Made for Health | Peptides | Lyme | Chronic Infections | Long Covid | Insulin Resistance | Hypermobility

🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

What if cancer is not simply an isolated enemy to attack, but also a signal to look more closely at the terrain in which disease developed?

In this powerful episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman sits down with Dr. Nasha Winters, ND, FABNO, L.Ac, Dipl.OM, a naturopathic doctor and Fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology whose work focuses on metabolic and integrative oncology.

Dr. Winters’ interest in cancer is deeply personal. At just 19 years old, after years of unexplained health problems, she was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer involving multiple areas of her body and was told she may have only months to live. That experience ultimately redirected her education, clinical career, and understanding of health. Pasted text(20261018-195841)

More than three decades later, she shares how that diagnosis changed the way she thinks about cancer, trauma, metabolism, environmental exposures, mitochondria, hormones, and the relationship between a person's biography and biology.

Key Topics Covered

• Dr. Nasha Winters’ stage IV ovarian cancer diagnosis at age 19
• Why her early symptoms were repeatedly attributed to existing diagnoses
• What changed when one physician recognized that something was different
• Her prognosis and the moment she decided she wanted to understand cancer rather than simply “fight” it
• The unexpected experiences she believes influenced her early survival
• Fasting and metabolic stress in cancer
• Childhood trauma and the Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACE, framework
• Big-T and little-T trauma
• EMDR and trauma processing
• Psychedelic experiences and confronting mortality
• Psychoneuroimmunology
• The relationship between emotions, stress, nervous-system signaling, and physical health
• Cancer as a disease of the individual “terrain”
• Environmental exposures and the exposome
• Mitochondrial health
• Metabolic dysfunction and cancer
• Insulin and growth signaling
• Hormone metabolism
• Integrative approaches to prostate cancer
• Integrative considerations in breast cancer
• Colon cancer and the rising burden of cancer in younger adults
• Why Dr. Winters believes patients should understand their individual terrain
• How integrative oncology can work alongside conventional cancer care
• Why patients may have more influence over their health than they realize

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ How Dr. Winters went from a 19-year-old pre-med student with advanced cancer to spending decades studying integrative and metabolic oncology

✅ Why finally having someone believe that “something is different” was an important moment in her diagnosis

✅ How childhood experiences and unresolved trauma became part of the way she understood her own illness

✅ Why she considers metabolic health, immune function, nervous-system regulation, environmental exposures, and emotional health together rather than viewing cancer through one pathway

✅ What she means when she talks about a person's “terrain”

✅ Why Dr. Winters evaluates factors such as insulin signaling, hormone metabolism, environmental burden, inflammation, and mitochondrial function

✅ How she approaches different cancer types through an individualized lens rather than assuming every person with the same diagnosis has the same underlying terrain

✅ Why she believes conventional oncology and integrative oncology do not need to exist in opposition

✅ How patients can begin learning about their own health patterns even before facing a cancer diagnosis

Resources & Links:

🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com

🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here

🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle

Connect With Dr. Nasha Winters

🌐 Website:

https://drnasha.com/

🎙️ Podcast:

Tend the Terrain

Mentioned in this episode:

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🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

In this Made for Health solo minisode, Dr. Aaron Hartman continues his ongoing series asking a deceptively simple question:

Why are you still sick? Why does your body seem stuck even after you’ve addressed so many other pieces?

After years of working with patients dealing with mold illness, Lyme disease, autoimmune issues, gut dysfunction, SIBO, hormonal problems, brain fog, mast-cell activation, and other complex conditions, Dr. Hartman says one pattern increasingly stands out: the nervous system itself may remain dysregulated even after other contributors have been addressed. Pasted text

This episode explores what he calls a nervous-system triad involving limbic-system dysregulation, mast-cell activation, and vagal dysfunction, along with trauma, multiple chemical sensitivity, the “cell danger response,” and why some patients paradoxically feel worse when given treatments that seem biochemically appropriate. Pasted text

The central idea is not that chronic illness is “all in your head.” It is almost the opposite: your brain, nervous system, immune system, mitochondria, and stress-response pathways may all be communicating with one another—and sometimes the body has difficulty returning to a state that feels safe enough for recovery.

