Latest / Age Defiantly with Mark Young / [Ep 3] I Spent $100K on Health... And Got Sicker | Sandy Martin

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[Ep 3] I Spent $100K on Health... And Got Sicker | Sandy Martin · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

0:00
Welcome to Performance Driven Living, the podcast where we question everything.
0:05
We don't tip to around tough topics, we walk right into them, not to provoke, but to
0:11
get closer to what's real.
0:13
You might not agree with everything you hear, and that's okay.
0:17
The show isn't about being right, it's about being real.
0:20
These conversations are meant to stretch your thinking, challenge assumptions, and spark
0:25
something deeper.
0:26
The views shared are those of our guests and may not reflect those of the host or team.
0:32
And while we dive deep into health, performance, and transformation, this is not medical advice.
0:38
Talk to your doctor before making changes to your health or lifestyle.
0:42
Take what lands, leave what doesn't, but whatever you do, don't stop questioning.
0:56
We are here at the Performance Driven Living Podcast, I'm your host, Mark Young.
1:00
And I have the distinct privilege of introducing you all to my author friend, Sandy Martin.
1:09
And Sandy Martin is a dear friend of mine, and she is a former Comic Con event planner organizer.
1:16
You owned Comic Con all over the country.
1:19
And then we always use this phrase that in your pain, you find your purpose.
1:24
Sandy literally in her pain found her purpose.
1:27
And after going through her own life circumstances that got her out of the Comic Con world, ended
1:33
up with, and I'm telling some of your story here for you, but more of a setup, and you ended
1:38
up with mold toxicity.
1:39
Yeah, that was my kryptonite.
1:42
Yeah, that was the pain brought you down.
1:46
You said you spent $100,000 plus in the first year.
1:50
In the first year.
1:51
And counting.
1:52
I was trying to figure out what was going on.
1:54
And I had mold issues at one point, and it was, I'll tell you, it was a serendipitous
1:58
dinner that I happened to be out with a, to dinner with functional medicine doctor, friends
2:05
of mine who were clients at the time, and, and I was like, man, I'm just having this
2:08
issue.
2:09
Like, I'm just these respiratory issues and blah, blah, blah, and it was a husband and
2:12
wife, Dr. team, and they both kind of looked at each other and they were like, mold.
2:16
And I was like, I was blown away, completely blown away, that they both just nailed it
2:22
right there.
2:23
And I was like, what do I do with that?
2:25
And their answer was, everything you're doing is actually feeding the mold.
2:32
They're like, you're taking antibiotics, you're doing all of this kind of stuff.
2:36
Your, like, mold lives on antibiotics.
2:38
It loves that.
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And it also destroys your gut biome, which is causing it to thrive even more.
2:43
And they're like, going to do this whole thing, I'm like, oh my gosh.
2:46
And I'll say, I was one of the lucky ones who actually haven't to know people who were
2:50
able to identify this and put me on protocols to get rid of this, but it was horrible.
2:56
But you, after spending so much money and so much of your life, truthfully, like years
3:04
of your life trying to correct this, ended up finding purpose and ended up becoming
3:09
like this queen of biohacking in this weird way where you, you know, jumped in and were
3:13
like, my gosh, like, I solved my problem.
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And I always say the founder's story for most of the companies that we talk to here in
3:20
the biohacking spaces.
3:21
And I always call it madlibs because it's like, you know, I once had a problem.
3:25
It was blank.
3:27
And I went to the doctor and no one could find a solution for my blank.
3:30
And then I ran into blank, which made me start on a journey of, like, it's a madlib,
3:36
right?
3:37
I could write the founder's story with madlibs, right?
3:40
Your madlib is mold.
3:43
Doctors couldn't solve it.
3:45
All this problem, you ended up discovering frequency therapy.
3:50
And then while you didn't come out with a product per se, you ended up running the biohacking
3:57
expo down in Miami because you used your Comic Con skills to bring biohackers together
4:02
in an area where you used to live, which that's your superpower.
4:05
Yeah.
4:06
But now you've written a book on the topic.
4:08
Yeah, because after two years of running a biohacking event, biohacker expo gathered
4:14
people who wanted solutions and companies that provided solutions, that was the goal,
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bring them all together.
4:20
They're in together.
4:21
One of the reasons I spent so much money, there's many reasons, but one of the reasons
4:26
is because I, when you're reading testimonials online and you're desperate, you're like,
4:32
okay, I'll try it.
4:35
I was trying everything.
4:37
And there are so many biohacking influencers and leaders in the space that are now getting
4:42
paid gobs of money to hawk products.
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And I thought that they were just telling me what worked.
4:52
And they were being paid to promote.
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And that's what happens, especially if you've got a brain injury, I didn't have discernment.
5:01
The mold went to the most active part of my brain, which makes sense, right?
5:06
Yeah.
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The part of my brain that made me, me, that was getting the most oxygen, just the mold
5:13
was like, and so decision making, sequential thinking, reading a spreadsheet, constructing
5:24
sentences like all of that faded away.
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And I was stuck.
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I would stand in my kitchen to make breakfast.
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And I just remember sometimes going, I would freeze for like a minute.
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I actually have no idea how long, but I would come to and go, what is I doing?
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So I'm going to ask you a question because there's so many things I want to unpack with
5:48
you and I eventually want to get to your new book because I think that's amazing.
5:52
But I want to start with you, you ended up with this cloudy thinking, couldn't make
6:01
decisions, memory fail, so on, so forth.
6:04
Now, I'm not going to ask specific questions, but I happen to know that you had gone through
6:09
a divorce around that time.
6:10
No, the divorce came when I healed.
6:13
Oh, afterwards.
6:14
Okay.
6:15
So you actually were still married during this time.
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So during this time, and I say this because women especially, I would say, when they start
6:24
having some kind of symptom, if I can say, use symptom, all I hate symptoms, but like
6:30
when we, when we start to have things like this happen, they start to question themselves.
6:34
Well, I think that's common for everyone.
6:36
Okay.
6:37
And if your brain starts to fail you, it's really, really hard to say something other than,
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I don't have it anymore because our culture, our culture equates our ability to function
6:53
with our esteem, right?
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My ability to have a conversation with you is what makes me me.
