Why Do People Develop Allergies to Antibiotics, Other Drugs, Or Even Chemicals?
Episode 164
Allergies occur when your immune system reacts to a foreign substance, but are people born with certain types of allergies, or do they develop them due to medications or even chemicals? To answer that Dr. Nicole joins us today on Integrative Wellness Radio to dive a little bit further into certain types of allergies, their origins, and why people develop them. The doctor sheds light on some of the reasons people get exposed and develop sensitivities to some medications and even antibodies. She uncovers some of the misconceptions and navigates us through some of the best practices that we can implement to avoid our immune system to become chemically sensitive. Tune in to the whole episode and book a strategy call to learn more about IWG! 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: 02:46 Is your profession exposing you to toxins? 05:17 Why do chemical allergies exist? 11:50 Toxicity is a huge player when it comes to toxicity 18:05 The contamination in the ground 21:15 How ‘Think Dirty’ App can be useful? 27:29 It’s not just allergy 36:06 How some people are reactive to drugs 40:30 A patient’s case study 44:05 Some allergy myths to bust 48:39 Better testing, less tools
Topics: allergies, immune, different, develop, chemicals, types, chemical, sensitivities
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Why Do People Develop Allergies to Antibiotics, Other Drugs, Or Even Chemicals?
- Allergy development is often a result of cumulative exposure to foreign substances, rather than an innate condition.
- Toxicity from various sources, including environmental contaminants and chemicals, plays a crucial role in immune system sensitization.
- Understanding your environment and potential exposures, like those in certain professions, is key to preventing chemical sensitivities.
- It's important to distinguish between true allergies and other forms of immune system reactivity.
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.
They're having a lot of issues with different types of personal products, um, everything from shampoos, conditioners.
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. Hey, everyone. We are back.
**Unknown:** So today, we're actually focusing a bit more about talking about allergies that are more related to chemical allergies, or also known as chemical sensitivities, and also how we develop certain allergies that, uh, we have to different types of medications, prescriptions, or even antibiotics. So when it comes to, you know, the overall immune function and the immune reaction that occurs that triggers different types of allergies, it's a very similar cascade that's happening, but there is a very different, like, root cause or exposure when it comes to how we develop sensitivities to al- to chemicals as well as to different types of medications. So today's focus is more so understanding how we become chemically sensitive. And for those of you that are kind of unsure of what that actually means, it's more so the people that are really struggling with, uh, the scents of different types of fragrances.
**Unknown:** They can't wear perfume anymore. They're having a lot of issues with different types of personal products, um, everything from shampoos, conditioners. They're having reactions to different types of detergents that are being used on their clothes, or they can't dry clean their clothes anymore. So there is a variety of different, um, reactions that we can have that really don't necessarily come back to, say, the material, but it comes back to the chemicals that are on the material or the chemicals that are in the personal products that we are using.
**Unknown:** How does this start in the first place, and what are some of the things that we can do about it? And what are the things that you are not always being told to connect the dots as to why you've become chemically sensitive? Because when it comes to these chemical sensitivities, these are on the rise, and people are reacting to a variety of different things. But what I find the most fascinating is the people that come through my doors, they don't always know that they're chemically sensitive.
**Unknown:** They know that they're having negative reactions, and they may have been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. But then as we dig deeper and ask better questions, it actually turns out that they're working in a profession that is actually exposing them to a variety of different toxins that are making them reactive. And honestly, one of the most common is going to be hairstylists and women that work in salons. You know, there's everything from, uh, men and women that are working in construction, they're doing tiling work, uh, mechanics, even people that are developing film.
**Unknown:** So there is a lot of different professions that are actually connected to the development of these chemical sensitivities, but in addition to that, there is a lot of connection to a variety of autoimmune conditions and even, uh, just, I would say, mystery symptoms, the people that just don't feel right but don't always really understand what's going on in their systems. So a lot of us that have developed these chemical sensitivities, or we've developed these reactions to sulfa drugs, or we've created reactions to penicillin, amoxicillin, or other types of antibiotics, a lot of these things we're just like, "Oh, that's just me. I just need to avoid it. I need to work around it.
**Unknown:** I just need to tolerate it." And really, at the end of the day, we're not asking better questions to say why. Why does this exist? Why is this present? You know, what caused it in the first place?
**Unknown:** Because it's an immune reaction. Why are you having an immune reaction? Why are you having an immune reaction to one antibiotic but none of the others? So is it that there's a chemical in that prescription drug?
**Unknown:** Is it that you have been exposed to that drug in a different form? Which I'm gonna explain that further in just a few minutes. So first and foremost, it is not your fault that you have no freaking clue as to why you have so many allergies. It is not your fault that you break out in hives every time you take a certain type of drug, and you don't know why it's happening.
**Unknown:** It's not your fault that now you have to be the person that says, "Don't wear perfume around me, because I'm gonna get a splitting migraine or puke." So it's not your fault that you don't know how they happen, why they happen, and what to do about it. There's a lot of mixed information out there. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that everything starts in the gut. If one more functional medicine doctor just says how everything's about the gut, I'm gonna rip my hair out.
**Unknown:** And I say that with love, but I used to be that person, and then I realized how much more there was to the story when it comes to why these allergies develop in the first place. Another big, uh, aspect to understand before we really start to talk about these chemical allergies and why they exist is that when we start to think about allergies, again, it's not that when a person comes in, they come in with allergies, they're just an allergy patient. That's not what it is. These people have an immune system that is being triggered, and it's being triggered because of something else going on in the body or maybe more than one variable that's going on in the body.
