In this revealing interview we discuss how:- Maya has been diagnosed RA six years ago- She started Methotrexate and went off in order to get pregnant- After three months she got pregnant and was able to breastfeed her child with very little symptoms- During her second pregnancy she had to take prednisone because the symptoms started to come back heavily- She found the Paddison Program and after the pregnancy started with it- She makes charts to keep track of the progress- Once on the Program the flares went from every seven to 10 days, to every 20 days and finally no flares at all- Bikram yoga has played a major part in her recovery- She’s taking probiotics in supplemental form and that helps her a lot- Now she’s not on any medications and is back in control of her situation
Clint: Today I’ve got a guest from New Jersey the beautiful Maya is here to chat with us and talk about what she’s achieved not just with raising her child but also overcoming and getting on top of rheumatoid arthritis. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Thanks for joining us.
Maya: Thank you for allowing me to be here. It’s such an honor.
Clint: Yes! So we’ve got lots to talk about. You and I just did a brief three and a half minute recap on your situation. Before we started recording. I want to hear it all fresh. I want to hear this. It’s exciting to me because your story is unique and that you reached out to us initially when you were breastfeeding or pregnant around about that zone in your life. And then you moved across and followed our program more stringently and you’ve got amazing results so let’s hear your story.
Maya: Okay. I mean prior to reaching out to you I was it was a struggle.
Maya: I mean we all know what that’s like. I actually have two daughters so I had a little one at the time and it was just a struggle. I mean, I have to (inaudible) carting them around to daycare in and out of the car seats was a struggle. I had morning stiffness throughout my body every morning. I was getting major flare say probably every seven to 10 days in muscles and joints all over my body. I mean from my shoulders to my ankles, my knees, my hips, my elbows, my wrists, places I didn’t even know I had joints, I’m like there’s no joint there but, you know, major, major pain. And I was trying to do it without the medication. I was on Methotrexate you know earlier on when I was first diagnosed you know before having children.
Clint: How long ago was that Maya?
Maya: I was diagnosed almost six years ago now.
Clint: Okay six years and if I may just sort of fill in some areas on this story. How how old are your kids. Or should I say how long did you have rheumatoid before you had your…
Maya: Yeah. My younger daughter is three and a half. I was diagnosed at 30 just a couple months after turning 30 and I had my first daughter in 2014. So about four years.
Clint: Okay. Okay. So you experienced the whole sort of methotrexate and trying to battle through. Well well let’s back up. How did you get pregnant because you’re not allowed to get pregnant on methotrexate.. So did you do some family planning there?
Maya: I did. They worked at my rheumatologist to kind of wean off the drug and she said you have to be off of it for three months before you can even try, you know. So we did. We weaned it off, clean for three months and then we tried and we were very lucky we got pregnant within the month after that.
Maya: So,,.
Clint: Wow! This is close to my heart too coz I was in the same situation trying to get off that drug to family plan. So tell me now when you came off the methotrexate, how were your symptoms leading into trying to get pregnant.
Maya: I actually did great. I think we caught it very early. So while I was on the methotrexate I did great. And while I was off of it I did great. I have very little symptoms you know poking through and I went into remission during that pregnancy and everything was pretty smooth, I would say. And after I gave birth to her I was able to breastfeed her. But then symptoms started to pop back up and it wasn’t until my second pregnancy which I was hoping I would be in remission just like my first which was not the case. As for the second pregnancy was completely different. And that’s when you know I was forced to take up.. not force but I had to take prednisone during that pregnancy which breaks your heart because you don’t want to have to do that. So they would say the disease is kind of progressed and escalated you know in those you know four or five years when I was first diagnosed to now.
Clint: Now tell me how were your eating habits during pregnancy because we notice you know particularly in Western countries when ladies get pregnant, they almost have a right of passage to then eat like crazy as if like they’re not just feeding you and your baby but you and your baby and every other person in the village. So did you sort of really gorge out on food or did you just eat a little bit more.
Maya: Well the first go around I did. You know, it was my first pregnancy and I was like oh okay. And it’s a free pass like you said and I have been gluten free because they had read about that piece of that affecting the RA. So I’ve been gluten free. Coming up pregnant I was craving bread. I don’t know what they’d been doing it for so long I was eating bagels with cream cheese. I was having ice cream everything all night. Lucky enough that I didn’t..
Clint: Didn’t do anything!
Maya: It must be very early on I think. The second thing around I was there I had to be dairy free gluten free I was trying everything while still you know taking what I needed to to be healthy for the pregnancy and that much more strict you know no dairy, no gluten and very little meat. But I did have seafood every now and then. I was you know doing your green juices at that point in my life. Yeah. Well very different.
Clint: Now tell me the common thing that we see is that after a pregnancy rheumatoid really starts to flare up to use that word or get worse two to three months after having the delivery. Did you see any kind of pattern like that?
Maya: I did, you know after my first was born and during the breastfeeding you know little flares would pop up here and there and then progressing a little you know every month there will be a little bit worse, and a little bit worse. But I knew I did not want to go back on the methotrexate which was against my rheumatologist’s wishes because I did do so great on at the first go around but my eyes were now open to the fact that this drug is no good if you can’t get pregnant on it. You know what is it doing to my own body. And I had also in between that time gone to you know again Eastern medicine doctor and this is after I had given birth to a healthy baby girl he told me I would have advised you to stay off the drugs longer than three months. I can’t believe you know she only told you three months.
Maya: Now my eye opened to the fact that this drug is no good, so I really did not want to go back on it. So just trying to do everything possible to you know be drug free and eat the right way. But I really did not know enough at that point of what really needed to be done.
Clint: Okay. Yeah. Three months is definitely like an absolute minimum for us. We waited 12 months after I stopped methotrexate to start trying to have a family not just because of the scariness of the drug toxicity but also because I was still kind of quite weak. My muscles were still not very strong. I felt a little bit frail even though I’d gotten rid of most of my joint pain. And so I just didn’t feel like a man enough. If that made sense yeah. I just didn’t feel like I was worthy of of trying to have a child at that point. Now we’re in a different situation because you had been given the green light, go off the drug and then quickly try and get pregnant. I’d worked like crazy for years to get off the drugs slowly and then I felt like, oh now I can just rehabilitate my body a bit more. The pressure wasn’t on, the clock wasn’t ticking. So we took a lot of time and then it took us five months to get pregnant after that. So we were about a year and a year and five months or so after stopping before we fell pregnant.
Maya: That’s the father side too, and even the mother who has to carry the child. Even you cleaning out your body.
Clint: Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Clint: Now so let’s talk about when you started to make some changes along the ways that I talk about.
Clint: So tell us when that started to be brought into your life.
Maya: Sure, as I mentioned the second pregnancy was very different and the disease was just progressing and progressing. I was on the prednisone during the pregnancy which I did not like and then I got to a point probably about seven months or so where this was enough. You know I needed to find a solution. I just knew in my bones that there had to be something else out there and I’m looking, looking, looking. Somehow by the grace of God I landed on your page and was you know instantly I knew that this is what I had been searching for and I was so excited and downloaded your program and then realised I couldn’t start it until after I was done you know with the pregnancy and then breastfeeding. So I had a sit on your program for a full year. But during that time you know it just progressed and it was just such a struggle, you know after my second daughter was born. So now I had a 2 year old and a newborn and just I couldn’t do certain things other mothers should be able to do, you know changing a diaper and playing and you know just all of that I had to rely heavily on my husband, you know a lot of them make me wake up. My hands didn’t work I couldn’t lift her out of the crib and you know, things are just break our heart. It was really really a struggle.
Clint: Can you just go and do a little bit more like where the symptoms were and I know you said your hands we don’t like to think about it normally but for the purposes of comparison I mean yeah, what was happening in your body in detail?
Maya: I mean it started when I was diagnosed it started and just the hand and you know I woke up one morning and a knuckle is swollen and I thought I must have broken it. I don’t remember hitting it but it got broken or fractured, it’s very painful and I can’t move it at all and that’s when I was diagnosed and it kind of spread very quickly.
Maya: I didn’t really have morning stiffness in the beginning but I was getting major flares, on my shoulders and my elbows like all these large joints and they would last a couple days you know, like even though the flare level would go down but they were still painful and annoying and there were days you know my husband had to carry me to the bathroom you know and just, it was horrible. It was really really horrible. And then as the disease progressed, I was starting to get the morning stiffnes and I was like Oh okay this is what everybody else is talking about you know this is horrendous so that combined with the flares was just, it was way too much.
Maya: You know, all over. It was all.. The morning stiffness maybe started in my hands and then I would notice it on my feet and then one morning I woke up, my body was just very stiff. Also you know, like easing into the day took a very long time you know. And the small kids on a full time job like I don’t have time to be you know, I have no. And then just easing into the day you have to be on it and ready to go now.
Clint: Absolutely. Goodness, you got it.
Clint: Well yeah. Okay well okay. So yes and that’s where I started to come in to or you started to come in to sort of my radar. I saw an e-mail from you and we talked about needing to not do the elimination part of our program right away. We talked about eating more of a diverse diet both for yourself and for baby putting baby as a high priority and then to postpone doing the program from start to finish the way that it’s laid out until you had finished breastfeeding. So tell me tell me how that went.
Maya: Yeah.
Maya: So I was doing a modified version of their program and just introducing the green juices alone right away I noticed the difference. The flare, the frequency of the flares was diminishing a little bit. There were still that morning stiffness here and there and the occasional flare but I would say the time of the morning sickness was sure and just things, like things were decreasing you know, pain level wise. So it was great and I knew that you know if this is already happening and I’m not even following your program exactly yet, I knew that I was on the right track so it was great. Yeah yeah. And I started it fully after I’ve officially done breastfeeding my second one.
Clint: Okay. Now how did that go, the first attempt.
Maya: Ah, the first attempt I started in May of last year 2017 and I failed miserably. I had as much knowledge as I thought I had at that time and as I said I had your program for a year or so I was able to read through it and really set myself up, get myself up for this. I really didn’t know enough. I didn’t have enough patience and understanding of how long this process really takes. I started it in the first 12 days everything went away and I felt amazing and I said oh this is great I’m cured, I’m fit, it’s 12 days, that’s all it took! So I did kind of jump around into introducing food. I think the first thing I introduced was like an avocado which was like you know further down your program. Cause I thought I was you know, As your symptoms fade, you’re so excited that you kind of get how bad you had before you don’t wear everything. And right after the 12 days, morning stiffness came right back then right back then came right back with know now. Yeah I went there a couple months of and I was really confused at that point you know you listen to a lot of like forums on the Facebook groups and things like that and you just get so much information thrown at you and you don’t know what to listen to ,you know this person did great on paleo, or this person today AIP.
Maya: So I did kind of jump around and try different diets. I did try AIP diet and that wasn’t working and I was just getting very confused you know listening to all this noise of all this. This makes this person flare. Maybe don’tI need that. You know it’s never ending that you just have to stop, focus on yourself and you know what works for that person may not be what works for you, what makes that person flare may not be something that makes you flare, you really need to listen to your own body. And I said ok, what do I do because I’m miserable at this point I’m not eating all these foods because I don’t know what’s causing what. I have no idea.
Maya: You know there’s all these people that say they couldn’t identify their food triggers. I wasn’t doing that because I was introducing a new food every single day and actually giving my body time to respond and see how it responds. I’m all over the place. So they said you know what, the last time I felt great was when I started the Paddison Program those first 12 days. Let me restart it, let me restart it and really focus this time and really do exactly how the program was laid out. That’s what I did. I started again in September. I ah,for me I need charts. I have them right here.
Clint: Awesome. Look at that, that awesome!
Maya: I put day 1 to like 120, and put all the foods that you were going to be eating that day and that would help me stay on track because as much as I want.. you know Day 12 I’m feeling good again I want to introduce something, I said no, no, no book where you’ll be 10 days from now, 20 days from now, by Christmas I’m going to be eating this much food again.
Maya: So, it was difficult to cut out so much in the beginning from me and you know just having that eye on the prize and seeing where I would be able to be that helped me stay on track this time around and that those are my goals. I could see you now, week after week where I would be and I’ve never looked back. I’m in a place now I have been drug free for months, I have no pain, I can play with my kids, I can drop them off at daycare, I can exercise four times a week. It’s amazing! It’s amazing and I don’t miss any of the foods that I’ve had to cut out. The cravings have changed you know, I used to crave sugar and coffee and now I actually crave vegetables like sugar for like I’m definitely vegetables you know like, it probably where some of my symptoms even started you know, but the cravings just change and you listen to your body more and it’s amazing. It’s amazing and I can’t thank you enough! It’s all because of the program. You know, I think..
Clint: Well done, well done. Makes me just so happy to hear this, you know. It’s just, it’s amazing how these changes can happen you know, and it’s amazing how delicate the path is and how narrow that path is through the mountain. It is this is a this is a very very delicate process and it’s why most people shrug and say diet doesn’t matter or they say that it’s too difficult you know because if you don’t get everything right then diet doesn’t work. You see. So we saw that after 12 days unless you get it perfect, this will fail too.
Clint: It has to be perfect
Maya: Right.
Clint: You know yeah. And I think that you know you mentioned something about you know listening to your own body and what that sort of falls into the category of when I think about this from a big picture is it’s under the category of just taking responsibility. So when we’re on Facebook or when we’re on a free online forum and just looking around and listening to others who are just putting a tiny fraction of their knowledge or experience into one or two little sentences. It doesn’t have a framework, it doesn’t have some kind of positioning at all it’s just a comment from someone we don’t know how many drugs they’re on or what they were doing before or if you know, it’s just all out of context and what we need to do is take responsibility, like you said and listen to your own body and follow a path of highest success probability which is to make it all plants make it low fat, make it whole foods and start with alkalizing foods and work your way through from there like our program and you’re got a great example of that.
Maya: Yeah. I would. I would absolutely recommend the program to anybody.
Maya: And just I hope that everyone else can find success because it is absolutely possible and as much as you might be in a dark time and thinking that it can’t be possible, you know, just do whatever you can to get out of that and start a program and really in months you could be where I am now you know, I recommend it to anybody, it’s amazing, it’s amazing!
Clint: Let’s go through the way you did this. I saw that wonderful picture that you’ve got there. It looks to me like it’s a, it’s been printed on A3 large paper and it looks like it’s done in colour. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve created there is that something you’ve used the works office printer to do .
Maya: I don’t normally keep a printed copy but I printed it show to you. I only just keep it at work. And I would no list the days of the program you know now I’m on day 162 or something like that. Yeah. What I introduced that day, what food I was introducing, and that explained my symptoms. I could see the first day, my left point or my left wrist 25 percent, my right of my foot, and morning stiffness lasting 45 minutes you know, and it’s great. Now looking back on this, I hadn’t printed it, my hand really scrawled up when I was doing it on my computer either. But looking back, it really shows how far you’ve come you know and I could see you know as the months went on no morning stiffness or I could even see the pain levels, the percentage is decreasing you know, and I would try to less foods that I thought could be triggering. And so those I would highlight in red you know, because I could kind of see how long it would take for me to kind of flare up from that and it is color coded. I did it based on your food introduction. So the first 12 days I put in blue and then the next whatever you know so I could kind of see what kind of food I could be introducing at that point. I would also list like an additional comment ahm that I try to exercise that day. How did I do. Did I take any medication that day, you know, things like that. And then I have little notes like a Thanksgiving I have in here.
Maya: So I know you know those could have caused some flare ups cause I ate. You know even though I stayed on the program my sister was fantastic. She made food. You know everything that I could eat. My diet and what food I was able to eat at that time. But even though you’re not doing the cooking so you know you never know you know. But things like that as any sort of comments I would introduce. Yeah, so that chart and help every day come into work and just quickly jot down. You know what are you eating that day and my symptoms and that’s it.
Clint: That’s exactly what I did, exactly what I did. We had small different ways of representing the information but that’s also what I did. It’s kind of an elaborate. It’s an elaborate food diary. In a kind of spreadsheet format because a lot of the things that we’re eating each day are the same as we go down so we don’t have to list them all again we just have to list the new ones. Yeah right.
Maya: Right. I figured that out later on.
Clint: And I love the comment section because that’s exactly what I still do to this day with my gym book so I take little books with me to the gym. There are only about the size of my palm. You know about this big, and I can fit them in the glove box of my car and I go into the gym and I create a table just like you’ve done there. And what I do is I write down the date, my weight, which gym I’m at because we travel a lot in different gyms. And then I write down across the top. I’ve got all the different exercises that I do that I know are safe for my body given its physical limitations from the joint damage that I had. Okay so some things I can’t do and I believe all I’ve found over the years I can do about 16 different things that helped me feel strong, feel good and don’t hurt the damaged joints in my elbows to my left knee. And then I do I write down how many reps are there and so on. And over the right hand side I have comments. And if something for instance just irritates my wrist because I’m trying to lift a lot of weight or at the moment I’m trying to do chin ups so I’m trying to do as many chin ups as I can because it’s something I’ve not been able to do for like nine, 10 years or something.
Clint: And so I noticed that things can tweak a little bit because there’s a lot of my own body weights a lot for me given that I what I’ve been through. And so I made comments all the time and so I’ve got what I’m doing all my comments. If I do bikram yoga class that day instead I just write bikram, you know. And of course I’m always documenting this stuff because once we have a condition that affects our body to this extent whether it be inflammation or dealing with damage or whatever we’ve got to keep track of what we’re doing because the evidence is there when we go back and look back and we are able to see trends and see identify causes of these things. So I’m sure I still do it to this day now in the gym.
Maya: Yeah it’s amazing.
Maya: The other thing I have on this is a second tab and I had images of my hand you know, day 1, this is what my hands look like and say you know 15 days and 30 days and so I can see literally the inflammation in my fingers going down. I recently had a ring on this finger that was stuck, I couldn’t get it off because the inflammation was so bad. And finally it it came off the inflammation little by little went down and down so they’re able to get it off and looking at those pictures that’s incredible too to you know, being able to see the progress you’ve made there. So if anyone found this at work they’d be like what is this spreadsheet? But you need to, you need to go into that then you document all of that, otherwise you’re at you’re I think get thrown off track like I did my first go around because you’re not realizing maybe what foods could be triggering you, more exercises like you mentioned you know you have to really understand that and listen to it. And then the other thing is introducing foods like giving your body time to see if you have a reaction to them you know and for me I was doing a new food every single day and that was too quick for me because I noticed before the flare or inflammation would happen and the next night or maybe even the second morning after eating that food, so..
Clint: Wow okay
Maya: I felt the first go around and I was just so excited to be able to eat different foods again. Then I started doing whatever I wanted and that you could, you can’t do that. You have to take it slow, have patience and know that in a couple months from now you’re going to be in an amazing spot.
Clint: Awesome! Now just some tips for others who are doing the same thing that you just did so well. Tell me, did you eventually just decide Look I’m going to wait two days for every food just to keep it consistent or what to do with it?
Maya: Well at first I was waiting every two days and then I did have a reaction to a food. And once I (inaudible) it was the last (inaudible) once I knew how long it really takes my body to react, then I had a baseline, now I knew I could wait about 36 hours I was doing. So one morning I would do a food and then the following day and night I would introduce them.
Clint: Interesting. Yeah.
Maya: Okay okay that’s good. That’s good. And I want to ask you about your pain scoring this 25 percent 50 percent thing. What does that mean?
Maya: That was just how much pain I was in. What I rate it to be, you know, the inflammation level. I would say you know listening to other people story that maybe my condition was a little better than most cases you know luckily they caught it earlier or what. But it was bad enough where it was you know puffy and painful the bend you know like a 25 percent 50 percent would be pretty bad.
Maya: But you know 5 percent 10 percent was a little less then I was rating it down to even point five percent.
Maya: Right now I’m at a point five percent in a couple of fingers that it. And you know and that’s like very minimal you know in five minutes I move it and I’m on my way you know my day is ready to go. So yeah. Yeah. So it’s my own gauging system I guess but whatever however you want to rate it, I know you did like a one to 10. Yeah. You know whatever works whatever works. You know how your pain was that day. And what are you going to do.
Clint: Yeah. And you know some people would say but but it’s not quantitative. Well it’s the best we can do given the circumstances. Because. As long as it’s relative to previous markings then it doesn’t matter. Like for instance if someone writes Just a little bit of tenderness like a 6 out of 10 which would probably be a little bit high as long as one it drops it drops to a three. Then we’re good, right, then we can see comparative figures and that’s this isn’t for our doctors it’s not for our family.
Clint: This is just for us and it works well as you’ve just demonstrated.
Maya: And as you can see the numbers going down yeah then you’re doing something right, you now and I can tell you that it jives with my blood test you know I can tell you when I felt that I was at my lowest and the pain was at its greatest, my blood levels were at their highest at those times you know and it’s all right there you know. Now I just had my blood test back on two, three weeks ago. Everything’s all within normal range so it definitely relates to how I’m feeling now for sure.
Clint: Awesome! I’ve got three more questions at least cued in my brain I might think of some more. So the first one is did you do you have any tips on how to get off prednisone or did you find that it was relatively straightforward once you were stricter with the program.
Maya: Yeah. I mean I think it was straightforward you kinda know when you need it and when you don’t. I was not taking it regularly. I was only really taking it when I needed.
Clint: That’s the difference.
Maya: Yeah.I didn’t need it. There were certain days I you know had a lot of morning symptoms but there was no flare and you (inaudible)the morning stiffness and you’re fine. But during a flare when it was just so painful and you can’t lift your arm or something you know getting in the way I would take it for maybe three days at a time so I stopped it when the flare stopped.
Maya: You know as soon as I got on your program and the flares went from every seven to 10 days, every 20 days and no flares at all. That’s when I kind of weaned off of that. You know the last one I took was the end of November I mentioned Thanksgiving it was probably something I ate then you know kind of threw me into a flare and that was it. You know like I said I touched it.
Clint: Yeah good. And you know my comment about that’s the difference. What I mean by that is what gets extremely challenging is when people are on it for multiple months consecutively or even even several weeks consecutively it starts to get a little bit delicate because at that point even then it can be hard to taper off. And it becomes this addictive sort of almost like your body depends upon it. And when you’re taking it intermittently like you were almost like people do with their nonsteroidal and inflammatory drugs I think that’s a different set of circumstances.
Maya: Yeah, You know in the visual eyes you really got to. what kind of you need to do, you know.
Clint: Yes, cool. Now exercise how much importance did you place on it and how did you use exercise?
Maya: Exercise has been amazing, you know prior to your program I had always been a runner.
Maya: And that’s really it. I would just run or occasionally go to the gym and do some like the group exercise classes. But bikram yoga I went you know per your suggestion has been incredible.
Maya: I go now you know four times a week and I just this morning when I drag my husband his first time going just because it’s great, it’s really beneficial I think whether you have RA or not I think you know obviously it’s beneficial. If so many people do it and have such success with that but something with the heat and just making sure you are continuously moving your joints and muscles that don’t always get used to you know just running.
Maya: I wasn’t really using a lot of different muscles so it’s been incredible, you know bikram yoga I especially recommend and I think that’s you know crucial to success also.
Clint: Awesome! Another reminder to people is if they didn’t need it already about the importance and the most powerful effectiveness of Bikram yoga and if you didn’t have Bikram, would there be anything else that you could recommend to someone who can’t access it.
Maya: Even just stretching I think helps you now and just paying attention to the smaller joints like stretching your fingers and doing you know hand exercises is helpful for me also. But I think again it’s individualised, you have to find what’s working for you, you know be it kickboxing or soccer or anything you want to do. It just kind of move your body but I do think it’s so important to continously move you know, those muscles and making sure because otherwise if there is a couple days like that I don’t exercise. I do kind of notice things are stiffening back up you know. So I definitely think it’s important. But yeah what exercise I don’t know. Again listen to your own body and figure it out you know.
Clint: Yeah we’re definitely in the fortunate category and that you’ve got a bikram studio near enough to you that you can get to. But even having that, a lot of people still have that opportunity and they still don’t go so you have to take the action. As you know it takes up a lot of time. It consumes a lot of energy. Sometimes you feel exhausted sometimes after class. If you had a big day or you’ve eaten too close to class or you haven’t drink enough water, or you’re tired when you’re went. Whatever. So it’s still I mean just because it’s nearby doesn’t mean that you’re doing it. And so I say with Bikram Yoga the hardest part is getting there.
Clint: Once you get there, then you know they walk you through it. You just have to tune out and listen. But getting there, so many barriers. Sometimes you do anything to avoid going sometimes you know.
Maya: That’s what I used to say. I think even before I was diagnosed. Like when you’re looking at a food menu, I always hated vegetables but the hardest part is ordering them out. Once it comes, it’s delicious. It’s as delicious as the other foods in the menu. The hardest part is just order, you know that just go just go over and the rest will come you know for sure.
Clint: Wonderful.
Clint: Well I want to ask you about did you find that there were any crucial supplements to take or do you feel that they only played a small part.
Maya: Supplements were huge for me actually. The first go around in your program or even the second time on the second time I started your program and found success. The first couple days or even the first month you’re not eating a lot of food. You know you really need to give your body that time to cleanse everything out. For me. I do I take a ton of different supplements that are helpful to me and I take the glutamine, I’d take bromelain, Vitamin B and Vitamin D you know, a multivitamin a whole bunch of others.
Maya: She’ll put me on almost like a cat’s claw which I think is great. I don’t know what’s doing what. I don’t want to change anything. I don’t know what’s going on but that one I really think of when I’ve run out of it. And there’s been like a couple days I go before the new order comes in, I noticed things dipping a little bit so that would be helpful. But yeah. For me the supplements were crucial for me. I needed them, but now that I’m at a point where I’m able to eat so many different foods, I may start weaning those out you know and seeing how I do so I can. because it’s expensive..
Clint: Yes it is, it is expensive.
Maya: What I actually need and what I don’t.
Clint: Did you have any probiotics or any fermented foods in your regime.
Maya: Yes. Probiotics for sure and you know finding the right one, I’m currently on like 4, the omegas 4. like I threw you have been introduced to all these other doctors and things like that and I found a couple videos on probiotics. I mean I’m on like a four based one and I guess that’s what it’s supposed to be beneficial toward you know it actually gets to the gut area that I need to get and actually can populate and derive but who knows it could just be a bunch of marketing but I’m in a good place and the one I’m on now works, but you do have to find the right probiotic for sure. Fermented foods. Something I didn’t mention. I actually got through that holistic after food sensitivity testing done because I was having a hard time making heads or tails of it and I know those aren’t a true science I know. But just to see and one of the things I reacted to was (inaudible).
Maya: I couldn’t really have fermented food because I get (inaudible). For 3 months, you know they said lemonada and then kind of bring things back. And so it’s been it’s been four months now since I haven’t had that. I started with. I tried to Kombucha the other day to see how I did with that. So I haven’t really done too much of introducing the fermented foods back in my diet but just cause I’m scared, I’m scared to eat this foods again that I didn’t have reactions to, you know.
Clint: When you can’t get better results than what you’ve currently got there’s no real room to improve then there’s no real need to add those foods back in. Those foods replace or substitute your own insufficient gut bacteria. Okay. But if you’re able to digest, which means ferment right, to breakdown or to metabolize the foods that you’re eating then you have the gut bacteria already to do it. Okay. So I’d be in no hurry at all to go and challenge something that subconsciously you feel nervous about because that’s only going to potentially rock the boat.
Maya: Yeah yeah. Okay. It makes me feel better.
Clint: We know there are we know there are health benefits to consuming foods that are rich in healthy bacteria but it’s such a delicate ecosystem inside that. You know.
Clint: I personally would be satisfied with the results that you’ve got which are tremendous I mean you’re not on any medications you’ve got barely any symptoms and you have control over your situation. I mean you’ve hit this point of complete confidence and control, again. And that’s the ultimate goal and therefore you know, I wouldn’t be in a hurry either. And you’ve got your probiotics that you’re taking in supplemental form.
Maya: Right.
Clint: If you weren’t as good as you were then you would be in an exploration phase but you’re not. So why change it. Nothing beats results if you’ve got the results nothing needs changing unless your diet is nutritionally incomplete or you don’t have enough daily calories then you need to make changes but you have neither of those scenarios happening.
Maya: Yeah. I am in a good phase. Okay, I don’t really like fermented food. Now I don’t really want to try. You know the Miso phase I do like that. You know I put that on the Basmati rice like you mentioned.
Clint: You are having fermented food.
Maya: Yeah I don’t like the sauerkraut and kimchi and things like that.
Clint: But I mean how often do we want to be eating those foods when you’re out and about anyway. Those are not sort of convenient sort of foods that we want, like rice and potatoes and corns and breads and things that we really want to eventually be eating a lot of because those we can eat out all the time. You know you can have them at restaurants all the time pasta. So yes they’ll always be barriers,, there’ll always be restrictions. But those barriers get wider and wider and wider and the one thing that I think everyone with an inflammatory autoimmune disease will always have to be careful of is always oils for the rest of our lives. We’re going to have to watch out for those oils those vegetable oils they are just kindling you know and even if you think of a campfire and the fire has been extinguished, you can’t even see the red embers anymore sitting in there. But if you were to throw tiny little bits of kindling and maybe blow on it a little bit you know just you might be able to get that fire going again and I think we’re always going to have that little bit of ash, little bit of potential embers that are always going to be in that campfire.
Maya: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah right.
Clint: So you know I’ll never be complacent till the day I die. Never ever I would never want to eat foods again that can potentially get that thing going again.
Maya: Yeah ,yeah. It’s amazing how your craving change. You know, like I mentioned before like I see in the office there are so many treats and things like that. And I don’t even look at them. That’s not even on my radar. You know, it’s amazing how you can change. Because that was not me. I love sweets and cakes and coffee cakes and Donuts and coffee. Funny how it’s only been a couple months and you know it’s unbelievable. So, in five six months time for me anyway you know you could be in an amazing place.
Clint: Well you are, you know you’ve actually gotten there, you’re in the location that you’ve been seeking and all you need to do now is to continue to apply the discipline and to maintain it. This whole thing is about discipline every your whole story that you’ve just described is a tremendous display of discipline. That’s what it is, you know. Discipline with your record keeping, discipline with your eating, discipline with your avoidance of temptations, discipline with going to bikram yoga four times a week. Yeah discipline with your little hand exercises. Yeah yeah. And discipline with restocking those supplements that you’ve felt have been important. You know the if we would it to you know have more of a microscope and spend a longer time with you and your life, we would find another 10, 15, 20 examples of where you’ve applied this discipline and so that’s what it all comes down to is the discipline to also continue to seek answers when the answers aren’t there. That’s a discipline in itself because sometimes I mean I used to go for months on end where I wasn’t improving. My whole experience with this condition when I was trying to get well was months and months of pretty much nothing showing up in terms of results with intermittent improvements which I was then able to maintain for months and months before getting some more improvements. I mean for me, there were long periods of not much showing up in terms of success. But remember that success with this condition is not worsening. That’s a success. You know I’ve got a little bit of a dilemma at the moment where I’ve got clients who watch podcasts and hear your story and everyone else who’s been on this show. And their expectations are insane compared to when I first started doing this and helping people. Expectations now are higher than ever before people think okay I’m going to Paddison program and I’m going to be off my drugs in three months and I’m going to be back to my normal life and man I’v set this problem up for myself or put it like hey you know where expectations are so high now that this is also another challenge. This is another challenge that we’re facing and that people need to realize that this disease is excruciatingly challenging and to just not worsen, to not increase strikes is a good result. Rheumatologists think that’s a great result because what we need to say is okay well what’s our goal here. Let’s set the bar that is quite easy to jump over so that if we clear it easily we’re going to feel happy not set the bar no drugs, no pain in three months. This does not help anyone. It’s unrealistic. It’s stressful. And frankly it probably won’t happen.
Maya: Would you say the longer that people had the disease and the severity levels of people’s diseases is an indication of how long they need to stick with the program before they start to see results. You know someone who maybe had you know for RA 10 years or before starting your program you know they may not in three months six months but a year a year from now sticking with your program. They would see improvement. Yeah.
Clint: Yeah. Well everyone sees improvements. It’s you know there’s very rarely a case if ever where if people don’t make some of the crucial mistakes that they don’t get improvements. Again so the crucial mistakes are changing or dropping medications right before starting. Yeah okay so that sounds ludicrous and stupid but people do it all the time. So they get like two weeks in and they say I’m not making progress or I feel worse. My first question is always “Okay what medications have you just dropped?”. And that’s always the answer. Okay. So we know that the program says don’t change any medications before starting because we want to see the effect of this program against a background that is steady. Yeah
Maya: Right,You don’t wanna compare apples to apples
Clint: That’s right. And then the other thing you know common mistakes that people make…Actually I can’t think of too many virtually if you don’t do that virtually everyone improves. Right. But in terms of people who have had it for a very long time, the question then actually needs to be molded into this question. What strategy with medications, exercise, supplementation,stress reduction and diet is in place. Because we all get so one trick pony with the diet. We’re all obsessed about the diet right. But. Like you’re right if you’ve been on prednisone every single day for the past six months leading into this program. Our strategy would be to try and get you to be.. what our strategy would be would be to try and get you off prednisone as the first objective. That would be first objective because while being on that drug you’re trying to fight a boxing match with two hands behind your back because it’s just so deleterious to the gut, or to the gut wall okay. So we wouldn’t be targeting maximum pain relief and so forth. We’d be trying to get off that drug. Of course we want pain relief. But you know we’d be also having to have a strategy in place and then once off that drug then we’d be trying to get pain as low as possible then add some more foods and then if someone’s on prednisone then normally on other drugs like disease modifying drugs or biologics and stuff like that and so then you know with patients and so forth we slowly look at regular blood tests and physical symptoms and consultations with the rheumatologist and then start discussions about you know reducing the number of drugs or the dosages of these drugs. Yeah. So, every case is different, every case is different.
Maya: You need to listen to yourself and not everything else out there because. It’s you’ll get lost like I did that first time around, you know. Hone in yourself, in your case like you said. It’s true
Clint: Yeah that’s right. So well this has been really enjoyable and I’m thrilled to be able to hear what you’ve told me today and excited for where you’re going to take this in the future.
Maya: Yes. Thank you so much for talking to me, it’s been fantastic.
Clint: Awesome Maya! Thanks so much and drop us a line a couple months and I look forward to hearing your continual improvements and wishing you all the best.
Maya: Thank you, same to you. Will do, take care.