Marina has been able to overcome Ankylosing Spondylitis symptoms naturally by following the Paddison Program and via physical therapy.

We discuss in this interview:

• Marina’s journey from AS diagnosis and severe pain, to achieving great results with the Paddison Program and coming back to work as a medical massage therapist
• The influence of p-gingivalis bacteria and COVID vaccine
• Food sensitivities and diet adjustments
• How physical training can help food reintroduction
• Having the right support from the physiotherapist
• Bikram Yoga
• The importance of small improvements
• Finding the right exercises
• How Marina never went on drugs other than very few painkillers

Clint – Thanks for joining me, I’ve got a guest today who has ankylosing spondylitis. And like so many others who’ve had AS and who have appeared on our podcast in the past, she has a wonderful success story to share with us. She was really bad with ankylosing spondylitis and was facing the typical traditional path of strong medications with her rheumatologist. However, by finding the Paddison Program and with strong encouragement from her physiotherapist who said, we can do this following this program and physical therapy guidelines, we might be able to get some great results. Well, great results she certainly has achieved, and we’re going to hear all about it today. So, Marina, thanks for joining us all the way from Sweden.

Marina – Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Clint – Let’s do a quick before and after situation. Tell us at the worst, what was life like real quick? And then how are you now?

Marina – When I was at my worst, I couldn’t move. When I got my first really big flare, it was mostly in my hip joints. I remember my husband came out and met me by my car and I really had trouble walking in the house. And at night I couldn’t move from side to side in the bed. I had trouble to walk to the bathroom and that was kind of like my lowest point. And the pain was in my whole body. it was awful, really.

Clint – How are you today?

Marina – I’m feeling great, I have been on the program for a long time. In the beginning, it was on and off, I didn’t realize I’d haven’t got my diagnosis AS in the beginning, so I just experimented with the diet and got great results. But my real motivation was really when I really got my diagnosis sitting in front of the doctor and I really was committed to the program and I got really, really big, great results that really have changed my life. I’m got my active life back and it affects my family because I don’t have to tell my son anymore that mommy has to rest. I feel, I feel great.

Clint – Wonderful. Well, I can’t wait to hear all of the details. Let’s start with ankylosing spondylitis. First of all, for the majority of our audience who have rheumatoid, just briefly describe the symptoms where it typically affects or has affected you and maybe you know where the biggest struggle was in your body with this condition.

Marina – It all started out in my lower back and my pelvis area. I had a lot of pain, it really started in my 20s. The muscle inflammation started and it was accelerating over the years. And when I got my diagnosis, I got this eye inflammation that is typical for AS, so it was really bad. When I got my diagnosis was in 2021, my doctor told me that I’m quite sure that you have AS and have it for a long time. And she took the blood test that confirmed it, so that’s pretty much it. I also have a lot of inflammation that are shifting from different parts of the body in the muscles and the joints. So I had really big problems. What was really accelerating for me, it was I had a teeth down, a root canal that got inflamed, and after that I got a real big flare and also after Covid vaccine shot. My experience is that the disease is getting worse after that. So I started to look on the internet when I was really in a bad state, and I found some information between root canals and autoimmune disease and started a little bit more and found the Paddison Program and tried it out. And immediately after the juicing days, got the reduce of the pain. And I was thinking, I am on the right path here, but didn’t want to realize that I really got the immune disease because I haven’t got the diagnosis from the doctor yet. But when I got the diagnosis from the doctor, I went fully committed to the program and the big results were coming. So here I am and I’m active again, and I have just started out working again as a medical massage therapist. And never in a million years would believe that I would do that again. And go to the gym, and I am really active. So this is so, so great for me and my family.

Clint – Congratulations. It’s so nice to hear this. I have a lot of, first of all, some comments for people who are nodding along who maybe have this condition or a similar. So we published a scientific study, myself and a medical researcher called Dr. Rachel Bailey about the associations of the Covid vaccine and inflammatory arthritis, which included ankylosing spondylitis in the catchment of our research. And we have, therefore myself and Dr. Bailey paid attention to this particular area because my father falls under that association umbrella himself. And we’re looking at the studies and there does appear in the published literature to be a growing body of evidence to say that it can, in some people, appear to be associated with the onset or the exacerbation of inflammatory arthritic symptoms. So there’s that, you’re not alone in that. And then the other thing is regarding having a root canal. So often we hear of dental interventions that are quite significant, like root canal and a significant increase in inflammatory arthritis symptoms. And this may be due to the influx into the blood of the bacteria called p gingivalis, which lives in our mouth. And it is a particularly stimulating bacteria to our immune system and is seen as a strong pathogenic bacteria once it enters the bloodstream. And Dr. Bailey actually did a video about this on our YouTube channel, Rheumatoid Solutions Youtube Channel just recently. So this is going to be June, July, August period, 2023, if you’re listening to this in the future and go and check that out and I’ll put the link here for us now in this interview right now on the screen, the Black Link if you’re watching so you can go and learn all about P gingivalis and its impact on autoimmunity.

Clint – So the takeaways here are that it’s becoming more and more well-known about the Covid vaccine and the inflammation. And there’s so such a strong connection between oral bacteria getting into the blood and creating autoimmune symptoms that you’ve taken both those hits at the same time and it’s really stirred you up again. So I think it’s just worthwhile us just pondering that this is real. That’s what’s going on here, and you’ve been suffering as a result of that. So thank you for sharing. Let’s now talk about everything that has worked for you. So let’s talk about, I want to get into a lot of specifics around the exercise. And I want you to tell us all your favorite aspects of your new dietary approach so that we get the best of both worlds from you and learn as much as possible. Let’s start with the diet. Talk about what you eat now, how you got there, things that you can’t eat because of food sensitivities. Your favorite foods, most anti-inflammatory foods, everything like that. Please.

Marina – Let’s see, I have to look in my papers here. I’ve done a really good progress, and I’m starting every day to tolerate more and more foods. Now, I can eat a lot of stuff that I couldn’t eat in the beginning, like lentils and beans, and orange juice. I’m still working on some foods like olives and dried nuts, but I’m confident that I will get there. So I have, um, put in more food like this program that I follow. And sometimes I have, to back it off a bit and take in more calm and then try again in small amounts and see the progress in my body the whole time. I eat a lot of greens, we grow our own greens. We live outside the country, so I eat like zucchinis and greens and some soaked nuts I can tolerate if I soak them overnight and get the enzymes working. I do my own almond milk, and I eat a lot of like nori algaes, sweet potatoes, and Quinoa a lot. Um. Let’s see, Buckwheat

Clint – How about rice?

Marina – Rice? Yes. I blend the rice with a bit of quinoa. I think it’s more gentle for my gut. So I blend it with veggies and stuff like that. And veggies in the oven, not the fat, but salt and in the oven to dry. Um, I think I had my mother over for a week and she had my diet and she said oh didn’t know that you eat so tasty food, she really loved it. So she eats a lot of these dishes herself now. So I don’t miss on so many things. Maybe the glass of wine sometimes but it’s not worth the pain. So sometimes I have a cup of coffee, I know it’s not good for my gut and I have to work to let that go, but that’s the only thing left. And then I follow the program. Really? I really do. Because I get so motivated, because it’s so great to feel so good and have the energy and not to be tired and have all the inflammation. So it’s getting more easy to follow the program as the days go by.

Clint – What we find consistently and some of these themes I’ve mentioned with interviews with other guests, but consistently what we see is the fitter you become, the easier it is to introduce more foods, different foods. Okay. So we’ll talk about that in a second because the pipeline to be able to eat more, you know, things like dry roasted nuts and to be able to tolerate some olives with your meal. If you want to cut up a couple of olives and sprinkle them on your meal for flavor. The pipeline to that is becoming physically fit, it’s becoming fitter at the gym or fitter on the treadmill at home or whatever you use. We’re not going to get there if we’re just walking, we need to really build up our cardiovascular fitness. And an interesting note is that if we work out using resistance training at a high enough level, that’s also enough stimulatory cardiovascular fitness. We don’t then need to go and go on the treadmill for another 30 minutes if we’ve done a good solid 35 minute workout at the gym. That’s what I’ve found myself, so that’s encouraging to people too. We don’t need to spend our life at the gym, our life exercising, go and work out for 30, 35 minutes quite hard with just a minute or two between your exercises. Push yourself and you’re done for the day. Right? So before we get into the exercise side of things, which is crucial when you’ve got ankylosing spondylitis, can you tell us how are you waking up in the morning now? Does your rheumatologist want you to go on biologic drugs still? What’s the state of disease activity? Do you have any blood markers, anything like that for people with your condition who are wanting to hear just such good results?

Marina – The last time I went to the doctor, she said that I have very, very low amount of inflammation in my body. I don’t have the numbers, but she showed me my first visit and my last. Um, and I do a lot of exercise, I can’t run yet because of my knee joints, but I do spinning and I work with resistance at the gym and I really get progress for every week. I exercise maybe four, five times a week, and between that I’m very active. I have a dog walking out in the nature, and every day I really move my body because I can feel the results and I am enjoying moving my body because I can do it without the pain. So it’s a good, uh, how do you say movement in the direction that the movements I want to move more because I really feel how good it is, as you say, for my gut. Also, I feel I get less sensitive when I can manage to hold my exercise. Yeah.

Clint – Lovely. Yeah, Fantastic. Well, I’ve got lots of questions about the exercise in just a minute. And so what would your pain levels be? Say out of ten, like a five out of ten or whatever in the past, compared to how you are when you wake up in the morning now.

Marina – Oh my God. It was ten over ten. I couldn’t, like, move my fingers. I had every joint, my joint in my toes, it was everywhere. I remember going to the gym for the first time, I went to see the personal trainer at the gym and she was really understanding and she was trying to get the program for me. But we have to lower the expectation all the time. So it was just no way at all in the beginning. I just started to get some movements without the rubber band. And then we got to the rubber band and then we got to the weights. And now I’m really proud to say I can do a pull up at the gym. So that’s like, Yeah, yeah. But it’s been a long struggle and I really took these little, little, little steps at the time. And I in the beginning I was like crying at the gym, I felt terrible. These old people they were like, how can they be so strong? I couldn’t move my body, it was terrible, really. So it’s been a long struggle and I try to remember it and be grateful every day to how I was and how I am today and to and I have to remember that to get motivated and not fall into old patterns because I never want to be at a place again, ever, ever. So yeah, it’s great. It’s just great.

Clint – Pull up at the gym, that’s fantastic. Yeah, that’s kind of that’s sort of our community’s kind of milestone for knowing that you’ve made it at the gym. If you can do a pull up, you go and great. But I don’t know what the statistics are for those in the male community and also in the females who can do a pull up. But I can tell you that I used to go to the gym before rheumatoid arthritis and I could not do a pull up at the gym before rheumatoid arthritis when I was going frequently and trying to exercise for vanity reasons, trying to become a bigger chest, you know, and and I could not. And it was only because I used to get so much pain with my rheumatoid that I constantly was exploring ways to alleviate pain, especially in the scapula, in my back on the left side shoulders and things. And I’ve told this enough on other episodes, but eventually went down the path of hanging from a bar because of the work of one of the orthopedic surgeons who wrote a book called The Shoulder Solution. And then I was hanging and I thought, wouldn’t it be great to be able to do something physically that I was never able to do before rheumatoid that I could do after? And so I started to try and pull myself up, and once I got there, the elation of doing it is quite significant. And then it’s become sort of my staple gym exercise ever since. I wouldn’t have gone more than four days without doing a pull up in the last three and a half, four years. So yeah, and some, you know, every time I go to the gym, I do that. So, you know, it’s I’m really, really, really, really, really happy to hear that, that you’ve been able to do that given all that you’ve been through. I mean, what a turnaround.

Marina – And also had a close work with my physiotherapist, I have to say, and we had a lot of meetings and we had like Zoom meetings. And I have told her all the time now I’ve been to the gym but got pain here and there, and she had corrected my program all the time. So I have worked with my physiotherapist and I’ve done it myself at the gym, but also got checked with my physiotherapist all the time. And that’s really the key to how I’ve got my great results and the diet, I think.

Clint – Now, your physical therapist, she sounds like a winner.

Marina – Yeah, she is. She’s great.

Clint – Does she do consultations outside of her? You know, outside of Sweden? Do you know?

Marina – No, I don’t think so. But my experience, like, she’s really open minded to this. What? The program and diet. If I had to compare with my doctor, that was the opposite. So I was really lucky to meet her. She has become a very important person to me.

Clint – Right. Okay. Well, maybe after this podcast next time you speak with ask her, if we can share her details on the show notes, because if you find that out later, we can add that at a later time. And for people who want to check, head over to Rheumatoid solutions.com/blog, and then there you can search for Marina. And if we’re able to, she might, you know, be happy to do some zoom consultations with our community because we you know, it’s hard to find physical therapists who get inflammatory arthritis. Many of them come out of their training. They get into practice. And then when they’re in the clinic and they’re meeting with people, most people have osteoarthritis or back pain or just weakness trying to lose weight. And it’s only a small percentage who have inflammatory arthritis. And so they don’t have as much exposure to those people. And those people are by far the most difficult because there’s so many nuances. It’s so challenging with, as you said, when you started out, you couldn’t even use resistance bands. You were doing just movement of your arms. So, um, you know, when there’s a good one, I like to grab hold of them. Inside our support forum, we use Carl Reader from South Africa, and he’s excellent, particularly with the knees in restoring knees. And so anyone who is part of our support group can work with Carl as part of membership, and he’s very helpful in doing that. However, um, I’ve always got my ear to the ground to strengthen our services and work with more people in this area. So, um, can you tell us now back to you, can you tell us what were the exercises that you did? Did you use the upper body and lower body workouts in our materials, in our program, or did you just say, please help me to your physical therapist and have her guide you?

Marina – It was the last thing you told me. Yeah, because if you get pain, so for such a long time, and you meet someone that you can feel will help you. It was such a relief to have her by my side and support me. So yeah, I talked to him like once a week in the beginning. So yeah, I really followed her program.

Clint – Did you go and see her ever, or did she just guide you always over Zoom?

Marina – No, I saw her, but in between we did zoom meetings.

Clint – Okay, good. Can you imagine someone’s listening or watching, and they’ve got this condition. They’re really hurting, they’ve got the hands pains, they’ve got the knee pains, their feet hurt, their lower back, SI joints, everything hurts. Can you guide us as with as much detail as possible with your workouts in those early stages when you’re in a lot of pain, the sort of things that you did in the most you can remember?

Marina – The first times when really was, you know, starting to get my body like in movement, I went to this hot yoga, Bikram yoga.

Clint – High five over the Internet, high five.

Marina – And it was so great. And I also went on sauna a lot and. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and just the, uh, how do you say slow, slow movements with no weights and no rubber band, just slow movements that get from my PT the gym? Um, yeah, really, really slow. Um, I went to the gym and I, and I was there for like two hours and I was just sitting and drinking a cup of hot tea, I remember. And I went to do all these slow motions and the Bikram yoga and I slowly, slowly was getting results. And we went off to the rubber bands and also did the exercise at home, had rubber bands at home, and we were starting to add the weights at the gym very, very small. And I really, uh, how do I say progress? Very, very slow. And I went, if something worked, we just started to do that for a time and we slowly, slowly progress. So and if I get any pain, I just backed in the program and we, we did it on my body’s own. How do you say, listen to my body, really learn to listen to my body in this period of time.

Clint – Could you please pass on my thank you to your physical therapist? She sounds amazing because it takes a lot of patience to work with someone with inflammatory arthritis. You know, when we’re at our worst with this condition, you could say there’s like a degree of cripple going on, right? I can certainly say that I fell into that category, most definitely. Right. Um, and you feel like everything can break every time you make a movement in this direction that it’s like you can’t do things. I couldn’t pull a hat off my head because of my elbow, I couldn’t pull earplugs out of my ears. These sort of things are just very, very uncommon to your average physical therapist. And so for her to work with you patiently week after week after week and to go through the quiet, like, unrewarding process of seeing such slow results. She’s a wonderful woman.

Marina – Yeah, she really is. I got the frozen shoulder and you know what I’m saying? Couldn’t, like, put a sweater on, Couldn’t make a ponytail. Nothing. And she, with her help. I have no symptoms left. A little small, Uh, I have bigger range in this shoulder, but it’s so, so, so small difference. So she really helped me with that, too. Um, so, yeah, got really big results with her help because, as you say, when you’re at the lowest point, I just felt like I was broken and my body would. How can I ever come out of this place again? And she really helped me. Not with the physical only, but she really was encouraging. You’re not broken and you can do a lot of progress here if you have to look back to see the progress because it’s easy to get stuck to compare how your life was before the pain started. But she said you have to compare at your worst and how your progress are doing. You have to set your mindset to that. So she really helped me with that. And I wrote the diary every day to remind myself that I was doing progress and I was frustrated because I wanted to go faster, um, and really tried to be thankful for and grateful for my progress. And it really helped me to move forward.

Clint – That’s great. One thing that I’ve noticed with my own body is that for maybe a few years at a time I would be trying to increase the range of motion in a particular joint through stretching, including Bikram yoga, for example. And I would do this, I would do this and I would see very slow results. However, my range of motion would significantly improve when I built strength in the surrounding muscle tissue around the inflamed joint. And I think this is a really important insight that I want others to know and perhaps to try this themselves. If a joint range of motion is not increasing, rather than try and stretch it, constantly aim for building strength in the surrounding muscle tissue. Because what I have interpreted as the reason for this is that the joints. Seem to withhold some of the ability of their range because of almost like an inbuilt fear of going there because there’s not enough support through the range. But when we add more strength around that joint, it opens up and it opens up in the flexion, meaning that it can sort of compress more and it opens up in the extension, meaning that the range opens further. And this was a huge aha moment for me instead of always, I’m always trying to I was I was always trying to stretch, stretch, stretch. Come on, stretch, stretch. And it wasn’t till I went and switched it to strength and strength and strength. And then boom, the range of motion opened up for all the joints, including the small ones, like my fingers. Yeah. So can you tell me, um, was there anything specific that you did for your hands or did they just tend to improve as you got better overall?

Marina – I believe that they were getting better over and all I remember at the gym when I was working out, I couldn’t grasp the handles correctly and I had to use my palms to pull, so this was harder for me this way. But slowly were getting better and the joint that was most inflamed and my elbow, these two points, they took the longest time to get rid of the pain. But they were also my worst points of pain, but now I don’t feel pain. There is some can’t do the kettlebell swing yet because getting the elbow. But I’m working on the progress so I’m getting stronger every day. So yeah, I’m happy with that.

Clint – There might be five exercises for everyone that you can do that you can’t do. And so just to be clear on that, what I mean is you might be able to do, say, one-arm cable punches, right where you’re holding a cable and you push out against you, but then you go to do a bench press and you go to do a chest fly, you go to do incline bench, you go to do a push up and you go to do maybe another chest exercise and you can’t do any of them. But you keep coming back to that one cable punch because it’s a chest exercise and a shoulder exercise and it doesn’t hurt you. And so you never do the other five, you just do the one that you can do. And you say, I’m grateful and I don’t care because this isn’t about showing off or having variety. It’s just about getting the movement and the strength, and we can tick the box. We don’t need to use all those other ones. So if you can never do the kettlebell, who cares, right?

Marina – Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.

Clint – So I’ve come I’ve definitely come at peace with the fewer exercises that I can do just do them really well and get really strong at them and the muscles respond.

Marina – And the results that I have in my everyday life it’s a good receive of that. What I’m doing is working. Yeah.

Clint – What about your knees? What sort of exercises did your physical therapist give you for your knees? Can you describe them?

Marina – Yeah. It’s. I mostly do just with my bodyweight and a small weight handle weights. Uh, I do.

Clint – Lunges?

Marina – Yeah, I think it’s called like that. I can’t. I can’t sit in a in this machine where you pull your legs, I can’t do that.

Clint – We Don’t be doing that.

Marina – No. So there are a lot of exercises. Can’t do. But, I train mostly in my legs with, like, spinning but spinning the bike. Yeah.

Clint – Fantastic. Yeah.

Marina – That’s enough for me.

Clint – Yeah. So you’ll do the bike, but you have incorporated or used some lunges. The lunges is where it’s one leg forward, then go down a bit, then come back up.

Marina – I have still a little trouble to do that. I sometimes get the pain back in my knees. I’m really still really careful. So I have to say the spinning bike and, like, no weight or if I bend both my legs, it’s easier for my knees. One knee at a time, like one leg forward and back. I really, really can’t do that yet because I get the pain back in my knee joints. But still I’m making the progress, so maybe I get more muscle tissues around the joint as time goes by. Yeah, a lot of work, I’m walking outside in nature a lot too.

Clint – The bike’s brilliant, so there’s no need to explore much further than the bike if it’s working. Just like we’re talking about, if you’ve got something that works, just go for it over and over and over again. You’ve got repetitions, lots of repetitions, which each repetition offers a tiny amount of relief because of the synovial fluid release. And synovial fluid has a very, very, very small anti-inflammatory component. So if we’re doing high reps, that’s anti-inflammatory and you will build muscle even if it’s low resistance on the bike just by putting in the time on the bike, so that’s awesome. So you’ve got your diet dialed in, you’ve got your exercise. You never went on the medications, did you? You’re not taking anything.

Marina – Just painkillers. Had a lot, but not the typical medicines for my condition. No, I haven’t.

Clint – Nothing. Do you still take the painkillers?

Marina – No, just from time to time. But it’s not so often I cook for my son, and sometimes I taste the food. If I do new some new dish or something, and he has the fats, and then I get a little in my joints. But I’m starting to learn to be very careful all the time. And if I get a period, a lot of stress I can feel in my joints too it affects my gut. But I rarely take painkillers for my joints, it’s not even like once a month now.

Clint – Wow. Okay, so you could say like probably less painkillers than the average person on the street, right?

Marina – Yeah, for my joints. Yeah, yeah.

Clint – Yeah. So you’re taking less painkillers than what someone has who. I think, these non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, they are extraordinarily common, right? So if you’re taking one, like, a couple a month or something, then you’re below average, even for the average adult. Yeah. And then you’re not on any of the biologics or disease-modifying drugs and you got your diet dialed in. You’ve got your physical therapist and your workouts dialed in. The email that you wrote me, it was just you were just so sort of full of energy with like ten exclamation marks with joy and happiness.

Marina – Yeah, Yeah, that’s true. Feel like Really?

Clint – You’re winning, that’s right. You’re a winner. Yeah. So it’s awesome. So if there are other people with inflammatory arthritis watching, what else do you think we need to share with them? What’s Marina’s message and what would you like to say?

Marina – I would like to say that you should not underestimate your, if have the right word, your body’s healing ability because you can do so much with your body, even if you are at the lowest point and you feel like, you know, I’m broken, you can get such big results. I was really at a bad place a couple of years ago and now I’m in a really good place. It took a lot of work, it really did, but it was so worth it. And I really, really thankful for everything in my life and appreciate my body so much every day and things that I took for granted don’t do it anymore. I can go to a cinema, I can watch a whole movie that was like impossible before I had to walk out like 3 or 4 times and during the movie because my body was starting to hurt. We went on camping with our house, car with my family. That was like impossible before, just associated with pain. I couldn’t sleep in the house car. So I get so much better life quality now and I really enjoy my life now, really.

Clint – What would you say to someone who says, I don’t think I can do it, I’m just in too much pain? And like, how? I don’t know if I could do this. How would you respond?

Marina – I really struggle with that, too, because my experience is that I had a lot of emotion attached to different kinds of food, like a glass of wine. I associate that with like celebration, good times and friends, chocolate with like comfort. Now I associate that with pain. I have switched to other things that makes me feel good. And my motivation comes because I got such a good result with the program and the diet and everything did. And when I was feeling better, I kind of relaxed and I went back to my old pattern. So my key was to break my old pattern with the diet and socializing with friends. Every time when I socialize is like, always eat or drink something. But now my friends are very curious at my food and always have a table with my food and drinks and they really enjoy sharing that with me now. So yeah, the motivation is to when you get the results and to write down your progress. It was a key for me.

Clint – You mentioned it earlier in our conversation about how your doctor said your inflammatory markers were really high and now inflammation is really low. What else has your doctor said about these incredible improvements that you’ve made?

Marina – As a matter of fact, I have met my doctor from some appointments in the beginning, but for the last time, I only meet my physiotherapist, not my doctor. Really. So we kind of, how do you say clenched? I really felt that she was not open-minded about this diet that was going to try out, and she just couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t try out the medicine that she was going to prescribe me. So for a long time, I just spoke to my physiotherapist and not the doctor. So that was how it was for me.

Clint – Okay. Sometimes we just don’t see eye to eye with the medical professional. And this is normal, because I went through university with a group of people who were all studying the same thing as me. So we were going to then leave university and all do the same job or similar job. And all of us were so different. Every one of our personalities was wildly different. And I can imagine it’s exactly the same going through medical school. You’ve got all the people who are studying the same thing, who are going to go and have the same profession, but some of them you’d be friends with and some of them you wouldn’t even want to talk to if they were the last person on earth. And so it makes sense that sometimes you’re going to get a medical professional who says, my way or the highway. And then you’re going to get some like the rheumatologist that I’ve had ever since I was diagnosed who just really enjoys the conversations that can be had and the learnings and lessons that can be had through talking about what’s in the medical literature and watching patients improve and learning and never saying that they’re the only person who has something to share. So I think if you ever went to another doctor, you would probably want to choose a different one.

Marina – I think I was also lucky to find the Paddison Program so early in my process because it was in the same time that I got my diagnosis, I found the Paddison Program. So I haven’t been in the disease like for so many, many years. Maybe got like worse damage in my body if it had gone some years. But I found the Paddison Program like in my first flare, and also got in touch with my physiotherapist. So got some good help right away. So I think I was really lucky in that too.

Clint – Yes, I would say that definitely helps there’s no doubt about it. The sooner you get to it, the better. But to give yourself a little more credit, a lot of people early in their diagnosis come across our work and what we do and watch 20 or 30 videos like this one and don’t start. They think, Oh, I’ll do something else or I’ll try this or I just want to go with something that’s a little more popular or easier. And a couple of years go by, they forget about it, they end up maybe starting therapy of different kinds, and then they come back and say, Why didn’t I do that years ago? So to give yourself credit, you have launched straight in and just gone for it. It’s not the easiest path forward, but I do believe that it’s the most scientifically sound. And I do believe we have more success stories than any other inflammatory arthritis program on Earth. So my hat off to you to, to go down this path. And of course, you know, it’s not in your first language either, so I guess maybe some of it’s some of the wording was a little tricky and your community probably didn’t eat this way, your family. So well done. I mean, congratulations. Everything you’ve shared is really valuable for everyone else. What you’ve accomplished is outstanding. And yeah, great, great work.

Marina – I’m really happy that I found the program, with the fats I would never have figured it out. I tried raw foods and stuff like that, but there it’s a lot of coconut oil and coconut milk and nuts and seeds, and thought like some this is healthy for me, but I would never figure out that it was the fats that was damaging my body. I would never if it wasn’t for the program. So they really make a big difference because I had a lot of fats in my diet before.

Clint – Most people do and that’s where it becomes such a quick win for a lot of people is when you know that fat intake and particularly the saturated fat intake comes down, we’re able to benefit from that, from so many other reasons. For people who are wanting to understand all of the detail around this, I go into all the detail. Let me now put another link on the screen, if you’re on YouTube, click on the link here if you want to see a 50 minute in-depth presentation around diet and inflammatory arthritis, it’s on the screen right now, which will explain all about what we’re talking about now, Marina, and around the fats. So, Marina, is there anything that we haven’t covered that you had in your notes and you thought, Oh, I wish I’d have said that or that you that you’ve thought of that you want to cover before we wrap up?

Marina – No, I don’t think so. I think we have gone through the things that I have done in my notes here. Yeah.

Clint – Well, I just want to say thank you once again. I really value this conversation. These podcast episodes for me are the most useful, I think, for our community because we learn every time everyone has a different story to share, a different experience. And, always little nuggets come out, little things get spoken about that can provide really life-changing information for people who are in a lot of pain. So thank you for spending this time with me.

Marina – Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show.