213 - East Meets West: A New Paradigm for Long Covid Healing

I'm joined by Pierre Brunschwig & Margaret Hampton as we explore how Chinese medicine and conventional western medicine can work together to treat Long Covid, where symptoms are complex and constantly shifting. We focus on subtypes, nervous system safety, immune recovery and the practical foundations that help people feel like themselves again.

• Why combining medical “languages” can fill treatment gaps
• Subtyping Long Covid and treating the person rather than the label
• The five foundations: sleep, diet, inner life, outer life and movement
• Acupuncture as a way to calm the nervous system and restore hope
• Adrenaline versus oxytocin and why safety enables healing
• Trauma, adverse childhood events and the role of somatic therapy
• Vagus nerve practices including breathwork, humming and self-soothing pressure
• Latent virus reactivation plus T cell exhaustion
• Rebuilding immune competence alongside antivirals and targeted therapies
• Building nutrient-rich blood, protein needs and why cooked food can help digestion
• Gut health basics including stomach acid support, H. pylori and probiotics
• Creating a care team that listens, pivots and fits your real life

Links: 

More about Margaret & Pierre and their work:
http://www.heliosintegratedmedicine.com

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

Why East Meets West

Jackie Baxter 0:56

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Long COVID podcast. I'm delighted to be joined today by Margaret Hampton and Pierre Brunschwig. And we are going to be talking today about the kind of intersection or how Eastern and Western medicine can work together. And I'm really excited about this because these guys have been doing this and they have made it work. So that's why I have invited them both here today to tell us how it's done. So, guys, I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me. And I think this is going to be an amazing conversation.

Margaret Hampton 1:34

Thank you so much for having us. We're delighted to be here.

Pierre Brunschwig 1:37

Yeah, we really appreciate the top opportunity to share what we do. Um it's something that we think could be a paradigm for it's a way to bring more science from different places in the world in order to make a more effective way to treat long COVID.

Meet Margaret And Pierre

Jackie Baxter 1:59

Absolutely. Um so before we kind of get into um all of this, can you just say a little bit each of you about um who you are and what it is that you do before we talk about how this works together?

Margaret Hampton 2:16

Happily. Yes. I'm a doctor of Chinese medicine. I have my master's and doctorate and um been working with Dr. Brundwig for the last, let's see, 12 and a half years. And um originally my passion was herbal medicine. And as we began working on long COVID, it became very much both long uh herbal medicine and acupuncture. But right away, Dr. Brunswick and I noticed this long COVID business is very complicated. So we kind of looked at each other and was like, let's go, we can do this. So I'll let him introduce himself.

Long COVID Subtypes And Patterns

Pierre Brunschwig 2:55

Yeah, so I entered medicine understanding that I wouldn't be a very conventional physician. Um, and so from the get-go, um I really, while I loved science, and it was really a great place for my mind to go. Um, I also knew enough about the world where I realized that while I was doing my medical training, I knew that it was incomplete. And so, right along from medical school on until now, and so helios is let's say in November, it'll be it'll be its 33rd birthday. We we've been um bringing in different tools to complement what I do in um in conventional medicine. So I do love conventional medicine. It has limits, however, you know, and those limits were laid bare really uh in the in the case of long COVID. And so it became clear that um that the tools that I had been honing to treat chronic disease and other kinds of things in our caught in our office on a regular basis would really need an upgrade. And and so, and what that meant was that um that I needed to let my scientific mind pour over the information that was available in terms of the viology and epidemiology and the pathophysiology of long COVID as it started to pour out, and it's still pouring out, I think that's the good news. And um and to take that and combine it with the understanding that I had around Chinese medicine and the collaboration that I can that that that meant I could have with Margaret. And so what we are learning is that whenever I come up with a weak area of treatment, Chinese medicine often has a remedy that's potent and and vice versa. So we're using these two, you know, we earlier we mentioned that these are really kind of like medical languages. They're very different medical languages, very different paradigms and and ways to approach people. And um, but it it taught us that that it really we could make progress um with people if we combined our efforts and we complemented each other's weaknesses and and emphasized each other's strengths in terms of these two things. And when you do that, it's really potent. Um, and I think, you know, we mentioned this earlier, but I think it's really important to understand that, you know, there are two things that I think we really want our listeners to understand. One is that we understand that having long COVID is a is a traumatic event in your life. And that in some ways, that traumatic event is um is part of the problem. And and that that isn't that in itself is not a problem. We can enfold that into what we understand pathophysiologically, physiologically about the disease. And then also the important point is like, who is it that has long COVID? And I think when we do that, and so in in in my corner of the medicine, I refer to that as um subtyping. Like, so what version of long COVID do you have? And who is it that has that? And when you start to auger down into those questions, you be you start to come up with ways to approach, you know. I think of this often as just trying to find the next rung on the ladder as you climb out of a hole, you know, and it becomes more evident as as you start answering asking these questions. Um, and in Chinese medicine, um, and then I'm gonna give Margaret the mic here. In Chinese medicine, it baked into the idea of doing medicine. It's like, who is it that has the has the disease?

