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Candida Diet and Natural Treatment

January 15, 2023
candida diet


Is candida causing your gut and thyroid issues? Today we’re going to talk about how to find out if you have candida and how to fix it. My name is Dr. Tom Rofrano from the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and over the last 36 years I’ve had the pleasure of seeing over 100,000 patient visits. 

Candida Overgrowth as a Root Cause

Many of our new patients have thyroid and gut issues, and a common root cause of this is candida overgrowth. Candida is a type of yeast or fungus that is normally occurring in your system in certain amounts. However, when you get an overgrowth of candida it can cause significant issues. While candida overgrowth is more common in women, I’ve seen many men that have it, and I dealt with personally years ago as well. 

What are Candida Symptoms?

Common symptoms of candida are fatigue, brain fog, sinus congestion, chemical sensitivity, and itchy ears. When I would eat or drink something that contained yeast such as bread, apple cider vinegar, or wine, I would notice my ears itching. 

Digestive issues like abdominal pain, gas, bloating, IBS, diarrhea, and constipation are also common as are white spots or a coating on your throat, frequent urinary tract infections, and vaginal yeast infections. 

People don’t realize that prostate issues can be caused by yeast overgrowth, and I personally experienced this when I was dealing with candida. Candida can present on the skin as acne, white spots on your back and shoulders, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, itchy skin, fungus under nailbeds, and dandruff.

Joint aches and pains, difficulty losing weight, PMS and sugar cravings are all signs of candida overgrowth. 

Why is Candida Overgrowth so Common?

Antibiotic overuse is the leading cause of candida overgrowth. Growing up with a father as a medical doctor, every time I had a cold or any type of sinus issues, he would give me an antibiotic. 

While antibiotics are the number one cause of candida overgrowth, steroids like prednisone and steroid inhalers can cause it as well. 

Birth control pills and antacids can contribute to candida overgrowth over time. When you eliminate and reduce acid in the stomach, you can get yeast overgrowth. 

Eating a diet high in starches, sugar, and yeast-containing foods like beer, wine, and vinegar can cause yeast overgrowth. 

Candida Testing and Treatment

You may now be wondering how to tell if you have a yeast overgrowth, and there are a few ways to tell. A stool test is one way, Candida antibody test, and there’s also a blood test that checks for 10 different types of Candida including Candida Albicans as well as other types of fungus. 

If you find out you have a Candida overgrowth, how do you treat it? The typical medical treatment is an antifungal medication which is more suitable for short term use because there are considerable side effects. It can be very toxic to your liver, and it has been found to be more of a temporary fix that doesn’t clear up the underlying issues. 

The first step of treatment I used myself and use on patients is to change the diet. Since yeast thrives on sugar and starches, you must starve the yeast. While I was gluten free, I was still eating gluten free breads, pastas, and cookies which were feeding the yeast. I followed the Candida diet, but even with that you can still have grains, kombucha, and apple cider vinegar and every time I ate those my ear started itching. Even though fermented foods like sauerkraut are supposed to be okay on the Candida diet, it just wasn’t working for me. 

The FreeDiet® for Candida Overgrowth

Through trial and error, I figured out which foods would help me get better. This is how I came up with the FreeDiet®, which is free of gluten, grains, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy, legumes, nightshades, and processed foods. All those foods commonly responsible for inflammation, chronic digestive and other health issues. 

Once I eliminated all these, I started noticing huge improvement because not only was I healing my gut, but I was also starving the yeast. Yeast makes you more prone to leaky gut where you can become sensitive to other foods and leave you more vulnerable to other infections. It turned out I also had bacterial overgrowth and parasites. 

By following the FreeDiet®, my candida resolved, I healed my gut and Hashimoto’s thyroid, and my fatigue and skin issues cleared up as well. 

For a copy of the FreeDiet® phase 1 food chart, you can click here. 

In addition to eating healthy proteins like meat, fish, vegetables, and plenty of healthy fats you’re avoiding gluten, grains, sugar, and yeast that are feeding the yeast. The FreeDiet® phase 1 food chart, can tell you what is allowed and what is restricted on the diet.

Supplements for Candida 

Besides the FreeDiet® for candida, I recommend natural antifungals Yeast Defeat™ and CandidaSolve™ as well as the Functional Five™: multivitamin, vitamin D, magnesium, fish oil, and probiotics. It can be very frustrating dealing with chronic health issues, however, just like I was able to get better, I believe everyone can when provided the right solutions. 

Let Us Help You

If you would like help with your gut, thyroid, or other health concerns, call us at 561-627-5800 or email us at info@nmcwellness.com. We would love to help.

HOW TO SHRINK THYROID NODULES IV

July 4, 2021
shrink thyroid nodules

I treat patients with thyroid and digestive issues and one of my new patients, a 51-year-old female with multiple thyroid nodules and Hashimoto’s disease, had gained over 40 pounds.

This patient also suffered from joint pain, hot flashes, brain fog, indigestion, and heartburn, along with many other symptoms. Having been to other doctors who said her thyroid hormones were fine, she came to us. I ordered testing that looked beyond simple thyroid hormones to five broad categories that help determine underlying root causes of thyroid nodules.

What Causes Thyroid Nodules?

The first step is to identify underlying causes, which may include thyroid hormones. However, my practice is to evaluate five broad categories. Those categories are deficiencies, toxins, infections, hormones, and food reactions. 

I most commonly see in patients with nodules deficiencies in vitamin D, iron, zinc, and magnesium. However, this patient also suffered from an iodine deficiency–the most common cause of thyroid nodules and goiter. In addition, she had high levels of fluoride, which can interfere with iodine absorption.

