The Science Of Bee Venom Therapy: Lyme, Mast Cell, Autoimmune + Long Covid With BVT Pioneer, Brooke

First of all, thank you guys for being here. My name is Brooke Gahan. I'm the founder of the Heal Hive. It's an incredible honor and privilege just to be able to talk to you guys as someone who has been in many of your shoes now a long time ago, but who walked the walk of chronic Lyme disease, severe mold sensitivity and poisoning, having pots, having rheumatoid arthritis, having fibromyalgia, having chronic migraines, passing out uncontrollably, getting, you know, being in and out of hospital settings, not being able to work for over three years, losing everything that I knew that was precious to me in terms of my career and my social life and my disability to even speak and write and just be normal. I've been there. And my goal in creating the Heal Hive was to be a place that I really dreamed of when I was at my sickest, where anyone could find really, really comprehensive testing that was covered by insurance. You could have a structured, step by step breakdown of exactly what was going on with you, what maybe doctors missed, what people missed, and what you needed to basically use to heal, as well as a community support you getting through all those steps along the way. And I am incredibly excited to say, after having built this kind of machine for the last six years, it has really become a beautiful community of incredible Lyme warriors. Amazing success stories, you know, including my own, of course, but also a place where people realize that we are based firmly in not only the science of bee venom, but also just the science of, you know, using what we can use in terms of comprehensive testing, the best of the best of scientific knowledge of, know, autoimmunity, what causes it, what basically helps it go away, or at least puts it on pause. What we know about pathogens, how viruses and bacteria work in our body. During boot camp, we go deeply into that. If some of you know, some of our Heal alumni, Heal have alumni, you'll know that they say that it sometimes feels like a biology class or a science class. That's not to scare you, but that's just so that everyone here understands that I feel very deeply that in order to be best empowered, to be able to fight a broken medical system, fight for what you need within that, and really regain your health. You need to be highly educated on exactly how the pathogens have affected your body, what is going on in your body beyond, you know, that initial pathogenic infection, whether it is, again, POTS or, you know, endometriosis or mold poisoning or, you know, just like massive histamine intolerance. And digestive issues. You need to be able to be educated so that when you meet with providers, when you meet with specialists, you actually have labs that show exactly what's going on with you, a education of what you need from that provider and all the steps you need to make. Whatever you need is a success story. And I think that that clarity is what is really missing. Doctors have helped save my life. I am not anti doctor. I'm actually pro doctor. I often realize that we have a really broken medical system. And within that, what happens is that patients get lost, especially those with chronic illness. And my goal at the Heal5 is to help you guys really gain. Like when I say comprehensive testing, not to scare you, but it is very, very likely you will. I mean, you'll be going in for a few days of testing. Just so you understand, this is not just in one shot normally, but, you know, we take over 60 vials of blood. Most people will actually have about 60 to 80 pulled. The reason for the variability is because it depends on what the tubes that they have when you go to the phlebotomist, et cetera. So there's some variability there, but yeah, it's a lot of blood. You're going to be doing urine testing, you're going to be doing stool testing. All of this is through LabCorp. We do not use adjunct testing except after you get your roadmap. There may be a few recommendations. For example, we may recommend that you also get additional identic testing. Igenx is a laboratory that has very, very, very good specificity and sensitivity for Lyme disease testing. Amazingly, a lot of times we don't have to even recommend that because our testing itself will show pathogenic infections, changes to your immune system that can be tied to Lyme disease, et cetera. But many times, especially if you haven't gotten that definitive diagnosis and you tell us, hey, I need this for work, I need this for disability. You know, that might be a recommendation that we make. Secondly, we may make a recommendation to get tested for sibo, which is a acronym for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It is a very common issue that happens with Lyme disease. We know for certain that Lyme disease attacks and makes changes in the microbiome and the digestive system. So it's really important that we don't let that go if that is something that is deeply affecting your nutrient absorption, even your mental health, which SIBO can do, especially if it's gone undiagnosed for a long time. And so that may be a secondary test but other than that. But I really, really pride myself in the fact that the heal hive makes sure that all of our tests are covered by insurance. And so you know, you're going to be getting a suite of tests that many of them you may have gotten before, but not all at once. And this is where it's really, really important. The key is doing every single one of these tests at the same time. So if you've gotten comprehensively tested before, great. That's going to give you some really great data points to be looking at and seeing what, what has evolved over the years. If you've been comprehensively tested or so you think in the last few weeks or few months, great. You'll see, hey, maybe I wasn't actually comprehensively tested. What these tests will show is over 300 biomarkers that are looking at your endocrine function, your hormone, your metabolism, cardio, your immune functions, potential autoimmunity. We screen for nearly everything we can possibly screen for that is really linked to common side effects and secondary issues with tick borne illness, especially Lyme disease. It also really covers a lot of people who have been affected by long Covid because unfortunately long Covid or just Covid itself and tick borne illness can really cause very similar autoimmune reactions as well as immunological changes. So we're going to be looking at that. And what is most exciting is so many people who have tick borne illness become very, very, very sensitive to mold. And why there is urine testing for mold that you can pay, you know, expensive out of pocket fees for. You know, you may be have practitioners that get at mold issues. You may have even like tested your house, etc. There are very, very specific immunological changes and basically inflammation markers that are tied to exposure to mold. These are specific, they are precise. We can pretty much guess looking at a home testing score for mold, what your overall inflammation markers will come out back at. It is really, they run that parallel and these inflammation markers are a lot of the basically like producers of why you're feeling so horrible if you are indeed in a high mold situation. And this is so important because there's one caveat to bee venom therapy is that bee venom therapy does not work well when you are living in a high mold environment. And what I can promise each and every one of you is that if you are living in a high mold environment, you're not going to feel your best and you may be putting yourself at risk using bee venom therapy, especially if your mast cells and histamine intolerance from that mold exposure that is continuing, gets worse and just continues just, you know, at all. So we look at over 15 biomarkers that are going to tell us, hey, have you been affected by mold? Have you been affected in the past? Is it still affecting your body? Is this inflammation really one of the main drivers of how poorly you feel? And that is absolutely crucial because the last thing you want to do is invest into bee venom therapy. It is not an overnight silver bullet. It is a long term therapy. I can go into if you guys are curious why it's long term and why it needs to be long term but within its length and not its overnight success, but its long term success. You don't want to necessarily invest all that time into a protocol that is not going to work to its end efficacy when you're still living in a high mold environment. So that's why it's really, really important to do these tests. We also, for those that are in the heel hive, ask you guys to