Detoxification of Heavy Metals

Introduction to the Autoimmune Detox Summit 0:00

Welcome back to the reverse Autoimmune Disease Summit series everybody I'm Doctor Chiesa. And of course you're joining me for the fourth iteration of the reverse autoimmune Disease Summit series. This is the autoimmune detox. And I am delighted to bring back a dear colleague and friend of mine, Christine Doctors Christine Schaffner, who grew up in a family of health care practitioners and after graduating from best year as a board certified naturopathy doctor, she chose to make her mark in a powerful and unique way, focusing on biological medicine, a sorely underexplored modality that supports the patient's own innate ability to heal rather than interrupting their physiology with medication and other prescriptive symptom based protocols.

With her widely diverse skillset, Doctor Schaffner combines both natural, empathic, functional and conventional therapies to develop individualized treatment plans, focusing on the underlying cause of complex chronic illnesses. Longer than this list, but including Lyme disease, autoimmunity, neurological illnesses, and sleep issues. Welcome to this seminar series again. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Kiesha. So, you know, when we talk about autoimmune illness, we're not talking about one process in the body, which it makes it very complex.

And you know, when we start thinking about the complexity of, I think in Western medicine or conventional medicine, the way that it's often thought about is the target tissue, right. So if you have thyroid Hashimoto's right, Hashimoto thyroiditis or then it's a disease of the thyroid or rheumatoid arthritis or Ms.. Right. We have we we tend to focus on the target tissue alone. And what is what else is there to think about when we're talking about reversing how to immunity? It's a great question and something that, of course, our patients teach us every day.

And really, what I have,

Rethinking Autoimmunity as a Multi-Layered Process 2:00

my current framework for autoimmunity is, of course, all of the things that you just shared and all of the, you know, pathophysiology. We have to understand when someone has this diagnosis. But, the natural path of me and the, desire to look at the body is always trying to achieve a homeostasis and always trying to self-regulate and heal. But what is in the way. And what I found in modern illnesses and in the rise of these, conditions like autoimmune illness, there are some very key factors which you know very well.

And you write in your book, there's the factor of the environment. And so looking at our environmental burden, which I think is a huge, source of, underlying cause of why we see these chronic pathologies. And when we think about environmental toxicants, we think about heavy metals we're trying to land on today, but we also think about herbicides and pesticides. We think about the whole super persistent organic pollutants that include plastics and, phthalates and, you know, PCBs and all these things in our environment.

And I also think electro smog, is, you know, in that category as well. So it's the environmental burden. And then I also really, see the role of the immune system and the role of how the, what we would say our terrain or ecosystem becomes imbalanced. And again, we we are full of microbes. We have 380 trillion viruses in our living room. We're more bacteria than human cells, but it's that balance of our immune system in harmony with, these microbes. And often when we have a chronic illness that becomes, imbalanced and we see these stealth pathogens take hold and be an underlying driver of inflammation and autoimmunity often.

And then, of course, you know this very well that but the role of trauma and unprocessed, unprocessed trauma, subconscious traumas, self-limiting beliefs and how that can really inform our physiology and just be, you know, just as much as an amalgam filling, and unprocessed trauma can be a block into the self regulating ability for the body. And so I look at all of that and how that interplays, with my patients. And that's why it's complex. I always say, if it was one thing that would be way easier to get you better at home.

And so, you know, but it's also, when we can look at the body in this way, there's always so many opportunities for healing, so many opportunities for deeper wisdom and understanding our bodies as this, vessel and barometer to experience life. And so looking in partnership and curiosity rather than, especially not immune world. Right. It's this really, idea that the body is betraying you, that it's attacking you, and it's a really, it's a really hard relationship to find a language around. And so, I think that, you know, the tools that we both use, we try to reframe that and, come from this deeper understanding.

And it's not a light switch like you're either. Well, you're not. Well, you know, the, the painting that you have behind you of those layers. Right? It's layers that happen as you move into a new developmental state in your physicality, your energy body, your emotional body, your mental body, your spiritual self, like all of those layers are all moving as you're healing. And so it's not it's not in a linear little straight line either. Yeah. No, no, I often say, you know, you have these little things right to health is resilience.

You know health is non-linear. You know healing is non-linear. You know, I learned that every day. Yeah. So I, I know and, I think Malcolm Gladwell has a picture on the front of one of his books where, you know, it's point A to point B, instead of it being a straight line. It's like, and then it finally gets there, right? And that's how life generally works. If you look outside, Mother Nature has no straight lines, you know, and that's how it goes. Right? So let's talk a little bit about what happens when we, like you said, we're landing on autoimmune detox is the name of this particular iteration of the reverse autoimmune disease. Some of the series.

And I really wanted to talk to you about the role of metals and what what heavy metals. What's the role that that plays in illness and how it intersects? I always think about like gut pathogens in that, you know, that diverse hopefully biome that we have in there of viruses and fungi and parasites and bacteria, you know, like they're all in there and they have to learn how to live together. And the metals are sometimes like the shield that they use to stay. And I think about like Vikings with their little shields, you know, and and so metals do play a part in, in gut pathogens staying put.

Right. And some of the things that we see. So let's, let's talk a little bit about that and how we get heavy metals in our body. And then what are the typical metals that can cause problems that we see. Absolutely. And I think heavy metals or definitely an underlying cause for many of the pathologies that we see and you know, we're all in this environmental soup right on Mother Earth

How Heavy Metals Enter and Affect the Body 7:00

and, all of us are exposed to these things in some of us, because of our own unique individuality, have a better time eliminating these things more than others. And I think really, to lead a healthy lifestyle not only to reverse autoimmunity, but to really prevent, any chronic condition from happening or, you know, just staying healthy. We have to look at, you know, this really simple equation is our body eliminating very well and in relationship to the environmental burden that we're, you know, constantly being exposed to.

And when we get a diagnosis, we often kind of think, oh, how did this happen to this happened overnight? But it happened over time where we bio accumulate things like heavy metals. And so this is an area that I often focus on with all of my patients, some more than others. And when we think about heavy metals, we think about, aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury are the common ones. There's also radioactive elements that are more and more prevalent that I'm seeing in heavy metal tests. But for the purposes of this conversation, if we really even land on aluminum lead and mercury and figuring out strategies to help support the body with that, we do a lot because, certain metals are in different groups that they and when we do detox strategies, we, you know, we're treating mercury, but we also affect the other sulfide related metals like lead, arsenic, cadmium.

And so there's a lot of detox strategies, again, that we can talk about today. And so when we think of heavy metals they're heavy. So they're metals that have a a charge that can have an affinity for different tissues. And so we can talk about really a lot of different ways heavy metals can affect our bodies. But for the purposes of thinking about autoimmunity, one of the things that we can think about as this foreign substance, like heavy metal, they often don't have biological properties. And then there's certain heavy metals that are like iron and, zinc that, you know, have physiological effects.

But we're talking about the ones that tend to be very disruptive to our physiology. And so really, aluminum has no place in the body. Right? Mercury is a neurotoxin. You know, lead can be very disruptive to our bone health. So, when we think about all of these mechanisms, I focus on neurotoxicity, of course. And then when we think of autoimmunity, especially the thyroid, there's a lot of, prevalence especially. And, if you have an autoimmune illness, you might often have autoantibodies to your thyroid.

And there is a link between mercury and autoantibodies in Hashimoto's. And so when you think about the mechanism, we think of a term called molecular mimicry where there can be a foreign substance in an attempt that the body is trying to, you know, clear a pathogen or a toxicant. It can make, autoantibodies that look like our, you know, our self tissue. And it looks like we're attacking ourselves for the body is really just trying to clean up, a toxic burden or get rid of a pathogen. And so I think, I think autoimmune is getting there.

You know, there's a lot more people having these conversations and looking at these drivers, but it's not just a random occurrence that the body just wants to turn on the thyroid. Right. There's something driving that. And so, there's so many things we can talk about. So I'm trying to get my brain in one spot. But, I mean, we talked about, the role of how we can really paint the picture that I really love talking about for a lot of my patients is looking at the terrain. And what does that mean? So that means that what we call the extracellular matrix.

