The Key For Reversing Fibromyalgia: Your Terrain Health

Christine Schaffner, ND

Oh, thank you so much, Rodger. It’s always so delightful to be with you as well.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

It’s genuine because we’ve had some great conversations and some of the things that you bring out trigger things that I hadn’t thought about in a decade or so. And it’s really just wonderful to bring some of this stuff up. I want to ask you right off the bat, because I’ve never really asked you this, what do you think fibromyalgia is and what do you think causes fibromyalgia?

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, it’s a great question. And I probably every year my definition of that would evolve. And I find that I mean, it’s so great that you’re given so much awareness and so many tools because at the end of the day, it can be a label that people get, you know, stuck in that category and never go deeper to the inside. So we’re going to talk about today of really what’s at the root of fibromyalgia. And when I think about fibromyalgia, you know, I just go back to terrain theory, right? And so with my training and bio regulatory medicine and naturopathic medicine, you know, we’ve had a kind of a whole experiment, you know, in the world right now. Like, is it about the germ or is it about the person’s response, ability to adapt and be resilient to whatever environmental stressors, you know, are more encountering and unfortunately, modern life is getting ever more toxic, ever more stressful, and the human body is really forced to adapt and evolved at a rate that it many of us can’t keep up with, with, you know, now we’re five G, it’s going to be ten G before we know it. You know, the microplastics, the atrazine, the glyphosate, all of it, right? The stress, you know, in modern life. So you take all of that and that really changes our response and our ability to adapt. 

And when we get to like the micro level of what fibromyalgia is, I go back to, you know, kind of the pioneers around terrain theory and, you know, looking at what we call the extracellular matrix, which is kind of the space between ourselves and that space between ourselves is really where disease starts. And when we think about fibromyalgia being really a connective tissue disease, a disease where there’s inflammation and adhesions and tension and pain and trigger points, and the connective tissue, the connective tissue and the fascia are really this fabric that really holds us within us. And we can get kind of quantum. I mean, I believe it’s the fashion is the fabric of our quantum communication at the end of it, and that might be due out there today. But I’ll just play in the seed there. 

But you know, this facial fabric is not only this amazing structural element to the body, but it’s this communication network and the extracellular matrix and the lymphatics are all within this facial fabric and the disease, fibromyalgia is where there is breakdown and some kind of this inundation of mercury and the glyphosate and the microplastics and the lime and co-infections and the trauma. Right. You know, we know their spatial memory. So it’s really this intersection, I believe, of toxicants, pathogens and trauma that break down this beautiful fabric of communication that doesn’t only, you know, again, help with our tense segregation and our mobility and all of that. But it really is a interconnected system that from our DNA to our skin, there is a facial connection. 

And this fiber optic network communicates with light and sound and electric city just as much as hormones and cytokines and what have you. So I didn’t maybe even answer your question, but, you know, fibromyalgia to take into account this framework in this context, to understand my understanding that it’s not one thing. It will never be one thing, right? You get a chronic illness like someone’s going to tell you, hey, you just got this, you just need this. And then, hey, you get to heal. And at least what I’ve been taught and what I observe every day, it’s not that story, you know, healing, beautiful, unfolding and this very nonlinear process in a linear world, right. And so when we have this framework, we can really understand some of the principles and concepts that I’m going to share more about today.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

It’s really interesting because I hadn’t thought about the germ theory and the see the soil. Yeah, think about that. More COVID and really taking care of yourself. It’s not the germ, it’s the soil. You know is that soil healthy? Is the point is not the seed it’s it if your soil if your body is unhealthy, then that can then take root and give you trouble. But if it’s if you’ve got this really healthy, dynamic, homeostatic, innate healing dynamo system that we have, you know, we’re born with, if it’s at optimal levels, you know, you can handle all this. And now you may me kind of think of it a little bit differently because with fibromyalgia, it really is. It is these potential triggers that just build up. But those are all toxins or land, Lyme disease, you know, or environmental pollution, whatever it is, nutritional deficiencies, but these toxins and triggers, they build up. And eventually, though, if you’re not careful, you get run down. 

