Where Are You On The Autoimmune Spectrum?

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Welcome back to another interview on reversing chronic gut conditions. I'm your host Sinclair Kennally and today I am joined by the wonderful Dr. Amy Myers. She's a New York Times best seller, twice actually author of The Autoimmune Solution and the Thyroid Connection. She's also an internationally acclaimed medical and functional medicine physician, and she specializes in empowering those with autoimmune thyroid and digestive issues to take back their health in reverse their condition. She has so many fascinating projects to her name, and I really wanted her on the summit to give you guys a chance to hear her thoughts on autoimmunity, how it starts in the gut, and some potentially, you.

Interesting opinions on candida and SIBO and how to go about treating those in depth. So welcome, Dr. Amy, it's wonderful to have you on here. Thanks so much for having me. Sinclair It's so let's just dive right in. You know, we have a mix of folks listening to the summit, those who are just taking back control over their health for the very first time. And, you know, on a on an exploration that's really new. And then we have of course, I lovingly call them my summit junkies who know more than their general practitioner do.

And they really are looking for those advanced gems. And, of course, are wonderful practitioners in the audience who are hoping to pick up some new tools. So I know that you have the total capacity in mastery to give some advanced gems today, and we'd love to keep those in awe. So where would you like me to start? Sort of the connection of chronic conditions and autoimmunity. Let's start there. So. So I can say I myself have a history of Graves disease, an autoimmune condition. So that's where my passion lie.

And I say that conventional medicine failed me, and it's my mission to not have it fail. You too, though I am classically trained as both a conventional physician, as you mentioned, and a functional medicine physician. But so I have literally worked with thousands of patients in my clinic, as well as all the tens and hundreds of thousands of people that have done my programs online or read my books. And so really, as your listeners have probably learned that the gut is the gateway to health. So nearly 90% of our immune system sits in our gut.

The research of Dr. Alessio Fasano tells us that really there's this four pronged approach to having autoimmunity, which is that there's likely some inherent genetic predisposition towards autoimmunity. Then we have some sort of event happened in terms of the environment, but then gut and leaky gut is one of those three legs. So the theory is that if you have this leaky gut, that then these toxins, microbes, different foods and things that are never meant to get in our gut can get through into our bloodstream.

Our immune system goes on high alert. So how do we get a leaky gut? Well, I mean, I talk about it in my books about five factors that lead

Autoimmunity, Leaky Gut, and Root Causes 3:01

virtually to any chronic condition, which is toxins, infections, stress, our diet, and then, of course, leaky gut. So one of the ways that we can get leaky gut is through these chronic infections such as Candida overgrowth, SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And frankly, I literally, literally have seen thousands of people with not just one autoimmune condition but multiple. After a couple of New York Times best sellers, you suddenly get, you know, the people it's five, six, seven, eight autoimmune conditions coming to see you.

And what do they all have in common? Leaky gut and generally at least one if not both infections of candida overgrowth and or and or SIBO small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So I don't know if you want me to just kind of dove in, talk about some symptoms or if you want to. Yeah, let's start by first helping people understand how they would recognize that this is an issue for themselves besides stems and also labs. Yeah. So in terms of SIBO or in terms of Candida overgrowth generally and I write about this in my books, but you have and generally as a woman, more women have autoimmunity in most of my clinic and most of my followers are women.

So I'm going to be saying women here. But this, of course, can apply to men. You'll hear a story of a woman saying she herself maybe was a C-sections. She herself had ear infections as a child and lots of antibiotics. Right. She was on birth control pills. These high estrogen states can lead to Candida overgrowth, right? Then maybe she got sinus infections or allergies and more chronic antibiotics. Then she herself gets pregnant. She has to have a C-section. Maybe she got an infection during pregnancy where she needed more antibiotics.

So it is this setup for Candida, either a history of antibiotics herself, having antibiotics in utero, possibly having had a C-section. You're not getting all your gut microbiome warm as you come down through the through the birth canal, having a history of air tubes and or antibiotics, chronic birth control pills, like I said, a high estrogen state. These are all things that can lead. Just one round of antibiotics can lead to Candida overgrowth. So those are some things that can lead to what are some signs and symptoms.

