Reclaim Your Health: How To Beat Autoimmune Disorders Once & For All | Palmer Kippola

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Welcome to women, to women, everything, adrenal hormone, weight loss and trauma. So today I'm going to introduce you to someone I just recently heard about and her name is Palmer Coppola. She's got a very, very interesting story I think you'll be compelled by. So she's an author and a speaker and functional medicine certified health coach who helps people reverse and prevent autoimmune conditions. She actually developed something very, very fascinating called fights, which stands for food, infections, gut health, hormone balance and stress to help others beat autoimmune conditions. Based on her two decade battle to overcome multiple sclerosis herself. Her Amazon bestselling book is Beat autoimmune the six keys to reverse your condition and reclaim your health with a forward by functional medicine pioneer Mark Feynman. So welcome to the stage and we are so excited about gathering more information about this because it's an issue that so many people actually struggle with. Palmer and I'm so excited to hear your perspective on this.

Here with us today. I'm so grateful that you're here with us today and I'm really looking forward to kind of digging deep into your story as well as your information for those people out there that have some autoimmune issues. So let's start with kind of the beginning of your journey. We won't go into great depth about it, but I think it's helpful for readers to hear that it's possible to heal from in your case, Ms. Let's kind of take you back to age 19 when I think you were diagnosed with Ms. And probably felt terrible at time. And let's kind of move forward in terms of, you know, how you got where you are and what we can give our readers hope for.

I love it. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. Marcel. So, yeah, we have to go back a few years in time because as you said, I was 19 and I was home on a summer break after my freshman year of college and I was working a summer job. One morning I woke up and the soles of my feet were all tingling and I thought it would just go away. So I went off to work and the tingling just crept up my leg like a vine. And by noon the tingling had reached my knees and I knew something was really wrong. So I called my mom and dad who called the family doctor who said, get her over to the neurologist at UCLA today. So that's what we did. And after about a five minute neurological exam, she pronounced I'm 99% certain that you have Ms. And if I'm right, there's nothing you can do except take medication. And later I would learn that she took my parents aside and said, you better get ready for her life in a wheelchair because that's where she's heading. And you have to remember, this is the 1980s. There's no Internet. Nobody had gone before me. We had never heard of ms, so we were terrified. We didn't know what to do, what to expect. We had very little hope. And by nightfall, that tingling reached right under my collarbones. And by the time I crawled into bed, my mom crawled in with me, was holding me, and we're both crying. Only at this point, Marcel, every area from my neck down had gone completely numb. And I would stay that way for a full six weeks.

So.

So that was my introduction to Ms. I didn't have any symptoms. That kind of crept up on me. It was like getting hit by a Mack truck. And one of the pivotal things that happened that summer is I lay on the couch just not knowing what to expect and would I have to move back home with my parents? Could I go to school in a wheelchair? We had no idea. But a family friend came to visit and she asked me a question that would change my life. And she said, palmer, why do you think you got the ms?

Bam.

What do you mean, why do I think? I. Are you implying that I did something here? Right. I mean, I was completely taken aback and I was offended, but I just couldn't let go of that question. I didn't have anything to do, so I just chewed on that like a dog with a bone. And it occurred to me in a flash of insight, and I have to take you a tiny bit farther back in time because I had been adopted by very loving mom and dad as a baby. But my dad was a fighter pilot who, whose way was the right way. And he yelled a lot. And he had very opinionated perspectives on things and judgments. And he used to call my mom names. And my earliest memory that came to me as I'm lying on the couch at age 19 was my dad is yelling at my mom, calling her names, and I'm standing up to him with my little dukes up, age 3 or so, saying, if you call my mom names, I'll soc your lights out, or whatever a three year old might scream at her father. And in that moment, I realized, Marcel, that I was a child warrior. And for some reason I had this insight that my immune system was a proxy for that hypervigilance. I Developed insomnia at age 12. I was always scanning my environment for safety. You bet. My adrenals were probably really shot. And I knew that chronic stress was in fact, my deepest root cause. But that would be the guiding question for the rest of my life. Why do we get these things? Why is this happening? So to just put a bow on the story, I am fortunate that the type of Ms. That I had was relapsing, remitting, and it faded in the nick of time for me to go back to school. And so off I went to my sophomore year and a 26 year journey of relapsing, remitting, Ms. And over that period of time, I had six neurologists all tell me, there's nothing you can do except take medication. And my dad, who was the one who was angry and yelled a lot, was also the same person who motivated me, telling me, honey, you can beat this thing. Which is why the book is now called Beat autoimmune as an homage to my dad, because he was encouraging me to do experiments. And that's what I did. So for those two decades, I started with stress reduction because I figured that's why I got into this mess. I did yoga, meditation. I still do, because that turns out to be the number one thing that I still wrangle with is chronic stress. But in 2010, I stumbled upon, very happily stumbled upon functional medicine. Worked with a practitioner who found that I have this sensitivity to gluten that I had no idea about. For my entire life, I've been eating gluten. I've got a picture of me as a baby in a high chair with my arm up to here in a box of Cheerios. And lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, pizza, you name it, right? Every meal. And now we know that gluten creates a leaky gut in anyone who eats it. And I had been creating the advent, the opportunity for the Ms. To arrive and stay because I was doing things that I had no idea was causing a problem. So when I removed the gluten, I.

Just wanted to say something, though.

Gluten does not.

Yeah, gluten does not cause a leaky gut for some people. If you have a gluten sensitivity and you also have a glute, a leaky gut, then you're in big trouble. So I just want to correct that because it isn't. It isn't so that gluten causes leaky gut.

But anyway, I thank you for, for observation and correction on that. And what I'm referencing is a study from 2015, Alessio Fasano did a paper that just shows it. It has the opportunity. It's the most inflammatory protein. It's about as digestible as human hair, which sounds awful. And for many people, they don't have a problem with it at all. We find in my practice. And everybody has to do their own experimentation, of course, but. But this turns out to be a really insidious precipitator of what could be a bad path, which is the advent of autoimmunity. So that was my, let's call it the linchpin trigger. There was a lot more to the story than that, but I just want to say that that was my particular story. And since we're moving it about a month afterwards, I haven't had a single symptom since. So it's been.

A wonderful recovery. And then I quit my day job to study this full time.

Awesome. Yeah, yeah. So let's kind of go back to something because I really talk about this a lot in the work that I do and that is that there's a number of factors that contribute to all of this and one of them is this notion of what you described so beautifully with that three year old. You know, and I always say to people is, how's life doing this for me instead of to me? Which is exactly what you kind of pointed out. And the whole piece about we grow up with a lot of things that we have to defend ourselves for. And it doesn't mean that our parents, who are mean or nasty or anything, but it does mean that we have defense mechanisms that we learn and that we take all that in and it does affect our cortisol level. And I think a lot of times in science or just in general, we talk about let's do stress reduction, all that stuff. That's all wonderful, we all need it. But if we don't understand that piece that you so beautifully got to, which is that I was in hyper vigilant because of what I was dealing with every day and that contributed to that stress response that was continuous. That can then contributed more to the gut being so unhappy and more susceptible to the issues with leaky gut, with more bacteria in the gut and all kinds of other things that were hosting that problem. So I really appreciate you saying that you want to talk a little bit more about that because I think that's so important for our readers to hear is just part of that journey.

Yeah, well, I'm so grateful that you really illustrated that there's a lot of good science and studies research about these adverse childhood experiences called the ACEs studies. I know you know this, and I believe it's so empowering because it doesn't mean that what happened to you in childhood is your destiny. It means that it increases your risk factor. As you beautifully stated, none of this is predetermined. You know, our DNA is not our destiny, our choices, but sometimes what does happen to us or our environments in childhood. And it doesn't have to be abuse. It could be neglect, it could be witnessing violence. It doesn't have to happen to you directly. But all of this really sets the stage for these conditions even decades later. But there's so much hope about that because there's so much that we can do to turn things around. And that's. I know you speak about it because it's the whole. It's the whole conundrum. Right. It's the whole toxic bucket of things that we can ultimately start to empty out and that helps to reduce the inflammation.

Makes a huge difference. And I think it's part of that kind of array of issues that have to be dealt with as. Just as you have talked about with this whole notion of fight. So tell us a little bit more about how you came to putting all these pieces together, because a lot of times people are in such despair around it, but for you, it sounds like you took gluten out and things just got so much better, which is amazing.

Yeah. But I'm also really clear about a couple of things, Marcel. I'm really clear that this is not a message of just remove gluten and everything's going to be hunky dory because everybody is so different.

And.

And I don't know if I would have had the same incredible response to that had I not already been lowering a lot of things in that. What I call the toxin bucket.

So when I did heal, I couldn't imagine that an average woman like me could have defied something that six neurologists had said was impossible. So that's why I quit my job. I was in the high tech industry in sales and marketing. So this was not my. I was not a healthcare person, but I was determined not. I don't deal with bullies very well, and I felt like I had been bullied into taking medication or my life would be shortened or I would wind up in a wheelchair. And I thought, you know what? I wonder. So that's when I dove into the research and I found epigenetics, which is the study of environmental factors and how they influence or cause genetic expression. So I'm really clear that I'll always have the genes for, but I mostly control how those get expressed. And the other empowering thing is that there's actually an autoimmune equation that shows that this leaky gut is typically the pathway. You have the genes which are an underlying risk predisposition. Right. It's not 30%. The CDC even says it's 5 to 10% of your risk are your genes. But these mysterious environmental factors are the lion's share. And then we have the leaky gut. You add all those things together, that's the advent. But when you address, by removing those mysterious factors and healing your gut, you have the possibility of turning things around epigenetically. So when I found that science, which I thought should have made front page news, I decided, you know what? I'm not leaving my office until I discover all of the modifiable lifestyle factors that people can in fact control. Right. So I just wrote all these things down. And then I decided when I was asked to write a book, I want to come up with something that makes it really easy for people to remember all of those factors. And so I like word jumbles. And a word emerged and the word was fights. And I lament that it didn't spell the word peace, but it was more in line with the message from my dad that I could beat the Ms. So fights it is. And it stand stands for food, infections, gut, health hormone balance, toxins and stress, which is a huge bucket. And that includes trauma too. So that's fights.

Yep. Fantastic. I mean, it's a great way to remember it because I think people get a little bit perplexed about how to do that. So what would you say to somebody that said, look, they may have begun this journey and how quickly they can turn some of this around, especially if they have Ms. Or some of the other autoimmune issues.

Well, the extremely good news is that fights applies to any of the 150 autoimmune conditions because it's a vast framework for looking at this. And as Mark Hyman notes, these are, it's all one single problem. This is an imbalance of your immune system that's driven by chronic inflammation. So when you address the fights factors, you can potentially reverse any of these. And I would say to someone who is asking, how long is it going to take? Well, there's a couple of factors involved. How long have you had the condition? Right. That's a huge factor because autoimmunity happens on a spectrum. Starting silently, you can't feel it. That's when antibodies are brewing too expressive, meaning you have some symptoms. And if you don't address those symptoms while they're speaking to you, they will get louder, probably, and then full blown autoimmune disease, where the potential of tissue damage occurs. So if you're just catching it because it's at the very front end of when this autoimmunity is expressing itself, it's much likely that you can reverse the problem faster. Right. I mean, it only makes sense. Overall, the way that I help to set expectations is to recommend that people start with food, because you might be able to heal 60 to 80% or sometimes 100% of the way just by changing what you're eating. And if that doesn't work, you got to keep going and digging deeper into the infections and toxins, which turn out to be very much a thing and present in like 90% of the people that we work with are dealing with things like that. So sometimes it'll take a third of the time that you've been unwell.

And how about the types of infections that you see and also the toxicity that you see?

Yeah, number one across the board for infections is Candida overgrowth. Yeah.

It'S really a thing. And it tends to go hand in hand with parasites. So we also see chronic parasites in people. And it's not just for animals. We're animals too. Right.

So we see first off Candida, second parasites, third, chronic Lyme is, especially in people with ms, is something that you want to make sure to rule out not just the Borrelia, but many of the co infections as well. So that's a big deal. And I would add the toxins piece right in there. Mycotoxins from water damage buildings is huge. And these all become these inhospitable bedfellows together, the candida, the parasites and the mycotoxins. So those would be the top ones we see for sure.

Absolutely. I wouldn't agree with you more. And mold being the one that you're describing with the mycotoxins, because people have these amazing houses that are nice and airtight, which is amazing, but it keeps a lot of the black molds and molds inside. And I would encourage people, if you're listening to this, if you're someone who's super sensitive to perfumes or going to Home Depot or, or you go into a room and you can smell, you've got a nose, it's better than anybody else's, and you can smell the mold, that's probably you. That are in that category of needing to get somebody to really evaluate that for sure. Because it can affect your health long term and certainly can increase your risk of Alzheimer's, believe it or not. So be important to pay attention to that. So true. How about supplementation? You know, what about that in regards to, do you segment that out in regards to if they have adrenal issues or if you, if they have GI issues or combination of all of the above?

Yeah, I mean this becomes so individual when we're working with people because oftentimes the gut is so dysregulated. I mean, people have trouble digesting anything. So putting supplements in before they're able to digest and absorb things may not make sense. So it depends where they are in the healing process because sometimes we want to lower inflammation and we can do that with curcumin and fish oils, for example.

Not necessarily long term, but that would be a starting point. And many people are deficient in proteins and can't break them down. So essential amino acids then become a really important pillar of being able to make the protein that your body needs. I mean, we go through the protein, right? We go through vitamin C. Our bodies don't make vitamin C, so we might need to supplement. And I always advocate for corn free varieties varieties because unless it says on the bottle, vitamin C is derived from corn. So it's possible to find it from tapioca as an example. Another method or delivery method that we like is liposomal forms because it just bypasses your digestion. So for many people.

With Ms. And other autoimmune neurological problems, in particular, vitamin D Bs are very deficient. And speaking of deficiency, 50% of the population in general is deficient in vitamin D, which happens to be, as you know, a hormone, pro hormone, and it's lower in people with autoimmune issues. So that's one of the easiest hormonal imbalances to correct is just know your number. Right. Ask your doctor to run your vitamin D level and do what you can to get that up.

Absolutely. I usually have people test it twice. You know, I live in the north, so I have them tested middle, you know, winter and have them stop for three days if they're on it. And then also in the summertime stopping again for three days. So we just get a sense about what they're taking and if they need more. Many people need 5,000 in, in the main area where I live in the, in the winter. So it's, it's a little bit more than we suggest. But yeah, very, very important. Hormone. Awesome. So anything else that you want to share with us that we didn't get to, that we really need our audience to kind of know. I think the sense of hope is unbelievably important because I think a lot of times people just feel helpless when they have this happen to them. And instead of saying, this is an inspiration for me to look at how is life doing this for me instead of to me like you did, which is. Okay, let me check this out. What are some other kind of take homes that you think the audience really needs to hear?

Oh my goodness. How much time do we have? This is such a beautiful question. And we could talk, literally talk all day about it. I want more than anything, Marcel and I, so thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective on this. I want people to know that hope is real, that complete healing is possible. No matter what you've been told and no matter where you are on the autoimmune spectrum, whether you've just got the first inklings of symptoms, whether they've been screaming at you for years, or somewhere in between, there is hope. We have worked with people who've been bedridden, who've been, you know, had canes, who were complet depressed and have been able to ditch the canes and dance like you are dancing again. I mean, so no matter what your doctor is telling you, you will be educating your doctor probably in this matter for a while. Because it takes 17 to 20 years for things to trickle down into clinical practice. Right. But this empowering science is real and I want to invite people to just really know that it's possible and then believe that they will beat whatever autoimmune condition they're dealing with.

Awesome. And how can people learn a little bit more about you? And where is there a website or some place that they gather more data?

So you can find me@palmerkipola.com that's my website and blog. I love to share healing stories because it's not just my story, you know, I'm just trying to amplify the good news and share other people's healing journeys so that's where they can find out about me. I also offer free training@free autoimmune training.com if you've been inspired by this conversation. This is a way to learn more. And atfree autoimmune training.com and I share the science, the stories, the strategies, case studies of people who are healing. I mean, it's inspirational to me. And this is how we are going to change the conversation. Marcel is having conversations like this and motivating, inspiring, empowering people that they, too, can do this.

Absolutely. And I can't second that. Enough is that it's really, really important for us all to understand that we can heal from so many different things.

There's always hope.

Yes. There is always hope.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.