The Lyme Recovery Diet: What to Eat (And Avoid) for Healing

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Healing Lime 2.0 summit. I'm your host, Doctor Mariah Hinchey, and today we're going to be talking about another one of my favorite topics regarding Lyme and vector borne disease. We're going to be talking about nutritional strategies for healing lemon co-infection and really talking about how important feeding your body certain nutrients are when you're healing from these infections, as well as certain foods to avoid and why. So here to discuss this with us is Doctor Marie Matheson.

Doctor Matheson is a naturopathy doctor, and she is the co-founder of the bio Heal Ottawa, which is a multidisciplinary health clinic specializing in complex chronic illnesses. She's a community builder, creator and facilitator of Lyme Bright Collective, which is a Lyme health education program, and the online course Tick Bite Ready. As a member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society or Islands. She completed the island's Physicians Training program with the late Doctor Charles Ray Jones.

In addition, she serves on the advisory board for the Forum of Integrative Medicine, or TFI and doctor. Matheson is also a featured author of a chapter within Connie Strauss Homes groundbreaking, groundbreaking book, New Paradigms in Lyme Disease Treatment. Welcome, Doctor Matheson, it's an honor to have you here. Oh. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so glad to be here. Absolutely. Tell our audience a little bit more about yourself and how you came to specialize in training in vector borne diseases.

Yeah, thanks. So I would not be here today if it wasn't for my lovely niece, Mia, who, who's journey with Lyme disease, and my deep desire to help, and and help move her forward. Help me sort of expand and carve that path to help so many others, with the similar struggles, that have continued on with my own children's tick bites, of course. And then my own tick bite in 2021. And, that's been my journey and, to help so many out there. And I've really found that nutrition has been a really, incredible way to help move people forward.

Absolutely. I am one of those people that really believe that food is our medicine, and that food really acts as medicine or poison to our bodies. And, you know, it's like we have to buy food, we have to eat, so why not get it to work for us instead of against us? Yeah, yeah. Well said. You know, and I think the longer I've been practicing Maria, the less dogmatic I've become. It's almost like 20 years of of practice has made me

Why Nutrition Matters in Lyme Recovery 2:53

less pigeonholed in terms of what is the perfect diet out there, because I just don't think there is a perfect diet. I think we have to look at the person in front of us using naturopathic medicine as we do best, looking at the individual in front of us, their cultural differences, and, their ethical differences. Right. So we look at the individual in front of us and we look at the quality of food that we're putting in our mouth. And I think that's really, really important when we're discussing what is the right food, the you know, we don't necessarily put everybody on a histamine diet or a low oxalate diet.

We look at the individual in front of us and I think that's really crucial. If you take anything from this, we try to, less is more and look at the quality of our foods in general. Absolutely. So how do you feel? Just like from a from a basic standpoint, what role does nutrition play in the recovery process of Lyme and co-infections? It's so huge, right? It's so huge. I mean, I think about my own, niece Mia, who relapsed a few years back. It was due to a food sensitivity. And once we removed that food sensitivity was gluten, if you want to know, her joint pains went away.

And so it wasn't necessarily Lyme infection, per se, but actually the food that made the biggest difference in her relapse. Food can actually support the immune system. It reduces inflammation. It helps with tissue repair. If we have nutrient dense diets, we can actually aid our detoxification process, give our body fuel and energy. And it is an absolute game changer. To my point, in order to see me at the office, you need to see my nutritionist first. And it's often the case that by the time that patient comes in to see me, they are anywhere from 20 to 40% better.

Mariah. So, you know, does food matter? You bet it does. You know it. We see it time and time again when we eat the right foods, we become, if you will. When we look at the terrain theory, we become less of a host for these infections. Whether it's a virus, a bacteria fungus, a mold, it's our terrain. And so we give it the opportunity to not be able to fester and grow because we have the anti-inflammatory properties, to be able to fight it on our own. These foods do become our medicine, including ginger tea every day or every other day can be antimicrobials.

