Dr Darin Ingels Lyme Disease Radio Show Interview March 2019 (LDN, low dose naltrexone)

Dr Darin Ingels Lyme Disease Interview (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.

Linda Elsegood: Today. I'm joined by Darin Ingles from California, and we have had Darin on the show before. Thanks for joining us today, Darin. 

Dr Darin Ingels: Thank you for having me. 

Linda Elsegood: Now you did a presentation for us for the LDN 2017 conference on Lyme disease. Could you tell us about your new book called The Lyme Solution?

Dr Darin Ingels: Sure. Well, you know, I had Lyme disease myself back in 2002. So I had the, uh, uh, I guess, uh, the experience of being a Lyme patient as much as a Lyme doctor. And, uh, the book was really kind of written out of my own experience of what I went through, uh, dealing with Lyme disease. And you know, I went down the typical path that most people do, use antibiotics and they helped me temporarily.

But, uh, it just so happened, I got infected three weeks before I opened my own practice. And when I opened, I was, you know, the doctor or the bookkeeper or the receptionist doing everything and working, you know, very long days. And after about eight months, I started to get symptoms again. And when I went back on antibiotics, it didn't help.

And I changed antibiotics, and it didn't help. And I went through a cycle about eight or nine months of changing antibiotic protocols and really got worse. So I was fortunate to have a handful of patients in my practice that had seen a doctor in New York City named Dr Zhang. He's a doctor from China, a medical doctor who works as an acupuncturist, and he developed a line of Chinese herbal formulas.

So I went to see him, and he started treating me. And really in about three or four weeks after starting the herbs, I was about 80-85% better. So I had a pretty significant turnaround just by, you know, going on herbs. So it was really kind of my realization that, you know, for myself, and certainly, for a lot of other people that, you know, antibiotics have their place, but they also have their limitations. And, uh, I kinda had to go back to my naturopathic roots and, you know, go back to, you know, herbs and diet and lifestyle. So what, after applying what I did to myself too, you know, thousands of other patients, I found that there was kind of a path that people could take to really, you know, try and overcome Lyme.

So, you know, that's really what prompted me to write the book. 

Linda Elsegood: Hmm. And do you start your book by describing testing because so many different tests will come back negative? 

Dr Darin Ingels: Yeah. Well, you know, the testing has always been terrible. It's never been good. And I was a microbiologist before I was a doctor, actually used to do this test for a living.

So I have a lot of experience with it. And in really 40 years of research, we've really never changed. The criteria of this test and I don't think what a lot of people realize, is that this test was never ever designed to be diagnostic. It was really designed to monitor people that had known Lyme disease.

And you know, at least in the US if you go to the CDC website, the Centre for Disease Control, um, they tell you that Lyme disease is a clinical diagnosis. And I think that's, that's. Pretty well known around the world. Yet so many doctors put stock into the testing as being really the definitive way that you diagnose somebody with Lyme disease.

And unfortunately, it's just not true. It really is based on your signs, your symptoms, particularly if you happen to live in an area, part of the world that's endemic with Lyme. And you've kind of ruled out everything else, you know, they call Lyme the great imitator, the great mimic. It looks like a lot of other things.

So you have to go through and rule out other possibilities. But you know, when we see that people have a positive test, um, you know, false positives are actually quite unusual and false negatives are extremely common. So a positive test gives you a pretty good idea that you've probably had exposure and a false negative or a negative test doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility.

And I mean, I guess on the heels of that, you know, the good news is, is that we are having new labs coming out that are testing in different ways. You know, the gold standard for years is really just then this two-tiered antibody test. And you know when the antibody test is really just measuring your immune response to exposure.

So at best all the test really tells you is you've been exposed, you know, whether you have Lyme disease or not. Really comes down to whether you ever actually expressed any of the symptoms. You know, because theoretically, you could have gotten bit by a tick that carries Lyme, your immune system did what you wanted it to do.

You never got Lyme disease, but you'll show evidence in your blood that you had exposure. Uh, so that's why you always have to take consideration, the symptoms you experience in conjunction with the test. And you know, you put two and two together. But like I said, now the good news is we do have some new labs coming out, that are starting to look at cytokine activity, which is not measuring antibodies. There's the fact. There's a lab in Germany called Armin Labs, uh, that does great testing for cytokine activity. And then there's a new lab that just came out in the US where they look at a common sequence to all species of Borrelia.

You know, the test that's been out there only really looked at Borrelia burgdorferi, which was the first strain of line that we discovered, we now know that there are 300 strains of Borrelia worldwide, and yet the test only looks at one of them. So we now have a lab that's starting to look at a sequence that's common to all Borrelia.

So I think, you know, these kinds of labs as they develop, will continue to increase our, uh, our likelihood of picking up Lyme in people.  

Linda Elsegood: And you were saying about looking at the symptoms and how Lyme can mimic other conditions. So if you had the symptoms of MS and chronic fatigue syndrome. How would you try and rule out that it wasn't MS or chronic fatigue, that it was Lyme?

Dr Darin Ingels: Well, you know, I think those two examples, particular, you know, it could be both. You know, I think a lot of these diagnoses out there are really vague. I mean, even if it's MS or chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia, you know, these are just sort of descriptive diagnoses without really an understanding of why.

And if you ask your doctor, why do I have chronic fatigue, why do I have fibromyalgia. More often than not, you're going to get kind of a blank stare. And I think, you know, Lyme can be a trigger for MS I mean, that's what happened to me. My Lyme turned into MS. And you know, if you talk to a radiologist, they'll tell you that the lessons you see on the brain with Lyme are identical to the lesions you see in MS.

Um, so, you know, I think a lot of these diagnoses that tend to be kind of you know, vague or really without a specific understanding of, you know, what the underlying causes, you know, Lyme and some of these co-infections particularly can be a trigger. And what's really interesting is if you go into the medical research, you'll find there's a tremendous amount of information about microbes as a whole being catalyst or triggers for autoimmune diseases.

So it's not really, you know, fringe medicine anymore that, you know, different microbes, you know, bacteria and viruses, uh, can cause a lot of these, you know, chronic illnesses. And I think it's something that most doctors really just aren't trained to look for. But again, there are literally thousands and thousands of articles out there showing how, you know, ms is a great example.

We know that Lyme and ms have an association. We know the Epstein BARR right. And ms have an association, and we know that chronic fatigue has been associated with numerous viruses and other bacteria and so forth. So, you know, I think it's just the process of trying to go through and identify, you know, what these potential underlying microbes might be, um, that is.

You are potentially triggering that reaction. Because if you know what the microbe is, you know, there may be a way, whether it's an antibiotic and herbs, you know, some of the way to try and help deal with the infection. And if that really is the trigger, once you deal with the infection, often we find that the symptoms get a lot better.

Linda Elsegood: And what about the different trains of thought that, um, Lyme disease can be sexually transmitted? What's your take on that one? 

Dr Darin Ingels: Yeah. You know, it's, it's been a controversial topic. And what's really interesting, you know, when I wrote the book, of course, I was doing a lot of research, and I was really surprised that in, in the research, they have not shown that it is sexually transmitted.

And I think a lot of Lyme experts, and in fact, I was at the ILADS meeting last October, and one of the gentlemen stood up and basically felt, uh, that it is very hard, uh, to acquire Lyme sexually transmitted, you know, through sexual transmission. You know, the way you get Lyme is through a tick bite.

And of course, it's specifically in the saliva, the tick, you know, that's the route of entry. Uh, so through sexual contact, you know, the research says, no, I don't think it's impossible. Um, I mean, I certainly have had partners where one developed Lyme and then months, years later, their partner developed Lyme.

Now, is it because it's through sexual transmission or is it just because they live in the same environment and that person just happened to get their own exposure? Um, you know, I think it's a bit of a grey area because it's a really a kind of bloodborne pathogen, I think, unless there's probably the transmission of blood, it might be fairly hard.

Um, however, there was an article that literally just came out last week that did find a Borrelia in the genital secretions of both men and women. Um, so I think that's some of the newer evidence that it's possible. Um, but just because it's in the secretion doesn't mean that it can still, you know, penetrate the mucus membrane and create an infection the way that we think of it that you would normally get through a tick bite.

So, you know, I guess the truth is we really don't know. Uh, I, my advice, uh, to patients with Lyme is to be cautious, uh, with, uh, sexual activity and use, uh, you know, protective measures. But, um, I think, uh, the. We're still trying to figure out, you know, what that possibility really is.  

Linda Elsegood: And what do you cover in the chapters in your book?

Dr Darin Ingels: So the book is really designed to be a patient guide. Uh, of course, it's very appropriate for practitioners who really just want to learn more about Lyme and a sort of a natural way to approach it. But I really break it down into five steps to sort of simplify the plan. And the first step is really about addressing the gut.

You know, we know that the gut, uh, accounts for up to 80% of our immune function. So if the gut is not functioning well, often, you know, the immune system doesn't function well in many Lyme patients I work with, you know, have a history of some sort of gastrointestinal problems even before they got Lyme.

And whether it was chronic constipation or diarrhoea or gas or bloating, you know, there's some evidence that they really weren't assimilating their food well. And that things weren't functioning quite the way it should. So I really talk about, you know, different nutrients you can use, uh, to help, you know, rebuild the gut, repair the gut if it's been damaged.

Certainly for anyone who's already been on antibiotics that might've wiped out a lot of their normal gut flora, or perhaps they've been on other medication that's damaged the gut, such as, you know, perhaps chemotherapy if they've been through cancer treatment. So it's really outlined and designed to give you a step-by-step, uh.

Plan on, you know, different nutrients you can use to really help, you know, restore the gut back to its normal balance. And then the second part of the plan is really about diet. So I've tried various diets on myself and certainly with my line patients, and there's paleo, and there's keto, and there's, you know, specific carbohydrate.

You know, there's just numerous diets out there that get purported to help you know, everything. And what I really found is a, what's called an alkaline diet seems to really work best for Lyme patients. And an alkaline diet is really kind of a. Uh, perhaps a hybrid of paleo in that, you know, it really kind of reduces a lot of your carbohydrate intake.

But what it really boils down to is, I think as to what we probably ate when we really were true hunters and gatherers, where it really is a plant-based diet. So you're really eating mostly vegetables. And we try and limit animal protein to less than 20% of your total dietary intake for the week. And then there are certain foods that we know are just very acid-forming in the body.

It doesn't, things like, you know, dairy products and junk food, processed foods, which of course are a huge problem here in the US and a. And even things like coffee, you know what we know is. From a chemical standpoint, you know, the more acidic your body becomes, the more prone it is to inflammation. So at the end of the day, with the diets really about is, is reducing inflammation in your body.

And inflammation could be in your joints, and it could be in your brain, it could be in your gut. It really applies everywhere. So I give you a two week, you know, plan on, you know, this is what you should be eating. And then I've actually partnered with a nutritionist, uh, at. Prep, dish.com and, uh, we put together a one month a meal plan, uh, for people who really want to follow this diet through.

And it just gives you some great recipes and easy to follow guidelines on how to prepare your food. I mean, a lot of times when people have Lyme, they're just tired and exhausted. And the last thing they really want to do is spend hours and hours slaving over a stove. So we really wanted to try and simplify it and just make it easy for people to really start.

Start eating well. Uh, the third step of the plan is about treating infection. And as I mentioned, you know, I went through both antibiotics and herbs, and I found that herbs actually work really well. So I go through a series of herbal protocols. I've used myself personally, and I've also used in my clinical practice, I find give me the best clinical results. And what I like about herbs too is that not only are they trying to go after the bug, but they're also dealing with all the other things that Lyme does to the body. So it's helping reduce inflammation and improve circulation and improve blood flow. And, uh. Help support your immune system. So it really deals with a lot of the things that Lyme does. And you know, one of my contentions in the book is that you know, Lyme initially is an infection, but at some point it really kind of becomes an autoimmune disease. And so if we really start thinking about Lyme more like an autoimmune problem than just a straight-up infection. I think, you know, we get better clinical results. So I really, you know, walk you through step by step, you know, here are the herbs to take, here's the amount to take. And you know, these herbs, at least in the US are readily available online, so it's easy for people to get access to it. 

The fourth part of the plan is really about the environment. And we know that a lot of people with any kind of chronic illness tend to have a high body burden of different, you know, chemicals and toxins, which all just makes it hard for your cells to work well for your immune system to work well. So it's really about reducing your exposure at home to different chemicals that you might be using. You know. Yeah. Window cleaner and tile cleaner and bathroom cleaner. You know, most of these chemicals tend to be fairly toxic and have a lot of things that don't do anything good for your body. And I really focus a lot in this chapter about mould, you know, certainly here in the US and then I'm guessing in the U K as well. You know, you've got a lot of mould issues, and mould is the one thing I find mimics Lyme probably more than anything else. And if you write down all the symptoms of mould toxicity and all of the symptoms of Lyme disease. There's quite a bit of overlap. So when we've had someone who's been on Lyme treatment, and they haven't been responding very well, you know, one of the first things that always pops in my head is mould.

And do we need to go through that process of trying to identify if they've got mould exposure in their environment, but mould is definitely a big part of that environmental evaluation? And that's part of the plan is really about lifestyle. And I find so many people, you know, again, when they're chronically sick, and certainly, with chronic Lyme, you know, a lot of lifestyle things really change.

You know, I mean, I used to be a very physically active person, and when I had Lyme, I was exhausted. And the thought of doing anything physical was just—a lot. So, uh, but you know, moving your body is really very important for your physical health, for your mental health. And I think no matter what your physical state is, there's something you can do, uh, just to get you moving a little bit.

And it could be as simple as stretching. It could be yoga. It could be Tai Chi. It could be Qigong. It could be swimming. You know, there's a lot of low impact activities that people can do to really try and get their body moving. And again, that's what helps move the blood, which ultimately moves the lymph. And the lymph is where a lot of these organisms like to hang out. So it really is kind of a way of cleaning out the toxic stuff in your body. Bringing in oxygen, bringing in fresh nutrients, and I think it's also just good for people's mental health. 

Um, I also talk about the importance of sleep. You know, I find a lot of people after they've been exposed to Lyme, really don't sleep very well, and sleep is, you know, when your bodies actually get the chance to restore and repair itself. So people miss out on that. Deep restorative sleep. It's just really hard to get well. So I talk about specific nutrients that people can use to encourage deeper sleep, better sleep. 

And then the last part of that is really about stress management. You know, again, when you're chronically sick, it's stressful for you. It's stressful for your family, your loved ones. And I think there are so many people out there with Lyme that have a good support network, but you know, I know how it was for myself. At some point, people kind of get tired of hearing about not feeling well, and. They ask you how you do on a day, and you're polite, and you say, great, and deep down you don't feel great at all. Um, but you know, nobody really wants to hear your truth. So I think it's important that people have that place, that space, that they can really share how they do feel and whether it's a therapist, whether it's a Lyme support group, uh, to have some avenue that's not your immediate family or friends that you can kind of unload on. And, and. It's okay that, you know, you feel that way. Um, again, I, I think that's an important part of our mental wellbeing. And you know, our, our brains and our bodies are very well connected. So if we're only taking care of our physical body and not our mental body, uh, I think that becomes an obstacle to really getting well.

So I just encourage people, and I give you some ideas in the book about, you know, different places that you can reach out and help, you know, kind of complete your support network. So, you know, that's really the essence of the book. And then I have one chapter in there is really on therapies that need to be physician-guided. And so, of course, I talk about low dose naltrexone and other therapies that need to be done during done under the auspice of a physician  

Linda Elsegood: When you get somebody who comes to you, and we have many members that are so sick that. They are disappointed. Some of them that they wake up the next morning because they have had enough, you know, they feel so ill, they can't see any way out of feeling better.

Now, if they read the book, where do they start? Where? What? Because when you're that sick to do anything is a struggle. As you were saying about following a, a diet for four weeks, what. There are many steps that you talked about there in the book. Where is the first point of starting to try and feel better to be able to do all the things that you suggest?

Dr Darin Ingels: Yeah. I think, you know, kind of what the first step in the book is, there's no kind of coming back to gut health. You know, your gut health, because that's your intestines. It's your stomach, and it's your liver. Your liver is what does the heavy lifting for detoxification. And look, I've had patients that have gone through every therapy under the sun, and nothing really works for them.

And sometimes they start, you know, dealing with their gut or dealing with some sort of detox protocol. And then, you know, that's the thing that really starts to get them feeling better. So, you know, for someone who's really kind of down in the dumps and discouraged and just trying to find something to give a little, uh, a shred of hope, uh, I think, you know, this is something, again, that's not expensive that.

Anybody can do it again, no matter what your state is, is, you know, start, you know, working on building your gut health. Start working on, you know, detoxifying your body. And I mean, I've got patients that, you know, do home enemas. I've got patients that, you know, jump into a sauna if they have access. I've got people that, you know, there are various ways that aren't, uh, you know, hard on the pocketbook that is doable, that you can at least start that, that process.

So I think that's a good place for people to start. 

Linda Elsegood: Cause many people, as you were saying with Lyme, have tried so many different therapies and it's financially broken them because, you know, they spend a lot of money and many times don't feel any better than when they started. So to have a plan that you can follow through, um.

And if you can get your gut health sorted out, so you feel stronger and more able to do other things, you know, has got to be the way. But if somebody came to you who was in a really bad way, and they asked you the question, it may as well be how long is a piece of string, but how long would it be before you know, I start to feel better.

And by following all these steps, could I put my Lyme disease into remission? What would you say? 

Dr Darin Ingels: Well, my expectation, when people start following the plan, so to speak, you know, my expectation is that you would see improvement in the first six to eight weeks. Now to get to a point where you really felt, you know, completely a hundred per cent; well, I mean, realistically, I mean, it could be a year or longer.

I mean, for me it was, you know, after I got off antibiotics, it was a little over two years before I really felt like I got my life back. But again, when I started on the herbs, you know, I felt an improvement, you know, a significant improvement in the first month. So I think just having that inkling that you know, you're feeling better.

You know, you know you're on the right track, you know, then it's easier to kind of go forward and do some of these other things. You know, where I see a lot of stuff fail. I think there's a lot of therapies out there that are very expensive, at least here in the US that is really designed to target just killing the bug.

And I think if that's the only thing that therapy's designed to do, you're going to get very limited improvement. And you know, I've seen, you know, patients that have flown over to Germany for hyperthermia treatment. I've had a lot of people here who do ozone therapy and other oxidative therapies like hyperbaric oxygen, uh, IV, you know, ultraviolet stuff.

And again, I mean, these therapies all have their place, but you know, they're really all designed in some way to kind of, you know, kill the bug. And I don't know that they necessarily address. I know a lot of these other issues that Lyme has created, and again, they tend to be very expensive, and you have to have a provider, you know, apply these therapies.

So, you know, I wanted to know the book to be really something anybody can do at home, no matter where you are in the world, pretty much. At least if you have access to the internet and you can get some of these things. But a lot of these things are things that you can really do on your own. And I mean, for a lot of people, uh, you know, it makes a huge difference.

And again, this was my journey. This is what kind of turned the corner for me. You know, I really never did any high tech anything. Um. Yeah. It really wasn't accessible to where I wasn't in the States at the time either. But, uh, I think, you know, you have to look at the the the risk-benefit of any therapy and the cost of course, and you know, what is going to give you the biggest bang for your buck.

And, um, I'm sure if you talk to every Lyme doctor out there, they'll probably have a different opinion on what that is. But again, I, I. I think the book that I've written is really a great way for people who are trying to be budget-conscious, uh, to be able to sort through the therapies. Uh, I try to talk about, you know, the price, uh, about what these therapies are.

So people have a pretty good idea about whether it's something they can do or not. But again, most of the stuff in there is pretty affordable. 

Linda Elsegood: Could I just ask you about the long-term use of antibiotics? I know you were saying, you mentioned about how it affects your gut. Um, I'm just thinking myself, when I was on a long-term antibiotic, I got, um, thrush in my mouth and I could not clear it up.

I had it for about a couple of months. It was terrible. Absolutely 

Dr Darin Ingels: Awful. Yeah. The long-term antibiotics, well, you know, even short term antibiotics are going to have a damaging effect on your gut microbes. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast. You can't kill the bad guys without killing the good guys.

So there's always going to be collateral damage when you're using antibiotics. And then we know from the research and in rats anyway, you know, when you give a rat a single dose of antibiotic, I mean, that's not what, even one day, that's one day. Dose, it takes six months for the rat, got to repopulate back to where it was prior to the antibiotic use.

So I can only imagine what happens in humans when we've been on antibiotics for, you know, weeks, months, and I mean, I've even had one patient who was on continuous antibiotics for 12 years. You know, in addition to, you know, wiping out your normal gut flora. And of course, again, we've had a, just a ton of research coming out about the importance of your microbiome and how it modulates not just your immune system, but your weight and your mood.

And you know, all these other aspects of our health are really tied into our gut microbes. The other thing about the long-term antibiotics that people really don't know about and they should, is that it's very damaging to your mitochondria. And we know that Lyme itself damages your mitochondria. And for people who don't know, mitochondria are the part of your cell that literally create energy.

So part of the reason, you know, you're sorry darn tired. When you get these chronic infections, and to a certain degree, it's that damaging effect to these mitochondria. Well, again, we know that when you're on antibiotics long-term, that compounds the problem, makes it worse. So, you know, I'm certainly not opposed to using antibiotics.

Again, I think they have their place, and certainly, with acute Lyme disease, I think they can be very effective. But you know, if you're in the state of chronic Lyme and you've been on antibiotics for months to years, and you're not feeling any better, I guess, you know, my feeling is, at what point do you draw a line in the sand and say, no, this really isn't the best path for me, and I need to find something different.

I knew that in the effort to try and kill the Lyme, you're also damaging other really important aspects of your own body. So. Uh, you know, it makes it even more confusing that you know, we don't even know if you ever really get rid of Lyme. You know, we can't measure Lyme easily in the body. And I think there's been some pretty compelling evidence that we, I've never actually done get rid of Lyme.

You know, once you get it, it's kind of part of you, but I sort of equate it to like, you know, when you get a Chickenpox when you're five years old, you can get shingles when you're 55 years old, and it's the same virus that stays in your body. You know, the difference is your immune system. Something happens that you know, it tanks, and then that virus becomes opportunistic.

I think, again, you know, we need to think about Lyme disease and how it affects your terrain. And if we can correct your terrain, correct your immune system, you know, it should be able to keep it at bay, uh, and not cause problems. You know, why is it there? Some people who get Lyme and you know, they'd get over it, and they're fine.

And other people, you know, it goes on for years. Um, I'm sure there's a lot of reasons, but I think a big part of that is certainly what was going on in the body prior to getting Lyme and then what happened thereafter. But again, I think the more we make our body more toxic, more acidic, uh, all of these things just kind of add up, and it just makes it harder to get well.

And of course, the antibiotics are also very acid-forming in the body. So again, from a chemical standpoint, uh, it's not. It's not doing the kind of things in the body we really want. So, you know, people really need to weigh that risk-benefit when they're considering doing long-term antibiotics. And you know, I've seen, you know, I, I heard from people online and said, Oh gosh, look, I was on antibiotics and saved my life.

Great. You know, I, I think anything that works, you know, again, there are some people who do really very well on it, and it changes their life. And that's wonderful. But again, I think, you know, I'm, I'm focusing more on the people who've been down that path, that haven't responded well or gotten worse, and they need, you know, other solutions.

Linda Elsegood: Great. Well, we've come to the end of the show and if people would like to go to https://dariningelsnd.com he has a lovely website there with all the information about the book he's practised. There's a blog, a store, events, absolutely everything, and you can even order the book online. So it's been amazing having you with us today and thank you so much for sharing your experience for this.

Dr Darin Ingels: Great. Thank you, Linda.


Any questions or comments you may have, please email us at Contact@ldnresearchtrust.org.  I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for joining us today. We really appreciated your company. Until next time, stay safe and keep well.