Margaret Hampton 6:50

Yeah, it's basically when COVID came along, I was excited because I have so much confidence, not excited about the pandemic or people's illnesses, but I was excited for airtime for Chinese medicine because it's being 3,000 years old, we have seen chronic disease, we have seen epidemics, we have seen pandemics. So it's like, all right, I know the tools are here. It's my job to help sift through what the patterns are in these subtypes that Dr. Brendwick's talking about. Who uh who is showing up and what are the patterns of their constitutions that are kind of percolating up as a as a pattern of people. So right away there were some um very strong constitutional types that we were able to um sort out. And interestingly, um Jackie, you mentioned when we were talking before about perfectionists and we I noticed a lot of people that um came to us already from what we call in Chinese medicine a deficient state. So not just from the virus, but before that, whether that would be nutrient deficiency, um deficiency as far as your overall energy, which might be translated somewhat as adrenal fatigue, and people that have had a little bit of a nature to oh to push and to work hard, whether that's physically, emotionally, or um psychologically. And so in a way it showed us that this uh this virus was able to take hold of people on that deeper level that already had these uh um deficiencies showing up. And a lot of that was uh in the heart and what we call the kidney channel. So that's again your kind of constitutional energy. So we call in Chinese medicine the Xiaoyin. So how do we immediately address the deficiencies of the Xiao Yin? And that shows up uh often as pots, uh, insomnia, anxiety. So once again, it was like, so how do we unravel this between what Dr. Brungewig is able to do with helping people's um helping peop people's foundation with their gut health, their sleep, all the functional medicine tools that he has? But how can with herbs and acupuncture we begin to sort of fill the tank again?

The Five Foundations Of Recovery

Pierre Brunschwig 9:52

One of the really important pieces is um everybody almost everybody has had COVID. How come the virus had such a you know pernicious effect on you? Like, how did that happen? What did you bring to the table? Not because, you know, I mean, you could you could spiral in the wrong direction with that. It's like, well, it's my fault, but and I should have been living different and more healthy. However, none of us are perfect. And and so things that patients were tolerating before, once they had long COVID, they couldn't tolerate them anymore. Like, you know, low-grade anxiety, insomnia, pushing themselves too hard, you know. Um, these kinds of things then became central, you know. And so when we're thinking about trying to cast, you know, a net big enough and fine enough to gather the information, then you know, one of the principles that I like to use is the the five things that make everything better. And so that's restorative sleep. That's a diet that works for you, right? So not everybody should be on the same diet, right? That's a good inner life, right? Do you know who you are? Do you know why you're on the planet? And are you pursuing that? How much meaning do you have in your own sphere? And how much meaning do you have outside of that? Like, what are your social interactions? Do they serve you or not? Right. And that's an important place, you know, that that people brought in terms of dysfunction and in particular just isolation, you know. We've been talking about loneliness, and there's a department of loneliness now in the UK because our modern lives have driven us um away from each other and onto our phones or into our work, um, but not into connection again. And um so an inner life and an outer life, a diet, and then exercise. And these things most often um every one of these things was damaged in in people with long COVID. And so there was a lot of prioritization in terms of like, well, how do we get these five things working for you again?

Jackie Baxter 12:09

Yeah, and I'm just thinking by nature of the condition of long COVID, um, you know, you you mentioned exercise, you know, a lot of people aren't able to even get out of bed, let alone exercise. Um, you know, the the socialness, you know, if if you are struggling that much, then you don't have a social life. You don't feel like you have meaning in your life because you feel like there's nothing there. Um, and uh, you know, so it's like there's there's there's so many things that you've just listed. And I'm thinking, yeah, absolutely every single one of them is affected. So if we're talking about bringing them back into someone's life, that's a real challenge, isn't it? And it's got to be done very, very carefully or certainly very mindfully and in kind of collaboration, I suppose, with what works for that individual person, which comes back to what you were saying earlier about you've got to look at the person rather than the condition, I suppose.

