When Your Child’s ADHD Symptoms Lead You to Your Own Healing: A Mom + Two Daughters’ Story

What starts as one child struggling with anxiety, ADHD symptoms, Lyme, or chronic illness often turns into a much bigger family story.

In this episode, Elizabeth talks with Kelly Riley, MS, NTP, founder of Foundations Nutritional Wellness and Osteostrong Westfield Indiana, about the healing journey that unfolded across her entire family. What began as support for her daughter Sloane’s anxiety, gut issues, and inattentive ADHD quickly uncovered deeper patterns of Lyme, Babesia, Mycoplasma, strep, immune dysregulation, and chronic inflammation affecting multiple family members — including Kelly herself after a Botox-type filler injury.

Together they discuss the overlap between chronic infections and mental health symptoms, how panic and depersonalization can sometimes be rooted in physiology, and the role homeopathy and functional immunology played in calming the nervous system and restoring resilience. Kelly also shares her experience with PCOS, Hashimoto’s, alopecia, post-COVID immune shifts, a suspected Botox-type filler injury, and the moment she realized these weren’t isolated issues - but a connected immune story.

This conversation is honest, hopeful, and deeply validating for families who know something is wrong even when answers feel incomplete.

In this episode:

• Lyme, Babesia, EBV, strep, Botox Injury & chronic immune activation

• Anxiety, panic attacks, depersonalization & neuroinflammation

• Functional immunology and family healing

• Homeopathy and nervous system regulation

• Supporting children with ADHD/anxiety symptoms from a root-cause lens

• Why healing is a journey, not a finish line

Connect with Kelly:
🌿 Foundations Nutritional Wellness 

https://www.instagram.com/foundations.wellness/

& Osteostrong https://centers.osteostrong.me/indy-westfield/
📍 Indianapolis area

Please note that transcripts may contain minor errors or inaccuracies. We hope you enjoy reading them and find them helpful.

Hey, you're going to be okay. I'm Elizabeth Mae and my functional health practice. Hey, hey MAE helps people heal when they've exhausted traditional options when no one can figure out your health challenges. My team helps you resolve symptoms and restores your health. You're listening to my podcast. Where will your stories of healing chronic illness from a root cause immune centered approach?

I'm so excited to be talking through another client story, this time a mom and her two daughters. I want to introduce to you guys Kelly Riley. She is a certified nutritional therapy practitioner. We've done similar educational tracks together. She's the owner of Foundational Foundations Nutritional Wellness, and Bone Health. She also owns an strong right outside of Indianapolis, so lots of different professional avenues.

She's definitely in the same space that I am. But she came to this sphere because she needed help with herself and her two daughters. So, Kelly, you originally came to support your oldest daughter, and we kind of quickly realized this was like a whole family story. Can you kind of take us back to just what brought you to seek out a provider for your family when you already kind of are in this world and, and know a lot of these things?

Sure. Yeah. So it all started. I mean, I had known you in our and community for a while and always respected your work and knew that you worked with kids. And so my oldest daughter, who's now 13 at the time, she was 12, she had been struggling with ADHD. It was an attentive ADHD anxiety, and hers was really just presenting more as like a lack of focus.

So it was to the point where it bothered her in school and we had done all the nutritional changes that like removing dyes, processed foods, gluten and other things too. And I feel like that did help her quite a bit, but we just weren't fully there yet. So that's what prompted me to ask you for help. So we started with Sloan, and I remember after doing the initial intake, which was really thorough, you, we met again, I think, and you said, I think we need to test her for tick borne.

And I said, wait a minute. What? Because my other daughter, who was nine at the time, had experienced a tick bite the year before, I guess because that's been about two years now, I think. And or maybe a year and a half time is all kind of going together. Yeah. So she had done antibiotic, antibiotic, hammer, several herbals and still wasn't completely better.

And we can talk about her in a minute. But so I was like, wow, how how would I have two kids effectively with like tick borne illness? Anyway, we did the testing, which was super simple, by the way. The girl, you know that it was not a big deal. And sure enough, it came back that she had tick borne illness, but also really, really high strep levels two, which wasn't surprising to me at all considering kind of our whole family history with strep.

And I remember you looked at me and said, Kelly got two kids with Lyme. You probably need to get tested. And so that's how kind of the three of us went through this together. Yeah. So backstory or just more info for the listener. Lyme can be passed through mom and baby. It can be passed sexually. It can obviously be passed by bugs too.

So it can be something that we can carry as a mom. It can go dormant, it can come out of dormancy. So it can be something that I have had in my past. I have a baby and now my child carries that and the child can also have it acutely. And what was interesting too, is that the girls panels were very similar.

But Sloane had also the co-infection of babies, which is transmitted also by bugs. I don't believe you or Blair had that. And then she additionally had mycoplasma, and she had had like little bits of respiratory components, I think in with her strep history. But yeah, you guys had done a lot too before we got to this phase. Like she had had proper evals and diagnoses and like you said, like it was more the ADHD and incentive anxiety, those sort of things.

And she's also like in the throes of puberty so that in her plays with those things. But it also can be an immune trigger to where it can shift the immune system's ability to keep things dormant or not. And you're done. Like an Ma. You done some gut work. She'd been through some things, but there's still wasn't. Yeah, like adequate resolution.

I think it's an interesting story, too, because like at the outset, for her, it was more the inattentive ADHD type stuff in the anxiety that she was struggling with that we would say, like, these are the things that we hoped to improve or resolved to improve her quality of life. And you know, that testing, maybe we don't think of as like these are routes to that.

But like, fast forward to now, like if you look back from where we are, does that testing like still kind of surprise you or help connect dots for her? Because now on this side, we're like a year later and she's worked through the process of addressing those infections. And, you know, she's done that work and we've seen shifts in her.

But how does it how does it look from the side for your oldest daughter? I mean, looking back, I there were definite signs I think I do this. We she was in first grade at the time, so probably six years old, maybe seven. We went to a family event in southern Illinois, and she had like, not to the extent of like a Bell's palsy, but like a little bit of a droop on one side.

