Episode 16 Part 1: Lyme Disease & Mold

Welcome to the Mold Matters Podcast, whether you are looking for help for covering from mold illness or just want to learn more about creating a safe environment for your family. This podcast is the place for you. Hello everybody, welcome to another Mold Matters Podcast, joining you from late in Utah across the wire to all the many places that people listen to this podcast. We have some news, Mike Adams, the expert, mold expert who is always here sharing his advice and input and wisdom about mold remediation is out of town. Actually helping out in the hurricane situation in Louisiana, as you know, there's a lot of water damage, which means lots of mold, which means lots of people are trying to remediate mold and so he flew out there just last night to help out. Good man, but not to worry, we have a great person, I don't even want to say in place of him because you've been a guest before, but we have joining us once again, the great, wonderful Dr. Jeffrey Wright, greetings everyone, nice to be here, great pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's been a while since you came on here and we had actually a really good response from your last visit, people learned a ton and I want to say every time I talk to you, Jeff, I have to like, I feel like I need to take out a notepad or record it, because you are a wealth of information, you're like Wikipedia without opening the internet, but a medical Wikipedia, so I'm really excited to have you on here and I've been thinking about ever since the last time you were here, I was thinking, I want Jeff on here more, what other topics would be useful and so obviously this is a mold podcast, you've worked with a lot of people with mold illnesses and I as a person coming from the, you know, the remediation side, I shared this with you before the show, but basically when I come into people's homes, I often do, I mean, I'm not a physician, but I'll do kind of a medical profile because I want to know if their symptoms align with mold or whatever, and it's pretty common for someone who is worried about mold or feeling sick from a mold scenario to say I also have Lyme disease, yes, often that is the case. And so that's kind of the impetus of this podcast, I honestly don't know a ton about Lyme disease other than people always say they have it when I go to their house and they have mold too, so just by way of outline, I thought, Jeff, if you could help us, I know you've dealt with a lot of Lyme disease as well as your mold treatments over the years, is this true? Yes, I have. And you, I don't, for you to use, in medicine, we had to use the outward cure because that's kind of, that more it has gone away, but the reality is if we can't find the bug anymore and your symptoms are gone, you feel great? I would say, your body cured you, yeah, we helped it, yeah, yeah. So we've done, I've worked with a lot of people who have Lyme disease and I would submit that they aren't cured, yeah, they're good, they're no longer symptomatic. So being the, being that I don't really know a ton about Lyme, I actually, I know this is going to be hard for you because you said you could talk about this for hours, but could you break it down for us, you know, simple people who don't know much about Lyme? And I want to, I want to eventually end by correlating it with mold and figuring out how there's a correlation there, but, but as a, as an introduction, can you help us understand Lyme? What is it? How do you get it? Lyme disease started, I don't remember when, I want to say it was in the 60s or 70s, that's irrelevant, in Lyme, Connecticut, the city, they had this weird arthritis that was happening with a lot of people, meaning they would get an infection in a joint. Now so usually if you have arthritis, it's wear and tear arthritis, you get in two joints, like both knees or both hips, but they were getting hot reds while in joints, like one knee or one elbow or one, and they found a doctor Bergdorferi, went in and discovered that both, these people had been infected by a spyrachete, which is a bacteria that's shaped like a corkscrew. And so he, of course, named it Barrelia Bergdorferi after himself. And so he also discovered that it came from ticks, and there's a big fancy long word of the type of tick, but reality is, I don't care, it's tick. One type of tick? No. One type of tick, but now, well, we'll get there in a minute, I'll give you the current approved accepted information online, and then I'll give you my opinion, which is different than that, and, you know, all the other, some of the other things that go along with it. Okay. So he discovered that this was a tick-borne illness that tick bites you. The tick didn't get up that morning, and brushes teeth and washes mouth out with soap. And so it bites you and then regurgitates spit and other juices into you, which have infectious nastiness, the spyrachete, Barrelia Bergdorferi. And then that infection would go to a joint cause of hot reds wool and arthritis, and they would give an antibiotic and you would kill it. And so if you get diagnosed with Lyme disease, that is what your doctor is looking for. Is an infectious arthritis that was caused by a tick bite. That being said, there's a whole other group of doctors out there that go and bat, "Well, wait a minute." We got all these other weird symptoms that are going on, and the next thing I want to tell you is not thought of well by a lot of regular mainstream doctors, but classically, the classic spyrachete organism is the one that causes syphilis. So Lyme disease or Barrelia Bergdorferi is actually a cousin to the spyrachethe cause of syphilis. So in