3. Dr. Tom's Positive COVID-19 Antibody Test

[Music] I'm Dr. Tom. I'm Marissa. And we're the Nixon's. After a decade of helping patients with the list of health, we have learned a lot. That knowledge has literally been life-changing for our own family. We started this podcast simply to share practical tools, spread some encouragement, and help empower your family. With the same natural health knowledge we use in our very own home. We know every journey is full of mountains and valleys. Our hope is to help equip you a long way. Welcome to the holistic health adventure. [Music] Hello, everybody. Hello y'all. Today we're talking about the fact that my husband's COVID-19 antibody test came back positive. Shocker. Shocker. And talking about what we do when we get sick in general and what he did way back in February when he had COVID-19. I didn't know it was COVID. Didn't know it was COVID, but just to give some context, we own a holistic chiropractic office and a handful of our patients were sick back in February, including a number of our team members and Tom Nixon, my husband, whom I'm looking at right now. And he took two sick days for the first time in seven years, which is not like him. He usually recovers very quickly from getting sick. And so as this thing has progressed, we really just wondered, you know what? I wonder if it was COVID-19. And the only way to find out right now is to get an antibody test. Yeah, so we've got the test done. And we had that conversation. You know, should we do it? Should we do it? Doesn't matter. Do we really want to spend the money to do it? And ultimately just said, hey, like we want facts. We actually want better data. Better data gives us better decision-making skills. So we went ahead, got the test done, came back within a few days. This was a couple of weeks ago, and came back positive for IGM and IGG. And I'll jump into what that means, what it looks like. One of the things it does mean is my body has built antibodies to the COVID-19 virus. I do not currently have COVID-19. Someone-- Number one question. My antibody test got came back, and then they start to like slowly step away. I'm not carrying the virus. In fact, with antibodies, a lot of research would show that I'm the most-- most least likely person to actually get the virus. Very, very likely, I cannot carry the virus. You're basically the same person to hug, right? I'm definitely not going to give it to you, because I can't carry it. I already had it. I've built some level of immunity to it. So yeah, I think better data gives us better decision-making skills, which right now our country, our world, needs better information and better data. And today's date, just again, for context, is May 13th? Yes. May 13th. Also, fun fact, this is the second time we recorded this podcast. So sorry if you guys were waiting for this to come out, and it's out a little bit later than we anticipated. Anyway. So again, why does this matter? Why does understanding who comes back positive for the antibody test, it matters because, again, we don't lack a ton-- or we don't have a ton of accurate data. Remember, we didn't even start testing for COVID-19 until it was around the middle of March. And if you remember when this first all went down, it was communicated that COVID-19 had either an 8% to 10% mortality rate. And so what that means is, let's say you had 100 people that tested positive for COVID-19, and 10 of them passed away. And so 10 divided-- Which is so high. That number is so high. Super high. And definitely-- It's scary. Scary. And that's when we made a lot of our decisions based off of. Yes. So if you take 10 divided by 100, that gives you 10%. So if 100 people got it, 10 people died. That's a 10% mortality rate. However, if we-- this entire time-- have had no idea of what the actual denominator is, that's the bottom number, the 100, we don't know what that has been this whole time. So if you don't know what number to divide by, then you have basically exaggerated mortality rate. And it's not necessarily intentional. We just haven't had the right math per se. So another example, if you-- let's say that number instead of 100 was actually 1,000. But if 1,000 people have had this thing or had this thing, and 10 people passed away. So 10 divided by 1,000 is only 1%. Make that number 5,000, and that's 0.2%. And so obviously these are made up numbers, but that's exactly the point. We don't have all the data. We started testing in March. So if there are lots of cases in January, February, early March, and none of these have been counted in the denominator, then we just-- we really don't have accurate numbers. So in our practice, again, we had so many of our patients that were in January and February, and could that have been COVID? Maybe, maybe not. And we'll only know with more accurate antibody tests. So that's when we have the conversation of like, I'm so curious. I wonder if it was and turns out it came back positive, so intriguing. So with more data comes the encouraging news that potentially this has a way lower mortality rate, which more and more studies are showing that, which is, again, encouraging news. Yeah, and again, we want to be sensitive. I mean, one person dying from a virus too many-- you know, I mean, so we want to be sensitive to that. Out of doubt. For sure, we're not trying to make a lot of it, but just to say the reality is it's been around longer than we thought. I had it in February. So it was right around Valentine's Day, it kind of started. Felt a little funny. My