Adam Torres and Adrianne Weir discuss tick borne illness.
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Show Notes:
Lyme and other tick borne diseases are everywhere. It is a common misconception that it only occurs on the East Coast. It is the most rapidly spreading vector borne disease, and delayed diagnosis results in a much more complex situation. In this episode, Adam Torres and Adrianne Weir, Co-Founder & President at Algorithm.Health, explore Algorithm.Health and how it’s combating Lyme disease.
About Algorithm.Health
Founded in 2005, Algorithm Health has been serving the local community for over 15 years. They have grown from a small clinic to a comprehensive health center, offering a wide range of services and programs to support your health and wellness. At Algorithm Health, they strive to provide top-notch health services, with a focus on personalized care that meets the unique needs of each patient.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Adrienne Weir, and she is the co founder and president over at Algorithm.
Health. Adrienne, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Adam. I’m so grateful for you to host me here today and share a little bit more Algorithm Health. Alright, so excited to get into Algorithm Health and really into the mission behind it and I guess just to get us kicked off here, I mean you’re tackling a big issue here, Lyme disease, like how’d that come about?
Yeah. So I’ve been working on the industry side of healthcare for about 20 years, and in 2010 I was traveling with my family and actually ended up developing Lyme disease myself. And so I got a front row seat to the difficulties that patients experience in this space and the lack of awareness around a number of issues related to tickborne illness.
What, what are some of those either myths and, or like, just I’m naive about it, I’ll just, I’ll throw myself under the bus there. I don’t know much about it. Like, like, tell, tell me more, like, what are some of those myths or some of those concerns? Yeah. So You know, it’s, it’s fairly misunderstood.
So, for example you know, when I contracted Lyme disease, and this is kind of the way that most people’s stories go, I bounced around from doctor to doctor with this mystery illness for about a year and a half. So one of the challenges is that tick borne illness can present in a variety of different ways.
So, it’s known as sort of like a great mimic of other diseases. And an additional sort of challenge in the space is that some of the most common methods of testing can actually result in a false negative around 60 percent of the time. So these. These people are wandering from doctor to doctor looking for answers and more than half of them who actually have a tick borne disease are being told, no, you don’t, sorry, like, keep looking.
And so people become incredibly sick and there are about 500, 000 new infections just in the United States every year. So it’s a huge problem. They call it the silent epidemic. Wow. are some of the symptoms like Lyme disease in general? Like maybe a little bit of education on that would be helpful.
Yeah, so a lot of people have this belief that, you know, that kind of classic bullseye rash is what people should be looking for. And when people do have it, it’s a, it’s a huge indication of tick borne illness, but many people never get that bullseye rash, but may present with flu like symptoms. I had muscle weakness, even muscle twitching, brain fog, neurological symptoms like, you know, lights are very, very bright or headaches, neck pain is a very common complaint.
So you can see that a lot of these different symptoms of Lyme, you can, most people can kind of write off As Oh, maybe that’s my old whiplash injury, really making my neck hurt when in reality Lyme is just inflaming your body and causing these very confusing symptoms that tend to wax and wane. So for women, these symptoms tend to flare just before their cycle and just can present in so many different ways that I like to tell people, if you have Lyme disease.
that you have, you know, have yet to figure out and presents in sort of a confusing way that nobody can really put their finger on. Or perhaps you’ve been diagnosed with something that’s more a description of a constellation of symptoms like fibromyalgia or something similar to that, like chronic fatigue.
Just rule out tick borne illness, you really have to make sure that you go to a lab that has the sensitivity with their testing to detect it accurately. And there’s a lab called is known for really being a thought leader in this space to improve accuracy for tick borne illness. So at some point, of course, through your, your journey, whether it’s through the medical part of the journey or after, I’m just curious, like, when did this become an idea for a business for you?
Like, when did this become like a passion? Yeah. So you know, for the first few years, With my front row experience as a patient, honestly, I was just so focused on trying to get well that I get that too. You’re not like, oh, my gosh, I’m so sick. I need to turn this into a business. Like, I know that’s definitely not what you were thinking.
Yeah, I actually. I actually started a different business during that time, which is crazy. I laugh because I don’t want to cry. I just understand. That must have been so painful. I know a little bit of the symptoms and I’m like, Oh, I know. Go ahead. Oh yeah. It was crazy. It was exhausting. You know? So I’ve been calling myself a lazy entrepreneur because, you know, I’ve been working in this healthcare space for a long time, dedicating my time to solving problems for patient demographics that really have nothing to do with my own life.
And it wasn’t until the pandemic when I continued to see these posts and Facebook groups about people just still struggling to just get a diagnosis. A lot of doctors won’t even write the order to take the test. Patients are really just desperately seeking, you know, information and either being presented with inaccurate information tested with, you know, tests that are not really, you know, don’t have the sensitivity to accurately detect it.
So, the landscape is still so muddy. And patients are ending up in wheelchairs, you know, I, myself was having difficulty even eating food and swallowing when I was and walking when I was very sick. So people are having their lives affected in a huge way and still having so many challenges, either convincing their doctor to test them, getting the correct test or and then getting, you know, treatment that actually can be meaningful.
