Episode 132
Jenny Tufenkian:
Chronic Fatigue Explained: A Deep Dive into the 5 Core Energy Drainers
In this episode we welcome Dr. Jenny Tufenkian, a naturopathic physician with two decades of experience in treating chronic illness. Our conversation explores chronic fatigue syndrome, its newly recognized term myalgic encephalitis (ME), as well as Dr. Jenny's personal battle with the condition.
First Aired on: Mar 25, 2024
Episode 132
Jenny Tufenkian:
Chronic Fatigue Explained: A Deep Dive into the 5 Core Energy Drainers
In this episode we welcome Dr. Jenny Tufenkian, a naturopathic physician with two decades of experience in treating chronic illness. Our conversation explores chronic fatigue syndrome, its newly recognized term myalgic encephalitis (ME), as well as Dr. Jenny's personal battle with the condition.
First Aired on: Mar 25, 2024
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode, we're diving deep into the complex world of chronic fatigue syndrome, now more accurately known as myalgic encephalitis. Joining us is Dr. Jenny Tufenkian, a beacon of hope for those battling this debilitating condition. With over two decades of experience in treating chronic illness and a personal battle against chronic fatigue, Dr. Jenny shares her invaluable insights and her groundbreaking approach to unlocking the five core energy drainers.
Key Highlights
- Dr. Jenny Tufenkian’s Battle with Chronic Fatigue: Dr. Jenny shares her personal and professional journey, starting with her struggle with chronic fatigue during medical school. Her experience led her to explore and identify the root causes of chronic fatigue, deeply influencing her approach to treatment.
- Five Core Energy Drainers Identified by Dr. Jenny: Throughout her research, Dr. Jenny has identified five common drivers of chronic fatigue: the hormone triangle, mitochondrial dysfunction, toxic overload, chronic infection, and limbic emotional brain dysfunction. Each of these factors can contribute to the onset and perpetuation of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalitis.
- Hormone Triangle as the Gateway Root Cause: Dr. Jenny discusses the hormone triangle (adrenals, thyroid, and sex hormones) as a critical factor in energy regulation and stress response. She explains how imbalances in this area can trigger or exacerbate chronic fatigue symptoms.
- Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Energy Production: The importance of mitochondria in energy production is highlighted, with Dr. Jenny explaining how mitochondrial dysfunction can lead to decreased energy levels and post-exertional malaise, a hallmark of chronic fatigue syndrome.
- Toxic Overload’s Impact on Health: Exposure to toxins, including heavy metals and environmental pollutants, is discussed as a significant factor in chronic fatigue. Dr. Jenny shares her experience with mercury amalgam removal as a pivotal point in her recovery.
- Chronic Infections as a Trigger for Fatigue: The role of chronic bacterial, viral, and fungal infections in contributing to fatigue is explored. Dr. Jenny emphasizes the often-overlooked impact of viral infections, including Epstein-Barr virus, on energy levels and immune system function.
- Limbic Emotional Brain and Its Role in Chronic Fatigue: The discussion delves into how the limbic system, responsible for processing emotions, can perpetuate a cycle of stress and fatigue through its influence on the autonomic nervous system and the body’s stress response.
- Personal Insights from Dr. Jenny’s Healing Journey: Dr. Jenny shares insights from her own recovery and her approach to treating patients, highlighting the importance of a personalized, root cause-focused treatment plan. She stresses the significance of hope and perseverance in the journey to recovery.
- The Continuous Nature of Healing: Both Dr. Jenny and Julie Michelson discuss the ongoing nature of managing chronic health conditions, including the potential for relapse and the importance of adapting treatment strategies over time.
- Advice for Listeners Struggling with Chronic Fatigue: Dr. Jenny encourages listeners to believe in their body’s ability to heal and to continue seeking solutions that address their unique health challenges. She advocates for a holistic approach that considers not only physical but also emotional and energetic health.
Other Resources:
Connect with Jenny Tufenkian
Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson:[Page//00:00:00] Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson, and today we're joined by Dr. Jenny Tafunkian, who has been treating chronic illness for two decades. Having complex chronic fatigue herself, she had no choice but to dig deep into the literature and uncover the root causes of chronic fatigue.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Jenny is a licensed naturopathic physician, and through her research [Page//00:01:00] and experience, she developed an effective system to unlock the five core energy drainers so that those who are too exhausted to function can start feeling like themselves again. She shares this system with clients and practitioners online and in person.
Julie Michelson: In today's conversation, we're talking about the common drivers of chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalitis, as it is now more accurately called. Dr. Jenny shares these five common drivers of chronic fatigue and the approach that she takes with her clients to allow for true healing. If you find yourself strategically budgeting your energy to make it through your day, this episode is for you.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Jenny, welcome to the podcast.
Jenny Tufenkian: Thank you so much for having me here. I really appreciate it.
Julie Michelson: It is my pleasure. I have heard your story and I, I know the kind of work that you're doing and I'm excited to share your work with listeners, um, because it is such an important, [Page//00:02:00] you're, you're just doing amazing, amazing work. It's a kind of a population that often is just left on their own unhelped. So, but I'd love to, to start a little bit with your story, um, and just find out more about your journey.
Jenny Tufenkian: Sure. So, um, I decided to become a naturopathic doctor when I was six months pregnant with my child and I was single and I had broken my knee and was kind of a mess to be honest, but deciding to have this kid and decided to become a doctor were sort of the two big epiphanies, you know, when you're in your 20s, you can have these big realizations that move your life.
Jenny Tufenkian: In a huge way. I went on to do medical school with him when he was little and really felt like I was superwoman and decided it was time to have a second child after second year of medical school. Um, I had married his dad and we were happily married and it was all working out. And, um, Ended up having a series of miscarriages and the second miscarriage was a [Page//00:03:00] second trimester one.
Jenny Tufenkian: And it ended up hemorrhaging and needing to be rushed to the hospital. And that was the opening of what I call my dark night of the soul. And this is a time because I was in medical school and I had this young kid, I had friends who would go off to meditate and I'd be like, what's that? I don't have time for that.
Jenny Tufenkian: Like, I just, I just, I'm doing, I'm doing, you know? Yeah. When I crashed from that miscarriage where I hemorrhaged, I literally was stuck in bed for months, and I was so tired I could only Just stare at the ceiling. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I had severe anxiety. I have suicidal ideation. It was really rough and people confessed to me later.
Jenny Tufenkian: They were afraid I was going to die during that phase. I had, my legs were ice up to my knees and I really was not functioning. I was very blessed to be surrounded by healers because I was a medical school, and so a lot of my teachers and my [Page//00:04:00] colleagues would come and take care of my family and came and cared for me.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I had this very profound experience where one of the therapists that came was a hypnotherapist and she did subconscious work with me. And that was the first time I'd ever felt like I'd done therapy where I got to where. I needed to be scratched that itch that needed to be scratched. And we started to, and she was able to help me shift out of that deep anxiety and the depression.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I moved from what I would call from the bed to the couch. So literally I now was able to be on the couch. I didn't have the severe anxiety or the depression, but I still had the ongoing fatigue after I took a year out of medical school and went back and was not normal. I was very tired and it really hit me the day I was walking down the hall with my, the person that was seeing all of us as residents, overseeing our residents.
Jenny Tufenkian: And she, she said she wanted to live till she was 120. And I just looked at her, I was in my thirties and I was like, Oh, why would you want to do that? I already feel like I'm 90. Like, I just didn't [Page//00:05:00] understand. I was so tired. And that's when it really hit me how sick I still was. You know, I just, I, I felt so old and I threw everything I knew at it as a young, new student and physician.
Jenny Tufenkian: And, and I did actually break through that year. And the last, I call it, I call it a puzzle. And the last piece of the puzzle was healing my mercury amalgams, getting those
Julie Michelson: Ah.
Jenny Tufenkian: which I know with all the work you do with autoimmune, you know how much those metals can be a trigger for that. And I was able to, you know, I really feel like all of this deep work that I did at that time served me as a practitioner, I was able to hold people in very deep illness because of what I had experienced in my own self.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I was able to feel like I could tell people who had chronic fatigue that there was an answer. They could get better. I literally got what I called 150 percent better, whereas able to have another kid and open clinics and, you know, is teaching. And I mean, I just was going full [Page//00:06:00] tilt. And I didn't think I'd ever get it again.
Jenny Tufenkian: And then I did. And then I learned my second lesson, which is how quickly you can hit relapse. You know, once your body has that pattern, it's so easy to go back into it with a few triggers. I had an injury, I had pain, I'd sleep deprivation. I was going through perimenopause. It was a perfect storm. And I went down that slide and I was terrified I was going to fall in that hole again and be in bed.
Jenny Tufenkian: But my whole family was dependent on me financially at that time. And I couldn't. Not work. I had to work or else I was going to literally take my family into bankruptcy, but I was so exhausted. So I ended up, um, just researching. And this was a gift because I ended up my practice filled with people who had chronic fatigue and I mapped out these different root causes.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I saw that we're not all the same. The first time I had it and I got well, I knew it was possible to get well, but I didn't know. The path. The second time it became so much clearer. It was 17 years later and it [Page//00:07:00] had so much more clarity about what are the different root causes that can lead to people to get chronic fatigue, right?
Julie Michelson: journey. And, and it is, I love when, you know, the, the mess becomes the magic, um, which is how most of us are here. And again, yet another story of, you know, it's what we put doctors through in medical school. Um, it, like if there's something waiting to pop out, it typically will pop out during medical school.
Julie Michelson: I don't know why we're trying to kill healers, but, um, maybe one day that system and it's international. I mean, it doesn't really matter whether it's. You know, naturopath, MD, DO, like it's, and what country you're in,
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: so, um, but we're, we're grateful that you're, you're not only well, but, you know, now have the gifts to help others.
Julie Michelson: Um, yeah,
Jenny Tufenkian: mention that the journey, the [Page//00:08:00] magic journey continues because I got, I got COVID 18 months ago and it really triggered my chronic fatigue. And I understand what were the, what was the setup for that? I can, I can see that there were things that I should have been paying attention to. I knew I should have, and I wasn't.
Julie Michelson: Like what?
Jenny Tufenkian: what was that?
Julie Michelson: Like what? Like what kind of things, you know, I know for me, the things I need to watch, um, you know, and that, that's where, you know, I, I'm symptom free, but I'm symptom free because I'm not living the way I was living that got me sick to begin with. Um, so what are, you know, what are those things that now and even in hindsight with COVID, because COVID is a special thing.
Julie Michelson: Um, so what could you have been doing differently?
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah. And I think this is really good for anyone who's listening out there, who's wondering why maybe they got into the chronic health condition they're in now. And, or you're somebody who's like, Oh, I don't really want to do that. Or I don't want to relapse because what I did personally is that I knew I had a low grade gut [Page//00:09:00] thing going on.
Jenny Tufenkian: I, I knew I probably had H. pylori or something. My husband had a really bad case of it. It was one of those where we were so busy. You know, I wanted to do the protocol at the same time because you can ping pong it back, back and forth between a partner and we'll wait. And he was busy doing his catch up work from all the stuff that was canceled during the pandemic.
Jenny Tufenkian: Then we were traveling to catch up for the pandemic and I was working and I, I was working down in the Dominican Republic, teaching these amazing female entrepreneurs for their mastermind. And, um, I got a gastrointestinal illness while I was down there. So I had three days of. Diarrhea and fever and the person next to me had COVID.
Jenny Tufenkian: And so while my immune system was trashed, my gut was trashed. I got COVID, but the setup was that the year that I knew that I had something going on in my gut that I kept putting off. I also knew that I needed to do another round of heavy metal detox. I kept putting that off. I didn't want to take a week off work to detox.
Jenny Tufenkian:[Page//00:10:00] And I was under immense amount of stress.
Julie Michelson: okay. So
Jenny Tufenkian: We all went through
Julie Michelson: to the superwoman complex,
Jenny Tufenkian: We all went through something in COVID that was a, a rattle for our, for ourselves, and I went through mine and it was impacting me and I knew it was impacting me, I was doing what I could, but it was, it still threw me. So that was my setup and the journeys continued for me to be able to see, Oh, how does long COVID, how's it the same or different from chronic fatigue and what works and you know, what are the ways that we can get out of this?
Julie Michelson: which I think, you know, I, unfortunately, even just with autoimmune triggers, um, chronic fatigue, long COVID, you know, there's more and more and more, there was more anyway. And then COVID just pushed it over the top.
Jenny Tufenkian: for sure.
Julie Michelson: Um, so yeah, what, what are. I want to back up a little bit, um, and, and talk about chronic fatigue.
Julie Michelson: You know, I, I, we [Page//00:11:00] see it all the time. Um, I experienced it. I'm guessing, well, maybe you didn't because you were, you had, you were surrounded by healers, but, um, you know, what, let's talk about symptoms and how this is, you know, not a tired mom, not a lazy person, you know, how, how, if listeners are listening and they're like, well, You know, how do I know if this is something that I should be attending to and, and pushing, um, for answers or if maybe what I was told is right?
Julie Michelson: And, and, you know, I look fine, right? Nobody believes I don't feel well.
Jenny Tufenkian: right, right. Yeah, people people tend to look really good when they have chronic fatigue and everybody says you look amazing and I'm like, thanks. Can't wait to lie down, you know, so I I just want to say that. Whoever's listening to this, you know, your body better than anybody else. So, you know, if you're tired, if you're tired, then listen [Page//00:12:00] to yourself as to the, those are the signs.
Jenny Tufenkian: If you're feeling exhausted, if you find yourself doing what I call energy budgeting, which is where you're kind of Okay, well, um, it's after work and I got invited to go to do go for drinks after work, but I'm afraid if I do that, then I'm not going to have the energy to, um, check my emails after I get home.
Jenny Tufenkian: Or, um, if I go to the kids soccer game on Saturday, then that means that I'm not going to have the energy to go to the party Saturday night. So, So which am I choosing? If you're doing that, then that's not normal. If it's really about energy budgeting, if you are struggling to get through your day and feeling really tired, at some point, some people with chronic fatigue, depending on their root cause may be tired all day long and their energy is always low.
Jenny Tufenkian: Other people, depending on their root cause of chronic fatigue, can have energy that goes up and down. And I think this is [Page//00:13:00] one of the things that gets missed because some people feel like, well, I feel really good in the morning, but I'm crashing by the afternoon. And so they don't think that they have chronic fatigue.
Jenny Tufenkian: The other thing that I, um, One of the classic signs of chronic fatigue is this thing called post exertional malaise, which is where you are more tired after doing more than you usually do. For some people who are really sick with chronic fatigue, this means that they did dishes and the laundry and now they're in bed.
Jenny Tufenkian: Or on the couch and can't do anything else because they overdid it for other people. This means you went on a five mile hike instead of a two mile hike and you're in bed or you're exhausted or you don't feel like you can do more. I've, I've done that a couple of times with this long COVID.
Julie Michelson: it's really common, especially as people are healing and, and, um, uh, you know, then you have a good day or a couple of good days and whether, uh, you know, a five mile hike is a great reason. Usually it's catching up with errands and chores [Page//00:14:00] and things, but there's that. Tendency. We're like, I have energy.
Julie Michelson: I'm going to use it. And then you're back, you know? So, um, I love, and I, I love that you clarified the, the up and down. Cause sometimes people think chronic fatigue means I never, ever have energy. Um, and, and so, you know, I'm then thinking back to like, oh, you know, when I was, And how do we differentiate?
Julie Michelson: Because I had sometimes, especially back when I was not well, and I know when you were diagnosed as well, chronic fatigue was kind of thrown at you as a, like, we don't, you're tired, we don't know why. Like here's a, here's a label. Um, and I, that was something, you know, I have had rheumatoid arthritis that was active and so I was exhausted.
Julie Michelson: Um, they did end up, you know, I think back then too, fibromyalgia was another like pain, pain unexplained. [Page//00:15:00] Here's another label. Um, so I had all of the labels and that, that, know, just conserving your energy. I mean, I had to rest when my kids were at school or I would never make it through that afternoon, you know, nighttime.
Julie Michelson: I think if you're like. I just remember just waiting for bedtime.
Jenny Tufenkian: Oh, I
Julie Michelson: Couldn't wait until the kids were in bed. It was
Jenny Tufenkian: I've so, I still relate. I've still been there. You're just watching the clock, like, especially when they're younger and they'd like have all that, like, they kind of have their frustrated outbursts around six o'clock and you're just like, oh, cannot wait. Yeah. Yeah. I did this. I had to do the same thing.
Jenny Tufenkian: I'm just going to pop. I'll answer your question. I'm just going to pop this. Because I think it's important for people who are struggling with fatigue and in their healing journey like you and I have been that it can be really powerful to shift your schedule if you can, if you have the freedom to. So I knew that that second time I, I would, I crashed.[Page//00:16:00]
Jenny Tufenkian: I was very, very exhausted, but had to work. So I spent a lot of time. reshifted my schedule. So I was seeing patients in the morning and I literally turned into a pumpkin at about 1 30.
Julie Michelson: I get it. I know that feeling.
Jenny Tufenkian: out of the clinics, big smile on my face, big stack of charts, you know, see you later. Zoom home. My dog knew what time it was.
Jenny Tufenkian: She would nap. She was my nap buddy. She would wait till I got under the duvet. Then she would pop in and we would sleep for like two hours. I'd get up, I do my charts and pick up my kid. And that was, you know, do the evening shift, which was, Kid and dinner on the bed.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, I get it. And not everybody you were working for yourself. You were able to do that. And obviously not everybody can do that. I was at a point where I was unable to work and luckily had finances saved. Um, that was allowed me to do that. Or I can't even, and I was a single mom, so I can't even imagine how I would have done it if I, if I didn't have that flexibility at the time.
Julie Michelson: Um, so it just,
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, [Page//00:17:00] and I think that that brings another point. Of course, there's different places where people have different flexibility and I feel very lucky that I had that flexibility with being my own boss and I could direct my schedule that way. And I think that there needs to be a call out for this condition to be better understood.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I really think that people who, you know, anyone listening who may be a leader of, you know, In a, in a corporate business or a manager, any kind of place, the people who are struggling with these chronic invisible illnesses, if they could be allowed time to have a break in the middle of the day, it could be huge.
Jenny Tufenkian: I mean, when I was recovering from long COVID, the power of a 15 minute break was substantial. If I could just lie down and stop for 15 minutes, two or three times throughout the day, it was huge. So if we could just give people permission who are high functioning, or, you know, just everyone needs this. You know, if we could just.
Julie Michelson: Well, that's a great way to prevent the, the chronic illness in
Jenny Tufenkian: Totally. Totally. Like I'm actually tired. I need to rest. My body's giving me a [Page//00:18:00] signal. I need to pay attention to it.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Which I'm, I'm assuming is kind of a key thread, right? Even just listening to your story is like, Superwoman crash, superwoman crash, you know, um, and that's, it's, that's in one way or another. I think so many of us do that, right? The, the, um, especially women, we tend to take care of everybody else.
Julie Michelson: And, um, you know, if you had a broken leg, you would go get that. You know, attended to, but when you've got these symptoms that creep in, the fatigue, maybe the aches and pains, the feeling, I remember how old I felt in my thirties and I'm like, I, I literally didn't think I would live to see 50. And I'm like, I can't believe at 54 I could feel, you know, so much younger than I did in my thirties.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, I totally, I totally can identify. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think [Page//00:19:00] that, um, there's a couple of things that you mentioned here that I think are really important where one of the reasons that we ignore symptoms is because we do tend to think one, we do live in a push culture where we just need to push and perform and we don't really listen to our bodies.
Jenny Tufenkian: We don't really understand. That we are more than just this physical body where this physical body emotional body and this energetic body and sometimes they need different pieces of attention. Um, I was so sick because when I was down flat in bed because all three bodies were crashed out like my spiritual body my emotional body and my physical body.
Jenny Tufenkian: We're all depleted. A lot of us who are dealing with, with complex chronic illnesses. And invisible illnesses, we may have one or other body, one of the bodies that can kind of pull us along and give us the juice to keep pushing. And yet we're not really allowed in this culture to sit back and go, okay, what's really going on with me?
Jenny Tufenkian: And what do I really need? The other problem is just the, [Page//00:20:00] the. Horrible name that chronic fatigue has because everybody feels tired at some point and, and because you do look so good and the labs look normal. It's very different than saying I have cancer or I have this, you know, a broken leg or something that's obvious to others.
Jenny Tufenkian: People don't bring you lasagna when you say I have chronic fatigue.
Julie Michelson: cook dinner
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, they don't do that. They just stop inviting you to social events because you're always saying no, thank you. And, and it, it, yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think it's a lot about listening to your body and noticing what needs to go needs to happen.
Jenny Tufenkian: And yes, me pushing myself and feeling like I needed to be better than I was or proving myself or all of that stuff was definitely happening. And part of my triggers, and there are other triggers that are very physical that can lead people down the path into chronic, into chronic fatigue and long COVID, sure.
Julie Michelson: And [Page//00:21:00] I want to also touch on, cause we've mentioned chronic fatigue and long COVID, I want to touch on ME. Can you just, it's not something we've talked about on the podcast at all. Um, can you share with listeners a little bit about
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, I will. And, and I, and I want to say it in a way as an apology to those people listening because well so chronic fatigue syndrome is the name that has been used in this country, but we're really trying to switch it over to me which is myalgic Myalgic encephalitis means that there's something going on, inflammation in the brain that's, that's impacting the body.
Jenny Tufenkian: And that's exactly what is going on. The brain is inflamed when you're dealing with somebody who has chronic fatigue, ME, long COVID. It's happening in all of them. That's the commonality between them. Is this brain inflammation? What causes that brain inflammation in somebody and how, what was the setup to get to that brain inflammation is unique between each person and what your setup [Page//00:22:00] is, is going to be part of your path to healing, what your triggers were to get into this state of myalgic encephalitis.
Jenny Tufenkian: unique for you. And I've mapped out five that are very common and figuring out what which one of those for which 1, 2, 3 or 5 of them are for you can be very helpful and establishing your pattern to healing your path to healing, but it's really the same thing. So magic encephalitis I was just listening to every four years the Um, NIH National Institute of Health does a, what, what's the latest research on chronic fatigue, ME, and now they've added long COVID in there.
Jenny Tufenkian: And these people are really pushing for us physicians to start using myalgic encephalitis and drop the chronic fatigue. I think it's going to be a slow process. I still use both because I don't, because it's not known
Julie Michelson: it's right. Sure. Well, that's why we'd started the conversation by talking about chronic fatigue
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. [Page//00:23:00] Right.
Julie Michelson: people with health struggles have heard of chronic fatigue. Um, but, but M. E. really does, you know, is chronic fatigue again still can be kind of considered imaginary sometimes, whereas, whereas, you know, encephalitis is like, oh, wait, there's inflammation in the brain.
Jenny Tufenkian: brain is on fire. Oh, maybe I will bring you lasagna.
Julie Michelson: Right. It's so true. But sadly, I think even even, you know, for the people suffering, there is this relief of like, because like you said, so often, the labs that are being run, especially in traditional Western medicine, you know, oh, your blood works fine, your blood works fine. And there is this relief when there's something that that shows up like, oh, this is actually, you know, physical, physiological.
Julie Michelson: And yeah, it could also be energetic and spiritual and all the other things, but it, it is still manifesting in a physical condition.
Jenny Tufenkian: Absolutely. Absolutely. [Page//00:24:00] Absolutely.
Julie Michelson: Let's touch on the five common triggers. Um, and I'm, and you already alluded to it. I remember when I first started doing this work professionally, I was still in the like root cause singular, you know, like what, and it's never singular.
Julie Michelson: It almost is just, you know, order of go. Um, but, but what are in your experience, especially particularly for ME and even it sounds like long COVID is kind of right in there as well.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, I consider long COVID to be the same in this case. So one of the, the first root cause I call the gateway root cause, which is the hormone triangle. So this is, are your, your adrenals or it's really your hypothalamic pituitary axis, but adrenal is just so much easier. Your adrenals, your thyroid, and your ovary or testes for male.
Jenny Tufenkian: And this is the gateway one, because it's exactly what we're talking about with this push culture, with this, I'm just going to do more with this. Yeah, I can hold this kid in this [Page//00:25:00] arm and this kid in this arm and, you know, cook dinner with my foot and, you know, be thinking of the email I need to write for work, you know, no problem.
Jenny Tufenkian: I got it. We are going to survive.
Julie Michelson: Piece of cake. I'm an octopus.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, so, um, that one is the gateway root cause, and it can be a really, those people tend to have, well, it depends on which root cause, but they're, they each, each root cause has its own energy pattern that I'm listening for when I'm listening to people to help diagnose which one. The other one is mitochondrial dysfunction.
Jenny Tufenkian: The mitochondria are the little, the little energy, energy powerhouses inside of our cells that create our energy. And they can be functioning, they can be burning dirty and giving you not enough energy. If you have post exertional malaise, you have a mitochondrial problem. And that's a number one key. The third root cause is related to the mitochondria, which [Page//00:26:00] are, which is toxic overload.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I see this a lot. So that was
Julie Michelson: yeah.
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. So that was me with the heavy metals. That was, that can be, that was, has also been me with the mold and mycotoxins in my house and my clinic and my car, and, you know, and it can also be from the glyphosate in our foods. It can be from so many things. It can also be removed.
Jenny Tufenkian: So these things, I don't want people to put their head in the sand fear around the fact that we have all these toxins. We do, and yet we can be empowered to know what we can do every single day to reduce our load. It's just a time for us to take more action. It's not a time to stay in fear around it. The toxic overload is huge.
Jenny Tufenkian: The fourth is chronic infection. This can be a bacterial infection, a fungal infection, it can be a viral infection. Viruses are huge. I mean, when the pandemic hit, I knew we were going to have a second pandemic of, of chronic fatigue ME, because [Page//00:27:00] viruses and stress are huge in terms of triggering people into into, into a chronic fatigue ME kind of cycle.
Julie Michelson: Well, and either, either one of those, I mean, just the experience of that time period was enough, the chronic stress alone,
Jenny Tufenkian: Right.
Julie Michelson: and then add in a viral component in it, and a pretty unique virus that,
Jenny Tufenkian: A very tricky, a very tricky virus for sure. Yeah. And, um, A lot of us are running around with a chronic viral load, and most people, we all have viruses in us, we have many viruses in us. Some have names, some don't. Very few of them have very good testing for them. And those viruses can take advantage of us when we are under stress.
Jenny Tufenkian: So, so during the pandemic, a lot of people were under stress, and that alone could reactivate an Epstein Barr virus, a latent Epstein Barr virus, even if you never got it. Even if you never got COVID, you still could have had a reactivated virus, uh, chronic infections. So chronic infections are huge, and I think that's one of [Page//00:28:00] the low hanging fruit that a lot of doctors miss, and a lot of people miss, because again, there's so many things that we can do to treat those viruses, and you get your energy back, and it feels so good when you do.
Julie Michelson: See, you make me so happy. So, so often I'm a big like labs, deep labs up front and like you and then that intake of listening, you can, you know, you always energetically are guided of what seems really likely. And so often people want me to, you know, because I get it labs are expensive. Um, and, and they're like, well, you know, do I need the viral panel too?
Julie Michelson: And I'm like, I would, you know, let's, let's really look at all of these things, um, because chances are many of them, like you said, are there. It's what is the priority? Um,
Jenny Tufenkian: exactly. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, I do the same thing when I'm working with people. I feel like I'm a very left brain, right brain doctor. So I'm very left brain in terms of my, my [Page//00:29:00] testing and my algorithms, my differential diagnosis, what I'm really thinking here. Yeah. I want to bring in stuff, be sure I'm not missing any elephants in the room, that kind of thing.
Jenny Tufenkian: And then there's that right brain side of really listening and feeling in and what else going on with all the person, you know, the physical body, the emotional, the energetic, and, and how does this their story and what I'm sensing is going on with them relate to these labs? And then how do we choose that place to go?
Jenny Tufenkian: I think a lot of doctors get overwhelmed and shut the door. Literally, or just in their minds or energetically to people who come in with all these complex symptoms because they feel lost too. And this is a way to break it down so that you can understand where do I start? If you're a practitioner, where do I start with this person?
Jenny Tufenkian: If you're, if you're the person with the experience with the symptoms, where do I start? Which root cause is the biggest root that will have the biggest impact? Yeah,
Julie Michelson: we need, and I know I can tell, you know, you see this in, in your practice, we all, we need [Page//00:30:00] the wins, right? We need to feel that needle move because otherwise it is a lot. And it does take work and, and participation. Um, you know, this whole idea of the magic pill, uh, clearly is not, no. Doesn't work. Yeah. So, and what is number five?
Jenny Tufenkian: Number five. Yeah. Number five is looking at the limbic emotional brain.
Julie Michelson: love it.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah. And this is huge. And this so obviously interacts with all the other, all the other root causes that we already talked about because that limbic brain is, is, is. Is that emotional seat of the brain and it is connected to the most beautiful long nerve in the body called the vagus nerve and that vagus nerve touches all these different organs and the vagus nerve sends information up to the brain and the brain sends information down to the body through that vagus nerve.
