This Could Be Lyme, Not Menopause! – The Shocking Misdiagnosis Costing Women Their Sanity
Could your anxiety, depression, or brain fog actually be undiagnosed Lyme disease—not just menopause?
In this eye-opening episode of Hormones, Metabolism and You, Dr. Cassie Smith sits down with Lyme-literate physician Dr. Myriah Hinchey to uncover the surprising overlap between Lyme disease and mental health symptoms in menopausal women. Many women are misdiagnosed or left without answers as symptoms like mood swings, fatigue, and cognitive decline are written off as “just hormonal changes.”
Dr. Hinchey shares why Lyme disease is more common—and more elusive—than most people realize, and how it can silently wreak havoc on mental health. If you’ve ever felt dismissed, misunderstood, or still searching for answers—this episode is for you. Tune in to get empowered, get informed, and take charge of your health.
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Guest info and links:
Myriah Hinchey, ND, FMAPS, has been at the forefront of Lyme disease treatment for over a decade. As an experienced Lyme Literate Physician, she couples conventional guidelines with unique natural protocols. Her foundation in holistic care integrates a rich educational background. She’s been a Licensed Massage Therapist since 1998, specializing in CORE myofascial release and Reiki. After obtaining her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Connecticut, she earned her Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from The University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine. Supplementing her qualifications are certifications in Medical Acupuncture, Therapeutic Lifestyle Change (TLC), and a mentorship focusing on neurodevelopmental disorders.
Blog/Transcription:
0:06 welcome back to this week’s episode of Hormones Metabolism and You I’m your host Dr Cassie Smith I’m a functional
0:12 endocrinologist based in Oklahoma City This week I am repurposing an interview
0:17 I did for my hormone summit that just finished airing at the beginning of
0:22 April I thought this interview was so fascinating We talked about tick born
0:28 illnesses and especially lime disease So I had brought on an expert Dr Mariah
0:33 Henchi and I had her talk to me on this summit about brain fog anxiety fatigue
0:38 and how a lot of these symptoms that get blamed on menopause can actually be tickborn illness diseases So in this
0:46 conversation we talked about the hidden causes of your symptoms We started saying that maybe women blame menopause
0:54 for brain fog fatigue and mood swings but it could be an undiagnosed tickorn infection as the real culprit of their
1:01 infection And so she kind of walks through with you how you could know do you have a tickorn illness or is this
1:07 really menopause these mental symptoms that a lot of women develop in their 30s 40s 50s like the brain fog and anxiety
1:14 We talked about why standard lime tests fail So a lot of times people think they may have lime but they go to their
1:20 doctor and they’re told they don’t and it may be a test issue Conventional testing often misses Lyme disease
1:26 leaving millions undiagnosed And so we talk about advanced testing options and
1:32 what that can do as far as promoting your health and getting the actual right diagnosis And then we talked about how
1:38 to restore your health naturally So if you’re chronically ill and have this chronic infection and it won’t go away
1:43 with antibiotics there are herbs there are lifestyle changes there’s immune support So she just kind of goes over
1:50 how you can fight back from a holistic approach which is where modern endocrine comes in And we treat a lot of people
1:56 with lime You know they go get diagnosed they have this diagnosis and then they come to me and we really work on
2:01 mitochondrial support detoxification gut health and things like that So I really wanted to share this with you guys Dr Dr
2:08 Mariah Henchi ND FMAPs has been at the forefront of Lyme
2:14 disease treatment for over a decade As an experienced lime literate physician she couples conventional guidelines with
2:21 unique natural protocols Her foundation in holistic care integrates a rich
2:26 educational background She’s been a licensed massage therapist since 1998 specializing in core myofascial
2:34 release and Reiki After obtaining her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Connecticut she earned her
2:41 doctorate of naturopathic medicine from the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine Supplementing her
2:48 qualifications are certifications in medical acupuncture therapeutic lifestyle
2:54 changes and a mentorship focusing on neurodedevelopmental disorders So I hope
3:00 you enjoy this episode So thank you for joining me Thanks for having me It’s a
3:05 pleasure to be here So let’s start with how common is Lyme disease how
3:13 common is tickornne illness diseases and then is this something that anyone listening to this should be worried about is this just in northeastern
3:20 United States do we get this in other countries so it’s estimated that about half a million people in the United
3:27 States of America alone have Lyme disease And that’s just the organism called Borrellia that um causes lime
3:34 That’s not taking into account babesia bartinella anoplasma or lickia rocky
3:40 mountain spotted fever any of the other organisms that are vectorbor and can be
3:46 transmitted by ticks as well So half a million people uh in the
3:52 United States but that can be much higher when you’re talking about worldwide Absolutely And that’s probably
3:58 a very underestimated number There are some sources that suggest that the number could actually be closer to about
4:04 3 million So when you’re talking about half a million people in the United States or you know a couple million then
4:10 you’re actually talking about things that are as prevalent as diseases that we hear a lot about Right Like right
