Transcript #470 Natural Ways to Alleviate Seasonal Allergies with Dr. Tenesha Wards
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- Find out what’s in store for this Myers Detox Podcast with Dr. Tenesha Wards who joins the show to talk about the best tips to alleviate seasonal allergies. Many people are mistakenly told that they their allergies are genetic, are fixed for life, and only medications can address them. Dr. Wards is here to bury that myth, and explain how addressing your gut, you liver, and in turn your immunity, can help greatly improve allergy symptoms! We go over how environmental factors, such as mold toxicity, are the real underlying root causes of allergies. We also discuss the problems with over the counter allergy medications, and the best area to put your focus when addressing allergies naturally. Lots of great tips and info about allergies on todays show, so make sure to tune in!
- Find out why Dr. Wards got involved in the health industry, and opened her Infinity Wellness Center in Austin, Texas.
- Learn about the real reasons people have seasonal allergies.
- Learn more about what histamines are and how they cause allergy symptoms.
- Learn more about mass cell activation and what is happening in the body.
- Find out why people can start to become sensitive to many different foods, and why eliminating those foods is not the answer to addressing their allergies.
- Find out what causes gut dysbiosis, and leaky gut, and what you can do to start healing your gut.
- Learn about the environmental factors that are causing gut issues, and why gut health is essential for a healthy immune system.
- Learn about Dr. Wards top tips for addressing allergies including supporting our organs of elimination.
- Find out some of the problems with allergy medications, and how they are just a bandaid.
- Find out where you can learn more about Dr. Wards, and how to work with her.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Hello, everyone. I’m Dr. Wendy Myers. Welcome to the Myers Detox Podcast. Today we have Dr. Tenesha Wards on the show, and she’s going to be talking about natural ways to alleviate seasonal allergies. This is something a lot of people deal with. I dealt with it growing up. I thought I had allergies to various things, allergies to milk, and things my doctor told me were going on with me. And I chose to drink milk but just take my Benadryl every single day, so I wouldn’t have a runny nose and watery eyes and things like that. And so, unfortunately for me, I ended up sleeping through most of my classes in high school and was very, very drowsy. They didn’t have the drowsy-free stuff back then.
But I think there are a lot of people out there that are mistakenly told that they have to take medications or it’s genetic, or their allergies are fixed for life, when really what we talk about in the show is they need to work on their gut. They need to work on their liver health, which will improve their immunity, which will, in turn, improve their symptoms or even completely eliminate what they think are allergies. And also, what people don’t realize is when you maybe are exposed to mold in your home or your immunity is low, you can start reacting to a lot of different things in your environment you normally wouldn’t, like food. And so, people start reacting to all different types of food when their immune system is kind of on high alert and overstimulated because they have poor gut bacteria or flora and fauna in their gut, and their immune system is just overreacting to a lot of different things in their body, and then they get these food sensitivities and food reactions and their focus goes on that, and they start eliminating all types of different foods.
We’ll talk about why that is misguided and what you can do instead. We’ll talk about the problems with typical over-the-counter allergy medications, and we’ll also talk about natural ways you can address your allergies and lower histamines naturally. Really, really good show. And I know you guys are listening; you are concerned about your health. You’re concerned about feeling better. And, for me, I want you to improve not just your physical health but your mental well health, your mental well-being as well.
And so I created a free masterclass. It’s called The Emotional Detox Masterclass, and in this class, I talk about a big hidden reason why people have physical health issues, and it’s emotional trauma, it’s negative, stuck emotions in their body. And we talk about where those emotions lie in their body and how there’s a frequency in their energy field where these emotions are lying. These traumas are residing in your body, and the conventional medical research around sound therapy and how you can use sound therapy to kind of tune these frequencies of these traumas and emotions out of your body. Really, this masterclass is unbelievable, so I beg you to take it if you have any physical health issues where you’ve done a lot of different things physically that haven’t worked. If you’ve done programs or taken supplements or done different things and you’re still not feeling better, or you’re not where you think you should be with your health, mentally or physically, check it out. It’s just an hour of your time. You can check it out at emo-detox.com.
So, our guest today is Dr. Tenesha Wards, and she is a founder and medical director of the Austin Holistic Health Center in Austin, Texas. And Dr. Wards supports the top five percent of most difficult cases that are often written off by other doctors. And she founded the Infinity Way program to uncover and correct the root cause of chronic fatigue and other patient symptoms. And, The Infinity Way custom care plans, followed by her whole team, meet the unique needs of individual patients and help them achieve their wellness goals. Dr. Wards established her practice with science-backed holistic principles that support full-body health. And additionally, Dr. Wards is a published author, public speaker, wife, and mother. You can learn more about Dr. Wards and her work at austinholisticdr.com. Dr. Wards, thanks so much for coming to the show.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah. So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into the health industry and opened your Infinity Wellness Center in Austin, Texas?
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yeah. So, Infinity Wellness Center is a functional medicine practice, and it really stemmed from my own experiences in life where ultimately, Western medicine just let me down. The first time It happened, It happened twice. The first time I really didn’t find answers from Western medicine was when I was 14 years old and woke up one day literally unable to bend most of the joints in my body and had severe fatigue and pain. And, to make a long story short, we went to, I didn’t know, 10-plus doctors and had every crazy diagnosis you can think of. But first, they thought it was MS, and then lupus, and ultimately those all came back negative. Ultimately they said idiopathic juvenile arthritis. So, breaking that down, that just means, “We don’t know why all your joints hurt, and you’re a child, so it’s a juvenile arthritis kind of thing.”
Well, through our own research, my mom really did the research. She finally found a doctor that was familiar with what was going on, and we thought it could be Lyme disease, so we did the test. He really took one look at me and was like, “Yep, I think it’s Lyme disease,” and practices very much how I do today using herbs and liver detoxing and gut healing and some very basic core health rebuilding of the body. I was able to overcome it. It took about a year. I went undiagnosed for about a year and really lost that year of my life in high school and everything because I just wasn’t able to function, and it took probably another six to nine months to heal. So, that’s the first time, and that really led me down a holistic health process, the path of learning more. I mean, I was 14 years old and 15 years old, and when I went back to school and cheerleading and sports, I was like bringing my own lunch with vegetables and fruit, turkey and not eating bread, and all of these things that we knew were inflaming my body.
So, that essentially started it. After I had my daughter, I got really, really ill again, and I thought, oh my gosh, the Lyme has a flare-up. It came back because I had it so long that we don’t believe we actually eradicated it from my body, more that it’s dormant, in remission. I learned to coexist with it, which is pretty common in chronic Lyme if you’ve had it long enough. Sometimes you really don’t get rid of it as much as just learn to coexist with it, and you’re not having symptoms, and that’s where I’ve been for almost three decades now. But I found out I had an autoimmune disorder after having my daughter, which is very common after pregnancy, during puberty, and after menopause. We see Hashimoto’s show up, which is an autoimmune thyroid. So, using my own processes and my own tests, this time, I knew exactly what to do to get that under control and was able to recover quickly with that one.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Okay. Great. Yeah. And so, I mean, it’s like it’s a blessing in disguise almost because this happened at a very young age and really turned the course of your life into what you’re doing today and helping people.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Absolutely.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And the focus of our podcast today is focusing on seasonal allergies. A lot of people struggle with this, struggle in general with their immunity, and seasonal allergies are an issue with people’s immunity. So, what’s going on there? Because it’s not always just people reacting to things in our environment. Can you explain a little bit more in-depth why people have seasonal allergies?
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yes, and I think this is a perfect opportunity to really talk about the philosophy of our health practice and functional medicine. It’s not necessarily always. Well, it’s not ever, I think. Sometimes, it is. It’s not always the external stresses. It’s more about how our body can handle that, deal with it, detox it, and process it.
So, two big things we look at with people when they come into the clinic with allergies, whether it’s food allergies, seasonal allergies, anything like that, is their gut health because, If they’re not suffering from a leaky gut and their gut health is strong, that’s where 80% of our immune system is, so definitely the gut, including the liver, because that’s where histamine is broken down from those allergies and processed through and dumped into the gut. So, we definitely look at just leaky gut syndrome. Are we strong there? Do we need to do any rebuilding?
