EP 8 | MCAS, Mold & Medical Gaslighting with Jess Lewis

In this episode, Jess Lewis, a PhD researcher and functional medicine practitioner, shares her transformative journey from being bed bound, to becoming an expert in mast cell activation syndrome and long COVID recovery. Leveraging her background in engineering and molecular biology, Jess applied a systems-based approach to heal herself and now guides others toward resilience. 

Join us as she discusses her unique healing method, the importance of mindset, the interconnectedness of symptoms, and provides hope and practical advice for those feeling overwhelmed by their chronic conditions. Jess’s story emphasizes the power of small wins, the influence of stress, and the necessity of viewing health from a complex, multifaceted perspective.

You can connect with Jess by visiting her website: 

https://www.jesslewis.com/

Or find her on IG & Threads @jesslewis

If you loved this episode, it would mean the world if you’d take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who needs to hear this. Your support helps this podcast reach more people who are ready to take control of their health and start thriving.

You are stronger than you think, healing is possible, and we'll be here every step of the way. Until next time—take care and keep going.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Amanda: Today's guest is just Lewis, a PhD researcher and functional medicine practitioner who specializes in mast cell activation syndrome and long covid recovery. But long before she became an expert in these complex conditions, she was a patient bed bound, reactive to food light, and even her own thoughts.

[00:00:22] Katie: Armed with a background in engineering and molecular biology, Jess refused to accept that her condition was untreatable. She took her recovery into her own hands, weaving together, sing edge research, environmental medicine, nervous system regulation, and lived experience to engineer her way back to health.

[00:00:45] Amanda: And now she guides others through the same process. Helping people move from survival mode to resilience with compassion, clarity, and a systems-based approach that actually works. If you've ever felt dismissed, overwhelmed, or like your symptoms are all in your head, this conversation is going to feel like a breath of fresh air.

Let's dive in.

So, welcome Jess to the podcast. We are so happy to have you here today.

[00:01:12] Jess Lewis: Thank you so much for having me. Uh, we've already been having such a good time the past few minutes.

[00:01:17] Amanda: I feel like we should have hit record, uh, 10 minutes ago, but 

[00:01:21] Katie: I was tempted. I was tempted.

[00:01:26] Amanda: So I am so excited to have you here today, and I feel like this episode could potentially end up being like. Three hours long if I asked you all the questions that I truly want to ask you, as it relates to mast cell activation syndrome and your story. but why don't we start kind of with a little bit of background on you and your journey.

You went from, an engineer leading tech teams to being bedbound and then you rebuilt your health. Through what you call a systems based approach. Can you kind of unpack that for us and take us back to how you got started in all of this?

[00:02:13] Jess Lewis: Yeah. Uh, happy to, you know, I. I guess I'll start with the journey and I'll sort of un unveil or, uh, introduce myself as we go. But when I was at my lowest sickest moment, I remember mine in bed with tremors, literal tremors running through my body, through my spinal cord. unable to even walk to the bathroom without help.

And I spent months going from doctor to doctor, each one offering very different, very myopic, uh, textbook theories like, you're dehydrated, or you're deconditioned, or you're fat, or you're lost Too much weight with no real solution. And the turning point for me. Came during a very particularly bad night when I realized that no one was coming to save me.

And as an engineer, that's my background., and microbiology and,, molecular biology and, and biochemistry. I was used to solving complex problems by breaking them down into systems. And I thought, well, if I can troubleshoot technology, why can't I troubleshoot my own body? And that moment sparked something in me.

I guess a determination to apply my engineering mindset to my health because no other aspect of healthcare was helping at the time., I started to research obsessively tracking every symptom, every trigger,, mapping my body's responses like I would debug software. And I wasn't really accepting the, we don't know, or even the gaslighting is answers anymore.

And as I went through my own healing, I. What really triggered in me and clearly I'm, you know, sitting in front of you now talking with you. My brain is working just fine,, where it wasn't before. what triggered in me was not just my own innate. Healing my body's own innate healing and being able to activate that and figure it out at that systems level.

But it was also this compulsion to change almost everything else about my life, including going back to school, which I have done studying my PhD to specialize, specifically in functional medicine around mast cell disorders, nutrition and healing. ' cause I felt like it was a calling. I, I hate to say that any sickness is a silver lining, but I, I think I'm just a,, I wake up on the right side of the bed all the time, right?

I'm a pretty positive person. So if I were to look at all the darkness that I experienced, what's the light that comes from that? And that's helping spread the word, and that's the advocacy. Um, and through, you know, resources and going back to school to. Study and,, fill a gap that I see is there in our healthcare, in chronic illness, and particularly in mast cell disorders.

[00:05:04] Amanda: I love that and I completely resonate with that. I think ultimately we, we choose how we perceive a situation. So when we're going through the darkness, it can be really hard to just say, there's a silver lining in here somewhere and I just need to find it like it can be. Almost impossible to do that at that time, but I feel like I feel the same as you in that retroactive way where I can look back at my illness and go, this was a gift because it opened my eyes to so much dysfunction.

And now as you are getting to lead people through that and help people in a way that you didn't,, you didn't receive right.

[00:05:47] Jess Lewis: Yeah, that's true. I didn't feel supported at all., in fact, I felt gaslit by my medical doctors. I felt, you know, lucky enough to have some really great friends and some family members, but that's few and far between. That's an exception. And even the staunchest supporters, they don't see the illness even though I was in bed.

Right. They don't see the fatigue. They. For all intents and purposes, all the test results come back normal. I look pretty normal. I'm just in bed a lot., and that can be even more demoralizing when you're going through something that you know, is very, very real,, and that that was a very dark place for me.

That's for sure.

[00:06:31] Katie: So Jess, once you went back to school and you completed your PhD, what was the first. First step you took when it came to healing your own body. 

[00:06:42] Jess Lewis: Yeah. So one, one thing is I haven't completed my PhD just yet, so I'm in, in a PhD program now. I do have a background in molecular biology and biochemistry and engineering, as you know. Uh, so I've pivoted,, because this happened to me a couple of years ago and. Gosh, you know, the first thing I did was understand what my body was doing, and I think the best way to answer that question is to talk about the chain reaction that happens, breaking down what's actually going on in the body.

Because for me, that was my first step. I had to understand what was happening, when I was having a mast cell flare. So I think it's important for your listeners to understand what, what that process looked like, and I needed to break it down into digestible pieces. And I didn't know I had mast cell activation syndrome.

I thought I had long covid. Nobody had a lot of information around that. I knew I was exposed to mold., you know, there were some protocols to release mold from your body and heal, you know, heal yourself from mold exposure. But all of the other symptoms were remaining and I had to get very, very granular about what was going on in my body.

So. Thinking of your mast cells as your body's first responders, they're part of the immune system. They're scattered throughout your tissues, especially in areas that interface with the outside world. So skin. Like when we get flushing lungs, when we can't breathe. Right. Gut, when, you know, gut motility has changed, your brain and my brain is my biggest asset.

