THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 235

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:01.474)
Well, Dr. Nathan, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you.

Neil Nathan MD (00:06.172)
Thanks for having me.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:08.63)
I think you’re well known enough and I’m gonna read an intro at the start before this conversation actually goes so that the audience will have a sense of who you are and where you’re coming from. So I’d love to dive right in because there’s about a thousand questions I wanna ask you and we’re probably only gonna get through like 10 of them. So what I wanted to start off with is you wrote the book, The Sensitive Patient’s Guide to Healing.

And I still think this might be a new term for some people. So I think what I’d love to start with is how do we define the sensitive patient? How is that patient different from someone who’s maybe experiencing something like mold or Lyme and they’re having negative symptoms, but it’s not quite at the level of this sensitive patient. How is that different?

Neil Nathan MD (00:57.501)
Okay, so sensitive patients evolve from mold and Lyme. That if those conditions go untreated for a period of time, it eventually affects their nervous system. It also affects their biochemistry. So specifically the limbic system, the vagal system and mast cell activation become activated in most of those patients. Not everyone with Lyme, not everyone with mold.

but many of those patients over time will have manifestations of that sensitivity. And by sensitivity, I mean things of the senses. That means people become sensitive to light, sound, touch, food, smells, chemicals, EMF.

anything in which someone’s sense is heightened to the point that it actually begins to bother them or limits their functioning. That’s what we’re talking about.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:59.006)
Mm-hmm. And it’s different, right? Because you might experience mold and that’s causing a little bit of hyperactivity or gut indigestion, but it’s not this excessive sensitivity across the board that is really then starting to impede my ability to engage in life and the world.

Neil Nathan MD (02:20.153)
Yes, and the more we study it, the more some degree of sensitivity and the causes is probably present in most people with mold and Lyme and maybe even almost any chronic illness. So what I mean by that is that let’s dissect it a little bit. The limbic system is the part of our brain that is trying to keep us safe.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (02:33.891)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (02:38.307)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (02:44.847)
and it’s trying to keep us safe by scrutinizing the stimuli we’re being exposed to, both external and internal. So this is not a psychological process, this is a neurological process. So as we evolve from childhood, none of us have had perfect childhoods.

Our limbic system is the part of our brain that is monitoring the events in our life so that we are safe from those events.

So for example, if you had recurrent ear infections and throat infections and went on lots of antibiotics, put the limbic system a little on edge. If you needed surgery or you had an emotional reaction like the loss of a parent, or if you had parents who were either abusive or not there for you, all of those things would make your limbic system become hypervigilant.

It would be like putting your tentacles out there into the world and saying, I am not sure I’m safe, so I’ve got to really pay attention to what’s going on out here. That grows as life goes on. And so if we then get a chronic illness or something that can directly impinge on our nervous system, like Lyme or Bartonella or mold, that kind of is like the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Then the limbic system goes, whoa.

You are really not safe and I need to get your attention so that you do something about it. So the limbic system will give us symptoms in two main categories, emotion and sensitivity. So if you’ve become sensitive to anything, that’s limbic. If you have become more anxious, panic, depressed, OCD, mood swings, depersonalization, derealization.

Neil Nathan MD (04:42.653)
and you didn’t have that before or you had it before and it was minor and now it’s really become significant. That’s limbic. So the limbic piece is that piece and that is the piece of sensitization. Now to make this a little more complicated because it is complicated. The limbic system works hand in glove, intimately interwoven with what we call the vagal nerve system.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:03.264)
We love it. Hit us.

Neil Nathan MD (05:12.251)
which is a different part of the brain with the same job. So when one system is basically hyper reactive, so is the other system. Now the symptoms from the vagal side of it are in the category of, first of all, the vagus nerve controls sensation from virtually the entire GI tract. It controls intestinal motility. So…

constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, indigestion, reflux. That has a vagal piece to it. The vagus nerve also is a major part of our autonomic nervous system. So, POTS, blood pressure changes, palpitations, temperature dysregulation, all of that is vagal. So, when patients are talking to me,

They may not realize that the symptoms that they’re laying out for me are literally saying, yep, there’s a limbic and there’s a vagal piece here. And when those are dysfunctional, and here’s the good news to anyone out there that has that, we can treat those things. And this is a relatively new field that, I mean, I’ve been in medical practice for well over 50 years. 30 years ago, I never saw sensitive patients.

maybe one. And then by the mid-90s, I began to see more, and then it evolved to seeing lots. There’s literally an epidemic of this type of sensitivity. I mean, to give you a feel for that, they did a study in Britain in which they came up with 1 % of the English population

Leigh Ann Lindsey (06:44.322)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (07:02.749)
has so much sensitivity to chemicals and smells and other things that they are literally legally disabled. And they estimate that up to 35 % of the British population, and that extends to us as well, are affected by negatively some degree of sensitization. So we’re not talking about something rare or weird or…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (07:11.487)
Wow.

Neil Nathan MD (07:29.585)
something unusual. This has become epidemic in the world we live in. And I think it is reflected in the events of our lives that have our limbic system on edge. COVID played a huge role in that. The upheaval that we’re experiencing politically these days, the wars that are breaking out all over the world.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (07:33.238)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (07:57.357)
and things that people don’t think about, like global warming and the pollution of the world that has become. So all these things are affecting our bodies and affecting our ability to cope. So if I were to say there’s one disease that I see most often in this world, it is numbness. It is that people have begun to define

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:11.487)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:21.144)
that’s powerful.

Neil Nathan MD (08:27.195)
the stresses that they live under as normal. And as such, they’re on edge, they’ve got stresses up the wazoo, they aren’t coping with them very well, they might sleep very well, they zone out front of the television set, drink alcohol or do whatever they need to do to unwind, and they don’t do it very successfully. And all of this comes down to

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:53.397)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (08:56.025)
a limbic system and a vagal system that really needs help. So what I’m talking about are the canaries and the coal mine. What I’m talking about is those people who have a worsened sense of this because the illnesses that they have have weakened their immune system and brought them to the point that their nervous system nearly needs help. So I’m sorry for that long-winded explanation, but

Leigh Ann Lindsey (09:01.037)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (09:21.996)
Mm-hmm.