And now they start to raise their ugly head and give you symptoms, warning signs that something’s wrong. And we can call it you know, we call it whatever it is. If it’s enough symptoms that mirror fibromyalgia, the syndrome, fibromyalgia, fibromyalgia, if it’s enough symptoms that mirror are an autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis, we call it rheumatoid arthritis. So it’s very interesting. You know, I really had put those two together. That’s a great basher. Yeah. I’m going to I’m going to tell my age because you know it. But in anatomy lab, we used to look at fashion and that’s what we would cut away from the organs and the bones and everything that we cut all that way. And when we’re dissecting and, you know, throw it in the garbage because we’re thinking about it now as we’ve learned fashion, which wraps itself around every tissue in the body, it’s like Saran Wrap and it’s wrapped. 

This is this beautiful protective material that also is communicating, as you said. And as long as it’s traumatized, it’s able to do its job. But just like a thing, a Saran Wrap, if you take that Saran wrap and you start to just wind it up and it gets more, more and more tension, tension, tension, tension. And this is starts to manifest itself as pain and inflammation as well and, and this communication within the body. Yeah. So fash is a big thing for fibromyalgia. And so let’s talk a bit more about fashion. Yeah, I think it’s something that is pretty much ignored in antibiotics. Yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Well, you know, I had that same experience with you, too, you know, like in cadaver lab, we would, you know, cut open the fascia, you know, just, oh, it’s the Saran Wrap. It’s the, you know, the thing that holds the muscles and their structure together and that they love it. That’s what it is. And, you know, really, you know, my patients have taught me I do like a lot of neuro therapy and spa therapy. And I knew, you know, the power of the fashion from early in my career because of that. And then, you know, we’ve all probably potentially seen the work of Dr. Jean Claude Gum Berto. He is a French hand surgeon. And he really kind of changed our viewpoint of fashion. And you can find his information and his videos on YouTube. You can check them out. But what he did, I think in the early 2000 tens, maybe he had the ability to turn a kit and restrict blood flow during hand surgeries, but the right visualization and microscopy equipment to look at the living posture. And that’s you know, that’s the thing about science, right? You know, the more that we get the capacity to observe a living body, the more that we learn about the living body. 

Because when we study the dead body a lot or we study when the tissues outside of the body and under the microscope are kind of, you know, preserved. We don’t always learn about life within the living system for all the reasons we just shared. And so what Dr. Jean Claude Burchill found out. He found out that this is a beautiful, amazing I mean, he has a whole book called The Architecture of Human Living in Fashion. And I actually had to take some time off last year and I read that book and I day I had a presentation that really inspired my whole presentation. And what it shared was this, you know, he has the same definition as Dr. James Ashman, who is, you know, kind of a powerhouse in energy, medicine and sharing all of that. 

And Dr. Jean-Claude Groombridge, who calls it the tissue continuum, and Dr. James Ashman calls it the living matrix. But it’s this idea that we are this highly interconnected fabric of really plasma, the structured water that really is made of in delivery and it’s this communication network in the body that touches from our skin through the connective tissues, hooks over the cell membrane into the side of the skeleton, of the cell, into the nuclear kind of over the nuclear membrane, into the nucleus and touches our DNA. So we can really affect our epigenetic expression through fashion. Right. 

