Mimi:
Welcome to the Heal podcast, for all things related to Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses. I'm Mimi MacLean, mom of five, founder of Lyme 360 and a Lyme Warrior. Tune in each week to hear from doctors, health practitioners and experts to hear about their treatments, struggles and triumphs to help you on your healing journey. I'm here to heal with you.
Mimi:
Before we get started with the podcast, I wanted to talk to you about what is in your personal care products and cosmetics. What you put on your skin, which is your largest organ, is just as important as what you consume. Your body immediately absorbs what is on the skin. But did you know that there is limited regulation in the personal care industry? And the last law that was passed was 1938. So the chemicals and ingredients in your products have not been tested for human safety. So for those of you struggling with your health, it is super important to use clean products. Eight years ago, I started using Beautycounter for my cosmetics and personal care products. They are the leaders in clean, safer products that work. Beautycounter has done the research and taking the guesswork out of what is safe. Go to lyme360.com/beautycounter to learn more. Reach out to me at mimi@lyme360.com if you want to learn more or find out what my favorite products are.
Mimi:
To get my detox for Lyme checklist, go to lyme360.com/detoxchecklist.
Mimi:
(silence)
Dr. Mark:
And so really, it's going to come down to usually factors of the patient's principle preference, pharmaceutical or not pharmaceutical, and then cost. Cost is always the big factor.
Dr. Mark:
... Are often sequelae of and related or associated with Lyme or actually are co-
Dr. Mark:
Parasites are hard to diagnose, substantiate, on paper. So it's on my list in that three-pronged approach with the cures method.
Mimi:
Yes. Yes. Can you tell me about that? I'd never heard that word until you mentioned it to me. So I'd love to dive into that a little bit more, what that is.
Dr. Mark:
There's a lot of data that we can gather. A lot of it is insurance covered labs for each of these three categories. So under the self, we've got topics of your immune system, which is humongous, right? Now, especially with the pandemic, everyone is-
Dr. Mark:
... Herpes type one and two.
Mimi:
Right. The warts when you're little kids that's on your hands.
Dr. Mark:
Oh yeah. Parvovirus, slapped cheek. Viruses, toxins.
Mimi:
Now, if we could touch on the exposome of, is it detoxing? How do you address?
Mimi:
... Saunas, is it-
Dr. Mark:
(silence)
Dr. Mark:
And usually, we'd be able to assess how much the person needs to do to detox based on their story to date.
Dr. Mark:
(silence)
Dr. Mark:
... In terms of-
Mimi:
I would love to talk about that because I think, peptides, from what I gathered.
Mimi:
(silence)
Dr. Mark:
So, first of all, I'm always sensitive to the cost factor, for sure. And so the first question in my mind is, "How necessary is it?" I may bring it up to the table because I don't want to assume things for patients. Everyone's got a different value system as to what's worthwhile or not.
Dr. Mark:
Categorically.
Dr. Mark:
(silence)
Dr. Mark:
... Practice in that style and are touting. But Ta1 I just love, right?
Dr. Mark:
... Marked by the FDA as being adjunct therapy for HIV, three cancers.
Dr. Mark:
(silence)
Dr. Mark:
And then of course BPC-157 and thymus and Beta-4 are probably two of the most common otherwise used. They all have their sort of different nuances, right, as to how they work and what they're beneficial for, which is-
Dr. Mark:
... Expectation of what's going to come out of using that peptide versus that. Whereas, someone's getting an injection of stem cell therapy, it's-
Dr. Mark:
(silence)
Mimi:
When you don't feel well.
Mimi:
... Avoiding taking my peptides because who wants to be stuck every day?
Dr. Mark:
Absolutely.
Mimi:
... Distribute now. I don't even think I can get them anymore, but I'm not sure, I haven't tried.
Dr. Mark:
Yeah.
Mimi:
But yeah, anything that works, they seem to be going after coagulation.
Dr. Mark:
(silence)
Dr. Mark:
So what I talk about with patients is this.
Dr. Mark:
Taking more of a beating, right? And again-
Dr. Mark:
... Components to it. Everyone thinks about the immune system as defense, right? If we have a wound in our leg, if we have a cut on her leg, the reason it heals is because of your immune system. Well, part of healing and recovery and repair is creating sticky blood. I liken it to glue. Like If you're putting things together, you need the glue to do so. Right?
