What Your Doctor Might Be Missing In The New Health Landscape (Webinar And Transcript)

WhatYour Doctor Needs to Know In The New Health Landscape

Eric Gordon, MD and Nafysa Parpia, ND

WebinarTranscript

The contents of this presentation are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This presentation does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 00:00

Welcome I'm Dr Nafysa Parpia

Dr. Eric Gordon 00:03

Yes And I'm Dr Eric Gordon It's a pleasure to have you all with us I'm really excited about today, we're going to give you an overview of what you and your doctor need to consider when treating chronic illness.You know, your doctor has been trained to treat acute illness, and usually is an expert in that, but what many people inAmerica are dealing with, and Canada, obviously, is chronic illness.You know, acute illness is usually about one cause. But chronic illness is about your body interacting with multiple causes That is the interaction between you and the totality of your internal and external environment

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 00:42

We are just so happy to have you all here with us today Most of you listening probably have a chronic illness. Maybe it's you, maybe it's a loved one, or maybe it's just someone you don't know very well but you're familiar with it. So, most people have unexplainable symptoms, unexplainable by the doctor And it's exactly that because the doctor is looking to explain it by a single event. It's not a systemic response.The doctor isn't thinking of it as a systemic response to multiple events over time While really, that's what it is It's many, many, many layers of issues, which we're going to talk about today Most of our patients have multiple symptoms simultaneously.You might have chronic fatigue, brain fog, or neurological symptoms that have been unexplainable by the neurologists Most tests are normal, but you've got numbness or tingling of your extremities, you're dizzy, maybe, maybe you have headaches, maybe you have confusion and brain fog, but there's no explanation. Maybe you've been to a gastroenterologist, and they tell you, you have irritable bowel syndrome because you've got a combination of diarrhea, constipation, and anxiety. But they don't give you very much for it.They don't explore what else is underneath that You've just got IBS, right? Or maybe you've been to the cardiologist, your heart's pounding, you have an increased heart rate, maybe you have POTS, but you pass all the cardiologist exams, and they say, there's nothing wrong with you, you're probably just anxious

Dr. Eric Gordon 02:39

So, along the way, you've accumulated quite a number of diagnoses, from chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases, but many of these labels have no specific treatment, other than symptom suppression, and symptom management.These are often last resort diagnoses, and the doctors had in the past referred to them as wastebasket diagnoses This means that there's no true understanding of the pathophysiology, or basically in English, what causes the problem?And generally, no good treatments again, except managing the symptoms Many of these diagnoses when they were first developed

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 03:36

While he's doing that, I'll just continue So, you've been given many, many diagnoses? Probably Right, maybe IBS, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, various autoimmune conditions. So these are the conditions for which there's no underlying cause than any doctor is able to find And so the treatments are just immune suppression.They're just BandAid treatments, but there's no really understanding of the pathophysiology.And there's no true treatment because the underlying causes haven't been found

So, many of these of these diagnoses were first developed, as a way to just initially organize people's complaints, patients’complaints, and they were often looked down upon by the physician as wastebasket diagnosis. Some of you may have experienced that today.And that still goes on But luckily, with the advances of the last 20 years in medicine, most doctors acknowledged that these are truly metabolic illnesses You do get some who still say that this isn't real. But you know, even though they're understood as metabolic, they don't understand the physiology behind it That's not very well understood

Dr. Eric Gordon 05:13

Often, you have serious symptoms, but without knowing the cause, the doctor doesn't know, doesn't really understand how the body is producing those symptoms.And these illnesses, they don't appear on standard testing, and the lack of correlation between what the symptoms are, and what can be measured is what frustrates and often confuses the doctor

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 05:39

So, let's talk about what your doctor is telling you It's likely that you or someone, you know, have been told a range of possible answers, right, from, oh, it's a wastebasket diagnosis, one of those fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, maybe Hashimoto’s, maybe even lupus, right? Or you've been told, this is normal You're just aging, don't worry about it It's just your genes You know why? Because your labs are normal, your imaging is normal. Really, there's nothing wrong with you, you're probably just depressed So here, try this antidepressant Or maybe you need a little bit of steroid.And how many of you have been told this? I bet you lots of you have been told this, most of my patients, this is what happens this is what they've been told before they come to us, these are common statements

Dr. Eric Gordon 06:35

As we said, In the beginning, this is not willful ignorance or desire not to help Doctors really want to help their patients more than anything. It's just that medicine has flourished in the last 100 years by curing acute illness and treating trauma And we've used those same techniques and understanding to suppress the symptoms of chronic illness, but not really, to treat, and so it's because we focus on understanding the what was called in medicine, the pathophysiology of or what organ systems aren't working well And we focus on this happening because of one main event, one, one stressor. Whether it's a virus or a bug or an injury, because we don't really figure out why the system is broken And we don't really study the pathways and conditions that are required for healing, because you don't get to healing by just reversing the way you got sick Okay. It really is about getting the body functioning again. What we have as a standard of care inAmerica, and all over the world is a standard to treat symptoms, and the danger of this approach has been well known to naturopathic physicians But it's just beginning to enter regular medical care. Just this week, there was a study published that showed that there was strong evidence that just by suppressing the pain of early injury with nonsteroidals, like Motrin, Advil, which people take like candy, or even stronger medicines, like steroids, these actually increase the likelihood of going on to develop chronic pain, because we've interrupted the healing pathways