Acupuncture For Calm And Hope

Margaret Hampton 13:11

Absolutely. It's it's the frustrating and beautiful part about medicine. And again, it's where um East meets West is honestly it's huge. It's it's encouraged because you know, you have a little bit more time with your Eastern medicine doctor usually. It's usually about an hour to an hour and a half. So there's time to lay there and unravel all of what's going on. So we can talk about the you know, all of these things that we just mentioned, your your connection with your friends, how are you doing with yourself, your spiritual life, your diet, if you're able to exercise at all. And then with the needles themselves, we're able to kind of help unravel some of the uh trauma and reset the nervous system. So even if it's for the 20 minutes after the needles have been in where you feel calm again, where your body feels uh safe again, it's beginning to turn the dial for your nervous system and your psyche and maybe even your spiritual self to remember that there's a there is uh there is wellness inside. So it's just this tiny opportunity of remembering that oh my gosh, maybe there is hope. Because uh so many people, as I know you know, walk in or are you know listening to this are feeling hopeless. And it's uh I I I do encourage uh to find a local uh acupuncturist to allow your body that opportunity to remember what it feels like to feel good. And like I said, for the first few times, maybe it's only 20 minutes, and then maybe it's 30 minutes, and then we start getting into I felt better for a day, and then I started to feel better for a week, and then combining again with supportive herbs for your body, dietary recommendations for your body, and then the the amazing things that Western medicine and integrative medicine can also bring into that to support your foundation, to, like I said, begin to turn the dial.

Jackie Baxter 15:18

And like I love what you said, and again, this isn't a reflection on Western medicine being bad, more the the pressures it's under, I think. Um, but you know, you mentioned that you were able to spend like an hour with somebody, and you know, you you you don't get certainly not in the UK, you don't get that, you know, you'd get 10 minutes if you're lucky with your with your GP. And even even a doctor that is very empathetic and listens to you and believes you, and and there are plenty of those good doctors out there, you know, you you you're rushing through your list, and you probably don't get through everything on your list because 10 minutes is nothing when you've got a list of sort of 25 different things. And I think that there is so much medicine in being heard and listened to, and you know, finding somebody that is able to actually make you feel like you matter for that amount of time, you know, it it it it's it is medicine in itself, isn't it? And uh I I think even if they get nothing more from it than that, that's huge. And I'm sure they will get more from it than that anyway. Um, but I think yeah, it's that that being heard, isn't it, that's so powerful, I think, for so many people when they maybe have never felt like they were heard, you know, maybe their entire lives, but certainly not during their kind of long COVID journey.

Adrenaline And Oxytocin Explained

Pierre Brunschwig 16:44

Yeah, it's I often imagine that people need to find a team. You know what I mean? And so that can be a social team and that can be a medical team. Um and um because there is acupuncture in Chinese medicine in the UK, I think one of the things that we would encourage our listeners to is like consider this, like what is available to you and and does it fit who you are? Does it help you to feel, does the treatment help you to feel more like yourself? You know, I mean, I think this is the the um the strange place that a lot of long COVID patients feel is like they feel they don't feel like themselves anymore. Like the thread of their life is so far away, they're not sure how to get back. Um, and it's really kind of an interesting question that I ask my patients is like as we're as we're working together, I said, Well, how much do you feel like yourself? And with rare exception, everybody answers within a second or two. You know, they they they're tracking this internally, you know, it's a complicated thing, but it they know when they feel 50%, 60%, 70% themselves. And this is one of the one of the easier places to um to sort of gauge. I mean, there are lots of questionnaires for for long COVID patients to get you know, to dig into their subtypes and stuff. But I think ultimately I want my patients to feel nearly 100% themselves. That's the goal. And um and this thing that I often um want to help um my patients kind of conceptualize, and this is where acupuncture can really help, is that the we're struggling on this teeter-totter of um adrenaline and oxytocin. And on the adrenaline side, you know, you're not safe, right? Jackie, do something now. And so that is that's the um the program, right, that your body employs to keep you safe, strongly embedded in the million-year-old, millions-of-years old um brainstem. So way, way, way before language, right? And so your whole body is resource to get yourself out of danger, right? And while you're in the I'm saving my life mode in this adrenalized state, all your collective healing systems are in neutral. And it's part of the obstacle to healing is to begin to um uh tip that scale to the other side. And the other side's oxytocin. Oxytocin is the mediator of I am safe and I am receiving and responding to physical and emotional contact. And on that side, that's when your healing, the collective or your healing systems operate. Until that happens, there's a lot of work to kind of get um the this teeter-totter tipped back towards oxytocin. Right. And um, but when that happens, some magic starts to happen because that collective called the healing system starts to kick in and things start to begin to work. But until that happens, there's a lot of micromanaging. And this is one of the beautiful things about uh acupuncture in Chinese medicine, is that the you know, the needles themselves are a little bit like we watch people walk out of the office and and then we refer to them as needle drunk. And they're really they're kind of saturated in oxytocin in a way.

