Episode 270 – Chronic Symptoms Are a Hidden Message: How to Listen and Finally Heal | Dr. Kelly McCann

Dr. Deb Muth 00:03What if your diagnosis isn't actually your diagnosis? What if the fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and inflammation you've been told are normal are actually signals your body is reacting to something in your environment? Something no one ever tested.What if the reason you're not getting better is because no one is asking the right questions?Today, we're exposing one of the most overlooked drivers of chronic illness, and why so many people are being dismissed, misdiagnosed, and left without answers.You guys can insert, one of our ads in here, that'd be great.Welcome back to Let's Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting-edge regenerative medicine, and empower you with the tools to heal. I'm Dr. Deb, your medical detective. And today, we're diving into the hidden drivers of chronic illness through the lens of functional and environmental medicine.If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with a chronic condition or is struggling with unexplained neurological symptoms, like fatigue, brain fog, numbness, or chronic pain.This episode is for you. So, grab your cup of coffee, tea, or whatever helps you unwind.Settle in, and let's get started on your journey to deeper healing.Today, I'm joined by Dr. Kelly McCann. A board-certified physician in internal medicine and pediatrics, with advanced training in functional, integrative, and environmental medicine.She's known for her work in mold illness, chronic infections, MCAS, and complex chronic conditions And for helping patients who have been told everything looks normal. She helps them finally get real answers. Dr. Kelly, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here. Share a little bit about what you're doing these days, and who you are, and who you're serving with us.Kelly McCann 02:42Thank you. So, my favorite patient population is patientswho deal with complex chronic illness, and I didn't set out to deal with these kinds of patients, but I kept… needing to be able to solve the puzzles, right? So they would come in, and there would be so many things that just didn't add up and didn't make sense, and it started with,it started with just doing functional and integrative medicine, and GI issues, and hormone issues, and autoimmune issues, and then it was mold as a driver, and then it was Lyme disease and the other tick-borne infections, and then all of those patients, many of those patients developed mast cell activation syndrome.Which I've now gone on and become an expert in, because they all have it.And all the related conditions with MCAS, the Ehlers-Danlos, hypermobility syndrome, POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardic syndrome, and… The one thing that really stuck out to me over the years of treating these patients is the ones who were willing to take a deep look inside. And see how their… their belief patterns, how their thoughts how they perceived themselves, different traumas that they experienced. If they were able to reframe some of the ways that they were thinking about their illness, about themselves, their relationship to themselves, they were the ones who really healed.And not only did they heal physically, they healed emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. I have some patients who started out disabled, and now are running their own companies. One who, again, same thing, terribly disabled, lots of emotional issues, lots of ups and downs, food sensitivities, oxalate issues, and now she's a medical intuitive. And she's just doing fabulously, and has blossomed, right? So, this is a missing piece that we're not really talking about.Dr. Deb Muth 05:04Yeah, I so agree with you. I see the same thing in my practice, and I treat a lot of the same people you do, and you are so right. Like, if we can get down to a deeper level with them, and address the trauma that happened.And it may be a trauma they never even remembered, right? It could be something that's just seated in their cells and they don't remember it. And you don't directly think it's causing the illness, but it is getting in the way of them healing. If you can address those things, those are the people that tend to do so much better, I think, versus the people who are getting some mileage out of their illness. That there's a reason they stay stuck, there's a reason they stay sick, they're getting something from it, even though they don't realize it in the moment.So let's talk a little bit, before we hopped on the recording, you and I were talking about body, emotion, spirit. A little different than what we're used to hearing with mind, body, spirit. Talk about your philosophy on this.Kelly McCann 06:01So what I've really come to realize is that the mind is getting in the way. And we have this perception that our mind is who we are. Right? We really think that who I am are the thoughts that I have every day. That's me. And when I'm not getting better, it's because my body is not… Falling in line with what my mind and my will want to do. So we set up this adversarial relationship. And this has been the philosophy in Western culture since Descartes said, I think therefore I am. Where the mind is supreme, and it is the all-knowing, and the body is just a vehicle for the mind. And every… Therapeutic intervention, from trauma-informed therapy, from, you know, wonderful people who have committed a lot of help and given great information. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, Gabor Mate, you know, all of these folks who have done such great work in us understanding trauma I think… The next phase is really recognizing that the body is actually not against us. It is not our enemy. In fact, it is… The body that is speaking to us as the voice piece of our souls and our spirits, that is saying to us, hey. you're not listening. The path that you are walking down and the way that you are being in the world is not really working for you. It's not who you are. It's not who you're supposed to be on the planet. And we're trying to get your attention, right?Dr. Deb Muth 07:59Yeah.Kelly McCann 07:59I mean…Dr. Deb Muth 08:00this thing, so I'm gonna talk louder.Kelly McCann 08:02Exactly, exactly! It's like a little toddler who only can speak in so many words, right? There's only so many ways that a younger version of ourselves, or our bodies, like, how do our bodies communicate to us? Symptoms and sensations. That's it. Those are the ways that our bodies communicate. And if we don't listen to sensations, well, it's gotta turn it up, it's gotta turn up the volume, and then we have more symptoms. And then if we're still like, no, it's gonna do it my way, it turns up the symptoms some more. And when… We are in this adversarial relationship, we can't bridge that gap. Can't bridge that gap, so… What… what happens is thatUnderneath the symptoms and the sensations are emotions. Emotions that have not been processed. Because we've been stuffing them down, we believe that they shouldn't exist, we don't want to face them, we're afraid of them, they're not acceptable, we're ashamed of them, whatever the reason may be, and they're stuck in the body. And so the way through is to actually just feel our feelings.Dr. Deb Muth 09:26That's kind of scary for some people.Kelly McCann 09:28It's… it's scary for the… it's scary for the whole planet!Dr. Deb Muth 09:32For all of this, right?Kelly McCann 09:33For all of us. When we start to feel our feelings, we don't like it. We've been taught it's not okay. Boys, it's not okay to cry. Girls, don't be loud, don't be angry. You're a B-I-T-C-H if you do that, right? So there's so many taboos about feeling our feelings. I have patients who say, I can't be mad at my father or my mother because I was taught to honor thy father and thy mother. Like, yes, but you're angry, and guess what?] That ain't going nowhere until you express it, so… you have a choice. Express it, or hold onto it, and then you just kind of stay here in this space where it's never expressed.Dr. Deb Muth 10:19Yeah, except in your body, in your physical being, right?Kelly McCann 10:22Except in your physical being. And here's the magic. Emotions are meant to move through us, right? Emotion. They don't last for that long!60 to 90 seconds, really? Maybe a couple minutes? Yeah. You really, really feel them. Right?Dr. Deb Muth 10:44Yeah.Kelly McCann 10:46And we're terrified of that 60 to 90 seconds.Dr. Deb Muth 10:50What might we do to ourselves or to someone in that 60 to 90 seconds, right? I may scream, I may cry, I may not be this person that everybody thinks I'm supposed to be. That person that holds it all together is there for everybody, holds everybody else's space. So well put together, right? If you're not that person, then who are you? Are you human?Kelly McCann 11:16Oh, you're more than human. Yeah, I mean, the way that I would look at it is, I would say, well, you don't have to put on a show, right? This is really for you. Close the door, lock the… close the windows, get out your pillow. Whatever you need to do. I mean, I have some patients who will write it out. There's a way to just, like, freeform write, where you don't actually read it, you just write it out, scribble it out, get it all out on paper, and then burn it, or shred it, or something like that. you can pound a pillow, you can, you know, scream, whatever it is, you can cry. I mean, I think crying is, at least for… for me. Crying is the easiest way to think about it. So, you sta...