And using food and herbs as our medicine is. There's no wonder why. You know, in India we use so many antimicrobial herbs because of all the exposure to parasites, for example. So using some of the really key components that other cultures have used is really key. When we're looking at Lyme treatment in terms of the nutrition. Yeah. And it's you know, it's funny because some of the things that, you know, our listeners would have heard by this point in the summit too, is, you know, talking about like the botanical medicines and going through how, you know, we're not just using botanicals that are antimicrobial, but we're using, botanicals that are anti-inflammatory and botanicals that are immune modulate.

And when you look at foods like real nutrition containing foods, a lot of them have anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, immune modulating and even antimicrobial compounds. You know, when we're looking at a lot of the fresh herbs and spices like oregano and time and, you know, things like that. So we don't have to actually always take something like as a supplement, as a pill. There's a lot that we can actually incorporate in our foods, you know, getting bio flavonoids and polyphenols and all of these different things.

But I'm getting kind of a little bit ahead of the boat. So let's, let's start by, let's kind of put things into categories. So let's start with the things that you think are imperative to avoid when you have a complex chronic infectious illness like Lyme or co-infections.

Foods to Avoid: Sugar, Gluten, Processed Foods, and Alcohol 7:10

Yeah. And I'd like to preface I'll jump into that. I always like to, say to my patients and this is I'm speaking to you freely, like I would with a patient, is that I always focus on the foods they can have before I pull away. That way you fill your buckets, you fuel yourself with all these incredible things and it becomes less of an urge or a need to focus on the things that you can't have. It's like telling a kid not to touch a cookie jar. All they're going to think about is that cookie jar, right? Right.

But we do know there's some crucial things. So the first one would be refined sugars, right. So we know that once you eat a refined sugar it decreases your immune system by anywhere from 50 to 80% within 3 to 5 hours of eating it. That's huge, right? When white blood cells crash, that's not what we want. So eating sugar refined in that way can be really an important part. It also depends whether the person is taking antibiotics or they just are working herbal medicines. You know, it's my advice to avoid all types of sugars.

If it's antibiotics for risk of side of a cell, etc., as well as yeast infections. But if they're on a herbal protocol, which is the advantage, they may or may not, but they may be able to actually tolerate some forms of honey and some forms of maple sirup. The other big inflammatory, food would be gluten, as I mentioned earlier. Gluten for a lot of people can be inflammatory and can be in some ways the cause. It's incredible to think, but the cause of some of people's joint pains, the cause of brain fog, the cause of digestive issues, you know, and it's unfortunate, but I mean, let me be honest, GMO foods and eating non-organic have really exacerbated that.

You know, since 1996, it's it's it's, it's it's it's been introduced in our lives. And so, you know, eating these foods that are all GMO, etc., including the gluten, can be extremely detrimental to anybody and most, most of my patients. Maria, I'm sure you'll attest to the same thing is like, they just remove it and they feel so much better and we haven't even started doing very much. So gluten is another big one on the agenda. The next one I think would be processed foods. Right? So anything packaged I sort of like I, you know, I can't believe it.

Sometimes I'm at the park with my, you know, my my children are much older now, but with my nieces and nephews and I look at all these mothers and everything that comes out of that diaper bag is packaged, right. It's got an ingredient list, right? Whereas back in my day, I, you know, it was an apple was a cut up apple. It was cut up celery, cut up carrots, etc.. So moving away from those as much as possible so processed foods will contribute to inflammation. There's ingredients that you can't pronounce in there that could be really detrimental.

And that goes as much saying you know, some of these packaged organic foods that have, you know, natural flavors in them, right? Natural flavors only have to be 5% where it's an actual good thing for you. So 95% of it is full of chemicals. Let me tell you this. It causes addictive, needs for these children because that natural flavor makes the food consistent in flavor. So those goldfish you crave because the always going to taste the same way, whereas you bite into an apple. It might be sweet one day, it might be sour.

