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Gut Health and Autoimmune Disease
[Music] hey hey welcome to Brain Check I'm Dr Mitsy Joy Williams your board certified neurologist and fellowship trained multiple sclerosis specialist my mission is to engage educate and Empower those impacted by chronic neurologic conditions to become an I part of their healthare team here on brain chat we'll be discussing all things brain brain health Wellness self advocacy and how to care for your loved ones who are impacted by chronic neurologic conditions join me and my Super Friends and special guests as we get ready for the next episode and most importantly let's get nerdy hey hey everybody Welcome to brain chat I am so excited to be here with you and I have a very special guest and super friend with me tonight and we are going to be talking about all things the gut so I am with no further ad do going to introduce Dr Sansa Curtis she is a naturopathic physician and she is a physician assistant who is certified in Integrative Medicine she is the CEO and founder of 3D Wellness in Roswell Georgia so just say Atlanta you know because nobody know you know unless you live in Atlanta you don't know where Roswell is but in Atlanta Georgia and she founded this practice in 2011 and I cannot wait for us to have this great conversation talking about how you can get your gut healthy and how the gut affects autoimmune disease welcome Dr Sansa how are you I am wonderful and thank you for having me Dr M I'm so excited and I have somebody to get nerdy with yes yes yes yes so we're super excited about this episode you know I get a lot of questions about the gut but before we get into that let's take a couple steps back whenever I have a guest on brain chat I always love for you to just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into your field of specialty so how did you get into Integrative Medicine well it's it's it came full circle my grandmother is an herbalist and a midwife so we were detoxing before we knew what detoxing was all about and before it was a thing it was it was a thing you know and if you're anywhere from down south you know C Li oil was a thing before you know fish oil was a thing absolutely so that's what I grew up with and my dad was in the military so you know you didn't run to the hospital in the military because it was like you know going to a third world Place wait wait there for 3 hours to get scene so therefore we grew up like my like my grand my mom like my mom did right and I can just remember my grandmother when she finally got of age to get insurance Medicare um she ended up having an autoimmune disorder we didn't know what it was then but she had thyroid eye disease and had no clue and I can remember going to her closet and giving her a shoe box full of pills and she graduated to two and that's when I decided there has to be a better way so that's when I first became interested in medicine and then I went to life happened I um started school and then I went back and became a PA and after a while I decided I'm like uh I was tired of giv an ill for every pill and I came full circle and went back to school to be a naturopathic physician and it was like my aha moment right I was like everything grandma was telling my my grandmother was telling me there was true science behind it so that was just really exciting and um then my daughters now have autoimmune disorder so was my daughter initially that um prompted why I got into uh autoimmune but I had went back to school to again I think I'm a long-term student to be go through the Institute of functional medicine be certified through functional medicine yeah I mean I love it you know I always talk about the fact that in medical school and in much of our formal medical training they don't teach you a lot about things like nutrition they don't teach you a lot about exercise they don't teach you a lot about about the importance of sleep you just kind of have these General things that you say to people like you need to get some sleep you need to eat good you need to get some exercise and move but really we're in an era where I think those kind of blanket phrases are not good enough we need to give people specific recommendations and we need to direct them to places where they can get specific recommendations if we're unable to do that so I've been really excited about you know the rise of functional medicine and integrated medicine thought about going back and doing a fellowship myself but Dr Mitzy is I'm a lifelong learner but I do not feel like getting another degree or another training so I will leave it to you wonderful experts who have the energy and I will have you on my show so we can talk about it all right so you know first before we get into talking specifically about the gut you talked a little bit about functional medicine and how you got interested in that what is functional or Integrative Medicine what does that mean what does that term mean uh functional medicine works on systems so like when conventional medicine if you go to the cardiologist he's only looking at your car heart right he's not looking at you know they may look you know a diet or here or there but they're not looking at other things so functional medicine looks at the or integrative you integrate the whole person yeah and you look at the whole person and you look at their systems so it's almost like connecting the dots like you know I