Ep.100 Covid 19 + Chronic Lyme with Dr. Darin Ingels

Exactly. And, you know, again, this concept— and again, I've had this question asked a lot from my own Lyme population, you know, I have Lyme disease, I'm immune compromised. And my answer is, well, maybe. And I think, again, this— you really have to look at this as an individual. I would not make a blanket statement that all Lyme patients are immune compromised. And again, not to get too, you know, techie and geeky on this stuff, but just so people kind of understand, you know, we've got this balance in our immune system of what we call T helper cells. And T helper cells—

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Hey friends, welcome to episode 100. Super excited to be able to say that. I am your host, Sarah Slickty Sanchez, and today we are talking with Dr. Darren Ingalls, who has been a guest before. I have been promising you all an episode called Honoring the Reality of What Is, and ironically, because of everything that is going on with COVID-19 and this worldwide shutdown or pause of regular life, I We have postponed that one, but it will come out next week. Man, what a crazy few weeks we have been living with. Unprecedented shelter-in-place, millions of people being laid off, truly unprecedented times. And we have, like many of you, we've been home for weeks and weeks already because we actually had— Nate and Aaron were both sick sick and have been for a lot of this year. So we were already sheltering in place for a number of weeks before Colorado actually insisted on it. So we have been home for a long time. But you know what, because we have lived this life with chronic Lyme disease and chronic doctor's appointments and all the stuff that goes with it, um, you all know this, your lives don't fit the normal Monday through Friday, 40-hour workweek scenario anyways. So that's where we're at. We have been watching CNN, then we switched to Fox, then we switched to MSNBC, then YouTube, trying to get a full grasp of really what's going on and how this virus might impact those of us who have compromised immune systems. And so I wanted to do an interview with someone who is actively treating Lyme patients and also dealing with COVID-19. So Dr. Darren Ingalls is doing both of those out in California. So he's just a great resource. And there's several things in here that are just really good information to remember to not panic, to not believe the worst in a situation, um, but to choose to control what you can control. So he's just a great resource. Um, a shout out to tickwarriors.com, which is our sponsor for today. And when you go to tickwarriors.com, if you use the source code LIMEVOICE, you will get an additional 10% off, I believe. So definitely do that. We are up in the mountains of Colorado. We just had snowmelt. We've had snow since October, which makes me feel really good because I don't worry about ticks as much. But we just placed a large order, and I want to tell you about one of the products that we just started using called Tick Off, and it's called Too Slick for Ticks. And what's so cool about this is that you spray it on your dog once a week. You wash, you shampoo them once a week, but then you spray this on when you're going out for a trail run or out on a walk or anything. It makes your dog's hair or horse hair, whatever pets you have, it's too slick for the ticks to attach. So they don't come in on the dogs, which is always a huge concern for me. We have two dogs that are like children and get up on our beds and on our couches. And that's always the fear for me is that tick collars and tick treatments don't work until the tick bites. But when they get brought in on the dog's hair, that's a whole different thing. So this prevents them from attaching to the hair, which is a deeply relieving feeling for me, just knowing that they're covered and our house is covered in a unique way. I have had the same sentiment that a lot of people in the Lyme community have had, which is we're way more scared of ticks and Lyme disease than coronavirus right now. And that's because coronavirus goes away in a couple of weeks and Lyme you deal with for a very long time. You all know this. So, so enjoy this episode. And the very next episode will be honoring the reality of what is, and which is an overview of our family and our transitions and how Lyme has impacted our life and how it will moving into our, our, our next decade. So thanks for being here. Enjoy the episode. For nearly 2 decades, Invita Medical Center has been leading the way with the latest in personalized treatment options designed for patients dealing with Lyme disease complex. At Invita Medical Center, they offer a team-style approach and the latest technology regarding treatment and testing at an unmatched radical love and care environment for their patients. Call to speak to one of the patient care coordinators today to learn why hundreds of patients choose Invita Medical Center each year.

If you're listening to this show, you're probably not a fan of ticks or biting bugs. Many of us of us can't even enjoy the outdoors because of pests like ticks and mosquitoes. You know, Sarah and I realized this in a very sobering way with her second tick infection. You know, we live in Colorado, one of the most beautiful places in the world, but honestly, we were scared to enjoy it. That's why Tick Wires invites you to come to the green side and join them in the war against ticks. They provide— check this out— eco-friendly products for you, your family, pets, and yards to reduce damage from ticks and tick bites. Learn how to safely protect your family and yards and help battle tick-borne illnesses. Remember, ticks will bite year-round in many places. To learn how you can enjoy the outdoors again, visit tickwarriors.com. Go to episode 92 to hear the full episode about the products. Also, don't forget this: Tick Warriors is offering a 10% off discount to all first-time purchases. Simply add LionVoice at your checkout and you get 10% off. Go to tickwires.com today.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to this episode of LionVoice, and with me today is Dr. Darren Ingalls. Dr. Darren, thank you so much for being here on such short notice as the world is rapidly changing.

Thank you for having me. I know there's so much information going on out there that people are confused or getting conflicting information, so I'm hoping we can help clarify a lot of that for your listeners today.

Yeah. Okay. So tell us what's going on. You have a practice in Southern California. Tell us how COVID-19 is now impacting your practice because you, you were on our show a couple, 2, 3 years ago after you released your book, The Lyme Solutions, and you actually have 2 books out, the other one called The Natural Pharmacist, and that one I have not read, but I will because I just love the title already. But tell us what you're seeing, because you guys have been on lockdown for a while. You guys have more— California has more restrictions. How are you treating existing Lyme patients with the influx of COVID-19?

