 Hi everyone, good afternoon. I am here with Dr. Ingalls, one of my favorite people, especially on the topic of Lyme disease. And we're gonna hear some great information from him and hear what else he has going on for you on online courses and his book. And so you'll hear all about that today. Before we jump in, just a bit of background. If you wanna find me blogs, everything free on the website, it's just jillcarnahan.com. If you wanna find any products that I carry, it's at drjilhealth.com. And then of course you've probably heard me say every time here, I've got a free YouTube channel now with over 60 hours of interviews with experts like Dr. Ingalls. I just enjoy it's like my time to have coffee and pick their brains. And I always learn as much as you guys learn, which is like the secret, right? We get to learn from each other. So I'm excited to be here with Dr. Ingalls. I wanna formally introduce him and then we'll jump right in. So Dr. Ingalls is a licensed naturopathic doctor. He's an author, one of the best books out there, I think on Lyme Disease, International Speaker and Leading Authority on Lyme. He is a former Lyme patient who overcame his three-year battle with Lyme Disease after having failed conventional treatment. Like many of us, we could have come to that wall and say, what else is possible in becoming progressively debilitated? He found that proper diet, lifestyle, management and natural therapies worked with his body to heal instead of against it. He then applied what he had learned about diet and lifestyle to manage his own patients and found that they recovered faster with less side effects. He's now treated thousands of patients with chronic illness using his novel approach and many have gone on to live healthy, symptom-free lives. And if there's one thing we wanna bring here today is there's hope because so many people get the diagnosis of Lyme, go on a Facebook support group and they hear these horror stories and it's just there's a lot of healing possible. We'll dive into that. Also, he's been featured on WebMD, Mind Body Green, Be Well, Thrive Global, Motherly, Voyage, LA and many other sites. And his book, if you haven't seen it, again, we'll link up to this and give you resources there. The Lyme Solution, a five-part plan to fight the inflammatory autoimmune response and beat Lyme disease. Welcome, Dr. Engels. I'm so glad to have you here. Oh, it's my absolute pleasure for being here. So thank you so much for sending me the invitation. I appreciate it. You are welcome. I love hearing about... Well, first of all, let's start with your journey. We heard just a little blip there but tell us how you got into this and what brought about your interest in Lyme disease. Well, you know, like a lot of us, we have our own personal afflictions with some of these conditions and it kind of forces our hand to deal with it. And I had moved to Connecticut after I finished my residency in Seattle and a year and a half after I moved to Connecticut, I got Lyme disease. Of course, for those who don't know, Lyme disease is named after Lyme Connecticut and I was literally about 20 minutes down the road from Lyme Connecticut. And I had classic Lyme symptoms, you know, bullseye rash, headache, fever, joint pain, kind of the whole gamut. And ironically, I got bit two weeks before I opened my own practice. So the timing was horrible. But you know, I found her right away and I started on antibiotics and really within four days of treatment, I felt quite well. But looking back on it, it was really the perfect storm because it's the timing that I got bit and I did the standard 21 days of doxycycline. You know, that was what you're supposed to do and I completed it. But, you know, eight months into opening my own business, I started to get symptoms again. But to be honest, I mean, I wasn't eating very well. I certainly wasn't sleeping well. I was working six, seven days a week, long hours because I did everything in my practice and it caught up with me. So I figured, okay, well, I had Lyme before, I'll just go back and do the same thing. And I did the same thing and it did nothing. Then I changed antibiotics for another month and it did nothing. Then I started working with a local Lyme doctor and we started the litany of, you know, different combinations of antibiotics and, you know, nine months of antibiotics, I got worse. So I was at a point where I'm like, look, whatever I'm doing is not helping. I need a different path. And I had known of a doctor in New York City who's a traditionally trained Chinese medical practitioner and acupuncturist and I had had patients over the years that had seen him. And I went and saw him in New York City and he started me on a series of Chinese herbs and also kind of gave me the slap in the face like, hey, dummy, you need to take care of yourself. Of course, everything we do in functional medicine like help our patients, we don't do it for ourselves, right? So, you know, it's like, you know, practice what you preach and I did that and I started herbs and really within a month, I felt 80, 85% better. So that was my light bulb of like, okay, there is a path here to getting better and clearly just trying to kill the bug wasn't doing it. So, you know, once I started really, you know, committing to that, it still took me another two plus years to feel like I really had my strength, my stamina, my mojo back, but I eventually did get to that point. And I realized through my own journey, I just started applying everything I was doing to myself to my patients and I found, yeah, you know, if we don't just focus on killing the bug and we do all these other things like diet and lifestyle and sleep that people got better faster. And, you know, now having treated, you know, 7,000 Lyme patients, including myself, I realized, you know, that there is a path. And as you mentioned, there is hope for people who sometimes get these diagnoses. I mean, not just Lyme disease, but it's a lot of these chronic illnesses. Like I said, you go on a Facebook page and it's horribly depressing. You kind of feel like nobody gets better. And I realized, no, too, it's like, if you're one of those people who really does get better, you don't spend your time on Facebook. You're out living your life. So you get this very skewed view of what happens in the world because the people