If you have a pulse, you have a parasite
Episode 119
In today’s episode of the Integrative Wellness Radio, Dr. Nicole discusses the true definition of a parasite and the sources of parasites that you may not have even considered. She also discusses several myths and common misconceptions about parasites. Dr. Nicole shares her own surprising experience with parasites and sheds light on why not all are bad. Meanwhile, Dr. Nick gives us an insight into the tests and protocols used to safely detoxify and say goodbye to your parasitic friends. Interested in working with IWG? Book a complimentary consult call to learn more using this link: https://bit.ly/IWRcall2021 Noteworthy Time Stamps: 2:57 How we get exposed to parasites 6:05 Infested sources & foods 08:40 The neurological impact of parasites 10:47 Not all parasites are bad 18:04 How Cellcore helped Dr. Nicole 26:03 Dr. Nick sheds light on enemas & colonics 34:10 The full moon’s impact on parasites 38:50 How parasites hijack your behavior
Topics: parasites, parasite, exposed, because, sick, animals, eating, integrative
Key takeaways from this episode
- And these animals are sick because they are eating grain and soy, they are being given antibiotics to fight off infections that they have and they're also being given growth hormone to make them grow bigger so they yield a higher weight at the time of being butchered.
- 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.
- And because the factory farming is really unsanitary conditions, this is actually creating sick animals.
- And the reason being is has anybody known how you really get exposed to a parasite?
- So I've been talking about parasites for a long time and I've seen a lot of crazy stuff come through my office.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
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.
So this has been all of the craze lately and there has been a lot of talk about parasites.
Transcript
I've 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. 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. Hey, hey everyone. So we are talking about parasites. So this has been all of the craze lately and there has been a lot of talk about parasites. There are actually a lot of people that have been doing their own protocols based on things that they've seen online. So I'm here to just give you a little bit of a background on what the heck is a parasite number one. Is it possible that you've been exposed? Number two, and what do the symptoms actually look like? And how can you actually best help your body to eradicate them if you need to. And that will be kind of its own little topic in itself. But as we kinda navigate this. So number one is what the heck is a parasite. So there is this idea that parasites are things that you get exposed to when you go to Mexico and drink the water. But in reality, parasites are something that you can get exposed to through food nowadays. And I say this because we are living in an era where industrial and factory farming is one of the primary sources of our animal products in stores. I'm not a vegan, I'm not a vegetarian. Um, I do find that my personal body does really well with animal products. But I've learned to become very, very particular on where they come from. And because the factory farming is really unsanitary conditions, this is actually creating sick animals. And these animals are sick because they are eating grain and soy, they are being given antibiotics to fight off infections that they have and they're also being given growth hormone to make them grow bigger so they yield a higher weight at the time of being butchered. So there's a lot of issues with the food that we're consuming when these animals were sick and they're not just sick with bacteria. They can also be sick with parasitic infections as well. And the reason being is has anybody known how you really get exposed to a parasite? And, you know, when it comes to getting exposed to a parasite is it's fecal oral. Yeah, guys, poop to mouth. So that doesn't mean you're eating poop, what it means is that feces are contaminating something. Feces are contaminating an animal, a person, a body of water. So when you are talking about animals, you are talking about animals that are in close uh, proximity to each other. Do you ever see those pictures of those chickens that are all, like, in those, you know, houses, barns and they're on top of each other. So they're pooping and eating in the same places. So yes, I know this is totally disgusting and horrifying, but it's the reality. And it's the reality of what you guys are eating on a day to day. So you are now on your new keto diet and you're eating your grilled chicken and salad, but you're not necessarily going for the organic or the pasture raised, and you're not even realizing that you're getting exposed to antibiotics, growth hormone, as well as a variety of different types of pathogens like bacteria and parasites just from trying to eat a bit healthier. That doesn't mean don't eat healthy, by the way. So personally for me, I know some of you guys know this story. And my story is actually two parts. So for those of you that got the email that went out, you saw uh, one of my older stories because that video is actually from a really long time ago. So I've