General Functional Medicine
If a patient has current and prior symptoms of fatigue and throat,” I’m going to say that’s probably throat pain, throat pain? … and tested positive for active CMV and possible past EBV in the past three months, should the patient’s spouse also test the same Immunosciences viral panel who has had fatigue for the past few months?
Dr. Amy Nett: Okay so there’s a couple questions here so I’m going to stop and answer this one first....
What would be a functional medicine approach to these viral illnesses?
Dr. Amy Nett: I was thinking rest, stress management, monolaurin, and coconut oil. Complicating factor for the spouse is high-risk...
Patient after taking one week of antibiotic became reactive to many foods and supplements with reflux. Reflux never happened in her life. She’s now in her mid-60s and now I am working with her on rebuilding the gut, probiotics and fermented foods, slowly introducing supplements and food as she has symptoms and labs through tests of methylation and mitochondrial dysfunction and fatigue, anxiety and mood issues. She has reflux to oral glutathione capsules and vitamin K2 capsules, fine with liposomal glutathione, and Thorne K2. Any ideas why?
Chris Kresser: Well, clearly the reflux is related to the antibiotics and so I would just really focus on normalizing...
Curiosity in cholestyramine ever since hearing about it in the podcast that Chris did with Dr. Shoemaker, and then it was again mentioned in the material for the 3-year-old female who had elevated C18 and C18-1 and that’s just the patient who she ended up having chronic inflammatory response syndrome. And she was given cholestyramine, moved out of a moldy environment and improved. Looking into cholestyramine, all you’ve come across is its use for reducing cholesterol. And on a different note the Natural Treatment Centers for Environmental Disease talks about there being no scientific studies on it actually being able to remove mycotoxins from the body and how its success historically is likely to have been placebo. Can we share our knowledge about this and point us in the direction of some good information for further investigation?
Dr. Amy Nett: Yeah so, this is going into chronic inflammatory response syndrome, which again we’re not going to cover...
Do you have any experience using silver spray such as ACS as an antimicrobial?
Chris Kresser: I think you’re talking about colloidal silver. Supposedly it’s an effective killer of bacteria, viral, fungal, etc., and...
How do you know when you need to support the cholinergic system?
Chris Kresser: So that was related to acetyl-CH, and the primary time to use that is when there’s a disrupted...
What would be functional medicine support post-surgery? I was thinking bone broth, vitamin C, and c
Chris Kresser: Yes, definitely, that can be helpful. In some cases, anti-inflammatories like curcumin or higher doses of EPA or...
What would be a functional medicine approach in a patient who has loud snoring when sleep apnea has been ruled out? I’m thinking about Cyrex food sensitivities, and Doctor’s Data stool tests to look for inflammation and use ADAPT protocols and lifestyle changes to reduce it.
Chris Kresser: Yeah, those are certainly good options, but I would also look into functional orthodontics, or dental orthopedics is...
I’m wondering what your experience has been in getting rifaximin covered by insurance or ways to make it more affordable. It seems like some patients have no problem and others have been unable to get it covered even when a diagnosis of IBS-D is used. I had one patient I prescribed it for where I had to do a pre-auth for it that included questions about whether or not she had even ever tried antidepressants before this condition. Because she hadn’t it was denied. So I was just wondering if you could talk through your process for best ways to get it covered and work around the system.
Chris Kresser: Really good question, and yes, we’ve had the same struggles. Different insurance companies have different procedures for whether...
Would you discuss how you determine duration of antimicrobial treatments for dysbiosis? Specifically interested in pediatrics and I’m not sure where to start with children but also have trouble deciding on duration for adults.
Chris Kresser: Well, in general, with pediatrics as a rule, shorter durations are typically more appropriate. Because I find that...