So one of the biggest things that I hear from women is brain fog. So when I hear brain fog, because there's a lot of similarities and if you want me to get it and I can between symptoms of SIBO and Candida overgrowth but some distinguishing things are really this brain fog. People have chronic sort of rashes, whether it be psoriasis, eczema, any kind of rash. It's itchy, of course, any kind of fungal rash. So when you're going to the dermatologist are like, I don't know what that rashes here's a cream that generally tells me that's candida of course a history of vaginal yeast infections, dandruff, nail fungus.

These are all clearly fungal infections that can mean that you may have systemic or candida overgrowth in your digestive tract. Then, of course, we have symptoms that could be SIBO, which is bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, the digestive issues. But I have seen so many people with autoimmunity that have a leaky gut, that have Candida, that have SIBO, and they have virtually no digestive issues. And certainly having normal digestion of 1 to 2 bowel movements day doesn't mean you're out of the clear.

So let me see if I'm thinking of anything else. Okay. Sugar cravings, of course. And the history of diabetes. These things would all tell me, you possibly that you have Candida overgrowth. The biggest difference with SIBO that I see is there is a correlation between SIBO and rosacea. That's the only rash that I really see the difference between Candida and SIBO and then extreme bloating. So the idea that I ate something, my stomach was flat in the morning at eight something and I looked six months pregnant.

Those two things generally for me, the brain fog and of course the the fungal, you know, in skin infections and things versus the bloating and the rosacea. Okay. So that's kind of the two differences testing. Now, this is kind of broad. There are three main tests that I look at for systemic Candida or intestinal Candida, some of which you can get through your conventional doctor. So the first is a blood test, but it's looking for antigens or markers against your immune system, against Candida. Now, the upside of this is it's a simple blood test generally covered by insurance.

The downside of this is that it's very specific to Candida. So as I'm saying, Candida overgrowth, I'm lumping in all fungus or fungal overgrowth. Candida is generally I hear it. Sorry, I'm in a in a in a very quiet neighborhood and I hear like a siren, which is highly unusual. Sorry about that. So so it's very, so candid that is the most prominent form of fungus or yeast in the body. So I lump it all together, but you could have a different form. There are many, many different types of bees. So if you get this blood test, it's only checking for your, you know, your immune reaction to Candida.

Then it doesn't tell you just how's your immune reaction to it.

Recognizing Candida and SIBO Symptoms 8:39

So it doesn't tell you how much you have or the level or where exactly it is. It just says your immune system is reacting to Candida. But if it is, it's a really great place to start because you can get it through a conventional doctor and it's generally covered by insurance. The second place that I generally look is very gut specific, and this is where it gets into a comprehensive stool test through a functional medicine lab test. That's really looking at both Candida and other forms of fungus.

And that will look specifically at your large intestine and it will look specifically at basically the level that you have. But this, again, needs to be done. You know, I don't know if you have access to, you know, your your group has access to these functional medicine labs, but that's where you would want to, you know, utilize a functional medicine practitioner and get one of these labs. And then the third one that I do is a urine test. And it is also through a functional lab company and that is looking at metabolites of Candida and other yeast.

D-arabinitol in your urine and it checks for it in your small intestines. I mean, of course, we could get into like nasal cavities and other cavities, but we're here for chronic gut conditions. So those are the three that I most you know, when I was practicing that I was using extensively in my clinic were these three labs. Yeah, I think that's a really great overview and I think you had some really important terms there about how to recognize Candida versus SIBO and how they might be present both in a very distressed environment, leaky gut.

And other things that I want to say quickly that I forgot is there's another lab test, just a regular CDC that, you know, a complete blood count, that if your lymphocytes are low and your neutrophils are high, this can be and your white blood cell low can be an indicator of chronic yeast or Candida overgrowth as well. So that's a really quick one. I mean, that's why in a lot of places you can walk in, pay out of pocket, get a CBC. It's something your any time you're getting labs with your regular doctor, you probably might even have one sitting at home in your portal or something that you could go back and reference and see if you had that condition, because that can also be an indicator of chronic yeast or Candida overgrowth as well.

