143: Mold and Adrenal Health: The Link Between Chronic Stress and Hormones with Dr. Kinney

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Foreign.

Hey, everyone, what's going on today? I've got Dr. Aaron Kinney on. This is the first time that I'm kind of like setting this up with someone. So we're doing a two part episode. We're planned out from the beginning. It's a two part episode, what we're talking about. And the first thing is connected into the second thing. Part one is going to be here on this episode today on my pod. And then part two is going to be on Dr. Kinney's pod probably next week sometime. So we'll make sure we like label them like part one with so and so. Part two is so and so. So kind of knows what it is. Let's real quick on that intro. What's the name of your pod real quick so people can go find it.

And then it's the doc. Sure. It's the Dr. Kinney Show.

So easy.

Done. All right, so the Dr. Kinney show. So anyway, guys, who's Dr. Kinney? So she's a naturopathic doctor. She specializes in stress and hormones, which we haven't really done a deep dive on on this show. But the mold connection to all that stuff can be pretty significant. And if you have issues going on there, it's just a general kind of health and wellness issue overall. So the first episode here is going to focus more on the health side of that and understanding how all of that works. And then when we go on to Dr. Kinney's pod, which we're going to record here, like right after this, we're going to be talking more about like the environmental impact and kind of some things in the house and stuff like that. So with all of that, Dr. Kinney, what's going on?

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited about this little series we're doing. So, yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm a naturopathic doctor and I specialize in treating people who've been chronically stressed and how that ends up, you know, that ends up affecting their hormones. So I kind of set out when I got into practice. I really liked hormonal, I liked balancing hormones in men and women. And when I had really difficult patients and it seemed like I couldn't quite get their hormones to balance and I started diving a little bit deeper, I started uncovering just how much stress has an impact on your hormonal health. So I'm going to explain today about.

Why chronic stress causes so many problems in the body. And I think it's really. We all kind of know that, right? We all kind of know. Yeah. When I'm stressed, things tend to feel worse in my body. But I really like explaining actually how that happens and why you feel that way because I find when you understand why, you're much more likely to make the changes or investigate the things. So. So first we're going to start by talking about stress in the body. So stress, and I'm going to refer to it as either stress mode or fight flight mode. And our bodies were designed to respond to stress. No matter what the stresses are the same response is the same. So. Or the response is the same. What happens is, let's say a lion is chasing you. You're standing somewhere and a lion runs up. Your body will then send a signal from your amygdala and it gets sent to the frontal part of your brain and it sends out a flood of hormones. The first one is a hormone called cortical releasing hormone, which tells the adrenals to pump out a hormone called cortisol and also comes out a little bit of adrenaline. When those hormones flood the system, we go into fight flight mode. We have an increase in heart rate, an increase in breath rate, we'll get an increase in blood sugar. We will send all the blood flow to the arms and the legs so you can run or fight to get away from whatever the stressor is. So it's a good thing to have this fight flight response, Right? It's what we need in order to get safe from a stressor. Now, like I said, the response is the same no matter what the stressor is. And that's a good response if you're being chased by a lion or tiger. Not necessarily what we need if we're getting email from a boss or we look at something we don't like on social media or sitting in traffic. But unfortunately, that's the way our brains were wired. So, you know, when we're in a stressful situation, we go into this acute stress mode. But now here's the really important part is after your body gets safe from, let's say from that lion that's chasing you, you run, you get safe. That hormone cortisol which we think of as our stress hormone. I'm going to explain a little bit how it's more than just that. But that cortisol will actually go back to your brain and it binds to a receptor that's called a, I like to call it the off button. It's a glucocorticoid receptor and it actually turn off further production of cortisol. So that same cortisol which activates your fight flight is also the thing that gets you out of fight flight. And so the problem with stress is not that the stress response exists. The problem is if you stay in fight flight mode for too long of a period of time. Because we were designed to get into that stress response to deal with the stressor and then come out of the stress response, which we're not in that acute fight flight stage. We're in what we call rest and digest. And that's when all the blood flow comes back to the internal abdominal organs. That's when heart rate slows, breath rate slows, blood. You basically go into the healing mode of the body, right? So we want to be spending the predominant amount in our lives in that healing mode. Prominent amount of time and only a short period of time in that fight flight mode. Unfortunately, most of us spend the majority of our time in fight flight mode and only a small amount of our time in that parasympathetic state. So what happens when you are constantly getting triggered in that acute fight flight mode? I like to use March of 2020 as a perfect example for this. Everyone Remembers March of 2020. It like our stress button was getting pushed every single day, every single minute. It was like, this is happening. This is happening so much like what happens in type 2 diabetes when the cell is getting over inundated with glucose and the cells start to downregulate the production of insulin receptors. You have that receptor in the brain that you know, is what I like to call that off button. If you're constantly pushing your stress response, your body is like, you know what, I don't think I'm going to turn off the stress response because she's he or she's probably going to turn it right back on. So it stops making that off button receptor. So now your body is stuck in chronic stress mode or it's stuck in fight flight and it can't get out. And I'm sure if you're listening to this, you've probably experienced that at some point in your life. If you've ever gone through a move or a divorce or Loss of a loved one. Those are prolonged periods of stress that we tend to go through in our life. And the body will do just that. It will downregulate that off button and you'll kind of stay in stress mode as a protective mechanism. Your body does that to protect you. And so what I found is that when the body is in that fight flight mode and stuck there for a long period of time, what eventually happens is that cortisol, that hormone that we think of as the stress hormone, it also has a lot of other important functions. It's what controls our circadian rhythm, it gives us energy. It's also a major cellular anti inflammatory molecule. So I like to call it the fix it hormone. When you have enough cortisol, your body can fix most things in the body. When you're stuck in chronic flight flight mode and your body's pumping out cortisol like craz, if you don't get any rest time or you don't spend any time in that parasympathetic mode, that's when your body builds cortisol or makes cortisol. So we essentially go into a bit of an energy or a cortisol deficit. And many of you probably heard the term adrenal fatigue. It's kind of a buzzword these days. Adrenal fatigue is just that when your cortisol levels start to decline and then we start to see things like fatigue throughout the day, we start to see joint pain, we start to see muscle aches, we start to see brain fog. People don't feel good when their cortisol levels get low. And so this is kind of this connection that I like to make is that you're in chronic fight flight. We will eventually see a decline in cortisol. And then how this plays with your other hormones, particularly your sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. When there's not enough cortisol, your body will steal from the sex hormones, particularly progesterone in women and testosterone in men, and will shunt those, those hormones over into cortisol to try to keep the cortisol levels up. So what I see often is men and women will come in, you know, they're tired. Women may have pms, they may have low libido, they might have all these hormonal symptoms, but it's really because their body is stealing from those sex hormones to try to keep their adrenal hormones or cortisol at a level which they can continue to stay in that fight flight mode. I know that was a long, long winded thing, but I had to get it all out.