look at the dots above your brain you know and so but remember when we were little kids you had all the numbers on a piece of paper and then you had to connect the dots and as you started to connect the dots then you begin to see the big picture so that's the best way I can explain functional medicine is begin to take your history your EP uh and what's going on around you in your genetics and just life and what has happened and then you begin to formulate okay well this is what's going on this is where it started and generally IA cellation disease started from 0 to 10 but we don't see manifestation till it gets like 5 six and seven but it's been brewing here yeah but we'll say August the 1st 2001 that's when I was diagnosed with X so but so we come with that and we work on clearing up those systems with simple modif uh lifestyle modification and just helping clear emotional mind body and spirit yeah you know because all of these things are integrated you know I spend a lot of time educating and counseling my patients about the Mind Body Connection some gurus say Mind Body are one it's not even two separate things right um but all of these things are connected and we cannot expect our bodies to work like they're supposed to if we have so much emotional trauma or things you know of that nature going on and we have to believe that those experiences affect our bodies the things we take into our bodies of the type of things we eat the exercise we do or don't get it affects our bodies over time and can result in disease you know so I often say I spend probably about 20 to 25% of my time talking about medications and the rest of it is like okay are you getting sleep what's going on are you stressed out do we need a therapist what do we need to do do we need to go here what are we eating right so we spend a lot of time talking about those things because ultimately when we think about things like Diet exercise Etc we think about cardiovascular health but really those things help brain health right so brain healthy behaviors are healthy behaviors that actually science has shown keeps your brain from shrinking and keeps your brain resistant to in in injury so these things are extremely important so uh that's I digress I could talk about brain health all day which we're kind of going to talk about indirectly but today we talking about the gut all right now when we talk about the gut I remember growing up when we said somebody had a gut we were talking about about their body habitus so a gut was like your muffin top you know like oh my God somebody had a beard belly or a gut right we're obviously not talking about that um but we're talking about tell tell the people what is the gut so when we talk about the gut and your gut is healthy or not healthy or what we're not talking about your muffin top what are we talking about we're really when you talk about the whole gut the the whole uh digestive system right but you know we talk gut stomach and small intestines large intestines but we forget that it starts from chewing the food masticating the food because if you don't masticate your food chew the food then your your stomach has to work over time to try to break down the food and then it goes dumps into the small intestines and they'll through the large intestine and through the anus so that's your whole you know digestive tract that we look at when it comes to functional medicine and even the it's interesting we're talking about brain but the gut is your second brain because of how the you know the neurological system when it gets to the gut it has a bidirectional communication so and that is like fascinating now you know is they're sequencing the gut microbiome they can look at it and see what things um changing DNA expression with different things and just um um looking at even doing different medications based on your gut microbiome there's a marker that we look for in blood work is called T um don't ask me what it means because I don't know with T Mo okay we always know these acronyms of course um but we can measure that and that's a marker for gut and cardiovascular to see if your cardiovascular issues are gut related so I'm just so excited about just how science is evolving and we're no longer or we should no longer be practicing algorithm medicine if a then B Because all diseases like I'm pretty sure you know um are not all created equal you got Ms absolutely this person can do this something and this person can present and do something totally different but in our medical books we have one you know algorithm and how treat it yeah I tell people all the time honey you did not read the textbook before you came in um and so that's the majority of people don't read the textbook right because everybody is different the way their diseases present different their life experiences the things that they take in um all of those things are different and so I really try to look at each person holistically and treat them as an individual and come up with the best plan for them so the gut you know we're going to come back to that chew and the food we're going to come back to that at the end but for right now the gut we're talking about the food that you take in it goes down your esophagus you know goes into your stomach um into your intestines and then out the other end at some point what does a healthy gut look like right so we want to talk a little bit about what it is when it's unhealthy