Yeah, so, you know, California— so maybe just a kind of a broad overview on COVID-19. What's really interesting when you look at the statistics around the United States, it's pretty interesting that the overwhelming majority of cases right now are really in 3 states, you know, Washington State, New York State, and California. Comprise the— I think it's like 75% or 80% of all the cases so far. So we've got these areas that are hotspots, and when you hear about, you know, hospitals being overwhelmed, you know, New York City makes a lot of sense because it's, you know, millions of people literally on top of each other. You know, physical distancing is difficult because there's just so many people. So, again, we've seen those pockets where things have been really kind of out of control. So the governor of California, I think it's been a couple weeks now, issued a shelter-in. So I want to just be clear. I think our choice of words is really important here. It's not a lockdown. The lockdown sounds like you're going to cell block H, and it's not that at all. You know, you still are free to take care of the things you have to take care of. You know, if you need to go to the grocery store, you can go. If you need to go to the bank, you know, anything you need to do that's considered essential to keep your life moving, you can still do. You're still allowed to go outside with social distancing. So I kind of don't like this word lockdown because it makes it sound worse than it is. Shelter-in is a different concept. Now, Granted, a lot of people have not been following that, and I think that creates some complications as we're trying to curtail this virus from spreading more. You know, again, if you don't need to be out, then, you know, certainly stay in, or at least stay close to your home. But I think there's a lot of health benefits of being outdoors. And I'll tell you, I have never seen the air so clear in Southern California. I grew up here in the '70s and '80s when it was a big smog pit. And as I'm just driving back and forth, you know, to my office or wherever I'm around town, it is crystal clear. And I don't know if you've seen pictures of Beijing Beijing, which is the most polluted city in the world, the air is clear. You see the pictures in Italy of the canals, you can actually see the water. You can see fish in the water. I mean, I don't know that— I don't even know they even had fish in the water there. So, in some weird way, COVID-19 has given Mother Nature a break, and we're seeing the environment make this very quick recovery by just keeping people, planes kind of out and about. As they're staying in, there's less pollution, there's less combustion, and all of that's that's probably very good for the environment. But, you know, kind of coming back to what you were originally asking, you know, in California, again, we've got this shelter-in-order, people are pretty much staying indoors. So what that's meant for a lot of us in medical practice is that most of us has moved all of our patients to telemedicine. So we're doing our consultations by video conferencing or phone. So we're still able to, you know, stay on top of your healthcare, make sure you're getting everything you need. Pharmacies are still open, we can still get prescriptions for people who need it, but we're really only seeing people in-office office if it's an absolute necessity, in which case, you know, we've got it that, you know, we isolate people into one room, people come in with masks and gloves, and so, you know, we're taking all the appropriate precautions to protect our staff, ourselves, and our patients, and after each patient, the whole room gets disinfected, but, you know, it's just to send people to the ER right now or to the urgent care center if we don't have to, you know, some of these hospitals are really overloaded. I think there's a greater risk of being exposed if you're waiting at a hospital or urgent care center. To see those people who need to be seen on an as-needed basis. And most of my other colleagues here in Southern California have taken the same approach. So I think if you're a Lyme patient and you're concerned, gosh, can I even have access to my doctor, I think all of us are like, we're still here, we're still accessible. And the good news for a lot of what we're doing, doing it like you and I are doing right now is perfectly fine. Again, if you're having some physical symptoms where you need to be physically examined, please get in touch with your doctor and make sure that they're able to listen to your lungs or check your throat. If worse comes to worst, as much as we kind of hate to send people to the ER or urgent care center, I mean, it is available. So we want to make sure that people are safe, they're taken care of. But, you know, the bottom line is that, you know, all of us who are in the Lyme world are still here for our patients and we're doing everything we can to make sure that you're continuing your treatment and getting the care that you need.

Well, that's reassuring. It really is because it's hard to figure out what is actually going on. Because you hear different reports and there's obviously people are tending to panic. And I actually have resisted doing this episode for a while because I didn't want to play into the panic and some of the hysteria. But the reality is, is it's changing everyone's reality right now, right?

