A 42-year-old female, normal weight, good general health. Five years ago, she had double vision in one of her eyes. About two weeks ago, she lost vision in the other eye. Both times she went to her ophthalmologist and was treated. The neuro-ophthalmologist recommended she see a multiple sclerosis specialist. She presented with a history of mild chronic constipation since childhood and chronic low hemoglobin levels. Other than that, she claimed to be a very healthy person, remarkable given the fact that as a child she lived in Belarus close to Chernobyl at the time of the disaster. I ordered general a general blood panel and SIBO test to begin my intervention. Gave her the 30-day Paleo reset and puzzled about what route to take regarding the radiation exposure and the possible effects on her health.

Dr. Amy Nett: Yes. Radiation exposure is a really difficult one because I don’t know how much can be done after such a significant exposure. That’s incredibly unfortunate, and I think I would probably focus on the autoimmune component here rather than the radiation piece. A lot of our patients they come to us after they’ve just had this perfect storm, and it’s incredibly likely that her radiation exposure sort of made her more vulnerable, impacted mitochondria in a way that made her more susceptible. I’m sure the radiation exposure did play a part in where she is now. I don’t know if it’s something that we can really focus on reversing. But what I would think about is has this set her up for decreased ability to detoxify. Do we need to think more about heavy metal exposures, maybe biotoxin-related illness? I think you’re absolutely spot on.

Start with the comprehensive blood panel, the SIBO breath test, and focusing on the autoimmune component. You absolutely want to do gut testing. You’ll probably eventually get a stool test. If she has SIBO, then you’ll treat SIBO. After doing, that you’ll follow up with a stool test, make sure everything looks normal on the stool test. Then maybe a urine organic acids profile, look to see if there are markers suggesting overburden detoxification or high levels of oxidative stress, and maybe on her I would think about doing eventually heavy metals testing. Could that be an issue? We might also think about chronic inflammatory response syndrome. You might end up referring out for some of this, but I think the irradiation probably set her up for a lot of this. Not sure we can directly address that now just sort of supporting antioxidant support and detoxification in general. That sounds like you’re on the right track. Remember, for multiple sclerosis, especially if she’s still having neurologic symptoms, you might think about low-dose naltrexone. That could be something for autoimmune condition, so just something to think about.