do these tests repeatedly throughout the year. Why is that important? Well, things change and we want to make sure that you are one on top of everything that's changing. Also what's really exciting is that the majority of our heel hy burs from the moment that they end boot camp have already had a 40 to 80% reduction in symptoms. And many times their lab work, their secondary lab work after boot camp ends actually shows massive positive changes to both immune system function even before they started stinging nutrient absorption, just overall even you know, hormone support, et cetera. So it's really important to also get this, you know, basically biofeedback back about how your body's improving because I think it's, it can be a situation with Lyme disease and tick borne illness that many of you and even just over overall chronic illness, it feels like your bodies are not are working against you enough for you and that things only get worse no matter what you throw at it. And it's really important here at the heal hot that you actually have data back that shows you you are improving. Things are changing and they're all changing in a positive direction. And you're going to see that based off of your labs. And I always say at the heel high data doesn't lie. So we rely on those lab markers to really help us through these moments that you know, in bee venom therapy that can feel a little bit longer. I credit be venom therapy with my entire health. When I was sick with Lyme disease, it not only caused me to turn on my body to turn on multiple autoimmune diseases. But I also came down with low grade cervical cancer as well as melanoma. I think that was probably one of the more scarier things during my health crisis was to see just how much damage was happening, not only in the acute infection, but also in the long term damage to my immune system. Sadly, as I got better using bee venom therapy and stopped singing and was regaining my life, my mother actually came down. Well, you don't come down with it, but she was diagnosed with melanoma and in less than three months died from it. And that was a wake up call for me that if I wasn't going to pay attention to my health once I regained it, I was sure as hell going to now basically invest my passion and my life into making sure that people stay healthy and they are able to use everything that I learned through my journey to, to maximize their health and to use the advantages that bee venom is. I consider bee venom nature's beautiful little medicine cabinet. It has incredible properties. So probably the reason you're here is a property in bee venom called melittin. Melittin is basically the main peptide within bee venom. It basically takes up about over 50% of bee venom. And it is a pretty incredible peptide that has been used in scientific studies to prove that it outperforms antibiotic for Lyme, but it also gets at a very important thing called biofilms. So Lyme disease, as we call Lyme, Borrelia burgdorferi, is a wily bacteria that can morph from a active form to a dormant form. We also know for certain that actually can travel into the brain, reside in the brain where people have serologically negative results in their blood work for years, why they are symptomatic. And then unfortunately, when they've done autopsies of these people, they found active Lyme disease still in their brain years later. We know for certain that Lyme disease can travel through the blood brain barrier. It can still be causing dysfunction within the entire body, but you can show serologically negative results time and time again for years. Melittin is really interesting because guess what it does, it actually breaks through the blood brain barrier. It creates a chain in these cells that allows the melatonin with the other properties of B venom to actually enter the brain area. We don't know exactly what it does there. Full transparency. There is just not enough studies. But I will tell you that neurologically, Lyme really affected me. Even when I started showing that I was negative for Lyme disease and it wasn't until I started using bee venom therapy, as well as stinging near my head and on my head, that I really found some really crazy changes to my cognitive function, to my ability to sting, do process information, regain my ability to read and think, and, you know, have my memory back. So for me, I really credit that there's no way for us to prove that. And I'm always going to be transparent what we know for certain in science and what we are just making assumptions on and what may be anecdotal, because unfortunately, there just isn't enough research with specifically Lyme disease, Lyme disease in the brain to begin with, just overall and Lyme disease, the brain, and what goes on with Lyme disease in the brain and bee venom. But we do know that melittin absolutely traverses into the brain. And what's cool about it is that within a certain amount of time, within at least less than a day, the openings that the melatonin have created have actually resealed. So it doesn't open up the blood brain barrier to an extent to cause potentiality for other molecules and pathogens to enter. It just allows basically the melatonin and beavin to get into the brain. We don't know exactly what it does yet, but to also get into the brain and not cause other issues to happen. Melittin itself is really, really interesting when it comes to the Lyme bacteria because it is incredibly powerful against getting at these biofilms. So biofilms are these basically bacterial substrates that help bacteria evade the immune system. And the biofilms are many times the reason that antibiotics can just not work and fail many people with Lyme disease. And what is really interesting about melatonin and bee venom is that it breaks open these biofilms, stops the formation of new biofilms, and also basically takes the Lyme bacteria and creates what's called cell lysis. Cell lysis is a biological term for basically the melatonin poking these microscopic holes into the bacterial cell wall. Bacterial cell walls are made of these phospholipids, but they are much more sensitive to, to this melatonin, basically poking of these holes than healthy cells. This also can be applied to cancer cells. Cancer cells also have different phospholipid layers of the cell walls that actually make them more vulnerable to melatonin and bee venom than regular healthy cells. So what they've seen and scientists have seen is that melatonin, this big peptide in B venom that is so supportive for Lyme disease, basically can break open these bacterial cell walls Allow the innards of the bacterial cell wall to basically kind of like a, like a balloon that's been popped. Just basically spew out, kill the bacteria and also break open the biofilms that are keeping the other bacteria hidden from the immune system. So it allows your immune system to actually start to become active again. Be able to recognize the bacteria that for many, many years in some of your cases has not been recognized because there's too many bacterial biofilms that are basically this, you know, the screen from your immune system to the bacteria. So that is how the melittin in bee venom works. But then you also have this cool thing called mast cell degranulating peptide, or it's called peptide 401. Peptide 4:1 is another really, really supportive peptide in bee venom that is really specific for bee venom. It is what it says it is. It goes to mast cells and basically breaks them open, degranulates them. Mast cells are part of our innate immune system. They are kind of the sensory guards telling our body, hey, hark, I see some pollen, I see some mold, I see some enemy out there. And they're the ones that are the big, you know, kind of, excuse my, my terminology, but shitsters for your immune system. But mast cells can go crazy. Many of you know this already. You've had very, very severe mast cell issues and mast cells are the big driver of symptoms, especially with post treatment Lyme disease or AKA chronic Lyme disease and also post treatment Covid, AKA long Covid. So why is this interesting? Well, mast cell degranulini peptide can serve two functions in bee venom therapy. In low dosages, it goes after mast cells and basically degranulates them, basically pop them open. When people have mast cell activation syndrome, which is a version of basically the severity of your mast cells and your immune system not having a proper response to both external forces and also just overall being overactive and overstimulated. What happens is that in your immune system, these mast cells basically either are produced in too many quantities, like 2 times, 3 times, 50 times more than you should have. So any little environmental, you know, factor or a food that doesn't quite, you know, you're a little bit more sensitive to, can cause mast cells to degranulate, but so can stress, so can heat. So you also have all these other factors you have no control over if it's hot out or summer or you're stressed about something that can also cause mast cells to degranulate, causing you to have a lot of symps. The mast cell Degranulating peptide within bee venom, go after these aberrant abnormal basically amounts of mast cells, start bringing them down to a more normal amount. Why is it so important to be out of mold when you are doing this? Because mouth cell degranling peptide can also be part of the mast cells that go wild when you go into anaphylaxis. So small amounts, especially in the beginning is really, really important. And it's important to understand the science behind this peptide 401 because it is also a really really big driver in decreasing inflammation. So in small amounts it goes after these mast cells and helps basically your immune system better control histamine intolerance your mast cells. And applied properly applied, when you really really are truly using it safely and effectively, it is a game changer for those with mast cell activation syndrome who up until, you know, yesterday have only had the ability to basically suppress mast cells with more and more prescriptions instead of actually using bee venom to change the way that they're working in your body. But peptide for a one becomes even more interesting because when you're able to handle higher and higher amounts of bee venom, guess what happened? Peptide 401 switches to be a really, really powerful anti inflammatory. It works in your immune system, sending certain messengering to your immune system to basically both chill the F out as well as kind of get reactivated in the ways that it needs to. It's very complicated. I teach hours and hours about how this exactly works. We don't have time to get into text tonight but you're going to have to just trust me on the fact that as a peptide in small dosages it can really help and degranulate these mast cells. But in larger doses dosages it actually literally changes how your immune system works, becomes this powerful basically auto autoimmune regulator, immune system regulator and also helps you really create a new platform for how your mast cells work in your body. This is to me the most important aspect about bee venom, besides the fact that it can also cross the blood brain barrier that antibiotics and everything else we have for Lyme disease and chronic illness in terms of tick borne illness that doesn't exist, is that you have this powerful nature's little medicine cabinet that can do the thing that we know has to be done for Lyme disease to be fully eradicated, which is get into the brain and get out Lyme disease that has translocated into the brain and still causing problems. And secondly change the landscape of how the mast cells work so that even you know, we see this all the time. People will take antibiotics or show serologically negative for Lyme disease, but their mast cells are still going crazy. They're still having post treatment effect of that initial pathogenic infection. And that is something that people struggle with for years to try and get ahead. And unfortunately doctors allergists really only have suppressors for it. The venom actually isn't suppressive. It brings everything in a sense to the surface, works on it, and then allows you to actually be able to better manage how your immune system is working and messengering. It is to me like what changed my life, save my life and allows me to this day to have a huge, beautiful big life without feeling imprisoned with having to carry around a suitcase of supplements and having to worry about if I'm I'm in getting in a hot car or drinking red wine or eating red meat or whatever it is. I don't think about how my body is affected by the environment because I'm just living instead of worrying. And that is the freedom that I did not have for many years and that is the freedom that I hope to be able to help you and guide you to be able to achieve here at the Heal High. Why is the heel high superior? I'm just going to tell you because this is what I know the best. As someone who was so deeply affected by mast cell activation syndrome, I think being able to be guided by someone who really deeply understands how to do this safely and effectively is everything. It comes with, you know, a lot of proportionally testing and you know, basically having to make lifestyle changes along the way. But me, it was absolutely worth it and I know it'll be worth it for anyone who wants to, you know, go through that journey alongside me and everyone here at the Heal Hive who are the Lyme warriors that create our beautiful community. So before I open it up to questions because we're getting to that that time, I also want to explain to you guys how the Heal Hive works. So people join the Heal Hive. They every single person has to go through the first step, which is comprehensive testing. As I talked about. Unfortunately you need to also be insured because if you were to pay out of pocket for these tests, it could even run you 30 to $40,000 per pop. So that's not something you want to pay out of pocket for. So we use your insurance. We have Dr. Partners that we partnered up with. These Dr. Partners are partners that have reached out to us in the past because they had patients that were doing so well, they were curious, hey, who is a CEO. Hi. Who's his birthday? Han, what is going on? You know, maybe there's something there. So we have created these amazing partnerships with doctors that believe in bee venom therapy, have seen incredible results with their own patients and believe in the testing that we do. So the doctor partners basically help us make sure that we can requisition those tests for you. It's through the doctor partners, basically private practices. That cost is an additional cost you guys pay to the doctor partner, which is about $200 to get comprehensive testing like this. I will tell you, go through a Lyme literate md, functional medicine doctor, concierge doctor is going to cost you thousands and thousands, not 200. So this is. I really pride myself in the fact that healhive is able to deliver this to, you know, our members for such an amazing cost. So with that, you also get a 15 minute follow up with each doctor once your lab results get back. Those doctors are using what we call the Heal Hive roadmap. So the Heal Hive roadmap is a, as I talked about before, the step by step guide, basically breaking down everything we see in your labs, everything that we think has been undiagnosed, missed, maybe never tested for, and puts it all in a easy to understand document that you can bring to your specialist, you can bring to your doctor that will help you advocate for yourself alongside also breaking down where you are at at the exact moment that you basically started testing with a heel high. Do you have this document of you showing yourself, what is your immune system, what are the pathogens I'm dealing with, et cetera, et cetera. It's also a roadmap that's going to walk you through step by step, what you need to do to correct what is going on, what is going wrong and even recommendations, hey, this is really bad. You need to see a hematologist or you know, you have a autoimmune disease that is fatal if left untreated. You got to see, you know, this specialist right away and you need to get it tested. So that happens all the time. It's not unusual here at the Heal Hive. And know that that is what we're going to walk you through along with step by step recommendations of what to focus on in boot camp, part two, etc. So you get your roadmap, you bring that to the doctor, we do the heavy lifting, the doctor just basically scans that roadmap, realizes, you know, what you need as a prescriptions, follow up recommendations, et cetera, and that 15 minute, you know, telemedicine Appointment with them may seem really short, especially with, I'm sure many, many hours you guys have all spent with doctors previously. But because you have this document that is so well laid out and basically has uncovered everything you need to know in order to move forward with your health journey, it makes it incredibly easy to boil down what would take another doctor hours and hours and hours to basically 15 minutes and have it be effective and successful for you. Then once you have your roadmap in hand, we start Boot Camp part two. Boot Camp Part two goes through a wide variety of both educational models where we discuss autoimmunity, what it is, how it works in the immune system, why pathogens are the