who are doing really well, they get out of that because they don't want to get sucked back into that. So yeah, that was, you know, kind of my first part of my journey. And then, you know, I was symptom free really for about 10 years. And then fast forward, I started developing other neurological symptoms and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So I'm still dealing with that. But, you know, again, I'm very functional. I do very well. I'm friends with Dr. Terry Walls and learned a lot from her about how you manage through diet and lifestyle, which is really naturopathic medicine 101. And so, you know, again, when you get into the muck of things, you kind of learn how to deal with it. But, you know, it certainly taught me resilience and taught me how to use everything I know as a doctor to heal myself and help others. Wow, oh gosh, I have so many threads. I want to go down with you on what you've just shared. First of all, I love that you frame this. And for people listening, our theory, all of us in this room that are thinking like you and I, it's not just the infection. It's infection plus a weakened immune system. How I describe it is it's most functionless and it's toxic load infectious burden. And where do those two things play? And how does the immune system stay resilient? Because truthfully, I believe there's tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people walking around. They got bit by ticks or spiders or other carriers of these kinds of illnesses that are walking around without symptoms at all. And so if we would test the main population, we'd find a lot of people who have infections that don't know it, they don't have symptoms. So why do some people present with symptoms and other people don't? Well, that's our immune system, which is very relevant in the time of the pandemic because our immune system is created to keep old infections at bay. And I've also heard this from one of the doctors years ago that talked about this virulence, which means like a Bolivirus will kill a person in three days. Lyme and Epstein-Barr are actually very low virulence. They're not super, they have a life cycle about four weeks, right? So they don't have to be divided. So their virulence, their ability to kill a person is actually extremely low. It should be low risk, but what happens is that drop bar, that bar drops in the immune system due to our stress and toxic load. And we'll talk about those factors. And then these things pop up. So the real issue, yeah, there's an infection, but just throwing sledgehammers at the infection isn't the answer. And that's what you're going to talk about. So a love, love, love that. Let's talk about, first of all, like why I framed a little bit, I would like to hear your thoughts on, we are, you and I are seeing epidemics of chronic complex illness at a whole new level than we saw 10 or 20 years ago. Why do you think that is? And why are we seeing so much more of this? Yeah, well, again, the world is just more toxic in so many ways. I think it's toxic, literally. I mean, we're just exposed to more chemicals, mycotoxins, all these things in our world that can undermine our immune system, make us and keep us sick. And that load, A, it increases, but B, we've learned so much that there's a generational transmission of these toxins. It's not even about what the child gets exposed to, it's about what mom and dad and the grandparents have been exposed to. We've seen this with heavy metals. We've seen this with other toxins. So each generation kind of is a little bit sicker than the generation before. So that's been going on for decades. And so the increased exposure to toxins, generational transmission, not to mention, I think just sort of mentally, socially, I feel like it's a more toxic place for a lot of things. I think COVID-19 has really kind of brought that out in a lot of different ways. In terms of what we see with social media, what we see with people's mental health, it's a tough world to live in right now. And I feel bad for kids in school, whether you're in grade school, high school, college, being away from your friends, being locked up, being not in your normal pattern, that takes a toll on our bodies. And I see a lot of young people that have really struggled and they're resilient. I mean, kids generally, I think we think of them being very resilient. And we've seen a lot of young people that have really had a very hard time because of what's going on. So that combination of exposure, lack of resilience and kind of everything else going on, diet is a huge part of it. All of that keeps adding to our load. And as the load gets higher and higher and higher, it's like the big Jenga thing, right? Once it gets tall enough, it just topples over and people become more and more symptomatic. And people think, oh, I have to go on this massive 30-day cleanse or this or that, but what you're talking about, and I'm talking about is there's daily things. And I always say clean air, clean water, clean food. That sounds so simple, people gloss right over it, but that might be 80% of the healing is just clean food and clean air and sleep. You mentioned, talk about just a little bit on some of those basic levels of how, I'm sure you talk about sleep and food and stuff. Where do you start with your patients when they come in, they've got Lyme? And of course, I wanna go into the treatments and the other things, but where do you start with them as far as the basics? Yeah, well, you know, like you said, you and I'd be the very complex people with complex illness and there's so many different layers. And again, I like to start simple. It doesn't have to be as complicated as the person sitting in front of you. And again, for me, you know, gut and diet are kind of the cornerstones. I mean, that was the running joke when I was in naturopathic medical schools. Like if you had no idea what to do with someone, just treat the gut, treat the liver, you're probably gonna get some benefit, right? Because a lot of people are poor detoxifiers or they're just so overloaded they can't clear all the gunk out. So if we can just start with that foundational stuff and you know, the gut is so important, right? Because up to 80% of your immune function stems from the gut. That's where you digest your nutrients. That's where you absorb them. If you're not getting