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 08:44

Not to say that we don't need those medicines, because sometimes we do, sometimes someone is in so much pain, they need to mask that pain. But the timing of that is important. So, about what your doctor needs to know There are so many underlying reasons for these mystery illnesses And they're all going on at the same time, creating multiple biochemical reactions that are not often well seen on the labs. What we can measure to find our diagnosis are, and what we do, in these labs are not the standard labs, are underlying infectious triggers, nutritional

deficiencies, environmental toxicities, structural integrity issues Maybe we can see this on imaging sometimes. Impossible to measure in the lab are the psycho-emotional patterns. Now, sometimes we can see these, we can understand these in the brain changes when we look at certain images like the Neuroquant or SPECTscans and QEEGS even. So, there are no tools or these are the tools that we use to understand our patients. But there are there are no such tools being used in the standard care of medicine Your doctors are usually just looking for an acute infection.The idea that you might have caught an infection when you were a child, and that is causing low grade inflammation, or there's been dormant or persistent, that's not a concept that most doctors are thinking about Or they're not even cognizant of it necessarily That's something we consider old infections, subclinical infections, and then there's chronic infections that are very often overlooked, dental infections So beyond just cavities, we're looking for infections that are in the jaw, underneath root canals, underneath where wisdom teeth have been pulled.And then very often, I'm finding sinus infections that are chronic. It could be funguses, it could be bacteria, looking for biofilm in the sinuses So now you think about how close the mouth is, and the sinuses are to the brain.There's easy access for bugs and inflammatory cytokines to the brain This is a big cause for brain fog in our patients, for sure So, we diagnose these infections And of course, we treat them

Dr. Eric Gordon 11:24

Common persistent infections that are I think the most common ones are especially the herpes family of viruses. Now, these viruses leave a bit of, or actually, all of their DNAinside some of our B cells These are our immune cells that make our immunoglobulins You have memory B cells with these viruses living in them, often living quietly in our bone marrow just waiting there Because if we ever see that infection, again, we're primed and ready to take care of it. Unfortunately, when you have chronic illness, or if you get a really severe illness, as we're seeing in some patients with severe COVID. Okay, these old infections can either reappear, or sometimes just because of all the inflammatory signals in the body, these B cells, these memory cells, turn on and also activate the immune system, making more immunoglobulins And these immunoglobulins talk to the rest of your immune system and increase the chemicals, the cytokines that lead to feeling sick And we forget that fever, or just fatigue and brain fog, and myalgias, these are usually caused by our own immune system The other big issues of chronic infections that we deal with are the tick-borne diseases.And what's interesting about them is that these, also, these don't really live much in our bloodstream, they tend to be hiding in our connective tissue or nerve tissue, or sometimes in the organs. So it's hard to find them on blood tests. But in order to live within our body, they often actually modulate our own immune system. And they will even sometimes turn up part of our immune system with what's called theTH2 response, which again is part of the immune response from lymphocytes.And this will increase the likelihood of developing allergies

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 13:35

Now on to nutritional deficiencies So commonly, your doctors look for vitamin D, and vitamin B 12 But there are other ones that need to be looked at, especially when you've been ill for quite some time, you need to support the biochemical reactions of metabolism, and detox. Even worse if you've been ill, and undernourished by the modernAmerican diet If you're listening to

us, probably you don't have them on modernAmerican diet anymore, but chances are you did in your childhood, and that can affect you today, the inflammation from that in your body. So, we measure amino acids, and minerals We want to make sure that you have enough of these These are what power your detoxification cycle and your immune system.Antioxidants allow your body to protect itself from the inflammation you create in order to defend yourself from the infections Infections create inflammation, but we ourselves create inflammation as well, that's normal. We need to protect ourselves from that.And then of course the fats we need to make healthy cell membranes These fats, the cell membranes are composed of these fats and this can help nutrients to enter the cell and toxins to exit the cell and also allows our hormones to communicate.

Environmental toxins This is a big one I am finding high, high levels of toxins in my patients on a regular basis.And of course, I'm detoxing those. So now, these environmental toxins are potential endocrine disruptors, carcinogens They're causes of neuro inflammation and inflammation throughout the body.There's more and more research that's slowly coming out on this Not enough, but it's happening The research is slowly happening Interestingly, some of you may know or may not know theAgency forToxic Substances and Disease Registries is an agency of the CDC, they formulate a registry on environmental toxins.This list is important, because it's a combination of how toxic the substance is, how frequently it's found in Superfund sites, and how many people are exposed So even the CDC is looking at this Now, metals are in the top one to seven of all these chemicals.There's around 1000 or more that are on this list. That's how toxic we are with metals Now, this is not toxicology Okay? We don't see Mad Hatter syndrome anymore, stuff like that This is environmental medicine, we're talking about There's a big difference. It's not like you're poisoned from these chemicals, but they're causing low grade inflammation in your body That causes immune dysregulation That makes you more susceptible to the infections. So, metals, guess what?Arsenic is number one on that list. Lead is number two, Mercury is number three Cadmium is number seven And many of the organophosphates and other industrial solvents, chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, they're in the top 1 to 20. So I'm testing my patients for these. I'm removing them from the system.

