Jenny Johnson of Simplified Wellness Designs: Overcoming CIRS & Travel Tips

https://ko-fi.com/theheartofcirs

https://simplifiedwellnessdesigns.com/

https://simplifiedwellnessdesigns.com/cirs-healing-collective

Information is educational and not meant to be medical advice. Please always consult with your medical providers on health decisions.

Transcript

Melanie Pensak: 0:10

Welcome to the Heart of CIRS podcast. I'm your hostess, Melanie Joy Pensac, here to share heartfelt conversations with folks recovering from CIRS and with those special people serving the CIRS community. The podcast was created to help bring awareness to the physical, emotional, and mental experiences of folks navigating CIRS day to day. The world needs to know what CIRS folks go through for deeper empathy and understanding. Thank Through stories and vulnerability, we can help the world understand the winding journey of CIRS Recovery. Thank you for being here to open your mind and to open your heart. Hello everybody, very much looking forward to diving into a conversation today with Jenny Johnson. I'm looking forward to sharing her work with you and sharing all of the great. tips and tricks that she has acquired over the years overcoming SERS with you as well. I'm connected with Jenny Johnson through her wonderful SERS Healing Collective Support Group through Surviving Mold and have learned so much information and made wonderful friends through that group. And so I wanted to share a little bit about Jenny before we start into that conversation. Jenny, has a background as a physical therapist. She's also a SERS coach and Shoemaker Proficiency Partner Diplomat. She has so much experience and knowledge. She's a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. She's also a Certified Professional Life Coach and certified in Functional Nutrition, Bread and Sim Protocol, and HeartMath So Jenny really brings such a wealth of knowledge to the SERS community. It's such a gift to, to know her and to be a part of all of that. And so grateful that you could be here today to speak with us, Jenny.

Jenny: 2:22

Oh, thank you so much, Melanie. It is truly an honor to be a part of your Heart of SERS podcast. I really look forward to this conversation and to all that you're doing in the world,

Melanie Pensak: 2:32

Melanie. Thank you. yeah, I think that we can get started and highlight when I think is one of the most important parts of your journey is really that you overcame SERS and that you overcame SERS many years ago now. And so I want to point out that Jenny has done a wonderful job, really sharing her journey and her family's journey online. And so we'll share at the end a little bit about how you can really dive into that whole complete story. but I would love for you just to start out today talking a little bit about, how, that process was for you and maybe just some of the most important parts of what you feel like you want to share around your search journey and your family's search

