Unexpected Healing Pathways

Introduction and Functional Medicine Background 0:00

Hi. Welcome back to the Heal Your Thyroid and Reversing Hashimoto's summit. So today I am delighted to talk to Dr. Jill Carnahan. She is an expert in so many things, gut, health, mold. She just wrote this amazing book called Unexpected and she is a renowned speaker on so many functional medicine topics. She has a awesome practice also that is just a one stop shop. And so, Dr. Jill, welcome. And can you please tell us a little bit about your practice and how you got into functional medicine? Sure.

So so glad to be here and passionate about the thyroid because it is affecting so many of us women, including myself, my sister, my mother. And we'll talk about that later. But my little journey into medicine, I grew up on a farm in Illinois. I was one of five children and we grew some of our own food. There's lots of like connection to holistic healing, and I didn't really even understand it at that time. My mother was a nurse and she retired to raise those five children. And but again, the idea was that if we got sick, we'd maybe have chicken soup, an arrest and lots of good care and things.

And of course, we went to the doctor like anyone else, but there was always this emphasis on living well and knowing that our nourishment came from the earth and some of the food that we grew and all that kind of thing. So I kind of had that background, but I didn't really know, you know, there was going to be a healer and I was looking at acupuncture school and job school and all these more holistic models, and I ended up applying to all the different types of schools. And as I started getting accepted to traditional medical school, my, my thought first was, oh, maybe I could really be a doctor and really like get to know the system.

And the interesting thing is, from the very beginning, before I ever set foot in medical school, I knew that model was it exactly aligned with who I was? It wasn't like I discovered integrative medicine after medical school. I literally went in knowing I had this just slightly different way of viewing the world that we have innate healing potential and that drugs and surgery are perfectly appropriate at times, you know, in trauma or car accident or heart attack. But they're not the end all, be all.

And that we have so much power when we're given the right nutrition and inputs into our body. So I kind of went in with that mindset and I thought, well, I need to go into medical school because at that time and probably still today is the best reimbursed system, may not be the best system, but as far as reimbursement with traditional insurance is still kind of the standard and I thought, gosh, if I want to go overseas or whatever. So I ended up going to medical school even though my alignment of philosophy was just slightly shifted, much more towards holistic medicine.

But it was neat because I got this great experience, great training, and I really got to see how the system worked, how it worked well, and how it sometimes destroyed the empathy of the physicians that came out on the other side. So it was a very, very interesting experience going through that and I'm thrilled today to have, you know, the medical degree. But I really think differently than than most medical doctors as far as root cause and reversing disease, even reversing autoimmunity. That's something that isn't taught in medical school.

And I am on my platform speaking all the time about how that these things, not everyone is going to have reverse bottom autoimmunity, but the fact that it's possible. Right? Yes. And I I'm like you, I, I wanted to go to medical school and I, I went to school because I liked how it was more see the body as a whole. And then you have the osteopathic manipulation. But then it was like a shock. I went in and it was all just like, Here's the diagnosis, here's the drug, here's the diagnosis, here's the drug, right?

And there was a little bit you know, we talk about rib raising during the flu and stuff, but the people that actual in the hospitals putting hands on patients using OMT, I mean, I think I was the only doctor in the E.R. that would do OMT on patients and, you know, with headaches and stuff. And they would feel better. And I would just take their history and put my hands under and do a sub occipital release on them while I was getting their history so I could give them a little relief. But yeah, I think though, it's so important to have people like you and me because we went to medical school.

So I get a lot of pushback, especially where I'm at in Ohio from conventional doctors around.

Breast Cancer and Crohn's Disease Journey 4:18

And, you know, I give the card to my patients, like give this to your doctor, let them know not only did I go to the same schools as they did, I did an extra fellowship. I did a residency and an extra fellowship so they can talk to me. I can talk the talk. You know, I'm not this isn't snake oil. So I yeah. So I think and then we can work with, you know, naturopaths and chiropractors and and so I think it's just such a great loving community because we have one purpose in mind and it's not to, you know, give furnaces, pharmaceutical companies money, it's to get patients better.

I love that it's so aligned and I do the same thing. It's like this, like we're creating this bridge. I always want to be really an advocate for the conventional dogs because they're overwhelmed, they're stressed, they're doing the best they can. And honestly, their toolbox. I remember in medical school, all my colleagues who graduated with me kind of that I was out there a little crazy. And now literally to this day, so many of them call me. My husband has this or my daughter has this. Do you think you could help?

