Episode 60
Beth O'Hara:Is Your Autoimmunity Actually Mast Cell Activation Syndrome?
Beth O'Hara:
Is Your Autoimmunity Actually Mast Cell Activation Syndrome?
This week we are talking about Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and the effective approach to healing. My friend Dr. Beth O'Hara walks us through this complex health challenge and explains the overlaps with autoimmunity.
First Aired on: Nov 7, 2022
Episode 60
Beth O'Hara:Is Your Autoimmunity Actually Mast Cell Activation Syndrome?
Beth O'Hara:
Is Your Autoimmunity Actually Mast Cell Activation Syndrome?
This week we are talking about Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and the effective approach to healing. My friend Dr. Beth O'Hara walks us through this complex health challenge and explains the overlaps with autoimmunity.
First Aired on: Nov 7, 2022
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Today we are joined by Beth O'Hara, Functional Naturopath specializing in complex, chronic cases of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Histamine Intolerance, and Mold Toxicity. She is the founder of Mast Cell 360 where she provides healing protocols for patients, as well as providers.
Beth's health journey began in childhood. Growing up on a farm in a rural area, she was exposed to mold and Lyme and they didn't know anything about the risks back then. A TBI threw her a curveball, and then a car accident that kept her out of high school for almost a year had her in bed and on pain meds. College was a continued physical struggle. Pain, fatigue, anxiety..all as she was working three jobs during her undergrad studies. Although she had earned scholarships to medical school, which had been her lifelong dream, Beth knew that her health would never allow her to make it through residency, if she managed to survive med school.
By age 28 Beth was walking with a cane or wheel chair. She was misdiagnosed with Palandromic Arthritis.
Because doctors didn't know what was wrong with her, they told her it was emotional.
Years of therapy were helpful, but not for her health.
Finally, Beth was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, but was too sick to tolerate treatments.
Eventually, she learned she had mold toxicity. And she learned how to reboot her nervous system.
She slowly improved and was able to tolerate treatments.
She eventually became a Doctor of Naturopathy. And now
What is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome
Mast cells are immune cells that are found throughout our body.
We have over 200 known kinds of mast cell receptors. Their job is to keep us safe. They respond to immune threats, like infection, and even stress.
The problem occurs when mast cells don't have a chance to reset themselves.
MCAS is a multisystem issue.
It takes an average of 10 years to get diagnosed. It still isn't taught in medical school.
MCAS effect up to 17% of the population.
Mold exposures are all across the country and world. And numbers are rising which is increasing MCAS as well.
EMF exposure increases mold activity as well.
Multi systemic:
with our without allergies
with or without anaphylaxis
with or without sensitivity
Presentations are different!
Mastcell360 is your resource for all things Mast Cell.
Free Symptom Survey
Courses are available for lay people and practitioners.
Healing takes time!
Lifestyle change.
We start with nervous system. Vagal nerve system and lymbic system.
MC360 Method:
1-Stabilization of nervous system
-Structural issues top of neck
2-Remove triggers
3-Mast cell calming
modulate inflammosomes
The order of operations is key!
Message of hope.
WE CAN HEAL!!!! AND DO!!!
One Thing to do
Alternate nostril breathing...it's free!
Beth's health journey began in childhood. Growing up on a farm in a rural area, she was exposed to mold and Lyme and they didn't know anything about the risks back then. A TBI threw her a curveball, and then a car accident that kept her out of high school for almost a year had her in bed and on pain meds. College was a continued physical struggle. Pain, fatigue, anxiety..all as she was working three jobs during her undergrad studies. Although she had earned scholarships to medical school, which had been her lifelong dream, Beth knew that her health would never allow her to make it through residency, if she managed to survive med school.
By age 28 Beth was walking with a cane or wheel chair. She was misdiagnosed with Palandromic Arthritis.
Because doctors didn't know what was wrong with her, they told her it was emotional.
Years of therapy were helpful, but not for her health.
Finally, Beth was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, but was too sick to tolerate treatments.
Eventually, she learned she had mold toxicity. And she learned how to reboot her nervous system.
She slowly improved and was able to tolerate treatments.
She eventually became a Doctor of Naturopathy. And now
What is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome
Mast cells are immune cells that are found throughout our body.
We have over 200 known kinds of mast cell receptors. Their job is to keep us safe. They respond to immune threats, like infection, and even stress.
The problem occurs when mast cells don't have a chance to reset themselves.
MCAS is a multisystem issue.
It takes an average of 10 years to get diagnosed. It still isn't taught in medical school.
MCAS effect up to 17% of the population.
Mold exposures are all across the country and world. And numbers are rising which is increasing MCAS as well.
EMF exposure increases mold activity as well.
Multi systemic:
with our without allergies
with or without anaphylaxis
with or without sensitivity
Presentations are different!
Mastcell360 is your resource for all things Mast Cell.
Free Symptom Survey
Courses are available for lay people and practitioners.
Healing takes time!
Lifestyle change.
We start with nervous system. Vagal nerve system and lymbic system.
MC360 Method:
1-Stabilization of nervous system
-Structural issues top of neck
2-Remove triggers
3-Mast cell calming
modulate inflammosomes
The order of operations is key!
Message of hope.
WE CAN HEAL!!!! AND DO!!!
One Thing to do
Alternate nostril breathing...it's free!
Learn more about mast cell activation syndrome here
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Beth O'Hara
Connect with Beth O'Hara
Episode Transcript
o[00:00:00] Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with auto immunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Beth O'Hara founder of mastcell360. And we're talking about mass cell activation syndrome. Beth is a functional naturopath, and she specializes in complex chronic cases of mass cell activation syndrome, histamine intolerance and mold toxicity.
[00:00:59] We're [00:01:00] discussing the connections between mass cell activation syndrome and autoimmunity, their root causes and the steps we can take to improve symptoms.
[00:01:09] Beth welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:12] Beth O'Hara: Oh, thank you so much, Julie, I'm super strict about having this conversation because there's a huge link between what we're gonna talk about and auto immunity. This may turn some light bulbs on for people, and sometimes this is, this conversation is a real game changer in their health.
[00:01:27] Julie Michelson: I couldn't agree more. And, and I think that this is an area where. People just, they need the information and I'm sure there will be listeners that are gonna have, like you said, that light, bulb's gonna pop on like, Ooh, dots are gonna connect today. So I'm excited for this. So I know that you have had an extensive health journey as of most of my guests can you share a little bit about your journey and your healing and, and what you're doing today with.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Beth O'Hara: For sure. You know, it's, it was quite a journey and looking back, I can't believe that I'm here today, even just doing this podcast, but I, when, when I was a young. My family moved out to the country into an old farmhouse. And that same felt like a big adventure at the time. And they were renovating the farmhouse and we were out in the country and I was running around the fields.
[00:02:26] And we didn't know, you know, this was early eighties. We didn't know anything about mold. We didn't know anything about tickborne infections. Nobody knew anything about that, but I started having some weird health issues, a lot of allergy type things. And then when I was nine, I was kicked in the head by horse and I had a traumatic brain injury.
[00:02:47] Nobody knew much about traumatic brain injuries there. And we were in a rural area. So medicine was 20, 30 years behind the cities. So I didn't have any treatment for that. And [00:03:00] there was a spiraling down of health issues over the years. So immediately after that, I had dark depressions and anxiety. Now looking back, oh my gosh.
[00:03:10] The level of neural inflammation that was going on, I started developing all kinds of sleep issues. Then after that I started developing a lot of hypoglycemia. and these blood sugar drops and I'd have to eat. My friend's parents would tease me because I would always be in their fridge and at home, I was always in the fridge, in the kitchen, eating, eating, eating, cause I had to keep my blood sugar stable, but you know, it kind of made it along.
[00:03:35] And then I just kept having these hits though. When I was 16, I was in a bad car accident and I couldn't get outta bed. I mean, I was just. It was it's tremendous. I was off from school for most of the year and at home on pain meds, which also didn't help me. But it was an ex extraordinary pain. So that was the best that we had at the [00:04:00] time.
[00:04:01] By the time I was heading to college, I had extreme anxiety, chronic fatigue, but I could still push through. I just really had to whip myself and I would whip myself every day, but I. Pretty overachieving. So I was doing graduate level courses as an undergrad. I was working three jobs to put myself through co I had a scholarship, you know, covered my tuition.
[00:04:29] And then I had to cover my living expenses and just burning the candle at both ends. But my big dream was to go to medical school and I'd actually decided on that when I was. And I had poured everything into that. And I started researching at 12, what it was gonna take to get in medical school. So I was prepared and I had multiple scholarship offers to med school.
[00:04:54] But by the time I got to my senior year, I. So ill. I [00:05:00] knew even if I made it through that four years of grueling coursework, I would never make it through an 80 hour, a week residency for four years. And I had to turn those scholarships down, which was just devastating. And I had no backup plan, but my, the fatigue and then the pain was so severe at that.
[00:05:23] I was going doctor to doctor, to doctor and exhausted everything traditional medicine could do for me. I'd been given Gabapentin, I'd been given high level pain meds. I'd been given opioids and these all made me feel worse. So I didn't feel good about taking them. And then I started into holistic medicine and functional medicine was just starting in its infancy.
[00:05:46] And I just, you know, we didn't have. Telehealth like we have now. So I had who I could drive to. And by the time I was 28, I was on a cane. I could barely hobble across the [00:06:00] room to the bathroom. I had to use the wheelchair of the powered wheelchair to go through the grocery. And I started seeing rheumatologists and I was misdiagnosed with PMIC, rheumatoid arthritis.
[00:06:15] Which is considered rare, but it's a form that can come and go. I, I, I question whether that's actually autoimmunity, but I didn't have autoimmune markers and that was the big tip off, but nobody could figure out an orthopedic surgeon wanted to do exploratory Sur surgery on my knees because they had no idea what was going on.
[00:06:37] I said, well, if you don't have a theory, we're not cutting the open.
[00:06:40] Julie Michelson: Brilliant.
[00:06:41] Beth O'Hara: And I just, I kept making the circuits and I also probably because of the severe anxiety and the depression that I had and the severe insomnia, I mean, I hit a point where I didn't sleep for four years and that makes anybody crazy. So I had been told [00:07:00] multiple times that my.
[00:07:02] Blood work looked normal. I'm not sick. I wanted to be sick. There was something that was I was attached to, or there some need I had to be sick and or that it was all in my head and it wasn't real. And I heard that so many times that. Kind of knew it wasn't true, but I thought, well, I'm gonna explore this.
[00:07:23] I did 10 years of therapy, very helpful for my mental, emotional health did nothing for my physical symptoms. Other than it did help me manage the pain and the just sheer nightmare I was living in. And it really was a nightmare. I mean, I had no quality of life. I quit working full time when I was 26 and really struggled, but.
[00:07:47] I, I just had this something deep inside my bones that I knew there was a way out of this. And my late twenties, we knew I had tick born [00:08:00] illnesses. We we'd figured out I had lime. I had Bartella I had Baia. So that's a big load. Didn't know about mold toxicity, but I'd gotten so sensitive. I couldn't even tolerate the treatments for any of.
[00:08:12] And the sensitivities continued to worsen looking back. I was constantly exposed to mold. I. When I couldn't go to medical school, gone into medical yoga therapy. I taught from a chair many times, and then I had gone into spiritual coaching because the way I got through was developing my own spirituality.
[00:08:36] And I was supporting people who were really struggling mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and some similar experiences. And. You know, those things really helped me pull through, but the big game changer was learning that I had mold toxicity, quite a lot of it. And looking back the, the office that I was working [00:09:00] out of was this beautiful historic building that was built right after the civil war.
[00:09:05] Looking back at all the places I'd lived through college, the majority of, you know, I was in 150 year old duplex. It. All this mold, but what I know as well as most places in the country, these days have mold issues. It's become epidemic and it's very challenging away from it. But learning about the mold toxicity and learning about how to reboot my nervous system was the huge game changer.
[00:09:32] And it took a while to unravel all of this. I stopped counting at 75 practitioners. And over $350,000 invested my health. It's it's way over a half a million now, but I just decided this is not worth counting anymore,
[00:09:49] Julie Michelson: Sure.
[00:09:50] Beth O'Hara: but I started to climb back out. Of the hole that I was in and gone went from not even [00:10:00] tolerating, a tiny sprinkle of queer sittin or curcumin or Zulia, those would set my nervous system off I sleep would be the, the lack of sleep I had would be even worse.
[00:10:12] I was able to turn that around to where. In my mid thirties, I went back to graduate school. I got a degree in marriage and family therapy and then decided, you know, I wanna do even bigger picture than this. I wanna go back to my original dream, but from this journey I've been on.
[00:10:30] Julie Michelson: place.
[00:10:31] Beth O'Hara: In this different place.
[00:10:32] So then I also got a doctorate naturopath and, and built mass cell 360. And when I say I built it to be the, the type of practice I wished had existed when I was so sick, I really mean that that's what we designed it around. I. And this practice is for people who keep falling through the cracks. It's not for people who need a simple protocol.
[00:10:54] It's not what we do, or they tolerate all kinds of things and they can just do something exactly out of a book. And it [00:11:00] works. We specialize in the unicorns, the people like me, who everything was failing, nothing was working and that's, that's where I am today.
[00:11:12] Julie Michelson: Wow. Really grateful you're here. I UN I totally can relate to that feeling of not, you know, sometimes it's, it is shocking where we are now. I didn't think I would live to see 50 and I'm 53, so, and feel amazing. So I get it.
[00:11:28] Beth O'Hara: Wonderful.
[00:11:29] Julie Michelson: I wanna cycle back cuz you said some I'm sure listeners are like, oh, you know, yeah, I have this or I have that.
[00:11:37] Or I know someone with this and you know, I, well, we checked for that. Let's talk, bring it specifically to mass cell and this difference of for example, I was diagnosed with RA. I later then found, you know, one of my big triggers was mold toxicity as well. But I don't have mass cell. So let let's talk [00:12:00] about, you know, what it is.
[00:12:01] And like you said, it is unfortunately more and more common unicorn, you know, unicorns are getting more common than they used to be. But, but let's just start at square one for listeners, you know, what are mass cells and what is mass cell activation?
[00:12:17] Beth O'Hara: Sure. And. Maybe hold it open that you may have mass cell involvement. So I'll go there with the connections with the autoimmunity here in a little bit, but mass cells are really critical immune cells. There are frontline sensing, defending cells. They're in every tissue, every single tissue in our bodies, except the retina they're in the brain.
[00:12:43] They're in the whole nervous system. They actually line every nerve sheath and they're at every nerve ending. They are completely throughout the skin. They line the GI tract from the mouth down, the esophagus, the stomach, the [00:13:00] entire intestines they're in all of our organs. They're in our muscles.
[00:13:03] They're made in the bone marrow and they migrate out of the bone to the rest of the body. They're in the tissues around the eyes. They're in the ears, lots in the sinuses in the bladder, vaginal canal, all of these various areas. We have mass cells and they are completely on the outside. The cell membrane covered in different types of receptors and there are over 200 known receptors on mass cells and these receptor.
[00:13:35] Can sense every molecule of air, every particle of anything, or drop of anything we put in our mouths, they also are sensing injury. They're sensing pathogens, viruses, bacteria, molds, CanDos parasites. They are sensing every thought. And this is huge. Every[00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Julie Michelson: it again.
[00:14:01] Beth O'Hara: thought they mass cells experience and respond to is their location.
[00:14:08] At the nervous system, they have receptors for the neurotransmitters and, and hormones and all of these various things, everything that goes through your bloodstream, they pick up on. So they're picking up on stressors, pathogens, toxin. So that's really key. Their job is to keep us safe. So simple example, you cut your finger, don't get it cleaned out.
[00:14:35] Well enough, maybe you're gardening. So there's lots of dirt in there and it starts to get red and swollen and kind of itchy. That's the mass cells starting to mobilize a response and then calling and orchestrating the rest of the immune system to come in, clean this up, keep that bacteria from getting into your bloodstream.
[00:14:53] It heals. And for most people you never think of that. Cut again. You don't even remember you. Same thing happens. You twist your [00:15:00] ankle, a gets really swollen. It's actually a healing response that inflammation helps your ankle heal. Hopefully it heals just normally you forget to ever sprained your ankle and you're on your way.
[00:15:12] Even when we get sick, the mass cells have a role along with other immune cells, but a role in the inflammation, the sinuses and the nasal passages and the throat and all those things we associate with having a. The problem comes when we have an continual onslaught of toxins and stressors and new pathogens and the mass cells don't get time to reset themselves.
[00:15:45] So if we think 200, 300 years ago, You know, really, if we go before the industrial revolution, we lived in a very clean environment. We did not have all this air pollution. We didn't have people in dense spaces. We also had much slower [00:16:00] lives. We weren't going from, I wake up in the morning. I gotta get the kids off to school and make their lunches.
[00:16:06] And, oh my gosh, I forgot to pay that bill. And now I've gotta get myself to work on time. And then. At work. Oh my gosh. Johnny got in trouble at school. I've gotta leave work, but I got this work deadline. How am I gonna hit that and get Johnny home? Oh gosh. We're out of groceries. I gotta get the groceries.
[00:16:21] I gotta pick up the kids. Get the groceries. They've got two extracurriculars tonight. I gotta get them fed. They gotta get their homework done. I gotta get to bed. When did I have time to breathe today? Day? it.
[00:16:31] Julie Michelson: I'm exhausted.
[00:16:33] Beth O'Hara: Just thinking about it, right? That that's how so many people live. Our, we live our lives and this pandemic gave us a chance, you know, as, as challenging as it was a chance to step back and go, is this how I wanna live my life?
[00:16:48] Julie Michelson: Yes. Yeah.
[00:16:50] Beth O'Hara: So tying all this in there's one other piece that these muscles I wanna share is that they also have inside the mediators. And these mediators are their chemical [00:17:00] signalers that they release out and the best known most people know is histamine. The other thing that's become a household name now is cytokines. Mass cells are one of the major producers of cytokines. There's all kinds of types. There's actually inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. They make interlukins, they make substance P they also produce neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. So there's a continual communication between the mass cells in the nervous system, the mass cells in the rest of the immune system and everything else happening in the.
[00:17:38] So over a thousand mediators, that's a lot. So this is why there's so many different expressions of mass cell activation syndrome. So again, that syndrome's happening once the mass cells become dysregulated, they're overly sensitive. To things, to triggers and overly responding and producing [00:18:00] inflammation.
[00:18:00] So this condition is a multisystemic. Meaning if you just have seasonal allergies, that's not mass activation syndrome. It's multiple systems in the body. So it could be skin and GI tract. It could be brain nervous system cardiovascular. It could be tissues around the eyes, sinus issues and problems with urinary burning and interstitial cystitis type symptoms.
[00:18:29] So
[00:18:30] Julie Michelson: things that, that your typical Western docs won't connect, cuz they're typically system focused.
[00:18:36] Beth O'Hara: Yes. And many people go specialist to specialist to specialist. It takes studies of show on average 10 years. To get properly diagnosed. And this just got a diagnosis code in 2016. It's still not taught in medical schools. I have med school students as clients, and they tell me why aren't we being taught this?
[00:18:57] And I said, go talk to your,
[00:18:58] Julie Michelson: Yeah.
[00:18:59] Beth O'Hara: your, [00:19:00] your advisory board at the school. But it, it's gonna take a while for this to catch up. The population studies show that this is affecting between at the very low end 9% of the Western population up to 17. And it's likely closer to 17% of the general population that includes people who are chronically ill and not.
[00:19:23] Julie Michelson: Wow.
[00:19:23] Beth O'Hara: When we look at the chronically ill population. When I talk with my colleagues who specialize in this field, we really think it's 75% of the chronically ill population. If not drastically higher, we just wanna be conservative because we don't have research on this yet. But it may be 90%. Any, anything that's creating any inflammatory condition that's affecting two or more systems has mass cell involvement doesn't matter.
[00:19:51] What it is. And mass cell activation syndrome and the research literature has been tied to every form of autoimmunity. [00:20:00] and part of this is because of their role in the th two system, when you teach two dominant for a long time. And I know some people may not know this, so that's okay. Just wanna share it for practitioners or people who understand this.
[00:20:13] When you teach two dominant for a long time, that can branch off and people with certain predispositions to teach 17. Auto immunity and that, so if we really wanna unwind auto immunity, we have to come back and address these mass cells as well. So hopefully again, kinda an.
[00:20:33] Julie Michelson: I'm nodding and nodding, and I'm thinking, you know, my, my brain is going a million miles an hour because I'm thinking, well, going back to, if, if you start with, when you have multiple systems involved, I'm thinking, well, how many people have 2, 3, 4, 5, eventually different autoimmune diagnoses because different systems are getting hit.
[00:20:58] I know, I, I had a [00:21:00] few also just the, this whole thought of when you think of drivers, I'm guessing the reason numbers are growing and growing would be the same as what we're seeing in, in autoimmunity, whether properly diagnosed or not. When you're talking about, you know, the toxins and the molds and the stress, the chronic stress we all are living with and not necessarily managing well.
[00:21:22] That. I mean, these are the, the, the numbers are only going to continue to get bigger and we've got not only more and more buildings getting older and older, but our new buildings don't breathe. So
[00:21:35] Beth O'Hara: That's exactly right. That's and because of a combination of climate change factors that are increasing humidity, there's increased anywhere that gets hit by hurricanes is a big issue. Places that have had fires. And so I think, you know, I'm thinking the
[00:21:54] Julie Michelson: everyone's almost one or the other
[00:21:56] Beth O'Hara: The entire us. The, so we, I, I [00:22:00] consult across the United States and our, our clinic works across the continental us.
[00:22:05] The only places we on occasion find people who come to us without mold in their homes is in the desert. And sometimes they'll still have issues cuz the type of air conditioning or a water leak in their house. Now that's not to say everybody has mold issues, but if you have autoimmunity, this is the absolute hands down.
[00:22:26] Number one trigger we're seeing for mass cell activation syndrome. And my practice number two is the tick borne infections, which are also on the rise and they are finding. Just looking at the Burelli species that drive lime, they're finding new species every two years on average. So we can't even keep up with the testing.
[00:22:50] This is just, it's a whole other tangent. It's the testing issue.
[00:22:53] Julie Michelson: and this is much like mold. I live in Colorado and people used to say here, well, when I moved here [00:23:00] 20 years ago in the housing industry, you know, oh, there's no mold here. There's plenty of mold here. It's everywhere. And oh, there's no Lyme disease, you know? Oh, you have to be in the north. No, it's not true.
[00:23:10] It's it's now all 50 states. I don't, I don't care where you live. So
[00:23:14] Beth O'Hara: It's across the, almost the entire globe. And there's so much misinformation about both of these and the, the only other factors that a lot of environmental mold specialists are noticing is as routers came into homes and wifi, it seems to me we need more studies on this and actually. Ran a study. But I didn't get clear outcomes and decided that exposing myself to the mold wasn't worth it.
[00:23:41] Somebody needs to run some clear studies on the, the impact of EMFs. On mold growth, but what is being observed by these environmental specialists? Who've been in this field for 40 years. So they saw houses before routers came to the house and we had smart houses. [00:24:00] And then after is that it seems like mold registers the EMFs as a threat.
[00:24:05] It's growing faster and it's releasing more toxic malt toxin. So even schools, schools have gotten bad before we had all of. Studies were done to see how prevalent mold toxicity is in the us. 85% of commercial buildings, over 50% of homes. And at that time, 30% of schools. And again, that was before we had these changes in the last 20 years with climate change.
[00:24:35] And before we had the, all the routers and smart devices going home, so it's gonna be higher.
[00:24:41] Julie Michelson: Sure. Absolutely. So I, you know, we're not here today to bump people out or make people feel hopeless. whenever I start talking about mold toxins, refs, it starts to sound like really gloom and doom. And that is absolutely not why we're here. These are all things. We [00:25:00] need to know about and, and we can take steps.
[00:25:03] We, you know, nobody needs to go live in a bubble, you know, in the middle of, of the jungle or
[00:25:07] Beth O'Hara: Don't go with the jungle.
[00:25:08] Julie Michelson: yeah, I was, I just, as I was saying, and I was like, oh, don't go there. I, I want to kind of highlight, so for people listening, cuz now it's like, okay, well then who. It just feels like, and, and I know you just said the numbers are probably really high, you know, it feels like everybody could have mass cell activation.
[00:25:27] Right? So for listeners that are, are, their interest is peaked, right? They're wondering now they've, their heads are kind of swirling with, like, I wonder if my three autoimmune conditions actually are, are mass. What, you know, what do they do or, or who should be wondering, I
[00:25:52] Beth O'Hara: Yeah.
[00:25:52] Julie Michelson: the point to me.
[00:25:53] Well like, well maybe, you know and the reason I take myself out of that category, I, I feel very lucky. I'm not [00:26:00] some, I, I never had the, well, that's not true. I was gonna say never had the sensitivities. I was always able to manage treatments. But I do have chemical sensitivities still that I am still working on with my toxicity.
[00:26:12] So.
[00:26:13] Beth O'Hara: Well, let me, let me frame it in a way that is gives people some boxes to check.
[00:26:19] Julie Michelson: Perfect.
[00:26:20] Beth O'Hara: Not all people with mass cell activation syndrome have sensitivities. So it's multi inflam multisystemic inflammatory with, or without allergies with, or without sensitivities with, or without anaphylaxis. And so that kinda
[00:26:39] Julie Michelson: So everything, anybody ? No, I'm
[00:26:42] Beth O'Hara: Well, you know, there are plenty of people who, who don't have these symptoms, but you're gonna see something in these systems, the classic, but there are lots of people who don't have this. The classic are itching, hives, rashes, any kind of skin [00:27:00] eczema, psoriasis you know, flushing, those types of things.
[00:27:04] Now a lot of practitioners were taught when they learn about mass cell issues. If you don't see that there can't be a mass issue, that's not true because the mass cells may not be involved in the skin. They may be normal in the skin and dysregulated at different tissue. The other things you'll see, I'm just gonna go through the most common things and I'll tell people about how they can do a survey for free and, and just really look at it.
[00:27:27] Anytime there's an immunity, Mass cells have to be involved. There's no way to not be involved. So addressing the mass cells. The reason I say that is because addressing them as a game changer in dealing with auto immunity. It's not that it's mass cell and not the auto it's the, it's what, you know, what's really driving the.
[00:27:47] And then as you calm the masts down, the immunity can calm down and then you gotta get your triggers. And there is huge amount of hope. And I'll get to the hope here in a bit. There's huge amounts of hope. And I see people [00:28:00] get their lives back every day. It's, it's amazing, but you can have GI issues.
[00:28:07] Heartburns common constipation or diarrhea, abdominal cramping in the liver. Sometimes people have. Quadrant on the right side, the liver, some inflammation with mass cells being there, or the left side can be the spleen. It's often the spleen bladder irritation. Those are some common symptoms. Now everybody gets it, breathing issues, tightness in the chest or asthma or anything like that.
[00:28:34] Hashimotos is linked. Rheumatoid arthritis is linked. Graves is linked. I mean, we can just go right down the list. Every form of auto immunity for the GI tract for the skin has been linked, but. If people really are getting peaked and going. Hmm. I think I need to look at this. I have a free symptom survey.
[00:28:53] It was built off of the research literature for which symptoms [00:29:00] are definitely tied to mass cell activation syndrome. There's lots of other people can get, but this is. Honed into exactly what the research literature says is tied to mass activation. So people can find that at mass cell three sixty.com and in the menu, just go to symptom survey.
[00:29:17] It's very easy. You just do it yourself, but that's there. That's why this has been so mystifying. So if you think about, you've got every location in the body, except the retina. And the brain used to be thought they weren't in the brain. And they were found in the limbic system in the brain and they'll migrate across the brain anytime there's neural inflammation.
[00:29:40] But if you think about all the locations, 200 different types of receptors that can get triggered in over a thousand mediators, you have an almost incalculable number of presentations.
[00:29:52] Julie Michelson: Sure.
[00:29:53] Beth O'Hara: So that's what makes this challenging. And the diagnostic criteria is very new and it requires in addition to there [00:30:00] being two systems with inflammatory mass symptoms, there being certain blood markers that are elevated, but there's lots of challenges without testing, and only about 10% of people with. Clear mass cell activation or getting positive tests and requires a positive response to a mass cell mediator medication or stabilizing medication or an antihistamine. But all of those meds have some kind of excipient that can trigger mass cells. So a lot of people will react as inactive ingredients.
[00:30:30] So this is where it's just, it's still being abated. Yeah. Yeah. And it's still settling out. What the official is to me, it doesn't matter. It's really about getting people.
[00:30:41] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. And I, I wanna highlight just from experience and experiences that, that my clients have. Unfortunately you mentioned, you know, it's a newer diagnosis. As you know, somebody who went to med school 20 years ago did not learn about mass cell.
[00:30:57] Beth O'Hara: They're not learning it. Now. Somebody [00:31:00] graduates this year is not.
[00:31:01] Julie Michelson: if you're thinking, you know, I'm gonna ask my rheumatologist about this, or I'm gonna go to my GP, you know, I'm seeing my GP next week and I'm gonna ask them don't be discouraged.
[00:31:10] They may have, they, you know, may have very little, if any information about it at all. And they may not be able to guide you. That this is it. Is it it's new? I know. Ju just like, just like, if you go to your rheumatologist and you say, does it matter what I eat? If I have RA many, most of them are still gonna say no, so
[00:31:34] Beth O'Hara: But we know gluten triggers are a,
[00:31:36] Julie Michelson: know better.
[00:31:38] Beth O'Hara: trigger it. We know dairy triggers it. And, but the good news is a lot more practitioners are getting on board. We have had so many practitioners take our courses, which makes me really happy. Cuz I developed them for lay people. I develop them for just an average person, but so many practitioners are hungry for this and they're working hard to get up to speed.
[00:31:59] [00:32:00] It's just gonna take time.
[00:32:01] Julie Michelson: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So. We, we kind of, we covered root causes. We, you, you know, people can go, they can, they can take the survey, they can see where they fall. Or they're, we're gonna tell them how to find you . What else, you know, what, what are some first steps that, that people can do?
[00:32:23] Beth O'Hara: Yeah. So I developed what I call the MC 360 method. And this was after working with hundreds and hundreds of people dealing with these issues. So it's not just based on my. History, but it's tested and tested and tested and refined and tested. And we have a really good success rate with people who stick with the program.
[00:32:45] And that's the key is sticking with it, cuz it takes time. This is not a, I'm gonna take an autoimmune drug and feel better next week. It's not prednisone. This is really digging in and doing the deep work and it's a, it's a [00:33:00] lifestyle change.
[00:33:01] Julie Michelson: Yep.
[00:33:02] Beth O'Hara: The first place we start is what I call my stabilization. And we actually start with the nervous system because again, mass cells are the interface.
[00:33:14] They're the complete interface between the nervous system and the rest of the body. If you wanna calm down all those T reg cells and all those other cells involved in autoimmunity, you've gotta calm down the upstream operator. And if you're gonna calm that down, you've gotta calm down the nervous system signaling to it.
[00:33:34] So we do that through two special ways. A lot of people are doing meditations on YouTube and things like that. Wonderful. Please keep doing that. But there are two very specific systems in the nervous system that have to be addressed. The vag. Nerve system and the limbic system. And I'm sure you've covered those.
[00:33:55] So don't go into too much depth, but a lot of people think that they're doing these and they're [00:34:00] not. So making sure that this really truly is a limbic program and really truly is working on the Vaal system. You can pick one limbic program, but the vagal system is so complex. It. As many modalities, you, you bring on way beyond Garling or singing or humming.
[00:34:19] Those are good too. Keep doing those, but we're talking about the specialized auditory programs, VA nerve stimulators, any of those things, and the more severe the health condition, the more of those people need. But truly, usually if people get the right compliment of limbic and vagal support, And they're calming their lifestyle down.
[00:34:41] They're not writing themselves ragged. They'll usually start to see improvements within six to eight weeks.
[00:34:47] Julie Michelson: Wow. See, and to me, because I know that that's fast. That really is.
[00:34:53] Beth O'Hara: and it's really about getting the right mix. So, and I do have a course all on that. I don't wanna get in, use our time to get on all the [00:35:00] details, but people can learn all about it. It's a low cost course then, and it takes you through how to make your own choices based on your own circumstances.
[00:35:08] Julie Michelson: Wonderful.
[00:35:09] Beth O'Hara: So we've got the nervous system piece. The other part of that is some people have structural issues at the top of their neck. And I go through this in that course, but if you've ever had any kind of neck injury, head injury, whiplash, If you had weird, I shouldn't say weird. If you had unusual unusual birth circumstances where they'd use forceps or something like that, it was hard to get you out of the birth canal.
[00:35:33] If you were born by C-section, C-section actually doesn't allow the cranial sutures to have the compression they're supposed to, to finalize what the development of the, the structure anyway, all that.
[00:35:47] Julie Michelson: If you headbutt, if you played soccer and used to headbutt the ball, I mean, there's so much we don't think of, we know now is, you know, tr trauma that we didn. Ever consider to be trauma. So it doesn't [00:36:00] need to be that you lost consciousness somewhere because you hit your head that hard,
[00:36:04] Beth O'Hara: Absolutely. And what it really is, it's both that neural inflammation side, but also it can pinch the vagal nerve where it comes out at the very top of the neck. And there are other cranial nerves that are very critical in this. So if these nerves have pressure on them, doesn't matter much meditation you do, or limbic Vaal, you've gotta go upstream to that.
[00:36:26] And the jaw is really important that too. So we have jaw dysregulation. So that's step one, stabilization assessing what's going on, looking through your history, looking through what factors you're facing. Then number two is remove the triggers. These are foods. We talked about food triggers. A lot of them in this audience are gonna be.
[00:36:54] Gluten dairy sugar. You know, those things that everybody should know about by now, histamine [00:37:00] and lectins, lots of free blog posts for people on our website on those histamine and lectins. Now, my issue was with my joints was actually oxalates. And when I came off, it was like walking on ground glass. And when I came off the oxalates, I was off that cane for good.
[00:37:19] And today I don't do it often, but I can wear cute shoes. I can wear high heels. I can hike for 2, 3,
[00:37:25] Julie Michelson: Isn't it amazing.
[00:37:27] Beth O'Hara: Oh, it's so wonderful. Every time I get to go for a walk, I'm just immensely grateful that
[00:37:32] Julie Michelson: I don't even own dance goes anymore. That was literally the only shoe I used to
[00:37:37] Beth O'Hara: Mine was doc Martins, cuz they had that support.
[00:37:41] Julie Michelson: We all had like the one thing, you know, I couldn't be like in anything.
[00:37:46] Beth O'Hara: Yeah, it was so painful. Now, if somebody's gonna look at oxalates, please read our blog post. Please go off of those slowly, do not go cold Turkey. You can trigger kidney stone. So really know what you're doing with the [00:38:00] oxalates. Then the third part in this method, I'm just going with step one. Ation. The third part is the mass cell calming.
[00:38:08] And I wanna share some of my favorite ones, particularly in the realm of autoimmunity. Some of my favorite are actually bicarbonates baking soda. If people have low blood. Potassium by carbonate. If they have high blood pressure, if you're on blood pressure meds, absolutely work with your prescriber before you use those.
[00:38:27] But by carbonates modulate the mechanism. That pushes inflammasome production creates inflammation in the body. Very simple. Almost everybody can tolerate that unless they have super low stomach acid. So my other favorites, queer satins, huge. Most people in this audience probably tolerate it. I get a lot of super sensitive people who don't.
[00:38:49] We have all kinds of other options, but queer, I'm gonna go with my less sensitive ones, vitamin D vitamin E vitamin a. [00:39:00] I use a form of it's kind of like omega threes, but they're called SPMS called special. Pro-res resolving mediators, huge in resolving inflammation. If you tolerate them. Well, they're lower histamine than fish oil, and you've gotta get the dose up to about three caps, two times a day.
[00:39:17] For most people. Now, these are just ideas and it's not prescriptive for anybody. Zinc is a big one. And then one of my two last favorites are peri extract. That's a, the peri Perilla is a Asian herb wonderful mass cell supporting properties. And then Bain Chinese skullcap extract. Also really good people have neural inflammation.
[00:39:42] Great properties. Now, there are hundreds actually mass supporting agents and people. A lot of people get relief using combo of H one H two blockers and things like that. LDN, huge and autoimmunity and people probably talked about that on here. Then once we bring things [00:40:00] down, a few notches, So we'll a little more stabilized.
[00:40:03] We've got the symptoms. They're not gonna be gone, but we've just got it down. So there's some bandwidth, there's some room cuz by the time most people see me, they're kind of at the end of their rope and they can't handle flaring anymore. They're in continual flare most of the time and the people I'm working with.
[00:40:19] Once we get things down a few notches, then we're gonna go really gentle mold detox. And if people need one step to. Learn about mold. Learn how to test yourself, learn how to interpret those tests because they often look normal. But most people with immunity are poor excers of toxins and the levels are gonna look artificially low, but you see anything there, take it seriously and then learn how to start to step yourself through.
[00:40:51] We have a great guide course that steps you through. Step by step by step. Now it was for more sensitive people. But you know, that's [00:41:00] a great course. There's other resources out there find something. And I have had almost no one out of the hundreds and hundreds of people have come through a clinic almost no one, who's not had mold toxicity.
[00:41:16] That doesn't mean everyone has mold toxicity. It just means in the population I see.
[00:41:20] Julie Michelson: Also in the population. I see. So it is, I mean, to say it's prevalent, it's such an understatement and everybody, and it used to be one of those things that if the needle wasn't moving like expected, then we would look, we just we're testing right away now. I mean, there's, it just doesn't make sense not to because it's, it's that kind, if you already have.
[00:41:42] Autoimmune symptoms, autoimmune diagnosis know you have mass cell issues that you gotta look you
[00:41:50] Beth O'Hara: mold, mold toxins are toxic to the nervous system. They're toxic to the immune system. They're great. Disruptors, okra, toin AFLA toin are highly carcinogenic. [00:42:00] And the higher, the more the auto immunity, the more risk of cancer doesn't mean you'll get it, but the risk increases. So we've gotta bring those risk loads down.
[00:42:10] And I would rather have tick borne illnesses again than to have mold toxicity again, with what I,
[00:42:16] Julie Michelson: and when, which we see, so, so often as well, just like with you, we, we see the two together and you really, you need to treat that mold first to, to you gotta, gotta go after that first.
[00:42:30] Beth O'Hara: And that's the key with sensitive people. Cause I know there's gotta be some sensitive people listening to this is the order of operations. So if you have failed and failed protocols, don't despair, don't give up. It's really about getting the right things in the right order. That makes all the difference.
[00:42:48] And we have people come in who can't drink water. I mean, even our water, we have people who come in and they, they can hardly eat. And they, you know, they get huge improvements when we do things in the right order. So that's [00:43:00] the key. And I love to end with just a little message of hope for people, which is that, you know, I went from being bedridden, unable to read a book.
[00:43:13] Unable to hardly walk across the house to, I run a busy, busy practice, and we're expanding our practice with more practitioners that I'm training. And we, I have a really busy life. I have to work on that balance piece every day, but I exercise, I feel great. I process very complex cases. My brain is functioning fully, and I've had people who came in in a wheelchair with 20 seizures a day couldn't form a full sentence.
[00:43:48] Couldn't even handle being on a call for more than 15 minutes. One woman in particular. A couple years later is going back to college. And, you know, we see these things all the time and what we [00:44:00] can really frame this as, because you're exactly right. This is on the rise. And even when I started 10 years ago, The types of cases were not what, what we see today.
[00:44:12] And when I talked to my mentor, Neil, Nathan, who's been doing this for 50 years. He says, absolutely clearly it's people are more complex and they're more sick than they were 30, 40, 50 years ago. We do live in a very toxic world. It's not sustainable. And what's happening to those of us with auto immunity, with mass cell issues.
[00:44:36] Those of us who get really sick from old toxins versus the people who are in the same environment, don't get as sick. And I see this in families all the time. There's one person really sick. It's happening to all of us. It's just expressed differently. Those of us with the auto immunity, with the mass issues, with the sensitivities, whatever it is, we are the canaries in the coal mine.
[00:44:58] We're the ones waving [00:45:00] the flag going, Hey, this is dangerous. And it's whether does it show up right now or does it show up 20, 30 years later in stage four cancer or Alzheimer's or
[00:45:11] Julie Michelson: Alzheimer's.
[00:45:12] Beth O'Hara: so at least when it shows up, now we have time to turn our health around and make a difference. And my hope for all of us is that we are gonna be the leaders in this change.
[00:45:25] Julie Michelson: absolutely. It's the, the butterfly effect can be amazing. I always say even with my clients, I'm sure you see the same, you know, it's not, it's not just, I healed you healed. That we're helping other people heal. It's their families, their friends, the people they come into contact with that wanna know how, what did you do that?
[00:45:49] This is how we're gonna start that shift in the right direction. Absolutely.
[00:45:54] Beth O'Hara: and it's for us. It's for our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. And it [00:46:00] it's for me, it's not just about getting people back to eating in restaurants again. You know, walking in heels again, or whatever, you know, getting to go mountain climbing, whatever we wanna do. It's really about getting people back to living their lives, giving back to living their hopes, their dreams.
[00:46:15] And what's our mission here on earth, just to make this planet a better place for all of us.
[00:46:22] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I always ask at the end of the episode and you've already given us many, many, but one thing anybody listening can do starting today to start to improve their health.
[00:46:37] Beth O'Hara: Yes, one free thing you can do actually. I'll go with this one. Some people might have some congestion. They may not be do it. It was actually alternate nostril breath. Super simple. You can look up videos on YouTube on how to do it, but you're just closing when nostril inhaling through the left, closing the left, exhaling through the right, [00:47:00] and then inhale through the right close exhale through the left.
[00:47:03] That's a great Vaal nerve support. It's simple. It's easy to do. You can do it. When you're sitting in traffic, you can do it on your bathroom break. So that's a wonderful one. And I just wanted to add one more resource for people. If I could, which is we have a summit that is going on October 18 and it'll be going until I believe the I'm gonna give you the exact date.
[00:47:31] I should have it in my head here. It's gonna be October 18th through October 25th. It's the reversing mass cell activation histamine tolerance summit. And there are over 40 free interviews. You can access that week on all aspects of this, including autoimmunity. So I hope some people can join us and loses really a huge labor of love to get this out for free to people.
[00:47:58] Julie Michelson: Amazing. [00:48:00] And for those that are gonna listen later, will they be able to access that if
[00:48:04] Beth O'Hara: Yes. Yes. It'll be available. Evergreen. It'll be available for purchase, but that, and it's still low cost, but that week it's free. Yeah.
[00:48:15] Julie Michelson: Fantastic. We'll have all of these links in the, in the notes, but for people that are listening on the go and they wanna learn more about you, what you're doing, what's the best place to find you.
[00:48:27] Beth O'Hara: Two places, mastcell360.com. It's M as in Mary, a S in Sam, T as in Tom. Masked like a ship masked cell 360 and that's our website. Then we have a Facebook page as well. Same name masked cell 360. And we have free Facebook lives, most Mondays, lots of resources there for people and a lovely community.
[00:48:52] So people are so supportive. So we'd love to have you join us.
[00:48:57] Julie Michelson: Amazing. You [00:49:00] Beth have been that this is a treasure and you're such a leader in this space. So I wanna thank you for taking the time to share with us and educate us and just give us the gift of this knowledge of, you know, what we maybe thought was really, really rare or hadn't even heard of is actually something that we all need to know.
[00:49:22] Beth O'Hara: Thank you, you know, if I can help just one more person, get their health back way faster and way less money than I did. Then what I went through was worth it.
[00:49:33] Julie Michelson: Amen. Thank you so much for everyone listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living.show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
[00:00:59] We're [00:01:00] discussing the connections between mass cell activation syndrome and autoimmunity, their root causes and the steps we can take to improve symptoms.
[00:01:09] Beth welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:12] Beth O'Hara: Oh, thank you so much, Julie, I'm super strict about having this conversation because there's a huge link between what we're gonna talk about and auto immunity. This may turn some light bulbs on for people, and sometimes this is, this conversation is a real game changer in their health.
[00:01:27] Julie Michelson: I couldn't agree more. And, and I think that this is an area where. People just, they need the information and I'm sure there will be listeners that are gonna have, like you said, that light, bulb's gonna pop on like, Ooh, dots are gonna connect today. So I'm excited for this. So I know that you have had an extensive health journey as of most of my guests can you share a little bit about your journey and your healing and, and what you're doing today with.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Beth O'Hara: For sure. You know, it's, it was quite a journey and looking back, I can't believe that I'm here today, even just doing this podcast, but I, when, when I was a young. My family moved out to the country into an old farmhouse. And that same felt like a big adventure at the time. And they were renovating the farmhouse and we were out in the country and I was running around the fields.
[00:02:26] And we didn't know, you know, this was early eighties. We didn't know anything about mold. We didn't know anything about tickborne infections. Nobody knew anything about that, but I started having some weird health issues, a lot of allergy type things. And then when I was nine, I was kicked in the head by horse and I had a traumatic brain injury.
[00:02:47] Nobody knew much about traumatic brain injuries there. And we were in a rural area. So medicine was 20, 30 years behind the cities. So I didn't have any treatment for that. And [00:03:00] there was a spiraling down of health issues over the years. So immediately after that, I had dark depressions and anxiety. Now looking back, oh my gosh.
[00:03:10] The level of neural inflammation that was going on, I started developing all kinds of sleep issues. Then after that I started developing a lot of hypoglycemia. and these blood sugar drops and I'd have to eat. My friend's parents would tease me because I would always be in their fridge and at home, I was always in the fridge, in the kitchen, eating, eating, eating, cause I had to keep my blood sugar stable, but you know, it kind of made it along.
[00:03:35] And then I just kept having these hits though. When I was 16, I was in a bad car accident and I couldn't get outta bed. I mean, I was just. It was it's tremendous. I was off from school for most of the year and at home on pain meds, which also didn't help me. But it was an ex extraordinary pain. So that was the best that we had at the [00:04:00] time.
[00:04:01] By the time I was heading to college, I had extreme anxiety, chronic fatigue, but I could still push through. I just really had to whip myself and I would whip myself every day, but I. Pretty overachieving. So I was doing graduate level courses as an undergrad. I was working three jobs to put myself through co I had a scholarship, you know, covered my tuition.
[00:04:29] And then I had to cover my living expenses and just burning the candle at both ends. But my big dream was to go to medical school and I'd actually decided on that when I was. And I had poured everything into that. And I started researching at 12, what it was gonna take to get in medical school. So I was prepared and I had multiple scholarship offers to med school.
[00:04:54] But by the time I got to my senior year, I. So ill. I [00:05:00] knew even if I made it through that four years of grueling coursework, I would never make it through an 80 hour, a week residency for four years. And I had to turn those scholarships down, which was just devastating. And I had no backup plan, but my, the fatigue and then the pain was so severe at that.
[00:05:23] I was going doctor to doctor, to doctor and exhausted everything traditional medicine could do for me. I'd been given Gabapentin, I'd been given high level pain meds. I'd been given opioids and these all made me feel worse. So I didn't feel good about taking them. And then I started into holistic medicine and functional medicine was just starting in its infancy.
[00:05:46] And I just, you know, we didn't have. Telehealth like we have now. So I had who I could drive to. And by the time I was 28, I was on a cane. I could barely hobble across the [00:06:00] room to the bathroom. I had to use the wheelchair of the powered wheelchair to go through the grocery. And I started seeing rheumatologists and I was misdiagnosed with PMIC, rheumatoid arthritis.
[00:06:15] Which is considered rare, but it's a form that can come and go. I, I, I question whether that's actually autoimmunity, but I didn't have autoimmune markers and that was the big tip off, but nobody could figure out an orthopedic surgeon wanted to do exploratory Sur surgery on my knees because they had no idea what was going on.
[00:06:37] I said, well, if you don't have a theory, we're not cutting the open.
[00:06:40] Julie Michelson: Brilliant.
[00:06:41] Beth O'Hara: And I just, I kept making the circuits and I also probably because of the severe anxiety and the depression that I had and the severe insomnia, I mean, I hit a point where I didn't sleep for four years and that makes anybody crazy. So I had been told [00:07:00] multiple times that my.
[00:07:02] Blood work looked normal. I'm not sick. I wanted to be sick. There was something that was I was attached to, or there some need I had to be sick and or that it was all in my head and it wasn't real. And I heard that so many times that. Kind of knew it wasn't true, but I thought, well, I'm gonna explore this.
[00:07:23] I did 10 years of therapy, very helpful for my mental, emotional health did nothing for my physical symptoms. Other than it did help me manage the pain and the just sheer nightmare I was living in. And it really was a nightmare. I mean, I had no quality of life. I quit working full time when I was 26 and really struggled, but.
[00:07:47] I, I just had this something deep inside my bones that I knew there was a way out of this. And my late twenties, we knew I had tick born [00:08:00] illnesses. We we'd figured out I had lime. I had Bartella I had Baia. So that's a big load. Didn't know about mold toxicity, but I'd gotten so sensitive. I couldn't even tolerate the treatments for any of.
[00:08:12] And the sensitivities continued to worsen looking back. I was constantly exposed to mold. I. When I couldn't go to medical school, gone into medical yoga therapy. I taught from a chair many times, and then I had gone into spiritual coaching because the way I got through was developing my own spirituality.
[00:08:36] And I was supporting people who were really struggling mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and some similar experiences. And. You know, those things really helped me pull through, but the big game changer was learning that I had mold toxicity, quite a lot of it. And looking back the, the office that I was working [00:09:00] out of was this beautiful historic building that was built right after the civil war.
[00:09:05] Looking back at all the places I'd lived through college, the majority of, you know, I was in 150 year old duplex. It. All this mold, but what I know as well as most places in the country, these days have mold issues. It's become epidemic and it's very challenging away from it. But learning about the mold toxicity and learning about how to reboot my nervous system was the huge game changer.
[00:09:32] And it took a while to unravel all of this. I stopped counting at 75 practitioners. And over $350,000 invested my health. It's it's way over a half a million now, but I just decided this is not worth counting anymore,
[00:09:49] Julie Michelson: Sure.
[00:09:50] Beth O'Hara: but I started to climb back out. Of the hole that I was in and gone went from not even [00:10:00] tolerating, a tiny sprinkle of queer sittin or curcumin or Zulia, those would set my nervous system off I sleep would be the, the lack of sleep I had would be even worse.
[00:10:12] I was able to turn that around to where. In my mid thirties, I went back to graduate school. I got a degree in marriage and family therapy and then decided, you know, I wanna do even bigger picture than this. I wanna go back to my original dream, but from this journey I've been on.
[00:10:30] Julie Michelson: place.
[00:10:31] Beth O'Hara: In this different place.
[00:10:32] So then I also got a doctorate naturopath and, and built mass cell 360. And when I say I built it to be the, the type of practice I wished had existed when I was so sick, I really mean that that's what we designed it around. I. And this practice is for people who keep falling through the cracks. It's not for people who need a simple protocol.
[00:10:54] It's not what we do, or they tolerate all kinds of things and they can just do something exactly out of a book. And it [00:11:00] works. We specialize in the unicorns, the people like me, who everything was failing, nothing was working and that's, that's where I am today.
[00:11:12] Julie Michelson: Wow. Really grateful you're here. I UN I totally can relate to that feeling of not, you know, sometimes it's, it is shocking where we are now. I didn't think I would live to see 50 and I'm 53, so, and feel amazing. So I get it.
[00:11:28] Beth O'Hara: Wonderful.
[00:11:29] Julie Michelson: I wanna cycle back cuz you said some I'm sure listeners are like, oh, you know, yeah, I have this or I have that.
[00:11:37] Or I know someone with this and you know, I, well, we checked for that. Let's talk, bring it specifically to mass cell and this difference of for example, I was diagnosed with RA. I later then found, you know, one of my big triggers was mold toxicity as well. But I don't have mass cell. So let let's talk [00:12:00] about, you know, what it is.
[00:12:01] And like you said, it is unfortunately more and more common unicorn, you know, unicorns are getting more common than they used to be. But, but let's just start at square one for listeners, you know, what are mass cells and what is mass cell activation?
[00:12:17] Beth O'Hara: Sure. And. Maybe hold it open that you may have mass cell involvement. So I'll go there with the connections with the autoimmunity here in a little bit, but mass cells are really critical immune cells. There are frontline sensing, defending cells. They're in every tissue, every single tissue in our bodies, except the retina they're in the brain.
[00:12:43] They're in the whole nervous system. They actually line every nerve sheath and they're at every nerve ending. They are completely throughout the skin. They line the GI tract from the mouth down, the esophagus, the stomach, the [00:13:00] entire intestines they're in all of our organs. They're in our muscles.
[00:13:03] They're made in the bone marrow and they migrate out of the bone to the rest of the body. They're in the tissues around the eyes. They're in the ears, lots in the sinuses in the bladder, vaginal canal, all of these various areas. We have mass cells and they are completely on the outside. The cell membrane covered in different types of receptors and there are over 200 known receptors on mass cells and these receptor.
[00:13:35] Can sense every molecule of air, every particle of anything, or drop of anything we put in our mouths, they also are sensing injury. They're sensing pathogens, viruses, bacteria, molds, CanDos parasites. They are sensing every thought. And this is huge. Every[00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Julie Michelson: it again.
[00:14:01] Beth O'Hara: thought they mass cells experience and respond to is their location.
[00:14:08] At the nervous system, they have receptors for the neurotransmitters and, and hormones and all of these various things, everything that goes through your bloodstream, they pick up on. So they're picking up on stressors, pathogens, toxin. So that's really key. Their job is to keep us safe. So simple example, you cut your finger, don't get it cleaned out.
[00:14:35] Well enough, maybe you're gardening. So there's lots of dirt in there and it starts to get red and swollen and kind of itchy. That's the mass cells starting to mobilize a response and then calling and orchestrating the rest of the immune system to come in, clean this up, keep that bacteria from getting into your bloodstream.
[00:14:53] It heals. And for most people you never think of that. Cut again. You don't even remember you. Same thing happens. You twist your [00:15:00] ankle, a gets really swollen. It's actually a healing response that inflammation helps your ankle heal. Hopefully it heals just normally you forget to ever sprained your ankle and you're on your way.
[00:15:12] Even when we get sick, the mass cells have a role along with other immune cells, but a role in the inflammation, the sinuses and the nasal passages and the throat and all those things we associate with having a. The problem comes when we have an continual onslaught of toxins and stressors and new pathogens and the mass cells don't get time to reset themselves.
[00:15:45] So if we think 200, 300 years ago, You know, really, if we go before the industrial revolution, we lived in a very clean environment. We did not have all this air pollution. We didn't have people in dense spaces. We also had much slower [00:16:00] lives. We weren't going from, I wake up in the morning. I gotta get the kids off to school and make their lunches.
[00:16:06] And, oh my gosh, I forgot to pay that bill. And now I've gotta get myself to work on time. And then. At work. Oh my gosh. Johnny got in trouble at school. I've gotta leave work, but I got this work deadline. How am I gonna hit that and get Johnny home? Oh gosh. We're out of groceries. I gotta get the groceries.
[00:16:21] I gotta pick up the kids. Get the groceries. They've got two extracurriculars tonight. I gotta get them fed. They gotta get their homework done. I gotta get to bed. When did I have time to breathe today? Day? it.
[00:16:31] Julie Michelson: I'm exhausted.
[00:16:33] Beth O'Hara: Just thinking about it, right? That that's how so many people live. Our, we live our lives and this pandemic gave us a chance, you know, as, as challenging as it was a chance to step back and go, is this how I wanna live my life?
[00:16:48] Julie Michelson: Yes. Yeah.
[00:16:50] Beth O'Hara: So tying all this in there's one other piece that these muscles I wanna share is that they also have inside the mediators. And these mediators are their chemical [00:17:00] signalers that they release out and the best known most people know is histamine. The other thing that's become a household name now is cytokines. Mass cells are one of the major producers of cytokines. There's all kinds of types. There's actually inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. They make interlukins, they make substance P they also produce neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. So there's a continual communication between the mass cells in the nervous system, the mass cells in the rest of the immune system and everything else happening in the.
[00:17:38] So over a thousand mediators, that's a lot. So this is why there's so many different expressions of mass cell activation syndrome. So again, that syndrome's happening once the mass cells become dysregulated, they're overly sensitive. To things, to triggers and overly responding and producing [00:18:00] inflammation.
[00:18:00] So this condition is a multisystemic. Meaning if you just have seasonal allergies, that's not mass activation syndrome. It's multiple systems in the body. So it could be skin and GI tract. It could be brain nervous system cardiovascular. It could be tissues around the eyes, sinus issues and problems with urinary burning and interstitial cystitis type symptoms.
[00:18:29] So
[00:18:30] Julie Michelson: things that, that your typical Western docs won't connect, cuz they're typically system focused.
[00:18:36] Beth O'Hara: Yes. And many people go specialist to specialist to specialist. It takes studies of show on average 10 years. To get properly diagnosed. And this just got a diagnosis code in 2016. It's still not taught in medical schools. I have med school students as clients, and they tell me why aren't we being taught this?
[00:18:57] And I said, go talk to your,
[00:18:58] Julie Michelson: Yeah.
[00:18:59] Beth O'Hara: your, [00:19:00] your advisory board at the school. But it, it's gonna take a while for this to catch up. The population studies show that this is affecting between at the very low end 9% of the Western population up to 17. And it's likely closer to 17% of the general population that includes people who are chronically ill and not.
[00:19:23] Julie Michelson: Wow.
[00:19:23] Beth O'Hara: When we look at the chronically ill population. When I talk with my colleagues who specialize in this field, we really think it's 75% of the chronically ill population. If not drastically higher, we just wanna be conservative because we don't have research on this yet. But it may be 90%. Any, anything that's creating any inflammatory condition that's affecting two or more systems has mass cell involvement doesn't matter.
[00:19:51] What it is. And mass cell activation syndrome and the research literature has been tied to every form of autoimmunity. [00:20:00] and part of this is because of their role in the th two system, when you teach two dominant for a long time. And I know some people may not know this, so that's okay. Just wanna share it for practitioners or people who understand this.
[00:20:13] When you teach two dominant for a long time, that can branch off and people with certain predispositions to teach 17. Auto immunity and that, so if we really wanna unwind auto immunity, we have to come back and address these mass cells as well. So hopefully again, kinda an.
[00:20:33] Julie Michelson: I'm nodding and nodding, and I'm thinking, you know, my, my brain is going a million miles an hour because I'm thinking, well, going back to, if, if you start with, when you have multiple systems involved, I'm thinking, well, how many people have 2, 3, 4, 5, eventually different autoimmune diagnoses because different systems are getting hit.
[00:20:58] I know, I, I had a [00:21:00] few also just the, this whole thought of when you think of drivers, I'm guessing the reason numbers are growing and growing would be the same as what we're seeing in, in autoimmunity, whether properly diagnosed or not. When you're talking about, you know, the toxins and the molds and the stress, the chronic stress we all are living with and not necessarily managing well.
[00:21:22] That. I mean, these are the, the, the numbers are only going to continue to get bigger and we've got not only more and more buildings getting older and older, but our new buildings don't breathe. So
[00:21:35] Beth O'Hara: That's exactly right. That's and because of a combination of climate change factors that are increasing humidity, there's increased anywhere that gets hit by hurricanes is a big issue. Places that have had fires. And so I think, you know, I'm thinking the
[00:21:54] Julie Michelson: everyone's almost one or the other
[00:21:56] Beth O'Hara: The entire us. The, so we, I, I [00:22:00] consult across the United States and our, our clinic works across the continental us.
[00:22:05] The only places we on occasion find people who come to us without mold in their homes is in the desert. And sometimes they'll still have issues cuz the type of air conditioning or a water leak in their house. Now that's not to say everybody has mold issues, but if you have autoimmunity, this is the absolute hands down.
[00:22:26] Number one trigger we're seeing for mass cell activation syndrome. And my practice number two is the tick borne infections, which are also on the rise and they are finding. Just looking at the Burelli species that drive lime, they're finding new species every two years on average. So we can't even keep up with the testing.
[00:22:50] This is just, it's a whole other tangent. It's the testing issue.
[00:22:53] Julie Michelson: and this is much like mold. I live in Colorado and people used to say here, well, when I moved here [00:23:00] 20 years ago in the housing industry, you know, oh, there's no mold here. There's plenty of mold here. It's everywhere. And oh, there's no Lyme disease, you know? Oh, you have to be in the north. No, it's not true.
[00:23:10] It's it's now all 50 states. I don't, I don't care where you live. So
[00:23:14] Beth O'Hara: It's across the, almost the entire globe. And there's so much misinformation about both of these and the, the only other factors that a lot of environmental mold specialists are noticing is as routers came into homes and wifi, it seems to me we need more studies on this and actually. Ran a study. But I didn't get clear outcomes and decided that exposing myself to the mold wasn't worth it.
[00:23:41] Somebody needs to run some clear studies on the, the impact of EMFs. On mold growth, but what is being observed by these environmental specialists? Who've been in this field for 40 years. So they saw houses before routers came to the house and we had smart houses. [00:24:00] And then after is that it seems like mold registers the EMFs as a threat.
[00:24:05] It's growing faster and it's releasing more toxic malt toxin. So even schools, schools have gotten bad before we had all of. Studies were done to see how prevalent mold toxicity is in the us. 85% of commercial buildings, over 50% of homes. And at that time, 30% of schools. And again, that was before we had these changes in the last 20 years with climate change.
[00:24:35] And before we had the, all the routers and smart devices going home, so it's gonna be higher.
[00:24:41] Julie Michelson: Sure. Absolutely. So I, you know, we're not here today to bump people out or make people feel hopeless. whenever I start talking about mold toxins, refs, it starts to sound like really gloom and doom. And that is absolutely not why we're here. These are all things. We [00:25:00] need to know about and, and we can take steps.
[00:25:03] We, you know, nobody needs to go live in a bubble, you know, in the middle of, of the jungle or
[00:25:07] Beth O'Hara: Don't go with the jungle.
[00:25:08] Julie Michelson: yeah, I was, I just, as I was saying, and I was like, oh, don't go there. I, I want to kind of highlight, so for people listening, cuz now it's like, okay, well then who. It just feels like, and, and I know you just said the numbers are probably really high, you know, it feels like everybody could have mass cell activation.
[00:25:27] Right? So for listeners that are, are, their interest is peaked, right? They're wondering now they've, their heads are kind of swirling with, like, I wonder if my three autoimmune conditions actually are, are mass. What, you know, what do they do or, or who should be wondering, I
[00:25:52] Beth O'Hara: Yeah.
[00:25:52] Julie Michelson: the point to me.
[00:25:53] Well like, well maybe, you know and the reason I take myself out of that category, I, I feel very lucky. I'm not [00:26:00] some, I, I never had the, well, that's not true. I was gonna say never had the sensitivities. I was always able to manage treatments. But I do have chemical sensitivities still that I am still working on with my toxicity.
[00:26:12] So.
[00:26:13] Beth O'Hara: Well, let me, let me frame it in a way that is gives people some boxes to check.
[00:26:19] Julie Michelson: Perfect.
[00:26:20] Beth O'Hara: Not all people with mass cell activation syndrome have sensitivities. So it's multi inflam multisystemic inflammatory with, or without allergies with, or without sensitivities with, or without anaphylaxis. And so that kinda
[00:26:39] Julie Michelson: So everything, anybody ? No, I'm
[00:26:42] Beth O'Hara: Well, you know, there are plenty of people who, who don't have these symptoms, but you're gonna see something in these systems, the classic, but there are lots of people who don't have this. The classic are itching, hives, rashes, any kind of skin [00:27:00] eczema, psoriasis you know, flushing, those types of things.
[00:27:04] Now a lot of practitioners were taught when they learn about mass cell issues. If you don't see that there can't be a mass issue, that's not true because the mass cells may not be involved in the skin. They may be normal in the skin and dysregulated at different tissue. The other things you'll see, I'm just gonna go through the most common things and I'll tell people about how they can do a survey for free and, and just really look at it.
[00:27:27] Anytime there's an immunity, Mass cells have to be involved. There's no way to not be involved. So addressing the mass cells. The reason I say that is because addressing them as a game changer in dealing with auto immunity. It's not that it's mass cell and not the auto it's the, it's what, you know, what's really driving the.
[00:27:47] And then as you calm the masts down, the immunity can calm down and then you gotta get your triggers. And there is huge amount of hope. And I'll get to the hope here in a bit. There's huge amounts of hope. And I see people [00:28:00] get their lives back every day. It's, it's amazing, but you can have GI issues.
[00:28:07] Heartburns common constipation or diarrhea, abdominal cramping in the liver. Sometimes people have. Quadrant on the right side, the liver, some inflammation with mass cells being there, or the left side can be the spleen. It's often the spleen bladder irritation. Those are some common symptoms. Now everybody gets it, breathing issues, tightness in the chest or asthma or anything like that.
[00:28:34] Hashimotos is linked. Rheumatoid arthritis is linked. Graves is linked. I mean, we can just go right down the list. Every form of auto immunity for the GI tract for the skin has been linked, but. If people really are getting peaked and going. Hmm. I think I need to look at this. I have a free symptom survey.
[00:28:53] It was built off of the research literature for which symptoms [00:29:00] are definitely tied to mass cell activation syndrome. There's lots of other people can get, but this is. Honed into exactly what the research literature says is tied to mass activation. So people can find that at mass cell three sixty.com and in the menu, just go to symptom survey.
[00:29:17] It's very easy. You just do it yourself, but that's there. That's why this has been so mystifying. So if you think about, you've got every location in the body, except the retina. And the brain used to be thought they weren't in the brain. And they were found in the limbic system in the brain and they'll migrate across the brain anytime there's neural inflammation.
[00:29:40] But if you think about all the locations, 200 different types of receptors that can get triggered in over a thousand mediators, you have an almost incalculable number of presentations.
[00:29:52] Julie Michelson: Sure.
[00:29:53] Beth O'Hara: So that's what makes this challenging. And the diagnostic criteria is very new and it requires in addition to there [00:30:00] being two systems with inflammatory mass symptoms, there being certain blood markers that are elevated, but there's lots of challenges without testing, and only about 10% of people with. Clear mass cell activation or getting positive tests and requires a positive response to a mass cell mediator medication or stabilizing medication or an antihistamine. But all of those meds have some kind of excipient that can trigger mass cells. So a lot of people will react as inactive ingredients.
[00:30:30] So this is where it's just, it's still being abated. Yeah. Yeah. And it's still settling out. What the official is to me, it doesn't matter. It's really about getting people.
[00:30:41] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. And I, I wanna highlight just from experience and experiences that, that my clients have. Unfortunately you mentioned, you know, it's a newer diagnosis. As you know, somebody who went to med school 20 years ago did not learn about mass cell.
[00:30:57] Beth O'Hara: They're not learning it. Now. Somebody [00:31:00] graduates this year is not.
[00:31:01] Julie Michelson: if you're thinking, you know, I'm gonna ask my rheumatologist about this, or I'm gonna go to my GP, you know, I'm seeing my GP next week and I'm gonna ask them don't be discouraged.
[00:31:10] They may have, they, you know, may have very little, if any information about it at all. And they may not be able to guide you. That this is it. Is it it's new? I know. Ju just like, just like, if you go to your rheumatologist and you say, does it matter what I eat? If I have RA many, most of them are still gonna say no, so
[00:31:34] Beth O'Hara: But we know gluten triggers are a,
[00:31:36] Julie Michelson: know better.
[00:31:38] Beth O'Hara: trigger it. We know dairy triggers it. And, but the good news is a lot more practitioners are getting on board. We have had so many practitioners take our courses, which makes me really happy. Cuz I developed them for lay people. I develop them for just an average person, but so many practitioners are hungry for this and they're working hard to get up to speed.
[00:31:59] [00:32:00] It's just gonna take time.
[00:32:01] Julie Michelson: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So. We, we kind of, we covered root causes. We, you, you know, people can go, they can, they can take the survey, they can see where they fall. Or they're, we're gonna tell them how to find you . What else, you know, what, what are some first steps that, that people can do?
[00:32:23] Beth O'Hara: Yeah. So I developed what I call the MC 360 method. And this was after working with hundreds and hundreds of people dealing with these issues. So it's not just based on my. History, but it's tested and tested and tested and refined and tested. And we have a really good success rate with people who stick with the program.
[00:32:45] And that's the key is sticking with it, cuz it takes time. This is not a, I'm gonna take an autoimmune drug and feel better next week. It's not prednisone. This is really digging in and doing the deep work and it's a, it's a [00:33:00] lifestyle change.
[00:33:01] Julie Michelson: Yep.
[00:33:02] Beth O'Hara: The first place we start is what I call my stabilization. And we actually start with the nervous system because again, mass cells are the interface.
[00:33:14] They're the complete interface between the nervous system and the rest of the body. If you wanna calm down all those T reg cells and all those other cells involved in autoimmunity, you've gotta calm down the upstream operator. And if you're gonna calm that down, you've gotta calm down the nervous system signaling to it.
[00:33:34] So we do that through two special ways. A lot of people are doing meditations on YouTube and things like that. Wonderful. Please keep doing that. But there are two very specific systems in the nervous system that have to be addressed. The vag. Nerve system and the limbic system. And I'm sure you've covered those.
[00:33:55] So don't go into too much depth, but a lot of people think that they're doing these and they're [00:34:00] not. So making sure that this really truly is a limbic program and really truly is working on the Vaal system. You can pick one limbic program, but the vagal system is so complex. It. As many modalities, you, you bring on way beyond Garling or singing or humming.
[00:34:19] Those are good too. Keep doing those, but we're talking about the specialized auditory programs, VA nerve stimulators, any of those things, and the more severe the health condition, the more of those people need. But truly, usually if people get the right compliment of limbic and vagal support, And they're calming their lifestyle down.
[00:34:41] They're not writing themselves ragged. They'll usually start to see improvements within six to eight weeks.
[00:34:47] Julie Michelson: Wow. See, and to me, because I know that that's fast. That really is.
[00:34:53] Beth O'Hara: and it's really about getting the right mix. So, and I do have a course all on that. I don't wanna get in, use our time to get on all the [00:35:00] details, but people can learn all about it. It's a low cost course then, and it takes you through how to make your own choices based on your own circumstances.
[00:35:08] Julie Michelson: Wonderful.
[00:35:09] Beth O'Hara: So we've got the nervous system piece. The other part of that is some people have structural issues at the top of their neck. And I go through this in that course, but if you've ever had any kind of neck injury, head injury, whiplash, If you had weird, I shouldn't say weird. If you had unusual unusual birth circumstances where they'd use forceps or something like that, it was hard to get you out of the birth canal.
[00:35:33] If you were born by C-section, C-section actually doesn't allow the cranial sutures to have the compression they're supposed to, to finalize what the development of the, the structure anyway, all that.
[00:35:47] Julie Michelson: If you headbutt, if you played soccer and used to headbutt the ball, I mean, there's so much we don't think of, we know now is, you know, tr trauma that we didn. Ever consider to be trauma. So it doesn't [00:36:00] need to be that you lost consciousness somewhere because you hit your head that hard,
[00:36:04] Beth O'Hara: Absolutely. And what it really is, it's both that neural inflammation side, but also it can pinch the vagal nerve where it comes out at the very top of the neck. And there are other cranial nerves that are very critical in this. So if these nerves have pressure on them, doesn't matter much meditation you do, or limbic Vaal, you've gotta go upstream to that.
[00:36:26] And the jaw is really important that too. So we have jaw dysregulation. So that's step one, stabilization assessing what's going on, looking through your history, looking through what factors you're facing. Then number two is remove the triggers. These are foods. We talked about food triggers. A lot of them in this audience are gonna be.
[00:36:54] Gluten dairy sugar. You know, those things that everybody should know about by now, histamine [00:37:00] and lectins, lots of free blog posts for people on our website on those histamine and lectins. Now, my issue was with my joints was actually oxalates. And when I came off, it was like walking on ground glass. And when I came off the oxalates, I was off that cane for good.
[00:37:19] And today I don't do it often, but I can wear cute shoes. I can wear high heels. I can hike for 2, 3,
[00:37:25] Julie Michelson: Isn't it amazing.
[00:37:27] Beth O'Hara: Oh, it's so wonderful. Every time I get to go for a walk, I'm just immensely grateful that
[00:37:32] Julie Michelson: I don't even own dance goes anymore. That was literally the only shoe I used to
[00:37:37] Beth O'Hara: Mine was doc Martins, cuz they had that support.
[00:37:41] Julie Michelson: We all had like the one thing, you know, I couldn't be like in anything.
[00:37:46] Beth O'Hara: Yeah, it was so painful. Now, if somebody's gonna look at oxalates, please read our blog post. Please go off of those slowly, do not go cold Turkey. You can trigger kidney stone. So really know what you're doing with the [00:38:00] oxalates. Then the third part in this method, I'm just going with step one. Ation. The third part is the mass cell calming.
[00:38:08] And I wanna share some of my favorite ones, particularly in the realm of autoimmunity. Some of my favorite are actually bicarbonates baking soda. If people have low blood. Potassium by carbonate. If they have high blood pressure, if you're on blood pressure meds, absolutely work with your prescriber before you use those.
[00:38:27] But by carbonates modulate the mechanism. That pushes inflammasome production creates inflammation in the body. Very simple. Almost everybody can tolerate that unless they have super low stomach acid. So my other favorites, queer satins, huge. Most people in this audience probably tolerate it. I get a lot of super sensitive people who don't.
[00:38:49] We have all kinds of other options, but queer, I'm gonna go with my less sensitive ones, vitamin D vitamin E vitamin a. [00:39:00] I use a form of it's kind of like omega threes, but they're called SPMS called special. Pro-res resolving mediators, huge in resolving inflammation. If you tolerate them. Well, they're lower histamine than fish oil, and you've gotta get the dose up to about three caps, two times a day.
[00:39:17] For most people. Now, these are just ideas and it's not prescriptive for anybody. Zinc is a big one. And then one of my two last favorites are peri extract. That's a, the peri Perilla is a Asian herb wonderful mass cell supporting properties. And then Bain Chinese skullcap extract. Also really good people have neural inflammation.
[00:39:42] Great properties. Now, there are hundreds actually mass supporting agents and people. A lot of people get relief using combo of H one H two blockers and things like that. LDN, huge and autoimmunity and people probably talked about that on here. Then once we bring things [00:40:00] down, a few notches, So we'll a little more stabilized.
[00:40:03] We've got the symptoms. They're not gonna be gone, but we've just got it down. So there's some bandwidth, there's some room cuz by the time most people see me, they're kind of at the end of their rope and they can't handle flaring anymore. They're in continual flare most of the time and the people I'm working with.
[00:40:19] Once we get things down a few notches, then we're gonna go really gentle mold detox. And if people need one step to. Learn about mold. Learn how to test yourself, learn how to interpret those tests because they often look normal. But most people with immunity are poor excers of toxins and the levels are gonna look artificially low, but you see anything there, take it seriously and then learn how to start to step yourself through.
[00:40:51] We have a great guide course that steps you through. Step by step by step. Now it was for more sensitive people. But you know, that's [00:41:00] a great course. There's other resources out there find something. And I have had almost no one out of the hundreds and hundreds of people have come through a clinic almost no one, who's not had mold toxicity.
[00:41:16] That doesn't mean everyone has mold toxicity. It just means in the population I see.
[00:41:20] Julie Michelson: Also in the population. I see. So it is, I mean, to say it's prevalent, it's such an understatement and everybody, and it used to be one of those things that if the needle wasn't moving like expected, then we would look, we just we're testing right away now. I mean, there's, it just doesn't make sense not to because it's, it's that kind, if you already have.
[00:41:42] Autoimmune symptoms, autoimmune diagnosis know you have mass cell issues that you gotta look you
[00:41:50] Beth O'Hara: mold, mold toxins are toxic to the nervous system. They're toxic to the immune system. They're great. Disruptors, okra, toin AFLA toin are highly carcinogenic. [00:42:00] And the higher, the more the auto immunity, the more risk of cancer doesn't mean you'll get it, but the risk increases. So we've gotta bring those risk loads down.
[00:42:10] And I would rather have tick borne illnesses again than to have mold toxicity again, with what I,
[00:42:16] Julie Michelson: and when, which we see, so, so often as well, just like with you, we, we see the two together and you really, you need to treat that mold first to, to you gotta, gotta go after that first.
[00:42:30] Beth O'Hara: And that's the key with sensitive people. Cause I know there's gotta be some sensitive people listening to this is the order of operations. So if you have failed and failed protocols, don't despair, don't give up. It's really about getting the right things in the right order. That makes all the difference.
[00:42:48] And we have people come in who can't drink water. I mean, even our water, we have people who come in and they, they can hardly eat. And they, you know, they get huge improvements when we do things in the right order. So that's [00:43:00] the key. And I love to end with just a little message of hope for people, which is that, you know, I went from being bedridden, unable to read a book.
[00:43:13] Unable to hardly walk across the house to, I run a busy, busy practice, and we're expanding our practice with more practitioners that I'm training. And we, I have a really busy life. I have to work on that balance piece every day, but I exercise, I feel great. I process very complex cases. My brain is functioning fully, and I've had people who came in in a wheelchair with 20 seizures a day couldn't form a full sentence.
[00:43:48] Couldn't even handle being on a call for more than 15 minutes. One woman in particular. A couple years later is going back to college. And, you know, we see these things all the time and what we [00:44:00] can really frame this as, because you're exactly right. This is on the rise. And even when I started 10 years ago, The types of cases were not what, what we see today.
[00:44:12] And when I talked to my mentor, Neil, Nathan, who's been doing this for 50 years. He says, absolutely clearly it's people are more complex and they're more sick than they were 30, 40, 50 years ago. We do live in a very toxic world. It's not sustainable. And what's happening to those of us with auto immunity, with mass cell issues.
[00:44:36] Those of us who get really sick from old toxins versus the people who are in the same environment, don't get as sick. And I see this in families all the time. There's one person really sick. It's happening to all of us. It's just expressed differently. Those of us with the auto immunity, with the mass issues, with the sensitivities, whatever it is, we are the canaries in the coal mine.
[00:44:58] We're the ones waving [00:45:00] the flag going, Hey, this is dangerous. And it's whether does it show up right now or does it show up 20, 30 years later in stage four cancer or Alzheimer's or
[00:45:11] Julie Michelson: Alzheimer's.
[00:45:12] Beth O'Hara: so at least when it shows up, now we have time to turn our health around and make a difference. And my hope for all of us is that we are gonna be the leaders in this change.
[00:45:25] Julie Michelson: absolutely. It's the, the butterfly effect can be amazing. I always say even with my clients, I'm sure you see the same, you know, it's not, it's not just, I healed you healed. That we're helping other people heal. It's their families, their friends, the people they come into contact with that wanna know how, what did you do that?
[00:45:49] This is how we're gonna start that shift in the right direction. Absolutely.
[00:45:54] Beth O'Hara: and it's for us. It's for our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. And it [00:46:00] it's for me, it's not just about getting people back to eating in restaurants again. You know, walking in heels again, or whatever, you know, getting to go mountain climbing, whatever we wanna do. It's really about getting people back to living their lives, giving back to living their hopes, their dreams.
[00:46:15] And what's our mission here on earth, just to make this planet a better place for all of us.
[00:46:22] Julie Michelson: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I always ask at the end of the episode and you've already given us many, many, but one thing anybody listening can do starting today to start to improve their health.
[00:46:37] Beth O'Hara: Yes, one free thing you can do actually. I'll go with this one. Some people might have some congestion. They may not be do it. It was actually alternate nostril breath. Super simple. You can look up videos on YouTube on how to do it, but you're just closing when nostril inhaling through the left, closing the left, exhaling through the right, [00:47:00] and then inhale through the right close exhale through the left.
[00:47:03] That's a great Vaal nerve support. It's simple. It's easy to do. You can do it. When you're sitting in traffic, you can do it on your bathroom break. So that's a wonderful one. And I just wanted to add one more resource for people. If I could, which is we have a summit that is going on October 18 and it'll be going until I believe the I'm gonna give you the exact date.
[00:47:31] I should have it in my head here. It's gonna be October 18th through October 25th. It's the reversing mass cell activation histamine tolerance summit. And there are over 40 free interviews. You can access that week on all aspects of this, including autoimmunity. So I hope some people can join us and loses really a huge labor of love to get this out for free to people.
[00:47:58] Julie Michelson: Amazing. [00:48:00] And for those that are gonna listen later, will they be able to access that if
[00:48:04] Beth O'Hara: Yes. Yes. It'll be available. Evergreen. It'll be available for purchase, but that, and it's still low cost, but that week it's free. Yeah.
[00:48:15] Julie Michelson: Fantastic. We'll have all of these links in the, in the notes, but for people that are listening on the go and they wanna learn more about you, what you're doing, what's the best place to find you.
[00:48:27] Beth O'Hara: Two places, mastcell360.com. It's M as in Mary, a S in Sam, T as in Tom. Masked like a ship masked cell 360 and that's our website. Then we have a Facebook page as well. Same name masked cell 360. And we have free Facebook lives, most Mondays, lots of resources there for people and a lovely community.
[00:48:52] So people are so supportive. So we'd love to have you join us.
[00:48:57] Julie Michelson: Amazing. You [00:49:00] Beth have been that this is a treasure and you're such a leader in this space. So I wanna thank you for taking the time to share with us and educate us and just give us the gift of this knowledge of, you know, what we maybe thought was really, really rare or hadn't even heard of is actually something that we all need to know.
[00:49:22] Beth O'Hara: Thank you, you know, if I can help just one more person, get their health back way faster and way less money than I did. Then what I went through was worth it.
[00:49:33] Julie Michelson: Amen. Thank you so much for everyone listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living.show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
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My Guest For This Episode
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Connect with Beth O'Hara
Beth O'Hara
Beth O’Hara is a Functional Naturopath, specializing in complex, chronic cases of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Histamine Intolerance, and Mold Toxicity. She is the founder and owner of Mast Cell 360, a Functional Naturopathy Practice designed to look at all factors surrounding health conditions – genetic, epigenetic, biochemical, physiological, environmental, and emotional.
She designed Mast Cell 360 to be the kind of practice she wished had existed when she was severely ill with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Histamine Intolerance, Mold Toxicity, Neural Inflammation, Lyme, Fibromyalgia, and Chronic Fatigue. Her mission today is to be a guiding light for others with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Histamine Intolerance and these related conditions in their healing journeys.
Through her Mast Cell 360 Root Cause process, she discovers the unique root factors affecting each of her clients’ health issues, building personalized, effective roadmaps for healing.
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