Because it's what if there's an 80% chance this is going to, decrease your pain, like over the next three months, even by 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%. What is it worth it? Is it worth it? Because I have individuals who say to me, I've tried everything. No, you you're convinced that you've tried everything. Your doctors are convinced that they've tried everything. But no, you haven't, Hello and welcome to A Week at the Wheel. So in today's episode, we are welcoming back Dr. Maggie Yu. So we had Maggie on previously a few months ago, and we have welcomed her back today to have a chat about chronic pain. So, Dr. Maggie, you is a family practice and certified functional medicine physician. She graduated from UCLA School of Medicine and has been practicing for over 25 years. So welcome back, Maggie. Thank you. I'm glad to be back. And I think we're almost at 27 or 28 years. Awesome. All right. Well, chronic pain is something that is important to us in our work in so far as we see a lot of individuals who have been injured in motor vehicle accidents, who've been injured in workplace accidents. And it ties in very closely with their psychological functioning. Specifically, we see a lot of individuals who develop somatic symptoms disorder, where their chronic pain has that direct interrelationship with their psychological well-being. So for our listeners, essentially what that is, is as one's physical pain increases, so does your psychological distress. And as your psychological distress increases, so does your physical pain. So it's a vicious cycle. And sadly, something that we often see as well is that from the medical side of things, after a 3 to 6 months, they're told, well, you should be healed by now, so you shouldn't still be in pain. It must all be in your head. So something we see often. But Dr. Maggie, tell us a bit about chronic pain in and frame it within the work that you do with your patients. Yeah, I have chronic pain. I had chronic pain. I am currently 54 and at the age of 36 for me, my whole world came down and it's the culmination of some of the things you're talking about. I had a lot of mental health, depression, anxiety, brain fog, symptoms. I went into early menopause with hormonal collapse at the age of 36, and I discovered around 38 that I had hidden autoimmune disease that no one really gave a rat's ass about. And it was also at that time, near the beginning of the peak of my struggle with chronic pain, I developed chronic TMJ wrist hand pain and a lot of low back upper back pain and some severe headaches along with that, with two motor vehicle accidents at which I got the same thing. After six months to a year, that was like, You should be better. Well, except I wasn't. And 18 months later I ended up having two neck surgeries as a result. And it really raises the question for me is when medical doctors tell people you should be better by now, it assumes couple things and assumes number one, what we're doing medically as doctors to really actually heal the source of chronic pain, which it does not. And then number two, why do certain individuals heal better than others? And there's absolutely a subset of individuals that don't heal Once they get into a cycle, chronic pain, they don't heal. They stay the same or get worse over time. And so there are different populations that we're treating. And when we're talking about chronic pain, we're talking about the group of individuals that should have gotten better, number one. And number two, they didn't get better and in fact, have turned into a chronic pain syndrome, where it's beyond the three months, beyond the six months beyond a year, beyond ten years, and they're still having pain. And for me, that excites me because I had to figure out what caused my chronic pain. Get to the bottom of it. How do we actually break a pattern like this? You know what's causing this pattern? How do we break it? Is there hope and is there a way to turn it around? Those are the deeper questions I love because it intersects with my work, working with patients with hormonal imbalance, food sensitivities, autoimmune disease and when we have this intersection of these three things, this is the population of people with chronic pain. There's an underlying hormonal imbalance, there's digestive and food issues and sure enough, there's most likely also an autoimmune and immune system component to people having chronic pain. So this is why I practice in the area that I do and those in that space, and I would say 50 to 80% of the individuals I work with have chronic pain of some sort, and that included myself. And so a topic near and dear to my heart. Okay. And so interesting because those kind of three components that you mentioned also tie in to sometimes the individuals who don't heal and the customary healing time. The psychological factors that exist are often fueled by those same problems that you described. So it's really interesting because it's so defeating for individuals who are told by medical doctors that they should be better by now. And they think that in turn exacerbates the psychological symptoms, the hopelessness, the helplessness, and then can worsen the pain. So it's such a terrible cycle. They find themselves in. Well, I think that you put a nail on the head on that right there. What it is, is I think that I know that for people with chronic pain, one of the most important precursors of that is the loss of self-confidence and certainty. And when we are the ones experiencing the symptom ourselves, we know I mean, that is data. Your body's giving you data, right? We know what's true with that. But when we express it to the external world, I mean, I feel like there is so much medical gaslighting going on with that where it's like, you know, first of all, many of these individuals don't even I mean, hearts of hearts. All of the guys out there