February 22, 2022 • 58 mins
I hope you learn as much as I did from this conversation with Dr Tenesha Wards.
Tenesha is a Holistic Doctor and founder of the Infinity Wellness Center, in Austin Texas.
For all the show notes and contact details head on over here.
If you love this show, please leave me a review. Go to RateThisPodcast.com/5starwellbeing and follow the simple instructions.
Tenesha is a Holistic Doctor and founder of the Infinity Wellness Center, in Austin Texas.
For all the show notes and contact details head on over here.
If you love this show, please leave me a review. Go to RateThisPodcast.com/5starwellbeing and follow the simple instructions.
Thanks so much for listening!
For everything else 5 Star Wellbeing please head to the Evenstar Wellbeing website.
Please join me on socials as well:
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIN
Music by Ian Hildebrand
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arwen Bardsley (00:00):
Okay, hello, everyone, and welcome today to
this episode. And I'm delightedto have Dr. Tenesha Wards as my
guest today. Tenesha is afunctional medicine doctor,
there's so many words I know I'mgoing to stuff up. But, and a
founder of the Infinity WellnessCenter. Tenesha is a specialist
(00:26):
in finding and correcting thecore root cause of conditions,
which can often be a bit of amystery, like fatigue, chronic
pain, fibromyalgia and othermedical mysteries. So I'm really
excited to have her on becausethis is a type of medical
(00:46):
practice that I think everybodyneeds to be aware of. And
certainly where I am inAustralia, it's really not
commonly known that functionalmedicine is a thing. So really
exciting to have youalong,Tenesha. I'd love for you
to just tell us a bit aboutyourself what your your
background is how you got to bewhere you are right now. And
(01:09):
what led you especially intothat, that functional medicine,
side of medicine, that would bewonderful.
Tenesha Wards (01:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for having me. I thinkit's worth saying my big, big
goal or legacy if I were toleave one is to absolutely what
you just said, make functionalmedicine, not just people,
people being aware of it, but afirst line of defense. So
essentially, the biggestdifference between functional
(01:39):
medicine is we're trying to getthe body to function at its most
optimal. And we're looking atthings differently. And I found
myself on this path for my ownpersonal health journey. My
first time, the first time thatI'm just gonna say it, Western
medicine failed me was when Iwas 15 years old. I woke up one
day, pretty much unable to moveany joint my body excruciating
(02:02):
pain, the best way I coulddescribe it, and I've said it a
couple times, it felt like glassshards, scraping from the inside
out of my joints. And along withit was chronic fatigue,
headaches, brain fog. I mean, Iwas again 15 years old, barely
able to get out of bed and wentfrom doctor to doctor to doctor
and nobody had a real solutionor answer. They, they thought it
(02:25):
was MS. It wasn't MS. Theythought it was lupus. It wasn't
lupus, you know, they ruled outa bunch of things. And then at
some point, they just startedtrying to cover up the symptoms
with medication. And that'swhere I was left. Until finally,
my mom did her own research-this was 1994 - at a library
and found a doctor that treatedLyme disease. And that's that's
(02:48):
what it ended up being. Soreally, we had to advocate for
ourselves, do a lot of thedigging ourselves. And he was a
more holistic minded doctor,that term wasn't really probably
thrown around like it is now.
Certainly the word functionalmedicine hadn't developed yet.
But he found and fixed what wascausing the actual bug the
actual germ that was causing allthe pain and the fatigue with
(03:10):
me. For me, that was the firsttime after I had my daughter
close to 40. I got really,really elegant and I thought, oh
my gosh, the Lyme disease cameback, it's a Lyme disease flare
up. I've lived almost twodecades over two decades without
any symptoms. And it wasn't ithappened to be Epstein Barr
Virus and an autoimmune disorderof the thyroid called called
(03:32):
Hashimotos, which has verysimilar and parallel symptoms to
Lyme. Lyme is also called theGreat mimicker because it looks
like so many things. So at thatpoint, I was in clinic already
my own my own office for 12years, I think so I was able to
run a lot of my own labs andtests and figured it out and was
(03:54):
able to pull out of it inside ofa year that time. So that's
essentially how I got here. Ofcourse, there's a lot of twists
and turns in between. But that'sthat's where my passion stems
from. I have so much compassionfor people who have spent, like
our family did 10s of 1000s ofdollars going from doctor to
doctor with no answers. Noanswers, no solutions really
(04:16):
gave up on us.
Arwen Bardsley (04:18):
Yeah, yeah. It's It's such a pity isn't that
it's, you know, it doesn't needto be that way. So did you
before you were 15 and you havethat experience, had you thought
about getting into medicineyourself? Or was that really the
prompt for you to do that?
Tenesha Wards (04:35):
I wanted to be a vet. So, all growing up all
through high school and evenafter I recovered from that I
still wanted to be aveterinarian. I went and spent a
day on the job at a veterinarianoffice and I said hard No, I
can't do this. This is not justyou know, petting puppies all
day long. Because they let me gobehind the doors and see all the
(04:58):
stuff in the surgeries I said Ican't I can't do this. I can't
do that to animals. So I alwayswanted to be in the medical
field and help. But I switchedto humans.
Arwen Bardsley (05:11):
Okay, interesting. And so did you do
medicine? At college? Did you gostraight into it after high
school?
Unknown (05:20):
I did. I did my undergrad in radiology, and then
went on to medical school andstarted a focus with functional
medicine, Chinese medicine. Andthat's really been where I've
been since and focusing onpeople. What's interesting is,
we see a lot of people come inwith chronic fatigue diagnoses,
fibromyalgia or something justhurts and like myself, they've
(05:43):
been given, you know, steroids,antidepressants, the whole
thing, pain medication, and noneof that fixes it. And the more
they started coming in, I don'tknow if I call it spidey senses,
right, or medical intuition orjust experience at this point.
I'm like, This sounds a lot likeLyme disease. This sounds a lot
like Epstein Barr Virus. And Ijust started running the right
(06:04):
tests, and finally findinganswers. So that's kind of where
the practice went on its ownfrom people coming in for just
holistic natural relief, and westarted digging in and finding
the actual causes.
Arwen Bardsley (06:19):
Okay. And yeah, I also wondered with your mom,
when you were 15, do you thinkshe had a bit of an intuition
about Lyme disease for you, orwas just luck?
Unknown (06:33):
You know, that's, I think that it was tenacity. I
think she refused to accept thather 15 year old was going to be
debilitated. And that she knew Iwas a happy, healthy athlete
cheerleader months ago, and thatit was so abrupt and so obvious
that something happened. Andkind of playing a little bit on
(06:55):
what you do, to just kind of putreference around what was
happening. And I think this istrue, I think that we're most
vulnerable and susceptible to bea good host to what we call
stealth pathogens, or microbesor viruses sneaking in, we had
just moved. And I was I justwent through like my first
heartbreak breakup. So Iabsolutely know Emotionally, I
(07:17):
was weak, I was not in a goodplace, right? So here's what I
know is hundreds and 1000s ofpeople are being exposed to the
same thing ticks with the samemicrobes. And not everybody gets
infected. They, first of all,they're really smart bugs, they
can read your genetics and yourDNA and find out if you're a
good host that we know to betrue now. But also, I think that
(07:41):
just my state of my immunesystem, my emotional health,
everything was fragile, and Iwas a good target a good host
right at the time. And I thinkthat matters. I think when
people are going throughsomething really stressful or
they're sick with somethingelse, they you know, it's an
opportunistic time for otherthings to either Express or
attack or whatever. Same withafter my pregnancy, I have a
(08:04):
busy clinic, I was just I thinkexhausted and going through all
the hormone changes. And it wasjust a good time for these
opportunistic things that wereprobably hanging out underlying
in my immune system, justwaiting for a good time to
express. That's what I've seen99.999% of patients when I asked
them, Okay, when did thesymptoms start? Okay, let's back
up 3, 6, 9 months before thatwhat was happening? And it's
(08:26):
always something stressful ortraumatic.
Arwen Bardsley (08:28):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's perhaps
take this opportunity to getinto a bit more about Lyme
disease and Epstein Barr,because I know the average
person on the street hasn'tnecessarily even heard of these
things. Yeah, yeah. So it wouldbe great. I actually do have a
(08:52):
good friend who has Lyme diseaseas well is still recovering from
that. So I have heard of it butEpstein Barr as well. I am aware
of that as well. And there'sthat guy, the Medical Medium.
Have you heard? Yeah, so I know.
A lot about Epstein Barr. Butyeah, can you kind of give give
(09:12):
people a bit of a 101 rundown onon what they are and yeah, how
they're caused?
Tenesha Wards (09:22):
Yeah, the illnesses. Yeah. So Lyme disease
is caused by a bacteria calledBorrelia Burgdorferi. Named
after Dr. Burgdorferi, who namedit. It was first discovered in
Lyme, Connecticut in the late80. No, sorry, late 70s, early
80s. Because all the kids inLyme Connecticut got juvenile
(09:44):
arthritis. They were likehundreds of kids were diagnosed
with this arthritic conditionand this doctor said that that
doesn't sound right. And so didsome digging figured out it was
an actual bacteriaSpirochaetaceae bacteria, which
is the same type of bacteria assyphilis. Different, obviously
hosting set of symptoms andtransmission, but attacks your
(10:04):
nervous system like that. And sohe found this, this bacteria in
all these kids, and they traceit back to a tick, a tick, tick
bite spreads this disease. Andso that's how it started. And
then it's kind of moved throughthe country. And the major
symptoms, they call it the greatmimicker because it looks like
(10:26):
so many other diseases. I wouldsay the major symptoms that I
see in almost every case isfatigue and joint pain. But I
also see brain fog. I also seeseizures, I've actually seen
their only symptom be seizureactivity. And I knew it was
something else because this thisperson, she was only in her 20s
did not had never responded toany seizure medication, epilepsy
(10:50):
medication. So her family wassaying, Well, I don't think it's
epilepsy. There's something elsegoing on with your nervous
system. And that's how we foundLyme. But it can cause numbness,
tingling, it can causedebilitation of joints, it can
cause shutdown of organs, it canget really, really severe. So it
looks like things like MSMon.
And it looks like these otherdiseases that are neurological
and it's often just it's causedfrom this tiny little bacteria.
(11:12):
So that's Lyme disease. EpsteinBarr Virus is a virus that
here's a good analogy. In orderit not the same viral strain,
but in order for somebody toexpress shingles, they have to
have had chickenpox. It comesfrom that same virus strain,
right. For somebody to haveEpstein Barr Virus they have to
(11:34):
have had Mono. Mono can then reemerge as Epstein Barr Virus.
Mono looks like the flu - fever,chills, aches, fatigue, you're
in bed. What I tell people ismono is the week long flu or two
weeks long. It's usually twoweeks, but it often gets missed
because people don't go gettested for it necessarily. They
(11:55):
call it the kissing disease.
Mono is very, very contagious.
You see a lot in high schools,colleges, things like that. So a
lot of people had mono didn'teven know it. They just knew
that they were sick. Oh, yeah.
