163 - Immune Boosting Strategies for Chronic Illness with Carrie Bailey part 2

Long Covid recovery can be significantly influenced by personalised nutrition and the right supplement regimen. Carrie Bailey shares essential insights into the importance of B vitamins, Vitamin C, zinc, and herbs in supporting the immune system and overall health recovery, emphasising bio-individuality and the need for tailored approaches.

• Carrie Bailey, functional nutritionist, introduces her expertise in Long Covid 
• Understanding bio-individuality in selecting supplements 
• Importance of a strong immune system for recovery 
• Key nutrients: B vitamins, Vitamin C, and zinc for Long Covid 
• Overview of healing herbs: lemon balm and cat's claw 
• Exploring elimination diets and food intolerances 
• Listening to your body to adapt dietary choices 
• Navigating nutrition in social contexts without feeling overwhelmed 
• Conclusion on a holistic approach towards Long Covid recovery

Previous episode available here:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1835170/episodes/16434559

Carrie's Free Gift:
https://longcovidrecoveryguide.com/

Carrie's website:
https://carriebaileyfunctionalnutritionist.com/

Carrie's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxEjeFag2UR96BQy0kcJqnw

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Chapters

• 0:00 Approach to Long COVID Supplements
• 16:33 Optimal Blood Levels and Vitamin D
• 21:58 Dietary Elimination and Symptom Tracking
• 35:37 Navigating Food Choices for Healing
• 39:56 Navigating Food Intolerances and Allergies
• 46:35 Nutrition Strategies for Healing

Transcript

Jackie Baxter: 0:55

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Long Covid Podcast. I am delighted to welcome back Carrie Bailey, who is a functional nutritionist, and hopefully you have heard our previous episode from last week where we sort of set the scene and talked a whole load about digestion and nutrition and sort of in the context of Long Covid and ME-C. So that's a really good lesson. If you haven't caught it yet, today we're going to dive into a few topics that we sort of mentioned right at the end and then went oh oh, no time. So we're going to have a look at supplements, certain diets and intolerances and how to kind of approach that. So that is a vague plan for today. Welcome back, it's so nice to see you again.

Carrie Bailey: 1:43

Thank you, jackie, it's awesome to be here.

Jackie Baxter: 1:47

So for anyone who is tuning in new, can you give us the like 30 second version of who you are and what you do?

Carrie Bailey: 1:54

Sure. My name is Carrie Bailey, I am a functional nutritionist, kerry Bailey. I am a functional nutritionist and what I do is I specialize in helping people with long COVID to recover, to use food supplements, herbs and things like that to actually heal from long COVID and also for weird mystery symptoms, because most people's long COVID is a conglomeration of a bunch of weird mystery symptoms.

Jackie Baxter: 2:20

Yeah, absolutely yeah, that sort of mishmash of how does this all fit together and trying to solve that puzzle, I think, isn't it? Yeah, so supplements Now. I had this experience and I've seen plenty of other people say similar on support groups and Twitter and everywhere. You know what supplements should I be taking and you know everyone adds a new one to the list and you think, oh, I'll take that one as well. And before you know it, you're taking 20, 30 different supplements. You rattle like a pill bottle and you don't actually know what any of them do. So how should one approach supplements? What would be your kind of advice there? And I know that is a total rabbit hole, isn't it it?

Carrie Bailey: 3:08

is. It is Because here's how I think about nutrition in general is it's bio-individual, right, when I'm working with if I'm working with Jackie, I'm not. I'm working with Jackie, I'm not working with long COVID, right? And Jackie is unique and she might have other issues besides long COVID. There might be things like adrenal fatigue or digestive issues, as well as the neurological issues she might have pain, and so my, what I would recommend to you would be different than I would recommend to someone else, right, everybody's. I don't go by. There's no blanket protocol, like if there was and somebody put out the blanket protocol and you follow the blanket protocol, it would be amazing, right, everyone would heal. But it just doesn't work that way. Everybody's unique. So, going back to, I think it's important to start with the foundation of what's behind long COVID and getting into root cause, and then from there we can vary into the approach with supplements.

Carrie Bailey: 4:05

So long COVID. Behind long COVID is viruses or other pathogens. It could be H pylori, it could be E coli. These are unwanted bacteria. And then there's also toxins, right, we're all exposed to environmental toxins, whether it's pesticides, herbicides, plastics, heavy metals, mercury, lead, et cetera, and so understanding that concept that we want to get those both out of the body right and support the body as a whole, right? So from a supplement standpoint, I like to think of it as building the foundation. I believe in the principle of when you give the body what it needs, it can heal. So one of the things that someone with long COVID needs is a strong immune system. Right, because their body is being attacked by a virus and unwanted bacteria mix of you know beautiful selection of who knows what. Right, that's out there and that's how we. The symptoms is how, what guides us as to what's going on, and so we want to give the body a strong immune system so it can fight the virus for you, right. And then there's things that you just need to clear detoxification, to clear waste, so there's certain supplements for that. So I like to build the house with a strong foundation. So I don't believe in just going okay, let's take this thing that kills the virus, and take it, because you need more than that. Right, you need the immune system.

Carrie Bailey: 5:37

So, starting with every cell in your body, in order for it to detoxify. You need the immune system. So, starting with every cell in your body, in order for it to detoxify, you need the B vitamins. I like the strain like B1, b2, b5, b6, b9. You need all of those. Some people don't tolerate methyl B vitamins, and so you have to be careful with those. But there are B vitamins out there that don't have methylated B vitamins and so you have to be careful with those. But there are B vitamins out there that don't have methylated B vitamins in them, if that makes sense.

Carrie Bailey: 6:05

But the one B vitamin that everybody needs and almost everybody's deficient, and and I'm just getting ready to release a video on this for YouTube is is called B12. And B12 is a special nutrient that is so critical for your nervous system, for your liver, for your brain to operate. It's very protective, it helps to detoxify, it does everything, and most people are deficient in this nutrient, and so I think everybody, to be honest, even people without long COVID, probably need B12. And you can't. There's no toxic upper limit, so you definitely can't hurt yourself. And the key the key that's hard to talk about here, but I'll we'll touch on it a little bit is how much do you need? Right, and I would say you might need as much as 5,000 micrograms a day, which is a lot, because I don't know if you guys in the UK have a recommended daily allowance but in the US we have this thing called a recommended daily allowance and I think in the US it's like 50 micrograms, so you can imagine 50 versus 5000, you would think you're getting enough B12. But in essence, don't look at that part to figure that out. So B vitamins. The other thing, the other nutrient that's often deficient for people, that is kind of important for a lot of enzymatic reactions in the body, is magnesium, and I like a glycinated magnesium just because it helps with everything deficiencies and it addresses everything there, and so those are the kind of the two starter nutrients that I would say. And then from there so to support the immune system.

Carrie Bailey: 7:42

I love vitamin C, but the thing about vitamin C that's important to understand is that again, I'm speaking mostly to the US, but in the US 99% of the vitamin C out there is made from genetically modified corn. It's called ascorbic acid and it's not helpful. You don't want to put anything genetically modified in your body. Your body doesn't know how to do it, your DNA doesn't like it, and so you want to put a buffered vitamin C in there, something without ascorbic acid, so you can look for like an ester C or a buffered vitamin C, and then again, on that you could take, you might need as much as I don't know 4,000 milligrams a day or more. It just depends on, again, what you've got going on. But I find that most people are. Actually, when you look at some of the symptoms of long COVID, they're the same symptoms as scurvy. You remember. Scurvy is like the deficiency in vitamin C, right, when nobody's diagnosing a scurvy, right, they're diagnosing long COVID and so that vitamin C is important.

Carrie Bailey: 8:54

And then the other one that kind of goes along with that is zinc. Most people are deficient in zinc and again, I like a zinc sulfate would be my favorite form. It's a, it's means it's got a sulfur compound with it and it just helps with detoxification. It helps clear copper, like toxic copper, like not the trace mineral copper that you need in your fruits and vegetables that you're going to get. But you need to get rid of the toxic copper which a lot of people have. So if you've got anxiety, other mental health issues, you might have too much copper. So that zinc sulfate is going to get rid of it. And again, how much to take usually you don't need as much as other forms of zinc, other forms of zinc. So maybe seven milligrams twice daily or something, and then the backup to that would be zinc picolinate. That would sort of be the backup zinc that I would recommend and that comes in capsules in like 15 or 30 milligrams.

Carrie Bailey: 9:55

And then the other thing that's really important for the immune system that I find most practitioners miss is lysine. Lysine is an amino acid that's really critical. It's really the first amino acid that gets depleted when you have viruses and bacteria that are causing problems, and so having a lot of lysine can be really helpful and some of these things you'll notice they just might help your energy levels. So I mean, it's just interesting that you know, and part of it is the timing of when you add things and how you add things. But again, just trying to keep it general, this information general. So lysine, so again, lysine, you might need I don't know 2000 milligrams twice daily or more. Again, it just everybody's different.

Carrie Bailey: 10:44

There are some herbs that I really like for that are specifically antiviral and especially calming to the nerves and nervous system. One is lemon balm, and lemon balm is great. You can find it in a tea, you can find it in a tincture. It's really important that your tinctures do not have alcohol in them. It's really important because the two organs that are most at risk in long COVID is your brain and your liver. Right, and even though I think we're starting to learn that, oh, a glass of alcohol a day is good for you is bullshit to be honest right and it's not good for you.

Carrie Bailey: 11:25

And so the more alcohol that you consume like, the harder it is on your brain and your liver so especially someone with long COVID. And so taking out any tinctures, so finding a tincture that does not have alcohol in it any tinctures, so finding a tincture that does not have alcohol in it, and so that's lemon balm. It's also called Melissa I'm not as good with the Latin names, but Melissa, something is the Latin name for it. And then the other one I like is cat's claw. Cat's claw is an herb. It's amazing antiviral. It's great because it doesn't create the Herxheimer effect that some antivirals can cause, where you get these side effects and you feel worse.

Carrie Bailey: 12:07

And I know one of the things we want to talk about today a little bit is people that are super sensitive. So some of these things you might need to literally start with a drop. If you're super reactive or if you find you have a strong reaction to these things, it doesn't mean that's bad for you. It means you, you need it, but you just don't. You just need to go slower. So maybe you put literally a drop on your skin and let it absorb into your bloodstream, but you could literally increase by a drop every day if you notice a reaction to these. So cat's claw is a great one. Again, you can find this in tea form, you can find it in a tincture, alcohol-free tinctures. I guess it really just depends on your symptoms.

Carrie Bailey: 12:53

Sometimes, if you have a lot of adrenal fatigue, so you've got. Sometimes people with long COVID have fatigue and sometimes they have fatigue and adrenal fatigue. These are different physiological things that you might not necessarily feel different in your body. But chronic fatigue is more neurological in nature, whereas adrenal fatigue has to do with your adrenal glands that sit on top of your kidneys and that can be like too much adrenaline. So a lot of go, go, go. Remember, jackie, we were talking before we got online about how you're like running around doing all these things, which is great, you have the energy to do those things. But when you run around doing things all the time, you're kind of creating this burst of adrenaline, which is good, it's feel good. But if you release too much adrenaline it's very acidic. It can actually burn you out right and lead to things like depression, and so for adrenaline and adrenaline issues, if that's something for you, another some other signs and symptoms of adrenal issue.

Carrie Bailey: 13:54

Adrenal issues is when you you're like kind of tired all day and then you get this second wind before bed, you get this energy right and then you stay up and you end up staying up all night or whatever, however long you can stay up, and then again you're tired in the morning. So it's almost reverse of how energy is supposed to work. So you're kind of out of energy and it grows during the day you might also crave salt. So there's a few other signs and symptoms of adrenal issues. And so when you have adrenal issues, there's things like hibiscus tea is really good for that and again, it's probably hibiscus tea is the best form for that.

Carrie Bailey: 14:35

I also like licorice. Licorice comes in a tea as well as a tincture. Again, looking for an alcohol-free tincture, um, yeah. And then again, if it's adrenal issues, I love to bring in ashwagandha. If there's either adrenal energy issues that aren't necessarily cognitive, um, or issues with sleep, where you're either wired but tired or you just can't sleep, um, putting an ashwagandha for breakfast and dinner is great yeah, I mean, it's hard to know, isn't it?

Jackie Baxter: 15:09

because I mean, you know you started this with saying you know it's very difficult to give sort of general advice on this because everybody is so different. And, um, I love that you said lemon balm, because I have that in my garden. I've tried, you know, it's one of those I don't know about if it's something to do with the soil or the climate here, um, but like it just keeps growing and growing and growing, like it's. It's a bit like mint, it is. It's in the mint family. Yeah, well, there you go. That would be. Why then, wouldn't it?

Carrie Bailey: 15:37

yeah, if you look at the leaves that looks like mint. Yeah, I have it growing, it growing on my garden too, and it doesn't die, which is really nice. Yeah, and that's really what weeds are. Weeds are just healing herbs. You know, dandelion look at that.

Jackie Baxter: 15:49

Dandelion is great for the zinc and magnesium and some of the other things and you said most people are deficient in them, or certainly most people with long COVID, but actually quite a lot of people without long COVID. Are there particular signs that you would notice that would be a sign of, say, a zinc deficiency or any of the other ones that you mentioned?

Carrie Bailey: 16:21

Yeah, if you are a person in addition to getting, if you've had long covid multiple times, if you, now that we're in the winter, if you keep getting the colder flu recurrent and you can't fight it. If you look at your blood work and if you look at what's called a cbc with differential, so a complete blood count with differential just talks about the different types of white blood cells. So if you look at what's called a CBC with differential, so a complete blood count with differential just talks about the different types of white blood cells. So if you look at your overall white blood cell from a functional range we want that between five and seven blood count is at nine or 10, that usually an indication that you have some kind of infection in your body right and that your immune system is working hard. That would tell me that you need to take some vitamin C and zinc right and lysine Also if it's below that. So if it's below five, if it's four, that tells me you've had a chronic infection in your body for a really long time and that your immune system is now suppressed. In other words, you don't have enough immune cells to fight the fires that are in your body and so you need more. So you need more support the vitamin C, zinc and lysine for support. And then within that you can look at the actual.

Carrie Bailey: 17:46

Sometimes the white blood count looks normal but then the neutrophils, which is a type of white blood cell, is out of range right, too high or too low. And the ranges that I'm referring to are functional ranges. The ranges on your lab work are more about conventional medicines. You know cancer and like bigger diseases they're worried about. But we want to look at optimal health, so our ranges are a little bit more narrow. But one pattern that I see a lot when there's a very heavy viral load in the body is that the neutrophils are high and the lymphocytes are low, again on the low end of the range or the outside the range, and the neutrophils are high on the high side of the range. So that is a pattern that I see frequently. And then the other ones, like basophils and eosinophils. Those can just indicate either that you have adrenal fatigue, your liver's not working, or that there's some kind of pathogen in your body. It could be a parasite in your gut, it could be anything right. So those are some indications.

Jackie Baxter: 19:37

And we talk a lot about vitamin D, particularly in Scotland where we have, like you know, particularly at this time of year we have no daylight, you know, and there are obviously people who are further north that have that to more extreme at this time of year as well, you know, and it's the sort of thing that actually, you know, even the NHS will say you should be taking vitamin D during the winter, kind of thing, and that one is also touted as immune support, I think. Is that true?

Carrie Bailey: 20:03

It is, yeah, and I was a big proponent of vitamin D for a really long time and I was one of those people that laid out in the sun. I'm a sun worshiper and I'd rather get my vitamin D by lying in the sun during the summer and let myself build up so that in the winter, when it kind of goes down, you're okay, you sort of have that reserve self build up so that in the winter, when it kind of goes down, you're okay, you sort of have that reserve. But also, what I've been learning is that part of so vitamin D is fat soluble and one of the things that we're trying to do, my approaches which we'll talk about when we get more to diet is that we were eating too much fat, and when you eat too much fat, your blood gets thick and there's no room for these vitamins and minerals that we're talking about that you need so desperately. There's no room for minerals, there's no room for glucose, there's no room for oxygen or water, and so you can become dehydrated, and so most of the time, I'm trying to take out fat, right, and so because D is fat soluble, I try to take it out Now. Because it is fat soluble, there are toxic upper limits, and I've heard some people that can take too much.

Carrie Bailey: 21:17

And what happens when they take too much? Then the liver senses there's an emergency and it starts dumping vitamin D, which can be really detrimental too, and so. But I've heard other people say like, oh yeah, I took mega doses of vitamin D and I felt so much better and I'm like, okay, that's really interesting, right? I don't. I haven't personally felt a difference from vitamin D, but everybody's different. But I but again, I want to look more at the liver, because the question becomes is there enough vitamin D or liver your body's just not using it right? Or is it just about the testing labs? Because the lab test here in the US and they're testing vitamin D.

Carrie Bailey: 21:58

There's a couple different markers for D. There's like the first part of the vitamin D, and I can't remember the order of things if it comes in the liver and then goes to the kidneys or the other way around, but we're only measuring part of it. So measuring something in the blood is a snapshot in time and it doesn't necessarily tell you how much you need, what the body's doing with it and things like that, and so that's sort of my concern about vitamin d is that people might be overdoing it. But I think it's okay. If you could take a thousand I use of vitamin d and that makes you feel better, that's great. Do that. But I wouldn't go for 10 000 I use or mega doses. I think that's really, really risky.

Jackie Baxter: 22:44

And I guess you know it comes back to the sort of each person and being individual, doesn't it? You know? And and you know, if you are deficient in something, then great, but if you're not deficient in it, then don't pile it on, I guess.

Carrie Bailey: 22:59

But it goes back to how do we really know you're deficient in it? Is it the blood test? Are we relying on that test? Because it's not telling you what's in the cell, it's telling you only what's in the blood.

Jackie Baxter: 23:09

So is it more on, try it and see if it makes you feel any better.

Carrie Bailey: 23:14

Yeah, that's what I would say. Yeah, yeah, try it in moderation. I guess, but I think people are looking to it way more than vitamin C, zinc and lysine. I feel like there's on the scale, it's like D, d, d, d D and nobody's really bringing in the C and the lysine and the zinc.

Jackie Baxter: 23:35

Yeah, so you would kind of go more on the B that amends the zinc, the lysine, those other ones, and less high, high on the d and then track symptoms.

Carrie Bailey: 23:47

That's really what I like to do, is I? I find that tracking symptom is much more effective than testing, because tests are true but partial. There's never. There's no one or collection of tests that's going to give you all the answers, unfortunately. I wish there was.

Jackie Baxter: 24:03

I mean, tests are useful. Tests can be a guide in a lot of circumstances, can't they? But, like someone who has long COVID, they don't care whether their stuff is within normal range or whatever. What they care about is how they feel, you know, and it's using that data as a guide to help you with that. But also not you know it not being the be all and end all. I think isn't it. Know it, not it not being the be all and end all? I think isn't it. So, yeah, that's, that's super interesting. Um, so I think you know what I'm taking from that is that, you know, be targeted with it rather than take all of them and and hope you know the scattergun approach kind of thing, exactly, yeah, so again I think we touched on this at the end of last time the sort of different diets and you know a lot of people have talked a load about the low histamine diet.

Jackie Baxter: 24:56

Some people say it helps. I gave it a try. It didn't do anything for me, um, but you know that doesn't mean it's not helpful for some people, um, you know. And then there's things like paleo and keto and carnivore and fodmap. I think you mentioned, and there's probably a hundred more that I haven't thought of and I think we sort of touched on at the end of last time. You said you know some of them might be useful but they shouldn't be long-term diets. But where? Where would you sort of advise people? Would it be a certain diet? Would it be on symptoms? Would it be try this for a bit, and how would you know which one to try?

Carrie Bailey: 25:35

yeah, well, I just like to pull out. Some of the big ones I like to pull out are what you would call. So there's as far as elimination diets in functional medicine. There there's a couple different kinds. There's just a basic, functional, basic elimination diet which is taking out gluten and dairy, which almost everyone's feels better when they take out gluten and dairy. So from another perspective on that is that gluten feeds viruses and unwanted bacteria. So you don't want to feed something that you're trying to kill, that's growing in your body and replicating, right. You want to kill it, and so getting rid of gluten is usually a game changer for some people. Some people don't notice a difference, but they will over time. It just takes longer to get out of their body.

Carrie Bailey: 26:25

And dairy is one that I like to pull out because, again, it feeds viruses. But it's also and we touched on this, I think, a little bit last time where we talked about that fat sugar combination. I know I was trying to try not to go down that because it's a big rabbit hole. It's a deep rabbit hole, but dairy is the combination of sugar, you've got lactose and fat, so it is always in and of itself sort of a violation of food combining right. So, and then the other thing about dairy is that not only does it feed pathogens, it creates, helps the body create mucus, and that mucus becomes a hiding place for the pathogensogen so they can hide along your, your digestive tract, your lining, all that mucus is. They love it. They're just like, oh like I can hide in here. My immune system can't find me, and things like that. So I like to get rid of dairy.

Carrie Bailey: 27:22

And then eggs is another one, and I don't know if it's because they're using eggs to grow or test. I know there's eggs in vaccines. So there's a lot of eggs that show up on a lot of food intolerance tests. And so, yeah, eggs is one that I like to pull out too, because I just find people feel better without eggs, and then from there I like to so that. So the basic elimination, as we talked about, was just gluten and dairy, but from an expanded diet standpoint expanded elimination diet in addition to gluten and dairy, pulling out eggs, soy corn.

Carrie Bailey: 28:01

I like to pull out vinegars. So I'm not necessarily about low histamine, but there's certain key things that drive histamine, like vinegars, and vinegar kind of pickles your, your liver, as well as salt too much salt will pickle your liver too. So if you're having a lot of salt and you know it's, these foods are also very addictive. Right putting those things in. And then there's any kind of. You know, obviously we don't want to eat processed food as much as possible, we want whole foods. But then you know we, if you've lived on processed food your whole life, it's hard to go cold turkey on that right.

Carrie Bailey: 28:37

So it's sort of trying to find the middle is trying to avoid things like citric acid. Citric acid is one that you're going to find in a lot of condiments. You might find it in jarred or canned tomatoes. Even organic tomatoes could have citric acid, and citric acid is a problem because it's a flavor enhancer, it's made from genetically modified corn and it's grown with mold. So if you're a person that's got mold at all in your background or triggered by mold like definitely want to stay away from citric acid, and so I think that's sort of where the low histamine diet kind of comes in is.

Carrie Bailey: 29:17

A lot of times they'll say avoid citrus, and I don't think avoiding citrus is the issue. I think you want to avoid citric acid, and citric acid is not just on the food labels. And again, if you're buying a jar, a can of tomatoes, that's seemingly a pretty much a whole food, ideally right, but not with those citric acid in it, and so you just want to read the labels and make sure that it's not in there. It can also be in supplements. It can be in, again, all your condiments, salad dressings, flavor enhancers.

Carrie Bailey: 29:50

So just reading the labels, I think, is really important, and not only avoiding artificial flavors, but avoiding natural flavors too, because these can be in the US anyway. Under our labeling system, natural flavors can have MSG in it, and MSG is an excitotoxin for the brain and it's very addictive. And MSG, which is what, basically what natural flavors are build up in the brain and you're going to cause more neurological issues. So, avoiding those types of things, so yeah, so pulling out that's pretty much what I pull out, as well as again trying to bring awareness to how much fat you're eating and trying to reduce fat overall, because, again thinking you can't get the nutrients in your body that you need and you can't get rid of the toxins that you need if there's too much fat in the system.

Jackie Baxter: 30:43

And it's amazing, isn't it? How much crap is in foods that we think are good, and I'm going to be making much more effort to read labels, I think, from now on.

Carrie Bailey: 30:55

And you almost have to keep doing it because at least again in the US they'll change labels and they don't have to tell you on the label that we changed the ingredients that are in here. So always just reaffirming it's like, oh, I've been buying these for two years, it's okay, Just reaffirm.

Jackie Baxter: 31:11

Yeah, that's interesting. And it's interesting as well about you. Know you were saying, with the histamine diet, for example, it's not necessarily all histamines, it's certain sort of particular bits that might be causing the problem, rather than the whole shebang Exactly.

Carrie Bailey: 31:29

Yeah, yeah, and don't avoid a food just because it's in a category of food and and I've had similar experience with clients or working with other practitioners are like, yeah, put them on a low histamine diet. And they got worse. And I'm like, okay, that's not good, right. So that's what got me curious, trying to figure these things out. And so you know is, to me a banana is a very healing food, but you don't want to put it with peanut butter or sun butter, you know, because that's fat, you're mixing the two. But again, a banana literally will kill pathogens, but some people's liver is so sensitive and so reactive. That's, you know, kind of going back to what we wanted to talk about was food reactions, because people do react to it and just because you react to bananas doesn't mean you have a histamine problem. So it's important to again evaluate your symptoms, because most of the symptoms that you're experiencing again, going back to the root cause is going to be the pathogens and the toxins, right? So if you put in a banana and you're reacting to a banana, maybe it's because you're killing the pathogens and, like a skunk or something else, it's going to give off a poison when you start killing it, right. And so then this is where people get a little bit confused, understandably, right, if you're killing something with a banana and I feel worse, then why would I eat that banana? And I'm like well, think of a banana again like a healing food and think of it like a dosage. If a whole banana doesn't feel good, can you have a quarter of a banana and does that feel okay? And when you understand what it's doing in your body, then that just makes it easier. Like apples Apples are another common one that triggers people.

Carrie Bailey: 33:38

And then they think again, they go oh, maybe I should be on a low FODMAP diet because I have an apple or I have a salicylate problem. And it's like do you really, or is it that it's healing things, like my daughter's? Like apples give me stomach aches and I'm like that's interesting, maybe there's something in your stomach that it's killing, that you don't really realize, right, and that's why it's causing a little bit of an ache. It's causing a fight, fighting back, right. And so then it's like well, can you eat a quarter of an apple?

Carrie Bailey: 34:01

Like again, I think of food almost medicinally right, can you eat a quarter of an apple and be okay with it? Right, then can you put a quarter of an apple in every day and then see how you do right. Then later can you increase to half an apple and a whole apple. So that's kind of my approach. Same with you know, similar to supplements. It's just taking it bite by bite, step by step, when you understand again the framework of what's healing you versus what's hurting you now I want to get on to food sensitivities and stuff, as you were just touching on there in a moment.

Jackie Baxter: 34:35

But before, before we go there, going back to your point about taking out things like gluten and dairy, which I think when you said taking out dairy before we both agreed that cheese was going to be the problem there. You know, taking these things out, is this a temporary taking them out and then easing some of them back in, or is this a kind of more permanent, dare I say, kind of change?

Carrie Bailey: 35:04

That's the question, jackie, is how long do you take these things out? Yeah, because this is a healing journey, right, and you're going to have your ups and downs, and even when you take things out, you might think you're feeling better. So you bring it back in and then you fall again, right, and I see this a lot for clients is that I say, okay, the more of these things you take out, the better you're going to feel, you know, but it's still their journey, right? So I'm there to guide them. But, yeah, it becomes when can I add these things back in? And so I look at it. I look at it like a test. I'm like, okay, so let's follow the plan.

Carrie Bailey: 35:38

I don't like to say cheating, I like to say going off plan, and we're going to go off plan. We're humans, we're emotional eaters, we have social events, we have holidays. There's nobody that I've ever experienced that is a hundred percent on it all the time. Right, you're going to go off plan. So what's interesting to me is when I've had clients, they've been really diligent and then they've gone off plan. And they, when they did go off plan, they never felt as bad as they did in the beginning, right? So when they came to me on a certain let's say, they were on the standard American diet and they came to me they were feeling not so good. We put them on this you know protocol for a while. Then we go off plan, but they didn't crash and burn like they would have before, right. And so I love these sort of going off plans because it's a little test. Oh wow, how did I do? Oh, maybe you're do fine for one day, but then two days is too much. And then you know you're into four days and you're like, oh crap, I feel like crap again. Go back on the plan, right, Take out those foods again.

Carrie Bailey: 36:40

And it just takes time, because healing takes time. First is that you might actually be able to get rid of your symptoms, right, but do you feel 100%? Usually people don't feel 100% right. There's still little indications that, there's still stuff going on.

Carrie Bailey: 36:55

So it's this ebb and flow kind of journey, and so you're going to try to go back on it and you're going to be like and then you know, and so I recommend to people you know, I usually just go for the birthdays, the social events there's like this opportunity to eat at like one of my favorite restaurants and I just want to let go of the reins and just eat everything and I say, okay, try it. Like, see how you do Right and everybody's different and everybody has to follow what works for them. So you're going to know in your body, in your, in your feelings. So that's one of the things that I try to get people as in touch with their body, like, how does that feel in your body, right? Cause it's it's ultimately you that has to decide what to eat and what not to eat.

Jackie Baxter: 37:39

I'm just your guide, right, and so I'm here to guide you, yeah, so it's coming back to what's important, I guess, isn't it? To that person? You know, yes, and I, you know, I, I did try cutting stuff out and didn't make me feel any different, um, but you know, I, now I do notice, like, if I have a really massive ice cream and I do, I love ice cream, you know, I notice that little bit of mucus in the back of my throat afterwards, and you know, it doesn't make me feel ill or uncomfortable and it doesn't cause me any problems at all, really, other than maybe around the waistline. Um, you know, I, I notice that in my body. Um, so it's really interesting, that kind of new awareness, isn't it that?

Jackie Baxter: 38:16

Okay, maybe this isn't a problem if I have an ice cream occasionally, but if I would ice cream 24 7 which I think even I wouldn't want to do, you know that way, where, maybe, maybe it would be, yes, so it is very interesting, isn't it? And I suppose you know it comes down to yet, how important is it that you have that birthday cake? Yeah, that you have that meal, and at what cost?

Carrie Bailey: 38:37

yeah, and it's also very bio of individual to each person how much they can tolerate of gluten or dairy or whatever.

Jackie Baxter: 38:45

Yeah, for sure so we were going to go on to, weren't we the sort of like food sensitivities, which was where we were sort of hidden just there? And you said about, you know, starting with the banana or the quarter banana or the apple, and I suppose what I'm curious about is, you know, you said maybe, maybe you sort of feel a bit off, but can you tolerate it and can you do a little bit and then build it up? What's the difference? How would someone know in their body whether it's something that actually is bad for them, for whatever reason, or actually that you just need to ease yourself in? For, you know, is it just that apples are good for everybody you have to ease yourself in, or are there people who actually don't get on with apples and shouldn't try to ease themselves?

Carrie Bailey: 39:36

into it? That's a great question, I think again, I think that most fruits and vegetables are healing foods and again, it just depends on the order that you put them in, what other foods you're, what you're combining with, and so it's really. It's again. It's really just trying to get someone to feel in touch with their body. Like what does this feel? Like Right, like if your throat is closing, like, yeah, don't eat that food, right?

Carrie Bailey: 40:09

Or I have a client who I was trying to get him to have lemon water every morning. Or I have a client who I was trying to get him to have lemon water every morning and he was trying it and I tried to hold lemon. Okay, that didn't work. Okay, back down, can you just put in a quarter lemon? Okay, that still doesn't work. Right, and it was burning him, but he was still doing it. And so then he came to me and I said we need to take it out. It should not cause burning, right, that's not, okay, we can try it again later, right, it's just not a food that your body is ready for. It might be the most healing food on earth, but if it's causing you to itch or have a rash or be physically uncomfortable, especially pain, then take it out. We'll try it again later, right, and just try, like, what else can we put in that isn't causing problems, right?

Carrie Bailey: 40:52

So trying to find those foods and there are some foods that are similar triggers that I noticed that again are like potent healers, like garlic or asparagus or spinach or tomatoes, and sometimes those things people unfortunately most people put in oh it's a tomato, I must have a problem with nightshades and I'm like no, actually tomatoes are really healing food. So the nightshade thing, I don't really believe in that. One Similar with oxalates and salicylates and all those things. Those are more. Again, they're categories of food that people think is the issue, but it doesn't make sense to cut those out for long-term. It's like you got to question, you got to dig deeper, like what's underneath there? And again, going back to the pathogen, it's like if it's pathogen, let's kill the pathogen. You know, get those foods in.

Jackie Baxter: 41:45

So I mean I can say what's the difference? I'm not sure that's quite what I mean. You know we have intolerances and allergies. I mean you know we have intolerances and allergies. So some people I mean peanuts are the obvious one, aren't they that everyone talks about? But you know there's all sorts of allergies. I didn't even realize that celery apparently is quite a common allergy. So you know, you see it on sort of like allergy boards and I didn't think you could be allergic to celery.

Jackie Baxter: 42:13

But anyway, are they on the same sort of spectrum and allergies are one end of the other?

Carrie Bailey: 42:21

I think of them on the same spectrum. Yeah, I think, if it's, you know, it's not quite like being pregnant you either are or you're not. It's, you know. Can you tolerate this food and if so, how much? And I think the same thing with celery, right, like, and I think again, sort of the celery juice movement is a big thing and I think it is really healing food. But, yes, some people are going to react to it. So you know again, how much celery juice did you have and what did you react to? Right, can you start with like two teaspoons, or I mean two ounces of celery juice and do you react to that?

Carrie Bailey: 43:01

And again, I think the trick is that's part of the vagus nerve, is that when you're going into anaphylactic shock, right, that's the vagus nerve and that's it closing up in that spot, right. And so you know, is it a true allergy? You know, I do believe there are true allergies to foods, right, and I would definitely send somebody out to an allergist for that. I would not. I'm not allowed to diagnose or treat or things like that, right. But throat closing can also be on the spectrum of intolerance, not necessarily allergy, but I think it automatically gets put into allergy, if that makes sense. If someone is so, has so much histamine and so much toxicity and things like that going on in their body, yeah, their throat might close for a lot of reasons, like again, tied specifically to vagal nerve inflammation, right. So it would be a case of improving that vagal tone and that resilience through that. That might help them be less intolerant.

Carrie Bailey: 44:08

It's actually the virus is attacking the nerves. The virus attacks the nerve itself in different places, right. The virus attacks the nerve itself in different places, right. So your vagus nerve is the longest nerve, so it kind of goes down and it attaches to your organs, right. And so for some people they might have heartbeat, rapid heartbeat or some kind of heart irregularities.

Carrie Bailey: 44:26

That, again, aside from true physical issues with your heart, if you go to the doctor and they're like your heart's fine, those fluctuations and rapid heartbeat and funny things in the heart can actually be the electrical system, and so the virus itself can be nesting there attacking it. But it can also be that the waste of the virus, so the virus poops in your in your body, right, and that waste is a neurotoxin and it can latch onto viruses or sorry, onto nerves at different parts in your body and cause problems, and so it could be that it's actually inflamed the vagus nerve inflamed in certain spots, like you could have inflammation in your stomach of your nerve and that could be because you have h pylori as well as some kind of viral inflammation. It can be like a mix of both things amazing.

Jackie Baxter: 45:26

That's so fascinating, isn't it? So, coming back to intolerances, which is where we started this. So your approach there would be, you know, sort of very, very gentle, you know, going back to that quarter banana and taking it kind of step by step. Is this OK or is this not? Can we add or take away?

Carrie Bailey: 45:50

Or we try a different food, right, we try pears or something else, that's, you know, gentle, if banana, and sometimes because sometimes you get into actual fears, where people, because they have reactions to food, they literally have PTSD and fears around it, right around dairy it's like okay, jackie, you got to have your, you got to have your cheese. We're going to keep the cheese in there, but we're going to try to, like, put in as many healing foods as we can and not take away that cheese. And then at some point we're going to try to take out the cheese. Or you're going to say I still have this, I still have this, I still have this. And we're going to be like, okay, let's do a trial that balance.

Jackie Baxter: 46:33

Yeah, and would you expect that. You know, if you did sort of ease someone very, very gently, you know, maybe trying a different food, that over time they would be able to tolerate a bit more of it.

Carrie Bailey: 46:45

It would just take a bit of time for sure that I've been able to do that and at first they couldn't do things again because of the timing of when they were eating it, like if they were eating fruit too close to fat. Right, and again, separating, putting the fat, the fruit in the morning, where there's no fat in the system always goes over better. So if someone's on low FODMAP, doing that, starting with fruit there and separating them, they always do better. The trick comes in. Like every restaurant, every social event, they're going to mix fat with some kind of starch or something else. You know your burger and your fries, you know different things like that. So it's it's it's challenging to do, but once you understand how to do it, then and then again, I try to get people to understand how to do it in a way that is livable. You know breaking down each meal.

Jackie Baxter: 47:41

Yeah, because it's got to be doable, hasn't it? If it's this impossible kind of big, massive, long list of things and it doesn't work for you, it doesn't matter how healing it is, it's not going to happen, is it? You know it's got to be workable for the person. Yeah, yeah, it can't be overwhelming. Well, I feel like you've just blown my mind a little bit. I feel like I need to go and straight back and listen to all of that and take it actually properly in this time. Carrie, thank you so much for coming back and joining me and sharing more amazing words of wisdom with me. It's been such a pleasure, so thank you so much.

Carrie Bailey: 48:19

Thank you, Jackie. It's been really fun having this conversation with you.