Another day, but that's real food. So really, teaching our patients to eat real foods, right? The perimeter of the grocery store, what we can find in our fridge right. Breaking it down simply that way. Right. If it's going to go bad, it might be actually good for you if you can keep it in the cupboard for a long time. Maybe that's not a good thing. So we don't have to be so neurotic about it, but we just want to go back to eating real food. And I think that's really important. And then give or take dairy.

So some people react terribly to dairy. You know, they'll have digestive problems, acne. They may have other systemic inflammation such as eczema. So some of those are keynote symptoms. If a child always has ear infections you may want to think about pulling the dairy. So you know or if I ask my adult patients did you suffer from ear infections. Oh yeah. So much I had to add tubes in my ear. I'll already be thinking about dairy. May not be so great for you, so sometimes I pull all of those things out first, and then we tease them out and we say, try to introduce this one next and see how you do.

And sometimes they can have those foods again. And then lastly I'd say alcohol. All right. So again it is a sugar. It is inflammatory. It'll affect sleep. It'll affect energy. So many of my patients. And you really do need to ask this because some patients are really suffering and it's their way to release. And so I teach patients find other ways, try to walk try to exercise at night when those cravings come. So you're looking for this dopamine hit and try to find other ways to, to achieve that if you can, and try to find some sort of hope and, and benefit in your life that way.

So those would be the key ones by saying so though, right? I also want to say that, you know, we're trying to see a win really at the end of the day, that's it. Right? So I always tell them and that's the greatest way to approach this, is that it's not a forever thing. Maybe it may not be forever. And that's certainly something I tell the kiddos in the practice, because like you, I treat a lot of kids. The minute you tell somebody this is forever, I can tell you they're going to walk out the door no matter how great our treatment plans are right there.

I mean, they won't do it. Yeah. And so they could self-sabotage subconsciously. And it's, you know, it's it's been a it's a hard journey. And so the minute you tell somebody it's forever I think that's where the detriment happens as a physician, as a doctor. And so I think it's key to just say it's just for now. It's until we see a win, until we get better. I promise once we get better, we could potentially introduce this or we could challenge this, but we will do them one at a time so that we know, I mean, there's no better food sensitivity test out there than the challenge test, right?

I mean, we can have the greatest sensitivity test that sometimes just pure avoidance and then reintroduction can be key. I will tell you from clinical experience, after all these years, it takes 2 to 3 months to get gluten fully out of your body. So if you have tried to avoid gluten for two weeks, I'm so sorry to say, but that's not long enough. If you feel better after two weeks, fantastic. Then please keep avoiding it. Dairy takes about the same time. And eggs. I didn't mention eggs because some people can be sensitive or not, so don't pull that out necessarily.

But just so you know, eggs takes a far less time. It takes about ten days to get that out of the human body in order to see if it's an issue. So sometimes it's an easy one to see if patients are inflamed because of eggs. My theory is that it's the type of eggs. It's the mycotoxins that may be in the eggs that are creating this chronic sensitivity. And if you know, you get to the farm and you open the mailbox, you put your $5 bill and you grab those eggs. Typically people don't react to those. It's been my experience with my own daughter.

So so those are just some of the key ones that I would say to avoid. Okay. So to recap for our listeners now, obviously they're not all absolutes, but refined sugars, gluten, dairy, potentially eggs, definitely processed foods. And then and then GMO foods, of course. Because, you know, not only are they not only have they been genetically altered, but you are pretty much guaranteed that they are going to be Drownded and roundup, right? Which is one of the most toxic, right pesticides that we have.

But. To your point that that disrupts the gut microbiome. So for all about the gut microbiome, that is the number one takeaway with GMO foods is that alters gut bacteria. End of story. Right. And I'm sure we will get into at some point the importance of the gut microbiome for the immune system and the ability to control inflammation, etc. when we get further into the foods. But talk a little bit further about the dangers of eating GMO foods, especially when you have an infection like Lyme, and why trying to eat organic, especially for, you know, for the Dirty Dozen is so important.

