From Medication to Elimination: A Colitis Healing Story

Welcome to The Perfect Stool: Understanding and Healing the Gut Microbiome. This is your host, Lindsey Parsons, and today I'll be speaking with Jordan Power, an internet entrepreneur and the president of Gray Smoke Media. Last year, his chronic disease of 18 years, ulcerative colitis, had progressed to the point of him requiring surgery to remove a foot of his colon. By completely overhauling his diet, introducing specific supplements, and removing all chemicals from his house, he was able to put his disease in total remission and keep his colon. As a bonus, the depression and anxiety that plagued him for 20 years disappeared within a couple of months. But before our conversation, if you haven't yet followed or subscribed to the show, be sure to do so. And if you want to get transcripts of the podcast, pop over to my website, HighDesertHealthCoaching.com, and sign up for my newsletter. You'll also get my free ebooklet, Finding Your Root Cause Through Stool and organic acids testing when you sign up. And if you haven't yet done my quiz on which stool test would help you get to your root cause, you can find a link in the show notes and take that. Now onto the show. Welcome to the podcast, Jordan.

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Yeah, it's my pleasure. So like many people who've turned to alternative medicine, you were able to reverse your ulcerative colitis and, but you may have had an exceptionally bad case because as I understand it, your doctors were recommending that you remove a foot of your colon. So why don't you give us a story from the beginning about how you ended up with ulcerative colitis and then what you did to reverse it?

Sure. My background is I come from a family of two doctors. My parents were doctors. My sister's actually an ER nurse. Come from the very, you know, common medical establishment, pieties, let's say. When I was about 18 years old, I went on multiple rounds of Accutane, probably started when I was actually 17. And when I had the third round of the Accutane, in the middle of it, I got extremely sick to the point where I was admitted to hospital. I had dropped about 25 pounds in a period of about 2 and a half months. I looked very sick. My blood work was terrible. No one really knew what was going on. So my mom sent me for some testing and eventually they diagnosed me with ulcerative colitis. The connection to Accutane and the people that had sued in the US for multi-seven-figure judgments hadn't been made. I mean, they made that connection probably 10 years after I was diagnosed and I sort of signed up for the class action then. I don't know for sure if that's the connection, but I don't have a history history of any inflammatory bowel disease in my family. It sort of just came up outta nowhere.

Yeah. Let me pause you for a sec. So Accutane, just to clarify, is a drug for acne. Yes. And I know it's high in vitamin A. It's not just vitamin A though, is it?

Vitamin A acid. I, I believe all I remember really of it is that it mentally, it drove me into a whole total depression. And then all your orifices, mucous membranes, they dry up, right? Cause the idea is that The medicine just kind of dries up your sebaceous glands so you can't, it does work for acne. Don't get me wrong, it absolutely works.

Yeah. With the small side effect of ulcerative colitis, right? Yeah.

You know, then you have a disease for life and you're like, okay, well there you go. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I've heard of other people having vitamin A overdose from it.

Oh, for sure. And I, I know they pulled it off the shelves for a period of time. I don't know if it's still off.

I don't know either.

In my book I talk about is a place called Kitava in New Guinea. Where it's in this small island where they don't have the chronic diseases we have. And one of the features that they don't have, their teenagers don't have acne. So they don't go through that requisite period where you have to get acne. That's just being a teen. Yeah.

Well, I think anybody who doesn't eat a bunch of processed food and sugar also has the potential of not having acne.

Yes, it's true. But you know, it's just, we think it's just part of life. Oh, you're a teenager with acne. That's just what it is.

Yeah. Not at all. No, I, I told my kid as soon as he got his first real zit, I was like, If you go off sugar, you won't have acne. Well, the fact that his entire diet consisted of processed white carbs made it hard. Not that I purchased, just, you know, full disclaimer, but that was his diet. So, so the sugar alone wasn't enough, but he actually did it. Like he, I couldn't believe a child with that level of willpower to just go off sugar like that and pretty much has stayed off of it other than brief at Thanksgiving, Christmas kind of thing.

Wow. Have you, did you get him off seed oils too?

We didn't really use them in our home. So other than in the processed foods that I wasn't purchasing, yes.

Right. Okay. It's just like they're in 99%. You go to restaurants.

Right, right. So if, if he ate out, yeah, of course he couldn't.

Going back to my initial diagnosis is that it's just an age-old tale of the doctor sits you down and these are the only options. These are the only options available, these 3 drugs and these steroids. And this is, there's no cure, no discussion of holistic treatments. And, you know, I was in that complex, right? And I'm not really blaming my parents here, but it's like, you know, you grow up with a certain conditioning and it's just, the people that question the conditioning or that are cast from polite society are the crazy ones. And then you really grow up and you realize it's actually the inverse. And the reason that they were cast from polite society is they were a threat to some sort of neoliberal order, let's say. And so that was a real period where I just went on tons of medication, 8 pills a day, steroids, hospital admissions, saw myself get progressively worse. And then around the time of my mid-20s, it sort of stabilized. And I, and I do wanna note that I was also, I was eating well, I wasn't, I wasn't eating a lot of bad food, but you know, when you have that delicate of a microbiome, anything can really set you off. And then there was a period about a year and a half ago where I went to South America and the combination of seed oils and alcohol and processed food and all the other things I was having, it set off the, the, like called the train. And with colitis and Crohn's disease or inflammatory bowel disease, once you start going, it's really hard to stop the train.