Sorry. That's great. I think this is a really important distinction to make and I want to get really detailed today about this because so many people refer to. Oh, yeah, and you'll have potentially some fungal overgrowth or, you know, touch that. Yeah, Candida. But really, if you look at a body that has fungal overgrowth, you're looking at a really compromised system, right? Absolutely. So that's why I've had many, many patients be sent off to the oncologist for these low white blood cell count.

So this is where it gets back into your digestion. You know, 80, 75 that 90% of our immune system or IGA is being secreted out of our gut. What I see is that this yeast lays a layer over the gut, suppresses your ability to secrete iga, so you might have a low IGA and that then suppresses your white blood cell count. So I've seen many, many patients be sent off to oncologists, think that there's something dramatically wrong with their immune system. We go through, you know, in my clinic, I did prescribe antifungals.

We'll walk through if you want what I used, if people didn't want antifungals are now that I have a supplement company, what we used for you know, for people out at large that help to treat this and then you see their white blood cell count come back. You know, they've been released from the oncologist because the oncologist is just scratching their heads saying it's a suppressed immune system. But I don't really know why I've done this workup. I don't see anything. And it's literally as simple as it's literally as simple as just treating this Candida overgrowth.

And I'll just mention one more thing. Since the vast majority of our neurotransmitters are serotonin is made in our gut, that's also suppresses that ability. So you have people, which I didn't mention was ADHD, anxiety, depression that's lifted. That's where this brain fog gets into. Not only from that, but there's some metabolites from the yeast that kick off and almost act like alcohol in the brain that create this sort of drunken, spacey, you know, brain fog. And so when you treat this Candida, not only do you see the symptoms that maybe you walked in with, the fungal infections and the rashes get better, but you also see anxiety, depression, A.D.D., brain fog go away.

You see this immune system bounce back to healthy. So this you know, I remember I'm trained as an air physician and I remember, you know, I read about this when I was much younger, which is one of the reasons I wanted to go into medicine. I found it fascinating. And then, of course, I go through medical school and it's just this is bogus. This is ridiculous. You know, there's nothing to this. And I, of course, went to medical school knowing I wanted to do something holistic alternative. So I didn't fully believe that.

But then, of course, once I got into functional medicine to see the turnaround stories of people with these very chronic conditions, not just sitting in the gut, but systemically have full recoveries. It was seemingly miraculous, you know, and, you know, conventional medicine doesn't believe in it at all. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? It just blows my mind, actually. Even now, it's just literally systemic. Candida in the blood that your have basically almost sepsis. You know, that's the only scenario in which they believe in this.

It it's frustrating to me and try to maintain a, you know, positive outlook about it. But as as one of those people who was mystery patient X for so many years and, you know, having to shut down my practice because I was too ill, all these things I really feel for the people that are still getting gaslit. And that's why I always focus on like, how would you recognize this in yourself? So as it was something like Candida, when it's so easily like the information is right there, you can test for it.

This isn't like, gee, I wonder. Yeah.

Testing for Candida Overgrowth 14:45

Absolutely. But let's talk. About a systematic approach to treat it, given the fact that it's often present with these other infections, you know, do you see a relationship between Candida and toxins? Talk us through that. Yeah. So, I mean, there is this theoretical I mean, and maybe there's a do believe there's some published studies about mercury in Candida and that the can do is there to protect you from the mercury. You know, look, I treated many people for mercury overload and went through chelation with I've personally gone through it.

I've gone through it with my patients. You know, I cannot tell you 100% that there is this correlation. There is a believed correlation lation out there. So I generally did treat for Candida and then would go through the lation and then treat generally again for can candida because often it can be occurring as you're chelating out. But it's this it's sort of a catch 22 because if you're chelating somebody and this is again I don't know how others practice here, but for me there are a lot of people, you know, even locally in town that would say, oh, you've come to see me, let's go through a collection right away.

I always warn against that because if you haven't healed your gut and you're going directly through dilation, you can just be re absorbing these toxins. And so I find that frankly dangerous. And I would recommend you know, I would always say to my patients, I had a thousand people on my waiting list when I retired. That's a whole nother story. But anyway, so I always said people say, well, how do I know, you know, can I find another practitioner? And so ask them if they could only do one task, what would it be?

