ENCORE: Parasites & Mold with Dr. Jessica Peatross

For the next few weeks on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, I will be republishing our most popular episodes. This week I am bringing back this episode I did with the lovely Dr. Jessica Peatross. Jess is an outspoken medical doctor online that talks all about stealth infections with grace.  

People seem very interested in parasites. There was a time one of my parasite-themed podcasts had the most downloads for the year. I find them to be more annoying than interesting these days but Dr. Jess has a way with words and held my attention thoroughly.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Types of foreign invaders from worms to flukes to chagas in the bloodstream from insect bites
• Worm life cycles and how they upregulate things like itching 
• Why worms are more active during the full moon
• How tricky parasite are to kill and how they can recur for months
• Why we get sick in the first place

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ABOUT GUEST:
Dr. Jess is a previously board-certified internal medicine hospitalist who left her position as a hospital medical doctor to chase root cause answers for her patients. Today she is a force in functional medicine and has launched nutrigenomic targeted supplements as well as her membership platform, Wellness Plus, which helps everyone learn to be their own best doctor. 

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://app.drjessmd.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wplusbydrjess/
Website: https://drjessmd.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.jess.md/
Supplement Website: https://www.getsoul.com/collections/hero-capsules 

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: https://www.christabiegler.com/links

EPISODE SPONSOR:
I’ve been recommending Micro Balance Health Products to my clients to help them clear mold from their homes and bodies. If you’d like to try Micro Balance products, you can get 15% off by using code “lessstressed”. Download the free checklist of 10 Easy Ways to Reduce Mold in Your Home!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
WORK WITH CHRISTA IN FEBRUARY: https://www.christabiegler.com/fss

RESET IN SEDONA
Retreat is full. Stay tuned for info on future retreats! 🙌

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Christa Biegler: You may have heard that through the end of December and early January, we're doing encore episodes of episodes that have had some of the highest downloads on the podcast. That way, you can focus your efforts and we can have a little bit of a break, recalibrate our vision. And enjoy our families throughout the holidays.

[00:00:19] Christa Biegler: So this episode did really well with Dr. Jessica Peatross. She is a very popular educator online and talks a lot about really chronic issues like parasites and mold. And in this episode we cover worm life cycles and how they upregulate things like itching. We talk about the different types of foreign invaders from worms to flukes to chagas that are in the bloodstream from literally insect bites. 

[00:00:43] Christa Biegler: It's, we talk about things that are more active in the full moon and how parasites can be tricky to kill all the weird, goofy stuff. This episode published just about a year ago, December 29th, 2022. And I hope you enjoy the replay of it today. 

[00:00:55] Christa Biegler: I want to take a quick minute to tell you a couple things that I'm really excited about that are happening right now. First, something that weighs really heavy on my heart is burnout potential. Everyone is so good at go, go, go glue truck technology that we often just need to stop, rest, and reset. So I'm thrilled to announce Reset in Sedona, a restorative wellness retreat for women craving good food and adventure.

[00:01:20] Christa Biegler: Now I have a lot of feelings about how retreats are non negotiable and I've been practicing for this for years, attending and hosting other private retreats. So if an intentional reset to fill your cup sounds good to you, you can head to the show notes to find the link for Reset in Sedona, or go to kristabigler. com slash Reset in Sedona. 

[00:01:37] Christa Biegler: And the second is that I'm currently taking intercalls for clients to start in the new year. I work with people that feel like they're doing everything right in health, but still have food sensitivities, subpar energy and mental focus. Gut issues and eczema. I help them with a sustainable way to eliminate symptoms and feel their best using testing synergistic nutrient repletion and supporting several major systems in the body for balance.

[00:01:59] Christa Biegler: You can go over to Krista bigler. com forward slash FSS. Both links will be in the show notes and now back to the show. 

[00:02:07] Christa Biegler: All right, today on the less stressed life, I have Dr. Jess, who is a previously board certified internal medicine hospitalist who left her position as a hospital medical doctor Chase root cause answers for her patients. Today. She's a force in functional medicine and has launched nutrigenomic targeted supplements as well as her membership platform.

[00:02:27] Christa Biegler: This plus which helps everyone learn to be their own best doctor, which I love that line. Welcome. 

[00:02:32] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. 

[00:02:35] Christa Biegler: When I was sharing a little bit on Instagram this morning, I mentioned that I feel that you are the MD who normalizes parasites and mold a little bit, and so we're going to talk a little bit about those things, and then what you're currently into, so I'm going to just jump straight in, but before we do that, I think sometimes we don't always get to hear people's story and that really connects us to them.

[00:02:59] Christa Biegler: And so I want to hear about how you went from being an MD to a like stealth infection enthusiast. 

[00:03:06] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Oh, enthusiast. I like that. Okay. So I would say I have had a wild ride and most of my life, I believe it's conventionally. Don't get me wrong. I was definitely one of those docs who drank the Kool Aid and, really got my flu shot every year.

[00:03:21] Dr. Jessica Peatross: There was a medical. So school. And even when I worked in the hospital, I ate all the cafeteria food. I did all the things for years before there started to be cracks in the system for me. And really when I was a hospitalist, that means, we ran codes, we admitted everyone from the emergency department, unless it was an acute.

[00:03:38] Dr. Jessica Peatross: surgery and I had to know something about everything. And so it was really stressful and we worked long hours and really saw, got to know the repeats that came to the emergency department a lot. And after almost seven years of doing that, I really just started, I had questions like, why do we have Coke and Pepsi contracts in the hospital and why are you feeding Food pyramid process, factory farm meat to cancer patients.

