My experience with integrative medicine and natural therapies is over 20 years long and counting. I was diagnosed with both Lyme disease and scoliosis when I was 11. After trying antibiotics from a conventional doctor, I still had Lyme symptoms such as extreme fatigue and short-term memory loss. My mother then began a journey through the world of integrative medicine to get me better. I can remember visiting a Chinese herbalist in Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens, New York, and having to drink some disgustingly bitter herbal teas which had anti-bacterial (Lyme is a bacteria) as well as immune-boosting properties. It stunk up our whole house, and as you might imagine, put a serious damper on my popularity for playdates. Also for my Lyme, I took supplements with breakfast and dinner and avoided (with exceptions) dairy, processed foods, and gluten, although back then we just called it wheat! About a year after my Lyme diagnosis, I wasn’t getting better and my mother took me to Minnesota to see a dairy farmer who helped us do a treatment called Hyperimmune Bovine Colostrum Therapy (HBCT). Colostrum is the first few days of a mother’s milk after she gives birth (humans and cows alike!).