How Do I Get 20 More Good Years When I’m 90?

Good morning, everyone. Dr. Stillman here. Today is a very special day. Today is— well, yesterday actually was the launch of our book officially. It's now available on Amazon. I'd be deeply grateful if you would go pick up a copy if you haven't already. If you've already picked up a copy and you've had a chance to read it, I'd be deeply grateful if you would leave us a review on Amazon. Your reviews help people like you find find the book so that the book and my team and I can help them. So I'm very grateful to those of you who are supporting our efforts to end the epidemic of autoimmunity, which is what the book is really all about. So today's Q&A, very excited to bring this one to you. It's a really good topic. Is, how do I get 20 more good years when I am 90? Love this question. From a young 90-year-old living near Lynchburg, Virginia. Who mentions a history of arthritis and shingles. She's now dealing with maddening below-the-surface itching that's, quote, driving me crazy, quote. Doctors keep giving her prescriptions. She's experimenting with other approaches, various different supplements and diet and lifestyle routine things, but she's been really frustrated and she says it's been bad enough to raise her blood pressure. She's looking for holistic approaches rather than another prescription. She's tired of being told this is just her age and she's scared of what that might mean. She doesn't want to live this way. She's longing for the energy and comfort to travel and see her great-granddaughter and family in Florida. So, all right, let's dive in. So first of all, before I dive in, you can ask me any question you like in the— there's a link to the Q&A form in the comments or the description of this video, wherever you're watching it. So go ahead and ask me your question. I may choose it for a morning live. And as you can see, we're not just gonna tackle one question. We're gonna break it down into many questions, uh, behind the question, right? So, first question, why can something as ordinary sounding as itchy skin actually be a signal coming from deeper inside the body and not just a skin problem? What a great question. Okay. So, itching in the skin— where else would you get itching, I suppose you could ask? Well, let's leave that alone. Itching in the skin has to do with, uh, 3 types of cells: mast cells, basophils, and eosinophils. Uh-huh. These cells are all part of an arm of the immune system that is supposed to destroy parasites. Now, more broadly speaking, this arm of the immune system is really intended to destroy large things that invade your body, parasites being the most important of these. But these cells are also designed to go after things like pollens, danders, dust mite fragments. And so you have to understand this is part of the body's Waste disposal system. Like pollen in your body is waste. Just like you have to rake up leaves in your yard or you have to pick up dead branches, right? Your body gets pollen in your eyes, your nose, on your skin. It has to do something with it. So that's what this part of the immune system is really designed to do. Now, why does it cause itching? Well, itching, as you've probably noticed, draws your attention to the place where you're experiencing itching, right? It also triggers a very strong behavioral modification to you, which is anything that's causing you to itch, You will avoid like the plague. Okay, funny story, uh, you know Dr. Stillman's very natural, so we, um, we're living in Central Texas right now. A couple months ago, got a knock on the door. Hey, we offer pest control services. I passed because I wasn't sure we needed them. Well, let me tell you something, the wasps in Central Texas you could lasso and ride around on. There's scorpions, there's fire ants. Oh my gosh. There's acrobat ants. And let's just say passing on pest control didn't work out for us. My wife comes to me the other day, she's like, honey, there were ants in the laundry pile. When the ants are in your laundry pile in your bathroom of your master bedroom, you know you have problems. Well, fortunately, because we've got this problem in Central Texas, there's also pest control companies that will show up basically to Same day. So anyway, we got rid of the ants is the short story, and I share that with you because I think it's really funny. And I hope you guys enjoy the funny personal anecdotes, and I hope you'll let me know in the comments. And by the way, there is a chat portal here, and if you have questions live, drop them and, uh, I will do my best to answer them as we go. Anyway, so I, I share all this with you as context because I want you to understand what— Hello, Dave. Good morning. What your body is doing, your body is creating the itching so that you will look at where the problem is. Like when you get a fire ant bite or an acrobat ant bite or any other kind of bite that itches, your body is trying to say, hey, something was here that is taking something out of you, and it's injecting you with a poison. You should figure out what it is and avoid it, okay? And if it's burrowing into the skin, if it's digging into the skin, like guess what? Things like parasites that burrow in and dig into the skin, if you itch and scratch, there's a chance you'll dislodge this offending organism and get rid of it, right? You also are going to be naturally thinking, what can I put on this spot to make it feel better? Well, feeling better might mean killing the parasite inside the skin. So this is sort of the ancient operating system of your body. Now in the modern world, we've got pest control and we've got bug repellent. We've got all these things that really make these bugs and whatever sort of irrelevant. And when I say irrelevant, it's if you use these measures, you will have very few problems with bugs and parasites and so on and so forth. There's still an issue. We still prescribe antiparasitics, antifungals, all kinds of other things that itch on the skin. But the main thing I want you guys to understand is there's a purpose for this and you don't want to just blanket say, well, if I'm itching, I should make it stop. No, you should ask better questions about why you're itching. Now, it's interesting, in the history around the 1700s, we started to hear reports in the medical literature of what have come to be known as allergies. Believe it or not, long enough ago— 1500s, 1400s, 1300s— there were no case reports of allergies. Now, why is that? We had not polluted the environment as we did during the Industrial Revolution. Is the short answer. Now, in the modern world, we don't just have industrial pollution, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, etc., agricultural chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, etc. We've also got electromagnetic energies that are foreign to our bodies that can cause significant disruption to our immune systems. I write about that in chapter 4, and some of that material upsets people, so I don't put it out on on most of the social media platforms. So, Chapter 4, dig in. It's real good. Uh, my book, that is, if you're not— if you weren't sure where that Chapter 4 was. And as things have gone on, in addition to electromagnetic frequencies, we've got other types of chemicals and we've got artificial light at night and so on. So, there's lots of different stresses that are causing these elements of our immune system to become confused, right? And that's why you're constantly gonna hear— like, people were surprised by this whole alpha-gal thing. I was not surprised by this alpha-gal thing at all. I actually worked briefly in the lab and was mentored by the guy who really laid out what it is, Thomas Platzmills. And that's where I learned a lot of what I know about immunology and the immune system. But anyway, these problems are becoming more and more common. And as they become more and more common, we discover more and more of them. All right. How do I look at this now? Years out from my conventional medical training and having treated a lot of patients with itchiness and seeing really great results with natural and integrative medicine, which is what I use. If you're curious what we use, it's in chapter 6 in my book. It's a whole chapter on therapeutics, exactly what we use, how we use it. And we have in here and online in the companion resources many different resources on exactly like dosing protocols and such. It's not enough for you to practice medicine on your own. It is enough for you to take To a doctor or qualified practitioner to discuss with them. You know, and of course, you're able to become a practice member of ours. Uh, the link is in the description of this. Okay. So, in the modern world, I mentioned already unnatural electromagnetic energies, artificial light at night, chemicals. These are driving this immune dysfunction that's causing people to have all these itchy skin problems. Okay. So, when I look clinically at these cases, we often see that there has been an accumulation of toxins over time in the body. And when the toxins have accumulated to a certain point, you will then see this immune dysfunction. So, I'll give you a really quick recent story from the practice. We had a gentleman come to us with an autoimmune skin disorder, uh, and he had been on an immune-modulating drug. He wanted to get off of it because it was extremely expensive. And he also wanted to treat the root cause and not just use this as a tire patch. He recently eliminated a massive amount of aluminum from his body and his hair. We frequently see that in people who are starting to experience an improvement in their symptoms, right? Not a guarantee, just a single case study, but something we've seen over and over again. So when I look at these cases, I always think, where are the toxins? What sorts of toxins have built up? We figured that out with a combination of history. The And in-depth lab testing. And then we do what we can in order to nourish the body properly because you need the nutrients in order to eliminate the toxins. You need the nutrients to cope with the stress that may be driving the immune dysfunction. Then we try to get rid of the toxins with more— let's call them active measures. I don't know why that comes to mind. But, you know, people will do things like coffee enemas or liver flushes or sauna. Sauna is my favorite, partly 'cause it's not as messy and involved as— Uh-huh. Coffee enemas and liver flushes. But I want to be clear, there's a role for all these different things in different cases. We reduce the amount of stress the person is under as much as possible. There's some low-hanging fruit there that is all— in many respects, it's in chapter 4. The low-hanging fruit's in chapter 4. Don't miss any of the stuff in chapter 4 on that one. And, you know, by and large, patients see improvements. And I have to be vague like that because of— because of how my speech around this is regulated. I'm more candid in the book if you wanna know what that really means because it's more protected as a form of speech. But anyway, okay, then what do we do? Then we go after infections if they're relevant. And you know, occasionally you will have a weird case like right now I have a case of a patient who's got these very weird— and she's doing really well. She's had significant improvements since she started with us, specifically in allergies. And yet somehow, for some reason, she's now got this like crusty, like skin changes in her ear canals, and she's used antibiotics. Now we're going to try antifungals. And you know, yes, we tried a lot of other things. It's a very weird case, but that's my day-to-day weird stuff. Hopefully, that's a clear answer to. What is itchy skin beyond just my skin is itchy? And, you know, I'll add a little bit more on this. I want you to think about your mast cells and basophils and eosinophils, which are the cells making you itch, as having sort of like a set point or a point at which they will sort of detonate. Because when they go off and they cause itching, they literally do sort of detonate. We call it degranulation. The way I actually think about it is if parasites are like giant battleships at sea, Eosinophils, mast cells, and basophils are basically like ship mines. And so, the parasite gets up to one of these cells, it recognizes the parasite, and the cell explodes trying to destroy the parasite. That's really quite an accurate depiction of what's happening. So, when your body is having these degranulation episodes, your cells are constantly degranulating to cause all this itching. You have to ask yourself, what is in the skin that is making these cells sensitive? And that's where I go back to toxic burden and stress, because those are the two things that are going to alter how these cells behave. And all the other things I mentioned will help them to behave better and help your body get rid of the toxins and mitigate the stress that is driving the issue. Okay, and that's by the way, of course, if it's not itching from like a parasite, like you know mosquitoes, ticks, etc., or parasites, you know, or a cutaneous parasite like say larva migrans, which is a A worm. All right, enough on that. Why does a symptom that's been building for years often get answered with a stronger prescription instead of a deeper question? So this is a great question, and it's one of my favorite sort of themes that I come back to over and over again. So Hippocrates said illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are the consequence of small daily sins against nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear. And what does that mean? It means that when you've— and sin, by the way, in Greek means to fall short of the mark. And the literal analogy is in like archery target practice with like a bow and arrow. So when what you're doing has been low enough below what you need to do to stay well for long enough, you end up with what we call repair deficit, which is where the body's need for repair has outpaced the supply and the the ability to repair long enough, just like with your house, you know? And so when we see these symptoms emerge, here's the analogy I would give you. When you call a plumber for, say, a clogged pipe or a leaky pipe or a new leak somewhere, and they come to you and they say, $50— no, sorry, $50 is like too low. $500, we'll replace the pipe and clean the pipe and whatever. Let's just say it's $500. I have no idea what it would be, but I'm just throwing that number out there. And you say, yes, fine. Well, there's also a version of that scenario where a really ethical and intelligent plumber will look at the problem and say, hmm, this house's pipes are all old and worn out and problematic. And I could patch this for $500 today, And bet money that in 6 months I'm going to be back patching another one. And you can turn that into a very successful business. You just patch pipes for $500, $200, whatever it is. But I think that there's— what you need to do is you need to give the homeowner a clear picture of what they're dealing with, which is, hey, you have this problem right now, which we can fix today or tomorrow or short notice. For X dollars, right? But the truth is you've got a much bigger problem, which is you've got, for example, an entire pipe system in your house that needs real serious work. Now, this can be extrapolated to anything, your ductwork, your electrical systems, your foundation, your walls, your roof, right? And so we've all been in the position where we thought we needed a $50, $500, whatever it is fix. And someone says, you really need A $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 rebuild or refit or renovation, right? We don't like to hear that, but it's better to have the full truth than only half of it, right? So why does this in most medical contexts get answered with a stronger prescription instead of a deeper question? Well, the answer is the current medical system is set up in order to profit from illness. And love it or hate it, I don't think anybody loves it except maybe the psychopaths and narcissists who are making a lot of money off of it. But hey, that's how it's set up. And it's— I call it the ascension model. I think that's an accurate description. You ascend in price. It starts with a copay here and a $4 prescription there and a $10 prescription there and $20 lab fee here. And then over time, it starts to snowball, and then it turns into the $60,000 hospitalization for your first heart attack, or the quarter of a million dollars in cancer care that you need when you get cancer, or the $2 million worth of memory care that you need because you lose your mind at 75, right? That's how the system is set up, and it's set up with a model that assumes that you're not smart enough. To realize that investing in your health is the most important thing you invest in. Not saying you should put all your money in that basket. There's a limit. There's diminishing returns to what you can get. But really good care and preventative care is the answer. And that requires time and attention upfront. And so we do that in our process. And I share exactly what that is in the book. So you should get— pick up a copy and check it out. Because when you get to know patients, when you have time with them, when you can talk to them about what they're doing in their day-to-day life, when you can talk to them about more than just take this pill twice a day, you can start to come up with more sophisticated solutions to these sorts of problems. And that's when you'll start to see really incredible changes. All right? So you just have to understand that's how the system is set up. Love it, hate it, accept it, move on. Get into a better system. Our system is built around prevention. We make, you know, less or no money if patients don't get well because they don't stay with us. I'm comfortable with that because we have a track record of delivering results. And if you guys want more information on that, by the way, book an evaluation with a member of my team and they will show you how to get access to a workshop I did recently for our online community That workshop was how to get your healthcare paid for. Really, really important information in there. Things I've learned from 20 years of being in integrative medicine and 12 years in practice and my own journey with taking care of my son who had some huge medical bills in the last few years due to a brain injury. If you don't know the story, I've written about it at drstillmanuncensored.com. I share a lot of really interesting and important information there. So Book an evaluation. Just that's worth the cost of the evaluation or more. All right, we're running out of time here. I've only answered two of the ten questions I had outlined for this chapter or this Q&A, but I want to speak very specifically to the title of the episode: How do I get twenty more good years when I'm ninety? Everything I just shared is really helpful, I hope, for someone who's dealing with issues or context like this. And a lot of the principles I just outlined would be relevant no matter what you're dealing with— joint pain, memory issues, brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, depression. A lot of the same principles apply. It might just be different arms of the immune system, different threats, different problems, right? Here's the thing about getting 20 more good years when you're 90. You have to understand that all of the diseases that you get at an advanced age Eye diseases, diseases of the brain, strokes, heart attacks, diseases of the blood vessels. These are the diseases that tend to take people out. You know, if you look at the top causes of death, they're all vital organ diseases, the blood vessels and heart being one organ in that respect. You are playing the game 20, 30, 40, 50 years before the event. You're working up to your first heart attack at 30, 40, 50. You're working up to your dementia at 30, 40, or 50. You're working up to your macular degeneration at 30, 40, or 50. If you're listening to this and you have no problems and you're in the middle of your life, the small mistakes you're making will determine whether the years from 76, when the average American dies, last I checked, to wherever you end up, however long you last, are good or bad. If you start paying attention and working on your health at 90, you are trying to win the ballgame in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs. Start playing now and play hard. Because I'm telling you, one of the craziest things I hear from patients is, "I'll get healthy when I have time." Stop and think about that for a moment. The amount of time you have on this earth is predicated upon your health. If you have poor health, you will have less time. So getting healthy when you have time might end up being. The reason you don't have enough time to ever get healthy. Don't do that. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't have to be expensive. I outline all the free stuff we share with patients that really matters in this book. Maybe you should buy a copy. This is your message again to buy a copy. So I want you to understand you're setting yourself up for success or failure way earlier than you may even realize. That you're, so to speak, playing the game. Now, that being said, a lot of you are waking up 60, 70, 80, 90, and a lot of you probably have been doing good things along the way. I'm not trying to dismiss that, but the thing you got to understand is the longer you want to live and the older you already are, the tighter your game has to be. You got to really get everything just right. You got to dial in your daily routine. You got to dial in your diet. You don't have to work with someone, but if it's in the budget, you absolutely should. And my most important people for people in those late, late decades of life, a good general practitioner who knows how to use hormones, because hormone replacement therapy is the single biggest tool we have as we get older to improve our quality of life. And mitigate many of the problems of aging. The second person is a personal trainer. Now, they may call themselves a strength and conditioning coach. Shout out to my dear friend Jim Laird, who we refer our people to. They may go by many different names, but they help you keep your physical body strong because your physical body, the older you get, the more it's about maintaining your lean muscle mass. Maintaining your cardiorespiratory fitness. And the more people neglect that, the less everything else is going to work. And attendant to that, like implicit in that, is making sure that you're nourishing your body properly. The right amount of protein, fat, carbohydrate, all the other micro and macronutrients. That's what it takes to get 5, 10, 15, 20 more years at 90. It takes really close attention to the— these details. I, I mean, I— there's no data that I'm aware of for this, but my strong suspicion is that people at advanced age, the patients who are on hormone replacement therapy, are gonna way outlive on balance those who are not. I'm not familiar with the studies showing that, but don't hold your breath. Those sorts of studies are not being done. And there's a reason for that. There is no money in bioidentical hormone replacement for Big Pharma. They actively suppress, attack, and try to destroy bioidentical hormones because they wreck their profit margins, or they—they are basically a solution to a litany of problems that pharmaceutical drugs are prescribed day in and day out to control, and that means there's a. Huge incentive for them to go after bioidentical hormones. Alright. That's all the time we got for today. Ask your questions. The link's below. Book an evaluation with a member of my team. We help tired, foggy, inflamed people reclaim their health. If that's you, the evaluation is your next step. And if you're a practitioner, coach, or you would just like to learn how we help people to be as healthy as possible, join our fellowship where I train people in what we do and how we do it. Thanks everyone for watching. Take care. Bye. Have a great day. And don't forget, pick up a copy of my book. If you've already got it, leave a review. Thanks everyone. Take care.