Biotoxin Illness: The Urgent Threat to Your Heart and How to Protect It
Host, Boots Knighton, interviews Dr. Robin Thompson, a naturopathic doctor specializing in biotoxin illness. They discuss the major health obstacles faced by heart patients, including exposure to mold and other biotoxins in water-damaged buildings. Robin explains how these toxins infiltrate the body, causing inflammation and a range of symptoms like chronic fatigue and GI issues. She shares practical advice for detecting and treating biotoxin-related illnesses, recommending resources like SurvivingMold.com and ISEAI. Boots shares her own health journey, highlighting profound improvements under Robin's care. They stress the importance of holistic, personalized treatment for long-term recovery.
About Dr. Robin Thomson
Dr. Robin Thomson is a naturopathic physician who has been practicing medicine since 2005. She provides primary care as well as expert care for biotoxin illnesses like tick-borne infections and mold illness, as well as mental health disorders like anxiety and depression, and symptom relief for chronic COVID sufferers.
Dr. Thomson graduated from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon. In 2008 she received a grant from the Turn the Corner Foundation to study Lyme and other tick-borne disease treatments with the highly acclaimed Dr. Bernard Raxlen in New York City, and then moved to Montana in January 2009. In 2013 she gained further training in environmental illnesses such as mold toxicity, and completed the Dr. Richard Shoemaker Certification in Biotoxin Illnesses. And in 2020, delayed due to the pandemic, she finally received certification from the Walsh Institute in the natural treatment of mental illnesses.
Affiliations:
- ILADS (the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society), the
- AANP (American Association of Naturopathic Physicians), the
- MANP (Montana Association of Naturopathic Physicians),
- OANP (Oregon Association of Naturopathic Physicians),
- and
- ISEAI (the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness), where she is a Diplomate member.
Dr. Thomson is licensed as a naturopathic physician in the states of Montana and Oregon.
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Transcript
So you breathe that in, or you can even absorb it through your
Speaker:skin if you touch it. So those go into your
Speaker:system, into your bloodstream. They're really small,
Speaker:so they can cross the capillary
Speaker:wall. They can get into the brain through the blood brain barrier, which
Speaker:normally keeps out things that are too big.
Speaker:So when that happens, it sets off
Speaker:a line of inflammation from
Speaker:cytokine production. And cytokines are, they're proteins that
Speaker:affect inflammation and affect the immune system and. Things
Speaker:welcome to open heart surgery with Boots, a
Speaker:podcast for heart patients by me, a heart
Speaker:patient. Join me as I take you on a journey through the
Speaker:intricacies of the human heart, revealing the
Speaker:triumphs and challenges of those who
Speaker:undergo the life changing event of heart
Speaker:surgery. We're not just exploring medical procedures,
Speaker:we're delving into the human experience.
Speaker:Be sure you hit subscribe and also
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Speaker:me, and I read every single one. Also, if you
Speaker:have a story to share or want to hear something that I haven't
Speaker:covered on this program, you can send me an email which is
Speaker:linked in the show notes. But without further delay, let's
Speaker:get to this week's episode. Welcome to
Speaker:another episode of Open Heart Surgery with Boots. I am your
Speaker:host, Boots Knighton, coming at
Speaker:you from Victor, Idaho, your fellow heart buddy.