And, then we look genetically, and if they have the A O one C three gene defect, meaning they don’t break down histamine properly, so then we start seeing severe allergies sometimes to the point of mast cell activation and things like that. We’ll start digging in. And, that being genetic, we know that we can’t necessarily change their genes.. Maybe in my lifetime. Probably not. I’m in my mid-40s now. Probably not that we’re going to be able to change genes. More of what nutrients can we add to kind of complete the pathway. What holes in the bucket can we fill? What diet modifications can we change or lifestyle modifications to help the body process and function in the histamine place better?
So, those are the really big points that we look at with people with allergies. If somebody’s local to Austin because we see people all over the world now, really. That’s kind of one good thing that’s happened through COVID. We’ve really pivoted to a telehealth kind of platform. But if they’re local, I also do acupuncture with them. I’m also an acupuncturist.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Oh, great.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: And so, we’ll do a lot of the body work also with it, which helps.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Okay, great. Yeah, and can you talk a little bit about what histamines are and how those are causing people’s symptoms, and what the deal is with that?
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yeah. It’s really the body’s reaction to whatever stressor is coming at it. So, you can have a histamine reaction as simple as having a little bit of a runny nose with a high-histamine food like salsa. A lot of peppers are high in histamine. Or, it can be much more severe to where it really is causing anxiety and fatigue, and it can affect the whole body with it. And, again, that can be food, that can be airborne allergies.
Literally, here in Austin, I can name five patients. I mean, I won’t, in the podcast, obviously, but I can think of five patients who had to leave Central Texas because of the mold, the ragweed; I mean, cedar fever is a real thing. People spike a fever. That was very confusing during COVID. Do we have allergies, or do we have COVID? And they went to the desert. I know a couple of them went to Arizona, New Mexico. And we did figure it out. We did. We did have a lot of gut issues, and we repaired their gut, and we got their body, their immune system, to recognize the mold and process it better. But, some of them had some of the genetic defects where their body’s just going to react, and for some people, histamine reaction is more systemic, and they’re completely puffy. You can look at them and know you’re suffering from ragweed. You look puffy. You’re holding weight. Things like that.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Okay. Great. Yeah. And, can you talk a little bit about mass cell activation because that’s something that I think a lot of people aren’t. They’re not aware of what that is exactly or that it is severe allergies. And, I’m assuming they go to a conventional doctor, or maybe they’re not cluing into that. So, what is that, and what are the symptoms there?
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Essentially, it’s an overreaction of histamine production in the body. And we see this a lot. Again, there are different genes, and I may not be able to name all of those off the top of my head, but there’s a whole pathway to shut down an over-histamine reaction. So, really mast cell activation is essentially the body doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s making histamine. It’s causing the runny, the puffy, the inflammation to try to get rid of the allergen or whatever it’s causing. But the genes and the pathways that are supposed to shut that down aren’t happening, so it just keeps happening.
And it’s not very different from what we’ve been hearing in the news the last couple of years: a cytokine storm. It’s doing exactly what the body’s supposed to do. It sends the right cells and the eosinophils, and the right white blood cells to the area of inflammation. It’s just not stopping and calming down when the problem is resolving, and it’s overworking, which, essentially, I’ve seen, can lead to autoimmune disorders in all different places of the body. But it looks like anything again, from looking really puffy and swollen to anxiety and debilitating fatigue because the body’s so inflamed, and it really gets into this inflamed storm.
And, we do things like quercetin or glutathione to try to flush it and lower the inflammation, and sometimes that helps, and that’s the magic trick. Other times we have to really change what they’re putting in their body, their environment, things like that. Also, we find a lot of mass cell activation if people are in a moldy environment in their home and they have no idea, and they’re spending. Well, with a lot of people, especially being in their home more in the last couple years working from home, we’ve seen more and more mass cell activation from mold toxicity than I’ve ever seen. Well, all over the country, really, but central Texas is bigger than we thought because they’re sitting in this environment that’s inflaming them, what’s causing their mass cells to cause more inflammation 24 hours a day, almost kind of thing.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah. And they start reacting to other things. They start reacting to all kinds of stuff.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yes. When you’re in that vicious cycle of inflammation and mast cell activation, you start reacting to things you never have before. People will say things like, I’ve never been allergic to, I’m just throwing something out there. Apples. And, we’re like, okay, you shouldn’t be allergic to apples. Or oranges or just something super healthy and random that we wouldn’t think. It’s just that everything is inflaming them so much.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: And, it’s really causing insomnia, anxiety, flu-like symptoms.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, They’ve been able to eat whatever they want in their whole life, and they start cluing into the fact they’re reacting to apples, they’re reacting to weed, they’re reacting to dairy. And, then people kind of start thinking, okay, it’s the food. They start focusing on that. And, I mean, I’ve had clients come to me. They can eat five foods.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Right.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And that’s it. They just keep eliminating, eliminating, eliminating, and they are just so miserable, weight loss, et cetera. And so, can you talk a little bit about that phenomenon and why It’s not sustainable.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: I think that’s the perfect example of you’re not allergic to that many things. It’s your inner terrain. It’s your body having a reaction, not the food causing the reaction at that point. There’s either so much inflammation or so much, yeah, really cytokines in your system. The histamine reaction is so high that the body really can’t process anything. And, we see a lot of people come in like that. Again, they take a food allergy test, and there’s like 38 things on it, and we’re like, mm, okay, that’s not a food problem, that’s your problem, and we need to take a step back.
And so, at that point, we’ll do things like genetic testing, stool testing. Let’s find out exactly. I always like to say let’s test, not guess. Let’s find out if there is an underlying infection in the gut lining and if there is a genetic defect. We also run people’s histamine levels in a urine test so we can find out if they are just overly inflamed and, if so, what’s causing it? And that’s where we really get in and do the detective work that we do in our office through the Infinity Way. We do a very long intake, as I’m sure you do too, and all the things to really figure out what’s our starting point here because it’s not that you can’t eat anything but these four things.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, and they might need to avoid those foods for like a minute until you get the gut fixed in order for the immune system to calm down. But, so let’s talk a little bit about gut dysbiosis, leaky gut and all of those things that lead to this immune system malfunction and then what you do to fix the gut.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Starting in the gut is probably our starting point for 99% of patients. Even if they come in with anxiety, insomnia, and depression, we start in the gut. Even if it’s hormone imbalances, we start in the gut. And, the reason why is nothing else matters if you’re not absorbing and breaking things down, so, specifically for brain chemistry cases that we run, if you’re low in serotonin and dopamine out of balance, those neurotransmitters are made more so in the gut, and they go to the brain. That’s why we have started calling the gut the second brain. And there’s a huge connection between a leaky gut-leaky brain.
So, again, people are like, “Hey doc, why are we healing my gut? I came in from insomnia.” And the reason is exactly what I just said. We have to figure out what’s going on with the gut. So, we start with a stool test, and I love the GI map test. It tells us not only what bad bugs could be in the gut in too much of an amount. It’s all about balance, and that’s probably the best way to describe dysbiosis. If there are too many bad guys in the gut, fungus, bacteria, and parasites even, you’re going to have dysbiosis. If there are not enough of the good guys, you’re going to have dysbiosis.
So, we very much have to figure out from the stool test what we need to implant good-wise into the gut, and sometimes we can do that with food. Sometimes it’s probiotics. Sometimes it’s prebiotics. And what do we need to take away? What do we have too much of? What bad bacteria? What bad bugs are living in there that we need to take away? And that’s really the crux of healing the gut.
The leaky gut itself can be caused by a lot of different things. Stress. You hear about stressed-out people getting ulcers. And, what leaky gut is inside the gut lining, you should have all this good flora and bacteria. Well, when it starts to thin, it thins like this versus being tighter junctions there. Bad things seep through the gut lining into the bloodstream, into the joints, into the body, and across the blood-brain barrier.
