Herbs vs. Antibiotics: The Lyme Treatment Doctors Overlook

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

So sometimes I'll go if I know they have Lyme and I don't suspect these other things, I just start with a lime treatment and then cover for those things at the end. And the reason for that is there's an herb called crypto sepsis, which is super powerful, and it works for all of them. It's going to work for all the gorillas, the Bartonella and the BBC, but it tends to clobber my patients. So I don't want to start with that in the beginning. Welcome to Doctor Talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you.

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Hi, everybody. Doctor Nancy O'Hara and I'm here to welcome Theresa Haller. Theresa is a tremendous clinician and friend of mine. She's a physician assistant who specializes in complex chronic illnesses. She is a fellow of the Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs and former assistant professor of medicine at Jefferson College of Health Sciences. She graduated from Touro College in physician assistant studies and Alderson Broaddus College with a master's in rural primary care medicine. She also completed doctoral coursework in environmental medicine and medical writing.

She is the author of Cardiology Essentials, holler for Your Health, Love That, and On Medicine and Miracles. Love that too. Theresa has been a speaker for the American Academy of Physician Assistants, North Carolina Integrative Medicine Society, Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs, and the Virginia Academy of Physicians Assistants, and many more. She's been featured on NPR, Fox TV, Good Morning Arizona, The Doctor Jill Show, advanced for Physician Assistants, and more. And recently, she became the director of Clinical Education for New Dramatics, which allows her to do more which of what she loves most helping practitioners help people.

And Teresa, I can't tell you how excited I am to have you join me on this podcast. I have learned so much from you and really appreciate you being here. So thank you. That's humbling coming from you because I've learned so much from you, Nancy. It's great to be here. That's what we do in this community, right? We learn from each other. We listen. We lead with our hearts, you know. So I appreciate that, but I really feel that way about you. So. And and tell me first I know a little bit about you, but tell our listeners and tell me a little bit more about you and how you got to where you are today.

Sure. So I was taking a doctoral course in environmental health, and during that course I learned about chemicals making people sick. And my first reaction to that was shock and anger, because I felt like a big portion of my training omitted a big portion of what was making my patients sick. And that led me down a rabbit hole and so many God ordained things where I ended up at conferences and things like that, and everything was paid for by random people to show up at different things, because at that point, I felt like it was unethical to continue doing what I was doing.

So as the breadwinner, I quit working and started studying and ended up starting my own practice, Victory Health. And when I started, I've never advertised at all. I started just word of mouth. And what happened is I ended up with a one year waiting list pretty quickly, because I was known to be able to treat what other people just couldn't figure out. And I was sort of like the the hope for lost causes in my area. And that spread word of mouth. And so then, because I had to stop taking new patients, I remember I'll never forget this.

I had a woman come to the window holding a little baby, and she was crying and scratching at the same time, and she was just a total mess. And I was sitting at the front window because I had cut back at that moment. And I started to cry, and I realized I can't not take new patients. And she had Morgellons. It turned out, and no one could help her. So long story short, I ended up just trying to move out patients that other people could help and then just sticking with the more complex.

From Environmental Medicine to Complex Chronic Illness 4:31

And then I entered the world of pans, pandas and brain inflammation and then the kiddos. And here we are. Wow. And where did holler for health come from? That's actually because you know my last name. Think I'm thankful to my husband for giving me such a cool last name for and I was. I was mad when I wrote that book. It was all about environmental. And so that's where that name came from. And, you know, we all, on our journey in life move through stages of grief. And then I came out with on medicine and Miracles, where I started focusing on the miraculous turnarounds that I've seen in my patients with their health and their spiritual life.

And that's where that book came from. Wow. You know, it's amazing how much you know, Syd always told me, doctor Sydney Baker, one of my mentors, you know, if you listen, they will come and, you know, if you follow your passion, you know, you're the breadwinner, but you give up everything because you were following your passion to help people and look where you are today because of that. Yeah, that was the right thing to do, right? Yeah, exactly. And I also think, you know, we've both come from conventional medicine and moved into functional medicine.

And it feels right. Yeah, I agree 100%. So, you know, one of the first ways I met you was as the medical director, coordinator and, and wonderful leader of the lunch and learns with new medics. And you have such a practical approach of, of how to treat these children and these patients and also how to express what we all need to do. So I am so grateful to you for that, and also want to tell all of our listeners as practitioners, if you're looking to learn more about herbs, please set up a free lunch and learn with Theresa through Nature Medics.

Absolutely. I love, love, love love that. You know, when I was seeing the children and, you know, it's a hard job and I was getting to the point where I didn't have adequate staffing and I really have no gifting for administration at all. And I was praying and for about seven months, like how to hold on and how to hold on. And there's so much need here. And then I literally felt in my spirit the words pass the baton. And at that point, when I let go of the practice, not knowing where provision would come from, just trusting the word literally neutral medics, I just dropped in their lap and now I'm busy.

I trained over 250 lunch and learns last year, plus speaking from the podium. And I love it because helping practitioners help people and there is a great need. You know, there's a lot of functional medicine practices out there. We all start somewhere and we start moving in our journey. And you can treat diet and lifestyle and toxins and hormones, and you could do all that and you can make yourself a good living, and you could get a good percentage of people better in their health journey. But what about the ones who are so extremely ill that that's not enough?

