How to Finally Understand What’s Making You Sick (and What to Do About It) - Dr. Eric Gordon

What if the chronic illness you might be experiencing or some kind of disease, or if you know someone wasn't really about a single infection or diagnosis, but it's actually about your body's compensation for years of hidden inflammation, toxins and stress that are kind of stirring around, and it's just coming up with the diagnosis that you might have received. So Dr. Eric Gordon is on the show today to help break down how modern medical and medicine doesn't really focus on all this other stuff that's floating around. It's missing the mark on chronic disease. So there's a lot of these other factors at play when. When sometimes there's a black and white answer that doctors are trying to focus on. So we're going to dive into how therapeutic plasma exchange, or plasmapheresis, as he calls it, can help really take out a ton of the garbage. But also there's a bunch of other factors that will help you reset your system and help you to get on that path to vitality and restoring balance to your body. So it's not just, you know, killing the bug or going to that source or that thing, but actually treating everything as a whole. So we're going to dive into it. Dr. Eric Gordon's fascinating. He has deep knowledge in chronic disease and all these other factors. So let's jump in.

Do you prefer Dr. Gordon? Eric. Eric.

Dr. Eric is fine. Yeah. I don't like Dr. Eric. I'm too old. When I grew up, only pediatricians and chiropractors were Dr. Eric, so that's true.

That's a good point. I can name a couple, too.

Yeah, yeah, Eric is fine. Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, that's great.

Tell me. Give me a little background, like, where are you coming from? So I have a better idea.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm hosting this show with Dr. Savage. He's been on many times, but I'm more lead it as the. The guy who's not the doctor.

Yeah.

But at the same time, I have a lot of interest. I have a lot of background in doing this kind of stuff now, going through TPE program myself. But it's to get the information about what's happening in the world right now from your perspective with toxins, disease, what we can do, preventing it, you know, how can we go and seek the right kind of help. So, you know, TPE or plasmapheresis is a point portion of it, but that's not. That's not what we focus on. On.

Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah, I. I focus on it. I mean, you know, these days. Yeah. Just to. Because I'm still trying to figure out how to use it best for these folks, basically. Yeah, sure. It's just not clear. It's amazing. But, you know, but only sometimes. So. Right, well.

And it's been modified. Well, it's been around for something like 50 years or so, right?

Yeah. More than that. Yes. Since the 60s. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, yeah. But it really wasn't used a lot, I mean, until the 80s. I mean, the 80s before that it was mostly just to harvest cells and treat a few severe autoimmune diseases. But in the 80s it started to really become a thing for autoimmune diseases for people who are chronically ill. Plasmapheresis is helpful, but is not what I say. It's not the main course, you know, it's not going to. I mean, because that, that's what I mean. Obviously, you know, I do it and I love it and I think everybody should have it. But what I don't want is people who have limited resources running out and doing plasmapheresis as it by itself expecting to have a wonderful response. It just doesn't work that way, you know, I mean like again, somebody who's young and healthy or even older and healthy. Yeah. Just randomly doing plasmapheresis is going to help better. Doing it as part of a whole process. I mean, that's what I really like what Paul's doing and why, you know, we can support each other because I think he's understands that, that this is not a standalone therapy.

You know, there's a whole protocol.

Yeah. A lot of people are selling it as like, oh, just come do plasma phoresis. And it's just too expensive. It's not like you're getting a vitamin C, iv.

No, it's. It's. Could be. It is cost prohibitive.

What's really changed is something has happened in the last 20, 30 years to get people sicker because we never saw young people sick as much. You know, I mean, we never. I mean it is just mind blowing. The amount of young people, you know, like diabetes, we can blame, you know, directly on the diet. But there's so many other things that are happening. The cancer rates, I mean, those are. And the autoimmune disease rates, I mean those are real because I've been doing this for 45 years and we just never saw these things in young people. You know, I mean, it would be like once every decade you'd see a, a person under 40 with colon cancer.

Yeah.

Just like, you know, like you were kind of shocked it was the last thing you'd, you'd see. Now it's happening regularly, you know, and so it's, it's something, something is different in the world. And I think plasmapheresis, unfortunately, because of the difficulty and the cost of it, isn't, isn't the answer. But I think it might help put point the way to the answer if as we start seeing it, make a difference in people's health of how important cleaning up the environment is, which is kind of daunting because nobody's willing to spend the money. And it looks like we're going full steam ahead with the idea that there's, you know, and you see, you know, there's the people who are pushing whole foods.

Yeah.