Dr Eric Gordon 16:58

An area that is often overlooked, in fact, I think mostly overlooked, is what we call structural integrity issues Now, this is something that I've always been interested in I was always amazed when I first started, even before I started medicine, how effective chiropractic could be for some people. I went on to study that for a while. One of the things that I noticed in the last 20 years is that a vast majority of my chronically ill patients were actually hyper mobile First I thought that it was just that I saw a lot of people who did yoga, but it really is that the hypermobility is related. People with lax connective tissue have problems with controlling inflammation Now, EDS is one of the big things Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, but you don't need to have Ehlers Danlos to have hypermobility, there are many genes that cause laxity. But what's interesting is that these genes seem to be linked to some of the genes that control our immune system When one is upregulated, so is the other So, lax ligaments don't cause inflammation, it's just inflammation often coincides with lax ligaments, and interestingly enough, inflammation will make lax ligaments, more lax That's when we get to the issue of the craniocervical instability and many

other upper cervical issues, where when your mast cells are flaring, or just allergy season, that will be laxer. People’s symptoms will wax and wane because when the vagus nerve, and many other nerves, are very much affected by microscopic changes in motion, and increased pressure in that junction between the top of your head, I mean actually, the bottom of the base of your head, the base of the skull and your neck.This is a something that we really are spending a lot of time with Even without the extreme example of the cranial cervical instability, we have to remember that the muscular tension that occurs after an old injury that has not healed completely often restricts blood flow, restricts lymphatic drainage, interferes with the ability of the nerves and the tissues to be nourished Many, many chronic symptoms, as varied as peripheral neuropathy or autonomic dysfunction, such as POTS or even SIBO can have a lot to do with structural issues affecting the nervous system And obviously the big one is affecting the parasympathetic nervous system and especially the vagus nerve

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 20:00

Can you tell them more about the vagus nerve? I really want to hear about that.

Dr. Eric Gordon 20:05

The vagus nerve has an old part and a new part.The very ancient part of the vagus nerve really deals with the fight or flight and just feeling safe in the world The fight or flight is the sympathetic part But the feeling safe in the world is the parasympathetic part And that's what the vagus nerve has a lot to do with and the vagus nerve actually goes to your heart, and a tremendous amount to the gut It innervates the whole upper gut, your stomach, your liver, your gallbladder, the intestines And so when this is not happy, it causes trouble Also, when your gut's not happy, it feeds back.About 80 or 90% of the nerve information that flows in the vagus nerve actually is flowing back from the gut, giving information to the central nervous system

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 21:10

Actually, some research has been shown that environmental toxins that you've eaten, pesticides can translocate between the gut and the brain via the vagus nerve, as well. So that's another interesting piece

Dr. Eric Gordon 21:28

When people talk about psychosocial issues, it's really important to remember that the brain and the central nervous system, which is where our reactions to the world are occurring, it controls your immune system. When the central nervous system is irritated on the physical plane, by structural issues, or by infections in your gut, or inflammation in your gut, you create inflammation, you create signals, and that central nervous system is now up regulated, and its job is to protect you So you can find yourself with increasing fear, anxiety, wondering why you're feeling things that seem out of proportion to what's going on, and you begin to react to many environmental chemicals, and just smells.And you're suddenly in a hyper vigilant state. Remember, the other thing I always like to emphasize is that stress does not cause illness, but it makes any illness worse, okay? It exacerbates wherever your body is weak, stress will make the symptoms happen more often. So, don't get upset when your doctor comments on your mood. It does play a role in your illness; it just doesn't cause it Your anxiety, OCD, sometimes

depression, these are all manifestations of chronic inflammation in your brain It does make it harder to heal, but didn't cause the problem. Very often, life events, just losing your job, losing your marriage, God forbid, losing a family member, these can have devastating effects on us And we have reactive depression to these things. But these are not causing your illness, okay. The depression and anxiety that often happens secondary to chronic illness is more often from the inflammatory milieu that's now operating throughout your body and affecting your brain

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 23:55

When the doctor has given you an antidepressant for your chronic fatigue, or for the pain that you're feeling in your body, but it doesn't work, or maybe makes you feel worse, that's why. It's because that antidepressant is not treating your illness Chances are you didn't need it Some of you do need it It's important to decipher who needs it and who doesn't In chronic illness, there are primary issues. What we've talked about; infections, toxins, structural integrity issues, psycho emotional patterns The alchemy of these cause secondary issues These directly affect our immune system and our nervous system. In my patients, I see a very interesting pattern. I see on one hand, hyperactive immune system On the other hand, I see an immune system that's dampened What do I mean by that? When the immune system is hyperactive, I'm seeing mast cell activation syndrome.The patient is sensitive to all kinds of things. Hypersensitive to foods, smells, sounds, even a hot bath, hot shower they can be sensitive to Another example of a hyperactive immune system is autoimmune conditions I've seen a lot of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus.These are all examples of how the immune system could be hyperactive and in a hyper vigilant state like Eric was talking about earlier