who are chronic pain. Think about this in all the years you've dealt with it, do you do you truly know what's the underlying cause? Right. And does your doctors or doctors know the underlying cause? And much of the time when I'm dealing with chronic pain population, the real causes unknown meaning that, yes, I have the motor vehicle accident two years ago, but that doesn't explain why, you know, I still have this pain or I have this other new pain or that pain. So it to me is very poor. There's a lack of validation in for people for what they're experiencing. Because if the medical industry, if the medical doctors can identify what's really causing it, then it must be in your head. It's not real or you should have gotten better by now. So that whole thing plays into a mental like a neurological pattern where you're being dismissed, you're not being acknowledged, you're not being validated. So the level of certainty and confidence people have around these symptoms that are debilitating becomes lower and lower and lower. You're literally breaking people down. So it is a pattern. Yeah. So to that point and to touch on something you mentioned earlier about the medical gaslighting, oftentimes what we find is that these individuals are then given the label of fibromyalgia, even though it doesn't necessarily fit or it wasn't thoroughly assessed. Yeah. What are your thoughts around that? Well, no, I remember, you know, when I came out of training in the 1990s, fibromyalgia was considered a what we call a trash can diagnosis, meaning that if someone has pain and there's no other explanation for it, which, you know, is a really large group of people we're dealing with. You press around a couple of things and you say, boom, they have fibromyalgia. And we all, as GP's general practitioners, family practitioners, knew that when someone was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, most of it was likely in their head because there's no specific one source, one good explanation for their pain. That's all over the body. Fibromyalgia is a term came for pain, someone who has pain all over the body that's otherwise unexplained. So think about how many people fall into that. And so it it became, yes, a diagnosis. And for people, they you know, it was helpful to have a name to it, but the doctors still didn't know what caused it. Right. And I know and we know now that fibro I'll give you guys a definition of fibromyalgia you probably have not heard anywhere else, because I do. If I may, I have dealt with fibromyalgia myself and thousands of people. Fibromyalgia really is a group of autoimmune diseases where there's an attack against what we call mixed connective tissue disorder, mixed connective tissue disorder, connective tissues all over your body. It's partly skin, but it's also in your muscles, in your fascia and in your tendons. Right. And there are literally thousands and thousands of targets in those areas that people with autoimmune disease, their immune system mistakes as a germ and it's actively attacking. So what I'm seeing is, is that tons of these people in the nineties and 2000s that we've labeled as fibromyalgia are more and more showing up later in life with more and more autoimmune disease and diagnoses. And so where we're able to say, there is one target that we can identify that they have an immune disorder that's attacking that area. They have rheumatoid arthritis, they have an autoimmune attack against the bone let's say, they have Crohn's autoimmune attack against the intestines or both of these are actually in the family where it's actually the connective tissue in the body that's getting under attack. Right. So these people don't just have Crohn's disease or don't just have them to arthritis. They typically also have fibromyalgia, which are other targets of connective tissue that the immune system also likes to attack. So what is fibromyalgia? Is it really a junk chest term? It was what is really fibromyalgia is a list of different types of autoimmune disorders. And there are other groups in there, but it's a majority of people, fibromyalgia actually have an autoimmune attack against their muscles, joints, fascia, some area that consists that some target that's all throughout their body and it shows up as chronic pain in different you pain joints pain points around the body. And so for me the role of autoimmunity in chronic pain cannot be underscored. It's a big deal. And there's a huge diagnostic problem which we can go into later if you want to. But I would in my estimation, over 98% of autoimmune diseases, we don't even have the bloodwork or the X-ray ability to diagnose it. So these people are just labeled fibromyalgia. And then left to fend for themselves. Correct. And they're cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. put on antidepressants to put on Cymbalta gabapentin. They are told to go to therapy. And, you know, I mean, and so there are a lot of layers to this. Right. But autoimmunity is certainly one of the underlying issues of chronic pain that is completely missed currently 98% of the time in my estimation. So it's it's really a shame to me. But I have a deeper understanding and appreciation for fibromyalgia. So any of your audience out there is having fibromyalgia. You know, it's not a basket term, it's not your fault. It is actually a real diagnosis. And the cause is what's your general practitioners in medical schools don't train about the underlying root causes. You've got an autoimmune issue where your immune system is attacking various connective tissue throughout your body and that autoimmune attack can be stopped and addressed. we touched upon this last time we spoke. And so I'm wondering if if I'm hearing this, maybe I'm being overly simplistic, but everything you just described with regard to fibromyalgia, how much of that would you say overlaps with if I if we had put