Mast Cell Activation and Adrenal Fatigue with Dr. Beth O’Hara

Dr. Joel Rosen: Alright, Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of the less stressful life where we teach exhausted and burnt out adults the truth about adrenal fatigue so they can get their health back quickly. So be sure to check out our website for the truth about adrenal fatigue calm. So now I’m really excited to interview our next guests, my friend, my colleague, and an A mentor in the way that she’s really a leader in mast cell activation and supporting people that are dealing with those concerns.

Dr. Beth is a functional natural Pathak and functional genetic analysis doctor, she has a doctorate in the natural capacity and specializes in functional natural Pathak approaches and a master’s in marriage and family therapy. And she’s found the root causes of mast cell activation to help not just other people heal, but her own self-healing. So, Dr. Beth, thank you so much for being here today.

 

Beth O’Hara: Thank you so much, Dr. Joel. And it’s just a pleasure to be with you. I’m really excited about this too. I find that for a lot of people taught learning what Mast cell activation syndrome is, can be a major game-changer in their health and looking at it because this is such a missing piece. And it’s one of the biggest overlooked and under-recognized conditions.

But it’s affecting between nine and 17%. That’s what these population studies show nine to 17% of the general population. And in people with chronic health issues. It’s definitely over 50%. And we’ve got to be talking about it. So thank you for helping us get this information out there. And I know you’re on board, and you’re looking at it, and you’ve done lots of amazing research as well. So we met each other at the conference, we were presenting it.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Right, exactly, I guess we the nerds, and I say that in an enduring way set tend to resonate together because they have a frequency that’s aligned. And, you know, I, I would go further and say that the incidence or the the the amount of people dealing with some form of activation of their mast cells based on environmental triggers, whether they’re dealing with a chronic health problem or not, is even higher than that if I would.

 

Beth O’Hara: It’s my suspicion, I don’t have the data to back it up. But that’s my suspicion. And when I’m talking to colleagues like you and other colleagues that are Mast cell, we’re and when working in this area, we all think very similarly about it.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: For sure, for sure. And the bottom line is like you mentioned earlier, it has to be on your radar, if it isn’t already, and it’s relatively new on my radar. So I’m really excited to talk to you as well. So as you know, my demographic and the people that listen to this are exhausted and burnt out. And they haven’t necessarily found the combination, the tumbler lock combination of right variables in the right orders to really bust open their health results.

And move the chains if you will. And what I’m really excited about to talk to you about is what those combinations can be for people that don’t realize, but let’s start with your own story. Because just like all the guests, and typically all the providers that get into this area, have their own personal story. And I know yours is quite profound. So let’s talk a little bit about what you had to endure and what you went through and where you are now and how you got into what you’re doing.

 

Beth O’Hara: Sure. Well, I started when I was young. I mean I had little weird health quirks as a young child, but my family moved to the country in an old farmhouse when I was seven. And I thought I was just excited. It was like Laura Ingalls Wilder, those are my favorite books and but we didn’t know that that house was full of toxic mold. And I lived there for 10 years. And I also I was playing outside I was getting bitten by ticks and my health rapidly declined living there. But nobody knew what toxic mold was back then. They certainly didn’t know what Mast cell activation syndrome was that was not even theoretical yet. And but I was I you know growing up. Growing up in the country, you grow green beans, I would be the one picking green beans covered in hives every year head to toe and I would feed the chickens corn covered in hives.

I was constantly scratching my eyes. I would scratch my skin at night until I bled in about age 12 I started having major blood sugar issues. When I was I never had the energy that other people had that other kids my age had When I was 16, I was in a car accident. And I could not get up, I just could not get out of bed. And I felt like I couldn’t quite recover. Now that said, I was a very type a young person. And I was on the fast track to medical school. That was my dream. From the time I was six I was, I was going to go to medical school, and I was into and doing everything that would help me get there. And I knew we didn’t have a lot of money. So I knew I had to get scholarships. And I got into undergrad and I was working through pre-med, I had a full scholarship offer to medical school to the University of Louisville medical school. And that’s very hard to get. And I was very proud of that. And my health continued to go downhill to where in my senior year, I could not get out of bed in the morning. And I mean, literally physically could not drag myself I had to have all classes start at noon or later, I had to just finish up my bachelor’s with whatever easy classes I could take. And I did turn that scholarship down. It was devastating. And I didn’t have a backup plan.