biggest drivers of autoimmunity, what you can do to basically support yourself against, you know, future autoimmunity, as well as fix, retard, stop, pause, the autoimmunity you're dealing with to nutrition, meal plan recommendations, a really, really big deep dive into histamine intolerance and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth growth and small intestinal fungal overgrowth and things that can happen, you know, when people even do not have like let's say celiac disease, but they may have gluten sensitivity. And what those labs show, for example, if you do and what you should do about it. So we go through nutrition, we go through stress, we go through autoimmunity, we go through just the pathogens themselves. There is movement therapy, there's basically no stone left unturned in terms of your lifestyle. There's also two reset. So there's a stress reset and a sleep reset. And that's some of our members favorite weeks because believe it or not, you guys are going to be resetting and working on your circadian rhythm together as well as working at your stress response together. So it is waking up depending on where you are on the west coast or east coast or mid coast, basically waking up together, going to sleep together, not in the same bed. Guys don't get, you know, ideas, but literally doing it, you know, online in zooms. And it's a really, really great way for those of you that have had a lot of, you know, sleep disturbances, changes in your sleep quality, etc. To, you know, really, really make those changes and feel that support and that accountability and the same for stress week. Once you have graduated from boot camp, what you'll do is you will be redoing the test. There's usually some additions, et cetera, and some subtractions. Like for example, we don't have to retest you for certain genetic Issues because we've already tested you for that. Those are not going to change. So those go away, we add a few more in and you redo the test. You then are able, by that point, you're educated about what your tests mean, you know how to read your labs yourself, which is also a huge bonus and I believe a lifelong advantage to, you know, through many, many circumstances where you'd want to actually understand your labs in the future and far, far future. And then you'll take that, apply that, and if you're ready and it's safe for you to begin using bee venom therapy, should you choose and you want to, still, at that moment, we have people that feel so good after boot camp that they're like, I don't even think I need it. This is what I needed. I think I had undiagnosed blah, blah, blah, or I think that this was my problem that I just needed to address. Other people go, oh, more than anything, I need this. And so we clear you to safely and effectively begin bee venom therapy. You go through what's called testing workshop, which is learning all about the science of bee venom therapy, how to apply it for the protocol I've created, and then I personally walk you through or one of our practitioners walks you through your first testing online. I've been doing this for over six years, way over six years, years before I even started the Heel Hive officially. And you know, a few hundred people per year do it and it's never been a problem. And it's. We really, really focus on safety and effect efficacy for you guys. And then for those that choose, we have Sting Club, which is a weekly meeting up of basically members of the heal health community of those that are not yet stingy but want to maybe because they still have some mold issues at home or they're still working on other things or for whatever reason, it's not, you know, what they need to be doing at this moment because of like their career or whatever it is, personal issues, etc. And then there's people that are staying and these are weekly meetings in which they're hosted and their Q and A sessions and also additional education times for us to share, you know, new breaking research and knowledge so that you guys are always like fresh and up to date with the best quality information and science that we know about, pathogens, mast cells, autoimmunity, etc. And that is the program we sometimes have in person meetups, usually once a year for healhive members to meet up. They change from coast to coast, other than that everything we do is online, even your bee sting. And you know, we walk you through where to get bees, how to travel with bees, how to travel internationally and find bees and everything you need. So it is a full, a full encapsulated course in terms of all the information you need, where to get answers to, you know, your, your health crisis that you're in. Because there's always answers to be found, I can guarantee that. And a community too, that is really, really incredible in terms of its positivity and its support of others. It was really important that we built a community that really was a community that was positive. And I know that sounds kind of funny because many of you have been part of Facebook sites or lawn communities where things can go awry. We have really made sure to have moderators and have people to redirect people who may need more mental health support and may not be using the community in the best way. And so we really focus on making a community that really serves you and is incredible resource for our members and it's so great to see them share resources. And there's many, many groups within on our platform where you will find, you know, there's groups for dads, groups for moms, groups for people that, you know, love certain things. So it's a really encompassing and inclusive forum for every single person. Here at the Heal Hut, we don't have as many male born members as female born, but we actually are starting to have, you know, I would say 10 to 15 sometimes depending on the class, 20% of our class male born. So that is an interesting new development. And so for any one male here going, you know, this, the Lyme community seems really female based. We talk about why that is in the science of it, but also, you know, know that there's a lot of opportunities for our male board members to also find community here. All right, so I will be taking questions, I will go through the questions where people already asked them and then we're going to have to wrap up around 6, 36, 40. But I'm going to try and get everyone's question in. If there's something that you want me to kind of further discuss with you if you don't think I've answered your question right or I mean, you know, as much as you needed, you can also just unmute yourself and speak up, please do so. Jennifer says chronic fatigue syndrome, mold H. Pylori, low stomach acid, acid reflux, bloating. Can it help with stomach issues? So Jennifer, bee venom has known scientific changes to your immune system. It also has been shown to have support for nerves etc, that there can be a lot of nerve damage with Lyme disease that can also affect your digestive system. So it is supported, but you're not drinking the venom, you are applying it to your skin. So what I can tell you is that that's why we also focus on digestive health here at the Heal Hive and do extensive testing for it. Because it also can be one of those roadblocks if you don't properly address it and fix it. So absolutely that the whole encompassing program will help you with digestive health. But in terms of bee venom, having a direct, like such a precise direct role on duty and it within digestive health, it's not like a supplement that you would take and it would work in that fashion in your digestive system. If I answered that, then I'll move on. Keith says I'm on SSDI. I don't know what SSDI is with Medicare. I applied for the 2024 class but wasn't accepted. Have there been or will there be any subsequent changes to the insurance requirements, Requirements for eligibility? So, Keith, I'm so sorry to hear that you applied and I don't think we did not accept you. We probably said that, you know, you, we can't have you do the program with the doctor partners. So we have had successful members, even in the last class, use their own Medicare provider with our lab list to have their Medicare provider do their comprehensive testing. It's a little bit more challenging. You have to seek out a Medicare provider who's willing to do that. What I can tell you is Medicare does cover all of our tests. You just need a doctor who's willing to spend the time to actually put the test in. Requisition them in the electronic form. It takes time out of their practice. So sometimes you can find a really nice doctor that's willing to do that. No, it's a little bit more challenging. But we had a few in our last class that were successful with that.

