Your Guide To Parasites: Inflammation And Health Solutions

Introduction to Dr. Su and Parasites 0:00

Welcome back to the conversation. Today we have Dr. Su. Hi Dr. Su, welcome. Hello. So great to have you here. We're going to talk about parasites today. One of my favorite topics and I asked you to do this because I've seen you talk about parasites before, and I wanted to bring your expertize in here, and I'd like to introduce you to our audience. You're a board certified family physician. You worked in that arena for 20 years, and you also have a functional medicine practice in Massachusetts and a virtual consulting practice as well.

And you're currently serving as president of the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness, which I think is very relevant to this talk today. And you have a passion for record medicine because, you know, it helps your patients get better faster. So really excited to talk about parasites. Ready to get going? Ready. Okay. You know, there's a lot of myths around parasites. So let's first start with some myth busting. Can you talk about what are the common parasites that are in our bodies that drive inflammation, that drive chronic disease?

And we'll get deeper into that, too. But what the common parasites that we're seeing in people in developed countries are. Sort of classification, are thinking category we can think of or sites. First of all, I mean, we could arguably list a number of different pathogens or bugs as parasites, but if we're being more specific about the parasites we're talking about today, then there's like three categories. There's the helminths or the worms, and then there's the protozoa parasites that are just cellular microscopic organisms.

And then there's these ecto parasites that we all love to think about, like lice and that kind of thing. So yeah, those are three categories.

Parasite Categories and Common Types 2:00

And then within the say worm parasites, which I presume we'll be spending most of our time on here today. But you know, wherever it leads, there's three main categories there with the cestodes, nematodes, and trematodes Interestingly, and I don't think we're going to talk too much about energy medicine, but I uncovered a fourth type in one particular case, and I don't know what that was about, but I actually validated the existence of that on the CDC website of all places. So but mainly cestodes, nematodes, and trematodes What was the fourth one?

I'll be honest with you, I don't remember the name of it. It was like a long scientific name, but it was. It's the most remarkable story. I don't know if you want to get into that, but. There's time and if you're willing to talk about. It. Yeah, sure. I'm so intrigued right now. Okay. So clearly what you just shared with us is that parasites are well and alive among us in first world countries. And as you alluded to, worms are a big category. So how is it that they go unnoticed and that, you know, whatever problems they're causing in the body doesn't seem to be linked back to parasites.

So there must be a set of symptoms and, you know, a way to kind of kind of question that parasites may be a problem. Yeah, honestly, it's not so straightforward, right? I mean, but that's the case with a lot of root cause or Silent Killers topics, there's no doubt. Right? I mean, that's that's kind of the nature of the beast with root cause medicine. You know, the illustration, I think a lot of people, probably most people who are listening here are familiar with that illustration of a tree. You know, we're talking about the the trunk and the roots of a tree, not so much just the outer limbs and the leaves.

But the way I often talk about patients is if you can imagine a tree where in a 360 degree panorama of the around the tree, it actually the tree looks different on different angles. And the leaves might even look not just different colored, but might be different shapes. Right? So those expressions, those leaves from different parts of the tree would look really, really different. But they all stem from the same trunk and roots. So that's just a hard I think that's a hard paradigm and concept to grasp for both the public and practitioners alike.

But, you know, getting back to the specifics of your question, well, let me illustrate this case in point. All right. When I brought this up at the as a case example, you know, at the conference that we were at last year, so a New England Journal of Medicine. Right. I agree. The top journal in the country in medical field, I think it was 21 or 22 case report. A gentleman I think in the mid forties, late forties they describe as otherwise healthy mental status changes in the middle of the night, some delusional thinking and up in the air brought to the average life and an outright seizure in the E.R.

And in the end, the diagnosis was they found that he had a worm parasite in his brain. Now, the thing that's really interesting to me there is so like I said, he's otherwise been healthy. He's not had any past medical history, blah, blah, blah. They don't outright say it, but they infer because he is a an immigrant from Guatemala, but from 20 years prior, they're kind of inferring the suspicion that he's had this.

Why Parasites Go Unnoticed 5:30

If you read between the lines that he's had this worm for 20 years or not to say that necessarily in his brain, but it may have stemmed from may have stemmed from years prior. And that's also not a an unknown, you know, off the rails thinking even in convention medicine. So when we talk about when you ask how can it go unnoticed? I mean, the fact of the matter is it there are we could even make the argument like how big a deal are various bugs or toxins or in this case, worms, you know, do they always cause symptoms?

Maybe not so much. Right. We have a galaxy, literally a galaxy full of bacteria in our colon. They're not all bad. They're not necessarily we're not we don't all have symptoms. So I think it's really in when I talk to patients, it's much more about this is the definition of information. It's not just bugs and toxins. It's the fact that you have an immune system that is now provoked and responding in a way that is causing that is what's causing the symptoms. But if we don't have if we don't have an immune system and we don't have information by definition because you don't have a response to those bugs and toxins or parasites or anything else, you'll die.

You'll die probably a quick death, but you're not going to suffer much along the way because you don't you can't mount an inflammatory response. So could you. So if we if we get more disorder symptoms specifically, like the thing that we're going to think about most commonly is, you know, gut health, right? That people want to think about diarrhea or IBS, abdominal pain, bloating, whatever. I mean, and that's not to say by any means that the word parasites are the cause of those symptoms. Right? It's always more than one thing.

It's a collection of topics. Just even talking about the bugs or toxins and the immune reaction that right there is two topics much less the whole collection of different bug and toxins. But yeah, I mean, if you are in brain, case in point during the journal article, write mental status change and seizures. Mm hmm. You know, you know, you know, I know that time. I can I get that I can get the word schizophrenia in my head and I can hear the the word parasite, the the one that we're talking about with in case there's a I'm blanking said in a moment here but one of the worms one of the one of the helminth worms that the lifecycle goes between the gut system, the lungs and the brain.

So it's a strangely thank you. Right. That's why I was like I said, I couldn't get the word schizophrenia in my head. I think I was stuck on the mental status change with the jump. Start with S. I knew it was I knew it was an S and I couldn't get schizophrenia in my head. Yeah. So like where is the symptomatology is infantile. Gee based on where the, where that pathogen is in that moment. No. And is it an adult sort of worm farmers and larvae form. And so it's really variable unfortunately. And that's the thing that I wanted to get at for the audience, that the symptoms of having a parasite can be very nonspecific or they can be very extreme like this New England Journal of Medicine case where a man had had a worm in his brain before that.

I think the majority of people that you're seeing in your practice and that I'm seen in mine, it's low energy, it's insomnia, joint pain, it's digestive distresses of different types, it's acne, it's migraine headaches. It's it's so nonspecific. And which is I get that, you know, from a sort of skeptic's point of view, I feel like I'm always thinking about or talking to the skeptic in the room in my head. So, you know, I think the skeptic would say, like, well, it just feels like you're like throwing stuff up on the wall and seeing what sticks.

And I can see where that comes from. You know, as a viewpoint. But like I said, it's like we know, like we know it's the root in the trunks and then it just it's such a it literally is a I would like to believe that in the coming years, as the evolution of AI unfolds, that there'll be a greater understanding and acceptance of that paradigm, that it's not just one plus one equals two. And so if you don't have these clear cut symptoms due to this clear cut topic, then that makes that clear cut, you know, symptomatology, diagnosis, it's every all these chronic things that we talk about are so multifactorial, it's almost unfair to be asking the kind of question like, what symptoms does this particular issue cause?

Well, is that issue in your gut or is that issue in your joints, or is that issue in the brain? And therefore, the symptoms might vary. And some people. Well, the symptoms are so very well. Yeah, because it depends on where where it's at and what else is going on in the person's health history and all that stuff. It's, it's, it's complicated, as you know is. And you know, one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on here is because you are a Western trained family physician and you work in functional medicine and treat parasites and lecture on parasites all the time.

And I think that that is impactful and meaningful to have you speaking here. It brings such validity to this topic. So could you talk a little bit about the relationship between parasites and environmental toxins? Because this is a big one and this is a big topic that many of our speakers are talking on is environmental toxins, and there is a relationship there between parasites and toxins. So can you share with us what the audience, what that is? Second, remind either number one. Number one, you know, I think in terms of and I don't know how much you might get into it and other entries and sessions, interviews and such.

But, you know, I think in terms of the the the the term called expose on the exposures. And so anything that doesn't derive from us so parasites and then here I think I'm guessing from your point we can just safely say we're talking about worm parasites when we say parasites unless otherwise specified, they're just one of many other exposures, right?

Parasites, Toxins, and Immune Reactivity 11:30

Environmental toxins, if we say synthetic toxicants as defined as toxins here or biologic toxins or bacteria or worm parasites, they're all just another entry point under the big umbrella category of the exposure. And so one relationship between worm parasites and environmental toxins is they're just all siblings of the within, they're all community members of the exposure community, which can individually, independently and especially collectively cause immune aggravation and immune reactivity and therefore, by definition information.

So, you know, we can look at it as aggregate as one plus one equals plus one plus one plus one equals, you know, the large amount or synergistically more than that number. But we can also talk about how they directly interact. And there's probably like two sub thoughts around there. One is under that, I should say, one is there are some bugs and toxins that can activate others, right. So we talk about like COVID, it's mainstream research and mainstream thinking, thinking that SARS-CoV-2 had seems to activate or reactivate Epstein-Barr mono virus.

And I would argue beyond Epstein-Barr or other herpes viruses seem like it happens a lot. We've see that I don't know about you, but we've had a number of patients who, you know, they've had shingles and they're around or zoster in their eye and a few patients who are in Florida there even there's a couple ophthalmologist down there who are saying they're seeing it so often. They're just asking patients to be on medications to treat, you know, of a stomach, shingles, like definitely the time being because they just don't want to see in the eyes.

Everything is so bad. The other thing that we're seeing is reactivation of Lyme reactivation, this general gut disruption, right? People are doing great. They're cruising along, they get COVID and just a full digestive disruption. You run a gut test. There's all kinds of opportunistic bacteria, maybe some parasites there, maybe stuff they'd already cleared out. Yeah. So this is an issue that. I mean, the COVID, when I use this as a again, speaking to the skeptical room just because it's in the mainstream media, it mainstream literature.

Right. But the parasite topic I think under like sort of to be here is interesting because the thing that really struck me so wildly, you know, a few years ago was the reminder I had learned this years ago, but forgot. But one of the big stalwart practitioners are members of the islands community, the Lyme disease community who's a pathologist. Al McDonald had presented the study from several years ago publication or presentation of 19 autopsy patients, brain autopsies whereby nematodes. I very confidently recall they were all nematodes.

Nematodes were found in these 19 individuals brains. These are 19 individuals who had some kind of neurologic neurodegenerative disorder, dementia, Parkinson's, ALS, etc. And those 19 folks had nematodes in their brain. And inside the nematodes were Borrelia Lyme or bartonella or yeast or heavy metals. I know those were on the list. If there were more, I don't remember. But so again, it's like that. It's a Trojan horse kind of model where these worm parasites appear to be able to act as a reservoir of other bugs and toxins.

So there's a synergistic relationship where it's not just one plus one equals two, it's there's a symbiotic benefit for those other bugs and toxins. And we see that in nature where where one bug will live in site of another bug. I'm trying to think of a good example right now, but something will come. But yeah, I mean, this is why wouldn't it happen on this on this level as well? And so just when we're talking about worms, again, I just want to share with you, we're talking about nematodes here, which is really one of the most common categories of worms on the earth, which is in the Helminth category.

And it gets confusing when you're classifying all of this. So, so some of the common worms that people might know tapeworms, live liver flukes and nematodes, what else would you say? Receptors, nematodes and shrimp. Those are the three big categories. And then, like you said, there's a number of different kinds of worms underneath there, and then there's ones within those three categories. And then one of the ones that I think is sort of a an outlier, I don't recall that it fits within one of those three, but it's sort of a still an evolutionary classification.

Ah, I believe it's a tapeworm. I'm not that I'm not roundworms. Yeah. I think it might be the tapeworms. Did you did you mention tapeworms just now. Mm hmm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think that might be. Yeah, I think that is the one that is out there. I don't know. I'm sorry. I believe it is the worm. I think the worm is the one that's kind of like by classification. Since you're talking about classification, that might be the one. That's a little. Yeah, that's the one we know the least about. I mean, we see a lot of it when we work on parasite, you know, detox protocols and rope worm is the one that there's not a lot of research on.

There's a lot of confusion about what it is. Is it a combination of, you know, biofilms and mucus? And is it is it is it colonies of bacteria and parasites together? I mean, what is it exactly? Yeah. You know, truth be told, I don't I don't personally get really into the details of trying to delineate the specific worm parasite involved in most cases, the therapies we in. I don't know if you want to get into that or not, but the treatment therapies we use, you know, in in pharmaceuticals, the biggest problem is we we can't really access those medicines very well.

Right. The conventional dosing for those are so minuscule that they don't really do a great job. I think from most practitioners experiences who wrestle with this stuff on a chronic inflation level that it doesn't amount to much and the costs for them are not feasible to be using. So we end up, you know, a lot of us, you know, I certainly I know use a lot of I use both but we use a lot of non pharmaceuticals and I don't know that there is that much data that you know this non supplement herbal whatever the case may be is for that worm and this one is only for that worm and there's so much crossover, which is the case with the pharmaceuticals as well, that I don't know that there's as much need to get real specific about them.

And then the diagnostics try to figure out, you know, what, where we're dealing with. I mean, good luck with that, too. So yeah, totally. Well, this has been so enlightening, this first half of our conversation.

Treatment Approaches and Sequencing 18:30

We're going to continue on deeper. But before we continue the conversation, you know, we're going to get into how can we protect ourselves from parasite infection, the relationship between gut health parasites and inflammation, holistic approaches. We'll talk about, you know, whether there's any data around parasites being helpful or harmful to us. That's something that we kind of were debating before we jumped on this conversation. But we'll continue the conversation. So, Dr. Sue, I want to thank you so much for joining us today for this talk on parasites and to our audience.

I hope you found our conversation insightful, helpful. If you're a summit purchaser, stay right here, because we're about to dove even deeper into this discussion with Dr. Sue. And if you're not quick on the button on this page to get access to a continuation of the conversation and many others, and really get the tools you need to reclaim your health. If you're watching this continuation of my talk with Dr. Sue, thank you for being a valuable member of our community and we're going to dove right back in.

So, Dr. Sue, you started to talk about treatments and you know how we handle this. So could you talk about some of the holistic approaches to deal with parasites and inflammation? You know, you did mention that the Western world, you know, treatments for this may not be as effective as what we have in the natural medicine world. So the question is about different treatment options. Yeah. And, you know, just holistic approaches and treatment options and and that will segway into actually just be thinking about this as you answer that question, is there a right way in a wrong way to cleanse parasites out of the body?

Well, I mean, I don't tend to be a very binary thinker, so I rough the bags on the nature of the question. I think I hesitate to say there's a right or wrong way. I think maybe on the bottom side is there is or absolutely wrong way. I I'm sure there could be there could be some true modalities that just aren't really geared towards warm parasites that we might think are right. So one example might be I have no I have no understanding that say a topic alone or melatonin as pharmaceutical medications are going to be effective for worm parasites, for example.

So if somebody that's a that's a case of a misnomer with work terminology, right. I, I can sometimes be a little stickler about terms, but if somebody's saying, oh, I've got a parasite and I need to find somebody to help treat me with melatonin, because that's an entire parasitic. Well, I'm not aware that that treats worm parasites. It's a protozoan parasite. So I think it's just a point of just simple clarification without being clear on the terms as far as what I, what I tend to use. Yeah, I, I will use both pharmaceutical, not pharmaceutical.

I can't say I'm why I'm familiar with a wide spectrum of different supplement companies that use parasitic that have and offer parasitic therapy. So the far, far, far brunt, I mean, perhaps nearly exclusive usage for me is within the sample or supplement. Myself as well. It's safe to mention this as well. I wasn't sure if that was like. You know, totally okay. Lots of it. I mean, it's no secret in my community that that we run self care protocols and we'll have lots of speakers on this event that are also using self-care in their practices.

And, you know, of all the things that I do use, I find that their products are the most effective. So, you know, in in terms of is there a right way or wrongly maybe there's just a better way to remove parasites and a more or less a way that doesn't have such a heavy lift on the body that people can still function throughout their lives? Well, they remove parasites instead of crashing. No, I think that's. I, I think that's I don't mean to punt on it, but I think that's a pretty complicated question because I am a big believer on the topic of sequence.

Right. And I think this gets into a lot of what the summary is about, and that is that there's so many different, as we've already alluded to earlier, there's so many bugs and toxins that can contribute to inflammation, no question. And, you know, why does one person let's say one person has five different diagnostic bugs and toxins and another person has five, the same five. Why is the first person more symptomatic than the second person? Right. And hypothetical model. Well, it's not even just about the bugs and toxins.

It's also about what's their immune system like, what's their gut health look like, what's their, you know, mind, body, limbic system and mental, emotional health. You know, there's so many pieces to the puzzle. It's literally, again, like I refer back to I and and it's just it's easy to talk about these days. It's all over media news, etc. And I'm very attuned to that on a research level, as my wife does research in that area with metabolomics in human health. And so it's it's such a complicated story that I don't know there's.

And how do we predict that for any given person? I think it's kind of difficult, but I think you and I can sense it's safe to us just, you know, briefly here, succinctly talk about that. You know, the self-care community talks a lot. So shout out to the support folks. And you know, whether you're a practitioner, patient or certainly doctor taught AJ you know, the, the teaching is a lot about drainage as a first step right along the body to drain openly really not specifically to what bugs and toxins you know different in terminology than detoxing but kind of similar concept you know.

So I think you can't go wrong with that. And then and then beyond that, the sequences of how you or I or other practitioners might address different bugs and toxins in that expose on category that becomes, well, practitioner dependent. So, you know, I won't spend time getting into those details on how I think about that unless you are asking that. But the sequencing sequence matters. I think that's what I was fishing for is that and I love how you use the word sequence. I always I always try to explain the concept that we've got to build a runway before we're able to actually effectively help your body remove toxins or pathogens in any capacity.

We have to you have to build a foundation to build a runway first so that we can tick off with with solving this problem. And that's exactly what you just said, though. So thank you. And then could we can we talk a bit about, you know, obviously the example of the of the man with a parasite in his brain, that that would be a massive, you know, complication that would arise from from an untreated parasite infection. But for the wide majority of people that are dealing with, you know, your garden variety parasite, not in your brain, what are complications that can arise from not treating parasite infections?

And why should we go after this? I mean, why should we care about this? So on like a common level, you know, widespread application level, the top two things that come across my mind, number one, are, again, without getting into real details, but the that aspect of our immune system called the T helper cell balance. So for anyone who's familiar with that, so we're talking about that one tends to polarization balance and you know parasite this is mainstream medicine. You can look this up in, you know, graphics and all this stuff in research articles, but worm parasites are, I think, one of the if not the only typically in graphics, the only actual bug or toxin that is listed as a driver of stage to immune dominance.

Right. Or yeah. I mean, I would just call that. And so what, what happens when people have high change two levels of tissue dominance over one. These are the people who we say have they seemingly have a lot of reactivity and reactivity is easily and commonly experienced as these are the people who in conventional medicine so the mainstream crowd, right. The public in America, the common people who have changed to dominance are as mad at people have asthma, bad allergies, more severe allergies, severe eczema.

They have a lot of reactivity to foods, maybe medicines or supplements they're often thought of or told or described by health care practitioners as you have some kind of unspecified, nonspecific, nonspecific autoimmune condition. And usually what they mean by autoimmune is we just can't explain it. Your immune system reacting well, commonly it's a to dominance topic, even gluten sensitivity that's definitely in there. So that's a widespread number of people. The second big category for me is

Complications of Untreated Parasites 27:30

the impact of, let's say like nutrient deficiencies in the in the in the gut perhaps. Right. So I when I'm seeing people year to year for physicals and I'm looking at their trends of their whatever B-12, folic acid and those issues, those two as examples, maybe iron as well. When I see trends where it's just lowering, lowering, lowering. Well, why is that? It's really unlikely that you're not eating as much nutritionally, right, especially if you're anywhere eating kind of more standard American food or just, you know, there's so much food that's fortified.

Like, what's the likelihood that you really aren't getting enough B12 and you're getting year after year? So that becomes a suspicion as well. And I mean, easily on the on the CBC, the complete blood count, you can find people who have higher percentages of eosinophils, you know, like over 3%, definitely over 4%. Those are those are all markers. And so anyway, I'm kind of delving into more how do you identify it or suspect it? But that all stems from they're all related to that alters to imbalance topic.

Oh yeah yeah related to you know what happens if these things go unidentified or untreated. I mean, severe vitamin deficiencies lead to other health problems. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's there's people all the time that like, I just I'm just I'm just beginning older or the pollen count just getting higher or whatever the real we all have. Excellent. We have things we tell ourselves or we, you know, create an explanation for. But these are under the hood. You know, this is not not that uncommon.

This is much more common than we really recognize it to be as a player. It is common. And, you know, I can tell you the overwhelming majority of people in my programs who don't show, you know, worms on their gut test because they're very hard to identify on a gut test. They don't show worms, but the majority of them pass them. It's fascinating. They see them or they see, you know, liver flukes or something. They see something that's visible to the naked eye. Quite interesting how it's how they're very good at hiding from our lab.

Okay. So, you know, I mentioned that, you know, you and I were discussing this before we jumped on, and I'd love to discuss this point for a moment. I'd love to hear your case study about the you know, about what you identified if you want to share that. But we talked about this. Is there a fine line between parasites being helpful and harmful in our bodies? And we were kind of discussing, you know, I have I have people that come at me and say, if you kill my parasites, it's going to it's going to hurt other things because they're there for a reason.

And then other people who say, get these out of me, you know, there cannot possibly be a good reason for these to be here. And I think we were what we were discussing is there's just not enough data. There's not enough research to really answer that question at this point. I'm very interested in research to answer that question about the the balance of or good, healthy or less healthy parasites. Right? Yeah. They go for you or bad for you. Yeah. Because some people, some people aware of some practitioners or some schools of thought of using worm parasites of specific types as a therapeutic agent actually for, for a couple, few different causes.

So that it's an excellent insight question into well, okay, how could using a worm parasite be therapeutic for the benefit when we're talking about this on the negative? And I think it's just another testimonial reflection that yeah, there's so much that's not binary in health and medicine and we hate to make it that complicated because we're left with indecision and analysis paralysis, but unfortunately it's the nature of the beast. And like I said, we just I don't think we know that enough. Right.

And then we can also talk easily, make some comment about the matter of harmony. Right. I mean, there there are harmony and reactivation of the terrain of, you know, if we look we have we have many people have more bacteria in their colon than all the cells in the body combined. But we regulate that stuff well enough that we're not, you know, a detriment from all those non self bacteria. So how much does it affect us if there are some additional gas there that are non bacteria, that are worm parasites?

I mean. Well, you know, they're a small fraction of that ecosystem there. Can they be there, you know, harmoniously, perhaps even symbiotically, you know, in a beneficial way sometimes? I mean, we definitely have a symbiotic, symbiotic benefit relationship with a lot of bacteria in our gut. We absolutely need that. So I think there's just more to be determined over time. What I know is when we start getting these parasites out of people, they feel better. Yeah, their energy goes up, their brain function gets stronger, they get more productive in their lives, they start being present in their relationships, their anxiety goes down, their skin looks better, they poop better.

Like literally people feel so much better when we get rid of these. So I mean, I'm going to I'm going to stay on that soapbox that we're getting rid of parasites. Taking the wrong way that, you know, it's a it's a total mystery or that we're wishy washy about it because I, you know, I rarely hear about that therapeutic usage.

Helpful vs Harmful Parasites 33:00

And again, that's only nuclear. It's only like the recommendation when people talk about that, it's only a specific strain. We're not talking about all of the other, you know, code system treatments, etc.. So so let's just be clear. Well, you're a master at sharing case studies. I've heard you share many if you if you want to share a case study with us, we love to hear it. You talking about that fourth kind of category of worm that you identified? Well, I. Think, you know, on a short basis, I mean, it's because it's it's not necessarily just about the case, isn't necessarily just about the topic of worm parasites here.

It's as much a topic, which is a whole other story about the diagnostic modality of using some energy testing, which again, a won't be into detail here. But, you know, I again, I learned that through the so called community. So again, props, too, to Dr. Todd and Jay and the soccer community. And Peter, you know who you are if you're listening this and they're like, they changed my life. I mean, personally, professionally, in every way. Mine, too. Yeah. So, you know, I've learned to ask a very open binary.

I don't like binary. In this case, it needs to be very specifically binary questions. And in this particular person's case, you know, details aside of anything else is just to say the questions led to what is causing this person's particular symptoms of the in the sinuses and I go through a very open ended as much as I can unbiased way of asking the questions in the same systematic method, a methodical approach. And in this case, person's case, it came to be various worm parasites. And then in this case I was trying to delineate the different kinds of worm parasites.

And I don't just go into, you know, asking specific types because I feel like it lends my, my, it lends itself to bias. At least I try not to when I have the time to be more methodical. In this case, I was coming up with types of worm parasites that were not in a type of worm parasite that was not in the treatment of the nematode category. And I kept double, triple checking on the testing and I, I kept coming up with that. There's, it's a something else and it wasn't a worm, which, you know, have we ever heard of real worms in the science cavities?

I don't think so. I don't know. But I kept coming with another one. And so I go looking on the Internet and I've done this several times. And this is it's like mind blowing. This happens, but it's happened multiple times. And I find and I think it was on a CDC website that because I'm thinking like, what are there more than three categories of worm parasites? Because I'm not aware of that. And I think it was on the CDC website that I read, Oh, there's a fourth type. And so then I tracked it down and I found and I'm actually I pulled it up while we were talking.

I looked I'm looking at right now so I find this fourth worm parasite. I don't know if it's a whole category. I'll be honest. I can't remember the details there. It can't, though. Syphilis account, though. Syphilis, this. It's also known as the spiny or thorny headed worms, common parasites of wildlife in some domestic animal species, but they rarely infect humans. That's the the I'm reading about the CDC website right now. And the crazy part about that story is that this individual who is I can't go into details but has been suffering for many, many years, ostracized by umpteen number of people, not just the medical community, but friends and family, and has been saying to me for months to a couple of years, it feels like this thing, like they're feeling and seeing stuff come out of their skin.

Right. Unprovoked and it's moving. All right. I mean, it's I've seen the videos a lot of time video and. They're telling me it feels like it's got like hooks on the end of it. And it's like digging into my skin and, like, hurting me, like, in a pinching form. But no one can validate this, but here I am. I assessed that on this energy modality. I've never heard of this. I go to the website, there's a fourth type. I look this up, I find this worm, and it's written as spiny or thorny headed worm. And if you look at the graphics on it, like they describe eerily, eerily in the description of what this person has commented about, what they feel, that there are these little hooks on the end, this worm, and they dig in.

It was like mind blowing. So anyway, that's the that's the short version of that story. And is there a happy ending? Did they resolve this. Still. Still suffering, still trying to get it out? It's it's a it's a real beast of a situation. And there's for other reasons, there's a lot of difficulty in getting the person help as well as being able to. And it probably has to do with that sequence that we were talking about. So there's a sequence there is an order of operations to support the body to remove this.

It's not just like a go in, like a bunch of Navy SEALs and kill, like you've got to do an order of operations in a sequence to effectively help the body get this out. So it's also I think we can put a little plug into that here for, you know, if anybody has a you know, if anybody as an attendee,

Dr. Su's Journey into Functional Medicine 38:30

you know, relates, I mean, you know, we hear you and see you if you if you're one of those people who had been marginalized and told that it's not real or, you know, it's you're just stressed out or, you know, it's okay to talk to a therapist or you need to get on Prozac or and it doesn't have to be about parasites, whatever it is, whatever your symptoms are. Right. Chronic pain, chronic fatigue. We know the mind body has great effects and that's not a negative or a judgment. But, you know, there's a lot of people who have suffered androgenic, you know, inflammation, let's call it.

Right, I guess induced as a from a medical procedure or practitioner where people experience essentially medical trauma or anxiety and PTSD from and they don't. And then it's hard for them to receive help from practitioners anymore and they become their Lone Ranger self advocate agent because they don't have trust in people over time. And that's a big part of a lot of people stories, unfortunately. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. So this leads me we have like 5 minutes that we can spend together still and I'd love to just I mean, parasites aside and this extraordinary talk that we've had unpacking so much great information for people, I would love to know what was it like for you to be a Western trained physician family physician, you know, doing your thing over there, helping people and then getting into the functional medicine world and then the parasite world and then the cell core world and just all of it.

It must have been I mean, only a very special person could realize that there's more to the picture and there's more than what you learned in medical school. Could you speak into that, like what that was like for you? I don't know. I certainly don't take credit for anything. You know, I think it's just the way I'm wired. Yeah, it's a I don't know. Some people might some people have said it's a gift. I don't know what to call it. It's I think I'm just a I think I'm just a curious person. You know, I ask questions.

I ask too many questions. Peter has helped me greatly with the monkey in my head, but it's still there, you know? It's better. I'm better directed with it. And I think it's it is. You know, everything in life is like a two edged sword. And so asking the questions and just not settling for it is what it is, hopefully not to the point of burnout and and self-sabotage excessively. But yeah, I think it's just, you know, so like my dad was a drug researcher for Eli Lilly. One of his best friends in our neighborhood was a co-inventor Prozac.

I mean, I come from a background like that now. My dad with my mom dad grew up in China and Taiwan. And, you know, he would be doing research in his office at night with an acupuncture pen and needle in his his hand for headaches. So he wasn't like a strictly Western minded person. But I'm an analytical person at heart. But it's been beyond beyond a fulfilling journey because not because of of just where I am, but it's the stories in the last two years. And again, great gratitude, great gratitude to the so-called community and the friends and the folks there who have influenced me and opened my eyes again.

And I legitimately, 100%, 20% say the whole everything there. It's been beyond professional, professional game changer. I mean, it is personal life game changer. And so when when you ask about, you know, what's that story been like? What's that journey been like? It's not so much about what it's been like for me. It's the building now beyond what I could do two years ago or what I could bring to the table. Not what I could do, but what I could bring to the table to be part of the privileged journey of someone else's healing journey and be able to help support and guide them, especially in the energy medicine world, and find answers that I would have never, ever, would have never come to.

But my own intellect or analysis or, you know, just understanding and knowledge base would have never made those decisions. Certainly not in any kind of timeframe and years that this these people are now experiencing it. It's it's kind of hard to describe. I understand, because my life is very changed. I spent 20 years in Western medicine before I stepped out fully into my functional health coaching practice. And I, I hear you. I know that our viewers right now are going to want to know how to get a hold of you, how to get in contact with you.

You do have a virtual practice. You do have a physical location on, the East Coast. So where can our audience find you Dr. Su? Yeah, I think it is just I sort of have a sort of like resume website, if you will, for whatever, you know, just for presentation. It's just. drmarksu.com drmarksu.com that's pretty much the easiest. Right? Well, we will definitely expect people to be searching you out after this talk. Thank you so much for your time. Your expertize for what I can see is truly your love for humanity and helping others.

And thank you for being a yes to contribute your knowledge and your very personal journey right here on this summit as well. Thank you. I'm getting a little to the summit so close to you. Thanks for you for Laura. And until next time, everyone take good care. Bye now.