**Unknown:** So a lot of this comes down to really understanding how all of the systems work together and not separating out the gut from the brain and the brain from the heart and, you know, the immune system from the lymph nodes. It's really understanding that everything is working synergistically together. And, you know, the biggest thing that we... The biggest mistake that we make is that we segregate out the systems, and then we don't always understand that there is going to be a cause and effect.So if you're a person that has depression, but you're also a person that maybe has low-grade gut issues, maybe it's mild, maybe you just have, you know, occasional bloating gas, maybe you have a low-grade irritable bowel syndrome, maybe you have a full-blown Crohn's disease.
**Unknown:** But those gut issues are going to stop-- start compromising how well you produce certain neurotransmitters. It's going to compromise how well you produce serotonin. It's even gonna compromise how well you produce GABA. So pretty much serotonin is that feel-good hormone that gives you joy, that allows you to feel happiness.
**Unknown:** And then your GABA, I call it the anti-anxiety hormone. It's what calms you down and keeps you out of this fight or flight state. So if you have a lack of both, you're gonna feel anxious, you're gonna feel depressed, but it's not because of a psychological issue, it's because of a gut issue. So we really need to start understanding that you could easily be trying to support something, but you might be supporting the effect, and you might be completely overlooking the cause.
**Unknown:** So at this point, we need to be our own health advocates because not every physician is educated in this way to understand how it all works together. And it's because these systems are complicated. You know, understanding the, you know, urinary system and the kidneys inside and out, there's a lot of pathology associated one-- with one organ system. So I understand why we've segregated everything out, but it's also allowed us to run into roadblocks as to why there is such a lack of cures and there's a lack of effective treatment nowadays.
**Unknown:** So a couple of really fascinating things about allergies as a whole. So number one, allergies, including chemical allergies, can start in the womb. When you actually start digging into the research, and you start looking at the testing they've done on the amniotic fluid. So the amniotic fluid is the fluid that the baby is essentially floating in through the duration of the pregnancy.
**Unknown:** So they have found upwards of a hundred and seventy-two different types of chemicals in the amniotic fluid, AKA in the home of your developing baby. One of the primary things that was found in thirty percent of the samples was DDT. DDT is a, an aggressive, harmful type of pesticide that they have told us was stop-- was they stopped using in the seventies. But there is still traces of it found in amniotic fluid.
**Unknown:** There's traces of it found in certain bodies of water. It's found in soil. It's found in so many more places than you realize. So when we talk about, you know, these chemical allergies or these kids that are developing these neurological conditions at such young ages, this literally can be starting in the womb.
**Unknown:** This is not necessarily about what happened to your baby after they were born. In addition to that, you know, when we're talking about environmental and medication allergies, that one of the biggest reasons for mold toxicity or antibiotic allergies, or I should say mold allergies or antibiotic allergies, is due to mold toxicity. Yes, glyphosate is found in the fluid as well. So for those of you that are watching and don't know what glyphosate is, glyphosate is the primary active ingredient in Roundup.
**Unknown:** So Roundup is something that is being used heavily in farming at this point in time. And glyphosate is such a, it's such a, a potent type of chemical that once it gets into the body or gets into tissue, it's actually very difficult to get it out. And what's very fascinating, for those of you that are listening right now that have maybe gone down the functional, uh, train, and maybe you have done a stool sample of some sort, and you've had your microbiome of your gut checked. You may have found that you had a lot of abnormal, uh, or high levels of abnormal bacteria or dysbiotic bacteria.
**Unknown:** So maybe you had high levels of E. coli, maybe you had high levels of salmonella, maybe you even had Clostridium difficile at one point. That's the, um, type of bacteria that causes, like, chronic diarrhea and can actually be fatal. So maybe you had all these levels of high, um, or high levels of bad bacteria, but you were bottomed out in your probiotics, which is the good bacteria.
**Unknown:** So if you had that seesaw of too much bad and not enough good, one of the primary causes of that is actually glyphosate that has made its way into your gastrointestinal system from the food that you are consuming. And they've actually proven this at this point that the two specific strains that are going to be very elevated is salmonella and clostridium species. So you might be working with someone and trying to, uh, clean up the gut, get rid of the bad bacteria, kill off your small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and you keep running into roadblocks, and you keep getting so frustrated because you're just like, "I'm doing all the right things, and I cut everything out, and I, I'm gluten-free, dairy-free, this, that, the other thing. I'm taking all these supplements, and I still feel like crap." And it's because you actually have a toxic gut.
**Unknown:** It's not because it's all about the bacteria. So we need to start understanding that toxicity is a huge player in this day and age, and it is not something to be overlooked anymore because it's being overlooked all the time. And when it comes to this whole mold conversation, I literally have done quite a few webinars elaborating on this topic of mold. But when you have an allergy to penicillin, amoxicillin, ampicillin, or you get skin prick testing and they tell you you're allergic to dustOr mold.
**Unknown:** You have to understand that you have to have toxic levels in your body in order to create an immune reaction which would then cause the allergy. So some of the primary ways that we are being exposed to mold is through food as well. So there are many, many things that we are eating that naturally get infected with fungus. So wheat, corn, grains, rice, like all of these different types of crops are actually growing, being infected with fungus.
**Unknown:** The fungus is not being monitored, and these foods are just going right into the food supply and making its way into your grocery stores. So if you think that you are mold-free, chances are you are not because it is way more prevalent in the food than you realize. And this is definitely going to be a culprit behind why you might be reacting to certain antibiotics and also might be why you have a mold allergy. The other thing too is when it comes to antibiotics, I definitely find that that is one of the primary prescriptions that people have allergies to that cause eczema breakouts, hive breakouts, even throat closing situations.