everything you're eating, even if you're eating good food, if you're not extracting all those healing nutrients, the body just has a hard time repairing itself and doing all the things that's kind of built into the DNA to do. So it could be as simple, like I said, as you know, clean food, clean water. And this doesn't have to break the piggy bank. I think a lot of people, when they get into functional medicine, they kind of see these dollar signs going, oh my gosh, it's gonna cost me a fortune. I'm like, but it doesn't have to. You know, there are some very simple things you can do even without the guidance of someone like you and I that, you know, you can choose to buy, you know, clean food. Does it all have to be organic? No, I mean, if it fits your budget, great. But you know what, you can go to Costco and you can buy frozen broccoli that's still, that's organic, that's super cheap. You know, the largest retailers of organic foods are Costco and Target. So you don't have to go to Whole Foods and, you know, spend an entire paycheck getting, you know, three organic lemons. You know, you can actually do it. Wild salmon, organic rock. I mean, Elvis seems like you said at Costco. I had to laugh too, as I'm thinking of way back in the beginning, I remember like a little basic elimination diet. One of my first tools, which is, if you're listening and don't know what that is, it's like eliminating the food allergens that are common to most people, which is gluten, dairy, soy, corn, egg, sugar, alcohol. Those are some of the main ones. And I remember doing a 30 day saying, okay, I want you to go 30 days on this diet. I didn't know what I was doing. But they'd come back and like, my joint pain's better. My sleep is better. I feel more energy. I'm like, really? You know, because it's like, we know that food works, but even back then I remember being surprised at how profound this very simple intervention that anyone could do without a bunch of pills or supplements or doctor's visits worked, right? Yeah. Well, I don't think you can outdo an unhealthy diet, right? You can take all of the pills till the cows come home, but if you're living on processed foods, junk foods, it's gonna be really difficult to, you know, feed your body nutritionally enough to overcome, you know, whatever illness you're dealing with. So again, this is something that can be really quite simple. And again, I don't think it has to be something that has to be super expensive, super complicated, just choosing to go to the grocery store, buy your food, eat out less often, get clean water. These very, very simple things can have such a huge impact. And from everyone I've learned from in, you know, naturopathic and functional medicine, I mean, they all echo the same thing is that, you know, if you really wanna heal a chronic illness, you know, you gotta get your diet and your gut in good working order. And that's, again, it doesn't have to be super complicated. So very good. And then I heard something in your story, you're starting to practice and this all happened around that time. And two questions. First of all, just incidentally, did you have a rash because there's a, you and I know there often isn't a rash with the tick bite, but you clearly had some infection. Did you get a rash with that bite? So funny story. So when I got started getting sick, I had meningitis when I was in college. And so I had a throbbing migraine. I had 105 fever. My whole body hurt. I had neuropathy. And my first thing is, oh my gosh, I have meningitis again. So I was actually, this was June in Connecticut. It was really hot outside. And ironically, I had been seeing patients that morning, which in retrospect was a really bad idea. If I thought I had meningitis, I'd really shouldn't have known. Right. Yeah, we do though, right? We live and learn. So anyway, it's like I saw my last patient, I'm like, you know what? I was changing clothes. I was getting ready to go to the hospital. And someone I was with had, as I was changing to shorts, says, oh, what's that on the back of your leg? Wow. What are you talking about? So I did the double mirror thing and I see a big target right on the back of my leg. I'm like, okay, well, we can skip the hospital now. I know what it is. So I go to the local urgent care center. Of course, they're like, why are you here? I'm like, well, I have Lyme disease. And there's like, well, how do you know you have Lyme disease? I'm like, because I have a big freaking target on my leg. And I got all the symptoms. He's like, okay, you have Lyme disease. So I was one of those fortunate people that actually did get a rash. But you're right. The majority of people that I see in my practice that have Lyme disease, maybe less than 20% get a rash. Well, and you mentioned someone actually pointed it out on the back here. Like you could have potentially missed that. I mean, you were clear clinical symptoms, but I think even the people who might have gotten one and missed it. But by now, if you've heard me or Dr. Ingos, you know, you don't have to have a history of knowing you had a rash to be treated or to have Lyme. But it's actually, I think about 30% of people that actually have a rash. I know, and it's really sad because the CDC on their website says up to 80% of people with Lyme disease get that classic rash. If you look at the research, the research suggests it's less than 50%. And yeah, and those of us in clinical practice will say maybe 20 to 30%. And even in that 20 to 30%, often it's not a bullseye rash. It looks like something, it looks like, you know, a bug picture. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Just a flat red splotchy thing. But again, I think it's very easy to overlook. But yeah, the lack of the rash certainly doesn't exclude the possibility of something like Lyme. Yeah. And like we said, I have a history of Ehrlichia, Borellia, Bartonella, Babithia, and, you know, doing great now, not even be treated like you. But all that to say, I don't ever recall a rash. I grew up in tick country and hiked in the woods all the time, pulled ticks off me and the child all the time. So I know I had multiple exposures. One other thing I wanted to bring to light when you talked about your history was you started a practice. So how does stress play into this? Because I see my patients often in a time where they're either some other infection, surgery, stressful event, when it kind of pops up. Can you talk just a little about why that might happen where you either have an infection that you got bit by a tick or an infection years prior that starts to manifest in real time in a stressful life event? If you want to take one single thing and make any chronic condition worse, that would be stress. And I see it again in my Lyme patients, my MS patients, my chronic fatigue patients, fibromyalgia, when they go through any stressful event in their life, divorce, death of a family member, change of job, whatever it is, often we'll see their symptoms worsen. And we look at the research, we know that stress is that one thing that can really undermine your immune system. So all these things that kind of lurk in our background become opportunistic. So whether it's Lyme, whether it's a virus like Epstein-Barr virus, all these things can kind of to the surface when the immune system isn't keeping things in check. So I always think of stress and I talk to my patients, life has stress, right? We can't avoid it, it's just the nature of being human. It's how do we teach our bodies how to master stress? And we just need to manage your stress better. I mean, it sounds easy on paper, but we know in reality it can be very challenging. So for every person, I think it's different what really helps them master their stress so that when you do have these events that come up in life here again, your body's more resilient. And we've got so many great, there's programs out there like DNRS from Annie Hopper, the Gupta program, HeartMath, ways that we can train our brains not to react to the stress in the same way. And I think ultimately that's how we master our stress is we, like any organ in your body or a muscle, you have to train it to be strong and our brain's the same way. So how do we do that? And again, fortunately, I think there are programs out there like that that do help us master our stress in a better way. Yeah, I love that. It's something very interesting. So I've just finished one of my new favorite books is Steven Kotler's Art of Impossible. If you haven't read that, it's about hacking flow states. So flow is basically this state of optimal performance. Our creativity is going and we lose time and it could be when you're skiing or surfing or doing some activity, but it could also be, like for me, I inflow when I'm seeing patients because I just love what I do. I'm totally centered, I forget time. Or it could be when you're creating a painting or you're writing music or you're writing a book. So that's flow. And this is relevant, I promise. I'm getting to the point. What I wanted to say that I remember learning is back in the day when I learned the celliers, the triggers for stress, for a cortisol response. I mean, this is science-based. It's novelty, unpredictability, threat to ego and sense of control. So those are the four things that can cause a cortisol response. Well, as Steven writes in his book, there's multiple amazing things in that book, but one thing is inducers of flow states. And guess what? It's almost identical. It's novelty, unpredictability, and complexity. So the one is different there instead of threat to ego, it's complexity. So novelty, new, unpredictability, something unknown, and complexity. And not only, so that's the inducer of a cortisol stress response, but on the other hand, if you flip it and you're looking for creativity, those are the same inducers of a flow state, which is a very positive experience. So I love that you talk about this because we can choose, just like if you're getting ready to speak in public. Now I've done that a lot. You probably have two, I don't get nervous anymore. I love it, but back in the day, day one, when I did, what you can do is you can switch that mind track and instead of being anxious, you're excited and your body doesn't know the difference. So there's these flips that we can do around illness, around everything that we experience and think of it as when we start to get curious, curiosity is the thing that can kind of transform it instead of having fear. If we're curious, like, okay, like for example, you had that fever and you didn't feel well. And I've had times two when I've had symptoms and what I try to do when I start to have symptoms is get curious. I wonder what's happening here. I wonder what I can learn from this. I wonder what I could try to fix it. And that really changes the mindset instead of going down a path of, oh my gosh, I'm gonna die, right? Yeah. Well, you said that word right there, fear. And I think that that brings so many things to our being that again, sometimes become obstacles. It's fear of the unknown. Am I ever gonna get better? It's the fear of, is the world gonna open up again in the pandemic? And I think all this fear, again, has a negative impact on our brain, on our immune system. So overcoming that fear in whatever way that comes, I think is a big part, again, of improving our mindset, our mental health. And again, I think the last year and a half has proved to be very challenging for a lot of people. Yeah, I've seen a lot of split, like either people really go down a bad fear path, anxiety, stay home for, you know, no total isolation, no social contact, or there's like these two, it's really shown a different path for two different ways. Now you, let's see, people who, I feel like with this chronic illness, there's a lot of you who stay ill and they don't get better. And then some people like you and myself who've been through this, who actually have diagnosis of Lyme disease and other co-infections and get well. And even with a chronic autoimmune disease, which I collect them as well. So- Not a competition. I know, right? So, but I wanna talk about what is the difference there? What is the difference between those who have treatment and don't get better? And of course, you were there in the beginning. Talk a little about that experience and what you learned through that. Well, I think, you know, when I see people who aren't getting better, you know, it's a combination of a lot of things. You know, is it really that, that root cause of illness hasn't really been addressed? And I suppose, if you're working in the conventional medical system, that's a pretty common problem, right? Because they're really