Right.

And so I've had multiple vacations ruined, you know, my trip to Israel, my trip to Colombia, just completely ruined. And I came back and I couldn't get it under control with medication, with steroids. I just couldn't stop it. And so I sat down with my doctor after 2 colonoscopies and he said to me, we can basically just cut out a foot and then that'll solve the problem. And I don't know, like, I'm not really a spiritual person, but there was really this moment where I was sitting in the room and I just sort of was like, yeah, I don't think this is in the cards for me. Like, I don't think this is part of my life. I don't. Think that this— I just don't see that happening to me. I don't know if that's a level of denial. It could be, but I just was like, yeah, I don't, I don't need this. And I came home and I went on the internet and just started searching on YouTube and then stumbled across all kinds of people, started going on alternative, Rumble, Twitter, all these different places. And it was like, every time I opened up a box, I call them the boxes of horror. It was like, what's in our beauty products? What's in our cleaning products? What's allowed in North America that's banned in Europe? All these different things that I kept opening. And I had a really protracted discussion with a man who worked in cosmetics consulting for the major companies, and he would tell me these horror stories of— he would tell them that, you know, this product's going to cause lung cancer, and they would just say, uh, thank you for your service, goodbye. And I learned that there wasn't a lot of money in integrity. And so I got so freaked out that between my YouTube rabbit holes and between discussions with him, I just went on a binge and I just got rid of every chemical in my house. Mm-hmm. Starting with cleaning products, beauty products, and I found alternatives and then started really adapting an elimination diet through Paul Saladino, the Carnivore MD on YouTube. And within 30 days it was gone. Wow. When I say gone, it was like gone. The best health I'd have had in my entire life.

Mm-hmm.

In 30 days. Wow.

So can you summarize that diet that you went on and then the progression? 'Cause I assume you reintroduced things after— did you go full carnivore or—

No, what I did was sort of carnivore, fruits, honey, raw dairy, and a bit of potatoes. 'Cause potatoes have just been something that have always just actually make me feel good. I don't know if it's the prebiotics, but I had never experimented with raw dairy. You know, I heard the tales that it was gonna kill me. And then I started doing research for my book and it was like a 1 in 6 million chance of dying or something. And that there's a much higher chance with cantaloupe and spinach and all these things. And so I got my hands on some raw dairy cuz where I live it's illegal. So there's ways to get around it, which we don't have to get into, but people can figure it out. And it felt great when I drank it. I felt it connecting with my body. Whereas when I had pasteurized dairy, I would feel this inflammation in my body. And so it was really just the meat, the raw honey, the raw dairy, fruit, and the potatoes. Stuck with that for about 30 days. Obviously it's boring, but when you're that sick, you'll do anything. And then the combination of swapping in different products in my house, starting with shampoo for shampoo bar, beef tallow moisturizer, getting off the chemical sunscreens, and then really just cleaning my house with just rubbing alcohol and a little bit of soap with some essential oils or some baking soda and vinegar. And the craziest part of this whole thing that also happened to me is that I just assumed that I was depressed and anxious. That was just my destiny. I was 50% Irish and it's just what we are. And that was the added bonus of this whole thing is that I would wake up after battling these two things off and on for most of my life and multiple SSRIs. And I was like, oh, I don't think I have that either. Like, I don't think I actually am depressed or anxious. I don't feel depressed. I can manage stress situations now in a different way. And I'm— the modulation of my moods. And that was the craziest part, I think, more even than the colitis, is to see the mental aspect of the way that you approach the world on a daily basis and you process trauma. And even my dog, when my dog died during all this, I, I handled it in a way that I don't think I would've if I wasn't of a stable mind, meaning that I was at peace with what was happening and I wasn't trying to fight it and and, and I wake up now and I say to people, I'm a different person. It's like I don't even recognize the body that I live in now.

That's amazing. So getting back to the diet changes, like what would you say would be the most dramatic things that you removed from your diet for these 30 days that, that were really transformational?

So this might be controversial, but spinach and kale were terrible.

Ah, okay. Oxalates.

Yes. You know, kale has great PR. So, you know, you read everywhere you gotta have kale. You gotta— I would eat kale and I would feel terrible. I would have the runs. Broccoli was terrible. Any cruciferous was terrible. And so what I would do is I would make an anti-shopping list. So I'd have my shopping list on the one side of things that I knew were fine, and then every time something would bother me, I would just write it down. And I had to be really hyper attuned to my body at that point.

Right, right.

Now most people were, were just like bots. We just go through life and we're kind of just eating things and then, you know, maybe 12 hours later we don't connect that that's was the food. And so I created an anti-shopping list and I would just write down spinach, kale, broccoli. Any white breads were a no-no. Obviously any processed sugars were a no-no. Any meats where the animal was eating seed oils or hormones, antibiotics, I had to get rid of that.

Yeah. So you went to high-quality pasture-raised meats and that kind of thing.

