She GAVE UP Her Medical License After This...

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You gave up your license in the state of California.

You know, California passed this law. This was a law that forced children to have all shots by the age of 18 to attend public school. They also made it legal to subpoena patients' medical records without their permission and open them up under the Health and Human Services Department under the guise of safety to check the legitimacy. Of said. Wow. When HHS subpoenaed my patient's records, I thought it was just for a divorce case from the parents because there was nothing said. They opened an investigation on me and hundreds of other doctors. We all got retroactively punished under SB 276 for trying my best to protect fragile children.

They wanted all the kids to have all their shots and you to force them to do it.

Yes. And, and if they got us in trouble, it nulled all other exemptions I'd done for fragile children, which was really the goal. That's when I started to have a complete— my eyes were wide open and I was able to see truly what was going on.

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Mystery illnesses. Today there are so many people struggling with conditions that they don't know what's causing it, where it came from. And today I've brought on one of the world's leading experts, Dr. Jess Pietras, and we're going to be going through brain fog, chronic fatigue, unexplained weight gain, digestive issues, hormone imbalance, and so much more, and what's actually causing it. Welcome to Dr. Josh Axe Show and welcome, Dr. Jess Pietras. Dr. Jess, thanks for coming on today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm honored. Well, I know we met quite a few years ago, and I've always been impressed by your just wisdom. You know, you, you've spent a lot of time helping people overcome illnesses that doctors can't explain. And there's a lot of people like this today. I know I see a lot of people like this to where their blood work says they're fine, they're normal, and their doctor then sometimes diagnoses them with something like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or it's all in your head. That's another sort of, you know, a thing that people hear a lot. Walk me through sort of what caused you to start focusing on people with mystery illnesses. And I know you went from conventional medicine to more natural medicine in the process of that as well.

Yeah, it's been a wild ride for sure. Um, you know, it all started back in medical school where I believed everything they taught me. And did everything they taught me. I drank the Kool-Aid. I did everything. I believed that, you know, this was not a business. This was all to help people. And as I got out of school and through residency and then got my hospitalist job, that's where things really got real. I started to say and think, you know, are discharging people on 30 medications, is that really considered health? And then I would go to the cafeteria and they would have Coke and Pepsi in the cafeteria and they would be feeding Jell-O to people on a liquid diet. And I was I was kind of like, how is this health? And I— the cracks in the system started to form for me. And the more I got on social media and the more I talked to natural practitioners, the more I saw that there might be another way to help people heal. And eventually, when you start discharging people on so many pharmaceuticals and you see them the next week in the emergency department again, you start to wonder if you're getting to the root cause and if you've gone into the right perspective of medicine.

Well, it's so good. You know, I, I, one thing I try to explain regularly, which I don't think people fully comprehend, I mean, some people on this show do because we got a lot of really educated, smart people on here, but medications do not heal you. You, you're, you're not actually physically getting better. Your blood work might change. Maybe one of your symptoms feels better, but the majority of the time you're not actually physically healing.

It's a bandaid. Yeah. Right. It's symptom suppression. It's not, actually working through the problem to say the body is in remission or free of this label or ICD-10 code, if you will.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is crazy to think about. And there are so many conditions that are just— are continuing to grow. The amount of people that have chronic infections, Lyme, parasites, mold, viral infections. I mean, it just continues to climb. How did you discover— because I know that's one of your areas of expertise. How did you start discovering that a lot of these microbes were sort of at the core of people who've had these ongoing, and this could be everything, again, as we mentioned, Lyme, long COVID. I mean, there's still, I saw a percentage recently of the number of people that are still struggling with symptoms from long COVID is—

It's devastating.

It is, yeah.

It is. I see that too, actually. And I think there was a study by, I believe, the World Health Organization, where 74% of people with long COVID actually had Epstein-Barr reactivated.

And so that was actually—

at, you know, behind that, or even Lyme. I've seen Lyme reactivated a lot in these people too. And the reason I went into— I almost did infectious disease in residency. I really love that field of medicine. But when I got into my practice and I got more into integrative medicine, I started asking why until I couldn't ask why anymore. Why do you have high blood pressure? Why are you depressed? Why do you have this autoimmune condition? And most of the time, my training didn't teach me the answer at all. And so I really went on a journey with myself, you know, it was very humbling to find out why these people were sick. And I had to go beyond what I was taught in conventional medicine and start to believe people over a peer-reviewed paper. And that's really where things changed for me, because in the hospital, a lot of doctors look at people and they say, this is your fault. You eat wrong. You don't work out. You don't move your body. You hang out with the wrong people. You have the wrong habits.

Or here's another one, it's just you have bad genetics. But they do that as well. I mean, yeah, that's so common.

But it changed for me. My medicine and how I help people and my success rate with people changed when I started believing the person in front of me. And I didn't gaslight people anymore. I didn't believe the system knew better. I didn't believe that these people somehow had some ulterior motive to gain and it was their fault. I started to blame the system. Rather than the person. And that's when I started to have a complete— my eyes were wide open and I was able to see truly what was going on. And then I started asking, okay, if people are sick, why are they sick? And it was more than just what I'd been taught. I got 4 hours of nutrition in school. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't equipped with the education I was given. I had to give myself a new education.

Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean, every doctor I know that's at the top of their field, they learned such a small fragment of what they actually know in school. I mean, and honestly, sometimes you have to unlearn it. I mean, if you went to traditional medical training, you have to unlearn. Like, I have a friend of mine who's becoming a nurse practitioner, and I can actually see it hurting him in terms of what he's learning. And so, you know, it's like, but you got to go and retrain yourself. One thing you said that really stood out to me, and this is true with the best doctors, is they ask why and why and why. There is a there's an Asian model of questioning, which really I think came from the Socratic method of Socrates continuing to ask a lot of questions. And it's called the 5 Whys. And so, and it's what you do, but I just want to break this down for everybody. Like if somebody has type 2 diabetes, the first question you should ask is why do they have it? And one thing is, well, why is blood sugar high? Well, there's too much sugar in the bloodstream. Well, why is there too much sugar in the bloodstream? Well, the insulin receptor sites are burned out. Well, why did that happen? Well, that goes back to actually another thing, which is there's too much sugar in the bloodstream, which goes to— well, likely that's one of a few things. There's too many carbohydrates in the diet. Could be sugar, there could be general refined grains, breads, whatever. Or maybe there's also a problem with a mineral deficiency like chromium or magnesium. Or maybe there's— so, so there's all— but, but 90-plus percent of doctors, they don't ask why, or they don't ask why enough to get to the root of the issue. And I think it is a modern-day problem where doctors will, um, think they know better than the patient. I mean, it's sort of the amount of hubris and pride it takes for a doctor to say, oh, this patient's crazy, which is what a lot of the times they think, or I know better. Um, it's, it's a real problem with our system today.

We are subtly taught in school to distrust the patient, not the system. Wow. We are taught there's malingering, there's psychosomatic, There's ulterior motive. They're a drug addict. We are taught that subtly in our training. So it is— it takes a great awareness to become the observer of your thoughts, to see that training and that brainwashing that happens. I know for sure that happened to me.

Wow.

And so, you know, what happened, Dr. Josh, is I was working at Whitaker Wellness in California, and I was working with one of my first integrative practices. He was one of my mentors, actually. And I missed a patient with Lyme disease. I missed them and he was suffering. He had insomnia. He wasn't sleeping at night. His heart rate was up. He had the most severe anxiety and panic. And I just thought it was his thyroid, but I hadn't asked why long enough, deep enough. Why is your thyroid behaving this way? And Dr. Mark Fillode, who is a mold doctor as well, found it. I referred my patient to him because I was a newbie and he found it. And by God, I'll never miss it again. After that. So that taught me and humbled me because some of the best experiences I've had with growing myself and learning myself are when I fell on my face.

Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, doctors should be humble. I mean, they should be. I think the more that I learn, the more that I realize I have a lot more to learn, you know, because— wisdom. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think— and part of that is modeling the Great Physician. We know that Jesus had this level of, you know, the most extreme level of humility of anyone ever. And And if we want to be great physicians, we need to walk with humility and understanding the patient is right. You know, I, I, I had, I, I, I had a few things in practice in a similar way that really opened up my eyes. One was, um, well, actually I'm trying to think of, I don't wanna get into this, but, but like I had a patient who had a vaccine, uh, one-year-old, and then seeing them before and after, that was so eye-opening to me because there's most doctors in one area were saying, well, that can't affect It's a patient at all, but then to actually see it for myself, the actual change, that was proof. And, you know, and here's another one. I had a patient come in with MS. We thought it was MS. Mm-hmm. And then started putting her on a very specific protocol and completely reversed it and turned out we believe it was actually mold.

Oh, wow.

A mold issue.

Yes.

But again, these sort of things happen. I know you see this all the time. What, what are some of the most sort of wow things you've seen in your practice in terms of misdiagnoses by other people, things that you were able to then help them with?

The one that sticks out the most to me right off the top of my head when you say that is a young man. He was in his 30s. He had a family, young family and a wife, and he had a very, very aggressive early form of ALS. And it was very sad. He had to have a PEG tube, a feeding tube put in. He could hardly swallow. It was really— it moved very progressive and quickly. And Right before diagnosis, he'd had some emotional trauma, which I find is always a component with the physical. It's like a perfect storm that breaks the body. And so he had swam in the red tide.

Oh, wow. Now, was he in the panhandle of Florida or what area were they?

Yes. And so they had, if I remember correctly, they were on vacation and that's where they were. And he had swam in the red tide shortly before symptoms began. And so this is cyanobacteria. This is algae bloom. Which is how they— Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker discovered mycotoxins and mold could be detrimental to a person's health much more than we thought originally. And so he found that because his patient had been living near the red tide and breathing that in, those spores in, and actually got sick. And a binder called cholestyramine actually cleared her brain fog and joint pains and fatigue. And that's how Dr. Shoemaker got into studying mold and fungus. And then so I also am a mold doctor and study fungus and different infections that are rare and more exotic like that. And I saw the same thing in this patient who had ALS. So that's one that sticks out to me greatly. Another one is a patient who has MS, multiple sclerosis, like you mentioned.

What happened with the ALS patient that you started treating?

You know, I was giving him a parasite cleanse and he was having a lot more movement in his limbs actually and doing better. But then unfortunately he caught pneumonia. And had to be taken to the emergency department. And once they intubated him, that was it. Once a person who has poor respiratory breathing and drive is put on a ventilator, it's really too bad. So unfortunately, it was a sad ending to the story. I have a more happy ending with a multiple sclerosis patient who did— had Epstein-Barr off the charts. As we know, multiple sclerosis is now connected to Epstein-Barr as one of the 7 autoimmune conditions that it can be triggered by. And that was her story. As well as some emotional trauma mixed in with it. And by the time we opened drainage, did a little bit of a detox, parasite cleanse, she did have Babesia as well, and bee venom. She could hike.

Now tell me about the bee venom. Which, by the way, I am one of the biggest proponents of all things bee-related. Propolis, royal jelly, MGO, of course pollen, and then, yeah, bee venom. So, so quick story. I had a Chelsea and I moved up, spent some time in Puerto Rico for 3 years. And the people we bought our house from, he was an apirist and used bee venom regularly for his joint pain. He was like an extreme athlete and would always have these injuries. He like raced cars, skydiving, all kinds of things. And so he had a whole beehive that he would take bees with regularly. So anytime he had a joint, joint discomfort, He would go and, you know, sting himself in the area with the bee. And I saw a study recently on bee venom for cancer. Yes. So, but tell me more about, about this bee venom.

There is a study on bee venom that it can kill breast cancer cells in vitro in 60 minutes. So it is amazing. So bee venom actually resets the immune system, right? It's a stressor. You know, the body is always looking to find hormesis during stressors like exercise and cold plunges and saunas. All these stress the body and give it a second chance to work. And so bee venom is like that, too. It actually revs up our immune system, resets our immune system, lets the body see where the problem is because the immune system gets kind of a little drive, if you will, a little punch and gets to see things. So she actually, her joint pains, her fatigue, her inability to move around like she wanted actually dissipated with that. I think it was like 3 to 5 stings a week, I believe. It wasn't anything crazy.

You know what, the way that I think about it is it's like, it's following those, homeopathic principles. Yes, very much. And it's sort of like the original PRP injection or prolotherapy, you know, if you go into an area and you sort of recreate sometimes that, like a micro injury, the body will be able to heal itself in a more powerful way. But I've heard so many people with joint pain have benefited from this, this type of therapy. And it's not really talked about. I mean, I think, I think when people first think about, they're like, okay, My memory of getting stung by a bee when I was a kid, it was, there's a little bit of microtrauma there, but it's natural. It's powerful. If it got rid of your pain long-term to endure a few minutes of that sort of stinging discomfort, I mean, for many people it's well worth it.

Yeah, absolutely. I actually have this bee venom cream that's made by Vennex, I believe is the name of it. And no bees were killed or harmed in making of this venom, this cream, but you can rub it on and it feels like a bee sting. It gets red and demarcated where you put the lotion and it burns and stings like like you would if you got stung. So I've seen pretty good results from that too.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. You know, one of the things we talked about a little bit, I want to, I wanna talk about viruses and viral infections because a lot of times people hear things like Epstein-Barr or CMV and, and even long COVID. When most people think about viruses, I think they think they come and go like the common, you know, coronavirus or, or, or cold or flu, right? It's something that just 24 hours or a week and then it's, it's kind of here and gone. Not all viruses operate that way.

Absolutely not. It's interesting, viruses, how they work and have such different properties. I have many questions about viruses, but Epstein-Barr is a big one. We can use that one as an example. About over 90% of people are seropositive for it, whether they remember having mono or not. And this pesky little virus has this ability to live in nerve roots and nerves, and it follows the same dermatome or nerve root pattern when it comes back out. So people who've gotten maybe cold sores will notice that they have a cold sore in the exact same place. It's a different type of herpes virus than Epstein-Barr, but the same family. Epstein-Barr also has the ability to go dormant in the body and then reactivate whenever people are sick or immunocompromised. And what I tell people is this virus, whatever it is, lives off adrenaline and cortisol in your body. So unless I can get people's nervous systems balanced, from sympathetic and parasympathetic in the body, then they are going to struggle with reactivation of this virus, especially if they have any sort of trouble with COVID and mitochondrial damage. And so until I can get them living, living off of stress hormones and in rest and digest, this will continue to rear its ugly head.

Yeah. You know, one of the sort of philosophical principles I've operated under, and really I learned this via my study of Chinese medicine and to a degree Ayurveda. But it's that oftentimes today, both in the— I would say this happens more in conventional, but it happens in the natural medicine space as well. When somebody has any type of infection, whether it be, let's say it's a viral infection or Lyme as an example, they will tend to say, okay, my goal is to kill the infection with a medication or an herbal. And I think that's one part of the process. But I think the single biggest factor of all the things is strengthening your own body, and your body will kill it. Like, your body knows how to kill a virus. It can create interferon, it can create, you know, certain types of, uh, compounds that actually kill off viruses, infections, and a number of things. And so I've always really— when I've been working with patients, typically in my phase 1, I try and strengthen and build the body And I do that with certain herbs that are more building, like astragalus or dong quai or ginseng, more probiotics, more focusing a good diet and doing what you talked about, getting that sympathetic nerve system in the right state, out of the protection, into healing, rest and digest. And that's a big part of it. And so, but, but again, I think that philosophically, most people, that's not the first thing they're trying to do or even part of the process. It's more just kill. And one thing I was impressed by with you is I know you've got a whole process And I might be saying it incorrectly, but if I'm not, correct me on this. It's something like kill, bind, sweat. It's perfect. Okay, kill, bind, sweat. And I think that would be the other part of that process I would have that's maybe in addition to the one thing I mentioned in terms of you do want to kill it. There are herbs that can help kill it, but you also need to bind to it. And for some people, this is more important than others. Like with mold, we know there's about 24% of the population that have a variant they don't eliminate very well. So walk me through kind of your process that you've created with patients and why this works so well.

Well, we're very aligned. I think that what you said was perfect. I agree. Early on in my career, I created Kill Bind Sweat and it went viral online because it sounds like I'm an S&M doctor or something. It sounds crazy, but it's really just something practical that everyone can do that's affordable. And that's why. Everyone understood it. I didn't understand that wasn't the first step back then. So I, again, I've kind of learned through trial by fire in my career, right? I wasn't a— I didn't come out of school a chiropractor or, or, you know, a naturopath. I was conventional, so I've had to learn along the way. Um, and what you said, you tend to the terrain first, the terrain of the body, right? Um, it's all about the terrain. These viruses, we know there's a lot of controversy about whether viruses exist now or not based on the contagion myth. They only are there or Pathogens are only there to digest heavy metals. You're part of the ecosystem. They digest organic waste. If you've got food putrefying in your gut, you're probably going to have a problem with microbes. Yeah, the bad pathogenic microbes. Yeah. And so if you tend to the terrain and you strengthen the body first, you're absolutely right. So when I get people's nervous systems regulated first, because that's the first step, then I open their drainage, making sure they can have bowel movements, they can sweat within 10 to 15 minutes in a sauna, their liver can process things, their bile is flowing and not stagnant, they're sleeping properly. Their cycles are more regulated if they're women, then I can shorten the time they need for a detox. I mean, almost half most of the time, because people feel 80% better with just tending to the terrain. So Kilbine sweat is a small portion. It's the last portion of my detox for people now, because there's so much more before that that I learned over my career.

Yeah. Yeah, well, it's a powerful process. And just to kind of walk everybody through this, I— the way that I would kind of explain this to the kill, we could even put that in two phases. One, your body has soldiers, and two, that you want to— like, whether it's natural killer cells or T lymphocytes, or even, uh, you know, or, or even, um, you know, bacteria in your gut. And you want to both strengthen the soldiers, make them actually better soldiers, but then you also want to give them some big guns, okay? And maybe that's the actual, you know, Oregano or something like that, that's actually going to go and kill something versus some of the other building and are going to be more lifestyle related. And then bind, as we talked about mold, some of these things, if you just go and kill it, it will just recirculate in your body. And sometimes you don't kill quite all of it. So then it can kind of continue to spawn and grow in your body. And then you would need to support the detoxification pathways to take what's bound and get rid of it. Walk me through maybe some of your favorite herbs or supplements or treatments that kind of fall within those different categories.

Absolutely. So when people are ready for a detox, their drainage is open. So when I start killing and binding, they cannot recirculate and dump them out of their body and they're ready for that. I might— some of my favorite supplements to do kill are broad spectrum herbs. They're kind of like broad spectrum antibiotics. They cover yeast and bacteria and parasites because herbs have this quality. They don't just go after one thing. They can cover a multitude of things. And so I love things like BioCide and LSF. I love Para-1 and Para-3 by Cellcore. I love my own product Gut Hero that I made with Sol that covers a variety of things like that. And then I usually have people wait an hour or so and take a binder. I really love fulvic and humic acid binders. They're the best, right? They act as a driver to turn on Nrf2 pathways that are anti-cancer and other things too. And then I have people, if they can tolerate it, if they don't have something like POTS or something where they might pass out in the sauna, then I'll put them in the sauna because you're killing things off, mopping them up with things that act like a sponge, and then we're sweating them out of our pores. And studies have shown, small studies have shown, you can sweat out heavy metals, things like mercury, even lead and cadmium. And so, um, you know, you can definitely sweat out some pesticides, some PCBs, some BPA. So I really think if you guys just glisten and you don't sweat, that's a pathway that's stuck for you that is not letting your body release as it should. And so I, you know, I really love infrared saunas. I think all the studies behind them have been amazing, how they actually help you to refold different proteins in the body that might be misfolded. It gives your body a second chance to do that right again.

That's so great.

And so I just really have seen such beautiful things from people just doing a kill bind sweat when their body's prepared.

That's so great. Yeah, one thing I want to mention, and I know you're in alignment with this, is that, you know, everyone is a unique individual. And I think that when you go in, if you're dealing with any of the things we've talked about— brain fog, even, even, you know, certain types of hormone imbalance, inflammatory bowel disease, you know, a lot of these mystery illnesses, as Dr. Jess has specialized in— um, you know, having a practitioner who you can work with, who can kind of dial in what's going on, because there are certain things that are better at killing others. We both like a lot of the broad spectrum things, as she mentioned, which are great. Sometimes, though, if you have a parasite, you know, you might be better off with, you know, wormwood or black walnut or something specific there like garlic. If it's more viral, turkey tail mushroom, thyme, andrographis, or some things there. So, so, so it is doing the broad spectrum stuff is great for everybody. Anyone can benefit from that, especially if you're not feeling well. But if you work with a practitioner, they can probably dial it in for you even more. And I agree, I am a huge fan of humic and fulvic acid and ultra high dose probiotics. I think those are the best detoxifiers. I do like in certain instances, chlorella, zeolites, clay, activated charcoal, cholestyramine. Oh yeah.

I love pectin. Yes.

Citrus pectin is amazing.

So good.

That's a great one. And And so I think all those are great as well, depending on your condition. But a good practitioner will know, hey, this is best for this. Like, one thing I see, Dr. Jess, a lot is a lot of practitioners just going with activated charcoal for everything. And I don't— I think it's good for mold, but I think for some of these other things, I don't think people realize that charcoal is really such a strong binder. It'll bind to minerals and it'll back you up. So actually, for a lot of people, it can kind of start blocking that detoxification pathway in the colon. As you're talking about. And that's why I like to go more gentle with— the thing I love about fulvic acid, humic acid, and high-dose probiotic, those— that combination is that it's going to help you have more bowel movements while binding at the same time. So I love that you mentioned that because not a lot of practitioners do. And I think that's such a great combination.

I feel the same. Thank you, by the way. And I feel the same way about activated charcoal. It doesn't leave the gut. It doesn't go systemic.

Yeah.

So that's my other issue with it. Yeah. But great for things like if you get food poisoning, Bam, activated charcoal.

Alcohol, 100%.

Oh, yeah, the best. But yeah, I think that all these binders have their own unique characteristics. Just like the herbs you mentioned. So I don't know. I just think that binders in general are wonderful, but people have to be remineralized. And some of the things I like in the beginning with people are high-dose minerals, like above the RDA high-dose minerals. I mean, talking like cobalt, chromium, copper, selenium, iodine, molybdenum, magnesium, zinc, all those different ones, right? Very important.

One thing I don't think people realize either is like, Yeah, like what the recommendations are that— so I'm writing a book right now on cellular medicine right now. And one of the things I got into, there's a practitioner named Roger Williams, and he's actually the founder of like Personalized Nutrition Today. So this is where really functional medicine came from in the past 100 years. And he went through and said, You know, one person might need, you know, one level of vitamin C. Another person, their normal, what they need is 10 times more.

That's right.

It's that much different. And so a lot of times people need a lot more than, than the recommended dose.

That's what I've seen. Absolutely. And I mean, even when I was stressed out, I have my own personal story. I was really stressed out about 2, 3 years ago. Everything in my labs was in the red and I was like, no wonder I'm suicidal. I had zero B vitamins. My MCV, my mean corpuscular volume, was 106. My homocysteine was 12. My vitamin D was 10. My CRP was 8.

You were feeling rough.

All stressed out. I had 30 pounds extra weight on me. It was terrible. And you know what saved me was I went to get a B complex injection, and then I was taking it orally, and it wasn't working because I wasn't absorbing and assimilating. I had leaky gut. I was so stressed out. And so that's why I created liposomal nano B vitamins, B1 through B12 methylated. If people's genes can handle that, are like a game changer.

Now, do you have the MTHFR variant? Was that— was that an issue for you at all or no?

I didn't until I went through these 7 years of horrible stress in my life where there were lawsuits and, you know, license— I lost my license. I surrendered.

Yeah.

Lots of things happened to me during that 7 years. And it's really, I just think that I didn't have it and it got turned on. It was a gene that was off epigenetically, like keys on a piano. They weren't pressed, but due to the stress, because genes signal and turn on or off based on environmental cues. So because of the environment of stress I lived in for 7 years, those genes were pressed like keys on a piano. And I got a Dutch test in 2017. I had 90% methylation. I got one last year, no, at 4%.

4%. Wow.

So that's what stress can do to you.

Yeah.

And lifestyle and trauma, right?

So, yeah, I mean, I'm a big proponent of that. I think that the reason why people are so sick today, we see so many chronic illnesses, I think close to— I mean, almost half of it is due to chronic stress, emotional childhood trauma. Yes. Spiritual, like lack of identity and purpose. I mean, all those things sort of cumulatively. And then the other part is sort of diet, you know? And, and of course I do think exercise is important and a few other things, but I do think that, I mean, those, those are the big things. And so many people are overlooking, um, altogether that sort of emotional piece of the puzzle. It's big.

It's huge. And no one, the half of my patients run when I start talking about nervous system regulation to them. No one wants to do that. No one— it's really hard to see yourself in flight or fight. It's really hard to see where you may be running around and not breathing properly or have a startle response that hasn't been integrated. And there's a lot of people who can't see themselves that way and no one wants to talk about it.

You know, I'll share this. I thought about myself in the same way for years. I would have somebody say to me, or I— my first 2 years of practice, I worked so many hours. You can understand this probably as good as anybody. 80 hours a week. I mean, it's like I would wake up at like 5:00 AM to do my personal growth. And it's a form of work, like, you know, start then. And then I would go to bed at 10:00. And I really worked that whole time. I mean, I was doing something. And then 2 years into practice, I started getting like leaky gut, histamine reactions. And I'm like, what's going on? I'm eating perfect.

Same.

And then I saw a Chinese medicine doctor and he said, he goes like this, he goes, he goes, your battery should be here. He's okay. And he goes like, you're— it's here. Like, it's like, you know, you should be at 80%, 90%. You're down at 20%. He goes, you have no batteries left. He's like, your battery is— and I was like, okay, well, what do I do? He's like, just— and he said something about stress. I'm like, oh, well, I'm not stressed. I'm like, I like— because I didn't feel any sense of worry or fear or anxiety or depression. I had none of those emotions. But I realized it was just death by busyness. I mean, I had something, and this is so many people today, they have something scheduled from the morning they wake up to the time they crash at night, and then their weekends are totally booked too. And so it's not always this sort of like emotional, like anxiousness or worry. It's sometimes it's just you're just too busy.

Oh, you know who I see? All these like high-performing women who are like soccer moms who come in, I get everything done by 11 AM. Their cortisol's off off the charts. Yeah, off the charts. I'm like, listen, it's really hard to convince somebody to not be as productive as they think they are because it's bad for their health. Yeah, it's really hard to change that pattern when they're getting everything done.

Well, and I think a lot of this is spiritual too, because I think that at some point in their life they had a parent or social media or something tell them your worth, your value is tied to what you accomplish. In your productivity. The more you get done, the more valuable you are. And then we see today on social media, like, all of these people, men, but even more so it's become women, like, applauded for being— having a successful career. And so, but it's exhausting trying to be Superwoman or Superman or super whatever all the time. And but a lot of times people don't realize, like, they are trying to achieve and be productive because That's where they're trying to get their sense of value from versus, you know, if we look at the Judeo-Christian faith, it's more, no, listen, you've got a parent and God loves you. Like, like he loves you. You are his child. Yes. You, you know, this is just a speck of sand. Like you're meant to live through eternity. Like you are not God. I think sometimes people don't, they don't realize it. Nobody would admit this, but they're trying to fill God's shoes or operate in that manner.

Mm.

And that's making people sick. We know pride was the first, you know, like it says pride comes before a fall. And so I think there's an element of that and a lot of other sort of things that are a big part of people being sick today. But, but with a lot of people, it's like if they could just shut off their brain and stop working, that, that alone is their biggest cure.

Oh yeah. People could just get silent in themselves. But you know, that's the problem. If you keep yourself busy or you're always helping other people, which is the healer's plight, you don't have to work on yourself.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That is true, because there's pain there. And so like, even psychologically, you will try and avoid it, because to go back and deal with your childhood trauma today, that's painful.

Painful. And it take— is not for the faint of heart.

It's like resetting a bone. It's like, okay, the bone's already broke, I don't want to reset it, that really hurts. But if you want to be healthy long-term and functional, you can't ignore it.

It's part of your hero's journey.

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One of the things I try and do for patients is do things like encourage them to give more time to themselves, say no more.

Yes.

Oh my gosh. Spend some time in spiritual practices. I agree. Reading your Bible, gratitude, journaling, a prayer, being prayed for, for healing. I mean, all these things I think is so important and it's 99% of doctors don't recommend, but it is be so healing for so many of you doing that coupled with all of the things we're talking about in terms of cellular medicine and functional medicine for healing. One thing I want to ask you about is, and you referenced this, you gave up your license in the state of California and then you moved to Florida. Why did you give up your license in California? What happened there?

It was— this is a crazy story. So, you know, California passed this law back in 2015, '16, SB 277, and followed followed closely by SB 276 written by Senator Richard Pan. And, um, this was a law that, um, forced children to have, um, all shots by the age of 18 to attend public school. And, um, they also made it legal to subpoena patients' medical records without their permission and open them up under the Health and Human Services Department under the guise of safety. To check the legitimacy of said—

Wow.

Yes, so when HHS subpoenaed my patients' records, I thought it was just for a divorce case and the parents, because there was nothing said. They opened an investigation on me and hundreds of other doctors, like Dr. Mary Sutton, Dr. Bob Sears, Dr. Ken Stoller, Dr. Paul White, and we all got retroactively punished under SB 276 for trying my best to protect fragile children. I paired up with a pediatric naturopath. I worked at a naturopathic clinic in California. I was the only medical doctor. I loved it. They taught me so much and we really followed the law, but they got me on minutiae like not signing a chart in time or, you know, they wanted to test each adjuvant to a person's genes, which is extremely expensive. For patients and not the way the body works. It's not an allergy to adjuvants. Let's get real. And so when they came for me, you know, they wanted 3 years probation and about 60 hours of their education and a stipulated license with no exemptions.

But the big underlying thing here was they wanted all the kids to have all their shots and you to force them to do it.

Yes. And, and if they got us in trouble, it nullified all other exemptions I'd done for fragile children, which was really the goal.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Wow. So all these people I helped protect had to either figure it out or move out of state when I got in trouble.

I mean, you probably know this, but the amount of people from California that have moved to Nashville, Tennessee is crazy, which I will say I am appreciative because now we've got the greatest restaurant— like Nashville's a top 5 food spot in the whole country because so many people that are natural who had like natural restaurants and things, they moved here, opened up. Some great stuff. But it's, yeah, listen, it's the people in California are amazing, like-minded, wonderful people.

They really are. It's the politics and the government there that has an agenda and really ruined it for me. Because after COVID happened, I couldn't stay. I didn't feel welcome in California because I willingly surrendered my license there. Yeah, you know, like I thought that was the bigger play. I wasn't making money seeing patients that more anymore, really, that way. I was I was doing it because I liked it. Yeah. And so I just thought, I'm going to media blitz them. I'm going to surrender this and I'm going to media blitz them. And everyone was scared to interview me during that time. Only Peter McCullough interviewed me. Yeah.

So he's another one of those, you know, virtuous people that stood for what was right.

And God bless him.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Great job.

Yes, he did. And so that was a, you know, I really felt like a disgruntled, like kicked out outcast in the medical community. I've most of my career since I changed my perspective, I've been called a quack by keyboard warriors and other colleagues actually, and told that, you know, I deserve not to have my license.

Can I tell you what? Yeah, I would say it frustrates me, but really, if I have the right mental attitude. I mean, the Bible talks about this, like, you will be persecuted for, for doing the right thing. Yeah. And there are so many doctors who, through COVID, who lost their license, who were ridiculed, who were shamed. You're one of those doctors. And now I think that it's come full circle. Now we see the truth that you were right. Malone was right. McCullough was right. A lot of these doctors I know that have spoken out were right. But there's been no apology. There's been no admitting to their wrongdoing. Again, you've got all these still, you know, the politicians in California, the CDC, the medical association who's made all the— Fauci, who made these medical recommendations who were completely and utterly wrong. Yes. And there's been no, no, because, because they're, they're, they're operating in the system of a God complex of, and they still think they're right somehow. Which is, which is wild to think about. And that's why, I mean, you've seen the statistics of how much people trusted politicians in our conventional medical system before COVID and after. I mean, they lost almost everybody.

You know what I hear when you say that? COVID was a blessing.

Agreed.

A blessing.

Yeah.

Look what it did for healthcare.

So many people have so much more wisdom to the truth. Did you see that shots are at an all-time low?

Oh, I did see that. Yeah. Yes. Which, you know what, I just want people to be able to choose. Me too. And, and yeah, and let me put a disclaimer on that too. Choose when there's correct informed consent, because there is not correct informed consent for root canals or breast implants or shots. And so all we've heard is safe and effective, safe and effective, safe and effective, which is kind of a brainwashing tactic in my opinion over the years. So I want full Transparency. I want full, um, you know, studies comparing. I want authentic authenticity from these people, um, at this point in time. And that's fine. Once that is given, then people can choose, but when they are educated and have the proper wisdom.

