Dr. Casey Kelley’s Lyme Hack:

“Hi, I’m Dr. Casey Kelly, medical director and founder of Case Integrative Health in Chicago. One of the things that I find time and time again, is that my chronic complex illness patients are living in a fight or flight state. And sometimes we’ve spent so much time in that state that we don’t even realize that we’re living in that highly agitated, highly revved up state, it becomes our new normal. And that state makes it really, really hard for our nervous system and for our immune system to heal and repair. It also makes it very hard for our cells to talk to themselves, talk to each other, recruit help, and clear out toxins. So it’s not to say that any of us are making any of these symptoms up. It’s just that chronic revved-up fight-or-flight state makes it really hard for us to get better. And it’s something that is really hard for us to even acknowledge because it can feel so normal. So I just keep learning over and over and time and time, it just keeps coming back and back and back that we need to work on this with our chronic patients. And so it’s something that I encourage all of my patients to look into, there are many different programs out there available. There are many different apps, and there are different things you can do. Some are a little more passive, where you just listen to some binaural beats or hum. Some activities are a little more active, where you try to kind of dig into some of your past traumas or toxic thoughts and processes. But this is hard work. And it’s daily work. But it’s an important part of the healing process for all of my chronic Lyme patients. And it’s a way that we as patients and as those who are going through these chronic illnesses can regain some control and we can start to feel better and have a feeling that we are helping ourselves get better too and it’s not just left up for doctors to figure out, so I encourage you to research and learn about these neuroplasticity limbic system repair or polyvagal theories and in ways that you can help yourself through this process and get better because I promise you all of my patients who do this work get better faster and stay better longer.”