know why these people still have symptoms. However, they don't recommend treating for infections. And then they also say that um they recommend prescribing medications, you know, like pain medications to, you know, um help with, say, chronic joint pain, if that's what that person's experiencing, or other medications to help with their symptoms, but they really do not um address or encourage um treatment of this manifestation of, you know, chronic Lyme disease. Now, we've also studied like what kind of symptoms are these individuals having? Um, some of the most common symptoms someone with Lyme may have. And the reason why the symptoms are so various are because, you know, when you get infected by Lyme disease, it's not just one bug, you know, it's not just the borelia. Um, there are also co-infections, such as Bartonella, which can cause psychiatric issues, babesia, known for causing drenching night swaps, chest or rib pain, mycoplasma, known for causing respiratory infections and sinus problems. Now, um, some other hallmark symptoms, and again, everyone is different. Like some people may have a variety of these symptoms, and um, others may have totally different symptoms. But the number one most hallmark symptom absolutely is fatigue. So, and there's also another common symptom, which is joint pain. Now, for me, I really didn't have chronic joint pain, but my symptoms were chronic fatigue. I had really bad brain fog. I had the immune dysfunction, the autoimmune conditions, I had some chest pain. Um, I also sometimes would have shooting pain. But to give you just a rundown of some of the most common symptoms: depression, anxiety, nude swings, fatigue, brain fog, cognitive decline, neuropathy, immune system dysfunction, cardiovascular symptoms, headache, neck stiffness, arthritis, valve palsy, chronic pain, tendonitis, nerve pain, shooting pain, I tell all of the nurses that I train, you must know how to assess for Lyme disease. And you also must understand that when so conventional Lyme disease testing is also BS. Um, so the like if you go to a provider and you're like, and maybe this provider is open-minded and cares and is listening to you. And if you're like, hey, I really think I have Lyme disease, can you please test me for this? Um, that conventional provider is, you know, probably gonna go to, you know, lab horper quest and they're gonna type in the um Western um Lyme disease blot. And then that Lyme disease test is highly outdated and inaccurate. Um, it only catches approximately 50% of the Lyme cases. So there are individuals that um are told they're like, well, we tested you for Lyme, and you know, you don't have it. I'm sorry, I don't know what it is, or maybe it's in your head, all these things. Um, we actually do have more advanced testing for um identifying Lyme disease. Um, and this is much more comprehensive testing that tests for many more of um the co-infections. And um it, but but the downside is insurance is not gonna cover this. Okay. Um, and these tests are usually approximately $600. Like they're really expensive, guys. But again, I yeah, you know, I just can't like you can't put a price tag on your health. Like if you're suffering, um, you know, you know, especially if you're chronically fatigued and you're having neurological issues, like I know it hurts to have to pay out of pocket like this for testing. And in the perfect world, our medical model, medical model would be up to date with this and um would put the resources forth that we need for which these types of testing would be covered. So the tests that I recommend there are two Lyme tasks I think are very high quality that I know have good clinical validation studies, because again, as functional medicine becomes you know more widespread, I'm seeing where some of these like direct patient to lab websites, especially the functional medicine ones, may be offering functional medicine tests that don't have good clinical validation studies. So I like Vibrant America. I also like IGenics. So um, there are ways that um you if you start looking around online, um, there may be ways that you could self-order these tests as um as a client. Um, also, if you check out the functional nurse academy directory, there are nurses on there that can work with you who can order these tests for you and can advocate for you and provide you the information that you would need to be able to get properly treated. But um, to give you an example, when with these um advanced tests, so they're gonna look at like IgM and things like IgG. So IgM is usually um what the antibody that is gonna show up if you've recently been infected. Um a deficit in the one of the deficits in the conventional model is say that someone goes to the ER or a clinic and they're like, you know, I got a tick bud, I've got a rash, I don't feel good. Sometimes the providers will be like, oh, okay, we'll do the Lyme test. And then they don't realize that like it it takes some time to get that antibody level up. So they may be testing too early, which could cause a false negative. Um, the IgG test, um, if that's positive, um, that suggests a um past infection. So, like for me, my IgM was negative, but again, like this was a straight up reactivation of Lyme disease after I had my baby. So my IgG levels were positive and I was positive for all kinds of co-infections, but based on the CDC criteria, my test would have been negative and I would have gone untreated. So it really was. I know that these functional medicine tests are expensive, but it really is a blessing, um, you know, when you're able to identify the cause of like what is plaguing you day in and day out. And um I do want to go over with you guys. Let's see. Um, when we're working to heal from Lyme disease again, even with Lyme, you know, I was kind of like, like for me, um, I know I have symptoms of Lyme disease disease even before I had my son and I wasn't debilitated from it. But it's like I lived in my body every day. And when I had sharp shooting pains or I have significant brain fog, or there's just weird things that would happen, I I got to the point where I was like, well, you know, it almost feels like it's normal to you because you don't know what it's like to live in and a normal body and, you know, or healthy body. And it's kind of like every year it gets like a little worse. It's kind of like reminds me of, you know, the the frog sitting in, you know, a bowl of like boiling water or something. You know, it gets like a little hotter and a little hotter each year. And then you just don't, next thing you know, you're really sick and you have all of this dysfunction. But there is a component of immune system dysfunction. And, you know, we saw this with COVID, where, you know, it just, ah, I saw this. COVID, I should not be laughing. I should be praying for this person. But anyway, I saw this COVID-cautious influencer who was morbidly obese, you know, and she was posting a reel about this is how I stay safe from COVID in 2025. And she was like, This is how I fly. I put my mask on and I get my bleach wipes and then clean everything. And then I wait until everyone else has had their snack to have my snack. So she's on a flight and she pulls on her mask and starts eating like a sugary cookie. And then she um gets off the flight, and then she's like, and then I test for COVID again, and then I stay indoors. And I was like, this is insanity, you know, because when you've got to take care of the terrain of the body, you want your body to not be hospitable, to dysfunction in all of these infections because we're gonna go out and we're gonna get exposed to things. But, you know, what's so interesting is people who are metabolically unhealthy, and then this this woman individual, um, this woman in particular, I think that she had mentioned that she had had COVID like 10 times, which again, I think that she's using an accurate test and testing all the time. But anyway, um, people who end up with say getting exposed to Lyme or COVID or some type of other infection, if that infection takes you down and causes all types of systemic issues, you want to re-evaluate what is the terrain of my body. If you have a healthy gut microbiome, if you're if you are not nutrient depleted, if you're eating a whole foods, healthy diet, organic foods, you're drinking enough water, you have joy in your life, you have all these things, your metabolic health is optimal, you are not going to be as affected from these um infections that we get exposed to. But you know, if your body, if you um, you know, are metabolically unhealthy and your toxic burden is really high and you have all this stress, you're super nutrient deficient, you've got leaky gut, like these infections are gonna take you down and cause issues. And um, with the immune dysfunction component of Lyme disease, so you know, it's one of those things. It's like, well, was it the chicken or the egg? But, you know, um, so there are theories that, like, you know, someone has immune system dysfunction. So maybe they had a toxic exposure. So maybe their immune system was being overly stimulated. Maybe they were injecting things like formaldehyde and aluminum hydroxide. Maybe they had other heavy metal exposure, which imbalance their immune system and cause reactivation of other um bacterial organisms and viral organisms, and then they end up really sick. Um, or is it like, you know, this person may be relatively healthy, but maybe they get exposed to a lot of um like a high infectious load, which then causes the immune disruption, and then their body cannot handle the infections that they were exposed to. So we always want to recognize the um. The fact that restoring immune balance is key. If someone has Lyme disease, you don't kill the infection, yes, it is important. But you want to keep restoring the immune system balance a priority. Um, you know, there's actually evidence that things like POTS may be associated with things like Lyme disease and reactivation of other infections. I remember I had a young woman who had new onset POTS after a vaccine. And again, with vaccines, I always tell people, I'm like, it's all about informed consent that, you know, the the patients, they need to know that when we look at the CDC vaccine schedule, we cannot say with certainty that these products are safe without placebo safety testing. I rant about hepatitis B vaccines all the time. Um, you know, that trial had less than 150 people in it, and it was tested for three to five days. I mean, like we cannot say that that is a safe intervention, and then we're not testing all of these vaccines in accumulation with each other. I mean, you know, what happens when you over-vaccinate and then, you know, you're not monitoring or properly safety testing the vaccine adjuvants. Like that is a big deal. And again, like, you know, if you're practicing functional medicine, but you refuse to recognize these safety deficits and concerns, you're not going to be a good functional medicine practitioner because we need to look at like the whole picture. And then we need to have courage and we need to have a backbone. We should be advocates for um the suffering patients right in front of us. We should not be blindly defending the pharmaceutical industry. So, anyway, restoring immune balance, killing the infection. And, you know, some tools used here include herbal antimicrobials. Um, they're actually, and again, some people are like, well, where's your double-blinded, randomized, controlled trial on herbal antimicrobials online? And I'm like, okay, um, who's gonna do that trial? Do you think that big pharma is gonna come in and drop millions on a trial on herbal therapies that they can't make a lot of money off of that are actually possibly going to like help to resolve chronic disease processes for which they profit off of? No. Is the government going to do this? Um, they haven't been, but I do think with the change of administration, I do think that there is hope that we may have more research in this area. So the studies that we have, um, we have studies at test tube studies and things like that showing that things like um cryptolepsis and um other um antimicrobials, um, some of the most common ones are things like um artemesia and um andrographus that uh have been used in a lot of herbal protocols for Lyme disease. And um some other things that have been shown um oregano oil, clove oil, cinnamon bark oil, black walnut, Japanese nutweed, uh cat's claw, which is also an immune modulator. And um these have been things that have been studied and are showing like promising results. And then they also tend to be in the protocols for many Lyme literate doctors who are getting individuals well. Um, some resources if you want to learn more about herbal therapy, the Booner protocol, the Cowden protocol, those are very well known in the Lyme world. Um, Dr. Klinghart, he's like the big wig functional medicine, Lyme disease doc. He actually, and again, um definitely not medical advice here, but he has published his um protocol online as a resource for people who are suffering with Lyme. I'll post that in the show notes. But he has like a Lyme and coinfection protocol. And um, another thing I do want to mention, so you know, after you restore the immune balance, you kill the infection, um, it's like cleanup on aisle nine, guys, because when you kill Lyme, like I said before, it's like it's I some people are treated for Lyme and they're like, well, why do I still feel bad? Um, having Lyme and coinfections, we know it damages the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cells. It damages the gut microbiome. When your gut microbiome is damaged, you are not going to be properly utilizing and absorbing nutrients from your food, causes inflammation, oxidative stress, and um kill agents further exasperate these problems. So, you know, there's going to be a phase where after the Lyme has been killed off, that, you know, you're really gonna have to work to nurture and restore the body. And Lyme disease is very complicated. Um, it can take so, you know, if someone gets diagnosed, this is not like, oh, here's your Lyme tincture, you know, take this for six weeks and you'll be fine, you know. Um, it's a very complicated, comprehensive process. And, you know, it may take three to 12 months for treatment with frequent monitoring. And it can be very costly to treat because remember, you have to go outside of the system to get treatment for this. The conventional medical model does not recognize this as an issue, meaning your insurance is not going to cover it, um, which is really unfortunate. So um, I will be posting some links and the show notes for resources for you guys because, you know, um, if you do not have the funds to consult with a Lyme literate provider, there is free education that is available for you. And there are books that are affordable that can really help to guide you in the right direction to get the help that you need. Well, I really do hope this episode was helpful to you. I just really felt like there's so many people that need this information, you know? And so please be sure if you know someone who's suffering with chronic fatigue to share this episode with them. And um, thank you all for tuning in. If you want to learn more about the Functional Nurse Academy, please feel free to register for our next live webinar. And you will see that link in the show notes. You can also check out Functional Nurse Academy on our social media platforms or on our website at functional nurseacademy.com. Until next time, be safe, be well, and God bless.