[00:04:03] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And why are there Doritos and bag chips here? And, I had so many questions and I really got pushed back from the hospital's team and other doctors. It wasn't like they were curious like me. It was that they were said, the system is broken. This is the way it is be that cog in that will.

[00:04:19] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And I wasn't married, I didn't have a husband, I didn't have kids, so I was in a position where I didn't feel locked in as much as I think other doctors do. So I was able to bounce and say, you know what? This isn't aligned with how I'm believing what I'm seeing these days. I really don't have to be here.

[00:04:36] Dr. Jessica Peatross: This is my own choice to continue to torture myself when I'm not aligned anymore. So I quit. And I got trained in first Gerson therapy and then ozone and then a lot of different herbs and nutrition along the way with different mentors and functional medicine in general. I shadowed a lot of naturopaths and worked at Whitaker Wellness and studied under Dr.

[00:04:59] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Julian Whitaker for a couple of years. So that was helpful too. And really I just kept asking why until I couldn't ask why anymore. And what that led me to were. Big guns, self infections, industrial toxins, and trauma, like you mentioned. 

[00:05:14] Christa Biegler: You mentioned you started with Gerson therapy and ozone. How did you come across those first?

[00:05:20] Christa Biegler: And this brings me back, I think of my own exposure to ozone. Back when we got married, someone brewed us up some ozone, we had picked up like what felt like the nastiest cold in the world a week before our wedding and someone brewed us up some ozone water and in a half hour we were better. I've actually never found ozone quite that strong since, but at that time, my interest was so peaked and I'd love to hear how Gerson therapy and maybe just.

[00:05:45] Christa Biegler: Tell people what that is, if they're not familiar, but that's not, no, you obviously got introduced or inspired to do that first. 

[00:05:51] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yeah. You know, I think there are different paths to awakening for people. And my path was diet nutrition, which I think a lot of people go down that path. And so that was the first questions I started asking the hospital actually were about, why are you feeding these things to sick people?

[00:06:05] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So since diet was where I was changing and understanding how you could really modify genes and modify your chronic illnesses and help with. food and nutrition. So I really was interested in how I can learn more about that to help people because I didn't see the regular system or myself helping people like I wanted to.

[00:06:24] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that made me not as happy as I should have been probably. And so I think really I decided on a Gerson therapy because I had gotten into learning online from people on social media and I would go check out their outlandish claims and be humbled because a lot of times they were correct. And I was the one wrong.

[00:06:42] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And so I had people keep continuing to mention Gerson therapy to me every time I would talk about studies about cancer patients or case studies. And I finally went to research it on my own merit and just saw, was really impressed with the legacy, how long it'd been well steeped in, not just the U S but other countries as well.

[00:07:01] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And so I decided since they had a really robust training program, that would be the next logical step for me and my training about how the body holistically 

[00:07:10] Dr. Jessica Peatross: works. 

[00:07:11] Christa Biegler: I heard two really valuable things there. One is that success leaves clues or if you continue to see the same message popping up again and again, pay attention and then humility.

[00:07:21] Christa Biegler: And that's the thing that we're missing so often, which is why there's really such still a canyon between different practitioners sometimes is just humility and maybe listening to patients and part of evidence based medicine is the patient's experience. 

[00:07:36] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Amen. 

[00:07:37] Christa Biegler: So then that brings us into, so you've jumped straight into kind of some more intensive therapies right away.

[00:07:42] Christa Biegler: And as I said at the beginning, I feel like you really normalize some of these next level stealth pathogens, et cetera. 

[00:07:48] Christa Biegler: So let's get into that a little bit. So with normalizing parasites. I tend to point people over to the CDC website and ask them to Google CDC epidemiology of pinworms. And so 50 percent of people, if you have children or you work in any kind of institution, so that helps me normalize it with clients right away.

[00:08:10] Christa Biegler: What would you say to people who say I've been tested for parasites and it doesn't show up because testing is not so awesome for parasites overall? 

[00:08:20] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I don't really have a perfect test for parasites. I wish I did. I wish I could tell people this is the go to that'll get it every time for you, but that just doesn't exist in our world, unfortunately.

[00:08:31] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that's because parasites are as old as we are, and they're not about at their job, which is being caught and found because they want to live off your nutrients. They don't want to kill you. They want to live off your nutrients and use you as a host. And so they're really stealthy for that reason on purpose, even from our modern day testing.

[00:08:50] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So you know, if you guys are looking in a regular stool test, let's say your doctor order is an open parasites or O and P those really have to be done multiple times over weeks to even come close to being accurate. You have a pathologist and histologist in the lab, really pulling apart and looking at a tiny sample that you provide, and if they don't see eggs, larva, worms, anything like that in that tiny sample with just a person examining, then you're deemed, free of parasites.

[00:09:20] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that's just not always the case. So I really look into some more of the functional testing, the testing that does a little. bit more specificity and sensitivity and getting the patient the more accurate result and the ones that test a wider variety than what, eight to 10 tests normally look at.

[00:09:37] Christa Biegler: Yeah. And even those are not perfect, right? So sometimes I always say you must listen to symptoms as much or more than you listen to tests. So let's talk about just a handful of really dead ringer parasite symptoms. that like you listen to and you're like, Oh we must make sure we're accounting for that as 

[00:09:54] Christa Biegler: well.

[00:09:54] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I think that's really important in all testing, whether it be mold, parasites, Lyme, whatever it is, it's really important. Let's stress that point to match up symptomatology. Crucial for any good practitioner and client to be doing that with themselves. So I would say with signs of parasites, there's a lot, but here's the view. I think up off the top of my head. 

[00:10:13] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So you mentioned pinworms. With pinworms, people definitely are going to have rectal itching. Even Candida can do that, which is a yeast for people. And a lot of the other parasites too. Some parasites have full life cycles in the body and they don't just stay in one place in the gut.

