EP202 Fibromyalgia

Transcript Of Today's Episode

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Dr. Martin Sr.: Oh, welcome to another edition of The Doctor Is In, I believe this is episode 202. What I want to discuss with you today, and I think you'll [00:00:30] find it interesting, this by the way is Dr. Martin Sr., is a new study that came out on fibromyalgia and it was found in Psychology Today. I found it fascinating as I read it. They were saying in Psychology Today that perhaps that fibromyalgia was caused by a lack of a mineral, specifically the mineral magnesium. So I found it [00:01:00] very interesting. I've talked about fibromyalgia for poo! I think I wrote my first book in the late 1980s on fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Let me just say this, first of all, I believe fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are, two are the same. The part of a syndrome, I believe that fibromyalgia is a symptom of chronic fatigue syndrome. [00:01:30] I don't want to get into that much detail about it, but there was arguments over that years ago and I concluded and I wrote about this several times, that chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia really were one and the same thing. They were part of a syndrome, a multifaceted syndrome that was caused, and I would think I was the first guy to ever say this, that it was caused by adrenal exhaustion, adrenal exhaustion.

Dr. Martin Sr.: [00:02:00] I often call adrenal as the Rodney Dangerfield of your body because they don't get a lot of respect and they certainly don't get lots of testing because most physicians, I hate to be negative, but most physicians will not test your adrenal glands. They don't check your cortisol. They should, but they don't, and especially in this day and age. Go back into the 1980s and people that were getting... it was like an epidemic. We saw lots of chronic fatigue, [00:02:30] fibromyalgia, they didn't know what it was. They didn't know how to diagnose it. I was seeing it big time in my clinic and I reverse engineer everything.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Why was it happening mostly to women? It was very rare in men, but very, very common in women. And so, I came to the conclusion that there was a hormonal component to it and the one that I saw was the primary [00:03:00] component was that of cortisol, high levels of cortisol over a long period of time. Cortisol is, if I come up behind you and scare you, that's adrenaline comes out. It starts in the brain, of course, with the hypothalamus and then off to the pituitary, then to the adrenal secrete cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone of the fight and flight that is long-term. And it's, your body was never meant to have that.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Women were under a different stress [00:03:30] in the 1980s. Women were now in the workforce much more than they used to be. You add family, you add finances, you add relationships, you add deficient in nutrients. I believe that where Psychology Today gets it right is that the nutrient density were started in the 1970s, that we were on a failed experiment and women happen to be the canary in the coal mine, [00:04:00] that women were not getting enough B12 and vitamin D from animal products. They were eating way too much sugar. This puts an enormous stress on the adrenals. You get cortisol and you get major problems in a multi-symptom way. And then this is what fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Here's some of the symptoms that you get with [00:04:30] fibromyalgia. The central nervous system is affected. You get chronic headaches, sleep disorder; big, big factor is sleep. Where these women never had any trouble with sleeping, now it's a big issue. Dizziness, foggy brain, cognitive memory impairment, anxiety, depression, all of these things come with high levels of cortisol. But not only that, they often had vision problems. They had problems [00:05:00] with the fibromyalgia systemic pain, myofascial pain and fatigue. And oftentimes TMJ, which is a jaw dysfunction, weight gain, they felt like they had a cold that never went away. Virus, very poor immune system.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Sometimes skin disorders and rashes, stomach nausea, cravings for sugar and especially salt and [00:05:30] joint pain in the morning, urinary problems, frequent urination, oftentimes frequent UTIs and this generalized muscle pain that you could just with an overwhelming fatigue. Well, this was a new syndrome back in the 80s and today it's still alive and well because of... we see high levels of cortisol and high levels of adrenal [00:06:00] fatigue.

Dr. Martin Sr.: This particular study is saying, while magnesium is very helpful and I agree, I find that when I often tested these patients that they were very deficient in magnesium, and magnesium is not the only thing but it's certainly worth taking magnesium. So most people are deficient. If you have chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, I recommend you take at least five to [00:06:30] a thousand milligrams of magnesium citrate. I like citrate, but magnesium, even magnesium baths. Taking an Epsom salt bath at night can be very, very effective to help you to sleep. And often deficient in magnesium, that affects your muscles, that affects your brain, anything.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Think of magnesium as relaxing and your muscles won't relax and you're often deficient in magnesium. So, these are the things that [00:07:00] I, when I want to treat fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, I start with lowering cortisol. You need to lower cortisol. One of the greatest, I have a cortisol formula, but one of the greatest things in there is magnesium. The other one is ashwagandha, which is very anti-inflammatory in it. It lowers the secretion of cortisol. And [00:07:30] cortisol, again, is the fight or flight. It does not let the body rest. It will not let the body sleep. You won't get into the deep REM sleep. It'll throw off your circadian rhythm. And so, one of the minerals missing for sure is magnesium, lower your cortisol.

Dr. Martin Sr.: The other wonders, always, every time I ever tested chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, there was always a leaky gut, always a gut component. Remember, [00:08:00] there's a big connection between your brain and your gut. Fibromyalgia, leaky gut, always, I've never seen an exception to what I call it, like an auto immune disorder where they have candida albicans and it's very, very important to take probiotics or broad spectrum probiotic to get rid of the leaky gut. I love bone broth because bone broth has L-glutamine and other amino acids that help to regenerate the lining of the gut [00:08:30] because oftentimes with high levels of cortisol secretion, it erodes the... it creates inflammation in the body and also cortisol, think of it, it's a diversion.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Cortisol will... you're not thinking about your gut when you think of fight or flight, you're thinking of something coming at you and your body reacts to that, it actually overreacts to that and you get a leaky gut [00:09:00] component. This is why it's very important to take care of that. Lower your cortisol, up your levels of magnesium. Lower inflammation, and the diet is very important. When I talk to patients with fibromyalgia, I usually get them to reset, to go on a very low carb diet.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Lower your insulin because what insulin does, insulin, it's job is to store fat and when you store fat you [00:09:30] create inflammation. Fat creates inflammation in the body and you might be skinny and still have a lot of inflammation because your body is creating fat cells and it's visceral fat. It can be fat in around your organs and your liver and around your pancreas. You don't even know it, but it can create a fair amount of inflammation.

Dr. Martin Sr.: You want to lower your inflammation, you need to lower your insulin, you need to up your levels of DHA. [00:10:00] A lot of women especially get fibromyalgia, they're not eating near enough animal product. You can only get DHA omega-3 from animal products like steak and beef and fish. A lot of, again, people that have fibromyalgia, they don't eat enough anti-inflammatory DHA. They eat like [00:10:30] flax seeds and hemp seeds, and those are good. They have Omega-3 but they do not have DHA, and DHA is the tremendous long chain fatty acid that lowers inflammation. I love pine bark. I often use pine bark, it's a very anti-inflammatory supplement. Also, I like curcumin. I love the curcumin with the DHA and that because it lowers inflammation. [00:11:00] Curcumin turmeric, which is the extract of turmeric, it's very good for you, lowers inflammation.

Dr. Martin Sr.: What I find too with fibromyalgia, so it's not just a lack of magnesium, but often times a lack of B12. B12 is an essential vitamin that many, many, many people are low in and especially women, especially with menses and especially if they have dysmenorrhea [00:11:30] or they have bad menses, they are often times deficient in B12 because they lose blood and they think it's only iron. And iron can be a factor, but B12 is essential in building blood and getting inflammation down.

Dr. Martin Sr.: B12 is a very important vitamin that most women are often deficient in, especially if they have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue. Remember muscle, [00:12:00] B12 is a muscle vitamin, B12 is a brain vitamin, B12 is a hormone vitamin, B12 is a digestive vitamin. These are all things that you can be deficient in B12 and so you have to be very, very careful. Often times, I don't think I can think of one exception where I didn't put one of my patients with fibro chronic fatigue because they were low in B12, and the other one [00:12:30] they don't have optimal levels of B12.

Dr. Martin Sr.: The other one that they're often deficient in is vitamin D. And vitamin D generically is so good for inflammation. Think of it for this, okay. Use common sense in this way. Think about when you feel good. When the sun comes out, right? A sunny day. Talk to somebody that has fibromyalgia and they go, oh man, when [00:13:00] it's those dark winter days, when it's humid out and it's raining and it's cloudy and they feel their pain is worse on those days. Why is that? It's low levels of vitamin D. And so, I highly, highly recommend getting vitamin D. It's part of the treatment of fibromyalgia.

Dr. Martin Sr.: You know what? You need [00:13:30] to restore a recuperative sleep. Okay. This, again, this is a common, common symptom is not only the pain, but the fact that they can't sleep. There's often a component of anxiety and depression. And again, when you look at vitamin D, when you look at B12 and when you look at low levels of magnesium, when you look at low levels of DHA in the [00:14:00] long chain fatty acid, okay, and so there's a leaky gut component.

Dr. Martin Sr.: We talked about that in the introduction of broad spectrum probiotics because probiotics, what they do, probiotics of course are tremendous because they help to fight yeast, especially the strains of L. reuteri and L. rhamnosus, it's part of an immune boosting probiotic. [00:14:30] But probiotics do a lot more. They help with the absorption of your minerals like magnesium. Probiotics help with the digestion and the assimilation of your vitamin D and they help with the assimilation of fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A and vitamin K and vitamin E, and these are all things that are tremendous anti-inflammatories.

Dr. Martin Sr.: [00:15:00] One of the things too that I find with fibromyalgia and women, again, and I use women more because they are the ones who get this more is low levels of vitamin A. They're often deficient in vitamin A. Now, you would think in vitamin A that, how can you be deficient in that in this day and age, right? But again, if you look at the soil today and you look at the lie that you shouldn't be consuming [00:15:30] your animal. You see, vitamin A is found in... vitamin A is retinol by the way, and retinol is in eggs, meat and cheese.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Now, the carotenoids, okay, which is a precursor to vitamin A that you find in carrots for example, and there's nothing wrong with that. Those are good, but they're only precursors of it. But a lot of people are low in vitamin [00:16:00] A because they don't eat enough eggs, meat and cheese. They don't get enough of that in their diet and this can create trouble. This is where the skin issues come in. This is where the immune system is weakened. This is where your eye symptoms come in. There's low levels of vitamin A and this is an essential vitamin.

Dr. Martin Sr.: We usually classify deficiency of vitamin A in the third world, but it's happening right here in North [00:16:30] America today because of the people not eating. There's too many people that are just strictly vegetarians or vegans and you're not going to get the retinol, the pro-retinol that you need that comes from the animal kingdom. This is essential and a lot of people are deficient in these things because they're not eating enough of the animal product.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Other symptoms that you [00:17:00] get in fibromyalgia, we talked about the headaches. This is common today with fibromyalgia, is you're not getting enough of the magnesium can be a factor and all the inflammation that is created with fibromyalgia. One of the symptoms that you see are the headaches. Again, get your magnesium, look at the leaky gut component.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Very [00:17:30] important to lower the inflammation by lowering the sugars, lowering your carbohydrates, lowering... Obviously when you do that, you lower your insulin, up your levels of DHA and vitamin D in your diet with the animal products and eggs, meat and cheese. I always come back to that, up your levels of vitamin B12 and make sure you're getting enough magnesium, [00:18:00] and I recommend in terms of about a thousand milligrams.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Now remember, the only side effect of taking too much magnesium; if you're taking too much, you get a soft stool. You get a little bit of diarrhea, then just cut back, lower the amount of magnesium. That's the only real side effect. You're not going to drop dead because you're taking too much magnesium. Your body will tell you when you're taking too much magnesium.

Dr. Martin Sr.: Fascinating study in Psychology Today and they're saying [00:18:30] they're postulating, is it possible that fibromyalgia is a mineral deficiency? I couldn't agree more because one of the things that magnesium is very, very important in is the function of your adrenal gland. Thanks for listening again, and if you have any comments or whatever, please feel free to contact us at info@martinclinic.com [00:19:00] and until the next time.

Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin Jr. and Sr. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.

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