Speaker:Thanks for coming along with me today. If you're just finding this
Speaker:podcast, I am so glad that you have. If you are
Speaker:looking to support this podcast, please consider
Speaker:joining our Patreon community. I've named it the joyful
Speaker:beat. We are just getting going and we are going to
Speaker:start meeting on Zoom, and I'm building a community of heart
Speaker:patients there around the world who are looking
Speaker:for a little bit more support than maybe what you might be getting at
Speaker:home. So I'm recording this in September of
Speaker:2024 with Doctor Robin Thompson,
Speaker:who has been such a pivotal part of my
Speaker:life for the past year. And doctor
Speaker:Thompson lives up in Bozeman, Montana. That's where she
Speaker:practices. And I have invited her on because this
Speaker:is National Mold awareness
Speaker:Month. Who knew there was such a thing? I think there's an
Speaker:awareness month for just about everything out there. And
Speaker:Doctor Thompson is a naturopath, a naturopathic
Speaker:doctor who specializes in
Speaker:biotoxin illness, amongst a variety of other things
Speaker:as well. So, Doctor Thompson, thank you so much for
Speaker:agreeing to step out of your out of the
Speaker:doctor patient role with me today and being willing to come on
Speaker:the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be
Speaker:here. Love talking to you. So tell us about
Speaker:your credentials. I mean, you help people with
Speaker:so many different things. It's just fascinating what you do in your
Speaker:practice every day with Mads, your nurse, and
Speaker:Ashlyn, the office manager. You three are
Speaker:a dynamic duo up there in Bozeman. I have
Speaker:a great team, and I think sometimes people look
Speaker:at my specialty areas and they think
Speaker:that they're kind of, like, disparate. But there's a lot of
Speaker:overlap. I do a lot of mental health stuff that overlaps
Speaker:with maltex and illness and other biotechs and illnesses, the
Speaker:cardiovascular stuff, obviously, there's a huge impact
Speaker:there, but hormones and weight and all that
Speaker:stuff, because biotoxin illness is a multi system,
Speaker:multi symptom illness, and it can affect any part of the body. So
Speaker:there are a lot of different things that I have to know
Speaker:how to manage, I guess. Yeah. Which is fascinating to me,
Speaker:because as a heart patient, and I hit my
Speaker:head a few years prior to that, recently, I broke my leg,
Speaker:and I have been in different
Speaker:silos of the medical system and,
Speaker:or should I say medical industry, even. And it's
Speaker:so everyone is so pigeonholed into
Speaker:their little areas, and so to meet you
Speaker:and to see and witness everything you have to think
Speaker:about when it comes to biotoxin illness, it
Speaker:just is impressive to me, because, like, my
Speaker:orthopedic surgeon, he was just like, I am just worried about your fibula and
Speaker:tibia. And then my heart, my
Speaker:cardiologist, I mean, the heart is really complex, and that is a lot to think
Speaker:about. But, yeah, everyone's just. And then the neurologist is just thinking
Speaker:about the brain and where you're like, I have to think about everything. It's
Speaker:just amazing to me that you can do that with the grace
Speaker:and the confidence and the knowledge that you. And
Speaker:you're just so approachable, and there's no ego, and I just
Speaker:really appreciate that. It's just a breath of fresh air.
Speaker:Well, you know, being trained as a naturopathic physician, that's. That
Speaker:is how we are trained. We are holistic. And yes, I have a
Speaker:specialty area of biotechs and illness, but that
Speaker:illness encompasses so many different body systems
Speaker:and issues. And I don't pretend to be an
Speaker:expert. I'm not a cardiologist. Right.
Speaker:I refer out quite often for things, but I have to have a
Speaker:basic understanding. I do have to treat a lot of GI things
Speaker:and nutrient things that come up with. With this particular
Speaker:set of situations with inflammation that
Speaker:this causes. Right, right. Which is a great segue
Speaker:into how I found you, because
Speaker:I was. After I had my heart surgery,
Speaker:my mom died nine weeks later, and then I had to clean her
Speaker:house out. Twelve weeks post open heart surgery by
Speaker:myself. My husband wasn't able to help. And that's okay. I have no
Speaker:siblings, but, you know, I was, like, in it, in her house.
Speaker:And unknowingly, I was
Speaker:exposed to a variety of things in her house. Chemicals,
Speaker:mold, all the things. And I was in obviously, in a really vulnerable
Speaker:state for the next year. I proceeded to gain
Speaker:weight, started having. I was good as new. After
Speaker:my congenital defect was fixed. Well,
Speaker:almost as good as new. But then I started slipping
Speaker:backwards, and my cardiologist was stumped.
Speaker:She ran all kinds of tests. I ended up going down to University of Utah.
Speaker:Had another heart cath. I mean, it was awful. And they were like, we don't
Speaker:know what's wrong. So they sent me to the Mayo clinic. The Mayo
Speaker:clinic, after nine days of tests, were like, we don't know what's
Speaker:wrong. And then I find myself in the parking
Speaker:lot at the local grocery store and run into a
Speaker:friend who. Who had been working with you. And I told her
Speaker:what was going on, and she said, this sounds a lot like
Speaker:biotoxin. You should go talk to Doctor Robin Thompson.
Speaker:And I had already done some tests with, like, a
Speaker:local dietitian who discovered it had an insane
Speaker:amount of inflammation. And I took that to my
Speaker:cardiologist, and she was like, I don't know what any of this means.
Speaker:My general practitioner didn't know what it meant. And
Speaker:lo and behold, I landed in your office, you know, a
Speaker:June ago, and that's where our journey
Speaker:started. And I about pulled my hair out
Speaker:prior to coming to see you, and no one ever thought,
Speaker:you know, it could be biotoxin exposure. And I've
Speaker:worked through that, that frustration.
Speaker:So I'm. I can tell this story more calmly,
Speaker:but since I've been working with you, it is amazing. Like, it's. It's
Speaker:been a slog, because my inflammation markers were, which we'll talk about
Speaker:in a second, were so insanely high. Like, I was really
Speaker:achieving there. I would have done great on the sats, my
Speaker:inflammation scores, but I. I
Speaker:cannot believe how much better I feel cardiovascular
Speaker:wise by just working on this inflammation. And
Speaker:so I thought we could take this first part now that I've
Speaker:given listeners a bit of a backstory there and just talk
Speaker:about what we saw at the beginning
Speaker:and how you just see people in general when they walk into your office.
Speaker:With trends and how that shows up cardiovascularly, since this is a heart
Speaker:podcast and then how we treated it.
Speaker:But actually, before we do that, let me take a step back, Robin,
Speaker:why should we care about biotoxin illness?
Speaker:Well, I think we should care because a lot of people walk around with it
Speaker:and don't realize they have it. Case in point, right?
Speaker:So, you know, if you think about over 50% of
Speaker:buildings are water damaged in the United States, just as
Speaker:one type of biotoxin, there are other types of biotoxins that
Speaker:also affect people. But we're talking about mold today, I think. So.
Speaker:You know, if you think about the number of people that have
Speaker:exposure to water damaged buildings, it's pretty much everybody at some
Speaker:point or another. And then at least
Speaker:25%, we actually think now it's
Speaker:probably closer to 40% of people have a genetic issue
Speaker:with tagging and removing little, tiny biotoxins. And so
Speaker:if you can't get rid of them, if you breathe them in, in a water
Speaker:damaged building, from a water damaged building, for example, you can't get
Speaker:rid of them. They just circulate through your whole body and cause I
Speaker:inflammation in different areas and cause a lot of issues, you
Speaker:know, certainly cardiovascularly, but also with the kidney and with the
Speaker:brain and with the lungs and, you know, all of,
Speaker:all of the things. So, you know, it's a large number of people
Speaker:that walk around with. If you just think about the number of
Speaker:people that have chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, there's probably
Speaker:a large percentage of those people that have biotoxin
Speaker:illness of some type or another, partly because
Speaker:those symptoms are so broad. And usually with
Speaker:chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, most of those people
Speaker:also have some degree of GI issues and some degree of mental
Speaker:health issues and some degree of, you know, other things that
Speaker:once you have that multi system, multi symptom illness picture,
Speaker:you, you know, you have to rule out biotoxin illness
Speaker:because it's one of the only things that can cause that. It's not the
Speaker:only thing, but it's more than we realize, most
Speaker:likely. And if you have, especially with, you
Speaker:know, the serious side, if you have some of
Speaker:those manifestations, and everybody manifests differently, of course, but if you have
Speaker:some of those manifestations, I mean, it can kill you. So, yeah, I think
Speaker:we should care. Wow. I guess
Speaker:big picture. I don't understand why.
Speaker:Well, I mean, you and I have talked about it one on one, but just
Speaker:having a more general conversation about it now. Why
Speaker:is the medical industry
Speaker:not cluing into this more, because it seems
Speaker:like a five alarm fire to me.
Speaker:Well, I mean, it's just not part of their curriculum yet,
Speaker:you know, I mean, that's the main answer. There's not
Speaker:really any pharmaceutical,
Speaker:you know, special interest groups that are going to profit off of it
Speaker:either. And as a matter of fact, it costs people
Speaker:money, because when you're talking about illness, that's one thing, but when you're
Speaker:talking about fixing buildings, that's a whole other ball of axe, and
Speaker:kind of. Nobody wants to get involved in that. So I think there are
Speaker:some political things going on. I also think it's just, you
Speaker:know, the medical community, conventional medical community, is very slow,
Speaker:very slow to learn new things and
Speaker:become apprised of them. Lyme disease
Speaker:is another, you know, facet of biotoxin
Speaker:illness that really. I mean, we're still a long
Speaker:way from having conventional medicine on board with that,
Speaker:but it's a lot better than it was ten years ago. Ten years ago, I
Speaker:was told, even at the Mayo Clinic, which the
Speaker:Minnesota location of the hospital of that
Speaker:is in a Lyme endemic area, and ten years ago, they were telling me that
Speaker:Lyme disease didn't exist. So that's not the case now.
Speaker:So I think it's just a matter of time for people to
Speaker:become aware of the research. Europe, there's a ton
Speaker:more acceptance of this issue, and tick
Speaker:borne illness as well. They seem to be a little faster
Speaker:to be able to grasp onto things than the United
Speaker:States. Well, I'm thankful to you that you are
Speaker:leading the charge. I mean, you're not. There's not
Speaker:many doctors in the United States that are able to
Speaker:treat patients like me with the level of care you're able to.
Speaker:So I thank you. So now, drilling down
Speaker:to me and how, when I walked into your
Speaker:office, my inflammation markers were
Speaker:impressive. I would love for you to walk us through,
Speaker:like, what you look at, and you can use me as an example if
Speaker:you want, or just stay general. But all the different types of inflammation markers
Speaker:and what each of those, you give a great sheet explaining
Speaker:what each of those are. It's like, such a great education on, like, how
Speaker:all these different things that you measure are important in the body and what
Speaker:it. What it does for the body, if it's, like, at the right levels.
Speaker:So can you just briefly walk us through what you look for?
Speaker:Yeah. So there are some kind of strange,
Speaker:unfamiliar to most people, inflammatory markers that
Speaker:we test. And if you think about. So what happens with biotoxin
Speaker:illness is let's say you're in a water damaged
Speaker:building. You either breathe in those chemicals
Speaker:from components of mold and bacteria and
Speaker:fungi and mouse droppings. I mean, it all kind of mixes together
Speaker:and gets airborne. So you breathe that in, or you can even
Speaker:absorb it through your skin if you touch it. So those go
Speaker:into your system, into your bloodstream. They're really small,
Speaker:so they can cross the capillary wall,
Speaker:they can get into the brain through the blood brain barrier, which normally
Speaker:keeps out things that are too big. So when that
Speaker:happens, it sets off a
Speaker:line of inflammation from cytokine production. And
Speaker:cytokines are, they're proteins that affect inflammation,
Speaker:can affect the immune system and things. So once those side, and I
Speaker:think you came in with a cytokine test, even that was like eleven
Speaker:out of 15 or something were like crazy high. And I don't
Speaker:necessarily test those cytokines, but that gave me information that, yeah, there's
Speaker:something going on that's in your cytokines. So we
Speaker:tested a bunch of things. One of the things that was really elevated in
Speaker:your case was something called matrix metalloproteinase nine,
Speaker:which can be elevated post heart attack and
Speaker:things like that, but is also elevated in biotoxin
Speaker:illness. And it actually is a feed forward system. So
Speaker:MMP nine can drive more
Speaker:inflammation, and it can bind
Speaker:to a substance called pai one, which
Speaker:causes clot formation. So that's one of the ways
Speaker:that end result long term. If something isn't
Speaker:taken care of, it can result in a clot and possibly an Mi
Speaker:or something like that. There are other things that
Speaker:the immune system can be impacted by these cytokines too.
Speaker:And sometimes autoimmune
Speaker:things can be driven. There is a
Speaker:substance called cardiolipin that you can develop antibodies
Speaker:to with biotoxin illness, and that also
Speaker:can drive some clotting formation. Many other
Speaker:things. Sometimes those cytokines will
Speaker:impact other inflammatory markers that we tested. In
Speaker:your case, youre TGF beta one is
Speaker:another marker. I don't know if I need to say all these names, but that
Speaker:causes lung tissue remodeling, and it can interfere
Speaker:with oxygen absorption through the lung and cause shortness of breath and fatigue
Speaker:and all sorts of things. But anything, you know, on either side of the heart,
Speaker:like anything that affects the lungs, can possibly affect the heart,
Speaker:anything that affects the kidneys, which is another thing that happens with
Speaker:these inflammatory cytokines, driving inflammation.
Speaker:So antidiuretic hormone in the
Speaker:pituitary can be lowered. That causes a lot
Speaker:of, basically, it makes your blood really thick because it
Speaker:causes an exodus of free water
Speaker:that you should be hanging onto, but you can't hang on to if you have
Speaker:a lowered adh. And so if you have thicker blood,
Speaker:obviously it's not going to be carrying oxygen as
Speaker:well. It's also going to be another risk factor for
Speaker:clotting. So. And it can look like breathlessness,
Speaker:which to a heart patient is scary, and to a cardiologist is
Speaker:scary. Yes. Which is what I was experiencing a lot
Speaker:of. Yes. And the other thing, you know, a lot of people
Speaker:complain about weight gain with biotoxin
Speaker:illness. There's a lot of interaction with leptin
Speaker:and leptin resistance and leptin receptors, and it can
Speaker:cause really rapid weight gain not only due
Speaker:to fluid, but actual, like, the fat receptors are being
Speaker:impacted. And, of course, that can impact the heart, too,
Speaker:you know, long term with diabetes and hyperlipidemia and
Speaker:all sorts of things like that, atherosclerosis and whatnot. And I
Speaker:gained 20 pounds. Yeah. And that's been, like,
Speaker:not. It's not normal for you and it's not okay. No.
Speaker:And it doesn't respond to diet and exercise. No.
Speaker:Like, nothing budged. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So it has to be fixed on the cellular level and the brain level.
Speaker:One other thing you tested me for
Speaker:is the genetic testing to see if I had
Speaker:the haplotypes, right? Is that how you say it? Haplotypes?
Speaker:Yep. Yep. They're gene combinations. Yep, yep. And I have two.
Speaker:Mm hmm. You got lucky.
Speaker:Yeah. I'll have more than one. Yeah. Yeah. I'm winning at a lot of
Speaker:things in my body, but, yeah.
Speaker:Yes. And so, you know, I didn't know that. I mean,
Speaker:there's. There's no way to know unless you do the testing. And it was like
Speaker:this really tough storm of a lot of
Speaker:stress. The heart surgery, mom
Speaker:diese. I mean, my defenses were down,
Speaker:and then I don't have the genetics to back me up.
Speaker:Right. And that's usually, you know, a typical
Speaker:story, because you can go many, many
Speaker:years without reacting to mold when you have susceptibility.
Speaker:And oftentimes I hear, oh, I got into a car
Speaker:accident. I had surgery. I had a baby. I got
Speaker:Covid. And then all heck breaks loose.
Speaker:So it does seem like there's often a precipitating
Speaker:event. It's not just a random, you know,
Speaker:like, you used to be able to handle it.
Speaker:Let's say it didn't used to bother you. When you were a child living
Speaker:in South Carolina, you were fine.
Speaker:Yeah, presumably. Presumably, yeah. But you
Speaker:know, looking back at my life, like, even prior to
Speaker:heart surgery, when I hit my head in
Speaker:2018, when I sustained that really bad concussion,
Speaker:then I started having the gut issues and I noticed I would have
Speaker:a rash. And like, all there was like these little signs
Speaker:that something wasn't right in my body. And so I also wonder
Speaker:if, like, I went in to my heart journey,
Speaker:not in the best of health to begin with.
Speaker:Right. And, yeah, I mean, 2018 with
Speaker:the head injury, if that's what precipitated it and you didn't really realize
Speaker:it, I mean, we could theorize all day long, but it
Speaker:could be that that is what started that
Speaker:inflammatory cascade. Yeah. And
Speaker:I also just want to, before we continue on the
Speaker:inflammatory marker explanation, like, I'm sharing all this
Speaker:with my listeners because I know every
Speaker:heart patient I've had the privilege of interviewing or meeting,
Speaker:none of us get to have our heart journey in
Speaker:a vacuum. Life keeps on lifeing. Other
Speaker:things happen. We get sick, we hit our heads, we break our
Speaker:legs, things happen in addition to having heart
Speaker:surgery. And so it just is this extra
Speaker:added noise to what's already really loud and
Speaker:hard and then to have
Speaker:biotoxin exposure and it just
Speaker:adds insult to injury. And
Speaker:it's like something I didn't know I needed to be concerned about
Speaker:this. And so I'm excited that we're doing this today because
Speaker:I want other heart patients to know that it is
Speaker:something we all do need to think about when we are in our
Speaker:homes, in buildings, being mindful of
Speaker:what we are exposed to. Hey, listeners, if there's a weird
Speaker:delay there, we lost connection. Doctor
Speaker:Thompson was talking about markons. I tried to
Speaker:find a good stopping place
Speaker:and she was talking about how kind of like
Speaker:the downstream effects of Markons and
Speaker:how it's like right there at the pituitary land where it
Speaker:collects in the nasal passages. And what's interesting
Speaker:is I tested positive for that. That's where Doctor Thompson started
Speaker:with me in my treatment. And it took quite a while
Speaker:to get it to go away. And what I
Speaker:noticed is I no longer have sinus
Speaker:infections, and if I get sick, it's not nearly as
Speaker:severe. And so it's worth
Speaker:pursuing and figuring out if you have it or
Speaker:not. Now, Doctor Thompson, doctors regularly
Speaker:test for mark ons. I mean, I had never heard about it until I met
Speaker:you. So what's up with that? Only doctors
Speaker:that treat biotoxin illness because a lot
Speaker:of people walk around with Mark hounds and it doesn't impact them. And so if
Speaker:it's not impacting you and causing increased low
Speaker:msh, does it matter? No.
Speaker:And again, it's just, it's a matter of the curriculum in medical
Speaker:school. It doesn't cover this stuff. This is stuff that we have.
Speaker:Even I had to learn after graduating from medical school.
Speaker:Okay. Wow. Okay.
Speaker:I hope a lot of doctors will listen to this episode.
Speaker:So, like I was saying, we started with markons, and I
Speaker:remember you telling me, you can't do the rest of the treatment until the
Speaker:mark ons is gone. There's a step by step
Speaker:way to treat someone like myself. And so that's
Speaker:step one. Well, step one is
Speaker:actually getting out of mold exposure. Oh, true. That's
Speaker:true. Yep. Yeah. Good
Speaker:point. Because what's the point if you're going to continue to live in it, right?
Speaker:So if you're putting it in, and step two
Speaker:is to take a binder, especially for people that
Speaker:have the genetic haplotypes, the genetic
Speaker:combinations where they can't get rid of biotoxins on their
Speaker:own, they need to take a binder. So out of
Speaker:exposure, one, take a binder, two
Speaker:steps. Three, if you have markons, you have to treat
Speaker:that. It's not an infection per se, but we use
Speaker:antimicrobial things to treat it. And then
Speaker:you can get your matrix metalloproteinase
Speaker:down. Ideally, in your case,
Speaker:that didn't happen, but there
Speaker:is precedent for treating the next
Speaker:step of VIP if you pass the VIP trial
Speaker:with that vip nasal spray, since you were low at the
Speaker:beginning, I knew that you were a good candidate for that
Speaker:treatment. And VIP does so many things in the body
Speaker:in terms of lowering inflammation,
Speaker:adjusting your genes so that they don't produce so
Speaker:many cytokines. So that also works to lower
Speaker:inflammation. It improves your immune system, again,
Speaker:because it lowers cytokine levels on the gene level,
Speaker:and it improves oxygenation. So it helps
Speaker:to normalize tgf beta one the rest of the
Speaker:way and raise msh the rest of the
Speaker:way so that you are back to
Speaker:baseline. So ideally, if all of your
Speaker:markers, all of your inflammatory markers are back to where they were
Speaker:before you developed biotoxin illness, it's kind of like you're a
Speaker:kid again, and you can tolerate a certain
Speaker:amount of mold, etcetera,
Speaker:once more, without going down that inflammatory cascade.
Speaker:And I mean, obviously, at that point, your symptoms
Speaker:are vastly improved or
Speaker:resolved, right. Which I'm starting to
Speaker:experience. I mean, I'm not out of the woods, but because I've been
Speaker:on VIP for two or three months now. And
Speaker:you said it's like at least six months, right? At
Speaker:least. And because we weren't able to get your MMP nine
Speaker:down all the way, probably because of cardiovascular
Speaker:issues, you know, who knows how long it's going to take. We just have
Speaker:to see there is a step by step treatment,
Speaker:but it's always individual.
Speaker:There are no two cases that are like. So I
Speaker:can give you an estimate of how long I think it's going to take, but
Speaker:we don't really know till we know,
Speaker:unfortunately. And, you know, as I'm learning,
Speaker:most things when it comes to a
Speaker:major health issue take
Speaker:time, like longer than our egos and our
Speaker:calendars would allow. Right. Would like to
Speaker:allow. So there are some other gene tests
Speaker:that we sometimes do for these cases, and it's
Speaker:100 pages of genes that can
Speaker:be affected by this chronic
Speaker:condition. If you think about how many genes are
Speaker:involved and how many different body systems are involved and
Speaker:unraveling all of that and having things work
Speaker:in concert together, I mean, it's pretty
Speaker:amazing. And to expect that to happen in a matter of weeks
Speaker:or months is just, you know, very unreasonable.
Speaker:Right. Yeah. And there's a grieving process I had
Speaker:to go through when you told me that because I was like, but I've already
Speaker:had, like, all these dumpster fires, and now I had this next dumpster
Speaker:fire. It was a lot to accept and take
Speaker:on, but the consequence of not dealing
Speaker:with it is so great and dire that it was
Speaker:either really suffer or just push
Speaker:my sleeves up, get to work, and do what you told me to
Speaker:do. Yeah. And that's the way you
Speaker:have to approach it if you want to have success.
Speaker:It is a marathon, except it's a marathon without
Speaker:a finish line. So it sucks more. But
Speaker:it is an arduous process, and it's
Speaker:complex in that it's not only doing the
Speaker:steps medically, but also, like I said before, step
Speaker:one is out of exposure, and that can be really tough for
Speaker:people. Right. Especially if they live in certain parts of the country. Like,
Speaker:luckily, where I am, it's a little more dry. But
Speaker:what are some of the hotspots in the United States States that
Speaker:would have mold? Well, I mean, where you grew up. So the
Speaker:east coast, especially along the eastern seaboard,
Speaker:particularly tricky because there are several
Speaker:different biotoxin illnesses in those areas
Speaker:at once. Not only the mold, but also
Speaker:tick borne illness is pretty prevalent there. There are
Speaker:certain types of dinoflagellate blooms and
Speaker:algal blooms that happen on the eastern seaboard. That can make people
Speaker:really sick in some of the same ways as well. Other than that, I
Speaker:mean, the Pacific Northwest, I mean, anywhere on the coast, is
Speaker:potentially especially prone to
Speaker:maltoxin illness. But if you have a building
Speaker:and it has indoor plumbing, you're always at risk no matter where
Speaker:you live. So it's kind of. I have a
Speaker:ton of patients in Arizona. You know,
Speaker:Montana is pretty dry, too, and there's a lot of water damage,
Speaker:buildings here. So if there's not really any one place, if
Speaker:there was, like, I would tell everybody to go there.
Speaker:Yeah. Because it's a real pain in the neck dealing with this. I can speak
Speaker:from experience. Okay, so someone
Speaker:listening to you anywhere in the, in the United States or the world,
Speaker:like, if they are concerned today, after listening to this
Speaker:episode, where do they start? Because you are in
Speaker:Bozeman, Montana. How do they
Speaker:find someone that can help them? I mean, obviously you work with
Speaker:patients long distance, but if that's just not an option for
Speaker:them, like, how does someone even start with this
Speaker:journey? Well, I would recommend if you have
Speaker:symptoms that you think might be related to a biotoxin illness, go to
Speaker:survivingmould calm and take their visual
Speaker:contrast sensitivity test, which is a measure of
Speaker:inflammation in your brain pressing on your optic nerve. Basically,
Speaker:it's a screening test, so not everybody will have a
Speaker:positive on that, but it also takes you through
Speaker:a symptom checklist, which is handy.
Speaker:Many people will have a positive on the VC's
Speaker:test. And so if that happens, there's really
Speaker:nothing else that can cause visual contrast
Speaker:sensitivity deficits except for biotoxin
Speaker:illness. As a matter of fact, that test was used
Speaker:after Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005 to
Speaker:screen people for maltoxin illness. So if you think
Speaker:you have an issue with biotoxin, and
Speaker:especially if you don't have, if you
Speaker:fail, I like to say you have a positive, but technically it says
Speaker:fail on the test. You have a positive vc's test,
Speaker:then you can go to their surviving mold doctor
Speaker:list. There's also the ici.
Speaker:Iseai.com
Speaker:or.org is another organization I belong
Speaker:to that has physicians listed around the
Speaker:country. So you might be able to find somebody closer to you.
Speaker:There aren't a ton of us. I was number three back in
Speaker:2013, doctor certified in this
Speaker:illness treatment system, and
Speaker:we have a few hundred now, which is great, but it's still
Speaker:not enough for everybody that needs us, so.
Speaker:Right, you're full. Right. Like you,
Speaker:I still take. I still, yeah, I still take new clients, but
Speaker:yeah, it's we're busy.
Speaker:Yes, put it that way, yes. And yet,
Speaker:even though you're busy, you always show up just ready to help me
Speaker:and meet me with grace. And
Speaker:it has made what has been such a hard
Speaker:road a little land a little easier. Didn't
Speaker:help that I broke my leg in the middle of it all.
Speaker:You had a few things. You had a few things,
Speaker:but at. Least I was bringing my inflammation down, which helps the healing
Speaker:of bones, right? Certainly, yeah. Thank you
Speaker:so much for this conversation today. And if listeners
Speaker:do want to find you, I'll obviously have it in the show notes. Show
Speaker:notes. But I always like for practitioners to also
Speaker:verbalize best ways to get in. Touch the best way to get in touch
Speaker:with me is to go to my website, which is
Speaker:www.trilliumclinic.net.
Speaker:so trillium clinic.net
Speaker:dot trillium is a flower,
Speaker:a beautiful one. A beautiful flower. And it has a lot of medicinal
Speaker:purposes to it. And we have a chatbot
Speaker:and that's mostly how we communicate with our new patients or people that
Speaker:have questions. Yeah, yeah. Great. Well,
Speaker:again, you're busy. It's the end of the day for you
Speaker:when we're recording, and so I just really want to thank you
Speaker:for helping future listeners and
Speaker:happy mold awareness month to you. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker:Thanks for having me. It was fun.
Speaker:Hey heart buddies, thank you for sharing a few beats of your
Speaker:day with me today. Please be sure to follow or
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Speaker:Also be sure to share with a friend who will
Speaker:value what we discussed. Additionally, I love
Speaker:your feedback. It is so encouraging when I hear from
Speaker:you listeners and it helps me continue
Speaker:to put out good content that I know you want to hear.
Speaker:So be sure to drop me an
Speaker:email@bootsheheartchamberpodcast.com.
Speaker:again, I am your host, boots Knighton and
Speaker:thanks for listening. Be sure to tune in next
Speaker:Tuesday for another episode on open
Speaker:heart surgery with Boots.