4:17 like breast cancer incidents is right just under I think it’s at like 450,000
4:23 Yeah Yeah in some estimates up to 600,000 But yeah I mean so it’s right there So it’s something that we hear a
4:28 ton about but you don’t really hear a lot about Lyme disease right no it’s a
4:34 big medical political controversy Yeah And so what are some of the common
4:41 symptoms of Lyme disease like will people even know that they had Lyme disease will they you know know they
4:47 were bitten by a tick like tell me about you know how many people actually come in and say “Oh I was bitten by this tick
4:53 like help me and what are kind of the symptoms that they have acutely and chronically So typically I see the
4:59 patients who have chronic Lyme disease Um but I think it’s important when we talk about symptoms to try to
5:05 differentiate between an acute situation versus chronic because the symptoms are pretty different Um in an acute
5:12 infection you may or may not have the typical bullseye rash So that rash is
5:18 present somewhere between 20 to 40% of the time And um it’s important that
5:24 everyone realize that you will get that rash less often than you know than you
5:30 will So typically you’re not going to see that rash which a lot of medical professionals and people rely on as
5:36 diagnostic criteria for Lyme disease It’s also estimated that under 50% of
5:42 people even remember being bit by a tick So a lot of times you’re not going to find the tick that bit you because it’s
5:48 smaller than a poppy seed if it’s in the nymph or larvae stage Um or even as an
5:54 adult male it’s pretty small So a lot of people don’t find it It drops off and
5:59 then it takes if you are going to get the rash it can take anywhere from 3 to 30 days And the onset of symptoms varies
6:08 person to person So typically you just feel like you have the flu So you can
6:13 have a headache you can have a stiff neck you can have some muscularkeeletal
6:18 aches and pains You know you might have a low-grade fever something like that But it’s nothing astronomical You t you
6:26 know everyone thinks oh it’s arthritis and a really high fever and um a rash
6:33 and that’s what they’re looking for even most medical professionals out there And a lot of people think it’s no big deal
6:40 and you just take a couple weeks of doxycyc and it goes away And that can’t be farther from the truth Untreated Lyme
6:47 disease progresses to the heart It progresses to the nervous system and it
6:52 causes a lot of debilitating neurological issues and a lot of mental
6:58 health issues especially in children So with Lyme disease tell me about what
7:07 are some of the you said mental So like are we talking anxiety depression are we
7:12 talking forgetfulness brain fog ADHD like what symptoms not acutely but
7:18 chronically do they end up with so chronically it causes all of it It can cause just like a general brain fog It
7:24 can cause cognitive impairment to where it’s affecting your memory your ability
7:31 to follow instructions It can even affect your ability to reason right it
7:37 can affect your ability to learn to focus and then it can cause bipolar
7:44 symptoms It can cause schizophrenic symptoms It can cause regular anxiety It
7:50 can cause anxiety so bad that it’s inciting panic attacks and then it can
7:55 cause regular depression as well So really because it causes inflammation in
8:02 the brain it’s going to basically cause symptoms that you already are kind of
8:09 predisposed to have So people that already have anxiety they get the really bad debilitating anxiety or anxiety that
8:16 turns into like panic attacks for example So how long does this typically take
8:23 does it depend on how old you are does it depend on like let’s say I got bit by a tick two years ago you know is that
8:30 like is there like a timeline for when you’re going to get worsening anxiety versus depression i know you said acutely within the first couple weeks
8:37 you’re going to get that like flu-l like illness fever maybe a rash but how long does it take for these other symptoms to
8:44 develop honestly I think it depends on the person It depends on their genetic
8:49 vulnerabilities It depends on you know previous injury trauma I have a lot of
8:55 patients that can’t get better because they’ve never dealt with the trauma that they’ve experienced in their life And it
9:02 really depends on the status of their immune system It also depends is it just
9:07 lime is it just borellia or do they have one of these other co- infections because bartinella can cause like
9:14 homicidal rage So it it depends what other organisms are in there and how
9:20 many of them because they all work synergistically together to turn on that
9:26 pro-inflammatory cytoine cascade that we all heard about in CO and that’s really
9:31 what breaks the immune system and for example if you have Epstein bar or you
9:39 have you know other viruses in your body they’re actually going to emerge
9:45 and your your levels of them are going to go up and they’re going to run rampid because your immune system can no longer
9:51 do its job So when you get bit by these ticks or tick you can actually end up
9:57 with more than one infection Yeah And just from one tick bite So you have to
10:02 think about it When that tick let’s say it was on a mouse when it takes its blood meal from that mouse every single
10:09 organism that was in that mouse it now draws into itself And when it bites you
10:16 you’re going to get everything that was in the blood Dr Beerusano calls them
10:21 nature’s dirty needles right so it’s just like if you were sharing a needle with somebody you’re going to get
10:27 everything that that person had you know virus wise infection wise in their body
10:34 So yeah that’s And so is it common for
10:39 people to get bit by these ticks then i guess since they’re everywhere and they’re so small that we can’t see them
