Name: The UFC's Jim Miller on His Battle with Lyme Disease
Uploaded: 2022-04-06T17:59:31.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The UFC's Jim Miller on His Battle with Lyme Disease' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The UFC's Jim Miller on His Battle with Lyme Disease' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-06. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- So speaking of we're humans,
tell me about this Lyme disease thing, man,
'cause I'm terrified of Lyme disease.
- Yeah, it's a bitch.
So I, like 2015,
I started feeling like shit, you know?
And it was like joint pain,
was getting some like neuropathy.
I'd sit on the floor with my kids
and my legs would fall asleep or, you know,
like just positional shit.
And it's like, I fucked my neck up in 2014,
like 10 days before I fought Yancey Medeiros.
So I was like, okay, my neck's banged up.
- Like bulging disc, like what?
- I don't even really know.
- You didn't get an MRI?
- No, I didn't get an MRI.
It was 10 days before the fight.
It was the most unspectacular thing.
It was like a whiplash injury.
I was sparring Mickey Golf when he was like 22, 21,
and he threw like a hook and I just clinched a body lock,
and my head hit his chest and it just tweaked to my left.
And like, I felt it, I have it on video.
And it's like, I shrugged my shoulders,
moved my head around.
It was the last round of the day.
I was like, all right, this is gonna hurt later,
but we're gonna get through it.
Like, I only got to that fight because of, you know,
a chiropractor and his magic fingers and some Graston.
So like, a lot of the symptoms that I was getting from the Lyme,
I attributed to being a fighter.
I'm like, my knees hurt.
Well, of course they fucking hurt.
Like, you know, I mean, to the point where I'd be 45 minutes
into a training session and have to get up like an old man,
push it on my knees and stuff like that.
It's getting, you know, numbness and tingling.
Uh, I was getting like brain fog and it was pretty good.
I, I kind of like go into a room sometimes and like,
go to like clean up and just kind of get lost.
Um, so, uh, before my fight at 196, um, like it got,
it got so bad that I was like,
I was contemplating retirement at UFC 200.
I was like, I'm going to get through 196.
I'm going to ask the fight on 200 to retire.
Um, and, uh,
- And you did not know you had Lyme?
- Did not know I had Lyme disease.
Um, you know, like I said, I, I,
nervous system was, was kind of shot.
Um, joints were swollen.
I'd, I'd get some twitching in my eye.
It was mostly where I'd get it.
It was just for like days on end.
Um, very occasionally I would say the wrong word
while I was speaking and not even anything close,
like just the complete wrong word would come out.
Um, and you know, you'd notice and you're like,
what the fuck did I just say?
Like, I hope they didn't notice.
Um, so I was telling my doctor about this, uh,
before my pre fight physical, uh,
or during my pre fight physical for 196.
And he's like, you know, he's like, honestly,
I think you have Lyme disease.
And I was like, all right.
You know, so we, we ran some tests,
tested me for Lyme.
Um, to this day, I, I still don't test positive.
It's about 50% of the people, uh, on that have Lyme test positive for it.
Um, so he's like, uh, if it's Lyme disease, you know, and he's like, we ran
some other tests.
There's some antibody that I had that showed an infection that they associate
sometimes with Lyme.
Um, so he's like, we're going to put you on doxy.
And he's like, if, if you do have Lyme disease within, you know, a week, 10
days,
he's like, you're going to feel different.
You know, what is it called?
Doxine doxycycline doxycycline.
Um, so like I fight, uh, fight Diego.
And that was the first time, like I was, I was kind of out of it.
I barely trained for that fight.
Um, like I would, I would miss training sessions,
like live grappling session, just sparring sessions.
And like, cause I could barely get out of bed or like, uh, so I was, I, I would,
I would get in maybe six sessions a week.
Um, you know, and kind of just focused on like, all right, well, just be in
shape.
You know, like I could run on the treadmill.
It's the easiest thing for me to do at that point was to run on the treadmill,
which is weird.
