Tick Boot Camp

Jennifer Sala is a 32-year-old herbalist and research writer from Ellsworth, Maine. Ms. Sala was a healthy baby, and she was accepted into her school’s talented and gifted program at a young age. She was bit by ticks all throughout her life but didn’t know what they were. Ms. Sala’s health started to decline after a tick bite when she was 4 years old, and she crashed at the age of 10 shortly after...

Micaela Hoo is a 28-year-old freelance content creator, social media manager, Global Lyme Alliance (GLA) peer mentor, and entrepreneur from Los Angeles, California. She is the co-creator of My July, a clean skin care brand. Born in the eastern United States Lyme belt, Ms. Hoo’s childhood was interrupted by persistent illness, learning difficulties, issues with word recall, and heightened sensitivi...

Dr. Christine Arseneau is a 38-year-old pharmacist who spent 6 years training at a hospital before managing an integrative compounding pharmacy where she now works today. She is the founder of Lyme Support which serves clients suffering with Lyme disease and tick-borne infections, is certified in Clinical Cannabinoid Pharmacy, and has a Functional Medicine Certification in Health Coaching. Despite...

Dana Papadopoulos is a 30-year-old not-for-profit Media Director residing in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ms. Papadopoulos was transformed from an active, healthy, athletic child and young adult to a chronically ill 18-year-old woman. Then, for almost a decade, she battled a series of seemingly separate symptoms including anorexia, extreme GI issues, gastroparesis, POTS, EDS, fibromyalgia, ovarian c...

Amber Benge is a 39-year-old young woman from Hickory, North Carolina who is now a sustainable farmer growing her own food and medicine at Grace Walk Farm. She’s a trained victim advocate and her professional background is in working with women who have addiction issues and are victims of sex trafficking. Ms. Benge was bit by a tick when she was 5 years old during a family vacation. She got a bull...

Daisy Ilchovska is a 36-year-old nutritional therapist , researcher, and author from Bournemouth, England. She is the founder of Optimal Health Nutrition , a virtual clinic established to help people overcome health challenges through evidence-based strategies. At the age of 26, Ms. Ilchovska was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and doctors told her to expect to be permanently disabled in less...

Christèle Dumas-Gonnet is the 48-year-old co-founder of ChroniLyme , a patient advocacy association dedicated to improving diagnosis and treatment of chronic Lyme disease, based in Lyon, France. She is also a member of the European Lyme patient engagement collective PREFACE (Patient Resource Facilitator Europe) . Shortly before the end of her university studies, she began to suffer from fatigue, a...

Dr. Jaban Moore is a Doctor of Chiropractic and founder of the Redefining Wellness Center located in Kansas City, Missouri. The mission of Redefining Wellness Center is to educate people about the root causes of chronic illness to help them to find true healing. The foundation of Dr. Moore’s passion for restoring health through a multi therapeutic approach was informed by witnessing his mother str...

Sarah Lombard is a 27-year-old social media marketing, management, and creation professional from Scottsdale, Arizona. Prior to attending college, she enjoyed a very social teen life that included “the worst diet known to man”. She would “eat candy and cookies for lunch with some fries and coming home, starving, eating frozen dinners and spoons full of sugar”. At the age of 17 she began to get sic...

Vanessa Nolet is a 29-year-old young woman from Quebec, Canada. She is working on finishing up a bachelor’s degree in Healthcare Management. Prior to getting sick with Lyme disease, Ms. Nolet had a great life filled with friends and sports. She worked at a spa while going to college and was exposed to Freon during an accident which changed her life. Around this time, Ms. Nolet was bit by a tick an...

Kahlil Fuller , stage name “Two Monies”, is a singer, songwriter, musician, and entertainer from Charlotte, North Carolina. Shortly after graduating from North Carolina A & T with a degree in marketing he “noticed a huge rash on [his] left leg” while working out at the gym. He assumed the rash was from a harmless “bug bite” until he began to limp 5 or 6 days later. Prompted by left leg paralys...

Lexi Czar is a 27-year-old young woman from Creston, BC, Canada. She created Lyme disease awareness apparel and is and is thinking about relaunching her brand in the future. Prior to suffering the extreme symptoms of Lyme disease, Ms. Czar was a full-time student with a part-time job and was involved in many extracurricular sports and activities. She traveled throughout British Columbia and Albert...

Åsa Rydmark is a 48-year-old woman from Sweden who has traveled all around the world. She’s worked in the medical field as a Registered Nurse (RN), research nurse at a gynecological ward, and for the last two years as a research coordinator at Linköping University. Ms. Rydmark had many tick bites throughout her life, got a bullseye rash when she was 14, and Lyme came out and wreaked havoc when she...

Karen Widaman is a 62-year-old certified dog trainer and owner of a large dog training company from Glendora, California. Despite working in a high-risk industry, Ms. Widaman was unaware of that her contact with thousands of dogs increased her Lyme vulnerability. In 2015, she began to suffer from stomach, foot, and hand pain her doctors believed to be unrelated symptoms in part because she tested...

Casey Fillian is a 45-year-old personal trainer, massage therapist, and competitive runner from Marlboro, New Jersey.   Ms. Fillian is also a Lyme disease pioneer: during her childhood she was one of the first people in the United States diagnosed with Lyme. After suffering a tick bite while attending a summer camp, she “developed a fever, general malaise… a bad flu, [her] knee blew up to 3 times...

Grace Anderson is a 21-year-old Lyme disease advocate from the coast of Maine. She's currently studying mental health and human services. Ms. Anderson first became sick with symptoms of Lyme when she was 12 at a Taylor Swift concert with the following symptoms: dizziness, nausea, swollen feet, excessive sweating, and vomiting. These symptoms quickly subsided, but they came back a month later and n...

Rosemeyris Estrella is personal trainer and health and nutrition coach from Pennsylvania. She grew up and spent most of her adult life residing in the urban New York City borough of The Bronx. Recently, Ms. Estrella and husband decided to offer their 4 children the opportunity to trade city living for the freedom, fresh air, and open spaces offered in rural Pennsylvania. Shortly after moving to th...

Evangelina Vensel is an author , life coach , certified Master PSYCH-K facilitator, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner, and certified Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) practitioner from Washington State. Although she had been symptomatic and ill since early childhood, she was not diagnosed with Lyme disease until surpassing her 40th birthday. She sought treatment with over 20 health c...

In this powerful return appearance on the Tick Boot Camp Podcast , Dr. Alan MacDonald joins hosts Matt Sabatello and Richard Johannessen for a deep, unfiltered conversation about the research he spent a lifetime pursuing — research that remains controversial, increasingly validated, and deeply consequential for patients with chronic Lyme disease. Recorded decades after his earliest discoveries, th...

Carley Rudd is a 34-year-old second generation artist and Travel Photographer from Portland, Maine. Her work has taken her across the globe and has been featured in Vogue, Condé Nast Traveller, National Geographic, Architectural Digest, and Travel & Leisure. Ms. Rudd suffered from Lyme disease for 10 years before she was diagnosed in 2021. She balanced her pre-diagnosed symptoms and travel by...

Dr. Christina Rahm is a medical, clinical and research scientist, entrepreneur, author , Chief Science Officer for ROOT Wellness , and Chair of the International Science Nutrition Society from Brentwood, TN. Her resume includes working for pharmaceutical giants such as Johnson & Johnson, UCB, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Pfizer and she has created multiple provisional patents, proprietary formula...

Zack Jones is a 48-year-old professional guide, trainer, trip designer, and photographer residing in Frankfurt, Germany. He is the “Zack of all Trades” with his current company and “recently added smitten father to an amazing baby girl to the CV”. Mr. Jones described his life before Lyme as “pretty good and at the same time full of blissful ignorance”. While on a trip to Honduras, he and a travel...

Jeni Quante is a 29-year-old Registered Nurse (RN) and chronic illness patient advocate from San Antonio, Texas. She has earned high regard from the Lyme disease community for producing creative educational content on social media platforms including TikTok and Instagram. Ms. Quante was born with Congenital Lyme disease, but the undiagnosed illness did not become debilitating until the age of 14....

Axel Roelants is an entrepreneur and former athlete from Belgium. He is the co-founder of 4Gold , an athletic supplement, health, and performance company. In 2016, Mr. Roelants suffered a broken neck in a dirt bike accident. Shortly after the injury, he began to suffer from a diverse and progressive set of classic Lyme disease symptoms that his doctors attributed to his traumatic injuries. Trustin...

Ali Lazowski is the 31-year-old John’s Hopkins University educated founder and CEO of Bare Life . Bare Life is a company that creates “crave worthy and easy to enjoy plant based and gluten free foods, inspired by Ms. Lazowski’s journey with chronic Lyme disease”. Undiagnosed Lyme disease symptoms began to interfere with Ms. Lazowski’s goal driven life during her junior year in high school. Beginni...