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Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Dr. Keesha Ewers is an integrative medicine expert, Doctor of Sexology, Family Practice ARNP, Psychotherapist, herbalist, is board certified in functional medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, and is the founder and medical director of the Academy for Integrative Medicine Health Coach Certification Program. Dr. Keesha has been in the medical field... Read More
Nafysa Parpia, ND has an independent practice at Gordon Medical associates, specializing in the treatment of Lyme disease and other complex chronic illnesses such as autoimmunity, mold toxicity, fibromyalgia, environmental toxicity and gastrointestinal disorders. Her patients with chronic Lyme Disease are typically those who either do not do well with antibiotics, or prefer... Read More
What Dr. Nafysa Parpia Will Teach You about Auto-Immune Detox
- The four corner pieces of solving a person’s auto-immune struggle.
- How every person’s health journey is unique.
- Why trauma causes long-term physical health problems.
- How to begin healing on your own.
How Auto-Immune Detox Benefits Your Health
- Removes poisonous compounds that constantly strain your immune system.
- Improves healing from physical stress caused by emotional trauma.
- Potentially recover from Lyme disease, mold, and other mycotoxins.
Introduction
In this Reverse Autoimmune Disease Summit, Nafysa Parpia, N.D, discusses auto-immune detoxification. Dr. Parpia is a board-certified naturopathic doctor who is passionate about working with patients who have experienced trauma and have seen trauma manifest in physical symptoms.
To address autoimmune diseases, Dr. Parpia focuses on unlocking the four corner pieces of a person’s auto-immune puzzle. Those four pieces are:
- Genetics
- Gut health
- Level of toxic burden and ability to drain
- Past trauma
With this knowledge, Dr. Parpia helps people solve their auto-immune conditions and begin to heal. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to treating autoimmune diseases. Each person’s body is different and similar symptoms can be caused by wildly different causes. The four corner pieces help determine how to begin an effective treatment.
The Science Behind the Problem
The body is affected by external factors such as toxic burden, diet, and lifestyle, which can all lead to the body being at higher risk for auto-immune conditions. Low-level chronic burdens that are experienced over time, which won’t cause outright poisoning, are called toxicants. Toxicants also lead to auto-immune conditions such as fatigue and rheumatoid arthritis.
This constant burden on the immune system can push the body into a constant state of “attack,” leading the body to attack healthy organisms or produce unnecessary immune cells.
Practical Steps to Address the Problem of Toxicity and Autoimmune Disease
Most autoimmune patients will visit a rheumatologist’s office, where they’re told, “Take a steroid. Take an anti-depressant. It’s just your genes. You’re just getting older.” But this treatment plan doesn’t take the mind-body connection into account. People with autoimmune diseases must address connections between past trauma and gut, immune, and brain function.
Dr. Parpia also recommends using a sauna to aid the skin, diet detoxes to cleanse the gut, and natural anti-infection treatments to reduce immune burden.
Conclusion
In the Reverse Autoimmune Disease Summit, board-certified naturopathic doctor, Dr. Nafysa Parpia, discusses how to begin the journey towards healing from chronic auto-immune struggles. She also discusses how trauma is a key player in causing these issues. Finally, she discusses the four main pieces in a person’s life that can lead to auto-immune conditions.
Click this link to watch this fascinating Dr. Talk on autoimmune disease and recovery.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Hi everybody. Dr. Keesha here. Welcome back to the Reverse Autoimmune Disease Summit. Of course, this is 4.0. It’s our fourth iteration of reversing autoimmune disease information to help you to be able to take charge of your own health. This particular summit is the auto-immune detox summit because of course, we’re talking about the four corner pieces of your puzzle ’cause you’re an individual and there’s no right diet or protocol or supplement that’s right for every single person. And so those four corner pieces of solving your puzzle are your genetics, your gut health, your level of toxic burden, and your body’s ability to get rid of those toxins, which we’re really focusing on a lot on this summit, and past trauma and how you deal with your stress. It’s the fourth corner piece. And of course, they’re all interrelated. This doesn’t go in a line.
