Dysautonomia Recovery Part 2: A Proven Path to Wellness

What if the root cause of your dizziness, brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, rapid heart rate, blood pressure swings, chest pain, gut issues, and post-Covid funk wasn’t “just anxiety”—but a hidden autonomic nervous system dysfunction? In this compelling episode of The Wellness Connection MD, Dr. McMinn and Coach Lindsay welcome back nutritionist Tyler Mathews for an eye-opening conversation about dysautonomia—a commonly overlooked, often misunderstood condition that may be affecting millions more than we realize.

Tyler shares his incredible recovery journey from debilitating dysautonomia to vibrant health using a blend of functional medicine strategies, which include targeted nutrition (including a radical dietary shift to carnivore), thiamine, red light therapy, vagus nerve stimulation, and more. This isn’t just theory—it’s lived experience backed by solid science.

Whether you’re a patient, provider, or caregiver, this episode is loaded with practical takeaways and is a must-listen for anyone facing chronic fatigue, long COVID, or other chronic unexplained health symptoms.

👉 Ready to take back your health? Visit DysautonomiaRecovery.com to access Tyler’s course and recovery tools, and even to access one-on-one coaching. Also, check out McMinnMD.com for free resources, documents, and more. Don’t just survive—learn how to thrive.  

Chapters

• 0:03 Understanding Dysautonomia and Its Impact
• 2:01 Tyler's Personal Journey with Dysautonomia
• 10:45 The Gut-Brain Connection in Autonomic Dysfunction
• 24:16 Healing through Diet: The Carnivore Approach
• 38:35 Thiamine Supplementation and Mitochondrial Health
• 48:25 Light Therapy and Circadian Rhythm Regulation
• 1:08:30 Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Recovery
• 1:23:43 Key Takeaways and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

What if your dizziness, brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, rapid heartbeat, blood pressure swings, chest pain, gut issues and lingering post-COVID funk were all just signs of a hidden dysfunction in your autonomic nervous system? In this episode of Wellness Connection, md Dr McMahon and Coach Lindsay sit down with returning guest and nutritionist Tyler Matthews for a deep dive into dysautonomia. Tyler shared his remarkable recovery journey from dis into dysautonomia. Tyler shared his remarkable recovery journey from disabling dysautonomia to vibrant health, achieved through a functional medicine approach that includes targeted nutrition, high-dose vitamin therapy, red light therapy, vagus nerve simulation and more. This is not an abstract theory. This is lived experience backed by real science, which has resulted in a profound improvement. Whether you're a patient, provider or caregiver, this episode is packed with practical, actionable insights and it's a must-listen for anyone dealing with chronic fatigue, long COVID or other unexplained health challenges. So if you or someone you love is battling these symptoms, then tune in and get informed and take back control of your health your health.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Welcome to the Wellness Connection MD podcast with Dr McMinn and Coach Lindsay, where we bring you the latest up-to-date, evidence-based information on a wide variety of health and wellness topics, along with practical take-home solutions. Dr McMinn is an integrated and functional MD and Lindsay Matthews is a registered nurse and IIN certified health coach. Together, our goal is to help you optimize your health and wellness in mind, body and spirit. To see a list of all of our podcasts, visit mcminnmdcom and to stay up to date on the latest topics, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast player so that you'll be notified when future episodes come out. The discussions contained in these podcasts are for educational purposes only and are not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. Please do not apply any of this information without approval from your personal doctor. And now on to the show with Dr McMinn and Coach Lindsey.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection MD podcast with Dr McMinn and Coach Lindsey the evidence-based podcast with all things wellness where we bring you honest, commercial-free, unbiased, up-to-date and evidence-based information, along with practical solutions in order to empower you to overcome your healthcare challenges and to optimize your wellness in mind, body and spirit, and to become a great captain of your ship when it comes to your health and wellness. We thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Dr Jim McMinn and I'm here today with our co-host, registered nurse, extraordinaire and certified health coach, ms Lindsay Matthews. Good morning, coach.

Speaker 3: 2:36

Good morning, Dr Mack. I'm thrilled to be here sharing evidence-based wellness with our listeners once again.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Well, Coach, today we get to circle back to a podcast we did back in 2019. And wow, oh my gosh, Coach, six years flies by, doesn't it?

Speaker 3: 2:51

Yes, six years.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Yeah, and so we're going to revisit a very important but often overlooked topic, and that is dysautonomia. We have a very special guest on the show today to help us break it down for you. So, coach, would you do the honors for us and introduce our special guest?

Speaker 3: 3:06

Absolutely Well, folks, this guest today happens to be my better half, husband, nutritionist, and I like to think he can fix anything, and he can. Wonderful father and dysautonomia warrior, among many, many other wonderful things. Welcome back to the show, babe Listeners, here is Tyler Matthews. He's our special guest today to share part two on dysautonomia recovery.

Speaker 4: 3:34

Wow. Well, thank you so much. I don't know if that was 100% correct. The better half piece there. I definitely think you're the better half of in this relationship, but I'm so glad to be back here. Thank you, dr Mack. I can't believe it's been six years. Yeah, so long and you know, since then we have two little ones. I know it's so wild, but yeah, it's, it's. I'm so glad to be here.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Well, tyler, I actually went onto your website and saw the picture of your family. What a beautiful family you have. So I encourage anybody to go on to his website which we'll talk about in a moment, just Autonomia Recovery and check out and you'll see lots of pictures and some nice pictures of the family. And you know, coach Lindsay, you mentioned that Tyler can fix anything.

Speaker 1: 4:14

I've always thought of Tyler as what I call a renaissance man. There aren't too many people around that can do what Tyler can do. He just seems to know so much about so many things you know and we just don't see that much anymore. So, tyler, just great to have you back on the show. And you know, I've kind of followed your progress with dysautonomia from afar through Lindsay and I'm really looking forward mightily to hearing straight from you about your dysautonomia journey. I know that you poured yourself into learning about dysautonomia and obviously you've made a lot of progress. So we're super excited to pick your brain on this important subject. So again, we can help others and we thank you so much for coming in today for sharing that.

Speaker 4: 4:50

Absolutely, Dr Mack. I'm so glad to be here once again. You know recovery is a winding journey and I want to share my story in hopes that it helps the brand new person with dysautonomia to shorten their recovery and their healing journey, and likewise for those who've been struggling for this syndrome for a long time. And I want you to feel heard, I want you to feel known, I want you to feel cared for. I know that's what Dr Mack wants as well, and Lindsay and I hope that this information will give you hope.

Speaker 1: 5:18

You know you're right, tyler. Some people struggle for years and years with this kind of stuff, and it's just not this, it's other things like mold, illness and stuff like that. Sometimes these difficult chronic maladies just go on forever, and sometimes you wonder if you'll ever get better, and so that's what we're here for today is to help people get better. So, anyway, we're excited to have you back Now. Before we get into it, we have just a couple of brief housekeeping duties to take care of. The good news is that our podcast remains commercial free, which is almost unheard of these days. We're just here to help folks and we're not trying to sell you anything. However, the bad news is it does cost us money to produce these podcasts and, since we're evidence-based, we put a lot of time to make sure that what we're sharing with you is legit. So think of us like public radio and consider making a contribution to help us keep this going.

Speaker 1: 6:04

There are a couple of ways that you can contribute.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Now, I'm not asking you to buy anything that you're not already getting, but if you buy nutritional supplements, then consider purchasing supplements from our Fullscript dispensary at a 10% discount. You can see a link to Fullscript in the show notes or go to mcmdcom, and the link will also be there at the bottom of the homepage under helpful links. It's quite simple Just click on the link and they'll guide you through the process. It's a win-win you get high quality supplements at a 10% discount and we get your support for the show, for which we are very grateful. You can also make a contribution to the show directly via credit card or by PayPal at the support the show link, which is also in the show notes. And one more thing I would like to preface this discussion by saying that what works for one person ie Tyler may not work for others, so this podcast is specifically about Tyler's journey with dysautonomia. However, I'm quite confident that many others with this dreaded disease can benefit from Tyler's experience, expertise and passion for helping others with dysautonomia.

Speaker 3: 7:05

Okay, well, let's jump in. Tyler, give us a little intro here.

Speaker 4: 7:10

Sure, sure. So let's start by just defining dysautonomia, so that we're all on the same page. Dysautonomia refers to disorders of the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions like think about, like heart rate, blood pressure digestion. Involuntary bodily functions like think about, like heart rate, blood pressure digestion, temperature regulation. And since our audience is really educated and passionate about learning, let me just add that the other and contrasting part of the nervous system that controls a voluntary movement is called the somatic nervous system. So, for instance, like if I'm over here pointing with my finger to an object, that is the somatic nervous system and it sends signals to the muscles of my finger to tell it where to point, and that is completely under my control, right? Whereas the rate of my heart beating, my blood pressure, are controlled by the autonomic nervous system and that is not directly under my control. So when the ANS, the autonomic nervous system, malfunctions, it can lead to a wide range of symptoms, including dizziness, syncope episodes, unstable blood pressure, digestive issues, just to name a few.

Speaker 1: 8:16

Yeah, interesting, and so actually the list of symptoms associated with dysautonomia is quite extensive and pretty impressive really, and so we'll have a complete list of symptoms at mcmindmdcom under the documents section entitled Dysautonomia Symptoms.

Speaker 3: 8:29

Tyler, after having walked through your dysautonomia journey alongside you, I've come to understand that dysautonomia is more common than many realize. It's estimated that over 70 million people worldwide are affected by some form of autonomic dysfunction. And so, just to give you listeners, an example, in the United States, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, conditions like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome you might have heard the term POTS which is a type of dysautonomia, impacted an estimated 3 million Americans, but recent research indicates that this number has now increased post-pandemic to at least 6 million Americans.

