My Favorite Aha Moments

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
I'm glad you said that, becausewhenever I hear someone say the body is
attacking itself, my hackles go up, because I just know the body is
about survival and it wouldn't attack itselfwithout a specific and very urgent reason.
Cue music, places and everybody places. We're starting in three two. Welcome

(00:29):
to the auto Immune Hour, wherewe look at the rise of autoimmune disorders.
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(00:52):
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host, Sharon Saylor. Welcome everyoneto the Autoimmune Now. I'm Sharon Saylor

(01:15):
from Sharonsailor dot com and of coursefrom Understanding Autoimmune dot com and I'm not
in my regular studio today and it'sbeen one of those weeks where you know,
everything that could go wrong went wrong. So I've compiled some of my
favorite AHA moments from a few ofthe last shows. I hope you enjoy
some of the review and hopefully youhave an AHA or two like I did.

(01:40):
Enjoy. See you next week.So passing your seatbelts because I'm introduced
doctor Jenny Tofankian. She is anaturopathic physician and she has been treating chronic
illness for over two decades and havingcomplex chronic fatigue herself, she had no
choice but to dig deep into theliterature and uncover the root causes of chronic

(02:00):
fatigue, and through her research andexperience, she's developed an effective system to
unlock the five core root causes.So the people who are too exhausted to
function confunction. I think, likewhat a novel concept. So one of
the things we're going to talk abouttoday, because I think it's really important
is brain inflammation. You might begoing what, Sharon, Yes, the

(02:23):
kind of the pain, the stiffnessyou get in your hands and are your
feet, Maybe you can get thatin your brain too. Right, Jenny,
help me out here, because I'vebeen saying what I think a lot
more people talking about brain inflammation.How do you describe brain inflammation? Because
in my research I saw like themedical encephalitis, and I also saw what

(02:46):
they were calling neuroinflammation. Were youthinking myelogic encephalitis, Emmy, Yes,
absolutely, that's what yah. Myleogicandencephalitis is the term that people are trying
to move replacing chrome fatigue syndrome withmilogic andcephalitis. It's what most of the
world uses. There are other termsthat they're trying to use as well,

(03:06):
and the milogic andcephalitis does seem toexplain better what is going on with people
with chronic fatigue syndrome. And youtalk about the autoimmune I know this is
the autoimmune Hour, and I lovecoming back on here with you. I
have always held back from identifying chronicfatigue syndrome me as an autoimmune condition.

(03:28):
I did a presentation a few yearsago to some physicians. They invited me
to come talk on an autoimmune panelwith a bunch of doctors and I would
say, there is autoimmune like behaviordancing around this, and I realized that
some of that's my own resistance tothis identity of autoimmune condition, because I
think that it's easy to overidentify andfeel powerless, and I'm all about people

(03:52):
feeling empowered when they're dealing with theirhealthcare, and I think that that was
my block personally. I can ownthat when I I was diving into the
research around the newer upcoming research andstarting to look at what we can now
see is happening in the brain withinflammation, it starts to make a lot
more sense that the fatigue and alot of the symptoms that people get from

(04:16):
chronic fatigues, syndromyogic and cephalitis,or from all of these other autoimmune conditions,
or from stress traumatic brain injuries,anything that creates impact in the brain.
Toxic exposure is an autoimmune condition.It is the body starting to destroy
its own cells out of an actof self protection. I'm glad you said

(04:42):
that, because whenever I hear someonesay the body is attacking itself, my
hackles go up, because I justknow the body is about survival and it
wouldn't attack itself without a specific andvery urgent reason. Exactly exactly, there's
something that it is sensing and thereare different things that can be sensing that's
leading it to act this way.It could be that there's a low level

(05:06):
toxin in there that we can't seeand haven't tested for an infection, a
heavy metal pesticide, that kind ofthing. Or it could be that the
signals it's a lookalike problem. You'rearresting the wrong person because they have a
similar profile, and that can alsobe a or it looks close enough.

(05:27):
We're here, we've got the handcuffsand the gun, like we might as
well do it. Unfortunately, weall know this is a real problem in
the world too. With let metalk about that though, because the thing
that's coming up for me and oneof my recent explorations that have helped me
a lot, is understanding the rulemy autonomic nervous system plays as well.

(05:47):
There's a sudden russia an adrenaline.It messes up my whole body chemistry.
Even though logically I'm safe. Thereare times when the body I'll just feel
this rush of adrenaline and I'm like, oh, okay, what is my
autonomic nervous system trying to alert meto? So that messes with the brain,
I think, because then could beall of a sudden, some anxiety

(06:09):
pops up in all sorts of otherthings. Are you talking about the adrenaline
rush you get from thinking about somethingwhere you consciously know you're stressed out about
it? Oh, I didn't hitrecord were my last podcast? Yes,
And but it's both because sometimes I'lljust be walking and it's almost as if

(06:30):
my spidy sense goes and I'll feelsomething and I can't really put my finger
on that. Yes, not hittingrecord inside Folks works because that definitely is
a rush of adrenaline and self condemnation. I also sometimes feel it, just
maybe case in point, not somuch now, but during the last couple

(06:50):
of years, I was hyper sensitiveto where I went and how I went
and when I went. And onetime I was in a large department store
and I heard someone coughing just likesix feet away from me, like hacking
up alung, and that just setmy nervous system all of flutter. That
adrenaline rush, Especially if we're inthat chronic adrenaline rush state of mind,

(07:15):
it can definitely begin to be partof one of the picture that can lead
to this chronic inflammation in the brain. And one of the things that we've
talked about that we know. Isone of the things that I find really
interesting that I'm beginning to see isI'm thinking about patients, thinking about my
own personal history, my family's history, looking at the literature, listening to

(07:39):
the latest presentations from the NIH onchronic fatigue in ME, is that there's
a real common thing that's happening whenyou have people who have a tendency towards
depression and or anxiety, they havea chronic fatigue my ME or autoimmune kind
of picture, they have brain fog. All of the things that are happening

(07:59):
in the brain are the same withthis. It's all the same kind of
inflammation that's happy in the brain.And the thing that I think should really
get all of our attention, certainlyhas mine, is that it's the same
thing that leads to dementia, theParkinson's, the als. It's like,
it's all the dementias. It's allabout brain inflammation. It's all about that
blood brain barrier being leaky, thingsgetting through it that shouldn't get through again,

(08:24):
the toxins, the viruses, thosekinds of things, and then the
brain having a response to it thatgets out of control, that doesn't stop
which makes sense if we think aboutI don't know why we think about our
brain differently than our gut or something. But if leaky gut, which they've
proven is a real thing, yeah, we have a leaky brain. Yeah,

(08:45):
it is the same. And ifyou have a leaky gut, you
have a leaky brain. And ifyou have a leaky brain, you have
a leaky gut, and you alsohave leaky mitochondria. If you have either
of those, you have leaky mitochondria. Oh my gosh, I feel like
I need an umbrella here. No, you don't need an umbrella. And
you don't even need fear. Andthat's the thing that I feel like is
really important to interject right now.There's a certain amount of fear that motivates

(09:09):
us and peek your brain and go, oh, I need pay attention to
that. I don't want to becomelike Grandma or Dad when my case.
Yet I really think that we shoulduse that stimulus. Oh no, this
could become this could get worse ifI don't do something about it as a
stimulus to get us to really ownour own power and what it is that

(09:31):
we can do for our healthcare sothat we can start feeling better so that
we can stop this cycle. DaleBredesen, who wrote the end of Alzheimer's,
he's great. I had a chanceto meet him this fall and I
got to tell him the truth,which is that he has a small following
of Natcha Paths who does absolutely adorehim because he as an allopathic minded physician.

(09:52):
He went in to find the curefor Alzheimer's. He was looking for
a drug for Alzheimer's, and hewent and became a researcher. Then realized
he had to become a medical doctorand ran a clinic just studying Alzheimer's.
And what he found out was itis reversible. You can slow it down
and reverse it and not get it. And the way you do this is

(10:16):
all through lifestyle, like all ofit through lifestyle, which is crazy and
I'm not crazy, but it's crazythat there is. What I mean by
crazy is that you've got somebody whostudied this for fifteen years and this is
the conclusion he's come to. Andso I think again, it's just important
for us to realize the amount ofimpact we can have with the decisions we

(10:39):
make every single day about what arewe eating, how are we eating it,
how are we breathing, How arewe handling that stress response that isn't
our body that comes up automatically.What are we choosing to do? And
when do we notice? Like youin that department store, we all have
that, whether it's conscious or subconscious, We have things that trigger that stress

(11:03):
response, and the question is howquickly can we recognize it and then choose
to direct our nervous system into adifferent state. Absolutely, and there's so
much to cover there. One ofthe things that I did want to just
backtrack about and describe how people describebrain fog to you, because I think

(11:26):
people hear that, and they alsohear the term fibro fog and other things
like that. If you had askedme a few years ago, are you
having brain fog? I would havesaid no. But now that I have
a more nuanced idea of what brainfog is, my answer would have been
completely different back then. So Idescribe, what are some of these things
that we might be noticing fall intothis catch all term of like brain fog

(11:50):
or fibro fog or brain inflammation.That's such a good question. People have
different experiences of it, So I'llgive you some of the things that patients
have told me, what I've experiencedmyself when it's there for me. So
you can feel like cotton wool inthe brain feels off. I could just
want that cup of coffee or somethinglike that to just clear the clouds.

(12:11):
It's a little bit fuzzy in there, just feels like you can't think.
A lot of people who are professionals, who are used to having the thinking
brain that functions at a high level, it can feel just it's a little
bit like how come I can't justget my engine to turn over. It's
that you're trying to get the engineturn and the batteries not there. It's
like rare, it's not quite happening. That's one of the things. The
other is you're noticing that things aremore challenging, and that can be a

(12:35):
whole a whole array. So onecould be word finding is a sign of
brain fog. What's her name?The one with the cat, the purple
cat, It's like, what's hername? Or it can be not things
places where you should feel familiar don'tfeel familiar anymore. I had very very
severe brain fog during one of mymold times where I was driving away from

(13:00):
the building where my husband works,and I didn't know where I was.
Now, the thing is that weown that building. I directed the remodeling
of that building. I know exactlywhere that building is. But because my
brain fog was so bad, Iwas actually lost in a familiar place.
That's an extreme form, and thatfreaked me out and also scared me because

(13:20):
my dad at the time had beendiagnosed with the dimension. I was like,
oh, here I go. Butfortunately that went away. The other
kinds of brain fog. It's interestingthat the brain fog brain fatigue is right
next to each other. So brainfog and brain fatigue brain fatigue can be
like I used to be able toconcentrate for hours reading difficult text, and

(13:45):
now after ten minutes, I'm kindof like, oh, I'm distracted and
not able to focus as well.It's if you were able to write briefs
or papers or do your work,and then you're finding that your concentration time
is down. You're not finding youcan connect higher level concepts quite in the
same way as you used to.Those can all be signs of brain fog.