It’s a big squiggle because your toxins that you’re exposed to actually impact how your genetics express themselves, how your gut health is and who lives in there, and naturally, how you deal with your stress and trauma impacts all of that too. So they’re all interrelated. And my guest today, we’re going to focus in on one form, two forms of toxins, tick-borne illnesses and mycotoxins and I’m so excited to talk about this. Dr. Parpia has spent the last decade treating patients with complex chronic illness from all over the United States and the world. Her specialization is with patients with tick-borne illnesses, autoimmune disease, environmentally acquired illnesses, mold and mycotoxins illnesses, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome. External factors to the body, such as environmental toxic burden, pathogens, diet, and lifestyle affect the balance of internal factors. Over or under expression of immunity, infection, susceptibility, epigenetic expression, cellular, biochemical function, mood, and the microbiome. We need to talk more about that in our interview. So let’s get started. Welcome to the summit, Dr. Parpia.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Thank you for having me.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah, I was, I was reading what we need to be talking about. So I just want to know when we get started, you are new, you’re a new friend and collaborator for me, and I love your work, and I’m excited to talk to you, but I always want to know how you got involved in this framework of medicine in the first place, because most of us have a story that brought us here. And so I’d love to hear yours.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, so I, I went to Bethsteer to study to become a naturopathic doctor because I knew that I wanted to work with the whole person, mind, body, and spirit. And the more I learned in naturopathic school, the more I also realized that I wanted to work with people who are having deep, deep issues of their own. You know, usually they’ve been through a lot of trauma, and I’ve had my own share of trauma and really worked through that a lot. And I’m lucky in that I didn’t have a physical manifestation of that. But I knew that the more patients I met who’ve been through trauma, the more I’m wanted to help them because I’d see it manifest in their whole being, mind, body and spirit. And that’s how I started.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Well, I’m so grateful that you did, because this is, you know, I have a history of sexual abuse when I was 10. And then I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when I was 30. And I was able to make that connection of this has to have had something to do with this 20 years later. And sure enough science tells us that it does indeed. And so I’m so happy that you have made that choice because I see that in my auto-immune patients whether it’s capital T trauma, like you know, the ACEs, the adverse childhood experiences that we talked about, which are the domestic violence and sexual abuse and psychological and emotional neglect, abandonment, but then also those lowercase t traumas, right? The ones of feeling rejected or feeling betrayed or not good enough, not fast enough, not beautiful enough, not whatever it is that the story is. Right? So, and they all impact our nervous system and how it behaves and how it responds. And then of course our immune system will follow, and who’s living in our microbiome? Right? All of it. So how does all this fit into mycotoxin illnesses and tick-borne illnesses?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
So usually my patients have had, they’ve had a lot of people transgress them. Usually it started that way, started when they were younger or maybe in their marriages when they got older or relationships in between. And at the same time, then there’s that mind body connection where somehow we can’t really measure that on the labs, but somehow they’re then open to further transgressions. So there’s the transgressions of environmental toxicants. They’re much more sensitive to the toxins that are now in our world. And then they get bit by a tick, and they have a high emotional burden. They have a high environmental toxic load that causes immune dysfunction. And because there’s already immune dysfunction, now they’re suddenly in chronic Lyme or they’ve got a chronic mycotoxin illness, which is the illness from mold. And now they’ve got the soup of all of these things that we have to work on together.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And I’ve heard that chronic Lyme and chronic mycotoxin, all of those are considered autoimmune now.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, yeah. Underneath them all, almost all my patients have an auto-immune condition or at least an autoimmune tendency. So almost everybody has Hashimoto’s or they have RA. A lot of them might have lupus or an autoimmune tendency in the gut at the same time as all of this.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So I used to work for the forest service when I was a teenager. I’d get hundreds of tick bites. It was just like a normal part of life. You know, we would actually play a game with each other. When I was 15 and 16, I went two summers out into the woods and worked for the Forest Service and the Youth Conservation Corps. And everyone would come back with ticks every single day. And we would go searching for them at night before we’d go to bed. And then we would play games with each other where we would hold a lit match underneath the tick to make it back out. Right? And that was like the, it was like monkeys grooming each other. Like that’s what we were doing, right? Get this tick off and getting them out of us so we could go to sleep.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