been talking about parasites for a long time and I've seen a lot of crazy stuff come through my office. So, you know, I got stories for you. But my uh, original, you know, start in the functional medicine space because I really started with the functional before I got into the integrative is that I was a pescatarian. Um, I ate fish. That was the primary protein that I ate. I ate it for 10 years. And at that time, I this was high school through college. I did not know that all sushi was not created equal. I also did not know that um, there was a difference between wild and farmed. I had, I knew nothing about that. I thought I was being healthy by eating fish and not eating the pizza or the baked ziti. Yes, we eat those things in Jersey. So I thought that I was making the better choice. But when it comes down to the source and when you're dealing with sushi, you're obviously dealing with raw fish. I eat raw fish now, but I'm very particular on where it's coming from. Because when you're dealing with fish, there are certain types of fish that are very, I don't want to say high, but they're, they're more probable to have parasite issues. Like cod is one of them. Cod always has to be de-wormed. Yes, totally gross people. I get it. In addition to that, is when you're dealing with shellfish, which technically are filter feeders, they very often have a lot of contamination, they also have parasite issues. So, again, I've only established now the food piece of this puzzle is parasites can come from your regular conventional food, especially proteins that are coming from factory farming, fish that is farmed, and also cheap, cheap food. When you're going to your fast food places or you're going to a buffet sushi place, like, this is very, very poor quality. That's why it's cheap. Cheap is not always better. Understand that, especially when you're dealing with food. The other layer to this that I honestly didn't even know until or I didn't acknowledge I should, I should say until later in my career is that I would have people say, I've been a vegan my whole life. How the heck do I get parasites? Good question. Then you're dealing with bodies of water that we swim in, walk in. So there are certain parasites that can go in through your foot through walking through a body of water, like a lake or a pond. In addition is swimming in the lovely bodies of water of the metropolitan area, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. There is tons and tons of contamination. What you have to understand with this idea of farmed fish is they'll say, 'Oh it was farmed sustainably.' What that means is they're farming the fish in the ocean. So those fish that are sick, that have worms, are now contaminating the natural bodies of water, which is actually infecting some of the wild fish. So these are all things to be considered is where is your fish coming from and farmed sustainably is not actually any better. So, it's really a matter of where are you swimming? You know, what is, is there water contamination in where you live and what are you eating? So these are some of the key things. The other thing that people don't always understand is they are thinking, 'Oh, well, if somebody gets a parasite, I would imagine they get so sick and they're throwing up and they have diarrhea and maybe it looks like a food poisoning.' Yes, definitely a possibility. But there is a lot of individuals that have more of a low grade issue and they have more subtle symptoms. So I will tell you this, I have never worked with a case of irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, or even gastritis that didn't have a parasite issue. I'm not saying that there was the only issue or the top issue. They usually also had bacterial issues and pesticide residues in their gut. But they all have had some level of parasites in their system causing that disruption. In addition to that, is there are parasitic infections that can mess you up neurological. So, have you guys ever heard the saying that um, when you're pregnant, don't change the cat litter. So a lot of people have heard that, or they heard their mom say it or whoever. And what they don't realize is the reason why you shouldn't change the cat litter when you're pregnant is not because because of the cat, it's because cats are carriers of a very specific type of parasite called toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is actually something that can be tested through Lab Corp, not saying it's the best test, but again, I'll get into the more of the logistics on the testing. So but toxoplasmosis is something that can literally come from cat feces. So they tell pregnant women, do not change the cat litter. So parasites are more common than you realize. But when we're thinking about, okay, if a cat can be a carrier, what about a dog? What about other types of animals? And when you're even talking about your dog having certain types of digestive issues, what's the most common thing that they're recommending? Make sure your dog is on a de-wormer. Heartworm, gut worms. They also will do samples in the veterinary office. They'll take a poop sample from your dog right away to see, does the dog have giardia, which is a parasite or some other type of parasitic infection. Who's picking up their poop? You are. Who is getting licked in the face by their dog? I know I am. So you have to understand is there are so many avenues of exposure. And I'm going to just tell you right now and I'm going to totally horrify all of you is you all have parasites. But that doesn't mean that they're all problematic. So I'm going to give you an example. So Freddy, my good buddy runs a company called Ambiqoil. Ambiqoil is one of the technologies we have in the office. And he posted when we were, uh, posted that we were doing this, he posted such a valuable question. And he said, 'Everybody thinks parasites are bad. You know, can you shed light on the fact that some of them are not?' And yes, there are some parasites that are totally benign that really don't cause too many problems. Um, but secondary to that is when you have a parasite, sometimes that parasite can be benefiting you. So hold onto your seats. So outside of everything that I've just horrified you guys with, with understanding that we all have parasites, have been exposed potentially from swimming, walking in water, eating food, eating sushi, so on and so forth, is that tag along a variety of other things we're getting exposed to just through our food industry. And that is everything from pesticide residues. There are heavy metals in our water, especially for drinking tap water. You know, a lot of our bottled water is in plastics, which has its own array of chemicals. But overall, we are exposed to a lot of different chemicals and a lot of environmental pesticides and insecticides, et cetera. If you don't do it on your lawn, chances are your neighbors are spraying for mosquitoes and putting pesticides on their lawn. So the crap is everywhere. And what you need to understand is that sometimes when you have certain toxins in your body, let's use deet as an example. So DDT, deet, is the primary ingredient in a lot of bug spray. In addition to that, is it's one of the primary ingredients in what they spray for mosquitoes still to this day. So if you've ever read up on deet or DDT, it is very, very, very toxic. But it is something that I find unfortunately very often in testing that I do. So when you have something like deet in your system, which is a very aggressive, toxic pesticide, then you could potentially have parasites in your system that are eating those toxins. And so your parasite, you could go on a parasite protocol and you don't shed any parasites, or you did testing with a practitioner and they said, 'You have parasites.' And then they retest you after your protocol and you still have parasites. I've seen this happen. And it's not like, 'Oh my gosh, what did I do wrong, the protocol didn't work, the supplements didn't work,' so on and so forth, is you have to ask, does your body need those parasites? Are they actually serving a purpose in your system? And this was actually the case for me. I had very bad mercury toxicity and very bad pesticide toxicity. So the parasite that I actually found in my system was benefitting me because it was eating the toxic waste from those toxins. So once I was able to do the groundwork to get some of those toxins out of my body, that's when my body was finally ready to deal with eliminating the parasite because there was no need for it anymore. So speaking of this, I want you guys to kind of understand an aspect of testing. Because some of you are listening and some of you are like, 'I don't buy it. Like if I had a parasite, I would've known.' Or, 'If I had a parasite, some doctor would have found it by now.' Yeah, I 100% wish you were right. But the harsh reality of this is that one of the things I just mentioned was uh, veterinary office. So if your dog is having issues, if your dog is having constipation, loose bowel movements, if your dog's lethargic, they, you bring your dog in, they do a swab of his butt and they get a stool sample and they put it under a microscope immediately to see if there's a parasite issue. That's the best way to do it. But as humans, not the most comfortable. Not the most glamorous. So what we do is we do a stool sample and we, you know, put it, we take it over a couple days, we put it in a little container and then we ship it out and we send it out to a lab. It takes three, four, five days, one week, two weeks. It takes a long time. By the time the tech gets it, now they got to process it. Well, you have to understand is that you are the host. They live off of you. They eat your food, they eat your waste. They eat what you provide. So when they leave your body, they no longer have a host. So they die. They autolyze. They breakdown. So by the time your sample reaches the lab, they say, 'Nope. No parasites.' I have literally had patients do three stool samples, one patient, I'm talking about specifically. One patient did three stool samples, they all cleared him of parasite infection, and he was taking a certain supplement I provided. Mom sends me pictures of worms that were this long coming out of him. So that is when I stopped doing stool samples. So not every test is going to be accurate and there is a lot, a lot of limitations when it comes to testing for parasites. We actually opt to do DNA based testing now because the DNA based testing picks up on your DNA, but it also picks up on foreign DNA. And that foreign DNA could be things like parasites, bacteria or viruses. So there are better ways to do it. Um, but it's not necessarily that every practitioner is up to par with understanding this. So again, because you did a stool sample or you saw some practitioner and they said, 'Absolutely not, there's no possible way that you have parasites.' Um, this is something that it it's a huge problem. But it, again, it doesn't mean that everybody should be treated for parasites tomorrow. So don't, like, go online and start googling a bunch of weird stuff and start taking supplements. Um, but it's a matter of, are you actually symptomatic? Like if you are a person who has major gut issues and nothing's helping and you have now settled for the diagnosis of Crohn's, you've settled for ulcerative colitis. You've just settled for it and you're just like, 'Well, medication is the only thing that's going to help me.' That's when you really need to start exploring this as a possibility. Because you don't have to live with it. Crohn's is something that they tell you is not curable. That is not true. Because all it's telling you is you have massive inflammation that is creating ulcerations, ulcerative patches through your gastrointestinal system. And you got to figure out what's causing it. It doesn't happen for no reason, it's not bad genetics. So, and it's not bad luck either. It's something is in your gut that should not be there. So maybe it's parasites, maybe it's pesticide residues. It's really trying to nail down what the heck. So in addition to that, is some of the other key things with parasites. Is one, grinding your teeth. I'm not going to sit here and tell you if you grind your teeth, you 100% have parasites. It's one symptom. It could be other things, but that's a possibility. If you have a gut pain, cramping. The other thing too, this was my story. Um, and this has actually been many people I've worked with. Gut cramping that can actually mimic menstrual cramping that can cause you to black out or faint. So these, this is something that I personally dealt with because my vagus nerve got involved with um, being infected from all the issues I had in my gut. I was literally passing out after I was doing a long run when I was in college and nobody knew what was wrong with me. But it was causing a vasovagal response, but it was stemming from all of the inflammation in my gut from the parasitic infection. And what's kind of crazy about this, and we'll get a little bit more into it is Cellcore is absolutely one of my favorite companies at this point. And I'll tell you why. But I did a Cellcore protocol and this was after I don't even know how many protocols I've done. I've been at this for like eight years. So I'm not saying that I'm crazy strict and I'm doing crazy protocols for eight years. But, you know, I'm, I'm constantly working on myself in little increments. But but also keeping balance in my life. I think that's really important to take away. Is this is not about being on a cleanse or a detox forever. I value doing certain things to keep my body detoxing and keep my body up to par. But when I got introduced to the Cellcore products, I wanted to try them. So I, I tried it out and I didn't really have any grandiose expectations. I was just like, 'Oh, you know, people are raving about it, let me give it a whirl.' And in the event of using the Cellcore Para 1 and their MitoATP, those are the only two products that I use, I passed a two-foot parasite. So, people, it is real and it is horrifying. And I am sorry to share that story with you, but hey, if you know me, I'm pretty open book and TMI is like my middle name. So, yes, it is possible and there the women that I've actually worked with who had similar symptoms that had the horrible cramping that felt like menstrual cramping. Um, women that have been to the hospital because of debilitating gastrointestinal pain, um, women that have had fainting spells, they have also passed very large parasites. So there's ways to go about this in a really strategic way. But guys, before you're like hopping off here and like getting on Amazon and buying a bunch of stuff, is what you need to understand is that this is not necessarily about killing things. And this is one of the things that I really liked about Cellcore because if you go in with products like wormwood, paragard, artemisinin, like these are your telltale anti-parasitics. Um, yes, uh, this can mimic, I'm assuming you mean endometriosis, yes. Um, but these killing agents, even prescription anti-parasitics, if you go and start these products. Something that you have to consider is, can you actually get rid of them? Do you have proper elimination? Do you poop two to three times a day? Do you have a well-functioning liver and gallbladder. Like, do you have the ability to get this stuff out of your body? Because if you go and you try to kill a bunch of stuff and it's chilling in your gut, think about that. Think about a dead animal sitting on the side of the road. It's decomposing. It's breaking down. It stinks because it's giving off endotoxins. You don't want dead stuff sitting in your gut. So please be careful if you're going to do stuff on your own, or work with a practitioner. I don't care if it's me, someone else, somebody who knows what they're actually doing. But you have to make sure that things are actually moving. And it's that is just key, key, key, key, key. People do this with Lyme disease too. Tons of antibiotics, tons of killing agents and now they have dead borrelia, dead Lyme sitting in their body and they're sicker than they ever were. If you feel horribly sick going through a parasite cleanse or horribly sick going through a SIBO protocol, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or terrible going through a Lyme protocol, you're doing it wrong. And I'm not saying that's your fault, I'm just saying is that you, you don't have proper elimination pathways. Sometimes parasites will eat things like heavy metals and pesticides. So you want to make sure that you you're not trying to kill a parasite who's actually helping you in that moment. Cause you might have toxins that you need to get out of your body before you address the parasite issue. So strategy is key when looking at the body. And this is really hard to figure out on your own because first of all, you just don't have the background in it. And second of all, is you don't have data. You need to have data points. You actually need something more than just blood work. You need more comprehensive ways to look at your body to know what the heck is actually going on. But yes, the person who mentioned the endometriosis, I'm really glad that you said that because think about, you know, your rectum and that is in the lower portion of your pelvic bowl. And you have to understand is that your small and large intestine also take up a portion of your pelvic bowl. So again, like going down to that pubic bone area. So your reproductive organs are sitting, sorry for the person eating. Your reproductive organs are sitting in that area. Your bladder is sitting in that area. So if you have a ton of inflammation in your bowels, you could get adhesions, like scar tissue that binds to your bladder, that binds to your reproductive organs. That scar tissue can be called endometriosis. It could be called um, fibroids. It could be called cysts. It can develop, create the development of a lot of these issues in the reproductive family. This is why so many women are like, 'Oh I get bad diarrhea with my period.' That's because when you're, when you get your cycle, your um, your tissue becomes more inflamed and it puts more pressure on your descending colon, which makes you have more uh, more diarrhea. So there is a lot of intricacies when it comes to the pelvic bowl and understanding that your gastrointestinal system can very much influence your reproductive system as well as your urinary system. So the person that has interstitial cystitis that's getting treated for that, but nobody's looking at the gut, nobody's looking at the reproductive organs, you can be totally missing the root of the issue. And the same thing, the person being treated for endometriosis or treated for fibroids or cysts or chronic miscarriages, you could easily be missing the fact that it's not truly a reproductive problem, but the reproductive problem is an effect from the massive inflammation in the gastrointestinal system. So keep that in mind. Anatomy is huge. You need to think overall, it's just understanding that there is a lot of things that are interconnected. And it's really just a matter of knowing what is the root of your issues. So overall, yes, you can get rid of parasites. Um, but again, you have to know, is it the root of your problem? And you also need to understand that it's not necessarily always about kill, kill, kill, but making sure that everything is moving. Making sure the lymph nodes in your abdomen are actually draining and your immune system is supported through the process. So some of the questions that we had submitted, um, I want to go through some of those because I know that's why some of you are here. But one of the specifics was, should I be doing enemas? Ooh, let's talk enemas. I know people are uh, really love that idea. I should probably bring my husband in right now. He loves enemas. Um, so when it comes to enemas and colonics, I do want to make a point to really tell you guys the difference. Is colonics are something that a lot of people do. They feel more comfortable because individuals, um, so, uh, individuals, like, uh, colonics because it's administered for them, but colonics are actually for motility, correct? Yes. Colonics are Yeah, when you say motility, colonics is is really designed to increase what's known as peristalsis, which is the actual contraction of your large intestine, which pushes the poop, uh, throughout. So somebody's having an issue, which could be connected to a vagus nerve issue, um, which I think you talked about before but I was working on some stuff, wasn't listening to everything. Um, your vagus is a healthy relationship. Uh, your vagus nerve is, uh, big part of the nerve connection, uh, to create that activation, which we call peristalsis. So one of the mechanisms you can do vagus nerve exercises, but you can also do colonics, um, to also help increase that connectivity. And then the other one is enemas. So there's all different types of enemas. There's coffee enema, there's parasitic enemas, there's, we do something called laser structured water enemas. So there's a lot of different ways to go about it, but overall, when you're dealing with enemas, it's a matter of, yes, they can be beneficial, but they can also piss stuff off. Yeah, so in enemas there's no activation, um, and there's a lot of different types of enemas that one can do based on what's happening. This is all geared towards parasites, um, so those are some very specific ones with parasites, but one of the foundational ones to start off with is coffee enemas because you not only want to kinda clear things out and kinda kill at the same time, but you want to make sure that your major detox organ, your liver, that's associated with detoxing through the stool, is going to be activated, uh, with that. So having a coffee enema, uh, the high caffeine, once it hits that portal vein, uh, really releases a lot of the toxins. Um, like we should be clear, people, do not go out and just, like, buy your Starbucks coffee and roast that up and put that in a bag and shove it up your butt. So let's be clear on that one. They smile. Nope. Shove it up your butt. Shove it up your butt. We're in, we are in South Carolina. So there is a very specific way to do coffee enemas. Um, if you have, yeah. If you are someone who is brand new to this idea, but you're like, 'Hey, sounds interesting. I want to try it out.' The easiest thing you could do is look up the Gerson protocol. Um, Gerson is on the internet so you can find like specifically how to do it, what are the materials to buy, what type of coffee to buy. It's a green bean, which means it's air roasted, which allows us to have the highest amount of caffeine. Of course, you want to do an organic brand. Um, Wilson is what I use personally. Um, tried and true and trusted. Yeah. But, uh, yeah. Couple of other good ones. Yeah. But overall with the caffeine idea, there's a lot of people that will say, 'Oh, I don't wanna do that because I'm really sensitive to caffeine and I think that'll wire me.' So the caffeine, the primary reason why this is beneficial is that coffee enemas will not kill parasites. That's not what they do. Coffee enemas will go all the way up through your intestines to your liver and it dilates your hepatic portal vein and your bile ducts. So not trying to get fancy on you guys. But when your liver detoxes, it takes bile, it binds up a bunch of toxins. That goes into your gallbladder and then that spits into your gut. And that ball of bile is supposed to go through your intestines and then you poop it out. That's one of the ways you detox. But unfortunately, a lot of people that are dealing with like right quadrant pain near their rib cage, they've had a history of gallstones. They have major lactose intolerance, or they have issues with eating fried foods, fatty foods. Like, those are all signs that your liver and gallbladder are sluggish. Also, right shoulder pain, as well as headaches around the side of the head. That's yeah, temple headache. So those are all signs that your liver and gallbladder are not working properly, which means you probably aren't going to eliminate things very well, even if you're taking supplements that kill parasites. So the coffee enema opens up those ducts to dump out the bile so that you can clear out any type of sludge that's in that area so that you have better bowel movements, better motility and you're detoxing more effectively. So, anchored in peace. Colonics, you go to a place. Most of the time, there are places that will let you do enemas. Um, but honestly, it's What are you saying, Cory? I'm snapping people's necks. The enemas are usually done in your own house. Um, so I'll just go to the bathroom once I feel the urge. You try to hold it about 15, 20 minutes. Um, if you do have an issue of holding, um, sometimes you can have, like, some spasms going through the colon, uh, doing an organic molasses, uh, just about a tablespoon of that mixed with it, will really allow, um, everything to settle and not be hard to hold, um, because it has tons of good quality minerals in the molasses. Yeah. And if you guys, um, we have created a pretty in-depth protocol on how to do coffee enemas. Um, if you guys want our recommendations and not necessarily just the generic Gerson protocol, shoot your email below and I can make sure that our team gets it over to you. We've, um, I've been as you know, kind of obsessed with enemas and I've been hacking the coffee enemas to be able to maximize my time to be as efficient as possible. Yeah. And one thing that we've toyed with that we have not done, um, but if you guys are here and you're into it, we were thinking about actually doing a group parasite cleanse and, you know, having a Facebook group and giving you guy support as we go. Um, sounds scary. Sounds scary, but it's better to I know you guys are going to do it anyway. I know you're not going to listen to me. So I'm like, at least if I can help you to make sure you're doing it right, um, but I personally feel very strongly about, you know, helping to get rid of parasites if they're one of your issues because I feel like it personally changed my life. And I'm not saying because I was, you know, doubled over in pain with my gastrointestinal issues. I actually really didn't have gastrointestinal issues. One of the things that we haven't talked about so far is the fact that parasites actually hijack your behavior. So So there was, um, full moon was this weekend. So one of the things that you hear all the time is like, 'Oh, people are acting crazy. I wonder if it's a full moon.' So there is relevance behind that statement because parasites are the most sexually active under a full moon. AKA they be having some babies in your gut. And I should actually say that it's not just in your gut. Parasites can be in your lungs. I mean they can be in your feet. They can be in your brain. Um, they can be in a lot of places. So that toxoplasmosis that we talked about, pretty common. Yeah. We're, we're getting there with our sinus protocol, our anti-parasitic sinus protocol. But um, not to completely derail, but parasites can be anywhere. They tend they're not necessarily just in your gut. Toxoplasmosis specifically is a neurological parasite that actually causes rupturing of the capillaries of your brain. So toxoplasmosis can induce bipolar behavior. It can also make you more susceptible to aneurysms and stroke. So this is something to really understand because again, you know, these are conditions that we don't know why this happened, it must be genetic. But there might be this underlying factor. And one of the tests that we actually use called Vibrant America does a really great job at testing for toxoplasmosis, um, affecting the neurological system. So again, circling back to mental health and parasitic infections is that the book that I read. But it was called my your brain on parasites by Kathleen McFarland. And this book was mind blowing because this woman was a scientist and a researcher and she specifically study parasites. And all of her colleagues were, like, like they were just like, 'You're stupid. What are you doing? You're wasting your career. Parasites are irrelevant. I can't believe like this would be your focus. Like you're going to be a laughing stock,' of of research. And she, it ended up being quite the opposite because the first thing that she ever did was she studied an ant, like the insect that was infected with a parasite. So under normal circumstances, ants will go out during the day and they will gather and they will come and bring things back to the ant hill. And at night they will stay in the ant hill and they will sleep. And the, they had a set of ants that they infected, I don't remember which parasite, but a specific parasite. And those ants did their normal behavior during the day. But at night, when all the other ants were staying in the ant hill, these ants went out into the field and they went out and stood on the tippy top of a blade of grass. And the reason is because the parasite hijacked their behavior to put them in the most opportune environment to get eaten by the parasite's ideal host. So the ideal host for this parasite was a sheep because it could reproduce most effectively in a sheep's stomach. So, pretty much this woman for years, study after study from insects to small animals to large animals, she proved that it hijacks the behavior of these animals. And We're not good. Trust me. It's always correlation. It's always correlation. Well, part of it is because the gut makes serotonin. So if serotonin is your feel good hormone. But then the other layer to that is if you have a parasitic issue, are you completely hijacked? Like I remember the day that I passed that parasite and and everybody asked me, they're like, 'Wow, you must feel so good. Your gut must feel so much better.' And my answer was, my gut doesn't actually feel any different whatsoever. It wasn't even a major pain point for me. But what I feel is I feel like almost like an energetic parasite. Like I let go of emotional baggage. She stopped beating me as much too. Yeah. I knew you were going to say something. I knew you were going to say something. But to, I mean, to really blow some minds, and this isn't nothing, when you look at medicine or you look at the body, nothing's an all or nothing thing. Yeah. But one of the big things I do is the human behavior aspect, um, in the office. And I love looking at connections. So it's like, be able to look at, first of all, you know, what type of parasite do you have, what you said, where is it? So where is it affecting? Is it affecting the pancreas? Is it in the stomach? Is it in the gut? Is it up in the sinuses? Because there has a correlation. You know, when we look foundationally just at what we are, what everything is, it's energy. I'm not going to get too deep. I'm not going to get too deep on the energy for some reason. But like attracts light. So one of the things that I found clinically is that when we do have parasites and they hijack us, they're hijacking us. They're empowered. So when they're empowered, we're disempowered. So when we are able to correlate where that parasite is, you know, if it's over the stomach or let's say the pancreas, that's over our third chakra, which is our identity. Are we living on purpose? You know, are we serving others or are we serving equally ourself and society? So it's about really going through and looking like, you know, if it's in your sinuses, being able to always be able to connect the points of, you know, are we living a fantasy? Are we trying to see things and live a life that's really just not congruent with who we are. And going through all the different phases because sometimes, and this is happening clinically, which got us to this point of understanding is that people can go through parasite cleanse and parasite cleanse and parasite cleanse and parasite cleanse, and parasite cleanse, and they'll never get rid of them because they're disempowered in that aspect of their life. So we need to look at mental, emotional aspect to be able to empower the person where they're disempowered, so we don't need that external governing system. A parasite. So that's not for everybody, but it definitely happens more often than what we realize. Well, when we have the individuals who come to us who said, I've tried to get rid of my parasites 20 times and I haven't been able to do it, we start asking better questions is really what it comes down to. And it's really just a matter of, you know, we know this stuff now because we've been forced to think outside the box because there's individuals that They, the people that come to us, they've been everywhere. They've been everywhere, they've done a lot of things. They're very educated in their own health. They're smarter than most doctors. They They really are, and they were looking for something different. They're like why, why am I not getting better? Why is this not working? And it's multifaceted, but it's also just is, are we completely missing the root of your issue? And very often, as what Nick is saying, is that when we do our, our timeline through our consultation, you know, we realize that the gut issue started right at the same time some type of major life event happened, a loss of a loved one, a divorce, or, you know, something else. even a loss of a pet. And these types of things happen and then all of a sudden, now they feel disempowered, depressed, etc. And then an organism has the ability to be opportunistic. It has the ability to take over and hijack. So that's the thing you have to understand is that this is not black and white and there is no fucking black and white in medicine. And I'm getting, like, I get so heated about it because it's just like, we see the damn commercials and they just tell us, like, 'Oh, just take the pill and everything's going to be great.' And just do the surgery and your life's going to be changed. And it's just, it's not that. We are energy, we are water, we are emotions, we are biochemistry, we are organs, we are everything. And doctors need to start asking better questions. And they need to start thinking outside the box because what we're doing is not working. It's not working at all. And it's a matter of, I don't care if we sound weird and woo woo to certain people because what we do works and it gets results and we're not afraid of asking better or different questions. So that's our biggest takeaway today is yes, parasites are real. Yes, they can be part of your problem. Yes, they can cause your gut to be in knots. Yes, they can make you moody as hell. Yes, they can cause endometriosis. Yes, they can coincide with Epstein-Barr virus. Yes, they can even mess up your hearing because they can be in your sinuses and your ear canal. Yes, they can do all of those things. But is it truly just a parasite issue? Or is there other layers? So for those of you that are brand spankin' new to this, understanding, this world, you've never done a detox, you don't take supplements. Hey, join our group parasite cleanse. I'm sure you will do amazing with it because everybody needs to get some crap out of their bodies. But if you're the person who's been everywhere and you've done a lot of things and you've seen a lot of doctors, you need to, yeah, maybe you could do the group cleanse, but it's probably time for you to actually get better testing to figure out like what else do you need? Is there something that someone's missing completely? So we hope this is helpful, guys. I know this is a lot of information as always. So if you want to share this with other people, please feel free to do that. Um, we love when you share the content. It's content that everybody needs to know. Um, so we don't have a set date for the group cleanse. We were kind of just gauging to see if every, if anybody's interested. So, um, how to move forward is send us a direct message with your email address and then let us know if you're interested in the group parasite cleanse. Um, we will be using supplementation with it. We're going to lean towards the Cellcore protocol just because it's the safest. It's the most gentle and we also will be giving other recommendations. So let us know if you're interested and we will definitely put together a master plan within the next few weeks. Um, we'll get you guys shipped out all of your supplements and then we'll really be here every step of the way to, you know, support you guys. And then, like I said, is if you're looking for deeper testing, that's really where our onboarding process comes in. It includes all of your testing, consultations with either myself, Dr. Nick, um, Grace, or even uh, Dr. Roger, Dr. Melissa. So, um, please, you know, let us know how we can help. Um, that's what we're here for. All right, love you guys. See you soon. 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. I feel like I'm always dreaming. Why am I 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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