55 - Dr Jacob Teitelbaum - Chronic Fatigue Specialist

Episode 55 of the Long Covid Podcast is a chat with Dr Jacob Teitelbaum, Chronic Fatigue Specialist and author of "From Fatigued to Fantastic". We chat about post-viral illness and many of the things that can be done to help people to recover.

There's lots of inspiring & useful information here (transcript now live - sorry for the slight delay)

 
Cures A-Z app on Google Play or Apple

www.Vitality101.com (finding information) 

recoveryfactors.com

www.EndFatigue.com  (finding supplements)

Email Dr T at fatiguedoc@gmail.com 

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(music - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

Jackie Baxter  0:00  
Hello and welcome to this episode of the long COVID Podcast. I am delighted to welcome my guest tonight, Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, chronic fatigue specialist and author of "From fatigued to fantastic." So I'm very excited to have him here tonight. So welcome to the podcast,

Jacob Teitelbaum  0:20  
Jackie, it's great to be with you. And with everybody listening, because you suffered from this illness long enough. The bottom line, having had post-viral Chronic Fatigue Syndrome myself, it actually knocked me out of medical school, and left me homeless sleeping in parks. I had to learn how to recover. And we've published eight studies on effective treatments we completed, we will teach you what's going on, and how to recover.

Jackie Baxter  0:45  
That sounds amazing. So you've actually just answered my first question. So let's dive right in. I mean, you're an expert in chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and obviously, long COVID has now joined the party. What are the sort of crossovers between the conditions?

Jacob Teitelbaum  1:07  
They are the same thing, basically, there are literally over a dozen infections that trigger post infectious chronic fatigue syndrome. And as Dr. Fauci who's head of the US, NIH has noted, post COVID is simply post viral chronic fatigue syndrome. It's the same thing with a couple of quirks that we'll go through as well. So these are the same processes. But the researchers that are starting to look out at this and they're not familiar with it, they're starting and reinventing the wheel all over again. And that's why it's taking them so long. They don't even have a useful diagnostic definition for long COVID. Or it's called PASC these days, or long haulers. What they're saying is anybody who has any persistent symptoms, trouble smelling trouble with taste, hangnail, no I'm teasing, but you know, rash left over anything like that, it's all Long COVID. They're throwing all of them in the same basket with people who have, who are bedridden from the post viral chronic fatigue syndrome, or non functional people who have heart failure, from lung failure. There's everybody in one basket of diagnosis, which is insane, because each has a different treatment as needed.

Jackie Baxter  2:21  
Right. Yeah. So this idea of kind of post viral rather than specifically different things? Because yeah, I mean, you're right, you know, all of the people with Long COVID, or post COVID kind of complications, I guess, you know, the symptoms are so widely varying from sort of actual organ damage to autonomic dysfunction and, and all sorts of other things. And I'm sure we're gonna get into all of this, but, you know, it is it's such a massive sort of umbrella term, isn't it?

Jacob Teitelbaum  2:57  
Absolutely. So why don't we go ahead, Jackie, and start to sort this out for people. Okay, so number one, trouble with the loss of smell or taste. Again, that's a very different kind of thing. It often improves over time, often it doesn't, I don't have any magic for that. That's something that it's this kind of does on its own or it doesn't. 

For those of you who had cardiomyopathy, myocarditis, things like that, whether from the vaccine or from the virus itself. If you go to my app, it's called cures. CU R E S A-z, it's a free app, $2 upgrade, look up heart disease, it will give you a simple recipe you can do on your own, B vitamins, magnesium, coenzyme q 10, acetyl carnitine, it will give you a recipe that will dramatically improve cardiac function. So if you simply have that, go to the cures phone app download out, it'll tell you what to do. 

If you have the shot lung, the ARDS, you have the pneumonia, and they have lung damage from that, know that this is not uncommon from numerous different viral and other problems. And in virtually all of them, what you find is over two years, the lung condition heals itself up and improves. So know that that's something that gets better. You can speed the improvement likely, they're not studies on this, but looking at the mechanism of action by using a highly absorbed curcumin, like Curamed, using a good glutathione supplement as well. These turn off the free radical injury and help to allow healing, plus the herb Boswellia, which is frankincense, which is very good, especially for the lungs because it turns up like well oxygenated balances that blah, blah, blah, bottom line is Boswellia 500 milligrams three times a day. After about six months you're going to start to notice improvement. 