And if it's not a stool test move on to the next one. Because if you don't go in and heal the gut first kind of all bets are off. And you know, I'm sure many people talk about how to do that. And it's a four prong approach and you're doing multiple things at once. But if you're sitting there with a leaky gut and then you're going through escalation, you are potentially re absorbing these toxins. So the first step that I took was, you know, following a four hour program and I'm sure you probably had 100 people talk about it.

But if not, I can certainly walk you through what that is. But a four hour program and I would kill the gut first. And then when you have a good foundation, you have a solid gut. It's not leaky anymore. Then you can handle these other burdens of going through elation and things like that. But back to your question, I often did see Candida and SIBO go hand in hand and you know, I can certainly walk you through how I treat both of those, both in my clinic and now since retiring and and sort of the difference in treatment of those because there's a lot of overlap both in symptoms and in treatment and a lot of people since are dealing with them both.

The number one question we get is how do I treat both at the same time so I can walk through that as well? If you'd like. Yeah, I think that would be excellent. And I also really appreciate you saying that piece about chelation before we go any further, because I'm just shocked at how cavalier people are about let's just throw on some in an Navy protocol and they haven't done any groundwork. And you know, to your point, they're doing with a leaky gut, they have total dysfunction in their mitochondria.

Their body literally doesn't have the energy to excrete things properly. And it's just like, you know, big wallop and you end up crashing really sensitive people that. Didn't write any haven't gotten their liver to start functioning properly, detox, the whole shebang. Right? Yes. Yes. If you're listening to this and somebody says, go to detox first, move on to the next one, you should really be dealing with the gut first, healing the gut, getting that foundation, getting your mitochondria, getting your liver, working all of these things.

Then when you're stable, when you're strong, you can likely go through the elation after that. So you're going candy together. What would the approach be like in your heart? Yeah. So that, you know, I have kits and programs on my website. These stem from I have now moved to custom formulating my own supplements after working over a decade in my clinic and, you know, testing things and getting test over thousands of patients. So I have my own supplement line and I created these out of working with patients, dealing with this all the time.

So the foundation is first is to do a candidate or SIBO specific diet and they're very similar. I mean, it's going on a low carb diet. Of course, if you're following my program, you're already gotten rid of gluten and dairy and sugar and all these other things. So it's really honing in and eating if you're eating starchy vegetables, limiting those, if you're eating other grains, which if you have autoimmunity, I do recommend you remove for a while that you're eating really complex ones in a limited form for a while, for 30 days or more.

If you're doing Candida and SIBO, I recommend 60 days now where I differ as a lot of people say, eat lots of fermented food. I disagree with that. I like to think about your your gut as well as I used to say a fishbowl. It's more like a rainforest where everything's ideally an optimal balance. When it's gotten out of balance, the Cibo Candida can overgrow.

How Candida Affects Immunity and Mood 19:48

But if you're throwing food in there, then you know everybody that's in this rainforest is eating the food so the candidate can eat it. The Cibo can eat it. So the fermented foods and prebiotic foods are food for all of these for your microbiome. But if it's in an imbalance, you're feeding the things that are out of balance as well. So I actually tell people to hold on the prebiotics deferment in food, not to mention that fermented often can be coming from yeast and things like that. So you don't want to add, in my opinion and in my experience working with thousands bases, you don't want to add that in right away, want to save that at the end after you've healed your gut and then you're trying to reestablish that microbiome when you've gotten rid of or pruned back the Sebo and the Candida.

So the diet's very similar and then that's kind of a three step approach. So that's the first step. The second step then is to with Cibo Prune back the Cibo because Cibo is generally an overgrowth of good bacteria. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing is what I say. And usually it's lactobacillus. So you want to prune that back. I have a product called Microbe X or excuse me, microbe clear and microbe based. We call it that we've changed the microbe clear. And it's a combination of herbs such as wormwood and berberine and black walnut.