And this is an area that I love talking about and educating. Because this is where a lot of the action is for that intersection between toxicants, pathogens, also trauma in this space. And if it would be helpful for you, I don't want to take us down a diatribe, but I'm happy to kind of paint a picture of what the extracellular matrix inside of that would be, helpful for your audience. Do it, do it. I don't want to go on this tangent. No. The viewers that join the some of the series are so smart.

And so, you know, they love education. And so yes. Doing okay. Awesome. So when you were talking about these target tissues. Right. And so the extracellular matrix is this space in between ourselves. And so when we think about it, this space in between ourselves is not just this, you know, random kind of, you know, fluid filled space. It's a very intelligent space that's complex. And so when we think about, this structural space, we have, collagen, which is, you know, the most abundant protein in the body.

So we have things like culture and we have things like what we call proteome glycans that are, things like handwritten sulfate. We have things like hyaluronic acid. So it's this, fluid and filled space in between ourselves. And a big part of how this fluid kind of gets bathed and that gets drained, that helps to bring oxygen and nutrition to our cells. And then we move. Waste is through the lymphatics. And so we have our circulatory system that brings, oxygen rich blood through our capillaries. And then on its way, the exchange into the veins, fluid leaves that capillary space, and some of that returns to the circulatory system, but a lot of it leaves that space and it becomes, what we call interstitial fluid.

And that fluid can again bathe our cells in this extracellular matrix with oxygen and nutrition. But because of our environmental burden, it can bring with it, toxicants like heavy metals and heavy metals have often a positive charge there two plus, three plus. And the extracellular matrix, these, structural proteins that help with not only structure but communication and trapping toxicants have a negative charge. And so there can be this electrical kind of pairing where, heavy metals can get trapped in protease glycans and, you know, collagen, again, liver is they can be hanging out in the space.

This is where wine likes to hang out. And then as this fluid moves, it drains into some of that ecosystem. And that's why if you take away one thing today that I share, supporting your lymphatic system is one of the best things that you can do to support your body's ability to eliminate and detoxify. And so in this, space, there's a lot of our immune cells. There are fibroblasts or mast cells. I don't know about you, but I've seen such a rise and, you know, histamine issues. So activation, activation.

And when you kind of think about, it in the layer of, oh my gosh, this the mast cells are in this soup, you know, toxic and trauma and, you know, pathogens. And they are getting more easily irritated, right, to produce things like histamine. And so, so again, there are different mechanisms of why, things can linger in there. And then it's just, again, very simple. If we're not taking out the garbage, if our, the space becomes full of toxic and not moving gets sluggish, then we are set up that our cells aren't as healthy because these things can get trapped in our cell membranes, our cells won't remove waste easily.

There's something called a cell danger response that you know very well that can start telling the cells that they're threatened and get into this mode where, you know, energy is conserved and our immune system becomes, impaired even further. And so, so, yeah, I feel like this extracellular matrix space. And so again, I mentioned toxicants and then pathogens like Lyme and viruses. And then there's water. You know, a lot of our body is water of course. And so this interstitial fluid, in my opinion, and where people like Doctor Cowan are educating us, is that a lot of this, fluid is in this exclusion zone state.

And so the exclusion zone water is structured water. And, the guest on this, I'm going to Doctor Gerald Pollack. So yeah, I'm talking about easy. Yeah. You water. Yeah. Yeah I love Jerry and he's me to a friend. And you know I'm here. Yeah. No, I do love his work. And he, you know, I was interviewing him for something, and I was like, I think you're. It's just like health is exclusion zone water. He's like, of course, I think that was, you know, but you know what?

The Extracellular Matrix, Fascia, and Structured Water 15:00

I've been trying to tell everybody, you know, I know, but I'm like, I get it, I get it. Yeah. You know, all the, you know, fluids in the body. Right. And that. Right. Yeah. The more structured water we have in the body, yes, it can carry energy, but in its exclusion zone, water. Right. So it excludes and moves toxicants out of that gel like energy producing structured water. And so and just for a little pause right there about this, this doesn't mean that you, you stay on a shrinking iceberg of food choices.