Well, I think it— on the heels of that, we should be clear. And I think again, the media, I don't think has done a very effective job at portraying sort of the reality of of everything. You know, what we're focusing on is you hear about the number of cases, and you hear about the number of people who died, and of course, it's unfortunate for any family that has to go through that, but the reality is when you look at the numbers in the United States, in fact, I just checked this yesterday, I did the math, the mortality rate if you get COVID-19 so far, and granted, we haven't been testing a lot of people, but, you know, for people who have been tested positive, who've been infected, the mortality rate in the United States was somewhere between 1.5 and 1.7%. So the upshot is that if you get exposed, you have a 98-plus percent chance of recovering and doing fine. And again, you know, coronaviruses are not new. They call this a novel virus because anytime a virus jumps from an animal to a human, that's when it's novel. That means that humans really haven't seen it yet. This is not uncommon. This is not the first time it's happened. It's happened before. So when you hear about swine flu or bird flu, you know, these are all novel viruses at the time that we discovered came from whatever animal it was derived. This current virus we're dealing with, COVID-19, you know, we feel it came from bats. So, you know, this does happen periodically where these viruses mutate to the point where they're able to, instead of being passed from animal to animal, they then jump and can be transmitted from animal to human and then ultimately from human to human. Again, this is not rare. It's not like it never happens. It will happen again. We have a history of this happening. So, you know, when you look at a lot of the sort of the great pandemics of the last 100 years, a lot of them were attributed to these viruses is jumping from animal to humans. So that's unfortunately kind of the nature of, you know, we do have this saying called going viral. This is the nature of what viruses do. So, you know, the reality of, you know, trying to contain these novel viruses, it's almost impossible because by the time we figure out what the virus is, where it was derived from, at that point, especially with modern-day travel, the fact that we can jump on a plane and be halfway around the world in half a day, you know, it's just easier to spread these kind of things, and then again, by the time it's out there, it's just, it's more difficult to contain. So, you know, we've got that challenge with any novel virus of, you know, how easily they're going to be able to contain it. So, once we figure out what it is, where it came from, you know, then we put in kind of what we're doing now to try and at least limit people's exposure and slow that rate, or, you know, we hear about flattening the curve, you know, that's really what it's about. But again, I think people need to realize that, you know, if you happen to get exposed, the likelihood of you recovering is about 98%. And again, for most people, and this is true for other coronaviruses, just not COVID-19, is that, you know, most people get a cold. It's a bad cold, it's flu-like symptoms, and, you know, there's this nebulous number that we don't really know is how many people get exposed who never get symptoms or who get very mild symptoms, because let's be honest, you know, we've all had colds, right? You get a cold, you go to the doctor, most people don't. You know, they ride it out, they take a little extra vitamin C, you know, they do whatever at home, they stay at home for a couple days, and their immune system takes care of it on its own, and that's sort of the end of that. So we're never going to know the true number of people who get exposed. I mean, in reality, unless you tested every single person, which I don't know there's any practical way to do that, we won't really know how many people got exposed, never got symptoms. So there's that, that that nebulous gray number that we don't really know what that is. So again, the numbers you're gonna hear about are people who have been tested. Now, like in LA County, they are only testing people who need to be hospitalized. I mean, if it's the decision that they need to put— Oh, okay. They're so short on test kits, they've basically been telling healthcare providers, only test people if it's gonna change your decision-making, and that decision is, does this patient need to be hospitalized? So now we've got, I mean, this is LA, right? Millions of people again. So you're gonna have all these people who inevitably are gonna get exposed, get no symptoms, get very minor symptoms. They might still elicit an immune response to the virus, so if we did an antibody test, we might find that they had that exposure, but they're not gonna get incorporated to that total number. So again, I think it's a great example. When you go back and you look at H1N1 when it came out in 2009, when it first came out, I think the mortality rate was listed at somewhere about 1.5%, and then 4 years later when they were able to go back retrospectively and really look at the data, how many people were infected, how many people died, they adjusted it, and I think the rate was 0.4%. So, you know, when we're in the middle of a pandemic, it's really hard to get a true value of what these numbers are because we're not testing everybody. We don't really know how many people have been exposed. So I think, you know, what's interesting is, you know, yesterday it came out that we surpassed China in terms of total number of cases. You know, China had around, I think it was about 82,000 cases and something a little over 3,000 people had died. In the United States, you know, we had the same number of cases, and we had about 1,000 people that died. So our mortality rate in the US is a little bit less than what they've experienced in China. And again, we've seen countries like Italy where their mortality rate's been 10%. So I've seen several reports that, you know, the Italian population, they're the oldest population in the world for a country. Pretty much everyone who died had some other comorbid or some other health underlying condition, and in some cases up to 3 different conditions. So again, it's easy to look at these little pockets and say, see how bad it see how bad it is, but we're not getting the context of everyone else's underlying issues. And, you know, when it first came out, we heard about all these elderly people in China especially. You know, pretty much it was people over the age of 80 who had died from the virus. And now that it's been out there longer, more people have been infected, we're hearing about younger people who've been hospitalized, and even some of them are on ventilators. And, you know, what kind of bugs me is when people say, "Well, they were previously known to be healthy." Well, you know, we don't really know.

What does that mean?

Well, exactly. You know, I'd be really curious again when we get to be 2, 3, 4 years away from this and they're really able to go back and look at the data, how many of these young people vape? How many of them smoke? How many of them have blood sugar problems or diabetic? You know, there may be things that we're not aware of now that we'll figure out later was actually part of the underlying issue. So, you know, I think this kind of ties into when, you know, what do we do now to keep ourselves safe? And I think everything that, you know, public health departments are kind of, you know, railing on with, you know, social distancing and, of course, washing your hands. I mean, just washing your hands alone reduces your risk by 50%. You know, if it's one of these things where you touch something and then you touch your face, that can expose you. That's just as big of a problem as someone coughing and sneezing on you. So just by virtue of washing your hands regularly— so if you've been out at the store, you've been handling groceries bags, you're concerned that someone coughed on it, you know, you can always wipe those things down if you like, but if you you just wash your hands really well, even if it was on your hands, that can effectively eliminate it and reduce your risk by a lot. So I think, you know, people just need to be cognizant that there's a lot of things that you can do proactively to help keep yourself healthy. And I think, you know, you and I were just talking a little bit before we went on air here that there's so many things our Lyme patients are doing to already keep their immune system healthy. I kind of think that they're almost a step ahead of the general population because everything you've been doing to help deal with your Lyme disease is probably going to help in some way, shape, or form of dealing with, you know, the virus that's out there.

Yeah, I really liked how you had said that, where you said, um, instead of all Lyme patients believing that they're immune compromised, you had said it could actually be the opposite, like you might be one step ahead because you're doing all these things. And yet one of the other things that came to mind as you guys were talking, you and Dr. Tom Moorcraft— is that right? Moorcraft did a webinar last night, and you guys were talking about the fact that if you're— this comparison was so great. If you're comparing vertical people to horizontal people, that's where you start getting into trouble. And I instantly— that I've never heard it said that way, and that clicked for me because we have 3, I would say, immune-compromised people in our house. 2 for sure with Lyme and 1 with some other autoimmune stuff. But I'm horizontal, I am up and functioning, but my other 2 have been vertical for actually a lot of months. Yeah, so there's that. Like, I know my immune system is actually really good, but I've been juicing and taking taking supplements for 7 years, right? Detoxing and all that stuff. So if, if we are looking at a population of people who are in bed already and who are horizontal, we can't even compare them to people who are upright and functioning normally.