And I thought, what is this? And there was a physician there and he was like, oh no, she just has a sinus thing going on, like a cold or whatever. But that always stuck with me. Like, what is, what is, what is this? What is happening? Why would that occur? Yeah. But knowing what I know, I didn't know a lot about Lyme.

I did not know what I know now, and, you know, I think part of that is, like, a lot of us are not talking about it. And for a while, it was this diagnosis that people wouldn't really always take seriously. Or it's like this mystery illness that morphs. And that can be true as well too. But I think now looking back at Sloan and also my own symptoms, to not realizing how related they were to chronic infections.

It's like, wow, she's she's done. I mean, she's come so far in just the I consider it a short amount of time to put in the work and really be focused with a protocol that's actually moving the needle. She I shared this with you the other day. She doesn't feel like she needs any special services at school in terms of extra time on her tests or extended learning, anything like that.

She's she feels really great compared to how she felt when we started to. So to answer your question, I don't I'm not surprised. But I think also to I didn't see it because I'm so close to the situation. That's why I don't treat my kids. I don't treat myself. I think a lot of practitioners are in that camp.

We just can't put on that hat as well. When you're acting like mom, I'm not also practitioner. I'm just not. Yeah. But my other daughter's symptoms were so different in after that acute bite that I didn't see Lyme in both of them at first. It was it really was different in both girls too. So I would say that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. I think to what you said about not treating your kids or yourself is important because some of this stuff, like infection wise, like when I do clarity calls, I have a list of infectious symptoms that I have like honed over many clients, and watching all the people that go through our collaborative care in the practice. And it because I am separate from it and you are telling me high points on a clarity call, I can pull that stuff out so quick and hear the early signs.

And I think even with you, we started working on Sloan, but you started sharing some things about yourself, and I will keep a little note in the top of my notes when there's other family things, because there can be through lines and other infections like strep or mycoplasma. Those are Epstein-Barr like those are we breathe them on each other.

We spit them on each other like we live together. So there's going to be bacterial. The house is microbiome. The family unit microbiome really does matter. And that's easy to see because like when one person in the house gets strep, often a couple other people will fall. And so it is helpful to have a missile to see those things.

And also I love working with teens so much because they pop in on calls. And I think like some Sloane's headaches, headaches stuff, she didn't. I remember her saying I have headaches, like every day. I've just had him forever. I just don't even talk about it because it's not a thing. And you were like, you have headaches. And she's like, they're just part of every day.

And like, it wasn't like not being a great form and being aware, but like kids do, like they it's always been there for them where it's been a normal thing. Like they don't have the same awareness that we do and having somebody else to come in, especially with a teen. Also, when I have to come in and be like, we're changing diet, that's totally different than mom changing diet or dad from a clinical perspective.

So that part I think is important. But it is. It's true. It's hard to see things. And then with Lyme and with infection stuff, they all kind of have layers. Once the immune system is kind of deviated from proper function, there can be multiple things there and they can look like the girls both have the same strains of lime, but like the presentations, entirely different.

And yeah, that's too easy to miss if you're not, you know, in that space and looking at it every day. So I appreciate that a lot, I guess. But with her, like a lot of what we focused on was there were some physical symptoms, there were some GI stuff, there was some headache stuff. But the attention piece, her ability to kind of follow through on staying locked in on schoolwork and then also just the anxiety.

It was so fun to talk with her over time and her be like, I love talking to kids because when you ask them about that symptom, they're like, what? I don't have that numeral. Like, no, you did. And she's, you know, no, it's fine. Like that's not I don't think about it. I guess it's not. Yeah. I don't think I have that anymore.

And it is like that as we address in a child the immune portions, those symptoms drop off pretty quick because their body was like the immune system is forming predominantly like under age seven. That doesn't mean it stops, but it means there's a lot more formation going under 20 years of age than there is, like at our age.

And it's really cool to see it kind of like recalculate and shift over time. But let's talk about Blair a little bit and kind of like you said, her story started different. Like you guys are new. She had Lyme and we knew there was a bite. And you guys had tried more of like a traditional clinical approach. But what it like still not fully better look like for her at that point.

Yeah. So we she actually got the bite on a field trip. We live outside of Indianapolis. They were at a state park. I wasn't on the field trip. Not that that would have even made a difference because as a girl, you know, she had longer hair and it was embedded in her scalp and came on me for not checking her right after the field trip.

But the next day we saw the tick, and so it had been in there for over 24 hours, and she actually pulled it out before I could intervene. So anyway, we she doesn't like bugs, obviously. So after that she developed a fever, belly pain, and her main symptom was always a very stiff neck. Her lymph nodes would be swollen and it would move from side to side, not consistently one or the other, but it was just always an aching neck. And so we I had actually done this like mentorship, education with a really, really great functional doctor who specializes in chronic, complex conditions.

He's in Massachusetts. He does a lot of work with Lyme. He actually was able to help us with some of her stuff, and she did antibiotics, two antibiotics for two months following this bite still didn't resolve everything. We still had really bad neck pain, swollen, painful lymph nodes. I would say those were her main two symptoms that she would complain of and she would overheat in inappropriately.

I would say, so that was really those were her main symptoms. Then we did a number of herbals. So I don't know how familiar your listeners are, but like nutria, medics, cell corps, a lot of the big names in Lyme with all those herbals still didn't. So this was like six months, I would say that we went on herbal.

So we're talking eight months after the bite. We still didn't feel great. We tried creating a cycle therapy for a little bit of relief, didn't really move the needle. And then I after. So she was probably I can't remember what month we started working together with you, but it was at least a year, I would say. So then after seeing her panel where it was after all the tests, I think that's why she didn't look as bad, because her levels weren't as bad as my loans.

I do remember that. So that's good that what we did did do something. Yeah, but it just couldn't get her there, you know? And whenever she would get a cold, she would come down with a virus or strep because that was also part of her picture too. We got strep throat at the drop of a hat very easily.