All right, so questions?

Yes, go for it.

All right. You said that when you go into fight flight, that your body is wanting you to run from the lion. Which, by the way, like, all the stuff that happens to us was, like, programmed like a million years ago.

It was programmed a million years ago.

And, you know, none of us are running from lions regularly.

So if you are, that's weird and I'd love to hear about it.

I know, right? Like, where. Yeah, those. They're probably don't have podcast.

No, no.

Anyway, so you said that all the blood rushes to your extremities to give you more. I don't even know if. Adrenaline. You didn't say adrenaline. I don't know if that's part of it.

Adrenaline is part of it. I didn't really touch much on that. But, yeah, it. Basically, the blood flow goes the arms and legs, so that your arms and legs have more blood flow and oxygen so they can do their job.

So does that mean that it leaves your brain?

Well, some of it. It'll go to your brain. Because if you think about it, like, when you're in, you know, heightened, like, your brain wants to be, like, thinking better, so it will go to your brain. It really is leaving, like, the sex hormones, the digestive tract, the heart, the lungs. I mean, it's not like leaving it completely, but digestion and, you know, ovaries, testicles take a big hit when you're in fight flight. Like, we don't get as much blood flow there.

Got it. And when you're not getting blood flow, you're not getting oxygen to the organs. When you're not getting oxygen to the organs and the organs don't function and heal properly the way that they're supposed to, because that's how our body heals. So, like. Like, death is basically the lack of oxygen is essentially what happens. Your things start breaking down, no oxygen, and they start to die. Right. So, like, this is. This is kind of the connection between all of this, is that if you're in chronic stress at all times, and you're basically re. Re. Diverting resources to survive, the lion that's coming after you, your gut and your sex hormones and all the other things that are in there that are taking the blood, there's only so much, right?

Yep, yep.

So you're taking it to go somewhere else, and those start to suffer. And so that was just. I kind of wanted to, like, maybe.

Put that in a. Yeah, no, thank you.

So on the cortisol. Thing. So I don't know if I wrap my head around this. I just want to clarify it a little bit. So your buddy, your buddy, your, your body is your body, your body, your body pumps cortisol as a response to what's. Okay, so I got that piece. So two questions on that. One, the off button that you talked about, which is a way better way than whatever the real medical term glucocorticoid receptor is. So people actually know what you're talking about. So you said that cortisol triggers that button like, and so it binds.

So cortisol will go back to the brain and it binds to that off button, which turns off further production of cortisol. It turns off the fight flight activation essentially. So it basically puts the body back into rest and digest mode.

So how does that button know to pop up? I guess like I'm thinking of this in like a cartoon image in my head. So, so it's basically pumping cortisol the time. Then how does it know when to actually make the button available to then be turned off?

Well, so, so this is, this is a bigger question. The body's doing this all the time. So again, I like to use the example of type 2 diabetes because a lot of people understand this. So and cortisol and glucose, they're actually very similar. Like we think about blood sugar, we don't want too much and we don't want too little. We want the right amount. When we have the right amount in the cells, we feel good. Same thing with cortisol. We want the right amount of cortisol in the cells. If so the way the body knows is if there's so much cortisol surrounding a cell, the cells will down. They're like, we don't need any cortisol right now. They'll downregulate that receptor. So then cortisol can't get inside the cell and it can't bind and it can't turn off. Does that make sense?

So the off button.

Yes. So, well, basically the off button actually is, it's called a glucocorticoid receptor. It is the way that cortisol gets into your cells. So and, and cortisol in the bloodstream, just like glucose in the bloodstream, doesn't really do much for us. But once cortisol binds to the cell and it gets inside, that's when it has kind of its magic properties or its fix it properties. That's when it down regulates inflammatory processes. But if there's been too much cortisol for a prolonged period of time. Just like if there's too much glucose for a prolonged period of time, the cells won't accept it. And so when it's, when cortisol binds to that glucocorticoid receptor or the off button in the brain, that's when it turns off the fight flight response. But if you've been under fight flight for too long and that off button isn't being made because there's been too much cortisol, then there's no way for the body to turn itself off. Does that make. I know this is a little bit of a complicated.

No, it's okay.

A cartoon would be good. I'm thinking about like I should, I'm writing a book on this concept and I'm like, I probably should have a cartoon in there.

I, I always think of, I try to think of like, like stupid analogy is that like a five year old can understand.

Well, no, and that's really helpful I think the analogies because sometimes the sciency stuff gets gets confusing. But essentially it's like, think about it like this way. If you, if you're living in a house and you live on a busy street and you're constantly getting solicitors trying to knock on your door and you're just like, after a month of that in a new house with solicitors, you're eventually going to put up a sign that says no solicitors and you're not even going to open the door. So that's kind of what happens is like the body's just like, nope, I can't take it anymore. You're not even going to be allowed to come in. So that's kind of how that happens. You asked, because that was your question was how does the body know? Right? The body knows because it's just been like in, it's been saturated, it's inundated, it's like, nope, we can't accept anymore. So then it's, it stops making the receptor. So there's, there's, there's no longer a door to get in.

It makes sense. It reminds me. So I'm from Vegas, so I grew up like in casinos and stuff all the time.

Got it.

Anyone who walks into a casino, like the slot machines are just going, going. So if you're not, you know, if you just walked into a casino for the first time, it's like sensory overload with the light, sounds and all this stuff. I would walk into casinos and not even know that the slot machines were going.

Like because you were so used to.

It because I was so. Because it had happened so much and so much that turned off just the ability to even recognize that they were happening so I could then function and do what I to do. And so that kind of reminds me of that. It's like there's so much going on that I'm just going to stop. Like.

Yeah.

And then when you stop, you're not then understanding what's happening or anything like that. Right. So, like, if somebody hit the lottery on a slot machine, I probably wouldn't even notice, but that's like, maybe something you would want to notice, which would trigger a reaction that you would have to that. Right. And then I wouldn't even notice that. It's freaking ridiculous.

Well, that's a good. This is a good analogy. If you're in chronic stress mode, it's harder for you to pick up on cues. It's harder for you to. You know, our bodies were designed to be mostly in the relaxed state. And then if something does stress us, we, you know, we react and then we calm back down. But if we're in that state, just like you're, you know, you're. You're almost like, numb to what's going on.

Yeah, it makes sense to me now, thinking of it like that. Like it's. It's happening and like the house and the knocking on the door, the same thing. It's like I've just turned it off. But what if the person knocking on the door had a. Had a suitcase of $10 million for you and you just don't?

Well, exactly. Yeah.

So, like, that's the difference. Like sometimes you know what's happening over there don't. And then that kind of triggers a lot of this stuff. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. If I said it right and I didn't put words in or.

No, no, that's perfect.

Okay, cool. I. I think that was all that I had on that first chunk. So hopefully that helps people sort of understand, like, the stress piece and sort of your head around it a little bit.

Can. Can we talk about adrenal and what adrenals are and adrenal fatigue? I hear this a lot. I feel like it's like a common thing.

It is. It's a common buzzword. So your adrenals are a little. That sit on top of your kidneys, and they are the glands that pump out cortisol and adrenaline. So they are the organs that make cortisol and they make adrenaline. So they're making your stress hormones. And like, I said, when you're in chronic stress and your adrenals have been functioning in overdrive, they've been pumping out cortisol, pumping out adrenaline. And if they've been doing that for too long of a time and we don't get adequate rest or we're not getting adequate nutrients, and when you're under chronic stress, digestion tends to slow a little bit, so we don't absorb our nutrients as well. So when our body gets a little bit undernourished and overstressed, the adrenals start to take a hit. And so what that looks like is they're not capable of making as much adrenaline and cortisol as they used to be. And so their production of those hormones go down. And like I said, so usually. I always like to think about adrenal fatigue in several stages. The first stage is usually when we're activated and we're in that chronic fight flight. We're like, we're going. And usually you. You feel okay for a while. Your body will go into overdrive and you'll be like, oh, like anyone again. If you've gone through, you know, a big move, you're like, you're able to, like, you know, function on three or four hours of sleep, and you go all day and you're getting things done. But then usually after something like that, you crash a little bit, right? You're tight. You're like, I'm gonna sleep for a few. So that's a mini moment of, like, adrenal. Your adrenals get a little bit burnt out, if you will. If you've been going hard for several years, you may then have, you know, a bigger adrenal crash. And it's basically adrenal fatigue means your cortisol levels are low because you've worked your adrenals too hard for a prolonged period of time and they've run out of the building blocks. The metaphor that I like to use here is let's pretend that cortisol is the currency that your body uses to spend on anything. So when you sleep at night or when you rest, or anytime you spend in rest and digest mode, that's when you earn money or earn this cortisol, right? Anytime you do anything else, exercise, respond to stress, work on emails, go to work, you are spending your cortisol. And so adrenal fatigue is what happens if you spend money like it's going out of style and you don't have a job, you're not earning any money, and you're spending money like crazy. What will eventually happen. You will eventually go into debt. Right. And your body is pretty cool. Your body will, you know, you might run out of your immediate bank account, but then your body will, it will be like, okay, well, we'll give you a line of credit. So yeah, it'll take loans. Yeah. And so it'll take the loans from the other hormones. So that's where we start to see this. Like, it'll be like, you know what, getting low on cortisol. But I've got some testosterone over there, so I'm going to steal from this testosterone and shunt it over here. So then we start to see, we start to see other, you know, systems in the body start to decline. And so this is where adrenal fatigue can have so many different system, you know, symptoms. Because it's basically like where your body's taking the loan from.

Does that make sense?

It does make sense. And then so the next question that comes up because, because what you're saying is like, you might not notice that you're stressed anymore, right?

No, you might not.

Stress is happening. Right. And so we talked about sex hormones and kind of that area. But what are like different areas and like what are the primary areas goes to get its line of credit to take its loans and then what are the symptoms that show up off of the loans that it takes?

Yep.

So then we can try to backtrack into what might possibly be happening. Does that make sense?

Yeah, so. So yeah, we talked about the sex hormones. That's, that's when I see it take a big hit for a lot of people. It can affect thyroid, not necessarily in this lone metaphor, but it will start to affect conversion rates of T4 to T3. So people can start to have hypothyroid type symptoms. So that might be more fatigue. It could be brain fog, it could be weight gain, could be.

Sluggish bowels, loss of hair, change in hair texture, change in skin texture. And then it will. When.

Again, this is not really the loan or that analogy, you don't have.

To stick with it.

Yeah, that actually works the best with the sex runs. It will also joint pain is a really big one. I see. And that's when cortisol levels start to decline. We lose our anti inflammatory, our major anti inflammatory capability in the body. So if you work out really hard, you, you know, normally, if you've got enough cortisol, the cortisol will go there and it will kind of help with muscle repair. It'll help with joint. If there's any like, you know, excess pressure on the joints. But if you don't have enough cortisol, you'll start to, you know, you'll feel really bad after you exercise. Like, man, I'm really. I'm really sore. I've got muscle pain. You might feel extra fatigued after a workout or even during a workout. And then the other way that I start to see this show up a lot in people is.

So cortisol. When it gets low, and if you're still in that high fight flight place, the body will be like, okay, I don't have enough cortisol, but I can make adrenaline. So adrenaline, if cortisol were a really metabolically expensive molecule for the body to make, adrenaline is conversely a very, very cheap molecule for the body to make. So sometimes the body will overproduce adrenaline in response to a stressor. And if you have too much adrenaline, that feels like drinking 14 cups of coffee with. If you don't have enough cortisol to kind of back it up. So I start to see anxiety in a lot of my patients. Anxiety, insomnia, heart palpitations.

And we can start to see some mood, you know, mood disorders. We can start to see depression creep in. We can start to see irritability and anger snapping at your kids or your partner. So there can be a lot of mood stuff that goes on. And this has to do with, like, the cortisol adrenaline balance.

