Mystery Illness and The Connection to Hidden Dental Dysfunction

Hi, everybody. I'm Dr. Sandhya Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body as we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most natural way. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's show. I'm your host, Dr. Sanda, and with me is Monica Hershaft. And she's not only a dear friend, but she's an amazing practitioner, helping you identify mystery illnesses and the connection to hidden dental dysfunction. And Monica, you, out of everyone, I think, really understands the dental connection to overall health. So I'm so excited to talk to you about today. I mean, you're a holistic practitioner, a nutritional consultant with advanced clinical training certification in nrt. So what exactly is nrt? A lot of people still don't know about that.

Yes. So NRT stands for nutrition response testing. And so we use applied kinesiology, which is also known as muscle testing. And that helps us to determine what's interfering with the body's normal function so that we know what that specific body needs customized to remove that interference. And so this is why the dental is so important, because I can't even fix somebody if they have dental issues that they're ignoring.

Yes. But I want to know, how did you get into this? How did you stumble upon this kind of healing? Because it's very rare. I know a lot of holistic practitioners, but I don't know anybody who does what you do. So I'm sure there's some story there.

Yeah, well, it's growing quite a bit. I think when I first got into it, there was only 320something in the whole country. Now it's, I believe, almost tripled, so. Because there's very few things out there that really help people get their health back, you know, and. And are able to identify what's causing the interference that's preventing the body from working the way it's supposed to. So. So back when I was 34, and I know we're going to get into some nutrition on this chat as well, because you and I are on the same page. But I was born and raised vegan, and. And it was in an animal rights house because my father was one of the founders of the animal rights movement in the United states in the 70s. So I was just raised with how important it was that we don't eat animals for ethical reasons. It had nothing to do with health. So over the years, as my body was developing as a vegan, certain deficiencies and imbalances were happening that I didn't even know about because it's not the kind of things that doctors test for when you go to a normal doctor's office.

Yes.

So, long story short, When I was 34, I did a really popular, trendy detox that everybody was doing, and I got violently sick on it, and nobody could figure out what was wrong with me. And I kept getting sick, sicker and sicker.

Wow.

Yeah, it was really bad. And it got so bad I couldn't work. I couldn't even drive a car. I couldn't eat solid food. I couldn't sleep, and it was just terrible. And it really ruined my life. And it went on for almost 10 years, like a long time. And so basically, due to a severe choline deficiency, which is something you get from red meat and eggs, when they went to do the detox program and they were giving me supplements, they were giving me synthetic supplementation, which is very bad for you. It was causing even more of a choline deficiency. And then without choline, your body can't dump toxins. So if you're doing a detox program.

You'Re a vegan, and you're a vegan. Oh, my goodness. Calling sources. Can vegans actually mediate this problem without eating animal sources, or.

No, because if there was a way, I would have done it because I didn't want to start eating meat. And so I tried very, very hard to do everything in my power to get my health back as a vegan for the first five years of my illness.

Five years, you try to find a different way other than eating animal protein and new.

I tried everything. Yeah. Could you take choline supplementation? Sure. But it doesn't solve the underlying issue. And there's other nutritional elements as well. So at some point, your body needs to be able to function and process not just the food that you're taking in, but also needs to be able to dump toxins properly. And so that does get compromised, along with some other imbalances that happen over time as well that impact your digestion, including a zinc and copper imbalance, which affects your pancreatic enzyme production. So the ability to digest and assimilate nutrients properly does get compromised on a vegan diet? It just does.

Yeah. So what was your first, like, animal protein that you ate? Do you remember?

Of course. I remember it like it was yesterday.

What was it?

Well, first. So technically I first started with eggs because that was Safer. And it wasn't. It didn't have a face.

Yeah.

So I started with eggs, and they had to be very well cooked. If they were the least bit runny, I got. I just couldn't do it. And then the next thing I did was salmon. And salmon was really. To this day, I can't even eat salmon because when I went to eat it, I literally was. Was just. I ended up going upstairs and vomiting in the toilet because I. The whole time I was eating it, I was like.

Oh, you're crying and eating. Oh, no, you weren't. You weren't receiving it fully.

Also, you don't produce. Imagine. You know, it's different for people that are vegan or vegetarian as an adult, and they've done it for maybe three or four years. And, you know, I was born and raised that way, so my body didn't develop the amino acid production and, you know, the HCL and the things that it needed to be able to do that. And so animal protein was so foreign to my body that it wasn't able to produce what it needed at first to manage that.

Wow. What a journey. Yes. How long did it take you to get used to eating some animal protein?