Exactly. And, you know, again, this concept— and again, I've had this question asked a lot from my own Lyme population, you know, I have Lyme disease, I'm immune compromised. And my answer is, well, maybe. And I think, again, this— you really have to look at this as an individual. I would not make a blanket statement that all Lyme patients are immune compromised. And again, not to get too, you know, techie and geeky on this stuff, but just so people kind of understand, you know, we've got this balance in our immune system of what we call T helper cells, and T helper cells are really the conductors of the immune system. And a lot of autoimmune illness is driven by what's called Th2 or T helper cell 2. So Th2 pathways is really what drives antibody production. So that's related to allergy, that's related to a lot of autoimmune diseases. So if you think of it kind kind of like a seesaw. In reality, it's way more complex than that, but for our purposes here, you know, think of it like a seesaw. As one goes up, the other goes down. So this balance between Th2 and Th1— now Th1's job is primarily, it's the direct scavenger. When it sees a virus, a bacteria, it goes right after it. It doesn't need to wait for the rest of the immune system to engage. It just goes right after it. So, you know, your Th1 system is really there in place as part of your immune mechanisms. Again, when you do get that initial exposure to Lyme or the virus, it's that immediate acting part that's gonna help try and take care of it before it becomes a further problem, where antibody production's a relatively slow process where it can take days to weeks to really start eliciting an antibody response where that Th1 can engage quite rapidly. But as your immune system makes, you know, one pathway more dominant, it can secrete these chemicals that can theoretically suppress the other. So if you're really Th2 dominant, you can suppress your Th1. So how do we know? Well, there's no commercial test available that can just send you to the lab and find out. But what we hear clinically is you get every cold, every flu, every little bug that comes along. People tell me, yeah, I get everything. My kids come home, they cough, they sneeze, and I get it immediately. You know, we've got those signs that your immune system doesn't fight it off very well. Sometimes we do see blood markers. I mean, you can measure your antibody levels, your IgG, your IgA, your IgM. These are different. Different, you know, antibodies that circulate throughout your blood that protect you. We can measure those levels and sometimes we'll see that those levels are low. So we might see on paper that there's evidence of immune— being immune compromised. We might just hear clinically based on how you react to other viruses, other bugs. And that is a percentage of people. I will argue it's the smaller percentage, like less than 50% of my Lyme patients are in that category. You know, most of my Lyme patients, they're dealing with Lyme but, you know, they don't get every cold, they don't get every flu, they don't get sick that often, they don't get the run-of-the-mill stuff that other people get. So, you know, that part of their immune system may function quite well. They can still have a Th2 problem, and I think specifically with Lyme disease, now we've got plenty of evidence in the literature that Lyme targets, you know, tissue in the brain, tissue in your nerves, your joints. You know, it's that immune reaction to Lyme. You know, I think a lot of people have this concept that Lyme is this bug that just goes and burrows through all your tissue and eats it all up, and that's why you get these symptoms. That's not really that's really what happens. It's that it elicits the immune reaction and the immune system's effort to get rid of Lyme accidentally starts interacting with our brain and our joints and our gut and our skin and so forth. So a lot of these clinical symptoms, these physical symptoms we're experiencing is actually the immune reaction to Lyme versus the organism itself causing the damage. So again, you know, I think it's just something that you have to take on a case-by-case basis and if you're really not sure, you know, talk to your doctor about this and say, "Look, you know, am I one of these people who's really more at risk?" I think, you know, we're all taking the same precautions anyway, but I think it's also good to know for a little bit of peace of mind that, you know, you may or may not really fall in that category of what we consider high risk. Where I get most concerned are my Lyme patients that have other underlying issues. If you're overweight, if you're a diabetic, if you have asthma, if you have, you know, some other type of, you know, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease like emphysema, if you're a smoker, you know, there's all these underlying factors where by themselves are a risk factor for this virus. But compounded with Lyme, again, I think that's sort of a perfect storm that can make it much worse. So, you know, Lyme by itself, not necessarily the next risk factor. For some people it may be, but you have to look at all these other things. And, you know, Dr. Moorcroft and I, we were talking, you know, we both were trying to drive the point home that there's so much that you can do. I think a lot of my Lyme patients anyway are already doing it, but this is coming down to, you know, you can control what you put in your mouth, you can control what you eat. So, you know, eating an alkaline diet that's gonna keep your pH alkaline. And, you know, we've been hearing a lot about using, you know, chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for this virus. Yeah, the mechanism behind it is that it really alters cellular pH to become more alkaline. So if that's really the case, well gosh, can't we do other alkalizing therapies and get the same result without having to use, you know, a drug like chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine? Now, we don't know. This is sort of, you know, based on what the mechanism is. I mean, I think you can eat an alkaline diet that will drive your cellular pH to be more alkaline. I think you can take bicarbonate formula like Trisalts that can make your body more alkaline. Would it protect you or even work against the virus? We don't really know. Is there any downside to doing it? Not really. And I do this for all my Lyme patients anyway, because I find that when you're more alkaline, if you're on Lyme treatment, you Herx a lot less. It's actually a great rescue treatment for people when they do Herx. Their tissue repairs faster, they are less inflamed, they're less allergic. So we've got a lot of evidence that when you alkalize your body, your body becomes less reactive. So that's a good thing, I think, for Lyme folks anyway, and again, may provide some additional protection against this virus.

Yeah, I thought that was so fascinating when you said that, that medication creates a more alkaline environment. I'm like, oh, it's easy to create an alkaline environment in your body naturally. And you guys talked about intermittent fasting and then of course just the foods you eat. But yeah, those are things that you can do anyways, anyone can do to boost their immune system naturally and for free.