Now at the same time, I'm seeing that my patients aren't able to mount an appropriate immune response to kill off infections that they should be able to For example, we should be able to kill molds, even tick-borne diseases. So why do my patients have a hyperactive immune system and an underactive immune system at the same time? It's that combination of the toxins and infections causing this immune dysregulation And you might even be saying, "Oh, my goodness, that's me. I'm super sensitive, and I can't kill these bugs." It's very, very common. It's not the Lyme disease alone, for example, it's not the mold alone It's, it's all these other factors, which are making your body the perfect host for the Lyme disease So now, what's next?You might wonder, this is complex, right? It is. Next is the diagnostics. So, we test for the primary issues First, the infections, the toxins, the nutritional deficiencies, immune system evaluation, we've got some great inflammatory cytokines that we can use now, detox pathways, we can look for all of this.Your genes, we love to do genetic testing to look at where their snips or single nucleotide polymorphisms, so we can understand you better And then we marry the genetic information with what we're seeing in your biochemistry. It helps us understand you better.And then of course, pertinent imaging And of course, we're doing all the standard labs that your primary care doctor does as well Then we're also testing for other foundational issues, like your hormones, or your adrenals.

Now, different people with similar labs, are going to have a very different presentation This is why this is also an art in addition to a science. When my patients asked me, why is this showing up differently in my body than my friends? I'm in this Lyme group, I'm in my mold mycotoxin

group And our labs look similar Why is it presenting differently? So, it's that everybody with these diagnoses is inflamed.That's for certain. Where the inflammation presents most in your body, that has to do with your genetic expression The genes are triggered by the inflammation from the infections, and the toxins.And then what is expressed is unique to each individual. Chronic inflammation is the individual expression of your body, meeting the world. So now maybe your next question is, how do you treat all this, what comes next after you've done all these labs? I do have a general template for treatment we do. But we know that every patient is different Again, that's where the art of this comes in So, I have a template and I'll tell you about it in a minute But just know that that can vary and it does with each patient Now, what usually doesn’t vary is starting out with the foundational treatments like diet, and lifestyle. Most of my patients already have that down before they come to me, they're already eating super clean, and their lifestyle is good Alot of them have stress at home That's common Sometimes that's not something you can control, the stress of another person in your family. But at least they've got the diet and lifestyle down Hormonal balancing That's something I often have to do for my patients before we can even begin other treatment. Stress management. So these are like the foundation of the house If we have the foundation set, then I can give you all the other therapies to kill the infections, to detoxify If the foundation isn't set, then the other therapies will just fall through the cracks

Dr. Eric Gordon 29:57

Or even flare you, which is one of the biggest problems we have.That's why it's so important to make sure you set the stage and not do things too quickly

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 30:06

Yes So then after the foundation, then I go to immune regulation, next I always wanted to do immune regulation next, but it was not easy until the advent of peptides. Now come in peptides, and they're such tissue specific molecules that using them, we can actually talk to the immune system in a very specific way that we couldn't before And, very quickly, we begin to modulate the immune system with the peptides.

Then, I'm also working on structural integrity and emotional balancing at the same time as using the peptides and the foundational support. Now, when the patient is ready, it's different for each person, some people can be ready in three weeks, some people need a few months So it all depends on you and how you're showing with respect to treatment. Right? So next, I'll start to detoxify. Remember, as we detox, we create inflammation.That is just so for anybody who does detoxification, so the body has to be ready for this That's why I use peptides for immune regulation first, because I know I detox to you, you're gonna be inflamed. So how do I catch that inflammation, and there's other supplements I use as well, which bind inflammatory cytokines Now, I go to killing infections next Every time we kill an infection, we release bio toxins These are byproducts from dying cells and dying bugs, there's inflammatory cytokine flares.This is why a lot of times when people get given antibiotics or even herbs for treating Lyme, but there's no detox, there's no management with immune modulation first, people will flare It's what is called a Herxheimer reaction. Maybe you're familiar with that. Our patients don't get herxes so much Because we're mitigating that We're preparing to kill So Herxheimer reaction, I'm gonna

talk about this for a minute Often patients will tell me No, that isn't a good thing If I'm feeling worse, doesn't that mean it's working?Yeah, it's working. But we're creating so much inflammation, that that's now causing more immune dysregulation So we don't want to be at that place where you're being pushed so hard that you're herxing. Okay. Like I said, we've already set your system up, we've set the stage for you to not have to herx as much. Then on to infection treating Usually, we start with treating mold If somebody has Lyme, and they have mold, if we treat the mold first, then we're calming the immune system and oftentimes, may not even have to treat the Lyme Most of the time we do We're treating mold first, then the Lyme And sometimes you have to treat the gut first Sometimes we have to treat the sinuses first Sometimes we have to treat the dental issues first. Every patient is different. But usually, we're finding what's at the top layer and going for that, gently, according to each patient It's an art and a science

Darcie 33:43

Thank you. We're gonna go to questions now. Dr. Gordon, can you share a little bit more about structural integrity issues?

