48. It’s NOT “Just Anxiety”: The Real Reason You Feel So Sick (and Misunderstood) with Michelle Shapiro

We become like detectives. You and I are detectives going through people's lifestyle, their food, their supplements, what they're exposed to, their emotional beliefs, their thoughts, to really uncover what are the things that are causing imbalances. Would you agree?

Absolutely. I think functional medicine is not random supplements. It is pattern recognition. Every single person is so different. Like Mona, we could have two clients. One of my clients can have the exact same symptoms as another. One of them can have them from eating tomatoes because they have a histamine issue or while another person's cuz they're eating too much fiber. Like, there's literally no way that any one protocol would fit both people. And understanding anything about a person's body is so relevant to the treatment plan that there's just no way you could ever apply a functional, a true functional medicine or functional nutrition model without extreme detective work and kind of putting the puzzle together and the making those connections.

My dear friend, K.N. lifelong. Where have you been all my life, friend? Michelle Shapiro. Welcome to Rooted in Wellness. We have so much to talk about today, but let's just start out with the foundation of the podcast. So this podcast is really all about ancient wisdom in our modern world and how we can become more rooted in ourself and our health and our happiness. So let's start off the episode by talking about what are two or three things that help you feel really rooted in yourself and in your happiness and in your life?

I love that. So it's been almost corny. I've been talking so much about walking and I'm like, why did I get this like, huge degree and like practice for all these years if the whole thing is walking? So for myself, if I do not walk a certain amount, for me it's like really 10,000 steps. It's kind of where I landed. I just don't feel like myself and I don't feel well. So walking is all that, so to speak. And for me, it really does make me feel rooted and grounded in wellness. The other thing I would say is that for me to feel like myself, I need to be what I call working the phones. So when I'm not with clients and talking to them, I'm with my friends and family on. You will find me on the phone with my friends and family. And that is like, where I feel the most like myself is just listening and talking to the people who see me for who I am. And it makes me feel anything that makes me feel like myself, makes me feel grounded. So that's where I feel the most like myself. And the healthiest.

You were the first person to give such a unique, authentic answer. Oh my gosh. On the phone with the people that you love, the people who see you for who you are. Like, talk about a brilliant way for you to just shine your light. Right? And that's exactly what you do online for so many people. You are so authentic in the way that you speak. And it doesn't come off in an approach that is startling to people. It really does come from this heart centered approach. So that's a reflection of your community for sure. All right. So on the flip side, you and I have these insane healing journeys which I'm convinced is what keeps us aligned with our purpose. We'll get to that. So you must know in your life when you're drifting from that, then maybe when you're not talking to your tri, when you're not walking, do you catch the symptoms or what are the things that cause you to feel more uprooted?

It's whenever I notice a symptom that I know that I'm past my baseline. So I will actually say, and I almost have a, a joke that goes on with my husband where I'll say, you know what, I haven't noticed any digestive issues in so long. And by the time I say that is when the digestive issue is coming already. So that's when I know is when a symptom shows up. I have a very strong communication line between. And you do as well, Mona. Of course, between my mind and body. So I get those signals and I take them very seriously. So I'll start to notice when any of those symptoms come up. It's kind of a call to go back home. What? Nothing will disregulate me as much as sitting on my phone too much. Looking at it now, it's very different if I'm talking to people and if I'm looking at my screen scrolling on Instagram, I will face neck pain. I will. That will result in some sort of dysautonomic function which I know we're going to talk about. So for me, that's one of the most least grounding things in the world. And then I would say, you know, before I mentioned, what makes me feel grounded is feeling like myself if I'm doing things that are out of alignment with what I want to do consistently. It's so silly, Mona, but I hate sitting at dinners. So I, I need to like walk around and talk to people. I need to. It's the way I like to engage. So just sitting down in the same position for that long. If I have to do like three dinners in a row, I feel awful. So I just know my body and I know myself, so I won't book them in a row. I'll do a brunch one day if I have to, I'll do a dinner and then I say I have to see you next weekend. So anytime I'm doing something that I know doesn't make me feel good repeatedly, even that being out of alignment, it really can create symptoms for me.