There aren't enough practitioners who care enough to do the hard work because it is a it is a it's awfully hard. And so those are the people that we at Neutral Medics want to support the most, those practitioners. And so I love that they give me the opportunity to do it. I don't have to talk about new traumatic herbs. I just help them help people love it. I'd like to thank Neutral Medics for sponsoring this podcast. Neutral medics is a company specializing in high quality herbs, botanicals and nutraceuticals.

They have formulated research based tinctures critical in the care of children with tick borne diseases such as Borrelia, Bartonella and Berbizier. But also important is that they are a company with integrity, with charitable purpose, and with a goal of helping clinicians care for the families in their practice. If you do not yet know about their practitioner support programs, their lunch and learns, check out more at Nu traumatic.com. And thank you. It's it's a great program and I highly recommend it.

So but some of our listeners may not know much about herbs. And just tell us a little bit about how you came to use herbs and about herbs that have been tested in comparison to medications for tick borne disease. How effective they are. Tell us from your perspective. Yeah, I was at an Islands conference and I, you know, I have a cardiology background. I actually wrote a textbook in cardiology and taught cardiology and programs and loved cardiology. And so I've seen what happens when you prolong acute interval and you throw someone into to a sad day point and have to resuscitate them in the ER with the magnesium push, you know, I've been there.

So for me I never wanted to do that. So when I heard all these combinations of antibiotics I got really concerned because and being a PA, I didn't have the same confidence as a doctor as far as, you know, making a mistake, you know, you know, because there is bad things can happen. And I have a very low tolerance for that. And so I was sort of depressed. I left the conference, you know, seminars. And I was like, I don't want to do this, but I know I have to help people with Lyme. And this is a huge burden, not just mine, but other pathogens.

And in the exhibit hall, Neutra Medics was there. And I learned that their mission statement was to donate more than 50% of profits. And they brought these herbs in from the rainforest. Well, they have odd names. They're not standard herbs. It's very hard to start using them if you don't know what they are. And so I had the benefit of skipping out of some lectures because I just didn't want to do it. And spending time learning those and seeing that they put clinical research in my hand, comparing them, for instance, Cimentos and van der all to herbs you combined to treat Lyme Simmental is a form of cats called that's not immune stimulating like other cats glow because there's two chemicals in cats call this one is missing one of the chemicals, the toas that are immune stimulating, which can counter the.

So it is the best cat's claw for conditions like autoimmunity or pans and pandas where you don't want immune stimulator post-Covid, etc.. And so that was compared head to head with doxycycline. I mean what herbs do that. Let's just take it on C can we do it.

Why Herbs Became the Preferred Treatment 10:50

And what we found is Doxy cycling was known to double round bodies. You just take a spider kit and you throw an antibiotic at it. It sees it, it feels threatened. It rolls itself up into a ball. Now it's a persistent cell, round body. But when you looked at the Simmental, it actually reduced the round bodies. That's my daughter. I should turn my ringer off. Anyway, it reduced both the round bodies and the active spider kids. And so did Bandeira, which is a Toba bark. And so the two together were my go to for treating Lyme when I left that conference, and I had a 95% success rate, not having a clue what I was doing just twice a day for simplicity.

And so from there, I started treating Bartonella and I had a horrific success rate with Bartonella was about 50%, which 50%, in my opinion, that's 50% of people don't have to go to a doctor that does multiple antibiotics. The other 50% I had to refer out. But then I learned about why you have to add another herb to it to increase efficacy. And now I do that and the efficacy is much higher. And then the beauty has always been easy to treat for me, either with prescriptions or herbs. And now of course I do herbs when I see that they work just as well.

That took me over ten years to release that crutch of the antibiotic, the anti, you know, the prescription antimicrobials because they work so well. But they do come at a cost. One of them is $700, you know, to to prescribe to begin with and then with the side effect profile and the microbiome etc.. So that's how I landed on herbs. It's just it's been amazing. Right. And I think several things you said are so important. So first of all, when you say Lyme disease, for our listeners, that's really Borrelia.

And although we talk about Borrelia burgdorferi, there's dozens of species of Borrelia. But as you said, the so mento that particular form of cats claw and van der all of Toba bark are so good and have research based efficacy. And then I think the one you're referring to for Bartonella was adding Petunia. Yes. Yes. Hutton. You're correct. Yes, yes. And and love that. And then one of the ones that you taught me about that I think is so important and effective is stevia. Yeah. So the stevia research is my favorite research to share because there's two basic ways that Lyme itself.

But as themself becomes super difficult to eradicate, of course there's outside factors like mold causing, immunosuppression, etc. but the Borelli is themselves. There's the biofilm and there's the stationary phase, the stationary phase, and that a lot of people talk about. And so if you remember back, you know, when we were doing basic medical courses, we know that certain antibiotics are bactericidal where they can actually kill a microbe. Right. You remarked Sicilians are selfless forms, bactericidal, but some of them are bacterial static, which means they don't actually kill the bacteria.