Dr. Eric Gordon 34:17

Ah, little more Just that they're very important I think the simplest way to think about it is, anytime you've had an injury, and that hasn't healed completely, that part of the system is not in full communication with the rest of the body. It's an area where if once you start inflammation, it's hard for you to get rid of the inflammatory byproducts because the lymphatic drainage isn't as good It’s something that I think is just so important I think about like the mid-thoracic spine for instance. When that's aggravated, it's often aggravated because the gut is aggravated. If that's aggravated from an injury or from a car accident, the nerves that are going to the heart and going to the gut, and the gallbladder are often irritated.And this makes it more difficult to heal Many times you can get the right therapy for the organ But if the nerves, especially the sympathetic nerves that are coming from the spine, are being constantly irritated because of local irritation or problems with blood flow, you keep that inflammatory signal going. So, it's so important to have a good look at the structure, and especially the fascia, because many times, the bones can look like everything's in the right place, but the connective tissue is tight For instance, acupuncture, if the connective tissue is tight, you're not going to get as good response with acupuncture or you're often going to get really flares Because you're interfering with the flow of the meridians because they flow through the fascia, that shiny connective tissue that envelops all your muscles and tissues. Give us a little hint, I can go on longer, but I don't want to take all the time talking about this

Darcie 36:32

You could and we may have to do a full entire webinar on it It's so fascinating Jennifer wants to know what tests are most reliable for nutritional deficiencies and heavy metals.

Dr Nafysa Parpia 36:44

Okay, so for nutritional, I like to look at the Spectracell micronutrient analysis, the Genova Nutreval is also good For heavy metals, it's very important that you do a non-provoked and a

provoked test Non-provoked means you're just looking at what an acute exposure could be That's simply collecting your urine, or blood, just a standard lab like LabCorp, or Quest.That's going to tell you what's floating around your system And acutely very important to know If that's high, then what do I mean by that? If that's high, it's really important to actually compare that to the CDC standards, because that's one place where they’ve really done a good job of figuring out where a metal could be considered contributing to a disease If you're at 75th percentile and higher, it's generally acknowledged that the metals are contributing to a disease. So that's acute exposure If you're 75th percentile or higher, you've got good reasoning to then do a provoked test This is where your doctor might give you some calcium EDTAto pull out lead and other metals and DMPS to pull out mercury and other metals.Then you'd collect your urine for six hours That test is Doctor's Data for the provoked metals The other thing I like to do with Doctor's Data is to look at the essential elements So, we want to look for the minerals If your mineralization status is not up to par, we can detox you till the cows come home. But the metals are just going to recirculate, which is the last thing we want happening, right So the minerals and also amino acids, which you'll see on the Spectracell test, they are cofactors for detoxification So those are the tests

Dr. Eric Gordon 38:41

And what I would remind people is if you see elevated mercury and lead in the blood, that means that you have a recent exposure

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 38:50 You need to find it!

Dr. Eric Gordon 38:51

We need to get you figure out where you're getting it from because many times the blood will look clean, but you have a lot of problems with mercury, but that's gone into your body years ago, or is leaking in very slowly at a low level

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 39:06 particularly in menopause from the bones because the bones are a repository for metals, especially lead.

Dr. Eric Gordon 39:12

You just have to be aware of where things are coming from. One of the tests that I throw out there that most doctors don't do comes from a small lab in New Jersey called Health Diagnostics, and that looks at methylation and it can break down the various components of folic acid, because just folate doesn't tell you much because if you take folate supplements or you're eating foods or supplement with folate, you can look normal on the regular blood test But this looks at subsets of the five-methyl tetrahydrofolate that people talk about all the time, but also folinic acid, and that's really important And also, we can look at reduced and oxidized glutathione because most testing is just total glutathione And that can really fool you Because you can look like you look great. But really, you've got very elevated oxidized glutathione.That means that you've used it up, you're using it to fight infection, but the reduced glutathione, which

is what your body is using to fight the infection and to donate the electrons where they're needed, it's been used up.This is the only lab that I know that does that.Turnaround time is very long But that test is useful This is an area that just, again, this isn't mainstream medicine It's nice to have at least some testing available through LabCorp, and Quest for baseline things. But when you go to the details, you're now going to often labs that really are pretty much cash pay, which can be a problem for people But it is, as Dr Parpia mentioned, you have to look at what they call the NHANES data.This is what the CDC has put together to get the real normal ranges, or the real ranges that you should be concerned about What your doctor really needs to remember, is just with a provoked urine, a high level isn't necessarily terrible Okay, because most of the ranges that they have on these labs are for unprovoked urines. Even people who don't have significant mental problems can look a little abnormal, or even a lot abnormal, if you're just looking at the normal levels that come with the labs Doctor's Data is only one, there are several labs that do urine minerals, but just always remember to ask your doctor to make sure that they're checking those values against the NHANES numbers and not just the lab

Darcie 41:58

On that, we'll just go with tests a little bit more here Arlene wanted to know what are the tests to detect those infections that you mentioned?