disease based practitioners, they're not wellness based. So, again, they're coming from it from a very different perspective. But I think it'll often, it's just that thing, whether it's an underlying infection that you just haven't identified yet. If it's unresolved emotional trauma, if it's some ongoing toxin. I mean, I know you and I both see this a lot in our practice, you know, people living in a moldy home. You know, if you're surrounded by mold, mycotoxins all day long, again, a lot of other things you might be doing to improve your health, just aren't having the same impact because there's that constant toxic exposure that's undermining your immune system, damaging your mitochondria, doing whatever it else is to your body that kind of keeps you from getting well. So that's where you and I are always constantly looking, you know, what are those things that are obstacles to cure? What are those things that are getting in the way? Because, you know, we know it's built into our DNA to heal. This is a normal cell response. The reason you cut your finger and it heals, even if you don't necessarily stop the bleeding right away, is that our body has that wisdom to do that. So we just need to, you know, allow that process to naturally happen. And I think, you know, even if you've got a pretty serious chronic illness, there's at least that capacity for the body to write itself and get back on that pathway of, you know, healing and recovery. So it's really just looking at, you know, is this really the right treatment that you're undergoing? Cause, you know, we do this for our patients. I did it for myself. I tried something. I didn't get a lot of clinical benefit. Then I tried something else. You know what? That was the magic combination. That was the thing my body needed to get to the next level. So it's an ongoing process of evaluating whatever you're doing. Is it helping? And I think where some people sometimes get mentally stuck is that there's improvement, but it's slow. Or it's not as significant as they would expect or they want it to go faster. And I just tell people, like, look, you know, your body has a process and some people's process is quick and other people's a little bit slower. But as long as you're moving in the right direction, understanding that, you know, healing from a chronic illness is often a roller coaster, right? We have those days, we feel pretty good. Other days are like, what happened? Nothing changed my life and I feel terrible. But we know that it will eventually go up again and you'll kind of get back on track. So as long as we're seeing continual progression, even if we have a few backslides, you know, we know that whatever we're doing is getting your body to that right position and we kind of need to keep pushing forward. Love that. So I want to talk a little bit about like how you'd approach a new patient with Lyme. Do you test or do you, you know, do they bring in tests typically? And then where you'd start with treatment. One interesting thing though that I'm just hearing you say, and I see this a lot when people are stuck, I'm always like, what else? And I will say there's a very large percentage of patients with a chronic infection like Lyme that gets stuck and they're not moving forward and they have mold in their home or environment. So that's a really good thing. If you're stuck and things aren't getting better, make sure there's nothing super toxic in your, and it could be stress or a really difficult relationship or a job that you hate. Those could actually be part of it too, but usually there's something, if your treatment protocol, like with Dr. Ingalls or myself is stuck, there's probably something else that's going on. So how would you approach your patient who first comes in with a likely diagnosis of Lyme or a previous diagnosis of Lyme? Where would you start with that? So again, if they, if we don't know if that's part of what's going on, I still test, you know, with the understanding that the tests are, you know, not great. Again, if we get a positive, at least we know that's what we're dealing with. So if it's Lyme, you know, plus co-infection, it kind of helps tailor what we need to do for the individual. At the end of the day, Lyme specifically is a clinical diagnosis. It's not a lab diagnosis. I was a microbiologist before I was a doctor. I used to do Lyme testing for a living. Even then, you know, 30 years ago, we knew that the tests weren't great and they haven't changed much since. But, you know, once we've established that that's part of what's going on, you know, then to start, you know, what are the things that we think are having the biggest negative impact on your health? What are the things that are stopping you from getting well? And again, often it's Lyme plus all the other things. So for me, it's, you know, it's gut health. It's diet. We always start with that because again, if that's not working well, everything else I'm going to do thereafter probably is going to have the same impact. And then often we're using herbs to help target the infection. I prefer herbs over antibiotics unless it really is acute Lyme disease just because there's pretty good evidence to antibiotics long-term. Don't do really what you want them to do. And there's the risk of damaging your own microbiome, damaging your mitochondria. Herbs because they do so many different things in addition to targeting the organism, you know, they're anti-inflammatory, they promote better circulation, they boost your immune system. So we'll put together a preparation of herbal products to help kind of deal with that. And then beyond that, we started getting into all the lifestyle factors, you know, the sleeve, the movement, the stress. And then of course, looking at all the different exposures of toxins. I think, you know, mycotoxins in particular and Lyme disease are probably the two clinical syndromes that mimic each other the most. And people say, well, which one's causing which? I'm like, I don't know. I mean, there's no way for me to know. I'm tired all the time. Well, great. Fatigue is a common problem to about a million things. And until you start going down a treatment path and seeing how much the symptom changes, it gets 50% better. Great. I know that was 50% of the problem. But in reality, often, I think what leads to, you know, chronic illness, and