We love it, it’s fantastic.

Neil Nathan MD (09:26.887)
But that’s the meat of this. And as long as I’m on a roll here, one more big piece to this puzzle is mass cell activation. And the limbic system, the vagal system and mass cell activation are completely intertwined biochemically and neurologically. And for those in your audience who don’t know what mass cell activation is,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (09:34.19)
you

Neil Nathan MD (09:54.053)
Mass cells are a part of our immune system. They’re an immune cell that bridges our immune system and our emotions. when people’s limbic and vagal system are affected, almost always the mass cells are affected also. And until recently, we thought that this was very rare. But in the last 10 years, we’ve discovered that

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:17.23)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (10:23.389)
17 % of the population has mast cell activation. And in our Lyme and Mold patients, that’s closer to 70 to 80%. Now, this is a biochemical exacerbation of what the limbic and vagal systems are already doing, but it’s biochemical as opposed to neurological. And what this means…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:32.164)
Wow.

Neil Nathan MD (10:46.365)
The easiest way to begin talking about this, because it’s complicated, is one of the most obvious symptoms that you have, mast cell activation, is any symptom that comes on immediately after eating, maybe while you’re eating, is mast cell activation. It’s not allergy. Even water can cause it, which makes people go, well, that’s impossible.

Well, it’s not impossible. And if the mast cells are really activated, even drinking water in an activated state can trigger palpitations, fatigue, abdominal pain, cramping, itching, hives. A wide variety of symptoms can come on immediately after eating. And that’s the tip-off. There are more subtle forms of it as well, but that’s the glaring part.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (11:32.302)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (11:37.041)
where people will tell me that, well, yeah, I get gas and bloating immediately after eating. Well, that’s not food allergy, which is what they’re thinking about. One more tip off is it fluctuates so that from the mold toxicity aspect, mold toxicity in the body fluctuates, not the same amount of toxins floating around constantly. And so that causes fluctuating levels of mast cell activation.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (11:49.295)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (12:06.427)
What that means for a person clinically is sometimes you can eat certain foods and react very strongly. The next day you could eat the same thing, no reaction at all. And that really confuses folks, which is if it was allergy, it would be the same reaction every time, but it’s not. So these three factors are the, I call them the trifecta of sensitization.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:21.281)
Exactly.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:28.138)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (12:36.377)
And the good news for anyone out there listening to this is that we didn’t understand anything about this 20 years ago, but we do now. So now that we understand this and there’s a whole lot of other additional pieces to these puzzles, we now have the tools to be able to help these really sensitive folks become less sensitive, in fact, get completely well. So you don’t have to live like this. That’s the take-home message.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:44.877)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (13:02.935)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s so powerful. I’m so glad we got that right here in the beginning. So there’s hope from the very start. I’m going to take us back to a couple of points in what you just made, because there were some really powerful things I want to make sure we highlight. First is you already answered a question I wanted to ask, which is, have there always been patients this sensitive or is something changing that is really causing people to be more and more sensitive? And I think you spoke to this

in different words, but what I heard from what you said is in some ways we’re inundated externally with more pathogenic and pollutant toxicity than ever before, but we’re also inundated with more, I think, emotional spiritual toxicity than ever before. the depth of misalignment in which we are living in mind, body, and spirit.

I think might be what is contributing to this.

Neil Nathan MD (14:03.357)
The answer is yes. So yes, I saw a few sensitive patients earlier in my career, nowhere near the number that I see now. It has truly entered the epidemic just the way mold toxicity is epidemic and Lyme is epidemic. And a lot of people don’t know that. There are millions of people in this country with mold toxicity and Lyme disease, and most have no idea.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:25.359)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (14:33.853)
They just think, well, I’m under stress and life is difficult and I have these symptoms and my memory is not as good as it was and I’m not thinking as clearly and I am fatigued, but isn’t everybody? And the answer is, you shouldn’t be.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:52.067)
Right? It’s common, but it’s not normal. Yeah. To your point, I think something I see in a lot of the clients I work with is they might’ve had mold toxicity for…

Neil Nathan MD (14:56.788)
Correct.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (15:08.799)
years and maybe they had that brain fog or that kind of low-grade anxiousness, but it wasn’t too severe and to your point it really does seem like they’re that trifecta is what pushes them into that highly sensitive state where What I see with pretty much every cancer or chronic illness patient. I’ve worked with is The disease really took off after a very significant emotional trauma

And that for a lot of people was the stone that, or sorry, the, the, you know, the thing that tipped the camel’s back that then pushed them into this. And I’m sure it could also be the reverse. Like there was proceeding a ton of emotional trauma that is keeping the limbic system dysregulated. Then they get exposed to mold and that boom throws them out. It’s just too much at that point.

Neil Nathan MD (15:56.091)
Yeah, to expand on that, this is really about whether or not you have a robust immune system. So you could be living in a moldy environment. if your immune system is robust, you may have very few or no symptoms until your immune system takes a hit. Now, that same thing is true for Lyme.

You can be bitten by a tick and have very few or no symptoms as long as your immune system stays robust. But if the immune system takes a hit, now that hit could come in the form of an infection. COVID was a biggie. Any virus, any flu, a surgical procedure for women, menopause, childbirth can do it, or any emotional upheaval of any type.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:42.552)
Hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (16:49.201)
can weaken the immune system and that what’s already there now is no longer contained and we are off to the races. So that underlying concept applies in cancer, which is one piece of the immune system, and it applies to how the body deals with infectious agents and toxins, which is a different part of the immune system. But in the sense, we’re really talking about a robust immune system versus one that has become weakened.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (17:18.25)
Mm-hmm.