So the other key thing is not all shortness of breath is coming from injury to the organs and you need to get a pulse oximeter amazon in the US with these accurate one seems to be reasonable, although none of them are perfect. And if you're having shortness of breath, and your oxygen level is 96% or more, and it's going up with exercise, your shortness of breath is not likely coming from the heart or lungs. It's coming from what we're going to talk about next, which is the post viral fatigue syndrome, which is often accompanied by sense of breathlessness. Especially if you're up in the 98-99% of the shortness of breath, you're hyperventilating, your lungs and heart are fine, as far as the ability to deliver oxygen. So simple things that breaks out the other common pieces, and if you have the chilblains and stuff like that, let them heal up on their own. 

But let's talk about the core of people who have the long COVID. The long haulers, which is those who have fatigue, brain fog, often non restorative sleep, although that the insomnia often hits later, over time, you've had this now since 2020. But right after the infection, often they can't do anything with sleep. But it's non restorative. So these simple kinds of measures, and there's hundreds of other symptoms that can go with it. But that tired, widespread pain, achiness, brain fog, can't sleep. That's the Hallmark, you have any two of those that are new, since you had to COVID that are interfering with your ability to function - you have post-viral Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, until proven otherwise. 

And we'll talk about how my published research has shown that SHINE, optimizing sleep, hormones and hypertension, which is the PoTS, infections, nutrition and exercise as able -has to be low levels of walking, not this rigorous program that leaves you bedridden for three days, drives me crazy when they push that. But enough as able, to prevent the deconditioning. Address those - our published randomized, double blind placebo controlled study showed 91% improved with an average 90% increase in quality of life. This is very, very treatable. 

Jackie Baxter  7:06  
That's amazing. I mean, I think what a lot of people struggle with is this kind of long illness, and you don't tend to see that many people recovering. And that's why I really wanted to get some recovery stories onto the podcast, because so many people are posting in support groups and saying, Does anyone ever get better from this? And I think a lot of people that do...

Jacob Teitelbaum  7:28  
...have dropped off the group.

Jackie Baxter  7:30  
Exactly - because they don't want to stay there, do they?

Jacob Teitelbaum  7:33  
They go back to living their life 

Jackie Baxter  7:34  
Exactly. So for the people that are sort of, yeah, having a terrible time and really unwell and struggling with all these symptoms. It's this kind of like, feeling of hopelessness. So hearing you talk about it just being treatable and recoverable, if that's even a word, I think is just something fantastic to hear.

Jacob Teitelbaum  7:57  
Exactly. The problem is not lack of effective treatment. We've completed four studies in the last two years. New effective treatments. The problem is lack of physician education and understanding. Most of you out there have had the experience, you go to the doctor and the doctor, basically pat's on the head and says, Oh, you're just depressed or you're anxious or give a time? No, you have young children, or you know, they blow you off. And I don't know how that translates in the UK versus American. But basically, you're just patted on the back and said, Go away. And then you're gonna feel like Am I crazy? No, no, you're not. You've got hypothalamic dysfunction. And this has been shown again and again and again, in the research, you tripped a circuit breaker because you have an energy crisis from the virus. You restore energy production with SHINE, that circuit breaker comes back on and you get your life back and off you go. 

So it's not rocket science. But there's no single, patentable, expensive medication that results in - most of our medical education. This is a paraphrase from the past editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, the Harvard journal, main medical journal, who noted that most continuing medical education is slick advertising masquerading as science. So the last time fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome got much attention is when you have three new medications, pregabalin, Cymbalta, Servolo came out and they were spending $210 billion a year advertising, half to the public and half to doctors. For those three new expensive. It was like 30 pounds a day, very expensive medications. Then they will spend that 30 to $40,000 per doctor educating them. But everything we're going to talk about today is dirt cheap. So the doctors simply don't hear about it.

Jackie Baxter  9:57  
I mean, that's so true. A lot of the things, in fact I think all of the things that have helped me so far have been things that I have done from my home. And I have not had to pay for - things like learning to breathe properly, things like yoga nidra for deep rest and cold swimming. And a lot of it is all the things that you would go Ughh Sounds a bit hippy, but for me, they're the things that have helped. 

Jacob Teitelbaum  10:22  
But they work, you're gonna find there's four key areas in the healing. Number one is biochemistry. So the nutrients, herbals medications, number two would be structural, that'd be surgery, and also body work manipulations. You have the mind body issues. And that's you're doing a mix of depth to the yoga nidra with the other kind of deep breathing. And then there's some other areas too, but those are some of the main ones. And what doctors learn about is only medications and surgery. And in fact, anything that competes with those will tend to be attacked.

Jackie Baxter  10:58  
And I think yeah, I mean, a lot of patients have found that they've been educating their doctors, which is, it was sort of the wrong way around isn't it?