Yeah, well, you know, in my practice, you know, when I'm treating Lyme actively, you know, I'm— I rarely use antibiotics. I much more favor herbs. You know, again, I'm a naturopathic physician. My training is in botanical medicine. So I find herbs work quite well for treating active Lyme disease. But when you look at these herbs herbs. Dr. Lee Cowden, a lot of people are familiar with Cowden Protocol. He gave a lecture I was at a couple years ago and he said it in a way that I thought was just beautiful. He kept talking about these different herbs. He goes, "Well, these are keep herbs. These are keep herbs." And after about the 4th or 5th time, I'm like, "What do you mean it's a keep herb? K-E-E-P, like keep." He goes, "Well, it kills everything except people." I'm like, "Oh, okay. Well, that makes a lot of sense." So, you know, these are herbs that are antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, antiparasitic. So they address a lot of these underlying, you know, microbes without necessarily harming us or our tissue. So what's interesting is a lot of the herbs we use, you know, like cat's claw, like banderol, like Kumanda, like artemisia, like garlic— I mean, when you look at their, their activity against different microbes, a lot of them are antiviral. Now again, we have no idea if they work against this novel virus. However, you know, based on what we know of how it deals with other microbes microbes, I think it has a good chance that it probably does help at least to some degree. So for my Lyme patients who are on herbs, again, I feel a bit more confident that they are a little more protected just because they've already got something on board that is antiviral. So if they do get exposed, I think they've got a better chance of dealing with it. Now, to date, I have not had any of my own patients that have tested positive for COVID-19. However, we waited a month to get test kits from the labs, so we just got our test kits last week. We've just now started testing testing people and we're waiting for results to come back. So, you know, we'll see once we start really testing people, you know, what happens. But my speculation, at least clinically, no one has called me telling me that they're having these severe symptoms that you're hearing about in some of these serious cases. So at least in my population so far, I have not seen that serious effect yet.

I was telling my husband the other day, you know, because Colorado has been a little bit behind California, that we've been pretty high up there as far as like the regulations and stuff that have come down. And, um, I said, man, I know everyone's freaking out about this, but I'm like, I am way more freaked out about the ticks that could potentially be in my yard than catching the coronavirus. Because I know like the mortality rate is low and it's like, it's, it just feels like there's so many similarities between the general public is experiencing now. Yeah. And what us Lyme patients and people in the chronic illness community have already figured out, like, oh, your insurance company isn't necessarily working for you. Oh, you have to find doctors outside of your network if you actually want to heal. Oh, you need both Western medicine and holistic medicine. And oh, nothing's covered by insurance and the testing isn't accurate. And so it's just— I feel like the rest of the world is just seeing what we've already experienced, where you have to advocate. You— it does— the system doesn't make sense. You come up against these roadblocks. And so we're joking, we're like, welcome to the party, everyone.

No, I echo that sentiment exactly. And, you know, it came out even in the last couple days that the testing isn't very accurate. They said there's like an 80% false positive right now. They have the opposite problem. They're getting a lot of false positives, where with Lyme testing, we get a false, you know, negatives. So, but I, that's the first thing I thought when I heard this. I'm like, oh, so wait, you've got a test that's not accurate for a different microbe, and yet you're trying to figure out, do you treat these people anyway? And I'm like, well, yeah, welcome to our world, you know. So I'm really hoping that one of the positive things that comes out of all this is that awareness of, you know, people that have these chronic conditions that are kind of being dismissed that, you know, it'll realize that, yeah, you know, we have testing for microbes that, that isn't great, you know, that sometimes you have to treat people based on the clinical symptoms. So, you know, I guess we'll see where the chips fall after all is said and done. But I think to a certain degree, for a lot of different things, you know, they also just came out yesterday with the new rate of autism. You know, it used to be 1 in 59, now it's down to 1 in 54, and it didn't even make, you know, the news at all because we're so inundated with COVID-19. But again, this is significant. This is, you know, the health of children. And you know, I think the autism community kind of felt the same way. It's like, oh, wait a second, you know, you've got something that affects between 1% and 2% of the population, yet here if it's a virus, the whole country locks down, freaks out, does whatever. Well, why aren't we doing that for other health issues that are as big or bigger problems? So again, I'm hoping one of the positive things that comes out of this is that maybe Maybe A, I think I'm hoping a lot of people will have better awareness about their own health. Don't wait for a pandemic to start taking your health seriously. B, you know, maybe, you know, government agencies will realize that, you know, we've got these ongoing health issues that we're not really addressing appropriately and maybe that will open some eyes that, you know, we need to not wait for it to become a huge problem. Let's start dealing with it now. So that's my hope.

Yeah, I think, you know, it will be so interesting to see that. I always am like, oh, what is this going to look like 5 years from now? Right? Like, what is history going to say about Lyme disease 30 years from now? What is history going to say about COVID-19? And it just seems like we're at this— maybe this is a catalyst for analyzing how how Western medicine is practiced and how you're divvied up and oh, you have an issue with your nervous system, you see this person, you have an issue with an organ, you see this specialist, but there's not this cohesive whole body awareness unless you're seeing a practitioner like yourself or just this wholeness. The sense of wholeness doesn't exist within the medical system. They don't deal with you as a whole person. And so I'm hoping that maybe people— maybe people will see from this, like, oh, if you actually have chronic ongoing stuff, there's two things that I feel like are happening that happened to all families and now is happening on a national level and global, which is when you have a long-term chronic illness— and let's— COVID isn't even chronic. I mean, as far as the length of time that you have it, like, most Lyme patients took them 5 or 10 years to get a diagnosis. So this, right, this is in no way chronic, but it's making a chronic impression on our day-to-day, our ability to do day-to-day stuff. And what happens is it's first the medical and then the financial, right? And I feel like the whole country is experiencing what all these households have been living with for years, where whatever income you're making, if when you have people with chronic illness, you're living multiple layers below socioeconomically where you would be because you're paying $1,200 a month in supplements or treatment because you're right and you're not doing it for a year, you're doing it for years and for multiple people. So what do you think the— let's talk about like the secondary fallout of this, not like a second wave of COVID-19, but the secondary fallout of people who are already needing surgeries, people who are already on waiting list to see specialists, people who are already struggling financially because they can't go to work, or— yeah. So what, what is gonna— what do you anticipate happening even like 6 months from now, both medically, because people who are waiting for surgeries are still gonna be either waiting for surgeries or there's just gonna be a bottleneck, but then the financial of millions of people losing their jobs jobs, and what do you think that is going to be?