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And if I'm unable to carry a conversation and if I stumble through it, I'm going to
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beat myself up.
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And I think that's common for men and women.
7:10
I don't.
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That's fair.
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And on the, on the, if we're going to take a gendered look at it, I was 45 at the time.
7:19
And all of my symptoms lined up with parrymenopause symptom.
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Well, that's kind of where I was going with, with it being female.
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And I didn't want to get into an age disclosure.
7:27
It's okay.
7:28
Well, we're biohackers.
7:29
It's all right.
7:30
That's fair, right?
7:31
But, but truthfully, it's like when women start to experience, if you're slipping and you're
7:35
starting to notice memory loss, like you immediately go into this parrymenopause mindset
7:40
of, oh, my God, it's starting and you, I, the question that I really want to go into
7:46
is like, I think we all limp a long time and don't even realize we're limping because
7:52
the limp starts to feel normal.
7:54
Right.
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And so, but that's inflammation.
7:57
I don't disagree with you.
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Just slow build of inflammation.
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And I have a very unique take on parrymenopause and menopause because of what I've been through.
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Is it coincided with that period of time in my life?
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I didn't actually have symptoms of, I'm postmenopausal now and I had no symptoms, no hot flashes, none
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of it.
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But at that transition point, because I had to get the mold out of my body, I brought
8:24
my inflammation markers down at that they're all in the normal range, which is extremely
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rare.
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And, and that's what causes the parrymenopausal, menopausal, and postmenopausal symptoms.
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Is inflammation.
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And the reason why that transition period is an aggravating period for women is that fertility
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hormones make a superhuman.
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We're able to bite off famine and all of the stress of modern society, our bodies are
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built to be able to withstand any amount of stress and pressure in order to birth.
9:06
And so fertility hormones make us powerful.
9:11
And then so we pile on more stress, more food, more seed oils, more all of these things
9:17
that cause inflammation and our bodies are like, bring it.
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We're here to make babies, right?
9:23
That's the physiological hormonal balance is like, we still got to, right?
9:31
And then when those hormones start to go away, but are, we've built up all of these
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bad habits.
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Your hormones have suppressed that inflammation for so long and when they're gone, they
9:39
can't suppress it any longer.
9:40
Right.
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That's where the symptomology comes from.
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And so I get really aggravated with the industry for taking women who are essentially
9:47
inflamed, putting a disease label on it, calling it parrymenopause, menopause, postmenopause,
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giving it a disease label so that they can prescribe hormones that cost a fortune.
10:00
I've never heard that explanation of menopause before.
10:03
I've heard it once.
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I was, I've been speaking this way for about two years and asking a bunch of my scientifically
10:09
minded friends, their opinions, they're like, yeah, that sounds right.
10:12
And then I forget her name, but there was a woman on diary of a CEO a couple of months
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ago.
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And that was like, she just said what I've been saying.
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I've never heard that explanation before, but that, I mean, I'm always looking for what
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are the, what are the gaps in that explanation?
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And that seems pretty watertight, like that actually makes sense on a high level.
10:33
Yeah.
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Hormones are actually suppressing.
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The same thing happens actually, and you know, I spend a lot of time talking about cardiovascular
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health.
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And it's like, the same thing happens with women, when blood pressure ends up going up because
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estrogen production is a natural vasodilator.
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And when estrogen production goes down, the cardiovascular system doesn't expand and contract
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the way that it used to.
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Blood pressure goes up.
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And it's like, oh, menopause costs a high blood pressure.
10:57
Nope.
10:58
Nope.
10:59
That's not what's happening at all.
11:00
That's right.
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You just don't have the input you used to have.
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And when the input goes away, you need to deal with the input differently.
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This is a very normal, predictable phase of a woman's life cycle.
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It's not a defect.
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Right.
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And it shouldn't be a surprise.
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Right.
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Our bodies aren't broken because we go through this transition.
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We experience pain in this transition because of what we've done to our bodies leading up
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to it.
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Well, but no different than the way I treat my car when I go over 100,000 miles is different
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than I did when I treated my car when it was new.
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It requires a little bit extra input.
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And it's like, my belief is that healthy is health.
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And at any age, healthy is healthy.
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There is no, I think we have a tendency to expect deterioration with age.
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And my expectation is there's no reason to deteriorate with age.
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We just need to change the inputs.
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But it's a financial reality.
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For many people that they want us to believe that that's normal because then that's how
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they Medicaid us.
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That's how they get us on these protocols.
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But even people who aren't even medicated, like we just expect that everything should hurt
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as we age.
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It's ridiculous.
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It's a terrible mindset because you're inviting more of that into your life just with
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that mindset, which drives me crazy.
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But I want to go back to that other earlier question though, because the question I had
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was what was going on in your head, not the mold, because that was in your head too.
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But what was going on psychologically when you started noticing this, this, I'll say
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really dementia type symptoms, like you're, you're dealing with this because I know people
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in my own life who are dealing with this, like I just get the words are, are gone in my
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short-term memories of mass.
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And I walk out the door and I always have to go back because I forgot something.
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And I don't want to use that as a, oh, they've got mold.
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But what was going on in your head because I watch the emotions that go on and I'll
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say my stepmother is always worried about her, her memory and her cognitive function.
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And it's a very emotional place for her because she's like, as soon as that starts to happen,
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like, it, she almost goes manic, thinking about the thought of losing her mind, right?
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And it's like my grandmother is, she's 85 and she's got, you know, some cognitive decline
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and you can't get her to do anything to, to, to behaviorally adjust it.
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But it's like, but the minute she can't come up with a word, with a word, it's as if
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there's this paragraph she's memorized that every time she's like, what was I just about
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to say, oh, honey, you don't understand, you know, my memory is not what it used to be.
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And I struggle with this all the time and it scares me and then, and she goes into this
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whole disclaimer and I'm like, okay, like, I get it, like, there's things we can do
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about that.
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But it's, but it's almost like psychologically, she feels the need to explain herself
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because this is embarrassing, like, what was going on in your head when suddenly like
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a woman who's super sharp like you, who's running complex systems and organizations and
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everything.
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And then, and then, and then all of a sudden, you can't remember what you walked to the
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kitchen for.
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Right.
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That's scary.
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It's terrifying.
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And I was burnt out and I, I, I pushed myself to a level where I knew that I could,
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I could have slippages, I could, it was not, it was not out of the question that I had
14:48
just pushed my brain too far because I was working so hard and thriving.
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But there's this fine line and there's this thing called burnout.
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And that was what I first thought it was.
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Oh, I must have fried my brain by thinking too much.
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And and but then the depression started to sink in.
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And I'm, I'm grateful for all of the work I've done in my life to know myself.
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And I just had this quiet knowing this isn't me.
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It's not I who I'm depressed.
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I am not depressed.
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I've realized I was having symptoms of depression.
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And I want to pause you right there because that's, you made such a delineation there that
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I appreciate.
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And it is, you didn't use I am statements to define your circumstances because that's
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a neurological trigger.
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And when we use words like I am, we literally at a cellular level are defining the way that
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our body behaves from that moment forward.
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And I hear this out of people, I am diabetic.
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I am obese.
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I am all of this type of stuff.
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And I am as an identity statement, and I appreciate the fact that you made that, that
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distinction there because whether or not you were having symptoms of something or not,
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you never claimed it as an identity.
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And so I started to explore how it could be that I could have symptoms of depression while
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loving my life.
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And that was my curiosity that carried me through the next few weeks.
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Meanwhile, my cognition is continuing to slip.
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And I went to YouTube and I watched videos on the brain and people who were smart about
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the brain.
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Dr. Daniel Aiman, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett.
16:54
Dr. Mark Hyman, this is when I learned the term functional medicine, I had never heard
16:58
it before.
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This was October 2020.
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How interesting.
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So you were in lockdown anyway.
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So you had nothing better to do but watch YouTube.
17:05
Right.
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And it's not the month prior.
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I had converted a whole system.
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We had lost $400,000 by refunding tickets for a common con that we had to use.
17:16
Because you were in lockdown.
17:17
Right.
17:18
And then rebuilt that business in a virtual space.
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We were on track to quadruple our revenue for the year.
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We were, we had a bigger year in virtual than we had in lives.
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But we thought we were about to go under.
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And so I orchestrated all of that.
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I built the infrastructure for that.
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I was working 80 hour weeks in September in an October.
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I couldn't put together a sentence.
17:45
Wow.
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And it was so abrupt.
17:48
That's also how I knew.
17:50
Right.
17:51
So clearly not either fried a circuit or it was something.
17:57
Well, and during the time of the pandemic, because you said that was in 2020, you had to
18:02
be concerned that this could have even been COVID-related.
18:05
I was.
18:06
But I had been thriving up through September.
18:10
Right.
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And I had not been sick since I had the flu in March and it was diagnosed flu.
18:18
And I had not been diagnosed with anything mysterious.
18:23
And so it was a question, but I didn't have any evidence of that at all.
18:28
Sure.
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But I think everybody during that time, like just had a giant question mark over their head
18:33
because if I stubbed my toe and it hurt more than normal, I was worried that something
18:37
was going on.
18:38
Right.
18:39
So I mean, I can understand that there was just a lot of confusion around health care
18:42
in general in 2020.
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And now all of a sudden, you know, people are talking about, you know, COVID and cloudy
18:47
brain and long COVID and all these other types of conversations are coming up mold, like
18:53
where in the world would that have even have entered the conversation because there were
18:57
so many.
18:58
There were so many confounding variables that could have been that the idea of mold was
19:04
like a needle in a haystack type diagnosis, really.
19:07
And if it wasn't for Dave Asprey, I wouldn't know, which is, which is, I finally stumbled
19:11
on his content about six months into my exploration of what could possibly be wrong with me.
19:16
And he had trouble with mold and he explained his symptoms.
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Now I had a spect scan done.
19:21
I was too afraid to get on a plane because I wasn't a biohacker yet.
19:25
I didn't fly to Atlanta to go to Dr. Amon's clinic.
19:29
I went to a clinic in town that could do a spect scan to get a similar examination done,
19:36
but they did it wrong.
19:37
It matters who you see.
19:39
And it wasn't until a few months later that I took Dr. Amon's brain coaching certification
19:43
course, but I learned how to read my own scans.
19:46
And then I learned that they were performed incorrectly.
19:49
I learned that the way they performed my scans made it look like I had a traumatic bump
19:53
to the head, a traumatic brain injury from front back.
19:57
I was diagnosed with a TBI by a neurologist four weeks after I got sick.
20:04
And then he tried to give me a drug called nemotapine that's for stroke victims to open
20:08
up the blood vessels in the brain.
20:10
Which actually would have made the mold worse.
20:13
It might have.
20:14
I don't know.
20:15
I had never even considered that, but I was about to take it.
20:20
I was sitting in the CVS parking lot.
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And I called my husband and I said, I'm not going to fill this.
20:30
And he said, you have to.
20:31
You're sick.
20:32
And I said, I'm not going to do it.
20:36
And he said, but the doctor says, this will help you.
20:41
And you can't function.
20:44
And I said, I'm just not going to do it.
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He took me back to the doctor.
20:49
They both ganged up on me.
20:51
They insisted I had to take it.
20:54
And I just said no.
20:57
And this is where biohacking starts with no.
21:01
I love that.
21:02
So, Sandy, I want to get into the biohacking starts with no, which is the title of your
21:06
new book, but I want to make a quick stop along the way there.
21:09
That is, your journey through your mold recovery, and I don't want to focus the conversation
21:14
how and how you cured mold, for instance, which amazing through frequency, through sound
21:20
therapy, like very unconventional means that you've used to actually cure this infestation,
21:28
if you will.
21:29
I mean, I know you'd be as clear minded as you can imagine, but through all of that, you
21:34
started hosting biohacking conferences.
21:38
But one of the things I know about you just having known you for quite a while is this
21:42
idea that you don't host biohacking conferences and just let anybody into the party.
21:49
And what I enjoy about that is that there tends to be use set earlier that all these influencers
21:56
are just getting paid to say things and paid to do things.
21:58
And it's like, and sometimes the industry of, I'll say, biohacking, but functional medicine,
22:06
longevity, whatever we want to call it, gets very much labeled as this snake oil type
22:12
industry, right?
22:13
Because people don't understand it.
22:14
And doctors are telling you, you must take this and you're like, no, right.
22:19
And then the problem is is you say no to conventional wisdom.
22:24
And then it's as if you pivot all of your attention into this wild, wild west of solutions
22:31
where an alternative solution to what the doctor told you isn't clear at all, especially
22:37
because we're not allowed to say what our products can do if they are not FDA approved.
22:44
Right.
22:45
An amazing point.
22:46
And even if they are FDA cleared, like I can't say it, you can't make a claim.
22:53
So the FDA can review a bunch of things and say, oh, this is safe for you.
22:57
Right.
22:58
And there's a ton of that in the market.
23:00
And FDA clearance, just because that's an area of expertise for me, is literally just
23:05
saying the FDA has cleared you saying this probably isn't going to kill you.
23:08
Exactly.
23:09
But they're not saying it does anything good.
23:11
They're just saying that they've at least looked at it and decided it's not lethal.
23:16
And which again is good, I suppose.
23:18
But you've lean on that FDA clearance.
23:20
And the problem is is companies, predatory companies, especially lean on that FDA clearance
23:27
and hope that the general public believes that the word clear means approved.
23:33
And most people in the general public don't know the difference between what an FDA clearance
23:36
and an FDA approval means.
23:38
And most people also don't understand that an FDA approval only means a marketing claim.
23:43
But that doesn't mean the FDA is endorsing it.
23:45
That means the FDA is actually saying that whatever marketing moniker that you applied
23:49
for, they agree that it does that.
23:53
And the studies take millions to perform, but on top of that, you have to pay off the
23:59
FDA more than a million dollars in order for them to review the studies.
24:04
So it's they cost money for them to review it too.
24:08
I was going to say there.
24:09
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's more than a million dollars only because I've done that route.
24:12
So it's not a pain off the FDA.
24:14
I don't want anyone to get the idea that the FDA is taking bribes.
24:18
Are they not?
24:19
Yeah, your words.
24:21
I'm friendly with the FDA.
24:23
I'm not friendly with the FDA.
24:25
I'm okay with that.
24:26
I'm friendly with the FDA.
24:27
I actually have a current clinical trial that's underway with the FDA right now.
24:30
And I will say that as much as I hate bureaucracy, they've been good to me.
24:34
Okay.
24:35
So I can't even complain.
24:36
Again, I hate the bureaucracy, but the FDA has actually been very, very kind to me.
24:41
So I won't say anything negative, albeit I hate bureaucracy.
24:45
I do believe the people on the other end, by and large, are really trying to protect
24:49
the public from the snake oil companies.
24:51
My problem is is that farmers are already through the gate.
24:54
Right.
24:55
Like the FDA has approved all of this stuff that for whatever the culture was that allowed
25:00
all of this to happen.
25:01
And we're in a new world right now.
25:02
It's an entirely different thing.
25:03
I was just, you were with me.
25:05
We were having dinner with Cali means the other night having this conversation.
25:09
And it's like, so we've got all these snake oil companies, though, is where I want to
25:13
go.
25:14
And your conventions, your conferences, you only invited the right people to the party.
25:22
And there is this idea that a couple of people stuck through that I didn't know.
25:27
I don't want to claim to be perfect here, but I made a great effort to curate the room,
25:32
for sure.
25:33
Correct.
25:34
And one of the ways that you actually said that to me at a conference that I was out of
25:37
yours was that the entire room was a referral from someone else who was in the room.
25:43
That only companies that recommended other companies were able to attend an event.
25:48
This was not just to pay to play, fill the room.
25:51
This was a, we want the best.
25:53
And sometimes the best is not the biggest.
25:56
Sometimes the best company to be in the room is the one who's still struggling, but they
26:00
actually have the best science, right?
26:02
They just haven't figured out a marketing message or they just haven't gotten funding
26:05
or people just, it's too hard of a story to explain, right?
26:08
But all of that stuff happens.
26:10
But I appreciate about you that I would say that even your conferences start with no.
26:17
That.
26:18
Someone pay me, try to pay me very early on to get on stage, and I would not let him speak
26:23
at all.
26:24
Right.
26:25
But that's an egg.
26:26
And that was 10 times what I was asking for a booth.
26:30
And I just kept saying no, but I'll let you set up, but I'm not going to let you speak.
26:35
Because what you're saying to the public on social media is so egregiously inflammatory
26:41
and wrong.
26:43
But like he put on social media that they put plants on the space shuttle to keep the
26:48
astronauts breathing clean air.
26:50
There are no plants on the space shuttle.
26:52
It's just ridiculous.
26:53
It's algae.
26:54
But there are no plants on the shuttle and sure there are some plants on the space station.
27:01
But they're not decorating the space station with the mother in law tongue.
27:07
It's amazing.
27:08
Yeah.
27:09
Mother in law's tongue.
27:10
Yeah.
27:11
And even at your first conference, like Gary Bracka stepped in to be your headline speaker
27:15
and didn't even get paid to do the event.
27:17
Right.
27:18
Like this is literally like you were, and I mean, Gary Bracka, we did a trade, but never
27:23
the last, like this people of integrity do business with people before he was very famous.
27:30
You don't need to disclaim.
27:31
I think he would appreciate it if I did.
27:33
Yeah, but the fact of the matter is is like Gary stepped in and was like, yeah, I see
27:37
what you're doing.
27:38
I see your vision.
27:39
I get this and we'll do whatever to, you know, whatever as he started growing his career
27:43
as well.
27:44
But nevertheless, the point of the matter is that you've written a book called Biohacking
27:48
starts with no, and I'm actually drawing that this has been a theme through your life.
27:53
This isn't just a book title.
27:54
This is a, you said no when they tried to give you pills to solve your problem and you're
28:00
like, no, there's a better way.
28:01
And then you said no multiple times along that journey when you came across, you know,
28:07
I would say shoddy goods that promised that they were going to be able to help you.
28:11
You've said no to vendors and speakers who wanted to be part of your events.
28:16
And you were like, no, I want to curate the best outcomes for people who are attending
28:20
these events, which has led you now to a book that says, no, right.
28:24
Now I will say that in the reason why the book is a rant for me and a cathartic expression
28:33
about this industry and why I say I'm pulling back the curtain, it's not that there's
28:40
so much snake oil in the room, but it's also not a panacea.
28:47
And so the problem with the industry is that even though some things are excellent therapies,
28:53
I bought a hard shell hyperbaric oxygen chamber in that $97,000 in that first period of
29:01
time before I found out what was wrong with me.
29:04
That was $27,500.
29:08
And oxygen therapy is unequivocally excellent and not snake oil.
29:13
100%.
29:14
But if you've got mold in your brain, it's the worst that will cause you headaches and
29:19
it will not fix the problem.
29:21
Well, yes.
29:22
And so we have to say, no to the idea that there's any sort of fix that can be applied
29:34
to quickly shipped, our bodies are built to live 120 years.
29:39
That's in our DNA and our life expectancy is 77.
29:47
And so we can talk about getting beyond 180 all we want, but let's focus on getting
29:53
this hardware aligned to 120 before we start adding these therapies on to get beyond
30:02
that.
30:03
Well, and the other thing I would say is that, and I love how you said that, but the
30:08
idea that when you walk a showroom, for instance, here at the Dave Asprey Conference, I will
30:14
say that there is everybody loves their product or their invention or their formula.
30:20
And I always use the phrase that if all I have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
30:25
And if this is the solution that I'm able to sell, then of course, I tell you that it's
30:29
going to help with yours because it may.
30:32
And there's a lot of anecdotal support out there for things helping because we end up
30:38
confusing correlation with causation.
30:41
And your product may have helped because I was doing three other things and maybe it worked
30:44
in tandem with something else, but how does also antidotes are the only viable expression
30:52
of these product benefits because of the FDA restrictions.
30:58
And so a person can tell their story about their personal experience with the product.
31:04
And that's legal.
31:06
I can talk about my own personal experience.
31:10
You can't promote my own, right?
31:13
But I can talk about it.
31:14
So what happens in conferences like Dave's in mine is that people get in a room and they
31:19
share their experiences.
31:21
And so you gather people around a booth and someone will say, oh, yeah, I use this.
31:28
And then that conversation starts.
31:30
And that creates this ground swell of interest that supersedes anything that can be said
31:36
online on a website on social media.
31:39
And so that's what's great.
31:41
The antidotes anecdotes are helpful, but they're not scientific and everything about what
31:49
we do is inconclusive.
31:51
And it all sounds wishy-washy.
31:52
Even the ones with great studies, like your product has great studies behind it, you can
31:57
still only give a vague statement about your product clinical claims you just can't
32:02
make.
32:03
But here's the story.
32:04
Please.
32:05
When I did my first photo bio modulation helmet from the light, my mom said to me, she
32:09
said, if that works, why don't, why don't we know about it?
32:12
Why doesn't everybody know about it?
32:14
Oh, if I've heard that at once, I've heard it a hundred times.
32:16
And I didn't know what to say to her two years ago.
32:20
But now I know to say the FDA won't let them say what their product does.
32:25
That's why we don't know.
32:26
Well, and the other thing too is that it's, I'll say it's two things I want to say to
32:30
that.
32:32
As you said, there is no magic pill that fixes everything.
32:36
It's very much, I always use the, it's like pulling the handle on a slot machine with
32:43
nine wheels and hoping they may all come up cherries, right?
32:47
Like, you can do two things that are great and still not see the result because there's
32:52
still three other underlying things.
32:54
And it turns a patient into a detective having to go figure this out.
33:00
And that's, that's where functional practitioners really stand in the gap, I think.
33:05
And you know, I mean, I have a general practitioner that I talked to who's an MD, but it's like, I
33:11
have a functional practitioner that I talked to on a regular too because it's my responsibility
33:17
to make sure my heavy metals aren't out of balance and my minerals are in balance.
33:23
And my everything's functioning about me correctly.
33:27
And there's a hundred things at minimum.
33:31
But I spent 20 grand on functional tests, right, with, with very, right.
33:40
The first functional medicine doctor I had to spend $5,000 with, she performed a methylation
33:44
analysis that didn't do me any good.
33:47
There was no basis for that helping me at all in her recommendations.
33:51
She just performed the test.
33:52
I don't even know how to read it.
33:54
And she prescribed the drug that, nice statin, that caused me to have suicidal thoughts
34:00
for the only four days of my life.
34:03
And so if you go hard after mold, it fights back.
34:07
It doesn't care if you're alive or dead.
34:09
It lives off of us alive or dead.
34:11
It doesn't care.
34:13
And so if it's threatened, it, it, it knocks revenge.
34:19
Yeah.
34:20
And to that point, like methylation tests are great.
34:22
Mary Bracker would, of course, recommend them, but you have to be able to read them,
34:26
but they're not, they're not for that.
34:28
Like methylation tests, not going to tell you you have mold, it's going to give you
34:32
a lot of other great data, but it's, I went to her for a $400 micatoxan test and she insisted
34:37
I also spend $5,000 for the methylation test.
34:39
Yeah, that's, that's just taking advantage of the bad doctor.
34:43
And then the next doctor was $13,000 to take another mold test and other genetic test.
34:49
He refused to tell me what my genetics even said.
34:53
It was such a long report.
34:54
I couldn't read it.
34:56
I didn't understand it.
34:57
And so it's test after test after test.
35:00
And I joined the functional medicine practitioner Facebook group.
35:04
And if you should join the group, because if you went into that group, you would never see
35:10
a functional medicine doctor.
35:11
The nonsense that they are arguing about back and forth, because there's no standard
35:15
in functional medicine.
35:17
It's such a buzzword.
35:18
I even heard at the dinner the other night, the Maha action team, they're all about functional
35:24
medicine and creating standards around it.
35:27
And they need standards because there is no standard for getting someone affordably through
35:34
a process to understanding their health.
35:37
Well, and that was actually where it was going to go next.
35:40
Is this, I want you to talk about what the book means to you because you said it's a rant
35:45
and a catharsis.
35:47
You had a terrible journey to get to where you are right now and there probably is a lot
35:52
of war stories along the way.
35:57
You were blessed in order to be able to it.
35:58
You keep throwing out these dollar amounts and I think to some people, those dollar amounts
36:02
aren't even relatable because they're like, where in the world would I get $97,000 to
36:07
go do this?
36:08
You were fortunate enough to have the financial wear with all to do the things that you
36:12
did.
36:13
Most people just deal with the mold and they never get diagnosed and they never go
36:16
search for an answer.
36:17
So even the people who have the intellectual curiosity to look can't cross, there's a barrier
36:22
to entry.
36:23
But none of that money went towards getting rid of the mold.
36:26
Agreed.
36:27
But it helped you look in a lot of places that a lot of other people, you at least looked
36:31
a lot of places and found what it wasn't.
36:35
Other people wouldn't have even been able to do that.
36:36
Right.
36:37
Like they literally, the doctor said this and one of the comments, you talked about the
36:41
money with this was so good, why would anybody not know about it already, with Zona specifically,
36:48
which you're familiar with, my involvement with that company, one of the comments we get
36:52
most often is that, well, if this really works, why doesn't insurance cover it?
36:59
Because there is a, there's a belief in the average Americans mind that the insurance
37:04
companies cover everything that's good.
37:06
And it's like, that's what they want you to believe.
37:08
Companies are in bed with, with the farmer companies and all this other kind of stuff.
37:12
And it's like, and functional medicine requires that we actually take an active and financial
37:16
role in our own healthcare.
37:19
And we're not talking about healthcare.
37:21
Like I can't tell you, you know, the last time I thought about what a copay would be
37:26
on something, because I don't think of my health in copays, I think of my health and what
37:31
do I need.
37:32
And I took out a catastrophic plan.
37:34
I don't need a copay.
37:35
I'm not going to see a GP.
37:36
Correct.
37:37
I mean, I'm on my company's healthcare policy because we provide that for all of our staff.
37:42
But, but nevertheless, I agree with you.
37:44
Like I had a, I had a new staff member come in and talk to me one day because he just
37:47
saw the supplement lineup that's all over my desk and he's like, what exactly do you
37:51
take?
37:52
I need to start doing this.
37:53
And you know, and literally I was like, well, I actually have a list like here's this
37:55
and so on.
37:56
And he's like, well, what should I take?
37:57
I'm like, I don't know your physiology.
37:59
So I can't give you that recommendation because everybody should take something different
38:01
depending on what your, your current health levels are.
38:05
So I made some recommendations.
38:06
So I mean, he came in back in my office a couple of days later because I went and checked
38:09
all this out and he goes, this is a car payment.
38:12
Like well, car payments, what I recommended to you.
38:14
Like it's probably two or three car payments that I actually spend and I'm like, but it's
38:19
not because I'm looking at what's my copay on my prescription or what's my copay on my
38:23
office visit.
38:24
Like I just know I'm going to have to afford to do this stuff and I prioritize my health
38:30
enough to do that.
38:31
I'm very blessed to be able to be in that position as are you.
38:36
What do you recommend to people who aren't?
38:39
That's why I wrote the book because you don't have to spend the money to get healthy.
38:45
If you really want to know what's wrong with you, you can pay for the tests.
38:51
But you can get healthy without knowing.
38:54
And I know that that sounds nuts, but the doctors don't know either.
38:57
I mean, they use labels like autoimmune, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue.
39:04
These are labels that are given to conditions that have no known root cause.
39:11
I have a sister who is like the autoimmune queen.
39:14
She's convinced that she has Vidaligo and because she has Vidaligo, the doctor told
39:18
her that that's an autoimmune, which means you're probably just susceptible to a lot
39:22
of other autoimmune and now she's got Hashimoto's and like all the, and she's like,
39:26
it's just the autoimmune.
39:27
I get them all and I'm like, you know, that's not normal.
39:30
That just means they haven't found the root cause of things.
39:34
And I introduced her to Amy Horniman, and you know, Amy, Amy's an amazing thyroid doctor
39:39
and what not.
39:40
I'm like, text, chat thread them.
39:42
I'm like, Amy, this is my sister, blah, blah, and Amy, I talked to her when we were at
39:45
the CHS conference.
39:47
And Amy's like, I've been talking to her.
39:49
She's like, but you know, she has this mindset of thank you for the advice.
39:54
I'll go check with my doctor.
39:56
Yeah.
39:57
I had the same conversation with my cousin on Monday and she's got a gut issue and I helped
40:04
her dad fix his gut issue.
40:06
He was sitting on one side of me and she was on the other.
40:09
And I said, you know, you've got to fix this and she said, well, what would you do?
40:13
I said, take what your dad took.
40:15
It helped him.
40:16
And then so we talked through and she said, well, should I run that by my doctor?
40:19
And I said, I don't know, run it by your dad who just completely healed based on my
40:23
advice.
40:24
Like you can run it by a doctor who doesn't know anything about this or you can just do
40:28
what your dad did.
40:29
Did you see how healthy he got?
40:31
Well, anyway, it's funny is like Amy's, Amy's response and I'm not going to put words
40:34
in Amy's mouth, but it was kind of like, I'm going to run this by my doctor and she
40:38
looked at me and I'm like, and her, the look on her face was almost like, well, I'm a
40:41
doctor too.
40:42
Right.
40:43
So there's that.
40:44
But there's also you're going to go ask the person who can't fix your problem if the
40:48
solution that someone else is recommending will fix your problem.
40:51
Right.
40:52
The same person who's telling you there's no fix for your problem is the one you're going
40:55
to go vet all the other stuff through like you're asking the wrong person.
40:59
Well, I like to explain to people what the issue is with their doctors.
41:04
They're not allowed to think for themselves anymore.
41:08
And they're not trained.
41:09
They're not, but it's not, it's not, it's not that they're deliberately kept in the
41:14
dark that deliberately pushed into a model that is safe from malpractice lawsuits.
41:23
Correct.
41:24
Standard of care.
41:25
And so that standard of care that even will in a building full of neurologists because
41:30
I experienced this with my dad when I had to take him to get his, yeah, it's drop foot.
41:36
And we got that checked out diagnosed.
41:38
They sent him to a Parkinson's guy first because he has an essential tremor, but not Parkinson's.
41:42
They sent him to a guy for Parkinson's for his feet, not being able to lift.
41:48
It's, it's the craziest thing.
41:50
And so that guy was like, I'm a Parkinson's doctor.
41:52
I can order the test for you, but I can't evaluate it for you.
41:55
You're going to have to see my colleague down the hall in a building full of neurologists.
42:00
They divide them into specialties so that they can cover their asses.
42:05
Right.
42:06
Not good, soon.
42:07
Right.
42:08
And if I were a doctor, I would probably be worried about our litigious society as well.
42:11
And so they, they're not allowed to recommend a nutrition or lifestyle when a drug is approved.
42:20
Like imagine if someone doesn't prescribe an SSRI, doesn't prescribe prozac.
42:26
And then a person commits suicide.
42:28
That's exactly where I'm going.
42:29
Yep.
42:30
Totally understood.
42:31
They have to protect themselves.
42:33
And so they're locked in a system where if they deviate, I went in 2018 to get a standard
42:41
annual series of tests done, and I asked for C-reactive protein to be tested.
42:45
And my doctor told me no.
42:48
And I was like, it's a common test.
42:51
Right.
42:52
Why can't I measure my inflammation level?
42:54
Right.
42:55
And his answer, I asked that question.
42:56
His answer was, we can't do anything about inflammation levels.
42:59
So why would we test for it?
43:02
Right.
43:03
We can't do anything about inflammation levels.
43:05
Right.
43:06
He's locked in a model.
43:07
Well, let me ask you.
43:09
So someone who's interested in looking at your book, obviously we're going to tell them
43:14
how to find you, you know, biohacking starts with no, that's n-o dot com, that's correct.
43:21
So biohacking starts with no dot com is a place to find out more about you as well as that
43:24
book.
43:25
But what would be your advice from a veteran of self-diagnosis, and then you're a
43:33
force here in the biohacking space out of nowhere, which is kind of funny.
43:36
It feels like you went from zero to 60 and no time flat.
43:39
That's how I go.
43:40
Seriously.
43:41
Well, you went from never hearing the word to sitting at benefit dinners.
43:48
What would you tell somebody?
43:49
Because you're saying you don't have to spend this $100,000 and so on.
43:52
Where would people start if they're just trying to take that first step on a health journey?
43:59
I mean, I think sleep is the most important start.
44:02
The answer I always give.
44:03
Right.
44:04
But the problem with that is that there are so many things that make it challenging to
44:08
sleep that you have, it's like peeling an onion.
44:11
I want to give an example of my cousin.
44:14
He was the motivating factor for me writing the book.
44:18
My story started with that drug refusal.
44:20
But when my cousin called me one day and said, Sandy, what do you think about Lyon's name?
44:26
And I was like, why are you asking me this?
44:28
And he said, well, I'm having a little brain fog and I hear that people say it can help
44:32
with that.
44:33
And I said, sure, but it's not going to do any good for you if you're still eating at McDonald's.
44:39
So you got to stop eating at McDonald's and he really woke him up.
44:45
And then he proceeded to text me for the next three days with, can I do this?
44:48
Can I do that?
44:50
And then I steered him towards a mostly carnivore for a limited time diet, but all keto.
44:59
And he dropped 16 pounds in two weeks, felt better, started hiking, challenging trails,
45:04
which he'd never done in his life.
45:06
Like it opened up a desire for him to live his life in a more whole way, holistic way.
45:14
And that's the essence of this is, what are you putting in your body that's slowing it down?
45:25
You know, my cousin had a vegetable oil-based butter on the table and I refused it.
45:31
She said, but it says it's healthy.
45:32
And I was like, that's not healthy, that's seed oil.
45:36
And she doesn't know what seed oil is, but the label says it's heart healthy because
45:40
it's vegetable oil.
45:41
And that's what they're allowed to claim because of what they've pushed through.
45:47
She had real butter in the fridge, but she had heard that that wasn't healthy.
45:51
And she probably thought because you're the healthy one, you would like that better.
45:53
You probably bought it for me.
45:55
That's so funny.
45:56
I went to a restaurant to an ocean prime with a friend of mine.
46:01
You know David already?
46:03
You may know.
46:04
Dry farm wines, David.
46:05
I've heard of him.
46:06
Yeah.
46:07
We went to ocean prime for dinner a couple weeks ago and I ordered a salad and I said,
46:10
but can you tell me what's in the dressing?
46:12
Because it's some weird house name, you know, oh, I'm like, I don't do seed oils.
46:17
I want to make sure that's not there.
46:18
And he came out later.
46:19
They brought the salad and I was like, but you never told me what was in the dressing.
46:22
So I'm not eating the salad until you tell me what's here.
46:25
And he says to me, oh, we don't put seed oils in anything here.
46:29
We're seed oil free.
46:30
And I'm like, really?
46:31
Like that's actually really impressive.
46:33
I'm so had to hear that.
46:34
And he's like, and then he continued.
46:36
And I was like, okay, thank you.
46:37
I really appreciate you telling me that.
46:39
Fortunately, he continued and he said, it's all made with canola oil.
46:44
And I looked at my what?
46:46
And he's like, well, canoto oil is not seed oil.
46:48
That's made from corn.
46:50
And he went, canola oil is literally made from rapeseed.
46:54
Like, what are you talking about?
46:55
And he's like, and he just stopped.
46:59
And I'm like, what?
47:01
And I immediately, and what I had told him going in,
47:03
I was like, I have an allergy towards seed oils.
47:07
And it's like, and you sold me that nothing was here.
47:09
Like, I'm not really allergic to seed oils,
47:11
but that's, it's the easiest way to get the chef to engage.
47:14
And I was like, man, like, there's just people just don't, just don't know.
47:20
And they don't know what they don't know.
47:23
And it's like, this journey is like,
47:25
death by a thousand paper cuts,
47:27
trying to, trying to like, well, are you sleeping?
47:30
Are you eating McDonald's?
47:31
Are you this?
47:32
And it's like, I've got a friend of mine
47:33
who's probably three hundred, three hundred and fifty pounds.
47:37
You know, and she'll sit and tell you that people don't understand,
47:40
you know, what having an underactive thyroid is like.
47:44
And I'm like, nobody just watched you polish off
47:47
an entire platter of fried food, you know, with a Coke.
47:53
And it's like, and I'm not judging you based on that
47:55
because you get to choose your own adventure.
47:59
But when people, when the red pill shows up,
48:04
and they start to want to know things, it's overwhelming.
48:07
It's like, they break out of the matrix.
48:09
And it's like, and then all of a sudden, my best friend is an O R nurse.
48:13
And we had dinner when I was in town a couple of months ago.
48:16
And he's like, bro, like, I got to ask you.
48:18
And he's like, he's die hard medical.
48:21
He's been a nurse in the O R for 30 years.
48:25
And it's medicine, medicine, medicine, right?
48:29
Like this is it.
48:30
He's training and he finally goes, all right, I give up.
48:33
And he goes, you know, I don't, this is what's going on.
48:38
What do you recommend?
48:39
And I'm like, that's hilarious to me that you work in a hospital.
48:42
You're a nurse practitioner.
48:45
You are literally that the head of the department
48:49
where you work at a hospital, at a prestigious hospital.
48:53
And we're over dinner and you're asking me medical advice.
48:56
And I was like, good.
48:59
And he's like, and he's like, I trust you.
49:02
And as like, and we start having a meaningful conversation
49:05
because he's just like, I just, I can't seem to, to crack.
49:08
I need to lose some weight.
49:09
I can't seem to do this, you know, blah, blah.
49:11
He started getting into like some megalotide injections
49:14
and all this other kind of stuff.
49:15
And he's like, I just, and I'm like, because that, that, that, that,
49:17
and I start going through stuff.
49:18
And he's just like, wow, and he's like, how do you know this?
49:21
I'm like, because it's a journey, like, it's a journey.
49:23
Like everyone, you're going to have to go on it, find a guide.
49:27
You know, get yourself a Gandalf, like, like, get yourself a Gandalf.
49:31
Get yourself a Gandalf because the journey to Mordor
49:33
is not going to be done by yourself.
49:35
Like, and I think that's true of everybody in this space.
49:37
Like if you want to get healthy, like, find a partner
49:40
who's going to be a few steps ahead of you
49:43
to help you on that way, because part of it,
49:45
I think it gets discouraging for people.
49:47
I have a website called rootcauzdatabase.com
49:50
that runs through daily routines.
49:53
The chemicals you're exposed to in those routines
49:55
and substitutes that you can find on Amazon
49:59
for the products that have these chemicals.
50:01
Oh, that's fantastic.
50:02
And then it links the chemicals in the health conditions back
50:04
and forth.
50:05
rootcauzdatabase.com
50:07
rootcauzdatabase.com, I don't even know that existed.
50:09
That's amazing.
50:09
Yeah.
50:10
I built it with AI.
50:11
That's amazing, even better.
50:13
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Sandy Martin
50:16
and we are thrilled that she's been able to join us.
50:18
Please go check out her book, biohackingstartswithno.com.
50:22
Available on Amazon?
50:23
It is.
50:24
Available on Amazon.
50:25
Is it, can we, well, by the time this publishes,
50:27
the paperbacks will be available now.
50:30
Oh, it's available now.
50:30
Perfect.
50:31
So available now, biohackingstartswithno
50:34
figure out how to get to rootcauzdatabase.com also.
50:38
And find out you'll learn about everything
50:40
from cleaning supplies to deodorants to anything
50:44
that you get exposed to in your home and you would be shocked.
50:47
I just heard recently seed oils make up,
50:50
they say statistically, seed oils make up 20% of the calories
50:54
that an American intakes in a day.
50:57
Like how in the world is 20% of the calories coming
51:00
from a seed oil?
51:02
And most people have no idea what that even is.
51:04
But we're just consuming it ignorantly and not realizing it.
51:07
The same way that we're spraying cologne
51:09
and we're using Windex and we're doing all of these things,
51:12
chemical based things that we expose ourselves to.
51:14
And I'm going to tell you, seed oils,
51:16
the hardest thing for me with seed oils is not food.
51:20
It was actually, like, I'm a person,
51:22
I like going and getting a massage.
51:25
And it was realizing that all of the lotions and oils
51:29
and stuff that massage therapists use
51:32
are normally sunflower seed based.
51:34
Wow.
51:35
So literally, you're just rubbing it all over
51:38
the largest organ of your body and absorbing it.
51:41
And I'll tell you who actually put me onto that.
51:43
Was you know them?
51:45
Randy and Rob, happy healthy guys?
51:48
No.
51:49
Yeah, Randy John's and Rob Vasquez
51:52
because they do a full seed oil detox weight loss program.
51:57
And one of the things that they point out
51:58
is that sure you can clean up your diet
52:01
and all this other kind of stuff,
52:02
that you cannot use lotions or oils
52:05
or anything on your skin and pay attention
52:08
to your soaps, your shampoos and everything
52:10
because they all have this oil based on
52:12
because the oil actually helps the cohesion of the product
52:16
so that it keeps its form factor.
52:19
And I was like, what in the name of all things holy
52:22
and I started turning over every bottle in my house
52:25
and like holy smokes, like literally just every oil,
52:30
every everything and it's so funny
52:31
because I went and got a massage last week
52:34
and I took a bottle of avocado oil,
52:36
not like grocery store stuff, but like I bought
52:38
a bottle of massage oil and I'm like,
52:41
I'm taking it with me to the appointment.
52:43
I'm like, can you use this?
52:44
Like this is avocado based.
52:46
And the therapist was like, sure.
52:49
Like I suppose we can do that.
52:51
And I was like, I have an allergy to a lot of stuff.
52:54
Like if you could please just, you know,
52:55
whatever crazy as that is.
52:57
But guys, there's so much stuff.
52:59
Go to help me again with the name,
53:01
the root cause database.com.
53:04
Look at the list of things
53:05
that you're actually exposing yourself to.
53:07
I think you'll be shocked.
53:08
Check out biohackingstartswithno.com.
53:11
Everything's in the show notes.
53:12
Sandy, we just appreciate you being here with us today
53:14
and sharing your experience.
53:15
That's very vulnerable for you to share this experience you had.
53:19
And I'm glad that you're actually taking your pain,
53:21
turning into your purpose
53:22
and then we all get to benefit from it.
53:24
Thank you.