How to Do the "Die Off Dance" in ME:CFS:LC with Evan H. Hirsch, MD

How to Do the "Die Off Dance" in ME:CFS:LC with Evan H. Hirsch, MD

00:00

Hey there, welcome back to the EnergyMD Podcast where we help you resolve your long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome naturally so that you can get back to living your best life. I'm Evan Hirsch. And so today we're going to be talking about what I call the die-off dance. And so just to give you some context, when you start removing the toxic five, the heavy metals, the chemicals, the molds, the infections, and start fixing your nervous system dysfunction, it can get uncomfortable.

00:32

Removing these toxins out of their tissues in places that they've been for decades potentially can be hard on the system and it does require a process. So we take people through a four step process. First step is to figure out the causes they have. Second step is to replace their deficiencies. And then step three is to open up the exit pathways. So this is opening up the liver, the kidney, the lymph, the neurolymph that's in the brain, the gallbladder, the intestines.

01:01

all the ways that we get toxins out of the body. We also get them out of the skin, but we don't use that as part of this process. So that's in step three. And then in step four, it's removing the toxins and the infections. You know, what I call the toxic five, which are the real root causes of everybody's long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome. So it is this combination of heavy metals and chemicals and molds and infections, including COVID and the nervous system dysfunction.

01:31

So that's the four step process. So step three is really where we start opening up these exit pathways and kind of starting to step into die off support. Die off can also be known as a Yaris-Herxheimer reaction or a Herxheimer reaction where basically when you're removing these toxins and infections out of the body, you can feel worse. And that's because the infections are being killed and they're releasing their toxins. They're opening up their contents. They're releasing their toxins into the body.

02:00

The infections are trying to get out of the body, but sometimes if the pathways are not open, like we're trying to do in step three, you will feel worse. Essentially. One of the ways that I like to visualize this is as a funnel, which I'm showing you, if you're watching this on YouTube, where basically you're dumping these toxins into the funnel. And it really just depends on how open the bottom of the funnel is, which determines how easy and gracefully you can go through this process.

02:28

And that really is the goal. want to go through this process as gracefully as possible. I would imagine if you are familiar with a Herxheimer reaction or die off, you've heard stories, horror story stories, unfortunately with people who have gone for Lyme disease treatment or other treatments that have gotten antibiotics or even supplements and they feel like crap and they, the provider says to them that you have to feel worse in order to feel better.

02:57

And sometimes they end up recovering from that and sometimes they don't. And I don't believe that that's true. My goal is to help people detoxify at a rate that their body can tolerate and everybody's rate is different. And that's a reason why we use tinctures because these tinctures allow us to increase by a drop at a time so that you're still able to function throughout your day. And what we really want as part of this process or what is realistic.

03:25

is three steps forward, one step back. It's way too often that I hear people's stories where they were actually one step forward, three steps back when they're hit too hard with removing the toxic five. Okay. So that's the process that we're going through and we want to do this die off dance where as you are increasing your drops, where you're removing the toxic five and we do this one at a time with

03:51

with different tinctures in order to know exactly when you're having die off so that we can then increase the step three support, increase the liver and the kidney and the lymph and the neurolymph and the gallbladder and the intestine support, whatever it is that we need to do, increasing that support so that the die off isn't so bad. Okay, so practically what this looks like is you increase a tincture by a drop, you start to feel worse.

04:17

And then you, you stay at that dose and you increase your step three support. You know, oftentimes this is a rescue dose of taking a tincture from step three that's supporting the liver and the kidneys, et cetera. And you're doing a couple of dropper fools of that and seeing if that remedies the die-off that you're experiencing. So that is the dance. Now, sometimes the die-off is really significant, even increasing by a drop or so where you have to then decrease.

04:46

the killing or the removal of the toxins by decreasing your drops. Okay, so it's really this you have a couple of options when you're experiencing die-off or feeling worse when going through a process like this. And you have to ask yourself a couple questions, you know, is this die-off? Is this active infection or is this whack-a-mole? Which we'll talk about in a second. So if it's die-off,

05:10

It basically means that you're being a little bit too aggressive with killing something and you need to either increase your step three support, which generally we like to do first. But if it's requiring so much step three support that it's becoming untenable or way too expensive, then you may need to decrease the step four support that you're using. The tincture that you're using, just drop back down by a drop. And then you want to increase your baseline step three support.

05:38

um so that you're taking a little bit more every single day, and then you increase your step four at a little bit of a slower rate. So instead of increasing by a drop a day, you're increasing by a drop every other day or every third day. Okay, so figuring out what your body is able to tolerate. If it's an active infection, that's basically, you know, that won't be part of this particular chronology where

06:06

you are introducing something that's killing something or removing something in step four and you're feeling worse. That's always going to be a die off reaction, but an active infection is going to be, um, you know, basically you're coming in, you're not treating anything, but you're, you have a symptom that's getting worse. And so sometimes this is seasonal. For example, we've had a number of people in our program who are feeling worse during the summer or feeling worse around a full moon.

06:33

And that can give us clues about which infections potentially are more active. In terms of the whack-a-mole effect, this is when you start killing one infection and another infection pops out. So the classic example is if somebody is treating Bartonella, which is oftentimes characterized by pain on the bottom of the feet, usually misdiagnosed as plantar fasciitis, muscle cramps, usually in the calves, usually at night, uh thyroid issues, colds.

07:03

um sensitive to the cold or feeling cold most of the time. You can also have muscle pain usually misdiagnosed as uh fibromyalgia. And if you are treating that with herbs that uh are addressing the Bartonella and then all of a sudden you start sweating all the time, you're really hot, your sleep is awful and you're starting to get suicidal or having panic attacks, that can be that you're pushing the Babesia out.

07:32

because those are characteristics of Babesia. And then you need to make sure that you're addressing Babesia as part of your protocol, which we do inherently because we're addressing everything. uh But you may need to address it sooner than you normally would have. Okay. So that's a really important part of this process. One of the things we also advocate in the program, besides having this understanding and having the support, you people can always reach out to us.

07:58

We guarantee a response to any question that they have in our program in two business days to make sure that they're getting that support. But one additional thing that we oftentimes recommend is doing some muscle testing. We're looking for data that can be supportive and there is no data that is a hundred percent perfect, but muscle testing can be very supportive. And so we do teach people how to do pendulum testing and how to do sway testing. um Though we don't have an in-depth program, we kind of give them the basics.

08:27

And then it's up to them to practice and it can be incredibly supportive and empowering for them while going through this process. So that is the die-off dance or the Hertzheimer dance where you really want to do this at a rate that your body can tolerate. So I hope this was helpful for you today. If you, you know, part of, I should go into a little bit about the toxic five. So

08:54

Whenever I'm meeting with people and seeing whether or not I can help them, I'm always looking for what's missing. I have never met anybody who has addressed all of the toxic five and didn't resolve their symptoms. They're that important and they're always what is missing. And once again, that's a combination of the heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, and nervous system dysfunction that has built up in your body over time. So, so, so important in order to make sure that you're addressing these, okay?

09:22

So that's one thing is that these have to be addressed. The second thing is that they have to be addressed at a rate that your body can tolerate so that you can move through this process as gracefully as possible. And I tell people it takes at least 12 months in order to do that, where the magic is really happening around month nine or month 10. Once you've gotten rid of an appreciable amount of the toxic five out of your body. Okay. And

09:47

you have to address all of the toxic five. So all of the heavy metals, all of the chemicals, all the molds, all the infections, including Lyme disease, COVID Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, bacteria, yeast, et cetera, all the different mold toxins, all the different heavy metals, including aluminum, mercury, cadmium, lead, et cetera. So that's really the best way to be successful. And what I found over the years and being fooled time and time again by laboratory tests,

10:16

is that we no longer test for the toxic five. We just treat you for it. And it doesn't cost you that much more time, energy and money. And you're going to leave no stone unturned and you're going to be successful. So really that recipe for success is addressing all of the causes that you have, leaving no stone unturned, having somebody like me in your back pocket to address the questions and, um, and, and concerns that you have that come up along the way.

10:46

Um, that is incredibly important. And then detoxifying at a rate that your body can tolerate. You know, you're going to pivot probably 20, I tell people 20 to 50 times when they're going through a program like this. And so you want to make sure that you have that dialogue with a practitioner who knows what they're doing so that you can detoxify at a rate that your body can tolerate. And you can go through this die-off dance. So I hope this was helpful for you. If you are interested in seeing if we're a good fit to work together.

11:15

go ahead and click on that link below and you can watch and learn more about the work that we do and our philosophy of care. And then you can get on a free call with me for 45 to 60 minutes. We'll all go through a process to see if I can help you. About a third of the people that I get on calls with, tell them that I don't believe we're a good fit for whatever reason. But if we are a good fit, then if you want, we can go into what is included in the program, how it's structured, the investment, et cetera. And we can see if we're a good fit.

11:45

work together. Alright, hope this was helpful. I'll see you in the next episode. Be well.