birthday was a few days later. And then that weekend, we went and celebrated my birthday with a pizza party. So-- If you don't know, my husband went in entire year without eating pizza just to show that he could. So he had pizza for the first time in 365 days. And then he got sick. So at the time, we like jokingly. We're like, oh, probably the pizza. Yeah, I told you. I mean, one of our friends, he had got a whole year drinking no alcohol. And I'm like, man, that's so cool. I wonder what-- what could I do? I don't drink alcohol. It's not like a thing I do a lot. At all, so that would have been easy. I thought to myself, what would be hard to just give up for a year? My first thought was coffee. And then I thought, no way. That's not happening. I will not. So what would be the second hardest thing? I love pizza. I could eat pizza. I mean, I think I could eat pizza all day. So I said, we were literally driving down the road. I said, babe, I'm going to do something crazy. With-- if you know Tom Nixon, that literally could be anything. I'm going to rent a helicopter and jump into the ocean on a blob with all my friends on it. Yes. You have no idea what that's going to be. That's what I should have done. So I said, I'm going to not eat pizza for a year. And we-- What a whole year. Where are you going to be? Birthday comes around. We're having a pizza party. We all go out to this restaurant here in Winston. In town, it was fun. It was amazing. That night, that next day, is when it just took me out. So of course, I thought it was the pizza, like fatigue, cough, sore throat. So some of the symptoms I had, definitely sore throat, is kind of how it started. Cough developed. It wasn't until a couple of days after the pizza, I had a fever for about a day. And then that all kind of went away and then the fatigue set in. So I missed two days of work, like Marissa said, for the first time in seven years. Fatigue was the big problem. I literally could not imagine myself adjusting without falling over just I was exhausted. I sat on the couch and laid in bed for two days. And so I never felt like I was going to die. I did work out over that few days of period of time. And I felt a little bit more shortness of breath than I normally would working out. And again, every single person who develops the virus is going to express it differently. This is just my experience. This is not me giving you medical wisdom or advice of how to take care of yourself as you go through. But this is what I did. And sometimes I experienced when we had it. Yeah. And so again, we want to just give some practical advice of what we did. This is not a research study of all cases around the globe. This is just our experience. But want to share a quick story because I think it matters right now, especially as people are learning how to be sensitive to all the opinions that are being thrown around about this. And we actually-- so we went camping a month ago. Was it a month ago? But the second week into quarantine. Quarantine. I don't want to-- I refuse to call it quarantine. So about-- I think the first week in in April maybe. Real quarantine is when you isolate sick people. So fake quarantines when you isolate healthy people. Anyway. So we decided to go camping. And we're driving to our campsite in the state of North Carolina. All the state parks are closed, which was annoying. So we were thankful that we have a friend who has 50 acres of land. So we decided to go camping on it. And on the way there, he calls us and says, hey, just so you know, watch out. There's been a packet coyotes that have been in the wild. Wild coyotes. Wild coyotes. So just be careful. And we're like, OK, whatever. Camping and creatures, they kind of go hand in hand. just. Don't annoy them and everything's fine. So then we pull up to the driveway or the gravel Road I guess and we see Neighbor of the guy and he's on his bike and he's like oh hi, and we're staying hang and He says well, you know be careful. There's a whole bunch of coyotes out there Okay, got it. This is my idea of camping just so everyone knows it is very clear shower and bed That's called living in your own home. That's not camping and then you can have a fire outside if there is not a tent involved It's actually not camping. Hmm anyway, so then we park our car We unpack our campsite and all of that and our friend calls us again and and tells Tom Hey my wife and daughter just really concerned for Lincoln. We just want to make sure you're careful You know the coyotes are out there. So we're like okay got it three times There's coyotes here Cool, we're gonna keep the fire big and we're not gonna go meander into the woods or release our toddler into the woods to roam around free Which we wouldn't it so we Enjoy our wonderful evening we make a campfire Shockingly we go to sleep and have one of the best night sleep To speak for yourself to begin with because we camped on grass and if you ever go camping You know that you always hear the twigs breaking of course. It's always a bear. So yes, we camped on grass didn't hear any of that however around Was it 2 a.m 2 a.m We hear the sound of Crinkling Going across our tent which if you've ever gone camping you know the bottom of your tent is Basically a tarp and when you step on it it makes the sound of walking on a tarp and so we Here a bag of chips. That's the sound yeah only like deeper and louder. So we hear the sound of something Basically running their nostrils or sniffing or something along the entire side of our tent and Wake up and