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 42:08

Okay, starting with tick-borne disease, we used to use Igenex a lot. Sometimes we still do. They're a great sensitive test for antibodies and for PCR tests, but now we're using Infectolab more Infectolab looks atTcells So, it's looking at interferon gamma, and interleukin two When we look at interferon gamma...Actually, I'm gonna backtrack a bit. So Infectolab takes your blood and exposes it to the tick-borne diseases Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia, Ehrlichia, Rickettsia You can also look for viruses; EBV, CMV, HHV-6, and also for mycoplasma pneumoniae, chlamydia pneumonia, you can choose which ones you want So it takes your blood and exposes it to these infections And then if interferon gamma lights up, thatTcell lights up, it means you're fighting this infection right here, right now. If interleukin two lights up, it means you've recently seen the infection, you're at the tail end of it Now there's a little bit of inflammation left from recently fighting the bug So in the past, we couldn't really tell if somebody's fighting infection right now.This is really important because of a lot of our a lot of our patients come in to us, and they look like they have tick-borne disease, their bodies are sure presenting that way. Prior to having this Infectolab test, we likely would have done an antibody test that would have shown positive and they had the symptoms, and we would have treated them for tick-borne disease But now, we're seeing that there are patients who come in, and they once upon a time have had infection, but they don't have it right now.And so we know that we just have to put them through some regenerative medicine processes to help heal their tissues to help heal the neuro inflammation

Dr. Eric Gordon 44:09

I think the antibody tests are still useful Unfortunately, Infectolab doesn't have the full spectrum of the subspecies of the various bugs because they can miss some of the Bartonellas and the Babesia Duncanii that we have on the west coast The beauty of their testing is they're very

specific The problem with the testing is it's very specific so it can miss some of the bugs that we need to know about.That's why so we still use Igenex on the West Coast and you know, we use a lot of it There are a bunch of other labs that do a pretty good job

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 44:58

But we'll augment that We're doing Infectolab more and we'll augment with Igenex for the ones that could be missing that we suspect are there.

Dr. Eric Gordon 45:07

And also, there's some newer labs now.There's Galaxy that just kind of specializes in Bartonella And there's an offshoot of Galaxy calledT-Lab, which is experimental, but often very good for looking for active biofilm And some of the more obscure Babesia species The world is unfolding, the labs are getting better, I think that's the thing I want to emphasize. Igenex is getting better, they now have an immunoblot, which is a much better test than the old Western Blot. So, the lab world is improving.And you have to urge your doctor to keep up with this. Because it can make a huge difference As Nafysa pointed out, we don't want to be treating an infection that's not there I've actually spoken at ILADS about this, we have to keep our eyes open. Because if you go to a mast cell doctor, everything can be mast cell. If you go to a Lyme doctor, everything can be Lyme, if you go to a mold or mycotoxin doctor, everything, everything is that, because if you just do this by symptoms, the symptoms often overlap And that's why I encourage everyone, keep an open mind.You can be sure you have one thing, and it turns out, your body is just stuck in a pattern And that's why you need to depend on your doctor to help figure this out and encourage them to keep learning and looking, cuz yeah, every year we learn more.

Darcie 46:55

Let's move on to a couple peptide questions we have here I'm going to put them all together How do you determine which peptide to use first?And have you found that people with mast cell (activation) can tolerate peptides?

Dr Nafysa Parpia 47:15

Usually, my patients have a hyperactive immune system. I know I want to calm that down first. I know they have a hyperactive immune system by their labs or by their symptoms I know they have mast cell activation syndrome. I know they have Hashimoto's or some other autoimmune condition for example. So then I'm going to use the peptides which are specifically aimed at that. Usually I'm usingTP4-frag and BPC-157 first, because these are ones that calm the immune system.As for mast cells, there are a couple of peptides that actually do help with mast cell activation syndrome, KPV and Lexanox both do a great deal Believe it or not, even the patients who have mast cell activation syndrome and who then reject even herbs, they do well with TB4-frag and BPC-157 as well as the KPV or the Lexanox.

Dr Eric Gordon 48:16

I just want to emphasize a lot of the people who are worried about mast cell activation and the peptides is from when we had free availability of all the injectable peptides That was until about

a year or so ago Too many folks were using theThymosin alpha and what's calledTB-500 or justThymosin beta.These will set off mast cell activation often, because they're immune stimulating They're really great for treating people who are acutely ill, but they can really get some people into trouble with mast cell. But the BPC-157 by itself, and theTB4-frag, which is a piece of theTB molecule, doesn't seem to and actually has worked really well We've been very pleased

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 49:15

Then patients are ready for the use ofThymosin alpha and LL-37 The other peptides that will help with immune, with killing off the infections, but really, we want to calm the immune system first, before we give those I've had patients come in to me saying I tookThymosin alpha and it was awful for me Well, it's because you weren't ready for it So with peptides, as with anything that we do, timing is critical. It can be the right medicine, but at the wrong time.

Dr. Eric Gordon 49:46

I just want to let people know that when you take something that makes your symptoms much worse, and it's generally considered good, good for most people, don't throw it away Don't go, oh, I'm never gonna go near that again! It's just as Nafysa said, it's all about timing. If you add that back in later, it will be really useful And it's something that we see all the time just with the supplements is that you know, when you're significantly ill very often all these wonderful mitochondrial support supplements just don't do much. Because when you're acutely ill, your mitochondria actually are turning themselves off, down on purpose, they need to do that It's just a time, it's how your body is designed, they're not broken And as you get better, you'll find that these same supplements that either made you feel worse or didn't help at all will actually help get you back that next leap towards health But it just depends on where you are in the cycle and where you are in your healing.

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 50:57

And that's why it's so personalized. It's different for each patient at different times.

Darcie 51:03

Okay, the next question is from Debbie. I've been sick for over five months now.And regular medical system says Long Haul COVID and nothing they can do Is there anything simple to start a process with my Kaiser doctors, I'm getting better, but the flares and sickness is continuing.

Dr. Eric Gordon 51:23

Ah, Kaiser doctors That is a system that actually proves the point It is a wonderful institution, if you have an acute illness, okay Especially if you're young and an acute illness, Kaiser will do a magnificent job. But when it comes to treating chronic illness, they just don't pay much attention. They're waiting for the powers that be to do a double-blind placebo-controlled study And that's not happening for a long time So, I don't know what to do for the Kaiser docs But I can tell you, it's worth investing some of your own resources.Things like the covidlonghaulers.com, which is Dr Bruce Patterson put this together It's a cytokine test And they have a very reasonable

consult, they'll consult with you, they won't prescribe But maybe if you brought that to your Kaiser doctor, they'd be willing to at least look at it. Because interestingly, they use a lot of repurposed regular medications, and some of them are inexpensive and if you have a really interested Kaiser doc, which they often are, maybe they would work with you. So, I think that's a first step because there's a lot to do for long haul COVID There's a lot of different treatments that do work It's very treatable I mean, we started treating it last July And I‘ve been impressed with a combination of treatments from the FLCCC.That was the group that was really pushing ivermectin They have a website, which is pretty good It lays out some treatment plans for long haul COVID

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 53:15

They just published one right now

Dr. Eric Gordon 53:18

And the covidlonghaulers.com are two places that you can get started, get some ideas and really know that they're things to do to get better I mean, it's not just time For some people, time does work, but it's nice to get your life back

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 53:36

Another thing we're finding is that, underneath COVID long haul, are other infections that were dormant before, the patient didn't know they had them. For example, they had Lyme, but the immune system could keep it in check Then the inflammatory cytokine flare from COVID reignited that Lyme, or whatever infection was underneath there So, we're often seeing Epstein Barr Virus, mycoplasma pneumoniae, in addition to tick-borne disease flares that aren't being tested for by the other guys

Dr. Eric Gordon 54:09

Well, but you know, EBV, actually there's mainstream literature on the EBV reactivation as a cause of long COVID. So that's, again, something that you can now, with the wonders of the Google God, you can get those articles and that can get the discussion started with your Kaiser doc to look deeper rather than just suggest that you do rest and restorative exercise

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 54:34

It doesn't just end there. It's not just that there are other infections underneath that got stirred. I can almost guarantee you that, okay.The hormones got stirred.The inflammatory cytokines mess with your hormones, most likely and the adrenals you want to test for those But Kaiser, if they're looking at thyroid, they're only usually just looking atTSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, right? We want to look for a full thyroid panel, ask them for that Maybe they'll give it to you, looking for FreeT3, FreeT4, ReverseT3 in addition toTSH

Dr. Eric Gordon 55:07

Many, many things and the clotting issues But again, check out the FLCCC and the COVID long haulers as a good place to start.There's also, actually take a look at Dr. Been, Dr. Mobeen Syed, he has a wonderfulYouTube channel and great information Well balanced, really a good

scientist, he really walks the line of really respectful science, and doing a lot of podcasts on the underlying pathophysiology and treatments that are out there for long COVID. So a great place to start

Darcie 55:50

Great Quick question here I know we're getting to the top of the hour; I want to acknowledged that. Jennifer is asking about hypersensitive people. I could not tolerate EDTAor DMPS. Is there any other way to provoke old heavy metals hidden in the cells?

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 56:14

Okay, chances are, you're not ready for it yet Okay, so maybe your glutathione is in an oxidative state, maybe you don't have enough minerals, maybe you don't have enough amino acids Maybe there's constipation.There are so many reasons why someone can't tolerate it yet.And if you can't tolerate it, then I look for all those reasons and fix them Okay, and then provoke

Dr. Eric Gordon 56:42

Because these are not generally quote unquote, toxic reactions to the chemicals, especially calcium EDTAand DMPS are very, very different biochemically, okay. But what you can't deal with is, once you move any bit of metals, you have to get rid of them, you have to bind them, get them out of your body, a lot of steps Each step, if the metal is not bound tightly, or you don't have something to catch the metal that you drop...

Dr Nafysa Parpia 57:12

...you haven't supported the organs of elimination, the kidneys, the liver, the gut, lymph...

Dr. Eric Gordon 57:17

You're gonna get into trouble

Exactly as Nafysa laid out, you have to look at the underlying (issues in) your body and your underlying health Because when you're that reactive, there's other problems than that.And it's not an issue of toxicity due to the chemical. It's inability for your body to handle the detox So, it just tells you, you gotta go back to a deeper level

Darcie 57:46

Can I ask you a question that seems to be coming up here in terms of testing? Is that something that an individual can order themselves? Or do they have to go through a physician to get most of these tests?

Dr. Eric Gordon 58:02

It depends on the state you live in The interesting thing about ordering tests is that some of its lab, but many, many times it's the state, and each state has its own rules over which test or who can order a test.There are some states that you can order your own LabCorp and Quest tests. And if you do things like, for LabCorp, and Quest, Life Extension, I think you can order almost anywhere in the country Just get online, order from them, and you can get a lot of those tests You'd have to check whether Igenex, you can order. I'm not sure about those things. I do believe

a lot of the Doctor's Data tests You know, I hate to misinform people I would check, because many times, many times you can order directly.