As a good, as a good idea, which I agree with. But then there's, there's still a bunch of people in the food sciences industry who just feels a chemical is a chemical. You know, like if the molecular structure is the same, it's the same. And if they forget that, there might be some validity to that, but it comes with a whole lot of other chemical structures associated with it. You know, that's why whole foods are so important in organic foods, because of what we hope. The other things are there. Not just the protein, you know, not just the tryptophan and methionine or the, you know, the branch chain amino acids that all the athletes and bodybuilders want to be taking, but it's the trace minerals. Because I think that's one of the unsung heroes, I think, of where we have to go. And in this world of tying it together with plasmapheresis, I, I would say like the trace minerals are what's missing if you do plasmapheresis and don't feel anything.

I mean, there's lots of reasons that.

Can happen, I'm sure.

But you know, if you're really, if your health is really stuck and you're like, you know, you've tried the vitamins and you've tried a healthy diet and you're still not moving, there's a good chance you've got low level, or maybe not so low level chronic inflammation in your GI tract. And one of the basic protective mechanisms of the body is to hide trace minerals in an acute infection.

Oh wow.

Magic word is acute infection because that's how our immune system was designed. Our immunes, I mean our immune, most immune systems in the animal and in the, in the, in the plant animal kingdoms are designed to deal with immediate threats. They're, they don't do well with chronic threat. And, you know, we just, we weren't wired that way.

It was like overwhelming threats that are always pushing on our bodies. And yeah, you beat, you beat it.

And survive or you don't and die. And, and, and so, and that's why, like, things like. So the, the idea in the gut, you, you turn off the transporters for the trace minerals. I mean, iron, molybdenum, manganese, you know, rubidium. I'm just, just about 10 or 11. These trace minerals that are really important. The reason they're so important is because all your vitamins use trace mineral cofactors. You know, B6 without zinc and magnesium isn't going to do much. And you know, I mean, and then, you know, it's, it just, you don't make, you know, if you don't have selenium, you're not going to recycle your glutathione. I mean, it goes on and on. Every vitamin and almost every enzyme in Chubati, not every, but most of them have mineral cofactors. And luckily, you know, we start off with a fair number, but with a lot with a chronically low level inflammation in the gut, which many of us have.

These diminish. And medicine is designed to find things that are overt. Like, you know, you go to the doctor if your blood, if you have anemia, they go, oh, you have a problem. But if you don't have anemia, you're fine. You know, they're not looking a lot deeper under the hood at more subtle things because we were always taught that, you know, when people have vitamin deficiencies, it's obvious, you know, people have vitamin C, they have scurvy, you know, I mean, oh, yeah, not. No thiamine. You know, your brain isn't working. You know, you've got, you know, real problems finding words and, you know, you're getting demented. But there's lots of subtle deficiencies. There's lots of subtle illnesses that aren't paid attention to. And so bringing us back to plasmapheresis is that we have to make sure that those things are intact. You know, they don't have to be perfect, but we should be looking for them and addressing them. And especially in the world of chronic illness, because those are the people that's really going to probably be operating. You know, if you're fairly healthy, you know, even if your gut is a little inflamed, you know, your body's probably compensated, you know, you're doing okay.

Yes.

But if you've been not feeling well for three, five, 10 years.

That compensation is failing. And so then if you go and say oh my God, I saw it on YouTube or wherever on media somewhere. Yeah, yeah, plasma freesis is going to save me, is going to heal me. And I go, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I, I, you know, I mean, I think that's the point is as we said right in the beginning, plasmapheresis is an adjunctive therapy. It's something that will help get you going, it will help maybe set you up to have a better response to therapies. But it's not a cure by any means by itself. It's just something we have to figure out how to add in, when to add in and how to prepare you. So you're going to. Because it's so expensive, we want it to be the most effective, you know. And so I don't think many doctors thought about it at all. At least I didn't as something that would actually remove toxins from the system. Well, to be fair, the idea of toxins is new to academic to how you want to say conventional medicine. Okay. Natural paths have been talking about toxins since they were naturopaths. You know, doctors in the, for the last forever talked about toxins. But somewhere around the 40s and 50s and 60s we started thinking ah, you know, toxins are, you know, a poison. But that there was anything low level toxins that kind of fell away and we got into this black and white world and I don't think people understand this where to toxicology in the study of, of toxins, they were just looking for the amount that would like kill 50% of the test animals.

You know, that was like mercury or something like that.

Exactly. Something. And even mercury they ignored for a long time. But, but you know, but, but it, it, but they, they got it. You know, they, they, they did, you know, but it was a slow concept. I mean we thought people could tolerate much higher loads. I mean lead is a great example. In The I think 70s and 80s, like 70 parts per million of lead was okay and now we know that there's zero, you know, is really okay and five is not good for young brains. And, but we just didn't get it because the attitude was if it didn't kill you, it wasn't a problem.

Gotcha. Yeah. As long as you're living.

Yeah, yeah. And, and, and that's, and so, so doctors thought toxins were, was, were old fashioned concepts basically. And that's why it's been such a difficult conversation in the last 30 years to try to start talking about all the chemicals that are being introduced because, you know, look at dioxin. I mean, everybody agrees that dioxin. And, you know, they had pictures of. I forget which New York state governor. It was like drinking a glass that he said was full of dioxin, you know, I mean, because.

At lower doses, it didn't do terrible things, you know, and. And it. Parts per million. Parts per billion. Sounds like not much stuff, you know, but if your body doesn't get rid of it fast, it can cause problems. And, you know, again, if you have one toxin, it's one thing. And. But if you've exposed to 80,000 toxins start to add up and they start to make a difference. And, and this is just a. A conceptual problem in, in medicine. I keep coming back because I want people to understand this is. Give me an Audi, a chance to talk about. One of my favorite subjects is why doctors don't understand chronic illness.

You just take the question out of my mind or out of my mouth.

I mean, doctors in general are smart and they want to help. Okay? There are very few doctors who don't really want to help the person in front of them, you know, and so if you go to them and you have been feeling miserable for a few years, and you. And you go and they kind of like look at you like, well, you probably just depressed and, you know, you should walk a little bit more and, you know, take a little antidepressant and you're going to get better. And you want to strangle them. It's because they don't understand what's going on with you because they were trained looking for what I call. It's the bullet theory of medicine. They were looking for the event that made you ill. Pneumonia, stroke, heart attack, accidents, broken legs. You know, A happened and then B happened, and now you're sick, and now I'll fix you.

Clear correlation.

Yeah, correlation. You've got right lower quadrant pain. You're nausea and throat. You're vomiting, you know, and you. It hurts when we poke there. And you have appendicitis. We'll take it out, we'll give you some antibiotics. Maybe you're going to be better. That's how medicine thinks. That's what they want. You have, you know, kind of diffuse pain in your stomach that sometimes is there, and sometimes it makes you. It's really bad, and sometimes it's not so bad, and it's not clear what food causes it. And you get shorter breath sometimes, but not all the time. And your Shoulder, your right shoulder hurts on Monday and your left knee hurts on Thursday. Doesn't make any sense to the doctor you're talking to, okay? And it's not because they don't want to help. It's because they were trained to find a fixed deficit, something that's broken and something that's abnormal on their blood tests. And their blood tests are ones that are designed to find things that will kill you. So, like you're. Most everybody gets what they call a comprehensive metabolic panel that looks at your electrolytes and your kidney function tests and your liver function tests. Okay? People with chronic illness, most of them, are pretty normal on that test.

It's not going to spot it.

It's not going to spot it because they're not dying. They might feel like they're dying, but, but they're not dying. They just feel miserable. They can't function, they can't think straight, they can't live their lives. But I can tell you, because I've taken care of those people for 30 something years, they don't die, okay, easily, unless, unfortunately, actually suicide is actually probably the most likely form of death in people with chronic illness who are under the age of 70 or 80 who are going to die anyway. But these illnesses make you miserable, but you can keep living and breathing. So anyway, I'm getting, the point is you still see your doctor, your blood count is normal, your metabolic panel is normal, your MRIs are quote unquote normal. They might be a little off. You know, one of the famous signs is like, you know, people will have, they'll get their cervical spines x rayed and they'll be read as normal. But they'll mention that there's straightening of the cervical lordosis, which is a fancy way of the curve that's normally in your cervical, cervical spine. But many people who've been ill for a long time who've had a minor auto accident or just are a little hyper flexible, they'll have cervical spines look like a stick.

Oh, wow.

And the radiologist will comment often, you know, straightening of the cervical spine, but that's it. Normal, you know, and so your doctor. Oh, normal xp. And it's not normal, but it's not, quote, unquote pathologic to the physician. Okay, so that's our problem. And this goes back, this ties into this whole toxin thing again is because these exposure to these toxins often don't present with a clear cut picture.

Because, you know, if you have mercury poisoning to the point of, you know, you're near death. Yeah, Maybe, you know, or arsenic poisoning or lead poisoning. But if you've just got enough that it slows down because these things kill you by binding like Permer, it binds a lot of sulfur groups in the body and those are really important in a lot of your enzymes. And so organs don't work well, nerve cells don't work well. You get all kinds of like these odd symptoms. Burning, tingling, numb, you know. But your blood tests aren't bad.

So that's more like a neurological thing. Right? Something's happening.

