The Silver Bullet To Adrenal Fatigue Recovery

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Welcome back to another edition of the less stressful life where we teach exhausted and burnt out adults the truth about adrenal fatigue so that they can get their health back quickly. And I’m really excited to interview My next guest here because he was dealing with some major health challenges before we started to work together. And then we’ve kept in contact through social media and emails. And he’s always so kind in terms of giving thanks for the improvements that he’s had with his health.

And I thought, Hey, you know, what would you be open to sharing your story, and tell other people that had suffered from some of the same things that you suffered with or gone through the same challenges that you’ve gone through and what you did to help yourself and how we got to the basics or the root cause of the challenges and really address those. And it’s not just a one-time thing. It’s not something that you do just one time. It’s the knowledge and information that you’ll have forever in your toolkit. So without further ado, I have Griffin Griffin here today. Griffin, why don’t you thank me, First of all, thank you so much for being here.

 

Griffen: Oh, yeah. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Dr. Joel.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:  Yeah, so I’m excited to talk to you because I just reviewed all of the important information that we did working together. And there were so many aha cars, and so many really textbook things that were going on from a functional medicine standpoint, or neutral genomic genetic standpoint. But yet, from what you may have experienced before working together, it wasn’t always that way.

So why don’t you give our listeners who listen to this podcast that is exhausted and burnt out, and maybe frustrated and at their wit’s end and not finding solutions to their own problems? Give us a little background on what you were dealing with what you were suffering from and how it was impacting you.

 

Griffen: You bet. To give you context, right now, I’m 44 years old, and my journey started really, about age 38, where I was extremely food sensitive. I was 240 pounds and at five, nine, that’s not a healthy weight, pretty irritable, sleep challenges just not functioning well as a human being. And after a couple of colonoscopies. I had a doctor that wanted to put me on Humira.

I read about the drug, and I said, you know, suppressing my immune system seems like a pretty silly approach, it’s going to have some other consequences. So that’s really where my entire health journey started. You know, a lot of people have seen it, but I started with the bulletproof diet. And that was, my mother was a nursing professor at Oregon Health Sciences University, we discussed me, my challenges, and she said, Hey, I think at least getting on a ketogenic diet would be a good way for you to start and made several improvements, you know, over the next year, so by age 39, my health improved a lot.

Fast forward to 44 over the years, and, you know, I resolved some digestive issues, but my energy continued to deplete right and as feeling worse and worse. And, you know, I’m throwing stuff at the wall, trying to make it stick. I’m trying to go on from keto to carnivore and trying all these bio hacks and you know, looking for the silver bullet just not finding it and went to a naturopath. While we were still living in Washington, and that naturopath told me, I had adrenal fatigue and helped me get on some adrenal cortex and a couple of other things. And it didn’t work. So I did more research and came across you on social media. And that’s where we got engaged in, you know, fast forward from it was a January that we connected or February of this year.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: And we would, yeah, it was early in the year and I think a couple of my notes are in March as well.

 

Griffen:  March Yeah, exactly. And yeah, you know, the progress of the first five years really being a digestive improvement, but uh, energy decline, engaging with you and where I’m at today is, you know, I kind of I have my life back and being a guy the 12 months ago, my energy was terrible. I didn’t like playing with my kids. I didn’t do fun things because I just felt like crap. I mean, literally, you know, pretty miserable life, and today, you know, we’ve made several lifestyle changes during the pandemic.

Maybe we’ll touch on those a little bit but you know where I’m at today. If you would have told me a year ago I could be where I am at the weight. I am at the health I am with the quality of life. If I might have had to suspend disbelief to get there. So I’m super happy with the results, working with you. And that’s why I’m here today. I’m a huge advocate of yours. And hopefully, this inspires some people to get more engaged with you on a professional level, to, you know, get their energy back and reclaim your life.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, listen, I appreciate all that the most rewarding thing for me, all of that, and I’ve always said this is Griffin is the internal satisfaction you get knowing you’ve changed someone’s health, I mean, that really is most of the reward that you get as a practitioner because they’re very difficult presentations. And you don’t always get there. And a lot of things go right.