And when the fascia is traumatized, as we mentioned, right, when the life is, they gets entangled in the glycine, you know, because it’s a glycine analog into the collagen matrix for Lyme and co-infections like to literally digest and thrive and eat, you know, the collagen matrix where, you know, heavy metals get lodged because they’re charge into the, you know, protease glycans and all of that into in this matrix that we see, you know, these effects that have a trickle down into our epigenetic expression and can perpetuate disease, right? So why when the body keeps on, you know, killing itself all the time, do we stay in these states and then, you know, the signaling at the end of the day, right. So that’s really the you know, the inspiration that I speak from these two men who really, really share this interconnection, that there is no separation in the body. You know, a lot of times when we study anatomy, right, we study the cardiovascular system and the nervous system, you know, all the things. But it’s really one through line of connection and communication. And that’s why things like light and sound and homeopathy and hands on healing can have a profound systemic effect. Right, because it’s not waiting for, you know, a hormone signaling or a biochemical signaling that’s working on signaling pathways that are more in the biophysics realm, which are faster. Right. And that’s what we want. Right? At the end of the day, why even care about any of this is if it can help me to understand how I can accelerate my patients healing. You know I’m I’m into right I’m I’m really excited about yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

If there’s a shaman somewhere that’s having success with fibromyalgia, I’m going to go find out.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

You know, we got, you know, whatever works, right that I want everybody. I told you we would get off on some kind of tangent, and you belong to a lab. Where are we going with this?

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So my take the fashion was getting exposed to John Barnes. I don’t know if you know John Barnes, but really my first release. Yes, I think it’s MF R dot or maybe, but you can look John Barnes up, but I was really intrigued by his work and study with him early on. And there’s a chapter in my book, The Training being five or magic book all about miles ash release in the fashion. Now, full disclosure, you’re not going to get anything in that chapter that you just got from Dr. Schacher, because she went really deep. 

But I think the important thing I want you to know about that, if it went over your head and it certainly could have a lot of merit, you know, we apologize, but it’s important to realize about this system and the role it plays in our health. It’s very much something that you want to know more about. I want to switch gears because I want to make sure we don’t run our town. I think this we did an interview together two or three years ago and we talked about the importance of sleep, something we both really agree on. You know, for me, when I’m working with my patients, the first thing I ask them on every console, even I’m working with him in a six month or a year program, whatever I’m doing with them every time and I never get sick of it. But I ask them every time, How’s your sleep severity? I want to know, are you having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? And then if someone shares with me, even if I’m out at a cocktail party or whatever, that they find out, Oh, you’re a function of medicine, doctor. I’m having trouble with pain or I’m having I’m just have no energy or I’m depressed or had heard about. I have type two diabetes, whatever. My first question is always, how’s your sleep? Because we know that deep restorative sleep is the key to health. I mean, it’s that it’s the first big step in the right direction. You can’t to me, if you’re not sleeping well, you’re going to be tired. You’re going to have brain fog, you’re going to be depressed, you’re going to have IBS, you’re going to have weight gain, you’re going to have pain. So let’s talk about the importance of deep sleep.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And I’m so glad that’s always been in the top of mind. And when people have chronic illness, it can be frustrating because many of the reasons why people can’t sleep are the reasons of the underlying causes of why they have fibromyalgia. But still, there are many tools and things that we can start unwinding this process. And so when we think about sleep, there are, you know, phases of sleep. We have essentially non-REM sleep in REM sleep. And then the non-REM we have stage one, stage two when stage three sleep. And stage three is all about deep sleep. What Dr. Murphy just talked about and deep sleep is a delta wave sleep. It’s when the brain gets really slow. Brain waves and a lot of healing happens during this time. And that is really impactful for immune system and our endocrine system. 

And it’s a really rich time of brain consolidation and memory consolidation as well. And then we have REM sleep. Most of us has. I’ve heard of REM sleep. REM sleep is really interesting. It’s a time when our body is paralyzed, but we have very high metabolic activity. So we have high heart rate. Our blood pressure goes up. We actually have more blood flow in the brain at that time. And what’s significant about that is many times when I’ve talked about sleep and why I became so fascinated by this sleep is that sleep is really important for the lymphatic system and the combat system is not just about sleep, it’s about do you have enough deep and also REM sleep and especially REM sleep because of all this blood flow that’s entering the brain at this time. And that actually drives the lymphatic flow. 

