Homeopathy At Home with Melissa

Natural Ways to Protect Against Tick Bites

Melissa Crenshaw Season 4 Episode 23

Send a text to Melissa and she’ll answer it on the next episode.

Unlock the secrets to managing and preventing Lyme disease as we sit down with Tricia Soderstrom, the knowledgeable author of "Abounding in Hope or With Hope in Lyme." Tricia's personal journey, marked by a two-year battle with undiagnosed Lyme disease, sets the stage for a compelling discussion on the rise of ticks and the critical importance of awareness and education. In this episode, Tricia shares invaluable tips on protecting yourself and your loved ones from tick bites and addresses the challenges of managing your property to reduce exposure.

Discover the complexities of recognizing and addressing Lyme disease, with a focus on the diverse and often misleading symptoms that can lead to misdiagnosis. Tricia highlights the importance of personalized care through homeopathy, offering practical advice on immediately address  a tick bite and how to monitor and document your symptoms effectively. Learn why relying solely on lab tests can be problematic and the essential role patient education plays in managing this condition.

Explore holistic treatment approaches that have helped Tricia and her family navigate the tumultuous waters of Lyme disease. From dietary changes and supplements to homeopathic remedies and lifestyle adjustments, Tricia provides a comprehensive look at managing chronic illness. Gain insights into handling "healing crises," boosting mental resilience, and finding support from knowledgeable healthcare providers. This heartfelt episode also touches on the emotional challenges of writing a book drawn from personal hardship, underscoring the perseverance required to share one's story with the world.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Homeopathy at Home with Melissa. Hey, Melissa.

Speaker 2:

Hey, brie, it's great to see you again.

Speaker 1:

Always great to be here. We have a really fun special guest tonight that we have spoken with before, so you guys have seen her name If you've taken any of Melissa's classes, gateways specifically, we share her information. But, melissa, do you want to go ahead and introduce her and we'll get started.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks. So I'm so glad you're here, tricia. This is Tricia Soderstrom and she is the author of Abounding in Hope or With Hope in Lyme and where she shares encouragement and education about Lyme. She's done a ton of research and she's very, very knowledgeable. I took Tricia's class four years ago, I think, or three or something, and it was great. It was very, very helpful. And because there seem to be so many ticks this year I'm seeing and maybe we say that every year, I don't know, but this year I'm hearing it from everybody everywhere they're like there's so many ticks. You know, people are finding ticks on them and on their pets more, I think, than before, and I don't know why or if I'm just hearing it, but I wanted to invite Tricia on here to do some education about Lyme and ticks, and so thanks for being here, tricia.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for having me. I hate to say it, but I always love to share information about Lyme disease and those nasty little ticks that give us so much anxiety. I do think there is a lot more. You know, every year it does seem to get worse and worse, I don't know why. It almost seems like they're not dying off and they're just like I don't know, procreating. You know, faster and more, I think, when communities come in and build more houses, you know, there there's just nowhere for these, like the deer and the animals, to go, and so the ticks are just coming closer and closer to us. You know they don't have their the forest to go into and just drop off and do their thing. So they're, they're just coming more into the communities, and I think that's why we're having a bigger problem.

Speaker 3:

That makes sense. Yeah, so we do have to be careful, and that's where I come in. I like to help people just to be educated. That's where my course comes in. It teaches you how to prevent tick bites, right, and what happens if you do find one. I even talk about how to make your property a little bit safer.

Speaker 3:

And because it doesn't matter if you're in the and because it doesn't matter if you're in the city, it doesn't matter if you're in the country or just, you know, in a suburban area, ticks are everywhere and you know, and it really is a problem. So we need to pay attention to our environment and make sure that we're always doing tick checks every day. And that's, you know, when my family and I I'll just give you a little bit of history about my family and I we hiked a lot, we were outdoors a lot. We lived in a small townhouse and we were in a community, but we had some like a path where we could go walking. But even in our yard we would find ticks in our community. And I think it was because of that. You know the idea of building homes in these places where it used to be farmland or it used to be wood and then next thing, you know, you know these animals have nowhere to go, so they're kind of like all up in your yard and everything, so it doesn't really matter where you live.

Speaker 3:

But I began getting very sick back in about 2006, 2007, and didn't realize what was going on. I had very slow onset symptoms of joint pain and memory loss, fatigue, just horrible fatigue. Now I had just had my son. I was actually pregnant with him when I started having symptoms and then, after I had him, I couldn't stay awake. I never heard him at night when he was crying, heard him at night when he was crying and by the time I got diagnosed, which was two years later, I had lost. I thought I had dementia, like I could not function properly mentally. I was having a very difficult time walking, I had severe pain and I couldn't stay awake and I had heart palpitations. I had neurological you know a lot of neurological symptoms had heart palpitations. I had neurological, you know a lot of neurological symptoms. And I visited specialists for two years and not one of them ever suggested Lyme disease. So it was a chiropractor who mentioned Lyme disease and I never saw a tick, never had a bull's eye rash.

