UNEXPECTED: Mold and Faith with Dr. Jill Carnahan

After growing up on a farm, active and at the young age of 25, Dr. Jill was diagnosed with stage 4 aggressive breast cancer. How is she here today?

Check out this incredible podcast as Coach Britt interviews renownd Functional Medicine Practitioner and MD, Dr. Jill Carnahan all about her story, mold toxicity, faith and her NEW, BEST SELLING BOOK "Unexpected."

Get the book and freebies here: https://readunexpected.com/

Thinking about getting certified as a Holistic Gut Practitioner, looking for a personal Gut Restoration Program, coach certification or maybe you want to try our FREE course "How to integrate gut and nervous system health into your wellness practice" HERE

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Speaker 1 0:03

What if every experience, every hardship, every obstacle was given to you, not to break you, but to mold you and strengthen you? What if the center of your suffering was actually the key to ultimate health? And what if your own pain was meant to be the catalyst for your greatest purpose? Welcome to Budha Belly Life, empowering Purpose Mind to Microbiome. Welcome to the Budha Belly Life Podcast. My guest today is renowned functional medicine practitioner and author Jill Carnahan . Dr . Jill Carnahan Can't take away that whose new book Unexpected is rocking the Souls of All it touches. These are just a few things being shared amongst the elite community of functional practitioners. Dr. Mark Hyman states, Dr. Jill Carnahan shares her riveting personal story and using her and uses her shocking diagnosis with aggressive breast cancer at only 25 years old. To introduce a new paradigm for readers where fear and the unknown are replaced with resilience, healing, and a very realistic set of tools to inspire health and communication with those who deal with in health . Um, within the four of this book, you guys boast additional support and praise from other well-known figures. This are just a few, such as Dave Asprey , Joan London, Dr. Amy Meyers, Dr. Frank Lipman , and many more . In the forward of this book, which this is one of my, my favorite pieces here, it was written by Dr. Sarah Gottfried, who you guys are probably familiar with and I'm really familiar with. And she states this in reference to Dr. Jill. I've observed in my 35 years of practicing medicine that people who have experienced the greatest hardships finding cancer at a young age, dealing with an incurable autoimmune condition or getting exposed to toxic stress , toxic stress from environmental chemicals, mold or trauma, often become the most soulful, compassionate healers and mystics searching for deeper truths. They're the people who tend to buck convention, so it's rare to find them in your local hospital or clinic. So with that said, we are so excited to welcome to the podcast Dr . Jill Carnahan .

Speaker 2 2:03

Thank you Brit . And what a heartfelt, beautiful introduction. Thank you. Thank you for having me here today. I'm super excited.

Speaker 1 2:10

Well, your humility is really sweet, but you absolutely learned it like or earned it like that. Those were the cliff notes of a lot of the stuff that I've read about the work you've done in your story and I love passion and purpose. So you guys, while we are going to cover things like mold and we're gonna get into some of her expertise that's gonna benefit more of you than you may believe , um, there's a lot of passion and purpose behind everything she's talking about and you know that I wouldn't have it any other way. So <laugh>, this is where we're a community that, that we stay in rising from the ashes, right? So, so yes , Dr . Jill , tell us, give us just a little bit of info. I know you probably repeat this a lot and I'm a little privy to it, but give us a little outline of your story and kind of how you got here, how you're more than just a doctor with a degree and with some information.