It's different than what most people experience.
Most people experience, uh, difficulty doing aerobic exercise and, uh,
they can do anaerobic stuff.
I couldn't do anaerobic stuff.
Like if I lifted, uh, or did sprints, I'd be banged up for fucking days.
Hmm.
Um, so, and, and that fight, like, I remember like when I, when I fight and I
think it,
it has to do something with the lights too.
Like I don't see the cage, like beyond the cage.
I don't see anybody in the stands.
I don't, I barely hear my fucking corner for crying out loud.
Um, so that fight, I, the whole, during the whole fight, I could see like
throughout in the stands,
you know, I was so like unfocused, um, that like, it was just, it was a weird
experience.
It's the only time that's ever happened to me.
Um, but I get out of the fight, uh, and, uh, and get on some doxycycline, uh,
the following week.
And it was like within a week or so, just like my doctor said, I started
feeling way fucking better.
Um, it took me a few years to figure out when exactly I got bit.
I had assumed that it was probably early 2015.
And then after learning about, uh, you know, the early symptoms of Lyme disease
and pulling my head out of my ass and remembering the experience that I had in
2013, it, I'm, I'm pretty much a hundred percent confident that I was bit in
like late May, early June of 2013.
What makes you think that?
Uh, I had a period of time where I was like, I basically had morning sickness.
I was extremely nauseous in the morning.
Um, and, and like early Lyme, it's like flu like symptoms and, and, and migraines
and stuff like that.
And so I had really bad nausea.
Like if I picked up my coffee cup and I was like breathing in and I got a big
whiff of my coffee, it would make me gag.
Really?
Uh, yeah.
Uh, like brushing my teeth.
I'd fucking just take the taste of like the toothpaste would make me gag.
Uh, I had two kids in diapers at the time, every time bringing the frigging
garbage out.
Oh man, I'd be dry heaving the whole way down the, down the driveway for like
two weeks.
And I was like, my kids are in daycare.
I think my, my niece had like rotavirus or something at the time.
I was like, I got a stomach bug, like whatever.
Um, and then I got, uh, a series of migraines, like right kind of as the, the
nausea was dying down.
I got, I don't know, I think it was like seven migraines in 10 days or
something like that.
So I went to a neurologist and ENT, ran a bunch of tests.
They tested me for Lyme, tested negative.
Uh, they couldn't find anything.
So they're like, Hey, let's just, we're going to, we're going to kick the ball
down the road a little bit.
See if it comes back and, you know, uh, and, and figure out what we can do.
Um, so that, I kind of forgot about that.
Um, and, uh, after, you know, kind of educating myself on Lyme after I, uh, you
know, was diagnosed, uh, I was like, uh, maybe, you know, maybe that's when it
was.
Um, but it took, it took a while to get over it cause it was, you know, just
about three years that it had untreated.
Uh, you know, and, and the bacteria is a sneaky little bitch.
Uh, they call it the great imitator cause it can give everybody completely
different symptoms.
Um, and it can pass the blood brain barrier and, and this, all this other shit,
you know?
Um, it also has a, uh, like a toxin in the cell wall of it.
So if you kill too much of it at one time, uh, or in a short period of time,
you experience what's called like the Herxheimer reaction, uh, which is
basically you're being like poisoned by the death of the Lyme.
Bacteria.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a shitty, it makes it, it makes you, it's, it's a fucking amazing
thing because it's like, here's this little thing that it's a little bacteria
that when it dies, it makes you change what you're doing so that you don't like,
it's a getting over Lyme is especially like, like untreated for a while is a
marathon.
Um, and I'm not good at that shit.
Um, so like I, I was on doc cycling for six months.
Um, you know, I, I ended up six months.
Yeah.
And then it's a, that's an antibiotic.
Yeah.
Today antibiotic.
I was, I was, I was, I was shitting fucking like four to five times before noon.
