Episode 593: From Lyme Patient to Practitioner: Compassion, Healing & Hope – Mindy Daigle | LIVE from ILADS
LIVE from ILADS: Tick Boot Camp sits down with Mindy Tobin Daigle, MSN, APRN-BC, a nurse practitioner whose approach to Lyme disease and complex chronic illness was profoundly shaped by her own experience as a patient.
Before treating people with Lyme disease, Mindy lived it. After years of misdiagnosis, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2010 following earlier tick exposures. Her illness became multisystemic and severe, affecting her heart, brain, joints, gastrointestinal system, bladder, skin, muscles, and more. At her sickest, she describes being bed-bound, wheelchair-bound, experiencing seizures and aphasia, and dependent on others for basic care.
That experience gave her a mission: become the healthcare provider she needed when she was sick and searching for answers.
This conversation goes far beyond Lyme disease treatment. Mindy and Tick Boot Camp explore medical gaslighting, listening to patients, compassion versus empathy, realistic expectations for chronic illness recovery, the importance of self-compassion, finding your physical and emotional "edges," and why progress is often measured in inches rather than feet.
This interview was recorded live at the ILADS conference, so you may hear some of the energy and background activity of the event throughout the conversation.
A Nurse Practitioner Who Became the Patient
Mindy was already a trained medical professional when she became seriously ill.
Her first reported tick bite occurred in South Africa in 1997, followed by additional exposures while she was working as a nurse in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Despite her medical training and access to healthcare, Lyme disease wasn't initially identified as the explanation for her growing collection of symptoms.
Mindy describes repeatedly mentioning her history of tick bites only to have the possibility dismissed.
Eventually, during a severe pain crisis, physician Dr. Ted Gillespie spent significant time listening to her history and asked a simple question:
What about Lyme disease?
Testing through Labcorp produced a positive Western blot, but Mindy says that even with that result, she continued encountering resistance to the diagnosis.
Eventually, she found her way to Dr. Patricia Salvato in Houston and began treatment.
Becoming the Practitioner She Needed
Mindy made herself a promise during her illness:
If she recovered, she would become the practitioner she had needed when she was lost and sick.
That commitment eventually brought her to ILADS.
At her first ILADS conference in 2013, Mindy heard the late Dr. Christine Green speak. The following week, she cold-called Dr. Green's office in San Francisco and asked if she could shadow her.
That decision turned into a professional relationship lasting more than a decade.
Mindy says her personal development as a Lyme patient became inseparable from her professional development as a clinician.
From Sympathy to Empathy to Compassion
One of the most powerful themes in this conversation is the evolution from sympathy to empathy to compassion.
Mindy describes having sympathy as a young nurse and developing greater empathy with experience.
After becoming seriously ill herself, she says she developed something deeper: compassion.
Her definition of compassion centers on being willing to sit with another person's pain without judgment, interference, or adding to their suffering.
For a Lyme patient who has spent years being dismissed, questioned, rushed, or told symptoms are unexplained, simply encountering a practitioner who genuinely listens can be meaningful.
What Compassionate Lyme Care Looks Like
Compassion isn't simply being nice to patients.
For Mindy, it changes how she practices.
When a patient arrives overwhelmed, crying, angry, frustrated, struggling with technology, or simply exhausted from managing chronic illness, her first goal isn't to rush through a checklist.
She meets the patient where they are.
She tells patients:
We're not in a rush.
The goal is to take the time needed to understand the person in front of her and determine what needs attention.
That approach can be particularly important for patients with complex chronic illnesses who may arrive at an appointment carrying years of symptoms, medical records, failed treatments, fear, and frustration.
Medical Gaslighting & the Importance of Listening
Mindy also discusses the medical dismissal she experienced during her own illness and what patients often describe as medical gaslighting.
The conversation explores why healthcare professionals may dismiss patient experiences even when a patient presents with a complicated history or evidence that warrants further investigation.
Mindy emphasizes something deceptively simple:
Remain curious.
A practitioner doesn't have to immediately know every answer.
But when something doesn't make sense, curiosity can keep the diagnostic process moving instead of shutting the patient down.
For Mindy, listening and believing that a patient is genuinely experiencing what they describe are foundational to the therapeutic relationship.
The Last Five Minutes
Mindy has developed a practice she calls The Last 5 Minutes: 8 Concepts and Contemplations in Healing.
After spending most of an appointment discussing symptoms, medical decision-making, treatment, and care planning, she reserves the final minutes for something different:
Healing.
It's a moment to put the metaphorical pencils down and talk heart-to-heart about what the patient is experiencing beyond laboratory results and treatment protocols.
Her eight concepts and contemplations include:
- Keyhole Sunset
- Progress is made in inches, not feet
- Awareness, Acceptance, Compassion
- Pain is Information
- This is your Hero's Journey
- Healing is possible, with or without a cure
- Find a micron of joy and build on it
- Do what you need to do, rest when you need to rest, force nothing
Mindy's original essay on the eight concepts offers a deeper exploration of the philosophy she discusses during this interview.
Progress Is Made in Inches, Not Feet
People with chronic Lyme disease are understandably in a hurry.
They want their health back.
They want their careers, relationships, independence, energy, and lives back.
But recovery doesn't always move at the speed a patient wants.
Mindy prepares patients for the possibility of a long process in which progress isn't perfectly linear.
There can be improvements followed by setbacks.
Instead of interpreting every setback as failure, she encourages patients to recognize that regression can sometimes occur within a larger pattern of progression.
Mindy expands on this philosophy in Progress Comes in Inches, Not Feet.
Self-Compassion During Lyme Recovery
Chronic illness can create a destructive cycle of self-blame.
Patients may think:
Why aren't I better yet?
Did I do something wrong?
Why can't my body handle this?
Why can't I do what I used to do?
Mindy explains that even an excellent medical treatment plan doesn't automatically resolve the patient's relationship with themselves.
Healing may also require learning to stop being at war with your own body.
That doesn't mean giving up on improvement.
It means learning how to pursue improvement without constantly punishing yourself for where you are today.
Her writing on self-compassion and healing explores this balance between accepting present limitations and continuing to move forward.
Finding Your Edges
One of Mindy's most useful metaphors is finding your edges.
After extensive treatment, she reached a point where she could no longer tolerate additional treatment in the same way.
She learned to recognize the boundaries of what her body could currently handle.
Rather than treating those boundaries as permanent walls, she describes living as well as possible within her edges — and periodically testing whether those edges can expand.
If you can stand and wash dishes for five minutes, perhaps eventually you try seven.
Small improvements matter.
Progress in inches can eventually create meaningful change.
Sometimes Progress Means Rest
Pushing isn't always the answer.
Sometimes the next productive step is doing less.
Mindy distinguishes genuine restorative rest from simply lying down while remaining mentally stimulated by television, phones, scrolling, or other distractions.
The challenge is learning when to push an edge and when the body genuinely needs recovery.
That requires awareness, patience, and wisdom.
For a practitioner, it also means understanding that two patients with similar diagnoses may need very different guidance at a particular moment.
A Biopsychosocial Approach to Lyme Disease
Mindy describes her clinical approach as biopsychosocial.
That means considering the patient's:
- Biology
- Psychology
- Social environment
- Physical limitations
- Emotional health
- Relationships
- Stressors
- Daily circumstances
Complex chronic illness doesn't occur in isolation from the rest of a person's life.
Treatment may target infections and physical dysfunction, but healing can also involve how someone relates to their illness, themselves, and the world around them.
Mindy's own experience as both patient and practitioner gives her a particularly personal perspective on those intersections.
Can Having Lyme Disease Make Someone a Different Practitioner?
The conversation explores a provocative question:
Does personally experiencing Lyme disease change someone's ability to care for Lyme patients?
Mindy says her own illness gave her an understanding she didn't have beforehand.
She can recognize nuances between different kinds of fatigue, pain, and physical limitations because she has experienced them.
At the same time, she points to her longtime mentor Dr. Christine Green as an example of an accomplished Lyme clinician who did not personally have Lyme disease.
The distinction isn't that someone must have Lyme disease to become an excellent practitioner.
Rather, lived experience can provide another form of knowledge — one that can complement medical education and clinical expertise.
Working with Ravel Health
At the time of this interview, Mindy had recently begun working with Ravel Health, a virtual care platform focused on complex chronic illness.
She explains that the model gives her greater flexibility to structure her schedule around both her patients' needs and her own ongoing health limitations.
That matters because Mindy continues to manage symptoms herself.
The flexibility allows her to dedicate significant attention to a patient while also building recovery time between demanding appointments.
For Mindy, finding a sustainable way to practice is another extension of the same compassion she encourages patients to develop for themselves.
The Human Capacity to Overcome
The interview ends with hope.
Despite everything Mindy has personally experienced — and everything she sees among people living with complex chronic illness — what repeatedly impresses her is the human capacity to overcome adversity.
She watches patients face enormous physical and emotional challenges, adapt, continue forward, and sometimes emerge with a different understanding of themselves and their lives.
That doesn't minimize how difficult Lyme disease can be.
It recognizes that even within an extraordinarily difficult journey, healing, growth, purpose, and progress remain possible.
About Mindy Tobin Daigle, MSN, APRN-BC
Mindy Tobin Daigle, MSN, APRN-BC is an adult health nurse practitioner with decades of nursing and clinical experience. She has worked extensively with people navigating Lyme disease, vector-borne illness, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and other complex chronic conditions.
For more than a decade, she collaborated with Lyme disease specialist Dr. Christine Green at Green Oaks Medical Center. Her professional work has been profoundly influenced by her own experience as a Lyme disease patient.
Read Mindy's The Last 5 Minutes: 8 Concepts and Contemplations in Healing and her related writings about progress in chronic Lyme disease and self-compassion during healing.
Key Topics in This Episode
Lyme disease, chronic Lyme disease, Mindy Daigle, Lyme disease nurse practitioner, Lyme disease recovery, medical gaslighting, patient validation, compassion in healthcare, empathy, self-compassion, chronic illness recovery, Lyme disease misdiagnosis, Lyme disease treatment, healing from chronic illness, progress in inches, finding your edges, biopsychosocial medicine, patient-centered care, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, Lyme disease advocacy, Ravel Health, Christine Green, and ILADS.
About This LIVE from ILADS Interview
This short-form conversation was recorded in person at the 2025 International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society Annual Scientific Conference, From Terrain to Treatment: Advances in Vector-Borne Illness, held October 9–12, 2025, in San Antonio, Texas.
Because these interviews were recorded live at the conference, they have a different feel from Tick Boot Camp's traditional long-form virtual and studio conversations — shorter, focused, and surrounded by the activity of one of the world's major gatherings of Lyme and tick-borne disease clinicians, researchers, advocates, and innovators.
Explore all Tick Boot Camp LIVE from ILADS interviews.
More from Tick Boot Camp
Hear more conversations with Lyme disease doctors and healthcare professionals about diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and complex tick-borne illness.
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