Margaret Hampton 20:26

Oh, yeah, for sure. And I'm kind of getting geeked out and excited right now because I when we first started talking, I mentioned Xiao Yin, and this is a pattern that again often is long COVID. So that's the kidney and heart that we talked about. That is exactly parallels exactly what you just said, Pierre. We're talking about the kidneys, which the energetics and emotional part of that is fear versus trust. And the other part of the Xiao Yin is the heart. So that's connection, receiving and love and uh how do we feel safe from that fundamental level and then be able to receive love and basically goodness around us again? That system gets uh, like Dr. Brundwick said, wiped out during long COVID. So we're back to the phantom fundamental questions of what makes me feel safe and how do I receive and give love. And I know this is getting a little ethereal and a little bit into the emotional aspect of it, but after treating long COVID for uh, I don't know, guys, how long has it been? It's been a long time. Uh this this sort of this feels like forever, this sort of thing is becoming more and more fundamental. Like we can get we can get herbs, we can get some great pharmaceuticals that can help push the dial. But for a listener right now that maybe is at that place where they can't get the kind of care that they need or they're stuck in bed and feeling hopeless, begin examining with yourself when am I safe? How do I feel safe? What's my relationship to trust? And what is my connections to the people in my life? And again, like Dr. Brunjwig said, if you have somebody that's pulling energy from you or pulling chi, then perhaps it's time to put boundaries around that because we really need to work on balancing that fundamental system. And that's where COVID begins to start getting the boot out of your body.

Pierre Brunschwig 22:22

It's about finding your finding your team, right? And and and beginning to um create more and more. It's a process, right? Because it's going to teeter back and forth, right? But my experience with long COVID is that once we start seeing it teeter, the patient starts to light up. Like I'm starting to, I can see that we're we're making progress because I can feel more like myself, and I can feel some of the intensity of the symptoms are getting better, and my functionality is starting to improve. I'm beginning to tease myself with the opportunity to do something that I haven't been able to do.

Jackie Baxter 23:34

And see, you're saying about, you know, patients starting to feel more like themselves. Or um, you know, you said, I think Margaret a moment ago, you know, what makes you feel safe? And certainly what I've noticed with people is that, you know, not everybody, of course, but plenty of people actually don't really know. And certainly my experience, I think, you know, I had actually never really. Felt that safe. So if someone said to me, okay, well, what makes you feel safe? I would not really understand the question. And like we were talking about with, you know, the kind of who are you question? A lot of people don't really, you know, if you were to take away all of the shoulds that you've had kind of thrown at you for your entire life, maybe don't really know exactly who they are if they had the choice to be whoever they were. So how would you kind of look at that if someone says, I don't really know how to be safe, or what that feels like, and I don't really know who I am. And obviously, you know, when long COVID comes along, it exacerbates you know, all of these things because you feel completely unsafe and you have no identity whatsoever because everything's been completely erased. How would you approach that?

Margaret Hampton 25:00

I I I start with like um sort of body tracking is a term we throw around here. And just even when you ask yourself the question, uh I safe? And a lot of times the body, like you're saying, will say, Oh, hell no, or absolutely not. And so, but if you sit with that long enough, you'll notice where where in your body you hold that fear. And it just begins to be an opportunity of tuning in because the messages are there, the memories are there, even if they're things that you've tried to avoid, there's information that is stored in all of our cells. So start with that, but quite honestly, you know, just just like uh Dr. Brundwig and I uh refer to each other with patients, sometimes this is an opportunity to find a therapist. Um, I'm a big fan of somatic therapy, and of course, cognitive therapy can be very helpful too to sort of understand where these patterns of thinking came into your brain. But then how how frequent your story became a part of your body. Because first there was a story, and then there was the emotions, and then there's the physical reality that is created from that. So starting to try to pe uh parse through uh what stories have been told to you about you that you started to believe and embody and um be begin to remember who is, like we said earlier, the I am outside of what people have told you you are and finding your true essence again, which uh uh you know, I'm such a geek for Chinese medicine. Essence is a huge part of uh our fundamental qi. It's what you are born with, but we can begin to lose our essence as we give it to places that don't deserve us or that aren't serving us. So uh your essence is like this sacred qi given to you by you can call it God or the universal energy. So where where can you um go to begin to refill your essence? And of course, once again, that can be done somewhat with herbs and acupuncture and other uh medicines, but it comes down to this really deep discovery of who is the I am outside of the stories.

Jackie Baxter 27:34

So it's this coming back to your self kind of thing almost, isn't it?

