36: Rebalancing Your Immune System to Heal Crohn's and Colitis

You get sick for 3 main reasons: Toxins, Nutrient Deficiencies and Microbes. 

I'm going to show you what these are, how they work and how you can use this to rebalance your immune system to get closer to healing your IBD. We'll also cover natural and pharmaceutical options.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• What you MUST know about IBD before you start this process
• What you need to start healing
• How your immune system works
• Calming your overactive immune system
• Boosting your immun system's inactive parts
• Natural and pharmaceutical options to rebalance your immune system

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Transcript

Josh Dech

Inflammation, the reality is inflammation is just a response caused by your immune system when it's trying to heal you, but in IBD, it's a hyperactive, chronic immune response that causes the diseases that you're feeling or the symptoms you're experiencing, like bleeding. So today, you're going to learn how to rebalance your immune system to reduce your symptoms and begin healing. I'm going to teach you what's driving these imbalances, we're going to talk about nutrients and supplements that can actually help, and of course, some pharmaceutical options that would not only suppress your immune responses, but actually help rebalance them to reduce this over-hyperreactive immune response. Contrary to what your doctors told you, Crohn's and Colitis are reversible. Now, I've helped hundreds of people reverse their bowel disease, and I'm here to help you do it too, because inflammation always has a root cause. We just have to find it. This is the Reversing Crohn's and Colitis Naturally podcast.

Now, I do these live trainings in my Facebook group every single week and put the audios here for you to listen to. If you want to watch the video versions of these episodes, just click the links in the show notes to get access to our Facebook group and YouTube channel, and for weekly updates, information, tips, and tricks, you can sign up for our email list by clicking the link in the show notes below. If you don't know me, my name is Josh Deck. I'm an IBD specialist, a medical lecturer, physician's consultant, and the scientific strategist and education director for the Root Cause for Crohn's and Colitis organization. And today, we're talking about repairing your immune system to help ease your IBD symptoms.

Now, a couple of housekeeping things: For those of you who are here on the live, I'm going to make sure that I tag everybody right now, but I want you to know, especially if you're new here, we do these lives every single week absolutely for free, and I do them because I want you guys to have this information. It's information that the world needs, and that's you. However, I do have an ask for you to be here. If you can, just let us know if you're on the live or you're on the replay. It really does two things for us. The main one that it does, it helps boost the Facebook algorithm or the Instagram algorithm where you're watching right now to let the system know that people are watching, that this is content, and so by you simply commenting or engaging, it gives the opportunity for other people to see this. There's upwards of 30,000 people who have an opportunity to see these lives every single week between our live streams right now, and the more you engage and comment, the more of them can actually see this. So I just ask that if you're here on the live, taking advantage of what we're doing here for you guys today for free, which we love to do, I just ask that you pass it along, pay it forward, and tag somebody or comment below.

Amazing. So here's what we're getting into. Let's talk about this. IBD has a root cause, there's always a root cause, and I want to make sure we preface this conversation very, very heavily to understand that everything I'm going to tell you today, this is sort of the jumping off point. So if this is new to you, amazing. If this is something you've heard about before, double dip because it's information you need. Alright, so the first thing I want to talk about, there's really only three reasons why we get sick, ever. I'm going to blitz these really fast, it's a whole lecture by itself.

First thing is some kind of toxin, that's one of the reasons we get sick. Now, it can be a mold toxin, heavy metal toxin, environmental, it can be pesticides, herbicides, VOCs, whatever it can be, a toxin. The second thing is going to be deficiencies of some kind—nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids. The third is going to be a microbial imbalance of some kind. That can be parasites, it can be fungi, it can be viral, it can be whatever that's causing a problem, and that's how we get sick really. Even blood sugar can be a toxin, right? So really, the three reasons why we get sick, our job is to figure out what's being exploited here.

Now, we have to keep this in mind. You've been told to date that your IBD, this is what doctors will typically tell you, it's a genetic autoimmune condition and there's no known cause. None of those things are true. Again, I'll keep it brief because I have entire conversations and lectures on this, but here's what you need to know. Now, number one, it's not genetic. That's what they say, "Well, it's just genetic, we don't know why it's happening." The truth is, there's a family history only 24 to 28% of the time, at best, and even the most common gene in something like IBD, like the HLA SNP, that's about 25%, which means 70 to 75% of the time there is no genetic family history or any link whatsoever. Interesting, so can't be genetic, and genes don't work in a vacuum. Right? Something will make them better or worse, but what we say is, it can't possibly be genetic, right? If this doesn't add up, and your genes don't work in a vacuum, genes are influenced by things like nutrients. Well, if you're deficient, you're going to have an issue. They're influenced by microbes. If you have an overgrowth, there's an issue. They can be influenced by toxins. They can turn up expressions, put stress on the genes, and that goes. So it's not just genetic, can't blame your genes. The next one we say is autoimmune. Also not true. Recently downregulated from autoimmune to immune medium. What does this mean? Well, it's a hyperactive immune response. Why? That's what we want to know. Now, interestingly enough, only 70% of UC cases have any antibodies at all. The most common one you guys can look up called Pianka, which is not an auto antibody, which means it's not attacking you, and then in Crohn's disease, about 50 to 70% of the time there's other antibodies, also not auto-antibodies. So they don't attack your own tissues, they attack other things. So why are we calling it autoimmune across the board and wiping everyone with the same slate?

The last one we see is going to be idiopathic, meaning unknown cause. Well, seeing as there's been a 3,000% increase in Crohn's colitis cases in the last 75 years, I'd sure as hell say something is causing it, wouldn't you? Interestingly enough, North America is less than 5% of the global population, but they have anywhere, depending on the studies, 30 to 50% of the global cases of IBD. So it's an us problem. That means something is causing it, we're just not asking the right questions.