immediately freak out and think it's a coyote and You really just slapped like a salmon so my mind man. My manhood really kicked in and I Rapped up in a burrito in a sleeping bag My arms are in my legs are in I hear this noise. I start flopping like like a salmon. Yes kicking Which if it is a coyote your invader You're supposed to make like loud noises and like yell at it and make make yourself seem really big But Tom is just flapping silently and then gets his flashlight the coyote ran away The creature ran away and my heart is Pounding and wondering why in the world is a creature coming up to our tent and I'm freaking out inside wondering what is happening Is the entire pack of coyotes gonna surround us and eat us all alive and I don't normally like fear anything like this and So I'm laying there for probably an hour and then we realized that oh my gosh We left Lincoln snacks in our tent. Mmm rookie, which is like I mean we've been camping for years That's rule number one. You don't bring snacks in your tent And so long story short Lincoln's fault the next day realized it was probably an apossum and nothing terrifying But I really really feel like that happened and felt like the Lord showed me What it feels like to fear something that maybe isn't actually a threat and so For this whole situation he had COVID in February and we had zero worries about it No fear, but if that happened right now, you know how many family members would have been freaking out Right how much concern would we have had around this whole thing and so context it really Shapes what how we see things it shapes how we perceive our reality and in fact There is a virus happening right now that's affecting a lot of people and it can be deadly But it doesn't mean that this is a fact if I go outside or go back to work right now I'm definitely gonna get this virus and then I'm definitely not gonna make it right however Some of us are experiencing that and feel that way and are afraid to go Back into public and back into the world when in reality There's actually probably a really tiny minuscule percentage of that happening and it doesn't mean your fears aren't valid We can practice, you know, not letting those fears on our lives and more accurate data can actually help ease those fears So you know if you think about if the media reported on every single car crash that happened Every day all the time and full of us would probably never drive again So just be mindful of what you're letting shape your thoughts and then maybe try and zoom out to the whole story Not just the small percentage of people that aren't making it but the huge percentage of people that are Surviving this and thriving it and it's and it's not you know, this is deadly thing that the the media makes it out to be Right, I love hearing the stories that come out of the news about like the hundred year old or the 103 year old person that made it through COVID and they really are I mean that is as a superhero is which is great fantastic, but you're right So like what you put in your mind expands so when we get told coyote coyote coyote and then something makes noises in my tent I think what coyote right so it's anything with the virus if we're just it's we're just consuming Fear fear fear when we start going back out of the world It just we're so afraid of everything or even so afraid to even do it But if you start again looking at some of the numbers the research the data what's actually happening? The fact that there are people who are experiencing the virus and they're coming out on the other side of it because it honestly It has a lot more to do with our immune system than anything else like we're not the reality being you're not gonna be able to completely Just you know lock yourself in a bubble well, maybe some people are but To put yourself in a bubble to never come in contact with another human ever again for you know for the the idea of I don't want to be Exposed to a virus just doesn't make practical sense for a lot of people what does though is just an ability to take care of your immune system You know and so I'm gonna walk through what I did my personal particles when I had COVID-19 and And again every single person's experience can be different We want to be sensitive to that and again This is in no way me telling you what to do. This is just what I did and remember This is what I mean from a rest and I this is what we do when we get sick anyways Definitely, I mean the cold the flu COVID whatever it is these are the protocols That we that we jump into we had no idea it was COVID we just assumed it was either a nasty flu or The side effects of eating pizza for the first time after year It was worth it that pizza was delicious So it was so good. It was so good. So as I jump into this So our first thing was this in the protocols that I did as far as supplementation goes I did vitamin D I did a little bit of vitamin C. I did colloidal silver. I nebulized that those are some of the really really helpful things So just some of the research that's actually coming out specifically with vitamin D3 and again There hasn't been a lot of scientific articles about COVID-19 and supplements or medication for that matter because it's novel It's so new we haven't had any so this came out April 2nd and it said You can find this if you look up pub med vitamin D COVID-19 Evidence that vitamin D supplementation could reduce risk of influenza and COVID-19 infections and death and it does it It does it by by doing this prone flammatory response with cytokines Is