When years later I started hearing about the dangers of tick bites, right, I thought, “Oh, I should probably get myself tested for Lyme.” And sure enough, of course I was positive, right? I’ve never had any kind of Lyme syndrome. And then this house that I’m speaking to you from, we moved our furnace to have that replaced. And they took part of the wall out, and it was just filled with black mold. I mean, it was unbelievable. That’s the only way that we discovered that we had a leak from our third story down, all the way down.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Wow.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
We replaced three bathrooms. It was a nightmare.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Oh, yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
But in both instances, I didn’t get sick. I didn’t notice. I didn’t have any immune response. There was nothing. And it’s because I’d already done the work of healing my RNA back when I was 30 by dealing with my underlying trauma. Right? Getting my lifestyle so that it didn’t flip on my genetics. My grandfather had RA. Doing all of this work back then created this emotional, physical, spiritual, mental cushion and resilience, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes, absolutely.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah, So I would love to hear how you approach this for our folks. And maybe we should start with like what are the symptoms of each one of these, right? What happens when someone, how can someone know, do I have a problem here?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah. So most of my patients are adults, and meaning 20 years and older. And they come to me, at this point, maybe not thinking so much about their past trauma, but the imprint is already in their mental patterning, their emotional, spiritual patterning, it’s there, but it’s not actively being thought about anymore. They’ve even been to therapy a lot. But then they come to me, and they have symptoms from head to toe, literally. They have headaches, brain fog, neck pain, sinus pressure, pressure in the eyes, literally head to toe, a lot of gut gut issues and pain, pain in their muscles, pain in the bones, pain in the joints and numbness, tingling. And then they wind up in a rheumatologist’s office. And then they’re told here, “You’ve got this autoimmune diagnosis. Take some steroid. Take an anti-depressant. This is just, it’s just your genes. You’re just getting older.” You know?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
And then they’ve seen many doctors before they come to me, and they know they’re not fine. They know the steroid isn’t helping. Very often, the antidepressant is not working or it’s making them feel worse, even more depressed. So that’s when I start to hunt for all the different reasons that they’re, that’s making them sick and that’s leading to this auto-immune diagnosis.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And so what are the root causes, besides trauma, of some of these diagnoses that you find?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
So usually it’s a combination of multiple infections and environmental toxicants.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
You know, I went, I’m on the faculty at Institute for Functional Medicine. I remember going to one of Bob Rountree’s talks and really learning for the very first time the difference between a toxicant and a toxin. So maybe you can actually define that for our folks that are listening and saying, “Toxicant? That’s not really a word that I’ve heard before.”
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
So those would be low level chronic burdens that you experienced over time, things that aren’t going to cause you overt poisoning, right, but low levels of toxins.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Keep going.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
So low levels of a chronic exposure. And those toxins, they end up in our cells, in our fat cells or in the cells of our organs. And they’re not typically found on blood tests. So they’ll often, lately I am finding them on blood tests even. So that’s what an environmental toxicant is.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Okay, yeah. There’s also a difference between a manmade compound and one that comes from nature, right? Like a viral, tick-borne-
