Jen Donovan: MCAS and Histamine Recovery #5

Today we get to interview Jen Donovan. Jen completely rebuilt her life and career as a result of her experience with severe chronic illness. After finding no answers from conventional medical approaches, she took matters into her own hands and found a path to healing. Jen has a diverse and comprehensive training background, including a masters of science and family therapy, tension and trauma releasing exercises certification, nutritional therapy practitioner certification, gut and psychology syndrome certification, as well as several years of training and mentoring with internationally known medical nutritionist Mary Ruddick. Through this personal and professional journey, Jen has developed six support protocols to provide a clear structured evidence base and all encompassing approach to finding a thriving life again. Now let's get into it. Hold up one more thing if you have not yet scheduled your 45 minute free exploration call to find out what the root cause of your symptoms are and your next steps to getting symptom free. You are going to want to pause this podcast and go do that right now. So I invite you to go to nutritionwithconfidence.com, book your free exploration call and find out how to get your results and what is possible for you. I think what I want to start with is I know you have training as a therapist and then you made a bit of a career shift into the nutrition space. So I thought we could just start by you sharing a bit about your training as a therapist and like maybe some of the major experiences or you know major pieces and you're thinking that led to you shifting careers. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's it's a quite a long convoluted story. But yeah, I'll try to give a summary and then we can get into detail that you guys want. But yeah, I um I started out in the mental health field. I caught my master's degree in family therapy actually. Um, and I part of it the reason I was interested in the field is because I had struggled with mental health symptoms my whole life. It always been anxious from the time I was a kid, like really struggled with self esteem. Um, never diagnosed it like straight up OCD but was always kind of on that spectrum of like really obsessive and compulsive and controlling about stuff. Um, had had issues with substance use on and off through my life and, um, I really wanted to understand mental illness like I just didn't, it didn't make sense to me the medical perspective of just like, oh, some people brains are just wrong. You know, like I really wanted to understand and so I went into a field family therapy is a really cool field and that it really does try to understand people symptoms in context, right. And so I really appreciated that and I really came into the field believing like people probably are having mental health issues because of trauma more than anything else like stressing trauma and I definitely identified some of that in in my life. But interestingly enough, while I found the talk therapy I was trained in useful in a lot of ways, it didn't make my mental health symptoms go away. And I didn't see it make the symptoms in my fucking school away. So I knew there was something that was missing. People would just come in and just like go over the same problems over and over and over again and they would express it felt validating and helpful to have someone to talk to you but like we weren't really getting anywhere. And I was kind of in the process of trying to figure out like what was missing when I had a total mind body of crisis myself and like my world completely turned upside down since when I was about 25 and had just graduated and was like in my first year like in my career, you know, trying to start out or getting to the mental health. And I really like I already felt like there was something missing and then my experience of my health crashing really just spurred me to take a take a wider lens and really look for different kinds of answers. Yeah, and would you mind sharing a bit more about what you were experiencing at that time? Feel free to be as personal or not, but curious. Well, interestingly, another thing, you know, in addition to kind of being anxious and obsessive my whole life, I was allergies my whole life. Like when I was a baby, there's actually pictures of me like a little baby just like covered with rashes, you know, my like six month picture, you know, red head to toe, you know. I started like refusing breast milk, my mom wanted to breastfeed me for a longer, but I like start refusing breast milk. Probably I was reacting to something I would guess, you know, in the breast milk and then I just through my life, I started developing more and more food allergies. So like every few years, like another food allergy was added to my list that I had to be mindful of like I had an epiphen I carried with me from the time I was a kid because I would go into anaphylaxis if I was exposed to something. And then you know seasonal allergies and dust allergies and they just kind of kept going. And I did have a couple like physical health crises that I think spurred the development of what would eventually diagnosis my selectivation syndrome. But I started getting like TIs and yeast infections and sinus infections just like I probably had like I don't know 20 rounds of antibiotics in the space of like two years between the ages of 23 and 25. And I would guess like just an immense amount because I just I kept getting infections and I was in grad school like living this high stress lifestyle and just like, oh, I can't be sick. I just got to go to the doctor and get antibiotic and get over it right and I had this mentality. And then so it was I already had allergies and anxiety, but it was like those symptoms just started increasing like 10 times the intensity that they had ever been before, you know, like even though I had always been anxious and always had allergies like I was functional I was living my life I was going out I was going to school as starting my career. And it got to the point where I was so anxious and panicky and had this overwhelming sense of dread at all times that I actually thought I might be having a psychotic break. And like I even asked my therapist at the time like do you think I could be going psychotic like I'm having really weird thoughts I'm having I feel like I'm having delusional thinking patterns. And she was like well, no people who are psychotic don't believe there's psychotic, but like I don't know it was really invalidating because I felt like something really was wrong. And then I started having allergic reactions like just kind of like Russian roulette style like it didn't seem like it matter what I ate for what I did I just started getting these huge hypes all over my face and my lips started swelling up for no reason and my heart would start racing. And then I got this like rushing fatigue where I got to the point where I was just like coming home from work and just like going straight to bed. And I just kind of like, sadly enough I was like maybe this is just what it means to like be an adult maybe like all adults are just tired like this like at some point when they work full time and have a career like I didn't know what was going on. So I was really like in denial for a long time I really felt like if I just pretended it wasn't happening it would go away. But it got to the point where I was pretty non functional and I was like I'm going to have to quit my job, you know. And so that's when I really started going to doctors and seeking help I really didn't get anywhere until I went to an allergist specifically because I was having all these allergic symptoms. And this was back in 2016 it had been about a year I was having these symptoms. And mass cell activation syndrome was like really unknown still at the time. I mean I think the first diagnostic criteria cannot like 2008 or something like that don't put me on the exact date but it was not that long ago. But my allergist had actually just been to a conference with Dr. Aferin presenting who is like considered the world leading mass cell doctor. And so she he had presented on like the common symptoms of mass cell activation and she like she was the first limitical professional I had seen who like actually looked at all my symptoms and was like, oh, actually these are all connected like I'm pretty sure you have a mass cell activation. So that's that's kind of the culmination where I was like, oh wow, okay. What I'm experiencing is real. She did acknowledge that a lot of the symptoms of this condition are psychiatric like it is very common for people to have been hospitalized like in an mental institution because the panic. And even the emotional thinking patterns can be so intense. So that was really valid. That was actually a part of my picture. Yeah. Oh my gosh, there's so many things I want to dig into your story. with imcast you mentioned that there were a series of kind of big events that triggered it for you and I know okay so gen and i we we talk as nutritious so we were just talking yesterday about some other triggers what are the most common triggers for imcast and like what's really what is it to explain like what is it exactly and what causes it for people yeah so if we really want to zoom out imcast is actually a response to toxicity so it's like a basically a fear response of the immune system so it's actually really normal like mast cells so mast cell activations in germ right the mast cells are where we're getting activated when mast cells degranulate they release his demean and so we can really look at all these conditions on a spectrum so some people will more identify with like histamine intolerance other people more