So now that that's been prefaced and you know that this is not what you've been told, I need you to understand what this is doing to your immune system, and that's what we're talking about today. How can we take this information to settle it down and say, "My immune system is overreacting." So here's what I'm going to do to calm it down. Let's get into it.

First things first, we know that IBD, we just talked about this, is caused by some kind of toxin, right? Some kind of deficiency or some kind of microbe infection, so bacteria, parasites, etc. Once we figure out which one of the three, or combination of the three, are driving your problem and creating this inflammatory condition, we then use that information to remove that problem. Right? If you had a nail in your foot, I'm not going to give you numbing cream for the pain for the rest of your life or offer to cut off your foot. That's what we do with bowel disease. I want to figure out what's causing the problem, not just give you immunosuppressives for the rest of your life and offer you surgery. So let's figure out which of this combination is causing the problem: deficiencies, toxins, or microbes. Once we have that, we remove them. That's the first step.

But once we get through this, and again, I'm blitzing this because it's a whole different lecture, the assumption is saying, "Well, we've gone through and taken out all the root causes, we've managed the stress, we've got good sleep hygiene, we've got our nutrients in, we're giving our body what it needs, we are out of a toxic moldy home or out of the environment for example," and now we have to work to rebalance your immune system. This is residual damage. I describe it this way: Your body is like a cup of water. Okay? That cup starts to fill up. You develop symptoms, it overflows. Now you have disease. Well, this overflow, what we're fixing, one, we've already drained your cup, so we've opened that up. Number two, we've stopped filling it up. You can't empty the bath when the water is running. Number three, we've tried to clean up the mess, but part of the residual damage is your immune system is imbalanced. That's what we're trying to fix now. Let's get into that. We're down here now.

Okay, we're on one of the final stages of dealing with your immune system. Now you can work to rebalance your immune system, of course, but if there's still a nail in your foot, it's still going to make it hard to walk. So if you haven't dealt with these main root causes or identified them yet, this can still be helpful, but it's not going to be the silver bullet you may be thinking it is. But let's talk about this a little bit. There are three pathways of your immune system primarily involved in IBD. One, two of them are overactive. One is typically underactive. If you picture your immune system like an octopus, each arm does a different thing. One arm will deal with bacterial issues. One will deal with parasites or fungus. One will deal with allergy-type responses. So let's talk about those. There are three main immune pathways we're going to be talking about today.

Now, this isn’t going to be a full immunology lecture by any means. Frankly, I'm not even qualified for that, but I will be talking about some of the basics we have to deal with. So, Th1—this stands for T-helper cells, okay? So T-cells are part of your immune system. T-helper cells—Th1—these regulate immune responses and help regulate excessive Th2 and Th17 responses. So what that means is we need this guy to keep these in check. Well, what is IBD? Crohn’s and Colitis, it is an overdominant reaction in these two pathways. You can Google this—Th2, Th17 dominance, or whatever in IBD, you’ll get dozens, hundreds of articles on this, and what can cause that? Well, mold, parasites, fungus, deficiencies—all the things we just talked about. So we know you’re overactive in these two immune systems. Well, this one—this arm of your immune system—is in part responsible for keeping these in check. Well, a lot of IBD, not only is it a hyperactivity of this, it's also a deficiency of this. So when the one pathway that you have rebalancing and keeping these guys in check is deficient, you get hyperactive responses. So that’s the next one: this Th1 not only controls these, but it also reduces something called interferon gamma.

Okay, interferon gamma, this is an impaired pathogen clearance. We need this. So, which means you have an increase of infection risk. What do we see in IBD? A lot. C. diff, fissures, E. coli, bacterial issues that burrow. Okay, and so this is going to impair our interferon gamma, which is going to lead you more prone to infections, right? We’re also going to see, Th1 impairs, or rather enhances, your gut barrier, but if we’re deficient in this, you have gut barrier issues. What is IBD? It’s an issue with your gut barrier, leads to inflammation and infection. That’s number one. Well, we have this depressed, which we do in IBD. You have a loss of integrity of your gut barrier. The next one is, this pathway also helps clear out infections, so it reduces our risk of infection. Well, when it's reduced, guess what? You're more prone to infections—C. diff, E. coli, salmonella, flu, viruses, all kinds of things that can be affecting you, right? So this is why we’re getting sick all the time. The next one, when we’re reducing this as well, it’s going to create, it’s going to reduce your immune defenses. So, again, you’ve got more permeability in your gut, all kinds of stuff and excessive responses. What do these two do? They're mostly going to be gut barrier, mucosal membranes. What is Crohn’s and Colitis? Inflammation of your gut barrier and mucosal membranes, right? From mouth to anus, sores, ulcers in the mouth. Well, it’s going to be Crohn’s, that mucous membrane, any soft, squishy surface—oral, rectal, vaginal, sinuses, intestines—those are the ones that get inflamed.

JOkay, so then the next one we see, this is going to be suppressed. So, this is the immune pathway that’s suppressed. Later, we’re going to talk about what to do about this, Th1, how we can bring it up and re-regulate. The ones we see overactive are these: Th2 and Th17. Well, when they’re hyperactive, here’s what happens. This increases mucus production. Right? Th2, so you get more diarrhea, you get more mucus, more inflammation. Okay, it increases eosinophil activity, so you get hypersensitivity in your gut. Eosinophils are just a white blood cell. Hypersensitivity in the gut, you get pains, you get allergic-type reactions. Ever wondered why those with IBD seem to be just allergic to things all of a sudden? You have more immune responses to your environment, to grass, to the bloody sun. Hyperactivity of one immune system—that’s all it is. And once we understand that everything you’re experiencing is simply your body reacting to something, to compensate or to react to something that’s missing or an infection, suddenly all this makes sense. When I say it’s not genetic, autoimmune, when I say it’s not an unknown cause, when I say there’s three things that really cause it, we start to connect the dots, and that’s very important here.