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 58:54

Biome effects But I think you need the doctor’s code

Dr. Eric Gordon 58:56

It just I think it's the lab, you have to check with the lab I wish I could give you a clearer answer that we're ending on

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 59:04

But usually, you need they need the doctors diagnostic code they need

Dr. Eric Gordon 59:08

It just depends on the tech. It's the labs. I mean, we used to be that way, what's happening is because, it's funny medical freedom is going in all different directions And one of them that's changed is that people have much more access But again, it's state by state, and lab by lab So, you gotta go check it out, check the lab, check the lab and check your state rules.

Darcie 59:32

And two more things here.The first is we've got lots of people who are wondering if you work with people who are not able to come to your clinic, so people from around the country and then also someone was asking about Europe. How do you work with people?

Dr. Eric Gordon 59:52

Well, we work with people anywhere but we can't prescribe for people who don't live In California It's just each state has its own medical board and also each country And unfortunately, prescribing out of the state you're licensed in is not legal

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 1:00:13

But we do work with patients from all over the country and all over the world I don't want to tell you that we don't do this, we absolutely do.The way is that you will have a doctor who prescribes for you in your state Alot of our patients don't need the medications yet, we might start them off on herbs and supplements, which, of course, doesn't matter where you are, for us to do that. But we have a lot of patients from all over.And a lot of our patients do come here for treatment, depending on how sick they are Sometimes they have to come here and about 50/50 people come here for treatment.The other 50% from out of state or from other countries, we're able to do this via supplements and via medications that your local doctor would prescribe for you You don't need to come here for the big guns in therapy If you do need to, we've got it for you as well.

Darcie 1:01:13

But do you also consult with other doctors?

Dr Eric Gordon 1:01:16

Oh, absolutely.That's a great joy.You know, many years ago, when we had a bigger clinic, we'd often have doctors come for a week or two weeks for training on a regular basis And it's something we're always glad to do is, do a consult with a treating physician. In fact, again, that's how we often work well, with patients and other states It's a chance for learning on all sides, because anytime you talk to another practitioner, no matter what their background, you can often learn something. It's a great way for doctors who are interested in this kind of medicine, but it's overwhelming until you get into it So if they are interested, it's a great way for them to begin to learn by having you as a patient, be the intermediary So, it definitely can be done

Darcie 1:02:11

And I believe last question, it's not really a question, I'd love for you two to share what's coming up. I know we have the final of the three webinars with Dr. Been.This Friday, the 27th at noon, with you, Dr Gordon, and then June 17, we have the pre-tox webinar If you could share a little bit about both of those, that would be great.

Dr. Eric Gordon 1:02:33

On Friday, I'm gonna have another discussion with Dr. Been, a chance to listen to Dr. Been, because we're going to talk a lot about treating long COVID The first two episodes were more about what the causes are, we keep using that word pathophysiology, what was broken And now we're going to spend a little time about that, and in most of the time, about the different treatments that are out there, and that we're all using And so I'm really looking forward to that And you're going to be talking about pre-tox.

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 1:03:07

I think you're going to be joining, yes? So, for pre-tox, I'm very excited about this one, because it goes back to that question where somebody asked about when they provoked for the metals And they felt worse The reasons why they felt worse, that they likely were not ready for the detoxification effects of that provocation. We have to set the body up for detox. We have to make sure the liver is happy, the kidney's happy, the gut is happy, because these are the organs, the skin also, these are the organs through which those toxins are going to come through.These organs handle the toxins as we detox. So we want to make sure that you're set and ready for detox And this is something that a lot of people don't talk about And so, I'm excited to bring this to the forefront.

Dr. Eric Gordon 1:04:00

That's gonna be an exciting talk. I can tell you how important it is in preparation, especially if you haven't been feeling well for a while It's one thing if you're hale and hardy, and life is good, and you do a detox It's another thing if you're doing it because you're already a little tired Fatigue, brain fog, just not yourself, or even worse, actually ill for a while. Detox can just make you toxic. So that's what Dr Parpia's talk is going to be all about Getting yourself ready So it becomes a healing moment, rather than a healing crisis

Darcie 1:04:43

That's all we have time for So, thank you both

Dr. Eric Gordon 1:04:47

Oh, thank everyone. I can't tell you how much fun it is just to have a chance to share what we know Also, more importantly, this webinar comes out of doing the summit, and that's been such an opportunity to really learn more, talk more, talk to people, because there are so many experts, there are so many ways to get back to health.And I know it's frustrating when you're the patient going, what should I do? But follow your heart, follow your instincts, and hopefully you're gonna find a path that will work for you

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 1:05:25

And we're here for you I mean, really, if you want to be a patient, you're welcome to If you want us to consult with your doctors, we're there. So, we're happy to be here for you. Because we know that this is rare We know that this kind of medicine is rare And we know that these kinds of illnesses are less and less rare, because it's a more toxic world. So yeah, we're here to help.

Dr. Eric Gordon 1:05:51

Thank you all, it’s been a pleasure.

Dr. Nafysa Parpia 1:05:52

Thank you so much for joining us.

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