In Our Shoes Project

05/23/2018

10/07/2017

I had the privilege of seeing Jennifer Brea's film about her journey with ME/CFS at the MKE Film Fest yesterday. It was so reminiscent of the lives we are all living. I was shocked to learn that there are actually places that will remove a suffering child from their home because the government and medical communities won't acknowledge their disease, and therefore blame the parents/patient instead. I'm so thankful that my daughter wasn't subjected to removal from our home because she's had to spend much of the last four years in her bedroom. I had to smile at the part about hookworms, f***l transplants, green slime and kombucha mothers. We'll try ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to try to feel better! Luckily after years of consistent and intensive treatments, my daughter and I are seeing improvements. My heartfelt wish for all those suffering from misunderstood and ignored diseases is that we can find ways to heal our immune systems and find healing practitioners and modalities that will help us repair at the cellular level so our quality of life is improved and we can begin living life again!

09/18/2017

Here's something else France has that we don't: an app that lets everyone report tick bites on themselves or their pets. It's called Signalement Tique and was just released by the National Institute for Agricultural Research in July. http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/08/11/french-lyme-disease

07/30/2017

77% of the immune system is determined by things we can control! The foods we eat or don’t eat, toxins, exposure to germs, stress levels and medications are the determinants of the majority of our health.

Find out what is causing the rise of Autoimmune Conditions.

06/18/2017

STARTS TOMORROW! Sign up for free here: http://urltag.net/BpNG0 . You can look forward to hearing from:

Dana Walsh (featured in Under Our Skin) & Brent Martin: How to Lyme Less & Live More

Dr. Amy Derksen: Non-Antibiotic Approaches to Treating Children

Dr. Philip Blair: Lyme Recovery with CBD

Dr. Tyna Moore: Strength Training to Optimize Stem Cells

Dr. Izabella Wentz: Thyroid and Lyme Disease

Dr. Jerod Bergman: Stopping EMFs and Geopathic Stress

Dr. Todd Watts: Killing Parasites to Kill Lyme Disease

Dr. Sarah Ballantyne: Diet/Lifestyle as a Complementary Approach

Dr. David Jernigan (Hansa Center): Unique Approach to Healing

Dr. Christine Schaffer: Healing Your Brain from Lyme Disease

Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt (Sophia Health): Latest on Lyme Testing and Treatments

Dr. Jonathan Streit: Testing for Functional Neurological Issues

Dr. Jay Davidson: Improving Lyme Disease Protocols

Dr. James Maskell: Evolution of Medicine and Lyme

Diane Capadi: Consciousness as it Relates to Healing

Dr. Jill Carnahan: CIRS and Lyme Disease

Dr. Darin Ingels: Herbal Therapy and Low Dose Immunotherapy

AND MANY MORE.....

06/12/2017

"When you’re bitten by a tick carrying the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, the microbes travel through your bloodstream and can eventually spread to the heart, joints and nervous system. But exactly how these bacteria move inside human blood vessels to spread throughout the body has remained largely a mystery, until now, reports .

A new study sheds light on the way these bacteria latch onto the inside of blood vessel walls and move inside the vessels while fighting the forces of flowing blood.

In the study, the researchers developed a so-called flow chamber that simulated the inside of human blood vessels. This system allowed the scientists to model and track how Lyme disease bacteria, called Borrelia burgdorferi, interact with the insides of blood vessels.

The researchers found that the way B. burgdorferi moves inside blood vessels can be likened to a child swinging on monkey bars: The bacteria form bonds with the blood vessel wall, and then move by transferring force from one bond to the next, but never completely detaching from the blood vessel wall. The bacteria slow down every time they form a new bond, and accelerate when they break a bond, which helps them transition to the next bond.

This movement pattern is remarkably similar to the way that human immune cells called leukocytes move inside people’s blood vessels, the researchers said."

�The study is published in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Cell Reports.
*Reference: http://www.livescience.com/55895-lyme-disease-bacteria-spread.html

06/01/2017

With Lyme Disease getting so much media coverage currently, people are beginning to ask "What can I do to protect my kids?" What are some of your go-to suggestions for tips and products when people ask you?