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Environmental versus BPA, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah. So I test for those. So there’s toxins that come from mold. Those are called mycotoxins, and most of my patients have a very high toxic burden of mycotoxins in addition to the manmade chemicals, for instance, perchlorate or glycosate. Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right. And we are a little bit like, I talked to Roger Murphy a little while ago, and we were just talking about the boiling frog scenario or the canary in the coal mine. And I realized I just sort of rattled those analogies out. And people may not know what I’m talking about. You know, the coal miners used to bring a canary in a cage down into the mines, and if the canary died, that meant there were too many fumes in the air and that they needed to actually get out of the shaft. And so the Canary is the one that shows everyone else that there’s a problem. Right? And that’s missed, it sounds like, with your clients and mine are ones that would be considered multipy-chemically sensitive or sensitive period, you know, and consider themselves to be very, very fragile because that’s what they’ve noticed about themselves. Like their bodies and their genetics their detoxification systems are maybe not as robust as another person’s, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly. Yeah, and I measure their genes of detoxification. Actually I’m using a new test where I can look at the genes, the snips, and all the different systems of the body and how those genes are interplaying with one another, which is really, really helpful in these mystery illnesses.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
It really is, and I’m glad you mentioned that because I did genetic testing on a hundred percent of my patients. And the reason for that is sometimes they’re anxious about it. You know, you’re gonna tell me that I have, dah, dah, dah, dah, or I’m gonna get-
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And that’s not it. It’s looking at what you’re just saying at the interrelationship between the different single nucleotide polymorphisms and the different parts of your body. And it’s actually getting an explanation. I call it the X marks the spot on a pirate’s treasure map, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Like dig a little deeper. This is probably a place where your genetics are showing us there could be a challenge, so let’s do some of this testing that has to do with this snip and dig a little bit deeper. And I think people look at genetic testing as the final end all be all, but we never treat the snip, right? Where we have to actually see, like, is that really true for you?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly. Yeah, so I’m looking at the snips, and then I’m looking at the toxicants and saying, “Okay, look, there is a match.” Usually there is almost 90, 95% of the time, there’s a match between what I’m seeing on the genes and what I’m seeing in the biochemistry in their body. And then they’re relieved to see this, actually. They say, “Finally, I have a diagnosis,” or, “Finally, I understand why this is happening to me.”
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I get people all the time, like, “I’m not crazy?”
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly, yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
“I actually, I can actually tell my family I’m not just lazy?”
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Or crazy?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And then you can help them release that identification of being the sick person.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
That gets cemented in too, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
It’s true. I’ve noticed that when people really identify with the diagnosis and they called themself a Lyme-ee or , it really reinforces the mental patterning. It’s harder to get well when they’re deeply connected to the diagnosis, so we do work around that. No, there’s just some infections going on. We’re gonna deal with them. There’s some toxins. We’re gonna deal with those. We’re gonna do the work in your spirit and your mind. And we get to turn this ship around. You’re not a Lyme-ee
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
You’re not a Lyme-ee.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
No.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I went to Michelle’s school yesterday, and she was talking about her experience with MS and how it eradicated all of her eyes. And at first I was confused because I thought she was talking about her physical eyes, but she’s talking about the letter I, the identification of I’m a marathon runner, I’m a CEO of a nonprofit, I’m, you know, I’m healthy, I’m vibrant, I’m this, I’m that. And that MS kind of took away all of those self identifications and left her with I’m weak, you know, I’m sick, and that if you then replace those self identifications with the identification of the self as the disease, you’re, you’re not doing yourself any favor.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
No.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
No.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So you know, I always think about disease as a pathway towards expansion of consciousness. And so it really is about releasing your identification to what your ego says is you to more of who are you really?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Which is not a Lyme-ee.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
No.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
No.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
And you know, and at the end of it, or at some point in the middle of it, most of my patients will say, “You know what? This is the best thing that happened to me. I have just evolved. I’ve just grown. I’ve just, I’ve just become deeper in my own wisdom and my own strength. I love myself more. I have something to give back to people.”
