Long COVID or System Failure? What No One is Talking About
Over $1 billion has been spent on "treating" Long COVID, yet the NIH admits they don't even know what it is. This episode exposes the shocking truth: Long COVID is often a symptom of underlying systemic dysfunction, not a standalone disease, and current treatments are missing the mark.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The Billion-Dollar Question: What is Long COVID?
01:05 The Rise of Immunosuppressants: A Dangerous Trend
02:10 Immunosuppressants: Mimicking Chemo?
03:00 Understanding Your Immune System
03:20 Autoimmunity: A Misguided Attack
04:15 The True Targets: Invaders and Toxins
LINKS
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#LongCOVID #SystemFailure #Immunosuppressants #AutoimmuneDisease #ChronicIllness #IntegrativeHealth #DrNicole #BlackSheepConfessions #ImmuneSystem #Biologics #HealthDecode #FunctionalMedicine
Topics: health, covid, system, long, immunosuppressants, immune, https, integrativeyou
Key takeaways from this episode
- :00 The Billion-Dollar Question: What is Long COVID?
- :05 The Rise of Immunosuppressants: A Dangerous Trend
- :10 Immunosuppressants: Mimicking Chemo?
- :00 Understanding Your Immune System
- :20 Autoimmunity: A Misguided Attack
Pull quotes
Nicole (00:01) We're just gonna jump right in because this is something that I've been hearing about constantly.
And you know, it's always a controversial topic to talk about, but I think that this statistic is fucking insane.
They are spending the NIH has an initiative that has already spent over a billion dollars on.
Transcript
Dr. Nicole (00:01)
We're just gonna jump right in because this is something that I've been hearing about constantly. And you know, it's always a controversial topic to talk about, but I think that this statistic is fucking insane. They are spending the NIH has an initiative that has already spent over a billion dollars on. I'm gonna say this in quotes for those that are not on YouTube.
Quote unquote treatment. And and I say that because we're treating long COVID, but in reality, nobody even knows what it is. It's essentially a long list of symptoms for someone who had COVID and saying, we don't really know what's wrong with you. Sounds like long COVID. So
We're going to institute what we now use for long COVID, even though we are not going to look any deeper at what's actually going on. And so, of course, they're using a slew of different medications. one of the primary, which is now being used in so many conditions, is immunosuppressants. I think a lot of people have no idea they're even on immunosuppressants.
But this is this is the leading drug now because so many people have autoimmune diseases. So many people have chronic mystery illness with inflammation, immune system dysregulation, et cetera. So they have there are so many biologics, they're called biologics, which are immunosuppressants, that are either pill-based, injection-based, infusion-based.
And there are young kids that are on this now. There are tons of teenagers on it. And they don't even know what they're on. I'm like, so you're on an immunosuppressant. And they're like, no, no, no, I'm not. Like, can you tell tell me the name of the drug again? Like, that is an immunosuppressant. They're like, what do you mean? Why would I be on an immunosuppressant? And the other interesting factor is that these biologics immunosuppressants are essentially.
Mimic chemotherapy.
And so why is this the leading treatment? Is it for profitability? Probably, yes, there's an aspect of that. But also, why is there so much immune system dysfunction? Why are there so many autoimmune conditions? Why are there so many people having residual viral issues post COVID, which was six years ago? Why?
Dr. Nick (03:01)
So what's
I f I wanna make it really clear of what's your immune system?
Tell me. Like most people probably don't even know what their immune system is. Like it it's not like your organ system. Like what what makes up your immune system?
Dr. Nicole (03:21)
Well, what makes up the immune system and what the immune system does are two different things. But I I think that okay, I wanna I wanna backtrack really quick to make a perfect example. When people come to us and they say, I have an autoimmune condition, or we run labs and it turns out they have an autoimmune condition. The conversation that I always have with them to help them understand.
Your immune system is not designed to attack an organ. It is not designed to attack random tissues in your body. It is designed to attack something foreign. Something that is a threat. Something that doesn't biologically match you. That is what it's designed to do. Foreign invader, something that is presumed to be a threat. So
There's a couple of things that are happening. Is that you have foreign DNA inside of your body that could be parasites or bacteria or certain types of infections, that your body, your immune system is saying, Hey, bad guy, get the hell out of here. That was super jersey. Get the hell out of you. But if that bacteria or that fungus or that yeast or that mold or that parasite is
Burrowed in a specific tissue or a specific organ or hiding out in different lobules of the liver, then the tissues of that organ are in the line of fire. They are going to have inflammation, and there's going to be some level of damage as the immune system is coming to the scene to deal with the true problem, which is the invader.
The same exact concept is happening when it comes to toxicity, different chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals that are in the body. If these are in the body and they are burrowed in certain tissues, then you're going to have an immune upregulation to get the lymphatic system to then extract out these chemicals and move them out of your body. Move them out mainly through the kidney system. If the kidney system isn't working properly,
properly, it's gonna move it out of the skin. There are so many skin issues nowadays. There's skin issues in infants. it's just baby eczema. It's not fucking how it works.
So overall, the immune system, we need to stop thinking, my immune system failed. it runs in my family. I have bad genes. Let me go get tested for my 23 and me to see if I have problems that are gonna make me susceptible to X, Y, or Z. Your immune system was designed exactly the way that it needs to be. But if your immune system is not working properly, it is not working properly because there are foundational problems in your body.
And yes, maybe you have these foreign invaders that we're talking about. But again, your immune system was designed to fight bad guys. So that can't be the only problem.
So, what's the real foundational issue here? Is the real foundational issue that at a cellular level, I feel like I talk, you talk about mitochondria building. I don't know what fuck that means. But like your cells are not doing what they're supposed to do. They're not excreting out bad stuff and taking in nutrients. There's a there's a wall up. Your cells have no energy because you don't put any energy into your body because you eat shit. But then also you're
You have no energy output because all of your energy is going to firing stress hormones and firing your nervous system because you live in a place of fear. You live in a place of worry. You live in a place of anxiety. And your all of your energy reserves are going to that.
Dr. Nick (07:26)
How do you really feel?
Dr. Nicole (07:28)
It's like I it what makes me rage is that there is no conversation about basic physiology. How does the body actually work? We are just stamping people with there's something wrong with you. You have a disease, and your only option is immunosuppressants. let's throw a little GLP in the mix because that's a fucking solution for everything nowadays. Let's throw you on LDN.
Low dose naltraxome because that's something that we saw a couple times in a study to help with autoimmunity. And it's like, it's literally making my fucking head spin because no one is talking about the foundational issues. And but what's what's even more infuriating is that all we're doing is we're looking at the numbers, we're looking at these labs and saying, okay, your your Hashimoto's markers or your autoimmune markers were this. you started the drug.
Now they're lower. We're not, nothing is solved, but they're lower, so we're happy. You're good. Be happy where you are.
So we're getting people to settle for mediocre. We're getting people to settle for you will have this for the rest of your life. But if the numbers look a little better, we're happy.
Dr. Nick (08:52)
summarizing that up and a little easier to understand is
Dr. Nicole (08:57)
I think
I'm super easy to understand.
Dr. Nick (08:59)
Your your immune
system fights bad guys threats. That could be bad guys, that could be toxins from heavy metals, chemicals, that could be invaders like parasites, mold, etcetera.
Dr. Nicole (09:05)
Bad guys.
Dr. Nick (09:17)
Your immune system isn't a singular in own entity. It's really your nervous system and your microflora of your gut that are the two main systems that combined to try to protect the physical body. So what's interesting is that
I guess I'm gonna just be kind of blunt, is the higher-ups are either are either very, very, very intelligent or very, very, very stupid. I'm not gonna say which one I think. you can come to your own conclusions. But if you have infections and toxins from COVID that are
stressing out your nervous system and stressing out an imbalanced gut flora that are I just did a quick search on what are the top COVID symptoms, long COVID symptoms, and it was poor memory, attention, mental fatigue, anxiety, depression, cardiovascular diseases. And I was like
Dr. Nicole (10:30)
We're gonna talk about that.
Dr. Nick (10:35)
Okay, so a lot of those things are connected with the gut brain, gut mind. so people are not able to think intelligently or clearly. It's decreasing their executive function of their brain. They can't make intelligent decisions, they're disempowered.
When you think about disempowerment, the biggest thing that creates disempowerment is uncertainty. Certainty creates empowerment. Disempowerment is primarily foundationally not being certain. COVID was one of the biggest events that created uncertainty for people.
Dr. Nicole (11:08)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (11:14)
Not only that they didn't understand COVID, but there's a lot of misinformation that was polarized and people became split all or nothing, which not gonna go into that aspect in this podcast. And that created also fight between people. This is right, you're wrong. Nope, this is right, you're wrong. Which created more uncertainty because nobody actually knew who was right and who was wrong, because nobody
Dr. Nicole (11:40)
Lotta egos thrown around.
Dr. Nick (11:41)
Because nobody actually knew what the fuck COVID was. You know, it's a virus, but you know, we're not getting into that a lot. And then you combine everything that happened in the environment. There's shutdowns, you couldn't go to work, you couldn't travel, there's isolation, there is fear, not only fear of loss of your job, fear of loss of loved ones, fear of loss of your own health. so there's a lot of grief, there's a lot of sh
Dr. Nicole (12:09)
Psychological warf
warfare from every angle.
Dr. Nick (12:12)
So when you think of I was trying not to say it, but when you think of these higher ups that they're either very intelligent or very stupid, that you have this aspect of psychological warfare that's happening
On the mental aspect of the fear, the loss, the isolation, the imbalanced, the amount of uncertainty that creates, as we talked about in one of our previous aspects, it creates the beliefs, the thoughts that create our feelings. If we're in that uncertainty and we're unstable and we're disempowered, that creates what? Biochemical processes that drive the body to be in that high state fight or flight alert. So then your cells, your mitochondria don't have the power to actually do
It's supposed to do, it's going just to try to survive, not thrive, just to try to survive. And then okay, well, what are we gonna do? We're actually gonna put you on an immunosuppressant that actually just drives and makes everything worse. So you don't feel. But if you can't feel, you can't heal.
Think about that. If you can't feel, you have feeling is a part of the healing process. If you can't feel, you can't heal. So
The question is, my favorite question, why? Sometimes it drives me crazy because I'm teaching my four-year-old, you know, and he's asking why all the time, and I'm just like, God, I I created this. But why? If th the entire globe, almost every single population in the entire world
Dr. Nicole (13:49)
You did.
Dr. Nick (14:03)
Was affected by COVID in one way or another, and then the majority of people are having symptoms still from it, many years later, and the main tool is to actually make it worse, not the symptoms worse.
Dr. Nicole (14:21)
Well, there are no
tools, is what it comes down to.
Dr. Nick (14:28)
But I'm going back to psychological warfare. Because if you drive down the immune system even more, you're what you're really doing is you're driving down the ability for somebody to think clearly, to somebody to use their executive center, to somebody to ask quality questions, some somebody to even have the amount of mental c capability to create a change. They can't. They're stuck. They're controlled. Well
Dr. Nicole (14:54)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (14:57)
if you're controlled, somebody else is controlling you. And if the majority of the population is affected by this and the majority of the population is being controlled and they're not in control themselves, well
Life's gonna get interesting if we don't make some changes pretty fast.
Dr. Nicole (15:18)
Well, and also for people that want to understand, you know, we're not saying that everybody has long COVID. There's there's certain people that are experiencing it. And as you said, the typical symptoms is, you know, that there's memory loss and possible early onset dementia and anxiety and other mental health aspects. The thing is, is that some of the people that were physically most affected by COVID.
Were people that were walking around with things that are go were going on in their body foundationally that didn't know? There were things going on mentally that they didn't know. And so what I mean by that is we're talking about this idea of you know certain toxins and infections being in the body, a microbiome that's completely disrupted. Sadly, that is the majority of the population. But
For people that do not take an interest and think like, I can drink the tap water, I don't have to eat healthy food, I can eat on the go, process food, fast food, everything out of a box, you know, they they cover themselves in, you know, the perfumes and bath and body works and all the things, they have a higher load of these different chemicals and toxins in their body. If you watch TV all day, every day, if you watch the news, if you listen to the government, if you
If you don't think for yourself, you are going to tend to not necessarily have any sovereignty over what you do and what you think. So overall, these people got exposed to the virus and other things post-virus that were then fueling an already existing fire. And if we want to keep it simple, if people are like,
Have toxins my body, where did those come from? Well, yeah, do the testing. But secondary, let's just say, let's just talk about sugar. There's so much sugar in the American diet. You want to have a coffee every day, a Starbucks, you want to drink milk, you want to have yogurt. It's there's tons of sugar in it. And it's not the whole world. It's in the US, it's the worst of the worst. What does sugar do when you cook it down? It becomes a sticky syrup. So
If you have a ton of sugar floating around in your blood, also known as blood sugar, I don't care if you have diabetes or not, but if you consume a ton of sugar and there is excess glucose sugar floating around in your blood, it's sticky. And you have blood cells that are sticking together. So what happens is that then you get exposed to COVID or other things, and there were spiked proteins.
Which we're then going into this sticky blood situation and clumping and clumping and clumping and everything is clumping. And what do you get? You get blood clots. And you get blood clots and you start to have blood that can't get to certain organs, blood that can't get to hands and feet. Blood that can't get to your brain. And what do you get? You get a dysregular.
regulated nervous system, not that it wasn't already dysregulated by the amount of fear that was peddled through that era, but you have worse anxiety because now you don't have proper blood flow to your adrenals or to your brain.
What do they call it? Vascular dementia. When you don't get adequate blood flow to your brain. So your brain is being starved of oxygenation and nutrients. And you start to have memory loss, which is also known as early onset dementia, if it reaches a certain point.
So
I'm not a fucking genius by any means. I'm just looking at the facts and understanding the basic physiology of the body and understanding that there's a lot of people dealing with fear and depression and anxiety because of polarized thinking, their own life experiences. Then you want to throw this insane COVID event on top of it. I don't think many people.
Have recovered from that mentally and emotionally. And there's a lot of people that are still at war with people, neighbors, family. They're isolated because they told everyone that, you know, don't come to my house unless you wear 10 masks. Like there's there's a lot of things that are still unhealed from that time. And I'm sorry the government's not healing it for you. If anything,
They're gonna fuel that fucking fire worse until you are completely dependent on all the psychiatric medications and then your immunosuppressants and then your GLP and then your whatever else they're gonna throw at you with their one billion dollar initiative.
Dr. Nick (20:40)
So, slightly doom and gloom today, but if there's a problem, there's an equal and opposite solution. And I would say the uplifting side of things is that
Sadly, we fucking needed this as a world because we were turning into bitches. We we were we were literally becoming an entire flock of white sheep, just not thinking, doing whatever was told to us, which is why we literally changed up our entire marketing, we changed up everything to be a black sheep.
Dr. Nicole (21:08)
Give me the pill, give me the pill.
Dr. Nick (21:17)
A black sheep is somebody that actually stops and starts thinking for themselves, that knows there's a better way to live. And there's no shame, there's no placing guilt on we all made decisions based on what we thought was best for ourselves. Awesome. But if we stay with that and we don't give ourselves the opportunity to continue to make better decisions, well then you're staying a white sheep. Like don't fight for your ego.
fight for the living a life that you truly deli deserve. And this is why we've spent a shit ton of time creating this whole new aspect of using AI in an intelligent way for our intellectual property to be able to use the best of the best tools and information out there so that we can help serve more people. Is because if if if we don't
That white sheep herd is gonna grow more and more. So I invite you become a black sheep, fucking put on your tinfoil hat. It's not a conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy if it's fucking true. Look at the facts and start being empowered. You know, that's all I ask of you.
Dr. Nicole (22:28)
Gold. Golden and and
And also know that there are tools that will give you the clarity that you need. If you are someone that maybe you don't have full on COVID, all these symptoms that we just talked about, but you don't feel right since you've had it, then it's time for you to understand the deeper layers that are going on. Because what I said before, we've been doing this a long time. We've seen a lot of testing, a lot of labs. We've done countless intakes with people. there are
Majority of the world is walking around with a series of things inside of their body that are stressing out their organs that they don't know because the average labs and testing are not picking it up. So there could be a very easy to understand foundational reason why COVID or some other illness hit you real freaking hard. But there's a solution to that. And it's the solution that one,
you could have in your pocket with your phone through our Info app and then through our very, very, very personalized reports, get your own customized protocol of this is exactly what to do, an integrative approach so that you can start to actually feel better.
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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.
Further reading
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