97: Lyme, Mold, MCAS & Environmental Toxins

Narrarator 0:04

How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the Healthy Home Hacks podcast where we firmly believe in joining optimal health shouldn't be a luxury. Healthy Home authorities and husband and wife team Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. Listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right, here are your hosts, baubiologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados, Ron and Lisa Beres.

Lisa Beres 0:49

What if you could harness the energy of your luckiest numbers to radically improve your life, accomplish your goals and bring success and wealth to your home or business? Guess what? You can? Jessie Kalsi is a world renowned numerologist you may remember him from episode number 85. Jesse specializes in residential and business numerology and provides valuable insights on the power of numbers and how they affect our lives. In his books, the power of home numbers and all about numbers. Jessie combines his Eastern upbringing with his Western experience to bring awareness and understanding of this phenomena. And he's offering Ron and Lisa listeners $50 off any consultation. We did one and highly recommend it. Just use code. RonandLisa at checkout. We'll have the code and the links in the show notes at bit.ly/JesseKalsi and that's bit.ly/JesseKalsi.

Ron Beres 1:59

If you don't make time for your wellness, you'll be forced to make time for your illness. What if you're experiencing a host of negative health symptoms, but have no idea what is causing them? Or spend boatloads of money but feel like you're living in a never ending loop of suffering.

Lisa Beres 2:18

So many people struggle with finding the root cause of their illness and locating the right doctor will take the time to get to know them and find treatments that don't just work, but that will cause the least amount of harm. You've likely heard of a naturopath position, but you may be wondering what that entails. Rather than just suppressing symptoms. Naturopathic doctors work to identify underlying causes of illness and develop personalized treatment plans to address them.

Ron Beres 2:47

Our guest today is Dr. Julia Greenspan, who is a naturopathic doctor with over 17 years of experience treating over 10,000 patients. She is the author of the holistic guide for long haul infections called Rising Above Lyme Disease: A Revolutionary, Holistic Approach to Managing and Reversing the Symptoms of Lyme Disease And Reclaiming Your Life.

Lisa Beres 3:14

Dr. Julia Greenspan specializes in complex chronic long haul infections, Lyme disease, co- infections, illnesses due to environmental toxicity, like heavy metals and mold, neuro psychiatric illnesses caused by infection, such as pandas, pans, SIBO, mast cell activation syndrome, chronic UTIs, repeated sinus infections and bio identical hormone therapy. Dr. Greenspan addresses more routine complaints with an integrative approach.

Ron Beres 3:48

She has been recognized as a top doctor in her field by several organizations over the years, both nationally and locally in New Hampshire. Welcome to the show, Dr. Julia. Yes.

Julia Greenspan, ND 4:02

Thanks, guys. That's quite an introduction.

Lisa Beres 4:05

We got the drum roll, we got the band play.

Ron Beres 4:08

You can tell we're excited to have you. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Beres 4:11

Thanks for having me. Welcome. Dr. Julia, we are so thrilled to have you with us today. And I want to dive right in. Because this is such an important topic. There are so many people listening that are struggling with so many symptoms, and they can't find the root cause this is something we get asked a lot. And it's really frustrating to be in that situation where you're suffering, but you don't know doctors aren't giving you answers. They're just medicating you. And you know, you're just kind of in this cycle. So can you explain to our listeners, what defines long haul infections beyond COVID?

Julia Greenspan, ND 4:42

So as you said, I started about 17 years ago, in patients with tick borne infections, Lyme disease started showing up so my practice kind of picked me. I wasn't planning to treat complex chronic illness but you know, once people find out that you do that, they start to show up. So I didn't really realize what admits to be a specialist in long haul infections, honestly until COVID. And I realized that doctors like myself have sort of been training in this for a long time to be ready for the complexities of COVID, that the patients that I see are ones that have symptoms in multiple organ systems. And so they're going to have symptoms in their GI, their nervous system, their endocrine system, the respiratory system, nervous systems. And before they come to see me, they've been to see several doctors, each one dealing with each one of those individual parts, but nothing that sort of brought it all together. Yeah, so it's kind of like, everything sounds like it falls apart at once. All those things you mentioned, that's a lot for someone, and the musculoskeletal system, their body pain. And so a lot of times individuals like that, because of their complexity, a lot of times they get told that it's anxiety or depression, because a lot of those complaints can't be found with labs or imaging. It's hard. And also, a lot of the tick borne infections are very political. And that.

Lisa Beres 5:58

Isn't that weird? We just did a show on that. And I was like. Why is this still a thing? I mean, why are people still in denial about it? It's bizarre, and political. You're right. What does that have to do with health? Right?

