Understanding ME/CFS and Long COVID: Causes, Symptoms, and Solutions with Evan H. Hirsch, MD

Episode 111:

Understanding ME/CFS and Long COVID: Causes, Symptoms, and Solutions with Evan

H. Hirsch, MD

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Welcome back to the holistic health bytes. Podcast

today we are gonna talk about all things, fatigue with industry, expert. Dr. Evan Hirsch,

who is gonna share all about things with fatigue and kinda underlying causes, and

probably some toxicity. And we're gonna talk about all kinds of things. But Dr. Evan is a

medical doctor as well as a speaker author, just all the things and knows so much. So

I'm honored to have you here. Thank you for joining.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Andrea, thanks so much for having me on. You can call

me Evan.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And will you just

kinda tell everybody a little bit about you? I know I just hit the highlights. But tell

everybody a little bit about you, and how you got to where you are.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Sure. So my journey really started when I started my

Residency program out here in Olympia, Washington and I met my wife, and we fell in

love. And

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and then, 6 months later, she couldn't get out of bed,

and that lasted for about 3 years, and then she was about 80% better. And then we got

married and had a kid, and I started my own practice. And then a couple of years after

that I got chronic fatigue.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and it lasted for about 5 years, and just about destroyed

everything just about destroyed my relationship with her. I couldn't be a good dad to our

new child in my business. My business was suffering significantly. I I

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): I was napping under my desk every single day. I had lots

of shame around that because I had, I was practicing functional medicine at that point

in time. And finally, I realized that, and I knew from my functional training, if I could find

all of the causes that I would be successful, but I was so burnt out, and I had so much

fatigue, that was really hard for me to think my way through it. But I went on this journey

of finding all the causes that I had.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and I fixed all of them, and I got over it, and I wrote a

book about it, and now that's my mission in life. And then and then, because of

everything that happened with Covid and Long Covid. Now, which is really just an

extension of chronic fatigue, we've incorporated that as well. And so now we're

specializing in chronic fatigue and long covid.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Oh, such a powerful story. And you know, I think a lot of

us get into this because of our own story. So that doesn't surprise me, really, that you

have your own story. Sometimes it's our own personal story, sometimes as someone in

our family, and you happen to have both. So I think that definitely gives you a unique

perspective, having gone through it yourself. And you understand what your patients are

deal then dealing with.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: So can. We just kinda like start at the beginning? I know

most people, I mean, that's the common complaint. Nowadays. People are just tired,

and we're tired all the time, and it doesn't seem like we can get out of that. But there's a

difference between just being tired and actually true chronic fatigue. So can we talk

about like really what the differences are, and how you might know if chronic fatigue is

really your situation.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Yeah, and it, it is really subjective. And so you know, the

you know, the simple definition is tiredness. That's not relieved by rest.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So it's kind of like when we were in our twenties, and

you had your final exams, and you like studied all week, or and then partied on the

weekend, or whatever it was, you would come home, and then you'd sleep for several

weeks, maybe a month, right, and then you'd get back to Baseline. This is kind of like

where, when you try to catch up like that, and you're trying to get more sleep. And you're

working on all the lifestyle habits stuff that you that you know to do, or that you're

working with the natural path, or a nutritionist, or whatever.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And you're still not getting better. You know. So that's

really when when there, your body is telling you that there's a problem, you know, if

you're surviving on energy drinks, if you have to nap through the day. You're yawning

throughout the day.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): That's definitely a problem and needs to be addressed

because it means that there's there's toxins that we'll talk about in a little bit that are

kind of building up in the body that are having consequences on your hormones and

your mitochondria and your new, and your nutrients and all of these other things, and

consequently, when when things start to go and you start to get fatigued, and you start

to have this chronic tiredness. Consequently this means that other things and and

inflammation and

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): potentially diseases of longevity, like heart attacks,

heart disease stroke. Alzheimer's cancer, those are all potentially going to happen as

well. So we have to pay attention when the body starts telling us that there's a problem.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Okay, yeah. And you've talked a little bit about, you

know, toxins being one of the main things. But what are some of the other contributing

factors that might lead someone to developing this chronic fatigue.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Yeah, so there's really 2 categories that I look at when

we're looking at all these different causes. And there's deficiencies. These are things

that are not present in the body and in your life that are supposed to be. And these are

things that

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): well, and then there's toxicities which are things that are

in your body that aren't supposed to be there. So in terms of the deficiencies, these are

things people are most familiar with. So there's the lifestyle habit component, which is

like not enough good food, not enough good water, not enough good movement, not

enough good sleep.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And then there's the the supplements that most people

take. So maybe it's vitamins and minerals that have become deficient. Maybe there's

hormone supplements that are being replaced, or hormone deficiencies that are being

replaced where it's adrenals, thyroid sex hormones. Or maybe it's mitochondrial function

which makes like 70 90% of our energy and is found in every cell in the body except for

red blood cells. So those are like the deficiencies. And when you replace them you're

gonna feel

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): good or a little bit better, typically with the people that I

work with. But it's the then you plateau. And you're really not getting to where you want

to go, because the reason why people have those deficiencies for the most part, besides

the lifestyle habits is because they have toxins that have built up in their body over time.

So these are, I call the toxic 5. And these are heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections,

and trauma.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So those are the toxic. 5 that have kind of built up in

your life since the moment you came out of the womb, and consequently that ends up

causing a number of these deficiencies. And that's really the real root cause it's not like

in a adrenal fatigue, or like Hashimoto's or thyroid. Yes, that's true that you have those

things and those hormones are lower. But the reason why those hormones are lower is

because of the toxic 5. And if you really want to get complete resolution, you gotta make

sure you're focused on those.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Okay, and those all sound like they're not super easy to

get rid of. It's not like you just throw your plastic water bottle away, and all things are

fixed, that these are things that are around us all the time, and that are kinda hard to get

rid of. So is that what makes chronic fatigue so difficult to not only identify, but also to

resolve.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): That's definitely part of it. Yes, and so there is. There's

this. Everybody's got different causes, I mean, that's part of it as well. And you know, and

oftentimes there's a combination of causes. You know, when we're looking at so many

different causes. Usually everybody that I see has a combination about 20 causes or so.

When I had my chronic fatigue, I had 30 of the 36 or 38 causes that we're now looking at

so

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): that can feel overwhelming. But the reality is is that

when you start down a process and you're fixing each cause as you go, and you're

removing the toxins that are in your environment, and then also the toxins that are in

your body.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you eventually getting you eventually get there right?

And as humans, we overestimate the amount of time, the amount of time it takes to get

something done in a day, and we underestimate the amount we can achieve in a year.

And so.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): I have to coach a lot of people on like this expectation

that to get rid of these toxins out of your body takes a while, but they've been

accumulating over the last. How many decades right? But at the end of that year it's

kind of like doing a master's like. At the end of that year you turn around and you're like,

Oh, my gosh! I accomplish so much! And now I've got the rest of my life to look forward

to.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Yeah, I love it. And you know that's the same thing with

anything in health. We want results overnight.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: But it took

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: probably decades to get to where you are right now. So

of course, it's not going to turn around overnight. It generally doesn't take decades to

undo. But it's not gonna happen overnight. So I think, with setting expectations, upfront

is always important to do. So. I know that you just mentioned that there's like 38

different underlying causes and things that can contribute to these things. But you've

kind of boiled it down to a simple process that you take your clients through right? Can

you kind of walk us through what that process is.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): so I have a 4 step process that I call the energy Md,

method, that i've been working on for the last decade

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and the first step is to figure out which causes you have

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): now of those causes that we just mentioned, 90% of

those can be determined by history and symptoms.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So that means the 10% require labs.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): It's like $500 for the labs that I recommend, which kind

of blows people's minds cause. Wh. Generally, when they go to see a functional

medicine doctor I've heard of up to $7,000 is the amount that people that that doctors

and practitioners will run labs initially like before they even see you, or anything like that

which I think is ridiculous. But part of it is also that with my

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): my clientele, the people that I see everybody who has

chronic fatigue and gets to that point of their energy being, you know, 5 out of 10 or 4

out of 10 or less than that, where they're really not as functional as they wanna be.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): They have they? They have all of these the toxic 5. So I

used to test for all of those, and every 3 months we would do testing, but inevitably over

the course of a year all of those toxins would come out. The heavy metals, the

chemicals, the molds, the infections, and every kind of infection, viruses bacteria.

Spirits. Like all of this sort of stuff. So then I realized, okay, I can save people a ton of

money. And instead of using that for testing, we can actually just be treating those

things. And so

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): everybody has different causes, and but and but

everybody has the toxic 5. So that's kind of like what I've learned. So that's the the 90%.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So that's the good news about figuring out your causes.

And then we also have, you know, depending on which program people join. In our

system. You're gonna know your causes in like about one or 2 h, whether you're filling it

out in our, in our workbook and course, or whether we're doing it on a one on one. So

you start off knowing the causes that you have, and then the rest of the process kind of

matching up a treatment that works with the causes you have. So then, the second step

is to replace the deficiencies.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And so that's kind of like we talked about with the

adrenals and the thyroid and the mitochondria. I call those the Big 3 cause they give you

the biggest uptick in your energy.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and they're really important, even though this process is

all about removing the toxins. It's really important to become more resilient.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And so that's kind of what we're doing with replacing

the deficiencies, making sure the lifestyle habits are in order, making sure that these

deficiencies have been replaced so that you you actually have an uptick in your energy.

You have more resilience, your. It's easier for you to manage the stress in your life and to

function in your life.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): because when we start removing these toxins in step 4,

it actually is stressful on the body. And you need to have that support in step 2. So then

in step 3. We're opening up the drainage pathways or the detox pathways. These are like

the exit pathways in your body, the liver, the kidney, the lymph, which is the garbage

system in the body, the neural lymph which is in the brain, the intestines, the gall

bladder.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Those are all ways that we get toxins and things out of

our body, and when you have chronic fatigue they're all clogged. So we have to open

them up. It's kinda like a funnel

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): where it's really compressed at the bottom, and we kind

of have to open it up so that toxins can flow out, and then we get into Step 4, where it's

about removing the toxins, and each of those steps takes about a month, except for

step 4,

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): which is, gonna take you 9 to 24 months, depending on

the number of causes you have, and the severity of each of those causes.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Okay, yeah, that sounds really comprehensive and yet

doable. I mean something that people can really go through. And it's actionable. And it's

not only gonna fix just the fatigue, but it sounds like it's gonna fix a lot of other things

along the way as well, and just kind of rebalance the body to be optimal in all the ways

which is obviously ideal. If you can.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: you know, take out all the problems at once. That's

awesome.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Tell us a little bit about like.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: what are some things people are doing on a daily basis

that are maybe contributing to this toxic load. What are some mistakes people are

making, whether they know it or they kind of know it, and they're ignoring it.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So let's let's go through our day right, or or an example

of a day. So you wake up in the morning so you know how close is your phone to your

head? Has been your your phone been left on all night? Are you sleeping near a smart

meter, or or what other things are plugged in, where you're having exposure to

electromagnetic frequencies, electromagnetic fields that are interfering with your DNA,

causing DNA damage and increasing inflammation

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and then oftentimes the first thing that people do is that

and interfering with your sleep potentially. First thing that people do is they wake up and

they check their phones right? And so if they if you go on social media, you're basically

looking at other people's ideal lives right? You know, posting on Facebook or whatever.

And so that puts us into comparison. There's a quote that my wife likes to quote all the

time, which is comparison is the thief of happiness. I don't know who said it, but it's a

really good quote.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and so if you start off your day in comparison, all of a

sudden, you're not as happy as potentially, you could be right. And then if you check your

email, what's in your email, it's people who are requesting things from you right? So all

of a sudden, now, you feel an urgency to kind of like get back to people right? So what

we coach people on is to start a a mindset practice. And so we teach them what I call

daily mindset practice, which is 4 steps.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and it's about gratitude and envisioning your ideal day,

and flipping any negative beliefs into empowering beliefs and asking ourselves

empowering questions, and so that can really start to set your day for success as

opposed to some of these other things. And then so you get up in the morning and like,

what choices are you making in terms of water consumption. So you want water that's

filtered, you know. If you go to email.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Wg, org, slash, tap, water, TAPW, a, TER. That's the

environmental working group.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): You can put in your Zip code and they will tell you all of

the toxins that you have in your tap water. So we think that our municipalities are doing

are such a great service by filtering out our water, and they are to some extent, but in

general it's pretty awful.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And so you're still being toxified by your water. So,

having a good carbon filtration system, I have all this on my recommended page on our

website of what of the different brands that I recommend, or even a distiller to the to the

next degree, can be really helpful at making sure that that you're consuming water that's

really healthy for you. And then you also should be really consuming most people close

to 3 liters of water a day, especially when you're doing like a program like ours where

we're getting rid of toxins out of the body.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): The adage is that you want, like half your body weight,

and ounces, and so, if you weigh like 150 pounds, you should be consuming 70 ounces

or 2 liters of water, you know, somewhere between 2 and 3 liters really is ideal. And you

want to start your day off with that, you know, consuming as much water as you can

initially, is really good for kind of like flushing things out

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and then moving on to food, you know, making good

food choices. Oftentimes it's more about what you're not eating, as you know, is much

better than you know it. It it it decreases the inflammation so that you can. You can feel

better in your life. And so I tell people, you know, protein and vegetables is really ideal at

every meal. Maybe a little bit of fruit and vegetables should be like half of your plate.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): At every meal, you know. Try to have maybe dinner for

breakfast or lunch for breakfast. Oftentimes our breakfast foods aren't really that great

and protein can be meat as long as it's grass fed and hopefully grass finished or or it

can be some sort of vegetarian meat as well beans, or whatever.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So making good food choices is important. So you've

got your water and your food choices, and then kind of going throughout your day,

working on your mindset and then getting some exercise at some point during the day,

making sure you're getting movement.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): I tell a lot of people that if you don't have a lot of time

and and and you and you don't wanna do something that is considered. Quote unquote

exercise. Then, putting on your favorite song and dancing to it, we actually had a dance

party last night, my daughter and I and that was super fun. And it's just a great way to to

get some exercise in throughout the day. And then a lot of people are going to to work at

that

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): point.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and whether you're working at home, or whether you're

working outside, you know there's some stats to show that about 500 women are

exposed to about 550 different chemicals before they even leave the house in the

morning

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): from all of the crap that you're kind of putting on your

body. So cosmetics and soaps and this that and the other thing. So making choices, you

know. And this doesn't happen overnight, you know. Basically, you create a plan, for you

know, every month or so you're gonna examine a different part of your cab in a tree.

What's in your pantry, or what's in your in your closets, or whatever to determine. Okay,

what do I have? That's toxic

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): that I can kind of swap out for something that's a bit

healthier. So making trying to decrease these 89, 90,000 different chemicals that were

exposed to on a regular basis that haven't been appropriately evaluated by government

bodies or scientific organizations that are monit supposed to be managing our health.

Right?

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So then you get into a car. If you're if you're I'm just. I'm

just going here. You can interrupt me at any point. So you you get into your car and

you're driving to work, and if you don't have your car on recycling, you're not recycling

your air, then you're breathing in gas fumes from other people, and these show up on a

number of these tests that we run. If you've got new car smell, then you're getting

exposed to some of the

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): What is it? Not, Boron. It's

00:17:54.260 --> 00:18:18.299

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): There's there's some chemicals that are in that as well,

and some heavy metals, you know. If you have mercury fillings in your mouth, the silver

fillings every time you buy down you're absorbing mercury vapor. If you have sushi or

fish, or any sort of seafood at work. Unfortunately, like a hundred 95% of of all the

seafood we're consuming at this point in time has mercury in it. And so

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you're gonna be increasing the mercury in your body. If

you're smoking or exposed to smoke, you're getting cadmium, which is another heavy

metal. If you're working in a place that has that was built before 19 72 or whatever

there's gonna be potentially lead paint in, you know, in the dust, in the, in the space

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): at home, and then also potentially at work. If you've ever

had any sort of water damage in the space, there can be mold that you're being exposed

to.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So these toxin just kind of and just build up in your body

over time until your body kind of calls. It quits. The last thing that I'll say is

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): coming out of the womb. We now know that we're

exposed to over 300 different chemicals that are found in babies cord blood. So this is

from moms dumping all their good stuff and not so good stuff into babies. And so you

just have to understand that we're like coming out of the womb behind the 8 ball right?

And with all these toxins, and then they end up accumulating throughout our lives, and

then it becomes

00:19:13.870 --> 00:19:27.959

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): too much. Oh, and the last thing I'll say, you know, in

terms of infections, is that when you have heavy metals, chemicals, and molds in your

body, they distract the immune system, and consequently that allows infections to

become opportunistic.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And so we have this relationship with infections in our

body. But oftentimes it's in balance until it's no longer in balance by any sort of really

significant stressor or these toxins. And then these infections come out, or you get the

the jab, or you get covid, or, you know, stuff like that that end up

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): contributing and increasing inflammation in the body.

So that's kind of big picture. A lot of the exposures that we get throughout the day and

throughout our lives.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Yeah, and there really are so so many places that we're

getting these exposures from both from things we're actively choosing, like our personal

care products and home care products, and also things that we don't really choose like

what's in our air and what's in our water and those kinds of things. So obviously, we have

to take extra precaution around those things because

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: we can't really stop them. So we just have to do what

we can to filter them out. But I hear from my clients all the time that this just seems

impossible. They're coming at us from everywhere, toxin. They're in everything.

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Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Where do people start if they're like? Seriously,

everything around me is toxic. How do? What? Why, even bother.

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Yeah. And so that's part of the mindset practice and

asking yourself a a better question. Right? So it's like the question of

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Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you know there's there's no way to do this, or it's

overwhelming, or I guess that's more of a a statement. But the reality is is that all you

gotta do is one thing you know, these are like, it's all about baby steps.

00:20:51.150 --> 00:21:13.920

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So you know, it's like once a month, or once a year. If

you do one thing like this year, it'll be like, let's get a whole house water filter. Let's

research that. Let's figure that out. Let's do that. And then you're good for the next 50

years. You know what I mean, and let's do and then the next year it's like, let's look at our

personal care products. So you can obviously make more faster decisions than that. But

00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:24.572

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you know it, it can. It can happen over the course of

several years, and you're gonna be very successful when you do that. So it's all about.

Yes, I totally understand that this is all overwhelming.

00:21:24.860 --> 00:21:37.475

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): But you have to work with a practitioner. Ui! Other

people out there who can kind of like hold your hand and kind of like walk you through

this process, and it becomes a lot easier, you know, when somebody's kind of doing that

for you.

00:21:38.008 --> 00:22:01.029

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): But if you wanna do it on your own great and just kind

of set these milestones. Put alarms on your calendar. Be like, you know, once a month

on a Saturday it'll be like, examine personal care products, you know or or go to that list

that you know Evan was talking about, or whatever you know, that you've you know, or

you go to chat, Gpt, and you ask, you know. Tell me all the ways that I'm being exposed

to toxins in my life right now

00:22:01.030 --> 00:22:05.989

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and then give me some solutions, and so then you can

start like working through that checklist.

00:22:06.320 --> 00:22:21.429

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Yeah, I think that's a great way to look at it. And I'd love

the baby step concepts. I always tell my clients to like when you run out of something

just before you replace it, find a better alternative, you know, if your dish soap is, you

need new. You know you need a new new bottle.

00:22:21.800 --> 00:22:43.680

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Get a better quality one, get one that's less toxic. Same

thing with your shampoo. Same thing with me makeup, you know, whatever that looks

like, just as you have to replace stuff, just find a better option. And so every little bit

helps. It does feel overwhelming. And it does seem like. There's toxins and and things

bombarding us all day every day, and that's true, but every little step we take

00:22:43.810 --> 00:23:00.380

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: is helping you. And so you know, every baby step you

can take is a good thing. So I wanted to go back to the, you know, a lot of people live in

really old homes or work in really old buildings. So if you know, you live in a house that

was, say, built in the fifties

00:23:00.810 --> 00:23:22.100

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: that probably has potentially. Several decades of water

leaks over the years, you know, probably lead, paint, and you know just all the things.

Wh. What would you recommend to someone who lives or works in one of those

environments, you know. Does it require Mitigation Company? Do you just have to like,

plow your house under and start over. What what do you do if you live in that kind of

environment?

00:23:22.470 --> 00:23:27.778

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Yeah, we have a 1924 home that is having its hundredth

year anniversary this year.

00:23:28.481 --> 00:23:30.970

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And so we we know this very well.

00:23:31.140 --> 00:23:51.729

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And yeah, it's it's definitely a process. But the first the

first step is to test, you know. And so in the the 2 tests that I really recommend when it

comes to chronic fatigue, is one to make sure that you're not living in mold, or if you are

to figure out what to do about it. And then 2 is like some blood tests that we're looking

at. But the the mold one is really huge.

00:23:51.730 --> 00:24:07.461

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So it's doing a test. I like the Emma test which is

environment mold and micotoxin assessment. And so this is looking at the spores. But

it's also looking at the microtoxins, which are the toxins produced by the molds. So it's

really the best test that's out there.

00:24:07.770 --> 00:24:21.279

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): It's about 300, and I think $20 on our website, and and

that's that's the first step is to determine whether that's the case. Cause the challenge is

is that you know you may have mold in your body, but you may not have mold in your

home.

00:24:21.280 --> 00:24:32.040

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you know, or you may have mold in your home, but if it's

so, if it's in your home, and you've been there for at least 6 months. Then it's gonna be in

your body right? But you may have had mold exposure when you were 5 years old.

00:24:32.283 --> 00:24:54.710

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And you lived in a place for a couple of years, and you

may have had no mold exposure since, which is rare, but it's possible, and you may be

50, 60 years old, and you still have that mold from when you were 5. Okay, so it just

stays in the body, and so it and it, and it does build up. And it does bloom at different

times of year and stuff like that, so you may feel worse, but it's to determine whether or

not you're living in it

00:24:54.710 --> 00:25:03.320

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): right? So doing. An assessment like that, if you do just

have access to mold plates. You can put out the mold plates, stick them in a closet for 5

days, see what it grows out.

00:25:03.550 --> 00:25:08.935

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Generally you have to send it into a lab, though, to get it

assessed and determine. What are these different mold strains?

00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:25.799

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): But you know it's once again it's baby steps. It's one

step at a time, you know, and and getting that assessment is is is crucial. The other

thing I I just wanna comment on that is that you don't have to be in an old home. So you

know, that's kind of I

00:25:26.242 --> 00:25:33.249

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): I get that. You said that because that's what most

people think but what you know, if you're driving around town and it's raining.

00:25:33.760 --> 00:25:44.690

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): are there still homes that are being built? Absolutely

right? And so you see, these these homes that are wooden structures, and it's raining.

And then the first sunny day.

00:25:44.690 --> 00:26:04.498

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you know, the workers are back and they're sealing it up,

and new homes are sealed up really tight. So if you wanna grow mold, you take you get

something wet, and then you add heat to it and warmth right? And you, you seal it up

right? So that is something to be concerned about as well. Cause I've definitely seen

people who have new homes, who also have mold.

00:26:04.770 --> 00:26:12.919

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So it's an important assessment whenever you feel

tired, and if you can associate feeling tired with a new job that you had to go to.

00:26:13.100 --> 00:26:19.189

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): or a new house that you moved into. That can definitely

be significant in your health journey.

00:26:19.850 --> 00:26:38.770

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Yeah. And you know the the new home. I love that you

mentioned that I actually live in a new home, and it is incredibly airtight that all the

things that are off gassing all the brand new carpets and new cabinets and new paint,

and all the things are also trapped in your house. So it's not just about molds, but all

these other toxins that just come with

00:26:38.770 --> 00:26:53.469

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: our lives today. And so it's important to open windows

and get air filters and water filters and all the things that we've talked about. So I think

that was a great point to make that it's not just about old homes or old buildings that

you might work in, but it really can be, even in new environments, with

00:26:53.850 --> 00:27:02.100

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: mold that got trapped when they were building it, or

even new homes still have water leaks like it doesn't take decades to build up these

things so.

00:27:02.100 --> 00:27:15.339

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Well, and that's the joke. When you know people I live in

the Pacific Northwest. And so people are like, Oh, and if they live up here. They're like,

Oh, I'm just gonna move to the southwest. I'm gonna move to Arizona, and the joke is,

are you gonna have indoor plumbing.

00:27:15.870 --> 00:27:16.210

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Right.

00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:17.850

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): You know. Does it still rain there.

00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:21.550

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): right, you know, like it's an issue, no matter where you

live.

00:27:21.550 --> 00:27:42.183

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Yeah, yeah, I live in Colorado, and we often hear, oh, it's

an arid climate. Mold only grows in in humid environments. And people just completely

just miss it. And that's totally not true. Not all mold has to live in a musty, wet

environment. It just takes a little bit of water to get it started, but it doesn't necessarily

require a lot of water to kind of keep going.

00:27:42.820 --> 00:27:57.784

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: So let's talk just briefly about the long Covid side of

things, because that's still fresh on a lot of people's minds. And yet I don't think people

really understand what that is. What signs would you look for who's susceptible? And of

course you know, what do you do about it?

00:27:58.550 --> 00:28:10.648

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. So yeah, so if you

got, if you had Covid, and even if it was really mild symptoms. Actually, this happens

more when you have 5 mild symptoms than it does if you have major symptoms.

00:28:11.248 --> 00:28:33.221

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and so we can talk about why, that happens in a minute.

But if you, if you get some sort of viral illness since 2019, and after that you end up with

some new symptoms or weird symptoms, and Covid can cause over 250 different

symptoms, so it can be everything from fatigue to brain, fog to sweating, to muscle, pain

to

00:28:34.112 --> 00:28:41.720

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): loss of senses of smell and taste stuff like that.

Headaches. Then you have to consider covid

00:28:42.275 --> 00:28:48.074

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): or if it happened after you got the job right. So you have

to kind of consider these things.

00:28:48.660 --> 00:28:57.779

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and so the people who are most susceptible actually

already have the toxic 5 in their body. So the covid becomes the straw that breaks the

camels back.

00:28:58.310 --> 00:29:27.789

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Okay? So you already had heavy metals, chemicals,

molds, infections, and trauma in your body, and it wasn't an issue until you get the covid.

And what ends up happening really is that those toxins are distracting the immune

systems. Immune systems often left field, and then the covid comes into the body and

is like there's no immune system around here to take care of me, so it's actually better to

have a really strong reaction like you're like, Oh, man, worse flu of my life. Because your

immune systems actually doing something to get rid of this spike protein out of the

body.

00:29:28.070 --> 00:29:56.619

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): and if it doesn't, then the covid can come in and be like,

Oh, I'm just gonna do what I wanna do in the body, and go into every compartment and

start causing a bunch of inflammation, and take over the production of of this and that

and the other thing in the cells. And so that's why it ends up taking hold, and oftentimes

it also takes more hold when people try to go back to exercise sooner rather than later.

So if you think you got over, you're like on a mild case, and then you're training for a

marathon, and you go for a 10 mile run, and then you're laid out.

00:29:56.660 --> 00:30:09.109

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you know. Oftentimes that's because the covid has

gotten into the mitochondria. The mitochondria produces energy, and and you're just

kind of like fostering this environment for the for the Covid to be able to grow.

00:30:09.616 --> 00:30:36.190

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): One other thing that's important to note is that

sometimes you get Covid, and then your symptoms persist. Sometimes you get Covid,

and this, and you feel like you're fine and your symptoms go away. And then, a month

later, 2 months, I've even seen like 6 months later, all of a sudden weird symptoms start

popping up. So you do have to kind of keep it in mind. It needs to be on everybody's

differential right now since 2,019. Unfortunately.

00:30:36.660 --> 00:30:42.099

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Okay? And those weird symptoms is that just fatigue

related, or what other kinds of things should people be watching for.

00:30:42.100 --> 00:30:48.147

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Yeah, so it can be fatigue. It can be like sweating. It can

be brain fog and can be muscle pain. It can be

00:30:48.470 --> 00:31:04.204

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): loss of smell and taste. It can be sleep issues that can

be a major one. And it's and the stats are like 20% of everybody who gets Covid, or who's

gotten Covid ends up progressing with some sort of persistent symptom.

00:31:04.580 --> 00:31:19.679

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): you know, there's there's a significant uptick in memory

issues. There's significant significant uptick in cancer. Since 2,019. So these are all

things that that most likely covid is contributing to, or the spike proteins contributing to.

00:31:20.030 --> 00:31:26.741

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Okay. And if if someone's thinking as they're listening to

this list of things, and they know they had Covid or the vaccine, or whatever

00:31:27.530 --> 00:31:35.280

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: do they go through the same kind of protocol as the

chronic fatigue stuff that you've already talked about? Or is it different when it comes

from Covid being the trigger.

00:31:35.650 --> 00:32:03.010

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): It's very similar. So because there's the toxic 5 that are

still present, and we're still going. We're still figuring out the causes, replacing the

deficiencies, opening the drainage pathways and then removing the toxins. The only

thing is that we do add on more of an emphasis on on hyper coagulation which is

removing the microclots which we do for chronic fatiguers, anyway. But we just do

oftentimes a little bit more of that. Sometimes there's some different

00:32:03.940 --> 00:32:26.740

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): components of clotting that we end up using, or

different or different treatments that we do specific for removing the the spike protein

out of the body, so might be some different herbs or some different nutrients in order to

to inhibit the spike proteins function in the cells and inhibits its attachment onto the

onto the cells in order to be able to get it out of the body.

00:32:27.050 --> 00:32:50.030

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Okay, yeah, good to know that it's similar, but a little bit

different. So if you know, you might have this problem, that's a good thing to really hone

in on and make sure that you mentioned if you're gonna go work with a practitioner that

you think it might be related to long covid, because protocols a little bit different. Thank

you so much for sharing all of this amazing information. If people are interested in

learning about you and your work, and all the things that you can share with them. What

is the best way.

00:32:50.280 --> 00:33:13.640

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): So I'm at energy. Md, method.com and we are. We're

100% virtual now. So we work with people all over the world on our website. You can

actually text me directly. There's a little text bubble bubble in the bottom right corner,

and we can have a conversation. We have initial visits. We have a starter program of 3

months, so you can kinda get to know whether or not you like us.

00:33:13.869 --> 00:33:23.960

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): And then you can join one of our longer 12 month

programs to get to the resolution of everything. And then, if you're not sure, or you just

want to have a conversation. I've got free. 20 min calls right now that are available.

00:33:24.380 --> 00:33:30.189

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: I love it, and of course you have your book. So if people

wanna get to know some of the stuff that way as well, talk a little bit about your book.

00:33:30.190 --> 00:33:54.230

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Yeah, so that's on Amazon. It's called, fix your fatigue,

and it is it goes through the 4 step process. It is from 2,017. So it's 7 years old at this

point in time, but a lot of the tenants are still the same. The protocols are different. It

doesn't talk about Covid at all. Obviously, but it can definitely be a good starter to see if

if we're good fit.

00:33:54.440 --> 00:34:09.129

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Love it, love it. Thank you so much for sharing all of this

amazing info. We will link up all your stuff in the show notes, so it'll be really easy for

people to just click over and find you easily. So thank you again so much. This was

amazing. I learned a ton, and I'm sure everybody else did as well.

138

00:34:09.630 --> 00:34:10.979

Evan H. Hirsch MD (EnergyMD): Thanks so much for having me on.

00:34:11.219 --> 00:34:14.529

Andrea Nicholson, MS, BCHN®️: Absolutely to everyone out there. We'll catch you again

on future episodes.