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How to Treat H. Pylori Naturally

March 3, 2021
H Pylori

I’m Dr. Tom Rofrano, founder of The Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. I have had the opportunity to see over 100,000 patient visits over the last 34 years. Today, I’m going to talk about how a stomach bug called H. Pylori can cause your gut and thyroid issues and how to fix it. 

What is H. Pylori? 

It’s a bacteria that can inhabit your stomach. Over 50% of the world’s population has it, over 80% in some undeveloped countries, and in North America, over 20% of the people are estimated to have it. It can cause a wide range of symptoms. 

It’s the primary cause of ulcers, gastritis, abdominal pain, burning, reflux, constipation, diarrhea, and belching. H. Pylori can also cause bad breath. You can develop other conditions like autoimmune diseases, thyroid Hashimoto’s or Graves’, and skin conditions from this bacteria.

H. Pylori Symptoms and Testing

Pylori is a prime cause for malabsorption, anemia, and esophageal and stomach cancer. It is important to be aware that this might be an underlying cause if you have any of these symptoms.

How do you diagnose H Pylori? 

There are three different tests, but I recommend the stool test for the most accurate testing. 

1. Blood and Breath Tests

There are blood and breath tests available, but they aren’t as accurate as stool testing. I’m not fond of the breath test because you have to drink a liquid loaded with aspartame, an artificial sweetener. 

Some people also suffer from side effects of the drink, like burning of the throat and stomach, nausea, and diarrhea. Many of these symptoms are already present in people with H. Pylori. 

2. Stool Test

I prefer the stool test because it’s accurate and easy to do. The stool test is an accurate diagnosis of whether you have an H. Pylori infection. I’ve recently had five patients diagnosed with H pylori, and I’ll briefly discuss their issues and how they got rid of H. pylori. 

Traditional Treatment for H Pylori

The traditional treatment is antibiotic therapy. It is called triple therapy because it has two antibiotics and an acid-blocking drug. Over time, it has been proven not to be that effective. 

So now the protocol is quadruple therapy, which adds an additional drug. There are also different combinations of hybrid therapies. Sometimes these therapies may involve having a patient take 14 prescription pills in one day for two or three weeks. 

The success rate for these treatments varies from 29% to 90%, depending on the person and the area. Antibiotic resistance has evolved over the years, so it’s shown not to be as effective. That’s why the protocols had to keep changing and increasing dosages. 

Sometimes people take three or four drugs for two weeks and then move on to other drugs.

Natural H. Pylori Treatment 

Now that we’ve gone over the medical treatment protocol, we will cover the natural treatment. We’ve been able to help many patients that come in with an H. Pylori infection resolve it naturally. 

There are three steps. 

1. Get Tested

First, if you have symptoms, you get tested and find out if you have it. 

2. Change Your Diet

Next, there is a diet that I created and use called the FreeDiet®. The diet is free of gluten, grain, sugar, and yeast- all foods that are commonly inflammatory, and bacteria love feeding on sugar and starches. You want to help starve them while at the same time giving products that help clear them out. That’s where the FreeDiet® diet comes into play. 

Click here for a copy of The FreeDiet® phase 1 food chart, so at least you’ll know how to get started on that. 

3. Take Specific Supplements to Support Gut Health

As far as supplements go, I’ll tell you what I found to be helpful below. 

Effects Of These Natural Methods on My Patients

Here is a look at a few of the cases I’ve treated in my clinic: 

Female – 20 Years Old

I saw a 20-year-old female patient who was suffering from extreme stomach burning, reflux, pain, bloating, and black stools, which is common. Typically that means ulcerations and bleeding in the stomach. Her stool test came back positive for H pylori.

Female – 36 Years Old

I also saw a 36-year-old woman dealing with severe fatigue, weakness, nausea, and constipation. She ended up with an iron deficiency, anemia and other deficiencies, which are common with H pylori. She was so fatigued and weak that she couldn’t even work for two months. 

Conventional medical doctors told her she had anemia and to take iron supplements, but that wasn’t helping because it wasn’t fixing the underlying cause. She had internal bleeding because H. pylori can cause ulcers. 

Male – 67 Years Old

I had a 67-year-old male patient dealing with constipation, diarrhea, bloating, abdominal pain, and heartburn. 

Female – 37 Years Old

A 37-year-old female patient had similar symptoms: nausea, vomiting, constipation, bloating, iron deficiency, anemia, very weak, and couldn’t even exercise. 

Every one of them had low thyroid function and gluten sensitivity.

Diet and Supplements for H. Pylori Gut Support

The diet I recommend is free of gluten and grains and is extremely helpful in treating this type of infection. The program also involves a combination of different supplements.

I recommend a very strong probiotic as well as our supplement called GastroBlast™. It is a combination of different nutrients like mastic gum, licorice, zinc carnosine, and cabbage extract. These are all compounds that have shown to be very helpful with this condition. It helps the stomach lining heal as well. 