Key Topics Covered

• Why nervous-system dysregulation may keep some chronically ill patients feeling stuck
• Why “it’s all in your head” can be a damaging oversimplification
• Big-T trauma, little-T trauma, and healthcare-related trauma
• Limbic-system hypervigilance
• The amygdala, memory, emotion, and threat perception
• Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and TILT
• Mast Cell Activation Syndrome as part of the nervous-system picture
• Vagal dysfunction and autonomic regulation
• Fight, flight, freeze, shutdown, and overwhelm
• Polyvagal concepts discussed in the episode
• Chronic stress and the body’s sense of safety
• The “cell danger response” framework
• Mitochondria and inflammatory signaling
• Why some patients feel worse from supplements or detoxification protocols
• Reactions to glutathione, methyl donors, and other treatments discussed in the episode
• Brain retraining and nervous-system regulation
• EMDR, somatic therapy, parts work, breathwork, and tapping
• Why trauma work may sometimes need to happen earlier in the healing process
• Why foundational work involving stress, sleep, environment, and nervous-system regulation still matters

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ Why Dr. Hartman believes nervous-system dysregulation can remain even after mold, Lyme, gut, hormonal, or autoimmune contributors have been addressed

✅ How limbic hypervigilance may lower the threshold at which the body perceives something as threatening

✅ Why sensitivities to foods, fragrances, chemicals, detergents, supplements, or capsule ingredients may sometimes occur alongside nervous-system dysregulation

✅ How vagal dysfunction may influence patterns of shutdown, overwhelm, autonomic symptoms, and recovery

✅ Why trauma does not have to mean one catastrophic event

✅ How illness itself—and even difficult experiences within the healthcare system—can become physiologically stressful

✅ Why some patients can react poorly to treatments that appear “correct” on paper

✅ Why Dr. Hartman increasingly considers nervous-system work alongside detoxification, infection treatment, nutrition, and other functional-medicine strategies

Resources & Links:

🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com

🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here

🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle

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🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

In this deeply personal episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman sits down with Dr. Efrat “Dr. E” LaMandre, a family nurse practitioner, PhD in Integrative Medicine, host of the Medical Disruptor podcast, and a leading voice on medical gaslighting.

What begins as a conversation about why patients feel dismissed when their tests come back “normal” becomes something much more personal. Dr. E shares that she was recently diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer after months of back pain that she repeatedly minimized herself. The experience transformed her from a clinician who teaches patient advocacy into a patient navigating the healthcare system firsthand. Pasted text

Together, Dr. Hartman and Dr. E explore a rarely discussed side of medical gaslighting: the ways patients can begin gaslighting themselves. We may apologize for taking a clinician’s time, downplay symptoms, assume normal tests mean nothing is wrong, or ignore the internal sense that something has changed.

Their message is not to reject conventional medicine. It is to understand what each clinician can and cannot provide, continue investigating when symptoms persist, and build a healthcare team capable of looking at the whole picture.

Key Topics Covered

• What medical gaslighting actually means
• Why normal laboratory results do not automatically mean a patient feels well
• Why patients may feel dismissed even by well-intentioned clinicians
• Populations most affected by medical gaslighting
• Why women may be especially likely to minimize their symptoms
• Fatigue, migrating pain, unusual sensations, and GI complaints that can be difficult to fit into conventional diagnostic categories
• The habit of “pre-apologizing” before describing symptoms
• How patients learn to become “good patients”
• Why people sometimes trust test results more than their own bodily experience
• Intuition as a form of pattern recognition
• The importance of knowing when something is different from your normal
• Why self-advocacy does not mean rejecting doctors
• Understanding the limitations of individual medical specialties
• Why conventional testing still matters
• How to build a multidisciplinary healthcare team
• Choosing clinicians and researchers over unqualified health advice
• Avoiding overwhelm when facing a complex diagnosis
• Why healing plans may need to be implemented gradually
• The emotional and mental challenges of serious and chronic illness
• Hope, family, purpose, and continuing to move forward

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ What medical gaslighting can look like even when the clinician has good intentions

✅ Why being told “your tests are normal” should not automatically end the conversation when symptoms persist

✅ How patients can unknowingly participate in their own medical gaslighting by dismissing or minimizing what they feel

✅ Why Dr. E now tells patients to get concerning symptoms checked instead of talking themselves out of evaluation

✅ Why self-advocacy is not the same as being confrontational or distrustful of medicine

✅ How intuition can reflect years of subconscious pattern recognition

✅ Why every specialist has a particular role—and why complex health problems may require an entire team

✅ How to decide whose medical advice deserves your attention when everyone around you has an opinion

✅ Why you do not have to make every lifestyle or treatment change at once

✅ What becoming a patient taught Dr. E about exhaustion, uncertainty, hope, and the emotional burden of illness

Connect With Dr. Efrat LaMandre

🌐 Website:

https://www.drefratlamandre.com/

🎙️ Medical Disruptor Podcast:

https://www.drefratlamandre.com/e-podcasts

Dr. E shares additional education and updates under Dr. Efrat LaMandre across her social platforms. Her official website describes the Medical Disruptor podcast as a show featuring credentialed clinicians who examine the limits of conventional care while exploring integrative solutions. Dr E.

Resources & Links:

🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com

🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here

🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle

Mentioned in this episode:

25% Off Back to School Support for Parents

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Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents

🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

In this Made for Health minisode, Dr. Aaron Hartman continues exploring an important question: Why are you still sick? Why does your body seem unable to get back into a healing state?

This time, he focuses on dysautonomia and POTS—Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome—conditions involving dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system, which helps regulate processes such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, digestion, sleep, and the body's response to stress. Pasted text

For some people, the signs are dramatic. For others, they can be subtle: feeling lightheaded when standing, experiencing a racing or pounding heart seemingly out of nowhere, waking suddenly at night, struggling with brain fog, cold hands and feet, unusual skin color changes, temperature intolerance, or simply feeling significantly better after fluids, electrolytes, compression, or time spent calming the nervous system. Pasted text

Dr. Hartman explains why dysautonomia can easily become one more overlooked layer in complex chronic illness—and why identifying what originally disrupted the nervous system may be just as important as identifying POTS itself.

Key Topics Covered

• What dysautonomia means
• What POTS is and how it relates to dysautonomia
• The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
• Lightheadedness and dizziness after standing
• Heart racing and unexplained palpitations
• Brain fog and difficulty thinking
• Waking at night with a racing heart
• Cold hands and feet
• Changes in skin color and circulation
• Problems regulating body temperature
• Sleep, mood, hormonal, and gastrointestinal symptoms
• Why mild dysautonomia may be overlooked
• Fluids and electrolytes
• Compression garments
• Nervous-system regulation
• Dysautonomia after concussion or head injury
• Long COVID and post-infectious dysautonomia
• Lyme disease and nervous-system dysfunction
• Hypermobility and POTS
• Mast Cell Activation Syndrome
• Autoimmune and gastrointestinal overlap
• Why the patient's history can guide treatment
• The NASA Lean Test
• Physical examination findings Dr. Hartman considers
• Why treating the underlying trigger matters

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ Why POTS is only one form within the broader category of dysautonomia

✅ How autonomic nervous-system dysfunction can affect much more than heart rate and blood pressure

✅ Why symptoms may sometimes resemble anxiety or panic

✅ Why someone can have significant autonomic symptoms without fitting a textbook presentation

✅ How POTS and dysautonomia may overlap with hypermobility, mast-cell activation, mold illness, Lyme disease, autoimmune issues, gut problems, and post-infectious conditions

✅ Why Dr. Hartman asks when the symptoms started and what happened around that time

✅ How concussion, illness, trauma, infection, or other physiological stressors may become part of the clinical timeline

✅ Why fluids, electrolytes, compression, strengthening, and nervous-system regulation may become part of an individualized approach

✅ How the NASA Lean Test can help collect heart-rate and blood-pressure information over time

Resources & Links:

🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com

🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here

🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle

Mentioned in this episode:

25% Off Back to School Support for Parents

Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents

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Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents

🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

In this special episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman shares the deeply personal story behind his journey from conventional family medicine into integrative and functional medicine—and why Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine exists today.

The turning point began with his daughter, Anna.

When Dr. Hartman and his wife began caring for Anna, who had cerebral palsy and significant medical needs, they quickly found themselves questioning recommendations from specialists. One of the earliest moments involved a recommendation for a feeding tube because Anna was considered extremely small on a standard growth chart. Dr. Hartman and his wife declined, believing there might be another path. Months later, they discovered a growth chart specifically for children with cerebral palsy—and Anna was right in the middle of the expected range. Pasted text

That experience fundamentally changed how Dr. Hartman viewed expertise, medical decision-making, and the importance of looking at the right frame of reference for the individual patient.