in long COVID and how much is different because we there's a call, I suppose, cause. But anyway, so what would you say about that. Can you kind of connection to. Us smart super smart smarty pants. I'm just going to say that right now, I love this there's a role of super infections, meaning that certain types of infections look, when they infect the cells in your body, look, they they change the look of yourself just slightly enough that your immune system starts to say, you're fine and I'm going to attack you. Okay, So we know certain types of infections can actually can trigger an autoimmune disease. How do I know that is? When you look at kids, for example, can kids get strep throat? And when they get strep throat, which for some people it's a super infection. It trigger a syndrome called patterns in pandas. I don't know how many. I mean, and when you look at mental health developmentally, kids would neurologist with pediatric neurology, you're seeing a lot of these cases right where patterns pandas right kids with that. And there's also a blood disorder called heart disorder called Kawasaki's, where it's an attack against the heart and blood vessels. And these are all autoimmune disorders just triggered by a kid getting strep throat, not every kid with strep throat is going to get it. But certain kids with that autoimmune genetics is going to be triggered and it's going to get it so cold. It is very similar. COVID is a super infection, meaning that there's something about it where it actually is not just the ear, nose and throat or lung thing, it actually attacks your gut. It can attack joints. It can attack various to the brain. Right. This is why. And when it infects it, it's a super virus, a super infection. What that means is it likes to incorporate into your cells and slightly change the look of it enough. Your body starts to attack the hell out of it. And this is why people with long haul develop autoimmune diseases at an alarming rate. So you see someone with COVID and they may or may not get long haul, but then within a year to two years they get diagnosed as an autoimmune disease. They may have never had any or they may already have some. And that autoimmune disease gets worse. So they have new diagnosis. So the long and short of it is COVID is a super trigger to turn on that gene for people who are already genetically predisposed. They come from autoimmune families and COVID comes and infects the cells and it triggers for a lot of those individuals long haul. And when you look at long haul and the list of symptoms associated with it, it's everywhere. You're talking about brain fog, mental health, depression, anxiety, Right. You talking about a cardiac or they're having fast, slow heart rate, mostly fast blood pressure changes, blood pressure going up and down. Right. And they're going back to emergency room. Right. And how does that pair. Well, with the anxiety or brain fog of long how horribly? Right. And this is all being dismissed in the E.R. They're being dismissed at the cardiology office. Right. Talk about exacerbation of mental health disorders. Right. And then for me, really importantly, COVID also attacks two other targets that is really critical that pulls this in together. COVID loves to attack the gut. So it really impacts on your ability to digest and break down food. And then as a result, it raises a lot of allergy symptoms, food allergy symptoms. So people start reacting to food and they raise what we call histamine levels and histamine levels causes all sorts of allergic thing. And then they start having bloating, gas, diarrhea, and they think they're going cuckoo. But the problem is elevated histamines impact brain hormones like dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, epinephrine. Right. So we have this whole now gut infection causing with COVID, causing mental health symptoms. Right. And so, you know, when you're talking and then lastly, COVID will shut down hormone production in many of the hormone making cells for 3 to 8 months. Because I work with people with hormones and I actually test them. So then what does suddenly putting a woman. Lesli Hormones and shutting it down, putting her almost into almost early menopause like symptoms right when she's 23, What would that to do to a person with irritability and anxiety? Right. So COVID has been a major, major trigger over the last three years for people with autoimmune disorders, mental health, chronic pain, as well as the rise of food allergies, food intolerances, histamine issues and major hormonal health in men, women and children. As a result. So this is the confluence of all those factors I talked about, and that's why I also long how people have chronic pain. Yeah, okay. And I mean, whether it's fibromyalgia, whether it's long haul COVID, I mean, I don't think I don't know how anyone could not, you know, predict that someone going through all this, you know, would experience one of the more common symptoms that we see as easiest to identify is fatigue. Everyone just like just outright fatigue. So what I mean, I know what we talk try to talk with people, but. But what would you if someone said to you, I'm just exhausted all the time, I can't do everything I want to do, which of course exacerbates the mental health issues as well. What do you tell them as far as fatigue? I have no energy. I can't do anything. Well, I'm going to link it first to COVID, and then we gonna talk about general chronic fatigue. The reason why people with COVID and post COVID and long haul COVID develop chronic fatigue syndrome is because COVID loves to attack the mitochondria and the mitochondria as the gene making cells in your entire body, including your brain. So no wonder the number one symptom of COVID and long haul is chronic fatigue syndrome. So it's really important with early understanding when you get over it is you got to really support