The Poetry of My Lyme Disease
What regenerative agriculture is teaching me about health.
Last summer, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease after years of declining health. Before the diagnosis, I was always tired, in constant pain, and my brain often felt cloudy. Unfortunately, years of suffering due to partial or misdiagnosis is a common experience for people with Lyme disease.[i]
POETRY
Despite the difficulties of living with Lyme disease, there is poetry in me getting a disease that lives at the intersection of climate change and the inadequacies of our healthcare system. I got the diagnosis while working on a healthcare strategy innovation team. I am also developing a small urban regenerative farm, my tiny contribution to mitigating climate change.
While many factors contribute to the increase in Lyme disease, climate change and ecosystem disruptions play a significant role. Climate change and Lyme disease are so connected that Lyme disease is one of the EPA’s climate change indicators.[ii]
TOPSOIL FEEDS LIFE
Agriculture and fossil fuels are significant drivers of climate change.[iii][iv] Conventional farming practices destroy the topsoil that grows most of our food. Topsoil is a nutrient-rich layer of minerals and beneficial microbes.
Conventional farming (which should be called chemical farming) uses a lot of inputs from fossil fuels (yes, that is as bad as it seems). These inputs include fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. While synthetic fertilizers increase productivity in the short term, the long-term costs are enormous[v]:
· Chemically treated soils hold less water, contribute to desertification and increase the impacts of droughts,
· Depleted soils make plants more vulnerable to pests and diseases,
· Commercial fertilizers aren’t in forms that plants can ingest, and much of the chemical material runs off into waterways and pollutes ecosystems,
· As soils degrade, they grow less nutrient-dense food, which contributes to worse health outcomes,
· By some estimates, we have less than 60 growing seasons of topsoil left; other estimates are more nuanced based on location[vi],
· And, of course, climate change.
Regenerative agriculture is a system based on indigenous wisdom and land management techniques. It honors the multiple reciprocal relationships in an ecosystem and partners with plants and animals to create health. It has also informed my healing journey.
LEARNING FROM NATURE
Lyme disease has been a challenging experience with many ups and downs. Thankfully, plants and my regenerative agriculture system have provided both medicine and insights:
Plants co-evolved with diseases and can help us heal from them.
Unfortunately, my first Lyme doctor caused more harm than good. The physical, emotional, mental, and financial harm was so intense I had to find a new doctor.
I had some scary complications, so I wanted to actively manage my health while waiting several months before seeing my new doctor. My primary care physician gave me low-dose herbal antimicrobials, and I started working with some of the herbs on the Buhner protocol.
As much as possible, I sourced herbs from my bioregion because plants near us develop strategies to respond to the same environmental conditions and diseases we face. The chemical constituents and biological actions they develop to defend themselves help us fight disease. (I love plants!)
As evolving beings, Lyme bacteria are slightly different in each region, so using local herbs helps my body respond to local adaptations more effectively.[vii]
In the same way healthy soil is vital for plant health, a healthy ecosystem is critical for my health.
Antibiotics are the conventional treatment for Lyme disease. However, over half of the patients with Lyme disease also have co-infections[viii], which may contribute to the standard treatment not working for many people.
Not only did several rounds of antibiotics not cure me, but my body and mind also responded poorly to the treatment. My symptoms increased dramatically, and I felt like I was losing my mind.
I am finally working with a new doctor, a Lyme-literate functional medicine naturopath. She is guiding me with a more supportive approach, helping me reduce my toxic load and build up my reserves.
Like planting nitrogen-fixing plants to help the soil, we feed the good bacteria and nourish my immune and nervous systems. Because I am more aware of how stress impacts my physical health, I get as much rest as possible and work with a therapist for my mental health. With a complex health picture, I need multiple avenues of support to get better.
We need a highly integrated system that contributes to health.
Healthy plants grow in an integrated, tightly connected ecosystem. Unfortunately, our “healthcare” system is the opposite: siloed and dysfunctional. Here are a couple of minimal examples from my personal experience (I don’t yet have the energy to write about the more significant issues).
· It took me a couple of weeks and at least seven phone calls to one clinic to get a referral to a specialist because faxes kept getting lost. With all the information technology we have, I had to fight lost faxes!
· While I am primarily getting treatment in a single hospital system, I get bills in at least five different ways (email, text, various portals, and paper) — all from the same system!
I spend so much of my limited energy just fighting the crush of incompetence in the system and trying to make sense of things that should be simple.
Beyond the structural challenges, our healthcare system is not up to the challenge of our current health needs (despite the heroic efforts of individuals on the front lines). Before the pandemic, there were nursing shortages. Since the pandemic, many nurses have left the field, worsening the situation.
Climate change will bring more complex diseases[ix], and we need a more robust system that empowers patients. I believe plant medicine can be a powerful healing ally. With their ability to respond to environmental pressures, plants can help us respond to evolving health conditions.
We can enjoy plants as preventative medicine in healthy food. When we are sick, we can work with them for healing. Because a lot of plant medicine is food grade, it is very safe to use. People can even grow and make their own medicine, reducing dependence on unreliable supply chains.
We’ll need a mindset shift to make this happen with more herbal education in medical schools and trained herbalists as trusted partners on clinical teams, but I believe the future of our health depends on it.
To health,
Terra Soma
P.S. If you have mysterious symptoms and suspect you might have Lyme disease or one of the co-infections, this questionnaire could be a useful starting point.
Disclaimer: I am not a trained clinician; I am an innovator creating the future of health. Nothing in this article should be taken as medical advice.
References
[i] Lorraine Johnson, “The Problem of Lyme Disease Misdiagnosis,” LymeDisease.org, LymeDisease.org, May 15, 2020, https://www.lymedisease.org/mylymedata-lyme-disease-misdiagnosis/.
[ii] United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Climate Change Indicators: Lyme Disease,” EPA.gov, EPA.gov, accessed March 7, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-lyme-disease.
[iii] Project Drawdown, “Sector Summary: Food, Agriculture, and Land Use,” Drawdown.org, Drawdown.org, accessed March 7, 2022, https://www.drawdown.org/sectors/food-agriculture-land-use.
[iv] Project Drawdown, “Sector Summary: Electricity,” Drawdown.org, Drawdown.org, accessed March 7, 2022, https://www.drawdown.org/sectors/electricity.
[v] Susan Cosier, The Guardian, The Guardian, “The world needs topsoil to grow 95% of its food — but it’s rapidly disappearing,” May 30, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/topsoil-farming-agriculture-food-toxic-america
[vi] Hannah Ritchie, “Do We Only Have 60 Harvests Left?,” Our World in Data, Our World in Data, January 14, 2021, https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans
[vii] Buhner, Stephen, Healing Lyme. New Mexico: Raven Press, 2015.
[viii] LymeDisease.org, “About Lyme Disease Co-Infections,” LymeDisease.org, LymeDisease.org, accessed March 7, 2022, https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/co-infections/about-co-infections/.
[ix] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Climate Change and Infectious Disease,” CDC.gov, CDC.gov, accessed March 7, 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/what-we-do/climate-change-and-infectious-diseases/index.html
