Introducing Dr. Terry Wahls! - 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.

Hi, and welcome. I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Terry Wahls today. Dr. Wahls is a medical doctor. She's also clinical professor at the University of Iowa Medical School. She's a researcher, and one of the ways that some of you may know her is that she has successfully reversed progressive Ms. For herself and is the author of a book called Wahls Protocol. So I am just super honored and excited to have you with me Today, Terri and Dr. Wahls, to talk about you and your protocol and what an influence that diet and lifestyle change can make for people with autoimmunity in general. And I would say for everyone, I think, are such an inspiration to people, bringing to light this concept that food can be our medicine and that our bodies can heal even from severe health conditions like you had.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me with your audience today.

You're welcome. You're welcome. We're very excited for your new book coming out and this new update. So we're going to be talking and touching about that today. But first, tell us more. I mean, I think even start with what is ms? I mean, I know a lot of times people hear about multiple sclerosis and kind of have maybe some sense of it, but what is it and what was it for you?

So multiple sclerosis is a disease, the most common disease affecting the brain, and it's one of the most common causes of disability and early loss of employment status for people in America and really across the globe. For me, I was diagnosed in 2000, and within three years, I needed a tilt recline wheelchair, even though I'd seen the best people in the country, took the newest drugs costing tens of thousands of dollars each month. And then within seven years, I was so weak I could not sit up a regular chair. I screamed to have trouble with brain fog. I had horrific levels of face pain due to trigeminal neuralgia. Now, fortunately, I'm also a scientist, a physician. I've been reading the basic science. I was reading Ancestral Health Principles Functional Medicine, and I would integrate all of those concepts and create a diet and lifestyle protocol designed for my brain based on everything I was reading. And I began to experiment on myself. And to my amazement, my pain stopped, my brain fog stopped, and I started getting stronger. And at six months into this, I got on my bicycle for the first time in six years and I was able to bike around the block. Now at that time, my kids are crying, my wife's crying, and I'm crying because this feels so, so miraculous. And then six months later, I'm able to do an 18.5 mile bike ride with my family. So that, that really changes how I think about disease, how I think about health. It will change the way I practice medicine, and it ultimately changes the way and the type of research that I do.

It really gives me goosebumps every time I hear your story. It's amazing. And as a naturopathic doctor, I trained in nutrition and was drawn to food as medicine and lifestyle changes as medicine from the beginning of my career over 20 years ago. And so to me, it's almost like automatic to think about food. But that was not the beginning of your career.

Oh, no, it was not.

It's really interesting and sort of ironic. I was a very traditional, conventional internal medicine doc. I was skeptical of special diets. I was following a low fat vegetarian diet. And I've been doing that for about 20 years. And that was considered to be, you know, like the ultimate diet. Very heart healthy, very friendly. And yet I, you know, clearly I was going downhill. My face pain had been getting worse for about 20 years. And then I was diagnosed with Ms. And I thought this was the best diet. I was skeptical of special supplements, complementary alternative medicine. And so I wanted to treat my disease very aggressively. And so I did some research, sought out the best Ms. Center I could find in the country, saw their best person, took the newest drugs. But I went relentlessly downhill, and my face pain was relentlessly worse.

So you've got to a point where you just felt like you had to look for some other option.

You know, it's sort of interesting. My Cleveland Clinic physician mentioned the work of Loren Cordain. And so I read his books and read his papers, and mind you, I'm a vegetarian at this time. He's advocating for going back to eating meat and doing the paleo diet. And so. But I decided to go back to eating meat because I decided the science.

Seemed certainly plausible. But I continued to decline.

And once I hit the wheelchair, which was the following year, then I started reading the basic science and would begin to experiment on myself in an effort to slow my decline, because I knew I could not recover with progressive ms, and I started adding supplements. And I was excited about adding supplements because at least I was doing something. And what I saw was that my supplements slowed my fatigue and slowed the speed of my decline. So I'm very grateful. I know I'm not going to get better, but at least I'm maintaining the small amount of function that I have a little bit longer.