Jenny: 3:24

journey. Yes, sure. I'd be happy to. My goodness. I, it's an amazing thing that I can even use that term overcome or I'm on the other side of SERS and that our whole family actually is because that just seemed like it wouldn't be possible. seven. to 10 years ago. And so it really is my passion to instill that hope in others that if we can do this, anybody can. There's nothing special about our family. We actually have what Dr. Shoemaker calls the dreaded genes, which I don't like that term. But given the, given our genetics, the fact that we have fully overcome SERS and are feeling fantastic and are not necessarily living in a bubble either, I think just provides so much hope, but yeah, absolutely sharing a little bit about our family story and again, not too much because that is, available online on my website, but our family was living on an organic homestead that we had actually purchased land and built out with our own hands with, these beautiful dreams of raising our kids to live off the land. And long story short, we learned the hard way that biotoxins rule the land. And there was just mold and bacteria and algae and ticks and brown recluse spiders pretty much everywhere, all around us every day, inside and outside of, of where we were living in North Georgia at the time. We all ended up getting sick, and again, the details are outlined elsewhere, but it was interesting because we felt like flies, or like dominoes, if you will. It started with my husband, who actually got acute Lyme disease from a tick bite in our pasture. And he had also gotten a concussion at that same time. He had an accident with some heavy equipment that he was using to clear a pasture, so a concussion with an acute tick bite turned into acute Lyme, which then turned into chronic Lyme, and he was on disability and bedridden in a home that we didn't realize had significantly elevated water damage and mold levels. And the stress of trying to care for him and take on the burden of, of making money for our family, educating our kids because we were homeschooling and then running the farm and selling our produce and everything that was involved was a lot for me. And so I started, getting, dysregulated, if you will. And, and my son ended up having a bad exposure at a school. We ended up putting him in a, a local school because the homeschooling became to be, it became too much for me once my husband was down for the count and I was doing everything. So we put him in a school and he had a really bad mold exposure and he developed symptoms that looked exactly like my husband's, but he didn't have a tick bite. And it started on the first day of school. Again, trying to make a long story short, we, We ended up having an amazing pediatrician at the time who had done a residency in sick building syndrome, and she recognized my son's symptoms as seeming systemic and global, and she thought it was interesting that it started on the first day of school, and so she started asking questions about the building and the school, and this led us down to, led us down the trail of testing for lead and radon and, And mold, and mold ended up coming back, just off the charts. And so then I ended up finding out more information about water damage building illness and mold on Richie Shoemaker's website. And at the time, so this was about 2015, so at that time there was really not a whole lot of information about mold illness, to be found. Not many doctors were talking about it at all, even, even fewer than there are today. And there were a few YouTube videos out and they were all generated by physicians or even some patients who were familiar with the shoemaker protocol and Dr. Shoemaker's work. So it all just seemed so crazy though. Like I'd never heard of this, even though I was a licensed healthcare professional, I'd never heard about this in my training. It sounded so out there. And yeah, it also. so important. I just thought, let's go to the top. Let's make a, let's, let's schedule a consultation with Richie Shoemaker himself, who was the one who really stumbled upon, chronic inflammatory response syndrome and really coined the term and has, is still conducting research to this day, decades later. but we decided to schedule a consultation with him directly, really to determine Melanie, if he was a quack and if all of this was just craziness or if this seemed to be based in like science and, reality. And, so we had a consultation with him and it was, we were flabbergasted. We recorded the whole thing and we still have it, have the recording. And it's, it's still precious to me to this day because it was really the guiding point in, in healing for our family. That conversation with Dr. Shoemaker was, was a turning point. And my husband and I both, after that call, we were on the phone with him for an hour, and he went through my labs, my son's labs, my husband's labs, which we had all, we had done ourselves with our PCP, just with the guidance of what was available on the Surviving Mold website. We said, let's run these labs and just see what they look like. And of course, they were all dysregulated. And Dr. Shoemaker, essentially said that we all, all three out of four of us met the diagnostic criteria. He told us that over the phone and then gave us some encouragement and some tips for next steps. And, My goodness. So again, this was back in 2015, and there were only a handful of certified doctors. At that point, they didn't have shoemaker proficiency partners. They only had the shoemaker certified doctors, and there were none in our area. And at that point, this is all pre COVID, Nobody was really treating virtually. That wasn't a thing yet. I don't even know if Zoom existed. Telehealth for SERS care was just not an option. And there was nobody, even with a driving, actually I think there was one doctor in Atlanta at the time, but even if they were near our region, they all had a six month waiting list. And so we were so dejected when we found an answer for all of our family's health issues, yet. treatment seemed elusive. And there was so much work needed to be done on our home.

Melanie Pensak: 9:58

what good fortune to have a PCP that was Even slightly knowledgeable in flagging sick building syndrome and to help get you pointed in the right direction and even to consider environmental toxins, because so many of us, as just end up looking in the wrong direction. So that's amazing. That's somebody, yeah, really amazing. And, I think as a patient going through this process today, I hear from people that sometimes it feels like there aren't enough, mold proficient providers or CIRS proficient providers out there. But really, when you look at. the, where, how far it's come and how many people have come on board with this now, it is many more than there were at that

Jenny: 10:46

point. It is, it is for sure. we still need so much more education and I'm thrilled that this is starting to be taught in medical schools now and we're trying to get ICD 10 codes for CIRS so that ideally insurance could cover You know, at least more of it than is currently being covered, but still, there's, there's not enough. we, we need more. We need more doctors. We need everybody. We need everybody to be able to at least recognize this, even if they're not a specialist and then to be able to. refer people to a specialist because it's treatable and it's real. And, and that's one thing that I feel passionate about, that I wish there was more awareness and education that this is just a thing and, and, and that patients wouldn't have such an uphill battle in getting the care that they need.

Melanie Pensak: 11:35

Absolutely. I think it's so interesting to, we take for granted that we can do zoom calls now and have access to physicians, in that way, if not by zoom, by phone, because yeah, not too long ago, you really had to travel to a physician to have, these workups completed and to care. And I can't even imagine in my own process, having, To travel to see somebody in in the state that I was in at my sickest. It just doesn't even seem possible. So it seems like they're really, just the natural progression of technology and life has moved it forward. Even though I agree, there's a lot more to be done and to do. We are in a place at least we have access to information with social media and things too. Yes. It's still a way that information gets out there, Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So much, juicy information and, and all that you've shared. And I would again, encourage people to go back and to hear more about Jenny's, family story that she's recorded. Cause she goes into a lot more detail about, yeah, just what came up on the farm and the house and their process with, with mold and everything there. And I think I'll pivot the conversation into this, idea of overcoming serves for so many people that are in the trenches of it. It feels like a really far off goal and possibility. And I'm wondering, at what point did you feel like you could really confidently say, that you had overcome it? Like, when did that mental and physical shift happen for you and your family? And, and was it different

Jenny: 13:12

for everybody? Yeah, great question. It really was different for everybody. My kids, for example, especially my son, bounced back very quickly. There were some lingering symptoms that he had actually had since. birth. Honestly, Melanie, I think he was born into a moldy home and had been accruing toxins and struggling to a certain extent since he was very, very young, since he was born, really. But his acute symptoms and his labs, normalized and reversed within, I would say, four months of getting into a clean house and being on binders. He was like a totally new kid. His asthma went away. His panic attacks went away. things like bedwetting went away, social anxiety went away, brain fog went away, gut issues went away. This can take a lot longer for adults, especially the longer we've had some of these kind of extra layers impacted on our physiology. But, I know some of the SIRS specialists who work with kids say they bounce back so quickly, and that was really, really true for, for my son. he had a couple of things that took maybe another year to fully resolve, and we had to undergo some things that were beyond the shoemaker protocol, like some neurotherapy to help with, some helping his brain come back fully and helping to get back to sleep at night. so there were a few things that we did outside of the Shoemaker protocol, but I would say it was really the Shoemaker protocol that our whole family went on, and we went in fully. At the time, we did not even know that, that possibly having a negative reaction to a binder was even a thing. We got on. Full dosage of cholestyramine. All of us. We did the low AMLO diet, we did high dose fish oil. We just jumped in. We sold everything and we lived in our V in A V R B O. We actually liquidated every single asset that we had to get free of mold. It was extremely expensive. so we cashed in retirements and kids college funds and every investment that we had, we drain everything down to zero and put it into our. getting out of exposure and put it into our health care. And, unfortunately, SERS, the SERS recovery process can be so very expensive when it asks so much of us in these different domains. and so that was some of the collateral damage that I, I aim to try to minimize with other people by helping them avoid some of the costly mistakes. But back to your question of how did we overcome SERS, it was the shoemaker protocol that got us to. I would say probably about a 70 to 80 percent back to full functioning. and again, for my son, that was maybe within four months of getting out of exposure and being on binders and being on, full shoemaker protocol. And for me, I think it took closer to a year. my husband had a little bit of a different journey because he had Lyme in the, in the mix. And he was actually the first of us to get. to get sick. He had a really interesting recovery story that was almost like a divine intervention, spontaneous healing type thing where he recovered very quickly. Mine, I'd say is more typical, going through all the steps one layer at a time, things starting to get better. two steps forward, one step back. And then by the end of about a year, I was at, I would say 70 to 80, 80 percent recovered. And it was then that, my functional medicine doctor introduced me to some concepts that seem so basic, that most of us actually, I think, know as humans, that lifestyle and mindset. and spiritual health and relational health and having a sense of purpose and meaning and living from a place of love rather than fear. Kind of our energetic state and our nervous system health. He introduced me to the idea that these things really matter as well. And I thought, sure they matter, but are they, are they going to help me recover from SERS? this is a massive illness, but, he gave me some good reasons to delve into these things. And I'm so grateful that he did. And as I started to institute some of these concepts of prioritizing sleep, working with my nervous system, working with my mindset, Pursuing some spiritual healing and some relationship healing. This going through SERS demanded a lot of of my marriage and there was some collateral damage there. And, I think when we are carrying around an inner terrain that is disturbed or not at its. not even near its optimal functioning. It's really hard to recover from a chronic illness fully. And so it wasn't until I really dealt with a lot of these inner environment considerations that then full healing came. And I would say that really came rushing in. It maybe took about six months of really starting to prioritize, my inner environment and all of these blockages to healing just opened up and everything started to just. And so that's been a big part of my maintenance and really our whole family's maintenance plans since our healing. and that's really been since about 2017. We all really prioritize just our health in ways that I think before we took for granted. And, and that's how we have stayed well and not necessarily lived in a bubble. Of course, we're, we're careful and we're proactive, but we live fairly normal lives and we really just take care of our diet, our sleep, our nervous system, the nature of our thoughts and relationships. We spend time in nature. We try to live from a place of love rather than fear. And we have all found these to be super powerful aspects of staying well and, and avoiding relapses. That's

Melanie Pensak: 18:58

beautiful. So having a whole family that is navigating SERS together, is there any funny stories of things that only SERS folk would understand, that you all have to consider, or, things that have come up along the

Jenny: 19:15

way? that's a really good question and I wish I could say that I had some really funny stories because it is, it is an adventure in a way. It's a journey. It's an invitation to live life totally differently and to be cleansed of old ways of seeing and being that maybe never served us in the 1st place. and so I think we would all say that there are silver linings that we've gleaned from SIRS, but. I struggle to find funny stories because I think, A, I think humor is still a character strength that I'm working on. I think it's super, super valuable. And I really respect my friends and family members who really, are able to bring in humor into suffering because I think that's really, really healing, but it's not a gift of mine yet. I'm working on cultivating that. And. I still, our family still, I don't know, I think that there was so much suffering, so much trauma, if you will, around our SERS journey and some of the losses financially, friend wise, our lifestyle, jobs, relationships, for my kids, all of their toys and stuffed animals and having to move away from our family, there was so much loss that It's still hard, it's hard to laugh. so maybe that's a goal that we have in the future is, even though it's been seven years, we need to start finding a way to, to laugh, not so much laugh at the suffering, but find ways, finding ways of bringing humor, even, even into the things that, are still part of our day, like we walk into a grocery store and we all still look up at the ceiling to see if there's any water damage, like ceiling tiles. It's just a way of being for our family. And I guess you could say, we kind of chuckle. Other people wouldn't do that. And we certainly do. But yeah, I would say that's a goal of finding more humor in the search journey, because I think that would be really healing and it's something I'm still working on.

Melanie Pensak: 21:13

Thank you for your, yeah, honesty with all of that. I, I can, I understand that, yeah, it takes really years to unpack the, the traumas and the grief and everything that we, we go through. Yeah. have gone through this journey myself. So I envision, families like having cleaning parties, trying to find ways to make it light, but it's hard no matter what, it becomes just second nature to, to have to do those things. And it just becomes part of your life. It doesn't necessarily seem like something separate,

Jenny: 21:43

That's absolutely true. Yeah, we're all on the act to know protocol right now. And it's just, it's just a way of being of the hyper cleaning, lots of vacuuming, lots of laundry, lots of showering. yeah, but we still haven't yet made it funny that that's, that's something that I'm going to work on. But yeah, it's, there's a lifestyle. And I think we have all gotten into the groove with that. I think, probably part of the reason why I'm, I'm having a hard time still laughing about it is it's, it comes back around. right now, my, or my son is, he's entering into his senior year of high school, and he's thinking of, the colleges that he wants to apply to, and he grew up in the southeast, and that's where we got sick, and, he really wants to go to college back in Georgia or Tennessee, where his cousins are and his family, And, my husband and I are really struggling with that being a particularly wise decision, given that that's likely where he will develop connections and maybe you want to live after college. And, even just in the college, in the four years of college, investing and being in a location where there's a lower likelihood that he may. succeed there. Even if he's in a clean dorm and clean, classrooms, just there are more water damaged buildings and areas that get that are higher in humidity and get more of the storms. And being in a college town in a more vulnerable city is something that we've just said, look honey, I think we need to stay looking at drier locales if we're going to invest in your college experience. Experience. Once you're done with college, you can go live wherever you want and go see what works for your body. But for this four year investment, let's look at drier areas. And that's just really felt like a limitation. And I just, so again, that kind of oh man, I wish, I wish it wasn't. So I, I wish I could just say, The world is yours. Go do what you want, be who you want. And there's still like these limitations. and his, additional counsel coming in is gosh, don't even have him go to college, have him do online college. And he still wants the college experience. And so I think because this is fresh for us right now, it's little pings of that trauma or a feeling limited by being susceptible to SERS relapse given our genetics. still feeling that limitation is something that I'm working through.

Melanie Pensak: 24:00

Yeah, I think that's such an important point to bring up to everybody that's listening that maybe has a friend or a family member that is going through SERS or that has overcome SERS that, there are so many considerations that last a lifetime. there really is this extra layer of, considering safety, considering, risk of exposure versus living a life, and that, that doesn't really go away. And decisions that for some people might seem so easy or trivial really are quite involved for, for the SERS patient.

Jenny: 24:34

Yeah, it's absolutely true. Yep. And again, we don't want to live from a place of fear. And so there's that balance of being proactive and being wise and balancing kind of pros and cons. And sometimes we are going to make decisions that may make us more vulnerable, but there's, there's a good reason, it's worth that risk. And then we're going to take some precautions. so yeah, that, that balance is tough, but there is a lifestyle and. I think my son has done a really good job and both my kids, our whole, all of our family have done a really good, good job of implementing these wellness activities into our foundation so that we can be more resilient and have more capacity for everyday exposures. But yeah, that concern of a full relapse, my son is actually, in somewhat of a relapse right now due to multiple straws on the camel's back that happened simultaneously, last year where he had a significant exposure at his high school at the same time that he had just gotten done with COVID and then got, cytomegalovirus and it was just too much for his immune system and that resulted in a SERS flare. So I think seeing that reality, the first one of us. After seven years to have a SIRS kind of relapse has, has brought this back to our forefront that, yeah, we, there's a bit of a lifestyle here. It can come back and when it does come back, I think it's easier because we know what this is and we can get on it right away. And so there's less, time wasted less, we can get on it and fix it and reel things back quicker. But it's a reminder that this is a lifestyle and, and that. Being proactive and vigilant over the long term is just going to be part of, part of who we are. And that's okay. We all have our things, right?

Melanie Pensak: 26:17

Absolutely. And having the knowledge is power. If you start to have symptoms and things come up and you know what it is, like that's such a big part of so many people that end up getting diagnosed with SIRS, that they go years and years without even knowing. So once you go through it, you feel like you get your education and you're. definitely more well equipped for what the future holds.

Jenny: 26:40

Absolutely. Yep.

Melanie Pensak: 26:42

And you celebrated a special birthday recently, and I think it's so wonderful to hear that you and your family were well enough that you were able to go to Europe for a month and to travel, which really is so inspiring to me and I'm sure to so many because you think, will I ever be able to travel again? Will I be able to explore? No, I will. I'm somebody that that was a really big part of my identity. I was quite a free spirit to traveled a lot every year. I would choose to go to a new location around the world that would challenge me and I would do a solo trip. So I've been to Japan, Morocco, Iceland, Australia, done all sorts of, in depth travel and. really having a SIRS diagnosis has completely floored me, rooted me to to a home to recover. And so to see that it's still a possibility that maybe someday in the future there is a way to travel is really, is really great, inspiration for me. And so I'm wondering if. Yeah, you would just share maybe some, some tips or tricks, really like the sort of the nitty gritty, like what did you and your family have to think about when you were choosing a hotel or a flight or, what kind of things did you think about with location to, to make that possible and to still have a good time?

Jenny: 28:10

Yeah, great question. And I'm so much like you there, Melanie, travel is a huge part of. my past, and I, and I'm hoping my future, it's been a little bit on pause the last few years as SERS recovers and also due to COVID. but I love to see the world, and I love adventure travel, going to places that are even lesser known and. third world countries and places, that may be a little bit more adventurous than, than the next, and the thought of giving that up or not being able to show that to my kids is really, another potential. I keep using this term collateral damage, but another aspect of the search journey that could have been really, really tough to let go of. So we've been gently nudging into travel and, I'd say early on, really within the first year or two of our service recovery, we didn't go anywhere. Like we, we really prioritized not putting ourselves in exposure. And I think that's important for people to hear that while travel certainly is possible, we need to make sure that our bodies are at a level of capacity and resilience that could handle that without going back to square one. Because after you've been through SERS once, you do not want to go back to square one anytime soon. So I'll say that, working with a certified practitioner and making sure you are epigenetically resilient as much as possible with your genie, looking at your neuroquant, and is that, is your brain mostly resolved? Are your labs normalized? I think that's really important, to establish that, that safety, medically before starting to dabble in this too much. But we started with, 4 day trips to go visit grandma and we'd bring, our air purifiers and our binders and we'd limit our trips and we'd spend most of the time outside. And once that started going well. We would extend it to, maybe a week, and we'd go to the beach for a week, or we go to the mountains for a week, and then I think we extended that to, we did like a 10 day trip, and we actually went to Guatemala, which was amazing. That did take a lot of research online, making sure that we were staying in clean hotels and clean VRBOs, and there's no, no guarantee there. But just getting online and looking for places that looked clean, looked well cared for, and then calling either calling the hotel or the VRBO property manager and explaining that our family had these environmental sensitivities and had there been any water damage or leaks, how are things maintained and trying to go with. options that looked like they would be most successful for us. And, and we also, I don't think we ever stayed in a place more than three days at a time before we'd move somewhere else. And in case one place ended up being not super ideal, at least we weren't going to be there for the whole week. With this most recent trip, this is the first time that we went away for a long time, and it was actually about five and a half weeks, and we, we circumvented half of the Mediterranean, went to London and Paris, south of France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey. And, it was incredible, Melanie. I would say the toughest, toughest things that we encountered exposure wise were just walking along the streets in London and Paris. So many beautiful old buildings and churches, every, lots of open doors in the spring and summertime. And just the smells wafting out onto the streets from these buildings that we didn't, we weren't even, we were trying to stay away from, but it gave me, a new level of respect and appreciation concern for people who live in places where there's so many old buildings and even just walking down the street can feel unsafe. So we did bring masks in case that kind of thing happened. And, we were traveling out of. carry ons because we were going to be on boats and, trains and little, little tiny flights and so we did not have room in this trip to bring our air purifiers. I do not necessarily suggest that. That, that was, that was pushing it. we did not also have room to bring our supplements. Again, not necessarily encouraging that. That's just something we realized at the end when our travel agent said, Now you really should be taking carry ons, not full suitcases. It was like, Oh my goodness. What have we got ourselves into? Like, how are we, we're not going to be safe. But Melanie, it worked out and I think it truly it may have been by the grace of God that we didn't have significant exposures in any of the hotels that that we had booked and we did go through a process with our travel agent of making sure that we were in newer, cleaner hotels that didn't have a lot of extra decorations that were very kind of Spartan and minimal, not a whole lot of furniture that looked very, got a lot of like positive scores from previous hotels. people, about how clean the hotels were. We got really lucky. We had an exposure issue actually in one hotel and then we were able to move to a different room. It was really just the room that we were in, but we did not bring air purifiers on this trip and we did bring binders and we were all on prophylactic binders. We took well called tablets throughout the entire trip. And none of us got worse. None of us had a relapse while on this trip. My son was already in a sensitive, he was already being retreated for SIRS, when we had started this trip. We had planned it long before he got sick and paid for the majority of it long before we, he got sick. So we still went and I'm so grateful to say he did not get any worse. He didn't get better while we were on the trip, but he didn't get worse either. And when we came back, we just, we ramped up our binders. I'm actually still, we got back less than a month ago. So I'm on full dose cholestyramine, not because I'm feeling poorly, but just I'm assuming that I, I, I was in a lot of different buildings, museums, and churches, and restaurants. And while I didn't feel symptomatic at all, I'm quite certain that that we absorbed some toxins and so we are all on full dose of binders right now upon our return so that we can detox whatever we whatever we brought in, but my goodness, I hope this is encouraging to people to know that. maybe sequentially, starting off with shorter trips and bringing your air purifier, having an exit plan in case, a hotel isn't going to work. Can you sleep in your car? Can you move to another room? Can you, can you go back home? What is your exit strategy? Or even just having an air purifier right by your bed? Bringing a mask for sure, bringing binders, but then yeah, it's possible to have a level of capacity and resilience where we can handle longer trips and maybe even go off diet a little bit, enjoy the food, the culture, and take really good care of ourselves when we come back and make the best choices we can while we're there with some of the inner terrain work as well. but I agree with you, Melanie. Travel is, travel is a joy, and I'm thrilled to know that it's still a possibility for our family. I'm very grateful that that went

Melanie Pensak: 35:09

well. Yeah, I'm so glad that that went well for you all, and that was wonderful. I think everyone will really appreciate some of those considerations, and especially highlighting the, the exit or backup plan. Yeah. Yeah, traveling to want to be a little, flippant and say oh, it'll all work out, but you do really, and will probably feel safer, having some sort of backup plan or exit strategy so that you know what to do just in case it happens.

Jenny: 35:36

Absolutely, because certainly that can happen. And it often does a lot of the people that I talk to and work with, there are things that we can't control when we're out and about. And I think it is important to have some exit strategies. and then for the things that we can't control that are external, focusing on the things that we can control. how can we not add fear to the situation if we're safe? Stuck in an exposure. and there's really nothing that we can think of. Nothing, nothing that we can do for a day or so to get out. trying to prioritize, okay, I'm gonna be really clean with my diet. I'm gonna make sure I get as much sleep as I can. not gonna drink alcohol. I'm gonna, not let fear take my mind for a ride. I'm gonna regulate my nervous system, and that can help to mitigate a response from. I guess going full force, if you will, it can help to mitigate the effects as much as we can.

Melanie Pensak: 36:26

Yeah, I agree with that completely. I recently had to take a flight and had unexpected cancellation in my connection city. And because there had been so many flight delays for multiple days, the hotel options were extremely limited for the overnight stay that I I had to find a hotel in Chicago to, to stay in. And unfortunately the only option, not just because that's what the airline was offering, but because every hotel was booked in the area because of the days of delays was a very, very old hotel. And I'm still very much in SARS recovery. And I had my air filter with me and I knew that mentally, I was going to have to really work on getting through it and using my nervous system strategies. And I did. I got through it. I was in a shuttle bus. I was in that hotel for the night. I had my air purifier. I had actually. like vinegar and, and some cleaning stuff on me so that I could like at least topically clean, something in the environment when I got in there and I made it through. I could tell from my visual contrast test that I had some. acute exposure. But I do think that my mental ability and meditation practice helped me to really get through, that those, those steps.

Jenny: 37:53

Yes. Yes. I'm so glad you brought that up. I think sometimes there's a battle between camps, if you will, like people who believe that we can biohack our way out of an exposure and that that's all we need to do. And then people who take the medical side and, and, Binding and mold avoidance very seriously, and I agree absolutely that we need to take exposure seriously and avoid them as much as we can and take our binders to help us. But when we're stuck, that's when it's an amazing opportunity to use some of those, those nervous system strategies to help to, if you will, biohack our way. Out of a massive reaction, we can take a massive reaction and turn it into a minor one, when we employ some of those strategies that we have. So I love that story. I'm so glad that you shared that. Way to go.

Melanie Pensak: 38:42

Thank you. Yeah, I feel like it's more realistic to me to know that we're going to hit mold and we're going to hit actinose and endotoxins as we progress through our life. Even people that are living outdoors, you're going to hit environmental toxins because of the climate change, the weather patterns, the wind, the way it blows and brings toxins from across the entire country. we're realizing that connection with the wildfires and, and, you can't. even escape it outside. So at some point, working on your reactivity, I think is, is really important because it can help us during those circumstances because they're sure to happen at some point.

Jenny: 39:25

Yes, absolutely agreed. So I

Melanie Pensak: 39:28

guess we'll wrap it up at this point. I just have a couple questions that I like to ask everybody when, when I'm in conversation with them. one thing I'd love to hear you say. reply to is what do you wish people in the world knew about SERS? Just one thing.

Jenny: 39:43

That it is real, for both the people who doubt it, who maybe have a family member or a coworker or an employee or a friend or a neighbor who's going through this and they're having a hard time supporting that person or believing that person. And then for the person going through it, I think we'd go through some doubt on our end, too, really? these are invisible contaminants, and I'm spending a lot of money and time and energy working with this, and really, is this real? And I just want to say yes. It is real. It is real, and it is treatable. And I wish that, I hope one day that we will all, Embrace that, that it is real and it is treatable.

Melanie Pensak: 40:24

And if you could have one magic wish granted, what would you ask to happen within the SERS community

Jenny: 40:30

right now? Oh, that the unnecessary suffering would be minimized. I would actually go away completely. and when I say unnecessary, the, the thought of necessary suffering, I guess sounds strange. And, and I don't know that any level of suffering is, is wanted or necessary, but I, and I think so many other people who've navigated SERS have had a lot of unnecessary suffering that has accompanied their journey from either not getting the right help at the right times. making costly mistakes with their home or their belongings, having lost relationships and jobs, maybe just not having the right information at the right time, there can be so much unnecessary suffering that I think could be mitigated, significantly if we just had more awareness, more support, more patient education, more trained doctors, more clean buildings, so there's a lot to, to, to bring that. but yeah, so I think that would be an overarching wish is that the unnecessary suffering would be minimized.

Melanie Pensak: 41:34

Beautiful. thank you, Jenny, so much for being here today and sharing all of these tips and really sharing your heart with the community. And thank you so much for the work that you continue to do in the world. You're really filling in the gap, helping people in their most vulnerable states. Helping to support them and educate them and there's so many that are so appreciative for what you do so big, big thank you for all of that and I'd love for you to just share ways that people can stay in touch with you and your

Jenny: 42:04

work. Yeah, sure. thank you Melanie for having me on this podcast and for even creating this podcast. I hope that it goes wild and is a huge part of growing awareness for SERS because we so need that. Yeah. And for folks who would like to connect with me, that would be wonderful. I would love to hear everyone's story and get people connected with resources that may be supportive for them. my website, my professional website is simplifiedwellnessdesigns. com. And on there, it explains the different services that I provide, some of the different educational programs that I offer for service patients. support groups, one on one coaching, a variety of things like that. So yeah, Simplified Wellness Designs is me and look forward to connecting with you. Thank you, Melanie, for, for hosting me. This was a pleasure and an honor. Thank

Melanie Pensak: 42:53

you so much.

Cheri: 42:59

Thank you for listening and for your kind attention. To keep in touch, follow the Heart of CIRS podcast on Instagram. You can visit melaniepensak. com forward slash the heart of CIRS to donate. Your generosity helps to keep this podcast growing. May the awareness of CIRS spread far and wide, helping to change millions of lives for the better.