Other symptoms can be like the digestive system. We kind of touched on that a little bit. But usually the digestion, I'll either see slowing down of digestion, so constipation. We can see lots of bloating gas. Sometimes in that acute phase, when you're first in that fight flight, you might see an increase of bowel movements or a little bit of diarrhea. But mostly, like towards the end, we start to see a sluggishness in the bowels, which can lead to bloating, weight gain, all that stuff. So.

Wow.

Lots. Lots of different symptoms.

It is. And frankly, it's. Every one of these things are things that my clients have talked about that they've had.

Well, yeah, and I'm excited to move over into the next. The next part of this.

Before we do that. Can we hit the sex hormone?

Yeah.

So the symptoms of that first big one is low libido. So. And that could be for men and women, though, just. And everyone's probably experienced this. When you go through, you know, when you're really stressed, sometimes you're not thinking about sex. And I have this saying that Your body's either making sex hormones or it's making stress hormones. So it usually doesn't like to be producing a ton of those at the same time. Because you think about when it's safe for a woman to carry a baby is usually when she's relaxed and she's not under a lot of stress. So when a woman in particular is under a lot of stress, the body's like, yeah, now's not a great time to make a baby. I'm not going to really, like, focus on making some of those sex hormones. And for men, we'll see a loss in libido is definitely a big one. Men can also, if their testosterone is declining, they can see loss in muscle mass, weight gain, brain fog, low energy. And those same things go for women as well. The other thing that happens with women is they will start to see a change in their menstrual cycles, whether that's increase in pms. It could be breast tenderness, cramping, skipping a period, or having periods too frequently. So just any change with the menstrual cycle can be affected by adrenal fatigue and. Or chronic stress.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's a long list of stuff.

It is, but I think it's super helpful because, I mean, like I said, like.

Everything, literally everything that you just said, not even one thing that's not here. I have heard.

Yeah.

A combination of all of various of these things on all of them, but various of these things with different people that we've worked with. And it just kind of goes to show, like, the internal stress on the body when you have this external thing that's not supposed to be there. You know, it's funny, you go back to the lion thing, right? Like a lion's trying to kill you. So it's trying to do. Yeah, most of them. Unless it's Simba.

He's nice. Yeah, yeah, he's nice.

And like, if mole colonizes in you, it's trying to kill you. It's trying to eat you and destroy you and kill you. That's what it's trying to do, you know?

Well, even if you just get exposed, you just have a mycotoxin buildup. That's. That's. I like. So I like to differentiate with my patients. I'll talk about external stressors versus internal stressors. And external stressors would be anything happening in your life. So that could be work, it could be a partner, it could be kids, it could be a pandemic. It could be a lot of things that you can't Control. Internal stressors can be anything from hormonal imbalance, could be nutrient deficiencies, infections like Lyme or Epstein Barr or. And mold or mold exposure is a big one. So that's a big internal. It's stressful to the body itself. And sometimes you don't know about those internal stressors. Right. So that's where. Working with a practitioner, doing some testing or. And if you're struggling with a lot of the symptoms that we've just talked about and your life outwardly isn't that stressful, and you're doing all of the things like. Like, oh, I'm getting massage, and I go to yoga, and I meditate, and. And you're still. Your body is presenting like it's really, really stressed. This is when it's a good idea to have your house checked for mold, to do an internal workup to feel like, see if there's anything living in your body that shouldn't be there.

Yeah. You know, one of the things you said, I had. I had Dave Asprey on a few weeks ago, probably.

Yeah.

And he was telling, you know, his. His origin is in mold. That's where. Yeah, it was a mold issue. And he was talking about all of his symptoms and stuff that happened at the beginning. But one of the things that he said was how he felt after working out. That was like. Like, he felt like he was gonna die after he worked out. He was.

Yeah.

So just, like, beat up and destroyed. And so now tying it back, like, you know, we didn't get into why that happened. That was just. I was feeling this, this, this, this and that. And now you can kind of see what was happening. He was. Oh, totally retaining weight. Like.

Yeah.

Weight. Because. So all these things that you're talking about are, like, all adding up.

Yep.

Like, I go back and think about what he was saying, and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, his. His story is super cool. And, you know, he learned so much about his body after going through mold exposure. And. Yeah, I like chatting with him because he, you know, he talked about how mold kind of set the stage for him to get Lyme. Right. So. And that's, you know, that's a really common thing we see is exposure to mold weakens the immune system, makes you more likely to, you know, be susceptible to other stealth pathogens like Lyme or Epstein Barr or some of these other major infectious things. But, yeah, most. A lot of the symptoms that people have from Lyme or mold exposure or these things actually are from the adrenals crashing out like when we go and look at, I mean, some of the symptoms could be crossover from some of the things, but typically if you're struggling with something like that, your adrenals are in a burnt out stage. And so a lot of the symptoms, and a lot of the symptoms can get better when you treat the adrenals. That's what I start to see is that obviously we need to do the other treatment protocols for whatever's going on. But anytime I treat anyone for Lyme or we do a mold detox, I'm also heavily treating their adrenals because their adrenals are definitely a part of the picture and that needs to be worked on.

How do you treat adrenals?

So one, we want to make sure that your adrenals have all the nutrients that they need or the co factors that they need to build cortisol. So big ones are B5, B6, magnesium. Those are the three big CO factors. Zinc, vitamin A. So a lot of nutrient levels. And we, we test those levels and find out, you know, what levels someone needs. Like if someone's really low in these three, we're going to, you know, supplement those a little bit more. And then there are certain adaptogenic herbs that help help.

Make the body, tell the body to make more of that off button. So one of my favorites is rhodiola. Rhodiola, there's tons of research where it will increase the production of those glucocorticorticoid receptors. So there's certain herbal treatments we can do. I sometimes use glandular adrenals, which give the body. It's like eating liver. So you take a little bit of cow or pig adrenals and that kind of helps the body heal the organs a little bit. And then the other part of it is lifestyle. So as we do meditation, we practice relaxing, essentially. Essentially you have to teach the body that it's okay and it's safe to go into rest and digest mode. Most of the research surrounding meditation and why it's so beneficial is how meditation increases that off button that I talked about. So it allows the body to flip out of fight, flight.

Got it, got it. That makes sense. You know what's interesting, talking to you as opposed to like some of the other folks that I've talked to is, I mean, so there's all, there's different practitioners, different doctors. They all kind of have like their specialty, right? And so then like what happens? Like you talk to a Lyme doc and they're like, all right, if we're, you know, if we're dealing with Lyme, I'm looking at this, this, and this is sort of how I backtrack until there's a mold issue. Then you're talking to, like, somebody else who's like a brain, you know, neuro person. Right. And they're like, well, this, this, and this is how I back into that. And then, so the stress side of it, the stress hormone side of it, it's like another window into it. And what's interesting is that, like, they all, like, start and then they point back, like, to a point like, the same original root thing. And this is why mold is such a problem. And I'm sure you could talk to this too. But it's like, it's multi system, multi symptom because it affects all of these things, and they're all somewhat connected. So, like, if you're noticing some of more of the stress symptoms of things like that, then you kind of go to the. Someone like you to start there.

Right.

And then it's like backtracking the root, or if you're like, oh, I have Lyme. I got diagnosed for Lyme. And then they're backtracking, and they're backtracking. It's just really interesting to hear because it affects all these different symptoms or systems in the body and how it all works. I'm not saying that mold's the cause of everything, obviously. Like, it's not, but I think it's just an idea that it is something that can kind of, like, move throughout the body and create, like, body wide sort of of panic. How that, like, reflects everywhere else.

Yeah, it's crazy stuff, the human body and what we can. What it deals with and how it. How it works and how it doesn't work.

And so let's. Let's talk a little bit about. Let's make the connection here now a little bit. Sure. You go through this. You're doing kind of your baseline panels. You're like, oh, your cortisol levels are low. You've got adrenal fatigue. Oh, these symptoms are lining. You got all these things. So you're kind of like, putting together the profile of what happens. Like, all right, I think it's a mold issue. Let's say they've already, like, you know, let's say they even do, like, a dust test in their house, and they know there's exposure. So we've kind of, like, figured that piece out.

So where we start there? Is that what you're asking?

Yeah. So, like, where do you start now that you've kind of like, put your thumb on. Okay.

Yeah.

Here. Yeah.

So, I mean, obviously, you can probably speak to this more. I mean, obviously we have to make sure they're not getting exposed to mold anymore. That's first. First step is if we've identified it, we got to get their body out of that state. Right. And then we have to figure out how to detox their system from whatever, you know, whatever mycotoxin they've been exposed to. So that might look like using binders or opening up lymphatics or opening up all the drainage pathways. And that process can, you know, take a little while, a couple months. We kind of work to, like, eliminate things. But then while we're doing that, I, again, I like to. I like to make sure we're working on. Because usually people are coming to me because, you know, they have some sort of hormonal imbalance. And yes, we backtracked into figuring out, okay, mold might be the cause of that. So, you know, we got to treat the root thing first. And then once that starts to get better, then I'll move on to if they even need it. Because sometimes you remove. You remove mold, you start to detox it, and hormones may come back into balance on their own. That usually depends on how depleted the adrenals are, in my experience. So the adrenals are super wiped out. It might take a while to get the hormones back into balance. And I'm talking about sex hormones or thyroid hormones. If your adrenals aren't that depleted and we treat them, and then the body might rebalance on its own. It kind of just depends on how far you are in that process. And then I talk a lot about lifestyle practices. So what are we doing to kind of change. Change the body's response to any other stressor? What are we doing to put you into parasympathetic mode or rest and digest mode at regular intervals?

Do you work on, like. Do you incorporate, like, brain retraining and that sort of thing?

I'll sometimes refer out for that. I don't do that in my practice, but that can be a really help, so. And that's a good thing that you brought up. I mean, sometimes we. If you've been stuck in fight flight for so long, it's like. It's like your stress muscle is so activated that your body doesn't. Doesn't know how to. So brain retraining can kind of train you out of that, essentially, and kind of help help the body stay more in the relaxed mode instead of the Stress mode.

Got it. So a couple more things. How often somebody comes into you for hormone issue, whatever. How often is mold an issue? Because I think a lot of times, like, people listen or like, I go talk. You know, everybody's like, oh, mold this, mold that, mold that. Yeah, it's a mold, like centric show. But, like, how often is that the problem?

I would say in my patient population, it's about 40% of the time I see mold. And whether they're currently exposed or we find evidence that they were exposed at some point, because, as you know, I mean, if you were. If you lived in a moldy house 10 years ago and you had a certain mycotoxin level and you didn't do anything about it, I mean, you might not be. Your symptoms may get a little bit better, but, you know, your body doesn't naturally detox a lot of those mycotoxins. You usually have to do something. So sometimes it may, like, it's not always current exposure, but I have people that, like, will uncover. I'm like, oh, you've got really high mold markers. And we'll run a mycotoxin. Like, oh, you got these four in there. And, you know, that we decide that they lived in a, you know, moldy apartment in college 15 years ago or something. So I'd say about 40% of the time in my patient population.

So what are the other things? What are the other reasons that some. Some of this would happen? If it's not.

I see. I see a lot of Epstein Barr or I've seen a lot of COVID like, people with COVID stuff. I mean, I do have patients that have a lot of external stressors going on their life. You know, they've had, you know, a divorce or a loss of a loved one, or, you know, the past three years have been so intensely crazy, or they have four kids. So, you know, for them, it may just be that they need to start to learn how to manage their external stressors a little bit better and, you know, live a less stressful lifestyle, that's probably about 30 to 40% of my practice. And then, I guess the other. Sometimes we can find a case where it's like, really low nutrient level or, you know, a gluten allergy or really bad food allergy kind of thing.

And, you know, I. I guess the argument. There's an argument to be made that maybe mold is higher than 40. I'm just not seeing it in the test. And I had this conversation with Dave. He was like, anybody that has lyme Always has mold exposure. And I don't. I'm like, I. I could get on board with that. I don't know that I've always seen that indicative or seen that in the testing that I do. But it's an interesting concept.

It's interesting because you could have Lyme dormant forever, and then you could.

And then you live some. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's. I can't even imagine. It's so funny. It's like, I've thought about this. If I live somewhere on the east coast where there was, like, trees and stuff, and I was a kid and I was walking around, how is it possible I don't have lime? Like, I don't even understand how I could walk around.

Well, it's true. Because, I mean, so many. Yeah. I mean, ticks are there, I don't think. I rarely have a patient that tells me they've never had a tick bite. Sometimes people will try to tell me that, but they have Lyme, and they're like, how do they get it? I'm like, well, because sometimes you don't know that you've had a tick bite. You know, they're so tiny, and they get in your hair or they get in small areas when they. They want. They want to bite you in areas where you're not going to tell because they want to feed on you.

They want to hang.

And this is, you know, any sort of pathogen or mold or, like, they want to use your body as a place for them to live. So, you know, it's this parasitic type of. Oh, parasites are another one. That's another, you know, underlying clause that I see kind of messes things up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I'm. Whenever I think about that, I'm, like, so grateful. I grew up in Vegas.

Oh, yeah.

This is not a place where that exists.

Yeah.

California is not. I mean, if you go Northern California, but, like, by the beach in California is not really.

Yeah.

That's like.

Although I have a. I have a pretty active. I'm in Maryland, so I. We see a ton of lime because we're, you know, in the thick of it. And I went to school in Connecticut, so I was like. Like, we were trained to, like, look for lime in everybody because it was like, they come in, and you're like, I test everybody for Lyme and. Anyways, so. But I was gonna say, I. I see I have quite a few patients in California, and I don't know if they got it when they lived there, or some of them have been like, I have never lived anywhere else. But I mean, it's kind of everywhere now. Maybe you don't have the option.

It's more everywhere than you would think. I know it's. I generalized it just because of sort of what the environment looks like. Yeah, there's definitely more now that you're seeing all over the place. And, and it's not always tick bites either.

Right.

There's other ways to pass it around too.

Yeah, possibly.

Also, how do you test for Lyme? I mean, just randomly on sidetrack.

So I usually, I try to do all my initial testing through LabCorp request. And so I'll do a Lyme western blot, which they're not 100% accurate. And then I do some immune markers. And so let's say on the Lyme western blot, the CDC says you have to have five or more of the igg bands to make a positive diagnosis. I typically, you know, will see people have one to three and they typ up Lyme. But I look at particular types of white blood cells called CD57 cells. There's some other markers called C4A and C3A and if those are out of balance, and then there's some other kind of like, like back channel testing, like if iron labs are really, really off, like if someone's got a really high ferritin and a low iron saturation, the body tends to move certain nutrient levels around when there's an infection. So it's kind of a. There's not really a harder, fast test. Hard, hard and fast test for Lyme, in my opinion. I mean, occasionally I'll get someone with a full blown positive CDC and they're usually the easiest to treat because their immune system is very aware that the Lyme is there. And usually we put them on a round of antibiotics and they do great. It's the people that have one or two bands where, you know, the Lyme is a little bit more dormant. It's kind of hidden. Maybe they've had mold exposure, maybe they have FC Barr virus. They've got, you know, it's those, It's a little bit harder to make the diagnosis because, because their immune system is not quite sure it's there. But typically we'll see other of their labs being off. So it's, it's.

I ask because everyone that I ask, it's. It's exactly what you said.

Well, yeah, and it's not a harder. And it's usually a combination of symptoms and, and you know, I think as you said, a lot of us probably have Had Lyme. And, you know, our bodies probably have seen it, but is it active or not? Or is it, you know, is it causing problems? You know, and I think there's other things that can trigger that, you know, activation of it.

It's similar to Epstein Barr, too. Right. Like that. And then mold makes a trigger, and then all of a sudden.

Yes, Yes. I mean, an Epstein Barr can get reactivated. Mold's not the only thing that reactivates. Any sort of thing that weakens the immune system could reactivate it. So I've seen in the last two years since COVID Covid has reactivated Epstein Barr, like crazy is that, you know, the immune system diverts all of its attention over that Covid spike protein, and then all the resources it was using to keep the Epstein Barr and. Or the Lyme at bay, you know, are now no longer there. So those things can overgrow.

Yeah. I was listening to another podcast where they were talking about that connection too, and it was like the. The amount of Epstein bar they've seen since then skyrocketed since what they were, you know, kind of seeing before.

Yeah.

All right. Is there anything else you feel like we should touch on on this point before we switch gears to part two?

Oh, I think let's switch gears to part two. Although I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to try to turn off my hypochondriac cell, because I'm like, I'm terrified of mold. Terrified of it. So I'm like, oh, gosh, you're gonna get out. I'm gonna be convinced I have mold in my house at the end of. I'm sure our conversation. Drink?

Well, part of what it will do a teaser for it. So.

Yeah.

Part of it is understanding what it does and doesn't look like potentially. Right. And the thing. The thing about being freaked out about mold and a lot of people are. They get really freaked out about it is because in their mind, it's like this black or white thing.

Yeah.

I. I'm either exposed or I. Or I have to be exposed to nothing. And that's not true. Right. It's this balance and everything we just described, like you just described multiple people's bodies and how they're varying in their ability to handle external stressors and all this stuff. Right. Mold is one of those things. We are meant to get rid of this stuff. We're meant to detox, generally. Right. So the goal. Yes. Is to figure out where as many problems there are in the house. That's where you start it doesn't mean you have to remediate every single thing.

Right.

There's a framework around it. There's a thought process for prioritizing. Maybe we could, like, talk about that on the next one. But, yeah, yeah, it's just to figure out how to reduce your exposure, like you said, enough to where the work that you're doing will work, their resilience and brings them up to then where they can get exposed to some old and their body doesn't completely crash. And. And, like, that's the end goal in all of this. I think from your side, that's the end goal is to get their body back to where it could kind of react like it's supposed to. And my end goal is to do that. But in order to achieve those things, you have to know your starting place.

Yeah.

You need the full look of your starting place. And just because you find 10, 15, 20 things doesn't mean you need to do 10, 15, 20 things.

Well, this. This inherently is a perfect analogy. Like, I feel like mold in your house is a very good analogy for just what we just talked about in the body.

Right.

Like, you know, you might have 15 symptoms, but we don't necessarily need to treat them all at once. We're going to find the biggest one and work on that, and then some of the other ones might work itself out. I don't know if that's true about the Bought a House, but I'm curious to learn. We'll talk about that.

Yeah, we'll get into it. All right, so we're going to. We're going to cut it off now. So from here, flip over, go to the Dr. Kinney show. We'll try to post these around the same time. Yeah, so you can just go from one to the other one. Not have to, like, wait a week. So, yeah, this will be part one. The other one will be named part two something. So you'll know what it is.

Perfect.

And we'll get there. All right, we'll see.

All right, see you next week. All right, take care.

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