the mitochondria. So supplementation that really supports some of the co factors that help the mitochondria make energy is going to be really important. So example like in our shop, you know in my in our the supplement supplement that I recommend is my own recovery and my recovery has everything that's needed to actually fuel mitochondria because that is the major target of the attack on on the on the COVID virus. Right now, when we talk about chronic fatigue generally, it's becoming a modern plague, an epidemic. But the underlying root cause of chronic fatigue, I'm going to tell you guys the number one root cause, like when you start going deeper and deeper down and I say root for a reason, this is the real problem is digestion. So digestion is one of those modern like it's the devil. You don't know that has been there since birth for a lot of people. But over time it just keeps layering on and getting worse and worse. And one when because if you think about what digestion is, is there to break down food from bigger pieces to little pieces all the nutrients and is there so that when it's broken down really small, your body absorbs it incorporates start to utilize it throughout your entire body. Right. But the problem is our ability to digest and absorb gets worse and worse over time. And so the problem is, is that, you know, we have like, you know, when you think about kids, babies, you know, and those of you in the audience with kids, think about it. And in your own history, how many of you have chronic fatigue or have had a history of when you were a baby, you had colic. There was an intolerance of certain formulas, right? Or you were really finicky kid who didn't like to eat a lot of this food. That food, a lot of food aversions or you had eczema or asthma or you had tummy aches and nausea all the time. These are all signs of digestive disorders in children we ignore, and your pediatrician and GI docs have no training around it. And then you go into the doctor and it's so fascinating is that we you know, we started when these medications came online like Zantac, Pepcid, Tagamet, these are, you know, Prilosec, Nexium. We were using them because we said there's too much acid. And we even started to give babies in the ICU these types of medications. And we wonder why there's such a rise in food allergies going on and mental health disorders later on as a result of it. So we've misunderstood digestive disorders. We started to treat them with medications that shut off more steps and digestion. And then later in life, we developed things like like, do you know, COVID I mentioned infects the gut. So what happens when you have these super viruses like, you know, cold or Candida or Lyme? People get Lyme and they in fact the gut cells, while they break down more digestion steps. So what happens is over time, more and more steps and digestion gets broken down. And then as a result, we have a broken system that's a breakdown, incorporate and utilize the vitamins and nutrients in food that we're eating. We've completely broken that down, not even to even say what happened to all the food over our lifetime has happened to food, right? So the inability to really digest food and break down food has given a rise to severe food allergies and sensitivities. Severe malabsorption of the food that we're eating. And the number three, there's been changes in the quality of the food that we're eating that really have changed the nutrient content of it. So as a result, people are now developing lifelong chronic fatigue syndrome because they're very, very low in these vitamins nutrients that are needed and critical for brain function, you know, for physical body function. So the root of this problem is digestion related, but nobody's out there fixing digestion. And that's why in my book, the first chapter that's medical in my book is, you know, digestion, the first domino. And I mean, I'll give you an example. I had a guy, Jason, I met at a conference and Jason came to me and he said he she just met me at the conference and he said, Hey, you know, I have chronic fatigue and I have severe A.D.D. and I got this horrible heartburn. And he's sitting here chewing, chewing a roll Tums. And I said, Hey, Jason, if there's nothing else that you do, read the first chapter. But in our story, there's a supplement called Digest It. And just for just for shits and giggles, take digested One was small meals to a big meals and thank me later and Jason has written a review and Google and he has never done any other programs with me or anything. He's only taken that supplement. And the reason I love it is because we formulated a supplement that actually know addresses every single step of digestion. So you don't have to even know which step is broken. You take something with minimal number of ingredients, actually addresses every step, and he's lost £65. His chronic fatigue is gone, his heartburn is gone and his ADD is gone. And that's how powerful digestion can be. And so I know this is about chronic fatigue, but I really wanted to give your your listeners like a really big take away from it is digestion is the reason and underlying root very first root cause of chronic fatigue. And it starts in infancy. So yes, we're talking about crying fatigue and chronic pain. But I am so fascinated. I have like a thousand different thoughts. I trying to narrow down what to focus on here, but I wonder how much of it is a chicken or the egg situation or just a paradigm thing, because in our work we're looking at gut health regularly when it comes to psychological distress and psychological functioning. We know that GI upset is something that's very common with anxiety and with depression. Ignore it. So oftentimes we will. So, for example, have a dietitian review their diet and give some recommendations surrounding that. But is one causing the other? Are they interrelated? Can you talk a little bit more about that relationship as far as like which is coming first? When you say what's first, you. Mean the psychological distress or the GI upset. Or is it really does start with the GI because that's that's I think thank you for that point. There is a big gut brain connection and I want to simplify it for everybody, which is like, I love what you just said, Melanie, Melanie, about how, you know, when you see someone, the anxiety, A.D.D., autism spectrum, bipolar, you know, whatever the diagnosis is there, you got to get really curious and ask questions about what's happening with the gut, not only the current symptom but their past symptoms and also their family history. And the reason being is there's a genetic component to this. And like I said, when you go back far enough, there's usually a history, even when their baby of some of this. And so it for me the hidden the chicken or the egg, the chicken clearly is digestion to me, meaning that we are missing signs from infancy that these digestion issues are a problem. And secondly, there's a genetic component to this, meaning like let me give you an example. The Hispanic population as a tribe, as a genetic group of people, have a very high rate of poor fat digestion in their genetic gene pool. And this is why when you go into any Hispanic family and you ask how many women in their mid-forties to fifties got their gallbladder removed, you can be like 50% or something. And to me it's like nailed it called it. There's how I always do that because I know there's a genetic basis and you can see it in certain like tribes of people from similar genetic fat pool gene pool. You see it in families. And that's why I like when you are sitting here, you're asking the person like, do you have anxiety? And then you ask him like, do you have any sort of gut related symptom? The answer to it is pretty high, but you'd be surprised how many people that says no to you when you actually ask them, Well, let's go back to your mom or dad or brothers and sisters or your children. To. It lights up like a Christmas tree. Okay. And the thing is important is that it is not the same manifestation in every generation. It shows up differently, even though they have the gene genetic background or gene pool right in each individual, it can show up differently, meaning in one child, it can show up as, you know, like severe, like nausea, vomiting and not going to school, missing school anxiety. Right. In another kid, it can show up as eczema on their skin. Right. And in another kid shows up as none of those symptoms. But the kid has A.D.D. and they're all related to digestive disorders. So the chicken has to be digestion, which is for me, why? You know, it's interesting. You know, I focus a lot of my work on digestion, whether it's on, you know, when we have a food mapping program where we actually go and identify food allergies, but we don't just do that. Like for me, hand in hand has to be what is the digestive issues? Because it's really hard for the parent or the individual to sit here and say, okay, these symptoms are all related to food I'm ingesting. Let's meet with a dietitian, nutritionist. That's going to solve the problem. And it doesn't because 50% of those reactions and symptoms are related to digestion. So don't we need to address both in order to say and do the testing and figure out what the food sensitivity and allergies are, but also educate every step for digestion in working with the individual, say, these symptoms are related to digestion and then tease the two apart so it can address both. You have to address the chicken and the egg. And so that's where sometimes just sending someone to a dietitian, nutritionist doesn't solve the problem because there is underlying food allergies that's involved that needs to be accurately identify with data and there is digestive issues involved where I would hope a really good functional dietitian, nutritionist is obviously going to say, you know, some of these symptoms might be digestive. Let's get you on a multi phase digestive enzyme and product that supports every step of this. So we don't miss the boat on that piece of it has to be addressed both. Definitely digestion as a chicken, but then the egg comes with the food that we eat, food allergies that we get and the medications and things that shut it down and infections that shut it down. So we've got to address all of those. So whether it's with psychological disorders, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, at what stage should somebody start investigating digestion? Is there like a every age and amount of time? No stage So stage in their in their recovery. Yeah. The sooner the better because here's the thing like I work with a lot of kids on the spectrum, like and we work with a lot of kids with mental health disorders. Right? And a lot of times, you know, we jump on and we should on how poor the diet is for these individuals, and that's great. We're getting them to eat less processed food, more real food, all that. Right. But the single biggest thing that moves the needle for these individuals is the first thing I do. And I treat a lot of mental health right. The first thing I do is I'm like, whether it's a kid or an adult, I can get on, digest it. And that's why we have a digestive chewable. We have a digestive capsule, because the first thing I do with kids, whether if the kid can chew, they're going to be getting on my digest that chewable and it tastes good. And the thing is, you could see results immediately, whether it's on pain, whether it's on autism spectrum, A.D.D. you know, it's pretty immediate. I just think digestion is one of the facile slivers to mental health improvements and chronic pain improvement. Since we're talking about chronic pain, I'm going to circle back to that. But the number one thing dietary wise that you can do to support mental health is to start with like digest the chewable or digest it one with small meals to a big meals, and that will attack all the different steps that are broken in digestion because the gut is going to trigger a lot of mental health symptoms. And I'm going to link that together for you guys. So in the gut, the gut makes serotonin, right? That gut makes histamines. So it's not just your brain that actually makes these brain neurotransmitters, brain hormones, your gut does too. And there's other hormonal hormone making organs like the adrenals that also make some of these brain hormones like norepinephrine, epinephrine as well. So there's it's not just the brain that's involved in making brain hormones and brain neurotransmitters, but it also makes histamines histamine doesn't just cause allergies. Histamines is a brain neurotransmitter as well, and it impacts on the level of norepinephrine, epinephrine and serotonin, all of which are involved with depression, anxiety and chronic pain. So when we look at chronic pain disorders, it involves serotonin, involves norepinephrine, epinephrine involves the amount of histamines glutamate, glutamine, like there's this all these gut related type of hormones and neurotransmitters that are made that directly impact on the brain. And it impacts on the production of these hormones in the brain as well. So big connection between gut and brain right here. And that's why I'm saying, hey, it's I'm here to like raise the alarm bell, to say digestion needs to be addressed immediately as a first step, and the sooner the better. So what if somebody you know, again, as Molly said, we have a lot of many clients who were in motor vehicle accidents or injured, you know, through obviously. So so do they say, you know what, You know, my family, we have none of these histories. And, you know, I was in as an accident. My lower back kills me. So, no, I can't work out. I can't sit at the computer for more than 10 minutes. So if they say so, you know, they say, and I'm still in chronic pain. So they say, how, you know, how is my digestion going to help in this regard is purely my back. That's it. You can't tell me otherwise. What is a. Really simple answer? Karen Payne One of the most important one of the things that causes chronic pain is actually what, because histamine levels. Right? So pain is not just pain in that area. They're actually neurotransmitters. They're like substance. P They're all these chemicals in your body that contributes to chronic pain. And so what we find is when an individual have chronic pain, the levels of what we call histamines are really elevated and that affects brain and the gut and the muscles. Okay, so the number one way with which you can reduce histamine is to help digest your food better, right? So if you lower histamine by the at the intake, right when you have food coming in and you lower the histamine within a matter of two days to two weeks, the histamine level in the muscle and joints are going to go down and people notice a difference in their pain number one. But the other second thing of this is certain foods we know cause pain, right? And food allergies are going to be part of this. And so some individuals will even say and gluten is very high on that list because it's the biggest trigger of our immune attack. So if nothing else, someone says, you know, I'm you know, my back hurts, I can't do anything, whatever, you know, it hurts and has digestion to do with it. I just said, go lower your histamines, you know, take for shits and giggles. You can be taking all these drugs anyway and nothing is helping anyway. Humor my ass. Right. Take digestive support. Okay? It's natural. It's not going to like cause you to have erectile dysfunction like some of these medications are going to. It's not going to have side effects and going to consummate you. Humor me. Right. And a lot of these individuals are on drugs. It's going to concentrate them and shut down the digestion anyway. If nothing else, say, you know what? You're taking this opioid medication. you know what? You're taking gabapentin. All these things are going to cause them to have some GI symptoms anyway, to say, you know what? Just take the digestive support to counteract the side effects, the medications you're taking, and just see what happens, right. If nothing else to say those GI effects of the drugs are taking, why not take something digestion to promote regular digestion, to balance out, see what happens right. And that that would be my short answer to it. And the second piece to it is some people will really say, what is one dietary change that I can make to decrease chronic pain? And if nothing else is to go gluten free. And the only main reason for that is I would say about 60% of individuals have gluten intolerance and gluten is the most inflammatory. If you are one of the 60% of individuals that have a problem with it, it is one of the worst triggers of chronic continuation of chronic pain. The reason you're not healing from chronic pain is because there's an extremely high likelihood you're part of that 60% that have gluten intolerance and you can't it's really difficult to identify gluten intolerance. We do many of the ways with which we do that. You can help identify individuals, but at the end of the day, if you have chronic pain, the number one food that likely is contributing to your chronic pain is because your body's really reacting to gluten. So go gluten free keto completely 100% gluten free for three months. Humor my ass because your because your pain has been more than that and you know and that's one dietary change but I have seen between digestion is the quickest lever The second quickest liver lever is to say go completely gluten free because within a matter of six weeks that 60% of group that has the chronic pain with the likelihood that they respond to a gluten free diet