Lyme Time with the Tick Chicks: Nutrition and Healing with Erika Schlick

April 30, 2020

This week, in Episode 5 of our podcast, “Lyme Time with the Tick Chicks,” we spoke with Health Coach, Blogger, and Cookbook Author of Wandering Palate, Erika Schlick. She was bitten by a tick in 2012 on a camping trip and has healed her chronic Lyme symptoms without antibiotics. Like us, Erika wants to share what she has learned throughout her healing journey with the hope that it might help you! With her permission, we have re-published Erika Schlick’s blog article “8 Puzzle Pieces to Heal from Lyme.” We think this read will give you additional insight as you listen to our in depth conversation with Erika on the podcast this week. 

8 Puzzle Pieces to Heal From Lyme

by Erika Schlick

(reposted with permission by Erika Schlick)

In the past 7 years that I have been healing from Lyme disease, I have come to realize there are some key components that must be addressed in order to fully heal. You can check out my blog post on “How I Healed From Lyme”  with in depth information on how I addressed each of these puzzle pieces, but this post serves as a high level overview on the 8 puzzle pieces needed to heal from Lyme Disease. 

Killing 

There is no way to heal from Lyme without doing some sort of killing on the microbes that have inhabited your body. In addition to the Borrelia bacteria, people typically have dozens of co-infections, parasites, and viruses that have all made their home in a depleted body. There are various killing modalities that can be used including ozone, herbals, homeopathics, antibiotics and more. I never used antibiotics to kill Lyme and am in remission today. I do however believe that at a certain point we have killed enough, that it is important to address these other pieces instead of just staying focused on killing.

Detox

Detox is a huge piece of healing from Lyme. Often times Lyme patients have less than desirable genetics such as the HLA Genotypes and compromised methylation which causes our body to hold on to heavy metals and not detox toxins properly. This day in age we are also exposed to many toxic chemicals in our homes, food, and environment that can all wear down our body and immune system.

In addition to everyday exposures, most Lyme patients have also had a run in with mold and develop Biotoxin illness. With some people, they get exposed to mold first and that starts to wear down their immune system and then get Lyme, or the other way around. Either way, the two compounded are enough to take anybody down.

I really believe that detoxing mold, heavy metals, solvents, chemicals, pesticides and more, was a key piece to recovery. If you have breast implants you may want to look into BII and removing the implants as well as they can really tax the immune system. The more we can clean our body out, the less hospitable a place it is for pathogens. It is also important to have a regular detox regime, including infrared sauna, colonics, binders, antioxidants and many more to really help support your body and get rid of things that don’t belong in it.

Immune Modulation

Immune Modulation is one phase that I think often gets overlooked. At the end of the day, Lyme attacks our immune system and depletes it. It really comes down to getting our immune system to work right again and supporting it to do so. This can be done with treatments like Thymus Therapy, LDI, Stem Cell Therapy, and Exosomes. I found stem cells and Thymus to be the most effective for myself but have yet to try exosomes, though I am interested in them as another way to give my body and immune system an additional boost.

Dental

Most doctors don’t know to address the mouth, but this is a very vital part of the healing process as well. If you have amalgams in your mouth, the mercury needs to come out before you chelate. If you have had a root canal or wisdom teeth removed, Cavitations are most likely an issue and need to be addressed. If you are a chronic grinder with TMJ this needs to be addressed with chirodontics as well. I highly recommend reading Dr Panahpours book (https://www.systemicdentist.com/), The Good Dentist and learning more about how critical this piece of the puzzle is for healing.

Diet / Gut

Here is one of my favorite items on the list. Diet is so so critical to healing and staying in remission. Our food is medicine and the sooner we can see it that way the better we will feel and start to heal. I truly believe that it is absolutely critical to eat a clean diet to recover. If you have Lyme and an autoimmune condition you should definitely be gluten free, sugar free and dairy free at the very minimum. I would go on to suggest that you also are grain free, legume free and nightshade free and see how you feel for a minimum of 30 days.

I truly do not believe you can heal on a plant based diet. Your immune system and body needs protein, cholesterol and healthy fats to heal and you just can’t get that from a purely plant based diet. Not to mention plant based diets can be high in lectins and anti-nutrients which can actually prevent your body from absorbing the nutrients it needs. If you want to eat more plant based try to make sure you are getting a lot of healthy fats from coconut oil, avocado, olives and try to eat pasture raised eggs as much as you can.  I was plant based for 10 years and I definitely think it contributed to me getting sick. I feel so much healthier eating grass fed animal protein again.

I highly suggest looking into the AIP Diet (Autoimmune Paleo) which is a strict elimination diet that takes out inflammatory foods and this made a huge difference for me.  After the AIP Diet I did a modified Paleo Diet and then went on to the Bulletproof Diet. Now I eat what I call the Erika Diet. I used a variety of tools, such as GenoPalate, Viome and Everlywell Food allergy testing and elimination diets to make sure I am eating the best foods for my body.  In addition to diet, it is very important to work on healing your gut, and addressing issues such as candida, SIBO and other potential gut infections. I liked to get a lot of bone broth and collagen/gelatin into my diet as well to help seal your gut lining. To this day I still eat a very strict paleo / bulletproof style diet. As a matter of fact, I literally eat my cookbook I wrote, The Wandering Palate  each month since it is a 28 day meal plan so if you want to eat what I am eating, order a copy today.

