Latest / The Shivan Show with Shivan Sarna / Long COVID Fatigue: Why One Supplement Will Not Solve It | Dr. Jenny Tufenkian
Transcript
- 0:00Many of you listening to this probably have long COVID and don't even realize it.
- 0:03If you're experiencing brain fog and fatigue or low moods, you have inflammation in your brain.
- 0:08And there are things that you can do about it.
- 0:09You can create your own individualized toolkit.
- 0:12That's where the power is.
- 0:13Hi, I'm Siobhan Sarna, and I have a very special friend of mine here with me today.
- 0:17And her name is Dr. Jenny Tafankian.
- 0:19She's a naturopath.
- 0:21She's done some phenomenal summits having to do with long COVID and neuroinflammation, brain inflammation.
- 0:28And before you go, oh, I don't have long COVID or my brain's not inflamed, it's fine.
- 0:33There's a cascade of symptoms that are explainable from when you have this inflammation and
- 0:41And a lot of times people have no idea that all of those things are a result of this.
- 0:45And then you have to figure out what's causing that, right?
- 0:48We're laughing, but it's a very serious topic.
- 0:50What made you want to help people with neuroinflammation and these different conditions?
- 0:57It's really one of those paths that came just from my life.
- 1:02I was very, very sick my second year of medical school after really thinking I could be Wonder Woman and not only go to medical school with a child, which I did, but then have a second child and ended up having secondary infertility where I had a series of miscarriages and one of them was at 17 weeks.
- 1:19I hemorrhaged, passed out, was rushed to a hospital and became a dark night of the soul thing.
- 1:24And I got very sick.
- 1:25The journey of healing from that made me understand a number of things.
- 1:29One, that the body's incredibly resilient, even when you're down, lower than you think you can possibly, when you don't even think you can live, because people thought I was actually gonna die at that point, the body still has this incredible ability to regenerate and heal.
- 1:41And not just on that physical level, but on that mental, emotional and energy level as well.
- 1:46And it was really that that pulled me into working with people with really complex illness.
- 1:52I had to take a whole year out of medical school.
- 1:53But when I came back, I realized that there was a part of me that really felt very comfortable and good sitting with people with complex illness and.
- 2:02and beginning to help them figure out the puzzle of what needed to happen, become the detective to help them in their journey of healing.
- 2:10And then the brain inflammation part is that my dad actually died of a sort of uncommon type of dementia
- 2:19And he was aware of it about 10 years before he died.
- 2:23And he was going to some of the best doctors and they could not figure out what it was.
- 2:26He was just a little bit too early.
- 2:28I really wish I knew then what I know now, because I think now he came to me.
- 2:33He's like, hey, Jenny, what should I do?
- 2:34What can I do?
- 2:35I know my brain's not okay.
- 2:36My doctor says it is, but I know it isn't.
- 2:39And now I would go, yeah, you're right, dad.
- 2:41And this is what we need to do, which is why I'm so mission driven to get the information out there to help people with brain inflammation, with long COVID, with chronic fatigue, with all these complex diseases.
- 2:52You really have a lot of tremendous results.
- 2:55You help people with their Alzheimer's, with their dementia.
- 2:58So what do you want everyone to know?
- 3:00I want people to know that, number one, if you are experiencing brain fog or fatigue, it's not normal.
- 3:07It's also not your fault.
- 3:09And there are things that you can do about it.
- 3:11And also, it's important that you do do things about it.
- 3:14Because what's happening in your body right now is, if you're experiencing brain fog and fatigue or low moods, is that you have inflammation in your brain.
- 3:22And that inflammation in your brain is the setup to get dementia.
- 3:26We had the pandemic.
- 3:27And I knew we were gonna have a second pandemic of this thing called long COVID, which we had, which is really the bulk of the people that I work with are struggling with long COVID.
- 3:36And the people that have long COVID, unfortunately are at higher risk for getting dementias.
- 3:40And I know that sounds really depressing and scaring, but I want it to be that fire under you that says, oh, I really do need to take care of this.
- 3:49I need to address these issues.
- 3:51I need to understand what's going on with me, why my body is dysregulated.
- 3:55so that I can get my brain and my body back.
- 3:58So first of all, how can we even tell if we have long COVID?
- 4:00You know, I had COVID, I felt better.
- 4:02I've never really been quite the same as I was beforehand.
- 4:07It could easily be long COVID and there isn't a test.
- 4:10And this is one of the challenges that we have because the conventional medical system is really writing a lot of people off.
- 4:16I think there are many of you walking, many of you listening to this probably have long COVID and don't even realize it.
- 4:22because that long COVID can kick in weeks or months after you have a COVID virus.
- 4:29And it can come in and
- 4:31start wreaking havoc with your immune system, with your mitochondria, which are the powerhouses in all of your cells.
- 4:37What I tell people is that if you are struggling with fatigue, if you don't have a good reason for being tired, and if you cannot address that fatigue through just doing some lifestyle modification within a few weeks, then you really need to go get some more help.
- 4:54You
- 4:56a functional medicine practitioner, a naturopath, an integrative doctor, if you're lucky with a really great conventional doctor that understands this and will begin to look under the hood to figure out why is it that you're still so tired.
- 5:08And in terms of testing, there is a test that I run on people that is not a test to diagnose that you have long COVID, but it can be some of the people with long COVID do this thing where they are, their body is still replicating the spike protein.
- 5:23And I don't know if you saw the 9 to 5 movie.
- 5:26Of course.
- 5:26Yeah.
- 5:28And there's that Xerox machine scene where it keeps on blah, blah, blah, blah.
- 5:31And that's how I see it is that the body keeps producing these spike proteins over and over and over again.
- 5:38Now, this does not happen with everyone with long COVID, but there's a certain population that do.
- 5:42Yeah.
- 5:43And the people that are doing that, there's a spike antibody protein test that you can get done.
- 5:48It's just a conventional lab.
- 5:50And if that is skyrocket high, then I am very suspicious that you may be one of the people that is producing that spike protein, or maybe you're one of those people that has a little viral fragment in your, still in your body that your immune system is still reacting to, or I think less likely, but still possible that you're.
- 6:09immune system is just kind of responding to a ghost.
- 6:11It's like a ghost impression of that virus, but it is still definitely acting as if there's an acute infection in you, and which can be really helpful because people who get that test have the symptoms and get that test, then they find out that it's something that they can actually address.
- 6:29Right, so I did have that test done, but they didn't indicate the number.
- 6:33That was a problem.
- 6:33That's a problem.
- 6:34That didn't make me very happy.
- 6:35That didn't make me very happy.
- 6:36It just said positive.
- 6:37That's not useful.
- 6:38Everybody in the world at this point has had some kind of contact with the virus, either through an injection or through an actual...
- 6:45exposure to the virus.
- 6:47And that means that your immune system has had exposure to it, and you will have some antibodies to it.
- 6:53But I've seen people who have antibodies around 100, which you would sort of expect that to be, you know, most of us would have some kind of antibody reaction.
- 7:03Less than 13 and one of the tests that I'm thinking of, I think this is LabCorp Quest, I can't remember which one it is, is considered, a bug 13 is abnormal.
- 7:12It's a positive test.
- 7:14You would expect most people would be abnormal at this point.
- 7:16Yeah.
- 7:17Some level of it.
- 7:18But what I see is those people are like around 100, whereas the people that have that spike protein Xerox machine thing going, they're literally topped out, like at the top of the scale.
- 7:28Like hundreds.
- 7:29Like 800.
- 7:29Oh, wow.
- 7:31It's either Quest or LabCorp tops out at 800 and the other one tops out at 2,500.
- 7:35So I see people all the way at the top, greater than 800 or greater than 2,500.
- 7:39And I'm going, you know what?
- 7:41I think it's worth if we do an experimental trial of treating it as if you have – it's like an acute chronic disease.
- 7:48COVID exposure.
- 7:50And so then we're going to come in with a protocol that's actually going to work at reducing that spike protein level in your body.
- 7:57And for some people, we also need to do some sort of testing to look and see what your lymphocytes are doing and what your white blood cells are doing, which is your immune system, because you want to see, is your immune system just exhausted?
- 8:07You've been like fighting this virus for weeks or months or years, and your body's exhausted.
- 8:12And that helps determine how much immune support you need.
- 8:16Have you ever been overwhelmed by supplements?
- 8:19Where to buy them, making sure they're authentic, you want professional grade ones?
- 8:23Well, I want to tell you about Dr. Allison Seebecker's Fullscript Dispensary.
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- 8:38She's also created community plans with suggestions for some of the favorite conditions like
- 8:43allergies, SIBO, IBS, UTIs, you know, the whole alphabet.
- 8:48So check it out.
- 8:49It's in the links below.
- 8:50And it is one of the best ways to get your supplements delivered to your door.
- 8:55And remember, exclusive pricing.
- 8:57Okay, see you there.
- 8:59First of all, of course, you know, Dr. Tvenkian isn't your doctor and this isn't medical advice, but this is some really great information that you can utilize.
- 9:06with your provider or like vet a provider to find out like, do you really deal with long COVID and ask them some of the questions that you're learning about this information here today?
- 9:15How do you usually treat it?
- 9:17Like what are some of the tools in the toolbox for treating?
- 9:20So my toolbox is huge and I'll go through some of the things that I've found useful, but one of the things I really, I really want to, cause I think it's really easy to listen to these kinds of conversations and you're like, Oh my gosh,
- 9:33Dr. Jenny said that this herb and this supplement, you know, cures long COVID and I need to go buy some.
- 9:41And then you try it for three days and you don't feel better.
- 9:43And you're like, that didn't work.
- 9:45And then you're, I mean, you've gone through that cycle of the myth of the one thing.
- 9:50The myth of the one thing.
- 9:51Myth of the one thing, which is, yeah.
- 9:53Myth of the one thing, which is that one diet, that one treatment, that one protocol, that one amazing food from the Amazon is going to cure you.
- 10:01And then it's sort of this fear of hope thing comes up for a lot of people who are struggling with the cynicism sneaks in.
- 10:07It does.
- 10:08It does.
- 10:08And it's their fear of hope, which stops you from knocking on doors and finding out for something.
- 10:12Yeah.
- 10:12Listen to what you just said.
- 10:14The fear of hope.
- 10:17I have lived in that for a really long time in different seasons of my life.
- 10:21So the fear of hope.
- 10:23You don't even allow yourself to hope because you're going to be disappointed.
- 10:27You're afraid of the disappointment.
- 10:28It's very scary.
- 10:29Yeah.
- 10:30This is really where the resilience needs to come into play as a person who happens to have some chronic conditions.
- 10:37I don't want to identify you as a chronic condition person.
- 10:40patient or anything like that like they happen to be present in this season okay go ahead the fear of hope see my nose has been itching so much because so many truth bombs have been coming my way today histamine response to truth then you think i'd be read all the time moving on sorry that was like such a great nerd joke that was such a great ending nerd joke thank you
- 10:59Okay, don't be afraid of hope.
- 11:02So what I'd say is part of this myth of the one thing, the trap that you get stuck in is that you keep following the myth of the one thing and you try this thing and then it doesn't work on you and then you get disappointed again.
- 11:12Then you fear to hope again because you've had so many series of quote unquote failures, things you've tried that didn't work out.
- 11:19You've got the supplement cupboard that's just full of capsules of things that didn't help.
- 11:25Right.
- 11:26So I'm saying all that before I share what I have used in some people, because I think the real power is in you to heal, first of all.
- 11:35I mean, that's really true.
- 11:36Like the power is inside of you to heal.
- 11:39Your body wants to be well, and it has the ability to get well.
- 11:44It's just figuring out what needs to either be removed in from your life or in your body, or what needs to come in to stimulate that natural healing ability in your being.
- 11:57And sometimes it's not just on the physical level, like I said in the beginning, sometimes it's on the mental, emotional or the energetic level.
- 12:03And so you may have dis-ease, but that dis-ease may be coming from some emotional trauma or maybe because you pick up energetic stuff from everybody.
- 12:12You're an empath and you're picking up stuff and that's disturbing you.
- 12:15Or there could be all different kinds of ways that these different bodies interact with each other.
- 12:19Because the power is in you to heal, it's really on you.
- 12:24to begin to become your own detective and to begin to assess what does work on me and what doesn't work on me so that you can create your own individualized toolkit because that's where the power is.
- 12:37When you start to understand what kinds of medicines work for you and which don't, then you can start sort of thinning out your wardrobe.
- 12:45Here's a great analogy.
- 12:46When I started doing stuff online and I was gonna be doing this in front of cameras,
- 12:51I worked with this woman who does this really interesting way of looking at what colors work with you or don't.
- 12:57And I've never shared this anywhere before.
- 13:00I don't, my husband doesn't even know I did this.
- 13:01Exclusive scoop.
- 13:03Nobody knows I did this.
- 13:04To thank the end's personal wardrobe choices.
- 13:06Right.
- 13:06But it was really great because she gave me this kind of colorway and patterns and things to look for.
- 13:12And all I can tell you is shopping is so much easier because I walk into a store and I can eliminate like 80% of whatever is on the rack because it's not in my thing.
- 13:23And this is kind of what I'm telling you as you start working on shopping.
- 13:27putting your health toolkit, it's the same thing.
- 13:29You can go like, oh, that kind of stuff doesn't really resonate with my body.
- 13:32So I'm going to go over to this section here and you start listening and you start beginning to work more sophisticated with who you're listening to and what they're saying to you and what resonates when I'm working with people, I'm all about finding out what resonates with their body.
- 13:45because I've had patients who do really well with pharmaceuticals and other people who just cannot do any of that stuff.
- 13:52I have people who do really well with energetic medicine.
- 13:55I have other people who do much better with botanical medicine or supplements or those kinds of things.
- 14:01I had this one person who could only do pharmaceuticals or homeopathy.
- 14:05That was it.
- 14:06The other stuff did not work on her, which is bizarre, because I don't do that much pharmacy.
- 14:10That's just her system.
- 14:11So when I say...
- 14:13Here's some things that I would first kind of start out with.
- 14:17These are the things that I see working on most people.
- 14:21And then there are my special people.
- 14:23And the special people are those of us who are super sensitive and might need just a microdose of something.
- 14:29Or maybe we need an energetic force.
- 14:31form of these things.
- 14:33I have some people who are so in tune that they can just hold a thing and imagine it in their body and it starts to do the work.
- 14:38But I want you who are listening to know that you're not crazy if that's you.
- 14:42That just means that that's how you're built and that's who you are.
- 14:44And some people need freaking bulldozers.
- 14:46Yeah.
- 14:47I mean, the power of the mind is phenomenal.
- 14:50And I think that's really honestly, the future of medicine is really understanding that power and us owning that power and being able to tap into it in different places as a form of protection.
- 14:59People say, what's the best thing to do when I'm on airplane?
- 15:01Well, I have a little thing I do with my energy body before I go on an airplane.
- 15:04Okay, I will promise I answer your question now.
- 15:06And this is not medical advice.
- 15:07This is information, free to share with your provider, Siobhan said.
- 15:11For the people that are having a reactivated COVID, an acute COVID in a chronic COVID case, I find something that brings that viral replication down and something that works on that spike protein is really helpful for,
- 15:25There are a couple of different herbs and supplements that could be great for this.
- 15:29Something called Gromwell root in common name.
- 15:32I believe it's lithosperma in Latin.
- 15:34I may be wrong on that.
- 15:36And it's Zichao or Zichao in Chinese.
- 15:39It's all the same plant.
- 15:41So you say the Gromwell?
- 15:42Gromwell.
- 15:43G-R-O-M-W-E-L-L. Gromwell root.
- 15:47You want to be shooting it in a clean form.
- 15:49A lot of people buy herbs off their shelves.
- 15:51And when we study them, they're not in there.
- 15:53So you want to find a good provider.
- 15:54I don't have one I can offer right now.
- 15:56There was a good company.
- 15:57that got shut down due to a war, but it is still out there and there are good companies, you just have to find it, but that's a great one.
- 16:03And I do an acute dose of that, where people are taking that two or three times a day.
- 16:08And I usually find people need between 30 and 90 days of treatment, depending on how long they've been sick in their body.
- 16:14But that's usually what I kind of tell people.
- 16:16It's like, hey, kind of thinking this is like a 30 to 90 day thing, and then we'll see.
- 16:21And some people may be down at 30, some people may need longer, we'll just see.
- 16:24I add in some things that are really good for the vascular system because we know that that spike protein loves to damage that vessel and especially the intimate and glycocalyx of the vessels and that wreaks havoc in the brain and all different parts of your body.
- 16:38There's a product, can I get product names?
- 16:40By all means.
- 16:41There's a product called Arterosil, A-R-T-E-R-O-S-I-L I think.
- 16:47That's a product you can get off of most health websites, and it's in full script.
- 16:52The usual dose is just one a day, which is kind of nice.
- 16:55The other thing to look at is natokinase.
- 16:58This helps break down any kind of microclots might be going on.
- 17:01A lot of people get a lot of support from this.
- 17:04And then there's some other things I kind of look at and consider depending on the person.
- 17:08Some people need more nitric oxide.
- 17:10So doing something with beets, extra beets, beets in your diet, beet powder, taking a capsule.
- 17:16Nitric oxide from Berkeley Life is great.
- 17:18I love that product.
- 17:20You can kind of see where you can kind of put together a little pool of things.
- 17:22L-lysine actually seems to also help some people with this, which is interesting because a lot of people with long COVID have reactivated Epstein-Barr virus.
- 17:30And L-lysine is one of the best things to do for that.
- 17:32Whoever has any kind of complexities, if you have an autoimmune condition, if you have long COVID, if you have myalgic encephalitis, which you wanted me to talk about at some point, which is the real true word for something called chronic fatigue syndrome.
- 17:45If you have any of these complex conditions, there is something that was what I call your setup.
- 17:50There was something that was going on in your body that made you vulnerable to get this condition in the first place.
- 17:56Understanding what your setup was is also part of your protocol.
- 18:00Because whatever that setup was that made you vulnerable, it was the soil, it was the terrain that your body was, that was the right terrain for that seed of that condition.
- 18:09For a lot of people who have long COVID, COVID was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
- 18:13I mean, the setup was there.
- 18:15And so part of the healing package, the map that you need to map out for yourself, the process is working on those underlying health foundations that were broken that made you vulnerable
- 18:27to getting that long COVID, that autoimmune condition, that ME in the first place.
- 18:31Can you spell the ME or just say it very slowly?
- 18:34Don't spell it.
- 18:35Just say it slowly.
- 18:36Myalgic encephalitis.
- 18:38It is inflammation of the muscles and the brain.
- 18:42When we got a lot more money to study this chronic fatigue,
- 18:46During the pandemic, because they saw this long COVID thing happening, a lot more research, like tons.
- 18:51I do this because I have a slide and some things where here's the ME-CFS.
- 18:56This is the magic encephalized chronic fatigue budget that's been there for a while.
- 19:00And then the long COVID budget was like a bag this big.
- 19:03That's now gone.
- 19:04But while it was here, it was nice that we had some research dollars going in.
- 19:09And there was a research study where they put in people that had myalgic encephalitis, they put dye in their body, put them in a PET scan, compared to sex the same gender and the same age,
- 19:19also dying their body in a PET scan.
- 19:22And what showed up is that the people with the myalgic encephalitis, their muscles in their brain just flared up with inflammation.
- 19:30This is really powerful because these people who have been struggling with these conditions have been told you're making it up, it doesn't really exist, there's nothing going on.
- 19:38I mean, I was told I was faking it
- 19:39As a 17-year-old, when I went into Kaiser, they're like, oh, you're just trying to get out of school, kid.
- 19:44And I was like, just because I didn't have mono and didn't have strep, he's like, oh, you're just trying to skip school.
- 19:50So this is really validating.
- 19:52But it also really says that this myalgic encephalitis is actually a really good term to explain what's happening in the body from our understanding at this point.
- 20:01Myalgic encephalitis.
- 20:03There you go, you did it!
- 20:04What is encephalitis?
- 20:06It's an esflame brain.
- 20:08Okay.
- 20:08And as I said in the beginning,
- 20:10If you are exhausted, if you have brain fog, if you find yourself that you don't have the bandwidth to have the focus to do the amount of work you used to do, and sometimes you find yourself procrastinating or scrolling and stuff where you used to be really disciplined and just be able to focus and get your work done, that can be a sign of brain inflammation.
- 20:33And that's what we're seeing over and over again, which is what leads to dementia.
- 20:38How do you see the relationship between alcohol consumption and dementia?
- 20:42Do you see a correlation?
- 20:43I know the studies have come out recently.
- 20:44For sure.
- 20:45100%.
- 20:45There's no doubt.
- 20:46Yeah, there's no doubt.
- 20:47I mean, there was the whole, oh, some wine is probably good for us because it's got like quercetin in it.
- 20:53And I remember at the time, because I didn't drink at that time, I was like.
- 20:56You know what?
- 20:56There are other things that have this.
- 20:58You could have onions.
- 21:00You could eat vegetables.
- 21:02You could have so much stuff.
- 21:05And they're like, oh, no, it's really good for you.
- 21:07It's because of these, you know, like those are in a lot of plants.
- 21:11So that was fun for a while.
- 21:12But yeah, they've actually come out and said they don't think that there's any level of alcohol that's actually healthy for us.
- 21:18It massively increases the inflammation in the brain.
- 21:21And part of that is the alcohol and part of it's the sugar because it really spikes your blood sugar.
- 21:26And impacts that metabolic health.
- 21:28Exactly.
- 21:29You've done a summit.
- 21:30I have.
- 21:31You have.
- 21:31It's very good.
- 21:32What is the name of it?
- 21:33Here's the thing.
- 21:34I was going for this award.
- 21:35I was going for an award, the longest summit name award, and I won.
- 21:39Oh, good.
- 21:40Yeah, that's great.
- 21:40So it's the long COVID, chronic fatigue, pain, brain inflammation, I think,
- 21:48Can I help you with that?
- 21:49Yeah.
- 21:49Yeah.
- 21:50Yeah.
- 21:51Not my best word, but it's fine.
- 21:52It's fine.
- 21:53So we call it the Long COVID Breakthrough Summit.
- 21:55And the reason we put all those names in there is because we really are talking about the root causes between all of these conditions.
- 22:03They're not separate.
- 22:04They're all happening inside our body.
- 22:06And if you have one, you're more at risk for the other.
- 22:08So we put them all in there because we want you to have this information.
- 22:12So if you're dealing with pain, if you're dealing with fatigue, you're dealing with brain fog, if you've got long COVID, if you've got malachic encephalitis, there's so much incredible information that you need to know so that you can activate that healing potential inside your own body.
- 22:26It is available for you.
- 22:28It is real.
- 22:29You're not crazy.
- 22:30Dr. Tufanke, and if somebody wanted to work with you, how could they?
- 22:34They can go to my website and fill out a form to apply to work with me.
- 22:38I bring on a few people to work with me one-on-one for a full year.
- 22:42The reason I do it this way is because I found that that's what it takes, is it takes that time.
- 22:48For the people who are ready to do the work...
- 22:50I love the commitment that we both make together where I'm there with you for this year and you're there for yourself for this year.
- 22:56Can it be remote?
- 22:58Yeah, it can actually.
- 22:59Is it educational or do they have to live in Oregon?
- 23:02It depends on which state you live in terms of what my license covers.
- 23:05I'm licensed in many states.
- 23:06I'm not licensed in all the states.
- 23:08So the best thing is to apply and to talk to my team.
- 23:12Thank you so much.
- 23:13Thank you for having me, Siobhan.
- 23:14It's just a pleasure to be with you.
- 23:16It's always good to be with you.
- 23:17Thanks, everybody.
- 23:18There's a lot of hope.
- 23:19There really, truly is.
- 23:21And I hope today has sparked that inspiration within you to take the next steps.
- 23:26So that's a wrap on today's episode.
- 23:28Thank you so much for being here.
- 23:29It genuinely means everything to me.
- 23:32If something in this conversation sparks something for you, share it with a woman or a guy in your life who needs to hear it.
- 23:38That's how this show grows.
- 23:40That's how we heal the planet together.
- 23:41And that's how we really connect.
- 23:43For more resources, free tools, and everything we talked about today, head over to SiobhanSarna.com.
- 23:48That's S-H-I-V-A-N-S-A-R-N-A dot com.
- 23:53It's all there waiting for you.
- 23:54And until next time, keep asking the questions, keep finding the answers.
- 23:58You deserve the full picture and the very best.
- 24:01Namaste.