From there, his family continued exploring alternatives when standard medicine seemed to offer only procedures, medications, or surgery. Their search took them into nutrition, genetics, advanced gut testing, functional neurology, rehabilitation technologies, neuromodulation, and other approaches that were often being used elsewhere long before they became familiar in mainstream American medicine. Pasted text

Today, Anna continues to make progress far beyond what her family was originally told to expect. Dr. Hartman shares how that experience shaped not only his life as a father but also his identity as a physician, researcher, and lifelong student of medicine. Pasted text

Key Topics Covered

• How Dr. Hartman originally entered medicine
• The difference between learning medicine and truly learning how to heal
• How adopting Anna changed his personal and professional life
• Raising a child with cerebral palsy and significant medical needs
• Why his family began questioning specialist recommendations
• Anna’s feeding-tube recommendation and the importance of the correct clinical reference point
• Why medical experts can sometimes be wrong
• Medical gaslighting and families with special-needs children
• Looking beyond one-size-fits-all treatment
• Why function mattered more than appearance in Anna’s care
• Exploring nutrition, genetics, gut health, and functional neurology
• Technologies and therapies used in neurological rehabilitation
• Why Dr. Hartman became increasingly interested in root-cause medicine
• His transition from traditional family medicine into functional medicine
• The role of clinical research in shaping his thinking
• IFM, integrative medicine, functional medicine, and advanced training
• Learning about mold, CIRS, mast-cell activation, and hypermobility
• How his understanding of chronic illness evolved over time
• Why short conventional appointments were not enough for complex patients
• The creation of Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine
• Why complex patients need time, curiosity, and individualized care
• Moving the practice to a fully functional-medicine model
• The role of faith, family, persistence, and continuing education
• Dr. Hartman’s vision for the future of personalized medicine

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ Why caring for his daughter became the biggest turning point in Dr. Hartman’s medical career

✅ How using the wrong clinical reference point almost led Anna toward an unnecessary feeding tube

✅ Why Dr. Hartman began questioning the idea that specialists always have the complete answer

✅ How parenting children with complex health needs pushed him to investigate nutrition, genetics, neurology, and rehabilitation more deeply

✅ Why functional medicine appealed to him as a way of asking “Why?” rather than only treating the diagnosis

✅ How research helped him recognize that many “new” therapies are often built on decades of previous science

✅ Why conditions such as mold illness, mast-cell activation, hypermobility, and complex chronic illness required him to keep expanding his training

✅ Why he eventually realized complex patients needed much more than a 10- or 12-minute appointment

✅ How Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine grew from a personal family journey into a practice serving patients with complex chronic conditions

Resources & Links:

🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com

🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here

🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle

Mentioned in this episode:

25% Off Back to School Support for Parents

Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents

25% Off Back to School Support for Parents

Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents

🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

In this Made for Health minisode, Dr. Aaron Hartman continues exploring the question at the center of this series: Why are you still sick? Why does your body seem stuck even after addressing so many other pieces?

This time, he turns to something that connects nearly every structure in the body but often receives far less attention: fascia and connective tissue.

Dr. Hartman explains that fascia helps support organs, tissues, joints, nerves, and other structures throughout the body. For people with hypermobility, those tissues may be more lax or stretchy, which he believes can influence everything from joint stability and pain to nervous-system activation and complex chronic illness. Pasted text

And hypermobility doesn't always mean someone can still perform obvious “double-jointed” tricks. Dr. Hartman explains that people who were very flexible when younger may become increasingly tight and painful as they age because the surrounding fascia can stiffen and develop areas of restriction—even while certain joints remain hypermobile. Pasted text

Key Topics Covered

• Why fascia and connective tissue may be an overlooked part of chronic illness
• What hypermobility actually means
• Why hypermobility is more than being “double-jointed”
• The relationship between fascia and the nervous system
• Why loose connective tissue may increase sensory input to the brain
• Hypermobility as both a potential strength and vulnerability
• Why hypermobile people may become tighter with age
• Fascia, pain, and nervous-system activation
• Ehlers-Danlos syndrome versus the broader hypermobility spectrum
• The Pentad Super Syndrome discussed by Dr. Hartman
• Hypermobility and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome
• Hypermobility and POTS/dysautonomia
• Gastrointestinal issues and connective tissue
• Autoimmune conditions and hypermobility
• Associations with ADHD, autism, OCD, and other neuropsychiatric conditions discussed in the episode
• Bruising, bleeding, joint instability, and sports injuries
• Nutrition and connective-tissue repair
• Protein and collagen
• Vitamin C and collagen production
• Trace minerals and connective-tissue health
• Bone broth, organ meats, and mineral-rich foods
• Why childhood flexibility history may matter in adults
• The Beighton score as a screening tool