Well, from a medical standpoint, I mean, yeah, there's going to be a huge backlog of people who've needed to be seen, whether it's through routine care, elective surgery, you know, whatever it is. It's going to take a while to get caught up. The one thing that's really been interesting in this process is that, you know, President Trump has relaxed practicing across state lines. So telemedicine is now allowed across state lines, at least if you're an MD or a DO. Yes, so you can now— all the HIPAA rules have been suspended, so you can even use Skype to do it because Skype is not a HIPAA-compliant platform. So they've suspended HIPAA rules, they have allowed doctors to do telemedicine across state lines to meet the need. So I'll be curious to see what happens when this is all said and done, because I think if they could show that this worked, that you were giving access to people, that could change change the paradigm we've had that healthcare is a state-by-state issue. It would be really nice for a lot of reasons and certainly for a lot of patients to have access to doctors in other states that right now put a lot of restrictions that, you know, like in New York State, you know, you technically can do telemedicine, but you have to see people in person at least the first time. And so every state has different rules. So what I'm hoping is that this will open up healthcare for the country because there's so many people that just live in areas they just don't have a provider. Provider that's equipped to meet their needs. So if we can take that off the block there and allow for patients to start working with doctors in other states, A, I think it provides better healthcare overall. I think it would take that burden off some of the doctors that are really overloaded if you can start sort of spreading that out. And it just makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you're a doctor, no matter you're an MD, DO, ND, Nurse practitioner, PA, you know, you took a national board exam to, to have to get licensed in your state. So you've, you've demonstrated at a national level you're qualified to practice. And the fact they make this a state-by-state issue, it's— I don't know, it's probably more about money because you have to pay every state every year for your license. And they can keep it that way. You know, I am licensed in this state, you're still held by the rules of that state, but it allows that I can consult with people outside of my state state because that's always been a gray area with telemedicine. If I'm in California and I talk to someone in New Jersey, if there's a problem, who governs that relationship? Is it New Jersey? Is it California? So this may prompt hopefully Congress to set some rules on what that's about, but I'm hoping that that will open up healthcare for a lot of people that just haven't had access. In terms of the financial impact of this, I mean, this is going to be a problem. I mean, I know so many people— I read this that the unemployment filings in one jurisdiction, they used to get 2,000 a week. Now they're getting 70,000 a week. So we know that unemployment's gonna get bombarded. And I just, I haven't read enough about the stimulus package that just passed through Congress, the trillion-dollar stimulus package, whether there's gonna be any financial help for the average person who just lost their job or had to get furloughed that's gonna need that help so they can maintain, you know, their expenses. I haven't read enough about that to know if that's part of the package or not. If it's not, you know, I heard at one point they wanted to send you a one-time $1,200 check. Well, that's not gonna do anything for most people, especially if you have a chronic illness. So I think we're gonna find a lot of people fall through the cracks. They just can't— they just can't afford their healthcare, and especially in the Lyme world since so many of us practice outside of the insurance system system, you know, we're not direct insurance providers, we're out-of-pocket, you have to pay us and then get reimbursed. I think it's going to be a problem. So how long is the problem? You know, if this virus clears up in the next 4 to 6 weeks and we kind of get back to our normal living, I think that impact may not be as bad. But if this is something that drags on for months and months and again, people aren't able to work, you know, it's going to be a huge problem. And whether that prompts the conversation— again, nothing political here, but of course, you know, Bernie Sanders has been talking about a national health system forever. Many other countries around the world do have that. You know, I'm not for or against it. I'm just saying is that it will probably bring up that conversation again just because, you know, in a crisis, to have a system where you're kind of having to pick and choose based on your insurance coverage coverage, if everyone kind of had the same blanket coverage and everything just gets covered, it does take that financial burden off of the individual person. You know, if you look at countries that have, you know, socialized medicine or nationalized health systems, I mean, of course you're paying for it. It's in your taxes. But, you know, it's then kind of spread out equally amongst every month and you never get hit with a huge bill at once and you're not having to pick and choose about which procedures you do. So, I think we may hear that conversation come up again outside of Bernie Sanders. And with an election coming up on us in the next several months, I guess I'll be interested to see where candidates stand on that issue because we've always had a problem with private healthcare. Every insurance company is different. The coverage is different. And even within the same insurance company. I mean, I have Blue Shield of California. There are numerous plans that cover different things. And, you know, I think what we've all experienced since Obamacare came into play is, you know, we all have higher deductibles, we're paying more, we're getting less. I think a lot of people are very frustrated with the system as it is. So I'm hoping that this will bring up the conversation at the congressional level that we really start looking at what healthcare is costing, what we're getting, and, you know, hopefully that will prompt a discussion to look at maybe a different system.

Hmm. Yeah, it'll be interesting. This has really— it'll either be a collapse or a catalyst, maybe both.

Yeah. Well, I don't think we'll go into a collapse. I don't think our system is set up for that. I think there will be individual people that will be horribly impacted. And that's, you know, but if that's individual people ends up being, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of people, I mean, that's, that's a lot. So, you know, we've got to find a way to keep people in the system, keep people covered, keep people on going with their healthcare. And I, again, I'm not quite sure how it's all going to play out. I think it really is going to be a function of time. And, you know, the longer it goes on, I think the bigger impact it's going to have financially, and that's everybody. So, you know, we'll just kind of have to see how it goes.

You had mentioned something about Dr. Richard Horowitz saying that he was having trouble getting, um, prescriptions written, or they had to have source codes now for writing Plaquenil?

Well, I think that was specifically with hydroxychloroquine or Plaquenil because so many, you know, once Trump talked about it and then the French study came out and said they've been using the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and it was effective against this virus. So what was happening is that people wanted it prophylactically. It's like, I don't have a problem, but just give me a prescription. So a lot of doctors were just writing these prescriptions so people had it on hand just in case. And so New York basically stepped in and said, we are no longer filling any prescriptions for these medications unless you have very specific indications for it. So, you know, Plaquenil is actually a very common medication to use for Lyme disease. You know, it helps a lot with joint pain and modulating the immune system. So Lyme patients now in New York apparently cannot get this medication unless you've got rheumatoid arthritis or other accepted diagnoses. They put the kibosh on it. And again, you know, this is really unnecessary hoarding. You know, it doesn't make any sense for a healthy person who has no need for this medicine to keep it on hand just in case. And you know, this is what happens with hoarding. You know, it's like when you actually need it, it's not available. And so all the people who don't need it are taking away from the people who legitimately do need it. And if you didn't hoard it, if you did need it, it would be available. So, you know, this is the, the problem with the me mentality that I'm gonna get it whether I need it or not just to protect me, and it's like, A, you know, you will probably never need it. B, you know, you've now taken out supply for people who legit need it, and I feel bad again for these people that have autoimmune diseases, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis. They depend on these medicines to keep them mobile and having trouble filling their prescriptions. I mean, we were talking with our local pharmacist. We had one patient again who needed the medicine. We called, I don't know how many pharmacies, couldn't get it. We found a compounder who actually had the powder water and she was able to compound it for the patient, but the regular stuff you just buy over the counter— or not over the counter, but you just get off the pharmacy shelf, you know, all of it was gone. And it's just, you know, I think it speaks a little bit about society that, you know, this hoarding mentality, it doesn't really do anything good for anyone. So I'm seeing now as I go to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, you know, food is now back on the shelf. It seems like people have gotten out of the— they realize that, you know, toilet paper will still be available so they don't have to buy, you know, 500 rolls at once.

I don't get the toilet paper thing.

I, I, I, you know, so I, I know exactly what happened. So my mother-in-law did this.

Oh, tell me. I've been trying to figure it out. I'm like, this doesn't make any sense to me.

No, it doesn't make sense. Well, it's the— to a certain degree, it's a little bit of lemming mentality. And so my mother-in-law was at Costco. She was there to buy whatever else. And this is right at the beginning. And as she's walking to check out, she sees all these people with toilet paper in their cart, like lots of it. And so in her mind she's like, well, there must be something going on. I'm— if they've got all this toilet paper, I must need it. So she went back and bought like 2 huge rolls of toilet paper for no other reason than the fact that everyone else did it. She thought something was wrong and that she didn't want to be left behind, or she didn't want to be out of the loop. So I think what started happening is people started seeing other people doing it, they figured, I don't want to be left out. I don't wanna be the only person without toilet paper. So without really understanding why people started doing it, and the same thing with the bottled water, I'm like, as far as I know, there's nothing but this virus is affecting our potable water. Look, our water here in Irvine is not very good. I don't really drink it out of the tap, but if I had to, I'm not gonna die from it. I mean, it just doesn't taste very good. So why we felt the need to run on bottled water and toilet paper really makes no biological sense. But again, I think it's just that when you start seeing a bunch of people people do it, you feel like you need to do it. And I think there were some people that really felt this was the apocalypse and that we were gonna be truly like you cannot leave your house for weeks. Although again, I don't know how much toilet paper you use, but I don't need 500 rolls for a 2-week shut-in. So yeah, I think a lot of this was just really completely unnecessary and fearmongering. And but again, I think, you know, people as they saw other people doing it didn't want to feel like they were missing out. And then they started doing it and it just snowballed from there. And then hearing the news media talking about there's a, you know, a lack of toilet paper and bottled water. So then people like, again, I don't want to miss out. So when they went to the store, they started buying toilet paper and bottled water. And again, it doesn't really make sense.

You know what, that's interesting though, because I think one of the things that happens when you have to go through Lyme and you have to advocate for yourself and you have to develop disciplines and do things that are outside consensus reality, you know? Yeah. I've juiced for 7 years. It takes a lot of time every week, but it matters to me and empowers me in ways that the average person is never gonna understand. And I feel like, and I try not to be jaded about it either, right? But like I'm seeing people panic about toilet paper and water and I'm like, are you kidding me? You probably have like 100 ticks in your yard. Like that's what you should all be worried about. Out like problems that become neurological problems. And but I think it does kind of— we already kind of live different lives because we have to, because a lot of our lives for different periods are controlled by appointments with doctors who may or may not be in our state and having to get prescriptions from other states. So this could be very interesting as far as how it changes the landscape and like loosening HIPAA laws. And I mean, that could be huge. We spend an enormous amount of time just driving to appointments over and over again. Over, you know, most— we live up in the mountains, so almost everything is an hour or two away from us. And so one appointment for one person consumes, you know, a day by the time you go and come back. So telemedicine, that could be a huge game changer for the medical community to not have all these sick people having to come in all the time?

