Heather Gray | Could Your Chronic Symptoms Be Lyme? Your Guide To Identifying & Healing This Stubborn Mystery Illness

Are you a midlife woman struggling with chronic symptoms, but just can't seem to find the root cause? Could Lyme disease be the culprit behind the mystery? In today's riveting episode, we sit down with Heather Gray, an expert Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist and Bioenergetic Practitioner who specializes in helping clients with chronic and complex illnesses such as Lyme disease and Autoimmune diseases. With overn27 yearsnof personal experience, Heather is passionate about helping others find relief and regain their health 💪. 

The main topic for today's discussion is Lyme disease, and Heather will share her expertise on the following key takeaways:

- Identifying Lyme disease ⚠️
- Healing this mystery illness 🌱
- Empowering clients to take control of their health journey 🧘‍♀️
  
We dive into the nitty-gritty of Lyme disease – from its symptoms and the difficulties in identifying it, to Heather's personalized approach that helps clients reduce inflammation, improve gut health, and achieve optimal wellness 🔍🩺. Heather's dedication and experience have helped countless clients overcome their chronic health issues to achieve the health and vitality they deserve 😊.
  
So, dear midlife women, don't let chronic illness hold you back any longer! Tune in to this thought-provoking episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast and learn from Heather Gray the steps to identify and conquer Lyme disease, or any other stubborn mystery illness, once and for all 🦸‍♀️.
  
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation ♨️. Don't forget to subscribe to The Hormone Prescription Podcast for more informative and inspiring episodes on all things hormonal and health-related! 🎧 🌟

 

Speaker 1 (00:00):

There's a reason you became a good host for Lyme in the first place. And if nothing changes, nothing changes, Heather Gray.

Speaker 2 (00:10):

So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us, keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an O-B-G-Y-N, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:04):

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Hormone Prescription. Thank you so much for joining me today as we dive into a topic we haven't dived into in five years in the podcast, which I don't know how that happened because it's super important and it could be affecting you and you might not even know it because it's a diagnosis that's often missed. It's hard to diagnose, and clinicians have to have a high index of suspicion, know the right tests to give, know the right treatments, and the right order to get rid of this bugger, I'm gonna call it Lyme disease. So it's a little bit of a complicated process, and not a lot of clinicians are experts in this. And so sometimes it's left to our health coaches and our other ancillary providers to really do the grunt work of being the experts in this. And today's guest is the line boss.

Speaker 1 (01:59):

Her name's Heather Gray. I'll tell you a little bit about her and then we will get started. So Heather is a functional diagnostic nutritionist and bioenergetic practitioner specializing in supporting clients with chronic and complex illnesses like Lyme disease, autoimmune diseases and more. She has 27 years of personal experience. A lot of us come to this work through our pain that becomes our purpose. Heather is no exception, so she deeply understands the struggles of living with these conditions. She really is dedicated to helping others find relief. You'll hear that in her enthusiasm, in her frequency, in the depth of knowledge that she has about this topic. She has a personalized approach as a practitioner. She's also a podcast host and author, and she's helped countless clients reduce inflammation in their body and brain, improve their gut health and achieve optimal wellness. She helps clients get to the root cause of their symptoms and helps them take control of their health journey. Her approach is not only effective, but also empowering. And one of the things I really love about her is that she incorporates the bioenergetics, the spirituality, which is essential for your healing. If you are neglecting that and you don't do it, it's not a moral or ethical choice. It's a health choice because you're missing one of the most important components of your healing protocol. And we dive into that in this episode as well. So please help me welcome the line boss, Heather Gray, to the show.

Speaker 3 (03:32):

Hey, thanks for having me. So excited. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (03:35):

I'm super excited to talk about Lyme because we haven't talked about it before and we're going into our fifth season of the show. And when I realized we hadn't talked about it, I said, how have we not talked about Lyme? Because although it may not affect as many people as have hormonal poverty at midlife for women, it really can be so debilitating and so hard to diagnose and people wait so long for a diagnosis. So I think it's super important to talk about this topic to really get people thinking about could this be a cause of some of the symptoms that I'm having? So why don't we dive in right there, Heather, starting with the symptoms, acute Lyme, chronic Lyme, what does it look like? How might someone suspect that this could be them?

Speaker 3 (04:28):

Well, first off, I'm just so honored to be the first and only person to talk about lime <laugh>, five seasons. That's nothing to sneeze at. I've got a podcast that I'm into season two, and yeah, that is a labor of love. So congratulations to you. Thank you. Yeah, lime the boring part. Let's get that stuff out of the way. <Laugh> acute. So it was funny when we were talking before we started, you're like you said, you found that a lot of folks don't have that traditional bullseye rash, and that's actually a misnomer, right? Only 30% of people who have Lyme disease actually get that bullseye rash. So if you think about it, it's actually a pretty small percentage of people. And that was me. Like I was bit by a tick when I was 13. My mom took it out the wrong way, right?