Jacob Teitelbaum  11:06  
as as much as you can teach them in five minutes, yes, before the next appointment. Again, I'm not against medications. I'm an MD, I use them quite a bit. And we'll talk about medications, as well. But most of these are off patent and they're low cost. And because of that, you might be able to get your doctor to prescribe them too. So we'll go through that. For those of you we're going to cover a lot of territory. And instead of scribbling frantically, if you want to email me, so fatiguedoc@gmail.com, you can ask me for the free there's a 4000 word article on recovering from Long COVID. So it'll give you all of this information. So pretty much organized for you. If you're having a shortness of breath, ask also for the shortness of breath article, double break it out on so you can see what's causing yours now how to treat it. Ask for the orthostatic intolerance information sheet. You have a free 10 minutes pulse test you can do at home that will tell you if you have it or not. And then we'll tell you how to treat it.

Jackie Baxter  12:01  
Yeah, I'll drop that email address into the show notes as well. So if anybody's again, scribbling frantically, it will be there. So yeah. You know, I keep telling people that I don't get brain fog, and then I keep proving myself wrong.

Jacob Teitelbaum  12:16  
And again, those of you afraid of the brain fog thing, oh my god, I'm getting Alzheimer's disease. No. Brain fog is basically difficulty with word finding, and substitution and short term memory. About a third of you will have episodic disorientation. There'll be times where you're making a turn on an exit off the highway or you're turning in a market. And for 30 seconds, it's Where am I. You can still drive, you're not gonna run off the road or anything. But it gets a little frightening. Again, don't worry about that. That's not anything dangerous. Alzheimer's is when you forget how to use the keys, brain fog you forget  where you left the keys, they're not the same thing. And the brain fog results with treatment. 

Jackie Baxter  12:58  
Yeah, that's good to know. 

Jacob Teitelbaum  12:59  
So let's take a look at what's triggering PASC or long COVID or any of the different garbage pail of names that are throwing out there these days. Basically, many infections, especially numerous viral infections, will cause the body to shut down energy production, it is trying to starve the virus so that it can't use the body's mitochondria or energy furnaces to reproduce. So there's a whole thing that goes on in the cells, shuts down energy production, to starve the viruses. Sometimes that has troubled restarting, because the body perceives the virus is still there. Or because there's little pieces of it, or genetically people tend to have RNAs all blah, blah, blah, that it doesn't know when to turn off. 

So you will see these different things. So you have low energy throughout the body. When you have energy dropping to a certain point, you trip a circuit breaker in the brain. Because it's the area that uses the most energy for its size in the body called the hypothalamus, little almond sized circuit breaker behind the forehead. It controls sleep, so you have trouble sleeping, it controls your hormone system. So you're going to have symptoms of low thyroid, all the hormones be low despite normal tests. And the tests are not reliable because they're not cured for hypothalamic dysfunction. So we'll talk about the different hormone things and how to treat them. 

It causes the autonomic dysfunction, which is where you stand up gravity sends blood to your legs and stays there instead of going just getting some backup to your brain and the rest of your body. And that's the research has shown that pops just like in other forms of post viral chronic fatigue syndrome, that orthostatic intolerance, POTs and MMH.  Alphabet soup again. You stand up, gravity sends blood to your legs, it stays there, and after a while you get fuzzy and weak and the whole thing. 

So all of this is accounted for by that one circuit breaker And then when energy goes low, the areas in your body that require the most energy. And number one will be the muscles. When muscles don't have enough energy, they don't go loose and limp, you think they would. But they're like a spring, that shortness and its natural state, it takes energy to stretch that spring. Muscles are like that. And that's why after a heavy workout before you have the disease, you don't come home and say, Honey, my muscles are all loose and limp, I just ran five miles, you say, My muscles are all tight, they're out of energy, and they get stuck in a shortened position, the low energy causes muscles throughout the body to get stuck in a shortened position. And that's why you're having the widespread pain. 

The immune dysfunction also likely associated with a low energy, or where the basically immune system not recognizing the infection is gone and exhausting itself. That the research is less clear what's going on. But we know that the immune dysfunction is there. And it goes in basically, phases of over activation, followed by exhaustion. But the bottom line is does take care of it. We'll talk about that today. So that's why the SHINE protocol is so effective, and that's why we get all these diverse symptoms. Now 44% of you have numbness and tingling in your fingertips. Don't worry about it. You know, there are literally 100 Other symptoms over that. But we talked about the core ones - tired, achy, brain fog canceling. 

Jackie Baxter  16:24  
Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned bits of virus, I mean viral persistence is one of these kind of theories that people kind of talk about. And again, is that something that needs to be dealt with on its own? Or is it something that will resolve itself? You know, is our body finally going to just get rid of it?