or leaky which is a really common term that we see in the literature and also in popular culture what does it mean to have a healthy gut one if you're having gas and bloating that's not a healthy gut if you're having constipation or diarrhea that's not a healthy gut if your stomach bloats after you eat that's not a healthy gut uh so those are and even other things you can have skin issues because you have a bidirectional systems and you can have skin issues and one of the biggest things with autoimmunity is gut health so when you look at the small intestines they um they actually measure zulin which is a marker that just looks at how healthy your gut is so you can actually measure um the the tight juncture and how healthy that is and then you have these cells that line the small intestines and we have um a gazillion of them my Sunday School uh one of my Sunday school teachers I mean students told me gazillion so that's a word okay so that just means you have a lot of them and in this in the small intestines they're the ocytes and I think it's fascinating because in the brain they're the cytes right but they're but they're almost identical in their you know in their path you know their pathology so I think it's pretty interesting there but if you have a leaky gut you got a leaky brain so the gut uh so with those type with the inas sites their job is basically to take the food that you eat when it's dumped from the from the stomach it should be this sick substance and all always tell patients it should be like peanut butter mhm crunchy is partly digested creamy is fully digested well if you if your small intestines doesn't have this all the things that it needs to break it down then it causes damages to the gut lining and the mucos mucosal lining or the skin of the gut and so therefore now you invite inflammation in and that's where a lot of inflammation starts we do this every day all day all day long right so that's how inflammation gets in and the food that we consume now is not the food we consumed when I was a kid MH you know we have all the dyes the GMOs and you know bioengineered all this things I went to Whole Foods the other day and actually took a picture they had bread and it was like bioengineered material in bread that they bake in Whole Foods we're not talking about processed bread we're talking about the bread that that's baked every day and you know we have to take all that in into consideration and then our gastric you know our gastric acid as we get older we start to lose that so the food if it's not broken down in the stomach then sometimes your leaky gut can come from just not having enough gastric acid and most autoimmune patients have some type of we call that ayria or hypoc cyria basically what that means you don't have enough gastric acid in the stomach to break the food down or you have little and so I always tell my patients I give you a digestive enzyme to be your aided Pacman so it can Chomp up the food so now it can break it down and so your body can assimilate and now you can get those nutrients and so then if you can't get the nutrients from the food that you're consuming then how would your brain going to get everything your B vitamins and everything and notless you take it if you can be eating well yeah but is it assimilating and is it getting to where it needs to go so the bloodstream can take it uh elsewhere yeah so you said so much you know um in that and uh you know so much information there for people to no pun intended digest right so you know it sounds like there are these Junctions so similar to the brain I talked to people a lot about the bloodb brain barrier which is basically a kind of gate a gatekeeper so to speak that keeps some of the stuff from the blood from getting into the brain because everything that's in your blood does not need to be in your brain and so when that barrier is broken or that barrier is damaged it allows things to cross over that can cause inflammation and so a similar process is also happening in the gut in a lot of our literature we talk about how the gut educates the immune system you know and how potentially with Ms maybe there are things that we're taking in that are causing inflammation or maybe we're not digesting properly for some reason that milu or that collection of molecules in our gut is not properly B balanced and that inflammation can then trigger inflammation in other parts of the body potentially in the brain which can cause demyelination like multiple sclerosis so we talked a little bit about the healthy gut right you know you should be going on a regular basis you shouldn't be gassy all the time you know um you shouldn't be having those issues if your gut is healthy we talked a little bit about the leaky gut you know with inflammation and so what is the connection that we know of between the gut and autoimmunity right so specifically we know that there's a link between the gut and Ms but what about autoimmune disease in general so there's a lot of discussion and research focused on how the gut can lead to autoimmune conditions and tell us about that connection um it's almost the same pathway it's that inflammation and that inflammation is triggered and so it's and I'm going to date myself on this it's like when something hits the bloodstream or when some your alarm goes off that alarm is to alarm you that something is happening so inflammation within itself isn't bad because that's our