Right. And then it’s asking the question, what is causing this weakening? But to, think the point you make in the book, it, the way that we approach healing for a sensitive patient has to be different than the way we might approach it for someone who has mold, but they’re not quite in that like high sensitive place. And this is what I’d love to get a little bit of a better sense of is what are you seeing? And I can speak to a couple of clients of mine who’ve shared some of their stories with me of they tried to do

mold detoxing and it made their symptoms so much worse they got so sick because it was too much too fast. What else are you seeing with these highly sensitive patients that changes the way we need to approach healing detoxing etc?

Neil Nathan MD (18:05.127)
Well, that’s the tip off they’ve become sensitive, which is they will try a treatment that would work for most people and they can’t do it. They get worse. That could even be a homeopathic. It could be something very gentle. Doesn’t matter. Or maybe they were working online and in the past they could take normal doses of antibiotics. All of a sudden they can’t. Now those antibiotics throw them under the bus.

because what has happened, this is exactly what we’re talking about, is over time, their limbic vagal and mast cell systems got to the point that they became dysfunctional. Now they can’t do it. So I think I know where you’re going with it, and that’s where I want to go with it also, is whenever we’re working with anyone with any chronic illness, one of the things we need to ascertain from the beginning is

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:34.895)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:53.133)
You

Neil Nathan MD (19:03.789)
are the limbic vagal and mast cell systems affected already? Because if they are, jumping in with normal treatments will make them worse. They can’t handle it. And then they will become, they’re usually anxious and upset and worried and depressed. And now they’re going, my goodness, I can’t even do what a normal person can do. And they put an additional stress on their limbic system. So we need to come to the table with an understanding

Leigh Ann Lindsey (19:14.061)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (19:33.069)
of my first assessment for anyone I ever work with now is how sensitive are you? And if I ask enough questions, I get a feel for it, then I can go, okay, we can’t even do anything until you do limbic and vagal rebooting first. Then if you’re able to, we can add mass cell treatment. Then we can get to whatever else you need that is causing all of this in the first place.

So if you have mold or Lyme, there is an order of treatment that I see too many patients, you know, jumping on antibiotics or starting on binders or antifungals and getting worse because people haven’t realized that no, that’s not the starting point. The starting point is to get an idea of what that being in front of us needs and starting there and starting very gently.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:02.479)
Hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:27.951)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (20:31.119)
And slowly, you can’t hammer these systems. You need to ease into all of them, but it’s doable. I mean, I’ve successfully treated 4,000 5,000 people with mold toxicity, and the vast number of the people that I work over on the sensitive side. So, yes, we can do this if you understand the order of treatment and what needs to be done in what order.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:58.753)
It’s so powerful, right? Because we, we, what we need to do is we need to update our initial assessment rather than go. even within the integrative medicine field, this is, I feel like this is a new concept, even in integrative medicine of, know, we’ve gotten on board with, we got to check. We have all of our cancer patients are getting, we’re looking into things like mold and heavy metals and pathogens that are underlying. And we’re all hip to that now, but this is the next layer.

of and even if all of those things are present, we need to be doing an assessment of where is their limbic system, vagus nerve and mast cell at? And if any of that is going on, that’s where we have to start. Yeah. And I just think to your point, I want to highlight this too, because I’ve seen how much dis-ease it can cause patients is

Neil Nathan MD (21:42.842)
Absolutely agree.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (21:52.087)
You get excited. You’re like, my God, they found mold. Okay. That’s what it is. And the doctor puts them on all these mold treatments and they get so sick. And I’ve had patients of my own who are either number one feeling like this is just a part of the healing. I’ve got to just grit through this sickness. It’s a part of the hump I have to get through, or they spiral deeper and then they feel even more hopeless of what is wrong with me. Now I’m even more confused than I was before if there was mold.

but we’re detoxing and I’m getting more sick. Why am I not getting better? And those are kind of the two categories I see people falling into is pushing through treatments that are really way too much for them kind of in the name of healing.

Neil Nathan MD (22:36.571)
Yeah, we see that all the time. So again, even in the integrative medical field, they may hear about these things, but I don’t think they recognize what a huge percentage of our patients are being limbically, vaguely challenged. And if we don’t understand that and bring that into play early on, things are going to backfire.

Even in terms of having a relationship with a patient, I’ve had a lot of doctors lose their patient because they started out with ordinary treatments and the patient went, you obviously don’t know what you’re doing. I’m out of here. Which is, it’s unfortunate for both sides. So hopefully this information will begin to percolate into the way that we understand what we’re doing because it’s new information.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:16.227)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (23:34.383)
or relatively new. It’s about 15, 20 years old now. you know, it takes a long time for the medical field to let any new information in, even if it is super important and helpful.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:49.753)
Totally, completely, I want to go back to, we touched on this briefly. I’d love to us to go over each of these really specifically just so the audience has this signs that the vagus nerve is dysregulated or affected, signs the limbic system is affected, signs of mast cell activation. So signs and symptoms for each of these just so we all can kind of have that list in our head.

Neil Nathan MD (24:15.837)
And to make this complicated, many of these, particularly in the mast cell activation category, are the same symptoms as mold toxicity, Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, because…

All of them are being triggered by inflammation as the underlying issue here. And once the body’s inflammation triggered by cytokines gets involved, then there’s a huge overlap of symptoms making it harder to tease this all apart. By the way, long haul COVID falls into the same category. So we’re now faced with many of our patients don’t just have one of these things, they have several.