For that to happen and looking at the notes and looking at all the things that you’ve allowed us to talk about and share today will give other people hope as well, in terms of, hey, that could be happening to me, and that can also help raise their antenna. So a couple of things you mentioned earlier in what you told me is the idea of the initial attitude of it didn’t sit well with you to just be put on immunosuppressants. And not everyone’s going to have that, right. I mean, some people will do that, hey, listen, what the doctor tells me is what I should do they have been this is their profession, and I’m not going to question it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. may ask why, why first and foremost, did that not sit well with you?

 

Griffen: The idea of suppressing my immune system to cure a digestive issue just didn’t sit well with me, because I’m thinking, hey, if I have a suppressed immune system, what’s going to happen to me on the other side? Am I going to get sick more often? I looked through the list of side effects. And I can’t remember them right now, though. But you know, every pharmaceutical has a list of side effects. And I looked through them and I said, No, we’re not, we’re not doing that. So that was it.

I just didn’t, I kind of had a, I guess, a gut belief that there is another solution in having lucky enough to have a health care practitioner and in my, in my family lineage, right, my mother. So, you know, part of that was a conversation with her. And she agreed, she’s like, there’s, there’s got to be another solution. So we just, we look for something better than an immunosuppressant.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, and I think inherently you, we know, like, Hey, this is a lot of people know that this is not really getting to the root cause of the problem, and what other consequences are going to result of that, and, and maybe just not having that support with their family member of giving them the idea that they’re all there are alternatives out there. And ultimately, if you’re not getting to the root cause of the problem, and you’re just pressing your immune system, you’re not addressing lie, right?

You’re just and but, you know, I understand as well, my mother’s nurse, and I understand that, hey, I just want to feel better. And if this in the short term, suppressing my immune system can make me feel better than then why not?

So I just wanted to get your perspective on that. So when I originally looked at some of the notes, you know, you had poor sleep, the motivation was, was not there, the positive outlook was not there. You mentioned quote, unquote, gi resiliency, and stalled weight loss. What’s your weight? Now, Griffin, where are you and where were you?

 

Griffen: I think I told you at age 38, I was to 240 pounds, right? And through ketogenic diet during that period, I could get myself down to 200 to maybe low 190s, that that’s about as low as I could go. You know, after working with you some lifestyle changes, Incorporated, that I’m 182 pounds today.

And I think I’m probably going to settle somewhere in the low once low to mid 170s. But you know, I’m at the, I’m at the costly point where I’m going to have to start buying new clothes now, which is great, that’s a great price to pay, right?

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:
Yeah, for sure. Well, I do would you would it be fair to them, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth. that that wasn’t necessarily our, our main focus, if anything, you mentioned side effects with immunosuppressants. I’ve always mentioned that you start to get to the root causes of the problem and ultimately, create a better balance between supply and demand in your body.

then things start to work better. Would it be fair to say Griffin that the side effect of getting healthy was weight loss, or was it something you put a lot more emphasis on restricting your calories and killing yourself to get there? Like, give us some feedback on that? Yeah,

 

Griffen: I haven’t restricted calories at all. I mean, I eat as much as I can now part of some of the lifestyle changes, you know, we made during the pandemic, I was in sales and business development, I just got an operations management, right. Okay, light bulb kind of went on f3 work that, you know, for my body. And for me, for my mental health motion is lotion.

So this, this new job, I have an operations management that I’m on my feet 25,000 to 30,000 steps a day. And that’s made a huge contribution. So I don’t have to restrict calories at all. And you know, that that weights easily come off, or it’s been stalled for, you know, gosh, I gotta, I gotta think it’s like four years that I was trying to break that 190 hurdles. And, you know, now it’s how I’ve got the right lifestyle change to match, match up with my weight loss goals. And, you know, with all the other tools fallen into place, it happens, right?

But the amazing thing is, some of my peers at work, take the same number of steps, right? They, they, you know, make the same output every day. And they’re pretty fantastically overweight, right. So I, you know, just walking 25 or 30,000 steps a day, if you’re hormonally out of balance, right? If you have energy problems, it’s not going to happen. You have to, you have to be healthy to lose weight. Right. And that’s, I think, what you’re getting that which I totally believe now is, you don’t get you don’t lose weight to get healthy, you get healthy to lose weight.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Right. Yeah, it’s great. It’s true. And I’m glad we were talking about this. A couple of other things, too. Like I wanted to just sort of go back in you were doing the ketogenic diet. And ultimately, if you’re not healthy doing the ketogenic diet, it’s like the weight loss, the steps are, can only get you so far.

