Latest / Love Your Gut / Ep. 82: Histamine Intolerance, MCAS, and Your Gut: What’s Really Going On with Michelle Shapiro

Transcript

Ep. 82: Histamine Intolerance, MCAS, and Your Gut: What’s Really Going On with Michelle Shapiro · Love Your Gut

• 0:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast.
• 0:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist.
• 0:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain.
• 0:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues.
• 0:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: And now I'm here to guide you.
• 0:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort.
• 0:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good.
• 0:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back.
• 0:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief.
• 0:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: You are in the right place.
• 0:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the love your gut podcast.
• 0:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome back to the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast.
• 0:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm so excited to be here today with Michelle.
• 1:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: I feel like this has been a long time coming.
• 1:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: We've been chatting for like 20 minutes Off air should have just pressed record.
• 1:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: But Michelle, welcome to the podcast, Dr.
• 1:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather.
• 1:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm so excited to be here.
• 1:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm really excited to be here.
• 1:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 1:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you spoke in gut practitioner, what was that like a couple months ago and you were a hit, and ever since I'm like, I have to have you on the podcast because histamines and MCAS and all the things is something that I talk about, but not too much.
• 1:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I figured why not have the actual expert come on here and talk about it.
• 1:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: So why don't you just tell us why Histamines MCAS, why does that matter?
• 1:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: You and then maybe like what exactly are histamines and why do they matter for gut health?
• 1:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Just for someone listening because they might not know.
• 1:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, absolutely.
• 1:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: We'll kind of go back to the basics.
• 1:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 1:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I live in what I've kind of named a highly sensitive body, and it took a long time for me to understand my highly sensitive body.
• 1:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it took a lot of going through what I would say is like both conventional medical means and functional medical means.
• 2:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: And no matter what I did.
• 2:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: Especially in the last five years, it seemed like I was getting sicker and sicker, and it didn't make sense.
• 2:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: I would go to the best functional medicine doctors, the best naturopathic physicians, and I would get something like an iv, and then I would have what looked like a flu for a week, or I would go get a massage or lymphatic drainage or go to a sauna.
• 2:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: Again, violently ill, I mean, insomnia, tremors, dizziness, um, nausea, gut issues, um, in your domain.
• 2:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: Of course, many, many in your domain.
• 2:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: And really just could not put the pieces together for myself.
• 2:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it really took, it was after, um, my first COVID exposure that these symptoms seemed to really skyrocket.
• 2:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: I had both a COVID exposure.
• 2:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: And a mold exposure.
• 2:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: And as, as I was detoxing from the mold, I got much sicker and I was like, wait a second.
• 2:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: This mold detox is supposed to make me feel better, not worse.
• 2:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it really confused me.
• 2:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: And so it was my self-discovery from basically being at a point where I couldn't walk.
• 3:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was in a neck brace and a back brace for over six months.
• 3:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I had to crawl a lot of the time when I needed to do things.
• 3:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I had a chiropractic injury, this mold exposure.
• 3:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and this COVID exposure and that together just created this new level of illness that I had never experienced before.
• 3:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then I started to see that clients were experiencing this too.
• 3:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it was like many of us practitioners, it was my eagerness to figure out what the heck is going on in my own body, and if I can figure this out for myself.
• 3:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: I hopefully can figure it out for other people as well.
• 3:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so that's what brought me into this specific sphere because I had actually been working with different clients and I still do.
• 3:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and my team still does for many years before.
• 3:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then I saw after COVID there was this huge increase in this kind of new type of feeling, terrible, um, that I desperately sought answers to, um, for both myself and clients.
• 3:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: So interesting.
• 3:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it was really like, you can pinpoint it was COVID and then mold kind of coupled together that just made you feel so sick.
• 4:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: Did you, were you kind of a sick kid or do you feel like you were highly sensitive as a, as a kid with lots of reactions or anything, or, no one's ever asked me that on a podcast.
• 4:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's so interesting.
• 4:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, I'm a pretty atypical MCAS person.
• 4:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: I don't get any.
• 4:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: I don't sneeze, I don't get any rashes.
• 4:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: I don't have any of what you would think of as like typical allergy symptoms.
• 4:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: I really get like nervous system driven symptoms in an extreme way.
• 4:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: And gut driven symptoms I like to say about mast cells.
• 4:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: And of course we're gonna define what mast cells are, but they really show you your weak spots.
• 4:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: They really show you whatever that symptom is that you don't want is the exact symptom you're gonna get.
• 4:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: So for me, I hate feeling dizzy.
• 4:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: I hate feeling off kilter.
• 4:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, that's the symptom that comes up for me.
• 4:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it really depends on the person.
• 4:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: And because mast cells, which are, are a type of immune cell, they're a type of white blood cell, uh, part of our immune system.
• 5:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: They are literally in all of our connective tissue and in every single part, connective tissue lines, our joints, our bones, our blood vessels, and also mast cells line all of our organs as well.
• 5:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: There's connective tissue in our organ, uh, tissue.
• 5:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Uh, a layer of our organ tissue.
• 5:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can really get symptoms from mast cells anywhere in the body and depends on the person.
• 5:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the answer is actually, I was a kid who like got strep once.
• 5:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: I think I was on antibiotics like once.
• 5:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was never sick.
• 5:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: I never had, um, like any sort of rashes, gut issues until I started having really debilitating panic attacks and anxiety, um, in college.
• 5:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then kind of started feeling like a sick.
• 5:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: Person.
• 5:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I also had in high school, lost a hundred pounds going into college.
• 5:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: I always occupied a larger body when I was younger.
• 5:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: And rapidly lost weight to go to school.
• 5:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I literally was like, oh, people aren't gonna like know me when I go to college.
• 5:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: I have to like present differently because I grew up in Queens, New York.
• 6:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: It was no problem living in a larger body.
• 6:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: I had the most friends, great grades, like beautiful life, a place where all types of body diversity and diversity in general.
• 6:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: It was celebrated and I was going to the University of Delaware.
• 6:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um.
• 6:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: A much more homogenous place and I was like, I need to lose weight.
• 6:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it really was the weight loss part that made me feel sicker.
• 6:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that's that paradoxical piece of my body.
• 6:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's not the mold that made me feel sick, it's the mold detox that made me feel sick.
• 6:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's not carrying extra weight, it's losing weight rapidly.
• 6:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: So my body does not respond well to any sort of strong changes.
• 6:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so I didn't really, again, assume that sickness identity until after.
• 6:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: The weight loss and, uh, didn't experience.
• 6:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, no, not as a kid.
• 6:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: Uh, wasn't really sick ever.
• 6:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: So interesting.
• 6:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's so crazy how with histamine and MAs cell stuff, it can present so differently.
• 6:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: And you kind of alluded to that.
• 6:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: So tell us, I guess we often hear histamine intolerance.
• 7:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: I feel like that's probably the most common phrase, at least that I hear.
• 7:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: Histamine intolerance.
• 7:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: How is that different from mast cell activation and like what are the types of symptoms that somebody might experience?
• 7:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause.
• 7:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: As you know, and we know it could literally be so many different things.
• 7:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 7:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes, absolutely.
• 7:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: So our mast cells are these type of white blood cells.
• 7:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: And what happens is they have, they're, they're helpful to us in many ways to help us respond to threat or perceived threat inside of the body.
• 7:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: They will direct resources, they will direct immune cells, they will direct nutrients and blood flow so that when there is some sort of, again, perceived threat or real threat.
• 7:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: We can help the body to recover from it or defend against it.
• 7:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I think of our mast cells, um, as kind of like if there's a, a watchtower, they're kind of like the guards on the watchtower and they're always looking to see what's happened here inside of our mast cells.
• 7:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: There are different types of chemical messengers in kind of like these.
• 7:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: Sacks and they will get released when they perceive that threat or that threat is real.
• 8:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's when the guards in the watchtower are like, go, go, go.
• 8:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: And they start sending everything.
• 8:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, in the case of mast cell activation syndrome, those mast cells are constantly, constantly being activated and then they're sending out these 1200 plus chemical messengers.
• 8:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: One of those chemical messengers is histamine.
• 8:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: And we hear the most about it because I think it creates some of the gnarliest symptoms, unfortunately.
• 8:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so the issue is not that our mast cells are, it's not like you have a, uh, hypoactive immune response.
• 8:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's not an autoimmune response.
• 8:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's a hyperimmune.
• 8:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: Response in a body that's hypervigilant, essentially.
• 8:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: So your body is constantly on and it's constantly sending these signals.
• 8:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's not bad that the body does that.
• 8:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: The problem is that when you have too many of these mediators floating around, and some other ones that people may have heard of, like cytokines, prostaglandins, interleukin six, these are ones that we associate with inflammation, uh, generally.
• 8:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, because being in mast cell activation is a state of inflammation.
• 9:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's chronic immune activation, which is inflammation.
• 9:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um.
• 9:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: They, it's that these messengers create new symptoms.
• 9:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you have a bunch of histamine floating around in your bloodstream and that causes these new symptoms.
• 9:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so what happened also with the COVID pandemic specifically, was that COVID has this really special relationship with mast cells.
• 9:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mast cells have a certain receptor on the outside of them.
• 9:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: When something attaches to the receptor, they release the chemical messengers inside.
• 9:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: All these communicators and unfortunately, COVID attaches and attacks the ACE two receptor on the outside of mast cells.
• 9:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that is why so many people had what looked like long COVID or was diagnosed as long COVID, um, I really think of as a combination of MCAS and maybe some other, uh, pieces as well, like pots and hypermobility.
• 9:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: But, um, that's what happened in the past few years when we saw the people.
• 9:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: Why are we all talking about histamines now?
• 9:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's because it caused this surge in this histamine response, uh, when those receptors were attached.
• 9:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: So histamine's goal in our body is to, again, respond to threat.
• 10:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: One of the things that it does, very importantly, is it causes something called vasodilation, which is the opening and widening of our blood vessels, so that it almost creates like a slide in your body.
• 10:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: If your blood vessels are wide open, you can just send anything down really quickly, right?
• 10:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: If they're squeezed tight, you can't.
• 10:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: Push anything through as quick.
• 10:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's like kind of like opening up those traffic lanes in the body.
• 10:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: That can create a lot of problems if your blood vessels are wide open because you don't get that pumping mechanism that would lead to good blood flow in the brain and heart.
• 10:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: So one of the common symptoms we see with histamine issues is.
• 10:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Tech, fast, heart rate, dizziness, um, migraines can be a, a cause, um, can be caused by lack of, uh, appropriate blood flow, um, especially to your brain of course, and a, a lot of body pain as an experience.
• 10:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: People have histamines.
• 10:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Job is to kind of keep us alert and aroused and ready for any threats.
• 10:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: So also people can experience an extreme amount of anxiety.
• 10:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I describe that anxiety as being tremendously physical, almost like ants crawling under your skin.
• 11:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, you know, that's that heart pounding anxiety.
• 11:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, of course that.
• 11:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Thoughts can follow, but it's, it's very physical, this feeling.
• 11:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I had tremors also that would last like all night.
• 11:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and insomnia is really common with histamine issues as well.
• 11:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: More common histamine symptoms that we do know about, of course, are what we would take antihistamines for, right?
• 11:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like seasonal allergies, um, sinus issues.
• 11:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Rashes, um, reactions to food.
• 11:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then, um, other very common symptoms of histamine issues are chronic, um, urination, feeling of fullness in the bladder, and a, a sensation of inflammation in the bladder.
• 11:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, waking up in the middle of the night to pee, uh, waking up at all in the middle of the night because of the insomnia piece, and then a tremendous amount of gut issues.
• 11:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Acid reflux is closely linked to histamine issues as well as I see both a combination of constipation or diarrhea, depending on where you tend.
• 11:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then.
• 11:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, depressive symptoms and anything that can come from, uh, neurotransmitter issues or nervous system issues.
• 12:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's so interesting because, I mean, I think you kind of already answered this indirectly, but histamine issues are so often missed or misdiagnosed in traditional medical settings.
• 12:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: In your experience and in your opinion, do you think it's just because it could be, I mean, literally the symptoms could be all across the board.
• 12:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: We just don't know.
• 12:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: Great question.
• 12:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: I mean, if you, Heather, if your heart was pounding outta your chest, where are you going?
• 12:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: Are you going to the immunologist's office?
• 12:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: Are you going to the allergist?
• 12:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: Right?
• 12:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: No.
• 12:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: You're probably going to the ER cardiologist.
• 12:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: Exactly.
• 12:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: There is no world in which if your heart is pounding out of your chest, you are going to be sent to an allergist.
• 12:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that is the problem with histamine symptoms.
• 12:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: They look nothing like what's going on on the inside.
• 12:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: They don't look like immune conditions.
• 12:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: They look like whatever the symptoms are and a lot of histamine issues'cause they can cause slight variations in in body temperature, certainly heart rate, blood pressure.
• 12:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: They look like emergency symptoms.
• 13:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: They look like you need to go to the er, right?
• 13:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Those are all, they can change your respiratory rate.
• 13:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: They can change your O2 saturation.
• 13:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: I mean, these are the exact reasons you would go to the er.
• 13:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is what any doctor would tell you.
• 13:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: Please go to the ER with, and by the way, I invite people, please go to the ER if you have any drastic symptoms.
• 13:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: But they're not gonna be able to get to the root cause there, because it's so, it's, it's, so, the way our medical system is lined up is that each body part.
• 13:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: Is so fragmented and segmented.
• 13:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: You go to the heart doctor for the heart stuff.
• 13:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: You go to the this, you know, you go to the neurologist for the headaches.
• 13:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: It.
• 13:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: There's no one really to put the full picture together, but I think we're getting better at it.
• 13:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: But that's why I don't even blame doctors.
• 13:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause if I'm a cardiologist, I'm gonna run an EKG, an echocardiogram.
• 13:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: I am not going to say, Hmm.
• 13:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: Is your heart pounding outta your chest?
• 13:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: Because of a histamine issue.
• 13:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like they're gonna check all their boxes so that they're not missing something major.
• 13:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, totally.
• 13:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: They're gonna look at the organs and how they're functioning.
• 13:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: They're not gonna look at what's making those organs act in an interesting or unique or unpleasant way, because it's not what.
• 14:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: That their job is, to be honest with you, and I don't blame them for it, their job is to make sure there's nothing emergent happening.
• 14:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and some cardiologists do treat pots, which we're gonna talk about I'm sure as well.
• 14:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: But yeah, that's really why, and, and what I'm more nervous about, I would say, is that it's, you know, back in the day it used to be.
• 14:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: You go to a conventional medical doctor, conventional medicine fails you.
• 14:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: Where do you go?
• 14:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: You go to a functional medicine doctor and the promise of a functional medicine doctor is that they're going to be the ones they're if, if all else fails, you go to them.
• 14:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: They're the last stop on the train.
• 14:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Most of my clients come from functional medicine doctor's offices.
• 14:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Now, same.
• 14:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: They have been harmed, and certainly for you for years, this has been the case.
• 14:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: They have been harmed by functional medicine because a lot of the interventions like, Ooh, let's do a gut detox.
• 14:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Let's do a mold detox.
• 14:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Those create very drastic histamine issues because histamines will respond to those changes in the body, and our mast cells are always on alert.
• 14:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you create any large change or you try to really dig in.
• 15:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: The histamines, the mast cells and histamines will be very reactive.
• 15:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I'm seeing people get sicker in functional medicine doctor's offices, which again, I don't blame them for,'cause it's like a to, it's like playing four D chess sometimes with our immune system.
• 15:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Well, this is probably a rant for another day.
• 15:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: But I often tell clients that, you know, I'm on calls with, they're like, well, how is this different than the functional medicine doctor that I saw?
• 15:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I asked them, you know, what did they recommend?
• 15:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: What did you do?
• 15:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: Honestly, what they've done is no different than conventional medicine.
• 15:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: They were given like a bag of supplements and like probably told to eliminate a.
• 15:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: A ton of foods and that's it.
• 15:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I'm like, that's apathic medicine.
• 15:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: Thats allopathic medicine.
• 15:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 15:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's literally no different than conventional medicine where they're just stacking on medications and like true functional medicine is actually looking at like all the pieces of the puzzle, lifestyle, nutrition, like all of it.
• 15:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: And yeah, so that's a bone that I have to pick for another day.
• 15:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: But I mean, that's an, that's an episode for us.
• 16:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm telling you for sure.
• 16:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: Because I, I could cry, you know.
• 16:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: When I first became like from being a conventional dietician to a functional dietician, like the hope of functional medicine burned inside of me, I was like, this is it.
• 16:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I still do believe this is it, because functional medicine is not a pill for every ill.
• 16:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: Functional medicine is the belief that every single part of our body is.
• 16:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Interconnected that our body's like a seesaw.
• 16:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: You push one thing down, the other thing pops up, right?
• 16:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: That is every single thing in our spirit, in our connections with other people, everything is part of this big picture, and that's what the real heart of functional medicine is.
• 16:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it's, and it still should be.
• 16:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: And there's still many amazing practitioners and it's really hard.
• 16:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: When we've kind of gone into this, again, it's, it's the sa it's just a for-profit system, unfortunately, um, where we're just, again, giving supplements and if you give supplements to a body that's on alert, um, it will react to those supplements and you can get a lot sicker.
• 16:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so a lot of functional medicine doctors are very into IVs, detoxes, really aggressive modalities.
• 17:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then they say to a client who's getting sicker, oh, you're just having a herx reaction.
• 17:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 17:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's just a detox reaction.
• 17:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: In the case of histamine issues, if you're getting sicker, you're just getting sicker.
• 17:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: They're just get, you're just getting worse and now you have a new problem to deal with basically.
• 17:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's something really to notice that if you are working with a functional medicine doctor, you're getting sicker.
• 17:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: You're just getting sicker.
• 17:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 17:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: If it's eh, you feel a little off for a week or something, it's very different than if the symptoms are progressing.
• 17:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: Totally.
• 17:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: So kind of on that note, you know, obviously this podcast is about gut health and we obviously see a lot of things outside of gut health, but of course, what role does the gut play in regulating histamines related to like, of course, DAO microbiome, gut permeability, all of those things?
• 17:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Because to your point.
• 17:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: We have seen a lot of people similar where, oh, I did a SIBO protocol, or I did this protocol, and I, I couldn't tolerate it.
• 17:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: I felt horrible and they told me to just push through, or I needed to take more binders or, you know, whatever the like recommendation is.
• 18:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: But.
• 18:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: What role does the gut play?
• 18:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: And obviously we have to look outside of the gut and stabilize things there as well.
• 18:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: But yeah, hundred percent give kind of some insight there.
• 18:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, there's a lot of areas we can go into here for sure.
• 18:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: So one of the first things that I am going to think about is histamines and its relationship to acid reflux.
• 18:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 18:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: And the reason is they have a direct relationship.
• 18:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the more your body releases histamines, the more your body will release acid.
• 18:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: The more your body releases acid, the more your body releases histamines.
• 18:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: In functional medicine, we know everyone talks about all acid refluxes from too low of stomach acid.
• 18:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: Always Not in the case.
• 18:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Histamines usually, and it's not always exactly.
• 18:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: I know it could be 98% of the time.
• 18:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: And either way, even if that was what's driving it, if they're symptomatically having acid reflux issues, that then you know you're releasing acid that's creating a new state of inflammation and then your body's going to respond by releasing more histamines.
• 18:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mast cells do this really frustrating thing.
• 18:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: They're more active during inflammation, so it becomes this kind of vicious cycle.
• 19:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's one thing that I definitely wanna look out for is, is someone experiencing acid reflux?
• 19:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Very common with histamine issues with SIBO protocols.
• 19:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: E, whether it's an herbal protocol or antibiotic protocol, if you are going in and killing a bunch of bacteria.
• 19:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then your body can't get rid of the bacteria in ways of drainage or detoxification.
• 19:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: You're basically gonna recirculate those toxins.
• 19:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: And when you recirculate them, your immune system's gonna go, what the heck is that?
• 19:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: Let me mount a response on that.
• 19:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: I don't like what that is.
• 19:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then when you have that response mounted, you then have new issues basically,'cause that you'll get symptoms.
• 19:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: From the response it's mounting as well.
• 19:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's just really important with those protocols.
• 19:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: And Sibos very concurrent.
• 19:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: It happens a lot with histamine issues, um, because gut motility can be affected because histamines and the nerve, your immune system and nervous system work very closely together.
• 19:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: So, um, your basically the, the, just the actual action of.
• 20:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: Blood flow going towards the gut.
• 20:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: Muscle contraction can be, is controlled by the nervous system.
• 20:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if your nervous system's on fire, you can have altered gut motility, whether it be like.
• 20:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Really aggressive diarrhea or constipation.
• 20:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then as we know, and you definitely know Dr.
• 20:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather for sure, um, food sitting in our gut and fermenting because we're not moving it through our guts then is going to create new histamine issues as well.
• 20:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so it's, it can be really cyclical in that way.
• 20:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: And using really aggressive protocols when you don't have the drainage or detox capacity can lead to brand new issues essentially.
• 20:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: So what would you say to someone who's listening to this and going, okay, yes, that's me.
• 20:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've attempted a SIBO protocol multiple times and I always feel worse.
• 20:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like where with.
• 20:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Michelle, would you start, like what are you kind of looking at as far as like, okay, let's take a step back and let's like address these things, nervous system, et cetera.
• 21:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, you basically said it, but yeah, that's the, the rule is if we are addressing anything in the body that's a root cause.
• 21:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause SIBO can certainly be a root cause.
• 21:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: It also cannot be root cause, uh, as we know.
• 21:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: But you can't address the root cause and histamine issues until you've stabilized.
• 21:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your immune system and you stabilize your nervous system because if your immune system and your nervous system are firing, you know, very fast and and very aggressively, and that threat response is high, anything you throw at it is going to scare your body and create a new response.
• 21:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I just say it's really important to focus on stabilizing histamines, and that could be, that could be something as easy as eating a lower histamine diet or addressing stress.
• 21:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Really complicated.
• 21:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: I know it's like so much easier said than done.
• 21:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and, and then it can be something again, addressing the nervous system as simple as breathing or meditation or as something like taking herbal supplements that help support the nervous system, whatever it takes to get those two steps.
• 21:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: A approached first is essential.
• 21:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I would say if someone's going to approach a root cause protocol.
• 22:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: Even again, and I know the SIBO symptoms can be so debilitating, but at least taking a couple weeks to try to calm the body down first before, um, starting and initiating a protocol.
• 22:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then it's really hard because there's, there's rules and therapeutic doses, especially with herbals and sibo.
• 22:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: We have to go as slow as you can.
• 22:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and then it's really silly and really, um, it sounds very corny, but it's very true that when you're like taking these supplements or medications you like, have to work with and communicate with your body and be like, this is for us.
• 22:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is a nice thing that we're doing.
• 22:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: I love you body.
• 22:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is to help you and like try to create a landscape of healing also, I think is really, really important.
• 22:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: We talk to our clients all, all the time.
• 22:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Neuroplasticity is one of the things that we like really emphasize because, and probably similar to your clients, so many of our clients have had so many attempts at feeling better and they have this narrative of,, I can't tolerate X, Y, and Z, or I'll never be able to eat X, y, and z food.
• 23:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: And like changing those neuropathways can be so important.
• 23:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: But like you said, it's so tricky because.
• 23:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oftentimes, I think the second that someone hears stress in their nervous system is the root cause.
• 23:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: They're like, forget it, you know?
• 23:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like, I can't quit my job.
• 23:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: Totally.
• 23:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: I can't do this.
• 23:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: So what would you say, if that's kind of the mindset of, you know, kind of the connection between stress and the nervous system and histamine and, and all of that, like Yeah.
• 23:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: How it doesn't actually have to be.
• 23:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: Meditating on the beach for an hour a day in a fancy outfit.
• 23:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like, it's not, that's not really what we're getting at.
• 23:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, I have to be, I'm, I'm a Jewish New Yorker born and raised.
• 23:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's not our style.
• 23:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know what I mean?
• 23:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: It wouldn't, there was not, there's nothing soothing about what you just described to me.
• 23:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: I use the word safe, right?
• 23:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: We have to do whatever makes us feel safe.
• 23:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: For me, it's like blasting emo music.
• 23:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's what makes me feel safe.
• 23:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's like blasting rock and roll music.
• 23:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it has to be what makes you feel familiar and safe.
• 23:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: To you.
• 23:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's what it means.
• 23:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: And the other part of it is, you know, there was a time.
• 24:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: During the worst moments of my health where I literally, and I always look, I had a computer chair.
• 24:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was, I would sit on, I have like a day bed in my office that's like, kind of a couch, kind of a daybed.
• 24:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: I would sit there, I would lift myself onto the computer chair.
• 24:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause if my feet touch the floor, my heart would start pounding and I would wheel myself to the bathroom.
• 24:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then I would have to crawl basically to get to the bathroom.
• 24:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause I, if, if my feet touched the floor.
• 24:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was so dizzy.
• 24:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: I would be dizzy for days.
• 24:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: At that time, I had to recondition so, so substantially, and I remember standing in front of the mirror for a minute.
• 24:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I was just like so dizzy.
• 24:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I just said to myself like, I just don't think you're gonna like make it out of this.
• 24:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: I just don't.
• 24:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: I don't, I'm not seeing it.
• 24:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then some other like animalistic part of me was like, don't ever say that again.
• 24:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Do not ever say that again.
• 24:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it doesn't come down to, oh, I have to sit on a beach and meditate or do these things that are like cooling, calming.
• 24:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's just about finding that part of you that may seem irrational, but believes that there's some chance you can heal.
• 25:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: And the reason is with these.
• 25:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Syndromes and conditions particularly, they're extremely nervous system driven and the symptoms come from being in that nervous system state.
• 25:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I have a lot of my clients, as much as we can to be non-reactive to symptoms.
• 25:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it's so hard.
• 25:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: I mean, who is gonna have diarrhea 15 times a day and excruciating pain and be like, this is fine.
• 25:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know, but that's really what we have to get to.
• 25:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause the second you go, oh my God, this isn't fine, you're actually getting new symptoms.
• 25:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it really becomes cyclical and then your body anticipates.
• 25:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: The discomfort and then releases histamines on top of that.
• 25:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's this very weird thing where you have to like believe blindly that you are going to get better, visualize it, and anyone can do that.
• 25:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: You don't need time.
• 25:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: You just have to be a little silly about it, I think.
• 25:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 25:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's like that's not, stress reduction to me isn't like putting ice on your neck, even though it can be really helpful and, and cooling and nice, but it's about finding a way to find that part of you that believes in an irrational sense that you're going to heal.
• 25:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then finding little pockets of safety wherever it is, whatever that is.
• 26:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: I don't care if you're watching tv, you know, I know people are so weird about the, not weird, about like rationally, but so strong about like no blue light at night.
• 26:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like if you need to watch like old seasons of Sex in the City or something.
• 26:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: To like soothe'cause it's familiar and it's, your brain can calm down whatever that thing is for you get and, and find that identity of the person that once wasn't sick.
• 26:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I think that's really important too.
• 26:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: I love that.
• 26:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: I think that's such a good way of looking at it.
• 26:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: And honestly, I mean, if someone is reaching out to you or me, or even listening to this podcast, there obviously is some piece of them that believes they can get better.
• 26:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh yeah.
• 26:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know?
• 26:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: So like, you're already there.
• 26:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Lean into that piece.
• 26:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 26:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 26:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: You're already there.
• 26:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: I wanna circle back to pots, because you mentioned POTS earlier and we see a little bit of pots.
• 26:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I would say when I was seeing a lot more eating disorders, I saw even more pots.
• 26:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh yeah.
• 26:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, mm-hmm.
• 26:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: And you know, now we still see clients with disordered eating, I would say not like active eating disorders, but.
• 27:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know, the standard treatment for POTS is like, we'll just have three to five grams of sodium a day.
• 27:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Well, it's actually 10 grams, which is, is it 10 now?
• 27:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay, 10.
• 27:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 27:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: So, you know, you'll go to your doctor, you'll get like a massive recommendation for salt.
• 27:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: And although that can help, like you and I both know, there's a lot more to the story hundred percent when it comes to histamine and, and all these things.
• 27:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: So kind of walk us through that.
• 27:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: For anybody listening.
• 27:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: So we'll walk back even to the point of defining pots.
• 27:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Pots is postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
• 27:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that means you make a postural change and your heart starts pounding.
• 27:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay.
• 27:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: I wanna give the example of someone who, and if a client is listening to this or you know, they might identify with this, you're in the shower, you out of nowhere, look down and your legs are really red and you feel really dizzy, and you're like.
• 27:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: What's going on a second later, your heart starts pounding really fast.
• 27:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: So when histamines are an issue, they cause what we talked about before, vasodilation, the widening of the blood vessels.
• 27:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: So what happens is your blood drops down to your feet, and in the case of pots, it may not, your heart may not react to pump the blood back up.
• 28:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: The reason you see the redness in your legs is there's.
• 28:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: Blood pooling, literally blood that's pooling in your legs, and then your heart and your brain are going, hello, we need the blood flow up here.
• 28:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: So your heart starts pounding really fast.
• 28:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the heart fast, the the fast and hard.
• 28:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: Pounding you feel is to get blood flow back up.
• 28:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: So often the, and, and often the recommendation for POTS is, is like we said, 10 grams of salt, which you have to picture those little element T like element sodium, that's they're one gram each, so that's 10 element packets a day.
• 28:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is an extreme amount of salt, which most people don't need that much or can meet that need, but some, some do.
• 28:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the goal for.
• 28:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: That type of approach is that there's different types of pots.
• 28:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: One of them is something called hypovolemic pots, and the the deal is your blood volume is too low, that it doesn't have enough to pump and bring the blood flow back up.
• 28:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's the goal.
• 28:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Now, this is the most interesting thing in the world, and I'm obsessed with this, okay?
• 28:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: Pots.
• 28:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: Is a form of would, if we were gonna categorize it, we would say, oh, it's probably a cardiac, this has to be a cardiac condition.
• 29:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's actually a form of dysautonomia.
• 29:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 29:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's a form of dysfunction of our autonomic nervous system.
• 29:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: It is a nervous system disorder, which makes no sense to people because how could that be?
• 29:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your nervous system will tell your brain, send blood.
• 29:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: Contract this muscle, so it's coming from your brain.
• 29:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the treatment for POTS that's conventional is, well, let's just add a bunch of salt, make the blood volume bigger so that the blood pumps.
• 29:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: More efficiently, or I say it's kinda like making your body like a Go-Gurt tube.
• 29:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: You like wear compression socks, you wear an abdominal binder and you squeeze the body.
• 29:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the pressure goes up.
• 29:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Basically if you think about like squeezing the middle of that Go-Gurt tube and the blood flow will go up, right?
• 29:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 29:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's the goal.
• 29:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Or you lay with your legs on a wall.
• 29:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Basically just anything to help the body's mechanism.
• 29:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Put the blood up please.
• 29:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause the body's doing it for you and compensating.
• 29:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: But the real ultimate treatment for POTS is you have to address the nervous system, right?
• 29:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: Because if the nervous system is in the right, not constantly sympathetic state, and you get in the parasympathetic state, then it'll say, oh.
• 30:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: You're supposed to send blood flow here it, this is the muscle that's supposed to contract, and that is the core and crux of it.
• 30:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: So a lot of the treatment programs for MCAS and POTS are actually limbic system retraining programs like the Gupta program, primal Trusts, because we know these are brain-based conditions, which is fascinating.
• 30:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: Of course, the immune system involved, of course the cardiac system becomes involved, but the root cause of them is a nervous system.
• 30:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um.
• 30:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know, condition, which is, I, I, I've always thought fascinating and I think the relationship between MCAS and POTS is in this vasodilation piece is a huge component.
• 30:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's so interesting.
• 30:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know, going back to like 2020, I, I think I was like patient X for COVID.
• 30:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: I think I had it like right before, like the world shut down.
• 30:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was sicker than I've ever been.
• 30:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: March, 2020.
• 30:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: You were, that was it.
• 30:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: No, it was like February.
• 30:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like I, it was like before everything.
• 30:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: I like swear that I was one of the first people that had it.
• 31:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: I, I could be totally wrong, but I was so sick for like two weeks.
• 31:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: I, I've never been sicker in my life.
• 31:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm so sorry.
• 31:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: It was crazy because several months after that I started having POTS related symptoms, and at the time I was developing the Gut Together program.
• 31:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 31:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: And the Gupta program is like a big recommendation that we give to our clients and something that I did.
• 31:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Symptoms gone, so I know.
• 31:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's so cool.
• 31:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, I, first of all, he's so cool.
• 31:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: The creator, Ash Gupta had him on my podcast.
• 31:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: He was like, so cool.
• 31:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: Love that.
• 31:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: And the program's incredible.
• 31:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: I have a little bit of a preference because I've been through it, but I've only seen parts of Primal Trust, um, and DNRS.
• 31:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've only seen parts, but yeah, it's.
• 31:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's really incredible and the idea that you're treating this immune condition that shows up like a heart condition by treating the brain.
• 31:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's so fascinating.
• 31:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: And, and then once you get it, you get it.
• 31:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it wasn't until that all those symptoms I was describing were really pot symptoms, right.
• 31:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: When I, when I would stand up mm-hmm.
• 31:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: The blood changes and the dizziness, they only got better when I started working with my limbic and nervous system.
• 32:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's so true.
• 32:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: I mean, my husband was, would get so worried because I'd stand up and I'd be like, so dizzy, blacking out, like holding onto something so I didn't fall over.
• 32:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: And he's like, you need to go to a cardiologist.
• 32:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like I'm really worried.
• 32:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: Hundred percent.
• 32:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I mean, I was so close to being like, is there a problem?
• 32:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then it just.
• 32:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like slowly started getting better and I'm like, that's the only thing that was different.
• 32:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's wild to me.
• 32:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then when I dealt with mold, same thing.
• 32:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like the limbic system is such a big piece.
• 32:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: So Yeah.
• 32:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: And our limbic system that I know we've mentioned, and I'll walk back to is three brain structures, our amygdala, our hippocampus, and our hypothalamus.
• 32:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: And they will process threat, same thing.
• 32:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: And they will also prepare your body using memory.
• 32:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: If this happens, we don't want it to happen again.
• 32:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: Let's prepare.
• 32:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your limbic system communicates directly with your nervous system and your immune system.
• 32:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, histamines can also be released from and created in your hypothalamus.
• 32:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so that is why you get that extra alertness anxiety that can happen.
• 32:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Uh, this link between you having.
• 32:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: A COVID virus and that turning into this pots, you don't know how long it took all of us to figure this all out because it was so, it so doesn't make sense.
• 33:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause it didn't happen with other viruses.
• 33:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: It never'cause the, the flu doesn't attach to mast cells, you know, and in the same way, like the seasonal flu, right.
• 33:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm sure it does in some capacity, but certainly not to this level.
• 33:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: So.
• 33:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: For me, it was like figuring out, I literally would just type into, I would just type into like Google, like pre pre-chat GPT.
• 33:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was like, why dizzy on day nine cycle?
• 33:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like I just, and what's the answer you get from that?
• 33:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: Right?
• 33:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like, I had to go on Reddit and be like, what the heck is going on it?
• 33:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: It really was when I saw a study.
• 33:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: About long COVID patients, and the study was studying 16 long COVID patients and they had severe fatigue symptoms and they gave them 80 milligrams of Famotidine, Pepcid.
• 33:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I was like, and then 80% of their symptoms resolved.
• 33:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I was like, what?
• 33:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was like, why is this acid blocking drug helping with fatigue symptoms?
• 33:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then I.
• 34:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh wait, Pepcid also an antihistamine.
• 34:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: Wait, wait, wait.
• 34:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: I didn't even realize that at the time.
• 34:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: No one would realize that, of course, at the time.
• 34:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it took me like, I was like, oh, there's a thread and the thread is histamines and, and it took me tying so many different things together and really a lot of self-discovery because how do you get from point A to point B, right?
• 34:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's like impossible.
• 34:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I don't blame even again, practitioners for not getting there.
• 34:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: But now, after five years of COVID, I we're starting to see these predictable patterns, and I've really never seen someone with p.
• 34:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: Who do not have M Cs.
• 34:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's very rare.
• 34:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: There's a couple like people who were maybe had a history of eating disorders and were childhood athletes who I've seen with POTS that don't really have histamine issues.
• 34:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: But in the COVID context, I've never seen someone with POTS who doesn't have histamine issues.
• 34:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: And again, if you went to a neurologist for pots, they're still not gonna look at histamines because of the fragmentation of our healthcare system.
• 34:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you bring up two points and things that I wanted to mention.
• 34:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Histamines and hormones.
• 34:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: You mentioned day nine, and then also Pepcid and antihistamines, Zyrtec, et cetera.
• 35:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: So when you spoke in gut practitioner, you talked about kind of like this, like trial you could have clients do, like try Pepcid for, I think you said, three days or something, and see if your symptoms resolve.
• 35:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um.
• 35:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: Talk us through that.
• 35:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then also maybe we can bring in like the hormone connection as well.
• 35:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 35:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: And something I have to mention is, of course, this is not medical advice.
• 35:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is not medical recommendations.
• 35:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 35:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: In any capacity.
• 35:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: And everyone will have a different reaction to every single over the counter medication, every single supplement, especially in this population.
• 35:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: So know that you can get these over the counter.
• 35:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: It does not mean that you will react the same way as anyone else.
• 35:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that's just something I have to mention.
• 35:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so.
• 35:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: Again, why did I become a functional dietician so I could be talking about over the counter medications?
• 35:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: No way.
• 35:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: I never thought I would be talking about over the counter medications, you know?
• 35:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um.
• 35:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's really interesting.
• 35:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: I have a friend who a lot of people know on Instagram is organic, Olivia, but she mm-hmm.
• 35:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know, I'll, I'll, of course I'll call her Olivia.
• 35:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: Olivia wrote an article a long time for her company, and they said in the article like, well, what is your ultimate travel emergency, you know, pack?
• 36:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: And she said, I always have Benadryl in there because Benadryl helps with everything.
• 36:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: I said, Olivia, the fact that you didn't know you had a histamine issue.
• 36:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: When you wrote this article, I was like, Benadryl doesn't help anyone with anything unless you have a histamine issue.
• 36:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like, she's like, this is the thing that will cure every ailment in my body.
• 36:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm like, yeah,'cause your, if your ailment iss a histamine issue, it'll, it'll help.
• 36:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you have a histamine issue and you respond really well to antihistamines.
• 36:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: You know, you'll, you'll get an understanding that potentially this is what's going on, and I'm getting some relief from this.
• 36:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: A lot of clients are very hesitant to take over the counter medications, especially if they've been in like the natural world, the holistic world, the functional world for a long time.
• 36:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, but I've seen that some people really do.
• 36:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: Need them.
• 36:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and from a hormone perspective, and I'm doing a histamine hormone webinar at, on September 28th.
• 36:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay.
• 36:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'll put the, I'll put the link in the show notes.
• 36:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 36:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: With Amanda Montalvo, who people know on Instagram is the Hormone healing Rd.
• 36:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's gonna be nuts.
• 36:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'll be there.
• 36:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, exactly.
• 36:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 36:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's gonna be a little nuts.
• 36:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: I have to be honest, like this is, this is like heavy hitters.
• 37:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm very, very excited.
• 37:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: She's the most brilliant person I know, so I'm so excited.
• 37:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, for me, again, I was looking like.
• 37:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Why do I feel so bad the day my bleeding stops?
• 37:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like normally people, if you look online, what do they say?
• 37:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: The luteal phase.
• 37:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Everything's the luteal phase.
• 37:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: You feel so bad during, I was like, I feel amazing during the luteal phase.
• 37:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's the follicular phase I feel terrible in.
• 37:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that's because estrogen and histamine also have a direct relationship.
• 37:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: So as your body starts to release estrogen in, uh, preparation for ovulation, where it will peak in estrogen, of course that's when people start to notice symptoms.
• 37:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that'll start usually by the, you know, days.
• 37:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: Seven or eight in a 28 day cycle.
• 37:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, some people a little earlier, and that's where those histamine symptoms start coming up.
• 37:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if clients have any kind of histamine driven symptoms, that's where they can trial.
• 37:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, this three day period is the most symptomatic for me.
• 37:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is where I might wanna trial either natural antihistamines or over the counter antihistamines, whatever that looks like for them.
• 37:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: But the most important thing you can ever do when it comes to histamines is track.
• 38:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: Especially as a woman, tracking your cycle.
• 38:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause then you can see, oh, day 10 every month to not feel crazy.
• 38:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: When I would I, I just, it made me feel so sane when I would look at my calendar and be like.
• 38:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Day 20.
• 38:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: I got a headache last three months in a row.
• 38:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay, day 20 is a headache day.
• 38:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: I need to understand and prepare for that.
• 38:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay, day nine's a dizzy day.
• 38:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: I need to prepare for that.
• 38:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: So just understanding and tracking your cycle is important.
• 38:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I know we can sometimes get hypervigilant about it and I wouldn't recommend that as much we can avoid, but the validation of like, I know my body and I know what to expect is so helpful.
• 38:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then you can say, oh, I need to up antihistamines, whatever form again.
• 38:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: Natural or not.
• 38:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and then, or I need to, you know, take it easier these days, or I need to drink extra water if it's gonna be a headache day, whatever it is.
• 38:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: What about pregnancy?
• 38:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: So we've had clients who feel a lot better during pregnancy and then we have some, you know, maybe no change or maybe feel a little bit worse.
• 38:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 38:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: So walk us through how pregnancy would affect histamines.
• 39:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: Absolutely.
• 39:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the first cool thing about pregnancy is you do produce more Dao, which does help break down histamine in the gut, which is the placenta actually produces more Dao, which is DAO Oh, diamine.
• 39:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oxidate.
• 39:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: So cool to me.
• 39:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like how it's just so cool.
• 39:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, it's, yeah, it's immaculate.
• 39:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: I had this brilliant naturopathic physician who I was working with, and she also described that like when your immune system is so busy, like building new life and like creating an immune system and using your own, it kind of like diverts its efforts into growing the child as opposed to.
• 39:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Being hyperactive to all the symptoms and things around you.
• 39:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it can happen where MCAS sometimes it can be worse in pregnancy just because your estrogen's really high in pregnancy too.
• 39:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's not stabilizing.
• 39:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Progesterone is supposed to be mast cell stabilizing.
• 39:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: The other problem is, I mean, the other reason why pregnancy may be positive, there's other people who have more problems with it, and I'll talk about that, but is because your blood volume increases by 50%.
• 40:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's really nice for pots.
• 40:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you have hypovolemic pots.
• 40:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's really, really nice so people can feel a lot better.
• 40:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I notice pot symptoms get.
• 40:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Often a lot better.
• 40:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, but then you're also generally people are a lot more inactive and that can lead to deconditioning and that can, it really depends.
• 40:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, also you can become very, your blood sugar's much more erratic.
• 40:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, oftentimes it can be in pregnancy and actually in the first trimester, your, your insulin's more sensitive.
• 40:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you already tend towards low blood sugar, that can create more low blood sugar episodes.
• 40:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I've seen people with MCAS have worse acid reflux, worse morning sickness as well.
• 40:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, but I've also seen like the crazier huge MCAS symptoms get better, like we said, because your immune system has a new job to do as opposed to just being dramatic like my immune system is, you know?
• 40:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 40:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mine's pretty dramatic too, so I get it.
• 40:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: I think the best people's are.
• 40:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, I think that's the truth.
• 40:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: there was this joke growing up, like my family would always joke that like, I could look at something and get a rash, and I'm like, I mean, it's funny, but like, it's also true.
• 41:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: So, you know, I think that's me with like, um, empathy, physical pain.
• 41:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like, I, I can't, I couldn't, that was the truth.
• 41:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: I may not have been by a lot like a hype hypersensitive from a body perspective, but I was highly sensitive as a person and everything.
• 41:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: Everything mattered to me at all times in my life.
• 41:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: Everything was so important.
• 41:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Everyone else, everyone else was feeling I needed like a shield.
• 41:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: Even as a kid it was like I couldn't even like go on the soccer field.
• 41:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: My dad had to hold my hand, which is so funny'cause I am very extroverted and like love public speaking in front of thousands of people and have no problem with it.
• 41:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: But my dad had like hold my hand on the soccer field.
• 41:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: 'cause I was like, I don't know what the other kids are thinking or feeling.
• 41:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: And he's like, okay, that's not, you have to just kick the ball.
• 41:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: We're here to play soccer ball.
• 41:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, exactly.
• 41:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Just take the ball around.
• 41:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, I get it.
• 41:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's so hard.
• 41:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: So we've talked about a lot of things and someone might be thinking, well, would like a low histamine diet just fix all these problems?
• 41:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Walk us through that.
• 41:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: They already, they already know.
• 41:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: No, by the way, if they're here, they already know the, they've already tried that.
• 42:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 42:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: However, I will say this, the more high histamine foods we eat, the more our body produces histamines.
• 42:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's a very backwards, silly thing about our body, by the way.
• 42:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm like.
• 42:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: No, you have enough.
• 42:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: You don't need to make more.
• 42:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: But our body does this very frustrating thing.
• 42:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: So there are clients I have who could eat a tomato and end up in the hospital.
• 42:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: There are clients I have who could eat two bites of vinegar and they're stomach sick for three weeks.
• 42:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: It is often necessary to trial a lower histamine diet for some period of time, but.
• 42:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: Highest mean foods are the healthiest foods that we know of, right?
• 42:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you went to a gut health doctor or you went to Dr.
• 42:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather 10 years ago, you would've been like, have some fermented foods, have citrus fruits?
• 42:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 42:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Have like nato, Tempe, miso, bone broth, right?
• 42:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Vinegar, like they are all the things, some of the healthiest foods.
• 42:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Tomatoes, avocados, bananas, spinach, you could not create healthier foods than the high histamine foods.
• 42:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's just that it's causing this kind of sideways, odd reaction.
• 42:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: But they're not actually unhealthy in any capacity.
• 43:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: These foods, they just create unhealthy symptoms within us.
• 43:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's often necessary for people to, yes, sometimes trial, low histamine diet.
• 43:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: But if that's not your root cause, I have some clients who are huge histamine clients and they can crush vinegar and there's no problem with it.
• 43:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: I have some clients though, who go into a room and has a chemical smell.
• 43:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: They're sick for weeks.
• 43:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 43:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you, you really have to know your own triggers.
• 43:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: But often in the beginning when the body's hyperreactive, it's going to be hyperreactive to foods as well.
• 43:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: And the goal is to just lower the bucket, all of the histamine load, lower it as much as you possibly can for in the beginning.
• 43:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: So on that note, if someone is listening and they suspect histamine intolerance or Ma MCAS, or maybe they already know they have that, what would you suggest as like a first kind of practical step to start feeling better?
• 43:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah, the first thing I would do is get to know your symptoms.
• 43:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: So track them, notice them.
• 43:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: When I eat this, I notice I feel this way and it's not gonna be the same every time.
• 43:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: So don't expect the pattern's gonna be perfect if you are a woman.
• 44:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: What's going on with your cycle?
• 44:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: What are you noticing?
• 44:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: The first thing is getting to know your symptoms and getting to know where maybe there's a pattern you could recognize.
• 44:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's not about one-time reactions, but where we can pick up on patterns.
• 44:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: That would be the first thing.
• 44:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: The next is I would just start to assess.
• 44:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: What makes me feel safe, what makes me feel unsafe, and start to understand again, what are your personal triggers, whether it's food, whether it's stress, whatever those things are.
• 44:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: You don't have to do anything about them, but just inventory those things in your life.
• 44:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: That act of getting to know yourself is extremely soothing to your nervous system because when we can understand we can calm.
• 44:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 44:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's when we don't understand what's going on in our bodies and we say, oh my God, my heart is pounding and it's so freaking scary.
• 44:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: That is when we start to freak out and that's when the symptoms get much grander, which is so normal and human of course, to feel that way.
• 44:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: But when we understand ourselves, we start to heal.
• 44:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the first step is understand yourself and understand.
• 44:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Start to get to know your triggers.
• 44:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: Then you can trial at home a little bit of a lower histamine diet if you wanted to.
• 45:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's safe to do, but not in the long term.
• 45:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so just trialing.
• 45:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: Do I feel a little bit better?
• 45:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: It will take more than a couple days for you to, to notice that.
• 45:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then again, anything that drives safety, anything at all that drives safety for you.
• 45:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: I would also probably discontinue all supplements, you know, for the time being, especially if your reactions are really great.
• 45:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: And if you are trialing new supplements, you do one or one eighth of one for a week, and then you add in another one.
• 45:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mm-hmm.
• 45:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay.
• 45:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Very, very slow.
• 45:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 45:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: Slow is.
• 45:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: Is the key for all of this.
• 45:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: It it really is, yes.
• 45:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: Slowness in every way.
• 45:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Slowness in how you live, slowness in how you approach things.
• 45:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: It is MCAS makes us feel like we're on fire and we need to do everything we can to slow.
• 45:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 45:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: So what gives you hope in working with clients who struggle with histamines mast cell?
• 45:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: What gives you hope?
• 45:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, I've ne I've never felt more hopeful.
• 45:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Than I do now, which is the best feeling ever.
• 45:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, watching myself, watching all of our clients getting better.
• 46:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I've, I've seen people heal from just attending a freaking pod, watching let's do a podcast or watching a webinar.
• 46:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: I think the really exciting thing is we really get it now, like we're really starting to understand how, what's this landscape of our immune system and our nervous system, and I just have so much faith in the human spirit, and I have so much faith in our ability to heal and that our bodies want to heal and they don't.
• 46:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: They don't want to stay sick.
• 46:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I just have so much faith in us, and I've seen what looks like miracles every single day.
• 46:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: But it's not miracles.
• 46:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's because we get it now, and that's the truth.
• 46:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the more and more information we have, the more we can empower ourselves and the more success that we see other people experiencing, I think the better.
• 46:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, I, I just, I've never felt more hopeful.
• 46:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm like, we so got this.
• 46:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: I mean, there's really no level of sick someone can come to with me and I'm like, we're good.
• 46:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: We'll, we'll figure it out no matter what.
• 46:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: I love that.
• 46:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 46:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay.
• 46:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Well this has been amazing and so much good information.
• 46:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: So tell everybody where they can find you, work with you, podcasts, like all the things.
• 47:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Absolutely.
• 47:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, it was my joy and I'm so glad that we got to hang out before too, by the way.
• 47:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, so you can listen to older episodes of Quiet The Diet, which is my podcast.
• 47:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: I haven't recorded in a bit because I've been working on these, the, a lot of the histamine webinars and everything like that.
• 47:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um.
• 47:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm on.
• 47:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's really easy to find me everywhere.
• 47:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm on Instagram, Michelle Shapiro Rd.
• 47:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: My website Michelle Shapiro Rd.
• 47:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, we have an upcoming, um, histamine webinar with Amanda Montalvo, the Hormone Healing rd.
• 47:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh my God, I'm so excited.
• 47:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: We're gonna do P-M-S-P-M-D-D, endometriosis, PCOS, pre-pregnancy, during pregnancy, post-pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause.
• 47:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it's all gonna be, it's gonna be like eight hours long.
• 47:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: The last one was three and it was just me.
• 47:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I am concerned.
• 47:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes, I am.
• 47:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yes.
• 47:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's scary.
• 47:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's scary.
• 47:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: I can't wait.
• 47:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: What we're gonna do.
• 47:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Exactly.
• 47:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Yeah.
• 47:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's gonna be really fun.
• 47:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's gonna be really fun.
• 47:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Um, and the last one was literally just a histamine essentials webinar.
• 47:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: People can buy the replay of if they want to.
• 47:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: That was an almost three hour webinar and it was, it was so much fun and it was so much information.
• 48:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I have a team of, now there are seven of us, um, practitioners, if people wanna work with people one-on-one.
• 48:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay, so amazing.
• 48:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'll put all those links in the show notes.
• 48:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm definitely planning to be at the webinar.
• 48:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: Can't wait.
• 48:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: And thanks so much for joining today.
• 48:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Thank you so much.