Latest / Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD / 341: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill - From Paralysis to Healing: One Doctor's Lyme Disease Journey with Dr. Melanie Stein

Transcript

341: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill - From Paralysis to Healing: One Doctor's Lyme Disease Journey with Dr. Melanie Stein · Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD

• 0:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You seek help from the very medical system you're trained to become part of, only to be told your symptoms are psychological.
• 0:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That's exactly what happened to my next guest, Dr. Melanie Stein.
• 0:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But instead of accepting that explanation, she started investigating.
• 0:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And what she ultimately discovered changed not only her health, but the kind of doctor she would become.
• 0:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You will not want to miss this episode today.
• 0:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Hey everybody, I'm Dr. Jill.
• 0:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go to podcast for the most cutting edge insights integrative and functional medicine.
• 0:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm your host and with each episode we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation as I interview medical doctors, innovators, world leaders, thought leaders, all helping you on your trajectory to optimal human performance and longevity.
• 0:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Today.
• 0:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You're going to love our interview, but before we get started, I just want to remind you of a couple things.
• 1:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: First of all, our movie, doctor Patient Movie is on Amazon Prime.
• 1:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You can go there, just search doctor Patient Movie and you can watch that streaming.
• 1:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You can watch it free on YouTube or to be with commercials so you don't even have to pay for it.
• 1:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You can also find it@drpatientmovie.com or like I said, we're now on Amazon Prime.
• 1:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Please check it out if you haven't.
• 1:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: It's a, it's a really in depth look at complex chronic illness, my own healing journey.
• 1:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I love hearing your reflections after you've watched the movie.
• 1:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Also, if you haven't yet got a copy of my book Unexpected, you can find that on Amazon or wherever books are sold.
• 1:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You can also get a signed copy@drjill health.com Speaking of Dr. Jill health, we have so many products and services and resources there for you.
• 1:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: If you don't know where to start, pick a topic.
• 1:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Gut health, brain health, tick borne infections, mast cell activation, you name it.
• 1:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We've got products and protocols for you there.
• 1:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You can get 15 off your first purchase, so check it out@drjillhealth.com okay, let's introduce our guest briefly and get to the show.
• 2:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Dr. Melanie Stein is a natural.
• 2:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: She's a naturopathic physician and founder of Restorative Health Clinic of Portland, Oregon.
• 2:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: She holds a doctorate in naturopathic medicine and a master's in acupuncturist.
• 2:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We're going to talk today about her own journey, as you heard in the intro.
• 2:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So let's get to the show and welcome Dr. Melanie hello, Dr. Melanie Stein.
• 2:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I am so happy to have you on Resiliency Radio.
• 2:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We've got a couple colleagues that have introduced us and said you two have to meet.
• 2:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I am super excited today to talk about your story and your journey and then how you're helping patients and clients, because I feel like story drives everything.
• 2:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I just love hearing how people have taken adversity and turned it around like you and I both have.
• 2:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So.
• 2:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So let's start there.
• 2:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I want to just take us back to that morning you were in naturopathic medical school and woke up completely paralyzed.
• 3:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What happened and what was going through your mind when you woke up in that state?
• 3:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, I think the first thought I had is this must be a dream.
• 3:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I was on a qigong retreat.
• 3:17
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I was in the middle of nowhere, and I was in a hut all by myself.
• 3:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I woke up and I couldn't move my legs, and I just didn't quite understand what was happening to me.
• 3:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I remember just laying there, kind of just hoping someone was going to come find me because I, you know, we didn't have cell phone service.
• 3:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I couldn't do anything and I couldn't get up, and I just.
• 3:43
  Dr. Melanie Stein: It was probably one of the most terrifying feelings I've ever had in my whole life.
• 3:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I can't imagine.
• 3:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I can't even imagine, especially in those.
• 3:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I didn't know it was that circumstance.
• 3:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Like, it's one to be in your bed and there's a spouse or a child or someone there, but, like in a hut, alone, in a different country.
• 4:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, I was in Washington at least, so I wasn't in a different country, but I was in the middle of nowhere up by Mount Rainier.
• 4:07
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, you know, luckily a good friend of mine kind of noticed, like, hey, Melanie's not here.
• 4:14
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, you know, he came in and he checked on me and he found me and know very quickly we realized whatever was going on with me was very serious.
• 4:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And he took me to the hospital and met my family there.
• 4:26
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And it's pretty sad because in the hospital, you know, they ran a gamut of tests and, you know, they did what.
• 4:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: What I feel like a lot of medical providers know how to do, right?
• 4:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So I, I can't necessarily blame them.
• 4:39
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But by the end of it, their conclusion was, I must have convergent disorder.
• 4:43
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Nothing is wrong with me.
• 4:45
  Dr. Melanie Stein: they can't find anything on the MRIs.
• 4:50
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, and I, I remember this moment where this neuropsychologist came in and said, you Know, to.
• 4:57
  Dr. Melanie Stein: To my whole family.
• 5:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We need to figure out why she's doing this, because, you know, we can't find anything going on and there must be a reason.
• 5:08
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, you know, has something happened recently?
• 5:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Has there been a family trauma?
• 5:12
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I'll never forget my.
• 5:14
  Dr. Melanie Stein: My partner at the time saying, you don't know Melanie.
• 5:17
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, she is a stubborn, ambitious human.
• 5:20
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, this is not what's going on.
• 5:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We need to look for more answers.
• 5:24
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And no, she's not going home.
• 5:26
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, she's not going home.
• 5:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Good for.
• 5:31
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Wow.
• 5:32
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But even then, you know, I remember the neurologist coming in and I was hyper reflexive, which means you're kind of kicking out fast when they do that little hit on the knee.
• 5:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I remember him trying to fake me out and he would stand me up and he'd just let me fall down, and it was very traumatizing and abusive.
• 5:49
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But, you know, we.
• 5:50
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We fought for me to go to a rehab facility because they kind of came to the point where they're like, well, we can keep you here, but there's nothing more for us to do.
• 5:58
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, you know, were like, well, what about a wheelchair?
• 6:02
  Dr. Melanie Stein: What about, like, how are we going to shower her?
• 6:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right?
• 6:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, there was just.
• 6:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So my life was changed and I felt like, wait, what do you mean?
• 6:08
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, you're just going to let me go?
• 6:11
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like.
• 6:14
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And it was a couple days into being at the rehab facility that I developed a bullseye rash.
• 6:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I say I'm lucky because being in medical school, I'm like, pathognomonic for Lyme disease.
• 6:26
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, I'm not making this up.
• 6:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: This makes sense, right?
• 6:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And at this point, like, I actually was telling myself, like, are you making this up?
• 6:34
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, I would be laying in the bed and I'd be like, move your leg, stand up.
• 6:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right?
• 6:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, yeah, but you would think that's where the story, like, ends, and you would think it means I got help and all this, but that's not the case because they brought the infectious disease doctor in and he goes, well, there's not Lyme disease out here, so that can't be what this is.
• 6:54
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, And I'm like, but it's, you know, it's a clear as day bullseye rash.
• 6:58
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You can't find anything wrong with me.
• 7:01
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I convinced him to run a spinal tap and even that tested positive for Lyme.
• 7:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And still, I'm not going to help you.
• 7:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Wow, that's unbelievable, Mel.
• 7:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Like, truly, because you had these things that many of our patients and clients don't have.
• 7:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: A bullseye rash, and they don't have a spinal tap.
• 7:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And you and I still know what they're dealing with, but they're getting gaslit, which is the term we should use here.
• 7:23
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 7:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But for you actually had data to support what was going on, and they still were so stuck in their wrong paradigm that they made you feel like that you were at fault.
• 7:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: How horrific it was.
• 7:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: It was completely devastating.
• 7:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I remember after that conversation, I called my mom and I said, get me out of here.
• 7:45
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, I don't want to be here anymore.
• 7:46
  Dr. Melanie Stein: This isn't, you know, I'm thankful.
• 7:48
  Dr. Melanie Stein: It taught me how to learn how to like, use a wheelchair and how to try to transfer to the bathroom and do some tasks, you know, But I needed out of there.
• 7:56
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I feel so blessed that I was in naturopathic school because I had a community of physicians that fought for me.
• 8:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I had a naturopath who, little did I know, treated Lyme disease.
• 8:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Wow.
• 8:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And he fought for me and she got me IV antibiotics and she did everything she could.
• 8:17
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But, you know, kind of much like your story, I didn't get better.
• 8:21
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I didn't get better because I was living in mold.
• 8:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Oh, yes.
• 8:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: The trifecta.
• 8:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 8:31
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Once I got out of mold, everything suddenly started working and, you know, we could get into it if you want to get into all the different treatments.
• 8:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I did, but I got better and I, you know, my goal was to like, walk across medical school graduation stage.
• 8:44
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And my whole life became like, this is my purpose and this is why I'm in school.
• 8:50
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I didn't stop going to school the whole time because in my eyes, it was the only reason I lived.
• 8:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 8:58
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I got better and I started my practice.
• 9:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I joined my mentor's practice.
• 9:01
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I feel very blessed.
• 9:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I walked out of school to a completely full practice, practicing treating patients with tick bore disease and mold toxicity and was living really healthy for many years until Covid.
• 9:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 9:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And once I got coveted, I got very sick.
• 9:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I don't really think I've ever been that sick in my life.
• 9:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I started to develop seizures and I had some seizures with my Lyme journey, but these were bad.
• 9:31
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like 20 times a day.
• 9:32
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I couldn't function.
• 9:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I had to step out of practice.
• 9:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And you know, my mentors and I, we all went back to the same treatments that we had done before.
• 9:41
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 9:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 9:42
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We were like, okay, this must be reactivated tick borne infection.
• 9:45
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Let's do spike protein detox and mitochondrial support and everything were doing.
• 9:50
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I was having the most extreme MCAS reactions.
• 9:53
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Nothing was working.
• 9:55
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And that's really where, you know, I was already doing some of this therapy and my mentor was already doing this therapy.
• 10:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But we had to take a step back and we had to really think about why was I not getting better, why was I not responding to these treatments.
• 10:09
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And at the end of the day, it all came back to my cell and my cell was not in any place that it could receive treatment because I was so stuck in the cell.
• 10:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Danger response.
• 10:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yes.
• 10:21
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Everything was setting me off.
• 10:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Wow.
• 10:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So there's so many pieces I want to talk about here because.
• 10:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 10:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And this is so many of our listeners, so many of my patients, I know yours as well, have this toxic load they don't know about, infectious burden they don't know about, and then throw Covid in there.
• 10:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And this immune dysfunction, inflammation, neurological manifestations, like you said, this is actually.
• 10:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I hate that you had to go through that, Melanie.
• 10:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And also, I know as healers, again, my own journey, similar to like, we have this like thing.
• 10:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I think we're born into the world as a healer and I think the divine, whatever that is for you or anyone listening is like, okay, let's actually practice.
• 11:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Because when you go through this and you suffer and struggle makes me want to cry for you and for me, because it's so hard.
• 11:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But the depth of the understanding and compassion that we come out of that with and even just like you coming on here and me having the podcast, there's such a passion I have for telling the story and validating someone sitting out there who's been having symptoms of unexplained explained fatigue or severe cognitive issues or paralysis or any number of tick borne or mold related symptoms and has been told by their doctor, it's all in your head, just like you and I at times.
• 11:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 11:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So let's go back to real quickly.
• 11:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I want to just touch on a few points because you had obviously somewhere a tick bite close to the time because you had the rash.
• 11:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 11:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And that was probably carrying some multiple infections, but then mold played into it.
• 11:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Tell us from your perspective of you in your case and also what you see in patients, how does that interplay?
• 11:57
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 11:58
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So, you know, I think that it's really this case of our buckets just completely overflow.
• 12:03
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 12:03
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, I have so many patients that come to me and they're like, what do you mean?
• 12:07
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I have Lyme and I have mold and I have POTS and I have ebv.
• 12:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And the reality Is it all comes down to like our immune systems just stop handling things.
• 12:16
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 12:16
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, and you know, we could talk about mold alone, but mold in the situation where we also have vector borne illness.
• 12:23
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Vector borne illness alters our immune system to such an extent that it doesn't take much.
• 12:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yes.
• 12:30
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So maybe before you had the vector borne illness, you might have been tolerating the mold.
• 12:35
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Okay.
• 12:35
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Because the body was clearing it.
• 12:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: The body was able to detoxify you, but now the immune system, it's like it's on high alert.
• 12:42
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And the minute mold comes into play, it just sets everything off even further.
• 12:47
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And you know, I'll be honest, and probably much like you, I don't want to treat mold because it's the most devastating thing to talk about with our patients.
• 12:55
  Dr. Melanie Stein: It completely uproots your entire life.
• 12:58
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I just had a patient today who just moved his entire life across country to come see me and get better.
• 13:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I had to tell him, hey you're in a moldy home, like you gotta move.
• 13:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And, and it's so hard, but it is so vital to recovery that if we're in mold, our system never gets a safe signal.
• 13:18
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 13:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Because we're having this insult where we're breathing the air, we're sleeping where we're supposed to be, you know, healing during that time.
• 13:25
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And we're never able to just go into that resting state and that healing state.
• 13:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Hey guys.
• 13:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Just a quick interruption to the show to remind you that we have products and services for tick borne infections, mast cell activation and everything we've talked about in this interview@drjill health.com you can get 15% off your first order, can get free shipping, over $250 in purchase, and you can also get a copy of my book signed by me from the store if you like.
• 13:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Just go to doctorjillhealth.com and check it out.
• 13:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Okay, let's get back to our show.
• 13:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I just love that we stop here for a moment and we'll keep going because like you, I see patients all the time where I see the data and hear the story and I'm certain there's mold.
• 14:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And it is one of the most difficult conversations to approach because usually, first of all, if I just say, do you have mold in your home?
• 14:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: No, of course no one has mold in their home.
• 14:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 14:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So I have to ask roundabout, have you ever had a dishwasher leak?
• 14:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Have you had the attic, you know, flood, you know, basement sump pump or the window wells or you name it, Right.
• 14:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You have to really be roundabout because they're like, oh, yeah, we had a big flood in the basement.
• 14:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We just wiped down the water and dried it out over three weeks.
• 14:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And you know, and you're going, oh my goodness, there's definitely going to be mold here.
• 14:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And then you have to educate.
• 14:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And then the second thing you mentioned is we know the principle of you must first have at least reduced, if not minimal exposure in order to get well.
• 14:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And so this is their safety, their home, our home represents something so much bigger than a home for most people.
• 14:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: It's like where we lay our head, where we rest and rejuvenate.
• 14:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And so all of a sudden, there's like a dangerous stranger in your home completely wrecking your health.
• 15:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And it changes everything for people.
• 15:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And it's hard to get people to realize that.
• 15:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: The gravity and then the financial implications and everything, right?
• 15:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I'm one who is not an alarmist.
• 15:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm like, okay, if there's any way we can fix your home or figure it out, I would be happy to help you with that.
• 15:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But there are cases where people have to move and there are cases where.
• 15:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And having gone through that myself, it is devastating.
• 15:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And it's also kind of crazy making cuz you're like, is this all in my head?
• 15:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Why do I feel bad in this place?
• 15:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So I love that we're talking about that and validating those people out there.
• 15:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And then as clinicians, there's a lot of docs that listen to this podcast.
• 15:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I think the biggest thing is I talk to other physicians and I love your opinion on this is how do we talk about this without creating too much fear, but also creating the seriousness to take it.
• 15:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You know, you might have to move, you might have to remediate, you might have to spend some money.
• 15:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: How do you approach that?
• 15:50
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Isn't that the.
• 15:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: The million dollar question?
• 15:52
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, and I think that's.
• 15:54
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That's the case, right?
• 15:55
  Dr. Melanie Stein: It's like, it's a horrible conversation to have.
• 15:58
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I don't want to be an alarmist either, but at the same time, I feel like I have a responsibility and a due diligence to talk to my patients about it.
• 16:06
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I think that's the way that I really try to approach it is, you know, I, I try to be human, right?
• 16:13
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like my patients, they're not just my patients.
• 16:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: They're.
• 16:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: They become our family at our clinic, you know, and so I just be human about it.
• 16:20
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I just say, look, here's the data, here's the facts, like, let's at least get an inspection and let's find out.
• 16:27
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 16:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, and Ermie says one thing, but until we put eyes on things like we really don't know and then, you know, let's then figure out what to do from there and take this step by step.
• 16:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We don't need to go from A to Z right away.
• 16:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And yeah, I think the more we can just walk alongside our patients through that journey and the steps, I think, you know, they can find comfort in us and know that we're going to get through it together.
• 16:52
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Because there's really in a way also no beating the bush because it is in a way black and white.
• 16:57
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, yes, we'll do our best.
• 17:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And it sounds like you do your best too, to do everything we can to continue keeping you moving in a positive direction.
• 17:06
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But there does come a time if you're reacting to absolutely everything I give you, I can't do the treatment, especially you know, the cell membrane treatment that I do.
• 17:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You're, you know, it's just, it's not gonna work.
• 17:17
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And so, you know, there does come a time where you have to have that hard conversation of look, save like that's the conversation I'll have is like, save your money.
• 17:26
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I'll give you a six month treatment plan of things to do.
• 17:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Save all the money you have so that you can move because you know, at some time what is the cost of your life, right?
• 17:35
  Dr. Melanie Stein: At some point.
• 17:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So true, right?
• 17:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I go, I like something really practical like your mattress and pillows.
• 17:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That for me is non negotiable because someone just texted me just two days ago.
• 17:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I have this mattress, test it for mold.
• 17:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm like, if your house is moldy, get rid of the mattress.
• 17:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I know it's a few thousand dollars, but it is so worth, like that's the least of concerns because I'm like, don't mess around.
• 17:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You don't.
• 17:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And you can't really.
• 17:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So say you test it and it tests negative.
• 17:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: First of all, how would you do it?
• 18:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You might do a bulk sample like a swab.
• 18:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And first of all, it's also second of all, I should say it's probably the toxins in the mattress that are not going to show up on a mold test, right?
• 18:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So then I'm like, please just get rid of it.
• 18:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Save yourself the trouble of having a negative test and then thinking it's okay and still being breathing that what are the.
• 18:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So, oh gosh, I have so many Questions for you, Dr. Melanie.
• 18:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I want to say out loud, I love saying this.
• 18:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Naturopathic doctors have taught me so much and I always love the collegial relationships I have with your specialty because I think you guys really bring in a unique perspective.
• 18:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And like I said, a lot of medical doctors are coming around.
• 18:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But so much of what you've already done and trained in your career is the lymphatic drainage and the, you know, castor oil packs and all these things that I had to learn outside of my medical training.
• 18:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So I just want to say out loud, I have very de respect for you in that realm.
• 18:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: How do you layer this?
• 18:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You mentioned cell danger response, you mentioned mast cell activation, you mentioned mold, you mentioned tick borne, vector borne illnesses.
• 18:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And you and I both see patients come in and they often have this big map of all of these things and more.
• 19:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Where do you start?
• 19:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: How do you help them understand that there is this layered approach and give us just like a little bit of roadmap of what, how you approach that?
• 19:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, you know, I mean, I think that's a great question and I'm actually, I just decided last week I'm going to write a second approach because I think that this is such a, an ongoing thing and all of us have a little bit of a different way.
• 19:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But in my practice I kind of look at the four stages of healing, Right.
• 19:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We need to support the foundation.
• 19:35
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Are you sleeping?
• 19:35
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Are you pooping?
• 19:36
  Dr. Melanie Stein: How are you eating?
• 19:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Are you in mold?
• 19:39
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Those are kind of my first things.
• 19:41
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And within that, maybe we're treating your pots and balancing your hormones and stabilizing your mast cells.
• 19:47
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But a lot of the times like my goal is to get you off all of that stuff.
• 19:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 19:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So maybe we're doing that at first just to give you a little bit of symptomatic relief, but then, you know, my next thing is I need to restore cellular function.
• 20:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Because when cellular function is not working, we can give you all of the best treatments.
• 20:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And the body is basically like, I don't know what to do with these.
• 20:07
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, I'm either going to really overreact, I'm not going to have a response.
• 20:11
  Dr. Melanie Stein: My detox isn't going to go well.
• 20:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 20:14
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And so, you know, we use a therapy in our clinic called cell membrane therapy and we could dive into that in a little bit.
• 20:20
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But so that's kind of my next approach.
• 20:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And after we get the cells working again, that's when I go in and I treat the vector borne illnesses.
• 20:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That's when we'll treat the Tick borne illnesses or the ebv or maybe it's the long Covid.
• 20:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Whatever vector borne illness is there, we're doing that.
• 20:36
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And once we've removed the triggers, that's when I feel like we can stabilize the immune system and bring back the body into a harmonic place.
• 20:45
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And that's where I'm using a lot of peptides at this point to work with that.
• 20:49
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So.
• 20:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Okay, I really love that because I couldn't agree more.
• 20:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You have to have basic nutrient status, basic sleep.
• 20:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And those things you mentioned in the foundation.
• 20:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: If someone's not sleeping, there's no way they're going to get well.
• 21:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 21:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Or if their body's in a threat response or the cell danger response, which you mentioned.
• 21:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We both agree on that.
• 21:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I remember when Dr. Navio first came out with that and I think he spoke at ici.
• 21:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: There's been multiple.
• 21:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 21:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But I'll never forget where I was sitting because I was like, oh, this explains.
• 21:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So I'm sure you had that epiphany.
• 21:16
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I was, I was there at that lecture and it was like, yes, moment of like, no wonder these patients can't heal.
• 21:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Their bodies are literally in this alarm system state.
• 21:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And that's such a parallel to like our fight or flight and trauma response to illness.
• 21:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Like you in that hospital bed when the doctor's like, it's all in your head, Melanie.
• 21:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And you're like, I don't think it is.
• 21:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I can't walk.
• 21:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But maybe it is.
• 21:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And you start to believe this gaslighting.
• 21:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And so your body's like, huh, this doesn't make sense.
• 21:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But I'm not.
• 21:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And then the trauma of like being alone in a hut where you can't move and all of the trauma that goes preceding your diagnosis and all of our patients have that right.
• 21:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And so there's a psychological toll.
• 21:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I remember for me with breast cancer at 25, I had been the one that held everything together, right.
• 22:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: The responsible one of my family.
• 22:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And like I, so I remember, I'll never forget.
• 22:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Like I'm going into surgery for my first breast lumpectomy.
• 22:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: My family's there, my ex husband was there and they're all, you know, like, I could see it in their face.
• 22:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I'm the empath.
• 22:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And so I see their terror and their fear and their sadness.
• 22:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And guess what?
• 22:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm the patient.
• 22:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I should be like, you know, comfort me.
• 22:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But instead of doing that, I'm reassuring them, I'm making them laugh.
• 22:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm just like joking around.
• 22:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'll be fine.
• 22:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm Going to come back with one boob and you know, whatever kind of thing I was doing.
• 22:32
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And then healers in us.
• 22:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right, Right.
• 22:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And then I go back and I just still remember the doors closed to the surgery suite.
• 22:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm back, I'm by myself with the nurse and I just start crying because back behind the doors I can just be myself and actually grieve and actually not be okay.
• 22:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I say that because I know so many patients going through this, they're navigating so much more than just their symptoms.
• 22:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Am I?
• 22:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Can I believed?
• 22:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Am I worth having receiving of care and love in this?
• 23:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Am I, you know, crazy?
• 23:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And just these questions that you and I both experience.
• 23:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So back to our cell danger response.
• 23:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We're having these traumatic experiences with illness because our medical system doesn't understand the things we're talking about and we're being told that it's not real.
• 23:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So there's that level and then on a cellular level there's a parallel with our literal cells going into a, like a stuck locked position that cannot heal.
• 23:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Maybe just a briefly I want to go to the phospholipids and membrane stuff, but let's talk just a bit about cell membrane.
• 23:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What's your perspective on that and how do you frame it for patients?
• 23:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, the cell membrane of the cell danger response.
• 23:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Sorry, cell danger.
• 23:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Cell danger.
• 23:43
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That's what I thought.
• 23:45
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I mean, I think you did it, you just said it so well.
• 23:48
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Which is our bodies literally go into this locked state, right.
• 23:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So what normally is happening and this is happening all the time, right.
• 23:55
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Our bodies are brilliant machines in a way, right.
• 23:59
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Where we have so many systems in place to protect us.
• 24:03
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And so, you know, I'm just going to kind of circle back to vector born disease.
• 24:07
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But like vector borne disease comes in or let's just say we get the common cold and our body just basically goes, hey, something's here, it shouldn't be here, I need help.
• 24:17
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And there's this whole cellular process that the body does to tighten its membranes so things can't come in shift the way it's making energy and you know, just basically going into this reserve, right.
• 24:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: If you think about like that story of like I'm running from a bear, right, where we start to like change the way we're using the resources in our body when we're having this stressful event in order to preserve life.
• 24:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And that's what's happening in the cell danger response.
• 24:42
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But normally we get rid of the common cold or we get rid of the infection that we just got or maybe the exposure of mold that we just got in that one moment.
• 24:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 24:54
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And then everything goes back to functioning normal and it goes, okay, I'm safe, I'm fine, I could, I can continue.
• 25:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But when we get stuck in that cell danger response, when we have this chronic burden with mold or maybe we don't have the genes to detoxify mold so we're releasing inflammation all the time or we're not getting rid of these vector borne illnesses or spike protein is just persisting in the body over time, the body starts to just stay in this really oxidized state and it stays in this survival state because it's not getting that all clear and safe signal.
• 25:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 25:31
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And over time as that's happening, we're getting stuck and we're actually damaging our membranes and damaging certain areas in the body that are making it so much harder to heal.
• 25:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 25:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That was a really good explanation.
• 25:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And just for a visual, I'm picturing like a clock on the wall where we're just, you know, the time is going, the second hand is ticking and it just like gets stuck at 2 o'.
• 25:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Clock.
• 25:53
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Love it.
• 25:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And it's like not going fast because we have these cycles that are supposed to help us heal.
• 25:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And in the cell danger response, there's three parts can just get stuck.
• 26:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So cell danger response aside, you talked about cell membranes, which is really important.
• 26:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Let's shift to that because I think that's a unique way.
• 26:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I could not agree more with you as one of the foundations of treatment.
• 26:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But for people who don't know what that means, tell us a little bit more about why that's one of the cornerstones of your treatment protocol.
• 26:21
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Sure.
• 26:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So I think a lot of times like when we think of the cell membrane, we're kind of just thinking about like this wall around the cell.
• 26:27
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But it's so much more intricate than that.
• 26:30
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Within that cell membrane, there's receptors that allow the cell to communicate between cells.
• 26:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, there's regulatory ion channels that allow certain things to come in and things not to come out.
• 26:43
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And it's really this very intricate fat that makes up the cell membrane and it needs to be arranged in this perfect way.
• 26:53
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And you know, even our mitochondria have cell membranes, not only because that's where cell replication happen.
• 26:59
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We really want to protect our DNA, but in that inner membrane there's an even more specialized fat that allows ATP, which is the cell's energy.
• 27:09
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Every thing that Happens every chemical reaction depends on that ATP.
• 27:13
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And if these membranes become damaged, which is what happens when we're in that stuck state in the cell danger responses, we're just creating so much oxidative stress in our body that we actually start to oxidize these membranes.
• 27:27
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And the body is going to want to survive.
• 27:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 27:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Again, the body is this wonderful machine.
• 27:31
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So it's going to look for the best next thing.
• 27:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 27:34
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And so it's going to find these unhealthy toxic fats to embed themselves in the cell membrane.
• 27:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And so now instead of this nice healthy cell membrane that can regulate immune system communication, that can help the cell send messages, can protect what's coming in and out, can make energy efficiently, we're having these toxic cells that don't know what to do.
• 27:56
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And that's kind of where I was talking earlier, where it's like we're giving some of the best treatments, but the body doesn't even know what to do with them sometimes.
• 28:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And that's because of the cell membrane damage.
• 28:08
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I think just to dig a little bit deeper, we have to also keep an exertion.
• 28:12
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Mast cells are cells.
• 28:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yes.
• 28:14
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And mast cells have membranes too.
• 28:16
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And when we get stuck in that cell danger response, our mast cells are going to have a lower threshold of firing.
• 28:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So this is a little bit different than like mast cell activation syndrome, where there's this chronic degranulation and expression of these mast cell mediators.
• 28:31
  Dr. Melanie Stein: This is more of membrane damage to those mast cells leading to things like leukotrienes and prostaglandins being constantly released into the system.
• 28:41
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So now our patients are becoming more and more reactive.
• 28:44
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I don't, I don't know about you, but I have patients.
• 28:46
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Patients.
• 28:46
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I give them a drop of a tincture and they go into this extreme week long reaction.
• 28:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yes, yes.
• 28:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And more and more common because of our system overload.
• 28:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So with cell membranes, I'm assuming you do some phospholipid treatments and things.
• 28:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Do you want to give the listeners a little bit of an overview of like how you would approach that?
• 29:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Is it oral, is it iv?
• 29:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Where do you start?
• 29:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, so you can do some of this orally.
• 29:08
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I think oral phospholipids and oral butyrate are amazing.
• 29:13
  Dr. Melanie Stein: They have their place.
• 29:14
  Dr. Melanie Stein: The problem with oral butyrate and just to back up a little bit, butyrate helps scrub the cells of that fat, that toxic fat that gets embedded in the membrane.
• 29:24
  Dr. Melanie Stein: The problem with oral butyrate is it doesn't leave the gut.
• 29:27
  Dr. Melanie Stein: It stays in the gut.
• 29:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And so we really need sodium phenyl IV sodium phenylbutyrate to really help scrub the cells of that toxic fat.
• 29:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I'm a big believer in IV phospholipids too, because there's this bulk flow concept which is when you just flood the cells with healthy fats, it's going to use them, it's going to displace that unhealthy fat, it's going to utilize them quickly, and you're just delivering it directly into the bloodstream.
• 29:55
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So that's the foundation of the treatment is, you know, giving these IVs and depending on the person in front of me, I might do different nutrients or anti inflammatories.
• 30:03
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I love pairing it with MSM because all these of our patients are so inflamed.
• 30:08
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So that's kind of the core of therapy.
• 30:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But the thing is you need a lot of treatment.
• 30:13
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So this isn't something that, you know, you're going to go in and you're going to do three IVs and you're going to be like, hey, Dr. Stein, I feel healed.
• 30:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right?
• 30:20
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, it's really this commitment through the process.
• 30:23
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And much like you probably know, you know, healing isn't linear and oftentimes we feel worse before we feel better, especially in this therapy because we're asking the body to do a lot of work very quickly.
• 30:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: It's like an oil change.
• 30:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 30:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We're kind of changing out those lipids and then we have to get rid of them too.
• 30:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: The dysfunctional ones.
• 30:41
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yep.
• 30:42
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And much like, and much like you were talking about, we in the beginning here, we need to support the foundation through that process.
• 30:47
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 30:48
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Any inflammatory burden that might be coming from an external environment, we need to know that we're, you know, in the safe place where that's only coming from within.
• 30:57
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And yeah, we need to be supporting bioflow, which helps with fat digest and making sure elimination is happening and that you're sleeping and resting.
• 31:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I had a patient today and he said, he was like, okay, well what are we going to do?
• 31:09
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I said, your only homework is to rest because you're not resting.
• 31:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 31:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Giving them permission too.
• 31:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So one question would be like, what's a typical treatment?
• 31:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Is it 30 days, 90 days?
• 31:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Like say they're doing IVPC and some of these IVs and then I'm sure they're doing other things.
• 31:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Like you said, the basic sleep stuff.
• 31:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What's a kind of classical time frame that they might be doing phospholipid therapy.
• 31:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I mean, I tell people it takes between 10 and 60 IVs.
• 31:36
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, it took me 80 when I did the treatment to get better.
• 31:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And we can do it in different ways.
• 31:42
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, like, we have a program where patients fly in, and they'll stay for two to three weeks, and we'll hit them hard four days a week if they can tolerate it.
• 31:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 31:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Everyone's different.
• 31:53
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And then, you know, they might go home for a month or two, and then they might come back one more time.
• 31:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 31:58
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Other patients that, you know, live locally or can have more flexibility with their time, they might do one to two a week.
• 32:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I think less than two a week is probably not totally worth it because of that bulk flow concept of flooding the cells with it.
• 32:11
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, but.
• 32:12
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But everyone's different.
• 32:13
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But at some point, everyone that I've had.
• 32:17
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Unless you're in mold.
• 32:18
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That's my one caveat.
• 32:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 32:20
  Dr. Melanie Stein: At some point, almost everyone that's going through the treatment tells me I feel better after the ivy babies.
• 32:24
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Now, that doesn't mean you're cured.
• 32:26
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That doesn't mean they still don't have a lot of symptoms, but that's how I know I'm halfway done.
• 32:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yes.
• 32:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yes.
• 32:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Because they're starting to get more good than bad.
• 32:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I love that.
• 32:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That makes so much sense.
• 32:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: In your personal journey, you went through a lot just like me.
• 32:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We had these layers.
• 32:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 32:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And then we learned a lot as healers.
• 32:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What was the most profound thing that you felt or experienced in your own healing journey?
• 32:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That was a big aha for you.
• 32:52
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Gosh.
• 32:54
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I think that for me, it was my limbic system.
• 32:57
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That was my biggest aha is understanding the way that.
• 33:01
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That my limbic system was inhibiting my own recovery.
• 33:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Because, much like you, I'm the caregiver in my family.
• 33:09
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I'm the one that felt like, oh, my goodness.
• 33:13
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I just remember my mom looking at me with these just, like, helpless and depressed eyes.
• 33:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And in the same breath, I remember my mom saying, mind over matter, Melanie.
• 33:23
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You got to get up and stand.
• 33:25
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 33:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I just have to keep it all together for them, because if I don't keep it all together, they're gonna.
• 33:34
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, they're not gonna be okay.
• 33:35
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And if they're not okay, then I'm not okay.
• 33:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right, right.
• 33:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And it just made me in this state of, like, this constant fear because, you know, much like you, like, then the minute they left.
• 33:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 33:45
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I would cry.
• 33:46
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I would have these suicidal Moments I would, you know, just completely lose it.
• 33:50
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And.
• 33:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I really had to learn how do I regulate these thought patterns?
• 33:56
  Dr. Melanie Stein: How do I believe that I can get better when everyone else is telling me and there's nothing wrong with me?
• 34:01
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And.
• 34:02
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And then, you know, as I was getting better, I was so afraid.
• 34:06
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I remember actually my first trip to Ilads, I was in a wheelchair during the time when I went and I. I made my partner come with me because I was so afraid to travel.
• 34:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And like, anytime she left my side, I was like, where's she?
• 34:23
  Dr. Melanie Stein: What's going on?
• 34:23
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Can I do this?
• 34:24
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, you know, and it's like I had to relearn to trust my body again.
• 34:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yes.
• 34:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And that, you know, I am this independent person.
• 34:32
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I can be okay.
• 34:33
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I can go do things alone, and my body is a safe place.
• 34:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I think so often when we've been sick for so long, our bodies become not a safe place.
• 34:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That's really profound because, like you, I'm a very independent woman and autonomous and all those things.
• 34:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 34:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I think that some of the things that I've worked through in trauma is like a fear of getting sick again, a fear of growing old and being alone and getting sick and all these things around.
• 35:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: When we've had that, where we go from autonomous self sufficient to feeling very helpless in that illness, which anyone who suffered chronic illness has experienced that at some time.
• 35:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Most people have this maybe thought of, oh, if I'm in my 80s or 90s or I have dementia, like all of us humans realize there might be some point where we need care and need help, and that's a little scary.
• 35:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I think some people think about children that way, like, oh, I should have children so that I can help me my older age.
• 35:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 35:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And nothing wrong with that.
• 35:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That.
• 35:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 35:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But like, but like, there's this piece that all of us, but then you and I and anyone who's listening, who's been through chronic illness, there's another level because were young and vibrantly healthy and in our prime and for a period of time that autonomy, independence was completely taken away.
• 35:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And we know at a different level that could happen at any time.
• 35:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And while I don't live there, I know that there's been things.
• 35:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And again, I'm working through some of these things even today about, like, partnership and relationships and how does that look and am I looking to that to make me feel safe or can I create safety in myself?
• 36:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And you alluded to that.
• 36:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I think I would agree with you.
• 36:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: My limbic Retraining my trauma.
• 36:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And one thing you mentioned so important, and I want you to talk a little bit more about it, is I realized that I couldn't really love myself in a way that was healthy until I trusted myself.
• 36:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And what happened in that illness was a rupture of my ability to trust my body to show up for me.
• 36:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I remember being so angry at my body for betraying me.
• 36:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 36:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Be like, how my mind was fine, my body was not at many times in my life, and I was so mad, how could my body betray me?
• 36:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And in order to really heal, I had to go to that level and be like, oh, wait, sweetheart, you didn't betray me.
• 36:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You were just like, hello, we need to, like, reframing that story.
• 36:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right?
• 36:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Like, tell me about that for you, because it sounds like we had similar journeys about.
• 36:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We had to really trust ourselves and then love our bodies as they were.
• 36:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Illness or health.
• 36:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And then also, granted, we can rely on other people, but we have to ultimately know that we can take care of ourselves.
• 37:03
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah.
• 37:03
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah.
• 37:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I mean, for me, it was a lot of therapy, right.
• 37:07
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, I went to a week at first to.
• 37:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: To do my.
• 37:11
  Dr. Melanie Stein: To do my work.
• 37:12
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I think we all have work to do as humans in general.
• 37:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But for me, you're right.
• 37:17
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, it severed this bond that I had with myself that I, I. I didn't know if I trusted my intuition because I didn't know what I was even feeling.
• 37:26
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I think I dissociated so much.
• 37:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And yes.
• 37:30
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I remember this day where.
• 37:32
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So when I was learning how to walk again, I was in a walker, and I went out to the sidewalk, and you know how the sidewalk has, like, little lines in the sidewalk?
• 37:40
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And my goal was to just make it to the first line, right?
• 37:44
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And it was like a month of standing up, and I had full body tremors, and it was like a month of just, like, standing up and not being able to, like, move that first.
• 37:54
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 37:55
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I remember just getting so angry.
• 37:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 38:00
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So angry at my body and being like, what the.
• 38:02
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, why are you not moving?
• 38:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And why can I not do this?
• 38:07
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I found this incredible chiropractor who, you know, to this day is one of.
• 38:15
  Dr. Melanie Stein: One of the most incredible people and friends in my life who took me under his wing.
• 38:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And he's the one that actually really helped me learn that, like, I can take that step.
• 38:25
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Because what actually was happening is I was afraid.
• 38:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yes.
• 38:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I was afraid to take that step because I was going to fall down.
• 38:32
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And he sat there with me and he encouraged me and helped me learn.
• 38:37
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, okay, you can take that step, you know, here, look, I'm going to teach you how to sit up when you're on the floor.
• 38:43
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So if you do fall down, this is how you're going to move your body and we're going to take it, you know, break it down to this level that like, you're like, really?
• 38:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: This is how you're explaining it.
• 38:54
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That's what I needed, right?
• 38:56
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like, I needed all of those different steps to think through, all those different steps to know, oh, Melanie, you have this, you know, you're safe again.
• 39:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And you know, but then on top of that, it's like, okay, so fine, I'm walking and things, but I still didn't feel safe.
• 39:11
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I mean, like you said, like, even now I, I do still struggle with that because sometimes like, oh, I'm might have a mold exposure and all of a sudden I feel like I'm kind of dizzy, like I might have a seizure.
• 39:22
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I do notice myself, like grab my wife and be like, oh, hey, yeah, I need help.
• 39:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right?
• 39:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And gosh, you know, I don't know if I can exactly outline how I learned to trust myself again, but I think it was just resilience, right?
• 39:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: It was, it was learning over time and going through these experiences and putting myself in uncomfortable places to learn that I am safe again.
• 39:49
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But also changing the narrative.
• 39:52
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Like when those stories creep in your head and you think to yourself, like, I can't do this, like, you can do it just might look different for you.
• 40:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 40:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah.
• 40:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That's such great wisdom.
• 40:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And I'm sure those listening can resonate.
• 40:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Who's ever experienced chronic illness?
• 40:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Let's end with just a few rapid questions that people might want to know about, like Lyme and diagnosis, and then we'll kind of pull it all together.
• 40:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What do you think is the most commonly missed clue that someone might have tick borne, vector borne illness?
• 40:23
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, I mean, the number one clue that's to me is all your labs look normal, but you're still really sick.
• 40:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Right.
• 40:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Or I have symptoms in my head, I have symptoms in my lungs, I have symptoms in my GI tract.
• 40:36
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And you're going to the gastroenterologist, you're going to the neurologist.
• 40:39
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And yeah, they're not looking at it as this piece.
• 40:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 40:42
  Dr. Melanie Stein: They're saying everything's normal.
• 40:44
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I kind of say look.
• 40:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: At Lyme, then, yeah, totally agree.
• 40:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right?
• 40:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: We just.
• 40:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And as I'm training my nurse practitioner and PA in the office, Same thing.
• 40:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: They're like, what do you think of this one?
• 40:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Probably should rule out Lyme disease because you go there.
• 40:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What about Barton Olivibesia often hang with Lyme.
• 41:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: The trifectas is so common.
• 41:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: But any just quick clues about why you might think Bartonella or Babesia symptom wise?
• 41:09
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah.
• 41:09
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So for me, you know, Bartonella, usually neuropsychiatric symptoms.
• 41:14
  Dr. Melanie Stein: So someone that's like I, I had a patient recently that's like all of a sudden I just don't want to leave my house.
• 41:18
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I'm so anxious or you know, just feeling more depressed and just not really knowing why.
• 41:26
  Dr. Melanie Stein: The neurological symptoms are usually kind of just out of proportion portion of their symptoms.
• 41:29
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Pains in the soles of the feet, neuropathy, you know, brain fog.
• 41:36
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That just feels different.
• 41:38
  Dr. Melanie Stein: That's when I really start to think about Bartonella.
• 41:41
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Whereas BIA and seizures as well.
• 41:43
  Dr. Melanie Stein: With Bartonella it's a big symptom.
• 41:45
  Dr. Melanie Stein: But with Babesia, you know, night sweats, low grade fevers, like just this like 99 grade degree fever at night.
• 41:55
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Those are, those are two really big ones.
• 41:57
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Shortness of breath, but like your lungs are fine, you had pulmonary tests and there's nothing wrong but you just constantly feel like you're having shortness of breath.
• 42:04
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And inhaler doesn't fix it.
• 42:06
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Sleep apnea doesn't get solved or the cpap.
• 42:09
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Those are symptoms where I start to kind of think about Babesia.
• 42:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And like you said, you kind of gave a great overview because you went through it with sometimes there's mold in the picture, sometimes there's muscle issues, sometimes there's toxic overload of other types and frequently there's you know, limbic trau.
• 42:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: All of these things can kind of cluster together.
• 42:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So if you're suffering and your doctor is telling your labs are normal, please keep finding, keep looking and you can get to that root cause and get healing.
• 42:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What is the one thing you would love to go back and tell your younger self?
• 42:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: That naturopathic student that was there and found herself paralyzed the one morning.
• 42:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What if you could go back and tell her one thing that you now know?
• 42:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: What would that be?
• 42:51
  Dr. Melanie Stein: You know, I think it's just that, you know, we live in a broken medical system.
• 42:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Right.
• 42:56
  Dr. Melanie Stein: We live in a symptom based medical system where symptom equals diagnosis.
• 43:01
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I think that I had a lot of anger about that because that meant nothing was wrong.
• 43:07
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And I think that the biggest thing I think I could tell myself and probably still need to hear this now that it's coming up is, you know, it's a lack of education and you know, you don't know this now, Melanie, but like five years from now, like your whole life is going to be dedicated to trying to change that stigma and trying to create a new paradigm of the way of looking at chronic illness.
• 43:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Wow, I love that.
• 43:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: So similar to my own journey because I remember at 25, having the breast cancer diagnosis and really getting kind of a divine download.
• 43:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: This is not going to end in death, but it's for the God's glory and also for your learning.
• 43:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And once I like grabbed onto that, like, oh, there's actually purpose in this suffering, it changed everything and right.
• 43:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: It wasn't fun, but was totally a transformational.
• 43:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And now I'm like, okay, God, what's next?
• 43:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I can, I know I can handle it.
• 43:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Dr. Melanie, I knew this would be a great interview.
• 43:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: You have touched my heart and I hope the hearts of our listeners.
• 44:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: If people want to know more about you or your clinic, where can they find out more?
• 44:05
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Yeah, so my clinic is Restorative Health Clinic in Portland, Oregon.
• 44:10
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I also recently just wrote a book, Breaking Through Chronic Illness that goes into the science and the settlement brain therapy, a lot more that is on Amazon.
• 44:19
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I really tried to break down the science.
• 44:21
  Dr. Melanie Stein: There's a lot in there so that you can really understand what's happening in the body with these chronic illnesses.
• 44:28
  Dr. Melanie Stein: And then as well, Dr. Melanie Stein on Instagram, I'm always posting fun facts and medical education to try to spread awareness.
• 44:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Awesome.
• 44:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Loved this.
• 44:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Love getting to know you better.
• 44:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: I'm sure I'll see you at an upcoming conference.
• 44:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Thank you for taking your suffering and transforming it into the healing power of health.
• 44:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: Helping patients really all over the world.
• 44:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan: And like I said, this was an absolute pleasure to talk to you about this.
• 44:53
  Dr. Melanie Stein: Likewise.
• 44:54
  Dr. Melanie Stein: I'm so happy I got this opportunity.