Meet Kristina Bauer | TX Lyme Alliance Executive Director, ILADS Ambassador, Center for Lyme Action TX state Lead, and Integrative Lyme Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kristina Bauer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kristina, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Lyme disease is the fastest growing vector-borne disease in the United states, with 477k newly infected patients a year. My dogs are tested annually as part of their standard of care at their well check, but medical care providers for us humans, oftentimes deny testing, even with the 5 hallmark symptoms. So, I started Texas Lyme Alliance because no one was talking about Congenital Lyme, and kids are being infected from mother to fetus without care providers testing or knowing how to treat it. The need for awareness for this issue is critical to stop transmission that oftentimes goes misdiagnosed for generations.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
What sets us apart is that we are the only non profit fighting to improve healthcare for children and congenital Lyme infected patients in the United States. We are the leading Lyme non profit in Texas, legislating, advocating, and educating on behalf of the most vulnerable patients being marginalized by the current state of testing and treatment in TX.

I went 30 years misdiagnosed and it was not easy treating four sick kids, while sick myself, running a large yoga studio at the time with a husband who traveled out of state every week for years during the worst of our illnesses. I had to rely on several neighbors in emergency situations, and had to get a part time nanny while disabled.

My lessons I learned, was that when a medical care provider wanted to just prescribe me addictive pain medications and drugs that only treated symptoms, to keep researching my own way to healing. I never gave up and started my non profit to be the voice for so many who go gaslighted by the current lack of recognition of peer reviewed and validated scientific studies on chronic Lyme and chronic inflammation.

Once I started healing, I started advocating for congenital Lyme patients the right to health. Texas still does not have one pediatric physician trained to treat this complex illness that can have 300 symptoms that mimic autoimmune diseases such as MS, ALS, dementia, alzheimer’s, and many others.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would invite them to the ILADS scientific conference in San Antonio this Fall to learn how to protect their health and invite medical professionals to get their CME’s in Lyme and coinfections. While there, we’d visit the Alamo and learn TX history, and walk the beautiful Riverwalk visiting all the great restaurants. Learning new ways to stay healthy and protect my family with the latest tests, products, and treatments is how I fuel up to help coach my clients alongside some of Texas’s best Lyme literate doctors.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I have to credit the International Lyme and Associated Disease Society/ILADS for recognizing all 3 phases of infection that was part of my and my four congenital Lyme kids’ healing. Without their medical education, I wouldn’t have been diagnosed properly by my original LLMD/Lyme literate medical doctor, Dr. Ronald Wilson, who encouraged me to test and treat my four children. It took us a whole decade to heal, but we are very grateful for reaching remission because of their recognition that the borrelia spirochete persists and evades testing and short courses of antibiotics.

I also want to give a big shoutout to the Center for Lyme Action/CLA, who I am the Texas state Lead for. CLA is a 501(c)4 that has raised $436mm of Federal funds to combat Lyme and attract new researchers to vector-borne illness. However, it’s estimated we need $5bb to solve the Lyme crisis over 5 years, so we need to improve that dollar amount raised greatly.

I want to thank the many volunteers at Texas Lyme Alliance, who staff our events across Texas, and in DC to help raise awareness and open access to care through education. Together, we have blanketed Texas with advocates who understand how critical it is to show up for each other through emailing and calling in our stories to legislators capable of improving, mapping, surveillance, testing and treatment in TX and the US.

Website: https://www.TXLymeAlliance.org

Instagram: Texas_Lyme_Alliance

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinambauer7/

Twitter: TexasLyme

Facebook: TexasLymeAlliance

Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/KristinaBauer

Other: Podcast on all major channels, including https://texaslymealliance.buzzsprout.com

Image Credits
Nicole Morchowski, first Lady Thunderbird pilot and I in DC at the Congressional Series for CDMRP
My kids during treatment (bandage over my port), Maddie, Tucker, Mason, and Logan
Meghan Bradshaw, Bonnie Crater, and advocates with Center for Lyme Action
Dr. Ron Wilson and I, ILADS
Lastly, my beautiful children