Well, I had to. There was the emotional aspect and then there was the physical aspect. And so emotionally I was scared. So my dad, you know, being who he is, I was scared I was going to lose my dad. And so I was hiding it. In the very beginning, he was staying with me to help me and take care of me because I was too sick to take care of myself. And then what happened was one of the. I went to an NRT practitioner. Just by chance, at that point, I was just trying anyone. I was like, what is this holistic thing? I don't know, but I'm gonna try it. Because every medical doctor I had been to told me it was in my head. And I. I thought, there's no way this is in my head. I mean, I'm so sick. And they kept trying to put me on antidepressants. That's a whole other podcast episode, but basically. So, you know, this one woman who I got referred to, who did our nrt, when we went in to see her and my dad had take me to the appointment, she said, well, you know, I. I actually can't heal you as a vegan. It's not going to work. Your body won't heal. And I was like, well, so that was the first time anyone had said that to me. And let me just preface it by telling you every medical Doctor I went to, I asked them about the nutrition because I thought, how many people been born and raised vegan in the 1960s? You know, like, not many. So I. I always asked them and they would say, ah, the nutrition doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. It's nothing. So I thought, okay. She was the first person who said that. And so I was like. So when we got back to the house, my dad, you know, we got out of the car and I'm like walking up the stairs and my dad goes to do something on the computer and. And I went to the upstairs bathroom as far away from him as I could get. And I went into the bathtub and closed the shower curtain and I was like, Dr. Collins, I'll eat.

Will you please?

I was just so desperate to get well. So I lied to my dad and I said, she said she'd try. And then I started getting better so fast. So physiologically speaking, I really started to respond quickly. I would say I was 50% better. I'm not even joking. In a matter of weeks.

Unbelievable. When you give the body what it needs, it heals.

Yeah, yeah.

So how did you go from there to being a practitioner?

Well, I got 50% better with the dietary changes, but then I hit a wall and nothing. And the supplement she was giving me, I was having bad reactions to, and she was getting frustrated with me, and I could tell she didn't want to work with me anymore. And that's one of the biggest struggles, I think, for people that are looking for answers with their health. When you go from doctor to doctor and you get treated like an annoying patient because figure out what's wrong with you. So then somehow you're made to feel like it's your fault, you know?

Yes, yes, that. I'm sure that does happen a lot more than we wanted to.

Yeah. And it's sort of. It's sort of the equivalent of medical gaslighting. Because if they can't figure it out, instead of saying, I'm sorry, I can't help you, I'm not sure what. How to find this. They kind of put it on you like, there's nothing wrong with you, it's in your head. You just need to work out more, or take antidepressants, you know, instead of. Instead of validating that you really are sick, if, if they can't find it and it's not in labs, it's not legitimate in the medical world. So anyway, at that point I found someone who did another type of practitioner I was learning about. All these weird holistic practices that I'd never heard of. And he did a. A practice called Neuralink. And Neuralink was based out of New Zealand, and so he was the only person who had advanced training. He was based in Vegas. And so I started driving out to Vegas, and I was too sick to drive myself. So we would get. My friend's mom would drive us, and we were going every week to get treated. You meet friends in the waiting rooms that you see every week, you know?

Yeah.

All the chronically sick people that are there every week. So he. While. While I was out there, I would. He was helping me to feel more functional. But then I. I needed him to do the treatments every week, or then I would not be able to even get up or be vertical. And so, yeah, so it was really scary. And so what happened was, while I was there, I thought I was. I was looking online, and I thought, I want to figure out how to do that muscle testing thing they were doing. So I was just googling the names of the different things that we had done, and this thing popped up where I could buy one of the test kits, and I was like, it's weird. So I bought the test kit, and I thought, oh, my God, I can't believe they're letting me buy this test kit. So I bought it, and then there was a DVD that had, like, just, like, an intro for how to do it. And so I started practicing and trying to figure it out. And then one day the phone rang, and I'm like, hello.

Hi.

We saw that you bought one of our test kits. And I thought, oh, I'm busted. And they said, would you like some training for that? And I was like, yes, I would.

Wow, that's great. Perfect timing. Yeah.

And so I ended up going out to Florida, where the school is, and I stayed there, and I just trained and trained, trained and trained. And I went from the beginning to the intermediate, to the advanced. And at that point, I felt well enough to do online training. So I was training and getting certified and other things to have the base, you know, certification that you needed for nutrition, and. And I was just really good at it. I really took to it like a fish to water. I just loved it, and everything made sense to me, and it was so much fun. It was like a Rubik's Cube. And then you would solve the puzzle, and I don't know. And so that's what happened. And then I just opened the practice because in California, the Health Freedom Act.

Yay.

So I was able to practice there and it just took off so fast because people were have. So there's so many people looking for help that don't have a place to go and they can't get answers. And so once people were hearing about me, it just blew up so fast and got huge and it was very gratifying.

So you were in California for almost 15 years and we have several patients that we were treating and that's how I learned about you, actually. And now you're in Scottsdale, Arizona when you're still working one on one with clients symptoms that you see kind of now that I popped up or what are things that you're dealing with?