And we start talking about theirhealth history. They're like,
Oh, yeah, I had a flu for twowhole weeks in college. And then
what happens is this virus themono virus lies dormant. And it
(12:15):
can reemerge again, usually, Ioften see it after divorces,
grad school, pregnancy, anythingthat stresses your system. I'm
seeing Epstein Barr VirusExpress significantly. I have
not yet had one Post COVID LongHaul syndrome patient come in,
who did not also have an activeEpstein Barr Virus case. So what
(12:38):
came first the chicken or theegg? Right? Did that person have
Epstein Barr Virus that madethem more susceptible to this
long COVID syndrome? Or didtheir COVID infection trigger
Epstein Barr Virus to express Idon't know that answer. I just
know that I've seen it in everysingle patient that's walked
through our door. So when whenEBV comes back, Epstein Barr
Virus, the major symptom reallyis fatigue, brain fog, and some
(13:01):
other things can go along withit. But I tell people because
I've experienced it myself. It'snot just a I stayed up too late
watching Netflix last nightfatigue, it is a full body, it
hurts. It's too exhausting tolift my limbs, in my head,
sometimes fatigue, mental andphysical, mental of like, I
can't even think today I can'tmake decisions. I'm just too
(13:22):
exhausted fatigue. It's adifferent kind of fatigue. And
after my daughter, I kind ofwrote it off as well, I'm an
older Mom, I'm running abusiness. We've got a busy life.
It's mom tired. It's mom tireduntil it wasn't. So I really
want to help educate women onwhat fatigue looks like. Because
you're running and burning thecandle right? And what something
(13:45):
more serious could look like andhow to, you know, as women,
we're just going to go go gotill we fall, right how to maybe
get ahead of that before youcrash and burn like I did.
Arwen Bardsley (13:54):
So So what do you say to people about how to
get ahead of it, like what towatch out for?
Tenesha Wards (14:01):
A lot of it is listening to your body and
really taking some time toyourself to listen to your body
first of all, which is hard todo with new babies and things.
And also knowing your baselineand I'm a big fan of labs, get
some labs before pregnancyduring pregnancy, you know,
every year get some basic labs.
And so when you have theseunderlying infections, they eat
up a lot of your nutrients andmicronutrients and things so
(14:25):
everything will paint to so youcan definitely look and say
okay, everything looked goodhere and it didn't here,
something's causing this. That'sa big, I mean, that's hard data,
but a lot of it's listening toyour body and just knowing and I
never discount somebody whenthey look me in the eye and say
I'm not myself. I don't feelright. This isn't just I'm
working too hard. You know, if Ihear somebody say that they've
(14:47):
been told, Go home and sleep andexercise and eat right one more
time, like I'm going to screambecause that's not going to fix
these underlying things. Now ifyou do that you get
significantly better that'sdifferent that that could just
be that you are overdoing it.
Arwen Bardsley (15:04):
Yeah. And so with Lyme and epstein barr, is
it easy to actually test anddetermine that somebody does
have these conditions?
Unknown (15:15):
It's not, at least for Lyme. Epstein Barr has a pretty
black and white antibody test,you have it or you don't. And
you can also tell from theantibodies if it's an IgM, which
is a new first time you've everhad the infection, or an IgG
antibody. Is this a recurrenceor reemergence or a flare up of
a previous infection. So we canfigure that out pretty quick. I
(15:38):
think anybody who's havingfatigue should absolutely ask
for an Epstein Barr Virus IgGand IgM antibody tests, we run
both, that's pretty accurate,those are going to show up. Lyme
disease is what we call astealth pathogen, it can hide
and the problem is it can getout of the blood these
Spirochaetaceae - they actuallylook like spirals - can move out
(16:00):
of the blood and they can hidein your cerebrospinal fluid,
they can hide in your joints,they can hide in your lymph
system. So they're a littleharder to test for, you can get
a lot of false negatives of aLyme disease test. So I like to
do a couple things, I like to doa urine test where the person
goes for a lymphatic drainagemassage before. So you're
(16:21):
essentially flushing these bugsout of their hiding places. And
if the person says that theyfeel like they were hit by a
truck after that massage, Iwould almost bet my license
there are going to be positivefor Lyme, or there's some other
underlying toxin in their their,you know, lymph that we need to
dig into if they test negative.
And that test is really onlyalso 90 to 95% accurate, it's
not 100% Because if it's hidingin your cerebrospinal fluid,
(16:44):
it's not going to show up in thelymph necessarily. So they can
hide. That's why they call themstealth pathogens. Some
hospitals like the Mayo Clinic,they've they've actually pulled
cerebral spinal fluid out totest and found and looked at it
live under microscope and foundLyme that way I've had
biological dentists tell me thatthey've done tests where they
(17:05):
scrape a little bit like underthe gum and they look at it
under a live microscope. Andthey found Spirochaetaceae lime
bacteria that way so theselittle tricky suckers can
definitely it can be hard to geta diagnosis for Lyme. And that's
part of the frustration.
Arwen Bardsley (17:21):
Yes, yeah. Yeah, I know, my friend who finally
got one. It was literally years.
Yeah.
Tenesha Wards (17:29):
Yeah, it's sad.
Arwen Bardsley (17:30):
And we might be a bit more behind the eight ball
in Australia as well. Maybe thanover there. I'm not sure.
Tenesha Wards (17:37):
We're not doing a good job here. We're not? Yes. I
think it's an epidemic thatnobody's looking at, that is
bigger than some of thepandemics we're dealing with. Or
the pandemic we're dealing with.
I think there's more people withLyme disease underlying Lyme
disease than we have an ideaabout.
Arwen Bardsley (17:55):
Yeah. And with Lime then do does it tend to be
the pathogen, the underlyingbug, is that, you know,
geographic specific or you know,the kind of warning signals, you
(18:16):
know, things that people can beaware of that they may have been
exposed to it.
Unknown (18:21):
So it is in more wooded areas, like highly dense wooded
areas. And there's differentstrains in at least in the US in
different parts of the country.
However, that's old news. Sopeople people say, Oh, you can
only get it in the NortheastLyme, Connecticut, upstate New
York. Well, that's not true.
They've since traveled on deertraveled on birds like it's all
(18:45):
over. So definitely highlywooded areas. And even New York
Central Park People thinkthey've been bitten by a tick in
Central Park. So you think youknow, highly cemented area you
wouldn't have ticks but anywhereyou have animals that can carry
them Absolutely. I've had a tickcome in our house on our dog.
(19:05):
I've seen it on a dog I've seenit drop just right where our dog
was laying and we're in CentralTexas people might think it's
not too wooded but it's woodedenough we have deer in our front
yard sometimes so so definitelyanywhere wooded. And the
precautions that you can takebig things if you're hiking
don't go off the trail so muchthey they hang out in a little
(19:25):
bit higher grass, you can tuckyour pants into your socks.
Definitely you can do you knowinsecticide type. I'm a bigger
fan of like essential oils and anatural insecticide then things
like OFF and DEET and at thesame time I've been with my
family in places where I'm like,Okay, guys, we can we can detox
our livers later. We need thereal stuff because I know
(19:46):
there's ticks and we're going indeep into these woods. So pick
your poison pick your battle,right. I might also have a
little PTSD around a tick beingon me so I might take a couple
chemicals and then detox thatlater over that but Those are
the bigger things and then tickchecks when I was a kid my
parents did tick checks growingup in Michigan is where I grew
(20:06):
up. Very highly woodedpopulation popular area of woods
and trails and we're outdoors alot of you know, eventually I
was able to do tick checksmyself never found the tick that
infected me It must haveattached infected and dropped
off but I did have the bullseyerash which is textbook for Lyme
and again in 1994 nobody, nobodyknew what nobody knew about
(20:30):
that. They just thought that's aweird rash. And they they didn't
know what it was until my momdid her own research, but now,
it literally looks like a bull'seye. The problem with the
bullseye rash is a lot ofdoctors will say, Oh, if you
didn't have the bullseye rash,you you must not have Lyme and
different statistics saydifferent things. Some say half
the Lyme cases, we'll get thebullseye rash. Some Some studies
(20:52):
say only 30% of patients withLyme disease get the rash. So I
think that's a histaminereaction, how your body's
handling the toxin in the bug.
Not everybody gets it. So thatis absolutely false information
that sometimes people can't evenget a Lyme test because they
didn't have the the rash thatonly shows up 30 or 50% of the
time. So it's a tough one todiagnose. And prevent.
Arwen Bardsley (21:16):
Yeah, yeah. And with tick bites, will you always
be aware that you've been bittenby a tick? No?
Tenesha Wards (21:22):
No. Ticks, they put in an analgesic when they
attach. You don't even feel thebite. How you have to do a tick
check is strip down and havesomeone look over your body or
do something like touching theylike to hide out in warm spots.
So it's really interesting underarms, groin, a lot of times
(21:44):
they'll attach at or above theankle because people are walking
through high grass, but onecommon spot is the hairline. You
may never feel the dang tick solike with our daughter I'll even
if we're out in woods, I'll youknow kind of just feel for
something bumpy. That's how Ifound one of my dog is I we were
hiking once and I came back andI brush him he's a Lab so he has
(22:07):
pretty short hair, brush him andI felt I felt an engorged bump,
a tick, and and had to take itout.
Arwen Bardsley (22:14):
Right. Okay.
Yeah, yeah, I do remember tickswhen I was young and hiking with
my parents as well. I remembermy brother had one but it was on
his back. Yeah, ew yuck, itmakes you feel eeeww doesn't it!
Tenesha Wards (22:30):
we all got the heebie jeebies now itching.
Arwen Bardsley (22:33):
Yep, sure do! Okay, but the bull's eye rash,
you'd be very aware that you hadthat rash, it wasn't wouldn't be
something that you wouldn'tnotice.
Tenesha Wards (22:44):
Correct. And it was so bizarre of a rash. We'd
never seen anything like it. Itliterally had rings. And it was
all over a leg that my mom tookan actual photograph of it back
when you had to go and get yourpictures developed. I still have
it it. Yeah.
Arwen Bardsley (22:59):
Yeah. Okay.
Right. Okay. All right. So andthen, you know, there's lots of
things I'm sure that you use tohelp people who have those kinds
of conditions. Can you tell us abit about that as well?
Tenesha Wards (23:16):
Yeah, so So sometimes going after the bug,
or the microbe, or the virusisn't the right first step.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it'snot, when someone comes to us,
we have to take a step back andlook at their whole body, their
whole health. Sometimes we needto build them up before we break
them down. Like we can't startkilling these bugs and detoxing
until we know that your gut isin a good place, we have to rule
(23:37):
out things like leaky gut, oryour immune system is strong
enough or your liver can detoxbecause when we start killing
these bugs, they can havesomething called die off. So we
we sometimes can't just go infor the kill. We have to make
sure the body can handle it. Sothat's a first step of is the
body strong enough to handlethis. And then I use herbals. So
(23:59):
herbal anti microbials that canbe very specific for each
infection, each bug and thatmatters. And we when people are
local, we do muscle testing orkinesiology for that, too. When
they're telehealth I just haveto rely more on labs.
Arwen Bardsley (24:15):
Yeah, okay.
Yeah. All right. Fabulous. Sothank you for telling us about
those two conditions that Yeah,I think a lot of people need to
be made aware of. But anotherone I wanted to talk to you
about is just good old burnoutbecause as you mentioned, you
know, a lot of people will comein and say, you know, they're
just exhausted. And they may youknow, we don't want to scare
(24:37):
everyone and make them thinkthat they may have one of these
more serious underlying causesbut burnout, massive problem
we're all you know, under thispressure of we've got to do do
do all the time, and not enoughstopping and being. So I guess
I'd like to get your take on,you know, what you see in people
(25:01):
with this and how you help themout, help them to recover.
Tenesha Wards (25:09):
Yeah. So burnout I think is also an epidemic,
right? We're trying to do itall, especially the last couple
years, I think so many people'sadrenal glands are taxed from
being in fight or flight,hitting walls of exhaustion.
Having to pivot so many times, Iam sick of hearing that word,
having to Okay, now we're doingthis now we're doing that. I
(25:30):
mean, even but even before thelast two years of being in a
pandemic, I think that we'reburning the candle at both ends.
And what I see in traditionalWestern medicine, when somebody
is hitting a point of fatigue,and doing too much. Often the
only really organ or glandthat's looked at is the thyroid.