ProbioXtreme™, GastroBlast™, Curcumin Protect™, C-Bioflavonoids 500, Glutathione Protect (w NAC), and GI-Mend™ are all compounds that when taken together, can help with eliminating symptoms of H Pylori. 

All the patients mentioned above did a three-month protocol, and they all showed resolution with follow-up testing. 

The last step of the protocol is to retest to make sure the infection is gone. All of my patients’ tests showed the infection was gone, as well most of their symptoms. Their gut symptoms and skin symptoms like eczema, rashes, and itchiness (which are common symptoms) had all cleared up. They typically resolve when you follow the above-mentioned protocol.

Why It’s Important to Eliminate Alcohol with H. Pylori

I did have a 37-year-old female patient with all these similar symptoms that I mentioned. When I retested her, it hadn’t completely resolved. When I look at the differences between the patients, she was the only one that drank alcohol. 

She did not quite follow the FreeDiet® 100% accurately, as she drank a lot of alcohol every weekend. Alcohol is very inflammatory to the stomach lining and can damage the stomach lining. 

When you are trying to heal the stomach, alcohol is avoided on the FreeDiet® phase 1 for a reason. When you’re going through this, it is important if you want to get better, you have to strictly adhere to the diet. If you want to get better, then you have to stick with what works.

H. Pylori is a Stealth Infection

In the midst of all this, I found out I had H. pylori. I was in the process of testing another company to ensure I was using the best stool testing for my patients, and all my colleagues were talking about how great this one company was. I was comparing their stool test to the one I had been using, and so I did a test on myself. I used three companies- the original one and two others. To my surprise, the test came back positive for H. pylori, and that was through the company I’d been using all these years. 

Not Everyone with H. Pylori Has Symptoms

It’s possible to have no symptoms and have H. pylori, as I wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms. I’ve had digestive symptoms and thyroid issues in the past, as well as Hashimoto’s, skin, joint, autoimmune, and other conditions.

I was surprised I came back positive for H. pylori as I hadn’t had any gut symptoms in a while. I did the complete protocol for six weeks, as I wanted to see if it would work in that amount of time. I did it for six weeks instead of three months. I retested, and the infection had been eliminated. 

Contact Us Today for An Appointment

I hope this information has been helpful. If you think you may have H. pylori and want a natural functional medicine nutrition approach, please contact our office today. We would be happy to help.

How to Shrink Thyroid Nodules lll

December 4, 2020
natural treatment thyroid nodules

After 34 years of practicing at the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, I’ve seen over a hundred thousand patient visits. More and more I am noticing patients coming in with thyroid and gut issues, and, in particular, thyroid nodules. With this increase, I’ve set out to discover not only what causes these, but how I can help my patients treat and shrink their thyroid nodules with natural treatment options. There are many symptoms that can be associated with thyroid nodules, such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, and brain fog. You can read more about these symptoms here. Treatment of thyroid issues is important, but finding the root cause of thyroid nodules is just as important.

Finding the Root Causes

I recently helped a patient shrink her thyroid nodule by 73% in the first three months of treatment. At only 36 years old, she had multiple nodules, one was over four centimeters or two inches, the size of a plum. Naturally, she was very bothered by it. Not only was it uncomfortable, but it also made it difficult to swallow.  

Doctors did ultrasounds and biopsies, finding them to be benign thyroid disease, but said that the only solution was surgery, which she did not want. After finding my practice, she flew down for evaluation and testing.

What Causes Thyroid Nodules? 

What we found after testing were the root causes of her thyroid nodules: 

Deficiencies

In her case, she had an iodine deficiency, which is one of the more common causes of this condition. And, while you may hear or read the information that says iodine is bad for the thyroid, it can be quite helpful with things like nodules, thyroid disease, and goiter if someone is deficient. As well as aiding in the production of thyroid hormone T3 and hormone T4.

This patient also tested low in other nutrients like vitamins B12, B6, and several minerals. A Vitamin D deficiency can also be a common cause of nodules.

Toxins

We also tested for toxins, specifically heavy metals, mercury, arsenic, and lead. Commonly, I see mercury, arsenic, and fluoride, and in her case, she had high levels of fluoride. 

Fluoride can interfere with iodine absorption and can make thyroid disease, conditions, and nodules worse. Because of this, I often recommend that my patients use a more natural, fluoride-free toothpaste, mouthwash, and dental floss.

Hormones

On top of that, we looked at hormones as estrogen dominance is common with this condition. This patient had high levels of estrogen versus progesterone, as well as high levels of testosterone. This can be associated with PCOS, an autoimmune disorder, which is another condition, but one that is commonly related to thyroid issues. It’s necessary to balance these by addressing diet and supplementation.

Infections

Next, we looked at pathogens or infections by running blood and stool tests. The health of your autoimmune system is important for understanding the thyroid hormone levels, and how the thyroid function is at time of lab tests. Oftentimes, we’ll see bacterial overgrowth, viruses, parasites, and yeast, which are very common and cause inflammation in the body. Which in turn can cause an autoimmune response.

Nodules and goiter are caused by inflammation affecting the thyroid. And anytime you have inflammation, an autoimmune response is likely. Therefore, even if you remove this gland, you’re never really addressing the underlying issue.

Infections that are found must be solved individually. For this specific patient, she had a bacterial imbalance, or dysbiosis, in her gut, so we had to work to create a proper balance.

Food Reactions

After infections, we looked at food reactions. A big one for goiter and thyroid nodules is gluten sensitivity, which was also the case here. She was sensitive to gluten, along with other foods, and, like many others, she had a leaky gut. Therefore, we worked to remove the offending foods from her diet. 

Changing the Diet

The diet that I use and recommend to my patients is called The FreeDiet®. It is free of gluten, grain, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy, legumes, nightshades, and processed foods. I call it the FreeDIet® because the diet is free of the foods commonly responsible for inflammation. Which should help prevent thyroid nodules and disease.

My new book, The FreeDiet®, addresses this and explains the plan in a lot more detail. There is even a chapter about thyroid nodules.

The Results

As mentioned, after three months of addressing these issues, my patient was able to shrink her 4.3 cm thyroid nodule by 73%. Additionally, her fatigue, brain fog, headaches, and digestive issues were resolved. Which shows how her thyroid nodules were responsible for many of her symptons. 

After years of failed attempts to lose weight, she lost 23 pounds and her hormones, including adrenal and thyroid hormones, were balanced. Furthermore, her inflammatory markers, which should be less than 1.0, went from 57 down to less than 1.0 in four weeks.

Finding the Root Cause

So, the important thing when dealing with thyroid nodules is to address all five of these different areas to find out what the root causes are. The FreeDiet® is a great place to start as it works to remove the most common foods responsible for inflammation and therefore gut and thyroid issues. 

As far as supplements, I recommend what I call the Functional Five™. These include a multivitamin, fish oil, Vitamin D, magnesium, and probiotics. Beyond that, depending on testing and deficiencies, I recommend iodine, selenium, B12, zinc, and iron. Iodine plays a vital role in the thyroid function, and works with the gland to help make the thyroid hormone T3, as well as the thyroid hormone T4. Which all helps aid in prevention of thyroid disorders.

Seeking More Information?

For more information on shrinking thyroid nodules and goiter, feel free to check out my book, The FreeDiet® here.

Another option is to download and follow The FreeDiet® Phase 1 food chart and get started on the foundational supplements. If you have specific questions regarding natural treatment of thyroid nodules, please reach out. I look forward to working with you!

High Blood Pressure Natural Treatment

April 15, 2019
headaches and migraines

Hi, my name is Dr. Tom Rofrano from the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Today, I’m going to talk about natural solutions for high blood pressure.

Over the thirty years I’ve been in practice, I’ve seen countless patients in their 40s, 50s, and beyond with high blood pressure. One thing they seem to have in common is that they’re all on blood pressure medication.

So when I check their blood pressure and it’s high, and they tell me that yes, they’re on blood pressure medication, I ask them why—if they have hypertension and they’re on medication for it—do they still have high blood pressure? This is very puzzling.

Once you’re on one medication for hypertension, your body begins to adapt to it, and before you know it you’re on a second medication. You’re body is continually adapting because you’re not getting to the root cause of the hypertension. Instead, you’re just covering it up with medication and trying to force the blood pressure down.

We’re going to talk about getting to the root cause of hypertension and some simple solutions for lowering it.

Hypertension Is up in the U.S.

Almost 50% of Americans have high blood pressure, and just recently they came up with a new guideline. Prior to 2017, hypertension was classified as a blood pressure (BP) reading of 140/90 mm Hg or higher, but the new guideline classifies it as 130/80 mm Hg or higher.

So if you’re 130/80, that’s stage one hypertension (140/90 is stage two), which means that millions more Americans now qualify to be put on medication for hypertension. The usual recommendations—eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, getting enough physical activity, not smoking, limited alcohol use—if those worked, then more than 100 million U.S. adults wouldn’t have hypertension.

Instead of the usual recommendations, we’re going to talk about a few solutions that can really help.

The Right Diet for You

I’ve talked about the FreeDiet™, which is free of the most common food allergens—those foods most responsible for inflammation, digestive, and other chronic health issues. You can download a copy of Phase 1 of the FreeDiet™ right now and get a list of these foods. Inflammation is behind so many chronic diseases, like heart disease, cancer, hypertension, fatigue, and on and on.

To illustrate, I had one case where a fifty-four-year-old patient came in with a blood pressure reading of 182/108. He’d followed the guidelines to prevent hypertension—didn’t smoke, didn’t really drink, wasn’t overweight, exercised regularly, and had a pretty healthy diet—but it wasn’t working. He went to his primary doctor and his cardiologist and they told him he needed to go on high blood pressure medication and cholesterol medication. They told him that it runs in the family, and there’s no way to fix it with diet, so he’d spend the rest of his life on this medication.

This patient didn’t accept that, because like I said, he was a healthy guy, and at the age of fifty-four, he didn’t want to be on medication the rest of his life.

I did an evaluation, ran some lab tests, which revealed some nutritional deficiencies and food allergies, both of which can be common causes of inflammation and hypertension.

Based on the patient’s results, I put him on the FreeDiet™, along with natural supplements to treat his specific deficiencies, and four weeks into treatment his readings were down to 111/71. He dropped 71 points in four weeks! He was down to normal blood pressure, and he also dropped seven pounds, even though he wasn’t really overweight. In addition, his cholesterol went down 34 points, and the other deficiencies that showed up in his lab work, like Vitamin D, Magnesium, and B12, improved.

The best part was that he was off all of his medication!

So diet is important, and so are supplements, but both should be specific and catered to the individual.

Reducing Physical Stress

Besides a proper diet and maintaining healthy nutrition, maintaining a healthy structure can also prevent hypertension. Stress to the neck, upper back, and shoulders especially can cause a lot of tension, which can lead to high blood pressure, difficulty sleeping, an inability to relax, and headaches.

I had another patient, a twenty-four-year-old male, come in with high blood pressure. He worked out regularly, wasn’t overweight, didn’t drink very much, and had been improving his diet. A couple months earlier, he started having these episodes of anxiety and high blood pressure. He ended up in the emergency room with his blood pressure over 200 points. He also complained of indigestion, cold hands and feet, insomnia, panic attacks, and headaches.

An evaluation and lab work revealed what was going on, and I put him on the FreeDiet™ and natural supplements, including the foundational ones, like vitamin D, magnesium, fish oil, a multi , probiotic, plus other supplements based on his specific lab work. This patient also complained about neck and low back pain, which we treated with muscle work and therapy.

After four weeks of treatment, his blood pressure dropped 39 points and he was down to normal. Since then, it has continued to go down even more, and almost all of his symptoms have cleared up and improved.

Natural Solutions Work

Whether it’s hypertension, fatigue, anxiety, or whatever chronic health issues you’re having, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be on medication to cover up the symptoms and not fix it.

If you’re the type of person who wants to get to the root cause and really understand what’s going on and find specific solutions to get better, know that it is possible. Almost every health problem has a solution; it’s just a matter of digging and getting to the root cause. You can find solutions and clear these things up. Remain hopeful—it can be done.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment or contact us. Download Phase 1 of the FreeDiet™, and stay tuned until next week. Thanks very much!

Healing Thyroid Nodules and Goiter

March 2, 2019
gluten free diets

My name is Dr. Tom Rofrano from the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Today, I’m going to talk to you about a patient that came in with a  very, very, very, large thyroid nodule—goiter—and how we were able to help her shrink that by 30% in the first three months— and that’s just for starters.

Thyroid Nodules & Goiter: A Case Study

I’ve been practicing for over 30 years—chiropractic, nutrition, functional medicine—and I’ve seen over one hundred thousand patient visits. Lately it seems like more and more patients are coming in with autoimmune conditions, especially thyroid, a lot of nodules. This is just rampant, and we have a lot of these patients.

We have this one woman in particular, a 60-year-old woman, that came in. She happened to see a YouTube video I did with my wife last year where I was able to help my wife shrink her thyroid nodule by over 50% fairly quickly, and how we did that. She saw this and came in, driving quite a distance to get here.

She had this huge thyroid nodule that was over 9 cm. To give you an idea, my neck is about 13 cm wide, so that’s how big it was. This had been going on for about ten years, and she was just feeling miserable.

You have two ways to go with this. There’s the traditional medical route, which, for some people, that’s fine, they do surgery to remove the thyroid, then you’d be on medication for the rest of your life. She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to see if we could help her treat it naturally.

Whole-Body Analysis

The first thing we do in what we call our Functional & Free Program (a seven step program to identify your underlying root cause and provide long term permanent solutions) is Step 1, a whole-body analysis to determine what tests need to be ordered to figure out what is causing this, because you don’t just get a nodule or goiter for no reason, it’s coming from somewhere. So we do the evaluation to figure out the history and what tests to order to get to some underlying root causes.

As far as this patient’s complaints, besides this goiter, she was completely exhausted, with headaches, brain fog, depression, anxiety, couldn’t lose weight, and she was very bloated and swollen. She had neck, back, and joint pain, insomnia, sinus congestion, the whole gamut of digestive issues, and a lot of skin issues as well. She was just, from head to toe, really struggling.