And the glom that exists is also like a newly discovered system body in the mid to I probably 2012 or 2015 that was discovered. And so that’s a very important time. It’s a time when we dream as well and we dream in other stages, but we have most dreams happen in REM. I read Matthew Walker’s when he said he taught us that the brain is completely devoid of noradrenaline during REM sleep. So it’s like this reset time. And the hard part is if people have PTSD or if they have a lot of sympathetic overdrive or they’re really high in noradrenaline, they might not have the capacity to really enter deep from deep to REM as easily. That’s why we use, in my world, we use a lot of GABA to help them. And they the people who have PTSD really need REM sleep because that actually helps consolidate and to have more of a measured response in the amygdala, you know, the limbic brain heals during REM sleep. So sleep is fascinating, right? It’s like wild and fascinating. And there’s so many things that are up against your sleep just with sleep hygiene between, you know, the enough and the junk lighting and circadian biology issues we all have. 

So there’s a lot to do, educate people and get good sleep hygiene and then, you know, being curious and going deeper. And, you know, now that people have so many more sleep trackers than we’ve ever had, we know so much more about sleep than I’ve ever known. You know, it’s usually more clinical insight in history rather than like, hey, I got 30 minutes of deep sleep last night. You know, it helps us to understand more. So that’s kind of my overview of sleep at this point.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

When someone says that they think they may have fibromyalgia. My first question is, how’s your sleep? So I just, you know, said that. But if they don’t have any trouble with their sleep, they don’t have fibromyalgia. So, I mean, to me, that is the question that separates right off the bat. Do you truly have fibromyalgia, somebody who watches and saying, I’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I’m having trouble, I sleep well. Are you taking any sleep AIDS, you know, whether that’s over-the-counter or prescription number one. 

But number two, typically, this is would be a real rarity for me, 22 years specializing in fibro, to find somebody who’s able to just fall asleep, sleep through the night and feel rested, and then get diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It just doesn’t happen. And really, I really put so much emphasis on this deep restorative sleep where the body’s repairing itself that Dr. Schaffner just talked about to me, that’s you got to get that right. 

If you get that right and a lot of symptoms improve. Let’s talk about the spindle or Tommy, because I think it’s so important. And then I don’t want to I don’t want to give away at this this little tip that you share with me a couple of years ago yet. But it blew me away and it’s been really helpful. But let’s talk about sleep hygiene. So this is something that I really share with my patients. But let’s talk a little bit about what are some things you should do to get ready to wind down to get ready for bed?

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, great question. You know, most of us in American culture or wherever you’re listening to this, you know, have stressful days. Right. Even if you have a chronic illness and are maybe not, you know, as active as you used to be, you know, there’s just like a lot of the.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Stress of having that.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, this.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

You know, this you get in this funk where you just you you thinking, thinking, you know, you can’t help but you get so you just get so down.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, totally. You know, so you know, all of that, you know, can really, you know, get our nervous systems in the sympathetic state. And it can be, you know, by the time we go to bed, it’s hard to wind down. So I think that there’s a huge opportunity, you know, as you wind down, you know, for bed like a two hour window, really, you know, not engaging in the news, right? Not listening to, you know, things that can be upsetting, you know, not really, really being mindful of the information that you’re allowing your brain to, you know, engage with is really important, actually. You know, and this is a peaceful time. So are there peaceful strategies and therapies for you, journaling, reading a book, taking a detox bath and, you know, relaxes your body, you know, absence of that kind of thing. 