Yeah, you'll get lots of neurological findings, but they're not something you go to the neurologist, your reflexes still might be normal and you can still walk a straight line and your MRI is still normal. So that's what's wrong. Why it's so not wrong, but frustrating with modern medicine is because our tools are magnificent at identifying clear cut pathology. And they're not. We were. The good news is we're getting more and more tests that can show us imbalances in immune function, imbalances in cellular function, you know, that are much more subtle than the test that the doctor normally runs. But they're still get slow to get into the mainstream because they're much harder to interpret because they're not black, white. You know, it's, it's not like that one test is really wrong. It's just that, oh, these tests that show how your body is, how your body is like metabolizing fats, how it's burning fat. Looks a little slow. Okay, but when we look at those tests that look at fatty acid metabolism, the normals were, and the abnormal ranges were designed for what we call inborn errors of metabolism, means a, a genetic defect in how your body can metabolize fat. But if all you have is a functional problem, metabolizing fat meaning like you don't have enough carnitine or your mitochondria are kind of turned down because there's an infection in your body. And they're, they're doing what they're supposed to do, which is not feed the infection. Well, the, they're not burning fat like they should. And it'll show up on these tests, but it's not abnormal abnormal, it's just a little higher than it should be. And again, that's still normal. So I know I'm going, oh, lots of, lots of areas. But I'm just trying to show people that the frustration you have with your physician is not their fault. It's how we've been trained. We've been trained to find broken things. And now you're dealing with just things that are not working optimally. But if you've got 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 things that aren't working optimally, you can feel pretty terrible because it's not, you know, they multiply. You know, each system that doesn't work well puts a bigger. Puts a bigger stress on another system.

I'm curious, Eric, Was there a turning point when you realized that this is the case where most. Yeah, modern medicine, like you said, just isn't looking for all the. The factors that, you know, was there a. Was there a specific patient or occurrence that you can remember that kind of flipped this on?

It was. No. I just. I think I'm just a. I'm a bit of a Pollyanna. I believe people.

You'Re trained in medicine sometimes to be like, what's it? Old, very old TV show. Peter F. Columbo. Nobody who that is. It's terrible when you get old. All your references are like, so outdated anyway. But his famous line was, just the facts, ma'. Am. You know, you know, he was a detective and that's how we were trained, just the facts. And so for me, I liked story. I would listen to people, and that's when it became clear. This is early on in my training, this black and white medicine didn't take care of. It was great in the hospital because usually when people wound up in the hospital, it was black and white. There was an organ that we could see on the X ray or the MRI or, you know, or had a lab test. It was clearly abnormal. But when they got home and they still didn't feel well, the tests had gone back to normal, but the body still wasn't functioning well. Yeah, and so that's what got me into just listening and studying and going down the path of, you know, it's really studying health.

And it's the same thing when, you know, the biohacking, the biohacker world today. I always like to think about them because I learn a lot from them. But basically they're doing the same things we did to treat people with chronic illness. But you put it in the context of people who want to stay healthier. It's the same idea. You got to clean up the body, you gotta detox them because, you know, when you're really sick for a while, you haven't taken out the garbage.

So. Garbage out first.

Yeah, garbage out. I mean, like, you know, be. You know, people have Covid and they're in their home and they're lying and they're in bed for. For a week, usually not vacuuming the house and picking. You know, it gets a little messy.

Right. Yeah.

Of course, Arti does the same thing and, and, and you know, and then just to tie it in with plasmapheresis. That's what. Why plasma freezes can be so helpful for people who've been ill for a long time because it takes out the garbage. It begins to help you recycle. But I'm saying is that just taking out the garbage doesn't make you. Well, yeah, but there's often a lot of garbage, so you have to do it in, in, in, in, in, in steps. But so going back, it. It's, I think what's changing medicine. What's going to change medicine is people understand and they start to think more ecologically about the body rather than in this black and white, you know, kind of thing. And it's, you know, that it's, it's a, it's a system and it's a complex system. And I will as. And to remind people when the, you know, everybody's talking about root cause medicine these days.

Yeah.

It's often not the root cause that's keeping you sick. It's the root compensation. Okay. Because, you know, in my world, we treat a lot of people with chronic fatigue and a lot of, I mean, chronic Lyme disease is one of the things that we've been involved with for 25 years or so. What happened, you know, what I saw early on is that if you see people in the first six months to two years, maybe three of Lyme disease. Yeah. You go in there and you kill the bug and people get better. It's really kind of cool. But so many people that didn't work. And it didn't work because the bug likes to live in your body. And so it causes your body to compensate to like, you know, spend more attention on a different kind of infection. And it just changes how your body deals with chronic inflammation. So it's a compensation for having the bug there. And so even when you. And even if you do get rid of the bug, sometimes the body's in that habit and you still don't feel well.