Absolutely. That, that was like, that was another one. It was like, oh, it's, I can eat a steak and not feel bloated. So it was just like, oh, I guess this is how, you know, I always thought like, I hate steak because I feel sick. And so that was that. And then the fruits, I would go organic if possible, and I would wash them in apple cider vinegar, or I would do different things to make them as clean as possible. And then also chewing my food slowly was an interesting thing. Not putting my body through, you know, I was always rushing, working, trying to get things in my body. So proper nutrient absorption through actually chewing the food. Even with my mineral water that I drink now, I swish it in my mouth and kind of let it absorb into the gums a little bit before I swallow it as a little trick that I do.

I'm sure that also warms it up.

Yes. And then supplementation-wise, I went really hard onto beef colostrum cuz it's really been shown to regenerate the intestinal lining. Mm-hmm. So that was a big one for me. And then the biggest thing is I got rid of all the crap supplements I was taking and really went down to beef heart and beef liver every day as an actual supplement because I don't love the taste. And so that was the combination. And then I would, you know, I would try different supplements, zinc and stuff like that. But I really came down to, and I, I don't know if you're of the same belief, that bioavailability of actual food, high quality food cannot compare to the supplements that are shipped to your house and God knows whatever plastic and whatever fillers are in them. I just don't think they're comparable unless you find a really good supplier. So I really only take now about 4 or 5 supplements.

Mm-hmm. And to clarify, it doesn't sound like you cut out all of your fiber when you did this 30-day thing, which is more of a traditional colitis flaring diet. No.

You know, the interesting thing about colitis is you oscillate between constipation and diarrhea sometimes just because your body's just off. So. I did get the fiber from the fruit and select vegetables that I was eating, like carrots that weren't bothering me. But for the most part, really the only vegetables I really do eat now is, is pretty much carrots, some onions, some tomatoes. But that's what I, all I consume of the vegetable world because it's just, even with, I used to have vegetable soup and I would have it and then I would just feel like disgusting afterwards. Which seems like it runs contrary to so much of what we're taught when we're younger.

So you've stuck with this more limited diet?

Yeah. And I feel, you know what, I feel great. Like people are like, your life's so boring. Cause my grocery list is about 15 items, but I don't care because people don't understand what it's like to have your life consumed by a disease. It's, there's nothing that, you know, that variety of foods is not going to make up for the, I don't want to go back to that horror and that darkness that I lived in.

And of course I do cheat. I'll go on vacation.

And I'll have dinner here and there, but I am fully functional. Like I, it is unbelievable. And I went for a scan with my doctor and again, they can be pompous. And I say that as two, two parents as doctors, he was looking at my colitis scan and he really just asked me what was going on because there was no evidence of disease. And I said, well, I told him what I did and he said, oh no, it's That's probably just the medication that I switched you onto. And it's so interesting to me because I, I feel like they think that holistic medicine can't work in marriage with modern medicine in a way. Mm-hmm. It's like it can't augment it or replace it in a way. They feel like it's a threat to their ego and who they're, what they're taught and they're a doctor and they have this degree. And I will say, I really give credit to my mom who, who's a GP, is that she has really opened her mind up to the holistic world. And she has said, you know, if I did my whole career again, I would really focus much more on the holistic route because like I said, we call it the Pandora box of horrors. We open up something about what we're taught, statins, different things like that. And then it just keeps horror and horror and horror.

Yeah.

Unveiling itself.

Hey, this is Lindsey here, just letting you know that if you're tired of dealing with digestive issues like bloating, indigestion, soft stool, diarrhea, constipation, reflux, IBS, IBD, or the numerous health conditions that come about when your gut is off, like brain fog, weight gain, UTIs, fatigue, mental health issues, or complex conditions like fibromyalgia and ME/CFS, that's my specialty. With my 3 or 5 session gut health coaching packages, we'll discuss different stool and functional medicine tests to find out the root cause of your symptoms. I'll interpret the results and provide clear explanations, empowering you to make informed choices for your gut and overall health. And together we'll develop a customized action plan based on your test results. So you can find relief and regain your health and vitality. I come from a functional medicine perspective, trying to incorporate the latest peer-reviewed research and educating you on protocols used by functional medicine practitioners, but devoting lots of time and support to my clients the way a doctor simply can't. If you're interested in a 3 or 5 session coaching package, you can sign up for complimentary 30-minute breakthrough session. Or if you can only afford one appointment at a time, you can book an initial 60-minute consultation. Links for those are in the show notes. Now back to the show. You know, I look at my doctor and sometimes I think she's just leading a life of quiet desperation.

Yeah.

That you've got this brief amount of time to talk to somebody you don't really know or understand all the stuff they're taking. 'Cause of course I've got a pile of supplements that I'm on and, and she doesn't necessarily know how to solve my problem. I'm just like, just, just run the tests I'm asking for and I'll take care of the rest. Don't worry about it.

Yeah. Yeah.

God bless her, she does.

Yeah, no, I mean, and, and it's also like they're time constrained. They have, you know, periods of 10 to 15 minutes to see you and there's no way they're gonna ask you about your diet and analyze your microbiome.

Right. No, of course. And they're gonna look at your medical record and, and you know, they're not gonna remember you because they see, I don't know how many, 20, 30 patients a day and they're gonna look, they're gonna quickly take a summary and then that's it. They're not gonna remember all your history and everything else unless you really stood out to them.