Another common problem is food reactions and sensitivities. This patient had gluten sensitivity and a leaky gut. Gluten sensitivity often leads to a leaky gut, causing other food reactions, perpetuating that whole cycle. This sensitivity then can trigger autoimmune conditions, especially Hashimoto’s.

The FreeDiet® Solution

Once the underlying causes are determined, we begin with addressing diet. I developed and use the FreeDiet® because it’s not only free of gluten but free of gluten grains, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy, legumes, nightshades, and processed foods. It is free of those foods most responsible for inflammation, gut and thyroid, and other chronic health issues.

What Supplements for Thyroid Nodules

I recommend a list of specific supplements to help correct any deficiencies beginning with what I call the Functional Five. These are multivitamin, D w K2, fish oil, magnesium, and probiotics. And I test for iodine. If you are low in iodine, adding it can be beneficial since the thyroid needs iodine to function. However, if you are not low, taking it can be counter-productive. If you do take iodine, it’s essential to check antibodies and thyroid levels routinely.

I recommend Selenium for my patients who are taking iodine, as well as zinc, and iron if needed. This patient also took a digestive enzyme to help break down and absorb food. Methyl folate was also included in her routine. Curcumin helps with inflammation and immune support. Adrenal support formulas help with hormone balance.

Road to Improvement

As this patient followed the given routine over the following months, her symptoms began clearing up. Her energy increased, and fatigue decreased. Other issues that were resolved were indigestion and heartburn, brain fog, headaches, joint pain, dizziness, anxiety, and insomnia. Hair loss decreased. Hot flashes were gone. Heart palpitations, shortness of breath, itchy skin, acne–all of these improved over several months.

In a follow-up nine months later, I was thrilled to see that her larger nodule had shrunk by 95%, and the two smaller ones had shrunk by 54% and 82%.

If you have been diagnosed with thyroid nodules, I strongly suggest that you at least begin with the FreeDiet®. For a free copy of The FreeDiet phase 1 food chart, click here.

Including some of the common supplements listed above can also help. As always, check with your doctor.

Thyroid nodules do not just happen. There are underlying causes. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself. If you find root causes, you can then be provided the solutions. 

Contact Us

If you would like personal assistance, we would love to help. Call us at 561-627-5800 or email us at info@nmcwellness.com. 

If would like a complimentary copy of the FreeDiet® phase 1 food chart, click here. For more information on The  FreeDiet® book click here.

 

IBS—Discovering Root Causes and Natural Treatments

May 10, 2021
ibs

Today I’m going to talk to you about IBS, which stands for irritable bowel syndrome, or in my opinion, It’s BS. And why would I say that? Because certainly millions of people have IBS. Well, I’ve been practicing for over 30 years and have seen over 100,000 patient visits, treating all sorts of conditions—pain, fatigue, brain fog, depression, anxiety, thyroid, adrenal issues, autoimmune.

But the one thing though that almost all my patients have in common is digestive issues. I’ve seen it more so lately, and it seems like almost everyone comes in with some sort of gut symptoms. Many of my patients have been to other doctors and get labeled as having IBS.

IBS Traditional Treatment

So I want to talk about what you can do to find out what’s causing it and how to correct it. So, typical scenario, you go to the doctor saying you have symptoms such as gas, bloating, abdominal pain, cramping, constipation, diarrhea. Even mucus in the stool can feel miserable. 

And so you go in and your primary doctor says, all right, well why don’t you take this medication (usually acid-blocking drugs)? See if that works. 

You go back, still no better. All right, well, let’s send you to the GI doctor.

So you go to the GI doctor. What’s going on? 

Well, doc, I don’t know, I have some gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, just feel really irritable. My bowels feel irritable all the time. I don’t know what’s going on. 

All right, well, let’s do some tests. We’ll do a colonoscopy. 

Maybe they’ll do a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. So you get the results back and go in. 

So what is it? 

Oh, well you have IBS. 

Oh, what’s that Doc? 

That stands for irritable bowel syndrome.

Well, wait a minute isn’t that what I told you I had, irritable bowel? 

Right, you have irritable bowel syndrome, exactly. 

Well, what causes that? 

Well, no one really knows what causes it. 

What can I do about it? 

Well, you can get this medication for it. We have acid-blocking drugs. 

That’s the one that didn’t work.

Okay, we can do muscle relaxers or anti-anxiety pills, or you can do these pain meds or even anti-depressants. These are all common medications used for IBS. 

And that’s why I say It’s BS because IBS is not a condition, it’s simply a description of what’s going on. It would be like going to the orthopedist and you say, 

Doc, my neck hurts, it’s been really hurting a lot lately. 

They do some x-rays, maybe an MRI. 

Okay, well, you have something very serious. It’s called HNS. 

HNS, what’s that? 

Hurt neck syndrome. 

What do you mean?

You have HNS. 

Well, I know, my neck hurts. 

But this is an actual condition. Look it up online.

You go online, HNS, there are support groups. There are all kinds of blogs, websites all over the place. I’m making this up, by the way, maybe I’m not, maybe it does exist. But this is how it works. Anyway, that’s why I say it’s BS. 

Root Cause of IBS

However, IBS does exist. I know, I had it years ago, even as a kid I had all these symptoms. I was miserable. And as I got older, it even got worse. So I went through all this. I was able to get it cleared up and basically what it comes down to is finding out the root causes of IBS. 

Number one is pathogens (infections)—bacteria, yeast, parasites. And why don’t they ever test for this? It’s so rare that you can even get your doctor to order a stool test. I like to order these comprehensive stool tests, not just to check for parasites, but also yeast, bacteria, digestive enzymes, different markers of inflammation, immune health. So it gives a clear picture. 

So parasites, for instance, in one study I read almost half of the IBS patients had this parasite called Blastocystis hominis. I did other videos on that if you want to check that out. But 46% had blasto. and all the symptoms of IBS can be from this blastocystis and other parasites, the gas, bloating, cramping, diarrhea, constipation.

Yeast overgrowth is also a common cause of IBS symptoms, and bacterial overgrowth (dysbiosis) as well. And when I tested myself, these are just some of approximately 20 stool test parasite pictures and everything that I did years ago when I had these issues. I wanted to get to the underlying root cause. And it took me a while to figure out and get it cleared up. But you should do a comprehensive stool test if you want to find out and figure out what’s causing your gut symptoms. 

So infections, pathogens are one. And what do you do about that? Well, depending on what it is, for parasites, there’s certain natural formulas we use and sometimes you need a prescription medication. For me, I use a series of products that I found really worked, and this was after I tried a few different prescription drugs for the parasites which did not work.

Natural Treatment for IBS

If it’s yeast, there are certain protocols for that. I use a product called Yeast Defeat™. If it’s a bacterial overgrowth, I use Microb-Balance™.  There are probiotics that I use that are effective and powerful called ProbioSupreme™SB or other of our probiotics depending on the findings. So, eliminating the cause of the infection is one thing.

Second, are deficiencies—nutrient and digestive enzyme deficiencies, so that has to be addressed and they are different types of enzyme supplements, such as GastricZyme™ or PanAbsorb™ that can be a huge help.

Third, are food allergies/sensitivities. Gluten is the most common one I see. There are other foods that are highly reactive as well. You have to find out which foods you are sensitive to. That’s a major cause of digestive issues. Two ways to do this are, you can test, there is a comprehensive gluten celiac test, food allergy and sensitivity tests. You can check upwards of 100 or more foods. 

So the typical tests doctors run for gluten, if you can get them to do that, is for just 2-3 markers for gluten sensitivity and celiac. But meanwhile, there is a particular lab test I use to check more than 20 different antibodies, which is a very comprehensive approach to find out if gluten is an issue. 

Testing Options for IBS

So another option besides testing for gluten are testing for others. A food allergy test if you can get your doctor to order that. Some of the major labs offer panels of 10 or 15 foods, and those are true allergies. Most people have sensitivities more so than allergies, so I like to test both in panels of about 100 foods or more. 

So aside from food testing, another option I came up with is a diet I call the FreeDiet® because it’s not only free of gluten but gluten, grains, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy, legumes, nightshades, and processed foods. And you go through that, phase one is typically four weeks where you are eliminating these potentially reactive foods. And most patients, usually within the first couple of weeks are doing so much better.

And then as everything clears up, we go onto phase two, we start adding foods back one at a time. So, this is what worked for me. Because I tested positive for gluten sensitivity, and I went gluten-free but was eating all the gluten-free grains, millet, rice, corn, gluten-free pasta and bagels, everything. 

I was not feeling any better because you must eliminate the bacteria, yeast, parasites, all of those things. All of those live on, they love sugar, grains, yeast, starches. So this diet, the FreeDiet® is free of all of those. 

It really helps your gut calm down. If you want a complimentary copy of the FreeDiet® phase 1 food chart, feel free to click here to check that out. So the FreeDiet® gives your gut a rest, calms down the inflammation, allows it to heal. If you have infections, pathogens, it also is the diet you would follow for that. So it’s all-encompassing as far as to help clear up gut issues and that’s what worked for me after I finally figured it out over many years of testing and tweaking and for many of my patients since then.

Contact Us

If you need help with your health, feel free to contact us and feel free to share this with someone you know, who is having gut or thyroid issues. We would be happy to help.

High Blood Pressure Home Remedies

March 18, 2021

I’m Dr. Tom Rofrano from The Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. I’ve had the privilege of helping over a hundred thousand people over the last 34 years. There are simple things you can do at home to help maintain healthy blood pressure. In this article, we’ll talk about the things you should consider. 

What is High Blood Pressure?

What is high blood pressure? A reading of greater than 130 over 80 is stage one, and stage two is greater than 140 over 90. The stage one levels were recently lowered to 130 over 80, so now more people are categorized as having high blood pressure. In our office, it is one of the more common issues patients are dealing with. 

Almost half of Americans have hypertension, and 54% of African Americans have hypertension as the rate is proportionally larger in the African-American community. We are going to go uncover some of the underlying root causes and some solutions on how to maintain a healthy blood pressure.

High Blood Pressure Medication Alone May Not be Effective

One of the things that my patients with high blood pressure have in common is that most are on high blood pressure medication. When I take their blood pressure, it’s still high even though they’re on medication. 

Oftentimes one hypertension medication is not effective and then you need to go on a second medication, and sometimes a third. One of my patients had a cardiologist husband who was on five different prescriptions for high blood pressure, and it was still high! They were having a hard time figuring out why. 

One of the reasons is when you’re not addressing the underlying root cause, and instead just trying to cover it with medication, the body adapts, and the blood pressure increases again because you are not fixing the issue.

What Causes High Blood Pressure / Hypertension

Here are some underlying root causes for high blood pressure.

DEFICIENCIES—ESPECIALLY VITAMIN D 

First, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, in particular vitamin D, is a huge factor in this category. As far as getting back to why I believe African Americans have a disproportionately higher amount of blood pressure is because the darker your skin, the less you absorb vitamin D from the sun.

I had a patient from The Bahamas who was a gardener and was out in the sun every day, all day long. He came in with a long list of symptoms, including high blood pressure, aches and pains, and fatigue. His vitamin D was one of the lowest I’d ever seen, and he was out in the sun all day long. The reason is, the darker your skin, the less you break down and absorb vitamin D into your bloodstream. 

Vitamin D deficiency is one of the most common deficiencies I see repeatedly, especially in people with hypertension. 

TOXINS

Toxins are another underlying root cause. When someone comes in and we perform testing, oftentimes we will see high levels of mercury or iron overload. 

INFECTIONS

Infections are another common root cause of high blood pressure. There’s a particular virus called cytomegalovirus, as well as other gut infections, that can cause high blood pressure. 

HORMONES

Other causes of hypertension are hormonal imbalance, such as insulin, cortisol, DHEA, estrogen, and others.

FOOD REACTIONS

Food allergies and sensitivities can be a root cause for high blood pressure, especially gluten.

Anti-Inflammatory Diet and Supplements for Blood Pressure

I had a 68-year-old female patient who came in with neck and back pain, fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, insomnia, sinus congestion, digestive issues, and high blood pressure. After lab testing, one of her root causes was gluten sensitivity. I put her on the FreeDiet® ,as well as vitamin and mineral supplements that she needed. Thirty days later, her blood pressure dropped 66 points to normal, as did her blood sugar, triglycerides, inflammatory markers, and she lost 12 pounds. 

The FreeDiet® is free of not only gluten, but gluten, grains, sugar, yeast, and other common allergenic foods that result in inflammation, digestive, and other chronic health issues. Underlying inflammation in the body is a driving force for high blood pressure. By following the FreeDiet® inflammation can be reduced.

Supplements for Blood Pressure Support

I typically recommend five supplements, which I call the Functional Five™. I suggest switching your diet to the FreeDiet®. The first part of the functional five is a good quality multivitamin and fish oil. OmegaSorb 3X is the particular one we use. 

Vitamin D is an important nutrient and testing will reveal what your levels are and what dosage you need to take. On average, most people need 5,000 IUs of  Vitamin D along with Vitamin K2. It’s really important to get vitamin K2 with Vitamin D to help with absorption. 

Magnesium is an important mineral to take, and I believe magnesium malate is the best form. You can take magnesium citrate if you deal with constipation, but magnesium malate is my first pick. Typically, I recommend approximately 400-600 milligrams a day. A good quality probiotic like ProbioSupreme is very important to take as well. 

Other vitamin and mineral supplementation would be recommended unique to your specific levels. For instance, B12 and folate deficiency are common deficiencies with hypertension, so I would recommend MethylFolate B12 Plus. If your inflammatory markers are high, curcumin is a great supplement to support healthy inflammation. 

Case Review

A 54-year-old male patient whose blood pressure was 182/108 followed all the guidelines to avoid hypertension. He didn’t smoke and only drank alcohol occasionally. 

He wasn’t overweight, exercised regularly, consumed a generally healthy diet, monitored his salt intake, and still had high blood pressure. His doctor said it was hereditary and needed to be on medication for the rest of his life, but he didn’t accept that. 

After testing, I put him on the FreeDiet® as well as all of these supplements listed above. At the follow-up appointment four weeks later, his blood pressure had come down 71 points. A lot of people don’t realize when they have hypertension, they are actually experiencing food reactions. 

Gluten, in particular, can aggravate inflammation and raise blood pressure if you have a gluten sensitivity. In addition to taking supplements, it’s important to follow a good quality anti-inflammatory diet, such as the FreeDiet®. 

Schedule an Appointment Today 

If you’re tired of dealing with high blood pressure, we would love to help. Give our office a call to schedule your appointment today. We can run labs and get to the root cause of your hypertension. If you would like a free copy of The FreeDiet®  Phase 1 food chart, click here.

If you would like to read more about this, I have a chapter in my book on High Blood Pressure and you can click thefreedietbook.com  for more information. 

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 through alternative treatments.

What is Helicobacter Pylori Bacteria?

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 peptic ulcers, chronic inflammation, 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 Helicobacter 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 Treatments for 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. Most patients that try out my diet see a significant reduction in symptoms.

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 Natural Treatment For 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 Helicobacter 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. Please reach out to learn more about natural treatments for h pylori today.

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!

Natural Treatment for Autoimmune Hyperthyroid- Graves’ Disease

April 8, 2019

Hi, 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 I was able to help with hyperthyroidism and getting her issues resolved without drugs or surgery.

This was a twenty-nine-year-old woman who came in to see me. Six years prior to seeing me, she had been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, or Graves’ disease, and she had been prescribed medicine, which she took for three years. She started weaning herself off and was doing okay, but then, last year, her symptoms came back.

She went back to her endocrinologist, and the doctor said there are only two options: surgery to get the thyroid removed, or radioactive iodine. At the time she was breastfeeding her infant, which she would no longer be able to do with radioactive iodine, and she didn’t want to get surgery. She asked the doctor if there were any other options and he said no, this was it—radioactive iodine to destroy the thyroid because it’s overactive, or surgery to take it out and be on thyroid medication the rest of her life.

Start With the Symptoms

She didn’t want to do either one of those, and somehow she found her way into our office. I did a thorough evaluation with extensive lab work to really find out what was causing her symptoms. At one point she was normal, and this hyperthyroidism didn’t just come out of nowhere. My job is to find the underlying root cause.

The symptoms she was having included anxiety, racing heart, nervousness, heart palpitations, insomnia, hot flashes, itchy rashes, acne, digestive issues, difficulty gaining wait, excessive perspiration, brain fog, and concentration issues. She was feeling really terrible.

Autoimmune Conditions – Getting to the Root

When we’re looking at autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s (underactive thyroid) and Graves’ disease (overactive thyroid), we isolate the cause by looking at three major stressors:

  1. Physical
  2. Chemical
  3. Mental

We can break down Chemical Stress into four individual elements:

Deficiencies

In her case, this patient had very low levels of iron and B12, and she was anemic. She was low on magnesium and vitamin D, which is really vital and important for thyroid function and the immune system in general.

She was also deficient in iodine, and in fact had one of the lowest levels of iodine I’d ever seen. This was interesting, because giving someone with Grave’s disease iodine is a big no-no. So even though she was deficient, I had to decide whether I should give her iodine or not. (More on this later)

Toxins

After looking at deficiencies, we look at toxins, and this patient had very high levels of fluoride in her system, which can interfere with thyroid function.

Pathogens & Infections

She had dysbiosis, or bacterial imbalances, in her gut—too much of the bad bacteria and not enough of the good flora- probiotics.

Food Allergies

She had food allergies to gluten and wheat, eggs, almonds, and more. Almost every patient that walks in with an autoimmune condition has a gluten sensitivity, so that was a major finding. All of this was causing leaky gut, which is tied in with autoimmune conditions as well.

An Alternative Option – Choose Health

So what’s the answer for resolving this condition? Well, once we identify the root causes, we then work on correcting them—the natural way.

The first thing we prescribe is the FreeDiet™, which you can download a sample of here. I came up with the FreeDiet™ over the years, and it’s free of not only gluten, but also grains, sugar, yeast, dairy, legumes, and soy—all the foods that are most commonly responsible for inflammation, auto-immune, chronic digestive, and other health issues.

Besides the FreeDiet™, I put her on our Natural Medicine Formulas, which is composed of specific nutrients to correct her deficiencies. I put her on the basic five, which is:

  • Multivitamin
  • Fish oil
  • Magnesium
  • Probiotic
  • Vitamin D w K2

She was low on B12 and iron as well, so we added those nutrients in. To address the leaky gut, we used our product GI Mend, along with curcumin, vitamin C with bioflavonoids. We also added Acetyl-L-Carnitine, which can be really helpful for hyperthyroidism.

I then prescribed selenium and iodine—and yes, a rather large dose, because she was so deficient. Again, I don’t recommend you just go out and take iodine without being tested, just like I wouldn’t recommend you go take iron without being tested. Too much of either one can be toxic, but the right amount can be helpful.

Long-term Results

She came back in after four weeks and we re-checked her lab work. Her hypothyroidism had cleared up and was showing normal on her labs. After two months, her numbers were even better. There was no more hyperthyroidism, which is amazing, and all of her symptoms cleared up. Now she’s just feeling great.

I wanted to share this patient’s success story with you so that you know there are two ways to treat these autoimmune and chronic health issues. You can choose the traditional route of medications, surgery, and procedures, or you can choose health and really get to the underlying root cause of your condition. Then and only then can you be provided with long-term, permanent solutions so you can get better. I do believe that most everyone can get better if they are provided with the right solutions.

Thank you for joining me today. If you like this video, feel free to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel on YouTube. In case you missed it, here is the link to the FreeDiet-Phase 1, so please feel free to download that and check it out.

Natural Treatment for Ulcerative Colitis & Autoimmune Conditions

March 22, 2019
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Hi, 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 how to get to the underlying root cause of your autoimmune condition. In particular, I’m going to talk about ulcerative colitis, and in turn, once you find the root cause, how to then find solutions to help you get better.

I’ve been practicing for over thirty years in functional medicine and nutrition, and I’ve seen over one hundred thousand patient visits. Like many of our patients, we had a sixty-two-year-old man come in with typical symptoms we see a lot of: fatigue, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and digestive issues ranging from pain, bloating, gas, and diarrhea.

On top of that, he was obese and had a very hard time losing weight. He also had gout, so he had a lot of joint pain, and high blood pressure, too. He was just feeling completely miserable.    

Two Approaches

There are two approaches to any autoimmune condition, whether it’s thyroid, like we see so much of, digestive issues, or any health condition, really.

This patient had been dealing with his condition for over forty years, had gone to different doctors, and was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that causes ulcerations, inflammation, bloody diarrhea, cramping, and pain.

Option 1: Dysfunctional Medicine

When you choose medicine, the treatment is medicine, procedures, and surgery. In this case, he was treated with the steroid Prednisone, and biologic’s which have similar side effects to chemotherapy.

The patient’s side effects were so severe that he ended up hospitalized for three months, and he almost died. He got an infection in the hospital, which had him readmitted soon after he left.

After all of this, they decided on surgery, so they actually took out his colon.

The thing is, all of this didn’t fix anything. So, even though that’s the treatment, he’s coming to see me forty years later complaining about the same symptoms.

I call this approach dysfunctional medicine, which is basically doing things that actually impair the normal function of your body. The patient went through all these medications, procedures, and surgery—almost died—and wasn’t left with any solutions. Still, on top of that, they had him taking a lot of other medications for depression and anxiety, blood pressure, gout, etc., but none of that helped either.

If it made him feel good, then it might be worth it. But I call it dysfunctional medicine because even after all of that he was still feeling terrible, actually even worse, and there’s something wrong with that picture.

It’s like having a dysfunctional person in your life. We had a dysfunctional person in our office awhile back. When you have an extra staff member in your office, they’re supposed to be helpful and kind of take the load off, but a dysfunctional person or behavior actually creates more work. Even though we had an extra person, it created so much more work to clean up this person’s messes and the drama and everything else that it was just a mess.

Option 2: Functional Medicine

This is where you actually get to the underlying root causes, and then you can provide long term permanent solutions.

Even though the patient came in with no colon, numerous symptoms, and was feeling miserable, four weeks later:

  • He had lost twenty-two pounds.
  • His digestive symptoms cleared up.
  • He was sleeping through the night.
  • He drastically lowered his blood pressure and went off medication.
  • He was able to get off most of his medications.
  • His pain cleared up.

So he’s doing phenomenally well. What really inspired me to even talk about this is the fact that he went to his primary doctor this week, and he thought he’d be really proud of him. He lost twenty-two pounds, he’s eating really healthy and taking supplements, he’s off his blood pressure and gout medication, and he cut down some of his other medications from another doctor as well.

Bu this doctor wasn’t very happy about. He actually seemed kind of ticked off that he was able to get off his medications, as if he thought, “Well, I guess you have no use for me.”

Choose Health

When you go to a medical doctor, their job is to manage medications. And that’s fine—there is certainly a need for that if you’re the type of person who wants to go that route and take medications for this condition or that condition. Let’s say you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, and you just want to take the medication and eat what you want and not exercise and you don’t really care. Well, then, that’s fine.

However, if you’re the person that would rather choose health and get to the underlying root cause, and then be provided long term permanent solutions, which is the functional medicine approach—that root cause approach—that we practice, then that’s really choosing health. Because you want to actually get better.

Identify Root Causes

So let’s look at some of the causes for this patient’s ulcerative colitis. The first step is a complete evaluation and whole body health analysis.

The three categories of what cause autoimmune or other chronic health conditions, including thyroid issues like Hashimoto’s disease, nodules, etc. are:

  1. Physical Stress
  2. Mental Stress
  3. Chemical Stress

In the chemical stress area, we look at four separate areas:

Deficiencies

The patient was low on vitamin D, some B vitamins, B12—he actually had B12 anemia—and omega 3s. His DHEA was really low, so he had adrenal fatigue, and his cortisol was low as well. This alone could cause exhaustion, insomnia, depression, and anxiety.

Toxins

Taking too many medications, in his case six different ones for depression, bi-polar, anxiety, etc., can have a very toxic reaction. High levels of uric acid and triglycerides, too, can cause inflammation of the joints.

Infections & Pathogens

Yeast overgrowth and bacterial overgrowth were both going on. One of the primary causes of colitis is infection, so he had this chronic ongoing infection—probably for forty years—of yeast and bacteria causing a leaky gut, which can in turn lead to increased food sensitivities.

Food Sensitivities

He had a gluten sensitivity as well as sensitivity to other foods. Just gluten in itself can cause all of the symptoms he was having, including his digestive symptoms and his anxiety, depression, and bipolar symptoms.

The patient had all of these things going on at the same time. When that happens, when you have so many things wrong and you address all of them at the same time, you can get phenomenal results.

That’s how he was able to drop his blood pressure by over forty points in two weeks and lose twenty-two pounds in a month, even though he wasn’t able to lose weight before. His digestive symptoms cleared up, he was able to sleep through the night, and he was feeling really great. It was really rough going through it, but by the fourth week, he was feeling like a new person. And that’s how you’re able to do it.

The FreeDiet™

The diet we put him on is the FreeDiet™, and you can grab a complimentary copy of the FreeDiet™-Phase 1 right here. The FreeDiet is another important component of the treatment plan, because it’s not only free of gluten, but also grains, corn, sugar, yeast, eggs, dairy, soy, legumes, and GMO’s. These are the ten major categories of foods most commonly responsible for inflammation, chronic digestive issues, and fatigue. So we allow the gut to heal by removing these foods.

Besides the FreeDiet™, we replenished a lot of his nutritional deficiencies with our Natural Medicine Formulas, probiotics, and vitamins and minerals. So that, along with manual treatment for different joint issues he was having, is how we were able to get him doing so well in just four weeks’ time.

If you have any comments, feel free to leave them below, and feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you want early notification of new videos.

Just remember, whatever issue you have going on, whatever chronic health problem, your body has an incredible ability to heal. If you just look into finding those underlying root causes, I believe most every health problem has a solution. Once you find that underlying cause, you can find the solution.

Thanks for joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you next time! Take care.

Healing Leaky Gut and Autoimmune/Thyroid Conditions

March 16, 2019
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Today I’m going to talk to you about leaky gut, what it is, and give you some tips on how to clear it up.

I’ve been practicing over thirty years now and have seen over one hundred thousand patient visits. We saw a typical patient recently, a young woman in her twenties, complaining of headaches, brain fog, anxiety, depression, digestive issues, gas, bloating, diarrhea, joint pain, fatigue, insomnia, chronic sinus issues, and the list goes on and on. She was feeling really miserable, going from doctor to doctor, not really getting answers other than another prescription for this and another prescription for that.

We started with an initial evaluation and lab testing to find some underlying root causes, and a whole lot of things came up, one of which was leaky gut.

What is Leaky Gut?

Within the inner membrane of your small intestine are what they call tight junctions, with small pores in between them that allow for the absorption of nutrients such as amino acids and essential fats into your bloodstream for nourishment. These pores are about the size of a hole made in a piece of paper by an acupuncture needle, and that’s normal permeability. Leaky gut is increased permeability, where those pores are increased to the size of a hole made by a nail.

How Does Leaky Gut Harm My Body?

Instead of just nutrients getting into the bloodstream, whole proteins, toxins, bacteria, and yeast can leak out of that protective barrier into the bloodstream and trigger a whole host of things, like food sensitivities and allergies. Leaky gut can also trigger autoimmune conditions, because these whole proteins, toxins, etc., which aren’t supposed to be in circulation, are then identified as foreign invaders, and your body starts to attack them. Over time, it can start attacking certain parts of your body, like your thyroid (Hashimoto’s Disease, goiter, nodules, hypothyroidism, Graves disease), your joints (Rheumatoid arthritis), your nervous system (MS), and your intestine (celiac disease).

Is There Research to Support Leaky Gut?

When I was going over the findings with this patient, she said that she thought she might have leaky gut, but her father is in the medical field and doesn’t really buy into all this natural stuff. She asked if there was anything she could tell him or show him to prove leaky gut exists.

So I searched leaky gut on PubMed, where they publish peer-reviewed medical studies, and some interesting things came right up. For instance, I found an article from 2017 from the journal, Frontiers in Immunology, titled “Leaky Gut As a Danger Signal for Autoimmune Diseases,” describing this whole condition I just went over. I found another article from 2011 talking about Zonulin and its regulation of intestinal barrier function: the biological door to inflammation, autoimmunity, and cancer, and more articles beyond those. So there’s plenty of research out there that points to leaky gut, even though it’s not really recognized by modern medicine as of yet.

What Causes Leaky Gut?

The three underlying, basic causes of leaky gut are physical, chemical, and mental stressors, and you can break chemical stressors down into four interrelated categories:

  1. Deficiencies: Deficiencies in zinc, vitamin C, and vitamin D can lead to deterioration in the intestinal wall.
  2. Toxins: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil, Ibuprofen, and Aspirin have been shown to cause leaky gut. Antibiotics, too, can be a major contributor.
  3. Infections/Parasites: This is where yeast, bacterial overgrowth, and parasites come into play. Antibiotics can wipe out the healthy bacteria in your gut and allow unhealthy bacteria, or pathogenic bacteria, to take over and damage the intestinal walls. It’s the same thing with yeast overgrowth.
  4. Food Sensitivities: Gluten is a very common, well-researched cause of leaky gut and can damage the intestinal lining. Other food sensitivities are can be involved with this condition as well.

How Can I treat Leaky Gut?

As far as treatment goes, you have two options. You can go the route of traditional medicine, which treats symptoms with particular medications, or you can choose health and functional medicine, which is our approach.

The FreeDiet™

The diet that works best for leaky gut is what I call The FreeDiet™ (download a complimentary copy here), which is free of not only gluten, but also grains, corn, sugar, yeast, soy, legumes, eggs, dairy, and GMOs. These are the foods most commonly responsible for inflammation and digestive issues, and we remove all of them in Phase 1 of the FreeDiet™.

The FreeDiet™ allows your gut a chance to heal by calming down inflammation and removing those foods that promote inflammatory reactions.

Natural Medicine Formulas®

Which specific nutritional supplements we use depends on testing for each individual patient, but the most common supplements we recommend for the healing of leaky gut are zinc, fish oil, L-glutamine, vitamin D, bioflavonoids, curcumin, and ginger.

  • ProbioExtreme 350: Probiotics are vitally important to healing leaky gut. We start with a very powerful probiotic, ProbioExtreme 350 for short-term use, and then we graduate into a lower level one after that.
  • Paleo Protein: We use the collagen-based protein, Paleo Protein, because collagen can help with leaky gut. Bone broth is another excellent source of natural collagen.
  • Gut Immune Repair and GI-Mend : Two other product we use to treat leaky gut as it contains ingredients to help support the intestinal lining.

Stick With the Treatment

We had two patients not too long ago who had similar symptoms of massive digestive complaints, fatigue, joint pain, headaches, dizziness, skin issues—again, whole body issues—and they both tested positive for autoimmune conditions. The patient that followed our recommendations with the FreeDiet™ and supplements was able, after three months, to lower her ANA antibodies from 1:640 to less than 1:40, which is normal.

The other patient only somewhat followed our recommendations, but cheated some and went on and off the diet. She was feeling better, and she lost a bunch of weight, but was still going back and forth with a number of cheat days per week. When I reached out to her after two and a half months, her antibody levels hadn’t moved at all. Even though she was feeling better, her immune system was still being fired up.

If you have these chronic health issues and you want to get them cleared up, you really need to find the underlying root causes and stick with the plan. I believe that most all conditions, once you get to the underlying cause, can be addressed and cleared up, because your body has an incredible ability to heal itself.

Don’t forget to grab your complimentary copy of Phase 1 of the Free Diet™, and subscribe to my channel for early notifications of new videos.

Thanks for joining me again, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Natural Treatment for Autoimmune Conditions

March 9, 2019
how to lower high ferritin levels

Hi, my name is Dr. Thomas Rofrano from The Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Today I’m going to talk to you about healing autoimmunity, and specifically a case we recently had where I was able to help a patient completely resolve her elevated autoimmune antibodies in three months. I’m going to talk to you about the exact framework and protocol we used for her case, and exactly what you need to do to help yourself in the same area.

I’ve been practicing for over thirty years, and I’ve seen over 100,000 patient visits for nutrition, chiropractic, and functional medicine. One of the more common things people come in with these days is autoimmune conditions.

My Personal Experience With Autoimmunity

As a matter of fact, over ten years ago, I was busy in the practice, things were going really well, but I was feeling pretty miserable physically. I did a lot of testing, and was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, which is an autoimmune thyroid condition. I also had elevated Rheumatoid arthritis antibodies on top of that. I went to doctors and they told me that Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune condition where antibodies attack the thyroid, and with Rheumatoid, the antibodies attack your joints, and it continues to get worse.

I asked if there was anything I could do about it, and they said yes, you can take medication that can control it, however your condition will continue to deteriorate, and that’s it. I asked them what causes it, and they said they don’t know what causes it, and there’s no cure.

For me, that was just one option, and for a lot of people, that’s okay to go down that route where they just take medication and go on with their lives. But for me it just wasn’t enough. I really had to figure out what was causing it. If it wasn’t there at one point, and now it was, there had to be some cause that was bringing it on.

After doing a whole lot of research and a whole lot of testing on myself, I figured out some things that were triggering it, and over time—it took me a little over two years—I was able to completely heal the condition and normalize my antibodies. They’ve been at normal levels for over ten years now.

Transferring My Success to My Patients

Since then, I’ve been able to continually refine the process and help many other patients with all kinds of autoimmune conditions.

We recently had a patient come in, a fifty-six-year-old woman, who was feeling awful. She had numerous symptoms, including: constant headaches; vertigo (since she was a teenager, sometimes so debilitating she couldn’t get out of bed); depression; brain fog; poor memory; fatigue; insomnia; difficulty losing weight; hair loss; dry, itchy skin; pain in every joint in her body; constipation; gas; bloating; abdominal pain; indigestion—and the list goes on. She had been diagnosed with hypothyroidism and was already on medication, but was still feeling miserable.

A Natural Approach

The first thing we do is a complete evaluation to figure out what tests need to be ordered to get to the underlying root causes.

Autoimmune conditions basically come down to three causes:

  1. Physical stress
  2. Mental stress
  3. Chemical stress

When we look at the chemical stress aspect, we break it down into:

Deficiencies

She had low levels of magnesium, B12, vitamin D, zinc, iodine, iron, and selenium. All of these deficiencies affect your immune system, and remember that autoimmunity is where your immune system starts attacking different parts of your bodies.

In the case of Hashimoto’s, it’s your thyroid, and in this patient’s case, she had severely elevated ANA, or antinuclear antibodies, indicating scleroderma or connective tissue disorder, where the antibodies attack connective tissues such as skin, joints, muscle, tendons, and ligaments.

Deficiencies are a very important aspect of autoimmune conditions. Once we tested and identified deficiencies for our patient, we started working on correcting them.

Toxins

The other important aspect are toxins. We ran tests and found she was highly reactive to mercury, vinyl chloride, and other toxins. Following our protocol, we worked on cleansing or detoxifying her from those.

Pathogens and Infections

Next, we conducted comprehensive stool testing to test for any pathogens and infections that might have been causing her symptoms. She had elevated levels of yeast and bacterial growth, which can then lead to leaky gut.

When you have these types of infections going on, they ramp up your immune system. Your immune system’s antibodies are trying to fight these things off. Then it begins to attack different parts of your body, depending what kind of autoimmune condition you may have.

Then we work on identifying and elimination what is causing the bacteria and yeast, in this case, to clear it up and calm down the immune system.

Food Sensitivities

Finally, we look at food sensitivities. This patient was positive for gluten sensitivity—actually celiac disease—which is the most common sensitivity among all the autoimmune cases I see. Almost every single one is either gluten sensitive or celiac. It’s a common cause of the immune system’s seeing and attacking the gluten as a foreign invader, and then in turn attacking other various parts of your body in molecular mimicry. This response leads to all sorts of symptoms.

Along with gluten, the patient tested positive for a number of other food sensitivities. I prescribed the FreeDiet® as treatment, which is the diet I came up with over the years, initially for myself, when I had Hashimoto’s and Rheumatoid antibodies and had tested positive for gluten as well.

Back then, I found that going gluten free didn’t really help, because I was eating a lot of gluten-free products, like gluten-free breads and bagels and cookies and pasta. If you have yeast issues and bacterial overgrowth, which I did at the time, this is not the diet you want to be on, because yeast and bacteria thrive in that, and you want to starve the little critters.

The FreeDiet®, which you can grab a complimentary copy of right here, is not only free of gluten, but also grains, sugar, yeast, corn, dairy, soy, legumes, eggs, and GMO’s—all the most common inflammatory foods. The Free Diet allows your gut to heal, calms things down, and allows your immune system to then balance out.

A Healthy Patient

After going on the FreeDiet®, taking the Natural Medicine Formulas we prescribed to address her adrenal dysfunction and balance her thyroid, and regular manual therapy treatments, the patient’s antibodies began to drop considerably in just two months. After three months, they were completely normal. They’d gone from some of the highest levels I’d ever seen to normal in three months.

Not only that, but all of her symptoms cleared up. No more daily headaches, no more vertigo, she was sleeping well, she lost over twenty pounds, and she had great energy. Clearing out the underlying root causes allowed her body to heal.

In these cases, people can choose the medicine route—the drugs, the procedures and surgeries—or they can choose health. They can choose to do some discovery, find out what is causing their issues, and get them cleared up. My belief is that most every single health condition has a solution. If you discover what the root causes are, you can be provided with long term, permanent solutions.

Thanks so much for joining me today, and don’t forget to pick up your complimentary copy of the FreeDiet® .

Feel free to like and subscribe to my YouTube channel so that you get early notification of new videos. See you next time!

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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.

    Regarding any supplements mentioned: *These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your physician before using this product.