Speaker 2 2:56

Thank you Bri . Yeah, it so drives my passion, purpose, and I know your community understands that well from you and what you do. Um, I grew up on a farm in central Illinois. I was one of five children. Um, and you would think it was the most healthy idyllic place in the world. Very Norman wa Rockwell esque . I had parents that have been married over 50 years, like a great salad community foundation. I went to a small community , um, high school where actually academics were celebrated and just, it was a really, really wonderful childhood. But unbeknownst to me, a lot of the chemicals that are used , um, on growing corn and soybeans in the traditional man manner, which is what my father did , um, are very, very toxic to our bodies. And I did not know this growing up. Um, but the well water we had probably had some contamination with pesticides and herbicides and uh, things like atrazine, which are known to be endocrine disruptors. And what that mean is they have a hormone like effect on the body. So for men, like risk of prostate cancer for women, risk of breast cancer. And you know where the story is going because you heard in the intro, I was in medical school training to become a physician. I had the heart of a healer and I again , grew up around even we had a , uh, organic garden where we grew vegetables and fruits and things and ate a lot of things frozen, a lot of things . So I really had a very hel healthy, holistic lifestyle. And I decided to go into allopathic conventional medicine because I wanted to learn the best of the system that currently is reimbursable in the US and actually start to change and move the system to a more holistic way. Though even though I was in this allopathic model of, you know, traditional pharmaceuticals and drugs and surgery, there's a perfectly appropriate place for that if you have a heart attack or whatever. But I had this heart of a healer that really wanted to make change and say, how do we actually stay well and thrive? But I had no idea that I was going to face cancer in the midst of my medical journey. And at the age, literally one week after my 25th birthday, so I just turned 25, I found a lump in my breast and I didn't think anything of it. Cuz I mean, you know, young women fibrocystic breast, it doesn't mean it's cancer. And usually young women do not get cancer. I was so busy with rotations doing 36 hour shifts at a time, insane amount of work and I just didn't even have time for it. But at the urging of my husband at the time, I went ahead and got an ultrasound, a mammogram, needed a biopsy. And I never forget that day. I was sitting in the chair in my living room condo in Chicago and I get a call from the surgeon and she said, Jill, I don't know how to tell you this, but you have aggressive breast cancer. You're 25, which means you're gonna be in the fight of your life. I'm sure your listeners know people who've had breast cancer. It's so common. I bet every single one of the listeners knows someone, friend, family, someone in their circle that has had this. But it's a whole different disease when it hits young women versus 50, 60, 70, it's much more slow growing. It can still be deadly. It's a very serious disease. But in 20 somethings it's a death sentence. And to prove that, I was with the young women's group under 40, so there's a support group in Chicago where I was diagnosed and I am the only one still living Brit. Like it's wow , I'm a miracle. And I kind of knew in the early days of that, that I was facing, you know, something that could absolutely take my life. And the moment I get that call, my life changed forever. And I didn't know if I had six weeks or six months or six years. But what I knew is that I was born to be a healer. I was born to learn. And what I've learned over the years is every single experience, especially the most difficult ones, has meaning and purpose if we allow it to. And even at that very beginning stage when I was afraid I didn't know what to do, I had this sense that there was something greater if I hung on. That's like on a roller coaster hanging on for dear life, right ? And you're like, okay , what's coming? This is terrifying, but there's gotta be something good. And this is one of the things I teach in the book is perspective matters. So even at the early stages, I was scared. I didn't know what was gonna happen. I didn't know what I needed to do to treat it. I knew that if I looked for the meaning and purpose, if I looked for the bigger , um, uh, lesson there, then something good would come of it. And I would have never , uh, known in a million years how that could have transformed my practice of medicine. But it was probably one of the most powerful, not only teachers, but even platforms for me to speak and share and, and help humanity. Because I've been there. I've been a patient, I know what it's like. I went on to have three drug , very aggressive chemotherapy. Basically they took me up to the maximum allowed dose before my heart stop beating . And literally for the lifetime I can never have those drugs again because I've had the maximum capacity my body could handle. So it was devastating. The kind of the , the treatment was a lot harder than the breast cancer itself . Yeah, I lost all my hair. I learned a new word for hairless. It's called G laborious . So instead of bald, I'm like, I'm g laborious, <laugh> <laugh> instead of much, much nicer to say. But I was bald and I was, you know, weak. I was sick from that. And nine months later I got through radiation, multiple surgeries, chemotherapy. I was a wreck because those drugs are so toxic to the body. But I'd beat cancer and I came out of that a shell of myself and went right back into rotations. And this is one of the lessons I've learned in the book and shared too , is like how to re love and be kind to herself . Because at that PO point in my life, I was just pushing, pushing, pushing and suppressing my true needs and suppressing my need to rest and just being like, no, I have to show up. And of course, growing up in a farm, it's like that pull up by the bootstraps mentality where, you know, we have to show up and be strong and don't be weak and all those mindset things. And I really had to work to overcome that. But in my 26th year right after breast cancer, I didn't know any better. So I went right again back into rotations, back into insane schedule. I was so sick and I started having cyclical fevers, started having abdominal pain, I just chalked it up to the treatment cuz it was so toxic. But one day I couldn't ignore it anymore. When I passed out in the emergency room, I'm taking a patient's blood pressure and I'm on the floor and I was rushed into the ER as a patient. And that night I went into emergency surgery for an abscess that was brewing in my gut. And the next morning I came out and the surgeon came in to tell me how the surgery had went. And he said, Jill, you have Crohn's disease. So this is within a year period of time. And my second life-threatening diagnosis. Again, I was kind of in shock, like what in the world? Now in hindsight, I know those chemotherapeutic drugs, which saved my life, also created a massive intestinal permeability. So massive leaky gut. And then I was genetically programmed to overreact the bacteria that was leaking from the gut into the bloodstream into create Crohn's, which is when your body, your immune system goes awry and starts to attack your own tissues. So once again, life-threatening, my GI doctor that I followed up with a week later said, Jill, you're gonna be on lifelong immune modulating drugs. You need steroids, you're probably gonna have part of your colon removed over your lifetime. And this is incurable. I mean, he gave me a lot of hope <laugh> .

Speaker 1 9:32

Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Oh my .

Speaker 2 9:33

And I remember like sitting there thinking, okay, what can I do? And I knew some of the holistic principles, but I was still really quite ignorant. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And the last question I asked him was, you know, doc, I'll do whatever I can. Does diet have anything to do with this? Like, what should I eat? He did not stop, pause. He just said, Jill, diet has nothing to do with this. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And this lesson was my heart because my intuition was like, I didn't know much. I was a 30 medical student, I had no major nutritional background. My mind said, okay, I need to believe this doctor. Right? But my heart was like, that can't be true. How does diet not have anything to do with the gut and the gut inflammatory disease? So I went to prove him wrong and I found a certain diet called specific carbohydrate diet, which I talk about in the book. And within two weeks of changing my diet, my fevers, my inflammation was gone. So I wasn't cured. It took many years to fix the gut, but that was my highlight into number one, trusting my intuition. And I wanna take , talk to the listeners out there because many of you have had illness, have had issues. You've gone to a doctor said, doctor, I don't feel well, can you please help me? They do some tests and they said , everything looks fine. There's nothing wrong with you. That's called medical gaslighting. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and I wanna talk about that to some extent because you know, your body, even if you're with a professional and they know maybe medical education more than you, I wanna encourage you to trust your heart. In this sense, I trusted myself and I literally considered today myself cured from Crohn's because of that trust and my intuition.

Speaker 1 10:55

That's that's beautiful. And, and yes, and , and just to touch on this too, and it's never to, you know, depreciate medical professionals, you know , we need them. But we talk about this a lot and we've had enough doctors on here, and I love the functional medicine doctors for this reason, because traditional medicine consists, I mean, just the training of, you know, regular medicine is like 40% pharmacology. Yes . It's okay, let's understand the biology of the body. Let's understand all these disorders and, and conditions, and then let's find the right pill or whatever to treat the, and which more often than not is a symptom. And the doctors that like yourself who move their way , and you have such a story in what brought you there personally, which is even cooler. But the doctors that move their weight into expanding beyond that and knowing beyond that is because they start to understand that this body is multifaceted and not just on a physical level, but on an emotional and a mental and a spiritual level. And that we are not looking at, we're looking through this itty bitty little scope. And then yes, medical gaslighting, I'm huge about , uh, you know , uh, mental like manipulation and things like that. Right? There's so much in our, in our world environment and yes. And there's so much authority in like, I love that you brought that up because there's so much authority in what a doctor says or what, you know, where we perceive this, this, these words to be so true. And they can be a , they can cause a death sentence. I believe two people who give into that.