What they do is they block its ability to reproduce. And what that does is it takes several generations, right? Several birth cycles, to reduce that microbe down enough where the immune system can kill it off. And so with stationary phase, what happens is when a microbe enters the body, it reproduce itself till it takes hold. When there's a substantial amount and it's got where it needs to get, it stops reproducing, it plateaus. And those can't be killed by most herbals or antibiotics. So there was a study done looking at how do we address the stationary phase.

Nothing works. Doxy cycling didn't work. Surprisingly, cephalosporins were very poor. Even though they were not selfless forms. We knew they wouldn't work the the doxy cycling. And that's static. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And and so that's where the Dobson protocol was born. Because the Dobson protocol uses that leprosy drug that was repurposed at some with Doxy cycling in cephalosporin. Oh my goodness. Like three drugs together. I don't even want to do two you know. But that killed the stationary phase a good percentage down.

But the problem is if you don't kill them all, they're going to start reproducing again. And you're right back where you started. And now the DAPs on protocols went to the double, the quadruple, etc. now they're posting. But stevia eradicated all of the cells that showed no growth. So. Whoa. Right. Yeah. So I saw that studying. I thought, why am I not using stevia? And what I found is when I was looking at PCR data, after using it, if I used a dose of two dropper fulls twice a day and I did it for two months, then the PCR data was coming back clearer and my patients were already symptom free, but it was clearing up the PCR data.

If I was using one dropper full, it wasn't always working. And what was interesting is it wasn't the Borrelia burgdorferi that was the hardest to treat. I've been doing that forever. That was going away. But it was the Borrelia recurrent us that was just. And what I found is I that would correlate with like a 41 ban on a Western blot. If I looked back, that would be the band. And then when I look at PCR data, it was really a recurrent hiss. And then what I found is that the patients that were like 75% better from Lyme and really, truly couldn't just live that way, they're tired, but they're like, listen, I got my life back.

It was a really recurrent us, and that's the one that's hardest to for me was hardest to get rid of. And when I added the stevia two dropper fulls twice a day for two months, I call it the 2 to 2 protocol. It worked, but not by itself. Only when I added it to the herbs that it had already made them better. Leave them on board, add this to it and that was a game changer for me. So stevia is one of my favorite things. Also, it reduces the biofilm 40% all by itself and all the viable organisms. The Sparky ten round bodies within the biofilm, when combined with other antimicrobials.

So stevia, it's a cheaper herb than some of the others. So adding it in it has to be neutral medics. It was brand specific in the testing. The other brands either did not work at all or didn't work very well. Yeah, yeah. And I think several things from what you've said, I mean, first of all, as a pediatrician, I started out just using antibiotics and I wasn't getting the success that I've had in the last ten years and using herbals for multiple reasons. I mean, it killed me to, to be using these antibiotics on kids, but we were killing their guts.

As you said, many were bacteria static and weren't killing the organism we were trying to kill. And then more importantly, we may be seeing the Borrelia, but I think and I well, actually, I know for years I may have been missing Bartonella and Berbizier and many children because we weren't accurately finding it. And now we know, at least in the northeast, 41% of ticks have all three Borrelia, Bartonella and Berbizier.

Stevia, Biofilm, and Persistent Lyme 17:28

And think about that. If we were using antibiotics, that's a minimum of five antibiotics in a child. I mean, we'd just be destroying their gut and not getting them better. So for no harm, if you can't find these things like lab tests, why would you put them on these drugs without proof that you really, really needed them? And so with the IRBs, you can cover so many things safely. Right? And so for everything I do, it's a risk benefit analysis. So the risk benefit analysis in using IRBs is just tremendous.

And as you said, one of the things I like about all of your teachings is you have the research behind it. It's not just your opinion, it's research proven efficacy. Correct. And then a lot of clinical experience 15 years. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things we talk about a lot and we see I saw it a lot more when I was using antibiotics, prescription antimicrobials than I do with IRBs. But one of the things we do see is a die off or hurt time or reaction. Can you describe that to our listeners?

And then what do you do to prevent and and treat it with, you know, tick borne disease or other chronic infections? So first of all, there's several reasons that you see symptoms that many people call a die off reaction. There is legitimate die off reactions and then their symptoms that people feel sick, that they assume is a good thing, that they're eradicating. The problem with that is some blends of herbs from other companies, not the ones that I use, put in herbs that are known to be toxic to the cell in the combination purposely because it causes symptoms, because it's toxic to the cell.

So people think they're getting a herb. So like, well, this herbs working because I'm getting a herbs and that just makes me cringe. So the goal is not a herbs. The goal is that if you are increasing the dose, let's say I go up by one drop twice a day of all three herbs at once, or two, depending where I am. And then when you have new or worsening symptoms, we're going to assume it's a whole the whole the line when you back to baseline go up again. When you're back to baseline globally and you stair step the dose up.

But if you're not sure if this is a herbs, you can always just wait it out because the herbs will go away. And you know, within 72 hours, three days and then if you're like, you know, I do feel a little better than when I started. Okay, then that was a good thing that that happen. But if you're not moving in the right direction, then you have to really wonder, was that really hurts or was I actually hurting myself? The other thing is, if it lasts more than 3 to 5 days, that is more likely secondary porphyria, not a Hawks reaction.

