29. Lyme Disease Treatment Isn't Working? Mold Might Be Why. With Joia Mattheson MS, CNS

You did everything right.

You pushed for testing when your doctors wanted to wait. You found a Lyme-literate practitioner. You went through the antibiotics, got through the rough stretch of feeling worse before better, and slowly started to climb back toward yourself. Months later, you're about 80% recovered.

And then you stalled.

If that sounds familiar, this episode is worth your full attention.

Joia Mattheson is a functional nutritionist, a licensed dietitian, and a former civil engineer who brought both analytical precision and hard-earned personal experience to this conversation. She came to Dr. Su with a genuinely complex picture: Lyme disease, Bartonella, reactivated Epstein-Barr virus, multiple coinfections, a hemochromatosis carrier gene, and a clotting factor variant. She had seen urgent care, primary care, an integrative rheumatologist, a naturopath, and a Lyme-literate doctor. She had done more research than most practitioners ever will.

And nobody had seriously looked at her home yet.

Her ERMI environmental test came back with a HERTSMI-2 score of 38. The highest Dr. Su had seen in two years.

What you'll hear in this episode:

In this real, unscripted consultation, Dr. Su walks through Joia's full case live, including labs she uploaded the morning of the recording. You'll hear him explain his three-category framework for organizing complex chronic illness, bugs and toxins, self, and interfaces, and how he uses that structure to figure out what to address first when five or more root causes are all present at the same time.

He explains why mold related illness so often becomes the missing piece for patients who have already done significant Lyme treatment, why mycotoxins can suppress the immune system in ways that make every other infection harder to clear, and why removing yourself from a toxic environment can sometimes be the fastest single move you can make toward getting the rest of the way well.

You'll also hear an honest conversation about what it feels like to be a knowledgeable patient navigating a system that still doesn't agree on how to interpret a Western blot, what it means when your cholesterol suddenly spikes during a mold exposure, and why fatigue and brain fog are almost always the very last symptoms to resolve, no matter how well the rest of treatment is going.

This is what root-cause medicine actually looks like. A real patient, real labs, real clinical reasoning, and no scripts.

Key moments in this episode:

• Why a positive Western blot got called a false positive, and what that cost Joia in time and treatment
• Dr. Su's three-category framework for complex chronic illness and how to use it to find your sequence
• What a HERTSMI-2 score of 38 means and why it shifted the entire conversation
• The "two for one" argument for addressing mold before continuing Lyme treatment
• Why fatigue and brain fog are predictably the last things to improve, and what that means for your expectations
• Mycotoxin binders: the options Dr. Su actually uses, from prescription cholestyramine to CellCore and beyond
• Treating fungus inside the body: the antifungal regimen Dr. Su reaches for most often
• Reactivated Epstein-Barr virus as a long-term sequencing consideration, not a front-end priority
• Hemochromatosis carrier status and iron overload as a quiet background player in chronic illness

About Joia Mattheson MS, CNS, LDN

Joia Mattheson is a Certified Nutrition Specialist and Licensed Dietitian Nutritionist with a background in civil engineering and a deep personal history with complex chronic illness. She runs her own functional nutrition practice, Joia Health, where she works one-to-one with clients navigating their own root-cause healing journeys. She is now accepting new patients.

Website: joiahealth.co
Instagram: @joiahealth
Email: hello@joiahealth.co

Connect with Dr. Su and RootSeek Health:

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Transcript

Dr. Mark Su 0:09

I'm

Podcast Mission And Setup

Dr. Mark Su 0:10

Dr. Mark2 and welcome to the Fox Medicine Reality Podcast. Join me and our community weekly as we bring you unfiltered health from information to longevity, real stories, real people, real solutions. Experience real life health focus from both patients and practitioners. And learn how to turn cutting-edge information into real results in your own life so you can feel better, live longer, live healthier, and be confident and clear in your healthcare choices. Let's get real and get results. All right, hi everybody. Welcome again to the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast. This today is one of our sessions with a with a patient interview. And again, as a reminder, our intention with these, which we conduct once every five recordings, every five podcast sessions as a rotation, is threefold. Number one, we are looking to demonstrate live time for folks what it's like to work with somebody in the functional medicine arena and specifically through uh RootSeq in our virtual practice. Not all practitioners are the same, obviously, but we take a particular kind of approach, and so we like to try to um demonstrate things for people because the the sort of thinking and the communications and the experience with people because we all know what we're told or even as referred by a friend to somebody that who is touted to be like the best thing since sliced bread, but then we get in the visit and it's not what we expected, and so you don't know what you get until you're there. And so here's our attempt to try to open the curtain a little bit for folks. All right. So number two is it is a free consultation for the individual in Joy's shoe, who's joining us today, so I'll introduce in a second here. So free is pretty cool. And then whether it's a first consultation or if it's a second opinion, if you will, et cetera, it doesn't matter. Free is free. And then thirdly, and lastly, is um a lot of folks who find their way, find healing in their journey through these functional medicine routes really appreciate the opportunity to pay it forward for other people and oftentimes like be a voice for the people who are struggling and don't even know about options and they're kind of in the dark or et cetera. It's an opportunity for the person in Joy's shoe and other um past and future patients who will interview on on these podcasts to be able to pave it forward in some kind of way or another as well. So that being said, Joy, thanks for joining us. Thanks for being willing to share your story. And as always, as I've we said just before we jumped on, we have not chatted, we've not done this before, we have not had any visits together yet. This is a first time you did upload some information for us, so thank you very much, including some labs, which we do routinely with Root Seek, as much as what people want to provide us. So thank you for providing all that and thanks for playing, as some people might say. Participating, being a player. But I think we have some really meaty stuff to jump into. So let's just get into it. If that's okay, okay, let's do it. So I said ahead of time, um, if it's okay, could you just share with me or share with folks like your your professional background because it there's a lot of overlap here, so whether a little bit in the past, but also more recently, you know, the last handful of years and how you got into what you're doing now.

Joy’s Shift From Engineering

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I am a nutritionist, I'm a certified nutrition specialist and a licensed dietitian nutritionist. And yeah, I kind of call myself like a functional nutritionist because I did do my clinical hours with a a functional doctor. So definitely really like passionate about that world. I actually I own my own nutrition practice called Joy at Health. And I uh got into it because of my own health, like I think a lot of us do. Um but yeah, so I was actually I went to undergrad for engineering. And yeah, so very different.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

That's pretty different.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, very different. So I was a civil engineer for a few like four years. Um yeah, very, very different. I actually did a nutrition class in undergrad and I almost changed my major, but I had got some advice from family that they were like, Oh, you're just gonna be putting tubes in people in the hospital. Like, what are you gonna do with that? So I didn't go down that, didn't really know a lot about it, but I was always interested in it. And then I think after college, just having some of my own like health issues that I couldn't really figure out, I just like dove into it myself and just started like researching. Um and then during COVID, when I was working from home, I just had more time on my hands and decided to do a health coaching certification. Um, so I did that, got, you know, my knowledge a little bit deeper there, um, and just really loved it and loved like the one-to-one interaction. Like it was very different and felt a lot more fulfilling than like, you know, being in a cubicle doing engineering uh stormwater design.

Dr. Mark Su 4:51

Um what stormwater?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Water, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 4:54

I don't know, just on a snapshot, like what does that mean? Original commercial, residential, it was basically commercial.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, it was commercial. It was like designing basically where the water goes if there's like like basically you have to design when you're building a new building, like you have to design plan for like the heaviest flood that is likely to happen. Usually it's like in a hundred years. So you have to like basically simulate and like calculate where that water is gonna go, basically.

Dr. Mark Su 5:22

No, I'm asking for a reason for it, okay? This isn't just random. Yeah, I now tell me when you say that, okay, and you already know where I'm going with this down the road. Okay, we'll bring up full circle later. But yeah, you're talking about uh for a commercial building, if there's a flood in the town, let's say, yeah, then your your your job was to like design where does the water from the outside of the building go? Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, so basically, like because when you build something, like you're putting down a building and then pavement that's non-permeable. So you have to like counteract that, counteract the space that you're taking away for rain to naturally absorb into the earth with like storm water management. So yeah, it's basically just to avoid flooding.

Dr. Mark Su 6:03

Yeah, but the goal, the goal is to avoid flooding of the outside of the building.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, or just the building, also just like the the rest of the city. So yeah, basically, because like say you're taking a field and then you're putting a building on it, like that field before was this whole like square footage that was taking water into it naturally. So it's like natural stormwater management, right? Is like okay, any natural land. But as soon as you're like building, building, building and everything is like paved, so it's the rain just can't go into it, it has nowhere to go, basically.

Dr. Mark Su 6:36

So you have to but it sounds like it's more about the outside of the building management than it is inside.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah, yeah. It's more about the outside.

Dr. Mark Su 6:43

That's what I'm after.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

It's more about like big picture, like not causing floods and like, you know, mudslides in the more for more for like the the the town at large. Yeah, exactly. Right, yeah, not not for the inside. Yeah, I didn't do anything to do with the inside. Yeah. So you're probably thinking about like molds and stuff like that. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 7:03

That's so that's that's that's like the little egg teaser if you didn't even realize. So yeah. So first of all, like look, okay, so we already know, I already know you're super smart because you're an engineer, okay? And then you're a civil engineer, all right? And then and then you like shift gears. And so um I'm tempted to ask you how you find um nutri work and nutrition and uh in healthcare, I guess I'll call it, right? Healthcare specific, you know, more broadly, and engineering to be similar or not, but I'm gonna shut that down in my head and just move forward.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 7:36

Maybe another time.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Okay, that sounds good.

Dr. Mark Su 7:38

Um They're pretty different, I would say. Over drinks kind of over drinks kind of conversation, you know? Yeah. But stuff, reflections. Okay, so why don't we just jump in, okay? Um so one uh can you can you go ahead and just summarize a little bit briefly about like what you gave me um in the uploaded information already as to so um how many years ago or you know, it's the best that you can say that you started feeling unwell and what that look like as a snapshot, you know, looking back and um and then kind of fast forwarding between then and now, uh what's what's evolved?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah, I mean, hard to say. I think I've always, like as long as I can remember, had different things, but the more acute issues that have been like, okay, I'm really not functioning now has started in September. So I basically just of last year? Yeah, just uh this past September.

Dr. Mark Su 8:54

Okay, September 2025. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah. Um, so yeah, it was just like a huge sudden decline. Like I thought I had the flu, but then it just didn't go away, kind of thing. So I was just, you know, like my body felt like it was made of lead, had

Sudden Crash And Lyme Confusion

SPEAKER_01 9:08

no energy, could barely go for a walk without just like feeling like a ton of pain and um, you know, just like could not function at all. And yeah, heart palpitations, like really bad neck stiffness. Like I was only really comfortable lying down with my necks ported. Like even just sitting upright was like very painful.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

So yeah, it was just like, what the hell is going on? And um, so I went to the doctor obviously and like tested negative for COVID flu strep. Um, was told to go home, you know, wait it out. A couple more weeks go by, went back, and they did order a western blot and some other stuff, had a positive western blot.

Dr. Mark Su 9:50

So we're talking about western blot of um Lyme disease.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, right. So I had a positive one, but then the next doctor I saw after that was like, that's a false positive. Like, that's not even positive. Like, we should look at like they're not even supposed to order that first, because you know, like the CDC usually has the order Lyme antibody. Um, and at that time I still I like didn't want to believe I had Lyme. So I think I was like, okay, like usually I question things a lot and like but I think I was kind of going along with that because I didn't really want to believe that that was happening, maybe. So the next Western blot was like C D C negative, so I kind of like ruled that out.

Dr. Mark Su 10:27

So you've had three, you had three Western blots.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, at least.

Dr. Mark Su 10:30

I think if I might I mean uh in that early phase.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah, yeah. So they were all they all had positive bands, and basically what I learned down the line was that they were all they all had Lyme specific positive bands, but only that first one was like CDC positive. But yeah, so basically months go by where I'm still not feeling any better.

Dr. Mark Su 10:52

And may I ask briefly, um, were they three different practitioners who ordered those three tests or different or same ones?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah, so they yeah. It was it's like the it's kind of like a primary care clinic where you see somebody different every time. Like it's an urgent care, primary care hybrid type thing. So it wasn't really like Well, I'm sorry.

Dr. Mark Su 11:09

I guess what I mean is um b the three tests you had done with they weren't ordered by the same practice, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

They were the same practice, yeah. Oh, they were you you had I had two by the same by the first practice, which was like an urgent care type place.

Dr. Mark Su 11:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Then I ended up finding like an integrative rheumatologist, and they actually told me they were like, Okay, we you do have Lyme, this was positive. And I still kind of didn't want to believe it.

Dr. Mark Su 11:34

That was one of the one of the first three tests you had done?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah, that was the third one. So the third one was by the rheumatologist, and they also tested me for Bartonella. That one was also positive.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

So then I was kind of like, okay, seems like this is what's going on. I also in between that time I had seen um I'd gone to like a naturopath student clinic. So obviously, like, you know, their students practicing. He thought I had reactivated mono, which was also another thing that I was kind of like that was the thing I could compare it to most was when I I had mono in college. I was like, I did, okay. It's so similar. And my EBV antibodies are high, but obviously that wasn't like that might be part of the picture, but it wasn't like the only thing going on. So I was taking like antivirals and um, you know, humic acid and monourin and wasn't really helping. So then I kind of figured out, okay, I do have Lyme, and then I found like a Lyme literate doctor and went on antibiotics and herbals and in this case you mean um because humic acid and monolaurin, because a lot of people don't know, those are you know non-prescription nutraceuticals, and then the um and then when you say antibiotics, you're talking about prescriptions now. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 12:48

So combination of prescriptions and herbal antimicrobial herbal antibiotics, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yeah. I was also taking like an antiviral for a while, valclovir.

Dr. Mark Su 12:57

So that's prescription, sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 12:59

For the Epstein Barr monovirus topic.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, yeah. Um I'm not sure if that really helped, but um, so yeah, I was on antibiotics for a while. I felt like I was hit by a bus when I first started the antibiotics, like I actually felt a lot worse, but then slowly started to get better. Doing a lot better. It's been like months on antibiotics now.

Dr. Mark Su 13:21

And so overall, can you tell me like with those being on with the months on the antibiotic regimen, you know, both pharma, non-pharma, etc., overall after you got past that first hump of feeling worse, what's the overall sort of net outcome?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

A lot better. Like probably 90% better because I was at like zero, I feel like. I was like totally could not do anything, not functioning. Now I'm like fairly, I mean, maybe not 90%, maybe like 80%. I don't know.

Dr. Mark Su 13:47

Yeah, but meaningful. It's meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

But yeah, like I can go for long walks, no problem. I've started to like exercise again. Um, I'm able to work, I'm able to do most things, but um, I still am like, you know, nervous to travel, nervous to like push myself at all. Um just still like fatigued, brain fog, still some muscle and joint pain. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.

Dr. Mark Su 14:11

Yeah. No, thanks. That's a good sorry, and as I was gonna ask you, um, if you can highlight what so you kind of just did right there, but just in case, if you don't mind, what what are the say top three challenges for you at this point symptomatically?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, I'd say at this point, like fatigue, some muscle and joint pain, I kind of notice it most in like the morning and at night. And then like some of those crashes where like I would get them, I got them really bad before I was treating this at all, where like I would walk around the block and then I would feel like I don't know how to describe it, but just like my body was like breaking down and like failing. And I still I do get that occasionally if I like push it too far. But like it takes a lot that threshold is a lot higher, but I still do get that sometimes. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 14:55

So if I could respectfully compartmentalize that under symptom one with fatigue, it's just more like acute fatigue episodically. Um and then number two is like the aches and pains. Then um do you have a brain fog number three?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, I would say like brain fog and like cognitive things. I just notice like I can't recall words or like things that I know and stuff like that. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 15:19

Okay. So first of all, thanks for sharing that, and that's um rather concise because a lot of times these stories get really complicated.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 15:26

Um part of it, um not to minimize it all, but part of it is um your story that you shared here is since September 2025, as opposed to say September 2017 or you know, a lot of years. So thankfully, you know, for me right off the bat, just to share, you know, my initial responses, I'm thinking the very first thing is when a person tells me, you know, that the timeline of how long that's been going on is this relatively short. I mean, uh it's not to minimize it, but it's just relative to a lot of other people when it's this short, like that's a good prognosis. All right. That's a good sign for good potential of faster turnaround. The second thing that um similarly related in my mind is um I actually didn't look intentionally uh or uh in detail at um how old you are, but you're a young person, all right?

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah, 28.

Dr. Mark Su 16:13

On the spectral things, you're a young person, and that always bodes well for people, all right? It's not a guarantee, right? If you got someone who's say seven and autistic, I mean, okay, they're young at seven, but autism's tough, right? But generally speaking, um, the younger the person, then the cleaner their body and terrain is, if you will. As I like to say to people, we just haven't lived long enough to accumulate more inflammation, bugs, toxins, etc., that it's inevitable that we all do.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah. Um, I guess I did kind of leave out another part of the story, if I should recap that too. The other element is that I sent you my ermie that I just got back this morning. Did you see that?

Dr. Mark Su 16:52

Yeah, I did, I did.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah. So the other thing is like I've been in this apartment for almost five years. It's not like there's no obvious issues, but it it was built in like the 50s. Um and you know, we live like a mile from the beach, so there has been certain mold issues. I do feel like I kind of intuitively noticed some symptoms since like we first started living here. Like my insomnia got a bit worse

Apartment Clues Pointing To Mold

SPEAKER_01 17:18

and I would get rashes in the winter, um, which I never really had before. Um, and I kind of had in the back of my mind, like maybe it's a mold issue, but I like our I liked our apartment so much I didn't want to move.

Dr. Mark Su 17:31

Explain real about that, because I mean that's that's real, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 17:34

It's like it's like how many people is like, I I know I've been better off without gluten, but like I don't know if I can really be gluten-free.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Mark Su 17:41

I know you told me not to eat the dairy, but like I can't stop not eating ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

The cheese, it's too good.

Dr. Mark Su 17:46

Or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, so like I just never tested it or anything until now, where I'm like, okay, I'm at the point where I'm like, I'll do whatever needs to be done. If we need to move, so be it. So, and there was a more recent issue too, where there we found out there was leaks, there was cracks in our bathtub that was leaking below the tub. And there we got mold inspector, they're tested it, and there was kaydomium, aspergillus, and penicillin, penicillin under there. And now we're renting, so like the landlord doesn't really want to do everything that needs to be done, obviously. So yeah, and that leak has probably been going on for a long time. Um, and we've also had some like moisture issues. The first year we moved in, it was a really wet winter and we didn't have heating um because it's like San Diego. The landlord was like, Oh, you don't really need heating. But it was kind of a chilly year. So we had we had like little electric heaters, but there was just a lot of condensation on like the walls and windows because how wet it was, and there did there was some mold like growing on the walls basically.

Dr. Mark Su 18:56

So you could see something, you could see something suspicious.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah, so we like basically cleaned it and dealt with it ourselves and did come back like to a lesser degree the following year, then didn't come back. So it kind of depends on like the weather and you mean the visual stuff could come and go? Yeah, like it would come.

Dr. Mark Su 19:13

Without you guys cleaning it?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

No, uh we cleaned it, like really thoroughly, but then it it came back the following winter.

Dr. Mark Su 19:19

Yeah, got it.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Because of just like the humidity, I think, which I I never like paid attention to how humid it was inside.

Dr. Mark Su 19:27

Now I have like little humidity monitors, but um Yeah, because I mean, you know, you so you just since you've since you've stated where you where you are in the country, you know, being San Diego, like that's not a uh, you know, reputationally or stereotypically, that's a it's a pretty very it's one of the might possibly one of the most temperate climates in in the country in terms of year one, right? It's like every day is sunny in mid-70s or something like that, right? I mean, yeah. People aren't thinking San Diego equals humidity. Uh although those of those people who are in San Diego know, like, well, it depends on which of the three areas of San Diego you're in, like around the shore, in the mountains in between, right? So I don't know that for sure. But uh but if you can back up a second, I'm curious, uh I'm really curious about your comment there about uh hey, even from the first time we moved in, I was kind of suspicious, right? Um, or you said I kind of wondered even before testing all this time. And so you you've you voiced that one of those reasons for suspicion was something like rash and sleep troubles, right? And and I'm kind of interpreting that to mean, hey, it wasn't like, yeah, I'm not crashing, I'm not dysfunctional, I'm not intensely symptomatic, but it's just not right, right? And then and but again, it's easy to kind of just keep on moving, right, in life because it's not holding you back. But was there anything else besides you know these small symptoms? Or is it just, would you just say it was like an intuition, or was it something about smell, or did you or did you actually at that time even know about mold-related illness as a condition? And is that did that play a f a role in why you had a suspicion about it?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Or yeah, I mean, I knew about it. Um because I was like in school and working at like a functional clinic at that time. So I definitely like saw patients who had that, but I never thought about it as something that affected me because I feel like it's one of those things that like you're like, okay, other people are sensitive, and like that's a very specific issue. But I mean, it is true that like most people can probably tolerate a certain amount of mold because it's like everywhere, um, and have no issues. So I just kind of was like chose not to believe that I was one of those people that had problems with it because we like so the first winter we moved in, we'd we'd had the visual mold issue that we like cleaned and took care of and everything. But so I knew that there was mold, but I just was kind of like, it's probably not really a problem. Like it's just, you know, we live in a coastal area, just kind of happened, but in the back of my mind, I was like, could this insomnia and like rashes be connected to that? So I was just kind of like in the back of my mind because I had seen that it was there, but I didn't know like how extensive it was or anything.

Dr. Mark Su 21:59

So if it's okay with you, I'd I'd love to just pause just for one second and sort of um well I I said prior to us jumping on, but I'll say it again, yeah. So I, you know, truly I'm I'm sorry we've had to go through all this stuff um with a lot of the symptoms you've had. I mean, you know, you're you're young, you're living a vibrant life, you're obviously brilliant being an engineer, all right, and then now Like, okay, things kind of fell apart, right? And it's and it kind of feels for a lot of people, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you'd feel the same. Like a lot of people are like, this isn't fair. I I it's not my fault.

Validating Complexity And Frustration

Dr. Mark Su 22:30

What I do deserve this, a lot of that kind of thing. Then you throw on top of that, you didn't really describe this way, but uh and maybe part of this is because um, you know, maybe you're just bright and educated enough that you are I guess, especially as an engineer, I'm being stereotypical here, but um, you know, looking at being able to sort of like um think about things methodically and analytically, and maybe you can step back from it and kind of go, okay, so hey, let's just attack this kind of methodically, if you will, or you know. But um, but hey, look, when you tell me when you tell me that you were tested three times for Lyme disease up front, yeah, and given three effectively three different interpretations, okay, or like, I mean, um the far majority of people from my experience, they're just like, what the frick? Do I have it or do I not? Like, right? And also, like, what is going on with the system here? Like, how come you guys can't agree and why is it so complicated or confusing, right? And then you throw on top of that someone else, like, yeah, and you got chronic or reactivated mono with EBB. Like, well, that makes sense because it feels the same, but then what about the Lyme? You know, what what what is it? Is it Lyme? Is it mono? Right? And then you threw in, oh yeah, and then there's a Bartonella's like, what the heck is Bartonella? And like, what's that about, right? So there's a I mean, you you were faced, you know, I'm I'm reflecting that in observation and validating for you, you were faced with this complexity kind of quickly, okay? And I and I'm not shading that. I'm actually uh, you know, this is just the reality of what happens with, especially with this kind of scenario with your particular set of symptoms. And for people, for practitioners who look at multiple topics at one time, which is kind of more our our approach, you know, at RootSeek, it doesn't have to be, but it's our default. Now it it does introduce the potential of quite a lot of confusion and certainly a lot of questions. Okay. And my guess is, again, being an engineer and um having some background in this and having seen it, you know, as a in the healthcare profession, you know, both in your training and in your own profession now, you know, in your own work, I should say, with your own clients, um, my suspicion is that um, okay, you can glide through it a little bit easier than other people, because I think a lot of people, when they're thrown Lyme question mark three times and then Bartonella and Mono, and then now you throw in there the mold thing, a lot of people are kind of like deer in the headlights and going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, oh my God, I I'm so lost, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 24:46

It's very does that relate at all, or are you like, no, actually, I didn't feel that way.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

No, I definitely did feel that way. Like I was really confused, really frustrated, really like angry also when I figured out that it was Lyme. And I, you know, it's been months that I could have been treating it when I, you know, from when I tested positive to when it was actually like confirmed because of the doctor who said it's a false positive. Yeah, it's really confusing and it's it's unfortunate that you have to like really advocate for yourself. Like I feel like I had to become an expert on it myself just to like treat, you know, get the right treatment because nobody seems to be in agreement about it for some reason.

Dr. Mark Su 25:28

Yeah. And I think we we could, for your sake especially, and for the sake of making this a higher yield uh experience for yourself, we won't get into unless you want to. It's up totally up to you if you want to. Um, but yeah, those those nuances about interpretations of different tests, like each each item you threw out there, all right. Um between Lyme disease, Bartonella, mono, and mold-related illness. I like to call it mold-related illness. Some people just call it mold, but I'd be a little technical there. So we got I think f I think I counted five there, all right? Five sort of sub-diagnoses or contributing root causes, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:03

There's even more actually.

Dr. Mark Su 26:05

Oh, I know there's more, I know. I know there's more. But you know, right off the bat, we're looking at like, okay, so this is a great example for me. You know, it's just a another scenario where a lot of times when we come across stuff on whether social media, podcasts, or whatever, people are always regularly talking about um look for the root cause, look for the root cause, look for the root cause, right? Well, you know, two questions come up inherently in what we're talking about here. Either number one is like, well, which one is it? Right? A lot of people are gonna ask that. You may not as much because you because I think because of your kind of uh training both as an engineer and then now, you know, in the healthcare world, much less in functional medicine world, it's a little more it's easier for you to adapt. I'm pretty confident, you know, to recognizing, okay, it's not it's n commonly not just one thing, right? There's a multifactorial issue. And um the difficulty becomes, well, which ones are the bigger dog players, which ones are playing more of a role. In your story, you know, sort of I have the benefit here, you know, as a sort of in retrospect where you you tell you say, Yeah, I got 80% better treating the Lyme topic. Okay, well, obviously in hindsight, that was a big player, obviously, right? But if if we were starting with new at the months ago and looking at these five or six more topics, how does one really decide, you know, which one to because you can't do everything at once. But we're not gonna we're not gonna just, you know, talk through that for for the sake of exercising for fun, because that's not important for you. So but but it is a you know, for you and I as professionally s we're in the same realm, you know, the same arena. Um that is that is an issue. That's a that's a real challenge, no doubt.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Yeah, nailing down like what is the main problem.

Dr. Mark Su 27:39

But yeah, waiting start, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Yeah, yeah, because I think Yeah, it's definitely multifactorial. And that's you know, I think you just realize that working in healthcare too, most things are, but especially with this kind of stuff, it's like all of them are working together and kind of affecting your immune system together. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense that you have to do it all together in a way.

Dr. Mark Su 28:02

So let me let me ask you here as we kind of uh move this towards trying to put this into actions plan for you. Okay. Uh you move in that direction. Next question here is what kind of so you've talked about your bigger symptom challenges, right? Fatigue, pain, and um brain fog. And um let me just say this now before in case I forget later. It's not like this is guaranteed for everybody, but I'm but it's pretty predictable from my experience over a lot of years that fatigue and brain fog are commonly the last two things to go.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Mark Su 28:32

They're commonly the last two things that improve enough or resolve, right? If if a person starts out with 20 symptoms, and for anybody who might think that's crazy, that's you and I know that's not that terribly uncommon when you know they're just often suffering in silence because everyone else thinks they're crazy. But, you know, if you if someone starts out with 20 symptoms, I'm gonna put my money heavily, you know, bet on the last two, they're gonna be the last bastions and holding out, you know, putting up the fight last, it's gonna be fatigue at wing fog. So, you know, if we were to, if we were to take the time here and list out other symptoms you had or have, you know, it doesn't surprise me at all. Bottom line is it doesn't shock me at all that of your three top symptoms, fatigue and brain fog are in those top three. All right. Um, but aside from that, what kind of top end questions do you have right now for, you know, to help yourself move further in the healing journey? Yeah. Either to clarify like confusion and questions you've had to date, and or questions right now with um, you know, data that you have, et cetera, and or what you're doing for treatment to move forward?

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah. Um, so I guess one thing I'm nervous about is just coming off of antibiotics because I've been on them for months now and planning to come off them like this month or in the next month. So yeah, just like what else I can be doing, you know, with like herbs or supplements and treatments that

Coming Off Antibiotics And Next Priorities

SPEAKER_01 29:56

can hopefully make sure that goes smoothly and that my symptoms don't come back and rebound. And then yeah, my other questions are like you know, I've been treating the Lyme and bacterial infections. I didn't mention I also tested positive for strep and brucella and ricosis, and those have like been positive from December to now. So I don't know if those are like they're not going down with antibiotics or what. But yeah, so like I've been focused on those infections and now the mold is more top of mind and just figuring out what to do with that, do about that. Like I'm leaning towards moving at this point because I got the ERMI back and it was pretty high. And I just think, you know, if it's just one more assault on my immune system, I don't really want to risk that. But also just like, do I need to get rid of everything? Do I need to like if should I be looking for only new builds? Yeah, just kind of your opinion on all that too.

Dr. Mark Su 30:50

Okay. Thanks for that. Yeah. Um, well, so with that, with that in context now, are you okay if I sort of spout a more at the at the risk of coming across a little rash or quick to judge or impulsive? But having looked over the info you've provided me and then the information you just gave me right now, this is sort of like a first first draft thought and response as far as um where you're at now and where to go forward. Is that okay?

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 31:16

All right. So yeah, so uh in comparison or just putting your experience into context compared to a lot of other patients, right? Uh you've actually, as I said, in a and I say this in a positive way, you know, on the one hand, a lot of patients might in your shoe might be going like, okay, this is really confusing. This person's talking about Lyme, this person's talking about Bernella, the the the Brascilla topic, the strep topic, mono, mold related, like it's just crazy. There's too many avenues and directions here, right? And a lot of from my experience, a lot of patients who have all that, these sort of targets and these diagnoses, they're they were solicited and identified by a variety of different practitioners. All right. And without going into more detail about that, for your experience, you talk about there's an urgent care setting, there's a primary care setting, there's an integrated rheumatologist, which is really rare to find, but okay, great for you. That's awesome for you. And there's probably other people involved. Oh, yeah, you got the naturopath who you're working with, you know, more recently or still now. So there's at least four there. Okay. Maybe there's more, but yeah, that's a pretty that's a kind of common experience, right? Because different practitioners start to look for different things. And sometimes that's because that's what they sort of specialize in or focus on, or sort of like their their niche, niche branding or their niche um what they just are personally stimulated and interested in, you know, on an academic level or whatever. Um and then of course, part of it is just inherent that when you work with the next person, they can look back on what you've already done and they're not gonna repeat the same thing. They're gonna tend more often than not tend to look elsewhere, or sometimes they might validate, you know, whatever direction you're on. But you know, there's more likelihood that you're gonna collect more diagnoses as you go along if you're not getting better. And that's why you're seeking other opinions commonly, is because you're not getting better enough anyway, right? So um, you know, that's just a common experience. And in your case, you were just from my POV, as a as the young people like to say now, okay, from my POV, you are uh more fortunate, in my opinion. It's a little confusing for people commonly, but I consider it more of a a good thing that you're able to look at you're able to collect or identify all these different targets in a relatively short amount of time. Okay. So here's why. So bringing this all home, you know, for us at RootSeq, what we tend to do is we we model it like AI. All right. If you if you want a clear cut and comprehensive and you know, more spot-on response to whatever question you're throwing in, you gotta give it a lot of input, right? If I I can't give it one sentence and expect it one question, expect it to spit out exactly what my mind is thinking about. I gotta give all the circumstances different elements that I can think of, and then I get a really robust and much more nuanced and meaningful response that fits

RootSeek Framework For Sequencing Care

Dr. Mark Su 33:54

handing more hand in glove with what I'm looking for, right? So the more data that we collect up front with testing, the more you get a well-rounded picture. The downside of that is it opens the door for more confusion, right? As we've already just talked about, we don't need to reiterate. It also, of course, takes a little more time to do all that testing and not uncommonly some more money because not all tests are insurance covered. But we're gonna sidestep that for a second. But here, this is a common story for a common scenario for us where patients have done some work, you know, with usually more than one, two, three, sometimes seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve different practitioners, and where we collect that data. Or if someone's totally really, you know, unusually just haven't had any testing, then we'll do this like kind of large battery, or at least as a default, okay, including the labs you've done and then some. And we're splitting those three. Um so I'm gonna now we're gonna get just a little technical, you not not necessarily for you, but um, I don't think. But there's we put all the lab results into three categories, right? So so this is how I would group through out your results. Okay. I mean, every basically everything you talked about are fall into one category. All right. Um and no doubt we could go through even more of your results, we'll talk through more of your symptoms and talk about the other two categories, but everything you talked about falls under the category of bugs and toxins, right? Environmental exposures, okay? Strep uh tick-borne bugs with either Lyme brilliant or lime Bartonella, the monovirus mold from your environment, these are all things that don't you didn't make, your body didn't make. They're not like, they don't, they're not inherently like friendlies, they're not familiar to your body. And so anything in that bug toxin realm, like anything that comes from outside your body, has the potential, it doesn't mean it's going to, but has the potential to provoke a response, i.e., inflammation, right? Anything that your body does not recognize and comes into contact with, especially at higher amounts and for larger lengths of time, your body has to make a decision, right? And regulate it. Like, hey, you're okay, we're gonna leave you alone, we can coexist, or hey, you're not so okay, we're gonna have to fight back, and we're gonna have to do some work, right? And that's inflammation, provocation and response. Okay. So the second category, and we won't go through in detail, but the second category is basically what I just said. It's the opposite. It's everything that comes from you. It's yourself, right? Self and non-self. With a self, the biggest topic we're we think about is immune system. Okay. My fit my sort of fun phrase to people is if you don't have an immune system, you won't suffer because you're not gonna have inflammation. You can't mount a response. You won't be able to mount an inflammator inflammatory response, so you won't suffer. You'll die. You'll die. But you won't suffer on the way to dying. On the other hand, if your immune system is too hyperactive, well, you're more apt to suffer with even small provocations, right? Even that that small whiny voice in the in the bus is gonna like drive you totally nuts as opposed to the other person who can they can tolerate 20 people of being annoying. Okay. So um the immune system, but you also got your hormones and you got your, you know, people talk about the mitochondria, um, your nutritional profile, your genetics, you know, this is on and on, okay? The third category, just to round it out, is the what we call the interfaces. It's the first meeting point, the first contact point between yourself and your non-self, the the outside world, the bugs and toxins. And really that comes down to your skin, your gut, and your respiratory system. All right, and so the gut, uh, you know, I always like to throw out, and I you know this, you know, it's estimated that um the average person has more bacteria just in the colon alone, which is the smallest segment of the, you know, between large intestine, small intestine, is a small section, but there's more colon, there's more bacteria in that colon alone than all the cells in our body combined, right? So they they like outnumber us. We're we're basically being used as carriers, as a vessel for all these bacteria. Yeah. Right? This microbiome that everybody talks about. They're not all bad. We need a lot of it, but you know, that there's there's a lot of freaking regulation going on in the colon, right? And we better be able to do that decently well. Okay. So now, so then we do all the we we put all the tests into these three categories, and then we're looking at, okay, so where do we go from here? Well, as we already said at the beginning, you can't do everything at one time, okay? So you can't attack all the things that we we if we're looking at all these things at one time, we're not gonna treat like all five of your topics all at one time. All right. We're gonna make a decision on what we're gonna attack first. Some of that can be really personalized, which I we don't have to necessarily talk about in great detail with you because um, and I'll explain why in here in a second, but it's the the decision making on the exact sequence, okay, that's the key. That's the real key, if you will, the uh the the special sauce, if you will, if there is one, you know, for how we think about things at RootSeek, is what is the sequence? It doesn't mean there's only one sequence. There isn't just one combo that's gonna open this lock. Okay. Many combos would work, but the goal is to help you get better faster. So some combos are gonna open that lock faster than other combos. We'd we'd rather take the short route, not the long route, okay, for for the sake of reducing suffering. In your case, you've already given a head start. You're like, hey, I'm like 80% better with the antibiotics, right? So fantastic. Kudos to who you've been working with. Fantastic. Glad that they, you know, gave credence to the lab results. Um awesome. They've they've selected a um, you know, obviously an effective regimen for you, you know, um pharma, non-pharma, whatever the case may be. I know you've said you much, much, much, much, much prefer non-pharmast. You know, uh, it's curious, it's curious to me like how you like okay with doing the pharma, but that hey, that's cool. Whatever. You've gotten 80% better. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, I was like, at that point, I was like, I'll take anything. Yeah, whatever. It's helpful, right? Right. And doesn't mean I have a preference for not do yeah, usually I would not be wanting to take out unless I really need it, but I was, yeah, doing so badly that I was desperate. I'll do whatever. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 39:28

Yeah, and that happens a lot, right? I mean, ultimately we have our preferences and we, you know, I'm I'm it's awesome that you're um well, I assume, you know, that your practitioner asked about it or talked about it or you took it into account. But, you know, and that's again a that's a very nuanced decision, you know, between pharma and non-pharma. I tend to use both, you know, our practitioners, we we tend to use both. We're all comers, it's basically the best of both worlds and the best tools to just help you get better. And as you get better, you can kind of like wean down and be more selective about the preferences and other stuff, right? So let's just say this, and this is why we don't have to get real nuanced about your sequence, because we've already been given the um the head start, okay? But historically, I'll say historically among the functional medicine world of practitioners who treat these tackle and treat these more complicated cases. Okay, because as you I think you know, functional medicine is commonly like divided into sort of what one colleague of mine calls functional medicine light, and then what we call the chronic complex world. It's easier to work with, and it's not it's not to be whatever, there's no value judgments here. It's it's easier to work with people who aren't as sick as you've experienced before, optimizing wellness, um, you know, prevention, health, um, you know, milder symptoms, et cetera. The the complicated people, again, you've you've come a long way in a relatively short amount of time, all things considered. So fantastic, really happy for you. But for those of us who work in that arena, commonly the two big dogs that people talk about are Lyme and mold, right? Lyme disease and mold related illness. We're not gonna talk here about going to the background about defining those because some people, those terms are sometimes used a little bit loosely. And then each topic on its own is super complicated. There's all kinds of sub-topics within each one, you know. Lyme disease is broadly used for a bunch of different kinds of bacteria and parasites and mold illness, you got to divide it into um the mold toxins, the mold inside of the person, as well as the mold in their environment. If there is some, okay, et cetera. So it gets you got to break it down. But in your case, on a high level, it's very clear, it's obvious, okay. There's no argument here. If you've gotten 80% better on the Lyme therapy, okay, then and if there's question about the mold illness at all, then that's if you hadn't already gone down that road, that's gotta be the that's by default or analytically for most practitioners, that's gonna be the a question, okay? A lot of Lyme focused practitioners, and I'm not, again, no shade here, they might be more like keep pounding the Lyme topic. Hey, you're getting better, you're getting better, you're keeping getting better. It's gonna take time, time, time, and we're just inching, you know, because it's getting the last bit is always the hardest, right? Finishing the last mile and a half marathon or marathon, whatever, is always hardest. Losing the last five or ten pounds out of 40 is harder than the first 10, 15, right? So um, it's easy to pound that, but um, you know, I'm convicted, I'll just speak for myself, and it trickles down to how we approach things at RootSeek that looking broader at the other topics is higher yielding than just continuing to deep dig deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper on any one topic. All right. The key is being sure that we're clear on diagnosing any other topics and not just kind of like overreaching on diagnosis, all right, or just like shooting from the hip and guessing. Okay. But in your case, and this is where we're gonna get down to the meat and potatoes here, right? So I think, you know, I'm inferring from what you've told me, you haven't been treated for any mold illness topics yet. Okay. So that's there's number one, right? If that's an issue, then you've got like a high yield to be had, I'll just say. Let's just let's just get right to the the point here. You you sent me just this morning by email the uh the the swipe test you did at home that you referenced is so a lot of people know that term ermi. Okay, there's a lot of different ways you can test your environment, but the dust the dust swipe test, um, not the one the kids

ERMI And HERTSMI-2 Reality Check

Dr. Mark Su 43:04

from Home Depot and Lowe's and whatever else on online, it's there's specific kinds, okay. Um uh they they assess for these uh mold, um not the mold toxins themselves, actually, but the the mold species, okay, that are clinging to the dust, and that's what's being assessed for uh in the lab testing for these dust swipes. So my question to you is obviously you can see from the ERMI score that it was the highest you know level of finding. Um, but do you have any familiarity already prior to now about these scores, like from your training before or anyone else?

SPEAKER_01 43:41

I think from my training, only from I actually joined a Facebook group that was like San Diego Lime and Mold because I was Lime and Mold, right? Lime doctors. Yeah, I I didn't really know that they were connected or think about the connection. And that's what kind of made me think, revisit the mold topic. And yeah, I've seen people talk about ERMI's in there, and then I did some research on it. But yeah, I don't I'm I didn't have any like prior experience with it.

Dr. Mark Su 44:06

Well, here's the shortcut. All right. The ERMI score has a more potential to look worse or look better than it really is. Okay. It's a it's a logarithmic kind of calculation. You would understand that better than I as an engineer, okay? Math. Okay. But you know, it it's like a magnifying lens. All right. So I'm not saying that's not an important score, but for me, uh two labs that people tend to use as practitioners in this world are in this realm of care are the envirobiomics and mycometrics. And I think yours was envirobiomics.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 44:39

So um both those labs, they they print out on the subsequent page that you no doubt saw another score that's it's called the HERTSME2. They're all acronyms. And the Hertz Me2 is basically a subset of the ERMI score. Okay, there's five strains of mold species that consist of the total Hertz Me2 score and pulled out of the ERMI as a total. And I won't get into the history of it just for time's sake here, okay, as to what that's all about and why. So you mentioned in your intake form, you know, that there's a question of SERS or mycotoxin illness, right? And so mycotoxin, again, as a reminder here, mycotoxin just means mycome and fungal. So now we're talking about fungal toxins because we have the fungus. Fungus consists of yeast and mold, two types of fungus. Both yeast and mold can make toxins, all right? But yeast doesn't so much exist like in our environment. Mold does, yeast not so much. Inside the body, yeast is, if you made me pick one, I'm gonna say yeast is more common than mold, but both can exist inside the body, okay? But all of that stuff, um, all these both categories of uh bugs can produce toxins under stress, all right. And so that's why there's a little difference in the terminology. SERS, you know, chronic inflammatory response syndrome, as you already know, no doubt, that's a it sort of connotates a specific thinking and approach to patient care where there it's sort of um in a this is just objective, like that's what it is. The definition is we we don't really talk about treating fungus itself. We're just treating the inflammation that your body is going is is mounting in response to, by and large, fungal toxins, okay? And then we can extend from fungal toxins into bacteria that's in our environment as well, which people don't talk that much about, and a couple other pieces, basically an environmental, an unhealthy environment, okay, an unhealthy indoor environment. And then the inflammation that our body is mounting in response. Whereas the second the other sort of non-surse category of practitioners, if you will, they do incorporate treating fungus, okay, as well, fungus in the person, okay. And we're not going to get into details to when you do that or why, because that gets too nuanced and that's a big topic. But that's the big differentiator. Okay, SERS and what I like to call it SERS Plus, just meaning like, hey, I still the way I approach things and you know at RootSeek, it's it's we kind of like it's a hybrid. All right. Um it's a hybrid, but we're not sticking to like a more regimented protocol of the SERS protocol, because number one, we do treat fungus, and then number two, we're not necessarily having to commit to completely going through the whole entire SERS protocol because I quite frankly, I just haven't had to. You know, when we treat of broader spectrum of topics and both individually and then as a team through root seek, we just haven't had to go through to the end of the SERS protocol. Right. The bottom line for you is that Hurts Me2 score that you have.

unknown 47:27

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 47:27

Okay, that score of 38, that's the highest score I've seen in at least two years.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Oh my God, really?

Dr. Mark Su 47:35

Yeah. So I don't see that to gaslight you.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Thanks. Right? Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 47:38

If you've if you've listened back to or you know, because I know you've heard some of the podcasts before, watched them before. Like, you know, when Mike, so Mike Schrons, you know, Doctor of Homes, Doctor of People, right? He's he's the IEP, right? We work together in the on the board for uh ICI, I-sea I.org. You know, it's about about mold illness is our bread and butter from that organization. You know, we talk about that all the time. We're not, we're not, we don't want to gaslight people. We're regularly trying to help people kind of be ungaslit or diffused a little bit, okay? So I'm not gaslighting you, but I'm I I'm being, you know, I'm being frank with you that I haven't seen a score that high in a long time. And for me, the border, the the borderline result is like 11 to 15, right? Under 10 is considered like decent. I don't know if I've ever seen a I don't think I've seen less than four. I don't think I've ever seen two. Definitely never seen zero. I've seen four rarely. Six, I'm like, wow, that's really good, because I don't even see six that often. Borderline, I see a lot. And then if I see 16 or above, which is in the high category, then okay, yeah, that's that's legit. If I see over 20, I'm like, that's a one eyebrow raise. If I see like 26, if I see over like 20.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

Way past that.

Dr. Mark Su 48:37

Yeah, if I see 26, I'm gonna like two eyebrow raise. And I'll tell you, I I don't know if I've seen over 40. You know, a high score you can get is like 50. I if I've seen over 40, I can't remember, but I've probably seen over the years three or four people with scores of 40. Mike, no doubt, would have seen, you know, and and people in his shoe, they would have seen a lot more cases than I have, obviously, because that's what they do, you know, full time. But 38 is really high. All right. Now, just to step back from that for a second, number one. So I'm gonna get real pragmatic with you. Number one, um, the analytical side of me, and so I'll um I assume the engineer side of you will resonate.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 49:09

Especially where you're like, I second guess things. I I do that all the time. So we're in the same boat, all right? We come from the same fabric. Right off back, I I kind of go like, okay, what's the likelihood that it's kind of like an overreach like false positive or you know, it's um the result is higher than it really is accurately. Well, the first thing is, and we don't have to get into necessary details here, but how could that happen? The first way it could happen is you collected too much dust. All right. It's not real standardized as to the like the instructions on how much dust to collect. And um, you know, I that it's more of like a um a community of practitioners um best practice, I'm in practice kind of hearsay, if you will. There isn't the the the test kit company has its uh described uh logistics and methods of testing, collection, all that kind of thing. But regardless, putting that aside, just for argument's sake, okay. Even if that's even if 38 is off and it's uh a little too elevated, I mean, I'm not banking it's gonna be below 15, right? I mean that's that that's too great of a discrepancy. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Yeah, definitely.

Dr. Mark Su 50:08

It's it's more like for me, the difficulty is when I see like a fifteen or fourteen, okay. Could it be a twelve? You know, could the twelve be a ten, that kind of thing. Like that's that's tough, okay. And and to be fair, a lot of times what we're doing with this this dust testing is it's a screen, okay? Because I mean, if if we're sure the person got at least a certain number of square foot of collection of dust and the score is like a six or eight, all right, I don't know if we how far we're gonna push that, you know, to retest or have an actual IP go in there, okay, and like go looking and expecting them to have sort of like radar glasses or something like that. I mean, it's it it's not it's not to say it's it it's without merit, but you know, there's there's a question about that. Okay. Now, in your case, let's just jump into it. In your case, it's a lot it's a different story because you're renting, all right? And we've had plenty of cases, you know, collectively as practitioners or within RootSeek or just me individually in our brick and mortar practice, we've had plenty of cases where um it differentiates between do you have control over assessing and doing something about your environment or do you not, right? If it's your workplace, like you pretty much don't it's the same thing as right. You don't have say really strong meaningfully in where it's taken. And of course, you know, this is all about money, you know, it comes down to money. So the

Renting Decisions And Leaving Safely

Dr. Mark Su 51:22

landlord or the the you know, building owner or workplace or whatever else it may be, the employer, they're not so likely to it's very unlikely they're gonna take it m you know as seriously as you are, right? Yeah. And in a and I think that's and that's not that's not I'll be honest, I don't even know if I I don't I don't judge that, right? Because number one, I just described for you like, okay, so hey, you know, in a court of law, the first question is, well, who who collected that test? Oh, I did. Are you a professional IEP? No, I'm not. Well, pfft that doesn't mean anything. All of a sudden, that means nothing, right? So that's why if you're looking at legalities and you've you've got to get a professional in as the next step. And of course that has its own questions and uncertainties that we're not gonna get into here right now. But for you as a renter, um yeah. As as our local ICI, you know, um inspector likes to say, you've got some difficult choices to make. Yeah is her wording. It is when it's someone's own home. Okay. But for you, hey, one of the nice things is you have an opportunity to just decide to leave, right? If it was your own place and then you kind of go, wow, it's it's pretty meaningful, then you're going, okay, well, it doesn't mean it has to be break the bank cost for remediation, but you're already looking at okay, what is it gonna look like to do the remediation? You gotta take responsibility for that. But in this case, you could just leave. Now I'm not saying that's just trivial. You've already said you like it there, you really like it there. So um that's that's where the decision comes into play. But my suspicion from what you've already said and the amount the degree that you've suffered is hey, now that you've I've kind of like let the cat of the bag that 38's really high, yeah, I'm pretty confident you're already like, okay, I was kind of thinking about it already, but if you're telling me it's that high, then okay, it's I'm kind of I'm kind of there.

unknown 53:04

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 53:04

Decision's kind of like, I'm kind of there already. You know, it's like I might have to adjust a little bit and settle into it, but um, I don't know if there's a lot of decisions to make to be made. Now, just FYI for me, um, you know, we we've we've written letters for people, you know, many times because if a person like really wanted to stay and they want to ask their landlord to you know look into it and all that kind of thing, it just and I've and I've been involved in those kind of cases too, either as pay with patients or colleagues and just help them out, okay, colleagues, as you know, their they are their own patient, if you will. It's just it's just really variable and you just don't know what you're gonna get, you know. Is it how how likely is the landlord really gonna look into it at all? You know, are they gonna downplay it? How contentious does it get? You know, what kind of personality do they have, that kind of thing, because when it starts to become a little bit of a conflict, when money's involved, it's easy to create conflict, and things can kind of go south kind of fast, you know? Yeah. So that's a decision you'd have to make. But um, we have written letters for people to sort of help them get out of those leases. Like if someone had another year, two-year lease, then but you're like, as we say, living in mold, that's not so awesome. Then we we gladly help people write people a letter. And we're not just trying to like, you know, scan the system or whatever. I mean, it's it's a lit it's a legit thing. And uh and they don't want to deal with this becoming you know more contentious and conflicting and much less legal and all that themselves, you know?

SPEAKER_02 54:14

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 54:15

Now, I'll pivot for a second here. All right. So moving from your environmental test, and let me just make a quick comment about your um your other tests for that you've uploaded for you, your you know, testing you versus testing your environment. Okay. When it comes to testing you, you're and I'm assuming I th I don't think I think I only saw it once with your the SERS markers.

unknown 54:35

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 54:36

So it's evident to me that the person who drew your, you know, ordered the testing, they are familiar with the SERS protocol because they ran the SERS markers, or at least a good number of them, right? That's the common ones that I would run typically.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Yeah, I actually ordered those myself because I it was just like I was getting my blood drawn anyways, and I had been researching and I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna add these to my order.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

So yeah, I haven't reviewed them a ton.

Dr. Mark Su 55:01

Okay. So so for me, there's um, I think just broadly speaking, I'll just say, first of all, when I look through, let me back up to the Lyme topic, right? So we hadn't talked before, so when I'm looking through these, I'm like, hmm, that's interesting. Cause she I I know you said you've been, you know, on the paperwork that you've been treating for you've been treating for Lyme. I had no idea how much benefit you made or not. But quite frankly, I was kinda anticipating that you wouldn't tell me that you had that much benefit.

SPEAKER_02 55:25

Really?

Dr. Mark Su 55:25

So it's not to say that you I'm not at all saying you don't have Lyme, but the the mixed picture and and uh at the risk of creating more confusion, all that stuff, right? Because Lyme Lyme testing interpretation can be nuanced, which is why a lot of practitioners sort of don't love getting caught up in that. Okay.

unknown 55:42

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 55:43

Understandably I'm not whatever. That's just it's just what is what it is. Yeah, you have some markers, but it's not flagrantly or intensely bad, right? As you already said, some there's a lot of them that are quote unquote CDC criteria negative. I mean, even CDC criteria aside, even alternative arterior, alternate or alternative uh interpretation results by the criteria of those labs, there's still there's one at least one or maybe two that were negative. And then the one that you did most recently in I think it was January of this year. Yeah, January of this year. You know, there's markers there, but the far majority of them are in the sort of mild moderate range as opposed to the high range. They're orange instead of red. And then um, you know, the number of markers, especially for like berillia, all right, for Lyme, um, there's I think there's only two, if I recall off the top of my head, two markers, which again, uh for me, I don't I'm not a stickler to the criteria and official guideline interpretations, et cetera. But you know, just all in all as a flavor, you know, there's a lot of sort of qualitative and art, artful, mindful interpretation of a lot of the stuff as a totality with your results. It's like, yeah, there's some there, but it doesn't scream at me. Yeah. And also your IgG antibodies, you know, that um are the fuel for the markers, they were adequate. So I can't even blame like you don't have enough markers there in your immune system to show us the results. So I couldn't even use that as an excuse. So I was like, yeah, it's there, but you know, uh, you've been treating, I was anticipating you were gonna tell me it's like been a high yield. So I'm I'm happy for you that has been. And this just is another example of um, yeah, it's not all that black and white, all right. Yeah, but yeah, then similarly, when we slip flip over to the um the mycotoxin in SERS world, okay, yeah, when I look at some of those markers, like some of them uh uh of the four or five I can remember off the top of my head, like a couple of them fit the bill and a couple of them don't. Right? And so um, but regardless, when you have a hurts me too of 38, I'm like, uh I I doesn't matter to me what your inflammatory markers look like. That uh that's that's not a pretty picture. Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 57:37

And when you've already, and then when you tell me now, hey, I've been on antibiotics for quite a while, I've gotten 80%, you know, uh benefit, and I'm the plan right now is to start weaning down. I'm like, okay, well, if that's all the case, then it's an easy decision. Like, yeah, you it's time to shift focus into this mold topic, right? Whether you continue the antibiotics or not, you know, besides the easy thing of saying, well, I defer to your practitioner, but it's it's not a straightforward topic, right? The nice thing though for me, if I was to counsel you know this, I would say, hey, if you go off and you worsen, you know, you can you can go back on it. It's not like a commitment that you can't walk back through that door. You you just but but it and I want to validate your experience, your comment. I appreciate you sharing that to say, I'm kind of scared to go off of them. Even even with the context like I don't like pharma, but I'm on pharma antibiotics and yet I'm scared to go off of them. That's that's totally legit, right? Yeah. And you can imagine people who've been on on antibiotics for like three years, okay, for Lyme, and they're like, I'm not going off of that, right? I mean, or like they're even more entrenched in that mindset, understandably. But there are ways to, yeah, you can easily just decide to taper and wean a little more slowly, or you can overlap, right? This is all part of the sort of sequencing of things, or it's just a pragmatic decision making. Okay, if we start addressing the the mold topics, uh the mold topic, if you will, the toxins, the inflammation, the et cetera, then you may find that you're gauging by symptom reduction or you're gauging by some of the markers that were abnormal, okay, that things are better, and then you start to wean down on on the antibiotics at that point. That's another option.

SPEAKER_02 59:09

Okay.

Dr. Mark Su 59:09

A lot of people find, and I'll, you know, and then I'll shut up here for a second and because I've just been monologuing here. The uh the way I think about the for me commonly, um, you know, in this case, you it was just the certain nature of the circumstances, you treated the Lyme thing first, and then now it's the mold topic coming up. Okay. If you ask me as a default, I commonly go the other way. All right. Um, largely because the from from where I stand, the the mycotoxins, those toxins have a lot of immune suppression functionality. And so the toxins can both cause inflammation and reduce your immune system functionality and uh sort of like lessen its ability to fight the battle. So if we address that first, then I I look at that almost like a two for one. Whereas treating the Lyme topic is sort of like a straight one-to-one. Secondly, on top of that, okay, you know, in both cases, it's like something that's perseverating, right? If you've got like Lyme disease issues in your body, then it's in your body and you like you can't really just pull it out, right? You can it's it's uh going in and so either either optimizing the immune system to fight the battle and you know, overcome, which I just don't know if I've ever seen somebody just like treat immune system alone, okay, whether it's through various immune system therapies we have, pharma, non-pharma, peptides, et cetera. I just I don't know that I've seen that yet, okay. Um, but I've known people tout those stories. But you gotta go, you have to go after it. Okay. The mold topic, if it's an environmental exposure that has been identified, it could be there are times that it's a you can get a kind of faster win in time regards if you're able to re be removed, right? Or address it. Now addressing it is the harder part, right? If you owned it and you had to address the environment, then that's gonna take more time, right? I mean, just the logistics, like I assessing it and then having remediators and all the steps and blah, blah, it's gonna take more time. But in your case, like if you're if you had the opportunity and ability to kind of like step out, then you get a kind of fast win because it kind of extracting, disconnecting the exposure of the environment from the person is key. In Lyme, you can't really just remove that exposure of the Lyme inside you with the mold topic. If you're constantly exposed, there's at least potential to disconnect, and all of a sudden that can be a faster win.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:26

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:01:26

All right. And you and you already said in your intake form, like, I felt pretty good that time I was, I think you were said you were in Hawaii after graduating, right? Or something like that. I mean, you're like, I feel pretty good there. Like, okay. And I don't know if you were, was that you were living where you are now at that time or no?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

No, I was still in Boston. Yeah. So I was in went to school and that's not related to your current environment. No, but um, yeah, yeah, I guess that is like the thing. Like these more acute things have been since September, but I've definitely had like long-term issues that I don't know if like some of these infections have been longer term. Like that's what I wonder too.

Dr. Mark Su 1:02:02

Almost always they are. Almost always. Yeah, almost always. Like this is it's not like you just suddenly got hit with five things in the last, you know, less than a year.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:02:10

It's not like these are this is what happens in um, you know, in the big picture here. This is what happens in these con situations is it's a cumulative, it's a it's an accumulation over time.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

Okay.

Dr. Mark Su 1:02:19

Yeah. The mono thing, I I mean, it wouldn't shock me if you told me it was a pretty meaningful case in college.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

Yeah, it was bad. I like had to leave and go home for um at least a month.

Dr. Mark Su 1:02:30

Yeah, that's that's more severe, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:32

Some of my classes.

Dr. Mark Su 1:02:33

Yeah, that's a that's a big deal. And mono recurrent reactivated mono plays a can play a meaningful role, and I won't go into it, but like I I myself am just personally more and more unfortunately impressed with how meaningful it can be with um, you know, uh I don't know if you caught the um the podcast session with um my wife in who's a researcher at Harvard and all the all the stuff. There's a lot of mono uh sequelae and consequences that are you know even more brought to the forefront now. So the mono thing is, you know, it doesn't when you tell me like, hey, it felt kind of like mono, like yeah, that's not surprisingly part of the story either. But that's not new, right? Um so bottom line, you know, when w a lot of people when they they have that experience, like when they go on vacation, even for a week, much less if they're gone for a month from their environment, they they can tell they feel better, right? And that's just an example of yeah, it's predictable that if you step out, and look, even if you stepped into a place that had some mold, but the score like hurts me score is like 14, it still would put down money that you're gonna feel better. Like 14's way better than 38.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:03:33

Okay. So that's the thing. You have more a po opportunity to feel better faster with the you know, extracting from the environment exposure, and then you know, by doing so, and then if you know, just by doing a couple steps, which uh, you know, we can touch on after the fact here, by helping your body sort of eliminate some of the mold toxins more effectively, and there's a couple ways of doing that, you know, enhancing your own body's ability to eliminate, or using, you know, what we call binders to kind of mop up the toxins and you poop them out, okay? Then you can uh you could you can get that two for one, you know, and your immune system pops in a little bit more and and then uh yeah, the 80%. Uh I've if you're already 80% there living in the environment you are with a 38 score, like that's a really great prognosis for you, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:16

That's fine.

Dr. Mark Su 1:04:16

And then last thing I'll say is uh, you know, back to your other comments, like Brussella, like I'm not for the sake of just on a high level, it's not some I don't know that how much I would put a lot of you know concern and emphasis on that, especially where you've been on antibiotics for a period of time now already. The strep topic, um Yeah. Uh like when we do when we do those uh you know those functional stool tests, basically everybody has some kind of strep there. Okay, it's usually not the kind I think yours was a strep A, you know, which is less typical to see in the blood. But um, you know, again, you've been on antibiotics again. So the is it really still there? I don't even know, but I'm it's not a it's not something I would put a priority on right now. And then um the monotopic, lastly on the collection of five that we talked about here, the monotopic, again, touching on what I just said like two minutes ago, that one I'm ever more uh put I put ever even I put I've never put so much focus and effort um intention on addressing that than I have in the past. I've never put as much focus as I do now than I ever have in the past. But that's a long-term thing. Okay. There isn't number one, I don't know how predictable it is that staying on antivirals or even giving your immune system boosts in specific ways that we know, you know, by principle would help treating viruses specifically. We don't have a great way of assessing accurately and yeah, accurately how effective it really is. Okay. And then B, um I just I just happen to know that the people my wife are working with in the research, they've got some tools in hand to address the sort of autoimmune second life direction that the mono instigates and drives as an independent factor of inflammation, okay, that treating the virus won't do anything for. They've got some tools already, they just have to fine-tune it. And I don't know, I mean, there's already a prototype out for one other autoimmune disorder that's not related to EBV as far as I know. But um, you know, I put hope that um for those who I've had people where we see their markers go down that you referenced, their mono EBV markers, the antibody levels. Okay. I've seen I see that happen, you know, not uncommonly.

unknown 1:06:19

But

Dr. Mark Su 1:06:20

Does that really play out into symptom reduction? Hard to tell. Okay. Because these symptoms are often kind of subtle and mild, like fatigue and brain fog. So um we can for me, that's that's on the back end of the sequence because I don't know if I really ever see people have short-term symptom reduction from treating viruses. It's it's basically never a front-end sequence for me. Not to say I leave it alone, but it's rarely in the front of the sequence. I save that for later and just say, hey, hey, if you're you're like 95% better, you're not even on antibiotics, you're you're out of a uh mold environment, you're not even using binders, whatever, 95% like fantastic, and you're like, I just need to take a break. This has been a what a what a last two years or whatever. Okay, fine. I still would say, hey, you're not gonna you're not gonna have side effects with the antiviral symptom, you know, um therapies. And I would just think about that as at least a you know a couple years, couple year thing, and then um reassess and things will change in terms of our knowledge base and our tools at hand to treat these kind of things, especially on the autoimmune direction.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:07:15

But that's something that has a lot of more has potential for more longer term chronic and accumulative impact that I'm more aggressive about now. Even with teenagers, college students who have an acute case of mono, I'm pretty aggressive about that now. And I treat that for a reasonable length of time after they're symptom-free, even.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

Okay. Great. So who do you treat that with?

Dr. Mark Su 1:07:33

Uh I I do. I do I personally I do use um the valcyclovir a lot. Okay, a pharma. It's just it's so well tolerant. People I don't know if anybody's ever had a side effect, knock on wood.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:42

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:07:43

It's just never happened. Um, I love using um TA1 as a peptide. All right. Um, and I won't go into reasons why, but like I love that. It's just for people where it's a little too expensive for them. That I'll at least use um pure encapsulations of a supplement company, makes one called TH1 support. I'll use that in lieu of that. Um for people who don't want pharma and they want to go, you know, the the direct antivirals. So the TA1 and the TH1 support are boosting the immune system, right? The the TH1 side of the T lymphocyte immune system boost that is what attacks viruses, right? And then the valcycle beer is like reducing the virus itself, right? Um if they don't want to do valicycaber because they want to do herbals and sure. I mean, I I use oregano oil a lot. And then um you I'd be curious on a you know another time if you tell me if you've learned anything about this, but I encourage people to not eat eggs. It's it's kind of like a hearsay thing about um, but I don't know how well it's documented, but there's a lot of clinical observation of a lot of years that or at least hearsay, but I I when I surveyed this through a um practitioner email group a couple years ago, a couple people like actually told me like they were ke keeping data themselves over eight to eighteen patients apiece, and it was it was it was pretty compelling. So I mean look, it's not a hard thing for most people to like not eat eggs, you know, for a for a a set period of time. It's not like forever. So those that that's kind of like my regimen go to.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:01

Okay.

Dr. Mark Su 1:09:02

And then I apologize at the risk of uh dragging this out a little bit, I do have to make comments. There's two other things in your health profile that I'll throw out. Actually, maybe three. One is so you're a carrier with um um the hemochromatosis.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

Yeah, I was I wanted to ask you about that too. Yeah, because I have one copy of that gene and my iron panel on this last round was really weird. I don't know if you got to see that. I could what date was that done? It was the twenty-third, March twenty-third. Okay.

Dr. Mark Su 1:09:33

Thanks. I'll take my own.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

It's called Blood Work 2, I think.

Dr. Mark Su 1:09:36

Yeah, I see it now. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yep. So uh yeah,

Iron Genetics Sticky Blood And Trauma

Dr. Mark Su 1:09:40

so look, iron can go high under times of stress, right? Ferritin, as you know, is it's uh, you know, we call it an acute phase reactant. So when people, if you had the flu, like your ferritin could be really high, doesn't mean you have excess iron. In your case, you do have some higher high iron outright iron, not just the ferritin. You know, I was going to just say, even if I didn't remember those, even if I hadn't looked at those numbers again right now, the fact that you are a carrier for hemochromatosis suggests the likelihood that you're gonna have some, you know, at least iron overload, as it's often called now, right? At least iron overload. A lot of people have iron overload without having even a carrier for hemochromatosis. The bottom line is too much iron is oxidizing. It can be a reactive oxygen species, et cetera. It can be, you know, create, it can contribute to some inflammation. I don't know how much I would like, you know, make a huge thing of it other than to say, hey, this is part of the the hand deck you were uh card you were dealt with in your wiring. You can't, I don't know how much you can do about it other than you know, people might do phlebotomies to keep their blood levels low, but um, it's just to say, hey, the way I account for it in an individual like yourself is hey, if you're not making more progress faster, that could be a player why that could be a reason why. And okay, maybe we just want to just recognize that, acknowledge it, and be okay with it. Right? Or do we make some effort to try to, you know, full bottomy or whatever, okay? So that's number one.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:57

Number two is um hold on a second, let me The other weird thing was the ferritin was really low. So if you scroll down, um ferritin was only fourteen. So it's like, why do I have such high iron but low ferritin?

Dr. Mark Su 1:11:11

Yeah. And I I think that's not necessarily straightforward for me in explanation either. But I think I mean in this case, the iron for me supersedes the ferritin in terms of assessing do you have higher iron or not, right? Because ferritin can be high for other reasons, but iron iron is iron.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:11:29

The other one is the factor lightin.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:31

Yeah, I just found out about that.

Dr. Mark Su 1:11:34

Okay. So that's just a, you know, you're you're more you're a little bit more at risk of the clotting.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Mark Su 1:11:40

Right. The or or you know, what we call sticky blood.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Mark Su 1:11:43

Okay, so do you I don't know if you know the term um hypercoagulation or sticky blood?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:46

No.

Dr. Mark Su 1:11:47

Okay. So that's a bigger topic and but we'll address it. Uh, we throw in four out of the twenty some markers that someone could throw in just to look at sticky blood, but uh we commonly will look at that as part of our default assessment, you know, in root seeking. So I just haven't seen a lot of patients over the years uh make maybe there's reason, I don't know, but I haven't seen a lot of people like make meaningful symptom progression just treating the sticky blood alone. Message to patients is that sticky blood, you know, um, which is so I like to I prefer to use sticky blood and hypercoagulation is just too technical and medical of a term. Okay, so I like to use the word sticky blood. And I prefer sticky blood to clotting because when I say clotting, people get really freaked out, understandably, right? Yeah. If I say clotting, all of a sudden people are like reaching for their calves, you know, when are you thinking about PVP, or they start thinking, like, am I gonna have a heart attack or like a clot in my lungs, right? And I don't want to freak people out. So because usually what we're talking about is more that it's just kind of there's in some ways it might be more sludgy, the blood flow, but mostly what I think about is the blood vessel is like in your tissues, let's say a blood vessel in your muscles, okay? The intention is to s to transfer oxygen and nutrients from your blood vessel into your muscle tissues, right? But if you've got extra plaque and stickiness and stuff that's just kind of like it's almost like mini plaque, if you will. I I get a little hesitant to you know gaslight people, but think of it like mini, mini really thin plaque, but it just reduces the the ability to transfer these nutrients and oxygen more effectively to your tissues, like your muscles or in your brain. Okay, so yeah, that's something that, you know, so in this case, again, it's part of your wiring. You can't do much about it, but we will sometimes be more aggressive or more intentional if you, depending on if you're willing to take that many things at one time as far as treatments, to use um biofilm busters or people, proteolytic enzymes, protein-breaking enzymes, proteolytic enzymes, right? These are ones that can break down these like mini, mini plaques, if you will, right? And sometimes you, you know, again, it's not like overnight or af after a week and you're like, oh my gosh, that's it. Like something just kicked in. No, it's not gonna be like that. It's gonna be subtle, it's gonna be gradual. So again, you just gotta fit it into okay, what are you doing at the same time at the same time and how much you will do at one time, etc.? The last piece I'll throw in and then I promise I will shut up.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:53

The last is straight.

Dr. Mark Su 1:13:55

The last piece is your um your ace score.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:57

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:13:57

Right. And we don't need to get into details of that, but yeah. But there's a reason we ask for that for everybody up front with the uh adverse childhood events, right, and and trauma and stuff like that, because a lot of people who struggle to make progress with and a lot of people who have these chronic conditions, chronic chronic complex inflammatory conditions, much less don't get better faster. It's very commonly observed that they have an A-score or, you know, if they haven't done the survey that they've experienced. I mean, look, who we could argue who it's a mic who who hasn't had some degree of like negative life experiences or broadly defined trauma, or at least micro trauma, right? Been bullied a lot, or, you know, um just berated all the time, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of different types, but that it's just if someone's not getting better um more meaningfully or they're just so stuck and they're just not making any progress, like these are that's definitely like fast climbing the list as something that might need to be addressed because the sort of like mind-body effect, even though the person's not thinking about things, they're not like hyper-vigilant, they're not reliving memories and stuff, but you know, there's a reason that book is called The Body Keeps a Score, right? And there's there's true science around the mechanism of inflammation driven by these, you know, what I call what a black people call hidden, trapped negative emotions, right? And there are ways of addressing that as well, whether through, you know, we'll we'll we'll broadly call plant-based medicine.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:15:19

Newer um evolutions these days, but there's a lot of and it doesn't have to be all like uncomfortable and conflicting, like opening the wound and scab, like talk therapy, not to say it's not helpful, but just to say there's a lot of different options. So those are all things, thoughts are down the road, right? Right now, in summary again, and I stop here easily, and I just have the benefit of you having been treated to point. Mold focus, Lyme continuing on some level up to you know just how you kind of wean that over time, okay, or keep it on in place or not, or trial off and then come back if you need to. All right. More down the road, you got the virus topic and you got the the A-score trauma topic of consideration, right? The virus topic for me is like a low-hanging fruit. It's just taking things and keeping it all for a little while, okay, just to and hopefully we see just the numbers come down. If you're not, if you're if you recover like 100%, okay, and it's not a high enough intention, motivation, et cetera, on the A-score trauma topic, like, hey, that's at your discretion. But if you're like, if you just can't get to the finish line, definitely that comes into play for me, you know, at that point, certainly. And then in between, the sticky blood and the iron are considerations.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Um Yeah, another, I don't know if I mentioned it, but MTHFR, I also have that.

Dr. Mark Su 1:16:30

Yeah, so um, you know, I mean, basically, um from my observation, I've I've made it a habit to test like every anybody in in my primary care setting, I'll test that for. And I I mean the f the far, far majority, I would I think I would say 80 to 85 percent of people have some MTHFR abnormalities. I don't it's not really like an unusual thing at all. Um historically, just briefly historically, uh years ago, the functional medicine community was really hopeful that this was going to be a big um uh aha moment, you know, and help people with detox and all that kind of stuff, right? And um I I just won't I'll just never forget. I don't I now at this point it could have been it could have been eight, nine, I don't know if it's been ten years ago. Maybe was it during COVID or not? Because it was a virtual um conference I was in. But um let's say it was more than five years ago for sure. All right. And um this was a big conference. I don't remember exactly who, it might have been the IFM, and uh it was a sub, it was like a breakout room. And the guy leading this breakout room as the you know designated um presenter, if you will, was a psychiatrist, a specifically psychiatrist, and he was all into the whole psychiatric genetics and all that stuff. And I just want I just never forget, he just was very transparent. He was like, So I just gotta ask you guys how often do you guys see people actually have symptom change, like treating MTHFR, you know, abnormalities with methylated folic acid and all that, you know, even at the high doses, you know, the five grams and all that stuff. And the consensus among the group of, I don't know, there must have been six, no more than eight, okay, but five to eight people. Pretty much to my recall, I don't remember anybody saying, like, yes, I do. It was it was either wishy-washy, you know, meh, mid, and he said he was like, Yeah, me too. You know, we we thought this was gonna be like this big breakthrough, and like, eh, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:04

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:18:05

Again, I still think there's value. I'm not minimizing it. It has value on some level, you know, but I don't tell anybody that they're gonna feel a difference. You know, it's just a it's a smaller player in the totality of all the topics for me. I will I I will grant to you the whole meth genetic methylation and genetics uh stuff, you know, in functional medicine. That is an area I have not tapped into. I will acknowledge that. Okay. That that speaking of engineer, I always tell people as my fun comment, I was like, that feels like engineering to me and it's so complicated. I I I don't have the bandwidth right now to step into that still after several years. I just don't feel like I have the bandwidth. I'm sure at one point I at some point I will, but yeah. So I I'm open being corrected.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:43

Yeah, I know. Yeah, that's interesting. Um, yeah, another I because I did a like full genetic panel on myself recently. I saw that. And yeah, it was just not just the MTH bar, but a lot of like impairments in methylation, a lot of impairments in detox. Especially like I have two deletions for glutathione transferase enzymes. So they're just like totally deleted, like not there. So I I think that definitely probably impacts my, you know, ability to detox and maybe why I'm more susceptible to some of these things.

Dr. Mark Su 1:19:15

Yeah, there's some things like that that are more obvious for me.

unknown 1:19:17

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:19:17

Um, you know, and then the nuances, of course, are I don't even recognize or identify or understand. My my encouragement to you though is that given, you know, this kind of totality of story of elements we talked about, the humping chromatosis piece, the um factor Leiden topic with the sticky blood, you know, this uh the the various detox mechanism, you know, uh and much less the the agutyline transferase being kind of like absent almost. Heart um I'm I'm very heartwarmed and meaningfully impressed that you've made this much progress this this quickly, right? And that's really good. That's it. I know it doesn't feel quick to you, and I don't mean to I'm not devaluing or doing well, yeah. But I but it's a it's a pleasant surprise for me. Again, because I we didn't talk before this, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:01

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:20:01

So I that's it's meant to be an encouragement because if you've gotten this far with those kind of like cards stacked against you, if you will, yeah, the prognosis is like excellent to me, right? And you have various pieces you can modify and refine what you're doing, you know, um and and you're well on your way.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:17

Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. And on the ace I'm doing EMDR as well, which I think is helping a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

So yeah. But in terms of like the molds besides getting out, what else would you suggest as next steps?

Dr. Mark Su 1:20:32

Yeah, we could land on that one, you know, as a sort of like um that's a good final piece there. Um so if I'm you so we could do this after the fact, but I'll just list you options of what I use. Um for people who on pharma, then it's really like the you know, for copase or whatever, then there's cholcepolum as a pill form, and there's cholesteroline as a powder. They're kind of similar, not exactly, but they're kind of similar. Again, their in turns covered the um they're both FDA proof for lowering cholesterol, which I know you mentioned you have like quote unquote high cholesterol. I didn't look at your exact numbers because a lot of people see that it's flagged as high, but it's not really high, especially for their age.

Binders Antifungals And Practical Tools

SPEAKER_01 1:21:04

Well, yeah, mine it's it's only been slightly h elevated. So I didn't think I had the gene. It runs in my family, but um this past time I got it, it was super high, like in like 360.

Dr. Mark Su 1:21:17

Yeah, yeah. Look at that.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:19

Which it's never been it it was only in the low 200s before. So I don't know if it like could it be.

Dr. Mark Su 1:21:24

You mean the total?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:26

Yeah, the total. But now it's like super high.

Dr. Mark Su 1:21:29

So I will tell you this is this so there are there and this is even conventional medicine, it's just no one ever thinks about or talks about this, but those cholesterol numbers can be inflammatory. Like they can be like inflammatory markers. I don't look for all the people I see every day year round with labs for physicals and stuff like, you know, even if that's the case in principle, I'm not gonna tell you that I see this regularly. Like people who have a flu, I'm not seeing their total or LDL numbers be 30 points or more higher than the baselines, right? So, but having said that, I actually have had one scenario where I had it not nearly as high as yours, but I had some really unusual numbers as well, uh, just one time. And I know that we had some um highly suspicious uh mold exposures in our uh home at that time as well. And I I didn't actually do anything about it, and then it kind of returned to baseline later. You know, most people probably say, Oh, it's probably a lab error, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:19

Maybe it was like inflammation. Yeah, that's what I was gonna try to just wait and see if it goes down again.

Dr. Mark Su 1:22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:28

But yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:22:28

Yeah, so that you got the colcharamine and the cold sublim as prescriptions, and then on the non-prescription side, for me personally, I'm there's a lot of options, right? I mean, there's a lot of stuff online that I don't even recognize the name of the company, um, etc. But like on the simplest side, a lot of people use uh charcoal, and that's pretty easy, cheap, and et cetera. Um, for me personally, I use um I end up using a lot of I don't know if you know Cellcore as a supplement company.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:22:51

Okay. So I use a lot of their biotoxin binder. I haven't had to use carboxy that often, which is uh touted to be the stronger of the two, but I use a lot of those. And in past I've used a quite a bit of um ultra ultra binder from um Quicksilver. In the more distant past, I've used uh I know some people who've as patients, they told me they just, you know, on their own digging, they were using uh Diamycious, is it called Dimaceous Earth?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:13

Diamaceous Earth, I think.

Dr. Mark Su 1:23:15

Diatimaecious Earth, I think. It's been so many years now, but uh I recall I recall that from some patients. And then um I won't once in a blue moon for someone who's just mild or they just want to be really more minimalistic, um, they just don't want or maybe it's cost or whatever, like sometimes we'll just go with fiber, like just straight up fiber supplementation. And now one of my more favorite ones actually also is that um do you know the um SBI Protect or Mega IgG 2000, two different companies?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:23:41

So the the the raw ingredient's the same, right? Immunolin. And um that has been identified, you know, scientifically to be able to bind mycotoxins also, which is a it just makes it all the more of a multifaceted, like love that product kind of thing, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:55

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, great.

Dr. Mark Su 1:23:57

Treating the fungus is more difficult, right? Treating fungus inside with somebody. I I commonly will go pharma, at least as part of the regimen for people, but it's commonly a multi-regimen, multi-element regimen, kind of like treating Lyme. And I commonly will use pharma with herbals in combo, unless the person adamantly wants to go just herbals.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:15

Okay. Yeah. So more of like a um antifungal.

Dr. Mark Su 1:24:19

Yeah, so I I've used a lot of fluconazole, you know, which doesn't seem to exacerbate the uh the liver tests, uh basically hardly ever, if not ever. Turbenafine, you know, the lamicill, you know, generic lamicill, that one is I find that one, I use that one quite often. And then the other one I use often is clotrimazole, which is they're like trochies just on the tongue. So if people have thrush, it's even more effective for the thrush than the other ones I find. But it's a little annoying because you have to take multiple. You know, it's not just like a one, it's it's like two twice a day or something like that. And people don't seem to mind it though. A couple people actually told me they liked second on them and then dissolved. I don't know. Um those are probably my my most commonly used three. I won't explain now how I choose them for person to person, but those are my common three. And then in the um non-pharma world, um I use a lot of Clodel Silver. Um, you know, I I tend to use the Argentine 23 version, um, which is like the professional version of um sovereign silver, I think is the you know, um direct to the public um version. So they're very similar. Um clodil silver and then uh I do end up using um um Candibactin AR and Candibactin BR kind of often. And um and then I I lean on um neem as an ingredient, the uh herbal neem, which for me I just end up using a lot of um a product from cellcore called cytocore, uh cyto cytoimmune. So I use that I use that a lot and um I'm missing one. Oh, biocyden. I end up using biocyden quite a bit too.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:45

Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:25:46

Those are probably my most common ones.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:48

I've tried to do well not tried, I have done like parasite cleanse. I did a cellcore parasite cleanse a few years ago. That one went pretty well, but I tried um the Candida cleanse and I was taking biocidin and it gave me like a rash immediately. Do you think that was like more of an allergy to the ingredients or more of like a detox reaction?

Dr. Mark Su 1:26:09

Just statistically speaking, I tend to presume that when people have skin reactivity to supplements anyway, I tend to presume it's more of a reaction than it is a um allerg uh more of a detox reaction, if you will, more than it is an actual allergic reaction to some ingredient.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:26

Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Mark Su 1:26:27

Yeah, I was living here, so maybe Yeah, I I I actually I think that uh it's very arguable that that's the case with a lot of prescriptions too, right? The number it's this is documented in medical literature, the number of people who have a listed allergy to whatever antibiotic commonly, and then they're retested for it and they're fine. It's it's a pretty meaningful number.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:47

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:26:48

Right, which raises the question, you could say methodically, you know, analytically here, well, okay, so did their immune system change and they're just, you know, they're okay with it now? Or was it just that it it wasn't really an allergic reaction to the medication to begin with? We just made that assumption.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:59

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Um I think if I have any more questions.

Dr. Mark Su 1:27:03

Yeah, was it I mean, I know I just kinda like spit out a lot of stuff at you, so hopefully it wasn't like over overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:09

No, no. Yeah, it's really helpful. Yeah, it's helpful to get like your confirmation on the molds. It's because we did go back and forth a lot about it. And I think seeing that the Ermian hurts me, um, like, okay, this is like a real thing. But even just hearing that that's the highest you've seen in two years is crazy. Yeah, would you say like at that level we should get a new mattress and couch and all that?

Dr. Mark Su 1:27:34

Oh, thanks

What To Toss Or Keep

Dr. Mark Su 1:27:34

for reminding me. So um, yeah, so if so if you go to um this is gonna sound like a plug, but look, it's a nonprofit. This is so ICI, right? I-sea i dot org. If you go to that page, um, and then go to the um get help tab, and then under the get help tab, look for the um, I think it's uh it it probably says IEPs or it says environmental thresholds or something like that, you know, as opposed to the practitioners, like clinicians. If you go to that page, there's a few a few free downloads.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:03

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Mark Su 1:28:03

Right, um like documents that have been created by the IEP committee. They put a lot of work into stuff. They've got some really great content there, and it's free. And um, one of those documents is um I think they call it uh toss or keep throw toss or keep.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:17

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:28:17

You know, which is like is kind of like what you're asking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:20

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:28:20

And there's there's also um a document about um remediation like uh steps, you know, um of consideration. Yeah, some of that's a nuance and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell you I'm like uh totally up to date on a lot of stuff. I you know my bandwidth is I'm human, my bandwidth is has some limitations and uh I've chosen to have an awareness to a certain level and then at that point I defer to guys like Mike and his, you know, people like him.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:43

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:28:44

Um and a lot of times they do so you know, a lot of those folks they do um uh virtual consultations.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:49

Right?

Dr. Mark Su 1:28:49

Great I mean Mike does, uh other folks in our IEP or the um ICI organization, a lot of folks do that, and especially in a s in a scenario where you're talking more about, you know, it's not like I need you to look at the environment and swab sample it or whatever else. You're just looking for advice on how to handle you know content material or whatever else things of that nature, that's very, very, you know, feasible to do by virtual consultation. That's that can be highly valuable to to people, just for some reassurance and some guidance and direction.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:16

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, good stuff.

Dr. Mark Su 1:29:21

Look, I again I'm really encouraged by your story. Okay. I'm you know pleasantly surprised, but that's that's awesome. And um, you know, a lot of it you've done a lot of great work. And so look, if people want to reach you, you know, as a nutritionist and having familiarity with this kind of stuff yourself, right? Because that means a lot. So tell folks how they can reach you.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:39

Yeah, um my uh website is Joya Health, J O I A Health.co, C O. Um my Instagram's Joya Health and my email is hello at joyahealth.cool.

Dr. Mark Su 1:29:53

And you're are you're taking folks?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

Yeah, I am. So I was uh not taking new patients for a long time when I was sick, but now that's why I asked.

unknown 1:30:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:02

Yeah, yeah. Now I'm starting to take new ones. But yeah, mostly just slowly taking people on, not doing anything crazy, but yeah.

Dr. Mark Su 1:30:09

Um great. And I I just remembered what I was thinking about a second ago. Um I know we we there is a um there are more than one both IEP prof uh inspectors as well as remediators who are in the ICI organization and you know know their stuff who are in your area. So if you actually needed someone, you know, in person for any reason or just whatever and just wanted to be able to touch base in person, then there's you have options. And again, through the ICI website under the Gip Help page, you can find people, you can find who they are on that website too. So look, um, it was a lot. We went for we went for quite a long time here. I was not expecting that. And so I thanks for hanging in there with me. And hopefully the help information was helpful and not uh confusing.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:46

It's really helpful. Thank you so much for all the insight and knowledge.

Dr. Mark Su 1:30:51

Yeah, no, my pleasure. And appreciate your willingness to um you know share your story and uh and again, yeah, for whether it's you or anybody else listening, you know, uh there are plenty of other people who out there who don't know what they don't know. And um, you know, we these are these are awesome opportunities as free consultations and uh they don't necessarily all go this long in your case, it's just you like you know so much already. So it was easy to kind of like pull in more. And again, I I presumed with your intellect being an engineer that you'd be able to handle even more of information kind of like tagged on, you know, as a proof of sort. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:25

Yeah, no, thank you. Yeah, it's good to meet you.

Dr. Mark Su 1:31:28

Yeah, you too. We'll call it a uh we'll call it an end here. Yeah, uh, for folks listening in, then as I just mentioned, if um yeah, uh rootseekhealth.com is how you can reach us as a virtual practice. And if you have never worked with a pr um practitioner before or need uh some uh a different look uh whatnot, then our team is more than privileged and honored to walk that journey with you on at whatever level. And ultimately our goal is just to help people get better faster. Until next time, we'll we'll call it a day here. And um, thanks again, Joya.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:59

Just the way you like to be