Her first symptom that she would present with when she was getting sick with any sort of illness was that stiff neck. And I would just know, here we go. She's going to get sick, and she would be home for extended periods of time, because it just took her a lot longer to get over everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think it's important to note there because people ask all the time, especially because we help teach and educate around how do you support an acute tick bite that antibiotics can be really helpful. That can be really helpful immediately. They can even be really helpful after a while. And for some people that will address the infection. But for other people, the immune system's already deviated.

And there's other infectious stuff popping through, like the recurrent strep. Parvo is something that was there for her to. And it's in those times where I mean will inherit clients who've had Lyme for 20 to 30 years, and they've done antibiotics on and off and on and off, and they don't turn a corner. But the process of addressing the immune system and teaching it how to address those infections is what turns their body around and helps restore health, because that immune system is the gatekeeper.

And when we use antibiotics or herbals, those things are helpful. And I would use them if I got a bite tomorrow, like I'd be on it if I knew, you know, that I needed to based off signs and symptoms. But they ultimately are killing the germ, right? They're killing the thing and we're just beating back the population, which is fine and helpful for a lot of things.

But because of the way that Lyme functions and burrows, the way it's stealthy, that's not always effective. And so you're right. For Blair, like, her labs looked okay, like her Lyme was there, but it was not wild and raging. So it showed the work that you guys had done. But it wasn't it wasn't correcting that immune piece. Right.

And in a lot of our talking, like, you know, we're talking about the girls and then I keep my little tally of symptoms and little, you know, things that you would share here and there about either one of them or yourself. And at some point, the focus shifted from just the girls to you. What sort of coming up for you dots that were connecting that made you think, okay, this is the pathway I need to go down for myself because you have you guys already eat really well.

You take good care of yourself. You know, you were doing a lot of good things. So what was going on for you that we needed to work at and and see if we could explore? So in seeing kind of how they were presenting, I shared a lot of similarities with both of them in different ways. When I was really young, I had the worst leg pain.

I was told it was growing pains, but like deep, aching, aching bone pain. And I, which fast forward that came back during all this, like, immune retraining and that was just validating that, hey, that was probably related to Lyme. I'd struggle with swollen lymph nodes off and on. And I thought, okay, this is probably related as well too.

But my my big factor was anxiety and also autoimmunity. I'd had a number of autoimmune conditions that I think would have been worse if I wasn't already living such a healthy lifestyle in terms of the the foundations, the dietary, the lifestyle stuff, it they'd be raging without those sort of things in place that I do on a regular basis.

Yeah, but Hashimoto's was part of my picture PCOS. I used to have terrible migraines as a teen with aura that were just debilitating. But what really also was part of this picture was in I guess this was almost three years ago. It'll be three years ago in August. I had gotten some Botox, which then.

Yeah, really caused just major, major symptoms for me in the form of intense panic attacks, very intense anxiety, tachycardia all the time, trouble breathing, disassociation, even feeling like I'm not even in my body at times, very, very severe symptoms. I mean, I developed a fear of driving. It was a lot going on to with that. And so and we've talked about this, it was just such an overtly, like extreme reaction that it uncovered a lot of stuff that was underneath the surface for me to, I think.

So labs didn't look great, like in terms of white blood cells. I looked depleted and dysregulated for most of my life, even before the Botox too. So I always knew there lying stuff there. So it really made sense because as NPS and RFPs, we talk a lot about just the the very underlying root causes. Right. And a lot of times we're talking about mold, we're talking about Lyme, we're talking about ABV, like underlying virus loads and bacterial loads that are taxing the body, constantly poking the immune system.

And I definitely had that. But after doing all the other functional stuff, it had not resolved. So this was great to have. Finally an answer as to what else caused or contributed to kind of my symptom presentation. Quick break. If you've been curious about homeopathy, this is your sign to try it at hey hey, homeopathic. We've created liquid remedies for everything from sleep and skin to digestion and beyond.

Safe, gentle and design for real life. And if you're a practitioner, our Preferred Professionals line opens the door to powerful tools like no SOS, miasma, detox, there's and more. Anyone can shop, but professionals can apply. For exclusive access, visit Hey Hey homeopathic com and start your path to natural healing today. Yeah you had. I feel like it was almost kind of like a building storm there for several years because you had the hashes came on after your second birth, and there was an alopecia era in there where you did use some injections and topical steroids, and both of those are immune supports, however you call them.

That's what they're they're interacting with the immune system. And you didn't really feel like that really fixed it. And that was kind of after a bout with Covid. I think that Covid wasn't that bad. But then you had this like leftover stuff afterwards and there was like postnatal drip and some sinus stuff that was like in and out, which again, ent area is an immune defense area because we're breathing in.

Pathogen load comes in here in the immune system is very acute at responding there. And there had been ray nods to you had a lot of circulation temperature dysregulation, vein issues, swelling sometimes for days and then not like lots of in and out. And then the Botox injury which like to break that down a little bit like Botox is a neurotoxin.

Lyme creates trash that are also neurotoxins, mycotoxins from mold, also neurotoxicity. These things are all immune triggers. They way down the body. They interact with the immune system, whether that's giving the immune system something to clear out, or they can be a trigger. And then you also have the shot component of we're injecting something into the body, and that's going into tissue really quickly at a rate faster than like what you would breathe in mycotoxins, just the same as if someone has a vaccine injury.

It can also be an immune triggering event. Their immune triggering events are like stressors and death and acute illness. Someone has a big illness. They've never been the same since then, but with the Botox and vaccine, I kind of like to draw a little bit of a similarity because with children, we see a lot of times their peanut allergy or their egg allergy or their dairy allergies onset after an injection.

That has a lot to do with the way it happens. There is a good right purpose in doing a vaccination. When we're trying to promote immune response, we're trying to stimulate the immune system against that thing we're vaccinating for. But those other components of the injection are what can also provoke the immune system. And so there's egg albumin in several vaccines.