And then light is so important and I’m sure that, you know, you share this all the time to Rodger how you know, the you know, how our brains and how our bodies are wired is beautifully connected to nature and our circadian rhythm. We have an organ clock that works throughout our day, that we have optimal kind of function of certain organs throughout the day. And that matches the circadian biology of our, you know, other 24 hour day. And that is very much driven by our light, our kind of our light exposures. And, you know, where, you know, our culture has gone as we are in screens all the day, all the time, and they overexpose us to blue light, which is not bad in the morning. You know, we even use blue lights in the morning in Seattle during the, you know, seasonal affective disorder, time to kind of wake people related and to break down melatonin and the increased serotonin. So you can kind of go up through your day. You know, but we are getting that blue light a lot. And if you have LEDs that are the light bulbs and, you know, save energy, they actually have a lot of, you know, blue light exposure. So, you know, in nature, you know, we get a lot of light from the sun and we have the full spectrum, right? So we get from U.V. to infrared and everything in between with, you know, sun exposure and our indoor environment very much doesn’t have all of that right? So even in, you know, even no matter how sick you are, if you can get yourself out side, you know, 1 to 2, you know, even three times a day during different times of day and out in the sun, even on a cloudy day like it’s cloudy in Seattle, you get infrared still. Yes. That really allows your eyes and your skin to kind of really connect with the daily rhythm. And then before night, what I do is I have a light bulb, true, dark, you know, Dave asked his company and.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

And that’s it during the day. And then when I need to do work at night, I have red light around me. So the red amber light is really come into the brain. You can also use blue blocker glasses, you know, that can be helpful. But when once you start doing this like almost like Hertz, you just see like regular lighting at night, you know, you kind of get all aggravated and you realize how sensitive we are. And of course, red signaling is going to be very important, you know, for melatonin production and, you know, telling your body it’s time to go to bed. 

And then when we get to the bedroom, you know, you want to have, you know, a peaceful bedroom. You know, try not to bring your phone into the bedroom. Some of our patients are very electromagnetically sensitive, which I think we all are. But, you know, some people feel it so sensitive to your mouth and that kind of thing. And so what have people some people don’t even have Wi-Fi in their home. Some people at least turn it off at night.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

That was the terror.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, that.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Was the tip that you shared with me two or three years ago. I hate to interrupt you, but yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

No, please.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

For fan, it’s been profound for some of my patients. Yeah. I’m a recovering insomniac.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

And I fixed it. I fixed I had to. I had to learn how to fix it for my patients, you know, over the years. But you shared that and I’m electromagnetic sensitive. I’m on these people that drive down the road and the lights on the freeway will flicker in glass. I’m one of those people.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Electronic stuff will just go dead for no reason when I’m around it sometimes. Yeah. And I started turning off my wife and I notice, hey, you know, as artists, they’ve been fairly good at it by this time, but I’m sleeping even better now. My son, my 18 year old son, has inherited his dad. Insomnia is bad. That’s living it. But turning off the wi fi, not just done two things. One, it’s prevented him from getting on his, you know, his electronics at night in bed at 1 a.m. or whatever.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Awesome. Through. I really believe he’s sleeping. Better yet, I see that across the board. So and I work with some of the most hardcore insomniacs.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I imagine. Yeah. And this has been it’s here. I can just tell you Christine, that this has been such a beneficial to do this for so many people. Just to tell them when you get ready to go to bed, just unplug the wife, turn it, you know, you know, get rid of the wife, turn that and share with him to get all the electronics out of your bedroom. TV’s no computers get off the Kindle. Yeah. Use blue walking apps or blue blocking glasses that I had never put the iMac together. I never would connect the dots there. Yeah. So thank you for that. And I hope everyone will try this. If you have fibro, you struggle in your sleep riot, try it for a couple of weeks. I’d be really curious to see if you will find that you sleep better with the what’s saw with with everything disconnected.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. Awesome. No, I’m so glad that I helped you. And, you know, you know, again, my patients have taught me, you know, you learn these things and you read about them or learn them from somebody else. And then you apply them. And then you start seeing like, wow. I mean, this really helps. And, you know, there’s like one step further for some people who are really, like, sensitive, you can have the electrician actually install in your house a killswitch or a demand switch where you.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I had a couple of patients do that. Yeah you should turn.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Off all the electricity in their house at night. So it’s like you’re camping, right? You know? And, you know, that really is wildly effective for people who are really struggling. So how do your patients deal with it? That have.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Been great. You know, they thought it was weird. Yeah, no, but they were at the point we just tried so many things.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

And including they’ve been on every prescription sleep medication out there which. Yeah. You know the thing about the sleep medications is that they increase your risk of death by five. So and that study out of Wake Forest, you know, it’s been repeated not to scare anybody. But now that you know that you want to be looking for, you know, don’t stop your medications, but you want to be looking for natural options. So everything that we’re sharing with you, sleep hygiene is super important. And then there’s some over-the-counter things that you can do to run things you should. There also, I really picked up was that you’re using these high doses of melatonin. I now use GABA and I do too. Yeah. Yeah. 