And it's not the thyroid,sometimes it's the thyroid, but
(25:52):
the thyroid is often a symptomof the adrenal glands. So our
adrenal glands are two tinylittle quarter sized glands that
sit on top of the kidneys, andthey pump out adrenaline and
cortisol, and DHEA and otherthings. But in times of stress,
they pump out adrenaline andcortisol specifically. And so
what happens when you're in thisadrenaline cortisol fight or
flight, the thyroid comes in andsays, slow it down. And in
(26:16):
everything's about homeostasis,everything's about bringing you
back to balance. So it's tellingyou to slow it down. And
sometimes the thyroid then hasto go so slow that the to bring
the adrenals out of the stressstate, that we do have
hypothyroidism. Whichoftentimes, people get a
prescription for a medicationfor but it doesn't fix the
adrenals that are burnt out. Andso they feel a little bit better
(26:38):
for a while. And then theyrealize they're tired again. And
so they need a stronger thyroidmedication and a stronger one,
every six months, they're on thehighest, they're getting up to
the highest dose, and they'restill tired. So I think the
biggest thing we're missing withburnout is looking at the
adrenal glands. Again, lookingat the core cause. Now
rebuilding the adrenal glands,we use things like adaptogenic
(26:59):
herbs and animal extractglandulars, that's sometimes not
enough, we have to talk topeople about lifestyle change,
food changes, slowing down,taking things off their plate,
because if you're going to justcontinue running red, there's
only enough herbs to keep youupright for so long. You know,
eventually it's going to, wecan't even the best protocols
(27:22):
can't trump stress. So we haveto, we can get your body to
manage it better and to adapt alittle bit better. But sometimes
we really have to make someserious life changes and have
some serious conversations inorder for someone to heal. And
at the same time, we're here inAustin and the tech world is is
here in Austin, it can be verystressful. And sometimes people
are like, Look, I'm just in thisposition for another two years,
(27:44):
just keep me upright, I can moveor, you know, so I've worked
with people on that level aswell.
Arwen Bardsley (27:51):
But really, yeah, for everyone, you've got
to, as you said, take somethings off your plate. It's it's
about lifestyle, but lifechanges as well. You know,
you've actually got to changeyour behavior, which is really
hard for us as humans 96% ofwhat we do is, is habits every
(28:13):
day, which you know, and we'renot designed to to change easily
where our brains are frightenedof change. So, yes, it's a big
deal. But that's good that, youknow, people can be made aware
of that, and also can be helpedto get through some tough times
until they can change theirbehavior. Okay, and you did
(28:38):
mention before the COVID, longhaul thing, I would love to hear
from you about that. And just ingeneral, the pandemic, you know,
what your your thoughts are,where you think it's going to go
from here after Omicron? Are wedone? Please tell us we are!
What are your thoughts?
Tenesha Wards (28:57):
Who the heck knows? Yeah. I will say that it
is getting, you know, theinfection seem to be getting
less severe. Right. So that Ithink is good news, as it's
mutating. It's getting less andless fatal. So I think that's
really good. Nor do I want itagain. We had it through our
household. So I think COVID LongHaul syndrome is not being spoke
(29:22):
about enough. Unfortunately,what how we came across it is in
the same week to two weeks, wehad multiple new patients come
in and say, Hey, I testedpositive for COVID, three months
ago, six months ago, and I'mstill sick. And my doctor
doesn't know what to do with mebecause I'm not testing positive
for COVID anymore, like theactual acute symptoms are gone.
(29:44):
I'm left with things like brainfog to the point that people
can't some people can't holdjobs. Fatigue debilitating to
in bed and some are more severethan others. Some have had GI
issues for three or six months.
From it, and they're in therecertain It all happened after
COVID. Like, I've never been thesame I can't focus. Potts is a
really interesting syndrome.
(30:08):
It's a postural problem whereyou stand up and your blood
pressure tanks and to the pointwhere you could or it goes up
really high, where you couldpass out. This is something that
we've seen a lot with longCOVID. Yeah. So really, really
interesting, bizarre things thatjust they can't shake and they
can't function sometimes. And sofinally, after, I think, a good
(30:30):
year and a half a year, year anda half, the medical community
came out with post COVID LongHaul syndrome as a potential
reason for this. And what wefound is, every time somebody
had an underlying infection ofEpstein Barr Virus, I found Lyme
disease in a couple of them. Idon't know if that's what was
triggered or not, I found acouple auto immunities, I've
(30:52):
definitely always foundsomething else, a layer deeper
with everybody. And the thingsthat have pulled people out of
it is immune restore. We'vestarted basic basic, so
difficult, but basic of Oh,another one. I'm going to come
back to the gut repair. Anotherone is histamine. Food
intolerances. Again, verybizarre people found out they
(31:14):
could not tolerate foods thathad a high histamine production.
tomatoes, spinach, avocados,healthy foods, right healthy
foods unless your body can'tbreak them down. So we started
basic basic with like gutrepair, putting them on low
inflammatory diets, and then ananti viral herb of some sore
antioxidants like vitamin d,Zinc, we'd run all this and find
(31:35):
out what they're deficient in.
So we just really startedrebuilding them back up
addressing any other underlyingsyndromes, viruses,
autoimmunity, a lot ofautoimmunity has expressed post
COVID. And that came out in thevaccine studies, the people that
had a lot of the vaccineintolerances or response to them
had autoimmune disorders, whichmakes sense, it's an immune
(32:00):
response, right? COVID is makingyour immune system work really
hard a vaccine turns your immunesystem onto COVID. So anything
that's going to stress out yourimmune system, if you're an auto
immune person is going to causea flare, most likely. But we've
seen severe autoimmune flares,and people who didn't have it
before show up after havingCOVID. So it's, it's an
interesting syndrome. I don'tthink it's all just COVID still
(32:22):
in their system. I think it'striggering other stuff. And
that's what I think really needsto happen to heal is figure out
what it is. And what's yourstarting point, because
everybody's a little different.
Maybe not everybody needs a gutrepair. But finding your right
starting point moving forwardfrom there.
Arwen Bardsley (32:38):
Yeah, yeah. And that's really the beauty of
functional medicine. That is thewhole goal isn't it, to get to
that underlying cause and thentreat the whole body and whole
person. Yeah. So. Yeah. So asfar as where the pandemic is
going to go from here? We don'tdon't really know.
Tenesha Wards (33:01):
I know, we don't really know. But what I do know
is people seem to be less sickwith this one, not everybody.
And it seems to not last aslong. And I think all that's a
good thing.
Arwen Bardsley (33:12):
Yeah, yeah. But we're gonna build up to that.
Herd immunity, as they like tosay,
Tenesha Wards (33:17):
I sure hope so. I sure hope so. But this Omicron
is all bets off. Right?
Vaccinated people are gettingit. People who have natural
antibodies are getting it. Andit makes sense. It's a different
strain completely like the fluevery year, you're you're not
going to not get the flu thisyear, because you didn't get it
last year. Yeah. Or because yougot it last year, rather, and
you still have the antibodies.
That's not how that works. Sodifferent infections,
(33:38):
essentially. Yeah, I thinkeverybody is at risk. And I said
this from the beginning. I don'tthink it's a matter of if you
get exposed, I think it's amatter of when, and how well
have you been working on yourimmune system and your own
stress levels and your own, youknow, diet and keeping
(33:59):
inflammation down? Because it'san inflammatory process. It's an
inflammatory disease COVID as awhole. And I think the more
inflamed somebody is, the harderthey are going to have a hard
time getting over it. And theharder it's going to hit them
symptom wise, is what we'veseen.
Arwen Bardsley (34:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So true. Yeah. My son hasjust had it. So the week before
this week, he we had to have aseven day isolation period
because he tested positive. Hewas, it was like he had a bad
cold and he's 16 and absolutelysuperfit. He's an athlete. You
know, and he got over prettyquickly. And I chose to not
(34:34):
isolate myself from him becauseit was just the two of us and
you know, I didn't think itwould be good for his healing
process for me to just bedelivering trays to the bedroom
door. So but I touch wood seemedto avoid getting ill and I have
(34:54):
done a lot of work on my immunesystem, and it's interesting
that you mentioned the adrenals.
And the thyroid before, becausethat's what I've been working on
for the last year or so becauseI had some problems myself. And
you know, you know, takevitamins and minerals eat a very
(35:15):
clean, very whole food spacediet. We, you know, we just had
all the windows open, got lotsof fresh air. Luckily, the
weather was really nice. So wecould just have fresh air flying
through the house the wholetime. And I just think all of
that stuff, you know, reallyhelped him to recover quickly
and helped me to avoid becomingill. So it's really important.
Tenesha Wards (35:40):
It's basic stuff that we're not being taught to
do. As a as a country as a humanrace. I mean, all of that, I
think really could be mainstreammedia. All of it. All of
everything you just said eatingclean, letting the fresh air in
all of that stuff is so basic.
And we're doing the opposite.
Arwen Bardsley (36:03):
Yep. And, and also, the other thing is the,
you know, we talked a bit beforewe started about surroundings
and toxins. And that's the otherthing for me, like, I absolutely
avoid using all those handsanitizers that are going to
kill my microbiome. I will washmy hands with soap and water, if
(36:27):
that's an option at any, youknow, time or place. And, you
know, just not go for all thisstuff that's killing all the
good bugs that help us to fightinfection. So that's another big
thing for me. And just also, aswell as a clean diet, I just
have a really clean everything,you know, I totally avoid nasty
(36:49):
chemicals that are goinginterfere with my immune system
and everything else, or myhormones. So I think that's a
big thing for people to be awareof. And I know we have to use
hand sanitizers in certainsituations, but like, you know,
just try and minimize it if youdon't, and I have my own, which
is a non toxic one that I'll useinstead. You know,
Tenesha Wards (37:11):
I see all you're essential oil bottles back
there, so I assumed you probablyhave what is it? DoTerra? Yep.
All of those clean companies.
Oh, and Bach flowers. Oh, love
Arwen Bardsley (37:18):
Yep. Yep, that's right. It's like, yeah, we've
it. Yeah, they, they makenatural ones. Right? That's
again, so simple and basic.
Let's not put chemicals on ourin our body. But but that's not
even being talked about. Right.
It's just not all of thatstresses our immune system. I
mean, all of that. Does again,so such basic stuff that we're
(37:39):
just not, we're just not evenlooking at or being told to do.
And I really think our kidstoday need to eat more dirt.
Versus use more sanitizers,right, yeah, I say eat more
dirt. Because I'm talking aboutbeing exposed to the natural
bugs and build up their immunesystem. That's what we need to
do. And it's just, it's notmainstream knowledge, common
(38:02):
knowledge. And that is a biggoal of mine is just spreading
like your body can heal. Andit's going to get over things
like Lyme disease, and EBV andCOVID quicker when you're not
bogging it down with chemicalsin processed foods, and all the
stuff that's so convenient thatwe just do everyday all day,
including medications, right?
There's food dyes inmedications, there's fillers,
(38:24):
there's all these things in oursystem that congests our liver,
stresses on our body. All ofthat makes us sicker and sicker
and sicker. And then we get hitwith an infection. And we wonder
why we can't get well.
just emptying the the bucket ofour body's capacity by giving it
(38:48):
all these things to deal withthat it's not designed to deal
with Yeah, absolutely.
Tenesha Wards (38:53):
Right. Yeah.
Arwen Bardsley (38:55):
And you mentioned as well, before we
started talking aboutsurroundings and things that are
in our environments that aredifficult for us to deal with.
We did just want to touch onmold as well, because that is a
really big one that again, somany people are not aware of.
And then it's like nearly 25% ofthe population have the gene
(39:18):
that means they can't deal withit, so.