Right. And, and, you know, so as far as there were now the other thing we talked about a little bit earlier, before we even started to record was, when I was telling you, I was looking through all the different things that we’ve done that I want to share with you. But a lot of the results came back textbook from a functional medicine standpoint, and I think it’s important to clarify that because when I’m working with clients, and probably the same with you, where either you’re told to go on an immunosuppressant, but you’re not getting at the root cause of the problem, or you’re just not properly worked up Griffin in terms of, hey, there’s not a lot going on here, Griffin with your bloodwork things are normal, you may have a little bit high of this or a little low of that, but we’re not really concerned about it quote-unquote, or maybe you just need to be put on a Staton or, you know, something to control that one number, and reductionistic Lee feel it’s going to improve it.

But the irony was, from that point of view, not being told, or being told that there’s nothing wrong, and everything’s normal. When I look at the way that we looked at things, there was a lot wrong, there was a lot that are which made it really easy to kind of help you. So as far as what I guess what I want to get into is some of the findings that we did, and how we went about approaching the improvement so as far as before I do that though what was the major aha was or the major thing that made you realize, okay, like or what was the first thing that we did that made you feel like Okay, that makes sense. I haven’t been told that before. What would that have been for you?

Griffen: It’s the number one thing that and this is funny, right? This is an environmental thing but you know, the number one thing I think that made me a believer was actually part of the genetic profile we did. And he told me that I have the gene snip for sensitivity to EMF, right electromagnetic frequency. And after talking about that, and looking at my window, 80 yards, we didn’t live on powerlines but we are the next street over 80 yards from main transmission lines. And you know, it is part of the pandemic and lifestyle adjustments we move farther south purchased a new house, and made sure we did live anywhere close to power lines. And that made a noticeable immediate impact getting away from power lines.

The interesting thing was shortly, right about the time that a few months before we engaged, I took on a new job and was spending more time at home and that’s when my energy problems got really bad and my home office was The closest room to those power lines and spending more time at home, just all exacerbated the problem. Right? And now that, you know that we’re not in that position anymore, I feel great. And that was, that was the biggest, most immediate impact. Was that getting rid of the EMF?

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, that’s huge. Not everyone has the ability to be able to physically remove themselves and move right. So they are left with Well, that sounds good for you. But I can’t just get up and move. But being aware of it is the first thing, right, the being aware of it, like having it on your, you know, excuse the pun, the rate or having it on your radar is essential. So just for those that may wonder a little more about that, which is not the purpose of this call, or this conversation is when we do a genetic test. And that done plenty of videos that you can watch on why we do that. What are the key enzymes that we look at is the EMF sensitivity.

And basically, it gives us some ideas on your voltage potential and your calcium channels, which helped to increase more calcium into the cell and depolarize the cell. And that can create more free radicals and create more mass cell activation and histamine issues. And for those that have a username and just have one polymorphism, I looked at your genetics, you had two copies of two different locations, meaning both parents, I always joke around in your next life asked mom and dad for better environmental EMF genes than being so good looking.

So hey, listen, next time, I don’t mind, give me better things. But that was a real problem for you, for sure. And there are certain things you could do without moving as you can put your Wi-Fi router on a Christmas timer, it could make sure with your cell phone all day, put it in airplane mode, give it its own little bed to sleep in across from the room. There are so many you can rewire your computer system so that it’s actually more wired than not, there’s a lot of things, and like you said, if it’s gonna make a huge difference, it’s worth it. Yeah, but a couple of the initial that I noticed with you is when we looked at your bloodwork, so a lot of people will, you know, present me with the prior test that they’ve done, we’ll put it before they’ve worked with me so that I can review that. And there were things that I want to share with the people if that’s okay, basically, your red blood cell count will functionally high meaning from lab range, it wasn’t marked as high.

But from the healthy range of people listening, the lab rate, the healthy range is 4.4 to 4.9, for the red blood cells, and yours were 5.56. So it was above that 4.9. But it was below the lab range would have been in terms of maybe six or it was below that range. And then your 6.4 from a healthy range, we want to see it between 14 and 15. If people are listening, you know, take those numbers down for 4.4 to 4.9, or 14 to 15. If you’re above those, you may have some kind of iron challenges. And when I looked at your bloodwork, we didn’t have an adequate iron panel. We had serum iron, but we didn’t have percent saturation, or we didn’t have ferritin. So maybe give the listener an idea as to what became of that information. And from a lifestyle point of view what you did with that information.