Okay, thanks. Thanks, Brooke. It is SSDI is disability insurance. So disabled. That's why I'm on Medicare earlier and yeah, when you guys were just getting the program like off the ground and I wasn't able to reach out. I think it was the computer rejected me because of the Q and A. Was like, do you have Medicare? And it's like, yes. And then I tried to like, you know, reify again just to see. I was trying to. I was scrambling to get in touch with you guys, but I have two Friends that are in the program right now, they've been getting some benefit from it. And, yeah, I'm still. Still trying to find.

If I may ask, where do you live? What state?

I was in Colorado. I'm down in Mexico. Medical treatment.

Okay. But I would. I'll be.

I'll be. I've sort of maxed that stuff out. Probably going back Colorado in the next couple months.

If you know some people in the program, you may want to have them share with you some people who have been successful in the program who have used Medicare. So I can't, of course, because of privacy, share those names, but it is possible. It's just. Again, it's not that Medicare won't cover the cost of the labs. It's just finding the provider. And unfortunately, most doctors that are Medicare providers are really only given, like, five to ten minutes per patient per visit. So it may be something that you go in and the first thing you ask your provider is like, look, I need to get these tests. I'm really suffering. I understand that you can't do these. Like, you can't get them all done and requisitioned all at once. But I'm willing to come in, like, you know, once a week for the next, you know, two months. Like, whatever it takes to get you be. Have enough time to represent. Position the test. Because you just have to. You understand that they're. They're, you know, as I'm sure you do. It's not that they don't want to help you or get the test done in most cases. It's just that they don't literally have the time to do the big, long lab order for those tests. But it is possible, and we'd love to have you.

Okay, thank you. That partially, that answers part of my question, because I have had testing done through LabCorp before. And she's like, that's where most of your testing's been done.

Oh, yeah. We only use LabCorp because they have the most. Even though Quest is great, LabCorp has the most comprehensive suite of tests that Crest doesn't come close to what we can get tested for at LabCorp. Okay.

And then just to.

For my.

If I wanted to find one of your members right now that's been through that in terms of, like, patient confidentiality.

Stuff, I don't know how to do that.

I'm not sure that my friend, he'd mentioned that. He said some people had tried to come in without insurance, and it had been a hassle, but I don't even know if he knows who they are or what the patient confidentiality is around that.

Well, I mean no insurance is important, possible, as I said. I mean even the wealthiest would probably bulk at 30 to 40,000 a pop for testing. I mean insurance is needed and necessary. I wouldn't be able to disclose that. But you, if they're still in the program, then they may be able to. There's, as I said, we have all these groups and all these community groups within the program. So it's not hard to find the right community group that talks about like doctor swapping and recommendations and that's where I would direct your friends. Okay. Jennifer says, I'm Canadian, I don't have insurance. So kind of pivoting off of Keith's question. And for you, Jennifer, some of our international students, what they've done is that they have basically gotten traveling American traveling insurance. So they've gotten an insurance policy for US based insurance that I know you can get through. Basically, you know, if you have a visa here or you know, for people who are traveling here a lot, of course it's an extra cost. I know as a Canadian, if, you know, extra costs are not something that you're used to in the health care system for good and you know, for bad in terms of, you know, the limitations you have. Unfortunately though, I will tell you that, you know, the Canadians we had in the past had a really hard time getting any of the testing done that were needed and they had to either take out US based insurance or pay through basically self pay, which is just not ideal. And so my suggestion though is that being international does not preclude you from joining the program. You would just need to get US based health care. And there's workarounds with that. I think last semester we had five or six international students from like all over the world get insurance that covered our lab testing. Anahid, I hope I'm saying that right, says I'm still trying to work and I'm a single mother. Oh, that's so hard. As a mom myself, I cannot imagine and that's really, really, really devastating. Well, I potentially get very sick with this treatment. How long is the treatment typically? That's a really great question. So as you probably know that many treatments for Lyme disease can actually make you feel worse and can devastate you in terms of even being able to be functional. I tried myself at the heel hive that everything we do from the testing to everything that is going to be in your roadmap is going to help you regain functionality and get stronger and Stronger. My approach to bee venom therapy is using what we know about basically bee venom immunotherapy, which is using bee venom to basically change how the immune system reacts to bee venom in the first few months. So, you know, you're going to basically train your immune system to not see bee venom as an enemy. And then you can go as slow or as fast as your body is capable. I say it over and over every single, I mean, day at the heel high pretty much that, you know, we really, really believe in functionality over dysfunction. There is no point in pushing your body beyond its limits if you're dysfunctional, because that's just going to actually increase inflammation and decrease our goal, which is decreasing inflammation and getting your body to better homeostasis. And that's not going to happen when you're pushing your body beyond its means. So I can't promise you that you wouldn't have maybe some harder days. But our focus here is to maintain people's functionality. And the great thing about BE venom, because it has such powerful anti inflammatory effects that unlike other protocols that I went through that made me only feel worse and really devastated my ability to function even more. BE venom only gave me stronger, stronger strength, more vitality, more cognitive function each week and each month that I was doing it. And that's what I pride myself in delivering to our members. So I feel for you, you know, honestly. Bless you for trying to navigate chronic illness and being a single mother. Full transparency. I wouldn't choose anything but BE venom and comprehensive testing and if I was in your shoes, because I want to know exactly what's going on with me, have no stone go unturned, as well as use a therapy that is incredibly gentle instead of, you know, maybe even potentially destructive. Thank you, Brooke. Thank you. You're so welcome. You take care and I hope to see you in class. Thank you. Rashin says I have extremely high deductible HSA insurance plan. Does that qualify? So deductibles suck, clearly. But HSA is acronym for. Can you tell me what that's an acronym for? Oh, you know what, it's a Health Savings account. Sorry, I. The brain frog took over. No problem. Yeah, no problem. It's not an HSA account, but you can use HSA with it. But that's just Health Savings Account. It's just. Yeah, it's just a high deductible regular Aetna, you know, so. Okay, so like Aetna UnitedHealth Care. I know that's a big dirty word right now. They all are Though, you know, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield, all of those, they're all insurance that we. That not we take, but our doctor partners take and are able to be put through LabCorp. Okay, good. So I just. My high deduct deductible is just my separate issue, but I do have insurance, so I would qualify. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Kayla says I was already in the. Hi, Kayla. I. I was already in the hh. As you remember, how to stop after Medicaid, Medicare was no longer accepted. Is this still a case for US Visibility? I don't know if you counted before that. It really depends. So Medicare is different than Medicaid. So for example, we're able to process medical for California residents, which is a, which is a hybrid of Medicare in California. But many states are not the same. So we can process Medicare throughout the states. It really is state dependence. I know that Medicare in New York state we can accept in Medicare in California. Medicaid is its whole different beast. Medicaid, you have to go through a Medicaid provider because basically any doctor requisitioning labs through Medicaid has to be approved by Medicaid to requisition labs. So if they're not a Medicaid provider, which with Medicare, they don't have to be a Medicare provider. They just need to be able to basically legitimize the test. And you know, anyone sick would not be getting these tests unless they were sick. So that's not a problem. Does that make sense, Kayla? I think so. It's kind of confusing because I have both. I have like Medicaid is secondary to my Medicare. So I think like everything has to go through Medicaid in the end just in case they get charged or something like that. So actually having two insurances usually kind of screws you because insurance policies, even if it's state run or federally funded, they fight with each other about who's going to pay. So if you had the chance to just be a Medicare, you would actually be in a better position than being on both Medicaid and Medicare for comprehensive testing. I don't think that the state lets me do that, but my doctor, I did bring like the paperwork to her like a year ago for my testing and she was kind of open to it. So would I. Do you think that I would still be able to do that? Okay. Yeah. I mean, as I said, we had, you know, five to six. I don't know exactly, but around that last course that used Medicaid. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I'd love to see you back. Yeah. I hope you've been as well as possible. We miss you. Thank you. Okay. Liz says with my line, my veins are very small and very difficult to get labs done. Have you dealt with this before? And how could I get around doing so many labs? Absolutely logical, hard stick. A lot of people like me, like, I had a port, a cast put into my heart because I basically off my ability to pull any blood or do any blood work or do any IVs when I was really sick of Lyme. So we definitely understand it. A lot of what we are going to be doing is in the first few weeks is like literally teaching you about proper hydration, how to get basically good sticks. And you are also able to go back as many days as you need to break up the lab work. So the lab work is actually already broken up in two sections. So it's not just one long list. It is actually sectioned out to fasting labs, you know, urine labs, dual labs, hormones, you know, inflammatory markers, et cetera. So it allows our members, those of them that are very sensitive and have really hard time doing blood draws to begin with, to do it at their own speed and to do it. That is basically best practice for them. So that. Yeah, you're not alone with that. It is very common, and we deal with that all the time. Peyton says, if I have Medicaid, how do I go about asking my PCP doctor for labs? So once you're in the program, we walk members through. You would basically be given our list of labs that are the lab, both numbers and basically the lab order, just without the order part in the, you know, sent to LabCorp. And your doctor would basically have to translate that into whatever system that they run orders through and use their own diagnostic codes. Medicaid has slightly different diagnostic codes than the code that we use through, basically using, you know, United or Anthem or Blue Cross, etc. So they would have to basically use the codes that Medicaid would approve. But as I said, it was possible last time for, you know, the five or six people that pushed for it, it's not easy. You know, as Kayla just mentioned, you know, she had to really advocate for herself, her doctor. It may even demand seeing a few doctors to get it done, but it is possible. Quinn says is the Heal Hive roadmap personalized to the individual. This wasn't clear. Absolutely. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear, Quinn. Absolutely. This is your. Your lab test, your lab results, and it also takes into account your symptomology, the prescriptions you're using, the, the actual. If you choose and you opt to, which I suggest you know, your ERMI score, which is your environmental Relative Moldiness index, the score of like how many molds are in your home, how they may be affecting you. It takes into account your blood pressure, your, your weight, your, your age, your. Your sex. And it also takes into account the, the foods you're eating, your nutrition alongside post former labs as well as new labs. It is, it runs about on average 15 to 20 pages. It is very, very, very precise and it is high as there's nothing more personalized that you can get. You said. I'm also concerned with the pacing considering I also need to address mold. Can you speak to this? I understand that what the program is done, it's done. So the program, I guess what we should say is the program is kind of encompassing everything. It's both Stink club, which is the alumni of weekly sessions. It is also testing workshop, it's boot camp, etc. The boot camp itself, when it's done, it's done. And that is for a reason. What we found over time and also just scientifically is that when people have, when they don't have deadlines, it's really easy to put off learning and basically educating yourself. We really, really need people to understand that the program is done when it's done so that they put their education into action and into accountability during the time frames. As I said, we have a sleep reset, we have a stress reset. You need to be able to basically do it in pace with others to get the most out of it. Not everyone does, of course. Course. So you know, when the program is done, it's done. But as long as you're able to take notes and take notes on the material which are, you know, we want you to do, you can always go back to those notes and reference them. But you're also going to have weekly meeting sting club, which are deep dives into the material over and over and over. So it's not like the program's done, it's continuing with those deep dives to ju choose. So you're not like on your own just like, okay, now I have the information and now I don't know what to do with it. Your hand is held probably I'm gripping it pretty tightly all the way to the finish line. So know that and feel safe with that. So yeah, especially with, with people who have your. They already know they're living in, you know, severely compromising situations in high mold environments, etc. It can sometimes take them longer because they have to do you know, they have to pace themselves differently, both cognitively as well as just what's going on in their home. Having said all that which heel had bundled you suggest I choose to sign up. I'm going to be totally transparent. I believe in my course and I think everyone should sign up for the whole thing because I think once you do your testing, figure out what's going on with you and then get your roadmap. You want to do something about it, but. And that's just the most cost effective. Okay. Thank you. You're so welcome. Hope to see you in class. Hillary says, does it make sense to join this program if I don't have Lyme? I do have celiac disease and just about mold exposure because I've had relentless respiratory issues. So Hillary, that's a really good question. I'll tell you why I think so and I'll walk you through it. So first of all, Lyme testing is really, really pitch poor. Many times you have to test multiple times because your immune system will make changes. Sometimes you'll get Lyme bands and show that you're positive, etc. Not every single person on this planet earth has tick borne illness, but actually they predict 650,000 people this year alone are going to get new diagnoses. Tick borne illness is endemic. There's a high possibility that many people you know are walking around with tick borne illness. Whether it's gotten to a point to make them incredibly dysfunctional or it's something that they're like, oh, I just have a wonky knee now, or I just have migraines now. Maybe it's hormones, maybe it's stress, who knows? But there's a lot of people walking around that. I mean, we know that statistically millions of people that have no idea they have Lyme disease. So the interesting thing, even if you don't show up as having Lyme bounds, there are immune markers that we can see that will point to the fact that you probably were exposed to tick borne illness. If your celiac disease was something that you've had since childhood and it's not well controlled. As someone who has celiac disease and teaches about controlling both for celiac disease and restoring the digestive system when it's been destroyed by things like celiac disease, I think you get a lot out of the program just with that alone. But if you also have celiac disease, that came on like adult onset celiac disease along with Sensitivity to mold, and weird respiratory issues. There may be a high chance that what you're dealing with actually is tick borne. It depends on where you've grown up. Did you ever, I don't know, summer camp in Michigan or hang around in back east or run around, you know, the fields in Virginia, North Carolina, nowadays in California. Have you ever picnic on the beach? I mean, California is ripe. Our beach is ripe with tick borne illness. It is everywhere. A lot of people don't understand the fun fact that China actually has more tick borne illness than anywhere in the world. Millions upon millions of people in China have Lyme disease. It just goes to illustrate that it's everywhere. And so I think getting yourself comprehensively tested, figuring out, as I always say, what the F is wrong with you, and having those answers may guide you in your next step of figuring out what to do about it. But in terms of boot camp, I'm a big believer that boot camp will help everyone. It's helped my family members, it's helped friends who've just been like, I just want to really just optimize how I sleep and how I deal with stress and how I eat, etc. So I think you get a lot out of it. But I think especially with, you know, kind of weird symptoms that you're having that doctors haven't been able to yet, figure out. Using the comprehensive testing as a launchpin to try and figure out what's going on with you and make sense of it all, I think would be really, really supportive. Thank you. You're welcome. And celiacs unite. Liz says can you get tested to see if you're allergic to stinging bees first? So we don't actually test for bee venom allergy in the beginning at boot camp. There's a reason. So allergenic testing for bee and wasp. Wasp venom is not precise. When people are dealing with mast cell issues. You may show that you have a bee allergy even when you're just really having a aberrant mast cell response. Getting your mast cells to calm down and to regulate better before you do bee venom testing is really, really what you want to be doing. So, you know, we have safety protocols in place. It's the most important thing is that no one ever suffers or has a negative side effect to be venom. So I can guarantee you that you will feel more when you're ready, more than equipped. And I can promise you that you will not be scared about having a bad reaction to bee venom if you get cleared to safely sting. Ali says, I was diagnosed with me ntfs, Lyme and mold. So basically, chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, and mold sensitivity. How does this work for someone who has low blood volume and low white blood cell counts? So your question is, how does what work, Allie? How does the comprehensive lab testing work to get enough blood? Yes, exactly. As I said before, you can break it up into multiple days, even multiple weeks, if you need. And that is helpful for even our toughest case. And as someone who previously had to have a port, a cast put in because it was so hard for them to ever draw blood or even give me an iv, I've been there. So we have, you know, precise recommendations and also allow all of our members to break up those blood draws to smaller blood draws. Okay, so how many tubes of blood total are required and what's the time period that that requirement has to be fulfilled? Within three weeks, ideally. I mean, you know, again, we work with some of the literally sickest people you've ever met, so we always make exceptions. You know, it's. It's a big program, but it's not a program that does not, you know, take into account everyone's personal, you know, very, very serious issues. But what we found is those three weeks make it pretty easy for even those with the hardest blood draws. And we walk you through a program of how to make your appointments and when you should and how many appointments you should. So there's precision with that, too. Thank you. You're welcome. Appreciate it. You're so welcome. Advent says, I joined four years ago. Heal High was the only system where I felt much better. Thank you, Admin. Thank you for showing up and just supporting everyone. That's so sweet. I hope you're well. I hear you've gone on to really amazing big things, so. Congratulations. Caitlin says, is mold exposure and bee venom an absolute no go? I've been healing and detoxing from line and mold toxicity for years, and my mast cell activation symptoms have calmed down a lot. I have less exposure to mold, but it seems to be everywhere I go. So how do we know what level of exposure is acceptable? So we base that off of your inflammation markers as well as other testing. Um, so what I will tell you is that, you know, if you've been, quote, eliminating mold out of your body for years, you haven't been successful at it. I mean, not to be an asshole, but it's true. And we want you to be successful at getting yourself into a place where you are really healing. So, you know, we go deep into that and, you know, in mold 101, I teach an entire mini course on just how to avoid mold, how to remediate properly every step you should take, how to actually get mold out of your system. Mold, I mean, mycotoxin can actually stay in your system for a long time because of this crazy thing in our organs called the enterohepatic circulatory system. I go deep into why that happens, what exactly to do about it, what you've probably been doing wrong, and all the steps you need to take to actually do it correctly. As someone who went through really, really severe toxic mold poisoning, I've been there and I also worked with some practitioners and providers who did not give me the right information and the right steps to take. And so I'm really fierce about making sure that people are doing everything in a step by step basis, in the right steps and doing it with, again, precision and attention to detail that really makes a difference. And I really think that you will. You're probably, your mind will be blown about what you've been told that's wrong, what you've been told that maybe is not complete and what you can do to really, really further your body recuperating from these chronic issues by just doing things in the right steps in the right way. Clara says, do you recommend any mold testing of homes as a Heel Head member testing? Yes, I just spoke about that. Environment, Environmental relative moldiness index. We do recommend early testing. We also recommend other testing. So I walk people through that. You know, we have literally hours on that. So know that it is. There's again, no stone left unturned in terms of understanding what's going on in your home and what's going on in your body. And many times those two converge. And we see that in your inflammation markers and other biomarkers within the Heal Hive labs that show us actual molds that may be. You may be having an antibody response to, to inflammatory markers to basically also mast cell activation syndrome, you know, biomarkers. So we look at it all. So Liz says, what is the diet you recommend with the Heel Hive? So it is called the Heel Hive nutritional protocol and it is basically built to be complementary for those exploring and doing bee venom therapy and those that are wanting to reduce overall inflammation, support digestive health. And it is a proprietary system I put together many years ago. How many times a year do you open for people to enter the Heal High protocol? Basically how many times do we have a semester? It depends on the year. So sometimes we have two a year, we have one a year. So this year we're starting one in May, there may be one starting in November, December. It is still to be determined. So Rya says how can we hold apartment complexes accountable if our tests show we have mold? There are ways. There's also apartment complexes and management that are, you know, deeply unsympathetic and could care less. You know, I, I just worked with a member yesterday that has a management company that's going above and beyond and, you know, putting them in a hotel for a month. I've also heard horror stories of black mold literally growing up the walls and being, you know, completely gaslit and ignored and told it's no big deal and it's just, you know, dust. So I, I trust me, after all these years, I've heard it all. So, you know, they're. Unfortunately, states have different laws. Counties even have different laws. You know, it's. It's a quagmire. I'm not going to lie. But we walk people through that. We also have within the Heal Hive, as I said, hundreds of other members who have resources and help our other members. It's a really beautiful community of those that are, you know, if they've been in your shoes before, they're going to help you figure out and share those resources. So, yeah, if I, if I was going to insist on people being in a healthy home environment to do BE venom therapy, I wouldn't, you know, be. I wouldn't be being ethical if I didn't teach you guys how to do that. So it is really a large focus here at the Heal Hive. And I can promise you from the bottom of my heart, it's something you do not need to worry about, is not having all the information that you need to be able to move forward and advocate for yourself as well as be able to make sure that you are in a healthy home. And I get that that's a huge concern. But, you know, we really focus on that here at the Heel High. Jacqueline says thank you in advance for hosting these two questions. In your opinion, does BBT cure, does it enable your new system to clear it? I want to be careful with the word cure, but I'm helpful. So I can say for me, I have never had another positive Lyme result and I've had zero symptoms for over seven years. The only way to know if I'm fully cured is when I die and I ask for an autopsy and they autopsy my brain and don't find any Lyme there. I'm always going to be transparent about that. But I will say that I believe and we see it all the time that stressors really exacerbate Lyme coming to, you know, basically a perfect storm in someone's body. People go through a traumatic brain injury or a car accident or get sick with COVID or there's death in the family and boom, they're really, really sick. Something that felt like, oh, is it rheumatoid arthritis, Is it just migraine just all of a sudden becomes a cornucopia of, you know, everything you possibly imagine going wrong. I've gone through the stressors for many, many years. Running a small company is and a startup is a stressor. Taking care of a lot of many, many sick people is a stressor. Having a baby is a stressor, which I had two years ago. Having a toddler is a stressor. Moving is a stressor. Going through Covid is a stressor. I've been through those stressors and I used to be like, oh God, is this the one? Is this the stressor that's going to bring it all back? And I honestly don't even think about it again. Like, I can safely say in my heart of hearts that for me, Lyme disease was my cure. I can't say that for you. And I think it's also with, with any protocol how you apply it and your follow through. So if you with an ear infection take antibiotics for 50% of them, it may not be the cure all. So I think in terms of cure, we have to really think about how does bee venom work against pathogens? What are the symptoms you're dealing with? What do your lab say?