#89 Best Supplements for Immunity with Dr. Doni

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hello there. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am Dr. Donni Wilson. I am a naturopathic doctor, been practicing for 21 years and my passion is to help all of you to support your health, to help your cells be healthier, and to do that using natural approaches. Everything from diet and nutrients and supplements, herbs, homeopathic remedies, even also things you can do in your life like getting better sleep and meditating and other kinds of stress recovery activities. And so these are all the different topics that I love to cover. And of course, these are the topics that I love to discuss with my guests in interviews as well. And I'd love to hear from all of you. If there's anything in particular you'd like to learn more about, please reach out to me. You can email me at office o f f I c eoctordoni.com which is spelled out D O C T O R D O N I dot com. I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to receive your feedback about the podcast and the topics that I'm covering. So today I wanted to focus in on the immune system. Because here's the thing is, when we think about how stress affects us, we know we all have stress and we know we all have our genetics. But our health ultimately is only a small percentage determined by our genetics. Actually, most of it is determined by what I consider to be the category of stress. Anything from psycho emotional stress to toxins as a stress, to lack of sleep or a high sugar diet or so many other factors. Factors that would be considered a stress in our environment. Our internal, even our spiritual, psycho emotional and physical environment, even like injuries and infections, can all be a stress to our system. And that's what then turns on our genetic susceptibilities and makes us vulnerable to imbalances in our health. And to me, there's four main areas of our body that we can identify that get affected. Our hormones, various different hormones from thyroid, you name it, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, insulin. They get the road out of balance. Also digestion gets Disrupted by stress, both in terms of how we can digest our food, in terms of our gut, bacteria or microbiome, and in terms of the health of the intestinal lining, which is why we talk about the development of something called leaky gut or intestinal permeability when we're under stress. Stress also disrupts our nervous system, disrupting our neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine, disrupting our mood and our energy and our sleep. And stress disrupts our immune function. It makes us more susceptible to infections of all kinds, and it also makes us susceptible to autoimmunity.

As well as other immune related issues like allergies and cancer. So the thing is, to me, if we think about it from that big picture perspective, then it helps us to solve it in the end, right? If we're just taking, say even vitamin C, yes, it's effective, it's very helpful for many reasons. But if we just take vitamin C, we might not get to accomplish the entire goal with our health that we're trying to accomplish, right? So what we want to do is we want to take vitamin C, but we need to also look at the big picture and say, what else are we really trying to do do to help our whole body be as healthy as can be. That's when we're going to do our best work to fend off infections, which is really what the immune system comes down to, right? Our immune system is supposed to help us protect us from various kinds of infections. Whether you call that, whether that's a bacterial infection, a viral infection, even parasites or other kinds of microbial imbalances, right? That's what we depend on our immune system to do, is protect us, whether that's on our skin or anywhere in our body, in our digestion, in our respiratory area, in our bladder, right? No matter where the infection is. In fact, one of the most common infections I help people with is hpv, human papilloma virus, which is very the place where he focuses on HPV for women that's vaginal and causing abnormalities on the cervix or abnormal cells vaginally. But HPV can also cause abnormal cells in the rectal anal area and also in the oral area. HPV is a virus that there's actually over 100 different versions of HPV itself. But there's specific strains of HPV that are known to be more likely to cause abnormal cells or even cancer cells. Again, this is a perfect example. We can go directly after the virus and say, hey, let's use something antiviral like a mushroom extract, for example, or a vitamin C that's going to boost our immune system and help us fend off the virus. But what if we also think about it as what's making you susceptible to the virus in the first place? How do we help your whole system work better so that your immune system is better able to protect you? And then you become less and less reliant on outside supplements and sources to boost your immune system? You see what I mean? And so I always, as a naturopathic doctor, I'm going to be thinking about things this way. Of course I'm talking to you in a video.