 

Griffen: Yeah, go ahead.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: No, no, I just to make sure you know, want to put you on the spot. But yeah, what did we say about your iron? And what how it was maybe causing you some challenges that you weren’t told about?

 

Griffen: Yeah, just, you know, that’s uh, even though the lab test looked like it was in the normal range, right? That’s what you were telling me Hey, that’s a sign of potential inflammation, right? We want to get that number down. So I, you know, took your advice. And over most of this past year, I’ve been donating blood every two months. Right? Right. I guess specifically, every 54 days, I’m on a clockwork schedule. I think at the year mark, I’m going to do a serum ferritin test right just to see where I’m at. But I’ve been donating that blood.

And the nice side effect is I’m Oh negative. Right. So that’s a pretty nice donation to give to so for those people out there that don’t know blood banks are in high demand right now. So please donate blood if you can. But yeah, I mean, it’s just it is we got to get to, we got to get my iron in check. I got to give away some blood to get continue to improve that number. And, you know, I’ve been doing that religiously.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: That’s awesome. I mean, and it’s important to say like look, you need a certified like per provider or practice. Under the help you understand that the lab ranges for ferritin Griffin are grossly, so vast, I think it’s like 30 to 390. And you may have been in like 50 range, or though I don’t remember exactly, I don’t think I wrote it down exactly, but it wouldn’t have been flagged from the lab range, it wouldn’t have been on anyone’s radar. But what it does is it’s not moving properly, it will oxidize and create free radicals.

And that’s where you can see like, premature gray herring, stuff like that. And if you have some genetic weak links, so we’re starting to put this case together, and hey, there’s a lot of things going on here. Yep. And, you know, math wasn’t determined first. But the iron looking at your bloodwork was because it took us some time to get that genetic test back. So then the other thing I noticed is from your white blood cells, you had monocytes and eosinophils. Those are your different kinds of white blood cells. So I call it the different branches of the Armed Forces, and monocytes and eosinophils, monocytes should be four to 7%. From a healthy range. Just as an aside, there are a lot of blood tests, they show monocytes, the differentials, they don’t even give you a range, they say no established ranges. So wouldn’t have been anything to compare it to. But you were at 11%.

And then your eosinophils, they should be between zero and 3%. And you’re at 4%. So both of those ranges would have been shown on the lab test as no established ranges. You were a functionally high, healthy ring. And whenever you see monocytes eosinophils paired together functionally Hi, from a practitioner point of view, I think right away parasites, and or I think about mast cell activation with histamine, which could have been because of the iron and could have been because of the EMF and whatever things we found out as well. So maybe talk about what we did to determine if there were parasites. Yeah, about that. Yeah.

 

Griffen: That was the that was the GI map test, right? Yeah.

 

Griffen:   So I was I was pretty shocked. I mean, that was kind of a shocking discovery to maybe, you know, I said the EMF variant was number one, this might have been number one a was that I had h pylori and giardia in my tract. Right. So when I think about my digestive issues that h 38 really exacerbating. For those people that don’t know H. pylori can cause ulcers right in your GI tract.

And, you know, if you’re thinking about leaky gut that would expose the barrier, right to allow things that normally wouldn’t pass through your gut membrane to pass through. And that’s really where, you know when I had food sensitivities of bad food sensitivities, I believe, you know, h pylori was a big one where, you know, it was a, either a cause or exacerbate or have leaky gut. So, pretty amazing. The product you had me take was the three pill supplement. I’m trying to remember the name of it,

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: guy synergy, maybe the GI synergy from APEC gi

 

Griffen: Synergy that was it. Yeah. And I and then you have you take gi synergy, and then for people that have h pylori, you also had me take mastic gum. Right. Right. The mastic guy. I mean, this was incredible. I think he had me taken for 10 days. And at the end of 10 days. You know, my, my gut just felt solid. It’s hard to put it into words. But, you know, I felt like I always lived on knife’s edge with my gut where one wrong move could really make me suffer for a few days. And I got done with that.

