mycobacterium: the insidious villain

"Complicated" is an understatement when describing Dr Shala Rasouli's patient. In a short few years she had gone through aggressive breast cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, pneumonia, brochiectasis, hiatus hernia, melanoma, SIBO and migraines. Is there a common thread and how do you find it? Where do you start? How do you treat? Dr Rasouli's discoveries are better than any TV detective show. 

Transcript

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Doctor Sharla Rasouli. How are you? I'm well, thank you, Daniel, thanks so much for inviting me. A bsolute pleasure and what an honour for me. I remember meeting you many years ago and was so impressed by your knowledge and your scientific approach to things. But in the background of that scientific approach, you just have this holistic air about you. So you seem to be one of those practitioners who can take all of this, you know, very holistic type of approach, including Reiki and other and bowen therapies. But then you've got a science degree and you special in your PhDs in cancer immunology. Yes. And you're one of those unique practitioners that's been able to combine it all beautifully. So congratulations. That's right, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And I also did ten years of postdoctoral fellowship after my PhD. Oh, okay. In the USA and Australia, so that was ten years. And then I went back to school, studied naturopathy. Right, so you started as a scientist and then you. And then you discovered naturopathy later in your career. That's right, yes. Okay. What made you go that way? Because I could see, like, I was, for example, in the last. Well, all my PhD and postdoc, I was basically working on cancer immunology. So the more and more I was just going deeper with everything that I was doing, especially in the last two years of my postdoctoral fellowship, I was working with this company, private company, that they were investigating the bladder cancer, mainly in males who are smokers. And I felt that we were doing a lot of immunohistochemistry, looking at a lot of slides under the microscope, and I was sort of trying to identify what's going on and what stage of cancer they have. And I felt that there is another element that I really want to bring into everything that I had done so far with the PhD, with the ten years of postdoctoral fellowship, I wanted to do more and sort of add some. Something else, just bringing another dimension to that whole thing. And I felt that something is lacking. And then I started looking deeper and I realized that maybe with nutrition, with naturopathy, herbal medicines, homeopathy, things like this, I can add value to what I'm doing. So that was sort of practically the driving force. Did you have any exposure to those holistic modalities through family or friends, or just fell over it somehow? Interestingly enough, not much back then, not really. I wouldn't say was, you know, invested I knew about. It's just pretty much because of my own experience with my scientific background, I felt that something else is needed to support these patients. It's not just about diagnosis or what stage they are, and it just give them that kind of verdict, if you like that. Now you've been diagnosed with a stage four bladder cancer, for example. I felt that we need to do something else, something more to bring in another dimension and to be able to help these people. So that leads us to our case today. And you'll be talking about a patient of yours who is a 50. Well, when she saw you in 2021, she was 59 years old. Female. Yep. Can you tell us about her, please? Sure. So this person came to me around October 2021, and she basically had a very, very complicated case. So her story started around 1990s when she was diagnosed with IB's and gluten and lactose intolerance. So that was going on in the background, a lot of digestive system issues with her. And around 2006, she basically contracted pneumonia, and from there she started going downhill in relation to her respiratory functioning. Respiratory system functioning. And she ended up with bronchiectasis. Bronchiectasis basically means widening of the airways due to damage. And that actually happened after she felt that she was better from that pneumonia that she contracted. But unfortunately, that wasn't the case, because after that, she started to develop other signs and symptoms related to the lack of functionality of her respiratory system. She couldn't breathe properly. She was coughing all the time. She was bringing up phlegm, she was bringing up blood, and it was really nasty and very, very uncomfortable for her. So when was that? How long was that? After the bronchie exorcist in 2006. So she was basically dealing with all of that from 2006 to 2017. Wow. So, so many years. And during that time, they were sort of offering her cocktail of different antibiotics. So they were trying everything at her, the mainstream medicine and the specialists, the lung specialists, the GPs, and everybody was sort of out there trying to help her with this condition, but unfortunately, nothing was working for her. Bronchiti exorcist usually happens after a chronic infection. That's the most common cause. And she sounds like she had, from your description, a chronic infective episode. Like, the infection seemed to be persistent throughout the whole time, so they kept trying to treat her with antibiotics, but she wasn't getting better. Exactly. At the end, they thought, okay, let's just dig deeper and find out exactly what we're dealing with. So maybe we can come up with a very specific cocktail of antibiotics. So that was the time that she was actually diagnosed with the mycobacterium abscesses. Then they started treating her with what they were thinking that there are specific antibiotics because they cultured the sputum samples that they were collecting, and they were trying to see whether they get sensitivity, highly sensitive, intermediate sensitivity or resistance with these types of antibiotics. And at the end, they said, okay, you know, this kind of antibiotics is showing highly sensitive, so it probably you're sensitive to that, so you can, we can kill it, or intermediate level or resistance, so we shouldn't be using that kind of antibiotics. So that was the verdict at the end. And they were saying to her, look, if we want to treat you, we will offer you two months of Ivan antibiotics, cocktail of very, very strong antibiotics, three or four different types of antibiotics, depending on how sensitive these sputum samples are. They put that cocktail together and they administer iv for two months. After that, they wanted her to be on oral antibiotics again, cocktail of oral antibiotics for a period of 18 to 24 months. And that was the solution that the medical team came up with. Okay. And straight away, she dismissed it. She said, no way. I'm not going to go that path because that will destroy me. And given that her gut was actually sensitive, because her IB's started, gluten and lactose intolerant started when were talking about a long time before that, 1990s. So her gut was not actually performing well before that anyway. And going through this phase of treatment, it would have actually damaged her a lot more. Significantly more. Yeah, absolutely. But then in 2017, she had triple negative breast cancer. Yes, she was diagnosed with TNBC, triple negative. And also before that, actually, in 2016, she was also diagnosed with hiatus hernia because she was coming up with these reflux and reflux situations and symptoms, and she went through colonoscopy and endoscopy, and then they diagnosed her with high artist hernia. So that was going on in the background. So as you can imagine, the whole esophagus and digestive system is not doing well prior to being diagnosed with TNBC. And TNBC comes along in around 2017 to late 2017. And they offered her lumpectomy at the time. Yeah. So lumpectomy with lymph node clearance, axial lymph node clearance at that point. And that was followed with radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the time. So talking about late 2017, right. Throughout 2018. So that was what's happening. And then also, unfortunately, she developed melanoma as well around 2018. So that was going on as well with her. So as you can see, it's a very, very complicated case. It wasn't just one or two things, unfortunately, with her, there was a lot going on. How was she? Sorry, how was she emotionally at this time? Oh, terrible. Terrible. She was very, very emotional. She was. When she would have been probably a lot worse when she was hit with TNBC around 2017 and going through radiotherapy and going through loads and loads of chemotherapy, coming out the other end with a lot of adverse reactions. And she was still suffering from periponeuropathy, attributable to the chemotherapy agents that they were. They offered to her back in 2018 and 2019. She was still even up until 2021 that she approached me around October. She was still suffering from extensive periponeuropathy around her feet and her hands and fingers. It was terrible. So they must have used some of the platinum based chemos. Yes, absolutely. Yes. She was on pack lead, so it was terrible. She was losing weight. She was so emotional. She was not really functional. She was having a lot of digestive system issues. And then to top it all up, around 2020 to 2021, she was diagnosed with cyborg, actually with methane based bacteria. Also, unfortunately, around the same time, 2020 to 2021. Sorry I interrupted just for the listeners. Sibo or cybo with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Thank you. I know we keep trying out these technical terms, but not everyone. I appreciate that. Thank you. We scientists, sometimes we become left brain. Okay. We need to identify the terms that we use. I'll just keep forgetting sometimes. Thank you. No problem. Okay. So she got diagnosed with sibo. Sorry to interrupt you. Yeah, no problem. And also she was diagnosed with gallbladder stones as well as. Unfortunately. As well as the second, or actually, I would say just the recurrence. Recurrence of her TNBC. So TNBC came back around 2021. So you can imagine it would be very, very devastating news for someone who has been through so much. Yeah. And then here that they have to go through that whole system again. Unfortunately, they had to resort to left mastectomy this time around. Right, okay. Yeah. So it wasn't because they started off with lumpectomy a few years back, but this time around, they had to resort to left mastectomy with axial clearance. So that was just horrifying for her. Basically, when she came to me, it was around October 2021. So she had already gone through that surgery, the left mastectomy and everything. So she was trying to piece back together her life after everything that has been happening for her. Yeah. And she started talking to me, she said, look, I know that I've got the TNBC in the background. I know that I've got cyborg in the background. I know that I have got gallstones and I've had melanoma, and I've got all of this stuff going on. But I'm really interested in seeing what you can do to help me with the mycobacterium abscesses, because that is the real killer for me because they want to put me on cocktail of different antibiotics for up to two years, and that kills me. Okay, so let's just talk about mycobacterium for a second. So there's about 190 or 200 species of mycobacterium? Yes. And they're an infective agent, and they have a very unusual cell wall structure, so they're differentiated to other bacteria, but they're really persistent. And I've also experienced, and please correct me if I'm wrong or share your experience with me, I've also experienced that many patients have had mycobacterium infection in the end, and it can affect different parts of their body. I've had patients with knee infections, hip infections, all sorts of things. But medicine seems to be generally reluctant to test it, and I suspect it's because it's quite difficult to test for. And you've got to use some advanced staining techniques. You've got to use PCR, which is somewhat subjective, I guess. And I just wonder if you could just comment on that if you share the same experience as me. Absolutely. Like, for example, with this patient, they wanted to sort of closely monitor her situation in relation to the infestation of the mycobacterium abscesses the way they were doing it. Excuse me. She was having sessions with the lung specialist very regularly, and this lung specialist was organizing sputum samples to be analyzed. Right. So it was like a lentic procedure that she had to go through. And it wasn't like she was getting responses or reports right away. She was providing that sputum sample, and it would have taken the laboratories to come back with the results in about two to three months. So every time she was telling me, okay, I went to the lung specialist and I took samples from me from my sputum, but we're not going to get the results later on, probably in about two to three months. So is that because the mycobacterium are typically very slow growing? That's right, it's slow growth. And because they need to culture and because they need to make sure that they're actually identifying the right species of the bacterium that they're actually looking for, mycobacterium that they're actually looking for. So all of those, they were basically very lengthy procedures that they had to their protocol. Obviously, they're following protocol, but very lengthy procedures that they have to follow and find out exactly what they're dealing, because those results are ultimately very, very important in decision making later on for her to understand what the next line of treatment is going to be. So, yeah, that's what we had to face. So we had to wait a few months to get the reports. And I find it really interesting. I mean, this is such an interesting case study or, you know, all up, but it's really interesting what she's gone through with her digestive illnesses, what she's gone through with her I, gallstones and migraines and other health issues, and then the breast cancers as well. And if you go through the literature, there is a relationship with various mycobacteria throughout all of those conditions. Now, did you draw a link between all of those? Yes. Yes, definitely. I have come across a lot of scientific evidence that tells me that the underlying issues for a lot of oncology presentations will come back to viruses, come back to mycobacterium infestations, different types of bacteria, even. So, there's definitely a link with all of these, and I have been able to find those links and follow them up. Yes. So just going back to the basic for a second, how do people, in your experience, typically pick up a mycobacterium infection? Yes, good question. So especially with the abscesses. Abscesses. Mycobacterium abscesses is basically, I'll just give you a little bit of a background. So it's distantly related to tuberculosis, the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and leprosy. So it's distantly related. So you can see that sort of along those heavy, full on type of bugs that cause destructive illnesses in people. And it's usually found in soil, in water, in dust. It's not something that it can be transmitted from a person to another person. It's usually in the soil, dust and water, and it can be transmitted through medicinal medical devices. If someone has had surgery, for example, there's a high possibility that this bug can actually contaminate the devices. So it survives in autoclave. Yes. Yes. It's pretty. It's pretty full on hearts to get rid of. It's not easy to get rid of, as you can imagine, with this specific person that we're talking about. They've used everything for many years. They use different types of very strong antibiotics, and it basically, those treatments did nothing for her. Yeah. So I was reading an article that came out well this year, actually, that was talking about mycobacterium in the. In the common water supply. And most of us don't have the symptoms or our bodies deal with it. But if you're. I was wondering if your gut is compromised either due to a long history of antibiotics or some other drug or some other infection or. And gluten and lactose intolerance. And she was actually celiac genitage. She did celiac genotyping, and she was actually highly at risk of developing celiac because she was a. She was showing those HLA sequences, mutations. So she was very sensitive gut wise. Yeah. So she could have had a long, ongoing, chronic, persistent, low grade inflammation in her gut for many years, changing the local microbiome and potentially creating an atmosphere for the mycobacterium to cross over into the bloodstream. Is that a reasonable. Absolutely, yes. Absolutely. And this actually came to surface after she contracted pneumonia. So you see, the lungs were already sensitive, highly sensitive, and weakened in a way. So that was a perfect opportunity for this microbacterium to basically thrive. And usually they create cavities, and how that. This is how they become really infectious, especially with people who, as I said, they've got weakened respiratory system, or, for example, we're talking about cystic fibrosis people, for example, they can create a mayhem. Yeah. So, okay, you've got this super complicated case. Typically, like every naturopath, they come to you right at the end, after they've. Typical case that I would usually work. With, years of suffering, they end up at the naturopath's door, the holistic practitioner's door, and you go, okay, you sit down. What goes through your mind? What's the first thing that you start to think about? I'm like, okay, give me two minutes to analyze, to digest it all, and to sort of come up with some sort of a protocol or mind map to be able to connect the dots. That's what I was thinking at a time. And given her presentation with the TNBC, which is one of the most aggressive types of breast cancers, because we're dealing with hormone negative heteronegative. So I thought, okay, let's just take a deep breath in and out, analyze the case, put the mind map together, connect the dots, and see where we go and how we can get started. So the first thing I wanted to. Did you want me to go through how I approach the case or just. Yeah, I think it'd be interesting to know how you approached, if that's okay with you. First thing I'm going to do in relation to treatment, initial treatment, would be start with the gut, because there is a lot going on with the gut. So I started with basically your naturopath's bread and butter gut cases. You go, okay, start with gut repairing agents. So, probiotics, gut repairing agents. She was actually working with another practitioner to specifically address the Sibo situation. She had already started that, so I was like, okay, that's fine. That can keep going. And we'll just sort of tweak if there's anything else or see how you go, and we'll sort of provide extra support for the guys if you need that extra support, especially with the reflux and hiatus hernia, because that was also in the background. And I supported her a lot going through that reflux situation, did a little bit more work around the gut alongside Sibo work that she was doing. So that was the starting point. And after a while, when she was a bit more settled, I thought, okay, now let's. Let's see what we can do in relation to the mycobacterium, because that was ultimately where I wanted to go with it, although I also had the TNBC in the background, so that was always in my radar. It was not like, I'm just going to set it on the side, because, as you said initially, we're looking at the case holistically. So it's not like I'm isolating your TNBC because you didn't say that you want me to support you. TNBC is going to be in the picture, but we just going to put a little bit more pressure on the mycobacterium for now. That was my approach after the gut. So gut obviously took a priority. And then I started thinking about, okay, I'm dealing with a situation that the cocktail of antibiotics, for many years did nothing. Although the test results were saying that these are basically, they should show they are showing sensitivity, but basically they were doing nothing for her. So I thought, okay, I need to put together a herbal, very strong, potent herbal formulas to make sure that I'm actually targeting that mycobacterium. That was the whole focus in my head. But you came up with a herb, which, to be honest, I've never heard of before, so well done. Cryptolepsis. Cryptolipis, yeah. How did you come up with that? Where did you find that? A lot of search, a lot of search in the literature, in the monographs and just Matri America. So I did. I remember that I spent a lot of time basically coming up with the herb that is super specific to this species of microbacterium. I had other herbs in my head that I could use in a blend, but they were basically working on Mycobacterium species. My focus was focus on, the very important thing for me was to focus on mycobacterium abscesses, plus using the Molsons, plus using other agents, other herbal medicines that can sort of be effective in other mycobacterium species as well, not just abscesses. And interestingly enough, after all of that search that I did, I only came up with one single herb. After everything that I looked at, so many different types of herbs, and here, there specific for respiratory, other herbs, there was only one herb that was specific to mycobacterium abscesses. I couldn't find any other herb that could target this auspicious one. That's amazing. Yeah. Well done. Lucky for her, lucky for her, that. Would have taken a lot of work to find that. Yes, it was, it was. Because I'm a scientist, I'm very curious. There's a question in my mind, I can't sleep. I have to get to the answer, I have to expose the root. This is how, how I've been brought up with the science field and everything that I have done, you know, over so many years. So cryptolepsis is heard from Ghana, in Africa, I think. Yeah. And it's used, long history of being used for malaria, general antiprotozoan, so against various parasites, but also useful against a number of mycobacteria. And the abscess is certainly in there. Yeah. Yes. So, bingo, we hit the target. I hit the target with that, with that hair. So I'm feeling like I want a drum roll now. What's the outcome? Yes. So what happened? I started putting mixing formulas for her, and to be honest with you, all up, I gave her $20 bottles. Each bottle was half a litre. 20 bottles of each, half a liter. So many liters of herbal formulas over this time. So say about 2022, right up to the end of 2023, so about at least two years, and I would say four or five months. So 20 different formulas. But I made sure that cryptolipus was in 70% to 80% of those formulas, of these 20 bottles, because I sort of decided to give it a bit of a break as well to the system. I was not really continuously using it on and off on it. So it's like on and off a little bit, but it was in most of my formulas. But I did make sure that I'm sort of pausing for a period of time to make sure I'm not causing resistance with. So that was always in my head as well. And was the rest of the formula based around anti inflammatory or immune support or gut support? Yes, definitely. I had the. I had lung support. I was using the king of lung. We call it a herb. It's called lomatium. Lomatium is the king of lung. So I was using lamatium, I was using other herbs to make sure, like, for example, I was using a very strong herb to act as a surfactant. So, and to ease, because she, for us, it was important for, for us, for myself and for her, that she ends up with bringing up that phlegm. We wanted her to have that productive cough, to bring up the phlegm for so many reasons. One reason was that every time we were having a session, I would. The first thing I would ask her was about specific questions regarding that sputum and the cough and the phlegm. And we would sort of. I was monitoring it very closely, the color of it, the volume of it, the frequency of that, how many times you're coughing. So very, very specific question. So it was important to make sure that we are confident that the flame is coming up so it's not sort of sitting in the lungs and causing stagnation. So for that, antikathars, demulcents, anti inflammatory lung support, immune system support, Macobacterium, targeting specifically Mycobacterium abscesses, plus other macrobacterium species, and using systemic antibiotic in the whole formula as well, just to make sure that the body is able to recover quickly and reduce the risk of further infestations. So that was the target. That was the whole idea. And also lymphatic, just to smooth things up, get things out of the body, usher them out, usher these toxins out. So lymphatic also was definitely in the picture. Had you run or had you had available other pathology, standard pathology tests, white blood cells or. Absolutely, yes. I was really closely monitoring all her pathology, plus any scan, any PET scan that she was having PET scans every few months, every seven to eight months, because they needed to know how the lungs are functioning, plus those asputum analysis that the specialist, the lung specialist was doing. I was always on the lookout for updated pathology, and I also wanted her to bring in more comprehensive pathology because I was looking for specific markers and closely monitoring those as well. Yes. Okay, I can't wait any longer. What happened? All right, so I take you back to 2020, 2022. She was coming up with a lot of significant improvements in relation to the productive cough, and, you know, with the sputum, the color, the load of it, she was feeling a little bit better. And toward the middle of the 2022, suddenly, because she was traveling overseas as well, every few months, she contracted Covid. Unfortunately, once she contracted Covid, she went back the other way, because she. It took her a while to get back on the egg because the system was feeling so much overwhelmed. So that took a few months for her to get back on deck. That was about 2023. She was slowly coming back to where she was before COVID and I thought, okay, now she's sort of recovering. Now we're talking 2023. Around April May, I decided that I need to bring in another element, which is not only important in relation to infestation of mycobacterium, also with the TNBC background. And that was a time that I told her, look, I want to know exactly how much copper is in your body, because I have been doing a lot of search, and there is a lot of information around copper toxicity with a lot of oncology presentations and also with infections. So I just wanted. I felt that that was the missing link. I need to, because she was doing these tests, but she was feeling a little bit better in relation to the way she was breathing. The breath was better. The sputum was less. The color of the sputum was better. It was lighter. We were sort of getting significant results, but I was not happy yet. I thought I would be happy until. I wouldn't be happy until I see that the sputum samples are coming back negative, because I really want you to feel that we have done significant work together in relation to bring this situation under control. So at that point, I felt that this is probably the missing link. Here we're talking copper toxicity. And when I communicated that with her, obviously, I'm a scientist with a lot of scientific background and information, I provided all of that to her. I said, look, I really need to get to the bottom of this with the copper. I need to know exactly how much copper is circulating, how much copper is in tissues and organs, and you're going to do this test. You're going to do that test, bring back results, and we'll talk. And that's exactly what she did. And I was right. My suspicions were right. So how do you determine the difference? Because copper is a acute phage reactant as well, meaning that if someone has a massive inflammatory process going on or massive infection, sometimes copper is released into the cereuloplasm as a marker of it. Yeah. Carrier. So, I mean, I always thought there was two schools of thought, and I'd be interested in your opinion in this. One is that, you know, you can have copper toxicity, obviously, when you've been exposed to too much copper, and there's a copper zinc ratio in balance, or two copper is, you can look at it as a measure of some other inflammatory process going on. And so copper from the tissues has been released into the blood. And as part of that reaction, how do you, as a practitioner, scientists look at that, those two aspects? Yes. So that's how I looked at it. I thought, okay, I need to know how much copper is in the blood. So I'll look at serum copper and look at the chaperone that is carrying it, which is cerebral plasmin. And then I need to know how much copper is actually in tissues and organs. By looking at her mineral analysis or oligosequencing, you can do it in both ways. So. And then put the results together and see where we're going with it, and also align that with certain signs and symptoms, plus the exposure that you might have had. So that's how you bring the picture together. Because she was suffering from TNBC when she was first diagnosed with TNBC, that would have been around 2017, she was still menstruating. One thing that we know about copper and estrogen is that estrogen actually increases copper retention in the body. And especially with premenopausal women, it's very important that we closely monitor that amount of copper in the serum as well as in the tissues, because they can be placed at high risk because of that situation with the estrogen and copper. And in all honesty, when I think about copper, based on literature and extensive scientific evidence that we know about copper, copper is the co factor. Why angiogenesis? Angiogenesis is basically creating more network of capillaries to feed the tumor cells, right? Yeah. So the amount of copper that is needed for physiological functions, usually it's lower than the amount that is favored for tumor and angiogenesis. So hence, copper depletion is a must to keep that copper amount at therapeutic window. So if we're talking about oncology presentations, especially breast cancer situations, a depletion of that copper is a mean of preventing metastatic breast cancer, not. Not treating. Right. Right. If you look at it this way, everything makes sense. Because if the copper is not chaperoned with the proteins, whether it's albumin, it's a little bit of it binds to albumin, but most of it is sort of bound to seroplasm is carried away if it's not chaperoned like that. So copper will be actually in excess. The amount of it will be in excess. It will cause toxicity, because then it will act as a free radical. Okay, that's how you look at it? That's how I look at it. And looking at her latest pathology, I was trying to find answers. Yeah, look, I get that. Okay. How do you get copper out of the body? Good question. So there are two ways. If you look at it. The mainstream medicine, they have got an agent called TM. So it's tetratheomolybdate, tetratheomoliptate, TM for short. Usually, if it's used about 100 milligrams, it can bring in 75% of patients, it can bring copper under control and bring celluloplasm to about less than 17 milligrams per deciliter. And usually the side effects of till will be prevalent at low doses in some people, not. Not everybody, right across the board. So. And even I know that some general practitioners use some, several PPIs protein, palm inhibitors to actually increase absorption of that TM. However, the problem with that is you need very close monitoring because you don't want to go below that. Remember, we're talking about therapeutic window. You don't want to go too far low in relation to really knock out that balance between zinc and copper, because we need that copper to do some physiological functions in the body. So we can't ignore that. So it needs a very close monitoring, and it's not easy to reach that therapeutic window. And if you don't monitor closely, that's one drawback with the TM. However, if you don't want to do that, then you have to. Obviously, when you look at the hair mineral analysis, when you look at the serum, serum copper and seroplasm, then you've got some sort of understanding as to how you're going to design a treatment or protocol to bring that copper down. Depending on how much elevation you're seeing, obviously that will influence the agents you use, the dosage that you use. So my approach was to basically go with the agents that can act as binders or chelators, chelates in a most natural way, and bring that balance up, because in her situation, the zinc to copper ratio was completely off. Zinc was on the floor, usually in a best case scenario, we want eight to one zinc to copper ratio. So hairs was completely off. So obviously, the first thing you bring in is zinc, but you have to be very careful not to cause copper dumping, because if you release a lot of copper in a short amount of time, then you're causing a lot of copper dumping. That's not ideal because the patient will go through so many signs and symptoms, try to deal with that excess cup that has been released into this. It's quite damaging to the kidneys. Absolutely. Not only the kidneys, also the liver and other organs. So we have to be very careful how we do it. So. And in her case, we started very slowly with certain agents. One of them was zinc. There are lots of other agents that you can think about, which are the. I use binders as well. I used zeolite, the binders and I, plus other supplements and terpurgetted agents, such as, for example, alpha lipoic acid, curcumin, green tea. So there's a lot that you can do. But we took it very slowly because I could see if I increased the zinc dosage, she would respond immediately. So I just had to take a step back and go very gentle with her. So we did all of that for a few months, and I felt that now I need to bring in and add another dimension, and that was the homeopathy. I referred her to a homeopath, and she started with homeopathic version of copper binders, slowly to release it out of her body, very slowly and gently. So I did some work metropolitically, then referred her to have that specific homeopathic medicine that I had in mind. I specifically told her about that. There's a lot of science behind it, and I told her to see this homeopath, and slowly, gradually. You know how the homeopathic works with the drop dose. Sure. Look, there are several ways that we've, we've had a whole podcast on homeopathy, and there are several ways you can apply homeopathy, and one of them is to use small doses of the substance that you're trying to get rid of, and it stimulates the body's ability to take it out of the system. So over what period did the copper come down? All right, so interestingly enough, when we started checking, the copper originally had some figures and numbers. After we started with the copper chelation and depletion and everything, a few months later, or almost probably seven, eight months later, then our checked her serum copper again. That was the sort of at the peak that we were trying to release that copper. Interestingly enough, her copper and cereal plasmin were higher than when we first started off with. That must have been a nice shock to you. Exactly. Yes, we're getting there, we're getting there. We're releasing it. We're releasing it safely. The most important thing to note, because she was coming up with any type of reaction. Sorry, can we just pause for 1 second? Okay, so we were talking about copper and it went. It increased, indicating to you that it was being released from various tissue. And then what happened? And then. Okay, so what happened? She actually took. Told me that when I had her copper results a few months prior to that, she had already done this sputum test. So we were kind of waiting for this sputum test results. So we're talking 2024 now, around January. So remember we started with copic relations, pushed it a bit heavier, and to more extent around October, November, November 23, October 23 and around January, February 24, she actually reported to me that something significant has happened. And I was like, what happened? She said, I was actually able to walk for 8 km nonstop without shortness of breath, with so much energy. That was unheard of for her. Oh my God. For so many years she was not able to walk less than one kilometers. This time she established 8 km. How long after you started dealing with the copper did that happen? So remember, we talked about copper around April 2023. By the time we started doing tests and by the time I restricted her diet and she tested positive, restricted the diet, started the treatment protocol. So from the talk until the homeopathy and everything it took about, from April 23 to about, I would say January 24, all of this time that we were walking and talking and restrictions, diet wise and everything in relation to the copper. And around January, February 24, she actually reported that something significant happened in her life. What a wonderful moment, your Tishna patient relationship. Oh my God. I was speechless. I couldn't talk. I thought, what? Say this again, please. I'm just overjoyed. I can't believe it, you know? And she's like, look, I was able to walk eight kilometer walk without being short, without getting shortness of breath, without losing energy. And I feel much better, and I feel that my digestive system is a lot better, is coping a lot better. And she had utter amounts of energy that she didn't know what to do with it. Interestingly enough, she was in her fifties, kilogram wise, 50, 55. She said she actually was able to add. She gained about five, 6 kg. She was in sixties now. So she added about at least 6 her weight in the last few months that we've been dealing with this situation. She was over the moon. She was so excited. That's just amazing. So where is she at now? When was the last time you saw her? Right. So, and then the story doesn't end there. After she reported that to me around January 2024, we were sort of waiting, patient, impatiently waiting for her sputum results because she had done the sputum test November 2023. So we were expecting to get results around February 24. So she reported to me all of this around January. So we knew that the speed and report will be ready next month in February. Right. So we were patiently waiting for the results, and then I said to her, okay, now that you've told me this, I can hardly wait to see what this. So. And we sort of arranged the next meeting after that report was due to be released. So when I talked to her a few days after that, she was just over the moon. She said, sharla, you can't believe this. I said, what? Just tell me. Give me. Give me the facts. What's going on? What's happening? And she said, out of you, because usually they test three samples, three sputum samples in that test, a specific lung test. And she said, out of three sputum samples, two were clear. There was only one. And even that one, there was only some level of mycobacterium abscesses in that third sample. And I said, okay. I was just besides myself at that point. I thought, oh, my God, I can't believe we did this. And then I said to her, okay, what was the reaction of your lung specialist? And she said, okay. The lung specialist said that, I'm happy to wait, not to push you to have the cocktail of antibiotics at this stage, and I don't need to see you for another six months. Let's just have another scan seven, eight months later, and we review again. I'm like, okay, that's a relief. That's a win. That's a win win situation for me because I was like, okay, all of that hard work is paying off. Oh, that's such, that's so exciting. I love that. Well done. It was. What's your schedule with her now? Do you see her once in a while or. Yes, yes, we definitely see each other every four to five weeks because I'm really, really closely monitoring her still just to see how she's going. Remember, we also have got the TNBC in the background. I have been supporting her around the TNBC as well. So we just don't want to have another recurrence. She's already had. She had another recurrence around April 2023. So that was the second recurrence we seed. And this time she just had a very minor surgery just to remove that lump around the same location that she had the left mastectomy. We have definitely have that work ongoingly there to support the TNBC, just making sure that she's not at risk of another recurrence. So definitely we need to closely monitor that situation. Yes. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. That is very encouraging. And the point is, people that have other chronic and similar situations, just for them to know that there are opportunities to get better, there's always a way. There's always. If there is a will, there's a way. Thank you. And you gave up your Saturday morning for me, which I'm very appreciative. My pleasure. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share this fantastic case study with yourself and your audience. Okay. And you take care and I'm sure we'll catch up again one day. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Daniel. Enjoy the rest of your day.