And it it does what I said it proves that it doesn't it blow up a bomb. You know, there are a lot of people that like to use oil of oregano and these other things which are very powerful, but they can almost be too powerful sometimes. So medicine, we always want to be as specific as possible or whatever we're treating. So the more specific we can be, the better. Now, if you are working with the practitioner and they're able to prescribe Z, Faxon or Rifaximin X Ray Z toxin for you, that's awesome.

I used it a lot in my clinic. The problem is it's very expensive for most patients. It's very hard to get covered by insurance. So that's why I created the supplement because I was having so many of my patients, you know, not be able to afford 500,000. I mean, it's very expensive. So it works well and it is specific to the gut. So if you're working with a practitioner that you feel comfortable taking that it's very specific to the gut. If not, you know, again, we have micro clear donut if you have herbs that you use, but some sort of herbal formula to prune back the the bacteria.

Now, if you're dealing with Candida again in my clinic, the number one thing that I prescribed was antifungals. They work very well. And I mean, it was like crack seriously in my clinic was like, I need more fluid and I need more. And I was denied, you know, because people would feel so good. So if you're working with a practitioner, you feel comfortable taking an antifungal for about 30 days. That can be a good way to go. Now it is, you know, a little bit difficult on the liver. You want to be taking something to make sure you're working with your liver, liver support of some sort.

And if you're not working with someone or you don't want to take an antifungal, you know, what I use specifically is a product called canned defense that I've created, that is enzymes that help break down the cell wall. And then I use copper like acid, which is an acid that comes from coconut that also sort of pokes holes in the yeast cell wall. So there are various products out there. You may have some on your website as well that, you know, are working very specifically at the cellular level of the yeast.

So those and can you know, can you take all of that together? Yes, you can take all of that together and be treating these things. We definitely have you work up. You know, if you're following my protocol, it's two pills of each of these things twice a day. So we do generally recommend that you start with one pill and work your way up because you can experience things like die off. I had a woman, I was doesn't matter. A woman ran into me at the store the other day. She showed me these pictures of her hands before doing my program.

They had gotten worse during the program and then of course, totally healed after the program. So people can have both exacerbation of whatever symptoms they have or they can have symptoms of die off. In both of these cases, which is just as these infections are dying off, they're releasing byproducts and toxins into your system. Again, if we haven't worked with the mitochondria of the liver, all of these things, you can get overwhelmed. So you can take things. We have a gluten, I own charcoal

Treatment Strategy for Candida and SIBO 24:18

and food of my own and a charcoal to help with this die off. But if you simply work your way up, generally you can avoid this. And then the third part is where they differ with SIBO. I do not recommend that you're taking a sort of classic probiotic. I recommend that you take a soil based probiotic, and that's because most all classic probiotics, even the ones that I have, have lactobacillus in it. So we already likely have too much of that. So you don't want to be feeding that. So we have a sole based probiotic called Primal Earth that I recommend if you're doing SIBO and then if you're doing Candida, we have a 100 billion unit probiotics, whatever you're taking, you want it to be a very high dose, high quality, multi strain probiotic.

Now, in this instance, if you are just dealing with SIBO, you do what I said. If you're just dealing with Candida, you do what I said. If you are dealing with them both, what I recommend is that you hold off on the 100 billion and you do the soil base for 30 days. And then when you're done with that, then we're assuming that the SIBO is gone and then you can move into adding in the 100 billion probiotic. Now if you start to add that in and you're getting the bloating and all of this stuff, right, that tells me likely the Zebo is not gone and that you need to continue to treat that before you move into the probiotic.

And I should go back to symptoms and say when you're adding and prebiotics, fermented foods are a more classic multi strain probiotic and you're getting bloating, you're getting gas, you're getting these things. That is an indicator to me that you may have SIBO because you're adding more fuel into that fire. Yeah, I really love the way you just laid this out and I think it's very press that provoking because I agree with you, people are so sick today and by the time they get to, you know, somebody who can actually deal with the complexity of their gut issues, the last thing we should be doing is just throwing more gasoline onto the fire with probiotics of various kinds and fermented foods as well.

If you have fermented foods, it's like a meat and strategy for healthy people. And when people do discover prime fermented foods, it's almost like the primacy effect, their first little dose. They feel an initial relief. And so they think, oh, this must be good, I'll do more of it. And they just like get so out of whack with it and that they don't consider dosing and how cultures use these foods. Traditionally, you know, for hundreds and hundreds of years. So I'm really happy to hear you say that.