And that is horrific to do that to yourself. And I've seen patients of mine do that when they're super like, I want to get better quick and I'm strong. I can just plow through this. And that's not how it works, because slower, less collateral damage actually gets you better, faster. And so what happens with secondary porphyria is you get so much oxidative stress from pushing so hard that then your body can't keep up with. And it causes this vicious cycle. And that can set you back weeks to months.

So that we don't want to do so. I try to educate patients, but you always have the the pioneers, the Cavaliers that will just push and you have to just start over. But in any event, the most part how do I handle the herbs? I try to prevent the herbs by starting out with something called Berber panela. It's Berber and then another panela. Piniella and they're the same. A bottle, thankfully didn't used to be, and I had a full dropper full to each cup where I put the other herbs, and they all just go together twice a day.

So it's super easy. And that helps because the Berber helps the lymphatics to drain better. The panela helps the lymphatics to drain all your neurological toxins. And then of course, if you, you know, you have liver enzymes that are elevated, you have, no bowel movements. Then you add things like your, milk thistle, your silly mare and or your magnesium, whatever is needed. But for general overall detox, that herb is amazing. And then if someone calls into the office and they really Herbst like, they just went up a drop in the sky fell out.

This happens, right? Yeah. Predict when it's going to happen. They take six full droppers of bourbon on a full glass of water and call back in an hour. So that would be the equivalent of one dropper full of bourbon panela every ten minutes for an hour. When they call back, they're extremely more calm because they see that they're going to be okay. They're either all the way better or percentage better, and it just makes the job so much easier than handling panicked patients calling because it's is such a hard thing to treat if you push too fast and sometimes that happens to everyone, you know, when they get that one dose, they didn't know that was going to be the dose that does it.

So for Manila Extra when you need it and then add on if people are purchasing. I had one patient, oh my goodness, he had Lyme and his. He got elephantiasis like you know, just he had it all the way up to his scrotum. Everything I sent him for labs, studies to rule out cardiac issues and vascular issues. They were all normal. It was just the Lyme die off was so extreme. He was on seven supports. Not just Berber Piniella. He was on Berber Pineau, a Chlorella, glutathione, you know, a whole bunch of things.

And we got him through. And that was over ten years ago. This man is not healthy. He owns a restaurant, eats whatever he wants, probably drinks whatever he wants and takes nothing. No supplements, no herbs. I treated him for probably a year or maybe year and a half, and I've never seen him since. Except when I go out to his restaurant. And so, as sick as he was, he made it through and never had to take another thing for over ten years now. So wow, wow. Yeah, it reminds me as you're talking, you know, I'm, I'm we're both lecturing at the Medical Academy of Pediatrics special needs in March in Myrtle Beach,

Managing Die-Off and Detox Support 23:08

and I'm lecturing on Alice in Wonderland syndrome. You know, which is that going down the rabbit hole where you see everything distorted, either too big or too small. And and I now have many children who have that secondary to some kind of tick borne disease. And it was interesting to me. I have one little boy. The family had no money. We were treating him with new traumatic herbs free of charge to try to get him better. He I knew from symptoms and we're going to go through that in a minute. I knew through symptoms he had and where he had been traveling, both Borelli and Busia.

So I was using crypto lapis and and Segmento and van der all etc. But I've been using Berber Pernilla. He had had this Alice in Wonderland syndrome for over three years. He was a little eight year old boy and nothing that they had done before. Medication wise. Anything had worked. He started on these herbs three months after going on them, all symptoms at full dose. All symptoms were gone. That's incredible. Then again, no money. They really wanted to start weaning. And I thought, well, wean Berber Pernilla first because, you know, obviously he's not going to have day off.

He doesn't need it anymore. That was a mistake. His symptoms came right back. Wow. So two things that proved me. One, it wasn't just timing as several of my colleagues wanted to say, well, he was going to get rid of it anyway. And two, the strength of that Berber, Pernilla Ian, as you said, the drainage and and the the positiveness that you can get from it can be so powerful. So that's a case, you know, with your gentlemen, with 11 Titus, I just was thinking about too. So, Gerber, Pernilla is a game changer for practice management, because when you do that six dropper fulls over an hour as a standard protocol before you personally have to call a patient back and get involved in so much because it's so hard.

Yeah, you just don't have to. They're better, they're triaged. It's just okay, you're going to focus on your herbs, slow down, take more bourbon out of that. If it happens again, we'll get you a sooner appointment versus a phone call after another phone call. At the end of the day. So I love it. Absolutely. And we have to mention the other one from New Terminix, which is my favorite, Avaya, which I often use in a very similar way. A child has a flair with pandas or pandas, you know, with an increase in those symptoms that we've been trying to treat, the anxiety, the OCD, the sleep disturbances, the eating disorders, whatever it is.

And if I give them ten drops an hour or 2 or 3 droppers and a bottle of water in at least 60% of the children, the flair goes away. And that's one that I learned from you, but have found such success from. And I didn't know when to come and I learned it from you. Dance it well. I learned that it existed from you. I may have pushed the envelope on it because I was seeing such great things. And you know what's interesting? Avaya. Avaya is curcumin, liquid curcumin. It was studied head to head with fluoxetine.