Jacob Teitelbaum  16:44  
You can go after it both ways. In other words, there's so many ways to approach it, that as long as you do enough of them, your body will have enough recovery to take care of the rest. If you're talking about viral persistence, Luvox, Famotidene, which is Pepcid in the United States, 20 to 40 milligrams place today. In the studies, they used 80 milligrams three times a day but you don't need that high dose, you can get it over the counter - alters immunity in a way that tends to clear both the COVID virus and the secondary Epstein Barr Virus that re-activates from it. 

Jackie Baxter  17:19  
Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. 

Jacob Teitelbaum  17:21  
Yeah. So these treatments can help. They're low cost. 

Jackie Baxter  17:25  
Yeah, that's really useful to know, though. So yeah, you've mentioned the SHINE protocol. Should we talk about that?

Jacob Teitelbaum  17:32  
Indeed. So let me do this. So we're gonna talk about so many treatments today, people can ask, so what do I start with? So at the end, let's let's do that. Let's say here's a couple things to begin with. Keep you waiting to the end. Hopefully, I'll say them now and I'll say them again. If you're outside of the United States, there's a supplement called recovery factors, and the website is recoveryfactors.com. We have two studies. The second one is being submitted for publication, over 100 people are showing dramatic improvement in energy, sleep, pain, cognition, all of these things improve a lot, unless you're in the US is not available here yet. 

HRG 80 Red Ginseng. It's a special form of ginseng, we did a study of 188 people, energy improved on the average 60% of people improved about a 70% increase in energy, 75% increase in average and stamina. So very simple thing. harder to get in the UK, easy to get in United States. You want the HRG 80 Red Ginseng chewable tablets. The Smart Energy System also easier in United States, it's a mix of ribose and five herbs and nutrients. Also dramatically helpful. So that and a multivitamin high in B vitamins and magnesium, you want 50 milligrams each of the B vitamins pretty much, and plus a higher levels of folate and B 12 and 150 to 200 milligrams of magnesium. So a good multi. In the United States energy revitalization system or the clinical essentials, either of those would be excellent as a multivitamin. 

So basic things, but let's start with SHINE - sleep. Your sleep center is not working. That's why you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and getting into deep sleep. So what to do? I will start with melatonin. I like a 10 milligrams sustained release, one in the US called EP 120 which is very good, but really any melatonin but look for sustained release. I will use a mix of herbs revitalizing sleep formula in the US but valerian passionflower, lemon balm, five HTP all of those I think can be found in UK and Europe individually. So let's start with the different herbals for that. A hot Epsom salt bath two cups of magnesium Epsom salts in a tub of water. Just get out carefully because your blood pressure is gonna drop. So make sure you don't fall over. But that will relax muscles, don't go right to bed, you'll sweat like a pig. Wait about a half hour to an hour then go to bed. So your body cools down, it will help sleep dramatically. 

For the medications. A very, very low doses of several medications work better than a high dose of one. Trazodone probably fairly easily get your doctor to go ahead and order Trazodone 25 to 50 milligrams. Cyclobenzaprine. Two and a half to five milligrams, possibly gabapentin, although that's getting caught up on the whole politics of pain. But the Gabapentin 100 to 600 milligrams at bedtime. Gabapentin is quite safe as long as you're not on high dose narcotics. But it's getting caught up in the politics and narcotics right now. Even Zyprexa, an antipsychotic medication, two and a half to five milligrams, all of these and you can use a low dose of many of them so you're not hungover the next day. they gang up together and get you sleeping through the night. But they're all out of the body by morning because you're using a low dose. 

But then also, I will consider what are called the Z drugs. Everything I've talked about helps you stay asleep. But to fall asleep sometimes zolpidem, Zopaclone, those the different z drugs that initiate sleep, those are going to be a little harder to get but you can ask your doctor, do the other ones first, you want to be getting at least seven and preferably eight hours sleep a night. If you wake up in the middle of the night, consider a protein snack at that time. Because often you're dropping your blood sugar from the low cortisol and you'll wake up wide awake. And sometimes with a sweat - just eat a hard boiled egg or a few ounces of cheese or meat. But protein is the key. If you do it right before bedtime, that keeps your blood sugar from dropping. And if you're waking up with acid reflux. Just download the cures A-Z app and look up nighttime acid reflux, that's a whole show of its own but it'll tell you what to do.

Jackie Baxter  22:03  
Awesome. Yeah, because you just highlighted two different problems with sleep actually, because one of them is getting to sleep in the first place, and the other one is staying asleep. And I tend to have issues with both but not at the same time.