Speaker 3:

So fast forward. My kids were all diagnosed, my husband was diagnosed. We ended up being diagnosed with Lyme, bartonella, babesia, mycoplasma, heavy metal toxicity can cause these things to be worse, the symptoms of Lyme to be worse, and you know, of course, if you're on tap water or you were, you've ever had vaccines you're going to have some issues with a Lyme infection. But so we we proceeded to follow the protocols of antibiotics and we were on antibiotics for about four and a half years, heavy, heavy doses of antibiotics, three different types at one time. And then, with Babesia, we were on anti-malarial medication. So you can imagine the devastation that did to our immune system and to our gut health and and we weren't getting better.

Speaker 3:

Now my, my youngest daughter, had PANS, which is similar to PANDAS, caused by strep infection, and it causes a severe onset like a very quick onset of OCD and rage and anxiety and just a lot of terrible symptoms, gut symptoms and everything. And our doctors like every doctor I went to, they would treat us for a while and then they would throw up their hands. So we were very, very sick whole family, which is not uncommon, and I was so desperate to get my daughter help, especially that I ended up doing something I never thought I would ever do and that was go to a homeopath. So a lady at church recommended this homeopath and she said he got my son better. He was just like your daughter, you know. And I actually put it off for about three months and then, the more I, the more I prayed about it. I'm just like I really felt like God was leading me, you know, to go to this homeopath.

Speaker 3:

So I went and he did the intake, which was very different. I brought my all my notebooks, of labs and everything. He didn't even want to look at them and I was, like you know, very put off by that. And so he did his intake and he did his testing and he looked at her and he said do you want to get better? And she says yes. And he touched her hand and he says I can get you better. And we both just sobbed. We're like what? Like no one has given us hope. We felt so hopeless and within nine weeks she was able to get out of bed by herself without the OCD and anxiety, and it took another three years for her to get fully better. But she's an amazing young woman who travels around, she's a photographer, she's a health and wellness coach and she's just incredible. And he progressed to. You know, he got all of us better.

Speaker 3:

As soon as we saw, you know, that our daughter was improving, my husband was like, get us all on the list, we all need to go.

Speaker 3:

And, and you know that our daughter was improving, my husband was like, get us all on the list, we all need to go. And, and you know, mind you, this is very unconventional. He treats energetically, he does energetic testing, and it was just really out of our comfort zone. But the way he explained it was very scientific and it wasn't like it didn't conflict with my Christian values. It didn't make me feel like I was doing something wrong. You know, going to him and, and, honestly, I had done so much research up until that point that when I went to him, I just let my guard down and let him do what he needed to do, and because I felt like it was safe, I just felt really safe and I had never felt that way before, and it wasn't until I met you that I wanted, I had this desire to start learning more about homeopathy and and so I started learning about it so that I could use it every day, and so that's what we do now.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I love it. It's so funny. I really really laughed when you said you brought all the labs and the tests and all the things. And he was like I don't need to see any of that, because I get that almost every day. Like, do you want me to send you all of my tests and labs? I don't need it. And so and I heard you also say you were put off by that, and I can imagine, I can see that.

Speaker 2:

You know where people think that, where they've been so reliant on those tests and those labs. And then the next question always is how are you going to know how to help me if you don't have these tests in these labs? And so then I get to educate a little bit, all right, well, homeopathy is about what does it look like for you? So there's over 6,000 remedies in this book and you know five people 10 people could come to me with Lyme and get 10 different plans. Because what does it look like for you? What do you feel like? What's happening in your body? So I'm super interested in that, if that's not a leap. You know in your education process. What are the symptoms? How would somebody know? You know if they're going to. If they're sick right now and they're thinking whether they've been tested or not, what are maybe some symptoms that they could look for? Or what would you suggest if you're sick right now and you're, and you don't have any idea what to do?

Speaker 3:

So if they have a chronic infection meaning they they have an infection that um is past the four week mark of being bit by a tick, it goes chronic after four weeks, which is why it's imperative to treat every tick bite right away. So chronic infections can look like anything. It's called the great imitator. It can literally look like MS, it can look like lupus, it can look like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome. You can have heart issues. People get cancer issues, people get cancer.