Speaker 1: 9:11

So it's doubled in just a matter of three or four years Exactly.

Speaker 3: 9:14

Yes.

Speaker 1: 9:15

And this rise is significant. It suggests that more people are experiencing dysautonomia. In recent years, studies have found that a high prevalence of dysautonomia among individuals with long COVID. For instance, a study published in the American Journal of Medicine reported a high incidence of dysautonomic dysfunction and POTS in patients who succumb to COVID, leading to poor health-related quality of life. Another study published in the Frontiers of Neurology noted that 66% of people with long COVID developed dysautonomia. But to be clear and this is really important dysautonomia has been around for a long time, long before COVID was ever on the radar screen. But it does point out that there are often triggers to dysautonomia that can activate this dreaded disease, and viral infections are a common trigger. I also want to tell a quick story to illustrate the point that there are probably many people out there having dysautonomia-related symptoms who are not properly diagnosed, so the incidence of dysautonomia is probably much higher than what we're actually stating.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Years ago, I had a super nice patient who lived out of state, and so she called me one day and described some of the symptoms that you had just mentioned, tyler, and she had seen her excellent internist and a couple of other doctors, but none of them had ever really connected the dots and had realized that autonomic dysfunction was at the root of her problems.

Speaker 1: 10:31

After she described her symptoms to me, I told her it sounded to me like dysautonomia. So subsequently she did go to the dysautonomia specialist at Vanderbilt University and, sure enough, it was dysautonomia and she got on the program and eventually she got better, although it did take a while. Similarly, I personally dealt with a case of POTS that Lindsay mentioned just a bit ago, which was a common expression of dysautonomia, but none of my doctors really made the proper diagnosis. So I'm just saying that this is a disease that's probably much more common than we might think and a lot of people have it but they never get properly diagnosed. And a lot of people have it but they never get properly diagnosed. And I think that after COVID more doctors are aware of dysautonomia and therefore are more likely to recognize it, and that may be a factor in the increase in the number of cases reported, but overall I think it's still underreported.

Speaker 4: 11:17

I couldn't agree with you more Absolutely. I think it's fascinating here about seeing these trends and hearing the stats is that whenever we see these things it almost kind of points to an answer for recovery. And so, as your listeners probably know by now, dr Mack and Lindsay are always looking at things from the functional point of view. They call it their why in medicine or why does someone have this disease? Why in medicine or why does someone have this disease? And in the case of dysautonomia, one of the main triggers is inflammation, which can be brought on by diseases like COVID or other viral infections. Knowing that inflammation is a huge root of this disease helps make sense the fact that we are seeing a rise in it, especially with those with long COVID. So it kind of goes to your point there, dr Mack, and these unfortunate folks are dealing with chronic inflammation that is just not turning off. So I'm on a mission here to share what I've learned and let my pain story be one of purpose in helping others on their healing journey.

Speaker 3: 12:19

I love seeing that drive in you to use this for others. It reminds me of one of my other my favorite doctors too, sitting right here across the counter. Tyler, for those who've missed part one, can you briefly recap your journey with dysautonomia?

Speaker 4: 12:33

Yeah, sure, I mean, we don't have all day, do we no? But I'll just very succinctly put it together here. You know, I developed dysautonomia after a series of infections and chronic stress traumatic stress, really.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Let me interrupt for a second, and before that you were a very robust guy, right.

Speaker 4: 12:50

Yeah, like I was a CrossFit coach, worked out all the time super conscious about everything I was putting in my body, what I was doing. So, yeah, very much the health nut of health nuts when it came to people that knew us for sure. And so and so that traumatic stress really led to extreme fatigue, then dizziness and heart, heart rate irregularities, cognitive dysfunction, that syncope, vasovagal syncope, pots and other gut issues like you know dumping syndrome, gastroparesis type things. And now, looking back, gut issues like dumping syndrome, gastroparesis type things. And now, looking back, it was like my body was in a state of this, like pseudo hypoxia, starved for energy even when there was plenty of oxygen around. And I think this is because my mitochondria just couldn't keep up.

Speaker 4: 13:37

And I first sought help from traditional medicine community but unfortunately they didn't have any solutions for me and in fact they were often quite dismissive of my concerns, telling me that, you know, much of these things were just anxiety. And then I needed to chill out, to almost exactly quote one of the physicians I saw. But I continued to struggle and so I turned to functional medicine to try and find the answers to the root causes of my disease process. Yeah, I remember when it first hit. You really pardon my phrase, but it kind of kicked your butt as this disease often does.

Speaker 1: 14:02

Yeah, tyler, I remember when it first hit. You really pardon my phrase, but it kind of kicked your butt, as this disease often does. However, the excellent doctors that you initially saw were unfortunately operating without a full deck. You see, doctors get very little training in recognizing or treating dysautonomia. In fact, thinking back on it, I don't think dysautonomia was ever mentioned in medical school or residency.

Speaker 1: 14:24

For better or for worse, the workup, including labs, is often completely normal. So then the doctors jump to conclusions and they tell you that everything is normal and there's quote nothing wrong with you end quote, which, for many patients, makes them feel very invalidated and makes them and their families start to wonder if they're going crazy. It's a classic case of gaslighting and unfortunately, since the opportunity to make the right diagnosis has been missed, it forces these patients to continue to suffer needlessly, often for years. So one of the challenges for patients is to find a provider who is dysautonomia aware and who can connect the dots and who has the tools in his or her toolbox to get the patient on the road to recovery. So an important mantra for these patients and providers that can take home from this is that just because your labs are normal. That does not mean that there's nothing wrong with you and it's all in your head and for patients.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Listen to your body and trust what it's telling you. And it's telling you something is terribly wrong. And you know that you feel like crap. And don't let any doctor tell you that. You don't Never stop believing in yourself. Never lose hope for a better future. If your doctor doesn't get you, then find a new doctor who does. And to the providers out there I would also add listen to your patient and trust them when they tell you that something's terribly wrong, even when their labs are normal. And if you don't know much about disordered pneumonia, then that's okay. You weren't taught about it, that's fine. But now it's your time to learn or to find a colleague you can refer to who has expertise in this area.

Speaker 4: 15:52

Absolutely so. Well said, you know, I think one of the major factors I discovered was chronic inflammation was having a significant impact on the nervous system. So, specifically, neuroinflammation and over the years to coin one of your phrases, dr Mack, I built a toolbox which includes diet supplements, vagus, nerve stimulation and other biohacks the trendy term right now, trendy word. That really brought me a really long way from those early days.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Yeah, Tyler, inflammation is huge, not only for dysautonomia, for so many things, and we did a whole podcast on it back in 2023. I think we broke it down pretty well, so y'all might want to go back and check that out just to get a background on inflammation. But now some inflammation can be locally, for instance, if you get a hangnail and it turns all red or you can have systemic inflammation which is really all throughout your body, including your brain. So in the case of dysautonomia, what's important is the neuroinflammation in the brain and the nervous system.

Speaker 3: 16:51

As it turns out, cutting-edge research suggests that neuroinflammation plays a major role in autonomic dysfunction. A 2021 review published in the journal Frontiers in Neurology highlights how inflammatory cytokines, the chemical messengers of inflammation, disrupt the autonomic nervous system's ability to regulate heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, which are, of course, some of the classic symptoms of dysautonomia.

Speaker 1: 17:19

So, Tyler, how did you identify inflammation as a key player in your particular situation?

Speaker 4: 17:25

Yeah, it was kind of tough because you know some of the like you were mentioning earlier, some of the labs, the reactor proteins and things of that nature came back fine. But you know, in my quest to sink answers, talking with different physicians like yourself and with Dr Patrick Nemechek, an internist who specializes in dysautonomia he created the Nemechek Protocol in targeting autonomic dysfunction. He has done extensive work on neuroinflammation and autonomic dysfunction and it just really clicked for me once he kind of going into it and especially his take on gut balance and systemic inflammation and how the two are related. I had a major. I mean I guess I have many classic signs of chronic inflammation, those things being brain fog, joint pain and gut issues.

Speaker 4: 18:14

You know, like we said before, lindsay and I were really already health nuts. We enjoyed reading literature, like who enjoys doing that? We did, and so me, with you know, my nutrition degree, her as a nurse, nurse, health coach under you, dr Mack, and your functional medicine clinic. So you know we enjoyed diving deep and finding out what was going wrong. What was going wrong? We had, like I said before, we read tons of research, talked to physicians and health experts and you know, after a very winding journey, we realized that metabolic and neuroinflammation were likely key driving symptoms.

Speaker 3: 18:51

Scientists have found that inflammation in the brain is often coming from problems in the gut, and so it's called that gut brain connection, and this is not a new concept for us on this podcast, but it's really interesting and super important. And, by the way, the connection goes both ways gut to brain, brain to gut. So, for instance, things can go on in the brain that affect gut problems and vice versa, where the gut issues can contribute to brain problems. It's like a two-way superhighway of information connecting the gut with the brain, and the science backs it up. A 2022 paper in the Journal of Neuroinflammation suggests that endotoxins from gut dysbiosis can trigger neuroinflammatory responses in the brain.

Speaker 1: 19:36

So let's just pause for a moment and take a look at a few key mechanisms that play a role in this gut-brain interaction that we're talking about. First, the dysbiosis, which is an altered gut microbiome, can cause leaky gut, meaning that the lining of the gut becomes more permeable than it should be and it's like a sieve or a filter with the holes too large, so stuff passes through the filter, which should not. It makes sense that many of us, if not most of us, have some degree of dysbiosis, if you take a look at the modern American diet and the overuse of antibiotics. Anyway, when we get the leaky gut, protein fragments and harmful toxins like the lipopolysaccharide or LPS, from the bad bacteria leak through the gut into the bloodstream and travel throughout the body.

