Bipolar Disorder Episode Transcriptions

Kick It Naturally – Bipolar Disorder

Disclaimer

T.C. Hale is not a doctor and does not claim to be a doctor, licensed in any type of medical field. Don’t be an idiot and use anything heard on this show as medical advice. This information should be used for educational purposes only and you should contact your doctor for any medical advice. Now get off me.

Kinna: Welcome to Kick it Naturally. I’m Kinna McInroe and I’m here with T.C. Hale, author, natural health expert, producer and a bunch of other stuff. What’s up, Tony?

Tony: Hand glider!

Kinna: You can add that to the list now. Hand glider.

Tony: I can’t say it. I can’t add it to the list honestly, but I just want to add it to the list.

Kinna: Maybe it’s on the bucket list?

Tony: Sure.

Kinna: Okay, cool. And to my left here you can’t see but it is Will Schmidt and he’s sitting in a tank top looking all brown and chiseled in his white tank top today.

Will: Hi.

Tony: We’re glad Will’s here today, we have a question for him.

Will: Oh yeah?

Tony: Yeah.

Kinna: What’s lithium oritate?

Will: Awe man, you guys.

Tony: No, no we, Will is a gym guy. He works in the gym, he’s a trainer so you know Kinna and I have a gym question.

Will: Oh wow.

Tony: Yeah. So we’re hoping you can help us out.

Will: I hope I know the answer.

Tony: Kinna had a problem in the gym today where she was dry heaving and gagging.

Kinna: Oh, yes.

Tony: And, and so did Nina and some of the other girls. So what do you do when someone smells like a homeless person but they’re in, not that I have anything against homeless people.

Will: What? Did Kinna smell like a homeless person?

Tony: No.

Kinna: I might have been a little stinky but this was like over-stink. This was like you could smell…

Will: And you were dry heaving?

Tony: No. It was because of the guy, there’s a guy that he always…

Kinna: This guy smells soooo bad.

Will: Oh! Because of the smell. Oh, okay. I thought Kinna was dry heaving and smelly and I was like she sounds like an alcoholic.

Kinna: Yeah, yeah. No, I was about to vomit and I nearly did a couple of times in my mouth because his smell was so bad.

Will: Wow.

Kinna: And how do you tell somebody at a gym where you’re supposed to sweat.

Will: Man.

Tony: But there’s etiquette to that. So how do you, how do you handle that?

Will: Well you have like, they usually have like vitamin waters in lockers or cool-aid, right? So you drink one really fast and then the next time he makes you dry heave you just vomit on him.

Kinna: Okay, okay.

Will: Cause it won’t be dry. It’ll just be splurred all over him and then he’ll have to go take a shower.

Kinna: Yeah. He drives a, I know what car he drives. I was gonna, thinking about putting a note on his car like “hey dude, you smell, put on some deodorant.” I don’t know.

Will: Oh. Well see it’s a passive, like that’s a mean way. He may take it offense. But if you, if he has vomit cool-aid all over him he’s gonna be like I gotta take a shower.

Kinna: “Oh I’m so sorry you smell so bad I vomited.”

Will: Because that, yeah but he’s going to get the hint every time he comes in and smells and you vomit cool-aid on him. Eventually through that like Pavlov’s law you’re going to get a different result.

Kinna: Well what is it, what is that scent? I mean you know, I know it’s toxins leaving our body and stuff. But…

Will: Stank? Yeah.

Kinna: We’re getting off topic now.

Tony: With, with this guy though it kinda smells like that his shirts have never been washed. It kinda smells like they just accumulate whatever he sweated onto it. And then when he comes back he wears it again.

Will: It could be just, yeah poor hygiene, repeat performance gym shirt thing. But if you guys ever saw this one awesome documentary called The Science of Attraction they, they do this gym shirt experiment where they have girls smell guy’s shirts and guys smell girl’s shirts after they sweat in them.

Kinna: Ew.

Will: And they found that like the healthier the guy’s immune system is the less pungent the smell. You can still smell that it’s like a guy. It’s the bacteria that’s on our skin that create the smells. So like their ferments is what we actually smell. So if you have a strong immune system you have healthy bacteria on your skin and it creates a particular like musk. But if you have like a weak immune system it’s a super stank.

Tony: So what we learned from that is that if you stink wear a purple shirt because Kinna’s going to drink cool-aid and vomit on you.

Kinna: Exactly, exactly. I have been told before by several people that ginger’s have a certain scent to them. Like, like where we live we just have like a certain odor. I don’t know, is that true?

Will: Interesting. I don’t know.

Kinna: I can’t smell it on me.

Will: You’re the only ginger I associate with so I don’t have a…

Kinna: Oh, okay. Alright. Today’s show is brought to you by Audible.com.

Tony: Audible.com!

Kinna: Woohoo! Get a free audio book download and 30 day free trial at KickItInTheNuts.com/Audiobook. Over 150,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or MP3 player. And every time we say Audible.com we get $100.

Will: Audible.com.

All: Audible.com, Audible.com, Audible.com.

Tony: So maybe, maybe we should have a show today I guess.

Kinna: About smell. Or we could change the show to smell. We won’t have any questions I’ll just come up with about 20.

Tony: Okay.

Kinna: Okay.

Tony: Sounds great.

Will: It’s funny though like the guy who made a lot of insight about mental health that I’m sure we’ll talk about was actually studying smell when he discovered his key insights about psychiatric health.

Kinna: Really?

Tony: Oh I didn’t even know that.

Will: Yeah, George Watson.

Tony: Yeah.

Kinna: In like in nature and stuff, like animals sniff on each other.

Will: Yeah.

Kinna: And we smell people I guess pheromones or whatever we’re putting off that’s chemistry, right? If you like somebody’s scent you’re attracted to them?

Will: That is. But the guy I was mentioning is a guy named Dr. George Watson who wrote a book called Nutrition and Your Mind which is a ton about what we’ll probably talk about today with mental health, and emotional stability, mental performance and energy production. But he found, he discovered his stuff on accident while he was doing like paid research to study the effects of different vitamins and nutrients on the sense of smell. And he started noticing people having intense psychological reactions to different nutrients.

Kinna: Alright.

Tony: That’s awesome.

Will: Yeah.

Tony: I like when people find stuff by accident.

Will: Yeah.

Kinna: That’s cool. Well if you haven’t followed us on Facebook yet you need to drop everything you’re doing because we’re going to have wonderful discussions about BO and stuff like that.

Tony: You would have missed that.

Kinna: Yeah, exactly. Go to our Facebook page and like us at Kick It In The Nuts and we’re going to post topics there every week about future shows. And you guys can post any questions you want us to cover in the show. And we’ll try.

Tony: Yeah. Like all the questions that you’ll hear today are from people on Facebook that asked.

Kinna: On Facebook, exactly.

Will: Or ones we made up.

Kinna: Or we made them up, yeah. But yeah, they come from Facebook. And today we’re actually going to be talking about bipolar disorder. So…

Tony: Dun dun dun daaaaa.

Kinna: Yeah this is a, this is, I think we’ve all met people or we might be people that suffer from this. I might be. You know it’s still up in the air.

Tony: You know I think one thing that and we’ll hear some of the people today that you know I think people that are dealing with the issue get upset because it’s so easy to use a bipolar joke any time someone’s upset with you. They’re like “what are you bipolar?” You know? And they just make a joke out of it.

Kinna: Kinda like “what are you, on your period?”

Tony: Yeah. Kinda that kind of thing.

Kinna: Yeah.

Tony: But that’s a true thing. Oh no, that’s not? We’re not allowed to do that? No. I have a book on menstrual cramps so I’m allowed to talk about the menstrual cycle.

Kinna: Okay. Says the man with no uterus or ovaries.

Tony: Right, yeah. But I don’t get cramps so I must know what I’m talking about.

Will: Ever.

Tony: Okay. But, so you know it’s important to understand that you know if a person is dealing with a bipolar issue it’s like affecting their whole life. It’s ruining a lot of situations.

Kinna: And the people around you.

Tony: Yeah. And everybody around them as well too. So it really is you know if it’s not something that you’re dealing with you just can’t understand. You just don’t get it because it’s a, it’s a big deal. And when someone can improve those issues it changed their whole life big time. So that’s what we’re gonna kinda talk about…that.

Kinna: Cool. Alright. Yeah mental illness isn’t fun. My sister who passed away, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar, manic depression. She was in and out of institutions, on every kind of lithium, everything. And it just you know her life was like a living hell and she made everybody else’s life a living hell.

Tony: And that’s what her life was. I mean that was, had to be what her, like her job or whatever.

Kinna: Yeah, exactly.

Tony: That consumed everything that she did. And I think that we see that with a lot of people. And we’ll hear from people today saying similar things to them too. So I think just to give a kinda broad overview of what we want to look at. We really need to look at you know basically what is bipolar. And when you look at all the medical diagnosis stuff and all the literature out there it, it’s not like, I really like type two diabetes because you can…

Kinna: You really like it?

Tony: I like it. I think it’s cool because you diagnose it off of a number. You know they can test a fasting glucose and if it’s over 128 so many days a week then a lot of doctors will diagnose that person as type two diabetic. So it’s not so subjective. You know with things like bipolar it’s, you know it’s like okay you’re, you love everybody one minute and then you’re a jackass and hate everybody the next minute.

Kinna: See that’s me.

Tony: Right, right. And they want to call that like you know a disease. And, and it is an issue that a lot of people deal with but we want to understand why that happens because a lot of times people will have this issue that ruining their whole life. But you know I don’t know how much a diagnosis really helps that.

Kinna: Yeah, yeah. I mean that’s one thing because once you have the diagnosis that’s in your head too. It’s like in your head, you can’t get it out of your head. Maybe you weren’t bipolar but now you think you’re bipolar. So now I mean if you think it and you believe it you are you know kinda thing.

Tony: Right. And at the same time though people that are just wondering “is it everything Thursday I’m just, I’m hateful?” You know and they, they’re very confused about it, if they get diagnosed and of course they’re going to be put on med 90% of the time. Those meds may create reactions that help them in certain situations and we’ll talk about why. But that could be beneficial to them. They could improve their life that way. So in that regard a diagnosis can help somebody. But…

Kinna: But you’re still kicking your liver you know.

Tony: With the meds, sure.

Kinna: Yeah, exactly.

Tony: But let’s look at why this happens. Why would a person be great one minute and horrible the next? And it, and it doesn’t have to be from minute to minute. They, they give diagnosis to people that are happy part of the year and sad another part of the year. You know it can be a broader situation than just…

Kinna: Screw you, Tony!

Tony: Right. It doesn’t have to be like that. So let’s look at why that would happen. So when we do that, the good analogy that I like to look at is like try not eating anything for three or four days and see how friendly you are, see how happy you are. I mean haven’t you ever been in a situation whether you were either sick or, I mean we’ve all been a jackass at one point or another, Kinna can attest.

Will: She’s on an upswing right now.

Kinna: Yeah. Yeah I’m in an upswing.

Tony: I meant she could attest to me being a jackass.

Kinna: You’re a lot of things but I don’t think you’re intentionally a jackass.

Tony: Right, but…

Kinna: You just don’t know that you’re a jackass.

Tony: We’ve all had days where we look back and we’re like, man I was a jackass that day. You know or in that situation.

Kinna: I usually just credit it to you being a man. You know?

Tony: Uh huh, right. Which is good, but you know there’s, we’ve all had times whether you know think about if you’re really sick you know you might not be as friendly or patient with people. Or you might be a little whinny or sad. Or you know I’ve talked about on the show before where there were times when I was really sick and I would like start crying at episodes of The Brady Bunch. You know it’s just emotions you know get heavier when you’re sick like that.

Kinna: I want to see Tony have an emotion.

Tony: Nah! Robot! So Will, let’s talk a little bit about why somebody who hasn’t eaten you know for those many days might feel that way or have different personalities so to speak.

Will: Yeah. If you are someone dealing with this you might also gain some insights by going back and listening to our other pod cast about depression, anxiety and cravings because this whole like, like this question you just posed, this prolonged fasting state would throw almost everyone into a low blood pressure, electrolyte deficient situation. And with that you’re it’s really hard for your brain to run right. Your body knows it doesn’t have enough resources to do it’s daily activities, it’ll start shutting down your metabolism. And you get all sorts of like correct negative feedback from your cells saying “hey, this sucks. Let’s get some more nutrients going so we can keep the show going.” And it will start to break it’s own tissue down to keep the, your body active and alive. And that’s just not fun, it doesn’t feel good. So you’re going to have like little spurts where like in that, you’ll have little spurts where your thyroid like goes into super drive and then shuts down, and super drive, shuts down. So you can have these ups and downs as your endocrine system is like an engine sputtering, you know? So with that your mood can fluctuate a lot.

Kinna: And even if you were eating but your body couldn’t process everything. Like your digestion then you know you’re still…

Will: Good call.

Kinna: Y’all, I’m turning into like a health practitioner right before your eyes.

Will: You are. Yeah, I mean what I would say like I would be, I would be shocked it there was some who, air quote “had bipolar” but all of their test ranges showed normal. Like if their blood pressure was were it should be, their breath rate was where it should be, their blood sugar, the other different tests that we teach people how to do. If you’re in all the perfect ranges there I bet you my horse you are not bipolar.

Tony: Right.

Kinna: You’re just a jackass.

Will: Yeah. I mean there’s like, so when you look at that it’s like oh is it really a disease I was born with? Does it run in your family? And he’s like well eating habits and maybe toxicity or even weakness from birth might be something you inherited. But if you can work to make steps, or take steps to correct your chemistry just watch how magically those symptoms of bipolar and other symptoms kinda just melt away.

Tony: Right. So here’s, here’s how to look at it, how to view it is that it’s easy for us to understand that if you don’t eat for three or four days that’s it’s going to affect you as a human being. You may act differently, you may feel differently. We’ve all experienced situations like that. So that makes sense. So what we need to do is understand that if someone is eating but they’re not getting nutrients or their body’s not processing the nutrients correctly, it’s processing them too quickly, too slowly. There’s all kinds of things that can happen. But if fuel is not getting to the brain or there’s not enough minerals in the system for signals to travel correctly. All those things, if any of that is going on even though the person is eating they’re, it’s, it’s like their body hasn’t been eating. And they could, the body could be starving just like the person that went three or four days without eating anything. Or the person who has a cold and all of those resources are going towards fighting that cold so now they’re like a little bitch. You know and they’re, they’re angry and they’re emotional. And you know it’s they’re, they’re a different…

Kinna: Or pregnant people.

Tony: Sure. A pregnant person is a perfect example. That’s, that’s like a brilliant example really.

Kinna: Oh gosh. I’m good today.

Will: Wow.

Tony: Kinna’s on fire today.

Will: It’s gonna be the Kinna McInroe show next week.

Tony: Right. And I’ve talked about this in my book about pregnant women because it’s, it’s the perfect example of no matter how sweet and lovely a girl is we know at some point when she’s pregnant she’s going to snap and flip out. And we just accept that because we understand what’s going on. We understand that all of those resources are going towards building this other human being, and it kinda leaves the person without enough stuff to function. And then you know they say well there’s hormones that are going crazy. Well a lot of times those hormones are going to abnormal levels because the body’s doing whatever it can to try and function without resources. So when we look at that, and we look at it, we tie that into a bipolar situation a lot of times when these people are up they’re just in a mode of the body has found a way to function correctly or maybe they ate sugar or some kind of thing that was easy to, for their body to digest and gave them fuel in that immediate moment. But a lot of these people are set up in you know physiologically that when they do eat sugar and they spike and feel great a crash is coming right after that.

Will: Yeah. You can look at anyone doing a juice cleanse, going on that roller coaster.

Tony: Sure.

Will: Like so elated and then just like can’t stand upright. And then they’re so elated like every time they have juice.

Kinna: Yeah. If you want to experience bipolar go on a juice cleanse.

Will: Yeah. Go on a juice fast.

Tony: So a lot of times, and you know if you’re listening and you’re thinking “well you know I eat the same thing everyday.” It’s not necessarily what you’re eating even though that can affect situations. But it’s how your body is processing what you’re eating. And the way that it processes it can vary drastically from day to day depending on the toxic load that it’s dealing with, you know how well you’re digesting that day, the mineral and nutrition content of the food that you’re eating. You know there’s so much that goes into it.

Kinna: And it’s day by day. Like you just said, like maybe some days your digestion, digesting for some reason better than the others. You been taking your supplements, you’ve been doing all the right steps and then one day maybe it’s off.

Tony: Right.

Kinna: Does that usually happen? Or do you usually once you get it fixed and correctly it’s pretty good?

Tony: Well there’s so much that can go into this. You know you look at, you know when you look at the literature by, about bipolar you do see people saying that stress can induce a bipolar disorder for somebody. And the reason that I say “sure, I’m okay with that,” is because when we’re stressed we’re creating all these chemicals. And for the body to continue functioning correctly it takes more resources to deal with all that to, to be in that stressed mode. So stress can reduce the amount of resources that we have available and now the brain’s not getting fuel and we’re depressed or you know think about the most stressful time of your… Oh we know somebody who might get married at some point or something like that.

Kinna: Oh yeah, yeah.

Tony: So we know that brides when they’re preparing for the wedding as well as anybody else that’s involved with that can go a little psycho.

Kinna: Just think of a pregnant bride.

Tony: Right. Pregnant bride.

Will: Oh god.

Tony: You got a Godzilla thing going. So but it, it’s not being rude to say that. We all get it; it’s a stressful time. They turn into a different person. So if stress can create that to someone who is not diagnosed with a bipolar disorder, look at what a lack of resources means to the body. Now the body has to try and function without any of the resources it needs to do that. It’s like trying to pay $800 worth of bills with $7.

Kinna: And you can’t and then they come after you.

Tony: Right. And they come after you. So the body is thinking “I got to pay all these bills. I don’t have enough money to pay these bills.” And it starts to freak out and it starts to stress out. And then it can actually move our autonomic nervous system into the sympathetic state. We’ll have Will explain that in a second.

Will: Oh god.

Kinna: Better start brushing up.

Tony: Right. So if, if you’re body is stressed out we get to feel that stress as well. And so that can affect our personality not only from the stress but from the lack of resources that comes from dealing with that stress.

Will: And you’re, when you’re in fight or flight your body de-prioritizes digestion which makes you get even less of the resources from the food.

Tony: Right. Good point.

Will: Yeah.

Tony: So let’s talk about you know the paraslafhofiebsda…

Kinna: Easy for you to say.

Tony: I know. Let’s talk about the paralshafowefaib…

Will: Okay.

Tony: The parasympathetic and the sympathetic state and you know why somebody can get stuck in…

Kinna: I’m always in a sympathetic state; I feel for you.

Tony: Yeah.

Will: Yeah.

Tony: That’s a different thing.

Will: Sure. So there is external stress like your job, or your marriage, or your…

Kinna: Boss.

Will: Boss, you’re whatever that can put you into like that dealing with emergency mindset. And that is a big, big cause of being stuck in that zone. Or even like working out super hard, like too hard to like tax your nervous system.

Kinna: Did you hear that, Tony?

Will: Stimulants like coffee and whatever else that we’re on. And even allergy meds can push you into that. So there’s also metabolic reasons like someone who’s leaning towards diabetes and they’re like a slow oxidizer their body’s not processing through sugars or starches quickly enough. Their nervous system will try to accelerate that process by pushing them into fight or flight where the general cellular metabolism is speeding up glycolosis because of like what it’s trying to do, deal with the present emergency. So you could be like meditating and chill and everything’s nice and you’re on vacation in Hawaii. But if you’re body is like a really slow oxidizer you may still feel kinda like edgy and on cause you’re stuck in that fight or flight state because of your metabolism.

Tony: Right, right. And it kinda can magnify the stress level that you’re feeling even if the situation is not as stressful.

Kinna: How’d we get all screwed up?

Tony: We’re jacked up.

Will: The foundation of our food is pretty off, you know?

Tony: It’s a little bit not so great.

Will: Yeah.

Tony: Let’s, let’s maybe ask, answer some questions and then we’ll talk more about this.

Kinna: Alright, here we go. Woohoo! Angid, “what are the basic symptoms of bipolar?”

Tony: I’m nice, I’m happy, I’m not so nice, I’m not so happy.

Kinna: Oh, okay. Cool.

Tony: Nah. There’s a lot more to that. And, and they lump a lot of things in, into this symptoms of what can be to you know diagnose or to wonder what’s going on. But the main situation that we like to view especially with someone who is been diagnosed with bipolar is why is their, why are the ups and downs so drastic?

Kinna: Like manic, like really, really depressed, suicidal, or really happy, crazy happy.

Tony: Right. And, and so the good news is that we see in most situations that people can make adjustments to how their body is running or what they’re putting into their body and it can improve these situations greatly. Instead of these spikes and crashes a person can be more on an even keel and all the sudden they’re a completely different human being.

Will: Yeah. If you’re, if you want to kind of go in depth with it you can read Nutrition and Your Mind by George Watson and see like how he was able to pull people beyond just bipolar like paranoid schizophrenics back to normal by fixing their metabolism. By understanding like how their body was processing their food. I don’t know if he did work to correct digestion but he used nutrients specific to those individuals to fix their metabolic rate. And they had immediate, like in the moment results.

Tony: Yeah. And here’s a, here’s a simple way to look at it. When we talk about an oxidation rate and we teach simple tests you can do at home in our free Digestion Course on KickItInTheNuts.com, and we teach this in all my books. But if your body is oxidizing proteins slowly it takes you longer to get the fuel out of those proteins so that they can help the body, fuel the body and everything can function. But if you’re oxidizing fast you may rip through them too quickly.

Will: Did you mean carbs or proteins?

Tony: Yeah. I’m talking about the glucose that is coming out of protein.

Will: Oh, okay.

Tony: So now to look at it another way there are proteins that are easier to oxidize like white meat, like white chicken, white turkey and stuff like that, white fish. Those are easier to oxidize. And then there are proteins like dark chicken or stuff that are harder to oxidize, they take longer to oxidize. So now if you think about it, if I’m a person that I rip through, I oxidize too quickly and then all the food I’m eating is food that’s too easy to oxidize I’m ripping through that in 10 minutes of something.

Kinna: So you would want to stick with dark chicken.

Tony: Yeah. So I would want to do dark chicken so since I’m oxidizing faster I need something that takes longer to oxidize so that it’s more like a time release Tylenol kind of thing. You know it can sustain me throughout the day. So even a person can just adjust the type of protein that they’re eating and completely can turn their life around. So that’s just one example of things that you can do. But when you look at your own physiology not only can you adjust how your body is operating but if you adjust the foods that you’re eating you can really do magical stuff like George Watson was doing.

Kinna: Okay. I don’t know if we answered your question Angid but yeah, anyways. Crystal, “how long does bipolar last?”

Tony: How long can you sustain it?

Kinna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. We got all night.

Will: I’d say as long as the imbalances are there that are causing it.

Kinna: Yeah, exactly. It doesn’t go away until you do something to make it go away.

Will: It can get worse or better.

Kinna: Yeah.

Tony: And you see a lot of people saying that bipolar disorder is not a curable disease is what they say. And we’re not here to argue. We’re not here to say “do this and you’re going to be cured,” because cured is a medical term and we don’t work in the medical field. But what we see is that if you were diagnosed off of something that was purely symptom driven and you can take steps to improve those symptoms is it something that you still have? I don’t. I mean if it’s not bothering you…I don’t know. That’s for you to decide I guess.

Kinna: Yeah. I mean you can, like we were saying, you can with maybe with digestion and all that stuff and then maybe you don’t have a problem anymore.

Tony: Right. But maybe if you go back to your doctor, maybe if you come back to your doctor he’s like “I’m sorry. I already diagnosed you. It’s not curable so you still have it. So here’s your name tag, wear it.”

Will: Dormant, dormant.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah, right. It’s dormant. But at least you know I, I feel good so who cares, whatever.

Kinna: It’s in remission.

Will: Okay. Dell from Ray, Colorado, “marijuana works very well for bipolar disorder.” I love it that he lives in Colorado.

Will: He’s done a lot of research.

Kinna: Exactly. Yep. Just like here in California.

Tony: I don’t have an answer for that.

Will: I would assume that it pushes his chemistry in the right way.

Kinna: I think it works. It depends on the person. I know a little bit about this subject

Tony: Maybe we can ask you about this.

Kinna: Yeah, yeah. It depends on the person because and it also depends on the mood you’re in right then. I mean if I’m in a certain mood and let’s just say I were to do a little marijuana here.

Tony: Medicinal of course.

Kinna: Medicinal, exactly.

Will: Yeah.

Kinna: Then it would just be amplified.

Will: Yeah.

Tony: Well so I was curious so I, when I looked up stuff I, I found that it was really, there’s an argument out there about it that some people say that there’s, has some benefits. And other people say that it can create a bipolar disorder so I…

Kinna: That’s true too. I think it depends on the person. Is that why when I walked in you were smoking out of a bong.

Tony: Yeah. That’s why. I wanted to test this out. I don’t want to answer questions without…

Will: Yeah, research.

Kinna: Yeah, exactly.

Will: And it makes hypothetical me really anxious.

Tony: Yeah so the answer is “I don’t know.”

Will: Yeah.

Kinna: It can definitely make you more paranoid.

Will: Yeah.

Kinna: Okay, Zoe from Los Angeles, California, “how can a person become bipolar later in life if they never had any symptoms before?” That’s kinda like the you know, you usually get diagnosed later on with schizophrenia too. They say late 30’s, early 40’s is when, even though my sister was like 14.

Tony: And maybe it’s you know you have to look at, you have to kinda wonder you know cause a lot of the things that you know when someone is overly manic and excited and talkative and all these things that they put into the symptoms of bipolar. You know that’s just a kid hopped up on sugar. You know that’s a, that’s a kid at a birthday party and we don’t…

Kinna: Just like ADD.

Tony: Right.

Kinna: That kid doesn’t have ADD he’s just had 12 Snickers.

Tony: Yeah. Exactly. And that affects how your body functions with all that sugar going. Cause your body’s like “we gotta rip through this.” We gotta burn some of this off. So, but Will, talk, talk a little bit about how you know genetics or you’re not born with kinda things like that. Or, I don’t know just talk about stuff.

Kinna: Well Lady Gaga says she was born this way.

Tony: Yeah.

Will: Well…

Tony: So maybe it’s true.

Will: I don’t know if she was born wearing a meat suit. I guess technically, yeah she is in a meat suit.

Kinna: Yeah. She’s born this way.

Will: So what I think of when I think of this is like say you’re starting off a trip, like a flight and you’re a little off course at first like as you continue going you’re still a little off. And that distance of how far off you are massively increases.

Tony: Ah, right.

Will: So it’s like if your chemistry’s a little off when you’re young, your digestion’s a little impaired it keep on the negative cycle of like oh your chemistry makes your digestion worse, and your digestion makes your chemistry worse. And it just pushes you eventually into problems. Same thing like with joint pain. Like maybe your posture’s a little off for a while and your knee kinda aches and then just over years the wear and tear is like just accumulates.

Tony: Right, totally.

Will: So eventually you develop symptoms.

Kinna: So your imbalances become worse and worse and worse when they’re not dealt with.

Will: Yeah.

Tony: And there’s also, you know if you’ve heard any of our shows before we mention digestion.

Kinna: That’s, that’s the magical word right there.

Tony: Right. So, if, if a, and we have a couple of episodes the last few episodes were on just digestion. So listen to those if you don’t understand the importance of digestion. But there’s a lot of things in life that can turn digestion off even abruptly. You know if you have a little reflux and you’re like “oh well I’m supposed to take an over the counter reflux drug.” You just turned off your digestion and sometimes it can be hard to get it back on if you don’t already have a lot of resources. So if something like that happens and all the sudden you can’t pull fuel out of the food that you’re eating then you could go downhill very quickly.

Kinna: And if you’re a downhill skier that would be good.

Tony: Yeah. You would win.

Kinna: But if you’re not then that’s probably not good.

Tony: Then you would not win.

Kinna: Meagan from Concord, New Hampshire, “I have to say I feel like there are a lot of people that are just too comfortable throwing the term around. Being undiagnosed with bipolar for many years literally destroyed my life. I am slowly picking up the pieces and rebuilding but there is nothing more frustrating to me than when someone uses the term flippantly. There is no cure; there is only learning to live and cope with the disease. If anyone has any tips on foods or other natural things I would love to hear them.”

Tony: See and this is, this is…

Kinna: Kinda bleak though.

Tony: Yeah. But it was what I was talking about before. Kinda that I guess if, if you’re dealing with something that has ruined your life then you get a little defensive. Like I can remember you know I lost my voice for eight years and people would complain to me. They’re like “I haven’t been able to talk, I lost my voice. And it’s been scratchy for almost a week.” And I’m like, really? That’s what you’re going to complain to me about?

Kinna: Or “I put on two pounds.”

Tony: Right, right. So…

Kinna: Try 100 something.

Tony: So when someone is dealing with this and then other people use it in a throw away sentence it’s a little offensive to them. But one thing that I would say to Meagan, and this is not just Meagan this is most of the population, especially most of the population dealing with the disorder is that in the medical community it is not fixable because they’re treating it with drugs. And the drug is not going to fix the underlying cause. So you’re going to have to always use that drug or deal with the symptoms and learn to fit it into your life.

Kinna: Because if they put a guarantee on it then they would have to be held responsible that it didn’t work and all that stuff, right?

Tony: Yeah. They never do guarantee on any drug.

Kinna: Yeah. I’m just saying they can’t guarantee it so they don’t.

Tony: Right. And, and that’s not what drugs are meant to do. Drugs are not meant to fix an underlying cause. They’re meant to correct a symptom cause that’s what we bitch and complain about is the symptom. We never go in and are like “you know my pH is off.” You know we don’t, we just care about how we feel. But what Meagan needs to understand and, and may be very excited to learn is that there are people around the world with bipolar disorder who improve their situation and even eliminate their symptoms completely everyday. So it’s a matter of saying “oh there is information out there. I need to investigate that and see what I could do for myself.” Just try some things out and if you feel better, look at that. Something, something happened. So just because the medical community doesn’t have a solution doesn’t mean that there’s not a solution or at least a way to improve your life.

Kinna: Amen. Amy from Allen, Texas “is it the new ‘in’ diagnosis when they’re not sure what to call it?” Probably, yeah. Although it’s been “in” for years.

Tony: But it is more popular now than it used to be.

Kinna: Yeah.

Tony: And I think Janet in the group was even saying that it took her you know 20 years to get diagnosed and she’s like 60 now. But you know a long time ago it was not as popular. People back then it was always, the answer was…

Kinna: Depressed.

Tony: Or that it’s in your head. That’s what they told people before. Now they don’t really tell people that things are in their head anymore. They just say “you win this diagnosis.”

Kinna: Isn’t that the whole point of mental illness, it’s in your head?

Will: It’s all in your head.

Kinna: I mean it’s all in your head.

Tony: Yeah. So but I, I do think that I would say that yeah it probably is pretty common that when a doctor doesn’t understand why someone is having an issue that the important thing is to find a diagnosis that matches because then at least the person can say “okay I have something, I’m not a freak. And I can take a med for it.”

Kinna: Okay. Sylvia, “we all are and can become.” Whoa. She thinks we’re all bipolar or that we all can become it or?

Will: That was deep. Or she was just speaking existentially.

Tony: That she could, yeah.

Kinna: Yeah.

Tony: She may have looked at the wrong post.

Kinna: She might have been too deep for me.

Tony: But she’s kinda right, you know?

Kinna: We all have moods.

Tony: Right. And we can all, you know here, here’s a perfect example is when I did lose my voice the first thing all the doctors did was they put me on the PPI drugs and turned off my digestion. And I was a basket case, you know? For the first time in my life I was depressed. And it was, it’s a different situation. And, and I was a person who would never even be sad except when I watched E.T. So it, it’s the perfect example of you know digestion turned off I couldn’t get the resources my body needed and it affected my mood, my personality, how I felt, everything. So if I would have gone to a doctor and that was why I was going it would have been pretty easy for them to diagnose me with either depression, bipolar or something. But luckily I, I was such a freak with my voice that was all they cared about. They didn’t look at the other stuff. But you can see how easy it is for someone, I forgot the question. Oh no, but you can see how somebody…

Kinna: “We all are and can become.”

Tony: Yeah. You can see how things in life could set a person in that, where they at least feel that way whether it’s diagnosable or not.

Will: Yeah. And if you just pay attention to your moods throughout like elevations of blood sugar like post workout, right, right at when you eat, during your menstrual cycle, away from your menstrual cycle. You’ll see we all have these ebbs and flows and ups and downs. And those also affect people like diagnose with this condition.

Kinna: Yeah. Even birth controls. You know what I mean? If you like, like years ago Tony would, you know wanted to kill me when I did the Depro shot. That’s a three month shot. And there was so much in me that I was like a basket case the whole time. I was like high, low, crying, irrational. And it was everyday. I just was raging.

Will: Geeze.

Kinna: And it was because it was so much stuff put into me in one shot that would last for three months. So I mean even things like that. If I had gone I would have been diagnosed right then.

Tony: You know that’s, that’s a great point. It gave me a good idea here. And I don’t think we’ve ever used this analogy; I really like it. I hope we’re recording this so that I can remember it. Psh, totally forgot.

Kinna: You forgot? Ahhhh!

Tony: So what happens is when, you know we run on kinda blood sugar. We need that in there to function. But if blood sugar goes super low minerals can kinda buffer that and we can kinda function. So if a persons blood sugar spikes they can be all excited. When it crashes the minerals in the system are just one buffering system. It’s like a backup system that the body has so that we don’t fall apart. The problem is that a lot of people don’t have very many minerals in the body for a lot of different reasons. So that buffering system is, is really gone. So now instead of being an even keeled human being they are a prisoner to wherever their blood sugar is. So if their blood sugar is high they can feel great. But when it goes low they’re a complete mess because there is nothing there to buffer that.

Kinna: Have you ever seen a hypoglycemic get hungry? They get mean!

Tony: That’s how I used to be. I used to be hypoglycemic. And people, they knew to run and get me a sandwich.

Will: Yeah. That, and that just makes me want to touch on just a moment like the main sort of imbalances that I’ve seen in people that have come to me with this bipolar or emotional disturbance like ebbs and flows is if they’re low blood pressure in this mineral deplete state like you’re talking about, not a lot of resources to draw from. It’s less common in someone with a high blood pressure electrolyte state. They may not feel good but they usually don’t, they have those resources to like draw from.

Tony: Right.

Will: So if you’re low blood pressure, if you’re a fast oxidizer you’ll tend to be that also cause you’re like you said earlier, ripping through your fuel sources and then you crash. If you’re in a sympathetic state it can also make you feel kinda panicked all the time. Or if you’re too alkaline it can also make you feel really anxious and not know like why. And if your body isn’t breaking down proteins and you don’t have potassium in your cells. Like all those are main things to kinda look at. So you can go through our free course on correcting digestive issues to learn how to see, are you any of those things? Are you electrolyte deficient or fast oxidizer, overly alkaline or sympathetic? And then like work on each one of those things.

Tony: Yeah. And what’s great is a lot of people with situations like this don’t have to fix everything in order to feel better. Because the body has a lot of little systems in place to back things up. Like if you look at your urine pH and it’s really, really high most…

Kinna: What’s that?

Tony: Huh?

Kinna: What’s MPH?

Tony: Urine pH.

Will: Urine pH.

Kinna: Oh, oh.

Tony: Yeah. We teach people how to look at their urine pH.

Kinna: Yeah, yeah. I thought you said MPH.

Tony: But we see that people with a very high urine pH tend to have a lot of times over, overly powerful insulin. So when they do eat sugar and they get that spike they really crash hard and fast. So the person has a few options. They can either stop eating sugar and, and find carbs that are more even keeled running, maybe don’t spike so high but still give them carbs to feel better. Or you can help them adjust their urine pH so that it’s not so over powering and eliminate all that sugar so quickly. So that a lot of times it’s just a matter of either adjusting what you’re eating or adjusting your physiology a little bit. And either one can give you a relief. And you know when you fix more than one thing all the sudden you’re like a new person.

Kinna: So even if somebody is like, say somebody’s just binging out on sugar and they’re a binger. And this is like something they do all the time then they might be experiencing bipolar stuff because they’re high and then they’re low. And then they have to get high again and they have to get low and if they just take away their sugar or a lot of it you know at first they may be a little depressed or crazy but after a while they’ll kinda even out. Kinda they’re even keel?

Tony: And I would say, I would say to listen to our episode on, on binging and cravings to understand why you’re having those cravings. Cause they, you know it’s not like nobody ever told them you know don’t eat 16 donuts at a time. You know they, they’ve heard that. They know that that’s not a good idea. But sometimes you can’t help it so you need to understand how to fix those issues so that you can help how to, how to give your body what it needs so that it’s not screaming for that kind of stuff.

Kinna: Cool.

Tony: So if someone you know don’t, don’t look at it like just eat better. It’s not that simple.

Kinna: Cause your digestion may be not working.

Tony: Right.

Kinna: All the different factors. And what’s right for you may not be right for somebody else. Blah, blah, blah.

Tony: Right. You may be eating all these simple to break down sugars cause you found out that’s the only way you can function at all. And that might be true. So you have to fix things so that you can eat what we would call healthy.

Kinna: Yeah, alright. Simran, Houston, Texas, “highly, a highly intelligent and active youth who started signs of being bipolar after parents divorced at age 13. Now he’s a bipolar young adult who prefers to sleep all day, overeat, loves school, and blows off job interviews. He is going through the special needs program which locates jobs and he is stable on meds. The problem is the family is lucky if he flushes the toilet when he’s done. And he knows full well how to flush. He’s just lazy on an epic scale. He is indulged and then berated and the cycle goes around. Lots of things he does are from in my opinion being allowed to do them. Period. Am I being too harsh? How do we get him off the track of habits built from enabling family members at this point without causing more harm than good. There are camps we considered but they are for several weeks and for hundreds of dollars per day. What can we do?”

Adoption. You know might be in order.

Will: Boarding school?

Kinna: Yeah, yeah.

Tony: Well I think, I don’t think that Simran, that’s how I’m going to say that name. It’s kinda cool but I don’t know if I’m saying it right. I’m going to say that you’re not being harsh. I think that you’re just not being empathetic because you don’t have an understanding of what it’s like to be in that situation. And I had, I lived with a bipolar individual before I knew anything about any of this stuff and it was, you know it’s really hard. And it’s like wow, I don’t even understand how you got a license to be a human. You know? Because it’s the, there’s no, a lot of times, there’s no rationality there.

Kinna: And now that you know all this are you going to go back and like you’re like, “I want to fix her.” You know that kind of thing?

Tony: Yeah, no. But, but there’s understanding there. And there’s a realization of you know you don’t think the person is crazy anymore. You just understand what they’re going through. And here’s what you could do, here’s what Simran could do to better understand. If Simran could not eat anything for 3 days and then run a marathon. And then after you do that I want you to go home and I want you to continue not eating. And I want you to see, I want to see if you flush the toilet. I want to see if you’re, if you’re helpful around the house, or you’re pleasant, or you’re even a nice person because a lot of times people with this bipolar issue are dealing with that all the time. Like that’s the state that they’re in all the time, that their body is just not getting what it needs. And you know a lot of the ups and downs can not only come from what they ate that day or you know, you know are they eating, did they happen to eat something their body could process. There’s this ebb and flow of what the body does with all this and you know that can change over weeks and months. And the body can get to a point where it’s like “I’m not getting anything, alright I’m going to try this. And let’s, let’s start breaking down our own tissue and stuff like that.”

Will: Yeah. I mentioned that earlier when we’re talking about how the thyroid will kick on and off as like an engine sputtering. It literally does that as it will sorta jolt awake or find some resource that it can tap into or, or recognize like a super drop in energy production. It’ll just kick on for a minute and it’ll keep doing that. And then you know if you talk to your doctor about that you’re like fluctuating between hyper and hypo thyroid. And basically it’s just your body doesn’t have the resources it needs to run. And it’s very much like an engine sputtering. Like the car will jolt and stop, and jolt and stop.

Tony: Right, right. And so that’s not always a, a direct response to what you eat. There’s, there’s a lot more complicated stuff going on in the body that probably no one will ever understand. But we have to understand that a lot of times improvement or crashing further can be a result of the body getting fed up and trying some last ditch effort of jacking up a hormone to see if that helps. You know, stuff like that.

Will: Yeah. I mean also we, and we want to, we do focus on the nutrition side of all this and what’s going on in their chemistry cause that will help no matter what else is going on psychologically. But when you look at in this case of like signs of being bipolar after a divorce like there’s psychological factors and stresses too that maybe he wants to be disgruntled to make you guys wrong, you know for the life situation that you’re in. And there’s real, there’s real psychological pull and stories that people can latch onto that even if someone did fix their digestion they might quit that program and mess it up again. You know, or start drugs.

Tony: Right.

Will: You know because it doesn’t fit their story of like of being right or who’s wrong. Or how to blame people or make people feel bad for your pain.

Kinna: Be the victim.

Will: Yeah, right. So there’s all those things too. I’ve had clients that they started the program, they lost like 20 pounds and then they stopped doing it cause they, they wanted to be overweight because it protected them psychologically.

Kinna: Yeah. Or it’s just so different they’re not used to the change and they would rather stick with what they know then a change that they don’t know.

Tony: Try to figure out how to be a different person.

Kinna: Yeah, yeah. That’s a real common. I mean I think with a lot people and even though this life, it’s like a woman whose abused even though this life is you know is so scary staying here at least I know what to expect. I don’t know what to expect if I leave and you know.

Tony: Yeah. That’s true. And just remember that you know most things that we talk about like issues like this or depression or emotional issues that life counts. You know what happens in life can affect you. It can affect you know your emotions and all that stuff. Our only suggestion is that when you’re looking at nutrition and how they body is running is if you can improve those situations it can make those things in life easier to deal with. Maybe it goes from a 10 to a 6 or something. But it’s also important that the person has to want to improve. So Simran may not be able to help this kid if this kid doesn’t want help.

Kinna: Nino from Rapid City, South Dakota, “what are different options when you have bipolar instead of going to the psych ward for a week. Are there other safe places to go for a week than a hospital assuming a med change is not necessary?”

Tony: I like Lake Shasta. That’s a pretty place.

Will: Go on a juice cleanse retreat?

Tony: Oh man. That poor guy would be ruined.

Will: I know. I mean well like there are different places you can go like natural health places. And if they can get on board with understanding your body chemistry. Like there are a lot of good programs out there where people have gone and like cured themselves of cancer or got to like just chill out and eat healthy for a while. So some of the ones that I’ve had people enjoy was one called Optimal Health Institute which I think is in San Diego near Mexico. And they’re, but look up, Google like good ones. There might be something near you.

Tony: Yeah. But don’t, don’t view that as that’s what the person needs. And don’t view it, don’t view like a, the psych, going to a psych ward for a week is an option to fix it I just want a different option. I don’t think that’s the option at all. One place that you might want to go is the grocery store.

Kinna: Yeah. Whole Foods.

Tony: Where you could get some real food that has real nutrition in it and then you make it. So it’s not a place where you drive through and you place the order.

Kinna: And hang out for a week.

Tony: Yeah, yeah. Just hang out in the grocery store; they have free samples. But that would be a place to start is see what happens when you not only eat real food with real nutrition but set your body up so that you can access the nutrients in that food by digesting it correctly.

Kinna: And don’t go to one of those sweat lodges.

Tony: No.

Will: No.

Tony: Or, or a rest stop.

Kinna: Yeah.

Tony: Okay. Alright so we know where not to go.

Kinna: Yeah. Exactly. Okay, Michael from Lake Yawara, New South Wales, Australia.

Tony: I think you said that right.

Kinna: I’m sure that’s how it’s supposed to be said. And, and this ones a hard one to read cause I don’t get it. “Laugh out loud. Had a 12 year relationship with a bipolar woman, destroyed our relationship, family, and has scarred my kids for life. And the truth is nothing will help a person that LOL doesn’t have a problem. Oh and so many people like to use the guise of mental illness when it suits. That is the truth. Aside from genuine sufferers there is a lot more scammers out there.” Michael got burned.

Tony: Yeah. Michael didn’t have fun with that one.

Kinna: Yeah. And maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was just a stark raving you know, bi-yatch.

Tony: Right. And but and a lot of times you know she said that she didn’t have a problem. Apparently that’s what she was telling him…

Kinna: Oh that’s what it, I didn’t know what the “lol” was.

Will: But then did she use it as an excuse? Also, like the highs and lows, like “I don’t have a problem,” and then other times “I have…”

Kinna: Maybe he’s bipolar.

Tony: He changed a couple times in that.

Kinna: Yeah. He changed, yeah.

Tony: You know you look at, you know it is hard for him to deal with but a lot of times when you don’t have the resources for the brain to function correctly it’s hard to, to get to see that “oh I am acting like a different person.” So he was, he’s probably like where I was before when I was living with someone who was bipolar. But I didn’t understand what it was or what would cause it. It just seemed, it just seemed like a random occurrence to me instead of having real underlying causes.

Kinna: And that’s when you turn to hookers.

Tony: That may have been helpful. I did not. Okay.

Kinna: Kinley from Los Angeles, California, “are there foods that can improve bipolar? Are there foods that can also make it worse?” Probably.

Tony: I would say yes but there isn’t, I would say that it would depend greatly from person to person and how you’re processing things.

Kinna: We’re all snowflakes.

Will: Yeah. This program should be sponsored by Depends. Get it? Yeah. I mean definitely like what fixes you is gonna be different than the next person. So like look at your own metabolism, your digestion and try to learn.

Kinna: Take the course at KickItInTheNuts.com.

Will: Yeah. It’ll help you learn how to eat right for you.

Kinna: Cool. Pam from Deltona, Florida, “no I lived with one, stay away.”

Tony: Okay. Thank you, Pam.

Kinna: What if you fall in love with them first and then you find out? That’s always an issue.

Tony: That’s not good. And that’s why, you know I think a lot of these people have a hard time because during the ups the person is amazing. It’s like the best person you ever knew. And then during the downs you’re like “I’m surprised there’s not like horror theme music right now.” So that’s why a lot of times they will stick it out with a bad situation because there’s a lot of good there that they see.

Kinna: Aww. Poor Jo. Rose, “exercise.” I think that one yeah is a good suggestion. It may not cure it but it definitely you know I think it’ll help a little with the endorphins you know.

Tony: I think it could do either.

Will: Yeah. Again, it depends.

Tony: Let’s listen to how Will explains why sometimes exercise could be a bad idea.

Kinna: Oh yeah. You’re right. Everybody else yeah is different.

Will: Right. Well if you’re low resources, like low blood pressure, electrolyte deficient any electrolytes you loose is gonna make you feel more crazy.

Kinna: Yeah. So fix your digestion first before you exercise.

Will: Yeah. And don’t go in a sauna.

Tony: But what’s great is that you can look at measurements, like you can look at your blood pressure and, and know from week to week how often should I work out this week? Am I, am I barely getting by, maybe I need to take it a little more easy.

Kinna: We’ll start doing that when I have 95 over something.

Tony: Uh huh, you’ll have a day off?

Kinna: Yeah.

Will: You can also look at that the catabolic state too. Like if you’re really catabolic like you might not want to super push it in the gym and break yourself down even more.

Tony: We have a lot of questions on this show.

Kinna: We do, we do. Some of them are really just, they’re not really questions though.

Tony: Alright let’s pick it up then.

Kinna: Alright Artie from Harkers Island, North Carolina, “It sucks. Been bipolar and meds helped at first then they don’t work. And I was happier when I smoked so that may have helped me.” What were you smoking is my question. Cigarettes, peace pipe, weed, what?

Tony: But smoking could actually do things to improve…

Kinna: Raises your blood pressure.

Tony: Yeah. Because it, let’s have, let’s have Will explain how smoking can raise blood pressure.

Will: Yeah. So it pushes you in a sympathetic state. There’s over 300 different toxins in most cigarettes.

Kinna: Wow.

Will: So like it freaks your body out. And it can be…

Tony: That’s a bargain. You only buy one pack and you get 300 different toxins.

Will: Yeah. It’s wild.

Tony: That’s great.

Will: So that, but it also it’s full of all this tar, and much and stuff so it makes your blood thicker and pushes your nervous system into flight or fight. So all your veins and capillaries and stuff constrict and that makes the space in which there is blood smaller. So your blood pressure goes higher which makes you feel better. Which you should go back and listen to our Quit Smoking podcast if you’re using smoking as a crutch and can’t seem to quit. It’s probable that you have low blood pressure and it’s helping you feel better by raising your blood pressure temporarily in a really, really toxic way. Same thing with meds like usually like antidepressant meds, anti-anxiety meds also push your blood pressure up. But they also like you say in your books like kick your liver in the face every time you take them. So eventually like that’s going to run your digestion even weaker and then you’ll feel like, you won’t feel as good as you did before the meds.

Tony: Right. Increase the toxic load the body is dealing with, more stress on the body, and then that can create the problems as well.

Will: Yeah.

Kinna: I’m trying to figure out how you figure out which is the face and which is the butt of the liver.

Tony: You just gotta know.

Will: Top part.

Kinna: Nathan, “The outdoors.” Now you know I don’t, unless you’re like allergic to the sun I don’t really see how this one could hurt you.

Tony: Maybe he’s saying go outdoors.

Kinna: That’s what I’m saying; that’s probably what he did mean. The outdoors, go outside, be in nature kinda thing.

Tony: Go outside, right. And I can where people could think that just because if you get vitamin D from the sun that’s going to lift your blood pressure by holding calcium in the blood. And it could thicken that up and raise your blood pressure. So a lot of times with depression people they can use vitamin D and even feel a little bit better. But makes sure you’re not using the extraordinary amounts that main stream tells us. And we probably have a podcast that talks about that.

Will: Yeah. Vitamin D one.

Tony: We have a vitamin D podcast, yeah.

Kinna: We have so many now we’re losing track.

Will: But there’s also just like the peacefulness of outdoors if you’re freaking out.

Kinna: Serenity in nature. I mean it makes me happy when I’m having a bad day.

Will: Yeah. I like that one the best.

Kinna: I do too. I think that’s a good one that, that covers everybody.

Tony: Way to go Nathan you have won a free…oh.

Kinna: Can you just see people writing that down on a prescription.

Will: Outdoors.

Kinna: The outdoors.

Will: The outdoors.

Kinna: Casey from Des Moines, Iowa, “What about the hypo maniac?” And I didn’t know what this was so googled it yesterday when I was reading. And it just appears like they, they’re the same type of symptoms except they’re less. They’re not as like “let’s get this person on meds or let’s you know incarcerate this person.”

Tony: Right. When you, when you look at the symptoms for this it lists things like “creative, optimistic, successful, productive,” and like those are…

Kinna: And that’s a bad thing?

Will: Just to break, just to break this word down it’s less than manic. So, okay. That’s normal, right? Or maybe slightly enthusiastic?

Kinna: Exactly.

Tony: Right. But I think it’s all, it’s the same causes where there’s just times when the brain can have the fuel and the function and all that stuff, and there’s times that it’s not. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t need to be a lot more complicated. There’s doesn’t need to be all the different names that, that we use in the medical world to diagnose things differently. In a lot of these situations the underlying cause is very similar if not the same thing.

Will: Yeah.

Kinna: Steven from Manhattan, Kansas; I didn’t know there was one, okay. “Move up north.”

Tony: So I can’t tell is, does that mean that, I mean is he up…

Kinna: He thinks that’ll help bipolar if you move up north.

Tony: Does, does he live in the south? Does he just want everybody with bipolar to move up there?

Will: Like closer to the north pole, is that what he’s saying, just be like one pole?

All: Awww.

Tony: Maybe that is what he’s saying.

Will: I don’t know.

Kinna: Who knows?

Tony: Waaa waaaa.

Kinna: I don’t know about that one. Joshua from Victoria, British Colombia. “How can I tell if someone is bipolar without asking. I have a buddy who is so talkative and yet so sensitive. He goes without sleep for days and has abundant energy and then will sleep around the clock to rejuvenate himself. He is often loud and defensive, crying of the injustice of how he’s been treated. He’s a kaleidoscope of moods. Wondered if this sounds like bipolar.” It sounds like hell.

Tony: I think what Joshua that what Joshua should do is he should ask his friend. “Are you bipolar?” And then if the friend cries or punches him in the face then you know that he probably is.

Kinna: He’s got his answer. Or if he gets real defensive.

Tony: You know what else though, I think we talked about this in the depression podcast was that a lot of times is that people they’ll, that will have these really low resources and they seem kinda like a drama queen. That’s what people will call them. But what’s, what’s could be happening subconsciously, not that they know that they’re doing this, but by moving into this sympathetic state it constricts the vascular system which can raise blood pressure and help them function more. So if they can take something in their life and blow it out of proportion and, and you know live it as a 10 they’re like forcing themselves into this high sympathetic state that helps them to function better. It’s like they don’t have a medium gear. They only have high and low gear because they have to constrict everything and be in that state of ahhhhhhh! And then they feel better and they can, their brain can function and they can figure things out.

Will: That’s clever.

Kinna: You know who Joshua just described…all actors. You know? Really.

Will: It’s true. That’s a clever insight, Tony.

Kinna: Yeah. People always call me drama queen.

Tony: It’s not mine. I got that from George.

Will: Oh.

Kinna: And then I decided to go into theatre. So it worked out, you know?

Tony: Yeah. Good job.

Kinna: Karna, the sister of Karma from Las Vegas, Nevada “easy glum, easy glow.” Awwww.

Tony: Like a little slogan.

Kinna: Christy “Men-tal depression, men-opause, men-stral cycle. Notice how they all start with men? This is why there is bipolar. Lol.” I’ve got to agree with Christy.

Tony: I, I can see where that would be the case. Guys are pretty stupid. I’ll go along with that.

Kinna: But I like them. Amber from Claire, Michigan, “My father was bipolar, my sister is. Is it hereditary?”

Tony: No. Next question.

Kinna: Okay.

Tony: No. But you know we talk about that, that there are you know genes can predispose things to go wrong in the body. Or can predispose you know functions and how fuel is used but a lot more times it’s just how they were brought up, how they were taught to eat, how they were taught to cook. You know they hanging out in the same kitchen eating the same food. And they just learn to do that and so they can end up in similar situations.

Kinna: Janet from Marian, North Carolina “I have a BPD diagnosis and am maintaining quite well on natural supplements. It will be interesting to hear what Tony has to say about it.”

Tony: No, it won’t.

Kinna: Janet “uses lithium oritate, the OTC supplement not the pharmaceutical version. This particular one was suggested by a functional medical doctor who uses it to treat autistic children. It crosses the blood/brain barrier easily and does not require toxic levels to be effective like lithium carbonate does. It’s more easily cleared by the kidney’s. If there is a side effect to a psych med I will probably experience it and have had severe adverse reactions to many of them. There have been absolutely no reactions to this med and it stopped an episode of severe mania. I have found that very low does of magnesium citrate powder dissolved in water is helpful for both mood and sleep issues. I have to emphasize the very low does part because otherwise it can be a potent laxative. I use only 1/8 to 1/4 a teaspoon in an 8 ounce cup of water maybe 2 or 3 times a week.

Tony: So first we’ll have Will explain what lithium oritate…

Will: Aw, come on.

Tony: So but they, they used to use lithium a lot with bipolar and…

Kinna: My sister, yeah.

Tony: And but it, it caused a lot of problems with building up toxicity levels.

Kinna: And you’re like a zombie on it.

Tony: Yeah that’s what a lot of a you know drugs do. Is a person they may, they may function a little better but they do. They feel kinda like a zombie and they, they don’t like that. So then they’re like “what else can I do?” And I don’t have any experience or any real knowledge about the lithium oritate. I just know that it’s an alkaline metal. And you kinda wonder is, is it, is it kinda replacing mineral and just kinda helping signals travel through it better. And you wonder if that might be what it’s doing. And if it is you could do that with actual minerals. And we see that work a lot with people too. And that may be way magnesium is helping her. You know a lot of low blood pressure people seem to benefit well from magnesium. But magnesium is very pro catabolic so if you take too much, yeah you’re going to, it’s going to be butt soup. So because an overly catabolic state the body will send too much water to the colon and wet, wet butt.

Will: Wet Butt Symptom.

Tony: Yeah. Wet Butt Symptom. What else did she have in there?

Kinna: She’s done. Oh she, yeah that was it.

Tony: Okay.

Kinna: Alright, you’re done Janet.

Tony: Way to go, good job.

Kinna: Alright, the last one. Amber from Claire, Michigan…

Tony: Oh let’s, let’s say this too. We do know Janet from the group and know that she doesn’t have a gallbladder. And she had lost that so we know that her digestion is not working well and she’s not able to get a lot of minerals. So it makes sense that she needs these extra minerals to feel better. So that’s, we like to hear that cause that makes sense.

Kinna: So she should be adding more stuff to make her mineral content higher like sea salt and different things like that.

Tony: Right. And she says she’s doing pretty well when she does these things so that helps us you know people understand. Okay if I can find ways to raise my minerals then I may feel better too.

Kinna: Amber from Claire, Michigan, “Can situations create the disorder or is it just biological?”

Tony: We think it’s mostly biological but yes life can push you in a situation like, you know.

Kinna: Yeah. I mean like if you were traumatized or kidnapped, or some horrible, horrific thing happened to you.

Tony: We talked a lot about stress and all those things, yeah.

Kinna: Yeah. Something can probably tweak your brain totally. But like you said if it’s your body, if you got your body part down then it makes it easier to deal with.

Tony: Yeah. When they cancelled Mr. Bellvediere it was very upsetting to me and it was…

Will: Almost everyone became like that.

Tony: Yeah. It can cause a lot of stress.

Kinna: Alf was very upsetting to me.

Tony: That helped. That was helpful.

Kinna: Alright. So if you want to learn more, that was it y’all. That was a lot of questions today about bipolar stuff.

Will: That’s it? Alright.

Tony: That was like three shows long. That’s probably our longest show ever.

Kinna: There’s a lot of mental issues out there that you know.

Tony: People need help. People need to find answers.

Kinna: And if you want help and you want to learn more about how to look at your own chemistry you can read any of Tony’s books or take the free four week Digestion Course at KickItInTheNuts.com. Or you can go to Will’s website MyBodyOfKnowledge.net.

Will: You got it.

Kinna: Or check him out on Facebook as well and join our group, our support group and…

Tony: Yeah. And if you learn something on the podcast do a review for us on iTunes because that helps you know spread the word so more people can find answers too.

Kinna: And if you hate us, don’t tell anyone.

Tony: Yeah. Then just shut up.

Kinna: Yeah. Alright, until next time.

Tony: Bye!

Will: Bye!

Kinna: Bye!