And would that be more inflammation popping up in your body and essentially, yeah. It's trying to keep the bug alive. Right? The bug's going to stay alive. That is.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because you remember is that it goes again to this, you know, black and white view of life is that if you have an acute streptococcal pneumonia, you know, and if It. Well, you either get better or die, usually within a week. You know, I mean, it might take six weeks to recover completely, but, you know, it's that first few days when it's a battle for survival.

Right, right.

But with Lyme disease and then bartonella and Babisi and all these other bugs, these are bugs that actually have evolved to live with us.

I mean, so they don't. It's usually not a fight to the death. It's a fight to, like, okay, how can we kind of dance together? You know, so it's. Many times it's sort of like having a bad neighbor move next door.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How are you going to deal with that? Are you going to be, you know, are you going to try to be conciliatory and. Yeah, or try to tame the. The relationship and maybe you can live together. You know, I mean, I guess you can burn the house down, but.

That'S. That's another path. Yeah.

And the immune system is often in that same place is that. Again, the initial response is they see the bug, they get rid of it if they can. But once it establishes residency, once it's in the tissue, it's not as easy. And so then, you know, many people, because, you know, learn to live with them. And whether this is good or bad, I don't know yet. I mean, I think they're. But it does work because we see lots of people when we test family members who are healthy, who clearly have infection, but there's no symptoms now. Interesting. So, anyway, I won't go down that rabbit hole because that's a deep one of whether, you know, we should treat because we know that these chronic infections in some people can lead to maybe dementias later in life, you know, but it's so hard to say because, you know, like, the viruses that we know that can increase the likelihood of, like, MS, like Epstein Barr, but 90% of people have it carry Epstein EBV in their bodies, and only a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage is that triggering msn. So do we eradicate EBV in everybody? You know, I mean, so I always. I don't want to confuse people, but medicine is confusing. Okay, that's my final line for the day is. Is black. Medicine is not black and white. Health is not black and white. We had been trained to think that somehow there is the way to live and the healthy and life.

Everyone's different, right?

Everyone's different. And that's. That's the other problem with medicine, because medicine wants everybody to be the same in a box.

Right.

And that's why they throw out very good therapies when they test them, because they only work in like 30% of people. Too often it just gets shelved. Nobody looks back at those 20 or 30 responders. They say, oh, it's placebo. But no, those 23rd. 30% of people, your therapy was what they needed. But it's their biochemical or genetic individuality, and we don't have time for that because medicine wants to, you know, is, is in the, you know, the, it's still in the industrial age. Yeah, that's the thing. Medicine remains in the industrial age, and we are now in the, in the age of information. And medicine is just beginning to get there. The concept of personalized medicine, you know, and it's coming. The advertisements might be a little premature, but it is coming. And I think that's hopeful message. If you want to wrap this up on a hopeful message as we are learning to use more information. And that's really where the AI comes in. Because, you know, there is too much information in your genetic test for any doctor to make any sense out of it.

I mean, absolutely.

There's too much. The new look, the new test that measure your microbiome. I mean, you know. No, you know, like, nobody can keep that. I should. Almost nobody can keep that in their head and not even in their head. But understand, because every, everyone has a different balance.

That's right. Well, there's the, the toxin test that I've taken that we talk about. And I mean, that's, there's hundreds. Yeah, over a hundred that are tested and, you know, each person's different. Then you figure out, okay, where am I high, where am I low, middle? Where did that come from? You know, maybe do some personal research and kind of, you know, try to figure, oh, what can I change in my environment around me now, knowing that this is in me and gotta do so.

No, and, and you're right. And that's the perfect example. And one of the people in my, in my office just, just built the tools, you see. AI built it.

Cool. Yeah.

To go through some of those toxin tests for this. That reason is because, like, you know. No, I don't remember every. I mean, forget about every. I mean, like you say, like the, the 80 to 100 toxins we, we can measure.

Yeah.

Where do they come from? What do they do in the body? I mean, it's just too much information and that's. We need to rely on these new tools to help us. And, you know, and it's, It's a. An exciting new world if we don't make ourselves too crazy about it on the way.

Well, that's the thing. And I have actually built an AI for Dr. Paul Savage and I My toxin test in there. And it's pretty amazing. Yeah, it said almost similar to how he talked through my test personally through the human Dr. Savage. So it's, it's pretty fascinating.

But, yeah, I mean, I'm impressed with him because I tell you, I would have bumbled my way through it because that's why.

You see, it all depends. Our knowledge bases are all different and we need them all. And that's the beauty of AI is we can get to share them.