Speaker 1: 20:16

As it turns out, most of our immune system is right there in the gut. I've heard estimates of something like 70% of the immune system is right there in the gut. I've heard estimates of something like 70% of the immune system is right there in the gut. The immune system identifies these particles as a foreign body, because in an ideal situation, if the gut was not leaky, then these particles should not be there. So the immune system can then react to the presence of these toxins via a variety of different mechanisms, which ultimately triggers a widespread inflammation, including the neuroinflammation that we have already mentioned. This then goes on to cause things like dysautonomia, autoimmune disease and many other immune-mediated health problems.

Speaker 3: 20:50

So, to summarize, it's the body's immune system reacting to the insult caused by the particles leaking through the gut that's responsible for the inflammation in the brain, and understanding how the health of the gut is directly connected to the health of your brain specifically neuroinflammation was really a key for you, Tyler, in approaching your dysautonomia recovery journey.

Speaker 4: 21:16

Oh, yeah, for sure. So another important aspect of the gut-brain connection is the vagus nerve. This is a super important cranial nerve that controls things like digestive enzymes secretion, gut motility, gastric acid production and bile flow. The vagus nerve also acts as a major tool in the body's fight against inflammation and neuroinflammation and it modulates our neurotransmitters. So indirectly, the vagus nerve also affects things like anxiety, depression, memory focus and stress tolerance, which are all part of my dysautonomia syndrome. So addressing the vagus nerve specifically made a huge difference for me in my healing journey.

Speaker 4: 21:57

I think it's so important that people know that the vagus nerve acts as a two-way superhighway between the gut and the brain. Nerve acts as a two-way superhighway between the gut and the brain and it's interesting that about 80, it was estimated about 80 to 90% of the messaging is going in the gut to the brain direction and not from the brain to the gut. The gut is always keeping the brain in the loop with information about gut inflammation levels, gut microbiome status, nutrient availability and overall general gut health. Lindsay and I think of the vagus nerve as kind of like a dial on inflammation in the body. It can turn it up or down. So, for instance, when gut bacteria are balanced, the gut sends an update to the brain via the vagus nerve, which then helps to regulate autonomic function, inflammation and other neurotransmitter production through this central highway system. But with dysbiosis, aka an altered gut microbiome, the signals to the brain can become what we call pro-inflammatory, further dysregulating the autonomic nervous system.

Speaker 3: 23:01

So, in other words, gut health isn't just about digestion, it's directly tied to your brain and your autonomic function. As, in other words, gut health isn't just about digestion, it's directly tied to your brain and your autonomic function. As, dr Mack, you always say, it's all connected.

Speaker 4: 23:11

It really is, isn't it, Coach? That's exactly right and this is why you know, a gut-focused intervention, things like anti-inflammatory diet, you know, probiotics and gut resets can be game changers for people with POTS and other forms of dysautonomia.

Speaker 1: 23:27

You know, when we talk about gut health, there are so many good things you can do for gut health to address this, and Coach and I did a whole series of podcasts on gut health back in 2018. So if you're interested in learning more about gut health, you might want to go back and take a listen to some of those early podcasts. But, tyler, tell us specifically a bit more about how you approach gut healing in order to recover from your autonomic dysfunction.

Speaker 4: 23:50

Oh, yeah, sure. So, unfortunately, I wish I could say it was just one specific thing that fixed it all, but that was definitely not. You know, I don't think it was the case. It was like a multi-step process which included a huge amount of trial and error. So, with my background in nutrition, I thought I was doing everything right. You know pre-diagnosis I was on vegan. You know vegetarian diets, plant-based eating but I was way off Early on. I started with Dr Max Wisdom and tried an elemental diet. This did seem to help, but then I eventually switched to more of a strict carnivore, cutting out plant-based anti-nutrients and gut irritants. So if I could go back, I would jump straight from that foundation with the elemental and progress more to carnivore, skipping the missteps like veganism or healthy plant foods that were, I think, were actually sabotaging me. Now, for me and maybe others with dysautonomia, carnivore has been a huge healing and it reduces inflammation and kind of gives the gut a break, if you will.

Speaker 3: 24:47

Tyler, let's rewind and just talk just a bit more on the elemental diet. What is that all about, and which one did you?

Speaker 4: 24:54

use. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. An elemental diet is basically like a liquid diet, a pre-digested or broken down nutrients. So think of things like you know basic amino, essential amino acids, glucose, fatty acids. Those are extremely easy to absorb, gives your gut time to relax or and heal and minimizes that stress on the digestive system and it really just allows your body to do other metabolic work that needs to be done, be done. And this is great for individuals who have the compromised ability to digest or absorb nutrients. And I think you know, dr Mag, you're the one that actually recommended to me the elemental diet that I use was through a company called Integrative Therapeutics.

Speaker 1: 25:37

Yeah, there are many different ones around. Back many years ago, when I had a gut situation, I used something called Vyvanix, which really, I think, helped me through a very crucial time, which is available pretty much over the counter, I believe, but anyway, yeah, another important aspect of that particular diet, tyler, is that it has no intact proteins. When you think about that leaky gut, it's the intact proteins, or what I call protein fragments, that leak through and they cause an immune response. However, if you break that protein down into all of its amino acids, an amino acid does not cause an immune response. In the elemental diet, they have all the amino acids that you need to make up and complete proteins, but they're not strung together so you do not have an immune reaction. So it gives your gut a rest in that regard as well. As far as just calming down that whole immune reaction, does that make sense? Yes, sir, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 26:25

And that's huge because you know people that are dealing with whatever chronic issue like this. Then you're so panicked about anything that you can eat. You kind of become paranoid about every food Like is this what's causing my reaction Is this, is this and there's this whole brain psycho situation. You're analyzing everything.

Speaker 4: 26:45

Because you are having a reaction. A lot of people with dysautonomia are having what's called the MCAS, like mass cell activation syndrome, and so these types of diets are really great for those types of yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Coach, as I think back to my situation, this was back when I was in my early 30s. I lived in this terrible mold-infested house and I ended up getting hyper-allergic to everything. And terrible mold infested house and I ended up getting hyper allergic to everything.

Speaker 3: 27:08

And so.

Speaker 1: 27:10

But the problem is you don't know what you're allergic to, what's causing this? So by going on the elemental diet, I didn't have to worry about that anymore and I usually recommend it for just a couple of weeks for my patients to kind of help them, help their gut rest and transition into something else, like Tyler did with his carnivore diet. But I stayed on it for three months. I was so paranoid about what I was eating and it really, I think I wouldn't say saved my life, but it certainly was, I think, the turning point for me as far as getting better. And then I started adding back one food at a time. I'll never forget when I went out and got, let's see, I just got some white rice, you know, and that's the first thing I added and was able to tolerate that. So then the next thing I did, I added a little bit of protein, some chicken, and just boiled it in a pot with no spices, and so, little by little, I added food and now I can eat pretty much what I want to. But it was a difficult time for me, but the elemental diet really helped me through it.

Speaker 1: 27:56

Carnivore diet, tyler, is somewhat controversial and I want to be clear that I am not recommending it for everybody. In fact, I think, think quite the opposite. For the average Joe, it's hard to beat the good old Mediterranean diet when it comes to evidence-based benefits. However, as I've always said, it's all about finding the right diet for you, for your needs. In this particular time in your life and in this particular situation, the carnivore diet has been the diet which by far has been the best for Tyler, and I can also say that I've heard that same testimony from other patients with chronic disease who have gone to a carnivore diet, and it's been a complete game changer for them. All their myriad of symptoms just seem to vanish. And so, tyler, you're not alone in finding that the carnivore diet was quite beneficial in your healing journey.

Speaker 3: 28:37

We also see some evidence in the literature of the benefits of a carnivore diet. The benefits of a carnivore diet A 2020 study in the journal Nutrients found that an animal-based diet lowers C-reactive protein and stabilizes blood sugar, both of which are crucial when we're talking about reducing systemic inflammation.

Speaker 1: 28:55

So, Tyler, what specific benefits did you notice after starting a carnivore diet?

Speaker 4: 28:59

Yeah. So I think within weeks my brain fog lifted, I had energy levels improved dramatically, I saw fewer like postural tachycardia episodes and palpitations. They were still there some. You know it takes a long period of time for those to go away, but they definitely decreased almost, you know, pretty quickly. And removing those plant-based irritants and focusing on nutrient-dense animal foods I think kind of helped reset, kind of healed my gut some. And so you know and I think that has to do with what you mentioned earlier, dr Mac is just lowering that inflammatory load, things like LPS that was just kind of wreaking havoc on my brain and Tyler if I recall just hearing from Lindsay, way back then you were in dire straits, right you?

Speaker 4: 29:45

were practically bedridden. I was, yeah, bedridden for a long period of time. I say it's a long period of time. Anybody that can't move for months on end is pretty bad, you know. Just to kind of give you an idea, I weighed roughly 175, and then, all this time stuff happened, I got down to 120 pounds, which is which is pretty significant for someone that's, you know, working out like crazy and in great health. And so, yeah, I was just in pretty much dire straits, like you said. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 30:17

So let's talk a little bit more about the carnivore diet.

Speaker 4: 30:22

So you know, I think I believe that the animal products, especially meat and organs and fat, are the most nutrient rich foods and I think it's really beneficial for those with dysautonomia, which is why I advocate for the carnivore diet. This is why I, you know, obviously I didn't think the carnivore diet was the best, or I would have done it from a long, long time prior.

Speaker 3: 30:45

Our family was like what are we eating? What?

Speaker 4: 30:47

are we not eating?

Speaker 3: 30:48

You know, they're just like not having any animal food, and then all of a sudden it was like only meat.

Speaker 1: 30:54

They just were like what's?

Speaker 3: 30:55

happening in your world? We don't know.

Speaker 4: 31:00

Yeah, that's right, my family and our families, I guess we're just, they're very gracious with us and we thank them very much for putting up with all of our ups and downs.

Speaker 4: 31:09

But you know, carnivore diets is zero carb, so it's an animal-based way of eating that really includes, you know, meat, fish, eggs and maybe some dairy at some point but not necessarily initially if you're having some inflammatory type issues like MCAS or things of that nature to riboflavin, creatine, carnitine, choline and taurine, which you know are either absent or, you know, not as bioavailable in plant foods. And I saw that the carnivore diet was an effective elimination diet, essentially like another step for the Al-Mil diet there, and so basically we're just stripping away potential dietary triggers like lectins oxalates, gluten, stripping away potential dietary triggers like lectins, oxalates, gluten, polyphenols and phytates, which could be especially problematic for those people that have conditions like MCAS, and that just kind of will help that and that's what it did with me. It helped my body to heal and so I credit with, you know, that carnivore diet with being a big puzzle piece to reducing the symptoms of my autoimmune issues, inflammation and other mental health. You know quote unquote disorders that I had and, I think, another really-.

Speaker 4: 32:33

You're talking about like anxiety, panic attacks, yeah, anxiety panic attacks, that whenever I would go to the physician they'd say, oh, it's all in your head, you know, and so that helped out a lot with that.

Speaker 4: 32:42

And I do think as well especially kind of going back to your point, lynn's like what do we, you know, what do we do, you know it's whenever you're you're eliminating or reducing the amount of choices you have to make, it just brings a lot of simplicity in your life and so knowing that, all right, I'm just eating these, I'm eating meat and you know eggs, and that's pretty much it, and fat, it kind of took a little bit of weight off. Oh, is this going to have a reaction, or is this going to have a reaction? Is this going to have a reaction? I'm able to have a simplicity to my diet and which kind of brought some peace to, I think, to our home to some degree. So solely focusing on animal foods made it a powerful tool in identifying and addressing food sensitivities whenever you add things back in, and so, yeah, that's kind of the answer.

Speaker 1: 33:29

So half the equation is what you're eating vis-a-vis getting that wonderful bioavailable nutrients to you, but the other half is what you're not eating by illuminating those triggers, like you say, like the lectins and gluten and stuff like that. So that's really interesting. So what does a typical day look like for you? What's for breakfast, lunch and supper and snacks and all that kind of?

Speaker 4: 33:48

stuff. Yeah, sure, it's good. You know, I think whenever I talk with clients I tell them listen, I do not want you to be hungry. And so with carnivores like oh in traditional theology, like oh, I eat the size of my palm, a piece of meat, you know, or or whatnot. And with the carnivore diet you're eating a fair amount more than than that, and so so, let's say, morning time I'll have around six eggs or so with butter or ghee or something of that nature, and sometimes I'll have sausage or a piece of bacon or something like that with it. Or the night before is leftover, you know, piece of meat. And then, of course, you know, especially people with dysautonomia, water and electrolyte balance is key, especially if you're making a transition, getting that balance right for your blood pressure regulation. And then, you know a snack would be, you know some. I like to have essential amino acids in water.

Speaker 3: 34:41

It's like a powder, like a supplement powder yeah, a little supplement powder.

Speaker 4: 34:44

Just being sure I'm getting that in. I really like that.

Speaker 4: 34:47

Can you give us a name. Yeah, Kion Aminos is the one that I really really use. Fill it for me, yeah, K-I-O-N Kion Aminos, and it's just the essential amino acids there broken down. And then for lunch I would have, you know, half a pound to a pound of ground beef or short ribs or something like that, and that would be, that would be lunch. It just depends, you know how hungry I am, that breakfast sometime would tie me over to a little bit after lunch until snack time, and then the snack, if I, you know, getting on, let me say, two or three o'clock, I would have like a protein powder, you know, and in that protein powder I would have my desiccated type organ meats in there, because I just I don't particularly love the way organ meats taste. You know I fry them up or cook them. So desiccated, meaning dried powder form, I would put them in a protein shake and just drink it.

Speaker 4: 35:41

Give us the name of your protein powder. Yeah, I have the Fittest. It's called the Fittest Ever, I believe Is that the Fittest Ever and the vanilla brand. So this has a little bit of it's very clean. It basically has just a little bit of vanilla bean in it, if you will.

Speaker 3: 35:56

I drink the chocolate version. She drinks that.

Speaker 4: 36:01

Which I agree. Now it does taste. I think the chocolate tastes better to me, but the vanilla at the time did not. I got reactions off the chocolate, yeah right, and the vanilla wasn't it seemed like a pure product.

Speaker 1: 36:13

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 4: 36:13

Yeah, it's pure, and so I use that one Now and then for evening. I would have you know, ideally, if I could have a ribeye every single night, that's what I would eat, and so my ideal day would be, you know, just basically a 12 to 16 ounce ribeye. If I'm still hungry, then I'd have an egg or two with it.

Speaker 1: 36:31

Wonderful. It's so interesting, Tyler, you as a nutritionist, I think you know. Years ago, things like eggs used to get a terrible bad rap, but I think we the science is evolving in fats. You know the good fats. We used to think all fats were bad. Fats made you fat. Well, no, no, no, yeah, yeah. So it's really evolving, but at the end of the day, once again, it's all about finding the diet that works for you, and you have found it, and I'm just so thrilled that you you were right to that.

Speaker 4: 36:55

And I will say this too like you mentioned, like you did the L-melon diet, then you were able to kind of add things back in and not have any problems and do the same thing. You know I have. I know I was on carnivore very strict for a long period of time and now the past year or so I've added some fruit, some fruit in and I like that and it works well for me, you know.

Speaker 3: 37:15

And you're able to eat some vegetables socially.

Speaker 4: 37:17

Yeah, socially, if I have.

Speaker 3: 37:18

Because socially this is a very hard diet, you know. Just to be realistic.

Speaker 4: 37:22

No, that's exactly right. So I'll have, like the vegetables that I do. Typically choose, though, are your fruit vegetables. So seeing like zucchini squash, you know melon type, like vegetables.

Speaker 1: 37:33

So, yeah, back to my situation. As I got better, I could tolerate more and gradually advanced my diet, so that's not exactly.

Speaker 4: 37:39

That's the same case for me.

Speaker 3: 37:42

And there is some good support in the literature for potential benefits with the carnivore diet. 2020 review in the journal Nutrients showed that reducing fiber can help autoimmune and gut disorders when bacterial overgrowth is the issue, and then another study published in the journal Current Opinion in Endocrinology, diabetes and Obesity found-carb and ketogenic diets like the carnivore diet lower systemic inflammation by reducing oxidative stress and improving mitochondrial function.

Speaker 4: 38:14

Yeah, exactly, and that was me right. I had gut permeability issues tied to dysautonomia, and even the so-called healthy plants were causing problems for me. So that was I think that had to do with like years of veganism and then all the you know, the seed oils and sunflower seed nut butters that I was eating really just kept that cycle going. So the move to the carnivore fixed that leaky gut, stabilized blood sugar, cut inflammation kind of all at once and it was magical and looking back was one of the really most important things that improved my dysautonomia recovery journey.

Speaker 1: 38:47

That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. This is wonderful. Through your research and your trial and error, you discovered the perfect diet to help you optimize your recovery. So, in your expert opinion, as a nutritionist and as a dysautonomia warrior, how would you recommend that people make a transition into a carnivore diet?

Speaker 4: 39:03

Yeah, I think the worst offenders will probably be anything you know. Obviously we say anything processed gluten, seed oils way up there. I would say eliminate those things you know processed sugars, seed oils and then ease into animal-based eating with really high quality meats, organ meats, if you can for micronutrients. If you can't eat those, then do desiccated and then obviously electrolytes to avoid any kind of imbalances as you're making that transition.

Speaker 1: 39:34

Tom, do you know of any resource like a book on carnivore diet or a cookbook on carnivore diet that you yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4: 39:40

So. I follow a guy named dr paul saladino bill for me paul p-a-u-l saladino s-a-l-d-i-n-o and his handle was, I think, on like all the social medias, like carnivore md and he, you know, he has a, he has a a um, he has a couple books he has a couple books, I think he has a couple of books. I think he has a good cookbook. That's strict carnivore, but he was in the same case that I was in. He was strict carnivore and now he's moved to incorporating fruit as well.

Speaker 1: 40:13

Well, Anit do you place an emphasis on eating free range products or organic meat products?

Speaker 4: 40:20

Yeah, I do. I think it's super important and helpful and it's not really a big leap for me to understand that a happy, well-cared for animal has a healthy body. That affects me and the consumer, and, conversely, unhealthy animals that are exposed to chemicals and lots of antibiotics etc. Would have health problems and contain toxins and higher amounts of omega-6s that are then passed on to me, the consumer. So, to be honest, though you know, it's not always something that we as a family can accomplish financially. So we generally always, as far as homemade meals go, do grass-fed beef, organic chicken, and we try to get eggs from chickens that are happy and free range. Obviously, in an ideal world, we would do this exclusively with all of our animal products, but we have to do the best we can and be realistic as well. It costs money to eat well, doesn't it?

Speaker 1: 41:15

That's right, it does.

Speaker 4: 41:17

So one of the main things that we did that I highly recommend everyone doing if they're able is purchasing. We purchased a half cow from a local farmer, so we know how it's raised. We're supporting local farmers and it's super high quality meat and a lot easier on your pocketbook as well.

Speaker 1: 41:34

Yeah, if I recall, the actual omega-6 and omega-3 ratio is different from a grass-fed cow than it is from a factory cow, absolutely Significantly yes.