Julia Greenspan, ND 6:09

Well so there's a certain set of criteria that doctors that are associated with hospitals, and aligned with that model have to follow in order to be able to diagnose Lyme disease. And so what happened is that a very structured, very strict set of criteria for Lyme were created. And normally, when certain specialties create a diagnosis, or a way of treating like a set of criteria for treatment, across all specialties, at the end of each one of those, they'll say, but we leave this up to the doctor's discretion, because you have the patient sitting in front of you, they left that line out in regards to Lyme disease. And that line is very important at giving doctors the ability to be able to treat beyond a certain point. So beyond the 21 days, or the 10 days, or whatever the you know, the criteria is. And the fact is, is that with long haul infections, the criteria you can put things in a box and say this is supposed to get better within this certain timeframe with a certain medication. But the body has different ideas about how it's gonna go about that, right? These are longer relationships with patients. It's not outcome driven, in a sense of like, oh, well, you need to be better by this point. And if you're not, there's nothing else I can do to help you. It's a constant evolution of like creative thinking, and bringing in different modalities in order to be able to help someone get there. And so you'll find that individuals in functional medicine or that treat complex chronic illness, do all different types of things. So they pull from the conventional world, they pull from herbs, homeopathy, I do IV therapy in my office, ozone, I do energy medicine, as well. So loving netic therapies, Reiki, all these pieces come together, because there's the aspect that impacts someone's physical body with a long haul infection, again, requiring kind of treating the heart or the gut, or bringing down brain inflammation, and also treating the pathogen or the toxin and trying to reduce that. And that can take months and months to get someone there, especially depending on where they were when they came in the door.

Lisa Beres 8:03

I was gonna say, Yeah, we all have different backgrounds, we've had different exposures to toxins, biological contaminants, you know, as we grow up, so yeah, to pigeonhole things into I guess it's a 21 day cycle that you're supposed to be better is it typically antibiotics, right? I've heard that, yeah, that's the protocol.

Julia Greenspan, ND 8:20

And even then, for someone to get an antibiotic, it has to fit a very specific set of criteria. So everything has to perfectly kind of line up with a bite, and then how it looks, and then the lab, and sometimes again, the body doesn't do everything perfectly, but somebody can be sitting in front of you with just enough information, especially I practice in the New England area. So this is like one of the most infected and infested areas in the country, right. And it doesn't get factored in as a differential diagnosis, you know, so when patients come in, it really kind of gets put off to the wayside. And patients will be put through 1000s and 1000s of dollars of labs and imaging, every other possible diagnosis. And then, well, maybe you have Lyme when that, you know, medication, paying for medication for Doxy is like, you know, 50 bucks.

Lisa Beres 9:04

Oh, yes. What are the percentage of people that come in, like in that position, but didn't know they were bit by a tech?

Julia Greenspan, ND 9:11

I would say a larger percentage of my patients that end up seeing me because they become chronic, don't have any memory of a bite whatsoever. And that includes myself, I've never pulled a tick out of my skin. And I was very sick about 12 to 13 years ago, and it took me two years to recover. So I'm also a patient as well. But you know, that's the most difficult part because people don't have that beginning. You know, like, Oh, I saw a tick and either going in to get medical care or, you know, kind of going oh, well, things actually weren't right since that happened. Maybe it's related. But if they have no tick bite, then they just are kind of going to all the different doctors, ya know, and trying to find the answer.

Lisa Beres 9:46

Wow, that's interesting.

Ron Beres 9:47

I've always wondered with the ticks that have Lyme disease, is it possible for tick that has Lyme disease that bites a human for it not to pass on because that human has a very strong immune system? Is that even plausible?

Julia Greenspan, ND 9:58

Really. It has more to do with where remedy get kind of gross here, but it has more to do with where the sparky actually is in the tick. So as far as tick attachment if spy arcades are kind of more closer into the mouthparts. Okay, so a tick is like a needle picture sort of, if somebody was to be out on the beach and step on the sand and put their foot onto a hypodermic needle or doctor accidentally sticks themselves there on all the medications, right? Because you have no idea from that one puncture in a split second, what came in with that, and it could be anything. But now we have an insect that actually is sort of an hypodermic needle, it's gone around and bit and fed off of other things. Its lifespan is two to three years. So it's fed off with other animals. It can go a year without eating.

Lisa Beres 10:41

Oh, my God. Wow, really?

Julia Greenspan, ND 10:42

Isn't that crazy? Yeah, close to that at least. And they're survivors.

Lisa Beres 10:46

They're stealthy, right?

Julia Greenspan, ND 10:47

They're still stealthy. So now this thing that's fed off of other things, you know, humans, animals, what have you that they now bite us. And what happens is, again, this is not very appetizing, but they take in some of our blood, they go into the skin, like a needle, taking some of our blood, and they anesthetize our skin, because if we noticed that there there, we would pull them right out like a mosquito, we know immediately because it hurts and we slept.

Lisa Beres 11:11

Right? Well, sometimes, sometimes I don't see the mosquito. I see the bumb

Julia Greenspan, ND 11:15

That's true, that's true. So the tick, though, will numb the skin, and then also put in like blood thinners, right, because the thinner the blood is more easier it is for them to get a meal. So they'll take in some of the blood, but then as they're drinking, they're gonna have some of the contents of their stomach go into our bloodstream. And that's how we get I know. But that's how we get infected are a part of that. But it has a lot to do with tick saliva and also kind of where the pathogens are. And also you can be infected by more than one tick borne infection with one tick, they can carry different types of infections within just one bite.

Lisa Beres 11:49

Oh, wow.

Julia Greenspan, ND 11:50

Patients can get multiple bites over a lifetime living in an infested area, and a little bit here, a little bit there. And then all of a sudden, they hit the wall, and they're chronically ill.