and we need to tease it apart so we can know what needs to be treated in what order. Again, what I’ve learned is that moltex is it needs to be treated first, long-haul COVID if you have it, and then Lyme. If you try to treat the Lyme, the immune system is so weak, you usually can’t handle the medication for it. And most of my patients are too compromised to do that at all.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:03.268)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:14.863)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (25:25.853)
Okay, so back to your question. Just to repeat, on the limbic side, any increase in sensitivity, light, sound, touch, chemicals, EMF, that’s limbic. So to make it clearer, this means people who need to wear sunglasses inside or go outside can’t handle it, have to have sunglasses on. Light is too…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:43.159)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (25:55.769)
difficult for them to handle. The sounds around them, I’ve heard some of my patients say, I can’t deal with the sounds of my family make when they’re chewing dinner. It’s too loud for me. It’s just an increase in sensitivity to sound, smells, chemicals. This has been known for a long, long period of time. We have a name for it. We call it MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. And these are folks who

can’t go down the detergent aisle in the grocery store, or they will either immediately pass out, they could have a seizure, or go brain dead literally and not be able to think straight. This is very real. It’s not in anyone’s head, but it is very limiting. I’ve had patients where walking down the hall in our clinic,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (26:38.19)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (26:52.793)
A patient literally had what we call a pseudo seizure, which is not a fake seizure. It’s a real seizure, but it doesn’t show up on any EEG the way other seizures do. Walking past a woman who had washed her clothes and tied, because that is a very strong, that’s a big one for a lot of people with chemical sensitivity. And EMFs, which doesn’t get enough time either. EMFs are electromagnetic frequencies. This means

The cell phone computer, the electrical devices in your home, the cell towers that you have is markedly increased our sensitivity to these things. And in turn, that has made everything else worse. And a lot of folks don’t understand that we have literally polluted our environment, not just with chemicals, but with EMF radiation as well. So the jump from 4G to 5G

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:36.025)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (27:51.997)
wasn’t the jump of one. It was a jump of a thousand fold increase in the radiation that we’re exposed to. And now they’re rolling out 10g. increasingly, many patients can’t function in that environment. And those who have it severely literally need to move to the country where there’s literally nothing for a quarter of a mile in any direction. They can’t use electrical devices in their home.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:03.151)
Ugh.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:19.065)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (28:21.233)
This is very real. It is not psychological and it is increasing. So that sensitivity. And then on the emotional side with the limbic system, anxiety, panic, depression, hopelessness, despair, depersonalization, derealization, which means feeling like you don’t belong in your body or feeling like your body isn’t yours anymore. OCD, mood swings.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:27.458)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:44.334)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (28:50.945)
even in any exacerbation of an underlying bipolar or schizophrenic type issue. Again, that’s limbic. So that’s the limbic side. To repeat on the vagal side, any GI symptom, gas, bloating, distension, abdominal pain, cramps, diarrhea, constipation, reflux, you almost always as a vagal component. And then the autonomic nervous system part of that.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:58.742)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (29:21.009)
difficulty with swallowing, palpitations, pots, blood pressure fluctuations, temperature dysregulation. Again, that’s minkle.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:33.377)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay.

And then the mast cell, what is that looking like in terms of symptoms?

Neil Nathan MD (29:41.937)
that again, varies. Mass cell activation is a very complicated process. When the mass cells are activated, they release over a thousand different biochemical mediators into our bloodstream, most of which exacerbate any inflammation we already have. So wherever our weak points are, that’s where it goes. So literally anything in any system of the body can be mass cell activation. It can be fatigue.

cognitive impairment, neurological symptoms, peripheral neuropathy, shortness of breath, wheezing, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, again, emotional upheaval, sinus symptoms, anything pretty much. The list of nacelle activation is so huge that…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (30:34.499)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (30:38.907)
And it varies from one person to another based on your genetics and your own biochemical makeup.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (30:41.571)
rate.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (30:46.415)
Thank you. wanted to just list those all together really succinctly so people had those. A quick question that came up as you were sharing those is when it comes to the limbic system and these different sensitivities, is it common that people have, they’re sensitive to everything? It’s kind of an all or nothing or is it some people are really sensitive to sound but not light and vice versa? Or does it tend to be across the board? I’m sensitive to everything.

Neil Nathan MD (31:14.363)
It varies enormously. It usually starts insidiously in one area and then expands, especially if what’s causing it isn’t treated. So if you don’t make the diagnosis of mold toxicity or Lyme disease, what starts as slight sensitivity to light begins to get worse. And then you might get EMF sensitivity or you might get… So it’ll vary from one person to another. Rarely is it all.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:43.182)
Okay.

Neil Nathan MD (31:43.655)
There’s one medical condition in which there tends to be global sensitivities, and that’s carbon monoxide poisoning.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:51.471)
okay. Interesting. Now, next question is, what does testing these three systems look like? And as it stands right now, is this primarily a Q and A between the practitioner and the patient, or are there quantitative ways we can test the limbic system, specifically the vagus nerve specifically and mast cells specifically?

Neil Nathan MD (32:17.871)
The testing is totally inadequate if you need a label for it. But honestly, if someone gives me those symptoms, I know you have it. But there are a few symptoms that you testing. So first of all, there is elaborate testing that is possible for mass cell activation. There’s a bunch of some fairly rare tests, which are very hard to do properly that do exist. You need special

Leigh Ann Lindsey (32:22.797)
Okay.

Neil Nathan MD (32:46.513)
cold centrifuges to get the blood done properly, and very few labs have that, so the testing is notoriously inaccurate. One of my issues with the medical profession is that once we began to understand how common mast cell activation was, there is now a mast cell clinic in every major medical center in this country. However, they still don’t understand

that mast selectivation is being triggered by things like mold and Lyme and they don’t look for it. So they’re putting a bandaid on it and not really getting to the source of it. Second, many of those clinics are academic in their nature and they won’t make the diagnosis if their inadequate testing is negative. And I’ve had many patients leave those clinics. I wind up seeing them. They have

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:21.867)
Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:35.727)
Mmm.

Neil Nathan MD (33:41.045)
absolutely classical severe mast cell activation, but their triptase level wasn’t quite high enough to meet their criteria for putting into their system. So please, this is a diagnosis, what we call a clinical diagnosis. If you have those tests done and they’re positive, great. But if they’re negative, it absolutely doesn’t rule it out. Now, on the vegas side, there’s a couple of little things you can do.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:53.069)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (34:05.847)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (34:10.557)
One is, if you have someone open up their mouth and look inside with a pen light and you have them go, ah, ah, ah, ah, the uvula, which is that little tiny thing that drops back at the back of your throat, should basically go vibrate by going, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, But it should be in the midline. When the vagus is affected,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (34:31.383)
up and down kind of.