Tenesha Wards (39:21):
Yeah, yes. Yeah.
So we just actually recentlywent through a mold remediation
in our home. Oh, I found alittle half wall in our bathroom
that the paint had bubbled up.
And I touched it and the drywalljust crumbled. And so I found
out that there was a leak goingbehind the wall from our
bathtub, which we use we do alot of like Epsom salt baths and
(39:43):
we use our bathtub a lot. Somepeople don't. So every time we
turn the bathtub on, it wasleaking into this wall. And
fortunately, in Austin, I know alot of people and I brought in a
mold inspector that is veryaware about mold toxicity
illness and has a story of hisown wife and children moving
into an apartment and allgetting very ill. So I brought
him out. And sure enough, ran anair quality test. And it was one
(40:06):
level one point aboveinhabitable. So I think it was a
matter I think it was a Godthing that I found this wall, I
think it was probably a matterof months before we started
showing symptoms. And symptomscan look like mostly they start
with headaches, and then itmoves to chronic fatigue, again,
looks like so many other things,right? Can be respiratory can be
(40:28):
joint pain, nerve pain, mold,can it again, and my daughter
and I both have some methylationdefects, which is your detox
pathways. And her and I had itin our system, I ran a mold
urine test. And so I've learnedway more than I ever wanted to
about mold. I have walked manypatients through a house
(40:48):
remediation through detoxing itfrom their body. And I will
never again, lightly tellsomebody to check their house.
Because I know what an overhaulif they have it in their home,
it's going to be and at the sametime. I think we're seeing a
huge influx in mold toxicityhere in Central Texas, because
so many people have beenspending so much time in their
(41:09):
house. And I think they'resimply I think that the mold may
have already been there. Andit's very humid here. No, we're
not on the coast. But it just isvery humid here. So mold can
grow quickly and humid placesyou hear about it a lot in
Florida and Seattle in theseplaces that are known humid, but
I think it's a it's emerginghere in Texas, because people
(41:30):
are being becoming aware of it.
But yeah, people have for twoyears now been working from
home, you know, entertainingthemselves in their home,
keeping everything shut andlocked up, and they're getting
sicker and sicker. And so peopleare starting to come into the
office and and when we startrunning these tests, we find
first I kind of look for someliver congestion. And I'm like,
(41:51):
okay, liver congestion,something's going on. And then I
just kind of go through theprocess. Do they have heavy
metals. I've worked with likehairdressers, somebody move who
grew up on a farm, do they havelike, you know, pesticides,
chemicals? Like oh,phospholipases we look at all
that. And mold is coming up moreand more than I've ever seen.
And I think it's because ofbeing stuck indoors. I think
(42:14):
this is a theory with what I'mseeing. But yeah, it will never
roll off my tongue lightly ofyou need to remediate your house
because it is a very long,expensive process. So best case
scenario, when we find somebodywith mold in their body, they
live in a crappy apartment incollege, and they've since moved
on. And it just never left theirbody because they're a poor
detoxer. That's the best casescenario, I tell them. Worst
(42:36):
case scenario is it's in yourenvironment. And the sad part is
they're never going to get well.
It's like putting gasoline on afire that you're also putting a
couple of water drops on, ifwe're trying to detox and how we
detox is using things likebinders like charcoal and
bentonite clay and things thatwill bind to this mold and pull
it out. Again, though the liverand the gut has to be able to
(42:59):
process all that out. So we haveto fix that first. Yeah, long
story short, we can go throughthis process. But if you're
ingesting it, breathing it inthe environment still, as we're
trying to get it out, you'rejust never going to get well.
And it's just a vicious cyclethat is really, really sad. And
it can cost people 1000s and1000s of dollars to fix their
homes. It's really sad. Andinsurance doesn't cover it
(43:23):
unless you have a rider policy.
I learned that the hard way. Soif there's one thing people
could take away if they live ina humid area, even if they
don't, you could have a waterleak and it grows mold that on
your homeowners insurance couldpay itself back tenfold if
there's ever a problem.
Arwen Bardsley (43:40):
Interesting.
Yeah, and I don't I don't knowabout the how that is in
Australia as well. Maybe a bitdifferent but still a big thing
to check on your insurance butyeah, the great for people to be
aware of just opening thewindows and doors again that
comes up, that's a great way totry and avoid mold.
(44:01):
Dehumidifiers I'm sure that'ssomething that you talk to
people about as well can be youknow, really
Tenesha Wards (44:09):
even air purifiers. Yeah, air purifiers.
The big thing is the HEPA filterand that does most of those do
help with mold spores again,though, if if you're constantly
just having to be in theenvironment, it's only going to
help so much but all thatdefinitely matters.
Arwen Bardsley (44:25):
Yeah, yeah. And I think the problem is as well
the way that modern buildingsare made, you know, they're
built to be absolutely airtightand watertight and then when
something gets in there then itcan't get out. So yeah, it's a
big problem. And yeah, becausethere's a huge percentage I
can't remember what it is offthe top of my head now that have
(44:47):
buildings that are water damagedas well and you might you might
never realize
Tenesha Wards (44:52):
I don't know if this statistic is true
everywhere. But the moldinspector I work because I was
ready to move, burn the placedown and move we're gonna go
We're moving. He said, Teneshathat take a step back, I can be
a bit of an extremist sometimes.
He said, 50 or what did he say,80% of buildings, Houses
included, that are five years orolder have had some sort of
(45:16):
water damage? Yeah, 50% of thosewill have mold. Because it
wasn't, it wasn't, maybe theleak was fixed. But they didn't
bring in the big air scrubbersor they didn't leave the wall
underneath the sink thecabinet's open and they shut it
and it grew. So 50% of thosebuildings that are 80%. So he's
like, unless you're getting anew build, you don't know what
(45:38):
you're walking into, you'regonna have to test every single
house. And the market here inAustin is crazy. So you know,
are you gonna do that? If youget a new build? I don't know,
if you're aware of like offgassing, which is, yeah, all the
toxins coming from the newcarpet and the new paint. He's
like, I don't know, what's theworst evil. So I told my husband
(45:58):
when we finished this, weeventually want to buy land in
Texas and move out of the cityat some some point. I said, we
are we're building a metal barn.
We're building a metal barn, noarguments, not up for
discussion. I'm never goingthrough this again.
Arwen Bardsley (46:16):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a big thing. But yeah,
thank you for talking aboutthat. And then just wanted to
briefly touch on emotional andspiritual health as well,
because obviously that's, youknow, part of the, the whole
person and holistic health. Andit's obviously a big, big thing
(46:38):
that I work with, in my practiceas an energy healer. So I just
wanted to get your you know, howyou integrate that into the work
that you do at Infinity Wellnessas well?
Tenesha Wards (46:50):
Yeah, I think it's a huge part of it. Here in
the US, we really separate mindand body, we just do. And I
don't know if that is true?
Arwen Bardsley (46:58):
Absolutely the same here.
Tenesha Wards (46:59):
And we can't! We can't heal the physical without
the emotional and mental. Andlike I alluded to earlier, most
major illnesses come after somestressful trauma or something.
And sometimes we can heal themphysically without having to
have them go back and do sometrauma work, but not always.
Some people have come to usprocessed, what was going on?
(47:21):
Some not. So I'm a big believerthat if you don't heal the
mental and emotional, thephysical can't heal, or you're
only going to get so far. So I'ma big believer in it, we have
people that we refer to all overthe country, and specifically
locally. And some of it'sclinical experience, like we've
gotten you so far, your labs arelooking so much better, you're
this much better. And there'sstill something missing. It's
(47:44):
usually mental, emotional work,or spiritual. It usually is. So
I think that is a huge missingpiece when looking at the whole
person that we are missing inour traditional medical model
100%. I mean, most medicaldoctor visits aren't even going
to ask, you know, what's goingon in your life. And if somebody
(48:04):
is going through a divorce, andthey're having anxiety, that
that makes perfect sense. Theyneed something more than an anti
anxiety medication. Right. Theyneed some other type of support.
Arwen Bardsley (48:15):
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And totally, yeah,
so yeah, good. All right. And soI'm assuming that you're -
Infinity Wellness, you work withpeople remotely?
Tenesha Wards (48:28):
We do we do. That is one good thing that's come
out of COVID is that we, we havereally done a lot more
telehealth, and we're able tohelp people all over, really all
over the world, if they if theyhave access to run some of the
labs we need to see and, and,and things like that. So we have
patients all over, which isamazing.
Arwen Bardsley (48:48):
Yeah, because that was I was just gonna ask
you about that as far as thetesting that needs to be done.
You know, do you know whetherpeople in Australia if you know,
because I'm sure a number of agood good portion of my
listeners are in Australia aswell? Are they going to be able
to do the testing, the labs thatyou need them to do down here?
(49:11):
Do you know?
Tenesha Wards (49:12):
if they have a practitioner that will run them
for them? Yeah. Yep. Which ishit or miss. We've found. Yeah,
sometimes people have to findanother practitioner. Here. I'm
gonna, I'm gonna give this alittle tip. If you go into your
doctor's office, and you'resuffering from fatigue, anxiety,
insomnia, all the stuff and theythey run just a tiniest bit of
(49:34):
lab work, and you've requestedand we give them what to
request. And they say, you know,no, this is what I counsel or
coach people to say, say, okay,great. You're not going to run
those labs for me, please placethat in my chart that you refuse
lab testing. For me who'ssuffering from chronic fatigue.
I hate to have to counsel orcoach people to do that. I
(49:55):
loathe it. It's not how itshould be. And at the same time,
that is how we see sometimes getthe labs that we need some
sometimes, right? It's a hardit's sometimes it's a hard
conversation. But I alwaysremind people, those
practitioners work for you.
However they're being paid,right? Insurance companies,
national health care, likehowever they're being paid,
they're still you're still thecustomer, you're still the
(50:16):
client. And if they're refusinglab basic lab tests, because
we're not running anything too,too crazy, basic lab tests, if
they won't run them, there'sthere's a problem either. It's
not a good fit for apractitioner, they're not
willing to work hand in handwith you. Yeah, if you can't, if
you can't get what you need,it's time to find somebody who
will help you.
Arwen Bardsley (50:36):
Yeah, and I think I mean, I think here a lot
of the, they'll say no, becauseMedicare, our national health
cover doesn't cover it. But youcan pay for it yourself. But but
I've even found with that still,like I had to go to a
naturopathic doctor to get thetests that I wanted done even
(50:59):
just on my thyroid. And I had topay for them myself. They came
out of my pocket rather than thegovernment paying for them.
That's okay. I mean, if youknow, if you're determined to
get to the bottom of something,look, I'm in a privileged
position I can afford to pay forthem. It is such a pity that
there isn't more universal coverfor us these things. But yeah,
(51:22):
so that's, that's a really goodtip. Thank you for that. So do
you have anything that youwanted to tell people about
infinity wellness, any specialprograms or whatever that you
have at the moment that youwanted to share with us before
we finish?
Tenesha Wards (51:37):
Yeah, we work with most patients in a three or
seven month program to figureout after we figured out what's
going on with the first visit wetypically determined and run the
labs needed and then we placepeople are in different three or
seven month programs based onwhat's going on with them how
deep we think the healing needsto happen and, and then we go
from there.
Arwen Bardsley (51:56):
Yeah, okay.
Wonderful.
Tenesha Wards (51:58):
And it's called the Infinity way. I should say
that the Infinity way program
Arwen Bardsley (52:01):
is the program.
Okay. And your website, do youwant to just rattle that off for
people.
Tenesha Wards (52:07):
Yeah, it's Dr.
Tenesha Wards dot com,D-R-T-E-N-E-S-H-A-WARDs (with an
s) dot com and then all of ourhandles are Infinity Wellness
ATEX, which is short for Austin,Texas.