Jacob Teitelbaum  22:16  
Initiating and maintaining sleep, Restless Leg Syndrome. If you're kicking your sheets and your bed partner around, make sure your ferritin blood level is over 60. Normal is over 12,, which is insane. But if the iron is low, it'll aggravate restless legs, take magnesium at bedtime will help. Sleep apnea again, that's in my book from fatigue to Fantastic. All of this is discussed. But look up sleep apnea, I think I have that in the app also.

Jackie Baxter  22:39  
Yeah, I mean, I've certainly noticed myself. If you don't get a proper sleep, then it makes everything else so much worse, doesn't it?

Jacob Teitelbaum  22:48  
Including the pain, including the pain, the low sleep equals increased pain, the pain can't heal til you sleep

Jackie Baxter  22:54  
Yeah, that's true. because sleep is really,  well it's supposed to be very restorative, isn't it for everything?

Jacob Teitelbaum  22:59  
So you heal the little micro tears in the muscles that normally happen during the day. So you make growth hormone, which is responsible for the healing and other factors. Sleep is critical. And many of you out there are saying, gee, that's really nice, but there's no way on fricking earth I'm gonna be able to get more than three hours sleep. And I'm telling you. Yes, you can. I've treated 1000s of people. And I've been there myself on this. But with the proper treatments, I can count on my fingers. How many of those 1000s have not been able to get good solid sleep.

Jackie Baxter  23:30  
And that's really encouraging. Because yeah, it is it's terrible. And it's bad enough when you're not ill not getting a good night's sleep. But then when you're ill on top of that it's 

Jacob Teitelbaum  23:40  
Nasty. Yes. So let's talk about H for hormones. And we'll talk about hypertension. So, h for hormones, low thyroid, what are the symptoms? Tired, achy, waking, cold intolerant, sounds like you? Then you deserve a trial of thyroid hormone by prescription. Even if the blood tests are normal, again, the normal range does not mean that it's healthy. The normal range is two standard deviations, just means you're not the lowest two and a half percent of the population that's all. So shoe size of five to 13 will be the normal range in US shoe sizes. You put me in a size six, the doctor is gonna say the shoe is fine. I have a size 12 foot but the doctor will say it's fine. You're crazy. There's nothing wrong with your shoe. And the testing is the same here. 

So you have tired, achy, brain fog, weight gain, cold intolerant. Get a trial of the thyroid hormone. Adrenal, how do you tell - if you get hangry - irritable when hungry? You get those feed me now or I'll kill you sugar cravings. Adrenal support can be very helpful. In the US has a product called AdrenaPlex, which is excellent for that. But in Europe, you can get licorice tea. You can even get to licorice candies, which supports adrenal. Again, just take it in the morning. It'll keep you up at night. So you Want to go ahead with licorice tea they have adrenal glandulars, the multivitamin will have the vitamin C and vitamin D5 that will support adrenal glands as well the AdrenaPlex. 

If your symptoms are worse throughout your Mensies, then low estrogen and progesterone or testosterone can be contributing and considering supplementation preferably buried down a couple of those can help quite a bit, especially if you're getting migraines that happen around your menses and ovulations. So that to be the hormones, 

Hypotension. You get lightheaded when you stand, your blood pressure is running 90 over 60. It's running low. But the best way is a 10 Minute pulse test. Email me - ask for the orthostatic intolerance information sheet, you'll see the 10 Minute home pulse test, there'll be two tests, the quiz and the home pulse test. It will screen to tell you if you have those and that'll tell you how to make it go away. Salt, stockings that are support 20 millimeter to 30 millimeter and medium pressure compression stockings. Midodrine. There's a host of different treatments for now. DDAVP, many different things can be very helpful for that. They usually tend to use beta blockers like Inderal - that tends to really aggravate fatigue, and people CFS and Fibro

Jackie Baxter  26:14  
that's interesting, because you hear about a lot of people talking about using beta blockers for pots and autonomic dysfunction and stuff like that. But that's really interesting. You know, you could be solving one problem but making a different one worse

Jacob Teitelbaum  26:30  
In pure pots It's helpful. But when people have chronic fatigue, it often pulls the rug out from under their energy, so try it. But if it's worse, ask the doctor. Can I just take it down to five milligrams once or twice a day or less, and see what feels best to you. 

Jackie Baxter  26:45  
Yeah, such a balancing act

Jacob Teitelbaum  26:47  
Well, it's just a matter of listening to your body, your body will tell you. 

Jackie Baxter  26:50  
Yes. 