There is peanut in some vaccines. And those children will have responses afterwards because the immune system has been simulated against the infection we're trying to prevent. And it's been stimulated against the ingredients. And the same sort of idea and concept I want to take over to the Botox piece. It's not always was it done correctly? Was it done professionally?

Was the injector or the person? Was it the type of Botox? Was it off brand? Those things do not all matter as like the dividing, deciding factor of whether or not a body will receive a Botox or similar injection as an injury. There's a lot more there, and we have several clients who have Botox injuries, or they have Bell's palsy and they have passed Botox and they're not really sure what's up, and they end up having Lyme.

Lyme affects your nervous system. What is your nervous system? It is your brain and it is your nerves. Your nerves are in charge of if my cheek goes where it's supposed to go when I smile or not. And Botox role is to like shut down some of that process. So then my little wrinkles don't show okay. And that's it is what it is.

But it does interact with the immune system and it can be a trigger. And I think for you to even in there there was like an appendix. Itis bout right. And there was. So that was right before this Botox. So there was already for me when I hear a pin decided, I'm always wondering, like, okay, that seems like a little immune response bacteria.

What was going on for you guys? What was going on systemically? Bacteria because your appendix comes in and helps with bacterial supply. It's not just a completely useless organ and it can become angry, infected, blocked, impacted, etc. when it's trying to work a little harder, it often is just a non for me that there's a bacterial something going on here.

And you had that in the same season and the driving thing and the panic and the anxiety I think is interesting because sometimes when we listen to people's story we're like, oh, they're just anxious person. But that wasn't like the panic was more of an onset for you. Can you talk a little bit more about like what that experience was like and even some of the things that came about for you after the Botox injury season, after the appendix itis.

Yeah. So the my appendix was taken out 4th of July 2023. The Botox happened in August. So I think it was like six weeks later or so. And I was driving my husband to the airport, which is about 45 minutes from where we are. And on the way home, I mean, I didn't feel great. I was really hot, like, it's August and Indiana is hot, right?

It's humid. It's not great outside at that time. But, I would say I was having just my body was just really stressed. You could just I could just tell. And as a practitioner, I know this, right? I talk to people all the time about just physiological stress, stress that we're not aware of, even to blood sugar regulation, all the things digestion, all all of the things that we talk about.

And I was like, wow, my body is really stressed right now. So driving home out of nowhere at a panic attack when I was driving, I didn't feel I literally look back and I cannot recognize that person who was driving the car and I couldn't recognize her at the time. I was like, this is not I'm not even I'm not even here.

Like, what is going on? I felt like something, something else was like in control. And I had no control anymore. And it was just it was terrifying. So terror is the is the emotion I would describe that I lived with a lot for two and a half years. I would say, because it'll be three years in August and I now I'm 99.9% better, I would say.

So after driving, I mean, I didn't think I was going to get home that day. I thought, who can come drive my car? I did not know who that would have been, so I white knuckled through it and got home, and avoided driving for a while as much as I could, which was awful because it took away my freedom.

It took away my joy in just going out and living my life. And that was a big thing for me to work on over these past two and a half years that it took with a number of specialists, like brain rewiring programs. I've done them all. If anyone wants to know what the best one is, come, come ask.

Tell you with therapies. You know, I done all the functional stuff, right? That that we do. I know how to run a detox. I know how to do all these things right. And binders and all this stuff. Joined Facebook groups and discovered. Wow. There are 44,000 people in this group with basically the same symptoms that I'm having. That is not a coincidence in my opinion.

And have I had a lot of guidance from from those women who put together those groups. So and it's Never Talks is a great website for anyone who's listening who needs more support. They truly know what they're doing. But Elizabeth, really, you helped me get all the way there because I didn't realize that these underlying infections were probably like reactivated.

Who, who who knows what the whole mechanism is. And I think it's not just one, but I literally feel like a different person now. Thank goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a lot and and same, same experience on my end as we have with most clients. There's the big mess of symptom load. And once we identify the infections you can start to kind of see the through lines and the threads and how they impact things.

And then we know the Botox toxicity component was there too. So we think about that and we started dressing there. And the fear piece like I mean that took a bit. And I maybe want to highlight to you that in a second. But you also had this hydronic eczema. So basically you had like little like a lot of yeah, on your hands.

And it was had little bubbles. But also it kind of come and go but never really go all the way. And I mean, it looked like you literally were wearing like little gloves on your fingers. And then the rest of the body was fine. Yeah, yeah. And we see that this hydraulic, the bubbly type of eczema on the hands a lot with lime.

And then we came to learn more about its connection with some skin stuff too. But so those things continue to drop off. You'd had tachycardia anytime you would like drink wine or randomly. That was starting with foods. There were histories waking up in the morning, walking upstairs to get the girls up for for the day to go to school.

And my heart rate's 189. That is not normal. And that wasn't like that, you know, prior to the injections. Yeah. And so from my side of the table, we don't know exactly and precisely what happened. But I think your body did get to a place where it was like, it's too much. There's too much pathogen load in me from the lime I'm carrying.

The strep component, the girls that had strep, that was another flag for me when we were talking about. And you're like, she had it and I had it. And I was like, you had it as an adult. You had it. And you were like, oh yeah, we totally had it around around. And that was another piece that was there.

And I think your body just got to a point when the Botox injection was there, whether it was a trigger from the injection or the neurotoxicity component, it was too much for your body. And that started a lot of those symptom load and throughout care. The panic attacks were like the big and the I'd say it dropped into more just chronic anxiety was always around the car.

There were travel fears around planes. You'd also had to pass incident there, but not as profoundly as the car. And we had to work through a homeopathic process a little bit. You. I was like, why don't you go to net and see if that can kind of help? Because there was a little bit of a triggering event emotionally.

But what was your experience of working through that symptom on your side, like with homeopathic in the other therapy? I mean, yeah. So when all of this started, my doctor.

Put me on a med and I failed miserably on that. This was before we were working together because I had to function, right. I was like, I have to drive my kids. I have to be able to go places. And it wasn't great like at all. So that was very short lived. So I was leaning into things like quite a bit and taking that during the day, even like stronger Gaba supports during the day, I would take when I felt like I needed them.