cell danger response but what happens when it keeps going and it keeps going and it keeps going and then now you're destroying the tissue and when you start to destroy the gut tissue then it goes and you destroy all the other tissue so if your brain is the weakest then that's going to you that's going to be more effective you know I see some it's almost like a snowball right or Avalanche it starts with a small snowball and as it continues to grow and grow and grow then it becomes destructive and that's the same thing with our inflammation inflammation over time becom very destructive to the tissue and that leads to disease and a lot of times your stress stress is like I think we underestimate stress absolutely and I'll say this especially in our community we think we have that super woman syndrome MH cuz we don't feel agitated in stress because we've I mean you know when we we went to school microaggressions were there you know it if it wasn't if even if you to HBU School School you went to Mor house you still had to go do your rotations and other places and you know you were black right and so those things are still there that I think we don't even di dive into or you know as a working mother and having children those things are stressful but we just plow through it and um you know it's just amazing work that you're doing and just to see the women just like get the AHA and I love you know I just love love working with you and it's just you know cuz I think it's interesting that now we're starting to connect you know when I first started this everything was so separate like oh no we don't want anything to do with you but now we're starting to see that that is the connection and with Ms it's just um which I think my daughter probably is barking up on but you know it's a lot of has to do with the gut yeah you know so listen we can do a whole episode about stress honey I can do about four or five episodes about stress but I think you know what you're saying is spoton we do underestimate the effects of Psychosocial stress on our bodies and so I often tell people my patients tell someone else so pretend like someone else is telling you uh telling you their story but it's your story how would you respond you know so you know when we are going through things whether it's the stress of working and trying to manage children or trying to manage job plus symptoms from a chronic illness or a new diagnosis I said girl if somebody walked up to you and said you know I was minding my business and then all of a sudden I couldn't move my leg and now it's weak but I'm not back to normal and I don't know what's going to happen and the doctor is talking to me about these scary medicines and then they're telling me I need to do this and all that I said you would probably say to that person oh my God how are you coping but when it's us we say oh no problem like it's not supposed to affect us so I have this really cool sign in my office now that says it's okay to leave your super Cape at the door I like that I think it's so important for people to recognize those effects um and how they affect their body and how they affect their health over time so thinking about leaky gut let's talk about the gut microbiome right so I go to a lot of meetings and we talk about this microbiome it's all of the organisms all the bacteria so just like all inflammation is not bad all bacteria is not bad you need bacteria and other organisms in your gut to help you with digest digestion and eliminating things but what is the microbiome and how does it affect disease well it's we have over 38 trillion different bacteria in our gut now that's a that's a real number so bazillion was to but yeah that's trillion is a real number that's a real number yes that's a real number but anywhere you have uh a bunch of bacteria your skin has a microbiome your scalp has a microbiome everywhere part that there's bacteria you can have a microbiome and that microbiome is just basically where you have all the bacteria but you have the commensal bacteria so it's almost like you ever gone on a trip and you have your kids and you want the kids to behave right so if they're not behaving we have staff already on our skin but it BEC doesn't become problematic until there's an overgrowth or an under growth so everybody wants to be a created equal and everybody is doing their own job then that's where it's a friendly environment or ecosystem and now we can flourish and grow and then you need the prebiotics to help stimulate the the the bacteria so it's almost like the and those Prebiotic foods like garlic Arch chokes different things can help the gut um the gut it's like a garden that's the best way to have it is the garden and the dirt is there so you want that ecosystem to be friendly so you can eliminate those things and also have your immune system because 75 to 85% of your immune system is stored in the gut 75 to 85% of your neurotransmitters are stored in the gut so your norepinephrine your epinephrine your serotonin so a lot of times when we just work on gut health then you can also work on the brain health and there and I know you know this um but this they're doing psychobiotics so probiotics that are spec specified for just neurological disorders that will help cross the bread ring PR and help you know our brain um I did some training at the aan center and one of the things that was saying that we look at our heart you look at the