We discuss in this interview – Successful Strategies For RA Reduction :

• Xena’s journey through the last two years and her progress with inflammatory arthritis
• How she has been able to drastically reduce her drugs while improving her quality of life at the same time
• How her symptoms started after a period of heavy antibiotics intake
• Adding more drugs didn’t help with her pain, which ultimately led to consequences on her mood
• How Xena was able to progressively reduce drugs after starting the Paddison Program
• Food as the only way to go beyond symptoms relief
• Xena’s recipes for eating healthy
• Microbiome test and analysis of the results
• Infrared sauna
• The importance of breathing correctly

Clint – We just love hearing positive stories to provide inspiration on this challenging journey of inflammatory arthritis. Today I’ve brought a guest on her name is Xena, and she’s here to talk about her tremendous progress so far with her inflammatory arthritis. It’s been quite dramatic, and she’s joined today in this very gloomy Sydney day with rain. She’s a co-Sydney sider, but we’re doing this as a recording over Zoom. So I’d like to welcome Xena to this episode.

Xena – Thank you very much, Clint. First, I wanted to thank you very, very much for where I am at the moment, because I’m in a wonderful place. I was diagnosed with very severe rheumatoid arthritis in late 2018, and I was placed on a bunch of drugs including methotrexate, 20mg a week, 400mg Plaquenil daily, 400mg Celebrex daily, 20mg prednisone daily. That was not enough to keep my pain away. Now I’m only on 20mg methotrexate and I am living happily, I don’t have any pain whatsoever and I’m very, very happy. Thank you very much for this.

Clint – That’s absolutely outstanding. I think that that gives us a good platform of showing how well you’ve done over the last 3 years for everyone to get excited about hearing what you’ve done, and all the specifics behind it. You and I have talked about how we can lay out this chat. We’re going to fairly, efficiently move through your story to allow a lot of time in going through the things that you do that you consider are the most important. We’re going to cover all aspects of those things. Interventions, diet, exercise, mindset, we’ll go through all those things and you’ve got some stuff that no one else has talked about on these episodes before. So I’m looking forward to hearing those. Let’s start the story, let’s get into the initial symptoms, where you felt them, and the severity of what you were experiencing, and then move through that treatment plan that you just gave a highlight of.

Xena’s Story

Xena – Look, I probably had symptoms for 10 years after being placed for a period of 6 months, very, very strong antibiotic for my ear infection. I had this terrible ear infection, which basically nothing was helping. I begged the doctors, the surgeon, and the (inaudible)surgeon, everybody, to take a swab and work out what is going on inside of my ear so that I know what I’m dealing with. Because they kept describing me all these broad-spectrum antibiotics and nothing helped. So after about 6 months of destroying my gut, I started seeing a naturopath, I started seeing everybody, nothing helped. I spent thousands of dollars basically chasing one specialist after another just to kind of be disappointed over and over again. And then basically the symptoms started happening, I would have a little pain in the shoulder that would last 2 days. Then I would have pain in the hip the last 2 or 3 days, pain in the knee. And all these things would kind of come and go so I never kind of take it seriously. I just thought I slept badly or I did something too heavy and. So I never took that seriously that I could have potentially rheumatoid arthritis coming to hit me. Then in December of 2017, I had a fall and basically I fold on my left knee and my knees got a little bit swollen, nothing major but it hurts like hell. And I went to my GP, he just thought that it’s osteoarthritis, he said you coming to age that’s basically osteoarthritis is setting in. Put an icepack, that’s it. So by mid of January or by the end of January 2018, my fingers started swelling, and basically, this was the first sign that something is severely wrong, this the first time that I took it kind of seriously. What was really strange for me no Australian doctors, although they are the best in the world, even suggested that it could be rheumatoid arthritis, they just thought it might be something. Actually, my best man, who is a pulmonary surgeon back in Yugoslavia, said to me, I think it’s rheumatoid arthritis, go and check your blood results. So then I had to find a GP who will run specific tests. To cut the long story short, rheumatoid factor was found in my blood and I saw for the first time the rheumatologist sometime at the end of March. As he said to me, Oh, this is nothing, you have palindromic rheumatism, this just comes and goes. Just take Celebrex whenever you have an attack for a couple of days, and basically, let’s hope that will disappear. I asked her, is this going to go into rheumatoid arthritis? Because obviously I have the rheumatoid factor, and she said, oh, yeah, there is a chance. But a lot of people, they never progressed to that bad stage. Well, I was getting worse and worse, so she started then basically May and June, putting me on Plaquenil, and first was one tablet and another tablet on top of Celebrex. I was taking Celebrex, I was taking Plaquenil. By the end of June, I had to have surgery on my ear because my ears got inflamed and I was (inaudible). And they say, no, it’s not, you know.

Xena – So anyway, basically, to make the long story short, it’s the end of September finally, she agreed to send me for the whole body scan. During that scan, the nurses or the technicians who were doing the body scan were in panic. They’re asking me for permission to take extra x-rays of my spine because they saw a lot of inflammation in my spine but they were not telling me. But like I saw panic on their face, which prompted me to search for another rheumatologist. Also I had then surgery on my ear, which meant more antibiotics, and even during that surgery, I asked, I begged the best surgeon here in Sydney. I said to him, can you please take the swab when you inside of my ear can you take this for pathology? I need to find out what is basically going on. Oh, no, we don’t do that, it will be just a broad-spectrum antibiotic. That was, again, just broad-spectrum antibiotic. Anyway, so basically I went and found a second guy (inaudible and he basically just took one look at me and he said to me, you are severely sick. Like, this is the first time in almost a year that somebody acknowledged that I’m sick. So he immediately put me on 20 mg methotrexate and added 20 mg prednisone daily with the aim that I will taper Prednisone and Celebrex (inaudible) methotrexate. But he also said one sentence that stuck in my mind. He said, I need to keep Plaquenil and methotrexate because you need to be on both medications for 6 months and failed two tablets in order for me to prescribe you Humira. That scared the hell out of me, that scared the hell more than the fact that I had rheumatoid that this killed a hell out of me. I was in massive pain, I was suicidal, I didn’t know where to go from there. I was basically asking my husband to buy me (inaudible) so that I can just finish myself.

Clint – Oh wow.

How Xena Found The Paddison Program

Xena – Yeah, it was that bad. My hands were triple in size. Like they were not individual joints that were joined, by that stage it was just everywhere and it was just like, you know, my whole hands was like these swollen. So basically that was I think October 2018. So I started researching what else I could do. My husband found you, by the way, in that time when he realized that I’m completely sick and my brain was not in the state of mind to think about myself. It was just like, I was surviving and thinking how to end it all. So my husband found you and he said, look at this, he found your 10th podcast and he basically said came home and he said to me, look at this. So immediately I’ve basically started I said, look, I don’t have anything to lose. I’ll start a service on all these tablets, I started your program, but I was searching also for other things. Is that anything else natural that I can do to help myself? What was very interesting during that time on the Sydney Morning Herald, which is one of the major papers here in Australia that is quite reputable. There was a story about a Queensland researcher and Professor Alex Lucas, who is developing the treatment for autoimmune diseases from the hookworms, the normal worms that are kind of present in dogs. So I quickly did the research. I found out that there is at least 12 companies worldwide that are in the initial stage trying to isolate the peptides from the various kind of animals, including hookworm, (inaudible), scorpion. spiders. Apparently all these animals have peptides, then they inject us with peptides, it basically suppresses our immune system. The hookworms basically they work on the tunnel in our body called KV1.3 channel. This channel basically coordinates the immune system, as well as working of the heart brains knows everything else, and that is one reason why it’s so hard to isolate those peptides, because they have to be so specific to just act on immune system, but not affect the workings of the heart or nerves or anything else. So I found out if I go to Mexico. I can go about hundreds larvae of hookworms, they live in my intestines about 10 to 12 years happily ever after. They will make the love and produce the eggs, but they will not come out the other way. Ally, there is a video that I shared with you from Professor Yehuda Schoenfeld. He is a leading immunologist in Israel and he basically has isolated some of those peptides. And you can your viewers can look at these at the basically YouTube. If they just Google, TPC Sarah or Professor Yehuda Schoenfeld, they will find his video, which he’s basically describing how they’ve done the study in which they treated 12 people with multiple sclerosis, and that this is believed to be this hookworms for about 12 years. And during these 12 years, none of them had any kind of attacks because they lived a happy and normal life. One of the patients who developed had some sort of the severe infection and as a result, they had removed everybody in the study.

Clint – Woah, do you mean they had to end this study?

Xena – Yes, they have to terminate the study and not the people in the study.

Clint – All right, this is fascinating and I wasn’t expecting this. What happened next?

Xena – They basically canceled the study and then they are looking into these peptides. Some of the people, including Monash University Professor Alex Lucas and Professor Yehuda Schoenfeld, isolated the peptides. This is normal in the early kind of research and it’s going to be 10 years before they come on the market at least. I thought it’s been 10 years and I’ll get the hookworm, and then I’ve studied more about hookworms. Then if you go naturally that way, I realize that there is no difference between taking Humira or having hookworms in your stomach. It is because they can suppress your immune system to the point you are living completely normal. But your immune system is completely knocked off because what this little creature and they want to influence your immune system. They don’t want your immune system to kill them because they want to go unnoticed. They have an armory of weapons and it’s better than some medicines to immunosuppressed you. Basically, you live happily ever after in your intestines. (inaudible), eat your food, not be killed by your immune system, and that is the bottom line. I was prepared to do even that and that is how sick I was, and luckily I didn’t have to go that way.

She Started The Paddison Program

Xena – During the Christmas of 2018, I really committed myself to the Paddison Program and little by little I started noticing the difference. Then I dropped first the Prednisone completely during December and I wasn’t on Prednisone for about 2 months. Then even though I was very much in a lot of pain in February or March 2019, I just decided to drop Plaquenil. Since then, I basically have until recently struggled with pain, swelling, and everything else. But I just felt that I have to do it properly with the food because I’ve realized that is the only proper way. Any medical treatment or any natural hookworm treatment will basically provide you relief from your symptoms. But it will not deal with the root cause of your problem and that root cause is bad bacteria in your gut. Most probably, the bacteria from my gut has stumbled into my ear and that is how I got ear infectious. Then antibiotics and everything else just basically complicated the things. Food is the only way and all the other products that I have used so far have been only there as a sideline to help me. Basically, I am healing with the food because food is the only thing that will feed your good bacteria. The choice of food you make or your clients or your people in the Paddison Program is the most crucial thing and everything else is secondary. When I talk about the food, what choices do you have to make? It’s basically a lot of greens and today I ate probably eight or nine servings of greens today. Broccoli is extremely important because it has a product called sulforaphane. These products are basically extremely important in preventing autoimmune diseases as well as cancer, and they are used in the signaling of the nerves. If your nerves are not signaling properly or if the signals between the nerves in your hands in your stomach, and in your brain don’t work properly, you will develop eventually some sort of disease. Whether it is rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, or anything else, eventually you will be sick. 3 servings of broccoli, cabbage, onions, and brussels sprouts are a must. Kale, spinach, and green salad are in that category as well and another 3 servings. Then I will have also 2 serves of fruits and I will just specify I do only two serves of fruits. It is because if I eat any more in the beginning and this is also what another doctor told me, it’s too much sugar. I eat only two servings of fruit a day but it’s nice to have it more it’s still too much sugar. You’re not healing them as fast as you should and that was my only problem. Just because I ate too much sugar and too much fruit. Basically, that is the food that I eat and mostly 80% of my food is raw and greens. Then actually not at all because I steam broccoli, but I only seem to for a little bit and it’s still very crispy. Then I eat quinoa, buckwheat, rice, lentils, beans, sweet potato, and those kinds of the stuff for the remaining or just to basically have the calories. I’ve been on the Paddison Program diet alone between December 2018 and probably March 2020, when I first time saw Dr. Kate.

Clint – Just explain who is Dr. Kate?

Xena – I saw first the podcast that you’ve done with Brooke from Newcastle and that podcast was great. People should go and watch it because she really gave a lot of food information. In that podcast, I’ve heard about this unusual doctor, who does unusual things and she successfully helped with her rheumatoid arthritis. I thought if she helps then that’s good and should try it. What do I have to lose? By that stage, I was 50% better and when I say 50% I’m only on Methotrexate. I’d given everything else, and I went and I saw Dr. Kate. She can be found in Bondi Junction and she’s a GP by profession, but she also has a college of natural medicine. She basically can prescribe methotrexate and everything else. But she also basically had preferences to treat her patients with food and with natural products. I saw Doctor Kate and she basically referred me to a company called, Naturopath. She recommended that to me because they can run my whole microbiome test, which you can show later to everybody who is watching.

Clint – Can I bring that up now, if you like? Is there some specifics about it that you wanted to talk about? For example, there are some certain microorganisms that were addressed that you want me to highlight on the screen?

Xena – Yes.

Clint – Ok, let me bring it up now. We’re on the screen now and if you’re watching this on the Internet, then you’ll be able to see a whole bunch of complicated strains of certainly opportunistic bacteria. Which would you like me to show?

How Bacteria Affects RA

Xena – You need to scroll a little bit down there. Yes, that Citrobacter freundi is what I want to point out. As you can see, even after a year and a half, went up very clean (inaudible) it was 269 of whatever units it represented. Basically, the normal limit is less than 5 and you can see that it is a severe overgrowth of really bad bacteria. As you can clearly see on the title of that paragraph, it says “Potential Autoimmune Trigger.” Yep, and also somebody else told that there were other bacteria called Enterobacter.

Clint – Ok, let me see if I can bring that up. There is this one here,

Xena – Those are almost apparently they can cause diarrhea but that was not the case. Yes, these are normal bacteria in the gut only. It’s basically overgrowth and once it overgrown, it’s known to cause rheumatoid arthritis and also joint pain. As you can see, the normal level was 1 to 50 and in my case, it was 230. This test basically told me what I’m feeling and it also told me that I’m not trying to eat the way how I was eating. It basically confirms that I’m getting better and God knows what are those levels before the Paddison Program. By that stage, I felt so much better. This test is available in Melbourne and that is a privately owned company called Naturopath. People can go just online and basically book the test themselves. They don’t have to have a doctor when they get their kit to collect their stool sample. They basically can nominate where they want the test results. Also, they sent test results simply by email and it’s better to have a doctor who knows what it’s talking about, especially if it’s your first time doing it. It is because it can be a bit overwhelming. When I saw mine for the first time, it was very overwhelming. It was like, where do I start now? It was very good that I had the doctor who knew what she was talking about. When she first time saw me after this test, she said to me that she’s going to treat me with oregano oil. Also at the back of these tests, there is a suggestion regarding what food to eat with, what the treatment is, and all the rest of it. They basically suggest natural treatment because they know what kills this bacteria in the laboratory or in the petri dish.

Clint – It’s so much which foods I would love it if they went to that kind of detail. They go into more things like you just mentioned before. For example, certain essential oils that can be taken and also certain probiotics that can be taken to combat other strains of bacteria. At least that’s what I saw on my test and I went after you told me about this. I was curious so I also went and got the same test done. I was reading about the notes at the bottom.

Xena – Some of these things I don’t understand because they are complicated, although I have a scientific background. Some of these things I cannot understand because they are typically medical and specifically involve the immune system, which I’m not expecting.

Clint – You and I are the same, it gets very complicated. I was able to sort of puzzle the pieces together at a very micro level, one at a time. I was looking for studies on specific strains of mine that were out of the normal range. Then I was looking for studies to show how those were then combated. It’s almost like one of those old-fashioned counting machines.

Xena – In the beginning, your bacteria is very high. If you go back into mine, you will see that my good bacteria is very low in or it’s nonexistent at that time. Even though I that was one and a half year ago, it was completely clean. But my good bacteria was still low because these bad bacteria are taking your food. Quinoa has still a little bit of sugar, oil, and bits of things just to keep this bacteria alive. Then these bad bacteria infiltrate and they can go hibernation. They can stay for years in your gut with no food.

Clint – Yeah, that’s right. I wouldn’t concern folks too much about sort of feeding them with healthy food. It’s also about the real estate that they occupy in the gut. If you’ve got a like a neighborhood or a US style one entry like community or if you’ve got a bad part of that neighborhood that I just occupied by extremist or party girls or young people. People who just like to do a lot of drugs and it’s hard to get them out. The whole community is getting upset and it is difficult. What other recommendations were being put forward for you? How do you think that they may or may not have been effective? And do you have, for example, a plan to go and have your microbiome mapping done again for comparison?

Xena – Yes. I was told to go on oregano oil and I can show you the bottle of the oregano oil. I just basically bought it on iHerb. I was told to go on four tablets a day. I would take that in the morning, lunch, and then in the evening. I would have to have my massive green shake with a massive probiotic. I basically took a very strong probiotic that I will go into it. I was told that the organic oil can only be for 2 weeks. Then after a long period of time, I will not take it. With that, it can try to bring bad guys a little bit down and allow good guys to overtake. I don’t take it in the morning and at lunch I take two tablets of oregano oil. Then in the evening, I will take a massive green shake. At that time I was using Vega mix or VSL no. 3 probiotic, which is the most strong on on the market. As well as with the probiotic that Dr. Kate prescribed and she also prescribed one with lactobacillus. Then she said to me that saccharomyces boulardii is very important. She said to me that this probiotic acts like fertilizer to bring the other good bacteria.

Clint – Yeah, its nickname is just s boulardii. They don’t say the first because it’s just a little challenging.

Xena – She said to me that it is very important to bring the other good bacteria. What I did in the beginning and I can tell you immediately had side effects of the oregano oil. After three days, I went into vomiting and diarrhea. I called Dr. Kate and I said, what’s going on? Then she said that it is what she expected on the third day because my body is killing these bad bacteria. She also added that the way to get rid of them is through bringing them up or basically passing them down. Also, whenever I took oregano oil for a couple of hours, I experience terrible pain. Like almost instantly as I took it, the pain would start. But what was happening, I was seeing that little by little my swelling is going down.

Clint – The pain was immediate and acute. But then after that session passed or the next time you took the same dose, it wasn’t quite as severe. Overall, you noticed a reduction.

Xena – In the long term, it was severe because I was pretty bad. At least for the first two or three times that I took oregano oil. The pain was severe for an hour or two after I would take the tablets and then basically subside. But I think each time that I took it for two weeks, I would feel a little bit less swelling. I asked Dr. Kate and in the beginning, I have to point out that I can feel pain from the spinach shake. I would make spinach shake and after that, I would have massive pain with probiotics. Then I asked Dr. Kate, what’s going on? She said to me, when these bacteria die or when the body starts breaking them down because while they are alive, they infiltrate and we might not be able even to notice them. But when they start dying, we feel this pain because they’re just pieces of the dead bacteria floating down and the body’s kind of attacking that. She also said that when you’re healing or when you have pain or if you’re taking oregano oil, then it’s actually a good sign that the oregano oil is working. But it took a long time for me and I was on oregano oil for 2 weeks. Then for the first time, I wasn’t even able to get it for 2 weeks and I was only taking it for 10 days. By that time, my stomach already stopped working and I stopped digesting food. As soon as you see these signs, you have to stop immediately. You have to go and rebuild your food as much as you can including the probiotic, prebiotic, and everything else. In the beginning, I was basically being 10 days to 14 days on oregano oil and about 6 to 8 weeks off. Then again on and then again six to eight weeks off.

Clint – So this isn’t something that you really want to be trying on your own? It is because I can tell you that if I was doing this on my own. Then I saw a lot of symptoms as a result of doing virtually anything and I’d be very eager to stop doing that. It would only be in this instance that you had Dr. Kate reassuring you after you’ve picked up the phone. As you phoned her you said, there is something that isn’t normal. But it was her reassurance got you through this or otherwise, you would give up quickly.

Xena – Yes, her reassurance and also the fact that I was seeing that my swelling was going down after two weeks. Every single time it was noticeable that my swelling would go more down than if I didn’t take that. The other one that I was taking was moringa. In my experience, moringa is gentler and it doesn’t kill good bacteria. I’ve done a lot of research to my understanding. I did three 500 milligram tablets of moringa that were also bringing some pain. But sometimes I was able to feel that in-between oregano oil and get some benefits. But also you need to take a break from that as well. The one thing that I really think was helping all the time was the marshmallow root. Marshmallow root is from a root of a plant. What you do is take 1 tablespoon of marshmallow root and put it in the cold water. Leave it for 2-3 hours and a slimy water will be formed. Drinking that slimy water can regenerate the intestinal lining and also the bronchial lining. If you don’t like doing the root and drinking slimy water, you can basically buy the tablets. However, marshmallow root is much better if you take it naturally and it takes a little bit of time in using. But it really regenerates bronchial lining if you have chest infection and it really regenerates intestinal internal lining. It just provides you this building material for this line. Then, I use ginger, turmeric, and also honey. I have a mixture that I put 400 g of the grounded turmeric, grounded ginger, and put it in a kilogram of honey. I have it always ready when I need it for my tea or for just in the morning with a little bit off of pepper. Then probiotics and prebiotics are used to sell your fiber from antigenic. It is basically concentrated fiber of some plants that we can’t get in our shops and don’t consume, but are known to be good bacteria. I use and I see regularly, (inaudible).

Clint – What was the last one?

Xena – (inaudible). It’s very good for the eyes and it’s extracted from the crab. It has a yellow color and it’s very good for the pain and it’s very good for cleaning the body of anything. Especially cleaning the eyes and it also gives sun protection. For people who are on methotrexate and Plaquenil, they are very sensitive to the sun and that is the reason why I’ve started taking it. I think that there is something to it and it’s very cheap.

Clint – I’d personally just avoid it because it’s coming from a crab, but that’s a personal opinion. OK, so you’ve got a lot of things here. Is there anything else?

Infrared Sauna

Xena – I also use infrared sauna and it was a wonderful experience. We as a human for things to happen in our body and for all of this chemical reaction to happen in our body, we need energy. As a chemist, I know that if you want 2 substances to react together, 80% of the time you have to put the heat in for them to react. I believe that infrared sonar provides that heat for reaction in our body to happen. It’s not only infrared sonar that can provide our heat, we can also get it from exercising. Therefore, that is one of the reasons why exercise is good. Then also by breathing and taking more oxygen, such as Wim Hof exercises. Basically, you are putting more oxygen into our bodies to shift the reaction to the heating stage. Then we also have infrared sauna and there is another interesting fact about infrared sonar. Your listeners need to know that the infrared heat is the closest heat to the human heat that babies receive when they are in the mother’s womb. Infrared heaters are used in baby incubators because of the same reason. The heat from the infrared heater gets directly through us, or through our spine, or into our core organs like the heart, intestine, liver, and so on. It goes straight into those organs that are basically required to work properly to purify our body. I think that it’s the reason why infrared heat or infrared sauna helps a lot of people. It is because it just simply brings our body to an energized state. In which, our body can do all this reaction or complex reaction that it needs to do or in order to work correctly. Infrared sauna is for us, is really a must. It’s not a luxury but rather, it’s a must.

Clint – I love it. How often are you doing that?

Xena – (Inaudible). They’ve actually done studies with bulimic people. They found out that if somebody eats and goes into an infrared sauna, they will 80% have more chance of keeping that meal in because it settles the nerve.

Clint – Wow, that’s interesting and you know a lot about infrared sauna. How often are you doing them?

Xena – I do them 2 or 3 times a week and I don’t do them more often. It is because it tends to dry my eyes and that is the only side effect that infrared sauna can have. If you do too often and too much, it can dry your eyes. Then, you will have a problem with your eyes and some people with RA has eye problem than other RA patients.

Clint – I’ve got a partnership with Sunlighten and if people are interested in getting an infrared sauna, check out Sunlighten. Amongst the products that you’re looking at, you will get a discount based on our relationship. Just say Paddison Program and it is available in the US, UK, and Australia. They will provide you with a discount just by mentioning our podcast. So that’s fascinating, is there anything else?

Breathing Exercise

Xena – I also do Wim Hof exercises every morning now. I believe that in order also to provide energy and energize our body to do all this reaction. I believe that now science is catching up with what he’s doing, but they still didn’t connect this with him. There is a company called SetPoint Medical in the USA. It’s a company that has basically taken how our nerves work in order to heal us from autoimmune diseases and what they are doing is very different from anything else. They produce a little microchip that they insert into our necks and they make a tiny incision. Then, they insert this chip in into the neck and place it next to the vagus nerve. The vagus nerves directs all of the signals and it goes from the brain all the way down to our spine and to our feet. The vagus nerve brings more messages to the brain. Then, it takes the message from the brain to the rest of the body. Those chips are being programmed once a day for one minute to vibrate at a specific electrical frequency, just like infrared but maybe a little bit different. Just for one minute a day and it basically starts automatically. During that time, the patients lose the ability to talk properly. However, they live through it because it’s simply too much vibration happening. What is really interesting is that they’ve basically succeeded to put people into remission that failed everything else. I think the Wim Hof exercises and any deep breathing exercises can stimulate the vagus nerve, so please do them. They are free of charge and there are no side effects. But in getting that implant, there are potential side effects. The major one, is you can get infection. Then another massive side effect is that they basically could damage your vagus nerve. For the rest of your life, you would have problems speaking breathing and even maybe living.

Clint – I watched a presentation at a live event and it might have been something that you sent to me inside our support forum or it was someone else. But the presentation involved exactly what you were saying. And I had 2 things going through my mind when I was watching it. First of all, this evidence that is being presented by a researcher at a medical conference is pretty much massively endorsing the work of deep breathing and vagus nerve activation, like what you’re talking about. The sort of stuff that Wim Hof taught, who is an expert. Then the conclusion of that presentation also astounded me. It is because the solution was, let’s all implant these devices into people’s necks so they can have vagus nerve stimulation and instead of let’s teach everyone how to breath properly.

Xena – Yes, because there is no money in the free food and (inaudible).

Clint – The conclusion of the presentation was let’s include everyone on the all. I’m looking around me and I said, does anyone else see what I’m seeing here?

Xena – However, if anybody is interested, they can go on the SetPoint Medical website. They have two new running trials now because they’ve done a study on rheumatoid arthritis for people that failed everything. The eligibility for the studies that you have to fail everything and they are enrolling people now. However, as I said, Wim Hof exercises are much safer. Yes, you need to do them for a little bit longer and it’s not convenient that it automatically sets you and goes up for one minute. You have to do them, but you getting probably much more benefits from them.

Clint – I interviewed Wim Hof several years ago. You can find that podcast, if you’d like to watch that episode, on the Paddison Program website. We are now storing these interviews at www.RheumatoidSolutions.com. But if you are on the Paddison Program website, if you go to podcasts, you will be able to search and find the Wim Hof interview. For people who just want to get straight into that, if they’re not doing it already and you want to follow his breathing. He has a free app and just download the app onto your phone and then you’ll be able to follow along. You can also find it on the Internet and on his YouTube channel. He has a guided breathing exercises, which I’ve followed. There’s one that I bookmarked, which was a really good one. Basically it goes like this, a clock that rotates around from 60 seconds down. You do a whole bunch of fast breathing and then you hold your breath. Then you do 60 seconds, and then you can come and relax. Then, he talks calmly and then you do it again for over a 7-8 minute period. You’ve done all of the breathing exercises and you just feel basically like you’re vibrating at a higher frequency once.

Xena – You can’t really say that our atoms and molecules have to be brought from the lower energy states to higher energy state. And that means the electrons move upwards and they get excited in order to basically do what they need to do, that’s basically what happening. Other than that, I also did a lot of swimming but lately I’m not because it’s cold. But I will probably start in my local swimming pool. When I go swimming, I’m probably swimming for an hour. I don’t do any laps or any fast swimming or anything like that. I’m just kind of enjoying myself, but that helps a lot especially when it’s cold water. The colder the water you can bear, the better it is. Again, the Wim Hof and I believe that all your nerves are stimulated. It is because of the cold water and it just starts that electricity through the body. The body starts warming you up and start working on that, and that’s basically what I’ve done. I really have done enough because I have a scientific background and I’ve researched the numerous methods that are coming. The new gene-editing technology or this technology or that technology, they all will work better eventually when they come. However, they will only take away your system and they will not take away these bad bacteria. These bacteria are like enemies (inaudible). It’s like an army attacking you from inside. You have to use every single tool against that bacteria and that bacteria has nuclear armor. With that, you have to arm yourself basically with everything you can. These past three years have been extremely difficult, but I now see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m now only on 20 mg of methotrexate, I’m pain free, and I now inflammation free. My hands are completely or maybe just a tiny bit of inflammation here, if you can see it. I feel a little bit there, but not really much. I’m really waiting for it to properly heal and I’m taking another test to see these bacteria. It is because I don’t want to rush because of my ear. I do believe that it’s connected because there are the little bones inside of our ear that can get inflamed.

Clint – Before we summarize this and wrap up, I want to talk about the ear infection. Does it ever feel like a TMJ jaw issue? How did you know that it was an ear infection? What were the symptoms?

Xena – One day, my eardrum broke and blood came out of my ear. They told me that this is called ENT Toilet or Aural Toilet because it’s simply like that bad. They suctioned it and they also cleaned it on a daily basis. They put me on numerous antibiotics, X-rays, C.T. scans and nothing helped. But now, I’m basically getting better and I’m getting better for real.

Clint – This is a really naive question. But why the broad-spectrum of taking oral antibiotics and why not locally administered drop antibiotics?

Xena – They’ve done even locally administered drops but nothing helped. It is because this bacteria that I have, which is Citrobacter bacteria that you showed on my results, is antibiotic-resistant. We all have it and this is the problem with antibiotics. When you take an antibiotic this Citrobacter bacteria goes like, this antibiotic is my armour against the other bacteria. All the rest of the bacteria is going to be killed, I can overtake, I can enjoy myself, and that is basically what’s happened. This bacteria then overgrowth into your stomach, it overtakes your intestines. Then from your intestines, it goes into your other organs, into your joints, into everywhere, until you basically collapse and until you have rheumatoid arthritis or something.

Clint – Its been absolutely fascinating, Xena. This has just been like a fast train of information covering so many things. I’ve got a whole page of notes here that I’ve taken on our call. We’ve covered everything from eating your greens and broccoli in each day. The importance of getting so much of those into you. Then your oregano oil, S Boulardii interventions, probiotics, prebiotics, marshmallow root, ginger, Tumeric, honey, the paleo fiber prebiotic, and also the infrared sauna. We talked about swimming, and you and I share a love for swimming. I try and get in the pool, and I try and handle it if it’s cold as well. Like you, I have stopped recently and it’s just human nature to avoid, isn’t it? When it’s just very uncomfortable but that’s not to say that throughout the winter I might not go.

Xena – I will definitely be myself and I still have cold showers every morning. Then I have it after the infrared sauna, sometimes I will have a cold shower or sometimes I will not. It is just to keep that heat in as well and to keep my body working, so I don’t have half of after infrared sauna.

Clint – Yeah, it’s beautiful. After every Bikram yoga, I make sure I count to two hundred in the in a cold shower. After doing an hour and a half of Bikram, you may feel vibrating and light. Thank you so much, Xena and this has been fascinating. Some people might be wondering why haven’t I interviewed Dr. Kate and had her on the show. After she did such a good job helping Brooke on that podcast a few years ago, Dr. Kate’s flat out and she is busy. Dr. Kate said she has a young family and I’ll ask her again. But when I did speak to her, she just already has a full schedule with clients.

Xena – She only sees me once every six months now. In the beginning, it was like a couple of times until we got all these tests, but she didn’t repeat this test. She said, you are still good and there is no reason for you to come and pay me. She only sees me now once every six months because she’s so different and busy.

Clint – She’s so busy, but she’s very lovely. She was like, I’m just flat out, I’ve got a young family, and my clinic is just full. So she was

Xena – If there is anybody that wants to ask me something, I did create an email address just for this. The email is, xena.rahealing@gmail.com. One more thing that I wanted to say for people who have animals or people who are giving a lot of food to dogs, a lot of meat to the dog is a good thing to do. My dogs are almost vegetarian because they developed ulcerative colitis. They are twins and they developed ulcerative colitis after I give them Bravecto tablets, which is for tick prevention. It was just for prevention and the first month I gave them, they had a little diarrhea. The next month I gave them, both of them collapsed. They had so much reality to remind me of the story that you have done with (inaudible. Just basically trying until blood came in and until they collapsed. The vet put them on the low-fat diet and this is interesting. The vets know that these seats are created by meat and fat. Then, they put them on a low-fat diet, but it solved completely. I’ve started cooking rice and cabbage for them. I cook a lot of rice and a lot of cabbage, and I chop it really finely. I put a little bit of moringa powder inside and then I basically put just a little bit of kangaroo meat to just sort of put the smell through it. They have that every night for the dinner and they have also the fermented oats for breakfast. Then they just substitute with a little bit of basically this low-fat food for the dogs. You can buy hydrolyzed meat or hypoallergenic dog food, in which they completely break meat protein into amino acids and sugar. Basically the dog immune system does not detect meat protein. So guess what? And that’s no better on how to treat their patients and doctors. It is because there are a lot of dogs out there. Actually, my neighbor just last week put a massive dog on vegan diet for three months because of the same issue.

Clint – Well, it’s all interesting stuff. It’s all things that we’re learning and it’s al that we have to do to try and make ourselves feel better. I’m no expert at the pit front, but I’m glad to hear your dogs are doing better. I’m even more glad to hear that you’re doing so well. I’m very grateful for everything you’ve shared and this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you very much for coming on and sharing all this.

Xena – I really want to thank you, Clint. Because without your program, I couldn’t find any of this. I wouldn’t take this journey that I’ve taken. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now you see all smiles on my side and not suicidal or whatsoever, I’m grateful for that. I wish you, your kids, and your wife a happy and long life. I also wish that all of your other patients that come into Paddison Program, please join and learn the basics. This is the only way and you won’t regret it, once you start and once when you feel better. Thank you.

Clint – Thank you.