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Dr. Tom treats some of the sickest, most sensitive patients suffering from chronic Lyme disease, tick-borne co-infections, mold illness as well as children with infection-induced autoimmune encephalitis (PANS/PANDAS). He focuses on optimizing the body’s self-healing systems in order to achieve optimal health with simple, natural interventions; utilizing more conventional approaches... Read More
Beth O’Hara is a Functional Naturopath, specializing in complex, chronic cases of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Histamine Intolerance, and Mold Toxicity. She is the founder and owner of Mast Cell 360, a Functional Naturopathy Practice designed to look at all factors surrounding health conditions – genetic, epigenetic, biochemical, physiological, environmental,... Read More
- Why MCAS and HI are significantly on the rise
- The most important 3 first steps in reversing MCAS and HI
- Top tips for sensitive people to help them get well
Related Topics
Alcohol, Anxiety, Asthma, Autism Symptoms, Autoimmune Disease, Babesia, Bartonella, Brain Fog, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Emotional Journey, Facial Expressions, Fibromyalgia, Histamine, Hives, Hypermobility, Insomnia, Joint Pain, Lyme, Mast Cell Activation, Mold Toxicity, Muscle Spasming, Panic Attacks, Severe Head Injury, Spiritual Journey, Tbi, Tick Bites, Voice Modulation, Yoga, Yoga PracticeTom Moorcroft, DO
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to this episode of the Reversing Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and Histamine Intolerance Summit. I’m your co-host, Dr. Tom Moorcroft, and I’m really excited. Today is gonna be a great conversation, because I get to hang out and chat with my really great friend, and our host, Beth O’Hara. And before we start chatting with Beth, ’cause I know you’ve seen her in so many amazing interviews, I thought it’d be nice to give you a little bit about her background. Beth is a functional naturopathic consultant who specializes in complex chronic cases of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, histamine intolerance, and mold toxicity. She’s a founder and clinical director of Mast Cell 360, a functional naturopathy practice, designed to look at all those factors that are surrounding health conditions, from genetic and epigenetic, psychosocial, environmental, biochemical, and, you know, most importantly, probably in my mind, the emotional component, too, that brings that completeness.
She does hold a Doctorate in Functional Naturopathy, a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. And I find it so interest. I love all the bios, when we get to read about people, like we have doctors of sexology, and masters in marriage and family therapy. And so much of what I know about Beth is it brings it back, the human side of things. So, it’s really cool to learn that about your background, and the importance of family and self care. So, she designed Mast Cell 360 to be kind of a practice that she wished existed when she was severely ill with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, histamine intolerance, mold toxicity, neuroinflammation, Lyme, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. Our paths are very similar here. So, but she has the MC360 method, which is used exclusively by practitioners at Mast Cell 360 to build personalized, effective roadmaps for healing. And so, Beth, this has been such an honor to do this whole thing with you. So, I’m glad that I get to chat with you today.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Oh, I’m so excited, and you have just wonderful energy, and it always feeds me to get to talk to you. Thank you for doing this interview.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah, I’m excited. Like, I’m reading through everything. I’m, like, oh my God, like, we all have so many similar overlapping paths, and some that are a bit different. And I’m really interested, I mean, I know that we listed off some of the things you experienced, but, you know, I’m interested in, like, what got you into this stuff? Like, what’s sort of the backstory? And then, you know, and how, because I think we learned so much about how effective treatments can be created by hearing what you went through and how you got here.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Yeah, well, it’s been quite a journey, and I’ll give you the short version, which leaves out a lot of details. But the big picture is when I was seven, we moved to the country, and it was an old farmhouse, and my parents had the Bob Vila dream of rehabbing this, you know, dilapidated farmhouse, and nobody knew about mold toxicity back then, nobody had any ideas, but that house was full of mold. And we also spent a lot of time playing outside, which felt like a great adventure. I was really into Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I got to be outside, you know, and run in the fields, and I really had free reign of the countryside. I got to run down the creeks and do, you know… That was an amazing experience for me, but I had lots of tick bites, lots and lots.
And we had dogs, outdoor dogs, and we had cats with fleas. And looking back, I know now that I had Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia, on top of the mold toxicity. I developed mast cell symptoms pretty early, and would break out head to toe in hives. When I was nine, just to add some icing to the cake, I was kicked in the head by horse, and had a severe head injury, a pretty severe TBI. And, you know, a country kind of hospital or, you know, more rural hospital area. Nobody knew anything about head injuries back then. And I got stitches and sent home, and the doctors were completely shocked that my skull was not fractured. What they didn’t x-ray was the rest of my spine, and I had multiple fractures through my spine that weren’t found until I was in my twenties, but I had severe chronic pain that started at that age.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
At nine, wow.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Severe insomnia, anxiety, quite, quite severe anxiety. I haven’t shared this part of my story much, but I’m ready to share it on the summit. I also developed autism type symptoms after that. I could not read, and it really clicked when I heard your story about, I couldn’t read facial expressions anymore. I couldn’t tell intentions. I didn’t know what people needed, and I couldn’t monitor. And I had this deep empathy, but I couldn’t bridge it out, and I couldn’t communicate my world. So, my world became very small. It was a hard childhood. And then it continued. I, you know, we went doctor to doctor. They gave me a lot of antihistamines that helped short term, and they shut down the hives. I had severe asthma. We improved the asthma. And my big drive. So, I was on the Asperger’s side. I still identify some with being on the Asperger’s side of the spectrum, which surprises a lot of people, but it did take me about 10 years of working with different practitioners to develop facial expression and voice modulation. So, all of that, I’ve been through a good bit. And when I was a young person, I decided at six years old, I was gonna go to medical school. And I, where this ties in would be on the Asperger’s side of the spectrum is if I decide I’m gonna get into something, I am 100% in.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
All in, right?
Beth O’Hara, FN
I am all in, but at 16, I wanted “Grey’s Anatomy” for my birthday. That’s all I wanted. Just get me a copy of “Grey’s Anatomy” so I can study. And I would-
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Pretty hardcore.
Beth O’Hara, FN
It was pretty hardcore. And out in the country, you know, animals die, bones get bleached. So, I would bring these bags of bleached bones home and reassemble them in the backyard to learn the bone structures. So, that was my geeky childhood, and all I wanted to do. And when I got into college, my chronic fatigue and the pain, the fibromyalgia, and I started to get joint pain, brain fog was worsening. Looking back, I was never out of mold. I just went from moldy place to moldy place to moldy place, ’cause they’re all these low income places. And by the time I hit, I had multiple scholarship offers for college, and by the time that it was time to go, I had multiple scholarship offers for medical school. I had a scholarship for undergrad, but for medical school, which was really hard to get.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
No kidding.
Beth O’Hara, FN
But I had to turn them down. I was too sick. I couldn’t go. And it just still is one of the most devastating things in my life, but it was a crossroads, and I wanted to go into neurology, and I really wanted be a brain surgeon. I loved dissection. I loved, you know, anything surgery, loved watching surgery videos, but I would’ve been a very traditional medicine doctor. And I don’t think I might have deviated off of that, my path, when I couldn’t go and figure out what else to do, and I became a chronically ill patient. But the other game changer in my life was at 19, when I was in college, I needed two PE credits, and I was too ill to do almost everything that they offered.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Right.
Beth O’Hara, FN
I didn’t have the cognitive ability, the spatial awareness to do billiards. That was one of my possibilities. There was no way I could do basketball or things like that. I just, I couldn’t.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Not happening.
Beth O’Hara, FN
I could hardly walk a few blocks. But I saw yoga. And growing up in the country, I didn’t know what yoga was. So, I thought that yoga was sitting on a mat, chanting Om for an hour and taking a nap. So, I thought I could do this.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
That’s awesome.
Beth O’Hara, FN
And when I got into the class, fortunately for me, the teacher was an incredible Iyengar yoga teacher, and this was her life path. She was dedicated to it as a spiritual practice. And it opened a whole world, I had no idea that existed, because I had really fostered my left brain. And I’d had all this early sensitivity to things, and I’d shut it all down, ’cause I didn’t know how to explain it, in terms of experiencing things, sensing things. And it opened that back up for me, and what’s possible. I also couldn’t touch the blocks, and I had severe hypermobility and such severe muscle spasming that I was so tight, I couldn’t bend over. The basketball and football players were more flexible than I was.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Oh my gosh.
Beth O’Hara, FN
So, all of that kind of led me, by the time I was in my late twenties, the Lyme, the oxalate issues, the mast cell issues, the histamine issues, had led to where I could barely walk. I had to use a cane to just hobble to the bathroom, had to wear orthopedic shoes, which as a woman, my friends were going out clubbing in stilettos.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Super sexy, right?
Beth O’Hara, FN
I was wearing Doc Martens, and with a dress, ’cause that’s all I could do. And I had horrific panic attacks, insomnia. I didn’t sleep for four years. There were many times where I wanted to quit and give up. And yoga saved my life. In college, I was self-medicating with alcohol, at a very high level, at a dangerous level, and yoga got me paying attention to my body, what I was eating, the effects of the alcohol. So, this path to healing has taken, it’s come from so many angles, and the spiritual and emotional journey has been a huge piece of it, and the physical journey, and figuring out the mast cell piece, then the mold toxicity. ‘Cause I couldn’t tolerate the Lyme treatments.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Right, I’m just thinking, it’s so interesting that you were gonna go, like, for me too, I was looking at conventional medicine. I’m like, but it’s cool. But it’s super, like, cognitively addicting. Like, you’re like, oh my God, I can do this and do that, and check out the anatomy, and surgerize this. But like you said, it’s just like, there was that crossroads, and where you’re like, I can’t imagine the world without you doing this.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Aww.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Right? Well it’s, you’re welcome, and it’s true. It’s like, you know, if you were just, we need brain surgeons, right? But we also need a lot more people who are looking at really in the non-acute phase, how do we get over all these things? And it’s just interesting to hear about the journey with, as you were talking about yoga, and I mean, everyone will, you know, learn how kind of that works in my background as well. But you said, like, yoga has saved you, essentially. But I’m thinking, but wait, you wouldn’t even have known about yoga probably unless you got sick.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Yeah, I wouldn’t have.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
The doors it opens.
Beth O’Hara, FN
I would’ve been running or anything like that. I would never have taken that course because I thought it was woo woo and stupid. I mean, literally that’s what I thought. And I thought I was gonna breeze through it. It was actually the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah.
Beth O’Hara, FN
I was so used to going into anything that was academic, excelling, and not having to work hard. Or if I worked hard, it was fun and I enjoyed it. And I could not figure out what is this yoga thing and how do I do good at it?
Tom Moorcroft, DO
How do I work hard at it to win?
Beth O’Hara, FN
I couldn’t win. I know, I couldn’t win. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. And it completely changed me, completely changed me. And I actually ended up training in becoming a medical yoga therapist while I was sick, because I thought that that would open up avenues for my healing. And I did that for a while. Then, you know, kind of moving along, I actually cleared the Lyme, the Bartonella, and the Babesia with a lot of herbs once I tolerated supplements again, but I did get so sensitive I was down to 10 foods, and I couldn’t even do a sprinkle of curcumin. I couldn’t do a sprinkle of quercetin. It would just set my insomnia, my anxiety off. My nervous system was a wreck, just a complete wreck. Had hallucinations. I had, I mean, it was horrible, Tom.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Isn’t it?
Beth O’Hara, FN
I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, but-
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yet, we’re here treating those folks because we know. I just wanna interject a quick question, though. ‘Cause that comes to mind as you’re saying this, like, there’s so many of us where chronic illness attempts, or we have the ability for it to kind of redefine us in a positive or negative way, and take away some of the things where we’ve identified ourselves. When you’re talking about that kind of typical type A easy left-brain achievement, or if it’s hard, it’s fun hard, especially since I’m kind of winning. Do you see… And then the yoga, like, yoga, from my experience, you can do it regularly, but you just have to be humble with the result in order for it to work. Do you see kind of parallels between, like, you know, do you see certain groups of patients or clients who do really, like, who try to overachieve, and does that help or hinder their progress? Or what about the person who’s a little more humble in the process? I mean, does that help accelerate healing or slow it down?
Beth O’Hara, FN
Oh my gosh, absolutely. I’m so glad you asked this. And I ran myself into the brick wall so many times thinking I was gonna power through. I was just gonna get it done. I, you know, learning over and over, no Beth, you don’t start with a whole tablet or whole capsule, no matter what they tell you. This always backfires. And a sixth of the capsule backfires. And I had to, I didn’t know anybody else who’s sensitive, Tom. I, just like so many other people we talked to, I had never met a single person in their life who was dealing with what I was dealing with. I thought I was the only one. I thought, for a while, I finally kind of took in what I was told and thought I was crazy at one point, but there was still this, that glimmer that knew, you know, this is real and there’s a way out of it. But I had to shift out of being that, and I’m still very driven, and I’m very passion driven now, and mission driven, and I have to watch that to not overdo, but I’ve come to a place now where I’ve got the balance of the right and the left brain, if we wanna call it that, or the research, the knowledge, but that intuition, and that’s what being sick required me to develop, was that intuitive side.
And I would not have given it the credence. And I was the little kid that three years old, I still remember one my earliest memories was sitting with ants and having a relationship with the ants, and being so happy to be in this communion with these ants on the sidewalk. But then I got, something made me shut all that down. So, this made me open it back up, and it greatly improved my healing to have that balance. And I think it brings a different skillset for the clients that we work with to be able to be very receptive in what’s happening for them, and listening to them, and picking up. And it’s like, because of what I’ve gone through, I can actually smell mold through Zoom.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Oh my God, right? Really?
Beth O’Hara, FN
I can smell it when it’s in their house. I know. I just, I feel it. And I had shut all that down, but I’m not special in this. We all have these capacities. It’s whether we’ve been receptive and open to them, and worked with them, ’cause it’s not like, oh, it’s just on or off, it’s a development.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Well, I think that that’s what’s like so powerful about what you’re talking about is that so many of us experienced chronic illness, and our sensitivity is just blown open, right? But it was really similar. I went to an osteopathic training, my first sort of cranial osteopathic course, and I was already feeling a lot of stuff. I was sensitive going in, but it was like the floodgates opened. And then somebody told me, like, okay, you know it’s here, but now you need to turn it off. And I was like, hmm, that doesn’t seem right. But others of our mentors are like, you learn when kind of how to adjust it. And I think that that’s one of the gifts I’m hearing from you is you got this intuition, and the thing I wanna reflect back that I heard from you too is that not only are you coming in with empathy and compassion, because you’ve been there with your clients, and then there’s that intuition of the gestalt of what’s going on, and maybe that mold in the home or whatever, but I just, it dawned on me, it’s like, one of the things that so many of us are looking for is a sense of being validated, that what’s going on is real. There’s something going on that I need connection and community. And I just feel like energetically when we speak, I get that connection, right. And I can imagine sitting in your chair, ’cause I know people reflect this to me, that that being heard for the first time, even though they’ve told the story to everybody, but truly as a human being in their soul being heard. So, I just really wanted to punctuate that. The intuition allows such deeper connection, and you also can learn, like we said, to control it.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Yeah. It’s really important that people feel safe with a provider, for them to heal. Whether it’s an osteopath, an MD, whether it’s a physical therapist, it’s, you know, a massage therapist, that safety is necessary for us to be able to relax in the nervous system and allow the mast cells to calm down, just that piece. And that’s what we’ve gone back to, again and again, in the summit, is that the role of safety, the role of the nervous system, the role of our relationships with other people, our relationships with ourselves, and developing that. And something that has… So, what’s happening with all of us with chronic illness is not about any one of us individually. It’s really about what’s happening in our world. And we’ve shifted out of… I mean, I really think about how a lot of tribes in this country, in the US, a lot of native people, when the Europeans came over, said, “These people are crazy.”
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Right?
Beth O’Hara, FN
And I don’t mean anyone who’s sick. I’m saying our culture, the culture, there’s an illness in terms of the culture. And there’s an illness in terms of, if we wanna think of it that way, as an illness, of what has happened environmentally. Ad this is what’s happening in mast cell activation, but also in mold toxicity, in Lyme, is what is going on around us. And those of us with these sensitivities, with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, even those of us who are presenting with mold toxicity, with Lyme. Because, you know, I was just looking at studies where, like, 16 1/2% of the world’s population has been exposed to Lyme, but not everybody has symptomatic. Those of us that are symptomatic are the canaries in the coal mine. We are the first warning bells saying this world, the way, what we are doing to this world, cannot continue. There’s mass production of plastic. Now, we’re all eating up to 52 credit cards worth of plastic a year, you know, up to a week, a credit card a week worth of plastic in our water. We’re absorbing it through the polyester fibers. It’s the what’s happened with the food supply. It’s what’s happened with conventional farming, and how horrifically the animals are treated. And those of us who are sensitive, sense the energy-
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Feel that.
Beth O’Hara, FN
We feel it. I absolutely feel the difference between, you know, my husband jokes a little bit about, with our meat, the bison or the cows or the chickens are tucked into bed at night. But it’s a huge difference in terms of were these animals pumped through growth hormones, antibiotics, were they pumped up with stress hormones when they went to slaughter? And then the difference with that, and the difference with an animal that’s been treated with respect and kindness, and I would love to be a vegetarian, but it doesn’t, I was for six years, and doesn’t work for my body, and I feel worse.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Oh my God, that’s crazy. Me too. Same thing. I tried so hard. The thing is, though, I think that one of the important parts is, it’s like your relationship with the environment, and the global relationship with, the human relationship with the human environment, is like, it’s being lost. I mean, it’s, well, we’re going through a shift, I hope. I don’t wanna, like, I always try to be careful with my words. Like, it’s not being lost, it’s changing, and it’s an opportunity for some of us to lead who are intuitive like this. And one of the things I do is, like, just look at, I say thank you to the meat, to the animal that the meat came from, even to the plants. Because a lot of times we’re like, oh, it’s good to be a vegetarian. We forget the plants are energetic beings.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Oh my gosh, I’m reading this book called “The Hidden Life of Trees”, and trees have an analog to our nervous system, and they feel pain. All plants feel pain. So, when I go out even to pick the herbs, I grow a lot of my own herbs, and I’m really in connection with the herbs that I’m growing, and making into tea, and these, like, healing herbs. I say thank you to the plant. And I ask the plant, which can I pick? What’s okay? And I give a message of this is the need for now. Thank you so much for supporting me. And this is what I really wanna share with people is that when you’re dealing with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, mold toxicity, tickborne infections, whatever kinda load you’re dealing with, I know, at least from my own experience, I slid into why did this happen to me? Why is this happening to me and nobody else? Why am I having to deal with this? Why is my life so horrible? And there’s absolutely a truth to that. And what I’ve shifted to is going, and I still do maintenance on my health.
It’s not like I don’t take any supplements. I mean, I still have health maintenance, and my body has, I have severe chronic injuries, and it takes a lot of work to keep my body functioning well. My body has high needs, and I take good care of my body. But what I’ve shifted to is instead saying, this is an opportunity for all of us who are these frontline alarm bells, frontline canaries in the coal mine, to be leaders in this, and be leaders in saying, you know, those of us who have to buy water filters, we’ve gotta get air purifiers, and we have to get clean meat that was frozen after slaughter, we’ve gotta buy organic. It’s not just like, oh, I’ve gotta sink all this money into it. It’s like, we need to live cleanly. And we need to live in connection with this earth that we’re on. Because, as someone, who I daily respect, has worked with, says, this is the only home we have.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah.
Beth O’Hara, FN
This is it. This is all we have. We’re not gonna go set up a colony on Mars and be okay. We’re gonna set up a colony on Mars and be really sick, because we are beings of this earth. And we are the leaders in this. And I hope that people can take away that as much work as it takes to heal, that we are empowered in making these changes for ourselves, for our children, our grandchildren, and future generations to come. And the world so badly needs those of us who are awake to this and experiencing this.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah, it’s just so beautifully sad. And, you know, I totally agree. And you look at it, and it’s like, the other part I see is like, when you’re investing in the food, the air purifiers and stuff, that’s one other way where you’re saying, “Hey, I’m putting myself and the needs of myself first.” And then it’s like the universe or life force, God, whatever you wanna call it, rewards that, right? And it’s like, if you get 5% improvement in your health and you cherish it, and you’re so happy about it, and you recognize that it’s not a pain in the ass to get the special food and to take the supplements a certain way. But every time you take that action, you’re symbolizing, you’re reminding yourself how important you are to yourself, and that you are worthy to receive that, like we’ve been talking about. It’s like you can just shift. Every little thing you’re doing is actually in support of your body thriving. So, I just loved the message. And certainly, my background, I love talking about that connection to Mother Earth and everything, ’cause it’s so powerful, you know? And it’s so real. I mean, it’s like, we’ve just sort of tried to make it not there, but the planet is making us remember that we’re connected.
Beth O’Hara, FN
And, you know, I’m not worried, Tom, about the nature surviving. I’m not worried about the planet surviving. I’m worried about humans being okay. And we’re at a real precipice where we’ve gotta make some big changes. I love the word you used, invest. We’re investing. And I wanna say to people, too, that I have been very low income and very sick. And I know, you know, when you don’t have much funds and you’re really sick, you can’t go spend $50,000 on a mold remediation. I get it. And it’s about making the incremental changes every day, the choices every day. So, when I was in poverty, I chose, I followed the Clean Fifteen Dirty Dozen list, and everything I could buy organic that had high pesticides, I would go to the farmer’s market. I would talk with them and I would ask them, “Do you have any produce that’s just misshapen that you can’t sell, but was grown without pesticides?” And I would buy those. So, I would find those ways, and that’s not to say I always had this bright optimism through it all. And, you know, I had so many meltdowns. I had so many times I wanted to throw in the towel. And you said in your interview, something, “You have to have something to live for.”
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah.
Beth O’Hara, FN
And I tell you, as sick as I was, I didn’t wanna hurt myself, but I didn’t wanna live. And what kept me going was always remembering. I would always make myself think about my husband having to live without me. I would think about my best friend having to be without me. I would think about my dog. I would think about my stepdaughter. And that was my why.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
And if anybody wants to know whether they have a why, just look at Beth right now. I mean, you can feel and see the emotion. And that’s so critical, is like, in chronic illness, so many of us, because it’s front and center in our mind, in our face all day long, every day, all night long, we can sometimes get into that habitual thinking of that being the most important thing. And it’s like, that’s just another part of your day, like breathing air or eating food at the right time. It may be less pleasant than breathing air and eating food, but it’s just part of your day, you know? And, but then you can have that other part where you’re focused. And what I love, what you had mentioned a moment ago is that this is, going back to yoga is really interesting, and meditation, we talked, a lot of people look for a guru, right? The guru and the master and whatever. And they’re the one who’s been so successful. These people, everyone I’ve ever talked to who knows a master or is a master, the only difference between me and everybody else is that I notice that I fall off the wagon, that I start acting or thinking in a way that I don’t like quicker, and I get back on my path quicker. So, what you said is like, it wasn’t like you were never having meltdowns. It wasn’t like you were never having days where you’re emotionally overwhelmed, but you were saying, “Okay, I noticed I was off track. Now, I’m back on track. And every time I come off, I focus back.”
Beth O’Hara, FN
Well, here’s the question I would ask myself at the end of the meltdown, which sometimes lasted several hours, sometimes lasted several days. But at the end of every meltdown, I would ask myself, “What else are you gonna do? You can’t tolerate bon-bons. You can’t tolerate opioids. You don’t tolerate alcohol anymore. What else are you gonna do?” It’s sit in it and suffer, or keep finding another step forward. And I tell you, I had so many dead ends. And I stopped counting at 75 practitioners who had no idea what to do with me. I stopped-
Tom Moorcroft, DO
That’s a big number.
Beth O’Hara, FN
I stopped, and I poured every penny into my health, because I knew if I got my health back, that I could go back to school and I could become a practitioner. And I stopped counting at over $350,000. It’s probably over half a million now. Now, most people don’t have to spend that much. I just didn’t know where to go. I didn’t have the tools. And nobody had the tools. I mean, we’re talking 20 years ago. We didn’t, we were just in the infancy of functional medicine. Mold toxicity wasn’t on the radar. Lyme was barely on people’s radars. So, where we are today is light years ahead. And every year, I mean, I’m always drinking from the fire hose. I know you’re drinking from the fire hose. And it’s like, every year we get better and we get better and we get better, and we get faster, and we can do this for less money, and it’s so much easier. And what drives me now is if I can take all that I went through and go, can I help just one more person, make this easier and just support them, make this cost them less, make this doable for them? Not that I make it, but offer ways to help them. Then there was meaning in what I suffer-
Tom Moorcroft, DO
What you went through.
Beth O’Hara, FN
What I suffered. And the other piece I wanna add to it, one of the other most important things. So, the question, what else am I gonna do? And then somebody said to me, “No one else can heal you, but you.” And I was like, what? I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know what my root causes are. And I had to really noodle that. And I do try to stay open when I get these koan kind of things that make me go, “What?” And sometimes people say things that don’t resonate, but something in that resonated. And I realized I needed guides, but only I could choose who the right next person was, whether this protocol was right for me, whether I was ready for this supplement, at what amount to start. And this is how I landed on opening these capsules, doing the tiniest… Somebody, one of my clients this week gave me the phrase I really like, dusting. I’ve been using sprinkles, but dusting in water, and starting there to get my limbic system used to things, and I built myself up from there. Now, I can start most things with a whole capsule, and I’m still very sensitive energetically, but I’m not sensitive to foods and supplements like I was.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah, it’s through that journey. But I love, like, you’re the one in charge of your health. You need the, like, I mean, it resonates so much with me that you need the guide, but you’re the one ultimately in charge. And the objectivity of what is a good choice versus a fearful choice really comes out of being in touch with a lot of what our chronic illnesses allow us, force us, to become more in touch with, which is our intuition. One of the things that you were saying is like, and I know that we wanted to really touch on, is I love how it’s like you’ve spent all this time and money and personal journey, which included some significant suffering, and now turned it into applying it with the latest greatest research to make it more streamlined so that other people’s success… Like, for me, it was like 12 1/2 years from start of illness to the end to get better. And it sounds like your whole journey was even longer. How do we shortcut all this? And so one of the things I also like is that we wanted to touch on a little bit on what is MCAS and what is histamine intolerance, kind of in a basic, easy way. Because I think that I’ve heard a lot of crazy-ass definitions, and most people don’t know what they’re talking, like, they’re overdoing it. And I think that our whole theme is simplifying these things and getting back to the root of everything. I think if you have a better understanding of what it is, you can also understand what it is not. And then all this mindset stuff we’re talking about is a little easier to apply.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Yeah.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
So, what are these things that we have this whole summit about, anyway?
Beth O’Hara, FN
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is where the mast cells, which are the main sensing, defending cells out here, both of the external world and the internal, so, they’re sensing every molecule of air, everything we swallow, every little molecule, they’re sensing every hormone, everything that goes through the bloodstream, every neurotransmitter, so, literally sensing every thought, every feeling, every little stressor, they’re sensing absolutely everything, and they sit in every tissue in the body, except the retina, has found to have mast cells, including inside the brain. Used to be thought they weren’t in the brain. Now that’s been disproven, that they’re also in the brain. And then they migrate in huge numbers in the brain when we have brain inflammation. But the mast cell’s job is to keep us safe, to monitor what’s happening, and then if we’re not safe, to create inflammation to protect us, and the inflammation is usually, is meant to be protective and a healing response. What’s happening in Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is we have been overloaded with too many toxins, too many pathogens, too many stressors, any combination there. And stressors can be a stressful job, a trauma, a car accident, an injury, whatever, just a stressful internal dialogue, but that overwhelms them to the point where they lose their fine tuning, and they become over-responsive, and they become overly sensitive to things that normally would not be triggering them.
There’s always a reason why. There are some rare genetic mast cell activation disorders, but even in those, the mast cells are being bombarded by things, and you can calm that down. The real key to getting out of this is addressing what’s keeping you unsafe, the toxins, the pathogens, the stressors, and the way that we start to do that is by what we’ve been talking about, and I call it the stabilization phase. We start with stabilization. We look at what’s happening on a mental, emotional level, what’s happening with the nervous system, and how do we calm it down? What’s happening with the environmental triggers? Is your water full of toxins? How are you eating? Most of the people who come in and see me are already very well educated and eating fairly clean, but sometimes people are still eating, you know, foods that are highly processed and have toxins in them. We take a look at those things, and we settle the system down before we start going after these pathogens, ’cause most of the people, there are plenty of people out there who can jump right into Lyme treatment and they’re fine. But those aren’t the people that make their way over to-
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Right, they’re not the people on our doorstep.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Yeah, and so we have to go at it differently, and we have to look at, the reason I called it Mast Cell 360, and the reason the method is MC360, is because it’s about the 360 degree view of who we are. And the more that we address people as a whole being, the faster, the easier it is, the better outcomes they get. And that’s not to say people are done in three or six months. It takes time, and it takes dedication, and it takes patience. And then for the vast majority of people will go to working with mold toxicity, get that huge load out, because it has such an impact on the immune system, on the nervous system. And then the immune system can wake up, and then you can go after those tickborne pathogens at that level. But this is what works for 99% of people that we see. It’s not forever, but I’m never gonna say this is the only way. There are thousands of ways, but this is what we do with sensitive people that has worked really well. And it kind of comes out of this whole background that I’ve been laying out.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah, I just, it’s so interesting to think about, you know, the settle the system down, and actually prepare it to receive healing. I mean, like, so many people do just drop the hammer, and, you know, you can do that, and it works for some people. And to me, in my training, the more acute someone is, like, you come in with heart block from Lyme disease. Well, I’m probably not gonna spend time, you know, settling their nervous system down. I’m gonna load ’em full of antibiotics and put ’em in the critical care unit, ’cause it’s, like, life, limb dependent. But, so many of the people I see, like, it’s a great, I love the 360, because I think of, like, there’s a lot of Lyme blinders and mold blinders and MCAS blinders, and it’s like take it off, because I feel like I don’t really care what’s wrong with the people who come see me. Like, people know me for Lyme and mold, but it doesn’t matter to me. I just wanna find out what it is and help ’em get better. And if it’s some parasitic infection, or if it’s a food thing, or if it’s just, you know, they need an exorcism, let’s find out and let’s just address it without the label. So, I love the 360 view.
I mean, is there something in, like, what is the thing that makes the mast cells just so? I mean, ’cause in my training, I did Lyme and tick-born infection, ’cause I… Then it was like, oh, mold came up, and then it’s like, what about all these sensitive Lyme and mold people? Oh, it’s this MCAS thing. I’m like, God dammit. I thought I was done with mast cells and medicals, right? Like, what, why are, it seems like mast cells, in their role, are almost like this final common endpoint of immune or nervous system irritation from a myriad of different causes. So, I mean, you’ve said mold a lot, but what are you seeing as major causes, and also, like, why is the mast cell this thing that seems to be activated by everything?
Beth O’Hara, FN
Good questions. The biggest root cause that we see of people that come in is mold toxicity. And that’s not to say they don’t have tickborne illness, most do, but the mold toxicity is a heavier hitter. I would actually personally rather have Lyme again than the level mold toxicity that I had, because, and as Jill Crista says, mold decomposes the tissues when it’s growing inside of us. It has to get nutrients. It feeds on us. Tick-born diseases weaken us. Mold is decomposing us from the inside. It’s a big deal. And mast cells have very specific receptors for these. So, if you’re being decomposed on from the inside, yeah, your body’s gonna make a massive amount of inflammation to try to keep you alive and protect you. So, the mast cells are protecting us. The other biggest thing that I see is the stressors, the toxic relationships, the lifestyle that we live. And I’m guilty of this.
And I work every day to slow myself down, because I move quick, and I wanna go, go, go. But when we’re going from, the alarm goes off at 6:30, I gotta get up, I gotta get the kids breakfast, I gotta get ’em off to school, and then I gotta go run these three errands, and I gotta get to an appointment. Then I gotta get to work and I gotta work. And then I gotta get dinner on the table. And then I get the kid’s homework done, and I gotta get the kids in bed, and oh, where’d the day go? I didn’t even get to take a breath. And that’s how most people live their lives, and it’s not healthy. It’s normal, it’s normalized, but it’s not healthy. And that’s another thing that’s so critical, that we use this opportunity to shift that. And I hope we can shift it culturally on a bigger level. COVID gave us an opportunity, and a lot of people went, oh my gosh, I don’t like how I was living. And me too. It gave me a good opportunity. And I’ve been trying to hold onto it. And I hope a lot of people try to hold onto, let’s slow down. Our lives are not sustainable. Let’s go to something healthier.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
That’s like an external application of what you’ve and I have been talking about internally, is that shift to say, I’m not saying COVID’s good, but there’s something I can learn from it, and maybe I’m gonna bring that piece of learning forward with me. And that’s the beauty of this mindset shift that you and I talk about in chronic illness. And I’m just so glad you brought that up because it’s there. And, you know, so I just think it’s so incredible to have the opportunity to chat about things in this way, and have a summit where you’re doing all this. And I think for me, one of the greatest explanations of mast cells I’ve ever heard is from, I listened to a podcast with you a while back. And it was like the mast cells are these sentinels that are protecting us, right? The difference is they’re never off. And so, the more and more toxins you’re getting is they’re never off. So, someone may be saying, “Hey, you know, Beth, I hear you. It’s, mold toxins are so much more important than my stressful lifestyle.” And I would say, well, the thing is, like, yes, maybe mold toxins is 18 hours of your day, but that other six hours that are left over now, maybe we want to de-stress a little so that the sentinels can actually calm down a little bit. And everything I’ve heard you say is make incremental changes.
So, I just wanted to summarize that for everyone and say, I’m just so thankful for the approach that you bring, the fact that you’ve brought the summit together and allowed me to be part of it, and wanted to say thank you for a chance to be able to chat with you and to be part of this, ’cause this is just such a major movement that needed to happen right now.
Beth O’Hara, FN
Oh, thank you so much, Tom.
Tom Moorcroft, DO
Yeah. So, everyone, thanks so much for joining us for this conversation. It’s such an honor to me to be part of this summit with Beth. So, again, Beth, thank you, again, and everyone, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Reversing Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and Histamine Intolerance Summit. And we’ll see you in the next interview.
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