And I said I think I could actually tolerate a gluten exposure. So just one time I did that ate pizza. And, you know, that was something that had like, kick my butt for three or four days, they ate the pizza woke up the next day, I felt a little bit slow, but it’s like, I can handle that. Right. So I don’t do that. I still eat a ketogenic diet. That was more of a test just to say, Where am I at? That was phenomenal. And Ryan, still to this day, you know, my guts rock-solid sets since doing that master GM and the GI synergy, so that was huge. That was huge.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: I would bet Yeah. And you know, again, it was textbook in the sense that not every time you see someone who has monocytes and SNFS, functionally elevated, that wouldn’t have been even on the radar from the lab ranges. When you do a Hey, let’s investigate this and do it and because you would have had gi symptoms as well. You know, we talked to the And find out what are you dealing with?

What are some Well, hey, you know, 3738 they wanted to, you know, do some kind of immunosuppressant, you know? So we know that the GI is involved and to come back with H. pylori and an even I think that you weren’t absorbing fat as effectively as you could. So your sciatic levels are high, and someone who’s on a ketogenic diet absorbs your fat. Well, there was a lot of Clint hurdle that we had with that.

And then the other thing that I was concerned about when we did get your genetic test results back was the fact that you produce histamine, one of the ways that you clear histamine out is through EO production, which is an enzyme in your tract that clears that out. So then we did a test that looks at your intestinal barrier looks at your da yo, looks at your histamine looks at your bacterial growth. And so do you remember what information we got from that Griffin in terms of that test that we found out?

 

Griffen: Yeah, we just did. We just determined it, you know, I’m, I have to supplement da o enzyme. Right? And is that the ABP one assist? Or is it? Right? So I mean, that’s super helpful. And, you know, I noticed, once you gave me that revelation, right, I started to think through things and, yeah, you know, I have some red wine, and it stuffs me up, right, I have leftover meat. And you know that that causes an impact, right? So, you know, I use that I try to eat fresh meat as often as I can I drink less wine than I used to.

And, you know, I think it’s a couple of things. It’s you supplement some and you avoid some of the foods that might cause some of those triggers. So really, that was simple.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, but it’s good in the sense that, again, we got that information from the genetic piece of the puzzle, hey, like, you have potential, it doesn’t necessarily mean like you have ones and twos where mom and dad or mom and dad gave you the gene polymorphism, or the slow to be able to make this enzyme to clear out histamine, you may want to consider supporting that.

And you could assume guilty until proven otherwise, we’ll just go ahead and do it. But also you want, specifically based on a test is that presenting as a challenge, and it was not, and on top of your iron is oxidizing, because your ferritin levels are high, or you have EMF exposures, or you have parasites, those are going to cause those free radicals to be produced. And that’s gonna produce histamine.

So you’d like you just said you want to work on both sides of the equation. So I guess just summarizing everything so far, at what point did I mean, you know, in everything we talked about so far, where is the renal fatigue in there? Like, you know, like in terms of a paradigm shift, because you said, you were given the adrenal cortex, and it really didn’t address the, it didn’t make you feel any better. Right, right.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: So okay, so then we did a Dutch test. And I’m, again, I’m sorry to put you on the spot here because it’s been a while but our is, do you remember any of the take-home messages that we told you? Because I think it’s important, like, Listen, at the end of the day? I’m coming to you, Joel, because I’ve been told I have an adrenal problem. You help people with adrenals.

Everything you’ve talked about really hasn’t been adrenal Lee, based in the sense that we’re not really talking about hormones. No, I still make sure we do the test. So we get a lay of the land on how your hormones are playing out based on all of these things. But remember, Griffin, any take homes on what we talked about from the results of the Dutch test off the top of your head, like yeah, finding?

 

Griffen:  Oh, yeah, I didn’t have a problem with my adrenals. Right. So yeah, you talk about adrenal fatigue. And we look at the Dutch test, and we see, hey, it while we call it adrenal fatigue, right. You know, it’s really we’re talking about fatigue, and it can come from multiple pathways and multiple sources, and we’re just able to confirm that mine wasn’t based on my adrenals. Right. So I think that’s an important thing for everybody to realize out there. We have the term adrenal fatigue, it’s absolutely real.

But it doesn’t mean your fatigues are based on your adrenal glands. Right. So I think that’s the best thing about the Dutch test is you can either dial that in and say, yeah, you know, you’re one of the very small percentages of people out there where it actually is an adrenal problem. Or you can rule it out and say, Hey, we have to look at, you know, probably multiple other pathways to solve your fatigue issues.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, I mean, it’s a great aha from you. You know, I had a client the other day who told me they went to go see their Dr. And they’re in like, they were in Mississippi and the doctor said back to them, like, Hey, you shouldn’t know all this information, you know more than me, you know, and I hear you speak, I think you have to become an advocate, you have to learn this.

Because ultimately, when you don’t feel good, and it’s costing you time away from your kids, and you’re not happy dad, and you’re, you know, you feel like you’re not motivated, and you just don’t feel good. It’s, it’s worth it to do these things. But I’ll also kind of give a little more clarity from the Dutch test, we did get some really great other infer, you got your 100%, right. In fact, your adrenals look really good. They’re producing a good amount of cortisol, there’s a good amount of free amount, the DHT.

And testosterone was really good, actually. But there’s a Cinderella zone or a Goldilocks zone of that you don’t want it to breach and you weren’t too little, and you weren’t. So you really were looking good. You were aromatizing a little bit, which means in English, some of your estrogen levels were starting to rise because of inflammation. And that’s why it’s so important to know, what are the sources of inflammation from all the other things that we did the EMF sensitivity, the iron overload, the histamine, you’re not clearing, and we even we’ll get into a few oxalates, too, because you had that as well.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:  So let me I guess let me ask you this, though, as far as when you learn that the Dutch test did really indicate that you had an adrenal fatigue problem. It may have indicated, hey, you’re going a little higher on your estrogen. And that can manifest as more moodiness more emotions.

I remember, I had some aromatization with my own bloodwork, and I’d be watching a movie and it was a little sad, and I would be crying. Yeah, we think so. If you notice any of those symptoms, even though the adrenals were were told to be not fatigued, and then an instant,

 

Griffen: Yeah, you know, I was probably, you know, maybe a little quicker to trigger an angry response, possibly, um, you know, I’ve never been a crier at movies or anything like that. But well, let me put this another way. I don’t cry it sad things. Like, the one thing I would notice is if I was watching, say, Rudy, you know, the movie Rudy.

Right. And you have those, those happy moments that would make you cry, I would definitely do that. And I’ve noticed my, my tendency to do that has reduced a little bit. So yeah, a little bit more in balance. So I mean, hey, we all guys need some estrogen in their system, they just need the right amount. Right.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Right, for sure. For sure. So okay, so as far as the other things that I thought were really important, too, is we did do an oat test. And I’ll get there in a second in terms of that, that finding there. But as far as on the Dutch test, when we got your Dutch test back, as well as your own test, we did see that you had some challenges, I told you, hey, think of your gluten ion.

It’s your body’s main antioxidant. And there’s a lot of smoke coming out of the chimney, meaning you’re burning through a lot of that, and you’re not replenishing it. And we looked at your genetics, and you did have a major challenge with nerf to signaling, which is basically your upregulation of beautifying on production. So on the one hand, your body’s inflamed, and there are stressors in that body, and you’re burning through a lot of your antioxidants. And your test results are showing that you are doing that.

And then your genetics implies that you may have a challenge with signaling the remaking of it, which again, was textbook, right? Or anything that we recommended for supporting you that way in terms of re signaling your antioxidants? Are you still doing something with that now?

 

Griffen: Yeah, you got you to have you have a nerf to supplement in your store, right? So you know, it’s just that you want to support that pathway and you’ve got the perfect product to do that. So that’s, that’s, it’s nice when you have something that the presents clearly where you have a, you know, a supplement that you could recommend to support that. So that’s what we did.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: That’s awesome. So and then I remember one of the very first tests that we got back was your organic acid test as well. And I remember saying to you because it was pretty new on my radar, in all honesty for myself in terms of oxalates haven’t been on my radar for a long time.

So what did you gain from that in terms of Hey, Griffin, you got some oxalate challenges, I’ll just say from a metabolic standpoint, it creates estimate. Now you already have ear offs and potential immune challenges and iron oxidation and not signaling your nerf two and aromatizing and all these things you got going on.

But as far as the oxalates it was another piece of the puzzle and I think that’s kitas mentioned Hey, we didn’t just focus on one thing. We’re focusing on so many. Oh, yeah, what was the oxygen information? How did you interpret that and what what is it and what have you done about it?

 

Griffen:  Yeah, So you know, oxalates are I guess the simplest way to say it for some people they kind of turned into consuming poisons for your body right. And you know, some people can handle it some people can’t. you know, for me, you know, I think we saw pretty clearly that it wasn’t beneficial for me and if people are wanting to think about you know, high oxalate foods, right.

Spinach is a high oxalate food, a lot of your leafy greens or high oxalate foods that grains are going to have high oxalates in them, right. So, I guess my takeaway from that was, you know, bulletproof diet ketogenic diet, I was slamming that man I love I still do, and I don’t eat it anymore. But swiss chard, that’s a high oxalate food. I used to pound swiss chard all the time, it was actually causing me a problem, right? So I really had to look and say, all right, I can still do keto, I just have to focus on different foods.

And fast forward today. My diet is probably more of a meat-centric keto. And what I really do is I listen to my body sometimes I’ll go see a little bit more carnivore, and then my body really gives me signals. It’s like, hey, let’s have some. Let’s have some cauliflower rice tonight, right? So I’ll pound down some cauliflower rice, and in reality, that’s what I do at this point is just, I queue off for the signals my body’s giving me eating. Eat accordingly. And it works fantastic. So that’s been you know, I definitely noticed less inflammation. Less inflammation less joint pain. Since going low oxalate. It’s been great.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, that’s amazing as a couple of hearts too, cuz I don’t remember if it was you, Griffin. But I know like when we went through the report and said, hey, you’re, you’re not dumping your oxalates and it’s accumulating and it can create besides a histamine release, and, and your chief complaints of not losing weight and, you know, poor sleep motivation, a lot of joint pains.

And then these are the foods that we recommend, have the highest and slowly don’t go overnight, and just remove them all of a sudden, and we would have said, Hey, like the main hitters are, you know, Swiss chard, spinach, parsley beets. So was one of those things were like we said, Hey, like, these are the main ones. And you had like an aha, like, Oh, my gosh, I’ve been taking this char a lot. And oh, yeah.

 

Griffen: That that was 100% is, you know, you started walking me through what the high oxalate veggies were I’m like, that’s my diet. Fantastic. So yeah, yeah, exactly. So I mean, it’s, it’s kind of interesting, I think, you know, a lot of ways are on the cutting edge of how food really impacts our bodies, right?

We’re just getting the amount of information that’s coming out and accelerating, to take, you know, eat your vegetables, right, which was the old line to where now it’s really well, you might want to be careful about how you eat your vegetables. And, you know, it’s fantastic that we’re getting that info because, you know, I think, I think the more we understand, you know, maybe the good and the bad about what vegetables do to our body.

And you know, we can take that information and turn it into better health. That’s it. We’re living in an exciting time of information for sure. on that front.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, and for you, I mean, it really is customized as we start to share all the findings and aha is that we had with you. We’re not really giving you a cookie-cutter recommendation, no giving you Hey, it has all of these challenges.

These are the things that you’re going to have to keep in your toolkit now and bring it out when and so, but what would you say to someone like okay, like, that sounds great, but it seems like you’re not enjoying life. You’re like, maybe you feel better, but you have to restrict your food now. You take these supplements. Is it doable? what you’re doing? I mean, is it sustainable? Is it impacting your quality of life? You know, tell me a little bit about that.

 

Griffen: You know, I guess the easy thing for me is at age 38 I was An outside sales representative and I planned by sales calls around the places that had the nice restrooms, because I’d literally have gi issues and you know, I get instant diarrhea, nausea. And, you know, if I ever even have a moment where, you know, I’m feeling restricted, all I have to do is from Ember back to those days, it was bad, right?

It’s like, I’m so grateful that I understand, I have a better understanding of which foods work for my body. And I’m able to do that it is interesting, right? Because socially, that can be a challenge. You know, I work they’ll bring in food. No, okay, go ahead. And I’m like, Hey, I’m good.

I’d rather fast and put that in my body. Because I know what it does to me. Right? So you just, you know, I think, I think everybody’s gonna have to go through the 12 steps when they start limiting, removing things from their diet that society says are fine, right? But you know, that aren’t and you go, what are the steps, say, grief, denial, all those things, and you’re, you go through the steps of, well, maybe I can have it some of the time and not, it’s just taken me six years to get to the point where I guess I look at food as you know, fuel and nutrition rather than pleasure.

Now, fortunately, I wasn’t allergic to meat. And that said, that’s probably my biggest love in life. Right. So, you know, we do a lot of pulled pork and smoked chickens, and, you know, roasts and I eat a lot of steaks. So you know, those are, if you can get stuck on what you can’t have, I would certainly recommend to people who just fall in love with what you can have.

And, you know, commit yourself every day that those foods that don’t work well with your body. Just be okay with whether it’s a social setting, or pressure, or whatever, just, it’s okay to say no. And I just fully explained to people, you know, I, I used to have, you know, massive IBS and those foods gave it to me, so it’s not worth it for me to go eat that again.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, that’s a good a hard lesson to learn. Because now and then I learned that lesson as well. And then I think you have to get out of the hot tub long enough to know how hot it was, so to speak. And then yeah, because if not all the time, you don’t realize like, Okay, you’ve kind of acclimated to it, a little room, though. And warming pot. And before you know it, it’s boiling, and you don’t even really realize you have to be out of it for a certain amount of time.

And then you’re human, you’re going to slip up from time to time, and then you realize, jeez, that wasn’t worth it. Um, I don’t like how I’m feeling, I feel terrible, I feel sick. And then I like how much I’m feeling good with this. And a lot of people never get that I like how good I’m feeling because they never are out of the pot long enough. So I think that’s a big one for you. But getting into, you know, just your positive outlook, because you didn’t even mention when we first started working together motivate patients about a look, wasn’t there.

But you just mentioned, instead of looking at what you can do, look at what you can do. When did that become back on for you? Or has that something that was always there, and you just lost it? Or you just gained it? Like, give me a little insight on? How much Where did that come from?

And how much do you think that positive outlook was key in giving getting you better and put being the glue with all the things that we’ve just mentioned, to sort of solidify everything? What’s your feedback on that? Griffin?

 

 

Griffen: As far as the timeline? I could? That was such an evolution? I’d say probably sometime in the past couple of years. You know,

 

Griffen: I couldn’t tell you exactly. But you know, I think that’s just it is at some point, you know, I kind of realize it’s, you know, I have food limitations, right. And I was just thinking one day, looking around at people around me, and they’re kind of overweight, and they’re not looking so hot.

And you know, their skin doesn’t look like it’s healthy. And I’m just looking, I’m going these are really unhealthy people. And then I kind of had this epiphany one day I said, you know, this, this didn’t, all my digestive issues didn’t happen to me. They happen for me, right?

Because look at all these people that are tolerating this stuff in there in their life, right? And look at what it’s doing to their health, and what a blessing. I’ve had to understand that, hey, I can’t do those things. And because of that, I’m making positive changes that are making me a lot healthier than the individuals around me I’m looking at so you know, you can certainly look at it as a curse. I just think Just to start looking at it as a blessing.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: It’s it’s amazing I mean, of all the things that you’ve we’ve talked about today, I would still say that that’s probably been the most important shift for you. I know it was for me. How can someone watching this be asking the question, how could you possibly be thinking about, like, all the heartache and pain and dysfunction that you were experiencing? As a blessing? Like, that’s not fair. I mean, like, life’s not fair, why? Why am I burdened with this? Why doesn’t someone else have it? And why?

You know, why does it have to impact me so much? And no one else doesn’t? I mean, that’s a totally justifiable feeling. But it often serves you getting better, you know, right. And in fact, it’s, it’s gonna be part of your toolkit to have the feeling of Okay, I’m going to use this as a blessing to know like, what I want, and I think that’s a key takeaway. So thank you for sharing that. I’m glad you caught that. Um, one other thing I would mention is, I remember when we would have our visits, and I think I would read, I think when I recorded them, because your mom was a professor, and, you know, I think I remember you saying, hey, like, you’re not full of it, because I sent it to my mom.

And she, like, you know, said everything you’re saying is true? Or was there some kind of like you had, I guess the question is, did you have some kind of relief? affirming? Or what? How was your mom, but with everything that you went through, given that she is a professor and teaches some of this stuff?

 

Griffen: Yeah, you know, it. That was I mean, I was, I was fully on board with you what I did it, but hey, my mom’s one of my mentors in life. And, you know, we’ve worked on health challenges together. So I, I set the, you know, I recorded meetings off to her to watch.

And you know, that she, she watched through the first one. And, you know, I, she got done with it. And I called her up and I said, What do you think? And she says, This is the future of medicine, right? And, you know, I think yes, you’re right, we’re taking multiple lab tests, we’re taking geneti