Neil Nathan MD (34:37.553)
The movement of the uvula is trivial. It virtually doesn’t move. So it’s a very simple thing you can do to get a hand on it. Another thing, and this is mildly disgusting, but clinically helpful, is I can ask someone to gag. And what I do, people say, I’m nauseous all the time. I’m going to throw up. I’ve never had anybody do that. But I’ll bring the wastebasket over and say, OK, if you do, we’ve got that covered.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (34:52.579)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (35:06.429)
So you simply ask someone to take a deep breath in gag and breathe out like this. Same simple. Patients are often shocked when they put their finger down their throat and they start moving it around as they can’t gag. So the loss of the gag reflex is a simple other way to go, yup, my vagus is affected. So they’re simple, a little crude.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:32.333)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (35:34.877)
But it’s doable.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:38.531)
Hey, we’ve got people doing coffee enemas over here, so I think we can handle a finger down the throat. And then the limbic system. I think this is worth asking, right, because I know the audience is listening going…

If there are tests, they want to be able to ask their practitioners to do them or order them. And if there aren’t really reliable tests, that’s great. That also can be a part of they have then peace and confidence of if my practitioners just taking me through a questionnaire, that really can be quite adequate.

Neil Nathan MD (36:11.003)
mean, if someone has access to it, heart rate variability is another way to look at the vagus nerve. But for the limbic system, it’s basically from symptoms. I’m not aware of any specific tests that absolutely can say, you’ve got limbic dysfunction. It’s usually plenty easy by history.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:28.344)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:32.557)
Yeah, I love it. I wanted to make sure we got that answer. So with all that said, now that we have the groundwork, if we’ve gone to a practitioner, we’ve, we’ve deemed that there is limbic imbalance, vagal imbalance, mast cell activation. Where do we start? What are some of the ways we can support these different systems?

Neil Nathan MD (36:54.577)
Well, there’s a whole bunch of programs out there that really will reboot the limbic system. The three that I use most are Annie Hopper’s dynamic neural retraining system, which is abbreviated DNRS, Asha Gupta’s amygdala retraining program. The word amygdala is another word for limbic and Kathleen King’s primal trust. Those are the three systems I use most. There’s others out there.

but I’ve had well over a thousand patients do each of those and I know how effective they are. So I try to match the personality of my patient with the system because they’re all a little bit different.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:30.551)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:38.415)
Yeah, so that’s a big starting point. Is there an element of, I have lots of questions on that by the way, but I also want to ask this first. Is there an element of, so that’s…

Those are different processes. Those are different vagus nerve regulation practices. Are we at all including supplementation or modalities like I’m making something random up a red light therapy, PEMF, or is it no, we can’t even start with any of that yet. We need to just start with one of these three programs or something similar because they’re too activating.

Neil Nathan MD (38:18.464)
It depends on how sensitive the patients are. The ones that I see are usually for many years, I get the ones that are super sensitive that are referred by my colleagues. So in my patients, it’s straight limbic retraining and only a little of it.

So for example, in any hoppers program, she usually starts by going, you need to do this for an hour a day to get maximum benefit. And I’ll go, no, no, no, no, no, don’t do that. You know, 10, 15 minutes a day tops, that’s it. Work your way into it. Go easy. We’re dealing with people who are often cognitively impaired as well as anxious.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (38:59.652)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (39:00.995)
And they just literally don’t have the brain power to do an hour a day, even if they wanted to. And we’re talking, you know, professional people. not talking about anyone who’s who’s not bright enough. These are people who’ve lost their ability to do those things because of the illness that is affecting them. So you need to go slow with all those things. But that’s my starting point. I. I separate in my mind.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:05.08)
Nah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:24.271)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (39:27.993)
limbic work from vagal work just so that people can understand. You need to do some of both. If you’re just doing vagal work, that’s not going to be enough. Example, many of the patients who come to me will go, I’ve meditated all my life. I know how to meditate. I do that. I’ll go, that’s great. But that’s not specifically limbic. So we need to do more specific limbic work for you because

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:38.262)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:50.678)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (39:57.233)
Keep meditating, that’s wonderful, that’s great, but that’s not sufficient. And you need to combine limbic and vagal work initially for it to work. If you just do one, won’t work. And to add to that, if you were gonna work on the mast cell program and you don’t have the limbic and vagal in place, a lot of the treatments for mast cell activation don’t work that well. It’s a package deal.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:08.707)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:20.929)
Okay, so even within that trifecta it’s and we need to start with limbic and vagus together symbiotically.

Neil Nathan MD (40:28.017)
Yeah, that’s my starting point. On the vagal side, there’s a whole lot of things you can do. Years ago, we knew that humming, singing, gargling, gagging helped. We now have more specific and more effective ways than that. Those are fine, but we can do better. We have what are called vagal nerve stimulators now, which are able to more directly do it. Now,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:46.285)
Yes.

Neil Nathan MD (40:56.665)
some of the units out there are much more.

hard on the limbic system, on the vagal system than others. What I mean by that is there’s a device called GammaCore, which you can put right over the vagus nerve in your neck, and that would blow most of my patients out of the water, which is, sensitive patients can’t do that. It’s great for other things. There’s ear-based devices. There’s a branch of the vagus that goes through the ear. Again,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:21.731)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (41:32.081)
that’s stronger than most of my patients can handle. So I wind up using for my sensitive patient, a device that goes on the wrist called Apollo Neuro, which is much gentler and most of my patients, if they start gently enough, can work their way into it and benefit from it. Another device that I love for treating this is frequency-specific microcurrent. That is a…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:42.103)
I love the Apollo. Yep.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:52.547)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:59.032)
Okay.

