Let’s Talk About Lyme

Introduction to Lyme Disease 0:00

Hello, my name is Dr. Brigitte Monrose. I'm called Dr Brigette and I have the privilege to treat and take care of adults from ages 18 and above. And here I'll be talking to you about Lyme disease. This is a very important topic. It's very common and Lyne disease has been called a great imitator because it can present with so many symptoms. So this is important to have some knowledge in and to be able to address the symptoms and be to recognize what exactly is the cause and the modalities we use to treat.

Okay, let's talk about Lyme. Lyne disease is becoming a more and more prevalent issue in the United States, as well as around the world. And as you can see from this picture here, illustrating how small those nymphs of the lime boriella borgdorferi species is, it's the size of a pinhead or of poppy seed. Now, if you look closely at those dark spots, can you pick out which ones are actually the nymph stage of boriola brogdorfia species? As you see encircled here, there's five of those tiny little limbs the size of a pinhead.

And sometimes we don't even notice that. So the tick bite can be very insidious where you don' even feel it or see it. How was Lyme discovered? It started in the 70s and into the 80s. It was first recognized in United States and determined by a doctor called a Doctor But in the town of Lyme, Connecticut,

Tick Biology and Transmission 1:56

there was a group of children and adults that were developing a cluster of symptoms, arthritis, joint pain. fatigue, malaise. And the discovery wasn't until years later that the cause was a spirochete, which is a corkscrew type of bacteria called Borrella bogdorfer, and that's the name of the doctor that discovered that. Spirochetes means it's twisted. It's a cockscrewed type bacteria that comes in when bitten by a tick. How do people get Lyme? Well, Lyne disease, this is a bacteria, is transmitted to humans almost exclusively through the bite of the zordy's tick or the deer tick, black-legged tick.

So the tick acts as a vector or as as the transporter of this disease. When the tic bites, it inserts a special chemical that is actually like an anesthetic on the skin. So you don't even feel it. And it has a blood meal. It aspirates blood from the victim or the human in this case. In the saliva is the presence of the Borealoborgdorfer that gets injected into the host or human. It goes directly into your bloodstream. And as you can see, there's different phases of this boriella species. It comes in the lava, which is a very minuscule shape.

Then it grows and develops into a lymph, adult male, and there is also the adult female. The most proliferative one is the nipth. and it's the size of, as we saw, that poppy seed. That's all it does. it feeds to grow. And I said it's transported in a vector, and that's the tick. The organism is carried in the contents of the tic, And as the Tic bites, it transmits the disease or the parasite from one animal to the next. So it either is in small rodents or deer and then into the pets, cats, dogs and humans.

Borrella-Bobdorferi infection. How do you know if you have it? Well, that's the problem there because it can trigger systemic signs and symptoms that can mimic so many conditions. For example, Alzheimer's, there can be cognitive issues, memory issues.

How Lyme Was Discovered 4:46

Multiple Spirosis because you can have weakness and numbness in extremities. Fibromyalgia because, you could have joint pain, muscle aches, trigger points. Rheumatoid arthritis because you can have swelling in the joints and painful red swollen joints. Chronic fatigue, that's one of the most common symptoms is fatigue. Excessive fatigue and schizophrenia because also you have memory issues, you could have behavior changes all because of this bacteria. Also there's something called co-infections.

Now really co infections is other bacteria or parasites that come along for the ride. So as the tick bites not only transmits the Borealis species line but can also transmit Babesia, Bartonella and Anaplasma as well as other infections. Babsia and Bartonella, Babasia is more of a parasite that can infect the red blood cells and so the symptom cluster is a little different. Bartonella is another bacteria as well. We have some specific symptoms more characteristic of Bartonella and there's anaplasma also another, uh, bacteria.

So there's different stages to lime. And it's really interesting because lime can also have different shapes and sizes. I mentioned there was a spiral keep, which is more corkscrew in shape, but the organism can change depending on the host.

Symptoms, Mimics, and Co-Infections 6:30

In stress, the organism can cluster into a colony. It can also cause round bodies, cyst-like structures, and also develop biofilms. And the biofilm are a polysaccharide coating that these organisms can hide behind. When I say hide, it means the host immune system does not respond. And so some of times these testings can show false positive or false negative, all because of the way the organism is able to exist in the hosts, namely humans. The early stage, the acute stage a lot of times can be first detected after a tick bite.

After you've actually seen there's a take that's been on your skin or you can develop what's called that bullseye rash or erythrum. Erythema migrans is another name for that distinguished rash. However, it's not 100% and the number varies from 40 to even 70% where it is not present. And this stage is the one that's most likely to get treated initially and most like to have effective treatment because it has not spread throughout the rest of the body. It's usually the first few hours to weeks after the tick bite.

Symptoms in this early stage. can be flu-like, suddenly feeling under the weather with some lymph glands near the tick bite, general achiness, fatigue, weakness, fever, chills, headache. And if you have not seen that tick-bite, you can just think you'll have a flu or call some kind of viral infection. Then we have the next stage, which is an early disseminated stage. It occurs several weeks after the tick bite, where somehow you just don't feel that you're getting better. Those symptoms persist.

And even at this stage the lab tests can be negative for borrella. Symptoms, again, can be a wide variety from just general malaise to sore throat, stiff aching neck, short-term memory loss, vision changes, severe fatigue, fever. Then a progression even further if left untreated. The symptoms of Lyme progress in a severity that can debilitating in many people. At this stage, This organism has multiplied and spread throughout the body, and it could be causing symptoms in multiple organs and multiple organ systems, including fatigue is a major issue, but you can have heart issues, kidney issues gastrointestinal symptoms, joint pains.

So every system can be affected. It's possible that even just one of these can be the main present in, like I said, fatigue is usually the mean symptoms here in chronic Lyme. list of symptoms, anything really arrhythmias. So we have to have a great index of suspicion. And that's based on history. Where have you been in the past several months? Is there, have been you in an endemic area?

Stages of Lyme Disease 10:18

And really endomic area used to be a small area of the United States. Now we're seeing it, it's been discovered in every place in United State except for Hawaii and it is also in Europe and Asia. It's a worldwide issue. Who may have Lyme disease? Well, anybody can have this vector-borne illness. Why? Because the symptoms are so varied and can be the underlying root cause of chronic inflammation. So where do we go from here? If you have an index of suspicion, first thing is to fill out that Horowitz questionnaire.

Dr. Richard Horowitz is a pioneer in Lyme disease and he's been dealing with this for many years. So it's a scoring system. It looks at the common symptoms and it also looks the timeframe. and then there's an incident score. So if your score is 46 or more, high, highly suspicion that Lyme is present. If it's 20 to 45, possibly there is a vector-borne illness and under 21, not likely. However, we maintain a high index of suspicion and seek medical attention. Now, what now? There is hope, there is definitely hope and here at Hope for Healing, we address these chronic illnesses and chronic disruption in the immune system and give you hope because the body has tremendous resilience and it's designed to heal.

And so we look at the cues that the Body has given us and we addressed that. We have a three-pronged approach here at Hope for Healing and always the first is lifestyle. That's something you are completely in control with. And lifestyle has made huge differences and huge improvements in overall health. Then we have genetics and we approach genetics as looking at the blueprint, looking under the hood to uniquely and precisely determine what we can do with your genetics to support and also to help navigate towards health.

And phase three, of course, is the medical approach. So let's look at each one. So in lifestyle, first and foremost is nutrition. What you put into your body is all your buddy has to work with. We have health coaches here that really help and support this lifestyle category. here with seeing specifics about nutrition. And nutrition is also guided by genetics, is what you are sensitive to as it comes to food. We go for low inflammatory foods, low gluten and low dairy. In fact, we recommend a gluten- and dairy-free lifestyle.

The specifics of that, We certainly have a variety within those restrictions. Stress management. As always, we live in a very hectic world, and we need to determine what each individual needs to bring stress down, whether it's with exercise, with sleep, different modalities. And again, the health coaches are a great resource. Sleep. We all need sleep.

Who Is at Risk and How to Assess Suspicion 14:00

a requirement to have at least whether it's six, seven, eight, nine hours of sleep a night to recuperate and regenerate for the next day. Proper hydration, water. We recommend half our body weight in ounces daily of good water, filtered water preventative strategies, and we'll review this towards the end of the presentation, the specific preventive strategies. And here, hopefully healing and as we are in Texas, we look at the home environment, looking for if there is mold, if that is bacteria causing further damage to your immune system and having to deal with more toxins in the specifically home In the next phase, we look at genetics, and this is all done together.

It's not a progression. We look all aspects. The genetics allow us to know your susceptibilities, meaning how you react to exposure to histamine in foods, to gluten in food, the casein in the foods. You look how your inflammatory responses, your innate immune system, you adaptive immune systems. We look at how you detox, whether at the cellular level with autophagy, how efficient that process is and general detox including how do you talk through the skin, are you the talk to the gut? Methylation is vital for all reactions in the body and how we fish in.

Are you with your B12 and your folate methylation and mitochondrial function? Again, there's genetic markers to see how well that those powerhouse in your cell works and do we need to support them, how to supports.

Hope for Healing: Treatment Framework 15:48

This is all vital information to really set you up to recovery, to set your body up, combat this vector-borne disease. And last but not least, as we look at the medical aspect, and again, utilizing the tools with lifestyle as well as genetics, we looked as to optimize the anti-inflammatory potential. And we use different tools, including Lodos, naltrexone, omega-3s, turmeric, THC-free CBD, And different other nutritionals, palmetholatomide with PEA, lots of tools to help your immune system bring down the fire.

We utilize traditional labs as well as specific functional labs. monitoring your liver function, kidney functions, seeing where your white cell line is, how is your hemoglobin, whether you are deficient or not. And we then look at some specialty testing with heavy metal testing if needed. We look a secondary porphyria as another mechanism where you're immune system and your ability to detox is affected. And we followed the Shoemaker protocol, Dr. Shoemakers protocol for mold illness or water damage building illness by looking at the biomarkers, the mold biomarks in the blood.

So overall, looking into your immune system and all the triggers that could be affecting it. Physical exam is also vital in this because with some of these vector-borne illness, there are typical manifestations, whether it's joint swelling, fluids in the joints. We look at skin changes, we listen to your heart, your lungs, and all that is to point towards what's going on in your body as far as a vector borne illness or whatever else is affecting the immune system. Further tests sometimes we will do is looking at the heart with EKG and stress echoes because some of these organisms specifically can affect the hearth

Lifestyle and Genetic Support 18:18

valves or the heard muscle with the brain looking that EEG if needed. We also look at MRIs and neuroquants to see what's happening in the brains as far as hypertrophy or atrophy is happening because of this organisms, this bacteria or even because mold. Sleep study is another specialty test we do in looking for quality of sleep and if there's an issue with sleep apnea that can affect the healing. So these are all a lot of the tools that we look at to address Lyme disease. And then the treatment.

The treatment included first stabilize in mast cells. There's a genetic markers as well that tell us about whether there's an issue with exposure to histamine foods. Some of the specialty tests we look at, one of them is called the Genie gene expression inflammation explain. And this test is very valuable because it gives us specific markers to tell us if Lyme has been treated or is not treated within the last six months. So it really gives us information as to whether what track we need to follow with treatment.

We also have markers there to monitor if there is an issue with underlying infection, including Bartonella. We have a unique way of addressing inflammation. In our practice, we use ozone. We use it as IV ozone, as you see in this picture. I'm receiving IV nutrient as well as we can do IV ozone. And we do it, too, in sufflations, the nose and the ears. we have ozone water, all that to optimize oxygen utilization and allowing the body to work more efficiently. We have different detox protocols as well as to help alkaline the bodies.

Medical Testing and Advanced Therapies 20:36

we support the gut with spore-based probiotics as different supplements to make sure that there is an optimal detox. as I mentioned, with ozone therapy. We also have herbals, different formulas, and different protocols to treat this chronic or acute Lyme with antibiotics. The best way to Vector-borne illness is just not to get it in the first place. And so prevention is critical. Step one, wear protective clothing and non-toxic insect repellents. There's several insect repelants that are not only prevent the insect from biting or the tick from bitin', but it's also safe for the human.

And step two, if you like being in the outdoors and which is wonderful, is a caution is to stay in center of the trails and avoid heavily wooded areas. These ticks do not fly, so they land on the blades of grass and as you walk through, they hitch onto your body. So the idea is stay at the center the trail, not into the deep forest.

Prevention and Closing Summary 22:06

And then to bathe or shower within a few hours of camping or hiking outdoors and having a tick check done by a loved one to make sure you haven't missed, as you see some of them can be quite tiny. And as well, check your pets, because there's another carrier of ticks, dogs and cats, and being very careful as to admitting them back into your home, making sure that you do a check and a bath. So that is a summary of Lyme disease and our approach to treating, diagnosing, and eventually curing and going into remission and enjoying an optimal lifestyle.