is like 80%. So the best treatment that we have for chronic pain has a success rate of like 30%. Why? When you do something that has like an 80% rate of improvement for you. Yeah. So as far as making changes, like, I know that again in our practice and what we see, there's a lot of when we say resistance because I think people ultimately just want to get well but like making big changes like that can often be hard. So what do you suggest as far as like getting started with eliminating gluten? Yeah, I would say it's not for everybody. Meaning like sometimes people need really high leverage. Meaning like it's interesting how many individuals, including myself, have to hit a certain point of rock bottom to say, well, you know, there's nothing else that's really worked. And then then there's leverage or there's an urgency related with how bad the problem really is. The point where, you know, like for me, my pain was like it was so long and so bad and so hard that, you know, people really start to think, is life really worth living? It's so hard to live every day. So for me, like when I'm talking chronic pain, I get the ten out of ten for ten years, right? So for me, when the leverage is that high, going gluten free by comparison pales. Yeah, right. When you really put it like that. Right. So for me, like that comparison like that, the weight, the what the why become super highly valuable like so but that's a mindset shift on wow like this ten years ten out of ten pain and I just have to go gluten free for the next three months to see if this helps right Like that the leverage there becomes really like a no brainer, right? And when that happens where you realize just, you know, like it's a choice, I just have to make a choice. But until you're ready to make that choice, it's hard. But when not when you have a mindset shift where you're like, Well, nothing's worth ten out, ten for ten years, this is easy and pales by comparison. There becomes a shift from fear to excitement. I get kind of. There's there's hope that comes with it. Because it's like, what if there's an 80% chance this is going to, like, decrease your pain, like over the next three months, even by 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%. What is it worth it? Is it worth it? Because I have individuals who say to me, I've tried everything. No, you you're convinced that you've tried everything. Your doctors are convinced that they've tried everything. But no, you haven't, Right? So once you just realize that I just need to make the decision to do it, and I'm going to use that fear or overwhelm. I'm going to turn it into excitement. Because you're telling me that you want to find the answer to how to solve chronic pain. I just gave you one and it's a damn good one. I would think that being able to turn that into excitement would be like, I'm going to like I finally heard something where people are getting these kind of results for me. I did right, And I help thousands of people do that every year, right? It works right, But it is not. You're never going to get that answer from the doctors. And I am a doctor. I didn't get that answer from my doctors. So because there's no money to be made in that. Right. So when you're ready to jump off that money train of the medical industry and pharmaceutical companies that tell you is this drug is that drug, and you want the real answer and you get excited around it, it becomes so much easier. And for me, like, you know, any diet change, whether it's going gluten free or deciding you need to go, you know, vegan or deciding that you don't you don't want to do dairy anymore. It comes first from a place of decision and the commitment. So make a decision, right. And when you make that commitment, then choose excitement to say, I'm going to take this on as a project, meaning like you've been in the ten years, ten out of ten pain project for ten years. So this is a new project. You're going to learn more about food, you're going to learn more about like let's say you pick the topic of I'm going to go gluten free, get curious, get excited, and there's so many resources. You, you know, you can go into chat, CBT and say, you know what? You know, give me, you know, a week worth of meal planning that's gluten free, dairy free and under 1500 calories per day utilizing, you know, a you know, a pantry that is a college students pantry or something. You know, like you could also things into this that makes it so easy. And I one of the things we teach in our program is how to use and leverage AI as well. Literally go to Chelsea PD and say, give me a gluten free meal plan for a week and I would like a shopping list at my local grocery store that's going to give me $300 worth. I want to spend $300 worth of groceries a week. You can do it that specifically to make it awesome here, but it requires your commitment and a will and excitement towards it. If you're not excited, you're not committed. None of those resources matters. Yeah, and I guess what I'll add to that too, is that, you know, sometimes with chronic pain comes feeling defeated, feeling hopeless, helpless. So I think part of the challenge is the motivation to make those big changes and find those tools. But once that can be worked on, I think you're right that there's so many great ways to get started. I think it's the people around you right there working. Yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say that we're just in defense of many of the people I've worked with who have that chronic pain and you're talking about people around them where something a new suggestion does come and it's so hard for them to generate that excitement, even though everyone else like, why can't you come on it just do this thing? Because they say, Because I've tried everything else, and if this fails, then that means I have no hope because they're pinning it all. And this is the this is my last chance. So I understand that it's hard to generate that excitement when they think because again, if this fails, what hope do I have? I've lost all hope, then. That's the problem right there. Because if this fails, meaning that they want this one trick pony. Right. Okay. And you're right. When we're dealing chronic pain and depression, people are hinging so much on the pill or the one solution, whether it's a medication or it's a green supplement or it's one dietary change, it's not about that one thing. It's to me really important to these people is working with individuals and providers like you, like me. And because what we provide is a, you know, professional support for this. I mean, the I think the people that you guys treat are damn lucky. The people that get to work with providers like us are really lucky. And it's not luck. It's a decision and a commitment because to me, this mission and this journey has to be led by professionals who know what the hell they're doing and are able to provide you the support. Continue Next steps. Next step, next step. Next step. Next step on this journey, because it's not a one trick pony. And one of the things I do in our programs is we do this in the community, in the small community setting, because people feel so alone in this chronic health and mental health journey and they are not. I can tell you right now, of all the people that are listening to this podcast right now, you feel like you're alone. You some super special rare zebra. And I can tell you 100% comments, you're not. You're not. I wasn't there. Millions of Doctor Maggie's around with the health symptoms and syndromes that I have. You know why I've talked to them. I've talked to thousands of them every year. Right? So whatever you've got, there are hundreds of thousands of people also suffering with this as well. And when you get into a for me, I like to work with people not just in the visually, but in groups, small groups, as well, where they get the data, they learn together and they troubleshoot together with me, like education and wisdom has to be the way out of it. Here's the problem people. A lot of people and practitioners also listen to this and they say, I need to gain the knowledge. Right? And and now with the age of I can go to catch up and type in the answer. And it's it's not knowledge that's going to take people out of chronic pain. You know what it is? It's wisdom. And wisdom is hard gain harder for some for those of us who have been gaining it are wisdom rings and halos around us harder and took a lot of work. But individuals who choose to work with us can take advantage of our wisdom links to fast track it, right? So for me, like, it's really important for individuals like to align themselves, find a find practitioners who are like you guys like me, who's willing to work with them and take them through this journey so it doesn't have to be your last hope for me. Like it's like when I work with people on hormones, Some people think the question is should I get on the hormone prescription or not? And I'm like, Holy hell, The answer has about 100 other tools in that. Let me let me come at me, bro. Like, you know, like for a lot of men, it's like always a solution getting on testosterone. I'm like, no, and maybe yes. But the thing is, there's like 100 other tools with which we can go at this where there's like, so many answers and not just one. So it doesn't have to be your last hope, but find practitioners who are curious, who are open, who are excited themselves, who's going to lead you so you can partner with people who can help take you along on that journey? Because it isn't going to be 1a1 trick, one wonder whether it's medication a supplement or one dietary change. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's a great place for us to leave it off to to leave something for our listeners to reflect on as far as what they can do right there. Sometimes it feels hopeless, but there's not. There are ways out. There's there's alternative ways to look at it. And having that proper support I think is key. I 100% agree. And and so the poor are the people around you, but really importantly, who are the practitioners that are around you? And please, please, please, I have a message for your listeners is don't limit yourself to the limits of the traditional warehouse medicine model. The answers do not lay in traditional going to the doctor that your insurance covers to get a prescription, a referral or a procedure. That's not the answer to to chronic pain. It really isn't. It may be that I'm talking chronic intractable pain. Right. And if you have and those are good from what we call acute problems, you know, if you broken arm, go see a doctor. Absolutely right. I you know, but there's a time and a place for the medical model. But at the point where it becomes chronic pain, chronic depression, chronic anxiety, you got to look outside the box. And it's a good segue way. I'm going to give your listeners a copy of my book, Eight Out of the Box Ways to Transform Your Health and the reason and it's going to be in the show notes to me, one of the most important lessons I learned from my chronic pain journey is get outside the box and get different people around you. Get get yourself curious and excited. And if you can't find curious and excited people to work with and get to get my book or download my book for free, get a copy of my book. You're in Canada. A lot of guys, there's a free download for my book that we're going to provide in the show notes for you, and that encapsulates some of the eight top lessons I learned on my chronic pain journey. Okay. Well, we appreciate that and thank you so much for being with us today. Again, Doctor Magee. It's been a. Great. How much? Okay. Well, on that note, until next time, keep your eyes on your own, on the road and your hands upon the wheel. Boom.