Speaker 2 12:27

I totally agree. Yeah. And I just wanna encourage that it's really in that heart space so we can be up here in an analytical mind, right? That's a great source of wisdom. But there's this heart body space where you as a listener, if you've been through something, you know, gosh, this doesn't feel right or something feels wrong. I just wanna encourage you to trust that because part of my journey was learning to trust that part, that intuition, that heart space. And, and that's part of the healing because your body knows, and you may not have all the knowledge or education, but you can find it. And you just wanna empower the listener. Because for me, as, and I was in medical school, right? I was trained, I was a trained medical professional and I still needed to trust that heart space for sometimes the direction to go.

Speaker 1 13:08

And we always say , we have a saying , and with our coaches, I always say, remember you guys, you are not there to help . Like first of all, you know, you're not a doctor, you stay in your scope of practice as a coach, but you're a great guide. But the individual is their own best practitioner. And I always say that, yes, there's nobody that can ever know your own body and your journey and all the things like you. And even the best, most skillful doctor, physician or anything is a contributor to your journey. Like you have to take those reins.

Speaker 2 13:40

Yeah . So coaches listen to , to Brett here, because this is so, no, I love this because, and as a coach you have this incredible, just like me, we have this incredible privilege of sitting in a holy space, this sacred space with a client or the patient and they pour out to you stuff they may never told anyone else. And to me that is like the most sacred gift in the world to be part of that place with them. And when you hold that space with unconditional love and acceptance and you say, I'll listen to you. I am here with you, you guys have such a powerful job and it's so, so important. And we as physicians need coaches like you and like all the people you're training Brit, because it is literally, to me, it's sacred that space. And so often when you create a space for unconditional love and acceptance, they're gonna share stuff they've never shared and you're gonna help them in a way that no one has ever helped them because of that sacred relationship.

Speaker 1 14:33

Yes. Thank you for that. That is, that is so true. So true. And, and, and you are. So I had rearranged some of these questions actually, cuz I actually retitled you guys, I retitled this podcast. Um, I don't remember what originally had it titled titled that , but what his titled as now is , was after going through more of, of her stuff, and really Dr . Jill , you talk about, and we're gonna get into talking about molden stuff , but I , because you're so passionate, because this is so important and because you talk about the heart space, this is something I'm still, I'm still in my journey every day as are most of the coaches, as are most of our clients, right? Like, it's crazy how we're empowered. We are given the blessing of being able to give even when we're still in a process of working . Yes. Like, maybe, maybe one day, like I'm behind the scenes, like going through it, doing all these deep, deep things alone, you know? And the next day I'm called out to help someone else and, and I can do it. You can still show up when you're not there cuz you're never there. Right. But you talk about really faith in the process and you share a story in her book, you guys, she shares a story about a patient who came to you and your clinic was booked out three years. And you, they basically, her mother, her her daughter was very young and she says she doesn't have three years. We don't know if she has three months. They were desperate, they'd seen 40 doctors, nothing was working. And they came to see you and you couldn't do anything for her. But can you explain a little bit of what , what you did for her? This is , this is really cool to me. And, and, and when we talk about faith here, guys, like I'm respectful of every single belief system and everything, but faith is something, I mean , we need to hang onto something, especially when we go through suffering. So can you just give a little

Speaker 2 16:18

Yeah. And before I do, I couldn't agree more , Bri I have a deep belief in God. But you may out there be atheist or a Buddhist or Jewish or Christian or whatever you come from or none of those. And I just wanna say to me, faith is something much greater. It's the how do we deal with the inevitable uncertainty of life mm-hmm . <affirmative> the stuff that , so whatever your background is, I just wanna be so open and, and let you know, when you listen to me talk about this, I am not bringing any perspective. I mean, I have a strong divine connection. Yeah. But there is such openness to anyone out there, wherever you're at, because uncertainty is inevitable. Right? It's gonna happen. And so often we build these things around just like insurance policies that make us feel like we have control. And I think one of the greatest gifts we can give to our clients and ourselves is like realizing that medicine and coaching and all the things we do is completely uncertain. There's not a black and white like, we'd like to think. So I just wanna empower you in that idea that faith is bigger than just a certain religion. That's not how I come here. So thank you for that and thank you for letting me be open. Okay. So the story, so Alex came to me and , uh, it still, it still , uh, chokes me up a little. And she was so, so sick with Lyme disease, mold illness, mass cell activation, this common chronic, serious, serious illness. Her gut was rejecting food. And she came to me at such a late stage that we try , we still tried to do things, but it , it wasn't very helpful. And what I did though is just like we talked about a moment ago, I just sat there and like opened my heart to, okay, what can I do? And opened my heart to just unconditionally being present with this beautiful child, 22. But she was, you know, a girl. And , um, I read the intake as I kind of felt this hopelessness. I'm sure as a coach, do you ever feel like you're with this patient and you have all this knowledge, you have all this ability to help, but they're these situations where you're like, I feel kind of helpless and I'm gonna say as even a expert functionalist and doctor , I've been there, I get it. And I was in that place with Alex. I was like, gosh, I don't know what I can do to turn this around. And I looked on her intake form and she said, faith in God was important to her. And again, I only do this. I I reach where I go into where they're at. Right. I'm not gonna put anything. But I said, can I pray with you? And we just had this like moment of divine connection about first of all, what's mean , your purpose for you as a patient , um, what , you know, could you do something greater in this last, you know, part of your life? It ended up, she created a foundation like that kind of time with her navigating what really matters to you. And , uh, having that like prayer blessing and peace and, and lack of pain for her , um, allowed her to think about something bigger. And she literally created a foundation to help patients get , uh, medical needs and testing and stuff so they could prevent where she was. And her mom wrote a memoir that's been acclaimed and all this happened. She ended up dying. I mean, that's like the ultimate awful outcome as a coach or a doctor, right? But what I see now is her mother is in the world during the message that her daughter wanted to share, she's created a foundation that has hundreds of thousands of dollars to help patients like herself. And this greater thing came out of it. And so I realized we're all terminal, right? That's really hard to think about <laugh> . Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . So like what meaning and purpose and passion do we and how can we impart in the clients your coaching? Because the things that live beyond us are what really, really matters or our passion and purpose while we're still here and we're not guaranteed another breath. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So it's how do we kinda have that perspective a meaning purpose? And for me it was profound and it was profound, Bri to share that in the book, he said , could be a failure on my part. Right. You could look at it like, oh my gosh, she died. Like that's tragic, but I wanted to celebrate it because death is inevitable <laugh>. And how do we like live life to the fullest in the best way that we can while we still have breath and life.

Speaker 1 19:55

Absolutely. And I think, you know, I'm finding in my own journey through things that we try so hard to latch onto control and this need for , uh, this, this vision, this illusion that we have of control A , is absolutely detrimental to us, to our physical bodies and our health and our adrenals and all these things. And also to our mind because then we live in more fear. We live in stress and angst of all the stuff that we're trying to control. Like in in , if we were to just come to that understanding, I think what, when you brought up that, that faith piece , um, and I just did a little class on this a bit ago, but I was like, the aspect of faith is, is trust. It's a trust that like no matter how ugly or how hard or whatever I may face right here and now I trust it like that the outcome for me is always going to be great on, in the end no matter what. And that this life is ultimately very short, you know, for in, in the grand scheme of things. And so she, like, she lived a ripple effect. She had a purpose to create this ripple effect that's still rippling and that is really beautiful. And she turned around and she had faith in the process of, of what her calling was during her time here.

Speaker 2 21:12

I love that. And I would also say, you know, my resilience is in the title and it's something I wanna part with you and everyone who reads it. And to me, resilience is what you just said, Brett . It's like knowing that no matter what comes our way, that we will have the reason . We may not have 'em right now at this moment, but in real time when something comes that's unexpected, very difficult, we will have what we need to overcome or to get through it. Yeah. And I, at this point, after all the things I've been through, finally I'm far from perfect. I still have doubt and fear and I'm human, but I have a, a sense of certainty about I will be able to overcome or deal with whatever comes my way. And that's part of what I'm gonna give to your audience. And you and anyone who reads a book is like, you too can have that assurance that you have what you need, that we have the resources we need.

Speaker 1 21:59

It's freedom. It's like soul freedom.

Speaker 2 22:03

Yes .

Speaker 1 22:04

Do you have a desire for fulfillment? Does helping people tap into their own health mentally, emotionally, and physically fire you up? Do you believe in the impact of the gut microbiome? On overall wellness? You may be an H W C A coach for more info on our cutting edge health coach trainings, visit H W C A coach.com . And so your journey after this point, so you've got the Crohn's disease and now you're, you're putting that into a remission kayley . You're, you're not only putting yourself through medical school at these early years when when really we're not very emotionally mature yet. Right. Right . Like as life goes on, we just, we think like, I'm so mature right now and in three years I'll laugh about how mature quote unquote I am . Right . <laugh> . Right . You know , I'll be , you know , 40 plus and be like, oh yeah , that was cute <laugh>. Totally. But so after you do this, then you start having additional issues. And this time it is relative to mold and yeah , we hear about mold a lot, but tell us a little bit about that. I think it's something we need to take way more seriously. And tell us a little bit about what you dealt with there and what it can look like in as far as symptoms and experiences that people may be having.