Speaker 3:

So the basics fatigue, just grand fatigue, like so exhausted, you just feel like you're trudging through life or you can't get out of bed. Joint pain, muscle pain, muscle spasms and twitching headache, like just chronic headaches you can. I had heart arrhythmias and different types of heart symptoms. Trying to think, brain fog is a big one, those are classic. You can have eye symptoms. Most people with Lyme will get floaters, like really bad floaters, and it will start to impede their vision, especially at night. Goodness, I'm just trying to think.

Speaker 3:

There's so many, so many symptoms and you'll notice, like with Lyme patients, they'll be very depleted of their minerals, like extremely depleted, especially magnesium. So they, you know, then they have all those symptoms that magnesium deficiency would cause, which is heart. You know neurological things like that. So there's there's a lot of symptoms. So if you, if you have an early tick bite, you may have no symptoms at all for a while. Like I got bit probably in September and didn't start having symptoms until October, november, and they just slowly started coming on.

Speaker 3:

And but some people will get hit with flu-like symptoms and they'll think that they have the flu or now COVID, and then they don't get better. Or some people will get flu-like symptoms. They'll get on antibiotics. They think they're better and then when they get off antibiotics, like a month later, they get hit with weird symptoms and they're not sure where they're coming from. You can have skin rashes. I had psoriasis, really bad. There's just you name it, you can, you can get it. It it triggers your body to go into an autoimmune response and so anything can go wrong.

Speaker 2:

So you mentioned?

Speaker 1:

sorry, Bree, no, it's okay, I have like a pretty good list okay things I want to know, so you, go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Let's just say one thing. So you mentioned that you, you know we don't ignore that tick bite. So normally in homeopathy I say only gonna, we're only going to give remedies when a symptom presents, but I don't do that with a tick bite. If somebody gets a tick bite I will say let's go ahead, lead them. You know, lead them 30 or 200. And there's some different protocols that you can find around.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if it's necessary to do, I don't know that you can find around. I don't know if it's necessary to do, I don't know. I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but, um, you know, there's some protocols that say, I think, 30 C twice per day for a week, and then I don't know the rest of it. But, um, when I got bit by a tick, I took a few doses, and the same with my um, with my son, a few doses of lead them, and I wrote a note, I took a picture of the place, I took a note in my phone about when it was. You know when the bite was and what I did, and you know. And then from there, so that's what I've chosen to do, um, but you know, there you might want to do a whole big protocol and go on for a couple of months with lead them.

Speaker 2:

But that's what. That's what I would do as a homeopath. If you want to. When you get bit by a tick, do that's what I would do. Bree, do you want to ask your questions? Or, tricia, do you have some follow-up with what to do when you get bit?

Speaker 3:

I do have a follow-up. I think it's really, really important to write down who got the tick bite, where was the bite. Write down who got the tick bite, where was the bite. I tell people circle the bite, monitor it, because if you have any symptoms you definitely have a Lyme infection, and then treat it. I recommend homeopathy to everyone because, especially for kids, it's so easy to take, it's effective, there's no side effects and but, but at the same time you have to be self aware. So you have to pay attention to how are you feeling, Are there any symptoms that are coming about that you didn't have before, and don't ignore those and keep treating if you have symptoms. So for someone like me who has had chronic, debilitating Lyme, when I got bit by a tick I couldn't just take lead them for a few days. I actually had to take a longer protocol because I already have Lyme right and so my immune system is a lot lower. So I am very self aware and I recognize the symptoms. I recognize that I actually had gotten a Babesia infection again along with the Lyme infection. So that's that's.

Speaker 3:

Another thing that a lot of people don't understand is that it's not just Lyme, and a lot of times it's not Lyme at all. It's Babesia, which is a red blood cell infection. It's Bartonella, which is cat scratch disease that you can get from a cat scratching you or biting you, or you can get from fleas, or you could get one of the other like tick relapsing fever or mycoplasma. I mean, there's so many different infections that you can get. So it's not just Lyme and and that's where homeopathy is so beautiful, because that lead on can help with all of that right, Because with that tick bite it treats the tick bite. And that's what we really want to do. We want to really emphasize treating the tick bite okay, I have some questions okay.

Speaker 1:

I might go, but like I really you can take this. This is for you, not for just all my questions, but I'm trying to think like listeners also, as a just hearing all of this. Um, my first question is kind of back to your family story, and maybe this is two questions in one are all of the issues you experienced. So I kind of want to know you guys, all your whole family, had a really high like a big response to this art where their underlying conditions and your history and your family history Do you think that? So this is kind of part two are certain people more susceptible to that than others? Or is that any person who is really like, let's say, we use homeopathy, we're you know what I mean Like a? Would some other people maybe not have that type of reaction?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. There are people that get bit by ticks over and over and they never have a problem until they have surgery and then they have all these weird symptoms and they think that their knee surgery didn't work. But it's actually because they have a Lyme infection there or they have some kind of a trauma and then it comes out. For my family, we were going through a very difficult time as a family, so we had that stress and then our homeopath believes that the area where our homes were built had some type of toxic water flow under it that potentially caused us to get sick like the way that we did.

