The Truth About Lyme Disease
Why most doctors miss chronic Lyme and what actually works to get your life back.
For a long time, I thought panic attacks, insomnia, and burnout were just part of being an adult. I used to believe stress meant I was succeeding. But in 2021, my body finally said enough. That was the beginning of a complete unraveling and, eventually, the start of real healing.
What I didn’t know then was that I had chronic Lyme disease.
First, let’s clear something up: Acute vs. Chronic Lyme
Most people think Lyme is a bullseye rash, a fever, some achy joints. That’s acute Lyme — what happens in the early days or weeks after a tick bite. If you catch it early and treat it with antibiotics, you can usually knock it out.
But if it goes unnoticed or untreated, it can turn chronic. And chronic Lyme doesn’t play by the rules.
It doesn’t stay in your joints. It burrows into your brain, your nerves, your gut, your hormones. It hides. It triggers immune dysfunction, inflammation, and nervous system dysregulation. And it mimics other conditions.
That’s why they call it The Great Imitator.
Here’s what it can look like:
Neurological + Cognitive
Brain fog
Memory loss
Dizziness or vertigo
Numbness or tingling
Migraines or head pressure
Light/sound sensitivity
Word-finding difficulty
Tremors or even seizures
Psychiatric
Panic attacks
Anxiety
Depression
OCD
Mood swings or rage
Intrusive thoughts
Feeling disconnected from yourself
Musculoskeletal
Migrating joint pain
Muscle weakness or twitching
Tendon or ligament issues
Stiff neck
Morning foot pain
Digestive + Hormonal
Bloating, nausea, IBS symptoms
Appetite changes
Food sensitivities
Hormone imbalances
Irregular periods
Low libido
Adrenal fatigue
Thyroid dysfunction
Immune + Cardiovascular
MCAS or histamine intolerance
Chronic infections or flus
Autoimmune markers (ANA, TPO, etc.)
Air hunger
Chest pain
Irregular heartbeat
POTS or fainting upon standing
Temperature regulation issues
Skin + Miscellaneous
Bartonella streaks (red-purple marks)
Rashes or hives
Easy bruising
Acne or eczema
Hair loss
Sensitivity to smells or chemicals
And here’s the part most doctors miss:
Lyme and mold are often the root cause behind the conditions people get labeled with…sometimes for years or even decades.
Before I was diagnosed with Lyme and mold illness, I was told I had:
IBS
Inattentive ADD (now referred to as ADHD-I)
Depression
Anxiety
Insomnia
Fibromyalgia
For about a year before the mold diagnosis, I thought it might be MS. After someone convinced me it wasn’t MS, I started wondering if I was bipolar.
But once I found the mold, started detoxing, and uncovered the layers of chronic Lyme and coinfections, everything finally made sense. The symptoms tied to those other labels started disappearing.
Lyme doesn’t always show up as “Lyme.” It mimics other diseases, it triggers autoimmune symptoms, it hijacks your brain and gut and nervous system — and most doctors aren’t trained to look deeper.
If you're treating the symptoms without addressing the root, healing stays out of reach.
Why Mold and Lyme Often Show Up Together
Lyme and mold don’t just coexist by accident. They actually fuel each other. Mold toxins weaken your immune system, block detox pathways, and create inflammation. That makes it harder for your body to fight Lyme... and easier for Lyme to take over.
On the flip side, if you start treating Lyme before clearing mold, your body can get overwhelmed fast. You’ll herx harder, detox slower, and sometimes feel like you’re getting worse instead of better.
That’s why mold detox usually comes first in the healing process. It gives your body a chance to stabilize so it can handle what’s next.
In my case, I started with mold.
I had visible mold in my home, so I tested for mycotoxins and got a moderate positive on the urine test and a high result on the blood test. But even after moving out and starting detox, I didn’t feel much better. My symptoms actually got worse.
That’s when I learned that if your detox pathways are blocked, your body might not release as much in the first test. Once I focused on drainage support, I retested. This time, my urine levels were sky high. My body was finally releasing what had been stuck.
After mold detox, I still didn’t feel right. That’s when I tested for Lyme, and everything started to make sense.
I never took the standard Western Blot Lyme test that the CDC recommends.
I knew it had been too long. That test only detects acute Lyme, and even then, it’s wildly inaccurate. And even if it’s positive, many doctors still don’t recognize chronic Lyme as a real diagnosis. Most chronic cases are missed. I skipped straight to the specialty labs that actually look for deeper infections.
What I used (or recommend):
Vibrant Wellness Tickborne 2.0 Panel
IGeneX ImmunoBlot
Great Plains Mycotoxins Panel
Vibrant Wellness Total Tox Burden Panel
The order of healing matters.
You can’t throw everything at your body all at once and expect to heal. This was the order that helped me most:
Support drainage pathways (bowels, liver, lymph, kidneys)
Detox mold
Clear parasites
Detox heavy metals
Treat Lyme and coinfections
Rebuild mitochondria, gut, and immune function
Regulate the nervous system and address trauma
Finding a protocol that didn’t wreck me
My first protocol was too much for me. My detox pathways weren’t open and Glutathione made me herx like crazy. My first doctor gave me the standard Shoemaker protocol that was supposed to work for everyone, but it didn’t work for me. I’ve since learned that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to tackling Lyme and mold.
What worked for me:
CellCore’s Comprehensive Protocol (for mold, parasites, heavy metals, and Lyme)
Meyer’s IVs
Acupuncture
Massages (lymph and standard) and cupping
HBOT
Infrared Sauna
Red Light Therapy
Ion foot baths
Ozone therapy
Vibration plate
Castor oil packs
Tapping
Coffee enemas
Gentle movement
Grounding
Dry brushing
Electrolytes + clean water
Cutting out grains, dairy, sugar, and alcohol
Kambo
Avoiding mold and chemicals wherever possible
Trauma and nervous system work was the missing piece
I couldn’t have fully healed without working through my trauma. Lyme didn’t just affect my body — it affected my sense of safety in the world. Healing my nervous system, releasing suppressed emotions, and processing what I’d been through were just as important as any supplement or protocol.
I worked with a therapist that also has Lyme. It was really important to find a therapist or coach that also has Lyme because it’s hard for others to understand unless they’ve been through it. As I started healing, I also turned to psychedeilcs (ayahuasca and bufo) to help create new neural pathways and work through trauma.
Some of the biggest shifts happened not through a pill, but through peace.
Through boundaries.
Through grief work.
Through choosing to believe I deserved to heal.
Remission, Not Perfection
I’m not 100% symptom-free. But I’m living. I hike. I work. I rest when I need to. I laugh again.
Lyme doesn’t have a definitive cure yet. There’s growing evidence that SOT therapy (Supportive Oligonucleotide Therapy) may be able to eradicate it, but it’s still early. Most of us are working toward remission — getting the infection under control and the body back in balance.
If you’ve been dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told “you’re fine” — I see you.
You’re not crazy.
You’re not weak.
You’re not imagining this.
You just haven’t been told the full story yet.
But you deserve answers.
You deserve peace.
And you deserve to heal.
