Looking at Lyme

In today’s podcast, Sarah is joined by Jim Wilson, founder and President of CanLyme — the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation. After contracting Lyme disease 30 years ago in Nova Scotia, Canada, Jim dedicated his time and energy to improving the lives of Lyme patients and their families, helping to bring a balanced perspective of Lyme disease to the forefront. Jim began to question the understanding of Lyme disease when his daughter and several others were diagnosed with Lyme disease in British Columbia, despite the perception that Lyme disease was only prevalent in the eastern United States. He notes that even now, patients are having to seek out answers to questions about Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment that remain unanswered within the current medical system.

Since its inception, CanLyme has helped to educate both the public and physicians regarding Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. CanLyme supports Lyme disease research and has raised the public profile of Lyme disease for the general public through media and within various levels of government.

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Sarah explores an integrative approach to medicine with Dr. Kenneth Bock from the Hudson Valley, in New York. Dr. Bock’s natural curiosity, investigative approach, along with his appreciation for complex medical cases set the foundation for his integrative practice. His first Lyme patient in 1985 initially came in with a swollen toe that didn’t seem to have a medical cause. After a thorough investigation which included researching Lyme disease, he discovered that the patient had travelled to Block Island, an area known to be endemic for Lyme. The patient was subsequently diagnosed with Lyme disease and was successfully treated. 

Dr. Bock explains that his “medical detective” approach involves breaking down problems, then putting that information back together to solve problems. He also emphasizes the importance of looking and listening, open ended questions during patient interviews, and spending plenty of time with patients.

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Posttraumatic growth is not only the topic of today’s podcast, it is also the process that birthed the Looking at Lyme podcast. Sarah explores posttraumatic growth with Dr. Richard Tedeschi, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, faculty member of the Posttraumatic Research Group and distinguished chair of the Boulder Crest Institute for Posttraumatic Growth. 

Dr. Tedeschi and his colleague, Dr. Lawrence Calhoun, have been working in this area since the 1980s and have developed the academic theory of posttraumatic growth. As psychologists, the pair were interested in finding out what makes people wise, and interviewed people who had experienced either physical disability or bereavement. They found that these individuals had gained wisdom and experienced positive changes in their lives in the aftermath of their traumas. A decade into this work, they coined the term posttraumatic growth to describe this process.

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Sarah discusses the use of neural therapy for pain management with Dr. Kumar Biswas, a Canadian naturopathic doctor on Vancouver Island. Developed in the early 1900’s in Germany, neural therapy is now practiced across Europe and North America. Dr. Biswas explains that biological medicine, which is practiced throughout Europe, integrates alternative medicine and modern medicine. While modern medicine is based on diagnosis, biological medicine is based on functional physiology, and aims to understand and correct imbalances in the body. He further explains that functional medicine has developed in the US in recent years as a marriage of the art and science of medicine.

Neural therapy was developed in Germany. Local anaesthetics were injected into various structures in the body, including parts of the autonomic nervous system, to bring regulation to the body. Dr. Biswas explains that procaine is not only a local anaesthetic, it also balances or upregulates nerves by normalizing their charge. He elaborates that interference fields occur with changes in tissue due to things like surgery, piercings, tattoos, traumas, infection and inflammation. A surgical scar can cause an interference in the electrical, physical and energetic flow within the body. He explains that changes can occur in the direction of charge within the autonomic nervous system, and that an injection can help bring balance back into that process. Dr. Biswas points out that these treatments are not yet considered conventional medicine, although some medical doctors and anesthesiologists in Canada and the US have been trained and are using the techniques.

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In today’s podcast, Sarah explores Lyme disease from a nursing perspective with Nurse Practitioner Dr. Ginger Savely. Dr. Savely has specialized in the treatment of patients with tick-borne illnesses for the past two decades, and has authored and co-authored many articles in nursing and medical journals. Now living in Washington, DC, she first started researching Lyme while living in Texas, when her 16 year old daughter became very ill with the disease. Dr. Savely later became quite ill with the disease, eventually leading her to make it the focus of her own practice. She notes that many healthcare providers research and specialize in the Lyme after experiencing a personal encounter with the disease, which is much more complex than many other infectious diseases.