I didn’t know what else I was going to do with my life. So I finished with a bachelor’s in physiological psychology, which is cool. And there’s not a lot you can do with that. And I went this whole other winding road, Dr. Joel and I became a computer programmer, I became a yoga therapist. I got into a lot of self-development, studying personality. But I became a chronically ill patient instead of the neurologist that I was on track to be. And I got to experience all of the positives and also pitfalls of traditional medicine and it failed me significantly. By the time I was 28, my friends were outgoing to clubs and dancing and having fun and I was walking with a cane and could barely hobble to the bathroom. I was would be bedridden for months at a time I couldn’t work. And my life had shrunk to this. It felt like this tiny little, you know, a tunnel was my life.

And I was suffering tremendously. The pain was like having ground glass in my joints. I couldn’t sleep. And I just continued to have unusual things. I was told multiple times I was crazy. Because my labs looked normal. I would hobble on the cane. couldn’t find anything wrong with me. And I’d be told that I wanted to be sick. I was attached to being sick. And I was working so hard to be well. This went on and I remember finding I had seen I stopped counting at 50 healthcare practitioners because I wasn’t going to give up. That’s the one thing I had going for me is I’m tenacious, if I don’t have anything else, I’m tenacious and I had found the best functional medicine physician in the area. It took me an hour drive to get there, which in itself is as exhausting as I was it was like five days of recovery just to be able to do that drive. But we work together and this was before telehealth and you couldn’t you didn’t have access to people like you do today. And you know, he did his best. And I remember we worked together for about two and a half years.

And I came in I tried everything he asked me to try. And at that point, I mean, I had done integrative medicine, I did homeopathy, I had done all of this psychotherapy because I thought well, maybe it is in my head and tries it out of that. So it really tried everything. And I remember him telling me so bad. We have done everything I know to do for you. And I was having paradoxical reactions to everything, a tiny little sprinkle of curcumin, I would be inflamed and anxious. I mean, just out of my skin anxious. And he recommends something that should help calm my system. It would have the opposite effect on the medication. I was smart enough to notice start with a tiny bit. There was a medication that caused my organs to start to shut down. It was very scary. And so nobody could figure me out. At least he believed me though.

And he said I believe you’re sick. I believe there’s something wrong. I don’t know what it is. And I appreciated that he told me that. I appreciate his honesty. And it was the second most devastating thing in my health journey because if he didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t know anybody who did. And I drove home. I spent about a week crying And thinking it was time to give up on life. And then I decided, wait a minute, I have this pre-med background. I’m smart. I don’t have much energy, and I’m brain foggy and exhausted, but I have time because it can’t work. And I dove into everything I could get my hands on and started to unravel the Nina Kelston.

And she ran, it was called low histamine chef back then. And she was the first talking about histamine intolerance. I figured that out. She said my oxalates that were causing the joint issues I learned about adrenal fatigue. And I learned about mast cell activation syndrome. And when I saw that was like, Ding ding, ding, ding, all the lights are going off. And then I had to go to okay, but why? Why is my body reacting this way? Why are my mast cells overreactive and piecing together the root causes, so I went from on a cane barely able to walk large chunks of time bedridden unable to work. And I crawled out of that hole, piece by piece putting everything together with the hard way, and eventually got to where I could go back to graduate school.

And I finished my Masters because I knew there were a nervous system and emotional component to it, not from it’s in your head perspective, but from a compassionate place. And I’ve got my doctorate in naturopathic, and then got to build this practice. So it’s a whole different life. And, you know, when I tell that story, it feels like I’m talking about somebody else, because it’s such a different life than now when I can go for, you know, an hour-long bike ride and, and hike and run a busy practice and, and I’ve taken good care of my body. It’s not, I don’t have a simple protocol. But I’m, I’m in good shape. And I’m in best health now in my 40s than I’ve been my whole life.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: That’s an awesome story. Thank you so much for sharing. And I dare say, I’m not happy you had to go through that. But it was one of those things that the world benefited by you doing so because now all these other baths may not have the ability, or just the tenacious tenacity, tenacity, to continue to figure out the solutions. And now you own what you do.

