Is Working Out Safe with Lyme Disease or Mold Toxicity?

Hey everybody, Dr. Diane Mueller Lyme expert here. We're talking today about how much exercise to get when you have Lyme disease or mold illness, and do you even exercise at all? And if you're listening to this, you're probably in one of two camps of people. You're probably either hearing this and being like, Dr. D, there's just no way I can even come close to that. And why are we even talking about exercise? I can barely I can barely walk up and down the stairs to go to my bedroom, or, you know, whatever. And then there's going to be probably another camp of people that are still trying to exercise because it's such a value to them and they love it so much and are just failing, you know, miserably. Or in that group that is trying, they do something which I see people do, which is they exercise and they push themselves to do it but then they crash really bad after, which is leading me perfectly into how do you know if you should exercise or not. So there is something important to understand that we do want to make sure we are moving our lymphatic system, right? So our lymphatic system will only move— our lymphatic system will only work when we move our body. And when we're dealing with toxins toxins from mold, from metals, or from the die-off of things like Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia, we are going to be extra toxic, right? Our body needs to process these toxins, and our lymphatic system is a huge part of that. And if we don't move our body, our lymphatic system does not work very well. Now, there's other things we can do to move our lymphatic that you probably know of— things like vibration plates and dry skin brushing and lymphatic massage. So There are some options, but moving is for sure one of the best ways on a day-to-day basis we can get our lymphatic system moving. So when I was struggling with Lyme and mold, like, my commitment was a walk around the block every day, which was about 3 to 5 minutes, right? And so that's it. I had days— and I'm an athlete, so that was very hard for me to only do 3 to 5 minutes. But what I was doing during that time, because I know this stuff was committing to like, okay, if I don't do this, it is going to get worse. And so when we are dealing with Lyme and mold, when to exercise, when not, as much as possible, if you can do small movements at a minimum to keep your lymph going, that is going to be amazing. This might be walking up and down the stairs. This might be a few air squats. This might be walk to the mailbox and back, depending upon how bad your symptoms are, right? But we need to at least do something to get your lymphatic system going. Now, secondly, from there, the other big thing with this is we want to then make sure that you are not feeling worse after exercise. So another key thing to watch out for is if you exercise and then you crash afterwards, meaning like, oh, as soon as you get done, you have a nap and it's a long nap, or you wake up the next day and all your symptoms are flared like you're in a herx, you're in a flare, that means that you did too much. So we really want to pay attention. And as people start regaining their strength and their functioning, as the treatment starts working, this is when this becomes really important because it's such a common thing that I see that when people are dying to just be normal, and of course you want to be normal when this has been going on for so long. It's so easy that when you start to feel better, then people are like, I've been there, energy, I'm going to do all these things. And you're out and you're cleaning the house and you're doing laundry and you're taking walks and you're doing all these things, and it's too much too fast. Because as soon as we start to feel better, this is great, the inflammation's coming down, but initially the reserves are not there yet. And so you're still running with like, like a basically empty gas can, right? But you just have like enough gas now to do the things, but not enough where it's like, if you like, it's kind of like, like that gas light comes on, right, in a car, and you know now that you have 40 miles or whatever to make it to the, you know, to the gas pump. And during those 40 miles, your car is going to be working just like normal. But if you don't— if you burn down through that 40 miles worth of gas before you make it to the gas station, you're going to get stranded somewhere. And so when we start to exercise too much too soon, it's kind of like the gas light is on but you still have gas. So you're just like— you have those fumes and it can feel— be— still feel amazing, like you have all of this energy back. But we want to get your tank more like at quarter tank, you know, and eventually up to a full tank. But once we get your energy tank up to that quarter tank, for example, then we have some wiggle room where if you use some of that energy, you're not depleting yourself to empty. And so that's where people— it's like, it's the hardest time in many ways of this whole treatment or the whole process, because, because it's like, finally, right? Finally, after months, years, decades, people start feel normal, you know, a little bit normal. It's like, well, yeah, you want to participate in society, and it can be so exciting. But this is where we have to be so very careful and so very honest with ourselves to be like, okay, if we haven't been moving at all, we might start with a quarter mile, you know. We might start with something small like that, see how our body does. If we crash, then we know it's too much. But if we don't crash, now we know we can try maybe a half mile. We've build up slowly, listening to our body's signals. Because if we are going to crash, we want to crash where we still have a little reserve in the tank, so we're not depleting ourselves to baseline. Because that is even mentally worse. I find that, like, yo-yo, right, of like feeling a little better and then crashing hard. And that's when the brain can kick on and say things like, oh my gosh, am I going to be better ever? Am I stuck like this? I had one good day and now I crashed again. And it feels like everything's coming back, and it can just be really intense to deal with. So that's what I recommend: follow your body's feelings. Start slow. Don't run your gas tank out to empty. And really pay attention to, do you feel like you crashed after? If you crashed after, it's too much. And that being said, if you're on the side of like, well, you're just not moving at all, which I get because of your symptoms, see what small micro things you can start doing. And it, like I said, it might be going to the mailbox and back. It might be walking up and down stairs a couple times. That might be all you can do right now, but we're at least working to get that lymph going so you can start to pump up those toxins that have built up inside. So I hope that's helpful. Please do take my Get Well quiz if you have not taken my free quiz. This is my free quiz designed to help you find missing root tests that your doctor might have missed. So when you take the quiz, it's gonna throw out some specific answers for you that says, hey, make sure you get this tested, this tested, and this tested. So it's a just another way of helping you make sure you got good testing and just to support you and your doctor. So just another resource there as well. So that's at getwellquiz.com. I'll put that in the show notes and I'll see you all real soon.