(14:05):
Too often those people go in andstart complaining about those. At age
forty fifty, sixty and they're brushedoff and told, oh, it's just
normal aging. That's not true.We have people who are in their nineties
whose brains still work really well.There are things that we can do to
keep our brain so that they arehigh functioning throughout all of our decades.

(14:28):
So I want everyone to go overto Dr Jenny tofanky and dot com and
she's got all sorts of free optionsthere and you can get hold of her
if she's sparked your interests because she'sawesome. She has loads of experience to
help you through this. She issomeone who's been through it herself, and
those are the kinds of people Ilike working with because I don't always have
the words to explain what's happening,but if they've been through it themselves,

(14:50):
they get it on that level.And your URL is what Dr Jenny toofankan
dot com Jenny j E n ny to fank yn TEA isn't tom you
Fison frank e and A is aNancy ki a n dot com. Thank
you so much, doctor Jenny forsharing with us today, and we'll have

(15:11):
that up on the website. Everyone over at Understanding Autoimmune dot com as
a clickable link as well, becausesometimes remembering her last name, that's why
we all lovingly call her doctor Jenny. And she's awesome. And I don't
know if you follow social media atall, but sometimes I get into these

(15:31):
algorithms. Maybe I'm not sure why, but I'm seeing more and more people
saying as adults are being diagnosed withADHD. So I'm totally fascinated by all
of the new things that they're findingout. And I have some dear friends
that introduced me to tonight's guest.Her name is doctor Connie Mick Reynolds,
and I'm going to read her biobecause it's pretty amazing. I'm only going

(15:52):
to read the first part, butit's an amazing bio. She's an accomplished
professional in the field of rehabilitation counselingand psychology and she has over thirty years
of experience and she holds license thisin Psychologist, Certified Rehabilitation counselor, Certified
Vocational Evaluator, and her expertise ishelping make a significant impact in the lives

(16:14):
of individuals across all age groups.Plus she is the author of the amazing
new book I'm going to read herealso to get the title right, solving
the ADHD at the real cause andlasting solutions to your child's struggle to learn.
Welcome Connie, thanks for being onthe show. Oh thank you so
much for having me. It's apleasure to be here today. The more

(16:36):
I delved into my own healing process, I realized one of the things was
the impact of the brain. Andplease describe for us what ADHD is for
you, because I think we havea variety of people saying they're ADHD or
whatever, and maybe or maybe not. I do think it's a very relevant
topic, obviously because I wrote abook about it. But the conversation starts

(17:00):
here, which is defining this isa really great place to begin. It's
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a termI'm not really fond of. I'll be
honest. I've been as psychologist forthirty years and rehab councer for thirty years,
and to me, everyone has theirown definition of what this thing is,
and that's part of the challenge isreally defining what people have and then

(17:25):
being able to figure a pathway outof it. And really the concept is
sadly that if you have this,you can't ever get past it, and
I don't believe that, and mywork over the last fifteen years has really
been about changing the narrative of that. Yes, people are inattentive, some
people have trouble remembering, and we'llget into some of this what some of

(17:48):
these behaviors look like, because inmy world, what I've discovered is that
if we unravel the symptoms which arethe behaviors, and if we dig a
little deeper than just the surface ofthe band aid that gets placed upon some
of these things in our world,we actually find out that for a lot
of people, I would say eightyfive to ninety percent of the people who
come to my clinics at least havesomething else going on that we can tackle.

(18:14):
And when we tackle that, weactually get rid of those root causes
for the symptoms and the behaviors thatpeople are seeing, both in children and
adults. And so the banter ofthe ADHD. I know, when it
first came out with the new DSMfive about ten years ago, there's a
lot of uproar because a lot ofpeople felt like almost any one now could

(18:36):
qualify for a diagnosis of ADHD.And does that really serve us? Does
that really move us? In adirection that helps people. In some cases,
having a definition of what something isyes, is very helpful. In
other cases, it's stigmatizing. SoI think we have to really check ourselves
on are we creating stigma? Arewe creating a pathway forward? And that's

(18:59):
really where I begin, is whatcan we do to move forward? I
love that moving forward, that's whatwe're all about. To have the label,
but move beyond that. You're notyour labels exactly. Speaking of labels,
I'm not curious. So is ADDand ADHD the same thing. I
hear those two acronyms bountered about,and I'm very confused about the meanings of

(19:22):
them. Most people are, andI think it's because it is confusing.
So ADD is a tention deficit disorder, and as I said, ADHD is
the hyperactivity piece of it. I'mnot sure how helpful any of that is
on the bottom line, but itmay start a conversation. So if it
starts a conversation and it moves someoneforward in seeking assistance and helping themselves get