we kind of alluded to this earlier, you know, do you believe in germ theory or do you believe in the terrain theory? And I think, you know, we're all in the camp of it's really the terrain, right? We've seen this with COVID-19. There's some people who get nose symptoms. Other people get minimal symptoms and some people died from it. It's different reactions to the same thing. So what's the difference? The difference is the terrain. So this is where we're talking about, you know, as I sit down with patients, I think about, you know, my goal is to get you healthy. In getting you healthy, your body's ability to respond to anything should get better. So again, as we clean up the diet, as we work on gut health, as we get your toxic load down, as we do all these other things, no matter kind of what your diagnosis is, my expectation is that the body again, will start to do that process of healing on its own. So it's really, you know, how do we start fundamentally getting you healthy? And of course that's a function of what you're willing to do, what your budget might be. And, you know, we take all that into consideration and start that treatment plan. And where is your practice located, Dr. Ingalls? I'm in Irvine, California. Okay. And are you taking new patients? We are. Okay. Good. So we'll just make, we'll be sure to include all that as a side note. Because you guys are wondering, you know, so what we talked about, you mentioned herbal protocols and just your own experience with that. I couldn't agree more. There are times when I use antibiotics, but I absolutely prefer it possible, a more gentle approach. It's so much more synergistic. And we're usually dealing with a viral load and a fungal burden. And so if you just use antibiotics, those things don't get better. So love that. Can you speak a little bit? Are you creating your own herbal remedies? Are you using some of the ones out there? What's kind of like, and you know, these are so complex. I don't expect you to give us the whole protocol, but just the basics of what kinds of herbs you're using or what direction you go with that. So fortunately, we have so many different products available to us. There are certain combinations I found just clinically work well with minimal side effects. So I use a lot of Dr. Zhang's herbs. He's the doctor that treated me in New York City. So his are Chinese medicine formulas. A lot of them are based on traditional Chinese medicine. So these herbs have thousands of history of use. And we've also learned a lot about what they do biochemically. So I use a lot of his herbal formulas. I use a lot of the products that Dr. Cowden developed, Dr. Lee Cowden. And I've met him several times and learned from him. In fact, the one thing he says about a lot of these herbs I absolutely love. He's like, well, this herb's a keeper. This herb's a keeper. And I finally had asked my like, what's a keeper? He goes, well, it kills everything except people. I love that. It's antibacterial. It's antiviral. It's antifungal. It's antiparasitic. So the nice thing with herbs is that when we're using antibiotics, often we do have to put in an antifungal so we don't create a fungal overload and so forth. But with these herbs, we really have to do that because it's kind of keeping your ecology in check. So I use those. I'm actually in the process of developing a line for allergy research that's gonna come out this summer where I've got a very specific formula that has got a combination of herbs that I find clinically really help target Lyme and I try to cover all the co-infections. So I'm kind of hoping this will be a one-stop shop that we can cover a lot of these different Lyme and co-infections in one formula. So look for that. That's gonna be coming in this summer. Yeah, so we've got a formula for recovering tick-borne illness. I've got a formula for managing Herzheimer reactions. I've got one for managing mitochondrial function and then we got one to help break down biofilm. So I think that's gonna be a good combination for people dealing with tick-borne illness so that they're not taking 1,000 other things. But beyond that, Steven Buehner's got some great herbs. Beyond Balance has great herbs. Byron White has great herbs. They're all really helpful. And it's again, it's a function of whether they tolerate capsules or tinctures. But the beauty of this is that, whether it's a child or an adult, we can find a combination that works for everybody. And everyone's sensitivity is different. So I like liquids for sensitive people because we can start with one drop a day. And for anyone out there who's been told that, oh, herbs don't really work. They're not that strong, I have patients take one drop of one herb and they get a die-off reaction. So that's nonsense. And again, everyone's sensitivity is different. So it's just about finding what works best for the person. Good, let's talk a little bit about Herzheimer reaction because that's something we all deal with. And what do you like to use? Is there any specific individual herbs? I know you've got the formula coming out. We'll be watching anxiously for that. But what else do you like to use for either that or just how you do the protocol? That's part of the key to it, isn't it? You know, one of my favorite things for managing these die-off reactions, Herzheimer reactions, is bicarbonate. And whether it's Alka-Celter Gold or Trisalt, which is a combination of sodium, potassium, calcium, bicarbonate. Bicarbonate, when you alkanalize the body, it actually helps down-regulate that inflammatory response, that toxin response. I mean, I've used it in kids having asthma attacks. I use it for people to just get run-of-the-mill mass cell activation. You know, bicarbonate can be incredibly powerful. And when you look physiologically, when you make your cells more alkaline, with the exception of your skin, your stomach, the bladder, and the vaginal area for women, which are very acidic to protect against outside invaders, the rest of your body is more or less alkaline. So much like we can't grow crops in acid rain, your body's kind of the same way. It needs that alkaline environment for cell repair, for all the enzymes to work the way they should for detox pathways. So that's a really very, very cheap, inexpensive way to help manage Herzheimer reactions. Beyond that are herbs that are anti-inflammatory. Things like curcumin can be helpful. Things like Boswellia can be helpful. Berber-Pinella from Nutrometics is a great product to help manage Herz. Beyond Balance has one called I-M-N-Com. That works really well. So there's a bunch of herbs that, you know, can help down-regulate that response if people are getting die-off. Oh, these are great. And I would add like just plain old mineral water like San Pellegrino works kind of like the trisols. And so you can add a case of Pellegrino at Costco. And it's funny when people start to drink that, they realize, wow, I feel so much better than just drinking mineral water. And then Epsom salt baths, too, are another just for you. And again, I know you know all of these too. It's just such a great. So I feel like the complexity, like I said with COVID, all this is happening. Are you seeing some of the long haulers and the people who've been post-infection this last year? And to me, there's similar patterns with all the stuff we've just talked about. And any thoughts on that or any specific things that you're doing in that realm with the inflammation post-viral? Yeah, I mean, it's funny. We really didn't see long haulers till really the end of last year. So for the first half plus this pandemic, we really didn't see hardly anybody that either had COVID-19 or long haul. That seemed to come a little bit later. But yeah, what we've been doing in our practice, really supporting the immune system. Glutathione has been critically important for anybody with long haul. And of course, anybody in the Lyme world or tick-borne illness, they look at COVID-19 long haul like, hey, welcome to our party. We've been dealing with this. Like, this is not unique to COVID-19, by the way. Post-infectious illness has been around for decades. It happens with COVID-19, but it happens with Epstein Bard. It happens with Lyme disease and a bunch of other things. So from that perspective, that's not new. But for the COVID-19 people specifically, we found that, you know, glutathione's been really helpful. You know, lots of antioxidants, very helpful. We've been using a lot of herbs, specifically kind of addressing the liver and improving liver detox pathways. That's been incredibly helpful with all the other diet lifestyle things we've already kind of discussed. And by and large, when people follow that plan, you know, what it's been now weeks or months feeling really not well, people start to turn that corner pretty quickly. Yeah, excellent. And just hydration is such a big deal. We talked about that earlier, but people so often are walking around dehydrated and getting them to drink more water or especially electrolyte or mineral water, so key. So going forward, what about just prevention? Do you recommend any prevention for people who are hiking camping? I think part of our infringement on the areas that were previously forested and deers and mice and all this, that's part of the issue because it's becoming endemic in all states in the U.S. and we see cases everywhere. Any suggestions on prevention or those kinds of things? Absolutely, you know, it's funny, they've published an article a few weeks ago here in California that they found ticks on the beaches of Southern California that carry Lyme disease. We used to think the beach was a safe haven, right? You had to go hiking in the mountains to get exposed. And like I said, they're really everywhere. And we know from migration patterns of birds basically the tick hops on the bird, bird carries it to some other state and then they get a new colony of ticks. So the ticks are really kind of everywhere these days, but if you're gonna be outdoors and you're concerned, and again, if you do live in an area that's endemic or if you are gonna be go hiking, camping, fishing, those kinds of things, long pants, socks, shoes, long sleeve shirts, if you're gonna be in an area where there might be overhang, wear a hat, essential oils, there's several great products that have different essential oils that are known to help repel ticks. So they're natural tick repellents. I don't really advocate using deat or permethrin. I think these are potentially toxic and particularly if you're using a lot of it. And there's some of the new clothes out there where they soak it in permethrin and then you don't have to put the chemical on you, but every time you sweat, you're gonna soak it through the skin. So your skin is a nice sponge. It will absorb some of those potential chemicals and toxins, but the essential oils work well. If you know you're gonna be out all day, bring enough that you can kind of apply every hour or two. But again, it's safe on your clothes, safe on your skin. Just make sure you get it away from your mucus membranes. And of course, do tick checks after your outdoor activity. So if you've got little ones, strip them down. Ticks like the dark, warm, moist areas of our body, so behind the knees, under the butt cheek and the armpit, behind the ears, the hairline. And these ticks can be tiny, right? You know, there's size of like a poppy seed. So you're literally looking for a needle in a stack of needles, but I think it's still a wise thing to do tick checks. And if you're an adult and you're okay with somebody else looking at you, you know, because again, I got been an area that I didn't see. So it would have been helpful if someone had done a tick check on me. But as much as you can, again, it's not perfect, but at least minimizes that risk of getting bit by a tick that carries long. Excellent. And the thing I would love for you to speak a little bit on, for me, I'm in Colorado, so of course it's non-endemic. I see tons of cases. But one that I think I found very interesting and one reason why iGenX is my preferred lab, and I have no association with them, tick-borne relapsing fever. I think this is becoming more and more common and most other labs do not, they're not able to test that. So if you're gonna do a Lyme Western blood on lab core quest or your hospital, they're not checking for that. Any comments on tick-borne relapsing fever because I'm seeing more and more of this show up? Well, the one thing I've observed because iGenX really is the person, you know, the lab doing most of that testing, there is cross-reactivity between Borrelia species. And what I see for a lot of people who get a lab positive tick-borne relapsing fever, do not have any clinical symptoms of tick-borne relapsing fever. So as the name suggests, you should be having relapsing fever. And for people who don't get that, some of a lot of people have classic symptoms of Lyme disease, but they don't get the relapsing fever. So I think there is some cross-reactivity with the Borrelia species. What causes the relapsing fever is just a different strain of Borrelia. But yeah, I mean, iGenX is a great lab. I use a lot of medical diagnostic labs only because they bill insurance. And they're the only lab that will actually send you a copy of the Western blot. So again, I was a microbiologist. I know exactly what to look at. I can see which antibodies are there. I can see the strength of the antibody. iGenX gives you their interpretation of the port. I like to look at it myself. So I think their Western blot is better from that perspective, but they're both great labs. I use them both. I just like MDL because, again, they bill insurance and it saves people some money. This is such great information. I've used them a little bit, but not as much. And I would love to start using them more for that reason. Last in the last couple of minutes, you mentioned your diagnosis of MS and you're obviously stable doing great. And I would say, gosh, maybe 80, 90% of my patients with MS have tested positive for Lyme disease. I think there's obviously a correlation because that's a trigger to autoimmunity. But let's talk just a little bit about that. Like what's your thoughts on the connection between your previous diagnosis and that? And obviously you're in good shape. We know some protocols. What would you suggest for a work of someone with newly diagnosed MS? How would you look at it differently than a conventional neurologist? Well, convention neurologists are all doom and gloom. So if you get the diagnosis, they're just gonna tell you that you're gonna progressively get worse. At some point you'll end up in a wheelchair and we're gonna give you medication to try and slow the train down, but there's nothing you can do. But we know from clinical experience and actually from some research that there is the possibility of remyelinating these nerves that are damaged. And the association with Lyme specifically, when you look at the research, again, we know that there's an autoimmune event that Lyme can trigger that can target your brain and target your peripheral nerves. So I think, again, when Lyme has been persistent in the event of trying to attack the organism, it accidentally starts attacking your own tissue. And I think we get into this event too. Like, do we ever completely eradicate Lyme? And because we can't measure Lyme directly in the body, we don't really know. I'm of the opinion, I don't think we do. I think once it's in you, it's part of you. It becomes like Epstein-Var virus. You learn how to live with it without it causing a problem. So again, it's not that you can't get symptom-free, but I've seen people go years of being symptom-free and again, some trauma comes up and then it starts to resurface and they have problems again. But the nature of Lyme and all these other infectious agents and ability to trigger autoimmune disease, we've got mounds of research showing that Lyme and Epstein-Var virus and Klebsiella and Parbovirus and on and on and on can trigger various autoimmune conditions. It just so happens Lyme, Epstein-Var, human herpes 6 are very much associated with MS specifically. So I think, just using my own example, I think I had Lyme. It was persistent for a long time. It set the stage. And then even after that, I had a lot of stress again of running a business and getting divorced and all these other things that just kind of added to my stress plate. I don't think I was managing it or mastering it very well. And again, shortly after that all kind of ended, that's when these symptoms started to creep up again. So it's probably again an issue of the perfect storm. And if you're able to manage that, you can probably save that off. But I do see, I mean, if someone comes in and they've been diagnosed with MS, the first thing I look at is Lyme and tick-borne illness to see if that's part of the picture. And I've had a lot of MS diagnosed patients where we treat their Lyme disease and their MS symptoms get better. Yes, I couldn't agree more. So I wanted you to talk about that because I see the same thing. I have a dozen or more patients with MS and I think every one of my patients has Lyme and there is a correlation with infectious burden. So let's end with just where can people find you? Tell us about your book. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it. I'll be sure and include all your links but tell us just a little bit more about where they can find you and what else you're doing in the next six to 12 months. Sharon, well, if people just go to my website it's darrenenglesnd.com and if you don't know how to spell it, just check out the show notes. I'm sure she'll spell it correct before you. And yeah, I have a masterclass that I'm gonna be launching in August and it's an overcoming chronic illness masterclass. So it's everything you and I have just been talking about where we're gonna go into a very deep dive about what is it that gets you sick? What is it that keeps you sick? And then how do you turn that bus around and start to feel better? And the cool thing about it is it's absolutely free. So no charge at all. So if you guys are interested, please go to my website, sign up for my email list when we're ready to launch and get people signed up. We've got you there and we've got a lot of information we wanna share with you on a weekly basis about how to get healthier, how to overcome Lyme disease if that's what you're dealing with. And I think it's gonna be a really great resource for people. So again, we'd love for people to sign up. And again, if you're interested in the book called the Lyme solution, available on Amazon and every retailer that sells books. Awesome. And what a great thing that you're offering us for free. That's tremendous. So excited. And just love, love, love the great work you're doing and the great information you're bringing out. Thank you so much for coming on today. I appreciate you. Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Carnahan. I appreciate it.