**Unknown:** But there are a lot of other medications that people will react to. And the thing is, is sometimes it's not necessarily about the active ingredient in the medication, but a lot of times it's about the inactive ingredients. And the inactive ingredients in these medications are things like red food dye, blue food dye, gluten. So those of you listening right now or know someone on thyroid medication, Synthroid specifically, Synthroid has gluten in it.
**Unknown:** I cannot tell you how many people either come to me and say, "I am celiac," or we test them and find out that they have celiac, and they've been prescribed Synthroid, and their endocrinologist doesn't even know that it has Syn-- or it has gluten in it. So we really need to start looking at the inactive ingredients in these medications because that might be a culprit for why you're so tired. It might be a culprit for why you have seasonal allergies. It might be a culprit for why your stomach hurts.
**Unknown:** For the people that are listening that are super sensitive to, uh, perfumes, you're super sensitive to, uh, cleaners, bleach, and other types of chemicals, you have to understand that this is not necessarily just about being an allergy, but these types of reactions actually affect the cranial nerves, which means that you are having a neurological reaction to these different chemicals. It's actually called vasomotor rhinopathy. So when you're having a overactivation or a negative trigger to the olfactory nerve, which is the cranial nerve that controls your smell, that can be triggered by these chemicals, but it's actually creating a negative response to the brain. So when you have these chemical allergies, we need to start thinking bigger.
**Unknown:** We need to think about, is this actually affecting your neurology? Is this making you have brain fog? Is this making you lose your memory? Is this making you susceptible to conditions like multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer's or dementia?
**Unknown:** So we are living in a world that those conditions are on the rise. There are so many people struggling from a neurological perspective. Ask your friends. Literally, everyone feels like crap.
**Unknown:** Everyone's tired, everyone's foggy. I have people in their twenties that literally cannot remember what they ate two days prior, and, uh, you know, it's crazy. I was in Hunting a couple of weeks ago, and yes, I was at a bar. I, I do drink cocktails occasionally.
**Unknown:** But when I was there, I literally was going up, I was ordering a glass of wine, and there was a girl that came up next to me with her cell phone. And it's pretty normal for everybody to have cell phones out nowadays, but she had her cell phone out because she couldn't remember her friends because she had two friends with her. She couldn't remember what they wanted. She literally walked ten feet, and she had to put the drinks that they wanted in her phone because she could not remember what they wanted for walking ten feet, and sh- this girl had to have been in her twenties.
**Unknown:** And I was just like, "That is so scary." When it comes to the prevalence of what's called multiple chemical sensitivity, it's actually increased by three hundred percent over the past few years. So, like, that's an astronomical number. So this is something that is definitely on the rise and, you know, is it because we're becoming more reactive, or is it because we're using more chemicals? It could be both.
**Unknown:** It's definitely not gonna be one or the other. But some of the biggest things that people are reacting to is going to be cigarette smoke. I cannot tell you how many chemicals I see come up in people's testing that are all from cigarette smoke, and these are not people that necessarily smoked. This is-- These are also people that were exposed to secondhand smoke, or unfortunately, mom, you know, back in the sixties or seventies, didn't know any better and was smoking while she was pregnant.
**Unknown:** So there is so much that can happen literally just in the womb based off of the chemicals that were in mom's body that eventually made their way into the amniotic fluid. There is everything from gasoline to exhaust, and this is not meaning, like, you're huffing the gasoline, uh, fumes from your car, but a lot of it has to do with the contamination in the ground. You know, we live in lovely New Jersey, and I grew up up north, and where I grew up, there are-- there's a-- Exxon has massive gas tanks everywhere. So it's like these are things that how can we think that they're not getting into the water supply, essentially.
**Unknown:** And definitely the big one is the pesticides, the herbicides, the fungicides, and the Roundup, the, the glyphosate chemical. These are in high, high, high abundance at this point. Literally, this is something thatWe are all being exposed to, and unfortunately they're finding that even there's some contamination in even the organic foods. So it's so important to try to even work with your local farms because when we literally see organic from Mexico and organic from, you know, South America, I'm sorry, I-- when I lived in California for a short amount of time, there was-- we had a tree, we had a couple of trees in the back, but one of them was a peach tree.
**Unknown:** Literally, I went and picked peaches off the tree one day, brought them inside, and within one day they were moldy. And it really opened my eyes to think like, okay, if something is organic, making its way all the way from Mexico, that's a high or a long transport. Like there, there has to be something that's being used in order to preserve that to some capacity. Electrical sensitivity is one of the questions.
**Unknown:** What about electrical sensitivity? So electrical sensitivity is actually really common with, uh, mold toxicity. I don't wanna discredit that heavy metal toxicity can be part of that as well. But one of the things that happens when you have mold toxicity is it affects something called your antidiuretic hormone.
**Unknown:** Your antidiuretic hormone is the hormone that allows you to hold on to your hydration. It also allows you to hold on to your electrolytes, salt being one of them. So when you get exposed to mold and your antidiuretic hormone is not working properly, you tend to lose a lot of your electrolytes through your urine. You also lose electrolytes through your skin, so salt being one of them.
**Unknown:** So salt is an electricity conductor. So you will find that you get, um, electric shock very easily if you're turning light switches on and off, or if you're plugging things in. And you also get, um, sometimes a phantom, um, vibratory or buzzing feeling that you feel like your cell phone is on you vibrating, but it's not your cell phone. So that's a very common thing that happens when it comes to, uh, mold toxicity.
**Unknown:** And like I said, is, uh, certain types of metals like cadmium and aluminum, they can also, um, further that response because they're also have, uh, conductivity properties as well. So another thing too when it comes to what are people reacting to, a lot of this has to do with the different fragrances and chemicals that are in our soaps, colognes, deodorants, body creams. You would actually be horrified if you really started to dig into what is in most of these products. Uh, last month I actually did a whole webinar specifically on all the chemicals that are in our personal products.