Because what we realize, even in our system that we both trained in is there's this limit to again, there's certain things that you really well, it's usually trauma and acute illness and then certain things, which is mostly the chronic disease, the autoimmunity, the gut issues, the biotech's, an illness that conventional medicine doesn't have the right toolbox to completely fix. And so I totally love that philosophy that we're both in that in that game. Yeah. And that's the greatest compliment that they're coming back to you, colleagues.

I had that happen. I had someone I worked alongside a another residency within the same hospital with me. Ask him a question, ask me a question about his daughter. And I was like, oh, my gosh. But I love the one quote you have in your book about incurable doesn't mean healing is not possible. It simply means that there is not a drug that reverses the condition that like sums it up beautifully. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a horror because again, we're told my history with especially with Crohn's disease, I was told it's incurable.

Are you going to have this lifelong and very similar to Hashimoto's because all of these autoimmune disease were considered and they still are incurable. And the truth is when we find triggers and because not 100% are reversible, but many, many cases you and I have seen that are completely reversible or at least in remission with no further symptoms. Yes, absolutely. They are so could you share a little bit about your personal journey with some of the struggles you've had in medical school? And then, as you mentioned, with Crohn's. Sir?

So little did I know when I went to medical school, I would have a whole nother educational track that I did not ask or anticipate. But in my third year, right after surgery rotation and just for those of people listening, I know you know, Jen, but like the the brutality of medical education is part of the problem because at least back in my day, it was right before work our regulations and the hours were brutal, like 36 hour shifts. You might get sleep, you might not. It was all up to chance. And so you literally were taught as a resident medical student how to suppress your need to eat and to drink and tap into the basic needs of our body, which, again, I don't think creates very empathetic because physicians, because we're kind of suppressing we're dissociating from our body, our physical needs.

And then how can you really have compassion and connect to a human being as a patient if you're already dissociated from your own body like that doesn't create good, healthy position. So I've had to relearn all that stuff, but I'm setting the stage because it's no surprise to me. Looking back, I was this empathic, intuitive, this super sensitive soul. I didn't know it. I pretended to be a bioengineer. I was all analytical, it's all in my head. And that's what got me through medical school. But in my third year, I had this crash up against reality, and that was a lump in my left breast.

At 25 years old. It was literally like a week after my 25th birthday, so barely into that year. And I was so busy, so stressed, so overwhelmed. I didn't even I was like, I don't have time to deal with a lump in my breast. But of course, at the insistence of my family, I and had had it checked out, I had an ultrasound, a mammogram. Both were highly suspicious. But everyone's like, you're 25, you know, you don't have breast cancer. But I did have a biopsy and I'll never forget the day I got the call from the surgeon just a few days after surgery.

She's a colleague and a teacher. And so she knew me more than just as a patient. And she said, Jill, I don't know how to tell you this, but you have aggressive breast cancer. The signs of the cells, it was like as high as grade as it could be and super aggressive. Now, it was an early stage, which is probably part of why I'm still here, but it was incredibly aggressive and now, sadly, we're seeing so many young women with autoimmunity and breast cancer and this and that. But at that time, in 2001, in a major medical center in Chicago, I was the youngest one to ever be diagnosed.

So again, sadly, that's changed. But at that moment, I was their statistic of the youngest person. So I went in that all my life and again, I had to take all this belief that holistic medicine and natural healing really mattered. But I was up against an a very, very aggressive cancer. And I was with a group of young women in Chicago at that time, all of us under 40, which was considered young breast cancer. And I'm the only one still living. So it kind of puts in perspective. I was just, as you well know, this disease is much, much more aggressive and deadly in younger women.

So all that to say, I ended up choosing three drug chemotherapy, six cycles about as much as they could possibly give me before my heart would stop beating and then radiation and multiple surgeries. And about nine months later, I took some leave time for medical school to do the treatment. And nine months later, I was finished with treatment and considered in remission at that time. And but it was quite a battle. I came out just completely malnourished. My gut was destroyed and no hair. I was bald from the chemo and then I went right back into medical school because again, I was very dissociated from my body that I was going to go back and do the thing.