Yes. That's not your road to health. You know, to to eventually have your iceberg float melt and you're drowning, you know, which is how most of our patients feel when they're in that mass cell activation and histamine response. It isn't about taking away, ticking away, ticking away as a way of managing your flare. It's about doing what we're talking about, achieving that health in that extracellular matrix. You know that making sure that this exclusion zone nice and healthy. Yeah, I I'm really appreciate you saying that because of course I'm a natural path.

And I of course I, you know, see the power of diet and food. Yeah. You know, all of that. But I think there's a mindset right in the alternative space is just, you know, a void and restricting the psychological impact of all of that restriction is so hard. And also, I think it's not getting to the root of the problem. Right? I do think that it's a symptom of, you know, why is the immune system so flare that you're reacting to anything you put it in. Right. So for a while we have to stop, you know, putting the red cloth in front of the charging bull for sure.

Right. But eventually you want to get out of the bullpen. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so we have this space, you know, I give you a very long winded answer, but when you kind of think about that space in the health of that space, that's really the key to supporting your health and really helping to, quiet down. Any hyper inflammation or autoimmunity, the more that we can get that space and draining and those support the removal of toxicants, removal of, supporting the, in assisting the body to decrease the load of pathogens that could be disrupting that space.

And then also, where I was also going with the structured water, there's a biophysicist who passed away. Her name is May 1st. Ho. And she talked about, she was the one who thinks, acupuncture meridians are really, you know, collagen in the collagen is this not only structural protein, but it's this fiber optic network in the body, in this, electric conductor. And, you know, we move, light and electricity through, through collagen. But around collagen is a structured water. And structured water can not only hold energy, but it can hold information.

And she kind of makes the leap of and she does this in a very brilliant way about how this is where consciousness, you know, can be stored in the body and many body workers out there, or any patient who might be listening, who might be laying on a table with someone doing cranial sacral work or might have a release or trigger or whatever. And you don't have a memory or a thought. It's more of a body awareness and a letting go or a visceral kind of response where something kind of just floods out of you that you just weren't aware of.

And that to me is, you know, there's there's facial memory, there's fashion. The body, you know, holds memory not only, of course, in all the ways, but also, I think a big part of it is in this extracellular matrix in this fashion. And that's why when you become healthier and you address these things as you remove toxicants and get those kind of out of all of these structural proteins and getting the body to communicate better. And as you address, pathogens, you're moving fluids and you can be moving emotions as well.

And so that's why we see these things. When people have these detox reactions, they can feel really emotional, right? They can have these kind of swings and memories and, letting go. And I see all sorts of things. But it it's this movement of this space where you can be addressing all of these, you know, things. And so, so, yeah, I, I see this is highly interconnected and, and, you know, I think, you know, the, the fascia, the extracellular matrix is a really important lens to think about how we can heal our body.

Beautiful. So the role of metals and all that. Yeah, I know I went I went on a tangent, you know. Yeah. But I want to so I want everyone to kind of like that's the field that doctor Shaffner just sort of like illustrated and put all the landmarks in it. Right. And now let's introduce heavy metals into that, into that field. Right. Collagen, lymph are our structures of, you know, our water or whatever. It's ionic charges, whatever. It's you know, structured water actually has a whole different molecular formula to it than H2O.

So, you know, we what we're doing with heavy metals in that soup, I always call it the hot tub. Right. So what is in your hot tub that your, your cells are bathing in? If it's, you know, if your cells are bathing in resentment, that's like the most toxic chemical on the planet. And we make it from in here, you know? But then then we also have some things in the environment that come in that go into that hot tub, too, that are bathing your cells. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And so again aluminum mercury lead can have an affinity, you know for these structural proteins.

And then I really look a lot at neurotoxicity. And so how are these metals affecting our central nervous system, our peripheral nervous system, neurotoxins. Essentially they can get lodged in, neurons or they can be transported along neurons back into the central nervous system. So again, I'm I'm sure you've done a ton of education around the mouth. One source of, mercury is often amalgam fillings. Amalgam fillings are, primarily, typically over 50% mercury, which is a known neurotoxin that mercury vapor gets released over time and gets into the nerves.

And there's something called a retrograde axonal transport where the mercury, travels back, you know, from the nerves in the mouth to the cranial nerves to into the brain. And then once mercury is in the brain, it can be very disruptive to what we call our astrocytes. The astrocytes can bio accumulate mercury, and when they bio accumulate like mercury, Mercury binds to different parts of the cell, disrupting its physiology and function. And, and unfortunately, sometimes leading to cell death when we have no, neurodegeneration or, cells dying in the central nervous system, that's going to impair communication, that's going to impair a function, that's can impair, waste clearance out of the body because of or out of the brain, rather because of that.

That's a big job of astrocytes. Again, I'm a big believer. And you know, how we can heal the brain and create new connections and stimulate body enough and neuroplasticity. So it's not a it's not unsolvable, but we have to know what we're up against. And so Mercury can get, lodged in the brain. Again, aluminum is a really another focus of mine. We have so many sources in our world of aluminum exposure. And aluminum is a known neurotoxin as well. And it can also, inflame the blood vessels. So again, when we think of that circulatory system that carries, you know, our blood is interconnected to the lymph, you know, if there's a lot of, inflammation in our circulatory system and also the blood vessels in the brain, that can, of course, disrupt oxygen transport.

And then, when we look at aluminum as well, aluminum has been shown to be in higher amounts in neurological illnesses, in the brains of, postmortem, patients with Alzheimer's or even children with autism. And so, many of these, we get exposed to these things, again, aluminum and mercury. I'm just highlighting and through different routes of exposure, a lot of them have an affinity for our brain and our central nervous system and our peripheral nerves, and then can create symptoms that are associated with a lot of autoimmune illnesses from insomnia to brain fog, depression, anxiety and pain in the body.

A lot of burning pain in the body can be related to heavy metals. So then we have to think about, okay, how how do we address this and how do we get these things out. And so I mentioned aluminum mercury specifically because aluminum has a set of things to detox. And then Mercury does as well. And then Mercury is in the group of what we call sulfide relevant of the metals. Metals then have a binding affinity that sulfur, and so that could mean mercury lead, arsenic, cadmium. And so if we're kind of addressing that, of course there's going to be nuances within that where we're looking at those two big groups of metals that I find to be very, very problematic.

And a lot of my patients. And so, again, there are other mechanisms I can go through and how the heavy metals disrupt our physiology. But when we think about, you know, the extracellular matrix, we think about the brain, of course, the gut as well. You know, metals can, you know, be ingested, affect our microbiome, you know, make things like Candida thrive and, or, you know, gut and overgrow and affect their ability. And then then again, it's also patient, you know, it's not like aluminum and mercury traveling around.

It's all that other environmental burden that we talked about is being ingested in those have those we don't study that as much as, you know, Doctor Balzano, one of the mentors, ambassador, who happens says one plus one doesn't equal to any more. And, you know, that is very you know, what we're finding. So yes. Aluminum. Yes. Mercury. But throw glyphosate on there. Right. And then the the you know, the, membranes in the gut are even becoming more leaky. And then the absorption of aluminum is becoming even more, in the body.

So it's it's just that that understanding, you say it always travels in packs.

Heavy Metal Storage, Release, and Detox Risks 25:00

Yeah. And it's like I say, I always say, this is the grossest analogy. I need to come up with a different one. But, you know, I used to live in Key West, Florida, and, when you see one cockroach, you know that there are a million. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, no. Yeah. All right. So you never assume. Yeah. There's this one thing it's, you know, then it's all in this grouping. Like you just said, they travel and have an affinity. So a couple places we haven't mentioned that I think is really relevant.

To what women see because of course autoimmune is 80% of illnesses are diagnosed in women. Is as they're going into you know, post 40, bones are starting to resort. And, you know, there's often some heavy metals, I call it the cold storage, you know, in the bone that will start to release. And then when, when women that have had a lot of extra, adipose tissue or body fat on them start to lose it rapidly, that's another storage place. And these will get released out into the system in a very uncontrolled way and, you know, can cause some of these problems that we've been talking about.

