#9 Everything You Need To Know About HPV

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.

Hey, guys.

This episode is from one of Dr. Donnie's live Facebook streams where she answered listeners questions live on Facebook.

One of the things I specialize in is helping people with hpv, which is human papillomavirus, which mainly is going to be women when they get a Pap smear and get the HPV test back. Maybe some of you have experienced that. Maybe some of you have gotten your Pap smear back and had it show hpv.

And I also understand that this is a subject that sometimes people don't feel comfortable sharing. Maybe you don't feel comfortable saying that you've had HPV positive. And that's completely understandable because it is a sexually transmitted virus and there's kind of a stigma out there about sexually transmitted infections in general, let alone hpv. And so I understand that some of you might feel hesitant. So if you want to ask a question, feel free. And doesn't have to mean that you could be asking for someone else. You could be asking for a friend or a daughter or someone else that you know.

Please. I'm hoping that we can. My goal is to be able to open up this conversation about HPV.

So that it doesn't have to be such a subject that we're afraid to talk about or feeling isolated about or feeling afraid about. So many women who contact my office, they'll say they got a Pap smear back. It says hpv. Maybe it also showed some abnormal cells on the cervix. And usually, and maybe you can relate to this, usually those women are feeling very anxious, very stressed, very afraid. What does this mean? What am I going to do about it? Is it going to affect future pregnancy? Is it going to cause cancer? You know, what, what am I supposed to be doing now? What, you know, what is the deal with this virus? Right? So I want to talk about that a bit today and I have a lot of other resources for you as well. So we can talk about it in this conversation. But I also have a guide, like a free guidebook that I put together that has information and you can, you can just get it from my website. I'll put a link so that you can get the free guide and read more about how I approach hpv. Also, I'm doing a webinar where we're going to go into much more detail about HPV and what I found is helpful for addressing hpv. And then I also have a online course, a group online course that I created, so. So that those of you who are wanting to implement my protocol to address HPV can access it from wherever you are without and anonymously be able to have my help and guidance implementing my protocol to address hpv. So I have lots that I've been putting together to help you, and I just wanted to be able to, you know, talk a little bit in general about HPV today. So we are all kind of starting on the same page and then see if you have any questions. So I'm watching to see. I'm going to see if I can. Sometimes it's a little harder for me to see the questions on Facebook, but I'm going to see if my assistants can help me with that.

So let's see. So here we go. So HPV is a virus, like many other viruses that we're exposed to in our environment and in our life. The thing I. There's a few common misunderstandings I find about hpv. One is that we tend to think that because HPV is sexually transmitted, we tend to think that it's rare or something. And actually it's completely opposite from that. HPV is so common.

It'S considered that all of us, most all of us will be exposed or have HPV virus at some point in our lives. I mean, that's pretty common. If we can basically say it's all around us, we're going to get exposed to it. It's not about preventing exposure necessarily. It's about how to help your body protect you from this virus, because you're gonna get exposed.

Every year, 14 million people are diagnosed with HPV, and something like 80 million people already have it. And basically one in two people.

Will have HPV, you know, at any point in time. So if you don't have it, then the next person next to you likely does. And so it's a very common virus. And that's why I think we shouldn't be so ashamed. I mean, believe me, I understand shame because I have experienced shame around some of my health issues in my past. I was ashamed of having migraine headaches and not being able to solve them as a naturopathic doctor for a long time. Until I realized this is just part of being human. And that's, I think, the same case with hpv. It's. It's part of being human. And so if, you know, if you have hpv, I like to create a safe space where you can talk about it and just be human and just get the information you need to address it for your body. So that's one of the common misunderstandings that I really want to help solve and shift that pattern. Hopefully, you'll be helping me to do that. So, also, hpv, again, we mostly think of it in women. That's because women have a screening test that's easy to do. Women are used to getting an annual Pap smear to check the cervix for abnormal cells.

When they do the Pap smear, they can test for hpv. It's a separate test, by the way. The Pap smear looks at the cells on the cervix. The HPV test looks for the virus.

Not all doctors, they don't always do the HPV part of the test. But I have found, especially recently, that more and more doctors are doing HPV testing. And I think that's why more and more women are finding out that they have hpv, because it's being tested. You know, who knows? In years past, it may not have been tested, in which case we didn't. We weren't aware of how many people actually have this virus. So the testing, you know, is becoming more prevalent, which means we're finding out about the virus more. And.

That'S how women usually are tested for hpv. Now, there's no symptoms. So it's not like there's any kind of vaginal discharge or pain or anything like that. There's no symptoms other than when HPV causes genital warts. There are certain types, and I'll go into this in a little more detail, but there are certain types of HPV that cause genital warts, in which case we can see them. But most types of hpv, it doesn't cause any symptoms.

