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 Lyme360 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's 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.
Mimi:
Eight years ago, I started using Beauty Counter for my cosmetics and personal care products. They are the leaders in clean, safer products that work. Beauty Counter has done the research and taken the guesswork out of what is safe. Go to Lyme360.com/beautycounter to learn more. Reach out to me mimi@lyme360.com If you want to learn more or find out what my favorite products are.
Mimi:
Welcome back to the Heal Podcast. This is Mimi, your host from Lyme360. Today we have Jolene Hart and she's a former magazine beauty editor turned health coach who has been educating women on the deep connection between diet, lifestyle and beauty for over a decade. She is a mom, a passionate cook and recipe creator, and a chronic illness warrior with late stage Lyme disease and co-infections. She was diagnosed with Lyme and co-infections in 2017 after eight years of symptoms that became debilitating post-partum. Treating since 2018 with a Lyme literate doctor, much improved, but not yet in remission. Her private coaching looks at many areas of life from stress and hormones to diet, digestion, and safe personal care products, to help her clients build a lifestyle that enables them to look and feel their best from the inside.
Mimi:
To get my detox for Lyme checklists, go to Lyme360.com/detoxchecklist.
Mimi:
Jolene, thank you so much for coming on today. I'm excited to have you, and I want to hear about your Lyme journey and then also about how it relates to skin and what you're doing now that you left becoming an editor of a beauty magazine. We'll get to start out with your Lyme story and thank you so much for coming on.
Jolene:
Thank you for having me. My Lyme story, like so many others is not short, so I'll give you an abbreviated version. I think I know now that I've had Lyme and co-infections for about 12 years, but for a very long time, about eight years, I just managed my symptoms. I was undiagnosed and those symptoms were really limited to my nervous system and my heart, so cardiac and neuro system. I didn't have any pain, that wasn't one of my presentations and I think that was one of the reasons why it took me eight years to be diagnosed.
Jolene:
But during that time I did have some serious heart issues. I had two ablations, two heart surgeries. I was on different medications for my heart to try to resolve episodes of tachycardia, which would send me to the ER and they would stem from any kind of exertion. So for me, having been a runner, having been loving the outdoors and just moving my body as being part of my health and my therapy, it was very restrictive, but I was able to manage my symptoms and I was always told that it was an idiopathic condition and one day it might resolve itself and all of that.
Mimi:
So how did you ultimately figure out that it was Lyme?
Jolene:
Well, about six years in, it was kind of like a perfect storm of life events. And I know I've heard this scenario through many other people, but my son was around 23 months old and I had just started to wean him so I'm having some hormonal fluctuations. I had a stressful business trip across the country, there was a health issue in my family that was stressful. There was a few different things going on at once within the same few weeks and my body just completely crashed. And I went from being able to manage my symptoms as long as I kind of restricted my movement or a lot of exertion, to not being able to walk down the street or carry my son for a block or push a stroller.
Jolene:
It was so dramatic and so debilitating. And my cardiologist couldn't figure out a solution. Primary care doctors didn't really have any answers. And I immediately went to see a functional medicine doctor and I spent about two years with that functional medicine doctor before I finally got my Lyme and co-infection diagnosis. So it was another two years of just completely debilitating illness to even try to get that diagnosis.
Mimi:
So your functional medicine doctor didn't think of Lyme?
Jolene:
My functional medicine doctor, who actually, she calls herself a Lyme literate doctor, tested for it, but was not able to get any kind of results until we started treating with Biocidin and some herbals that were started to kind of bring out the evidence of Lyme. For me, she really pinpointed mold toxicity and that was from an apartment that we were renting in Philadelphia. And I had all the symptoms of mold toxicity and we were working on that, but I wasn't getting better. And because I was a health coach, I already ate organic, I was gluten free, I was mostly plant-based, I was doing all of the things with my diet and still the needle wasn't moving at all. And so it really took, yeah, it was like in nearly two years with her to figure out that Lyme was at the core.
Mimi:
Wow. And so what did you ultimately, how did you ultimately get better? What kind of treatment?
Jolene:
So I'm still not in remission, but the improvements have been dramatic. I actually went from doing only diet and herbs and holistic treatments to moving to treating with anti-malarials and antibiotics, and having used the combination of both. So I'm still treating with both of those. For me, babasia has been a really big thing and that's really what contributed to a lot of my heart issues and dysautonomia, autonomic nervous system issues, because what really remains for me is a lot of the dysautonomia and pots and a little bit of mast cell. So kind of my immune system being overactive now from so many years of being under threat and under stress.
Mimi:
It's funny because I'm at the, it seemed like we're at the same level, where we are in our process and mine is also the, I get severe, I don't know if you get this, that's what I'm curious. I get really bad hives just from my mast cell and I have yet to meet anybody that I get, it looks like I had a bee stings, like a hundred bee stings all over my body when I get it. And it's only from my waist down. It's just the weirdest thing.