Right. Which we know is an antidepressant. So we know with curcumin sometimes it's hard to make sure they actually work, which is why they add black pepper to a lot of products. The pepper in augments the efficacy because it doesn't work well, right? But this one was studied in vivo and was shown to work and have efficacy compared to fluoxetine. So we do know that it works research wise. And then you've proven to me it works clinically. I started using it more because of you. But you know what's funny is I forgot how much you love the Avaya.

I was thinking you were going to say Spargo, have you been using those? I have, I have. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about Spargo? So I've always use Spargo for CVS mutations. Right. So remember the methylation cycle, right. Homocysteine goes down. Another shoot is called the trans sulforaphane or detox pathway. And it does that if you have a CBS mutation. It sits there at the gateway. And it's one of the few more mutations that if you have it, it speeds up the enzyme rather than slowing it down.

So that homocysteine sort of, pours down there, waste away down that pathway. So whenever I would see a homocysteine level less than five, I would suspect they're wasting their homocysteine or if their creatinine was less than 0.5, I would suspect it. And I would put ten drops just once a day on anyone. They'll get ten drops. And then those numbers got back. And then they could tolerate their methylation support because their homocysteine was now able to be used again for methylation. So what's interesting is that's the only time I used it.

And then I met a doctor at maps. Believe it or not, I love all the doctors I meet. They're brilliant. And she treats autism. And she has a protocol that she uses because she treats patients who are refugees in other countries via the internet. She's incredible. I'll introduce you to her at maps. Yeah. Lovely. Lovely woman. And she came up to me and says in her protocol, they're all getting, you know, a standard group of things like glutathione, right. Something to treat the fat, you know, some kind of bulimic acid combination.

Whatever. She she made her own product, which is amazing for that. And spark is the third. And I was like, why do you put everyone with autism on spark? She goes, it's incredible. I was like, I don't understand why you would do that. I use it for CVS mutations. Surely they don't all have that. It's also good for Comt mutations. Well, she said, well it's the mutations. Not the only thing that upregulated CVS. If you're toxic of course it's a lax pathway. I mean it's so simple. But I didn't ever get it.

She's like if you're toxic you're going to upregulate and pour down that pathway. Now you can't meet the late, you're all blah, blah, blah. So they all get it and they do so well with that. So spa gosh, I'm using so much more of it now. If you're toxic toxicity any detox ten drops of spark I add it right in. That's great. I need to start using it more. That's I know, be great. I know something exactly. You know, there are so many out there. That's the thing. And I want to make this concise for our listeners and and help them to see it.

But it is very common for our kids with pans and pandas. And, you know, this podcast is demystifying pans and pandas. It's very common for our children

PANS, PANDAS, and Immune Loss of Tolerance 29:28

to have multiple infectious or metabolic triggers. You know, it's not about the trigger, whether it be strep or mycoplasma or virus or any of the three BS Borrelia, Bartonella, B0 or mold or Covid or whatever it may be. It's about the immune tolerance and the lack of it. And I heard you say on another podcast that you called it the Pans Tilt. Was that total immune loss of tolerance? Yeah, I stole that from Doctor Singh. I love Doctor Singh. I heard her say it. I love that and talk to that about it.

Talked about that a little bit more for our listeners. Yeah. So it's total immune loss of tolerance. That's I mean why is anything chronic. You know in the old days you got an infection. You either died or you got better. Right? That's it. Why are things chronic? I mean, that's what makes people think we're quacks. There's like, there's no such thing as chronic infections. And now we've been doing this for 20 years, and now they're like, oh, yeah, they are chronic. We're seeing that. But why is there something that's shifted in the last 50 years or so and our immune response.

Well, I mean, toxins have, you know, and these microbes are more virulent and they're more they create immune tolerance and mold toxins create immune tolerance. Right. And so the problem is if you're tolerating or tolerating things that make you sick, it's not actually a good form of tolerance. So what we need to do is we need to take the toxic burden off of the immune response so it can wake up and see what it needs to do. And so that's why I like using products that do a lot of different things at once.

So we don't have to use so much. One thing I love about you, Nancy, is that you and I both, you know, you being from West Virginia, me getting my masters in West Virginia, you know, we are practical and we recognize people have budgets and we want to help use the least expensive, least amount of things that are going to move people in the right direction. I think detoxifying the glyphosate, the PFAs, you know, they're everywhere now and and then just removing the toxic burden and using herbs that are going to not just kill a microbe, but they're going to modulate or rebalance the immune response and be an anti-inflammatory at the same time means you're doing three things with one herb.

And if you're using Chinese skullcap, you're doing so much more, right? I mean, you know, and the other thing is the microbiome, right? Because the microbiome is such a big portion of the immune response and it has to be in good shape. And we know that hot tuna, which we use for Bartonella and viruses and long-covid, because it helps to modulate the changes there that need to be done. Hot tuna and Chinese skullcap or bagel by camel skullcap. Both of those herbs are good for the microbiome in clinical studies.

So they're actually helpful not hindering. And then I was asked, well, what about the cement on the banjo and all these other herbs you've used for Lyme? And I couldn't answer them because there's no clinical research. But then I remembered this patient and I remembered so many patients, right, that that I've never had to worry about the microbiome in all these years of treating this way. But I remember one in particular because this gentleman had autism, and he was probably about 18 or 19 years old when he came to see me for the first time, and he was not able to attend, you know, school and things like that.

But he was super high functioning. And he came to me and he couldn't get out of bed, and he was a hot mess. And his gut was. So I mean, he was in so much pain and could not eat food. And he had been to so many Lyme literate doctors and had been on so many antibiotic combinations for all of his microbes. And he came to see me and I was like, let's just stop all this settle and we'll put you on the herbs one drop at a time. And and of course, the Candida lead to treat the Candida with herbs that are not going to hurt the microbiome. And I did use the cement and all these herbs without the studies for microbiome.

And he recovered and he tolerated them. And, and so it's just such an advantage to use things that are helpful or at least not hurting the microbiome along the way. Absolutely. And the other one you and I both use a lot is modified citrus pectin along those lines, both for its galectin three reduction, but also, you know, helping with glutamate and natural detoxification and gut health and everything else. You know, what's interesting is I just was doing research on PFAs this past week because of the firefighting foam.

You know, it's everywhere and where all the rivers are contaminated, drinking water is contaminated, and it's causing so much harm to the immune response as well as many other things. And one of the things that's helpful is inulin. Now, inulin, you know, is the fiber that most of us don't get much other meats in Jerusalem, artichokes and foods we don't tend to eat. But what's interesting is that I also found research that Oak Ridge toxin A we know that color star, I mean, is one of the drugs we use to pull it out.

And that was actually shown in two studies where people were occupationally exposed to really, really high doses of PFAs, where they got acutely ill rather than chronic, and colostomy was the only thing that would pull it out. And what's interesting is we know chitosan is a molecular mimic of the well call cold starving type of thing, and that we know that these things are maintained in the body because of the entero hepatic circulation, right where the bile is recycled and recycled. So what's interesting is I'm really planning to start using the Binder Plus now in all my patients for detox because it has the inulin, it's got aloe, it's got Volvic minerals, so very supportive of the GI tract.

But it also has in it the chitosan not from shellfish. So I have to worry about allergies. And also activated charcoal seems to be helpful for the PFAs. So as we're talking detoxing, you know, the the things you're bringing up, I'm thinking that I'm going to start using more of that, and I use it for my micro toxin patients. But I think we we need to consider that everyone is exposed to these other things we don't test for. So yeah, that's a very good point. And I, I have found a lot, especially in children, you know, when we're using the binders, the cola steer, amines, the well, colds, etc., the the risk of constipation is so great.

So either adding these other things like the full, the gas or the aloe etc.. But but I have also found these food based binders like the modified citrus pectin have been so much helpful, more helpful in not making them sicker from getting constipated, but still cleaning them out. Yeah, so. And then throw a little inulin with it. So you get that actually as well. And I think that that's something we need to start thinking about is pulling that out. So this is just something I haven't put this into a talk. Yeah.

You're the first one that's hearing my thoughts on this. Yeah. Well it's it's very apropos with all you've been through in North Carolina and what's going on now in, in California, it's just devastating. So our prayers and our thoughts go out to everybody affected now and and people that have been affected by it for years from national to natural disasters. So that we got to detox our firefighters. Absolutely, absolutely. That would that was my practice when I first started right after 911, all the firefighters and their family, this is my husband.

We started him there with my little firefighter.

Symptom Clues for Borrelia, Bartonella, and Babesia 36:38

Anyway. So let's take a step back. And I just want to talk for our listeners about the symptoms of Borrelia, Bartonella and the the three BS. Those are the biggest ones in kids that I think wreak havoc and are and should be looked at when we're thinking about pans and, you know, acute on sad subacute onset or chronic neuropsychiatric disorders. So first, for Borrelia, when you think about the top symptoms, what are you thinking about? It's tough because Borelli is everything. I consider Borelli the broad background I just cover for, because all the herbs that treat everything else treat Borrelia right.

So I feel like I'm always just going to cover for Borelli because there's so many of them. But I mean, fatigue, people really forget that profound fatigue and weakness can be a symptom. In addition to obviously migrating joint pain is classic for that and then neuro neurological symptoms. So I think you always just have to cover for it. It's so rampant and it's so devastating. I agree and I would add brain fog of any sort, memory loss, you know, trouble processing in kids. In addition to what you said. Absolutely.

And of course, if we're dealing with those symptoms, long Covid has to be addressed at the same time, which is why I like the herbs Chinese petunia will help modulate those responses. And then we may need to do more. But that's a start. Yeah, absolutely. And then Bartonella, the big things that you think this one easy. This is rage. Yeah I've had it I had Bartonella oh my God anger and rage is crazy. So when you see someone you know their personality and all of a sudden they're going off the wall, just please have compassion.

I've had it. Thank God my husband knew me before. It really is shocking. And then the striae, which is the streaking type of rash that doesn't go the way it should. If you gain weight, you know you have a pregnant belly and you gain your striae around the middle. They shouldn't go up and down. It doesn't make sense. So that is classic for Bartonella. And as you treat you'll see that red purplish color, that inflammatory active Bartonella die down. And they'll just be this clear background after you get better.