Well, California actually passed a law— it's been a few years now that we've actually had this law in California for now several years— where I can do video conferencing with a new patient and they treat it as if you were actually in the office. They don't see it as any different. So there are some states that have already had laws on the books that allow for telemedicine, but that is me as a California doctor and you as a California patient. So it's still within the confines of California, but you know, California is a huge It's a huge state. So I have people I work with who are upstate. They're still 6, 8, 10 hours away from me. So instead of them having to come down, drive down, or fly down, we're able to do video conferencing, take care of their needs, and it saves them a lot of time and money. So I think, again, when we're in the effort of trying to reduce medical costs, they're gonna find this is a very cost-effective way to deliver healthcare without having to put extra burden. And I think having this social experiment will hopefully demonstrate that this is a good, safe, effective way to deliver healthcare and that yes, there will be times where you absolutely have to be seen. It doesn't take away from that, but when certainly for people like me where we're talking so much about diet and nutrition and herbs, you know, that's independent of me, you know, having to have you right in front of the office. I mean, if I need to listen to your lungs, look in your nose and throat, of course I need you in front of me. And of course even now, you know, we're getting so many different medical devices that you can attach to your iPhone. You can now get an EKG from your iPhone. You can do your pulse ox. I can measure your oxygen saturation. You've got echocardiograms that— as these medical devices get sleeker and slimmer and they start to attach, I think we're moving to an age where there'll be a lot you can do at home. That data will transmit to your doctor and you'll be able to see all that data. We're actually talking with a company out of Irvine now where they have a system that it's basically a vital system. Like, you know, if you've been in a hospital, it's always next to the bed. It's got your blood pressure and your saturation, your heart rate and all that. Well, they have a device that you can hook up, and then again, it syncs to an app and you— it's secure, and you and your doctor have access to that. So while the patient's at home, I can be monitoring all their data. So we're— I think we're— you know, technology is moving in that direction where we can start to do these kind of things. But again, I think we'll find that again, it's going to be a huge cost savings. It's going to give access to so many Americans, especially to, you know, different healthcare providers. So again, my hope is that this experiment will ease those restrictions and allow us just to have access to more people.

Wow. All right, as we conclude, what would you say to the average Lyme patient out there who is already dealing with anxiety depression, pain, fatigue, all of those things, what would be your overall message to them?

Well, you know, I think this is another empowering moment, you know, where you have the opportunity— again, you have control over a lot of this. So, you know, follow the advice of what public health officials are talking about. Again, I think, you know, physical distancing, washing your hands. If you need to be out in public, if you can get a mask— fortunately there was a run on masks. I think it's Smart, you know, anything you can do to protect yourself is wise. But don't panic. Don't buy into the fearmongering. You know, do the things that you can do. Get out in sunlight when you can. If it's your own yard, you're not gonna get, you know, I think a lot of people don't understand about, again, how you get a virus. You know, you standing out in your own yard, this virus doesn't magically blow in the air and you breathe it in from blocks away. I mean, that's not the way it happens. So you can still get outside. You can still get some physical movement. You can get some vitamin D. You can choose what you put in your mouth. You can eat a healthy, clean diet. You can choose to sleep, you know, on time. You know, all these things are within your control. So control the things you can. Don't worry as much about the things that you can't. Again, when you need to be out in public, take care of yourself, be smart. But outside of that, again, I don't think you need to panic to the point where it creates this, you know, huge amount of anxiety, and anxiety leads to stress and all the stress hormones. That just— that doesn't do anything helpful for your immune system. And, you know, if you've got a good supplement regimen to help keep your immune system healthy— if you don't, talk to your doctor, you know, about what you can do to keep your immune system primed. It certainly isn't going to harm you, and if anything, it might provide you just with a little extra protection. But again, a lot of this, I think, is within our control.

Awesome, thank you. Now, can you— so can you currently see patients then outside your state?

You know, interstate telemedicine has always been a very gray area. So we actually do— there are certain restrictions on what I can and cannot do when I have an out-of-state person. You know, I can't write prescriptions, I can't write for labs, but if it's really just dietary consultations, herbal consultations, you know, honestly, they don't really consider that medicine. So you're not really practicing medicine without a license because it's not medicine in their eyes. So as long as I'm not diagnosing people and writing prescriptions and doing what's considered medicine, it seems to be okay. But again, it really is a gray area. But we have chosen that for people who need the help, if you're in an area and you don't have a good Lyme doctor, again, for the type of way that I practice, it's actually very conducive for this. And I may say, hey, look, you know, you really need to see your local doctor for, you know, this lab test or whatever. But usually we can coordinate that with their local providers and that Works pretty well.

Awesome. Okay, thank you so much for being with us today and giving us some of your valuable time. I know you are very busy.

All right, well, thanks for having me, Sarah.

Appreciate it.

Hi guys, I want to let you know about a book I wrote called Little Bite, Big Trouble, and I'm gonna read a review that recently came in. This is from Carolyn, and she says, thank you so much for writing your book. It has become the means by which which I have explained Lyme to my 4-year-olds. They ask for it to be read as a bedtime story over and over again and love that the mama birdie does yoga and juicing like their mommy. I can't thank you enough for writing this book. It has helped my family so much. You can find it today at Amazon.com, Little Bite, Big Trouble.

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Disease is contrary to life. Therefore, wherever disease exists, life must also fight to exist.

Good job fighting, Lyme fighters. Keep it up, we'll see you next time. Lion Voice contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice and should not be treated as such. Okay, Lincoln? Okay. The medical information on Lion Voice is provided as is without any representations, warranties, expressed or implied.

Okay?

Okay. Lion Voice makes no representations or warranties in relation to the medical information on this podcast. You must not rely on the information on this podcast as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about your medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. And for you, you consult your parents, okay? Okay. If you think you may be suffering from, from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this podcast. Got it, Lincoln?

Got it.