10:45 like is it is it becoming more common or is it just that we’re looking at it more
10:51 i mean does that make sense i I totally understand your question It’s becoming more and more prevalent I think it
10:58 really depends what you’re doing for activities But you know everyone also
11:03 has this misnomer that you have to be hiking in the woods or you have to be in the woods you know to get a tick And I
11:11 use my son as an example He was waiting to do his little kindergarten moving up ceremony and he was playing literally in
11:19 front of his school which is sprayed monthly for ticks because I am crazy
11:25 when it comes to ticks and he got a nymph tick on his face and I saw it from
11:31 across the room It was like everything I could do to stay in that seat and not run up there while he was on the stage
11:37 But I mean he was outside for a few minutes and got a tick on him in a very
11:43 well-groomed sprayed area not in the woods not hiking not camping not fishing
11:49 not doing any of the things So did he get sick so he didn’t get sick but the
11:54 tick ended up testing positive and he ended up testing positive later on but I
12:00 had put him on treatment immediately and he never had any symptoms And you know
12:06 it’s now been 2 years but I tested him at 6 months and tested him a year later and it looked like his infection had
12:12 resolved from what you can tell from blood work Okay So you can actually look
12:18 at blood work acutely when you think that you’ve been bitten but you can also check the ticks Yeah So oh my gosh
12:24 anyone who’s listening if you get bit by a tick please send your tick out to a
12:30 company that is reputable for testing the tick They will look at its genetic
12:35 material and tell you what organisms that tick is carrying because if your
12:41 tick comes back clean and you’ve used a reputable company you have nothing to worry about right but if the tick comes
12:47 back and so here’s a good example So with my son’s tick it had Borrellia and besia Brellia is the bacteria that
12:54 causes lime Babeszia is a parasite So let’s just say that to cover the bases I
13:00 was like I’m putting him on doxy for 4 to 6 weeks uh because of the lime and
13:05 hadn’t tested the tick Doxy doesn’t treat parasites because doxy is an
13:11 antibacterial It’s not an antiparasitic medication So to treat besia you have to
13:18 use antiparasitic medications like a tovocquinone combined with a zithroyiacin or there’s another drug
13:24 called tephenocquin There are different classes of
13:30 pharmaceutical drugs that need to be used for different organisms It’s not a
13:36 one-sizefits-all with antibiotics So what is a red like is this something if somebody found a tick
13:42 on them listening they could take it i’m assuming they can’t take it to their primary care doctor and be like “Test this.” I mean how do you find this
13:49 reputable company to send yeah So there’s a lot of companies that do it The one that I send out to is called
13:55 tickreport.com So
14:01 www.tickreport.com and it takes maybe 30 seconds You put in all of your information I highly suggest people pay
14:08 for the comprehensive panel It’s $200 but it looks at every testable pathogen
14:16 that the tick could be carrying because there’s also viruses like the pasin virus which can be deadly as well And so
14:23 obviously the tick can be dead like you can kill the tick You accept it Okay You just put it in a plastic bag and put it
14:29 in an envelope and send it out Okay great Yeah And then you made something
14:34 another comment that and we’re going to go back to testing in a second but you made another comment Um you were saying that you know
14:41 a lot of times people haven’t processed the trauma or the stress from their life and so they end up really sick Do you
14:48 think in people that have really good healthy immune systems that aren’t chronically stressed like if they do get
14:53 bit by these ticks and they get bartinella or lime or like besiosis do
14:59 they not get as ill like can their body actually fight this off and they have no infections Is it just the people that
15:05 have high insulin and high inflammation and high cortisol that get sick or does it matter when you’re bitten i don’t
15:11 think I can answer that in an absolute but I can say in general the worse your
15:17 immune status is the more inflamed you are the more inflammatory foods you eat
15:23 the worse your diet the bigger chance that you’re going to end up being one of
15:29 these patients that has a debilitating or you know a significant chronic case
15:35 of these infections And I would say your chances you probably fare much better if you only have one of these organisms and
15:43 you don’t end up with two or three or four of them like a lot of my patients do So when you’re talking to somebody
15:51 about this how do these people get to you so are these people who come to you and say is because you said 20 to 40% of
15:58 people don’t even like they’ll they’ll get rashes but almost half people don’t even know they were bitten by a tick So
16:04 how do people end up with you it’s a like oh my gosh I have debilitating joint pain and fatigue and anxiety and
16:10 depression and no one can help me and so do I you know can you test me for lime or like do people come to you already
16:16 tested like how does this how does one listening who thinks maybe I have lime
16:22 how do they go about like getting diagnosed does that make sense so Lyme and tickborn disease are a
16:29 clinical diagnosis For whatever reason in the medical community somehow it has
16:35 been translated into if you’re positive on a test you’re positive And if you’re negative on a test then you’re negative
16:42 And that’s not what you’re taught in school And that certainly isn’t what you’re taught when you join
16:47 organizations like ILADS the International Lime Associated Diseases Society who to me is the authority hands