Speaker 3 (05:07):

There is a right way and a wrong way to take out the tick. She took a flame, a lighter to it, which actually makes it regurgitate what's in its system. So your chances of getting, yeah, if it's got Lyme and it passes it along to you, your chances are higher getting it that way. So she took it out the wrong way. And you know, I didn't develop symptoms until about two years later when it really started attacking my joints. And especially juvenile. Lyme is really heavy in the brain. And so a lot of cognitive issues, a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, a lot of suicidal ideation. My first real experience with it was my first psych ward when I was 15 years old for my first suicide attempt. Wow. You know, it was sad because at the time nobody was trying to figure out why this 15 year old was trying to off herself.

Speaker 3 (05:53):

Nobody was digging deeper into why does this kid. Instead, they put me on antipsychotics, they told me I was attention seeking, pat me on the head, and sent me out the door. And I had spent two other times in the psych ward over over my life for suicide attempts. And what's crazy and not talked about a lot is that Lyme disease, most people die from suicide than the actual disease itself. Disease suicide in Lyme disease client patients are, is really high. The brain inflammation that it causes, the havoc that it causes with your hormones, the migrating pain, there's only six diseases out there that cause migrating pain. So that should be red flag number one. So if you ever have somebody coming to present to you and they're like, I've got a pain in my right shoulder, and then now it's in my left elbow, and then now it's in my right, right knee, right, they're not a hypochondriac.

Speaker 3 (06:47):

That's actually a very telltale sign of Lyme disease. So we've got migrating pain, we've got massive joint pain because Lyme likes to eat collagen. And so that's why we get so much joint inflammation and so much joint pain with that. It also likes to go to the areas that's weak, right? So it's gonna attack your weak areas. So if you have an injury somewhere, or if you have a genetic predisposition with something, it's gonna wreak havoc in that area. It causes a lot of brain inflammation, anxiety, depression, spinning, a obsessive thoughts suicidal ideations. There were days, I'm not even kidding, 20 to 30 times a day I would think about ways of taking myself out of this world. And, and it wasn't like a, there was nothing going on situationally for me to warrant those kind of thoughts. There was just a lot of hopelessness because I was being gaslighted by the medical community.

Speaker 3 (07:41):

I was not finding answers. You, it's very isolating when you have a chronic illness and you look normal, right? You don't look sick. So the invisible disease part of it comes with a huge thing. And then as I was then going into puberty, my hormones were a wreck. My periods were a total mess. It wreak havoc my whole life to the point where then once I did get pregnant, I miscarried. And so I've been battling hormonal stuff. So that's why I love any chance to tie this stuff in because I know for me, when you have those kind of stressors on the body we're, it's gonna steal from your, you know, sexual hormones and it's gonna cause cortisol levels to go up. And I've been fighting with my weight on and off my whole life. And so it's all very much tied together, all kinds of toxins and, you know, viruses, bacteria, other pathogens, any kind of stressor on the body is a stressor on the body and it's gonna mess with your hormones.

Speaker 1 (08:36):

Yeah. And I'm so sorry that you went through that as a teen at any age, that sounds horrifying. I'm glad that you've found the way and you're now helping other people because I know right now even people, there's somebody or some people listening who are gonna identify with those symptoms and they're gonna say, wait a minute, I have migratory pain. Wait a minute. I have had feelings of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts and obsessive thoughts. Wait a minute, I've had some of these symptoms. And wait a minute, my doctors never mentioned Lyme. I know I've been bitten by many ticks. I grew up in New York City. I went to camp in Connecticut, upstate New York. I've been to Maine, I've been bitten by so many ticks in my life. And if you live in a tick endemic area, it certainly has to be a possibility that you consider.

Speaker 1 (09:26):

And if you have even just hormonal problems that seem out of the norm, and like you said, it likes to eat collagen. So think about the strength of joints if you have early onset. I recently knew somebody who had bilateral hip replacement in her fifties, which is very young. So these are some of the symptoms you might think of and you definitely wanna be checked. Now, getting checked is another situation when it comes to Lyme. So we have to talk about testing and what are the different options for testing because there's a very high false negative rate, meaning you have Lyme, but the test comes back and says you don't. There's a wide array of testing that is more specific, meaning also more specialized and often more costly, but worth it if you can get a diagnosis. Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (10:18):

What an awesome topic. I have so much respect for this little bacteria. So going back to a little bit, what is Lyme? It's a spiral shaped bacteria, it's in the same family as syphilis. And so because of its spiral shaped, cork shaped nature, it can invade any tissue, any system, any organ in the body and start to wreak havoc. That's why they call it the great imitator because it can, cause there's, the numbers have been changing so much in the past 10 years, but the last time I heard it was like 65 or 70% of MS is actually undiagnosed Lyme disease, Alzheimer's, undiagnosed Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, undiagnosed Lyme disease. So all of these kinds of catch all types, we don't really know what it is. So we're just gonna call it that type of stuff. I'd be looking into Lyme. And so, and the reason that I have respect for it is, first off, it's been around for thousands of years.

