Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Pandemic and How to Get Healthy Again by Dr. Steven Philips, MD & Dana Parish.
Dr. Steven Phillips, the expert guest on our upcoming Season 2 Episode 1 launching this week, has not only witnessed the agony and frustration of the many thousands of chronic Lyme and Lyme-related patients he’s diagnosed and treated over several decades. He’s experienced these agonies himself, as has his Chronic co-author, the science writer Dana Parish.
Dr. Phillips recalls the low point in his own battle when he was “confined to my memory-foam mattress prison for a full year, ultimately requiring twenty-four hour care, unable to turn over in bed or sit up on my own….”
From this nadir he persevered on his own path to wellness and toward a better understanding of the complexities of tick-borne Lyme infections triggering chronic illnesses affecting tens of thousands of North Americans each year.
Phillips argues these illnesses are more accurately called “Lyme Plus” to reflect other pathogens at work alongside Lyme bacteria. Yet current testing methods for Lyme and Lyme plus are woefully inadequate, in Phillips experience. This leads to high rates of misdiagnosis and mistreatment for up to 40% of infected individuals not cured by a typical course of antibiotics.
Chronic is both unusually an unusually powerful memoir and a science-based wake-up call to the mainstream medical community which has yet to fully recognize the ravages of chronic Lyme and Lyme plus conditions.
Episodes
Stories of everyday athletes facing physical and behavioral obstacles, and the rewards & challenges of an active lifestyle. With input from doctors, researchers, and other wellness experts.
My Expert Odyssey Part 1: Depression, Diabetes & Trauma (Bonus Episode)
In this first of two Season 1 bonus episodes, we get a bit more personal with the expert guests whose own experiences have motivated and informed their professional endeavors.
Dr. Jacob Meyer, Director of the Wellbeing & Exercise Lab at Iowa State, on his experience with depression and exercise; Dr. Sheri Colberg, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age four; and physical therapist Dr. Lisa Lowe, who became a para rower after a terrible car accident.
Generational Gene: Cycling for Diabetes Prevention
Our protagonist in this episode, Generational Gene, may at first seem like a special case. A middle-aged school superintendent with a father and grandfather who’ve contracted Type 2 diabetes later in life, Gene seems at higher-than-average risk to develop the condition, as well.
But in fact Gene is very much like a huge percentage of North Americans over the age of 40 in the pre-diabetic category and thus at elevated risk for developing diabetes, and some forms of cancer, without major lifestyle changes on the diet and exercise fronts.
In this episode, we learn how Gene, a former college athlete and now busy Dad, educator, and doctoral candidate, has taken on the pre-diabetes challenge.
Cyclist for Life Howie: Riding the Ups & Downs of Cancer
Howie, a recently retired software engineer, has been an avid cyclist most of his adult life, with a total mileage equivalent to a few laps around the planet. But more remarkable is the fact that Howie has done a good bit of that cycling with cancer – not one, but six cases of lymphoma, or cancer of the lymph nodes.
Consider one of Howie’s favorite charity rides, The Pan Mass Challenge, which benefits cancer research through the Jimmy Fund. It’s a two-day, 200 mile ride across Massachusetts that Howie has done 24 times. “I’ve ridden it with pneumonia,” he tells us. “I’ve ridden it with cancer.”
Howie credits his oncologists and cancer therapy for surviving this decades-long odyssey, but he’s quick to add that cycling has contributed as well. “Because of all the riding I do,” he says, “they’re able to hit me harder with chemo, with radiation when they have to.”
Josie & Joe in Tandem vs. Multiple Sclerosis
Six months ago, Josie was bedridden with a flare-up of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) she has been battling for a decade alongside her husband Joe and with some help from their much loved custom tandem bike. Over that same decade Josie and Joe have logged over 10,000 miles and raised $100,000 for research on MS, a disorder where the immune system attacks the nervous system and triggers a loss of strength and muscular control.
Would this latest flare-up permanently sideline this avid cycling couple?
“When this flare up happened, I could not move a muscle. I couldn't lift anything,” recalls Josie. “Joe will say he was feeding me in the hospital ‘cause I couldn't lift the fork to my mouth.”
“And when you were flat on your back and said you wanted to bike again,” recalls Joe, “I was skeptical…but hopeful.”