And six months later I started having cyclical fevers and I was very, very sick. I just chalked it up to the post chemo because I had just gotten out of all this aggressive treatment. I didn't again, I wasn't paying much attention to my poor body, but I started having these cyclical fevers, diarrhea, pain, weight loss. And one day I was in the air and I literally passed out and I ended up in the hospital that night for emergency surgery. And I woke up the next morning with the doctor telling me, Jill, you have Crohn's disease.

So another autoimmune disease attacks. The gut lining. Now, as a detective, it makes perfect sense because I had this genetic predisposition. There's an nod2 gene. That means my aggressive response to normal microbiome was pretty out of control. So I would have more likely have an aggressive, damaging response to the gut lining just to the normal microbiome and some of the chemo that I got in the therapy for cancer. One of them cyclophosphamide is known to induce leaky gut. So basically I created Swiss cheese for gut's permeable gut after chemo due to the chemo.

And it's interesting because that's one of the ways it fights cancer is it triggers the immune system through a leaky gut. So we know this gut immune interface, innate immunity is so crucial and this triggering of the gut immune reactivation caused the damage to my gut lining which resulted in Crohn's. So in my mind it's like, oh, that kind of makes sense. And then the last thing I'll tell you here about the doctor was a couple of weeks later saw a gastroenterologist kind of to follow up and talk about this new diagnosis.

And he said, Jill, like we said, lifelong, this is incurable. You're going to likely need immune modulating drugs. We'll need some steroids. You will likely have part of your colon removed over your lifetime. And there's no cure. I mean, it was pretty hopeless. And right before I left, I had the wherewithal to ask him just one question. I said, you know, I want to do whatever I can. Does diet have anything to do with it? Could I change my diet? And he did not even pause. And he said, Jill, diet has nothing to do with this.

And that was my instigation to go prove him wrong, which I did. And I. Knew some solutions there, but that was early, early in life in my, you know, 25, 26 years old. And it really framed my view of cancer, autoimmunity. The stress were under so many principles that also, I think, relate to your audience with Hashimoto was. Yeah. And I remember when I was given the diagnosis of Hashimoto's, it was interesting because I was in medical school too, and I felt

Hashimoto's, Family History, and Environmental Triggers 12:24

a lump that was bigger than it was because I had had a thirst in high school and they had to rule out cancer and the only way they could do it was the frozen biopsy. And during surgery and I woke up is like good news. It's not cancer, but you have Hashimoto's and I'm like, What's Hashimoto's like? I was only a first year medical. Yeah. He's like, Oh, it's, it's nothing. It's just a disease. You can't do anything about it. It's an autoimmune disease. So right there and that's the problem is these doctors, it's almost like this medical hexane because they're giving you this diagnosis.

They're saying there's nothing you can do, that you can't heal, that you can only be on like for Crohn's steroids the rest of your life and for Hashimoto's, they don't even acknowledge it can go into remission like under chronologies. They, they don't. So I think that that's another thing that, that patients need to break free from, is that they're being told that they can't heal without drugs or surgery or whatnot. Yeah. And I'm sure you you've come across this. I know I have. As I started to share my story and post a little bit about what else you can do, I get sometimes hate responses because people don't want to be told that they have any power.

And it's sad because there's a there's a victim thing, right, where you're like, Oh, I can't do anything about this. This is just my lot, which there are a lot of things in life that we can't do much about. But this our health and these kinds of things, we can. And I don't mean to say that anyone is at fault because none of us are, but we can own the fact that we have some ability to make changes that do result in either a better outcome or even reversal or remission. I mean, there's many different pathways and not everybody's going to have a cure, but there are many people that can either go into remission or have massively decreased symptoms and sequelae from the disease.

Yeah, and it does take work. I mean, I think that's the other thing that, you know, you were talking about conventional doctors before. A lot of the times they're they have a patient population that doesn't want to put in the work or change their eating habits or their lifestyle. And that's that's true. But at the same time, Doctor, you know, we're supposed to be teachers, so we're supposed to teach them. And I also think that us living healthy lifestyles ourselves and being a good example. But like you said, a lot of doctors are ran, they're run down, they're they're going from patient to patient.

And this insurance model that just doesn't it's a sick model, sick care model. So that that also makes it tough for people that are approaching their doctors and then they kind of get shut down and when when they get shut down a few times, I feel like the patients that come to see me, they're like mad about it. But then other people can get very frustrated and depressed about it, I'm sure. Yeah, like that. That helplessness, which is part of the reason I wrote the book Unexpected was really like, it's very different from your traditional like, here's a how to in 30 days.

It's my story. But the hope is that through that story, patients and people reading can see that reflection of their own stories because we all have a story and literally stories. What connects us right? And if I can say, hey, I went through this story, it was really, really hard, but this is what happened and this is how I chose to not be a victim. And also, there's a lot of things you don't have control over and it's part of the title. Unexpected is like Life Happens and life either we've just gone through something difficult, we might be in it right now or it's coming around the bend.

There's like three options because that's how life is. It throws us curveballs, it brings the unexpected. But if we frame our mind to say, okay, this is something my cancer, your Hashimoto's, my Crohn's disease, these are things in your listeners, all the things that you're going through, you're listening out there. These are things you don't wish. You don't want to happen. You wish they weren't part of your life. But when they happen, if we can shift and say, okay, what things do I have control over?

What illness do I have to take control and to make some changes? And you don't have to do everything. You don't do everything perfectly. But if you can start small and make some changes, I always start with clean air, clean water, clean food, and that's doable. It doesn't cost a lot of money. I mean, it can be even with organic foods, you can choose and say, what's the most important organic foods? Well, maybe The Dirty Dozen, which is Environmental Working Group, puts that out every year of the top 12 food groups that are most sprayed with pesticides, usually like pepper, bell peppers and strawberries and celery are on that list, are there to say like there's always something you can do within your means and with your energy level and with, you know, whatever resources you have, there's always some step you can take that may shift the needle enough for you to really feel a difference.

Yeah and I and it's baby steps to the other thing. I find people compare themselves like, how do I get to this point where this person is, where they're all organic and they're sleeping perfect and no, it's going to take baby steps. It's it's going to take time and you're going to have to put the work in, too. So it's not getting frustrated, I think is really important. I would say be kind to yourself because we can be so cruel and so like and again, getting through medical school, you kind of have to have this like really push hard and driven and all that stuff, but it can be detrimental as well because if you're pushing yourself too hard and not being kind and patient with your progress, that's a part of the problem, too.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, Dr. Jill, you mentioned that you have thyroid problems and your family also. So many people don't know this. I grew up in a farm and I think part of the pesticides and chemicals it was I was born in 76. So at the seventies and eighties, a real common to use atrazine and atrazine, derivatives and other endocrine disrupting chemicals. And there's no doubt in my mind that some of that was in the well water, probably even even my mother's exposure. And so me in utero started the process because to get cancer at 25, you have to have those cells being started to be targeted in damages that maybe five or ten or 15 like ten or 15 years before the diagnosis.

So and then again, it could have even been in utero. All that to say, these are endocrine disrupting chemicals and this is so relevant to thyroid because the part of the story many people don't know is my sister, my seven years younger sister, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 28 years old. So two girls, same environment, two hormone types of cancer, hormone sensitive cancers. And again, genetics might play a little we probably both have a little poor repairing of DNA or something like that. But the bigger issue is what in that environment and what even in her mother's, you know, life or grandmother's life or that the genetics and epigenetics of that led to two girls in their twenties getting endocrine related cancers.

So then she also had Hashimoto's right alongside the cancer, which is not uncommon. I don't think she knew about the Hashimoto's until the cancer diagnosis and then partial thyroidectomy in Hashimoto's. My mother, who always had fatigue the growing up that, you know, she dealt with migraines and fatigue and I think she was undiagnosed Hashimoto's years before she was actually like it was actually I think me who diagnosed her and then for me same thing I've developed. I always say I collect autoimmune diseases, which many of us do, and so I've had multiple different autoimmune types of things and Hashimoto's is one of them and I am on medication and it's controlled.

But it's interesting because that whole process of autoimmunity can be in families related to environmental exposures or our diet. Yeah, and that's interesting about the well water, you know, tracing it back to to that and a lot of the times when, you know, I'm sitting in front of a patient, we have to do that. We're like, Wait, where did you grow up when you were three? Like, what was the environment like? And you had this I remember this one patient was like, Oh yeah, there was this weird manufacturing business right by us and they like lived in a city and all of their siblings have health problems and it's really impactful what the environment can do, good or bad.