Jolene:
It's amazing the different manifestations. So for me, mast cell, it's gastrointestinal and it's my cardiac system. It's my nervous system. So if I eat something that's a trigger, I get heart palpitations, tachycardia, fast heart rate, incredible like shaking and weakness, need to use the bathroom immediately and nothing on my skin at all, no itching or anything like that.
Mimi:
Yeah. Did you ever read Gone in a Heartbeat? I think that's what it's called.
Jolene:
I haven't, I feel like it would be very triggering for me, but I do know about the book.
Mimi:
Well, it's interesting because I had a lot of heart palpitations. I remember one time go to the emergency room thinking I was having a heart attack and they're like, "No, you're having an anxiety attack." And I'm like, "No, it's not an anxiety attack." And I remember reading his book a long time ago when he first came out with it. And I shouldn't say, I read it like four or five years ago, I don't know when he came out with it. And I like started crying because I felt like, wait, I felt like there were so many of the same symptoms that it validated kind of what.
Jolene:
It's so validating and I've read that story. And it still amazes me that, I live in Pennsylvania so that's the number one state for Lyme, even though it is everywhere in the US and presenting with the symptoms that I had in my early thirties, I was 30 years old, I think I was 29 when they started, as a runner with no other health issues, it still shocks me that it was never part of the conversation. And I was told you just need to relax.
Mimi:
Yeah, your job is too stressful.
Jolene:
You're drinking to get too much green tea. And I'm like, "I don't even drink. I don't drink any caffeine. I don't drink coffee. Trust me. I know my body, this is not normal." And it just never came up.
Mimi:
Yep. So I would love to dive into what you're doing now. You've written a couple of books and you have another one coming out next week. And so I would love to see how that ties back to Lyme.
Jolene:
Absolutely. So around the same time, this is all happening with my health I was working as a health coach. So I come from the beauty world, which was fun. It was my dream job. It was working as a beauty editor at In Style. But I kind of found at that point in my life, I was having a ton of cystic acne, eczema, I was having manifestations on my skin, that products weren't cutting it, nothing was getting to the core and healing my skin. And I come from a family, my mom is a nurse. She's a holistic health mom, birth mom. She started a food co-op when I was little. And she used to always say, "Food is so connected to what's going on in your body." So I went on this journey and left my position as a beauty editor to become a health coach and really focus on healing skin issues, focusing on beauty, I guess, from the inside out is how we say it now, beauty from the inside.
Jolene:
And so my first three books, they're a series called Eat Pretty, are all about nutrition for beauty season by season. So what's happening in your body, different seasons of the year and what foods can you eat? What habits can you have to stay in balance in those seasons that keep yourself thriving and glowing and being healthy. And that was where I was when Lyme really hit me hard. I actually had just finished writing my third book. And that was part of that perfect storm was like, I had a book deadline that week and it all kind of came together and I crashed.
Jolene:
And since then, I've really shifted to look at your personal energy and what does that do for not only beauty, because it is going to factor into the way your body ages and the way your health affects you day to day, but also your resilience and the healing process. What does energy have to do with healing and how you can maintain something like a chronic illness, six, seven, 10 years of living with an illness and still find that joy day-to-day. And if and when you can do that, how does that support your body and its healing process and thriving?
Jolene:
So my latest two books that you're mentioning, the first is called Ignite Your Light and that is all about the power of our personal energy to be basically a super power that does drive the healing process, but also drives finding happiness day to day, even amidst challenges, life stresses. We had this pandemic hit last year and our personal energy really determines how we're going to move forward from a lot of it. So the book is all about, it's arranged by the times of the day, so sunrise, daylight, sunset, and moonlight, and in those kinds of quadrants of the day, which you can all kind of put ourselves into and I designed it that way so you can really think about what your day looks like in terms of those moments.
Jolene:
Within each chapter I talk about what are the main influences on your energy at that time of the day? So during the work day, it might be your creativity, it might be your relationships at work. It might be the pace of your breath. In the evening it might be the way that you, your home environment, you come home, what are you eating? What is the light like in your home? What are you doing as you close your day, your release practices, your spirituality, the way you settle into sleep and reset for the next day? And the book really looks at 13 core aspects of your energy, I call them the energy influencers, that really do impact the healing process and also your health, your beauty and your resilience.
Mimi:
That's great. And then the Shine On is next week?
