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.
Yogi Jess on a Tightrope: From Mobility to Stability
Jess is a successful and respected yoga teacher – young, fit, doing all the right things to stay healthy. She’s also highly knowledgeable about anatomy and physiology, with two graduate degrees in the field. But a series of mysterious episodes involving circulation to one arm led her to urgent care for examination and testing.
“And the doctor came out and said, ‘Yes, you do have a blood clot,’” she recalls two years later, the shock still present in her voice. “I was, like, floored. How could this have happened?”
Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) is a rare but serious disease that more frequently afflicts hypermobile individuals using repetitive arm motions in their work or sport. A former Division I backstroker in college and a dedicated yogi since, Jess falls into that category and is prescribed blood thinners to reduce the risk of clotting.
Her thoracic surgeon then recommends the standard, more permanent solution for TOS: removal of her top rib to relieve the compression between her rib and clavicle that pinches a vein and triggers blood clots that could travel to her heart or lungs.
Two years later, has Jess figured out her TOS? Listen in for a body odyssey of the unexpected sort, when an otherwise healthy yogi grapples with a life-threatening condition through her knowledge of anatomy and deep experience with movement.