I became sick several years ago with Lyme disease and underwent a healing journey that changed my life. I approached the problem by eliminating possibilities through self-experimentation. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and consulted with more than 40 specialists and doctors before finally seeking solutions outside of conventional Western medicine. I've regained my health, and today I feel even younger and more vibrant than before I got sick.
If you are one of the millions of people in the world right now struggling with Lyme disease, I see you and feel for you. Lyme disease is real and can be debilitating. Unfortunately, the conventional medical and scientific community is decades behind where it should be. Fortunately, based on firsthand experience, working with the best minds in the field, and reviewing the science, I believe that you can eliminate the Lyme disease process and become completely "Lyme free." In addition to documenting my learnings in a book, here is a high-level summary of my advice for someone dealing with Lyme disease or a similar chronic condition. I would have loved to have this information when I started out on my journey, so I'm sharing it below for the benefit of others. For a deeper dive, I recommend my complete book.
All proceeds from the book go toward developing better and more accessible diagnostic tools using genetic sequencing of microbes.
"Stress is a part of life, but it doesn't have to be a way of life."
― Anonymous
Our ancestors from 200,000 years ago were not too biologically different from us in terms of our ability to manage stress. Thousands of years ago, the sympathetic nervous system—known as the fight-or-flight state—would have been activated only a small percentage of the time for our ancestors. A tiger appears. We run from the tiger and either escape or die. The stressful event is over, and we return to everyday life.
Unfortunately, in today's modern world, we are "sympathetically dominant," meaning the reverse scenario is true: we might be in the sympathetic state 90% of the time. In an "always-on" and connected world, we sometimes forget this. Compared to any other time in human history, humans have never been under as much prolonged, chronic, and low-grade stress. Multiple studies from institutions ranging from Harvard to the Mayo Clinic link stress to illness. The research of the highly respected and renowned cellular biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton at Stanford University indicates that over 95% of all illnesses occur because stress affects the nervous system. According to Dr. Lipton, stress that produces physical symptoms is caused by deeply held beliefs about ourselves and our circumstances. These beliefs cause us to interpret our circumstances as threats when, in reality, they are not. This misinterpretation is wired into us subconsciously and leads to chronic activation of the "fight-or-flight" response.
Stress can impact our bodies in countless ways and affect our ability to heal. As long as you are constantly stressed, your body will respond accordingly, deprioritizing digestive and reproductive functions, adjusting cortisol levels, and diverting blood flow primarily to the muscles. Chronic stress decreases immune function, and over time, long-term stress can downregulate the healthy expression of genes. Stress also impairs Natural Killer cell function, which is needed for fighting diseases such as Lyme, and increases a condition called mast cell activation, where people can experience increased allergic reactions or overreactivity to certain environments or foods. Stress also decreases the integrity of the gut microbiome. The list goes on and on regarding how stress modulates the immune system.
If you have a Type A personality, the concept might seem counterintuitive that relaxing is actually more productive for your healing. However, by being in a parasympathetic state more often, you are giving your body more opportunities to recover and detox. When we are in chronic stress, the sympathetic fight-or-flight state is activated. On the other hand, the parasympathetic state is achieved through sleep, meditation, savasana, and other activities that activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Do things where your mind can calm down and shut off. For some, this may be meditation; for others, it may mean exercise, arts, yoga, dance, or something creative that allows you to enter into a flow state. Your nervous system will thank you.
“Sleep is the best meditation“
― Dalai Lama
Sleep is where we spend a third of our lives, and many books have been written on the topic, such as "Why We Sleep," which summarizes decades of sleep research. Proper sleep is indispensable for regeneration and recovery. You should aim to get between seven and nine hours of sleep every night. This point cannot be emphasized enough. People with Lyme disease must do whatever is necessary to prioritize sleep and should not sacrifice it for anything.
A challenge in correcting sleep problems is that there could be various reasons why your body is struggling to achieve restful sleep. Additionally, you may go through different phases where the root cause of your sleep issues changes. Many factors influence sleep, including infections, toxins, stress, hormonal imbalances, circadian rhythm imbalances, poor sleep hygiene, and environmental conditions such as mold or electromagnetic fields (EMF). Your sleep disturbances may be due to a combination of these factors. Whatever the cause, it is crucial to correct your sleep.
“Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food”
― Hippocrates
This quote stands the test of time. In herbal medicine, there is little distinction between food and medicine. Every cell in your body is made from what you put in your mouth. During a healing journey, especially, your body needs you to show up at your plate in the right way because diet significantly impacts your healing journey and recovery. What you put in your mouth either helps or hurts you. Your diet can assist you just as much as any supplement regimen can.
So, try to think of your diet as just that—a way to meet nutrient deficiencies and help your body get through its current phase of healing. Choosing what you eat can be extremely confusing and stressful, especially when it makes you feel worse.
Dietary considerations, from oxalates and lectins to keto and paleo, may seem overwhelming. One may get lost or confused going down dietary rabbit holes. So, here is a list of my top generalized recommendations:
Avoid monotony. Rotation and breadth are good guiding principles. Eat a variety of foods to nourish your gut microbiome and rotate frequently. A great benchmark would be to try to eat at least 30 types of vegetables per week.
Avoid vegetable oils and their polyunsaturated fatty acids, including soybean, corn, and canola, which are inflammatory.
Decrease sugar intake. We consume, on average, 10 times the amount of sugar compared to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Human biology is not meant to deal with that much sugar.
Increase fiber. When in doubt, always increase fiber. Target should be around 50 g per day.Identify nutrient deficiencies by doing blood tests and support yourself with supplements and multivitamins when appropriate.
Eat organic or grow your own vegetables in mineral-rich soils. Inorganic food has more glyphosate, particularly in soy, wheat, and corn.
Use non-toxic cookware and utensils. Many non-stick cookware products are mostly toxic. Safer options exist, such as those from companies like Extrema.
Eat local and seasonal produce so that the nutrient content is higher.
Activate the parasympathetic nervous system before eating so that you are in a more relaxed state, which helps more nutrients get absorbed from the food.
Avoid food sensitivities. For most people, this means avoiding dairy, gluten, and sugar. While your gut is still repairing, it is advisable to avoid nightshade vegetables like peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants.
Chew slowly to allow saliva to mix more thoroughly with the food, which aids digestion.
Eat as many plants as possible for their associated phytochemicals, both in raw and cooked forms. Your plate should look as colourful as possible.
Avoid burnt or smoked foods, which are toxic and hard to process for the body.Soak grains and beans to remove phytic acid and other anti-nutrients.
Drink high-quality water. Humans are about 60-70 % water so the water that we drink builds our blood, bones, muscles, and every tissue in our body. Why would you want the building blocks of your body to have pharmaceutical residues, heavy metals, inorganic and petrochemical substances in them? Drink the best quality water that you can get rich in minerals and fulvic acid or at the very least use a reverse osmosis filter like Aquatru.
“Illness loves stagnation.”
― Unknown
Most people today live a sedentary lifestyle, something that would have been strange for our ancestors. If we have well functioning circulation and healthy bowel movements daily, we move through infections and toxins much quicker. Our body generally works much better as it is designed to. Movement is especially important as it relates to the lymphatic system since if you don’t move, neither does your lymph, the colorless, watery fluid which contains white blood cells that attack the Lyme bacteria in the blood.
The lymphatic system does not have a pump like the circulatory system does and relies on muscle contractions to pump lymph which sends your immune soldiers around the body. If you are not moving, the lymph becomes stagnant along with your body’s natural defenses and accumulates waste.An important part about exercising is not overexerting yourself as it will take you longer to recover and sometimes set you back. However, not exercising is not an ideal option. Even the smallest movements such as walking or stretching will go a long way. When we are inactive, we can age prematurely which leads to a reduction in fitness and flexibility and thus a lower quality of life. Many people find that their recovery goes hand in hand with their fitness and in turn that often one’s fitness accelerates one’s recovery.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Detox is such a loaded word now but if you care about your performance, longevity, fertility, or your health more generally, you should minimize these toxins coming into your body and also implement strategies to get them out. Just by simply existing today, you are way more “toxic” than your ancestors.
According to worldometers.info approximately 10,000,000 tons of chemicals are released into our environment each year. Of these, over 2,000,000 tons per year are recognized as carcinogens. A 2005 study by the Environmental Working Group tested umbilical cord blood, that is the blood which is pumped back-and-forth between the placenta and a developing fetus, for toxicity and found that the cord blood now contains at least 287 industrial chemicals. Of the chemicals detected, 180 are linked to cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal testsAs you decrease your load of these toxins, you will indirectly support your immune system. A common mistake is focusing so much on the killing microbes and not enough on getting what’s being killed out. Industrialized toxins, (endo)toxins from the microbes themselves, buildup of synthetic drugs or supplements, and stress from chronic illness mean that people burdened with an infection have a higher concentration of accumulated toxins in their body than most people. If you are dealing with Lyme or another chronic infection, already your detox pathways may be working overtime and the importance of detox cannot be understated.
Also support and love your liver, a workhorse and central to clearing the body of pathogens and toxins. When someone is dealing with chronic illness and overburdened livers, bile production goes from its normal 800 ml to 1000 ml to much less, maybe to a cup or less. This decreased capacity affects a person’s detox ability to excrete fat soluble vitamins. So supporting your liver on a continual basis is crucial, potentially exploring liver flushes or cleanses as well.
A person’s ability to clear toxins is also due to emotional stress, genetics, lifestyle choices, level of infection, and continued exposure to toxins. Where you with your proverbial toxic bucket, reducing and removing toxins is a central theme to optimizing and improving your health.
“Parasites are the missing link in many diseases, including chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, and autoimmune disorders. They have been called the 'silent killers' of our time."
― Dr. Peter Wina, Parasitologist.
In traditional cultures around the world, people take antiparasitic herbs preventatively and for maintenance. In modern society, we’ve largely lost these practices, such as accompanying our meals with spices and bitters. Unfortunately, in the western world today parasites are taboo and thought to only be problematic when traveling.
However, parasites are everywhere and you don’t need to go to a developing country to pick them up.If you live in our modern society, you likely have parasites, especially if you eat meat, raw sushi, eat raw vegetables without washing them properly, or have a pet. Some parasites are considered non-pathogenic and typically are not treated by conventional medicine. However this is where conventional western medicine falls short. Parasites can also serve a useful role within our body such as sequestering toxins. However in the case of Lyme, these parasites can add to the overall immune system burden and also harbor Lyme spirochetes along with other bacteria. Parasites also suppress your innate immune system (and shift your immune system to a state called “TH2 dominance” which is not optimal). How do you know you have parasites or worms?
There is no bulletproof test for detecting all types of parasites as they can live in different organs and tissues outside of the intestinal tract. Stool tests such as the GI map can show only the ones in your gut at best and in the sample (Genova diagnostics and Meridian valley labs also offer more specialized tests). With the low accuracy using stool samples in many labs, parasitology research has not advanced compared to other microbe testing. The best advice is to just assume that you have parasites and treat them.
For microbial balance, microbes are part of us. They support us and sustain life. They are our ancestors you might say but sometimes you need to restore balance, this includes Lyme microbes and co-infections. To do this, there are many options from herbal protocols to frequencies to magnetic therapies. Choose your own adventure, what works for one, might not work for another, and work with a professional as the dosage can mark the difference between a successful protocol or not.
"Your mouth is a window into the health of your body." ―Anonymous
This is often one of the most overlooked area of opportunity. We like to think of dental health as separate from our overall health. However, this thinking could not be more misguided. The nerves from our teeth are connected directly to the brain and each tooth has a connection to different organs and functions in a body. Also our teeth are inches away from our brain and thyroid so with any infection in a tooth or jaw, there is risk that it spreads to other areas. Biological dentistry seeks to treat dental health as part of overall health. Dental infections, from root canals to cavitations, can also affect the vagus nerve which may have already been impaired by Lyme co-infections such as Babesia and as a result, impair someone’s detox ability as described in the book. Most dental issues fall into the following four categories: cavitations, root canals, amalgams, and malocclusion. Fortunately, there are many things one can do, such as having a good oral hygiene regime and diet and a new field of biological dentistry is emerging that can correct these issues through surgery. An infection, toxic materials or metals in your mouth will be an additional burden that your body will carry throughout your life until it is fixed. Your organs will be dealing with it in the background and the symptoms you experience you may not immediately relate to this stealth problem in your mouth. Even though you might be doing everything else right, you have not addressed the root cause problem. So, the analogy is like a hole in a boat and constantly removing water with a bucket to prevent the boat from sinking instead of fixing the leak. I experienced immediate relief when I had a tooth with an infected root canal completely removed. When I tested the extracted tooth, it became clear that most of the Lyme and co-infections microbes had been hiding there. So, today I'm missing one tooth but I have my health back.
For a deeper dive on these topics checkout this section in my book. Readers are also encouraged to check out Root Cause by Dr. Louisa Williams. There are many other great books now on dental health such as The Dental Diet from Steven Lin.
“Chronic illness is a bad habit of the brain”
― Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, MD
Your brain can get stuck in old patterns that can cause all kinds of physical and psychological symptoms. The more you focus on those symptoms, the more those patterns get solidified in your brain. Neuroplasticity is the ability of nerve synapses to regrow based on learned behavior. Branches that relay sensory information are pruned back to maintain efficiency. So in order to regain or reinforce a certain function, you should expose yourself to the desired experience. Repeating the experience overtime and on a recurring basis sends a signal that these neurons are necessary. Using the principles of neuroplasticity, your brain’s ability to create new neural pathways, you can actually cause your brain to stop using those old pathways and use the new ones. Certain symptoms can be due to the negative reinforcement of old patterns. Additionally, there are systems such as NeuroQuant that can actually measure limbic system dysfunction which analyzes a brain MRI and determines stress based on the size of the amígala, the part of our brain that processes emotions and memories associated with fear. So neuroplasticity can be used to correct old lingering symptoms, long after microbes are no longer being problematic. Programs like Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS), Low Energy Neurofeedback System ( LENS ), and more are emerging everyday.
"Nature itself is the best physician."
― Hippocrates
Due to the modern lifestyle, many people have a weak connection to nature. There are thousands of benefits to regaining one's connection to nature, from grounding, to cold exposure, to forest bathing etc. Indeed in my opinion much of the biohacking movement is to rewild us. Walking outside has become a treatment in Japan called shen ten yoku or forest bathing. Just being, without doing anything, in nature, is scientifically proven to lower heart rate, boost our immunity, increase a sense of contentment, connection, and creativity and increase our sense of awe as described by Julia Plevin in The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing. Being outside in the forest or by the ocean now called “green or blue space” activities has added multiple health benefits by exposing you to microbes from nature which diversify your microbiome along with negative ions which decrease inflammation. Increasing your connection to nature, whether that means getting outside more, walking around barefoot, growing a garden or living in a more rural area may not fix the root cause of your health problems but it will help regulate your body and better set your biology up for success.
We forget that we are animals too, like monkeys with wrist watches, and have evolved largely as hunter gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years in a very different environment than our current living circumstances. Mother nature works in wonderful ways. Once this realization sinks in, you can make small (or big) changes that can have a drastic impact on your health outcomes.
“What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.”
― Buddha
Are you largely in a joyful state? Do most things give you energy and “fill your cup” ? Are you doing your life’s work and do you feel aligned with where you spend your energy, at work for example ? There is a version of this list where this point is the first and maybe the primary area.
In my experience, I have witnessed people stuck in a healing journey until they changed jobs or made a radical shift in how they live their life. Probably one of the best kept secrets of health is living in alignment with yourself. Things become easier, work becomes play, and your physiology reflects that.
There have been several studies exploring the relationship between having a sense of purpose and health outcomes and an increasing amount of research shows that having a sense of purpose in life is associated with a longer life expectancy. For example, a study published in JAMA Network Open in 2019 found that adults who reported having a greater sense of purpose had a lower risk of dying from any cause over a four-year period, compared to those who reported a lower sense of purpose. Another study published in the journal Psychological Science in 2014 found that older adults who reported having a greater sense of purpose in life were less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease over a seven-year period, even after controlling for other factors such as age, gender, education, and depression.
It’s no surprise that having a sense of purpose ( called “ikigai” in Okinawa Japan or “plan de vida” in the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica) is a commonality in all the blue zones, parts of the world with the highest concentration of centenarians. So whatever the name - purpose, calling, ikigai - find that which moves you and gives your life meaning, then many other pieces begin to fall into place including your physical health.