I mean, I mean, in, in 2016, so leaning up to like, I started to lose a little
weight in 2015, but, uh, I used to walk just under a buck 90.
Um, after that first six months on doc cycling, I will, I was walking around at
163 pounds, uh, before the Tiago Alves fight.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I lost a fuck ton of muscle.
And of course it's like, Oh, it's USADA.
Jim's off the sauce.
You know, it's like, no, I'm pooping so much.
Like you have no idea, uh, that I just can't keep up with it.
But, um, but you were still fighting.
I was still fighting.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
So, but that's not, we're not even done, Joe.
So, uh, I was on it for six months and, uh, I felt way better, you know, that
was whatever it was, uh, September.
Um, then I did, you know, in, in March.
So I was like, Hey doc, like, do you think we can, you know, get off of the
antibiotics?
And he's like, yeah, let's give it a try.
And it was about seven weeks.
And then I started to feel like my symptoms were coming back.
Um, and then me being an asshole and like, no, no, they're not like, it's, it's
not, it's not the lime again.
So like, I kind of waited and by the end of the year, uh, it fucking kicked my
ass.
Um, like leading up into, uh, what was that two Oh eight, uh, when I fought
Dustin, like that was, that was the hardest couple of weeks before a fight that
I've, I've ever had.
Like I, I, because I was trying to get back on the docs cycling and I was
trying to, to supplement even way better.
And, you know, you're not supposed to take it within two hours, like two hours
before, two hours after supplements and stuff like that.
And like, I don't like working out with food in my stomach.
So, and I can't take the doxy on an empty stomach cause it then, you know,
makes my stomach upset.
So, uh, so I was like trying to figure out like the best way to get back on it.
And it just kept kicking my butt and kicking my butt.
Um, finally, like, I don't know, maybe two weeks before the fight, I started to
kind of get it, get it dialed in.
Uh, and then unfortunately I was like fight week.
I was, uh, I was having a Herx, uh, reaction and, and, uh, it was a really
weird experience getting, uh, I was, I was having like muscle tremors when I
was cutting weight.
So like I was sitting there.
Oh, like punching.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I couldn't stop, couldn't stop my arm from moving.
Wow.
Like my, my, my vision was a little messed up and I don't know if it was the
lights or whatever, but like when I fought Dustin that night, like every,
to me, like everything kind of had like a, a yellow hue to it.
It was weird.
Um, and I don't know if that was just my eyes being weird or what, but.
So this is the side effect of the virus exuding a poison?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause I, I finally like kind of figured it out, uh, like right, right before
that fight.
Um, so then like 2017 was, uh, like I was still dealing with it and it, it was,
it was difficult.
Like the first half of the year was pretty difficult.
Um, and then like through the, through the summer, um, it's, it started to like
get a lot better for me.
Uh, you know, I, I changed my diet.
I started eating a lot, like a lot better food.
I mean, like when I first found out I had Lyme, I, we were trying to like kind
of adhere to the Lyme diet.
You know, the Lyme, Lyme diet is like basically a paleo.
It's a, it's an inflammatory disease.
So avoiding alcohol, sugar, gluten, uh, dairy, stuff like that.
But it's like, I also had a bunch of little kids and it's like, well, if I'm
making my food and trying to make their food, so they're not eating mac and
cheese, hot dogs and chicken fingers every day.
I'm like, this is going to be really fucking hard.
So, you know, like I've never like adhered to that diet, like specifically, but
totally eat a ton more like whole foods and vegetables and shit like that now.
So, uh, and definitely like I eat way or drink way less, you know?
So how did you get off of it?
How did you kill the Lyme?
Is it, is it a hundred percent done or do you still have like relapses?
I haven't had a relapse, uh, since yeah, about 2017.
Yeah.
Oh, that's nice.
So five fucking years of freedom.
Yeah.
Um, so you went through it for a sense, essentially like a solid four years.
A few years.
Yeah.