That doesn't make me your practitioner, unless, of course, you already are one of my established patients. I want to make sure and emphasize that it's important that you always check with your practitioner, your physician, your internist, your nurse practitioner, whoever it is, is your practitioner before implementing any kind of changes, because it's always important to check and make sure it's appropriate for your health. Because just based on this video, I don't know whether what would be good or not good for you. And so it's important, whenever you're listening to any podcast, to always take that into consideration and to know that I can speak with you in generalities about different substances and different approaches. But it's always important to individual. I really think that's important because ultimately we want you to be efficient and effective with whatever you do or whatever you take. We don't want things to make you feel worse or to aggravate anything. It's always important to remember you might have an allergic reaction to sometimes even a herb or other ingredient in a product. So it's always important to listen to and notice and observe how your body responds anytime you take any kind of supplement. That's always important. And to understand how those nutrients or ingredients might interact with anything else you might be taking, such as a medication. And that's where working with a naturopathic doctor with the training I have is so useful, because then when you have a naturopathic doctor, they help you to know what to avoid and what to take and what doses to take and all of that. So I definitely, if you don't already have a naturopathic doctor or someone with this background, I encourage you to establish care with someone who can help guide you more specifically for your case. They can look at your lab work. They can understand all the different various things that are going on in your body and help you prioritize and help you figure out your best Doses. At the same time, I want you to be able to know what's possible and what to ask about and what to consider on your list of things to do to help your immune system and help you, say, fend off colds and flus and also other viruses. There's also Epstein Barr virus, which is a common virus we associate with mono. Often it's common for someone in their teenage years to have symptoms of mono. And they actually say that 95% of us have been exposed to mono, but not all of us even had symptoms associated with it. However, what's important to know is that monovirus can activate again later in life, whether you had symptoms at the get go or not. And when mono reactivates, it can cause some of the same symptoms like fatigue and sore throat. And so you want to be aware that it's possible for Epstein Barr virus to activate later in life. Just like with HPV virus, it's possible for it to activate at a later time in your life. And just like other viruses, even if we mentioned shingles, for example, or herpes virus, Herpes and shingles are well established, just like with HPV and ebv, that it's much more likely that these viruses become active when we're under stress, when we're depleted, when we're run down. You see the pattern here? So when we become more depleted by stress, which of course it's been very stressful couple years with this pandemic for everyone. So I'm seeing a lot of people who are run down by stress. Whether we call it burnout, adrenal fatigue, what's happening is the stress is wearing us down. And when that happens, as I mentioned, it starts to make us more susceptible to all different kinds of infections, as well as more likely to have digestive issues, hormone imbalances and neurochemical imbalances, right? So then all of a sudden we're in this perfect storm of health issues. And I think it helps to look at that big picture because ultimately what I see is it's tempting to go just straight after the virus, right? It's tempting, even with herpes virus, to go just take an antiviral, which can be helpful to prevent the herpes virus outbreaks from happening. Or we can, with Epstein Barr virus, start focusing in on antivirals like lysine, which is an amino acid or vitamin C that are used to boost the immune system to help fend off that virus. At the same time, if we don't address your whole health, then to me, we're not really getting at the underlying cause for your long term benefit of your health. I always encourage everyone to be doing what I call a stress test, which is really looking at your cortisol and adrenaline levels so we can see how stress has affected you. Now, a lot of times people say to me, well, we're all stressed. Doing a test really going to make a difference. Just going to tell me I'm stressed and I already know I'm stressed. I would say it's absolutely going to make a difference because what I find is that we all are affected by stress uniquely differently. Specifically, in one person who's exposed to the same stress, their cortisol levels might go too high. Where another person their cortisol levels go too low, another person might have cortisol high certain times of day and too low at different times of day. The same thing with adrenaline, it can go too high, too low, or too high and low at different times of day already. That creates a lot of variables for how your body might be responding to stress. The key is that I'm going to address those completely differently. The approach to high cortisol is going to be way different than the approach to low cortisol, for example. The test really does make a difference because then I know, okay, here's what we need to do to help your body get your cortisol back on track, or here's what we need to do to get your adrenaline back on track. And again, once we correct the cortisol and adrenaline, now we have correct signaling happening inside your body. And it's not just a mask or a band aid. It's actually shifting the levels. It's actually helping you recover from stress so that you can get the right signals from your cortisol and adrenaline to your immune system, so that your immune system can do its best job of protecting you from these viruses I've been mentioning. Also, it sends the right signals to the ovaries, so we get the right production of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, for example. It sends the right signals to your digestion, so you digest your food and you absorb your nutrients better. You see. So correcting the cortisol and adrenaline is huge. I feel like it's needs to be happening for everyone. I definitely check mine on a regular basis and make sure that they are on track because I know that's my best safeguard to preventing health issues. Then once we have that established and we can start working on balancing digestion and hormones and neurotransmitters, we can also start helping the immune system, you can be doing this anytime anyway, right? But so sometimes we're working on the immune system while also working on cortisol and adrenaline. And when it comes to the immune system, I'm sure all of you, a lot of you have heard different nutrients, different supplements, and there's definitely some good research out there and there's definitely good suggestions. And I always think it's important to know your body and to again, work with a practitioner who can help you with your doses, because it's not one size fits all. Even with vitamin C, for example, vitamin C is well established for helping to support immune function. So it's going to be basic to come to whenever we need to help out the immune system. And the thing is, is that vitamin C at a certain dose, so if you go up high enough on your dose, it might cause loose stool or diarrhea, but that's different for each person. Some people that might be at 500 milligrams. Another person that might not happen until they get to 5,000 milligrams. So again, you need to know your body. One thing we do know about humans in general is that we tend to only be able to absorb and use about 500-1000mg at one time because the kidneys will filter the rest of it. And so what I find and suggest with vitamin C is to take doses throughout the day. So you don't want to take all of your vitamin C at once, right? The vitamin C, you're going to swallow it, it's going to go through your bloodstream, your body's going to use it, your cells are going to get access to it, but then it's going to start getting filtered out through the kidneys after several hours. So then you're going to need to dose again. Best is to at least dose twice a day, so maybe, you know, say morning and evening. But even better, if you're trying to fight off a current infection, you're going to. If, if possible. What I do is I try to take vitamin C about 500 milligrams, like every four to six hours, so that I've got a constant circulating amount of vitamin C happening. You see what I mean? That's how you want to think about it. And that's true of other nutrients also, like, let's say zinc is another one we hear about a lot. And there again, you want to be able to have doses at different times a day so that you have it constantly circulating through your body. It doesn't just stay around for 24 hours, we need to, say, take between 5 and 15 milligrams, let's say, and then repeat that in 612 hours until you can get to, say, doses of between 30 and 50 milligrams, I would say. And there are times where you might just take with zinc, like let's say 50 milligrams at once. And that would be okay, but again, I prefer when we can space it out over time. And with zinc is one of the nutrients we always want to think about copper. Now, if you're just taking a higher amount of zinc for a week or two, it's not going to disrupt your copper that quickly. But generally, if you're taking a higher amount of zinc, like more than 15 milligrams a day, it's important to also make sure you're getting at least 1 milligram of copper. It doesn't take very much copper to counterbalance. And you likely would get copper in a multivitamin. So you would just look at your multi or your multimineral and make sure you're getting in at least 1 or 2 milligrams of copper to counterbalance the zinc so that it doesn't get throw off your copper to zinc ratio, which can be measured in blood, but it's not always measured on blood tests. So better to just have that in mind. If you're going to be increasing your zinc over a long period of time, then what I tend to do is I like to use these in a combination formula when possible because then you're not having to have so many different separate bottles. Say you get vitamin C and zinc, and maybe you can combine it with some herbs that are going to be helpful for your immune system. A classic is echinacea. For example, lots of research showing how echinacea helps boost the part of our immune system that fends off viruses. And so you can, yes, you could get echinacea by itself, but you could also get echinacea combined with vitamin C and zinc. You might also use some other herbs that are good at supporting the immune system all in one formula. That to me gets very efficient because then you get one bottle and you can take that capsule, one or two of them every four, six hours. And now you're giving yourself nice doses at nice intervals to really maintain that signaling to your body.

Let's see. Another of my favorite nutrients is vitamin A. Now, vitamin A in our bodies is made from beta carotene. Beta carotene is common in colorful fruits and vegetables. And then we can convert it to vitamin A. Well, hopefully some of us have genetic variations that make it so we don't do as good of a job of converting beta carotene to vitamin A, in which case taking actual vitamin A could be more helpful. And so you can find supplements that have actual vitamin A in there, either in a capsule like gel cap form or liquid form. And this way you know you're getting actual vitamin A. Now, vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin, just like vitamin D and vitamin E. What that means is that our body can store these vitamins over time. So before I was using the example of vitamin C where our body uses it quickly and it's water soluble, it goes right out of our bodies. The vitamin A, D, E for example, are fat soluble. And so we need to be more mindful if we go with high doses is the levels can build up in our bodies. And that's why with vitamin D we tend to measure in the blood where your vitamin D levels are and we try to maintain it a good level. We don't want to go too high. Same with vitamin A, it is possible to take too much, but at the same time, usually a person would have to be taking a really lot for a long time, like over a year to really get to a toxicity dose. So in that case, if a person ever got that high, then they would stop and they could then reverse the toxicity. But I don't suggest going anywhere near toxic doses. We want to just use clinically effective doses. And so we would be using somewhere between 5000ius of vitamin A to potentially, if working with a patient directly, we might go to 50,000 or 100,000 IUs for a couple weeks or relatively short period of time to really help get their immune system to fend off a virus. And again, this is why it's so important to work for me. I would want to work with you one on one or in one of my programs to help guide you on the dosing of something like vitamin A so that you feel confident and comfortable and you understand.