And I'm also successes. As you were going, as you were making changes, you were like, okay, well, at least I'm doing something. At least I'm more stable.

I'm more stable, and I'm still taking these very expensive drugs, high cost, high levels of side effects. My pain is still progressing, my fatigue is still progressing. My disability is still worsening, although it's at a slower decline. So I'm grateful for that. And the other thing that's happening is I'm getting more and more excited about reading the basic science, reading the literature, and feeling better about experimenting for myself. And I decide that mitochondria are key. I decide that cellular health is key. So I'm at first focused on supplements.

Yeah.

But eventually I have this brilliant aha moment, which, of course you would have had a long, long ahead of me, was, what if I redesign my paleo diet using the supplements that I'm taking and what I'm learning about the nutritional needs of cells to guide what I should do for my food? And of course, that takes me. I have to do a fair amount of research to figure out where these nutrients are in the food supply.

And that's several more months of detailed research. But then I, in the fall of 2007, redesigned my Paleo diet in a very specific way. Now, instead of being focused on what to remove, I now have a new focus of, well, what do I have to add? And so I structure my paleo diet in a very, very specific way.

See, that's what I love, that moment of insight where you just, all of a sudden, you took all this information, and to me, it's this idea of starting to see the change in your body that gave you that belief that something more was possible, you know, where you could go, wait a minute, actually, maybe things can heal, maybe things can reverse, maybe things can shift. And you just then were able to say, let me make these changes. So what were those changes? What do you think made that difference?

Well, so I was much more precise. So I dramatically increased my greens, leafy greens. So I'm having cooked greens. I'm having huge, huge kale salads, huge mixed green salads. And, you know, I'm having now 9 to 12 some days, even 15 cups of vegetables a day. I've moderated my meat intake, but really a dramatic increase in the greens. Now, what is really interesting, there's since that time, further research that's been published about the role of vitamin K2 in myelin and then oligodendrocyte precursor cells. Those are your brain stem cells. And that, of course, the vitamin K that we eat in the greens, our bacteria in our gut have to metabolize the to K2 MK7. Your distal small bowel will have to absorb that. Your liver will then have to metabolize it to K2 MK4. It'll get transported ultimately to your brain, where the magic happens.

Isn't that something?

And, you know, the other thing now, in retrospect, when I began to recover in 2008 and started traveling, going to scientific meetings again.

I'm very careful to not eat any of the harmful foods, but I can't eat the volume of greens and vegetables that I'm used to eating. Okay.

Yeah.

I discovered within 36 hours, my energy.

Is dropping like a rock. That's why I'm calling my wife saying, honey, I'm crashing. You got to have a big kale salad ready for when I get home and should have it. And I would eat the whole salad, and this would be like the whole salad bowls, a kale salad. The first thing I would do when I got home, I would sit down and eat that whole bowl.

You would see a difference.

Yeah. I had this tremendous craving for greens. Now, about five years into my recovery.

A couple things. I learned to travel with a head of cabbage so that I could maintain the high volume of.

Cabbage travels. And cabbage travels really well. You can eat it on the plane, you can have it in your hotel and eat it there. I've also learned to call the organic grocer and have food delivered to my hotel so I could eat more of the volume of vegetables and greens that I need to maintain my health and vitality. So traveling has gotten easier, and I probably have more nutritional reserve now than I had back in 2008.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And I think it's important to point out that, like, in your situation, it became really a matter of life and death, but also a matter of complete focus as a researcher on what you were doing for your body that was working and wanting, being so committed to continuing that. Because what I'm thinking of is how sometimes I think for someone who Might be first coming at this. They might be thinking, well, how could I possibly, you know, travel with cabbage? How could I. How could I possibly be having that many greens in my day? Because that's not what they're particularly used to right now, you know, so. But when it. When you can.

When it becomes your focus like that, you just find a way.

Would you say the other thing is really helpful for me? I have trigeminal neuralgia, which is electrical jolts of very intense electrical type pain across my face, either on my right, occasionally on my left.

Yeah.

And if I have gluten, dairy, or eggs, the pain turns on. If I have too many toxins, the pain turns on. If my vegetable intake drops, my mental clarity declines, my fatigue jumps. And so I get. Very early on, as I began to recover, I got very intense signals very quickly. If the quality of my diet declined.

The body would just talk to you. Basically, you'd pick these up as signals.

Like, you're like, oh, my God. It talked in a very big way. In a very big way that I could not ignore. And this is fascinating. So I've had 20 years of relentless worsening of my trigeminal neuralgia, years and years of suffering.

Okay.

But now actually I'm very grateful for the trigeminal neuralgia because if I get any disturbance of sensation along my face, I'm like, okay, what's happening in my environment? What did I begin to slip up on that I have to improve upon to get my sensation on my face back to normal. So my trigeminal neuralgia does not turn on, because when it turns on, the pain is so intense, I cannot speak, I cannot talk, I cannot swallow.

Oh, my gosh. Wow.

So that means, you know, it's very easy for me to pay attention to. There's a change in sensation. I have to stop whatever I'm doing so it doesn't go on to the next step, which is the trigeminal neuralgia.

Wow. And see, one of the ways that I look at things is I say I look at it from the perspective of stress and how stress affects us in various ways. And I have a. I don't know if you know this about me, but I have a history of migraines, so I understand neurological pain, too. And for me, that really taught me similarly, what were the stresses in the moment, Whether that was a food stress, like you were mentioning, gluten and dairy, how those could be a stress for you, or maybe toxin exposure, or maybe it was other stresses in your environment that Your nervous system started telling you there's something too much here.

You know, and certainly in my, in my clinics and my clinical trials, what I see is as I, you know, interview people.

Yes.

In the year prior to their first overt diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, there's usually a major life stressor that caused enough progression of their disease that they finally became symptomatic. And so it might have been severe financial strain, severe work related strain, severe family strain, but nearly always stress was a big driver of what finally tipped them over. It may not have been the beginning, it may have been some other factors that we could identify that were also very important. But it was the stress that finally led to their disease becoming, finally diagnosed.

Even like a psycho emotional stress?

Absolutely.

Like on top of maybe food stress and toxin stress and all the other factors. Yeah.

It'S such a player, isn't it? It's just. Do you feel like for you as well that was part of it.

Certainly. As I look back, I was diagnosed in 2000, but in the couple years before diagnosis there was some very intense work related stress. And part of that is I am very ambitious, hard driving, lots of stuff that I wanted to do. And so I over.

Overachieved and just got too much going on.

Well, and I think that's so, you know, the thing that interests me is when of course those of us who are drawn to stress, you know, have kind of a history of stress, right? It is, we're drawn to it, it gets us excited and there's, it's not about trying to eliminate it either. Obviously you are still, you're still researching, you're still, you have a lot on your plate. You're writing, you're speaking.

It's not about giving up the stress. Right. It's about how to give yourself the right support.

So stress is good. We need the stress of gravity to maintain our bones. We need the stress of work to maintain our muscles, need the stress of learning to maintain our brains.

Yes.

But in addition to that stress, you have to have the recovery period to repair the bones, repair the muscles, reconnect the brain. So if you have stress without any of that recovery period, that's when we get into trouble. Or if you have stress that is so overwhelming that you're beginning to lose tissue, that will be a problem. And so now I do a much better job of also scheduling self care. So every morning I have a ritual of doing my meditation, doing my exercise, doing a sauna, doing my cold shower and all of that. That's a two to three hour period of self care. And what I discovered is by taking the time to do that, I'm much more effective in the rest of the day. I'm much healthier, much more vital. Plus I'm also, I have the luxury of being mature enough in my life that I get to retire from the parts of life I don't feel like that fun anymore. So I'm just doing the kind of work that I have the most passion for and the most enjoyment for.

