May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month; a meaningful month for many people as they work hard to spread awareness, take time to educate others,  and use this opportunity to share their own personal stories on how Lyme disease has affected themselves and their families. It is now common knowledge that Lyme disease is one of the fastest spreading infectious disease in the United States, if not the world. It is also the cornerstone on why Therasage was created. It is the “why” of our dedication to the products we create and the people we help.

You see, Lyme disease walked into our home and set up residence in our daughter Julia’s body. We understand the difficulties that families face as they search for answers, treatments, and a cure for this insidious disease. We went through the same exact thing.

For Lyme disease Awareness Month, we first want to share our story, Julia’s story, with you all. We hope through Julia’s story, others will feel empowered to share theirs and not feel alone as they search for a way to feel better, stronger, and healthier.

The Julia Besner Story

“My name is Julia. I never would have imagined, so many years ago, that this horrible situation and pain I was in would lead me to this incredible journey I am now on.

Ticks in Florida, they don’t exist. Lyme disease in Florida, no way!

After several years of misdiagnosis and multiple unnecessary surgeries I was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease during my freshman year of college in Tallahassee, Florida.

I started to develop very strange symptoms. I began having panic attacks before going into any class. My kidneys were throbbing. I could feel my stomach aching from my back, and my feet began to vibrate every morning. Such random and strange symptoms that my family thought I was making it up to skip classes, but I loved school! I ended up needing to move back into my parents’ house and then they finally grasped how sick I actually was. I was having chronic fatigue, muscle spasms, migraine headaches, severe pain in the back of my neck, severe reproductive organ pain, vertigo, nausea, cognitive issues, insomnia, panic attacks, hot and cold flashes, and other “brain and gut problems”.      

After seeing so many doctors that I lost count, the main consensus was that it was all in my head, that I was making this up, and there must be some psychological reason behind these crazy manifestations. But my mother knew me better. I loved school, I loved having a social life, I went from being a social butterfly to not being able to get out of bed for weeks.

Luckily my family refused to give up on me. After hours upon hours of research & contacts, a pelvic pain specialist in California randomly said, “have her tested for Lyme Disease, a lot of my patients that present like that end up testing positive.” Sure enough, I tested highly positive on an IGG & IGM test, even according to CDC standards.

Then, the next challenge...finding a doctor that knew how to treat chronic Lyme, and would treat me, as it presented a risk of being targeted by the government. Even the most prestigious doctors and hospitals in the country said there was nothing they could do for me. My family would not accept this!! I never thought I’d be traveling the globe to go and sit in doctors' offices or lay in hospital beds. I did 2 solid years of IV antibiotics through a PICC line with my symptoms just getting worse and worse. I also had a closet full of prescriptions, and bags of med’s by my bed and I was still bed ridden.

This just killed my family. I was back to needing my parents help to do almost everything. Things had gotten so severe that when coming off of IV antibiotics and onto orals and injectable penicillin I started having seizures. I couldn’t drive, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, I lost all of my friends and definitely lost anything remotely close to a normal life. It was very depressing, to say the least!!

I was so consumed by pain that I couldn’t see outside the box, but my father could. He knew that all these antibiotics, pain medicines, muscle relaxers, anti- virals, etc. were all making my body highly toxic. I’d never get better if I didn’t change my treatment philosophy and do something to detox. That’s when he started his quest to find natural ways to detox and help with pain.

He traveled all the way to China, just for me. It turned out he was a genius. He discovered that infrared energy offers numerous health benefits along with pain relief and detox. He invented products to harness infrared heat, generate negative ions, and shield harmful EMF’s, in comfortable heating pads to use on areas of the body that are in pain, and a portable, affordable infrared sauna to detox, kill parasites, bacteria, and suppress viral loads, while enhancing the immune system.

I began to use infrared and slowly stopped all prescription medications. I actually began to resemble the person I was before getting sick.

After seeing the benefit I was getting from using infrared, I knew I had to help others that were struggling like I had been for so long.

We began to share this technology with all of the doctors I had worked with and they shared it with their patients with great results. We formed a company called Therasage to bring infrared therapy to others. I embraced the fortunate opportunity as I felt better than I had in years, and had hope for a new future helping others with my personal message.

Now, many Lyme Literate Medical Doctors (LLMD) and alternative, complementary medical practitioners recommend and use infrared  for detoxification, and to create a false fever to kick start their patients immune systems, while killing bacteria and parasites, and relieving pain.

Over the past few years I have been feeling better and better. Of course I always have set backs, but overall I am able to work and also have  a social life.

I thrive off the fact that I am able to help others suffering from chronic conditions. Through Therasage, I have been able to share my experiences and network with health facilities, naturopathic physicians, and even learn from our doctors and customers of new ways to better my life and treatments to suggest to others in order for them to benefit as well.

I believe I was given this health challenge to learn how tough and strong I truly am, and also to learn how important it is to live your life’s passion, and especially to understand how short and fragile life truly is.

I want to help others avoid all of the pain and suffering I’ve gone through. Maintaining your health is the most important thing in life. I am so grateful to have a family that truly cares about me and searched high and low to find ways to help me heal, and now help others.”

- Julia Besner

Epilogue:

Julia passed away suddenly, in her sleep, April 2015. It gives us peace to know that during the past six years of her life, she was the healthiest, strongest, most vibrant and happiest ever!! Her official cause of death on her death certificate was Lyme Disease, thus continuing to help the Lyme community by bringing recognition of Lyme to our government.  We feel blessed for all the time we had together through Therasage and her quest to help others and spread hope and love. We are grateful to know her quality of life was greatly improved using the lessons from our supporters and our Infrared technology. Our mission is to continue her legacy and share her message, that those challenged with Lyme disease will understand they are not alone... there is help and hope to live a purposeful, symptom-free life.

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