Is It Really Mental Health? How Mold & Histamine Intolerance Mimic Anxiety & Depression

There are a lot of people that are medicated for psychiatric illness that are probably actually in need of healing an immune or environmental trigger that nobody even bothered to test for. Have you run into this in your practice? Absolutely. In fact, most of the clients that I work with, they had been working with multiple practitioners before and had been dismissed by multiple of them because their symptomatology just comes off as if it's all in their head or they're dealing with anxiety, they're dealing with these panic attacks for no apparent reason. They just need to take some form of drug pharmaceutical to help clear it and to stabilize them when in fact it's so much deeper than that. Your brain is wired for deception, but here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen? Welcome to another episode of Decoded. Today's guest is Dr. Stephanie Peacock. She's a functional health consultant who spends her days with cases mainstream medicine probably writes off as mystery symptoms or maybe even made up. Today we're going to be talking mold toxicity, mast cell activation syndrome, chronic SIBO, all of the things that leave patients drugged, dismissed, and stuck on a mental health merry-go-round. What makes her work different is that she doesn't stop at symptom suppression or quick prescriptions. She goes upstream digging into the gut, the immune system, and the environment to cover the actual triggers that often drive these symptoms that are mislabeled as anxiety, depression, or even bipolar disorder. Dr. Peacock is disrupting a system that tells people to cope instead of heal. She's showing that brain fog, panic attacks, and mood swings aren't always a mental health issue. Sometimes they're just your body waving a red flag. And today we're going to be pulling apart how MCAS, histamine intolerance, and mold toxicity can hijack the brain and leave people stuck in a misdiagnosis hell. So welcome to the show, Dr. Stephanie Peacock. Hi, Pizzy. Thank you so much for having me as a guest. I'm really excited to dive into all these topics with you today. Me too. So let's start with a very uncomfortable truth that there are a lot of people that are medicated for psychiatric illness that are probably actually in need of healing and immune or environmental trigger that nobody even bothered to test for. Have you run into this in your practice? Absolutely. In fact, I would say most of the clients that I work with, after they start working with me, they had been working with multiple practitioners before and had been dismissed by multiple of them because their symptomatology just comes off as if they are dealing with, it's all in their head, or they're dealing with anxiety, they're dealing with these panic attacks for no apparent reason, and they just need to go work on either their nervous system or they just need to take some form of drug pharmaceutical to help clear it and to stabilize them when in fact it's so much deeper than that. So is it possible for something like mast cell activation syndrome or histamine issues or even mold toxicity to show up as anxiety, depression or panic attacks? Is that something that you see? Absolutely. Yeah, and I'll even paint a picture for your audience. So mast cells, they line every single part of the body and including the brain. Although they are not in high concentrations of the brain, they are still there. And when we start to see mast cell degranulation occur in an individual, which means these mast cells are starting to release more of their components like histamine and other mediators, that can actually start to break down the blood brain barrier and then allow more of those mediators to cross through, resulting in that inflammation in the brain. So what might someone feel or experience that is having this sort of mast cell degranulation? What are some other symptoms that could coincide with more of the mental psychiatric symptoms? Absolutely. So I would honestly say we kind of already touched on it, but anxiety really, really bit for no apparent reason. Like they can just be sitting, reading a book, you know, going on a walk, anything. And then all of a sudden they are just hit with a panic attack that can just seem to kind of come out of nowhere. Depressive symptoms are very, very common that seem to come out of nowhere, especially tied in with hormone dysregulation. So a lot of women will experience at certain times of their cycles, certain times of their cycles, excuse me, they will actually start to experience depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms as well, because we start to see when it comes to hormones, estrogen's on the rise, then we see histamine as well. And so histamine will start to rise in relation to that hormone, hormone system occurring in our body. And that will actually start to trigger mast cell degranulation as well. And so we see a lot of different kinds of symptoms as well. Gut related symptoms are very, very common. We know our gut is basically our second brain. There is a very, very massive amount of mast cells that are located within the gut as well. And so we start to see, I usually will see anxiety, depressive panic attack type symptoms also located, also simultaneously occurring alongside gut related symptoms to like IBS type symptoms. So what about things like rashes? Could rashes and more neurological symptoms, thinking like kind of muscle ticks or muscle spasms, are those all things that could cluster with the same sort of symptom pattern? Yes, absolutely. And I'm glad that you touched on that because like I was mentioning earlier, mast cells, they line every single part of our body. And so they're in very high concentrations in parts of the body that are in constant communication, I guess you could say, with the outside world. So that's going to be like our skin, our respiratory system, our gut, and then our urinary tract system. Those are where they're really, really in high counts. But again, they're located everywhere. So rashes, almost like anaphylactic type reactions, those are very common actually in those dealing with mast cell and histamine intolerance. The gut symptoms, urinary tract symptoms, people getting chronic UTIs, interstitial cystitis is actually quite common as well. And so there's a lot of things that are happening in the gut system that are being pained with urination, also very common. I was talking about the gut stuff before, but IBS type symptoms. So we see a lot of, there was a study done not too long ago that showed that those dealing with mast cell activation syndrome have a higher chance of developing small intestinal bacteria overgrowth. IBS like symptoms like nausea, bloating, diarrhea, constipation. So the symptoms can be so widespread and very confusing to the individual dealing with mast cell activation syndrome because the symptoms can be in multiple body systems. It can almost again, going back to that mental health piece, make that patient feel so, so lost and confused and feel like, is it all in my head? Because when they go to see a lot of different practitioners that might not be aware of this condition, then that practitioner might also say, yeah, this, I've never seen this before and good luck. What actually is the root cause of MCAS? And is this something that is relatively new and caused by, you know, increasing environmental factors? Like where, where is this coming from? And why is it all of a sudden such a hot topic? Yeah. So before mast cell activation syndrome became an official diagnosis, which was in 2016, we were calling it multiple chemical sensitivity. And we really started to see this on the rise kind of around the industrial revolution where back in like the 60s, 70s, 80s, we're starting to use more, more chemicals in our products. And so these mast cells, I'll just paint another picture, their job is to protect us. That is their whole goal is to just be there as our protective mechanism. They're constantly sensing for triggers or threats like in our environment. And then they release these mediators like histamine and over a thousand other meteors to basically protect us. Right. When we are in constant contact with triggers like chemicals, our bodies overloaded with these. Now we have so many more chemicals in our environment than we did 56 years ago. The way homes are built now, they're more airtight. So we're seeing mold on the rise, mold and higher accounts. That's another big trigger as well, because we're not supposed to be exposed to these things in large amounts. Trauma, right? So we see in the chronic illness population, there is a higher likelihood of those that have dealt with childhood trauma. So dealing with unresolved trauma, but also the COVID pandemic, that was a huge pandemic trauma that people were going through. Huge viral loads that are now on the rise as well. So these different things that we didn't really see a lot of before that are starting to come into our world now, our mast cells are just getting more overloaded. And so they just get more stressed out and their job is to then protect us. Right. So when they're constantly getting overloaded, then they don't shut off. They're supposed to protect us, then they shut off and go back to their normal duties. But when we're getting constantly exposed to some type of trigger, stress, trauma, etc., then they don't shut off and they're constantly releasing this histamine and inflammatory response that's occurring in the body. And that's kind of why we see it more on the rise now, because we're just seeing so many more things in our environment and stressors and people are just so busy with their lives that they don't have enough time to just sit down and support their nervous system that we just see this kind of perfect storm of environmental triggers and factors that really are contributing to mast cell activation syndrome. Is mast cell activation syndrome considered an autoimmune disease? So it's not considered an autoimmune disease, but it acts like one. And due to a variety of different mechanisms that are occurring in the body because of that inflammatory response, it's basically triggering a part of our immune system. The TH2 dominant side of the immune system, which is basically the part of the immune system that responds to kind of like chronic inflammation responses. And when that dominant side of the immune system stays on alert for long periods of time, it starts to trigger more autoimmune responses in the body. And that's where we can actually even see alongside mast cell activation syndrome, people have autoimmune conditions kind of coexisting alongside it. And does one typically precede the other? Yes and no. I would say in my client population, I would see more that mast cell activation syndrome precede the autoimmune condition, but I have seen it vice versa. It's funny. I hadn't really heard the term mast cell activation syndrome until really I started to look at your stuff, started to dig into it. Then in planning to do the foundation episode to get my audience ready for this episode, the more I dug into it, the more I realized all the light bulbs went off and I'm like, oh my God, this is exactly what tells my entire illness story, like from early childhood to present. And even with things like sensitivity to perfumes and scents, I remember people, I probably came off like a crazy person, but if I was exposed to certain, even certain essential oils, my whole system would flood and I would get an immediate migraine. My blood just felt like my blood pressure would skyrocket. I'd get covered in rashes and people are like, oh my God, this is all in your head. Like these are essential oils. And I'm like, I'm telling you, it's literally not. And I got diagnosed with lupus when I was 23. So that's why I asked the question and I realized that to some extent it's a chicken or egg scenario. But if I kind of go back and track my history, I do think that I noticed some of the MCAS symptom cascade patterns early on in my childhood, which then started with panic attacks. It started when I was nine and then just kind of never went away until 19 and they just would come all the time and very often. And then at a certain point, and I think this is worth mentioning, with panic attacks in particular, I think it's possible that MCAS could trigger a panic attack. But then the way that mental health cycles work is then you start to then anticipate having a panic attack. So then there is essentially a mental health component that could kind of piggyback what might have started with MCAS and now has actually become kind of a mental health self fulfilling prophecy. And I certainly feel like that was the case for me where then like I started having panic attacks because I was afraid to have a panic attack. And then it's like, is this coming from MCAS or have I just completely slipped off the edge? And now I just feel like a nut, which certainly in my early childhood years, I absolutely did. So thank you for helping explain all of that because I do know that a lot of my audience has struggled with autoimmune and chronic conditions. And I know how confusing it can be when it feels like there's a correlation between more autoimmune chronic sort of symptoms that then kick off something that may look mental health related, that may not in fact be. I know also for MCAS, it can create a sort of deep, depersonalization sort of experience. Have you had that with your clients? Because that's it's a very specific mental health condition that I think truly makes people feel like they're losing their marbles. So is that something that you've had with your client base? I have, yes. So my client base I deal with, I would say the majority of my client population is the very hypersensitive individuals dealing with mass activation syndrome and a good percentage of them have actually dealt with that depersonalization, you know, from a variety of different reasons of why they may have developed the mass activation syndrome in the first place. But yes, that is a very common one that people can deal with as well. And is there some sort of specific mechanism that is causing the depersonalization specifically? My personal theory on it, because I don't believe there is any research or studies to support the why behind that, especially because mass activation syndrome, as we talked about earlier is more of a newer diagnosis. But my personal theory is that it's just leading to that inflammation in the brain, how that blood brain barrier is becoming compromised. And we know when that barrier becomes compromised, just like the gut barrier, when that becomes compromised to the more things you get exposed to, the more likely that that is going to cross that barrier and then create even more inflammation as well. And you, you would ask about, you know, more common retriggers. And I talked about mold being one of them. But again, that's another big one I see too, is that a lot of my client population are dealing with mold illness, and they might even be living in that moldy environment as well. So that tied with that mass activation syndrome response, we're kind of seeing like this toxic soup of things that are occurring in the body, triggering that inflammatory response consistently, and just not giving the body a break to fight that inflammation because it's constantly fighting it. So we're just seeing that inflammatory response occurring over and over and over again. It makes total sense. And I know a little while ago you had brought up the relationship between more airtight environments and kind of this rise of mold illness and mold toxicity. And that was actually one of my questions is just the idea that obviously mold is not new. We've always coexisted with mold for as long as humans have been on planet earth. So I wonder, other than just the airtight environments, maybe if you could expand a bit more on that as well. What are some other factors that are suddenly making mold express in a different way where we can no longer coexist with it, but are now being compromised by it? What a great question. So different factors. One, it is the way that buildings are being built now. And so the codes are different. So when buildings were built before, they were not. There was much better air exchange occurring from the indoor to the outdoor environment. And what makes mold illness or sorry, what makes mold growth inside a home compromising to our immune system is that it is growing in higher accounts than what we should be getting exposed to. Because yes, there is mold outside that we're getting exposed to every single day. There's there's hundreds, if not thousands of different mold species that are floating around outside. But we're getting exposed to them in small amounts. And that's totally normal. And we actually want to be getting exposed to these different things because within our own body, like I like to refer to our bodies as this beautiful ecosystem of different fungi and parasites and bacteria and everything that's in there and within us that are thriving and that are meant to be there. But when we get exposed to too much of one thing in high counts, that's when we start to see compromising within the gut microbiome, we start to see more inflammation on the rise. And so it's kind of like that within our home when there's less air exchange occurring from the indoor to the outdoor environment, then we're going to start to see more if there is a leak or if there, you know, whatever it is, if there's high humidity occurring in the home, something like that, that's not being taken care of because if humidity rises above 55%, that's where we start to see mold growth. So different factors like that play a role and then the buildings are so airtight. So then we're getting more mold growth and people are just getting more exposed. But what also happens alongside that too, is that we aren't taught how to properly take care of our homes too and how to check our homes and how to make sure that things are okay within the home itself. We know how to make our home look good. We know how to clean it to make it look pretty nice and tidy and this and that. But we weren't really taught how to, you know, make sure we're checking under the sinks constantly, making sure to check for if there's paint peeling or little cracks in certain areas that can indicate some form of water damage. So that's another piece that I think too is the educational side of things that were just something that we're not taught to really look out for. So then what happens is, is years can go by with this overgrowth of mold occurring in the home from whatever water leak occurred or high humidity. And then, you know, that's what's compromising somebody's immune system. But the other piece of all of it is too, is how I was talking about that rise of, you know, chemicals and, you know, chemicals being used in our products. I mean, I think it's estimated around 300,000 chemicals used worldwide that are less than 1% are tested for human safety. So we're going to expose to all kinds of stuff that is compromising our immune system. And then we live in a moldy home and that is further compromising our immune system, making us almost more susceptible as well because of our previous exposures to, you know, different stressors and toxicants in our environment. So it's kind of, again, it's like that perfect storm that can just happen. But yeah, there's big, big things with the educational side and then the way homes are built in terms of that mold exposure. Do you think that Wi-Fi also impacts this perfect storm of why mold may now be impacting us more in our homes than previously? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm completely blanking on the doctor's name that did this study. But so a few years ago, showed that mold. So when mold is growing, it's not just mold. It's more things that are also getting, you know, produced in that environment too. It's usually multiple kinds of mold because mold is trying to out-compete other types of molds in the environment. So as it does that, it produces these toxins called mycotoxins. It wants to be stronger than the other mold that it's getting, you know, that it's growing alongside of. And so with that, with that piece in mind, if they're getting exposed to a frequency like EMF, we have been, we have seen that in the presence of electromagnetic fields and radiation, that mold feels like it's getting threatened. And if it feels like it's getting threatened, its whole goal is to survive. And so it will start to produce more of those toxic substances, which is what gets into our bodies. And that's what makes us actually sick. It's the mycotoxins. And so we've seen it produce like 600 times the amount in the presence of EMFs. So absolutely, seeing having Wi-Fi in the home, within a moldy home, or in another case, if somebody, let's say, dealt with mold illness and they left their previous home that was moldy and they're in a very clean home, but they're still living with EMFs, living with Wi-Fi. That's a possible reason why somebody might continue to feel even sicker because they are still contained that mycotoxins in their system. And it's actually reacting to the EMFs. So it's why sometimes somebody might leave and they actually continue to feel worse because they're still getting exposed to other things in their environment too. Well, I'm immediately moving my Wi-Fi router, FYI, because it's in my kitchen right near the most moist place of my house. So Q PANIC now. And ironically, I'm like going back in the memory banks of when we moved it and when certain people started to feel more sick in our house. And we actually just were in the middle of a renovation. So we just literally pulled everything up and we're doing some mold remediation. And now when you go in our house, it smells so different. Everything about it's so different. So noted not putting the Wi-Fi router back where it was before. So checking that box. I wonder when it comes to, I know you're talking about building codes and kind of the role of something now being airtight plays in the mold, not being able to kind of like lung exchange. Like it can't breathe. It can't exhale out of the house. Is there a certain year that this started to happen? And have you seen that some clients may actually, instead of moving into a brand new kind of like air quotes, perfect house, have they done better in kind of older builds that do breathe better? You know, that's a great question. And I'm not a building biologist or an indoor environmental professional, which I do recommend if somebody is working at trying to identify what's going on in the home, having people on your team that are a certified building biologist and indoor environmental professional are really important because they will understand that. A building biologist? Is that, that's a, that's a thing? Yes, it's a thing. It is a thing. Yeah. And it's, I'll refer, I've got a list of a few wonderful individuals that I will, I'm suspecting molds and somebody's home. I actually refer to them to talk with them and go through the history of their home and understanding like the why it's happening. So I won't be able to give an answer on the exact year, but what I will say is I see a combination. So I've seen people living in 80 year old homes that are fine and have never really had a mold issue. And that's great. And I see people move into newer build homes that have like nine months later have a water leak or have some, or it was built in the rain, something like that with the construction and then the wood. Oh yeah. The materials got wet and it was never taken care of. And so absolutely, I kind of see a bit of a mix with that personally, but someone with more qualification could probably give you a better answer on that. Great. And then you can give us those resources so we can throw them in the show notes who you recommend. Yeah. And do you also have certain testing protocols that you recommend for molding house? Cause I know that this is, this is a lot of gray area. We did that to our home when we first moved here. And then everyone talked to us like, no, that test doesn't work. This test is better. So I'm sure it's, there's a lot of gray area and content. So do you have something that you personally recommend for testing from old in the home? Definitely. So my two things are working with, again, the building biologists combined with an Ermey test. That is the best combination because understanding the history of the home, being able to understand how to visually inspect and understand where the issue might be coming from, tied with the Ermey slash hurts me, that will be able to identify the type of mycotoxins if found within the home. Because that's an important clue in as well, because when we start to test somebody's body for mold illness, right, we can do urine mycotoxin testing. And that can actually show us the type of mycotoxins, which are those toxic substances for mold that are there. And sometimes we can actually align them from the Ermey test as well as what's in their body. And that can give us an idea. Okay. What, why you're experiencing your symptoms now are current, or it could, if let's say the home came back clear, we would know it's a past exposure that they're dealing with too. So that's a good way to kind of identify that issue as well. And are these tests, the ones that you were talking about, that would be done to a person to track what mycotoxins are present in their body? Are these things that you can also do with kids? Yeah. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Yep. Any, any age you can do it with. Yeah. It's a urine test, which is great. It's very easy. So you basically just collect first morning urine to gather the sample and then you send it back to the lab. Okay. And hopefully you'll give us recommendations on that as well, that we can pass on the show notes. Absolutely. Plot twist, you know, typically I think a lot of people don't necessarily go to the website to look methodically through the show notes, but I'm pretty sure today's episode is going to be one of those ones. We're going to want to make sure you go to the website because there's going to be a lot of different URLs there that I'm sure will help you on your way. One of the things that I have seen just being in kind of the alternative health and wellness community for such a long time. As I've seen people have a hard time managing the line between being aware of a potential problem and then actually slipping off the edge and becoming obsessive and almost in many cases, even slipping into full blown OCD over trying to avoid or mitigate exposure. So what is your approach to this when dealing with mold? Because I've seen some people that I care about very deeply. They've essentially set their whole lives on fire trying to like avoid the boogeyman and also at the same time, you can't completely avoid the boogeyman. So what is your approach to this and what are your recommendations? Your brain isn't broken. It's running an old code. Break method is a system that maps your neurological patterns, decodes your emotional distortions and rewires your behavior fast. No talk therapy spiral, no getting stuck in your feelings, just logic based rewiring in 20 weeks or less. Head to breakmethod.com and see what your brain is really up to. Oh, yes. This will be a little bit of a multi-layer answer. So I agree. And I was one of those as well when I was dealing. I actually dealt with mass activation syndrome and mold illness. And so I can also attest to feeling like you, you just want to learn as much as you can and try to become as aware and educate yourself as much. But it almost comes at a cost when we become too hyper compulsive about trying to learn about too many things and throw away all our belongings and do this and that, because that is very stressful to our nervous system. And so there's definitely a fine line to take. And I would say I take a different approach with every person I work with because it's really dependent on their sensitivity level too. So in somebody who is really dealing with like their, their activities of daily living are basically compromised. They, they can't leave their home. They are responding to all different types of environmental factors. You know, their life is basically just combined, just living in their home, trying to stay in their safe space. In that respect, where somebody is that sensitive and dealing with mold illness as well with the histamine intolerance, I would recommend we do need to take certain measures to mitigate exposures because we do have to really start to calm down that inflammatory immune response that's occurring. Right. And so that's going to be a case where absolutely we need to really focus on reducing the triggers, but we need to do it in a way where it's, okay, this isn't a long-term solution. This is short-term to where we're just calming down that inflammatory response. And then we'll slowly start to reintroduce and you're in every person should be able to, once they clear the mycotoxins out of their system, they, in their immune system and their bodies, rebuild and strong again, they should be able to handle exposures like minor exposures and things like that. And so I try to tell everybody that because again, I think there is a lot of fear mongering on social media and articles written about mold and this and that, but in reality, kind of like what you've been alluding too busy is that like we can't, we can't avoid this forever. Like we're going to, we're going to get exposures. We're going to have things come into our environment in our life that we just can't control. Um, but for people that are not as sensitive that are, you know, that may have some type of immune response to mold or things like that, but it's really like not too interference with like their activities of daily living, things like that in their lifestyle. I say, okay, we can redo, we need to reduce certain exposures and, you know, we need to take certain steps, but it's not as imperative as it might be for another person, right? Because your immune system isn't as compromised. So we can kind of take different steps in that regard. Um, but again, it all really boils down to what I think is really the common denominator and all of this is really the nervous system. And maybe we were going to talk about it a little later, but, um, the nervous system, I really believe is, is half of the healing process that I see in the majority of my clients, because our mass cells are in constant communication with the nervous system. There's actually mass cells lie at every single nerve ending. And so if our mass cells are constantly freaking out from an environmental perspective, from mold or whatever it is stressors, they're triggering the nervous system to be very hyper vigilant and just responsive as well. And then vice versa, when the nervous system is very hyper vigilant because of the mass activation syndrome, it will actually trigger the mass cells to be more, more hyper responsive. So we see this crazy vicious cycle happening. And then if we add on top of that, like you were mentioning, you know, trying to over educate, over learn, trying to, you know, see what's the latest and greatest supplements we can take to help us. And we just start to overwhelm our body. We're really overwhelming the nervous system. And that's where I'm seeing a lot of the issues lie. So in both the scenarios I mentioned with the different types of clients, the common denominator with all of it is we got to really focus on the nervous system. And mass cell activation syndrome and histamine intolerance is really the body feeling unsafe. That's really what it all boils down to. So somewhere along that line, we got to start focusing on telling the body it's safe again, whether that's through whatever type of nervous system approach works best for that person. And then we can do limbic retraining programs. We can do, you know, anytime. There's all kinds of wonderful nervous system approaches, but I'm usually implementing those pretty early on because it's really key to helping the body get better. So let's switch gears back to kind of this panic attack, brain fog, psychiatric symptom realm. If somebody that's listening might suspect that potentially some of those symptoms that they're experiencing could be tied to MCAS or histamine or mold. What do you think, what tests do you think are actually worth running? Cause I think right now it can be very overwhelming and a lot of these tests are super expensive. So then people kind of slam on the brakes and they're like, well, if this isn't the right test, I don't want to pay $2,000. So do you have like very specific tests that you would recommend to try to understand if certain mental or emotional symptoms might actually be coming from some of these underlying issues? Yeah. Absolutely. There is a few tests that I actually love to use and I won't, again, depending on the person, their history, symptoms, I would pick like maybe one test or possibly two to run, but there's a variety of really, really wonderful tests out there. But one for sure, if I'm suspecting mold illness, I will definitely be running a urine mycotoxin panel. There's different companies that run them that are wonderful. Real-time labs is great. Vibrant wellness is wonderful and mosaic diagnostics is another good, good testing company as well. And so the reason why that's important is one, we can get validation, understanding, yes, this is what's causing a lot of your issues. But also to treat mold effectively, we need to understand the type of mycotoxins in the body. Mold is not just mold illness is not just treated like a one size fits all approach where we're just, oh, you have mold illness, most likely, let's give you some binders and that's it. And, you know, we actually, every mycotoxin leaves the body a different way and affects the body in a different way. So that's why we want to understand what's going on as well to treat that effectively. Um, I love, uh, doing any type of like stool testing as well. So if we're dealing with gut issues, I really love to look at, um, stool testing. That can tell me a lot about short chain fatty acid production, inflammation occurring within the gut that can tell me any type of overgrowth occurring within the large intestine can show me gallbladder markers, um, digestive enzyme markers. So we can see that as well. That's really important. Um, sometimes I like to run genetic testing because that's important to be able to see again, like, are there certain pathways that are going to be impaired in this person's body to be able to break down, um, compounds and to be able to effectively detox. That's really important as well. Cause if that's the case, then we want to be able to gear the supports towards that as well. Um, and then there's another test, um, through vibrant wellness, but other companies do it as well, but it's, um, total toxin testing. So almost understanding like, okay, it might not just be mold. It could be heavy metals or it could be other environmental components as well. There's also a test called HTML, which is a heritage, human oral analysis that shows us, um, things like that as well. Like that, um, that store in that area of the body, like, uh, heavy metals and stuff. And, um, her test still accurate. If somebody highlights their hair. Yes. Yeah. Great question. Yes, it is. Um, and then the final testing, I was going to say, was, um, a lot of people will ask me, I really want to get testing done for mass activation syndrome. And the problem with that is again, since it's such an early diagnosis, um, it became, you know, back in 2016 as a diagnosis, the testing is still being, um, figured out for a lack of a better explanation. So there's a thousand different mediators that these mass cells release. It's not just histamine. There's like, there's all kinds that get released, right? And it's usually not just histamine that somebody's, you know, reacting to. There's other ones. Um, so one, there is no testing that measures all of them. We can only measure like 10 to 12 different types of mediators right now that get released. Um, and the issue is, is that oftentimes, like you have to provoke a reaction to try to get the, um, to measure the compound in the blood, the mediator in the blood. And that can be really traumatizing for people too. Um, and so what I usually tell people is, um, you know, I, I. Mass activation syndrome is defined by also having symptoms in two or more body systems, right? And they're, and if, once you start to see somebody's history, understanding their symptoms that are arising, seeing the symptoms in the different areas of the body, you can kind of guess that they're most likely dealing with this mass cell activation syndrome. And when you start to layer in supports like, um, stabilizers and supports like that, and they're getting better, that's a pretty good shoe in that they're dealing with the MCAS. So let's switch gears. I wanted to talk about PMDD because this is another thing that I've seen in my client base on the rise. And when I went to go do some of the preliminary research for my previous episode on mass cell activation syndrome, it does seem like there's some crossover here in both symptom patterns and possibly even just population. So what is PMDD and what, in your opinion, is the crossover or link with either mass cell activation or autoimmune in general? Yeah. So PMDD is believed to be linked to abnormal reaction to like hormone fluctuation, fluctuations within like our menstrual, menstrual cycle. Um, and so what the tie in when it comes to that histamine response is that at histamine and estrogen are very closely linked. It's almost like a seesaw that I'll tell people. So when one rises sometimes, um, that histamine can rise as well. Like when estrogen rises, histamine can rise as well. And so oftentimes a lot of women, when they're going through their ovulation, they will start to ex that ovulatory phase. They will start to experience absolutely horrible menstrual pain, mood swings, fatigue, they'll feel like they're getting the flu, um, horrible cramps, breast tenderness. I mean, they're getting a variety of symptoms that are actually debilitating. And a lot of my women won't be able to even go into work or they just have to lay in bed for a few days during those, um, symptoms. And that's because they're, if they're dealing with mass activation syndrome and they already have an overabundance of histamine in their system and then we see histamine rising because of estrogen, then we have that like basically again, a perfect storm that's creating way more inflammation in the body during that part of the cycle than typically we'd see in a normal individual, not dealing with mass activation syndrome or histamine intolerance. And so that's where we see the hormone piece tied with the histamine piece. So on Tik Tok and Instagram, there have certainly been trends that I've seen over the last six months of talking about how if you struggle with really bad PMDD symptoms, sometimes even just taking an over the counter histamine, I don't know if it's histamine block or something like that, that kind of mitigates histamine symptoms can actually work really well. Have you had any experience with this? Is there any truth to this? Or is this just an urban, a Tik Tok legend? Right. I know so many Tik Tok legends out there. So, um, yes, actually that does work for some people. It will. Um, and again, sometimes when it comes to treating mass activation syndrome and tied to what's that person's primary issue, because not every woman with, um, MCAS has PMDD. So it's kind of like, okay, well, what's this person dealing with? But, um, the combination sometimes of using like herbal stabilizers with histamine blockers, like H1 or H2 blockers, um, can be very helpful or maybe even just using the H1 blocker, H2 blocker, like you were mentioning during, um, when they're experiencing these symptoms as well. Um, and then just kind of stopping it and then re starting it again when they start to get the symptoms. Because, um, I think there's a lot of controversy right now about, I see this a lot on social media saying, don't use histamine blockers. That's unsafe this and that, but actually it can be very helpful to help treat and support somebody in the beginning stages of dealing with histamine intolerance, because that's just going to help to lower the amount of histamine that's in the body, which is then going to lower the amount of inflammation. And then that can allow us to layer in more supports because that person will be less reactive. So absolutely. I see that be very beneficial. Great. Because I've had quite a few clients who have had completely life changing experiences from, from doing that, even clients with PMDD that go through temporary suicidal ideation during that period where it can be really scary. So I'm glad that in your experience, you've seen the same sort of results and feedback. So let's start to kind of close this out by looking at just chronic disease as a whole. And I realize there are so many things that fit up underneath that umbrella. And I know that, you know, in 2025, there does seem to be more a push in kind of government and policy formation to look at the chronic disease epidemic. What do you think the future of chronic disease treatment is going to look like? What do you think some of the most promising potentially new treatments or technologies or testing are looking out into the next three to five years? Oh, that's a really good question. I think what's getting exciting personally is seeing the amount of more practitioners that are just becoming aware around mass cell activation syndrome, environmental toxicity, things like that. And realizing that somebody that's dealing with like what we started talking about in the beginning of this episode, anxiety or depression, right? Which a lot of people wouldn't think, oh, it might be my environment that's triggering this where it might be abnormal histamine amounts in my body that's triggering this. I think that's what is exciting to see is that there is more awareness surrounding that topic because in my personal opinion, I really think that the majority of these issues are dealt with from our environmental factors. And so just creating more awareness around that and understanding that when it comes to this whole approach of dealing with these chronic illness situations where we're seeing mass activation syndrome on the rise and seeing mold illness on the rise is that we got to think about it in these different steps is we got to focus on stabilizing the individual. So not telling them they're crazy, but in fact telling them, okay, this is what's going on with you. We can run these different testing that we're so lucky to have now and get the answers that we need. Focus on stabilizing through nervous system regulation. There's a lot of great nervous system programs out there now. Focus on using the herbal supports that we were talking about like H1H2 blockers, but also herbal mass cell stabilizers and using those to be able to just calm down that inflammatory response and then focus on detoxing because detoxing is a really crucial piece now just for everybody. Honestly, we should be really focusing on whether it's just like doing a gentle detox every year or just supporting your detox organs in general. We're just getting exposed to so much more. And so I think that awareness around that's really important, but the detoxification piece is something that I'm getting more and more excited to see when done correctly, not aggressively, especially when we're dealing with mass activation syndrome, but gentle detox to clear these toxins out of the system is really important. There's a variety. I can't even think of any of them at the moment, but I know there's a lot of different different supports out there that they're still coming out with right now to help support with detoxification and just clearing these pathogens from the system that are really triggering that chronic inflammatory immune response. Recently, I got diagnosed with endotoxemia and I'm wondering if you have any experience with that and what would cause a diagnosis of endotoxemia? You know, I actually haven't worked with very many clients with that, but do you have a history of SIBO or gut imbalances? Yes, definitely. Yeah. So this is the interesting thing when it comes to when it comes to dealing with like mass activation syndrome and like I know you said, you have as well as somebody's dealt with like mold illness, these different things basically disrupt the gut. Mass activation syndrome actually releases. So mass cells release elastase one and two, which are mediators that actually start to disrupt the connective tissue in the body. We start to see hypermobile elder-sandlo syndrome as a result of that. We start to see more hypermobility and we start to see gut motility decrease. We start to see more things occur in the gut as a result of that. And where I'm kind of going with this is there's there's definitely a relationship between all these things where mold illness also disrupts different areas of the body that of the gut that actually will contribute to these bacteria and fungal overgrowth within the gut. And those are what actually produce what we call endotoxins. Which are basically almost like the toxic substances of bacteria and fungi. Basically like how mycotoxins are the toxic substances of mold. And so when we start to have more endotoxins in our system, that's triggering inflammation as well. And I had kind of alluded to this before, but within the home when mold's growing, it's always trying to outcompete the other thing that's growing there too. There is bacteria that's also growing in the home to what we're recently discovering is actinos, actinomycetes, which produces endotoxins too. And that's a big reason why I will see some people have that diagnosis with endotoxin either long, long term history of SIBO or also dealing with potential actinos toxicity basically. And that can be common to have a long time alongside mold toxicity too. So it can absolutely be this environmental factor or it could be like what has been occurring within someone's gut microbiome for extended periods of time too. But again, with treating that it's understanding like what's the reason why there's actually testing now for actinos, which is very cool. It only came out a few years ago. Yeah, that was done on me and I didn't test positive for that one. Great. That's good. Yeah. I am curious. So if I kind of track back not to make this about me personally, but I'm sure I've had similar experiences of other people that are listening. I have the MTHFR genetic mutation, which I know compromises your detox pathways, which have certainly been a problem for me throughout my life. And I did, I'd actually many, let's see what would that have been, maybe like 2023, I think I started taking happy juice by MRA. And like within a few weeks, I had lost so much weight. I was feeling amazing. And then fast forward, maybe like five, six months, I did a parasite cleanse. And the parasite cleanse was probably like eight, six to eight weeks or so long, probably eight weeks. And I completely like threw my body into a total flare. I started to explode with weight gain. All the progress that I had made completely went out the window during this parasite cleanse. So I'm curious, let's say that you're killing off parasites, but you can't actually detox them and get them out of your body. Could that possibly cause endotoxemia or something similar to that? Like if there's die off and then nowhere for it to go. Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely could. Another thing that I'm actually thinking of right now that we're kind of on this topic as well is sometimes with those parasite cleanses or like just people being placed on pretty intense, like I'm not saying your protocol was intense, but sometimes people are placed on very intense. I think it was super intense. I should not have been on it for sure. Okay, got it. It was the one from Socor and there are a bunch of people doing it that had amazing results. And I just started to explode. I was like swelling. I couldn't go to the bathroom. It was like one of the worst experiences of my life. Oh my goodness. And I stuck with it for some reason because I'm just like once I commit, I'm going to finish it, which I should have like every instinct in my body was like busy stop now, but I just kept going. I don't have an off switch. That's really funny. I'm actually very similar so I can relate. Yes. So when those with those intense protocols, what's happening is a lot. Oftentimes we're also disrupting the biofilm colonization in the body. And you're probably familiar with this, but for the listeners, bio biofilm is basically it's like mucopolysaccharide, like gel that encases fungi, bacteria, parasites that make them treatment resistant basically and it allows them to colonize or grow even more. And those are actually what really contribute to a lot of like low grade like mast cell inflammation. And so when I'm going back to like the whole mold and treating that and treating seabo and all these things, I'm always utilizing some form of a biofilm disruptor at some point, but it has to be implemented at the right time to reduce to make sure we're not getting that inflammatory response like you experience. Because if we try to go on like a quick detox protocol and we're disrupting everything and biofilm and all that stuff, you're basically almost just creating so much inflammation in the body because the biofilm is there to protect it. So if we're taking away the protection, they get mad and it creates a fiery reaction basically. And so I would say I'm wondering if that's almost what happened. It was fiery and it consists of like kept going for years. It really wasn't until I started micro dosing peptides about four months ago now that all like I wanted to complete remission on all of my symptoms and feel like I'm on top of the world. So that's great. Thank God for that because it was basically three years of prolonged hell where I just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And it was clearly not fat. It was swelling. I was really swollen. I was retaining a lot of water. And when I first started micro dosing in the first almost three weeks, I lost technically 11 pounds, which shouldn't be possible unless it's literally just inflammation and fluid. Like you can't actually lose fat that fast. And when that happened for me, I felt so relieved because I honestly started to feel like a crazy person. I was like, I'm in a calorie deficit. I work out all the time. My diet is impeccable. Like this should not be happening. And as soon as I kind of got that underlying mechanism, all of a sudden now I don't react to food anymore. I can eat whatever I want. I'm actually eating now like 2000 to 2200 calories a day. I've got more, I'm actually hungrier. I'm working out all the time. I can sleep. Like I'm not covered in rashes all the time. So for me, it was just like finally a complete 180 where I actually get to feel like a human being again. That doesn't have to identify as having chronic conditions now, which has been amazing. So I'm curious, do you have any, have you ever had any clients that have had symptom resolution from peptide therapy? Absolutely. Yes. So I am not certified in peptide therapy at all, but I'm a huge fan. And so yes, in some cases of my client population, I will refer out to utilizing peptides because whether it's, we're not making any progress or they've made progress, but we're at like a standstill or there's like that last 20% that we just need to get that symptom resolution. Then that's where I'll typically refer out for that. But yeah, absolutely. It's quite amazing actually, what's occurring in that world with peptides and everything. So that's cool. Very cool to hear about your symptom resolution with it. Yeah. And there are so many people now that are in, I have a peptide support telegram and there are so many people in there that have either Hashimoto's or Lupus or some other form of autoimmune disease. And so many of them have had the same sort of like complete 180 in symptom resolution, which is awesome. But I think bigger picture from all the research that I've done on it, it's really more just that giving your body that few months of a reset can kind of remind your body what it's supposed to be doing that it wasn't previously doing before while kind of relieving just the constant chronic inflammation and stress. So I think, you know, everyone, you know, similarly in the realm of mental health, I think ketamine therapy can do the same thing for people who are in chronic stress where it just it like gives your body that time to rest and reset and then kind of begin again to see if you can, instead of going right back into the old rut, you can kind of rise out of that and create a new pattern. So I do love that neuroplasticity element to it. And before we wrap up, because I don't want to keep you too much longer. You brought it up kind of naturally when you were talking about what you think the future of kind of the chronic illness sort of industry or sector will look like. And we do have a lot of therapists and psychiatrists that watch or listen to the show. And I'm wondering if you have one sentence that you could give them that would maybe open their eyes to possibly encouraging their clients to look for alternative testing instead of just immediately using the DSM to say, this is what it is and this is how we're going to treat it and kind of to maybe peak their interest on thinking more holistically about getting their client to maybe look alternatively in addition to seeing them. Absolutely. Yes. So to kind of, to kind of bring this all to boil it all down is we know through research to certain toxins that could actually cross the blood brain barrier. We know there's certain type of mold toxins that can do that. Like, gliotoxin, which actually opens the pathway for fungal colonization in the entire body, creating more inflammation. Like I mentioned earlier, we know that with the mast cells constantly degranulating and releasing many of these mediators that can also really disrupt the blood brain barrier to history of concussions and whiplash and things like that disrupt that too. So that makes us more susceptible to environmental triggers, to inflammatory responses, and then it just triggers this chronic inflammatory load in the body. And so that's where I always, always, always tell people that, yes, that's the symptoms, the symptoms are there, but we have to look beyond that. What testing can we do to identify what toxins are going on in the body? What might, what pathways are not functioning optimally that are allowing this inflammatory cascade to occur, right? And so that's where I would definitely like to really bring attention to is that there's so much more beyond the symptoms and treating the symptoms. It's, there's a reason why that's happening. And I always tell people this, but the body has the blueprint to heal. It knows how to do it. We just have to understand why, like why it's happening. And if we can understand that part, there's so much that we can do for that person to get them better. Dr. Pika, this conversation has been amazing and I'm sure the audience has gotten so much out of it. And we know on the show that mental health does not happen in a vacuum and I love that your work shows what's possible and in looking at the symptom patterns holistically and not just immediately trying to dampen out that system, but actually try to track the whole system itself and what's happening underneath the hood, so to speak. Where can people find your work and connect with you and work with you if they want to dig deeper? Yeah, well, they can find my website at Stephanie peacock.com and I'm really active on my social media handles, both on TikTok and Instagram at Dr. Steph Peacock, DR Steph Peacock. And I also do have a podcast as well, Holistic Hub Podcast, where I also bring different individuals on in the chronic illness space discussing these different conditions and new things for the future and medicine and things that also help to get people better too. So that's where I'm also very active as well. And thank you so much for having me on your podcast to talk about this. This was very fun and I hope this helps somebody out there. It absolutely will. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We will put all of her links in the show notes and we will see you next time. Thank you. Your brain is wired for deception. But here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen?