Revolution Health & Wellness

Podcast 25 – Autoimmune Disease

Podcast 25 - Autoimmune Disease

Autoimmune Disease

Transcription

 

Dr. Chad: This is Dr. Chad Edwards and you’re listening to podcast 25 of “Against the grain.”

 

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Welcome to against the grain podcast with Dr. Chet Edwards, where he challenges the status quo when it comes to medicine, we get into hot topics in the medical field with real stories from real patients to help you on your way to a healthy lifestyle.  Get ready because we’re about to go, Against the grain.

 

Bryan:  Hello everyone, this is Brian Wilts I’m here with Marshall, Marshall how are you doing?

 

Dr. Chad: I’m doing pretty well.

 

Bryan:  You know Marshall that intro was pretty amazing. It makes my whole intro really not as dynamic. is that your real voice?

 

Dr. Chad: Yes.

 

Bryan:  Is it synthesized or anything?

 

Dr. Chad: No that is how I talk.

 

Bryan:  Okay, okay whatever can you help my voice out with your machines and stuff over there, I’d appreciate it. Today I’m joined not to leave them out but because he’s the owner of the show by Dr. Chet Edwards who believes that 80% of medical recommendations are, I hate to say it, because I’m a good Christian guy crap and that’s technically speaking to Dr. Chet is the author of Revolutionize Your Health with Customized Supplements. He’s served in the U.S. Army for 23 years, as both an enlisted soldier and as an officer and as a physician; he graduated from medical school at Oklahoma State University go pokes. He is the founder of Revolution health.org and this very podcast against the grain. How are you doing again Dr.Edwards?

 

Dr. Chad: What’s going Brian?

 

Bryan:  Don’t you feel like there’s a large discrepancy between Marshall’s intro which is obviously prerecorded okay and his voice seems deeper as a dangles of in mind, this thing is unfair.

 

Dr. Chad: It sounds the same to me, I don’t understand.

 

Bryan:  Can I protest?

 

Dr. Chad: It sounds the same to me, I don’t understand.

 

Bryan:  Speaking of protest, what do you think of this Donald Trump guy? Your comment? That’s the show topic today right? What else were you thinking, what else were you thinking when we talk about, give me an example of what we might talk about beside Donald Trump?

 

Dr. Chad: Erectile dysfunction.

 

Bryan:  Okay keep going, no.

 

Dr. Chad: Vitamin D.

 

Bryan:  Give me the real dang topic I can’t say it, I’m looking at this thing, give me the real one.

 

Dr. Chad: So, low dose Naltrexone.

 

Bryan:  Yes, okay say that ten times real fast.

 

Dr. Chad: That that that that [laughs]

 

Bryan:  You know preachers and doctors have the worst humor, don’t they Marshall I mean come on.

 

Speaker 1: Or the best.

 

Bryan:  So talk to me about, how can we abbreviate this thing that you are talking about?

 

Dr. Chad: LDN.

 

Bryan:  LDN so tell me about LDN.

 

Dr. Chad: So basically on the last couple of podcast we’ve be talking about autoimmune conditions and autoimmune diseases and disorders.

 

Bryan:  It makes sense that we would talk about this.

 

Dr. Chad: Sure. So we talked about Hashimoto’s in the last podcast, and the podcast before that we talked about- what was that that we talked about?

 

Bryan:  Hey, I just do the announcements and commercials around here.

 

Dr. Chad: With these autoimmune diseases there are some things that we can do to help that and we can approach it from a natural health perspective and kind of focus on nutrition and got health and will definitely be talking about those more specifically in our future podcast. Specifically here we’re going to talk about how we can address this with a with a medication that is fantastic and it actually has a lot of evidence supporting its use and we see a lot of great benefit and a lot of autoimmune conditions.

 

Bryan:  Well backup Ferrari I’m going to start calling you Ferrari brain, right? Because you’re outrunning me here, okay? No, it’s a high-speed engine you got up there so back up to my Toyota pickup truck brain that can go 50 on the interstate. So, talk to me about the condition what the symptoms, are who is most likely to have it.

 

Dr. Chad: This is- I don’t have a straight answer for you because this is were talking about autoimmune disorders, so that could be lupus it could be Hashimoto’s thyroiditis it could be multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease I mean there’s all kinds of different things that-

 

Bryan:  All of the and under the umbrella of autoimmune diseases.

 

Dr. Chad: That’s correct. What we want to do you know basically autoimmune diseases where your body, your immune system develops a response against its own self. It’s attacking its own self.

 

Bryan:  Why would God do that? That doesn’t make any sense.

 

Dr. Chad: I don’t know that God did that.

 

Bryan:  That’s a whole theological debate that we won’t get into it today, right? But basically is your body attacking itself, right?

 

Dr. Chad: That’s correct and I think certain people are genetically I don’t want to say predisposed but more at risk and then there are environmental factors that play into this as well.

 

Bryan:  Under the garment of and I know we talked about this in the last podcast but under the garment of autoimmune diseases. Is it is it true females are almost 90+ percent of the.

 

Dr. Chad: Much, much higher than females yes no question.

 

Bryan:  And then do we have age categories?

 

Dr. Chad: Probably I don’t remember, the highest probably in the late 20s maybe early 30s.

 

Bryan:  Is it initial that onset.

 

Dr. Chad: Generally I would say that’s right. I didn’t research that part specifically but that’s probably in there.

 

Bryan:  Just your perception of and experience.

 

Dr. Chad: And experience, that’s what I’ve seen. I mean certainly you can develop them at any point I don’t see them much near as much anyway in adolescence, so, it’s a little bit later. Which goes along, with that theory that we talked about last time, about the world Contraceptive.

 

Bryan:  That’s pretty perceptive of you.

 

Dr. Chad: I may be way off but-

 

Bryan:  They say one time.

 

Dr. Chad: I just have a question of the Association of autoimmune disease of different kinds and the ingestion or taking oral contraceptive medications.

 

Bryan:  This is juicy this is a hot topic right here I mean come on if there was a real hot topic.

 

Marshall:  Hot topic.

 

Bryan:  I just got to say the reason is a hot topic is a lot of money wrapped up in medications, birth control medications, right?

 

Dr. Chad: Right.

 

Bryan:  If there’s an underlying symptomatic thyroid problem or autoimmune problem that could be devastating to almost a multibillion dollar industry, right?

 

Dr. Chad: Right, well like a Premiering several years ago 2002 to the women’s health initiative came out and you know looking at preventing cardiovascular disease in women and they are there using hormone replacement therapy specifically are using Premarin, that’s what was in the study and they actually found that they’re like they stopped the study early because we were dying of heart disease, more in the test group than they were in the control group.

 

Bryan:  It’s amazing thing that we talk about and we’re going to offset because I think it’s important, right? So it’s always amazing to think you know you think you have this big bad FDA behind you, that regulating looking out for you. But it is not that long ago that smoking was kind of a social norm, right? Is it really harmful? I mean think about it that was less than 50 years ago?

 

Dr. Chad: I know those be in the 50s.

 

Bryan:  So what else don’t we know about, what is birth control? I mean-

 

Dr. Chad: Keep of files what we don’t know. What gets me and the reason that we do this podcast the reason I do medicine the way I do in the clinic, is because you know I mean look at George Washington died because of bloodletting with leeches and if you had asked the physician in the 1700s that was medical dogma and this is what we all do as physicians. We’re going to give leeches to fix these problems and that’s what ultimately kills George Washington. What’s your scientific foundation for that? And there is not and we will sit there and you will be dogmatic and save this is what we are going to. It’s like the flu shot. Listen to our podcast on the flu shot because the evidence to support the flu shot is not there.

 

Bryan:  In fact, it can be harmful.

 

Dr. Chad: It can and there are risks associated with that and you know what there is we could go off on all for a lot of time. 

 

Bryan:  I want to but you don’t want to do that. You want to take a fight; you want to take a fight though?

 

Dr. Chad: But that’s what we do everything on this podcast.

 

Bryan:  Like can we pick on? Like let’s just pick on the FDA, how about that? Here’s what I learned about the FDA, let me tell you something. I’ll draw comparisons I’m getting another Master’s degree basically in information technology and we are studying you know we talked about earlier algorithms in our last show and we’re talking about how you do software development for example okay and in the software development world, you get a set of problems and you fix them through algorithms, pre-existing code and then to algorithms that you design. And one of the things that have emerged through that is this process of an agile production environment versus a waterfall environment. In the waterfall environment of producing code for example a computer code or an algorithm to solve a problem you assume you know everything at the beginning okay and then you put all your chips in at the end, so a waterfall is just turn on and we know everything we scope it nothing changes. There’s a percentage of success and failure within that waterfall environment and then there’s the agile environment, which assumes that you know certain things but you continue to adapt continually to what Is either that you know, factual based evidence of either this code or the string didn’t work exactly like It was supposed to work so we adapt, rather than dying at the end.

 

The way I see the FDA Is the robust nature of It and the speed at which It moves and It’s somewhat antiquated and It’s very much waterfall but we have all this body and we assume we know everything. And we don’t adapt and I think evidence of that would be if you just look back at flu shots for example, that they haven’t really contributed much movement to that whole flu shot epidemic. In the past what 20 years It’s been kind of mainstay to have It really adjusted, they really haven’t tried to move and I think It’s a basic approach It’s pretty, an agile environment takes a lot of work, right? You’re constantly reassessing, constantly reassessing.

 

Dr. Chad: And then consider the political Influence and the monetary Influence and I think that Is where a lot of the Issues come about. There are some studies like for the flu shots, there are studies showing benefit but these are funded by the Industry they are funded by the manufacturers. And the ability or the potential for Influence In the results Is astronomical and when you control for that there is no consistent evidence showing benefit with the flu shot. So it’s just one-

 

Bryan: But they’re unwilling to adapt is my point.

 

Dr. Chad: correct, in fact we just going to dig out trench deeper.

 

Bryan: Dig a little deeper let’s keep doing this bad thing and when we come back we’re going to talk more about the government, how about that?

 

Dr. Chad: I thought we’re going to talk about a little star trek.

 

Bryan: Now we talk about that too.

 

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Bryan:  And we’re back, Brian Wilks here with Dr. Chad: Edwards. We kind of went off topic there.

 

Dr. Chad: Yes, you think.

 

Bryan: I think that’s what It helps me to be against the grain you know. You want to know the truth.

 

Dr. Chad: Well, we can do that but I do want to make sure we cover this load-

 

Bryan: Yes, we got the government figured out.

 

Dr. Chad: Do we?

 

Bryan: Yes, I think so.

 

Dr. Chad: So, the gut health is definitely a contributor to helping autoimmune disease but It can contribute as well.

 

Bryan: Which part gas on the gut?

 

Dr. Chad: Without a question. So, it’s this low dose naltrexone piece. So, naltrexone is a medication. It’s been around for a long time. It Is a standard normal prescription but It Is what’s called an opiate antagonist, so opiates like morphine and heroin all those narcotics base chemicals go bind to the opiate receptor In the brain . Naltrexone blocks that receptor, so, it prevents the opiates from attaching to the receptor, and we traditionally use this medication If someone came In on narcotics and we wanted to withdraw them or get to lower their emergency naloxone uses a little bit different medication but It works for the same fact. I called the NaloxoneNarcan.

 

Bryan:  We wean them off eventually.

 

Dr. Chad: Well we give It IV. If someone comes in unconscious we give him that IV medication and see if they wake up and sometimes you make them really mad, because you basically withdrew them for a minute and they feel awful but naltrexone is an oral version of the same thing. So, we will often use that to prevent the high feeling. If someone’s on they’re hooked on drugs and we don’t want them to go get that high feeling will give them naltrexone. That’s one way that It’s been used but what they found Is It was In a study and I can’t remember the full extent of the study, but, by observation I think It was HIV patients the 1980s. They noticed that patients that had HIV that were also addicted to narcotics, that were on naltrexone did much better, in regards to their disease process. So they started looking at why was that the case and they found out that naltrexone helps to balance the Immune system, low-dose naltrexone, because naltrexone typically prescribed in above 50 mg kind of doses. In what we’re trying to do we prescribe. It in a much lower dose, we typically will prescribe 1.53 or 4.5 mg. 

 

Bryan: For autoimmune diseases?

 

Dr. Chad: For autoimmune diseases. So, the next question would be why Is that the case?

 

Bryan: That would be a big question.

 

Dr. Chad: What they note is that endorphins those are narcotics, they up-regulate the Immune system. So, they enhance or balance the Immune system and when you block those receptors In the brain, your brain thinks that they don’t have enough and so It will up-regulate the production of both endorphins as well Is up-regulate the receptors for them. So by giving low-dose naltrexone we’re making the body make more endorphins and creating more receptors for them. When we do that we can help balance the Immune system and there’s a lot of evidence showing significant benefit with low-dose naltrexone in autoimmune disease.

 

So, I will often use this for Hashimoto’s thyroid it is all use it for lupus or use it for rheumatoid arthritis and in some patients tremendous significant benefit and we really don’t see much side effect. We see a little bit of nausea associated with It I with Hashimoto’s I often start a lower dose like 1.5 mg and will gradually work our way up because you can have Improvement in thyroid function so if they’re on thyroid replacement, the thyroid gland start making you can make them hyper thyroid. They got too much on thyroid functions, we start lower work our way up but you got to find a good compounding pharmacy that knows what they’re doing because they have to take the high dose naltrexone crush it up and make it Into an into the right low-dose and there certain fillers you can’t use. So, you want to make sure you get a good pharmacy that knows what they’re doing.

 

Bryan: Compounding pharmacy.

 

Dr. Chad: Compounding pharmacy you can go to Walgreens and get low-dose naltrexone.

 

Bryan: What do you recommend at least people locally listening to this podcast?

 

Dr. Chad: Locally I’ve use the apothecary and I’ve gotten good results with them.

 

Bryan: I’ve heard a lot of good things.

 

Dr. Chad: That’s not to speak anything negative about any other pharmacies,I just know how they make little Naltrexone with the apothecary. There are some pharmacies’ that you can use Nate nationally, that will actually ship to the patient and sometimes at a lower cost and they are, I don’t want to say approved, but by the low-dose naltrexone.org website there Is a list of recommended pharmacies’ on there, and that Is also a great site for more Information on naltrexone, low dose naltrexone. 

 

Bryan: For people that want more Information about this in this particular drug that I can’t even say okay, you can do two things you can go to revolution health.org and you can book an appointment with Dr. Chad Edwards, whichI would highly recommend or you can go to the againstthegrainpodcast.com, let me say that again because you can you can editIt okay. You can go to againstthegrainpodcast.com and you can find out more Information. Tulsa Prolotherapy

 

Dr. Chad: Yes, and I want also expand and say our nurse practitioner Courtney is also fantastic at this.

 

Bryan: She Is.

 

Dr. Chad: And I’m fairly booked up you my waiting list are a little bit longer, she has a little more availability.

 

Bryan: She has been on the show right?

 

Dr. Chad: Absolutely.

 

Bryan: She is a wealth of knowledge.

 

Dr. Chad: That’s right.

 

Bryan: What do you guys do all day; do you just sit around and read over there?

 

Dr. Chad: I wish that were the case. The Issue is that we have a little bit more time to spend with our patients we want to get to the underlying problem. They will come in and every patient has a new probably something knew something different or just a little bit different angle of something. We end up having to research that and find out what is this that’s different, and why is this? Tulsa Prolotherapy

 

Bryan: You are kind of like medical investigators almost it’s kind of an Interest dynamic.

 

Dr. Chad: Absolutely.

 

Bryan: Like a CSI episode over there and that.

 

Dr. Chad: Well, we try.

 

Bryan: You guys aren’t Interesting because I’ve been over there a couple times and it really is a lot of conversation around what’s best for the patient in trying to research things and a necessity is the mother of all Invention and I would say that when you have a passion for your patient like you do, that necessity role to get them better leads to a wealth of information that your you’re getting in a very organic way to help your patients out. I think that is the culture that you have over there. Tulsa Prolotherapy

 

Dr. Chad: Well thank you, that’s what we’re shooting for that’s what we try for.

 

Bryan: Like I always say, my dad goes there I go there if that has been my dad could spend hours with you, not so much because we do this podcast together and I get everything I need to know here, right? Tulsa Prolotherapy

 

Dr. Chad: That’s right exactly.

 

Bryan: Well it’s Good Friday, so we’re going to Easter egg hunt tonight. You guys got any big plans over the weekend? Tulsa Prolotherapy

 

Dr. Chad: Taking my sons shooting.

 

Bryan: Shooting. We still do that on Oklahoma.

 

Dr. Chad: Yes, it’s awesome.

 

Bryan: We shoot things not people.

 

Dr. Chad: It’s clay.

 

Bryan: It’s just clay.

 

Dr. Chad: It’s clay it doesn’t feel painful.

 

Bryan: We like our guns here.

 

Dr. Chad: And then we’re going to go eat.

 

Bryan: That sounds like a plan; we’ll see you next time.

 

Dr. Chad: Take care.

 

Marshall: Thanks for listening to this week podcast with Dr. Chad Edwards, tune in next week where we will be going against the grain. Tulsa Prolotherapy

 

 

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