From Medical Gaslighting to Building a Healing Community: Sami Kirschbaum on Lyme Resilience
The Lyme+ PodcastShow Notes
Episode Title:From Medical Gaslighting to Building a Healing Community: Sami Kirschbaum on Lyme Resilience Episode Description: Sami Kirschbaum was undiagnosed with Lyme disease for nearly a decade. Growing up in Wisconsin, symptoms started in elementary school. Stomach issues, constant trips to the health room. Things escalated when she contracted Epstein-Barr virus at 16, landing her on bed rest for four months. Every year brought something new: joint pain, migraines, neck pain, fatigue that never lifted. No one connected the dots. When a surgery during grad school sent her health into freefall, a doctor told her it was "just depression." Sami pushed for testing. Her Lyme test came back positive. Then they took the diagnosis away because she had four CDC bands instead of five. That experience lit a fire. In this episode, Sami shares how she found whole body hyperthermia treatment at Clinic St. George in Germany. A 6-hour procedure under anesthesia that heats the body to temperatures Lyme bacteria cannot survive. She was inpatient for 35 days, completed two rounds, and walked away with the thing she wanted most: her cognitive function back. Sami also gives a live demonstration of brain spotting therapy with host Kenzie Bath. She breaks down how the modality works and why "where you look affects how you feel." Unlike talk therapy, brain spotting accesses the subcortical brain where trauma is actually stored, making it especially effective for the grief, medical PTSD, and chronic pain that so many in the Lyme community carry. Sami is a licensed therapist in Minnesota, currently completing her training at the Brain Spotting Institute with graduation on May 7th, and working with the Rocky Mountain Brain Institute. We also cover mold illness: how it compounds Lyme symptoms, how to navigate testing and remediation, and the emotional toll of losing your home and belongings to a problem you didn't know existed. Sami lived in a camper for two years after mold forced her out of her house before relocating to Scottsdale, Arizona for dry heat, more vitamin D, and a fresh start. Today, Sami is the founder of the Lyme Resilience Collective, where she offers individual brain spotting sessions, a 4-week Nervous System Regulation Support Group, and free monthly community meetups. She partners with the Ticked Off Foundation to provide reduced-fee services for patients facing financial hardship and recently delivered her first presentation educating mental health therapists on the impacts of Lyme disease on mental health. Her message: healing takes time, the dark seasons don't last forever, and the fact that you're listening means a part of you already knows you can get better. CONNECT WITH SAMI Email: [email protected] Instagram: @lymeresilencecollective TikTok: @lymeresilencecollective MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Lyme Resilience CollectiveClinic St. George (Germany)Ticked Off FoundationEnvita Medical CenterBrain Spotting InstituteRocky Mountain Brain InstituteMold Finders (Brian Karr)
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