Inspired Living with Autoimmunity

If you've ever been told your brain fog is "just part of your autoimmune condition," this one's for you. Dr. Gary Kaplan, founder of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine and author of Total Recovery, explains how fatigue, pain, depression and brain fog can all come from the same place: inflammation in the brain, driven by the immune system.

We talk about what sets it off, from mold and pesticides to sleep apnea and concussions. We also get into how an infection can turn a weakened immune system against the brain, why a leaky gut can mean a leaky brain, and why gluten may bother you here but not in Europe. He also shares the story of a teen whose depression turned out to be celiac disease.

If you're tired of hearing "your labs look fine" when you know something is off, listen in. You'll come away with three cheap first steps you can start right away.

Mira Dessy, the ingredient guru, is back on the show — and this time we're talking about something I don't think I've covered in 268 episodes: how to stock food and water for an emergency when your body has rules about what it can eat. Mira has lived through hurricanes in Florida and Texas, blizzards in Vermont, and the Texas grid going down during Winter Storm Uri. She calls that big bucket of 172 freeze-dried meals "the big box of don't eat that," and if certain foods make you sick, you really don't want to create a health crisis on top of the emergency you're already in.

We get into her two-pantry system and how to build it on twenty dollars a month, shelf-stable protein that works with real restrictions, how much water you actually need (pets count as people), and the storage mistakes that cost her a carpet. Plus the small habits — flashlight by every door, starting the generator monthly — that turn good intentions into actual readiness.

This isn't a doom and gloom conversation. It's the opposite. As I said to Mira, the stress comes from not having a plan — and stress is hard on our bodies. If you want to sleep better because you already thought it through, start here.

Brad Pitzele was in his thirties when psoriatic arthritis took over, the biologics quit working, and a melanoma diagnosis closed off his last drug option. Sitting in a parking lot after his rheumatologist suggested trying another drug in the same class and hoping for a better outcome, he decided to find a third way. The engineer in him ended up building his own exercise with oxygen therapy device at home.

In this episode, Brad walks us through why inflammation and oxygen starvation can't exist without each other, why that little finger clip at the doctor's office doesn't tell you whether your tissue is actually getting oxygen, and what red light therapy really does versus what's just marketing. We also get into the Lyme and Bartonella diagnosis he was sure he didn't have, and why treating the terrain beat chasing the infection.

The part I most wanted you to hear is how to start exercising when exercise sounds like the worst possible advice. If you're running on empty and in pain, Brad has real starting points, including a few that involve almost no movement at all.

Most of us have heard EMFs are a problem. Almost nobody explains what that actually means or what to do about it. Brian Johnson does. He came up through construction and mold remediation, then got his own functional medicine testing back loaded with mycotoxins despite a dialed-in lifestyle — and his doctor told him to go build healthy homes instead.

In this episode Brian breaks EMFs into four types in plain English: electrical fields, AC magnetic fields, RF, and dirty electricity. Then he gets specific about your bedroom, because that's where you have the most to gain. Moving your bed off the wall with the outlets, swapping a metal frame for wood, putting your router on a timer — none of it requires a renovation and most of it is free. We also cover why brand-new airtight homes grow mold, why "green" doesn't mean healthy, and the cabinet under your kitchen sink that's outgassing into the air you breathe all day.

If your total toxic burden is already full, your home is where you have the most control. This one is about progress, not perfection — small steps you can actually take this week.

Dr. Shivani Gupta spent years on antibiotics and doctor visits before she found her way to Ayurveda, healed her gut, and went on to earn a master's in Ayurvedic sciences and a PhD in turmeric. When I asked her for the single most important health habit, she didn't say diet and she didn't say exercise. She said sleep.

We talk about the 10-to-2 sleep window and what your body is actually doing during it, why you should put yourself to bed the way you'd put a baby to bed, and how to shift your bedtime without blowing up your whole routine. We also get into how you eat mattering as much as what you eat, eating with the seasons instead of salad 365 days a year, the truth about turmeric absorption, and why the spice box in your kitchen holds more than the superfood aisle does.

If you're waking up tired, achy, and foggy no matter how clean you eat, this one gives you somewhere practical to start — including one 10-second morning habit you can add tomorrow.

If you've ever been told your pain was all in your head, this one is for you. Dr. Anna Esparham developed polyglandular autoimmune disease and severe fibromyalgia while she was still getting through med school and residency, and she walks us through what is actually happening in the body — nervous system and immune inflammation, interleukin-8, small fiber neuropathy, and the study that points toward an autoimmune cause.

Anna is a triple board-certified physician, so none of this is vague. She explains why the standard medications only reach pieces of the problem, why she says medicine got her 30 to 40% of the way and what took her the rest of the way, and how emotional pathways and pain pathways run along the same anatomy. She also shares the two-minute morning practice she'd hand to every person listening.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia about 15 years ago, and I learned a lot in this conversation. Whether you have fibromyalgia or not, this one is worth your time.

Heather Aardema woke up with terrible pain in her wrist and blamed her ski poles. It was rheumatoid arthritis. Her rheumatologist handed her brochure after brochure for drugs with side effects like liver damage, and when Heather asked about food, she was told there's no research and don't go looking. She went looking anyway, changed her diet, and around day 31 she woke up with no pain at all. She has never taken RA medication.

We also talk about clutter, and not the kind you're picturing. Heather's definition includes the stuff on your counters, the people on your calendar, the thoughts in your head, and even the air in your house. And we get into the part that stops most of us: she cites a study where people were told they'd die if they didn't change, and only one in seven did.

If you already know what you're supposed to be doing and still aren't doing it, this one is for you. Heather closes with one small step that takes a few minutes, and I tried it myself.

The root chakra is linked to the immune system and the adrenal glands. If you're living with autoimmunity, that's a strange thing to have never heard about. My guest Lisa Erickson is an energy healer and meditation teacher who spent a decade in corporate tech before her own health crises sent her in a different direction, and she has a gift for making this stuff plain.

We walk through all seven energy centers and what each one connects to physically — root and the adrenals, throat and the thyroid, solar plexus and digestion. We also get into why so many of us check out of our bodies when they hurt, why medical trauma is real trauma, and how survival patterns like people-pleasing and hypervigilance can actually be rewritten. Lisa calls it physical therapy, not surgery.

If you've been told to try yoga or meditation and it never stuck, this is a different door in. And Lisa's one starting step takes about as long as brushing your teeth.

ER doctor turned cellular medicine expert Dr. Siobhan Newman spent years saving people in a busy LA emergency room — and watching none of them actually get better. Now she helps people rebuild health at the cellular level, and her approach challenges a lot of what we've been told.

We get into why adding exercise when your mitochondria are already underwater just drives more inflammation, how the low-fat era damaged our cells in ways we're still paying for, and her "three nos" — the simple starting point she gives every patient. We also talk about why very low cholesterol is linked to worse outcomes, what peptides actually do (and why buying them online is genuinely dangerous), and why your gut is where immune dysregulation really starts.

If you have an autoimmune condition and you've been pushing through fatigue or following advice that isn't landing, this conversation will make a lot of things click.

I sat down with Johanna Dahlman, the Alopecia Angel, because she treats hair the same way I treat autoimmunity. The label on the scalp is not the disease.

Johanna reversed her own alopecia areata after years of appointments that either piled on pharmaceuticals or told her to live with it. In this episode she names the blind spots even functional doctors miss, why minoxidil is a lifelong trap with rebound shedding, and why hair is the whipped cream, not the cake.

If your hair is thinning with Hashimoto's, postpartum, or another autoimmune label, this one is for you. Stop treating it like a shampoo problem.