So yeah, clean water and clean air, very important in farm fields. It can be tough. Yeah, maybe I'll briefly talk because that's so worth talking about. The clean air, clean water, clean food. So 80% of our environmental toxic exposures through the air that we breathe, which always surprises me and many people who hear that because you think about the food

Clean Air, Water, and Food for Thyroid Health 20:30

and all the other stuff but the air that we breathe. So having a good air filtration system in your furnace, if you have a home, you can just get high rated filters for your furnace. When you replace them, you should be replacing them every three months. And even though that higher filtration, it's usually a merv rating, it's like how the number, the higher the number, the better filtration. Some of them even have charcoal embedded, which is also good for bosses. And sometimes when you get those high ratings, your air flow isn't as great to use a little bit more electricity, but it's usually worth it if you have sensitivities and then air filtration.

I get, you know, standalone filters, IQ Air, Air, Dr. Austin are great products and you want to have one that has not only that happen filtration system but a built in voc volatile organic compounds the data that's coming out about 2.5 micron and less particulate which is typically fumes formaldehyde, mycotoxins, even nanoparticles from exhaust and combustion. These things are actually shown now to damage the brain to increase risk of Alzheimer's too. Like they're really, really toxic. And most of us aren't really thinking about is the air that I breathe clean because it feels okay, but we are sick, so the air is huge and that might be the number one thing, clean water, making sure you have water filtration in your home where there's a simple picture in your fridge that doesn't cost a lot of money, that filters all the chemicals, including PFOA.

Expose our Teflon and Gore-Tex in Colorado, where I live. Last summer they checked all the water supply and the report came out there. Literally every water supply they checked was contaminated with pose poser endocrine disruptors, which means they can cause harm to thyroid or breast or any endocrine related tissue, and therefore ever chemicals, which means they're in the water forever. My children, my grandchildren, my any sort of generations on the scientists don't even know how to calculate a half life of these things.

So we must be filtering our water because carbon filtration and reverse osmosis will filter out that and many other chemicals. So in your home, whatever you do, whether it's a least expensive picture in your fridge or a whole house reverse osmosis system, it's pretty critical to start thinking about clean water and really try and avoid plastic water bottles. Even the BPA free are not safe. They're the same kind of endocrine disruptors. So those plastics are a problem. And then clean food. I could go on for an hour about this, but the basics are local if possible, as close to source because you're going get more nutrients if they're just picked and harvested from the fields versus shipped across, you know, from when strawberries are in season, we're getting them from somewhere far, far away and they lose their nutrient value as they're, you know, trucked in even if they're organic.

And then whenever you can buy organic, I would recommend looking at that Dirty Dozen and trying to at least put your money in those for organic. You're going to eat those foods. For example, strawberries always tops the list. Love strawberries. But if I'm out and about, I'm traveling usually in hotels. If they're on the buffet, they aren't organic. So I will not eat them. And I'll say, no, they're organic. So clean air, clean water, clean food. And these things really do matter for autoimmunity, especially Hashimoto's, because these are external inputs that can trigger immune dysfunction.

Yes, they can. And the forever chemicals, it's really crazy how contaminated our environment is and it's so sad. And there is a study for four firemen that like the only way to get rid of these is to for phlebotomy, basically taking blood. So they did this study with these firemen and they they donated blood like every week. And then that decreased their levels because they have high levels of these forever chemicals because of the flame retardant gear that they're wearing. And I always feel bad because I'm like these poor firemen, they're saving lives and they're like doused in, you know, these chemicals.

But one thing at home with having kids, you know, with my first kid, I, I would buy the cute character pajamas. I think I only got like one. And then I was like, oh, flame retardants. Bad, but but the flame retardants, if they're loose fitting, they douse them in flame retardants, which has the forever chemicals. And basically, you know, we know that this lowers IQ, increases risk of ADHD. So you want to just get nice and cotton jammies for the kids and avoid it. It's just it's crazy how they can just put toxins in everything.

Why aren't Teflon pans banned yet? I know these things like that are so and like, even just your plug in air fresheners, right? Like that's total viruses in your environment. There's no reason for it. You can use essential oils if you need a scent, but it's like this thing that people use and they don't realize. And the big companies that are marketing cleaning products are product. It's it's all marketing, right? There's not really a good reason for most of these things. Like you can plug in air fresheners or the types of cleaners that you need, you can use vinegar and water.