Jacob Teitelbaum  26:51  
Shall we talk about infections. The "I". 

Jackie Baxter  26:53  
Yes, 

Jacob Teitelbaum  26:54  
Ok, number one infection to treat is candida overgrowth. When your immune system goes down, you'll get certain bugs that are called opportunistic infections that will come in. Number one will be Candida - there is not a test that would give a nickel for Candida. You have nasal congestion, sinusitis, gas, bloating, diarrhea or post nasal drip filled up - presumed Candida in this illness. You'll want a good probiotic, you want to cut back sugar because yeast grow by fermenting sugar and want to starve them. And you're going to find you sugar crave just like you do with low adrenal. And the medication fluconazole 200 milligrams a day for six weeks. You'll need a holistic physician for that. A regular physician won't give that to you. 

Other infections. Another study has shown that Epstein Barr Viral reactivation, just like we see with other forms of chronic fatigue syndrome, we're seeing it here. And the medication Famciclovir 500 to 750 milligrams three times a day, used to be $24,000 a year, but it's generic now and it's maybe $60 a month, plus Celebrex 200 milligrams twice a day with food if it bothers your stomach. Takes six months for treatment course. But by four months, you're often seeing dramatic improvements and people with a post viral CFS and because that suppresses the Epstein Barr Virus, can get a doctor to do that. 

We talked about the Pepcid before or famotidine the stomach acid blocker. Most stomach acid blockers out there are, in my opinion, poison. The PPI medications are horribly toxic. If they did not advertise this as heavily as they would, they would be talked about the research showing 44% increase in dementia, 25% increase in death while taking it, severe osteoporosis. These are not good medicines for long term use, but they advertised heavily in the media. Those studies are ignored. Famotidine and Tagamet are quite healthy. Those can be used long term. And they also help the immune system dramatically. Go to 40 milligrams twice a day will help knock back the Epstein Barr. Look for there's other infections as well. We talked about treating residual COVID, that's a little more controversial. And there's countless other infections, too. But those are the key ones

Jackie Baxter  29:14  
Is it just because the body is kind of in a weakened state? Is that why all these other infections? You said opportunistic infections? Is that why they're sort of all popping up or getting reactivated?

Jacob Teitelbaum  29:25  
Pretty much. What you see is certain infections like the chickenpox virus, the mono, the body doesn't totally eradicate. It keeps some of them in these little jail cells. I don't know if it's just that way the immune system can use them to keep learning how to fight them. So it may say we can get better immunity by keeping this few around for the immune system to practice. 

But when the immune system goes down, you'll see jailbreaks - that's what shingles would be or Zoster and that's what you'll see with the mono reactivation. And so you'll see a number of ones will re-Activate, but the Fam Celebrex combination, famciclovir Celexa carb has been helpful and people who have chronic flu like symptoms, who had a viral onset. I haven't used it as much post COVID. As with other post viral CFS cases, with a study recently coming out, showing and demonstrating the Epstein Barr reactivation, it's time to and reasonable to add that into the armamentarium.

Jackie Baxter  30:26  
Yeah, because a lot of people are talking about that, and being more susceptible to picking up other things like COVID reinfections, or just colds as well.

Jacob Teitelbaum  30:37  
Here's the thing, Jackie, what you'll see is people will say once they've been down over a couple of years that I catch everything that comes down and takes forever to go away. When you treat low adrenal - the same study that showed the Epstein Barr reactivation, showed what we know to be present in CFS, which is low cortisol, hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, is low and there's low cortisol. When I treat that low cortisol, we talked about adrenaPlex, and I'll even use very tiny safe doses of hydrocortisone. People come back and they say, I went through the whole winter I didn't catch it. Everybody else was sick. I didn't get anything - their immune system's back.

Jackie Baxter  31:11  
Yeah, because I think I mean certainly for me, that's a huge worry, is, you know, well, my immune system doesn't work. So that's not good, is it?

Jacob Teitelbaum  31:19  
Well, there's a lot you can do to restore it. Do the simple things your body can do, you don't have to get rid of every infection. It's just like, if you have a little yappy dog, you're going for a walk down your street, and this little Datschund came up and started yapping at you - you just shoo it away, wouldn't be a big deal. Let's say eight of them jumped you. And they take you down. And then, you know, you don't have to get out of all eight, you get rid of five or six, people come along, they pull five or six of them off - the other two your body can take care of on its own. Doesn't matter which two they are. So you don't have to go after all these infections. You just support the immunity, the adrenal. You give them nutrition to support immunity, sleep supports immunity, knock out the Candida. Candida is a massive organism compared to other organisms. If you think about a virus being the size of a period at the end of a sentence, a bacteria the size of living room, the Candida would be the size of a whole city block - big organisms. So that's why it's really good - I'd go after that first.

Jackie Baxter  32:18  
Wow. Yeah, that's fascinating. Is "N" next? 

Jacob Teitelbaum  32:23  
N is nutrition. Increased salt - do not salt restrict or you will crash and burn. Avoid sugar. Increased protein with frequent small meals during the day for most people. Increase water and you're gonna say that I rarely drink, you know, three times as much as my husband does, as I said, Yes, but you're peeing four times as much. One of the hypothalamic hormones is antidiuretic hormone or anti peeing hormone - that goes down in like your bucket, there like holes trying to hold water. So you need to drink a lot and eat a lot of salt. 

Beyond that, eat what leaves you feeling the best. And then, as we mentioned, a good multivitamin. I like the US energy revitalization system, or clinical Essentials is critical. Things like Coenzyme Q 10 are good. I like a chewable - it's highly absorbed. But again, the vitamin, the HRG 80  Red ginseng, chewable tablets, the chewables in our study - 100 milligram with a chewable was as effective as 400 milligrams of the capsules. So you're cutting the cost dramatically. It's not expensive to begin with, but it has to be the HRG 80 form. Because most ginsengs that we're getting are basically sawdust, they take out the active and they they don't have what they used to have because they needed the wild ginseng. The smart energy system. If you can't get that because you're in the UK, get ribose - get a powdered form, is silly to take tablets, you'd have to take 30 tablets a day, instead of putting three teaspoons and looks and tastes like sugar - put on your tea, and the ribose five grams two to three times a day - we had two studies published ah five years ago that showed average 61% increased energy, just the ribose. 

So these are things you can do on your own. That can make a big difference. And if you're in the UK or not in the United States period, go to recoveryfactors.com. But recovery factors - give it four to six weeks - two studies, about 140 people, dramatically effective for the post viral and another CFS and fibromyalgia, just people a subset of people found it just turn their lives around. It's just remarkable. So worth doing. That's 4 tablets twice a day, but website will have dosing, how to adjust diet, look at that, and follow the directions on the website. They are good people. And that's quite superb.

Jackie Baxter  34:52  
That's great. Yeah, because I think I've heard other people say about how it's getting it right for your body, you know, because what you Nutrition would be useful for my partner, for example, would not be the same as for me, and what would be good for a healthy person and an ill person, you know, it's different for every person, isn't it

Jacob Teitelbaum  35:12  
And Jackie, here's the key thing. Your body will tell you better than any test, with the exception of things that detox you - like glutathione, and things that kill infections, because then you have to detox your body from the dead infections. Anything that you take, that leaves you feeling worse, your body either wants to lower dose or it wants less in this disease.

Yeah. And that's where listen to your body comes from, isn't it? I mean, people tell me this all the time, and like, I know but sometimes I don't know what it's telling me.

Jackie Baxter  35:29  
If you don't know then leave it off. 

Yes, right. 

Jacob Teitelbaum  35:46  
I'm gonna add two other things. Low dose Naltrexone is a prescription that's used to block - many of you will probably have heard about it,  anybody with long COVID, or chronic fatigue syndrome should be, in my opinion, if they're not taking narcotics, which block the effect, they should be on this three to four and a half milligrams of naltrexone a night - that can initially disrupt sleep. I talk about this detail on my book from fatigue, fantastic. But it takes two months to see anything. So initially, may mess was sleep, I'll adjust sleep treatments, give it to two months, at least three milligrams a day, it can rock your world. 

And another one for severe cases, especially those that are near bed bound or housebound. Research out of Stanford University, using a medication called Abilify, which is anti psychotic medication, anti-schizophrenia , but not the normal 15 to 30 milligram dose, which is pretty useless in this disease, but just a quarter of a milligram. If you're interested in that you can ask me for the Abilify information sheet. Aripiprazole will be the other name. And I can add that and email it to you and talk about dosing. It'll have a link to the Stanford study, into very good article by Cort Johnson. But that's one that after about three weeks, a large percentage of people have improved. 

And then in terms of Mind Body, there's something called ANS rewire by Dan neuffer, autonomic nervous system rewire - you do it online, take about two months, it resets the hypothalamic circuit breaker and allows you to recover without taking handfuls of pills forever. So I like to address the biochemistry, reset the autonomic nervous system with the ANS rewire and then people get well, and they get on with their life. And then they're not on the talk groups anymore telling you how they got better because they're back to living instead.

Jackie Baxter  37:37  
Yeah, definitely. But you know, that's what we want, isn't it - for everybody to get better?

Jacob Teitelbaum  37:41  
Yes. And for "E", again, not too much exercise, because you'll crash and burn, like get post exertional malaise, find yourself bedridden for three days. But if you do no exercise, because you're afraid of that you're going to decondition. You're not harming yourself with the post exertional malaise, but you don't want it. So walk, see how much you can comfortably walk. If you're wiped out the next day it's too much, cut back by 20%. Leave it there. And then after about eight weeks on the protocol, as energy production is skyrocketing at eight to 10 weeks, you can increase your walking by 50 steps every day or two or three. As is comfortable. But none of this graded exercise program. No. Not that.

Jackie Baxter  38:26  
Yeah. Again, it's listening to your body, isn't it? Because you know, for some people exercise actually is sort of very gentle stretching from their bed. And if that's what they can do, then that's something that's appropriate for them, isn't it?

Jacob Teitelbaum  38:38  
And that's a really good one for the aripiprazole, the Abilify, that population will often see dramatic improvements with that quarter milligram tiny bit, it's almost that they need to use the liquids because the pills are way too big. And all of these things, there's so much that can help. These things are so treatable.

Jackie Baxter  38:59  
That's amazing. Yes, it's this movement, rather than exercise, isn't it?

Jacob Teitelbaum  39:03  
It's conditioning, and stretching. That's why the yoga was so good because of the stretching and then helping calm the nervous system because the limbic system gets triggered into what's called sympathetic overdrive and vagal overdrive, that they drive people almost into a possum state where they're near dead feeling or like they're wired but tired all the time. And then they get wired and exhausted, wired and exhausted. So the ANS rewire by Dan Neuffer or dynamic door re-training system. Number of good ones.

Jackie Baxter  39:38  
Cool. So I feel like we've just talked through loads and loads of stuff, which is obviously fantastic. And I think as soon as we have finished, I'm gonna go back and listen to it all like, again three times. Actually, maybe not tonight, tomorrow because it's, it's quite late in the UK. But have you got a few sort of tips of where to get started, for anybody who's feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment?

Jacob Teitelbaum  40:05  
Increase salt, decrease sugar. Start with a good multivitamin high in B vitamins, magnesium. If you're in the UK start with recovery factors. If you're in the US HRG 80 Red ginseng and smart energy system along with a multivitamin. The Abilify is just so cheap and easy. And, and the low dose Naltrexone also very good. Just email me for those different information sheets. And the article will organize all of this for you. Easy to treat, if you know what to do and what's going on

Jackie Baxter  40:38  
Fantastic. And I can put any links that you'd like into the show notes as well.

Jacob Teitelbaum  40:43  
Let me invite you vitality101.com, do step three - it's an online quiz, that will ask a bunch of questions. And if you have your lab tests, it'll even evaluate the pertinent ones. And then say, here's what's contributing to your energy crisis. And tailor a protocol to optimize energy for your case. And that's free. It's just a nice simple way to - our goal is to get effective treatment for everybody. So this is one of those tools, just do it, start with the things that we mentioned. My book, "from fatigued to fantastic", will rock your world, it will help you understand what's going on. So you don't feel like hopeless, but you feel like, Ah, I know what this is. I know how to make it go away. And that empowering that way is big.

Jackie Baxter  41:29  
Yeah, it feels like a bit of a sort of guide of do this, do this, do that, you know, so it's quite easy to read, and easy to understand.

Jacob Teitelbaum  41:38  
Yes, it even has brain fog friendly summaries that are just quick summaries. So you can just read those that are easy. And then you can take a deeper dive in the areas that appeal to you

Jackie Baxter  41:48  
Yeah, I need to read it more thoroughly. But yeah, it's been really useful so far. So yeah,

Jacob Teitelbaum  41:52  
Absolutely. One more thing. If you can get well to go back to something you hate that made you sick in the first place, your body will find another way to take you out of the game. As you get well, drop all the stories of who and how you should be and listen to your feelings. And see what feels the best to you. Do that without hurting anybody else. And as long as you can have food on the table and a roof over your head and you don't get arrested. Follow those things that feel good, use the energy for that. And your body will learn to trust you, to release more and more energy and you know what's gonna happen. You're gonna be really happy and healthy.

Jackie Baxter  42:29  
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me this evening or this morning, I think for you. It's been absolutely fascinating chatting with you and there's loads that will be really useful for me as well as everybody else as well, I think, so thank you so much for your time.

Jacob Teitelbaum  42:47  
Jackie, my honor and pleasure and again, all of you listening - you can get well. Knowledge is power, and it's time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai