#181 Fending Off Viruses to Get Back to What You Love

10/12/23 • 39 min

In this episode, I want to help you be prepared to fend off viruses so you can get back to doing what you love faster. This includes cold viruses, flu viruses, COVID, and other viruses causing issues like sinusitis, laryngitis, bronchitis—any inflammatory issue in the upper respiratory tract or lungs.

Especially now, during cold and flu season, these are the things I make sure I have on hand when traveling or at home. I want to prevent catching a virus, but also help my body fight it off quickly if I do get sick. Here are several reasons why:

First, I want to recover faster to resume my usual daily activities. When you feel congested, have a headache, sore throat and are tired, it’s hard to do your normal routine even from home. I want to recover faster to spend time with loved ones. When sick, I can’t be around my granddaughter or go to dance class. I want to get better to do what I love.

Also, I want to try to prevent needing antibiotics or steroids if possible. Antibiotics disrupt gut bacteria, causing leaky gut and susceptibility to other health issues. It’s better to avoid them unless the infection is bacterial. Steroids like prednisone disrupt blood sugar, metabolism, immunity and adrenal function. If necessary, we need them, but better to avoid side effects using natural anti-inflammatories to heal faster.

My third goal is to prevent the next infection. Catching one virus makes you prone to more. Patients tell me they get infection after infection spending winter sick. I want you to recover fully the first time to avoid getting sick again. This includes what to do after to prevent the next infection.

So, our main goals are:

· Recover faster to resume daily activities and time with loved ones

· Avoid antibiotics and steroids if possible

· Prevent the next infection

Recognizing the First Signs of Viral Illness

It’s important to pick up on your own body's typical first symptoms that a viral illness is starting to take hold. Common early symptoms are sore or scratchy throat, sneezing, congestion, feeling feverish, and fatigue.

When these symptoms first appear, it's a sign your immune system is ramping up and fighting off an infection. The earlier you take notice and start to support your body, the milder the illness will be. Delaying just a few days allows the virus to proliferate and prolongs recovery time.

Some people may not show obvious early symptoms however. If your immune system is sluggish, the virus can multiply for days before you feel sick. In this case you can take immune-enhancing supplements preventively when you know you have had viral exposures. This compensates for a slower immune response.

How to Take Action at the First Sign of Illness

Pay attention to symptoms—your body’s first signals. Think back to when you last got sick—you likely had less sleep, more stress, sugar and alcohol. Immunity decreases, infections increase.

We tend to go into denial, wishing we won’t get sick despite a sore throat and congestion. It’s better if we notice the symptoms quickly so we can act fast. Take action at the first inkling of illness, even if exposed to someone sick. Delaying worsens and lengthens it.

When sick, immediately prioritize how to get more rest. At the first sign, cancel plans saying you caught a virus and need to heal. Then care for yourself using these steps to recover faster.

Get some sun for vitamin D, even 10 minutes helps. Sauna with red light therapy is great. Light signals aid immunity. Have remedies on hand versus ordering when sick. Start immediately at first signs. Quick action is key to shorten recovery time. Contact my office if you need help with dosing.

Choose healthy foods—chicken soup, bone broth, chicken, turkey for protein. Salads, veggies, fruits contain antioxidants and vitamins. Avoid dairy and gluten which are inflammatory. Consider pre-made organic soups if you don’t feel well enough to cook. Protein shakes work well—pea or bone broth protein.

Eat small meals every 3-4 hours, even if appetite decreases. Stay hydrated.

Avoid sugar and alcohol which decrease immunity. Get outside for some sun if possible, Sleep more because your immune system works while you rest. Cancel plans, focus on healing. Then get back to a normal routine faster and avoid spreading your illness.

Understanding Viral Symptoms and Fever

When your immune system creates congestion, it’s in an effort to get rid of the virus. Sneezing and coughing is also to move the fluid and virus out. Sore throat is inflammation, which is your immune system fighting the infection.

Fevers help— viruses can’t survive high heat. If you feel feverish or have a 99-100 degree fever, that’s good. Rest and allow yourself to be hot to help your immune system. Take a hot shower or bath and sleep to heal.

Stay hydrated to prevent high fevers. Drink wate...

So, our main goals are:

· Recover faster to resume daily activities and time with loved ones

· Avoid antibiotics and steroids if possible

· Prevent the next infection

Recognizing the First Signs of Viral Illness

How to Take Action at the First Sign of Illness

Pay attention to symptoms—your body’s first signals. Think back to when you last got sick—you likely had less sleep, more stress, sugar and alcohol. Immunity decreases, infections increase.

When sick, immediately prioritize how to get more rest. At the first sign, cancel plans saying you caught a virus and need to heal. Then care for yourself using these steps to recover faster.

Eat small meals every 3-4 hours, even if appetite decreases. Stay hydrated.

Understanding Viral Symptoms and Fever

Stay hydrated to prevent high fevers. Drink wate...

Previous Episode

#180 The Power of Healing Stories with Casey Hibbard

In today’s episode I'm interviewing Casey Hibbard. She is the founder of the Rebuilding My Health website and podcast. She is a journalist who became a storyteller about health and healing. Now she shares the healing stories of many, while looking for the common denominators of healing amongst those stories, to be able to inspire and support others along the way.

Casey’s Healing Story

After being a journalist and a corporate writer for a long time she began having health issues after the birth of her son. It started with digestive issues and progressed to fatigue and weakness, joint pain, brain fog, vision loss and even autoimmunity. She was not getting answers from the conventional medical framework and decided to go outside of conventional medicine and finally found her underlying health issues’ causes.

This helped her identify that she suffered from small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, leaky gut, food sensitivities, H pylori, candida parasites, her pancreas wasn't working well, she had many different infections like Epstein Barr and others. And so, she started a healing process, which took a few years of addressing the underlying causes of her health issues, peeling back the layers and almost immediately went on an anti-inflammatory diet and saw symptom relief within days!

She started working on her gut infections, balancing her microbiome, did some toxin work and detoxification and she slowly started to get better and better, even to the point where her autoimmunity disease was gone.

This painful process inspired Casey to start telling other people's stories where they were overcoming and reversing conditions that many people think are not reversible or fixable. She decided these stories should be shared so other people going through the same issues could benefit and find hope in them.

Common Health Issues and Their Underlying Causes in People’s Stories

Having experience interviewing has been critical in knowing what questions to ask in order to uncover healing stories. Almost like an investigative process, to get to the most relevant part, you need to really get to the points that are important for understanding what the original causes are and what's going to help them heal.

It’s super interesting and fascinating to come across all these different conditions and diagnoses. Many times there are common themes of what the underlying causes are and what people are doing that is working to make them feel better. You can probably break it down to four or five different major things.

Number one would be diet changes and almost everybody in their stories say they start feeling better within days. It's not like it’s a one-size-fits-all diet. There are certain things that help over and over like avoiding gluten, dairy, and sugar, but other than that it can be pretty individualized when you talk about food sensitivities.

Food is definitively a huge factor in our health. We are what we eat, and our health will most likely be determined by it. Food can be our medicine but, depending on what we're eating, it can also be a major source of inflammation and illness.

This is so interesting because it gives some sense of control over illness. People realize that they are not hopeless and that they can make changes to their diets that will eliminate inflammation and pain. Again, this is really, very individualized, and the person has to find which foods cause inflammation in their system. Probably 99% of the stories have a diet element where they saw change because of food changes.

Another common element in healing stories is gut healing. There are stories where people have greatly reduced anxiety, eliminated infections, and even treated rheumatoid arthritis by optimizing their gut bacteria.

It is not just how well you are digesting and absorbing your nutrients, but also the health of your gut bacteria. Our gut bacteria has influence all over our bodies including our nervous system, hormones, brain, vagina, etc. The gut is interconnected with everything else. If you have imbalance in the gut, then autoimmunity is more likely, viruses are more likely, anxiety, depression, skin issues, etc. When we heal the gut everything else gets better.

A third common element in healing stories is toxins. There are so many cases of people healing from dementia, degenerative diseases, neuropathy, depression, even seizure disorders, by detoxifying their bodies and their environment.

So many practitioners are not used to people recovering from these conditions because they are not addressing these underlying causes.

Doctors are maybe giving a medication to prevent the progression, but in the healing stories, people often say, “no I'm not taking that as an answer, I'm going to do whatever it takes to heal.” Then they end up transforming their health.

It’s definitely inspiring for other people going through the sam...

Next Episode

#182 Rewiring Your Brain Using Neurofeedback Therapy with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge

In today's episode, I'm excited to be speaking with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge. She is an integrative and pediatric mental health expert specializing in the field of neurofeedback therapy. Dr. Roseann is the founder and director of the Global Institute of Children's Mental Health. She is also a Connecticut Certified School Psychologist, Board Certified Neurofeedback Provider (BCN), podcast host of “It’s Gonna Be Ok! with Dr. Roseann” as well as founder of Dr. Roseann LLC and creator of the new Neurotastic supplement line.

Dr. Roseann's Extensive Background in Mental Health

With over 30 years of experience working in mental health, Dr. Roseann has dedicated her career to helping children and families improve conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, OCD and various learning disabilities. She has always taken a holistic, natural approach in her practice.

Even from a very young age, Dr. Roseann knew she wanted to go into the field of psychology and psychiatry. When she was just 5 years old, a friend of her mother’s asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Out of the blue, Dr. Roseann responded “I want to be a psychiatrist.” Of course, later on she realized that psychiatrists focus more on medications, whereas psychologists utilize counseling and therapy. Nevertheless, this childhood premonition set her on a path to becoming an expert in children’s mental health.

Throughout her education and career, Dr. Roseann focused on gaining as much hands-on experience as possible. She actively volunteered and completed internships to refine her skills. She quickly discovered that her passion was working with children and families. Dr. Roseann found that she felt a deep sense of empathy for these clients. She also realized that when children receive the right help, their brains are extremely adept at absorbing positive changes. These changes can then last a lifetime due to neuroplasticity in the developing brain.

Dr. Roseann witnessed countless times how a child’s struggle became an impetus for the whole family to improve their mental and physical health. Once the parents saw improvements in their child from natural solutions, they became much more open to making changes in their own lives as well. In this way, the child’s difficulty actually became an opportunity for growth, change and healing for the entire family unit. This inspired Dr. Roseann to continue refining her integrative techniques to help children thrive and set them up for a lifetime of mental and emotional wellbeing.

An Overview of the Neurofeedback Process

Neurofeedback falls under the umbrella of biofeedback therapies. It takes advantage of the brain’s neuroplasticity or ability to form new neural pathways throughout life. Neurofeedback utilizes technology to train the brain to produce healthier patterns of brain wave activity.

In a nutshell, neurofeedback works like this:

The person is hooked up to a computer via electrodes on the scalp that can detect the frequency of electrical signals from different regions of the brain in real-time. The computer provides instant auditory or visual feedback when the brain produces the desired brain wave pattern. For example, you may hear a pleasant tone or see an animated figure on the screen. This positive reinforcement teaches the brain to repeat these types of beneficial brain wave patterns.

Over time, the brain learns to operate with healthier levels of activity in key areas. This can drastically improve symptoms. Then these healthy changes stick around even after the neurofeedback sessions end.

Some key points about neurofeedback:

· It has been around since the 1960s and now has over 3,000 research studies demonstrating its effectiveness for a wide array of conditions.

· It is non-invasive and has minimal side effects for most people when done properly.

· It creates lasting changes in brain function that persist even after the sessions are complete.

· Conditions that research shows neurofeedback can improve include ADHD, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, addiction, insomnia, traumatic brain injury, concussions, migraines and more.

· It has also been used for peak performance training in high achievers without health conditions.

· Typical sessions last about 30 minutes and are done 2-3 times per week.

· The average treatment plan consists of about 20-30 sessions over a course of about 6 months. But some people need more or less time.

· It can be done in a practitioner's office or through home-based equipment and video sessions online.

QEEG brain mapping is necessary before starting neurofeedback. This allows to see exactly which regions of the brain need to be retrained. Then you can have extremely precise neurofeedback protocols targeting an individual’s specific needs.

Dr. Roseann shared an example of a client she has with chronic Lyme disease. The w...