During the Losing Lyme conference, Ali shared her own journey. After 6 years seeking an answer as to what was wrong with her, a cancer doctor was actually the person to suggest it might be Lyme. Sure enough, that doctor was right and nearly 8 years later after opening her mind to alternative medicine, Ali has followed a path to healing and said she is grateful to now be operating at 95% – an outcome we all aspire to. Ali’s biggest yet simplest advice; find a team, think outside the box and understand that healing will take time.

If you are going through this journey yourself, know there is a community out there who gets it – who understands the silent pain, the years of seeing doctors with no answers, having a calendar full of medical appointments, losing some of your social circle, spending more money than you care to count and feeling hopeless, tired and not like the person you know you are. The resources below, along with those in part 1 of this series will give you a starting point to build your community. They will show that others have been there too, and that we have a group of advocates working to heal us, we just have to seek them out and sometimes put the puzzle pieces together ourselves. I’ve shared some of the most valuable pieces of the puzzle below, and hope they help you complete yours.

*Dr. Bill Rawls: I came across Dr. Rawls back in 2020 when I first found out I had Lyme. Reading his book, I was in tears, because word after word, chapter after chapter it felt like he had written it about and for me. I felt completely seen and validated. It made me want to march back into that doctor’s office who told me it was all in my head and tell her to give it a good read herself (maybe with some less than kind language thrown in!).

Dr. Rawls started his career as a traditional western medicine doctor, and over time began to see patients with Lyme disease and eventually made that his primary focus. He is a wealth of knowledge, a kind man with a compassionate soul and he is on a mission to make healing accessible. His books offer great advice about nutrition, herbal medicine, changing your environment and restoring cells – all for optimal healing.

Not only does he share this insight in his books, he also now has a full herbal medicine protocol, Restore180. In a few easy steps you can sign up, receive his supplements on your doorstep and have access to the Vital Health community. His program has rave reviews and what’s most magical about it is that’s all-natural – it’s simply about getting the body back to a state of homeostasis. Follow him on Instagram for easy to digest info on the daily (@rawlsmd).

*Dr. Casey Kelley: Chicago based Dr. Kelley is relentless about getting to the root cause of disease and has studied Lyme disease extensively. At her practice, Case Integrative Health, she and her team take a whole-body approach to health. They work to uncover the root of the issue and figure out a path forward from there. Dr. Kelley shared that testing is often very flawed and often functional doctors will diagnose based solely on symptoms, and even then, find that healing can be found. Her website offers online healing programs for those not located in Chicago, and she has a blog where she shares tons of  great information.

*Dr. Daniel Warren: With Lyme disease often come great obstacles. Not only in symptoms, but in how they are treated. Dr. Warren, who treats Lyme patients at Envita in Scottsdale, Arizona talked about the complexity of Lyme disease, and with chronic Lyme (when symptoms come on long after  a tick bite may have happened) your immune system gets compromised more and more over time, which leads to multi-systemic infectious diseases. He shared four tidbits that are good to consider as you start to build your community and your list of questions you may ask them. First, remember you may have to treat multiple root causes. Second, you need to infiltrate the areas where the infections hide out in the body. Then, you need to be aggressive without being too aggressive, meaning you want to go low and slow, so you don’t cause herx reactions. However, keep in mind that “there are no algorithms, every patient is unique.”

*Dr. Cory Tichauer: Specializing in chronic infectious illness, neurodegenerative conditions and autoimmune disease at his practice, Bear Creek Naturopathic Clinic, Dr. Tichauer  focuses on Tick-Borne illnesses. He believes healing is accomplished through sequential elimination of infections and toxicity from the body, while at the same time helping stabilizing immune dysfunction, mitochondrial energy production and cellular detoxification and repair. In his practice he incorporates the use of pharmaceutical medications, botanical medicine, IV therapeutics, Naturopathic medications, homeopathy, bioresonance and neural therapy to name a few, all while employing state-of-the-art laboratory testing to support in diagnosis and tracking of underlying problems. At the conference he talked about the spectrum of Lyme symptoms, indirect versus (biomarkers) direct (bloodwork) testing and treating active infections. Dr. Tichauer noted that doctors in this field “don’t want to be bored, and they never will because each patient is so different. These doctors either had similar issues themselves or wholeheartedly believe in root cause healing.”

*Dr. Cathleen King: In her career, Dr. King has helped heal thousands of people. And it’s not in the traditional way you may assume, such as with medications. Her special potion is in fact shifting focus from what microbe is hiding in the body, to what alarm circuits it’s causing to fire. “We need to change their default operating system, so their body can heal,” she states. This involves deep work to master nervous system regulation and somatic healing to get the body out of flight, fight or freeze mode.

Primal Trust, her nurturing her community empowers people to heal, and having helped over 20,000 through their illnesses, her work is not just a theory, it’s proven. She says, “when you change your default operating mode, your body heals.” Healing isn’t just mental, it’s physical and in her intensive workshop on the last day of the conference, she had the group engage in heartfelt exercises, where they shared the traumas, they wanted to release and speak their hopes for the future into existence. It was moving to watch the sighs of relief on so many attendees facing as they walked through these exercises.

She shared a few things you can do at home to reset your own alarms, including aligning your circadian rhythm, regulating blood sugar, stimulating your vagus nerve, trauma integration and embodiment exercises.

*Mindy Haukedahl: A high school guidance counselor by day, Haukedahl is also a psychotherapist who specializes in neurofeedback, who runs her own practice, Afton Therapy. Outside of the wonders of neurofeedback, she also highly recommends a product that acted as a miraculous healer as she went through her own battle with Lyme. The “miracle product, Alovea is made with the miracle ingredient, Acemannan. The proprietary Aloe vera inner leaf gel extract contains the highest level of the immune modulating fractions per gram of Acemannan. It’s a non-toxic integrative health strategy for supporting the body’s normal functions of defense, repair, and regeneration. Ali and Mindy have a fascinating episode about Alovea on Lyme Time with Ali.  Haukedahl believes “healed people, heal people.” And she would know, having healed herself and nowing helping others to do the same.

*Dan Bienenfeld: As a practitioner at Los Angeles Healing Arts Center, Bienenfeld offers a unique view on healing. He said “you can’t heal without coming home, back to your body,” which can be hard with chronic illness. He focused on embodiment and energy. Throughout his presentation he challenged us to stay in perpetual motion, a bit like the palm trees in the wind we could see out the window. An area of focus for Bienenfeld is to visualize and move energy through the body. On his website and through his app, Embody365 you can utilize his practices in the privacy of your own home.

*Erika Schlick: On her blog, The Trail to Health and in her book Wandering Palate, nutritionist Erika Schlick shares the most delicious and healthy meals to help the healing journey.  Because the food we eat needs to nourish our body, Schlick helps build habits that will last a lifetime. As is the case for most people in the natural healing community, they got to the place they’re in because they went through their own health struggles. After having so many food aversions, Schlick turned to food for fuel rather and found it can work wonders. In America so much of our food is processed and made with less-than-optimal ingredients, so having access to a blog and cookbook that makes healthy eating easy and accessible is key. Let Erika guide you on your food journey and find healing along the way.

Endless bouts of knowledge and information were shared over the course of the Losing Lyme conference. It was a priceless experience, one that brought community, connection and most importantly – hope. If you need guidance on your Lyme journey and only have bandwidth for one next step to take – listen to the Lyme Time podcast. There is an episode with each of the healers from the conference, plus many more. It will help you statr to put the pieces of the puzzle back together.

Happy healing to you all!

If you have a comment or question, or your own advice to share, please do so below in the comments. You never know who might need to hear what you can offer.