What would be safe doses and how to take it. But when it comes to supplements, you might find vitamin A in there somewhere between 5 and 10,000 IUs that you can use on a daily basis to help you fight off an infection. Now.

If there's any chance of pregnancy, a lot of what I've been saying is going to be different. If you might be pregnant or you find out you're pregnant. Then again, it's really important you work with your practitioner and help you to modify these doses because in Pregnancy things like vitamin A and a lot of times herbs. Most herbs we don't use during pregnancy because we don't want to expose the baby to them. If you find out you're pregnant or you think you might be getting pregnant, then this would be a whole different protocol for you. But there are some things we can use at small amounts like vitamin C, as long as it's not causing diarrhea. Again, this is where I love to help women who are pregnant because there are things we can use safely with pregnancy to help you out with your immune system. It's just important to make sure and modify your doses so that we're being safe for baby. Let's see.

I got the vitamin A. There's also vitamin D I mentioned which is also really good for the immune system. I prefer to be able to check lab levels and see where you are. A good general dose might be between 2,000 IUs and 5,000 IUs per day. Some people need more than that in order to raise their vitamin D levels over 50 on their lab levels. It's important to know your body and sometimes if you're in an acute infection, we might raise a level up for a few days or a week to just give you a boost of vitamin D. Vitamin E can sometimes also be added. There's a bunch of other nutrients. In fact, that's why I feel like a multivitamin is a good idea. Because in a multivitamin you can get a basis of minerals like zinc and selenium and you can get some B vitamins, the methylated B vitamins which also help with immune system. You can also get vitamin D, vitamin E, all of these things even in one pill per day with using a multivitamin. So that's a good place to get a basic so you're not having to have all these separate bottles all the time. You can just have your multi and cover a lot and then just add a separate immune support and increase your doses as need. If you're needing to fend off a virus.

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Let'S see. So I'm covering. I'm not trying to be 100% comprehensive, but I want you to just start to be able to think about it this way and to cover some of the most important ones that I think of first. In some cases, like with when I'm helping women with HPV and an abnormal Pap smear, we might focus in on some of the B vitamins like methylfolate and increase the doses. That's less about fending off the virus and more about helping your body make new healthy cells. And so that case we may be increasing the methylfolate to higher doses between 5 and 10 milligrams per day. I'm just looking at some of these supplements. Oh, another common one that you'll hear about with the immune system is a probiotic. Definitely makes sense. There's now lots of research that shows taking a good probiotic can be good for your immune system. Again, as we talked about, the stress disrupts our good bacteria and those good bacteria communicate with our immune system. If you have a feeling like your gut bacteria have been thrown off by stress or even toxin exposure or antibiotic exposure, then taking a probiotic would be good to help get those Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria supported. But it's also important to remember that you can't get there's trillions of bacteria living in our digestion. You can't get all of them in a probiotic. In a probiotic you're going to get mostly Lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, which are good. And the research shows they're helpful and effective. But it's not everything. The other thing to keep in mind is what you're eating. Because ultimately the bacteria and the diversity of bacteria in our gut is determined by what we're feeding them, which is also what we're feeding ourselves. By eating healthy fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and different kinds of starches we get from vegetables and grains. That's how we feed our bacteria. And so by having a nice diversity of different fiber in your diet, you're going to be optimizing your good bacteria, but you can also take a probiotic to help along those lines as well. In fact, I encourage recommend supporting the microbiome vaginally as well, especially if you're getting recurrent vaginal infections, urinary infections and or hpv, because here again we have the microbiome. The balance of bacteria and other microbes affects our immune system. And so if you're having susceptibility to different kinds of infections, it means to me we need to pay attention to the good guys who's living there protecting you, how do we support them? And so we can use probiotics orally and vaginally to help re establish a healthy microbiome. And so it can be protecting you and helping to signal in a healthy way to your immune system to protect you as well. So that's another really important concept and I could go into a whole podcast just about that because it's, you know, so if you're struggling, I definitely encourage you to reach out because there's so much more we can do to help with that. But just even to start with thinking, okay, can I at least take a starting probiotic as a beginning step and consider whether something more is necessary? Again, I mentioned mushroom extracts, which can be amazing. Sometimes we use specific mushroom concentrations or specific.

Aspects of it. That's where there's something called AHCC that a lot of people have heard about or read about, which is from a mushroom extract. And it has been shown to help with the immune system, which is great. But I always like people to know that that's not the end all, be all. When it comes to mushrooms. We can use the whole mushroom. We can use multiple mushrooms together. There's everything from reishi mushroom, shiitake mushroom, criolas mushroom, turkey tail, so many mushrooms. So we want to think about that and think about what's the best way for your body to access mushrooms is it is a capsule form, a liquid form.

Even in your food. I love to use the shiitake mushrooms in soup, for example. Mushrooms can be an amazing way to support the immune system.

Then there's also this concept of antimicrobials, which is a lot of times when we think of an antimicrobial, we think of antibiotic, for example, or antifungal, which would be the medication form. But when it comes to natural substances like herbs, we can you they often are antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial, all in one substance, which is I think pretty cool because then we can use one antimicrobial substance. And it's working on all different kinds of infections. And so these can be very helpful to be not only fending off a virus, but bacteria and other microbes at the same time. And so a lot of times when you're trying to fend off infection, we can use these natural antimicrobials, whether that be, say berberine is a perfect example of an antibacterial that's also antifungal. Sometimes we use an antimicrobial like berberine specifically or in herbal form or in a combination form. Sometimes we use something like a silver colloidal silver. Sometimes it's called, or I call it nanoparticles of silver. Essentially these are pharmaceutical grade safe use of silver particles that are antimicrobial. And you can use those usually as a liquid that you spray in your mouth and your throat, or spray up your nose, you can put it on your skin, it acts as an antimicrobial. And those can be very helpful whenever you're trying to prevent an infection or if you catch an infection, you're trying to help your body recover faster, you can use the silver liquids for that. Then there's also homeopathy. Homeopathy is a whole other system of medicine using dilutions. They use homeopathy especially in India, but we've used homeopathy in the United States and in Europe. I know for a long, long, long time.

It's very gentle and yet effective.

I would say homeopathy is generally safe in pregnancy, safe for children. You can use very low doses multiple times a day to help your body fend off and help protect you. For example, it can help remind your immune system which infection is supposed to be protecting you from, help bring your body back in balance. Homeopathic remedies can also help with specific symptoms. Homeopathy can be used a lot of different ways, sometimes in single remedies or in combination remedies. Again, they can be used in liquids or pellets and they can be used multiple times a day. That's another great way addition.

That I often will use, especially when someone's either fighting off a long term infection like EBV or hpv, but also we use it during any other kind of viral infection to help your body fend it off. It's this different system of medicine based on dilutions to help your body do what it's meant to do.

Let's see, what else am I leaving out? Those are some of my favorites. I'm just, just looking. I think I'm not sure if all of you are familiar, but I do have, in addition to my practice where I work with patients one on one, which is either in person, by video or by phone, I do consultations with people around the world. Also I have an inventory of supplements and so I have a online store where you can access. I'm. I really make it my purpose to make it possible for you to access really high quality supplements, including the nutrients, herbs, homeopathic remedies that I've been mentioning because I know that it can be difficult to find or sometimes it's hard to trust the different sources. I want you to be able to come to my online store or my website and be able to know, hey, these, these products were reviewed by Dr. Donnie, she's used them. That's how they end up in my store, is if I've used them, I've reviewed them, patients of mine have used them. And so we then make it possible for people to be able to order them. Some products you have to be one of my patients or in my program to be able to access some of them. You can, anyone can access some of them are not even able to put it in the online store and it's only for patients. So some cases that's a better way to go because again, it's important to be able to have a practitioner who's helping you use them correctly for you, making sure you get the right products, the right doses and the right use of them so that you're being effective in recovering from whatever infection you're dealing with. Another product that I have available is the peptides, which is peptides developed by Dr. Cavinson in St. Petersburg, Russia. Some of you may have heard of peptides.

The word peptide really means protein. But in this case we're specifically looking at.

These peptides that Dr. Cavinson identified that help reset cellular function in our bodies health. I think of it as resetting to default mode our optimal immune function, for example, or our optimal lung function or digestive function. And so we can use these peptides as a way to help our bodies to prevent an infection, recover from an infection. And so they're also really important thing to consider when you're working on preventing or recovering from an infection, is to use these, Dr. Cavinson's peptides for the immune system to help your body reset from stress and get back to optimal functioning. And so that's another one that we offer at my website, drdonnie.com or in the online store which is@drdonnystore.com. and you can search based on immune system. You can search for any of these ingredients that I've just been mentioning. You can find different brands and what you'll notice is these are again, all brands that I've researched and reviewed myself that are going to be, you know, we're looking for products that are going to be having methyl folate, the active form of the B vitamins. Right. We want to look for products that have quality. Review the fish oils for example. Always we need to make sure that them as well as other products are reviewed for toxicity. And you're getting the healthiest form and the most effective version and different formats, formulas that are in liquids, capsules, powders. So, you know, we really have been driven. I mean this is something again that I've been working on, not, not just a year or two, but this is what I've been doing for 21 years. So this is, this is just what my brain does, is look at different form, different products, different ways of helping our bodies to do what they're already good at doing. Our bodies know how to heal, but we, when we're under so much stress, exposure, it's challenging. It's challenging for our immune system to do its best job. And so what we're doing when we're using nutrients or herbs or different kinds of supplements, whether it's a homeopathic remedy or a peptide, the whole idea is how do we help your body work better and so then your system can reset, you can fend off the virus. But ultimately what I want to help you do is to prevent these infections from happening in the first place. And so then I know we've gotten you to what I call the resiliency phase, which is when you can be exposed to different infections. Sometimes you might still catch an infection, like sometimes I'll catch a cold, but then I know what to do to help my body recover quickly and get back on track again. Because otherwise sometimes what happens is we get one infection and then another one and another one, and then we just keep feeling like we can't even get ahead of it, right? And that's not what I want for you. I want for you to be able to go, no, we can't actually recover. It reminds me, there's a couple other things that maybe you've heard of related to helping your immune system. And one of them is quercetin. Quercetin is plant based substance that's really, I would put it in the category as an antihistamine, but it also helps with getting zinc into your cells. And so quercetin is anti inflammatory and it can be very helpful for allergies, but also for when you're fending off any other kind of infection, like a viral infection. I also like to use another natural antihistamine called hesperidin. Hesperidin as well as quercetin are great at helping. When you have all kinds of runny nose and itchy eyes and you know, you keep coughing up phlegm, you just feel like this phlegm is going on for days. Hesperidin is another one that I like to use in frequent doses through the day to help decrease all that fluid. The reason we want to decrease the fluid is because bacteria loves when there's extra fluid around. If you have a viral infection and then you have a runny nose or sinus congestion, then a bacteria is going to want to jump on board and cause a bacterial infection. One of the ways we can prevent a bacterial infection is by reducing all that phlegm. And, and so hesperidin as a natural antihistamine is really going to decrease hemo phlegm without causing dryness and drowsiness that you might associate with over the counter or medication antihistamine. Sometimes we need to use medications as antihistamines, but an alternative natural version would be quercetin and hesperidin, both of which you can find in the Dr. Donney store. Then also there's something called NAC. N Acetylcysteine. Acetylcysteine is really an amino acid. We like to use it as a precursor to glutathione. It does a lot of other things in the body to help with detoxification and help with our immune system. But one of the other things it does is it thins out the phlegm. As we're talking about sinus congestion and cough. If you feel like you have this thick phlegm that just won't move. Now sometimes people think, I'm going to take a Mucinex, which is fine. It does also thin phlegm. But NAC or N acetylcysteine can help thin the phlegm as a nutrient. And so sometimes we use that to help move the phlegm out while also helping in all the other ways that N acetylcysteine helps. Glutathione, by the way, is also great for the immune system because it's a natural antioxidant. A lot of the things we've been talking about are actually antioxidants vitamin C, zinc, selenium, vitamin E, all are antioxidants, as is glutathione. And antioxidant I think of as a cell protector. It helps protect your cell from oxidative stress. And when you have an infection, there's a lot of oxidative stress happening because your body, your immune system is trying to protect you from this infection, but meanwhile it's creating a bunch of oxidative stress. And so it's like to help your body stay ahead of that, you want to use antioxidants so that your body can keep on fending off the infection and not be overwhelmed by the oxidative stress. And so I like to use glutathione. You can get it either as liquids or capsules and you can take it once or twice a day. And it's good for prevention, but it's also good when you're in the midst of an infection to help your body and your cells recover. You see, now you're getting the hang of this, right? So we use something that's directly immune, supportive. We can use natural antihistamines, we can use antimicrobials, we can use antioxidants. And then in the combination of that, that's where we really get the benefits. We're coming at it from multiple directions. Also, as I've mentioned, we want to help your body recover from stress. At the same time. By the time we come from multiple directions now, we're more likely to be effective than if we were to just do one thing. If we were just going to do antiviral or antihistamine, we're not going to be near as effective as if we can use these in a really smart way, in a smart combination, frequent dosing. And then of course you're going to do that alongside of all of your other amazing self care, like eating healthy foods, avoiding foods that drop your immune system like sugar and alcohol. It's well established that now I'm talking about regular like spoonful of white sugar or brown sugar. Sugar decreases our immune function, so does alcohol. So if you know you're going to be exposed to a potential infection or you think you're coming down with an infection, that's the time to really be more careful about sugar. Although I would say be careful with sugar all the time anyway and alcohol because you don't want to have your immune system decreased by that. In addition to just the stress of being a human right now we're really putting ourselves in a vulnerable position also we want to make sure you get enough sleep. Because it's well established, if we don't get enough seven and a half to nine hours of sleep, our immune function goes down. Amazing. Here we are thinking we're doing nothing while we sleep, but actually you are doing something while you're sleeping. You're helping your immune system work better. Melatonin itself is very helpful for immune function. We need to be able to turn out the lights and turn off a computer and the phone and close our eyes and go to sleep for seven and a half to nine hours. And if you're struggling with sleep, definitely reach out to me or someone like me to help you because there's so many ways we can help you get better sleep so that you can help your immune function. Let's see. So getting good sleep, eating healthy foods, healthy fresh fruits and vegetables, but also making sure you're getting enough healthy protein and fat. These are also very important for your immune function. So always make to make sure, even if you're following a plant based diet, that you get enough protein, even if it's a plant based protein, like a pea protein. If you're not following a plant based diet, you also need to make sure you're getting enough healthy protein, maybe from a collagen protein and protein in each of your meals. Our body uses amino acids from protein also for our immune system.