Speaker 3 (11:08):

So we actually found it in, it was a mummy in the Italian Alps, I think who we, thousands of years old, found it in its system. So our immune system in this bacteria has been together for thousands of years. I think the reason we're seeing it pop its ugly head up so much these days is just like with anything else, we've gotten so far off track as humans on how to live. We've supercharged these bugs with EMFs. We've lowered our immune systems with toxins in the air, toxins in the water, toxins in our food, high stress, all this stuff that kind of leads us to be a better host. So like you said, you've been bit hundreds of times by ticks, you probably, you don't, you're not showing symptoms of Lyme disease where someone like myself, I, I had a lot of childhood trauma.

Speaker 3 (11:55):

I had an uncle who killed himself when I was four. I had a lot of heavy metal toxicities. I was celiac and I was eating the standard American diet, didn't know any better. So there were a lot of things that set me up to be a good host. And so that's one thing I really wanna emphasize in this episode is like, why do some people get it? And some people don't. There's also a genetic component to it. There's environment epigenetics, there's a lot of that stuff, but testing. So it's brilliant in the fact that it's got three different phases that it can live in. It can be in a cyst form, it can be in a persister cell form, it can be in its active form. And a lot of times when you start to go after it, it will wrap. Its up in your immune system in biofilm and hides from your immune system.

Speaker 3 (12:35):

And so that's why a lot of this testing you get so many negatives is because our immune system isn't picking it up or it's actually, we've had it for so long and it's depleted our immune system. And so now a lot of these tests that are looking for that immune response aren't getting it because our immune system's been shut down. So it's fascinating how stealthy it can be. I like testing through Vibrant Labs, DNA connections is a really good one. And Hygienics. So those are the three top tests that I would recommend. If you're getting testing done, testing done, a lot of times I use a free intake form. So I use two of them, one of them from cell core and one of 'em from Dr. Horowitz. And that one you can get online for free. But I have found so much clinical correlation with just a person's medical background, medical history, symptoms, and then these intake forms that I don't do a whole lot of actual Lyme testing anymore unless somebody absolutely is, I have $1,500 in my pocket and it's burning and I have to see black and white results.

Speaker 3 (13:34):

Okay, cool. If that's the case, then absolutely. Sometimes it does help to know what we're dealing with. But for the most part, I've, like I said, I've seen so much clinical correlation with those intake forms and then with a really great medical history and then going over symptoms that, and most people don't care to have that. If people are coming to me, it's usually because they've been sick for a really long time, they've already seen a lot of practitioners, they haven't gotten the answers they need, so their finances are a little bit more constricted. So if you've only got so much money to work with, I'd rather not waste it on a lab that could be a false negative. Instead, I'd rather use it towards whatever protocol treatment that you might need. Because it's not cheap <laugh> at all getting over Lyme disease because it affects so many different areas of the body that it's quite complex and it's like peeling back layers of an onion a lot of times. Especially someone like myself. I was 13 when I was bit and I finally got diagnosed when I was 34.

Speaker 1 (14:32):

And But these tests that you're mentioning are not necessarily the tests that you're mainstream corporate doctor will do,

Speaker 3 (14:40):

Correct. Yeah. Eliza Western Blot, those are the ones that they're typically, your typical doctor will do. And sadly, let's see if I can explain this properly. Back when they tried to come out with a Lyme vaccine like 20 years ago, in order for it not to pop a certain band on the Western blot, they actually took that, they took that band off and now they're not using that vaccine anymore. But the results of that lab are still coinciding with the vaccine stuff. So we're getting a lot of false negatives because they're missing bands. There's missing parts of this lab for a vaccine that we're not even using anymore. So it makes total no sense. And the fact that, like I said, a lot of times if your immune system is shut down, it's not gonna show up properly. So there's a lot of reasons why I'm not a fan of the Western blot or the Eliza test really, as far as Lyme testing goes.

Speaker 1 (15:32):

And I would agree with that. So I would encourage anybody who suspects that they could have chronic Lyme to not waste their time with those tests. And to, like Heather says, say that money for getting into the treatment because it's gonna improve everything about your health and your hormones or <crosstalk>. This

Speaker 3 (15:50):

Is how crazy this disease is. You just said the word chronic Lyme. Do you realize the CDC just recently, like within the past couple weeks, are omitting that chronic Lyme disease is actually a thing? So a disease that I've had since I was 13 years old, I'm now 45, is just now getting recognized by the CDC.