Speaker 3:

Now I kind of believe that because a lot of the people on my court were very sick and like with they were all very sick with something. There's a lot of people on disability not a lot, but there were people on disability. So, yes, if your immune system is weak, if you have some kind of trauma, if you're going through really stressful times and you know how that impacts trauma, if you're going through really stressful times and you know how that impacts your body, you can get sick much quicker, much worse, than somebody else. And I find that so true in the Lyme community, most people who have a chronic debilitating disease have some type of underlying health condition or some type of trauma in their background that they haven't dealt with, and so that makes them more susceptible.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and then what? When you said that surgery or trauma or something can bring it out, does that mean that, like, those things can live, like once you have Lyme? Or Babesia and Bartonella those are the ones that are not Lyme, right? Those are the other two. Do those just stay in your body forever? Even after like. A. So in homeopathy we say, right, like you, that should heal and not be present. Is that something that you kind of just it sticks around and then maybe something could trigger it much later.

Speaker 3:

So our homeopath says that he has uprooted these uh illnesses and that they're gone. However, um, that's not what science shows us. Science shows us that it actually goes dormant in your body and it can come back out. So I don't know, my kids have not relapsed. I don't know if I've relapsed.

Speaker 3:

I have so many other health things that have been triggered by the Lyme disease, because the Lyme bacteria, borrelia, that goes through your body and it sends off these proteins that tells your white blood cells to leave it alone. It says I'm okay, I'm healthy, I'm here, you know, I'm part of you, so the white blood cells don't attack it. And then it also sends off I think this, maybe it's the same proteins, but it'll send off something in the areas where it likes to go, like your thyroid, like your brain, your muscles or joints, and it's it triggers an autoimmune response. So once you may be done with the line, you may not show titers anymore, or you may not. It may not come up energetically, but you've got all these other issues that the line caused, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

So how would you go about diagnosing, like an accurate diagnosis? So, let's say, I can think of people in my life who are having some of that stuff bad responses to red meat, um, out of nowhere, right? Or since COVID, there are and actually they're all men, which is interesting but they, um, they have bad gut issues Now, they have thyroid problems and they're not able to, like, eat normal diets, and one of them is like thinking it's long COVID. You know there are other things that they could blame it on, right? Um?

Speaker 1:

and so it might be those that that triggered some of that. You know there are other things that they could blame it on, right, and so it might be those that that triggered some of that. But how? How would they go about getting that? Some of them have done some testing with Lyme has never been brought up.

Speaker 3:

So one thing that everyone needs to be aware of is that Lyme testing through your main labs and I don't know if I can mention them or not, but they're about 70% inaccurate. Okay, in order to get a true understanding of whether or not you have any of these infections, you really do need to go to a lab. If you're going to do blood work, you need to go to a lab. That's outside of these two labs, these two main labs and they don't take insurance. So iGenX is a Lyme focused. It's actually a tick-borne disease lab, so they test all the tick-borne diseases. There's iSpot.

Speaker 3:

I've got a list on my website of some different labs. If you don't care about your blood work and you want to treat homeopathically, you're treating symptoms right, so you don't really need to worry about getting the test. Or you could find someone like my doctor who tests energetically. So he'll put the Borrelia on the little tray and he tests energetically to see if you react to that or not, and then he'll know if you have the Lyme or the Bartonella or the Babesia. Usually he he will test with his remedies to see if you need it or not, and so he'll. He has combination remedies that treat the different co-infections along with the Lyme, and so that's, that's another way. A lot of people don't feel comfortable with that, and so I would say then pursue those Lyme labs in order to get tested.

Speaker 1:

So blood work really is the conventional method to find that out through a specific lab.

Speaker 3:

Okay, blood work or urine test.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, they have urine tests.

Speaker 1:

Okay, um, thank you. That's great and it's on your website so I can share that with people. Um, a question then. I'm curious from a homeopathic standpoint for your family, and you don't have to share all the details but were your protocols Lyme specific meaning lead um um hypericum, like, or I mean hypericum arsenicum some of the ones that we see, or the no-sodes that we'll talk about or were they symptom-based, like your joint pain? Did you do a joint pain, or you know what I mean Like? Does that make sense?

Speaker 3:

Yes, so after taking Melissa's classes I realized that my homeopath treats very differently. Yeah, so we walked out of there with a box of like 40 different bottles and I should have brought some up here to show you. But 40 different bottles and they each had maybe three or four different remedies in them or imprints. So the imprints are made by a machine versus the remedies and I have no clue what they were, because they're the way he's labeled them. I can't quite figure out what exactly he put in most of them Some of them I can but so we were treated with a lot of different remedies all at one time for eight weeks, and then we would go back in and get retested and then he would switch it up and then he would wean us down until we didn't need them anymore.

Speaker 3:

So he treated us for everything. He treated us for heavy metals, for the all the tick-borne diseases. He treated us for heavy metals for the all the tick-borne diseases. He treated us for emotional things that were going on, because can you imagine, you know, even for the kids growing up and not having a life and just being bed bound and having the anxiety and things like that. So he treated us for all kinds of things.

Speaker 3:

Even to the point when I was finished with Lyme, I had him treat me for menopausal symptoms and I I had started having hot for menopausal symptoms and I had started having hot flashes. And I was just joking and I said, you have anything for hot flashes? And he said, actually, I do. So he gives me sepia, you know? And I didn't, I didn't know and and sure enough, within three days I never had another hot flash again. It was amazing, like I just I'm like I love this man. He's the most amazing person in the world. You know he can, he's like a miracle worker. But yeah, that that grew my trust in homeopathy. Just watching my kids get better and me feeling you know better and um, and just being able to treat normal everyday things like colds and the flu and um, whatever it is, yeah, Okay, so I have a few more.

Speaker 1:

but yeah, you go Melissa.

Speaker 2:

Do you have? I'm just so curious Do you have any idea? Does he use like super high potencies?

Speaker 3:

That I don't know either. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

It must be happening, for it to happen that fast they have. I just feel like they have to be like 10 Ms, 50 Ms, something like that. But anyway, that was just a curiosity of mine. Thank you for sharing.

Speaker 1:

Um, okay, I have more questions. Are we good, are we good on?

Speaker 3:

time.

Speaker 1:

We'll just keep going. So well. Also, Tricia, do you have more in your arsenal to share? Before I just keep, you might answer some of the stuff I have.

Speaker 3:

Oh, go ahead and ask your questions, because the things in my arsenal people can find on my website and I also had started a podcast, which is kind of quiet right now. But I have some things on my podcast as well.

Speaker 1:

Great, ok, and you have classes too, and your book.

Speaker 3:

I do. I have a? Um. I don't have a book yet, but I do have um a course about Lyme disease and ticks.

Speaker 1:

Okay, Um, okay. So the next question is did you use other things alongside other modalities, alongside homeopathy, so herbs, I mean, I don't know what else people use, but supplements maybe in that time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

What other things do you use?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. We were on magnesium, we were on some supplements. I did use herbs for the healing crisis. You know we would call that a herx when we were on medication, but he called it a healing crisis, so I did. I wasn't familiar with homeopathy at the time, so when we had a healing crisis we would take detox baths. We would drink um lemon water with berber and sarsaparilla, which are herbs.

Speaker 3:

My one daughter really liked Alka-Seltzer Gold. That just really neutralized the inflammation in her body and really helped her. I couldn't tolerate it, so I did the herb and just healthy lifestyle. So I tried to get my whole family on board with eating. For a while we were no sugar, no dairy, no gluten. Like no sugar, no fruit, and because I was having panic attacks that these little parasites in our body were just eating sugar and I didn't want to feed them. So I'm like cut out the sugar, you know. But when we went to our homeopath he's like you don't need to do that and you know, just enjoy life. And so I was just like I mentally couldn't get my head around that at all. But we did still follow a very healthy lifestyle and cutting out gluten and dairy are really, really important For whatever reason. It can just trigger so much inflammation in an already inflamed body and make symptoms a lot worse.

Speaker 1:

And for a period of time, or do you still cut out dairy and gluten?

Speaker 3:

So I did. My kids have not, except for the one that had pan. She doesn't eat dairy or gluten but she'll. She'll drink raw milk and have raw cheeses, um, and that's. That's like a huge leap for her because, um, she had so many gut issues that she was down to like three or four foods for a while and um, so she's really healed herself so much. Um, but for me, I do stay away from gluten because I noticed that I have a lot of joint pain if I eat gluten and, um, and the dairy. I all of the sudden, out of the blue over the past few years with menopause, I just don't tolerate dairy.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

But I was fine before that.

Speaker 1:

Can you share what a healing crisis would look like? I think that's really interesting that you brought that up, because I can probably imagine knowing. You know what I've walked through with people or what we've dealt with, but can you talk about that, what that looks like for you guys? And were there ever times where you were questioning like this is not working. I don't know why we're doing this. I shouldn't have to do all these other things.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, especially for my daughter with PANS, when, when she had a healing crisis, all of her symptoms just were off the chart the anxiety, the rage, the OCD, not sleeping, like all of that was just like and I would say we're not doing these things anymore, they're not working. And she would grab me and she would say, yes, we are, yes, they are. He said this would happen and I was like, okay, you know cause I'm? I'm wanting the best for her, I wanted her to feel better and I hated to see her that way. But for the rest of us, same thing it was just an exasperation of symptoms. So whatever symptoms we already had, those would just get bigger. Sometimes a new symptom would come about, especially as you're treating so Lyme is kind of treating tick-borne infections is kind of like that onion where you're just peeling back the layers and you may get rid of a symptom and something else pops up, and so that would happen sometimes, especially in that healing crisis time.

Speaker 1:

And how long are we talking? Like a week, or a couple of days, or two weeks?

Speaker 3:

So with antibiotics it would last for a long time and that was the hurts right Cause you're killing off all this bacteria and your body can't handle all these toxins. With the healing crisis, I want to say it would be anywhere from three days to a week. With the things that we learned to do for detoxing and for just helping to calm down the body, a lot of times we got to where you know we could start to feel better after maybe three days. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Um, okay, so now just maybe, moving on to like, practically speaking, like I live in a normal neighborhood. We're in Florida, I know there are ticks. The thought of checking all of the people in my home and my dog for ticks every day, Like I, just I literally am, like I can't, I won't do it, I just can't even imagine a life where I do that. So what I like? When people have to start care plans, you know there's like things they need to stick to and we try to give them pointers. Okay, so here's how you can set yourself up for success. Here's a routine or here's this app that reminds you. What would you say to me or someone like me who's like I got three kids. They're all it's crazy town at bedtime. How do I teach them how to do it? Or like, what are we looking for here? How thorough do I need to be? How tiny? You see those videos, the tick is microscopic and I'm like, how do I even Okay, so here's what I'll tell you.

Speaker 3:

Start checking for tick.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3:

Okay. So here's what I'll tell you. I just learned that if you take a shower and like use a washcloth or a scrubby or something, you cut your risk of being bit by a tick down by like 50%. Okay, but here's what I did with my son when we moved here. So we have ticks galore and I'm surrounded by farms and woods and when he would come in he came in the back door. When he would come in, he came in the back door stripped down at the laundry room. All his clothes went in the dryer and you put it on high for like 20 to 30 minutes. That will kill your ticks on your clothing or your shoes and then go get in the shower. So there you've cut your your chance of getting bit by a tick down by probably 90 percent.

Speaker 3:

Ok, and then I would do a head check and he would check. He would just check his own body. If he felt like he wasn't sure or couldn't see, like his back or something like that, I would. I would look over that area For myself. It was a little harder, like when your eyes aren't good I have a big magnifying glass, you know but I will put my clothes in the dryer, I will take a shower and I'll check for a few days. So I don't just check when we come in, I'll check the next day and maybe another day, just in case I miss something. And it's it's. I've gotten into that habit because it's scary. I don't want to live like that again. I don't ever want to be sick like that again. So for me it's really important.

Speaker 3:

When I had four kids, did I check them for ticks? No, and that's why we got. You know, we would come home late at night from some event out in the woods, a picnic at church or whatever, and I would just say we'll take baths in the morning, go to bed, you know. And and I did find ticks on my kids, I took them to the doctor. The doctor told me oh, if there's no bullseye rash, they don't have Lyme. And if she would have treated them or, better yet, if I had known about homeopathy, I could have treated them and prevented all of their illnesses.

Speaker 3:

But she sent me home a number of times, even when my one daughter, who had PANS, had a rash, but it wasn't bullseye. And she told me there's no way it could have been Lyme. And so only 25% of Lyme infections will produce a bullseye rash, and then 25% of other people will get a rash somewhere else on their body and it's not even like a bullseye, it could be any kind of rash. And then 50% don't get a rash at all. So the the mindset needs to shift about what does Lyme look like? You know, and this is why I say just treat every tick, just get some lead on. How easy is that. Just you know, treat every tick.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I think that's like all of my questions. Finally, that took me a while.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I might come up with more as we keep talking, but I feel like that was. I feel better. Do you have any other questions, melissa?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so okay, so, looking well, yeah, what is there anything that you can do before you go outside to prevent? Is there any kind of spray or oil, or you know that well, because we're more natural, we want, you know, we're not going to spray DEET on ourselves, or maybe some people would if they're going camping in the woods and they feel like it's worth it, but what do you, you know, do you have any suggestions on something natural that we could do to prevent?

Speaker 3:

So the deep actually doesn't work so much anymore, which is a good thing, cause it's so bad for you. Um, if you are a hunter, if you are, if you hike a lot, if you go camping a lot, you can actually spray your clothes with permethrin and let it dry, and that'll last you, I think, seven washes and um, so you can do that. Shoes, socks, pants, you know whatever you want to treat just don't touch it or put it on your skin. So it's not a hundred percent healthy, I would say. Once it dries, it's fine, it's not toxic. But um, so you want to use gloves, you can soak it in like a tray or something.

Speaker 3:

And, um, there are essential oil based tick sprays that you can get anywhere. You can get them at Walmart and in the camping section, um, or in the bug spray section. And now there's like a plethora of essential oil-based tick sprays, bug sprays that really work well, but you have to apply them more often. So, where you might put off one once and go out for hours, the essential oil-based sprays you really do need to apply more often 30 minutes to an hour okay but, they do work really well yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I, um, I do also think that we you could take leadum or staphysagria before you go out, but I wouldn't just do that every single time you go out, or just you know just, and I wouldn't do it out of fear that you know, I'm afraid I'm going to get bit. But so I'm going to do these things. But if you're prone to getting bit, then I think that's worth it. I'll just tell a quick story about a student of mine who her some one of her family members. Student of mine who her some one of her family members. She found a tick on him. She gave him lead them and then the next day she found another tick. Tell me what you think about this, trisha, if you know. She found another tick that was attached but it was dead. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Speaker 3:

I have not heard of anyone saying they found one that was dead.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of weird. Yeah, it is weird, and it was after she gave lead them, so I love that smushed or something, but I don't know. Okay.

Speaker 3:

If it was attached, because if it's attached, that means it's feeding.

Speaker 2:

Right, I mean I, yeah, I don't know, it was very weird.

Speaker 1:

How did she know it was dead?

Speaker 2:

She's a nurse and so I do believe that she knows what she's talking about. I mean, I guess it wasn't. You know, when you pull a tick off, their legs are going. They start squirming, they don't be?

Speaker 3:

still. Can we talk about that just for a minute? There goes my color again. When you, when you find a tick, you want to make sure that you do not put Vaseline on it, you don't put kerosene on it or any any. You don't want to smother it, you don't want to agitate it to the point where it starts to just automatically, if it feels threatened, it automatically starts injecting all of its gut load into you, like immediately before it lets go. So what you want to do is you want to make sure that you are like getting it straight down, like you push into the skin as hard as you can not hard, hard, but you know to where you're able to get around its mouth and its head and pull it straight out, and that's how you want to remove a tick. A lot of people are like putting things on it, putting a bandaid with something on it like alcohol, to try to get it to come out, and that is just not a good idea.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that. I probably learned that in your course, but again, it was like four years ago and I I've forgotten. I probably need to watch that again. Um and so so remedies for we already talked about lead them. You know, if you get, if you find a tick, if you got, if you get bit by a tick um, I'll just also say Cimex, c-i-m-e-x, cimex. Remember too, guys, that this um, this podcast, is transcribed into a blog, and so you can see the spellings of these remedies on the on the blog on my website. So Cimex is great for the fatigue from Lyme. Hypericum mixed with arsenicum is a Banerjee protocol for Lyme Malariaco. Malariaco is a nozode Like, just like Triciaicia. You were saying earlier that you were treated with malaria anti-malaria masks yeah, that's for uh, the babesia, okay, um.

Speaker 2:

So malaria co is is one for lime, um, cephalinum. Cephalinum is also a nozote, it's good for the fatigue with Lyme and serinum is also good for Lyme. Then there is this combo. Well, you can combine them on your own and it's the Borrelia, babesia and Bartonella nozotes that you can combine together and take. Now I'm not giving protocols here, because these the only protocol is the Banerjee protocol, which is the Hypericum and Arsenicum, and I believe that's Hypericum 200 mixed with Arsenicum 3 twice per day. I believe that's the whole protocol. The rest of these aren't protocols. So you, if you don't know what potency and how often to give it, work with a homeopath, but these are, if you have been studying homeopathy and you kind of know how to choose a potency, you know how to choose how often, then you know you can. You can do that too. So those are some of the good remedies for Lyme disease. Is there anything else that we should know? You know we talked about prevention, testing, treatment, what to look for symptoms. Anything else we should know?

Speaker 3:

Really just be educated. You know, go to my website. It's abounding in hope with Lyme. Educate yourself there's now. When I first started blogging I was like one of the only ones. Now there's so many different places where you can go and get educated about Lyme disease. But educate yourself about it and especially how to handle that tick and what to do what. Have something in place and that way you know what to do. I have a little tick kit. I took like an old plastic band-aid box first aid box and I put everything I need to to take off a tick. You know really good tweezers, a little magnifying glass. I have little containers to put the tick if I wanted to get it tested with. Now that I use homeopathy, I don't even bother with that Um, when I didn't know about homeopathy, like I was.

Speaker 3:

So I was just filled with fear and I wanted to get the tick tested to find out what was in it. Um, so you can do that if you want to. But, um, but have your supplies ready and put them somewhere where you know where they are so that when you have a tick bite you can just take care of it properly and then take your homeopathy and don't be afraid and you can tell about, you know, ignatia or something for anxiety about that. Um, for those of us who have had debilitating Lyme, it brings up a lot of anxiety.

Speaker 3:

For a long time, if I saw someone in the grass, if I drove through woods, I didn't even realize I was holding my breath. You know, I had all of this anxiety about anywhere that ticks could be and I didn't want my kids to get off the sidewalk, you know. But they, they helped me with that because they're very adventurous and they didn't care. They're like, they're not sick anymore, they want to go out and explore the world. Um, and so just, you know, handle your anxiety and you really do that by being educated that's great.

Speaker 2:

ignatia 200 is great for ptsd and just general anxiety. Yeah, anything else free?

Speaker 1:

No, you answered all of my questions. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

Great, you know what I did also just remember something else I wanted to say when were you was talking about just how much, maybe, how overwhelming it is, or how much work it would be to check everybody every day, and and how often we have to, or we get, to encourage and educate people and give them tools to follow their care plans that we've given to them.

Speaker 2:

The main word that I heard you say, tricia, was it's important to me, it's important to me, and so when it's important and I'm talking about following remedy care plans or checking yourself or your family for ticks or anything, anything If you when something's important to us, we're gonna figure out a way to do it. We're gonna make it happen right. And so, yes, I live out here in the woods and yes, I recently found a tick and I still haven't, and I don't know if I will. You know, I don't know if I mean I don't know, and so you know, I really I would hate for something terrible to have to happen to me to make me do something so simple. But you know, it just goes right back to anything. You know, I think it's, I think it's very wise to check for ticks.

Speaker 3:

We, we get comfortable, like this is our home, we feel safe and we just we're not on guard about it, right? Whereas when I lived more in the suburban areas it was terrifying because I wasn't. I wasn't used to the woods and accustomed to it, and so if I found a tick it would be, like you know, terrifying. But now, like when you have chickens or you, you know, have animals and you're out in the woods, it just becomes like, okay, this is just the way it is, you know, and so, like if my son came in with a tick bite, I wouldn't freak out like I would in the past, you know, and plus I know what to do. And I know that it works because since we've lived here we've lived here for almost nine years now I have treated tick with homeopathy and we have not been bedridden or gotten, you know, sick like we did before. So I know it works.

Speaker 2:

I love it Me too. You know, just using homeopathy and having the tool of homeopathy in your possession and have the knowledge of how to use it brings such freedom and reduces anxiety. So many different things. You know if you're afraid of getting sick with a cold called flu or stomach virus or something, and you have the tool of homeopathy and the knowledge it really does help to reduce that anxiety. So I'm so thankful that you came and talked to us again, tricia, and just sharing your knowledge the way you do, please do share right now. I know you shared your website Is that where everything can be found blog and everything. Podcast.

Speaker 3:

You can find my courses. You can find my courses. You can find my podcast, my resources page. I have printables. I I do offer an antibiotic protocol which I don't recommend. I I offer the homeopathic protocol from joette calabrese's website and then I offer an herbal protocol for people who prefer to do herbs, but everything is there. I have a resources page which is just literally probably 10, 12 years, however long I've been blogging but it's full of links and resources for you know, for anything that you need that's related to Lyme disease how to find a doctor, where to get tested, just all kinds of resources for that where to get tested just all kinds of resources for that, and also pans and pandas so good and your book one day.

Speaker 3:

And one day I'll write my book. I've started my book, I just need to. There's like some kind of mental block. It's very emotional. It was a very emotional, difficult time, so going back to it brings up a lot.

Speaker 1:

But one day I'll get it done, all right, and then we'll just do another podcast and help you get it out there.

Speaker 3:

Okay, that sounds great, thank you so much, Tricia. Thank you, sure Thank you.

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