Determining Root Causes

Basically we look for areas of physical, chemical, and mental stress. Under chemical stress, we test for three things:

  1.     Deficiencies

In her case, she had multiple nutrient deficiencies—nine, to be exact. Vitamins and minerals, plus an iodine deficiency.

Iodine is one of those things that can be very controversial because there are so many experts saying that iodine is terrible if you have thyroid issues or the thyroid autoimmune condition Hashimoto’s Disease, which she has. So, a lot of people say you shouldn’t take iodine at all and avoid it like the plague. People try to find iodine-free multiple vitamins because they’re afraid of it.

On the other hand, if you test for iodine, which we did with her, and it’s low, if someone is deficient (and she was really deficient), then it can be really helpful. As a matter of fact, iodine deficiency is and can be a primary cause of goiter.

So, she was deficient in nine nutrients, plus iodine (one of the lowest levels I’ve seen in iodine, by the way). So that’s one area, deficiencies. Two, we look at toxins.

  1.     Toxins

In her case, she tested high for five heavy metals, including mercury and led. Whereas many thyroid Hashimoto’s patients are iron deficient and anemic, she was the opposite. She had too much iron in her system. Too much iron is very toxic, like any other metal. Extremely toxic and can damage organs and every other part of your body. So her ferritin level, which represents stored iron in your body, was very high.

The third area we look at besides deficiencies and toxins is infections.

  1.     Infections, viruses, bacteria, yeast & parasites

Before she came to me, she’d been to a number of different doctors. She brought in 94 pages of labs and medical records from before she came to see me.

She was positive for many different viruses, including Epstein-Barr, very common with Hashimoto’s and nodules. When I did additional testing, we do comprehensive stool testing, she had bacterial overgrowth in her intestines and she also had yeast overgrowth. I often see yeast overgrowth and Hashimoto’s/nodules together, I mean almost every Hashimoto’s patient we have has yeast overgrowth. That went on with her chronic sinus issues and her skin issues.

Besides deficiencies, toxins, and infections, as if that wasn’t enough—because you don’t want to just find one thing, when someone comes in with an over 9 cm nodule, there’s going to be a lot of things going on—then we look at a fourth category, food sensitivities.

  1.     Food sensitivities/allergies

She was sensitive to ten different foods, plus gluten. She had a very significant gluten sensitivity. She also tested positive for leaky gut.

With these gut infections going on and eating gluten, that can cause leaky gut, which then in turn makes you much more sensitive to all foods, and can cause autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s.

In addition to that, she was sensitive to a number of chemicals, including one that she was exposed to on a daily basis working in the cosmetics industry. It was over twelve different specific things we found.

Treating Root Causes

So what do we do from there?

  1.     The FreeDiet™

Basically, I put her on a diet. We call it the FreeDiet because it’s not only gluten free, but it’s free of gluten, grains, sugar, yeast, corn, dairy, soy, legumes, eggs and GMO’s. It’s a diet to help reduce those foods most commonly responsible for inflammation and gut issues and really allow your body to heal.

If you’d like a complimentary copy of the FreeDiet™ – Phase 1, click here. 

  1.     Natural Medicine Formulas

I put her on a number of different supplements to help with these deficiencies she was having. Iodine as well, yes, relatively high doses of iodine. Again, don’t run out and take iodine. You need to test first to figure out if you need it and how much.

So I have her taking that, as well as different herbal remedies to address the yeast overgrowth and very powerful probiotics for bacterial overgrowth. Also, as a supplement to address the elevated heavy metals and iron, I had her start doing infrared sauna to help sweat out these toxins. I also advised she start avoiding exposure to chemicals at work.

She also had adrenal fatigue, adrenal stress, her numbers were really off there, on top of everything there. And her hormones were off—her estrogen and progesterone ratios were way off. I prescribed adrenal adaptogenic herbs to help balance out her adrenals.

  1.     Lifestyle Changes

I recommended some stress-relieving lifestyle changes as well.

The Results

So we put all that together, followed her along, and retested to make sure that things were improving. Just this week, I had her 3-month ultrasound report back, since we’d ordered one initially, and I’m happy to say this over 9 cm nodule/goiter shrunk by 30%. She had three other nodules that all shrank an average of 30%. So overall, the size of the goiter and the nodules averaged 30% reduction in three months, so we’re both thrilled about that.

And this is just the start. I’m planning on continuing on this path, and reaching out, and continuing to see it shrink. She’s obviously thrilled, because number one, all of her symptoms have cleared up, you know, fatigue, aches and pains, headaches, and the 50 other things she came in with. Also, this huge mass on her thyroid that changed her voice, made it difficult to swallow, and, understandably, made her very self-conscious was visibly shrinking, so she’s very happy about that, and I am as well, and all of us here at the Natural Medicine Clinic.

So just know that for any chronic health issue, whether you have thyroid nodules or goiter or Hashimoto’s, or other autoimmune conditions or other chronic health condition, you have a choice. You can choose to live with it, or maybe take medications for this and that, or surgeries, and that’s one choice. Or you can choose health, you can choose to really look into what the underlying causes are, address those, and then be provided solutions to have you get better.

Thanks for joining me today and feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you want notifications of new videos. And if you click on the link to the FreeDiet™ – Phase 1, we’ll send that right over to you. I look forward to giving you further updates. See you next time. Take care.

Iron Overload: How to Lower Ferritin to Normal in Just Four Weeks

August 15, 2018
how to lower high ferritin levels

Today I’m going to talk to you about a simple blood test that can save your life. I’ve been practicing for over thirty years now. Recently, I had a patient come in that’s just an incredible story of how sick someone can be and how quickly it can be turned around once you find out the underlying root causes of what’s going on in your body.

What is Ferritin?

This blood test is called ferritin, which can be a measure of the iron levels that are stored in your body. So if your body is low in iron, and I have a video on this as well, you can get a whole lot of symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, depression, headaches, weakness, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations.  On the other hand, high iron levels can cause very similar symptoms and actually be very toxic to your system.

I had a patient around ten years ago whose husband was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, which is iron overload, and he actually ended up dying from this and he was only in his thirties. So this is a really serious thing. Over a million people in the United States have iron overload, hemochromatosis, and it’s very simple to detect and treat if you do the right ferritin levels tests and catch it early enough.

What Conditions Iron Overload Can Cause

So just to give you some of the examples of the conditions that iron overload can cause… First of all, when your iron levels get too high in your system, it damages your organs and joints and can cause diabetes, arthritis, heart palpitations, an irregular heartbeat is a very common symptom.

I saw a patient about six or seven years ago, a young man in his twenties, he was thin but had high blood pressure, his heart rate was very fast with many palpitations and flutters. He went to cardiologists, wore heart monitors but they could never figure out what was wrong.  After thorough evaluations and testing in my office, his ferritin levels and other iron tests were high. His ferritin levels were over 500 ng/ml and you want to get your ferritin levels around 60-90 ng/ml.

Once we reduced his ferritin, his symptoms cleared up. So high ferritin and iron levels can cause heart symptoms, gallbladder disease, depression, infertility. Low testosterone levels can be caused by high iron. Cancer and disease can be caused by iron overload.

The main symptoms again of too much iron is lack of energy, abdominal pain, brain fog, heart flutters, fast heart rate, joint pain, loss of sex drive. Just overall feeling miserable. It can lead to liver damage, cirrhosis, hepatitis, liver cancer, enlarged spleen, hypothyroidism, and hormone imbalances. It can cause neurodegenerative diseases, early dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ringing in the ears, and vertigo. All these can be caused by iron overload and it is so simple to find.

Patient Experience

So this patient that I want to tell you about who recently came in, she’s a 64-year-old female and she had been feeling miserable for over twenty years. She had been to a number of different doctors over the last couple of years, had gallbladder surgery, pancreatitis, pericarditis—inflammation of the heart. She was in the hospital multiple times, literally almost died. Ringing in the ears, vertigo, fatigue, brain fog, just feeling terrible and many other symptoms on top of that, feeling completely miserable.

So when a patient comes in we have a Functional & Free™ program that we’ve put patients on which determines the root cause and then provides long-term permanent solutions. So in step one is our initial evaluation and includes ferritin levels and iron profile. Her levels were over 1,000 ng/ml where 60-90 ng/ml is optimal. This is really serious and she had elevated liver enzymes showing liver damage and elevated uric acid which can damage the joints and lead to disease. Her inflammatory markers in her body were eight times the normal level.

How to Lower High Ferritin Levels

How to lower high ferritin levels for iron overload is to do therapeutic phlebotomy. The challenge with that is for every pint you donate you can drop about 30 points of your ferritin levels and at a certain point, you can become anemic. She was able to donate a pint of blood three times before she became severely anemic and couldn’t donate anymore.

So that three times would have brought it down only ninety points and she was 1094ng/ml, and that would have brought it down to 1004 ng/ml. I wanted to see her ferritin at less than 100 ng/ml.

I put her again through our 7-step Functional & Free™ program and part of that included the FreeDiet™, which is a proprietary diet that is free of those foods most responsible for inflammation, digestive, and other chronic health issues.

I put her on some specific targeted Natural Medicine Formulas and supplements for the purpose of balancing her system, chelating excess metals like iron.  She used the infrared sauna here at the Natural Medicine Clinic. She was doing that on a regular basis and an infrared sauna is great for eliminating toxins, heavy metals including iron.

Between all of this, the FreeDiet™, the infrared sauna, proper supplementation to heal her gut, her levels decreased tremendously. The whole program was very detoxifying in it’s cleansing.

In Just Four Weeks

In four weeks we checked her blood again, and her ferritin levels decreased from 1094 to 92ng/ml, a reduction of over one thousand points in four weeks! This was amazing and her elevated liver enzymes decreased over 60% to almost normal. Her inflammatory marker dropped by almost 60% percent to close to normal levels. Uric acid decreased to normal, and so all these levels improved dramatically in four weeks. Her ferritin levels are fine now and it just goes to show you that the body has such an incredible ability to heal itself.

If you find out the underlying root causes and are provided the right course of action—proper diet, supplements, lifestyle changes—you can get better. The human body is so amazing that you can heal almost any chronic health condition or disease and you can get better. So remember next time you get lab testing, ask your doctor to order ferritin levels and iron profile to make sure that you are okay.

If you need help in that area and want us to do it, feel free to contact us. If you like the video and know someone that might benefit from this feel free to share it and subscribe to our channel. Thank you so much for joining me today and we look forward to seeing you next time, take care.

Thank you for reading our blog on how to lower high ferritin levels! How can we help you?

Candida Curse – Is Yeast Ruining Your Life and What You Can Do

July 16, 2018

Hi. My name is Dr. Tom Rofrano from the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and today, I’m going to talk to you about candida curse: is yeast ruining your health? We’re going to go over some basic symptoms of yeast overgrowth, how to find out if you have it, and then some solutions for you to help you get better.

A Patient’s Symptoms

In my 30+ years of practicing chiropractic, nutrition, and functional medicine this is a typical patient I would see. A 38-year-old woman, came in complaining of a laundry list of issues: Fatigue, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, belching, indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, eczema on most of her body, irritability, mood swings, PMS, headaches, dizziness, itchy eyes, dry skin and hair, easy bruising, chest pain, hyperactivity, sinus congestion, rashes, itching, food allergies, hair loss, frequent urination, recurring yeast infections, sugar, bread, alcohol cravings, insomnia, and brain fog. And she’s more of a typical patient that I see.

Celiac Disease and Gluten-Free

She had seen many doctors over the previous 10 to 15 years, many of them were specialists, and finally, she got her allergist to test her for Celiac disease. Sure enough, it was positive, and she went on a gluten-free diet and though she still had all her symptoms, she temporarily felt better. After a while, she still had all those other symptoms I mentioned and was back to just feeling terrible. That’s when she found our office and went through an initial evaluation and thorough testing. We found out there were several things going on, and typically, when someone has all these symptoms, it’s not just one thing.

Yeast Overgrowth – Candida and Antibiotic Use

One of the main things going on her was yeast overgrowth; Candida. Yeast is a type of fungus and candida albicans is the most popular type of yeast. We have a normal amount in our systems and in our gut, but when that gets out of balance and overgrown, that’s when you can get all these symptoms. One of the most common causes of this is antibiotic use. I mean, even a one week course of antibiotics can wipe out your healthy, good bacteria for months and months, which allows a yeast overgrowth and all the bad bacteria and yeast to overgrow and take over.

Acid-Blocking Drugs and Yeast Overgrowth

Another factor is antacids; one of the most prescribed drugs in the United States. If you look at their side effects, one of the primary ones is yeast overgrowth (candidiasis). By killing off acid in your stomach, that compromises one of the primary protective mechanisms your body has against yeast and bacteria- pathogenic bacteria. Yeast overgrowth, caused by acid-blocking drugs, birth control pills, and other drugs is a reason why women are more likely than men to have yeast overgrowth, although men have it too.

Yeast Symptoms and Autoimmune

Yeast overgrowth can affect many different areas in body and brain function, resulting in symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, headaches, dizziness, irritability, mood swings, anxiety, sinus congestion, and post nasal drip. If you ever feel like this mucous just keeps going down. Take chronic cough, for example, if you’re overly sensitive to perfumes and fragrances or car exhaust, and you’re overly sensitive to that with allergies or itchy ears. Although it’s most common in women, it’s something that I dealt with years ago. These are all symptoms that can be related to yeast.

Yeast overgrowth is also one of the more common causes of autoimmune conditions. I see so many patients over and over with Hashimoto’s and other autoimmune conditions, and yeast overgrowth is one of the primary causes. And that is actually what caused my own autoimmune conditions which I was able to clear up almost 10 years ago.

Itchy Ears

So what caused mine? Well, my father was a medical doctor. So growing up, I was on a lot of antibiotics with every little sniffle. When I was like six or seven and had chronic sinus congestion, the answer was to take antibiotics. That  was just wreaking havoc on my system, and I ultimately got my tonsils removed. That set the stages for all of these yeast-related issues and a whole bunch of other things. Getting back to the sinus and the itchiness in my left ear, and for some reason, it was mostly my left, it would be triggered whenever I would have a glass of wine or have some bread or apple cider vinegar. You know, those things which were supposed to be so healthy for you, but my ear would start itching and that’s all yeast related.

Other Yeast-Related Symptoms

In addition to the itchy ear, I had abdominal pain, gas, bloating, and diarrhea. Constipation is another symptom, though I didn’t really have that. Yeast is almost always involved with gut issues like IBS, and I certainly had plenty of food sensitivities. When you have yeast overgrowth, it can cause leaky gut, which then makes you more prone to, and increases the number of food reactions you have. And I had plenty of food reactions- gluten and many other foods.

Consider Genitourinary Symptoms

When it comes to genitourinary symptoms, the traditional medical person will only recognize yeast overgrowth as vaginal yeast infections, give you the topical prescription for that, and that’s pretty much the extent of it. They don’t really believe or don’t acknowledge, that yeast can affect you systemically, except in severe cases and hospitalized patients. But it’s really not on the radar and patients tell me if they even bring it up, they’re practically laughed out of the room. Traditional medicine is kind of run like in the military, with the old policy of ‘Don’t ask. Don’t tell.’ It’s like one symptom, one drug.

Compounding Symptoms

Sometimes you get past that one symptom and then don’t hear anything from a patient. Or patients are more like the woman who had 38 different symptoms, and doctors may try to give them 38 different drugs for those. Well, that one patient did go to dozens of specialist though. But anyway, skin issues, acne, sunspots and are treatable. This is something I had when I was in college. They call them sunspots, white spots on your back, neck, and shoulders. Those are related to yeast — internal yeast overgrowth — and you can absolutely get rid of those when you get this yeast under control. Other symptoms, like fungal infections on your nails, white coating on your tongue, eczema, psoriasis, skin rashes, and itchy eyes, ears, or skin.

One of those common things with patients is itchiness all over their body, at night especially, and it’s just driving them crazy. Then we put them on the diet we’re going to talk about with some of the supplements, it clears up within a matter of a few weeks. Numbness and tingling (something I had plenty of), joint pain, muscle aches, fibromyalgia type symptoms, autoimmune conditions, and then cravings for sugar, alcohol, or bread, difficulty losing weight, PMS, and there’s even more, but those are the basic, and that’s enough for today.

What’s the Solution?

There are so many symptoms, but what’s the solution? It basically comes down to: How do you even know if you have those? With our seven-step functional free program, my step one is a thorough evaluation; a whole body health analysis that includes lab testing and testing for yeast, if we suspect that, and stool testing, which is very important because it can determine the parasites, yeast, and types of bacteria. Knowing what type can help clear it up. A thorough evaluation and symptom profile is important.

As far as treatment goes, It’s pretty straightforward. The Free Diet which is free of the most common allergens; gluten, grains, yeast, sugar, soy, legumes, dairy, etc. And within this Free Diet, is the candida diet. There’s also a bunch of other diets within this, all in one. You don’t have to do a candida diet, a gluten-free diet, or a Paleo diet; this encompasses all of that by taking the best of each and putting it into one diet.

A Quick Summary

If you want to a copy of phase one of the Free Diet, just click here. Phase one involves avoiding starches, sugar and even most fruit because you’re really cutting down the sugar intake. Starches and sugars really thrive on yeast. Instead, you’re eating plenty of healthy proteins, vegetables, and healthy fats. Take one serving of fruit a day, and its outlined in there, but the diet is intended to starve off the yeast, so skipping anything with sugar or yeast, so no wine, beer, vinegar, or mushrooms, even cutting out fermented foods.

Supplements

In addition to this diet is the nutritional supplement. The one I’ve found over the years to work the best is natural medicine formulas. A product called Yeast Defeat that has different ingredients, herbs in it and other ingredients that help kill off excess yeast. And then we have our probiotic line. ProbioSupreme™ 30– that’s so vitally important to getting the normal but healthy bacteria to increase in your gut. So between the Free Diet, the supplements and there are almost always other things involved as well besides that, because these can wreak havoc on your system.

Start With the Diet and Move Forward

We address getting these other things under control, but if you just start and follow the diet it will help you feel better. Later you can add these antifungal, supportive digestive supplements, which can help dramatically. Let me know if you have any questions or any other things you want me to cover.

I know a lot of patients that come in, and a lot of you out there, have chronic health issues and you’re feeling terrible inside and out. But really, if you can get to the underlying cause and start addressing these and come up with some permanent solutions, then you can come up with solutions to help get things cleared up. And your body does have an amazing ability to heal so you can get better.

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    Content on this website is based upon the opinions of Thomas Rofrano, D.C. and is not considered medical advice. It is designed to be a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Rofrano and his community. Dr. Rofrano encourages you to make your health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. Dr. Rofrano is a chiropractic physician and offers physical and nutritional support and guidance to those seeking alternative or complementary care to traditional medicine. His care is not meant to replace that from your primary doctor and specialists but rather to help you on your path to achieving life-long vibrant health.

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