An Integrative Approach To Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Episode 172
Inflammatory Bowel Disease is the result of a weakened immune system. Diving into Inflammatory gut conditions, today on the Integrative Wellness Radio we’ll be mainly focusing on IBD and how autoimmunity plays a big factor in causing it in the first place along with some of the root causes of a weak immune system leading up to the inflammation. Dr. Nicole will shed light on IBD by giving us her case studies as an Integrative Physician and will break some of the false beliefs about human gut issues. Tune in to today’s episode to learn how you can properly diagnose it and take care of your immune system and what set of tools you can equip yourself with to have a strong immunity in general. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! Noteworthy Time Stamps: 02:58 The swarm of conflicting information 05:49 Serotonin is made in our guts 11:45 Pancreas get infected because of infections 17:08 What gut patients often don’t know? 20:46 Debunking some myths about the gut 29:44 Biggest culprit behind gastrointestinal inflammation 36:00 A patient’s case study
Topics: integrative, immune, inflammatory, inflammation, system, root, bowel, disease
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## An Integrative Approach To Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- Understanding IBD as a complex condition involving immune system dysregulation.
- Identifying key lifestyle and environmental factors that contribute to poor gut health.
- Debunking common myths surrounding digestive issues and IBD.
- Practical strategies for diagnosing and managing IBD through an integrative lens.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
Welcome back to our episode about the gut. **Unknown:** Today, we are talking all about inflammatory conditions.
Transcript
**Unknown:** I been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here on my own. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to our episode about the gut.
**Unknown:** Today, we are talking all about inflammatory conditions. We are going to be diving into a lot of really good quality information, and obviously really being able to give you some tools to take those next steps to feel better. We are going to be talking about pretty much all things gut-related, but we're going to definitely be talking about inflammatory conditions. And when you're dealing with an autoimmune reaction, and you're dealing with an immune reaction in general, that is actually what induces an inflammatory reaction.
**Unknown:** So it's very synonymous when you're dealing with inflammation and autoimmunity, but the difference is, is that you can have an inflammatory condition without having autoimmunity. So the inflammation can stem from different, different reasons, but overall, the conditions can look very similar from a symptomatic standpoint. So number one, first and foremost, is to really have you understand that you don't know what you don't know, and that's really when it comes down to doing better testing. Because the testing is actually going to reveal the root cause, which is actually going to allow you to start getting better because now you actually have the clarity that you need.
**Unknown:** In addition to that, when it comes to strategy and it comes to the healing process, it's not about what you do, it's actually about how you do it. And this is something that I find is usually very eye-opening to people, and I'm gonna talk more about it, but it's really just about how you use diet and supplements and all of these different modalities together that is customized for your body and what your body needs. In addition to that, we wanna really break some of these false beliefs about your gut issues. Some of them is just thinking that all of your testing that you've done is a hundred percent reliable, and also this concept that genetics are going to dictate if we're gonna get sick or not, and also the fact that there's really no cure for things like autoimmune gut conditions, celiac, et cetera.
**Unknown:** So we're gonna be touching on all of these different things. And then, of course, when it comes down to getting clarity, understanding some of the, the principles, and understanding why your gut might be compromised in the first place, usually the next question is, is, "Well, how do I get better? What do I need to do?" And we're definitely going to be covering that as well. So first and foremost, I just want you to know that if you have tried to get better, you have tried to seek out help, you have tried to change your diet, you have tried to take supplements, you have tried to take medications, and you have not gotten better, it is not your fault.
**Unknown:** There is a lot of information out there nowadays, especially with the internet and, uh, what I call, uh, Google University and, uh, WebMD. So when it comes to really trying to understand, you know, what is best for you, what should you be eating, what should you not be eating, should you be keto, should you be paleo, should you be a vegan, it is very, very difficult for you to know what is right for you without having testing, and also just to navigate this massive sea of information. And everybody claims to be the expert. Everybody claims to, you know, have the best remedy for the inflammatory condition.
**Unknown:** And at the end of the day, no two people are the same, no two people need the same protocol, no two people need the same diet. Everybody's extremely, extremely different. And if you have hit those plateaus, it's because you potentially have not had the right testing, and second to that, you maybe have had great testing, but you haven't had the right strategy when it comes to the healing process. I'm gonna explain that a little bit further w- as we move along, but it's not about what you do, it's about how you do it.