(19:48):
better, than all good. Ifit becomes this thing, oh I have
ADHD, I can't do that.That's something else, And I really have
to look at that with the person, the adult or the child. But
really the firm diagnosis in DASM fiveis now ADHD, but people still use
add and I think in part becausethere are significant differences for how this shows

(20:11):
up in an individual's life. Andwhat I learned early on is I can
have ten people walking to my clinicson a day, any day, and
all ten of them are going tolook different. They're going to have a
little bit different story. There's goingto be a uniqueness to how they're living
their life. And what I cameto understand is that we can separate some
of this that into what are auditoryprocessing problems and what are visual processing problems,

(20:34):
And when we get away from ordig deeper into what the behaviors are,
what the challenges are in a person'slife, we're going to have a
better shot of understanding those behaviors insteadof just saying, oh, this person
is just wilfully not doing something.And that's part of what I really focus
on in the book is that peoplewho have this are not willfully trying to

(20:56):
cause other people trouble. They're notwillfully not paying attention. If your brain
cannot remember something, you can't rememberso it doesn't matter how many times a
parent will tell a child or there'sspouse to do something, and if that
person can't hang onto it, theycan't hang onto it. It's not because
they don't want to. And forparticularly for children in a classroom or with

(21:18):
the parents, they don't want tobe scolded all the time for not paying
attention. That's the last thing theywanted. And so when we can unravel
this, I use an assessment thatgets at this in about twenty five minutes.
I go over it with the parentsor the adult in my clinics or
wherever the person is, and withthat information it's about a fifteen page report.

(21:40):
I can point out there's areas ofthirty seven areas. What's working.
This is a strength. So whensomething lands here, it's in your wheelhouse.
It's where things are working good foryou. But right next door to
it can be a hole, canbe a place where your brain just isn't
hanging onto this, and you're goingto feel like some days you're losing your
mind because it's like, why canI do this today but yesterday I couldn't

(22:00):
vice versa. So it's really understandingwhat's happening. It's understanding those challenges that
are facing that person in their life, and that's what we're all about.
It's like identifying the strengths, butthen finding those areas of weakness that are
causing the person difficulty and then here'ssomething we can do about. Wow,

(22:22):
that's amazing. I skipped right pastthe commercial break, so everyone will be
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(23:56):
inside each other's mine. Welcome milein my shoes, Welcome in my shoes.
Well before you abused, criticize,and accused, Welcome out in my
shoes. Welcome back everyone from thatquick commercial break. As I mentioned before,

(24:22):
I've been mesmerized this whole idea ofthat you're not stuck with the brain
that you've got, or if it'sbrain fog, maybe this could help all
those sorts of things. So let'sjump back in with doctor Connie mcgrennold.
She's been sharing with us all aboutADHD and how neuroplasticity and our brain can
work. One of the things.And I'm going a little tangentle here,

(24:45):
but in my recovery process that Ifound was when there were those moments where
somebody could confirm my sanity, itwas to find these missing little parts and
have work around exactly. It's arelief to people. And I know I
had a gentleman come into my clinicseveral years ago. He was in his

(25:06):
mid fifties. And how he foundme, I still don't really know.
I don't recall exactly how he foundmy clinic, but he showed up and
we ran this assessment. Part ofthe interview process is I'm understanding what's working,
but what areas are not working?And then we do the assessment in
another room, so I'm not presentfor that assessment. I'm a clinician or
a technician run the computer based assessmentand then I review it and I come

(25:30):
in and I go over that withthe person. So there's no influence of
me in the assessment process. It'sjust a clean, objective assessment. It's
computer based. And when I startedgoing over this, he had told me
he was in jeopardy of losing yetanother job, that his boss would tell
him to do things and he justsimply couldn't remember it. He thought he

(25:51):
probably wasn't very smart, he wasreally inappropriate self deprecating statements about himself,
and he just felt worthless because hecouldn't hold on to a job. And
I ran these assessments, and Istarted going over this with him, and
it's like your auditory processing is reallyweak here, and so you're going to
have trouble hanging on to what someone'ssaying to you because your brain has skips

(26:15):
in it. It just skips.You have a skip here. Someone will
be talking to you and then you'llmiss a few words, and then you'll
realize you miss something, and thenyou're gonna be thinking about what you just
missed, and then you just missedthe next thing that came along, and
so now you don't know what's goingon, and you feel really frustrated and
like you can't figure it all out. And bosses are going to get really
frustrated because they're going to say,I just told you what to do.

(26:36):
What's the matter with you? Andthat was what was happening. And so
when we worked with him and strengthenedthat up, then he could remember what
people were telling him to do.He could remember what his boss and supervisor
we're asking him to do. It'sa game changer. All this time he
thought he wasn't very smart. Itwasn't that at all. His intelligence had
nothing to do with this at all. She had everything to do with the

(26:57):
fact that his brain couldn't hang ontoauditory material very well. He was much
better with visual But you can't tellyour boss to write that down for you
if you're in it. Wait,can you write that down for me so
I can catch this. Your bossisn't going to do that in a lot
of cases unless you go to HRrequests the reasonable accommodations at your job,
which you can't do what you knowwhat this is. But in the meantime,

(27:19):
most people don't know that they cando that, and they don't even
know how to actually request support becausethey can't describe what isn't working. They
don't have the language for it.And this gives them the language. That's
amazing because I can think that ifI was in my fifties and I went
feeling like what you described there weremy brain wasn't quite keeping up. I

(27:41):
would miss little parts in the shortterm memory. I begin to think all
sorts of awful things. Oh mygosh, is this early dementia. I
can imagine that my autonomic nervous systemwould run away with me on some sort
of really terrifying train to find outthat I'm thinking all sorts of catastrophic things.
Yeah, and it isn't that atall. It isn't that at all.

(28:02):
In most cases, I do checkmemory, so I will say that
we also assess people's memory conceptualization andsequencing, just so that we have the
whole picture. Hell of this ispetting together and auditory sequencing. Memory is
a really big thing in school andin our lives. And if you don't
have that skill set or ability andyour brain, you're still going to miss
other things. And so the beautyof all of this is we can train

(28:25):
the brain to get stronger and allof that, and it's just repetition of
doing it. We have to cheatcode for life in some ways because we
do a training plan for people andthey just practice it like going to the
gym. It's just their brain practicingthis until it gets strong enough in those
neurnal pathways to be able to holdthat pattern now and their brain and then

(28:48):
their brain just naturally starts going inthat direction because that's the strength now the
brain. And so those patterns getstronger, and the more you use them,
the stronger they get. I alsojoke with people it was like,
that's why those bad habits are tobreak, because they're hardwired in. You
have to build a new patter sothat old habit that you don't want prints
itself away, and so you haveto build something new in its place to

(29:12):
get rid of it. Now,this might be a bizarre question, but
are you born with it or canyou develop it from I don't know,
some sort of trauma or head injuryor answers is yes, okay, yes,
all of the above. So themultiple choice question answer there is all

(29:34):
of the above. I know thatsounds strange because when I got COVID and
I was going through the recovery processof long COVID, I was dyslexic for
a while, and I'm a writer, and that was so frustrating. At
least my brain was trained to knowwhen it was misspelled because I used to
be able to spell. They talkedthat up to brain inflammation, but this
is fascinating to me. So youcould be fine one time and then all

(29:56):
of a sudden, for whatever,who know, its trauma injury almost something
like that. You could find thatyour brain isn't processing the way it used
to be. Absolutely we know thatneurofeedback, and that's really what we're dancing
around here, is the term EEG, BIOU feedback and neurofeedback. There've been
good studies about this for long termmemory enhancement. We've been working with people

(30:21):
with long COVID and adverse vaccine reactionsthat looked pretty similar to one another with
issues of brain fog and their allfeedbacks. So there have been good studies
about this for long term memory enhancement. We've been working with people with long
COVID and adverse vaccine reactions that lookpretty similar to one another with issues of

(30:41):
brain fog and their all feedbacks.Been used to treat what they call chemo
brain fog, and so people who'vebeen through chemos sometimes have what they call
brain fog. And there's research outthat came out of Cleveland Clinic years ago.
I used to live in Ohio,so it came out of the Cleveland
clinic years ago were one of thehead nurses had run a pilot project with

(31:03):
women who were recovering from breast cancerand had brain fog. And she had
twenty some people in that project andI think all but two of them,
using neuro feedback, had been ableto clear out some of the brain fogs.
So there's evidence out there this isevidence based material that is happening out
there that literally we're capitalizing on thestrength of the brain which we have.

(31:26):
We have it from day one today end. Whenever we leave the planet,
our brain still has the capability ofchanging because it's changing constantly. And
that's really based in the scientific discoveryof neuroplasticity that happened fash back in nineteen
forty nine with doctor Donald Heab whowas a Canadian psychologist that kind of figured

(31:48):
that out. So it's there.We can just capitalize on what our amazing
brain is capable of doing, andby channeling and typical manner like if you
think about going to the gym,you'll have a training plan typically that you
go through at the process and thisis very similar to that because if the

(32:10):
gym, you're training your muscles,and with this you're just training your brain.
And so it's non invasive. Ifthere's nothing being done, there's nothing
being administered to you, there's noshocking involved. I used to go out
and do presentations before COVID and peoplewould say, well, you're going to
shock us. I said, no, we're not going to shock you,
but your results might be shocking becauseyou might be able to actually do things

(32:35):
that you have had some difficulty within the past. So maybe we can
help you strengthen some of this.It's interesting that you mentioned like a chemo
brain and that things, because alot of the autoimmune conditions the medications you
take are either related to are verysimilar to chemo, and oftentimes the response
can be similar. Where you canget brain fog, it's also known as

(32:59):
if you have fiberal mind, it'scalled fibril fog. It's interesting to me
it all relates down to brain inflammation. Yes, there's a big piece of
that's happening with people. Absolutely.What are some symptoms that we would find
if ourselves. Let's go up tothe adult level for a minute. You
mentioned to the guy who came in, a fifty something guy who came in,

(33:21):
what are some things that might leadme to believe that I maybe it
is ADHD if I'm an adult.I know you said it's very varied,
but what are some of the thingsthat I might go I better check that
out. I think it's a goodstarting point because people, certainly, I
think people have this notion of maybethey can't remember where they put things,
and so I'm just inattentive, andthat could be true. Absolutely, we

(33:44):
all have our moments with that.For adults, I like to break it
the same way I do with kiddos, which is, let's look at what
auditory symptomatology can look like our behaviors, let's look at what visual can look
like. And so I think withauditory we can resonate maybe a little bit
battle with that, because it's thething I've told you that one hundred times.
We had this conversation last week thatwe were going to go do something

(34:06):
this weekend, my wife says toher husband, or the husband says to
the wife, and yet it doesn'tresonate. You didn't tell me that,
And so here ensues this argument aboutdid this conversation take place? One person
has the recall of it, theother person doesn't. So the person who
doesn't have the recall of it doesnot recall it. So there ensues the

(34:28):
challenge that they have. It's amI losing my mind? I don't recall
this conversation. So now comes theself doubt, that self questioning, and
the spouse thinks they're just being inattentive. You're just not paying attention to me.
So then they start personalizing that situation, and now you have conflict building.
And so you can have people whoyou're talking with them and you just

(34:49):
notice they drift off. They're notthere with you. They can have a
drift process going on. They maynot be able to focus. They'll say
I can't listen to you when theTV is on, and they'll say something
like that, or the radio istoo loud. I can't hear what you're
saying, and I can't concentrate withthat. But those are some day to
day symptoms that can happen with auditoryprocessing. A confusion about what's being said,

(35:13):
recall of what's been said. Wecan have difficulty. Maybe you're trying
to ask for directions going somewhere andyou can't remember the third step that someone
just told you. Go to thecorner, turn left, go two blocks,
turn right, and go down tothe green road. That kind of
thing. I think I was supposedto turn left and right. What was
that kind of thing? So you'llthink your memory's bad. That could actually

(35:34):
be a symptom of auditory processing problems. Now with visual I think it's a
little more difficult for naturally wrap ourhead around what a visual processing problem is,
but this is someone who just constantlyloses things, so they don't know
where they set their keys. NowI've had that happen, or the house
apart. Literally never did find thosekeys, so I don't know where they

(35:55):
went. So there can be alittle bit of something going on. But
if it's a consistent thing, that'swhat to look for. So if you're
always losing your keys, or can'tfind your shoes, or where to put
my purse, or left my jacketbehind again, or forgot to do this,
or forgot to put the gas capback on the car pulled away with
that, and I've seen all ofthese kinds of things happening. I also

(36:16):
have a theory about car accidents becauseI'm having a theory that we could be
having some visual perception challenges out therein the world, and so I wonder
what that might be. Again,maybe someone bumps into things or trips over
things a lot, and they justthink they're clumsy. So maybe people have

(36:37):
labeled themselves being clumsy. Maybe thisis actually a visual processing problem that we
if we could figure this out,we might be able to strengthen that part
of the brain processing. So maybethat person can live differently. That's amazing.
So any final thoughts and also pleaseshare with us the website and more
about how we can get the booksolving the ADHD riddle. I think for

(37:00):
me, it's really about changing thenarrative around ADHD and a lot of other
conditions. Because I treat trauma andwe tackle a lot of that. These
are brain conditions and you can retrainyour brain. You literally can retrain your
brain. It's called neuroplasticity, andwe've known about it for nearly one hundred
years and this just helps you employthat more effectively. And the good news
is when you train your brain,it tends to hold on to it you

(37:21):
go on and live your life.There's a lot of information up on my
website, which is www. ConnieMcReynolds, which is coo n I E
M c r E y n olds dot com. Fantastic. We have
Jenny Dutton and she has been livingwith fibromyalgia for nearly three decades and she

(37:44):
believes the power of sharing her experiencesto promote healing and to inspire and bring
hope to those the most in need. It's written this really wonderful book called
Fiber Journey of Self Discovery. WelcomeJenny, thanks for being on the show.
Thank you, thank you for havingme. It's really great to be
here. Thank you. Now,tell me a little bit about how do

(38:05):
you define fibromyolgia. I'm going tostart with the main three that doctors would
actually diagnose fibermalsia. Widespread body pain, meaning that you had pain in both
the upper and lower quadrants. Youhave pain on both your left side and
your right side, and you've enduredthat pain for it at least three months.
But in addition to that, theextreme fatigue is a major symptom,

(38:32):
and it em fatigue to the pointwhere it's debilitating at times where it's difficulty
just to do the most basic lifefunctions such as convincing yourself that you have
the energy to get out of bed, to take a shower, or just
to make breakfast. And then there'sthe cognitive Fibrofog is often what it is

(38:54):
labeled for fibermiolgia, which is adifficulty focusing and trading. Your memory starts
to fade a little bit and youstart to lose your train of thoughts,
having difficulty finding words. But fibermyalgiais much much bigger than those three key
things. Fibermalga is like an umbrellaword, just a diagnosis of a multitude

(39:21):
of symptoms. There are a lotof secondary symptoms that go along with fibermalgia.
Many people have sleep disturbances, thereare issues with sexual dysfunction, sometimes,
irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, Sothe list is quite lengthy. And
once you get a fibermausa diagnosis,you find that there's this massive umbrella of

(39:44):
primary and secondary symptoms. Oh absolutely, and a lot of those symptoms people
are checking off. That sounds likean autoimmune to me, check check.
I hadn't heard fibrofog before, butI have heard brain fog and I'm most
pretty similar. Yeah, same thing, absolutely, same thing, just different.

(40:06):
And I agree with you. Ithink that doctors do argue whether or
not it's an autoimmune disease. Ishouldn't say argue, They discuss, and
there's lots of research around it,and I think that down the line and
it is going to come out thatit is a form of autoimmune disease.
It's just that maybe the autoimmune pictureis much larger than we're giving it credit
for or realizing. At this point, just because we don't know something now

(40:29):
doesn't mean that we're not going toknow it down a line. Oh absolutely.
And I've often said I don't reallycare what label you put on it,
whether it's are we saying fibro biologia, are we saying autoimmune? Are
you saying loop is? It's acollection of symptoms. And the interesting thing
I have found, and you mentionedin your opening there, was how everybody

(40:52):
presents differently with their autoimmune diagnosis,so they get the label off perhaps fibromyalgia
or loops or something else, andyet when you talk to two different people
that have gotten that label, theycan present very differently and you're like,
wow, they don't even seem tohave the same issues going on, and

(41:13):
yet they've got that same label.And I find out fascinating and also frustrating.
I do know when I was firstgiven the diagnosis of fibermalgia, I
think there was a multitudor as itresponses. My first was, oh,
good, I have a diagnosis.I finally understand what's happening to me.
This is progress. But quickly Irealized that having a diagnosis of fibermalgia really

(41:36):
didn't mean a whole lot didn't giveme any information, and if anything,
it, unfortunately in many regards,isolated me even more because fibrimaoga does have
a bit of a stigma attached toit. That stigma is leaving as more
research comes in and there's more evidence, that stigma of it being an invisible,

(41:57):
all in your head imaginary diagnosis isfinally starting to disappear. But having
a fibroelser diagnosis and the word fibromuserreally doesn't mean anything, but it was
frustrating to me. It was withthe idea of the diagnosis of fibromyalgia and
other autoimmunes. When high percentage iswomen, it is often where we're dismissed

(42:20):
it's all in your head, insteadof actually listening to us and taking us
seriously and the things that were happeningto us seriously. And that's part of
my frustration about getting well. Andone of the reasons I got the Autoimmune
Hour started was to talk about someof the other ways that we can expand
our view of what's going on withthis. Now. You in the title

(42:42):
of your book, you say twentyseven years, and that's a long time,
nearly three decades as you met.If someone would saying, Okay,
I was just diagnosed with fibromyalsia.What would your first tip be for them
to settle into that realization without trauma. I think just hearing a diagnosis as
dramatic. Guys, I get that, But I'm so glad you asked that

(43:05):
question because it's why I wrote thebook. Because I started participating in some
support groups, some chronic pain supportgroups online, and I would see newly
diagnosed patients asking the same questions overand over that I asked thirty years ago,
and I would say, my numberone thing is if you've been given

(43:27):
them, for every man who's adiagnosis, don't latch onto that. It
is still so into the new stagesof research and so much is coming out.
The most important thing to do,I believe, is to slow down
become an active learner in your illness, which we should always do right.
I think it's amazing how we knowso little about our bodies, and until

(43:52):
some major illness comes along, wereally don't have a clue what is how
it all works. And so Ithink that the number one thing that a
newly diagnosed patient can do is notjust trust that the doctors have the medication,
the doctors are going to be ableto provide you comfort, Yes,
they will be able to to somedegree. But more importantly is to become

(44:16):
an active learner in your illness andlearn for yourself what's going on. There's
all sorts of ways to learn that. To me, it's not just about
the diagnosis or whatever you read.Make sure it's pure reviewed research. There
are basic things that we can doas well. For me, taking the

(44:36):
diagnosis in is excellent, reading aboutit, learning about it, understanding it.
And yet also, as I thinkback, I entered a period after
I digested the shock of my diagnosisand digested that what that meant or might
mean, and had the sadness andall of that dissipate was stepping back and

(44:57):
what are some basic health steps Ican do that may not cause a recovery,
but that was the ultimate goal.But what are some just basic health
steps I can do to help supportmy health? Those were some of the
first questions I was asking of.Okay, wow, bummer, I got
this diagnosis. Let me step backand say, did I play a part
in getting here? Reflect on yourlife and understand what parts you're playing in

(45:22):
it? Right? And I thinkback to what the newly diagnosed patient,
or even not the newly diagnosed patient. It really doesn't even matter that you're
newly diagnosed. But I really learnedhow important having a cognitive behavioral therapist has
played. And it's it comes froma line of like you said, you're

(45:44):
looking back on your life. You'rethinking, how did this happen? What
did I do wrong? Where didI go wrong? What is it genetic?
You start having all these questions,and it affects every aspect of our
life. It affects our careers,it affects our relationships, and it's so
much more than that fifteen minute visitwith our doctor. And I think that

(46:07):
once I started really exploring on myown what possibly triggered this, it made
me realize that a cognitive behavior therapistcould really help me walk through some of
these difficult conversations with friends, orwith my spouse, or with my boss,
my careers. I think that I'mhoping that modern medicine takes us along

(46:31):
a path where we not only haveour general practitioner doctor, but we also
have a behavioral therapist that is ourcore health team to help us get through
these very isolating difficult times, sothat we can learn more about ourselves and
learn how to improve I'm curious.I've heard the term cognitive behavioral therapists,

(46:54):
but I've never really researched it.How are they different from other therapists or
health coaches or what kinds of serviceswould you expect from a cognitive behavioral therapist.
So much of fibrimalga they're discovering now. Originally it was thought that it
had to do with just the muscles. It was a fibrous muscle tightening condition

(47:16):
that caused widespread body pain. Nowthat we have better brain imaging and diagnostic
tools, they're actually noticing that thereare changes that are physically detectable and taking
place in the brain. And acognitive behavioral therapist is someone who can help
you work with your nervous system learnabout how to calm your nervous system.

(47:42):
They believe that a lot of fibrimalgiapatients may be genetically predisposed. This may
be in our genetics that we havesomething that when it gets triggered, we
develop fibrimalga symptoms. But it isalso happening very much if we've had trauma
or experienced illnesses, or if we'veexperienced a lot of stress. All of

(48:06):
this is causing our fight and flightresponse system to constantly be engaged, and
our brains are actually changing. Sohaving a cognitive behavioral therapist is someone who
can help you to better understand yourown emotions, understand what challenges you're experiencing
going on in life, but alsohelped to treat some of that past trauma

(48:30):
that you might have experienced. There'sno evidence that says that fibromlogy can be
reversed, but I am incredibly hopefuland I will die trying, and part
of that will be to try tobetter understand what's happening in our brains.
It is a brain dysfunction based offa trauma or a car accident or extreme

(48:54):
stressful situations where we're just living ina flight or flight response, and that
creates inflammation in the body and youend up experiencing this domino of symptoms because
of that. So cognitive behavioral therapistscan really help the patient cope. And
one of the things with autoimmune andthe more you're sharing with me about fibromylagia,

(49:15):
there's so many overlaps, so Ican understand why people haven't put it
in the autoimmune category, yet Icould see that it could easily fit there
because dsautonomia or dysregulation of our autonomicnervous system is common in many autoimmune conditions,
and working with the autonomic nervous systemto relax and strategies around calming the

(49:37):
nervous system are also part of healingfrom what they'll say categorized as an autoimmune
condition. So there's plenty of overlapswe're discovering here as we chat. Yeah,
it's true. In fact, someresearch is saying that pashimotos being autoimmune
disorder about seventy percent of patients researchshowing has another autoimmune disease, for example,

(50:04):
you have a different autoimmune disease,you're more prone to develop fibermileshet.
There's lots of research that if youhave one diagnosis and you don't have a
second one yet, you probably will. Let's try to be proactive. I'm
not quite willing to accept that asa response, but it's very valid information,

(50:25):
and I think the more we knowup front about what is going on,
the more chance we have of potentiallyhelping ourselves recover. And Jenny,
we're just about out of time.Share any final thoughts, and then where
can we find your wonderful book?At first, I like to just say
that I want everybody to have hope. I am so excited that there are

(50:46):
people like you that are creating acommunity where those of us without immune can
go. It's so empowering to knowthat there are others out there talking about
their stories. And that was ahuge mode devation for me. It's an
incredibly isolating situation to live with otterimmune, and I think we need to

(51:07):
surround ourselves with hope and people thatcan support our healing and help us to
find the best way to move forwardin our lives and live a full life,
and also to feel empowered to knowthat it's okay to speak up for
ourselves. We need to have boundariesin our lives. We need to not

(51:30):
feel guilty for taking care of ourselves. Many of us live very similar stories
and we just live in different words, and the more that we share and
talk about those experiences, the betterwe're all going to be. Absolutely I'd
love to say here on the show, you're not alone, and some people

(51:50):
take that a little negatively, andit's not about that. It's about knowing.
As I said before, confirming yoursanity. Yes, what you're going
through is real, and there arepeople who have gone through it or are
going through it that are here tosupport you, just like Jenny and myself.
So everyone be sure and get Jenny'sbook. It's called Fibromyalgia, A
Journey of Self Discovery. Now.Is it available online at all? Available

(52:15):
on Amazon through Kendle or Amazon paperback? Oh? Yeah, it's easy to
look it up there, and yeah, I hope that it provides people with
not only comfort and my story,but also it's back with a lot of
research, scientific research only from purereviewed medical journals, since I myself am
not a doctor and I don't playone on the podcast either. No,

(52:39):
everyone, that's Jenny Dutton. Thankyou so much and have a great week
whatever your adventures. Join us nextweek for another brand new episode. Thank
you, enjoy and if you're hereon YouTube, please be sure and click
the subscribe button below and hit thelittle bell to get notifications for when we

(53:01):
upload new episodes and new clips andother amazing things I find. We're trying
to grow our YouTube community here sowe can offer help and hope to as
many people as possible. And thankyou for being part of our Autoimmune Courage
Club community. The information provided onthe auto Immune Hour, Understanding Autoimmune and
Life Interrupted Radio, including the websitesUnderstanding Autoimmune dot com and Life Interrupted Radio

(53:22):
dot com plus social media is foreducational purposes only. Which you read,
hear, and see on the autoImmune Hour, Understanding Autoimmune and Life Interrupted
Radio and its websites and other mediaoutlets is based on experience only. The
information should never be used for anylegal, diagnostic or treatment purposes.

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