And the data is there, but there has been a lack of sort of like a consolidated. Channel to deliver this information to mainstream caregivers and to the public. So this is that why is that why you think there’s such a lack to by the way, because I’m just curious because Lyme disease is not new, obviously, like, we know that.
But like, is that why do you think there’s that disconnect? You know, I think that there for a while people kind of thought it was like a disease for hypochondriacs and it’s not. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s like, you know, if I had a nickel for every time a doctor told me that Lyme disease is easily cured with 10 days of doxycycline, I’m like, Oh, brother, you really have no idea.
It’s so, it’s like, So you’re like, if only, if only, right? Yes. I’m like, great. Sign me up for that. That would have been really helpful. So yeah, so I don’t know. I just think that it has lacked of a broad consolidated effort. So, what we’ve been doing is connecting with patient advocacy groups, connecting with in the space, because I want to create a consolidated platform to care for patients, collect data, publish outcomes.
You know, we have to really approach this space. In force and get all the people who matter around a table to improve care for patients so that we can stop the suffering. And if we can at least get ahead of the curve and start diagnosing earlier and treating earlier, then we can prevent that very long, costly, complicated care pathway that patients who experience these longer treatment pathways and become chronic end up dealing with like myself.
So, yeah, we can, we can create change and I’m excited to be part of the solution, but really it just became so frustrating where I’m like, wow, people are still getting as sick as I got. I need to finally do something about this. Wow. That’s, quite a story. And as you’ve been going out and obviously preaching the message from both sides now, cause you know, there’s one side when you obviously have it and you’re working through it as a patient and medically, but then You know, in any entrepreneur, when you go on the other side of things and you’re like, Oh, now you’re going to start advocating or you bring an idea to market or you try to create something like it’s not usually the case where everybody just lines up like, Oh, that’s the perfect best idea ever.
Like it doesn’t usually happen. Maybe it was your case, but I’m just curious. What’s been your response to like this movement and this awareness you’re trying to create? Like, like, how has it been, how has it been received either by patients and, or the medical community? It has been so rewarding. It’s just been wild.
And I was kind of a little not timid, but it was kind of testing the waters a little bit with a few people with early conversations. And I was met with this just exuberant response, like, yes, this is so needed. Oh, my gosh, we, what can I do to help? You know, and so this support has been, seriously overwhelming and really exciting for, I think, for the future potential of this platform and for what we can do for the community.
What happens when it goes on diagnosed for a long, a prolonged period of time? Like, why is this so important? What happens when it goes undiagnosed for a person? Yeah, so when it is at the acute stage of the infection it is much easier to treat. So for taking my case, for example once the infection becomes more chronic or longer lasting, it can invade your neurological system, for example.
And this Spirochetes are the bacterium that cause Lyme disease and of course, there’s so many different co infections that can happen alongside Lyme disease, which is what can really kind of make the clinical picture a little bit muddy for someone to try to diagnose and unravel what’s happening.
But when it becomes a longer standing infection, I mean, it really starts impacting every system in your body. So it just becomes much more complex, much more costly. We and a longer road to recovery. is this the debilitating like, how, like, different levels are different.
Very. I’m just curious about it in general. Lyme disease, like, how it works. Yeah, it can be extremely debilitating. So taking, you know, my own experience as an example, again, that you know, I started out just feeling really tired and you know, the doctor said, oh, you have two little kids you’re, you know, you’re just run down, like, go home and take Advil and then I come back another month and say, no, I’m like, I’m really, really tired.
Like, falling asleep at five o’clock, like, dead to the world out. on the couch. Nobody could wake me up. Yeah. And then my muscles started becoming weak. So it was difficult for me to sit up for more than like maybe 10 minutes at a time without resting against something. Yeah. And then at this point, you know, like, no, something’s wrong.
Like this isn’t, I’m sleeping and I’m not, I’m waking up, but I’m still tired. Like this is not normal. Yeah, I’m like, and, and I kept saying, and this is often something for people that people should reflect on. I kept saying, hey, doc, last year, I got really, really sick where I had 7 days in bed. I had a terrible migraine.
I had weird neck pain that I didn’t really associate with anything. You know, nothing around that made sense to me. could that have something to do with this? And they kept saying, no, no, it’s probably a virus. You probably have post viral syndrome. And I’m like, well, that was like a year ago. Can we do like a little testing and find out, like, how do we quantify that?
You know, so it is just if somebody’s just been searching and searching for answers and becoming debilitated or have symptoms that wax and wane, or that nobody can really make sense of, Lyme is a great place to start to just, you know, begin crossing things off that list to understand what’s going on. what’s your plans for continuing to grow Algorithm.