Yes, absolutely. So as much as when we know better, we do better. So we just do our best. Okay? And I know that in some cases it can be expensive. But we try to buy things on sale. We try to buy local as much as possible, but genetically modified organisms basically alter gut bacteria and damage the intestine. It increases your inulin, which is a byproduct in the god that can actually degrade the gut lining and the gap junctions. So we've got these sort of cells that are all sort of stuck together.

And Xinyi Lin can kind of sort of irritate those gap junctions and maybe make food particles that are not supposed to be actually absorbed into the bloodstream. Go through. And when there is, particle food that is bigger than it should be in terms of those amino acids, for example, if it's we're talking about a protein,

GMO Foods, Gut Health, and Detox Support 16:50

then the immune system actually will react to that. It will say this is foreign. This is not something that is good. And it will start blasting off and create a slew of inflammatory cascade which can cause autoimmune illnesses, etc., and exacerbate your current symptomology of Lyme. I've had so many patients who would just switch to organic, non-GMO and already see the inflammation coming down. So really want to be thinking about this analogy of the sink right? Right. So right now we've got this sink.

Remember really close your eyes. Imagine this sink and you've got the faucet in a drain. And by mitigating the infill with, with GMO foods, then you are allowing that, these toxic products to actually get out of your body, and you are no longer filling yourself and exacerbating your symptomology. So it gives your body a break to be able to detoxify better. It decreases. As you know, your major detox organ is your liver, right? So if we don't give that liver a break, it does so, so much for us. Eating GMO foods will exacerbate that and make the detoxification a lot harder.

Marie, you know, can I just say it simply? If you don't spend it in your food, you will end up spending it in a supplement, right? Right. So let's start with the foundation. As you know, at Bio Hill, we have a road to recovery. It's our classic pyramid. And at the bottom of the pyramid starts with nutrition and detoxification. And that is key because everything else, you know, sleep, adrenals, infections, biofilms, all of that will fall apart if you don't have the baseline of nutrition. So it's really, really important.

I know we want to get ahead of ourselves and go, but I need to treat this infection. But it's much more important to spend money on really good quality, nutrient dense and there's ways to do that inexpensively. My kids know, you know, we didn't buy strawberries today because they weren't on sale, but I bought raspberries, right? So I buy local in season. What's available. And there's often times at the grocery store where I'm grabbing the organic, celery and somebody else's grab the or the conventional one that's more expensive.

The organic one. They just assumed it was. It was more expensive. Right. So there's ways to do this, to make it feasible for everybody. And I think it's important to consider too, you know, everyone's treatment time varies and the more compliant you are. This is what I find in my own experience with my patients, the patients who are more compliant in making the lifestyle changes, altering their diet, spending the 120 bucks on an IgG IGA food sensitivity panel so we can see what foods have gotten in and what foods are, you know, overreacting or distracting the immune system and causing inflammation.

Spending that extra money and being more diligent might make your treatment plan only be a year long or a year and a half. Not your treatment plan, but like your your journey, right. And healing. But if you and you know and you're spending X amount on other supplements and botanicals and whatnot, you know, but the other person who's just taking the botanicals and the supplements and refused to change anything about their diet or their lifestyle, they might still be going at like year two, year two and a half, year three.

And it's going to cost them twice as much money, you know? So I know that we all only have a certain amount of money that we can spend. But I guess the point is, is that we really have to look at, you know, how it's going to impact, the speed at which recovery comes, because to the point that you made earlier, you know, you make some of these hard but simpler lifestyle changes, like just by omitting the five grains that contain gluten, right. And anything made from it. And that is going to change the permeability of your gut for the better.

It's going to decrease inflammation. You know, it's going to allow your body to start to heal in most cases, because gluten also increases and increases, leaky gut increases your chance for food sensitivities. Sorry, I'm like going down a rabbit hole. Oh, I love it. But it's great. You know, I tell patients, it's like you know, if you're just going to take the herbs in the supplements, it's like we're pushing a boulder up the hill. If you can get your food to work for you and your lifestyle to work for you, and, you know, get in a healthy mindset and come from a place of gratitude and like, you've got this and you have hope.