Okay, so what else does it do? Well, this immune pathway, which is over-dominant, it also weakens your gut barrier. So you have this leaky gut, you have systemic inflammation. What happens when you’re systemically inflamed? Well, you get more food sensitivities. Suddenly, salmon causes you GI issues or irritability, you don’t know why, right? You have systemic inflammation, so now you got skin issues, you got arthritis, you got joint pains. Well, where'd that come from? Toxins leaked from your gut. They circulated around your body, they landed in your joints, and your immune system had to clean them up, had to attack and react, and now you have inflammation—TDA. That’s all it is. So here’s the deal. This one is Th1, this immune pathway is suppressed, which allows your Th2 and Th17 pathways to hyper-react. So you’ve got increased mucus, increased white blood cell activity, and a weaker gut barrier. So you have systemic inflammation, allergy responses.

 So, let’s talk about Th17. This is very mucosal layer stuff. It’s kind of like the angry stepsister of Th2. But here’s what happens. Now, you have neutrophil-driven tissue damage. Well, what do we see as a number one marker done in hospital for IBD? What do they measure? Calprotectin. So you have these white blood cells called neutrophils, and as a byproduct—think of it as exhaust—they produce this Calprotectin. That’s it. It’s like a car idling. When it’s in the area, it produces Calprotectin. So, the more Calprotectin, the more neutrophil activity. Well, this hyperactive immune response causes way more activity from these neutrophils, so your Calprotectin is very high. This leads to destruction of tissues—so ulcers, strictures, fistulas, tissues that are inflamed. This is why it’s happening. Your body is not attacking yourself. Your immune responses are just imbalanced. This is what we’re figuring out what to do about. We’re going to talk about that in a minute.

The next one, this Th17 creates permeability in your gut. Well, this guy did it and so did this one. The last two immune pathways, now we’re tripling down on gut permeability. So now we have what’s called fancy word bacterial translocation. What does that mean? That microbes or bacteria will move around your body. They can get into your blood, into your brain, into your joints, into your pancreas, you can get infections in your liver, gallbladder, and bile ducts. How many of you have oily, fatty, greasy stools? Well, that’s your liver and bile duct are junked up. They’re clogged up. Could also be parasites. And so we start to see more of this translocation or movement of microbes. So, of course, you have systemic inflammation. Microbes move around, your immune system responds, you become inflamed. It’s just an immune response. It’s actually healthy, but chronic inflammation from an activation of your immune system you can’t fix is unhealthy, okay? And what we see is persistent immune activation, which turns up the dial on your immune system, making things worse. And then we also see persistent inflammation in the small intestine, so more Crohn’s, which leads to nutrient malabsorption, chronic fatigue, weight loss, all kinds of issues.

So the question is now that we know there’s three things that make you sick: toxins of some kind, some kind of infection, bacterial, microbial, etc., or deficiency—once we fix those, we can then look at our immune system and say, “I’m insufficient in Th1. I’m dominant in Th2 and Th17. How do I fix those? How do I rebalance it?” I’m going to give you two options. One is a natural way to support these, and the other one is a pharmaceutical way. I believe in Integrative Medicine, which means we’re using both natural and pharmaceutical where and as needed. The difference is, if I was going to be on something long term, well, natural has way less side effects than pharmaceutical, but pharmaceuticals are covered by insurance, so pick your poison. Right? Let’s talk about these. We’re going to talk about solutions now for these immune pathways.

 So let’s get into it. What I want to do is, I want to calm down my hyperactive immune responses. These are the two—Th2 and Th17. We say these are the ones causing mucus production, breaking down your tissues, punching holes in your gut, and causing fissures, bacterial issues, gut permeability. How do we calm that immune system down? Well, a couple of things. I’m going to give you a long list of things that we can actually use to calm these hyperactive responses. Curcumin is a really nice supplement. Now, we want something that’s bioavailable, that your body can absorb. It’s not a super available supplement—like, it takes a bit of work to absorb, but there are other forms you can get. And so, after this, if you comment, if you’re here on Facebook, I want you to comment the word “immune,” and I’m going to send you a list of how-to supplements you can take to start balancing your immune system, or things that might help. If you’re on Instagram, send me a DM asking for this immune balancing package, and I can get you that. But the first one we can look at is curcumin.

The next is an antioxidant known as resveratrol. Now, I’m not saying drink wine—you can get it in other ways that don’t have the side effects of wine, but it’s a powerful antioxidant. The next one we have here, we have EGCG and berberine. Now, EGCG is going to be found in things like green tea, green tea extracts. Berberine, of course, you can just get a supplement over the counter. I believe you can even find it in pineapple, if I’m not mistaken. But anyway, that might be too acidic for your gut. Other ones we can look at are going to be quercetin and, of course, omegas—Omega-3s in particular. We tend to need more of those than Omega-6s. We get enough of those, but high in EPA and DHA. I can even put that on the board here—EPA and DHA, higher levels of that. What these are going to do is, they can help calm down the hyperactive Th2 and Th17 responses—the ones punching holes in your gut, causing inflammation. These are great supplements for this.

Okay, what do we want to do next? Well, now that we’ve calmed these down, right? They’re overactive. We also want to build back the Th1. That was the immune system pathway that regulates those two overactive responses. It helps control them, right? It can actually enhance your gut barrier and heal things. It can clear pathogens and microbes and toxins out of your system. So obviously, we want more of that one, and I’m saying all these things, of course, take with a grain of salt. Often times, I think we expect, like, we take ibuprofen for a headache, and it’s gone. Oftentimes, we expect immediate results—“Well, I took a dose of berberine, why isn’t my inflammation gone?” It can take time. Natural is corrective, whereas pharmaceutical is more of a Band-Aid. It’s immediate, but it’s temporary. Whereas correcting it down the long term gives us that sustainability. So we can use pharmaceuticals right now, get an instant response, but if you truly want to fix it, this is where natural comes in.