And you have the ability to empathize and not discount people. And really, most importantly, teach them and leapfrog the tools that you learned so that they do get their health back. And there’s a lot of important lessons in that. Because a lot of people that we work with, don’t have that fortitude, and they don’t have them and they’re totally justified in not having it the what is possibly good from this experience, and the gratitude of these trials and tribulations. Because how grateful can someone be when you’re walking with your cane, and people are going out dancing? And you can it’s not fair? It isn’t fair,

 

Beth O’Hara: Frank

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: For sure. And I would even to one, just one more thing because this is like me too. So when I went back to school, I had my exercise physiology degree as my first undergraduate degree. And I was the one going to dances and parties during my undergraduate years. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and my GPA in my first two years where it was a reflection of that.

So it did come back to haunt me when I did apply to a graduate program for chiropractic, but I got a second degree. And my second degree was in behavioral psychology. And I honestly thought what a waste, you know, I could have not a waste in terms of knowledge is always great, but timewise I could have gotten if I wouldn’t have screwed around my first couple years, I could have gotten into my doctorate program a lot quicker.

And no only to realize, I mean, you kind of said you can’t do too much with the physical psychology degree, but I would disagree. I mean, wouldn’t you say it’s huge it’s a huge sort of intangible knowledge and a set of information that it’s hard to really quantify how much you use it in with your demographic.

 

Beth O’Hara: Yeah, I’m so glad I have it. Now back then with I actually made more. I made more money when I was in college without a bachelor’s and then I could make with a bachelor’s because I was making I was able to make $8 an hour right? But right now, I’m so grateful because I can put a use that to put together how the nervous system interacts with the immune system. After all, that’s what that degree was in the physiology of what happens with our mind states and in our nervous system.

And in our brain. It was fascinating. And then I got a degree in marriage and family therapy, which I’m also not a licensed counselor. But I’m so happy that a guy was a life coach for years. And so I save about half of what I do is life coaching. And, you know, giving people hope, giving people tools and setting them up for success. And my, my mission is that if I can take what I went through, which was really a nightmare, I mean, just a nightmare.

And if I can take that, and I can help, just one more person get through this faster. And with less suffering, and less grief, and less money, I totaled up, I’d spent at one point over 150,000, I know now it’s over 250,000 to get my health back. But it doesn’t have to cost that much. Because I made all the mistakes. And I figured I had to figure out what works, what doesn’t work, I hit all the dead ends. And if I can help just one more person with their health journey, it was worth it. It was definitely worth it.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, it’s amazing that what you’ve been through, and ultimately, the lessons that you’ve had to endure, has allowed you to help other people now and I think that is one of those things where we were that that battle scar with pride and dignity versus some people that don’t necessarily get their health back as a scar and a flaw. And I think that just that main change of perception is is the analogy of how one gets better because you have to put all those puzzle pieces together, you can’t be missing those components.

And we a lot of the time looking for the shiny object. And as you know, it’s a good segue. We do our own research. And then we amass this little pharmacy and or big pharmacy or, or little supplement store in our pantry. Every one of them that we take we’re very sensitive to so as far as again. So let’s say I’m listening to this and I like Dr. Joel’s stuff.

I’ve had adrenal fatigue or I’ve been exhausted, or HPA axis dysfunction, however, you want to quantum qualify it as what is actually mast cells? How would you explain mast cells? And what’s the activation component? How is histamine related? How is it related to cortisol give us some kind of context of that?

 

Beth O’Hara: So the first thing we want to know is that the mast cells in there its ma S T is and Tom, or like a mast on a ship. So the mast cells are and I’m just saying it for our listeners who may not know how to like,

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:  no, there’s no R. There’s right there’s it’s there’s a T it’s not mass, it’s m, a, s, t,

 

Beth O’Hara: Right? Yes. Yep. And so these are some of the major frontline sensors of the immune system. I think of them as like our frontline responders, first responders, their job and our bodies, is to sense toxins, viruses, bacteria, parasites, and stressful events that might cause us injury. And so that’s important, I’m going to come back to that, that they’re there to sense stress as well.

And they’re there on in every tissue where a body meets the outside world. So they’re full, our skin’s full of mast cells, the whole lining of the GI tract, all of our nasal tissue, sinus tissue around the eyes, the genitals, your the bladder, the urethra, they’re also in all of our organs. They’re in the brain, and they’re in the lungs. They’re in the intestines, they’re in the pancreas, I mean, you name it, mast cells are there, there are actually very few places.