Arwen Bardsley (52:21):
Ah okay. So if people are looking for you on
socials, then that's how they'dfind you. I will have all the
links in the show notes. rate.
So yeah, but it's been great.
I've really learned a lot and Ireally appreciate your time,
Tenesha thank you so much forcoming on.
Tenesha Wards (52:41):
Thanks for having me. It's been great.
Okay, hello, everyone, and welcome today to
this episode. And I'm delightedto have Dr. Tenesha Wards as my
guest today. Tenesha is afunctional medicine doctor,
there's so many words I know I'mgoing to stuff up. But, and a
founder of the Infinity WellnessCenter. Tenesha is a specialist
(00:26):
in finding and correcting thecore root cause of conditions,
which can often be a bit of amystery, like fatigue, chronic
pain, fibromyalgia and othermedical mysteries. So I'm really
excited to have her on becausethis is a type of medical
(00:46):
practice that I think everybodyneeds to be aware of. And
certainly where I am inAustralia, it's really not
commonly known that functionalmedicine is a thing. So really
exciting to have youalong,Tenesha. I'd love for you
to just tell us a bit aboutyourself what your your
background is how you got to bewhere you are right now. And
(01:09):
what led you especially intothat, that functional medicine,
side of medicine, that would bewonderful.
Tenesha Wards (01:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for having me. I thinkit's worth saying my big, big
goal or legacy if I were toleave one is to absolutely what
you just said, make functionalmedicine, not just people,
people being aware of it, but afirst line of defense. So
essentially, the biggestdifference between functional
(01:39):
medicine is we're trying to getthe body to function at its most
optimal. And we're looking atthings differently. And I found
myself on this path for my ownpersonal health journey. My
first time, the first time thatI'm just gonna say it, Western
medicine failed me was when Iwas 15 years old. I woke up one
day, pretty much unable to moveany joint my body excruciating
(02:02):
pain, the best way I coulddescribe it, and I've said it a
couple times, it felt like glassshards, scraping from the inside
out of my joints. And along withit was chronic fatigue,
headaches, brain fog. I mean, Iwas again 15 years old, barely
able to get out of bed and wentfrom doctor to doctor to doctor
and nobody had a real solutionor answer. They, they thought it
(02:25):
was MS. It wasn't MS. Theythought it was lupus. It wasn't
lupus, you know, they ruled outa bunch of things. And then at
some point, they just startedtrying to cover up the symptoms
with medication. And that'swhere I was left. Until finally,
my mom did her own research-this was 1994 - at a library
and found a doctor that treatedLyme disease. And that's that's
(02:48):
what it ended up being. Soreally, we had to advocate for
ourselves, do a lot of thedigging ourselves. And he was a
more holistic minded doctor,that term wasn't really probably
thrown around like it is now.
Certainly the word functionalmedicine hadn't developed yet.
But he found and fixed what wascausing the actual bug the
actual germ that was causing allthe pain and the fatigue with
(03:10):
me. For me, that was the firsttime after I had my daughter
close to 40. I got really,really elegant and I thought, oh
my gosh, the Lyme disease cameback, it's a Lyme disease flare
up. I've lived almost twodecades over two decades without
any symptoms. And it wasn't ithappened to be Epstein Barr
Virus and an autoimmune disorderof the thyroid called called
(03:32):
Hashimotos, which has verysimilar and parallel symptoms to
Lyme. Lyme is also called theGreat mimicker because it looks
like so many things. So at thatpoint, I was in clinic already
my own my own office for 12years, I think so I was able to
run a lot of my own labs andtests and figured it out and was
(03:54):
able to pull out of it inside ofa year that time. So that's
essentially how I got here. Ofcourse, there's a lot of twists
and turns in between. But that'sthat's where my passion stems
from. I have so much compassionfor people who have spent, like
our family did 10s of 1000s ofdollars going from doctor to
doctor with no answers. Noanswers, no solutions really
(04:16):
gave up on us.
Arwen Bardsley (04:18):
Yeah, yeah. It's It's such a pity isn't that
it's, you know, it doesn't needto be that way. So did you
before you were 15 and you havethat experience, had you thought
about getting into medicineyourself? Or was that really the
prompt for you to do that?
Tenesha Wards (04:35):
I wanted to be a vet. So, all growing up all
through high school and evenafter I recovered from that I
still wanted to be aveterinarian. I went and spent a
day on the job at a veterinarianoffice and I said hard No, I
can't do this. This is not justyou know, petting puppies all
day long. Because they let me gobehind the doors and see all the
(04:58):
stuff in the surgeries I said Ican't I can't do this. I can't
do that to animals. So I alwayswanted to be in the medical
field and help. But I switchedto humans.
Arwen Bardsley (05:11):
Okay, interesting. And so did you do
medicine? At college? Did you gostraight into it after high
school?
Unknown (05:20):
I did. I did my undergrad in radiology, and then
went on to medical school andstarted a focus with functional
medicine, Chinese medicine. Andthat's really been where I've
been since and focusing onpeople. What's interesting is,
we see a lot of people come inwith chronic fatigue diagnoses,
fibromyalgia or something justhurts and like myself, they've
(05:43):
been given, you know, steroids,antidepressants, the whole
thing, pain medication, and noneof that fixes it. And the more
they started coming in, I don'tknow if I call it spidey senses,
right, or medical intuition orjust experience at this point.
I'm like, This sounds a lot likeLyme disease. This sounds a lot
like Epstein Barr Virus. And Ijust started running the right
(06:04):
tests, and finally findinganswers. So that's kind of where
the practice went on its ownfrom people coming in for just
holistic natural relief, and westarted digging in and finding
the actual causes.
Arwen Bardsley (06:19):
Okay. And yeah, I also wondered with your mom,
when you were 15, do you thinkshe had a bit of an intuition
about Lyme disease for you, orwas just luck?
Unknown (06:33):
You know, that's, I think that it was tenacity. I
think she refused to accept thather 15 year old was going to be
debilitated. And that she knew Iwas a happy, healthy athlete
cheerleader months ago, and thatit was so abrupt and so obvious
that something happened. Andkind of playing a little bit on
(06:55):
what you do, to just kind of putreference around what was
happening. And I think this istrue, I think that we're most
vulnerable and susceptible to bea good host to what we call
stealth pathogens, or microbesor viruses sneaking in, we had
just moved. And I was I justwent through like my first
heartbreak breakup. So Iabsolutely know Emotionally, I
(07:17):
was weak, I was not in a goodplace, right? So here's what I
know is hundreds and 1000s ofpeople are being exposed to the
same thing ticks with the samemicrobes. And not everybody gets
infected. They, first of all,they're really smart bugs, they
can read your genetics and yourDNA and find out if you're a
good host that we know to betrue now. But also, I think that
(07:41):
just my state of my immunesystem, my emotional health,
everything was fragile, and Iwas a good target a good host
right at the time. And I thinkthat matters. I think when
people are going throughsomething really stressful or
they're sick with somethingelse, they you know, it's an
opportunistic time for otherthings to either Express or
attack or whatever. Same withafter my pregnancy, I have a
(08:04):
busy clinic, I was just I thinkexhausted and going through all
the hormone changes. And it wasjust a good time for these
opportunistic things that wereprobably hanging out underlying
in my immune system, justwaiting for a good time to
express. That's what I've seen99.999% of patients when I asked
them, Okay, when did thesymptoms start? Okay, let's back
up 3, 6, 9 months before thatwhat was happening? And it's
(08:26):
always something stressful ortraumatic.
Arwen Bardsley (08:28):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's perhaps
take this opportunity to getinto a bit more about Lyme
disease and Epstein Barr,because I know the average
person on the street hasn'tnecessarily even heard of these
things. Yeah, yeah. So it wouldbe great. I actually do have a
(08:52):
good friend who has Lyme diseaseas well is still recovering from
that. So I have heard of it butEpstein Barr as well. I am aware
of that as well. And there'sthat guy, the Medical Medium.
Have you heard? Yeah, so I know.
A lot about Epstein Barr. Butyeah, can you kind of give give
(09:12):
people a bit of a 101 rundown onon what they are and yeah, how
they're caused?
Tenesha Wards (09:22):
Yeah, the illnesses. Yeah. So Lyme disease
is caused by a bacteria calledBorrelia Burgdorferi. Named
after Dr. Burgdorferi, who namedit. It was first discovered in
Lyme, Connecticut in the late80. No, sorry, late 70s, early
80s. Because all the kids inLyme Connecticut got juvenile
(09:44):
arthritis. They were likehundreds of kids were diagnosed
with this arthritic conditionand this doctor said that that
doesn't sound right. And so didsome digging figured out it was
an actual bacteriaSpirochaetaceae bacteria, which
is the same type of bacteria assyphilis. Different, obviously
hosting set of symptoms andtransmission, but attacks your
(10:04):
nervous system like that. And sohe found this, this bacteria in
all these kids, and they traceit back to a tick, a tick, tick
bite spreads this disease. Andso that's how it started. And
then it's kind of moved throughthe country. And the major
symptoms, they call it the greatmimicker because it looks like
(10:26):
so many other diseases. I wouldsay the major symptoms that I
see in almost every case isfatigue and joint pain. But I
also see brain fog. I also seeseizures, I've actually seen
their only symptom be seizureactivity. And I knew it was
something else because this thisperson, she was only in her 20s
did not had never responded toany seizure medication, epilepsy
(10:50):
medication. So her family wassaying, Well, I don't think it's
epilepsy. There's something elsegoing on with your nervous
system. And that's how we foundLyme. But it can cause numbness,
tingling, it can causedebilitation of joints, it can
cause shutdown of organs, it canget really, really severe. So it
looks like things like MSMon.
And it looks like these otherdiseases that are neurological
and it's often just it's causedfrom this tiny little bacteria.
(11:12):
So that's Lyme disease. EpsteinBarr Virus is a virus that
here's a good analogy. In orderit not the same viral strain,
but in order for somebody toexpress shingles, they have to
have had chickenpox. It comesfrom that same virus strain,
right. For somebody to haveEpstein Barr Virus they have to
(11:34):
have had Mono. Mono can then reemerge as Epstein Barr Virus.
Mono looks like the flu - fever,chills, aches, fatigue, you're
in bed. What I tell people ismono is the week long flu or two
weeks long. It's usually twoweeks, but it often gets missed
because people don't go gettested for it necessarily. They
(11:55):
call it the kissing disease.
Mono is very, very contagious.
You see a lot in high schools,colleges, things like that. So a
lot of people had mono didn'teven know it. They just knew
that they were sick. Oh, yeah.
And we start talking about theirhealth history. They're like,
Oh, yeah, I had a flu for twowhole weeks in college. And then
what happens is this virus themono virus lies dormant. And it
(12:15):
can reemerge again, usually, Ioften see it after divorces,
grad school, pregnancy, anythingthat stresses your system. I'm
seeing Epstein Barr VirusExpress significantly. I have
not yet had one Post COVID LongHaul syndrome patient come in,
who did not also have an activeEpstein Barr Virus case. So what
(12:38):
came first the chicken or theegg? Right? Did that person have
Epstein Barr Virus that madethem more susceptible to this
long COVID syndrome? Or didtheir COVID infection trigger
Epstein Barr Virus to express Idon't know that answer. I just
know that I've seen it in everysingle patient that's walked
through our door. So when whenEBV comes back, Epstein Barr
Virus, the major symptom reallyis fatigue, brain fog, and some
(13:01):
other things can go along withit. But I tell people because
I've experienced it myself. It'snot just a I stayed up too late
watching Netflix last nightfatigue, it is a full body, it
hurts. It's too exhausting tolift my limbs, in my head,
sometimes fatigue, mental andphysical, mental of like, I
can't even think today I can'tmake decisions. I'm just too
(13:22):
exhausted fatigue. It's adifferent kind of fatigue. And
after my daughter, I kind ofwrote it off as well, I'm an
older Mom, I'm running abusiness. We've got a busy life.
