Alexis Chesney MS, ND, LAc is a naturopathic physician, acupuncturist, author and educator. She has dedicated her practice to working with patients who have complex chronic illness, and who often have diagnoses such as Lyme and vector-borne diseases, mold toxicity, mast cell activation syndrome, among other conditions.
Dr. Chesney explains the similarities and differences between a naturopathic and allopathic approach to care and why a more holistic approach can be so advantageous to sufferers of long term Lyme disease. She also tells us what inspired her to write a book focusing on tick bite prevention and why she sees prevention as one of most critical, yet often overlooked, components of tick borne disease education.
Mary: Hi, this is Mary with Insect Shield and I am thrilled to be here today with Dr. Alexis Chesney. She's a naturopathic physician, acupuncturist, author, and educator. She's written a book preventing Lyme and other tick-borne disease. Welcome Dr. Chesney.
Preventing Lyme & Other Tick Borne Diseases: Control Ticks In The Home Landscape; Prevent Infection Using Herbal Protocols; Treat Tick Bites With Natural Remedies: Chesney, Alexis, Horowitz Md, Richard: 9781635862096: Amazon.com: Books
Mary: First I'd like to start, if you could just give us some, your background and bio and how you got to be where you are today.
Dr. Alexis Chesney: Sure. Yeah, I was always interested in going into medicine and then I found out about naturopathic medical school as I was going through the MCAT and all of that testing, and I was really enlightened to find out that curriculum. So I went to the University of Bridgeport and finished my medical degree there and then I moved up to Vermont for residency.
I had no idea that I was really on the front lines of Lyme disease. And I actually trained with Dr. Richard Horowitz, medical doctor in New York, who is incredible. He's a powerful leader in this field of lyme and tick-borne disease, and it was just so great to spend time with him and learn from him.
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So I really learned a lot about pharmaceutical and antibiotics in the way of treating Lyme and tick-borne disease, but he also has a holistic approach and he is very down to earth and funny and wonderful. So we could connect on some of that. And so it was really great to have that combination, that background in naturopathic medicine and then really get the download on.
How to treat Lyme and tick-borne disease from that pharmaceutical, more allopathic perspective and take that into the rest of my time. Seeing just, how affected Vermont and New Hampshire, that whole area in New England is affected by Lyme and tick-borne Disease. So that was about 13 or so years ago that I moved up to that area.
Mary: Yeah, so just question, so when you, had you been interested in like kind of the insect, like Lyme disease, another insect-borne disease, or was it because working with this doctor that kind of. And you saw these patients that were struggling because it seemed, I just, a lot of people like that end up, they're like really into ticks or really into like insects.
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But then you're coming from the medical side. Was that, did it just happen to all come together and connect that had you focus on the on insect-borne dis or
Dr. Alexis Chesney: in in school I actually had a really good friend that ha, What we realized was Lyme disease and over, I dunno, months time, she just developed all these odd symptoms, we're all studying together and it's a intensive time to, to be together and study and just watch this otherwise healthy young person deteriorate.
And I actually brought her to the The doctor, one of the, I think it was the the appointment that she was diagnosed and it was just very eye-opening and then to see her get better. And so I just got really interested also medically then in Lyme disease at that point. Yeah. And I had no idea, the intricacies.
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Of the research and science behind it, but also how people can get misdiagnosed and there's underdiagnosis and that whole piece that I had no idea about. But I was really glad to learn and be able to become a resource for people who were really suffering and we could actually identify what was going on and still do and see people get better.
Mary: Yeah. And I would think, and one thing too, maybe you could just, naturopathic medicine verse allopathic is what you call just for like more western medicine.
Mary: Conventional medicine. So what would you, just to describe to folks like what is the big difference of between the two and what kind of also overlaps?
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Dr. Alexis Chesney: Sure. Yeah, the first two years of naturopathic medical school is really the same. It's the basic sciences, and then it's the next two years where we're learning pharmaceutical, pharmacology, but we're also learning about nutrition and herbal medicine. We take counseling classes.
Part of being a naturopath I think is that we really. Create more time with the patient. We don't have 10 minute visits, 20 minute visits, we have longer visits so we can really try and dig into what's going on with people and get to the root cause. So the curriculum, is very much the same in the beginning and then we branch out into all these other ways that we have tools and the philosophy of care that we do.
Mary: one. I would think too with Lyme disease, which can, the people that have long-term Lyme especially that seem to have like it is. Like a more holistic, a really a big overview approach is that much more important. Because often there's a lot of mental health struggles too, because going through being undiagnosed and not just coming into a doctor and saying, here's some, antibiotics and, see yet there's probably many advantages to a bigger.
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Assortment of remedies that can really say, okay, because there's many, seems like with a lot of the Lyme patients, there's a lot of things going wrong. It's not just boom, you do this and everything's fixed. It can, it's really long-term and continual care required.
Dr. Alexis Chesney: Yes, sometimes it is. And so sometimes we need to do a lot of medical detective work. And I love that. I like being able to take the time with my patient to get a really thorough medical history and think about, what might be missed and how else can I support them? Maybe some medical diagnoses that have been missed, but also, how can we support their immune system and there are adrenals and their mental health and how is diet and exercise lifestyle?
Mary: Yeah, and it seems, and even with, I was actually, besides, Lyme, but then just the tick-borne disease, like Alpha Gal for example. That really is. Nutrition becomes almost, the most critical and really focusing. I was working with some other, these the two alpha gals, they do a podcast and they're out educating folks and just what they've learned through it.
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It just, it's so much bigger than just going to the doctor and saying here's some medicine. It's a continual and lifelong journey and constantly adjusting things that they have to to battle. To
Dr. Alexis Chesney: Yeah. Yeah. So Alpha Gal will cause that allergy to certain mammalian meats. And really there's no medication that will treat that. So it's really about finding out how sensitive you are and how many foods you need to avoid and, it can affect even medications, supplements body products.
Mary: Yeah. And then, so just, I know it's not like kinda apples to apples, but when someone, someone comes into you with You're suspecting Lyme disease and may, you know what are you doing differently than if someone just went to an alo doctor? What would be some, like an example of someone coming in, here's what's happening.
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Maybe they don't, they didn't have the rash, but. With your experience in living where you have in Vermont or other places thinking, okay, maybe this is a tick-borne disease, what do you do? Is there, do you follow the same test like the Western block? And I'm not a big expert on the test, but I know there's a lot of controversy.
Dr. Alexis Chesney: Yeah so I would take a, yeah, similar approach regarding thinking through like a, pretty Regular medical approach and thinking through differential diagnoses and taking a good history and that sort of thing. And then thinking about do we need to test how long has it been since a tick bite?
Are we in an acute stage or is this more that somebody has had these symptoms for a long time and we're in more of a chronic phase? But yes, there is that divide regarding testing and diagnosis just in the medical community regarding what is used for Lyme and other tick-borne disease.
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I do use IGeneX a very specific specialty lab that does excellent. Testing the high accuracy. So they have an immuno blot now. They also have culture enhanced pcr. So a culture test, which is amazing. So we can actually find out if
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