identify with mast cell activations syndrome or disease or even mastocytosis and they're all related conditions it's just more on a spectrum of intensity and and some of them my mechanics of what's actually happening on the level of the mast cell right but I'm going to kind of talk more in an umbrella sense about all of these conditions and basically mast cells degranulate when they encounter a toxin in our tissues they're constantly a part of our immune system that are patrolling for invaders right so this is what happens when you get a cold right and allergens right I mean the reason we're having a reaction to them is because the body is perceiving them as a toxin right now it may be a true toxin or it may be something inert or should be inert but the body is interpreting as a toxin so that's why I say it's really a fear state in the immune system right because sometimes people get into such a state of dysregulation with this that they are reacting to things that like objectively innocuous substances right but the immune system is in this high alert state where it's just like is this a threat is this a threat right so you know really snowball for people but that's why it is this spectrum right where you see some people where it's just like they just like get flushed and have a runny nose every time he eats right and a lot of people just kind of write that off to the point where it's like where I was or I was pretty debilitated but there's people of course who haven't even worse than I did you know who are in this really extreme state of reactivity but because of that this is what's really wild about it and I think this is why people often go undiagnosed is because literally anything could be a trigger right because if enough things have piled on top of each other and the immune system and the nervous system is in such a state of like threat detection and dysregulation like I you know for me I think it was all the antibiotics that I had had in that course of two years I mean there were other things too that accumulated but that was my kind of like final straw for some people it's a virus for some people it's mold exposure for some people I've worked with people who like you know it got triggered because they worked in a hair salon for 10 years and I think just the accumulation of chemicals or maybe they got Botox injections right or a vaccine so I mean it it I have seen like across the board so many different potential triggers but ultimately like we don't have to chase that it comes down to like your immune system is overloaded it's in a state your body is in a state of high toxicity and fear basically. I want to highlight what you were just saying about the interplay between the immune system and its memory and how that ties to the nervous system and kind of like these this disorder is both immune and neurological like you're saying the symptoms are all neurological and why you focus so much on brain health and can you elaborate more on how the fear response starts to take hold for people in the interplay like why they're connected the immune system and the nervous system. Yeah totally and honestly this is why I set up my programs the way I do when I'm working with clients because I think how I was able to recover is because and kind of by pure luck because I was really just like trying everything I didn't know anything about like natural healing or natural health like when I started to disdain you know I was not in the medical field at all and you should feel that all but I did know a bit about the nervous system because I was a trauma specialist when I was doing mental health work and so I did the immune system healing and the nervous system healing simultaneously in the years that I was recovering and like that is the magic formula honestly because this is what I see for my clients all the time that some people they're like oh I just need to heal my gut or oh I just need to do brain retraining and there are people who recover doing you know each one of those things course right but for a lot of people they need both and it's because of exactly what you're saying the immune system and the nervous system are our best buddies and they're intertwined completely and a lot of this has to do with the vagus nerve and what people are calling like the gut brain axis or the gut brain connection and our vagus nerve is this bundle of nerves that goes from our pelvic floor and it's actually intertwined into our gut lining and it goes all the way up into our brainstem in the most into the most primal part of our brain and it's always this two-way communication system I mean this is like the physical manifestation of our mind body connection that people talk about right like this is how it happens and it's incredible it's so mind willing and so our gut and our brain and again the most primal part of our brain is always talking to each other the the information goes back and forth but this is how we can really get into this snowball of reactivity and I've worked with so many people and I was like this two where they just get so back into a corner where like there was a true toxic exposure you know that started dysregulating the immune system and putting the immune system on high alert very very often right I have had a few people who feel like they're sometimes work triggered by a major trauma or like a chef trauma physical trauma something like that but by enlarge it's it's more of some kind of toxic exposure or idosean biotics or infection or something like that and once the immune system is becoming hypersensitive well when you have a histamine reaction I mean there's a huge amount of adrenaline and stress hormones that get released when that happens I mean anyone who's had any kind of anaphylactic spectrum reactions I mean do you even go on like a conventional western medical like diagnostic criteria of anaphylaxis and a major sign of anaphylaxis is an impending sense of doom wow like that you that's like a that is a criteria of like yeah it's like high alert for your it's like high alert for your whole body like you're it's like alarm system impending doom it's coming yes oh my gosh yeah hopefully yeah and so people have these like dread attacks and when that happens the nervous system is going to start scanning for threats it's going to be like what is it what is it what you know but if it's like an internal thing happening like we're not going to find it but the nervous system will will find something to center on you know and again this is it becomes a real snowball because now your nervous system is seeing threats everywhere right and people get more and more reactive over time yeah and Jenny you you mentioned the term histamine a few times and I've heard you use it I've heard you use it will you explain for someone like me what a histamine reaction is I think I heard you say like immune system overload leads to a histamine reaction would I hear you right yeah yeah exactly so the histamine is released when the mast cells encounter what is perceiving as a threat right and that could be a true toxin or it could be something innocuous that it's just being interpreted in a threatening way right by by your system but basically histamine it is an excitatory neurotransmitter so it's a stimulating neurotransmitter so we actually need some amount of histamine in our bodies I mean it's it's a totally like natural chemical that that should be in our bodies like a healthy person does have a histamine release happening day to day is actually what helps us wake up in the morning it actually stimulates like our sexual response it actually helps us stay focused so we need some histamine and also this is where a lot of people also get into trouble with these issues because they get so afraid of their histamine reactions and understandably I mean they can be very intense need of dangerous in some cases but histamine is also released anytime we heal so like for example when you get a cold and you get like a runny nose and your eyes are all red and your throat's itchy that's your body trying to heal from getting a virus right that's a histamine response to try to like push that virus out sitting when we get a cut like when it's all red and irritated that's a histamine response that's a localized histamine response because the body needs an inflamed like environment in order to heal actually right and so people often will again get kind of backed into this corner will get really stuck because they're constantly hiding from their histamine symptoms or constantly trying to push away or reduce their histamine symptoms. You actually need histamine to release, to heal. It is a very important part of our immune response. It's just a matter of finding a way to pace that response that is manageable because yeah, when histamine does get really overloaded, the symptoms can be really uncomfortable and scary. - Sure. And with that, I wanted to track back to your story and you were talking about how you were at this moment where you received the diagnosis and it was so validating to you. And where do you go from there? You're kind of starting to make sense of these symptoms that you're experiencing. - Yeah. Yeah, it was very validating. I do want to put out there that more doctors today are learning about MCAS. So I think it's easier today to get a diagnosis than it used to be. However, there will be a lot of people out there who will not be able to get a diagnosis, either because their clinician is really stuck on lab numbers which are notoriously and inaccurate way to diagnose or they just don't know enough. So I do want to say, even if you can't get a diagnosis, you can still recover, right? Because the methods that you can use to heal don't actually require a diagnosis to do. So I do