Speaker 3: 41:49

Even if you don't go fully carnivore, just adding some nutrient-dense animal foods and dropping some of the more inflammatory plants could help, and I will caveat that by saying that. I do think that if you're not seeing the results you're wanting to, it might behoove you to streamline to a more strict carnivore diet, like Tyler did, for a short period of time, before you just toss it to the side, thinking it doesn't work. Sometimes you do need to just try that strict diet for a period of time and see.

Speaker 1: 42:13

And Tyler clarify for me again what are the most inflammatory plant foods that you would cut out first.

Speaker 4: 42:18

The most inflammatory plant foods would be seed oils. I think seed oils are the things like sunflower seed oil, safflower, soy, grape, grape seed oil, vegetable oils, hydrogenated oils and others, and they're in nut butters, trail mixes. They hide, you know, they're hide in all these little areas and granola bars and, primarily, in primarily processed foods. We're getting a little bit better now in terms of, like, adding different types of oils instead of doing seed oils, but it pretty much in anything fried it's going to be high and those Omega-6s I was talking about. I was talking about and that's where I was getting sabotaged, really on my journey because I was, you know, vegan, vegetarian and getting lots and lots of seed oils through the trail.

Speaker 3: 43:03

Because you think that the nuts are a good thing. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4: 43:06

But then they're soaked, they're covered in omega-6s, and someone that has MCAS and highly sensitive just causes major reactions, and so those are. I mean, it's because those omega-6s are so out of balance in some of these oils. You know some of them 50 to 1, omega-6 to omega-3. Well, you want that closer to 1 to 1.

Speaker 1: 43:26

Right, you know, yeah, and the big deal there is that one scenario is pro-inflammatory and the other is anti-inflammatory. That's right, Right. So you definitely want to get on an anti-inflammatory path and to kind of wrap up the diet portion of this discussion, which is so important because I think you know, with a lot of chronic diseases I have found that, you know, working on the diet first is sometimes the thing that gets people in the right direction. But, as I always say, you've got to find your diet that works best for you and, for instance, the Tyler diet, the Lindsay diet, the Dr Mac diet, whatever. But you've got to listen to your body and find out what works for you and you may have to try some trial and error and it may change over time. The perfect diet for Tyler right now is the carnivore diet, but in 10 years it may be something else. So we always have to continue to listen to our guts and ultimately to tweak our diet to keep that perfect diet for you?

Speaker 4: 44:16

Absolutely, I think our perfect diet at home is carnivore plus a little bit of ice cream. Lindsay.

Speaker 3: 44:25

You're telling on me.

Speaker 1: 44:29

Lindsay, see around my household whenever I eat something bad. Dr Cheryl says I'm going to tell Lindsay. Well, I'm happy to know that you come to ice cream too, Lindsay. But you know what I come by it genetically? I got that from my dad.

Speaker 4: 44:45

He would have a big bowl of ice cream every night.

Speaker 1: 44:49

And I sure won't let me have a big bowl, but she lets me have a little bit.

Speaker 3: 44:52

A little allotment. Yes, Just a little bit. So, Tyler, tell us about some more tools in your toolbox that you used on the recovery journey. For instance, you mentioned anti-inflammatory supplements. How did those play a role in your healing?

Speaker 4: 45:05

Yeah, absolutely so. I remember I mentioned Dr Nemechek and his protocol and in that there's this high dose DHA, official olive oil and inulin and all of these kind of reduce neural inflammation and gut inflammation. They target those areas Again. Those were wrecking my autonomic nervous system. And so with that protocol it kind of included a gut reset targeting like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO, or SIBO, you could say, which was a big inflammation driver for me and I think for most everyone with dysautonomia. And so what happens is SIBO increases leaky gut and really just pumps out those endotoxins like LPS and that leaks in through the gut and they hit the brain and keep neuroinflammation going in that vicious cycle. So how do you do a?

Speaker 1: 45:54

gut reset Tyler.

Speaker 4: 45:55

Oh, yeah, of course. So obviously we start with diet remove inflammatory foods, things that are causing reactions to you. You treat SIBO. You know, with me I treat with zyfaxin, a targeted antibiotic that goes in like a sniper, if you will, and just eliminates overgrowth in the small intestine, which is what makes it a great treatment option versus just, you know, a more broadly acting antibiotic, right? So, dr McMahon, you led me through the whole zyfaximin treatment or rifaximin, and then, you know, after that you continue to fuel and balance the gut microbiome with, maybe, say, a spore biotic, which is a spore-based probiotic, or I called it, you know, mega spore biotics, the one that I use, I think, dr McMahon, maybe you've heard you use that before as well and then also things like inulin as a prebiotic fiber to kind of help restore that microbiome, feed that good bacteria.

Speaker 1: 46:47

You know, Tyler, I have had a lot of patients who really benefited from that Sifaxin regimen. It's been a real game changer for them as far as their SIBO and their dysautonomia and that kind of stuff. So I'm glad that that seemed to help you as well. And I'll just make a few comments on your previous statements about SIBO. And I agree with you that SIBO is potentially a huge cause of dysautonomia and in my mind that's what makes the carnivore diet so successful. If you think about it, people with SIBO already have a bacterial overgrowth in their small intestine. That's what SIBO is, and it's the fiber in the carbs that tends to promote more growth of these bacteria. So eliminating the fiber that feeds these bacteria by transitioning to a carnivore diet makes real sense from a mechanistic point of view.

Speaker 4: 47:28

Yeah, I agree, in addition to that fiber, I found that not only that, but also just complex carbs, things that take a little bit longer to digest and can be fermenting, you know so over. You know those can cause, you know that that more opportunistic bacteria to kind of take, take on and and and grow so over time. I simply added things like I mentioned before, just like some simple um um carbohydrates like a fruit, and didn't take as long to necessarily break down. I could use it kind of immediately and I would do that more around things of like exercise as I could, or moving, not just, you know, being a sedentary thing. So if I wanted to go outside and you know, take a walk with the kids or go with Lynn, it's like, oh, I'll have a piece of fruit and I can do that.

Speaker 4: 48:14

Any other supplements that you would recommend? Absolutely? Yeah, there's a huge supplement that was just a major game changer for me and it's thiamine. You know it's vitamin B1, right, the number one B vitamin. It's B1. I call it the number one B vitamin which I guess it is.

Speaker 4: 48:32

You know it's simple but critical. Dr Derek Lonsdale. His work showed that thiamine is kind of like a spark plug for energy, like you have to have it and or otherwise. You know your symptoms, like fatigue and well, at least for me, the symptoms like fatigue and palpitations, you know, spiked. You know obviously other contributors, like infections or stress, can sabotage thiamine's use because, like, the more you say exercise or more trauma you have, the more you use thiamine. So supplementation was key, alongside cutting inflammation sources.

Speaker 1: 49:08

So how did you take it? Tell me what, what brand or what type.

Speaker 4: 49:11

Yeah sure you know it. The brand that I like is is by Objective Nutrients. They're there, they don't have any kind of fillers in them. Really highly recommend that brand. It's called Objective Nutrients, if any of your listeners want to take a look at that, you know.

Speaker 4: 49:25

But thiamine really steadied my energy and calmed those autonomic storms. If I felt something coming on I would take some thiamine and it would really help. I wish I had known sooner about how inflammation, sibo and even you know probiotics without a gut reset were really sabotaging me. But adding thiamine provided that really dramatic change with like quick onsets of brain fog and really also my ability to recover. So you know there's this thing, so I guess you could say so recover not from just, like you know, normal energy expenditure, so like people who just ought to know me. You guys, if you're listening, you know that you have to go out on a walk one day so I feel pretty good, but the next day you're paying for it and that's just that idea of. It's called PEM, like post-external malaise, and by adding that thiamine it really diminished that, that PEM type symptoms.

Speaker 1: 50:22

OK, y'all bear with me just for a moment while I tell you a story to illustrate the importance of thiamine. Now it would be reasonable to think that I have totally lost my mind and I'm going off on a totally irrelevant tangent, but this is a true story about zombie alligators.

Speaker 3: 50:36

Dun, dun dun. All right, all right, we're here, we're buckled in.

Speaker 1: 50:40

Okay, I'm scared. So the legend has it, and once again, true story. Down in central Florida there's a certain lake down there that where gators as you can imagine, gators can be extremely aggressive If you mess with them. Of course I try not to, but as a part of their sickness, many of the gators in the lake became lethargic, disoriented and unnaturally passive, like they'd been brain hijacked. They also had muscle tremors and they lost their predatory behavior.

Speaker 1: 51:18

You could pull right up to one of them in a boat and poke them with a stick and they would just lay there, and so the researchers called them zombie alligators. I didn't make that up, the researchers did, but anyway. For years they tried to figure out what was going on, what was making them sick and what was causing them to die. At first they thought it might be toxins, but after all their testing and research they found that it was not toxins. So the scientists kept looking and they were stumped. For many years they just couldn't find the answer and it was kind of like a functional medicine, man-eating zombie, alligator, functional medicine and the root of the problem was drum roll, please.

Speaker 1: 51:50

Thiamine deficiency how about that? You heard me right. Thiamine deficiency Isn't that crazy. It's so interesting.

Speaker 1: 51:58

Now, how could that be? This lake has been there and the alligator's been there for thousands of years, and the gators have been thriving at the top of the food chain. But now why, all of a sudden, did they have a thiamine deficiency? Go figure, Where's that coming from? Well, think about it. The lake had been there relatively undisturbed since the dawn of time until fairly recently, when all the aging snowbirds decided to move down to the sunshine state. And so now we have this huge human population growth down there. So now around the lake, where we used to have a beautiful, balanced ecosystem, we now have housing developments where they use fertilizers on the lawn, strip malls, golf courses where they use even more fertilizer, sod farms and factory farms, all these creating toxic runoff down to the lake and causing water pollution.

Speaker 1: 52:45

This affects many kinds of wildlife, including birds and fish. But there was one type of fish that seemed to thrive, or at least survive, during this new environment, and that was chad. So the main diet for the alligators was chad. And guess what? Chad is deficient in? That's right, thiamine. So the gator's main source of food was deficient in thiamine, and, as it turns out, thiamine is essential for brain function, nerve signaling and energy metabolism, even in gators, and when animals or humans don't get enough, the brain starts to short circuit. Since this discovery, we have seen similar thiamine-related die-offs in seabirds in Scandinavia, salmon in the Pacific Northwest and sturgeon in the Great Lakes. Now humans are genetically a long way from gators, fish and birds, but we too are vulnerable to thiamine deficiency. So in people it can cause encephalopathy, which is an inflammation and swelling of the brain, confusion, muscle weakness and incoordination, and eye problems, neuropathy and heart failure. So there you have it, my zombie alligator story about niacin. Isn't that interesting?

Speaker 3: 53:48

Very interesting.

Speaker 4: 53:49

That's an amazing story Like that is yeah, that we're Dysautonomians know about those symptoms for sure. That's wild.

Speaker 3: 53:59

You're saying you can identify with a zombie alligator. Evidently I'm evidently.

Speaker 4: 54:06

Oh, okay, I'm sorry that you had to live five years with a zombie alligator, she ever starts calling you the zombie husband.

Speaker 1: 54:14

So now moving on after that zombie alligator tangent, sorry about that. So, tyler, from your comment a minute ago, I would assume the stress reduction and avoiding infections also played a role in your recovery. Is that right?

Speaker 4: 54:25

Oh, absolutely. You know, I think this goes a lot of a lot of people with dysautonomia. You know, catching a virus would hit super hard and knock me out for weeks, not just you know a normal day, and it was a scary thought. You know a normal day and it was a scary thought. That fear actually of getting ill really motivated me to stick to the plan. Like whatever plan I was on, I needed to stick to it, stay disciplined and, honestly, after making changes that we discussed, you know, I really didn't get sick very often and now we have a five-year-old and a three-year-old and they bring home.

Speaker 4: 55:01

All kinds of goodies to us in the form of germs and you know we will catch a stomach bug or something and I'll be down for a day. But overall I heal pretty quickly, which I'm super grateful for, because when you have dysautonomia you don't want to go down because you know you're down for the count if that happens.

Speaker 1: 55:25

Now. Are there any other tools?

Speaker 4: 55:26

in your toolbox that you found particularly helpful. Oh yeah, oh yeah, definitely there's a few more, I think. Right, one of the really big ones that's come into play for probably the later half of the healing journey is light therapy and really circadian biology. They've just been a really good tool in the toolbox to calm that autonomic function. You know your autonomic nervous system running stuff. Like you know we talked about heart rate digestion has two sides it ramps you up for action, like fight or flight, and on the other side it settles you into the rest and digestion and recovery. And really light is like that conductor of that daily dance, if you will, signaling when you're to be alert and when to wind down. So I cut out blue light from screens at night, synced with daylight, and really got up in the morning sun to keep it balanced, in the morning sun to keep it balanced.

Speaker 4: 56:26

But the real shift came, I think to, from what's called a photobiomodulation or red light therapy. Every day I use a device with, you know, 660 to 850 nanometer wavelengths. I shine it on my head for 10 to 20 minutes, along with my whole body, but I really focused on my head, both on front and the back, targeting my brain and I think it really slashed neuroinflammation by lowering those pro-inflammatory cytokines like TNF-alpha and interleukin-1-beta, while boosting anti-inflammatory ones like interleukin-10. Stuff we'll dig into with, you know, with mitochondrial function in just a minute when we talk about it. But that combo really kind of reversed that brain fog as well. We could talk about brain fog but, like this is one of those things that you know, using that light therapy kind of again just diminished the prevalence of that, as well as palpitations and anxiety. And you know, this is all you know. Of course, everything you guys talk about here is always backed in research and that came straight from an article on the frontiers of science in 2022.

Speaker 3: 57:24

So how does that work, Tyler? Is it that the blue light messes with that balance, but the red light fixes it? How do the wavelengths help?

Speaker 4: 57:32

Yeah, sure, yeah, and I think that's right. So too much artificial light at night keeps the action side stuck on, basically heart rate, heart racing and poor sleep, and when the rest side should be kicking in, if you will, if morning sun flips on the on switch. But that 660 to 850 nanometer red light really is, is clutch and kind of getting those things you know kind of getting your your circadian rhythm, kind of getting those things you know kind of getting your circadian rhythm kind of started. And that's why I utilize that photobiomodulation in the morning time as well. As you know, just taking the sun in through my eyes, it hits your brain cells, that light does, and it cuts inflammation drivers, like light that I was mentioning, that TNF-alpha interleukin-1, and it increases the interleukin-6, which is an anti-inflammatory portion.

Speaker 4: 58:23

And so you know I did it daily, I paired it with grounding. I get up, have bare feet on the ground on the earth, and you know it's one of those slow things that you do every day, that you see, you don't see it having a super effects. You know that day necessarily it can, but over the course of, say, you know, three months, six months, a year, it radically changes how it changed, how I feel at least, and so if I skip the morning light or overdid screens you know, or whatnot, then it's I seem just to see that my, my symptoms kind of flared up. And so I think of like light therapy as like a free tune-up for your brain and body.

Speaker 1: 59:05

You know, tyler, we've been talking about lifestyle medicine on the show for years and years, and it's just amazing, the more we learn about things with lifestyle medicine, how critical these basics are, like sunlight and good old-fashioned time outside in nature. For millions of years on this earth, we have been waking up with the sun and going to bed as night approaches. However, with the advent of electric lights, tv movies, social media, cell phones and screen time, we have thrown a monkey wrench in the diurnal biorhythms of our lives, and the results can be subtle, but sometimes it can be quite disastrous.

Speaker 4: 59:38

Absolutely. I couldn't agree anymore. It's a game changer. It's a massive wrench, like you're saying, starting your day with red light, because whenever the sun comes up it has a lot more red light than it does at night or when the sun is setting, and so starting your day with that red light really sets your internal clock in your eye. You have an internal clock in your eye and it signals how it should function.

Speaker 4: 1:00:03

That internal clock is called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the SCN, and it doesn't just necessarily dictate your wake and light cycle. It also kind of orchestrates your daily rhythms in your autonomic nervous system and your daily rhythms in your autonomic nervous system activity, in your daily rhythms in your autonomic nervous system activity, through neural and hormonal pathways. So you know, light exposure the SEN's primary cue, directly shapes this relationship influencing nervous system balance. Now, getting early morning light into your eyes and on your skin in and of itself helps ground you, calming your autonomic nervous system and bringing a sense of balance. Now, on the flip side, cutting back on the light at night, especially blue light, can dramatically improve your restorative sleep. So most people roll their phones or watch TV right before bed. But honestly, that's a real health hazard, not just for someone with dysautonomia but anyone. It can seriously delay melatonin production during the early part of your sleep cycle, where deep, restorative sleep happens the most, and by disrupting this SCN ANS, that suprachiasmatic nucleus autonomic nervous system harmony.

Speaker 4: 1:01:15

So I would say, you know, ditching blue light at least an hour before bed is key to sleeping well. Ideally as well. Ideally you should be in bed before 10, at least aiming. You know, I aim for 930 every night. And so do you wear blue light blockers? I do. Yes, I have red glasses. There's a big spectrum in that realm of glasses because you know anything that blocks a little bit of blue light. They target and say, oh, these are blue light blocking glasses, but the glasses I have are pretty much completely red and so it blocks every bit of blue light that comes through.

Speaker 1: 1:01:49

So is there any particular time of the morning when excuse me, when you have to be up, like within an hour of sunrise or something like that?

Speaker 4: 1:01:55

No, it's just watching the sunrise, you know. So, as much as you can, getting up to see the sunrise and getting that red in, there is a little bit of a roughly about a 30 minute window there where you're getting the maximum amount of red light. It's right before the what's the term? I can't think of the term off the top of my head, but when it starts to have more of the blue coming in, 2022 Journal of Biological Rhythms study ties natural light to lower inflammation and better mitochondrial function.

Speaker 3: 1:02:31

The daylight revs the action side. The night lets the calm side heal, which is what you're saying, tyler. Blue light at night throws this off spiking stress, and so the red light therapy that photobiomodulation, has solid backing from the Frontiers in Neuroscience a 2022 review where they found wavelengths like that 660 to the 810 nanometers that you mentioned, tyler, reduce neuroinflammation in animal models nanometers that you mentioned, tyler. Reduce neuroinflammation in animal models think traumatic brain injury or neurodegeneration by dropping cytokines like the TNF-alpha and like the interleukin-1 beta and raising interleukin-10. Grounding also has emerging data behind it cutting stress markers and grounding is a low-cost, high-impact combo, too, for recovery. When we're talking about just natural rhythms, the cheapest thing you can do?

Speaker 4: 1:03:25

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:03:26

So, tyler, you've mentioned mitochondrial function a couple of times and I share your interest in these little guys. My particular interest arose from treating patients with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, where mitochondrial dysfunction seems to be a big part of this problem. So please take a minute to refresh our memories on exactly what are mitochondria and what they do for us.

Speaker 4: 1:03:45

Yeah, sure, and likewise, you know, mitochondrial function just through the research, has been a huge area of interest for me, for us, you know, I've gone down the deep, deep down the rabbit hole of improving mitochondrial function and its role in chronic diseases like dysautonomia. Mitochondria, or organelles found in just about every cell and they can be kind of obviously you probably haven't heard about them being called the powerhouses of the cell. They convert the energy stored in our food to ATP, which is a more usable form of energy that your cells can use to function. The high energy cells of your body, like the brain cells and your heart cells, tend to have the highest concentration of mitochondria. And so when you have mitochondrial dysfunction, then you feel it. Especially with those with dysautonomia, you think like, oh, my chest is tied or you know brain type problems. And whenever we have mitochondrial problems, us dysautonomians, then that is kind of where we kind of see those issues take place with dysautonomia.

Speaker 3: 1:04:43

So what did you see down the rabbit hole?

Speaker 4: 1:04:47

Well, one of the big things was how thiamine ties into mitochondrial health.

Speaker 4: 1:04:51

You know, dr Derek Lonsdale's work showed thiamine deficiency messes with oxygen use in mitochondria, creating what's just termed ofa pseudo hypoxia, like your cells think they're starved for oxygen even when it's there, like this, the oxygen is there but you can't use it and that's because the thiamine is the spark plug for that energy.

Speaker 4: 1:05:14

And that hit me hard because you know, my fatigue and palpitation felt like I was kind of running out of gas, no matter how much I rested. You know, my fatigue and palpitation felt like I was kind of running out of gas, no matter how much I rested. You know I was eating right, doing the carnivore diet, feeling great, but just didn't have quite the energy that I needed. Lonsdale says that this, basically this pseudohepoxia, really hammers the lower brain, which is that limbic brain, which is that controls that autonomic nervous system, and it drives dysautonomia symptoms like POTS. So things like sugary, heavy diets make it worse by depleting thiamine, especially because it has to do with where it sits on that citric acid, that Krebs cycle, and unfortunately I was eating way too many carbs early on.

Speaker 3: 1:05:55

So we're not just talking about energy, we're also talking about oxygen.

Speaker 4: 1:06:04

Yeah, yes, exactly. So without thiamine, mitochondria can't use the oxygen properly and you get this chaotic fight or flight mess. So Lonsdale thinks links it to panic attacks being biochemical, not just psychological, and you know I felt that on my on my worst days. So switching that to carnivore and adding thiamine, especially a form of thiamine called TTFD, which really gets into the cells better, turned it around. You know there's other other forms of thiamine, things like benfotiamine and thiamine HCL2. But TTFD's absorption rate really seemed to tackle my brain fog and exhaustion the most.

Speaker 4: 1:06:40

So please tell us what the letters TTFD stand for? Yeah, sure. So TTFD stands for thiamin tetrahydroferforel disulfide. It's basically a synthetic fat-soluble derivative of thiamin, vitamin B1. So TTFD is designed to cross the cell membranes and the blood-brain barrier more basically more effectively due to its lipophilic nature, which is that fat layer potentially delivering thiamine more efficiently to tissues and the brain. And you know this type has been used a lot in Japan and is now kind of making its way, you know, towards the United States. Do you have a brand that you like? So, yeah, so Objective Nutrients is is they, they, they? Actually I don't know of any other brand that you can get ttfd from except that one in the united states. In europe you can get. There's a few other ones, but here that's the only one and and that's lines up again with the literature.

Speaker 3: 1:07:34

We always like to bring it back to where research is. So a 2021 study study in the journal Mitochondrian backs this up. It concludes that mitochondrial dysfunction from poor oxygen utilization is a hallmark of autonomic disorders, so thiamine's role in preventing pseudohypoxia could be key for recovery.

Speaker 4: 1:07:53

Yeah, I think so. I think it's key for recovery and it's kind of nice to know that it's just one, you know it's I want to mention, and also another huge lever in my recovery, just kind of moving on in my toolbox here, in which is vagus nerve stimulation through a, through a device is called a transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulator and this enhances that parasympathetic tone and actually helps that helps to decrease inflammation. If you remember us talking earlier, we said that you know the vagus nerve kind of has that dial on inflammation and so that this vagus nerve kind of helps decrease that inflammation even further. And you know there's really solid research to be back to back this up. In 2019, there was a review in the Journal of Brain Behavior and Immunity and it discusses how vagus nerve stimulation significantly reduces pro-inflammatory cytokines like those ones we mentioned TNF-alpha and Leukin-6, which are elevated into cytognomia and chronic inflammatory states, and it gives me hope that really that these types of interventions can make such a difference.

Speaker 3: 1:09:13

It's really a promising and interesting area of research, and it's great to see more attention being given to non-invasive ways to support the nervous system. So let's expand a little bit further here on vagus nerve stimulation and its impact on gut health too.

Speaker 4: 1:09:27

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a great thing here. So, as we stated earlier, the vagus nerve is the main communication highway between the brain and the gut, and when it's underactive, aka most likely inflamed, it can lead to poor digestion, poor gut motility, bacterial overgrowth and increased gut permeability, all of which contribute to more inflammation, then to neuroinflammation and then to dysautonomia.

Speaker 3: 1:09:55

Study in the journal Nutrients in 2022 found that vagus nerve stimulation can enhance gut motility and support a healthier sensitivities. You know, I lost all that weight.

Speaker 4: 1:10:06

Irregular digestion that gastroparesis, that dumping. It all started, you know, once I started stimulating my vagus nerve daily. I noticed better digestion, reduced gut inflammation, overall improved resilience, and we've talked a bit about the effects of the vagus nerve on the gut. But the vagus nerve also goes beyond the gut. There's research linking vagus nerve stimulation to improvements in brain fog, which is a major symptom for people with dysautonomia, and one which I experienced profoundly.

Speaker 4: 1:10:50

Again, the vagus nerve stimulation was a key piece also because it reduces systemic nervous system inflammation and increases neuroplasticity. Now, when I say neuroplasticity, that's all about how our brain makes new neural pathways and connections wires, if we will and it wires itself. And this is a huge part as far as recovery goes. And this is because you know you have these microglia in the brain that are turned on, and microglia are the brain's immune cells. So once neuroinflammation is kind of triggered in the brain because these microglia are getting what's called primed and when I say primed they're just being activated and it's quite difficult to turn those primed microglia off and it can become a self-perpetuating cycle, despite all the gut resets recovery was really important.

Speaker 3: 1:12:00

So, with those immune cells, those microglia getting activated when the brain perceives a threat like toxins or infections, this is when the cascade of all those pro-inflammatory cytokines releases. Now, normally, once the threat's gone, microglia return to their resting state, but with chronic inflammation they stay in that primed or overactive state and so they're continually releasing this cascade of inflammatory signals. It's like that on off switch is broken and you're perpetually in this persistent inflammation that leads to excessive glutamate release or the excitatory neurotransmitter, and that overstimulates your neurons and contributes to this situation of neurotoxicity or neural inflammation. And at the same time you have oxidative stress damaging your cells and that keeps these microglia stuck in like attack mode.

Speaker 4: 1:12:49

Excellent. Yes, that's exactly right. So I reached a point in my journey where I had done all the gut reset, where I'd experienced so much improvement and so much recovery, but I just still kind of felt defeated. I found that I had limited thresholds. I couldn't handle much stress. I would easily relapse and experience my original symptoms, with some minor stressors, at least in my mind, and this helps to explain that frustrating place that I was in. So basically my nervous system, through the activated microglia, had been rewired for threat detection and was keeping me inflamed and turned on. So I can understand this.

Speaker 4: 1:13:29

Primed microglia just do not shut off very easily. So when microglia are repeatedly activated they enter that prime state, meaning they respond more aggressively and more easily to future stressors, even minor ones. This makes the nervous system hypervigilant at keeping inflammation running in the background. Now you have that this chronic stress and dysautonomia loop right. You can kind of see that forming. So many with dysautonomia develop a heightened stress response due to the prolonged illness and this constant fight or flight activation again keeps those microglia alert and inflamed and inflammation elevated, even if the original gut issues are resolved.

Speaker 4: 1:14:19

So to fully heal the brain needs to rewire itself away from this inflammatory state. This means building new neural pathways that signal safety instead of stress. So practices like vagus, nerve stimulation, breath work, meditation, gentle movement, limbic system training they help shift that brain out of that inflammatory cycle. Healing isn't just about removing the problem, it's about teaching the brain and nervous system how to feel safe again. This is why some people plateau in recovery. They've addressed the physical triggers, but their nervous system still perceives danger, keeping inflammation. Basically-body work and neuroplasticity techniques. So this dual approach that we've been talking about here retrains the brain to turn off inflammation and allows the autonomic system to fully reset.

Speaker 3: 1:15:42

That seems to jive with a 2021 study in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience and that showed that vagus nerve stimulation enhances brain blood flow and reduces neural inflammation, and this can lead to clearer thinking and improved cognition. So stimulating the vagus nerve can help both gut inflammation and brain inflammation at root cost levels, and it seems like this can be a real game changer for so many people struggling with autonomic dysfunction.

Speaker 4: 1:16:08

Agreed. I had definitely experienced that my brain fog was debilitating, but after a few weeks of consistent vagus nerve exercises I started noticing sharper focus and more mental clarity. It was like the fog kind of lifted a little bit and then it's just that consistent use was what really made the big, big benefit. And then also a really big area that I saw a difference by using vagus nerve stimulation was I had chronic anxiety, which you guys could probably heard about in part one. But whenever I would experience this chronic anxiety or anxiety would come on, I would put that vagus nerve stimulator on and within about 10 minutes that anxiety would it was amazing how it would just like would immediately decrease.

Speaker 4: 1:16:50

So you know now I want to be clear here that there are several traditional methods that do strengthen vagal turn. You might have heard of those like deep breathing, cold exposure and like humming, and those can be very beneficial. However, I think what I've noticed, and what many others with dysautonomia experience, is that the traditional approaches don't always make a noticeable dent in our symptoms, and I suspect it's because our autonomic nervous systems are just so out of balance or so activated, if you will, that these techniques, while effective for someone who's healthy or mild dysautonomia doesn't really shift the needle enough for all of us.

Speaker 1: 1:17:27

Well, let's start to wrap this up, Tyler. For listeners dealing with dysautonomia or chronic inflammation, give us a brief summary of your advice based on your experience.

Speaker 4: 1:17:36

Yeah, sure I think so. First you know, identify your inflammation sources right Gut health, diet, infections, toxins, etc. Second, remove any identifiable triggers. If you can, then begin some of the diet shifts that we talked about. Watch out for sugary, empty calorie foods like sodas or donuts. They deplete thiamine and trigger pseudohypoxia, making dysautonomia a lot worse. Consider trying an elemental diet to calm that gut inflammation and then you might transition into a carnivore diet, right? Move on to lifestyle shifts like stress reduction.

Speaker 4: 1:18:16

Dr Mack and Lindsay did a great podcast on lifestyle medicine back in 2023, I believe it was that you might want to check out. Then support your nervous system with supplements like thiamine, ttfd, benfotiamine, and then also use vagus nerve stimulation. And then next, be sure and mind circadian biology. Wake up with the sun, with the daylight, get that first light on you in the morning time. Dysautonomia, despair. I tell myself, ditch the vegan diet. Bad oils and probiotics without a gut reset, they really sabotaged me. The bottom line for me was that the big movers for me that got me on the road to recovery were carnivore diet, thiamine, the transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation and mining circadian biology You've talked about what you did as far as your diet, as far as eating.

Speaker 1: 1:19:22

What about beverages? Mainly water, or was there any other beverage?

Speaker 4: 1:19:27

No, I couldn't do any kind of bubbly drink, it would cause some major upset. So it was pretty much strictly water for me, filtered, oh yeah, 100%, very much, only either reverse osmosis type water. We have a Berkey at our house, we use Berkey waters, so Berkey filtered water. So yeah, that was pretty much all I drank.

Speaker 3: 1:19:47

Research shows it calms autonomic chaos, driving emotional ups and downs. Also, there's some new research hot off the press 2024 from the journal Nature Reviews Neurology that highlighted vagus nerve stimulation's therapeutic role in COVID dysautonomia. If there's any good that came out of COVID, then it was that we are much more aware of conditions like dysautonomia, chronic fatigue syndrome and brain fog and just the role of systemic inflammation in chronic diseases.

Speaker 4: 1:20:23

Yeah, I also want to say you know some books that I highly recommend Thiamine Deficiency Disease, dysautonomia and High-Calorie Malnutrition by Dr Derek Lonsdale and the Nemechek Protocol. That's the book. It's called the Nemechek Protocol by Patrick Nemechek. They're great books and an excellent guide for me.

Speaker 1: 1:20:43

Yeah, on the website mcminnmdcom I have a drop-down page called Resources, so I'll make sure I list those books on that page for you. So wow, Tyler, such powerful insights. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing that with us. What a great success story, and I appreciate the fact you did so much research in this. And, by the way, I have a document in the document section at mcminnmdcom entitled the Causes of Chronic Inflammation that y'all might want to takea look at. If you just go through that while thinking about what might apply to you, then perhaps this will help you put together your strategy for getting at your root cause and for getting you on the road to recovery.

Speaker 4: 1:21:24

Yeah, that's awesome, dr Mack. I want to add one more thing. If anybody is out there looking for a deeper dive, you know I put everything I've learned into a course at DysautonomicRecoverycom. It's got all the tools step-by-steps, got 70 videos from diet to light therapy to help you build, you know, your own recovery plan so you can check it out at dysautonomierecoverycom and I'll also. You know I'd love to. You know that's my goal. I'd love to help you turn your struggle into a strength, just like I did.

Speaker 1: 1:21:46

So I'll put that link on the website, mcmdcom, at the bottom of the homepage under helpful links. I strongly encourage folks to check it out. It's dysautonomierecoverycom. If you're dealing with symptoms consistent with dysautonomia, I think it could be very helpful for you. Tyler has put a lot of thought into this and has found a program that works. I can testify that the improvement in his health status has been profound over the last few years.

Speaker 1: 1:22:09

I think that I mentioned earlier that I myself had a case of POTS many years ago, and so I too am a dysautonomia recovery warrior, and I wish I had Tyler's website around back then when I had my own problems, but I didn't. I had to figure it out myself. It took years, but I did check out the website and I found it was really just a great resource for us chronic wellness warriors, as Tyler calls us on the website. On the site you can better get to know the amazing Matthew's family. You can see some pics and check out all their social media contacts and also look at various course offerings, and Tyler even offers one-to-one coaching. So if anybody needs some hand-holding to get to a better place, this is a very difficult journey for sure, and it's nice to have somebody who can hold your hand through the process.

Speaker 3: 1:22:51

As we wrap up, I do want to make the point that dysautonomia is somewhat of a spectrum disorder. Everyone with this disease may not present with the same symptoms, which can make it difficult to get that initial diagnosis. And also some folks have somewhat milder cases, maybe like Dr McMinn, but back when he had his POTS. But for others dysautonomia can be severely debilitating. Some of these unfortunate folks here in the prime of their lives and then, through no fault of their own, they're really slammed with dysautonomia and now they can hardly get off the couch or get out of the bed without passing out. Or, as Tyler mentioned, you have this debilitating brain fog and panic attacks.

Speaker 4: 1:23:31

Yeah, that's right. It's a really lonely and miserable feeling when you feel this way. You're itching to get out there and go to work and be active, be a dad and be a great hubby, husband, you know, but you can't get off the couch. It's frustrating that nobody can really relate to this disease. Friends can ask, hey, what's wrong with you? And you tell them I have dysautonomia, and they never heard of it and they can't relate.

Speaker 4: 1:23:53

I say, oh well, you look fine, you know, and for some of you out there, especially since your medical workup is normal, then some folks might think that you're not really sick, you're just, you know, malingering, lazy or attention seeking or whatever I mean. Sometimes even your doctor dismisses you, and I would rather have a broken arm than dysautonomia, so that at least I could show that I have something on the X-ray right. Hey, this is what I have. And so another difficult aspect of this disease is you really don't know how long it'll take it to get better, and recovery can take years, especially if you don't get the help that you need.

Speaker 3: 1:24:32

But we want to know that we get it. We hear you and we know that it's real and we know how you feel.

Speaker 4: 1:24:39

Yeah, we're here to help. That's why we're doing this. We're so thankful for Dr McMinn, him bringing us on the podcast and so, yeah, so you know, check out all of his amazing resources. It's just, it's a plethora. He's a plethora of knowledge, a plethora of resources. Check out our website too, dishonoredautonomicrecoverycom. Hope to hear from you so that we can get on the. I call it the road to recovery. Here we go.

Speaker 1: 1:25:04

So, as we wrap this up, let me also say I'll have a couple of documents at McMinnMDcom which you might want to check out. They are entitled Dysautonomia and another one called Dysautonomia Causes, and there's another one that you also might be interested in called the causes of disease. What works for Tyler may not work for you, and so these documents give you a few other therapeutic options to consider, including some integrative and functional therapeutic options, as well as a list of medications you might be prescribed if you went to a traditional dysautonomia clinic and these clinics are few and far between, but they do exist, and there is a time and a place for them as well.

Speaker 3: 1:25:37

Well, it's been amazing. Thanks for sharing back on the show with us, tyler. It's been a long road and it warms my heart, more than I can say, to know how valiantly you have fought this and you've recovered and at long last I've got you back and now you're paying it forward to others.

Speaker 1: 1:25:55

And thank you for our listeners. If you enjoyed this, please check out part one, where we first interviewed Tyler back in 2019. And don't forget to subscribe so that we can bring you more evidence-based, cutting-edge information about integrative and functional medicine.

Speaker 3: 1:26:08

Please rate us on iTunes. It does make a difference for us and we really do appreciate it. And don't forget to tell a friend about the podcast. Share it out.

Speaker 1: 1:26:16

Thank you for spreading the word about the podcast. We do our homework and we will always shoot straight with you. If you'd like to reach out to me, you may do so at drmcminn at yahoocom with any comments or topic ideas. And now, coach Lindsay, do you have any pearls of wisdom for us today?

Speaker 3: 1:26:32

Thanks, dr McMinn. One of the things as a support person for Tyler, for you walking in your recovery that I think about is that we would encourage each other in those early days and you know, I needed to encourage myself too, because anybody listening to this that supports someone with a chronic illness knows that it's a hard place to be into. We would use positive language, like your nervous system isn't broken, it's just inflamed. Or I would just remind Tyler when he was experiencing those storm moments or like in the middle of a panic attack, this is just your brain misfiring. And the good news inflammation is reversible. Every small step you take healing your gut, resetting your circadian rhythms, feeling your body with the right foods it moves you forward and research consistently shows that strong connection between gut health, neuro, right foods it moves you forward and research consistently shows that strong connection between gut health, neuroinflammation and autonomic function. So when you target the root cause, healing's possible. You're not stuck. Your body was made to heal.

Speaker 1: 1:27:32

So, in summary, dysautonomia can affect really almost anybody, even people who seem to be perfectly healthy. It's one of those there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I type of diseases. It can sneak up on you subtly or it can hit you like a sledgehammer just out of the blue. You go to work one day, you're feeling fine, you get some virus at work and boom. The next day you can't get out of bed. The path to recovery is almost never quick and easy, but the good news is that there is real hope for a brighter future. Unfortunately, it may be hard to find competent help as you try to overcome your challenges, so I hope that by sharing Tyler's therapeutic toolbox with you, that you too can find your own path to recovery. As I said earlier, if you need some guidance along the way, then reach out to Tyler at dystonianlyrecoverycom.

Speaker 3: 1:28:15

Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1: 1:28:18

This is Coach Lindsay and this is Dr McMinn. Take care and be well.