the mechanism of which vitamin D helps so it helps to reduce the risk of respiratory tract infections Is one of the big things so vitamin D naturally you would get it from the sun On a day-to-day basis I take somewhere around 5,000 units a day when I had COVID-19 I was taking about 30 to 40,000 units every single day When I was trying to get better Another thing I did was I nebulized colloidal silver so let me break that down and what that means so Colloidal silver is colloids of silver silver is a precious metal. It's antibacterial. It's antibiral It's antifungal it kills parasites. It really kills basically all the known pathogens. It's really helpful at that And so I nebulized it which is really meaning I breathed it in if you if you have experienced asthma in your life You know what a nebulizer is If you haven't Think about a think about a Humidifier or a Fuser essentially a diffuser like an essential of the fuser only one that goes around your mouth and nose Yeah, and you breathe it in so honestly this I really feel like this helped me tremendously I breathe silver into my lungs and so the way silver works Here's a good study it came out of the international journal of nanomedicine and it's talked about how silver nanoparticles are capable of reducing viral Infectivity and it by blocking the interactions of the virus within the cell So specifically with COVID-19. It's an RNA virus it goes into the cell It drops off its RNA the RNA replicates and then the virus leaves us up and destroys the cell. That's how COVID-19 works in a very small nutshell. Okay. So anyways, but the the silver can get into that and it actually stops the virus from doing what it's trying to do and so ultimately stops the reproduction of it. So I breathe silver in that was really really helpful. And how many times did you do that a day? I was doing it probably twice a day for that two days in a row there and that's where I really felt like I turned the corner. For how long? 9, 9, 9, maybe yeah, it runs like 15 minutes. Okay. Yeah. I had a fever. I said that earlier. And in fever, this is one we've taught so many times and really there's a lot of good science and research showing that a fever is on purpose. It's it's a symptom. It's your body's response of trying to kill something. And so again, when you have a fever, in my opinion, I tell even with our patients and myself, let it run its course. It's your body trying to kill something. If you even go here locally in town, Brenner's Children's Hospital, even on their website, it talks about fevers and this is a quote, it says, "In healthy kids," it talks about kids and fevers, fevers usually don't indicate anything serious. Although it can be frightening when your child's temperature rises, fever itself causes no harm can actually be a good thing. It's often the body's way of fighting infections and not all fevers need to be treated unless they are extremely high fever that's causing dehydration. So I think it's important to remember, right? So what a 1, 102 in the thermometer, you're killing off bacteria, higher than that, 103, 104, 105, you're killing viruses. The risk is dehydration. So you've got, especially with kiddos, you've got to keep your kiddos hydrated, but high fevers are killing stuff. So I had a fever, like I said, for a day and I let it run its course. I took hot showers. I do that and I add in a little bit of peppermint oil. And just to reiterate, a fever is your body's natural response to a virus to kill it. Yeah. Like it's your body's way to say something's happening. Okay, I'm going to kick into my natural response to try and fight this thing off. Yeah, it's why a virus. It's why a fever happens. So instead of trying, a lot of people think fever is a bad thing and try to stop the fever from happening, it's actually super wise to help the fever run its course. But at the same time, make sure you stay hydrated through the process. Right. Like fevers are not bad, but they feel bad. Right? Very cool. In the hot shower, I use things like peppermint oil. Peppermint essential oil, it's a great vasodilator. So it's really good for opening up your lungs, opening up your nasal passageways, helping to get just some gunk and. That's the scientific term. Just trying to get some stuff out. Make sure you keep peppermint oil away from your eyes. It's no fun. Another thing I did was hydration, just a lot of water. I also used bone broth. Bone broth is a company in town in Winston called Codero. She makes a free range chicken bone broth. It's so nutritious. All the zinc, the magnesium, the manganese, the minerals that's in it. Things like glutamine, a lot of the collagen peptides that are good for your digestive system, as well as your immune system. It's why grandma used to give us chicken noodle soup. You know, there's something just really soothing about that. I did that. So easily to digest and it lets the energy in your body go towards killing this virus and not just, you know, breaking down all this complex food. Yeah, as if you were eating like big meals or whatever. Yeah, that's so true. Another thing I was really helpful, throat coat tea, man. Yeah, this will bless your life if you've never heard of throat coat tea. Some people love it. Some people hate the flavor. So you're in one or two camps. So if you've ever had a sore throat throat coat tea, it's made by a company called traditional medicinals and it has slippery elm bark as one of its main ingredients and it literally does what the box says it coats your throat super super good. I