So we usually talk about HPV as if it's a one single virus. But like other viruses, there's many different types of HPV. In fact, they say there's over 100 different types of HPV on some of them, as far as we know, don't cause any problems for humans. But there are some that are known to cause genital warts. And then there are some that are known to cause cancer, especially cancer on the cervix. For women, which, you know, the Cervix is at the, you know, the base of the uterus, at the, you know, in the vaginal area. You're going to, you know, the end of the vagina basically, is the cervix. That's where the HPV tends to be able to cause cancer on those cells. It can also cause cancer on the cells lining the vaginal walls. It can cause cancer in the oral area, also the anal area. Some HPV viruses are known to cause cancer. And these various. If you think about it, it's a similar type of tissue, right? This kind of the cells, epithelial cells in the vaginal area, the rectal area, the oral area, those kind of cells is where HPV likes to cause cancer. Certain types of hpv.

That'S why they're testing women for hpv, so that we can know that it's there and address it before it has a chance to cause cancer, hopefully, or, you know, to. When addressing cancer. Here's the thing is for men, there's no test. There's no Pap smear equivalent for men. There's no HPV test approved HPV test for men. So other than if men happen to get the type of HPV that causes genital warts, then they will see the warts, but the other kinds of hpv, you can't see it. And there's no symptoms and there's no test. So men are actually, I think, at a great disadvantage when it comes to HPV because sometimes the only time they ever find out that they had HPV is when they find out that they have throat cancer or anal cancer. And they. There was no. They had no idea prior to that that they even had hpv. And so I'm hoping in the near future there will be screening tests for men. But for now, what I would encourage you to do if you're a man listening in, is to know, you know, to be more in communication with your sexual partners so that, you know, if they have tested positive for hpv, in which case then you're gonna presume you were exposed to it and start to be proactive about it. Because here's the thing is, I've been helping patients, mostly women, but also men, for 20 years. 20 years. Two decades. Over two decades, actually, because it was started when I was in naturopathic medical school. One of the areas that I was trained in was helping to address HPV and abnormal Pap smears. And I've been helping with that ever since then. And so I've just happened to have a lot of experience addressing HPV over the years. And it's my patients who then said to me, Dr. Donnie, more people need this information.

There's so much that's possible, because what we find with my patients is if they have an abnormal pap smear, let's say the pap smear came back with some abnormal cells. We've been able to get the abnormal cells to go away and the pap smear to go back to normal. And if they have hpv, we've been able to even get the HPV to test negative. So that's huge. I mean, you're not going to hear that from most doctors offices. In fact, what. Mostly you'll hear from the doctor. And some of you can probably relate to this. When you've received a, you know, the doctor says, okay, there's positive hpv, they'll tell you whether or not there's any abnormal cells on the cervix as well. But if they say you have hpv, mostly, if there's no abnormal cells, they'll say, let's watch and wait and see what happens over the next six months to a year and see if any abnormal cells develop. And the reason the doctor says that, because believe me, when you hear that, you're like, what? Because first of all, you're like, what? I have a virus, sexually transmitted virus. This is freaking me out. I got to do something about it immediately, right? It feels like this urgency, of course, because you're just getting this information. You don't. It's like you get this test back and you got a positive on the test. You're like, I'm supposed to do something about this. And the doctor is saying, let's just watch and wait and see what happens. The reason the doctor says that is because there are studies that show that 50% of people, so half of everyone who gets an eight positive HIV test back, half of them, it's gonna go away on its own within eight months. So the doctor's thinking, why get worried and do something? Because for them, the only thing they can do is a medical procedure, right? They don't have any other treatment for it. So they're thinking, I don't want to do a medical procedure if this is gonna go away on its own within eight months in 50% of people. So they're doing this watch and wait and see to find out if you are in the 50% where it goes away. 90% of people, it goes away by itself within two years.

So 90% of people, it goes away by itself. That means Your immune system fought it off. Your immune system was able to protect you from the virus if you are in that 90%. So some of you may be relate where it was like maybe positive and then you went back and it was negative. That's because your immune system was able to protect you from it and get it to either dormant, because this virus, like other viruses could be, it could go to a dormancy, or it could just be eliminated from your system. And that part we don't really know because there's not a test that shows us if the virus is dormant. All we know is is it active or not active? And so if we can get it to not active, it's equivalent to being not able to cause cancer. And that's what we want. So if that can happen for 90% of people within two years, that's why the doctor is saying to you, come back and we'll recheck it. But here's the thing is if you're kind of person like my patients tend to be, and I would be, if I got a positive hpv, would be like, I want to do something about this. What can I do to make sure I'm in the 90% where it goes away, right? We want to be in the 90% because if you end up in the 10% where it doesn't go away on its own, where your body didn't protect you from it, then you're at risk of having abnormal cells and even cancer develop. And that's where I'm mostly helping the people who are in that 10%. Because even if you're in the 10% where it didn't just go away on its own, we can still get it to go away. We can get you over to the percentage where it went away, but we need to just be a bit more proactive about it. And there's absolutely things we can do along the lines of dietary changes, stress recovery, hormone balancing, and using nutrients and herbs that are antiviral and immune supportive. And there's quite a lot of research on this actually. And there's, there's actually substantial research that if you search online, you're gonna find quite a bit of sprinkling of information. You know, you're gonna find take vitamin C, you're gonna see take folic or acid or folate, you're gonna see take mushroom extract because there's research on it. It's. You can find the research, you can read the research. Even sometimes those things individually can address hpv. And so some people will just say, hey, okay, I got hpv. Let me do something simple. Maybe they just add vitamin C, maybe they just add some mushroom extract. And the next time they go in, the virus is negative and they're on their way. Other people, it may take a little bit more of a concerted effort to get the HPV to negative and to get the abnormal cells to correct themselves. So you just. The thing is, you just have to kind of find out where's your body in that spectrum and how much support does your body need to correct this.

And that's what I do a lot of is helping people to do that. And we have over time, because it's been 20 years of helping people with this, I've developed a protocol that I find works the majority of the time for the most people. And if it doesn't get it to negative within six months, then that just tells me we have to tweak the protocol a little bit for your body again. Right. We just have to really get to know your genetics, your susceptibilities, your nutrient requirements to get your body in this optimal state that it can protect you from this virus. And the cool thing I think is by the time we do that, by the time we understand your unique nutrient needs and hormone balancing and stress recovery for you to fight off hpv, you end up in such a healthier state overall. Right. Because we're addressing your whole body. By the time you've gotten your Pap smear to normal and negative, you're ready for a healthy pregnancy, your other symptoms and your health have recovered. You're feeling your best health ever. What I find is with these patients, the HPV doesn't come back again. Because here's the other thing. For some people, you get a positive hpv, it may go away in a year, it may come back again in five years. You might end up doing the medical procedure called a LEEP procedure to remove the abnormal cells on the cerVix. And then ten years later it comes back again, or two years later it comes back again and it can feel like this. You're just on a treadmill over and over and it just is like you just wish that you could like, because you're having to have Pap smears all the time or colposcopies, which is a biopsy on the cervix and repeat all this testing over and over and over again. And it can feel like it's like following you around like a shadow. And you're just like, how do I lose this HPV shadow here? And the thing Is I find when we use my protocol for addressing hpv, we lose the shadow. It's like, goodbye, hpv. And it doesn't come back again. I mean, this is again, patient. I mean, my patients have taught me that they'll come back to me 10 years later and they'll say, my pap smear has been normal for 10 years. HPV has been gone for 10 years. But I'm calling you because something else is going on now. I'm in perimenopause and I have perimenopausal symptoms or, you know, something else is happening, and that's why they contact me. It's not that the HPV comes back, so it's that we can actually get your body to a more optimal health where you're able to protect from this virus. And so I really like to shift this way of thinking of this virus. Like, so much of the time, you know, we have this perception that, like, you know, this virus is, you know, we need to be afraid of it. And, you know, and of course we want to be concerned and we want to be proactive, but it's more like if we can be empowered about.

Helping you to address your susceptibilities, then it's a way different way of addressing this than being in this fear state, a fear of cancer, fear of the virus. Because what happens is one of the main susceptibilities to HPV is stressful stress in various forms. Whether it's stress from job that's stressful, a relationship that's stressful, maybe deaths in your family that were stressful, travel, lack of sleep, changing time zones, stress in terms of your diet, if your diet's been higher, inflammatory diet.

Stress from toxin exposure, various stresses that you're exposed to is what makes you susceptible to this virus and even the stress of having the virus and dealing with the virus. So if you're in a stress state about this virus, right, if you're like, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do? What's this going to cause? What? You know, I don't want to tell my partner, I don't want to tell my family. I feel isolated. That's more stress. That's just going to make you more vulnerable to the virus. So I think just being able to take a step back and take a breath and go, oh, I actually need to be in a state of calm and empowerment and knowing I have a successful strategic protocol in front of me to get out of that stress state. And then we can actually look at Your stress levels, your cortisol and adrenaline and correct them. And we can look at the rest of your body and see what imbalances has stress caused and correct them. And as we correct the effects of stress every day that goes by, you become better at fending off HPV as well as other issues. Right? You're going to be fending off other viruses and other infections and you know, you're going to be feeling better in general. But in this, we're focused on the hpv.

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Let'S see. I see a couple questions. Do we have to be tested for HPV if a Pap smear is normal? It's a good question. So I mean, it's something to consider, right? Like say you're in this. They say there's some practitioners that will say over 30 years old because I think they figure you're more likely to have been exposed to HPV after 30 years of age. I would say because I have this experience of helping people successfully address hpv, I would rather know. I would rather know if I have HPV because then I can do something about it. Even if the Pap smear is normal, I would tend to think for yourself and see what feels right to you. But if you're getting a Pap smear done, I would say to the doctor, please test me for hpv. I want to know if it's there so I can be proactive. Before it causes abnormal cells, you can ask to request for it to be tested. There's also test you can do yourself. I'm just getting more information about that. But there is a home test for hpv. So, like, if you just wanted to know for yourself if you can do a vaginal home test. And that's a possibility because it's just a swab. It's not anything very complicated. It's just like other viruses. We look for the antibody response, but they are the actual viral particles. So they can. You can do a HPV test even from home.

You know, if you just want to know, hey, do I have hpv? Should I be proactive? And actually.

Again, because we're all exposed to this virus, most all of us are exposed to some degree. There would even be the argument that we should all be proactive about our health to be preventing HPV anyway, all the time. Even if you don't know what your test result is, right? Because very likely you either have been exposed. This is the thing about HPV. You could have been exposed 10 years ago and it is not testing positive. And then all of a sudden it pops up because again, it comes back to susceptibilities when you're run down and say, a lot of times I'll ask my patients, by the way, when they come in and we have HPV and or positive you abnormal cells on the cervix, I say to them, have you experienced stress in the past year? And they always can identify significant stress. You know, again, whether it's job related or relationship related or family related or financial related or all of the above, they can always identify stress exposure. And so even if that HPV had been around, you know, years, who knows? We don't know. Like, when you get a test back, there's no way to know how long you've had hpv. It could have been there a month, it could have been there 20 years. And it just was hanging out, waiting for a chance for you to be vulnerable. And then it pops up and becomes active and starts causing trouble. So that's an important thing to understand about it too, because sometimes when you get this HPV back, sometimes you want to be like, you know, stressed. Was it this one relationship I was in? Was it my partner with someone else? You know, you start getting our minds right, start really ruminating and worrying, how did I get exposed to this virus? When really we can't say for sure. It could have been from way back in time. And so really it becomes a chance to look at yourself and say.

What'S making me vulnerable? I mean, we also know, by the way, that birth control pills, so synthetic hormones that are in birth control pills or even hormonal IUD predispose to hpv. So if you're on a birth control pill or have a hormonal birth control that already is making you more susceptible to hpv. And if you test positive for hpv, it's definitely worth considering. Hey, you know, this birth control hormones are making me susceptible. What do I need to do here? Because this virus can cause cancer. We don't want that. And the other thing that can make you susceptible, that's very well established, is cigarette smoking. So if you're smoking and you test positive for hpv, the smoking could be one, at least one of the things that's making you susceptible. Of course, as I mentioned, the thing I see most beyond birth control pills and smoking is stress exposure. It just so happens that I specialize in helping people understand what stress does to our bodies and how to recover from stress. I've used my same protocol for stress recovery.

Which I developed for my own health and, you know, through my own health struggles and with patients over the years. But when I use that same stress recovery protocol for patients with hpv, that's what helps us be successful. Now, you know, definitely I have colleagues, and you'll see out there many protocols for HPV that generally have to do with, again, vitamins that are supporting to the immune system. So we're thinking vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc, vitamin selenium, vitamin E. Right? These are the antioxidants that help our body, protect our cells and help our immune system work better. And then the protocols will have some antiviral herbs, whether that's even echinacea, astragalus.

And mushroom extracts. And then definitely green tea extract has been well researched. Curcumin has been well researched, as well as the mushroom extracts like coriolis mushroom. They all have antiviral immune supportive characteristics. And so, you know, in the end, you could have this big, long list of supplements, right? All these vitamins, all of these herbs. And along the lines of folate, by the way, which is vitamin B9, the B vitamins in general are important because we get depleted in our B vitamins when we're stressed is one way to think about it. But folate in particular is important because.

Folate our body uses for making healthy cells. Now we're talking about healthy cells on the cervix or healthy cells in the throat, for example. And this virus is causing the cells to be unhealthy, right? That's what on the Pap smear, that's what we're looking at. We're like looking, is it a slightly abnormal cell? Is it getting a little bit more abnormally? Shaped cell, is it? And we're measuring these cells before they get to cancer, right? We're measuring even before they get to pre cancer. We're measuring these abnormal cells all along the way, from just mildly abnormal all the way to pre cancer and cancer cells with a Pap smear. We have information to address this way before it gets to pre cancer and cancer. So we might as well get that information. But the key is that those cells on the cervix, just like your skin, our body makes new cells on the cervix all the time. And. And it needs folate, healthy, active folate, in order to make those healthy cells, which is why there's so many studies indicating that when women get enough folate that it reverses abnormal Pap smears sometimes, even if that's the only thing you do. So that's huge. But I think one of the common misunderstandings is that people will. And a lot of the research is on folic. And a lot of doctors will tell you folic acid. Folic acid is the inactive form of the nutrient. We didn't know that 20 years ago, but now we know that folic acid is inactive. And 50% of us. I'm including myself because I have MTHFR gene variations. When you have MTHFR gene, either a single or double variations, your body likely is not going to be able to turn folic acid into folate very well. 40 to 80% less ability to use folic acid. That's 50% of people. I would really like to know how many women who have abnormal Pap smears have MTHFR gene variations. That would be really interesting information. I have a feeling it's pretty high. I think almost all of my patients who have had abnormal Pap smears have MTHFR gene variations. It's not being tested all the time. You kind of have to do that yourself and be proactive yourself and say, hey, do. If I have abnormal Pap smear, do I have MTHFR gene variations? Is this because I'm not getting enough folate instead of folic acid? And the body can use folate along with methyl B12, the other B vitamins. They all work together in what I call the B vitamin cycle to make sam, something called sam. And SAM is what helps our cells make new healthy cells. And so folate is huge nutrient we use with helping to get the abnormal cells back to normal and preventing HPV from causing abnormal cells. So I'm just touching a little bit on these nutrients. You can find out so much More my HPV guide, which is a free guide. I'll give a link for you guys so you could, you can download it. Also, I write about this a lot in my blog, and I'm doing a webinar next week on, let's see, what day is that? Today is the 21st. So the webinar is the 28th, Thursday the 28th, and I'm gonna put a link here so you could sign up for the webinar. So if you're, if this is like, if I'm talking exactly what you've been needing to know and you've been worrying about HPV and wondering what you could do about it, then I definitely invite you to come to this free webinar next Thursday night where we're going to go into even more detail about HPV and what I've found that's effective for helping to get it to negative, get the pap smear to negative and help you become less susceptible to this virus and in the same time help you get healthier in general. And I also really find it's important to address this psycho, emotional, spiritual level of hpv. So we're going to talk more about that, too in the webinar. And I'm definitely going to be sharing about my online course, the group online course, which is anonymous. We ran the first time through of the HPV course in March, and it was amazing and I'm so excited about it. So we're doing it again starting in June. And so I want to make sure you have information and you're thinking this through and you understand if maybe this course is the right timing for you to help you really put together the right protocol for you. Again, I like to emphasize that it's individualized. It's very important to individualize it, and I find it's very important for you to have the right information so that we've eliminated the stress factor. I want you to get to the point where you just feel like, you know, you're on the right path doing the right thing for you.

Without having to feel stressed and worried, you know, to know, okay, I'm on the path, I'm dealing with this. And you can do it anonymously, you know, because it is. I mean, I do know that most people who are addressing HPV are kind of doing it on their own. They feel afraid what it means and what other people might think. Although I would like to start helping to shift and talk about it more. But we do the course as an anonymous course. So if you want to be you know, open and, you know, during the course, you can. But if you would prefer to, you know, just get the information to use for yourself, you can do it that way, too. And then I also work with people one on one.

To help them address HPV and abnormal Pap smears. Certainly if you have more advanced, like if you're. The Pap smear will either say Cin1, Cin2, Cin3.

If you have Cin3, it's more advanced. Or if you have in situ cells, then you could do the course. But I would say you probably also want to do some sessions with me one on one, because then we need to really, like, we're getting close to cancer cells here. We need to just really make sure we've got everything dialed in and work with your other doctors to make sure we get this before it advances anymore. Okay, let's see. I see another question. Do you find that older women have problems with HPV when they age? That's a great question. I really see a lot of age variety related to HPV. Sometimes it's women who are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, even 60s.

It's more rare, I would say, after 60 years or after 70 years old. But it can come up at any time along the way. And it's interesting because, you know, you would think maybe it's going to be more likely when you're menstruating or. But actually, a lot of times it comes up around the time of menopause or even after menopause. And so it really, I think, has to do with when in your life you become susceptible to this virus. And sometimes when there are hormonal changes, say estrogen is fluctuating, or because there is a component to the susceptibility that has to do with how your body handles estrogen. If your body is not as good at detoxifying estrogen, which is also partly genetically determined, if your body's not as good at detoxifying estrogen, that can also make you susceptible. And so certain times of your life, if you might have higher amounts of estrogen or changing amounts of estrogen, maybe that's playing a role. So it definitely can happen. You know, even over 40 years old, you can all of a sudden then have HPV come out as an issue, or maybe if you had it earlier in your life, it might come back again later in life.

And she's asking, does it have to do with the immune system decreasing with age? Definitely. But the interesting thing to me is for some people, the immune system will Be less effective even at a younger age. So it really depends on your body. You know, maybe you're a body where your immune system is doing awesome, and then all of a sudden, at 50, based on your stress exposures and things, your immune system is less effective. But for other people, their immune system might be depleted at a younger age. So it really varies. See? Do you find non invasive treatments to work still? Yes, absolutely. So even if you are, you know, let's say older, like over 40, and HPV comes back positive, these same treatment strategies that I've been talking about still work. Absolutely. I have the patients pop. They pop. In my mind, I'm thinking of them who have proven it. You know, they've proven that and their doctor is thinking, okay, you know, if this doesn't get better, we're going to have to go toward, you know, maybe even a hysterectomy. And the patients come to me and say, what can I do? I don't, you know, yes, I might be postmenopausal, but I don't really want to have a hysterectomy. What. What can I do? And we address the HPV and the abnormal cells, it goes away and they, they don't have to have a hysterectomy.

They go on having healthy lives after that. So it definitely. These approaches can work no matter what age you are. Which is a great question. I'm so glad you asked that. Let's see if I. Oh, here's another question. Let's see if I can see in terms of viruses. Can you compare exosomes to viruses and what's the difference, if any?

Let's see.

Mm.

Yeah, I'm trying to think if.

How. How best to answer that question.

You know.

I love. Because you think big picture, you know, you're thinking of like.

This concept that. And I love this, right, because we know we have our bacteria living in our body and we become a little more comfortable, I think, with the idea of bacteria. We got. We know we take a probiotics and we're swallowing bacteria. We know these bacteria live in our gut. We know the bacteria live on our skin. So we're a little more comfortable with bacteria. I think we tend to be less comfortable with the idea of viruses in our environment.

But basically we live in this environment with viruses. We're exposed to viruses all the time, and there's viruses in our body all the time. It's one of those things where we tend not to think about that because they're invisible. We can't see them but yes, we live in this world with viruses. There's other microbes.

Sometimes we talk about helminths and other microbes that they're living in this world with us and in our bodies with us. And it's about, you know, this just. You'll hear these, like, microbiome and different terms that are talking about, you know, these. The concepts of these different organisms that live, you know, in and around us. And I think that there's, you know, there definitely could be some, you know, we have to even question, what's that, you know, that value of these different organisms in our world and in our bodies and also how to honor and respect in the balance. And I think that this is HPV also does give us that opportunity. Like other viruses say, like Epstein Barr virus is another very common virus that we're almost all exposed to. Epstein Barr virus. And some people experience it as more severe monosymptoms when they first get it. Some people never even knew they had Epstein Barr virus. They never experienced monosymptoms. And then maybe other times in their life. Again, what I find with Epstein Barr viruses, it's when a person is stressed and overtaxed and drained and susceptible. That's when Epstein Barr virus activates and starts to cause the symptoms. It causes. It causes more like usually fatigue is a big one, or swollen lymph nodes and brain fog, and it can even trigger autoimmunity. And so that Epstein Barr virus activates when our immune system is not able to keep it in check and our bodies depleted and not able to protect us from this virus, and it starts to be able to cause more issues. So Epstein Barr virus, I think, is a very good comparison to HPV virus in terms of understanding that it's in our realm, it's in our space, and it's about how to help ourselves be healthy in various ways, I would say, in terms of digestion. And we talk a lot about leaky gut, you know, making sure you've got leaky gut healed, making sure your hormones are balanced, neurotransmitters are balanced, you know, immune system function balanced. Because then you're in this state of kind of harmony of all of the messengers in your body. Yes, the. Oh, I love this. 380 trillion viruses in our virome, exactly like we. We live with these viruses. So we want to have a harmony of the messengers that our body makes of hormones and neurotransmitters and nutrients and immune system and have that be in this kind of galaxy of viruses and bacteria and other microbes. That live in and around us. And when there's a harmony, then everything's good. You know, we can have. We can maintain our health. And the thing that disrupts this harmony is having more stress exposure and not enough stress recovery. Because when we. And again, this is not just psycho emotional stress. Of course, psycho emotional stress is huge. Whenever we have a lot of psycho emotional stress or even psycho emotional stress from our past PTSD or childhood stress, we know that makes us. That throws off this harmony in the environment and makes us susceptible to various health issues. Not just viruses.

But also.

Stress is in various types. Physical stress, toxins as a stress, foods that are a stress. You know, you start to think of what are the various factors that can be considered a stress on your system that throws off this harmony of our hormones and neurotransmitters and communicators and immune system and. And the harmony of the viruses and the bacteria and other microbes that live.

In our environment. Let's see. She says, I experienced that exact thing in high school. Completely brought on by stress. Now it makes sense. Oh, I love it. Oh, thanks for sharing that. Yeah, you start to go, oh, okay. Yeah. And so it can make us some. You know, you could end up then being kind of afraid of stress. But it's more like, I encourage you to be proactive about stress, right? Because it doesn't help to stress about stress. Because if we just stress about stress, that's just more stress. So what we want to do instead is find a way to be proactive about it. Find a way to say, okay, I get it. Stress makes me vulnerable. It throws off this harmony. And there's things I can do to recover from stress. Sometimes I think of, like, if you think of a marathon runner, right, A marathon runner knows they're going to be stressed, right? They know they have the stress of running a long way. They have the stress of potentially getting dehydrated. They have the stress on their physical stress on their body. They have the emotional stress of just, how am I going to make this. Finish this marathon? So a marathon runner is like this microcosm of a stress. But what does a marathon runner do? Like, a marathon runner doesn't just, like, get up one day and decide to go run a marathon. No, they, like, train, they practice. They figure out what is it that their body needs to recover on a daily basis after every run and during every run, how are they going to have fluid to drink and what are they going to eat for calories while they're running, how much sleep do they need. What do they need to eat before and after their run? What do they need in the rest of their life to maintain their hormone levels and their nutrient levels so that they can do this marathon run? Right? So it's. I think sometimes we expect ourselves to essentially get up every day and run a marathon with no help or very little help. Like, sometimes we even get through the whole day. I don't know, sometimes you guys could relate to me. It's like, get through the whole day and you realize, did I even drink any water? Did I feed myself any good food? Did I leave myself any time to get some good sleep, let alone take some nutrients in to help my body keep up or breathe? Right. Marathon runners gotta breathe the whole time. So sometimes I think it helps to almost think of that microcosm of stress like a marathon runner and realize, how can I do my day to day as if I'm running a marathon? You know, that's how much intention we could bring to our human need for stress recovery. And sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference. Sometimes just being able to get outside and take a breath and look at nature for a few minutes can make all the difference in your day. Or calling a friend or joining me like this, and being able to connect with other people and learn. I mean, there's so many ways that we can help our bodies recover from stress, let alone that. But I would also say that I feel like everyone should know their cortisol levels by knowing what your body does with cortisol, because it's partially genetically determined, but it's also determined by your prior stress exposure in your life. You're unique. What your cortisol does under stress is different than the next person. And I can tell you this because I've been measuring people's cortisol levels for years, two decades at least. And I see the patterns. And I can see that we don't all have the same pattern. Like, sometimes you think you hear cortisol and stress and you think, tell me how many of you this is true for you? We tend to think, oh, oh, yeah, I'm sure my cortisol is high all the time, right? Like, we just kind of go, okay, it's probably high all the time. But actually when we do the testing, that's actually the small percentage of time. There's few people who have cortisol high all the time. Yes, that does happen, but it's a less of a percentage. There's also the people where maybe the cortisols only too high in the morning or only too high in the evening, or both. Maybe too high in the morning and the evening, or maybe it's never too high. Maybe your cortisol is only too low. So it's important to know what your cortisol is up to, because that, to me is like, it's the. Otherwise you'd be like driving in circles. It'd be like getting in the car and driving in circles. Like, it'd be like driving with. Without knowing where you're going, without knowing what the map is, we need to know, like, where. Where are we? Like, if you're trying to go to the grocery store and you have no idea where the address is, you're going to drive in circles. So we need. Having your cortisol level is, to me, like having the map for your health, because then we can see, oh, your cortisol is too high at this time of day or too low at that time of day.

We know what to do now. We know what nutrients, what herbs to get your cortisol back on track again so you can actually get to where you're trying to go. And so that's true for HPV as well. With hpv, yes, we can do all. Everything that. I'm talking about addressing stress using the nutrients and herbs.

We can do all of that. But if we don't know where your cortisol level is, we might still not get very far because we haven't fully helped your body recover from stress. Let's say it's amazing how we've been sleeping through our stress. Yeah. Interesting, right? Collectively desensitized and unable to recognize that our days are filled with it. The key is to recognize the stressors and pace it. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it is. It really is amazing how I think it's. The thing with stress is that we're afraid of it. And so we tend to either dismiss it like it's too much to deal with. There's not. I've already. I can't fit anything else into my day or the other paradigm that happens with stress is we think we're supposed to be able to deal with it. We think we're robots or superheroes, and so we think. Think we've been trained. I think from young age that we were supposed to be able to match up and meet up with stress no matter what. Like, right. We're supposed to be like a machine that just powers through it. But it's not the case. We're human. We're not a machine. Our bodies are stress responders. As humans, we are stress responders. And if we don't get our stress recovery, just like an athlete, we don't get this stress recovery. We're not gonna. We're not gonna perform as well. We're gonna start to have symptoms and issues. And so I think we have to break those delusions about stress. We have to stop this delusion of being superheroes and stop the delusion that we can't do anything about it, because we can. There's so much we can do about it. Let's see. So in terms of supplements and herbs, do you have thoughts on celery juice? Now we do hear. We've been hearing more and more about celery juice, about other viruses too, like epc, Barr virus and celery juice. I mean, like other juices like carrot juice and some of the others. You know, certainly it's a way to get a lot of nutrients like celery I think of as filled with electrolytes. And so it's a great way to get electrolytes and hydration, which again, a lot of times we're lacking on that altogether. So there definitely can be some benefits. Benefit. But I haven't. There's not necessarily a study that I've seen anyway that directly connects celery juice to helping with HPV virus.

Sorry, Aphrodite sees the ups.

There's Aphrodite, by the way, if you guys haven't heard her before.

So I haven't. I mean, I haven't necessarily seen a direct study that says, okay, celery juice is going to be all you need to take care of this virus. But I would say that it might be something you want to add or maybe you've seen it be beneficial for your health or a way to help your body with recovery. Okay, let's see. So let me see if I have any other questions and then I'm going to wrap up here soon. I think I got these questions. So again, I'm going to. I'm so glad you're joining me here and I'll watch for if case you post any other questions later.

Do our bodies expect the virus? Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it. Like, yeah, our bodies, if you think about it as humans, we evolved, exposed to our environment, which included viruses, our environment included bacteria, it included parasites and other helmets that was in the environment our human body developed in. So it's not like we just were plopped here, you know, 50 years ago or 100 years ago, and these foreign.

Substances just showed up. No, this is. We've been in this environment. This is where humans have been living in nature. Viruses are part of nature. Bacteria is part of nature just as much as the trees and the plants and the soil and the water is all part of nature, and we're part of nature. So, yes, our bodies expect. Or our bodies are used to these different.

If we want to call them microbes or viruses, our bodies are used to it. That's. That's what we were built to do. And that's why we are here surviving, is because our bodies know how to do this. But if we are not, as a human, choosing to give our body the support it needs to help protect us from the virus, then the virus has a chance to cause abnormal cells. And then we still, even if it starts to cause abnormal cells, we still can be proactive about correcting that. And so that's why I want to help. You know, if you've been struggling without already some abnormal cells, know that there's options and you can do this alongside other treatments. It's not like you have to choose. You can, you might. There's some cases where we're having to choose some medical procedures along with. And I would say definitely, because some cases you might have even the cervix removed. And then the HPV causes abnormal cells in the vaginal walls. This virus, if it thinks, if it has a chance to cause. To do what it does, that's what that virus does. That's just what it does. Why be angry at the virus when it's really. We're giving that virus an opportunity to do what it does, if that makes sense. We need to change our environment. If we can change the environment in our body, change the immune function, change the nutrient function, change the stress recovery. No longer does that virus have the opportunity to cause abnormal cells in your body. And so that's what I help people do. That's what I help people do. So, please, I'm going to put the link so you can join me at the webinar next Thursday night. If you want to. If you want to just dive in more and learn even more detail about how what I found that helps people. And then if you're then really wanting to have me help you create your protocol, then join us in the online course. All right, Very good. Good to see you all. Thank you for being here today. I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to how humans heal. If you liked this episode, leave a rating and a review and for more resources, visit drdani.com.