05/31/2017

Some of the best Lyme-related health care dollars you'll never spend...because it's free! The first summit was a wealth of helpful information. Looking forward to the second summit being information-packed as well. Register here: http://urltag.net/BpNG0 What a perfect way to complete Lyme Awareness Month, sign up for Chronic Lyme Summit 2 in June! Here's who you will hear from:

Dana Walsh (featured in Under Our Skin) & Brent Martin: How to Lyme Less & Live More

Dr. Amy Derksen: Non-Antibiotic Approaches to Treating Children

Dr. Philip Blair: Lyme Recovery with CBD

Dr. Tyna Moore: Strength Training to Optimize Stem Cells

Dr. Izabella Wentz: Thyroid and Lyme Disease

Dr. Jerod Bergman: Stopping EMFs and Geopathic Stress

Dr. Todd Watts: Killing Parasites to Kill Lyme Disease

Dr. Sarah Ballantyne: Diet/Lifestyle as a Complementary Approach

Dr. David Jernigan (Hansa Center): Unique Approach to Healing

Dr. Christine Schaffer: Healing Your Brain from Lyme Disease

Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt (Sophia Health): Latest on Lyme Testing and Treatments

Dr. Jonathan Streit: Testing for Functional Neurological Issues

Dr. Jay Davidson: Improving Lyme Disease Protocols

Dr. James Maskell: Evolution of Medicine and Lyme

Diane Capadi: Consciousness as it Relates to Healing

Dr. Jill Carnahan: CIRS and Lyme Disease

AND MANY MORE.....

05/30/2017

Is there anywhere it doesn't?

05/29/2017

Writer Julie Starling shares:

Of all the symptoms of Lyme disease, the neurological manifestations frighten me the most. Maybe because they are harder to see from the outside. Or because they feel so utterly uncontrollable and cruelly invasive. They are the hardest to stop. The bacteria burrows deep into brain tissue to avoid being killed by medications that can’t cross the blood brain barrier.

It’s so hard to explain to someone else without sounding like you’ve lost your mind. At its worst, neurological Lyme disease can cause paralysis, seizures or schizophrenia. With lesser symptoms, the victim is plagued with insomnia, nightmares, brain fog, word or song iteration, word loss (tip of the tongue) and hypersensitivity to sound, motion, or bright lights.

Those lesser symptoms sound fairly benign, but piled up and never-ending, they can make daily living grueling. Explaining neurological Lyme disease to someone else can feel like hitting my head against a fog wall.

05/28/2017

Joy Luck Club author, Amy Tan, on her journey with Lyme Disease:

As a Lyme patient, I have joined a club of people with a stigmatized disease that many doctors do not want to treat. While I have been lucky enough to find a doctor who is willing to provide open-ended treatment --and I have the means to pay for --many of my fellow Lyme patients have gone without appropriate care. As a consequence, they have lost their health, their jobs, their homes, their marriages, and even their lives.I now know the greatest harm borrelia has caused. It is ignorance.

Some inroads have been made. More research is showing why the bacteria can become intractable, how it can morph. The CDC, which said Lyme disease infected only 30,000 people a year, revised that number last year to 300,000, and then revised it again more recently, saying it could be as high as one million people infected each year. So why is there no public funding for dealing with this epidemic?

Lyme disease is more prevalent than most people think. It ismore difficult to diagnose than most doctors think. It requires ongoing treatment in many cases. More research is needed before we know how it can be adequately treated, and one day, cured. In the meantime, my advice to friends and family is to be aware and be informed. Realize that Lyme disease has been reported in every state. Wear insect repellent, the 12-hour kind. Check you body and all those crevices that ticks love. Check your loved ones and your kids. And if you are bitten by a tick and suspect you have been infected, go see a Lyme-literate physician. Get treated early and adequately. Don’t wait, as I did, and let a treatable disease turn into a chronic one.

05/27/2017

Since Chronic Lyme Disease doesn't exist, some doctors will use creative diagnostic codes in order to try to get insurance companies to cover treatments for their patients.