Thanks to the Paddison Program, Jodi has been able to take back control over her physical and mental health, reducing her methotrexate dosage to a half in the process. We discuss in this interview:
- The link between gut health and mental health
- Antibiotics as a possible trigger for RA
- Breastfeeding
- Jodi’s journey through different drugs and diets with poor results
- How she discovered the Paddison Program and how her inflammation disappeared in a matter of days
- The importance of the microbiome
- The role of drugs
- Exercises for upper and lower body strength
- Taking care of our mental health
Clint – All the way from California today we have the beautiful Jodi with a beautiful story. And she’s going to talk about her improvements after following the Paddison Program For Rheumatoid Arthritis to enable her to improve her quality of life, reduce the number of tender joints, and the significance of that tenderness in her remaining affected joints and reduce medication. She’s smiling from ear to ear Jodi, what a pleasure, welcome.
Jodi – Thank you Clint, I’m so thrilled to be here. I’ve been looking at the Paddison Program for a very long time. I first learned about it, and sad to say that I delayed my start on it, I don’t know if it was out of fear or what exactly it was. But once I started on the Paddison Program, I am so thankful. And I’m so thankful that all the information is available for me and others out there because my life is completely different than it was before I started on the program. Before I started on the program, I was in pretty bad shape. I was having a hard time walking, I was having a hard time opening up door knobs, I was having a hard time sometimes speaking and eating food because my jaw was inflamed. I had inflammation and soreness and tenderness in a lot of joints, I want to say, 15 somewhere around there. I have it all on paper, but I have now reduced it down to just five and it’s pretty amazing. And I can’t even begin to thank you enough for what you’ve done to help me on my journey with this. It’s incredible.
Clint – Yeah, that’s awesome, fantastic. Let’s just get a few things straight here first. Was it sero positive rheumatoid arthritis that you were diagnosed with?
Jodi – That is correct, yes.
Clint – Okay. So you were rheumatoid factor positive, anti CCP factor positive or anti CCP antibodies positive. Okay. All right. So we’re talking severe form rheumatoid arthritis. Now, 11 years ago, you told me. So how did that present first feet, fingers?
Jodi – Well, it was actually I don’t know exactly, but I do remember having some issues with several of my joints with the hands in the feet. But the big thing that prompted me to visit my doctor was I was blow drying my hair and I couldn’t lift my shoulder up without having some severe pain. And I said, oh, my gosh, something is something is not right here. And what’s interesting, Clint, is that at that time when I went, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and less than six months before that, I had a severe manic episode and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. So what I correlate is having one effect the other, because I really think that mental health is a huge part of your physical health. And I think that that definitely correlated for me.
Clint – No doubt at all. I was just having a conversation over the weekend with a medical doctor who was referring to a paper because we’re on the topic of microbiome, and he was talking about fecal transplants, right? Where you take a poo sample from someone who is asymptomatic and healthy and you insert it into the rectum, into the colon of someone who is struggling with a health condition. So they did this for someone with bipolar and the bipolar symptoms resolved in this case study of one study. Okay. So he was talking about this study with me because we’re on the topic of microbiome affecting everything. And what it sounds like to me is that potentially you’ve had this dramatic microbiome shift a few months prior to diagnosis of RA and that potentially that microbiome shift was related to the mental health issues that presented and also the RA. That the underlying cause is this almost like a seismic shift or the tectonic plates in the ocean shifting. It’s created this wave of adjustment in the body and the health has gone off in both directions. And we know that the gut-brain axis is such a strong and established scientific connection. So that’s just a guess. Right. But it helps to think about what causes this stuff, doesn’t it?
Jodi – Definitely. And, you know, after learning about mental health and gut health and rheumatoid arthritis, it’s hard not to think that they’re related, it’s hard not to know that they’re related. I mean, before I was diagnosed with rheumatoid as well as bipolar, my diet was poor, my mental health care was poor, my exercise was poor. And that is something that my eyes have become open to over the last ten plus years or so because it is directly connected for me. And now that I have a better grasp on what that means, I am able to flourish and be able to correct some of the wrongdoings from my past, from having a poor diet and not good exercise habits and not good mental health habits as well.