So I know, like when I'm chelating heavy metals, I always send my patients in for a scan. I'm like, let's check your bones and see if that's one of the places that it's coming from. You know, are you osteopenia right now? And that's why we're seeing this big spike in Mercury, even though ten years ago you had all your amalgams removed, did a really good cleanse, you came up negative. And now all of a sudden, right, you're having these spikes. So, that's one of the things that I kind of want to point to because our listeners may have done some heavy metal work before, but then this whole aging process is also releasing stuff out of storage, right?

Yeah. No. I am so glad you brought that up. And I often mention that and see that as well. And, you know, a couple points to that is that, you know, heavy metal detoxification. I've always been very humbled by, you know, some people come to my office and, oh, I've done that before. And I'm, you know, I mean, I'm like five, five years in, which is great, you know, but like, that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg. And as you said, the complexity is that metals get stored in different tissues. Right? So I mentioned the matrix, the gut, the grain.

But yes, the bones are a huge source of lead. And there's also research on, you know, cadmium as well. You know, with bone health and, and it can get stored in the bone and then it can also affect our kidneys. Right. And then that's really, you know, critical to bone metabolism. And so there's a couple different modes of action. But as our hormones decline and that we, can break down bone, we can then be releasing these metals. And I see that often more people think like, where is this coming from?

Or, or they feel like all of, you know, they're going through menopause or those shifts in hormones. And they have, you know, neurological symptoms or heavy metal related symptoms, memory loss that is not just related to progesterone. You know, it's so severe and they're worried they have Alzheimer's. You know, I'm seeing a lot of that. Yes, yes. And so, you know, that's a really good phase of life to be aware of and to just really go on open and just know that, you know, we'll be getting to deeper storage depots and toxicants, you know, going through those, phases of life.

And so, yeah, so definitely bone health, I think is really important. And you know, again, looking at lead and cadmium and as you said, other metals as well. And then, you know, fat for sure. You know, I see that, and that, you know, there's always, you know, a couple of those patients who went through kind of a detox or cleanse or lost a lot of weight, and then they had neurological symptoms after that. And, that can be that, you know, release of, stored, you know, water in those fat cells, right?

You know, metals and flavor seen in plastics. And if you're not using detox strategies to help bind what's, you know, thank goodness, been eliminated, you can feel worse in that process, I mean, than for sure. Yeah. I had a lot of people that would wash up on the shores of my shores from HCG diets, right? Yeah, yeah. And and not only were their thyroid blown, but they also had tremendous levels of circulating heavy metals. You know, that I was starting to discover and it's like, oh my gosh, you know, and it was this rapid decrease.

Right. In fat tissue. So yeah, that can that can cause some of this. And I remember the first detox I went through, I didn't know anything. I, I, you know, I had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I was 30, maybe 1 or 2 and had gotten a hold of a book on detoxification. And, you know, it's learning and just went straight into it. And, oh, my gosh, was I crabby. And, you know, I mean, just crabby, I couldn't sleep, I felt like my memory, I felt I just felt like I could control my emotions.

And when I look back at that, I'm just like, oh, sweetheart, you just didn't know very much there. Yeah. You know, it was shredded environment, right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And and just not understanding that your adrenals need to be stable. You know, your hormones get like the your organs of detoxification before you go in with all guns blazing. You know, and I think a lot of practitioners, it's why I wanted you to come and talk about this, because I know that you're very respectful of the body.

And, you know, someone will hear a talk like this and go, oh my gosh, I need to go do you know a provoked heavy metal urine test? And then, oh, no, I have all of this stuff showing up. I need to go get it done. And I'm going to go sit in the recliner and have a whole bunch of IVs. And there's never that inquiry to the body that says, okay, like we're going to do this together. Are you ready? You know, and and checking the data to make sure that everything's in place and the body can actually manage releasing what we're stirring up.

Foundational Detox Support and Safe Chelation 31:00

Right. The the adrenals are okay. This is hard work for the body to do this. Right. Yeah. No. Absolutely. And I am so glad you put that is you know any state that stated that because that's, you know it can be one of the best things for someone's health. And when it's done improperly, you know, we can make people feel worse or they could potentially, you know, get into secondary consequences that are so preventable. And so, you know, I, you know, when we think about supporting people with a heavy metal detoxification strategy or any detoxification strategy, I already mentioned the lymphatic system.

And that's really kind of a foundational system that I like to support. And so lymph therapy's help to drain that extracellular matrix. And then the lymph is kind of a waste clearance and then also an immune surveillance system. And so getting the lymph moving can be a really, you know, important highway of elimination that we want to have. And in addition to supporting our organs of elimination, having good bowel movements, being hydrated, you know, supporting the liver, the lungs, the skin, you know, these are things that we want to support and have, as our foundation before we do any more aggressive or targeted therapy.

And, of course, minerals play a huge role in heavy metal detoxification. And so when we, it's like the chicken and the egg, you know, heavy metals can displace minerals. And, you know, we live in a very, as you know, our soil, unfortunately, is very depleted and a lot of us are mineral deficient, especially if you've been going through prolonged stress and have a chronic illness. So replace the minerals or, you know, can that alone can, you know, start helping the body detoxify. So I think about laying that foundation I find that I'm often, you know, broken record with my patients, you know, talking about limp strategies and then also supporting bile flow, especially for women.

You know, I think bile such a route of elimination, it's not only, you know, really great for digesting fats, but it also helps us eliminate metabolic waste and hormones, but also mycotoxins, metals. And many of us can have sluggish bile and have, you know, congested gallbladder. And if you're in that boat, you want to really get bile flowing and optimize before, you know, asking the liver to do more work and get more toxins out. And then that bile also, you know, has so many roles in the body. So it helps with digestion, elimination and also sets the terrain of the small intestine and the large intestine.

For a healthy microbiome, it's important in thyroid conversion. So bile can be really supportive and, you know, just doing things like, castor oil packs to having bitters in your, in either your foods or in your supplement protocols. There's a lot of ways to support phase one, and two and 2.5 and three detoxification, you know, in the liver. And so those are, you know, things that I think about just to lay the foundation of the heavy metals strategy and of course, binders. I often talk about them.

Binders help to, bind what's being eliminated often in the bile. And having that eliminated through the stool and so that's a really important part of heavy metal detoxification, too. And don't take that with your thyroid. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I totally and those are going to be things like, you know, blood surface announcement. Please go back in there. Your other supplements. You know, I know. Right. Yeah. Those are things like the red light and zeolites and charcoals and clays and Volvic and humic acids and modified citrus patterns and things like that.

But you always, always, always want to, you know, have binders, while you're asking the body to release things so that you don't, you can really, ensure proper, proper elimination out of the, stool and that so those things aren't getting recirculated and reabsorbed, and then the body has to try harder to get them off again. And so that's really important. And another public service announcement, I think, Keesha, is if you still have a Malcolm X, please don't do anything aggressive to remove mercury.

So do not do deletion until your amalgams are out. Because I often see people be really aggravated by that. And again, that's kind of step one. You want to avoid exposure, remove like the known exposures that, you know, are obviously active in your body. And then before progressing, with a more strategic and targeted therapy and make sure you're getting amalgams removed from a good biologic dentist. Yeah. Knows how to do it properly. I know my heart are with them. Yeah. My heart always breaks when people do that and they get worse from it, because it's one of the things that can be so important for your health.

And when you do it right, people feel better. Their brain gets clearer, they feel better, they tolerate treatment better. But if again, if you're not using a biological dentist, there's an A group I often recommend I a omt board. And they train dentists to remove mercury safely. And so, Yeah. You want someone to, you know, who's removing them is taking them as seriously as they know the toxicant is. And so, like, they usually are suited up and, you know, using, you know, separate oxygen and, doing it and, you know, making sure that you're protected and so, there's a lot of, you know, I think working with biological dentists and then either a functional practitioner, a naturopathic practitioner who really can support you, so you're ready and that can be one of the best things that you do for your health.

Yeah. And if you have any questions about what your, mercury fillings are doing, you can go to that smoking tooth video on YouTube. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, I know that really paints a picture, doesn't it? It really does. This is illustrative. Takes you two minutes and you get to see, you know, like it's just sitting in there off gassing, nothing happening and shows what happens if you rub it with like grinding, grinding down your food. Right. Chewing. What's going to happen. Yeah. Grinding your teeth at night. What's going to happen.

So you know yeah. It's very, very illustrative. Yeah. Is there something that in our last few minutes here that we haven't touched on, this is a gigantic subject that you really want to make sure that we leave our audience with. Yeah. You know, so we talked a lot about different things and strategies. So it can I really, I'm a big believer that detoxification is really a lifestyle strategy. So just be gentle with yourself and that it's not going to be, you know, you're going to have this environmental burden of heavy metals that is going to come out in waves.

So, there's going to be times when you're eliminating more than others and just knowing that you don't just have this line on, heavy metal provocation test and, you know, you go down the line and then you're done and, you know, it can come and these metals can come out in waves and that it's it's a process, right? It's not going to happen in a month. It's going to be, you know, a elimination process over time. And again, I gave you a lot of tips around laying the foundation. And then really, depending on, you know, what, you know, kind of condition you're up against, you know, there can be a place for more targeted therapy like evacuation

Testing, Lifestyle Tools, and Final Takeaways 38:00

or oral chelation strategies, but those always have to be in the backdrop of, you know, good support. So they're not aggravating you. And then, I always love to use different and nutritional supplements and different herbal compounds and, you know, also I use a lot of melatonin to help also push metals out of the brain. So there are a lot of, there's so many tools and therapies that you can do to support whatever is going to be your path. I can use, lab tests. So you could look at blood if, the labs, are positive in the blood.

That's a very high burden. You shouldn't have metal. That is your blood test. So if someone does a blood test and has high aluminum, like, you have a very high burden of aluminum. And so that needs to be addressed. And more reason to, you know, it's not stored at that point. Yeah, exactly. And then there's the urine provocation test that a lot of functional doctors do, or there's hair mineral tests. That can be very helpful. And then I use a lot of bioenergetics as well in my practice. So I use that combination.

And then, I use different ways to connect and listen to the body so that we're doing the right thing in the right order. And really supporting all of those things that need to be supported to make the successful. I also think not only supplements are great, of course, diet choices that support, you know, liver, gallbladder, kidney support, and healthy eliminations, but also their lifestyle tools. So the sauna, if you tolerate sweating, sauna therapy is tried and true. You know, lots of great studies.

It doesn't have to be a fancy infrared one, but it that's great too, you know, but just getting, you know, your body hot and sweating, on a regular basis can, really be a great way to eliminate not only metals but other environmental toxicants? I also love the ionic footbath. I was skeptical in the beginning of those work, but there's really great, you know, studies to show that not it's not really about what's going out in the water, but how it helps support the body to eliminate, metals more easily through, the kidneys.

So that's, been a really helpful tool for a lot of my patients. And then, you know, again, I use different things from lymph drainage techniques, to, light therapy and photo by modulation to, you know, different IV things to neuro therapy. So it's that kind of combination that really supports your unique physiology to move you towards health. But I really think if anyone's listening who has an autoimmune illness, chronic illness, hasn't made the progress that we all want for them. This could be, kind of a stone to, you know, overturn and, like, really look here and really get some answers and some treatments that address, heavy metals in your body.

I test for mine every year at my birthday. You know, I do my little look under the hood to see. Hey, how are you doing, body, you know. And what do you need support with? Because people will say, you know, I've done that as we have already noted. But you're still constantly being exposed in, in a world that is full of this. Right. And so is checking in and saying, you know, how how are you doing it? Making sure you're able to filter, and excrete what your body can't manage. Right. And if it's starting to build up, you need to know so that it's not a giant load.

It's so much easier to take care of it in small doses and increments and to kind of keep up with it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good, good practice really. Definitely. You know that's I love that I'm using your birthday as a marker to you know I'm going to take that pro tip. Well Doctor Schaffner, thank you so much for spending. You know, the time with us and sharing even a fraction of your wisdom with us. It's always a pleasure and enlightening. Thank you so much for having me. And I hope that this information is helpful.

And I just so appreciate all the great work you do and put out to the world. Vice versa. All right, everybody, until next time, be well.