Speaker 2 23:22

Sure. So got through Crohn's, got through cancer and it took me a while to rebuild as you can imagine. But I was doing really well. And in 2010 I moved to Boulder, Colorado to start a functional medicine practice. Prior to that I had been in Illinois and uh , was thriving. I was running marathons, I was hiking, I was skiing, I mean very good health. And I thought, okay, all this is behind me. And then 2013 there was a massive flood in Boulder. It was called the thousand year flood. It flooded. Just literally did billions of dollars of damage, completely flooded the city. And the area surrounding my office was in Boulder, my medical office. And it was already kind of an older seventies building and the flood took it to the next level as far as water damage. And there were several things about it. And the basement had flooded and there was already mold growing there. Got a lot worse. And I was, my office was on the second floor right above a crawl space that was unfinished with standing water. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I didn't know any of this cuz I didn't know mold was an issue. Right. And then the other thing that I think is actually kind of funny now, but not funny. Um, my office, we rebuilt with beautiful bamboo floors and kind of remodeled it. And my contractor, who I didn't know any better, he put bamboo flooring right on top of old, like 20 year old carpet. So, and the boost soft . So every time you'd step, you'd squish this old and the carpet was probably full of mold and gross stuff. It's all that to say. 2014 , the year after the flood, I started having brain fog. I would, you know, I was really clear with the medical stuff, but as far as like names and words, I would have trouble with words and names. Um, and I started having shortness of breath as I'd walk up the stairs with the patients. I started having red , irritated eyes, rashes, infections, and oh so many things. Uh, nuance, adult asthma and sinus issues, which I've never had. And I knew something was going on. Um , but I didn't quite know. And I always have compassion for those who have had mold related illness who are maybe going through it because , um, there's a piece of denial that's very real in many people's lives because it either means you have to move or your workplace, or, I mean it often involves overwhelming sacrifice. Yeah. And it's overwhelming. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and mold itself, literally keto and some of these um, uh, black molds that create mycotoxins in sabotage and cause us to feel more overwhelmed. Like that's part of the physiology of the toxin. So needless to say, I was going downhill and I did not know what it was. But finally I was getting sick enough. I tested the , um, basement, walked in with an inspector and tested my body for urine and it matched, it was black toxic mold and triazines , the toxics they produce . So I literally, when I found out all the information, I never again set foot in my office. I left everything including 20 years of books. So I love books. So I, I left everything. I completely started over. I went, I started worked out of my house while I looked for a new office space. And it was devastating cuz here I am physically completely affected by mold, overwhelmed, exhausted rashes, infections. I was so, so sick. And just like in med school, I had this like, okay, I just gotta keep going. Um, but it was really, really hard. And I ended up finding new space and getting established. And what I had to do, just like everything else, is I had to figure this out to survive. So I kind of default accidentally became the mold expert because I had to dive and say, how do we recover from this? And what we know now is one in four people have difficult ability to tag those toxins that mold produces in our body. So it's not like mold colonizes our body, although it can, but the toxins that mold is spewing out the fumes. It's like the , the size of smoker formaldehyde, they're 2.5 microns or less. So they're extremely small. We inhale them and they go directly into our alveoli, into our bloodstream without even being transported. So you can be in a moldy building within five seconds and inhale those spores and they're in your bloodstream. And again, it's not like colonization, like the mold is always growing in the body, but the toxins that the mold is producing to protect itself, they do go in the body and the effect , and they can have immunosuppressive effects, they can have nephrotoxic, kidney toxic effects, lung toxic effects, brain toxic effects. And this is documented so well in the literature. In fact, one of the ones that I was exposed to, triazines , which is the toxic black nasty mold , um, has been used in chemical warfare. Like it's been studied because it's so, so toxic to humans. So I had to figure out what to do. And like I said, one in four people like myself had trouble tagging that. So I really learned and dive deep. And at the core you have to get out of the main exposure, which I moved and got out of that building. And then you have to work on detox and we can go into some of those principles of basic detox on how to do that. But I had to learn how to do that. And it, it really took, I'd say about 18 months to get recovered in maybe 80% better.

Speaker 1 27:41

And what do you think about this? Because obviously, and obviously in coaching there's a lot of women and so we're men, we're waiting for you to jump on the bandwagon. I mean, <laugh> , I'm like, you're gonna have a rad niche if more men jump into actual health coaching <laugh> . But we have a lot of women and so hear a lot about and and female clients of women and things like that and hormonal issues or, or like invisible illness is such a thing, thyroid malfunction, adrenal, et cetera , et cetera . So the hard thing for me, what are your thoughts on the, either the co relationship or just the confusion between, okay, I'm , I've got brain fog, I've got fatigue, I've got this and this and could it be mold or or is it maybe my thyroid or is it this, like how do we decipher some of this?

Speaker 2 28:29

Oh, such a great question but so , um, mold has an effect on every system in the body. And I'm gonna tell you right now how it affects the thyroid, the adrenals of hormones because it all works together. What I've seen is after this mold exposure and realizing how massively crazy that the mold affected every system and getting well from it and learning how to teach patients to do the same. I didn't wanna go from that and say, okay, everybody has mold cause that's not true. But I will tell you over and over and over again at the root of autoimmunity, of chronic fatigue, of unexplained migraines, of unexplained , um, hormonal disruptions, of unexplained thyroid adrenal issues over and over and over again, I found mold. So have a high index of suspicion because if you're not, what I find today is if someone's like all the stuff I should that should be helping, we , we modulate the thyroid, we support the adrenals, we do the hormones. Men are fe male or female and then they're not getting, well think mold. So if you're stuck and there's something like, hmm , why aren't they getting well, mold is at the top of my list and I over and over again shockingly found it was an issue. So let's talk about how this relates to hormone thyroids adrenal. Okay . It absolutely does. So , uh, multiple sabotage the pituitary and the function of the pituitary, one thing that will happen is antidiuretic hormone will go down. So you have someone who has, that's the regulatory, that's vasopressin, which regulates our hydration. So it basically keeps us hydrated as we drink, we maintain the volume of our blood. But if we have no a D h , we drink and we pee and we drink and we pee and we cannot maintain hydration. So one of the symptoms of mal toxicity is frequent urination gaining up urinate at night. Um, a lot of people, I even know patients currently, they know they have had mold exposure. If they start having to go to the bathroom frequently and usually the urine becomes lighter because it's diluted cuz the body cannot concentrate it anymore. So they're walking around, they're drinking, drinking, drinking cuz they're thirsty and they're peeing all the time and they cannot maintain hydration even though the drinking gallons of water a day. So that's number one. That's the antidiuretic hormone. Um, then we talk about estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, D h E A , these are all the hormones. Men or women, there's an enzyme called aromatase. Aromatase will convert your testosterone and precursors to estrogen. It's okay, it's normal, we all have it. But with mold that aromatase will be upregulated. And so in men or women, you'll have excessive estrogen dominant symptoms and or breasts, fibrocystic breasts , painful heavy periods, irregular cycles , um, you know , p m s symptoms, moodiness, bloating, like all these symptoms of estrogen dominance. Men will have weight gain, lack of libido , um, man boobs, a central obesity though diabetes. So both men and women can be affected. And I frequently see as a precursor, if you're looking at lab values, you might see testosterone incredibly low in men or women. And that often is a trigger for me to look at mold as a possibility. Cuz it's polling all the preachers of testosterone, you have no testosterone left and then you have lots of estrogen and that could be harmful. That can even cause cancers like hormone, wood cancers. Um, adrenal. So atomium, one of their most nasty toxic molds out there pre produces koma gleen and other trico. And these particular ones I've seen actually suppress cortisol though in some mold cases we'll see really, really high cortisol and they're so stressed and so anxious and they're cortisol in the serums like above 20. Or if you're doing some of the other hormone tests , the the morning will be really, really high. That's one side. The other side is their flat line . They have no cortisol, they're extremely exhausted. And I've also seen this exacerbated with long covid because one of the things I've seen over and over again with long covid is the adrenals are affected and the cortisol extremely low. And those symptoms people would have would be dizzy or lightheaded. Cuz again, they can't regulate volume. They might be extremely exhausted or craving salt. Um, anything that's coming their way as a stressor is gonna feel way more overwhelming. So they're gonna feel way more overwhelmed because their cortisols are buffer to the world. They might have new onset food allergies or new onset breathing issues like asthma or allergies. They might have more chemical sensitivity. Again, cortisols are buffer to the world to protect us from overreacting. And so whether it's emotional or physical or chemical. And if we don't have that cortisol, we tend to be very, very sensitive to things, very overreactive. Uh, again, not only emotional, but just the physical , um, body and the allergies, the asthma, the mast cell stuff can be worse. And then thyroid. And thyroid. It's funny cuz your tssh is gonna look pretty good. Your t4 T3 might look pretty good. Yeah , right ? Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , so you're like, you look okay, but they have trouble. Either the receptors can be blocked or the conversion of T4 to t3. So you can have someone who looks euthyroid looks pretty normal, but they feel hypothy weight. They lose the outer third of their eyebrows, which is a , uh, path pneumonic for hypothyroid. Or they're getting swollen. You can actually see a goiter or issues with their , um, gland in their neck if you're, you know , uh, if they've maybe done an exam with a , with a doctor. Um, so all those things. And then , um, gosh, there's so many things related to hormones. So adrenals, we have a , uh, estrogen dominance, we have the thyroid , um, and, and the exhaustion because this really affects the mitochondria. But that's what you might see and you might be going after. It's perfectly fine to go after the cortisol, go after the thyroid, but you're gonna be playing whack-a-mole. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , you're gonna be whackamole. And the big issue in the background is the mold and it's not , um, being helped . One of the thing really important, if you have someone who comes in, especially females, but males too, where all of a sudden they're not changing their diet, they're not changing anything about what they're doing. They've gained 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds, right ? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , they're doing this massive weight gain mold will stick in the leptin receptors and cause leptin resistance. So this is really a big deal because almost anything they do will be sabotaged. They can't lose weight.