Neil Nathan MD (41:59.769)
It’s a many, many uses frequency specific microcurrent, but their program for vagal tone also has a limbic piece to it. And it’s a great starting point.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:11.535)
Is that an at home device?

Neil Nathan MD (42:14.383)
There is an at-home device that can be given by practitioners, but you can’t buy it without having a practitioner set it for you, which I believe is the right way. If people tried to use it without really knowing how, that would be, it would not work. You need to have a practitioner start giving you some treatments to get a feel for what the settings need to be. Then they can equip you with a home unit.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:18.659)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:23.191)
order it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:31.545)
Got it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:41.473)
Is this at all similar to Brain Tap?

Neil Nathan MD (42:45.063)
Brain Tap is different. They’re very different. I like Brain Tap also. Again, you got to be careful with Brain Tap because my first question to people who want to use Brain Tap is, are you sensitive to light or sound? If you are, you’re not going to like it very much. So again, it’s not for everybody, but I am found Brain Tap for your audience is a device in which

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:46.84)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:01.975)
Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:06.029)
Yes.

Neil Nathan MD (43:14.981)
It looks like a virtual reality headset with earplugs. So you’re stimulating the eyes and the ears with sound and light. And that’s a very good device for rebooting the vagus. That’s what it’s specific for. I’m really fond of osteopathic cranial work as another treatment. It’s very, very gentle, very effective. And I do separate

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:36.367)
Yeah…

Neil Nathan MD (43:44.647)
craniosacral work from osteopathic cranial work. Craniosacral is a kind of watered down version of the osteopathic model. So if possible, find an osteopath trained in that to do that. And there’s a website you can go to for that. It’s called the Osteopathic Cranial Academy, which is a branch of the osteopathic profession that trains and certifies physicians to do this work. Very fond of it. It’s great with kids.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:48.719)
Hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:12.175)
Oh Uh huh. Oh, this was gonna be a question I had, so I love that you’re answering that. Oh, go ahead, sorry.

Neil Nathan MD (44:19.389)
So it’s great with kids. Also great with kids is the device developed by Stephen Porges called Safe and Sound, which is a sound-based treatment that anyone can use, but he really developed it’s stunning for kids.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:37.335)
Okay, since we’re here, I’ll ask the question that one of my audience members offered, which is she has a daughter who isn’t able to do a lot of, is extremely sensitive and also not able to do a lot of the things that might support the limbic or the nervous system. And so with these two.

Neil Nathan MD (44:52.743)
How, how, how, how old?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:57.913)
nine I think maybe eight or nine.

Neil Nathan MD (45:00.241)
Okay. There’s a lot of vagal treatments for kids, but FSM is great for kids, but FSM, frequency-specific microcurrent is great for kids. Kids can even use an Apollo neuro device. There aren’t a lot of limbic programs really for kids. They’re not designed for kids.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:02.989)
be a little younger.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:09.731)
What is it?

Mm-mm-mm.

Neil Nathan MD (45:31.375)
I have found though, that if you do any Hopper’s DNRS program and a parent does it with the child, they can often get great benefit from it. I’ve used it in kids as young as seven, but it depends on the emotional age of the child and their cognitive abilities. Teenagers can certainly do it. Kids over 10 can almost always do it. Between seven and 10,

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:42.904)
Okay.

Neil Nathan MD (46:01.261)
If a parent will do it with the child repeatedly, one round, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, it can be very effective and it does work.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (46:11.455)
Mm-hmm. Can you… So the safe and sound, speak to that really quickly too. That sounded interesting.

Neil Nathan MD (46:17.821)
It’s a way of modifying sound for everyone individually, that it’s a modified sound, a computer modified sound that has been shown to quiet the vagus system. One of the ways to understand that is there’s a muscle in the ear called the stapedius muscle, which controls

the volume of sound that comes in, it can kind of dampen down the ear bones and not let them vibrate as much. it is a modifying point. And you can literally use sound to affect that muscle to relax, which has an effect then on the vagus nerve.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (47:07.799)
Yeah, I think when it comes to the kids, some of the things, especially when they’re that young, need to be a little more passive. Adults can do more actively engaged things, but for the kids, if it’s something passive they can listen to and don’t need to put a ton of cognitive focus into, it sounds like it could be really beneficial or just more efficacious.

Neil Nathan MD (47:30.781)
It is. We do need some limbic capabilities for even the younger kids. Hopefully we’ll have that before long.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (47:47.063)
Yeah. So a question I wanted to go back to on the limbic piece is, you able, I, this is a whole new sector of support for me. I’m really well versed in Vegas nerve support, nervous system support, and what a lot of those somatic practices can look like meditative practices, et cetera. But what, do you have an example of a limbic support practice?

Neil Nathan MD (48:12.357)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (48:12.653)
Or what is it that some of these programs are taking people through or having them sit and do for an hour?

Neil Nathan MD (48:20.167)
Well, first of all, I don’t recommend doing it for an hour, know, 10, 15 minutes. But I mean, it’s a whole modular teaching program that has been developed by those folks. mean, Annie Hopper and Asha Gupta started this.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (48:23.349)
Right.

Neil Nathan MD (48:41.757)
15 plus years ago. And Kathleen King has added her program to that. I don’t know that I can describe shortly what it is because it’s pretty elaborate. It involves, it’s literally a rewiring of the way people think.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (48:53.656)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:00.943)
So I guess that’s my question. Is it things like reflection questions that you’re thinking about and journaling on? Or is it physical somatic practices people are doing?

Neil Nathan MD (49:11.781)
It’s a physical practice. I’m trying to find language in to describe it. They won’t do it justice, but part of it is all of our patients who are limbically challenged are operating out of fear. And it’s helping people to become conscious of how they are.

thinking and speaking and the negativity that they come up with. The way they focus on their symptoms is making them worse. So you need to literally reboot how you talk and think so that you’re… Yeah, exactly, exactly. Every fear thought you have…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:58.307)
giving safety signals to your body, not danger. Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (50:07.789)
augments the circuitry in your limbic system to make that worse. So you literally have to break those those fear cycles. And many people are semi unconscious about their thoughts. But if it’s brought to their attention, it’s like, I can’t do that because I finished the sentence. It’s then you’re telling me your limbic system needs help because you’re afraid that if you try this, this will happen or.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (50:21.09)
Absolutely.