Absolutely.

And I think we still need, well, at least for a few more years. We still need these old brains to like, kind of like say, well, like, you know, this is really more important for you because that's still. At the end of the day, you have to make some choices, you know, about what's right for your body. And, and I guess that's always personal, but it's nice to have a little bit of guidance.

Yeah, well, definitely, certainly. And we need the humans and the experts that are doing this and have been around. And this is where I want to go, Eric. And before we kind of start to wrap up here, a lot of great things.

No, but, you know, you work with a lot of folks with chronic disease, like you said, Lyme and autoimmune diseases, and, you know, not everyone listening might be in that scenario. But what are the things that, if we're talking, maybe more high level, like, what are the pillars that you, I don't know what you focus on when you're, when you're speaking with a patient that might be in that position or leading that direction. Are there a handful of things that you always recommend when it comes to chronic illness?

The pillars are really making sure that you're still not in the middle of something that's irritating it. Okay. I mean, it's kind of. I mean, that's where, you know, over the years, mold and mast cells have become so much in the forefront. It's not that, unfortunately they're not. It's not the end all. It's not the story that's going to get you better. But once your immune system has become dysregulated, mold can be an issue. And it's, it's very frustrating because you could be the only, you know, person in the home.

Wow.

Really is reacting because it's not like you're. Again, you're not Dealing with a poison gas that everybody's going to react to the same and fall down dead. No, you're reacting where one person who already is inflamed is going to find themselves. Where they have headaches, they can't think straight, they have burning, they've got weird, weird. Mold can give the weirdest neurologic symptoms. The things that will really make the ER doctor look at you and think you are looney tunes crazy. That's nothing that I've ever heard of in medical school that you can't have these burning pains all over your body or this deep sense of inner tremor, you know, but yes you can. So I just want to. So it's not that everyone has mold problems, but that's one of those things that needs to be at least investigated and thought of first. Because if you're living in mold and you're sensitive to it, everything else we do will fail or will only work a little bit and you will waste a lot of time, money and life energy.

Okay, so is mold almost like the apex in your mind of like if that's not solved, then it's kind of affecting all these downstairs?

Exactly, yeah. It's not that it's the worst of anything, but it's the thing that's going to. If you are sensitive to it, this is the thing. If you're, if you're not able to, if either you're allergic sensitive, which not many, not that much. But if you are. But if you have problems processing mycotoxins and, and they are affecting your nervous system, your nervous system is going to stay affected no matter what else we do to you. So you're not going to get any benefit and you're going to think things aren't working because you're still feeling terrible if that's a layer. So I just always think that has to be thought about. Not everybody has it, thank God. But if you have to look there. And then the other thing I mentioned was this mast cell activation thing which, you know, again it's the same thing. It's part of the body that's making too much noise. And as long as it's making noise and alarm bells are going to go off every time you try to do something.

You can't move forward because you're going to keep going back into the fe. And this is the biggest problem is that when you've been ill for a while, your self protective mechanisms can start to come out as anxiety and even ocd because those are self protective things. They're not. Wow. You know, it's how. How. You know, anxiety means pay attention. Well, pay attention is what we do when we sense there's danger around, you know, so not bad. The problem is it doesn't turn off. Okay, but it's not turning off sometimes because the danger signals don't go away. If you have, you know, a little dysautonomia, meaning like your autonomic nervous system isn't doing what it's supposed to do, which is operating quietly in the background, right? And suddenly you're sitting here and. And you get a whiff of something, or you get an idea in your head and your heart starts to pound. I mean, like, if my heart start going 110, 120 beats a minute because I'm sitting here, I'm going to feel like something's really not wrong. Right. You know, it's going to be frightening. And imagine if that happens to you 10 times a day, you know, and.

There'S a lot of people that live that way, just.

And so that's why. And mold and mast cells can be an irritant. I mean, again, it's not always. It's not the cause of the dysautonomia, but it's something that will often keep it going occasionally. Many times the dysautonomia has happened for structural reasons or infections affecting the nervous system. But once it's going and you have another threat, which is a bad smell, a bad thought, it can take off on its own, and you're kind of high and dry in this place of fear. So anyway, so that's why it's so important to deal with these things that will tend to set us up to be easily triggered by our environment. Because if you can't relax, the final healing signal has to come from the nervous system that it's okay, yes, you're safe. It's hard to get to that okay. Spot you. If your inner body, if your gut is feeding you nausea signals all the time. I mean, that's another thing that happens to people with, with these dysautonomias is that, you know, they get scoped up and down and they get put on these, on. On bad drugs for long periods of time that aren't helping to try to suppress stomach acid when it's a nervous system problem. But the nausea, you know, is a very. It's. It's. These are the primary survival signals. You know, your dog eats something bad, it throws it up. I mean, it's. This is how. This is how we're meant to Survive is, you know, smell bad, stay away from, chew, throw it up, you know.

Yep. It's the body trying to avoid the. The. The bad stuff.

The bad stuff. You know, heart's beating fast because it's.

It.

It's doing that because you're. It thinks it's running, but the rest of you is not moving.

Man, that's so tough to pinpoint because I've. I' a handful of people, but specifically with mold, and like you said, the symptoms are all over the place. But this one guy I'm thinking of in particular, this is the first guy I've ever heard this happen where he just felt like there's this light switch that went off that are on that he could not turn on. It always felt like he was like, almost like in a speed racing scenario, like he's playing a game or just things were just like, couldn't turn off the adrenaline. I think it was like that's what was flipped on and it turned out to be a mold issue. But at the same time, like, it's. It turns up. It's just so difficult to pinpoint. Like if someone's walking around anxious all the time, which there's a ton of people like that for whatever reason, it's like, it's so tough to pinpoint, but it's working through.

I mean, like, that's the point of, you know, of listening, you know, I mean, again, I said maybe in. I would one time, I would have said 10 years, but things are moving so fast. Maybe in two years, you know, I'll be easily replaced by AI because it'll have all the algorithms. They'll know. But otherwise. That's why you need doctors who listen to these stories long enough that you know you're not going to be right right in the beginning, 100%. But you. You kind of. Things have flavors, you know, and you listen and. And you know, and again, you test and you see what's the most likely things that are on top and what's. And just knowing that just because you get a. I mean, I think the most important thing. Just because you get a positive line test doesn't mean the first thing you should do is treat the Lyme sometimes. But you've got to look at the context. Because if the person like you say, if this fellow is walking around feeling wired all the time. When you activate your immune system to start to kill something by. Because when you give like an herb or an antibiotic, it's your. It's also triggering your immune system to join in. You Know, because when things start to die, the signals given off, you know, trigger your innate immune system and then the acquired, then every, everybody comes in to join the party. But that creates those same signals that go to your brain that go like, oh, this isn't safe. And if you're already in the midst of that.

It'S sometimes not pretty. Yeah, that's why layering therapies, figuring out how to first, you know, that's why we use, you know, people use peptides and, and things to, you know, and a lot of you know, the anti histamines if needed and the herbs to try to quiet things down sometimes first before you can go back in and try to eradicate something, you know. But things that are environmental, such as mold, I mean especially if it's in, if you're living and it could be colonized you and that's a whole other story. But just getting out of the environment if you're in it is crucial and that's the hardest thing to do because that's I, I probably the most difficult conversation to have with someone is when you realize that their house is toxic.

Right.

Because.

What do you do?

What do you do? You know, okay, it's easy for me to say but your whole life is going to go upside down, your whole family's life is going to go upside down. I mean that's crazy making, you know, and especially like it would be great if we could be you know, for 100 sure it's really nice but lots of times you're not and so it's a, it's a hard thing but, but you know, you have to at least give it a try. You have to get out of the environment for a while and see if it makes a difference. So it's funny, I know I'm not that mold centric but you know, you pointed out that if we don't deal with the mold, if we don't acknowledge it and remove yourself from the irritant, nothing else is going to work.

Well, I don't know. Just like it seems like that's the common thing and you're not the only one. It's just, it seems to be bubbling up so much more in conversation now.

Is and yeah, because I personally believe that there's underlying infection that changes how your immune system because we, we co evolved with mold again. I mean with all these bugs, they didn't appear today. You know, I mean our houses, the way we set them up and how, you know, we set them up to make, to have individual molds grow and that's part of the problem. When a mold has to be in a complex environment, it doesn't have a lot of energy to spare. And for some reason molds and those single cell organisms, when you give them lots of food.

And nothing to fight, they make toxins, which is weird because these are their self defense chemicals. But for some reason they make a lot of it when there's nobody around, just lots of food. And so our new environment has done something. But I really do believe that it's often underlying tick borne illnesses that change our immune system that then does something. I mean, I said I don't know all the ins and outs, but it's just what I see that that's usually the trigger. It's, you know, in a lot of it can just be the other toxic load because that's why it's so different in the family. Because even though we're, we have quote unquote very similar genes, they can be different enough and our own exposures to mean the difference between one person, you know, feeling terrible and the other person thinking, nothing wrong here.

Yeah. So let's end it on this. Eric is, you know, someone's listening or watching right now and they feel like they might be, you know, they're stuck. Maybe they're a little tired, they're, they're feeling inflamed or they've heard that they are, they're feeling foggy. Where, where do you think? And you know, maybe just kind of like a top, you know, answer. We don't have to go super deep unless we, unless you feel the need. Like where should they start if, if they're feeling that right now, this stuck feeling.

Well, I think the simplest thing, if you, if you can do it is you know, just go spend a day sleeping on the beach.

I like that.

It's funny because often, you know, they're right on the, right on the beach where the waters, there's very little mold in, in the sea air. You know, I mean you go inside somebody's old bungalow, that's a different story.

Right.

But you know, but you know, and, or just try to move, you know, like get into a clean environment. I mean, well, the best thing is go into nature and just see how you feel. I know you have to be careful because if you're, if you're really sensitive to mold and you're out in an old forest with a lot of old leaf mold on the ground, you could, because that's Cladosporium is one of the leaf molds and that could Cause a problem. That's why the beach is a good place because you know, you're going to take care of the mold issue. But getting outside, I mean, I think if you can, you know, have the resources to get a few days in a place where you can be outdoors all day, and then I can give you a good idea of how much the environment is playing a role in what. I mean, in what you're feeling. I mean, obviously you'll. Most people feel a little better just because they're in a different environment. But especially if you have odd symptoms, if they are really going down, there's a good chance that your environment needs to be looked at. And it's not just mold. There's lots of outgassings. I mean, so many people. I mean, you know, the Ikea furnished life. I mean, carpets and all that stuff. I mean, like the, the.

Yeah, just the, the chemicals. I mean, this is. We were talking earlier about like all those toxins you measured. Well, a lot of them are coming from your furniture.

Yep.

We don't think about that.

So a new car smell, huh?

Yeah, well, I mean. Well, most people have an idea that that nice new car smell isn't such a good thing.

That's a good. But.

Yeah, but they don't notice it. And, and as we get older, and especially not all, but men tend to have not as high as good sense of smell, at least my experience. I don't want to admit that's not. I don't know if that's a medical fact.

I've heard similar.

But yeah, I always like to be clear about like what I think I know and what I. And that's one of my. Think I know. But, but you know, to be aware that that's why women often are more sensitive because those smells are setting off alarm bells and we might be too dumb to notice them, but that's right. And so just like the guy who's not paying attention to like the fact that, you know, there's a fire coming over the hill. He's still, you know, and of course.

Not doing anything can be really anxious.

It doesn't make the happy fellow necessarily the smart one there.

No.

Or safest. Yeah, well, I think it's a. That's great advice, Harry. It's a good way to leave it here too. And you know.

AI and all this stuff, you know, maybe that just allows us to get outside more if it saves our time and, you know, helps. That's another topic. That's. That's where I knew it. Out in My other side project.

Yeah, let's hope. I, I don't know. I tend to be optimistic, but, ye know, it's only because I'm old and I don't have that much worry about it.

Well, well, that's a whole nother conversation. But Eric, where can folks go? And I, because I know you're doing some cool stuff. Where can they fall?

Okay, well, what do we find? We're, we're@gordon medical.com and there's a little button there that says probably something like.

You know, information call or new patient court. You know, and the thing is, you get to do is you get to talk to someone in our office who actually knows what we do. I can talk to you and really let you know whether we're a fit because, you know, if there's lots of problems, we'll be glad to send you to other places and other programs if you don't need our level of experience and work because lots of things can get people well. Okay. And there's lots of online resources and we try to have that available to people, you know, to go find simpler solutions, you know, because we're out there to, you know, to just help and, and share with other doctors how to, how to, you know, do our best in this complex, complex world.

It's complex. And you, and you mainly focus and work with people with chronic illnesses. Correct?

That's what we do. That's what we do. We, you know, I said if you've got simple problems, you know, it's not that it's not fun to treat people with simple problems, but our arch, our, we've evolved our whole system to the point like it'd be kind of, I think it'd be a waste of your money.

Better ways to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's awesome. So gordonmedical.com go check it out. And I know you collaborate with a lot of, you know, Dr. Savage, I see Dr. Jill on here, Carnahan and Dr. Paul Anderson. You know, these are, these are folks that have been on this show too. So go check out everything there. I think it's GordonMedicalForum as well.com.com and.

We also, we have another website that, it's called Plasmapheresis west for those people who have chronic complex illnesses and are interested in a sometimes slower and slower and gentler form of plasmapheresis. If we think that's going to help you, I don't think it's for everybody, but it's out there if available.

Well, hey, Eric, thank you for your time and your wisdom that you shared here because it got me going in all different directions. Explore more. So appreciate you very much, my friend. Thank you.

Our pleasure.