How Stress Causes Brain Damage: The New Science of Cortisol, Trauma, and Women’s Brains | Dr. Jessica Peatross

26:12I Instacarted it. And I took those pills. And it was like in Pleasantville when it went from black and white to color. And the heavens opened up. I was like, wow, OK, I really did need this. And then after that, I thought, OK, I'm able to absorb these, but I know I can't absorb a lot. So, yeah, like you said, to what you said, the vitamin IVs. I did an IV once every two weeks for probably three months until I knew I've got this. My body understands now what's happening. Yeah. And that's something, you know, I was sharing with you. I just had endometriosis, excision surgery. People are like, how are you recovering so quick?

26:46I prepped for a month ahead of time. And people are like, take care of yourself because they see me running around, rolling around, actually. I did, you know, do my thing on stage. But when I go back, I'm doing IV therapy because if I can get my vitamin C up, if I can get some of these nutrients up, my tissue is going to heal so much quicker. Amen. Time and a place for all the tools. And we just want to be able to leverage those. You mentioned narcissists being in relation with a narcissist more than once. This is a term that gets thrown around all the time where people are like, Oh, I mean, people have called me a narcissist online, right?

27:21They don't like something you say. They're like, you're a narcissist. And I'm like, I remember the first time I was like to my husband, I was like, am I a narcissist? Like, do you think I'm a narcissist? And he's like, narcissists don't ask if they're narcissists. Good point. But I do feel like it's such a flippant term. Talk through what does it look like to be in a relationship with a narcissist so people really understand what that is. It's really manipulative and it's very passive aggressive. And it's really for them, it's about winning. You may say, what do they want? What's their purpose?

27:54They don't really know. It's about ego and winning, the ego winning. And whatever that takes, it doesn't matter how you feel. Your feelings are quite dismissed. I was quite dismissed all the time. It wasn't like it was physically abusive, but it was a mental mind game all the time. So really snapping at me a lot, walking on eggshells. It was more about him and what he could get out of the relationship or use me for. I was almost like a stepping stone to his career. And so in the end, I was just kind of tossed away. It was the best thing that could have happened for me to be tossed away from that.

28:27But, you know, unfortunately, when you're stuck in these relationships, you kind of sort of almost have Stockholm syndrome and you'll beg back the abuser sometimes. And I hate to say that I was in that position because my mind wasn't right over time. And so, yeah, being in a relationship with him is exhausting. Yeah. And you lose yourself and you lose your voice sometimes. And it's very scary, actually, to not feel like to feel like you're stuck and you don't know how to get out. That's how I felt. Well, and it's a conditioning that they put you through. Like we train dogs. They're literally training.

29:03And for you, the other thing is that you'll find in abusive relationships is that on purpose, it is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, but you never know when the shoe's going to drop. Like you never know. And that, I mean, I have been in abusive relationships in the past and it is very much something that it's by design that they keep you on eggshells. You never know when it's going to happen so that you are like constantly being like, okay, and let me just like behave and perform because I just, I'm scared. And how your body, you know, protects you. There is, you know, I'm glad we're having this conversation because the, was it Colleen Hoover or whatever, you know, book and I have no interest in reading any of that.

29:49I'm like, I like my fantasy. Okay. Like I want, I want to hang out with like, you know, fairies and vampires and dragons and people, you know, online people are like, Oh, have you read that book? And I'm like, if you've ever lived that, you don't want to read that. I don't need that. And, um, it was a big controversy on how the movie was being portrayed and how it was just very like, um, you know, lots of florals and how, you know, the actress wanted to be like, no I'm a like strong female character and like and it's like you know the thing about knowing you know it doesn't it's not that you are a weak person when you get into an abusive relationship because abusers are really sneaky yeah they're very sneaky they in and um in that movie you know the the male actor uh Justin who does a lot for domestic violence and really is a champion of women and good men everywhere.

30:45He was like, no, the character has to be charismatic. And there was like so much controversy around that. So I want people to understand the character had to be charismatic because they are, they are charismatic. They woo you, they love bomb you, they bring you in and then little things, little things, little things. And then like the headaches I talked about, it builds in builds and builds to where you've been conditioned and you've adapted. And the adaptation is not that you are a weak woman. It is not that you, you know, there's no flaw in you. Adaptation is survival. It is that your body being so wise has adapted for you to survive no matter what.

31:23That's right. And for me, and you know, what I've realized later in later years recently is that women, number one, want to feel safe all this whole time. I thought I got it. I'm always safe. I can take care of myself. And then you get in a relationship and you don't feel safe. and I gained 30 pounds, 30 pounds from walking on eggshells. And you're right. He was playing checkers and I was, or chess and I was playing checkers. That's what happened. Yeah. And as you talk about the weight game, it's interesting because friends of mine who are Ayurveda practitioners always talk about how visceral adiposity, how like the fat coming in can be.

31:59So visceral adiposity for people, that's like belly fat. We see that linked to inflammation. Yeah, it's linked to inflammation and hormonal dysregulation. And from that like ancient wisdom of Ayurveda, it's self-protection and self-love. It's padding you and protecting you from the outside world. And I always have thought that's such a beautiful way to put it because sometimes when women gain weight, it is that safety. It is cortisol is up. Estrogen is misbehaving. Inflammation is up. So on the physiological biochemical level, we can break it down what it is. But the beauty of like you're just putting distance between you.

32:31You're shielding your organs from the threat that's outside. Yes, I love that. That does feel very, it resonates very much so. And you know, another thing I had, I had these like itchy rashes under my armpits. I thought it was my deodorant and all this stuff. No, I was having histamine issues. Yeah, yeah. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with Epglyss, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase, about four in 10 people taking Epglyss achieved itch relief and glare or almost-clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.

33:30can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EpGliss. Before starting EpGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EpGliss and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Histamine all over, puffy, swollen, bloated, brain fog, all that. Yeah. Well, and histamine in itself, I mean, that's a big driver of PMDD. We see a lot of depression and suicide ideation when histamine is far too high. Makes sense. Yeah. And that was me.

34:05Exactly. Resonates. Yes. Yeah. So in this journey about how long is the timeline to like feeling better to feeling like yourself again? Oof, man, let me think here. I would say I got my labs back in November. And so as we speak right now. That's about 13 months later. Yes, totally. And I started to get the B vitamins, the IVs at that point, because I got my labs back. I understood what was going on a little bit more. And I would say fully, it took me almost a year, almost a year. It's been, I've been good now for probably three or four months, a little less than a year. Yeah. Well, you're fantastic right now.

34:49Yeah. I'm so much better. Yeah. I feel like myself so much more. Yeah. And what did you see, like as you peeled back the layers, what were some of the first symptoms to subside? The headaches, which was great. Those were really freaking me out because I don't do that. I actually started to lose weight rather quickly, too. Once I was out of that relationship and I'd mourned it and mourned what it might have been and all that stuff, I really started to come back to myself and be OK being single, be OK being independent again. And, you know, you're not at first. And once that happened, the weight started to kind of shed on its own, actually.

35:24I noticed my hair got thicker. I noticed my eyes looked brighter. My asymmetry, you can see my eyes are much more, they're not as asymmetric as they were before. And so that all kind of, I got my brain back. I stopped snapping at people that I loved, which was great. All that started to happen very slowly, but those were the first things. Okay. Yeah. You went to a brain rehab center. If somebody is looking to go to a brain rehab center, what are some things they should look for? How do you evaluate? Like, how did you find the best people to work with? Yeah, people always ask me this. So I actually just Googled in my area.

36:00At the time, I was in Asheville, North Carolina. So I just started reading reviews. I read lots of reviews. It's very important what the general population says. I always start with one star and work my way back. That's a great plan because there's always a handful of one stars you want to look at. So I did that. And then I looked at all the different modalities they offered. And this is where I have a little bit of an upper hand. We do just because we are in the industry. We know kind of what to look for a little bit. And I went and saw Michael Traford and Apex Brain Center in Asheville. And I went to see him because he was Neurologist of the Year.

36:29And I read all the reviews and they were very kind. And he had a really great staff and they had all the modalities I was looking for. So if someone out there is looking for a brain center to rehab them, just start with, you know, functional brain center or integrative brain center in your area. And then start reading about the doctor and read the reviews and look and make sure they have hyperbaric oxygen and neurofeedback. interactive metronome and cold lasers. It's really important. And make sure they'll stack them for you because stacking those therapies, I think exponentially healed me faster, much faster.

37:05Yeah. I'm always like, if you're going to do HBOT, which is hyperbaric oxygen therapy, red light therapy, near infrared, she'd just be in the chamber with you. And while you're in there, can you go five minutes minimum into meditation? And then when you end that, go binaural beats in your ears. Like there's just, I'm like, if you're going to be in there for an hour, let's like do as much as possible because we're all short on time. And that brings up something really important that I want to say too. I see a lot of people take their phones into the H spot and scroll and scroll and scroll. And part of the reason my brain was injured and I was sick is I was distracting myself scrolling all the time rather than getting in touch in my body with my feelings and what was going on.

37:43Because how can you heal yourself if you don't even know the mirad of symptoms you're really experiencing because you're constantly distracting yourself. And I was doing that because my neurotransmitters were messed up. I couldn't make them because of B vitamins. So I was looking for dopamine hits. And so if you're going to go in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, like Dr. Jolene says, don't take your phone, do binaural beats, do some meditation. Get your brain calm. You know, that helped me a lot. Yeah. Well, and it's also something to the, you know, the meditation piece starts activating parts of your brain.

38:14You're in there, you're getting highly oxygenated, you start listening to binaural beats. Like you are, you are just reinforcing and oxygenating. I also like a whole supplement protocol before you go in of like omega-3 fatty acids, getting antioxidants, these things, because that's all going to the brain. And if we can get, you know, if we can be programming the brain while we're in there, while we're oxygenating, while we're feeding those aspects, I mean, I haven't seen extensive research on this, but you know, in theory, we're going to reinforce the neuronal pathways we want to be building, which is getting more into that parasympathetic activity when we're faced with stress.

38:51Yes. And absolutely the meditation studies, you know, we see elderly people who should have hippocampal shrinking, who don't, who have the same hippocampus sizes, they're, you know, different age and match controls who don't meditate. So, so you can preserve your brain and neurons and everything as you get older through meditation, according to these studies. Tell people why the hippocampus matters. You've brought it up a few times. Yes. It's a very primitive structure, you guys. One of the oldest in the brain, like in the reptilian part of the brain. It helps us with memories and balance and all these different things in the brain.

39:23So it's very important. This is our memory center, actually. It's how we consolidate and helps with primitive functions as well. So, yes. I want to bring up kind of a sore topic. It's going to be controversial. Okay. But you mentioned you relinquished your medical license. Are you willing to tell that story? Of course. Okay. Yeah, of course. It's something that as a medical doctor in the field with my other MDs, I was quite embarrassed about at first. But now I sort of wear it as a badge of honor. Because what are you supposed to do? It's happened. You've got to own it. So, yeah. Back in, when was this?

40:012017, 18. I was just moved to California and got my California medical license and I was doing vaccine exemptions for fragile children. And this was when SB 277 had passed. And if people don't know what that is, tell them. Yes. So there's SB 277 and 276. And they passed them pretty much in conjunction after two years in between with each other, very quickly expedited. And these are laws where they force you to have all doses of the CDC recommended schedule of vaccinations to attend public school in California. And that's about not since they've added COVID vaccines, but before it's about 72 doses.

40:40And I how does that compare to other countries? Right. We have a lot here. We have a lot more. And to be honest with you, I got maybe 15 vaccinations as well. So it's a lot more than what we have. We have now three doses of MMR. We have the Gardasil vaccine. We have all these different ones that have been added. So it's much more than other countries. And like Germany, for example, probably has 12 to 15. Okay. So I, in my heart of hearts, I love medicine and I trust a lot of medicine, but this was something that did not resonate with me. I truly believe that not all children are created equal.

41:16Not all genes are created equal. People have epigenetic changes and predispositions and not everyone can handle the same insult. And so I kind of tag team with a pediatric naturopath at the clinic I was working at. And she really felt strongly about it, too. And we followed the law to SB 277 to a T. You have four reasons. An immediate relative who had some sort of autoimmunity that you had to prove. Seizures or anaphylaxis or something else that got you a reason for the exemption. We followed that to a T. And what they did was they legalized subpoenaing patients' medical records without their permission and opening them up under the Health and Human Services Department, opening them up without their permission to check the legitimacy of the vaccine exemption.

42:01I sorely disagree with this. I know it's law, but I don't think legality equals morality. So, you know, they got me in trouble. They subpoenaed some of their medical records. I thought it was for a divorce case. We sent everything over. and they got us for minutiae, not signing charts in time, not doing the proper physical exam. You know, they wanted us to test every single adjuvant to make sure people were allergic, which the body doesn't work that way. Also, that is so obscenely expensive. Correct. How would a patient be able to afford that in the current paradigm of just extreme healthcare prices?

42:34Right. It's kind of ludicrous a little bit. And so, um, in the end, you know, I hired a lawyer when they came after me, they opened an investigation. Um, and the lawyers just kind of keep the doctors in line. They just kind of say, take your punishment and push you through the system a little bit. Um, and that's what I experienced. And in the end, you know, I had moved out of California and you had to work off your disciplinary action through probation. It was like, you know, 20 hours a week for, for three years. And if you're not in California, they revoke your license anyway. And I don't kiss the ring of a corrupt King.

43:06And I felt like California was really being corrupt with this. So instead I decided to surrender and make a point of it. I was hoping people would interview me about it, but no one really did except for Peter McCullough. And so now I'm very proud of what I did. I think I did the right thing because things are now coming to light about what happened with COVID. And I think the whole vaccination schedule will be questioned very shortly, but I did reapply in Florida. So we'll see what happens. I haven't heard anything yet. Okay. Fingers crossed. So I wanted you to share that because actually there was a spin around you, a lot happening on the internet.

43:43And I'm sure this, this is where I'm like, if people on the internet only knew that actual humans are affected by the words they say, people were saying she lost her license. They took it away because she was so reckless and so negligent. And in fact, they didn't, they said like, we don't, we, they didn't have enough to be like, you're in trouble for these things. It was a, you didn't sign your charts in time. So you have to, you know, therefore you're going to have to do, um, you know, extra continuing medical education and 90 hours of their reeducation, three years probation, a stipulated license with no exemptions.

44:17That was their offer. And I said, here, take your license. I don't need it. And the reason people say that online is because whenever I surrendered, they put online disciplinary surrender, which makes it sound like I had to surrender because I was disciplined. Yeah. Actually, I surrendered by choice under discipline. So that's where the confusion came in. Yeah. Quite a bit. When you say like, so let me just ask you point blank. Are you anti vaccines? Mostly? Yes. Okay. I am. Now I see a time and a place sometimes for some things in certain people and there are risk and benefits to everything that you have to go over.

44:53Okay. But I would not vaccinate my own child. Okay. That's interesting. And what do you think in wake? of the literature that has shown, you know, polio going into remission, life-saving interventions with these vaccines? Great question. Cause that's one thing that people will say right off the bat. What about polio? We eradicated polio. There's a book called the moth and the iron lung. And it talks about a pesticide called lead artesanates and how the polio virus completely followed the path of lead artesanates and how once the hygiene and the lead artesanate, the pesticide was cleaned up, polio was already decreasing before the advent of the vaccine.

45:33So that's an interesting book to see, to challenge people's perspectives, I would say, which is always a healthy thing to do. What do you think makes children fragile that they needed an exemption from these vaccines? Because we know that mostly what is, you know, considered is if you already, you have a vaccine, you have a significant enough reaction is like, that's the gold standard of like, you can get an exemption. So what were you looking at differently? Which I will say that many providers will look at this in the individual conversations. I'm not someone who's anti-vaccines. I'm very much pro, you need to have an individualized conversation with your provider and make sure that things are done in the way that is best for your health.

46:21Right. And I think looking at epigenetics and genetics is a great way as well. I think looking at the family and the family history is very important as well. And, you know, we have to look at how children react to certain vaccines. We have to look at their health and how they, how their body is performing before and after. There was a case in, I believe, 2006 of a, of a, of a child named Hannah Poling. Hannah was the daughter of an NIH immunologist and she got six vaccines in one day and then fell nonverbal. And, And what they found was that she had a mitochondrial disorder and they sued and won what we think is 20 million over her lifetime.

47:00And the courts cared so much about us. They sealed the case from the public and they said she has toxic encephalopathy from the vaccines. That's a different word for possibly autism. Yeah, I don't know. But this is a case that they sold from the public that's now out and you can look it up. And it's just interesting because, yes, she had a mitochondrial disorder. But you know, if you have acquired mitochondrial disorders from epigenetic changes from the environment, they don't have the same repair mechanisms as our DNA. So every case should be looked at individually, like you said, every child.

47:32And why are certain children fragile? You ask that. They have a toxic load, whether it's from birth, whatever that is, predisposed genes, whatever that is, they can't detox as well. They have certain genetic predispositions like MTHFR, whatever it is that's thrown out a lot. Let's use that one because people know that one. But, you know, there's certain things that predispose people. Not everyone can handle something that I can handle or you can handle. I think what I want to see the research go into is looking at is when we talk about autism, looking at autism is genetic. There are genes that can be tested and there's many of them.

48:09And what we see a lot in the autistic population is that there can be a burden of detox capacity. Yes. And so I think sometimes the slippery slope is that people are like vaccines cause autism where it's like you were autistic. You absolutely were autistic. That was that was determined by your genes. However, whether it is heavy metals from, you know, exposure, you ate paint chips like heavy metals or, you know, we laugh about that, but that was a real thing for, you know, major generation. But, you know, wherever you get exposed to heavy metals, environmental toxins or an insult to the immune system, so hyperactivation of an immune system, we can see that the symptoms now come on.

48:54And I think this is why people are like vaccines cause autism, because if you got, you know, a fever and you got the flu or something, you may notice that child. Now their verbal communication has declined. And we've seen that. And I think that's where the research, instead of shutting it out and saying, we're not going to talk about this, acknowledge it at all. We need to actually start to dissect that out and see maybe the vaccine schedule looks a little bit different for this individual. Or maybe we need to employ things to support detox. I love this. That is absolutely intelligent response and is absolutely what the people in the industry that control this need to be discussing.

49:31Yeah, I love that. Well, I think that, you know, I think there gets a push backwards. Like people are like vaccine safe life. It's kind of like the same as like birth control and some other medical interventions. It's like we have these they work, please. Like we need everybody to do this. Like don't don't question it. And we need to have more nuanced conversations. I think bio individual medicine is the future of how we get better outcomes. How can people support their detox capacity? I'm sure they're questioning that. Yeah, I love it. You know, everyone says, oh, you don't need to detox. You have a liver and a kidneys.

50:03Well, you know, what is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease? It's stagnant kidney. You know, chronic kidney disease can be that way, too. So we have to get our organs an optimal peak performance to accentuate detoxification. So, you know, I have some great ways to do that. You know, you want to be pooping two to three times per day, you know. So whatever, you know, supplements or, you know, colonics, if anybody's into that can really help. Sweating is a great way. Sweating in a sauna is a great way to open up a detox pathway. And you can release things like PCBs or heavy metals through the sweat.

50:34And then you really want your liver and bile to be moving because stagnation breeds disease. And so the bile is so important for hormones, so important for certain pathogens. And so the enterohepatic pathway from the gut to the liver is super important to have that working at peak performance. And I love certain supplements for that. I love castor oil packs. There's some nice things you can do. And the liver, one of our most famous filter organs. And if you're from the U.S., welcome to having liver stagnation probably. That's just one in three people. So, you know, that one's really important too.

51:06And I like to use supplements for that one, like nice herbs, bitters, things like that. and like I said I always tell people you know if you're stuck in flight or fight or freeze your body doesn't feel safe to let go yeah I can give you lots of things you can take 50 different supplements but if you don't feel safe your body's gonna contract and hold on so really learning to breathe and feel safe is also a great way to detox honestly yeah well our lungs are a monktery that's one of the ways we move out metabolic waste yeah um so breathing like I you know I think that maybe I've had like a few people on the podcast who haven't mentioned breathing.

51:44So I'm like, it is one, it is that important y 'all. Yeah. It's like 70 % of toxins are neutralized by the lungs. It's one of the first lines of defense for people and nobody breathes right. It sounds so intuitive, but we get stuck in tattoos or patterns where we don't breathe right. Yeah. So I will link to Dr. Navaz Habib's episode where he took us all through breathing exercises and what you can be doing. So it'll be a nice little tag on here. You can link that for me. I'll watch that. Well, thank you so much for your time, for sharing all of your knowledge, sharing your personal story and for being willing to go there in controversial topics.

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