VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

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I recently celebrated five years on my healing journey from late-stage Lyme disease. I was diagnosed back in September of 2015, and I've learned a lot so I just wanted to make a little video kind of recapping what I've learned, what I've done, and what I'm doing still to this day.

Back in 2015, I became severely ill, and I had been sick for probably about four years prior to that. I was diagnosed with arthritis and then that kind of progressed into digestive issues which progressed into cognitive issues and, in September 2015, I had lost all the feeling of my arms and legs I had lost 26 pounds in 12 days I was pretty much bedridden. I was just having really terrible memory problems and I lost my depth perception, and just was bounced from specialist to specialist, and nobody kind of knew what was going on.

I ended up in the best gastroenterology office in Las Vegas, and this doctor was just lining me up for like months of testing and I kind of lost my cool in there. I said just guess what's going on! Why can't I feel my arms, legs? Why can't I get through a sentence without forgetting what I'm saying? He was like well, none of that fits with what I think you have, if I were you I'd ask my general doctor for a Lyme disease test.

I was like, all right, whatever! I literally I left that office thinking the guy blew me off, and I asked my general doctor for a Lyme disease test just simply to rule it out. But to my complete surprise, it was positive for acute and chronic markers for Lyme disease. My doctor and I looked back at these four years of arthritis and all the things, and I was like well probably had Lyme that whole time.

That's a pretty common story in the Lyme community it's said that the average Lyme patient takes two to five years to be properly diagnosed, and receive multiple misdiagnoses prior to finding out they have Lyme disease. So pretty typical there.

Having complete faith in western medicine and in my doctors, I just went through all the conventional treatments for Lyme disease. I was immediately put on doxycycline and then referred to an infectious disease doctor who put me on iv Rocephin.

Then I was like kind of traveling out of state going to see some Lyme literate physicians at the same time and really was doing my own research and kind of figuring out what all the whole controversies around Lyme disease.

I picked up pretty quickly that this illness really impacts everyone so differently and each person reacts differently to each treatment. I just I kind of knew there wasn't like a pre-written protocol for what was going on with me.

So for like the first eight months of after my diagnosis, I was really all about killing the bacteria. I was doing all of the things. I was taking the antibiotics, I was doing some herbs, I was doing like super expensive IV treatments like IV ozone and peroxide. Something else that I can't think of right now, but anyway I spent a lot of money, and I wasn't really not getting too much better.

I started to get the feeling back in my arms and legs within like the first seven days of that iv Rocephin, but then I just kind of didn't really get much better and my digestive problems were just getting worse and worse and worse on the antibiotics.

So around eight months in, I decided to get my PICC line pulled because I was really like unclear as to what was side effects from the medications I was on and what was the actual illness. I just wanted to kind of stop everything and see what would happen.

Within like four months of that I realized, you know, being a nothing wasn't really a good idea. So after about a four-month break or so I started up the Cowden protocol. That is a tincture form of antimicrobials / herbal antimicrobials, and I was doing okay on that. I think I started really feeling something around like the six-month mark, but it was super expensive.

Luckily for me I was able to get a patient grant through the TIcked Off Foundation’s Lyme patient fund. They offer grants and 50% off that Cowden protocol for the first six months. So, yeah, then it's, you know, back to normal price and it's pretty pricey little protocol, but I did see some improvements on that.

Then I started to develop what's called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) or histamine intolerance. So instead of getting herxheimer reactions a few hours after taking the medication, I was experiencing these gnarly side effects like right after taking these herbs.

I don't know if it was the herbs themselves or the alcohol in the tinctures, I never really figured that out, but I started having like this crazy snowball effect of like histamine issues after that.

So then I just stopped the herbs, and I was reading this book at the time called 10% Human. It's a really really fascinating book, the author actually in the introduction says like I was inspired to write this book after I got a tick bite and got super sick, and I was like oh my God I'm reading this book because I had a tick bite and got super sick… so like ding!

That book really started to shift the way that I was approaching my Lyme disease treatment, once I decided to kind of shift my focus from just kill kill kill the bacteria to like rebuild the immune system - hey let's heal from Lyme disease instead of just treat it. Everything started to shift for me!

I have another video I'll link above that kind of goes more into detail about the specific medications and everything that I did because it's just not fresh in my mind anymore, I think I made that on a three year treatment anniversary. So you can check that out, but I really don't think there is a pre-written treatment protocol for Lyme patients because this illness affects us all so differently.

What may work for one person may not work for another person. However, through my own experiences and, you know, talking and working with other Lyme patients. I have come to the conclusion that all the really successful treatments for Lyme include six key things.’

And disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, this is not to be taken in lieu of medical advice. I'm just sharing my research experiences with you. I do not claim to treat, cure, diagnose, or prevent any illness.

So, I believe that the most successful Lyme treatment protocols include reducing pathogens, reducing or addressing the biofilms, reducing inflammation, supporting detoxification, healing the gut, and cultivating a healing mindset.

I really have learned a whole lot on all of those six factors and it's helped me so much and it's helped everyone that I have shared it with, so I have compiled this guide with everything I know. The Lyme Ease Survival Guidebook really breaks up all six of those factors plus, everything you need to know about Lyme disease to just take control of your treatments and start to find well being.

Although I don't consider myself fully healed I've come leaps and bounds from where I was. I'm pretty functional. I do have big flare-ups which I shared in a past video here with my menstrual cycle. I think it's just tied to the inflammation that comes with my cycle. I'm still dealing with some viral loads, high Epstein Barr virus, and HHV. Just having headaches and fatigue and pain that come and go like, everything seems to wax and wane. I'm pretty functional now, I get dressed every single day I can drive myself again you know, I've written that book! I've been able to read a lot easier my memory problems are so, so much better.

Um, so I'm continuing on with just getting all the systems in my body, working as best as they possibly can. So I'm really really working towards just sleeping as best as I can, eating as good as I can, digesting as well as I can, detoxing as well as I can, and really working on that mindset piece is so important.

So, yeah, just pretty much dealing with flare-ups and just still working every day to heal myself and take it easy on myself.

Yeah, that's my little five-year update! Go ahead and give me a little thumbs up if you enjoyed this video, let me know in the comments what you'd like to learn more about, or if you want to share some of your story I always love hearing from you guys. I will be back next week with another video so until then keep healing..