What else did I do a lot too? Different things like herbal things that like ashwagandha and things that would help adaptogens and things. But I still felt anxious, like a lot of my day. And, and then I also felt like I was scanning my body for symptoms constantly because I was so worried that something else was going to come up.

And it was just a very hyperactive state of my nervous system that I was in. So it did have moments throughout care where I would be like, I'm, I'm feeling so much better. But then with my cycle throughout the month, I think shifts obviously happen, and that would also play into how I was feeling. And I wasn't feeling 100% throughout the month.

It was just dependent on the day or the situation that I was in. I think when we really started finishing the end of stuff and working with more on the Maya's, my ASM level, that really moved things to and then I was taking like your brave wheel, which is great. That's my jam. I, I love that remedy. I was taking it daily. I don't take it anymore though. And I'm not having anxiety and I'm doing all the things. Yeah. Driving everywhere on the interstate, all of all of the stuff. And it just progressively got less and less until I noticed I don't I'm not using all of these supports anymore, like I felt like I needed to, but I love that I can bring them with me.

Like we were just in Chicago over the weekend. I brought brave. Well, I didn't need to use it, but I had it in case I needed to just, I don't know, just knowing that I had something in case I, I felt anxious for some reason, but but yeah, it was I think I wouldn't necessarily.

I don't know when people know me like in are close to me in terms of the story and know how like my family and close friends, they can't believe how different I am now versus two and a half years ago when this all started to anything. It's interesting to watch too. I like to watch the symptoms peel out and when they're doing that.

And something I was just reminded of is when I, with homeopathic like case tapes, take case taking, there's a lot of question asking like we will ask all kinds of things, we'll be all up in your business because we're trying to find a remedy that matches the totality as much as we can in the symptoms. And one of the things I asked you is like, is there any point when it's felt better and you're like, oh, actually, when I was on the antibiotics for this stuff, it did actually feel better, but that was really it.

And so for me, that was another flag to like. This is infection related, immune mediated. But also homeopathy is so beautiful because it really just gently nudges the body towards resolution. So you working on the infectious pieces did address the bacterial part that were probably helped by that antibiotic shortly. But also brachial has several remedies in that combination for fears of different kinds.

One of the fears being trapped, and lots of different fears in there that it can support and address. So we'll use it in little kids who are word to go to bed by themselves, and we'll use it in people who are anxious about a meeting or, you know, and it can be really helpful tool. But the beauty of it is it's always pushing the body's vital force to resolve the bigger issue.

It doesn't have to be. I know exactly why. I do think the pathogen, the bacterial load in your body was pushing that anxiety. The lime is going to agitate nerves and ramp it up more. And then we have the temperature dysregulation, like heat was such a big trigger for you to the point that you were even like, I'm getting the roof of my car tinted more because it is causing me even more like it.

But that's for real. Like that was a component. But like that really probably was a side effect of the way that Lyme can impact temperature dysregulation. And so it was just another thing that layered on. But homeopathy doesn't need to know exactly. Is it exactly the lime or the parvo or the EBV or the strep, or is it a nerve and whatever, or is it blood sugar prompting?

It pushes the body in the direction of resolving that issue and the like. Cures like I think some of the other things too, as I think through your journey and like you had worked on stuff, we had a hormone history. You had some headache history, migraine history. There was some elevated like cardiac inflammation. There were plenty of blood quality improvement opportunities.

And Lyme will impact bone marrow and blood cell quality. So people a lot of times will say my platelets are always low or my white blood cells are always low or always high, or I have like anemia, not iron, but the other ones, they just never go away. Like what is that? And then the immune differential, you classic pattern that I'll see with Lyme is neutrophils and lymphocytes are flipped where your neutrophils are really low.

And then they were high in some iron irregularities. And so you've gone through the process. There's been some time the anxiety has resolved. But like what was it like to walk through the process symptom wise. And then where are some of those other lab type symptoms? At this point I was nervous to start this because I know more than the average person in terms of the immune system and what we were doing.

And so I was like, okay, we're going to potentially have symptoms again of everything that we've experienced. But I was really optimistic at the same time. So in the fact that I went through with my girls was great because we would take our vials at the same time, roughly, I think we kind of did start staggered a little bit because Sloan was first, then Blair, then me, or the other way around, actually.

And so it was kind of nice to say, okay, we've got all of our calendars. Everything is organized. We will kind of do all this together. And that, I think, also helped them feel validated that it's not just something mom or they call you. Hey, hey, hey, hey, is my two.

And I said, you know, it's just it's it's nice to go through it together. But I was nervous to to just relive certain things. And I was afraid things would come back to the December before we started working together. So this was not this past December, but the one before that. I was really stressed out when we opened Osteo Strong and woke up with strap one day.

And so it was a very like more recent problem for me. I think too, and just thinking, okay, what impact is this going to have on work and just daily life? And are the girls going to be out of school? That's stressful to. So just a lot of questions in my mind. But starting off I mean I loved the detox and drainage support.

I, I love it that you use. I think that you feel good on that too. Alone even with that starting that I remember Blair symptoms lessened even just starting there to which was really noticeable to me. So I started recommending it to my clients to just to get some movement there because it was noticeable. As practitioners, we try a lot of supplements were sent, a lot of things.

Yeah, we know what's out there. And for something to have a noticeable change that's big for me across. I haven't had a client that we've used that and we haven't seen big movement, and I'll use it for all kinds of things. Lyman co-infections I have farmers who have pesticide poisoning. It's such a helpful tool for that. Like there's so many different things that it's that it's really helpful for.

And you do feel better. And I relate starting my process, which I'm going to share about. Or maybe we'll have shared at the point that this is out, the fear around addressing an infection in your body because the infection behaves on its own. Parasites are like the best example of this, because we're all kind of familiar, but like they can quorum since like they can function together and kind of shift your willingness or interest in taking something that's going to kill them.