Yeah, well, it's funny because now I'm in this holistic mindset and I went to a doctor, I had these white spots on my skin called— I'm gonna slaughter this, but it's like idiopathic guttate hypomelanosis, I believe is the, what it is, just little white spots on your skin. And the common belief when you Google this is that it's just sun damage that, you know, you get too much sun and you have these white spots. And I'm sure some people, but mine just showed up very quickly. Like I'm talking about within a 3 to 4 week period. I had them all over my legs and arms.

Hmm.

And I went to this doctor who was like the biggest dermatologist in Toronto, double board certified, hotshot, let's say. And I went for to him and he said, well, this is the diagnosis. And I said, well, what can I do about it? And he said, just put sunscreen on and stay outta the sun. And I said, well, you know, something else is going on here. It just appeared out of nowhere. And I had just been in Thailand, which was a hint. So I sent, then I have a holistic doctor that I pay and I sent him it and it was the same diagnosis. He was like, yes, that is the right diagnosis, but It's a fungus on your skin and this is how you treat it. And he said, you know, do this and this, take these supplements, put this antifungal cream on, do this for any— within like 3 weeks it's gone. And I'm, I'm thinking of they both diagnosed it right, but you had first doctor saying there's no options available for you. And then the second doctor is saying, you know, there's something going on at its core, the root here. And that's very much like the colitis thing. Why is my body attacking itself? What purpose would that serve? And why is it not in these places like New Guinea? And that start from that point sets you off on, on a different path.

Yeah. And so you never went on a biologic, did you?

No, I didn't get that far.

Yeah. Okay. And did, was that offered to you or did you not get to that point?

It was offered to me. It was around the same time as the surgery. And the reason I didn't do it, cuz it was about $8,000.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. And people go on them. Unfortunately, the side effect is suppressing your immune system. So one of the biggest dangers of course is getting cancer.

That's nice.

So of course it's like the, there's the trade-off. My ulcerative colitis might go away for a while, but I may get cancer in the meantime.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like you may be of the same belief than me. It's just like the body is, is fine. Just leave it alone. It'll just fix itself if you leave it alone. But once you start one thing, it's a domino effect where you throw off the whole homeostasis of the system and then other things start popping up. You know, I'm on an SSRI for this and now my sex drive is down, so I need to take this other pill and then it's causing this and suddenly you've got 5 side effects going on. Whereas if you just conquered the, the question of why are you depressed and what is the impetus for that depression.

Yeah.

But they don't have time for that.

Of course. Right. No, it's, it seems like with the mental health medications, especially if you get beyond just depression and anxiety, if you're getting into like bipolar, that kind of thing, you can start piling one medication onto another. And all of a sudden there's teenagers who have 5 mental health medications and often the parents at some point go, okay, something's not right here. We need to make some lifestyle changes. But yeah, usually you have to go relatively far down that route before you start realizing like, this is insanity. My child should not be on 5 medications.

It's also like the same thing as with the skin. You know, you know, people who are like, you know, my skin's never looked better. And people are like, what do you put on it? And I'm like, beef tallow with raw honey mixed into it. I just bought it off the internet. That's all I do. I don't even wash my face.

I just put that on.

And I used to put on a cleanser with alcohol in it that would strip the oils. And then I would put on a toner with God knows what, 48 ingredients. Then I'd put on some other cream that was in plastic in a truck. Then I would put on this and my skin looked worse. I had more breakouts. I had more, like the tone of it was worse.

Yeah.

People are like, God, your skin looks so great. What are you doing? And I'm like, I just put this $35 beef tallow with raw honey on every day. And that's literally all I do. And my skin looks better than most people. And so it just goes back to the idea of like, just leave it alone. Leave your hair alone. Leave your skin alone. Just leave it alone cuz it's creating all these different problems for you.

Yeah. No, I actually, years ago when I was in college, dated a guy who said, why do you wash your, why do you put anything on your face? I just wash my face with water. I was like, okay, I'll try that. And I have ever since to wash my face with nothing but water.

Yeah.

And I never have had skin issues of any sort.

So it's just, I think it's just, you just, you mess up the system.

Yeah. You know, it's just a big industry trying to sell us more stuff. So it sounds like you really believe that removing toxins from your house and your diet was a big part of the puzzle. What makes you so sure that that was a big piece of it?

Well, when I, I wrote in my book and I linked to a bunch of studies that as a general thing, when you mess with the microbiome, that's when you start having problems. The gut, you know, you know, 50% of our diversity— I had a person on my podcast, 50% of the diversity of our microbiomes has been destroyed over the past few decades. So I think when you mess with anything, that's a problem. And if you look at, you know, you're eating a plate of something and there's still detergent on it, then you're mixing that with your food. What that's doing to your gut, even drinking tap water, the fluorides and everything that's in that, terrible. But it really was these conversations I had with this guy. And then when I wrote in my book about don't use this product, don't use this product, it's been linked with lead or heavy metals, whatever, I link in my book the various studies out there for these different things. So I'm not just being this guy saying, you know, I'm just anecdotally making this up.

Right.

But I can, I can tell you not just from the conversations with this consultant who's 30 years in the business, the stuff I've watched, the studies I put in my book, but just anecdotally from myself is just when I introduce those things into my life, I can tell you that because I am hyperattuned to my moods, I can tell you that they, they mess me up. I, I notice it when I go on vacation. Because even a small thing is, you know, I filter my tap water and I filter my shower water. And when I'm on vacation, between the combination of having to eat seed oils or having to be some, you know, certain chemicals and stuff like that in my body, I start to notice that I snap more on people. And one of the features of when my mental health was much better, along with some spiritual stuff I'd been, I had been looking into, is that I realized I didn't— I wasn't triggered by things. And I wasn't snapping on people. And there's moments on vacation where I'm just a little more snappy than usual. Interesting.