**Unknown:** Okay. So for those of you here, this is probably one of the most important, and the reason being is because this sets the foundation for really understanding some of the limitations of why we're not getting answers and some of the limitations of why not every doctor is able to give you answers, number one, but number two, get you better. And there's just foundational things that I know that I was taught in school, let alone many other physicians. It doesn't matter if you're a chiropractor, if you're an MD, if you're a naturopath.
**Unknown:** One of the biggest things that I personally feel is a detriment to healthcare is the fact that we are always seeking out the specialists, and we're always seeking out the experts. We wanna know that the person that we're gonna work with has clinical experience with our condition, which I totally get that. But when it comes to working with a specialist, we are working with a specialist that is only looking at an isolated system. And this kind of brings me to the second point, is when we are looking at the gut, and we're also dealing with maybe something going on with our mood, maybe we feel depressed, maybe we're bipolar, maybe we have anxiety, and we're working with a gastroenterologist, and then separately we're working with a psychiatrist or a psychologist, those experts or those specialists are not communicating with each other.
**Unknown:** And basic physiology is that ninety to ninety-five percent of your serotonin is actually made in your gut. If we think that our brain health and our mood is completely separate from gut, we're never going to getOur mood stable. We're never going to be able to feel good. We're not gonna be able to get rid of that anxiety because there's a foundational problem.
**Unknown:** And it goes vice versa as well. If you have a massive brain problem, one of the things that that does is it creates a lot of constipation. Because if your brain is not signaling to your gut via your vagus nerve, then you're gonna have a lot of slow motility. You can have something called gastroparesis, which is slow motility, uh, or you could have constipation, which those pretty much go hand-in-hand with each other.
**Unknown:** So we need to start thinking bigger, and we need to understand that all of these systems are intertwined, and they interact with each other, but we need to do testing that actually figures out which one is the biggest problem, which one is the foundational issue. So I wanna kinda just break down the gut. And the reason I have this visual is because most people have no idea that the gut is very large and it's very complex, but technically your mouth is part of your digestive system. So if you're having an inflammatory bowel condition, irritable bowel condition, you might have a lot of dental issues, and you might have a boatload of bacteria in your gums, and you might have cavities, and you might have that, and that might be your foundational problem.
**Unknown:** You might have problems in your stomach. Stomach is usually what causes indigestion and GERD. You might have problems in your liver or your gallbladder. Your liver and your gallbladder are technically filtration systems.
**Unknown:** They detox us. So if they get overloaded with a bunch of chemicals that we've been exposed to over a lifetime, that can impact your digestive system, and one of the biggest things that does is cause constipation. And then in addition to that, we have our pancreas. So your pancreas is what regulates your blood sugar, but it's also what gives you all of your enzymes to break down your sugars, and your carbs, and your fats, et cetera.
**Unknown:** So when we're talking gut, we're not just talking about the intestines. We are talking about a super, super intricate system that every aspect has to be evaluated. Some of my gut patients are dental patients. They literally have massive amounts of dental problems, and that is the root cause to their gastrointestinal issues.
**Unknown:** So again, you have to be looked at as a whole. This is not looking at you super linear. And again, you go to a gastro, a gastro isn't versed in dental, and a dentist is not versed in gut, unless you're going to maybe a holistic dentist. So you have to have somebody kind of overseeing and looking at the broad scheme of things and looking at the big picture.
**Unknown:** So I mentioned before that every day in practice I usually see at least one jaw drop. And one of the reasons for that is because we dig so deep when you come in, and we ask a lot of questions, and some people are looking at me completely baffled as I ask questions. But, you know, these are just a couple of really, really interesting factors. So one of the things that I ask about, especially when you come in to me when you have gastro issues, is I ask, "Do you feel worse around a full moon?" Most people don't always know because they're not tracking it.
**Unknown:** But usually they kind of relate to that saying, "Oh, all the crazies are out, it must be a full moon," or, "Everyone's driving crazy, it must be a full moon." So there is validity behind that statement, and the the validity is, is that parasites... Parasites, by the way, are organisms that you can get exposed to through contaminated meat and raw fish. You can get it other places, but I'll keep it simple. But parasites have been known and proven to, uh, hijack our behaviors.
**Unknown:** So under a full moon, parasites are the most active. So when you see people acting really off the wall, including your children or spouse, that could be because they have parasite infections, and one in four people have parasite infections. So when you read up on it and they say, "Oh, parasites are not a real thing, you have to go to Mexico to get them," that's not true at all. In addition, uh, a lifetime of constipation and gut issues.