don't think I did and this is really important sleep and rest. And again, some of these things are even preventative if you're trying to avoid, you know, some sort of bacteria or virus. You can add some of these things into your life. So sleep is so important. I did a quick look at some of the research on sleep and a lot of it talks about sleep deprivation hurts your immune system. And so when understanding why it really has to do with what are called cytokines. So without sufficient sleep, your body makes fewer cytokines. It's a type of protein that targets infection and inflammatory processes, effectively creating an immune response. So this came from the sleep foundation, sleepfoundation.org. If you want to check it out. But so decrease sleep decreases your cytokine production. Decreases your visibility to fight off infection. Right. So like sleep support. So think of my cytokine production just for those. Yeah, okay. So think white blood cells. Is that helpful? White blood cells? Yeah, that's helpful. So white blood cells are the things that kill bad bugs. So there you go. That's your scientific language for that. Cool. So get adequate sleep. And it talks about deep sleep. So really you got to be hitting, I mean, the 7, 8, 9 hour mark. If you're doing six, five and a half, six and a half hours of sleep, you're really not getting enough deep sleep or deep REM to be able to produce the cytokine production that you would have otherwise if you had seven, eight, nine hours of sleep. So sleep is really important. Just for your immune system. It's why I slept on the couch for two days straight. I'm pretty sure you slept like maybe 20 hours straight. It was pretty intense. It was a long time. Other things I do to help myself with my immune system is definitely chiropractic care and adjustments. There's so much research talking about how chiropractic care triggers your parasympathetic nervous system. So it takes you out of fight or flight mode into rest and digest mode, which can help increase or enhance your body's immune response and support a healthy immune system. And so I had Dr. Jay and Dr. T. There are other two main adjusting doctors at our office. Adjust me. And again, they adjusted me hands on, they didn't know I had COVID. We just thought it was a cold. And so they they definitely adjusted me and was super helpful for my body. So again, I put all those things together. I do all of them. I think as far as the supplementation, I was taking a lot of that vitamin D just religious, religiously. I wish I would have added a little bit more vitamin C, but we can talk about that in a little bit. But all those things were really helpful. I also want to highlight that throughout this time, I did not get sick and no, I did not wear a face mask nor did we spend like six feet or stay six feet apart from each other. Snuggled. Definitely snuggled. We kiss each other every day. And I also made sure that I got adjusted because basically anything that he does, if he's sick or vice versa, I try to mirror that to keep my immune system strong as a preventive as a preventive. So I want to make sure that my immune system is functioning at the highest possible place it can because I don't love getting sick. And so I want to prevent that. So I did a lot of the things. I did not um, nebulous colitis silver, but I definitely took some. Okay. So we're going to do a little bit of the Q&A. We posted about a week ago your test results and we've had a handful of questions come in and I'm always all for overwhelming clarity. And so we're going to do some Q&A. All right. Shoot it at me. Most common question. Question number one. Do you still have the virus? No. I don't have the I had HAD the virus. I do not have the virus. I have antibodies to the virus. In order for antibody tests to be positive, it means you have had to have had the virus. Does that make any sense? It takes time for your body to actually make antibodies. So a week after you have the virus, it starts and then the test I had tests it for about a month after. Do you have antibodies? Yes. Uh, that is a positive test. So no, I don't have the virus. I had the virus in February. Now I have antibodies to the virus. Antibodies. Antibodies, which means I have some level of immunity to it. We don't know how long antibodies will last. My system could be months, years, decades, only time. We'll tell. Great question number two. Where did you get the virus from? All the most common questions. These are great questions. Um, I don't know. Um, I don't know. I have no clue. Uh, a handful of people have asked this and it's really interesting. And the short answer really is I don't know. Like that's my honest to God answer. I have no clue. So throughout February, a lot of our patients were actually sick. Nobody had said the word COVID. We didn't know. We didn't know what it was. Our team members had it. I truly believe the virus has affected a lot more people than, you know, we've known or how, you know, the people have actually known. Because remember, we didn't really start testing until March. So anyways, I would never be upset with someone, uh, for passing along a virus to me anyways, right? Like we live with hundreds, thousands really of bacteria and viruses and organisms in our body around our body. And so for me, it's like, I don't want to focus on creating a barrier between me and the outside I'd rather just take care of my immune system. And so being a chiropractor, my job is to adjust people, which I do hands on. And so I just choose to take