Dr. Mark:
Even primary care patients, I say, "Hey."
Dr. Mark:
... Paper, just observationally, like, hey, these are not people who had concerns for a DVT or a pulmonary embolism. They're not in the ER, which we know-
Mimi:
What was that from?
Dr. Mark:
That's the thing. A lot of these folks with fibromyalgia, they're not with chronic fatigue, but they have some chronic health symptoms that are just manageable, right? They're a lower level, like in that mild, moderate, severe illness. There might be a mild illness person, but-
Mimi:
They don't even realize it.
Dr. Mark:
If I go testing them for Lyme or whatnot, there's a decent chance I'm going to find it, right? They just weren't sick enough that they've complained about it or brought it to my attention or felt like they wanted to deal with it or whatever. Right?
Dr. Mark:
... Is a big deal.
Dr. Mark:
The commuter train brings people into Boston, right? And if the people in the train are like the nutrients.
Dr. Mark:
... A stickiness of the doors, you're going to be left with extra toxin in the end tissue as well. So it goes both ways. But in the end, if you think about it, if you're on a micro-scale level, not getting nutrition to your muscles or your brain, and then a flip side, you're also maintaining toxins there, no wonder people are dealing with chronic muscle fatigue or muscle pain or brain fog. It's like any tissue you want to talk about, the nerves, right? If the nerves aren't getting adequate supply, that's in even conventional medicine, where we're talking about CAN.
Dr. Mark:
So, no one really wants to be on Coumadin, right, as a prescription?
Mimi:
Yeah.
Dr. Mark:
... A proteinase, or something that basically it's an enzyme that breaks these things down.
Dr. Mark:
... Benefit if a person who's hypercoagulated. And other ones... The crust or the sticky blood. So lumbrokinase is touted by most practitioners that I've known to be the most potent. It's an enzyme that comes from earthworms.
Mimi:
Interesting that you bring that up. I just read, I don't know if you've read the book, Chronic, that just came out. But they talk about in there a lot about the history of Lyme and whatnot. And one of the things they addressed was-
Dr. Mark:
I've been rubbing my dog all the time. I'm taking the dog on just as many walks as everybody else, if not more. I've got ticks on me before. How come I don't have Lyme disease? I want to be tested. After going through the rigmarole of, "Okay, do you really want to get tested? What are you going to do with the results?" and yada yada.
Dr. Mark:
... Et cetera, it's a big stew, as you said.
Mimi:
So is there anything else you would like to talk about to anybody who's listening, about Lyme?
Dr. Mark:
... Time-consuming for the practitioners as well, because these are difficult cases, people are really sick.
Dr. Mark:
So yeah, I'm really passionate about having-
Dr. Mark:
... Basically a patient care program that's more of a group.
Dr. Mark:
A significant scaling of cost to patients, and it's hugely time efficient for the practitioners as well. And the hope here is that, or I shouldn't say the hope, the absolute plan, having already networked with a number of practitioners around the country and getting a sense of who might be interested in and is already interested, joint team collaborative effort on the practitioner side, again as a group, to help groups of patients. But also to be able to bring really top, top thinkers.
Dr. Mark:
Yeah, virtual webinars or summits, if you will, whether it's a one-time or if it's a series.
Dr. Mark:
... The clinicians in this program be able to implement.
Dr. Mark:
Super excited about it just as well. Yeah, that's where my real near future passion lies.
Dr. Mark:
Yeah. So our practice in Newburyport, again, it's a hybrid of primary care and consulting.
Dr. Mark:
... Because there's got to be a lot of patient advocacy that's necessary, that practitioners don't have the bandwidth or don't have the interest unfortunately, or whatever. It takes a village, we all know that.
Mimi:
... To reduce it, so they don't have to go through what a lot of us have gone through.
Dr. Mark:
Yeah.
Mimi:
But thank you so much.
Mimi:
Each week, I will bring you different voices from the wellness community so that they can share how they help their clients heal. You will come away with tips and strategies to help you get your life back. Thank you so much for coming on and I'm so happy you were here. Subscribe now and tune in next week if you want to learn how I detox. And you want to check out my detox for Lyme checklist, go to lyme360.com/detoxchecklist. You can also join our community at Lyme 360 Warriors on Facebook and let's heal together. Thank you.