Pierre Brunschwig 27:41

Yeah. Well, it's a process of digging down sometimes, you know what I mean? So if it's really somebody has never really felt safe, okay, then they've tipped this teeter-totter way over into the adrenaline side. And there are the the moments that they have enough oxytocin, you know, were too few to create a to create the experience of, well, this is who I am, right? When I'm allowed to be me, you know, when I'm not running for my life, when I'm actually now living, you know, and so so I I think you know, that's a really fundamental part of healing, I think. And if if somebody is traumatized, especially early on, you know, we have this way of measuring that called adverse childhood events. Um, and adverse childhood events um track potently with any disease. You can look at any disease process. And um having, you know, having uh oh, you know, an alcoholic in the family, having somebody incarcerated in the family, having a death of a sibling or a parent, these these things track strongly with disease processes, you know, and and of course they go right to the core of um how safe am I? And so that is something that can be impacted with with a caring um uh uh therapist, you know, and more and more there are um different ways to approach trauma. And and there's becoming a body of information and a variety of different therapies that begin to unpack this and so that patients have at least initially some fleeting experiences of what they are like when they are safe and connected. Important place to start.

Margaret Hampton 29:41

Totally. And I I want to give people helpful helpful tidbits. So some, you know, I don't know if this is as hot in the UK as it is in the United States, but we are talking about the vagus nerve a lot. So doing things that help tone the vagus nerve. So breath work, humming, singing, um, we have devices that you can put around your neck that um that um stimulate the vagus nerve. And I think combining those sort of activities, oh, there's another one where you hold put pressure on your your chest and just uh deep breathe. All you have to do is put pressure on your chest. Has to do with when we're infants and things that used to calm us down, probably release oxytocin. And while you're doing these things, uh telling yourself, uh I am safe. I am safe. And it begins to help rewire on that deep vagus nerve uh way um system, uh your your relationship to your safety. And in again, not to uh override this, uh overdo this um uh point, but uh until your nervous system uh is feeling uh safe, then it takes uh it takes it longer and longer to heal. It's the foundation of medicine being able to work, it's the foundation of absorbing the nutrients in your food, it's the foundation of being able to extract the medicinal qualities of the herbs. Because if we're in that fight or flight or freeze state all the time, then food and everything that we're trying to take tends to just rush through without being digested and extracted into your blood. So I just wanted to share with that so people can do it at home.

Pierre Brunschwig 31:30

But I I think, Morgan, I like I like that because I think there's I see the war cap unfolding in two different places, two different parts of our nervous system. One is is the story that we're telling ourselves, right? And so this is the thing that when somebody calls our name, this is what we're we're thinking of, you know. So when I think about Pierre, that's the story that I've been telling um about my life, right? And so bringing meaning to that story is really helpful. I think, well, no, essential, let's say it that way. Um, but there is this part of our nervous system that's responsible for keeping us alive. And that's why these somatic techniques, where you're actually getting back into your body, are really important because that part of our brain has no language. It's the thing that's keeping you alive when you're asleep, right? So, Jackie, when you fall asleep, you are asleep. And what's keeping you alive? That's your brain stem. No language down there, right? And and so getting using the vagus nerve as a way to feed back on that and using somatic therapy and touch and the body as a way to say this is the place where the brain stem can relate because it doesn't have a story, it doesn't have words. And these these two components to healing and um trauma and safety issues, um, I think work like I said earlier, like just alternate rungs on the ladder. Like having the semantic experience helps you to feel safe. Now, what is the story? How do you become the hero in your story again?

Jackie Baxter 33:08

Yeah, I I know absolutely, I mean, so on board with everything that you're saying. It's it's the work that I do day in, day out. And, you know, the the thing about the nervous system being the foundation, you know, your nervous system is going to help everything else that you might be doing to work better. Um, so any medications that you're taking, any supplements, nutrients, your diet, your sleep, uh, your ability to connect with others, you know, the more regulated your nervous system is, the safer you feel, the better all of those other things are going to work. So, you know, even if you are, you know, really into the kind of medical world, you know, sort of traditional Western medical world with sort of pharmaceuticals and things, the nervous system is still going to support that. And from what you're saying, Margaret, it sounds like, you know, the the Eastern world is is very similar, that you know, the the nervous system intersects with everything else that that you do.

Latent Viruses And T Cell Exhaustion

Margaret Hampton 34:13

Absolutely, yeah. And um with the thought of uh combining the East and West with with knowing this foundation, then we I sort of want to, I sort of want to move the conversation into other helpful things that we have found, East versus West, or not versus, in combine with West. So we have found, and I'm sure you all have in the UK, the a prevalence of latent viruses, so Epstein Bar, CMV, um, different herpes viruses that tend to be running the show in the background. So if I can let Dr. Brunswick run with this, but again, it's um an opportunity for custom care uh uh based on your constitution. Because looking at a patient that's been suffering from long COVID for let's say 18 months or longer, uh I think a lot of the time throwing antivirals at them, it can work and it can be helpful, but again, it's not addressing this underlying deficiency. The body at this point is exhausted, it's tired from fighting, it's used all of its resources and even the antivirals, they can knock this stuff back, but we have to add fuel to your body to begin to be able to fight. It's fight these viruses. They shouldn't be in there and we should have the strength to kill them off. So again, addressing the fundamental imbalances with the pharmaceuticals is is key, and I think that's uh something that's being lost out there with um mainly like allopathic medicine.