Speaker 1 (16:08):

Yeah, I saw, I can't remember the name of it, but there's a documentary about chronic Lyme. Do you know the one I'm talking about?

Speaker 3 (16:16):

There's three of them that came out last year. The monster inside me, the Quiet Epidemic. Mm-Hmm.

Speaker 1 (16:21):

<Affirmative>

Speaker 3 (16:22):

And Not Crazy. I'm sick. And so those three, I'll touch on chronic Lyme and all different types of stories, but they're all three of 'em are really great. The monster inside me is probably my favorite one.

Speaker 1 (16:34):

Okay, great. Thanks for those recommendations. And it really is one of the most severe illnesses that hasn't been recognized that people have really suffered with. And so tell us a little bit more about your story. How did you get on the path to healing?

Speaker 3 (16:50):

Oh man. So I'm typical. I must have seen 20, 30, 40 different practitioners and none of them were helping. And it was, my kid was a nine at the time, eight or nine. And I was going through another really bad spell. And my friend who's a psychologist was like, I want you to go see this pa up in Denver. And her name was Rosemary. I can't remember where she was from. She had the coolest accent. But I'm literally sitting with this woman for five minutes and she gets a twinkle in her eye and she goes, I know exactly what's wrong with you. And I'm thinking. Like, I've been here, done this for so long, there's no way I've been in your office for five minutes. And she goes, no, I, I think, have you ever been bitten by a tick? And I was like, yeah. Back when I was 13.

Speaker 3 (17:32):

And she goes, I think you have Lyme disease. And so on the way home, I'm tearing down the highway 75 miles an hour on i I 25 and tears streaming down my face and I'm, I screamed, I told you I'm not crazy. And when I finally write my book, that's gonna be the title of it, I told you I'm not crazy. The realities of Lyme disease, right? And then there's gonna be a subtitle, how I made Lyme My. So I need to get this book out. But so here I thought, and so many people with Lyme were like, I got a golden ticket, right? I got a golden ticket, I got a name for the monster that is just like, it doesn't even begin to touch them. What comes next? Right? Right. The story, because again, it just got recognized by the CDC.

Speaker 3 (18:16):

So finding a doctor that's literate that knows what they're doing can be really tough. Although there's a lot more, it's easier these days. There's a lot more Lyme literate doctors out there. But as a functional practitioner coach, like the one thing that I scream at the top of my lungs, and that was how I got better, was that you can't focus on treatment. Right? There's a reason I became a good host to begin with, and it's all that lifestyle stuff that I brought up earlier, right? So when I was seeing doctors, nobody would, when I went and saw that doctor in Denver who was treating me, and it's funny 'cause I ran into him recently and I didn't know if I wanted to like beat the crap out of him or give him a hug because the way they were treating me with just antibiotics and antimalarials, I thought I was gonna die.

Speaker 3 (18:59):

But it was because of that interaction that I went back to school and became a functional practitioner. So it was like a bittersweet. So like I said, but so yeah. So here I am on antibiotics, antimalarials herbals, like this really hardcore protocol in a body that's not pooping on a regular basis. I'm not sweating, right? My ba my hormones aren't balanced. My gut's a mess, my stress levels through the roof. I'm not sleeping well and he's going to war with my body, right? With these drugs. Wow. I thought I was gonna die. And that's when I learned the hard way that no, I really didn't wanna die. I just didn't wanna live like that anymore. And so then I started to fight and then I fought back and that's when I, I became a functional practitioner. I actually saw the, the founder Reed Davis on a podcast, right?

Speaker 3 (19:46):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I'm listening to him talk to Sean Ton about how you've gotta balance your hormones. You gotta get your gut working right? You gotta make sure your detox pathways are open. What's your stress level? What's your other toxins in your house? Like I loved perfume and scented candles and fabric softener and all this toxic, nasty crap, right? So it was again, so now I'm peeling back the onion and I'm detoxing the body and detoxing my environment, I am balancing my hormones, healing my gut, getting on a better diet, making sure I'm pooping daily. That was huge. Detox was so huge, I love detox. Like I am the detox queen between my castor oil packs, my coffee enemas, skin brushing, sauna. Like I love my detox regimen because I have genetics and you know, crappy genetics that doesn't allow me to detox properly. I I

Speaker 1 (20:40):

Hear you sister. I'm the same

Speaker 3 (20:42):

<Laugh>. Yeah. Like a canary in the coal mine, right? It sucks, especially now that I'm traveling more for work and doing conferences and I'm staying in these moldy hotels and I'm getting my butt kicked all over again. But now I know what it is that I'm dealing with and I know how to overcome it for the most part, after I dialed in a lot of that lifestyle stuff, Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And the last piece was actually retraining my nervous system, right? Because I told you I had a lot of early childhood trauma that then carried over into teenage angst and then now cue chronic disease and then now cue other things. All these got stuck in my nervous system and got me stuck in fight or flight. And you can't heal when you're in fight or flight. And so I had to do somatic work, I had to do breath work, I had to do tapping, I had to do energy work all to help get my nervous system out of fight or flight and into rest and digest.

