Dr. Dylan Petkus reviews how Jonathon spent 100K (and got worse) and then got his health back after dealing with horrible sleep, brain fog, anxiety, and gut issues.
00:01
Dylan Petkus, MD
All right. And we are live. Awesome. That’s what the computer screen is telling me here. And I’m excited today, everyone, to share with you Jonathon’s journey. That’s not only what it says at the bottom with a nice little emoji with some sort of predatory bird there, but also who I have here with me, joining me in from Salt Lake City. You can see the salt in the air there, of home of the best salt in America. But anyway, the things here. So for Jonathon’s journey, because a lot of people, different avenues and streams and even rabbit holes of trying to address their fatigue, and Jonathon is definitely one of those folks and has had a very similar starting point in many of you where he’s gone through a whole bunch of rigamarole.
00:56
Dylan Petkus, MD
Now, we’ll kind of get into the details there, but this is going to be an exciting one in terms, know, where Jonathon was able to start, where he was able to go, where he is right now. And. Yeah. So, let’s just get into it here. Jonathon, you want to say hello to all the. I think there are a thousand people watching right now.
01:14
Jonathon
Oh, wow.
01:17
Dylan Petkus, MD
We brought your entire high school class here, so I sent them all invites.
01:21
Jonathon
Awesome. Well, it’s nice to meet everybody. It’s an honor to be here on this call. I never thought I would ever be doing this, especially when I booked my appointment with Dylan about nine weeks ago. Yeah.
01:44
Dylan Petkus, MD
Awesome. It’s always fun to have people here. And so what we’re going to dive into is kind of go back in time here, like 9 to 10 weeks ago and even give us a little bit more in terms of backstory and kind of maybe a little bit more about sort of your history. We can even go all the way to Thailand if you want to for a little bit. And really being able to kind of give a little bit more context in terms of some of the things you went down. And then as we talk about those things, we can have a little competition of who’s done more entertaining things here. Sound like a plan?
02:15
Jonathon
Yeah.
02:17
Dylan Petkus, MD
All right, awesome. So, yeah, tell us a little bit of the backstory.
02:22
Jonathon
Yeah, I’ve had a lot of complicated and doing it, like you said, doing a lot of things. Started really dialing in things about ten years ago because ten years ago I got really sick and actually didn’t work for four or five years, couldn’t do it. And I started going, looking for first going to doctors, asking what was wrong, doing tests. They’re like, no, you’re healthy. And I’m like, well, if I’m healthy, why do I feel like crap all the time? I can’t sleep. I’m nervous, anxiety, depression. Like, oh, here’s some meds. Those don’t really work very well. Well, there’s nothing else you can do. Like, five years ago, I was going through some hard times and actually went days and days, like a whole year with not sleeping well. But in the very end, it got really bad.
03:34
Jonathon
And I went, like, ten days without not even sleeping a wink, to the point where I was convulsing in my room and was hospitalized and basically just laid there like a geriatrics patient for three months until I came out. And then I had an opportunity to go to Asia, China, Thailand, and Taiwan, to get some medical treatment that was cheaper than in the US. And so I went. After being there two years, my health just started getting worse and worse, even though I wasn’t working, getting all this medical treatment weekly. And I came back and started looking further into what I could do, and I started working with, I won’t name the type, but different practitioners in functional and integrative medicine. And I did get better, but it wasn’t always better.
04:45
Jonathon
Like, I was better than I was before, and I actually was able to get a job. But if the job got too stressful or just pushed me a little bit too far, I crashed. Over the last five years, I’ve spent probably over $100,000 on doctors. And so, anyway, when I saw Dylan’s masterclass, it looked very interesting before.
05:16
Dylan Petkus, MD
We get there because the class is masterful. But the other thing in terms of where you were, because one thing that’s really common for people is to be right at that edge of where they’re kind of okay, but as soon as they do something that kind of stresses them out, like work, or maybe they take back on some responsibilities that they ended up giving away because they were sick. So what were kind of the main things you were experiencing at that time? Was it still the sleep? What kind of crashes were you having? What was triggering them all of that?
05:52
Jonathon
They always said, oh, you got to exercise. Be extra if you feel tired, exercise, right? So I tried to get up early in the morning, exercise, and do my thing, and felt worse. Like, well, I exercise in the morning. Then I was through for the rest of the day. I was worthless. I couldn’t do much. And I’m like, well, what’s wrong with me, right? Why can’t I go and exercise in the morning when everybody else is getting energized so I’m like, what’s wrong with me? Very frustrating. And then I got to the point where I was allergic to about every food on the planet, and I got myself healthy, where I could eat a lot and introduce a lot more foods.
06:43
Jonathon
But as soon as I started working again, and just working has stress, you got to be there at a certain time and you got to do your job. And that started slowly taxing my body to where all of a sudden I started having problems again with food sensitivities, allergies, not feeling well, and sleep got worse and worse. I started waking up. Before I met Dylan, I was waking up like five to six times a night and needing to go to the bathroom, and didn’t know why. I swear, it didn’t matter how much water I drank the day before. I tried not drinking any water, and I still woke up five to six times a night sleeping horribly.
07:35
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, that’s a super common thing for people. Their sleep is just all over the place, preventing them from really being able to not only function the next day but setting you up for more of those crashes and being right at that tipping point all the time. And when you were kind of over that edge, were you feeling just like, really heavy all the time? A lot of brain fog. When you say you felt, just useless, what was that, brain fog?
07:59
Jonathon
No energy. If I ate breakfast, lunch, or dinner or a snack, all that food was not even getting to me. Giving me energy. If I still felt hungry or just no energy at all. Like, the food wasn’t giving me energy. And I know that for me, I’m sensitive to caffeine, so I had gotten myself pretty much off caffeine. Besides integrative medicine doctor had given me a glutathione under the tongue troche that had caffeine in it, like 100 milligrams, which is about one cup of coffee. And for the last five years, I put that under my tongue to get out of it.
09:02
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, yeah. And this is when we can. I guess we can start the functional integrative Pandora’s box here, because what you’ve gone through, we don’t need to get the full backstory. But I mean, just being at a point of where you go to another country, you’re not doing anything, relax. You were on a farm and not really being able to accelerate your healing journey despite being able to have those extreme circumstances. A lot of people, it’s very common for people like, oh, I’m going to take a month off of work, and then I’ll bounce back. But they just bounce in between being off work, going to work, getting stressed out, kind of going, what happened to you? But at a sort of much smaller micro level. And then that’s when you reach for those things where you’re doing troche.
09:46
Dylan Petkus, MD
You’re the only person who I’ve ever heard the word troche from. I haven’t even verified that’s a word with Google yet, but I kind of sort of under the tongue lozenge. And, I mean, those are kind of the things, the rabbit holes you go down to. And so, I guess, kind of share with the people, kind of your highlights in sort of that world of, let’s try this thing out and see how it goes, because a lot of that, we’ve seen the family picture of supplements. What are some of the top things that have come to you? And, of course, we don’t need to advertise any brand names or anything like that.
10:23
Jonathon
Yeah. There was one doctor that, in the last five years, I’ve gone there over 150 times. And it was always something else. It was always something else. Oh, it’s this. No, it’s that. Oh, we got this fixed. But now it’s another layer. It’s another layer. And then finally, after five years and meeting Dylan, and I’m like, it ain’t another layer. There’s, there can’t be any more darn layers. I’ve done everything.
10:49
Dylan Petkus, MD
Are you sure that wasn’t the onion guy at the farmers market?
10:52
Jonathon
Yeah.
10:56
Dylan Petkus, MD
But, yeah. Like, what were some of the big things you feel? That guy was kind of hopping around.
11:02
Jonathon
From first, from allergies to DNA SNPs, to everything under the sun, even to barometric pressure in Salt Lake City, or I was allergic to clouds, I was allergic to low pressure, I was allergic to this. Allergic to that. Or sensitive to this. Allergies, using a loose sense here, but basically sensitive to my environment, everywhere, sensitive to my own DNA, sensitive to my own mitochondria, sensitive to my own. Whatever.
11:51
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. When you’re hopping around from thing to thing to thing, what is, I guess, just the most frustrating part of that? Or is it, what’s the worst part of that in terms of just having another hope and just kind of going away? Or are we thinking about when? Just, like, how can I really be sensitive to clouds like that? Kind of just like in there? What comes up for you?
12:16
Jonathon
You know, it’s. I was thinking at the time, like, you know, like, everybody else seems to be fine with clouds, and why am I so freaking weak? I can’t even handle a cloud coming by.
12:32
Dylan Petkus, MD
Watch out; there’s one behind you. Watch out. Yeah, they’re everywhere. Go ahead.
12:41
Jonathon
Yeah, I’m sensitive to cold. Then it was heat, then it was, you know, like every. I mean, seriously, after 150 treatments, you kind of exhaust every damn possibility. Maybe it helped a little bit, maybe it didn’t, but it didn’t get to the bottom line reason why I just couldn’t stay healthy and crashing.
13:10
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. And one particular viewer here has the same exact sentiments. Bringing me down memory lane with all the different options. Someone is willing to try to optimize their health. I always like to break it down into kind of, there are many categories of this, and so we kind of talked about supplements, a bit of where when we first connected, there was like 60. I don’t know, there’s a whole family there.
13:35
Jonathon
I had to take several pictures just to fit them all in. And that’s not even all of them. That’s just the ones I was been on in the last few months. Yes.
13:45
Dylan Petkus, MD
It’s this big, like, laundry list of things.
13:47
Jonathon
How many of them work? This will help.
13:51
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. Just to quickly recap, what percentage would you say were effective?
14:01
Jonathon
I don’t know. I know that every time my doctor or another doctor put me on a cleanse, I would just feel like protein powder or something or this or that. I’d feel like crap. And they look at me all puzzled. Well, you’re supposed to be feeling better by eating organic and going on this. And I’m like, no, I’m feeling worse. That doesn’t make sense. This is awesome stuff. Pure clean. So I tried going vegan to going totally the opposite, only eating, like, raw meat. I’ve tried every diet in the book. I did the master cleanse diet, where you pound the maple syrup and lemon juice. I did that three times for like 21 days, thinking it was going totally help me. Thinking, long run. In hindsight, it actually did the opposite. I’ve done coffee enemas, a ton of them.
15:14
Jonathon
I’ve even done fecal microbial transplants (FMTs). My wife, lovingly as she is, she was a donor for me. That was supposed to cure me. Didn’t at all.
15:33
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. It’s funny the timing of this, because you are not alone in trying all those things because when you’re in that state of desperation, that’s what you’re going to go do and kind of just try to move through things. And our Facebook user, you know, being the person who puzzles a practitioner is like the worst thing. Yeah. It is. And anyone who is friends with me personally on Facebook, I’ve been having those memories pop up of where when I was going through my stuff, and the statuses I was posting was like, well, ten doctors later, and I finally got them to say, I don’t know. So victory for me. But it’s just like not really making any movements at all.
16:13
Dylan Petkus, MD
And then I guess in terms of when you kind of get back to where were a few moments ago when you were in that master class, because that’s where you first sort of found us, what was kind of going through your mind? You were going through that, and you’re like, who’s this nut job?
16:33
Jonathon
I was like, no supplements. What the heck can this be? I’m like, maybe it’s something that, because I’m already in a program where it’s like a twelve-month functional medicine cleanse program that I’m already in, I’m thinking maybe this will complement it so I can get better quicker. Because the doctor told me that it would take at least two years to get me better. And I’m like, man, is there anything I can do to get better quicker than two years? I know it’s been years and years since I first started getting sick. Basically, I started getting sick right when I started work.
17:25
Jonathon
And you have to be there, college; I just barely squeaked through because you can break, and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but as soon as work comes, it’s Monday through Friday at best at least, and getting in the morning and night. And so a few bad days, nights of sleep, going to work, and it’s just trying to pound through that over and over again. I end up crashing and getting sick over and over again.
18:00
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, that’s kind of the standard thing, unfortunately, is like, you meet with someone and like, okay, well, in two years we’ll see. It’s just like two years. And obviously the body takes time to heal, but that long after going through five years of that’s just like not what you want to hear in any capacity. And then kind of when you were at that point where you watched a masterclass and you booked the call, kind of like, where were you at in terms of your symptoms? Because we talked a little bit where you were in the past, crashing, really bad sleep problems and kind of like, fast forward to right when we, I think first, I think we talked in the first week of January, kind of where you were in terms of sleep, brain fog, fatigue, all of that.
18:49
Jonathon
I was pretty bad. Like, I couldn’t go into work. I swing from not being able to sleep to sleeping too much. During that time, it was like I was sleeping too much. I’d get, like, 12 hours of sleep and still wake up feeling like I hadn’t slept and just feeling fatigued and with pretty severe anxiety. I’d say depression, too. Usually, those two go hand in hand, and didn’t know why I’d taken such a, why I’d taken such a huge downhill crash that just, I wasn’t pulling out of the last two years. I’d feel good, but then every week, I’d have one crash, but if I got to bed, I’d wake up and feel fine. But as of starting around October, or November, it just fell off a cliff, and couldn’t scrape my back up even if my life depended on it.
20:09
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, just awful sleep, and awful function. Questionable whether you could really get into the office and do the mortgage loans. And by the way, everyone, we had to pull him out of the office for this. He was in high demand in there.
20:30
Jonathon
Yes.
20:31
Dylan Petkus, MD
So if you need a loan for a new house, this guy, when we’re able to kind of. Oh, and then the other thing, you had some really trendy infection at the same time, I believe, right?
20:45
Jonathon
Yeah. I was already feeling crappy. And then on Christmas, I went to my sister’s house, and they gave me a nice Christmas present of COVID, and I didn’t really get sick. I didn’t have any respiratory systems. I had a runny nose for a day. But what it did is just take that fatigue and times it by ten and it wasn’t getting any better.
21:18
Dylan Petkus, MD
I will always distinctly remember when we had that first call, you sounded really tired. I mean, there’s a spectrum of people who are tired. Some people get nice and perked up for the call, but I was like, this guy, he needs our help.
21:33
Jonathon
I remember you saying that. You sound really tired.
21:37
Dylan Petkus, MD
That’s why we’re talking here.
21:38
Jonathon
I’m like, I am. I don’t even want to be on this call right now.
21:45
Dylan Petkus, MD
I remember on that call, you were like, well, I hope this works. And then let’s fast-forward from there, like, one, two, three weeks later, in terms of the improvements you saw, what were those for you initially?
22:03
Jonathon
Well, immediately, I started sleeping less and feeling better. And also, I mentioned that I’d been getting up, like, five, six times a night. That went down to maybe three or four. And actually, now I’m getting up one time a night. Maybe bad night, too, but no more than around one. Like, last night was one, and most nights in some nights, I’ve actually gone to sleep, woken up in the morning before my alarm and thinking it’s like 10:30 pm, 11:00 pm, and I’ve slept through the whole night, like, whoa, that totally throws me off.
22:59
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, it’s always a nice time warp when that happens.
23:02
Jonathon
Yeah. Before I was taking to sleep, I was taking ten milligrams of melatonin every night. And I’ve been taking five to ten milligrams of melatonin every night for probably two years. And now I’ve been melatonin-free for nine weeks, ever since I joined this program. And I’ve been caffeine free, too, for nine weeks.
23:31
Dylan Petkus, MD
Nice. No more troche. What’s the plural formula? Trochai. Trochini. Because when we’re able to really get down to, I was going to say layers, but we already pooed on that. Being able to really get down to the one layer where that’s really how things kind of work for you, and that’s when you’re able to make those big shifts of where I think one, two weeks, I think in the group, you were like, feeling better than I have without caffeine. And last year, the last few years, because you’re able to put everything into play here. And when I say that, because one of the things for Jonathon here, when you tell someone to do like, Jonathon was like, okay, do it already.
24:21
Jonathon
You said on our first call, you got to be coachable or teachable. And I’m like, you know what? At this point, I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do. If you told me to jump off a cliff right now, I would. Seriously, I’ll do anything. Seriously?
24:40
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. And that’s what allowed you to sort of get these results because there were a lot of times you can go through a lot of these different avenues and be like, oh, but my functional person, my integrated person, told me this. But you were able to be like, okay, we’re just going to just leave all that behind for a little bit, see what happens. And you did things, and that’s where you’re able to get those results. And so in terms of function here, how did that improve and, say, physically or also being able to work, how did that improve for you?
25:11
Jonathon
Well, I’m back at work, and like Dylan said, I’m a mortgage loan originator, which means on the front end, I’m a salesperson. I have to go out and generate my own business. So, that takes the most energy for me to make those calls. And I got to be feeling good to make those calls. Right. Because when I’m not feeling good, I don’t want to call my brother or my mother or anything. I don’t want to talk to anybody, let alone people I don’t know about, and run some numbers for them. Right. But in the last four weeks or so, I’ve bounced back and have been able to do that, and things are starting to crank again. So a pretty busy day today with people needing prequals and my phone is ringing off the hook.
26:17
Dylan Petkus, MD
Excellent. And what have your coworkers said?
26:23
Jonathon
Know? They keep saying, “Johnny’s back. Johnny’s back.”
26:29
Dylan Petkus, MD
It sounds like a sports team funnel, like “Johnny’s back.” Yeah, that’s like one of the things. Being able to have that functionality back and also being able to because, oddly enough, a lot of know. Well, not really oddly enough, I kind of get it. Being just so exhausted by a mental activity or something where it takes you a lot to get on the phone with someone and being able to really move through that a lot more is just huge. Being able to really get back into work and then be able to stay there, because that was the issue before. Right. You go in, you’re like, oh, my God, how much longer can I stay in there? Now you’re able to. How much more sustainable do you feel where you’re at right now is much more sustainable?
27:17
Jonathon
Like, with all the things I’ve learned, I have much more hope and belief that by keeping doing what I’m doing and following what Dylan’s taught me, that I’ll be able to sustain that health. And I like it because I’m kind of that guy that’s a workaholic, and I work myself until I’m sick. So Dylan’s helped me, in a way, put some structure into my day so I can get everything done and take care of myself and still have enough energy to work during the day and get everything done and go from task to task.
28:17
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. And that’s such a huge part of being able to have your health and then also sort of the other components of life where you have work. Jonathon just had a few life stressors going on while were working on things. Just a new home, just a loved one, maybe not coming into the country, and also his health. So kind of three big things there. And being able to still be where you are today is just yeah.
28:48
Jonathon
Yes. buying a new home. My wife’s from Thailand, and her visa got accepted, so she’ll be here pretty soon. So a lot of changes happening for me and a move.
29:03
Dylan Petkus, MD
Speaking of the move physically, how was that for you?
29:10
Jonathon
Fine. Yeah, I did fine. No problem.
29:16
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. Because that’s another thing where you do something physical and moving. I mean, obviously, you’re moving couches and all that stuff. Or maybe not. Do you have couches? Not important.
29:26
Jonathon
I moved some couches and some beds and mattresses and some appliances.
29:38
Dylan Petkus, MD
This is what you guys get at the end of the program. You get to move. We hire you and contract you with a mover service, and then you just get right in there. Use that new energy in that body there. But, yeah, those are kind of the real big strides there. And then in terms of the, I guess, the freedoms and also less stress or less anxiety around your health, what’s that big shift been for you?
30:09
Jonathon
Yeah, that’s been an ongoing thing, is worrying about when I’m going to crash. Oh, I can’t get too much business because if I have too much business, I’m going to crash, and then I won’t be able to handle it. So now that the crashes, if I do have an off day, it’s not nearly as deep of a crash, and I pull out of it much sooner and do the crash protocol, and I’m cranking on all eight cylinders in no time. So much less stress, which comes from a belief that I’m going to be getting healthier and be able to maintain that health.
31:00
Dylan Petkus, MD
Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s one of the other big things here because let me see my hand here. A lot of the fatigue issues are ups and downs. And we get, you kind of. We get the amplitude down and then also going in the right direction, which, is one of the huge things in an upward trajectory.
31:20
Dylan Petkus, MD
Well, that’s the tagline of today. And being able to really keep moving because so many of the things that are disappointing is when you kind of go up, down, up, down, but we always make sure you’re moving upwards and onwards and eventually soaring high like an eagle or a hawk or whatever. This emoji is here down below. Yeah. So that’s been Jonathon’s journey in terms of just doing a lot of the functional medicine stuff, all that stuff supplements the coffee enemas. I’ve been there, too. Raise your hand if you have to.
31:54
Jonathon
But also, it’s been nice graduating from the coffee enemas, I’ll tell you that.
31:59
Dylan Petkus, MD
That’s always a nice thing.
32:01
Jonathon
I don’t enjoy them, and they take forever, and they make a mess.
32:05
Dylan Petkus, MD
They don’t taste great, either.
32:07
Jonathon
They don’t taste great, that’s for sure.
32:11
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah. In having this journey, no matter if you’ve done all the things Jonathon’s done, maybe you’ve done even more things. Maybe you spent twice as much. Doesn’t really matter because all that comes down to is really being able to drop some of those past experiences and just realizing that you do want to accelerate things. Two years to feel well is just way too long for you. And we’re able to do that in two months here. We’re able to get someone who’s waking up so many times at night, and you might as well be a cat. That’s how active you are at night to being able to just get up once and that’s kind of it. And being able to fall back to sleep easily and then be able to have that sort of physicality back.
32:50
Dylan Petkus, MD
And more importantly, be able to do what you do in terms of your work and be able to support things and have the rest of your life from there as well. And not having to take the 13 different supplements when you wake up in the morning. So it’s been awesome to see your journey and more.
33:12
Jonathon
Yeah, 13 is an off day, an off week. That’s why I’m not feeling well. I only took 13 this morning. I forgot that’s what.
33:18
Dylan Petkus, MD
Yeah, half the usual, but yeah. It’s been awesome to have you with us, Jonathon. And I’m excited to see things even go further and further where we’re hearing how many loans you’re landing all the time, seeing the pictures of the new home, all that fun stuff. But more importantly, knowing that you have that ability in your body, in your health, and knowing that’s all up well from here. And as we can say here great work. Jonathon, there’s Barb, who you initially first talked to.
33:46
Jonathon
Oh, Barb. Yeah.
33:48
Dylan Petkus, MD
Awesome.
33:48
Jonathon
Thanks. Thanks for. Thanks for your encouragement. That’s one thing that really helped me through this whole process is the positivity, encouragement, not just from Dylan, Molly and Barbara, but the whole group that were working with, the other people that were working on their health, that had joined fatigue alliance Rx. To see their wins and to hear and have their encouragement all the time. It helps. So I’m looking forward to my journey forward with everybody else that’s in the group and sharing the wins with what we’re doing.
34:41
Dylan Petkus, MD
Awesome.
34:41
Jonathon
Now and in the future.
34:44
Dylan Petkus, MD
Excellent. Yeah, it’s all about being able to catch on to those things that help you and then maintain and build that momentum. And we even help you there on the back end as well in terms of being able to make sure that we just don’t send you out onto a boat in the ocean and light it on fire and say, good luck, see you. That. And that is one thing where everybody can end up, but everyone starting is having that call that Jonathon and I had like three months ago, it seems like. And you can go ahead and grab that, the link optimalcircadianhealth.com/talk.
35:16
Dylan Petkus, MD
And that’s where we’ll see, if you’re someone who, maybe you’re someone exactly like Jonathon, maybe your name is Jonathon, but being able to know and identify that you have issues that we can help and that we’re fit for each other. Because if you are, then you can leave behind the supplements, you can leave them in the old house as you move into the new one, or maybe have a garage sale, I don’t know.
35:35
Dylan Petkus, MD
But the reality is you’ll be able to finally know that you can really sustain how you’re able to live your life and how you’re able to really move about really all the things you want to enjoy from work, from home, to being able to have your wife back with you, all the while with being able to leave the whole health part kind of on the back burner, because you don’t have to try to triangulate which supplement is going to work for you because we’re able to really get your body working back to that natural place. It all starts right here, connecting with us. And go to the link, pick a time on the calendar, fill out a form, and we will talk to you. So, Jonathon, thank you so much for joining us.
36:10
Jonathon
Thanks for having me. Of course.
36:15
Dylan Petkus, MD
And so, everyone, thanks for joining us as well as everyone out there, and we will see you in the next class.
36:20
Jonathon
I’ll see you in the group. Bye.