It's like all of a sudden that boulder is going down the hill, right? And things are just getting better and better and better and better. So sorry. That was a very long winded. I agree. With you. I love this exactly because we agree with each other. It's just so fantastic. And like case in point, I was getting it. It's starting to be, some somewhat still cooler right now. And, I made I was feeling my hands were a little cold, so I made myself a huge part of fresh ginger tea. My hands are warm right now. Right.

So this is nutrition? Yeah. I could have taken a herb. Yeah, I could have done a lot of other things, but I decided to use food as my medicine. Right. And same goes with like, can we talk about binders a little bit because we often use that in treatment. Right. What about culinary binders. Right. Those are so important. And they're just in our cupboard. We use chia seeds and hemp seeds. And if you've got Sibo then grind up some nuts,

Building a Healing Diet: Protein, Vegetables, and Healthy Fats 22:40

grind up other nuts where that won't cause a reaction. But these are great ways to actually bind mycotoxins or bind endotoxin from the release of killing the line bacteria or the co-infections. So really thinking about yes, you could be on charcoal. Yes, you could be on all these other things, but using food that we have to our, you know, in our cupboards to really help improve and move ourselves forward that way. So, yeah, we use it in various different ways. Yeah. And Joel Christo, who is another naturopathic doctor, for those of you that don't know her, she's she's amazing.

And you know, when she talks about like, so most people that know about mycotoxins illness know how important the various binders are. And she's very, very passionate about using these various foods as binders. You know, like you said, chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, all of these things. And then also using bitters, right, to stimulate the flow of bile. And again, like using food as medicine instead of taking everything as a supplement, you know, that's that's been manufactured than a pill. And this coming from someone who owns a supplement company, you know, is still there.

Which is what makes you so, which is what I love about you and what makes you so ethical. That's, you know, I think that's great. But speaking of bitters, you know, it's like romaine lettuce is better, a regular is better, right? So we have these things. They don't all have to come from a pill or from a bottle. We have them in our, in our fridge, to stimulate that. And then we can make teas, you know, you and I are natural by the doctors. So tea is tea is a great medicine, especially if it's super potent.

Yeah. Exactly. Right. So what would you say? Give us an example of what a day maybe would look like for a patient with Lyme. More focusing on like what? What should their minimal nutrient intake be. And obviously this is different child versus a doll. You know man versus woman activity level etc.. But just kind of like the basic the basics from a macro standpoint and then get into like what microbes do you really think are important when it comes to giving the body like the medicine that it needs to heal.

Yeah. So I'm going to just say a standard adult 140, 150 pounds should be having protein at every meal. And we're looking at around 20 to 30g of high quality protein. That would mean lean meats. That would mean, you know, you know, grass fed, beef or bison. That would mean pastured chicken, right? It's not grain fed, it's pastured. It's rubbing on seeds and and and grubs and worms. It's free to roam. That might mean eggs or legume or plant based ones such as lentils or chickpeas. I would definitely recommend some sort of healthy fat.

So some sort of olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil or some sort of nuts or seeds, with that it would include vegetables, especially your, you know, focusing your plate on half your plate, at least of of vegetables. I like a rainbow of vegetables, but I definitely want to make sure that my patients are having some sort of leafy green. And yes, we can talk about kale, but there's other ones too. There's collard greens. I love using collard greens because they're a stiffer green, and they're fantastic to use as a wrap.

So you can actually put carne asada and all your stuff and nothing will fall apart, right. So I love using collard greens. I love Swiss chard chopping that up, making a really quick soup. With that. So making sure that you're having lots of a variety of vegetables, the cruciferous vegetables, your is your cauliflower. You want some redness in there. You might want some peppers. You may want some red cabbage. So we do want a rainbow, but we do want to make sure we do have a concentrated amount of those leafy greens for sure.

And then if tolerated, complex carbohydrates such as squash, sweet potatoes, maybe some tolerate some form of greens. Quinoa would be a really, a fine idea. Absolutely. As long as that's great, and tolerated by the person. And then really focusing on how we're, how we're making the foods. So soups, stews, crockpot meals, smoothies, sort of these easy to digest foods, especially if digestive Track is compromised. These are a wonderful way to go. Stews or crockpot meals are just fantastic because you can stretch a meal for a long time.

