Episode 66
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
Elizabeth Yarnell is a traditional naturopath and certified LEAP Therapist who is on a mission to redefine MS and autoimmunity. She helps autoimmune sufferers in her nationwide clinic using non-pharmaceutical therapies to empower them to reclaim her health. She is the award-winning author of Glorious One Pot Meals and the inventor of a cooking method that allows for simplified cooking of nutritious meals that are delicious.
Elizabeth was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) in 1999 after an overnight, scary, change in her vision led her to the doctor.
She quickly lost all of the vision in her right eye, and was convinced to take a disease modifying prescription to manage her decline.
While on the medication, Elizabeth had serious side effects. She had hives from each injection, and eventually seizures.
Elizabeth stopped the medication after three years and began to change her diet from processed foods to real foods.
She began to reclaim her health.
Having never been a cook, Elizabeth invented and patented a new way to cook that was simple and didn't require a lot of work in the kitchen.
She published her cookbook Glorious One Pot Meals to help others do the same. All meals can be built in 15 minutes and then cooked in the oven, hands off.
Elizabeth became a traditional naturopath and helps others heal as she has.
At 53, Elizabeth is free of disabilities!!!
She knows how to trigger and how to manage flares.
Whole foods are the first key to health.
Elizabeth's TedX talk in 2014 - Poisons In Our Food
As a functional medicine practitioner she focuses on defining root causes and triggers of chronic inflammation.
Go to multiplesclerosis.com to find the top foods to avoid if you have autoimmunity (or if you want to be healthy).
START READING LABELS
Food and other products
Beware also of "natural flavors" and "fragrance"
Other Resources:
Connect with Elizabeth Yarnell
Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:00:00] Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson, and today we're joined by Elizabeth Yanell, who's on a mission to redefine autoimmunity and MS.
Elizabeth is a traditional naturopath and a certified LEAP therapist. And today we're talking about how autoimmunity is a wake up call, not a death sentence, and there's so much we can do to reduce inflammation and feel better.
Elizabeth, welcome to the [Page//00:01:00] podcast.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Thank you Julie. I'm excited to be chatting.
Julie Michelson: I am as well. I would love for you to share your inspiring story with listeners because I, This is why we do this and they need to hear it.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Well, for me, my story began in 1999. It was a cold January night. And I had been working on a newspaper article that I was writing. I was a freelance journalist and into late into the night and. At the end I had felt like it was time to go to the bed. I printed out my article. I was pretty happy with my draft, but as I scanned it over as I was brushing my teeth, I noticed I said there are three spots that I wanted to make.
Small changes to the, to the text, but it was late and I was tired. So I thought I'll do it in the morning, and I set it aside and went to sleep. But when I woke up the next morning and set down my [Page//00:02:00] printout next to my coffee, It was almost like a fairy had come in. Not a fair, a goblin had come in in the night and erased big portions of the text.
I couldn't make out the words. I couldn't understand what it was even trying to say on the paper, and I couldn't find the places that I knew I needed to make those edits. And I had a deadline looming, so I had to end. Submitting what I knew in my heart was substandard work, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I had been thinking the night before.
And. I wasn't sure at all what was going on. I felt very confused and frightened. I went into the eye doctor and he diagnosed me with optic neuritis or inflammation of the optic nerve and shuffled me off right away into an MRI where I then came out to a [Page//00:03:00] diagnosis of multiple SP sclerosis and
Julie Michelson: I, I can't, Wow.
Elizabeth Yarnell: of all in the span of a day.
So it happened very fast.
Julie Michelson: That's, that's almost literally the opposite of what you hear most people go through in a journey, you know, where it's doctor after doctor test after test. And, but I'm, I have goosebumps up and down my arms. I just can't even imagine, you know? That felt like, and, and so where did you go from there?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I went and I saw an MS specialist flew across the country by that point. That was a couple weeks later and I was completely blind in my right eye, had lost all sight. In fact, when I got to that MS specialist, he stood me in front of the eye chart on the wall and he said, Okay cover your, cover [Page//00:04:00] your eye.
And, and with my good eye, I could read the whole chart. And then he said, Okay, we'll cover, cover your good eye. And I looked at it and I'm like, I don't even see a. Like, I literally just saw a white wall, like just whiteness completely blind in that eye. It was super frightening because my whole life had been about reading and writing.
I was a journalist. What was I going to do if I couldn't read or write? I was gonna have to find a whole new career. I had to offer my fiance a way to get out of, of. Contract to get married because this isn't what he had signed up for. This isn't a life that he, that he foresaw When he proposed to me there was so much that was so frightening and uncertain in those times.
It was really scary. Besides the fact that I learned that 80% [Page//00:05:00] of. Patients experience significant disability within 10 years of diagnosis. And here I was. I was two weeks before my 30th birthday, and by my 40th birthday I could be in a wheelchair. It was just really horrific. The doctors didn't really have any good advice for me.
They just said, Okay, well, we don't know why MS happens. We don't know how to fix it. We consider it to be incurable. They showed me this chart in their office and basically it's a downhill slope. If you have ms, you start up here like a normal person, and you just go straight to the bottom of the slope until you eventually die from your disabilities and according.
Julie Michelson: for a young woman, huh?
Elizabeth Yarnell: According to the best doctors, there was nothing I could do really to change this. I could try one of the disease modifying therapies. At that time, there were three, they were all injectable. But [Page//00:06:00] they all had incredibly low efficacy rates. So now we're as a population a little more familiar, what is efficacy rate mean?
Well, efficacy rate means right. How well it works and an efficacy rate of like 23% means it probably doesn't work that well. I mean even an efficacy rate of 50% means, well you 50 50
Julie Michelson: Maybe, Right. Maybe coin toss.
Elizabeth Yarnell: And they weren't, They weren't going to cure the disease. They were only going to hopefully slow it down.
So my father is a neurologist. Of course. It's the classic, classic irony of my life that my father is a brain doctor and I get a brain degenerative brain disease. But he really felt strongly that I should go on one of these disease modifying therapies because that was,
Julie Michelson: The only hope right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: and I did, but the side [Page//00:07:00] effects were horrible, horrible.
For three years, I had hives all over my body. A good day was 30 hives. A bad day was 300 hives. By the end of the time that I was taking the medication every time I injected, I would have a seizure. So,
Julie Michelson: and you kept, you kept doing it
Elizabeth Yarnell: well again.
Julie Michelson: time. Yeah,
Elizabeth Yarnell: I was scared because the problem with MS, as you know, is that it's capricious and it's uncertain, and according to the I'm have whining.
Julie Michelson: I, I'm waiting for mine to answer. It's all good. We have full conversations on this show,
Elizabeth Yarnell: Okay. Let's see. If I could just pull her up here
Julie Michelson: and, and I said that a bit to be, a bit of a devil's advocate. I mean, I, when I think of, you know, with my RA journey, how sick some of those medications made me and it, it wasn't until for me. One of the medications, they started running [Page//00:08:00] commercials on TV for one of the medications I was on, and my kids knew I was on that medication.
And you know, then they give you the kind of the side effects at the end of the, at the end of the ad. And when they start talking about lymphomas and cancers impossible death and. Of course I knew that when I was taking the medication, but to have your kids here, you know, I'm taking it so I can stay with them, right.
And be active. And active might be an over overreach, but, you know, participate in their lives. So, so clearly you're no longer on that medication.
Elizabeth Yarnell: No clear. I felt my body was telling me very clearly that I should not be on the medication, that it did not want me to be Take. This. And every time I would ask my doctors, you know, Well, what can I be doing to make my future better? They would say, Well, there's really nothing you can do. You can kind of go sit home on the couch and [Page//00:09:00] wait to, for your body to disintegrate on you and take this drug and hopefully it'll slow down the pace, but it's not gonna stop it.
And I thought, Well, that's depressing. And so I, I'm not the kind of person who. Just sit around and wait for things to happen to me. It was actually my fiance at the time who first suggested to me that maybe my diet might have something to do with the state I was in for the entire decade of, Yeah, he wa
Julie Michelson: Oh, see
Elizabeth Yarnell: he was a He was a competitive athlete and he was into organic foods and cooking from scratch and all these things that I really wasn't into in my twenties.
I, I was a girl on the go and I either ate fast food or or ate out or just skipped the meal. And the only staple foods I kept in my apartment were crystal light, Diet Coke and gummy bear.
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:10:00] Knowing you now I, That's so hard to imagine, but I love that you included that because people look at me. And they think like, You were just born eating this way, . It's like, no, no, no. I had to learn the hard, the very hard way just like you did.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: it is. I'm so glad, really, that you included that you know, sitting down at a meal with you.
Again, I can't imagine you eating any of those colored fake things, but I, I get it. I. I can relate. So where did you start with those changes?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I started first by researching because that's my nature, and I started reading books from like the Mayo Clinic and the ada, and well, what is a healthy diet? Because even my doctor was like, Well, everybody should have a healthy diet, but who knows what that is? And my dad certainly didn't know what a healthy diet was.
He, he's a fan of, of Hershey's kisses that's often [Page//00:11:00] his meal during a workday. So I, I, I studied all these sources and I really was able to see pretty clearly that the common denominators of a healthy diet were that whole foods were better than processed
Julie Michelson: Yay.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Right, which is one of my mantras now, for sure.
Whole Foods are better than processed foods, but then I had to figure out, well, I didn't really know how to cook, so I started taking cooking classes and watching the Food Network, which was in its infancy at the time.
Julie Michelson: So
Elizabeth Yarnell: And right, but pretty quickly recognizing that cooking from scratch was incredibly time and labor intensive.
And I have ms. So fatigue is a hallmark of ms. So that's when I became what I call an accidental inventor. And I invented and actually received a patent for a method of cooking that uses a cast iron [Page//00:12:00] dutch oven and flash cooks at high heat inside the oven. And it uses all whole foods in a variety of combinations, and it's almost foolproof.
You can kind of see it behind. My cookbook as glorious one pop meals, and that's where I introduce and teach this cooking method. And there are more than 70,000 home cooks who enjoy how quick and easy it makes. Cooking from scratch, cooking with whole foods instead of processed foods and eating healthier really in a, in a jiffy it's just super fast and easy
Julie Michelson: I love that. And that also, you know, really breaks that misconception of, you said it, you know, cooking from scratch is a hard, but it, it doesn't have to be. Complicated, and we don't need these fancy, you know, 300 ingredient recipes to sit down and enjoy a really delicious meal. And I, I have found, and I see it time and time again with my clients, I'm sure you do as well [Page//00:13:00] as we get off the processed foods.
And those artificial ingredients, our taste buds change and real food actually tastes delicious without a whole lot of added, you know, flavors and extra steps.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Right. Really clean foods and clean eating as it's, at its core what it's really supposed to mean. Yes. So in my cookbook, I like to say you can build your recipe in about 15 minutes, and then you throw it into the oven for 45 minutes and, and you don't touch it that time, you don't wanna open it at all.
And when it comes out, it looks like you use four or five different pots and pans. It's not a stew, it's not a cat's rule. It's completely different, unique method of cooking, which is why the patent office gave me a patent.
Julie Michelson: I love that. That's amazing. That's how I do my Thanksgiving, Turkey. Don't, don't open the oven. It's in there for the day. Nobody touch it.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Yep. Yep.[Page//00:14:00]
Julie Michelson: So how, how then does that lead to, you know, I'm gonna help other people turn this around and, and. Share with listeners, you know, health wise where you are now?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I'll, I'll start with the spoiler is my health. Amazing. Now, I'm 50 53. I did not, I have not experienced significant disabilities even though I'm 23 years or so past diagnosis, and in fact, I have learned how to, how to trigger flare ups and how to recover from them.
Julie Michelson: I love that.
Elizabeth Yarnell: That's
Julie Michelson: love the way you put that . I've learned how to trigger, which means you've also learned how to not trigger
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly. But you know, even, even me, I am hyper aware of everything that I'm exposed to. Even I can trigger things in myself when I am inadvertently [Page//00:15:00] exposed, but yes so, so my journey started with focusing more on whole foods than processed foods and that. Really changed everything for me and for a long time, I really thought that was probably the answer to chronic disease and multiple sclerosis, is get off of processed foods and get away from all of the additives and preservatives that are in our food supply.
I really feel like our food supply is contaminated, and in fact, I did a TEDx talk about this in 2014 called Poisons in our Everyday Foods. And so I th I still feel like this is a big foundational part of it. But there was more to it. And when I started having babies, my oldest, my first born was really sickly from the get go, and I couldn't figure out what was going on with him because, I made all of his food.
Everything was organic. I even, I made all of his baby food. He was such an [Page//00:16:00] incredible eater. He loves, he loved to eat, but by the time he was six years old, he had fallen off the height and weight charts. He was a chronic vomiter. He would vomit like 20 times a week. It was insane. Just throwing up all the time.
And we took him to pediatric GI clinics. We took him, had his DNA mapped, we had abdominal X-rays done, and nobody could figure out what was going on with him. He would vomit and then he would have this terrible, terrible constipation sometimes go two weeks between bowel movements, which was incredibly painful for him.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Elizabeth Yarnell: And so as a result of this physical discomfort he was in all the time, he really was kind of a dark child, just not super happy. Can't imagine.
Julie Michelson: be
Elizabeth Yarnell: Right . He didn't feel good most of the time and we couldn't figure out what it was. And finally I took him to a naturopath and she suggested that we get this food sensitivity testing done.
And [Page//00:17:00] I said, But he doesn't have anaphylaxis or hives. And she said, Well, that would be food allergies. I'm really talking about food sensitivities that cause inflammation in the body. And I thought, I, This is our last, our last ditch effort. Let's try. And when we got his test results back, it was really telling, because it's still, to this day now, I've done thousand of these tests.
Still the worst I've ever seen was his.
Julie Michelson: Wow.
Elizabeth Yarnell: And he had fully a third of the items that were tested. He was reactive to, and there were some things that we had thought were so healthy for him and so proud of him as a six year old. He loved broccoli. That was one of his favorite foods. Broccoli, really inflammatory for him, as well as things like lemon and garlic foods that we think of are very health giving.
Were inflammatory for him and we're keeping him in a terrible state. But as soon as we changed his diet [Page//00:18:00] and we removed the items that were inflammatory, the change was remarkable. Within two months, he had grown an inch and a half. He had gained 15 pounds. He had started sleeping through the night for the first time at six and a half years old, he had stopped winning the bed.
There was, I mean, just. Symptom after symptom had changed for him. And the biggest change I love to, to kind of testify about was one day when I was walking past his room and I heard him singing to himself.
Julie Michelson: Oh
Elizabeth Yarnell: sing to themself when they're happy. And he, I had never heard him sing to himself before.
So that really, that really was the, the turning point for me when I thought, You know what, everyone. Should do this. This is so, such a life changing experience that it deserves to be more widely available. And I was approaching my [Page//00:19:00] graduation from my traditional naturopath program, and I hadn't really decided what I wanted to do with my degree yet.
And that became very clear that really what I wanted to do was bring this food sensitivity testing to people who were suffering from chronic inflammation and, and autoimmune conditions like multiple sclerosis, because wow, this is life changing, life
Julie Michelson: It is, and as you said, this is not MS specific. This is it. It's funny, when I was first. Practicing we would, if we weren't getting the results we were looking for, I would then do food sensitivity testing. And now it's like, this is the first thing we do. Let's just get the results right away. Especially once you have autoimmunity, you have food sensitivities.
There's, there's no question. And that's a, that's a, We could do a whole episode on that, but I want, I wanna get to. This idea of changing the [Page//00:20:00] conversation around autoimmunity because you say what I say, which is why I have this podcast to begin with, autoimmunity is not a death sentence. It's a wake up call.
And, and so let's, let's talk about, you know, as you see it, what is autoimmunity and why do we need to change this conversation?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I like to call it, let's redefine, excuse me, let's redefine autoimmunity and, and multiple sclerosis and any other condition that's considered under that umbrella of autoimmunity. So if we look at the word autoimmune, And we take it apart. We can see auto means self and immune means allergic. So autoimmune means allergic to self.
But evolution would say, Mm, na that
Julie Michelson: Not really. Yeah.
Elizabeth Yarnell: be allergic to yourself. So if you're, if you can't be allergic to yourself, to your own body, then what is triggering [Page//00:21:00] these allergic. Or hypersensitivity reactions that start off the whole immune cascade and which is inflammation through the body.
And what I believe is that we have been looking in the wrong places that. Any conventional doctor will tell you, Well, we don't know why. Some people become autoimmune and some people don't. And we consider it to be unknown e ideology, which means we don't know why it's
Julie Michelson: Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: which is the most unhelpful thing, right?
Because
Julie Michelson: But here we have a lot of medications we can give you. In the meantime,
Elizabeth Yarnell: right? We have these, and for multiple sclerosis, the medications run about a hundred thousand dollars a year. And they have tremendous side effects like I experienced in a lot of different ways. Some of them are even up to and including death from these medications.
[Page//00:22:00] And they're not, The medications are not designed to heal you. They're designed to tamp down your symptoms. We call that palliative care, right? In the medical industry. It's just to give you relief from the symptoms, but it. Doesn't stop what's making the symptoms happen in the first place. And as a functional medicine practitioner, what I'm interested in is the root cause, what is right, what, what's triggering those symptoms.
And what I have found in my clinic is that there is, there are always triggers. There is. Something is triggering that symptom. There is no unknown mysterious symptoms that are just happening. You don't know why, or they show up without rhyme or reason. There is always a trigger. So in my clinic, I call it the inflammation investigator because we are going to delve deep into your body and investigate what.
Is causing what is [Page//00:23:00] triggering your symptoms. And then once we can identify that, then we can remove that. I liken it to celiac disease. So once people who have celiac disease realize that and they remove gluten from their world, then they can effectively live without symptoms and live a pretty normal life.
Julie Michelson: There's a, there's a joke in our family. My, my oldest has, has a history very similar to yours. He, he kind of got a reprieve through most of elementary school where his health seemed pretty good and, and we had been years away from the, the pediatric GI doctors and university hospitals and all the things, and, and then about fifth grade he started getting sick again, not with GI symptoms.
So, Kind of confusing. And he too, you know, would barely make the charts if you soaked them down with those [Page//00:24:00] and really weighed 'em down a lot. And so he was kind of the sick kid in the family and it took as it does, unfortunately, you know, for him, it, it took until they finally biopsied him to diagnose the celiac and.
Now we joke, I mean, so literally at age 12 he stopped eating gluten cuz we knew, and he's now the healthiest one in the family. And the other two have other things that they manage and, and different, you know, different layers to their autoimmunity. But that's such a like clear cut look. This is triggering this.
Stop it, and you can get better. Right? And we can do that. You know, I was, I was waving my hand for those of you listening on audio, I too have celiac. I did not know that until many, many years into my autoimmune journey. And so for me, it's not just gluten, right? I had other triggers I need to manage [Page//00:25:00] to keep my RA symptoms gone.
And, and so, But whether, you know, and, and I, I would say other than Celiac, it's almost never one thing. There's, you know,
Elizabeth Yarnell: I think even with Celiac, it's never just gluten. That might be the most prevalent thing that you can be exposed to just because wheat is, is so much a part of our daily world, but it's never just that. And when you have chronic inflammation as. Celiac and as autoimmune people do it does damage to the digestive tract and that's where 80 or more percent of our immunity comes from and certainly, All of our digestion.
And the more inflammation and damage there is the digestive tract, the more hypersensitivity reactions that person is gonna have. And the more hypersensitivity reactions you have, the more symptoms you have. And now you are adding on another diagnosis of thyroid issues or whatever, [Page//00:26:00] skin issues or, you know, And then we see so many autoimmune patients with a, with a whole.
Stack of, Oh, I have this autoimmune
Julie Michelson: The snowball. Yep. . It's so true, and I, I always, it doesn't matter if, you know, I have these symptoms, but I haven't been diagnosed yet, or I do have that stack of diagnoses already. Doesn't matter that the approach that I know that you take. It works. It it, This is , obviously, if somebody's already listening, you know, they're clued in to the, that there's, there is a, an approach outside of the Western medicine approach you know, that, that actually can provide true healing.
But where do, where do people start? I mean, you mentioned food is, is huge, right?
Elizabeth Yarnell: Food is huge and in fact, Anyone who would like to can go to multiple sclerosis diet.com [Page//00:27:00] and download a list of the top three items. I feel people with multiple sclerosis or other autoimmune or chronic inflammatory conditions should avoid like the plague. And unfortunately these items are so prevalent in our food supply.
So when I talk to people about what they should or shouldn't eat, it's much clearer to talk about what you shouldn't eat.
Julie Michelson: Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: what you should, because as I do the testing, I find some people are fine with blueberries. Some people are not fine with blueberries, and that is unique to each person. But I think universally our food supply has just been overcome and contaminated with chemical alterations.
So my biggest piece of advice is start reading labels. And if there are things on labels that, first of all that you can't pronounce, then you shouldn't be eating
Julie Michelson: Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: But second of all, watch [Page//00:28:00] out for artificial sweeteners. So things like dextrose, superlo asam, high fructose corn syrup. All of these things, these are fake, these are synthetic.
Our bodies evolved on this planet to process the foods, the plants, and things that are on the planet, not that come from two miles deep into the core where we would never have access to them. You know, food dies in colors, For example, were first brought before the FDA in the 1930s and at that time they were sourced from coal and now they're sourced from petroleum and they're really haven't been studies that have found whether these things can what are the safe levels to have
Julie Michelson: There are none.
Elizabeth Yarnell: products?
Right? There really are.
Julie Michelson: No, No. There is no level of petroleum. We should be consuming. I mean,
Elizabeth Yarnell: would [Page//00:29:00] agree.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. And.
Elizabeth Yarnell: petroleum everywhere in all of our skincare products and sun sunscreens and and of course we're breath. If you live in a city, every time you walk out the door, you're breathing in petroleum particulates in the air. So we are just exposed to so many toxins everywhere we turn, and it behooves us to try to eliminate and take control where we can.
Right,
Julie Michelson: love that. And, and we could do a whole nother episode diving
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: outside of our food system. But I, I love the, I always, and, and, and I'm gonna, unless you have, I'll give you the opportunity to say something different, but I always ask. Guests to give listeners that one step. And, and I love the one step that you gave as far as reading ingredients is literally life changing.
And it, as you mentioned, [Page//00:30:00] it's not just the ingredients on your food. That's a, the, I think, most essential place to start. Once you've, you know, kind of strengthened that ingredient reading muscle, you know, every product you buy, you know, don't, you know, don't fall for the marketing on the front of the package.
You've gotta turn it around and read those ingredients. So I, I love that is a life changing one step for sure. Because
Elizabeth Yarnell: I give a second?
Julie Michelson: yes, you can, I said you could
Elizabeth Yarnell: So, yes, read the labels and right now one of my biggest complaints about the food industry is this loophole called natural flavors.
Julie Michelson: yes. Thank you.
Elizabeth Yarnell: It's killing me cuz there's nothing natural about natural flavors. If you were to be able to see the ingredients in a natural flavors, so there can be up to 30 or more chemicals that are creating that, including things that are genetically modified [Page//00:31:00] msg, inflammatory, all sorts of chemicals they don't have to
Julie Michelson: It could be anything which, So I see your natural flavors and I raise you a fra. Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Oh
Julie Michelson: we're talking about, it's the same
Elizabeth Yarnell: into fragrance.
Julie Michelson: it's the same loophole though. Natural flavors on your food label and fragrance on every other label and those, those are the loopholes that those are where companies get to quote, protect trade secrets by not telling you what's in there.
And as you mentioned, it can be this slew. Of things you wanna be avoiding. So I say, you know, I, I could not agree and we didn't plan this guys , we didn't talk about it beforehand.
Elizabeth Yarnell: now, but fragrance. Is under, under recognized because aromas are molecules also. And oh my gosh, don't even start me off on dryer sheets, right?
Julie Michelson: just don't use them. Please don't [Page//00:32:00] use them.
Elizabeth Yarnell: they kill me. They're so toxic, these commercials because they're like, Oh, breathe in the scent of your laundry that we're
Julie Michelson: I would get a migraine just thinking about it.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly.
And so you're bringing in all these, you're breathing deeply, bringing these molecules of these chemically designed fragrances down deep into your lungs where they can cause more irritation and add to your whole toxic load. So yes, dryer sheets are the devil's work. for sure, nobody should be using dryer sheet.
Julie Michelson: But even our, our quote unquote cleaner or all natural, you know, cosmetics and products, I always joke, you know, lead is natural. I don't want it in my makeup. Right. And it could be if it's just labeled natural or green or clean or so the, the label reading really is, Is my, my favorite is my, my daughter when she was in high school, went to the store on lunch break with a group of [Page//00:33:00] kids and wanted to get a snack, and literally called me and said, You have ruined my life.
Like I wanted to eat this, whatever. But then I turned it over and I read the ingredients and I'm, Yes, I, my job of motherhood. Well done , you know?
Elizabeth Yarnell: You know one of my clients once texted me a picture of a label on a jar. She was at the grocery store. She's like, Can I eat this? And I look at the label and, and I, I'm like, What is this? And she's like, It's blueberry jam. I'm like, There are no blueberries on this label.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. If you, There's another tip. If you look at the ingredients and you can't recognize what food it's by, what's in it. Don't buy it. It's, that's, that's wild. So I, I would love to continue our conversation, so I'm inviting you back because I know we have, we have so much more to share in, in this [Page//00:34:00] redefining autoimmunity, redefining ms.
For, for those that are not familiar with you, they need to, to check you out. For everybody that listens on the go and isn't gonna hop into the show notes, where's the best place for them to find you?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So the best place to find really everything about me is at my website, Elizabeth Yanell, y A R N e l l.com, and definitely keep your eyes. My next book is coming out March 1st, about multiple sclerosis and autoimmunity. Really a lot about what we just discussed.
Julie Michelson: Okay. And so it sounds like we have to have you back right around book launch time
Elizabeth Yarnell: Please, please.
Julie Michelson: dig a little deeper into the conversation. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us today. You have shared amazing gold.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Well, I am so excited to be here. We've been talking about doing this for a long time, so I'm really glad that we got it on. We got it on the calendar.[Page//00:35:00]
Julie Michelson: I am as well for everyone listening. Remember, you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting Inspired Living Show. I hope you did a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Please take Elizabeth's advice. I will see you next week.
Elizabeth is a traditional naturopath and a certified LEAP therapist. And today we're talking about how autoimmunity is a wake up call, not a death sentence, and there's so much we can do to reduce inflammation and feel better.
Elizabeth, welcome to the [Page//00:01:00] podcast.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Thank you Julie. I'm excited to be chatting.
Julie Michelson: I am as well. I would love for you to share your inspiring story with listeners because I, This is why we do this and they need to hear it.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Well, for me, my story began in 1999. It was a cold January night. And I had been working on a newspaper article that I was writing. I was a freelance journalist and into late into the night and. At the end I had felt like it was time to go to the bed. I printed out my article. I was pretty happy with my draft, but as I scanned it over as I was brushing my teeth, I noticed I said there are three spots that I wanted to make.
Small changes to the, to the text, but it was late and I was tired. So I thought I'll do it in the morning, and I set it aside and went to sleep. But when I woke up the next morning and set down my [Page//00:02:00] printout next to my coffee, It was almost like a fairy had come in. Not a fair, a goblin had come in in the night and erased big portions of the text.
I couldn't make out the words. I couldn't understand what it was even trying to say on the paper, and I couldn't find the places that I knew I needed to make those edits. And I had a deadline looming, so I had to end. Submitting what I knew in my heart was substandard work, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I had been thinking the night before.
And. I wasn't sure at all what was going on. I felt very confused and frightened. I went into the eye doctor and he diagnosed me with optic neuritis or inflammation of the optic nerve and shuffled me off right away into an MRI where I then came out to a [Page//00:03:00] diagnosis of multiple SP sclerosis and
Julie Michelson: I, I can't, Wow.
Elizabeth Yarnell: of all in the span of a day.
So it happened very fast.
Julie Michelson: That's, that's almost literally the opposite of what you hear most people go through in a journey, you know, where it's doctor after doctor test after test. And, but I'm, I have goosebumps up and down my arms. I just can't even imagine, you know? That felt like, and, and so where did you go from there?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I went and I saw an MS specialist flew across the country by that point. That was a couple weeks later and I was completely blind in my right eye, had lost all sight. In fact, when I got to that MS specialist, he stood me in front of the eye chart on the wall and he said, Okay cover your, cover [Page//00:04:00] your eye.
And, and with my good eye, I could read the whole chart. And then he said, Okay, we'll cover, cover your good eye. And I looked at it and I'm like, I don't even see a. Like, I literally just saw a white wall, like just whiteness completely blind in that eye. It was super frightening because my whole life had been about reading and writing.
I was a journalist. What was I going to do if I couldn't read or write? I was gonna have to find a whole new career. I had to offer my fiance a way to get out of, of. Contract to get married because this isn't what he had signed up for. This isn't a life that he, that he foresaw When he proposed to me there was so much that was so frightening and uncertain in those times.
It was really scary. Besides the fact that I learned that 80% [Page//00:05:00] of. Patients experience significant disability within 10 years of diagnosis. And here I was. I was two weeks before my 30th birthday, and by my 40th birthday I could be in a wheelchair. It was just really horrific. The doctors didn't really have any good advice for me.
They just said, Okay, well, we don't know why MS happens. We don't know how to fix it. We consider it to be incurable. They showed me this chart in their office and basically it's a downhill slope. If you have ms, you start up here like a normal person, and you just go straight to the bottom of the slope until you eventually die from your disabilities and according.
Julie Michelson: for a young woman, huh?
Elizabeth Yarnell: According to the best doctors, there was nothing I could do really to change this. I could try one of the disease modifying therapies. At that time, there were three, they were all injectable. But [Page//00:06:00] they all had incredibly low efficacy rates. So now we're as a population a little more familiar, what is efficacy rate mean?
Well, efficacy rate means right. How well it works and an efficacy rate of like 23% means it probably doesn't work that well. I mean even an efficacy rate of 50% means, well you 50 50
Julie Michelson: Maybe, Right. Maybe coin toss.
Elizabeth Yarnell: And they weren't, They weren't going to cure the disease. They were only going to hopefully slow it down.
So my father is a neurologist. Of course. It's the classic, classic irony of my life that my father is a brain doctor and I get a brain degenerative brain disease. But he really felt strongly that I should go on one of these disease modifying therapies because that was,
Julie Michelson: The only hope right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: and I did, but the side [Page//00:07:00] effects were horrible, horrible.
For three years, I had hives all over my body. A good day was 30 hives. A bad day was 300 hives. By the end of the time that I was taking the medication every time I injected, I would have a seizure. So,
Julie Michelson: and you kept, you kept doing it
Elizabeth Yarnell: well again.
Julie Michelson: time. Yeah,
Elizabeth Yarnell: I was scared because the problem with MS, as you know, is that it's capricious and it's uncertain, and according to the I'm have whining.
Julie Michelson: I, I'm waiting for mine to answer. It's all good. We have full conversations on this show,
Elizabeth Yarnell: Okay. Let's see. If I could just pull her up here
Julie Michelson: and, and I said that a bit to be, a bit of a devil's advocate. I mean, I, when I think of, you know, with my RA journey, how sick some of those medications made me and it, it wasn't until for me. One of the medications, they started running [Page//00:08:00] commercials on TV for one of the medications I was on, and my kids knew I was on that medication.
And you know, then they give you the kind of the side effects at the end of the, at the end of the ad. And when they start talking about lymphomas and cancers impossible death and. Of course I knew that when I was taking the medication, but to have your kids here, you know, I'm taking it so I can stay with them, right.
And be active. And active might be an over overreach, but, you know, participate in their lives. So, so clearly you're no longer on that medication.
Elizabeth Yarnell: No clear. I felt my body was telling me very clearly that I should not be on the medication, that it did not want me to be Take. This. And every time I would ask my doctors, you know, Well, what can I be doing to make my future better? They would say, Well, there's really nothing you can do. You can kind of go sit home on the couch and [Page//00:09:00] wait to, for your body to disintegrate on you and take this drug and hopefully it'll slow down the pace, but it's not gonna stop it.
And I thought, Well, that's depressing. And so I, I'm not the kind of person who. Just sit around and wait for things to happen to me. It was actually my fiance at the time who first suggested to me that maybe my diet might have something to do with the state I was in for the entire decade of, Yeah, he wa
Julie Michelson: Oh, see
Elizabeth Yarnell: he was a He was a competitive athlete and he was into organic foods and cooking from scratch and all these things that I really wasn't into in my twenties.
I, I was a girl on the go and I either ate fast food or or ate out or just skipped the meal. And the only staple foods I kept in my apartment were crystal light, Diet Coke and gummy bear.
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:10:00] Knowing you now I, That's so hard to imagine, but I love that you included that because people look at me. And they think like, You were just born eating this way, . It's like, no, no, no. I had to learn the hard, the very hard way just like you did.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: it is. I'm so glad, really, that you included that you know, sitting down at a meal with you.
Again, I can't imagine you eating any of those colored fake things, but I, I get it. I. I can relate. So where did you start with those changes?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I started first by researching because that's my nature, and I started reading books from like the Mayo Clinic and the ada, and well, what is a healthy diet? Because even my doctor was like, Well, everybody should have a healthy diet, but who knows what that is? And my dad certainly didn't know what a healthy diet was.
He, he's a fan of, of Hershey's kisses that's often [Page//00:11:00] his meal during a workday. So I, I, I studied all these sources and I really was able to see pretty clearly that the common denominators of a healthy diet were that whole foods were better than processed
Julie Michelson: Yay.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Right, which is one of my mantras now, for sure.
Whole Foods are better than processed foods, but then I had to figure out, well, I didn't really know how to cook, so I started taking cooking classes and watching the Food Network, which was in its infancy at the time.
Julie Michelson: So
Elizabeth Yarnell: And right, but pretty quickly recognizing that cooking from scratch was incredibly time and labor intensive.
And I have ms. So fatigue is a hallmark of ms. So that's when I became what I call an accidental inventor. And I invented and actually received a patent for a method of cooking that uses a cast iron [Page//00:12:00] dutch oven and flash cooks at high heat inside the oven. And it uses all whole foods in a variety of combinations, and it's almost foolproof.
You can kind of see it behind. My cookbook as glorious one pop meals, and that's where I introduce and teach this cooking method. And there are more than 70,000 home cooks who enjoy how quick and easy it makes. Cooking from scratch, cooking with whole foods instead of processed foods and eating healthier really in a, in a jiffy it's just super fast and easy
Julie Michelson: I love that. And that also, you know, really breaks that misconception of, you said it, you know, cooking from scratch is a hard, but it, it doesn't have to be. Complicated, and we don't need these fancy, you know, 300 ingredient recipes to sit down and enjoy a really delicious meal. And I, I have found, and I see it time and time again with my clients, I'm sure you do as well [Page//00:13:00] as we get off the processed foods.
And those artificial ingredients, our taste buds change and real food actually tastes delicious without a whole lot of added, you know, flavors and extra steps.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Right. Really clean foods and clean eating as it's, at its core what it's really supposed to mean. Yes. So in my cookbook, I like to say you can build your recipe in about 15 minutes, and then you throw it into the oven for 45 minutes and, and you don't touch it that time, you don't wanna open it at all.
And when it comes out, it looks like you use four or five different pots and pans. It's not a stew, it's not a cat's rule. It's completely different, unique method of cooking, which is why the patent office gave me a patent.
Julie Michelson: I love that. That's amazing. That's how I do my Thanksgiving, Turkey. Don't, don't open the oven. It's in there for the day. Nobody touch it.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Yep. Yep.[Page//00:14:00]
Julie Michelson: So how, how then does that lead to, you know, I'm gonna help other people turn this around and, and. Share with listeners, you know, health wise where you are now?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I'll, I'll start with the spoiler is my health. Amazing. Now, I'm 50 53. I did not, I have not experienced significant disabilities even though I'm 23 years or so past diagnosis, and in fact, I have learned how to, how to trigger flare ups and how to recover from them.
Julie Michelson: I love that.
Elizabeth Yarnell: That's
Julie Michelson: love the way you put that . I've learned how to trigger, which means you've also learned how to not trigger
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly. But you know, even, even me, I am hyper aware of everything that I'm exposed to. Even I can trigger things in myself when I am inadvertently [Page//00:15:00] exposed, but yes so, so my journey started with focusing more on whole foods than processed foods and that. Really changed everything for me and for a long time, I really thought that was probably the answer to chronic disease and multiple sclerosis, is get off of processed foods and get away from all of the additives and preservatives that are in our food supply.
I really feel like our food supply is contaminated, and in fact, I did a TEDx talk about this in 2014 called Poisons in our Everyday Foods. And so I th I still feel like this is a big foundational part of it. But there was more to it. And when I started having babies, my oldest, my first born was really sickly from the get go, and I couldn't figure out what was going on with him because, I made all of his food.
Everything was organic. I even, I made all of his baby food. He was such an [Page//00:16:00] incredible eater. He loves, he loved to eat, but by the time he was six years old, he had fallen off the height and weight charts. He was a chronic vomiter. He would vomit like 20 times a week. It was insane. Just throwing up all the time.
And we took him to pediatric GI clinics. We took him, had his DNA mapped, we had abdominal X-rays done, and nobody could figure out what was going on with him. He would vomit and then he would have this terrible, terrible constipation sometimes go two weeks between bowel movements, which was incredibly painful for him.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Elizabeth Yarnell: And so as a result of this physical discomfort he was in all the time, he really was kind of a dark child, just not super happy. Can't imagine.
Julie Michelson: be
Elizabeth Yarnell: Right . He didn't feel good most of the time and we couldn't figure out what it was. And finally I took him to a naturopath and she suggested that we get this food sensitivity testing done.
And [Page//00:17:00] I said, But he doesn't have anaphylaxis or hives. And she said, Well, that would be food allergies. I'm really talking about food sensitivities that cause inflammation in the body. And I thought, I, This is our last, our last ditch effort. Let's try. And when we got his test results back, it was really telling, because it's still, to this day now, I've done thousand of these tests.
Still the worst I've ever seen was his.
Julie Michelson: Wow.
Elizabeth Yarnell: And he had fully a third of the items that were tested. He was reactive to, and there were some things that we had thought were so healthy for him and so proud of him as a six year old. He loved broccoli. That was one of his favorite foods. Broccoli, really inflammatory for him, as well as things like lemon and garlic foods that we think of are very health giving.
Were inflammatory for him and we're keeping him in a terrible state. But as soon as we changed his diet [Page//00:18:00] and we removed the items that were inflammatory, the change was remarkable. Within two months, he had grown an inch and a half. He had gained 15 pounds. He had started sleeping through the night for the first time at six and a half years old, he had stopped winning the bed.
There was, I mean, just. Symptom after symptom had changed for him. And the biggest change I love to, to kind of testify about was one day when I was walking past his room and I heard him singing to himself.
Julie Michelson: Oh
Elizabeth Yarnell: sing to themself when they're happy. And he, I had never heard him sing to himself before.
So that really, that really was the, the turning point for me when I thought, You know what, everyone. Should do this. This is so, such a life changing experience that it deserves to be more widely available. And I was approaching my [Page//00:19:00] graduation from my traditional naturopath program, and I hadn't really decided what I wanted to do with my degree yet.
And that became very clear that really what I wanted to do was bring this food sensitivity testing to people who were suffering from chronic inflammation and, and autoimmune conditions like multiple sclerosis, because wow, this is life changing, life
Julie Michelson: It is, and as you said, this is not MS specific. This is it. It's funny, when I was first. Practicing we would, if we weren't getting the results we were looking for, I would then do food sensitivity testing. And now it's like, this is the first thing we do. Let's just get the results right away. Especially once you have autoimmunity, you have food sensitivities.
There's, there's no question. And that's a, that's a, We could do a whole episode on that, but I want, I wanna get to. This idea of changing the [Page//00:20:00] conversation around autoimmunity because you say what I say, which is why I have this podcast to begin with, autoimmunity is not a death sentence. It's a wake up call.
And, and so let's, let's talk about, you know, as you see it, what is autoimmunity and why do we need to change this conversation?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So I like to call it, let's redefine, excuse me, let's redefine autoimmunity and, and multiple sclerosis and any other condition that's considered under that umbrella of autoimmunity. So if we look at the word autoimmune, And we take it apart. We can see auto means self and immune means allergic. So autoimmune means allergic to self.
But evolution would say, Mm, na that
Julie Michelson: Not really. Yeah.
Elizabeth Yarnell: be allergic to yourself. So if you're, if you can't be allergic to yourself, to your own body, then what is triggering [Page//00:21:00] these allergic. Or hypersensitivity reactions that start off the whole immune cascade and which is inflammation through the body.
And what I believe is that we have been looking in the wrong places that. Any conventional doctor will tell you, Well, we don't know why. Some people become autoimmune and some people don't. And we consider it to be unknown e ideology, which means we don't know why it's
Julie Michelson: Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: which is the most unhelpful thing, right?
Because
Julie Michelson: But here we have a lot of medications we can give you. In the meantime,
Elizabeth Yarnell: right? We have these, and for multiple sclerosis, the medications run about a hundred thousand dollars a year. And they have tremendous side effects like I experienced in a lot of different ways. Some of them are even up to and including death from these medications.
[Page//00:22:00] And they're not, The medications are not designed to heal you. They're designed to tamp down your symptoms. We call that palliative care, right? In the medical industry. It's just to give you relief from the symptoms, but it. Doesn't stop what's making the symptoms happen in the first place. And as a functional medicine practitioner, what I'm interested in is the root cause, what is right, what, what's triggering those symptoms.
And what I have found in my clinic is that there is, there are always triggers. There is. Something is triggering that symptom. There is no unknown mysterious symptoms that are just happening. You don't know why, or they show up without rhyme or reason. There is always a trigger. So in my clinic, I call it the inflammation investigator because we are going to delve deep into your body and investigate what.
Is causing what is [Page//00:23:00] triggering your symptoms. And then once we can identify that, then we can remove that. I liken it to celiac disease. So once people who have celiac disease realize that and they remove gluten from their world, then they can effectively live without symptoms and live a pretty normal life.
Julie Michelson: There's a, there's a joke in our family. My, my oldest has, has a history very similar to yours. He, he kind of got a reprieve through most of elementary school where his health seemed pretty good and, and we had been years away from the, the pediatric GI doctors and university hospitals and all the things, and, and then about fifth grade he started getting sick again, not with GI symptoms.
So, Kind of confusing. And he too, you know, would barely make the charts if you soaked them down with those [Page//00:24:00] and really weighed 'em down a lot. And so he was kind of the sick kid in the family and it took as it does, unfortunately, you know, for him, it, it took until they finally biopsied him to diagnose the celiac and.
Now we joke, I mean, so literally at age 12 he stopped eating gluten cuz we knew, and he's now the healthiest one in the family. And the other two have other things that they manage and, and different, you know, different layers to their autoimmunity. But that's such a like clear cut look. This is triggering this.
Stop it, and you can get better. Right? And we can do that. You know, I was, I was waving my hand for those of you listening on audio, I too have celiac. I did not know that until many, many years into my autoimmune journey. And so for me, it's not just gluten, right? I had other triggers I need to manage [Page//00:25:00] to keep my RA symptoms gone.
And, and so, But whether, you know, and, and I, I would say other than Celiac, it's almost never one thing. There's, you know,
Elizabeth Yarnell: I think even with Celiac, it's never just gluten. That might be the most prevalent thing that you can be exposed to just because wheat is, is so much a part of our daily world, but it's never just that. And when you have chronic inflammation as. Celiac and as autoimmune people do it does damage to the digestive tract and that's where 80 or more percent of our immunity comes from and certainly, All of our digestion.
And the more inflammation and damage there is the digestive tract, the more hypersensitivity reactions that person is gonna have. And the more hypersensitivity reactions you have, the more symptoms you have. And now you are adding on another diagnosis of thyroid issues or whatever, [Page//00:26:00] skin issues or, you know, And then we see so many autoimmune patients with a, with a whole.
Stack of, Oh, I have this autoimmune
Julie Michelson: The snowball. Yep. . It's so true, and I, I always, it doesn't matter if, you know, I have these symptoms, but I haven't been diagnosed yet, or I do have that stack of diagnoses already. Doesn't matter that the approach that I know that you take. It works. It it, This is , obviously, if somebody's already listening, you know, they're clued in to the, that there's, there is a, an approach outside of the Western medicine approach you know, that, that actually can provide true healing.
But where do, where do people start? I mean, you mentioned food is, is huge, right?
Elizabeth Yarnell: Food is huge and in fact, Anyone who would like to can go to multiple sclerosis diet.com [Page//00:27:00] and download a list of the top three items. I feel people with multiple sclerosis or other autoimmune or chronic inflammatory conditions should avoid like the plague. And unfortunately these items are so prevalent in our food supply.
So when I talk to people about what they should or shouldn't eat, it's much clearer to talk about what you shouldn't eat.
Julie Michelson: Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: what you should, because as I do the testing, I find some people are fine with blueberries. Some people are not fine with blueberries, and that is unique to each person. But I think universally our food supply has just been overcome and contaminated with chemical alterations.
So my biggest piece of advice is start reading labels. And if there are things on labels that, first of all that you can't pronounce, then you shouldn't be eating
Julie Michelson: Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: But second of all, watch [Page//00:28:00] out for artificial sweeteners. So things like dextrose, superlo asam, high fructose corn syrup. All of these things, these are fake, these are synthetic.
Our bodies evolved on this planet to process the foods, the plants, and things that are on the planet, not that come from two miles deep into the core where we would never have access to them. You know, food dies in colors, For example, were first brought before the FDA in the 1930s and at that time they were sourced from coal and now they're sourced from petroleum and they're really haven't been studies that have found whether these things can what are the safe levels to have
Julie Michelson: There are none.
Elizabeth Yarnell: products?
Right? There really are.
Julie Michelson: No, No. There is no level of petroleum. We should be consuming. I mean,
Elizabeth Yarnell: would [Page//00:29:00] agree.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. And.
Elizabeth Yarnell: petroleum everywhere in all of our skincare products and sun sunscreens and and of course we're breath. If you live in a city, every time you walk out the door, you're breathing in petroleum particulates in the air. So we are just exposed to so many toxins everywhere we turn, and it behooves us to try to eliminate and take control where we can.
Right,
Julie Michelson: love that. And, and we could do a whole nother episode diving
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: outside of our food system. But I, I love the, I always, and, and, and I'm gonna, unless you have, I'll give you the opportunity to say something different, but I always ask. Guests to give listeners that one step. And, and I love the one step that you gave as far as reading ingredients is literally life changing.
And it, as you mentioned, [Page//00:30:00] it's not just the ingredients on your food. That's a, the, I think, most essential place to start. Once you've, you know, kind of strengthened that ingredient reading muscle, you know, every product you buy, you know, don't, you know, don't fall for the marketing on the front of the package.
You've gotta turn it around and read those ingredients. So I, I love that is a life changing one step for sure. Because
Elizabeth Yarnell: I give a second?
Julie Michelson: yes, you can, I said you could
Elizabeth Yarnell: So, yes, read the labels and right now one of my biggest complaints about the food industry is this loophole called natural flavors.
Julie Michelson: yes. Thank you.
Elizabeth Yarnell: It's killing me cuz there's nothing natural about natural flavors. If you were to be able to see the ingredients in a natural flavors, so there can be up to 30 or more chemicals that are creating that, including things that are genetically modified [Page//00:31:00] msg, inflammatory, all sorts of chemicals they don't have to
Julie Michelson: It could be anything which, So I see your natural flavors and I raise you a fra. Right.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Oh
Julie Michelson: we're talking about, it's the same
Elizabeth Yarnell: into fragrance.
Julie Michelson: it's the same loophole though. Natural flavors on your food label and fragrance on every other label and those, those are the loopholes that those are where companies get to quote, protect trade secrets by not telling you what's in there.
And as you mentioned, it can be this slew. Of things you wanna be avoiding. So I say, you know, I, I could not agree and we didn't plan this guys , we didn't talk about it beforehand.
Elizabeth Yarnell: now, but fragrance. Is under, under recognized because aromas are molecules also. And oh my gosh, don't even start me off on dryer sheets, right?
Julie Michelson: just don't use them. Please don't [Page//00:32:00] use them.
Elizabeth Yarnell: they kill me. They're so toxic, these commercials because they're like, Oh, breathe in the scent of your laundry that we're
Julie Michelson: I would get a migraine just thinking about it.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Exactly.
And so you're bringing in all these, you're breathing deeply, bringing these molecules of these chemically designed fragrances down deep into your lungs where they can cause more irritation and add to your whole toxic load. So yes, dryer sheets are the devil's work. for sure, nobody should be using dryer sheet.
Julie Michelson: But even our, our quote unquote cleaner or all natural, you know, cosmetics and products, I always joke, you know, lead is natural. I don't want it in my makeup. Right. And it could be if it's just labeled natural or green or clean or so the, the label reading really is, Is my, my favorite is my, my daughter when she was in high school, went to the store on lunch break with a group of [Page//00:33:00] kids and wanted to get a snack, and literally called me and said, You have ruined my life.
Like I wanted to eat this, whatever. But then I turned it over and I read the ingredients and I'm, Yes, I, my job of motherhood. Well done , you know?
Elizabeth Yarnell: You know one of my clients once texted me a picture of a label on a jar. She was at the grocery store. She's like, Can I eat this? And I look at the label and, and I, I'm like, What is this? And she's like, It's blueberry jam. I'm like, There are no blueberries on this label.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. If you, There's another tip. If you look at the ingredients and you can't recognize what food it's by, what's in it. Don't buy it. It's, that's, that's wild. So I, I would love to continue our conversation, so I'm inviting you back because I know we have, we have so much more to share in, in this [Page//00:34:00] redefining autoimmunity, redefining ms.
For, for those that are not familiar with you, they need to, to check you out. For everybody that listens on the go and isn't gonna hop into the show notes, where's the best place for them to find you?
Elizabeth Yarnell: So the best place to find really everything about me is at my website, Elizabeth Yanell, y A R N e l l.com, and definitely keep your eyes. My next book is coming out March 1st, about multiple sclerosis and autoimmunity. Really a lot about what we just discussed.
Julie Michelson: Okay. And so it sounds like we have to have you back right around book launch time
Elizabeth Yarnell: Please, please.
Julie Michelson: dig a little deeper into the conversation. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us today. You have shared amazing gold.
Elizabeth Yarnell: Well, I am so excited to be here. We've been talking about doing this for a long time, so I'm really glad that we got it on. We got it on the calendar.[Page//00:35:00]
Julie Michelson: I am as well for everyone listening. Remember, you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting Inspired Living Show. I hope you did a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Please take Elizabeth's advice. I will see you next week.
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Elizabeth Yarnell
Since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, Elizabeth Yarnell has been on a mission to redefine MS and autoimmunity naturally as a traditional naturopath and Certified LEAP Therapist. She has worked with hundreds of MS and other autoimmune sufferers in her nationwide clinic using unique, personalized non-pharmaceutical therapies to empower them to reclaim their health. She’s a TEDx speaker, award-winning author whose cookbook has sold more than 70,000 copies, a patented inventor, and has been featured on CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS as well as in Good Housekeeping, Health, Martha Stewart Living Radio, and many other outlets.
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