I wish more people would talk about that piece. And I love the way you really emphasized like systemic drainage and how important it is. Take this step by step. Well, I mean, it works. I mean, it works. I mean, it works. And I know it works because, you know, I had people who couldn't afford these various prescription drugs even though I was able to prescribe them. And so I had to have alternatives. And so, as you're saying, I mean, prebiotics, fermented foods, these things work. I mean, it these real foods and supplements work in this situation.

And they are as good, if not better than prescription drugs. And so you have to be careful with these with all of it. You know, food is medicine and our gut cells are normally turning over every 24 to 48 hours. And all of this helps to just speed up the process. Right. I mean, it is a rainforest in there. And as you start to give it food or you start to prune it back, these things make a difference. Yeah. And I love. Powerful, but. It's so funny because I didn't realize we had so much synergy, which was I also used the rainforest metaphor because we were toxins and think about like spraying herbicides and press pesticides onto a complex rainforest.

Like what's going to be left over a little, like some burnt patches, and it's going to be much more susceptible to all sorts of weird overgrowth. So we always want to consider like what is the backdrop against that, which is, you know, all of this is happening, right? Well, you would love to pick your brain right now because you're you're so in the details of this piece. What do you think about practitioner protocols where you see some initial benefits and then people backslide with Candida and Ceiba?

What are your thoughts on that and what should people be, you know, considering as they deal with that? So the first thing that I think about is how did they get in the boat in the first place? So if somebody was drinking lots of wine on antibiotics, eating a high sugar diet, super stressed out, I mean, like how did you get here in the first place? So if you go treat it for 30 days or even 60 days, and then you go right back to your lifestyle, it's going to come back. So that's the first thing you know.

Have you changed the lifestyle that that if it was the lifestyle that got here now, it could be antibiotics from 20 years ago that you're you know, it's just that one time and you've been living with it chronically and then you treat it and you're not going back to the antibiotics. It should be fine, but more complex if you are if that's not the case, certainly with Candida or yeast overgrowth. One of the main things I think about, of course, you can think about this correlation between heavy metals, particularly mercury and Candida.

Again, I'm in this world, I just don't have, you know, studies showing that that really is the case. But it is it is a theory that is out there. So it is something that I thought about in my clinic for sure. But the thing that I think about since I've lost everything to toxic mold three times in my life now, is toxic mold. So that is probably the number one thing that I think of. Are you living in a moldy environment that is creating because that too can create fungus in your nasal passages, create fungus systemically.

So are you in a toxic mold situation when it comes to SIBO, you know, or are you did you go back on birth control pills? Did you it could be something innocent. I got pregnant and you're now pregnant and that's a high I didn't mention it earlier, but that's a high estrogen and state that, of course, if you know that most women want to have to have the joy of motherhood is to be pregnant. But it is a state that you can get candida just naturally with SIBO. The thing that i think about is do you have any anything that's creating a situation where your food is in your digestive tract longer?

Do you have hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's? Do you have any other type of autoimmune disease that maybe is that maybe is creating a slowing of peristalsis? So any kind of nerve involved autoimmune condition, you know, that that's creating a decrease in your nerves to where you don't have active peristalsis, do you have constipation? But really one of the things that I think about is is there some sort of autoimmune condition leading to this? And then I didn't say it for both of them, both as a cause or a condition in which you can get SIBO and candida is is your stomach acid low.

So we need stomach acid in order to cure things when we eat them. If you're eating whole foods out of the ground and have parasites, bad bacteria, fungus is on it. And so when it goes into our digestive tract, in an ideal state, we have an optimal level of HDL hydrochloric acid that helps to kill off these things before it even gets down. And of course, it helps to break down our protein and helps us ultimately to digest our food. But if you've been on chronic KPI's, if you've just been stressed or you've had lots of toxins and you're just not optimally having a lot of HDL, then this is something that you may want to look at.