Lisa Beres 11:59

Okay. I didn't even know we had ticks in California until just recently, we saw one run and I saw one recently and Ron is like, isn't that a tick? I'm like, Oh, my God, I think it is. But then I Google that, of course, I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess we do have them here. I know. It's, yeah. Everywhere, right? Every state.

Julia Greenspan, ND 12:14

Yeah, you go hiking up into the mountains there. They've got the signs. I used to live in LA. So they'd have the signs you need to go hiking up into the hills that say ticks here. So yeah, they're pretty much in every state. every

Lisa Beres 12:26

Every state. Okay, so you're not immune doesn't matter where you live?

Ron Beres 12:29

We're heavily populated in the Northeast? I'm from the Northeast as well. Yes. That's crazy. Well, Dr. Julia, how do heavy metals and mold toxicity contribute to chronic infections that would kind of digress from ticks?

Julia Greenspan, ND 12:40

Yeah, sure. And especially since COVID, mold definitely has been more of an issue because people were home, probably not realizing that their home had mold issues, or noticing that they were getting sick from work, and then being home or being out of those environments. So there's been a lot more awareness and understanding around that. But a lot of times, if people come in initially, we find that there's tick borne infections on their labs, and we're moving forward with treatment. And we don't see people moving, kind of progressing. You know, improving, again, as I said, These things take time. But we also do want to see an evolution to see that people are getting improvements, even if they're small gains, you know, to show us that it's worth all the time and attention and what they're taking into their bodies and everything. So if we're not seeing progression, then we need to look at other things that could be holding back the immune system and the endocrine system. And that is usually going to be you know, heavy metals, heavy metal load, or mold, and also that they are living like either in a house that has mold in it. And that, you know, you're not going to get very far with trying to treat a pathogen if there's a huge exposure to toxins, yeah, because it totally reduces the power of the immune system to be able to get over infections. And if that's disabled, there's nothing that I can give someone that's going to be their own immune system. So both have to be working.

Lisa Beres 13:57

Yeah there's that quote, you can't heal in the same environment that made you sick.

Julia Greenspan, ND 14:01

Exactly.

Lisa Beres 14:01

Yeah. Not even just moldy, but a toxic house, because obviously, that's what we do. We teach people how to eliminate toxins that could be pesticides, and VOCs, and cancer causing chemicals and all of that. You're constantly exposing yourself and you're trying to heal, you can't do that you have to actually eliminate those exposures and give your body that chance to recuperate, and it's hard. I know you probably see this all the time where, like you're saying these things are invisible, like you tell someone they have mold in their body, you don't see that we tell you to get rid of your benzene and your formaldehyde in your home. You don't see that. So it's sometimes a hard sell to get people to be proactive when they don't see it. Right.

Julia Greenspan, ND 14:38

It is and yeah, a lot of molds you don't have to see it for it to be in your house. And it's not even just the mold spores, it's the toxins that molds create that actually are more the issue. So mold spores, they replicate very quickly, but they leave behind toxins that they produce that are just natural to them as like a kind of protects them in nature, but then that when they die off the toxin actually He stays in the environment and kind of attaches itself to dust molecules or dust particles in the mycotoxins correct. And mycotoxins get farther in. So there's no blood brain barrier in the sinuses. And so it's going to come in primarily through the respiratory tract, go into the brain, actually through the canals and in the nasal bone. And there's no blood brain barrier, and people get brain fog, memory issues, emotional changes, anxiety, depression.

Lisa Beres 15:24

That's good. That's so typical mold symptoms. Can you repeat that that's really important for people? Yeah.

Julia Greenspan, ND 15:30

Again, mold can come in many different ways. It can come in through the digestive tract with foods. So there's a lot of foods that have molds and most of those are going to be grains. Coffee beans actually have a lot of mold.

Lisa Beres 15:40

I know we buy mold, free coffee and mold free organic. And guys, I gotta tell you since we switched, like definitely better. I mean, you can't go back to drinking moldy coffee. And like, you feel better. It's interesting. And you're like, wait, what? I didn't know my coffee was moldy before I bought the mold free coffee, right? Yeah, no talk about it, and the pesticides and all of that.

Ron Beres 16:02

What's the brand list? Its life balance is the brand?

Lisa Beres 16:04

Lifeboosts.

Ron Beres 16:04

Life boost.

Lisa Beres 16:05

That's right. There's a ton of brands now. Yeah, Purity is nother one.

Julia Greenspan, ND 16:07

When we expect a mold to look like, you know, wet and green and we don't think of it in terms of like the actual toxins, the mycotoxins that aren't really the mold anymore, but still cause us harm and hurt our immune system. So mold spores, if we're in an active space where there is water damage, and we're breathing and mold spores, spores can go in and they can actually be in the sinus passages I have cultured that out of sinuses, like sinus swabs.

They can live in your lungs and everything right mold can live in your body.

They go into the lungs. And then the mycotoxins though, can go further down into the pulmonary tree and actually get passed through the lungs and go into the bloodstream. Oh, and so it's like the equivalent of like plastics, it's leaving behind its toxin. And the toxin doesn't break down very quickly at all. And just like we are dealing with, like our wastes that don't break down quick enough, right. And so they're building up. So it's the same idea within someone's home. So when we're talking about treating mold, yes, it's treating mold spores treating Candida, and like mold in the skin and in the gut, but it is also detoxing the body from the mycotoxins themselves, because again, they just regulate the endocrine system. So these are your hormones. So women having period, you know, periods that are irregular, fibroids that become irregular, and then men, you know, low testosterone at early ages can be due to infection or toxins.