**Unknown:** So when you are talking about constipation, and you have done all of these different gut protocols, you've done alternative, you've done colonics, you've done medication, you've done enemas, you've done all of it, and nothing has worked, it's because it's your brain, and it goes back to the brain communicates to your gut through your nerve called your vagus nerve. So improperly, and that could be because of a variety of reasons, that can be the cause and the culprit behind your constipation. So again, if you've hit a million plateaus and you have not gotten better, maybe it's not a gut problem, maybe it's a brain problem. So diabetes and gut issues.
**Unknown:** So when we are talking about the gut, I mentioned earlier that the pancreas is technically part of the gastrointestinal system. So when you look at anatomy, your stomach is on your left ribcage area, and right below your sternum, where a lot of people have pain and call it heartburn, that is where your pancreas is. But your pancreas is embedded in your stomach 'cause your stomach is shaped like this, and your pancreas comes in like this. So if you have had indigestion, heartburn, GERD, reflux, burping, and you've had discomfort in that area, maybe you've had an ulcer.
**Unknown:** Maybe it's better, maybe it comes and it goes. But if you had a foundational problem that caused those symptoms, like bacteria or another type of infection, that can eventually work its way into your pancreas. And then all of a sudden you get blood work done, and you're told you're pre-diabetic or you're diabetic, and you're like, "I don't even eat that much sugar. This doesn't make any sense." The pancreas can dysfunction because of infections that start to affect the pancreas from the stomach.
**Unknown:** This is very, very, very common. The most common infection that I see in the pancreas, two, one of them is E. coli. There are very-- There are many types of E.
**Unknown:** coli, by the way. They're not always the ones that you see in the news that kill people. Secondary to that is giardia. Giardia is a parasite infection that you can easily get exposed to through cats and dogs.
**Unknown:** So in addition, respiratory issues and the diaphragm. So we had a patient that we worked with thatHe had-- He came in for respiratory issues. He was pretty much like, "I cannot breathe." He had a constant nasal-- post-nasal drip. He was coughing things up, like, to the point that he had to, he had to sleep sitting up 'cause the respiratory system was so stressed, and he was constantly coughing, coughing, coughing.
**Unknown:** So part of his issue that I kept finding in his, his findings was that his gut was extremely, extremely stressed. And he was like, "Doc, it's not my gut, it's my, it's my respiratory system." And I said, "Yes, your respiratory system is involved," but the culprit behind it was that the gut was so inflamed it was pushing up on his diaphragm, which pretty much separates the lungs from the gut, and pushing up on the diaphragm, and that was causing massive spasm in his lungs. So yes, he had respiratory involvement, but the root cause was the gut affecting the diaphragm. So again, we have to look at the bigger picture.
**Unknown:** We have to understand, you know, is there a foundational cause to this respiratory issue? So the big thing about these autoimmune gut conditions and these inflammatory gut conditions. So I personally think that this is an easy concept. But unfortunately, most of us have been told that we have no idea why autoimmune conditions exist.
**Unknown:** We have no idea how they develop, and there is nothing we can do about fixing it. So when you think about the purpose or the, the mechanism of the immune system, the immune system is in charge of attacking bad stuff. It is in charge of getting rid of infections. It is in charge of getting rid of toxins or anything foreign that comes into the body.
**Unknown:** But one of the biggest things is to protect us against infections, and that could be everything from bacteria to parasites to fungus to mold, any-anything in that category or all of those categories. So if your immune system's job is to get rid of bad stuff, wouldn't it make sense that if you had an infection or a toxin in a specific tissue, like the stomach or like the small intestine or large intestine, that if the immune system was doing its job and it was coming to the scene to fight it, then you could potentially have damage and an inflammatory response in that tissue? So, like, one easy one to explain, 'cause the gut is so complex, but the autoimmune thyroid conditions like Hashimoto's. So when they say, "Oh, your, your immune system is just attacking your thyroid." So first of all, you-- your tonsils are right here, your thyroid is right here, and you have tons of lymph nodes.
**Unknown:** So if you... This is just a basic example because there's a lot more culprits behind this. But if you had a lot of strep as a kid, first of all, just because you're not sick and you don't have swollen tonsils, it doesn't mean the strep is gone. So if you still have strep hanging out in those tonsils, and then it gets into these lymph nodes, and your immune system is coming to the scene to try to clean everything up and make it better, then it's almost like your thyroid is in a bad neighborhood.
**Unknown:** But I just feel like it just m-- it, it was able to tie it together for people that this is a new concept to you. Because of all of the things happening around the thyroid, the immune system is coming to the scene, and an immune system attack is an inflammatory response, just so you understand. So inflammation and an, uh, an immune system reaction is the same thing. So with that being said, you are going to start having an autoimmune attack on the thyroid primarily just because the immune system is coming to the scene to take care of the strep in the surrounding area.
**Unknown:** This happens all the time with the gut, and this is because we get exposed to bacteria, especially bacteria, but all different types of organisms every time we eat. Produce, think about it. It's grown outside with bugs on it in the dirt. Like, there is bacteria on our food.
**Unknown:** So to think that we are not getting exposed to these things, we are. But if we get exposed to bacterias, and maybe we're really stressed or maybe, you know, we're overworked or we're not sleeping and our immune system is struggling, then we're going to get exposed to that organism, and it's gonna stay. It's gonna hang out. So it's not that, you know, we're constantly acquiring these microbes.
**Unknown:** It's more so that if our immune defenses are down, we can get exposed to something, and it can stay within the body and start to cause stress. So at the end of the day, I'm here to tell you that you don't know what you don't know. If you don't have the right testing, you're not gonna know if you have an infection in your gut. You're not gonna know if you have an autoimmune condition.
**Unknown:** You're not gonna know if you have an inflammatory bowel condition. You're not gonna know any of these things. You're just going to start to adapt your lifestyle because you think it's your new norm. So I want to use a really simple example.
**Unknown:** So many of us are dealing with indigestion and heartburn, and a lot of my patients that come in with gut conditions, they almost are like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah-"Indigestion. Yeah, I've had that my whole life. Um, because it's, it's become so normal to them, and we have so many over-the-counter antacids and medications that we can use to, to palliate the symptoms. So we've kind of just like over s-- or, or just kind of ignore the fact that we have indigestion or heartburn.
**Unknown:** And don't get me wrong, some people have it bad enough. Uh, I had a patient actually told me that she bought this two hundred dollar pillow to prop her up so that she didn't choke in the middle of the night because of how bad her heartburn was. So interesting enough, when we think of heartburn, we take something like an antacid, a TUMS, a Rolaids, et cetera, and it makes us feel better. So we assume that we have an overproduction of acid, that our stomach, for some reason, is producing too much acid, and that is the culprit.
**Unknown:** But I will tell you that ninety-five percent of the people that have indigestion or heartburn, lack of stomach acid. So you might be thinking that doesn't make any sense. So what happens is, if you have a lack of stomach acid-- By the way, if you have a bacterial infection in your stomach, that will compromise your stomach acid. And if you chew gum, it will compromise your stomach acid.
**Unknown:** And if you drink alkaline water, which I know a lot of people think is super healthy, and it is, but if you're constantly consuming alkaline water, it could start to compromise your, uh, stomach acidity. So chewing gum, bacteria, alkaline water can be all culprits to why your stomach acid is now becoming lower. So what happens is now you eat food, and it goes into the stomach, but there's not enough acid to break it down, so it sits, and it starts to almost decompose. Not to be gross, it's just what happens.
**Unknown:** And as it's decomposing it is creating rancid acids, which are bad acids, and these are the acids that make us feel sick, make us have reflux, make us have heartburn, make us have indigestion. So then you grab for your antacid, your TUMS or your Rolaids, and you feel better 'cause it's buffering the rancid acids. So if you think about it, now you're creating this, you know, cycle. You already have low stomach acid.
**Unknown:** You're taking an antacid, which is lowering it even further. So then it just gets to the point that you're taking more antacids, or you eventually get on a prescription of Nexium or Prilosec or Prevacid. So just understanding this principle can help you resolve something that you potentially are dealing with every single time you eat. And in my world of integrative medicine, this is an easy, easy fix.
**Unknown:** It's just about knowing what is the root cause. So stop accepting your new normal and blaming it on the aging process because I can't tell you how many people, they come to me, they're in their thirties, and they're just like, "Oh, well, you know, I have indigestion, but it's because I'm getting older." "Oh yeah, you know, my stomach hurts when I eat out, but that's 'cause I'm getting older." Um, we kind of just think that our health is going to decline with aging, and it's not necessarily how it works. And I'm gonna explain that a little bit more so in detail, but we need to stop accepting all of these symptoms as our normal, and we also need to stop playing the comparison game. Just because all of your friends al-also feel like crap doesn't mean that that's what it is.
**Unknown:** It's just there's a lot of things working against us in our current food environment and also just in our current lifestyles. You know, we're high-stress. We work a lot, especially if you're from New Jersey, New York. You know, we're dealing with tons of social pressures with social media, so, you know, there's a lot of things that are working against the body, and we need to have better tools to navigate them.
**Unknown:** So some of the myths about the gut. First of all, gut conditions are genetic. Uh, your testing that you've had already is always accurate. Not true.
**Unknown:** And gut issues and autoimmunity are irreversible. So I'm gonna break these down more in detail. So number one, when we are talking about genetics as a whole, so we are doing a lot of genetic testing right now. And I just wanna let you know that for those of you that think like genetics is the way of the future, uh, the reason why we're doing so much genetic testing right now is because they are trying to create vaccines for genes.
**Unknown:** So there is a reason. And in my opinion, I think that when we do these gene tests, especially for cancers, we are just scaring the crap out of people. And when you look at epigenetics, which is a proven science, it is not my opinion, our genes will express differently based off of our lifestyle factors. So that means you could have the gene for celiac, but if you're pretty healthy, you're low stress, you eat pretty clean, chances are you're never getting celiac.
**Unknown:** And that goes for cancers, and that goes for every other condition that they say that you are doomed based off of your genetics. And don't get me wrong, like when you're talking genetics, that does help you to understand the systems that need more care. So if you have the genetic predisposition to celiac, take better care of your gut. Don't eat like crap.
**Unknown:** Don't drink a ton of caffeine, a ton of alcohol, and eat McDonald's every day. 'Cause if you do, you're gonna get celiac. But if you're pretty conscious and you try to make good decisions, you're not gonna get celiac. So it's just really, really important to kind of understand that.
**Unknown:** But more importantly, when we're talking about genetic testing, and I'm using celiac as an example here, but this applies to a lot. So the celiac gene is actually in the HLA family, which is, uh, the human leukocyte antigen. So human leukocyte antigen actually is associated with the immune system. So specifically at the bottom, the HLA complex helps the immune system distinguish the body's own proteins from proteins made by foreign invaders like viruses and bacteria.
**Unknown:** So this goes back to this concept that I just said. When we think about autoimmunity, and we think about the fact that the, the immune system, our immune system just turned on us one day. It just was like, "No, I'm gonna start attacking your gut." There is a reason it is attacking an area, and it is attacking an area because there is a foreign invader, such as a virus or a bacteria, and that is the foundation of the HLA gene family. So when you're talking about celiac, and you're talking about the development of celiac, there is going to be a root reason.
**Unknown:** Yeah, maybe there's the predisposition, but if you have a boatload of infections in your gut, you're going to then have that attackOn the area which is gonna start to damage the gut and the villi and cause a massive inflammatory reaction. So in the world of gluten, there is celiac, and then there is non-celiac gluten sensitivity, just to be clear. So I had a patient that I, uh, was working with. He had gastrointestinal issues.
**Unknown:** I think he honestly had them for most of his life, but they were really bad within the five-- past five years, and they got extremely bad within the past few months right before he came in. It was to the point that it was taking him about four hours to get out of the door in the morning because he was just kind of having tons of bowel movements back to back to back. So, um, I did all of his testing. One of the tests that I did is called the bioresonance scan, and there was...
**Unknown:** The bioresonance, just to clarify, it's a very unique technology, analyzes down to the DNA level, and it can pick up on pathology like celiac, um, it can pick up on allergens like gluten allergies, it can pick up on drug allergies, and it can also pick up on infections. So one of the things that came up for every aspect of his gut, everything from his pancreas to his liver to his gallbladder to his intestines, was a drug reaction of a drug called acetozymidine. And acetozymidine, for those of you that don't know, is a tuberculosis drug. It's a really, really, really strong antibiotic.
**Unknown:** It came up so many times in this test that I was almost like, "I need to ask him if he ever had tuberculosis." At this point, there was no conversation about respiratory problems, tuberculosis, or anything of the sort. So when he came in for his appointment to review his results, I was like, "Okay, this might sound like an odd question, but I need to know, did you ever-- were you ever diagnosed with tuberculosis?" And he's like, "No, absolutely not." And I was like, "Okay." I always have to ask thing-- things in many ways. So I said, "Okay. Did you ever have a skin test that bubbled up, and it didn't go away for a few days, and the bubble stayed there?" And he looks at me, and he goes, "Hold on," and he texts his mom.
**Unknown:** He's in his fifties, by the way. So his mom texts back, and she goes, "I can't believe you remember that." She's like, "When you were, you know, seven or eight years old, we had you at camp, and you actually tested positive for tuberculosis, and we had to take you out of camp and get you treatment." And he's looking at me, mouth dropped, hence the things that I, I see on a day-to-day basis. But it was crazy because this drug reaction affected his body so much when he was young that it was still causing problems and an inflammatory reaction in his fifties. So again, he probably had gut issues his whole life, but they were his normal.
**Unknown:** And then it just got so bad because of other stressors, work, he was in finance working in the city. There was these other factors that were like the straw that broke the camel's back, and he was, like, practically non-functional. So it's very, very interesting. Again, when you do better testing, you can uncover these things that you would never in a million years think have to do with anything.
**Unknown:** So number two, your testing is always accurate. There are limitations on every test known to man, and this is why when we do our testing, we collaborate a variety of different tests together because you cannot rely on one test. You can't just go get an endoscope and think, "Oh, I don't have celiac," or, "I do have celiac." You can't just get a colonoscopy and think, "Oh, that's, you know, everything's clear." You can't just do, you know, a blood test and think that's gonna give you all of your information. There are limitations on all different tests which I'm gonna elaborate further on now.
**Unknown:** So number one, uh, when it comes to inflammation of the gut, when you're looking for inflammation of the gut strictly through blood work, you're not always going to get the right information because by the time your inflammatory markers get really high in the blood, even if you're running a Crohn's panel, that means your condition is very advanced. But this is actually a stool analysis. So there is a stool analysis by Doctor's Data that can run all of these different markers. If you see the middle category, it is called inflammation.
**Unknown:** So everything from lactoferrin, calprotectin, lyzozyme, white blood cells, mucosa, or mucus, I'm sorry, these are all different markers that are gonna give you information about inflammation early on, so you're able to get an understanding of, do I truly have Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel, um, inflammatory, inflammatory bowel, and what can I start doing about it now before it becomes a bigger problem? So I really felt compelled to put it in here, and the reason I did that is because it was very eye-opening to me. We have a dog. We have two dogs.
**Unknown:** Um, they're Vizslas. They're the best dogs ever. But it was about two years ago that our older dog developed an autoimmune skin condition called pemphigoid. It's extremely, extremely, extremely rare.
**Unknown:** It came from toxins, uh, that he-- Well, the trigger was toxins that he was exposed to. It was a virus and toxins he was exposed to from a massive landscaping ordeal that was happening in our neighborhood. And with his skin condition, it made me realize that when you have an autoimmune condition, to ignore it or just take the medication and, and not change your diet and not do other things because you don't see what your insides look like. And when I saw what he looked like, I realized this is what people's insides look like when there's an autoimmune attack and there's an inflammatory reaction.
**Unknown:** It took him a really long time to heal. We fortunately, with our technology, were able to help him tremendously, but his skin, you know, it, it-- a lot of the lesions went away, but the healing process took a good two months. But just so those of you that know, pemphigoid is something that has been told to be irreversible, and there's no cure, and there's nothing you could do about it. And in humans, pemphigoid, it does exist in humans, and they say most humans will actually commit suicide because of how painful it is.And he is perfectly healthy now.
**Unknown:** So I wanted to give that visual because for those of you that, you know, have reasons why you haven't taken that step to get better and you haven't, you know, you're skeptical about integrative medicine, or you're waiting for the, the cure to come out, or you're waiting for that next best pill or that next best injection, just understand, like, that's happening inside of you, and you need to take charge of your own health because no one else is gonna do it for you. So when it comes to the biggest culprits behind the inflammation in our gastrointestinal system, we are dealing with so many factors, but one-- uh, these are some of the things that I see all the time, but we don't think about them. We don't think about, you know, this concept of organic versus not organic. We are being exposed to two hundred and sixty-two chemicals every time we eat produce, and we're supposed to be eating produce and vegetables 'cause it's healthy.
**Unknown:** So we are dealing with massive amounts of chemical exposure through our food. We're dealing with glyphosate. Glyphosate is the chemical that is in our genetically modified foods. By the way, glyphosate is what you spray your weeds with.
**Unknown:** It's Roundup, but it's in our food. Second to that, we have chloroform. Chloroform is interesting. I see this come up toxic for everyone, and chloroform is when chlorine and ammonia turn into vapor.
**Unknown:** So they clean our city water with chlorine, and when you get in the shower, and that-- you have the heated water, that turns into vapor, so you're breathing in chloroform. By the way, chloroform is like when they put it over your face and you pass out. We're getting slow doses or low doses of that every time we shower unless you have a shower filter. Another one is manganese peroxide.
**Unknown:** Manganese peroxide is partly in a lot of our personal products, but secondary to that, we have manganese peroxide as a byproduct of fungus in our food. So this was actually really interesting. When I was in France, I was watching the news, and there was this whole segment about, um, agrotech. It was pretty much how they use technology in agriculture.
**Unknown:** But one of the things they talked about was the, the wine. Everybody knows the French wine is the best, but part of the reason is because they have cameras that hover over the vineyards. It's artificial intelligence, and it snapshots to pick up on fungus on the crop. So if they find fungus through the technology in the vineyards, they go in and they rip it out, so it doesn't spread.
**Unknown:** So when we're talking about fungus in our food and mold, it's everything from our stinky cheeses like blue cheese, wine, coffee, peanut butter. So this is something that actually in abundance can be extremely toxic to the system. So we're not just talking about infections in our gut, we're talking about massive toxicity in our gut, which is leading us to all of these food allergies that we're dealing with. So the other thing with celiac, so they say that the gold standard for celiac is actually doing an endoscope, and the endoscope is the camera that goes down.
**Unknown:** And primarily what they're gonna do is they're going to do a visual to see if there's damage and inflammation. They're also going to, uh, biopsy some of the villi to see if they are flattened and damaged, and if they are, they're going to say that you have celiac. The thing is, is that when-- depending on where the biopsy was done, if the biopsy was done in the stomach, then you could easily be dealing with a different condition called autoimmune pernicious anemia. Autoimmune pernicious anemia is when the immune system is attacking the parietal cells of the stomach, which does not allow you to absorb B12.
**Unknown:** So you become massively deficient in B12, plus have a lot of symptoms like celiac. So these are two different conditions, and they are treated differently. And secondary to that, you also need to consider the massive deficiencies you're going to get if you do have the pernicious anemia as well. So when you're dealing with the imaging, if it's an endoscope or a colonoscopy, you might not be understanding the full picture of why you feel the way you do.
**Unknown:** Also, you will never see bacteria, you will not see parasites, you will not see viruses, you will not see any type of infection on a colonoscopy or an endoscopy. It is not possible. You have to culture it. So if you are saying, "Oh, I had those done, and they told me I'm fine, so I don't have infections," that is not accurate.
**Unknown:** So going back to this parasite conversation, 'cause when I tell people that they get crazy around a full moon, they usually are like, "What the heck? Can we talk more about this?" Um, but this woman, uh, specifically Kathleen, wrote this book called This Is Your Brain On Parasites. And for those of you interested, interested, it's actually very fascinating. But, uh, she was a scientist.
**Unknown:** She proved over and over and over again that parasites will hijack your behavior. And primarily, her first study that she did was on the insect ants, and she infected a couple of the ants with a parasite, and then she watched them, she monitored them. And the ants that were infected versus not, they actually acted very normal during the day. They went out, they gathered and brought things back to the anthill.
**Unknown:** And at night, normally ants will all stay in their anthill. But what happened was that the ants that were infected actually migrated out, went into the field, went onto the tippy, tippy top of a blade of grass and sat there. The reason is because the parasite that they were infected with, its most ideal environment to reproduce was a sheep's stomach. So it hijacked the ant's behavior to put it in the opportune environment to get eaten by a sheep.
**Unknown:** Whoa, mind-blowing. That was the first study that I read in the book, and she proved it over and over and over again for years. So the interesting thing about parasites, though, is they are extremely hard to test. TheTesting that's available, in the US at least, is stool testing.
**Unknown:** And when you're dealing with stool testing, twenty minutes after a bowel movement leaves your body, the parasites that are in your sample will self-destruct. So by the time you package it up and you send it out to the lab, they're gonna deem you free of parasites. So in other countries, I know this isn't the most glamorous for people, but you actually have to have a bowel movement in the office, and they put it under a microscope immediately. We have other ways that we test for parasites.
**Unknown:** One of them is our bioresonance technology, the other one is our autonomic response testing. So we actually have non-invasive ways to test for parasites now, opposed to relying on stool samples, which you will miss parasite infections. So again, for those of you that have been down the functional integrative route and you have not been able to resolve your gut issues, it might be because the samples, the stool samples that you did completely missed the fact that you had a parasite issue. So one of these, uh, case studies is really, really fascinating.
**Unknown:** This was a woman who presented with chronic migraines. She also had irritable bowel. She actually didn't really come to us for her irritable bowel. She just kinda deemed it her normal and learned how to live with it.
**Unknown:** But, but her migraines were her big, big issue. So during the consultation, she-- we were talking and kind of, you know, doing her physical exam, and she was talking about having a lot of pain in her right ribcage. Uh, she also told me that she was lactose intolerant. So the first place that my mind went is your right ribcage is where your liver and gallbladder is.