So, it can be anything from food dyes to pesticides. Anything we’re getting in our food that’s not food can leak through when it’s leaky versus when the gut is sealed. We call it healed and sealed. Only the good micronutrients that we need, macronutrients or micronutrients from the macronutrients that we need, really make energy and make our body work. That’s all the body’s trying to pull out of your food through the stomach lining. But when it’s leaky and thinned, which again, stress can do that because stress will pull all those good bacteria and nutrients from the gut to make more cortisol and adrenaline. Processed foods absolutely can do it. Highly acidic foods can do it. Definitely things like refined sugar and alcohol. They just really inflame the gut and really just tear down the good bacteria. So, it can definitely be more mental and emotional stress. It could definitely be more eating foods that your body can’t process and chemicals in them. It can be a lot of different things. Underlying infections can definitely cause a leaky gut. And that’s what we got to find out.
Dr. Wendy Myers: There are so many things working against our gut. I mean, it can be smoking as well. Antibiotics, and glyphosate, are sprayed on all non-organic food. It kills all the gut bacteria. I mean, there’s like people going too nuts with natural antibiotics. So, maybe oregano or silver or things like that. Chlorine in the water, drinking water that’s got chlorine in it, or swimming too much. I mean, it’s just so many things. It’s amazing that we even have positive gut bacteria or good gut bacteria left.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: You’re a hundred percent right. I say this at least once a week. We have created an environment, a world, that we can hardly survive in. I mean, here in Austin, they have found fluoride in our water. I’m originally from Flint, Michigan.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Let’s not go into the lead in our water. All of those people still drinking have to have leaky guts. I mean, that’s the lead. What is that going to do to your gut lining when you drink it? It’s not going to make it happy. It’s only going to burn holes in it and inflame it. I mean, you’re absolutely right. And, then, the Roundup. They’re spraying on everything. Yeah. You mentioned that. I mean, you’re right.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: It’s hard. So, we can’t live in a bubble. I want to. I have a seven-year-old. I want to bubble-wrap her every day. All we can do is, I believe, try to live as toxin-free as we can and stay ahead of and on top of our gut health.. Once we put people through different programs for different ailments, and the first step in both, all of them really is gut healing, and I would say more than 60. Sometimes we get a really good case. 70% of people’s ailments are almost gone, if not gone, after the gut heals. Then, we can kind of dive into, okay, do you have Lyme disease? Do you have mold toxicity? Is there still autoimmunity? Because sometimes we can heal. Heal might be the wrong word. I know probably more reverse, put into remission, autoimmunity just by healing the gut. We see that all the time.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Oh yeah.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yeah. It’s definitely a starting point for most people.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, and I really think that people that, say, react to mold or they have mold sensitivities or mold reactions going on, it’s really just their gut. They can genetically have issues with mold, but I think there are a lot of people out there. Why does one person react to mold and the other person doesn’t? You know? It’s your terrain. It’s your gut. You know? And, yeah, genetics can play a factor as well but definitely if your gut isn’t healthy, your immune system isn’t healthy, and you’re going to be more prone to have issues with mold.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Absolutely. And, it’s an uphill battle every day to have that healthy immune system, to have that healthy gut because, again, of exactly what you just listed, our environment and our life. And, yeah, genetics is really just kind of the card you’ve been dealt, and if you have a lot of defects, there are ways to deal with those that we dig into. But again, it all comes down to your immune system and gut. Absolutely.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And so, talk about some of the solutions you have for allergies. So, we talk about fixing the gut, fixing the terrain. What are some other things that people can do? You mentioned quercetin, which is amazing. My mom takes that, and she lives in Texas.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yeah.
Dr. Wendy Myers: That really helps her a lot during allergy season. What is that doing? How much do you need to take, and what are some other things that you recommend for people?
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yeah, quercetin is a great one. It’s in a product that I really like called Natural D-Hist, and so essentially, it’s an antihistamine. It helps break down the histamine levels and helps clear it, helps it clear through the liver quickly. I also dabble in homeopathy. So, a lot of people that have ragweed allergies here will do some of the ragweed drops. But I really like to start that a couple months before the ragweed hits, which is really good. A lot of immune defense stuff. Probiotics. Again, I’d like to test to know exactly what strain we’re re-implanting. If somebody doesn’t want to test or hasn’t tested, I recommend alternating a probiotic every couple of bottles, a new one to get to not overload one strain and not enough of another kind of thing. I also like a product from Standard Process called Antronext and Allerplex. Both are really good, and both are really liver work.
So, gut work, yes, with allergies, but also the liver because that’s where the allergens are cleared. So, my highly allergic people can’t step outside; oftentimes, after we heal the gut, we immediately put them into a liver cleanse. And I also never like to put people into a liver cleanse until they’ve done a gut repair. I always say we never break you down until we’ve built you up. And that’s why people jump into some of these intense liver cleanses without doing the pre-work because the liver’s going to dump those toxins into the GI tract and the GI tract has to eliminate it. Or, it’ll dump it into the lymph, and it’ll come through the skin if the gut’s not working.
So, people who go through a liver cleanse, and they’re miserable, and they’re breaking out, and they’re awful, it’s too harsh. Their gut couldn’t handle it. We need to do the right thing at the right time and take the right steps to prepare the body for what it needs to be prepared for in order to do that.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, I agree with you. The liver is so important, I mean, it’s our first line in our immunity.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And I don’t think people realize that. It’s your detox organ as well. But, yeah. We got to break down those allergens and work on that liver. A lot of people’s livers are toast. I say this all the time.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yes.
Dr. Wendy Myers: But there are a hundred million people in the U.S. alone with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yes.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And so, their livers are just not functioning optimally, including breaking down allergens.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: And, you nailed it earlier when you talked about, spoke about medications and antibiotics and things like that. That all has to process through the liver, and I believe certain medications alone can cause non-alcoholic fatty liver. They’ve been on whatever. I’m just going to throw something out there, like tramadol or any type of gabapentin. Then, you have to take pain medicine or muscle relaxer for 25 years. It’s going to stress the liver. Those things are, birth control can stress the liver. All those excess hormones have to be broken down through the liver.
So yes, that’s a big one; definitely working on the liver. And, one really gentle liver cleanse that we start patients on . A couple things, but one thing they could just do through food is have them do apples, pears, and beets every day. It’s so simple. Juice it. Eat them. However, you can get them in. People will throw them in a smoothie. Another is starting the day with warm lemon water and cayenne. So, kind of a play of the master cleanses, not adding the maple syrup and not having people fast because not everybody can handle that. We need to build them up. But just warm lemon water with just a pinch of cayenne in the morning really helps dilate the bile duct to purge and get the junk out of the liver, also.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. There are a lot of things that you can do. I mean, coffee enemas, liver flushes. Not everyone’s ready for those. Those can be a little bit harsh. But coffee enemas are amazing to help that liver kind of get working again, wake it up a little bit so it can do its job.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: One of my favorite things is to give a fairly newer patient our coffee enema handout.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And, they run.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Especially if they’re in the middle of a Herxheimer reaction where you kind of feel better before you feel… Or, sorry. You feel worse before you feel better because of a die-off of infections or whatever the case may be that we’re dealing with. Sometimes parasites, sometimes Lyme disease, they’ll have a herxheimer reaction. Mold detox will cause it. They look at me; you want me to do what with coffee? I thought you just took me off coffee because my adrenals are shot, and now you want me to put it where? It’s fun, and it takes a little convincing sometimes. But I have not had one patient who did not come back and say, oh my gosh, I felt 60, 70% better after one coffee enema.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Oh yeah, yeah. They don’t want to do them. They don’t like the sound of them. Especially the guys. That’s just not happening. But then when they’re in enough pain and they’re like, okay, I’ll try it, and then they’re like. They’re off for the races.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: That’s the key. If you feel bad enough.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: 100%. Yep. You will do it. I had one patient say, “I will stand on my head and eat dirt if you tell me to.” I’m like, “Well, we’re not going to go there, but I would like you to go get an enema bag.”
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah. It’s just so easy. You’ll feel better if you put some coffee up your poop shit. It’s like it’s so simple.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yes.
Dr. Wendy Myers: It’s so easy.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yes.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Okay. And so, let’s talk about some of the problems with allergy medications, like over-the-counter allergy medications. And because I took those all through high school. I mean, I had a lot of what I thought were allergies. It may have been something else. But when I took the antihistamine, lo and behold, my nose stopped running and whatnot. But needless to say, I slept through a lot of my classes in high school because I was super tired. So, what’s going on with those? What’s the problem?
Dr. Tenesha Wards: I was just going to say drowsiness. Right? The side effects of them can really be detrimental to people’s lives for sure. And it’s a Band-Aid. It only works when it’s in your system. We’re not fixing anything. We’re just really shutting off the symptoms, which, again, we say symptoms aren’t bad. Symptoms tell us something if you listen to the body. So, absolutely. It’s just covering up the real problem.
And something we’ve been talking about a bit here is stress? You have to clear those medications through the liver, and if you look at something. I guess I don’t want to name names of medications, but look at the back of the box at the pharmacy next time. You’re going to see red dye 40. You’re going to see the yellow dye. There are toxins in those also that are just really perpetually making it worse long term ultimately until you find and fix a core root cause of why you cannot handle mold or oak when your spouse or your neighbor can. Again, we’re in the same environment. It’s our inner terrain.
So, it’s just not fixing anything, and I think, long term, it’s going to stress the body. Now, there is a time and place for that stuff. Right? If you’re allergic to bees, you’re going to have such a histamine reaction that it could be fatal. Obviously, you take Benadryl. Take what you need to get to where you need to go. I’m not saying to take an allergy medication. I’m definitely saying that it’s not going to fix your allergies. It’s not going to fix your body’s reaction to allergies long term.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah. You want to get to the underlying root cause of why this is happening, and I think a lot of people just kind of surrender to thinking that, oh, I have allergies to this, and that’s it, like it’s fixed and there’s nothing that they can really do except take medication.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yeah.
Dr. Wendy Myers: I think there are a lot of people that kind of have that mindset because they’ve never really been told that you can do things to fix your gut and your immunity.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Hopelessness. Yeah. They’re just like, this is who I am. I have to take this for the rest of my life. Now, I will say I’ve noticed something that I think was even happening before the pandemic, but I think this has sped it up, is that I think the general population is starting to really understand that concept, and they’re starting to really understand, I don’t want a pill for this. That’s going to cause 18 other things and make me sleepy, or whatever the case may be. I really want to find and fix this. I really want to be healthy. I want to be the strongest and best immune system that I can be. And so, I think that’s a great and beautiful thing. I also think that they’re not trusting modern Western medicine blindly anymore because they’ve seen just some. I think they’ve seen that a lot of people are just human and just winging it and trying to figure it out, too, and it’s not getting to the core root cause.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah. And so, can you tell the listeners kindly where they can find you, how they can work with you or with you remotely or in-person to work on their allergies or all the other health conditions you specialize in?
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Absolutely. So, our Austin clinic is Austin Holistic Doctor. That’s austinholisticdr.com, and we do telehealth and telemedicine and can absolutely see anybody in the country. Again, we’ve got some patients outside the country. And, then, I also have a personal website, drteneshawards.com.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Okay, great. Well, Dr. Wards, thank you so much for coming on the show and I hope that helped to eliminate for some of you people that you don’t have to live with your allergies forever. Okay? And, certainly people have some fixed allergies like shellfish or things like that.
Dr. Tenesha Wards: Yes.
Dr. Wendy Myers: But, apart from that, there are a lot of things that you can do to boost your immune system and improve your allergies or just reduce your reactions.
So, everyone, thanks for tuning in. I’m Dr. Wendy Myers, and it’s just. It’s just such a joy every week to be. I love my job, and I love being able to help you guys and give you information and insight to help you live a better life and a healthier life because you deserve to feel good. So, thanks for tuning in, and I’ll talk to you guys next week.