skin you look at all that but a lot of our DSM DSM the coding for a lot of um psychological disorders they're they're by a algorithm you know they're by a you know they're just by a checklist like if you check off of this then you have bipolar you have that but it's interesting um how that when you really get into gut the gut microbiome and the in the brain microbiome it's it's interesting in looking at the different scans and the spec scans now do you do spec scans at all or do you recommend them yeah yeah so we don't do a lot of spec scans so for our audience those are specific MRIs that can tell us about brain function in different areas there's lots of different Advanced MRI techniques you know so we do not do those often times our academic Centers do those um I don't order those on a regular basis because sometimes I have my patient they don't they are expensive and my patients don't want to get their regular MRI so if I add another MRI on top of that they really going to be mad at me um but there certainly is a lot of interesting research about how we're learning about brain function with different types of Advanced MRI technology um and you know a lot of what you said about the gut in the microbiome is very fascinating to me so this was not really something that we talked about in the MS space um frequently until maybe the past decade or so so the research has been there there have always been people interested in it but it's really become a Hot Topic and I remember the first time it came to my attention um was close to 10 years ago I saw a poster at a meeting and it was talking about the gut microbiome and so when we talk about researching Ms certainly we research Ms in our patient populations but most research starts in animals and so there were some animal studies where they insert where they removed the gut microbiome um and the animals could not get Ms but when they reintroduced the microbiome that was similar to someone with Ms then they could develop Ms and so I was like oh my God so there's something to this so I think there's still a lot that we need to discover about how the gut and what balance or imbalance of bacteria or other organisms can be related to someone developing Ms or even how can it be related to the severity of someone's Ms we haven't even gotten into that trying to I mean so I mean there's a lot of exciting research that's been done and I'm really encouraged by that so when we're thinking about okay we know that there may be imbalance in the gut we know that there may be leaky gut um often times when someone is in a neurologic evaluation you know I can't test for zulin and all these other things cuz I'm trying to test for what's going on with your brain um but what are where do you start right so okay let's just assume that most people with autoimmune disease have some imbalance in their gut where do you start with how to begin to rehabilitate or repair I start very simple so very lifestyle modifications um mindset is key and people understanding you know what they're going through um and like you said embrace it like the leave your cap at the door like embrace it it's okay if you cry about cry about it that's that's fine um but the other thing I start with changing their life uh their diet um gluten it has been studies and and shown that it's very neuroinflammatory there's a test we can check it's called the neuro zoer and it actually looks at how gluten affects various parts of your whether it's the brain whether it's your heart whether whatever there's different markers that you can look to see what is affecting and so when you show people this they're like oh my God I'm going to stop eating gluten and um and that's you know anything with bread gluten is everywhere gluten is is almost like you can't almost get away from it um and so but the main thing is like the the bread the cereals different things of that nature the cookies the cakes and all of that all the good stuff oh God all the good stuff yeah W now they you know when I got into this 15 plus years ago you know it was like that you know rappers Del like the chicken tastes like wood so the gluten-free food tastes like wood but now it's got better it's gotten better A lot better it's a lot better yeah it's got a lot better let's but let's back up before we start with the diet who do they need to collaborate with right so when we think about the care team I obviously always tell my patients you are the most important part of your healthc care team but we always collaborate with other specialist to help us to deal with these issues so um you're seeing the neurologist um you may have other Specialists depending on the symptoms so who do you go to do you need to a functional medicine doctor integrative medicine doctor a naturopath um who does this type of assessment and helps to develop this specified plan you can start with a functional nutritionist as well um there if they are up on it but they cannot order so many of the tests and different things like that so they have limitations um functional medicine uh practitioner um and uh you can I always send patients through the Institute of functional medicine up uh there's a4m is another place you can go school of Applied functional medicine because again when I started there was like three or four different institutes that was teaching now you can go and get a over or go to a weekend course and come out and you can be a certified Pro