Well, I'm not seeing one on one anymore, but I can tell you what I was seeing.

Okay, sounds good.

So now we have this online platform that we'll talk about a little later. But the one on one people that were coming in most of. So it depends if it's men or women. Men don't come in as easily as women do. I'm just going to be honest. Usually it's only until certain things stop working that they will come in and ask for help. But I did start noticing people younger and younger starting to come in and then I was getting more men because it seemed like the older men are less likely unless their wife or girlfriend drags them in. But the younger guys were coming out of their own volition and definitely, you know, was seeing a lot of gut issues, just gut issues that just weren't resolving and weren't. No matter what they did, it just would never resolve. And definitely a lot of brain fog, severe brain fog, you know, debilitating brain fog. And then I was getting a lot of weird stuff, so. And when I say weird, it's not weird to me, but it feels weird to them. I'm. I'm like the weirdo expert because I, because I was the weirdo, you know. And so I have had a lot of ex vegans reach out to me because of my story and they've heard about me or seen me on a podcast. And so some well known names in the ex. In the, well in the vegan community, they didn't, they were just secretly seeing me on the sly. But also just general things not working, you know, so we do a whole thing where they would list every symptom and really a lot of people have a lot of the same stuff. They just feel like they're the only one dealing with it. But you know, and so just issues with whether it's. I had one person who had chronic Diarrhea all the time, couldn't even work a normal job because she couldn't even be in the car because she couldn't make it from one place to another without diarrhea. And. And in her case, it turned out this is where we get into the weird stuff it turned out to be, because this is funny because we have a friend in common who, he's a breast implant expert and he works with breast implant disease. And this person she had seen did where they do the fat transfer instead of the implant. And so they do. They do the. What's it called, the liposuction, and then they inject it into the breast tissue. And in her case, she was very thin and she was very young. And when, when all of that happened, it caused so much interference in her nervous system from the trauma to the body from the liposuction and all of that procedure that she needed a supplement that called dermatrophin, which is for skin, but it's also for internal tissue. So that liposuction upset the skin system to a point where it affected all of the skin. And so it was impacting her large intestines. And I know that sounds crazy, but there is a connection.

Everything in the body is connected, that's for sure. Yeah.

Giant game of dominoes. Like people don't realize your heart's a muscle and the whole muscle system is connected to the heart. So, yeah. So if people, you know, for example, if they get ablation, where they do the scarring around the heart, that's going to affect muscle weakness, that's going to affect muscular things in the body. It's not just the heart. And so a lot of that for me with helping people, with all the different weird things would track back to something where the nervous system would get blocked or switched from the overwhelm on it. So, for example, I had another person I was helping. Nothing worked. Went to a million different people. And this is the case actually with two different people where they had undiagnosed brain injuries. One of them had been a boxer. And the other one, crazy story, you would never think, but she was born actually dead because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her. And so they had to bring her back when she was born. Then she drowned in a pool and had to be brought back. And then she fell off a balcony in her 20s. So she had actually trauma to the nervous system from these incidents where it was impacting the messages from her brain to her body.

Oh, yeah.

So, you know, and same with the boxer. It was like repeated trauma to the head. And so a lot of times, especially with the guys that are doing the high impact sports, there's undiagnosed traumatic brain injury all the time that you don't even realize is connected to these symptoms you're having that seem unrelated, like with your gut or with brain fog or with insomnia or whatever the case may be. So that's. Making those connections is really interesting.

Wow, fascinating. And then how did you end up learning about teeth? Is it also through a personal experience?

No, it's actually. Well, I did have a personal experience, but it's in the training for nrt. They do a whole module just on teeth and on the importance of holistic dentistry. And they talk about root canals. In fact, you and I had this whole conversation because when I moved to Arizona, I got introduced to another holistic dentist. And I was like, all right, I guess this is going to be my dentist here. And the first time I went in to see her, she recommended a root canal. And I was like, what? Yeah, did some change in the training since I.

There is, you know, actually I just ran into a holistic health practitioner. She's like, I went to a biological dentist and I have a root canal that blew up. And she told me to just redo the root canal.

And she did it.

She thought it was the right thing to do. I'm like, I don't think so. This is not. But unfortunately, Monica, there's such a variety of, you know, biological dentists out there, and some still think keeping a root canal, even though it's infected and reinfected is okay.

This is part of my frustration because in the whole. What I've learned over the years, because I've. I've dealt with multiple holistic dentists. Now, I had one before I met you that was in Glendale, and he was fantastic. And he was the one who replaced my 11 metal films killings. We'll talk about that in a second. And. And then I met you. And then there was another woman who's in Santa Monica that was also really good, who was from France. And I feel like the ones that are trained in other countries tend to be more. I don't know if it's a purist thing or what, but anyway, the thing that was interesting to me was that how holistic are you? Right? So it's. So for us, it's all our training needs to be purists. Like, there's no exceptions. We have a whole section and we provide patient education and we have a whole section in the patient Education about teeth and root canals. We have articles on root canals. We explain what happens to your body when you get a root canal. We explain why removing the tooth is a priority and why saving the tooth is possible before going to a root canal, all of that stuff. And we were actually taught in the muscle testing, training how to muscle test teeth, like the front and all the different angles of it and what each tooth means. It's connected to different organs, glands and tissues in the body. And you know, the interactive tooth chart that actually my, my dentist that I used to see before he retired, Dr. Roda, the person who replaced him, is the one that caused this problem that we had to pull. Tooth 14, that was a very green new dentist and she, she messed it up a bit.

So she was not a purist, that's for sure.

Yes. And, and so it's so funny because I, I've, I've learned. One of the biggest lessons I learned from everything I've been through is that if something doesn't feel right, it's not right.

Exactly. Go with your intuition. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I kept going to so many. I went to, you know, other people who, I don't want to mention names, but are also in the area that, and, and they were like, fine. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, there's no way it hurts this much. Something's wrong. And then one of them, I made him take it out and he said, oh, you're right. And I'm like, I know, I'm.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, the biggest problem is like, you know, they take these two dimensional X rays, a lot of them can't see what's going on. So.

Yeah, and let's talk about that for a second because one of the things people don't understand, and this is what I want to also interview you about in my membership, is about the, how important a cone beam scan is, which is really a CT scan. Because these two dimensional X rays are fine for, for some things, but they are not comprehensive. They will miss a ton of things that the cone beam slash, CT scan will catch. So let me flip this on you. The difference.

Passionate about this as you are about what you do, because when we look at the research, 2D radiographs only diagnose about 52% of the problems.

52%. Did you hear that, Paul?

Exactly. So unless we take a coughing scan, like, I have no idea. I'd be guessing. Especially when we're talking about the upper or lower molars or the structures above that, you know, like, let's say an upper molar can have sinus inflammation, can cause sinus inflammation. And unless we take a cone beam scan, I have no idea if that tooth is causing that sinus inflammation or not. Yeah.

And I had a prior sinus surgery that was a complication for me. And this. I'm so just to tell your audience that we had this trapped infection sack that had been sitting there, I want to say, maybe 10 years. Like, really? And we were like, well, let's keep see what happens. And then, and then you were. I was like, just keep waiting. And you were like, I need to bullet. You know, oh, it's hard.

You know, we've been emotional connection to teeth. Monica, I totally understand. Nobody wants to go ahead and take out a tooth. It's connected to you. It's emotionally connected.

Yes. And so, and so what's funny about it, what's important about it is that that sac, my body had gotten so used to the sac that it kind of started to function around the sac. So it wasn't causing any symptoms. Also because I keep my body really balanced with my nutrition and my supplementation. But when we took it out, the body was like, for like a little while, you know, just because like the sinuses were kind of like resting on it.

Yeah, that's true. You have to get used to the new you. Yeah, it's funny.

But anyway, so. But yeah, it's really important and. And a funny true story. I caught a cracked vertebrae. C1, has a crack in it that got caught off of a dental con beam scan that nobody else. Like, you're not going to catch that on a normal X ray.

Exactly.

You know, and it made sense to me because I had a really severe car accident and I had a head injury where my head got smashed into the steering wheel. And I always had like just this weird sensation back here. And now I know why I have a crack.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, the internal decapitation now wasn't that bad, but anyway, so. And I still get adjusted at the chiropractor, but it was just interesting how many things you can catch on a cone beam scan. And the other thing is for those of you with root canals, you have to get a cone beam scan because I promise you that even if your dentist is like, it's probably not.

Yes. So true. No. Let's go back to the metal fillings. Eleven of them. You said you have 11.

How did you feel? This is just funny. My mom, because I got so many when I was a kid and My mom was like, drilling holes in your teeth, taking the fillet, the holes. And, you know, looking back in retrospect, as an adult with the training I have now, I laugh so hard when I think about that statement because I literally grew up on white sugar. Every day, all day, as a vegan. No joke. Like, every type of candy and different colors, like Pez, you know, the Pixie sticks. They're all vegan, but they're sugar.

Yeah. So veganism is not necessarily healthy. People think it is, but it's not. Yeah. So you end up with metal fillings, which I'm sure they're mercury filled. So at what point in your journey in health did you decide to have them removed?

Well, I didn't really have a choice from my point of view, because when I went to the practitioner that did the NRT and I started eating animal protein, that was one of the first things she said, because I had a mouthful of metal. And at the time, let's keep in mind how incredibly sick I was. I literally could not function. I couldn't work, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat solid food. And so when she told me I needed to get those replaced, I basically was. I was the kind of patient where anything you told me I needed to do, I was going to do it. I just wanted my life back. I just wanted to feel like myself again. I felt like I was trapped in a body that was broken. And there was no break. There was no vacation. There was no outside in the yard to play. It was just trapped in pain and misery and exhaustion. Feeling like I had a severe hangover 247 and felt like I was being tortured. So I really was willing to do anything. And I actually did the entire thing without anesthesia because I was so sensitive, I couldn't even handle anesthesia.

Oh, my God. That must have been painful.

I don't remember it being painful because I was in so much pain anyway. And I just couldn't handle the anesthesia. I was so chemically sensitive at the time. And he was so kind. You know, he did it in sections and we did like, I think five visits. And he was very gentle. And, you know. And that's. And we did it without the anesthesia. I still can't believe it, looking back.

Wow, me neither. Yeah. I thought I was the only one having mercury fillings without anesthesia because I grew up in Romania. But you also.

Yeah, yeah. I have a very high pain tolerance nowadays. I bet.

Yeah. So what difference did it make for you in your life to have Those metal fillings removed, if any.

You know, I can't speak to it specifically in my case because I still had the choline deficiency. So I was. So when we talk about the nervous system being blocked or switched, I want to explain a little about what that means. And so what happens is there are stressors, and it can be bacteria, fungus, parasites, virus, all the pathogens. It can be scar interference on the nervous system. It can be heavy metals or chemicals, any one of those things or combination of those. What happens is, is that the body's ability to manage it becomes compromised because it gets over talks. And so what happens is, if you think about like a colander and you're pouring pasta into it, you know, to strain it, and then if you do it too fast, it starts to overflow because it can't get out of the holes fast enough. It's the same thing with your drainage organs. So if they get overloaded trying to manage everything, the nervous system becomes what we call neurogenic switching, which is the parasympathetic and the sympathetic, which is your brakes and your gas get reversed. So things don't work properly on you when you're in that state. And that's why people who feel like they're on a roller coaster, better, worse, better, worse. That's what it feels like to be switched. But if that goes unaddressed for too long, it becomes neurogenic blocking. And that's like if you, like, are putting the brakes on and the gas at the same time. So basically, it's like being stuck in the snow. And how that feels is nothing you try works. You're just completely not making any progress. And it's just like being against the wall. And so that's the state I was in at the time. So when I had the metal fillings taken out, I didn't feel an immediate relief for two reasons. One, as you probably know, because you also have a functional medicine background or functional nutrition, and I can't remember which. But anyway, mercury doesn't just leave your body because you take the fillings out. You have to actually pull the mercury out because it gets stuck in the tissues. Yes, Right. And so. And that's a lot of people don't realize that just changing the fillings isn't enough. You actually have to get the mercury out because the body thinks the mercury is minerals. And so it holds onto it because it thinks it needs it. And so it screws up your mineral balance and the body's just all confused. And so the other thing is, is that I was severely blocked to my gallbladder because of the choline deficiency. So we didn't know about that yet. And so I was still feeling miserable for a long time. But I, you know, it's only because of those factors.

Yeah. So you mentioned also the parotid glands that it play a role in your illness. Is that a common thing?

So the parotid glands are also part of our training. So. And as you know, I don't have to explain to you for the audience, the parotid glands are the biggest salivary glands are here and here. And so they're sort of your first defense against toxins. And when you have a lot of metal fillings and, you know, other things that can cause the overwhelm and it will. The product glands kind of go, can't work.

Oh, interesting. Actually did not know that about the role of the parotid. Yeah.

And so they just kind of freak out, and so their ability to do their job gets compromised, similarly to the drainage organs that we just talked about. And so during the second part of the protocol that we provide for people, once we get the excess toxicity and the overwhelm of the pathogens handled, then we deal with repairing the parotid glands and restoring the mineral balance. And so we put them on the actually standard process makes parotid protomorphogen parotid PMG for that reason. And they actually use animal glandulars to help repair the glands because without that, you can't process chemicals properly, and then your body will get overwhelmed. And so the parotid glands are a very important part of that. And that's why anyone with metal fillings usually needs to also fix their product when they get those metal fillings taken out.

Now, you know, we see people with dry mouth. Is that related to toxicity at all, like the dry mouth that they can.

Well, there's so many different possibilities for dry mouth, and there's not any one thing. It could definitely be from toxicity and from parotaglans being compromised. There's a lot of different reasons for that. There's a lot of different. A lot of the appliances being used today are not the best materials. And like, if you think about how many people buy those over the counter, you know, things and such.

Yes. Yeah.

And people don't realize, like. And anyway. And not to mention the stuff that we're chewing and eating these days as well. But yeah, so it could. It could really be a lot of different things. And that's definitely one of the possibilities. Whenever I've had people with dry mouth, it's not really any one thing. It's usually a combo platter of just getting the body back imbalance, because it can even be from hormone imbalance. It can even be from like caffeine. I mean, you know, there's a lot of different things.

You talk about this five layers to illness. Can you explain, like, how and why a person starts to feel symptoms and get sick?

Yeah. So every person's body goes through the exact same five layers. It's just part of being a body, even animals, even your pets. And so what happens is the initial layer, the first layer is toxicity. And so that's the first initial layer of suppression on the immune function. And that toxicity is meant to be managed by your body, as we just talked about with the drainage organs where it can dump the toxins. Well, when that gets compromised because there's too much toxicity and the body can't drain it, then the next layer happens. So now the toxins are suppressing the body's ability to make the digestive enzymes and hydrochloric that it needs to actually use your nutrients. So now that's compromised. So the nutrition that you're taking in and the food you're eating isn't getting assimilated and utilized properly. And you can start to develop sensitivities to food at this time. And then the next layer, now the toxins are still. Imagine you're putting this many in and you've got those little holes, right? Your little drainage organs. And so if, if not enough is coming out, but too much is going in, it's going to keep cumulatively growing, right? It's not going to just stay here, it's going to keep doing that. And so once you get to the third layer, that's what we call the allergies layer. And so the definition of an allergy is an inflamed immune response. So that's exactly what it is. So at that point, you may not even know you have allergies. It doesn't always present like sneezing and itchy eyes. Sometimes it's getting really tired after you eat something. Sometimes it's, you know, if you're in an environmental situation where you're having an allergic response response, it can result in brain fog, it can result in even mood swings. There's a lot of different ways it can manifest other than the traditional ones that we're familiar with. And it could be food allergies or environmental allergies or both. And then the fourth layer is pathogen. So at this point, your Bouncer, he gone. And so your body's ability to recognize the enemies at the front door and go get out compromised. Yeah. And so you have to think of the pathogens. You're a mammal, so you're getting exposed to pathogens just by being a mammal. There are parasites everywhere. They're not just in other countries. I love when they go, did you travel? Yeah. Because the parasites aren't in the United States. It's crazy. And so. And there's not a very good way to determine them through labs. And I'll explain that in a second. But what happens is you have to think of, like, bacteria, fungus, parasites, and virus as something you're exposed to all the time. If you're eating in a restaurant, you're getting intimate with a person, you're petting your dog, and you're touching things other people touched at the grocery store and then doing whatever. And so what happens is these. These pathogens are like criminals. You know, like when criminals are looking for an open car door, they just go down the street and open car door. And then they get in and they steal the car. It's the same thing. They're just looking for an open car door. Well, if your bouncer is gone now, the pathogens are, like, cool. And they tell. The other pathogens are like, party over here. And then they're all in the body going, nobody's fighting us. You know, terrible. And so now you've got the pathogens, now you've got the bacteria. You're, you know, you can't fight things off. You're sick. And then the fifth and final layer is now you get abnormal labs. Now they can find stuff, but you can have all of these things before anything shows up in your labs. And that's what mystery illness is. It's layers one through four, and you just feeling symptoms sooner on the disease chain.

I see. And go to the doctor. You're fine, you're feeling fine, you're looking fine on the labs, but you're actually starting this process. Makes. So how do you. Just. By muscle testing, you can tell where somebody is, whether or not they have parasites?

Yeah. Yeah. And so we basically. I do want to say one thing. And because when I was sick, I went to. I went to parasitologists, I flew to other states. I was really, like, trying. And so 11. The statistic is 11 out of 12 stool samples for parasites are false negatives. Think about that.

11 out of 12 negatives.

Yeah. So here's the deal. I did a stool sample at one of those home Tests and you have to, like, take. It's super fun. You poop in a little basket and then you have to take your poop and you have to, like, scoop it out and you put it inside this little thing and mix it. And so I did do that, and I sent one piece of my poop from that same lump to one lab and went to another lab. One lab found it and the other one didn't. Same poop.

Wow. Interesting.

And what happens is they have life cycles, and so there are parasites that are visible to the naked eye that are egg layers, and so you've got the small versions and the big versions. And then there are parasites that are amoeba, which is like a single cell. And then there are parasites that are protozoa, which are multicell, but they're microscopic. And so you have to not only get them during the right part of their life cycle, but you have to get them when they're down in the sigmoid colon, which I call the pooper point. That's right before they come out in the poop. They could be in your ascending colon, in your small intestines, they could be in your liver, gallbladder, they could be anywhere. They're not going to get caught. Unless they're down in your poop. They might not be down there.

Exactly. They choose where they want to hang out. Yeah.

Yeah. So basically, in the work that we do, let me just preface this with my legal disclaimer. We do not diagnose or treat conditions or disease. That is not what we do. We provide supplementation that helps your body maintain a balance with pathogens based on the muscle testing.

I love it, but that's how that works. Exactly. We don't need to put a label on things to treat something.

So that's actually a really important point. I wish more people would talk about that because, in fact, I'm writing that down because we need to think, because here's the thing. The biggest thing when you're sick is you want a label because you, A, people don't take you seriously. B, you can't get answers for something you can't put a label on, so then you can't solve it. Well, what we do in my mystery illness membership community and what I've done when I've worked with people one on one, is we're able to help treat the issue, the underlying issue, treat the source, if you will, without giving it a name, because you don't have to name it in order to fix it. And that is something that People don't understand or realize that's a new concept. And I think we need to spread the word that you don't need a name to fix it.

I love it. That's why, you know, for in my medical history, I actually changed it and I asked people for symptoms because sometimes, you know, these medical intakes, do you have this disease and that disease and this disease? But how do you feel? Do you have fatigue? Do you have brain fog? You know, how do you feel? Are you constipated? You know, we miss this on the medical intake in a lot of offices and something that I teach dentists, make sure you change your medical intake form and ask people, how are you feeling?

Yes. This is so true. You know, and another good point about that is that it doesn't seem to matter in the medical community how you're feeling. It just matters what your labs are. Which is so weird to me now that I know what I know. But also based on what you're saying, this is another point. I was just working on a video for this masterclass that I'm doing and if you look at Weston A. Price, and I like to use Weston A. Price as a resource frequently because they such good information, they've been around a really long time and they, you know, this is again in conflict with the medical world. But cholesterol, high cholesterol is good for you. It actually helps your body fight infection. And the people that are taking statins and they're trying to lower their cholesterol, you're lowering your body's ability to fight infection. You're screwing up your hormone balance. It affects your body's ability to produce vitamin D if your cholesterol is too low. And it's crazy, but it's just the opposite of what the medical community says. And so when people come in and they're like, oh my God, my cholesterol, I'm like, don't worry about it. I literally have fixed these situations for the people that I've worked with by increasing their red meat and egg intake. Wow. Yeah. Because I have them do pasture raised organic eggs and grass fed grass finished organic red meat and then make them do red meat every day. One of the things in my personal case was that I, when I first started eating animal protein, the way I, I went through different iterations of my ethical dilemma of trying to figure out a way to make peace with the choice. And the initial choice I made was I was never going to eat red meat. And so I did that for like a year. And I just didn't get well enough. And then I went and saw this guy in Malibu who was like a super muscle tester. He was like, I was like. And he said, oh, you're not eating red meat. And I was like, how did you know? And so as soon as I started eating red meat, my health took off. It was like night and day. And I have to tell you, I literally eat it every single day. Wow. Then I'm almost 58 and I have no issues with blood pressure or cholesterol or anything. I don't do hormones. I just don't. I just eat really clean. I'm super picky. I'm not. If I go to a restaurant and they only have conventional animal protein, I won't, I won't eat it.

Yeah, but you know what, the red meat like for myself actually I don't digest it well. And there's some people that don't digest for that reason. I kind of stay away from it. So what, Maybe that's a longer conversation. But what kind of tips can you give for this?

I mean, to answer that in public?

Sure, no problem.

So my answer to that is something's going on in your body that's preventing, remember layer two. So something is preventing your body from producing the hcl that you need to be able to digest and assimilate animal protein. And I've, I mean at the time when I was in LA, I was seeing 50 to 70 people a week for over 10 years. And I, that was always the case.

Interesting. So there's a lot of us, I belong to a group of, a lot of people that are suffering from the same thing.

But the other thing I'm going to say too is that, and again I have to go back to this, is that there's a big, big difference between eating conventional animal protein and eating grass fed, grass finished organic animal protein. They do opposite things to your body. So if someone's eating animal protein and they have a hard time with it and, but they're eating conventional animal protein, that means you're eating high pesticides that are outlawed in other countries. If you're in the United States, you're eating antibiotics, which is going to cause an immediate immune response in the body. You're eating injected synthetic hormones which is also going to throw off your hormones. And the pituitary rules the gut so it really will screw up your ability to digest. And then you're also dealing with high cortisol because the animals that are in the conventional factory farming are being, I mean that was the area my dad focused on. So I know a lot about that from the animal rights days. They're being so horrifically abused and living in such unbelievably horrible conditions that they're in a state of terror all the time. And they. Their cortisol is through the roof.

Yeah, that's not something you want to ingest for sure. Yeah. So, you know, some people try to make food changes, but they say, you know, I don't feel any better. Or sometimes they say, oh, I feel worse. Why is that?

There's two points I'd love to bring up on that. One is that people don't try it for long enough. So when you first make a change, a, you want to do it on a gradient because sometimes if you make too drastic of a change too fast, it creates a detox reaction which feels like a hangover. Yeah. So if that happens, take it down a notch and just do it on a gradient. Make changes little by little from week to week. And then the other thing is, I want to speak specifically to people who say, oh, I went vegan and I feel so much better as a vegan. That's because you're not eating the conventional animal protein that has the antibiotics, the hormones, pesticides, of course you feel better at first.

Yes, I have patients that do say that. Actually. I hear that all the time from vegans. I feel so much better as a vegan.

Yeah, that's because what's in the animal protein they were eating is terrible. Not to mention a lot of them are made with seed oils and the list goes on. But that being said, any food changes need to be done for a minimum of 90 days because it takes at least 90 days for tissue change to happen in the human body. So if you try something for two or three weeks, you actually don't know what it did for you.

Yes, good advice. Then you actually have a food chart, I believe on treatthesource.com immune repair food.

List, and that is@treatthesource.com food or you can go to monicahershef.com and it's on the home page.

Oh, nice. I think all of us, you know, need to respect the immune system and been bombarded with so many things lately. You know, man made viruses, bacteria, pesticides, all kinds of things. So definitely this is a great resource.

Yeah, of course. And it includes a list of do's and don'ts, which is really important because a lot of people don't realize that there are so many ingredients and fillers and additives that we don't Think of. So I really teach you about reading the ingredients. You know, if something says olive oil, mayo, read the back. A lot of times it'll have plus sugar, plus canola oil, plus soy.

Yes, you are so right. You got to read the small print and read all the ingredients that are there. So true. How can people find you? And you mentioned this online community. Can you tell us more about that?

Yes. So including you, we are interviewing different guest health experts and all kinds of different areas that you can work with online and get information from online. Those interviews are happening once or twice a month and there's also live Zoom Q and A's with me. But best of all, we have the 12 week online health reboot program that's in there that gives you action steps and it'll teach you how to heal yourself, how to reduce inflammation, how to eliminate symptoms, and how to improve your immune function just by making simple changes in your daily life, little by little, you will see huge changes happen. And you get a lot of support and community in there as well. Plus there's a whole recommendations page of products and services that are approved and vetted by me, including Dr. Sanda's products that you see there in the background. And I want to get her book in there too.

This one over here or Asana. Okay. Yes. And you have a book as well. Treat the source, not the symptom.

Yes, yes. It's available on Amazon and I'm going to be doing an update to that in the near future as well as well. And we're going to be working on a second book about medical gaslighting.

You know, I love that you're doing an online community because, you know, working one on one with people, you can only help so many people.

Yeah. And only in your neighborhood.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But now that you're opening an online community, you can help people from everywhere.

Yeah. And I kept it, you know, I, I've shown it to so many people and they, they all say you're not charging enough money. This is so robust. There's so much value. There's so much in here. And I don't want to, I want. It's Netflix for the body. It's the owner's manual to your body, but it's like a Netflix subscription for your body. Because I'm only charging a low amount. Because I want everybody to be able to access it and utilize it and be able to have this as part of your daily life and as a tool that you can use to keep yourself good. Because we keep updating as new things come out, the new 5G, the new cell phone towers, the new virus that, you know, you're always going to get the updated information and, and the support that other people just don't have access to.

Yeah, that's great, Monica. And we're going to put the links, you know, for this membership page down in the show notes. And you're offering first free month.

Yes, the first month is 20 for the listeners here. You'll have a special code so that you can get your first month free and check it out and see how much you love it.

Yes, use the code, Santa. Perfect. Thank you so much for offering that. And you mentioned your second book here. What did you mention? What did you say the name was?

I haven't named it, but it's about medical gaslighting. It's going to be more of a memoir style about what I went through, but I'm sharing it from a perspective of teaching other people how to stand up for themselves when they go to the doctors and are told nothing's wrong with them and giving them resources and steps to take so that they don't feel disempowered in those situations and so that they know where to go and find the right help and that they know how to talk to that doctor and how to manage their families and their friends opinions around it as well.

Yeah. Super important. In this world where there's so much noise, you know, and misinformation and missed advice and the wrong advice. I think it's, it's, it's going to be well received.

Thank you. Yeah, we just have to learn how to stand up for ourselves and, and advocate for ourselves and to trust that you know what is true for you. And if you think something's wrong with you, you're right. And you have to stand by that. And I want people to feel empowered to do that.

Yes. And don't stop until you get the answers, until you start feeling well again because there's hope.

It's not in your head and that is the key. It's not in your head.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Monica. It's been a wealth of information. Thank you. Always love connecting with you and I'm looking forward to, you know, contributing to the online community.

Thank you so much. It was so great to be here.

Thank you everyone for listening to today's show with Monica Hershaft. And if you'd like to leave a comment, go to my YouTube channel where you can see this show and leave us a comment and any other topics that you might like to hear in the future. Until next time, stay healthy. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram DrSand. This is Dr. Sandha. And remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health. So take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.