Phoenix Helix: Autoimmune Resilience

There is a complex connection between hormone balance and autoimmune health. The more balanced our hormones, the more balanced our immune system (and vice versa). Over the years, I've dedicated many podcasts to this topic, and in this episode we'll be focusing on the menopausal transition. While smooth for some, this time of life can be rocky for others, leading to sleep issues, mood swings, hot flashes, and autoimmune flares. I'm 49 years old and currently in this transition myself. My guest, Dr. Lara Briden, is a naturopathic doctor who is passionate about women's health. We'll be talking about diet, lifestyle, supplements, and bio-identical hormones - all strategies that can restore balance in this important time of life.

If you have symptoms without a diagnosis, or symptoms that remain in spite of all the interventions you’ve tried, this episode is for you. DNRS is a home therapy based on neuroplasticity. With chronic illness, symptoms can actually become wired into our brains, even when the triggers for those symptoms are removed. DNRS rewires the brain (and body) for health. It has helped people with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, multiple chemical sensitivity, irritable bowel syndrome, mold toxicity, chronic inflammatory response syndrome, mast cell activation, and more. These conditions are often called “mysterious illnesses”, meaning there’s no clear cause or effective treatment. DNRS approaches healing in a new way.

There are lots of different types of fasts: juice fasts, water fasts, bone broth fasts, detox cleanses, intermittent fasting, etc. When is fasting helpful vs. harmful? Why does one person feel better after fasting and someone else feel significantly worse? Can we predict this in advance? For people with autoimmune disease, is this something we should try or something we should avoid? My guest, Dr. Amy Nett, will be answering these questions and more. She's a functional medicine physician and will be sharing the latest research. Visit https://www.phoenixhelix.com for show notes.

In this podcast episode, we take a detailed look at Lupus. How does it differ from other autoimmune diseases, and how is it diagnosed? Can diet and lifestyle make a difference? What are the best supplements? Is medication always necessary, and how do you make that decision? My guest is integrative rheumatologist Dr. Daniel Lewis. He has over 25 years of experience combining the best that conventional, alternative, and nutritional medicine have to offer.

When you start researching alternative health protocols, you quickly run across information on heavy metal toxicity. In this podcast, we delve into this topic in detail. What are heavy metals anyway, and how can they impact autoimmune disease? Is treatment always a good idea, or can it sometimes harm instead of help? I have a wonderful guest to answer these questions and more. Dr. Christopher Shade has a PhD in Environmental Metals Chemistry, and he has trained doctors worldwide on the subject of heavy metals and the human detoxification system.

For my 100th podcast episode, instead of interviewing someone else, I thought it would be fun to share what I've learned on my autoimmune journey so far. I developed rheumatoid arthritis in 2012, started blogging in 2013, and started podcasting in 2014. While I never would have chosen autoimmune disease, it has transformed my life in positive ways, alongside the really painful ones. I've come a long way from where I started, and I'm not done learning yet! I hope these insights will help those of you facing a new autoimmune diagnosis, and resonate with those of you who have been walking this path for years. Tell me where you agree and disagree, and what lessons you've learned along the way.

In modern life, most people feel insanely busy, but few realize that they’re spending hours each day on their phones. The average smartphone use in the United States is over 4 hours per day.  What does this have to do with autoimmune disease? A healing diet and lifestyle takes a lot of time to implement, so right away, a smartphone is competing for that time. But it impacts our lives in other ways, too. Technology use has been linked to increases in anxiety, depression, feelings of social isolation, insomnia, brain fog, the inability to concentrate, and more. When we have these issues, we often blame our diets or our autoimmune disease (which can be the cause), but technology can be a root cause is well. In this podcast, two guests and I share our experiences "unplugging" in a variety of ways, from small to large. I also include a printable PDF in the show notes, which lists all 10 experiments, so you can try them yourself.

How do we lay the foundation for a healthy gut, and therefore a healthy body? When diet alone isn't enough, what's the next step? Do you have to work with a healthcare practitioner, or are there things you can try at home? In this podcast, Dr. Michael Ruscio answers these questions and many more. He is a functional medicine clinician, educator and researcher, specializing in digestive and autoimmune health. He's also the author of a new book: Healthy Gut Healthy You.

A Prescription for Joy might sound frivolous, but it’s actually an essential part of any healing protocol. What if it could be the key to remission? When we focus on autoimmune health, we rightly focus on things like diet, sleep, supplements and medication, but we often miss this very important piece. Life is meant to be enjoyed, even during challenging times - especially then. In this podcast, two people with autoimmune disease share their personal experience with filling this prescription, and how it helped them break through a healing plateau. I also share my own experience alongside practical tips for you.

Every day, our liver works hard on our behalf, and when it’s struggling, it can impact our health bodywide. Detoxing is all the rage, but the truth is, sometimes detox protocols can make you feel worse instead of better. Why is that? How can we support our liver naturally, without overwhelming it? And why is it essential to everything from hormone balance to autoimmune health? In this podcast, we'll be answering these questions and more. My guests are Dr. Alex Golden and functional nutritionist Megan Blacksmith. They’re the women behind the website Zesty Ginger, and liver health is one of their specialties.