Speaker 1 33:54

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Oh, that's so interesting. And I feel like one of my sisters dealt with a lot of this and she had an obvious mold problem in her house, and then she got , um, oh, she got really sick with multiple things and we were in in , in thyroid , uh, you know, symptoms and all this stuff too. So I'm , I'm , there's so many people that are going to get benefit from this question. So when, if you're going to, she got all this stuff, where do people start? Do they start with mold or do they start with the other things first?

Speaker 2 34:26

That's a great question. So , um, like I said, I didn't wanna be the person who had mold and thinks everything's mold. Like, you think everything looks like this and then, right. So I've been extremely deliberate about being objective, but shockingly over and over and over I'm like , oh , here we go again. It's mold. So first of all, the first thing is have a high index of suspicion. So have that in the back of your mind. Like, okay, if we do, because you can still start with checking thyroid, checking adrenals, checking, and again, within your scope of practice, making advice as far as what to do nutritionally or otherwise. But when you think of mold is when you get stuck. Now in my practice now, I have people on a waiting list and I , they've been waiting, they've seen a lot of doctors. So when someone comes into me now, I do a big swath of testing. So I'll do all of the hormones, all the stuff we just talked about on every level. I'll check for infections and toxins. And here's a little snippet, tidbit at the core of functional medicine. This is a pearl. Uh, so I think almost everything, chronic complex inflammatory is either toxic load or infectious burden or some combination of the two. So if you're thinking on those lines, again, you don't have to be there in the beginning, but think about the patient coming in as there's probably been toxic exposures, mold being one of them, them , um, maybe mold in this case, maybe heavy metals, maybe paraben, stites or other chemicals. And infectious burden is like those old things, like maybe a tick bite at 12 years old or Epstein bar at 19 or chickenpox at five. And all those old infections in a weakened immune system will start to pop up. But a more complex level toxic load, infectious burden is the thing that's driving what you see as far as the thyroid, the adrenals, the hormones, the fatigue, the , so we're up here, which is perfect place to start. You look at the thyroid, you look at the adrenals, you get the lifestyle, and you can always start simple. Start with clean air, clean water, clean food, basic, basic principles, their lifestyle stuff. You can start there. But then if they're not getting better, go to the hormone, adrenal, thyroid kind of at that whole axis. And then if they're not getting better, go to mold and go to, so you can still start in that same order, but when you encounter resistance or you're doing everything right with diet and exercise, they're not losing weight. Mold might be an issue. So you can definitely still put it in the second or third tier. And what I was explaining is because this people have been waiting, I'm usually throwing everything out there and doing a huge workout, including mold in the beginning. But you don't have to start there.

Speaker 1 36:43

And so, so when it comes to if we're gonna test our homes for mold mm-hmm .

Speaker 2 36:48

<affirmative> . Yeah .