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah. I know, and that’s the evolution, right, is the realization that, oh, I’m more than this body. I’m more than this body functioning in a way that I thought it should. I’m more than what I am, caregiving or doing. Right? And it comes into a more solid alignment as self, as spirit, you know, and what your essence nature is and who you are and what your role is on this planet and the gift that you are. And I just think you can’t hop to that too quickly though.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
That’s true. Those are some deep crosses and it’s such an honor, truly an honor to work with people at that level.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah, to guide them, walk with them for however long you get to. Oh, I love you.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yes.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
I love you.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So yeah, this is really important. And my daughter and I were watching, I’m probably the last one on the planet that’s heard of this Netflix series called “Queer Eye.” I just am in love with it now.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
We were watching this episode where they went in and they were helping a young man of color who at the age of 24 had been shot and was wheelchair bound. And he started a nonprofit. So he’d been in a gang. It was a gang related violence episode. Right? And he started a nonprofit when he got through his two years of pity, feeling terrible about everything, anger, you know, the processing that has to happen.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Then it was able to start a nonprofit of, oh, I can’t remember what he called it, but it was oh, Disabled, But Not Really. And you know, it showed pictures of him teaching crossfit to people on wheelchairs. And he was just this powerhouse of, you know, transpersonal wisdom that had come through this experience. But it also showed the pictures, and his mom talked about this two years of real hell that he went through where he grieved his body the way it had been, you know, and then he could look back and say, seven years later, like, “Oh, I was headed to death. And here I am in a wheelchair living a life that I couldn’t have had in a gang prior to being shot,” you know, but that was a seven year process to get there. And I just want people to understand that, like, this is a digestive process, this emotional work.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
It is, it’s deep.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
It’s really deep.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
That’s like the final calling for you to walk the planet as your highest self.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
The calling.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So when you, when you discover like these mycotoxins, for example, and auto-immunity is really, that’s one of the triggers, it’s one of the four triggers for an autoimmune flare is too high of a high environmental toxicant load and too low of the ability of the body to get rid of it.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right? That ratio is not not doing its job. And so then what?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
So then I want to tap on their system really gently. A lot of the times, if I start to come right in with modalities of detoxification, we start to mobilize more toxins than their body can even handle because that ratio is low. They’re not able to really send that out of their body. So we need to give them co-factors of other detoxification system. Usually that’s amino acids and minerals, some B vitamins. So for some people, I have to start really slow and low by giving them those co-factors. And then I can come in with deeper detoxification modalities.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
This is why you’re a guest on this summit, because a lot of people that are in the naturopathic, functional medicine, orthomolecular medicine, holistic world, just go in with all guns ablazing like, “Oh, you’ve got heavy metals. We’ve got to do IV chelation, get that out of there.” And I get people in my practice that are just sort of like washing up half dead on the shores, you know, to my practice, of, they’re so sick, so much sicker, because their bodies had not been gotten, you know they weren’t ready. In Ayurvedic medicine, there’s an axiom that you have to build the body up before you can detoxify it, right? And they knew that a thousand years ago that through the work of resina, you know, you build it up, then you eliminate.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So that’s really important to make sure to highlight. I really appreciate that about you.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Thank you. Yeah, we have to work on that for a long time sometimes. The patient wants to get straight to it. “Kill us infection for me now.” I say, “If I do that, it’s gonna backfire because you can’t handle the load of inflammatory cytokines and more dumping of toxins as we kill. It’s gonna be more difficult” So then they accept that. “Okay, fine.” So we’re gonna set you up to detox, detoxify you, and then we’re gonna come in and kill the infections. And at the same time we’re detoxifying while we’re killing the infections. Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Like, I kind of want to point to for those of you that have been to Lyme literate doctors and had all guns ablazing and then you have, I call it whack-a-mole, you know, another infection for these co-infections pop up, right, it’s like Hercules and the hydro monster. You do one head, and three pop up, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
That’s what’s happening. You know, that’s not a normal line progression, by the way.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
No.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
A practitioner-instigated line, you know?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Bullsah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
It happens all the time.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
All the time.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Like that.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And they’re literate. And I’m like, “What?” And then their guts are getting destroyed from all the antibiotics.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly. It’s a big mess that I have to undo when they’ve been on antibiotics for a year or longer. Then wind up with parasites, and yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I know. Yeah, so supporting the gut, the liver, the kidneys, the skin, the lymphatic system. And then I also make sure I do adrenal and hormone checking. You know, if the adrenals are flat-lined, then that means the body can’t handle the stress of this. This is the biggest event when we’re doing detoxification.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes, yes. Yep, definitely, their adrenals are usually flat-lined. Sometimes they’re way over producing. They’re still in that stage. Most of my women, their hormones are tanked, all of them. And same with my men, patients, young men, you know, they have testosterone levels of, of like a 70-year-old man.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And estrogen dominance.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Seeing that in so many men. Do you know that I send men now to get DEXA scans?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
That makes sense.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I’m finding I, one day I was looking at yet another man that had estrogen dominance and that I, you know, initially do. And I thought, “Oh my gosh. I wonder what these guys’ bones are looking like,” because we always assume that osteopetrosis is a female disease. DEXA scan is always put in a women’s health imaging center, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I started sending my men in, and a little third of them are having bone density loss.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Oh, no.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I know. Of osteopenia and osteoporosis, and no one’s looking for it.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
No.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Wow.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I know. So ladies, if you’ve got a partner that’s got man boobs and a gut, right, then they need to have this chat. It’s not just a testosterone blood level, but they need to make sure that they’re not estrogen dominant.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
A lot of them are. I know. So oftentimes I’m, you know dealing with the hormones and the adrenals, detoxifying them, modulating the immune system, ’cause detoxifying them will modulate the immune system. And then I can come in and kill infections while we’re doing all the other that I just mentioned at the same time. ‘Cause we don’t stop that.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah. What about the use of binders?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, I use binders a lot. So binders are going to bind the toxicants that are floating around or the ones that are bound on the cell membranes even in the cells. So I like to use modified citrus pectin a lot and charcoal, chlorella, diatomaceous earth. And so those are wonderful binders so that then we can both reduce the surface area of the toxicant and also have it bound up so it can be excreted through the organs of elimination, like gut, kidneys, skin.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So should people use those because they heard us talking about them?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Maybe not. They might not be-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
We’re needing the witness, your honor.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Right. These can constipate people. Someone might already be constipated. And if I put them on a binder while they’re constipated, it’s just gonna make things worse. Sometimes we have to deal with the gut first and other issues first before we can even put them on a binder. Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah. We do a thing in the United States where we say if a little bit’s good, a lot must be better
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And you can also overdo and bind your nutrients, you know, like, I’ve seen people come in that have been reading about things. And I get very intelligent patients. I have very smart people in my practice and have done a lot of research and they know what they’re doing, but they’re not testing them, you know, they’re not getting tested first to find out what their body needs. So they’re going off of information that’s been done on somebody in a study, you know? And so they do themselves harm.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
That’s true.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So much harm.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
It’s true. There’s much information on Dr. Google out there, right? And so patients will-
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
It’s a plus, we all do blogs and we do summits.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, exactly, yeah. And then patients want to be informed, and they’re so, they’re so smart. They really are. But then sometimes there’s misinformation out there, and then they’ll apply it to themselves when it’s not the right thing.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah. Or it’s right information to the wrong person. You know?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Right.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Or right information in the wrong amount at the time of day, at the wrong period in your healing, you know, like it’s a thought to be considered.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So you can take a binder close to your thyroid medicine, guess what’s gonna happen?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
No more thyroid medication.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I’ve seen that more than you would know. So yeah. So this is important, you know, like how we finesse this, Dr. Parpia and I are talking about like what we do, but you have to know how to do it for you. And you’re not the same as everyone else. So yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly. It has to be highly personalized medicine.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Which is really cool.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah. And that’s the same with amino acids. What are amino acids?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Building blocks to proteins, and it could be too much for somebody’s system, too much for their kidneys to handle. Maybe their kidneys are under stress. You don’t know until we test and find out.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And they can be precursors to really important neurotransmitters that you’re building up one neurotransmitter that shares the synaptic surface with another one. You can make that one go crazy, and yeah, people wind up in a world of hurt with amino acids. So if you are dosing them inappropriately for what your body’s needs are, so, and what might be right for you in this moment won’t be right for you in three months because things are, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, patients are a moving target, and you have to watch them, watch them so careful. I’m on them like a hawk actually, okay, to you today, you know, after I give them some pretty big interventions when they’re ready and I have to be on it for them, yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Well, just with bioidentical hormones, you know, I’ll tell my patients, “This is for a five month period only. And then I need you to retest. And I need you to say you’re going to retest and not stay on this forever because if you go back in and you’re not actually getting rid of harmful metabolites that you might be holding on to in your liver, you’re at a risk for breast cancer. So you have to promise me that we go back and we take a look, you know?” And so I think that’s important to kind of reiterate. You do an intervention, and then you look to see like how you respond to it. Okay?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly, yeah. Testing, keep testing, as we, because it’s gonna change along with the symptoms.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
It can be frustratingly expensive. And, you know, that’s the thing. Like we know that.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And we’re not trying to break your bank. We’re trying to help you. And we’re frustrated with the fact that our insurance companies don’t pay for this kind of testing, too.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
But it’s essential to find out how it’s operating with your system, right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
‘Cause the testing that the insurance companies do cover, they’re important tests, but they’re just gonna tell you if you’re dying, right? If you’re are, or if you have anemia.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
You know? But there’s so much more going on beyond the very basic elementary tests that are covered by insurance and we have to use the functional medicine test to really understand the full biochemical expression of what’s going on. But then they appreciate it, and they want the data, I find, like, “Give me that data nobody else has.”