And I don't know if anybody's walk through, you know, kind of how to test yourself using lipstick again. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I've never had a burning at all in my chest or reflux. And it was this was whatever it was 20 years ago

Why Protocols Fail and What to Reassess 32:27

I'm at an I film institute for functional Medicine course and they tell everybody to take this pill right before lunch. And then we go to lunch and we come back and I'm like twisted sensation in my in my chest to have this, like, burning sensation in my chest. And what they had given everybody was one pill of HDL hydrochloric acid. And so that's how you can test that. You take one pill of HDL, you eat a high protein meal. If you are burning, you do not need the HDL. You have enough HDL in your in your digestive tract or you're able to produce enough.

If, however, you have no burning, then you likely need some HDL. So the next step would be the next meal. Take two pills. If you have no burning, then the next meal you're going. Want to take three pills. Now make sure this is a real meal, not a snack or smoothie, but like a real protein filled vegetable rich meal and when you get the burning, if that's it, three pills, four pills, that's when you know, okay, you need to back off down to the one pill where you don't have burning again. This is acid and your body needs it and actually produces it in order to kill off these infections to to, you know, to digest and break down our proteins into amino acids.

But of course, you don't want to have too much. And the the misnomer, the misdiagnosis is a lot of people actually have acid reflux, need stomach acid. Instead of needing these acid blockers. I found time and time again my clinic, you'd have people take these things, get off the acid blockers and they actually needed the stomach acid. This I mean, we don't you know, I could talk obviously for days about all of this, but, you know, it starts when you start to put food or even smell food. You know, the the enzymes in your cheeks start to you start to salivate.

That's creating certain enzymes. And as you go down, we have these enzymes to digest and absorb our food. And it's I always say it's not you are what you eat, but you are when you digest and absorb it. And you need all along the way this to be functioning optimally in order to digest and absorb optimally. Yeah, I think that's a really beautiful way to lay that out and so clear for people. Thank you for breaking that down. What do you think people need to know at this point, given what we've unpacked so far, if they've been on this journey for a while, they need a little bit of encouragement.

Are there any stones that you see unturned sometimes, too? Well, I think a couple of things come to mind when you ask me that. The first is I often saw a lot of people since we've honed in on Candida overgrowth and SIBO that will say, well, I did the diet or I took the antifungals or I took, you know, even your own products. I took these things but didn't work. Well, my first question is, did you do all three? Did you actually follow the three step program? Because it's not about I always had we had people come in the clinic, I did the diet, but they didn't do the supplements or the antifungals or I did the antifungal and the supplements, but I didn't do the diet, too.

You got it is a three, in my opinion, from my experience. And what I talk about on my website is a three part approach. So did you do the full three part approach? The other is, I'm sure people talked about the 4 hours of of healing your gut. Did you do all 4 hours? Did you remove the inflammatory and the toxic foods? Did you replace the stomach acid, the digestive enzymes, the bile acids? If you needed it, did you re inoculate it? Again, we talked about different probiotics, whether it's Candida or SIBO.

And did you repair? Yes, your gut will repair on its own. The number one product I have is leaky gut revive, which is and you may have something similar in your store, which is, you know, three grams of L glutamine, but it also has Slippery Elm Marshmallow root and diglycerides licorice to help re reestablish that mucous membrane. Our gut in our entire digestive tract is a mucous membrane. So have you done all of these things? And it's not. It's a four step approach, but you don't do them at four different times.

And that's a common question I get. It's like you're doing this all at once. And yeah, it can be intense in the beginning. And it's why we have a lot of powders because, you know, I was dealing with this in my clinic all the time and me personally, it's like swallowing all these pills. We've tried to make a lot of things, powders, so you can put it all in a smoothie. And the point of this that you're doing all of these things at one time. And folks, this is not forever. This is 30, 60 in 90 days, depending on where you are in your journey, where you are on the spectrum.

I coined the term the autoimmune spectrum back in 2015 when I wrote my first book and it's, you know, inflammation all the way up to diagnosis of autoimmunity. And most of us are somewhere on the spectrum. And it sounds like you've had a mild exposure or you were be sick and unable to work. I was sleeping on a balcony for a month. The first year of my marriage after toxic mold, writing the thyroid connection and couldn't work either. I got another exposure this past year and couldn't work for almost a year, so this is a spectrum that even those of us that live and breathe this world, the external world, can come into us.