want to put that out there, but I was able to get a diagnosis. I was very lucky that way. But of course, I mean, even though it was very validating, it was from a person in the Western medical system, she's basically like, okay, here's a met cell stabilizer and I know same thing is to mean, so we'll just play with different combinations until we find something that manages your symptoms. And I just, you know, again, coming from a part of the mental health field where we used systems theory and really tried to understand the why's, I was like, the why is my immune system doing this? Like, what? Like, aren't we gonna figure out what's actually going on here? She's like, we don't know. We don't know why some people get it. Like, we can take medications, you know? And I'm like, okay, but am I ever gonna get better? She was like, I don't know. Like, some people seem to get better at their people's own. And she just had like no answers for me. And that's when I was like, okay, like, I need to figure this out on my own. And that's when I really started like, googling this stuff and talking to people I knew in my community who did know about like, alternative health approaches and just kind of getting people's takes on this kind of stuff. And man, it opened a whole, a whole rabbit hole that I am still going down what like now seven years later. (laughing) So yeah, it was the beginning of my life totally transforming. - And you said, part of that was systems thinking, but what prompted you, 'cause I think a lot of people would just say, okay, I guess I'll see if I get better, you know, follow the doctors or like, what was it that kind of, what about you or about your previous experiences like prompted you to like take it into your own hands, your health into your own hands? - That's a great question. I don't know, I think I've always been a little bit of like, a rebel like they got inside the box kind of person. Like I've always had a little bit of like, you know, like about authority, you know, always feel like, no, I don't think I heard of myself, you know, like I was always kind of a troublemaker in school, like, you know, disagreeing with the teacher. - Nuckish. (laughs) - So I maybe it's always been a little part of my personality, but yeah, I mean, I think again, going back to system theory, like it just really opened my mind. Like I just, I do really appreciate this part of the way I was trained in the mental health world is to like, always ask why? Always look at the context, always look at the environment, like never just accept a dysfunction. So to speak, right? Like there's a quote actually from a trauma therapist Lauren Abingeman that I just still love and it really struck me, you know, way back when I was studying, but it's that every pathology is a gift of love because she basically felt like if you didn't understand a mental health symptom through the lens of the mind trying to protect you, like you weren't gonna make any progress. And so I guess I just already had that mentality about mental health so it wasn't too big a step to then suddenly start to apply that to my physical body in terms of like, would I see this a couple of g? So to speak, this disease I've been diagnosed with as a gift of love somehow, right? And it did take a minute to wrap my head around that because when you have these conditions, like it does kind of feel like your body's trying to kill you. Like when you're randomly going into anaphylaxis, like what is she doing? Like why is my body doing this to me? But so I know it's really hard for people with these kind of conditions to get that, but honestly that is what opened the door for me to be able to recover. I really believe is that I started listening to my body being like, okay, something really serious must be going on under the surface for you to be reacting in such an extreme way. Like let's figure out what that is. It makes me think of in the permaculture principles of like gardening and I mean you can apply it to everything and I like to apply that systems like thinking to our work and nutrition with people. But there's the, the, we'll probably say it is all the time in all of our podcasts, but there's the phrase that the problem is the solution or it's part of the solution, right? So it seems like that's definitely, yeah, the theme there is looking at the problem and not seeing it like a problem, but actually seeing it as really this gift of love for you to love yourself more or like a cry for help from your body. So then you can like actually take take care of it and do something different often or just think it even like that. So for a step, I think you wrote, so there's so many things that we can talk about from here, but yeah, any thoughts Andy? Well, I was just curious to hear more, Jen, about you, what I'm hearing is at this point you're reaching out to members in the community and kind of looking at what are alternative, like healing paths because I'm not really getting any answers or treatment that's really helpful, that's like addressing your physiological system as you're coming to understand your body and context here. What do these next steps look like for you in your journey? Yeah, so probably similar to most people when they start googling things like histamine intolerance, natural healing or whatever, you start learning about low histamine diets and you start learning about nutrients that help stabilize mess cells and histamine levels. And even just discovering that those were things was like mind-blowing to me. And I actually, you know, like I started doing a low histamine diet. I was still eating like a lot of foods that I wouldn't recommend to my clients now, you know, because I was like really first starting out. So I was eating like white rice and things that I don't really recommend these days. But I started eating low histamine and I was learning about how different nutrients, such as vitamin C can help stabilize certain symptoms. And so I actually found that within about two weeks of reducing the amount of histamines I was eating in my diet, my symptoms reduced significantly. I was still very ill. I was still having symptoms every single day, but it went from like totally debilitating to like debilitating, but manageable, if that makes sense. Like it was a noticeable difference at least. It wasn't a solution, but I was like, oh, this works. Like what? You know, it was like, it was such a validation of like, oh my gosh, I can like change the way I eat and like change how my body functions. Like that I just never even occurred to me before. And I remember I actually like printed out these like blogs that I had found and like went to my allergist and was like, oh my gosh, I started eating low histamine and my symptoms started reducing. And she looked at me and said, no, low histamine diets don't work for these conditions. And I was like, no, I'm telling you. Like I'm eating this. I'm having this experience. I'm just like, no, no. And that's when I completely honestly wrote off Weston, and I really like in that seven years since then I've probably been the doctor like two times. Because I was just like, okay, like they don't get it. So that's when I really struck out on my own. I had the initial validation of like, oh my gosh, I can change my body through the things I'm doing every day. And so then I just went deeper and deeper and deeper. The next thing that I was not able to do supplements at this point, I tried to do things like vitamin C and other supplements. And I just reacted to every supplement at this point. So I realized I really just had to do food and lifestyle to start with. And that was true for at least the first six months that I was recovering. So the first thing I did was I started digging deeper and realizing, okay, low histamine is not enough. I'm also going to have to really replenish nutrients that I'm probably depleted in through food, especially since I can't tolerate supplements. So I started learning about how important B vitamins and minerals and vitamin C were to the immune system. And so I started taking out all processed foods that I was still eating. That was the first step that I did. And honestly, I was so toxic. It had so much gut dysbiosis that even just cutting out things like gluten, soy, sugar, just these basic things. I literally was in bed with a fever. I had such intense detox responses through these basic interventions that it took me, like about six months to get to just the basic diet that I tend to start my clients out on now because I just was so overloaded. And every time that happened, it was actually really validating to me and those responses are really scary for sure. But this is another thing that I was kind of hending at before that over you can't shy away from our histamine responses and from our negative symptoms. I mean, of course you want them to be safe and manageable. But if I had had that response and I get a lot of people who have these kind of responses and are like, oh, well, I guess I can't eat healthy foods. I have to stay up for us as food diet or something like that because I react to healthy foods. But it's like, well, maybe it's actually a detox response. Maybe you're actually having massive gut dysbiosis like dying off and shifting and releasing. Maybe your body is releasing a lot of toxicity and it's causing these symptoms. Like, I honestly can't tell you how I managed to have this mindset. So early on when I was still in this world, I just had this conviction of like, I know this is the right way. Like this, basically, it was like the only way, I guess. So maybe that's why I commissioned this is the only road that was left to me. And so I just like powered through and I just kept eliminating more foods that I knew I needed to in order to heal my gut and replenish nutrients. - Yeah, and I mean, you said that you saw a shift there. So it was, that was like, okay, this is doing something. (laughs) This is, I'm gonna pursue this. - I wonder if you can share too with each kind of die off healing reaction that you were experiencing. What were some of the lifestyle things were you doing at the time that seemed to help? Or yeah, because I think that is one of the biggest hang-ups for so many people with his demean and tolerance and in-cast and in-cast that pushing through, you know, logically we know like we have to go through or they have to go through the difficult symptoms of healing like the healing reaction. But how do you make it safe and tolerable for people? - Yeah, yeah. So I think that I probably would not have healed if I had just worked on healing my gut but I also think that I probably would not have healed if I had just done like brain retraining, right? So this is, you know, kind of what I was saying before that I really had to do both simultaneously and those tend to be the people that come to me too because like they've often tried one or the other, right? But until you get that whole system working together, like sometimes you're just chasing your tail because you can do all the brain retruine you want. You can do all the nervous system regulation work that you want if you have massive chronic infections in your body. Like that could be a big block. You know no matter how hard you're doing your meditations, you know, like your immune system is just gonna really be struggling. And similarly though, if you have a lot of issues in your gut and you're trying to heal that, but your brain is stuck in a loop of stress and negativity and you're just saying negative things to yourself and believing negative things about the world and about your body over and over and over again. Mm-hmm. You're just not going to heal, right? Like the body needs a sense of safety to heal because it's a really vulnerable thing to heal. I mean, this is why like dogs curl up under the porch when they get hurt, right? Because it's like, I need some work quiet and dark in a way to heal. You know what? It's an instinct and unless we're giving our nervous system that like it's not going to do that deep work. So I actually really interesting timing. As I was saying in the beginning, I was realizing that top therapy was not the answer in working with all these trauma survivors and in working with people that had dealt with a lot of chronic stress. And so I was actually in the process of becoming certified as attention and trauma releasing exercises provider when I got really sick. This is a somatic modality. It's one of the kind of OG somatic modalities out there. I know there's a lot of different things out there nowadays. It's very trendy, which is awesome. But yeah, this is one of the older models that it's no talking, no delving into the story of the trauma or the narrative. It's like purely working with the body and the nervous system response to just let trauma and stress resolve naturally. And so in becoming, in the process of becoming certified, you have to be a provider of this. You have to do a ton of your own personal work. So I was spending like whole weekends and like almost every day, like doing these exercises. And I don't know. I don't know if I would have gotten through. Because that first year of my healing was pretty brutal. I think just to be honest, and it can be like if you are very, very ill and you start detoxing and you start healing and you start changing your diet dramatically. All of this kind of stuff, like a lot, can start moving in your body. And it can be very uncomfortable. And yeah, honestly, that nervous system regulation piece and like learning how to meditate, like I had never meditated before in my life. And I started teaching myself how to, as well as doing these tension and trauma releasing exercises. Like that was really, really important for me. I love it. I love it. I'm curious what some of those tension releasing exercises are. I mean, the somatic stuff makes so much sense to me because we're mammals, right? And you look at the zebra and the serengeti who's just been chased by a lion for 10 minutes, barely survived and I'm just shaking. So with those somatic modalities or get out of our head and into our body and the tension that's held there, what did some of those exercises look like? Yeah. Yeah. So the exercises were developed by Dr. David Verselli, who is a trauma therapist and also a misogynist therapist. So he has a very mind-body approach to his work as well. And he developed it actually working with refugees and people in war zones, places where talk therapy didn't work because of cultural differences and language barriers and all that kind of stuff. So he was looking for kind of a universal healing modality. He could use that would work with like all humans who had experienced trauma. And he actually looked into wildlife biology. That was actually a course tone of the research he did to develop this modality. And you're totally right. Like Impala, Zebras, like all prey animals do this shaking response when they escape a threat. And their nervous system is basically releasing energy potential. It's releasing stored tension because we have to tense and contract when we're escaping or affecting, right? And that has to let go. And it also triggers the brain to lower the levels of stress hormones that are being produced to have this shaking response. And actually, we've discovered now that actually Apex predators do it too. Like they've observed this now in polar bears, even, which we thought-- oh no, this is just a prey animal thing. But humans probably are a bit more like a predator species. And we see this in other predators. So it's absolutely relevant for humans. And so basically the tremor response that it induces, that is just a primal universal experience to all mammals, including humans. What the TRE exercises are, are like a method of certain stretching and movement in order to stimulate that response in the body, because it seems to be in more-- and not even Western cultures, because Dr. Bracelet saw this repression even in non-Western cultures that were more not as traditional, right? But had been like modernized or had had more paracrygial structure, basic. where there is more like intense social norms. By the age of between five and eight, people are taught to repress this response, basically. So little children often will naturally do this, but once you get to be like school aged, your told, don't cry, stop shaking, you'll be fine, right? So we're socialized out of this response. And so this impulse, this instinct exists in all of us. Like think about how traumatizing it is to be a wild animal, right? Like we have to have a way to resolve that. We don't see deer running around with PTSD, right? So we all have to do them. But the exercises are basically just a method of teaching your nervous system how to remember to do that. But usually once this mechanism is reawakened, people actually don't need to do the exercises. They can just tell their body to start shaking it as well. So I teach this modality to all my clients now. It's built into all my programs because I see people make much better progress when they're doing this regularly, when they're letting their body just shake. And it can be scary for some people because a lot of people with these chronic illnesses have panic attacks or have tremoring or trembling, or you know, have a sense of internal vibration already. And so they're like, oh no, I don't want to lean into my symptoms. But the reality is this is probably part of what your body is trying to do already, right? So we're just giving it like a doorway, actually like completing what it's trying to do instead of being stuck in this feedback loop. Wow. It seems like you have to have a lot of trust in your body to be able to do that and let that take its course. And I'm sure, yeah, like the because of the symptoms that you lose some of that trust in your body through it, through that happening all the time on a daily basis. But in regaining trust of it's like actually creating a safe space to do it. And no, and yes, like you can affirm actually I'm very safe here right now. And we did shake and now we're done or you know, that kind of thing and we're okay. Do you ever have people have like a reaction to the TRE exercises? Like a bad reaction? Yeah, like a negative. Not really the only times that I see that is people who develop mass cell activation tend to be overachievers. We tend to be a little type A personality, right? Like our bodies are very all or nothing, you know, like I'm having a new reaction. Okay, I'm going to have a new, new, new, new thing. It really plays the nerve personality. So sometimes I will see people over do it and they'll over stimulate their nervous system and then they have to come down for a few days, but I think detrimental ever happens. Like it's not like you're going to damage yourself or anything. It's just like, Hey, you did a little too much. Like how about we do 10 minutes instead of 20 minutes? So like, you know what I mean? So it's just a matter of titrating it. But universally people have positive experiences. Yeah. That's really cool. And you were saying, Jen, so this was a big part of regulating your, your nervous system and you're doing this in conjunction with gut healing with a low histamine diet. I know you two know a lot about low histamine diet for those of us that aren't familiar. Like what kind of foods are you focusing on eating at this point? What foods are you? You said excluding ultra processed foods. What foods are you eating at this point? Oh, and also we should. Maybe even jump into like, why did you start focusing on the gut as a source of root of the, of the activation of the mass cells. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, well, it was really with my own research and then kind of putting the pieces together of my story. Um, so I knew a low histamine diet helped me because I tried it and it did. Um, but a low histamine diet in and of itself, like you can still eat processed foods. Like a lot of processed foods are low histamine technically. Um, and basically, um, histamine levels in food are really interesting. So, um, a food can be high histamine because it contains high levels of histamines. And that's usually because there's a high amount of bacteria in the food. So, um, because our immune system tends to respond to threats, which can be bacteria, um, within a meter spot with a, with a histamine response, right? So this would be things like anything that's fermented. So like sour crowds and yogurt or kombucha. Um, and it can be anything that has been like sitting in the fridge for a long time, right? So when you're doing low histamine, you have to cook everything right away that you buy and you have to really store leftovers like in the freezer. It's at all. Um, so it's, it's kind of a pain. But it really can help reduce symptoms. Um, but the other thing that I can do that can be can trigger histamines is, is, there's not necessarily high histamines in the food, but there's other compounds in the food that also tend to trigger mass cell degradation. So it's a lot of these excitatory stimulating compounds, things like glutamate, for example, um, this is an amino acid, um, that, uh, can create an excitatory response in the body and a lot of people with mass cell issues have negative reactions to compounds like glutamate or there's other types of compounds in foods, like, for example, like spinach or strawberries. I mean, these don't technically have any higher levels of bacteria than any of their foods, but they have other compounds in them that tend to trigger the mass cell degradation. So it's kind of a weird list. Some of it's intuitive of like, oh, yeah, avoid foods that are high in bacteria, right? That's, that's a little more intuitive, but some of it's just like following a list. Um, but like I said, the issue is that, yes, that can reduce symptoms, but generally people will continue getting thicker over time if they don't address the root cause. And so what I started doing is I would start researching like, what is this allergic response? And I started learning about leaky good. Um, and basically that allergies develop like when you have like a certain amount of immune reaction is healthy, right? Like if you encounter a virus like, yeah, a certain amount of immune reaction is a healthy response. Um, but if you start reacting to what should be innocuous things like pollen, you know, or like some random food, right? Like it's because the proteins and or the substances in the, in the food is basically leaking through a damaged gut lining, a damaged digestive tract is getting into the bloodstream where it couldn't be. And if your immune system already has a tendency to be overactive, it's going to be like, invader, what is this? Right. And it's going to cause an allergic reaction. So, um, I started realizing that that kind of gut inflammation that causes the leaky gut generally is associated with what's called gut dysbiosis, which is basically an imbalance in the microbes that live in your digestive tract. And what causes that? Well, antibiotics is a major cause that every time you take antibiotics, it's like setting a bomb off in your guts. I had been popping antibiotics like candy for years. And so just in researching this and learning all of this, I just made the connection of like, oh, what have I done to myself, you know? And so I realized like I have to have to address my gut health. And it was really profound for me. It's hard because a lot of times when you Google gut healing diets, right? A lot of it includes very high histamine foods like bone broth or sourdough or all the things I said that you can't eat. So I just really stuck to all the foods that I knew would be healthier for my gut that were low histamine. This is what I later developed into my low histamine gut rebuilding diet that I use now with my clients. But yeah, every time I went through one of those phases of detox or diet, I was talking about like I came out feeling like a different person. Like not only would my symptoms be a little more reduced or have shifted a little bit. But like that included like mentally, like personality wise, you know, and so every time I came out, like every few months, I would have one of these huge waves. And I would come out different. And so I knew what I was doing was doing something really profound in my body. So I just kept going. Yeah, you're healing the gut and then yeah, just like the histamine response from the new cells you were growing and then the shifting of the gut bacteria. Did you avoid probiotics during that for six months or so? Like all those. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually I did go through a period where I saw a naturopath. So I was like, well, maybe this is going to be a better option. And it was helpful in some ways, you know, like she definitely validated and expanded on like helping educate me about like a root cause approach, which was really useful. She educated me a lot about the community. gut about things like heavy metals and different types of gut dysbiosis you can have. She taught me a lot about parasites. So she was great. She helps put me in the right direction to continue educating myself. She was actually the first person that taught me about the gaps diet, which is now the parameters that I use. I'm a gaps practitioner now. But her interventions were basically like, try these supplements, like take these antimicrobial herbs and like everything she gave me I reacted to. So I ended up just kind of continuing with my more foundational like diet and lifestyle approach. I'm sorry, I can't remember what your question was. I was, yes, yeah, I was asking if you did a lot of probiotics and then probiotic goods, but it makes sense. Oh, yeah. So yeah, I can tolerate anything that adversity. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually want to go back and circle back to like the, you were saying during on the other side of each of these experiences to you, your personality and your mental health was so different. Can you go more into like the neurotransmitter effect and like why the guts and his means interfere with the neurotransmitters and what they are and what do you think was going on there? Why the mood was so different? Yeah. Yeah. And now I know that mass-selectivation and high his demeans is associated with all sorts of symptoms of anxiety, depression, panic disorders, OCD, even anorexia, even psychosis. So there's a huge connection here because his demeans are an excitatory neurotransmitter. So it's like brain on fire. His demeans get into your brain and it can be pretty intense. So part of it was just like my histamine level is lowering, and not feeling like so inflamed in a mental health way. But then also, I mean, this is part of our gut brain connection. So the vagus nerve connects into our enteric nervous system, which is something like 70% of our entire nervous system that is intertwined into the lining of our gut and literally the primary function-- well, I mean, it does stimulate like a parastole system, digestive function and stuff like that. But also, all through that nervous issue are these receptors that are literally designed to pick up on chemical signals excreted by our gut bacteria. That is a major function of 70% of our nervous system is to like, listen to what our gut bacteria is saying and then send that information back up to our brains. Now, some people will argue that, oh, a lot of those compounds can't cross the blood brain barrier. It doesn't matter. They're still chemical signals that are going to-- they're still information that's going to be transmitted as the chemicals themselves don't actually have to get into our brain. So it's a huge effect on how we perceive the world, like the thoughts we think, the emotions we have. I mean, they can literally track even behaviors associated with severe autism to fluctuations in the gut microbiome. There are studies that track that now. They get literally influences the way we interact with people in the way we think. So yeah, I really felt that. I, for the first time, probably like six months in, was like, oh, that's what a gut feeling is. Like, you know, I realized I had actually just thoroughly felt my body. It was like someone cleared out the dump. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can hear my body. And for the first time, like this wave of just like, peacefulness kind of came over me. And this was still when I was like severely chronicly fatigued. I eventually realized I had this autonomia, you know, so I was having a lot of neurological symptoms. So I mean, I was still very symptomatic at this point, but I had this real shift in just how I approached the world, just like how I was as a person. It was really just combobulating, actually, you know, because it's like you have to get to know a new person. It was like the person I thought I was had shifted so much. So I was like, oh my gosh, who am I? Like, what do I even like anymore? Like, I don't even leave anymore. But I see this with my clients too. Like when we start doing serious gut healing work, like, their personalities change. They start liking different things. I've had people be like, oh my gosh, I like different music now. Like, what the heck? You know, it's really wild. - Yeah, that's powerful. It's huge transformation. What are you gonna say? - Yeah, I just, I forget where I heard this, but I think I heard it around this idea of like when we, when people do really significant healing like you did, you know, and your life is completely transformed. There's almost like in a way, a grieving of who, like you're kind of losing who you were in a way, and it's in a weird, a weird way grief. Is it was that true to your experience? - 100%. Yeah, 100% I actually, 'cause I had to be in bed a lot because I was pretty debilitated with fatigue and dysatonomia symptoms, like blood pressure was super low and stuff. So I was in bed a lot. And I spent a lot of my time drawing. And I drew like a 60 page series on like all the emotional turmoil that going through in terms of like letting go of my old self, you know, 'cause I really identified with certain things, you know, like this is just who I am, you know, like a lot of us have said that, you know, and I wasn't anymore and I really had to accept that. And honestly, an obstacle I see a lot of people go through like clients who are not as successful in their recovery. A lot of them struggle with really letting go when they felt like they were, like they just really cling on, like, but I like to do these things, but like I am just this way, you know, and it's the people that just really surrender. It's hard. It's not like there isn't gonna be grief and emotions that come up, but the people who really just like let go and they're like, nope, I'll just become whoever I am now, you know, those are the people that I see make the biggest recoveries. Yeah. - Wow, that's powerful. It sounds like there's, you really have to let go of control through this process. Like you have a goal, obviously you have a goal of like bettering yourself and seeking, you know, truth of really what it means to be well and empower yourself with lifestyle and nutrition, but you can't control the outcome. You can just do your best. It sounds like you really had to surrender to that lack of control, which is scary. Oh my gosh, so scary for humans. As humans. - Yes. - Absolutely. When you run anxious and like your whole life, you've managed it by being in control. - Yeah. - It's really up to a lot. (laughing) - Wow. Yes. - And so you were saying you kind of moved into this place of this experience of peace, which was pretty big contrast. You said also your symptoms during this period were diminishing, but it was also, yeah, more of a shift towards peacefulness. - Yeah, yeah, it was weird. My mental health symptoms were the first thing to turn around. Like within six months, I would say six to eight months. Like I pretty much had almost no mental health symptoms. I was still had a lot of physical symptoms, but I think that helped me realize that I was on the right track, you know, even though I took my body a longer to catch up. - Yeah. I got to this place where I was like, you know what, if this is how I am the rest of my life, and I have to like move into my parents' basement and like live out the rest of my life, right? Like this. Like I even have an old journal entry from this time, and I wrote like, I made, 'cause I had really been like a fitness person before I got sick, and I always like to go on these big pipes and go camping and backpacking and all this stuff. And I wrote down like even if I never see this guy from the top of a mountain again, I will be okay. And I just was like, all right, like maybe this is what was meant to happen. I'm just gonna keep going and just completely release control. And it did take me a long time to recover. Like my body had a lot of detoxing and replenishing to do. And I think because I let go of a timeline, it actually helped me recover more. - That's great. To let go of that timeline, I feel like that's the lack of control kind of sits that we were talking about. - Reminds me of Carl Rogers, and I don't know if this is the quote exactly, but like the curious paradox is when I accept myself as I am, then I can change. And I think so often in my experience and listening to the experience of others, we have an internal family systems. We call it different parts of us that have different agendas. One wants to continue to stay busy and press forward. One wants to slow down and rest, and they battle each other back up. and when we can bring, you know, this, like, understanding and compassion and meet the parts where they add, they can kind of, you know, drop their guard a bit. And that's when we can enter into this place of calm, you know, and that's where it change. I think from my experience happens. So yeah, totally. And I think there's a real misunderstanding on like the difference between like discipline and like striving because I was incredibly disciplined through my recovery process. Like when I was doing something for my health, I did it 100%. Like I never went off the plan that I was on like not once I was just like why you know, like I want to recover. So why would I do something else. But I really let go of this striving, right. And I see a lot of my clients struggle with this where it's like they think that discipline has to be like a very like pushing or controlling experience. And they're basically just stressing their bodies out. And sort of like doing the things, but doing it from a place of ease of like this is just what I'm doing. You know, so attitude is really everything when it comes to this work. I had a question that I was going to ask about like for some people who maybe lack the motivation or some some part of like getting themselves to do the things they they may know exactly what they need to do. But don't stick to it or don't even start. What do you think is that what's your best advice for someone in that scenario? You have to be ready, you know. And so I guess I would be curious about like what is blocking the motivation, right. Like is it that you don't really want to feel different. For whatever reason, I mean some people do get comfortable in the status quo, even if it's objectively uncomfortable, you know, but you know some people would rather stay in a place of just managing symptoms and there's no judgment there like if that's where you're at. Let that be where you're at, you know. And otherwise, I mean often there is some kind of underlying here about like what will actually happen if I make these changes. And the giving up your sense of who you feel like you are, I mean shifting your identity, you know, and shifting your day to day routines. I mean that it's a lot. A lot to take on. And so there may be some kind of underlying fear blocking that motivation. And so I would just be really curious about like what is that. And if you're not ready to face it, it's okay. Yeah, yeah, that's powerful. I'm thinking too of just creating a context for that curiosity, you know, coming from the mental health world. Like being able to start that work a little bit earlier, even like you were saying, like you probably couldn't have healed without the nervous system supports that you were doing. And maybe you already had that going for you for a while before you started the diet. And I know in my own healing journey, like I needed to do an intensive therapy program before I could even think about changing my diet. And it was it was not possible for me, like I couldn't, I didn't have the skill set or like the self love really to start that on my own. And then I think if you can't, if you're not there, I often I think about like creating that environment. So like outsourcing or resourcing. And your trauma informed, you know, teachings that we need to start resourcing ourselves if you are not capable in this moment to do that by yourself. And and that and that what does that look like, right? For a lot of people for me, it looked like getting out into nature. And like even asking people that I love or like putting people myself in scenarios where I'm with people who I think are healthier than me who are doing the things that I want to be doing. And then, you know, or or like asking someone, hey, can you come alongside me and like, let's do this together. Like Andy and I, we went, we went through a phase of overhauling our sleep routine because this was like years ago before we even did a lot of diet change. But we're like, we want to prioritize our sleep. We came from, you know, like we just came out of college and are not prioritizing our sleep at all. And this is bad. Like my whole family didn't prioritize sleep. And I was like, this isn't sustainable. I need to sleep. So yeah, it helped a lot to have someone else to go through it with for me. But yeah, anyways. Absolutely. And for me, a lot of it was actually like letting go of certain people or groups of people that I had really been connected to for a long time. I feel like there's a lot of communities or circles of friends that kind of glorify unhealthy habits or even mental illness. And I definitely ran in some of those circles, right, where it was almost like, you know, the more you abused substances or didn't sleep well or overworked, you know, it was almost like a weird like badge of pride. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm a mess. Yeah, and just kind of the thing, I hope you're just mentally ill. This is just how we are, you know, and I actually had to disentangle myself from a lot of that culture and a lot of those types of folks in order to recover. So part of it for me, resourcing was actually like disentangling from certain people. Yeah, and that makes me think of you've shared in other scenarios about your story, the substance use as like a coping, like I think it's really a self medicating for maybe some of these conditions and mental health symptoms. So what role do you think that played into some of the nutrient deficiencies, causing nutrient deficiencies or contributing more to a depth of B vitamin deficiencies and things like that. What do you think about where does that play into your story? Absolutely. Yeah, so I, I mean, I grew up in a college town that's kind of like an notorious like hippie town, you know, and so substance use was very, very normalized where I grew up and I went to college. And so, yeah, there was a lot of cannabis use, a lot of alcohol use. And I never considered myself like an addict or someone with a problem because I used every single day, like I drink a beer every single day, I smoke cannabis most days, but it never I would never like blacked out, you know, or like it wasn't, you know, and so you think, oh, I don't have a problem, right, because I work full time, like I'm functional, my house is clean, right. So that means I don't have a problem. And I realized that I was really self-medicating my anxiety symptoms like that. And unfortunately, those kinds of substances, and there certainly is medicinal use for certain substances, I think there is a place for that, so I don't want to be black and white here. But like, yeah, a lot of those substances went overused, they really deplete the, or they exacerbate the underlying causes of the mental health, something trying to mitigate the first place, right. So it's like it really gets into this feedback loop, you know. And so you can actually see where someone might be in balance in their neurotransmitters from their substances of choice, right. Like people who tend to be drawn more towards sedating substances tend to be lower in things like GABA, which is our kind of like calm, bliss out neurotransmitter. And people who tend to be drawn more towards stimulants tend to be lower in like dopamine, right, which are like reward, focus, you know, kind of neurotransmitter. So definitely like there, it's not like a personal failing, like you're trying to help something that's invalanced, but it just tends to exacerbate the imbalance in the long term. So I'm getting sober, it was actually huge for me again, I didn't identify as having like a major substance abuse problem, but now looking back, I'm like, whoa, I drag alcohol every single day, like, how is that not a problem, you know. So yeah, and that was really scary, like I had been using substances since I was like 13, you know, like pretty much consistently. And so that was really scary too to like go of that. But now I haven't drank alcohol in seven years. I think I had a sip of like a nice whiskey, like once at a Christmas dinner or something like that, but like I have zero desire, like I'm sure I would be fine. To have a drink once in a while, I don't think it's evil by any means, but I like have zero desire to know. And so I've just stayed sober because I just, I think I, I think I corrected the underlying thing I was trying to medicate and my, my desire for specifically evaporated. Amazing. If you did the high dose B3, like Naisen and your healing journey for, you know, to replenish from substance use, especially with alcohol. And if you did, did you do, like, did you get, I'm curious how that interacts with the histamines. And if you had a reaction with it or not. So I did eventually introduce, like, a methylated B complex about a year in my histamine level started going down enough that I could tolerate some supplements. And so I did start taking a methylated B complex. We had a reasonable amount of Naisen, but honestly, I pretty much recovered by the time I was able to tolerate high dose supplements. So I actually never did a lot of those protocols. What's interesting though is that I did go through periods where I would become ravenously hungry for certain foods. And like, I would call it like the bottomless meat pit is what I would call it because I would go through periods where I would like, you know, roast a chicken or something. And then I would like eat every piece of collagen on that chicken. And it's like, what's sitting or like I finally was able to introduce liver, which tends to be a little bit of a histamine trigger for people. So it took me a while to introduce it. And like, I didn't even like how it tasted, but when I introduced it, I literally could not stop eating raw liver for about six months. Like I wait way more than you're supposed to eat. You know, and like, I could not stop. Like I didn't like how it tasted, but I just couldn't stop myself. So this is part of a time of like getting back in touch with your good gut instincts. Like, never in my wild dreams, like 10 years ago, if you had told me like, you're going to like insatiably be eating raw beef liver. Like I, I like, you get those instincts back and you can actually intuitively eat. So I'm pretty sure I was able to refeed a lot of those vitamins through food by just listening to my instincts and just like letting myself eat what I was craving. Did you do that with pork for B1 also? Oh my gosh. I have gone through periods where I eat pork too. Yeah, totally. And I think it was a B1. I did actually for a while I did was able to high dose B1. But yeah, I think that I also shaved pork for a while for that reason. It's also pretty high in liver of B1 is cool. Yeah, and Jenna, I wanted to ask with your experiences and also your studies of nutrition, like what have been when you talked about pork there, chicken, liver, what have been some of the foods that you've come to understand are most healing to both the gut and mental health issues. It's a big question. Yeah. So saturated fat is huge, especially for the mental health piece. I mean, a lot of mental health issues are really like an energy crisis in the brain. And the brain loves fat. The brain is mostly fat, right? And so to replenish, you know, if the brain is going to be healing and working at full capacity, we need a lot of fat to fuel it. And so helping and my clients lose their fear of saturated fat is a big part of the work I do. And really starting to prioritize that in the diet, I use a lot of cod liver oil and ghee as well as like beef and lamb fat with my clients for the brain. And then for the gut, I mean, meat stock is just like, I see it's so powerful. Like my, I took me about a year to be able to tolerate even short cooked meat stock. Like that's how sensitive I was to his to be. And so the longer you cook something, the higher his to mean it is. And so a lot of people will say, do bone broth to heal the gut. Well, bone broth is usually cooked for like 12 hours. That is incredibly high history. But a lot of people can't tolerate it. So luckily with the gap style, they actually encourage you to do the short cooked stock, which is more like two to five hours. I started out with like two hour meat stock and I had to increase it like tablespoon by tablespoon. I was really reactive. But eventually I was able to get to a more therapeutic amount, which is about three to six cups a day. And I, meat stock is magical. Like I can't even totally explain it from a physiological standpoint. I mean, it is very high in necessary amino acids that are needed to heal the gut lining. So certainly that's part of it. But I made massive improvements in my healing. Once I was able to introduce a therapeutic amount. And I see this over and over again for my clients, like once they can tolerate a therapeutic amount of meat stock, like their symptom improvement, just like skyrockets. So that is something I really prioritize people getting in. And then this is a little harder for people with histamine issues because it is a fermented food that keeper. So especially milk, keeper or even cream keeper. The keeper probiotics, which is a mix of bacteria and yeast probiotic bacteria and yeast. Once people are able to tolerate it and I have people start sometimes with like a drum or like a quarter teaspoon. But once people are able to tolerate it, we can get it in. I see a huge improvement in whatever last lingering immune system related symptoms people have. So again, as people stabilize, I really tell I really prioritize that in my client's meal plans. Making me hungry for soup. A nice soup with homemade meat stock. So it's so good. Can we get it for lunch? I know. I know. We can, like I only ate soup for icewear like probably a year and like still like crazy. Oh, I love it. Oh yeah. Can we get into the weeds too with like your introduction of the meat stock? Because I think some people would be well and I as a, you know, there's there's strategies, right? To trying things. But did you completely avoid it for the that whole year, like six months to a year and then start trying it or did you try it a little bit and then have a reaction and then like those those what I, I guess what I might, I don't know, like I think it can be off-putting when people have reactions to those things and they they might think they might be afraid to introduce something for fear that it's going to set them back. But yeah, what does your experience look like there? Yeah, so I started trying to introduce it at about eight months in. It took me six months to actually even eliminate all grains from my diet. So those waves of diet, if I was talking about, I had to really pace my eliminations to get to a gap's style diet. And I had a really intense response to eliminating all grains from my diet. And I was only eating like rice and teedwad at that point or something. It's not like it was, you know, anything too crazy, like totally healthy foods, right? But it was feeding a lot of bacterial overgrowth for me. And so I was like pretty taken out by eliminating those. But by eight months in, so two months after I had eliminated grains, I was pretty stable again. And so I started trying to introduce it. And basically I would get to like a quarter cup and I would just be too reactive. I just couldn't get up past that. And so at that point, I actually did an herbal parasite cleanse. I was nervous about reacting to the herbs, but I just decided I had to push through it. And I had a pretty big perjage. That's so exciting. That was pretty wild. I get excited. Yeah, no, it was really wild. And it was actually really weird. And I do this now. Like if I have a client that they're doing all the right things and we're still seeing a lot of histamine reactivity and a lot of difficulty adding in some of the higher histamine foods, I will also do a parasite cleanse. And that usually will help them progress the next step. The immune system actually reacts to parasites on the histamine allergy pathway. So parasites are particularly indicated for histamine issues. I mean, any kind of overgrowth can trigger histamines, but parasites tend to be pretty indicated. And I find that parasite cleanses are tolerated better than other antimicrobial protocols for folks. I think because the herbs are a little more mild on the microbiome overall. Like warm wood pretty much just targets parasites. So it's pretty gentle. So yeah, I used warm wood. And I would wake up in the night feeling like I was about to go into anaphylaxis. And then I would run the bathroom and eliminate a lot of parasites. And then I would be fine. Amazing. So it was wild. It was like so obviously I was releasing my illness. You know what I mean? Because I would have like this very acute symptom experience. And then I would let it go. And then completely come back to my baseline. So I had to take that. Yeah. I was sorry, go on. I was going to say I have to do that, I had to go through about a three-month parasite cleanse before I could get to the higher amounts of meat stock. That's incredible. That's really cool. Yeah, I've had a similar. I never presented with histamine symptoms much in my before starting the gapst diet. And this was like in the second year of being on the gapst diet for myself. I started to get these weird hives. And then I think I told you on this. But yeah, the connection there with parasites, I did a three, I had this instinct to do a three-day fast around the full moon. And then the next day I had lots of olive oil and beet kavas. And I've passed parasites before using these two foods on the gapst diet. And oh my gosh, I passed so many parasites. And then immediately the hives were gone. My skin issue was gone. I think it's just so empowering to feel that intuition sometimes too. And you know something might be good for you. And like the noise, I love how earlier you were talking about there's so much white noise at the beginning. And then you know, for me it was like a year in. I'm like having this kind of reaction. But my body knew what to do. Like I absolutely knew what to do with it. And I think that that's, it just takes time. You know, like that first year, there's so much white noise you can't really dip through. And it's through observation. It's just like with any kind of system, you have to spend time looking and observing the system and like get to know it before you can actually say this is going to be supportive to the system. Right? So it's like a whole year. Yeah, into it, you're finding you find more of like a hold on what ways to navigate the new problems that are presenting, I guess. But that are solutions. Yeah. I mean, part of what I what I experienced in terms of like the noise clearing out like over the course of that first year is I did start having very clear like downloads or visions or whatever you want to call it. And actually, it was my natural path to it encouraged me to follow my instincts with the parasite thing because I had this incredibly vivid dream that I because I would wake up every morning with hives all over my cheeks. And I had a dream, a very visceral dream that I like woke up like I usually do in go to the bathroom and like see my face with hives. And in my dream, I like pushed on a hive and a parasite came shooting out. Oh, whoa. And I told my natural path, I was like, I don't want you to think I'm crazy, but like I had this weird dream. And she was like trust that. She was like follow that like this may be a real issue for you and then sure enough it was. So yeah, our body will tell us it is wild. I love that. Yeah, I'm sitting here listening and happy for you to that you had the parasite release. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. I've never really it wild. I wonder if anyone listed me as kind of a similar situation like you guys are just talking about hairs. But I mean, I believe it happens. And that's that's amazing that you had that dream. And both of you seem to have been very in tune with your body's needing to detox and then you were right. And that's what I heard. I sort of appreciate it for this conversation, Jen, like I think a big thing. I'm coming away with is just like the importance of tuning into the body and how powerful it is when we do accept where we're at. And then pursuing, I think you use the word discipline, right? Having discipline and like the modalities that will will heal and stepping into that healing process. And we I want to honor our time, Rhitha, end of our our allotted time here. And before we close our agenda, love it if you just share a bit about what you're working on today. Maybe places to direct people if this conversation's resonating with them, they want to learn more from you. Do you know when this is going to be published? Is it coming out soon or will it be a while or? It'll be a while. It would be a number of months down the road. Okay, so I'll give a general overview. So everything that I do can be found at wholebodyhealingwithgen.com. That's J-E-N. And I'm also whole body healing with Jen on pretty much all platforms, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube. I really try to provide something for everyone. So, you know, I was on a very low budget when I was recovering. And so I like to honor that a lot of people are in that place. So I have a ton of recontent and I have a lot of blog posts, YouTube videos. So if people just want to dive in, you know, and they can't afford anything else, like there's a ton of info that I have to help educate you and get you on track. I also have low-cost mini-forces on my website. So these are like my meal plans and my supplement plans targeted for specific symptom presentations. Those are very low-cost, but just gives a little more detail. I have a book on Amazon called Rebuild Yourself. That is like a basically like a coffee table book. It kind of like a reference book to like just kind of all my basic protocols that I use with people just to to help people again just kind of get started and make some basic changes. And then I have intensive coaching. I have a few different options for that. My programming kind of changes all the time as I'm refining things, but for people who want to do deeper work, we do have programs where people can do classes on Zoom. There's a couple different tiers. So, you know, some of them meet like once a week or some of them meet multiple times a week. But that's where you can really dive in and actually learn the deeper practices that I do. So my programs all include both really intensive nutrition protocols to help heal the gut, especially when you have extreme sensitivities and you really need to do that in a very particular way. And they also include meditation coaching and the tension and trauma releasing exercises. So, we try to hit all aspects of that gut brain access for people. That's so great. And I'll just say speaking from experience, you know, a lot of your work is anchored in, you know, the gaps diet that you're talking about, Natalie and I have experienced so much healing in that. And then also we did, we attended one of your courses and in person classes, somatic oriented one. And it was really helpful to both of us. So, we can speak from experience and like your work is really impactful. And yeah, it's been so cool talking with you. We'll have to do a part two. I think there's so many topics we could. Yeah, I yeah, Jen, you are such a gift to this world in your mission. And I love getting to talk with you weekly and or whenever we get a chance, you know, like it's so inspiring. And I always feel like I belong, you know, you make people feel belonging. And and I think that's really important when so many people are feeling so many symptoms, right? Like, and you feel like you're like the one off, you know, type person. Yeah. And I think you help people feel really not alone in that. And I really appreciate it. It's been wonderful to hear your story more in depth. Oh, that's such a beautiful compliment. Thank you Natalie. Thank you. I really appreciate. And it's so great to have these conversations. Honestly, I feel like there needs to be more content out there that's looking at like all aspects of healing like this. So all your questions are just wonderful. And yeah, I definitely am going to do a part two. Hi friends. Thanks for rating and reviewing and sharing our podcasts, helping us get the word out about health and wellness. The healing with confidence podcasts is for general information purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, psychotherapy, nursing and or other professional services, including providing medical advice and no practitioner patient relationship is formed in these podcasts. The use of content from this podcast is at the listeners own risk. Information from this podcast should not be substituted for professional medical diagnoses and treatment. Listeners should not delay seeking medical consultation for any medical condition they have. All right. Have a nice rest of your day. [BLANK_AUDIO]