I often get patients to, focus on cooking on Sundays as a family, making two major meals. Like maybe you're making a chili and maybe you're making some sort of stew. And then you're going to have one of those, for that meal, but you're going to freeze the rest, really, in 2 or 4 person portions or small little portions, so that when the going gets tough and you're having a bad day, you're working, you're not tempted to order in, you're not tempted to eat processed. You have a freezer full. It may mean investing in a chest freezer down in the basement, but I think it's worthwhile because we never really, we always have something in the freezer on the go that we can just.

Oh, it's a long day. Let's just pull this out for tonight. Right. So, I have busy days, too, and I am not perfect, but I sure am glad to have those meals that I've prepared in the freezer that are sort of ready to go. So that would be sort of, a day to day of inclusion of really good macro foods to, to include. Yeah, I think that's great. And I it's something really important about that too, is like if you've had a really stressful day, right, or you're saying and you've had a really hard, terrible day, it's like, when does your body need the nutrients?

That's when it actually needs that home cooked, you know, mostly organic, high quality protein, healthy fat meal, not something from takeout that's been cooked in seed oil and, you know, is just complete crap. Like, sorry, but it is, you know, and so it's like in those times of stress and trouble, like that's when we really need the nutrients, but we end up grabbing, you know, something else that's more convenient. So I love that idea and something else to point out. You know, when you're making soups and stews and crockpot stuff, you're not losing any of the nutrients because it's there, like in that broth, in that liquid versus, you know, any other form of cooking.

We lose so much of the nutrients, you know, like in the water if we're steaming or, you know, in the pan that we were cooking at where like all of, you know, kind of like the healthy fat that we need is now in that pan. So I love the ideas of the soups and stews and cooking anything in the crock pot. That's great. That's. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I grew up, my mom made the best chicken soup as a child, and it was like real bone broth. And so oftentimes I will put a beef bone or a chicken bone in my spaghetti sauce.

Yeah. And I will try to extract some of the nutrients. All that. You know, collagen is the big bang on the market. Well it's comes from that bone so. Right. And tomatoes acidity. Well they actually extract the calcium magnesium and the nutrients and all those amazing minerals from, from those bones. So those are ways that I try to extract, and increase. My goal is always whenever I'm cooking is how can I make this more nutrient dense? Yes. How could this be just a step up? Right. So if you love chocolate, how could you do that?

So you could actually melt some coconut oil with your favorite

Micronutrients, Food Sensitivities, and Individualized Diets 30:40

nut butter, or whether that's cashew, sunflower, you know, anything you want. Throw in some stevia which will, you know, fight biofilms, maybe some cocoa powder or carob powder and melt it. Then you put it on a cookie sheet with parchment paper and you pour it on, and then you put it in the freezer. Sometimes I'll add a few drops of peppermint oil. At this time of year for Christmas, sometimes on one half, I might, put some walnuts or some, toasted almonds or coconut shredded coconut, just for a little at a crunch.

Once it's frozen in 30, 45 minutes, I break it all up, put it in a Tupperware, and you can actually have this whenever you have a craving, you know, whenever you're feeling like, oh, I just want something. So trying to find ways to increase. So trying to find ways where can I add more chia seeds. Right. So I make some of those seed crackers. Sometimes I add more chia. I add it to any homemade granola that I make. How can I add it to a smoothie or hemp seeds? I can get away with hemp seeds with my kids.

You know, soaking the hemp seeds a little bit for a few minutes before I blend the smoothie. The chia can make it a little bit thick, but hemp seeds are really great, and so I. I don't actually use a nut milk in my smoothie. I just use the hemp seeds with water and then I add my fruit, my protein, etc. and so I try to everything I think about, everything I, I make, I'm like, how could I just 2.0 this, how can I make this just slightly better? So and then even, you know, like using the, the flax meal, the fresh ground flax meal instead of eggs, it does the same functionality in any recipe that you're making.