So it was, uh, well, like it, it took a while for it to start kicking my butt,
you know?
Like I had that first instance in 2013 when it was, when I first got bit, but
then like, I couldn't really tell anything, you know?
But if you had gotten on antibiotics right then, you probably could have killed
it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Three to three to four weeks, uh, is usually, um, what doctors will, uh, you
know, prescribe.
Uh, and if you catch it early, you usually fare pretty well with it.
Mm.
Um, but like, yeah, it was, uh, I mean, 2017, I didn't feel like I could start
really like,
excuse me, uh, like pushing myself and, and, and sprinting and, and lifting
again until like maybe April of 2018.

The UFC's Jim Miller on His Battle with Lyme Disease

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- So speaking of we're humans,
tell me about this Lyme disease thing, man,
'cause I'm terrified of Lyme disease.
- Yeah, it's a bitch.
So I, like 2015,
I started feeling like shit, you know?
And it was like joint pain,
was getting some like neuropathy.
I'd sit on the floor with my kids
and my legs would fall asleep or, you know,
like just positional shit.
And it's like, I fucked my neck up in 2014,
like 10 days before I fought Yancey Medeiros.
So I was like, okay, my neck's banged up.
- Like bulging disc, like what?
- I don't even really know.
- You didn't get an MRI?
- No, I didn't get an MRI.
It was 10 days before the fight.
It was the most unspectacular thing.
It was like a whiplash injury.
I was sparring Mickey Golf when he was like 22, 21,
and he threw like a hook and I just clinched a body lock,
and my head hit his chest and it just tweaked to my left.
And like, I felt it, I have it on video.
And it's like, I shrugged my shoulders,
moved my head around.
It was the last round of the day.
I was like, all right, this is gonna hurt later,
but we're gonna get through it.
Like, I only got to that fight because of, you know,
a chiropractor and his magic fingers and some Graston.
So like, a lot of the symptoms that I was getting from the Lyme,
I attributed to being a fighter.
I'm like, my knees hurt.
Well, of course they fucking hurt.
Like, you know, I mean, to the point where I'd be 45 minutes
into a training session and have to get up like an old man,
push it on my knees and stuff like that.
It's getting, you know, numbness and tingling.
Uh, I was getting like brain fog and it was pretty good.
I, I kind of like go into a room sometimes and like,
go to like clean up and just kind of get lost.
Um, so, uh, before my fight at 196, um, like it got,
it got so bad that I was like,
I was contemplating retirement at UFC 200.
I was like, I'm going to get through 196.
I'm going to ask the fight on 200 to retire.
Um, and, uh,
- And you did not know you had Lyme?
- Did not know I had Lyme disease.
Um, you know, like I said, I, I,
nervous system was, was kind of shot.
Um, joints were swollen.
I'd, I'd get some twitching in my eye.
It was mostly where I'd get it.
It was just for like days on end.
Um, very occasionally I would say the wrong word
while I was speaking and not even anything close,
like just the complete wrong word would come out.
Um, and you know, you'd notice and you're like,
what the fuck did I just say?
Like, I hope they didn't notice.
Um, so I was telling my doctor about this, uh,
before my pre fight physical, uh,
or during my pre fight physical for 196.
And he's like, you know, he's like, honestly,
I think you have Lyme disease.
And I was like, all right.
You know, so we, we ran some tests,
tested me for Lyme.
Um, to this day, I, I still don't test positive.
It's about 50% of the people, uh, on that have Lyme test positive for it.
Um, so he's like, uh, if it's Lyme disease, you know, and he's like, we ran
some other tests.
There's some antibody that I had that showed an infection that they associate
sometimes with Lyme.
Um, so he's like, we're going to put you on doxy.
And he's like, if, if you do have Lyme disease within, you know, a week, 10
days,
he's like, you're going to feel different.
You know, what is it called?
Doxine doxycycline doxycycline.
Um, so like I fight, uh, fight Diego.
And that was the first time, like I was, I was kind of out of it.