Health and rolling this out to the masses? Like, what’s your plan to continue to grow? Tell us the vision. We’re all entrepreneurs here. Tell us the vision. Yeah, so the vision the vision is to sort of like my mantra is to mainstream Lyme disease. So our initial launch, our plan for our initial launch is to roll out in five states with improved access Transcribed Accurate and timely testing for Lyme and tick borne illness and subsequent to that, we’re really focused on serving the nation.
So, right now, our goals are coalition building. So, bringing together patient advocacy groups and health care systems. We want everyone around the table that wants to contribute to moving the needle for tick borne illness and we will very soon be launching a crowdfunding campaign. And so how does this look?
Like, how do, how are people going to be able to participate in the crowdfunding or otherwise? Like, tell us a little bit about how that’s going to roll out. Yeah, so we’ll have the link on our website with information about, you know, what value is offered for an investment in algorithm health. And it’s exclusively telemedicine based platform.
So we can reach patients in their homes across the nation and partnering with clinicians in the space that are have been at the front lines of battling Lyme and tick borne illness for many years. So we’ll share more information about that on our website at algorithm dot health. Yeah, that’s amazing.
And you mentioned that in the past, you’d worked in the healthcare side of things to are advocating, like, what kind of things that you’ve done that. Yeah, so I’ve spent about the last 20 years working in neonatal nutrition developing new clinical level nutrition for critically ill preterm infants, and improving outcomes in terms of preventing sepsis and reducing rates of infection for preemies.
So my, the case I’m most familiar with is the NICU, and now I’m kind of changing my my focus a little bit to try and make a difference for my own community. Wow. And so where are you? I know you mentioned having another business. Were you always an entrepreneur? Like, where’d you get that? So Were you busy when you were young?
Like, how’d you get the entrepreneur, Yeah, I come from a family of scientists and entrepreneurs, and I actually started working Started out working in the field. Fashion industry. And my mom asked me if I could help her out at a little startup. She was, she was working on, and that was about 25 years ago.
And yeah, I haven’t looked back since I just realized I have a real passion for solving problems. I’m just stubborn that way, you know, and I really like sort of being that kind of the company evangelist, like let’s all get excited to help other people and solve this in a way that helps us to produce these great outcomes for the company as well.
Yeah, and it takes that kind of person. Like, it’s so weird just, like, in entrepreneurship how all these, how we have these zigs and zags, and you said you started in fashion, and now from fashion to now helping individuals with tick borne illness. Like, what a what a life, right? Like, and finding different ways to add value to the market, right?
Yeah, and you know, I was really intimidated as you can imagine making that leap from, I was a wholesale merchandiser, so I did important domestic manufacturing, and then making the leap to being a product manager in neonatal nutrition and going on into biotech. Well, those, well, hold on, those are directly related, no.
Exactly, yeah, I I was so intimidated, and then I, I really realized that if you gosh, I almost used the word algorithm, that’s so funny. Too punny, right? I’m like, if you can, if you have the algorithm down to make a product, you can really apply that knowledge across different sectors. But I did have that unfair advantage of, you know, my whole family coming from science and research.
And I almost completed my degree in biological anthropology and took a hard left into fashion, which was weird, but fun. Well, that, I mean, it’s interesting. So I, to me, because I see if you have that, that scientific background in terms of the family, the entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur side for the family, then are they, are they pretty excited about this?
Like this idea and this concept and like, ’cause they must, this must have tore them up to see you go through all this obviously. Like that must have been horrible for them to watch you go through this. Yeah. And for now them to see you kind of pivot to, to now help others with this so that other people don’t have to go through that.
Like that’s super meaningful. Yeah, it just it just, I just felt like it had to be done and definitely it was, it kind of rocked the whole family when I was going through all this stuff. And the wild thing that’s, it’s so I like to, this is a weird kind of a quote, but it’s like the silver lining of basically a silent epidemic is there are now so many research dollars dedicated to this space.
Lime has touched so many lives. I find it, you know, Really, the exception now to speak to somebody who doesn’t know anyone affected by Lyme. It’s just so widespread that it’s time. And so, yeah, the family’s excited. And my husband’s really happy. He was basically my caregiver when I was so sick. So we feel really good about, you know, turning our efforts towards this really substantial unmet need.
Amazing. Adrian, if somebody’s listening to this and they want to learn more and they want to connect, how do they do that? So they can go to our website. It’s algorithm. health. We have another sort of program focused website called limescreen. com. So, either site will give you information about our work and our crowdfunding campaign.
Wonderful. And we’ll put all that information, by the way, for the audience in the, in the show notes. And Adrian, first off, it’s been great having you on the show. I mean, I learned so much today about, about Lyme disease, also about the the The, you know, how it goes undiagnosed many times and how you’re, and also the company that you created to help combat that, so I think it’s an amazing thing and I’m happy to bring it to my audience and speaking to the audience.
If this is your first time with us and you haven’t hit that subscribe button, Hey, hit that subscribe button. This is a daily show each and every day. I’m bringing you new episodes, new entrepreneurs, new stories. I don’t want you to miss a thing. Adrienne again, thank you so much for coming on the show.
It’s really been a pleasure. Thank you, Adam.