Lisa Beres 17:25

Infertility.

Julia Greenspan, ND 17:27

Correct. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 17:28

I mean, everyone has hormone problems. At some level, I feel it not every single person, but so many people, it feels like, you know, an epidemic, people are very used to having hormonal issues, right? They just think that's normal. And no, we don't have to suffer and things shouldn't be that painful. And like, little girls are starting puberty early. But that's a whole nother thing that's more with the endocrine disrupting chemicals. But I want to switch gears really quick into something called mast cell activation syndrome, which a lot of listeners have probably not heard of. I only recently heard of it. So Dr. Greenspan, are you open to taking a question about this excellently. We have a caller, Kara. Hello, Kara. Are you there?

Kara 18:07

Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me?

Lisa Beres 18:09

Oh, yes. Perfect. Welcome to the show. And thank you so much for being here.

Kara 18:13

Thank you.

Lisa Beres 18:14

Thank you. What is your question for Dr. Greenspan?

Kara 18:18

Hi, thanks so much for having me. Dr. Julia and, Lisa. I will tell you a little bit about my experience with methyl activation. And then I do have a question for the doctor that maybe could help some other people with this. So my experience with this is that I was misdiagnosed for over 40 years, I was sick as a child, I would get colds that I couldn't recover from and I had a lot of mysterious symptoms. When I was about 35. I started seeing a naturopath for the first time. And that was the first time I actually recovered from a cold without getting a secondary infection. But my naturopath actually missed this diagnosis. So I had multiple meltdowns in my life, and I couldn't really eat much for months. And about 13 years ago, I got tested positive for MTHFR because my mother had died of a blood disorder. And so I went to the doctor, and they tested me for a bunch of things. And that was one of them. And I was positive for two copies. And the doctor never gave me any advice or told me to do anything. And so I just continued on with my life. And so then I never really had the allergies. It's typical of MCAT patients. I never had any skin issues. I even had a food allergy tests that really only showed a couple of things like gluten sensitivity, which you know, is super common. So I wasn't having these severe allergy symptoms. I probably saw about 100 doctors in my life. And I was often treated like I was a hypochondriac. I had swelling in my intestines every day so bad that by three o'clock, I would have to unbutton my pants because it was so painful that went on for most of my adult life. One doctor told me I needed to see a psychiatrist and my problems weren't real, which was fun. So the last meltdown I had when I was younger, or the multiple ones that I had when I was younger, they were triggered by stress, which I realized this now that I understand what's wrong with me, but at the time I had no idea why I was sick. I grew up in a very abusive home and I have learned my number one trigger for antacid stress. So in the month leading up to this particular meltdown, I was extremely suicidal. I have had thoughts of suicide most of my life, but this, I mean, it became unbearable. This meltdown, my naturopath I had been seeing for eight years, had retired. And then within a few months, I got mold in my dishwasher, and I started getting really sick. So mold was actually the final trigger for me this time. Now I was seeing a new doctor, and my new Doctor, my new naturopath told me just come off all of your supplements for two weeks, and then we'll test because he couldn't figure out what was wrong. Well, that was terrible advice, because I was accidentally on a bunch of mast cell stabilizers like Ketotifen, and you know, some different things that I had been taking. So when I stopped taking everything, within date, I became allergic to water in my stomach. I couldn't walk to the bathroom by myself. After I would eat, I would shake for hours, my heart rate was through the roof, I started getting terrible thrush in my mouth. I was going into anaphylaxis over anything that went into my stomach, water a pill, anything. I became allergic to sound to light, to heat, I started seeing things like I was seeing shadows like I would walk the dogs at night and I see shadows moving across the street. And I knew they weren't real, but they felt very real.

Lisa Beres 21:21

Oh, my gosh.

Kara 21:23

Yeah. And believable, I went to the hospital, and they treated me like I was crazy. Every test that I took came back normal. And I felt like I was having a heart attack. Even when I was having my worst moment, I actually was tested for tryptase and high histamine. And they weren't high on the charts. And I could barely even walk into office to take the test. But it's like those tests, you know, you have to take them the exact right moment. And I just couldn't get the exact right moment. So I became extremely chemically sensitive, I didn't really have a lot of things in my health already. Because I you know, I kind of tended to have more of a natural life. But I had to change everything, including all my detergents, my boyfriend had to put all his colognes in plastic ziplock bags. And I got three different filters for my house to filter out any kind of chemicals or anything that was in my air. So I'm a singer for a job that I do our time. And I could only stand and sing for short periods of time. But I would react to movement, like my body heat going up and I'd have reactions to the loud sounds, and one that actually left the stage and I went straight to the hospital because my resting heart rate was so high. I couldn't remember words to songs that had been seen for years. Sometimes in the middle of a song I wasn't even sure what songs a band was playing. Over the years, I've been diagnosed with a lot of things. Chronic sinusitis is a motor rhinitis, idea, thyroid condition, adrenal fatigue, ADD depression, it was actually my boyfriend that figured out what was wrong with me, we decided I was just so sick, we just started going through my records. And it was MTHFR tests that provided a clue that maybe I had a histamine problem, because those things kind of go together. And then that led me to MCAT. And so now I don't have any chemicals in my life. I've cleaned up my entire world, including my food, I don't eat any additives or anything in my food, I wash my clothing after I buy it, you know, so I can reduce the amount of chemicals that are on my body. I'm on medications and supplements that are mast cell stabilizers. I can't drink alcohol anymore, or eat a lot of things. A lot of things are off limits to me. But singing is actually when I feel best because it calms my vagus nerve. So I tried to do a lot of things that sort of calm my nervous system, including like infrared sauna. So anyway, all of that just kind of give you a background on this sort of our history.

Lisa Beres 23:45

Wow, that's a lot.

Kara 23:47

Yeah. But I know a lot of people go through it like this, you know, where it's like they basically spend most of their lives sick. And it's really, it hasn't been very long that they've been diagnosing this. And so it's like they've suffered for so many years. So I know many people they don't know even where to begin, I was fortunate where I found a doctor very quickly. But my question to the doctors today is, what does someone do when they're suspicious that they have this because it's so expensive to test and treat? And what do you recommend that they do if they don't have the support system or the funds to be able to do anything about it?

Julia Greenspan, ND 24:21

Thank you for sharing your story. And you know, I'll just tell you, you sound like about three patients. I saw it today. So you're not alone. And that's the thing is like, you know, a history of seeing multiple doctors long history of repeated illnesses and then eventually being kind of told, because if a doc doesn't have the answer, then it must be that there's something wrong with the person's brain or that gaslighting kind of starts to happen, unfortunately. So as far as what someone can do, I would say at the very least a histamine diet. You know, a low histamine diet is something to get familiar with. That, you know, wouldn't be so much the cost of a supplement or the cost of going to the doctor. I would say though, as far as in surance goes, there's some insurances that cover coming to see me and other MDS depending on what state that person's practicing in, or as far as functional medicine, and labs, you know, as long as patient has insurance typically will cover histamine and tryptase testing. But those again, you're right in the sense of like, you could do all the perfect things to try to stimulate a histamine response. And that doesn't mean that your histamines are gonna go up, and that that's going to show up on the labs. So I'm taught the doctors that teach me and over years of doing this, that it really is how someone presents and it's what their story is about, and listening to the case presentation. Because even though these things sound complex, they all have a pattern. And there is similar tude and similarity in how patients present with this. So it's working with kind of what a person can do what they can afford, you know, there are prescriptions that get covered that are helpful for mast cell activation. cromolyn, sodium gets covered, that's a medication actually derived from a plant called OmniVision Agha, and it's a liquid that will basically ramps down histamine response in the guts, and that's been helpful. There are compounding medications, there's over the counter, I have great results with Zyzal of all things that you know, that's an allergy meds, whereas other allergy meds, like Zyrtec don't really do much to help that at all, or Montelukast, which is like singular. But I'd say first and foremost is going to be you know, like exactly what you said that the last straw was the mold in the home, there was a lot of different factors leading up to that. But what mass cell activation is, or at least my understanding, and kind of where I sit with it is that it's the body trying to find a solution to a larger problem. So mass cell is a symptom, you know, it's the response to an underlying stress upon the body. And the body then basically sends out the bat signal that says, We need to make many more of these particular immune cells, because they're going to shore us up and protect us and guard us. Because we're not safe, something isn't safe, either. Something internally isn't safe, like an infection or a toxin, or externally isn't safe, as you said, like stressors. And most of time, patients have all of these things going on at one time. You know, if you just pick one of those things, and it's just one thing that someone's dealing with, they normally, you know, typically wouldn't manifest a mast cell response. And again, there are people genetically predisposition, this has been happening to since you're a little girl, the other thing to look at would be your IGG levels, which is your immunoglobulins, which also protect you from infections. And if those weren't robust, that might also have been an issue, but I'm sure that's already probably been looked at. So from the most simple to the most complex, the big piece of it's going to be the diet and of course, eliminating toxins in the environment and limiting stressful situations. So you know, when you're a kid, or if you're somebody that's kind of at the mercy of a stressful home, and you don't have a lot of say in that, but you got to kind of survive it, you're just kind of in it, unfortunately. But with adults studying the big one. And a big thing for a lot of my patients is like boundaries, and being able to say no, because if they're in toxic relationships, or in stress in their lives, or a stressful job, or even at their job is a toxic work environment, either through people's personalities, or just the building itself. A lot of people having just leave work because of the building being toxic. Just had that yesterday, actually do it that everyday but a big case yesterday. So I hope that answers your questions. I know I gave out a lot of stuff there. But if you see it a lot, and you treat it a lot, it's very easy to spot in, it's easy to, you know, give people advice on how to treat that and kind of figure out what works. The hard part is that it is not acknowledged. And it's hard to find doctors that have seen a lot of cases and they've treated it. And as a patient, it's really difficult. You eventually end up being your own doctor because you're doing all your own research, and you're going online and trying to figure out what to treat yourself with and patients end up kind of taking that burden on themselves. And it can be really traumatizing.

Lisa Beres 28:42

Yeah. Wow, that was a lot you guys. I'm learning so much from both of you. Kara. We were talking right before you called in about mold being very heavily prevalent in coffee. Do you drink coffee now? And if you do, do you drink a mold free coffee?

Kara 28:57

Yeah, I drink Purity. I actually was drinking Bulletproof because they also claimed to be mold free. But of course, just like the doctor said, I spend a lot of time listening to doctors talk about this, like on podcasts. And I'm on a MCA support group on Facebook. And so people talk you know, and there's just so many aspects of it, you learn from each other, you know, and so I learned about Purity coffee from them. And I noticed that I actually have much less of a reaction to Purity coffee. In fact, some days I don't react at all to it. So it's a very easy to tolerate coffee, and I do love my coffee.

Julia Greenspan, ND 29:36

Me too.

Lisa Beres 29:37

Thank God for the mold free organic. Yeah, because our coffee is so heavily sprayed with pesticides because it's a crop like cotton. You know, people don't realize they're so heavily sprayed. So reducing your toxic load there. Dr. Julia, is it a situation for Kara where the rest of her life she's going to have to watch all of this stuff or will the body at some point go gosh, it's doing really good. We don't have to be as strict with everything.

Julia Greenspan, ND 29:59

Yeah, I think it's Just as she said, she's looked at it from all angles. So also bringing up the vagus nerve and working on keeping her stress level and doing the things that sort of keep her her nervous system in check and imbalanced, so that it doesn't go into a fight or flight response. Like the self care piece here is a really big piece. And it's something that, and I'm just as guilty. So when I was really sick, I totally was putting myself on the backburner. And it brought me to my knees, until I started to step into setting better boundaries for myself and taking care of myself and taking that mantle. So not knowing what she's treating with right now, you know, and kind of what's all part of her regime. But ideally, it's going to be working on also detoxifying. So there can be medications in place like dao enzyme or luteolin quercetin, you know, things that are going to bring down the histamine. From a natural medicine standpoint, or prescription standpoint, but it's also going to detoxifying and bringing down that load emptying that bucket. And so binders are often used quite often if the gut can tolerate that. And oftentimes, the patients, we have to go very low and slow with things. So take like a few granules of something for some people that are so sensitive, and really just be really patient with the process of them moving through that. And it may take six months for them to get to being able to take one capsule of something, wow, because there's so compromised. But if we keep at it, and again, remove it from the environment, and then continue to work on detoxifying the body. Glutathione is another nutrient that gets used anything that's going to be helping the liver moving bile to the liver, and then you know, making sure that digestion is robust and that the gut is moving and moving things out. Because we really need to work on those organs of elimination to be able to move things out. But it sounds like she's doing all the right things.

Lisa Beres 31:39

Yeah Kara, it sounds like you're on a good path. And you're doing well. I mean, is your life pretty back to normal, so to speak, with all of these protocols that you've implemented?

Kara 31:49

I will say, a lot of days, I feel better than I've ever felt in my life, which, you know, I realize I could even feel this way. So it's like, when you're sick your whole life, you don't really know what other people feel like. And so you don't know how sick you are. But I do go through a lot of you know, I have trouble I react to binders. I mean, my yeast is very high, you know, because it just completely went all through my body and all through my digestive tract. And so I have to take things to sort of kill that calm everything down. But I often react to those things. And it depends on the day, you know, it's like, Is my load high? Because maybe I had something that I reacted to some food. And so then I have to be careful about how much other stuff I can take that day. So it's definitely a marathon. Yeah, you know, trying to get well. And I lost 20 pounds, by the way in the process, because I was so swollen and sick, that when I started treating this, I just lost weight. And I certainly didn't try. And at some point, I thought, Okay, well, I'm losing weight, because I'm not eating, but now I eat a lot and I really, not gain. That's kind of amazing.

Julia Greenspan, ND 32:53

The body tends to want to hold on to water when it's inflamed. So once you start kind of calming things down, the body uses water to protect itself. So think about like when you smash your thumb, you know, accidentally or you do something and it swells, or we hurt ourselves and it swells water kind of gains and those gets pulled into that area. But if you're talking about a global inflammatory process, a whole body inflammation, and typically with mold and fungus, too, and we talked about like bacteria and viruses, but actually, the underdog here, and the one that causes probably even harder to sort of clear and causes a lot of issues is fungus, Candida overgrowth, and things like that to try to clear that from the body. But once it goes down to a certain level, then the body again is just like, Ah, okay, we don't need to hold on to this. And then we'll start liberating water pretty quickly. And they lose weight pretty rapidly because their bodies just go in, like, they get a new program. We're okay, or we're not perfect, and we're still dealing with stuff. But we don't need to hold on to this level of water to protect ourselves, we can let go a little bit.

Lisa Beres 33:53

Right? I think so many people live in a fight or flight mode on adrenal burnout on the path to that society, kind of glamorizes that, you know, work, work, work, go, go go. If you're being proactive and you are meditating, you are doing those things, good for you. And if you're not, it's a really good time to start listeners. Because you can't push your body like that you can't abuse your body like that for too long. You can do it temporarily, but it's going to catch up at some point and look at all these other host of problems that it can lead to if you're not taking good care of yourself. Self Care is just so important. And so overlooked.

Ron Beres 34:24

Absolutely.

Kara 34:24

I just want to say before I go or before your if you have any more questions for me, that's fine. But I wanted to get out that I really appreciate you doing this episode. And I appreciate the doctor coming on because there are so many people like me that are sick. And I have a couple of friends that have this, that we've been crying to each other for years about how sick we were. And then I figured out what's wrong with me. And then they realized it was the same thing that was wrong with them. You know, and so there's so many people out there that are sick like me that need help and I really appreciate you getting the word out there and giving people some direction and some hope.

Lisa Beres 34:57

Wow, thank you. Thank you for coming on and being vulnerable and share sharing your story, I know, there's somebody listening, that is going to have a light bulb moment. So thank you so much for calling and wishing you so much just peace and healing in your journey forward. So thank you again.

Ron Beres 35:10

Thank you.

Kara 35:11

Thank you.

Julia Greenspan, ND 35:11

Thank you.

Lisa Beres 35:12

Whoa, that was like, nobody wants to get that. I mean, like I said, I had only recently heard of mast cell activation syndrome. I was like, shocking, because we've been working on detoxing the home for over 15 years. And I was shocked that we hadn't heard of it before, just a few months ago. And why is ADD, she said she had ADD is that just linked to heavy metal toxicity, or what would be the connection there.

Julia Greenspan, ND 35:36

So it gets referred to as like brain on fire, there was a famous book that came out with that same title, but what happens is that you can get encephalitis, autoimmune encephalitis, or you can get inflammation in the brain. So the toxins like to go to the emotional center of the brain, and the center of the brain that is hyper vigilant, called the limbic system. And it can take energy away from actually thinking more clearly, from here, the frontal lobe, like where we would actually sit and like be able to get tasks completed and be able to read something and remember it and, you know, if someone tells us to do something, we can follow that direction and follow it through to the end. And what happens with infections and toxicity is that it impacts that brain balance. And it's hard for people to follow through remember, of executive functioning, kids that end up having like pandas pans will, that you'll see changes in their handwriting, or even adults, handwriting changes are hand eye coordination. So it has to do with where in the brain that infections and toxins go. And COVID is, you know, individuals having brain fog, issues with memory focus, dizziness, mood changes, same thing, the virus goes right up into the sinus cavities and right into the brain. And when we smell stuff, this has a direct line, think about the emotions when we smell things. So if we smell something we love, we feel good. And when we smell something that we don't like, are adverse to you feel like, you know, like, we have an emotional response. Because our olfactory bulbs have a direct line to the emotional centers of the brain. So toxins can follow that path in there, then they're going to create changes in how we think and how we feel.

Lisa Beres 37:13

Wow would you say a lot of people with brain fog slash ADD, ADHD, that kind of thing. Do have toxins in there. Would you say that?

Julia Greenspan, ND 37:21

Oh, yes.

Lisa Beres 37:22

Oh, okay.

Julia Greenspan, ND 37:23

Yeah. So there's toxins either coming in that they're breathing into their sinuses or that their gut is disrupted in regards to like the gut brain connection. So there's like Candida, Candida might be just sitting in the surface of the gut, but it's creating toxins that are now you know, crossing over and impacting and creating an immune response that impacts the body systemically. Yeah. And histamines. We talked about mass cell activation, histamines can be in the brain, it can be in the gut, it can be in the skin, they can be in many different places in the body. And so you may not have all the symptoms of like the hiving and we think of somebody having an allergic response, we think about stuff happening that we can see, you know, rashes, and swollen tongue and that kind of thing. But they may look totally fine, but their brain is like lit up.

Lisa Beres 38:05

Whoa, that's amazing. And parasites, too. We talked about parasites, parasites, Ron and I were just talking about it. I'm like, parasites can go anywhere in your body, they can be in your brain, they can be, you know, it's kind of creepy. But it just brings me back to, you really have to be so proactive nowadays, like if you're just living on Earth, you can't just go through and assume that, you know, you're not going to get sick if you're not taking proactive measures, right? I mean, would you agree with that?

Julia Greenspan, ND 38:29

Oh, absolutely. Now, thankfully, it's twofold. We live in a time where we have more access to information so that we're more savvy, my patients are probably the most savvy group of people. But they also do fall to the pray to Dr. Google, were getting online now. Too much access to everything. Now we have everything. And so they end up being like medical students when you think you have everything because as you're learning it and going through it, right. So you know, a lot of times patients will come in with stuff that's totally out there. And they'll find a symptom that links to something because again, they're just desperate to find their way to wellness. And also, the medical trauma of you know, if they've been gaslighted by a doctor, which there's actually research studies now coming out, finally acknowledging it and talking about it, and kind of trying to put a kibosh on it and making buffers more aware, because we can be very powerful with what we say and what we do. You know, we can work black magic by telling someone something that they take in and all of a sudden becomes their story becomes their reality, you know, because they want help, and they trust you. Yeah. Or we can say something very powerful that can turn something around and help someone find help. So they have to be very careful with individuals in kind of how we handle those things. But I would say though, that again, my patients are probably they teach me more than I there was.

Lisa Beres 39:43

Google, if you get like a headache and you look at I'm just being a very basic example. It could be a brain tumor, you know, and then your mind will start going, Oh, my God, you know, you could take something small, something crazy on mine, and then go into it salesman.

Julia Greenspan, ND 39:56

Well, now it's chat GPT right now we have AI.

Lisa Beres 40:04

So you kind of mentioned assessing the presence of toxins and the impact of infections on the body. You mentioned a lot of tests, is there anything else that would you say is like a bare basic that people should do if they're having some of these symptoms, test wise.

Julia Greenspan, ND 40:17

So again, bloodwork can tell you a lot, if doctors are willing to run it for you, you know, and willing to go there. So there's tests to look at infections to look at mold, you know, the impact of mold on the body. And those things can be covered by insurance, it can be run through standard labs that go through like LabCorp, and quest, which are like the two major lab companies in the country. But then a lot of times, I will recommend, and if it's within somebody's budget, and it's something they want to pursue, like I love more data, but you know, I'll utilize labs that people have to pay out of pocket for because they're going to be so specialized in looking in more in depth into mycotoxins so like urine mycotoxin, testing, or bloodwork on the tick borne infections, but doing a lab where really that's all they do. And their roles are really tight. And we're going to look at it through a different lens. Yes. And even now with like, COVID, and looking at things around microcirculation, and all of these different things, because they're getting more awareness, there are companies coming forward and kind of developing the technology to look at different variables to try to confirm the presence of something and array of people more validation.

Lisa Beres 41:17

Yeah, right. That's important.

Ron Beres 41:19

But one final question. We talked about this earlier, before the phone call came in. But getting back to the whole mold and heavy metal toxicity, how do you treat mold and heavy metal toxicity? Is there like any basic tips you can give us? Yeah,

Julia Greenspan, ND 41:31

So first of all, it's going to be identifying it. So if it's heavy metal toxicity, chelation is the term that's used to get metal out. And so typically, I start off with doing a provocation test in order to see I give them a medication and or to kind of help their body, release the metals, and then, you know, test either blood or urine and then go from there. And as far as mycotoxins again, you know, we can test for the presence of that, you know, maybe confirm and have them test their home. So there's going to be remediating the person and there's going to be remediating the home. Yeah. And so I take over remediating the human.

Lisa Beres 42:05

We take over the home.

Julia Greenspan, ND 42:04

There you go. And so I would say, you know, first and foremost, again, we've already kind of touched on looking at what are we taking in in the diet, what's in our environment, because I can do all the things I can give you binders and things that move bile to the liver and help bring down inflammation to help wash it off of the sinuses. But if you're in an environment where you're exposed to it, it's just going to be pushing a boulder uphill, because you're constantly taking it in while I'm while you know, you're taking things I'm recommending to try to get things out. Yeah, and these are not easy times for people to make those changes in their lives with the cost of doing remediation and finding someone reputable and you know, all the things involved with that are moving just you know, finding an apartment or finding a new house. So air filtration, if you know that you have a situation in the house or your workplace. Again, I try to kind of hold people together until they can make those changes in their lives. So I typically will do like a sinus spray to kind of wash off the sinus passages because it'd be said this is a primary vector of that coming in. Binders in order to help grab on to toxins and help the body liberate them. And then things like glutathione and acetyl cysteine herbs to calm down information.

Lisa Beres 43:10

What kind of sinus spray would you say? Do you like olive leaf extract or something more potent or colloidal silver.

Julia Greenspan, ND 43:17

So honestly, Colloidal silver, or Argetyn 23 is kind of the one that gets used most often, I'd say in my community, but honestly, clear nasal spray XLEAR, it's a xylitol. And I think it typically has some also some grapefruit seed extract in it. But it's just saline and Xylitol which is a antimicrobial sugar. And it does amazing work with clearing pathogen off of the surfaces of the sinuses and it's very inexpensive. You can get it at pretty much any pharmacy. It's it's well known, but then we can take it the next step and do compounded sinus sprays that are antifungal, you know, kind of get creative with that. But I would say probably the easiest thing for someone to get a hold of if they have concerns about that and their environment is to get some clear nasal spray and it's clear with an X.

Lisa Beres 44:00

That's a great tip. Thank you for that. And I know Ron and I are very proponents of the neti pot. We love the neti pot. Oh yes. Oh, this was amazing. And listeners, you know, we have lists of our top recommended air purifiers on ronandlisa.com and do it yourself mold test kits that I'll put the links to that in the show note because like you said, Dr. Julia, if you're in a situation where you don't have 1000s of dollars to have someone come out and inspect, you can definitely start with taking tests yourself at home that are very affordable that go to accredited laboratories and give you really good results as a first step. But thank you so much for being with us today. This was amazing. Guys. If you're struggling with a chronic illness but can't find answers or a diagnosis. You can learn more about Dr. Julia's incredible services at Greenhousemedicine.com. She and her team of specially trained naturopathic and functional medicine practitioners are dedicated to getting to the heart of the matter.

Ron Beres 44:59

Remember, nature itself is the best medicine. Hippocrates. Thanks for being with us today friends and we'll have all the links in the show notes at Ronandlisa.com/podcast. Join us in two weeks for another episode and get ready to uplevel your health bye. Thanks, Dr. Julia. Bye bye

Lisa Beres 45:22

Thank you Julia.

Julia Greenspan, ND 45:24

Thank you bye.

Narrarator 45:26

This episode of the Healthy Home hacks podcast has ended. But be sure to subscribe for more healthy living strategies and tactics to help you create the healthy home you always dreamed up. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best content. See you on the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai