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Sorry to hear about your flare up, Eric. That one looks rough. It's one thing when it's uncomfortable, it's another when it start to seriously impact your ability to enjoy life.

I'm a sensitive guy myself (ha), but my conditions are mostly gut related. I'm usually able to rein in my diet and sleep to improve conditions, but sometimes they're also related to stress/headspace issues as well.

I'll be curious to hear how your functional health remedies work out. I've been considering getting similar tests done myself the past few months, but ultimately decided to wait it out as my conditions were starting to improve. But I did find a great functional medicine provider in my area whom I could work with.

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There’s a reason we talk about getting butterflies in our stomach. There’s a link between stress and our gut health. A lot of our healing is about how we re-wire our brains to avoid stress and strife.

If you need any recommendations for FM practitioners, let me know. Like lawyers, most are average, and some are brilliant. And I’ve worked with, or collaborated with, plenty to spot which are the ones that know what they’re doing.

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Absolutely! I'm learning about that connection more and more as I get older. It's usually AFTER a period of issues that I am able to look back and see the connection.

And I appreciate the note on the FM referral. We have somebody here local that I am connected with, but haven't dove too deep with yet. I'll certainly let you know if I'm looking for another resource.

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Sorry to hear you're feeling low, Eric. I'm sort of a health freak myself, always on the lookout for the latest and most effective hacks, etc. I'm well into my fifties, and if there's one thing that improves with age, it's the ability to ignore things and worry less—at least, that's what I've noticed in myself. But anyway, I guess it's hard to ignore certain types of conditions, especially if they're making your normal life more difficult. Let me just throw this in, though: have you ever tried simple, organic celery juice? Like, buying a juicer and making it yourself. A friend recommended it a while ago, and it had a strong impact on me. Just my two cents.

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There’s a lot to be said for worrying less! Now that I know what’s up, I’m not worried as the plan helps me address the root cause. And the sooner I can avoid applying steroid creams to relieve my psoriasis symptoms, and avoid the side effects, the better.

What has been a bonus is bringing in more ways to feel calm so my body can rely on its natural detox channels. Saunas have been really good. As have getting back into cold showers. Thanks for sharing the celery juice idea. Celery is one of those vegetables that’s on the list of therapeutic foods that help the natural detox pathways. And I did juice that with cucumber and a bit of apple when my aunt said it helped her hayfever symptoms. Every bit helps, so when I get back to London, I’ll be using up the organic celery that I get in my weekly shop.

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I'm in awe of your consistent curiosity and resilience in improving your health, Eric. Hope the detox works!

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Thanks Becky! There's some very bitter liquid that I'm going to be drinking every morning for the next four weeks called "Liver Sauce". When I was chatting to Nicole, I said that it couldn't really be worse than some of the Chinese Medicine potions that I was imbibing when I was seven! But let's see!!!

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omg.... I can't imagine how that tastes. I hope it truly works!!

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Dang. Sorry to hear (or see) about your flare up. This seems more and more common, people suffering from chronic health conditions as a build up from toxicity environmentally. Trying to be proactive myself and live as cleanly as possible, but there's only so much you can do I guess. I had just read another post today that is similar to yours, and one thing on this person's recovery list was turning off the wifi at night—which I'm going to start doing myself. I wonder how much of this is placebo related, as in how much better we feel we were are taking any kind of steps to take care of ourselves, whether they are objectively helpful or not.

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Thanks Rick. Yes, it's frustrating, but I'm glad I've got a good plan!

The toxic environment is especially contributing to brain conditions, like Parkinson's and dementia.

Living as cleanly as possible is super important. It gives our bodies the best chances of detoxing through our natural pathways - liver, kidneys, skin, gut. Sometimes, like in my case now, I need to give my body some extra help.

Wifi and EMFs are definitely

I think there is something in the idea of the placebo in that our minds have an amazing ability to create the conditions for health or dis-ease.

One of the things I've heard a lot about people who are being treated with SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) - something I've had treated in the past, is that they can be sticking to all the protocols (low FODMAP diet, taking anti-microbials, supplementation), but the SIBO sticks around unless they are resolving residual trauma or sources of stress that can prevent full healing.

DNRS and Brain Retraining programmes help with this, and other conditions where the root cause can be the body tricking the brain into thinking there is something to attack, whereas it's that faulty messaging that needs short circuiting (eg fibromyalgia, COVID, ME)

With EMFs, some people are hyper-sensitive, others not. Same with mould. I know a practitioner who was struck down completely by black mould at home (totally incapacitated until she moved out of the home), but her husband was fine.

Books like The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk) and The Body Says No (Gabor Mate) both speak to the power of the mind to influence significantly our health outcomes.

I joined a webinar earlier today where a cardiology researcher was showing the latest evidence about how anger and shame are two emotions that - if not resolved - can lead to heart conditions!

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Gosh there is so much to the body/mind/heart unified field that we don't know. But I think on a simple and directly intuitive level, we DO know, we just have to trust ourselves and tune in.

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Exactly as you said it, Rick! We DO know.

I see it so often in myself and the people I work with. Slowing down from the frenetic goings on around us, from our racing thoughts, from our "busyness" helps us tap into that inner wisdom. It's there, if we tune in.

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