Pierre Brunschwig 35:54

Well, one of the things that keeps emerging in the immunological information from people with long COVID is they have something called T cell exhaustion, which is kind of a metaphor. You know what I mean? It's sort of like the the poor immune system has been running like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get back into shape. And the virus has been like a bull in a china store and kind of wrecked a bunch of things. And it's really difficult for the immune system to um to manage things that used to manage. And one of those things that it used to manage was um was latent viruses. These are viruses that embed into like our bodies, but are man when we're well, they um our immune systems can suppress them. And then, but after COVID in in in many people, then the immune system loses that capacity and these things break loose. And sometimes in sort of a jailbreak pattern, like we can see more than one, uh, we can see the antibodies in blood testing of more than one virus at a time. And so the the challenge in treating those, one is that we need to kind of give um the immune system advantage. And so then we kind of push to give um antiviral therapy in as many ways as possible, trying to kind of tip the balance back into the into the department of uh of the immune system. But the other piece of this, the other side of that, the other flip flip side to that coin is really what is it going to take for the immune system to be competent again so that it can keep these things uh at bay, locked up in their cages, and then the immune system can get back to the um the business of healing and restoration. And um not insignificantly, there's this drumbeat of information that there's a subset of people who persist in having coronavirus in them. And so there's all there's a confusing set of um of research at this point, honestly. But it is clearly a place where we really want uh better information about how to help um do this um this one-step, two-step piece, you know, like um can we suppress, can we beat, can we rid the body of latent coronavirus? You know, because if it's sitting there throwing rocks over the fence at the immune system, then that's a problem that has to stop soon at the beginning of the treatment. And then once we once we settle on how that happens, and there's a bunch of different things, both allopathic and nutritional and Chinese medicine that can be helpful that how do we get the immune system competent so that they don't have to stay on the Tvirals forever? Like how do we restore that immune competency? And this is a big theme in in long COVID.

Jackie Baxter 38:49

Um yeah, to use your um your jailbreak metaphor, it's uh, you know, patching the tigers and locking them back up again, but also stopping them from escaping again.

Pierre Brunschwig 39:01

Yeah, you want their lion tamer back on the job.

Jackie Baxter 39:04

Yeah, that's good.

Margaret Hampton 39:10

So a nice herb for people to find, I assume you could find it wherever you are, is um cordyceps mushrooms. They're very helpful. And um, if you're if you've had persistent long COVID for let's just say over a year, uh just to start taking those daily to start filling that that void of that fundamental qi. And then a very essential thing, what Dr. Brundwick and I focus is on is the quality of your blood. And as we know, as we know now, the spike protein is really good at damaging the blood. And again, a lot of people that walk into our door with long COVID had a deficiency of blood to begin with. Um, these are often, as we now know statistically, women, especially during their um, you know, before their menopause. So uh it has to do with how you're digesting, how you're how you're sleeping, and what you're eating. So there's a lot of focus on building nutrient-rich blood. And uh an unpopular thing in Colorado, which I've had to get stirred on people with, is this includes the the absolute necessity of eating good protein. And that does not include peas and beans. This is meat protein, this is animal-based. So I'm slowly converting vegans just to get better because there is nothing that makes more nutrient blood than a good bit of haggis. No, I'm just kidding. Haggis is actually great, but I can't get people in boulder to eat haggis. But just going back to eating well-raised nutrient-dense meat because that has so many of the fundamental things that make good blood. And what circulates in our blood is our immune system. So we need healthy blood to nourish our brains, our organs, and also give the immune system a vehicle to go around and beat up all these um persistent viruses and also COVID.

Jackie Baxter 41:15

Okay. And um you you say that the best way to get this is by eating, you know, meat.

Pierre Brunschwig 41:24

Good quality meat or animal organs, even.

Jackie Baxter 41:27

Yeah. Right. And supplementing or other types of protein are not going to do the job as well.