**Unknown:** And really, you know, w-- the easiest thing that I can tell you guys to do is utilize, uh, Think Dirty. It's an app that you can download onto your phone, and you can start taking inventory on the different chemicals that might be in your products that you're using. But I will tell you, your commercial brands, you know, your, your Jergens, your-- Somebody talked about Pert Plus today, and I was like, "Oh my God, Pert Plus, I haven't heard that in forever." But yeah, like Suave and, you know, all the big name brands, chances are they are containing some level of chemicals that are going to be hormone disruptors, number one, and also, um, some chemicals that can be very compromising to the immune system overall. Um, yes, the EWG app is also amazing, the Skin Deep app.
**Unknown:** So both, uh, Think Dirty and the Skin Deep app are two fantastic resources. So, um, outside of that, when it gets into like other different chemicals, everything from your hair dyes, personal products, formaldehyde is huge. Those of you getting your lovely, uh, keratin Brazilian whatever treatments in your hair, making it soft and straight and beautiful, those contain high levels of formaldehyde. You're getting your nails done, acrylics, literally the list goes on.
**Unknown:** There are tons and tons of chemicals that we're being exposed to. But one thing I will say to you is that when we have these chemicals, like this is not just about risk for cancer. It's not just about developing allergies. This is also about preserving your neurological system because it is alarming how many people that I'm working with that are coming in with already diagnosed neurological conditions.
**Unknown:** But number two is I'm observing the neurological deficits. I'm observing patients that cannot remember what I say. I'm observing patients that have massive anxiety. I'm observing patients, they can't even literally remember to, like, lock their doors when they leave their house.
**Unknown:** And when it comes to these different toxins, the biggest thing that's happening is it's compromising the overall body. So your body is equipped to detox. It is fantastic at detoxing, but it gets to a point that the filters are full, and they cannot do their job anymore. We're equipped with tonsils.
**Unknown:** We're equipped with a spleen. We're equipped with liver. We've-- We're equipped with the gut. We're equipped with kidneys and a boatload of lymph nodes that are literally from the top of our head all the way to our toes.
**Unknown:** Every single one of those systems and organs are designed to help us detox. But if you get exposed to, say, a bunch of pesticides and herbicides and crap because you eat a bunch of processed food, then your liver's gonna get clogged up. Or maybe you drink a bunch of alcohol or take a bunch of Tylenol. Your liver's gonna get clogged up.
**Unknown:** Then your kidneys have to work harder, and your lymph nodes have to work harder. Or then maybe you lived in mold, and now your lymph nodes got clogged up. Now your liver and your kidneys have to work harder. And then it just, they all start to become compromised over time, and we all call it aging.
**Unknown:** You know, you hear it all the time of, "Oh, I'm getting old now. I used to be able to like go out and, you know, have like party and have a bunch of drinks, and I could wake up the next day and feel fine. And now I have a glass of wine, I'm hungover for three days." Well, the reason that's happening is because your body's ability to filter out and metabolize the alcohol is not working anymoreAnd it's not that you're old, it's not that you're broken, it's just that you have to take into consideration you can't keep, you know, essentially using the vacuum and never dump the filter. You need to eventually dump the filter.
**Unknown:** So when we start to have all of these systems compromised and clogged up, this is when we're starting to get a lot of these chemicals starting to affect our neurological system. And for those of you that have had tonsils removed or have giant tonsils, chronic sore throats, or you have, uh, those lovely tonsil stones of those gross white things that pop out of your tonsils, those are all signs that your tonsils are overloaded with the garbage that your brain is trying to detox out. Your brain is-- has a whole mechanism to help you detox, but all of that crap gets dumped directly into your tonsils. So if you have chronic tonsil problems or your kids have chronic tonsil problems, chances are they have toxicity in their body that their brain is being completely overloaded with.
**Unknown:** So one of the examples that I've kind of already talked about is that a lot of people are struggling with allergies to different types of medications, and a big one being antibiotics. "Oh, I took penicillin, I broke out in hives." "Oh, I took amoxicillin, I had eczema." "Oh, I took ampicillin and, and my throat closed, or my tongue got weird." So when we are talking specifically about these antibiotics, these antibiotics, most of them are derived from mold. So penicillin is called penicillin. It's derived from penicillium, which is a mold.
**Unknown:** So a lot of our antibiotics are derived from mold. So if you have toxic mold in your body, maybe it was because mom had toxic mold and you got exposed in the womb. Maybe it's because you've had a boatload of antibiotics 'cause you had ear infections as a kid. You can get the toxicity from overdoing antibiotics.
**Unknown:** You can also get it from living in a moldy environment, et cetera. So if you have toxic levels of mold in your body, that is what's going to trigger the immune system. The immune system creates a memory, and then when you take that antibiotic later down the line, you're gonna have a reaction. So very often when we have toxic mold in the body, we also tend to react and have seasonal allergies.
**Unknown:** The seasonal allergies are primarily coming from the fact that under a microscope, mold, pollen, dander, it all looks really, really similar. So they're very cross-reactive. So we tend to have worse seasonal allergies when we have toxic levels of mold in the body. So first and foremost is it's not just an allergy.
**Unknown:** You don't just have an allergy to antibiotics. You don't just have an allergy to food. You don't just have an allergy to these chemicals. These different al-allergic reactions are showing an immune response.
**Unknown:** They're also showing a neurological response. So like I said before, is that if you have issues with chemical smells, different types of bleach, you know, again, like different types of chemical triggers, this is showing you that you are actually having a neurological response. So we need to start thinking bigger about why are you having that response, and what is this gonna look like in the long run? The other big thing that can make us more susceptible to these different types of chemical allergies and reactions, I will give you an example.