Neil Nathan MD (50:37.735)
So again, you need…

I have language for it. I call everything we do flying under the limbic radar, which is you need to do whatever you do, whatever the treatment is, whether it’s psychological, whether it’s a homeopathic, whether it’s a supplement, whether it’s a medication, it has to be at a low enough dose that the limbic system is able to look at that and go, yeah, that’s safe. I’ll let you do it. Otherwise, it literally won’t let you do it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (50:48.111)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:07.043)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Nathan MD (51:10.351)
And then you’re in that state that you’ve described where people try something and they’re getting worse. And then they go, well, this must be the wrong path because this is not working.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:23.117)
Yeah. So a piece I want to, I want to spend a second on and then again, all the questions we’re not going to get to, but that’s okay. This is all so rich. Here’s where I go with the depth psychology piece, right? The unconscious piece is I have, I have thoughts that are perpetuating a state of fear and danger. And, and I’m here’s my shtick with some of those programs. Now I’m not dissing them. They all serve such a great purpose.

It’s still only working on a conscious level with a lot of these things. And that might be enough for some people to rewire. And if it’s not enough to rewire, this is where I’m going to make the argument that just like we’re doing the root cause on the physiological side, we have to do the root cause on the emotional unconscious side, which is if I am looping in these fear thoughts, what are the experiences that created this and working just presently?

day with that might not be enough to get those thoughts to break. We have to go back and address the original experiences that created these fear thoughts. Now again the nuance of this is… go ahead.

Neil Nathan MD (52:33.789)
Yeah, I agree. When they’re ready.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:40.079)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Neil Nathan MD (52:41.253)
And so a huge percentage of our patients have old psychological, emotional, spiritual or energetic trauma. And you sometimes have to make them stronger first before they’re able to look at those and address those. You have to get them safer. So you’ve got to get the limbic and vagal systems more online.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (53:01.483)
Absolutely.

Neil Nathan MD (53:10.971)
so that they, in a safe place, can deal with those traumas because the reason they haven’t dealt with the traumas is they’re too scary.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (53:19.855)
Exactly, exactly. 100%. I think that’s such a powerful point. What I often see, because most of the clients who come to me are clients who have done a ton of talk therapy and didn’t find it that impactful.

they’ve been doing all the vagal work, nervous system work, and yet they can’t get their nervous system to regulate or they can’t fully get rid of these fear thoughts. And to your point, it’s, we have created enough stability, but for some people that is a big important part of the puzzle, is, if I can’t, if I’m doing all this Vegas and the work and meditation and my nervous system still not regulating, or I can’t get these looping thoughts

of my head we might have to go weird what created these in the first place is there a past trauma is this a generational thing is this a birth trauma that needs to be sat with but I completely agree with your point which is we also can’t just dive into that willy-nilly either there needs to be safety and containment and structure on all sides of it

Neil Nathan MD (54:26.481)
I agree.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (54:27.919)
I get on a little bit of a soapbox with that because there’s so much rhetoric on social media now of just do this nervous system work, just do these vagal exercises and you’ll regulate your nervous system and then you’ll be good to go. And I see so many clients doing nervous system work religiously and they’re like, why am I still…

in so much dis-ease emotionally. And so I think it’s important, right, for us to be able to go, yeah, it might not be that you’re doing something wrong. It might be that you’ve addressed a really important piece of the puzzle. And here’s another piece of the puzzle that you might now be ready to sit with.

Neil Nathan MD (55:07.157)
So there’s lots of ways of doing that. mean, earlier in my career, I did a lot of hypnosis and right hand emotional release type work. But again, what I learned the hard way over time.

was that people have to be ready for it if they’re going to get to some of those profoundly traumatic moments and be able in a safe place to let go of some of those emotions and energy and then rebuild their whole system in a healthier way.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (55:44.097)
Yep, absolutely. Discernment across the board. I know we only have a few minutes left. What I want to now get a sense of is, so let’s say they’ve done some of the limbic and vagal retraining, balancing, they’re in a better place. Where might one move from there? Is this now when we bring in supplements, treatments, modalities? And I know it’s hard to answer because it is so bio individual to each person. I get that.

Neil Nathan MD (56:09.755)
Well, once you if someone has mass cell activation, they don’t always then that’s the next thing to treat. So you get the trifecta squared away. Then you treat whatever is the primary issue. Be it in most of our patients. The biggies are mold toxicity, Lyme disease with its co-infections and long haul COVID. There are other viral infections. There’s other infections that can do it as well. But that’s

the basic order of things. So each person individually, depending on what we have figured out they have, which usually involves some degree of testing, working out with them. Where’s our starting point? Once their systems are settled down, now I can treat what’s really causing this in the first place.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (57:02.671)
Yeah, again, what it sounds like my biggest takeaway from this is first of all, if you’re getting diagnosed with long COVID mold or Lyme, the next question we need to be asking is, is my limbic system, my vagal system or my mast cell system dysregulated or overactive? That needs to be the place we start.

Can you give us, again, nuance, but what could a timeline of this look like when it comes to supporting this trifecta? For example, when we start supporting the limbic system, is this the kind of thing that you’re like, you know what, no matter what, that takes at least a month? Or have you seen things start to shift quickly? And again, I know it’s so, so, so nuanced to each person, but.

Neil Nathan MD (57:52.221)
You’re right, it varies from person to person. I usually tell patients that they need to do limbic and vagal work for at least six weeks to get their system squared away before we can get into something else. If they’re not that sensitive, we can concurrently do limbic, vagal and mast cell treatment for the first six to eight weeks. Once their systems are set, usually mold is the next thing.

