Concierge + Functional Medicine for highly driven dads and business owners.
Joined December 2022
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If your gut symptoms control your day-to-day life…
And you’re left scratching your head, unable to figure out what the problem is…
You’re not alone and you don’t have to be suffering.
I cannot tell you how many clients I’ve worked with who are constantly stressed about when their stomach is going to act up again…
→ For some it’s searing reflux after meals that just won’t let up.
→ For others it’s constipation, gas, and intense bloating leaving you on the couch unable to hang with your kids or spouse.
→ And then there are those who are afraid to travel or go out to eat because they know there is a good chance they have to make a quick sprint to the bathroom.
Living in constant discomfort is one thing.
Not knowing WHAT is causing that discomfort or how to fix it is another animal.
Even worse, most are let down by their doctors, no matter how well-meaning.
I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to struggle like this.
The majority of my clients significantly reduce or even resolve their gut issues after our work together, even when their doctors had all but given up on them.
It’s not some magic pill, peptide or procedure that’s typically required.
It’s simply a matter of correcting the conditions creating the gut issues in the first place.
I find there are 6 main areas you HAVE to look at, in detail.
→ Nutritional imbalances.
→ Psychological/emotional.
→ Immune issues (allergies, food sensitivities, and autoimmune disorders).
→ Microbes like bacteria, yeast, parasites, and dysbiosis of the gut.
→ Toxins.
→ Lifestyle/environmental factors like sleep, light/sun exposure, activity level, social support,etc.
It takes a trained eye to properly identify which number of these are off and by what degree.
It also requires advanced labs beyond what your doctor orders or what insurance wants to cover.
Then, once you have that data, it’s a matter of correcting the issues you uncover in a specific sequence.
(I’m talking about making changes to your nutrition, environmental inputs, lifestyle, habits, and routines).
No, you don’t have to be on 5 medications or 15 supplements.
It’s making the appropriate adjustments based on what your body uniquely needs right now.
True root-cause medicine.
And when done correctly you’d be surprised how much better you can feel.
I recommend RO filtered water for all of my patients, but you do want to make sure it is remineralized because RO will remove the useful minerals as well.
Drinking water can be a meaningful source of microplastics and associated chemicals, including BPA and PFAS, and reverse osmosis is one of the most effective ways to reduce them.
I recently installed a reverse osmosis filter on my kitchen faucet. I wanted filtered water not only for drinking and cooking, but also for washing produce. Soil and water contamination can expose fruits and vegetables to persistent chemicals, so this gives me another practical way to reduce daily exposure.
The most important thing is to look for an NSF certification that covers the contaminants you care about and review the system’s performance data. That should tell you what the filter has actually been tested to reduce, and by how much. It can also help address concerns about plastic particles being introduced by the filtration system itself.
No filter eliminates every exposure. But because we use water every day, reverse osmosis can be a useful way to reduce the total burden from microplastics and persistent chemicals.
A year of unbearable abdominal pain, intense anxiety, and allergies.
An MCAS flair will do that to you.
And after 3 months of work together, my client tells me today, "This is the best I've felt in a year."
I love hearing this, especially after this person has been to numerous GI doctors, allergists, and neurologists over the past few years without any real answers.
To be honest, this has taken time.
Extending my calls so we could get to everything each week.
Navigating the invariable ups-and-downs that lead to anxiety, frustration, and, at times, despair.
You see, we not only have to address the medical issues, but the psychological ones that come with decades of suffering and no answers.
Heck, this person had never even heard of MCAS before he came to me despite seeing countless doctors.
It's not that these doctors aren't educated or don't care... they just don't know how to deal with complicated cases that don't fit within a clean box.
That's where I thrive.
I love the complicated.
I love working with people who have seemingly odd and random symptoms.
Because when you work upstream, when you address systems instead of symptoms, that's when you get real and lasting change.
Yes, it isn't as easy as taking a medication.
No, it often doesn't resolve overnight.
But for those willing to make the necessary changes, the results can be life-changing.
And that's why I do what I do.
So you can stop surviving each day and to finally live again.
This is insane to listen to.
10 hours this man reads off FOIA'd complaints from those injured by Pfizer and Moderna covid shots.
Many of these stories are just heartbreaking.
Doctors have no idea how to help them.
CDC does not respond to their pleas for help.
You can see on the responses how, over time, they've come to the conclusion they were vaccine-injured.
These were people who were elated to get vaccinated.
And then they were disregarded and discarded because their stories didn't fit the "safe and effective" narrative.
Doctor's will gaslight you into saying correlation isn't causation. It's just coincidence.
Perhaps. Though sometimes correlation is causation.
The severity and abruptness of new symptoms from these people immediately after injections you cannot dismiss.
Your general doctor doesn't know any better than anyone else because we are not given all the data. I bet you they've never even heard of this 1000 page document, let around read any of it.
In fact, the CDC tried to hide these documents and slow-roll their release over 58 YEARS.
Thank goodness for groups like ICAN and the Brownstone Institute who have academic integrity and fight to put out the unadulterated facts.
Never forget we are only shown a small fraction of the true story because in public health the narrative is everything.
When a population starts losing trust in their leaders, they can no longer control you.
Cries for Help: Part Five xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1pJkOXQeB…
Sometimes you just have to pause for 10 seconds and think, "Do I really need to be doing this right now?"
That simple awareness can snap yourself out of a bad habit loop.
Remember that the first step to meaningful change is becoming aware of what choices aren't serving you.
Take it one step further, start to analyze what your strategy is so you can change it.
(A strategy is just the compilation of steps to accomplish a task).
If you struggle with snacking at night, ask yourself this question, "When is it snack time?"
Then write out in detail all of the steps involved.
Ex: On phone --> Bored --> Notice hunger --> Walk into kitchen --> Look in fridge... etc.
Then start playing with changing the strategy to get a different outcome.
Maybe once you notice hunger, you drink 12 ounces of water with electrolytes.
Maybe instead of walking into the kitchen you go for a short walk.
Just view yourself as a scientist running experiments.
See what works and what doesn't.
Keep iterating until you see more consistent results.
It's that simple (which isn't the same as easy).
But it all starts with awareness.
So if you want to change a habit, start with that for the next few days.
No need to change anything. No judgement.
Simply pay attention to the conditions and feelings surrounding that habit.
The dark side of cancer treatment I learned shortly after graduating from my medical program.
My mentor was an ex-oncologist and recovering drug addict and I don’t think those two things were entirely isolated.
He told me that there were many times patients would come to him desperate, wanting to try anything to help their odds of defying death.
He was a sincere man and would tell them, the drugs we have for X cancer won’t work. You’re better off without them.
In fact, a dark running joke amongst oncologists back then was that the chemo didn’t help you live longer, you just felt like you did because you suffered so much.
(Of course, SOME chemo drugs are very effective and they are getting better, but back then it was still not great… In fact, I remember a chemotherapeutic called Gleevec coming to market during undergrad and it being highly celebrated because it increased lifespan by, get this, 6 months!)
So he would try to do the right thing and refer these incurable patients to another oncologist because ethically it didn’t sit right with him.
At which point, the other oncologist told him… why don’t you just treat them anyways? You’ll make $25k on the case and they want it. It’s not like you’re forcing them to take it.
So he would do it. And he made a lot of money in the process. And it ate at him.
And that, I believe, is what drives a brilliant, ethical, and upstanding man to medicate themselves.
He later quit and became an addiction treatment specialist, an excellent one at that.
One of my most favorite people and someone I learned a ton from.
But I’ll always remember the lesson: How financial incentives can influence the way you practice.
Not that it’s wrong to make money. It’s HOW you do it.
Just like I see other functional medicine doctors selling hundreds of dollars of supplements every month to their patients, yet they don’t get any better.
(I know because they come to me when others have failed them).
Incentives are really important.
And the best practitioners make sure that the incentives are aligned with patient outcomes.
In medicine, you don’t always get to choose that. Especially if you work for someone else.
Which is precisely why I left the conventional medical system, so that I could operate in a way that was optimized for outcomes instead of reimbursements.
It’s not something you do to make a killing.
It’s what you do when you can’t ethically stand operating in a broken system any longer.
Working at an inpatient addiction treatment center was a wild first job practicing medicine.
I learned a ton, yet one lesson I didn’t expect and it’s why I question a lot of statistics.
As you would imagine, many drug addicts struggle with their mental health.
When I would do my intake with each patient, I would ask them about their medications and diagnoses.
And a troubling trend came up.
A LOT of them were diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
Yet, when I asked them how they got that diagnosis I’d often get a bunch of red flags.
→ They’d say, “I go from mad to sad really quickly.” Which is not what bipolar is.
→ They’d tell me they were diagnosed while on drugs… also a no-no because it’s nearly impossible to tell what’s drug related versus a true psychological issue.
→ And when you asked about periods of mania – which you HAVE to have to be diagnosed – they’d so no. That never happens. I just get angry.
I’m telling you, this could have been 50% of that population being diagnosed with something they didn’t have.
Now extrapolate that out across all of the drug addicts in the US.
And then consider that a decent percentage of non drug addicts also get a similarly inaccurate bipolar diagnosis (which for sure happens because I’ve seen that too in practice).
And now you have a strong case that the amount of people in the US diagnosed as bipolar are not bipolar at all.
The thing you need to realize, this is not about bipolar disorder.
This is about critical thinking. It’s understanding that the question isn’t if data is skewed, it’s by how much?
Instead of being encouraged to think this way, we’re told to “trust the science.”
To leave it to the “professionals” to do the thinking for us.
As a medical professional, I’m telling you that’s garbage.
That line of thinking is the antithesis of the scientific method.
Only a paternalistic narcissist would think they have all the answers for you and that you’re to never question them.
I’ve always encouraged my patients to question me. To question the guidelines and who’s coming up with them. To question the research findings.
The only way to truth is to pressure test it.
And the more we’ve questioned things over the years, the more we’re seeing how flimsy some of “the science” can be.
Client down 10 pounds in 2 months after stalling for 2 years.
He did this...
Without medications.
While still eating his Chinese food on Thursdays and pizza for the Eagles.
Sleep is significantly improved.
Energy is the highest it's been in years.
The best part?
He's surprised it's been so easy to lose the weight.
Coming from someone with a significant thyroid issue, he always thought weight loss would require medications.
Nope.
We just needed to dial in his environmental inputs, tweak some habits, get detailed on his nutrition, and let time do its thing.
I used to be so strict with my clients that there was no one their plan would be sustainable long term.
I've learned that changing habits gradually and consistently is not only easier, it leads to sustained success.
And that's what it's all about.
The fundamental flaw in modern medicine is they are entirely focused on manipulating the body using medications and procedures.
Manipulation of any complex system is a bad longterm strategy because, by definition, you don't know what you don't know.
And in medicine, there is A LOT we don't know about the body.
What is much more effective, especially for chronic health issues, is nurturing the body.
Giving the body what it needs and allowing it to heal itself.
The reason why my clients do so well overall when many doctors have failed them is precisely because of this.
We don't work in spite of their body.
We work with it.
You've tried fixing your gut, your hormones, your sleep, yet you're still stuck.
Here's why.
It comes down to one word: reductionism.
Give me a few seconds to explain what I mean and how it helps you finally feel better.
Doctors are trained to try and reduce medical problems to their component parts.
A good example is diabetes, which is really insulin resistance.
Their entire focus is largely based on watching your carb intake and giving you insulin or medications that increase insulin sensitivity.
That’s reductionist thinking.
Yet, you cannot reduce a complex system like the human body down to its component parts without missing A LOT.
Staying with the diabetes example, there are PLENTY of other inputs that affect insulin sensitivity and blood sugar besides food.
→ Blue light exposure in the evening has been shown to increase insulin resistance.
→ Prolonged stress will decrease insulin sensitivity (exercise does the opposite).
→ Low levels of quality sleep can also significantly affect your blood sugar levels.
Yet, if you go to your PCP or endocrinologist for diabetes, 99% of them are not going to talk about your blue light exposure or your stress or your sleep hygiene.
They are going to focus solely on your diet and medications.
This type of reductionist approach is why they struggle to help you resolve – not just treat – chronic health issues, whether it’s diabetes, low testosterone, high blood pressure, or gut issues.
The opposite of a reductionist approach is a systems-based approach, which is what the human body is after all… a complex, integrated system.
When you mess with one part of the body, it will affect the rest of the body as a result.
So the best approach to healing is not to ignore reductionistic thinking, but to marry it with a more systems-based, evolutionary approach.
Which means, you have to think about what the optimal conditions have been for humans to thrive over millenia.
For instance, we evolved from living outdoors in the natural sunlight.
And sure enough, study after study shows the benefits of getting regular sun exposure, putting your bare feet on the ground, and moving regularly.
(Don’t get me started on the dermatologists who fear-monger sun exposure.
They are the kings of reductionism. Yes, long-term sun exposure increases your risk of squamous cell and basal cell carcinomas, which are superficial and easy-to-deal with.)
Yet, those who spend more time outside show a decreased risk in all other sorts of health issues, including depression, high blood pressure, colorectal, breast, prostate cancer, autoimmune issues, and diabetes, to name a few.
While I don’t know all of the mechanisms of why the sun is so healthy for the human body, it’s readily apparent that it is and it’s also obvious from a complex systems perspective.
The take home is, you’re going to struggle fixing most chronic health issues with a reductionistic approach.
It’s why I left mainstream medicine over a decade ago and began working with clients throughout the states to help them resolve their health issues using a systems-based approach, not just treating them with medication.
Yes, it takes more work.
But it’s also highly effective.
It’s why I’ve had clients completely resolve their ulcerative colitis without any medications.
It’s why I’ve had clients over 3x their testosterone levels without any special herbs or peptides.
It’s why I’ve had many clients overcome a host of health issues, like insomnia, high blood pressure, IBS, fatigue, infertility, anxiety, mold toxicity/CIRS, and more.
It’s not that I’m smarter than all the doctors my clients have seen before coming to me. Far from it.
It’s that I have a systems-based approach that is more in alignment with what the body actually needs to heal long term.
And that makes all the difference.
So @GovernorShapiro wants you to think dying from a lacerated spleen while have some measles antibodies is worth a press conference to call it a measles-associated death.
I never vote outside of the presidential election, going to have to make an exception this year to vote against this guy.
Mainstream media 101:
1. Say something that you know is false or misleading.
2. Create outrage over this mischaracterization.
3. Retract or amend your original statement, but only after people have completely bought into the original and will completely ignore the retraction.
Humans have a strong bias towards believing the first thing they hear without proof as long as it aligns with their beliefs.
RFK literally posted a deposition from the world’s leading vaccine expert admitting fetal cell lines were used.
Who’s more expert and pro-vaccine than Plotkin?
What is Shapiro talking about?
Let's set the record straight because @RobertKennedyJr’s post is inaccurate and misleading and he is making claims that have been debunked repeatedly by actual scientists and doctors.
Secretary Kennedy called me yesterday morning to ask whether Pennsylvania needed any additional support to respond to the measles outbreak. I told him I appreciated the call but that our Administration and the Pennsylvania Department of Health had all the resources we needed to respond, including existing support from professional staff at the CDC and HHS.
I told him what would be most helpful is if he would join me in encouraging people to get vaccinated and stop spreading misinformation. He then launched into a tirade — talking about fetal tissue and blaming the previous Administration for this problem. He even told me it would be better if we went back to “natural measles.”
Unfortunately at a time where I needed the top “health expert” in the nation to responsibly work with us to deal with this outbreak, he instead chose to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and false claims.
To his claim about fetal tissue, that has been thoroughly discredited time after time by real doctors and trusted medical institutions like CHOP. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics has an entire webpage devoted to this.
They write: “Vaccines do not contain fetal cells. Some vaccines involve growing viruses in human cell cultures originally developed from two aborted fetuses in the 1960s. These cell lines are still going, so no new aborted fetuses are ever needed. Purification processes filter the vaccine during production, and no fetal tissue remains.”
But my conversation with him proved what many of us already knew:
Secretary Kennedy’s actions to dismantle public health agencies and his language that undermines confidence in vetted medical guidance are contributing to these kinds of outbreaks.
Just a few years ago, Secretary Kennedy was in Lancaster downplaying the severity of measles and saying that the cure was “chicken soup and vitamin A.”
Before he held his current position, measles was virtually eliminated in the United States. As recently as 2024, there were only 285 cases of measles across the entire country over 12 months. This year, in just 8 months, there are nearly 400 cases of measles across 29 counties in Pennsylvania alone — and nearly 3,000 cases across the country.
In Pennsylvania, 70 people who have tested positive for measles have been hospitalized this year — and yesterday, our @PAHealthDept announced that two Pennsylvanians who tested positive for measles have died.
According to doctors and medical experts, the MMR vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your kids, and your community against measles. But we have seen vaccination rates decline on RFK’s watch.
The correlation is clear: Secretary Kennedy has stoked confusion amongst parents and others — and the result has been less protection from measles and more cases.
As a dad, all I want is to protect our four kids. I know that’s how every parent feels. Parents have the right to make their own decisions about how to keep their kids safe and sort through the noise to figure out which information to trust.
So what I’d ask of every parent in Pennsylvania: take any information you get about vaccines and talk to a trusted health care provider about it before you make your decision.
The most important conversation that needs to take place now is one that should happen offline, in the real world, between parents, their trusted health care providers, and other medical experts.
Prosecute Fauci
As early as November 2020, FDA knew from rat studies that the lipid nanoparticles from Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine were spreading into the ovaries.*
As early as December 2020, FDA knew that a rat fertility study report on Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine showed that the number of fertilized eggs that fail to successfully attach to the uterine wall was 9.77% in the vaccine group and 4.09% in the control group.** The vaccinated group also had a higher rate of fetal malformations, anomalies, and variations.***
Yet, in January 2021, Fauci writes the Surgeon General and CDC Director that “Animal tox studies did not raise any red flags.”****
Sources:
* phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads… (p.21)
** pdata0916.s3.us-east-2.amazo… (pp.33, 89)
*** Id. (p.91, Table 17)
**** ronjohnson.senate.gov/wp-con… (p.4)
New client down 6.5 pounds in a month when he has stalled for over a year.
No medications and no insane workouts.
Like most of my clients, the biggest changes have been a combination of targeted nutritional changes based on labs and overcoming mental/habitual challenges.
For instance, this person’s wife’s evening routine was disrupting his sleep.
So one week a goal of ours was for him to have an honest conversation about what he needs to get to bed consistently.
Next, breathing through his nose was an issue at night.
Most people don’t realize, but mouth breathing is dysfunctional, especially while sleeping.
So we first worked on improving his control pause.
Second, we used some nasal strips to open up his airway and it made a world of difference.
So those exhausted mornings have improved dramatically.
The side benefit of that?
He now has the energy to workout.
So the past 2 weeks he’s been lifting 3 days a week, while also walking outside with his wife for 2 miles 3 days.
Nutritionally, the two biggest habit changes that have helped him stay on track when he’s struggled in the past?
1 - Planning out his meals and macros in the morning so he knows what he’s eating and when.
2 - Eating more frequently.
I don’t typically use this as a tool, but for someone who is always hungry, which drives them to snack on junk, eating higher protein and fiber foods more frequently goes a long way.
This is the thing I’d highlight… I don’t have a cookie-cutter plan for every client.
It’s personalized to their needs based on proper testing and intimately understanding the things keeping them from success.
Sometimes those things are obvious and sometimes they come out in layers over time.
The upshot is we are rewiring their brain for success without having to white-knuckle change.
Willpower only lasts so long.
So it’s much more effective to learn how to create and maintain better habits and routines than to rely on grit.
Grits great to get going, but it’s not a great long term strategy.
Lack of proper sequencing is one of the top 3 reasons you have persistent gut issues.
And it’s why so many interventions you try end up either not helping or making things worse.
→ Throwing prebiotics/probiotics while you have active SIBO.
→ Taking binders without opening up drainage pathways.
→ Treating the gut without addressing your environmental inputs first.
It’s no wonder so many people suffer in discomfort for years, despite going to numerous doctors and spending thousands on speciality labs and supplements.
Yes, sometimes you’re not doing the right testing.
Yes, sometimes you are taking the wrong things.
But many people who come to me have done a lot of the right testing and are taking appropriate supplementation… they just have the sequencing either all wrong or don’t do any sequencing at all.
For example, you really shouldn’t be addressing the gut in detail without first correcting environmental inputs, nutrition, lifestyle, and stress factors.
For most people, this can take a few months to dial in.
Then you can move onto the gut, but even then there is proper sequencing once you get there.
The beautiful thing about this approach is that you know what to do every step of the way.
No guessing.
No wondering how long to stick with this or that protocol.
Each step is laid out so all that you have to do is implement the changes.
For my business owners, this is huge because they are busy and don’t have time to be their own doctor on top of running a business and spending time with their spouse and kids.
One of the most underappreciated requirements for success in any field is pattern recognition.
Simply stated, it’s going from “I’ve seen this before” to “I bet this works the same way.”
It’s why the best business owners can spot trends a mile away.
It’s why athletes can “see” things and react before they are even consciously aware.
One pattern I’ve noticed in my clients who are most successful with their nutrition and weight loss…
They plan out their meals each week, but there is one piece you don’t want to miss.
They also plan out, beforehand, what they will eat each day.
Why?
Intentionality.
They are being intentional about what they eat instead of letting their whims dictate.
Rather than letting anger, frustration, sadness, or fatigue make the choices for them, they make the choice when these aren’t a factor.
They are making the game winnable by decreasing their need to rely on willpower.
Success is rarely about who has enough grit.
It’s who can make the game so resistance-free that they don’t have to rely on it.
Anyone can significantly cut calories for a period of time.
Few can sustain a lifestyle that helps them keep those pounds off.
Focus on the systems and the outcomes will take care of themselves.