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yes, it is important.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And it does kind of, I always say you want to be in a collaborative relationship with your body. I mean, that’s such a gift and a blessing for you to have, and you are in charge of it and being responsible for it. So the testing is actually asking with compassionate curiosity, like, “What do you need, body?” Right? “I really want to take good care of you, so, I’m asking.” And then that’s the data the body’s giving back, gratefully, you know? Yeah, this is happening. So I am board certified in heavy metal chelation, and there are a lot of ways of doing this, and I know you have a method.
And I wanted to open up that discussion because people will read different things about chelating of heavy metals. And I always think about having metal chelation as kind of far down the list. You know, first we get those adrenals and hormones. You get that gut so that it’s going okay. Your liver is detoxing, and your kidneys are strong. You’re sweating, right? We want to get those things in place so that when we release it out of cold storage, you know, where it’s been stored, thank you very much, away from your brain, right, taking it out, we want to get rid of it out as quickly as possible. Right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So what are the methods, and how do you think about heavy metal chelation? This is a big subject these days.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, it’s a big one. So, I think that there’s an improper way to do this. And that would be to just come in and do it right away before doing all of the things that you mentioned, dealing with the hormones and the adrenals, the gut, making sure the liver and the kidneys are ready for this. So sometimes people come in and they do that first. And then the body is just not able to send this toxin load through. It just recirculates. And it can re-circulate into the brain if that gets done. The other thing is a lot of times people will have done chelation therapy, but they don’t have the support that’s needed to deal with these metals as they come through. So when I’m chelating people, I’m supporting the organs of elimination. So the gut, the liver, kidneys, the skin. I’m doing this with herbs to tonify these organs because you know, there’s going to be inflammatory cytokines that are also going to be released. And as I’m killing infections for people, at the same time, these byproducts from dying cells and dying bugs coming through, so the organs can be stressed. So it’s really important to tonify them, to strengthen them. I do that .
