[Transcript] – The Shocking Truth About The Global Epidemic Of Lyme Disease

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Transcripts

Podcast from:  https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/lifestyle-podcasts/how-do-you-get-rid-of-lyme-disease/

[00:02] Greenfield Fitness Systems

[00:33] Introduction

[02:31] About Erin Elizabeth

[08:35] Why Common Tests for Lyme Disease Don’t Work and What Tests Actually Work

[10:18] What is Lyme Disease?

[13:21] Why One Can Have Lyme Disease and Not Even Know it

[19:49] Dr. Klinghardt’s Treatment Protocol for Lyme Disease

[30:34] How Conventional Treatments for Lyme Disease Can Actually Be Harmful

[23:17] The Best Natural Remedies for Lyme Disease

[41:06] How to Manage Weight Gain That Accompanies Lyme Disease

[50:13] End of Podcast

Ben:  Hey, it’s Ben Greenfield here.  If you want to support this podcast you can definitely do so, by going over to the one website where I store everything that I’ve ever recommended for you to get your goals as quickly and safely and effectively as possible.  And that website is greenfieldfitnesssystems.com.  So check out greenfieldfitnesssystems.com it helps to support this show and now on to today’s interview.

Hey folks, it’s Ben Greenfield here and this week I watched a really interesting documentary that I have to tell you about.  It was called “Under Our Skin” and it’s about the hidden story of this disease that is literally all over the US and worldwide.  People go undiagnosed with this disease all the time or get misdiagnosed quite frequently and many people who suffer from the troubling effects of this are just told that their symptoms are all in their head and this disease that the documentary which is called “Under our Skin” talks about something that I wanted to bring to you on a podcast and I figured I will get somebody on who has had this, who has had to get tested for it and who has been able to overcome it.  It’s something that flies under the radar and not a lot of people have without even knowing it.

So we’re going to jump in and talk about this disease and what it is in today’s episode.  And I know I’ve got you on the edge of your seats right now and just wondering what it is that we’re going to talk about but I’m going to keep you on the edge of your seats just a little bit longer while I intro our guest, Erin Elizabeth.  And Erin has a website over at healthnutnews.com and she’s had a passion for the healing arts for nearly 25 years.  She started off and her team working for a green non-profit, she’s into hot yoga and Pilates and music therapy and she’s actually got a really great website, really great e-book which you can check-out and that’s all over at the Health Nut News website.  I’ll also put links to that in the show notes for this episode.  I met Erin through her boyfriend actually, Dr. Joseph Mercola who you may recognize from the website mercola.com and we’re also going to put a link to a really helpful article over at mercola.com that covers what we’re about to talk about as well.  So Erin, thanks so much for coming on the call.

Erin:  Thanks, Ben.  It’s great to be here.  Thank you for having me.

Ben:  Do you like how I worked up all that mystery about what it is that we’re actually going to be talking about?

Erin:  I do, I have [0:03:30.1] ______ now because I’m wondering what people are thinking as they’re listening so yes, it was well done. [laughs]

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.  So walk me through the story of what you experienced, what you’re feeling and what you eventually found out that you had.

Erin:  Sure.  I guess, since my teens and we’re talking far back, I have had some symptoms on and off and then kind of in my 30’s they had gotten pretty severe and at that point, in the past they told me, “Oh you had mono now it’s gone.”  Maybe you have a little chronic fatigue but throughout that I would keep working out and just living life like everyone does and just dealing with it and just figuring how everyone gets tired or gets some joint pain or things like that.

Ben:  So it was just like being tired, joint pain, brain fog, chronic fatigue those type of things?

Erin:  Yeah, and it did eventually get worse but they did in 2006 give me the ELISA test which is kind of the cheap Lyme test that the CDC uses.  Big surprise, it’s not that great so that’s why they now recommend Western Blot which is usually more accurate.  So the test was negative but also Lyme can hide sometimes, 30% of people do have a negative blood test.  So I had a negative blood test on the cheaper.

Ben:  So when you got this test, when you got this you said it was the ELISA test?

Erin:  Yeah, E-L-I-S-A and yes that’s just kind of your generic test that most doctors tend to do which is why, I wasn’t even thinking of bringing that up but it’s a great point that people go to a Lyme-literate medical doctor or LLMD which they can usually look up online and find one in their area that understand and will do a western blot or some primary care physicians or someone would do a probably… they could get them to order a western blot test as well.

Ben:  What led you to test for Lyme Disease in the first place? And by the way, if you’re listening, you now know that we’re talking about Lyme Disease.  Did you read something that said that some of these symptoms that you were experiencing were things that people have Lyme Disease frequently get? And you’re like, “oh, I’m going to go test for this.”  How did you kind of decide to throw that test in?

Erin:  Yeah, I hope I didn’t blow it there with Lyme or say that.

Ben:  Oh, you totally blew it. [laughs]

Erin:  [Laughs]

Ben:  No, we’re good.  It would have been revealed at some point anyways.

Erin:  Yeah, well I was just in like a primary care doctor in 2006 which is just I’d been through another hurricane here in Florida and she thought it was just stress but she did see that my symptoms with the strange joint pain and things at such a young age and you know, I’m in shape and she just thought that seems so odd.  So she did run a Lyme test in there and I didn’t even think twice about that, I guess I just thought that was something that happens if you live in Connecticut you know, like Lyme Connecticut.