Yeah. And you should, in theory, be more relaxed on vacation, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. And so I think it's just introducing that to my body. And I also don't feel like I'm in the clear. I really do believe that, hey, I've been— it's been almost a year now where I've been off medication. I feel the best health I've been in my life mentally and physically. But I don't get too confident that I can walk around saying, you know, I do believe I'm still teetering and I will be teetering for another year or so. From conversations I've talked to, there's a guy named The Holistic Nick or Kenny Honus, also guys that have cured their colitis. And the conversation from them is, you know, it takes a couple years to really get yourself back to a point. So I try not to risk it and stay as diligent with things because I don't want to feel a backslide. And there are moments where I feel a backslide. I'll go for dinner with some friends or have a little booze or, you know, not get great sleep. And I feel the backslide and I can see myself going there. And, and so I calibrate accordingly. But it is very, very scary what is in a lot of those products, even stem cell creams, like the fact that they barely tested those and they put those out there and people were just slathering them all over their face and they mess with cell replication and They don't know the long-term effects of those. And a lot of these clinical trials, when you look into these beauty trials for different creams, it really comes down to we gave the cream to 60 women for 90 days and none of them got a rash.

Mm-hmm.

Go buy it at the CVS.

Yeah.

So it, I think people think there are a lot more guardrails in place to protect them. And there's also things in your food and beauty products that are banned in Europe but allowed in North America?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like food dyes, for example. I spent many years fighting to get the food dyes out of the food in the Montgomery County Public Schools outside of DC and Maryland.

And how'd that go?

We got rid of almost everything. I would say the only thing that remains are, are the natural caramel colors that they put in meats, cuz it's almost impossible to get those, you know, given the quality of meat that they get in the school system. But yeah, we got 'em out. We did a lot of good things.

Wow, good for you. You know, it's like little battles that you, you know, that you left a mark on the, on the world and you, you made a change for people. And, you know, some of those changes might not even be so tangible for people, but, you know, they might just go, well, I feel better this week and I don't know why.

Well, with food dyes, it, it's not that everybody's affected by them, but there's a certain subset of kids that have like ADHD kind of symptoms because of food dyes. And my partner who started the nonprofit with me, it was called Real Food for Kids Montgomery at the time. She had a daughter who was one of those kids that reacted to food dyes and she did crazy stuff when she was on the food dyes.

Are you used to people in your life? 'Cause I'm, I'm newer, I'm not trying to be a health expert, you know, I just really wrote this book because of my experience and a lot of people were asking me, so I said, I just wanna get this out there. But I, you seem like you've been immersed in this for a longer period of time. Do you feel like you are used to the way that people will dismiss you or sort of pretend that you are the crazy one because you don't want toxins in your life?

Let's see if it's, say, doctors. I don't open the door to even let them say anything about what I'm doing. I mean, I know my GP is good and stuff, but like, I don't walk into a doctor's office and just like, I had one bad experience with a gastroenterologist. Completely dismissing and belittling me. And after that, I'm just like, you know what? I'm not even gonna share anything. I'm just gonna come here, tell them what I want or need, take their, take whatever piece of advice I think that they actually, that's totally within their conventional medical paradigm, and then just do the rest on my own. When it comes to other people outside that, I do find that there are certain people, this maybe comes up the most when you know someone who has cancer. Because that's when you're just feeling this desperation, like, oh my goodness, you— there's so much I could tell you about what you should and shouldn't be doing, about ideas, about people to look at. You can only reach out so much because everybody in their life is doing the same thing, right? You're not the only person giving them advice. And if you're not the closest person, they might— and usually things get crazy when you get cancer, right? Like all of a sudden everything drops out, but, but you have to focus on something, on the most important things. And so I don't think all that input, they can't even receive it. Because they aren't even checking email anymore because they're more worried about just living and dying and things like this. So, so it's happened a number of times that you've seen somebody get cancer that you know and love and you can't, you just can't do anything if that's not their paradigm. And two of the people I knew who died of cancer at age 50, their parents were doctors. And of course they were not as open to alternative things. I mean, somewhat one of 'em, but the other one completely closed. And there was nothing I could do. I couldn't come to their homes and force food down their throat, you know what I mean? I couldn't change their diets. I couldn't even get them to consider supplements. I certainly couldn't get them to consider alternative practitioners. There just was nothing I could do. I mean, I did my best, but it was frustrating.

Yeah, it's a very isolating existence, I think, to be heterodox on any subject. You know, I'm now— I'm heterodox on health, but I was already heterodox on the media because I'd worked in it for 12 years. So I think I needed that conditioning to kind of question the establishment to then also be able to take in the health information. But a a lot of people, I don't know what the wiring is in their head, but they need experts and they need to not— they need to just go with the flow and they need to follow. And they—

right. I mean, you have to feel like you're doing the right thing for yourself. And I guess you have to decide what that is and then sort of close your mind to everything else. Because if you keep it open, then you can— I mean, of course, there's all sorts of quack jobs who are trying to push all sorts of things that have no peer-reviewed evidence behind them. But there's a difference, right? There's a difference. Are there actual studies on this? Is this maybe a newer idea that there's studies on? Initial studies, or is this something, you know, if by the time it gets into the conventional medical paradigm, it's 20 years behind. When I have clients dealing with diarrhea or loose stool, I always tell them about tributyrin, which is the best absorbed form of butyrate, which is normally made by bacteria fermenting fiber in your colon. Supplemental tributyrin can help slow your motility down and feed the cells lining your colon, firming up stool and helping create an oxygen-free environment in the colon. Which helps the butyrate-producing bacteria to survive and multiply. Those bacteria are often wiped out after taking antibiotics, which is why tributyrin is a great accompaniment and follow-up supplement if you have to take antibiotics. My new supplement, Tributyrin Max, has 750 milligrams of tributyrin, which is the highest dose currently available in a capsule. You can find it at tributyrinmax.com— that's T-R-I-B-U-T-Y-R-I-N-M-A-X dot com— and use code INTRO15 for 15% off your first order. You know, when it becomes part of the standard of care, at that point, you know, you could have been using it for 20 years because it takes that long to get into the standard of care.

Yeah, well, you know, one of the ones I was talking about with someone who was gonna get an MRI in my life is that it's coming out now that the gadolinium or the dye they use in the MRI is heavily linked to cancer now. So yeah, so people are getting MRIs every day with this stuff. And now they're trying to ban it in certain places. So it's just like there is the irony of, you know, going for cancer screening and then just taking a cancer-causing agent at the same time.

Yeah.

I find myself trying to always not get too paranoid and have to live that really, oh my God, I had to drink tap water kind of life, cuz it's just not feasible. But I will say that I've kind of stopped opening boxes because every time I open a box I find more horror and anything, you know, about like the wars and, and anything else. So I just, I've kind of, pulled back on that. But I think the maturity is when you tell people your experience and you're standing in front of them and you've, you know, cured your disease and your depression, anxiety, and they can't really deny you. They can't deny looking at you and seeing you functional and you lead by example. And so that's also why I want to write this for people. But I think I also just live my life and I say to people, hey, I'm not a mirage. I was the person that you saw in the hospital multiple times that was very sick, and I'm standing right here and I'm traveling the world and feeling great, that should be enough for you to at least question it a bit. And I will say that probably 20% of people can react to that. And then my experience is the other 80% go, oh yeah.

Yeah. Well, I, in my health coaching training, they had an expression, which is you can't save the people who are swimming away from you.

Yeah.

So you got a drowning person, they have to be, they have to be working in your direction. Like you can't, yeah, you can't chase 'em down. So. Yeah. Do you wanna get yourself helped? You, you can, you can take the first steps yourself. So I know one of the other things you mentioned when we had talked before the show was about your hair. Can you tell me a little bit about what changed there?

Yeah, so I, I actually just finished another ebook. I'll give you the link for that one as well. It's gonna come out this week because one of the things that I realized when I was doing all this and putting my stepdad on the same diet and we were just, we were also kind of like, he's not sick with anything, but he did get off statins. For a lot of reasons. And, you know, he questioned everything in his life after that point. But, you know, we were doing the same stuff, the bone broth, and we were living the whole kind of life together and I'm getting better and he's feeling better, not battling a chronic illness, but just feeling better in general. And I went to his house one day and I looked at him and I said, oh my God, your hair looks amazing. And he was like, I know, I don't— he was like kind of putting his hand through it. And it was probably 20% less gray at that point too. And at the same time I was experiencing the same thing.— it wasn't— I'm not talking about dramatic difference, but I'm talking about like even my nails growing faster. But I would just have like filled in my hairline. It was easier also to clean it, wash it, style it. And so I started looking into that aspect of it, of saying what's going on there. And it's like your skin and your hair, like the barometer, right? You look at yourself and you can look at a person and go, but they look healthy, and you don't know why, whether it's the whites of their eyes or, or whatever it is. And so I put together this book. I just called it How Not to Go Bald because just simple, simple stuff. And I looked into history and you look at photos from the 1900s, when you look at photos of the '60s and '70s, people on the beach, you see that's like 5% of the people are fat. And you, and you see the difference then. And what I was looking at these guys, they were in their 30s and 40s from the 1920s. It, they, most of them didn't have receding hairlines. And so I, you know, I started looking into like Is it getting worse? If we know chronic diseases are getting worse, is balding getting worse? And it was really bad in Asia and it was, you know, people were balding at 18. So I put together this book looking into the chemicals you put in your hair, the sulfates. There's multiple class action lawsuits now against shampoo makers. Some of them probably have merit and some of them are cash grab, but I'm of the belief that when you mess with the microbiome of the scalp, you're gonna run into problems.. And so I went into that, what I do for my hair, basically an organic shampoo bar and some coconut oil. That's basically it. And then really breaking down more the hormones. So raising prolactin, estrogen, seed oils, and the different things that can mess up your hair and, and linking to different studies, filtering your shower water. And so, cuz I noticed my stepdad and I were, were going through that, so I put that together in a couple Chinese herbs that people are using and Rosemary oil is shown to be as good as Rogaine now. And some of the more heterodox beliefs, including that like a lot of what's going on is not related to DHT, it's related to inflammation in the scalp. And why do you, you never lose hair here, but you lose it here. That's why they do hair transplants from the back and what's going on there. And a little bit about blood flow and facial development. And so I put that together and did it. I called it How Not to Go Bald: 30 All-Natural Solutions for Hair Retention. And I'm gonna get that out to people as well. And it's not, it's not a cure-all, but it's, it's, it's all interrelated.

Mm-hmm.

Looking at your hair, you're losing your hair at 18 years old because you're consuming high amounts of PUFAs. And again, looking at parts of the world like the Blue Zones, when I went to Costa Rica, that was another thing I noticed. I couldn't believe how healthy the people looked in cuz I was near one of the Blue Zones. You know, we're talking about like '70s, '80s, they're like moving boulders and logs. And they're not doing NAD drips and they're not doing weird things. They're just living their life socially cohesive, living with the earth, staying active.

Yeah.

And these guys, you know, they're 70, they got muscles, full head of hair. And so I, I do think it's all interrelated. I think some people are more susceptible to hair loss for sure, genetically. But I put that together and, and tied it in with what I learned in the book as well.

Yeah. One of the things though that I thought you'd mentioned was about a copper deficiency and the gray hair.

Yeah. So I, that was one of my holistic friends said try taking copper with zinc on a daily basis and see if you can reverse some of the grays. And I would say I probably reversed them like 20 to 30% so far, like the ones on the sides. I think, I don't think I, I'm gonna win that battle, but, but there's like, but some help. Yeah, it's some help. And there's some interesting stuff now about hydrogen peroxide and how you lower those levels and stave off the gray hair, which I didn't dive into too much in the book. But it's just so crazy to see my stepdad look like he said, you know, it looks like the hair I had when I was 35 and he's 68. So it's strange to see all these things happen. His skin looks great, same kind of idea. And you just wonder, how much of this is being poisoned to a degree.

Yeah, yeah. And I think some people also have poor detoxification just genetically. So I'm gonna have somebody on my podcast from the DNA company soon and I've got my reports and I found out, well, I don't, I don't naturally detoxify well, so I'll probably do well to supplement with the glutathione or NAC or some, you know, precursors to glutathione. So that's something that just genetically I'm burdened with. So it, you know, that may be you, you know, that may be you that you, you are not going to methylate well. You're not going to detoxify well. There may be things that you always need to supplement with. A lot of people need B vitamins, I find in my practice. So I think there's just different, different ways that our bodies relate to the world.

Well, I've always been addicted to, I wouldn't say addicted, but I've always loved niacin flushes and I've done them for a really long time. I'm talking years before I would do them because some holistic podcast had said for mental health purposes. And this is when I was really struggling mentally.

Yes.

And so I would do them and they would throw— they would— I guess it's because it opens up the blood flow to your brain and so you get a fresh flush like you would when you're exercising. And so when I was doing those, my mood would do like a 180 on a really bad day. And so I've continued doing those for my skin and hair. I hope you're not— you're not going to tell me they're bad for you because I do them like once a week.

No, no. So I— so I mean, just to explain, there's forms of niacin that cause flushing when you take them, and there's forms that do not. You'll see it advertised as no-flush niacin. I have heard about using niacin for depression. So what kind of doses would you, would you take?

I did about 1,000 milligrams, so 2 of the tablets. I take, I, I get the flushing kind.

Yeah. People, people don't like the flushing feeling, but I think the one that works for depression is the, is the flushing kind.

Yeah. Yeah. But I believe it increases your NAD levels. I think that's also one of the other things.

Oh, it's, it's certainly precursor.

Yeah, so I do that. I don't mind the flushing. I combine it with some sauna, which I find is nice, but little things like that. You know, one of the other things I talk about in my book is if you are someone who is fairer, I'm, I'm half Italian, but I'm also half Irish. And so the chemical sunscreens really scare me after my discussions with people. So what I do is I don't go out during peak hours, but I take astaxanthin, which is that really powerful antioxidant, which is also great for my colitis. And when I went to the Caribbean, I was in Anguilla for about 6 days. And I didn't go out during the peaks. Like I would go out like 2 to 5 and just no sunscreen, just zinc oxide on my face, but no sunscreen on my body. I would take the astaxanthin. I loaded it about 2 weeks before. I didn't burn once, which is very strange for me. Well, I think it's also the seed oil consumption and people believe it's oxidizing or something. But when I would go to these places, I was like, you know, I, I burned my childhood. Like I, if I went in the sun without sunscreen, in the Caribbean, I burned and I didn't. And that was a really, cuz they say it acts as like an internal sunscreen.

Interesting.

Yeah, that one really has changed things for me because for people that are fairer and don't wanna slather on a bunch of chemicals on their skin, it's a nice option. And you also get the antioxidant benefit as, as well.

Awesome. So any additional thoughts on things that you're doing to protect your health now or things that other than eliminating toxins and at least doing some sort of elimination diet that you might recommend for someone with colitis?

I think largely we've covered most of them. I will say also the other aspect we haven't touched on, which is a big part of me getting healthier, is the mental aspect.

Mm-hmm.

It's one thing to feel better and be able to tackle these things because you're in a better state of mind. But I've started following people like even Teal Swan, who's quite controversial, but she really helped me watching her videos. I read one of her books and I've just been practicing a level of radical radical responsibility. So the idea that I don't, I don't whine about how other people treated me because I can't control that, but I whine, but I deal with why I stayed and why I tolerated that behavior and my self-esteem levels and what I will tolerate moving forward. That radical honesty and responsibility has really changed my life, and along with filling it with purpose and not getting sucked into people's problems and their gaslighting, that's been a really then the boundaries, that was a real problem for me that I think was also really throwing my— even the stress of that throwing off my microbiome. I notice now the way I approach the world is I don't get triggered by people. So people can say things about me, and if I don't believe them to be true about myself, because I know myself and I have a strong self-concept, I no longer react in the crazy way I used to do because I can go, no, that's not who I am, and that's not what I believe, and you're mischaracterizing me. So I think a lot of this is just a level of maturity, but investing those hours in understanding yourself and who you are and your background and $30,000 of therapy that I had to do, I think that was the final piece of this puzzle to get me to a place where I could look at myself in the mirror and answer to myself and, and feel good about who I've become. One of the guys on YouTube, it's called, I think the Heal Your Gut Guy is his name. He spends a lot of time connecting people's stress and their mental problems with their gut and making connection between the two.

Oh, absolutely. There's usually one of three things that happen that throw people's guts off that I've identified. It's either an episode of food poisoning, a lot of antibiotics or other medications like steroids or a extreme period of stress. Inevitably that starts the whole process of downhill. Slide for everybody. So of course, getting the stress piece under wraps is important.

Yes. It's funny because you're talking about purpose. You know, I do a million things. I got 3 businesses, I do a podcast, and now I'm deciding to do music. And because I'm just trying to fill my life with, with different things and give myself direction. And, and I'm, I'm writing a song right now called Cleaning House, and the idea behind it is that why do I feel like I'm— life makes more sense when I get rid of certain people, and a lot of those people. And what comes with that is a level of loneliness, and it's sort of like a tax you have to pay. The idea that once I, once I get rid of 90% of people, I will be happier and I have a level of peace, but I also will trade that off for a bit of loneliness at times and trying to navigate that world. And that's been a big thing for me, is getting rid of people that didn't serve me and didn't serve my purpose and didn't We're, we're not in alignment. And I think so many people hold on to people as they get older because it's just what you do.

Fear too.

Yeah. And you don't wanna say like, I've, it's not that you've evolved past them in a better way, but you're just on a different journey and you just feel that divergence. And so I will say in all this, I've, I've let some people go out of my life that I really needed to let go for a really long time. And not in a, not in the way I used to do it when I was all messed up in my gut. But just honest conversations about why— it's not about me saying to people, you need to change and you need to do this. It's about me saying, this is what I need out of our relationship, and if you can't provide that to me, then I need to do what I have into my control, which is leave.

Yeah, and that's a very courageous thing to do. So congratulations on, on making that big step.

It's— yes, I think it's needed for so many people.

Well, thank you so much for sharing about your journey and the stuff that you've been going through. And tell me the name of your two books and we'll provide links in the show notes.

Sure. So the Freedom Blueprint is the first one, 30, 35 remarkable strategies to conquer chronic illness. And then I've got How Not to Go Bald, which is subtitle for that one is 30 all natural solutions for hair retention. I sold, I'm selling them both on Gumroad right now, so I'll send you both the Gumroad links for those. Those are live. And then, you know, I run a marketing agency, but it's pretty esoteric. It's mostly lawyers.

And I don't think most of the people listening are interested in marketing help, but there you go.

You never know, right? But yes. Yeah, that's— this is the main thing. I mean, those are the only health books I'm going to do. This is just something that I've—

yeah, it's just a side passion, right?

Yeah. And I think I'm done at that point, but I just get into people saying like, yeah, ask me over and over, how'd you do this? And I just said, you know what, let me just sit down and put it into an ebook and then for the rest of my life I can just send people the link and, and they can look into it themselves. Yeah. Because you know, you actually do do this, but people then all of a sudden are like, can you, do you have 10 minutes? Do you have 30 minutes? Do you have an hour to help me out? And you're like, I, I can't unravel this. Yeah. And I also don't have the training to unravel this.

Right, right. Yeah. No, people's, people's health situations are very complex and require a lot of background information and study and You know, I'm, I'm sure you get people that say this to you.

So my health problem is like, I, I, I feel tired and it's like, okay, that could be 500 things.

It's true.

Like, I don't know how to attack that.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, thanks so much, Jordan. It was a pleasure.

Yeah, I appreciate you having me on. This has been really great.

Well, that was great. I love hearing testimonials and I sometimes bring on non-experts so that you all can hear testimonials and be encouraged and uplifted by the hope that they provide. As well as find different avenues you might wanna check out or follow. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can buy supplements at a discount from my Fullscript dispensary, order tests at a discount from my Rupa Health Lab store, or use my affiliate links to eVitamins, Bulk Supplements, or Amazon, which you'll find in the show notes. And if you'd like to connect with me online, you can follow my High Desert Health Facebook page, join my Gut Healing Facebook group, or join my newsletter list at highdeserthealthcoaching.com, as well as follow me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest. Links for those are in the show notes. Thanks for joining me today, and here's wishing you all the perfect stool.