They can change. People who deal with big parasite issues usually have similar behavioral issues. They have poor boundaries. They let people take advantage of them. What does a parasite do? It literally sucks off your body. And there is something to be said there about when we go to address infections. There's an inherent knowing in a sense that like, this isn't going to be good, but it's not good for the pathogen.

That's what's going to happen. But you do feel this like great trepidation and fear, and there is a biological component there, but also just logically like maybe you've been sick for a while and it's been in and out and different things and weird. No one's excited about that part because there there is like as the immune system goes and is prompted to address those infections, it's cool because you get to feel those infections and you're like, I know that what I'm doing is addressing what I've experienced for years or however long, but it's less cool because you do have to, you know, some things are coming.

Yeah, yeah. The more you know, you're like. But it was, it was, it was the process itself wasn't terribly like tedious or anything. I feel like it's very straightforward. It's it's easy to implement to because you're not taking a bunch of pills three times a day. You're you're not doing all of a lot of other kind of protocols too.

So I felt like it was pretty straightforward. But I did have some symptoms come back, like the leg pain. And that was with the Bart, I think, in the bottom of the foot pain. That was also just validating, like, hey, yeah, we are actually getting at this immune system. Remember, that's what you need to go after. So it was and it was funny to tell my parents, hey, you know those leg pains that were growing pain?

Actually no, they were not what they were growing pains. Yeah. No. Yeah. Well, I'm resolving this. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. What about the lab? What about the lab markers and things like that? What does that look like for you at this point? I had labs drawn probably 3 or 4 weeks ago at this point, and it was the first time I've had a normal differential in terms of neutrophils, lymphocytes.

And I don't even know how long a long time, which was so exciting because, you know, as a practitioner, I look at labs all day every day and I'm very proud of my own. Now finally, so that was great to see to.

In terms of the iron stuff, that's pretty much resolved to because I was an over absorber of iron. So I would tend on the higher iron side as well. And that looks good. What else glucose Butchers is saying. That's three. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it moved the needle when a lot of other supports could not. Which was to see to if you've been wanting to transform your health but don't know where to start.

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I think that's a huge, important message because with the rise of functional care, a lot of times we're taught in the internet and social media, where I also exist will teach us, you can do this protocol for iron dysregulation. You can do this protocol for anemia. In this protocol, for a weird immune differential, you probably just have a chronic bacterial something.

You can even do this protocol for a lime or go do this hydrogen water therapy for your Lyme. Or there's so many things, but truly the thing that shifts the needle and moves the body to a sustained state of wellness where you have a before, in an after and an after that holds is looking at all of those pieces.

We couldn't have just addressed your differential which for the listener differentials different types of immune cells. It comes with your CBC. So your CBC's got like white blood cells red blood cells and then quality of those cells platelets. And so the different immune cells there's five of them. Tell us about different parts of the immune system. Give us a little hints.

Like is there a food allergy stuff going on here. Is this person more bacterial this year or is there a lot of inflammation whatever those sort of things resolve? Because all of the puzzle pieces of Kelly's body, the talks issue, the infections portion, you did have some sinus stuff in there. The high histamine response, the cardio was not really helping anything.

It was actually helping us trying to move your blood around more so I could deal with the toxicity. But they're all related and we couldn't have ever thrown just some hyperbaric oxygen therapy at the lime and gotten resolution like we did, because it's all parts. And we couldn't have even just addressed the lime. Only if I'd only done lime in the immune therapy process, I would have missed the big parvo piece that was very so connected to your hands and your skin there now, by the way, like red, which I love, and then like the EV, let's talk about like the fatigue and the strep that kept circulating through your house.

Like for us, all that in your household. I also needed to work on both of the girls because you guys were just like a little factory. And so no protocol or no hyperbaric thing for, you know, like not just one thing can resolve a thing. There has to be. And I come at this too, from having gone on my own journey, and I've done lots of single things.

I've seen wonderful functional medicine doctors who gave me a little part and a little part and like, let's just work on this acute part. But the puzzle being put together is the thing that that gets you those labs that are resolved and the body that is really remove a lot of those big stressors. So now it can move forward in like appropriate function.

And for me, I always feel a little bit like we see miracles inside of here every day. And I share them and explain them, but definitely not well enough. And that's that's the thing is that you've got to address all systems together, especially with something like Lyme, because it's it's signature as it moves around the body. And in effect, it affects many systems.

So you can have an issue with your kidneys for a while and then have a skin issue, then have a little rash issue, then have some like food allergy issues and they have in flow. And you start to see that they're crossing over system. So how do you resolve a multisystem thing. There's a gatekeeper to all those systems in in our work we find that's the immune system.

And I didn't realize how big of a piece EBV was for me. And I think anyone, you know, they'll say this on online social media, things like that. If you have a thyroid problem, you have an ABV problem. Well, I have had hypothyroidism in the past. I do not have it anymore. And that's another big piece to my thyroid.

Labs are optimal now, which is great. Not I'm not medicated. I was at one point many points in my life. I was on armor. I've been on tourism. I've been on a lot of them. But I never felt well on them and it never got my body up to that optimal range for thyroid labs. I think probably because my body did not want to speed up my cellular metabolism having so much toxicity.

Right? But EBV, I didn't realize how much it was literally weighing me down in terms of feeling tired in my body and feeling like puffy throughout my neck, and even just like upper shoulder type of pain to and just feeling very draggy throughout the day and till we addressed it. And then I felt some of those symptoms come up for maybe 24 hours go away.

And I realized, wow, that actually does that is having a major impact on how I'm feeling, because I'm feeling so much better now than I was, and that was almost my normal state before addressing it to and for the listener, AbbVie's Epstein-Barr virus. So we're familiar with that. Maybe mononucleosis or mono kissing disease. A lot of times you'll contract in your teenage years or college years when you're high contact with others.

It is passed through saliva. And so like it's really it's very much so in and through our American population. It just it's one of those things that's around. We're all exposed to it. It's like, what does your body do with it when you get it? Most people have had it. If you haven't had it and I pulled your titers, you probably have some presence of showing that you had in the past.

And with viruses, they don't leave the body, they stay there. The immune system puts them in dormancy and we had them forever. And so they can also come out of dormancy. They can activate, they can deactivate. And so often, even if we're working with somebody in a Perry menopause phase, that's a huge place where we see EBV pop out and express, again, puberty, same situation.

A lot of children will be exposed to EBV in childhood, have very mild illness, if any at all. But then puberty comes along and they're tanked. And we all know to for acute bono your options which I love to share this because I feel like I had a cute mono twice after my two child, my two sons births and they told me just to go rest and I had freaking newborns.

But I was nursing and I was like, I could use another option if you have one. And there's like, you know, vitamin C, IVs and some supplements you can do. But the the world of homeopathy in the way that it is supporting infections to resolve, offers great hope to EBV. If you have a kid who has mono right now and you're told, go home and rest it off.

Yeah, you might be able to do that for a couple few weeks, but you could also feel a lot better and cut down on that viral replication and feeling like super crap for a while and push that infection into proper dormancy, because some people, two kids will have it, and then they're like, I'll talk to women who are in their 30s and they're like, I have my own college and just kind of always feel tired since then or just, I don't know, maybe I'm just getting older and just left college and have kids and then just tired.

No, the EBV is often there. Poor exercise, recoveries and other flag for me. Neck pain, gallbladder issues, viroid issues, liver issues. Someone who always has elevated liver enzymes. Those are things I think about there. And it's it's such a helpful tool. Different seasons in our life. I just think about the perimenopause face so much because it comes in and impacts that quite a bit.

And you're like, oh, I'm just in perimenopause because right now everything is perimenopause, everything. But well, and that's what. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. No, because it is like kind of infuriating. And in our space, like there's so much of that, but a lot of it's because hormone shifts are places where the immune system struggles. You also end up with less hormone, and hormones do help us feel like our full of vitality and feel really well and strong.

And in those shifting seasons, infections can come out. And it's not just it's what is perimenopause allowed in the body? What has changed in where's the weakness? And then whereas other factors because sometimes in Pyramid Pause we have big stressors. Kids go to college, we hit up some Botox. We do other random GLP ones. Sometimes that's great. Sometimes don't go great.

All of those things can impact our immune system and be part of the total Perry picture. Yeah, and I think that's the other thing that I've thought about a lot is perimenopause is getting a very big moment in the spotlight right now for good reason. However, yeah, I think it's hard, as you know, 40 something year old woman to say, oh, well, it's just Perry menopause.

If I had thought that to and chased after kind of like the low hanging fruit just going after symptom, you know, like Band-Aids, I'll call it. I wouldn't have realized what a big issue the chronic infections were causing. I think sometimes we're experiencing those seasons of life, which is what you've said worse, because of all this underlying gunk that our body is dealing with.

And then you resolve that in your menopause, symptoms are not as bad as they were before or that they could have been, too. Yeah. I'll say one more thing about Pyramid Plaza will let her go and rest. But modern perimenopause is different because there are so many factors. And I say this about children's health too. There are immune issues and our children that we're facing now versus five years ago versus ten years ago are profound.

There is so much the rates of things that are impacted by toxicity like ADHD, autism, things like that that are not single factorial. So don't hear me say that toxin creates autism or toxin creates ADHD. But sure, as can be toxicity infections impact both of this toxicity and infections, like in the case of Sloan, can make those present so much stronger, can make the ADHD be like the prevalent thing we address infections.

The ADHD greatly improves. But with perimenopause we have Covid. Six years ago now that impacted our collective immune system pretty good. If you look at the number of chemical patents since the 50s and 60s, it rose, but it is rising in a very fast rate. If we look at chemical spills and PFAS exposures collectively, and there's just so much and then you throw screens in the picture, we're on a screen right now.

I'm thankful for a screen. I'm thankful that they help us to work. But dude, our brains, our stress handling systems were not made to absorb all of the stimulation, the high dopamine type of life we live just because of the way screens interact with our body. There's so many factors, and there's also this very real thing where a large amount of women are working now more and also full time mothering.

And we're asking so much of our bodies that wasn't there 50, 70 years ago, or even less than that. And perimenopause, having a moment I think is really a result of a lot of immune stress factors, cultural factors. And it's going to continue because it's too much. And the body is saying at this transition point, it's so much, I cannot transition her hormones and handle all this crap.

And my immune systems. Man. Jack, since Covid season is too much. And so it's not just perimenopause is the bad guy. What are the factors behind the menopause? And as we address those factors, and I'm excited for you as you keep moving in and through that season, Perry just becomes like a label for literally a time period, not a label for my ten years of hellish experience.

But when we don't address those factors and give the body resolution it needs, the things it's facing. The environment is hard and it flows and is hard, and it depends on what your body is caring how hard it is. Oh yeah, for sure, but we'll give him the rest. But I do want to go back to the general gist of this.

Thinking back on the journey, when the girls have gone through, so many people who listen to the podcast are experiencing chronic illness, but so many people are the family members, caregivers, friends of those experiencing chronic illness. And I'm a firm believer that unless you've experienced it up close, it's hard to understand. It's hard to know. Just like with any grief, it's hard to know how to care for someone.

And I'm kind of curious, like, what's one way that you or the girls were supported well in this season of healing or just in this process that you guys went through? I think something that really, really helped me is allowing myself to say no. And that was not my normal. I wouldn't say I'm a people pleaser, but I don't like to disappoint people either.

And I consider myself to be pretty capable of doing a lot. And I'm a doer. Yeah. So that giving myself the like, allowing myself to say no was really key in all of this to and slowing down in general to letting them rest and letting myself rest when I needed to, and really getting into the self-care, but not the self-care that is getting your nails done, getting your hair done, all that sort of stuff. Really like digging deeper into my spirituality and thinking about what I actually need and what I actually want to do from day to day.

Aside from, you know, the responsibilities letting dishes stay in the sink when I needed to have a break. Sorry, Sarah's doing something. So just that really, I think was very helpful. And seeing.

That this is not some quick overnight thing, it takes time, but it's allowing me to then become optimal in my health. So seeing it more as sounds really cliche, but like it's all about the journey, not the destination. If you see it as this like finish line that you're getting to, you'll constantly be disappointed. Like, that's not the goal.

It really is like levels. And I consider it to be a like a chance to up level our health. And then from that platform we can even go higher and we can continue to to raise the bar and just to feel better and improve and optimize from there. So I think reframing how I was looking at it was one thing, but also giving myself the grace to be able to slow down and say no was number two as well.

Yeah, those are really good points and something that we need to talk more about and care, because we do see people. We see people who come in and just have run of the mill perimenopause in any little sport, little regroup, any little coaching, and they're good and on their way. But we also see people who have been really ill or people like myself, who I was really well, and I had a tick bite that was acute, and I went downhill very fast and I was bed bound for several months like it was.

And I was a healthy hot yoga a couple times a week early, walking every day like it was a very acute pivot in a healing season when people work with us is usually that original. Four months is like your intensive time, and then you do get to a place where you have a new foundation and then you decide, what are you going to do from there?

For me, I like it out of the bed and I can work again, and I could take my kids to stuff and my body was functional, my tachycardia was gone. It was no longer having random anaphylaxis of things. My alpha cow was in remission. So wow, what a great big success. But I couldn't sit upright in a chair because my muscle master playing in the bed was gone.

And so for me, it wasn't like, okay, I'm done. I finished addressing the lime. I'm good now. It was like, now I can actually, like, build muscle. Like I can try to keep up with my voice. I can go and travel again. I can do things, and also I can start optimizing some parts of my body that I've wanted to address or support or be stronger.

And, and I think about that too, with kids sometimes, like they go through the care process and they're at the end are still a little GI pieces, and we get to push that GI into an optimal place. So there's nothing left. There's not, but it's all interwoven and it's not cut and dry. And you're right, it is like an opportunity to I think it's an opportunity to build life for me.

After I got sick from the bite, it was an opportunity to get my life back because I was on a steady slope to anaphylaxis that was going to take me, which is very scary. But that is what was happening. And you do get you get your life back, you get a baseline and then you have the ability to build from there.

And I think you get a lot of peace to, you know, chronic illness steps forward because it is like, why is that happening? What is wrong with me? Maybe I'll try this protocol. Oh, now I have very nods. Oh, but the other things gone. Like it's really stressful and exhausting. And to get to a level place where you're like, a lot of my stuff's like, chill.

And it's not been here. So I have a before and after, not another reveal before after. But like in a I have peace then my body is in a different place now and that is well bracelets for sure. And I also think about how much I've changed with even just as a parent, how I give them not like nourishment during the day or anything like that.

You know, we are eating habits didn't have to change very much at all, which was great. That's they're used to eating the way that we eat. But the homeopathy, homeopathy was different because I told you we had tried homeopathy. I think I remember on the first call and I was like, I don't, I didn't see, I don't know, I'm not sold on it.

I was definitely skeptical. And now today, I mean, we use them before school for supports if need be. If somebody is coming down with something wimpy, will is the best thing just to have some quick support. That's very noninvasive. I will call it. Yeah, it's it's changed a lot about how I view things with our own family and my clients too.

Yeah, just giving them more power, I guess, to really take control of what they're giving themselves and like to to know more about how to take care of an issue when it comes up, I guess. Yeah, there's a lot of freedom there too, because there's no side effects. There's no interaction with medication, drugs or herbs. So it's really helpful.

Yeah. Just to helpful system of medicine to learn and be able to employ. And then also has these marvelous benefits of like being the game changer for chronic infection stuff. But it becomes like a new language and it's a new tool. Then it's such a my boys talk about it too. Like I have a headache. I'm like, okay, what do you want?

You need to drink glass of water first. But what what do you want? And they're like, oh, the head Painesville. You don't want to improving. No, I don't want to taste IV. I don't like how it is. It's so Truckee. It's nice to give me the other thing. And if that doesn't work then fine. But I mean, I think it's just so empowering to be able to have tools that are helpful and the emotional remedies.

I love how brave we'll in with the Mayas. And support was the last thing that pushed that anxiety into, I want to say, dormancy gone for you because yeah, just marvelous tools like those. They're my favorite part of the whole line because of what they do for people in the peace that they bring. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing about the girls and your own story and all the layers and parts and from a, you know, educated in this space viewpoint, because that's really different.

A lot of our clients are just people who are not in this space at all. And they found themselves ill and without answers or without options. And it's always helpful to hear a different perspective. And and we see lots of people too, who are practitioners. We have so many chiropractor, PT, echo clients, and dentists like this space is really helpful and it can solve, you know, where peculiar, odd, difficult things and it's just good to hear from that perspective.

So I appreciate you spend time with. Well, thanks for having me. And yeah, I think the immune system is so important to address. And a lot of us specialists were not immune specialists like you are. So I think that speaks volumes that other people are seeking out your help. You know, if you've got bone issues. Yes, I'm your gal.

And that's well, I mean, we'll have your menopause problems, but then you'll go to Kelly with your. Yes.

If I've got someone with immune struggles, I'm sending them to you because I, you know, that's what. That's what you guys do so well. So thanks. I appreciate you having me. And I'm always happy to share our story. Thanks for listening. I hope you're leaving. Encouraged, curious and hopeful. If you learned something, I'd love for you to share this episode with a friend.

Hey, we are all healing together. You can learn more about my practice, our team, and what it's like to work with us at heyheymae.com. I teach lots on Instagram and answer questions there. Each Monday my Instagram handle is at hey Hey Elizabeth Mae. You can watch these podcasts, episodes and more on our YouTube channel. Hey hey Mae, learn about and enjoy our homeopathic line and take our homeopathic short course at hey Hey homeopathic.Com happy healing.