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ Why connective tissue may deserve more attention when chronic symptoms aren't improving

✅ Why hypermobility affects more than just joints

✅ How Dr. Hartman connects fascia with sensory signaling and nervous-system activation

✅ Why someone can be hypermobile and still feel extremely stiff as an adult

✅ How hypermobility may overlap with POTS, dysautonomia, mast-cell activation, gastrointestinal problems, and autoimmune issues

✅ Why childhood flexibility can provide important clues even if you are no longer flexible today

✅ Why hypermobile athletes may sometimes experience repeated injuries despite being strong and highly trained

✅ Why Dr. Hartman pays particular attention to protein, collagen, vitamin C, and mineral status in hypermobile patients

✅ How the Beighton score can help identify physical signs associated with hypermobility

Resources & Links:

🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com

🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here

🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle

Mentioned in this episode:

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In this episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman sits down with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, a leading psychologist, author, and educator, to discuss how parents and teachers can better support neurodivergent children.

They explore the challenges these kids often face in traditional education systems—and why character, curiosity, and passion can matter more than grades. Dr. Capanna-Hodge highlights the value of hands-on learning, vocational training, and individualized education plans (IEPs) for fostering success.

With warmth and expertise, she offers practical strategies for helping children regulate emotions, build resilience, and thrive despite stigma or misunderstanding. Through personal stories and evidence-based insights, this conversation encourages a shift toward inclusive, flexible, and strength-based approaches to learning.

• Why traditional education can overlook neurodivergent kids’ strengths
• The role of character, curiosity, and passion in lifelong success
• How vocational and hands-on learning opens doors for all learners
• Practical emotional regulation strategies for children
• The importance of early intervention and individualized education plans (IEPs)
• How stigma affects children’s confidence and opportunities
• Building inclusive environments at home and school

• How can parents advocate for their neurodivergent child in school?
• What educational changes make the biggest difference for these students?
• How do emotional regulation skills support academic and social success?
• Why should we value vocational skills and creativity as much as grades?
• What can be done to reduce stigma in educational settings?

• How to recognize and nurture a neurodivergent child’s unique strengths
• Actionable strategies to support focus, learning, and emotional well-being
• Why flexibility in teaching benefits all students—not just those with diagnoses
• How to partner with schools to create effective IEPs and supports
• Resources to help parents and educators stay informed and empowered

• Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge – Official Website: drroseann.com
• Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com
• YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here
• LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

👉 Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or advocate, this episode will help you see and support neurodivergent children in a new light. Subscribe to Made for Health and share this episode to spread awareness and foster more inclusive communities.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

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25% Off Back to School Support for Parents

Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents

🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

In this Made for Health minisode, Dr. Aaron Hartman continues his series exploring one central question: Why are you still sick?

Maybe you've gone from provider to provider. You've received pieces of the answer, tried different treatments, and improved somewhat—but your body still feels stuck.

One condition Dr. Hartman believes can sometimes sit underneath that complicated picture is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, or MCAS.

Mast cells are part of the immune system and are found throughout the body, including tissues associated with the skin, gastrointestinal tract, bladder, blood vessels, and nerves. Because of that widespread distribution, mast-cell activation can potentially produce symptoms across multiple systems rather than creating one simple or predictable symptom pattern.

Dr. Hartman discusses symptoms such as rashes, hives, food and chemical sensitivities, reactions to supplements, heart palpitations, gastrointestinal problems, brain fog, and fatigue. He also explains why MCAS can overlap with conditions such as mold illness, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, nervous-system dysregulation, and other complex chronic health problems.

Key Topics Covered

• Why Mast Cell Activation Syndrome may be overlooked
• How mast cells interact with the immune system
• Skin symptoms, hives, and rashes
• Food, chemical, fragrance, and supplement sensitivities
• Palpitations and rapid heart rate
• Diarrhea, constipation, and gastrointestinal symptoms
• Brain fog and chronic fatigue
• Why MCAS can resemble many other chronic illnesses
• Mast cells and neurological symptoms
• Interstitial cystitis and other less obvious presentations
• The overlap between MCAS, Lyme disease, and mold exposure
• Why some highly sensitive patients may need mast cells stabilized first
• Challenges surrounding laboratory testing for mast-cell mediators
• Histamine, prostaglandin D2, and tryptase testing discussed in the episode
• Why sample handling may influence test results
• Clinical criteria and treatment-response trials
• Identifying the trigger behind mast-cell activation
• Stress and nervous-system activation
• Food and environmental chemical triggers
• Mold and Lyme disease
• SIBO and gastrointestinal triggers
• Hormonal shifts, menstrual cycles, and menopause
• Concussion, infections, travel-related illness, COVID, and other possible triggering events
• Why understanding when symptoms began can provide important clues

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ Why Mast Cell Activation Syndrome can produce symptoms throughout multiple body systems

✅ Why someone with MCAS may become unusually reactive to foods, chemicals, fragrances, or supplements

✅ How mast-cell activation may overlap with Lyme disease, mold exposure, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and nervous-system symptoms

✅ Why laboratory testing for mast-cell mediators can sometimes be difficult

✅ Why Dr. Hartman also relies on clinical history, symptom patterns, and response to treatment when evaluating suspected mast-cell activation

✅ Why calming mast-cell symptoms may sometimes need to happen before aggressively addressing mold, Lyme, or another underlying trigger

✅ Why improving symptoms is not necessarily the same as identifying the root cause

✅ How stress, infections, environmental exposure, gut dysfunction, and hormonal changes may potentially trigger mast-cell activation

✅ Why asking “When did this begin?” can be one of the most useful questions in a complicated chronic illness case

Follow Dr. Aaron Hartman and Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine

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In this episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman welcomes back Dr. Neil Nathan, a pioneer in integrative and functional medicine with more than five decades of medical experience. Dr. Nathan has spent much of his career working with the patients other practitioners struggled to understand—people living with complex chronic illness, mold toxicity, Lyme disease, multiple chemical sensitivities, chronic fatigue, and increasingly reactive nervous and immune systems.

Their conversation centers on a question that both physicians encounter regularly: Why do some patients improve to a certain point and then stop getting better?

For Dr. Nathan, the answer often requires looking beyond a single diagnosis or treatment protocol. A patient may have already addressed mold, Lyme disease, gut health, autoimmune issues, or nutritional deficiencies and still feel stuck. At that point, he believes healing may require exploring the neurological, emotional, energetic, and spiritual dimensions of illness alongside the physical ones.

The discussion also dives into the growing population of highly sensitive patients—people who may react to light, sound, touch, fragrances, foods, supplements, medications, or electromagnetic exposures. Dr. Nathan explains why these reactions should not simply be dismissed as psychological and explores how the limbic system, vagal system, immune system, and mast cells can become interconnected in chronic illness.

• Why complex chronic illness appears increasingly difficult to treat
• What Dr. Nathan means by a “sensitive patient”
• Sensitivity to light, sound, touch, fragrances, foods, supplements, and environmental exposures
• Mold toxicity and Lyme disease in complex chronic illness
• Environmental chemicals and the cumulative burden of exposure
• Dr. Nathan’s clinical perspective on electromagnetic field sensitivity
• Why some patients improve 50–60% and then become stuck
• Emotional, energetic, spiritual, and physical blockages to healing
• Trauma and neurological hypervigilance
• Big-T trauma versus accumulated smaller stressors
• The limbic system and the brain’s threat-detection response
• Vagal dysfunction and autonomic nervous system symptoms
• POTS, gastrointestinal symptoms, palpitations, and dysautonomia
• Mast Cell Activation Syndrome
• The connection between the nervous and immune systems
• Mold, mast cells, and hypermobility
• Cranio-cervical instability and the “spiky-leaky” concept discussed in the episode
• Thiamine deficiency and mitochondrial function
• Vitamin B1 and autonomic nervous-system health
• Oxalates as a potential source of inflammation
• Why dietary changes sometimes need to happen gradually
• SSRI and benzodiazepine withdrawal in sensitive patients
• Why medication tapering needs to be individualized and medically supervised
• Why Dr. Nathan refuses to use a one-size-fits-all mold-treatment algorithm
• The importance of truly personalized medicine

✅ Why Dr. Nathan believes some of today’s chronic illness patients are becoming increasingly sensitive and complex

✅ What distinguishes a sensitive patient from someone dealing with a single isolated condition

✅ Why mold, Lyme disease, environmental exposures, and immune dysfunction may overlap rather than exist as completely separate problems

✅ How trauma and chronic stress can contribute to a nervous system that remains hypervigilant long after the original stressor has passed

✅ Why the limbic system, vagal system, and mast cells may need to be addressed together in highly sensitive patients

✅ How autonomic dysfunction can contribute to symptoms involving digestion, heart rate, blood pressure, fatigue, and other body systems

✅ Why neurological sensitivity is different from simply labeling symptoms as psychological

✅ Why thiamine may deserve consideration when mitochondrial and autonomic function are impaired

✅ How oxalates can become another source of irritation and inflammation for certain individuals

✅ Why suddenly making major dietary changes may sometimes worsen symptoms in highly sensitive patients

✅ Why antidepressants and benzodiazepines should not be abruptly discontinued and why tapering needs to be individualized with the prescribing clinician

✅ Why the most sensitive patients often require treatment to move slower, not faster

Resources & Links:

🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com

🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here

📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here

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Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

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🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.

Back-to-School 2026:

https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/

In this Made for Health minisode, Dr. Aaron Hartman continues his series exploring an important question: Why are you still sick? Why does your body seem stuck even after you’ve tried so many things?

This time, he turns his attention to Lyme disease—an infection that can present in different ways and may sometimes enter the differential diagnosis when people are dealing with persistent fatigue, body pain, migrating joint or muscle symptoms, neurological complaints, or other unexplained problems.

Dr. Hartman shares examples from his clinical experience, including patients with symptoms such as chronic fatigue, widespread pain, Bell’s palsy, sciatica, and foot drop. His broader message is that when a patient’s symptoms do not fit neatly into the expected picture, clinicians may need to take another look at the history, exposure risk, symptom pattern, and appropriate testing rather than relying on one isolated result.

He also discusses the challenges surrounding Lyme disease testing, including antibody testing, Western blot testing, immunoblot testing, and symptom-based clinical evaluation. Current CDC guidance recommends a two-step, FDA-cleared serologic testing process and notes that antibody tests can be falsely negative during the first several weeks after infection. IDSA guidelines also recognize that a classic erythema migrans rash can be diagnosed clinically without laboratory testing.

Key Topics Covered

• Why Lyme disease may be considered when someone remains chronically unwell
• Persistent fatigue, body aches, and migrating pain
• Neurological presentations discussed in the episode
• Lyme disease and Bell’s palsy
• Dr. Hartman’s clinical experiences with unusual symptom patterns
• Why timing matters with Lyme antibody testing
• Standard two-tier Lyme disease testing
• Western blot and immunoblot testing
• The limits of relying on a single laboratory result
• The importance of symptoms, history, and possible tick exposure
• Dr. Hartman’s approach when clinical suspicion remains high
• The MSIDS questionnaire discussed in the episode
• Why chronic illness may involve more than one contributing factor
• When a deeper evaluation may be appropriate
• Continuing the search for overlooked contributors when someone feels “stuck”

In This Episode, You Will Learn

✅ Why Dr. Hartman considers Lyme disease in some patients with persistent or unusual symptoms

✅ Why Lyme disease does not always present in exactly the same way

✅ How symptoms such as fatigue, migrating pain, and certain neurological complaints may prompt further evaluation

✅ Why the timing of antibody testing can affect results

✅ How standard Lyme testing generally uses a two-step serologic process

✅ Why Dr. Hartman emphasizes looking at the whole clinical picture, rather than interpreting one test result in isolation

✅ How he approaches situations in which symptoms and previous testing appear not to match

✅ Why finding Lyme disease does not necessarily mean it is the only factor affecting a person’s recovery

Follow Dr. Aaron Hartman and Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine

🌐 Website: https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/

🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle

📺 YouTube: @AaronHartmanMD

Mentioned in this episode:

25% Off Back to School Support for Parents

Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents

25% Off Back to School Support for Parents

Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC.

Back to School Support for Parents