But now you're getting, you know, all of the health benefits of having that ground fox meal and maybe not having eggs because a lot of my patients can't tolerate eggs. Correct? Correct. And you know, the key with the eggs. I know a lot about it because my daughter was sensitive to them, is that eggs make baking fluffy. So you may want to look at just upping the the the baking powder slightly or upping the soda powder slightly and then making sure when I do that flax egg that I really am whipping it.

Because that's what makes baking so fluffy. It's the eggs, right? I didn't realize that until I removed two eggs. And so that's just a little, trick of the trade. Another trick the trade is gluten. I learned this from my sister with Mia. Is that gluten? In order to make it fluffy gluten baking, you actually have to overmix it. So we're told in baking, don't overmix don't overmix. Well, when it comes to gluten free, please Overmix we literally put the the gluten free flour in our mixer. My husband makes this amazing gluten free chocolate cake and he walks away for seven minutes.

Oh wow. Right. So you know that's. Where I'm going wrong with my sour dough then. That's as hard as a as a rock in a block. It's not over. Over mixing it over. Mix it. Yeah. See a little tiny. Yeah. It is. All right. So do you want to, do you want to tell us anymore like from a micronutrient standpoint things that you're looking for in a, you know, like in someone's daily diet. Well, we just want to make sure that we're making sure we're getting a slew of all the vitamins. So vitamin A would come from your carrots.

Any, you know, any of the orange type, vegetables or fruits, vitamin D from eggs if you tolerate them from the sunshine. Right. Of course. Vitamin C, we don't make vitamin C, we have to get it from our food. So it's not just citrus fruits. So red peppers would be a great way to get some vitamin C, and then all of your minerals that could be found in a lot of meats and a lot of legumes if you tolerate them, etc.. So we just really want to get our nice variety of whole foods. Yes, I know a lot of my patients with mast cell activation disorder come in eating three foods, right?

Once we treat the underlying cause, I don't focus on the foods. Honestly, Mariah, it's like I'm running an uphill battle. Once we treat the mold or the Lyme, or we get them out of mold or what have you. Once we find the underlying issue, then the foods, the food, the mono diet expands. Yeah. Okay. So that that's my strategy around that. And if you're a viewer right now listening and that is you, that is who we're talking about, then you may want to find a practitioner to work with, to find the underlying cause as to why you're on this mono diet, why you can only tolerate chicken and cucumbers, right?

So we don't focus on that. You know, there's limbic system issues that may be related to that. And that's for another another one of your interviewers to discuss. But the point is we really want to focus on the underlying cause as we move people through nutrition. Yeah. Great points. I think the last thing I'd like to explore is so, you know, there's a lot of info about lectins and gut health out there and inflammation. There's a lot of issues with oxalates. Like how much do you focus? Like do you do you look at these things with your patients?

I mean, I guess it would kind of fall into the same category. Maybe as histamine, right? Like there's got to be a reason why the patient can't tolerate the oxalates or why all of a sudden every food with lectin is bothering them, etc.. Do you, do you end up having to look at these individual things, or do you feel like kind of the big picture changes and the foundational work that you're doing alleviates issues? Yes. Well said. I'm going to go on a whim here. I hope I don't get much hate mail, but I'm going to say.

This we don't accept hate mail. Okay?

Lectins, Oxalates, and the Carnivore Diet Debate 36:30

We are omnivores. Okay. So I understand when I have a patient who comes in and says, Doctor Marie, I'm doing so great on the carnivore diet, right? I'm doing so well right away. I have a red flag for mycotoxins, and I'll tell you why. I think that avoiding oxalates, which is, you know, that avoidance of the vegetables, the oxalates are a byproduct from yeast and mold. And I think that that can actually exacerbate that patient. And so they feel good at first, at first on the carnivore diet. But as the months go on, they start to come back to their old self because the body just re equivalents and the inflammation is still there and they haven't dealt with the underlying cause. Right? Right.

We are omnivores. And you know I'm I'm a big plant forward girl. You know me. We went to that farm great restaurant in San Antonio right. I'm a big plant for a girl, but I do think that we should all have some form of protein. We are omnivores. But I take patients where they're at. If they're vegetarian, that's okay. But my. To my point, I think that the carnivore diet is not the the keystone diet to strive towards. It's a diet to get you out of that inflammatory pattern for now. But exactly what you said.

I treat the underlying cause issue of the patient. And then we typically find that they can actually start eating their their normal foods again. And, and eating a really a culturally appropriate diet for their culture as well as for themselves. And that's real food. And, you know, a lot of them do like it at first, but, you know, tell me, like, I really miss a good salad. Right. And so, so I think to your point that that, that that's really key, right? Yeah. So if you had just one piece of advice that you could give the listeners who are dealing with Lyme or have a loved one who has, what would it be?

Oh, gosh, that's such a tough question. There's so much, I really believe that there's hope. I really believe that you can get better. I really, to my own patients, I really want to thank you for your trust in me, to helping you move forward. And I think that, you know, using food, as much as possible as your medicine is the right way to go. It may not be the only way to go. It typically isn't. You typically need more, but starting there is a really, really foundational base. And I will tell you, on behalf of Marie and I, I can speak I hope I can speak for you is that you make our job easier.

When you eat right, it becomes easier to treat. It becomes easier to see people going forward. And in fact, when I don't see patients moving forward, there are a couple of key things that I'll ask for in that. Are you living in mold? Are you really following the dietary strategies? And often times we find had slipped up and such. So yeah, my my key thing is that there's hope and and the other thing is include ginger tea every day. I don't do this every day, especially if you can. I just love that stuff. I'll just leave you with this.

My favorite way to do it is buying a whack of organic ginger, putting it in your Vitamix with a little bit of water to slash it around, and then putting it in ice cube trays and freezing it, and then keeping it in the freezer in a big bag so you can use it in your cooking.

Hope, Ginger Tea, and Resources for Patients 39:55

When you're making curries for anti-inflammatory, make tea with it. It increases circulation. It decreases it's hyper coagulation that we're seeing post-pandemic. So there's so much you know, ginger does everything we learned in school right. In my school yeah. It decreases pain right. It decreases substance speed and inflammation. Thank you. Kills all sorts of infections. All of them. So that's a great. Idea I love that ice cube idea. Yeah I had patients do that by the way with bone broth because it decreases.

So like you know if you have bone broth in the can or in the box, it's it's a super high histamine food. But if you make it and freeze it right away. Right. And then yeah, then it helps to deal with that histamine issue. But yes I love the ginger. Thank you for that. Yeah. So you have a lot of programs that patients can do on their own that can help them achieve a pretty good level of healing. So share with our listeners how and where they can get access to those programs. Okay. Well, I'll first start.

We have a free one. You know, five mistakes you might be making with Lyme disease. To your health. The second one is our tick bite ready course. So it's it's everything you need to know. In the maximum amount of, like, an hour and a half. How to treat a tick bite from A to Z, how to diagnose, how to treat and and what to do and what to look for. So it's a great one for everyone. And then my, last two would be the Lyme 101, which is for practitioners and patients. It's excellent. And going through all of the nuances with line how to treat, diagnose the politics, etc..

And then we do have the line break collected, which is an eight module program which you can do in on zoom, within a group or as an evergreen, as a program. And they're all on sale. Awesome. So where would someone go to find those? What's the website? Yeah. So website is bio heal ottawa.com. And you can also email us at info at bio heal ottawa.com. Awesome. And are you or anyone in your practice still taking new patients? Absolutely. We are still taking your patients. I am as well. There's a little bit of a wait for me, but you can still get in.

We do virtual or in person. We have, three other doctors that are also taking patients. So, so we we're here to help. Wonderful. And same website. If someone would like to be a patient. Okay. Wonderful. React. Well, thank you so much for being here with me. It's always an honor and a pleasure. Thank you. And absolutely. And to all of our listeners at home, I hope that you found this helpful and it helps you on your journey to healing line. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.