Kim Director is a Carnegie Mellon University educated TV and film working actor from New York City, New York. She has starred in HBO’s “The Deuce,” Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black,” “Queens,” “Blair Witch 2” and several Spike Lee films including “He Got Game,” “Summer of Sam,” “She Hate Me,” and “Inside Man.”

Ms. Director’s Lyme disease journey began 18 years before her diagnosis. She visited with over 60 doctors on both the east and west coasts of the United State. Despite presenting her doctors with classic Lyme disease symptoms, she was regularly failed by the medical community. She was misdiagnosed with “tired woman” syndrome, “aging” and “still beautiful” (when she presented with facial paralysis).

Her success as an actor required her to learn how to be gritty and to process grief quickly. These emotional skill sets allowed her to fight for a diagnosis and move through the medical trauma induced grief cycle to begin treatment almost immediately after securing a proper Lyme disease diagnosis.

If you would like to learn more about how to manage the sadness and loss caused by medical trauma in a way that will propel you forward on your healing journey, then tune in now!

Kate Petrie is a 54-year-old classically trained actor, voice actor, drama teacher, and makeup artist from Morayshire, Scotland. Drama school and stage acting offered her the opportunity to travel across the globe residing in France, England, and Spain.

Ms. Petrie spent her childhood in rural Scotland where she “was bitten by ticks many times.” She “had lots of health issues when [she] was younger,” but suffered severe symptoms including rashes, swollen glands, loss of voice, and “horrendous fatigue” after a tick bite at the age of 17. Her doctors diagnosed her with “ringworm” and “the kissing disease” and urged her not to “kiss too many boys.”

Despite growing up in a tick endemic community and suffering from classic migrating Lyme disease symptoms, she was not accurately diagnosed until she was 50 years old. Doctors misdiagnosed Ms. Petrie with Endometriosis, Graves’ disease, and arthritis. Finally, she hired a “private doctor in London” who sent her blood work to Armin Labs in Germany.

Today, Ms. Petrie has become a Lyme education advocate because she believes that if she had “known about Lyme” and had received early “treatment” her “life would have been very very very different.”

If you would like to learn more about how education can protect you and your family from Lyme disease, then tune in now!

PS Children’s Lyme author Alex Castellanos served as a special guest co-host with Rich for this interview.

Gabriela Wijegunawardena is a 43-year-old mother living in the Washington metropolitan area, originally from San Francisco, California, where she contracted Lyme disease. She is a food blogger and has helped countless individuals in the Lyme disease and tick-borne illness community.

Prior to contracting Lyme disease, Ms. Wijegunawardena worked as a NICU nurse at a level III NICU/Regional surgical center for almost 2 decades. She loved traveling with her husband to places like Hawaii, Bali, Spain, Ireland, and London and was an avid hiker.

At the age of 35, Ms. Wijegunawardena first began to exhibit symptoms which she later learned were caused by Lyme disease. Some of her symptoms included migraines, insomnia, UTIs, Interstitial Cystitis (IC), edema (swelling caused by fluid in your body tissue), worsening allergies, rosacea and seborrheic dermatitis (inflammatory skin disorders that cause redness, lesions, and itching), and joint issues.

Ms. Wijegunawardena saw 45 healthcare practitioners over 7 years before finally receiving a proper Lyme disease diagnosis. She treated with IV Rocephin (Ceftriaxone) and oral Tindamax for 1 year until more recently when she used Supportive Oligonucleotide Technique (SOT) which got her into remission 6 weeks post-SOT.

If you would like to learn how a determined nurse refused to give up and used a new treatment modality that’s been borrowed from the Cancer world to reach remission, then tune in now!

PS Jenny Buttaccio special guest co-hosted this interview with Matt from Tick Boot Camp!

Stacy Johnson is a TV and film working actor, singer, director, producer, and stunt woman. Her acting career began at the age of 4 on Sesame Street and has blossomed to include high profile projects like “Heroes,” “Ozark,” “The Greatest Showman,” “Halloween,” and “Iron Man” movies. She has produced and won awards for her documentary films "Hursit" and “The Sun Sets.”

As a successful actress, Ms. Johnson has taught students on acting and in furthering their careers. She and her husband Scott Dukelow manage SJD Acting Studio that coaches students on acting and the film industry.

Ms. Johnson’s Lyme disease journey began with a tick bite in 2005. Despite developing classic Lyme disease symptoms and working with scores of the top doctors in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and North Carolina, she was not diagnosed until after more than a decade of suffering.

Prior to securing a Lyme disease diagnosis, she suffered from migrating neurological and cardiac symptoms. In 2015 she had to be resuscitated by emergency service personnel after her heart stopped during a visit to a McDonald’s restaurant in Chicago.

Desperate for answers for her health crisis, Ms. Johnson visited Dr. Jeffrey Lawson, MD at the Piedmont Arthritis Clinic located in South Carolina. Working with Ms. Johnson and her husband, Dr. Lawson diagnosed and treated Ms. Johnson for Lyme disease.

The lengthy and painful encounter with Lyme disease inspired Ms. Johnson, Mr. Dukelow, and Dr. Lawson to tell their story on film. The documentary “Lyme Disease: Beating Back Death” is slated to complete filming and to be released on Netflix later this year.

If you would like to learn more about how an actor and her team beat back death secondary to Lyme disease, then tune in now!

This week Tick Boot Camp interviewed the Director of Integrative and Interventional Pain Management at Case Integrative Health: Dr. Deepti Agarwal, MD. Dr. Agarwal is a double board certified and fellowship trained Pain Physician and Anesthesiologist. She served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois where she presented and published on a wide range of scholarly research on Anesthesia, Acute and Chronic pain medicine. In this comprehensive interview, Dr. Agarwal discusses:

• Her deep fascination with the power of combining integrative medicine with conventional medicine to improve patient outcomes
• Managing pain vs locating the root cause of pain
• Mindfulness, Food and Movement as medicine
• How the combination approach to wellness has the ability to relieve pain and prevent future complications
• The role of inflammation in the disease and healing processes
• How pre-habilitation and patient education initiatives enhance recovery pathways

If you would like to learn more about how the combination of eastern and western medical philosophies and the merger of integrative and conventional medicine can serve to defeat chronic pain and boost healing, then tune in now!

This week Tick Boot Camp interviewed writer Frances Cecilia and Director Tony C. Silva, the power couple that created one of this year’s finest full-length feature films. By turning the camera towards themselves, they show the intimate side of our modern era's most misunderstood chronic illness: Lyme disease. In The Monster Inside Me, Frances and Tony take the viewer on their journey of researching the truth, lies and healing behind Lyme disease. In this comprehensive discussion, Frances and Tony discuss their 5-part documentary that includes:

• Part 1 – The Losses of Lyme
• Part 2 – The Darkness of Lyme
• Part 3 – The Truth of Lyme
• Part 4 – The Healing of Lyme
• Part 5 – The Beauty of Lyme

If you would like to learn more about the full spectrum of Lyme disease and how it affects everyday people, then tune in now!

Kelsey Wenburg is a 39-year-old woman from Anchorage, Alaska. She’s on a health journey healing from Lyme disease and mold.

Prior to contracting Lyme disease, Ms. Wenburg was working full-time and ran weekly workouts. She then became a health coach and helped others heal their bodies from a variety of ailments.

At the age of 29, Ms. Wenburg first began to exhibit alarming symptoms that she later learned were caused by Lyme disease, which included fatigue and insomnia. Unfortunately, as time went on, Ms. Wenburg developed worsening symptoms and had to quit her government job three years after her initial symptoms began.

Ms. Wenburg tried to simplify her life while trying to figure out what was going on with her health, but 3 years later she became completely bedridden, lost her ability to think, and developed debilitating seizures. Shortly after this decline, she was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease at the age of 35.

Ms. Weburg used a wide variety of treatment modalities, including Bee Venom Therapy (BVT), Disulfiram, antibiotics (oral, IV, and injections), antiparasitics, mold treatments, herbs, ozone, laser therapy, and more while treating with Dr. Klinghardt and Dr. Lehman. She’s been treating for the past 3 and a half years and has made significant progress recently.

If you would like to learn how a young woman from Alaska never gave up after doctors dismissed her symptoms for years and has since used a diverse set of treatment tools to heal, then tune in now!

PS Heather Glovack special guest co-hosted this interview with Matt from Tick Boot Camp!

This week Tick Boot Camp invited Lindsay Mitchell, founder and CEO of Vital-Side, to discuss the membership program that empowers people suffering with chronic illness and limbic system impairment to retrain their brain out of the chronic stress response to gain relief from their symptoms. In this comprehensive interview, Ms. Mitchell discusses:

• Her experience of having recovered from Lyme disease
• How Vital-Side’s application of mental exercises and techniques are designed to take the brain from a state of survival to one of growth and repair
• That the Vital-Side tools are non-invasive, empowering and backed by the latest science
• How she has worked with thousands of people worldwide teaching about the healing properties of the brain
• How the Vital-Side 4 step method of Reset, Rewire, Elevate, and Regulate is designed to retrain the brain to achieve long term sustainable results

If you would like to learn more about how you could benefit from the Vital-Side approach to rewiring your brain to optimize its function and allow your body to rest, then tune in now!

This week Tick Boot Camp invited Robert Miller, a Certified Traditional Naturopath and founder of the Tree of Life Naturopathic practice, NutriGenetic Research Institute, and Functional Genomic Analysis, to discuss the relationship between genetic variants and Lyme disease. In this comprehensive interview, Mr. Miller discusses:

• The origin stories of the 3 companies he founded
• The virtue of genetic testing for people suffering from Lyme disease
• How genetics “loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger” of chronic illness
• The top genetic factors seen with chronic Lyme disease
• How external genetic factors, such as, mold, plastics, and EMFs impact a Lyme disease journey
• Why internal genetic factors cause inflammation, histamines, and free radicals triggering chronic illness.

If you would like to know more about how genetic testing can help you on your Lyme disease treatment journey, then tune in now!

Samantha Marie Chocano is a multi-talented 25-year-old entrepreneur, graphic artist, YouTuber, gamer and glass ceiling breaking athlete from Fresno, California. She is vlogging and publishing her “entire treatment” journey to expose the reality of Lyme disease.

Ms. Chocano’s childhood garnered her the opportunity to “do many out of the box things.” She was the sole female wrestler on her high school and college teams, moved to different parts of the county each year as the child of a military family and “was even featured on [an episode] of MTV Catfish.”

Ms. Chocano’s nomadic childhood exposed her to new experiences and unfamiliar perils. At the age of 12 she moved to Virginia and was bitten “by many ticks.” Her parents would remove the ticks “with a hot needle” and told her the worst that would happen is she could “get a flu for a couple of weeks.”

The tick bites provoked sleep paralysis, extreme fatigue, gut inflammation, anxiety, depression and “a slight Bell’s Palsy.” Unfortunately, the symptoms were written off as emblematic of transitioning “into a typical teenager.”

By the age of 23 she became chronically ill, despite treating with over 20 doctors. She finally located a global diagnosis after she was tested for Lyme disease by a Naturopathic Doctor.

If you would like to learn more about how a young woman came to learn that she “had no other options but to do research [herself] and save [her] own life,” then tune in now!

PS Jessica Snajder from Partner In Lyme special guest co-hosted with Rich!