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
An old marathon runner, I used to have a fanny pack that I would take on my 26.2 miles. And it would be filled with things that I needed as I went, and you know a liter of fluid of electrolytes was part of that. And so I think about like heavy metal chelation without those supportive mechanisms, without being on the herbs that are required to help with all of the detoxification processes. The other things that you can do for support, but that’s like going and running a marathon with no water.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
It’s true, it is exactly that.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
That’s the person that’s gonna wind up in the medic tent.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Getting an IV. Right? Because your body is like, “I’m out,” you know?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, yeah. And then I do give them binders because as we’re pulling the metals from the cells, usually from the cells of the organs, that’s where the metals are, then they’re free floating. And I really want to capture those with binders. I want to bind them so it’s more easy for them to excrete through the organs of elimination.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Great.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So you do IV chelation in your practice, yes?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Mm-hm, yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And so you have people coming in physically.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Mm-hm.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And where are you located?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
We’re located in the San Francisco Bay area. So in Marin, just over the Golden Gate Bridge. People come from all over the country actually to see us for tick-borne illness. And then usually they have a high environmental toxicant load, so we are doing all of the other therapies that go along with that to clear the toxins. But like I said, usually with supplements first, building them up, building them up, and then getting them on the IVs.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Right, right.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I can tell you a personal story. After I was, after I got certified, I had decided to do it on myself, and I went batshit crazy. And that, the way that I think about like, oh yeah, the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland,” right? The millinerss actually did go bat crazy because they were working with mercury to make , right? And I remember my husband looking at me and saying, what is happening for you right now? And I said, and I was crying, and I said, “Get me down to the clinic. I’ve got to get in the sauna,” you know? And then he got me down there. I got in the sauna, and within 30 minutes I was normal. And I-
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
That’s great.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I can watch my emotions doing this thing, right? And I went, “Oh,” you know? And it was such a good lesson. I do everything on myself before I…
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I always tell that story because they’re like, “Please.” This is really important. Just 30 minutes of sweating in a sauna.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah, that’s really important. I tell my patients to do, a lot of times they’ll buy a sauna then, because it’s that important.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah. The skin, the biggest organ of elimination.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah. Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And you have to enlist it, you know, because all of this strain on just your poor little liver and kidneys and colon. Again, it’s so fantastic. So yeah, 30 minutes, I was a normal being again, and it’s like, wow, don’t ever forget that lesson.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Right.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So what have we not talked about that you would like for our viewers to know about this subject, big subject?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah. The way that auto-immunity develops from the combination of environmental toxicants, infections, and emotional burdens. So really tying in these things that we’ve talked about, tying it together, because the research does show that toxins, stress, and infections will cause autoimmunity. And I know that that’s why most of my patients have an auto-immune condition, if not several of them, because they’ve got all three of these factors all at once. And so we’re dealing with all of these things all at once, all the time throughout the journey of healing. And that it is a journey.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And when you’re done chelating, done, we still live in the soup of our world.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And so that’s another thing that I always say, you know what, it’s good, since you have had this, you know, like every year, it’s good to just do a sort of like an oil dipstick check.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And be like, where are your levels? What’s going on? And then I mentioned DEXA scanning. I send all my patients that I’ve done heavy metal chelation with off to check bone density because where did all those metals come from?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
They get stored in the bone, too.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
They were stored in the bone, and we just removed it. Right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly. Or when patients lose weight, the other chemicals are stored in the fat cells. They lose weight, and then there’s a big burden coming through and they don’t understand why they feel sick after they’ve had major weight loss.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Or the weather’s so crappy.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
it’s like, oh, you’re out of host tissue or your fat tissue has just become another endocrine gland.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Pull it.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Exactly.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Which is really why, I mean, people really want to lose lots of weight all at once, but it’s a really good reason why we say slow and steady, because your organs of detoxification have to keep up with what’s being released from these cells cleaning your fat tissue.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
We’re wringing them out, and we have to be able to get rid of it. So another good reason why a sauna’s a good idea.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Yeah.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
All right. So, I so appreciate you taking the time with us today. And I don’t know, do you have a free gift for our viewers?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
First of all, I so appreciate being on here. Thank you so much. And I don’t have a gift, but I will make one. I will have one.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Okay, wonderful. Just, it’s usually like a Lyme disease or mycotoxin kind of guide book for people because-
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Okay.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
all of these interviews, and it’s really nice if they can have something that they can download that sort of reminds them. One of the things that we’ve been really careful in this summit to really say is you have to take it a chunk at a time. You know, overwhelm is the gateway drug to perfectionism, which is gonna tie up your nervous system again. Right?
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Right.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And so that’s why buying the summit is so important. It’s so that you have it and you can take it in these chunks. So, it’s gradual, just like weight loss, right? Gradual.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes, absolutely. So I’ll have the Lyme and mycotoxin and other toxins…
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Inspired here, folks, inspired here.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Right.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
All right.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Yes.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Again, I really appreciate your work.
Dr. Nafysa Parpia, N.D
Thank you so much. We speak the same language.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Until next time, be well.
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