Chronic Inflammation Nearly Broke Me – Here's What Fixed It

Everything you've done to this point is perfect. And had you not done that work, who knows where you may have been? You may be 2,000 steps backwards. Maybe you're not where you want to be, the perfect version of where you want to be. But just know, like, the work that you have done has been impactful and has been meaningful. Welcome to The Biohack Method. I am Lindsey Burwell, and every week I break down the science, Cut the fluff and hand high-performing women the real tools like peptides, transdermal patches, quantum energy, and root cause biohacking to actually feel like themselves again. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the Biohack Method podcast. I'm Lindsay Burwell, your host, and today I'm just taking things back and getting deep on really just my story and how I got here and how I have transformed my health, but not just that, my life. If you know anything about me, I know I talk. A lot about the decade of my life that I spent really in debilitating inflammation. In my 20s, I had chronic inflammation in my gut. I had IBS-C, IBS-D. I would go to so many doctors trying to find solutions, and they would do lab work and they would tell me everything looks fine, right? And they would have me go down to Walgreens and get— I remember getting like magnesium citrate just to help me have Literally a bowel movement. I was chronically, you know, constipated. Like it was such a wreck, and I my hormones were all over the place. I felt so low energy, low vibrations. I remember just feeling like I was going through the motions of life and feeling like this is not what I was meant to be doing. This is not how I ever dreamt in my life to being, and feeling frustrated that I wasn't getting any answers. And it wasn't until I found really root cause medicine and integrated health practitioners that. Not just helped me kind of peel the layers back in my health, but really took the time and created the space for me to get to know my body. And once I saw the shift that it made, not just from an inflammation perspective, but saw the shift in how I started showing up for my life, I knew this was my life work. I always say our trials are our greatest teachers. We are meant to come down here on Earth to experience certain trials and periods of suffering because they are meant to teach us. They're meant to refine us, and they're meant to expose to us where we are misaligned and ultimately where we are supposed to steward this pain into transmuting into transformation. And I just believe like that front-loading of, of the decade going through all those trials was meant for me to do the work now that I'm doing today. And not just that I go through a season of, you know, the gut issues, the hormones, the crippling anxiety, but I had all kinds of other just like crazy health stuff come up. Every trial that I had in my life seemed to kind of like manifest in the form of health. It kept coming up in the form of health. I was diagnosed with stage 4 skin cancer. I went and I got meningitis when it was COVID, which is crazy because meningitis is a virus that crosses the blood-brain barrier typically by some type of exposure. However, this was a time, in my life and in the world where we were at home, literally not exposed to anything, and I of course got meningitis and was hospitalized due to the virus. I had just so many things back to back. I was infertile for a series of my life where it forced me to learn about hormones, circadian rhythm, toxins, detoxification, all the chemicals and things that we're exposed to. I had a really hard time not just conceiving my children but also giving birth, I had a crazy emergency C-section with my first. She's now 10 years old, but was pregnant with her. Everything seemed to be going good. I had the most insane migraine one day that took me out of commission. I actually was like laying in bed totally out of it, and I finally went to the hospital because I just needed reprieve outside of— I think, I think, I think you could take Tylenol when you're pregnant. And what happened was my, my baby's heart rate was dropping significantly, and I had to go into emergency C-section. We didn't even have a car seat in the car. We were not prepared to have a baby. She was like 3 and a half weeks early. So experienced that, and I was not prepared to go under, not just in anesthesia. I went completely under. I was asleep for, I think it was like 4 to 6 hours. But then with my second, the infertility kicked in, hard time to conceive, major health stuff to work through during my pregnancy, including being bedridden 'cause of a hematoma, which if you know me, Making me lay down all day is like torture. Not being able to move my body literally feels like like a prison statement, and then giving birth to my daughter. I actually was prompted to have a home birth, and it went very well. However, my placenta didn't come out, and ultimately I had to be transferred to the hospital, which led to me bleeding out almost all the blood in my body, and then having to go under again, which was my absolute worst nightmare. The one thing I did not want to. to happen, and they almost had to pull my uterus. My uterus was cauterized, which made it so I could not have more children. And so I share all that to say I really went through a decade of front-loading massive trauma, massive trials, massive tribulations in the form of health, because ultimately I believe it was like my stewardship and my mission to really take things to such a deep level and help women to, to heal their body. What it forced me to do is to get to a place to learn the body at the cellular level, um, but not just that, to learn how to love and believe in your body's ability to heal, right? A lot of the seasons I also went through, um, created space for me to have to question, does my body work? And did I do something to mess up my body? And can my body actually do this? I remember being 3 weeks overdue with my second one, which forced me into that thought work, that mental work again of, does my body work? Can I actually give birth without medication? Can I give birth on my own, or am I going to need to be induced? That constant lesson that kept showing up, that constant teacher that kept showing up, that forced me to dig so deep internally. And to learn again about the body is how I became so relentless and obsessed with the work that I do today. And so it wasn't until though that last one, the cancer, when I got the diagnosis for the stage 4 melanoma, it shook me so bad. And it— I remember sitting in my living room being like, like, WTF, God? Like, have I not had enough? Like, have I not gone through enough trials? I have been faithful. I have stayed committed. I have tried to stay above the line. Like, this seems embarrassing almost how many trials I've had. And I, I remember visually getting a download of like, I keep sparing your life because you have work to do and you're not showing up yet. And I don't know if that resonates with Anyone listening today where you are, you're trying to do all the things right. You're working out. You're working harder. You're you're doing all the perfect things, but these trials keep coming up, and I just want to empower you with like they they're meant to teach you something. They're meant to refine you. They're meant to get you in alignment with really your purpose, which will reveal how well your body works, right? And so when I finally owned. That kind of 5th chance at life, if you will, and realize like I have to get over myself and get over the fear of being seen and getting over the fear of imposter syndrome and getting over the fear of people judging me doing my life work. I have to get over that because I have a mission to serve, and that was probably in, let's see, 20— my daughter was born in 2019, probably yeah, around 2020, 2021 is where I kind of put my binoculars on. And I was— I just was like committed to living on purpose and to help women heal their body and to help women start turning online for their life and help women believe in their body's ability to heal. And so that's when I launched my private practice. I started working just one-on-one with women. I would do the metabolic scan, the hair follicle analysis, urine analysis, and really help women get that personalized data about their body on what were the drivers of inflammation, what were the things down regulating their body's ability to be in alignment and vitality. We would look at the gut markers, we would look at metabolic health, we would look at nutrient deficiencies, what were the environmental interferences blocking their body. And then ultimately, we would create a personalized healing protocol specifically for them for the next 90 days. And I remember working with each woman and me just feeling so on fire and so on purpose with My goal here is to make sure that she leaves so empowered, knowing her body is not broken and it is absolutely incredible, and that she has tools of exactly what to do to step into that alignment. And it's funny because when I launched my practice, there was actually a lot of people doing what I was doing, and my brain sometimes would play games of like there's already so many people doing this, like, why would you also do it, right? The market is, quote, saturated. But I knew there were women who needed to work with me specifically, and there I needed to meet and work with. I always believe people come into your life so intentionally, like, there's no coincidences at all. And so when I just committed to that one woman, I really grew my business by that one woman at a time, and her referring her sister and her mom and her friends because she was so impacted and trans— and like Really inspired by the work we did together, and then she saw the ripple effects from her personalized protocol, and that just built over time. I started getting into doing workshops, and it wasn't like a room full of thousands of women; it was like a room of like ten women that we would do a workshop on detox one on one. What does it take to detox your body at the cellular level? And no, we're not talking about juice cleansing, right? And then offering the scan to them as well. It would be doing workshops on metabolism. metabolism and how to tap into fat stores for energy and not just be metabolically in that insulin and glucose state of your body, right? And so I became obsessed with bringing people together, creating experiences, creating that high vibration of collection of energy where people wanted to take their life to the next level. And so just in doing that work, what happened then was I started noticing a pattern. I started noticing a pattern of women who were taking literally a mortgage payment worth of supplements, and I talk about this all the time. But I remember literally like getting the scans back and being like, okay, you are deficient in these vitamins, these antioxidants, these minerals, these fatty acids. And so much of the time women would be like, but I'm taking this. Like look, like look at this green drink and look at this vitamin. I'm taking vitamin D. Like how can I be deficient on vitamin D? And And you know, we're all always learning, and I remember thinking, yeah, I don't know why you're deficient. That's weird. You are taking it, right? And I'd be like, maybe take twice as much, and so I was like, pause. Let me actually dig into this because something about me is I am a problem solver. When I notice problems, my brain gets infatuated with understanding the problem and then solving the problem, and so I was like, What is like? What does it take, number one, to absorb a vitamin? Like, what is the process of that? And so the science of absorption is really called the first pass effect. And what happens when you swallow a pill? First, your liver has to break it down. Then your gut has to absorb it. And you know, if you think about the world we live in today and all of the environmental interferences that we experience, when you think about you know all like there's parasites, there's mold, there's EMF, there's all these things we're kind of up against chemicals, artificial ingredients. Most people are experiencing inflammation in the gut. They're experiencing heavy, heavy toxic load in the liver. So we're kind of in this like threshold of time where our liver is not prioritizing supplements. It's prioritizing keeping us alive, right? And so with that shift in the world we live in, absorption really becomes an important conversation and awareness really to have. And that's where I was just kind of sitting with that new awareness for myself and going, okay. And maybe the problem isn't like taking more vitamins. Maybe the problem is absorption. And so what is out there that I could offer these women I was working with? So I started researching transdermal. So transdermal delivery has been around for decades, backed by science. This is your skin's ability to absorb right into the bloodstream, bypassing your gut and liver. And when I was looking out into the world for options for my clients, I didn't find what I loved. There really wasn't also a lot out there, but I didn't find what I loved because again, I really specialized in metabolism, metabolic pathways, detox pathways. And so I remember sitting on my couch and I looked at my husband and I was like, babe, like, I think I want to figure out how to make transdermal delivery for my clients. I didn't have this like world takeover like POV at all. It was truly like, I need something to help these women I'm working with. And That's where the patch method idea came in. Then I started obsessively looking for formulators that specialize in transdermal manufacturers here in the U.S. that specialize in transdermal, went to interviewing them, getting to know their processes and like the differences between the options that are out there, and ultimately what then we co-created as the patch method today. And like I said, I I didn't have a world takeover idea. It was like genuinely, I just want to help my family. I want to help my daughters. I want to help my clients. And just have some fun, right? And so I share that too to say like analysis paralysis and getting stuck in perfection is one of the most like life dream debilitating experiences. I am a little dyslexic, and I learn best by doing. That's something that I just have always been. I just have to do and learn and refine as I go, and so know that like anything you do in your life, especially when it comes to health, it's not about learning it, perfecting it, and then moving forward. It's just about doing and taking one step forward. And as you move through your life, you're going to be revealed things, you're going to learn things, you're going to shift and evolve and take one step to the right, then maybe one step to the left. And it's all meant to be the journey. It's all meant to be on purpose. I'll even share too, sometimes when you're going through like a health transformation— I know this, um, true to true for me, but I also have seen this and heard from many clients that, you know, let's say you've been working with doctors and you have done all the tests and you have done all the detoxes and you have done all the things, and you've done so much more than your friend next door who doesn't do anything and eats whatever she wants and seemingly is fine. And you might feel defeated because you're like, I literally have done everything. What I want you to know, and I know this this to my core is that everything you've done to this point is perfect. And had you not done that work, who knows where you may have been? You may be 2,000 steps backwards. Even though you're not where you want to be, maybe, you know, physically, or like from a lab perspective, or life, whatever it is, maybe like maybe you're not where you want to be, the perfect version of where you want to be, but just know like the work that you have done has been impactful and has been meaningful, um, and, and that it's meant to be sometimes 2 steps forward, one step back, or 2 steps to the right and then a step to the left. Each of those steps are meant to be so intentional for your transformation, for you to learn and evolve and grow. So don't downregulate or downplay all the work that you have done. And so with the journey of the PATCH Method, It really became so, so fast and clear that this, this is a really powerful option. I was getting messages, text messages, DMs about women sleeping better throughout the night. Their Oura Ring regulating their HRV better, their heart rate better, feeling less inflamed, less bloated, with more energy, more clarity. And we just started creating new, new patches. We then launched the immunity patch. After that, we launched the testosterone patch. We launched the cortisol fix patch. And what I have noticed since then is not just the impact, but like really just how powerful they are. And so we've just been working really on mission this year to get more awareness of this option with transdermal delivery and what makes the patch method so different and so powerful in that they're USA-made, female-founded, upwards of 10 vitamins in each patch. So you're not having to use 10 different patches, right? And it's all about consolidating. Instead of taking 5,000 pills, you have a couple patches that are supporting your body in a more powerful, bioavailable way. I'll also share too, like, I've always been into working out and exercising my whole life. In fact, in college I ran marathons. I no longer run marathons. I— that first marathon I did was real hard. I actually trained so hard for it, and it was like the worst run of my life. Like, you know how you'll train for something and then you just have like an off day? That was me on my marathon day, and I've never reclaimed it. I was like, that was a one-and-done for me. Um, but I was working out. So much in college and eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, but I was easily like 25 pounds heavier than I am today. And what truly transformed me at a physical level was first and foremost detoxing, because detoxing is getting into the cells to delete those inflammatory cells. It's opening up the liver, it's opening up the lymph, so your body becomes more resilient. If you find that like you have one carb or a little bit of gluten or a little bit of dairy and you get inflamed It's absolutely because your resilience is so low, your body can't handle a lot, right? And so think of like your body like a glass jar of water, and all these hyperexposures, whether it be stress, toxins, you know, all of it that we experience in life, it's like a drop in your, in your, in your glass water bottle or glass bottle. And ultimately, if you're not draining and detoxing and working to move those through, then your water will eventually get overfull and spill over. And that's where symptoms come in. Symptoms like weight gain, fatigue, migraines, headaches. Um, your physical symptoms in your body, um, really are your body's way of whispering to you misalignment and things that are off, whether it be deficiencies or hyper, you know, hypertoxic load, inflammation, what have you. So whenever there's a physical or a manifested physical symptom, it truly is your body just trying to whisper to you that the resiliency is low, your cup is too full, we need to clean it out. So So detoxing is so essential. I think it's non-negotiable in today's world, and not just like a juice cleanse. It's actually so different. It's removing interferences, it's cleaning up the cells, it's getting your body to be more resilient, truly. So that was like first and foremost a huge step for me. Then it was supporting metabolic flexibility, and what I mean by that is it's retraining your body to switch from glucose and insulin for energy and turning it into a fat-burning machine for energy. I did this through diet, I did it through The order in which I eat food. It did it— I did it in through fasting throughout the night, really capitalizing on that cellular cleanup autophagy cycle throughout the night. Um, I also did it in just little life hacks like apple cider vinegar, utilizing vinegar that cleanses the blood. It helps regulate the glucose uptake. Um, going for walks after I eat, body squats, implementing fasting throughout the day, fasting periods. Um, so really tapping into retraining my metabolic kind kind of switch of like what energy source it's using was like truly the next evolution of like my body composition changing. So that's a wrap for today's podcast with The Biohack Method. It was so fun just to kind of share a little bit about my story. If you ever have any questions, certainly reach out. We're always online. I'm always reading every message online on Instagram. And if this story inspired you, or maybe you know someone who's kind of going through it and trying all the things, feel free to share with them. You know, I think that transformation is huge when we can share stories and share resources. So that always means a lot. So for the next time— That's it for today's episode of The Biohack Method. If this lit something up in you, share it, tag me @LindseyBurwellWellness, and drop a review. It genuinely helps this show reach more women who really need it. I'll see you next time.