There can be a death, there can be a birth, there can be a traumatic, there can be a toxic exposure. And even those of us that live and breathe this can move back up the spectrum. But I can assure you, you can get back down it again. Right. And then you can have more grace and you can not have to take as many things. And maybe you can live your whole life that way. Or maybe you'll hit a bump in the road again and you got to get more intense and then you move back down. It's life. It's a journey. It ebbs and flows. All of us.

I don't consciously ever eat gluten or dairy. I don't consciously do things that are bad for me. But the world is a toxic place. Things come at us all the time and you can get this situation, but you can get back down it. I promise you can get back down it. So words of wisdom,

Hyperbaric Oxygen and Closing Advice 38:27

I don't know if I covered it all, but the only final thing that I will say is and it sounds like you interviewed Anne Shippy as well, she and I are soulmates when it comes to the toxic mold world. She's still in practice in. Jill Carnahan, if you interviewed her, I'm I'm no longer in practice, but I do have a lot of free resources on my website. But and and and Jill are incredible. We've we've all been through the toxic mold journey several times in our lives, well versed at that. But that's something a lot of people don't think about.

EMFs is something people don't think about. And the only parting thing that I would say is because I also don't think this gets talked out and talked about enough. But if you've hit a plateau in your journey and you've really done all of the things at least that I've said on this on this summit and likely what others have said as well, if you hit a plateau and you know where else to turn, and if you have autoimmunity, even if you don't have any kind of chronic condition, hyperbaric oxygen. I have seen incredible results me personally and with many, many patients that I just hit a plateau.

We've done all the things searched everywhere. I had a woman who was in a wheelchair. I had hit a plateau. She had autoimmunity, muscular type, autoimmune condition as a go getter, hyper barracks for 20 sessions. Call me back, she said. I'm walking. I'm out of the wheelchair. I myself. After this mode exposure gotten as far as I could get, had some autoimmune markers going back up. And I mean, I've done everything and I just got in a hyperbaric every day for a year. All my autoimmune markers negative have remained negative.

I had COVID, I thought I was getting long. COVID 19 metrics, five sessions later, fatigue completely gone. I have recommended it to many people since same story. So I don't know if you have anybody that's talked about that. It can be very good for, you know, getting rid of infections, you know, the hyper oxygenated state, not a lot of infections and things can live in that. So, you know, I have no sort of affiliation here. I'm just literally screaming to the highs and lows because it's an under talked about tactic available.

And there are more and more stand, you know, pop up places or clinics that have these machines that, you know, you can pay for a session and get in. There's I mean, I own a machine. There's ways to rent or rent to own. And so I recommend people go see if they're seeing any benefit from it, if they are. And it's something that they feel like they can afford or can do on a regular basis. Maybe it's more convenient to purchase one and, you know, have it have it in your home. But anyway, I just it's a thing that I found incredible results with and don't hear being talked about a lot.

I have an article on my website going in-depth about hyperbaric barracks if people want to check that out as well. I love that. Thank you. That's super helpful. So there's so much it's. Like really fast. I'm very passionate about what I do because I just, you know, my is and my company's mission is to empower the world to achieve optimal health. And it's really yeah, it's what is what we do now that I'm not practicing. It's so important for me to be able to reach as many people as possible. Yeah.

It's I'm so happy to hear you tackle so many of these topics today. Like these just these little clinical gems that are so important for people dealing with chronic gut issues to put together, especially if they have immunity, especially if they have overgrowth. I mean, just so many good gems today. Thank you so much for sharing your passion with everybody and your uplifting message. So we really appreciate you and I hope everybody listening gets so many gems out of this. So where can everybody find your work?

I am AmyMyersMD.com. So. A M Y M Y E R S M D.com a little placethat people can go get some free recipes. Are you okay with me saying that or. Yeah, of course. Okay. So it's just AmyMyersMD.com amymyersmd.com/ec/35-gut-healing-recipes There's a dash in between each of those. Maybe I can get you a different URL that you can have for that. Yeah, well, make sure to embed in the links. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Thank you. Good luck everybody.