responsibility for my health and keep my immune system strong so it can actually kill off a virus if I come in contact with it. So yeah, I don't know where I got it from. Don't know. Yeah, I think there's a lot of, again, just fear and some weird shaming that's happening along with passing the virus along. And really at any time you could pass along a virus to other people. And so I think it's just, again, so super important that we take responsibility for our own health and building our own immune systems and doing all the things that keep them strong and not diminish their ability to fight off the virus. Yeah, that's so good. Question number three, could you have COVID right now as a silent carrier? Could I have COVID right now as a silent? Okay, this, all right. Yes, let me answer this question. So at any point in anyone's life, at any moment, you could be a silent carrier of any virus and pass it along to someone else. And so that's, it's the idea of that, the solution to that would be. If you are someone who lives in fear of, hey, I don't want to be a silent carrier or what if someone else is a silent carrier? The solution is, I'm going to live in isolation for the rest of my life. Like that's the only way to avoid it, which is quite frankly not practical. But what is practical is just taking responsibility, again, for our own health and just creating healthy habits to actually build a strong immune system. So to answer the question directly, there's always a chance, I guess, if I had a false positive in my test, you know, I guess more and more encouraging news. There's hundreds and hundreds of patients that I adjust that we care for. And we've seen over the last several months who in our office, we have not had a single positive case of COVID-19 and no hospitalizations from COVID to our knowledge. And so that's helpful. So again, if you did test positive at any point, you know, I'd love to hear your experience from it. Yes. So, so good. I think a lot of people, even if they had COVID at any point in time, are afraid to even share that for the fear that no one will come around them. So if you're a patient of ours and you have that experience, please don't hesitate to share with us. Question number four, how reliable is the antibody test? Brilliant question. Okay. This is actually super, super important. So with antibody tests, there's two numbers that scientists and researchers look at. One is called specificity. So how specific is the test? And the other number is sensitivity. How sensitive is it to the actual COVID-19 strain that's going around? And so with antibody tests, that's what they run. I did my test, the company called Vibrant America. I got it at an integrative office here in Winston-Salem, Robinhood Integrative Health. They did a great job getting this test from Vibrant America. It has a 98% specificity rate and a 97% sensitivity rate. That's great. Okay. Right now, there are currently on the market, the big companies like Quest, like LabCore that have ran, that have come out with antibody tests that have seen numbers and their sensitivity rate being as low as 65%, which is not good. That doesn't mean-- That's failing if you get that on a test. That means there's way too many either false positives or false negatives that are coming out from them. So thankfully mine was very high. 98% specific, 97% sensitive. I feel really good about that. Mine tested for both IgG and IgM. IgM comes first and IgG comes longer. Those are antibodies that are both tested specifically for COVID-19. Well, question number five. Did you go see a doctor? What do you mean? Did you go see, like, when you got sick, did you go to a doctor? I went to Dr. J. Dr. D. So, okay, good question. So what you're really asking is, hey, did you go to your medical doctor for testing or anything like that? So again, I did not know I exactly had COVID-19 until later. So mid-February, when I was sick, I didn't. I don't have a primary care doctor that I go to all the time for blood testing. I really kind of do all that stuff on my own. And so again, I don't take prescription medications or ever the kind of drugs for any illness. And I have it in decades. I'm not opposed to them. I'm not anti-drug. I'm not anti-medication. I think they have a place in a time when they're absolutely necessary. I just-- I didn't need them. I mean, I guess I'm just-- I'm really thankful, honestly, for just the information that you and I have learned over the years of how to take care of ourselves, how to take care of our immune systems and coming up with better, non-invasive, more holistic solutions to get better. So good. Again, we are not anti-drug, anti-medication, anti-medical doctor. All of those things absolutely have a time and a place and save lives. And they're there for reasons. Emergencies, yeah. Emergencies that are amazing, but we again are on the stance of if there is a natural measure, if there's things that can be prevented with either chiropractic or other remedies or other ways that aren't quite as invasive and don't have side effects, we're always on board with trying those first. And again, health is not just one thing. And it's not just how we do this is not the only way to recover from COVID or sickness or anything. That's the beauty of being able to live in this country and have the freedom to try different ways that work. But for us, it's just a lasting-- or it's a lifestyle of nutrition and exercise and getting plenty of sleep and getting outside and cultivating meaningful relationships to keep our