Speaker 3 (21:34):

And that was the piece that really helped me stay better because the good little functional practitioner that I am, I'm great at taking my supplements and going to bed on time and do, you know, doing the things, but I wasn't dealing with the emotional part. So I will get better. And then six months later I would relapse and then I'd get better and a year later I'd relapse and I kept relapsing. I was like, what the heck is going on? And that's when I learned about the nervous system resetting stuff. And I haven't had a relapse in three years, you know? So now when I get covid, I just got covid. When I get the flu, I just get the flu. I don't have a re flare up of Lyme or a reactivation of anything because I have the tools and I know what I need to do to keep every my nervous system calm daily meditation and now is a huge part of my journey that I actually look forward to because it just helps to reset everything instead of being holding on for dear life for everything all the time. That's been my journey in a nutshell.

Speaker 1 (22:28):

Yes. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's important for everyone listening to highlight some things I wanna highlight that Heather is sharing with you is like she said, she became a good host. So not everyone who has a tick that infects them with Lyme is going to get Lyme disease. Those hosts who are inhospitable to that spiral bacteria are not going to get an infection and pretty much not a chronic infection. So there probably was something decompensated about your system to begin with that you became susceptible to Lyme. And like she's saying, you have to fix, everybody wants to go in with guns blaring and kill the stuff like she described. She was being treated. Go to war with these bacteria in your body, but your body has to be prepared to handle that. War is very destructive.

Speaker 1 (23:24):

And so you've got to handle the basics first. You've got to get the hormones bounced, you've got to get the gut and the detox and the mitochondria and you've gotta get everything all tuned up, the nutrition, the nervous system functioning properly before you really come in with the big guns. And I even found, and this is true, we had a great conversation during my healing hormonal poverty coaching last week about a woman had wanted to have, or she just had her mercury amalgams. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And she's having symptoms now because it doesn't sound like her dentist properly prepared her or is treating her with chelation and didn't get her all set up by doing the things we're talking about. There's some treatments like dealing with mold toxicity, dealing with Lyme, dealing with getting rid of heavy metals. You've gotta cover the basics first so that your body is ready to handle the stress and if not, you can actually create more problems down the line. So I love how you outlined that. Thank you for doing that. So I know some people are thinking, oh my gosh Heather, that sounds like so much work. And I love this quote you shared with me before we started. My self-care may feel like a part-time job, but it's better than being full-time sick, which I say I amend to. So describe, would you be comfortable describing your kind of self-care routine or that of clients you've worked with, how much time do they spend on a daily basis? What kinds of things are they doing?

Speaker 3 (25:02):

Yeah, absolutely. I'm an open book because that's how people get better, period, end of story. If one person gets one little nugget from my story, then it's been all worthwhile. And that's why I do what I do and that's why I get down here and talk the way that I do. Yeah. Yes. <Laugh>, because there are so many layers to peel back. And because there were things that set us up to be a good host, that's, it can be daunting because I'm actually taking your life and dumping it upside down and saying, okay, this works, this can stay, but this doesn't work. This can't stay, this works. This can stay. It's a funny question I get often from folks. They're like, when can I go back to blah, blah, blah <laugh> the way that I used to or living the, and I'm like, you can't.

Speaker 3 (25:44):

That is one of the gifts of Lyme disease. And there's not a lot of people talking about the gifts, but one of the gifts is it's teaching you that you can't continue living this toxic environment, this toxic lifestyle, and continue to function properly. Your body's tapping out and saying, overloaded, I'm done. And so there is no going back. And I, I'm grateful because I was a bit of a party girl back then. High stress, high achiever, burning the candle. A lot of type A personality. People I'm finding right, are a little bit more susceptible to these critters than anything else. Yeah. I was one of those <laugh>. So this disease taught me so many beautiful things about myself and about life, how to take care of the body. So now these days I don't have to do as much, it's like my maintenance, right?

Speaker 3 (26:30):

So I have supplements that I take every day. I'm still on a paleo type diet. I keep my inflammation down. I make sure to meditate daily, at least get 20 minutes of exercise in daily drinking clean water. And something as simple as putting $45 shower head filters from Amazon onto your, as you take a drink of clean water, I imagine, right? So many of us were like doing the thing and we're like, oh, I'm drinking this awesome filtered water. And then I ask them, are you bathing in filtered water? And they're like, no. And if you think about it, your skin is the largest organ. So if you're doing all these things to get rid of toxins and then you get into a five to 10 minute shower full of chlorine and fluoride and everything else, like, so a lot of times it's small little tweaks.

Speaker 3 (27:12):

I tell people, especially when it comes to getting toxins out of their lifestyle and out of their environment, right? When you run out of your aluminum deodorant, throw it away and get something that's, you know, cleaner, healthier, and doesn't have aluminum in it. Same thing with your self-care products. Same thing with getting this kind of a filter. It took me over a year to get my environment cleaned up and get filters and things in place, but it didn't happen overnight. And so that's one thing I tell people, go slow. Take it one bite at a time, right? Try not to look at the whole thing at once. 'cause Then you will get overwhelmed and you won't do anything. And really all those small steps really add up to big wins. But, these days I have a sauna blanket and I'm hoping to get one. I like Farage, they've got just a single pop-up like cord sauna, but my sauna blanket has a higher dose.

Speaker 3 (28:00):

And so it's an infrared sauna blanket and it looks like a sleeping bag that I get in. And I do that three times a week. I do skin brushing with it and take binders. So I really supercharge it. I use my castor oil pack overnight three times a week. I still do a coffee enema still once a week. And then, like I said, daily, making sure that I'm daily getting exercise and then taking care of my spiritual health because that's the other part of these pieces of healing that not a lot of people are talking about. We keep thinking yes, and separate the physical from the spiritual, from the emotional. And we can't, that is not how we're made up. And so really meditation is in, in prayer are absolute foundational for me now. Like I, you can really tell how easily I go off the rails when I haven't, haven't done those two things for myself every day.

Speaker 1 (28:50):

Thank you for sharing that. And I think you're so right. Mainstream medicine has the drugs and surgery and I'm glad we have it if we need it. Functional medicine has the physiological approach with supplements and nutrition and detox and healing the gut and bouncing hormones. I appreciate that. But I think what everybody, most, everyone misses. And then there's some people who only deal with the spiritual, energetic and they ignore others. They say, oh, this is all you need. And maybe down the line, when we get that perfected that technology for spiritual energetic healing, we won't need the other because everything is frequency at its core. Everything is light and sound and frequency. So maybe we'll get there like Dr. Spock where he would just take that Star Trek little and you'd be healed because he'd just be blasting your body with the right frequencies. You talked about prayer and meditation and you mentioned some things earlier. I think that a lot of people don't know what they're supposed to do when it comes to healing their energy body, what that really looks like, what that means. So just from your experience in yourself and working with people, what does that encompass? What does it look like?

Speaker 3 (30:10):

Mm-Hmm. Phenomenal question. There's a lot of cool tools out there these days. I've tried a lot of them. Some of them can be really stupid expensive <laugh>, like I like the Zito machine. And there's a couple other technologies out there that are really great at scanning the body, just like how you talked about. And they've been really spot on with kind of a diagnostic part. I haven't found a lot of 'em that help move the needle though. And you would think that that would be easy because once you energetically figure out what's going on, then you send the right, you know, frequency. Like rife. There is this wearable tech from one company that I work with now, so it's actually sending me frequencies through a red light and it looks like an Apple watch, but I can actually pick the frequency out.

Speaker 3 (30:55):

So right now I'm actually running Lyme and mold. And so I do that every day just to help balance my system out. Because especially after having Lyme for 27 years, it's not ever gonna leave me. It's a part of me and it's how well I keep my immune system up and working properly is how well it keeps it at bay. And so there are some cool texts out there, red light, there's different things that can, meditation I talked about in prayer help get you in that energetic space of working with frequency and vibration and helps get you more balanced. What else? Oh, emotion code and body code work. So a lot of times you don't actually have to go in and figure out what emotions are clogging up the system. You do muscle testing and these other energetic type practices to help clear that stuff out.

Speaker 3 (31:46):

There's breath work, all of the breath of fire to help move energy around and and balance the body. There's guided meditations, like I just did one yesterday with this woman. And I, I knew all about chakras for a long time and I actually wasn't gonna watch it. And I was like, I know about chakras. She actually taught me a few cool new things about chakras that I, I never heard before. And when she does, we hear sometimes that a person can have deficiency in a certain chakra, but I never thought in a way that some chakras can be overly enlarged, especially if people who are control freaks. She says when they come to see her that they're solar plexus, which is where our power center is actually overly sized compared to the rest of the chakras. And so when you're balancing your chakras, you really want them all to be very uniform, right?

Speaker 3 (32:31):

And working properly to keep the energy flowing. And so she took us on a guided meditation, starting from the root chakra and seeing the color red and then going up to the next one, up to the next one, up to the next one. Just like powering up a power center. Like it was just so incredibly mm-hmm, <affirmative> powerful but simple. So I, one thing I love about a lot of the bioenergetic stuff is they can be really easy. And so people a lot of times will discount how well breathwork works and how well yeah, meditation works, right? How well getting your feet on the ground, your bare feet on the ground for 20 minutes a day works or

Speaker 1 (33:07):

Sunlight.