It's mom tired. It's mom tireduntil it wasn't. So I really
want to help educate women onwhat fatigue looks like. Because
you're running and burning thecandle right? And what something
(13:45):
more serious could look like andhow to, you know, as women,
we're just going to go go gotill we fall, right how to maybe
get ahead of that before youcrash and burn like I did.
Arwen Bardsley (13:54):
So So what do you say to people about how to
get ahead of it, like what towatch out for?
Tenesha Wards (14:01):
A lot of it is listening to your body and
really taking some time toyourself to listen to your body
first of all, which is hard todo with new babies and things.
And also knowing your baselineand I'm a big fan of labs, get
some labs before pregnancyduring pregnancy, you know,
every year get some basic labs.
And so when you have theseunderlying infections, they eat
up a lot of your nutrients andmicronutrients and things so
(14:25):
everything will paint to so youcan definitely look and say
okay, everything looked goodhere and it didn't here,
something's causing this. That'sa big, I mean, that's hard data,
but a lot of it's listening toyour body and just knowing and I
never discount somebody whenthey look me in the eye and say
I'm not myself. I don't feelright. This isn't just I'm
working too hard. You know, if Ihear somebody say that they've
(14:47):
been told, Go home and sleep andexercise and eat right one more
time, like I'm going to screambecause that's not going to fix
these underlying things. Now ifyou do that you get
significantly better that'sdifferent that that could just
be that you are overdoing it.
Arwen Bardsley (15:04):
Yeah. And so with Lyme and epstein barr, is
it easy to actually test anddetermine that somebody does
have these conditions?
Unknown (15:15):
It's not, at least for Lyme. Epstein Barr has a pretty
black and white antibody test,you have it or you don't. And
you can also tell from theantibodies if it's an IgM, which
is a new first time you've everhad the infection, or an IgG
antibody. Is this a recurrenceor reemergence or a flare up of
a previous infection. So we canfigure that out pretty quick. I
(15:38):
think anybody who's havingfatigue should absolutely ask
for an Epstein Barr Virus IgGand IgM antibody tests, we run
both, that's pretty accurate,those are going to show up. Lyme
disease is what we call astealth pathogen, it can hide
and the problem is it can getout of the blood these
Spirochaetaceae - they actuallylook like spirals - can move out
(16:00):
of the blood and they can hidein your cerebrospinal fluid,
they can hide in your joints,they can hide in your lymph
system. So they're a littleharder to test for, you can get
a lot of false negatives of aLyme disease test. So I like to
do a couple things, I like to doa urine test where the person
goes for a lymphatic drainagemassage before. So you're
(16:21):
essentially flushing these bugsout of their hiding places. And
if the person says that theyfeel like they were hit by a
truck after that massage, Iwould almost bet my license
there are going to be positivefor Lyme, or there's some other
underlying toxin in their their,you know, lymph that we need to
dig into if they test negative.
And that test is really onlyalso 90 to 95% accurate, it's
not 100% Because if it's hidingin your cerebrospinal fluid,
(16:44):
it's not going to show up in thelymph necessarily. So they can
hide. That's why they call themstealth pathogens. Some
hospitals like the Mayo Clinic,they've they've actually pulled
cerebral spinal fluid out totest and found and looked at it
live under microscope and foundLyme that way I've had
biological dentists tell me thatthey've done tests where they
(17:05):
scrape a little bit like underthe gum and they look at it
under a live microscope. Andthey found Spirochaetaceae lime
bacteria that way so theselittle tricky suckers can
definitely it can be hard to geta diagnosis for Lyme. And that's
part of the frustration.
Arwen Bardsley (17:21):
Yes, yeah. Yeah, I know, my friend who finally
got one. It was literally years.
Yeah.
Tenesha Wards (17:29):
Yeah, it's sad.
Arwen Bardsley (17:30):
And we might be a bit more behind the eight ball
in Australia as well. Maybe thanover there. I'm not sure.
Tenesha Wards (17:37):
We're not doing a good job here. We're not? Yes. I
think it's an epidemic thatnobody's looking at, that is
bigger than some of thepandemics we're dealing with. Or
the pandemic we're dealing with.
I think there's more people withLyme disease underlying Lyme
disease than we have an ideaabout.
Arwen Bardsley (17:55):
Yeah. And with Lime then do does it tend to be
the pathogen, the underlyingbug, is that, you know,
geographic specific or you know,the kind of warning signals, you
(18:16):
know, things that people can beaware of that they may have been
exposed to it.
Unknown (18:21):
So it is in more wooded areas, like highly dense wooded
areas. And there's differentstrains in at least in the US in
different parts of the country.
However, that's old news. Sopeople people say, Oh, you can
only get it in the NortheastLyme, Connecticut, upstate New
York. Well, that's not true.
They've since traveled on deertraveled on birds like it's all
(18:45):
over. So definitely highlywooded areas. And even New York
Central Park People thinkthey've been bitten by a tick in
Central Park. So you think youknow, highly cemented area you
wouldn't have ticks but anywhereyou have animals that can carry
them Absolutely. I've had a tickcome in our house on our dog.
(19:05):
I've seen it on a dog I've seenit drop just right where our dog
was laying and we're in CentralTexas people might think it's
not too wooded but it's woodedenough we have deer in our front
yard sometimes so so definitelyanywhere wooded. And the
precautions that you can takebig things if you're hiking
don't go off the trail so muchthey they hang out in a little
(19:25):
bit higher grass, you can tuckyour pants into your socks.
Definitely you can do you knowinsecticide type. I'm a bigger
fan of like essential oils and anatural insecticide then things
like OFF and DEET and at thesame time I've been with my
family in places where I'm like,Okay, guys, we can we can detox
our livers later. We need thereal stuff because I know
(19:46):
there's ticks and we're going indeep into these woods. So pick
your poison pick your battle,right. I might also have a
little PTSD around a tick beingon me so I might take a couple
chemicals and then detox thatlater over that but Those are
the bigger things and then tickchecks when I was a kid my
parents did tick checks growingup in Michigan is where I grew
(20:06):
up. Very highly woodedpopulation popular area of woods
and trails and we're outdoors alot of you know, eventually I
was able to do tick checksmyself never found the tick that
infected me It must haveattached infected and dropped
off but I did have the bullseyerash which is textbook for Lyme
and again in 1994 nobody, nobodyknew what nobody knew about
(20:30):
that. They just thought that's aweird rash. And they they didn't
know what it was until my momdid her own research, but now,
it literally looks like a bull'seye. The problem with the
bullseye rash is a lot ofdoctors will say, Oh, if you
didn't have the bullseye rash,you you must not have Lyme and
different statistics saydifferent things. Some say half
the Lyme cases, we'll get thebullseye rash. Some Some studies
(20:52):
say only 30% of patients withLyme disease get the rash. So I
think that's a histaminereaction, how your body's
handling the toxin in the bug.
Not everybody gets it. So thatis absolutely false information
that sometimes people can't evenget a Lyme test because they
didn't have the the rash thatonly shows up 30 or 50% of the
time. So it's a tough one todiagnose. And prevent.
Arwen Bardsley (21:16):
Yeah, yeah. And with tick bites, will you always
be aware that you've been bittenby a tick? No?
Tenesha Wards (21:22):
No. Ticks, they put in an analgesic when they
attach. You don't even feel thebite. How you have to do a tick
check is strip down and havesomeone look over your body or
do something like touching theylike to hide out in warm spots.
So it's really interesting underarms, groin, a lot of times
(21:44):
they'll attach at or above theankle because people are walking
through high grass, but onecommon spot is the hairline. You
may never feel the dang tick solike with our daughter I'll even
if we're out in woods, I'll youknow kind of just feel for
something bumpy. That's how Ifound one of my dog is I we were
hiking once and I came back andI brush him he's a Lab so he has
(22:07):
pretty short hair, brush him andI felt I felt an engorged bump,
a tick, and and had to take itout.
Arwen Bardsley (22:14):
Right. Okay.
Yeah, yeah, I do remember tickswhen I was young and hiking with
my parents as well. I remembermy brother had one but it was on
his back. Yeah, ew yuck, itmakes you feel eeeww doesn't it!
Tenesha Wards (22:30):
we all got the heebie jeebies now itching.
Arwen Bardsley (22:33):
Yep, sure do! Okay, but the bull's eye rash,
you'd be very aware that you hadthat rash, it wasn't wouldn't be
something that you wouldn'tnotice.
Tenesha Wards (22:44):
Correct. And it was so bizarre of a rash. We'd
never seen anything like it. Itliterally had rings. And it was
all over a leg that my mom tookan actual photograph of it back
when you had to go and get yourpictures developed. I still have
it it. Yeah.
Arwen Bardsley (22:59):
Yeah. Okay.
Right. Okay. All right. So andthen, you know, there's lots of
things I'm sure that you use tohelp people who have those kinds
of conditions. Can you tell us abit about that as well?
Tenesha Wards (23:16):
Yeah, so So sometimes going after the bug,
or the microbe, or the virusisn't the right first step.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it'snot, when someone comes to us,
we have to take a step back andlook at their whole body, their
whole health. Sometimes we needto build them up before we break
them down. Like we can't startkilling these bugs and detoxing
until we know that your gut isin a good place, we have to rule
(23:37):
out things like leaky gut, oryour immune system is strong
enough or your liver can detoxbecause when we start killing
these bugs, they can havesomething called die off. So we
we sometimes can't just go infor the kill. We have to make
sure the body can handle it. Sothat's a first step of is the
body strong enough to handlethis. And then I use herbals. So
(23:59):
herbal anti microbials that canbe very specific for each
infection, each bug and thatmatters. And we when people are
local, we do muscle testing orkinesiology for that, too. When
they're telehealth I just haveto rely more on labs.
Arwen Bardsley (24:15):
Yeah, okay.
Yeah. All right. Fabulous. Sothank you for telling us about
those two conditions that Yeah,I think a lot of people need to
be made aware of. But anotherone I wanted to talk to you
about is just good old burnoutbecause as you mentioned, you
know, a lot of people will comein and say, you know, they're
just exhausted. And they may youknow, we don't want to scare
(24:37):
everyone and make them thinkthat they may have one of these
more serious underlying causesbut burnout, massive problem
we're all you know, under thispressure of we've got to do do
do all the time, and not enoughstopping and being. So I guess
I'd like to get your take on,you know, what you see in people
(25:01):
with this and how you help themout, help them to recover.
Tenesha Wards (25:09):
Yeah. So burnout I think is also an epidemic,
right? We're trying to do itall, especially the last couple
years, I think so many people'sadrenal glands are taxed from
being in fight or flight,hitting walls of exhaustion.
Having to pivot so many times, Iam sick of hearing that word,
having to Okay, now we're doingthis now we're doing that. I
(25:30):
mean, even but even before thelast two years of being in a
pandemic, I think that we'reburning the candle at both ends.
And what I see in traditionalWestern medicine, when somebody
is hitting a point of fatigue,and doing too much. Often the
only really organ or glandthat's looked at is the thyroid.