You were using, you know, a melatonin came out it was you could get it at like point five milligrams. That’s where it started. And then if you really, you know, really aggressive, you could get it at one milligram or three milligrams. But now we’re seeing it come in ten milligram. Yeah, even better. Sublingual. I like what you were sharing with me, that you were putting people on 2030 milligrams and maybe even more. I can’t remember. Yeah. At that time I was using maybe five and thinking I shouldn’t go any higher. And after that interview I just started really researching all about.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

It’s incredibly important hormones for health, but in particular for fibromyalgia does so many things. It’s a potent antioxidant that helps reduce inflammation and pain. We see that in fibromyalgia studies and you hear people say, well, you shouldn’t stay on melatonin, you know, because it can has potential side effects. And I’m thinking if you want to know about your side effects, read what the potential side effects of Ambien are and new to me. Would you rather be taking melatonin if it works in a dream work for everybody? Or would you rather be taking Ambien? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But melatonin is incredibly important. Hormone. Yeah, many layers to it, right?

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. And some of these drugs, you know, they, you know, they knock you out and get you to sleep, which in a crisis, I understand you don’t get optimal levels and people.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Don’t go in that deal to wake sleep. So you knock you out, you wake up. You still tired the next day? Yeah, yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. So that’s a melatonin. You know how I kind of have made sense of it. And then the research shows, you know, it’s like we’re living in a really melatonin deficient time. Like, there’s so many things, you know, really affecting our melatonin. And, you know, we not only have melatonin that the pineal gland produces, but our mitochondria produce.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Our gut.

Christine Schaffner, ND

You know, our gut.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

You know, and so we have all this melatonin in our gut, in our cells, in our brain. And there’s a lot of forces, you know, affecting that. And so, you know, so we use it as a circadian rhythm tool, but we use it as a, as you mentioned, neuroprotective antioxidant use.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Or.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Actually detoxify the brain and assist the system in getting all the things that we talked about in the beginning out of the central nervous system, which is the hardest place to get them out of frame. And once we get toxicants into our brain and into that living tissue, it’s it’s harder to get them out. Let’s just say melatonin is a tool. So we use I use liposomal melatonin from bio here. They have a like a four milligram and one pump. And most of my patients are doing like a few pumps of that. And the melatonin is four in a suppository. That bio pure makes the 50 milligrams and then zakhele makes 204 hundred. You can also get them pretty you know, you can get them at a compounding pharmacy, but I would definitely work with a approved practitioner.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. And people hear that and thinking, oh my gosh, I was like, this is the melatonin. The research is, you know, is showing is neuroprotective. So I don’t deal with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, but I do have patients, spouses who have that. And they ask me, you know, what are some things that, you know, I can do for my husband or my wife? And without a doubt, my first thing is get him out. Get them on a high dose of melatonin because of the neuroprotective effect, the studies are pretty clear on that. And then cancer cancer’s the other thing, right. Yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Telling the research around that and what happens to you know then what compound a crane you know that would be usually almost 250 milligrams transdermal. So I’ve had a lot of experience with all forms over the years and you know, it’s wildly well-tolerated. You want to make sure you’re not on any terms that would push serotonin syndrome or anything like that. But again, even with all of this knowledge, it’s surprisingly well tolerated, in my opinion. And then as you start to mobilize metals and all sorts of things out of the brain, sometimes you need to have like the catcher’s mitt, like the DMCA or the EDTA or the binders there. 

So if you wake up feeling really groggy, that’s not usually a reaction to the melatonin. It’s a sign that your body is moving through, you know, moving through toxins that you have to, you know, do a better job capturing as you like, doing them together. So I had people do those things together at night and they feel, you know what I’m saying? Wow. So, yeah, well, journal and GABA are usually, you know, my go tos to get people to sleep with everything else. There can be like inflammation, of course, you know, the brain can be pretty inflamed, you know, when we’re dealing with all of this and you know, sometimes it’s viral inflammation or Lyman Coinfection and Mycotoxins and that has to be addressed as well.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Do you so with a GABA game aminobutyric acid. We both use a lot of that. I like to use it. You know, with fibromyalgia you mentioned this over sensitization the sympathetic nervous system is over compensating and the calming part of the nervous system parasympathetic is usually pretty dormant. Yeah. And oftentimes they catch their second wind at bedtime. Our patients, too. So they’re tired or just, you know, exhausted all day. And then about nine or ten, they get a little bit of energy. 

And because they hadn’t been able to do anything all day. Yeah, they now they, they get a little energy. So they, you know, maybe if they’re still working a lot or maybe they catch up on some work or maybe they’re helping their kids wind down and they help them with their homework or whatever it is, clean the kitchen, whatever. But then they sabotage their their melatonin levels by doing that. And just shut those down. So GABA is very calming, very relaxing, and it works really quickly to help to to to squelch that overstimulation and down. And it can be very effective.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yes. Yeah, I love Gabba. Gabba can come like in I like this home and the and yeah. And it also we use a transdermal as well and it’s Yeah. And wonderful tool and Gabba REM sleep as well.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. And I like to use it if someone wakes up in the middle of like this was a save me waking up 3:00 here I am again. Yeah I did that for years and it came just, you know, it was terrible and I, you know, so I can really identify the excuse. My patients who are struggling with insomnia, it is miserable. But the beauty about God is you can take it in the middle of night to two or 3:00 in the morning and in two or 3 hours you can wake up and it won’t cause you to feel hung over dopey or, you know, it doesn’t have the hangover effect, unlike using some medication or trying to take melatonin in the middle of night or some of these other things.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I’m so glad you came up anyway.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Oh, it was terrible. You know, I really identify with people who have insomnia, which is everybody with fibromyalgia, because as is the as the bedtime gets closer, you get more and more anxious, you know, because you’re saying, oh, God, I’m not going to sleep again. And that anxiety just feeds itself. Right. And With fibromyalgia, there already have depleted the chemicals they need to deal with stress. So now stress really becomes magnified and they get in this vicious cycle, anything we can do to break that cycle to me is the is the first step, another big step in getting them heading in the right direction?

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, absolutely.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

And so what are some of so let’s widen finish up with sleep. We were there’s I had about 20 other questions I was going to ask you right outside because it was always so fun to talk to you. So we’ve talked a couple of things that I think people have probably not heard about is this thing with the EMFs and electromagnetic being electromagnetic sensitive probably have not even heard that. They’ve probably heard about bright lights and that kind of thing. What are some of the other things that people need to be on the lookout that may be sabotaging their sleep? That is it is something that is pretty readily fixable.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. So my checklist, you know, is, you know, what’s your light hygiene, right? Yeah. What’s your energy hygiene, right? What’s your energetic system looking like? We talked about melatonin. We talked about abo. You know, there’s, of course, you know, basic, you know, you mentioned like this kind of cortisol spike that can happen at night. You know, for people I’m often I use Adaptogens as well I love Dr. Eliaz on up here that works really kill the magnolia burn for people for women you know bioidentical hormones have gotten such a bad rap in our country. And I think they finally like, you know, it’s going to take forever to get into people’s brains. But I think they finally discredited or kind of combined it combated back the women’s health Initiative study that said, like, oh, hormones are bad for women. They’re, you know, yada, yada, they’re going to cause cancer. However, you know, they they found that to be wrong.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