I barely trained for that fight.
Um, like I would, I would miss training sessions,
like live grappling session, just sparring sessions.
And like, cause I could barely get out of bed or like, uh, so I was, I, I would,
I would get in maybe six sessions a week.
Um, you know, and kind of just focused on like, all right, well, just be in
shape.
You know, like I could run on the treadmill.
It's the easiest thing for me to do at that point was to run on the treadmill,
which is weird.
It's different than what most people experience.
Most people experience, uh, difficulty doing aerobic exercise and, uh,
they can do anaerobic stuff.
I couldn't do anaerobic stuff.
Like if I lifted, uh, or did sprints, I'd be banged up for fucking days.
Hmm.
Um, so, and, and that fight, like, I remember like when I, when I fight and I
think it,
it has to do something with the lights too.
Like I don't see the cage, like beyond the cage.
I don't see anybody in the stands.
I don't, I barely hear my fucking corner for crying out loud.
Um, so that fight, I, the whole, during the whole fight, I could see like
throughout in the stands,
you know, I was so like unfocused, um, that like, it was just, it was a weird
experience.
It's the only time that's ever happened to me.
Um, but I get out of the fight, uh, and, uh, and get on some doxycycline, uh,
the following week.
And it was like within a week or so, just like my doctor said, I started
feeling way fucking better.
Um, it took me a few years to figure out when exactly I got bit.
I had assumed that it was probably early 2015.
And then after learning about, uh, you know, the early symptoms of Lyme disease
and pulling my head out of my ass and remembering the experience that I had in
2013, it, I'm, I'm pretty much a hundred percent confident that I was bit in
like late May, early June of 2013.
What makes you think that?
Uh, I had a period of time where I was like, I basically had morning sickness.
I was extremely nauseous in the morning.
Um, and, and like early Lyme, it's like flu like symptoms and, and, and migraines
and stuff like that.
And so I had really bad nausea.
Like if I picked up my coffee cup and I was like breathing in and I got a big
whiff of my coffee, it would make me gag.
Really?
Uh, yeah.
Uh, like brushing my teeth.
I'd fucking just take the taste of like the toothpaste would make me gag.
Uh, I had two kids in diapers at the time, every time bringing the frigging
garbage out.
Oh man, I'd be dry heaving the whole way down the, down the driveway for like
two weeks.
And I was like, my kids are in daycare.
I think my, my niece had like rotavirus or something at the time.
I was like, I got a stomach bug, like whatever.
Um, and then I got, uh, a series of migraines, like right kind of as the, the
nausea was dying down.
I got, I don't know, I think it was like seven migraines in 10 days or
something like that.
So I went to a neurologist and ENT, ran a bunch of tests.
They tested me for Lyme, tested negative.
Uh, they couldn't find anything.
So they're like, Hey, let's just, we're going to, we're going to kick the ball
down the road a little bit.
See if it comes back and, you know, uh, and, and figure out what we can do.
Um, so that, I kind of forgot about that.
Um, and, uh, after, you know, kind of educating myself on Lyme after I, uh, you
know, was diagnosed, uh, I was like, uh, maybe, you know, maybe that's when it
was.
Um, but it took, it took a while to get over it cause it was, you know, just
about three years that it had untreated.
Uh, you know, and, and the bacteria is a sneaky little bitch.
Uh, they call it the great imitator cause it can give everybody completely
different symptoms.
Um, and it can pass the blood brain barrier and, and this, all this other shit,
you know?
Um, it also has a, uh, like a toxin in the cell wall of it.
So if you kill too much of it at one time, uh, or in a short period of time,
you experience what's called like the Herxheimer reaction, uh, which is
basically you're being like poisoned by the death of the Lyme.
Bacteria.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a shitty, it makes it, it makes you, it's, it's a fucking amazing
thing because it's like, here's this little thing that it's a little bacteria
that when it dies, it makes you change what you're doing so that you don't like,
it's a getting over Lyme is especially like, like untreated for a while is a
marathon.
