Starving to heal in Siberia is a book written by Michelle B. Slater (Ph.D. in French literature from Johns Hopkins University) about the consequences of her chronic Lyme’s disease on her life and how she got her life back thanks to dry fasting.
About Lyme’s disease: it is transmitted by ticks and is treated with antibiotics but can often fly under the radar if you haven’t the distinctive sign of the disease (bull’s eye rash also known as erythema migrans), for example if you are bitten by a young tick or in a place where you can’t see the rash. Moreover, the disease’s diagnostic is also complex, done by analyzing antibodies tests which are not necessarily reliable. In the scientific literature, studies12 show that the disease could have a chronic form, which means that a course of antibiotics can be insufficient to treat it, and that the bacteria causing the disease (Borrelia Burgdorferi) can survive and remain as a latent infection. For some reason, chronic Lyme’s disease existence is denied by a large part of the medical community even if the NIAID is admitting that it’s a possibility3.
Michelle B. Slater explains in Starving to heal in Siberia how the disease destroyed her life, as she was bedridden with strong pains throughout her body, and how she was about to commit assisted suicide when she discovered that dry fasting could be a way to heal diseases. She hears about a Russian M.D., Dr Sergey Filonov, who is supervising prolonged dry fasts in his fasting center in Siberia and decide to try his method.
Dr Filonov accepts her in his center and she is invited to come at the end of the summer. She then tells the story of her multiple prolonged dry fasts, describing the treatments she gets at the center and how she feels when she fasts.
The main message of her book is that dry fasting allowed her living her life normally again. Here are some excerpts from the beginning of the book:
What I would like to offer, as the beneficial result of my painful experience, is the antidote to despair for chronically ill patients, as well as for doctors and their circles: there is hope for recovery, and a complete recovery, at that. I haven’t resided at 1 Bed Avenue for more than an eight-hour stay per night since I discovered that the body could be the doctor. My verve for life came back. Intrigued? […]
I have not even had one Lyme symptom since I returned home from Siberia in the fall of 2017; nor have I taken a single pill or supplement of any kind. […]
Psoriasis, sinus pain, joint pain, migraines, chronic fatigue, brain fog, candida, mold symptoms, insomnia, light sensitivity, and despair are no longer in my life.
What I liked:
As we could expect from a literature scholar, the book is well written.
For someone interested in dry fasting and how it is practiced in Russia (the home of dry fasting), the book gather interesting information and provides a written testimony that no, you won’t die if you dry fast for 3 days or more, in the right conditions.
Michelle provides hope for people with chronic diseases (as it doesn’t apply to chronic Lyme’s disease only).
My personal opinion on some negative points:
She is an environmentalist and brings climate change on the table as she cites the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) about how Lyme’s disease is caused by it4. Note: CDC has been one of those denying the existence of chronic Lyme’s disease for a long time5.
There are “vegetarian vibes”, which can be a bit annoying if you’re not into vegetarianism.
It seems like, following her dry fasts, she tended to gain some weight and she promotes some sort of frugal lifestyle / caloric restriction at the end of the book.
PS: Michelle has a blog where she has written about her experience. You can visit this blog post to read about her testimony: REBORN AS LYME-FREE MICHELLE.
In 2017, scientists at the Tulane National Primate Research Centers, funded in part by an NIH research resources grant, reported evidence of persistent and metabolically active B. burgdorferi after antibiotic treatment in rhesus macaques.
“The CDC–the Centers for Disease Control– calls Lymes the first disease directly caused by global warming” (page 18/268)