Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Childhood and AutoImmune Expression: How Your Current Immune Overload Could Stem From Childhood Trauma

A trend that I have noticed on my intake forms from new clients over the past 4-6 months is that there are 2 questions answered that breaks my heart.  Both are yes/no questions.

Question #1:  Did you feel safe growing up?

Question #2:  Have you ever been abused?

I can say more often than not, I have seen more ‘Noes’ when asked if they felt safe growing up and I have seen more ‘Yeses’ when asked if they have ever been abused.  And a common ailment in those answers are autoimmune conditions.  Is there a direct correlation?  I wouldn’t rule it out but that’s just based on my observation.

Functional medicine Colorado SpringsI’ve had conversations about this with colleagues as well as I’ve talked about these similarities in my workshops.  But what I didn’t know, is that my speculation has already been quantified.

I was recently introduced to the ACE study.  I hadn’t heard of it but as it was described, I had to go find it.  The ACE Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) was conducted between 1995-1997 and eligible for follow up through 2005.  ACEs included childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; witnessing domestic violence; growing up with household substance abuse, mental illness, parental divorce, and/or an incarcerated household member.

In an autoimmune analysis based on those results, the outcome was hospitalizations for any of 21 selected autoimmune diseases and 4 immunopathology groupings.  64% reported at least one ACE.  First hospitalizations for any autoimmune disease increased with increasing number of ACEs.  Compared with persons with no ACEs, persons with >or=2 ACEs were at a 100% increased risk for rheumatic diseases.

MIND. BLOWN.

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23 Questions to Ask Your Kids

Recently, I have had a number of people with auto-immune conditions consult with me.  Upon digging into their history and personal story, one of the biggest triggers that halts their health progress is related to their personal parent-child interaction.  Many of these people have already done massive changes in their nutrition and lifestyle.  The major issue has been a lot of hurt feelings and chronic stress around a close relationship that is strained.  

My personal relationship with my parents wasn’t that close growing up.  They did anything and everything possible to provide for me and my 2 siblings, but my parents weren’t the 2 people that I would go to first if I needed help with something.  I would either figure it out myself or go to friends.  It’s my own baggage and I am the reason for that distance relationship.

I will say now, as an adult, I’m closer to my mom than I ever have been.  Unfortunately, it’s not the case with my dad.  His mental capacity at this point in life makes me wonder if he would recognize me or know whom I am, if he spotted me somewhere other than at home.

My wife’s family is much closer.  There’s a friendship established with healthy respect between parents and kids.  Something that sticks out to me about them is that the kids (now all grown with families of their own) love going ‘home’ even when they don’t have to.  I hope to create that with my kids.  I want them to come home even when they don’t have to.  Don’t get me wrong, they won’t be living under my roof as adults but are free to visit anytime.

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After the Baby is Born

My wife just delivered our third son.  The oldest was born in the hospital and the other two were born at home.  With my views and practices on health outcomes, I get a lot of questions about what we do during and after pregnancy with our kids.

After the Baby is BornWhat is of interest is that as a parent, and if you’re one too, all you want is your child to be healthy and happy.  The point of interest is that so many people have different ways of trying to achieve those outcomes, especially the healthy part.  Here’s the basic journey we took with our 3 boys.  As of yet, none have had an ear infection.  None have taken an antibiotic.  None has ever been given a fever reducer.  None, except for our oldest, has ever seen a traditional doctor.  The oldest went to two ‘well baby’ visits when we were fresh into the parenting thing.

We quickly realized that the sole purpose of the well visits was to give vaccines and since we were denying them, we were pretty confident in weighing and measuring our own children if we were really curious.  If there was a problem we were concerned about, we wouldn’t hesitate to got to a traditional doc but that hasn’t been the case as of yet.  I’m sure as they age, we’ll probably have a couple ER visits in our future.

After the Baby is Born

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Do Daddies Get Sick?

LESSONS LEARNED WHILE ON VACATION

• I’m either not that important, have no friends, or am a great delegator.  Where we were staying, I had ZERO cell phone reception.  Running a business, this can be a little stressful but decided to let it go.  When we got to the airport for our return trip, I turned the phone on.  I had 1 text message.  It was from my cell phone carrier reminding me of my upcoming bill due date. Whatever the reason for the lack of incoming messages, it all worked out great.

LESSON LEARNED:

Turn off your cell phone for extended periods of time when you’re with the people that you love and care about the most.   You’re not really missing anything.  I had everyone and everything at arms length.  It added confirmation that despite it being 2015, I still don’t need a smart phone, but maybe a better cell phone carrier…in case of emergencies.

Lifestyle Medicine

 

• I enjoyed some stand up paddle boarding in the ocean.  Usually I can pick up new activities fairly easy but I was getting frustrated with how much I was falling into the water standing on this barge.  I realized I was looking at my feet and the tip of the board.  I changed my gaze to the horizon and where I want to paddle to and it become easy.  I may or may not have pissed off some local fisherman casting off the pier.  I even had one offer to “come down there and help me out.”

LESSON LEARNED:

In life, look where you want to go.  In all honesty, I’ve heard this message before from leadership and personal development type books many times.  It took some kinesthetic learning to have it finally sink in (no pun intended).  You keep focusing on where you are, you’re going to stay where you are.  Sure you may make a little progress but until you fix your focus on where you want to go, you’ll be fighting a lot harder change your situation.

OTHER LESSON LEARNED: 

Fisherman are pretty mean.  Make sure you stay 300 feet away from them.

 

• I was preparing some lunch for the kids and my 3 year old asks me a question.  He asks, ‘Do daddies get sick?’  I said sometimes they do but I do my best to stay as healthy so I can take care of you.  His response was, “it’s OK if you get sick, mommy can just take care of you.”  I told him I would rather be strong and healthy so I can help mommy out.

LESSON LEARNED:

More is caught than taught and to my kids, healthy is normal.  If you’re a parent, you want nothing more than to see your kids healthy and happy.  And as a parent, you’ll do almost anything to achieve that.  At what expense?

Are you putting your own health and well being in jeopardy to make sure your kids have the best?  This doesn’t work in the long run.  At age 36, I wish I had a father that was well.  He was the epitome of being a servant leader. The problem is that his servant leadership turned into slave leadership and ignored his own health.  Now he has full blown Alzheimer’s and all those people that he served for decades want nothing to do with him because it’s ‘awkward’ to be around him.  Parents…start putting yourself first.  The first step might be shutting off the phone.

 

• I spent a lot of time either in the ocean or in a pool.  The only time I wore shoes was to workout in the morning and a shirt was 50/50.  After a workout, we headed to the water.

LESSON LEARNED:

Formal showers are optional when at the beach.  I only showered once during the week for a family photo and once before returning to civilization.  I don’t think I was stinky but if you enter a stinky room and can’t spot the stinky kid, it’s probably you.

Those that celebrate look forward to getting back to what allowed them to leave. Those that vacate dread getting back to what makes them want to leave. Click To Tweet

• By day 5, I was getting a little ancy to get back into the swing of regularly scheduled life.  I love what I do and hope that shines through with my clients.  Combing through lab reports, extensive health histories, Insight scans, adjusting giggling kids, and piecing all those together is really fun for me.  I had fun celebrating with family but don’t like to vacate my normal life for long periods of time.

LESSON LEARNED:

I don’t like the term ‘vacation’ and I feel bad for those that dread leaving vacation or dread Mondays in general.  Work at creating a life you enjoy and you don’t have to vacate.  You can go celebrate.  Take a ‘holiday’ and get refreshed to come back to what you love doing.  Those that celebrate look forward to getting back to what allowed them to leave.  Those that vacate dread getting back to what makes them want to leave.  Are you one that longs for vacation or one that celebrates?

What lessons have you learned while taking time away from your normal life?

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Fever

As a parent, seeing your kid with a fever sucks and they can be very scary.  Once you have context of the fever, you’re able to take some of the emotion out of the issue and use some logic.  Hopefully this gives you a bit of insight to assess the situation.

Why does my child have a fever?

A fever is your child’s intelligent genetic natural ability to fight off bacteria and/or a virus.  We use heat to kill off pathogens that might be lurking in our food.  Your child’s body does the exact same thing.  The cool thing is that your child’s body doesn’t have to get to 120+ degrees to kill everything.

Most bacteria do not live above 120°F, and as you increase the temperature you kill more of them. At 102°F most bacteria can no longer reproduce, which is the protective nature of human fevers. – Dr. Terry Simpson MD

A fever is an aspect of inflammation.  Inflammation is a function of your immune system.  In an acute phase, inflammation is great because it’s signaling your body to fight.  Be thankful that your child has a fever.  It means that his or her body is capable of fighting. Long term is where problems arise and this is why I think so many parents quickly jump to a fever reducer.  We hear scary stories of brain swelling and think the child’s head is going to explode.

FeverSince 102°F will drastically limit the ability of a bacteria to reproduce, let the fever ride.  With my own kids, I plan on letting it ride for 2-3 days.  If after 3 days it hasn’t come down then I look for an intervention to bring it down.  But having that game plan going into this time helps me not screw up the intelligent design of their body.

Ultimately the fever is trying to slow your kid down to conserve energy.  The immune system uses a lot of energy.  Your kid will be lethargic, that’s ok.  Being active takes a lot of energy.  Digestion takes a lot of energy.  Your kid won’t have an appetite, that’s ok.

NOTE: My kids at age 3 ½ and 1 ½ have never had a fever above 102°F last for more than a day.  They also have never had an antibiotic, Aspirin, Tylenol, or Advil.  I will detail why I think our kids have been fever less at the end of this post.  This isn’t to brag but to give hope and possibly take some fear out of parenting.

Why does a fever yo-yo?

Your child’s fever will yo-yo because your child’s body is intelligent.  A fever, much less one that goes up and down is your kid’s internal genius expressing.

You’ve probably noticed that the fever is best in the morning when your child wakes up and will be highest at night after dinner. You get frustrated because you thought your child was getting better.  You immediately think things are taking a turn for the worse and you break initial plan of letting it ride for 3 days and start easing the fever with fever reducers.

The next morning comes and the fever is better.  You back off on the fever reducers and to your dismay, the fever is worse again at night.  Panic starts, even though the fever hasn’t broken a high threshold for more than a couple hours.  When I say I plan on letting the fever ride for 3 days at 102° to 104°, I mean there’s no change.  If it’s dipping down to 101° in the morning and then back to 103° at night, I’m ok.

It sucks for the child and for the parent watching, but it’s ok.

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