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Today we explore one of the many ways the CanLyme Educators’ Resource can be put into action. In this podcast, Sarah reaches Mike Horembala in the Foothills of Alberta. Mike, known to his students as “Mr. H’, is a Vice Principal and teacher with a passion for the outdoors. He developed a program within the Foothills School District called “Go Wild,” where students can learn about the outdoors while earning credits. Students participate in day trips and multi-day expeditions... hiking, canoeing, kayaking, backcountry skiing and snowshoeing amongst many other outdoor activities.

Mike describes outdoor education programs as an antidote to “Nature Deficit Disorder,” a term coined by Richard Louv based on our disconnect from the natural world. Mike notes that not only do behaviour issues seen in the classroom often fall away when kids get outdoors, but those kids are likely to become leaders in the outdoor environment. He also sees outdoor adventure as a way to foster a sense of curiosity and independence. Balancing these incredible learning opportunities with rigorous safety protocols and processes is something Mike takes very seriously. In his classroom, the safety protocols themselves serve as valuable learning tools that students will retain as they become independent outdoor enthusiasts.

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We turn our gaze northward to Thunder Bay, Ontario to chat with entomologist Dr. Ken Deacon. While working on a contract with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, he saw the first wood tick in the Thunder Bay area in 2003. He then saw the first black-legged tick in 2005 and has continued to follow the progression of their habitat expansion.

He points out that ticks can now be found in northern areas where they never existed in the past, and sees this as a clear indicator of climate change. Not only are the ticks living further north, they are also surviving through the winter. He has observed fluctuations in northern tick populations which appear to coincide with winter temperatures and snow cover. He notes that milder winter temperatures along with a deep insulating layer of snow give ticks a much better chance at surviving the winter.

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In the words of Optometrist Dr. Cameron McCrodan, “you don’t see with your eyes, you see with your brain.” What is the relationship between the eyes, the brain and some symptoms of Lyme disease? Dr. McCrodan explains that our brains are not only tasked with receiving visual stimuli, they also influence how the information is interpreted and how our eyes function. Although these topics were touched upon during his optometry education, his engineering mindset drew him to further explore this relationship between the eyes and the brain. As his knowledge expanded, he found that some of the symptoms his own family members were experiencing could be explained in this way, and his own practice evolved to embrace what he was learning and seeing in his own practice.

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Sarah explores the latest research on astrocytes, gut bacteria and neuroinflammation with scientist and medical researcher Dr. Francisco Quintana. Dr. Quintana is a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He describes some of the causes of neuroinflammation including infection, tumours and auto-immune disease. So what does all of that have to do with astrocytes? 

Astrocytes are a type of glial cell found in the central nervous system. These cells were first described over 100 years ago and were given their celestial name because they are shaped like a star. Even though they are the most abundant type of cell in the brain, Dr. Quintana points out that we are just now beginning to understand their function. One of the important functions of the glymphatic system is in regulating the movement of fluids in and out of the brain. Once seen as having more of a supportive role in the brain, astrocytes are now understood to help regulate inflammation - an important finding in the study of diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimers and Parkinson’s disease. In fact, Dr. Quintana states that the astrocytes can, “boost and drive inflammation and that’s very important because, so far, we have no therapies to actually suppress those pro-inflammatory activities.”

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Join us for a candid conversation with Ironman athlete, Angela Naeth. Angela contracted Lyme disease in 2018, the same year she completed the Ironman race in Kona, Hawaii. Born in Prince George BC, and now living in Massachusetts, Angela has had to continually adapt and evolve in order to optimize both her own health and her performance as an athlete. She describes the learning curve that many Lyme patients are faced with in trying to navigate this complicated disease. After seeing many doctors and finally receiving a Lyme diagnosis, she had to research various treatments and be her own advocate to receive treatment. One of the added challenges throughout this process was that she appeared healthy but felt extremely unwell.

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