bodies in the best position possible. Not only for viruses, for overall wellbeing in general. So I think we just want to again relay how important it is that there is way more to wellness than just washing your hands. I think the most frustrating thing-- Although you should wash your hands, that's great. Yeah, washing your hands is fantastic and great. But I believe it's a bit frustrating when you go to the World Health Organization or the CDC and you actually want to look for natural ways to build your immune system and you're looking for the prevention. And the only thing that they list under the prevention section is to wash your hands, avoid people, clean with disinfectants, wear a mask, and you know, it's just-- we know so much. Just from being in the natural health space. And it's-- we're so thankful that we have the honor and privilege of watching people come into our office who are sick or have been diagnosed with heart disease and diabetes and high blood pressure and all these other issues. We don't treat any of those things, but we get to watch people change their habits and take responsibility for their health and change the way that they eat and exercise and move and think and we get to see them healthy and transformed and it's so beautiful and it's inspiring and empowering. It's why we even started this podcast and so to know what builds health and then to not see that relayed feels very frustrating. But it's so empowering and we love just watching our patients grow and learn and take responsibility for their health and take action steps towards it because it's a process, right? We're not going to like create this superhuman immune system overnight. It's a process and it takes time and energy and effort, but I think just remembering like you're worth it. Your health is worth you taking the time to invest into it. So so good. So I encourage you wherever you are to make a simple baby step. Just pick one thing. Maybe it's getting an extra hour of sleep or drinking a little bit more water or going for a walk in your neighborhood, eating more veggies or whatever that is and just start practicing it every day and you're not going to do it perfectly. None of us will and give yourself grace through the process. But every adventure has unexpected twists and turns, but over time the baby steps add to bigger steps and then before you know it becomes part of your every day without even thinking about it and you know a decade ago. I used to eat sugar every single day of my entire life. Just straight sugar. Just straight sugar. Literally. And caramel. Do you remember what? It's literally straight sugar. I used to sneak craft carmels as a kid and then I would have them as an adult. Oh man, no wonder it had so many cabinets. Not sponsored by craft. Yeah. And so I don't even think about that stuff anymore because it takes time to create new habits. We just encourage you wherever you're at to take your health seriously. It's always worth it. It's literally the best investment you can make is into your health and into yourself. Yeah. Beautiful. I did get this question recently again and until I'll talk about it here, how to actually get the antibody test. So if you're listening to this and you're like, man, I had symptoms in January or February or whatever it was and I'm curious. Rhyma I'm a fact seeker like Marissa. I want to know the truth. If did I have COVID-19 and if that information would be valuable or helpful to you or you want to be part of just giving us when I say, I mean the researcher's more data to go on, I would find a good antibody test when I say good, what I mean is that the specificity rate-- - It's not 65%, not good. - Just the accuracy is high. Above 95% is really where we want to be gold standard. - So how do you find one? - Okay, so what I would do is I would in your town where you live find an integrative medical doctor and call them and ask them, hey are you guys running a COVID antibody test? Yes or no, if the answer is yes, ask them which one they're running. Again, mine was from Vibrant America. And so they'll give you the name of it and then I would just do a quick Google search, type the name in Vibrant America antibody test for COVID-19 and then you'll get the information of how specific and how sensitive is it? And again, you want those numbers as close to 100% as possible. I think anything above 95% is gonna be really, really good and highly accurate. Again, the quest one that a lot of even hospitals, doctors, offices that are in network with the different hospitals are running is 65%. On the sensitivity rate, which is in my opinion, is just way too low. In better news, the big companies, LabCore and Quest, do have plans and have been mandated by the government to get their percentage up. So we plan on seeing that with the next hopefully couple weeks. But again, if you want yours done sooner or rather than later, or you feel like you need to, I would find an integrative medical doctor's office in your town and ask those questions. Indeed. Well, we hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, you'd like answered or have a topic you'd love us to cover, where all ears, we're just two real people trying to keep our family healthy and hope we can help you do the same. Love you guys. Thanks for adventuring with us. For more free resources, check out our Insta at Twin City Health and if this was helpful for you, feel free to share this podcast with a friend or subscribe to it. See you next time. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]