That always has been. And I couldn't function. I couldn't think. I couldn't read an email, I couldn't come up with words. I was leaving cabinets open and walking out of the room. And when these cells perceive a threat, whether real or misinterpreted, they release over 200 different chemical mediators, including histamine.

And so when I was having a flare, it was like all of the alarm bells would go off at once, and the mediators would cause my blood vessels to dilate, my tissues to swell. My heart rate would increase, my gut would go crazy. 70% of the mast cells live in the gut.. I didn't understand that my nervous system was intimately tied to this process and figuring out.

The very first step for me was figuring out that my body was in danger mode. My sympathetic nervous system fight or flight was activated, and that further triggered all of the mast cells. When I. Figured that out or I had a suspicion. And I think it's important for your listeners, especially if they wanna learn how to be systems , thinkers, or, just, go back to scientific method, which is you make an observation first.

I was getting sick. It felt like I was getting sick. Maybe after I ate food, somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered there's a tick born. Illness, usually out of Texas, it's the lone star tick that can cause something called Alpha Gal, which you basically become allergic to meat. And I knew about this in my studies from a long time ago and I thought, oh gosh, this is weird.

I'm having breakfast today. I am not reacting. But yesterday I reacted when I had a piece of ham in my sandwich, you know, in my egg sandwich. Wow. I'm gonna try that again, and I'm gonna think about what those signals are and what my body is giving me as those signals. So understanding mast cells and then starting that testing process allowed me to deduce that what was probably going on was a mast cell issue.

So the next thing I did was called Turkey, cold Turkey on a low histamine diet because what I learned was as I was creating healthy smoothies and as I was doing all of these things to help pull me out of that sickness out of the bed, nothing was working and. When I got that signal that said, oh, you might be on the right track.

Then things turned around like literally within 36 hours. I say this all the time to people and they're like, we're, what, 36 hours? You mean? I've been sick for years and you turned it around in 36 hours. I didn't turn it around a hundred percent, but I got enough of a signal, not just a little signal, but a massive signal where my body said, oh, yep, you are absolutely on the right track.

So that's how it started. And then from there, it's that engineering mindset of constantly testing, to see what's working and what's not. Being okay with myself if I failed or if I had a flare and I'm like, oh, don't do that again. But before everything was a flare, I was in a constant flare. I had no,, relief.

So getting that relief gave me just enough brain function and just enough relief to say, you need to keep going. You're on the right track. So a bit of a long answer, but that's really how it started. That first step was understanding and then testing for those signals.

[00:11:47] Katie: I think a lot of people also, once they're having these, longer periods of time when they're feeling okay and then they might have a bit of a hiccup, people start to get really panicky in that moment because they feel like they're regressing. And they're gonna go back into that state where that they were in before the journey even started, and they start to panic and. Really take themselves out of that parasympathetic state that they've worked hard to be in. Did you ever go through that yourself? Like if you were having a bit of a flare up during, like a period of being okay, were you a bit panicky in that time or did you have self-compassion and after some time, you know, start to regulate your nervous system again? 

[00:12:27] Jess Lewis: Both. I got really panicky. I doom scrolled. I was desperate for information because there just wasn't a lot out there. And,, I have to admit, I allowed myself to get an e even deeper, darker places because I did not have compassion with myself. You know, it sounds good to have the answer of, you know, here's what I figured out, but prior to that.

I was trying so many different things. I really, I was shooting in the dark and when I wasn't getting those signals, I was very hard on myself. But then as I started to get even just the smallest glimmer of hope I. I realized I really have to give myself some grace here, right? I am fighting something that, especially with the long covid piece of it that is not well understood.

It's a novel virus, right? Mold acts very strangely in the body, somewhat better understood, but there are so many mycotoxins out there and different ways that we can get them and different places that they like to live and stay in the body, that it's also not. Terribly well understood. So I had to learn to give myself that grace and I, I'm so glad I did because I don't think I really ever gave myself that grace to make mistakes before.

 And once I realized that one of the largest triggers of histamine is stress, not food. Not chemical, not mold, mold's pretty up there, but it's actually stress. You could have a challenging conversation with someone and release more histamine in the body than eating a, you know, whole thing of pepperoni or tinned fish and understanding.

That kind of said, wow, I, I am being told now. Not just how to heal myself, but I'm being told how to actually live a more purposeful life in general, even outside of the chronic illness. And that was to just, I don't wanna cry on a podcast, but I'll tell you that was one of the most moving things for me was to understand that I had to give myself some space to be okay with it.

Whatever I'm doing may not work. It might work, and I'm gonna get that signal and keep going. But even the signal that says it doesn't work is still a signal. It just means don't do that thing anymore. Right. And I really had to give myself a lot of space to do that.

[00:15:07] Amanda: I love that you bring up the chronics or stress, the stress piece and the nervous system piece because that's just so foundational. That's so important. And I think, like Katie and I talk about this all the time, how you can't heal in the same environment that made you sick. And I think a lot of the time that an environment of chronic stress, I was on that as you were talking about your about for the first time ever, mast cell activation syndrome. When I went outside one spring on the first sunny day of the year, and I walked down the street to get lunch and my entire back turned into. Hives, just my, the sun exposure on my skin led to a huge outbreak of hives and I had no idea what was happening, years of 

seeing doctors going to dermatologists and before I actually heard the term mast cell activation syndrome. I think it might've been on TikTok, actually, to be honest, where I came across it for the first time. But I think back to that time in my life and what was happening in my life, and I was in a very dysfunctional, stressful relationship and. And and go, oh, no wonder my body was freaking out and thinking everything was a threat. From sunlight to cold, to food, to you even mentioned being allergic to your own thoughts.

I'd love to hear about that.

[00:16:51] Jess Lewis: Yeah. You know, Live in a body that constantly betrays you. And we think of symptomology as just, you know, the symptoms that are kind of outwards, right? Hives or, you know, itching, watery eyes, or even GI issues. And that hyper vigilance when you're scanning for those threats constantly, or when you're running into threats you didn't even expect, like sunlight or heat can become really, really exhausting.

And that's where I think I, I kind of came up with the, you know, you're allergic to your own thoughts. That's the doom. Scrolling is gonna make the histamine worse, believe it or not. Thinking that you can't heal it is gonna make the symptoms worse. And there is such a tight connection 

you know, anecdotally, now, tens of thousands of people across, you know, even hundreds of thousands of people who are experiencing this now post.

But tens of thousands who are in some of the groups across all of our groups that really at first don't wanna hear that your nervous system is going to be run by your thoughts. And they wanna take the histamine blockers, they wanna take the MAs cell, stabilizers. They might agree to do a diet, right?

Nobody really loves to do, you know, change the way they're eating. 'cause it gives us comfort, especially if we're stressed out and they are really resistant initially to doing the nervous system work. Where you can, you need to start to figure out how to pull those negative thoughts back. There's a really interesting.

Metric out there. And I wish I could, I wish I had it on hand with exactly how many people experiences this, but there,, there are some women who act, who their autoimmune conditions or their chronic illness, MAS included, go away when they leave an abusive relationship., or when they leave a bad job, you, so an abusive relationship could be a partner, but it could be a job, it could be a family member not having those boundaries.

Those boundaries are constantly. Being crossed over. And I talk a lot about like, is it a lion or is it a piece of cheese? Our bodies, when you have MAs, cell activation syndrome or a mast cell disorder, 'cause they're, it's a bit of a spectrum. It's like everything becomes a lion and your body no longer understands where there's a boundary.

And so we have to put that boundary up there, whether it's a dietary boundary, whether it's a pharmac pharmacological boundary, or whether it's a, relationship boundary. And if those boundaries aren't there, they disintegrate and the mast cells will actually go crazy. So all three of those things need to happen, for somebody to feel safety, 'cause this is a evolutionary.

Trait where if we don't feel safe, our mast cells are supposed to get triggered. We're supposed to evacuate our bowels. For example, if we're running from a lion, we need to have the energy, the adrenaline and all of those 200 chemicals to run from that lion. But right now it feels like that lion is bearing down our door every time we eat something.

Or if we have a negative thought or if we're doom scrolling. So I think it's extremely important for people to understand that you can't take one of these steps out because you may actually be doing yourself more harm by being on a perfect diet and all of the H one, N one, H one,, H two blockers and mast cell stabilizers, and leaning more towards mast cell stabilizing foods.

But if you don't change your mindset. That's gonna add to that overall histamine load probably more than anything else. And that's what I mean by you can be allergic to your thoughts. 'cause it's not just the allergy to the food or your environment, it's your thoughts themselves.

[00:20:59] Amanda: I love that you said it in that way, that it's because we do tend to, most of us lean toward our area of comfort. So. If we're not comfortable making changes, we want to make the change that's the least uncomfortable, right? And so let's just pick and choose. Oh, okay.

If there's a medication, yeah, I'll take that. Yeah. Maybe I'll cut out these few things outta my diet, but, you're a hundred percent right. So many people are resistant to actually looking at like their stress levels and their mindset and. Their outlook in the world and how fast they move through the world, and are they allowing themselves time to rest and be present and cut down on stimulation and all of that.

[00:21:45] Jess Lewis: That's right 

[00:21:45] Katie: I feel like it's the 

[00:21:46] Amanda: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:46] Katie: look at actually. It's normally 

[00:21:48] Jess Lewis: yes.

[00:21:49] Katie: they're putting into their body and what supplement they can use but when it comes to mindset and behavior change, it's just not even something that they're aware of that they need to address. 

[00:21:58] Jess Lewis: No, and I think that there's, you know, this notion that it's, you know, esoteric or, fluffy or, it's too crunchy. But, you know, there's an area of study called psycho neuroimmunology that is a very real study. The ones that study it the most, uh, right now I think are still in, the Ohio State University, and there's a scientific basis here for mindset.

There are chemical things that happen in the brain. I mean, we think, we all know that to a certain extent, right? We can all intellectualize that, yeah, sure, the synapsis fire and there's a chemical that's moving around, but don't separate your brain from your body. And I think that's what we've done.

Ultimately, so we've separated our brains from our bodies. Like our bodies have functions, and sure our brains have synapses, but I think we just think about it as this, you know, automatic, you know, electrical impulses that happen in the brain, rather, they are biochemical processes and pathways that happen all over the body.

When you run into something that is going to make you fearful, uh, having a mindset about it is really important, but also understanding what's logically in front of you. So if there's actually a lion, you can't mindset your way out of a lion bearing down on you. But you can certainly mindset your way out of.

How do I situation as quickly as possible and safely as possible? Because you can't outrun a. 

Obviously in some cases, I'm not saying please go, you know, go hiking and run into a mountain lion and, you know, think your way out of this one. But I think the, the, uh, the story applies here, right? Is that we, we just have to have some discernment around that and that there is. Scientific basis behind those chemical reactions that happen in the brain.

And histamine is, is one of them. And if we have too much of it, we're gonna start to have the brain fog not think very clearly and not be able to think our way out of any situation, whether it's a lion or a challenging email from a coworker or a partner or a piece of cheese. 

[00:24:03] Katie: It's been labeled as woowoo really hasn't it? So

[00:24:05] Jess Lewis: Yeah.

[00:24:06] Katie: moving out of that. It seems to be we're moving out of that movement now, and the evidence is.

there to prove it, which is super exciting. 

[00:24:17] Jess Lewis: It is.

[00:24:17] Katie: know you talk about how symptoms aren't random and how they're part of a biological chain reaction involving the immune system and the nervous system and Your environment. So how can you almost break that down for us in simple terms? Um, like what's really going on inside the body during, a flare up, for example.

[00:24:39] Jess Lewis: Your body enters danger mode. It's your body trying to protect you and it's really a switch that gets flipped, um, that's supposed to work normally, right? So when something comes towards us or we eat something, we get stung by a bee, or we run into poison Ivy Oak or sumac. Those mediators are there for a reason.

But what happens in a mast cell disorder is that the switch that we have that flips on and off really easily gets stuck on. So that chain reaction means that all of the alarm bells are going off at the same time. All of the 200 mediators are happening at the same time, and it's flooding the body unnecessarily, and we can't take it.

It makes us feel. Unsafe and that safety. You know, again, going back to food and environment and stabilizing the ma cells, what we try to do is break things down into pieces where we say, now let's lower your histamine bucket as much as possible. Or inflammatory load is also something that's, talked about, and this means identifying.

And temporarily removing the biggest triggers usually starts with diet. That's the easiest. Mast cell stabilizers also kind of easy, but it really just depends on, you know, your, how you're supporting your, your body's natural detox, detox pathways. 'cause what you're doing is breaking it down into its simplest terms, which is how do I make my body safe and can I make my body safe long enough where it will learn?

Whether it's psychologically, physiologically, it will learn that the switch doesn't have to be on all the time. I don't have to flood my body with those mediators. Early on when I would go to the doctor, I would actually say to them, I can't describe what this feels like outside of, I feel poisoned.

I feel like I've taken too much of something and I don't really take anything. You know, I barely take an Advil if I have a migraine, so to feel like I've overdosed on something and they weren't listening, unfortunately. Right? That's because all of those mediators and that switch had been flipped and everything was dumping into my body at once constantly, because what was I doing?

I was not only feeling thinking unsafe by. Trying to figure out what was going on. This was pre understanding that I had a mast cell, you know, triggered mast cell issue from the mold and covid. Um, so I wasn't thinking clearly, I wasn't thinking positively, but I was also eating all the same stuff and I had always eaten.

And most, and I'm Italian, so most of our foods are very high histamine. And I also love health food. So even things like kombucha. Which I had thought was so healthy, or yogurt, Greek yogurt and, you know, Kim cheese and sauerkrauts and all the things to like build your gut, were all attacking me.

And of course I was overdosing, but I wasn't overdosing on a drug. I was overdosing on histamine and all these other mediators. So that's, that's how it, that's how the chain reaction happens and how it stays if you don't. Mediate it. If you don't mitigate it and attack each piece of it to say, okay, now I can, I know how it works.

I know how it enters the body or occurs in the body, not enters, but occurs in the body. I know how it enters the body through foods and through chemicals and you know, just. And if you live in farming areas more, if you live in, you know, high traffic areas like New York City or Los Angeles, it's gonna happen more, right?

 But understanding that being able to then unwind and take those things out of your body, is a very powerful thing to do and to understand if you know how it first starts.

[00:28:47] Amanda: Yeah, because you're, you're starting out in a situation where, like you just said, the switch is permanently on, but if you're not aware of even what the triggers are, you're continuing to just, those things are just flooding your body. And, I like that visualization of like the bucket, you know, we're just continuing to pour in the histamine bucket. And of course the switch is gonna stay flipped on if we're continuing to pour things that are, you know, making it worse.

[00:29:16] Jess Lewis: That's right. That the body perceives as foreign, alien, poison, whatever that is, because now it doesn't. Our bodies themselves don't even have the discernment to know what's hurting us and what's helping us. And unfortunately the mindset is part of it, but it can't overcome putting in the actual chemical or having the chemical be triggered in the body.

[00:29:43] Amanda: Yeah.

[00:29:44] Katie: Yeah, because a lot of people think that they're eating healthy. Why are they not getting better? But it's not really that easy 

[00:29:51] Jess Lewis: did. I did. I mean, it was the first thing I did when I got sick, started making smoothies and going back to like my, you know, more, you know, raw food and um, you know, as healthy as possible. And I mean, I'm a rather healthy eater anyway, but I really decided I was gonna lean into it. Right. And come to find out.

Literally every single ingredient, 95% of the ingredients I would put in my smoothie were all high histamine. And so I also had to get rid of the notion of what was healthy food and what wasn't. And if you've heard other appearances on podcasts, people laugh at me and actually send me nasty grams afterwards.

When I say I lived on five guys for three months, because that was really all I could tolerate, I couldn't, I literally could not eat. Anything else. And so I, sure I love an occasional burger and some french fries, but you would've never caught me eating that time and time again day after day after day after day.

But when I figured this out and I realized that I was really reacting to everything and I could only eat, you know, five or six foods, what was I trying to do? I'm gonna try to keep my body as calm as possible. I'm not gonna try to stress, I'm not gonna stress out about. The fact that it's unhealthy. I, what I am doing for my body is healthy and healing.

Right now in whatever form that looks like, that's where you start. And as soon as I could figure out, oh, okay, wait a minute, I'm, my body's a little calmer now, now I can add zucchini, which I love. Um, I can add a little bit of olive oil, I can add some herbs. I would cry on the phone with a friend of mine and say, you know, hi.

I, I was a chef. I was, you know, my, my family grew up cooking all these elaborate, beautiful meals and I taught cooking classes on our farm and did all these things that just fed me, fed me, gave me joy to feed other people and, you know, create cuisine and all these things. And suddenly I couldn't think my way out of a, I couldn't think my way through a recipe 'cause I couldn't have anything.

Uh, and I really had to rethink not only what is healthy and what isn't, but. What is, what's a way that I could lean into the nutrition of food, but also understand what's going to be the lowest in histamine? And from my herbal background, uh, looking at what's going to be a natural antihistamine, what's gonna be a natural mast cell stabilizer?

And thus, my food list was born because. There were so much conflicting information on the internet. You can find lists that say low histamine. You can find some lists that will say, what is a natural antihistamine? But bringing those things together so that it was way more understandable and we could pivot and look at an entire list and say, oh, okay, well, you know, chicken breast and parsley and mint and lots of other fresh herbs and putting those together, then I could grow that right.

But at first it was, it was literally hamburgers because that was what was healthy for my body at the time.

[00:33:03] Amanda: That's wild. Yeah. I imagine there's like,

[00:33:05] Jess Lewis: Right?

[00:33:05] Amanda: of identity wrapped up in that as well. Like what you just described

[00:33:11] Jess Lewis: A hundred percent.

[00:33:12] Amanda: living on a farm, cooking, like that's who you are. And then to be in this moment where you're like, eating hamburgers has me feeling my best in this current moment.

Like, you know, that just turns your whole world down.

[00:33:27] Jess Lewis: Yeah, totally, upside down. I had to grieve, uh, and, and try to give myself the. The room to grieve, but not too much of it because I had at this point learned that, too much of the negative mindset, particularly, particularly since I was just inherently a more positive person, I had to learn to give myself some space to grieve the identity that I had built around being.

The capable one, the one who could outwork, outthink, outlast any challenge, cook anything, put anything in front of me. You wanna come over for, you know, a cooking class, or to have dinner at the farm, come do, do the thing with me, right? And I had to face the very humbling reality that my worth wasn't tied to always being on.

It wasn't tied to my productivity, it wasn't tied to my achievements. It wasn't tied to how many people I could feed. It wasn't tied to, you know, what wild recipe could I conquer. That was, that was a grieving process. And it was a grieving process also around lost time events that I missed by being in bed.

Relationships that had changed opportunity. And then relationships. I grieved because they changed, opportunities that passed. The future that I thought I was going to have, I thought I would, it would never materialize. And I think perhaps the hardest part of grieving that loss was of certainty and control, and I, I really had to surrender to the illusion that I can control everything through force of will.

Now, funny enough, I do believe that that thought process. The inherent positivity that I had prior to this and thinking that I could really control everything, like a Marvel character through a cheer force of will is the superpower I needed to control my destiny and healing. So it was a little bit of a double-edged sword.

I had to give up some of that control to say, oh wait, you can still have some of that, but the control's gonna look a little different. So the redemptive part was discovering a deeper identity. One that was based on resilience, compassion and presence of mind, presence of body rather than just an achievement.

 I developed a relationship with my body built on a partnership rather than dominance, you know, bending it to my will or not, or ignoring it, sadly, like I did, especially in very high pressure situations, uh, at work and ironically. That illness taught me to live more fully in the present than I ever did when I was healthy.

And I used air quotes there for people who are listening and not watching because again, that healthy versus unhealthy was such a, the definitions of those were such a paradigm shift for me.

[00:36:20] Katie: It's so interesting 'cause the way that you just described that, it sounds like you were building up layer upon layer, and each step that you took, you learned something new about yourself and then that enabled you to move onto the next step. 

[00:36:35] Jess Lewis: Yeah.

[00:36:37] Katie: and it, it's just such a beautiful story in itself, the way that you. Went through these motions of layering these healing patterns on top of each other until you get to the point where you're at now. Right. Yeah, I just thought that was really beautiful. 

[00:36:51] Jess Lewis: Thank you. Thank you. I, I appreciate that. It was, it's certainly hard work. Um, it's important to understand that it's incremental improvement is what you're looking for. Signals, small signals and celebrating those signals. You don't have to have a big win to have a win.

[00:37:11] Katie: Exactly. And for those listeners who, might be listening to this and thinking this really sounds like where I'm at right now, would you say that there was something in your past that Created this situation for you, where you found yourself in a position of, you know, extreme brain fog and being bedbound. Can you identify what that was in the past

 might be listening to this and resonating with it and thinking I feel exactly the same. And they might be in a toxic relationship with their husband that they want to leave, but they're bed bound and they rely on them financially. Or they might be in a job position that if they quit, then they'd be financially unstable or their family would be really disappointed in them. You know, I speak to a lot of people, that are in these situations, so I didn't know if, they could possibly resonate with you in some way by hearing your side of the story as to what it for, for you. 

[00:38:10] Jess Lewis: So the layers of, there's, oh, there's so much to unpack in that question. There's just so much to unpack, right? It's not just the layers of what brought me here, because there, there's the acute layer of having covid and, and having.

You know, mold exposure, but I also have a genetic predisposition to a mast cell disorder, which I found out only after getting very, very, hyper fixated on the healing and trying to figure out why. And that systems thinking. But what I think is really. More interesting and more profound than even just there's a viral layer, there's a mold layer, there's a genetic layer.

There's a layer kind of in our innate psyche that I think prevents us from moving forward in healing and sometimes in life. And perhaps this is gonna get very, very deep for a moment, and there's a whole other layer of nutritional psychology that we've been digging into recently in school. And, that I deal with, even with my clients, that half of these things are, half of the protocol that we, we put in place is really a mast cell protocol.

But the other part of it feels like therapy sessions because we're really unpacking all of the things that have prevented them from being able to heal anything in the past boundaries. Bad relationships. Bad relationships with people, bosses, bad relationships with food. What's healthy, what's not healthy, bad relationships with the constant thought that we have to be producing something to be worthy as people, producing children, producing a partner, producing money, producing, just there's a.

There's a whole piece here that's even in the, you know, we, we've been calling it recently, like late stage capitalism, where we think about how all of this is connected to how we have been as people so far away from our evolutionary path, right? So far away from mechanisms that happen in our body, like histamine triggers to have the body feel safe because those are.

Triggers that need to happen all the way to do I feel safe enough, good enough, confident enough to leave the situation that I'm in,

[00:40:40] Amanda: Hmm.

[00:40:41] Jess Lewis: whatever that situation is, whether it's a food situation or a partner situation, whatever that situation is, am I confident enough to to leave that or am I doing and am I doing myself more harm?

Not just psychologically, but literally physiologically by staying in a situation I should, that is not good for me. Right? We say in, you know, in yoga and more, you know, holistic healing modalities, we often say, you know, release that which is not good for you. That couldn't be more true. That couldn't be more true.

And for me to get sick like this, it was like a punch in the face from the universe to say not only. Am I going to tell you that you need to write yourself? Girl, I am going to give you all the tools that you need to do that, but you gotta listen now and I'm gonna force you to listen because you haven't been listening for 20 some odd years as you've built up your career and your family and you know all of the things that we were supposed to do.

I'm gonna make you do it now.

[00:41:43] Amanda: Jess, I love that you just weNt there. I love the depth that you brought to that response because I think that all of these layers are immensely, impactful in our lives and where we are at right now. And. And when you put it so eloquently the way you just did, it's like we can see these layers, building, building, building, you know, the layers of stress and, it, it just go, it goes on and on.

It's just endless. The layers.

[00:42:13] Jess Lewis: It is, it's endless. And you can almost call it taking away those layers piece by piece is like the, the great deconstruction. You know, you have to hit all those layers to be healthy because it's not just physical health. We're thinking about. I know that. listeners might be, you know, they, it may resonate that they had tremors or they had, you know, air gulping, or they had hives or itchiness or watery eyes. Those are all physical manifestations and they're very real biochemical, physical manifestations. But deeper than that, you've got to deconstruct all of the layers in order to live not only a more healthy life in a mast cell situation, but just in general. And there's nothing better. I hate to say 'cause I don't want anybody to go through this like I did. And there are some people that will just, you know, won't get to the level of better, whatever better baseline they have is is where they are and that's fine. I don't want anybody to have this. But man, there's no better or cluster of disorders to show just how interconnected. Everything we have going on in our lives as psychologically, from a society, the way we, uh, conduct our healthcare here, I.

Which is abysmal. Um, not saying that everything is wrong, 'cause you can live at that intersection and that nuance, right? But there's no better way to show that. You've gotta have the right mindset, you've gotta have the right food, you've gotta have the right, approach to life and approach to even capitalism like we were talking about, you know, late stage capitalism, because every single piece is a layer. That's attacking us and we don't, we're getting attacked from all sides now, right? Every day, constantly. and it's up to us to deconstruct that in all the ways that we can possibly learn how to do. My job, of course, is to teach just the one part, or the multilayered part around mast cell, but. Other chronic illnesses, same thing.

I mean, really it's no different. It's mindset, it's food. It's what you put in your body. It's who you have around you, the community that you have around you. I mean, we haven't even touched community Community's a huge part of this because I think a lot of us feel alone

[00:44:43] Amanda: Yeah.

[00:44:44] Jess Lewis: chronic illness because we're isolated intentionally, that's not good either.

[00:44:51] Amanda: That tends to be a common, response or coping mechanism, right? When we are feeling this way, when we're feeling not ourselves, when we are feeling like we aren't able to perform in the world in the way that we have. It's that natural kind of instinctual. Isolate, you know, keep myself at home and I, I don't wanna show this dysfunction to anybody else.

[00:45:17] Jess Lewis: Right. 

[00:45:18] Katie: Yeah, I used to actually feel really embarrassed. Like if I was gonna go out, I didn't wanna be like labeled as the sick one or the, you know, the one that never drinks alcohol 'cause she's boring. yeah, I actually went through quite a long period of time just feeling like embarrassed, and not wanting to go out for that reason 'cause I, didn't want any of these But then eventually you just. Stop getting asked out and then, that in itself is, is pretty demoralizing. you just feel FOMO all the time.

[00:45:52] Jess Lewis: I, you know, Katie, I've had very similar experiences and feel you, I do, you know, not being able to participate or being, like you said, thought of as the sick one. Do we have to go someplace different because Jess can't eat half the stuff or you know, and I basically say nowadays, ' cause now people have learned, my friends are amazing and they've learned, okay, well we're, we're thinking about going here.

What do you think? And I'm like, just pick whatever you want. I have now learned to navigate. Every way I possibly can. Either I'll have a little bit of something, I'll have nothing, and I'm okay with it and everybody can just ignore it. but I, I'd rather be with my friends. I'd rather be in that community because I felt so isolated for so long. so you'll find. Anybody who's listening, who's going through this, you'll find that balance. You'll find that happy medium of where you can stand in your power and have your boundaries and say, there are certain things I can't do at the early onset or acute part of my healing, but then you're gonna go with it.

And sometimes those friends are gonna change and that is okay. the community, the layer of community on top of this, that you've gotta put the right people around you.

[00:47:06] Katie: exactly. And it doesn't feel like it at the time, but those people that you.

think that you're losing in that moment, they, they weren't your people. And it's not until after the fact. And you look back and you think, no. That was actually a blessing in disguise. But it's, it's really uncomfortable in those moments.

It's really, really and sad. But yeah, I would like the listeners to know that they're not alone and we've all been in, in their shoes, and you just have to stay consistent and you just have to keep going because the right people that should be around you will eventually. Be your people and that's who you really need to lean into.

[00:47:45] Amanda: Yeah. Um, going back to the layers of triggers, I wanna touch on. You wrote about, um, losing the ability to hold nuance and, starting to think and look at these things with more complexity. Why do you think it is that so many people want to simplify these conditions and kind of just. I guess put things into a neat little package and, oversimplify something that is incredibly complex and multifaceted and multilayered.

[00:48:26] Jess Lewis: I think it's just

 Lack of understanding. Um, we are, we innately wanna control our situation and control, our destiny. So a little bit of is control and it's completely understandable, right? We don't understand something we need to try to fit it into a neat little box. And unfortunately we have a lot of external forces through algorithms and politics and, you know, all sorts of that are conflicting, that are forcing us even further apart into. Now you have to pick a box. So we've lost a lot of nuance. We've lost the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas at once. So for example, that symptoms can be both physiological and influenced by the nervous system, like we talked about earlier, that medical interventions can be both and insufficient, that we can be both sick and responsible for our healing journey. I say that we just need to start validating people's physical experiences first, right? There's a physicality to this that is very, very real. and that inability to, to create to the nuance might be at the heart of why they just like, well, just give me the diet or just give me the drugs, and I'm not even gonna think about what my mind can do. So start by validating people's physical experiences. The symptoms are real full stop. Once they feel seen in that reality, there's room to introduce the both and perspective that healing happens at multi-level. Simultaneously, we can acknowledge that mast cell activation and mast cell disorders. That it has, they have clear biomedical, uh, biochemical markers and that your thoughts and your nervous system influence those markers.

So it's, and it's biochemistry and that thoughts and the nervous system state can influence what those markers are. You can take medications that help manage your symptoms. Should they be more natural? Sometimes, sometimes the most natural of medications, some herbs are. Huge histamine, liberators, right? So don't take those. But you can take those medications or supplements or herbs to manage those symptoms and work on root causes. You can do both of those things at the same time. You can honor your limitations and then also gently expand your capacity. And to me, this nuance thinking is actually more. It's scientifically accurate too. Our bodies are not machines with isolated parts. They're complex, adaptive, you know, systems that where everything influences everything else. When we embrace this complexity, the system, we open up more pathways to healing and we also open up more pathways to understanding that system and understanding that a lot of things can be true. There's been a lot of divisiveness around, you know, things like ivermectin or there's been a lot of divi divisiveness around covid. There's been a lot of divisiveness around our healthcare system and a lot of what you're hearing from both sides. interesting. When you really dig into it, and you do it from the understanding of the complex system complex, the understanding of nuance, a lot of times. Both sides are true. A lot of times all the boxes are true at the same time, none of the boxes are true At the same time, there's a piece of it that's true, I think we've lost a lot of that. And because of that, we have entered into, you know, a another stage of healing where it also feels very divisive, whether it's only holistic or only allopathic. You can have both. if I break a bone, I hope the ER is there, right?

[00:52:29] Amanda: Yeah.

[00:52:29] Jess Lewis: If I need an antihistamine, I'm really glad I have Zyrtec, right? But if I need a mast cell stabilizer, I don't necessarily need the prescription, but I'm never gonna judge somebody who does because that may be exactly what they need because their biochemistry is. It, it's just appropriate for their biochemistry. For me, I didn't need to go down the path of a lot of pharmaceuticals, but I took Zyrtec and Pepcid and gosh, I mean, I'd heard Pepcid my whole life. If you take too much of it, it's gonna ruin your gut and you're, you know, never gonna have the right kind of acid balance.

Well, you know what? I feel like I'm dying, so I need to take something. And it turns out that those antihistamines are actually pretty, pretty powerful From everything from mast cell disorders to PMDD. And now we're hearing it all over TikTok, right? Because. truth lies in the intersection, if we can't pull people together into that intersection, we're gonna have problems. 

[00:53:25] Katie: Have you found that more women suffer from symptoms rather than 

[00:53:30] Jess Lewis: Yes, 

[00:53:31] Katie: it a mix? 

[00:53:32] Jess Lewis: it is a mix. Um, it is a mix, but again, here's the nuance, the nuances, it's primarily women. I, but my clients, and when I say clients, I, I mean paying clients. I have a lot of free resources, but I do see people, and I have a practice, and we're opening up a, a physical practice too in North Carolina. The majority of them are.

[00:53:54] Amanda: Mm. 

[00:53:57] Katie: interesting.

[00:53:59] Jess Lewis: women, the majority of mast cell stuff suffer is women. But the majority of the people who are actually seeking help and saying, okay, I need to zero in on the thing, forget my boundaries. I need to zero in on what's actually gonna help me or men, which I think is actually really interesting. Um, but there's also a big nuance, isn't it? Isn't it? 

[00:54:17] Katie: Yeah. 

[00:54:18] Jess Lewis: also really interesting intersectionality here too, where it's primarily white women. But it also might be that we are more vocal because I can't tell you how many times I've pulled research and added to, I have a, a pre physician's guide, a patient guide that they can give to their physicians that pulls forward intersectionality that says, actually you've got just as many black women who have MCAS as white women. It's just that they are taught more to not come forward. They are

[00:54:53] Amanda: Hmm.

[00:54:53] Jess Lewis: more and they're gaslit more in the healthcare system than we are.

[00:54:58] Amanda: Yeah. That hierarchical.

[00:55:02] Jess Lewis: but why is it more? Yep.

[00:55:04] Amanda: Yeah.

[00:55:05] Katie: Yeah. That's why I was surprised about men, because men are renowned for just not saying anything and getting on with it and just 

[00:55:13] Amanda: Sucking it up. Yeah.

[00:55:15] Katie: whereas, yeah. 'cause of the 

[00:55:17] Jess Lewis: Yeah, I have a theory though.

[00:55:19] Amanda: I.

[00:55:20] Jess Lewis: a theory and I love my brothers out there. I do, but, uh, they don't like to be uncomfortable and we are forced to and been taught to in our layers and layers and layers and layers of generational female history. take it, to take the childbirth, to take the cramps to, you know, cramps are kind of like a heart attack, right? And men actually don't like to be uncomfortable and. Good on 'em for saying, I don't wanna be uncomfortable and I wanna go fix this. Right? They get to and they get to more than we are. So it's really interesting how it's proven out in my practice, uh, where I, I see a lot more women deal with this. And if you looked at any of the groups and, you know, uh, any of the social media, it's primarily women, but the men are the ones that feel comfortable enough to say, I don't wanna feel uncomfortable. I want somebody help me fix it. Let's fix it. They're systems thinkers and they were allowed to be systems thinkers and we kind of weren't. Right? So there's also, a nuance in an intersectionality, female versus male and you know, different, races and different backgrounds and different religions that it's so complex and so deep, and I can talk about it for three hours.

[00:56:37] Amanda: Yeah, and I find that women are much more likely. To look at it as if they are like, oh, I'm just crazy, or I am over exaggerating, or it's not that bad. Like we, we tend to minimize more. 

Whereas a man is much less likely to do that. Like you said, if they're uncomfortable, they're gonna say, I am uncomfortable.

Something's going on here. They're not typically sitting back saying, gee, am I crazy? Am I making this all up?

[00:57:09] Jess Lewis: That's right.

[00:57:09] Katie: mean, look at like when they get a cold, you know, it's like end of the world. 

[00:57:16] Amanda: Exactly. They're not standing for it. I'm sick and everybody needs to know it.

[00:57:21] Jess Lewis: Right. And good on 'em because we needed to start doing that more. Right? We need to

[00:57:25] Amanda: Yes, yes.

[00:57:26] Jess Lewis: all of us do, no matter the background, no matter the gender, all of us need to take control over our health. 'cause only really we are. And the other part of that is that, well, I'll, explain it by, by saying this, and all of the symptoms are different for everybody. I had tremors and I had hallucinations. I had some flushing in my skin, but I didn't get a lot of itchy. I didn't get hives. So I still had the allergy to the sun and I still had the allergy to heat, but it would bear out in my body very, very differently. there are so many different reasons why, right?

Because we're all so different and so complex and you know, some of it's genetics and some of it's, you know, background and some of it's what you eat and where you live. And I'm in a more humid area versus I was in So that those varying symptoms mean that everyone's treatment's gonna be just a little bit different. And so understanding that's also a, a big part of this. 

[00:58:24] Katie: Yeah. Someone who is getting this response through heat because they're working out, for example, So, they, they're working out because they think it's the right thing to do, but they're triggering this symptom. What would you recommend they do in that situation?

[00:58:39] Jess Lewis: So, um, oftentimes we think that the exercise intolerance is something called pem, PEM, post exertional malaise. And part of the dysautonomia umbrella. But what it actually is, if you are, if you have a cluster like the EDS and A DHD and DHD, pots. And or you have MCAS more often than not, it's not pem, it's heat intolerance.

So it's not that you are moving, you're not allergic to the movement itself. It feels like it. You know, I would go take a small walk because I thought I felt better and then I would be in bed in in bed for another two days. So it was a lot of like push pull, trying to figure this out. It's actually heat intolerance 'cause the heat's building up in your body.

You move around, your cells are moving around, your muscles are moving around and you're building up a little bit of heat. if you're very, very acute and you haven't released the rest of the histamine in your body and you're not, navigating through that properly, then it can also be a very big histamine trigger.

So what we developed is a, heat intolerance protocol. It's very simple. It's free to do, it's just introducing your body to heat a little bit at a time understanding that you may have to go if you're. If you were a hiker or a kayaker like I was, or an exercise junkie, or maybe you're a weightlifter or a rock climber, , you may have to let go of doing that for a little while and be okay with it. okay with the fact that you're not producing or you're not, excelling at whatever it is that you love to do because really you're, you have a heat intolerance at the base of that. So getting rid of all of that, not doing the things that you would normally do to cause heat and it doesn't take very long. And maybe it's a little bit of time and asana not a lot of time. And when I mean gradually, I mean, a. A higher degree in Asana for like a minute, and then next month you increase it by another minute. It does take a little bit of time. Not a ton. It feels like it. You know when I say those words and I say those just a few minutes at a time or a few degrees at a time, it feels like it's gonna take a year to get back up to, you know, heat that I can create in my body.

Well, your body. Isn't that hot, right? So a very, very, very small degree change is gonna feel like a lot of intense heat when you have the mast cell issue. When you expose your body to a little bit of heat, just incrementally, and again, bring it back down to safety. What are you gonna do that day? If you're gonna step into the sauna, or you're gonna step into, probably not direct sunlight, but the heat of North Carolina, for example. are you gonna do that day? You're gonna drink a lot of water. You are gonna make sure that your low histamine diet is just absolutely in check, right? There's no flirting with higher histamine foods that day. Make sure you're taking your mast cell stabilizers. Make sure everything else is pretty stable. Make sure your mind understands that what you're doing is creating safety in the body. You're gonna actually say, I feel safe. I feel safe. I feel good. You're gonna do some breathing exercises. You're gonna work on your vagus nerve and you're gonna do a little bit of that heat tolerance training, then add a little bit more, and add a little bit more. At the base level of this is really safety it's about convincing your body and convincing your, kinda biomechanics, biochemistry to not get triggered and feel unsafe when really you are safe. Your body just thinks you aren't.

[01:02:20] Amanda: Right away when you speak about that and that kind of process of titrating to kind of brush up against, against an edge and come back to safety right away, my brain goes to the extremes and how there's so many people. Speaking to, you gotta do cold plunges five days a week, or you've gotta be in Asuna, like you said, for 20 minutes, four days a week.

And to me, I think there's a huge, one of the things that I teach my clients is there's a difference between and ideal, there's a difference between knowing when your body is really calling for a healing protocol and. Being able to, to navigate, especially things like social media and,, the things that we're exposed to in the media.

, if someone is, like Huberman, for example, is talking about the ideal protocol for an athlete in their forties. He's speaking to the ideal and a person who is in the stage where they need to just focus on their healing. It can be very hard to let go of that and say, maybe that's not going to serve you to, to try to reach for those I ideals.

Right?

[01:03:38] Jess Lewis: That's right, because that ideal is not ideal for you.

[01:03:42] Katie: Hmm. 

[01:03:42] Amanda: Yeah.

[01:03:43] Jess Lewis: That healthy food not ideal for you? That cold plunge. If you are cold intolerant, not ideal for you. Now I love cryotherapy, love cold plunging, and actually people tend to be more, intolerant of heat than they are of cold. so I love some of, I, I listened to Huberman and had for, you know, quite some time. But it's interesting because you are taught, again, the ideal. with chronic illness, every day is different and your ideal might change from day to day. whether I can get into a cold lunch today, and I don't like to be cold and wet. So for me, I like to get into the, the cryo tank, helps reset the vagus nerve.

Think of it just a little bit differently. If that's something that you enjoy, enjoy doing. of it as part of your protocol and what's gonna be more ideal for you. Is it actually going to help you better momentarily and feel better long term? do it. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about cryotherapy.

Let's talk about heat therapy. because it does help reset vagus nerve, , some of the breathing exercises that he talks about, especially the, physiological sighing will automatically reset your vagus nerve, resetting your vagus nerve does what? It opens up that, sending branch and descending branch connection between your gut and your brain that says, I'm safe. All of it can be mapped back to safety. But if you cold plunge and you weren't ready for it, or you have a high histamine bucket that day, man, that's not gonna feel like an ideal protocol, is it?

[01:05:21] Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, if you're approaching it from a do more kind of lens,

[01:05:25] Jess Lewis: Right?

[01:05:26] Amanda: yeah.

[01:05:27] Jess Lewis: That's right. That's right. And one thing that we didn't touch on is that do less is actually really appropriate here. 

[01:05:32] Katie: Yeah. Slowing down is a lot harder for many people rather than staying super active and a 

[01:05:38] Jess Lewis: That's right. 

[01:05:39] Katie: Yeah. A lot of people struggle to slow down. It's a challenge in itself. 

[01:05:43] Jess Lewis: right. 

[01:05:44] Katie: Jess, if someone's listening today feeling like they've tried everything and nothing is working, would you most want them to hear? 

[01:05:52] Jess Lewis: Oh. Uh, if you feel like you've tried everything and nothing is working, I've run into people like this. , first know that I see you I've been exactly where you are. The feeling of exhaustion, hopelessness is actually part of the illness. It's not a character flaw, so it's okay to feel kind of stuck in that. then secondly. that it's, it's not that nothing works, but that no single thing works in isolation. Healing a complex condition or a chronic disorder requires a very coordinated approach to addressing multiple. Systems simultaneously, it's like trying to untangle a knot, but when you pull on one string or go to the grocery store and they tie your groceries and they pull on something, and you're like, great, now I'm never gonna get this open and makes it tighter. Most importantly, your body has. For healing, given the right conditions, it's your job to make those conditions as ideal as possible for you. have seen people recover from situations that conventional medicine con considers hopeless or they've just largely ignored understand that the path isn't usually a very dramatic overnight cure. rather a series of small shifts, small wins that eventually create a tipping point health. When I first started, there were small signals, like I had mentioned at the beginning of the broadcast. Small signal, small wins. Any small win is a win, and it's a signal. positive signal is a signal. A negative signal is a signal. So. Don't worry about it if it doesn't feel like nothing is working right now, because it's probably that you haven't had the right support, the guidance, the community resources, um, you know, reach out to any of us if you're going through it, through that. The last thing I would say is your timeline. Is it, it's, it's your timeline.

It's not somebody else's timeline. You don't have to produce, you don't have to get healthy right this second, or by Tuesday or by Wednesday. Your healing journey as unique as your fingerprint. As long as you're still searching for answers for signals, still willing to listen to your body's wisdom and your body's what your body is telling you, you have not failed.

You are simply just still in the process. And sometimes the breakthrough know it did for me comes pretty much just after the moment when you were ready to give up. don't give up, keep going. Keep getting those signals. Understand that. That's what you're looking for. And I, I'm sure my clients get sick of me saying, you gotta listen to the signals.

What is this signal telling you know, that you will start to deconstruct this yourself and layer by layer, understand and give yourself grace. I know I did not at the beginning. I have not for decades in my life, um, I have learned that, uh, clients have learned that people out there have learned that, and you absolutely can too.

[01:09:12] Amanda: Hmm, well said. You're such a supportive, um, guide for people. I can feel just your heart when you speak about, you know, how passionate you are. About these topics. So thank you, thank you for sharing with us today. I feel like we could probably go on for another two hours, but, uh,

[01:09:37] Jess Lewis: Although I must insist on the smoke and the stars and the fireworks if we did.

[01:09:41] Amanda: we'll see what we can do. 

[01:09:43] Jess Lewis: Thank you so much for having me on. Amanda and Katie, you've just been so wonderful. I knew we were gonna have such a great conversation. Uh, you have such a lovely podcast and I'm just honored to be part of it.

[01:09:53] Amanda: Thank you. 

[01:09:54] Katie: that's so 

[01:09:56] Amanda: Yeah. Thank you for being here, Jess. If, if people want to reach out, I know you have some free resources and even a quiz on your website, where can people find you?

[01:10:07] Jess Lewis: Uh, yes, they can find me at Jess Lewis. That's JES. Double S, Sierra, Lewis, LEWI s.com. So jess lewis.com. and we've got the MAs cell support community. We've got a free version, we've got tons of free resources, meal plans, a food guide, a quiz, if you're kind of wondering if this is you. it's, it's a really great tool.

And then we also have, um. What I mentioned earlier, which is a patient guide. So if you're not sure how to talk to your doctor about this, I've got, uh, a guide with studies and, uh, a way for you to ask the right questions, um, from a very intersectional perspective as well. Uh, and you're free to reach out, you know, just of course, reach out to me if you need any help. 

[01:10:55] Katie: What about social media? Jess, do you have any 

[01:10:57] Jess Lewis: Oh, I do. Yes. Um, and they're all Jess Lewis. So Instagram and Threads. Um, I don't really do much other than Instagram and Threads, uh, for now, but, uh, yeah, Jess Lewis. So same, same thing. Uh, we're starting to do a few more reels, but I do tend to get a little bit nervous on camera, so, I love that. 

[01:11:18] Katie: gorgeous. 

[01:11:20] Jess Lewis: I, am always in awe of content creators that can, you know, create like videos just, you know, all the time. It's amazing. And maybe I'll get there one day. , but, I am on threads a lot. I post, pretty much every day. , little tidbits here and there. , and, , you know, reach out. You can reach out via email hello@jesslewis.com, my website, uh, or. 

[01:11:39] Katie: Amazing. And your physical practice in North Carolina, right? Is that gonna. Is information about that gonna be on the 

[01:11:50] Jess Lewis: Uh, at some point it will. So we're looking at a building. , we have not. on that building just yet. So we'll see if it ends up, uh, being close to my house or not. Um, but I do have a ranch here in Shelby, North Carolina, which is halfway between Charlotte and Asheville. We're on 34 acres. It's a regenerative farmstead, and a healing ranch.

So it's called Madison and Horse Wellness Ranch. We do retreats a couple of times a year, and then the practice hopefully will be just a few miles down the road. I will definitely announce that.

[01:12:22] Katie: Amazing. Thank you so much. 

[01:12:25] Amanda: sure.

[01:12:26] Jess Lewis: me on.

[01:12:27] Amanda: Yes. Thank you so much. We'll make sure to link to all of your socials, your website, everything in the show notes so people can find you easily. And thank you again so much for being here. I.

[01:12:39] Jess Lewis: Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day ladies.