Emotional Work

I truly believe there are two types of emotions that need to be addressed when sick. First, there are the emotions of what caused your illness. This can be trauma, unresolved emotions, childhood trauma, feeling out of place in the world and some believe even generational trauma that has been passed down for generations. There was a study done that adverse childhood events (ACE) can lead to chronic illness and autoimmune illness later in life. The second part is the emotion of being sick and being ready to heal. Sure we all want to heal and recover from this wretched illness but we might be subconsciously sabotaging ourselves and I see this a lot with some clients I work with, especially people that have been sick a very long time. It might come in the form of that your entire social circle is your Lyme community and you fear that getting better you will have no community anymore.  Maybe you have someone that is your caretaker and not sure how to shift that role, or you haven’t worked in years and not sure what you will do with your life once you get better. These can all be scary thoughts that might be subconsciously sabotaging us. We have to be emotionally ready to heal in order to get better.

Supportive Therapies

In addition to all the treatments that target Lyme, Co-Infections and detox, it is also important to incorporate supportive therapies that address other parts of the puzzle that can be keeping you sick. These are just a few of the ones I found helpful in my journey but everyone is unique and might have other issues they also need to address.

Genetics

As I mentioned above, most people with Lyme have compromised genetics, particularly if you have the HLA gene. It is important to get some support for your SNPS especially MTHFR, CBS, COMT and Histamine related genes. Just because you have a gene does not mean it will cause issues forever or is expressing. You can get your genetic data through 23andMe and then work with practitioners like Tree of Life to interpret your data.

Mitochondria Support

Our mitochondria are the parts of our cells that make energy for our bodies. With chronic illness and age they can get weak and depleted. You can support your mitochondria with supplements like L-Carnitine, CoQ10, Uridine and NAD. I also recommend checking out Dave Asprey’s book, Headstrong with other tips on how to support mitochondria.

Neurotransmitter Testing & Adjustments

Balancing neurotransmitters can make a world of difference, especially in your mental health and stability. I highly recommend looking into this before taking anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications that can cause lots of side effects and tend to mask the issue at hand. I used the NeuroScience Inc testing and line of supplements that my doctor managed for me.

Endocrine System

Making sure our endocrine system is working optimally can be vital to feeling better. Many people with Lyme have compromised thyroids and then to boot most doctors have no idea how to optimize thyroids. Many doctors do not even do the right labs and then if they do, they often put you on medication that is not working to balance it. A lot of times people have compromised conversion of T4 – T3 and your body needs T3 for your thyroid to work properly since its s the active form your body uses.

After 6 years of dealing with Hashimoto’s I finally found a doctor that really understands thyroid and I feel the best I have in years. Even once I was in remission from Lyme, I was still having thyroid symptoms and issues and doing some simple tweaks to my medication and dosage has made a world of difference. It can be hard to separate what is Lyme and what is thyroid so optimizing this may clear up a lot of the symptoms you thought were Lyme.

Adrenal Support

This can be another factor that keeps your fatigue high and can be hard to get out of the cycle of fight or flight. There are some good adrenal tinctures that can help with this and trying to get adequate sleep can help.

Sleep

This one is so hard but so important. Our bodies heal when we sleep and getting adequate rest is so critical. Most people with chronic illness have a hard time getting quality restful sleep but make sure to check out my  blog. All of  my sleep hacks are in this blog post and hopefully this helps you get more rest too.

Secondary conditions

I think it is also important to rule out autoimmune conditions that may have triggered on such as Hashimoto’s or Celiac etc. These conditions might need support like thyroid hormone to feel better and can make a world of difference. You might think every symptom is caused by lyme, but it might be a food allergy or that your thyroid needs support and it can help resolve some of your symptoms.  Again, everyone is so individual with this so it is really about treating the individual.

Supportive Therapies

I think its key to find other treatments that can help you feel better. Whether this is acupuncture, meditation, sound healing, or whatever else you find that helps you. Find it, listen to your body and do more of it.

Environment

I feel like that I have already touched on this topic in this post, but it deserves it’s own section just to reiterate it. We have to have a clean and healing environment in order to heal. That means making sure you are not living in mold, you are not living near a freeway, you are not being exposed to VOCs from paint that you are not surrounded by EMFs and so many other things that can wear our body and immune system down.

It also means making sure your living situation is conducive to healing. Are you in a safe home, a happy relationship, a healing environment? Does your space get fresh air and daylight? These things are all important to heal your body.

I can’t tell you how many people I hear trying numerous expensive lyme treatments and then months later find out their home is full of mold and that has been preventing them from healing. Make sure your home and workplace is clean and safe by using Mycometrics test kit.

In Conclusion

Well that is my Lyme healing in a nutshell. I hope this helps others on their path. There is light at the end of the tunnel and you can get better. Hang in there and try it all. I am also available for coaching sessions (https://thetrailtohealth.com/coaching) and happy to help you on your path. You can start by scheduling a discovery call (https://thetrailtohealth.com/1on1coaching/discoverycall) and we can find what is right for you.

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