Yeah. What are some of your— I want to switch gears back to a little bit of your process of sort of now it's strengthen, kill, bind sweat. What are some of the things you, you like to do for— you mentioned infrared sauna, which I'm a huge fan of. And I think also one, one thing for people might consider doing in addition to that is go outside, get a lot of sun, and hike. Like, sweat— that's another way you can sweat, full body sun, that is going to have similar properties. And one other thing, infrared sauna, go on Facebook Marketplace, go on eBay, you can get some really great deals on saunas. For a quarter of the cost in some cases. And so that's something you may look at as well if people are interested in getting an infrared sauna. Now, I'm a huge fan of Sunlighten. I've got a Sunlighten sauna at my house, use it constantly all the time. So again, I think investing in getting a Sunlighten sauna is awesome. But again, remember the sun's also beneficial. So also in addition to that, get a lot of sun. What do you think of like castor oil packs and some other detoxification methods too?

I love castor oil packs. Shout out to Marisol, Queen of the Thrones. But yeah, Yes, I love it. I think it's amazing. I think it helps move the bile. It helps increase and move natural killer cells. I think it puts people in parasympathetic rest and digest, which I'm always a fan of. And I think it's a wonderful, wonderful thing for hair. You can use castor oil for so many different things. I mean, I've even seen people do thyroid castor oil packs on your liver, gallbladder here, on your breast or your lower abdomen for women for the time of the month. So yeah, it's multi-purpose.

I don't know, I, I like doing it too with either before or after doing like infrared heat on the area there for about 30 minutes. And so in, in Chinese medicine, it's really, it's moving that qi, it's moving blood, it's moving, it's, it's, and this is just so important for healing different areas of the body. Are there any therapies or treatments like ozone or hyperbaric oxygen therapy or certain types of IVs you like for treating people with infections and these mystery illnesses as well?

For sure. And I tell people these aren't, you know, necessary to heal. They're not mandatory, because I want people to understand that there are so many free things you can do to heal too. But I love me some toys. So yes, I have a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at home. Um, when my dog got a brain tumor, I bought it for her, but it's also for people.

Oh yeah.

So I use that too. Um, I have a Flowpresso, which moves the lymph. It's lymph. It's like a full body Michelin suit.

Oh, it does. Yeah.

It's like a warm hug with heat all the way and puts everybody in parasympathetic mode. Um, I love, let's see, cold plunges for some people, not everyone. I love PEMF mats. I love all that stuff for hacks, for sure. It's wonderful. But I have to say, sauna is probably my favorite.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yes, sauna is amazing. I mean, so many people can benefit from saunas. Yeah. And I think the other thing too, part of it is we get a lot less sunlight. So we're getting that infrared light and that heat to just move and help circulation is good for pretty much every condition you could imagine. So it's—

I tell people all the time, I don't feel good, I'm depressed. Have you been outside today? No. Have you done this today? No. So it's like, go outside, people. We do nothing but sit indoors 80% of the time where the air is poor quality and stare at a blue light.

Go on a walk, 20 to 30 minutes, 3 times a day, just as much as you can. Get outside and walk. I want to talk to you about yoga, and I want to share sort of my philosophical view of this and religious view of this. Sure. I'm a fan of a lot of the benefits of yoga physiologically. I think there's a contingency of Christians who think it's fine, and some who think it's demonic or it's evil in some way. And I want to kind of share my opinion, but then I would love to hear yours as well. You know, I think that like, for me, if I go do a yoga class, I can do it unto God, I can do it unto Jesus. To me, these are movements that don't have to be, you know, I know, like, there's one movement, you know, probably something like a cobra where you're pushing up where they say that's worshiping the sun god Ra. I can worship Jesus while I'm looking up. So, so all that being said, I'm curious to hear your, your viewpoints of going to a yoga class. And actually, I've taken yoga classes from predominantly Christian instructors and things like that. But I am curious to hear your view and take on yoga because you're a yoga instructor, correct?

Yes. Yeah.

In addition to being an M.D.

Yeah, you know, um, I have a similar philosophy as you. I think that you, you make it what you, what you will. And I think that I'm a lot more powerful than some practice that, that can have demons enter me. If I'm aware and I'm mindful and I'm thinking about what I believe, then you can honor that religion, honor that perspective. Jesus, like you said, I think that's true. And I have a hard time thinking that things stillness, which can sometimes be called meditation or yoga, a way to get to know myself better, someone that God created, could be sinful.

Yeah. Well, I will throw out this warning for people. I think also there's a verse in the Bible where Paul is saying to a group of people, one of the churches there, he says, listen, you're only ready for Romans for milk right now. You're not ready for solid food. So I think maybe there are some people, and I understand this Christian perspective, that somebody could go who maybe is not strong in their faith, who's influenceable, and they could go to something. And maybe it is a yoga studio that is really talking a lot about, you know, opening them up to sort of this Eastern spirituality. And that could be a bad path for them. And so, so I do, I do want to say that I do think that there are probably yoga studios and, and ways of going about it that could be harmful to somebody, including somebody who's a Christian. But I also think there's an element of if somebody is ready for food, if somebody is mature, the benefits of being able to do certain movements for flexibility, for mobility. I mean, there are numerous studies on the health benefits of of yoga and Pilates and these sort of exercises for, uh, for longevity and for, for, for, for helping the overall health. So again, I did want to say, listen, I do think it's a per-person basis and you want to move forward with wisdom, but I do think for many people the movements have benefits, especially statistically, medically. There's, there's some good evidence there.

I mean, personally, it changed my life because, you know, when I first started going, I had one leg that was a little bit longer than the other one. Why did it feel different when I stood on my right leg there than my left leg? So it brought up a lot of awareness awareness to how I was, my posture and how I was standing and how I was moving in general. Because until you're still and you're moving through those movements in stillness, your mind's going all day, you're busy all day, you don't have the awareness to notice where your body is off-kilter sometimes. So I really appreciated that from yoga. And I will say, I agree with you, it's based on the person and their discernment and where they are in their journey. And you have to really know yourself. Yeah, you know, so for me, you know, I'm really well-rooted in my integrity and my faith. So I could go to other countries and hear about Buddhism and Hinduism and learn from those people even though I don't adopt their same philosophy. I try to respect other people and their opinions and what they believe, but I don't have to integrate that into my life if you are strong enough, and you have to know yourself.

Yeah, you do. Again, I think it is one of those things that is very debatable, I think it's one of those things where I know there's strong opinions on, but overall, I do think again, there are, and like I said, there's, I know a lot of Christian yoga instructors who are doing it for just the movement methods and the balance and flexibility reasons.

I wonder if there's people bringing God and Jesus in that way. Yeah, into that, into the yoga.

Oh, I do. I know several people in Nashville specifically. That's cool. Who are doing it that way. But yeah, it's something I wanted to ask about, because it is something I've seen, like whenever I've at points I've recommended different types of exercise for different types of conditions. And to your point, the reason I brought it up today, because I don't talk about it very often or recommend it as an exercise that often, but I do think for people with detoxification, if you're doing hot yoga and sweating and looking at kind of regulating that sympathetic nerve system, I think for those people in particular it could be, could be beneficial.

That was me, you know, that was me. That's why it changed my life. So yeah, I think It's, it's not a black and white answer, right? It's very nuanced. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, Jess, I've loved this. This has been an amazing conversation, and I know that you've helped so many people with these chronic mystery illnesses. Well, what's sort of your last piece of advice for people in terms of, um, what, let me ask you this. How can people find out the root of what they're actually dealing with? If it's a specific type of infection, is there any testing or symptoms or, or things that people can know?

Yeah. You know, definitely I just give some people some little pointers now about if they think they have water damage or mold or something. You know, it can follow you guys. It can colonize in your, in your sinus cavities and your mucous membranes. So even if you leave the moldy place and go somewhere else, it can follow you. You've become a mycotoxin-making factory here. So if you leave your house and you feel better when you go on vacation or your work, when you go home, or it's worse when it rains out, or you have shortness of breath, you can't hold your urine, static shocks on the skin, a new diagnosis of asthma, your kid's bedwetting again. These are all signs of water damage in the house. You know, the big 3 symptoms of Lyme: brain fog, migrating joint pains, fatigue, right? There's a lot of symptomatology that can go with this, but ultimately you want to test, not guess. And so there are functional tests that are amazing out there. I like Vibrant Wellness. I run a lot of their labs in my clinic.

Great stuff.

Great stuff. I love the Total Tox test, which tests heavy metals, you know, pesticides, phthalates, plastics, as well as mold or mycotoxins. So everyone that comes through my clinic gets that test. I love blood work too. I get a whole inflammatory full panel with iron, cholesterol, thyroid, ESR, CRP, and all the blood work on people, and then analyze that from a functional standpoint, which has different reference ranges than regular conventional medicine. And, you know, we have tests for everything— the gut, the hormones, neurotransmitters. And it's just nice for people if they've gone the conventional route to maybe open their minds and just get some testing that's deeper to look and see possibly if we can get hints for why you feel sick. Because nobody's broken. Their body is literally just giving them clues and symptoms and a cry for help. So instead of ignoring it, catch it now, because the health is all we have.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that the blood work that you and I run is so different than conventional blood work, even how we read it. Oh, you know, we do a very similar thing. I love doing these tests to be able to tell the vitamins you're deficient in, the minerals you're deficient in, the amino acids, the fatty acids, hormone panels, GI. I mean, being able to look at these things tells us so much of exactly what you need to take and what's going to help, and then following the right process from there. And this is why somebody will go and see, you know, a functional medicine or cellular medicine practitioner who really does more of a personalized plan like we do, and they're able to get these extraordinary results because um, it's not this cookie-cutter method, or sometimes just trying to give you one drug just to change your symptom, but while you're getting sick and something else. And so, uh, so grateful for you, Dr. Jess, and the work you do. Where can people find out more about you and the great work you do?

Absolutely. So I would say there are hierarchies to working with me or seeing me. I do a lot of free information online at @dr.jess.md is my Instagram account, and Dr. Jessica Petross on YouTube. Um, I also have a do-it-yourself wellness platform where you can learn to be your own best doctor called wellnessplus.com. It's Wellness Plus. It's amazing if you like that kind of stuff and you like to watch courses and everything. If you want to work with me one-on-one or my team, that's also a possibility. And that's drjess.health.

So awesome. Well, Dr. Jess, thanks so much for coming on today. And everybody, thanks so much for listening in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Um, also don't— hey, don't forget to subscribe. We have had this show shadowbanned and not showing up sometimes in your feed because we're talking about controversial topics like infections, shots, uh, these holistic treatments, and sometimes the social media platforms don't like it. So if you don't subscribe, it's— our most popular shows like this one may not show up in your feed. So don't forget to subscribe. Also, it's the number one thing you do to support the show, along with sharing We're also so grateful for that every time you share this information. So thanks so much for watching. We'll see you on the next episode.