**Unknown:** The women that wear the, the cheap jewelry and it stains their skin. Most cheap jewelry is made from nickel, and when you have that skin color change, it's because you have an allergy to the nickel. One of the biggest compounds that we are being exposed to in reference to nickel is dental. So there is nickel in your braces.
**Unknown:** There is nickel in sealants. There is nickel in your permanent retainers they put behind your teeth. So it's not always about fillings in the teeth, but braces, retainers, sealants, bonding. A lot of the things that are being used in dentistry actually can trigger the cranial nerves, which triggers the brain, triggers the immune system, and causes us to have these heightened responses and have these chemical sensitivities.
**Unknown:** So we really need to start thinking about how does our dental issues or our oral issues play a role in our overall body? And I've had to learn this over time because it was something that I didn't understand in the beginning stages of my practice. I didn't know that the fact that somebody had a dental abscess or a bacterial infection in their mouth, you know, ten years prior, that that actually could have created a systemic response which then led to an autoimmune condition. So I cannot tell you how many people that when we ask better questions and we take a dental history, that a lot of their symptoms started around a time that they had some type of dental procedure.
**Unknown:** So we need to definitely take that into consideration when we're looking at the big picture of your overall health. So another big thing too is that we kind of think that, uh, maybe only certain populations are affected by these chemical allergies. We assume like, "Well, okay, well, maybe it's only people that are working with chemicals. It's only the people that work, you know, in construction, or it's only the people that work, um, in factories or things like that." But we also have to take into consideration where do you live?
**Unknown:** Where do you live? Because we live in the lovely state of New Jersey, which I've lived many places, and I did come back, so I love it dearly, and I will, I will manage the toxicity. But one of the really fascinating things about really the world in general, but New Jersey particularly, is that we have in New Jersey, uh, well, I should say all over the country, we have things called superfund sites. And the superfund sites are actually areas that have been contaminated with nuclear waste that have a government ordinance to be cleaned up.So when you think about New Jersey's size in reference to California, Wyoming, Utah, you know, these states are huge in comparison to New Jersey.
**Unknown:** And most other states have anywhere between one to two to maybe up to five Superfund sites. Again, nuclear waste sites. New Jersey, anybody wanna take a guess how many we have in the little state of New Jersey of literally places that have nuclear waste issues? We have a hundred and twenty-six.
**Unknown:** So this is extremely, extremely alarming because it's not, you know, it's not just us. We also have New York that's being affected. California, everybody thinks California is like, you know, like wellness central of the world, but they actually have the second-most Superfund sites. So we are talking about a boatload of toxicity that we are being exposed to just based off of where we live.
**Unknown:** And unfortunately, not everybody knew about water purification systems. Not everybody knew about, you know, not swimming in certain bodies of water that are contaminated. We didn't always know about these things. So this is part of the puzzle that has given us these exposures, which has created some of these chronic illness issues, mystery symptom issues, but it's also created issues with these chemical allergies and reactivities.
**Unknown:** So the other thing too is you might be thinking, "Well, you know, I'm not a candidate for any of this because I'm sure that this would have came up in my tests." This is not gonna come up in your physical. This is not gonna come up in your s-- your CBC or your CMP, which is like general blood work that's being run on an annual basis. Like, nobody's testing for these things. You have to specifically go out of your way to work with physicians that understand this in order to really be able to evaluate this.
**Unknown:** The other thing too, when it comes to the actual testing that's gonna give you insight, is one of the tests that's out there is going to be GP Tox, it's Great Plains. So Great Plains can give you-- definitely give you insight on glyphosate. So the glyphosate toxicity is something that really a lot of us need to be evaluated for. In addition to that, it gives us insight as to a variety of different chemicals that half of them you probably have never even heard of.
**Unknown:** But chemicals that we're being exposed to through our environment, through our personal products, and through even our drinking water. The other thing is we need to be leveraging better testing for heavy metals. I used to do a lot of, um, more traditional tests. I used to do hair analysis for heavy metals, and I used to do urinary tests.
**Unknown:** I've actually completely shifted gears, and I use, um, a very advanced technology called spectrometry to evaluate for intracellular heavy metals. This is everything from aluminum, mercury, cadmium, strontium, literally silver, nickel, the, the list goes on. But even outside of that is there are tests out there that allow us to test for prescription reactions. A lot of this is not being utilized because of cost.
**Unknown:** But if you are someone who is toying with the idea of chemotherapy, you really should be seeking out labs to know, like, is this chemotherapy, uh, congruent with your body? Is it something that's gonna cause a negative reaction? Is it even gonna work? The RGCC is a lab out of Greece, and they're one of the best labs for knowing, um, which chemotherapies best coincide with the body.
**Unknown:** But outside of that, when it comes to the, the other testing is we need to test for heavy metals, we need to test for chemicals, and we also need to test for mold and mycotoxins. So when it comes to mycotoxin testing, I've been using a lab called Vibrant America. I find that they are definitely one of the best, um, for being able to give us insight with that. There are other labs out there, um, but after using a variety, I definitely feel that Vibrant America is one of the best at this time.
**Unknown:** So some of the preliminary tests that we use in our office is we use some really advanced technologies from Europe. Um, one of them is actually called the BioResonance. The other one is, uh, an American technology called the BioScan. So both of these work in different ways.
**Unknown:** One is actually working down to the DNA level and looking at what types of chemical reactions are damaging our DNA, and then the other one is actually looking for, um, different types of allergic reactions within the body. So these two technologies are amazing as we bring the information together because it allows us to really understand not only what your body is reacting to, but how-- like what problems is it causing in your body? Is it affecting your liver? Is it affecting your energy?