And it's, that is, you know, you really, I think you're such a great example of learning that of learning and applying. Like you said, you went to the research, you went to the textbooks and said, hey, this is a human body I'm living in. What's going on here? What do I need to feed this human body? What do I need to give it in terms of health care? Right?

But let me be humble. I had to endure 27 years of relentless worsening of my trigeminal neuralgia, seven years of relentless worsening of the multiple sclerosis rate symptoms before I began to really put together what I was reading and learning, experimenting and discovering, like, oh my goodness, there is another way that is much more effective than everything I've been doing before that.

Well, thank you for pointing that out. And to say, you know, it's, and to help people know that it's, it makes sense why we, I think, continue to push ourselves and push and push and push and we're going to sort of the standard medical approach that may have some solutions, but it wasn't getting you to the resolution.

And.

To know that it makes sense why people can be experiencing the pain that they might be in.

And I want to point out that you help now with patients with ms, but also other types of autoimmunity. Okay, tell us a little bit.

We had so much success with what I was doing at the va. The VA pulled me out of primary care and had me establish a new clinic called the Therapeutic Lifestyle Clinic where we used my principles to take care of people with complicated chronic diseases. Autoimmune issues, mental health issues, chronic medical problems like diabetes, obesity.

Heart disease, autoimmune issues like rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, Ms. of course, mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and the common theme was you had a chronic illness, you're on chronic medication, but you were willing to use diet and lifestyle as part of your treatment plan. And so we would see people, we'd bring them in, I would train them on the diet and lifestyle program, we would teach them how diet and lifestyle has such a huge impact on your microbiome, on your immune cell function, on your inflammation level. And I'll also remind people that in the va, many of the patients that I saw were disabled. They were living on food stamps. They had very limited financial resources. They live in rural Iowa, having to shop at small rural grocery stores.

Wow. Okay. Limited resources. They were limited resources.

And we were still able to achieve remarkable transformations. Now I'd have to teach people how to cook, how to shop, how to menu plan. We'd have to inspire them that recovery is possible, help them control their environment so they could be more successful with changing their behaviors. But we were remarkably successful.

Wow.

People were able to simplify their medications, reduce their medication doses, often getting off medication after medication. It was remarkable.

Isn't that something? And so in the. I mean, I know now you've been continuing your research.

Yes.

And tell us more about what that looks like. Is it.

What's the newest part we're hearing from you?

So we've had multiple studies. We've had four studies. We're just finishing up our fourth study which is comparing the Swank diet and the Wahls diet for quality of life and fatigue on Ms. We're analyzing that data and we'll probably be able to present that in the spring of 2021. So we don't quite have the answer yet. And we're getting ready to start our fifth study which will be comparing in the newly diagnosed Ms. Patient the WAHLs protocol, that is diet and lifestyle to standard of care, that is drug therapy for impact on quality of life, vision, walking, thinking and brain lesions on mri. So we are very, very excited to be enrolling people for that study.

So for that you can reach out to my team at msdietstudyealthcare uiowa edu to see if you would be eligible. Again, it's newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis patients.

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Well, I think that's, I mean, really amazing because.

People who are struggling with Ms.

A lot of times are feeling like they don't have many answers. And the Swank diet is one that's used, but they're maybe having limited.

Well, yeah, there are only a few studies out. We're beginning to slowly do more studies actually. I'm so excited. As one of the first researchers doing a prospective study for dietary interventions, there are now 13 studies underway. And what's pretty exciting to know is of those 13 studies, I'm involved in five of them. So that's pretty cool. So our lab has the most experience. We are seeing positive results with a modified paleo diet, positive results with a ketogenic diet, positive results with a fasting program. The Mediterranean diet is being investigated, a salt restricted diet's being investigated, and the Swank diet is being investigated. We're the ones investigating that as well. And so we'll know more, but research takes a long time. It'll probably be another two to five years before we have the results of all of these studies. But man, I am so excited that my neurology colleagues are finally agreeing with me that yes, diet quality matters.

You know what, it's just, Terri, it's amazing because to think that you were part of, and I know you're so humble, but I just feel like you are such an inspiration because to think that what you did for yourself helped your health. But you didn't just stop there. You shared what you learned from yourself with others. And you've now sparked this new research into diet and its effect on Ms. And other health conditions that wasn't there before. And so I just think that that's really an amazing thing that you've done and that you're continuing to do well.

We have to tell your audience we need to thank the public as well. The reason I've been so successful is that my TED talk went viral. That led to getting a book deal, which led to the lay book the Walls Protocol, my first edition, which was a huge bestseller, which led the public demand, which drove the interest in the research community. So we finally started being able to get all of our papers published because we were having such Difficulty getting them published. But suddenly we could get our research data into print, and that drove the interest in the research community to do more dietary studies. So it's really the public demand.

You know, when you think of Barry Marshall, the guy who advocated that H. Pylori is the cause of stomach ulcers, okay. When he first was talking about this, people said he was crazy. He couldn't get his work published, much like we had so much struggle. When he got his initial.

Articles published in the Reader's Digest, in the National Enquirer, that drove the public interest, which then drove more science into what he was doing. His research got into higher impact journals, and 25 years later, he gets the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Wow.

Now, 10 years into my work, now the concept that diet quality matters has become mainstream. It's driven by the public, which also pushes the science. So we have to thank the public and the public that you're speaking to in your podcast. You're doing such a vital part of the work, too.

Yeah. Thank you. And it's like, you know, it really feeds on each other, was what I hear you saying. Because, you know, just you being willing to share and put the message out there, and then people also being in a place where they're more receptive, I think that people are wanting to. They're wanting other answers. They're wanting to understand what can they do. They're willing to change their diet. People are saying, hey, if it would make a difference to change my diet, I'll change my diet. And so to have that information out there so they can make those different choices, it feeds it forward. Right.

And it's getting easier now because of the Internet. As people are successful with changing their diet, their lifestyle, and they see a health outcome, it's easier to tell our friends, our families, and publish that. And so for that reason, that accelerates the speed of change.

Very exciting.

Exciting, isn't it?

And I'm sure for you to feel like, you know, here you are probably, if you. If you had asked yourself, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you would have never imagined this would be so, you.

Know, in the summer of 2007, you know, I can't sit up, I'm having brain fog. My pain is so difficult.

I think it's very likely I'm going to be bedridden, demented, and having to deal with intractable pain and getting to the point where it'll become impossible to eat because it's so painful to swallow.

Oh, my gosh.

So I had a incredibly grim future in 2007 I cannot state that strongly enough. Here it is, 2020. It's a remarkably different future than what I was fearing.

And it really had to do with making diet changes and making these lifestyle self care changes.

And if I get derailed, if I accidentally get exposed to gluten, dairy or eggs, my pain comes back. If I have too many toxin exposures so if I'm flying too many times in a month, my pain comes back.

And so I've learned that as long as I'm following my self cares I am in great shape. But if I slip up, my pain comes back.

And actually I'm immensely grateful for that because I get feedback. I get feedback to pay attention to do my self cares. And so that delicious food does not look very delicious anymore.

I'd much rather have my greens, I'd much rather have my berries. I'd much rather meditate and exercise and feel good.

Yeah. Because you start to. Yeah. It just, the whole thing changes because you, that you know, hey this is what I need to do to feel good. And all of that other stuff just led to you feeling horrible. So it just, you can't, there's not even a, the decision is so clear, you know for you at this point it's like, it's just the decision is so clear.

So I, it's one of the things I, we talk about in that at the seminar that I teach is to help people understand.

Yeah.

So every year we run a live event, the Walls Protocol seminar where hundreds of people come and I teach them the principles behind the Walls Protocol. And one of these concepts is to really dial in so you can be aware of your symptoms at a more subtle level. So your early warning signs that your biochemistry is not working well, your inflammation is coming up. And so the earlier you can tune in to these subtle changes, the more carefully you can refine your diet and lifestyle, the more rapid your recovery. Because it's immensely hard for us to give up today's pleasures for tomorrow's benefits. But if I can link subtle changes in my sensations or my mental clarity or my motor function realize, oh wait a minute, that's a warning sign that something terrible is going to come. If I don't stop what I'm doing, that makes it much, much easier for me to stay on track. So we spend a fair amount of time helping people become aware of that.

Very good.

We also spend a lot of time helping them grow their, have a deep understanding of their why, what do I want my health for? What is your mission, your purpose? Because particularly in the beginning, it's a lot of work to let go of all those pleasurable things for this theoretic benefit that I'm going to get better and I have to be highly motivated to begin the journey down the path. And you've learned how to pay attention to these subtle changes. It's much easier to sustain. But in the beginning, it's so helpful to really understand what's your why, why you want to do this, and to understand the mechanisms of why the protocol is designed the way it is. It's a.

Wonderful opportunity to meet old friends, connect with new friends, see inspiring stories, hear about other folks who've had these inspiring, inspiring life transformations. So people come back year after year after year. It's very exciting. It's very fun.

Well, and it is when you can, you know, once I think a person has these realizations about them, themselves and their health and their. The choices they want to make, then you're more. You want to be around people who are doing this, making the same choice and doing the same thing, because then you can inspire each other and learn from each other. So how wonderful that you have that community you created for people who are on this path, you know, and we've.

Taught the hotel how to prepare the food the way we like it now. So they really have got the walls diet dialed in. Our food incredibly delicious. And we also have people coming teaching us, singing and dancing and yoga and tai chi. So we have a lot of fun teaching people how to move in really fun, energizing ways. So it's a very experiential type of learning environment.

Well, and it sounds like really the research, some of the research you're doing is in what motivates people to make change.

Yes.

Yeah, tell me.

So you know my physicians. So I did a fair amount of work early on as I was doing this research with the dietitians on the behavior change model, motivational interviewing. And I decided we needed a much more detailed, granular approach for understanding why people change, how to have them effectively adopt these new diet and lifestyle changes, changes that are a big ask. And so we've created the Wahls behavior change model that we now teach. In my research, I teach my clinicians and we're teaching the public as well so they can be more successful. And I talk about that in my book because I realize information alone is never enough need.

People need a lot more support to acquire and create new habits to shift our behaviors. So we do that in our studies. I do that in my clinic. We do that in A very experiential way in the seminar. And I provide more tools for people to do that in my book as well.

Yeah.

I can see how important that is. And, and I think it's so wonderful that you include it because it really shows your goal is for people to be successful and to be successful. Like you said, it's not just eat these five foods or do these 10 things. It's let's get to a deeper level of understanding choice and decision making in the moment and life, you know, just how what is your value in your life and setting it up from that perspective versus just some random to do list.

Creating new habits is a process. Extinguishing old habits is another process. And there's a fair amount of work with that. And to be willing to do that work requires a lot of motivation. So there are a lot of steps, a lot of things that we can do to help people be more successful and things that if we fail to do, set them up for a lot more struggle. So, yeah, those are very important concepts.

Well, and I just, I mean again, I want to thank you for coming today and having this conversation and for sharing all of this. I mean, for your continued, again, for your continued work for the community, for the seminar, for the, for the new book. I mean, and for just really finding ways as a scientist and a researcher and a physician to get this information to the people who need it and to inspire people that.

Making change in their health as possible. So, you know, it's sort of funny.

I get a lot of flack, or at first I get a lot of flack for writing books for the public, teaching the public about my concepts and my theories at the same time that I'm doing the research. Because some people thought I shouldn't tell the public what I'm doing until we have all these double blind randomized trials. And I'm like, no, no, you tell them at the same time, but you have to disclose that this is a theory, this is what's being investigated, and they can decide if how much risk they want to take and if KL seems like a high risk or a low risk intervention, if exercise feels like a high risk or a low risk intervention, if meditation feels like a high risk or a low risk intervention. Let the public decide. And now.

10 years into this, actually 12 years now, my scientific colleagues are like, no, no, your approach, you're brilliant because it's allowed us to get philanthropic support for our research. So that's why we've been able to do so many studies that is why I've been able to create this movement. And the fact that I've created the movement has allowed all of them to get funding too. So instead of being maybe this dangerous, eccentric oddity, now people are beginning to see that what I've done is brilliant and visionary.

I totally believe it's visionary. And I think it's, as you're just saying, it's visionary to change the way we research diet and lifestyle related to health issues in a way that hasn't been done. I mean, there isn't leisure. You're kind of.

You know, mentioning that there's not a lot of research for diet and lifestyle money for that. So to have created in a way where we can actually fund this research is amazing.

Doing dietary research is hard. First you have to convince people to give up foods that they like to eat, eat new foods they don't know whose tastes are unfamiliar, and keep that up. That is like a huge, huge ask. And so many dietary researchers struggle with getting people to abandon the old way of eating, sustain the new way of eating. What we have done is, I think we're more effective with the behavior change model, and that's a big part of this. And of course, each time I do a study, I learn more about how to be more effective at helping people sustain the behavior change and helping them grow their internal motivation to do the work that I'm asking them to do.

Yeah, and I love how you're just, you know, you love, obviously you love learning. Like you, you seem to just love learning right alongside the patient of like, right.

I love learning. I love.

You know, the other thing is, I remember what it was like.

Facing bedridden, demented, intractable pain. And if I insisted upon waiting for double blind, controlled trials, it would have been too late. We'd have millions of people that were going to be likewise, completely debilitated. I could give them the opportunity to wait if they want, or to decide that they're going to do everything they can now and it's up to them to decide. By gosh. That's why I wrote the book. That's why I have the website. That's why we have the seminar. That's why I try to make this information.

Available and why we have so many ways to provide support.

Well, I think it's good, you know, it's, it makes all the sense to me, you know, and I'm, you know, I'm sure that you hear from grateful, you know, people all the time, but I think it's, it's, you know, it's also very logical to say, hey, this is just, this is. We're just looking at this logical information in front of you and you're put sharing it with everyone else and saying, hey, this is, this is what the information I have. If.

You can evaluate the risk, work with your personal physician, your personal medical team to implement the concepts that make sense to you. But if vegetables feel pretty safe, if meditation feels pretty safe, if exercise feels pretty safe, you can begin implementing them now under the care of your personal physician. And fortunately, my neurology colleagues and my specialty colleagues are beginning to realize that is pretty good advice.

That's so awesome. Congratulations, Terri. Really. And I'm just so glad again to be able to share, you know, share you with this podcast today and always love to get to connect with you more going forward as well and hear more about what you're up to going forward. And again, I think it's, to me, a lot of, you know, what I speak about and share about is just really wanting people to know that, first of all, that it's what's possible to have some hope, because there's a lot out there where people aren't getting that hope and to be able to go, wait, something's possible now. Sometimes hope is enough to get us to relook or rethink things a little bit.

You know, certainly if I can come back from being on the brink of bedridden, demented, intractable pain to being pain free, mentally clear, doing research, traveling the world, biking, hiking, then absolutely there's hope for them.

Wonderful. Thank you. And thank you again for your new book. Tell us the name, the different name of the new book.

It's the new and expanded the Walz Protocol, a radical new way to treat all chronic autoimmune conditions using Paleo Principles. It's out March 17th. Wherever books are sold and people can go to my website, terrywalls.com diet and pick up a one page summary to put on your refrigerator.

Oh, that's so nice and simple. Okay, perfect. It's probably got some kale on there.

It does, as a matter of fact. It does, Absolutely.

I love it.

I love it. All right, well, thank you again so much. I look forward to talking to you again soon.

And congratulations.

Thank you much.

Okay, take care.

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