functional practitioner so there's no regulatory um things in that so you really need to do your due diligence CU some people will go in you'll have $10,000 worth of test and you'll get all of this and you and I see it all the time people come to me they spent their money and by the time they get to me they don't have any money else to spend because somebody else has Hoodwink them because they said they were doing functional medicine so I would strongly recommend before you spend any money do your due diligence make sure the person is is is what they say they are and um read some of the reviews let the reviews speak for themselves you can tell whether review is paid for or whether it's genuine but especially through the Institute of functional medicine is a great place lifestyle medicine now is um crossing over and training a lot of MDS and Do's and PAs and practitioner and just identifying lifestyle factors that that impact our health that we did not learn in traditional not a lick nutrition nutrition was two weeks and I don't remember anything except phytonutrients and I don't know that I remember what those are yes so that's what I would add to the to the team and also get a u a family member bring somebody with you four years are better than two um when you get a diagnosis you just you know after you get the diagnosis you forget anything else right you're just sitting there you're in the in the Twilight Zone you're just you're dear in headlights you know and uh I can remember my mom was diagnosed with cancer we were sitting there like what what you know so you having a good care team and making sure that people are talking to each other yeah and uh keep your own notes ask for a copy of your notes take it with you ask ask for a copy of your task be your own Advocate absolutely yeah I always educate my patients and say you are your own best Advocate uh all the things you're saying are spot- on So for anybody that's watching that's see me you know I keep saying bring somebody with you take notes um prepare for your visit what are your questions before you get there so that that person doesn't walk out the door and that burning question that you had do doesn't get answered until you have to go through the patient portal or you know or you try to call them back after they already seeing somebody else um you know make sure you have your own agenda because each health care provider will have their agenda we have the things that we want to cover the things that we need to get through but you need to have your own agenda when you go to those visits so that it can be productive for you as well as productive for the person that you're seeing so um so we said lifestyle medicine uh we said functional medicine I love that you um pointed to that caution to do your research that's something that we also encourage our brain chat audience to do some things that I've seen you know from a traditional standpoint is certainly you know when we talk about traditional medicine I do believe there's a place for traditional medications um I went to medical school I do not believe that traditional medicines or pills are the answer to everything I believe that lifestyle has a lot to do with our health um however I've seen some people who've gone the opposite route where they have seen some either in a you know functional or other um you know field of medicine outside of their neurologist and then they come back to me with 20 pill bottles of supplements right and so I'm like well honey you take one pill for your Ms and you got 30 pills over here right so I think again striking that balance right um finding the right practitioner the right person that connects with you and that can help you with that individualized plan is so important so you need to start with someone within functional lifestyle medicine um you know talk about what are the lifestyle interventions except the diagnosis and then in terms of diet um what about that you know so where do they start with diet so you talked a little bit about testing to see if there's gluten sensitivity or issues like that is there anywhere else that people can you know start or go for good information to learn about their diet they ask me all the time Dr Missy what should I be eating what's anti-inflammatory what should I be taking and I say I'm going to give you uh somebody's number right here and then we work together with them you know to uh you know make sure that we have the right plan but you know people often want to know where to go for good solid information yes and like I said it's just finding a practitioner because there's so many um variations on the Elimination Diet and they said that's key and you have AIP diet and that's in you know but even my patients will that listen to every podcast out there when they get to me like which this AIP said I can have this this AIP said I can have that and you can't and again there's no two people that are exactly alike um some people will be so focused on getting food sensitivity tests because they want to know what that is and I said well the food sensitivity test is a tool however you have to take the person the history and what's going on because if your immune system is in flare and you take a food sensitivity test you could have false positives and come up with everything I remember the first time I did mine I thought I was going to have to go see a therapist I'm like oh my God what am I gonna eat grass you know eat anything and I like yeah but the aha moment was me for me was when I had I could have scallions but not onions they're the same thing so that is if your gut is so inflamed you can react to a lot of things so it's the practitioner knowing how to interpret the test based on your history if this something you eat all the time then maybe it's too much maybe you need to pull back it doesn't mean that you take it totally out of your diet right or I say you're nutrition because I hate the word diet um because right because it implies you're trying to be on a diet but is really that's not what we're talking about we're talking about what you eat lify yeah your Lifestyle the food that you taking because even the word diet you think of when am I going to start and when I'm going to end right when it's lifestyle nutrition mean it's a long life thing and it's you got to have es and flows right and I tell people are you going to eat gluten-free the rest of your life and you have an autoimmune I hear some people say oh you should do that honestly enjoy your life if you have anniversary birthday I have an 8020 rule but the thing knowledge is key so I know if I eat that piece of bread and I can't get out the bed the next morning that's on me right that's not on Dr Mitsy right that's not on Dr Sansa right that's on you and you and and you have it I remember on Fridays I I would go through and not have lunch and I'd go home and my husband would have pizza there and I'm like I'm going to eat this piece of pizza I don't care you come stab you like with Miss Fork um but then I pay for it and then I won't eat it for another year but you know what I mean so there but I knew the answers so knowing your body is one thing you know listening to your body our body is constantly speaking to us it is but do we really listen there's that we CH out that you know and that's the difficult part right is that our bodies are often telling us you know and going back to what you were talking about with the Elimination Diet I'm sure there are many different variations but you know we've had other functional medicine and Integrative Medicine um you know practitioners on the show and we've talked about elimination right so you take away one thing you see how you feel um and then you reintroduce it and if that problem that gas came back after you start you know that's not your friend right that's not for you you know what I mean or if you want to do it then you know the consequences so it's so important to listen to your body um and to be patient right we've had different things that we've been you know taught to eat things that we grew up eating things that we think are healthy that may not be as healthy as we think and so the process is not going to be overnight and so when people ask me what kind of diet should I have I'm like the one you can keep up with that's the best one for right you know so don't go do something drastic and cut everything out and then you just hate food and it tastes like plastic to you but let's find that happy medium let's get some assistance from someone with expertise and then let's kind of craft that P plan and you know baby stpp it you know so that we can make changes for a lifetime and not just make changes for a temporary period of time and then you know it all blows up because we can't keep up with that drastic change that we've made so I normally start with gluten dairy and added sugar those are my three hence 3D Wellness mind body and spirit I work in work in threes yeah and it takes a a minimum of 21 days to get to turn over new gut floor MH so do that for 21 days and like you said start adding things back in and then at or at the end of 21 day or 30 days I I've extended to 30 days but at the end of 30 days now we can see food sensitivity because now we have a better foundation and we can see what's going on and I tell you most of the time in that 30 days people will come back and say I'm sleeping better I'm poo I'm going to the restroom now on a regular basis um because that's another thing if you're not going to the reg B and I mean number two all those things are circulating whether it's estrogen toxins they keep going and you keep those in your body so just simple things like making sure you're going to go food making sure you're staying hydrated the solution to pollution is dilution so if you're not drinking oh I'm going to steal that I'll give you credit the first time and then I'm going to steal it well I stole it from somebody so you can have it well thank you thoroughly grabbed I'm sorry I didn't job you say the solution uh is uh diluting so drink make sure you're drinking water and not coffee people like drink coffee I drink tea no go back Coke is not water Sprite is not water um those things are not water okay H to the two to the O exactly no additive just water um yeah so this has been an amazing discussion so you know who knew that I would uh be excited about the gut but there just so much to learn and in my quest for knowledge I always love to have smart people who are doing this work come on and you know chat with our guests and just give us some insight into what we need to be thinking about where to go to get help we always want our patients to be empowered and we want our community our broader Community to know you know where do you get this expertise since we didn't get it in medical school or nursing school or all the schools um so I really