And then I would say lumps and bumps. Right. Nodules. You can feel them in the arms and legs. You know, behind the knees and the thighs, lumps and bumps and and plantar fasciitis because these are unique symptoms that I'm mentioning that's not as prominent with other things. So plantar fasciitis. Sure you can. You can have that from other reasons. But usually this is going to be first thing in the morning as soon as you get off the bed. It hurts the worst. And and so it's a little bit different.

So those are the main things for Bartonella. Yeah I totally agree with you. In in in kids. I often talk to parents, you know, in most kids with pans or pandas, it's episodic. You know, one day they're okay the next day or in the course of the day. But with Bartonella, I see it as a constant flare. And like you said, the rage and the anger and the aggression or self-injurious. And then the other thing that plantar fasciitis and little kids or are nonverbal kids with autism or for other reasons, often what I'll find is they bunch up the socks in their shoes and, you know, it's seen as a sensory problem, but it's actually Bartonella interest.

So and then bbca the big ones for you. Air hunger. Yeah. Classic for babies because the mast cells are super activated. Remember parasite babies is a parasite. Parasites activate the mast cells like crazy mold. And parasites activate the mast cells more than anything else. So the these will give you air hunger, which is a symptom of that. Yeah. And and then I see night sweats and, you know, really soaking the sheets. Exactly. And, and sometimes unrelenting headaches. That kind of elephant sitting on your head.

Headache I see with phobia to a grade. So what I'm thinking about these three. What's a simple approach to using herbs for tick borne disease? Okay. So I like to start with deciding whether Bartonella because they're okay. Yeah. And because those herbs have to be different. And if I suspect them and I want to go after them first or not. So sometimes I'll go if I know they have Lyme and I don't suspect these other things, I just start with a line treatment and then cover for those things at the end.

And the reason for that is there's an herb called crypto sepsis, which is super powerful, and it works for all of them. It's going to work for all the is the Bartonella and the BBC, but it tends to clobber my patients. So I don't want to start with that. In the beginning. I want to try the Lyme treatments that I use, and then if they get better without it, I didn't need it. If they're not better than I'll add it. But if they have babka, it's got to come in at the beginning because babka I use Chinese skullcap and crypto lab says the two of them together.

So easy. Start at one drop twice a day. Work up to 40 for adults, maybe 20 for kids, ten if they're little, 2 to 6, whatever. That's that. And then pulse in some artemisinin. Only if it doesn't work. But rarely do you need to do that. And that has to be done at the under very special care. Or add Artemisia annua if you're checking liver enzymes okay. That's babka Bartonella I just love to just treat Lyme and Bartonella together. It's super easy. Simmental plus nature bt right Simmental for the line and you always pair it with something else.

If I'm just doing Borrelia as I pair it with bandera and then I switch it out to commander or vice versa, whatever. But if they have Bartonella, I'm covering for it just in case. Then it's Simmental plus BRT and always shiny skullcap because why not? It's so neuroprotective. It protects you from all neurodegeneration. It's good for anxiety, good for depression, good for cognitive function. It's so good for you. It's good for viruses. It's good for all the immune response. It helps with the long Covid immune changes.

So if you put Chinese skullcap on board you're covering for Bubka, right? You got your BRT, you're covering Bartonella and you got it. Just remind everybody the the IRBs in BRT, okay. So BRT is Hot Tuna plus commander. So when you're treating Bartonella, remember I said I just did so poorly in the beginning, it's because I was just using a tuna by itself. But you have to add a second herb commander's one of the herbs I like to add to a tuna to increase the efficacy. That's nutri BRT. It's all in one product.

The other herb that works is you can do a tuna plus crypto lapses.

Practical Herb Protocols and Hope for Patients 42:58

But again it's a little bit more clobbering. So I use that if I need to. And then saida acuta. But you have to watch for things like your thyroid and your blood pressure. So again, if you have to watch for things, I tend not to use the IRBs because if the other ones work, why watch? But those are the options. Yeah. And I think one of the things I want to highlight of what you said, that I think is so important and that I adopted since meeting you, is that starting with one drop or one drop twice a day, you know, starting that low, as you said, prevents or avoids the die off.

It helps them see it. They can increase it every day. I think that's a game changer, because I think some of these families are just so, just so overwhelmed and and sometimes even adding five drops on the weekend, which is what I was doing before you and I met that causes die off just there and then. They've had a miserable weekend. They go back to school, they don't know what they're doing. They can't get me because I'm not available on the weekend or whatever. But starting at that one drop I think is so important and building up as you do, one drop at a time to get to the full dose.

Yeah. So I just call drop by drop dosing. And then if you have new or worsening symptoms, hold the line until you're back to your baseline, even if it's not caused by that because you don't know these people. Right. How sick are we when we have these things? Everything makes you sick. The weather changes, you stayed up late or you know your in-laws came to visit, not mine. Mine are wonderful, but not the case. They're listening. But anyway, so you know. But even so, it's a stressor on the body. So why push up? Just hold up.

The only exception to that is if you're not moving at all. If you're just like every day, you're like, well, there's a reason. And then, you know, try to move, right? Right. Exactly. And then one other verb that, that you and I have talked about before that I wanted you to mention is Ngoni. Okay, so Ngoni, I'd love to hear your take on ngoni. And the reason for that is when I reviewed the literature on ngoni, I got confused because ngoni has some anti-inflammatory, some pro-inflammatory, and I just got nervous using it.

It's a potent anti-inflammatory. It's a great it's moringa. For those of you don't know the other name. So I am a little gun shy until I can figure out am I only benefiting people? Tell me your thoughts on it. Well, I don't use it very much and that's why I was asking you, because I thought you used it more since I've been using the turmeric products, the Avaya, things like that. Not only is it anti-anxiety, it's inflammatory as we know about turmeric and curcumin. And remember everybody, you know, if you're not using the new traumatic product and you're not sure of how bio available your curcumin product is, that black pepper extract increases the bioavailability.

But I have had such success from an anti-inflammatory, immune modulating standpoint. With that and a few other things SPM essential fatty acids I don't use Noni because I did see it having effects that I thought were pro-inflammatory and I wasn't seeing, so it's nice to hear you say that. I was thinking you were using it a lot more than I was. I was thinking you were using it more than I, but there you go. That's why we do this. We talk, we we hash it out. Everybody else is listed. But it's just for you and me anyway.

And then one of the other things I love about you. I know we've been talking a lot about new products because not only do we both love them, we know there's a lot of research behind them, and we've had clinical success, but neither one of us just use that. And there are so many others. You know, you've mentioned things like magnesium, you know, NAC and Acetylcysteine. But one of the things I love about your lunch and learns is you're not just talking about new traumatic products. So for your tick borne diseases, any of these, any other products you want to mention?

Now I would have said crypto lapses, but now Nutri Medics has a I would have said Chinese skullcap and now they have it. I would have said side acuta, but I'm not really using it anymore. So really, all my herbals, I think they finally nailed the the product line that I need. I pushed for some for several years and they're there now, so I just stick with neutral medics for tick borne diseases. But I have two giant shelves full of other people's products for everything else, and I talk about whatever's needed in the lunch and learns.

And when I speak from the podium, you know, whatever people need, our goal is to get people better and to do it as effectively as possible and as stress free as possible. Exactly, exactly. Well, I can't tell you, Theresa, how much I love your curiosity, how much you listen to your patients and the practitioners that you train. I love your heart. I love your practical approach. Do you have any final words, any words of wisdom or hope that you want to leave our listeners with? Well, there's always hope.

And you know, one thing I learned from working in the hospital and my cardiology job and walking out of the ICU and seeing people in there and just thinking they will never come out. And then the next day they're discharged and you're like, how in the world did that happen? I just want to say I've seen hopeless cases get better pretty routinely. I've seen miracles happen. I've seen, you know, there's always hope and there's no such thing as false hope unless you're a shyster. You know, hope is hope, right?

Let's, you know, let's base it on truth. But hope is hope. And that is the first step in healing. So if you don't have hope, find it. Yeah it's there out there. Yeah. Thank you for that. And and and just keep moving. Just keep hoping praying whatever works for you. But see the little gains not just the big gains but the little gains too. And and find the joy in every day. And I have to say one more thing based on that is that patients who are chronically ill and their parents, because it's just a hard road to go, they forget the gains they make.

So I make them tell me in each visit, you know, several symptoms that we're going to focus on. And then better, worse. And I and I quantify them. And then when they come back in hopeless because it happens. This is it's hard. And I read it back to them and like well what about this symptoms like, oh I forgot I had that. What about this symptom. Oh I forgot I had that. And then what happens is their hope comes back alive because they realize even though these four things are not better, look where I was and they forget where they were because they're so focused on fixing the next thing.

And so hope can come alive just from showing them where they've been and where they're moving. Baby steps sometimes. And sometimes big steps. Yeah. And that's why the history is so important. So that, you know, the symptoms they came in with the first time. And we often use them on a scale of 0 to 10. That's right. Non-Existant ten being the worst you've ever seen. You know just to help them quantify it too. Because you're right. Sometimes they get so mired in the the hopelessness and the despair, the just that hope makes that next step more possible.

So anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you. Could you please let everybody know where they can find you. So basically through Neutral Mediacom if they go to new traumatic com and then just send an email for practitioners to set up a lunch and learn with me, make sure they know you heard it through Nancy's podcast, because maybe you'll get ahead of the line a little. And because we love Nancy. And then, I mean, I have my own website, Theresa haller.com, which is Theresa Claire. And then I am on Facebook at Victory Health Consultants, although I hardly ever post there, but if I ever do anything like a free anything that I'm speaking at, I do post it there so you can look there.

I'm just starting to do that. I'm very not tech savvy, but I'm going to start posting the links to all of these kinds of things and you can find them there. Great, Theresa, thank you for everything. I love your passion. I really appreciate you doing this with me and everybody. If you haven't met Theresa, if you haven't heard her speak, come to maps, go to new traumatic scam, go to Theresa Holler com and meet her. See her and you'll feel the the healing just being with her. So thanks Theresa. Thank you Nancy.

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