Yolanda Foster and Her Kids Bella and Anwar Hadid All Have Chronic Lyme Disease: A Medical Expert Explains How
Yolanda Foster, who has spoken candidly about her struggle with Lyme disease, revealed Thursday that two of her children have were also diagnosed with the disease in 2012.
"Watching my babies struggle in silence to support me in my journey struck the deepest core of hopelessness inside of me," Foster, 51, said of daughter Bella Hadid, 18, and son Anwar Hadid, 16, at the Global Lyme Alliance inaugural gala.
PEOPLE caught up with Dr. Raphael Kellman, the founder of the Kellman Center for Integrative and Functional Medicine who has not treated the stars, to find out more about Lyme disease and how it's possible for several members of the same Real Housewives of Beverly Hills family all to be diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, for which there is no standard treatment.
How likely is it that three members of one family all have chronic Lyme disease?
It's not uncommon that a few members of a family have Lyme disease. ... But it's not genetic, it's because they share the same environment.
"Watching my babies struggle in silence to support me in my journey struck the deepest core of hopelessness inside of me," Foster, 51, said of daughter Bella Hadid, 18, and son Anwar Hadid, 16, at the Global Lyme Alliance inaugural gala.
PEOPLE caught up with Dr. Raphael Kellman, the founder of the Kellman Center for Integrative and Functional Medicine who has not treated the stars, to find out more about Lyme disease and how it's possible for several members of the same Real Housewives of Beverly Hills family all to be diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, for which there is no standard treatment.
How likely is it that three members of one family all have chronic Lyme disease?
It's not uncommon that a few members of a family have Lyme disease. ... But it's not genetic, it's because they share the same environment.
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A major cause could be imbalances in the billions of gut bacteria that we call the microbiome, those bacteria that are inside of our gut that outnumber us 10 to one and keep us healthy. It's not uncommon for the microbiome to be unhealthy, and if the microbiome is unhealthy in one member of the family, it's likely that it's unhealthy in another member of the family. Each home has its own particular microbiome. ... We tend to eat the same foods as other members of the family and experience similar stressors, which all contributes to changes in the microbiome.
Additionally, if someone develops chronic lyme or any chronic infection, typically there are other health issues that they have that they weren't aware of. ... These issues could be thyroid-related, which is a very big problem – it's not uncommon if somebody develops Lyme disease and they had low thyroid in the past. Low thyroid occurs due to factors like immunological issues, gut issues, microbiome imbalances, environmental toxins. However, there's also a genetic susceptibility as well, so perhaps a few members of the family also have low thyroid that maybe wasn't picked up.
How is Lyme disease transmitted?
It's not as certain as scientists used to think – that it's transmitted only through ticks. There may be other methods, unfortunately, though not well known, of transmission of this disease. We don't really know for certain that this is the only way it's transmitted.
What are the symptoms of Lyme Disease?
Fatigue, but the fatigue could come and go. It could be post-exertional fatigue or fatigue they have one day and then the next day they feel somewhat better. Typically, Lyme disease is associated with a brain fog, headaches, difficulty concentrating ... muscle and joint pain, tingling and numbness, neck pain, sometimes palpitations, different types of neurological symptoms. ... Anxiety is one of the symptoms as well, and sometimes the anxiety can be debilitating and can even present as panic attacks.
But typically, the symptoms can wax and wane: One day the joint pain is here, and then the next day it's somewhere else – it's migratory. The tingling and numbness and the strange types of neurological symptoms, like a sense of electrical currents in them, can change from day to day.