my mind, now I'm not in the standard of care thought, I mean that let's get patients well thought. So if I think you can't have Lyme disease because you didn't get bit by a tick, I have assumed something that now convinces me that I can't fix it if it is Lyme disease because I assumed since you didn't get bit by a tick, you can't have Lyme disease, which doesn't really make sense. So there's a whole other thought of doctors if you go to iLADS.org, there's an organization or what iLADS means. It's an organization of doctors of all different persuasions who are looking at the rest of the information, trying to figure out what else is going on. So they will say that any symptom can be caused by Lyme disease. That seems a little broad. So in the 80s and 90s we had other things that everything was caused by that. Now it's like, well anytime anybody comes in with something weird, we say well you probably have Lyme disease. Well the reality is, since that tick didn't, you know, brush his teeth that morning and beat you, it could just as easily give you several other bugs like relicia or babesia, which is cascrat fever or Bartonella and then a few other ones that ticks are known to harbour. So you could get Lyme disease, which is now, it should be called Lyme disease and associated syndrome or other conditions. The reality is, is now everybody says, I got Lyme. Now somebody says I got Lyme's disease, it's Lyme with no S because it's named after the city. Yeah, okay. I was actually going to ask you that. Lyme says Lyme disease or somebody says Lyme is just easy, they messed up or they really don't know what they're talking about. So for the people who have it, you want to go to iLADS.org and find a Lyme literate doctor. They come in a lot of specialties. There's chiropractors, naturopaths, medical doctors, osteopaths, chute physical therapists and nutritionists who will try to help you with it depending on their training or depending on the therapies. And then there's a lot of things you can do. So we got my office staff and I got a lot of people well through our therapies. We did a lot of things, but nowadays people say I have Lyme disease and they're talking more about I have Lyme and associated disease rather than just the spire key. Now some people, genetically speaking, their body just can't get rid of the bug and sometimes the bug's been there so long that it now puts itself into a state where the immune system can't find it. The spire key, Braille de Bredorfri actually has three forms. One is kind of an inert form that the immune system can't see. One is a form that lives inside of the cell and one is a form that lives outside of the cell. The reason that's important is depending on where that bug happens to be living in you will depend on the best treatment for it. And if you run a blood test and you've already killed off the intercellular, the one that lives inside the cell, you've already killed on the one that lives outside the cell where the blood test comes up negative. But if it's in its cyst form, it can't be found by the immune system, it can't grab hold of it and then three months later it comes out of hibernation and then it's there again. Also, the standard of care test is the screening test which has a 30% accuracy rate which means 70% of the time you have it but it didn't find it. That's called a false negative. That's pretty high. I can flip a coin and get better statistics than that. So I don't even waste my time on that one. If you go to your doctor and they're not a Lyme-literal doctor and they run that one, you've wasted your time and money because they say you don't have it but the reality is is there's such a high margin of error on that one? You don't know. And now if it does find it, it's after sure and it's for sure. But if it doesn't find it, you still have a 70% chance of not, yeah, of still having it. And that one is called a Lyme-Eliza test, like the Girl Eliza. Okay. Girl's name. The test that I would typically run is a Western blot test and we're going to get into a little bit more politics because the people who care really care. And the people who don't care are going to be honest and really useful to me. But if you listen, for those of you who are listening who don't care, listen because you're likely to come across somebody who does care and you can send them to some place so they can get the help that they need. So for those people who don't care, listen anyway, it's going to be good information. So the test that I start with, which is the second test to back up the first one, is called a Lyme Western blot test. Blot, BLOT. BLOT, BLOT, BLOT, BLOT. Okay. Like you throw a spot against the wall and it makes a blot. Blot, okay. Or any blot. So a Western blot test is a good test. It happens to be about 70% accurate, which is better than the 30%. Right. But there's still this pesky 30% there where you could still have it. Like if you've had it chronically, your body's not making an immune system response to it. The problem is these tests are looking for your body's response to it. So if you're genetically, you can't make a response to it. It's there, but you're not responding to it. So therefore we get a negative test. And so it's kind of like closing your eyes and putting a blindfold on. And you know, something happens over here, but it's not happening because you can't see it. You can't hear it. Yeah. But if it's still happening. Right. So if your body can't see it or hear it or deal with it, then the test shows up negative. So that's why you also go with symptoms. Oh, you've been sick ever since you went back east and you don't remember a tick bite and you don't remember a bull's eye rash. By the way, that's another symptom happens in half the cases where you get bit by the tick and then you get a bull's eye rash right around that area around the area. And if you see the bull's eye rash, that's diagnostic. Okay. You can run a blood test if you want to confirm it. But if you see the bull's eye rash, there's nothing else to cause that rash. Can I actually pause there on symptoms real quick? Because you were making a point earlier about how actually I want to clarify, were you making the point that even if you didn't get bit by a tick, you can still technically have a Lyme disease. Are you not making that point? I didn't make that point. Now I'll make that point. Is it a great place to make that point? Okay. So it's really interesting in our country. The only thing that can give you Lyme disease is the tick according to the powers that be. Now it's interesting. There's been research that has looked at other countries. And they've proven that Polish mosquitoes can give you Lyme disease. Now I don't want the difference between a Polish mosquito and American mosquito is. I'm sure there's a difference. But I would submit that they're close enough in species that probably an American mosquito can do it. Well in our country they say, well one mosquito can't do it. Okay, cool. How many people do you know that only get bit by one mosquito? And how many does it take to be able to give it to you? I don't know. They've proven that other biting insects also can transmit the bug. But the standard of care says only a tick can do it. Now here's another piece of politics. Lyme disease has been found in every state, period. I happen to have worked with some of the people that got our state in Utah to admit that we have Lyme disease in Utah. But if a doctor here in Utah where we live says, well, or if you're in another state, your doctor says, well you don't have it in this R state, therefore you can't have it. Again, that's bad logic. That doesn't make any sense to, sorry, this is a bit cynical, but did the doctor actually study medicine in science because science says, I mean, it's everywhere. It could be everywhere. And you didn't travel anywhere where you could have picked it up, it just doesn't make any sense. So you live and have had patients come and say, well, we don't have it in Utah, so you can't have it in like, sorry, the doctor polio admitted you that they can't help you. So anyway, yeah. So biting insects of all shapes and sizes can give it to you. Some bodies just deal with it. They just fight and kill it and it's never an issue. Other bodies are genetically susceptible, they can't deal with it and they get it and it goes chronic really fast. There's a lot of slot in between. So other insects can do it. I've seen people who got it from biting flies. I have some people who I suspect got it because of mosquitoes. I can't prove that, but it's irrelevant how they got it to me, what's relevant is let's get them well. How do we get rid of it? So that answer your question? Yeah, and then one more thing on the symptoms, the joint pain, right, is kind of the marquees. Bullseye rash of joint pain, that's the hallmarker plastic lab disease. Okay. Does every person have, so they can have just the other symptoms, you know, that could be anything, really, is what you're saying. But what percentage, I mean, just throw out a number, it doesn't have to be scientific. How many people usually have muscle pain in the bullseye rash, is that 50% of the people statistically speaking, about, will get a bullseye rash. Bullseye rash. Yeah, the 50% will not, what about the muscle or a joint pain? joint pain. I would say it's, it's more common, but what I see in my practice, it wasn't the joint pain that happened. They would get full body aches, so they'd get just a lot of weird random symptoms that didn't fit. They get super bad fatigue or super bad dizziness or just weird symptoms, and it all happened ever since something. Yeah, is, based on what you just said there, is Lyme disease often misdiagnosed to some of these other, you know, chronic fatigue or fatigue overlap a lot? Some people have anxiety. Oh, you have anxiety, we'll give you an idea of medication. Well, they might, but what if it was because of the Lyme, so I've seen it, heart changes. Interested. Mistdiagnosed is Lyme disease. And that regard, it's kind of like mold, right? I mean, I've seen a guy with Lyme disease who is having intestinal adventures. That's a polite way of saying diarrhea, gas, bloating, pain. Adventures. Yeah. And I didn't think it was Lyme disease because I'd never seen it like that, but for other reasons we did some of the treatments that I do for Lyme disease, and he's like, wow, that really made a difference, and my goal is to get people well, not necessarily to prove that that symptom is from that bug. So tests aside, when you're trying to diagnose, are you, are you inquiring about symptoms and using that as a narrowing? The CDC actually says that Lyme disease is a clinical diagnosis, which means you go into the doctor and they see all the signs symptom history and say you have this, and we'll confirm that with the blood test. The infectious disease association says you have to have a positive blood test in order to make the diagnosis. Okay. I believe I happen to side with the more cranky doctors who see it all the time. And I believe that if it looks like the first, for the first five years of my practice, I worked with a really, really sick lady. When I screamed her for Lyme disease, she said, well, no doctor's own so around the test and said I didn't have it, like I cool, check that, that box, you know, Lyme disease. Fast forward, after