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You guys are hiking the Griffith Observatory Are you kidding me? That's your lunch meeting. Yeah, I know.

Exactly.

Not New York.

I love that you said that because, you know, for me as well, I feel like there's this resonance within the body that just knows. It's like our spidey senses going off, like, oh, there it is again. There's that feeling in your neck, there's that feeling in your gut. Or any digestive symptoms. Because I think as practitioners, we talk about symptoms all day long to the people that we work with. But I think for the most part of the population, because there's so much happening in our world, you know, we've become so desensitized to this communication system from our body, which is a freaking miracle. Let's just say, like our body's communicating with us all the time, but we've mastered kind of masking the. The symptoms, the emotions, the feelings that come up for what we think we should be doing instead of what our body's actually asking for. So that's probably a good segue. So you take on such a unique approach to nutrition, and I love that you. You really blend the world of functional nutrition and healing as well as our mindset and how that matters. But what led you into that work? And why is it so important to break away from this, like, tradition dietitian kind of mentality? I remember when I went to school for nutrition, it was like the nutritionist against the dietitians that like, it's like.

No, no, we can come together, but.

Tell us about your story.

Yeah, I, I have lovingly called myself the anti dietitian dietitian a little bit. I definitely believe that every single one of us has a seat at the table, and we are in such desperate need of healers and people who want to help others. So for one person to diss someone else and this kind of like, credentialism obsessed world we live in, I think is completely ridiculous. And I think that we should all be so, so grateful that there are people who want to take their time to help others and we should welcome help from every single person. So that's just something I have to say about that because I'm really, really passionate about it. Yeah. So I went to. I. I grew up in Queens, New York. I'll kind of weave my personal and health story together. I grew up in Queens, one of the most diverse, amazing places in the entire world, and I always lived in a larger body. When I was younger, when I was going off to college, I kind of realized that as I'm going to College, it's not going to be as like it's gonna be much more homogeneous place. And in Queens people are really valued for their uniqueness. Like it was like cool to be different in New York City growing up, you know, so for myself, like, you know, gender identity, racial identity, body size, there was so there was 5, 000 kids in my high school. So it's like there's so many different types of everyone that whatever made you stand out was actually, you know, an advantage. But I realized I was going to school at the University of Delaware, which is a much more homogeneous place. And I realized like if I don't lose weight before I go to school, I will not accepted. Like people don't know that I'm Michelle Shapiro, class clown. Like they don't know these things about me. It didn't inhibit me in my younger life, but it didn't hibit me going, you know, when I was going to school. So I lost. And this is like a trigger warning. I would never recommend this, but I lost close to £100 before I went away to school. And it was probably in like a year's time frame through disordered eating and starvation the entire time I was at college. Mona I was sick. I had hypothyroidism, acid reflux, severe gut issues, severe panic attacks that would happen several times a day with vomiting, like severe symptoms. And every doctor I went to was like, why don't you lose those last five? And really what it was is my body was so disregulated from that extreme stress and that extreme weight loss that it led me into basically being chronically ill the rest of my adult life. And I, I couldn't understand it until I sought the help of a naturopathic physician, Dr. Robert Kochko, who became one of my besties by force. I was in that session with him and I was like, we're done now. I was like, we are best friends for life now. You're not just my doctor. But it was when he kind of sat, we went, we did a Dutch test and we kind of looked at everything. It was a 90 minute initial session that I think we went over into the two hour range. And I was like, oh, this is what I'm actually supposed to be doing. Because traditional dietetic schooling didn't sit well with me and I often complained. I worked in nursing homes and the last straw for me of why I left conventional dietetics was I would not give ensure to long term care patients. I just felt like it was very counter to what the Work that I wanted to do. And then I. I left to pursue functional health. As I had my own healing journey. I then wanted to help people in the same way. I had kind of a second health crisis a couple years ago. We'll talk about two related to histamines and long Covid. Um, but that was the. What led me initially into functional dietetics versus that conventional dietetics degree which I have.

But so important. And I think that says just a lot about you because often we go into these big school systems and there's a one cookie cut, you know, cookie cutter approach to how we're approaching healing and well being. But that's the exact approach that got me sick thinking that I had to do something in a certain way to heal. And a lot of like the research, I don't know about you, but the textbooks that we had, they're like so antiquated. Right? So I love that you said that this idea of conformity and you as a kid, how that has also now bled into how you lead as a leader and a healer in this world. And I think that says a lot because when people look at, you know, practitioners like you and I, I think the misconception is that we've arrived. Here's pillar health. This is what it is. But I swear I got like every weird genetic thing that came up. Like I'm this highly sensitive person, which we'll talk about. And like, I'm just affected by the Weir weird stuff, but I'm kind of changing the lens in which I. I look at that one to not conform to the other healers that are out there. I think you and I are here for a reason, to kind of deliver a message based on our healing and the fact that we're on this path because it keeps us students, it keeps us in practice for all of those things. So I love that you have that approach especially. So let's flash forward then. You know, you and I share the story of COVID Covid was. I thought it was fine. Covid felt fine for me. My body was strong and resilient to fortunately not have the same symptoms as a lot of other people did. But I didn't realize that I went into long haulers Covid and that long haulers Covid. That ended up. I think I was just way more. My immune system was just so compromised that I became predisposed to mold. I had full mold exposure in my apartment. So this is over two years. Covid, long haulers mold exposure. And I've shared this on the Podcast before getting over mold, doing all the hardcore protocols. The exact same thing that got me sick. Hardcore protocols now depleting even more. I stripped my system. I probably gutted my. All the amazing microbes in my gut microbiome with all these binders and modalities and stuff like that in order to heal. And now it's been a process of rebuilding. So share your story from that because the timing of you kind of gaining so much traction online was with the rise of understanding long callers. Covid but also histamine response.

Thank you for saying everything you just said. First of all, I'm. I'm literally actively nodding so hard and closing my mouth because I'm like, oh, my God, Mona, I want to. What you just said is so beautiful. First of all, the conformist thing that you picked up on that I'm very, very nonconformist. So, yes, if you're telling me to fit into a box and not listen to myself or not listen to the people in my life, it will never work. So that is hard for me about the conventional education system. Absolutely. I had lovingly, as you kind of just put together the same mold vid puzzle, which is I had a mold exposure. I had exposure to Covid. And I really think of. And I want to do a couple like, defining terms to help us here, but I really think of long covet as a combination of a couple different syndromes. One of them is Mast cell activation Syndrome. I'm sure everyone's seen it online. Mcas. Mcas, we call it pots. Postural orthostatic Tachycardia syndrome, which is what we'll talk about. And then hypermobility. So that's kind of an exacerbation of hypermobility symptoms. This long haul, Covid as a. It's kind of a cluster of these different syndromes. Some people have one a little more than the other, but they deeply connect and relate. So I had this mold exposure. I was going to the best functional medicine doctors, best naturopathic physicians, and just absolutely destroy, like you said, destroying myself with mold protocols, detoxes, binders, everything. I got sicker and sicker. The more I went to functional medicine doctors, the sicker I got. And really, when I'm talking about these people in highly sensitive bodies. Mona, like us a long time ago, we used to always say about functional medicine, we're the last stop when conventional medicine has failed you. Well, now the clients I'm seeing have been harmed by functional medicine. So it's like they did conventional, they did functional and now they're sicker than they were before. And can you imagine paying thousands of dollars for these advanced tests to then get sicker? I mean, imagine the heartbreak and the fear in that. If you're going to the practitioners who people say, this is the last stop on the train. So that's really where I've been. And you said something so beautifully, which is that it was the protocols themselves that actually made me sicker. It wasn't even mold. It was when I tried to kill the mold that I got sicker. And. And I can say why that happens, too. So covet as a virus attacks our immune system, as we know, and the organs of our body. But there was something really weird that happened after Covid, which is that people stayed fatigued. Their hearts were racing hives for months after, and we just really couldn't understand. There was one study in 2022 where they did statewide surveys, and they found that up to 3. 30% of people in each state who had Covid were experiencing long Covid. 30% of people. That's. That could be 100 million Americans who are experiencing it. So as a definition, our mast cells are a type of immune cell. They're a type of a white blood cell that is. Are really involved in connecting our body with the resources that it needs in times of threat. It's a. It's an immune response. Basically, the way our mast cells work is they're kind of like the guards on the watchtower of our bodies. So if there's a battle like Covid, let's say, mast cells are going to see that they're going to, you know, deliver resources to the body where they need it. And I'll say how they do that. And then after mast cells are really interesting because they stay kind of on guard. They're, like, very hypervigilant, and they connect to both our immune system and our nervous system. So if they sense a threat is coming, they're going to fire out everything they've got. From an immune perspective, the way mast cells work is there's receptors on the outside, and then they have these sacs on the inside which have all these different chemical messengers inside of them. Histamine is one of those chemical messengers. So they will have something attached to the outside and as a result, mount an immune response. Covid and mast cells share a commonality in that One of the receptors on mast cells are this ACE2 receptor, which Covid attacks and attaches to. So the reason why long Covid happened is because normally we have an immune response and then our immune system's like, okay, that's done and. But now we have an immune response and a nervous system response that cycles and perpetually keeps going. And the problem is that histamines, and Those are only one of about 1200 messengers that Mast cells send out. Histamines, particularly when there's too much floating in our bloodstream, can create extreme symptoms in people.

It's also a learned stress response from the body. Right. If the body adapts to constantly defending itself, it's going to get stuck there because it's keeping, it's keeping itself alive. Right. So people started understanding this concept of mast cells, the concept of a cytokine storm within their body. So they're gradually starting to understand this, but they're not recognizing like just the impact of the smallest things that they could be doing every single day. And when we think about that concept of a mast cell, people always talk about your body defending itself or attacking itself. I think it's the most brilliant, like what a gift, you know, magnificent ability for your body. It's trying to keep you healthy and safe. It's trying to re regulate and move back to resilience. Right. So I'm curious from your perspective in understanding, let's start with, let's start with MCAs, would you say, kind of as you start to describe it a little bit, maybe give our listeners some understanding of how they can check themselves for this. Is this a modern day problem? Like did our ancestors have to deal with this?

So the discovery of mast cells at all happened in like 1890s. The, the cells, mast cells at all. The, our understanding when we started publishing like papers on mast cells and like huge practice papers was like 2012, 2015, 2016. So our understanding of it is definitely in its infancy, but it's really good because we have a lot of really juicy information coming out that's really helpful. Do I think that people experience what is probably like mast cell activation disorder, mcad maybe? What I think I view MCAS from a spiritual perspective as humans becoming incongruent with their environment. So we're incongruent with the amount of stress in our lives, with the extreme amount of like toxins, perfumes, even like artificial light and all these things. And it's, it's. Our body is not able to accommodate those changes. So I do view MCAS as like a lifestyle and environmental mismatch from how we're supposed to be living. So more and more people have it. And you know, when I first started practicing 11 years ago, you know I think about clients back then, and I'm like, maybe one in a hundred of those clients were, like, what I would call a histamine type of client. And it's not just because I'm talking about it now, but all of my practitioner friends who don't work with MCAs at all are like, are all of my clients have histamine issues now? So I think that we already were on a slope of environmental mismatch, and I think Covid kind of blew us out of the water. So I would say, yes, more people have it now, and the types of stress we have on our physical selves and emotional selves is probably more as time goes on, I would say, which.

Kind of makes sense, right? You know, from an Ayurvedic standpoint, we always talk about these imbalances or dis ease within the body as a process of accumulation. And we've been.