In this episode, I interview my friend and colleague Dr. Roberta Van Zant DO, a functional medicine expert in many areas, but especially Lyme disease and tick-borne infections. 

Due to several reasons, including my background training as a chiropractor, scope of licensure (can't prescribe....), my practice style (cash-based consultations services - no insurance), and some other reasons that I discuss in the podcast, I personally don't dive as deep into infections as many other practitioners do - Lyme, Bartonella, EBV, CMV, HHV, HSV, Strep, Pseudomonas, Mycoplasma, etc - but that doesn't mean I don't think they matter in autoimmunity, they matter A LOT. 

Everyone knows that infections drive inflammation.  Everyone knows when they have the flu they don't want to get out of bed. Everyone knows when they have strep throat they can't hardly swallow. Everyone remembers 2020. My kids even know this stuff. Fevers, coughs, lethargy, earaches, belly aches, headaches - that's an immune response, and it's a GOOD THING most of the time. BUT, then it can get confusing when you go deeper than surface-level! 

There are a lot of different "types" of infection - acute, chronic, something you picked up from your kids vs. something that's been living inside of your body that has become imbalanced (yeast, SIBO, etc) vs. something that "reactivates" like a virus....then there are RNA viruses and DNA viruses, there are tick-borne infections that can lay dormant or be passed in utero to babies, there are biofilm colonies of bugs (which Dr. Van Zant describes as a "party" that we don't know who all is at at the party, but we know it's going on inside of us.....I love that!), and there are GOOD BUGS TOO - and it can be confusing. 

SO, in this episode, Dr. Van Zant and I discuss all of these things and more, including testing, treatment, some clinical tools we use, some reasons for why we do what we do when we do it, while both having the same goal - trying to help people get better.