And again, depending on sensitivity, I might start with minuscule doses of binders and then work our way into antifungals until we get the mold out of their system.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (58:33.869)
Yeah. I mean, we could do a whole hour conversation on just mold alone. So today was really more about the sensitive patient, specifically this trifecta of pieces. But I think it’s helpful because I’ve seen it where clients go to a practitioner who’s like, yeah, we’ll get that mold out of you in three months. And then three months go by and they’re sick.

Neil Nathan MD (58:55.197)
That would be someone who has no idea what they’re doing. It takes a year or more to get mold out of a person’s body, occasionally a little faster. But if someone is saying, I can get the mold out of your body in three months, either I want to study with them so I can do this better, or they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (59:22.991)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you’re a year is a really realistic…

Neil Nathan MD (59:28.931)
At least. At least. OK. Now mold is very happy in people’s body. We are supplying the mold or the candida and they usually go hand in hand with nutrients, perfect temperature. It’s it’s moist. Most of our patients have colonized so that the mold they were exposed to, some is in their GI tract and some is in their sinuses. So it’s happy there.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (59:35.853)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (59:58.383)
It isn’t going to leave because we ask it to leave nicely. Like, please, Maul, please, Candida, would you go away? You’re really bothering me. They’re going away. I’m on the Riviera here. I’m this is fabulous. So we have to be.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:00:10.766)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (01:00:16.738)
adamant that, no, no, you got to go. There’s no place for you here in this body. This body needs to be free of this so it can get back into its healing mode.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:00:20.792)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:00:29.807)
Well, and correct me if I’m wrong, just because we leave a, an environment with mold in a home and office space, and we are no longer exposed to it externally, doesn’t mean our body’s going to be able to then detox it all on its own because of that colonization factor.

Neil Nathan MD (01:00:45.287)
Well, it’s more than that. Yeah, the colonization is such that…

you’re carrying it around with you. I mean, if you go to Hawaii on vacation, you still have mold in you making mold toxins. now sometimes people think, well, I’ll go out of my house for two for two weeks. And if it was really mold in my house, then I would be better. About a third of the time, that’s true. And about two thirds of the time doesn’t make any difference because of this whole colonization component to it, which

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:01:13.357)
Mmm.

Neil Nathan MD (01:01:22.557)
I think a lot of people don’t really recognize. And you cannot get well from mold toxicity if you are being exposed. If it’s in your home, if it’s in your office, if it’s in your church, if it’s in your school, if it’s in your car, we have to find it and get rid of that exposure or you could do everything else perfectly here and you’re still not gonna get well. That is one thing. There’s a number of different schools.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:01:47.107)
Yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (01:01:50.757)
of how to treat mold, but that is one thing we all agree on, that you cannot get well if you’re still exposed. And that’s probably the most difficult aspect of treatment for many people.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:02:03.363)
Right? Because it’s a big thing. It’s either I need to remediate, if it’s a home, I need to remediate my home, which is incredibly expensive, or I need to sell my home and move, which is also incredibly expensive. So, yeah.

Neil Nathan MD (01:02:15.099)
Yeah, it’s a biggie any way you look at it, but it’s a deal breaker. You can’t get well. we’re usually dealing with multiple people in a household that are sick to varying degrees. So it isn’t just for one person’s sake, it’s for everybody’s sake that we get into a safe environment.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:02:35.969)
Absolutely. Like I said, we could do a whole hour on mold and I would love that at some point because I’m sure your insight and just what you’ve seen clinically over the years is so powerful. I want to be respectful of your time though. So with that said, anything we didn’t cover that you feel is really, really important for the audience to hear.

Neil Nathan MD (01:02:54.429)
Well, you’re right, we have hours more that we can talk about this stuff. But I think we did a good job on going over the essences of what makes somebody sensitive and how to approach treatment. I always want to be sure that the audience understands that every single thing we’ve talked about today is treatable. So if you’re struggling with any of this, we can treat it.

And I think that’s really the take home message. I also want the audience to know that we didn’t spend as much time talking about it, but ultimately we need to treat what’s causing the sensitization in the first place. So at the risk of being self-serving, my book, Toxic, which just we just have our second edition out, will really cover all of these causes.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:03:40.077)
Right.

Neil Nathan MD (01:03:53.039)
in much more detail so people can understand the bigger picture and how to look at it. So that would be very helpful for a lot of folks.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:03:58.499)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:04:02.263)
Yeah, you’re reminding me of a question that I really, really wanted to make sure we asked. And I’ll ask it quickly, which is, it feels like there’s a little bit of a catch-22 here, right? When we talk about we need to start by supporting the limbic system and the nervous system before we treat mold. But if mold is a part of the reason why my nervous system is messed up, are we ever going to be able to get ahead of it?

Neil Nathan MD (01:04:25.915)
I said, it only takes six weeks for most people to quiet the limbic and vagal systems enough that now we can treat them all. So we’re not putting it on hold for years. We don’t have to complete the process, but we’ve got to make that person safer in order for them to be able to respond to our treatment.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:04:38.126)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:04:50.657)
Yeah. I think it’s just powerful, right? Because the mold can really mess up the nervous system. And, but what I feel like you’re saying is there is still a lot of nervous system balancing we can do with some of these other practices, even while mold is present. But ultimately we do need to go get the mold.

Neil Nathan MD (01:04:56.902)
Yes, it can.

Neil Nathan MD (01:05:12.625)
Right. You can get a bit better if you’re living in mold doing it, but you can’t get well. So that, as I said, that’s a deal breaker.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:05:21.901)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Dr. Nathan, this was fantastic. Thank you so, so much. I mean, like I said, I have 50 other questions here that I knew we weren’t gonna be able to get to all of them, but it was such a joy to get to have you share your insight on everything that we did get to cover.

Neil Nathan MD (01:05:40.561)
I hope that these words will help some of the folks that are listening to either understand better what they have or that their loved ones, friends or family has, but also understand that this is a journey that we can complete and really get our loved ones well.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:06:00.299)
Mm-hmm, absolutely.