I there's a company I recently partnered with and they're just amazing and they have just like one cleaner that you can put into any dilution and use for your windows and use for your. And it's like basically minerals and plants. In fact, I used to clean my strawberries and clean my sinks like that's how clean it is. And that's the kind of thing you want is something that's very, very simple. Lemon water, vinegar. You can use pretty simple things that don't put chemicals in your home. Yeah. No need for fragrance.

You know get I it's funny because I remember when I like a decade ago I threw out all my perfumes you know, and I was just like, I'm done. I told my parents, I don't want perfume anymore for Christmas. And I felt a little bad because it was a tradition every year my dad would get my sister and I perfume, but it's just it's not worth it. So now I wear nothing or essential oils. No. Same thing. In fact, I have a study. I was for years after the breast cancer. Same thing threw out all the anything that says fragrance and perfumes are notorious for phthalates and parabens, which are both endocrine disruptors as well, and especially when we put them on our skin.

So I do that all out levels were low in testing and then I was like, Oh, it can't be that bad. I kind of got a few again and I was trying to spray on my clothes. Guess what? When I tested it was off the charts. I'm like, okay, not worth it. But it took me like even testing to prove because it were like, Oh, is it really that bad? Yeah, it is. That was yeah, that's great that you tested that. And that's speaking of testing, a lot of the times, you know, people they want testing. So that's why I love functional testing.

You know, I'll do an adrenal stress profile on someone that thinks that they're not stressed. But, you know, you can tell like when you think they're they're operating at a high cortisol level and then that's enough for them to to make these changes. So it's not easy just making these changes, you know. But I think every time you hear it, maybe get a friend that wants to do stuff with you. You know, little things I think are are the the the plan to stay healthy and keep those endocrine organs healthy, especially the thyroid.

It takes a beating. Yeah. And it really is the canary, as you well know. It means it's the back. In the old days, if you ever did the canary analogy in the coal mines, the miners would take down a small bird.

Faith, Resilience, and Healing Mindset 27:30

And when the fumes or some problem with the air quality would get high, that little bird would fall over. They passed out or whatever, and they didn't. They knew they had to. As you know, humans with larger lung capacity and larger systems they like, we got to go up now. So we always talk about canary in the coal mine, which is like these organs in the thyroid tends to be one of them that really, really sensitive to environmental inputs. So if you're out there listening because you have Hashimoto's, that's your wakeup call.

Like, Hello, you're, you're living in your toxic world and you're actually starting to have that canary pass out on you, which is your thyroid. So whatever you can do, this toxic load talk is actually very relevant to your listeners because it's the first time. Thyroid is one of the first organs that does that weird, you know, gets inflamed and goes to Hashimoto's when there's environmental toxic exposures. Yeah. And, and I definitely, I tell people, you know, it's not a bad thing. We caught it early because the last month I had two patients come in that were just basically for wellness checks, like they just want to make sure they were healthy and we uncovered things and you know, you could always just just do better in your case.

I do want people to realize that your case was kind of extraordinary at such a young age. But the farming in the well and the atrazine makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And I always talk about toxic load and this is kind of a way to frame anyone listening. We all have a bucket when we're born, and that bucket capacity is kind of over a lifetime. Where's our threshold for that water starting to fill up and run over the top? And it's funny because the average age of diagnosis for breast cancer and celiac disease, so one's an autoimmune disease, one's a cancer, is around 55 years old.

And people are surprised because I guess breast cancer, we're not surprised. But celiac, you would think it's more of a childhood disease. But both of those things illustrate the fact that over time that load builds up in our bucket, the water level rises, and at some point the water level spills over. And when that water level spills over, metaphorically, it's the overload of our immune system's ability to detox and our liver and kidneys and all the organs we have for detoxification. So we kind of out, you know, we fill up that bucket and the water flows over the top.

And the good news is, when you're dealing with toxic load as a partial cause of autoimmunity, you can decrease that water level and get margined back. And you don't have to know every last toxin in the bucket. You don't have to be perfect in this endeavor to be clean and clean air, clean water, clean food. You just have to give yourself back enough margin so that your body can do what it was created to do, and that's to detox. And the liver works and everything works better. All that to say on the farm, I was probably born with a smaller bucket and impaired capacity to detox.

So those chemicals, while they didn't affect my brothers and maybe some other people, they did affect me and my sister. And so at a very young age, that water level came over the edge. Yeah, especially women were a little more susceptible to the autoimmune diseases, something because of our hormone fluctuations and the estrogen. So that that makes it a little more tricky. But I would love for you to go in to Doctor Jill, if you don't mind, the faith aspect of your journey. Sure. So the subtitle of my book is Unexpected Finding Resilience through Functional Medicine, Science and Faith.

And I wanted to really talk about this thing that people don't always put together, because for me, it's been the way to heal is to embrace the sciences, the data, the testing, all the stuff we know to be true. And there's nothing wrong with science. You don't have to have the exception of faith. There's some people who are like, Oh, it's just our belief that you're going to get better. And then some we were like, There's no faith. It's just all science. And I think it's so critical to have both sides.

And I always compare it to like the masculine and feminine, the science, the faith, these sides of ourselves, we kind of need to really integrate both sides. For me, Faith, I definitely have a deep, strong belief in a higher power, and that's part of the faith. But I also can come and meet people where they're at, whether they don't believe in God at all, or they have a very strong faith like I do. Because the way that this faith works in healing is how do we deal with the inevitable uncertainty of life?

Like life, like we said earlier, is going to throw us curveballs. We're going to maybe get diagnoses we didn't expect and what I found is the power of really believing that I could get well, are believing that there's some greater purpose in suffering or believing that I could still, you know, survive and thrive. Despite at the time after breast cancer being completely sick and malnourished and bald, that belief actually drives some of the outcome because that belief allows us to have a different lens on the world.

And as we view the world and we believe something really simple and silly as an example, and this is a very, very small and silly, but say I'm going somewhere and there's lots of parked cars in your parking spot. I have this belief that I'm going to find this type and over and over and over again, a parking spot will come up. And again, you may just think that's total B.S. and and ignore the fact that I actually believe that it's going to happen and it affects it. But there is a way we energetically know with Quantum physics that our beliefs do have an impact on our environment.

So that's how we can frame this is what do you believe is possible. And when you go into suffering, when you go into a new diagnosis, when you go into illness, there is pain, there's difficulty. But if we deep down believe that something greater, there's a greater purpose, there's a greater teaching, there's a greater learning. And we're actually actively looking for that pearl, that wisdom inside those experiences, it is almost guaranteed to come out with something greater. Like for me, the education I got in medical school with breast cancer and Crohn's was so powerful and beautiful in my whole life as a physician, I could have never, ever gotten that without the experience.

And yeah, it wasn't fun. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Book, Resources, and Closing 33:06

But when I switched that frame, that faith frame, to know something greater is possible and I talk in the book, there's a formula, it's called Belief, Act and Weight. And how that works out in life is you believe for something amazing, some vision, some healing, some possibility, and then you do. The act is doing what you can because we all have some like we can eat clean or do something different or see another doctor or see a, you know, another type of pure. And then we wait. And the waiting is the hard part for most of us.

But the waiting is a part in knowing that something good is going to come out of this and then waiting to see what transpires. That's beyond our means. So it's like we need that that faith component to take it to the next level. That's so beautiful. And I just what you've been through and how you've made it work to help so many people is just such a beautiful thing. Thank you. It's been it's been worth it. Even though. Well, I do think, though, that you going through it, you just provide such a special way to help people.

Because I because, you know, you know what people are going through. So it's it was for a reason, that's for sure. Yeah. So, Dr. Jill, I would love you could share with our audience. First of all, thank you so much for everything you've shared with us today. I really appreciate your vulnerability. Could you share how they could get your new book, your website, where you hang out on social media, all of that? Sure. So my main website is just my name, JillCarnahan.com. And we have decades of articles and resources all free.

If you want the book, you can go anywhere. Books are sold but be sure and go to read unexpected. Just read unexpected. That because it got some really fun free things. If you purchase the book, there's a massive lecture, there's a hidden chapter that's not in the book that I read. And there's also a free coloring journal, which is really cool. That was part of my healing, was getting to that creative inner child and coloring and drawing and be more creative. So I actually have a coloring journal that goes along with the book and those are all free at read Unexpected Outcome.

And then hop on over to Instagram. I'm just Dr. Jill Carnahan there lots of fun silliness on Instagram if you want to follow me. That's awesome. Thank you so much. It's been great talking to you. You're welcome. Thank you, Jen.