As well as many other things like making muscles and neurotransmitters. We need protein. We also need healthy fats like olive oil, flaxseed oil, coconut oil.

And then we need breaks during the day. I so often find that when I'm talking to people, I hear like, and I get it, we can be racing through the day. We have so many things we're supposed to get done. People are asking us to be certain places at certain times and we end up racing through the whole day without even a chance to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water, or sometimes even to be able to eat or take your vitamins. So we need to be able to look at our schedule and be like, okay, when am I going to have time for me? Starting from when you wake up. Start trying to put insert time for you if it's going to be even a meditation, a walk outside, a time with your pets, time to call a friend and just talk things out. Or maybe you have a therapist to talk with, Create the time for you at different little spaces of time, little snippets of time through the day, even if it's for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour, Take little breaks and check in with yourself. Hey, what do I need right now? Do I need some water? Do I need to take my supplements? Do I need to eat? Do I need to just breathe? Do I need to do a meditation? Play some music? These are what I call stress recovery activities, which are so important as is exercise. We know that exercise on a regular basis can make a huge difference for stress recovery and immune system. But I always like to emphasize that no matter what you're doing, it's not about pressuring yourself or putting more stress on yourself to be perfect or to overdo it. Because we are also really good at. Just as we're good at pressing ourselves to get other things done, we can be really good at pressuring ourselves to get our self care done. Sometimes we actually overdo it. There's such a thing as having too much healthy food like kale. There's such a thing as too much kale. There's such a thing as too much exercise. There's such a thing as too long of an intermittent fast. There's such a thing as too much of a vitamin in herb like we were just talking about earlier. So it's important to know like what's the right amount for you and what's too much. You really listen to your body. If you overdo it with your exercise, you could actually drop your immune system and be more susceptible to an infection. So if you want to be watching that and just do just enough to feel good and strengthen your muscles, but you don't want to overdo it and raise your cortisol. Same with, with any kind of diet changes like intermittent fasting, which is fasting overnight between dinner and your next meal the next day. But if you fast for too long, it can raise your cortisol and disrupt your immune system. So always listen to your body and know what's the right amount for you, what's the right size of meal, frequency of meal, contents of your meal. And it's important to work with a practitioner who can help you do testing to help you figure that out so you can really fine tune your protocol so that you know exactly what your body needs to not only fend off viruses and other infections, but to just be healthy in general, to feel good, to actually imagine that, to actually feel good, energy, mood, focus and not having pain all the time. Believe me, I lived in pain for so many years and I still do have pain sometimes because that's one of my main health issues, has to do with inflammation in my joints. So it's something that I'm always working on. But what I can say is now I'm in like, way less, probably almost zero pain than ever before in my life. So I'm so it makes me know that this, this approach works. This approach is what we need in order to, to really help ourselves stay healthy. Even though we're human and we are going to be under stress, it is not about being perfect. It is not about trying to think. You are not going to be stressed. I want you to be doing the things you are passionate about. I want you to be spending time with your family and the people who you want to be spending time with. It's about making that possible by helping you to know what you need and what to choose to help you to be able to do that. I hope this is all helpful again, please feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Also.

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And yes, stay in touch. Reach out to us if you have questions or if you need help with a product or if you'd like to meet with me so that I can help you with your health more specifically in your supplement protocol. So you can reach us@officerdonny.com or just go to drdani.com d o c t o r d o n I.com all right. I wish you lots of wellness and I hope this was super helpful and I'm here for you if you need me. All right, talk to you soon.

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