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Please go to thebeekeepersgranddaughter.com and use the discount code A-H-T-15 at checkout to receive 15% off of your first order, and don't forget your Christmas presents. Welcome everybody to the Ancestral Health Today podcast, and today I am delighted to have with us Dr. Red Huffman. Dr. Huffman is a trauma surgeon and a hospice doctor, and she is based out of Asheville, North Carolina. Thank you so much for being with us and welcome to Ancestral Health Today. Oh, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. That's wonderful. We're delighted to have you as well. Let's start with letting our audience know a little bit about you. If you want to go back as far as you want to go and let us know who Dr. Huffman is, the audience can get to know you. Sure. So my name is Red Huffman. Most of my patients call me Red or Dr. Red. And I actually initially started my professional career as a naturopathic doctor and as a yoga teacher in Portland, Oregon. And then through some experiences that I had in Mumbai, India, where I was studying actually homeopathic medicine in a truly integrative hospital is an amazing experience. I got to spend some time in the operating room with surgeons and still remember having this aha moment where I said, Oh my God, I really want to be a surgeon. And so after finishing naturopathic school in 2004, I worked for two years and during that time applied was applying for medical school. I always like to share I didn't get in the first time. And I think that's one of the times in my life where I had to decide how badly do I want this and I wanted it badly. So I went for it again. And I ended up going to medical school at OHSU in Portland, Oregon. That's also where I went to naturopathic school. And I was very blessed to go to this medical school because Oregon actually is the birthplace of the death with dignity movement has OHSU had an amazing palliative care team. So not only did I get really invigorated about surgery, but I also was introduced to palliative medicine, which really changed the whole course of my career. And I ended up doing a general surgery residency in Phoenix, Arizona, the county hospital, and then did another year of training in surgical critical care and trauma. And then my last year of training was in hospice and palliative medicine. And I'm one of about 90 US surgeons who is also board certified in hospice and palliative medicine. And I have a beautiful career where I get to really combine the best of both worlds, which is trying really hard to save people's lives and getting to operate on them and care for them in the hospital. And then when plans change or goals of care change, I get to shepherd them out of this world through my work with hospice. And so I feel really excited by what I get to do every day is really different. And some days are way more challenging than others, but I'm never bored. I'll say that. That's amazing. Yeah, it sounds like it's, it's a lot to tackle, but it's also so much involvement with such different levels of people's care. It is amazing on those, you know, it doesn't happen all the time. But when it does happen that, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I worked only for three days in a row. And on the first day, I got to operate on someone. And unfortunately, it was, it was a situation where we knew there probably wasn't going to be a high likelihood of survival. And on the next day got to really spend that time with the family dealing with that. And then on the last day got to sit with her while she died. And, you know, obviously it wasn't the outcome that we wanted, but to be able to, I never have to say to someone, there's nothing else I can do for you. There's always something else I can do. And oftentimes that may be providing comfort or just holding their hands because maybe the family doesn't want to be there, but I can be there instead. So it's, it is very, it's very fulfilling for my heart. That must be very healing for you too. It is. As a trauma surgeon, if things don't go well, you're just not, you know, leaving, knowing that, you know, nothing else could be done, but you have the opportunity to really see that care through. Yeah. And I have to say, I feel, I just work for a great place that allows me to really do both of these jobs. It's, it's sometimes hard to find that mix. Either someone wants you to be a full-time surgeon or a full-time hospice doctor. And the fact that I get to do both is just, yeah, I feel very, very lucky in my professional world. Did you always know that you wanted to be a doctor growing up? No. I thought I would be a writer and I was definitely, my head was definitely in the clouds. I did not, I don't remember really enjoying science, but then when I was 19 years old, my father was killed. He was killed by a terrorist in Cairo, Egypt while he was on a business trip. And that experience changed really the trajectory of my life and of my health too. And so because I was 19, you know, I didn't have, nor did my community at the time have really the words or the tools to explore what I was feeling about this very traumatic event. And so I think like many people, particularly I think young women, tend to somaticize their emotions. That doesn't mean it's all in my head. It certainly went right to my body. But I think it started, a lot of my issues did start with this very emotional event. And so I was very sick for several years in my young 20s with a lot of gastrointestinal issues. And initially went through all the testing with allopathic doctors, but then eventually found my way to both an acupuncturist and a naturopath in South Florida. And that naturopath just really changed my life. I mean, one, she gave me great care and two, she introduced me into the world of naturopathic medicine, which I knew nothing about at the time. And so at some point, I realized this is what I want to do. And I still remember the day going with my friend Helga, who's no longer alive, but I remember going with her to the, we were both going to college together and going to change my major to biology. I forget what my major was, something in the social sciences or something, but going to change it to biology and again, making that decision like, I want this and I am going to take this risk and I can do this. I used to think of all these idiots before me can do it. So can I, I mean, a million people have done this work, have gone through organic chemistry and have managed to survive. And it was a huge step for me, but I was so glad that I did it. Yeah, that's wonderful. So tell me a little bit more before, before that, what was red like growing up? What type of environment? Yeah, so I was born in Brooklyn and raised in New Jersey. Have my parents were married until my father died and grew up with five, like there were seven first cousins all together that we were very close and was very close with my aunts and uncles and grandparents. I mean, I was really surrounded by a lot of love and support. I was, I was not a very, I was not into sports or moving my body that came like in my young twenties. I really just wanted to read all the time and write. I mean, I definitely like lived in my head a lot. And then in high school, definitely didn't have the best high school years and struggled a lot with depression. And that was kind of like the beginning of that medical journey for me that's been ongoing as well. And didn't really know, I think my heart and my head were very separated. Like I didn't really have a great understanding of self soothing or really have that understanding of how my emotions could affect my body. That really came to me more again in my twenties, particularly through naturopathic school. But I think I was just like very creative. And I had, especially my father was, he was a mechanical engineer by trade, but he was a very, very creative man who's always learning new skills. And he just really encouraged my love of reading and writing and being creative. All right. So you had a sort of like a transformational experience with the naturopath that you saw, not just for your health, I imagine, but also that that drove you into medicine. Can we talk a little bit about that, what that process was like, and then what your life was like after that experience? So like I said, my experience with my naturopath changed my life. I didn't grow up knowing anything about nutrition per se. I certainly didn't know anything about supplements. I'd never heard of homeopathy at all. Going to the acupuncturist actually didn't had never had acupuncture before, but my grandfather loved acupuncture. He was a very, I'd say very conservative Jewish man in Brooklyn, but he used to go to Chinatown and get acupuncture. So like I knew, I knew about acupuncture at least. But what I loved about my work with the naturopathic physician really was that whole body, whole person care. So being able to talk about what was going on with me emotionally and sometimes spiritually, but also address what was going on physically, I found that was very powerful. And when I started looking into naturopathic medicine as a career, I just spoke to me that, oh my God, I get to do a little bit of counseling and a little bit of lifestyle medicine and then learn all like herbal medicine and learn homeopathy and learn some physical medicine. So it really sounded like the best of all worlds, to be honest with you. And so that's why I ended up choosing that as my initial professional goal. So what about the path of your health after that up to the present moment? What were you like, what was met school like and how did that affect your health? What type of things did you like to do during that time? And then we'll get to talk a little bit more about the present. Sure. Well, I went to naturopathic medical school. It was initially, when I went there, it was called the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. And now it's called the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. So moving to Portland, Oregon from the East Coast was completely life changing for me. I, one had never been around such beauty. You know, I mean, the Pacific Northwest is just like this emerald gem. I mean, it's so beautiful. You are literally just hugged by trees. It was amazing. And so I had never gone hiking before. I had never done yoga. I had never rock climbed. And all those things became a part of my life, partially because it was such a part of everyone's life at that school. And then I also had like, didn't know about organic foods. And again, didn't really know a lot about nutrition. And I was living with fellow students who many of them who knew way more than me when I first got there. And so I learned so much about how to feed myself. And I mean, the simple stuff like how to do hydro therapy, you know, we had always had a hot tub in our backyard. So we do hot tub and a cold plunge and learn so much about sleep hygiene and just had, I was so active. I mean, I'd get up so early in the morning, I'd ride my bike before school, incredible bike rides. And then I'd come home, take a shower, and then I'd ride my commute to bike to my school by bike. So I was like, um, I lived on my bike, especially during naturopathic school. And just spent like a lot of time outside playing. And it was, it was an amazing experience for someone who hadn't really grown up doing that. When I went to medical school, I was very lucky, like I said, to go to OHSU in Portland, Oregon, because of all the schools I could have went to was probably one of the schools that was most like going to naturopathic school, because it was still in Portland. So it's still attracted such a health conscious group of people. And I went to that school and I never felt like shunned because I was a naturopath. I felt like my background was really respected. I was still so active. My school was in the woods. So like literally could at lunch, like walk out the door and go for a run on the trails in the woods. And you'd see all these professors out there too. I mean, this was just like a very, very active lifestyle. In medical school, in, in allopathic medical school was where I started rock climbing, had an amazing colleague who taught me how to rock climb. And I say that yoga got me through naturopathic medical school and rock climbing got me through allopathic medical school. And movement was just like, it was, yeah, it makes me actually feel like, sorry, makes me feel weepy to think of, of my body then. It was just a really strong act of healthy body. Even when I wasn't treating it great, you know, I didn't always make the best decisions for myself, but it was just a very, it was a very like resilient body. It got me through many, many years of school. And, and to tell you what I was like, even in residency, my first year of residency, I freaking ran a marathon. I used to get up at three o'clock in the morning and go running, and then go work all day. And yeah, I ran and I had never run a marathon before I trained for a marathon and ran it at the end of my intern year. And I was actually, when I think back, I mean, I didn't know better, you know, it's very ableist. Like, I mean, I just insisted that everyone take the stairs all the time, never thinking that like maybe people couldn't take the stairs or didn't want to take the stairs. I just used to say like, you know, the keys to getting through training, especially surgical training or like take the stairs, bring your lunch and be kind. And that's kind of how I got through all of my surgical training. And then even in my first year of fellowship, I was at Chapel Hill, and I didn't have a car and I walked to the hospital, like three miles back, three miles there, three miles back every single day. That was my exercise during that year of my training. It was just like in movement was just embedded in my life. And I was very grateful for it. So let's talk a little bit about your time during the pandemic and having been such an incredibly healthy individual involved in all kinds of movement activities, doing so many of the things that are recommended to be in health and to avoid risk. Tell me in your own words, you know, what happened during the pandemic? Sure. So I was working as I actually what I do is I'm an acute care surgeon. So that's a mix of trauma, emergency general surgery and surgical critical care. So I was working in the hospital during that time. I will say I am very grateful. I was not working in the medical ICU. My colleagues in the medical ICU took the brunt of that pandemic and it was I couldn't I couldn't even stand to walk. I couldn't even stand to walk through that ICU is down the hall from our ICU. But yeah, I was in the hospital almost every day. My team of surgeons are the surgeons who are called to do tracheostomies for people. So when people can't get off the ventilator, it's my group of surgeons who is called to do the tracheostomies. And it's during COVID want like really the highest risk procedure because you're just being sprayed with like respiratory droplets. And so we really, you know, there was some guidelines to wait 21 days or, you know, after a negative test, like no one really knew. We really were struggling with what was the right thing to do. We were testing all of our surgical patients or COVID before we took them back to the OR. We tried to stay out of the OR when people are being intubated and extubated again, probably the highest risk times. But sometimes you have to be in the room because the patients needed you to be there. You know, we always had enough PPE, thankfully. But I just had like so much anxiety all during that time. And then, unfortunately, in my personal life, in September of 2020, my partner at the time fell off a ladder at work and got a traumatic brain injury. So on top of dealing with COVID, I was dealing with his newly acquired traumatic brain injury, which turned out to be just a very unfortunate nightmare. And I became his caregiver. So my stress level was like, I had never, I mean, it was like the worst time in my life. He was suicidal. I had so much suicidal ideation and so much stress from the pandemic and then caring for him and also just watching him suffer was like the worst thing I'd ever experienced. And so then in January of 2021, I got COVID. And you know, like many people, I really wasn't, I wasn't that sick. I was out of work for maybe 10 days and I didn't feel all that bad. And but as soon as I got back to work, I was like, something is not right. And that's actually really where a lot of my symptoms started, especially, you know, what's turned out to be dysautonomia probably started then and a lot of neuropathy, which thankfully has, I was able to work work through that one, but that was awful. And I think I was at work for, I mean, I couldn't walk up the stairs, you know, I was like, I was just miserable at work. And I think I lasted about six weeks and then I went on short-term disability. Great fall. I had short-term disability at the time too. And you know, I will say it's like of all my partners, I have 13 partners, probably a third of them ended up getting COVID and I'm the only one who got long COVID. And I was certainly, you know, all my partners are actually pretty healthy. So but, you know, I was certainly, I was exercising, still exercising all the time, eating well, but I will say the stress level in my life before I got it, I think, unfortunately, like I think my immune system was already shot with the amount of stress I was under. So I think it was like very unfortunate timing for me. And like many people, I got right back into exercising. I mean, I couldn't sit still. So within two weeks, I was like pushing myself on my Peloton, like just trying to get right back, which I mean, I just regret, I didn't know better. Now I think we know better. Certainly one of the first things I tell everyone who at work who gets COVID now, I'm like, rest, rest, rest, radical rest for like three months. That's what I tell them, just rest. So that's not the advice that we hear, especially in the ultra healthy circles, certainly wouldn't consider you like a person who would be at risk of developing any complications of acute COVID. But, you know, long COVID is still disputed as a condition and many by many people and, you know, health communities. So can you talk to the public as a doctor? What your perspective and your experience is and what you think is behind this phenomenon that so many people are experiencing even those who are seemingly not at risk. And even though those who practically did everything perfect before, you know, being saddled with long COVID. Sure. I mean, I think we'll let we'll start off by saying I don't think anyone knows exactly what's driving this. But I want to say that I do believe this is a post viral illness, though that does not take away from I have friends who have been injured by the vaccine as well. And I so there's something else going on there. I can I'll just speak to my own experience that this is certainly for me a post viral illness. Post viral illnesses have been around forever. And the medical community knows this, whether they want to believe in it or not is a whole nother story. But I don't think the idea of post viral illness is a new thing. Now, what does that post viral illness mean? Does that mean that we're having viral persistence? I think that there's I mean, I've had my blood checked and certainly have spike protein running around on my monocyte. So that is certainly part of it is in an auto immune response to the fact that we had the virus in the first place. It may be that too. My blood work might suggest that as well. I don't I certainly don't have all the answers. But I think it's disingenuous of us as a medical community to look back at people who've had illnesses such as Epstein-Barr virus, who've had illnesses such as Lyme disease, who God even had like older coronaviruses and have just never been well again to say that this is a new phenomenon. What's new and and I guess you could say interesting is that never in our particular lifetimes have we had so many people get infected with the same virus at the same time. And we're getting to study this like this is like a I call myself like a diagnosis and evolution like we're watching it play out in real time rather than looking back like I think a lot of people with MEcfs do and say, Oh yeah, I did get sick 15 years ago and I was never well, you know, that didn't click right away. I think because of the MEcfs community, I mean, I think raising the flag to us really early on, they're like, watch out, this could be happening to you, you know, and I'm so grateful to that. I'll also say as a doctor, I've been a little disheartened by like my fellow some of my fellow medical doctors who would just kind of assume that I'm making this up or blowing this off. I mean, what I would say to that is like, you just heard my story. I was this active, like vivacious person. I don't want to be sick. I don't want to be a surgeon working part time. I'd rather be a surgeon working full time, making a full time paycheck instead of a part time paycheck. And I certainly don't want to be a patient because I think being a patient is really, unfortunately, very challenging for any patient. And certainly for a patient who has a chronic medical condition that doesn't land in one specific field, it's very hard. So I don't know anyone who would choose this path. I'd also say as a physician, like it's so interesting. I have like the smartest friends who get COVID and feel like they're going to be deconditioned if they don't move their body within a week or two. And I'd say it's true. I mean, like, you know, when we stop exercising, we do like anyone, you know, if you stop exercising, you do lose some of the gains. And then you get those gains back. We've all gone through those cycles with exercise in our life. I'd say the risk of getting decondition versus the risk of ending up with a long condition, like long COVID, it's like you can't even weigh that risk-benefit ratio. I still suggest like radical rest. You deserve it and your body deserves it. And also your body's probably trying to tell you something. If you don't feel good, then you should probably just slow the F down. Like, none of these young, healthy people are going to wither away from just slowing down for two to three months. I'm not saying you have to like stay in bed and do absolutely nothing, but just like slow down and nurture yourself a little more if nothing else. So let's do a little bit of a recap. You were born in Brooklyn, you went to naturopathic school, you went to medical school, you were, you know, super healthy, very athletic, always into movement. And then the pandemic hits, you get COVID and now you have long COVID. How has your life personally and professionally changed as a consequence? Sure. So like I shared my stories a little complicated because I had some personal stuff going on at the same time. I'd say about six weeks after I went on to short-term disability, my boyfriend at the time actually committed suicide, secondary traumatic brain injury. And it was actually obviously an awful, awful experience. But just physiologically was very interesting because I had no symptoms for a week after he died because I was so full of adrenaline after watching him die and waiting for him to be cremated. And so I had no symptoms. And I just intuitively knew that the crash that was going to come after that was going to be like awful. And, you know, unfortunately, there was no way to escape that. That was just life happening. And, oh man, when I crashed, I just crashed. And I was out of work for six months. Very interesting. I did have short-term disability at the time, which I like to talk about because soon after I came back, my job decided that all of us didn't have short-term disability anymore. So it was something I never even, I actually never thought about disability because I just think we don't learn about it a lot in medical school. And I was just very ignorant. And I 100% like own that. And I can't even imagine what my life would have been like if I didn't have short-term disability. But I will say I'm grateful I had it. I was able to just do nothing except go to the doctor. I mean, I got so much massage and acupuncture and ketamine therapy. And then I just laid around in my grief. I say I luxuriated in my grief. I just like let it push me and pull me wherever it was going to take me. And it was a very powerful experience to be kind of descending into this chronic illness. It still wasn't really chronic, right? It was only like six months old. I was experiencing a lot of symptoms because like I said, my boyfriend had a traumatic brain injury. There's a lot of autonomic symptoms that come with that, a lot of GI symptoms that come with that. And I was experiencing all these symptoms in the early stages of my long COVID. So it was very emotionally challenging for me because I could not tell where like his suffering ended and mine started. I mean, it was a profound, weird experience. I finally went back to work and I again, I'm so grateful for my job. I just told them I could only go back part-time for two reasons. One, physically there was no way I was going to be able to work full-time as a surgeon. I don't think I'll ever work full-time again. And that's okay. It is what it is. But also emotionally, I'm a trauma surgeon and a hospice doctor. And to go back and be dealing with traumatic brain injuries and suicides and death was really emotionally overwhelming. And it still is, but I've done a lot of therapy, especially EMDR, to kind of separate myself from that experience. But it takes a lot out of me emotionally on top of what's going on with me physically. So I went back to work part-time. I was able to, because of my training in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, was able to like pick up some other administrative work at my hospital. They've been so kind to me with that. So that's been great. I do a lot of work from home. I always joke. I take a lot of meetings from the bathtub. So when people are always telling me to put on the camera, I'll tell them you really don't want to, maybe do want the camera on right now, but I'm not turning it on. But I just say that the tenor of my life has really changed, you know, like all of that exercise that was such a part of my life is not and that I really miss, particularly my long walks, because walking the last couple of years was like a real sav for me. And I don't really feel like I can do that anymore. What's odd is I can lift weights. And I also am a big on working on weightlifting for me, because this I feel like the stronger my legs are, I think it does help with some of my dysautonomia symptoms. My dysautonomia is very challenging because, you know, surgery is a lot of being on your feet, rounding, you're standing still on your feet talking. And it took me a couple months when I got back to work, I was like, I cannot think while I'm standing up street, it was the weirdest thing, like it took me a while to recognize what was going on. And when I finally was able to see a dysautonomia specialist, we have an amazing doctor in North Carolina that everyone goes to see. And I'm so lucky I got to see him and get a very appropriate work up with all the blood work and a formal tilt table test and pseudo motor testing. I mean, I got everything. I was like, Oh, this is why during rounds, I literally can't think. So now, you know, I sit down during rounds, everyone just knows that's what I do. I never wore compression socks before. Now I do. In the operating room, it took me a long time to realize, Oh, I do not feel good in the operating room, because you tend to get really warm under the lights. And there's usually a bear hugger on the patient to keep them warm. And so I was standing still, and it was hot. And for dysautonomia, it's not a great combination. So I just found if I have a cold towel around my neck that that really helps me. And so like I do that before I scrub into surgery, put a cold towel around my neck under my gown. I take breaks when I can. I just need to sit down for five minutes. And oftentimes I have resonance helping me. So that's okay. And adrenaline's a beautiful thing. I mean, if you need to keep going, obviously just keep going. And that's what it is. I've been very mindful about my schedule. I try to like shift around my shifts a lot. So I only work like three or four days, like probably four days is the max I can work in a row. I used to work seven days in a row. I spend a lot of time sleeping. I mean, I just spent a lot of time recovering so I can go back to work. I mean, that is I feel like I work part-time so that I can recover part-time is what I feel like. And yeah, my I just feel like my life has gotten, I don't want to say there's not joy there is. I have a wonderful boyfriend who brings me so much joy and there's like music and creativity in my house for which I'm so grateful for. I'm so grateful. I have good health insurance and that I'm able to pursue a lot of different treatments that my health insurance doesn't cover. I have so much gratitude, but I do have to acknowledge my grief. Like my grief is that it's really it's hard to travel. So I and I'm also very scared because I don't want to make myself sick. So I feel like my and I any plans I make, I mean, I'd say three quarters of them I cancel because I never know how I'm going to feel. That's definitely life with chronic illness. So I'm hesitant to make plans. And so I just say that the tenor of my life has really changed and that I just feel like my world has gotten a lot smaller. And I try to find the joy in that like in my home, I've done a lot of nesting of a lot more plants in my house so that I feel like happy in my little house. But it feels different. And I have a lot of I carry around a lot of sadness. And I'm not really sure what to do with to be honest with you. But I will add, I don't think that I needed any of these experiences, my boyfriend's injury, my boyfriend's suicide, my experience with Long COVID to be a better doctor. I think I was a good doctor before. And I think because of my background in naturopathic medicine and hospice and palliative care, that I was a surgeon that had a lot of heart. That being said, if there is this one little silver lining, I do think I'm a even better doctor now, because again, I just didn't I didn't know I didn't have a clue about my patients who have chronic illness we're dealing with. And I think I'm just better at recognizing what they're going through when they're in the hospital. I'm really almost insanely motivated to make sure that they get back on their home medications when they're in the hospital, which I don't think we do a good job at. But I recognize how important my home medications are to me and how I don't feel good if I don't take them. So I really try to do that for them. And then I've always given people my phone number all the time. Since I started medicine in 1999, I always have given out my phone number because I've always recognized how hard it is to navigate the system. But I just I just encourage people to use it more. Like I'm just very happy to help people in any little way that I can navigate this awful system that we're all trying to navigate. So you mentioned DeSeronomia and how that affected what you're doing in the OR and the breaks that you have to take. But can you tell me a little bit more about the rest of the symptoms? What is the all-encompassing, you know, lone-coven diagnosis and how what other symptoms do you experience that have made you or have necessitated that you make changes in how you live your life? Sure. So it is a little confusing, right? Because there's this diagnosis of long COVID, but then underneath that, I think a lot of us end up getting a lot of other diagnoses sees as well. For me, I'm coming up on three years. I think fatigue has been like the one most consistent symptom for me. It has actually gotten a little bit better over the last few months with remission biome, which we can talk about. But that's been like the all-encompassing symptom, fatigue, and then a real change in my sleep. I was someone who never had it. I could have fallen asleep anywhere. And so now sleep has been an issue. Like I have to take something to sleep. So getting restful sleep, although with medicine, it's been a little less of a challenge. My other new symptom that I didn't, again, know anything about was mast cell activation syndrome. And that has been like, I did not have that right away. The first six months, I really didn't have that. Now that is a symptom that is just dogging me. And it's been really bad the last couple months. So reactions to food, had reactions to smells. Who knows what else I'm reacting to in my office, probably like mold or whatever. I mean, it's just, it's a real challenge to not feel safe in your environment. It's annoying. It's annoying. I mean, yesterday, my partner said, here smell this candle. Well, of course I smelled it. And that just set off the rest of my day. And then I was just bright red and on fire and nose dripping. I mean, from smelling a freaking candle, I don't want, I don't think of myself as that person who's so delicate. I don't think of my, when I think of a trauma surgeon, it doesn't fit with me being so sensitive. But yet there it is, you know, it's just my body is just really reacting to the environment right now in ways I wish that it wasn't. And then also for me is a lot of GI symptoms. So as I shared, I had a lot of gastrointestinal symptoms in my 20s and my GI tract has always been a challenge for me. And I had actually had a diagnosis of methane dominant SIBO before all this started. That was when I look back actually pretty bad, but it definitely, after I got COVID, I said, I felt like a bomb went off in my stomach literally. And for almost a year, every single time I ate, I just, I literally had a stomach ache, my stomach. Like when I think of my organs, it was my stomach that hurt. I've been very aggressive in treating my methane dominant SIBO. I mean, with low FODMAP diet and refaxmen and neomycin multiple times. And that for right now seems to be better, but I have to just be really mindful about what I eat, which also takes a lot of joy out of life because like it's fun to eat. And I used to love drinking yummy cocktails. And that just like is not something that works that well for me anymore. So what would you say to people who are leading really busy lives and they're dismissing a lot of the concerns that people have about COVID, because it's simply being labeled as a regular cold, if you don't get symptoms and there's, you know, nothing to worry about. There's no difference between that and a cold. If your younger self was one of those people thinking that way, what would you have told yourself? I mean, I would, I have to say, I did everything to protect myself to not get this. And I would tell myself again, I don't, I don't want this. I mean, I am, I think one of the few people at work who still masks when I go to work. And also for me now, I have to say, I don't want anything because anytime I get any sort of little virus, it just sets off such a reaction in this body that's really, I think on overdrive right now. So I'm like, I don't, why take the risk? But you know what? That's for me. Like I actually, one thing that I personally came out of this pandemic, I had, you know, I had some thoughts at the beginning that I don't have anymore thoughts around vaccination that like I kind of just ended up realizing because of where my body's at now too, everyone needs to make their own decisions. Like I really feel like that. And what I, and I'm saying that as someone who had, you know, made some decisions at the beginning that I can't really even make anymore based on where my body's at now. And like what I would hope for, for our whole world is that we could just get some, have a place where we can have information that like is reliable and trustworthy that doesn't have any agenda behind it, you know, but also that recognizes that we're all living in our own bodies. I have no idea. I can barely understand what's going on with my body right now. Again, really much a diagnosis and evolution. And so all I can do is try to do the best for me. And then also to the best of my ability, try to protect people who are even more vulnerable than me. So I mean, my idea around masking too is like, man, if I have some random cold that I'm walking around with, why do I need to be like giving it to whatever patient I'm seeing too? Like what is the big, you know, to me, that's just like for now, the right thing to do again for me. What does the future look like for you and not necessarily long into the future, but the next few months to the next few years? What are you expecting? What are you doing? How do you think that things will turn out? So I think part of my journey is learning to accept that I have a chronic illness. I think coming up on three years, I can say, this is where I am right now. It's taken a long time to even say that out loud and to kind of wrap my head around that. And like I said, there's a lot of grief there. But I also have hope, you know, as one of the like 50 first participants of remission biome, I have hope of having, I don't hope for like a cure. I hope to just have a nice increase in my baseline that can be sustainable. Like that's really what I want. I mean, I think that some of this is my new normal. And I will say like, I'm in a lot of therapy to figure out again, how do I accept this? But you know, there's many times in our lives where our bodies go through transitions. I mean, for me, it's rather fascinating. I'm also turning 50. So obviously, I'm going like in this wild, wonderful world of perimenopause and trying to figure out like, what is going on? Even though a million people have done it before me, you know, for everyone, it's a new journey. And so I think having these two journeys at the same time is really kind of a hoot, to be honest with you. But yeah, I hope for, I hope for an increased baseline. And I hope for just grace for myself to learn to live within somewhat different boundaries and feel grateful for what I have. Like again, I'm grateful I can lift weights even if I can't go for a walk. I'll have to just like live with that and learn to be happy with that, you know? I also think that like, I have set a nice new routine for my life that is a lot slower. And I don't see that changing. Like this is how I'm going to live, you know, if I work for 15 more years, I think my professional life, I hope will like remain like this because I think that it does allow for a lot of time for rest, recovery, and in that creativity too, because I need to be rested and recovered to be creative. Well, that's a great place to end this conversation. Thank you so much for the time that you have given us today. And thank you for sharing your story with the audience and giving everyone else a little bit of a unique perspective of what it is to be with long COVID, especially coming from someone who came from a very healthy body. Where can people find you? Well, thank you for asking. You can find me on my website, which is red, like the color, red, Hoffman, md.com. And then I'm also on Twitter slash X and on Instagram and on LinkedIn, all at, at red, md, and D. So medical doctor, naturopathic doctor. Wonderful. Thank you so much for being with us today, Red. Thank you so much for having me, Isabel. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Ancestral Health Today. We hope you enjoyed our discussion on how evolutionary insights can inform modern health practices. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast to catch future episodes.