Like for example, the cornea does not have mast cells, very few places do not have mast cells. And what they do, they’re fascinating because they have hundreds of receptors on the outside that can sense what’s cut what’s in the environment, those receptors, the dog on those, those whatever’s going on dogs something on the receptor, and the muscles immediately start to respond when that happens. And they have over 1000 mediators inside them. The one that most people have the most is histamine. And they’ve heard of antihistamines and antihistamines work by blocking the histamine receptors.

But they’re histamines. Another word a lot of people know this year, and, or this past year is cytokines. And mast cells produce a lot of cytokines that are highly involved in cytokine storms, they produce interleukins and prostaglandins. And we could just spend the whole time talking about those. But they’ll respond selectively based on what’s going on. And this is, should be a positive response. So people’s,

if you put your finger and you don’t get it cleaned out fast enough, and it gets red and puffy, that’s the mast cells producing histamine and other things that are going to make localized inflammation, it’s surrounding any bacteria that might be getting in there helping to get it out and orchestrating the immune response to come in. So the other cells are can come in and start cleaning that out.

Or if we have a major injury, mast cells are involved in the injury recovery. If we have a virus or bacteria, the mast cells are gonna be the first cells to go out. Danger, there’s a problem, immune system come in. So I like to think of them as the conductors of the immune system, and they communicate with all these other cells, it’s just so cool. And what happens in mast cell activation syndrome is that our mast cells should be able to respond and take a break, respond when needed and take a break. But we now live in a culture where we are bombarded by toxins non stop mold, toxins, like we’ve never had before electromagnetic fields, never in the history of humanity, if we had electromagnetic field exposure in the wavelengths that we have, now, we have, we travel more, we’ve got more bacteria and viral exposures.

And we have way more stress as you think about just driving in traffic, or paying your bills, or turning on the news is so stressful. And on that level of that of our immune system and our nervous system, our body doesn’t know the difference between I’m watching the news about something very stressful. And I’m in a battle. Or I’m being you know, they don’t know the difference between I’m driving in traffic, and it’s stressful, and I almost got hit, and I’m trying to get out of the way.

And I’m being chased by a wild animal. So that’s what are we evolved these responses to, but we’re having to respond non stop. So we think about, I like to think about the mast cells in the nervous system work connected. So there, they’re really accessed. And when we’ve had these constant stressors, the signaling starts to get wonky. So it’s like, if you think about the mast cells, like the guards of the castle gate, and the more stressors you have, the more toxins, the more beefed up. And hyper-protective this mast cell and nervous system access are going to get, and this is where we get these sensitivities.

Right, because we were overly protective. Everything about we’ve got guards of the castle gate, that should work an eight-hour shift and go get to take a break. But now there’s this constant onslaught coming at them. They’re constantly on duty, they don’t get to rest, a human being under that situation, cognition would be totally messed up after a week of that, right? If you don’t get sleep, if you don’t get to rest, the muscles start to over-respond. And so where they should be letting the right foods, the right supplements, and things in, be able to dial the inflammation back down.

They can’t turn the attack off. And so instead of only shooting at the enemy or the invaders, they start shooting also at the butterflies. And this is where we get these chronic inflammatory responses that can show up in all kinds of different ways for people.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, it’s an awesome answer. And when I hear myself explain HPA axis dysfunction, and I get really upset because doctors are throwing babies out with the bathwater and saying, well, the adrenals there’s no such thing as fatigue. We do these tests and the HPA axis and we make an ACTH test. And then we see that the cortisol is produced and it doesn’t actually result in a fatigue problem. And then I’ve combat that was saying, well, that’s a skewed example.

Because that’s assuming the pituitary is making as much ACTH, as you’re dumping with that test, let alone there’s all these feedback, inhibitions. There’s these binding of cortisol, these Heat Shock proteins are so many compensatory things that happen in the body. And I like the word you used for its bath, you use the word wonky. And I think wonky is really describing the fact that not only do those receptors get beefed up, but there’s just such a domino effect of that constant on button being sort of set in the on position, that the body compensates the best way it can. And that’s where I talked at Bob’s seminar in terms of the cell danger response and incomplete healing cycles, and, and so forth, and so on.

And so, you gave a great description, especially with the shooting at the butterflies, you know, so and I love the idea too, about what happens at the 30,000 view foot is a great parallel to what happens at the cellular level. And I think people don’t think about that. I mean, if think about it, if you’re working eight-hour shifts, or you should be working eight-hour shifts, but you’re working 12-hour shifts, and then you actually don’t get 12 hours off, and you’re working all day, how are you going to respond, you’re going to make delayed decisions, you’re going to be more irritable, you there’s going to be a lot of things that you’re going to be and the cells are the same way, just at the cellular level, which I love that parallel as well.

So why don’t we go further? In terms of Okay, you said a beautiful stage in terms of what mast cell activation is, you mentioned that it releases chemicals, and mediators, and histamine and cytokine storms. So as far as, okay, I’m with you there, Beth, I hear all that. But I’m exhausted and burnt out? How would I know if that’s going on? For me? And I assume as I tell you, I told you before we talked, I really feel all the people that I work with now, just like you set the stage with 50% of the people I feel all the people I work with now have some forms of mast cell activation, and consequences of what that produces a limited way of dealing with the spilled milk, so to speak.

And that creates a perfect storm, if you will, of having too much of something and too little of the response to that something. But how would that manifest? And how would I know? And what are some of the 30,000 view foot symptoms to know more about? Okay, what is that happening to me?

 

Beth O’Hara: Yeah, great question. So they’re the classic presentations. And then there are many others. So I want to start with the classic presentation. And even before that, go to the diagnostic criteria that we have right now it was only put into place in 2016 is when I was first given a diagnostic code. I don’t do diagnostics in my practice. But I’m going to talk about the diagnostic criteria because it’s missing a lot of people.

And when I talk with my colleagues, what we have for the diagnostic criteria right now is missing 90% of people’s mess activation syndrome. And I’m finding, unfortunately, some of the people in allergy and Immunology have been very entrenched in a particular way of thinking. Of course, that’s not that’s a generalization. That’s not every individual. But I’m finding a lot of people are being told they don’t have mass activation. And I go, I don’t know how you, you can’t have it. That doesn’t make sense.

But with this, and then I’ll go to symptoms. But with this criteria, it says you have to have symptoms and two or more systems. So that means you might have skin symptoms, you might have long skin symptoms, or you might have long in a gi or maybe you’ve got gi and brain symptoms. And then the other part of it is that you have to have an elevation and one of the mediators and so that can be blind that can be urine problem with those tests is that these mediators are up and down in our blood within like 1015 minutes.

So some people who have to work under insurance and really need to be able to give that diagnostic code or having their patients come in, provoke a flare before they come in, which is a dicey proposition because you may set off a flare that lasts for weeks or months. But they need that diagnosis so they can get insurance coverage. And then they test them every hour on the hour until they get it. That tells me something is missing in our diagnostic criteria, but it’s young, it’s new, it needs to evolve.

And then the other is there has to be some positive response to, an antihistamine or masl, mediator, every mast cell medication that’s over the counter. And every medic medication I’ve looked at other than cromolyn, sodium has an excipient, that is a mast cell trigger in it. And so people may not have a positive response, because they’re reacting to the inactive ingredients. So there’s that piece, I just want to set that on the table.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Let me just summarize that because there’s, it’s really important, I want you to hold your thought process. And I find this to where, for insurance to deem something medically unnecessary, especially in the US or in the US, you have to meet diagnostic criteria. And when that diagnostic criterion is, is new for a new condition, and it’s so black and white, that you’re missing so many things that would also be characteristic of the main challenge, because we really don’t honestly, Beth, I don’t care about the diagnosis, unless it’s going to help me come up with a game plan to help you. Or it’s gonna be some way for doctors to communicate so that we’re all on the same page.

But it’s not meant to be the sort of like the, you know, stamp, the gavel of this is who you are, this is defining who you are, if you don’t have this, then this isn’t who you are. In the end, you’re crazy. Or you need to go see a therapist and be put on, you know, our Beth, just like you were when you were faking it, and you were really sick. There’s a slippery slope that happens with these diagnostic criteria.

But just to sort of summarizing what you said is, there are three main diagnostic criteria, which each one of them has faults, with their specific black and white, yes or no, for a lot of the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater to not get that proper diagnosis. And there’s also as you were just about to elaborate, there’s a classical presentation, and there is the nonclassical presentation. So anyway, I’m sorry, continue. I just wanted to summarize that. Yeah.

 

Beth O’Hara: Now the one thing I do like about the criteria that exist currently is that there are symptoms in two or more systems. So that gives you an idea that this is a systemic issue. Right. That’s great, not just a local area, but most people that I taught,

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: or itchiness or sneezing where a lot of people get that’s what it must be for mast cells or histamine,

 

Beth O’Hara: right? Like what’s the difference between just some hay fever and muscle activation syndrome? So one of our classic presentations will be watery eyes, sneezing, itching, these kinds of things, flushing, I never worn blush because they’ll always have rosy cheeks. And that’s a little form of flushing. And especially when I get excited, my face will flush. But

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: you’re flushing.

 

Beth O’Hara: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. And, or people may be pale, you can see a pale complexion. Those are skin symptoms. So I have the classic as a child, I had all the allergy symptoms, I had the hives, the itching all of this. But not everybody has that. And that’s a big place that’s being missed is there’s a misconception out there that if you don’t have skin symptoms, you don’t have this and that is not true. I have a large number of people without skin symptoms. But they’re going to have they may have gi symptoms.

So it may show up with gi symptoms like acid reflux, diarrhea or constipation, or alternating food sensitivities. Not everybody has this but a big tip-off is if somebody reacts to food within 15 minutes or less of putting it in their mouth. That’s a big tip-off of mast cell activation syndrome, not just a delayed food sensitivity. And so we’ll see those people may have breathing issues so they might have asthma or they might have a tight chest. They might have chest pains without it being a heart attack. So they get they do all the stress tests and everything. They say well there’s nothing there but they’re still having chest pains and high or low blood pressure. Low blood pressure is more common but can get high blood pressure. Lots of nervous systems and central lithium brain-related symptoms are common brain fog, anxiety, depression, trouble with concentrating trouble with memory with word finding. So those are common.

And then we’ll have other types of symptoms. So people, tinnitus, I see a lot of tinnitus. Sometimes people get elevations and liver enzymes, the same thing as liver involvement, blood sugar involvement, and hypoglycemia. And here’s the other piece Joel, almost every autoimmune condition has been linked to mast cell activation syndrome. And against part of this mast cells communicate to the rest immune system. So our listeners might be familiar with the thone and the two aspects of the immune system and the one is our virus bacteria-killing side teach two is our chronic inflammatory site is going to include mast cell inflammation. And they should kind of be on this seesaw where the one stays high so that we can kill off colds and viruses, other kinds of viruses and teach to inflammation should below.

But certain things, certain triggers, like mold toxicity will tip the balance. Chronic stress will tip the balance so that teach when comes down, we can’t fight off colds and viruses. And this includes people who say they never get sick because they’re not getting the immune response or people that catch everything like I was. And then this chronic teaches to inflammation goes up. And in the right genetic conditions. People if there’s chronic I teach to that will contribute to increased teach 17 activity, which is our autoimmunity. So somebody has autoimmunity they need to think, Hmm, I think I might need to look into myself activation syndrome, if somebody has the classic hay fever symptoms, and anything else going on in their bodies, that’s unexplainable. They might want to look into it. And it is this is a lot of what’s affecting people who keep falling through the cracks. Nobody can figure them out. They have multiple specialists, they all have HPA axis dysregulation that’s a very common disease, all these things share these common root pieces.

But I’ve got just to make it concrete for people. So I have a client and I’ll call her Jane. And Jane gets when she eats food, she gets brain fog, she gets tired, she gets a little acid reflux or heartburn. And she’ll get loose stools, generally about two or three hours after eating. And she gets itchy, and her skin will flush and start to flare when she’s around triggers. And she has little trouble sleeping. So that’s one presentation. Another presentation.

I’ll call her Mary. And Mary has a lot of anxiety, has trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, she’s exhausted, doesn’t have any skin symptoms, the skin is fine. But she will have some tight chest and you know, just feels kind of tight in here. And a real classic symptom also is throat clearing, like

and that’s this post nasal drip that happens from the sinuses that have some muscle involvement.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Awesome, awesome information. So those symptoms that you just reeled off, those wouldn’t be part of the deal. The sort of the ICD sort of the diagnostic criteria. Is that correct?

This is more from a historical perspective, you’re working up a client that is dealing with health challenges, these are all the things that they should be looking for. Those are the actual criteria for the diagnosis from an insurance-based model.

 

Beth O’Hara: Those are part of the criteria whether the person doing the diagnosis understands it’s another question. But I have an I have a symptom survey on the website that was based on the research on mast cell activation syndrome symptoms.

And it’s based on the research of Dr. Afrin, who’s one of our leading mast cell researchers. And then people can take that survey. And I found that if people score 50 or above they need to look at muscle activation syndrome.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Okay, and that’s on mast cell 360 dot com. Is that correct?

 

Beth O’Hara: Correct. There’s a menu item that says MCA is for mass activation syndrome. It’s right under there. So symptom survey.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Okay. Okay, excellent. So as far as Now, let’s say that Someone is really feeling now they’re getting these aha moments. And they’re thinking, Okay, this is something especially like kind of the person that would come and see you like, I’m doing a lot of really good things, Beth, I’m researching the heck out of this. I know more than my doctor, they think I’m crazy. I’ve also changed my diet.

I’m very, very sensitive to all these different supplements like you where you had these paradoxical reactions? I guess the real question would be, what do we do about it? Or what do they do about it? How do you really make huge inroads on changing the tide? and getting them back to health?

 

Beth O’Hara: And a great question, the very first thing I do for people, now they everybody takes this symptom survey when they come in, so I can get a sense of what their baseline is. And we get some functional testing. So I want to look at mold toxins, I want to look at organic acids, I asked everybody to do a low histamine, low lectin diet for six weeks to see if it makes a difference.

And not everybody is histamine sensitive. lectins are another food protein that is in foods like the nightshades, tomatoes, eggplants, they’re in most grains, and they’re going to be in pumpkin squashes, these kinds of things. So sometimes that’ll make a difference for people. And sometimes it doesn’t. But we start there. Everyone starts with nervous system work.

And when we talk about nervous system work, we’re talking about not just and this is where I delayed my healing for so long, because I didn’t understand this. And I had a background, I wasn’t just a, you know, YMCA yoga teacher, I was a yoga therapist, like, I was going to an Indian study like I was very into yoga therapy. And I knew how to meditate and do breathing and do yoga. And one point I was doing three hours a day. But it wasn’t kidding me there. And I’ve learned through all of my studies and explorations and seeing what helped the most people that we have to address two aspects of the nervous system primarily. So we have to address the limbic system and the vagal nerve.

And I learned this from Neil Nathan, and he’s a colleague and mentor of mine. And we’ve got to address the limbic system as a part of the brain. That’s our fear and emotion part. And when we’ve been chronically ill, it does this lockdown kind of thing. Its job is to protect us. And it’s very involved insensitivities, and it’s going to be involved in cognition, it’s going to be involved in sleep. It’s going to be involved in how well we respond to stressors. Well, I had some major early stressors, I had a traumatic car accident, I had some other things that happened, I was kicked in the head by a horse when I was nine and unconscious for a long time I had a brain injury.

And so I have a lot of stuff that affected my limbic system. And I find that over 60% of people in my practice have had early childhood traumas, whether they experienced trauma, or they witnessed it, or they had a surgery that understands these kinds of things, you know, too early to process it. But we have to dress that everybody in my practice has to do a limbic rebooting system. And the other big piece is the vagal nerve. And the vagal nerve comes out the top of the neck between the top of the neck and the skull. It’s the longest nerve in our body. And I find this fascinating from a psychophysiological psychology perspective. It’s the nerve that connects the brain with the heart and the gut. And we have major nerve centers.

So really, we have three centers of intelligence. So cool to me three ways a press exists a What was your gut say? What’s your heart telling you? Well, that’s a real thing. And the vagal nerve gets dysregulated which’s very involved in sleep issues, anxiety, tendonitis, and so on. how this relates to mast cells is that there are mast cells inside our brain and in our limbic system and mast cells at every nerve ending. And the mast cells in the nerves are communicating back and forth. The nerves make neurotransmitters that trigger the mast cells and the mast cells make different types of molecules that communicate back to the nervous system. It is very important for all of our type-A listeners. And when I say I was typing, I typed A to the extreme like I was in as an undergrad take doing independent study. The research I wanted to get published, I was taking graduate-level courses, I was working three jobs and teaching and I was teaching computer classes at a local college. This was a little much for a 20-year-old to be doing or a 21-year-old. But I pushed myself and I pushed myself through my illness. And what I didn’t understand was again, that my body didn’t recognize the difference between I’m driving myself so hard for this career that I want as a neurologist.

And I’m in a battle in a war zone, right? It’s just body doesn’t know the difference on that level. And so our bodies do go through this cell danger response that where I met you, and you were teaching about that, and the, this is why we have to work on the nervous system and mass activation syndrome. This is a major missing piece. And it’s over 50% of the healing process. And most people don’t get that, that. And this is where I made mistake after mistake. After mistake. I thought if I just got the right supplements, but I couldn’t take them because I was too sensitive, it took me two years to get work up to a full capsule of anything. But we can’t just get the foods and supplements, those are important. We need to do them. And we need to clean up our environmental toxins. So we need to have like Jill Carnist, and says clean air clean water clean food.

And the other half of the equation is we’ve got a top with we’ve got to work with the nervous system and some very targeted ways. And this is why I made a course for people where it took what it took me 20 years to learn. I fast track for people so that they can put together their own program and ice walk people through that why the science the different options. And it’s not like a one-stop-shop, it’s going to teach you some free modalities and then look at you know, if you have these issues, look at this program, review these issues, look at this program, because there are so many options out there and it’s confusing, but then people can dial it in.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, it’s a really great answer that you gave us. And I’ll be I always say I always get a front-row seat to these, these talks and then I get to review it as well. And I kind of do it selfishly because I get to learn from it. And everyone else just gets to be on my sort of behind my shoulder and hearing it.

But really I do it for other people to listen, but I’m always great to hear this couple of things I just want to echo is a lot of the time. I agree 100% on the emotional component. I talked with Dr. Titus two, that was a podcast before this one that will be coming out. And he talks about the post-concussive symptoms, and the syndromes and how that can really create plasticity unfavorably in the brain, especially like just holding your finger down like this. And over time, those muscles and ligaments and neural connections are going to kind of keep it there.

Same kind of thing in the brain, especially when there’s been trauma, whether it’s perceived or physical. And it doesn’t even have to be head trauma for that plasticity to kind of set the motion of the stimulation of the HPA axis of the limbic system of the hypersensitive stimuli and operant conditioning. So that even though something didn’t happen at a large amount or a big capacity, it’s still kind of causing the domino effect. And getting into retraining and reprogramming the limbic system is key. And it’s awesome that you’re doing it, I think that it’s just not the sexy thing for the person, right? It’s like, oh, like, you mean, I just have to be more positive is like, No, you know, there’s a lot of things that have to be re-established.

And yeah, wouldn’t hurt if you were a little more positive. But here’s the things, why, and how and so forth. But what I want to do is want to switch it up a little bit on you. So as far as the genetic component goes, I know that’s a huge rabbit hole, we can go down. But for time’s sake, I explained to the people like whenever I do consult with them, and I assume that there’s some form of mast cell activation, over overproduction, and under clearance of some of that histamine to some way, shape, or form.

And I want to start to know how much and like you mentioned, organic acid testing, and another testing to really put the pieces together. I explained to them that I say, look, I’d rather as your business consultant, cut your expenses. Let’s see As your expensive versus really get you a higher income. And I think that model has changed quite a lot in terms of the original MTHFR. Take methyl folate. To me, that analogy is that it’s giving you a little bit of a part-time income, but you’re not doing anything for your major expenses. And let’s clear those out. So as it relates to the mast cell, you mentioned mold.

What are some of the other things that from a genetic standpoint are some of the real challenges for the bath O’Hara’s of the world that has these mast cell genetic susceptibilities? coupled with the perfect storm of traumas and, and allergens and molds? What are all the things that we’re looking for from a genetic standpoint?

 

Beth O’Hara: Yeah, and I want to back up, because I love your analogy and how you’re talking about, you know, we don’t want to be tinkering with the shiny objects, because there’s a million rabbit holes, we can go down, I have so many people to come back. And like, should I be taking an ad? Plus? Should I be taking, you know, this Chinese herb out here that I’ve never even heard of? Right?

And I like Chinese herbs and all this stuff. And it’s like, where are you going to get your best return for your money for your time and get your health and your life back the fastest, and it’s not the shiny objects. And I chased so many shiny objects, I have, literally over 1000 supplements

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:  Over $250,000 of shiny objects. Right,

 

Beth O’Hara: Right. Exactly. But I learned a lot about them, and a lot about what helps the most, and what doesn’t. And so here are the big hitters. big hitters are dying, nervous system rebooting, and that’s why I call it the mass on Nervous System rebooting is a collection of mast cell supporting supplements that are been the most effective. So did