**Unknown:** Your gallbladder helps you break down fats. So lactose intolerant. I started thinking what's going on with her gallbladder. So then we did her testing.
**Unknown:** She actually had mold exposure. Um, mold exposure is one of the things that tends to affect the gallbladder. She also had some parasites in her gut as well. So through the testing, the gallbladder was definitely one of the most stressed organs in the gastrointestinal system.
**Unknown:** So interesting enough, uh, we have a technology called a bio scan, which I call it like dig-digital acupuncture. So what it does is it evaluates the meridians. So when looking at the meridian of the gallbladder, this is the pattern that it follows. It literally comes up over the side of the head on the right.
**Unknown:** That was exactly where her headaches were. So we actually did some work on her gallbladder. We did some detoxification. We did some supplements.
**Unknown:** We worked on the meridian using the bio scan technology, and literally her migraines went away, and her gastrointestinal issues went away. So she never had, um, head problems. She never had a brain problem. She never really had a migraine problem.
**Unknown:** She had a gallbladder problem. So that's the fascinating thing about doing better testing. So secret number three, gut disease and autoimmunity is irreversible. So at the end of the day, when you understand the root, anything is possible.
**Unknown:** And I put this little blurb in here because in Crohn's disease, a rogue immune system attacks the digestive tract, causing inflammation and tissue damage. So again, we're just settling for a rogue immune system attack. Oh, we have no idea why the immune system is attacking. The immune system attacks bad stuff.
**Unknown:** We established this earlier. It attacks infections, it attacks viruses, it attacks foreign particles, it attacks toxins, it attacks all things bad. So if there are things in your system that should not be there, your immune system is going to attack them, and it will create an inflammatory response in that area, which can then lead you to Crohn's disease or other types of autoimmune or inflammatory gut conditions. So it's just a matter of doing better testing to know what is in your gut, what is in there, or is your gut connected to something else, and that's why you haven't been able to fix it.
**Unknown:** So really the biggest thing to take away from this is rarely do things look like the textbook. You know, the woman coming in with the migraines, she wasn't a migraine case, so she didn't look like a textbook migraine patient. So if she doesn't look like the textbook and other people don't look like the textbook, how are we going to treat like the textbook? How are we gonna do the one pill cure?
**Unknown:** How are we gonna do the one diet cure? It doesn't work that way, and we cannot let this fool us anymore. We need to ask better questions. We need to demand more.
**Unknown:** We need to do better testing. So at the end of the day, healthcare is about answers and solutions, and I think we forget this. I think we forget what it's really all about or what it's supposed to be about. We're supposed to be able to go to the doctor, understand why we don't feel well, and get a solution.
**Unknown:** But instead, we get a Band-Aid and potentially never actually get answers. And this is why I love what I do, and this is why I get up every day, because I absolutely love being able to piece the puzzle together and figure out exactly why you feel the way you do and tell you exactly what you need to do to get better. I can say this this confidently because I trust in the process that we do here, and I trust in the testing, and we have just such a ridiculously amazing team that has all dealt with their own health journeys and just love what we do because it's transformed their lives. All right.
**Unknown:** I just wanna let you guys know, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope this was really, really helpful. You know, this is such an educational experience as I take you through and kind of have you understand the bigger picture behind healthcare and why you might be dealing with symptoms that you haven't been able to get rid of. What I will tell you is when you actually get your own testing done and you're able to figure out what your body needs, like that is such a breakthrough experience.
**Unknown:** And it's truly life-changing because you're able to walk away knowledgeable and empowered and then obviously be able to heal. So this is just something that I love doing and helping to educate, but, you know, being able to take this information and, and run with it and, and do something with it so that you don't have to settle for the normal that you've been dealing with. All right. So for those of you that wanna check out our website, we have tons of podcasts.
**Unknown:** We do live videos. Integrativewellnessgroup.com is literally a wealth of knowledge. If you wanna also learn a little bit more about me, a little bit more about our entire process, it's all there on the website. So check it out.
**Unknown:** And then for those of you that really just wanna hop on a call and know if we are a good fit for you, just, uh, check out the website or use the link to apply so that you can get on one of those strategy calls. They're completely free. All right, guys, I hope you have an amazing night. I hope you enjoyed, and I will see you next week.
**Unknown:** We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com.
**Unknown:** All night, no sleep 'cause I feel like I'm always dreaming. Wide awake, that's okay.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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