After we’ve removed all the root causes, we can now rebalance. So the next one we want to rebalance this Th1 because it’s going to increase that gut barrier protection. It’s going to regulate our immune responses. It’s going to help clear out pathogens and toxins. So what can we take? Well, certain supplements like zinc can be really, really good for this. There are different forms of zinc, but really, anyone—zinc picolinate is pretty cheap. Zinc carnosine does have a benefit for your gut lining as well, but that works. Another one that most of us don’t get enough of—you can get in your daily dose in like two Brazil nuts—is selenium. That can be very beneficial as well. A stralis, and you can even ask your doctor, they might be able to get you something called lactoferrin, which can help with this Th1. I’m not sure if this is a supplement you can exactly pick up, but you can get some lactoferrin as well.

But what we also see when our immune system is disregulated—and now again, these aren’t silver bullets, they’re supportive. If you’re not sleeping very well, if you are exposed to blue light all the time—here, let me show you these. I got a pair of blue light-blocking glasses that I put on. Oftentimes, like a doofus, I’ll just put them over top of my glasses, but what I do if I’m working late at night, I’m at a computer, those wavelengths coming in, the LEDs, they’re very broad spectrum, and they’re all over the place. It’s very hard on your eyes. It’s actually called photobiomodulation. So we get too much light at night, not enough during the day—we’re all indoor cats now—and what happens is these photo receptors in your eyes and on your skin respond to light. Well, if I want to sleep better at night, a nice, simple pair of blue light-blocking glasses—you can get yellow, orange, or red for evening—and that will actually help re-regulate your circadian rhythm to allow you to sleep better. It’s remarkable how powerful it can be. In fact, my wife struggled with insomnia for many, many years. I got her a pair of glasses, and she’s, like, dozing off because it re-regulates the HPA axis. This is the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, so part of your brain and how it’s connected to your adrenals. Getting those re-regulated so your stress responses all the time, if we want to bring them down and calm them down and chill them out, there are a couple of things we can actually take to help with this.

So you can take calming herbs like ashwagandha. That can be very nice. You can take things like valerian. You can take things like lavender, even hops if you don’t have any allergies—can really help with some of this. Beautiful. Okay, so these are going to help you modulate some of that response. The next one is phosphatidylserine or phosphatidylcholine. They’re big long ones. I’m not going to put them on the board right now. I’m just running out of room, but these can also help with some of these responses. Other things we want to do, of course, as we’re re-regulating this Th1, helps with your gut barrier. Well, your gut barrier has been broken down by number two and 17. What can we do to support your gut barrier? I’m not telling you guys to take 40 supplements. I’m just saying here’s some things we can pick apart. Ask me for the list. If you comment the word “immune” on Facebook or on Instagram, DM me the word “immune,” and I’ll get you some of that stuff. If you’re watching on YouTube or listening on the podcast, check the links below. I have a handout for you you can download there. But what we’re looking at for you here now is how do we re-support that gut barrier?

Lots of supplements can do that. I’m just going to list a few. A very nice one is called butyrate. Sodium butyrate is fine. I believe they do a calcium butyrate. Doesn’t really matter to me, but butyrate is the primary fuel source for your colon cells. It’s going to be very, very powerful and very, very helpful. We can take certain things. Be careful with L-glutamine, because depending on what your immune system is doing, it might cause you some issues. So be careful with that. We can take some of these guys here. Quercetin can help with this as well. So, there’s a good list of supplements that we can look at. Slippery elm bark powder, aloe vera. There’s a great supplement I’ll put on my list called GI Integrity. It has a lot of stuff to help build that mucosa layer—DGL marshmallow root powder. These are all great things for building back your gut lining, which can help with that barrier, which helps with systemic inflammation, and of course, calms down your immune responses.

But here’s something interesting. I want to give you another arm of your immune system or another pathway to start correcting stuff. So we’ve talked so far about your Th1, Th2, and Th17. Well, did you know they have a boss? These are the employees. Your Th1, Th2, Th17 pathways—these Th are T-helper cells. They have a boss. This boss is called T-reg, T-reg cells. That stands for T-regulatory. They’re also largely responsible for regulating these immune responses of Th1, Th2, and Th17. They’re balanced and regulated by T-regulatory cells. So, what can we do to actually boost some of these T-reg activation and function and give them the support they need? Your body functions on nutrients more than it does calories. Well, here are some quick things. We already talked about omega-3s, so I’ll put those on the board. Vitamin D actually operates more like a hormone, but it pairs extremely well with vitamin K2. I’ll put that on my list for you guys as well. But these are very, very powerful.

You can get colostrum, if you don’t have a dairy sensitivity. You can even maybe look at like a Bovine IgG or Immunoglobulin of some kind. But another one we can look at here—I talked about these probiotics on a previous talk—but there’s two Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium specific strains we can look at. Now, you hear me use these big long words, it’s just I think they all come from Latin, I don’t honestly know, but Lactobacillus—we’re just going to use “L” here—and these are the most common probiotics you’ll see in any mix. Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium—dozens of different options and strains, but in particular for re-regulating these T-reg cells, we have this L. reuteri or Rhamnosus, and the next one is Bifido infantis. It’s called now.

Use probiotics sparingly and go slow. If you’re currently in a flare, I would avoid a lot of this stuff unless you’re working with a professional who understands your immune system and what it’s doing. But this can be a great way to help boost these T-reg cells, which again control that hyperactive immune response. We want to typically boost up the Th1 activity, because that regulates your hyperactive Th2 and Th17, and then T-reg kind of just sits over top of all of it as the management. So, that’s the first one. Now, what we’ve just touched into is all the natural ways to support your immune system. I’m next going to give you the pharmaceutical option that can really help. Now, there are a lot of these, and they all work best in combination. What we often don’t want, again, I think so many times, we’re trained to look for a silver bullet. “I want one thing that’s going to help.” Well, here’s something you can look at. It’s called LDN. That stands for low-dose naltrexone.

What is LDN? This has been used for a long time in emergency medicine to help those who are dealing with opioid overdoses. You might know also Naloxone—there are different ones that we’ll use, but they take the opioids off the receptors, so basically, you don’t die. It’s an emergency medicine we used to use in the ambulance when I was a paramedic. I already had it. Yeah, we had Narcan, so Naloxone was the one that we used. But long and short, in very high doses, like 50 milligrams, that we give in an ambulance to save somebody’s life immediately, it has an opposite effect. It messes up your immune system, it disrupts your gut barrier and your integrity. Low-dose naltrexone, and even ultra-low-dose naltrexone anywhere from 0.5 to 5 milligrams a day—you know, it has to be prescribed by a doctor, but this actually helps immensely to re-regulate your immune system and your T-reg cells. So, remember, we talked about it. It was suppressed. We talked about your interferon gamma. Interferon gamma is suppressed. Well, that’s again going to be responsible for pathogen clearance and different things. Well, this LDN can actually help correct some of that interferon to get your immune system back to doing what it should be doing. Remember we talked about these immune pathways, number two and 17, that are hyperactive? Well, guess what? LDN actually calms them down. Chills it out. It just tells them to chill. It can actually improve your gut barrier and the integrity of your gut lining.

What else can it do? Well, we know there’s many inflammatory pathways in your body. There’s a nasty bit—there’s many of them—called interleukins, or ILs. And when we’re dealing with LDN, what it can actually do is, there’s interleukin 17 and interleukin 23 that can be very inflammatory for you. They cause chronic inflammation, they cause tissue damage. Well, guess what? Low-dose naltrexone actually lowers these responses. Amazing stuff. It could be really, really amazing. Nutritional infiltration—remember we talked about neutrophils and how neutrophils produce this exhaust called calprotectin that’s chronically high? They’re chronically measuring. Low-dose naltrexone can reduce the infiltration of these neutrophils into your system, so it reduces your calprotectin, thereby reducing inflammation. And it actually shifts your immune response. Remember we saw this Th17 was hyperactive, and we said these bosses, these T-regulatory cells, they’re the ones who come in and say, “Be balanced, don’t be it.” It actually shifts this hyperactive Th17 degradation response. It’s breaking down your tissues, it’s causing permeability, it’s inflammation, it’s causing ulcers and strictures. It shifts your immune response to a regulatory immune response. Now, it does not work for everybody, but LDN is extremely powerful, and lo and behold, it even works better when you combine it with CBD oil, especially in the evening. Fun fact. In fact, whether there’s THC in there or not, but low-dose naltrexone pairs extremely well with CBD. It can double, triple, quadruple its effects. One of the doctors I work with actually does lectures on this. Very, very interesting bit of information if you’re into that. And I’ll try to remember, I’ll make a note for myself to put that lecture inside the document I’ll send you guys when, if you just comment the word “immune,” make sure you do that.

Q and A
So here’s what I want to do now. It’s time. I’m going to go to the question section because it’s a lot. It’s like drinking from a fire hose. I want to answer all of your questions and anything in the chat, I’m going to go through them right now. Here’s what I want to do before I do that. Everything in your body is happening for a reason. Up to this point, like we talked about, you’ve been told it’s an autoimmune condition, you’ve been told it’s a genetic condition, you’ve been told there’s no known cause. None of that is true. I’ve done further talks and lectures on this. I’m happy to show you guys if you ask. It’s not true. You only get sick for three main reasons. My job is to figure out why you’re sick. If we can figure out why you’re sick, let’s go back to the cup analogy. I want to know what filled your cup. Number one. Number two, why isn’t it able to drain and empty like everybody else’s cup? We go, “Well, my stress is my trigger.” Yeah, but stress isn’t making you bleed. Your cup was full. Stress was a straw that broke the camel’s back. It made it overflow, and once it did, everything got wet. All these systems got broken up. Your immune system became imbalanced.

 As a clinician, my job is to work with you to find out, one, what filled your cup. Number two, why aren’t you draining like you should be? Number three, what else has gotten wet that we now need to fix and correct to help your body heal and rebalance your immune system? And then that’s how we can effectively reverse IBD. We’ve done it hundreds of times, and this is something that you want to learn how to do. I’m going to show you how to do that right now. If you’re here on Facebook or Instagram, if you’re here on Facebook, all you have to do is set a comment below with the word “solution.” We’re going to talk to you about the gut solution program, how we can get you the help that you need, how to unwind and unravel this whole mess that your body is in. I’ll send you all kinds of videos of people who have done it before and what it takes to do it. It can be done, but if you want to learn how to do that, we can walk you through a 16-week program and show you what it looks like. This is just going to initiate a conversation, just to say, “Hey, is this a good fit? Can we help you?” Just comment the word “solution.” If you’re on Instagram, instead of commenting, send me a DM, because it will get blocked out. I don’t know why, just we don’t often see these things. If you are watching on YouTube, if you’re listening on the podcast, check the links below. There’s information there. You can check the show notes on the podcast as well. There’s information down there to get you the help that you need. You can reach me, email me, click a link to book a call. Let’s go to the question section. I know this is a big, confusing topic as well. There’s no such thing as stupid questions.

This is one of the most complex lives I think I’ve ever done as far as immunology and anatomy physiology, so I want you to have a good handle on this first. But if you’re not sure what to ask, just ask anyway. There’s no wrong questions here, ever.

And I think sometimes an intimidating topic like this can sort of keep us from asking questions.

We have a question on Instagram—go ahead.

Instagram User: Do you help ALS patients?

Josh: The question is on Instagram, “Do we help ALS patients?” Unfortunately, not. That’s not something I specialize in. Crohn’s and Colitis, even though there’s a lot of autoimmunity, Crohn’s and Colitis are their own very specific vein of autoimmunity where I specialize. However, if you do want to seek a specialist, look up Dr. Terry Wahls. W-A-H-L-S. She specializes in MS, which is much closer to ALS than Crohn’s and Colitis are, but she is just phenomenal, very lovely lady, and she will have either some help for you herself or she’ll be able to get you a direction.

But Dr. Terry Wahls actually dealt with MS so severe she was wheelchair-bound, and within I think a year or two years, she’s mountain biking again, she’s on her own two legs, and she’s doing incredibly because she was able to address that herself. Now, that being said, a lot of the basic functions of autoimmunity still exist: good sleep, stress management, toxins, deficiencies, etc. But I just wouldn’t want to go overstepping my bounds and my expertise beyond Crohn’s, Colitis, IBS, and digestive diseases where I specialize. I’d want to go to somebody who understands the subtleties and nuances of neurological issues like ALS or MS. So I hope that helps. Dr. Terry Wahls. I’ll put that on the board—that’s Terry, T-R-R-Y, I believe it’s W-A-H-L-S if I’m not mistaken. But she’s just fantastic.

Josh: Any other questions on Instagram? We’re all good over there for now. So let’s take a look here at what we have on Facebook. A lot of you here, let me see. Vdat says, “I took some notes from your videos regarding supplements to help the gut, the lining, kill parasites, comment down, etc. If you could help me out on this?” Yeah, if you want information, you have questions, and need help, all you’ve got to do here on Facebook—again, Instagram, send me a DM—but on Facebook, just comment the word “solution,” and we’re going to be able to reach out and have that chat and see what we can do to help you out. Just see if it’s a good fit. Like, if I don’t think I can help you, we’re not going to enroll you in a program by any means. I just would like to know if I can help you first.

Josh : Misty says, “Amazed at this knowledge.” Well, here’s the thing, and thank you first of all, but here’s the thing: once we can understand how the body works, it all just starts to add up and make sense. One of the challenges doctors—yes, they’re taught how this all works, but they’re taught, “Here are the symptoms, check the box, give the drug.” Many doctors who have left traditional medicine or Western medicine call this “cookbook medicine.” That’s where I get the term from, and they realize that we’re not actually getting people better. We’re just managing the symptoms of disease rather than pulling the nail out of the foot, and that’s what we want to do.

Josh: Donna, I see your “immune” comment here. I’m going to make sure I get you that document. Karen, I see you here. If you want to have the notes, just make sure you do comment the word “immune,” because I’m going to be going through and searching for a keyword. That’s how I’ll find you. If we get 50 comments, I might miss you, so comment the word “immune” very specifically.

Josh: Amarie says, “In your program, I assume you recommend each and every supplement to take to heal, and why for your specific case?” Yes, you’ll notice here, Amarie, I recommended probably 30 supplements. I will never give you 30 supplements. It’s an insane amount of money, first of all. Second of all, you can make a bowl full of cereal, it’s just supplements. If I’m giving you this many, I wouldn’t do that to you. We pick and choose. What I listed today are simply some Band-Aids, so to speak, that can help if you’re at the appropriate stage for it. What I don’t want to do is say, “If everyone takes all these supplements, they’ll be fine.” It doesn’t work that way. It’s much more complex than that. So, everything we do inside of a protocol is tailored to you. I might give you five or six, seven supplements, but I’m not giving you 30 in a supplement. Keep in mind, there’s a difference between supplementing and plant-based medication. So all these herbs and plants I gave you, I give them to you simply to manage your symptoms. I’m giving you plant-based medication, at least your healthcare or health insurance will cover. Other supplements, what I want to do with you is say, “Here’s the problem we’re going after. Here’s a supplement we’re taking. The length of time, the response it should be eliciting, what we’re doing for you, how we’re getting rid of this thing. Bing, bang, boom, you’re done, and now you can come off the supplement.” So we phase it out. That’s what we want supplements to do for you.

Josh: The next question here, another one from Amrie is a follow-up. “What would cause your belly to feel acidic?” My daughter has a comment: “Depending on what she eats or just randomly says, my stomach feels acidic.” Acidity is kind of a burning feeling. Inflammation can lead to burning. Now, maybe you do have stomach acid issues. We can see that a lot in stress situations, lack of sleep, low stomach acid is the number one cause of acid reflux, or, on the other hand, if you’re producing adequate stomach acid but you’re finding there are things that are breaking down your stomach lining, that can lead to this burning feeling—ulcers, etc. So, we want to make sure our gut lining is taken care of.

Sally, I see your “solution” comment here. We’ll be in touch. Make sure we get you some help. Karen asks, “Is it more important to know your root cause before doing these supplements? Is there a quick way to find out what IBD causes are?” Yes, what we’re talking about here—there’s an order of things. So let’s go through this really quick. What an order looks like: If I want to get you better, number one, let’s go back to the glass analogy. Okay? I want to figure out what is filling your glass. I can’t empty this glass if I’m constantly pouring water into it. It’s just going to keep overflowing no matter how big my drainage is. If I’m constantly pouring stuff in, it’s going to be a bit of a mess. So I have to turn the tap off. What’s that look like? Stress, sleep, infections. If you’re living in a moldy home, you have to change your environment. You’re not going to heal a broken leg if I broke it on the trampoline. I’m not going to heal if I keep jumping on the trampoline. In order to heal, I have to stop jumping. So, we have to stop adding insult to the injury. That’s number one.

So I have to be able to open up these exit pathways. I have to stop filling it up and figure out what filled it up. Remove it. And then, at the end, this is where I’m going to deal with your immune system. Now, right now, you’re inflamed. So, think of it this way. This is gasoline, right? Your body is on fire. All this gasoline is filling up in your cup and overflowing, and it’s causing a fire. Can you take some of these supplements to help squash and suppress this fire? Yes, but is the gas going to keep flowing? Also, yes. So, if you’re looking to spend time and money and effort on something, I wouldn’t jump right into a bunch of immune-supporting supplements without going after that root cause first.

