How EMF are Affecting Your Health and What You Can do About it with Justin Frandson

Episode 74:

How EMF are Affecting Your Health and What You Can do About it with Justin

Frandson and Evan H. Hirsch, MD

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 00:07

Hey everybody, welcome back to the energy MD podcast where we're on a mission to

help a million people increase their energy naturally by addressing all their root root

causes, so that they can have more fun and success in every aspect of their life. So I'm

really excited today, because we're going to be talking about is it brain fog? Or is it

ADHD? With the expert, it's herself, my friend, Roseann Capanna-Hodge and so let's

learn a little bit about her. Let me grab her bio. So a mental health Trailblazer, founder of

The global institute of children's mental health and Dr. Roseann LLC. Roseanne is on a

mission Dr. Roseanne is on a mission to change the way we view and treat mental

health showing people it's going to be okay with science backed tools that improve

wellbeing. That's also the name of her podcast, right? That's the podcast is it okay, I love

it. Man, I got a book and the book. She is known for teaching how to calm the brain in

order to have a happy family and give the keys to unlock the brain's potential. With her

trademark method, brain behavior reset, she has helped 1000s addressed the most

challenging conditions such as ADHD, executive functioning anxiety, OCD, mood Lyme

and pan's pandas using science back to holistic therapies. She is an author of three

books, including Her most recent book, it's going to be okay. And as a media personality,

who is featured on dozens of media outlets. Dr. Roseann, thanks so much for joining me

today.

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 01:35

Well, I love your mission, I love that you're helping people who are impacted with things

that affect their energy. And, you know, we share so many of the same clients. I work

with a lot of younger clients, but but also adults. And many times people's brains are

affected by infections and toxins. And in their health journey, they find us you know, and

they get better.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 02:01

Absolutely, yeah. And it's, you know, I talk a lot about the causes. And so I definitely want

to get into those with you. But let's first define some of these terms. We're talking about

brain fog versus ADHD. How do they differ? How are they similar?

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 02:13

Yeah. So let's, let's talk about brain fog. Right. So brain fog is something we you might

you everybody knows exactly what it is, right? They know how it feels, right? So when

you think about brain fog, we're not going to talk about the root causes right now. But

we'll save that it's when your brain is having a hard time doing things easily. Right?

Where it feels like, oh, maybe I felt like I didn't sleep or it feels a little models and you're

struggling, right. But your normal brain state is pretty much a healthy brain state. Or

maybe you already have something else and you feel like it's even harder to focus, right?

I always kind of explain it to like, when I work with parents, I'm like, it's like, when you just

didn't sleep. That's kind of that feeling of brain fog. Like everything feels like a little out

there, right? Like you're underwater almost right. Where ADHD is a clinical condition, the

symptoms must show up before age 12. And what are those symptoms so struggling

with impulse control or hyperactivity, attacks, attention and really self regulation of your

thinking and intention systems and potentially your behavior, if you have issues with self

regulating and being impulsive, and impulsive doesn't have to be as explaining to mom,

a mom today. It doesn't mean when you think of an impulsive person that this is

somebody who's like obnoxious or pushing things over verbally impulsive, it also can

mean that you're just having trouble self regulating cognitively like switching gears, but

ADHD is a clinical condition. We know what it looks like when it comes to brainwave

activity. And I have to say, because I do cue EEG brain maps, which is a way to look at

the health of the brain tells you what's overworking and under working. And when you

look at the brain, somebody with ADHD looks different than brain fog. So ADHD shows

way too many unfocused brainwaves and not enough focus, typically a straight brain

fog. We'll talk about some of the sources, what you're going to see is just a lot of

unfocused activity. And you can see normal focus brain waves, so different patterning

when we dig in.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 04:34

Hmm, interesting. And so you said that it's got to happen before the age of 12. Right?

Yes. So then there's kind of there's a lot of people talking about it as adults now adult

onset aged ADHD, how does that come into play?

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 04:48

Well, you know, Evan, I talked about this with you before I am seeing this is a

conversation that everybody is talking about, because during the pandemic, I got so

many adults who are like, I think I have ADHD. And when you sit down with them, you

know, sometimes we may not be diagnosed until we're an adult. But the symptoms were

already there. And we were compensating right? So the difference is that when it is

ADHD, and it's a true condition, a clinical condition, there would have been some

symptoms. Like when I sit down with somebody, and I say, you know, do you remember

having hard time at school? Like, do you remember getting in trouble? Do you remember

turning in your homework last minute? Have you had difficulties because your partner

tells you never listen? You know, like, there's some kind of effect academically at work or

in relationships, and all three, right? So when it comes to having a difficulty focus rate, I

see it is way more of brain fog. And even the next level of that, like, why is this brain fog

happening? Right? So could it be that you already had ADHD, the social isolation,

factions, like COVID, we have a huge rise in strep right now. Just everyone being

bombarded with different things. Of course, all our tick borne infection, peeps, there's so

many reasons, you could be having a hard time being focused, and it's not always

ADHD. And I always say that anybody who comes to me who says these says they have

ADHD at every single age level, at minimum 50% of the time, it's something else. And

you have to look at what else was some of those things? And some of them I already

mentioned, but we can we can dive into that a little bit.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 06:41

Yeah. And my question is always, is the treatment going to be different? You know, if

you're looking at the causes, and you're looking at a lot of different root causes for brain

fog, and for ADHD, do they have similar causes? And then consequently, is the treatment

going to be the same? or similar?

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 06:56

Yeah, no, in fact, causes can be vastly different. A focus, and the treatment can be very

different. I mean, the base of my work is to calm and regulate the brain with brain based

tools, as well as lifestyle, right, you know, diet and looking at nutrients, and all these

other things moderating stress. And I think that's the same no matter what, but then if

it's Lyme, it can't be the same thing as OCD, or an anxiety disorder. Right. So the getting

to the root causes is really critical. And it's often why so many people feel that well, you

know, Dr. Roseanne, I've tried a lot. And I'm just not sure I want to come to you, you

know, because I get it, you've tried a lot. But if you're not addressing the right issue, with

the right treatment, in the right order, you're not going to get better. And in fact, some of

the things you may have tried might be appropriate. But something else needed to

happen first, right? So like, a perfect example of that is I work with a lot of people with

obsessive compulsive disorder. And I mean, a lot of kids and teenagers and young

adults, right, though, that's really our kind of one of our specialties, because we work

with people with pans and pandas. And it's just a very high CO occurring conditions. So

we had to get awesome at OCD, right? So somebody who comes to me with OCD, and

their source is COVID. Right? True story happens all the time. How can I treat that the

same as if somebody has OCD? Because it's genetic? OCD? It's not the same treatment

you have to go through? Why is this person having an autoimmune response to COVID?

Like, what is missing? Is it the nutrient levels that are affected, or it's always going to be

that they're not detoxifying? Like 100% of the time, maybe their sleep is impacted? So

we have to I always say, take a 360, aerial view, we have to look at the ecosystem and

find out what are all those pieces, because as much as everybody thinks, they're going

to come to you and I and there's going to be one miracle. So that's the way it works.

Right? And you have to look at all of it. And instead of feeling upset by that, I say flip that

script, be empowered by it. You have lots of ways to skin that cat. Like there's a lot of

ways to get amplification to get improvement. So yes, you treat things differently. That's

why identifying root causes and really being really checking under the hood and doing

those diagnostics are really important. And that's why expert care is very different.

When you go to somebody who isn't an expert. They're like, they don't know what they're

doing, you know, and, and so it's just so different. You know, I say you wouldn't get your

heart checked by a foot doctor, right? just wouldn't, of course, but, you know, why is it

these other things when you are in a chronic, you know, state?

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 10:08

I couldn't agree more. You know, oftentimes I'm using the piano example, like, if you

want to learn how to how to play piano, you ask a piano teacher, right? You're not gonna

go and ask, you know, somebody who works on your car, right, you're gonna ask them to

fix your car. And so it's the same exact thing. If you want to fix like fatigue with me,

ADHD, OCD, all the stuff you do with you, right? You want somebody who's in it all the

time, because then they've seen all the nuances, because a lot of it is the bumps along

the way that you don't know are going to happen. You need somebody who's seen them

before and can tell you what's going to work.

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 10:41

Right? I mean, and really, you know, what they're bringing to the table. I mean, this is my

31st year in mental health. So I'm, you know, everyone always comes to me and I to the

brain map, and then we sit down, and they go, is it the worst brain map you ever saw?

And I'm like, No. But you get the benefit of all the other ones, right? And it's just Thurs I

only use science, like I dissect everything by science. And that is why you have to get to

the root cause. And I think, you know, certainly in mental health, and certainly in medical,

health, medical support as well. We're not thinking like that. We're not thinking like, how

is everything connected? And so people in this world in this pandemic, when we bring it

back to ADHD, they're like, I must have ADHD and you can have adult onset yet. Well, you

can't have adult onset, you can get adult diagnosis. And so we got to look at the history.

And then if you are struggling with focus, what else could it be? Right? Do you have long

haulers? What is was it a tick borne out? So I like to start with illness. If something went

down, of course, I want to find out if there's a situational stressor, like you know, I

recently had a client who's doing really well, a trauma background doing neurofeedback.

And he was like, you know, Dr. Owen feels sad, and I don't know what's going on. And I

was like, really? Mother's day next week. Like, huh, and I was like, all your traumas

around your mother, mother, honey, no offense. I don't mean to sound like a

psychologist. But the brain picks up on stuff. And I was like, what gotta work at it, you

know? So sometimes we have to look at like, is there really some kind of stressor?

Because stress can make you feel like your ADHD who hasn't experienced that in their

life? You know, whether you're a college student, all of a sudden, you know, you have a

million exams and you're like, I can't focus on anything but studying, you know, like, Ray

or you just had a baby, you know, whether you're the dad or the mom and like, you have a

baby, you know, baby brain. My my best friend, Shelley is pregnant. And I was telling the

office, right, today, she's in the first trimester. And we're super sarcastic and crazy silly

with each other. And, and I was like, Shelley, I wasn't going to tell you, but you have the

worst pregnancy brain. You can't remember anything, you know, and she was in the

office. They were like, you're so terrible to tell her that I was like this our relationship. But

she was like, I totally do, bro. Thanks for being the only person that would tell me. So

she doesn't have ADHD, like, you know, she just her hormones are off. So you know,

hormonal changes, I mean, talk about that. So, hormone shifting men and women, we

never talk about male hormones. But I get a lot of males in their 50s coming to me

thinking they have ADHD, and they were never diagnosed with it. I get a lot of

concussion, birth trauma, history. And sometimes when the hormone shift in their 40s

and 50s, then the way the brain was compensating was no longer can compensate. We

need hormones for memory. And when your memory goes down, you can confuse it as

an attention problem. But I think the biggest thing that I see, besides infections affecting

causing brain fog causing attention problems, is probably straight old clinical mental

health issues, you know, depression, anxiety, stress. We we want to think you can

function because you have been, and we want to think you can keep going at a high

level sort of like alcoholism at a certain point, you know, your body can't handle it. It's the

same thing with those clinical issues. Most people with clinical mental health issues

function and they're working and they're in relationships. It may not be going great, or

you might be a hot mess on the inside. But you can't just push and push and push. When

I see a brain map. I see hyperconnectivity lots of anxiety, a lot of over processing And,

and you know, you have to be kind to your mind. And if you're not, it's gonna start, you

know, not working as well. And attention brain fog are some of the biggest issues that I

say.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 15:13

Yeah, I want to get more into that being kind to your mind. But before we do, one of the

things that I see is with chronic fatigue syndrome with long COVID Is that we're looking

at over 30 causes, but there's always like a combination of about 20 of those causes.

But if we find those causes, and we fix them, then the symptoms go away. I wonder how

much of that happens with mental health? How much is genetic? How much do you see

as environmental, whether it's the hormones or deficiencies in nutrients? Or the the

infections, molds, whatever? What are you seeing with those? Can you can you really get

rid of, of those causes and fix somebody's depression or anxiety or OCD? So

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 15:54

100%, you can fix them? Right? Again, it is a multi pronged process, there is no magic

wand. And you have to use science, we have to use what we know about the brain what

we know about the by body, and guess what? The person I'm working with the child, the

family, they gotta work. Like this ain't this ain't like, you know, so, um, you know, every

week somebody flies into me, you know, and sometimes it I treat all kinds of people,

right. But there is no magic wand. But let's back that up. Right. So you have to identify

the right things. And I, I know that the majority of people I work with, have infections

have toxins impacting their brain. So I start with a cue EEG, and when I see because I

now you know, I can interpret these at a very high level, I've done well over 10,000 of

these. So you when I see it, and I see Lyme, right, and I have 100% accuracy in Lyme, I

send them to a physician. So I'm not a medical doctor, and then I'm like, you've got to

treat the infection, right. But then what happens in 100% of the time, no matter what the

source is genetics, or whatever, I've a dysregulated nervous system. And so if the

nervous system is dysregulated what we know from science, the study of stress is

called psycho immunology and cycle immunology tells us that when the body is in a

stressed state, it's almost impossible to the body for it to heal itself. If it does try to heal

itself, it's not going to do it in optimal way. Right? So I calm the brain, right calm brain,

happy family. So I calm the brain, you work with a medical provider to treat the

infections. But then when it comes to toxins and infections, what happens you know the

answer to this oven, it wakes up. All the genetic snippets, like our epigenetics are things

that are potentials that may or may never happen, but sadly, things like you know,

Epstein Barr COVID. You know, herpes six, Coxsackie, mold, you know, all your, you know,

Bartonella and BCM might the tube double B's of trouble in the world of mental health.

They really can wreak havoc, and, and then on top of it, if almost everybody's got

MTHFR, you're not detoxifying, right? So you have this cascade of stuff. Again, that feels

very overwhelming. But when you work with people like us, we know how to unravel it.

And then in my situation, when there's a mental health problem, first you have to

regulate the nervous system. And then you have to do coaching or therapy. Like you

can't ignore the behaviors like my OCD people that have pans or pandas. Right. So strep

or variety of infection. So strep is pandas pans is any infection or toxin. A lot of times

we're like, Well, I'm going to the best doctor in the world Dr. Rowe. And then I'm gonna

go do Neurofeedback or P EMF with you. And I don't really want to do therapy for OCD.

And I'm like, listen, sway the brain is the brain. It's it's a habit in the brain. You could want

all you want your brains gonna keep doing the OCD looping. So let's do it. Let's, let's get

it done. You know, so I had a mom this week, she was in the situation and She's so

lovely. And she, she, she, she they're a Jewish family. And what did Jewish families do in

the summer? send their kids to camp for the whole summer. And she was like, I want to

do this, but I want to go to summer camp. I want him to go to summer camp and I'm

like, Listen Sorry, like this is, you know, it's like if he had cancer, you wouldn't think about

it, you'd have to do the chemo. Like, like, we got to do it. And I was like, I hear you. Let's

have a short term pain for long term success. So she heard me and she's doing it, you

know, so nobody likes to be derailed and please know everybody, I am a special needs

mom times two. I have a child with remediated dyslexia and I have a child with pan's

with tick borne infection. So, hey, do I like that, you know, I had homeschool my kid with

pants, I had to do all that. No, but this is what what we did. And we made the best of it.

And we move forward. And and whatever you can do, to really get to those root causes

lower stress, regulate the brain. That is how you lick these things. This is how you not

just, like, be okay, and manage it. This is how you thrive and get on the other side of it.

You know? Amen. It's important. Yeah, amen.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 21:05

The other thing I want to talk about that you touched on is the difference between

diagnosis and causes, you know, because a lot of people, they kind of latch on to

diagnoses. And they're like, Okay, I've got this ADHD diagnoses. I've got this OCD

diagnosis. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between a diagnosis and a

cause?

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 21:24

Yeah. So I mean, we we have our system is set up in a medical model, right? And it's

very much ruled by Pharma. Right. So every diagnosis leads to a pill. Okay. That's the

way it is, it is in mental health. It is a way in physical health. And, and what we have to do

is say, why, right? So when we talk about symptoms, and please know, you don't have to

have a diagnosis to get treated. You if you have a symptom, don't ignore it, right. But just

because you are diagnosed, most people come to me with shopping cart diagnoses, so

their mental health, they're like, I have a history of social anxiety. I have now have

disruptive mood disorder. Now. They told me I have OCD, and oppositional defiant and

add, and I'm like, okay, that's called a dysregulated. Brain. Right? So you have

internalized her and external iser symptoms, right, then I what I do, because I'm so like,

everyone heard me give my data speech before here. Like, I What is the greatest pain

point? Like, where do I gotta hit first, that's going to have the best, like, relief. You need

relief? Right? And, you know, that's so important. But we, we can't get hung up on that

diagnosis, because the person that you probably got your diagnosis, what from, you're

here with Evan and I, because you didn't get better. And so the diagnosis is just what

their training is. So I and Evan, we've been trained, traditionally. And we chose to do

functional training. And functional training is all about connecting the dots. Right? I

always think of my I know, I'm a mental health detective. So I had to get involved in

medical, you know, I've only been integrative because I only had complex cases right out

of the gate. And so when you work with the most complex cases, kids in psychiatric

facilities, you quickly realize that psych meds and talk therapy doesn't work. Right? I

should use a bunch of words that are four letter words right now. But I'm not. But it

doesn't work. So you and I, I don't believe that. I believe that everybody can get better. I

don't believe that you can't, the degree of getting better. That's just unique to what's in

that person's body, with their spirituality is what their mindset is, the more spiritual my

clients are, the better their outcomes, independent of the condition. Like the worst cases

I have, the more spiritual they are the progress is immeasurable. Please know that it's

pretty incredible actually. And so we have to start really thinking differently. And we can't

just say, well, this is my diagnosis. And people are here. Like I recently did a like a live

because somebody who provides a service to me. I came in and I was like, telling them

like, oh my gosh, this Hollywood producer called me and they want me in this major

Docu film. Let's get to be on, you know, HBO max on natural solutions for ADHD. And I

said to him, he said, Can you talk about that? And I was like, 1000 times, yes, I can talk

about it. I was like, have you seen my work? So and he knew, but it was, it was pretty

amazing. So we talked about and the next thing I know, they tell me that they put their

kid on medication. And so this is somebody I've known a long time. And the first words

out of my mouth were, you're gonna damage your child's brain. And they got very upset

with me. And I said, Listen to me, you asked me my opinion. And I'm gonna give you my

opinion. So they then said, Well, how do you know this? And I was like, do not follow me

Do not read my stuff. So I literally sent him Quack, quack. Here's the blog on this. Here's

this. Here's that. And his, his, his response was, I did it because I had no choice because

the teacher was putting so much pressure, I get it. So then I said, listen to this episode,

Gail, because she was on the same situation. And, you know, but he said, Why doesn't

the neurologist tell me about like diet in this in root causes? And I said, Honey, they just

don't, they've chosen not to get the training. So you know, you you're so I encourage

them to go to an integrative person, I'd said, here's what you want to do. We want to

check, we didn't even talk about nutrient levels and you know, things like that

sometimes, you could be obscene ly low in in one or two nutrient levels, and it could

cause massive cognitive issues. Right. So there's just a lot of things that could be done.

Before we get to psychiatric medication, I also want to be really, really, really clear that

the research and in my book, it's going to be okay, there's a 2020 January 2021 study,

that people that have infectious disease, have very poor responses to psychiatric

medication, and have a very high rate of side effects. So, so we want to be mindful

about you know, treatment does not have to be psychiatric medication, treatment

should always start with why is this happening? Right? So that we can get to the right

treatment. And a pill does not most people realize, Evan when they get to me, the pill

doesn't fix it. You got to you got to work on the behavior. You got to work in the mindset,

you gotta have lifestyle. You're not gonna eat Cheetos, and not have brain fog.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 27:37

You can get away with that for so long. And then

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 27:39

whatever you want to get away with, no. Teenagers mean if I anything disgusting, like I

feel it immediately, you know, like, I'm like, Oh, God, why did I do that? You know, but at

the Cheetos people when when somebody finds me dead by my car, it's the it's whoever

owns its freedom.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 28:01

So let's talk about therapy. You kind of alluded to treatments and therapy a little bit. I

know. You got a lot of different tools in your tool, but toolbag, what are your favorite

tools that you use for these mental health conditions?

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 28:13

Yeah, so I work on calming the brain and then resetting behaviors when it comes to

calming the brain. I love neurofeedback, I love P EMF. We've even developed our own P

EMF device specific to infections and toxins. Pretty cool. I actually have our here

because I do on my podcast. It's a little device. And it's I custom design all the protocols

it goes through, there's a brain fog one on there, there's things that are very specific. But

these things are designed to support the nervous system in regulating and

Neurofeedback directly trains, brainwaves, and we work with people remotely. All over

the world also love Bart biofeedback, you know, things like Heart Math, they're just

unbelievable. I mean, they really help people so much. And again, you're you're putting

your body unless it's getting into a parasympathetic state, all of the body's resources are

going to try to find out why it's so activated, particularly for people that go into a very

hyper activation or a fight flight or freeze state, which can happen to very young

children. It can happen to anybody compounded stressors and factions can move the

body. So we get it into a parasympathetic state doesn't even have to be perfect, but we

create wiggle room so you're not in this complete activation. Because if you're in there,

you don't have control over your brain. Like you're not going to be able to think, you

know, talk therapy is almost a waste of time. So then I believe in very specific types of

psychotherapy once you're regulated so you have OCD. What's the treatment for that,

that's ERP, you have trauma, you're not only going to do trauma therapy, you're not going

to do talk therapy, you're gonna go to a trauma therapist, so that and you got to change

behaviors. You can't say I'm anxious, and I do X, Y, and Z, I'm gonna take Zoloft. But I'm

not going to change X, Y, and Z behaviors, what are the healthy behaviors that are going

to come in I mean, it's got to be diet, it's got to be lifestyle, it's got to be, you know,

learning how to set boundaries with healthy, you know, with with toxic people, you know,

being kind to your mind, so you're not so negative, you have to make changes, you know,

and they start out small, so they don't feel so heavy. And once your, your brain knows it's

making these changes, it's becomes easier, you know, becomes lighter. So, you know,

mental health can change, I have the privilege of helping people every day, completely

change that, you know, script that it's, Oh, you got to have OCD for the rest of your life.

Oh, you gotta have anxiety for the rest of your life. No. So, but if somebody comes in

here and thinks, Hey, doctor, I'm only doing this I'm not doing any of the other things.

Well, first of all, we don't accept you. But it's not the way you know, when stress is

always there, you got to, you got to find a way to counter it, that's for you, you know, like,

I just did two endings within our six month program. And I was like, here's what I want

you to do, forever, you know, and I laid it out for them. And one was some one was Heart

Math, like, I was like, I want you to do Heart Math. And then I was like, you've benefited

so much in your brain from doing the probiotics. Let's make sure you continue it, you

know, switch between these two, you know, it can be those kind of levels of things. And,

and this was a family that also really worked on trying to control their stress. So we laid

out some of the things that they behaviorally as a family needed to continue doing. And

I was like, How do you feel about that? Do you feel like you can manage that? And I like,

yeah, because it's been helping, like, good, you know?

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 32:12

Brilliant. So you have a free gift for our audience. It's the quiz, right? ADHD quiz. Yes,

yeah.

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 32:19

So you can go if you want to know if it's ADHD or something else, you can go to WW. Dr.

rozanne.com. Forward slash is ADHD ADHD quiz,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 32:31

will drop it below. We'll drop a link below. Yes, please do. And then best place for people

to find you learn more about this amazing work that you're doing.

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 32:41

You can just go to www.drroseann.com. And my podcast is there. My book is there. It

just has all the resources and lots of blogs. I love to write. So it's, I make it a resource

hub for people.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 32:58

Brilliant. Dr. Roseann, thank you so much for joining me today.

Roseann Capanna-Hodge 33:03

Well, thank you for this conversation. And you know, if people are struggling with ADHD

or brain fog, you know, take a step towards changing that.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 33:11

Amen. Reach out to Dr. Ro.