Jenny Tufenkian: And so you can have, um, This can be the source of a vicious cycle for somebody who is struggling with complex chronic [Page//00:31:00] illness and it can be so powerful when you get this corrected. So what can happen is that whether you have a toxic exposure or viral exposure or you're under immense amounts of stress and your hypothalamic pituitary axis is thrown off or you are, You know, gut problems, you've got SIBO, dysbiosis, you know, IBS, Crohn's, any of those things can send information from the vagus nerve up to the brain going, it's not okay down here, we're not really not doing too well.
Jenny Tufenkian: And then you can have this, especially in a person who has any background subconscious stuff, and we all do.
Julie Michelson: Right. Like, so any person,
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. Any person with a brain, we inherited it. It's from early childhood trauma stuff. We all have that stuff that until we become conscious of it, it is unconscious and we are reacting to it. That hooks in, in that subconscious mind with the physical experience of the vagus nerve.
Jenny Tufenkian: vagus [Page//00:32:00] nervous having of we're not okay down here. And it sounds off this danger signal and that danger signal then comes down and starts having impact on your immune system, your hormones. It can shut down that mitochondria into that cell danger response. So it's a little, literally hibernating. So you don't have energy.
Jenny Tufenkian: It becomes a real cycle. And so. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: I love that, that you, we're, we're so aligned. Um, because what I've found and I see, I'm sure you see it all the time too. People are doing the things, right? They've worked on the detox. They've worked on the viruses. They've worked, you know,
Jenny Tufenkian: Their diet's perfect. Right.
Julie Michelson: style did just for them, you know, all of it.
Julie Michelson: And if they haven't done address that fifth piece. the healing isn't there, or it's really temp short lived, temporary, maybe a little reprieve, and then they're right back
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. It
Julie Michelson: more and more and more constricted and restricted. Just to try to feel okay and, and [Page//00:33:00] so I love that I used to joke like I'm like, wow, I, I really wasn't, I was a good coach.
Julie Michelson: I wasn't a great coach because we always got to that stuff. And now it's like, no, we're in front loading. Like could just, if you want to heal faster, you've got to be addressing this fifth piece. Like really.
Jenny Tufenkian: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I've been doing even deeper, more work into that and realizing how important that is because what it does is it helps regulate your autonomic nervous system and your autonomic nervous system rules everything. So you need to get that, that into balance. And I think it's, it's so important.
Jenny Tufenkian: In today's world, because our stress response system is activated all the time. I mean, partly from the physical things I've talked about in terms of the, just the chemicals and the talk, all the environment, all that stuff. And then, and then also what we've already talked about, the culture, the culture of you got to do all, you know, Instant access all the time, bing, bing, bing, you know, what was I [Page//00:34:00] doing?
Jenny Tufenkian: Oh, just this constant stress it of input is challenging. And then, of course, the we're on a lot of we're in a lot of existential places with the planet being where it is. And, you know, there's a lot of There's a lot of stuff happening right now that's tough on us, which is again, to me, a call to say, Hey, there are all these things that can be leading your body to be in this stress state, which is not healthful.
Julie Michelson: Right.
Jenny Tufenkian: what, and yet we do have the ability to consciously choose to work on this and to heal it. We can bring that in because the body ultimately wants to be healthy, wants to be in alignment, and we just need to learn how to tap in to trigger that in ourselves.
Julie Michelson: I love that you say that and, and the, this idea, I hear it all the time. People come in and they're like, I'm not stressed. And then they tell me about their life. And I'm like, I am. I, so I [Page//00:35:00] say like, Honestly, if you are not actively working on getting out of the sympathetic stress state, you're not doing yourself justice.
Julie Michelson: And we can't, that's why, you know, you can eat the right foods and handle toxins and do the right things. But if you're never in the parasympathetic state, you Physiologically cannot heal like
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, absolutely.
Julie Michelson: and so I love that you, you know, you're like, Oh no, this is a really important piece.
Julie Michelson: And it is active. It really is active for, for somebody to, you know, to think that they don't need to take steps. To, like you said, to be too busy to meditate or, and you don't have to meditate. There are other ways. But if you're not actively making that a part of your routine, this, this is a problem for sure.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah. I call it brushing and flossing the mind, um, because it's just kind of [Page//00:36:00] becomes it's as it becomes incorporated into your daily practice, then the nervous system has a chance to actually calm down. And this is a place where a lot of people do well with getting guidance and support
Julie Michelson: Sure. Sure. And to, as to create routines and, and
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, it's, it's also hard to read the label if you're inside the jar and so, and so it can be really helpful to have somebody outside of you going like, you know, it seems like there's a pattern here, but I'd like to reflect back at you or, you know,
Julie Michelson: Have you considered?
Jenny Tufenkian: have you considered, yeah. But even like what you were saying with that person that comes in and you're stressed out here in their story and they say they're not stressed well sounds to me like they're in freeze, or they're
Julie Michelson: Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, and
Jenny Tufenkian: know, they having a stress response,
Julie Michelson: We get used to, right? Like if this is what life looks like, you just think this is life. I had, this is not stress related, but it is that it's the inside of the jar example. Um, I have a client who's in her sixties and we were cleaning [Page//00:37:00] up products and, and, um, she switched toothpaste to a clean toothpaste and said, literally as soon as she switched toothpaste, she asked her husband, does toothpaste hurt your mouth?
Julie Michelson: And he was like, what are you talking about? She said, my whole life, toothpaste hurt my mouth. And I didn't know that it's not like that for everybody, right? We only know what our experience is in our body. And you know, obviously, yes, she had toxicity issues along with other things. But, but that's such a, it's such a fun example because We really don't know, right, until we feel better or until when you're in that stress state all the time, you don't know you're in it
Jenny Tufenkian: right,
Julie Michelson: unless you have experienced recently what it feels like to be out of it.
Julie Michelson: So I love, I love that you say that. And I love that saying. I'm trying to read the label from [Page//00:38:00] inside the jar. It's perfect.
Jenny Tufenkian: yeah, yeah. Well, I think you also raise another point that I think is really people get stuck in when they are dealing with the fatigue and long COVID types of things, or what you're with your rheumatoid experience too, is that, that feeling of you kind of get used to what your own world is like, I always call it, you're living under your own glass ceiling, that that ceiling that, and for me, my goal.
Jenny Tufenkian: For myself and for all the people is to completely be, to really break free and to completely be free. So you don't need to be doing the energy budgeting. And I, because I felt really blessed when I got lung COVID because of all the knowledge I had with chronic fatigue and having had the experience of getting back 150%, I knew it's, I know it's possible.
Jenny Tufenkian: Like I, and I hold that. And that is, that is my, that is the goal. And that's the goal I [Page//00:39:00] hold for everyone who I see. And I do see it as being a possibility.
Julie Michelson: Well, it really is. I had, and I know often it just doesn't come up on the podcast much. Um, my first go round with COVID, COVID itself was like nothing, you know, not a big deal. And about a month later I woke up, I mean, it was kind of like a light switch. I woke up and felt like all of my RA symptoms were back, literally just one morning.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah,
Julie Michelson: And of course, along with that was a little bit of that PTSD stress
Jenny Tufenkian: totally.
Julie Michelson: like, Oh my gosh, add to it that this is what I do for a living. And then I get the extra mean voices of like, you're a fraud because you're going to be sick again, all the
Jenny Tufenkian: Right.
Julie Michelson: And, and it really was, and again, viral, right?
Julie Michelson: This was a post viral inflammatory response. It was all the things, um, you talk about brain inflammation. I had had A head injury in 2020 that was pretty significant that I had [Page//00:40:00] recovered from and a lot of those symptoms came back as well because guess what else was inflamed?
Jenny Tufenkian: Gleel priming. You got primed during that concussion. If not before, for sure.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: And it wasn't my first concussion. It was a bad one. Um, and so it always does become the gift, right? It's like, how, how is this a gift? And it's always a gift. I think anything we go through is a gift for the people we work with, because we're able to just, you know, bring so much more. So I love that, that you shared that because, you know, we're human too.
Julie Michelson: And there's always an opportunity to up level. And like you said, we're always, we're, you, we're always working on it. I can tell you're always working on it, right? This is, we're, we're in this all together. We're, you know, it's not, it's not that idea of like, Oh, I'm the expert, but I've never, you know, I studied this.
Julie Michelson: It's like, no,
Jenny Tufenkian: Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely different if you've lived it, [Page//00:41:00] for sure. Yeah,
Julie Michelson: amazing. I love the the work you're doing. And and again, the it's such a it's a population. Unfortunately, it's a growing population. Um, but it's a population of people that a need the information, but they they need the You know the healing and and just I'm sure there's so many people listening that are like, oh my gosh She knows what's going on inside my body.
Julie Michelson: I Love it. So before we go what is one step? Listeners can take today and you can pick from anything to start to improve their health.
Jenny Tufenkian: I really think the one step, if I was to say one
Julie Michelson: I know it's so hard
Jenny Tufenkian: yeah, the one thing is really, it's really to believe. It's really to believe that there is a next step for you, where you can take a step where you can get empowered and move forward in your healing. There [Page//00:42:00] is something there for those of you who have been trying so many things and just feel like you make a little bit of.
Jenny Tufenkian: Improvement and or not very much. I say keep knocking on doors, you know, it's like there's there is going to be a door that's going to open for you and it's going to make a huge shift and maybe it's maybe it's maybe you've been just going down the same path and you need to try something a little bit different.
Jenny Tufenkian: You know, you've been doing the perfect diet as we've talked about or something. And maybe it's on one of these other levels that we mentioned today. But I would say, just keep having that hope and knowing and believing that there's a way that your body can heal. It's just, what is it that your body needs?
Jenny Tufenkian: Your being needs right now to make, make that next step towards healing.
Julie Michelson: I love that is so, is so important. And I'll reiterate, you already said it, but the body is designed to heal. It wants to heal. Um, and so I, that's a beautiful and essential first step is, is the believing. So believe and knock. We'll combine them.
Jenny Tufenkian: Believe in Nokia.
Julie Michelson: Believe [Page//00:43:00] and keep knocking and trust yourself when it's not the right fit.
Julie Michelson: Move on.
Jenny Tufenkian: Absolutely. Absolutely. You don't need to keep doing things that aren't working for sure. That's a sign. I mean, that's what I do as a practitioner is I'm going, well, nope, this isn't working. We got to move. We got to go somewhere else. That's what I'm watching for. It's like, cause I want that breakthrough, right?
Jenny Tufenkian: So
Julie Michelson: Uh, love it. Love it. So where is the best place for people? I know I'm always listening to podcasts on the go. That's my podcast time. Um, where's the best place for listeners to find you?
Jenny Tufenkian: to go to the website, drjennytofankion. com and on there, if you're curious what your root cause might be, there's a quiz that you can take where I go, I created it based on the algorithm I use in my clinic. And you can take that and check that out. I have a YouTube healing with Dr. Jenny, natural healing with Dr.
Jenny Tufenkian: Jenny. I should know the name of my own YouTube channel.
Julie Michelson: okay.
Jenny Tufenkian: Healing naturally with Dr. Jenny
Julie Michelson: Something. [Page//00:44:00] Go to the website, people.
Jenny Tufenkian: on the website.
Julie Michelson: drjennytufenkian.com. You can find all the, all the things right from there. I love it. See, we're really, this is, this is real. Yep. Amazing. Dr. Jenny, so much. You have shared some real gold with us today.
Jenny Tufenkian: It's been such a pleasure to be with you. I really enjoyed our time together. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for the work that you do. And thank you to all of those who are listening. Really appreciate you.
Julie Michelson: And for everyone who is listening, remember, you can get the transcripts and show notes, including all the links for Dr. Jenny at inspired living. show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week. [Page//00:45:00]
Julie Michelson: Dr. Jenny is a licensed naturopathic physician, and through her research [Page//00:01:00] and experience, she developed an effective system to unlock the five core energy drainers so that those who are too exhausted to function can start feeling like themselves again. She shares this system with clients and practitioners online and in person.
Julie Michelson: In today's conversation, we're talking about the common drivers of chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalitis, as it is now more accurately called. Dr. Jenny shares these five common drivers of chronic fatigue and the approach that she takes with her clients to allow for true healing. If you find yourself strategically budgeting your energy to make it through your day, this episode is for you.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Jenny, welcome to the podcast.
Jenny Tufenkian: Thank you so much for having me here. I really appreciate it.
Julie Michelson: It is my pleasure. I have heard your story and I, I know the kind of work that you're doing and I'm excited to share your work with listeners, um, because it is such an important, [Page//00:02:00] you're, you're just doing amazing, amazing work. It's a kind of a population that often is just left on their own unhelped. So, but I'd love to, to start a little bit with your story, um, and just find out more about your journey.
Jenny Tufenkian: Sure. So, um, I decided to become a naturopathic doctor when I was six months pregnant with my child and I was single and I had broken my knee and was kind of a mess to be honest, but deciding to have this kid and decided to become a doctor were sort of the two big epiphanies, you know, when you're in your 20s, you can have these big realizations that move your life.
Jenny Tufenkian: In a huge way. I went on to do medical school with him when he was little and really felt like I was superwoman and decided it was time to have a second child after second year of medical school. Um, I had married his dad and we were happily married and it was all working out. And, um, Ended up having a series of miscarriages and the second miscarriage was a [Page//00:03:00] second trimester one.
Jenny Tufenkian: And it ended up hemorrhaging and needing to be rushed to the hospital. And that was the opening of what I call my dark night of the soul. And this is a time because I was in medical school and I had this young kid, I had friends who would go off to meditate and I'd be like, what's that? I don't have time for that.
Jenny Tufenkian: Like, I just, I just, I'm doing, I'm doing, you know? Yeah. When I crashed from that miscarriage where I hemorrhaged, I literally was stuck in bed for months, and I was so tired I could only Just stare at the ceiling. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I had severe anxiety. I have suicidal ideation. It was really rough and people confessed to me later.
Jenny Tufenkian: They were afraid I was going to die during that phase. I had, my legs were ice up to my knees and I really was not functioning. I was very blessed to be surrounded by healers because I was a medical school, and so a lot of my teachers and my [Page//00:04:00] colleagues would come and take care of my family and came and cared for me.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I had this very profound experience where one of the therapists that came was a hypnotherapist and she did subconscious work with me. And that was the first time I'd ever felt like I'd done therapy where I got to where. I needed to be scratched that itch that needed to be scratched. And we started to, and she was able to help me shift out of that deep anxiety and the depression.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I moved from what I would call from the bed to the couch. So literally I now was able to be on the couch. I didn't have the severe anxiety or the depression, but I still had the ongoing fatigue after I took a year out of medical school and went back and was not normal. I was very tired and it really hit me the day I was walking down the hall with my, the person that was seeing all of us as residents, overseeing our residents.
Jenny Tufenkian: And she, she said she wanted to live till she was 120. And I just looked at her, I was in my thirties and I was like, Oh, why would you want to do that? I already feel like I'm 90. Like, I just didn't [Page//00:05:00] understand. I was so tired. And that's when it really hit me how sick I still was. You know, I just, I, I felt so old and I threw everything I knew at it as a young, new student and physician.
Jenny Tufenkian: And, and I did actually break through that year. And the last, I call it, I call it a puzzle. And the last piece of the puzzle was healing my mercury amalgams, getting those
Julie Michelson: Ah.
Jenny Tufenkian: which I know with all the work you do with autoimmune, you know how much those metals can be a trigger for that. And I was able to, you know, I really feel like all of this deep work that I did at that time served me as a practitioner, I was able to hold people in very deep illness because of what I had experienced in my own self.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I was able to feel like I could tell people who had chronic fatigue that there was an answer. They could get better. I literally got what I called 150 percent better, whereas able to have another kid and open clinics and, you know, is teaching. And I mean, I just was going full [Page//00:06:00] tilt. And I didn't think I'd ever get it again.
Jenny Tufenkian: And then I did. And then I learned my second lesson, which is how quickly you can hit relapse. You know, once your body has that pattern, it's so easy to go back into it with a few triggers. I had an injury, I had pain, I'd sleep deprivation. I was going through perimenopause. It was a perfect storm. And I went down that slide and I was terrified I was going to fall in that hole again and be in bed.
Jenny Tufenkian: But my whole family was dependent on me financially at that time. And I couldn't. Not work. I had to work or else I was going to literally take my family into bankruptcy, but I was so exhausted. So I ended up, um, just researching. And this was a gift because I ended up my practice filled with people who had chronic fatigue and I mapped out these different root causes.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I saw that we're not all the same. The first time I had it and I got well, I knew it was possible to get well, but I didn't know. The path. The second time it became so much clearer. It was 17 years later and it [Page//00:07:00] had so much more clarity about what are the different root causes that can lead to people to get chronic fatigue, right?
Julie Michelson: journey. And, and it is, I love when, you know, the, the mess becomes the magic, um, which is how most of us are here. And again, yet another story of, you know, it's what we put doctors through in medical school. Um, it, like if there's something waiting to pop out, it typically will pop out during medical school.
Julie Michelson: I don't know why we're trying to kill healers, but, um, maybe one day that system and it's international. I mean, it doesn't really matter whether it's. You know, naturopath, MD, DO, like it's, and what country you're in,
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: so, um, but we're, we're grateful that you're, you're not only well, but, you know, now have the gifts to help others.
Julie Michelson: Um, yeah,
Jenny Tufenkian: mention that the journey, the [Page//00:08:00] magic journey continues because I got, I got COVID 18 months ago and it really triggered my chronic fatigue. And I understand what were the, what was the setup for that? I can, I can see that there were things that I should have been paying attention to. I knew I should have, and I wasn't.
Julie Michelson: Like what?
Jenny Tufenkian: what was that?
Julie Michelson: Like what? Like what kind of things, you know, I know for me, the things I need to watch, um, you know, and that, that's where, you know, I, I'm symptom free, but I'm symptom free because I'm not living the way I was living that got me sick to begin with. Um, so what are, you know, what are those things that now and even in hindsight with COVID, because COVID is a special thing.
Julie Michelson: Um, so what could you have been doing differently?
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah. And I think this is really good for anyone who's listening out there, who's wondering why maybe they got into the chronic health condition they're in now. And, or you're somebody who's like, Oh, I don't really want to do that. Or I don't want to relapse because what I did personally is that I knew I had a low grade gut [Page//00:09:00] thing going on.
Jenny Tufenkian: I, I knew I probably had H. pylori or something. My husband had a really bad case of it. It was one of those where we were so busy. You know, I wanted to do the protocol at the same time because you can ping pong it back, back and forth between a partner and we'll wait. And he was busy doing his catch up work from all the stuff that was canceled during the pandemic.
Jenny Tufenkian: Then we were traveling to catch up for the pandemic and I was working and I, I was working down in the Dominican Republic, teaching these amazing female entrepreneurs for their mastermind. And, um, I got a gastrointestinal illness while I was down there. So I had three days of. Diarrhea and fever and the person next to me had COVID.
Jenny Tufenkian: And so while my immune system was trashed, my gut was trashed. I got COVID, but the setup was that the year that I knew that I had something going on in my gut that I kept putting off. I also knew that I needed to do another round of heavy metal detox. I kept putting that off. I didn't want to take a week off work to detox.
Jenny Tufenkian:[Page//00:10:00] And I was under immense amount of stress.
Julie Michelson: okay. So
Jenny Tufenkian: We all went through
Julie Michelson: to the superwoman complex,
Jenny Tufenkian: We all went through something in COVID that was a, a rattle for our, for ourselves, and I went through mine and it was impacting me and I knew it was impacting me, I was doing what I could, but it was, it still threw me. So that was my setup and the journeys continued for me to be able to see, Oh, how does long COVID, how's it the same or different from chronic fatigue and what works and you know, what are the ways that we can get out of this?
Julie Michelson: which I think, you know, I, unfortunately, even just with autoimmune triggers, um, chronic fatigue, long COVID, you know, there's more and more and more, there was more anyway. And then COVID just pushed it over the top.
Jenny Tufenkian: for sure.
Julie Michelson: Um, so yeah, what, what are. I want to back up a little bit, um, and, and talk about chronic fatigue.
Julie Michelson: You know, I, I, we [Page//00:11:00] see it all the time. Um, I experienced it. I'm guessing, well, maybe you didn't because you were, you had, you were surrounded by healers, but, um, you know, what, let's talk about symptoms and how this is, you know, not a tired mom, not a lazy person, you know, how, how, if listeners are listening and they're like, well, You know, how do I know if this is something that I should be attending to and, and pushing, um, for answers or if maybe what I was told is right?
Julie Michelson: And, and, you know, I look fine, right? Nobody believes I don't feel well.
Jenny Tufenkian: right, right. Yeah, people people tend to look really good when they have chronic fatigue and everybody says you look amazing and I'm like, thanks. Can't wait to lie down, you know, so I I just want to say that. Whoever's listening to this, you know, your body better than anybody else. So, you know, if you're tired, if you're tired, then listen [Page//00:12:00] to yourself as to the, those are the signs.
Jenny Tufenkian: If you're feeling exhausted, if you find yourself doing what I call energy budgeting, which is where you're kind of Okay, well, um, it's after work and I got invited to go to do go for drinks after work, but I'm afraid if I do that, then I'm not going to have the energy to, um, check my emails after I get home.
Jenny Tufenkian: Or, um, if I go to the kids soccer game on Saturday, then that means that I'm not going to have the energy to go to the party Saturday night. So, So which am I choosing? If you're doing that, then that's not normal. If it's really about energy budgeting, if you are struggling to get through your day and feeling really tired, at some point, some people with chronic fatigue, depending on their root cause may be tired all day long and their energy is always low.
Jenny Tufenkian: Other people, depending on their root cause of chronic fatigue, can have energy that goes up and down. And I think this is [Page//00:13:00] one of the things that gets missed because some people feel like, well, I feel really good in the morning, but I'm crashing by the afternoon. And so they don't think that they have chronic fatigue.
Jenny Tufenkian: The other thing that I, um, One of the classic signs of chronic fatigue is this thing called post exertional malaise, which is where you are more tired after doing more than you usually do. For some people who are really sick with chronic fatigue, this means that they did dishes and the laundry and now they're in bed.
Jenny Tufenkian: Or on the couch and can't do anything else because they overdid it for other people. This means you went on a five mile hike instead of a two mile hike and you're in bed or you're exhausted or you don't feel like you can do more. I've, I've done that a couple of times with this long COVID.
Julie Michelson: it's really common, especially as people are healing and, and, um, uh, you know, then you have a good day or a couple of good days and whether, uh, you know, a five mile hike is a great reason. Usually it's catching up with errands and chores [Page//00:14:00] and things, but there's that. Tendency. We're like, I have energy.
Julie Michelson: I'm going to use it. And then you're back, you know? So, um, I love, and I, I love that you clarified the, the up and down. Cause sometimes people think chronic fatigue means I never, ever have energy. Um, and, and so, you know, I'm then thinking back to like, oh, you know, when I was, And how do we differentiate?
Julie Michelson: Because I had sometimes, especially back when I was not well, and I know when you were diagnosed as well, chronic fatigue was kind of thrown at you as a, like, we don't, you're tired, we don't know why. Like here's a, here's a label. Um, and I, that was something, you know, I have had rheumatoid arthritis that was active and so I was exhausted.
Julie Michelson: Um, they did end up, you know, I think back then too, fibromyalgia was another like pain, pain unexplained. [Page//00:15:00] Here's another label. Um, so I had all of the labels and that, that, know, just conserving your energy. I mean, I had to rest when my kids were at school or I would never make it through that afternoon, you know, nighttime.
Julie Michelson: I think if you're like. I just remember just waiting for bedtime.
Jenny Tufenkian: Oh, I
Julie Michelson: Couldn't wait until the kids were in bed. It was
Jenny Tufenkian: I've so, I still relate. I've still been there. You're just watching the clock, like, especially when they're younger and they'd like have all that, like, they kind of have their frustrated outbursts around six o'clock and you're just like, oh, cannot wait. Yeah. Yeah. I did this. I had to do the same thing.
Jenny Tufenkian: I'm just going to pop. I'll answer your question. I'm just going to pop this. Because I think it's important for people who are struggling with fatigue and in their healing journey like you and I have been that it can be really powerful to shift your schedule if you can, if you have the freedom to. So I knew that that second time I, I would, I crashed.[Page//00:16:00]
Jenny Tufenkian: I was very, very exhausted, but had to work. So I spent a lot of time. reshifted my schedule. So I was seeing patients in the morning and I literally turned into a pumpkin at about 1 30.
Julie Michelson: I get it. I know that feeling.
Jenny Tufenkian: out of the clinics, big smile on my face, big stack of charts, you know, see you later. Zoom home. My dog knew what time it was.
Jenny Tufenkian: She would nap. She was my nap buddy. She would wait till I got under the duvet. Then she would pop in and we would sleep for like two hours. I'd get up, I do my charts and pick up my kid. And that was, you know, do the evening shift, which was, Kid and dinner on the bed.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, I get it. And not everybody you were working for yourself. You were able to do that. And obviously not everybody can do that. I was at a point where I was unable to work and luckily had finances saved. Um, that was allowed me to do that. Or I can't even, and I was a single mom, so I can't even imagine how I would have done it if I, if I didn't have that flexibility at the time.
Julie Michelson: Um, so it just,
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, [Page//00:17:00] and I think that that brings another point. Of course, there's different places where people have different flexibility and I feel very lucky that I had that flexibility with being my own boss and I could direct my schedule that way. And I think that there needs to be a call out for this condition to be better understood.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I really think that people who, you know, anyone listening who may be a leader of, you know, In a, in a corporate business or a manager, any kind of place, the people who are struggling with these chronic invisible illnesses, if they could be allowed time to have a break in the middle of the day, it could be huge.
Jenny Tufenkian: I mean, when I was recovering from long COVID, the power of a 15 minute break was substantial. If I could just lie down and stop for 15 minutes, two or three times throughout the day, it was huge. So if we could just give people permission who are high functioning, or, you know, just everyone needs this. You know, if we could just.
Julie Michelson: Well, that's a great way to prevent the, the chronic illness in
Jenny Tufenkian: Totally. Totally. Like I'm actually tired. I need to rest. My body's giving me a [Page//00:18:00] signal. I need to pay attention to it.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Which I'm, I'm assuming is kind of a key thread, right? Even just listening to your story is like, Superwoman crash, superwoman crash, you know, um, and that's, it's, that's in one way or another. I think so many of us do that, right? The, the, um, especially women, we tend to take care of everybody else.
Julie Michelson: And, um, you know, if you had a broken leg, you would go get that. You know, attended to, but when you've got these symptoms that creep in, the fatigue, maybe the aches and pains, the feeling, I remember how old I felt in my thirties and I'm like, I, I literally didn't think I would live to see 50. And I'm like, I can't believe at 54 I could feel, you know, so much younger than I did in my thirties.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, I totally, I totally can identify. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think [Page//00:19:00] that, um, there's a couple of things that you mentioned here that I think are really important where one of the reasons that we ignore symptoms is because we do tend to think one, we do live in a push culture where we just need to push and perform and we don't really listen to our bodies.
Jenny Tufenkian: We don't really understand. That we are more than just this physical body where this physical body emotional body and this energetic body and sometimes they need different pieces of attention. Um, I was so sick because when I was down flat in bed because all three bodies were crashed out like my spiritual body my emotional body and my physical body.
Jenny Tufenkian: We're all depleted. A lot of us who are dealing with, with complex chronic illnesses. And invisible illnesses, we may have one or other body, one of the bodies that can kind of pull us along and give us the juice to keep pushing. And yet we're not really allowed in this culture to sit back and go, okay, what's really going on with me?
Jenny Tufenkian: And what do I really need? The other problem is just the, [Page//00:20:00] the. Horrible name that chronic fatigue has because everybody feels tired at some point and, and because you do look so good and the labs look normal. It's very different than saying I have cancer or I have this, you know, a broken leg or something that's obvious to others.
Jenny Tufenkian: People don't bring you lasagna when you say I have chronic fatigue.
Julie Michelson: cook dinner
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, they don't do that. They just stop inviting you to social events because you're always saying no, thank you. And, and it, it, yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think it's a lot about listening to your body and noticing what needs to go needs to happen.
Jenny Tufenkian: And yes, me pushing myself and feeling like I needed to be better than I was or proving myself or all of that stuff was definitely happening. And part of my triggers, and there are other triggers that are very physical that can lead people down the path into chronic, into chronic fatigue and long COVID, sure.
Julie Michelson: And [Page//00:21:00] I want to also touch on, cause we've mentioned chronic fatigue and long COVID, I want to touch on ME. Can you just, it's not something we've talked about on the podcast at all. Um, can you share with listeners a little bit about
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, I will. And, and I, and I want to say it in a way as an apology to those people listening because well so chronic fatigue syndrome is the name that has been used in this country, but we're really trying to switch it over to me which is myalgic Myalgic encephalitis means that there's something going on, inflammation in the brain that's, that's impacting the body.
Jenny Tufenkian: And that's exactly what is going on. The brain is inflamed when you're dealing with somebody who has chronic fatigue, ME, long COVID. It's happening in all of them. That's the commonality between them. Is this brain inflammation? What causes that brain inflammation in somebody and how, what was the setup to get to that brain inflammation is unique between each person and what your setup [Page//00:22:00] is, is going to be part of your path to healing, what your triggers were to get into this state of myalgic encephalitis.
Jenny Tufenkian: unique for you. And I've mapped out five that are very common and figuring out what which one of those for which 1, 2, 3 or 5 of them are for you can be very helpful and establishing your pattern to healing your path to healing, but it's really the same thing. So magic encephalitis I was just listening to every four years the Um, NIH National Institute of Health does a, what, what's the latest research on chronic fatigue, ME, and now they've added long COVID in there.
Jenny Tufenkian: And these people are really pushing for us physicians to start using myalgic encephalitis and drop the chronic fatigue. I think it's going to be a slow process. I still use both because I don't, because it's not known
Julie Michelson: it's right. Sure. Well, that's why we'd started the conversation by talking about chronic fatigue
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. [Page//00:23:00] Right.
Julie Michelson: people with health struggles have heard of chronic fatigue. Um, but, but M. E. really does, you know, is chronic fatigue again still can be kind of considered imaginary sometimes, whereas, whereas, you know, encephalitis is like, oh, wait, there's inflammation in the brain.
Jenny Tufenkian: brain is on fire. Oh, maybe I will bring you lasagna.
Julie Michelson: Right. It's so true. But sadly, I think even even, you know, for the people suffering, there is this relief of like, because like you said, so often, the labs that are being run, especially in traditional Western medicine, you know, oh, your blood works fine, your blood works fine. And there is this relief when there's something that that shows up like, oh, this is actually, you know, physical, physiological.
Julie Michelson: And yeah, it could also be energetic and spiritual and all the other things, but it, it is still manifesting in a physical condition.
Jenny Tufenkian: Absolutely. Absolutely. [Page//00:24:00] Absolutely.
Julie Michelson: Let's touch on the five common triggers. Um, and I'm, and you already alluded to it. I remember when I first started doing this work professionally, I was still in the like root cause singular, you know, like what, and it's never singular.
Julie Michelson: It almost is just, you know, order of go. Um, but, but what are in your experience, especially particularly for ME and even it sounds like long COVID is kind of right in there as well.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, I consider long COVID to be the same in this case. So one of the, the first root cause I call the gateway root cause, which is the hormone triangle. So this is, are your, your adrenals or it's really your hypothalamic pituitary axis, but adrenal is just so much easier. Your adrenals, your thyroid, and your ovary or testes for male.
Jenny Tufenkian: And this is the gateway one, because it's exactly what we're talking about with this push culture, with this, I'm just going to do more with this. Yeah, I can hold this kid in this [Page//00:25:00] arm and this kid in this arm and, you know, cook dinner with my foot and, you know, be thinking of the email I need to write for work, you know, no problem.
Jenny Tufenkian: I got it. We are going to survive.
Julie Michelson: Piece of cake. I'm an octopus.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, so, um, that one is the gateway root cause, and it can be a really, those people tend to have, well, it depends on which root cause, but they're, they each, each root cause has its own energy pattern that I'm listening for when I'm listening to people to help diagnose which one. The other one is mitochondrial dysfunction.
Jenny Tufenkian: The mitochondria are the little, the little energy, energy powerhouses inside of our cells that create our energy. And they can be functioning, they can be burning dirty and giving you not enough energy. If you have post exertional malaise, you have a mitochondrial problem. And that's a number one key. The third root cause is related to the mitochondria, which [Page//00:26:00] are, which is toxic overload.
Jenny Tufenkian: And I see this a lot. So that was
Julie Michelson: yeah.
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. So that was me with the heavy metals. That was, that can be, that was, has also been me with the mold and mycotoxins in my house and my clinic and my car, and, you know, and it can also be from the glyphosate in our foods. It can be from so many things. It can also be removed.
Jenny Tufenkian: So these things, I don't want people to put their head in the sand fear around the fact that we have all these toxins. We do, and yet we can be empowered to know what we can do every single day to reduce our load. It's just a time for us to take more action. It's not a time to stay in fear around it. The toxic overload is huge.
Jenny Tufenkian: The fourth is chronic infection. This can be a bacterial infection, a fungal infection, it can be a viral infection. Viruses are huge. I mean, when the pandemic hit, I knew we were going to have a second pandemic of, of chronic fatigue ME, because [Page//00:27:00] viruses and stress are huge in terms of triggering people into into, into a chronic fatigue ME kind of cycle.
Julie Michelson: Well, and either, either one of those, I mean, just the experience of that time period was enough, the chronic stress alone,
Jenny Tufenkian: Right.
Julie Michelson: and then add in a viral component in it, and a pretty unique virus that,
Jenny Tufenkian: A very tricky, a very tricky virus for sure. Yeah. And, um, A lot of us are running around with a chronic viral load, and most people, we all have viruses in us, we have many viruses in us. Some have names, some don't. Very few of them have very good testing for them. And those viruses can take advantage of us when we are under stress.
Jenny Tufenkian: So, so during the pandemic, a lot of people were under stress, and that alone could reactivate an Epstein Barr virus, a latent Epstein Barr virus, even if you never got it. Even if you never got COVID, you still could have had a reactivated virus, uh, chronic infections. So chronic infections are huge, and I think that's one of [Page//00:28:00] the low hanging fruit that a lot of doctors miss, and a lot of people miss, because again, there's so many things that we can do to treat those viruses, and you get your energy back, and it feels so good when you do.
Julie Michelson: See, you make me so happy. So, so often I'm a big like labs, deep labs up front and like you and then that intake of listening, you can, you know, you always energetically are guided of what seems really likely. And so often people want me to, you know, because I get it labs are expensive. Um, and, and they're like, well, you know, do I need the viral panel too?
Julie Michelson: And I'm like, I would, you know, let's, let's really look at all of these things, um, because chances are many of them, like you said, are there. It's what is the priority? Um,
Jenny Tufenkian: exactly. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, I do the same thing when I'm working with people. I feel like I'm a very left brain, right brain doctor. So I'm very left brain in terms of my, my [Page//00:29:00] testing and my algorithms, my differential diagnosis, what I'm really thinking here. Yeah. I want to bring in stuff, be sure I'm not missing any elephants in the room, that kind of thing.
Jenny Tufenkian: And then there's that right brain side of really listening and feeling in and what else going on with all the person, you know, the physical body, the emotional, the energetic, and, and how does this their story and what I'm sensing is going on with them relate to these labs? And then how do we choose that place to go?
Jenny Tufenkian: I think a lot of doctors get overwhelmed and shut the door. Literally, or just in their minds or energetically to people who come in with all these complex symptoms because they feel lost too. And this is a way to break it down so that you can understand where do I start? If you're a practitioner, where do I start with this person?
Jenny Tufenkian: If you're, if you're the person with the experience with the symptoms, where do I start? Which root cause is the biggest root that will have the biggest impact? Yeah,
Julie Michelson: we need, and I know I can tell, you know, you see this in, in your practice, we all, we need [Page//00:30:00] the wins, right? We need to feel that needle move because otherwise it is a lot. And it does take work and, and participation. Um, you know, this whole idea of the magic pill, uh, clearly is not, no. Doesn't work. Yeah. So, and what is number five?
Jenny Tufenkian: Number five. Yeah. Number five is looking at the limbic emotional brain.
Julie Michelson: love it.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah. And this is huge. And this so obviously interacts with all the other, all the other root causes that we already talked about because that limbic brain is, is, is. Is that emotional seat of the brain and it is connected to the most beautiful long nerve in the body called the vagus nerve and that vagus nerve touches all these different organs and the vagus nerve sends information up to the brain and the brain sends information down to the body through that vagus nerve.
Jenny Tufenkian: And so you can have, um, This can be the source of a vicious cycle for somebody who is struggling with complex chronic [Page//00:31:00] illness and it can be so powerful when you get this corrected. So what can happen is that whether you have a toxic exposure or viral exposure or you're under immense amounts of stress and your hypothalamic pituitary axis is thrown off or you are, You know, gut problems, you've got SIBO, dysbiosis, you know, IBS, Crohn's, any of those things can send information from the vagus nerve up to the brain going, it's not okay down here, we're not really not doing too well.
Jenny Tufenkian: And then you can have this, especially in a person who has any background subconscious stuff, and we all do.
Julie Michelson: Right. Like, so any person,
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. Any person with a brain, we inherited it. It's from early childhood trauma stuff. We all have that stuff that until we become conscious of it, it is unconscious and we are reacting to it. That hooks in, in that subconscious mind with the physical experience of the vagus nerve.
Jenny Tufenkian: vagus [Page//00:32:00] nervous having of we're not okay down here. And it sounds off this danger signal and that danger signal then comes down and starts having impact on your immune system, your hormones. It can shut down that mitochondria into that cell danger response. So it's a little, literally hibernating. So you don't have energy.
Jenny Tufenkian: It becomes a real cycle. And so. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: I love that, that you, we're, we're so aligned. Um, because what I've found and I see, I'm sure you see it all the time too. People are doing the things, right? They've worked on the detox. They've worked on the viruses. They've worked, you know,
Jenny Tufenkian: Their diet's perfect. Right.
Julie Michelson: style did just for them, you know, all of it.
Julie Michelson: And if they haven't done address that fifth piece. the healing isn't there, or it's really temp short lived, temporary, maybe a little reprieve, and then they're right back
Jenny Tufenkian: Right. It
Julie Michelson: more and more and more constricted and restricted. Just to try to feel okay and, and [Page//00:33:00] so I love that I used to joke like I'm like, wow, I, I really wasn't, I was a good coach.
Julie Michelson: I wasn't a great coach because we always got to that stuff. And now it's like, no, we're in front loading. Like could just, if you want to heal faster, you've got to be addressing this fifth piece. Like really.
Jenny Tufenkian: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I've been doing even deeper, more work into that and realizing how important that is because what it does is it helps regulate your autonomic nervous system and your autonomic nervous system rules everything. So you need to get that, that into balance. And I think it's, it's so important.
Jenny Tufenkian: In today's world, because our stress response system is activated all the time. I mean, partly from the physical things I've talked about in terms of the, just the chemicals and the talk, all the environment, all that stuff. And then, and then also what we've already talked about, the culture, the culture of you got to do all, you know, Instant access all the time, bing, bing, bing, you know, what was I [Page//00:34:00] doing?
Jenny Tufenkian: Oh, just this constant stress it of input is challenging. And then, of course, the we're on a lot of we're in a lot of existential places with the planet being where it is. And, you know, there's a lot of There's a lot of stuff happening right now that's tough on us, which is again, to me, a call to say, Hey, there are all these things that can be leading your body to be in this stress state, which is not healthful.
Julie Michelson: Right.
Jenny Tufenkian: what, and yet we do have the ability to consciously choose to work on this and to heal it. We can bring that in because the body ultimately wants to be healthy, wants to be in alignment, and we just need to learn how to tap in to trigger that in ourselves.
Julie Michelson: I love that you say that and, and the, this idea, I hear it all the time. People come in and they're like, I'm not stressed. And then they tell me about their life. And I'm like, I am. I, so I [Page//00:35:00] say like, Honestly, if you are not actively working on getting out of the sympathetic stress state, you're not doing yourself justice.
Julie Michelson: And we can't, that's why, you know, you can eat the right foods and handle toxins and do the right things. But if you're never in the parasympathetic state, you Physiologically cannot heal like
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, absolutely.
Julie Michelson: and so I love that you, you know, you're like, Oh no, this is a really important piece.
Julie Michelson: And it is active. It really is active for, for somebody to, you know, to think that they don't need to take steps. To, like you said, to be too busy to meditate or, and you don't have to meditate. There are other ways. But if you're not actively making that a part of your routine, this, this is a problem for sure.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah. I call it brushing and flossing the mind, um, because it's just kind of [Page//00:36:00] becomes it's as it becomes incorporated into your daily practice, then the nervous system has a chance to actually calm down. And this is a place where a lot of people do well with getting guidance and support
Julie Michelson: Sure. Sure. And to, as to create routines and, and
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah, it's, it's also hard to read the label if you're inside the jar and so, and so it can be really helpful to have somebody outside of you going like, you know, it seems like there's a pattern here, but I'd like to reflect back at you or, you know,
Julie Michelson: Have you considered?
Jenny Tufenkian: have you considered, yeah. But even like what you were saying with that person that comes in and you're stressed out here in their story and they say they're not stressed well sounds to me like they're in freeze, or they're
Julie Michelson: Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, and
Jenny Tufenkian: know, they having a stress response,
Julie Michelson: We get used to, right? Like if this is what life looks like, you just think this is life. I had, this is not stress related, but it is that it's the inside of the jar example. Um, I have a client who's in her sixties and we were cleaning [Page//00:37:00] up products and, and, um, she switched toothpaste to a clean toothpaste and said, literally as soon as she switched toothpaste, she asked her husband, does toothpaste hurt your mouth?
Julie Michelson: And he was like, what are you talking about? She said, my whole life, toothpaste hurt my mouth. And I didn't know that it's not like that for everybody, right? We only know what our experience is in our body. And you know, obviously, yes, she had toxicity issues along with other things. But, but that's such a, it's such a fun example because We really don't know, right, until we feel better or until when you're in that stress state all the time, you don't know you're in it
Jenny Tufenkian: right,
Julie Michelson: unless you have experienced recently what it feels like to be out of it.
Julie Michelson: So I love, I love that you say that. And I love that saying. I'm trying to read the label from [Page//00:38:00] inside the jar. It's perfect.
Jenny Tufenkian: yeah, yeah. Well, I think you also raise another point that I think is really people get stuck in when they are dealing with the fatigue and long COVID types of things, or what you're with your rheumatoid experience too, is that, that feeling of you kind of get used to what your own world is like, I always call it, you're living under your own glass ceiling, that that ceiling that, and for me, my goal.
Jenny Tufenkian: For myself and for all the people is to completely be, to really break free and to completely be free. So you don't need to be doing the energy budgeting. And I, because I felt really blessed when I got lung COVID because of all the knowledge I had with chronic fatigue and having had the experience of getting back 150%, I knew it's, I know it's possible.
Jenny Tufenkian: Like I, and I hold that. And that is, that is my, that is the goal. And that's the goal I [Page//00:39:00] hold for everyone who I see. And I do see it as being a possibility.
Julie Michelson: Well, it really is. I had, and I know often it just doesn't come up on the podcast much. Um, my first go round with COVID, COVID itself was like nothing, you know, not a big deal. And about a month later I woke up, I mean, it was kind of like a light switch. I woke up and felt like all of my RA symptoms were back, literally just one morning.
Jenny Tufenkian: Yeah,
Julie Michelson: And of course, along with that was a little bit of that PTSD stress
Jenny Tufenkian: totally.
Julie Michelson: like, Oh my gosh, add to it that this is what I do for a living. And then I get the extra mean voices of like, you're a fraud because you're going to be sick again, all the
Jenny Tufenkian: Right.
Julie Michelson: And, and it really was, and again, viral, right?
Julie Michelson: This was a post viral inflammatory response. It was all the things, um, you talk about brain inflammation. I had had A head injury in 2020 that was pretty significant that I had [Page//00:40:00] recovered from and a lot of those symptoms came back as well because guess what else was inflamed?
Jenny Tufenkian: Gleel priming. You got primed during that concussion. If not before, for sure.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: And it wasn't my first concussion. It was a bad one. Um, and so it always does become the gift, right? It's like, how, how is this a gift? And it's always a gift. I think anything we go through is a gift for the people we work with, because we're able to just, you know, bring so much more. So I love that, that you shared that because, you know, we're human too.
Julie Michelson: And there's always an opportunity to up level. And like you said, we're always, we're, you, we're always working on it. I can tell you're always working on it, right? This is, we're, we're in this all together. We're, you know, it's not, it's not that idea of like, Oh, I'm the expert, but I've never, you know, I studied this.
Julie Michelson: It's like, no,
Jenny Tufenkian: Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely different if you've lived it, [Page//00:41:00] for sure. Yeah,
Julie Michelson: amazing. I love the the work you're doing. And and again, the it's such a it's a population. Unfortunately, it's a growing population. Um, but it's a population of people that a need the information, but they they need the You know the healing and and just I'm sure there's so many people listening that are like, oh my gosh She knows what's going on inside my body.
Julie Michelson: I Love it. So before we go what is one step? Listeners can take today and you can pick from anything to start to improve their health.
Jenny Tufenkian: I really think the one step, if I was to say one
Julie Michelson: I know it's so hard
Jenny Tufenkian: yeah, the one thing is really, it's really to believe. It's really to believe that there is a next step for you, where you can take a step where you can get empowered and move forward in your healing. There [Page//00:42:00] is something there for those of you who have been trying so many things and just feel like you make a little bit of.
Jenny Tufenkian: Improvement and or not very much. I say keep knocking on doors, you know, it's like there's there is going to be a door that's going to open for you and it's going to make a huge shift and maybe it's maybe it's maybe you've been just going down the same path and you need to try something a little bit different.
Jenny Tufenkian: You know, you've been doing the perfect diet as we've talked about or something. And maybe it's on one of these other levels that we mentioned today. But I would say, just keep having that hope and knowing and believing that there's a way that your body can heal. It's just, what is it that your body needs?
Jenny Tufenkian: Your being needs right now to make, make that next step towards healing.
Julie Michelson: I love that is so, is so important. And I'll reiterate, you already said it, but the body is designed to heal. It wants to heal. Um, and so I, that's a beautiful and essential first step is, is the believing. So believe and knock. We'll combine them.
Jenny Tufenkian: Believe in Nokia.
Julie Michelson: Believe [Page//00:43:00] and keep knocking and trust yourself when it's not the right fit.
Julie Michelson: Move on.
Jenny Tufenkian: Absolutely. Absolutely. You don't need to keep doing things that aren't working for sure. That's a sign. I mean, that's what I do as a practitioner is I'm going, well, nope, this isn't working. We got to move. We got to go somewhere else. That's what I'm watching for. It's like, cause I want that breakthrough, right?
Jenny Tufenkian: So
Julie Michelson: Uh, love it. Love it. So where is the best place for people? I know I'm always listening to podcasts on the go. That's my podcast time. Um, where's the best place for listeners to find you?
Jenny Tufenkian: to go to the website, drjennytofankion. com and on there, if you're curious what your root cause might be, there's a quiz that you can take where I go, I created it based on the algorithm I use in my clinic. And you can take that and check that out. I have a YouTube healing with Dr. Jenny, natural healing with Dr.
Jenny Tufenkian: Jenny. I should know the name of my own YouTube channel.
Julie Michelson: okay.
Jenny Tufenkian: Healing naturally with Dr. Jenny
Julie Michelson: Something. [Page//00:44:00] Go to the website, people.
Jenny Tufenkian: on the website.
Julie Michelson: drjennytufenkian.com. You can find all the, all the things right from there. I love it. See, we're really, this is, this is real. Yep. Amazing. Dr. Jenny, so much. You have shared some real gold with us today.
Jenny Tufenkian: It's been such a pleasure to be with you. I really enjoyed our time together. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for the work that you do. And thank you to all of those who are listening. Really appreciate you.
Julie Michelson: And for everyone who is listening, remember, you can get the transcripts and show notes, including all the links for Dr. Jenny at inspired living. show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week. [Page//00:45:00]
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Jenny Tufenkian
Dr. Tufenkian has been treating chronic illness for two decades. Having complex chronic fatigue herself she had no choice but to dig deep into the literature and uncover the root causes of Chronic Fatigue. Through her research and experience she developed an effective system to unlock the 5 core energy drainers so that those who are too exhausted to function, can start feeling like themselves again. She shares this system with clients and practitioners online and in person. Her unique spin and secret power is to combine a very left brain functional medical approach along with deep subconscious work. This allows powerful shifts in both the physical and energetic bodies.
Jenny Tufenkian ND is a licensed Naturopathic Physician/primary doctor who got her training and residency at National University of Natural Medicine. She went on to be a sought after adjunct clinical faculty member and ran her own successful private practice in Portland, Oregon. "Dr Jenny" as she is belovedly cal
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