Josh: So, let’s get to our next question here. Valerie says, “Why do flares come and go without changing environment or diet? Could it just be stress?” So many factors. Let’s go back to the cup. Why do flares come and go? Let’s say this cup now—again, it’s full, right? It’s bubbling over. It’s right at the top of the rim. Well, what does stress do? It’s that last drop inside that makes it overflow. What does the flu do? Well, it activates these same immune pathways, causing inflammation. So now we have another response and it overflows. You eat something you shouldn’t, your cup is already so full, it’s going to overflow, and now we have a problem. And so, little things when you’re already right on the peak can cause a problem, and that’s why your flares can come and go.

Josh: Another question on Instagram—go ahead.

Instagram User: “I live in Australia. How do you do tests? So, blood tests or stool testing?”

Josh: Easy. So the question is, “Mickey, living in Australia, I’m up in Canada, so we’re across the world, we’re 14 to 17 hours apart. How do we do testing to help?” Very easily. We have access to labs all over the world. I actually work with many clients in Australia, in New Zealand, UK—we had clients in parts of Eastern Europe, Vietnam, the US, all over the world. Labs all over the place are doing this. Believe it or not, some will ship from the US, but there are certain labs in Australia and the US that we do work with as well to get testing there locally, so it’s much quicker of a turnaround. Not an issue. And if you want help with that, Mickey, just send me a DM with the word “solution,” and we’ll make sure we get you a chat and get you some help with that.

Josh: Any more over there? We’re good? Good. Okay, let’s go back to Facebook now. I want to give you guys a chance to get through these, but I will have to wrap up a few here soon. Danielle asks, “Can I start using these supplements if I start a detox? Will binders and supplements counteract?” Let’s talk about this. This cup analogy. I’m going to stretch it until it’s dead. This is a good one. So, your cup is full, right? You’re full of water. What is detox? Well, picture you’ve got something down here, trying to get it. What you’re doing is you’re reaching into a cup full of water to try to grab this thing. What happens? You push water out and you overflow. So, what we need to actually do is empty some of this water out first so you can reach into the cup safely without causing it to overflow. This is called drainage. We need to get things out of your body. Detoxing is collecting all the trash. Drainage is bringing it out to the curb. If I can’t move my drainage—my GI, my toxins out to the curb through my skin, lymphatics, bowels, bladder, liver, gallbladder, bile ducts, sinuses—if I can’t get them out, they’re going to overflow. They mobilize and make me sicker.

Josh: So the question here is, “Can I use these supplements if I start a detox?” I wouldn’t go detoxing until you’re draining, and as you’re draining, binders can be helpful—like charcoal, zeolite, humic fulvic acid, bentonite clay, S.A.C. (S-A-C), as a probiotic, that combined with certain fibers like common in even okra, certain lactobacillus bacteria or probiotics can also be binders for certain toxins, more so for mold, but for some toxins. But that’s what we want to do. We want to drain and bind. I have a whole protocol on this as well, but again, if you want access to this, just ask, comment the word “solution,” we’ll get you some help.

Josh: Karen had asked, “What would help severe GERD and heartburn in it? Would your supplements help?” This is a different conversation. I’ll just hit it really quick. But I have done a whole podcast episode on this. It was probably my first 10 that I had done on reversible acid reflux. This is your stomach. You have an entry and an exit to the small intestine—sphincters above and below. You need a certain amount of fluid volume of acid and fluid, which is your fluids, your liquids to keep these sphincters closed. When you’re high stress, if you’re infected, you have deficiencies, you’re low on zinc, etc., your stomach acid will be low. Therefore, these doors don’t close, which means when you lay down, eat too much, etc., and things move around, acid comes up, and now you have heartburn.

Josh: So, the thing I do for heartburn most often, I’ll protect the gut lining, build it up—DGL, slippery elm, aloe vera, and often add stomach acid again, symptom management. I still want to know why I depleted it in the first place.

Josh: Amarie, with your program, will you definitely be able to name the root cause? Almost certainly, I can never—unfortunately, will never make any guarantees that we will get you better in this amount of time, but what I can say, give us 16 weeks. We have a guarantee in our programs—16 weeks. If you come out, you’re like, “I feel the exact same as the day I walked in, nothing has changed.” It’s in our agreements, I sign it and send it back to you because we put our money, our time, our expertise where our mouth is. You are paying us for a service. We work very hard for you, but we want to make sure that we have the trust and accountability that goes both ways. We have a guarantee. 16 weeks, you feel the exact same, we continue working with you for absolutely free. We want to make sure we push that needle.

Josh: Julia says, “Testing, get tested for everything at a reliable lab?” Yeah, you can get tested. The question is, I’ve seen people spend literally tens of thousands of dollars on lab testing and get nowhere because they didn’t have the context. The more tests you get, you get a diminished return for your dollar. You spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on all these labs. Should you get this testing done? Well, maybe, but every test you get starts to water down the information. Like, they become redundant. A GI map can tell me something. Like, an OAT (Organic Acids Test) can—a total Tox test. I could probably get from an OAT. There’s a lot of differences in there. We want to look at context. It’s important. So before you go spending money on a bunch of labs and tests, I would make sure you check with us first, or a professional you’re working with.

Josh: Amarie follows up saying, “Does insomnia or trouble falling asleep every night have to do with Crohn’s?” It can. Neurological irritation—one of the signs we look for for those who keep waking up in the night, insomnia, can be microbial, but even parasitic. They can cause that. If you’re grinding your teeth, trouble digesting fats, all kinds of symptoms can cause these problems that we want to look at.

Josh : Also, a huge apology for my Instagram people. I never put my microphone on my shirt, so I’m glad you guys can hear me and see me. Sorry, guys, we’re juggling a lot over here. I literally had a microphone on the floor, so thank God you can hear me, and my dog who was laying on it wasn’t making too much of a disruption. So, I do apologize for that.

Josh: Next question here. Doug Gregory. “Can’t wait to work with you, Josh.” Doug, looking forward to it, man. Make sure you comment the word “solution.” We’ll make sure we get back to you.

Josh: Let me see. Shayen. “What about little kiddos with diagnosis? How did they get sick without stress, etc. Same thing?” Same thing. So, there’s a couple of arguments for this. The first one we look at is called generational dysbiosis. What does this mean? Over time, we lose microbes in our ecosystem, in our bodies. Now, there’s an interesting fact by Dr. Yesa Shonfeld out of Tel Aviv University, and he says we are born 99% human and 1% microbes. That’s how you’re born. By the time you die, you are 10% human and 90% microbes. The challenge is, as we go on years and generations of more chemicals, more pesticides, more environmental disruption, more everything, say great-great-grandmother had 30,000 microbes. Well, great-grandma gets 8,000, grandma gets 6,000, mom gets 400, you get 200. Guess what? You inherit dysbiosis, which means you inherit illness already. And so, we have to work to build these up. We’re in a toxic world. Kids can get infections just as easily. Well, if you only got 200 microbes, guess what? There’s room for the bad guys to move in. Now we get parasites and infections and viruses because our defenses are not what they used to be. There’s a reason North American populations. We have North America, right? I talked about this earlier—about 5% of the global population, upwards of 50% of the world’s cases of IBD. Well, we think if it’s really truly just chemicals and toxins and exposure, India and China, like the manufacturing industrial hubs of the world, would have more infections than we do, but the real reality is they don’t. We do.

Josh: So is it the toxins, or is it that we’re losing our microbes? Number one, because this hyper hygiene issues, pesticides, etc., they’re exposed to all kinds of things we’re not. They don’t sanitize their hands all the time. It’s called the hygiene hypothesis. So it’s an interesting thing to dive into as to why kids are getting sick these days.

Josh: Dennis asks, “How do I repair damage to my intestines due to the use of NSAIDs?” Similar process, Dennis. NSAIDs—these are really nasty. Ibuprofen is like the devil when it comes to your gut. But NSAIDs—these are nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. So, ibuprofen, Advil, those types of things, naproxen—they rip your gut to pieces. I did a talk on this a little while back. They’re very hard on your gut. We have to work back your gut lining and your ecosystem, etc. It’s a similar process, but Dr. Andrew W is a functional doctor. You can look up that’s his story—he gave himself ulcerative colitis with NSAIDs, and of course, he was able to reverse it because he found the thing causing his problem. His doctors, when he was a traditional doctor, said, “Take the drugs,” he said, “No thank you.”

Josh: Doug, I see you here for solution. Melissa Howard, I see you for immune. I’ll make sure you guys get that handout. Any more questions on that end? No? Just a nice comment someone you follow says, “I love your work.” Oh, thank you so much! I love my work, and I love that you love my work. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Josh: That’s all we’ve got for you guys for today. This is a big one to digest. We’ve been here for almost 50 minutes, so the YouTube will have the short version. The benefit of being on the live is you get all these things here now. Keep in mind, there’s a ton of resources out there. If you do not know this already, all of these are put actively on the Reversing Crohn’s and Colitis Naturally podcast. It’s available on all platforms. If you’re on Instagram, go to my link in my profile there. You can see everything. You can go to my website, you can check those out as well. That’s simply found at gutsolution.com, and you can find all the information there—podcast.

Josh: What I can say is not, “Here’s what your child should take.” What I can say is, the research has shown to be beneficial. Now, keep in mind my disclaimer, this is for informational educational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. I do this a lot. Typically, 5 to 10,000 IUs a day is going to be safe. So, if you can’t tell, I mean, beyond the tattoos, I’m pretty pale, right? I’m pretty pasty white. So for me, if I go outside in the sun, it’s my treasure trail. My wife’s here laughing at me. Views are going to...

Josh: 100%. I feel like Ted from Schitt's Creek—I’m like inside my bed office. But here’s the deal. My whiteness—if I go outside in the sun on an average summer day for about 30 minutes, I’ll produce 20,000 to 30,000 IUs of vitamin D easy. Now, someone who’s very dark-skinned, say typical like dark, like Nigerian skin, they might produce 5,000 IUs because they have more melanin, which blocks a lot of that UV. So you can get a lot of it now. Oral dosing versus IV dosing versus production are very different, but typically, if you’re worried about vitamin D, get the levels checked and see if it’s a problem.

Josh: But I’ve seen a lot of benefits from even children taking vitamin D3 K2, anywhere from 5,000 upwards of especially in acute situations, 10,000 or more IUs with anywhere from 50 to 100 micrograms of K2 with that. It can tend to be very beneficial, and it can really increase absorption and get it where it needs to go. But obviously, we have to say, legally, with no waivers and Stu, I have to tell you, follow the manufacturer’s advice and start with that. Hope that helps answer the question.

Josh: That’s all we got for you guys for tonight. Thank you so much for your questions, your attendance. I appreciate you all. See you next time.

One of my favorite things to hear as an IBD specialist is something along the lines of, “I learn more from you in 15 minutes than from my doctor in 15 years.” And if this, for the first time, is really starting to click, and it’s starting to make sense, you’re going, “Wait a minute, this might be reversible. I think there’s more that I can do.” This condition came out of nowhere. Happened to me out of the blue. I was healthy for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, and suddenly I wasn’t. And you’re telling me there’s no cause? If you’re understanding finally that there is a cause, that something is driving this, I want to invite you to check the link in the show notes below. Send me an email, ask a question, see if a program is the right fit for you, because I promise you this doesn’t have to be a lifelong sentence. You’re not doomed to this, and IBD can be reversed.