16:55 down on vectorbor disease But you’re taught to make a clinical diagnosis And so in a clinical diagnosis obviously the
17:02 symptoms matter right so lime borellia infects every single cell in the body
17:10 Therefore it has the potential toffect every cell every organ every organ
17:16 system in the body So you will see symptoms in almost every different
17:22 system of the body and lime will go to the areas of weakness either from
17:28 further injury or surgery or genetic predisposition right or or familial
17:34 things right and it will prey on those weaknesses usually because it’s a source of
17:40 inflammation So we have all of these symptoms ranging in all of these various
17:46 systems in the body and then we do our exclusion So here’s our differential diagnosis Here’s all of the different
17:53 diseases and disorders right that could cause all of these symptoms and you rule those out right and so now you’re like
18:00 “Okay it’s you know it’s not MS you know it’s not hypothyroid It’s not fill-in-
18:06 thelank right you go down the whole list.” And then you do your testing And
18:11 so the testing isn’t if you’re positive you’re positive and if you’re negative you’re negative First of all
18:17 conventional labs do a terrible job at evaluating this They look at one species
18:22 of lime there’s like 20 that need to be looked at and they’re looking at a
18:29 simple part of the immune response If you use other labs that are specialty labs like for example Igenics Igenics
18:38 looks at all of the species of borellia that can cause Lyme disease And then
18:44 they also look at the co- infections and all of the species of the co- infections
18:50 not just the main species So there’s a big difference between going to LabCore
18:56 or Quest versus going to likeenics or Vibrant or one of those specialty labs
19:02 You can use T- Labs you can use Infectto Labs There’s there’s many different labs out there And so again it’s looking at
19:09 the patient’s clinical presentation ruling out other things and then looking
19:14 at supportive evidence of the immune system So looking at antibbody production but also you know we can look
19:21 at inflammatory numbers We can look at natural killer cells We can look at various things just in regular blood
19:28 work that can give us clues as to whether the immune system is functioning
19:34 properly or not and whether there’s excessive inflammation or not in the body And again it’s kind of like all of
19:39 these pieces of the puzzle that would then lead someone to that diagnosis It’s
19:45 complicated It’s not a simple yes or no on a test Yeah So it almost sounds like
19:50 kind of what we do at Modern Endocrine with looking at just like very extensive
19:55 labs and trying to determine you know when I look at somebody’s hormones what are all the pieces here right because I
20:01 want to know what’s going on with their thyroid and what’s going on with their CRP and their ESR like are they inflamed what’s going on with their insulin and
20:08 their cortisol and like you and I were talking about prior to this their gut like your gut I mean you can tell so
20:13 much about somebody by a gut study I reviewed probably six GI maps today you know and I can look at a GI map before I
20:21 go into a room and tell you how sick the person’s going to be I mean you know this right like no secrettory IGA horrible dispiosis like and so you’re
20:29 trying to get like a good picture of overall their health which makes sense And so if somebody comes to a primary
20:36 care doctor or goes to a primary care doctor and and has a bunch of you know maybe their white count’s high or maybe
20:41 even it’s low and they do have a lot of high inflammatory markers and now all of a sudden they’re insulin resistant or
20:47 their hormones are messed up or their thyroid I mean these are all things that you could think hm maybe something else
20:53 is going on You know it’s tough So before I started only specializing in
20:59 Lyme disease you know I kind of I did I did everything Um that’s really what we’re trained to do you know as a
21:06 primary care naturopathic doctor And not that I was practicing primary care I was still a specialist but I would help
21:12 anything with anyone with anything in the functional medicine realm And I would have a lot of women come in to me
21:18 and their chief complaint was menopausal symptoms you know and so they’d come in and they say “Okay I’m having hot
21:24 flashes and night sweats I’m having brain fog I’m having low libido I’m
21:30 having you know a decrease in bone density from having heart palpitations
21:36 loss of libido headaches incontinence all of sleep disruption um mood changes
21:42 all of these things that are actually all symptoms of Lyme disease as well And
21:49 so a lot of times using my standard sort of intervention to help people to balance their hormones or you do like a
21:55 salivary hormone panel and you’re like “Oh your your hormones aren’t out of balance you know.” And a lot of times it
22:02 was no they had an underlying tick born disease that was actually causing their
22:09 symptoms So if somebody would go to a primary care doctor and say “Oh I think
22:14 I have Lyme disease.” And a primary care doctor just gets like a typical lime panel from DLO or Quest
22:20 Diagnostic And it comes back negative you’re saying they could still
22:25 technically have lime It’s kind of like with me I go crazy when people say “Oh well your A1C and your you know insulin
22:31 is normal but it’s not optimal type thing right are you So is that what you’re saying even though you run these
22:37 panels you really need to have somebody that understands what they’re looking at interpret these labs right and I mean
22:43 there’s so many things we can talk about it and I can go down that rabbit hole if you’d like But to make it plain and
22:49 simple like number one if you go to a lab like Quest the test that your doctor