Jolene:
Yeah. So Shine On is now coming out, it's actually a guided journal that goes along with Ignite Your Light. It also stands alone, but if you like to write and I use it as a therapeutic tool, I swear writing these books was also really cathartic to me, if you like to write and you like to reflect and I think in our culture, and I know we're both moms, what time do you actually have to reflect during the day, to have quiet and to think about what's affecting you, just noticing as the first step to making any kind of energetic change in shifting the way that you feel, it's just stopping to notice and reflect, yeah, that the interaction really did impact me, or this habit that I do every morning, it really sets me off on the wrong pace for the day.
Jolene:
So just stopping to kind of reflect is the power of that journal. So it guides you through all 13 of those influencers throughout your day, but in a way that you can kind of write through them and reflect on how they impact you. And then it ends with 30 days of morning planning and evening reflection. So you get up in the morning and you're planning the goals you have for the day, setting intentions. And in the evening you're reflecting on what kind of interactions really affected me today? What were the things that stood out to be the most healing and the most joyful for me? And how can I do that and make that better for tomorrow?
Jolene:
So the journal is a more interactive tool and I just love using both. I like using journaling with my clients because I find that when they journal and they come back to me, they have the most profound insights themselves just realizing things about themselves, that they never took time to make space to notice.
Mimi:
That's great. Well, I wish you the best of luck with your launch, the newest launch as well with both books, that's pretty aggressive to have two books in a short amount of time. So that's great. Now, do your clients, you don't specifically work with Lyme patients, but do you have any Lyme patients at all or do you find?
Jolene:
I actually don't and I don't feel like I'm in a place where I could, I don't know, I'm still on my journey. It wasn't until I healed my skin that I felt like I could be a coach and guide others and I still kind of feel like that with Lyme. And it's interesting, it's such an individual experience. That's true with skin issues too. I mean, someone comes to me and says, "I have acne." There's not a single thing that I can say, "Oh, you just need to eat this food or do this." There are half a dozen core root causes of what could be an imbalance in your body that might be causing something like acne, but with Lyme, I think it's even, it's even more nuanced, right?
Mimi:
But I actually had during my time, a couple of years ago, I was getting really bad cystic acne that started scarring.
Jolene:
I've had that too and it's funny because I hadn't had breakouts for over 10 years. And when I started then as I know now, supporting my liver a bit more, doing some more castor packs, that completely went away. So I knew at that point, my liver was kind of overburdened with maybe I wasn't detoxing enough. And that's been a core of my treatment and progress is just making sure that I detox as much as I'm treating along the way.
Mimi:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And what do you typically find as like the most common causes of acne?
Jolene:
So for some women, it's for sure hormonal, for others it might be gut dysbiosis. So the surface of your skin is really reflective of what's going on in your gut. And it's interesting because if you go to a dermatologist with acne, a lot of the times you'll be given an antibiotic to treat it. And the antibiotic is not doing any favors for your gut health, so you wind up sometimes in a worse place than where you started in treating acne. For others, it might be a nutritional imbalance.
Jolene:
And for sure, for everyone, we work on blood sugar balance and as women, we don't get this core class that I think we need on hormone health, blood sugar, how to eat for feeling satiated and also having steady blood sugar until the next meal. We've had so much messaging around to stay at a certain weight you might want to skip a meal or eat a yogurt, or that's not a meal that's going to give your body what it needs.
Jolene:
You need to have a quality source of protein, you need to have healthy fat and abundant, colorful produce at each meal and combine that. And that's how you burn slowly and evenly over four or five, maybe even six hours without a crash that leaves you craving sugar, caffeine, simple carbs to get you through to the next meal. And so, so many of us are on that blood sugar roller coaster all day long and as we do it, it sends this stress signal. Your body's pumping out the stress hormone cortisol because it's a stressful state to be in that blood sugar imbalanced state. And that is a big driver of hormone imbalance that fuels breakouts in so many women.
Mimi:
Wow, this has been great and I really appreciate your time. And if anyone wants to find you, it's at Jolenehart.com, J-O-L-E-N-E H-A-R-T.com. Is there anything before we wrap up, is there anything else that you think we haven't covered that the listeners would find useful, especially as it relates to Lyme?
Jolene:
I do really think energy is so powerful in your journey. And just remembering that you are the one that writes your story, I think has been so motivational and so empowering to me to keep going and to keep pushing and driving and following my intuition in certain areas of this journey, that just remembering that I could settle for a diagnosis or one treatment or something that's not working, but remembering that I write my story and I'm in charge has been really powerful for me.
Mimi:
It's very true. To just take this as a journey and kind of embrace it and learn from it, what you need to, right?
Jolene:
Absolutely.
Mimi:
This has been great. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And I wish you the best of health as we both continue to get back to our a hundred percent and continue following our passion. So thank you, I really appreciate it.
Jolene:
Thank you so much for what you do. It's been so informational to go back and listen to your archives and I will continue to be a follower because there's some amazing information on these podcasts.
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.
