We have A LOT of pregnant clients in our office right now, it's honestly crazy. Many of these women have diagnosed autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's or Rheumatoid Arthritis. Some of them have "undiagnosed autoimmunity", like positive ANA tests, but they have no "diagnosis" - - yet. Some don't have any autoimmune diagnoses, but they have Lyme disease or mold toxicity.....and yet others with no diagnoses who just came in for management of specific symptoms like migraines, bloating, or anxiety.

There is no special "formula" for pregnant women with autoimmunity - - we want to make sure you aren't deficient on any vitamins, minerals, or nutrients, we want to avoid toxins, we want to eat anti-inflammatory, we want to exercise, we want to minimize stress.......good advice for any pregnant woman.

The concern is that autoimmunity is known to flare around pregnancy., often presenting as an increase in inflammatory symptoms postpartum. We don't want that!!

This episode is filled with my knowledge and opinions around pregnancy that I have developed over the years of working with pregnant patients as well as my own experiences as a parent. In this episode, I talk about my wife and I's experience(s) with miscarriages, with hospital births vs. home births, with twins vs. singletons, with V or no-V, and our personal decisions and how we made those decisions. I also talk about all the important stuff like prenatal vitamins, genetics, methylation, and more.

As always I don't claim to have all the answers, but I hope my expertise, my opinions, and my thought processes help someone as they are trying to make these decisions for themselves, or I hope they help someone have a happier, healthier pregnancy!

Whether it's allergies, asthma, autism, ADHD, or autoimmunity - kids have a lot more health concerns these days - and those are just the A's!

I see a lot of kids (parents) from all over the world asking me to help them with their health problems. Sometimes they are easy and see great progress from the right nutrients, killing yeast, or supporting detoxification. Sometimes they are really tricky cases.

Many of the common childhood concerns of today have an immune component - recurrent infections, skin issues, allergies, autoimmune conditions, inflammation.

Many of the childhood concerns have a neurologic component to them - inability to focus, hyperactivity, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, depression, anxiety, rage, inability to regulate.

Why have we seen such a rise in the incidence of childhood symptoms, diseases, and developmental issues? While there are many theories regarding the exact causes, the overload of environmental toxins, immune imbalances, infections, and gut dysbiosis are ALWAYS at the top of the suspected mechanisms, which are basically my specialties and the focus of my entire podcast channel - the drivers of autoimmune disease progression. Autoimmunity is often involved as a mechanism in children's health issues, but often isn't necessarily a diagnosed autoimmune "disease".

Throughout the years I have developed certain thought processes, opinions, and I have my favorite labs, supplements, and teaching tools - this podcast is basically an overview of all of it. I talk about everything from raising twins (mine are almost 10) and nature vs. nurture, Winnie the Pooh characters and neurotransmitters, I talk about some of my favorite supplements and their targeted mechanisms, and I talk about how each kid is just different and needs to be parented differently. I also talk about how I'm DEFINITELY not a perfect parent, and we all just try to raise the best kids we can!

SO - the title of this podcast pretty well summarizes what this episode is about - how I'm doing since suddenly losing my dad.

3 months ago, my dad died. He had been fine 4 weeks earlier. He had just turned 68, he was still working, he was an 8 handicap golfer, and he was perfectly fine. On December 19th he was told he had cancer, and he died exactly 3 weeks later.

In this episode, I tell the whole story of what went down, but I also talk about my experience afterward handling this grief and heartbreak. It's still new, and I'm not an expert, and I think the highlight that I want people to take away is that "there is no right way", but I hope my experience and perspective is helpful and valuable to someone. This episode is just me rambling about my personal story, and then I'll be getting back to educational content :)