Speaker 3 (33:08):

That's what I was gonna say. Or getting the first morning sunlight on your eyes. Like it's crazy how simple, easy some of these tools can be, but they are so impactful,

Speaker 1 (33:18):

Yes, so impactful. And the list is long. So I'm just wondering what you say to the person because we are so socialized and conditioned to believe that quote unquote, healing is something the doctor does to you with a drug or a surgery and it's a one shot. You take the drug or course of antibiotics and then you're better, or you have the surgery and then you're better. So when people hear, oh, you want me to deal with this bioenergetics, this spiritual part of me, I get two objections. Number one, it's all this very non-specific stuff that I don't see results out of right away. So I don't see the benefit, so I don't do it. And two, you're stepping on my religion and wondering how you handle those two objections.

Speaker 3 (34:02):

I don't really handle them. I'm <laugh>. I'm a, I'm a direct to the point type of person of, if you're not gonna do this, so actually I had a client who followed me. He was with me for a year and a half, and every single time something would come up and his anxiety would, what supplement can you give me? What things can you give me? And I'm like, have you done your breath work today? Did you do your journaling? Have you gone outside and put your feet on the ground? Have you gotten at least 20 minutes worth of exercise in? And he would say no to all of those things. And then I would tell him, I'm not giving you another supplement because you don't need another supplement. You need to get the lifestyle down under control in the foundation. And there is really no stepping on your religion.

Speaker 3 (34:42):

So whatever religion that you have, tuning into your higher power and having faith, not fear what whatever that is, they all, I shouldn't say operate similarly, but the higher power is the higher power. And really having a higher power, a faith in, in something outside of yourself really helps to get you over these illnesses. And it really is, I think, crucial. And if you don't believe in God believing in your higher self or, or mother nature or something outside of yourself, that can help give you strength and faith when things are dark, when things look scary. So one, there's really no stepping on the faith. I see that sometimes when you bring up chakras, a lot of times people are like, oh, that's against my religion. It's not actually tied to any religion. Yes, almost all old religions talk about it in a different way. It's just the energy,

Speaker 1 (35:29):

Energy centers.

Speaker 3 (35:31):

It's just energy centers. But yeah, I, and so I tell people quite often like, I can't guarantee my work because I don't know what you're gonna follow through with. But I do tell people, if you do what I tell you to do in the order and the way that I tell you to do it, if you don't get better, then I'll continue to work with you and dig deeper. Because sometimes it is, so one thing I wanted to talk about earlier is you were talking, there are always barriers to health. And there's three big ones that I have to rule out before I even start working with people on their Lyme. And one of them is mold. And you had brought up dentistry, right? So I had mercury in my mouth and I also had cavitations. So cavitations happen when they take out wisdom teeth or do root canals and they cause an infection to be locked in your job basically.

Speaker 3 (36:16):

And when <laugh>, my cognitive, oh my gosh, the cognitive, a decline that I was experiencing in 2020 was insane. Like, I would walk into a room and forget what I was doing. I would stutter. It was just horrible to know you're losing your mind, but not being able to do anything about it. And so I finally got the cavitations, found out I had wisdom teeth removed when I was 15. So now I've had this infection, another low grade infection in my body since I was 15 years old. And when they did the pathology when they dug out what was in there, there were all kinds of nasty viruses. Another bacteria, one of 'em who caused miscarriages, which I had a miscarriage. So cavitations, mold and sleep apnea, because all the best protocols in the world supplements, diet, everything are, are not gonna do you any good if you're not getting the proper amount of oxygen at night when you sleep. Right? So there are some barriers, bigger barriers to health and Lyme disease.

Speaker 1 (37:09):

Yes. Thank you for, for sharing that. And I was getting ready to wrap up and then I realized we would be remiss if we didn't talk about Lyme specific treatments. So you do all the basics, you get your body prime, detox, working hormones, balance, and then how do you go to war with the little buggers?

Speaker 3 (37:28):

Well, that's an even more controversial conversation than anything else that we've talked about. Because there are some camps, like I love Dr. Raws, huge fan of Dr. Raws. He's my hero, does all the herbals. I love that approach and that's what I work with because I'm not a licensed practitioner. So I use a lot of nutri medics or a lot of cell cores. Cell core is beautiful in the way that the protocol handles things in the right order, right? It opens up drainage pathways first, and then it's dealing with heavy metals and then parasites. And then you go into dealing with the ly. So you don't start with the Lyme. You, you've got to, you've got to clear out the way of this other crap before you start going after the ly. So I love pho. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, Dr. Horowitz just came up with a double dap zone protocol that is supposed to supposedly put you into complete remission for the, for forever.

Speaker 3 (38:18):

Like it's supposed to be the best new thing that's out right now, a methylene blue so your people can't see. But my tongue looks like I've been sucking on a blue lollipop and it's a food grade medical die that they're finding all kinds of ridiculous antiviral, antibacterial antioxidants. It's supposed to help with reversing dementia and Alzheimer's and depression and because it can actually cross the blood-brain barrier. And so they're using it a lot for Bartonella when co-infection with Lyme disease. And I'm absolutely loving this stuff. Like I can't get over how clearheaded and the energy that I've been having since I've been taking it. What else? Oh, and then antibiotics, antimalarial. So there's a lot of different ways that you can go at it. And there's no right or wrong way. There is a pretty strong camp that if you've got chronic Lyme, that long-term use of antibiotics is not, is not the way because it has a tendency to do a hell of a lot more collateral damage than what it's worth. And personally, like I said, that's why I like cleaning people's other stuff up because a lot of times once we get all that other stuff cleared up, I don't have to bring in the heavy guns now your immune system and your body's going, oh, I know what to do now. And it just might need a little bit of help putting this booger back in its place, but I don't typically have to use the big guns.

Speaker 1 (39:39):

Yeah. Great. Thank you so much for covering that. Thank you for sharing your journey. Heather, thank you for the work that you're doing to help others with this super challenging problem and to get their health back and their lives back. I know you have a wonderful free gift for everyone. We'll have the link in the show notes. Do you wanna tell them a little bit about what they'll find there and then also share all the places they can find you and interact with you online?

Speaker 3 (40:06):

Absolutely. So yeah, go to the lion boss.com, that's where you'll get your free gift. It's a popup and it's a video series. So most cooking series, right? It's called Real Cooking for Real Life. 'cause I found Diet Nutrition, right? That's the foundation of health. You can't pass go, you can't collect $200, you can't be on this beautiful protocol and then go out and eat McDonald's and inflame your brain and inflame your gut and expect the protocol that you're taking to work properly. And one of the biggest barriers that I got, people were like, I don't know how to cook. I don't know what the, I don't know what's going on in the kitchen. I don't know what I'm doing. And so I made this cooking series to show you how easy it can be in 20 minutes or less. I'm making these delicious, healthy, yummy meals right to, and when I tell people I'm Paleo, so it's no dairy, no grains, no corn. And people are like, what do you eat? And, and, and then so I'm like, okay, I just need to put this on video. Like, oh my gosh, we eat so well. So yeah, the cooking series and then I'm on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, not Twitter's the only place. I'm not that, just that place just got too crazy for me. <Laugh>, I got off Twitter, but mostly Facebook and Instagram. And I have a podcast myself that you can find on Spotify and YouTube. Okay.

Speaker 1 (41:19):

And are you at the Line Boss or are you at Heather Gray or what? What's your handle?

Speaker 3 (41:25):

The line boss all the way through. Okay,

Speaker 1 (41:27):

Great. We will find you there. Thank you so much for joining me today, Heather. It's been a pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you so much. And thank you for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription. Hopefully you have found some fascinating and useful and helpful information today. I look forward to hearing how you're going to implement at least one of these things that we've talked about into your life and the impact that you're finding and the health that you're achieving on social media. So please do reach out and thanks so much for joining us. I'll see you again next week for another episode. Until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.

Speaker 2 (42:05):

Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormones and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.

 

► Revitalize Your Health and Taste Buds with Heather Gray's Cooking Series for Women with Lyme Disease, Autoimmune Disorders, and Mental Health Issues - Start Cooking Your Way to a Happier Life Today - CLICK HERE

 

► Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try?

It might be time to check your hormones.

Most people don’t even know that their hormones could be the culprit behind their problems. But at Her Hormone Club, we specialize in hormone testing and treatment. We can help you figure out what’s going on with your hormones and get you back on track.

We offer advanced hormone testing and treatment from Board Certified Practitioners, so you can feel confident that you're getting the best possible care. Plus, our convenient online consultation process makes it easy to get started.

Try Her Hormone Club for 30 days and see how it can help you feel better than before. CLICK HERE.

 

► Do you feel exhausted, moody, and unable to do the things that used to bring you joy?

It could be because of hormonal poverty! You can take our quiz now to find out if your hormone levels are at optimum level or not. Take this quiz and get ready to reclaim your life; say goodbye to fatigue and lack of energy for good.

We want every woman to live her best life — free from any signs or symptoms of hormonal poverty, so they can relish their everyday moments with confidence and joy. Imagine having a strong immune system, vibrant skin, improved sleep quality… these are all possible when hormones are balanced!

CLICK HERE now and take the #WWPHD Quiz to discover if you’re in hormonal poverty — it only takes 2 minutes! Let’s get started on optimizing your hormone health today.