Speaker 1 36:49

How do we know what's a good test? Because I, we came from a house, my whole family and especially during 2020, and I had a, a baby, a geriatric unexpected pregnancy at 35. My husband and I have six kids between the two of us. We are remarried, we have a , his mine and ours, we have a blended family. We have six kids under the age of 12. And we combine this family and I'm pregnant with this, this surprise baby girl. And before we know it, within 4 48 hours of moving everybody in this house, we're locked down with covid and six kids, or five kids and one on the way. And we are the parents that are gonna figure out how to homeschool them in this chaos, right? Yeah . Because the other parents have job jobs, <laugh> , and we can, we're flexible <laugh>, so it's crazy. But the house at the time was really nice house by, you know , the golf course and stuff, but it was really near our lake. It's really pretty and stuff. We're in northern Idaho. It's old though, and it's janky and it smells old. It smelled like, you know, an old grandma's house, uhhuh or something that I can relate. And it smelled like mold all the time. And, and I was, and we had all kinds of stuff. And of course this is around the time of Covid and we got six kids, they're petri dishes. But I was telling my husband left and right. I'm like, I think there's mold here. We finally, we got it tested and it came out fine. And I still, he in in , in , you know, my husband's was really trusting and he's in real estate, he's really trusting the people that did it. They were like freaks about testing it. But I still to this day, that gut thing, that instinct thing still tells me that that's not accurate. So would you be looking for with testing <laugh> ?

Speaker 2 38:18

Yeah, let's talk about testing cuz this is one of the most complex, and I will just say real clearly I am not the environmental expert. But because I love patients and want them to heal, I've had to really, really get to know this and I think I can bring you some good information. But always, if you want a resource , um, indoor air quality professionals, there's iaq.org I believe. Um , and also ICI is a nonprofit , it's International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness. That's a mouthful, but it's is e a i.org again, nonprofit . Um, they have , uh, resources with either docs at no mold or also uh, uh, professionals because you might need a professional sometime or or your clients. But let's go to what you can do. So I still recommend. So basically we have, there's Petri dishes you can buy at Home Depot or Lowe's and put them out. Those are the poor man's way and they're not bad. But what happens is this , this toxic black stuff that I, and they're even not even always black, but the titanium stacky batters are really, really toxic molds. They tend to need a water source and they're not typically in the air. They might be like after Hurricane Katrina, if your whole house flooded, you probably have stacky in the air. But generally, even if there's a big issue behind a wall in a basement, in a cross space of these really toxic black molds, they're sticky, they're dark, they like to live under floorboards in the, you know , uh, paneling behind the wall and you're not gonna find them very often. And then the air, so air sampling is fine. And if you have an issue with asperges penicillin, which is much more common, early mold, not quite as toxic, you might find it in the air, but if you find stacky or keto in the air, it's a big issue because those guys usually don't, they hide behind the walls. And let me just explain the physiology of mold, that's kinda like a dead flower arrangement or you know , or corsage maybe held from high school and it's dead and dried , right? And if you were to flick that or blow on it, it would just scatter into a million pieces. It's like, you know, very fragile mold spores are like that. So if it's like behind the wall beside me here, it's gonna kind of stay. It might not even be living anymore. It could be dead mold. But the fragments, if you start to disrupt that or open that up, the fragments of that dead mold will still cause immune in and issues infl inflammation in patients. And then right now, even if that mold's behind the wall, it's contained, it's not out in my environment, it's still the microtoxins I mentioned. And they're a fraction of the size of the spores. So they are literally 2.5 microns, which is the same as a virus and the same as like smoke or formaldehyde . So these are like fumes literally they can go right through the wall. So what I wanted to say is, number one, you can do Petri dishes, but often the stuff that's in the air could be serious and you see something and the portman's test without even sending them in, if you have four or less colonies on the plate, it's less likely an issue. If you have five to eight colonies on the plate, it's a medium load. If you have nine or above, it's a pretty high load. And again, that might just be an easy cheap test to say, could there be an issue? The second thing I recommend is something called ermi . Now the ERMI test itself is then not validated. So the technology under the erm , but you still see it as ermi . Um , so we don't call it ermi anymore, but the technology is called qPCR R . What it means is you take a dust sample of your home and you say, is there any dust fragments, DNA of mold in the dust of my house? Now I find that to be as good or better than air samples, there's, you shouldn't say better because there's a place for both, right? But you can do this at home yourself. You can order yourself, I think think in viral biotics.com and micrometric.com has these tests. You can order them as a client patient . You don't need a doctor's order or a professional and you get a Swiffer cloth and you take that cloth around, wait like seven to 10 days between cleanings, get the dust of your home, send it in, they will look at DNA n in the mold and give you a list. And that's called the, but again, the ERM number, ignore it. But you can look at those molds and say, oh my gosh, there's 20 stacky batteries in this dust . That's a big deal. So you can look at that dust. And I've looked in , I've looked at hundreds of those. So I'll have patients bring them in and I'll look at them with them. And that's what you could do. Or anyone could , could do if they're like, oh, the air samples look good. Now air samples are great, especially after mediation because if you open up a wall cabin , you wanna know, did that debris get stuck in the air in my home? Is it in the ducts? Um, and that's a big deal too. But sometimes if it's stuck behind a wall stuck under a floorboard, the air sample will look pretty good and you'll miss it. So it is one of those things where you kind of wanna look at different angles. And the erm I love, which is also, again , qPCR is the technical name that is valid , um, is a great way that you can have yourself, your clients check without an inspector. Now inspector's the best if you get someone who really knows what they're looking for, but it costs more money. And these are kind of ways you can start on your own.

Speaker 1 42:46

That's great. Thank you for that information. My husband's gonna be like, see, I told you the inspector probably did a good job and I'm still gonna be like, I don't know how we got away without molding the house <laugh>. Anyway , um, so when it comes to this stuff, so I think you've given us some awesome stuff to chew on. When it comes to mold, I think it's something we need to talk about cuz we are talking about toxic load a ton. We need to talk about it more. I think people are really aware of it being in chemicals and body products and all that, but they're not aware that of, of, of full load that how like, like a little bit of this cannot be healthy, but our body can rid it . But the problem is, there're a little bit of this in a lot of things in our air, in our water, in our, everything we're using and stuff. And that's just too much for the body. Um, so I, I think this is a big question, but you're good with big questions like this . So knowing that you can't save the entire world, and I think this is something a lot of us struggle with, I think , um, especially if we as coaches, we tend to call ourselves empaths a lot. And we are, and we also maybe struggle with co-dependency. I mean it might be <laugh>. Um , but knowing that you can't save the entire world, which is like a hard thing for people like guess to swallow , um, what's the biggest gift in wisdom that you would give those struggling on their own journey for health and life? Because the journey is going to, to, it's not linear and it's going to have these ups and downs and sometimes the healing process or the thing we go through, whether it's emotional, physical, all of the above, the healing process is un guaranteed unknown. The time can go on for a while . Like, what's, what would you gift people knowing that you can't save everyone? Like what's your gift for them ?

Speaker 2 44:33

So I think it's around , these are all lessons I've learned myself still in the process with you all. Um, but one thing that comes to mind is so many of us are driven , um, and we, so many of us have the messages from childhood, maybe we're not worthy or we're not lovable or we're not enough or those are really common to all community. And sometimes those things will drive performance, achievement, success. And we get on this treadmill because we think if we do the next thing, we save the next life, if we do, if we help this next client, then it'll be enough. And I'm here to tell you from personal experience, it's never enough. You get on this treadmill and there's another a hundred people that need your help. And so you're never gonna get to that place where you feel, oh , you might rest cuz you've helped one person, but then the next day you wake up and like, I need to do this again. And so if we can go inside in that messaging of ourself and realize that our worthiness does not come from us saving lives and helping people, even though we get great joy out of it, I do too. But it doesn't come from another life saved or another transformation in our , uh, clients. It comes from the intrinsic knowledge that we are worthy of love just for being born, for breathing, for being not the doing. So often I got caught up in the doing, doing, doing, doing. And that would give me validation, but the next day I had to do it again. And it's exhausting and it's impossible to keep that up because we get some, you know, a great thing that happens and then the next day we need to do it again. But if you can start to love yourself in the way and show that self-compassion , um, to know that you are worthy just for , and all of you are healers out there, that's why you're in this profession. Like that's a gift from the divine that you have and you have this ability to help people, but your abil , your value, your worthiness does not rely on the number of people you help. And we can kind of pull that apart and believe that we intrinsically have value just for breathing and showing up in this world. Um, that's powerful because then we don't have to prove to anyone our value or our worth. And again, this is still process. I'm in it with you every single day, but it's so powerful and we can shine that love and condition , unconditional love on people, and that's part of our healing ability. But we have to reflect it to ourself. And I just literally write on a prescription band all the time. Be kind to yourself, be kind to yourself, show yourself that loving compassion and know that you're worthy just for being you.

Speaker 1 46:52

That's beautiful. I think that I'm, I'm, I'm learning that more and more as time goes on, that I think, I think it's easy to get into a state of selflessness and the, the fulfillment that we get from giving. And especially if you've got a background of pain, which most of us do like and most coaches do, most people that are in any kind of profession like this, they have this personal story. And so they just wanna save the world. They wanna give so much, but we can bleed ourselves dry giving all day long. And then what happens is that we aren't as good anymore. Our, our purpose now can't be seen as well and it's not able to do his job because we're not adequate. And so part of that, you know, that, that, like you said, self-love and time for yourself and our own healing process. Taking that time to like, Hey, no , today I need to work through, you know, my chronic anxiety, my, you know, symptoms or autoimmune stuff. Maybe I'm going through or my fear-based thinking or my, you know, depression or whatever it is that I'm going through today, I'm gonna go through today. That doesn't make me any less valuable to the world tomorrow. In fact, it makes me more valuable. <laugh>.

Speaker 2 47:56

Yes.

Speaker 1 47:57

Well, that's amazing. So what can, what can they expect in unexpected? What can people expect? Because by the time this is gonna drop in a couple weeks from today's recording day , and by then this book will be live for purchase. So I've, I've got my pre-order already, but they , it will be live for everybody else. So what can they expect and where can they find it and where can they go for more of you?

Speaker 2 48:21

Thank you. Um, the main mainland, you can find it anywhere. So anywhere you buy books, go there. It doesn't matter to me. If you want , um, I put together some really fun for gifts that I think for you coaches would be great. It's at read unexpected.com. So just read unexpected.com. Um, I've got a mast cell activation lecture, so that'll be helpful for, I've got a free coloring journal cuz then part of my journey was like going back to that childlike state of creativity and beauty and love and, and innocence and coloring for me was part of that transformation. So I have a, a coloring book basically that goes along with the book. Um, there's a recorded chapter that's not in the book, so just a bunch of just fun stuff that you can get there as well , um, after you purchase the book. But the bottom line is , um, my goal in , in for the reader is, it's my story, but it's not really about me, it's about you. And what I hope is that as you read my story and my journey, you can see reflections of your own journey and be encouraged and inspired to become more resilient in this thing. We call it life and that we're in it together. And then besides that is all these really, really practical sidebars on how to cure for mold, what labs test . So there's gonna be some real practical stuff, but my goal is for you to actually enjoy the story and be inspired in your own journey.

Speaker 1 49:33

Thank you so much Dr . Jill . Oh, thank you so much. And where can we find, can you say, I'm gonna put you guys, I'm gonna put her stuff in the show notes here too, but can you give us your, your website link and stuff too ? Obviously we can find your book anywhere. Um, but where else can you give us your website link one more time? Yes,

Speaker 2 49:48

Jillian.com. Just my name has all kinds of blogs and podcast and free resources there. Tons of free stuff on jill corian.com as well.

Speaker 1 49:56

She's, she's humble but well known , so if you Google her, we'll definitely find all her things . But thank you so much, Jill. You were light in the world. You have survived all of this time to be a contributor and you are a gift to all of us. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Speaker 2 50:13

Thank you for having me. It's been my pleasure.

Speaker 1 50:20

Thank you for joining us for another empowering episode of Budha Belly Life. For more information on gut health and mindset, resources, visit budha belly life.com and remember, heal yourself and then empower others to do the same.