Dr. Dylan Petkus reviews with Angela how her gut and sleep improved after she had tossed and turned for decades and gut pain and bloating weighed her down.
00:00
Dylan Petkus, MD
We are live. Hello, everyone. So today I have my very special guest, Angela here. And today we’re to talk about how to grow a goji bush in New York because I know everyone is always wondering how to do that. I’m just kidding. Although she does have a goji bush in New York, in case you’re. I thought a goji bush was like a tropical Amazonian thing just because you see it at Whole Foods all the time. But I was wrong.
00:25
Dylan Petkus, MD
So what we’re going to dive into today is we are going to talk about how Angela, someone who’s been around sort of the health scene, the sort of diet, nutrition scene and all the sort of, I guess, other sort of alternative things, how she went from someone who was dealing with these issues for many years, not only fatigue and exhaustion but also gut issues. Because these two kind of go in hand, or as I wrote in the post, for everyone who maybe saw that. What did I say there? I said, fatigue and gut issues go together like two peas in a very bloated achy pod. That’s just kind of what happens a lot of times it happens with people in the past, like Jonathan, like were chatting about before went live, but many people, because there’s this deep connection between the two.
01:16
Dylan Petkus, MD
But we won’t dive too much into the science today on that. But we’re going to really focus in on in terms of kind of how Angela went through a lot of these sorts of stages and progressions. And so, Angela, I guess we’ll start with that. I mean, kind of like, where were you say, what was it, 9 to 10 weeks ago? And the issues that you were dealing with in terms of just your energy levels, gut sleep, exercise, all that stuff in terms of where you were.
01:47
Angela
All right, well, even longer than nine or ten weeks ago was years and years of just poor sleep. My husband and I being so frustrated with each other that we can’t sleep well together in a bed. And I’m like, there’s other issues going on here, just not good night’s sleep. Although, I had that for a lot of years. Constant belly pain, pretty regular and pretty extreme all this past winter, which kind of was really what was prompting me to seek help. Kind of like having contractions when you’re in labor, but no pause in between where you can catch your breath and relax. It would just go straight for like 3 hours of cramping and I would just be in bed crying. And I had tried, yes, some diets, pretty much just, my gastroenterologist said to do the FODMAP.
02:42
Angela
And I’d been on that for a few years with no clear benefit of any kind, but, yeah, mainly the pain and wanting to be able to get my life back.
02:58
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. And sort of, with that pain, what was that preventing you from doing? You mentioned being in bed with that, but were you able to kind of function during the day? Was that all happening while you were trying to sleep and disrupting your sleep? Where was that happening? What were the big consequences of that?
03:18
Angela
Yeah, well, it had started out that it was more at night, but it became more. It was daytime. And so I home-schooled my two boys, and so I had to be up every morning ready to do school. So mostly just dealing with a lot of pain and still trying to function. And so it had become really. I’d gotten into a really horrible emotional state because I was constantly in pain, trying to cook breakfast every morning, just everything with the boys, all day long, I was in pain and sometimes light and sometimes worse. So just trying to deal with them, but I was just very short, yelling a lot, and never in a good mood. And they’re always like, what’s wrong with mom? Why is she always angry? Why is she always yelling?
04:05
Angela
And it just really was taking its toll on my whole family and me trying to do everything that a mom and a wife needs to do.
04:15
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, I mean, that’s, like, one of the things that I guess most people, when you have gut issues like this, it can kind of really kind of take you out of the game in a big way of where you’re either dealing with the pain or you’re dealing with all the kind of, like, funky diets that you have to do where you eat X, your family eats Y, and then it’s like, okay, why can we have hot dogs? And mom has to have, like, I don’t know.
04:41
Angela
I’m like, what would I eat instead of the hot dog? I wasn’t eating the hot dogs, but, yeah, I was like, okay, I get to have a plain little piece of chicken and easy-to-digest vegetables.
04:56
Dylan Petkus, MD
Because the thing is, we’re not like the gut people, where we talk about. I mean, we don’t really talk about the gut a whole lot. We don’t get into, because I know people are like microbiome and FODMAP and all this other stuff in terms of kind of like, sort of the metabolic effects of that, in terms of brain fog, kind of having cycles of being up and down. Where were you with that? In terms of not necessarily kind of long ago, but kind of in the sort of months and sort of weeks, even to being like, oh, I should contact these people.
05:32
Angela
Yeah, it was on and off. I mean, I was spending a significant amount of my free time watching things online about SIBO and IBS and trying to figure out what I really had. And even though my doctor just sort off the cuff said, well, I think IBS. But then he didn’t have any treatment plan. So just going through all that. But my brain fog was really on and off. There were sometimes I was okay, but then there were other times, like, my kids would ask me some question about some person in history, and I’d be like, that name sounds vaguely familiar. He probably is someone important. We’re going to have to look him up kind of thing. I don’t know. But I was really all over the place with functioning and couldn’t remember anyone’s name. Sorry. Or just detailed facts at all.
06:22
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah.
06:23
Angela
Grocery list in order to go to the grocery store. I mean, otherwise, I was literally up and down every aisle going, I don’t know, what do we know? Kind of thing.
06:32
Dylan Petkus, MD
Gotcha. Yeah. You’re like, who was the first president? Was it George Washington? Was it George Carver? I think one of them made peanut butter. I forget which one did that. But in terms of. Because having that brain fart, that’s like such a main, common symptom, obviously, of things not going very well. And then a lot of times what happens is when you have those sort of the mental things showing up, it’s physically as well, not just only the gut pain, because know, related to kind of how all that goes together, but also in terms, know, just the physicality, like crashes, also like how you’re able to recover from exercise or even exercise at all. And so for you, Angela, when you’re talking about kind of maybe how you went up and down through days, what was that like for you?
07:18
Angela
Initially? Yeah. I mean, I didn’t really consider them crashes per se, but I hadn’t thought about them in that way. No one had said that word to know kind of thing. But I kept telling the GI doc and my doc, I’m like, if I go for a bike ride, then the next day, I mean, I’m just toast. My gut is going to have an attack. If I go downhill skiing, I can feel it even coming on that night while I’m sleeping, I’m going to have an attack. And my attacks would be like three to five days, sometimes longer. And so if I was even trying to exercise, that’s what I was doing, like, one good exercise session a week. Well, then all I was doing was crashing again.
07:59
Angela
Like, I would literally have one good day, and so then I would exercise on that day because everyone said you need to keep exercising every day. And I could hardly get to the stop sign two minutes down the subdivision on a normal day. But then I would start to feel better, and I’d have one good day, so I would exercise. But then the next day, and they’re like, that just doesn’t make sense at all. Everyone’s like, there is no reason your gut should be feeling worse the day after you exercise. I’m like, it is like clockwork, people. This is how my week runs. I exercise on Fridays or Thursdays, and then my weekend is shot.
08:33
Dylan Petkus, MD
And it’s like these things are connected in a way, maybe, but I don’t know.
08:38
Angela
That sounds kind of crazy.
08:39
Dylan Petkus, MD
That sounds kind of crazy.
08:40
Angela
That’s why I even told Doc. I’m like, oh, I’m still out there. I kept trying. So I found cycling because cycling didn’t hurt my gut. So I could cycle really. I could go 10 miles in just under an hour. I was, like, doing really good, built up a lot of muscle, happy. But my quality of life on any other day except that one day was horrible.
09:04
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. So one out of seven, not kind of the best ratio you want to have there. Yeah. That’s what happens so many times of where your body is able to function in a way. And a lot of people, they’ll have the. I mean, this may or may not resonate with you, but I think it will. You have that one day where you’re like, oh, life is here. Let me go get it. Let me get on the bike. Let me do all things. And then the days afterward are that time where it’s like, man.
09:33
Angela
Well, that’s the problem, too, is then I was needing to do my grocery shopping on that day and clean house, and do anything I really wanted to do for the week where I wasn’t going to be doubled over, holding my belly and cursing life. So, yeah, it was sort of a downward spiral. It’s like a cycle I just couldn’t get out of, and nobody understands why I was even in this cycle. Just exercise every day. I’m like, oh, my gosh, I’m going to pass out.
10:06
Dylan Petkus, MD
In terms of like, I mean, when you’re going through that and your family doesn’t understand the GI, people are like, we don’t know, Angela, what kind of, sort of that process for you, in terms of just like, okay, this isn’t working. This isn’t doing something. Why is this going on? What was that like for you?
10:25
Angela
Well, that was really just tanking my marriage. I mean, my husband and I had just been, we had spent this whole past, really, the decade. But the worst of when my gut really flared up was a couple of years ago. So we’ve been spending that whole time basically just yelling at each other. Him saying, go relax. Go take a walk. You’ll feel better. Me trying to get to a walk, feeling like the cramps are too bad I can’t make it back to the house kind of thing. Coming back, crying, not feeling better, feeling worse, and just get more sleep. So I go to bed earlier, but then I would just be in bed for 12 hours, and then, of course, I’m not getting anything done and that whole thing, but really just a huge strain on my family.
11:10
Angela
And that’s why when we had that first call, the main thing that really caught me was, is this the way you want to be with your kids? I only have a finite amount of time with them while they’re young, and I’m basically telling them, moms are horrible. Moms don’t feel good. We have headaches all the time, or we have gut pain all the time, and we just need to steer clear of us kind of thing.
11:38
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah.
11:39
Angela
And what are they going to learn to expect someday when they want to get married? They’re going to be like, whoa, I don’t know.
11:48
Dylan Petkus, MD
That’s one of the big things there in terms of, yes, one person has this issue, but the big ripple of impact that has not just on everyone in the family, in the household that day, but going forward, because, I mean, either it’s you and your significant other being at a place of where this is just constantly in the space. This is a big part of a relationship. It’s like there’s really kind of three people in the relationship. You, the other person, and then the issue itself.
12:14
Angela
Yeah. My bloated belly was literally like a third person in bed. I was seven months pregnant, half the days of the week. And just crazy.
12:25
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. Wow. When trying to over find and seek solutions, we mentioned the FODMAP diet, and other things, but not everyone always comes in with a nutrition background, one like a professional one, like you have, and then also the experiences of the self, because a lot of times people kind of have either or, but you had both. And so in terms of all the sort of different things you’ve gone through, what were some of, I guess the main highlights for you in terms of FODMAP, et cetera?
12:57
Angela
Well, basically, realizing that none of those were really going to help, but that was really all I had. I mean, I’d been off of the main allergic food groups for a decade from when I had my second son. So I had already been gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, all that fun stuff for a whole decade, just kind of bumbling along. But then different symptoms came up over the years, and then it wasn’t until this big kind of attack that I just couldn’t get rid of came along. So I’d already been eaten off all those food groups, and everyone’s like, what do you eat? And I’m like, well, there actually was still plenty of foods, and it was already mostly FODMAP in that realm anyway. It was really just the fruits and veggies. I wasn’t avoiding some of them.
13:45
Angela
And so, doing that for a few months, I could tell it didn’t make a difference at all. And then I was starting to have trouble with histamine, just really bad, sort of like asthma attacks while I was riding my bike. And so I was like, great, I’m going to be getting rid of the one thing I can do because the doctors are like, whoa. Yeah, you shouldn’t be riding if it’s that hard for you to get a breath. And I was like, well, I don’t fall off the bike, I don’t pass out. I’m okay. But that my heart and everything is just fine. But I was just kind of having these attacks. And so just realizing all this stuff with histamine, my sore throats, headaches, all the really bad sinus pressure all the time.
14:24
Angela
And so then, I watched online this dietitian give a talk. I laugh about it because I just was like, oh, my gosh. Of how to do the FODMAP with the histamine diet at the same time. And I went, lord have mercy. And that was just a few months, I think, before I found you. And I knew I was at my breaking point then because I knew there was no way I was going to be doing that. But I didn’t know what else to do. I had been doing probiotics, which did help the first few months I was on them in the spring, but then trying to get to a maintenance dose was just. My body would just flare up again.
14:59
Angela
And I’m like, I can’t keep taking 15 a day like these mega doses I was on, which was great, how much it really dropped my symptoms, but I was like, you just can’t stay on this stuff forever.
15:13
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. You don’t want to take so many probiotics that you could make yogurt in your stomach.
15:19
Angela
Yeah, I think I’d been on them for almost a year when I started this program.
15:23
Dylan Petkus, MD
Oh, wow.
15:23
Angela
And trying to do a maintenance dose and all that fun stuff, but diet basically where I was at is that anything I ate was causing some kind of allergic reaction. And my body, I didn’t have a single go-to food that I could say, I can eat this and I’m going to be okay after I eat it. It was literally every meal. I had done the digestive enzymes with that, but I don’t think my body, I wasn’t even ready for that stuff was just so bad in my gut that I was just kind of hanging on with the probiotics. And at that point, yeah, because that’s.
16:06
Dylan Petkus, MD
A story that’s far too uncommon where you go through, oh, we eliminate these foods. We eliminate this food because the phytomas and the histamines, that almost sounds like it’s up there with the autoimmune and paleo protocol where it’s just like, all right, now you can eat ice cubes, snowflakes, and air.
16:23
Angela
Yeah. I was like, oh, my gosh. And she goes, oh, it’s really quite easy. You just do this and this with the patient. And I was like, and here I am, a dietitian, going, do your patients love you or hate you? I don’t know how. So anyways, I was just like, oh, my gosh. I felt like kind of the nutrition dietetics world was kind of just failing me, I guess I was looking functional. I had seen a naturopath a couple of times, and she was like, take the legumes out. And legumes have sort of been my mainstay my whole life. I eat them like, twice a day, but not in the past couple of years. So I did that, and I couldn’t tell if I felt better. And she’s like, really? It’s not a clear improvement. I was like, not legumes alone.
17:13
Dylan Petkus, MD
And that’s where so many people get stuck for so long, where they’re like, this diet, that diet, this food group, this thing, and then these probiotics, it just kind of adds and adds and adds. But like you were saying, it’s in that dietetic world there where there are solutions in there for different problems, of course, but at a time where you’re like, okay, well, I can only have strawberries on days starting with tea as part of this. I don’t think anyone does that. But at a point, it becomes almost like a nonsensical restriction in a way. And so as you were kind of going through, and then the other thing, because you did the probiotics, what were the other major supplements you were on again or kind of like cycled through and going through all.
18:00
Angela
Well, I had tried some of the IgG supplements. I hadn’t done a ton of supplements, really. I mean, I had tried. I’m actually kind of blanking on them now that you ask, because they’re not sitting there in my cabinet where I see them all the time. I had tried doing, like, high-dose vitamin C before bed and seeing if that would sort of help restore my gut while I slept. I had just done a whole host of things that I would try for a month and then be like, am I any better off? And this is really what killed me. Well, and my husband is like, you can’t tell if you’re better or not. I was like, I’m still attacking the same. It’s really the attacks and the pain that I can’t prevent. There didn’t seem to be any way to prevent them.
18:48
Angela
And so just, yeah, cycling through. But when I first started this program, I was on the ones for the mast cell. They were called Th1 and Th2. I think the one was mostly berberine, and the other one was some other herb, which I don’t remember one of.
19:08
Dylan Petkus, MD
Those.
19:12
Angela
When I go on something, those were the most recent. And I definitely did have some relief. My bloating and the pain attacks really had gone down getting on those. So I know when I started your program, you were like, you probably won’t need those. I’m like, I really want to hang on to them for right now because I was starting to have some days without so much pain. But it was still night and day, like when I started this program, knowing that my gut is going to feel well all night and my gut is going to feel well all day because I went two years with the pain all night and half a year with the pain all day kind of thing. Yeah. But luckily, because it was really my husband, stop buying all that stuff. Nothing is working.
20:02
Angela
Like, stop watching the things online.
20:08
Dylan Petkus, MD
But then you watch one more thing online.
20:10
Angela
Well, I know, and I was laughing, trying to remember. It must have come up on my Facebook page because I don’t remember now how I first saw you, but I’m sure it was through my Facebook.
20:21
Dylan Petkus, MD
That sort of, like, initial, because that’s what I think most people have. Like, when you’re looking at it, you’re like, who are these people? What is this? What is going on here? What kind of drew you towards that, especially as someone who was in that very gut centric, diet centric world in terms of being like, I think there’s something to this, what’s going on here?
20:39
Angela
Because I really was thinking that I was going to find a doctor online. Out of all those doctors giving all those, they even talked about some of the other, just what was going on in my gut. Some of those symptoms, like, when I would tell a doctor in the office, they would just be like, nobody would ever even answer or say anything. And I’m like, so is this not normal? Like, does anyone in the world have this? I mean, I spent quite a few months thinking I was the only one in the world with this problem kind of thing.
21:18
Angela
And so I was really focused on trying to find someone who had stories online of someone just like me, trying to find a doctor, because so far, I had only found people that were like, I don’t know what’s wrong with you kind of thing. But I hadn’t seen nearly as many, I think, as most people as I’m hearing and seeing online. I don’t know where I am in New York. There’s not much functional medicine. There are not very many docs in general. It took me three months each time I wanted to get in to see the gastroenterologist, which ended up just being the three times, the colonoscopy, the follow up a year later. I don’t feel better on FODMAP. And then a quick phone call of, well, I don’t know, you have ibs kind of thing.
22:08
Angela
So I hadn’t done a lot with health care, really, but I was really searching for someone. And that’s why it was just. I don’t even really know quite, except I knew I wasn’t sleeping well, and I hadn’t slept well for a really long time. But that wasn’t my top one symptom to fix. And it took me a little bit to decide, am I going to spend an hour doing this call or watching it? And so I kind of bumbled along for a little bit until I finally decided, hey, if I can at least fix my sleep, then I’ve got to feel better in some other areas, even if it’s not really my gut. I just decided, okay, I’ll look into that.
22:53
Angela
And then that’s when I finally connected and did a call with you and realized that even though you weren’t who I thought I was looking for, when you started putting it all together. And then I realized that this would be more benefit than just to my sleep, that it is all connected.
23:14
Dylan Petkus, MD
With that. That was very existential. Not who I thought I was looking for, but who I needed. Being able to have that all together and kind of like doing, putting the pieces together for yourself as you were kind of working through the things we did together. I mean, what were some of those first immediate things? And when you were like, okay, what’s all this I’m doing here? Okay, whatever. But now I’m seeing these sort of results, I guess, remind us, remind me all that. Was it sort of the sleep pieces? Was it the gut pieces? What were some of those initial results that you started to see?
23:54
Angela
Well, the sleep was actually number one. And now I can’t remember how many days in, but it was pretty quick in the first week. Once I read whatever part of the module or heard something on the call, I might have been already a week in, because again, some of that whole thing of signing up and joining, I was like, I’m too busy right now. I have too much going on. How am I going to study this and be part of this? But the sleep was very quick that, oh, my goodness, I needed to go to bed at 09:00 and I was tired and, oh, my goodness, I fell right asleep. I was used to taking an hour plus or minus longer in the winter because I was having trouble with my body temperature.
24:38
Angela
So sometimes it would take me an hour and a half, 2 hours with some kind of heating thing done by my feet and different things, but just falling asleep in 5 to 10 minutes. I was like, oh, my goodness, I wasn’t even hearing my husband come into bed. But he was, of course, being supportive, and he was like, oh, you’re going to bed. And he would try to get ready, but I was literally just checking out. I had never fallen asleep that way, I think, since I’ve had children.
25:07
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, I’m glad we could bore you so much. You would just fall asleep.
25:10
Angela
Yeah. And in my gut, I laugh. I go, I guess when you do a program like this, you should write down when everything gets better. But I don’t think I even had one of my pain attacks once I started. I don’t think I had a day of where I was crying and where the cramps got too strong, that I couldn’t take it kind of thing, but that sort of was more unnoticeable. It just kind of came along so I don’t remember what moment. I felt like it was really getting better, but it was the sleep first for me, which I was pretty darn surprised with the sleep.
25:44
Dylan Petkus, MD
Because the other component here in terms of the. Because you had night sweats initially, right?
25:53
Angela
Yeah, I was dealing a lot with night sweats.
25:55
Dylan Petkus, MD
What happened to those?
25:57
Angela
Yes, those disappeared. And my husband was like, oh, my gosh. Just the number of times I was getting up and the number of times I was getting up, taking clothes off, getting back in bed, or taking a cover off. And I would try to do it so carefully and not wake my husband, but the amount of times he would say that he knew I was up and doing stuff in the night and was just less and less every night.
26:24
Dylan Petkus, MD
Awesome. Yeah. That’s good. Because then you don’t need to get two California kings and put them side-by-side because then you can get up and down all you want. That kind of know, it’s normal to have a normal size. So the sleep improved, the night sweats just kind of gone. And the other piece of this is the gut pain of just know going through, when’s the last time I’ve had that? I don’t know. And it’s because we just put you on a bunch of gut supplements and a really restrictive diet. Actually, we didn’t do any of that. But being able to kind of address that issue in a way that allows it to kind of like, kind of how the whole system is connected, because it’s not just sleep, it’s not just gut. It’s really the whole thing here.
27:08
Dylan Petkus, MD
And then in terms of the flip side of that, the improvements you saw in the day, like being able to remember who cut down a cherry tree and would not tell a lie. What did you kind of notice there? Because this is a coronavirus world. Because you were homeschooling before COVID right?
27:28
Angela
Yes, this is like my fifth, but.
27:31
Dylan Petkus, MD
That doesn’t make it any less easier.
27:35
Angela
Well, they kind of went hand in hand, I think, because I just was getting up less and I was getting better sleep. So I was getting up earlier each day, but I was waking up in a slightly better mood every day, too. And then the things that you were having me do in the morning were making a huge difference for my outlook. But just the sleep alone, just getting the better sleep. I was getting up before my kids, and my kids don’t get up early. I mean, they’re used to me trying to get out of bed by 8:30 – 9 o’clock at the latest. Some days not even starting school till ten because it might take me more than half an hour just to make breakfast. But just, I was starting to get up before them and they were like, oh, my God, mom’s up.
28:19
Angela
Oh, my gosh. Okay. Good morning, mom. And so it was this whole thing of we would say, like, good morning to each other, instead of them finding me in the kitchen, making breakfast all around, not feeling well, in pain, trying to just cook some oatmeal and whatever, but just my whole attitude and emotions because I was just such in a negative rut cycle from not feeling well, but actually waking up and feeling my belly and going, oh, my gosh, nothing’s hurting. And then swinging my legs out of bed because I was having a lot of pain on standing out of bed, that a lot of times it felt like my belly just was going to drop to the floor. It was just a big lead bullet, so it would want to pull me down, and I could hardly function.
29:07
Angela
And so just along with the sleep came the emotions and the shift in my whole family in the morning. Now, from the start till now, eight weeks later, they run up to me and give me a hug when they get up because I’m usually up before them. Now, sometimes I’ve gone back in there to change or shower or something, and they’re like, oh, we beat mom. And I’m like, no, I’ve been up before you kind of thing. And so just changing the whole dynamics of my day. And it’s not like it’s perfect. Mornings have been perfect. I still have had a couple of random days here and there where I’m tired in the afternoon, and I might get a little short with what? You didn’t do your geography, what you said, you know, kind of thing.
29:56
Angela
And I won’t say it laughing like that, but I might get a little bit irritated and snip at them, and they’re like, oh, she’s coming. Know kind of thing.
30:05
Dylan Petkus, MD
Well, they got to know where Tanzania is.
30:07
Angela
Let’s just be honest. I know. Oh, my gosh. East Africa was killing him with geography.
30:15
Dylan Petkus, MD
So being able to function a lot better, you know, because we mentioned your husband as a part of mean, kind of where he was kind of beginning, like, oh, my God, Angela, you’re starting all this, and then kind of where things are now. What would you say? That sort of nice end product there looks like.
30:37
Angela
Yeah, I mean, there were some issues within the family. It was mainly, it was finding another doc, because I had already found, like, one other one that I was doing long distance. It was spending money, which you’re always going to spend money if you’re trying to help yourself kind of thing. But it was really hard for him to be like, what, you’re a nutritionist. Don’t you know kind of what you need to know? And I’m like, dang, if I knew how to fix myself, I would have fixed myself ten years ago kind of thing. And so, yeah, a lot of hesitancy on his side for wanting to get on board and kind of thing with me. And I’m like, I could do whatever kind of thing, but my husband and changed. I mean, that’s a whole nother ballgame.
31:23
Angela
So, yeah, I mean, having your loved ones slowly, he slowly has come around. It took him, I don’t know till what week, five or six to really be like, wow, you are really different. And I eased into the morning wake up. So by the time I got into where I was popping up at 6:15, I mean, he was just like, oh, my gosh, my alarm hasn’t gone off yet. What are you doing up? But just like, he would come and see me. Give me a hug. We would actually say good morning to each other instead of where it was before. He’d be like, kids, is she in a good mood or, okay, I’m going to work kind of thing. But he came alongside and just saw the benefit to the whole family. Awesome.
32:12
Dylan Petkus, MD
That’s always fun to see. That’s why we always ask, are we going to have a supportive system in place here? Because that’s, like, such a big piece to it all in terms of being able to have everyone together, and then everyone’s always on board sort of at the beginning. But as you see those changes that you can’t argue with, like, okay, well, you’re up 3 hours earlier and a lot of those other things.
32:31
Angela
And I’m not drowning, and I’m not yelling at you. But when he first started doing that, I was still a little skeptical, honestly. And I was just like, yeah, good morning. And he was making this huge deal out of it. And I was just like, okay, all right, I’ve got to go do this and this kind of thing. The first week or two where things were better, I was kind of like, what? And then now it’s nice just to be like, yes, I’m up. I feel happy. I’ll give you a hug kind of thing.
33:06
Dylan Petkus, MD
The other big piece of this, because were talking about, you were at one out of seven before, in terms of being able to kind of reproducibly exercise. Where would you say you’re at right now?
33:18
Angela
I would say I could do it six out of seven days. I would say there still might be a day where I’m like, I don’t know if I have the energy. Should I go for an hour long bike ride or not? I don’t know if I’m quite there. Of course, this time of year, sort of how this past week was, there has only been one good day to ride my bike, and it was today. In the last seven. We had snow again this week.
33:38
Dylan Petkus, MD
What’s been like freaky weather? I mean, I know it’s April and it is still snowing in places.
33:41
Angela
Yeah. But my energy level, I could have done it. I just couldn’t go outside and ride my bike. I had to do other things for exercise. But I would say six out of seven. I don’t know if it’s quite seven out of seven. It is if I want to go for a walk. But if I want to do what I consider my hardest, most energy-laden thing, that I would say six out of seven. But I’m pretty darn close to the seven out of seven. And even a good example is last night I didn’t even feel that energetic. But I decided I’d make a fancier dinner with two or three sides and a fancier entree. And so I ended up being in the kitchen for almost 2 hours.
34:23
Angela
And before, when my husband walks in the door and I’ll be like, dinner is on the stove. I mean, I would have just gone to my room and cried or sat down at the table because, honest to God, I did do this probably a handful of times this winter where I did too much and my body couldn’t handle it. And so we’d sit down at a meal, usually at dinner, and I would literally just start crying. And I just cried the whole meal because of this sheer exhaustion pounding on my shoulder blades and throughout my whole body because I couldn’t do it. It was just a mess. And the kids were like, actually, it’s not emotional stuff, it’s just, oh my God, I cannot.
35:10
Dylan Petkus, MD
It’s just a new way to add salt to your good..
35:11
Angela
I guess, just to tell people however bad it is for you, this is not stuff I ever thought I would do in my life. Why would I sit at the dinner table and cry? Why could I not do that? Why could I not just make a meal, get it on the table and be happy and eat it? But I mean, it’s been years since I’ve really felt happy at supper time because that was usually, as we call them, crashes. Now, my crash was at 4:30 – 5:00 pm every day. I couldn’t really function at dinner, so getting through that, but I just did it. And then I felt kind of tired, but my husband gave me a hug and said, I can see you worked really hard.
35:56
Angela
And once I sat down and started eating, I never had any moment of where I thought I might emotionally lose it or that I couldn’t take it, and my shoulder blades didn’t throb, and I didn’t have all that pain going down my back, I didn’t have a headache and all that. It’s a huge difference. And. Yeah. Will I make that meal again? I don’t know.
36:22
Dylan Petkus, MD
Well, that was good enough every day.
36:25
Angela
Of the week, and I don’t need to do it every day of the week. That’s the point. I just wanted to do something where there was a side that was every person’s favorite with the main. We had like a lamb thing I hadn’t made before anyway kind of thing, but just getting through it and just the sheer joy of that, of having a happy dinner time with the family along with a happy school day and all that good stuff.
36:52
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. And that’s what it’s really all about. Being able to have the option of flexibility, enjoy things, do the right things at the right time, and just make those big differences in those shifts. And, I mean, you went from, like were saying, one out of seven days. You exercise now six out of seven. I’m not the best at math, but I think that’s six times more. And being able to.
37:14
Angela
13 year old, he’s better.
37:15
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. And also being able to open up so many other sorts of options for you in terms of what you and your husband can do, what you and your kids can do, having a lot more, not only physical freedom, but the emotions and the stress around this thing are just completely taken out of the equation. And now you’re able to enjoy more and more of those things. And then the other side to this is, I think we talked about on our last coaching session, there’s like one, two supplements that you’re on right now, and then we don’t have to do the histamine diet and all this stuff. And we joked around having cheesecake again.
37:46
Angela
No, I think I’m just on the one.
37:49
Dylan Petkus, MD
Just on the one? Oh, yeah, just on the one. Awesome.
37:51
Angela
Yeah. I mean, I’m kind of riding it out. We’ll see kind of thing, but, yeah, awesome.
37:57
Dylan Petkus, MD
And then no gut pain just appears.
38:00
Angela
What’s going on not even four times a day kind of thing.
38:06
Dylan Petkus, MD
Awesome. And it really all started with, because in terms of making this shift, one of the biggest pieces is deciding you’re done with it and being able to kind of move forward and be able to really be someone who’s, like, kind of breaking down at the dinner table, not being able to do much, these crashes, going from doctor to doctor, and even kind of being like, okay, my knowledge here, this is kind of the limits of it. And being able to be like, okay, well, let’s know what else we can do. What’s possible? Because the moment someone’s not doing that, kind of going in the same circles and not really willing to take a different direction, that’s when you’re not able to make these shifts like Angela has made.
38:45
Dylan Petkus, MD
And so it all started with the free breakthrough call here that Angela signed up for. And I remember we even had to reschedule that. Things happen, but we’re still here, and that’s where we do what we’re talking about there in terms of getting really clear on what’s going on for you and really figuring out, are you someone who maybe you do have gut issues in the fatigue and sleep? Maybe it’s something entirely different. But if you are someone who, I mean, this story resonated for you, then go ahead and book that breakthrough call. And that’s where you’ll pick a time. We’ll connect there.
39:19
Dylan Petkus, MD
And, of course, you’re someone who has seen so many different elements of the story, whether it’s trying diet after diet, having sleep issues, not being able to really fully be present, or not even being able to exercise more than one day a week without having a crash. This is also a time where we need to get crystal clear on what’s going on in the directions you want to go. And of course, if you’re a fit, because we got to make sure you have a little bit of a weird sense of humor. That’s a requirement to join the crew, but yeah. So, everyone, go ahead. Go to optimalcircadiahealth.com/talk. Put that into your web browser there, and then there’ll be a calendar. Pick a time, and then we’ll speak to you soon. And so with that, everyone, we will be saying goodbye.
40:03
Dylan Petkus, MD
So thank you, Angela, for joining me. And everyone, have a wonderful, awesome. It’s Friday, right? So everyone have a good weekend. Bye.