Ben:  Yeah, like what I’m familiar with is that you get it from deer.  And specifically like in the Northeast or in areas where there’s like a bunch of deer and a bunch of tics.

Erin:  Sure deer ticks and yeah, I just thought well, I grew up in the Midwest but it was a little towards to East edge but I didn’t realize that Lyme had been now even back then was in all 50 States and then Europe which I travel to and yeah, now we think that I probably got it at thirteen when in a park I had a history of a tick bite because some people don’t even remember that but I had one.  I’m a petite kid and I had one at the back of my leg, we’re camping for two or three days and I didn’t see it for a day or two.  And the longer they are on, the worse.

Ben:  Yeah.

Erin:  The better your chances are, I should say.  So yeah, we think I’ve had it in 20 something years when I was finally diagnosed two years ago.  But yes, that one came up negative but then I was tested in 2012 after other doctors who tried to figure out what was going on and things were getting worse and then I was really having trouble with my workouts and things which are just daily life and really, working out as a passion for me and so I had some friends who said… hey, Sam and Suzy Cohen.  She’s a writer and an amazing woman, has a couple of bestsellers but their friends of mine and know Joe, Dr. Mercola and they said, you have pets right? Have you ever had a tick bite? And I said, “Oh, yeah, I’ve already had that test.” And they said, “no, but you’ve got to go to the right place in California and go to IGeneX and get tested, you know, have the kit sent out, Joe can do it.”  And so, I just did it really just because they wouldn’t leave me alone about it. [laughs]

Ben:  Now why, you said IGeneX and by the way, I know we’ve got that link it’s igenex.com.  I’ll put it in the show notes for this episode but why is that test something you do instead of an ELISA test? Is it like the technology that they use in the test itself or is it just a completely different sort of lab?

Erin:  I think the lab IGeneX is a really good one but it’s a whole different kind of test.  I guess, the ELISA test or some say ELISA is just for whatever reasons kind of an ineffective simple test and that the western blot test is just more specific.  It’s a little more expensive, ELISA like I said covered in our insurance forty-nine, fifty bucks where this would be several hundred dollars but…

Ben:  And that’s what they do at this IGeneX is a western blot?

Erin:  Yes.  They only do the western blot and they’ll test other things like the CD57, they’ll test other levels in your blood just to see what’s going on and see if you have co-infections, they test for co-infections.  And I was pretty surprised when it came back and said positive. [laughs] You know, I think, I as in denial for a little in fact, in some days I’m just like, “wow, I can’t believe it.”  After all those years, it’s something everyone had heard of.  We’ve all heard of it.  We can pronounce it.  It’s easy to say but there’s some days still where it just kind of hits me like, “wow, that was it.”  I don’t know I was in denial for a little bit unfortunately, I have these expert doctors at my disposal so I made all five of them read it and they’re saying, “well, it’s pretty much black and white here.  There’s no grey area.  You are positive.”  So now I have to accept it.

Ben:  So for people who don’t really understand, what exactly is Lyme Disease?

Erin:  Well, it was named after a man who discovered it in the 30’s and it’s basically kind of a scary thing.  Some people might have seen it on “Monsters and Me” but it’s spirochetes and these little tiny bugs that some people will call them that are in you that are so microscopic.  They can’t necessarily be seen like in a live blood analysis tests.  They can hide even if you’re having a blood test but it affects, they’re very hard to get rid off and it affects everything in your body.

I guess, the interesting thing about Lyme to me was I dealt with adrenal issues, thyroid even a little bit of asthma, hard to breath, it infects your lungs, all your organs, your central nervous system, your joints so that is the interesting thing about Lyme is you get to learn about a host of different… and that’s the scary part because I thought, “gosh, now I have this, okay now I have arthritis.”  That’s what they thought for a while and maybe rheumatoid so yeah, RA.  But if Lyme is a very, these little spirochetes that are in your body that if you’re bitten by a tick that they can put into your bloodstream, can multiply in and are very, very hard to detect.  It’s very hard to detect.

Ben:  Yeah, and I didn’t realize this until I watched this documentary, but it can be like mosquitoes and spiders and fleas and mites and doesn’t just have to be ticks.

Erin:  Yes.  And I couldn’t remember in that article, it said it but yeah, and I know some people are still skeptical but I believe that and do happen to have like your just classic history, the classic tick bite and everything, but yeah that’s pretty much proven now and I believe that yes and it could even get it through a mosquito or yeah, so it’s frightening and they just had a mainstream news recently and did a lot of some big stories about how it is.  See the CDC admitted that it’s 10 times more prevalent than previously thought, so that’s really the scary part where you may have had this, many people had it and now we’re talking 10 times as many and I couldn’t believe when I came out about it how many people knew someone or had it or you know.

Ben:  Yeah, it’s crazy.  And the little spirochete that appears in your bloodstream, I actually have a picture of it over at…  I’m going to put some show notes for those of you listening in over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/lyme that’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/LYME.  But it’s quite disturbing, these little spirochetes travelling through the bloodstream and when you have this obviously, you get a little bit of chronic fatigue, a little brain fog that type of thing, but can you have it and kind of otherwise be healthy and otherwise have pretty clean bloodwork?