three or four years of working with her, I sent her someplace because she was environmentally sensitive to everything and could do nothing in the environment. She'd react to perfumes and colognes and random things, and I sent her to the best doctor of the planet for that. He couldn't help her either, and she went from about 135 pounds to like 80. So she was having an intestinal adventure, so he sent her to a gastroenterologist who said, well, you have Lyme disease. And she's like, no, I didn't have as tested for that. That's what I thought. I was, I ended up being wrong there, but that's what I thought. Yeah. He said, no, you have Lyme disease. I'll bet money that you have Lyme disease. He ran the test. There was a negative. He ran another test, and it was an immune system test that was super suppressed. He said, normal is above 60, yours was 15. He said, you, this has massively suppressed your immune system. You have Lyme disease. You put her on a really heavy duty course amount of biotics, and she started to improve. And so she called me up because we stayed in touch. She said, you need to know this. Yeah. And that's when I stopped trusting other doctors, diagnosis, or misdiagnosis of Lyme disease. Yeah. So I was looking for it. So that's a good segue into the treatment model for Lyme, is it antibiotics? If you, I had before a couple of years ago, I had two patients who walked in, one of them had a bull's eye rash. I didn't even bother with the test. I said, I'll run the test to confirm it, but I put them on my eye. Did they get it in Utah? I'm just curious. I both think I did. Their rash came from something in Utah. So even when it's a mosquito or whatever else. One found the tick. Oh, you did found the tick? Yeah. They found the tick and pulled it out. So I was like, I'm not, let's not wait until you get Lyme disease and wait for symptoms. Let's start you in the course of antibiotics. So if you walk in and you just got it, I'd give you antibiotics. I think that's the best therapy. And I'm one where drugs are my last choice. Yeah. I'm a huge fan. I just think that they're overused and overranged right. So if you just got Lyme disease, I'd give you a course of antibiotics. I just think it's the best medicine. Now if we don't know when, where, why, and how? And there was actually a third person who I diagnosed with Lyme disease that summer. And I gave her antibiotics and she didn't get well. I found that the people who had it for a while, they did not respond to antibiotics, which is part of my bias. Giving people antibiotics would often make them worse, but would not change their symptom picture when they finally got off. And to me, that says, this is not an effective therapy for this individual, so for people who have had it for an unknown amount of time or it's been chronic, I have not found antibiotics to be effective. A lot of other doctors disagree with me and they get great results. So you have to find the doctor that's going to work with you and no. But for me in my practice, I found that they didn't work very well in chronic Lyme disease. Right. And this is also actually a good segue to touch on mold, because I found the people and I had a standard protocol to get people well from Lyme disease. And I didn't just throw that at everybody, I would use that as my standard protocol, tweaking it appropriately, dealing with whatever else might be going on that I could find. So there was a whole system of things that I would use to get people well. But if they failed that and they'd come back three to four weeks later and say, I've been doing everything and some of the treatments were therapies in office. And if they, you know, I was falling up with them on a regular basis, how are you doing? How are you feeling? The thing that I had missed was that they had mold in their home. And so I would call you guys or have them call you guys and I'd have them do testing. But the reality is, almost all of them could trace it back to, wow, ever since I had that flood, my symptoms have been progressively getting worse. Now maybe the symptoms were that before the flood, or maybe it was when they moved into a home that seemed like it had mold in it, but inevitably the mold was a major player and it wasn't until they got their house fixed, remediated and fogged, sometimes that's two different things. Got to fix where the water's coming, I believe, if you don't fix the water leak, fogging isn't going to solve the problem and I'm a huge fan of fogging. It's just, you have to clean up your environment because where you sleep, you're breathing stuff in, what you eat, you're eating it, what you're exposed to, where you're living environment to work environment, you have to deal with that environment and if your body is massively overloaded with Lyme disease, then that mold tends to be not additive, but exponentially additive, meaning it's not a one plus one is equal to two, it's one plus one is equal to 11, or 100, and so you add those things to the other, it usually happens in genetically susceptible people. I don't know the genetics of what it is that causes that, I just know that certain people have those problems, and so people who are susceptible to Lyme are often susceptible to mold, put the two together and it's an exponential problem and they just progressively tank, they just get really bad, worse and worse and worse. So wow, that's very interesting because as I said in the beginning, not all, but why are so many of the people that are sick from mold, you know, why do they also have Lyme? Thanks for listening to the Mold Matters podcast, be sure to subscribe for more in-depth information on mold illness and recovery.