22:55 is more often than not going to order on you has a
23:01 5050% chance of like a 50% chance of being accurate So you’re going to miss
23:06 half the cases right off the bat doing this um this EIA test which is what most
23:11 of the doctors do Even when they know enough to order an amunolot they’re only looking at 13 of
23:19 the KD bands when there’s really about twice that that need to be looked at And
23:24 again when they’re only reading the word positive or negative I’ve had so many patients come in where they have four
23:31 bands but they just don’t have five And the diagnostic criteria is you need five out of the 10 bands for IGG to be
23:39 reactive for that word to say positive or you need two out of the three
23:44 IGMs And it’s like how do you think it’s like just because they have four bands
23:50 and not five So they’re making antibodies to four proteins on a spyroet
23:56 not five And so we’re just going to rule out Lyme disease right there when they have every symptom of it and this is the
24:03 10th time they’ve been tested for it because they have every symptom of it but yet we’re going to rely on that test
24:09 and say no you don’t have it Yeah So it’s using your brain which sometimes is hard in medicine because in school they
24:15 teach us to put people in boxes I say this all the time like box they want to put you in a box They want to get you a
24:21 diagnosis They want to write you a pill Like that’s how it goes And so when you have to like think outside that box it
24:27 becomes difficult for a lot of people So go back and give me your menopause
24:33 example that you were going to give me We were talking about I had asked you about the criteria um and like how to
24:40 diagnose lime So I’ve had a lot of patients come in who think that they are having permenopausal symptoms or are
24:48 going into menopause and they have all of these typical symptoms like the brain
24:54 fog the incontinence the sleep disruption weight gain joint pain mood
25:00 swings anxiety all of it And a lot of times they don’t respond to like the typical
25:07 treatment that I would do to try to balance their hormones or let’s say they need to increase their progesterone or
25:16 their hormones are actually normal and it turns out that they have one of these
25:21 infections that are causing their symptoms instead or exacerbating the
25:26 symptoms And so this can be anything from hot flashes and night sweats to irritability to weight gain to anxiety
25:34 depression palpitations brain fog forgetfulness ADHD lack of you know ability to
25:41 concentrate All of these things can be from lime And even things like bone density issues right who would ever
25:48 think that lime could affect bone density but it causes inflammation and it affects your body’s ability to
25:55 remodel the bones i mean it makes sense for sure So if somebody is listening and
26:03 thinks okay well maybe I do have a tick born illness or I want to be treated for that Is there like somewhere they can go
26:09 to find a provider i mean obviously we can link your information but I don’t know how busy you are if you take new
26:15 patients Is there like some society website they can go to to find someone who’s like certified in lime treatment
26:23 or how does that work so the International Lime and Associated Diseases Society or ILADS IL
26:30 ADS.org I think is like the number one That’s to me that’s like they’re the authority on Lyme disease There’s
26:37 also lyd disease.org Sorry There’s providers listed there that they like are associated or have
26:45 been trained by them Yes And I mean and honestly I think that going to finding
26:50 someone who is an active member of is probably your best bet to know that you
26:56 are seeing someone who’s been adequately trained You know there there’s no way to
27:02 know that’s your best bet Well I would agree I think you know sometimes in medicine there are people that pop up
27:07 and say they’re specialists at certain things I mean we were talking about this because they read something on the internet got intrigued taught themselves
27:14 a few things and then are trying to treat other people And while I appreciate that you know wantingness to
27:20 help other people sometimes you can end up harming other people more than helping them So making sure they’ve been
27:26 trained appropriately I think is is a good point Let me ask you this Let’s say I got bit by I grew up on a farmwooded
27:32 area Let’s say I got bit by a tick when I was 10 and you know I’m approaching 40
27:37 now Let’s say that I just haven’t taken care of myself for the last year or two I got super stressed I’ve got leaky gut
27:45 You know all the things Could that present now at 40 when it had never
27:50 presented prior 30 years later yeah And it happens to a lot of people So it’s like when you have something that hits
27:57 your immune system and causes the immune suppression that can allow the infection
28:03 that your immune system has been basically like you know holding in remission for your whole life or a year
28:09 or 10 years It can actually just be enough that it can actually come out and kind of reemerge and come out of its
28:16 dormcancy Is there like a general symptom that most people present with or
28:21 a general like top three or not really everyone’s different I mean everyone is different I would say the biggest
28:29 complaint that I hear is some sort of like brain fog
28:35 typically some sort of either and it’s not always like joint pain A lot of
28:40 times it’s muscle pain So some sort of like muscularkeeletal issue and then the
28:47 other is just like poor immune dysfunction or immune dysfunction And I
28:52 will have patients that come in and and say that they don’t know that they’re describing like immune incompetence but
28:58 that’s exactly what they’re saying It’s like either they catch everything or like their body doesn’t heal the way
29:04 it’s supposed to heal You know things are just off with the immune system Yeah
29:10 So it’s not necessarily like fatigue or weight gain per se or like headaches
29:15 depression but it could be But it could Yes it certainly could be Some of the red flags are if you’ve ever been
29:23 diagnosed with something and you have the word atypical put in front of it If
29:28 it’s atypical guess what you did not meet the diagnostic criteria but they can’t figure out what else is wrong with
29:35 you This this is what fits you best It’s like you said putting someone in a box and giving them a diagnosis so you can
29:41 write a script for a pill right so number one is atypical diagnosises
29:46 Number two is that these symptoms will come and go and they’ll come and go to the point where you almost start to
29:53 think you’re a hypochondric And it’s like one day your elbow can hurt so bad that you’re like I
30:01 must have like fallen on it and not remember Like the pain is excruciating and then it will go away as quickly as
30:08 it came and then 2 days later it’s like oh now my hip hurts and you start to think that you’re going crazy and you
30:14 think that you’re a hypochondric and the symptoms will kind of like pingpong around the body and then you’ll feel
30:20 great for a week and then all of a sudden something’s back And so it’s like this intermittent cyclical pattern that
30:28 seems to get worse and worse over time Now here’s another interesting thing from a hormone standpoint A lot of
30:35 people think that it’s some type of PMS because it only happens for like one
30:41 week out of the month But if you look at the life cycle of Burellia it actually
30:47 births the next generation inside of you it replicates very slowly and its
30:53 replication is about 21 to 23 days And so a lot of women will start thinking
30:59 that it’s a cyclical issue and they’ll start blaming hormones That’s
31:04 interesting So atypical comes and goes cyclic What about like if somebody’s
31:12 been diagnosed with fibromyalgia or IBS you know those are like the I call those the catchall like I don’t know what’s
31:17 wrong with you so I’m going to give you this diagnosis or eosinophilic esophagit You know there’s lots of diagnoses that
31:23 really get under my skin But th those are a couple So if somebody like if
31:29 somebody has those then maybe that could be a sign that they have something else going on too Yes To me those are you
31:36 know we call them waste basket diagnosis The symptoms are very very real but the diagnosis doesn’t explain anything which
31:43 means they don’t know what’s wrong with you Yeah And then they try to give you a drug to just bandaid it instead of really trying to figure out what’s
31:49 causing it So do you get a lot of GI symptoms with lime and with tickborn illnesses or not really no I do Um
31:57 bartinella has a lot of GI issues Lime does as well And then you know
32:02 unfortunately the treatment you know for lime with all of the antibiotics does a
32:09 number on the microbiome can cause a lot of fungal overgrowth leads to increased
32:14 intestinal permeability then leads to food sensitivities and mass cell issues and you know the whole ball of wax that
32:23 really needs to be addressed in order to get rid of these um infections And you
32:30 know it’s important to note that even once you find out that you have lime or a co- infection it’s not a simple course
32:37 of antibiotics You know if you catch it in the beginning which is why I think it’s
32:42 so important to get your ticks tested and you get on the appropriate
32:48 pharmaceutical medication and herbs then you can prevent this from becoming
32:54 chronic But once it’s chronic it’s a lot harder to deal with then it usually takes years to turn it around That was
33:02 kind of leading into my next question is if somebody has this and it’s not acute it’s chronic at the point that it’s
33:07 chronic Are we still using antibiotics antifungals antiarasites or is this more
33:13 of a you got to do herbs i don’t know if you do any ozone like what do you do
33:18 with these people it depends who you see right so you’re going to have very smart
33:24 line literate doctors who really only use pharmaceutical agents and that’s how they treat You will find a lot of
33:31 practitioners who will do integrative treatment with me I’ve kind of I’ve been through the whole thing over the past
33:38 several years you know well over a decade And now I am treating people
33:44 solely using herbal medications as well as lifestyle therapy So my focus is not
33:53 on killing these organisms My focus is on restoring proper immune function
33:59 while we’re shrinking the load of the organism Because in the end when you
34:05 stop taking whatever the antimicrobial is if your immune system isn’t there and
34:11 ready to stop that infection from growing back it’s just going to grow back So the only shot that we have of
34:19 eradicating it from the body or holding it in remission is a fully functioning
34:24 immune system And you can’t get that without fixing the gut and dealing with
34:30 all of the other imbalances including hormones I mean my gosh for the people who do have hormone issues I mean think
34:38 about what hormone imbalance does to the body and to the immune system right and think about all of the immune enhancing
34:47 activity that estrogen has and that progesterone has And they both decrease interlucan 6 and tumor necrosis factor
34:55 They both have positive effects on the microbiome And you can’t have a healthy functioning immune system without a
35:02 balanced healthy functioning microbiome Estrogen increases increases natural
35:07 killer cells Um enhances B cells ability to make antibodies the tea helper cells
35:13 etc Aids in in wound healing Right one of the things that I just said is is a
35:19 red flag for Lyme disease So like there’s so many ways that bioididentical
35:24 hormones can actually play an integral role in the treatment of Lyme disease if
35:32 somebody has deficiencies Yeah No I completely agree with that So when you
35:38 are talking about acute versus chronic so acute phase if they’re infected and
35:43 you give them antimicrobials or antibiotics and you kill it and it doesn’t become chronic then they can
35:48 technically be treated and it’s eradicated but if it’s chronic in nature it’s just really trying to decrease the
35:56 load and increase your immune system So are is it always going to be in their system u is it kind of like Hashimoto’s
36:03 I guess is my question And so the way I think about that is like once you have Hashimoto’s you have Hashimoto’s Now you can put it into remission but that’s
36:10 still present And so if you don’t do your job every day to stay healthy then your Hashimoto’s comes back Is that kind
36:16 of how this is as well like once you have it in its chronic you can kind of put it into this remissive state where
36:22 your body doesn’t really realize it’s there cuz your immune system is functioning but as soon as you get out of line it comes back So I think that
36:29 nobody actually knows that answer And I think that it’s different per person So
36:36 I do truly believe that some people can fully eradicate it from their body I
36:42 also believe that other people have it there to some extent hiding out the
36:47 immune system strong enough that it’s not able to come out and replicate and cause a huge a huge massive infection
36:54 But if they become rundown or they have an induction of inflammation into their
37:02 body like I saw a lot of this with COVID in my patients So whether they went out and got vaccinated and had massive
37:08 inflammatory cytoine cascade from the spike protein um or they got COVID and
37:14 had the same sort of response I had a lot of patients come back whose Lyme
37:19 disease had been in remission they had not been treated for several years who all of a sudden came back and all of
37:26 their symptoms were back again So it could be an instance like that or it
37:31 could be an instance where you’re going through an extremely stressful time You know someone could have gotten into a
37:37 severe car accident had a major surgery got infected with something else right
37:43 all of those things that are going to cause inflammation and immune dysfunction is what allows the infection
37:50 to come back out Yeah Okay So that makes sense All of that makes sense So and you
37:56 said it can take years to treat this once it’s chronic Like what is a typical timeline are we looking at at least a
38:03 year are we looking at two year at least a year So if somebody’s listening and
38:08 they have anxiety depression some of these mental you know brain fog you’re looking at least a year of treatment And
38:14 when you say treatment you’re talking about herbs lifestyle modification I am
38:19 talking about that But also like if you are seeing a lime literate physician who’s uh prescribing pharmaceutical
38:27 antibiotics and or antiparasitics you’re usually not going to finish treatment anytime sooner than that either And then
38:34 there’s a whole world of things to fix and clean up after after that right like that definitely is going to impact the
38:42 gut and you’re going to have to do work to to detox and heal the gut and h and
38:48 deal with all of the ramifications of taking excessive antibiotics And I want to make one thing clear acutely there’s
38:55 no guarantee like there’s no guarantee if you take the the standard treatment
39:02 um of antibiotics and by the way it’s very very different across the board So some sources say 14 days of
39:09 doxy some say 21DS again the body of um of physicians
39:15 and researchers that I believe say four to six weeks of doxy So it certainly is
39:22 not a short course of antibiotics even in that acute case and there is no
39:28 guarantee that you’re going to fully eradicate it So I just want to make that clear Yeah it’s a long it’s a lot of
39:37 antibiotics All I can think about is the gut just the nightmare of your gut after
39:42 four to six weeks of of doxy So yeah Okay Well I think that this was very
39:49 helpful for people uh I hope that are listening if especially you know if they’re if they’re having these symptoms
39:55 that we discussed this anxiety depression ADHD type stuff just to give them some other thoughts as to things
40:01 that could possibly be if it’s not just your hormones And so I think this was very informative So I appreciate you
40:08 coming on and just kind of teaching people about this Do you think there’s anything that we miss that’s very
40:14 helpful for patients if they’re possibly dealing with a tech tickborn illness i
40:20 would just say you know make sure that the answers that you’re getting make sense to you and resonate with you If
40:26 you think that the diagnosis and and what you’re being told if it doesn’t sit well with you
40:32 then it’s probably not the answer And so I would say don’t give up hope And you know even if you find out you have a
40:38 tickorn illness as the underlying cause don’t give up hope There’s a lot of fantastic doctors out there that have
40:43 literally dedicated their career to doing this So the other thing is that
40:49 it’s not normal to all of a sudden develop a psychiatric disorder So if you
40:55 have an abrupt onset of depression anxiety anything like that you know and
41:01 and also cognitive decline Cognitive decline is usually pretty slow you don’t
41:06 all of a sudden lose your inability to reason and remember the names of people
41:12 places things or where you put your keys So any sort of like abrupt onset with
41:17 anything to do with your brain is not normal and don’t let anyone explain that
41:23 away as you know your typical depression anxiety etc I would agree with both of
41:30 those statements Number one trust your gut always That’s something I kind of learned in
41:36 2024 and then definitely have already had that reiterated in 2025 to me So
41:41 when you feel something in your gut trust it So if you don’t like the answers you’re getting from doctors then
41:47 find a different doctor cuz to your point there’s a ton of them out there that has spent a lot of time just really
41:53 getting educated on things like this and and trying to help people And then the second one is you know to your point the
42:00 acute psychiatric illness Like that’s not common especially when you’re older And I see this a lot too 21-year-old
42:08 25year-old all of a sudden acutely depressed or anxious Like there’s usually well always in everyone that
42:14 I’ve seen there’s an explanation Um and it is a hormone issue It is a you know
42:21 gut issue usually in those younger people uh older people hormone issue And so yeah if you’re all of a sudden super
42:27 depressed or anxious and you truly have done some soularching and it’s not that you’ve been upset about your life for
42:33 the last 5 years and just haven’t processed it then you need to be mindful of that and find someone who will listen
42:39 and and help you get better For sure So Dr Mariah thank you so much for your time And then we’re going to link all
42:46 your stuff obviously in the show notes So we’ll have her stuff available We’ll have information about her summit as
42:52 well Also if you guys found this useful or want to know more information about Lime we’ll have all her stuff She’s on
42:58 social media as well and so we’ll link all of it there If you want to tell people I guess how to find you on social
43:03 media or any of that do that as well Sure So it’s just Dr Mariah Hinchi on
43:08 Instagram and um my clinical practice is Tao Vitality T AO V is in Victor I T A L
43:16 I T Y And yeah I’m taking new patients but I have about a year-long wait list
43:21 So I would just want to put that out there Wow that’s awesome Okay And you do
43:27 tellahalth I’m assuming Okay Can you see patients in any state um not as their physician No So I can do
43:36 general consulting but not as a physician Only in New Hampshire and um
43:43 Connecticut the two states that I’m a licensed physician in Can I You’re a doctor All right Well thank you for
43:50 joining us on this summit episode Thanks for having me I hope that you enjoyed
43:55 this episode Again I found it just really fascinating when I did this summit interview with Dr Henchi So I
44:01 wanted to share it with you guys I know there’s many of you out there that struggle with fatigue anxiety brain fog
44:07 and if you’re not getting where you want to get to and the answers that you really want even though maybe you are doing hormone therapy I just wanted you
44:13 to be aware that this could be a cause Please remember that Modern Endocrine
44:19 now has a license in 39 states So if you are struggling with something like this not only do we provide hormone care but
44:25 we do see a lot of chronic inflamed patients with things like limes disease and we are very adaptable and able to
44:32 help you with chronic inflammation with mitochondrial support detoxification
44:37 cleaning out your gut all of those things We would be happy to see you Please make sure that if this was
44:43 beneficial to you and you know anyone it may benefit please share this with them That’s how we get this education out
44:49 there That’s how we teach people about limes disease and let them know you know how to continue to ask for help from
44:57 healthcare providers So please please share this Leave us a review anywhere you get your podcast Reviews help us
45:04 know that we’re doing what we need to be doing or help us figure out how to improve Follow me on all my social
45:09 channels I’m on I’m on uh Instagram I’m on Facebook I’m on Tik Tok All of it’s modernindocrine Chat with me Let me know
45:16 who you want me to interview And I will see you next week on the next episode of Hormones Metabolism And you have a great
45:25 week The information presented including any materials discussed referenced or
45:30 linked within this podcast are for general educational purposes only not
45:35 the practice of medicine No doctor patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing
45:42 any of the information provided I am a doctor but I am not talking to you as your doctor The information provided is
45:49 not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by
45:56 your doctor If you are experiencing any health problems including problems you believe have been touched upon in any
46:03 respect within this podcast you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay You may ask your doctor
46:10 whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you but you should still
46:15 consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician I’m just here to
46:21 provide you basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with
46:28 your doctor That’s why we call it back to the basics Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey
Disclaimer:
The information presented including any materials discussed, referenced, or linked within this podcast are for general educational purposes only, not the practice of medicine.
No doctor-patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing any of the information provided.
I am a doctor, but I am not talking to you as your doctor. The information provided is not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by your doctor.
If you are experiencing any health problems, including problems you believe have been touched upon in any respect within this podcast, you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay. You may ask your doctor whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you, but you should still consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician.
I’m just here to provide you with basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with your doctor.
That’s why we call it Back to the Basics. Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey.