Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Reversing + Preventing Cognitive Decline

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Reversing + Preventing Cognitive Decline · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
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discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
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anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
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world that we live in. So we're going to talk about a couple scary
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things today. I'm not that we don't really talk about scary things on every
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show, but we always handle it with a little bit of laughter even though
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it's scary. But one of the things that I want to talk about today,
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amongst many, is being in long term chronic pain can actually change the
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structure of our brains. And as we've talked a lot about on the show,
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We've talked about brain health, We've talked about the brain pain connection,
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and we're going to continue to do so as we learn more about that,
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as science is trying to keep up with us. Right, we've all turned
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into our own doctors. You know, chronic pain reduces the volume of gray
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matter in our brains, and what is gray matter right. Gray matter is
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the area of the brain that controls learning, attention, memory, thought process,
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motor control, coordination. I am a mass scouts, and that absolutely
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scares the crap out of me, because as I've been on this journey with
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my CRPS and trauma and so on and so forth, I one one hundred
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percent believe that my brain has been affected by it, and then it's also
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been affected by trauma. Right. It hasn't just been Oh, I got
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sick and I've got the disease. I believe that the trauma actually has created
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this, which we're going to fix. Right. It's all scary, and
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my focus isn't what it used to be. I'm a bloody exhausted all day
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long every day. Today. I'm particularly more tired than usual, which is
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hard to believe, but it truly is amazing that I can get anything accomplished,
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and I thank God for grit. Right, my memory is getting worse.
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My ability to multitask has started to decline. I'm starting to feel like
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a man doing things linear. This blows My interactions with some people in my
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world are far more volatile than they used to be. You know, things
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pissed me off a little bit more than they usually. I'm more agitated,
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I'm more anxious. I get triggered so much easier things that should not bother
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me at all. I don't handle stressors the way that I should on a
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day to day basis, and my patients when it comes to lazy ass people
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taking advantage of me and other people in this world is gone. I'm like
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frazzled. Right. My brain feels like putting half of the time. And
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I know some of that is six concussions as well. I mean it goes
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on and on. Our brains are so precious, and so many of these
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things that have happened to us over our lives can lead to things like Parkinson's
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and to mention, Alzheimer's, just to name a few. Right, So,
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how can we protect and heal our brains from injury and trauma and prevent
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any further decline or get in front of the decline before it begins? Right,
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So let's talk about it. So, without further ado, I'd like
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to introduce to you my guest today, doctor Margaret Apostle Heno Darling. Hello,
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thank you for having me. Oh it's such a pleasure. And doctor
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Apostell is a board certified physician. She's in Texas in both family and integrative
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medicine. After receiving her undergraduate degree in nutrition science and completing her residency through
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Ohio State University, she went on to complete her Integrative Medicine fellowship through the
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University of Arizona. Doctor Postell also continues to explore new research and treatment breakthroughs
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as a certified practitioner through the Institute of Functional Medicine, which we talk about
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all the time on the show Functional Medicine. Right the only way to fly
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out, guys, that's it. She has partnered with a doctor named doctor
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Dale Brettison on his innovative approach to cognitive health through the Reticine Certified Recode Protocols.
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So we're going to get into a little bit of that. So all
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right, I'm going to roll out the red carpet for you, babe,
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and I'd like to start with the importance of brain health and in the chronic
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pain patient. I know we're going to get into dimension Alzheimer's all that,
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and let's kind of take it from there. Absolutely. So, I think
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brain health is a topic that's somewhat taboo because most of the time people are
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assuming that any kind of cognitive changes are kind of a telltale sign that someone's
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on a path to cognitive decline or dementia or some kind of neurodrogenic disease,
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which is not always the case. You know, many people out there experience
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some type of subjective brain fog or word finding skills for memory retention, and
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that could be due to a million different things. And so I know,
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we'll probably talk about later about all the multitude of factors that could be involved.
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But I think when we are thinking of our physical health, sometimes the
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brain is not really emphasized because we almost compartmentalize as if our brain is something
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separate, and then we're worried about, you know, our insides, our
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our internal organs, our gut, our hormones, our immune system. So
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sometimes that brain aspect gets put on the back burder, no kidding. And
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that's one of the things that's scary because what I've seen is there have been
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things that like, over time, I noticed, like this weird buzzing that
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I have in the back of the bottom of my brain stem. Right it's
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buzzing. It just was slight, and then now it's constant. I just
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constantly feel like I've a vibrated on the back of my skull. Okay,
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I'm usually I'm clearly I'm using my vibrator wrong, but that's what it feels
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like, and over time I kind of have ignored it. But I mean
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I've been hit in the head and falling. I mean the concussions I've had
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just alone, I feel like I'm a football player, you know, but
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I didn't have any protection around me. Absolutely. Yeah, So that's a
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good point that you know, when when we kind of put our brains in
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the back, we think, oh, well, our brains in our heart
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are just going to keep on doing everything that they're going to be doing.
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But that could actually be you're a drenal failure. It could be your liver
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being sluggish, it could be so many other things. Absolutely, And I
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think that's the part where people do understand that there are multiple factors over I
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mean, I'd say even forty factors that can contribute to kind of a slowed
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you know, cognitive speed or cognitive processing. And I think it's really important
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that somebody you work with a practitioner that's well versed whether it's a recode,
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whether it's a functional mess and doctor that can kind of look at all those
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holes basically and see what are the gaps that we can fill. So how
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does that work with with your with your practice? And I know that you
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met we talked about the recode protocol and I kind of want to talk about
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that as well. How that, how that? What is that? What
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does that actually mean? What is this protocol? So the recode protocol it
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stands for a reversal of cognitive decline. And this is a program that was
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created by doctor Dale Breson, who's out from law I believes in San Francisco,
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and he's a neurologist and he basically pioneered that in the sense that there
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are a multitude of factors which he described in his book Holes in the Roof,
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right, And so we're looking at over thirty holes in the roof that
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we're trying to patch. And these thirty holes are mechanisms that play a role
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in promoting cognitive impairment, whether that's a neurodrogenetic disease or not. So not
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all cognitive impairment is due to Alzheimer's or dementia. For example, we look
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at things like inflammation, right. We know inflammation is probably an epidemic in
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this country, but there could be a multitude of, you know, sources
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of inflammation, which you kind of have to go down a rabbit hole to
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look for those things. We look at things like sugar, right, They
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even coin the term type three diabetes. Oh for all hours, Yes,
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that's another name for it, because as you can imagine, having high blood
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sugar will definitely damage nerve cells. And so we know a lot of diabetics
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who develop neuropathy from high blood sugar. Well, where do you have a
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ton of nerve fibers right in your brain? So it can cause neurological damage
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in that sense. We also look at things what we term trophic loss.
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So these are basically nutrients and hormones. So if we're deficient in any of
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those things, that can certainly impact cognitive process thing toxins. Toxins is actually
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an interesting subject because we don't really think too much about it. We know
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it's there, but we don't really give too much credit. But toxins are
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everywhere, and as long as you're breathing and you're on this planet Earth,
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you are exposed to toxins. And there are genetic susceptibilities and variances where there
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are people who just don't naturally detoxifi very well, or you can have people
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that live in a multi home, or they have chronic infections, heavy metals,
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mercury in the mouth, and so forth, So we look at toxins.
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The other thing we look at is vascular disease, So do you have
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a lot of plaque build up which can happen in the brain, not just
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the heart, so you can have compromised blood flow into the brain. Let's
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say you've had mini strokes or you've had multiple strokes, so that would also
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play a big role. And then trauma, so just like you mentioned,
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concussions or any sort of traumatic brain injury will affect the structure of the brain
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and in terms of its functioning. So when we're evaluating somebody with cognitive changes,
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we're looking at all those And that's kind of like the thirty or thirty
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plus holes in the roof analogy that we look at and we say, how
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many holes can we try to patch up? In this process? I feel
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like my head it Swiss cheese, Okay, my roof has so many holes.
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And that's why I opened up with it being scary, because it is
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scary for me. Right now. I've been experiencing things with my brain that
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I haven't actually spoken about on this show yet, because it's kind of like
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I finally we talk about how a lot of these whispers over the years finally
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start to scream and then they're yelling at you, and then they're like,
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Okay, we're just going to kill you now because you haven't been listening to
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me. And so these little tiny whispers, my little vibrator at the back
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of my neck right my brain feels like it's shaking inside of my head,
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just like a little teeny bit. I don't know anyway else to explain it.
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And I feel like I almost have tremors. My hands shake a little
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bit, and I've got weird things that happen with my lips and my face.
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Sometimes it's just like weird, and I'm like, don't google it.
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Don't do that, because I have everything on the plan. It's starting with
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early on zet Parkinson's, which one doctor said was it was clear that I
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was probably heading that direction. So who knows what that even means. So
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that's why I'm here too on this show, is to reverse all of this
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stuff. So we're talking about with the recode. Can you tell us what
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recode stands for? Again, reversal of cognitive decline? Okay, so,
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how so you go into your Swiss cheese roof and you start patching those things
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up and that's part of this protocol. And then you find like leaky areas
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where well, that guy's not patched up, that guy's not going to work.
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How does how does that work? So typically we do quite a detailed
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intake. So we're looking at lifestyle factors, of course, so we need
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to know history, onset of symptoms, the type of symptoms that they're having.
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We learn about are they sleeping right? If they're not sleeping, that's
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a big problem. Are they not breathing at night? Do they have sleep
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apnea? So that means they might be losing oxygen at nighttime, which is
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you know, losing oxygen your brain. We look at how much physical activity
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they're doing, and so I'm going to go into a little detail later on
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those lifestyle factors. Chronic stress and that stress can be psychological stress, and
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it can also be a physiological stressor. And what I mean by physiological stressor
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is somebody who's fighting chronic inflammation, somebody who's maybe sleep deprived, someone who's
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let's say under eating or overexercising. So these are physical stressors that somebody might
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be going through and we kind of take that in addition to doing some detailed
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lab testing. So we're trying to do bloodwork for each of those categories.
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So we're looking at inflammatory markers, sugar markers, nutrients, hormones, cholesterol,
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and we may kind of go down a rabbit hole if somebody has vascular
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disease, and then with traumatic brain injury or any kind of trauma, you
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know, we can't go in the past. Clearly we wish we could,
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but how can we stabilize and optimize neuronal firing and cognitive functioning as best we
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can. And we'll use mostly nutraceuticals as a support or her wolves to help
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promote that. Definitely not against the medication if it's appropriate, but that's usually
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the tools that we'll consider. And it can be an intense protocol because we're
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kind of trying to fill in those gaps, but we're also trying to implement
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lifestyle changes, including dietary changes. A lot of times will recommend putting someone
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on a cheogenic diet, and yes, it's a fad diet, but this
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is actually a therapeutic diet for these patients. And being in a state of
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ketosis is not a diet. It's a metabolic process, and ketones really help
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when it comes to enhancing cognitive functioning because it crosses the blood brain barrier,
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and you can also be it can actually help with modulating inflammation, and it
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mimics a process called autophagy, which is basically cellular cleanup, and that occurs
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when we fast. So there's many reasons for implementing a ketogenic diet, but
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I would say getting keytones to the brain is probably one of the most important
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things someone can do when they're having some challenges from a cup deficit standpoint.
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Well, God, I'm so frustrated, not because of you, because I
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you know, we talk about this stuff all the time on this show,
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right, and I talked to Functional Medicine. This is the first time the
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word keytnes has ever come up, and the only time. Yeah, that's
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why I'm like, oh my gosh. And the only reason that I know
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anything about keytnes to a certain extent is because I had two dogs that were
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diabetic, that's it, And so I was dealing with that with them,
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but I never thought about that being and anything that would need to be applied
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to something in my life. I've had doctors out are telling me, you
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know, you do paleo and you need to do this, and I need
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to do that. My biggest problem, as with my listeners know, is
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that I have an eating disorder, which I didn't know that I was creating.
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It just happened to via pain. I'm just nauseous all the time.
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I don't feel like eating. I'm sensitive to smell, I'm sensitive to light,
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Like I'm all these things. And some of that is also me telling
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myself that I'm sensitive to light and I'm sensitive smells and all that. So,
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like, I need to try to work on changing that narrative a little
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bit more than I do, so I'll try start liking food again. So
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nutrition, and I know that's one of your specialties, is a huge component
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for people, especially in chronic pain. And also when you get older,
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you're eating patterns catch up with you. You know. I'm watching that with
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my sweetie and he's like, wow, I need it, Like stop eating
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bread maybe a little bit. You don't need it like ten times a day,
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dude, even though it tastes good, but you know, think about
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metabolic katosis, right, and so when you say the word ketogenic dyet,
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it kind of gives people a little bit of a bad taste because in modern
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times, people are looking at keto like this modified actions like you know,
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steak and chase. Yeah. Yeah, And that's not what we're focusing on.
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We're trying to focus on an anti inflammatory katogenic dyet. So if you
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think about our ancestors, they were actually in a predominant state of katosis and
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keatosis, like I was mentioned, is a metabolic state. So our bodies
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function on running two forms of fuel. Right, we have glucose and we
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also have ketones. And so think about our ancestors. You know, they
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didn't have access to food like we do. We can go to the grocery
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store or go pick up food through the drive through every you know, two
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three, four hours if we want to. But back then, they didn't
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have that luxury and they had to hunt for their food. They had to
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forge for their food, and they went days without it. So from a
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survival perspective, our body generated something called ketones, and ketones only occur when
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we've depleted all our glicogen in our body, and glycogen is basically our carbohydrate
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storage. That's where we store sugar, and that's a very quick burning type
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of fuel. So tapping into kytosis allowed these people to have energy, to
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have mental clarity for them to go look for food. Right, So imagine
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like having a sugar crash and you had to go, you know, walk
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ten miles to go find your next meal, you'd be dead. The human
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you know race would be dead by at this point. So ketones also suppressed
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hunger and it allowed them to have that energy. And so when we eat
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food, we break that fast in that sense and we get out of ketosis.
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And so they were metabolklely adapted to be in a ketogenic state for the
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most part, and if they got kicked out of it, it was temporary
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and they went right back into it. And now we look at the modern
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world. We are in a perpetual state of sugar burning, meaning we burnt
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through our sugar fuels, which lasts about four to six hours, then it's
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time to eat again and the cycle repeats. So it's not a fad diet,
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it's a metalbog state, and that is a preferred metalbog state physiologically,
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but we just were not familiar with it now due to modern day lifestyles.
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Yeah for sure. I mean, can we just drive through and get whatever
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we want to whenever we want to? I mean, and that's also scary
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because our food is so gross, especially in the United States of America.
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I go to Italy and I'm in tescing me or wherever I am, and
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even in France and Spain and whatever, no digestive issues. I sleep like
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a baby. My skin feels better, my eyes don't feel so tired.
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Like the just the way that this country has put on our bodies from sick
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care instead of healthcare really is is catching up with us all. And that
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must be so hard as a practitioner who really is like, good God,
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what are we doing and wanting to try to fix everybody and fix everything and
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we can't and we're doing it one percent a time like we're doing right now.
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So okay, So when we're talking about because the word keto is so
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like popular as you mentioned, right, So there's keto the way that we're
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hearing it right now in marketing and I'm in marketing, and we just we're
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horrible people for everybody. Yeah, So when we're talking about keto versus your
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version of keto, right, what does that look like from a nutritional because
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it's obviously a little bit different. You're not having me go grab bars out
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a CBS on the bottom shelf that say keto on them, right, Right,
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So it's it's all natural. Of course, there's a lot of plants,
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a lot of vegetables, and I'd argue that it's mostly a plant based
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diet with of course a source of protein and beneficial fats. And the problem
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is the modern day kito, I would say, is heavy and saturated fats,
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so it emphasizes a lot of animal products, meat and dairy and completely
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neglects vegetable intake. So and we promote more plant based fats than just focusing
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our fats from dairy and animal products. So think of like your avocados,
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your nuts, your seeds, and then even fish which are rich in polyine
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saturated fats. We try to emphasize that and having a wide variety of vegetables
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with different colors because they all produce or you know, give someone different antioxidants,
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different polyphenols that help support cognitive function. And that's the way it should
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be. But you know, modern day practices have altered what the whole point
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of a KTOJ diet should be. Yeah. Well, and the word diet
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just stinks, you know, because we're all like stuck while Oh I'm on
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this crash course diet thing, you know, And we've been pretty good over
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here in this household. My sweetie how to scare a couple of weeks ago,
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and the covers were emptied and the freezer was updated from all of the
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junk that he had in there, and he was like, wow, I've
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been doing this for however many years he's been on the planet. I'm not
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going to stay. And it's just like, you know, it's catching up.
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And now he's even in it's been three weeks of no bread and he's
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already lost thirteen pounds. Oh that was the one change I know, And
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I'm like, see it actually as hard as it might need to be.
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And healthy food tastes really good if you just know how to do it,
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you know, so and encouraging the healthy nutrition is good for me too,
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because together as we partner in it, instead of us eating like in these
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silos because we didn't eat the same kind of food it's really hard when you've
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got somebody that eats like shit and somebody that doesn't eat it all absolutely,
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And that's actually, I will tell you, of the entire protocol, it's
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the diet that's the hardest for most people. So of course, every single
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time. And you know, if you meet somebody who's in their seventh decade
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of life and they've been eating a certain way their whole life, and you
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tell them to do the polar oppae of what they've been told their whole life,
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which was what low fat right and high carbohydrate diet, and they've been
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told that fat is bad and fat is not bad. You know, cholesterial
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is also not bad, I mean to a certain extent, because that helps
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support our brain structure. We need cholesterol. And so you tell someone to
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say, hey, we need you to eat a seventy percent high fat diet,
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twenty percent protein, and a five to ten percent carbohydrate diet, it's
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very hard to process for them totally. And so you know, and then
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you have somebody who might have cognitive impairment and then they're living with their spouse
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who's helping them support the protocol, and they're not aware of the diet and
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it's just sometimes it can become a little messy. But I would emphasize that
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is probably the most important aspect of the protocol. That doesn't mean that someone's
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going to be on a chayogenic diet forever, but this is for a period
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of time because we're doing it for a therapeutic cost. I love that,
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and because I know everything. It's almost like, well, I, what
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do you mean I can't have my red wine anymore? Like we're not saying
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you can't have red wine for the rest of your life, but can you
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like do it for a bit of time now? No, I cannot.
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We need to find a replacement for one. I'd be like a billionaire god,
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I join the club. Honey, you and me both. We'll talk
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about that offline, because it would be wonderful for us. All so,
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as we're patching up all of these holes in our cheese roof of ours,
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what happens when we don't How important is it. I'm going to speak to
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myself in my age group right now, only because a lot of my demographic
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is women between the age of thirty five to sixty five years old, and
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we are all over stressed in the middle of divorces, our kids are a
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holes. We're trying to do an MBA on the side. I mean,
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we're doing all of these things, and women are so much more affected in
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from I mean, statistically, we're more affected, and we get more infections,
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and we're more stressed out, we were more susceptible to getting ill,
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we're more empathic. We're all of these things because we're incredible. But I
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feel like so many of us women we're dragon, I mean our wagon or
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dragon. Absolutely, and as women and just as a human being, we
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were not meant to carry such a load every single day. Stress is not
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bad for short periods of time, but not continuously. So when we're looking
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at cognitive health, sometimes I'll say, let's take the word cognitive out.
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Let's forget the brain, because the things that we apply for cognitive health also
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applies generally for most people for general health. We're talking about gut health,
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hormones, immune optimization, vascular support, right, all these things go in
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line with cognitive support. I think when we see people who have physical issues
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chronic disease, the question becomes, well, which person's going to end up
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having Alzheimer's and which one's going to end up not having Alzheimer's or which one
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will have a neurodrogenda disease like Parkinson's. There can be genetic components for that.
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And one thing I'll mention with genetics is there is a gene that we
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may have heard of called Apo E four, and April E four is present
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in twenty five percent of the population, so many people do carry it.
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But even having a one copy of that gene does not necessarily mean someone's on
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this inevitable path to dementia, but it does predispose to them. So,
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for example, you can have zero copies of apo e four, you can
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have one copy, or you can have two copies. So having two copies
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of apoli four increases your risk about thirty thirty five percent, having one copy
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will increase your risk about twenty to twenty five percent, and then having zero
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copies will increase your risk of dementia by ten to fifteen percent. So even
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with no genetic variables, there is still that risk factor because if you're chronically
23:41
inflamed and you have a bunch of toxins and you have all these vitamin deficiencies,
23:45
you could potentially be more likely to develop dementia and think of dementia as
23:52
a metabolic disease as well. So all the things that may cause high blood
23:56
pressure and diabetes and metabolic syndrome cancer are also the same mechanisms back and promote
24:02
nerdy generation. So take that brain aspect out because it would still apply generally
24:08
for general health purposes. Yeah. So we might not even have any darn
24:14
problem with our brain, but our life and the things that we do,
24:15
our lifestyle and all of it just starts creeping in and people as well be
24:19
genetic at that point, right, all right, Yeah, because like my
24:22
family, I've been going back and forth with my mom talking about like the
24:26
stuff that we learned about my grandma when she was closer to to passing away.
24:30
She would have been one hundred and one two days ago, which is
24:33
nuts, and but I mean she was a she was crazy anyways, she
24:38
we know by the end of it, I mean, she had more health
24:41
ailments than we didn't know about cancer stuff. We didn't know about her bones
24:45
as much as we should have. I mean, they are all of these
24:47
things. She had a bunch of strokes, my grandpa also my mother's side,
24:51
a bunch of strokes. I have no idea what my birth father's what.
24:52
I don't know if he's even alive, but whatever, I have no
24:55
idea what that side of the family is dealing with with their health. So
24:57
I'm really only and my stepdad as my dad, So I'm really only looking
25:00
at what I got with my mom. And then of course all of these
25:04
things like twenty three and me and ancestry, how did those play if at
25:08
all? And this is totally just impromptu here because I have no idea what
25:12
this may go. But for twenty three and me and these, I know
25:15
a lot of us are leaning towards these for our genetics and steering a lot
25:18
of our health towards our genes and where we've come from and ancestral traumas and
25:25
all these things. Are those helpful do you think in your opinion and putting
25:29
you on the spot here, but do you think those are helpful for us?
25:32
Or do you think they might get in the way of thinking? They're
25:33
almost like making me when I read these things, almost almost a hypochondriac,
25:38
which I'm not, so like, I'm like, oh my god, there's
25:41
all these things that are going on. It should be eating nuts. Yeah,
25:45
yeah, I think for me, information is power and I know a
25:48
lot of people that would rather dig your head in the sand, and I
25:52
would caution them and say it will probably cause more harm down the road.
25:56
You know, these like twenty three and me and ancestry, you will be
26:00
able to get your genetics for Alzheimer's. They do the apile for and I
26:03
believe with twenty three and meters you have an option of opting out because there's
26:07
a lot of people that don't want to know. But that's the thing.
26:10
There's this misconception that if you have the gene, that you're on this inevitable
26:14
path, and that is not true at all. And so if you look
26:18
at conventional medicine right now, what they tell most people is say, you
26:21
know what, get your affairs and orders. There's nothing we can do.
26:25
You know, good luck, get your role set and then you know,
26:27
we'll see you later. And that applies to anybody at any point in their
26:32
age group, and whether they are symptomatic or not. And I've met,
26:34
you know, children of people who have to Alzheimer's, and there is fearful
26:38
because they've witnessed it firsthand. They don't want to go through that, but
26:41
they also don't want to do testing because they're scared. But it's education and
26:45
empowerment. And there are people out there that have two copies of APLY four
26:49
four and are doing well because they're being proactive. And if you're not proactive,
26:55
then who's to say, you know what will happen afterwards? So well,
26:57
the only person that can take care at the end of the days,
27:00
you So if you're going to just avoid, like I went and did a
27:03
full body MRI in Los Angeles last November and I have another one coming up.
27:08
And one of my girlfriends was like, why would you want to do
27:11
that, because like, what if you find like a tumor somewhere. I'm
27:14
like, because I would want to find a tumor somewhere, Like why would
27:18
I want that to be found twenty years later? And that's the reason I
27:22
died. Like, so for me, I'm with you. Knowledge is power.
27:26
And then there's that whole you know, while we're giving our DNA and
27:29
the government's taken all, I'm like, I don't care. I don't care.
27:33
I could maybe they can clone ten of me to help me out over
27:36
here because I'm exhausted. Well, the good news is that gene you can
27:41
get it on a standard lap panel. You don't even have to go through
27:44
twenty three and meets, so you can go to QUIST or lack Core or
27:45
whichever. So that's an easy thing to do. Yeah, And I like
27:49
your point about like, don't stick your head in this hand, because it's
27:52
true because if you're like, oh, well, if I don't know it,
27:53
then you know I don't know it. Well, I'm the person that
27:56
wants to know. In fact, I you know, I think I've met
28:00
mentioned to you, but I was recently diagnosed with lime disease. And so
28:03
I was like, wait a second, how and I have been poked and
28:07
prodded and stuck and cut into and sliced and dice. How did we miss
28:11
this somewhere? Because I've always said we're missing something, we're seeing something.
28:15
I found out that six years ago I was don my I had a lime
28:18
disease test and I was ragingly positive six years ago. Oh wow, And
28:23
so that doctor and I have to go back and figure out which doctor that
28:27
was, because I've been to so many of them, and I was like,
28:30
you've got to be kidding me. So now I'm faced with this.
28:32
So when you have when you have women, I'm speaking to women today more
28:36
so instead of guys. I know, we love you, but it's just
28:37
it's just why we have to do. But what it came down to was
28:41
I had to like really look at everything that I've been tested on and everything
28:45
that and I've had all the functional diagnostic testing, and now I'm at that
28:51
place where it's the what now what do I What do I tackle first here,
28:55
you know? And how do I go about doing it? I know
28:57
nutrition is my number one issue, that's like for sure, I know that,
29:00
but I need somebody to help me with that. I need somebody to
29:03
help me with all this. I need like my own manager. That's where
29:07
like a concierge doctor model I think works really well. But in functional medicine,
29:11
what I love about it is you work well with all of these other
29:15
people that I'm working with, right, So like acupuncturist and all these people,
29:19
we can come together and go, Okay, this is what's happening here.
29:23
Can we all get a grip and go, oh, well, that's
29:27
what it is and we need to be working on that. And that's a
29:30
hard place to to and it's a hard place to find, Like it's hard
29:33
to get that group of people together and guiding us in that journey is I
29:40
can't imagine anything more lucratives on that in this world at this point for coming
29:44
in and going I'm going to help own your care. That's it. I
29:47
own your care and I'm going to be in charge of it because you've got
29:49
to live your life and my job is to take you under my wing and
29:52
go home and go Well, that doesn't make any sense. I really want
29:56
to help out, lindsay. You know, I've never had a doctor give
29:59
a shit about it, you know, right, don't take me home with
30:02
them and call me the next morning what you know what? I think this
30:04
might be it, you know, And that's where I think we're lacking a
30:07
lot of And that's where I agree. Yeah, and I know you're not
30:10
like that. That's why I'm giving you kudos. Yeah, well I agree,
30:14
and you know, and you think about anybody with chronic illness, it's
30:17
like carrying a backpack with like sixty pounds of rocks on your back and it
30:21
just weighs you down. And it feels good to give it to a practitioner,
30:25
a physician to say, I need you to guide me in this process.
30:27
And sometimes you know like and naturally, you know, the human thing
30:32
to do is you also want to help yourself and so you know, you
30:33
research, you go online, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but
30:37
then you kind of get paralyzed with the amount of information available and then you
30:41
go, well, which one is applicable to me? What's true, what's
30:44
not true? And it's nice to give it to someone else to say,
30:48
Okay, let me be in charge of delineating what are things that we do
30:52
and try with you and then you just kind of sit back, not to
30:53
be passive by any means to take that burden off, because if you constantly
31:00
are looking for solutions, it is very mentally draining on your poor dreamals,
31:03
on your mental health, and you ruminate and you're trying to find answer all
31:07
day long, and you're never going to get a black and white answer because
31:10
as humans, we're not black and white. It's not that simple. Yeah,
31:14
I mean, we're everybody. Everybody is different, you know, and
31:18
you know, I've read one thing about something and I'm like, that's not
31:19
even remotely how I would approach my care in that, So that would work
31:23
for somebody. But you're right, it's so incredibly time consuming we go down
31:26
these frickin' Alison wonderfuhen, you know, yeah, and these rabbit holes,
31:33
and I'm like, oh, well, maybe I should be doing aaketemy,
31:34
you know, maybe I should be doing this, Maybe I should do this.
31:37
I really need to reduce my inflammation, and I really need to decrease
31:41
my pain level, and I really need to decrease my stress, and I
31:45
really need to eat more. These are the things that I need to do.
31:48
Do I have any time for this? I do not. That's part
31:52
of the problem too. And it's also financially exhausting for some people that live
31:56
in chronic pain, not just chronic pain, that has any kind of illness
32:00
of any sort. You know, it's freaking expensive, and it's even more
32:06
expensive now than it used to be. And I'm fortunate that I'm in a
32:08
place where not that money is money. We do have a budget over here,
32:14
but we are fortunate enough that I can spend money if I wanted to
32:16
get a ketamine, you know, a trial of ketamine for a while in
32:20
infusion. But that's not what everybody else can do. So what do we
32:23
do to help help people be able to get good care in the way that
32:29
we're talking about that's healthy and not just big pharma throwing a bunch of pills
32:31
down our throats. You know, it's a challenging thing because I actually think
32:36
that's more exhausting. The cognitive part of trying to show up and be here
32:42
every day and be the stellar personality all day long. It's it's exhausting.
32:49
It is. It is full time job just to run my body, absolutely,
32:53
absolutely, And to speak to your point on expenses, you know,
32:57
I look at people who invest in their health is as an investment, right,
33:01
and you invest with the hopes that it's going to give you some return
33:05
back. And with chronic disease, you're paying for sick care. So yes,
33:09
if certain services fall under the world of insurance, that's great, but
33:14
that's not keeping you healthy. And nothing wrong with having health insurance. But
33:17
when you're trying to step out of the bounds of conventional medicine and you're trying
33:22
to find solutions for yourself, unfortunately you're very limited on what conventional medicine can
33:27
offer. I personally, I'd rather spend thousands of dollars in supplements and thousands
33:30
of dollars in hospital admissions. You know, to me, you invest that
33:35
money now and from spending it in the future for acute sick care, which
33:38
is much more expensive to be hospitalized and have twenty medications than it is to
33:43
make lifestyle changes. And so from a budget perspective, there are a lot
33:46
of things that people can do that they can feel empowered to do that doesn't
33:51
really cost them anything, like sleeping better, right, doing some sort of
33:54
physical exercise, I know, and it depends on the person. I know.
33:58
Not everyone can physically exercise. Sometimes having that exercise can increase something called
34:04
BDNF in our brain, which is brain derived neurotopic factor. That's like fertilizer
34:07
for your brain. So those are easy things to do. Heto is technically
34:10
free, right, So you're going to eat anyways, so you might as
34:13
well just change what you're eating, right, Yeah, good point. And
34:16
getting good sleep. Like I mentioned, stress reduction. I know that's a
34:22
you know, that's a big term. But stress in management is in different
34:25
ways, you know, And I think that people who have a lot of
34:29
stressors have to kind of plan and see what are things they can get off
34:32
their plate, what are things that are worth it, and what are things
34:35
that are not. And if you have to be stressed out, you have
34:37
to make time for those corso levels to go down. There has to be
34:40
a decompression time because corzo and stress are okay in short bursts, but it
34:45
cannot be continuous. So life will always throw as challenges and sometimes those are
34:51
out of our control. But we also can be intentional about making time to
34:54
decompress, whatever that looks like for you. Yeah, and that's a good
34:59
point because like, obviously I speak for myself on the show, but I'm
35:04
in fight or flight all the time. You know, I've always got a
35:06
bear chasing me, and it's just just a segment pooped. I think my
35:09
bear is actually getting pretty tired too, so I might be wearing him out
35:15
and he's going to kick the bucket. That would be great, That would
35:16
be great. Yeah. How does how does chronic stress over time affect our
35:23
brain? Can it lead to the dimension Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and things like that
35:30
when we're talking about you know, our brain. No, it absolutely can.
35:32
And if they've done even pet scans on people's brains where people under chronic
35:38
tremendous stress, they actually had something called hippocampal atrophy, which is shrinkage of
35:44
the part of the brain where memories are stored in form, So it absolutely
35:47
can't affect the role of nerd degeneration for sure. And you know, stress,
35:52
when I look at stress and it comes to chronic disease, sometimes stress
35:57
is the problem, but I find that it's just kind of like the gasoline
35:59
on the far so stress usually brings to light maybe some pre existing issues.
36:04
But I do believe there are some situations where just stress in itself it can
36:07
cause this kind of impairment, and it can be a tough thing to deal
36:12
with because stress kind of is there in the background, meaning we don't think
36:15
about it. We know it's there, but it doesn't kind of ring the
36:19
alarm bells and say, oh my gosh, I need to do something about
36:21
this. We just accept it as our normal, yeah, until something triggers
36:24
one of them that's kind of been sitting there kind of mulling over, like
36:28
should I come out and you know, give you a big party today or
36:30
what. And that's how I mean. My life has been very, very
36:35
stressful over the past couple of years in particular, and you can tell we
36:37
are making as a couple and even within my family and my friends we've all
36:42
kind of said we all need to distress like for each other as a community,
36:47
as a little village of family and friends. We're all like we are
36:51
all burning the candle. We all need to start holding ourselves more accountable and
36:55
also help not stressing you out as well. So like our friendships, like,
37:00
don't be crazy about up their butt about like what are we doing?
37:01
Where are we going with it? You're like, everybody's just slow down a
37:05
little bit, you know, and take a beat. The world is not
37:07
going to end it for five minutes late to something. I hate that exactly,
37:10
but it is because I'm super time. I value people's time so much,
37:15
but including my own. But it's still like, okay, well that's
37:17
another thing that's come up. I'm almost late for everything now. I have
37:22
no idea. Why is it? Because I don't care as much. No,
37:25
I think it's been part of me and putting into place. These don't
37:30
get so worked up about it. Don't make them out, none of them.
37:32
Molehill, all of those things. I don't sweat the small stuff,
37:35
all of the cliche statements you know that we read in like the nineties,
37:37
and all of the chicken soup for the soul books came out and stuff.
37:40
You know, that's like, that's what we need to be doing. And
37:45
I can almost feel my brain feeling happier even just saying those words about stress
37:50
reduction, you know, because it is, it is everywhere, and it
37:52
is incredibly rampant in our lives. It isn't it's lifestyle, it's cultural.
37:58
You know, I know there's other people are you know, other people that
38:00
live in different countries that don't have the American life sole like we do.
38:02
I mean, we're a calpitless country. It's about go go, go,
38:05
make money, make money, and health and wellness is not really prioritize it
38:08
is. It absolutely is. And so you know, one of the things
38:12
that helps me personally is looking at the big picture and say, is it
38:15
worth getting stressed over? This? Is anything negative going to happen? Let's
38:19
say I'm five minutes late, or let's say I don't get this assignment done?
38:22
What is the worst case scenario that can happen? And if there really
38:24
isn't a worst case scenario, then don't worry about it. So ten minutes
38:29
late instead? Right? Who cares? Who cares? No? But it
38:35
is it is true, and so Okay, so before we leave, what
38:39
are you guys doing there at your practice in order to work with brain cognition
38:45
and retrain the brain and the brain health connection. What are you guys doing
38:51
over there for your your patients and your lovelies that come in so kind of
38:54
like what I mentioned before about you know, getting that detail intake, doing
38:58
some lab testing, and then formulating a plan, which always involves a ketogenic
39:01
diet, but in terms of specific lifestyle plans that will be unique to the
39:06
patient, we encourage them to do some kind of brain training or some kind
39:09
of cognitive exercise every day. Doctor Bretson works with a company called Apollo Health,
39:15
so we encourage patients to sign up with the Pollo Health. We're not
39:17
affiliated with them by any means, but we do use them as a tool
39:22
and they do have resources on there that can help support the program. They
39:27
can get recipes online, they can do brain games through a company called brain
39:31
Hq, and so working with that together, and then I always involve every
39:37
quode certified health coach in the process to really support with the lifestyle aspects,
39:40
because to me, that is the hardest part. Everyone's happy to swallow a
39:44
supplement you know, and the supplement is not going to make or break the
39:46
protocol if you're doing all the wrong things. And so, you know,
39:51
one thing we used to do is brain mapping. We had an EEG machine
39:55
in our office that we used to look at brain frequency and changes brain patterns,
40:00
and that has been very helpful, especially when we have people that come
40:04
in where we can't tell if it's dementia versus chronic depression or some kind of
40:08
other metabolic disease, and looking at the brainwave patterns, can you can differentiate
40:13
those things. So that has been very helpful. And time, you know,
40:16
time and patience because most of the time we don't see immediate benefits,
40:22
and for some there's a lucky few that we will. But I usually will
40:24
tell people give it six months. I mean, just stick with it and
40:30
have the most social support that you can, which is the most important thing.
40:32
If someone's doing this program alone, I can tell you it can be
40:37
very challenging for them and they may not even have the insight to continue to
40:40
do the program on their own. They might forget what they were supposed to
40:43
eat or what they were supposed to do. So, you know, I
40:46
find this program not even like calling it a program, but I do find
40:51
it's it's rewarding, but it is very challenging on both parties ends because of
40:55
the time and commitment and the kind of the mind that can get involved when
41:00
we're doing the program. Well, the minutia is where it's at though,
41:05
that's the entire point of it. That's why I've been so pissed off for
41:08
all of these years, because everyone's been looking at like, well, your
41:13
cholesterols is high, so let's put you on a stat And I'm like,
41:15
I'm not taking a staton and like one hundred and two pounds wet. I
41:19
barely eat. It's not because my cholesterol is how familial? Yes, I
41:23
have it by both my grandma and my mother. Did you ask me those
41:25
questions? Yeah? Also, my liver is sluggish, my gallbladder is sluggish,
41:30
my spleen is a disaster. You think any of those things I have
41:32
to play with my cholesterol. But no, let's just let's just give her
41:37
a pill and call it a day. And we don't do that. So,
41:38
I mean, my cluster's three hundred and fifty two, which is nuts,
41:43
right, So we've got all of these, all of these things,
41:45
and I need that I need. I need a champion that own that basically
41:51
owns me and bosses me around. And as a control freak, I need
41:53
that. And I've gotten so much better at relinquishing control not only in my
41:59
in my world of health, but also within my business. I mean,
42:00
I finally like got somebody to help me after twenty four years. What was
42:04
the rush on that one, Lindsay? But to your point about time and
42:08
giving it time, I've given my body ten years of this crap. What's
42:13
six months you know or whatever? We've We've gone through the motions over the
42:16
years, right, it's just now it's, oh, well, we don't
42:19
really want to eat those apples, or we don't really like broccoli or whatever.
42:22
It is. Is like, get over yourself. We have to do
42:24
these things. They're so simple, big picture, and they do make big
42:28
they do make changes. And as soon as I did start eating again.
42:31
I'm not perfect yet. I mean, we're getting there. But it's like
42:34
everybody's like clapping when I eat. Now, yes, mom, I'm eating.
42:39
Everybody clap, everybody stand up. Good God. But I feel like
42:45
I've got everybody's eye on me because people are holding me accountable for making sure
42:49
that I put food in my body, which is amazing to have that support
42:52
group. Yeah, we need support. It is being in chronic pain is
42:55
isolating in and of itself. You know, you're just like alone in your
42:59
body all day. So, oh my gosh, all of this is so
43:01
so good. I'm so grateful to have met you, likewise for having you
43:07
here. So is there anything you'd like to leave us with before we hit
43:09
the dusty trail? I'd say, be empowered, be proactive about your health,
43:15
whether it's about cognition or brain or anything else. You are in control
43:20
of your health, and I think it's important that you go ahead and find
43:22
someone that will be a health guidance in your journey and a supportive person,
43:28
whether it's a practitioner, a coach. But I strongly believe that we are
43:32
very much able to heal, and it's just a matter of time and resources.
43:37
It sure is. Absolutely we absolutely can heal ourselves. That's why I'm
43:40
here because I'm going to heal myself with this conversation, the ones before and
43:45
the ones that are coming up. Yes, yes, you can, thank
43:47
you so much. You can find her at apostleifm dot com and she's not
43:53
only darling to look at, but she's incredibly brilliant at what she does.
43:57
And hope that you guys have had a good time with us today. Thank
44:00
you so much for being here today. I appreciate it. Thank you,
44:01
Lindsey, Thank you. You are exclusively invited to share this empowering VIP pain
44:07
journey together. Let's get to the heart of how to kiyo with you by
44:12
my side. Do you know someone who is living in and with chronic pain,
44:15
or is having cognitive issues just overall, has Swiss cheese for a brain.
44:20
Why don't you go ahead and give doctor Apostle a call reach out to
44:23
me here at the Pain Game Podcast. I'd love to get to know you
44:27
and connect and hear your stories and see how gritty you can be. Please
44:30
follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content, we will be
44:35
there. Visit us at the Pain gamepodcast dot com and follow us on all
44:38
the socials. Thanks for listening to my little VIPs. Catch you on the
44:43
other side.