Erin:  Yes, I mean my bloodwork had gone to all sorts of specialists.  You know, I really didn’t for years but like I said, I just got by but it can become debilitating where there’s a kind of a well-known coach in the Midwest who I knew and she was pretty famous and I think, with college teams and things and she’s bedridden.  I mean, they have GoFundMe and things going on for but yeah, some people can be asymptomatic.  You know, that’s the scary thing too, they say a lot of people have it and they’re just asymptomatic, they don’t even know it but I guess that would be alright.  And some there would be periods in my life where I think I was able to just function and I was alright but then at different times it would get worse which was really strange through stress or things like that just like any I mean, it is a disease.  Any disease if you’re under stress or different things it can kind of exasperate the situation.

Ben:  Yeah, I know that of course, Dr. Mercola is very focused on natural remedies and often unconventional techniques that you often won’t see in Western medicine and I’d be curious about what kind of feedback that you got from him as you were going through this.  But before that, what would be like the common conventional kind of like the Western medical treatment for something like Lyme Disease? Like what’s currently being done about it?

Erin: Well, the good news is if someone is bitten and they had like maybe a bullseye which would be like the red kind of traditional bullseye reaction or they started having any symptoms, the good news is if they’re not late stage, it’s kind of the immediate within the first few months, they say even up to a year, until then you’re not considered late stage, you can do antibiotics.  And I’m not a big antibiotics fan but they do have their place especially for someone that is just recently infected so that’s the great news.  So like even back then this was so far back but when I was 13, probably if I had done antibiotics immediately afterward if that truly was the time I was infected, then I would have been fine.

So I hear the good stories about people who their child was bitten and they got the bullseye reaction they started to get sick and they got their antibiotics and they’re fine.  And even some adults and friends I know who tested positive, oh and they test positive and they’ll do even a blood test then, boom!  It shows up even sometimes in the ELISA so they get their treatment and they’re done.  But there’s even some speculation by some Western med doctors that late stage, it’s hard because some don’t think it exists or they’ll admit that it exists but there’s no clear way.  Some do antibiotics and I don’t see too many people who have success with that when they’re late stage.  There are some doctors who believe that you can still do that late stage.  It’s kind of all different you know, schools of thought on that and that’s hard thing.

So in “Under our Skin” it talks a little bit about you help the doctors like my doctors in the film which was nice, he will do a little bit of Western medication but mostly it’s more holistic and I think the way that Dr. Mercola would say too, you’re going to do more kind of holistic approach and do herbs and a combination, but I didn’t do the antibiotics.  I did the herbs and then healing all those things in my body.  My adrenals which were shot, and I had really bad leaky gut and it’s a lot of I think what they believe it is starting with the gut like so many diseases.  Those little guys get in there and getting the gut healthy and clean and healed had leaky gut syndrome all that kind of stuff.  A lot of extra weight which I…

Ben:  Do you think that the leaky gut syndrome and the extra weight and for example, the inflammation that you can get when you have extra fat cells and things like that, did all that come before the Lyme disease or you think the Lyme has the potential to cause things like that?

Erin:  I think in doctors, I’m not a doctor; doctors believe that it can be caused by the Lyme just because like I said, it affects everything in your body so including your gut, your digestion, your intestines.  They get in there and you get the leaky gut so you’re not absorbing the nutrients.  And then it affects your adrenal glands so my adrenals are fatigued and I’m gaining weight, my cortisol levels are climbing, I’m hungry all the time, I was hungry and eating more and more so yeah, it was kind of a vicious cycle until I figured it out and once I knew and got on a program, you know, that was kind of catered to me and I’m very fortunate.  I know not everyone has these resources but I did know the doctors, although there are a lot of more Lyme-literate doctors now, which is good.  So then I got on a program and then that finally started the change.

Ben:  Now the doc that you worked with ‘cause this is going to be the really valuable part of our episode today, I think personally ‘cause this is what I’m interested in, the doc that you worked with he’s in this documentary, the “Under your Skin” documentary and his name is Dr. Klinghardt, right?

Erin:  Yeah, Dietrich, Dr. Dietrich Klinghart, yeah he treats one of my friends who big surprise, we met through all these.  Dana Walsh she was one of the… you know, I have a couple of people featured in the film.  Not the blonde woman but she’s the brunette who was the U2 manager for the band or whatever.  Yeah, she’s amazing.  She’s in it.  He’s in it and yeah, he’s my doctor who treats me and they’re just absolutely a wonderful clinic.  They’re in Seattle, about as far as you can get from Florida but I have gone there and then we do some things you know, consults too via phone.

Ben:  Yeah, I’m curious about the protocol itself because he actually has a full on Lyme treatment strategy that I know goes way beyond just antibiotics which we’ve talked about those before on this podcast that can disrupt your gut flora and cause kind of a host of other issues setting it up for more susceptibility to kind of other pathologies but what is the treatment protocol for Lyme Disease that Dr. Klinghardt uses?

Erin:  Well, I think it is dependent on the person and their situation so I can detail it but I also kind of checked it by Dr. Lee Cowden who will also I’m fortunate to know and he has the Cowden formulas which Dr. Klinghardt believes in so they’re both MD’s so I’ll check things by both of them.  I know it sounds a little bit crazy that I’ll kind of then decide what I do from there because the first thing I learned even with these amazing doctors who are some of the most knowledgeable people in the world about Lyme is everybody’s got a different thought on what they think you should do.  And just with the textbooks with reading what works.  So I like doing some of the Cowden formulas.  A different company owns it.  Dr. Lee Cowden formulated them but he doesn’t own it or anything, but I do some of those, which Dr. Klinghardt recommends, and there are different supplementation that he believes in like this zeolite and chlorella and MMS which is a little controversial.  So I do put it in the eBook the protocol that I’m on but it gets a little complicated.  I also did the DNA testing to see if I have any genetic mutations like the MTHF.  So I’m on the MTHF supplement ‘cause I have MTHFR genetic mutation.

Ben:  It’s always so hard to say that one. [laughs]

Erin:  I know.  I know which is common as it is.  Which is common with the lymies is as I just kind of have come to call you know, to say lymies.  That’s just easy pronounce ‘cause I guess I would say I’m a lymie or overcome Lymes.  So but yeah, it’s a pretty rigorous protocol and it’ll change throughout it.  It’s kind of like a two-year.  I’m still in it because I was diagnosed under two years ago so it’ll be two years this spring but it’s kind of a two-year protocol and it’ll change just depending on how you’re doing but pretty much it’s to detoxify the body and to clean up the gut.  And so yeah, I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about this on here but he even does gets in to doing enemas even MMS enemas not MS but people can look up MMS.  I should know…

Ben:  We’re all about enemas here. [laughs] 

Erin:  Okay yes.  Because the leads you’ve got to get in there and get that gut cleaned and I see, you know, get them out of the gut because they kind of will harbor there those spirochetes.  So I know that can be a little controversial but I definitely see it seems better, I don’t know if I want to say it’s luck but the patients are doing much better than some of the folks I know who are just doing conventional antibiotics when they had it for 18 years or something.

Ben:  Yeah.

Erin:  I don’t judge the people who do that.  And you know, I know everyone has to make their own decisions what kind of route they’re going to take, repealing or maybe they’d do both, do antibiotics and some would do like the peak line have it go right into their bloodstream.  So yeah, it can be pretty hardcore but I’ve stuck with more natural remedies and yeah, I list them all in the eBook but some of them are herbs that help kill the parasites too like the banderol and samento.  I do a natural…

Ben:  How are you pronouncing those herbs? I just want to make sure people get the chance to write down some of the stuff as we’re going through it.  So which herbs did you just mention?

Erin:  The two that are kind of my staple, the ones that I really like are banderol b-a-n-d-e-r-o-l and samento which some people will know from using if they come back from India or somewhere and they feel they might have a parasite.  That’s something samento is used for s-a-m-e-n-t-o.  And there’s another line doc that I know in Seattle, like I said I’m fortunate to know these people so they seem to have a bigger concentration of them up there and those are two that he really likes.  You can get them by different companies.  I get them through Nutromedics.  I have no affiliation with them.  They do give me a wholesale which is sweet but that’s yes.  Those are kind of the two staple ones that I really like and then for me another thing I think that really helped with healing the adrenals was ashwagandha.  It’s an Indian herb that I take in capsule form and it is from organic India.  Many brands I’m sure they’re all effective.  It was really helpful with giving me more energy and I think helping with the adrenals.  It gave the energy yet it kind of help calm you at the same time so yeah, ashwagandha was another one that I still do.

And I’ll cycle on and off which they kind of recommend with some of these ‘cause your body can get used to them after so long to do a little a cycling on and off but ashwagandha was very helpful and I think that was what I really saw.  That and diet changes that I thought I could have a little bit of organic grains or things that I kind of gave up and cut back on sugar which like it can feed lots of things.  Even natural sugar and initially cut back on fruit and things like that but yeah between that and the diet and supplementation, it really made a difference for me.

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Ben:  Now if I could kind of rapid fire a few questions at you, one of the things I’ve heard happens with Lyme Disease is that you have difficulty sleeping or insomnia.  Did you take anything to manage that?

Erin:  I still get that and I’ve had that, I want to say lifelong but probably since my teens so I try melatonin and I do like melatonin but one of the things is for me and I’ve seen melatonin can tend to cause a little dry eye so I just had to cut back a little but yeah, it really from other lymies who I know and many now, the insomnia, sleeping issues really seem to affect us.  So I did things like we’ll actually really cheap and I would wear the little… they look funny walking around the house at night but after the sun goes down I would wear, they’re kind of like blue blockers like if you remember those little school but they’re yellow.  I mean, they’re yellow…

Ben:  Yeah, like an amber lens?

Erin:  Yeah, and you can get those for like eight, nine bucks on Amazon and I have like Amazon links on the site and stuff but I don’t sell any of it.  I just want more and more people wanted these links to all this stuff that I had.  So I wear the glasses in the evening and that would kind of help because otherwise we’re exposed to so much blue light and the computer screens at night and I think that doesn’t help either.  Just for so many people having even what do they say, a third of the nation has trouble sleeping or insomnia and might not have Lymes.

Ben:  So you’re just basically following a lot of kind of the normal sleep hygiene type of things and then throwing in a few of the common herbs that you’d normally use for something like sleep?

Erin:  Yeah, I didn’t want that there were times before the Lyme was diagnosed where doctors not the doctors I’ve been speaking of but just like conventional doctors would say, okay you need to take this sleeping medication and I wasn’t going to do that and get hooked on sleep meds or anything like that.  But yeah, if I really do, I work at doing like a meditation in the evening wearing the… I think it’s good for everybody to wear the glasses if it bothers the person that the bright lights at night and seeking to stay off the computer which is difficult, but you know all those things.  But my joke is with some of lymies and doctors I say that why we get so much energy at night, I said the bugs have to rest, right? These little spirochetes so they have to rest at some point so they go to sleep and that’s why then our body feels great and better and we get all this energy.  I don’t know if that’s really true. [laughs] One doctor said yeah, that could be.  Hey, because they’re not sure why we almost become… And once in a while if I can’t sleep I’ll do a little workout at night because it seems like so many I know get that extra energy and feel better in the evening.  So, who knows.

Ben:  Interesting.  Okay, so another question for you is regarding co-infections.  I’ve heard that you can get other infections along with Lyme Disease.  Bartonella I think is how you pronounce another co-infection that kind of goes hand in hand with Lyme Disease.  Is that something that you’ve experienced and if so have you found any useful remedies for something like that or does Doctor…

Erin:  Klinghardt?

Ben:  What’s his name?  Klinghardt’s protocol address that at all?

Erin:  Yes, they do test for the co-infections and mine did show as negative but a lot of times like they said I was kind of lucky to get the positive on the line.  I’m like, well, I don’t know if that’s lucky because they don’t always show up.  So there’s a lot of the B1s, Babesia, Bartonella.  The bartonella a lot of times will say the cat-scratch fever, I think you know, they’ll call it that but someone could even have a co-infection and not have Lyme which is interesting.  So even though I didn’t test positive for those in the bloodwork that they did that that’s a little harder where it’s black and white in those so I think within the treatment we kind of got Babesia, we’re not sure.  We just kind of have… it sounds sad to kind of have to guess what the symptoms that I would have if I think I have Babesia.  So I haven’t gone… that’s kind of next where they wanted to do a natural herbal protocol for that.  You can do a drug that they take for malaria.  I think the drug starts with an M and that scared me so much taking some malaria drug like that people will take in parts of Africa and things. [laughs] I didn’t mind it was expensive which I didn’t like but I said, okay if it helps me I’d pay for it and insurance won’t cover it but I decided to go with the herbs instead.  So we’re going to do an herbal treatment for Babesia but I’m not even sure that I have that co-infection so yeah, some of it is just a little bit of a guessing game.  But yes, any Lyme-literate medical doctor would have treatments that they would have formulated for those co-infections or things they might recommend, and I think with your general protocol it’s going to help those as well.

Ben:  Got it.  And how about toxins? I’m guessing that there are a multitude of toxins that are circulating in your bloodstream when you have something like this Lyme disease or infection.  Do you take specific remedies to address either neurological toxins or any other toxins that are kind of floating around in your system?

Erin:  Yes, I kind of keep it simple like I know some people have… I don’t even know if it would take pages to write all the things down that they do where they cycle through, but I do believe that the banderol and samento can help as well as the… oh gosh, now the name just escapes me and now the notes in front of me and I take it every day.  Sometimes I get those… [0:32:32.1] ______ you wonder if it’s the Lyme.  What causes that where I just [0:32:35.7] ______ the name.  But zeolites.  So…

Ben:  Oh, yeah.

Erin:  Zeolites are going to bring down your… if you have toxins like the mercury so they’re going to bring that down because a lot of times you’ll have high, which I did, big surprise.  Had high mercury levels as a lymie when they tested those.  So the zeolites supplements would help that as well, as well as a clean diet.  I really do my best to eat very clean organic non-GMO, even local or we grow some of our own food you know, locally grown stuff because I think eating just the toxic load with our foods already what we’re dealing with but I try to eat really clean too which makes a difference.  And then yes, some of the supplementations could help that too.

Ben:  Got you.

Erin:  And I have to retest my mercury levels.  It seems I’m always retesting something so that’s another one I gotta do.

Ben:  Do you ever fully get rid of Lyme or is this something you just basically manage for the rest of your life?

Erin:  There are different schools of thought on that as well and I hear people and understandably people don’t always know the full story on Lyme so I had somebody say, “you know, my cousin and her sister had that I know she just did this for a week and she was all better.”  Now maybe she’s just been bitten by a tick or a mosquito or something but usually it’s not that quick they say like a two-year protocol and one of my Lyme doc said is that your 80% better.  From different literature I’ve read or the best information I can get are from other Lyme patients or people who have been tested positive and they feel that some of them just get to the point where they’re good enough to just keep managing things.

And little things will creep back up but they keep on top of it and it’s something that they do manage.  Others say that they are like a hundred percent cured and they are Lyme-free and they had a negative blood test which could be possible if they really were negative or even if they weren’t.  So I kind of look at it as I don’t know yet for me but I know there’s kind of a split school of thought on that.  Some think that they’re completely better while other Lyme doctors would say that you’re 80% better and you just kind of manage things to make sure that you don’t get sick again or any symptoms that might come up.

Ben:  So Dr. Klinghardt’s protocol has all these different herbs and cocktails that address a lot of the co-infections and the parasites, bacteria and viruses that can accompany this infection but it sounds like he also has some other factors that he takes into account.  The external factors or emotional factors you know, things like EMF or radiation.  I know he does some stuff with like EFT like the emotional freedom technique.  Did you go through any of that or do you use any of these other steps of his protocol as far as like lifestyle and environmental factors?

Erin:  Yes, definitely.  I have done the EFT and had some success with that.

Ben:  Now is that just like the tapping?

Erin:  That is the tapping, yeah.  Or like I was saying I kind of do the meditation and sometimes I’ll incorporate the EFT into that and so I’m a believer in that, that kind of help because it’s kind of a mind/body thing here like anything you’re dealing with.  For me especially mind/body connection.  And then with the EMFs, I haven’t been as diligent but one thing we give pretty far we refuse the smart meter and have to pay extra so we don’t have to have the smart meters.  That’s where your electricity comes from in the house ‘cause with Dr. Klinghardt there’s a whole video that can be found online for free on Youtube.  That’s like an hour-long about electromagnetic frequencies and the smart meters one that he really thinks kind of makes your house a microwave.  So [laughs] not to frighten anyone out there that’s a whole different thing but he’s also in a film called “Take Back Your Power” about that and they can control and see.  It can get a little conspiracy-theory sounding but I just don’t have one just in case.

Ben:  I actually like have an EMF meter.  I just use a little one called the Lapca.  It also measure like the nitrates in fruits and vegetables and it measure like humidity and temperature and radiation stuff like that.  I used to live in just a normal little ranch home.  I would walk around there with my EMF meter and it would register enormous amounts in each room.  And then I built a home and it’s a stupid home out in the forest without a lot of electricity and wifi and stuff like that and EMF registers at almost zero in every room.  And I feel way, way better so I know there’s something to it.

Erin:  Oh yeah, we have EMF meters for measure and the Geiger meter for you know, so we have all those but these I meant like the meter for your power.  You know, how you have your…

Ben:  Oh yeah, the smart meter outside, yeah.

Erin:  Right, a smart meter.  So we declined the smart meter and had to pay like a hundred something dollars just off the bat and then so much per month not to have a smart meter on the house.  So he doesn’t like those.  But yeah, the EMF meters are good to measure the EMFs and yeah that’s good.  I did see a video of your family which was lovely, it was awesome and yeah it looks like you guys are in a good spot.  We would pay extra not to have that smart meter.  Does it make a big difference? I don’t know.  The other thing is we’re building a faraday cage so it goes around.  I know it sounds a little crazy.  It looks like this pretty canopy and I’m not even sure exactly how the technology works but this particular one deflects the EMF.

So at night when you’re sleeping people just think it’s a pretty canopy around the bed and especially if you have like a four poster bed or you don’t have to and you can just move it aside and you put that around you and if you are on a second floor with your bedroom you can just put this thing under the bed and if you’re on first floor then you don’t need that and that would protect you from the EMFs because yes, I do feel that I am more sensitive just in general and maybe that’s because of the Lyme but yeah, it’s just with having the wireless on.  And we turn it off at night and things like that which I highly recommend anyone do whether they have any health challenges or not just to turn that wireless off.  Maybe hook it up to that power stripper whatever to a switch where you can just switch it off when you go to sleep.  Just something he recommends.

Cordless phones we don’t have any anymore which can become a pain because we miss having that cordless phone but Dr. Klinghardt says that if you do have one, to turn it off at night.  The base.  It’s the base that’s the issue and he says that can be as bad as like wireless internet so on cellphones you know, I seek to use those less and to keep those off at night and make sure they’re just completely turned off.  Turn off the wireless.  Some people even with Lyme or without Lyme that are some of his patients or he recommends to go out and you know, put to the fuse box and I’m forgetting that name but the thing… and just turn off the switches.  Like at least for the bedrooms.                  

Ben:  Yeah, what I have just like a kill switch.  I had a kill switch installed on each of the bedrooms.  You just hit that when you go into the bedroom and it kind of shuts off everything.

Erin:  Oh, that’s great.

Ben:  It can be annoying when you’ve got to get up at night.  But [laughs] it’s there.  Really interesting.  Now of course, all of the resources that we’ve talked about are over in the show notes.  You can get to them over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/lyme that’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/l-y-m-e.

Erin, as far as your book that you wrote, this free eBook that you’ve got called “In The Limelight” is there anything else in that book that you wanted to talk about in the podcast as far as bringing to people’s attention when it comes to Lyme disease or any other remedies that you found to be really especially useful?

Erin:  I guess the other one was because I know you’re so into fitness and that’s been a passion of mine for a long time.  I talk a little bit in there about… well this just came up as I’m saying it.  I was doing more high intensity workouts and actually gaining weight and really creeping up, I mean I’m 5’9 ½ but like creeping up to size 10 and I’m working out doing high intensity 10/12 and now I’m like a size 4.

Ben:  Wow.

Erin:  Obviously, it was in 90 days that the weight came off but for me and especially women out there but there are men too who have adrenal fatigue, I think that high intensity can be wonderful but for some folks if they’ve got severe adrenal fatigue and high cortisol levels, one thing it says in the book is that they may want to slow down.  So besides all the protocol that I did and initially I did a little bit of Diflucan and Nystatin to kind of clean out any yeast or fungus in the body and all that and help heal the gut but that was really about it in medications.  But besides all that for me switching to like a Pilates and yoga and I’m not sure what your thoughts are on those.  I don’t know your thoughts really professional thoughts on fitness but that really helped me slowing down, meditation, even going back to beginner’s yoga which was kind of…

Ben:  Oh yeah, especially for people who have chronic fatigue or people who have adrenal fatigue or over-training.  I’ll put people through like a four to twelve week what I call adrenal fatigue protocol and a big, big part of that protocol is Tai Chi and yoga.

Erin:  Yes.  So that within those twelve weeks of switching and I still just kind of incorporate Pilates but am doing a little bit of some lifting now but not like I used to but yeah, that really made the difference for me doing the yoga Pilates kind of like you said probably like a routine like you have for your clients.  I know it made a big difference for me and I saw the weight comes off as opposed to running and doing more cardio – high intensity and gaining a couple of pounds a week.  And I saw that kind of just like it was going to continue to climb if I didn’t do something.  So I’d say that and I know raw foods is a huge thing.  I did raw foods for treats for a number of years on the beach here in Palm Coast and still occasionally do them.  But I think for me also when you have that leaky gut, for me I had to do a little more steamed vegetables, a little cooked veggies.  Things that are a little more easy on the stomach.  So I actually cut back a little on the raw foods even though that might not be the hip thing to do but definitely helped my gut.  So just little tips like that come to mind.

Ben:  Yeah, believe it or not vegetables can be hard to digest in many cases especially if you have leaky gut.

Erin:  Yeah.

Ben:  I’ve gotten to the point now where I find I have the best digestion of my vegetables when I heat them a little bit.  I steam them and I do all of that prior to blending them and putting them in like a smoothie and in all that huge batch of vegetables in the morning and it’s just super-duper digestible.  And if I’m in a big, big hurry I don’t heat them.  I don’t steam them.  And I can tell the difference you know, it takes a little bit longer to digest and you feel like you’re not working through quite a smooth and I know some people would argue that.  The human body should be able to operate without the assistance of cooking and steaming and boiling but I would beg to differ.  I think we actually do have to go out of our way sometimes to prepare plants correctly.  Especially if we have compromised guts.

Erin:  Yeah, I agree.  Wow, I like that.  I guess I heard that once before with when you’re going to like juice or blend them, but I like that to kind of heat them before.  I might take that advice and do that because I don’t.  I still do that some juicing but that’s just raw.

Ben:  Yeah, well it doesn’t take long, right.  I mean you just basically take a handful of whatever vegetables and you just lightly steam them over the stovetop as you prepare.  You take out anything else that you plan on throwing in there and then the vegetables are ready in five minutes, literally.  Just toss them in the blender along with everything else.

Erin:  Yeah, very smart.

Ben:  So you did Pilates and yoga to manage the weight.  Anything else that you found to be really effective?

Erin:  I would say just really, well I was still eating more grains in my diet and you know, I don’t want to like jump in the bandwagon where everybody’s doing the low carb or at least low grain, but it really made a difference.  I wasn’t sold on that, I thought well, I can have if it’s da,da,da organic stone ground this or that but wheat.  But I’ll have a little bit of quinoa or something but honestly, I cut out wheat and most grains from my diet.  So that made a big difference.  I don’t think people have to go just grainless or whatever, [laughs] you know, they could just maybe if they felt they were having especially leaky gut issues they could cut back.  I think that could be helpful.

Another thing I was doing before was just eating a lot of gluten.  Oh, there’s all this stuff but it’s gluten-free but it was these crackers or this bread or all this stuff.  And I even cut back on that too.  I know, just because it doesn’t have the gluten I’m not sure.  I think this can help to eat the gluten-free but I even cut back on the gluten-free foods that I was eating.  And just try to eat more whole foods more just fruits, vegetables.   Not anything processed.  Even organic local bakery bread and all that kind of stuff.  It’s still processed.

And I guess the only other thing too you said that I would hope someone if they would read the book or take away from it.  I wasn’t very sympathetic even though I’ve had my own health challenges but I always got better.  I always overcame it maybe I was young and still was working out and I guess if someone has a family member, a friend if they haven’t been through a health challenge until you really haven’t.  Just the last few years before I was diagnosed was when I was at my worst with just physical pain and really bad fatigue gut, you know, leaky gut all that.  Joint pain, I’m thinking, what is wrong with me? So I think I wasn’t sympathetic until the last maybe three, four, five years because I think this is all in someone’s head or what’s their problem? I admit that I was judgmental and you know, I feel that wasn’t cool.  Sorry, I never thought I’d get emotional on podcast but I realize now after being through it personally and helping other people that it’s not all in their head.  And so if someone has a family member I hope that they would just realize that maybe they haven’t been through that but it is real.  Even if the person doesn’t have Lyme if they have lupus or chronic fatigue that it’s not all in their head that they might just try to have a little more empathy and realize even though they haven’t been through what that person, what they’re feeling is real.

Ben:  Yeah, and of course feel free to use this page if you’re listening in as a resource.  Everything that Erin and I just talked about from Erin’s eBook and that’s free, right for people to use?

Erin:  Yes.

Ben:  To the documentary “Under Your Skin” to Dr. Klinginghardt’s, I’ll get it towards the end of the podcast.  Klinghardt’s not Klinginghardt’s full like natural lyme Disease protocol.  I’ll put links to all these stuff over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/lyme l-y-m-e.

So check that out and Erin, thanks so much for coming on the call today and sharing these with folks.

Erin:  Thank you, Ben.  It’s been a pleasure.  Thank you for having me.

Ben:  Alright, well folks thanks for listening in and you can check all these out again at bengreenfieldfitness.com/lyme.  Have a healthy week and I’ll talk to you soon.

 

 

I recently watched the documentary Under Our Skin, which exposes the hidden story of medical and scientific malfeasance and neglect when it comes to Lyme disease. Thousands of people with Lyme disease go undiagnosed, or get misdiagnosed each year, and many who suffer the troubling effects of Lyme disease are simply told that their symptoms – from brain fog to chronic fatigue to frustrating muscle and joint pains – are “all in their head.”

The film follows patients fighting for their lives and livelihoods, and brings into focus a haunting picture of a health care system that is all too willing to put profits ahead of patients.

I found the film so incredibly interesting that I decided to interview health advocate Erin Elizabeth, who has actually had Lyme disease and dealt with it via completely natural remedies. In this episode, you'll discover:

-Why common tests for Lyme disease won't work, and which test actually does work…

-Why you can have Lyme disease and not even know it…

-How comment, conventional treatments for Lyme disease can actually be harmful…

-The best natural remedies for Lyme disease…

-How to manage the weight gain that can accompany Lyme disease…

-And much more!

Resources:

Dr. Klinghart's full Lyme disease protocol

Dr. Mercola's article on Lyme disease

Under Our Skin documentary on Lyme disease

IGeneX.com lab for lyme “Western blot” test

My “REV Yourself” interview with Dr. Mercola

Erin's website and free e-book “In the Lymelight” at HealthNutNews.com

Do you have questions, comments or feedback about Lyme disease or natural remedies for Lyme disease? Leave your thoughts below.

 

 

 

 

 

Ask Ben a Podcast Question

2 thoughts on “[Transcript] – The Shocking Truth About The Global Epidemic Of Lyme Disease

  1. Ben says:

    It’s good to see somebody covering multiple aspects, instead of just ‘have some antibiotics’.
    I’ve definately found it valuable to approach it from different angles, dealing with the infection is one.. not antibiotics for me because they messed me up too much. But stuff like colloidal silver, herbal tinctures and such.
    And I agree detoxing is important in this process, sadly i’m seeing that alot of people keep telling everyone that detoxing is fake, I usually say to them “I hope you never have to deal with a condition where you need to detox more, and you think that it doesn’t exist”.
    The other thing that you’ve alluded to but didn’t expand on much, is that there’s also an important emotional component. Needing to heal emotions and trauma that have caused your immune system to be more susceptible to this infection in the first place. Plus there’s deeper more ‘out there’ things such as getting the illness as a way to tell you something about yourself or to get you to stop and explore some pattern that has been continually trying to get you to pay attention. That happened in my own experience.
    I know Dr Klinghardt talks about similar, but I can also see that for alot of people they would see that and be turned off by it because we’ve been taught ‘it’s all just physical’. Yes the physical component needs to be dealt with, but not only the physical by itself.

  2. Kevin says:

    Thank you for sharing your experience. I am very glad to hear you got well! In case there are others with late Lyme who listen to this, there is another side to the Lyme coin you need to be aware of.

    I myself am a late stage, severe chronic lyme survivor. I had borrelia burgdorferi sensu strictu along with a very tricky/severe bartonella infection, mycoplasma and epstein barr/HHV-6 activation.

    Many ILADs trained Lyme literate MDs mention that only a small subportion of the Lyme community can get better via natural treatment. Many strains of Lyme are actually quite wimpy and respond very well to herbal therapies. There are some very severe strains that cause extremely debilitating illness and require much longer, more complex treatment. Herbs also have a hard time getting into the intracellular compartment and into areas of the body with low blood perfusion in meaningful, therapeutic doses.

    I run into many people sharing their stories regarding Lyme disease who do antibiotics first, then get very sick because they aren’t detoxing, supporting their gut, keeping on top of problems that appear during treatment, moving too fast, etc. They switch to natural therapies and while some get better, most do not. Those who do get better had the benefit of antibiotics removing some of the infectious load from the intracellular and low perfusion spaces, which they wouldn’t have been able to do had they not taken them to begin with and had tried only holistic therapies. Lyme is a very complex illness. Herbals are an important part of treatment, but are not enough on their own to get 90% of those with ‘chronic’, late stage lyme better. See Dr. Richard Horowitz’s books ‘Why Can’t I Get Better,’ & ‘How Can I Get Better’ for studies on the actual results of herbal treatments in late stage patients, vs antibiotics alone and blended herbal/antibiotic therapies.

    Please also keep in mind that this advice is for the sickest patients with late stage illness. I was one once and would have hoped someone would have told me this a few years ago. I spent 2 years trying every holistic therapy under the sun with no measurable improvement. This also delayed my actual treatment 2 years which could have been less expensive and less complicated had I started earlier and not been sent down the ‘100% natural’ only rabbit hole first. This isn’t to say holistic therapies weren’t helpful and necessary in my healing…but antibiotics did the bulk of the heavy lifting in killing the infections. Holistic treatments alone seem to work much better for people newly/recently exposed, people with the less severe, “wimpy” strains of lyme, and who don’t have severe coinfections making the situation much more complex.

    So please be careful. While Erin is sharing her experience, which is wonderful, the majority of the sickest late stage lyme patients won’t get better without some antibiotic therapy. Some illnesses are just too severe not to use antibiotics. Mine certainly was. If you’re really sick and still suffering, find an ILADs trained physician.

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