Um, and I'm not good at that shit.
Um, so like I, I was on doc cycling for six months.
Um, you know, I, I ended up six months.
Yeah.
And then it's a, that's an antibiotic.
Yeah.
Today antibiotic.
I was, I was, I was, I was shitting fucking like four to five times before noon.
I mean, I mean, in, in 2016, so leaning up to like, I started to lose a little
weight in 2015, but, uh, I used to walk just under a buck 90.
Um, after that first six months on doc cycling, I will, I was walking around at
163 pounds, uh, before the Tiago Alves fight.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I lost a fuck ton of muscle.
And of course it's like, Oh, it's USADA.
Jim's off the sauce.
You know, it's like, no, I'm pooping so much.
Like you have no idea, uh, that I just can't keep up with it.
But, um, but you were still fighting.
I was still fighting.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
So, but that's not, we're not even done, Joe.
So, uh, I was on it for six months and, uh, I felt way better, you know, that
was whatever it was, uh, September.
Um, then I did, you know, in, in March.
So I was like, Hey doc, like, do you think we can, you know, get off of the
antibiotics?
And he's like, yeah, let's give it a try.
And it was about seven weeks.
And then I started to feel like my symptoms were coming back.
Um, and then me being an asshole and like, no, no, they're not like, it's, it's
not, it's not the lime again.
So like, I kind of waited and by the end of the year, uh, it fucking kicked my
ass.
Um, like leading up into, uh, what was that two Oh eight, uh, when I fought
Dustin, like that was, that was the hardest couple of weeks before a fight that
I've, I've ever had.
Like I, I, because I was trying to get back on the docs cycling and I was
trying to, to supplement even way better.
And, you know, you're not supposed to take it within two hours, like two hours
before, two hours after supplements and stuff like that.
And like, I don't like working out with food in my stomach.
So, and I can't take the doxy on an empty stomach cause it then, you know,
makes my stomach upset.
So, uh, so I was like trying to figure out like the best way to get back on it.
And it just kept kicking my butt and kicking my butt.
Um, finally, like, I don't know, maybe two weeks before the fight, I started to
kind of get it, get it dialed in.
Uh, and then unfortunately I was like fight week.
I was, uh, I was having a Herx, uh, reaction and, and, uh, it was a really
weird experience getting, uh, I was, I was having like muscle tremors when I
was cutting weight.
So like I was sitting there.
Oh, like punching.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I couldn't stop, couldn't stop my arm from moving.
Wow.
Like my, my, my vision was a little messed up and I don't know if it was the
lights or whatever, but like when I fought Dustin that night, like every,
to me, like everything kind of had like a, a yellow hue to it.
It was weird.
Um, and I don't know if that was just my eyes being weird or what, but.
So this is the side effect of the virus exuding a poison?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause I, I finally like kind of figured it out, uh, like right, right before
that fight.
Um, so then like 2017 was, uh, like I was still dealing with it and it, it was,
it was difficult.
Like the first half of the year was pretty difficult.
Um, and then like through the, through the summer, um, it's, it started to like
get a lot better for me.
Uh, you know, I, I changed my diet.
I started eating a lot, like a lot better food.
I mean, like when I first found out I had Lyme, I, we were trying to like kind
of adhere to the Lyme diet.
You know, the Lyme, Lyme diet is like basically a paleo.
It's a, it's an inflammatory disease.
So avoiding alcohol, sugar, gluten, uh, dairy, stuff like that.
But it's like, I also had a bunch of little kids and it's like, well, if I'm
making my food and trying to make their food, so they're not eating mac and
cheese, hot dogs and chicken fingers every day.
I'm like, this is going to be really fucking hard.
So, you know, like I've never like adhered to that diet, like specifically, but
totally eat a ton more like whole foods and vegetables and shit like that now.
So, uh, and definitely like I eat way or drink way les