Clint – I love it. So we are going to cover this is what I want to cover then. I want to talk about first, not first, but I want to make sure people are aware what we’re going to go through. We’ll talk about how you reduced your methotrexate because you’ve more than halved your dosage of methotrexate. I want to hear about how you’re working with your rheumatologist, who you said before we record is very supportive of you and supportive of your natural changes, so I want to hear about how you work with her. I want to hear about how your mental health is now and whether or not the improvements to the microbiome, which consequently lead to the improvements of your joints, whether that’s also helped mental health and if you’ve noticed any shifts in that because that’d be interesting. Want to hear about what exercise you’ve done, what other sort of social connections you’ve made through changing your diet and having different views on, ethical eating and so on. And of course, get as many tips as we can from you as to what works well on not just rheumatoid, but mental health, I think that’s really cool. So let’s try and get all that done in the next 30 minutes or so. So where should we start? Like, I’d like to just find out, were you a cesarean birth? Did you take antibiotics early in life? Did you take antibiotics for acne as a teenager or with or and was there anything prior to the bipolar onset that you might think all help piece this together?
Jodi – I was birth naturally, and I don’t know exactly the history on my antibiotics as far as when I was a child. I do know around college age when I was around college 18, 19, right around there, I had a severe sinus infection, and I believe I was on antibiotics then. It was I think that was my turning point as far as my mental health goes also. I don’t know if the two are connected or not, especially since I’m not sure it was quite a while ago, so it’s hard to remember if I was, but I would imagine that I was because I did go to the doctor and I believe that that’s what they normally do for the sinus infection. But I know that there was a lot of stressors involved at that time in my life as well. You know, as a young adult, you’re kind of, you know, navigating your life and it’s it can be challenging to figure out. A lot of changes are going on as well.
Clint – Hmm. What about did your mom ever tell you if she breastfed you for a year?
Jodi – She did not tell me, no.
Clint – I’ve just been reading more and more about the impact of that, it’s so crucial to breastfeed. Okay. Right now, when you went to the doctor, when you were diagnosed and you found out that you had rheumatoid, what medication procedures were you put on? What were you told in terms of lifestyle?
Jodi – My rheumatologist at the time, he put me on methotrexate straight away, ten tablets of the 2.5 milligram, the highest dose that you could be on as well as prednisone. I don’t remember the dosage and the prednisone, but that was a temporary medication to help with the inflammation that was going on in my body. And I can’t recall because it was so long ago how long I was on the prednisone, but I eventually weaned off of the prednisone and the methotrexate seemed to really, really help me out at that time. But eventually, it sort of stopped working for a lack of better words where I was noticing more inflammation as well.
Clint – And then Enbrel was introduced. Was it after that?
Jodi – It was actually quite a long time after that. I went through a few different rheumatologists because I had moved cities and in the new city that I moved to, I was having a hard time finding one that worked for me and my personality and someone who was willing to work with my idea of helping treat my rheumatoid arthritis in a natural matter and get down to the bottom line of the root issue of rheumatoid instead of just medicating. Because my ultimate goal from the very beginning was to try to figure that out and get off of medication. And I was having a hard time finding a rheumatologist that was willing to work with me on that, and I finally found one.
Clint – Okay, good. Now, given that you had that mindset right from the start. You must have tried other natural therapies then, before you started the Paddison Program. You must have been exploring all sorts of things. What did you try? What helped? What didn’t?
Jodi – Well, I did try things such as cutting gluten out of my diet, which seemed to help a lot. I had been a vegetarian and still am a vegetarian for a long time, but I was consuming a lot of cheese, which is, I know, a big inflammatory. I was trying a little bit of acupuncture, which seemed to help, but I think a lot of my joints were so inflamed that at the time it wasn’t the right timing for it. I started doing some water aerobics with a swim instructor with a group, which seemed to help tremendously. Oh, my gosh. Oh my goodness. It just feels so good on the joints and on the body.
Clint – Yeah, yeah, yeah. Warm aqua therapy. Yeah.
Jodi – Oh, yes. Yes, definitely. But other than that, before the Paddison Program, I was a bit lost, I was looking for guidance and looking for direction. And when I finally found Paddison Program, I was like, this could be the one, you know. So I’m very grateful that I came across it.
Clint – So let’s then fast forward to when you started the program and correct me if I’m wrong, but at this point you’ve been on 25 milligram a week of methotrexate, you’ve been taking Enbrel at this point for several years. So let’s get to that point in time. That’s going back, what, three years or so? That’s right. See if you can recall what your symptoms were like at that point. And then walk us through getting started and how you felt then.
Jodi – Sure. So at that point, before I started, I was having horrible pain in my left knee. My knee was the size of like a 16 inch softball? It was giant. I’m a pretty petite person, and it was horrible, it was absolutely horrible. I was also having severe pain down in my ankle. I ended up getting a total knee replacement in 2020, June of 2020 and. Let’s see, I started the Paddison Program. I have it here January 11th, 2022. So I don’t know what was happening in my mind, why it took me so long to start the Paddison Program. But I was dealing with the knee replacement, which was not fun, as you know it was quite challenging. And then just one day it sort of just clicked, I have this great information, what am I waiting for? Let’s go. You know, and I was having severe pain in my wrists and my fingers and my shoulders and my neck, you know, just all over the body. And I said, what am I waiting for? What am I doing? I have this. What’s it going to hurt? Let’s go. And I started it. And I’m so glad I did because. Oh, let’s see. Within a matter of three, four days, my inflammation seemed to practically disappear, it was pretty amazing. It was January 2022, when I started, and just in a few days the inflammation from the way that I was eating just seemed to kind of melt away. It was pretty incredible.
Clint – Okay, cool.
Jodi – I did skip the cleanse because I’m already petite, and I know that you had mentioned in your material that you can skip that, but I did end up skipping that.
Clint – I love it. All the things that I sort of lie in bed at night thinking about. I hope this is clear, and I hope that’s clear is translating into actual practice. A couple of things I just want to underline for people as little things, let’s make let’s make sure you remember this. Let’s make a note of this. First of all, note, everybody, that even when you’re on maximum dose of methotrexate and you’re taking one of the best and most famous biologic drugs that are known today. You’re like inflamed with symptoms, and what this screams to us all is if the microbiome is really in a state of dysbiosis and we continue to drive dysbiosis with an imperfect diet, not a bad diet, but just an imperfect diet. Then the drugs still struggle to hold the disease at bay because of the way that it is driven via mechanisms that the drug don’t control. You know what I mean? Like it’s not the drug doesn’t seal up the epithelium and give you a nice coating of mucus, it doesn’t. The way that that happens is that the drug enables the suppression of the inflammatory response, allowing then if you are doing lifestyle correctly, your own gut bacteria to heal the epithelium and the epithelium cells, the goblet cells, particularly, then they restore the mucus.
Clint – So the drug gives us an opportunity to do repair and build. But that’s all it does, only provide the opportunity. So I think that’s one thing I wanted to underline. And then the next thing that I wanted to underline is see how it doesn’t matter if you do the cleanse or not. It’s the food that will eventually enable us to get well, it’s not the experience on the first two days, it’s not having to do a cleanse process. The cleanse is there because for a lot of us, me included, when I was going through this first time, we have never experienced a day without eating food and the euphoric pain relief that it provides. And when we sense that, we’re like, Oh my gosh, I can live with less pain in such a short time, it feels like a miracle. And when we sample that future, it makes us compliant and it makes us ready and charged up.
Jodi – I’m getting teary-eyed because it does feel like a miracle. And it feels so good to have my life back because there was a long period of time where I wasn’t me and living as you know, as so many people know, living in pain from day to day. It’s sometimes hard to get out of bed, you don’t want to get out of bed. And now I have so much energy, I go for hikes, I go for walks. I enjoy walking through the hills and getting up and stretching and moving my body every morning, it’s just incredible. It’s really incredible.
Clint – And you know what’s more incredible than that, and this blows my mind, is that we are all just a downstream recipient of what our gut bacteria do. We are not in control, the bugs control us, that’s what’s nuts. I’ve been thinking of this more and more recently and trying to get metaphors for this and illustrations for this for myself, but also so we can have these great conversations. But like years ago, I come up with the concept of it’s like having a compost heap. And what we’re doing is trying to create a compost heap that’s diverse, that that is rich in bacteria, that can create all of the fermentation products that provide health to the environment of that compost heap. I’ve come back to that again, and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a compost heap, but often in a backyard like a 44-gallon drum or a small tin, and it’s just filled with all of the vegetable things you would never throw a piece of half-eaten steak or chops that into that thing because that brings rodents, pathogenic bacteria, it rots, it’s just smelly, you’d never do that. Right? You’re trying to create a beautiful plant, rich compost heap. That’s what we are on the inside.
Jodi – I love that analogy.
Clint – Yeah, if we can put lots of different plants, fruits and vegetables and skins of apples and all different wonderful little plants in there and mix it all up, that is a thriving like an organ of our body that just supports us so much. I was just thinking of that when you were talking about, you know, getting all your energy back, all your happiness back. It’s a consequence of restoring that wonderful compost heap.
Jodi – Yes, it’s beautiful. And I don’t remember where I read somewhere and I’m sure that you’re aware of this, that the gut health is directly correlated to your brain health. Because is it what the vagus nerve that runs?
Clint – Not well, I don’t know if it’s part of the vagus nerve. I don’t think it is, but. But yeah, I just saw a slide from over the weekend from the Dean and Aisha who are the brain doctors and there’s actually 80% communication goes from the gut to the brain and only 20% the other way.
Jodi – Interesting. That’s amazing. That’s interesting. Wow.
Clint – Yeah.
Jodi – Incredible.
Clint – I mean, I’m not kidding when we’re a slave to our compost heap.
Jodi – Sure. Yeah, that makes complete sense. Absolutely.
Clint – Yeah. All right. I’m getting so excited about these topics, So. Okay, now you started to feel good straight away. We, of course, don’t recommend any changes to medications for a long period of time until you know you’ve met multiple times with the rheumatologists to review and to monitor steadiness and predictability, and so on. But what did it enable you to do once you started to feel better? Did you begin the exercise component? Did you become fitter, stronger? What did you do?
Jodi – Yes, I did start the exercise component. Every morning I get up and make sure I really stretch out my joints and work my joints. My next step, which I haven’t quite started at, is the strength because of dealing with the knee surgery. I also recently had another surgery unfortunately the damage was already done. I had a subtalar joint fusion in my ankle so I was dealing with that for quite a while. And now that I have healthy joints and everything, I can really get into the strength portion. But as far as exercise portion I do that daily for every morning for about 30 to 45 minutes. And like I said earlier, I also go on hikes and walks and things in the hills.
Clint – Okay, so that’s excellent. Well, in terms of just basic strength building for the lower body, even with that ankle surgery and with the knee replacement. What I always just recommend people to do is before breakfast, do 20 squats to the chair, 20 squats, okay, weight in the heels. And if you need to put a pillow down on top of the chair to reduce the height that you have to come down. And what we’re really doing is getting into the habit of 20 squats before breakfast each morning. If that’s beyond a lot of people, then we then just start with one Goodness like just start, right? But Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dad used to say, you’ve got to earn your breakfast. Okay? So we can earn our breakfast by doing 20 squats before breakfast, and this warms up the lower body, it strengthens all of those muscles in the legs. And you’ll notice it after two, three, four days, you’ll be like, wow, Like, this is becoming easier. As long as you keep weight in the hills and you can do a little what Carl Reader, our physical coach inside our community, what he recommends to people is he calls it the rock and roll technique. So you just use some forward momentum to get yourself up that first bit off the chair, weight in the heels and back straight, that’s all there is to it. If we do that and you just do 20 before breakfast every morning, just that alone is wonderful for the leg and buttock muscles, that’s a great place to start on the strength. And in the upper body, you’ve got your upper body workout inside your member’s area just download that PDF, and it’s all there. All you need is a set of inexpensive elastic bands that can connect to a door at your home and away you go.
Jodi – Yes, I look forward to getting that upper body strength back. And I’m sorry I missed when you asked me about the strength, I do about 60 squats every morning. I missed that part, I apologize. I’m thinking of that as a strengthening exercise. I was just thinking that as part of my normal my regular routine. But I do I do 60 squats, and I also, while I’m squatting, I do hand exercises for my hand mobility, where I just open and close and open and close where I’m squatting. Because I remember watching one of your Instagram posts about moving the hand joints and just doing the open and close exercise and how important it is to get the synovial joint fluid. Is that right?
Clint – You got it. You’re rocking it.
Jodi – The synovial joint fluid moving along in there. So I love doing those hand exercises along with the strength-building squats.
Clint – You’re already crushing it. You’re putting my 20 squats before breakfast to shame. You’re cranking out 60. I think this is nuts, that’s amazing, that’s fantastic. Well, I don’t even need to ask this question, I know that your lower body then has and has more than adequate muscle mass and functionality so that you’re preserved. Right? You do that every day, you’re good to go. Now, the only reason you need to do anything different to that is if you find that you’re really tight in the hips or your range of motion through the knees is a little shallow. And if that’s the case, then the progression from there is to do things on one leg, not like flamingoes standing or stuff like that, although that is good for the ankle. I’m talking about just longer steps working towards walking lunges, just some lunges, right? So think about a lunge, a big step forward onto one leg, and the goal, the full expression is to get the back knee, the one that that hasn’t stepped forward to be able to touch the ground, the back knee onto the ground or just shy of the ground, maybe an inch off the ground. And then we’re all the weights on one leg to then step back up to a standing position before we step forward on the other one. Now we can do this just at a table or a chair and we can step forward, hold the chair and even give a little help assistance through the arm and push back up again. And then eventually it’s just really it’s really liberating and uplifting to go out onto a nice big sports field and get the shoes off when the weather’s permitting on the soft grass and just do some walking lunges across, it’s just it’s really nice. Here’s something really important, if you ever feel your glute muscles burning and your knees not hurting, then it’s glorious, wonderful situation, that’s what you’re after. No knee pain, glute muscle burning. If you get that, you are setting yourself up for the best quality lower body strength.
Jodi – Wonderful. Thank you for.
Clint – That. Yeah. So lunges is next for you. You’ve mastered the squat, that’s too easy. All right, so that’s super cool. And then you’ve got the upper body workout to go through that. Let’s move on now. Well, I just want briefly, were the food reintroductions pretty straightforward for you? Did you emphasize fruits or starchy non-starchy veggies or I mean, what was your success path?
Jodi – Sure it was very straightforward. I was able to mostly follow the exact path that you laid out, which was quite wonderful. What was an interesting little tidbit is that during the reintroduction phases, I started experiencing some vertigo, which I had experienced before a few years back. And I don’t know about your thoughts on this, but I think the body was kind of trying to get rid of because of all the detoxing sort of flushing things out in the reintroduction phase. I think my body was kind of just flushing it back out again, which was really, really interesting. There were a few foods that I tried to introduce that I could tell right away did not go very well. I can’t remember what exactly they were now that I’m saying that, but I felt it almost immediately. And I said, okay, back to the baseline here, we’re going to start back where I was before. I don’t know if that answered your question or not.
Clint – That’s fine. We all have different experiences anyway. So if you were to say, Oh, you know, I definitely couldn’t eat cantaloupe or something, this is that’s a message that’s not something that we want to sort of underline because it’s different for everyone. So that’s just. Okay. So you didn’t do well on cantaloupe, for example, right? With regards to the vertigo, that one’s just a complete unknown. I’ve never been in the camp of the perks. Herxheimer reaction, like the detox symptoms, therefore you feel worse before you feel better. I generally don’t see that with our community. I just generally see either, you’re not improving, but you’re doing all the right things and therefore you will get there eventually or you’re feeling better, and it’s obvious. That’s sort of like the limit to it. If someone’s feeling worse, then I got a check list of about ten things why they’re feeling worse than the first five things are all related to medication. I don’t know about the Vertigo thing. Like, it could have just been that your body’s just disorientated by the different foods or maybe you didn’t eat enough at breakfast and you’re feeling lightheaded. We don’t know, there’s so many variations, but you were sensible and you weren’t going for a run when you felt vertigo?
Jodi – Definitely not.
Clint – Okay, good. All right, so most of our audience knows the process, so let’s go. You’ve gone through the process, you’ve gone back to the doctor. Because I want to pick your brains about more things that we can do. Then you are basically able to work with your rheumatologist, and she said, Okay, let’s come down a little on the methotrexate. And is that the process?
Jodi – My CRP levels at sort of their top I want to say from when I started tracking them, this was a few years back it was 54.5. I think the MGs is the correct term for that. 54.5 at a high and when I went to my rheumatologist after having Paddison program underneath my belt, at least the first portions of it, it was under 1.0 milligrams. I thought she was going to fall off of her chair. My rheumatologist, she’s wonderful, I’m so thankful for her. She really couldn’t believe it, she was like, What’s going on? And I was telling talking to her about the diet and exercise and just mental health, taking care of the mental health. Those three components are so huge for me, and I think that they’re huge for everyone. And she just said, wow, this is incredible, let’s move forward. I’ve been very open with her about wanting to sort of taper off the medications and see what we can do to hopefully maybe eventually come off of the medication. She said one step at a time, Jodi, you know which I understand. But we went down to 4 of the 2.5 milligrams tablets of the methotrexate, and that’s where I’m at currently, four of the tablets of the methotrexate along with the Enbrel.
Clint – How many months did it take to go down from the from when you started tapering from the ten tablets down to the four.
Jodi – I don’t remember, but it was quite, quite a while, I want to say probably. I’m not sure. I don’t remember. I’m so sorry.
Clint – No, but if you say 12 months, I’m, like, excited because, I mean, that’s the rate at which you know, that. That makes sense. Yeah.
Jodi – Yeah. I want to say at least.
Clint – Because all the things that we do also impact our microbiome. And so if you’re like not you, I mean, like if, if a person is on a certain configuration of treatment that creates balance but then goes and does something radical like drop a drug completely, halve their steroid dose, and without seeing a consistent long term patterns of eating and exercise and mental health. Because the gut bacteria, they have to ferment everything that goes in the mouth eventually. It impacts them as well, and that can throw out the delicate balance, too. So we incrementally change everything. That’s why we incrementally increase foods, we incrementally increase exercise, we incrementally make drug changes. All right, now tell us with your mental health, like, what shifts have you noticed? And I want you to do your best to answer this, and this is a hard one. If there are improvements, how much of it do you think is because you feel better? And how much of it is it because you’re sort of putting in practice other strategies?
Jodi – Sure. Well, the last part of that question, I think that it’s I think that it’s both. I think it’s a pretty 50/50 ratio where it’s my mental health has improved because I feel better, but also because I’m putting in a lot of work into making sure that that happens. A lot of work to ensure that my mental health is well and working and being taken care of. If certain things dipped down, you know, if I’m feeling depressed or feeling anxiety, I have certain exercises that I do to help alleviate that. I have a great support system and friends and family. I have a wonderful doctor and I do actively do exercises such as meditation to help out with my mental health as well, or go out into nature and observe the bees in the flowers or watch the birds fly in the sky, just actively making sure that I’m exercising my mind, just like I would exercise my body. So I think that it’s 50/50 where now that I have my mobility back, it just raises it to a whole new level. You know, I get up in the morning and I say, Oh my gosh, here I am, I feel great. I can move, I can stretch, I can do 60 squats, I can go walk up the hill, I can walk down the hill, I can kick my leg high up in the sky. And and I think that obviously makes a huge impact on your mental health. So it’s it’s just wonderful that they go hand in hand, your physical health and your and your mental health. I do believe that they go hand in hand.
Clint – Oh, totally. There’s some science as well that indicates that, you know, depressive like symptoms are associated with inflammatory marker levels. And so we all know what it’s like. We don’t need the studies to tell us that when we’re inflamed, we’re damn irritable, it is so frustrating, it’s like all we can think about. And it’s not just because we’re annoyed by the pain, it’s the pain actually changes our brain chemistry to make us more susceptible to responsiveness and agitation because it’s just sending chemicals and it’s really, really like having a radio on where it’s in the background going all the time, occupying the brain. I’ve been there so many times like, I understand, like if you’re in pain, then trying to be blissfully happy is very, very challenging. You can do it sometimes through the day and you can you can achieve it but maintaining it permanently is like, you know, even I can tell that that like the Jodi, that pre RA you have like this light and wonderful, and beautiful spirit and charming and happiness within you. You can tell that it’s the physical that is interrupting that from being the absolute full blown like channel that’s coming out of you constantly 24/7. And we’re getting it on the call, but when you’ve talked about in the past the struggle, I can see that it’s that that’s getting in the way.
Jodi – It does, it dims your light. I feel like we all have this light that comes out of us because we’re have energy, right? And we have this light that comes out of us, all of us. But when you’re in pain and you’re not able to do even basic tasks such as brush your teeth or comb your hair, your light dims down and it doesn’t have to be for a year that this is happening. It could be for a day or two months or ten years. It doesn’t matter the length of time when you’re not able to just live your life like a like a normal human being, your light does dim. And that, of course, affects your mental health. Of course.
Clint – What internal dialogue changes have you noticed?
Jodi – That’s a great question. There’s a lot of internal dialogue going on inside of my brain, just like so many other people. You know, before I had my body back, before I had my life back, I’m going to say there were things going on in the brain, such as, I don’t want to get up, but this is the worst, it was very negative. This I can’t believe I have to live like this and I have to take this medication. And what did I do to deserve this? And how? Why? Why? And just kind of the blame game. Because of my poor diet in the past, I was blaming myself and, you know, the negative talk in the mind. Thankfully, now that I’m in a better place, physically, mentally, emotionally, I look at myself in the mirror and I say, You are amazing and look at what you’ve done with the help of other people. Look at what you’ve done, you’ve done this because really you can have all the help from other people such as yourself, your friends, your family. But really you are the one that’s doing it. You have to have a great support system, but if you don’t show up for yourself it’s not going to happen, right? So my brain has turned into a you know, Jodi, a you are awesome, you can do this, you can get over this hurdle, you can make the light of your journey brighter. And it’s a journey, you have to remind yourself of that, that it is a journey. It’s not going to just shift overnight with the blink of an eye. You have to continue to do the work and make sure that you’re taking care of yourself and showing up for yourself.
Clint – But I think that is part of why it’s so monumentally amazing as to what you’ve achieved is because it’s not. Let me say like high blood pressure or high cholesterol, which for most people can be resolved fairly quickly using the same diet that you and I and our community eat. Right. Let’s face it. Okay. So some people know, but the majority, right, the majority. The studies show that if you go low fat, whole food plant based diet, no oil, and you have high blood pressure, there is a very, very, very, very, very high chance that in three weeks time your high blood pressure and your cholesterol will lower. Okay. So it’s not that this is this is like the Goliath of challenges where it does continue to throw up new challenges all the time. And so you have to keep finding that new fuel, you have to be able to reset and get up in bed and get up in the morning. So I’ve got to do this again, there’s a new challenge, right? There’s a new thing. But overall, if I look at a chart over the last 12 months, I’m better than where I was. And and that’s what we have to position ourselves to win the game.
Jodi – Definitely. I agree. And, you know, you had recommended to chart everything and write everything down, which I followed doing that. And it’s incredible to look back at my notes from a year ago and think, Oh my gosh, I had these 12, 15 joints that I were, some of them I was ranking as high as an eight or a nine pain level, and now I’m the low one and pain level for five of the joints. Holy cow, look at what I’ve done, look at what I’ve done for my body. It’s pretty amazing.
Clint – Yes, it’s amazing. So what are some of the things that you’re doing that you would never stop? Like you would say if you met someone, like you’re sitting next to someone at the airplane. You’ve just met them. They tell you just as you’re walking to get off the airplane. Jodie I have rheumatoid arthritis and you turn to them and say, I have rheumatoid arthritis and they say, Oh, how come you’re happy? How come you’re doing well? And other than just obviously saying, I follow this program, blah, blah, blah. Are there like aspects of it that are most important, that are working most for you?
Jodi – For me, it is making sure that I eat my greens in every meal. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, and making sure that I move my body. Even if I’m having a day where there is a little bit of pain or tenderness, the movement is key. And also mental health for me is a huge component. So taking care of my mental health, mental health, greens and movement are my three.
Clint – Yeah. Yeah. Great. Let’s see if there was anything I was going to ask you that I haven’t yet. We’ve covered off how you tapered your medications, your rheumatologists are supportive and conservative, which is absolutely brilliant. You go for walks in nature, for your mental health. You look at the bees, the birds and experience that the walking itself is therapeutic. The microbiome improvements have led to mental health improvement. Your internal dialogues, amazing. When you wake up, you’ve got you know, when you threw your arms in the air back then like you, you’re mobility is amazing. All of this is wonderful and your eating is on track. So I can see why you’re so optimistic about the future. Are there any messages that you would like to share to our community that we haven’t covered yet?
Jodi – You can do it, everyone can do it. If you put your mind to it and you’ve had enough of dealing with pain and not being able to get out of bed or brush your teeth or brush your hair. You can do it. We all can do it. And I don’t know. I think. I think that’s that. That’s it. Believe in yourself. You can do it.
Clint – Hmm. Fantastic. Well, you’re you’ve come a long way, and we all have a long journey ahead of us. And so it’ll be lovely to see how you go in the next 12 months. And as we as we often say, there’s no trophy for getting off medications. So if you continue to feel good and your labs are continually awesome, then sure, it can be explored and you can continue down that path if rheumatologist is happy, but also be mindful that there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What we’re after is a sense of resilience, a sense of ability to have complete confidence and control. And so if we’re in that state with rheumatoid and if we’re on medications, they’re not giving us any side effects that are really like unacceptable. You’re at the endgame. Like, you know, in your drugs aren’t counterproductive, right? So you’re on medications that aren’t negatively impacting your ability of your microbiome to keep your gut wall healthy. So with that in mind as well like life’s good.
Jodi – Definitely. Absolutely. I would love to eventually come off the medication. But as long as like as like you said, if if I’m able to live healthily with the medication, so be it. But we’ll see what we’ll see what happens. I’m excited for the next phase of my journey and building my strength and getting better and better because I know it is a journey.
Clint – Fantastic. I’m excited for you and I’ve really enjoyed your energy. As I said, like you have wonderful, beautiful vibes coming through and anyone who spends time with you on a regular basis is really blessed to be able to associate with your energy, it’s really lovely. So the more that you invest into yourself and into your health, the more you will bless even more people around you because you are like a fountain of goodness. So keep that fountain, keep fueling the fountain.
Jodi – Thank you. That’s really, really, really kind. And I feel the same with your energy. Also, watching your Instagram posts and things like that is really it brings a lot of hope to so many people. So thank you for that.
Clint – Thank you, Jody. Okay, bye for now. Keep up the great work.
Jodi – Thank you. You too.
Jodi is my daughter. I would like to say how wonderfully amazing her Paddison journey has taken her. Not living close makes it hard to see small, daily changes. On the other hand, it makes the changes I do see as dramatic and sometimes unbelievable. It's been very hard to watch her life as it was. Now, so much has changed and hopefully continues to that I am eternally grateful to the Paddison Program, her doctors, and the support that surrounds her.