Blood Health Protein And Digestion

Pierre Brunschwig 41:32

Plant-based protein is 25% the concentration of animal-based protein. It's not going to do the heavy lifting. And so, yes, you could eat four times as much, but that's a that's a challenging thing for your digestive tract. And many people have compromised digestive tracks. And so we really insist that um patients, if they're building blood, then not only do they get the quality of the things, that we want to sort out what their digestive issues are and try to optimize that. And we want to make sure that they're cooking their food, you know, because raw food. This is another thing that we sometimes see. It's like, well, I'm eating salads. It's like, no, cook your food. It takes 50% less energy to digest a cook meal versus a raw one. And until you're back on your feet, this is a you know, a fundamental. Like we really want to stop challenging your digestive tract to raw food. We really want you to have a nice, home, you know, rich, uncuous, protein-rich meal. That's what's going to build you better.

Margaret Hampton 42:39

And we have found too, um, people that are averse to meat, besides ethical philosophical reasons, it's usually the reason is because they're not able to break it down very well. So again, like Dr. Brunswick said, sort of sourcing out, well, what's the issue with the digestion? Often that has to do with your stomach qi or stomach acid or lack thereof. Because living in this constant state of fight or flight or fear, once again, your body becomes um not very good anymore at creating stomach acid and pancreatic enzymes. So that's why we start with the the nervous system and then start building up towards building stomach acid, building um pancreatic enzymes, this sort of thing to help aid the breakdown of protein, especially if you haven't been able to um digest it.

Pierre Brunschwig 43:30

Yeah, that digestive tract sometimes needs special attention, you know. And I mean, for instance, um Morgan mentioned, you know, not uh lacking adequate acid production, which is key for the for the digestion of protein and the absorption of minerals. Um, and there's a microbe called Helicobacter pylori, which often is there interfering with the function of the stomach. And so we will often test for that and treat for that because uh that's right at the top of the digestive tract. And you really want that first step to happen. And and so um, and there's more complexity that we would like to that we would that we embed in our treatment of digestive function, you know, including leveraging prebiotics and probiotics. And there are specific probiotics that have been used in in uh in the setting of Long COVID, and we like to recommend them.

Jackie Baxter 44:22

So coming back again to you know, there being some sort of pillars almost that I've heard you kind of bring up here, but also you've then got to look at the person, you know, individually as a you know, as a person in their own right and and sort of tweak things or individualize things that way for that individual person in their circumstances. And I guess, you know, coming back to the who am I question, you know, what is important to that person? Um, you know, what what what is the most important to them and therefore where where might you start first?

Pierre Brunschwig 44:58

Right. And I think this is where your team building it matters, like because it needs to be a dialogue. It it's essential that it's a dialogue. And when things are working, there needs to be a conversation about well, how are we going to pivot? What does this tell us about you and how you're gonna get better? Because if that didn't work, we need to reconsider what's going on. And sometimes that means going back and digging deeper. It's like the foundation wasn't solid enough. Or there's this latent virus question, you know. And so we so we we that's the I think the important thing that I would say to uh the listeners is that this is that's the kind of team you want, is one that can pivot when something's not working and saying, well, that's not the only tool in the tool belt. Let's consider what that means and let's shift. Let's develop a more successful theory about how you get better. What does that look like? And what do you, as the patient, what would you say about that? Does that strike home, feel right, feel like there's energy for that? Right. And so often it's trying to figure out affordability, accessibility for each of these ideas.

Margaret Hampton 46:12

Yeah, I love um starting with a patient and I think that Dr. Brunswick often does this and I do, especially with long COVID, when you've been in the struggle for so long and kind of you know, again, that hopeless thing. So often we start with what like what is your goal? What what would be what would be something you want to work towards? Some person, you know, it's their I want to make it to my daughter's wedding. I just had a patient who wanted to get to her sister's wedding. Um, I want to be able to play around a golf. I'd like to walk my dog around the block without being winded and taxed the rest of the day. And and sometimes it's very small incremental goals, but I do think it's important to start putting the mind, you know, where we where we you know what we think about is what we create. And I I don't want to use that as an opportunity for someone to feel bad like they've been not been thinking about the right things, but spending a little bit of time during the day of imagining them achieving their goal. Because the body can begin to even as you're laying in bed feeling like I can't do anything today, if you start to imagine doing what you said your goal was, it begins to move the energy and the intention in that direction. So I do recommend starting in and writing it down, just writing down the goal because you can get lost in it. And then sometimes what's fun about writing it down is you can also start writing how you're getting closer to it. Even if it's tiny, tiny things, which we know long COVID can be so such a long, arduous fight, and we can lose perspective on when things start to get better. But just writing down, wow, today I was actually able to walk an another 50 yards with the dog, that sort of thing.

Building Your Team And Next Steps

Pierre Brunschwig 48:06

I'm gonna pivot just a little bit because this comes up a lot. Um, because I have a bunch of people who are kind of you know swimming in the in the flow of information that's coming out, either in in social media or in terms of the research itself. And I think getting back to trying to develop a team, um, because then people are asking me, so, well, what about, you know, rapamycin and and what about this research? And what about taking this and what about doing that? And it's like, well, let's talk about you, who you are, and whether that makes sense. What's our theory about how you're going to get better and can it serve that? Because it allows you to begin to sift through the kind of fire hose of information that's out there in different sources. It's a very confusing place to go and try and figure out how what you need. Very confusing. And having somebody that can help you say, great idea, but maybe not for you.

Margaret Hampton 49:04

Or not yet. You know.

Pierre Brunschwig 49:06

Or not yet. Yes, or not yet. Let's keep going with the fundamentals. Let's not get distracted.

Jackie Baxter 49:12

Yeah, and like you were saying about pivoting as well, you know, it's things, things change. So as you progress along your journey, your needs change, your deficiencies change, you know, what's what strategies, techniques, treatments will help are going to change, or the amounts that you do them are going to change. So it's being able to pivot or change or you know, adjust things as you go along, isn't it, as well? And, you know, I guess having someone to guide you along that or or walk the path with you, I think is very, very helpful. But um, you know, in the end of the day, it's it's your your walk and who you invite on that journey with you, um, who you invite into your team, as you say, is is really, really important. And also who you maybe boot off your team some of the time. You know, I'm thinking for me, I booted social media off my team for a significant part of my recovery, and it was a game changer. Um, so uh that that definitely helped me, yeah. Um so I mean, I feel like we could continue talking for another hour, and um I would I would love to, but um may maybe to kind of wrap this up for now, um maybe each of you could kind of give a kind of, I don't know, top tip or something, something kind of actionable or helpful for people listening. You know, what what can I do now? Or what would be one thing that might be worth exploring or taking away from this episode?

Margaret Hampton 50:44

I guess sort of um obviously it's worth pursuing trying to find um a Chinese medicine doctor that is willing to help. I mean, some it's it's not for everyone, not every Chinese doctor wants to take the leap on treating on COVID due to its complexity. And honestly, sometimes I will say I've been humbled by the COVID virus. It um I used to have a much faster cure rate until COVID came around. It's like, wow, this takes a while. So there's patience and persistence that is really important. So finding somebody that's trained that's willing to take this walk with you, using the the needles um to help regulate your nervous system and get blood flowing and also building blood. There's also a very exciting uh study out of Korea that I'm using on all the long COVID patients right now, which is the use of electrostimulation acupuncture on certain points that releases stem cells into the body. Very cool. Yes. Um Yeah, and finding somebody that's um good with herbs because you want to say, okay, you have child you have long COVID, that must mean you're blood deficient. So you should take Siwutong. It doesn't work that simply. If it does, I would have probably not be wearing these glasses because I've gone blind due to stress. But it's it's more like finding a practitioner that knows when to use the right herbs. So um eating well, like Dr. Brunjuwig said, eating cooked foods and focusing on uh healing healing on that deeper level. I strongly encourage to look behind the curtain of maybe some of the emotional, spiritual traumas that might be an anchor out of your boat, so to speak, that could be holding up making bigger progress.

Pierre Brunschwig 52:44

Mm-hmm. You know, I think um we've been talking a little bit about team building, and I think that's you know, how you select your team is going to reflect um how you see what your needs are. And and so I encourage um listeners to to stay anchored in in their conventional medicine regardless of the limits that they're there. Um but that's why I'm also encouraging the team and so looking to see who has a different perspective near you as a community with some skill, right? And and not get and try to stay, you know, close to the fundamentals. And that's what the team needs to also value, you know, um, because you're gonna try things that don't work. And when that happens, that's also valuable information. I never get upset about that. I'm like, hmm, okay, this is not a great theory, or this theory needs to be employed later. You know, do we need to go deeper? What are we missing? And I think this is um, you know, it's a it's a trial and error. And so people do need to feel some adventuresomeness in terms of being able to pull this team together because long COVID's a challenge. Um, it's an all hands-on-deck disease.

Jackie Baxter 54:06

Yeah, I love that. I think there's some some sound advice there. And I think, you know, this whole conversation that we've had today, you know, it's it's this idea that nothing happens in isolation and that healing is, you know, it is, as you say, a team exercise. And um, you know, it's it's bringing in, calling in the right people and the right things at the right times. And um I think you know that's that's so, so important. Um, so thank you both of you. Uh Margaret, Pierre, thank you so much for being here today, for giving up your time, for chatting to me and having this wonderful conversation. It's been absolutely fascinating for me. And I think everyone listening will have found it really useful as well. So thank you so much.

Pierre Brunschwig 54:53

Thanks for having us.

Margaret Hampton 54:55

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having us. For all the people out there, don't lose hope. There's always hope.