**Unknown:** Is it affecting your sleep? Is it affecting your digestion? And that's really some of the amazing things that we see, is we're able to get extremely specific when really knowing, like, what is doing what. But also that helps us to know how we can actually get you on track to feeling better.
**Unknown:** So I mentioned this earlier. The other thing too is that some people do have reactions to certain types of drugs, and some people even have reactions to supplements. And it's not always about the active ingredients in those prescriptions or the active ingredients in those supplements, but a lot of it is the additives. And when you're dealing with supplements, definitely supplements are gonna have less additives.
**Unknown:** I would say the one additive to be aware of in supplements is magnesium stearate. Magnesium stearate has actually been found to be reactive in, um, some kids with PANDAS or even, uh, autism. Not every, but it's definitely something to be aware of. But when we're talking prescription drugs, we're definitely talking about a lot more additives.
**Unknown:** We're talking about dyes. Uh, red and blue dyes are two of the primary. We're talking about aluminum. That is very, very common in a lot of prescriptions.
**Unknown:** We're talking about gluten. So again, I said this earlier, for those of you on Synthroid or you know someone on Synthroid, Synthroid is a thyroid medication, it has gluten in itSo if you're celiac or gluten intolerant and you are taking Synthroid, you are potentially causing an immune reaction every time you take your medication. So in addition, formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is in furniture.
**Unknown:** It's in your carpets. It is in different building materials in your home. It's in your hair dye. It's in your hair straightening materials.
**Unknown:** It's in a ton of personal products. We have benzenes. Benzenes are in everything from dry cleaning agents, detergents, different cleaning agents, personal products. Propylene glycol is actually a derivative of antifreeze.
**Unknown:** Propylene glycol is in every single one of your per-personal products. I'm gonna tell you that right now. Unless you've swapped everything out to be natural, start taking a look. You're gonna find propylene glycol in almost every single product.
**Unknown:** Your deodorant, your shampoos, conditioners, your lotions, your mousse, your hairspray, it's in everything, and it is extremely toxic, hormone disruptor, carcinogenic. The other thing you're gonna find in a lot of medications is high fructose corn syrup. So, you know, we're trying to avoid sugars because maybe we're diabetic or whatever else, but we might be taking a medication that actually contains it. So again, the point of this is that we need to start looking at the ingredients of the things that we're being recommended because we might actually be trying to fix one problem by taking the medication or the supplement, but we might be causing a completely different problem because we're exposing ourselves to different chemicals.
**Unknown:** So it's just seasonal allergies. This is always a conversation I have with my patients, and they're always like, like mouth drop, like staring at me like, "What?" But when you really take a step back and you think about your seasonal allergies, so what's happening at the change of seasons? So change of seasons, you kick on your air conditioning unit. Maybe there's a bunch of mold in your air conditioning unit.
**Unknown:** Maybe there was condensation. You know? It was sitting pretty much all winter long and, you know, maybe you're pushing mold spores through the ventilation system of your home. Maybe you're pulling clothes out of the basement because, you know, you're bringing out your winter clothes or you're bringing out your summer clothes.
**Unknown:** Maybe there was mildew or, or condensation or some type of moisture in your basement. Maybe you're using more sunscreen because you're getting into the summer months, or you're using your makeup with SPF. That has chemicals in it. Maybe you started landscaping, and you're using a bunch of pesticides and herbicides, and you're using fertilizer, and you're spraying for mosquitoes.
**Unknown:** Maybe you're landscaping, cutting down trees, trimming bushes, and those trees or bushes are, are infected with fungus. Maybe you're spraying, you know, your property for mosquitoes or ants or other things. So we need to start thinking about, like, is this truly a seasonal allergy, or is this actually a chemical allergy or a mold allergy based off of other things that we are doing either in our homes or on our properties? So it's very, very important to take all factors into consideration because you might actually be completely missing the boat on what is the true problem here.
**Unknown:** So I had a patient, she actually really didn't know that she had chemical sensitivity, um, but by the time she showed up to my office, she was diagnosed with three autoimmune conditions. Um, another thing that came up in conversation was, like, the massive fatigue and brain fog that she had. Her brain fog was pretty, pretty debilitating. She actually had to write everything down because within a few minutes she would actually forget it.
**Unknown:** So she came in, um, uh, to really have another modality to deal with her Hashimoto's, her celiac, which then she also ended up being diagnosed with lupus at one point as well. So in conversation, it turned out this woman was a stylist for over twenty years, and when she said that, I couldn't help but feel, okay, is this, you know, really just, oh, you just have autoimmune conditions, or is your immune system literally on fire because of massive chemical exposures? So this woman really had the double whammy. She not only had a buildup of tons of chemicals from formaldehyde to propylene glycol, lead, mercury, which a lot of it came from all of the products that she was using in her industry.
**Unknown:** But the kicker was that in addition, the salon also ended up having a mold problem. So there were actually various people that were in the salon complaining of fatigue, brain fog, and for her, the big thing that happened was that this accumulation of all these different chemicals in her body, and then once the mold was part of the puzzle, because it was black mold, which is very, very aggressive, that was literally, her immune system was like, "I'm done. Like, I, I, I can't." And her immune system kind of threw in the towel, and at that point, you know, there was the development of these autoimmune conditions. So just so you understand as well is that when it comes to Hashimoto's and the thyroid or just thyroid in general, when you really think about the anatomy of where the thyroid is located, and you think about if somebody is breathing in mold spores or breathing in formaldehyde or breathing in, you know, some other type of chemical.
**Unknown:** Like, you think about a, a salon, they're spraying a million things. Like, I, like, die when I go to the salon. I can, like, go once a year 'cause I can't even handle it.But they're breathing all of that in, and it's going into the sinuses, it's going into the mouth, it's going into the tonsils. And what's just chilling right in the middle is the thyroid.
**Unknown:** So you get all these chemicals saturated into the sinuses, saturated into the tonsils, saturated into the lymph nodes, and this is going to be almost like the thyroid is in a bad neighborhood. It's literally sitting in the middle of all of these tissues that are ridden with the toxicity. And the same thing goes is that breathing it in, breathing it in, getting into the tonsils, the mouth, this can also then allow these chemicals to get into the digestive system as well. So when you talk about your gut and you're like, "What did I eat today?
**Unknown:** Oh, my gosh, like, am I reacting to this food? Am I reacting to that food?" It might not be food. It might be chemicals. It might be something completely off of your radar.
**Unknown:** Most of my patients that have come to me after years of gut issues, yeah, they have bacteria. Yeah, they have inflammation in their gut, but they also have a boatload of toxins in there. So once we're able to tackle the toxicity, they actually have the resolution of their gut issues. So it's just really important to understand there might be more to the story for the symptoms that are unresolved for you.
**Unknown:** Okay, so another big one is that allergies are not a reflection of your overall health. This is a huge myth because we often think allergies are just allergies, and they are not associated with anything else. But chemical sensitivities are reflective of an n-- of a neurological reaction that you are having. The longer your neurological system is stressed, the more inclined you are to have the brain fog that turns into the short-term memory loss, which turns into the word recall issues, that then turns into the long-term memory issues, which then becomes something more serious down the line.
**Unknown:** So it's a progression that happens that usually takes years, but if you are in your twenties or thirties and you're already saying, "My memory sucks," you need to start doing something about it because it doesn't get better. It gets worse. The other thing too is that the immune system can become reactive for a variety of reasons. So again, this might be you're having a reaction to food, you might be ha-having a reaction to mold, you might be having a reaction to chemicals, you might be having a reaction to heavy metals.
**Unknown:** It could be so many different things. But I do not want you guys to live in fear of your life. I don't want you to live in fear of the environment and think you have to live in a bubble because that is stressful. But when it comes to understanding the bigger picture, it might be more so that you need to just get your body's ability to be resilient back again.
**Unknown:** You might need to clean up those detox pathways. You might need to get your kidneys working better, your liver working better, your lymph nodes working better. And I will give you guys a disclaimer because for those of you who are like, "What the heck does any of that mean? What does that even look like?" So the person that is sensitive to caffeine, they can't tolerate alcohol, um, they're getting right-sided ribcage, ribcage pain.
**Unknown:** That is problems with your liver. If you have constipation or diarrhea or even occasional constipation or diarrhea, that is a sign that your gut's not working. That's another elimination pathway. If you have chronic urinary tract infections, bladder infections, bladder pain, kidney infections, kidney stones, that is a sign that you have kidney issues.
**Unknown:** If you do not sweat, if you get water retention, if you're the guy with the skinny arms and the puffy belly, like what they call the beer belly, that is another sign that your lymphatic system sucks. If you literally have fibrocystic breasts, also known as dense breasts, that is another sign that your lymphatic system is not working. Guys, I know all of you relate to one or many of those, and we need to know these things because you're not just getting old. You're not just screwed based off of your genetics.
**Unknown:** This is happening for a reason, and it's not a hard fix. It's usually a pretty simple fix. So get better information because you don't know what you don't know. It's impossible for you to know these things if you don't do better testing, if you don't ask better questions, and you do not educate yourself.
**Unknown:** Because, yes, Dr. Nick and I are here, and our whole team is here to support. But at the same time, it really comes down to you also are in the driver's seat, and there's so much that you could do for yourself with the assistance and the guidance of physicians like us. So a big thing that I always say is we just need to stop blaming this on bad luck and bad genetics.
**Unknown:** We need to understand that there is always a reason. There is always, always a reason. You're not just doomed, and you're not just gonna be, you know, screwed based off of your genetics. There is always going to be a reason, and there's gonna be a solution.
**Unknown:** In addition, if you were listening to me this whole time, what you realize is that none of this looks like a textbook. There's none of this you can read in a textbook. For those of you that are nurses, doctors, naturopaths, whoever, well, maybe naturopaths, but, like, none of this is in the textbook. Nobody's telling you that your, your pers- your patient who has celiac disease might have formaldehyde toxicity.
**Unknown:** Nobody's talking about glyphosa- well, maybe they're talking about glyphosate more these days, but nobody's talking about these connections. Celiac is, "Oh, we don't know why it happens. We don't... There's no cure, but, you know, if it gets bad enough, this is what we can do to palliate your symptoms." And we need to not be settling for that.
**Unknown:** We need to be, you know, really advocating for ourselves to know that we deserve answers, and we deserve solutions, and they are out there, I promise you. And some of you are here because maybe you tried functional medicine. Some of you are here because you have no freaking clue what functional medicine is. But I'm here to tell you functional medicine and integrative medicine are different because functional medicine is better testing but, in my opinion, less tools.
**Unknown:** It's diet and supplements. Integrative medicine is going to be giving you a lot more toolsSo one of the questions that they asked was about osteoporosis. And with the osteoporosis, this can definitely play into some of the things that we talked about, partly because these chemicals can block the absorption of calcium in the gut. But a big thing with osteoporosis is it's associated with your parathyroid gland.
**Unknown:** So again, if you're inhaling chemicals because you work in construction, you're being exposed to chemicals and fiberglass and spray insulation, um, if you work in a salon and you're getting exposed to aerosol sprays and things like that, then all of that that's going in is going into the lymph nodes of the neck. Your, uh, parathyroid are glands, uh, connected to your thyroid, and you can easily have dysfunction in your parathyroid based off of that toxicity, which will then compromise your calcium levels, which will then, uh, create more susceptibility to osteopenia and osteoporosis. So going back to this idea of functional medicine, integrative medicine, is that with functional medicine, it's great testing, but the, the solutions are focused on diet and supplements. When we get into this integrative medicine idea, we start to focus more on the bigger picture.
**Unknown:** Okay, how are we gonna get rid of these chemical, um, sensitivities? How are we gonna get rid of the toxicities? Are we going to use, uh, detox therapies like infrared sauna? Are we gonna use PEMF devices?
**Unknown:** Are we gonna use, um, lymphatic drainage? Are we gonna use muscle work to get the lymph nodes moving? Are we gonna use lymphatic massage? Are we gonna use chiropractic?
**Unknown:** Are we going to use supplements? Are we gonna use diet? So we start looking beyond, and we start piecing it together so you get better results in a shorter amount of time because it's usually not just about, you know, eat broccoli until you're green. So we need to be pairing the food with other modalities that are gonna give us the success that we're looking for, and we're going to give us the s-- or it's gonna give us the success that is more sustainable.
**Unknown:** So we don't guess, we test. And I love this about what we do because I have the confidence in the testing to say, "I know what supplements are best for your body based off of this test. I know what therapies are g- gonna get you the best results in the shortest amount of time. I know exactly what your body needs to start healing." So at the end of the day, you're going to save so much time, money, and frustration.
**Unknown:** You're going to be able to accelerate this process. And for those of you that have been in the model, you know. You know how... You probably have the arsenal of supplements that is like five, six, seven, maybe upwards of ten thousand dollars sitting in a cabinet of a bunch of things that you're like, "I took it because it sounded good, and then it didn't work." And you just, you just like lose steam.
**Unknown:** You get frustrated. You get overwhelmed because you're just like, "I don't even know. I don't even know anymore." And literally, I will tell you this, I at one point in time probably had a solid twenty-five thousand dollars of supplements sitting in a cabinet in my house. And this is because before we discovered all of these advanced styles of testing, we were doing trial and error on ourselves as well, and it resulted in a lot of wasted time and a lot of wasted money.
**Unknown:** And I'm still chipping away at that lovely cabinet. I'm getting close to it being done. But, um, you know, we've evolved our onboarding process over time, and we evolved it because we started to learn more. We started to challenge a lot of the conventional testing.
**Unknown:** We started to find better testing. We started to find ways to piece the puzzle together that literally allowed us to be like, "Holy crap, I, I get-- I see the big picture. I know exactly how this person got to this place, and I actually have a confident roadmap to get them where they're trying to go." And I will tell you, I have never been able to practice with such confidence until we started doing the testing that we do now. And, you know, another big piece to as to why we evolved this onboarding process is because I was also really tired of my patient coming into the office, and, you know, it's X amount of dollars for your consultation, and now I have to give you all these fancy kits because I need you to do a stool sample, I need you to do a nasal swab and a urine test and a saliva test, and all of these tests are five hundred, six hundred, a thousand, and, and they all rack up.
**Unknown:** And then all of a sudden, you're, you know, a thousand dollars in the hole, thousands of dollars in the hole, and we haven't even got to talking about how we're gonna help you get better. So I wanted to find a solution that was really gonna allow for people to get the most information in order to spend money on what I personally think is the most important, which is actually getting better.So really at the end of the day, you know, if you're the person that you're just like, "I feel like crap. I don't know what's wrong with me. Nobody knows what's wrong with me.
**Unknown:** I've been on a merry-go-round of doctors, doctors, and a lot of wasted time and effort," then, you know, when you finally are able to pinpoint what is going on with you and what your body needs to get better, really that is priceless. Another thing I always forget to mention is how, um, all of our testing can actually be done long distance. So we work with patients at this point, um, I don't-- I can't even say all over the country. It's really awesome that all over the world right now we have a couple of people that we work with in Italy.
**Unknown:** But with that being said, by simply sending us a hair sample, we can actually do, um, a good portion of our in-house tests through the da- DNA of your hair sample. And in addition to that, any blood work recommendations will be done, um, local to you. I really thank you guys for being here. I definitely absolutely love doing these.
**Unknown:** I really feel that it starts with education. It also starts with being your own healthcare advocate, um, because there is so much mixed information out there. But, you know, when you're able to actually get your own testing and understand more about your own body, what it needs, uh, or what's going on and what it needs, that's really when you start to see your own personal breakthrough experience. And I really hope that the IWG team can be part of that breakthrough for you.
**Unknown:** So with that being said, definitely check out our website, um, to learn a little bit more about who we are, what we do, how we work with our patients. We have some amazing resources and videos there, and we have an amazing client care team that does, uh, complimentary, um, health strategy calls. So you can literally book one of those calls at any time, hop on a call with one of our team members to just really talk through the logistics of how we work with our clients and how we can best help you according to what you have going on and really what your goals are as well. So we do these calls just to always make sure that we are a fit for you as you are a fit for us.
**Unknown:** But we really hope to see you in the near future. And I always wanna add in here how, um, we have our Institute for Integrative Wellness, so this is actually for healthcare practitioners. So this is everyone from naturopaths to chiropractors to medical doctors, osteopaths, acupuncturists, uh, even health coaches. It's an amazing, uh, platform for people to really learn more about integrative approaches to health and wellness, and it is literally a plethora of information on how to build your business in addition to how to really work with your patients from an integrative standpoint.
**Unknown:** So if you have, um, friends or family or colleagues that, uh, potentially are a good candidate for that, definitely send them over the information for the institute. So definitely check that out, and we hope to hear from you soon. 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.
**Unknown:** Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com. All night, no sleep. 'Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming.
**Unknown:** 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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