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In this episode, we discuss:

Dr. Brad Gorski understands what it’s like to suffer with an autoimmune disease. At the age of 27, 4 different blood clots hit his brain. Over the next year his autoimmune markers disappeared – and, he gained significantly more energy and mental clarity. Now, he teaches others how to eliminate autoimmunity, discover the root cause and unlock an amazing quality of life.

His personal suffering not only came as a gift but it also provides a testimonial of hope and authority to inspire others. As a result of his sickness Dr. Gorski and his wife Lauren, founded Gorski Health Solutions LLC.

• 3 Autoimmune Triggers.
• Missing links to Autoimmune Healing.
• Dr. Brad’s personal healing story.

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Episode Transcript:

Brad: You know when let’s say you’re at the bottom of the mountain and you’re climbing up 8,000 feet, you don’t go from the bottom to top. You have base camps, right? You go up a part of the way, you stop. It’s the same thing as a healing journey.

Sarah: Welcome to the Healing Uncensored podcast. My name is Sarah Small, and I’m a health and mindset coach for women with autoimmune disease just like you. I absolutely love helping you tap into your self-healing power, uncover the energetic side of healing and release limiting beliefs around your body and your life. Think of this podcast as everything you wouldn’t hear at your doctor’s office. It’s a place for empowered souls to move beyond food and heal themselves on a soul level. I hope you enjoy today’s episode. Now let’s begin.

My guest today has a powerful and impactful story of hope and transformation with chronic illness. His name is Dr. Brad Gorski, and I’m honored to have him on the show today. We first connected when he interviewed me for the Autoimmune Paradox Summit, which launches October 1st and runs to the 5th. This is a free online summit that includes many talks, interviews that I think you will find a ton of value in. So I want to shout out to Dr. Brad for putting this together and making it available to the Autoimmune Tribe community. There’s a link in the show notes to register so you don’t miss any of these conversations and value in your inbox. Now I want you guys to listen to Dr. Brad’s story. I really think it’s going to resonate today. Let’s get started.

Welcome Brad. Thank you so much for being on Healing Uncensored today. I would love for you to start with your personal story because it is a powerful testimonial and story of hope I think that all of our listeners will be really interested in. Do you mind starting off sharing that with us?

Brad: Absolutely. You know, years ago, I think as I got more comfortable with my story, a mantra I have in the back of my head is take your mess and make it your message. So yes, I would love to start with that. And it was really interesting. I come from a chiropractic background. I started my practice and always valued my health. I was a college athlete. I played college sports. My dad played professional sports, so I always really valued my health. That’s why I went into chiropractic and within our first year of opening our practice, my wife and I, we move in a home and immediately upon moving into this house, I started getting real unusual symptoms. You know, at this point in my life I count on one hand how many times I’d been sick. I mean, I just was really never sick, had symptoms. I think obviously just kind of lived a really good lifestyle and I move in this house, immediately I have unusual symptoms. I’m getting the brain fog, and I always tell people that until they have brain fog, I don’t think they understand what that means, but all of those who have had that, so the brain fog started. I started getting some inflammation in my hands and my feet, a lot of gut disturbances, crazy low energy and it was really unusual and I would kind of sink in more nutritionally. I would make sure there was zero sugar in my diet, which I didn’t really eat sugar anyways, but you know, I did everything right lifestyle wise and boom, every couple weeks I was getting sick again.

And so it kind of got to the point where my wife and I were like, there has to be something in this home making us sick, more specifically me, so we took two weeks out of this home and a lot of my symptoms start resolving. So we kind of knew there has got to be something in this house making me sick. We thought it was mold, but the tests in the house had come back out really crazy high so we just try to live in it and kind of just take some supplements to help me with that. We made a decision that we would move out of that house, and during this process I actually had flown into my best friend’s wedding and I gave up the next morning and at the age of 27, I had a massive stroke. Four different blood clots in different areas in my brain, and couldn’t speak, couldn’t move the entire right side of my body and I really didn’t know where the answers lie.

When it happened, first thing that came into my mind one of my mentors that I had worked with in Chicago had just been diagnosed with a form of cancer and he was beating it, so I kind of immediately was like, man, is it brain cancer? I’m going to figure this thing out. I’m going to beat it. And the doctor comes in and he’s like, no. You have blood clots. You had a stroke and I’m 27. It didn’t even make sense, you know. I was in one of the best stroke hospitals in the country, and after a week of leaving there, they basically looked at me and were like, hey, we don’t have any answers for you. We have no solutions. You don’t have a plaquing of your artery. If this isn’t genetic, we have no clue for you, and that was what I was given as an answer at the age of 27.

And so there was this part of me that knew there was a place for modern medicine, but then there’s also this complete side of holistic healing that I believed in. And it was this battle of if I have a genetic issue, I guess it is what it is and it kind of takes that power away from you. We ran testing; it was not a genetic issue. We realized it was auto-immune driven. We realized it was an autoimmune condition. We really kind of focused obviously on the healing process at that point. Within the next 3 months, 14 different autoimmune numbers disappeared and I was down to two or three, and then my last autoimmune number took me almost two years to fully get rid of that. That was kind of my healing journey that I kind of went through and it gave me, I think, an understanding obviously when people get sick really what that’s like. I mean, I was not in a great position to be sick. I had a brand-new practice. I had brand new student debt from getting out of school. So there was a lot of things. Now I’m not in the office, I was paying doctors to cover my practice when I’m not there, so it was a really tough emotionally, physically, spiritually and then there was also this inner battle of this guilt that came with it of how could someone who valued their health get sick. So it was definitely a process of healing.

Sarah: That’s such a powerful story, and I think it’s incredible that then you were able to bring those markers down and realize that this was not genetic necessarily. It was auto-immune at the root, at the core. Can you talk a little bit about the frustration though, of not getting an answer right away? You talked about you were doing all these things nutritionally “right”, and this frustration, because I know a lot of us, it’s taken a long time to find a diagnosis.

Brad: Yeah, I think really some of the early – because we’d run some tests on myself – we had run different things. We had markers, like I knew my body was low in serotonin. I was deficient in some vitamins so we’d run some medical and some kind of natural testing. And really, I think what it came down to is we knew that mold was the trigger or there was something in the house making me sick, but I never really thought that that environment could have made me as sick as it was. I kind of was like, well I can do some mold cleanses. I can do some things to kind of prepare my body, but I should still be able to move here, but obviously for my specific body, that wasn’t the case. And I think too that stress and I think for different people, it’s the different stress. Sometimes it could be heavy metals; for me it was mold. The flat-out point was I think at that point, no matter what I was going to do, I had to remove myself from that trauma, that stress for me to heal. And so I think it took me I think two weeks. It was two weeks and we had moved out. It was we’re moving. We made the decision; enough was enough. And that weekend, it was also I think a blessing though, because I think what you’re saying is how do you deal with not having a diagnosis?

And I kind of feel like for me, what it really came down to is that it was either that I knew there was this belief that I had that either that medicine and a symptom-based approach to health was right, or there were going to be natural solutions. So I kind of feel like that at the end of the day, I just had to kind of keep strong to my faith and my belief that if I remove these interferences, I believe wholeheartedly that the body is designed to heal, and I know that when you find those interferences – emotional, nutritional toxic lies – and you remove them, the body will flat out heal, and sometimes too Mother Time is the only thing that’s in between that for sure.

Sarah: Yeah. I love that. You said that the body is working with you, it’s not against us. It’s trying to give you…even the stroke that you survived and experienced, your body was giving you a strong ass signal that something needed to change. Notice me! Hello, hello, Mayday, Mayday. And the body is just sending you signals to hopefully get your attention to in your case, remove yourself from the mold. So I actually know many women in my community have been exposed to mold, or are dealing with mold toxicity currently. Can you tell them a little and I’m interested too and actually I grew up in a moldy household as well, and so is removing yourself from a moldy situation, whether that’s work or home, enough or what other steps do you need to take?

Brad: Let’s put it this way. What I want to say too, just so we understand this, is there is a genetic component. What I mean by that is that when you stretch your body and your system enough, like for me, I had again, been exposed enough. It was like, boom, that switch turned and my autoimmune condition really kind of turned on full on and full force. Again, I did have some warning signs before that. I mean, I even remember telling myself cause if you look at some of the symptoms of mold toxicity – numbness, tingling – I even had some of that. I was like, man, these are also stroke symptoms. I’m like, come on 27, you know? So I even remember telling myself that. I probably had a couple of TIAs before this actually happened but even some of the doctors I’d been to, that’s the last thing I think that was in their mind.

But let’s put it this way. You know, 24% of people, again, specifically, genetically they don’t have the ability to be able to remove the toxin as fast or as efficient as they should. So if you kind of think of it this way, there is again about let’s just say 24% of people that no matter whether it’s at work or in their home, they’re going to hit a point that their body just does not remove the toxin very efficiently. And here’s another thing – let’s go back to this, like what you said. Our body is trying to help us. It’s pretty unique that a lot of times we think these genetic things that are really like a fault, but you also have to remember that in certain areas, our bodies evolved for certain advantages. So it’s real interesting to know and I think we kind of need to look at that too so you may not process mold as well, but you have certain advantages because you don’t process mold well. I think number one for some people, you have to be aware of that, that unfortunately at the end of the day you may need and my sister in law went through this exact same process with her home. They fought me for almost two years. No, we’re not going to move in this house. They were in East Lansing. My brother-in-law works at Michigan State and they were in the perfect neighborhood, the perfect school district, and they fought me for a couple of years before I kind of made them move out for two weeks and just see how it was. It was eye opening.

And once they did that, they realized they had to remove themselves from the trigger. but I would say number one, yeah, you have to remove the trigger because if you don’t give yourself enough time, you won’t heal. So I think that’s maybe the principle I want people to understand with that. If you’re not healing or you’re not responding, you just need to give your body flat out more time. And so that’s why I think for me it took the six months is because remember I would hunker down, I would do mold cleanses. I was educated. I was doing a lot of right things and two, three, four weeks I was good then boom, I’m getting sick again. So I think that someone listening where they keep finding themselves, I’m better. I’m worse. No, I’m good. I’m good, I got it. Oh, I’m worse. I think that’s the process that they’re not giving their body enough time to heal and there’s still that outstanding trigger or stress that’s out there that their body can’t handle.

Sarah: I think we talked about in our very first conversation a little bit about the true cellular detox as well. I’m still going through it and I’m in a brain cleanse space, but you’ve also gone through it as well.

Brad: Yes.

Sarah: That to me was completely transformational and really helped me detox. In my case, mold and heavy metals, a lot of other things that were accumulated in my body that I feel like a completely different person. So you also worked on not only – I’m trying to kind of put this into bullet points for our listeners- number one, you gave yourself a lot of time. Number two, you did do some of these supplements and detoxes. And then I’m assuming number three is also just some of the emotional and spiritual work behind that. Can you talk a little bit about that as well?

Brad: Yeah, and I think maybe to recap on the supplements little bit too, I think that one thing that mold does to the body is it suffocates your oxygen in your blood too. So that’s where we get all the fatigue. It weakens your sinuses; it winds up weakening your lungs and it weakens your gut, so I do think it is important for people to again look at those types of strategies, strengthening their pathway, their nose, their throat, their immune system, obviously the gut, because these toxins, your body can really release some, but most mold toxins are fat soluble. So if you’re not grabbing things in your gut, then those toxins get reabsorbed. So that’s one thing I think as far as the supplement goes, it’s kind of important to look at. I always tell people, I think oxygen …

Sarah: What are some of the ways to kind of clear the nasal passages, sinuses, throat? Do you have any suggestions?

Brad: Yes, I do. And actually, looking over my shelf, I thought I had one of the products I recommend. I don’t have it, but there’s actually a product called Restore. It’s a great product. It basically helps build back up yet. Yeah. So Restore has a nasal spray that does good cause it helps the membranes of the body heal. One of the things I think that is huge because your liver is going to have to process a lot of these fat-soluble toxins, so something like an infrared sauna, those are amazing to help speed up the process of helping things out. Also, a product I used that was huge is chlorophyll, liquid chlorophyll for the blood cause it helps oxygenate and build the blood back up so that can sometimes for people help give them their energy back.

The other thing too is I use forms of hyperbaric chamber. That for me was night and day difference. I mean, I would get in that for even an hour and get out and man energy, brain fog because a hyperbaric chamber, they even use them in hospitals. They use them to remove toxins, so someone who has been poisoned from carbon monoxide, they put them in a hyperbaric chamber and that actually eliminates the toxin from their system. So hyperbaric for me was huge. I also used it’s called the biomolecular oxygen, which is basically you put little drops of oxygen in your water, so there’s some really great strategies like that on a supplement front to help at least start the process. Remember you still have to remove the trigger like we talked about. We can definitely wrap back around the gut because I think that’s something we have to talk about. Mold really does affect the gut and cause the gut to be leaky. So we have to kind of go back and address that no matter what we do.

But let’s talk about that emotional standpoint. I think for me too, there was a point when I was going through my process of healing and I remember this. I was in my hyperbaric chamber and I was spending sometimes five, six, seven hours a day in that. I had bought one and when I was in there, I felt completely normal. I was making phone calls to my patients and they’re like, Oh my God, Dr. Brad, you sound amazing like there’s nothing wrong with you, and I would get out of that oxygen environment and again, just extreme fatigue, brain fog, my gut issues, crazy amount of stress, but one thing I want to say is that I remember this point when I was in my chamber and I just got back from a cardiologist appointment and we were ruling out just again, make sure there’s no genetic issues. There was no hole in my heart. And one of the things is they weren’t sure. They’re like, well, you could have a hole in your heart. We don’t know yet. And I remember I was in my hyperbaric chamber and I came to this decision. It was just the moment and I made a decision.

I decided that there was going to be a point that I knew that I had to take responsibility a hundred percent for my condition, whether it was in my control or not, and the emotional aspect of that, I think for me was huge. I just remember as I’m laying this chamber, I’m actually even crying a little bit. I’m lying there. I’m kind of in my head trying to really wrap my head around what to do to really get myself well. I don’t want to live like this rest of my life, but I remember making a decision just at the end of the day, no matter what it was – if it was genetic, if it wasn’t, if there was a hole in my heart – that going forward, I was not going to live another moment of my life where I did not take a hundred percent responsibility. So at that point I said, I don’t care whether the house had mold. I don’t care whether there’s a hole in my heart, whether it’s genetic, I’m taking a hundred percent responsibility for my health, and I think once I did that, I think in some ways there came some peace with that. I would say that’s probably one of the first emotional parts to my healing is when I came to that realization.

The other thing I kind of came to the realization on is that one of my goals was before I had got sick – and I’m dead serious – one of my goals was I wanted to live to be 120 and I wanted people to look at me and be like, that’s a shining example of this type of lifestyle. I mean, I really wanted to be again, be someone who could do the right things, have this amazing quality of life and be an example for people. When I got sick, I think it took me reframing that experience to say, okay, how does this sickness not happen to me, but happened for me? And I think from that, it just gave me a different platform for me to really kind of dive into that to say, hey, I’ve struggled, I’ve suffered. I know what it’s like to again “live a healthy life”, but I think it also gave me this understanding that the world and healthcare is changing, and I think people do not understand that.

Sarah: Just a couple of things really stood out to me there. The first is that a hundred percent responsibility to me is like the opposite of being the victim of the stroke and auto immune diseases, chronic illness, etcetera, moldy household. We can easily make ourselves a victim of all of that. But when we take a hundred percent responsibility, it’s saying, no, I’m not a victim of that. I am going to choose to find a solution to this, and then also see it as my teacher and it sounds like you’ve been able to take these big challenges that have come up for you that were unexpected as well and it propelled you to be a better practitioner because now you have this experience of what it feels like to not know if you have a hole in your heart or not, to have a stroke at 27 and you bring that into your work. And that’s so inherent. I can see that in the passion that you bring to your work. You have been through those challenges and those struggles.

Brad: You know, I think sometimes people look back at their life and they’re like well, obviously we learn. Hindsight’s always 20/20 and I 100% believe this. If someone were to ask me like, hey let’s go back, you can avoid your condition. I wouldn’t do it. I think it was such a great experience. It’s funny – one of my mentors and one of the things I learned there was training he walked me through, and he says take the three worst times in your life and the three best times of your life, and he goes, if you can figure out the values that were either suppressed or given into in those moments, you’ll know what really drives your heart and your passion.

And when I think through that and when I look at my story, it was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me and maybe people are like, that’s nuts, but I really truly believe it was and that’s how I look at it today. I would not take it back for a second. I think also too, it gave me such an appreciation for my family, for my daughter I have now. So I don’t know. I look at life from a different lens and there’s no pun intended as I’m wearing these yellow lenses. But actually, as an aside, I just got a brand-new pair in the mail today from True Dark, because they are speaking on our summit obviously. But no, I think that was a huge shift for me too is just that it really became something that, I don’t know, it became a part of me and also too, I was honored that that happened because it’s going to give me an opportunity to really help people at a level I don’t think I’d be able to help them be with before, for sure.

Sarah:                I just want everyone listening to take a pause for a second, because what you said is really impactful and really powerful. I think it’s just proof that someone who was seemingly healthy at 27 years old, who had this massive stroke is now … go rewind one minute and listen again … because what Brad is saying is that he would not have changed that and that this has been a beautiful teacher. And I think that that seems impossible for so many people to see that as something that they believe in their future, but you are proof of that. And like I said, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that, and for everyone to really let that resonate within their energetic beings so that they can also see hope in that. So this has obviously inspired your work. You were already a practitioner and working in the health field, but has inspired your work even further I’m sure. You talk about these three autoimmune triggers, and can you explain to the listeners what those three autoimmune triggers are?

Brad:                  So when we talk about triggers and I guess basically the easiest way to think of that is our body at any given time can handle so much crap, and I always kind of joke. Crap can be bad nutrition, it can be environmental toxins like a mold or heavy metal, it could be an emotional issue. I’ve seen people I’ve worked with who have lost a spouse or a loved one and that was the tipping thing that pushed them over the edge. So these what I call these tipping points and what happens is you stress the body fast enough so you have this trauma, the stress, and then what would that begins to do is that begins to – number one, we always know there’s a component of our gut or a leaky gut. So there’s a stress, there’s a leaky gut. And then the third thing that happens is once that’s done enough, it’s like now you actually have the gene that actually gets expressed or turned on. Just like in my case, you can start doing the right things. These aren’t born in genetic problems. These are things that get triggered or happen. So you go through the healing process and your body can heal. And I do want to make sure I say this too, is that maybe people look at me and they’re like, well, that seems like that was an easy process. No, I would say it was probably a good solid two years of honestly struggle before I got to the point where I really felt like I was not only on the backside of it, but possibly better.

So I think sometimes if you look at the news and you watch things, you’ll see someone like a Steve Jobs and you think this guy had this amazing life. He’s got all the money in the world, but people don’t know that that guy had 14 years where he worked basically Monday through Sunday from sunset to sundown. So it took a lot of his time and energy and people just looked at all the success, but didn’t realize the hard time he went through, and I think it’s the same thing with me. I would share with people on their own story. Be okay if you’re still on that path where you’re still in the dark times, because we have to spend time in the valley before we can come out of it, so obviously just understand where you are at on that. And we can definitely, I want to make sure I go back and make sure we hit those three, but I want to make sure I added that in there.

Sarah:                Yeah, I liked that. I think I told you when we talked before, I’m a visual person and I like that there’s like this valley, and I feel like everyone’s valley or dark times are going to be different lengths of time. Maybe it’s 2 years, maybe it’s 6 months, maybe it’s 6, 10 years. It’s so unique to every person’s body. So if I were someone who had to come in to see you in your office or working with you remotely, do you kind of look at those three triggers, let’s go into those and help understand like what’s going on with my body?

Brad:                  Absolutely. Let’s think of this. Let’s go back and do a visual on that. Let’s say you’re at the bottom of the mountain and you’re climbing up 8,000 feet. You don’t go from the bottom to top. You have base camps. You go up a part off the way and you stop. It’s the same thing as a healing journey. So I think that’s another great analogy for people to wrap their head around. There’s going to be points where you stop, and sometimes you’re going to hang out for a while before you go to the next level and sometimes you even regress. You have to go down before we go back up again. But going into my story and just to give people an example, I was vaccinated when I was three months of age and immediately, I quit breathing. I was on breathing machines for basically three months to three years of age. And the reason I bring that up is that obviously for my body, heavy metals were also something my body was sensitive to. So when I was 18, I had a filling put in my mouth, just one, but these are triggers and things that were kind of slowly putting crap in my bucket so that when that mold come in, my body didn’t have a lot of room to be able to handle that. So, yes, I think that those past traumas, those past stresses, for some people can be an exposure to a virus, like an Epstein-Barr. Those are all “crap” that goes in the bucket. So at the end of the day, I think if we’re really looking at getting you to live your best life, you’re right. We have to definitely figure the trigger that maybe pushed you over the edge. But the other thing I always say too is what is the biggest thing in that bucket that’s keeping you stuck where you’re at? So I do think sometimes that is testing; sometimes that’s honestly too just a great history of just sitting down and talking to somebody and understanding their history, their problems. This may sound unique, but again, what was their birth order? So depending on where you were born – first, second, third – can actually determine some toxins you probably got from your mother. I think that those things are all really relevant to kind of say, Hey, you’re right. It was one thing that pushed you over the edge, but there was also probably 15 years or 10 years of insults that were still leading up to that so we don’t want to ignore those and only just remember the one thing that pushed you over the edge, cause there could still be other things in that bucket that could be more important. And if we really remove that, again we could definitely get into a lot of different areas of that, but heavy metals, that’s I think too what people missed.

Sarah:                Thinking of my own personal healing journey, as you said that, and my trigger that pushed me over the edge was a parasite that I contracted in India. But if you look back at my health history, there were a lot of other things that were stacking up and up and up and up, and then I have a parasite that just really, really screwed with my gut. So how do you go about discovering some of these triggers? So you said testing, health history, are there any other ways?

Brad:                  Yeah, I’m glad you said that. So really quick, let’s think of the body this way. It’s kind of interesting. There are about three to four areas of the body which have no protection for toxins. Now just think about what that means. We have four areas of our body toxins come in and if they get into that area, there’s really nothing that we can kind of do to prevent that. One of the top areas is your pineal gland, which actually secretes melatonin so it plays a role in sleep. So when you have horrible energy during the day and you can’t sleep at night, that a lot of times it can be a sign of a toxic trigger. Again, the posterior part of your pituitary gland, which are your hypothalamus, your pituitary, they’re the main control towers of your hormones. So those are areas that are definitely susceptible to toxins, but some of my favorites are like I kind of mentioned a good history really helps certain symptoms, whether it be sensitivity to light, changes in your mood, your sleep. It can really give us an indication whether we’re pointing towards more environmental exposure or something like heavy metals or something like parasites. One of my favorite tests to run which people can do, this is really inexpensive; can be done online, it’s called the visual contrast sensitivity test. It’s called the VCS test.

Another great test, I actually just learned this not too long ago, but the military has been using it since the 1940s and 1950s to identify they call it neurotoxic media illness, and what that basically means is, are your symptoms and your issues possibly be driven from some kind of toxic exposure? That’s a vision test that stands up in the court of law very easy. I believe it’s actually a VCStest.com is an area you can get it. It’s pretty inexpensive to do, and I believe there’s another one online where I think it’s [unclear; 28:00]the. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I’m not sure which one that is, but that’s another great test, just a place to start. The other thing I would kind of suggest people to do is you never start with toxins. You never start there. I always tell people you have to put the basics in place first. That support, the right nutrition supporting your body’s detox pathways, fix your deficiencies first really before you start diving down that road of toxins, because again, you want to have the right systems or the body prepared so you can really handle and push these detoxes out, because detox done the wrong way is when you get sick and for most people, until you actually starting to improve, you don’t want to start pulling toxins out of a body that can’t handle it.

Sarah:                That makes a lot of sense. I actually did that VCS test probably a year ago and mine was moderate to high, possible mold toxicity or toxic overload. So then in my own personal healing, I first worked on allowing some of the detox pathways in my body to work efficiently and effectively. And then I said, okay, now I’m going to actually detox those heavy metals out of this body, but firstly, make sure everything is working smoothly and correctly. So you mentioned nutritional aspect of that too. So it’s like getting your body kind of ready to detox. And then when we were talking before, you also mentioned that there’s a really important nutritional stuff that is missed in autoimmunity. Can you enlighten us on what that is?

Brad:                  I think the big thing that is missed and we jumped to nutrition, which again I’m all for, trust me. I’m not telling people not to do that. It’s essential. We jumped to detox, but let’s put it this way. When you’re sick and you have food allergies – I work with people that have food allergies and they show me their food allergy panel and they go, doc, I’m allergic to every food in the world – then the question becomes how do you use nutrition to heal if every food you’re eating is making you sick? It’s a tough question, isn’t it? And I think people are probably out there and that’s probably resonating with them, but I believe what it comes down to also – and hopefully nobody out there turns off your podcast – but I honestly think the missing link that people miss is fasting has to be a part of your healing protocol. I don’t care what you eat. Fasting has to be a part of it. I don’t care if that’s certain intermittent fasts, if that’s once a week, doing a little bit of a block fast, a quarterly fast. I truly do believe because one thing is to give our body time to heal. I mean, how amazing is this? Your gut lining is one of the fastest areas of our body that regenerates. Your skin, you get new skin on your arm every three to five days. Your heart, it takes usually about nine months for your body to develop a new heart. Your liver regenerates every six months, but your gut lining can repair every three to five days.

So sometimes, just the flat-out fact of avoiding food. Don’t feed a sick body. Give your time away from food, I think is really missed in kind of a natural health. I think it’s starting to get a little more popularity, but I’m going to tell you this. I wouldn’t be at where I was at today if I didn’t fast. I mean, I can remember specifically when I started working back in my office. I was about three to four weeks post basically after my stroke and that’s how fast I was back in my office and I would start my day. I had my smoothie, coconut milk, you name it – berries, temp seeds, really good food – and I was putting that in my body, and if I ever tried to eat before noon, I was in the bathroom throwing up.

So I went through this process where my body was just trying to tell me hey, don’t feed me, and I think that was so crucial. So I do think, obviously it’s important to work with somebody on this. You don’t want to just jump into fasting and just try a five day fast, but I really think people need to really look at that. I kind of joke, it’s the anti-nutrition meaning that when you’re sick… think about this. You feed your dog when your dog is sick, will your dog even attempt to eat? No, you feed it. What happens? It throws up. 80% of your body’s energy comes through the process of digesting, so if we can kind of calm that system down and let your body use that extra energy to heal and run bodily process of your body, I think it’s something that people really need to think serious about, for sure.

Sarah:                Yeah. It reminds me just like, you know, sympathetic versus parasympathetic nervous system and wanting more of that “rest and digest” state so your body can actually properly digest and provide growth and maintenance and healing to the body because it’s not using so much energy trying to digest more food. But at the same time, our immune system requires a lot of nutrients, so can you give an example of … I’ve done a little bit of the intermittent fasting. I’ve done a very gentle version of it and I’m happy to share that, but I’d love for you to share how you did it as well, just to give you the listeners an idea of what that can look like. Like you mentioned, there’s a lot of ways to do that. There certainly are, but in case no- one’s heard of intermittent fasting or fasting in general, can you give an example of what a day looks like?

Brad:                  Yeah, we’ll do like an easy, medium, and kind of hard. There’s some phenomenal research going out there right now, and actually I believe that the Institute of Natural Health, they just actually funded a company over a hundred million dollars. So they’re doing some really interesting research. It’s called the Fasting Mimicking Diet, and within five days mean they’re doing this. I mean, they have cases of MS reversing. They have some pretty phenomenal research going on in there and this isn’t a pure fast; it’s a mimicking fast. Let me walk you through some of the science too. When you eliminate food and you begin to move on about 12 to 16 hours of not eating – so let’s just say, you eat dinner and you skip breakfast – what happens is there’s this benefit of your body begins to burn off all the energy that’s there. Once that’s done, what your body can begin to do is utilize your fat stores for energy, and that’s really what people talk about intermittent fasting. There are some benefits obviously for letting your gut heal. There are some benefits as far as hormones and weight loss wise goes. You’re basically not eating for 12 to 16 hours, and then you’re keeping all the food you eat within a 12 to 8-hour window. What I would suggest that people who are listening today, possibly skipping breakfast is a good place to start. And what I even tell people too is if you’re new to fasting, let’s just say you eat your first meal at noon, you finish dinner by eight o’clock at night, so you’re getting in that eight-hour window of eating. What I also tell people, if you’re new to fasting, start your day with a little bit of tea. Use like a yerba mate, a green tea, a gotu kola tea and then I add a little bit of fat in there like a little bit of coconut oil, just some things that will maybe keep you and give you a little bit of energy, and so that should maybe keep you fuller to that noon point where you can actually break your fast and then kind of figure your intermittent fasting. So that’s kind of an entry way to start.

I always tell people, the other thing is do is what’s called a warrior fast, which is basically you eat a big dinner and then just don’t eat anything until the next day at dinner. Again, a little tougher, but I think for most people, that is a doable thing. And again, if it’s your first time fasting, do a little bit of tea during the day and add in healthy fat like coconut oil. Those are things that’ll give you a little energy that’ll help make you feel okay during the process. A lot of the research where we’re seeing a lot of the big benefits is around that three to five-day period of doing nothing. And what happens at that point, which is really unique is your body starts increasing what’s called our stem cells and stem cells are cells our body can really use to basically turn into anything, to help heal anything. And then around five days, we actually get this spike of what are called progenitor cells, and these cells are actually STEM cells for your brain so it’s really pretty fascinating. You hit this certain point of fasting and we know that your body begins to… It’s also called the ATG gene. Actually, the gentleman who actually just won a Nobel prize, I think it was in 2016 for his work on it, what’s called the ATG gene. What that is, is when your good cells begin to eat your bad cells, so think of Pac-Man. When your good cells begin to chew on your bad cells and use those, you begin to basically chew up these cells that aren’t working right, these cells that have the wrong DNA, these damaged cells, and we’re seeing a lot of immune system regeneration at that point.

So, again obviously kind of basic, intermediate and more advanced, but I always tell people, the one thing I always say is a lot of people miss as far as nutrition is a lot of times people eat less and I would actually suggest don’t necessarily eat less, but eat less often, and I think that’s huge. I think keeping people at two to three meals a day at most. Sometimes too, the more we’re eating constantly during the day, you’re constantly stimulating insulin. You’re constantly stimulating your cortisol levels, and for someone who’s trying to heal, I would really suggest they stick to two meals a day, two or three meals a day and I think they’re going to see better results as far as nutrition goes, too.

Sarah:                When I was doing it, I did the 8-hour window of eating like you mentioned. I would eat around 10:00 AM and then I’d be finished by 6:00 PM, and that worked pretty well for me. My question for you is – well, the way I did it and the way I read about doing it is that I did that for one to two weeks and then I stopped. Is there an amount of time, like you said, that warrior fast, people aren’t doing this for their entire life? They’re just doing it for how long?

Brad:                  Yeah. Good point. I mean, so think of this is intermittent fasting should be a tool in your toolbox to heal. Now guys are different than females with our hormones. So I pretty much intermittent fast tactically, maybe every day. Now I don’t always make it. Some days I do a 6-hour window of eating; some days, it’s an 8-hour window, but that’s my typical routine, and then usually quarterly I’ll do a three to five day fast every quarter. Now, what I would tell women to do is, and women are a little bit different about our hormones, women’s and men’s. I would kind of suggest that women can do as much as every other day. I don’t like women to do it all the time. I think you do need to break it, but I do like your kind of analogy. I always tell people the other thing to do is do it two, three days out of your week and then the rest of your day kind of eat normal. So, you can just implement that as normal.

And what I want to maybe bring up too is one of the things that I see people do wrong with intermittent fasting, if you’re doing intermittent fasting, sometimes what people do is they kind of skimp on their dinner. I’ve had people intermittent fast and they’ll show me their food log and they’ll be like, hey doc, l had a chicken breast, I ate some cauliflower, some broccoli. It was super clean and I’m like, okay, I don’t like that. And they are like, what do you mean? Where’s your fat? You need fat help keep you full. So I think the other thing is – trust me, I’m all about clean eating – but make sure that big meal before you go into your fast, that evening meal, it needs to be loaded with good fat, good protein and good carbohydrates, because if we don’t eat enough fat what’s going to happen is you’re going to run out of fuel until the next morning. The way I like to tell people this is if you think about your car as an analogy, a gram of protein or carbohydrate is like putting four to five gallons of gas in your car, but a molecule of fat is equal to nine and a half, so you’re getting double the energy from a molecule of fat, do don’t skip on those fats, especially in the evening. You need those to keep you full, and I think that’s a huge thing that people miss when they intermittent fast. They get hungry because they don’t have that fat to keep them full through that period.

Sarah:                Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I kind of just intuitively let my body guide me through it, where the first day was pretty hard cause I was waking up and eating first thing, and guilty of some of the after meal, after dinner snacks and everything. So like you said, it was like my body was working all throughout the day using insulin and trying to digest all throughout the day and then going to that period of IF. Intermittent fasting was at first challenging, but then I listened to my body and I started having a bigger dinner and I love my coconut oil, my avocado oil and avocados, those fats and so then it became actually really easy. It just was just a modification to the way I was eating before, and you’ve inspired me to actually go and do it again because it’s been a while since I’ve done any sort of period of time of the intermittent fasting. But I do remember that I had energy, my skin cleared up, my digestion was amazing so I was seeing a lot of the benefits of it when I was doing it.

Brad:                  Yeah. Well, for people who are just starting, it can take two to three weeks to kind of adapt because our bodies, if you’re not used to your body utilizing fat for energy, it does take some time for your body to get used to it. So, again be patient with the process. Don’t stress yourself out too much about it. The other thing I would say, if you really struggle with it, like I mentioned start your morning with some healthy tea, avocado oil, coconut oil, MCT oil in the morning. The other thing I didn’t mentioned too is that you can also do that helps is I like telling people to do chamomile tea before bed, a little bit of coconut, a little bit of avocado oil. Sometimes having that right before bed will help.

My other strategy I’ll give people that will really help is if you’re taking vitamin D and most people probably should be taking vitamin D, especially if they have autoimmune conditions. I would suggest before bed, if you’re doing a little bit of tea, you’re doing a little bit of coconut oil or MCT oil, add a dose of vitamin D right before bed. Vitamin D is a precursor for hormones and vitamin D also makes something what’s called DHEA, and DHEA is a mediator for our immune system. So a little bit of that with a little bit of tea before bed at night, a little bit of vitamin D. I know a lot of women and a lot of guys I work with too, I can see that really jump up your energy first thing in the morning, so that’s kind of a nice strategy too that if you’re kind of struggling waking up intermittent fasting and you find yourself crazy hungry, it usually means you messed up dinner, not your breakfast.

Sarah:                Yeah, definitely. Well, you clearly have tons of knowledge and wisdom and the personal experience on autoimmune and chronic illness and all these healing modalities, which I appreciate you so much for sharing, but you also have now combined a lot of experts to come together. This upcoming summit called the Autoimmune Paradox Summit, which I will also be speaking at. Can you share with our listeners what that is all about? What inspired you to create this summit?

Brad:                  Yeah, a lot of my inspiration on the summit and kind of what I named the summit is we call it the Autoimmune Paradox Summit. And I think why it’s so fitting for autoimmunity is because … let’s go back to the… I know you like your visual examples and I’m with you. I love them too. I think we talk about autoimmunity. I always kind of joke if you imagine two people in a cave or two cavemen sitting there hitting sticks and stones together, trying to create fire. That’s about how well I think that medicine and a lot of people understand auto-immune and whether you have an autoimmune problem. So, the Autoimmune Paradox and kind of what I figured it is is that people suffer with … sometimes even bloodwork is normal for years before they get answers.

So, what I really want to do with a lot of our speakers – we have over 42 speakers – speaking all the way from understanding about your stool and what your poop tells you. Obviously, you talking about emotional issues. We have experts talking about heavy metal and mold, parasites, Epstein-Barr, also just basic nutrition, intermittent fasting. I really want to make sure that the basics of auto-immune were covered because at the end of the day, if you don’t have the right fundamentals in place, some of the advanced strategies I see people do, the reason why they’re not getting results is because they’re still missing pieces of the basics, and so I think that foundation’s has got to be put in place. So, a lot of my thought behind the summit is making sure that people had those basic points, but also to bringing together people in the area. There’s a lot of great emerging science. One of our speakers who’s speaking, there’s some new testing today that can map basically every single bacteria of your gut and they can spit out a food recommendation unique to your bacteria in your gut, so there’s some real cool things that are happening in the world of autoimmune, where we’re trying to understand it better and just helps shorten the curve for people to get well, unlike anything before. So, a lot of tools we try to bring together are things that I wish I would have learned in my healing journey would have been available for sure.

Sarah:                Yeah. Well, I want to just thank you for your knowledge and your time, and I’m sure there’s a lot more in there. So, is there anything that we missed today that you’d love to share with the audience?

Brad:                  Yeah. I would say the only other thing I think that is important for people to wrap their head around is that – I think we said this earlier – your health is a journey and don’t push away from it; push into it. I think the great news is unlike any other time today, I truly believe that there is no better time to live with the disease, because there is so many answers and so many solutions out there. So find people that inspire you, partner with people who think like you do, who could support you and get a part of a community can really help you grow because there are answers like never before.

Sarah:                Yeah. Yeah. Thank you again so much. So how can people find you, work with you, and listen to the Summit?

Brad:                  The best place for people to connect with me is probably on my website at drbradgorski.com. Easier than it sounds. Doctor is Dr and then Brad is BRAD and Gorski is GORSKI.com. And then also too the Autoimmune Paradox Summit. And that’s exactly what that is. dot com. So the autoimmuneparadoxsummit.com. They can register for free for our speakers. That all launches October 1st, always a great place to connect with us too.

Sarah:                Awesome. Thank you again for your time today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Brad:                  Absolutely. Well, thanks so much for what you’re doing, Sarah. Obviously to this, I think this topic of Healing Uncensored. I was actually thinking about this before we started. I could have even maybe sworn a couple of times, but I decided not to.

Sarah:                Well, actually we love the cuss words over here.

Brad:                  One of my mentors I think I mentioned to you earlier, who was a real inspiration, when he beat cancer. He was cancer free for over eight years. And when I was going through my healing journey, I would call him and he would just tell me, you’re going to get an education. I can’t tell you how to heal because this is new. I feel like you’re going to have to pioneer this and really figure some things out yourself. But what he used to always tell me too, as you would say, at the end of the day, just get shit done. So there we go.

Sarah:                My – now he’s my fiancé, when he does that get shit done, he goes, hey honey, GSD. Get shit done.

Brad:                  There you go. So obviously people are out there I would just encourage them to just keep moving, keep taking steps, keep taking steps. I took a lot of steps that weren’t right, but I’m telling you what I learned. I learned, I learned and so it’s part of that process.

Sarah:                Yeah. Thank you just for being that hope and that inspiration. I appreciate you so much and for putting together this Summit as well. I hope everyone takes a listen because there’s so much value there and a lot of potential missing links of peoples’ healing as well. So thank you again, Brad.

Brad:                  Thanks so much for having me.

Sarah:                Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today. I hope that after each one of these episodes of the Healing Uncensored podcast that you leave feeling inspired, having an a-ha moment, feeling like there’s something new that you learned or a new aspect of your healing that you’re inspired to implement. That’s what this podcast is about, everything that you don’t hear at your doctor’s office. These new perspectives, new ways of thinking, using your intuition and diving deeper into the layers, the deeper layers of healing, healing on a soul level. If you have felt inspired by this podcast or find it valuable, I would love for you to share it with people in your life who might also benefit and it would mean so much to me if you went to iTunes and left us a five-star review. That way can get into the ears of more people. We can spread this message of healing in a different, alternative way that so many of us have seen so much transformations from. Thank you again for listening. Don’t forget to sign up for the Autoimmune Paradox Summit. My conversation with Brad was so much fun. Can’t wait for you guys to hear that conversation as well, and I will see you next time.

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