appreciate you taking your time to come and talk to our brain chat audience um what words of wisdom would you give for someone who is like okay you know I've got an autoimmune disease you know I I'm just getting diagnosed I want to live a healthy lifestyle what advice would you give them to start out on their Journey uh first just take a stop and take a deep breath okay um you are not your disease we I like a lot of times people walk in I I have MS you don't have MS Ms is manifesting in your body and how do I get rid of it and finding the right person to work with and I work with if your team is not aligned what works together your neurologist should not be against your functional medicine doctor your nutritionist should not be against you other they should be as a puzzle a puzzle and they should align and work together and be Unified you are the CEO of your health and when you take control of that then that's the first healing and working with a provider that you feel comfortable with because that is the first line of healing and I know Dr mity patients they just love her but that's the first part because they feel that they can relax they feel that they they're not going to be judged and they're not going to be looked at a different way so that is I I think that is the biggest thing that we don't you know that we need to take in consideration is when you're finding that practitioner find that right one for you you are hiring them your insurance is paying them and they're working for you as you're working you know um so you just need to find find the right person to work with and also listen to your body and people say you know I I I noticed something different when I was eating nuts I was like stop eating theut nuts then you know you don't need Dr Missy to tell you to stop eating the nuts you don't need me to tell you to stop eating the nuts your body is telling you to stop eating the nuts right absolutely and having conversation with your family because a lot of times when you're starting to make these changes the family doesn't want to make those changes right and understanding like this is what mom or your sister or somebody needs to be healthy you know I I think I do unlike you I do more lifestyle um teaching and it's like okay let's just make it make sense yes you know make it make sense to you and I'll never forget you know um you know what do we do with collar greens we kill them you know we put them in the pot and we kill them right kill every bit of nutrient we turn them into mush yes however all the nutrients doesn't go away you know everybody's doing bone broth but we've been doing pot lier for a long time so all the nutrients in the pot liquer but we throw that away right so eating learning how to eat sauteed where you don't kill kill them all the time getting those nutrients from your food and really enjoying your food having your food sit before you and rainbow if your food is gray and white and it's just chicken you need to have different color Foods those phytonutrients that's going to feed your gut going to feed your brain and you're going to feel much better so when you look at your plate if your plate doesn't have the color of the rainbows then throw something in there so those are just and walk you know getting some exercise movement I hate the word exercise too is movement therapy whatever you like to do with move movement sleep key that's when your body revitalizes itself God hased that designed that to heal so you can do all the things and if you're not doing sleep if you're not getting about at least 7 hours right that may be stretching it you know I would like more but if you can get seven hours that's going to help heal your body get into that healing portion of it and then stress sometimes you just got to do it for you that's my new motto for 2025 do it for you I love it I love it I love it well that is all amazing advice um that our audience absolutely needs for those who are living with them as and those who are not everybody needs that advice so tell the people where to find you Dr Sansa yes uh uh my website is 3D wellness and the three is spelled out um and I hate to be is t h re e e in case if y'all you know need little more 3D Wellness also Instagram is uh 3D Wellness _ um GA and uh Facebook is 3D Wellness uh we also offer um Discovery calls so if you wi not on the fence and you want to know um where am I in the right place or you just want to know more about the the practice we're going to start doing Discovery sessions we were doing Discovery calls but we're going to maximize our time and work smarter not harder so we're doing Discovery session so you can jump online and learn more what we do and I'm just I'm I'm honest with you I'll tell we'll tell you whether we can help you or not or if there's somebody in your area that can help you I'm an advocate for you and I help people people come into my life for a reason and I don't want people that and a season so uh I want them if it's for a season it's just for me to tell you how to get to Dr mity then that's it that's fine too uh I don't have to be a part initial part but I'm a part because of the um collaboration I love it well thank you so much Dr Sansa and thank you to our sponsor the national msst um and we will see you guys on brain chat in two weeks have a great one everybody all right thanks
#Gut #Health #Autoimmune #Disease
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