And, well, there was synthetic hormones to their right. I mean, it was using horses, hormones, you know. Yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

All of that. And so, you know, with women, you know, usually, you know, after, you know, perimenopause, menopause, estrogen and progesterone go down and progesterone is really needed for sleep. You know, sleep inequality is very protective of brain. If you’ve ever had a head injury, you know, you probably need progesterone. And a lot of you know, when you’re making a lot of excess cortisol, you’re lowering your progesterone. So I give women a lot of progesterone at night in a bioidentical version, I often give them a capsule rather than cream for progesterone because it has more of I think it works like animal. So I use that sometimes full use also like neurotransmitter support, right? We talked about GABA and melatonin, so hormone. But, you know, sometimes serotonin support can be help.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Oh yeah. Fovea is my go to for everybody. Yeah, for sure.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Exactly. Lithium variety, you know can be sometimes on that can be very calming and you know support also enough sensitivity. And then I mentioned like if you have chronic infections and are not treating them, you know, I’ve seen, you know, viruses keep the brain inflamed. I’ve seen women, co-infections keep the brain inflamed in. You can’t sleep. You know, I’ve seen, you know, like a lot of gut infections. And the fact, you know, upstream how that kind of, you know, all the inflammation and cytokines and so sometimes taking like a skull cap or a resveratrol kind of supplement or, you know, perfume and that works, you know, that can be helpful. I’m like down the rabbit hole with histamine in myself those are in our fashion our connective tissue and they’re the first line of defense and they’re often, you know, triggered by and histamine inventory for the brain. Yeah. So, you know, just natural antihistamine sometimes even compounded medications when they need it. But that can really quiet the brain and calm things down. 

And then, you know, trauma, right? Like if you got trauma from being sick or trauma from, you know, just life, you know, which most people have, like how do you, you know, are you tending to it? Right. Are you seeing a therapist, much less dramatic therapist or the EMDR person or somebody who can really get to those kind of unconscious parts of you? Because, you know, there are lots of theories about what dreams are. Of course, they’re kind of maybe a discharge for the brain, but they’re also there can be a spiritual aspect to them, you know, and sleep can be a spiritual issue. You know, at the end of the day to what if something’s waking you up or keeping you up. There’s some thoughts around that. So, you know, just make sure you’re tending to that part of your body as much as the physical part. And I guess just the last thing I would say, maybe I’m like the sleep piece is if you keep waking up at a certain time like your time is 3:00, 3:00.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So.

Christine Schaffner, ND

You know, look at the Chinese organ clock and you know, the liver is quite active at night as well. The lungs and sometimes, you know, giving people like Castro backs at bedtime can help get through that time. So that’s like my brain dump on sleep with.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah or.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Through that.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So if you interrogate a little bit this head cause my brain is not working like would like for it to work and I’m drawing a blank. You’re you’re podcast.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Tell me what’s in it. And just drawing a blank and it’s wonderful podcast. Yeah.

Christine Schaffner, ND

It’s called The Spectrum of Health.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Thank you.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So the spectrum of health I want to encourage everybody check out your podcast is it’s more of this you know, it’s more of this just really stuff that you’re probably not going to hear from other practitioners. It’s really cutting edge, very insightful material that really makes you think and hopefully causes you to do more research to, you know, be proactive and learn about some of the things we talked about and then tell them what is the best website? I want people to check everything out on your website. You website’s great.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Thank you. Thank you, Rodger. I’m so I we have two websites Doctor Christine, shop intercom. You can find the podcast and just you know more about me. And then I also have my clinic in Seattle. Eminence about our practitioners and all of the things that we do and we do telemedicine as well.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Thank you, Christine. This has been great. I always love hanging out with you and picking your brain. It’s really a lot of fun. I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to be here.

Christine Schaffner, ND

So what they think you so much, Rodger, and thank you for all the work that you’re doing out there in the world. And I hope our conversation helps all those who are listening.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I’m sure it will.