And it's not the thyroid,sometimes it's the thyroid, but
(25:52):
the thyroid is often a symptomof the adrenal glands. So our
adrenal glands are two tinylittle quarter sized glands that
sit on top of the kidneys, andthey pump out adrenaline and
cortisol, and DHEA and otherthings. But in times of stress,
they pump out adrenaline andcortisol specifically. And so
what happens when you're in thisadrenaline cortisol fight or
flight, the thyroid comes in andsays, slow it down. And in
(26:16):
everything's about homeostasis,everything's about bringing you
back to balance. So it's tellingyou to slow it down. And
sometimes the thyroid then hasto go so slow that the to bring
the adrenals out of the stressstate, that we do have
hypothyroidism. Whichoftentimes, people get a
prescription for a medicationfor but it doesn't fix the
adrenals that are burnt out. Andso they feel a little bit better
(26:38):
for a while. And then theyrealize they're tired again. And
so they need a stronger thyroidmedication and a stronger one,
every six months, they're on thehighest, they're getting up to
the highest dose, and they'restill tired. So I think the
biggest thing we're missing withburnout is looking at the
adrenal glands. Again, lookingat the core cause. Now
rebuilding the adrenal glands,we use things like adaptogenic
(26:59):
herbs and animal extractglandulars, that's sometimes not
enough, we have to talk topeople about lifestyle change,
food changes, slowing down,taking things off their plate,
because if you're going to justcontinue running red, there's
only enough herbs to keep youupright for so long. You know,
eventually it's going to, wecan't even the best protocols
(27:22):
can't trump stress. So we haveto, we can get your body to
manage it better and to adapt alittle bit better. But sometimes
we really have to make someserious life changes and have
some serious conversations inorder for someone to heal. And
at the same time, we're here inAustin and the tech world is is
here in Austin, it can be verystressful. And sometimes people
are like, Look, I'm just in thisposition for another two years,
(27:44):
just keep me upright, I can moveor, you know, so I've worked
with people on that level aswell.
Arwen Bardsley (27:51):
But really, yeah, for everyone, you've got
to, as you said, take somethings off your plate. It's it's
about lifestyle, but lifechanges as well. You know,
you've actually got to changeyour behavior, which is really
hard for us as humans 96% ofwhat we do is, is habits every
(28:13):
day, which you know, and we'renot designed to to change easily
where our brains are frightenedof change. So, yes, it's a big
deal. But that's good that, youknow, people can be made aware
of that, and also can be helpedto get through some tough times
until they can change theirbehavior. Okay, and you did
(28:38):
mention before the COVID, longhaul thing, I would love to hear
from you about that. And just ingeneral, the pandemic, you know,
what your your thoughts are,where you think it's going to go
from here after Omicron? Are wedone? Please tell us we are!
What are your thoughts?
Tenesha Wards (28:57):
Who the heck knows? Yeah. I will say that it
is getting, you know, theinfection seem to be getting
less severe. Right. So that Ithink is good news, as it's
mutating. It's getting less andless fatal. So I think that's
really good. Nor do I want itagain. We had it through our
household. So I think COVID LongHaul syndrome is not being spoke
(29:22):
about enough. Unfortunately,what how we came across it is in
the same week to two weeks, wehad multiple new patients come
in and say, Hey, I testedpositive for COVID, three months
ago, six months ago, and I'mstill sick. And my doctor
doesn't know what to do with mebecause I'm not testing positive
for COVID anymore, like theactual acute symptoms are gone.
(29:44):
I'm left with things like brainfog to the point that people
can't some people can't holdjobs. Fatigue debilitating to
in bed and some are more severethan others. Some have had GI
issues for three or six months.
From it, and they're in therecertain It all happened after
COVID. Like, I've never been thesame I can't focus. Potts is a
really interesting syndrome.
(30:08):
It's a postural problem whereyou stand up and your blood
pressure tanks and to the pointwhere you could or it goes up
really high, where you couldpass out. This is something that
we've seen a lot with longCOVID. Yeah. So really, really
interesting, bizarre things thatjust they can't shake and they
can't function sometimes. And sofinally, after, I think, a good
(30:30):
year and a half a year, year anda half, the medical community
came out with post COVID LongHaul syndrome as a potential
reason for this. And what wefound is, every time somebody
had an underlying infection ofEpstein Barr Virus, I found Lyme
disease in a couple of them. Idon't know if that's what was
triggered or not, I found acouple auto immunities, I've
(30:52):
definitely always foundsomething else, a layer deeper
with everybody. And the thingsthat have pulled people out of
it is immune restore. We'vestarted basic basic, so
difficult, but basic of Oh,another one. I'm going to come
back to the gut repair. Anotherone is histamine. Food
intolerances. Again, verybizarre people found out they
(31:14):
could not tolerate foods thathad a high histamine production.
tomatoes, spinach, avocados,healthy foods, right healthy
foods unless your body can'tbreak them down. So we started
basic basic with like gutrepair, putting them on low
inflammatory diets, and then ananti viral herb of some sore
antioxidants like vitamin d,Zinc, we'd run all this and find
(31:35):
out what they're deficient in.
So we just really startedrebuilding them back up
addressing any other underlyingsyndromes, viruses,
autoimmunity, a lot ofautoimmunity has expressed post
COVID. And that came out in thevaccine studies, the people that
had a lot of the vaccineintolerances or response to them
had autoimmune disorders, whichmakes sense, it's an immune
(32:00):
response, right? COVID is makingyour immune system work really
hard a vaccine turns your immunesystem onto COVID. So anything
that's going to stress out yourimmune system, if you're an auto
immune person is going to causea flare, most likely. But we've
seen severe autoimmune flares,and people who didn't have it
before show up after havingCOVID. So it's, it's an
interesting syndrome. I don'tthink it's all just COVID still
(32:22):
in their system. I think it'striggering other stuff. And
that's what I think really needsto happen to heal is figure out
what it is. And what's yourstarting point, because
everybody's a little different.
Maybe not everybody needs a gutrepair. But finding your right
starting point moving forwardfrom there.
Arwen Bardsley (32:38):
Yeah, yeah. And that's really the beauty of
functional medicine. That is thewhole goal isn't it, to get to
that underlying cause and thentreat the whole body and whole
person. Yeah. So. Yeah. So asfar as where the pandemic is
going to go from here? We don'tdon't really know.
Tenesha Wards (33:01):
I know, we don't really know. But what I do know
is people seem to be less sickwith this one, not everybody.
And it seems to not last aslong. And I think all that's a
good thing.
Arwen Bardsley (33:12):
Yeah, yeah. But we're gonna build up to that.
Herd immunity, as they like tosay,
Tenesha Wards (33:17):
I sure hope so. I sure hope so. But this Omicron
is all bets off. Right?
Vaccinated people are gettingit. People who have natural
antibodies are getting it. Andit makes sense. It's a different
strain completely like the fluevery year, you're you're not
going to not get the flu thisyear, because you didn't get it
last year. Yeah. Or because yougot it last year, rather, and
you still have the antibodies.
That's not how that works. Sodifferent infections,
(33:38):
essentially. Yeah, I thinkeverybody is at risk. And I said
this from the beginning. I don'tthink it's a matter of if you
get exposed, I think it's amatter of when, and how well
have you been working on yourimmune system and your own
stress levels and your own, youknow, diet and keeping
(33:59):
inflammation down? Because it'san inflammatory process. It's an
inflammatory disease COVID as awhole. And I think the more
inflamed somebody is, the harderthey are going to have a hard
time getting over it. And theharder it's going to hit them
symptom wise, is what we'veseen.
Arwen Bardsley (34:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So true. Yeah. My son hasjust had it. So the week before
this week, he we had to have aseven day isolation period
because he tested positive. Hewas, it was like he had a bad
cold and he's 16 and absolutelysuperfit. He's an athlete. You
know, and he got over prettyquickly. And I chose to not
(34:34):
isolate myself from him becauseit was just the two of us and
you know, I didn't think itwould be good for his healing
process for me to just bedelivering trays to the bedroom
door. So but I touch wood seemedto avoid getting ill and I have
(34:54):
done a lot of work on my immunesystem, and it's interesting
that you mentioned the adrenals.
And the thyroid before, becausethat's what I've been working on
for the last year or so becauseI had some problems myself. And
you know, you know, takevitamins and minerals eat a very
(35:15):
clean, very whole food spacediet. We, you know, we just had
all the windows open, got lotsof fresh air. Luckily, the
weather was really nice. So wecould just have fresh air flying
through the house the wholetime. And I just think all of
that stuff, you know, reallyhelped him to recover quickly
and helped me to avoid becomingill. So it's really important.
Tenesha Wards (35:40):
It's basic stuff that we're not being taught to
do. As a as a country as a humanrace. I mean, all of that, I
think really could be mainstreammedia. All of it. All of
everything you just said eatingclean, letting the fresh air in
all of that stuff is so basic.
And we're doing the opposite.
Arwen Bardsley (36:03):
Yep. And, and also, the other thing is the,
you know, we talked a bit beforewe started about surroundings
and toxins. And that's the otherthing for me, like, I absolutely
avoid using all those handsanitizers that are going to
kill my microbiome. I will washmy hands with soap and water, if
(36:27):
that's an option at any, youknow, time or place. And, you
know, just not go for all thisstuff that's killing all the
good bugs that help us to fightinfection. So that's another big
thing for me. And just also, aswell as a clean diet, I just
have a really clean everything,you know, I totally avoid nasty
(36:49):
chemicals that are goinginterfere with my immune system
and everything else, or myhormones. So I think that's a
big thing for people to be awareof. And I know we have to use
hand sanitizers in certainsituations, but like, you know,
just try and minimize it if youdon't, and I have my own, which
is a non toxic one that I'll useinstead. You know,
Tenesha Wards (37:11):
I see all you're essential oil bottles back
there, so I assumed you probablyhave what is it? DoTerra? Yep.
All of those clean companies.
Oh, and Bach flowers. Oh, love
Arwen Bardsley (37:18):
Yep. Yep, that's right. It's like, yeah, we've
it. Yeah, they, they makenatural ones. Right? That's
again, so simple and basic.
Let's not put chemicals on ourin our body. But but that's not
even being talked about. Right.
It's just not all of thatstresses our immune system. I
mean, all of that. Does again,so such basic stuff that we're
(37:39):
just not, we're just not evenlooking at or being told to do.
And I really think our kidstoday need to eat more dirt.
Versus use more sanitizers,right, yeah, I say eat more
dirt. Because I'm talking aboutbeing exposed to the natural
bugs and build up their immunesystem. That's what we need to
do. And it's just, it's notmainstream knowledge, common
(38:02):
knowledge. And that is a biggoal of mine is just spreading
like your body can heal. Andit's going to get over things
like Lyme disease, and EBV andCOVID quicker when you're not
bogging it down with chemicalsin processed foods, and all the
stuff that's so convenient thatwe just do everyday all day,
including medications, right?
There's food dyes inmedications, there's fillers,
(38:24):
there's all these things in oursystem that congests our liver,
stresses on our body. All ofthat makes us sicker and sicker
and sicker. And then we get hitwith an infection. And we wonder
why we can't get well.
just emptying the the bucket ofour body's capacity by giving it
(38:48):
all these things to deal withthat it's not designed to deal
with Yeah, absolutely.
Tenesha Wards (38:53):
Right. Yeah.
Arwen Bardsley (38:55):
And you mentioned as well, before we
started talking aboutsurroundings and things that are
in our environments that aredifficult for us to deal with.
We did just want to touch onmold as well, because that is a
really big one that again, somany people are not aware of.
And then it's like nearly 25% ofthe population have the gene
(39:18):
that means they can't deal withit, so.
Tenesha Wards (39:21):
Yeah, yes. Yeah.
So we just actually recentlywent through a mold remediation
in our home. Oh, I found alittle half wall in our bathroom
that the paint had bubbled up.
And I touched it and the drywalljust crumbled. And so I found
out that there was a leak goingbehind the wall from our
bathtub, which we use we do alot of like Epsom salt baths and
(39:43):
we use our bathtub a lot. Somepeople don't. So every time we
turn the bathtub on, it wasleaking into this wall. And
fortunately, in Austin, I know alot of people and I brought in a
mold inspector that is veryaware about mold toxicity
illness and has a story of hisown wife and children moving
into an apartment and allgetting very ill. So I brought
him out. And sure enough, ran anair quality test. And it was one
(40:06):
level one point aboveinhabitable. So I think it was a
matter I think it was a Godthing that I found this wall, I
think it was probably a matterof months before we started
showing symptoms. And symptomscan look like mostly they start
with headaches, and then itmoves to chronic fatigue, again,
looks like so many other things,right? Can be respiratory can be
(40:28):
joint pain, nerve pain, mold,can it again, and my daughter
and I both have some methylationdefects, which is your detox
pathways. And her and I had itin our system, I ran a mold
urine test. And so I've learnedway more than I ever wanted to
about mold. I have walked manypatients through a house
(40:48):
remediation through detoxing itfrom their body. And I will
never again, lightly tellsomebody to check their house.
Because I know what an overhaulif they have it in their home,
it's going to be and at the sametime. I think we're seeing a
huge influx in mold toxicityhere in Central Texas, because
so many people have beenspending so much time in their
(41:09):
house. And I think they'resimply I think that the mold may
have already been there. Andit's very humid here. No, we're
not on the coast. But it just isvery humid here. So mold can
grow quickly and humid placesyou hear about it a lot in
Florida and Seattle in theseplaces that are known humid, but
I think it's a it's emerginghere in Texas, because people
(41:30):
are being becoming aware of it.
But yeah, people have for twoyears now been working from
home, you know, entertainingthemselves in their home,
keeping everything shut andlocked up, and they're getting
sicker and sicker. And so peopleare starting to come into the
office and and when we startrunning these tests, we find
first I kind of look for someliver congestion. And I'm like,
(41:51):
okay, liver congestion,something's going on. And then I
just kind of go through theprocess. Do they have heavy
metals. I've worked with likehairdressers, somebody move who
grew up on a farm, do they havelike, you know, pesticides,
chemicals? Like oh,phospholipases we look at all
that. And mold is coming up moreand more than I've ever seen.
And I think it's because ofbeing stuck indoors. I think
(42:14):
this is a theory with what I'mseeing. But yeah, it will never
roll off my tongue lightly ofyou need to remediate your house
because it is a very long,expensive process. So best case
scenario, when we find somebodywith mold in their body, they
live in a crappy apartment incollege, and they've since moved
on. And it just never left theirbody because they're a poor
detoxer. That's the best casescenario, I tell them. Worst
(42:36):
case scenario is it's in yourenvironment. And the sad part is
they're never going to get well.
It's like putting gasoline on afire that you're also putting a
couple of water drops on, ifwe're trying to detox and how we
detox is using things likebinders like charcoal and
bentonite clay and things thatwill bind to this mold and pull
it out. Again, though the liverand the gut has to be able to
(42:59):
process all that out. So we haveto fix that first. Yeah, long
story short, we can go throughthis process. But if you're
ingesting it, breathing it inthe environment still, as we're
trying to get it out, you'rejust never going to get well.
And it's just a vicious cyclethat is really, really sad. And
it can cost people 1000s and1000s of dollars to fix their
homes. It's really sad. Andinsurance doesn't cover it
(43:23):
unless you have a rider policy.
I learned that the hard way. Soif there's one thing people
could take away if they live ina humid area, even if they
don't, you could have a waterleak and it grows mold that on
your homeowners insurance couldpay itself back tenfold if
there's ever a problem.
Arwen Bardsley (43:40):
Interesting.
Yeah, and I don't I don't knowabout the how that is in
Australia as well. Maybe a bitdifferent but still a big thing
to check on your insurance butyeah, the great for people to be
aware of just opening thewindows and doors again that
comes up, that's a great way totry and avoid mold.
(44:01):
Dehumidifiers I'm sure that'ssomething that you talk to
people about as well can be youknow, really
Tenesha Wards (44:09):
even air purifiers. Yeah, air purifiers.
The big thing is the HEPA filterand that does most of those do
help with mold spores again,though, if if you're constantly
just having to be in theenvironment, it's only going to
help so much but all thatdefinitely matters.
Arwen Bardsley (44:25):
Yeah, yeah. And I think the problem is as well
the way that modern buildingsare made, you know, they're
built to be absolutely airtightand watertight and then when
something gets in there then itcan't get out. So yeah, it's a
big problem. And yeah, becausethere's a huge percentage I
can't remember what it is offthe top of my head now that have
(44:47):
buildings that are water damagedas well and you might you might
never realize
Tenesha Wards (44:52):
I don't know if this statistic is true
everywhere. But the moldinspector I work because I was
ready to move, burn the placedown and move we're gonna go
We're moving. He said, Teneshathat take a step back, I can be
a bit of an extremist sometimes.
He said, 50 or what did he say,80% of buildings, Houses
included, that are five years orolder have had some sort of
(45:16):
water damage? Yeah, 50% of thosewill have mold. Because it
wasn't, it wasn't, maybe theleak was fixed. But they didn't
bring in the big air scrubbersor they didn't leave the wall
underneath the sink thecabinet's open and they shut it
and it grew. So 50% of thosebuildings that are 80%. So he's
like, unless you're getting anew build, you don't know what
(45:38):
you're walking into, you'regonna have to test every single
house. And the market here inAustin is crazy. So you know,
are you gonna do that? If youget a new build? I don't know,
if you're aware of like offgassing, which is, yeah, all the
toxins coming from the newcarpet and the new paint. He's
like, I don't know, what's theworst evil. So I told my husband
(45:58):
when we finished this, weeventually want to buy land in
Texas and move out of the cityat some some point. I said, we
are we're building a metal barn.
We're building a metal barn, noarguments, not up for
discussion. I'm never goingthrough this again.
Arwen Bardsley (46:16):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a big thing. But yeah,
thank you for talking aboutthat. And then just wanted to
briefly touch on emotional andspiritual health as well,
because obviously that's, youknow, part of the, the whole
person and holistic health. Andit's obviously a big, big thing
(46:38):
that I work with, in my practiceas an energy healer. So I just
wanted to get your you know, howyou integrate that into the work
that you do at Infinity Wellnessas well?
Tenesha Wards (46:50):
Yeah, I think it's a huge part of it. Here in
the US, we really separate mindand body, we just do. And I
don't know if that is true?
Arwen Bardsley (46:58):
Absolutely the same here.
Tenesha Wards (46:59):
And we can't! We can't heal the physical without
the emotional and mental. Andlike I alluded to earlier, most
major illnesses come after somestressful trauma or something.
And sometimes we can heal themphysically without having to
have them go back and do sometrauma work, but not always.
Some people have come to usprocessed, what was going on?
(47:21):
Some not. So I'm a big believerthat if you don't heal the
mental and emotional, thephysical can't heal, or you're
only going to get so far. So I'ma big believer in it, we have
people that we refer to all overthe country, and specifically
locally. And some of it'sclinical experience, like we've
gotten you so far, your labs arelooking so much better, you're
this much better. And there'sstill something missing. It's
(47:44):
usually mental, emotional work,or spiritual. It usually is. So
I think that is a huge missingpiece when looking at the whole
person that we are missing inour traditional medical model
100%. I mean, most medicaldoctor visits aren't even going
to ask, you know, what's goingon in your life. And if somebody
(48:04):
is going through a divorce, andthey're having anxiety, that
that makes perfect sense. Theyneed something more than an anti
anxiety medication. Right. Theyneed some other type of support.
Arwen Bardsley (48:15):
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And totally, yeah,
so yeah, good. All right. And soI'm assuming that you're -
Infinity Wellness, you work withpeople remotely?
Tenesha Wards (48:28):
We do we do. That is one good thing that's come
out of COVID is that we, we havereally done a lot more
telehealth, and we're able tohelp people all over, really all
over the world, if they if theyhave access to run some of the
labs we need to see and, and,and things like that. So we have
patients all over, which isamazing.
Arwen Bardsley (48:48):
Yeah, because that was I was just gonna ask
you about that as far as thetesting that needs to be done.
You know, do you know whetherpeople in Australia if you know,
because I'm sure a number of agood good portion of my
listeners are in Australia aswell? Are they going to be able
to do the testing, the labs thatyou need them to do down here?
(49:11):
Do you know?
Tenesha Wards (49:12):
if they have a practitioner that will run them
for them? Yeah. Yep. Which ishit or miss. We've found. Yeah,
sometimes people have to findanother practitioner. Here. I'm
gonna, I'm gonna give this alittle tip. If you go into your
doctor's office, and you'resuffering from fatigue, anxiety,
insomnia, all the stuff and theythey run just a tiniest bit of
(49:34):
lab work, and you've requestedand we give them what to
request. And they say, you know,no, this is what I counsel or
coach people to say, say, okay,great. You're not going to run
those labs for me, please placethat in my chart that you refuse
lab testing. For me who'ssuffering from chronic fatigue.
I hate to have to counsel orcoach people to do that. I
(49:55):
loathe it. It's not how itshould be. And at the same time,
that is how we see sometimes getthe labs that we need some
sometimes, right? It's a hardit's sometimes it's a hard
conversation. But I alwaysremind people, those
practitioners work for you.
However they're being paid,right? Insurance companies,
national health care, likehowever they're being paid,
they're still you're still thecustomer, you're still the
(50:16):
client. And if they're refusinglab basic lab tests, because
we're not running anything too,too crazy, basic lab tests, if
they won't run them, there'sthere's a problem either. It's
not a good fit for apractitioner, they're not
willing to work hand in handwith you. Yeah, if you can't, if
you can't get what you need,it's time to find somebody who
will help you.
Arwen Bardsley (50:36):
Yeah, and I think I mean, I think here a lot
of the, they'll say no, becauseMedicare, our national health
cover doesn't cover it. But youcan pay for it yourself. But but
I've even found with that still,like I had to go to a
naturopathic doctor to get thetests that I wanted done even
(50:59):
just on my thyroid. And I had topay for them myself. They came
out of my pocket rather than thegovernment paying for them.
That's okay. I mean, if youknow, if you're determined to
get to the bottom of something,look, I'm in a privileged
position I can afford to pay forthem. It is such a pity that
there isn't more universal coverfor us these things. But yeah,
(51:22):
so that's, that's a really goodtip. Thank you for that. So do
you have anything that youwanted to tell people about
infinity wellness, any specialprograms or whatever that you
have at the moment that youwanted to share with us before
we finish?
Tenesha Wards (51:37):
Yeah, we work with most patients in a three or
seven month program to figureout after we figured out what's
going on with the first visit wetypically determined and run the
labs needed and then we placepeople are in different three or
seven month programs based onwhat's going on with them how
deep we think the healing needsto happen and, and then we go
from there.
Arwen Bardsley (51:56):
Yeah, okay.
Wonderful.
Tenesha Wards (51:58):
And it's called the Infinity way. I should say
that the Infinity way program
Arwen Bardsley (52:01):
is the program.
Okay. And your website, do youwant to just rattle that off for
people.
Tenesha Wards (52:07):
Yeah, it's Dr.
Tenesha Wards dot com,D-R-T-E-N-E-S-H-A-WARDs (with an
s) dot com and then all of ourhandles are Infinity Wellness
ATEX, which is short for Austin,Texas.
Arwen Bardsley (52:21):
Ah okay. So if people are looking for you on
socials, then that's how they'dfind you. I will have all the
links in the show notes. rate.
So yeah, but it's been great.
I've really learned a lot and Ireally appreciate your time,
Tenesha thank you so much forcoming on.
Tenesha Wards (52:41):
Thanks for having me. It's been great.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.