[00:10:26] Dr. Jessica Peatross: They may go into our lip, into our system, our systemic lymphatic system and fascial system. They may be in the joint fluid. They may be in other places besides the gut. So really we're going to have systemic symptoms. We may get rashes. We may get x Because they are nocturnal and wake up at night, people have cravings.

[00:10:45] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And it's a stress on the body when parasites move around at night, so people will clench their teeth. So often they'll have sore jaws, TMJ, clicking jaws, things like popping, maybe, ear ringing is another symptom, dairy sensitivity, especially for Strongoloidhe's infection, Lots of Mast Cell Activation, Histamine and Tolerance.

[00:11:04] Dr. Jessica Peatross: problems, digestive issues, irritable bowel syndrome. So just a few of the symptoms I look for with parasites and any sort of like creepy crawling muscle twitches or fasciculations at nighttime too. And the dead ringer for me is worse around full moons. I think most people may have heard that one and that's because there's a big bright moon out in the sky.

[00:11:27] Dr. Jessica Peatross: People produce naturally less melatonin and they produce more serotonin and serotonin is talks to parasites so that communication helps them be more mobile. And so they're more active around full moons at night inside our bodies, which keep us awake and sometimes anxious. 

[00:11:45] Christa Biegler: I was going to ask, that's my dead ringer, is did the symptoms present a little bit before, during and after the full moon?

[00:11:51] Christa Biegler: And so that brings up, you brought up the life cycle of the parasite. So full moons, are on monthly life cycles. I always thought it was because they hatched at the full moon. Will you talk a little bit about different parasite life cycles because sometimes I see things like cyclical fever syndrome that's on a monthly cycle and then you treat for parasites and it goes away or but I think that there can be all types of life cycles like if you're having every two weeks vomiting, wouldn't you maybe suspect parasites or don't they have all different life cycles?

[00:12:22] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head with that last one. They have all different types of life cycles. Like for example, if we're talking about an ectoparasite, one that uses a vector. So let's say, the famous one is something like a tick or a mosquito, right? Transmit something via the bite to a human, right?

[00:12:40] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And then they make something called sporozoites, which enter the liver and infect the liver cells called hepatocytes. There's some replication there. The liver cells actually rupture and release these sporozoites when they're released. There's actually a sexual cycle that can take place inside of a human, and then there can be a transmission back to the mosquito.

[00:13:01] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And this is just one life cycle of, let's say, a malaria parasite, right? But there's so many other life cycles inside humans for example, Strongyloides is another one that has a full life cycle inside of a human. Some of these get inside of bile ducts and clog our ducts and lymphatic circulation, which, I don't mean to scare anyone here.

[00:13:20] Dr. Jessica Peatross: It sounds so disgusting talking about it. It really does. But it's the truth. These are things we think happen in third world countries. And I just want to remind people that parasites don't realize that there's boundaries in, borders. They don't understand that. So to really think that we're not ever, vulnerable because we're in the United States is short sighted.

[00:13:40] Dr. Jessica Peatross: For example, I think just to close up your question for strong, the ladies. which is a big gun that can cause a lot of problems for people. A lot of different symptoms for people. There's a filarial form that is a larva, and these things can move from the small intestines to the liver, to the lungs during their life cycle inside of a human or a dog or wherever it may be.

[00:14:02] Dr. Jessica Peatross: It's really important to think, if I'm having these mystery symptoms that a test isn't found, anything is wrong and I'm not crazy, I know there's something wrong. My body knows there's something wrong. Please don't discount yourself or let people gaslight you. Please say this may be something that doctors aren't taught in their daily, regimen of school.

[00:14:23] Dr. Jessica Peatross: What else could be here? And this is something that I want to put people on to because it's missed a lot. 

[00:14:28] Christa Biegler: Yeah. I want to talk about recurrent symptoms after protocols and then vector points also. So let's say someone is doing really well on a protocol and they stop their protocol and they have symptoms around a full moon, right?

[00:14:43] Christa Biegler: All the things we talked about because clients often ask, can I get this again? Sure, if you had it once, you could get it again. And I've seen parasites be very sneaky and annoying and improve, but still hang on. And so what's your advice to people if it feels like they've been doing a couple of months of protocols, I will usually have them alter a protocol and then do it, target it just around the full moon for a couple months.

[00:15:06] Christa Biegler: So we're not having so much fatigue from taking things or whatnot, because it's not fun. for anyone, right? But what would your advice be to someone who's seen really recurrent symptoms after going through protocol where they were having some success and then they're seeing it crop back up a little bit?

[00:15:20] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So common. It's more common that happens than not, I would say. So I'm glad you asked that question because a lot of people think, Oh, I did a parasite cleanse. I should be okay. And it's just not realistic because we just mentioned life cycles. And like you said, there can be cyclical symptoms that happen when eggs are hatching or when there's reproductive cycles or when the perhaps things are migrating.

[00:15:40] Dr. Jessica Peatross: from different areas of the body. People can be very sensitive to things like that. If you guys did a parasite cleanse and you thought you were good and symptoms start popping up around, usually around a full moon or a new moon or something like that for people, then, that's not unusual.

[00:15:54] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Do not beat yourself up because normally if people are really riddled, I've kept people in parasite cleanses up to four to six months before. And then we'll, we have to repeat it sometimes even, and that's because sometimes things have spores that are protective, sometimes they have protective mechanisms.

[00:16:09] Dr. Jessica Peatross: If you don't get all the spores or all the larvae or all the eggs, things are going to continue to replicate if there are hospitable conditions present. For them to be 

[00:16:19] Dr. Jessica Peatross: replicating

[00:16:20] Christa Biegler: let's talk a little bit about vector points. And then let's talk about hospitable conditions because that's really the Holy grail brain.

[00:16:26] Christa Biegler: So let's go there next, but about vector points. So speaking of being in the United States, we're not immune to. Having parasites. So cool. We've checkmarked that box, right? But vector points can be dogs. It can be water. What are some other, I think, sushi. What are some other ones that you see a lot?

[00:16:48] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Everyone tells me this. It's I literally, it's one of my least favorite things to tell people besides your house has mold because they literally are devastated about sushi, but you're exactly right. I think there was a study that I read recently that 70 percent of all the sushi restaurants in the big five cities in the U S like Houston, New York, LA had mislabeled the sushi fish for a lesser quality fish.

[00:17:13] Dr. Jessica Peatross: That's just one way that it could be happening. Letting pets look you in the face. Lick you in the mouth. That's definitely an exposure. It can be a transmission. If you're vulnerable, if the conditions are hospitable, I do want to keep giving that a little disclaimer at the end. Other ways, drinking river water, creek water that may be contaminated is a good place to get something like Giardia, infected meat, undercooked meat really.

[00:17:36] Dr. Jessica Peatross: certain types of produce. Everyone thinks meat carries parasites. Produce absolutely had recalls of produce that can carry things as well. It's really all about, are there toxins present to have parasites? They're digesting organic waste. And so that condition is present in animals and produce in meat, then yeah, you might have an.

[00:17:57] Dr. Jessica Peatross: exposure. Absolutely. The undercooked fish is a big one, like we mentioned with sushi. And then really another place are ticks and vectors, right? Mosquitoes. There's been studies done in Germany now that are pretty convincing that show mosquitoes can carry co infections and bacteria like Lyme from larval stage all the way into adult mosquito stage.

[00:18:19] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And so we think there are other vectors possibly now besides ticks, which can carry. It's something like Babesia, which is a microscopic parasite. 

[00:18:27] Christa Biegler: Fun. On the note of mosquitoes, I can't help it. These things pop in my head. What would you say about, cause these are like those funny little things that there's not, that is there a good answer for this?

[00:18:38] Christa Biegler: What do you say to people who say, I am a mosquito magnet and my husband never gets a mosquito bite. Do you think that represents something with blood pH or something? 

[00:18:48] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yeah, I do. How could it not? It's so remarkably and vastly different between people and I don't ever get bit and they love my fiance, for example, it is one time we were walking on a trail.

[00:18:59] Dr. Jessica Peatross: It was a very heavily traffic trail as well. And he said, I feel things crawling on me, took his shirt off and there were 12 ticks.

[00:19:08] Dr. Jessica Peatross: To think that they don't know who they can infect or who they want to bite is I think, selling them short again. They obviously tell, pheromones are different, blood chemistry, pH chemistry, there's something that literally tastes sweeter to them about certain people. And if you have a large reaction when you get bit, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

[00:19:29] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Your body is sick. seeing something and reacting to it, saying there's foreign particle or poison in me. I have to worry about people who have problems when they get bit and their body doesn't react to it. 

[00:19:38] Christa Biegler: Yeah. When I have just observed this, it's I think there's just opportunity there, right? Like maybe there's a little bit of fungal overgrowth.

[00:19:45] Christa Biegler: Maybe things like you said are a little sweeter, but like you also said, there is a terrain thing. So let's talk about terrain, which is this holy grail conversation. If your immune system or if your terrain. was good, then these ticks aren't on you. Then these mosquitoes aren't on you. Then these parasites don't find such a hospitable home to take up residence.

[00:20:07] Christa Biegler: So let's talk about that big kind of elephant in the room of what kind of makes up terrain for people. 

[00:20:14] Dr. Jessica Peatross: That's such a big question and a great question. Cause I'm sure there's some people out there listening for what the heck is a terrain? Because we've been taught all about germs in germ theory.

[00:20:22] Dr. Jessica Peatross: But we really have tossed terrain theory to the side and that's what I was addressing when I was in the hospitals complaining on early on in my career was about the food. We are feeding sick people and that's part of terrain theory. If you guys think that diet and nutrition matter to health, You believe somewhat in terrain theory, if you believe that heavy metals and industrial toxins and things that are in our air, water, soil, even maybe in our minds can influence health and our long-term chronic conditions, then you believe somewhat in terrain theory.

[00:20:56] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So terrain theory is the belief that what we put in our body, what we. Think about what we eat, drink, how we move, who we connect with. All of these things and experiences have the potential to epigenetically turn up or turn down gene expression. They don't change the sequence of the genes, but they put a little tag, almost like an outfit.

[00:21:18] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Outfit change on your jeans. I like to call it outfit change. People relate to that. So this tag actually makes the gene talk to our body differently. And we now know that experiences and trauma and heavy metals and steal infections like candida and mold and parasites, all have the potential to epigenetically change our genes for the better, for the worst and that's really our terrain, which should empower people should we say, oh my gosh, we have the potential if we're educated to put health in our own hands.

[00:21:47] Christa Biegler: And there's a lot of opportunity. It's not Oh my gosh, I have to address 10 things and not one thing, but there's just a lot of opportunity. So we will come back to this emotional health as well. But you just mentioned another kind of sneaky thing, which is mold. So I used to think that mold. Was most prevalent when you saw it be really loud when you were having major increase in allergies or major increases in illness or chronic sinus stuff, or just really significant symptoms.

[00:22:15] Christa Biegler: But in the last year or two, I've taken much more interest in mild to moderate mold or sneaky, where it's just man, you are going to have relapsing symptoms or just annoying things if you're exposed to some fungus and whatnot, because you already have almost like a community inside of you. So I wanted to.

[00:22:31] Christa Biegler: Talk to you about was some of the weirdest symptoms that you see, people will ask me this, and I've been trying to develop a little bit more of a streamlined questionnaire, but it just touches every system so much. So some fun, but weird symptoms I see are like the tongue sores, especially from citric acid, because citric acid may be grown on mold, or it may come from a good source or itching at the back of the head.

[00:22:56] Christa Biegler: Or nape, especially at night, which can be partially parasites. Like you said, parasites are more active at night. I wanted to ask about that. So that's why you sometimes see itching increase overnight, but what are some of the kind of funkiest symptoms from mold that people wouldn't necessarily think is from mold?

[00:23:13] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So thinning of the crown of the head, thinning of the hair there, especially for men, if you think about it, if you have something inflammatory in your cranial cavity or sinus cavity. That inflammation absolutely affects the hair growth there too. So I've definitely seen what people might consider balding or thinning of the hair due to a mold exposure.

[00:23:34] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I've definitely seen like pins and needles sensations, like what we would call neuropathy in the field, but it feels like static shocks or pins and needles sensations on the arms and legs, especially when people lie still at night. And that's literally mitochondrial damage happening. Another famous one, a lot of people out there may not know this, but it's.

[00:23:53] Dr. Jessica Peatross: It's famous with practitioners is the inability to hold the urine. So mold inhibits something called anti diuretic hormones. So when that's inhibited, the floodgates open. It's that same hormone that's inhibited when someone is drinking. So it's a little bit like running to the bathroom because you have to break the seal and this really bothers people because they go up three or four times in the middle of the night often.

[00:24:16] Dr. Jessica Peatross: to do this severe anxiety, severe depression, enabling to major depressive disorder to mold as well. They even think that ghost sightings and some hallucinations can be due to mold. 

[00:24:28] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So those are probably the one weird ones off the top of my head, I guess I would make up cause that symptoms, urinary symptoms.

[00:24:36] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So it's like a catch all for so many things. 

[00:24:38] Christa Biegler: Yeah, it's annoying. So I think the real work is the education around mold addressing it because it's internal and external. And so somewhat, I feel like everyone wants to know then once we start talking about mold about testing their home, but the challenge is it's a big box because home inspections aren't very perfect at all.

[00:24:57] Christa Biegler: Unfortunately, the testing is not amazing, and the best home inspections are many thousands of dollars, which just adds to stress and total emotional burden, which is. Negates, negates healing, of course. So what would you say practically for practical advice here? And then also emotional advice, because this becomes whether we like it or not, we're all very emotional beings.

[00:25:19] Christa Biegler: And this becomes in every single person, it becomes an emotional overwhelm for a moment. I always say, let's back up and try to make it easy, but practical and emotional advice for this. 

[00:25:29] Dr. Jessica Peatross: No, that's great. 

[00:25:30] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I love the way you broke that down because it really is the worst part of my job to tell people they have, I think you have mold in your home and I think we're going to have to do something about it because it is thousands of dollars.

[00:25:40] Dr. Jessica Peatross: A lot of times for people like you said, so if people are renting or they're able to get out of their home, oftentimes, that's what I recommend. It's just because the remediation You know, deal with finding the right people, being out of your home, throwing away belongings, all that stuff can be really hard on people altogether.

[00:25:56] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So there's really not an easy, and I wish I had the easy button answer to this for people, but there's just really not, I will say I really liked, we inspect that's Brian cars company. That's national. Again. Everything. Isn't cheap, but I can guarantee that there's someone that we can trust who will look out for people and their analysis will be the right thing for people to do.

[00:26:18] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I also like home restoration. They're really great too. And I believe they're national as well. And so there are some national companies who actually specialize in mold and keep up with the science and keep up with the very new science that's coming out because mold is all it really only been studied for about the last 10 years or so.

[00:26:35] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And then really for people, you really want to cut, make sure everyone cuts out everything porous in the home. Mold seeps down below baseboards. It can hide behind walls. It's usually not visible in a home. So anywhere you find it, that's porous needs to be cut out and really porous furniture needs to be thrown out as well.

[00:26:51] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Couches, mattresses, especially drapes, things like that. And you really have to watch out for carpets, which usually aren't non talk. And they hold a lot of mold spores and mycotoxins as well. Really great air filters can be like gold for people, especially if they're remediating and they're trying to mop things up or they're vacuum sealing things in a basement or whatnot.

[00:27:11] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I really love, Air Doctor, Austin Air Filter, ASEA Air Filter, those work three different ways and I love all three of them. And I think really people need to, if you're really sensitive, It's useful to get your genes checked, especially if you're living in a house with mold. And the reason I say this to people is because there's eventually everyone has to get out of the exposure, whether it's remediation or moving.

[00:27:34] Dr. Jessica Peatross: But if you do not have HLA DR, which is a genotype that predisposes you to being sicker with mold illness because your body can't recognize the mold spores to get them out as well. So you're going to really spiral in a moldy home and these people cannot get better while inside the moldy, the water damaged home.

[00:27:53] Dr. Jessica Peatross: They've got to leave to heal. So that would be the difference between people with HLA DR or not. Some people can stay in the exposure a little bit longer and get back on their feet. But guys, I don't have an easy answer for this. I don't. It's the modern day building techniques that are a problem.

[00:28:09] Christa Biegler: And I just think we have to educate ourselves around recognizing it early because I don't know if there's an if, but a when and so just awareness, it's hard not to get a little crazy for a minute and then tamp it down and say, all right, what are some things we can do to mitigate things before there is a huge problem?

[00:28:29] Christa Biegler: So you brought up. HLADR. So I want to talk a little bit about genes overall, but a couple more things on any flags for current or past exposure, right? Are there things that direct you more toward? I think it's here right now versus I think it was a previous home overall. 

[00:28:46] Dr. Jessica Peatross: You know, it's tricky. I want to look at people's genes to be sure.

[00:28:49] Dr. Jessica Peatross: But in general, people who don't get better out of what, when you think they're out of the exposure and you've checked everything else, and this is likely something to do with the current exposure, whether in their work environment, their home environment, somewhere they're going on a daily basis.

[00:29:03] Dr. Jessica Peatross: If you start detoxing people, getting them sweating, getting them pooping, their liver working, taking binders, all the things I do for people, and they still continue to relapse. Or they're not all the way better where you think they should be, then that warrants either gene testing or looking at the house or the work because there's some sort of continuous exposure there, something that I've missed.

[00:29:25] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that will usually tip me off. 

[00:29:26] Christa Biegler: On the note of relapse, et cetera, current exposure and genetics. And I think this really ties a little bit to genetics and maybe terrain is what about when one person is more affected in the household than the rest or one partner more than the other? 

[00:29:43] Dr. Jessica Peatross: That makes it hard for some people, because especially if they're not on the same page with health and healing, it can make one person not believe the other one.

[00:29:49] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I've seen this so many times. So yeah, this happens a lot. Actually, this is very common. So one person will be spiraling out of control with their immune system, be sick all the time, never feel well. And the other person may have a runny nose and a cough. or allergies, quote unquote, allergies, right?

[00:30:06] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that we see that quite a lot. And sometimes maybe one of the kids will be sick, not all of the kids too. And that's because they've gotten, let's say the mom's genes who has the sensitivity to mold or water damaged buildings, sick building syndrome, and the father doesn't. And so we actually see this a lot.

[00:30:23] Dr. Jessica Peatross: However, I will Say that if they don't get out right when the one person gets sick, eventually it will get the other person too. And that's because they don't have genes for sensitivity. But if you're in a continuous exposure, it slowly chips away at your health too over time. 

[00:30:38] Christa Biegler: I want to talk a little bit more about genetic testing and interpreting it because I used to do more genetic testing and I abandoned it in terms of overwhelming clients and, looking at what's actually currently happening versus genetic expression, but you're bringing a different tool to the table a little bit.

[00:30:56] Christa Biegler: I have often thought in the past, we shouldn't just supplement based on a gene, but you're bringing a little different. So let's talk a little bit about that. Was that something you came back to or is that something that you always used and never abandoned? 

[00:31:09] Dr. Jessica Peatross: The gene testing? 

[00:31:11] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yeah. HLADR is a genotype that actually Dr. Richie Shoemaker started to make. more famous for us. He really did a lot of research and published studies into mold illness and sick building syndrome in general. And he noticed there are people who reacted much more violently to things like mold spores than other people. Eventually, no matter what genotype you are, if you're in the exposure long enough, it does get everyone and chip away at everyone's health.

[00:31:35] Dr. Jessica Peatross: But these people are like canaries in a coal mine. their body cannot recognize mold spores and get rid of them properly. So it just builds up in their body. They usually have a number of different autoimmune conditions or labels if they've had a mold exposure over time. And I really love this tool or it's a blood test.

[00:31:53] Dr. Jessica Peatross: It's a simple blood test to look to see if people are, how are they going to do if they can't get out of exposure right away. It does trade change my treatment plan. I am a little bit more aggressive with these people too. 

[00:32:04] Christa Biegler: Interesting. So you're only looking for HLA DR on a blood test? 

[00:32:08] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yes.

[00:32:08] Dr. Jessica Peatross: You're going to look at their HLA status, their genotype status. 

[00:32:12] Christa Biegler: Thank you for sharing that. So speaking of emotional burden, there's a lot to be said about this. So I'm going to come back to even people like I heard it from the beginning of your story, which was, it was a really stressful environment.

[00:32:26] Christa Biegler: It's hard to heal. And I want to come back to that because it's such a big, that's such a helpful thing when we're thinking about redefining what healthcare is. But let's start with, let's continue on the mold pathway or the parasite pathway a little bit. I love this expression. That I've heard people say that people are doing all the cell core protocol, but not addressing their emotional health.

[00:32:45] Christa Biegler: And so they're not going to go anywhere. So what are your thoughts on the emotional burden? And then I have some follow up questions about the real problem is when you don't realize that you have stress. 

[00:32:56] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yeah, that's so true because we get stress is an insidious thing. It happens slowly over the years of our life and builds and we keep burying things.

[00:33:05] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And so it's not something that happens overnight and it's so drastic to us. So many of us have a hard time seeing ourselves A and B. It's a slow and insidious process. So we really don't see ourselves and that's what happens with a lot of stress. And people, I'll see people who had really traumatic childhood upbringings and really it seems like that stress continues them throughout their life.

[00:33:25] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And we in the medical community and in general have done a really poor job at stressing the importance of stress. Seriously, no pun intended or telling people the truth about how traumatic events can affect our genes. We have one of the most famous studies out there is a study done on adverse childhood events or ACE scores, and the more you have, the higher the chance of severe autoimmunity requiring hospitalization later in life.

[00:33:51] Dr. Jessica Peatross: That goes to show us trauma, it does matter and trauma has been shown to be passed down through genes and in generations. And it's very important as this can epigenetically tag our genes differently and make our genes behave in different fashions than they would have normally before that stressor happened.

[00:34:09] Dr. Jessica Peatross: What the studies show is there are increased methylation tags. Which increase a lot of adrenaline type of neurotransmitters in people. And this happens with more 

[00:34:20] Dr. Jessica Peatross: trauma. 

[00:34:22] Christa Biegler: I think when I started doing this kind of work, I was so ill equipped for the emotional burden and stress, not only for myself, but.

[00:34:30] Christa Biegler: More for my clients and then that as an empath that transferred, how do you help people? Because sometimes pointing out to people that they've got stress isn't less stressful for them. So how do you help people or what do you refer them to, especially, when they feel like, yeah, I've got stress, but I can't do anything about it.

[00:34:50] Christa Biegler: Or I don't notice, or it's just. Just part of 

[00:34:52] Christa Biegler: who I am. 

[00:34:52] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yeah, a lot of people say there's nothing I can do. I have to pay this and that or, I have kids and I have responsibilities. So I understand for a lot of people, it seems like an impossible feat. So I really try to give people practical solutions.

[00:35:06] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Breathwork on YouTube is free. We just have to make time. right? Usually it's one of two things. It's either if it's not time, then you're paying a little bit more. If you aren't paying more than it's a little bit more time, that's usually the compromise we have to make here. You're lucky if you can get one, both of those things at the same time.

[00:35:22] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So breathwork is free. Sunshine and movement in the body is free for people. Really. I look to people to try and get to rest and digest. So just sitting down before you eat your meal, hopefully it's a healthy, organic. Know as best as you can do and taking a deep breath and really centering and grounding yourself and being grateful for the food that you're about to eat, thanking your body for digesting really helps the body digest more, really helps your stress and gratitude is the answer to a stressful life.

[00:35:51] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So there are small things people can do to rewire their brain and to help mitigate stress. So this perspective isn't quite as hard on the body. 

[00:36:01] Christa Biegler: I want to go back to the beginning of even your story and the story I see so often and the story of many listeners, which is, maybe I'm working in a hospital and the whole thing is very stressful and it's part of the culture there and it's.

[00:36:15] Christa Biegler: Kind of allotted and applause and whatnot, but there's probably people listening to this that really resonated with just feeling like if it's not everyone, if it's not 90 percent of practitioners that are currently in healthcare, we're seeing like a record of leaving healthcare and not a lot of signs.

[00:36:34] Christa Biegler: Insight that it's being reinvented, what do you say to the practitioner that feels a pull away from this broken system, but they feel afraid? 

[00:36:42] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Oh, it's so many. I've had so many people private message me and just say, I don't, I see through this. I don't know how I'm gonna keep doing this. I feel stuck in the system.

[00:36:50] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that's I want to get people out there, hope who sees through this and say, what, why would the doctors do anything? They see it to you guys. A lot of them, they just are stuck and they're afraid. Like you said. Cause it's really scary to speak out against the majority of your peers. It's really scary to do something different when you rely on money to pay debts and your kids schooling or whatnot.

[00:37:11] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So if you guys are out there listening, you're a practitioner that feels pulled away. I understand. I really sympathize with you. I felt the same way. And that feeling only grew until I decided to jump. So really, if you're that type of person, make sure that it goes back to the other thing, make sure you get back into rest and digest.

[00:37:28] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Because there's a Bible verse that says, be still know that I'm God. And I'd really take that seriously and that how are those intuitive hits supposed to come to you if you're constantly spinning your wheels out and having a flurry of thoughts. So nothing intuitive can come through for you. And that intuitive inspiration is where creativity and ideas come from.

[00:37:52] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that's where I think my ideas come from is it's not from me. And I take time to try and get in that silence so that. I can be bestowed with that knowledge that lets me be able to know that my next best move, because obviously I can't tell every doctor out there what the next best thing is for them.

[00:38:10] Dr. Jessica Peatross: But I can guarantee you that you have to dig deep, find what you would be doing if money didn't exist, engineer your perfect life and the reverse engineer it backwards. So you have to know what you want first and what it looks like before you get it. 

[00:38:25] Christa Biegler: Oh, that was so beautiful the way you shared that.

[00:38:28] Christa Biegler: Thank you so much. And I heard, and I think it's important to say you don't have to go it alone. Sometimes what you don't know, you don't know. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. If I could go back and talk to myself years before I went into private practice, it's oh, here were my people, right?

[00:38:43] Christa Biegler: Here was my people overall. But. There are an abundance of trains, if you want to just dive in and see what fits the initial things I did, or the initial mentoring and trainings I did, I actually felt like a fish out of water because I wasn't with people that had like similar backgrounds and whatnot.

[00:38:57] Christa Biegler: And that's okay. So not everything is like a home run and all of our experience. Experience is this form what we become later. So there's a reason I don't practice the same things that I first trained in. It didn't feel right and it felt and I use the things that didn't feel right to not do those in my own practice.

[00:39:15] Christa Biegler: So everything is. 

[00:39:16] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yeah. 

[00:39:17] Dr. Jessica Peatross: That's beautiful. 

[00:39:19] Christa Biegler: I was going to ask you a little bit more about nutrigenomics, but I feel and I was going to also ask you what are you into now? What is piquing your interest? Because sometimes as practitioners, as you learn more or as one of my entrepreneur friends says, there's a perpetual boredom sometimes of you want to be challenged.

[00:39:36] Christa Biegler: So what are you feeling like you're into right now? 

[00:39:38] Dr. Jessica Peatross: What am I challenged with? I will say whole COVID thing challenged me to really get people better and to help people who'd been injured as well from things. That was a challenge for me. What I'm into right now, I would say really actually training the trainers.

[00:39:54] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And that's because I feel. I've been really inspirational to a lot of lay people and who've been able to heal themselves, but to really change the course of medicine and the way healthcare, the trajectory is going, I feel very strongly that we have to train the practitioners. And I see it goes with the question you asked, how do we help the doctors who are stuck?

[00:40:14] Dr. Jessica Peatross: That's the answer I'm trying to figure out because I see that they do need training. They're hungry for it. There are many of them that would leave if they knew where to go. So I'm trying 

[00:40:24] Dr. Jessica Peatross: to work on that. 

[00:40:25] Christa Biegler: Yeah, I feel like that's a natural trajectory. Help the people and then grow in the knowledge and then, help the people.

[00:40:31] Christa Biegler: So it's a natural, it's a natural thing that you see very frequently. You mentioned a couple times I get this question a lot. So I'm going to ask this last one. People say how do you stay on top of current research? I'm like, I just go to PubMed and look for things. Because you mentioned a few studies, which was lovely.

[00:40:46] Christa Biegler: A lot of things are not what you want to see, right? So is there a place where you go and you find things or do you do it like I do, which is I want to know something. I just go to PubMed and look for it. 

[00:40:55] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Yeah. I'm like you, right? So if I want to know, I know that this is probably helpful for people listening.

[00:41:01] Dr. Jessica Peatross: If you type in anything with the words NCBI behind it, it brings up all the PubMed studies. And I can type in a, in my Chondria. Exercise and CBI. It brings up all published studies for me. So I'm usually looking somewhere like that. And then often I'll go even in certain forums like cure zone or somewhere like that, because it matters to me to hear what the people are saying.

[00:41:23] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And anecdotal experience matters to me as much as double blinded placebo controlled peer reviewed studies for me. It matters that much to me that I hear the people are doing well with the research as it's shown, right? That's what I usually do. 

[00:41:39] Christa Biegler: Yeah. That is a beautiful place to stop. And I just remembered we had gotten cut off and I had two or three random fire questions. So if you don't mind, I'm going to ask those from listeners just to take it back to instead of this nice, beautiful ending, let me take you back to some challenging client questions. So I thought this was such an interesting question. This person asked, I feel a finger and toe pain 20 to 30 minutes after my carboxy binder dose.

[00:42:05] Christa Biegler: What is that pain mechanism of action and her next question was, if eating burned food is a carcinogen, then why aren't we worried about taking so much binder or charcoal as a matter of benefit versus risk? And I was like, that was a thoughtful question 

[00:42:20] Dr. Jessica Peatross: burns food. Binders aren't burnt food, they're not at all.

[00:42:25] Dr. Jessica Peatross: They're fulvic and humic acid with polyelectrolytes and amino acids charged So the body reacts quickly and it reacting quickly is what you want So the it binds and pulls things out activates the nerve to pathway things like that So I wouldn't say it's anything close to burnt food But as far as taking carboxy and then there's a foot pain I'd love to know more about the character of the foot pain, but we don't have that luxury here So I would say it's definitely pulling something from your toes.

[00:42:50] Dr. Jessica Peatross: It's definitely activating, pulling something. There's lots of things that settle in the feet, including parasites, bacteria. Bartonella is one in particular. Hookworms are one in particular, and there are lots of toxicities that enter the foot, which is what plantar fasciitis is. So there could be something like that going on too.

[00:43:08] Christa Biegler: Yeah. Very interesting. And then oxalates will usually settle in the hands and feet if you've got mold stuff. So that kind of makes some sense. Okay. I think there's just one more loss of taste after starting herbs and an alcohol tincture for mold. Any thoughts on that? 

[00:43:24] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I wonder what, I guess I would have to know what kind of herbs are in an alcohol tincture.

[00:43:29] Dr. Jessica Peatross: I don't think I can probably answer that without knowing. It's interesting, there's an alcohol tincture for mold. I don't even know what that would be. , at all. Actually. I wonder if it's something that was treating something indirectly, but I'm not quite sure. They're sometimes pulling things.

[00:43:44] Dr. Jessica Peatross: People definitely have told me they've had weird smells. All the time in their nasal microbiome, there is a microbiome there, just like there's one in your gut too is when the oral cavity and the nasal cavity. And I've had people smell metals. I've had people smell sulfur. I've had people lose their smell and have be able to only smell garbage.

[00:44:04] Dr. Jessica Peatross: So these are things I've heard all the time. So I would say you're pulling something or you perhaps have a virus that you're not aware of. 

[00:44:12] Christa Biegler: Yeah. Oh, so many interesting, random, funky symptoms. You've done, you've been so generous. Today, where can people find you online and continue to learn from you?

[00:44:22] Dr. Jessica Peatross: No, you were great. This was a great interview. Thank you for having me. So you guys, I have hierarchies to following me or interacting with me online. I would say, I put out a lot of free information on social media for everyone. So dr. Period. Just period. MD is my handle on Instagram. Same on Tik TOK.

[00:44:41] Dr. Jessica Peatross: And then I'm also on Facebook. If people are still doing that, Dr. Jess, Jessica Petros, and then lots of free information on there. I also have my website, which gives a free how to kill, bind, sweat, as well as some blogs and some questions that I answered from my audience, just like you did on the FAQ and that's dr. Jess, md. com. And then finally my wellness plus app, which is where I teach people how to be their best doctor. And that's app. drjessmd. com. 

[00:45:07] Christa Biegler: Yeah. And it's very affordable. People want to learn more from you. 

[00:45:10] Christa Biegler: Thank you so much for coming on today. 

[00:45:12] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Absolutely. 

[00:45:13] Dr. Jessica Peatross: Thank you for having me so much 

[00:45:14] Christa Biegler: Sharing and reviewing this podcast is the best way to help us succeed with our mission to help integrate the best of East and West and empower you to raise the bar on your health story. Just go to review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life. That's review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life.

[00:45:36] Christa Biegler: And you'll be taken directly to a page where you can insert your review and hit post.