12: [MINI DOSE] OUR Experience with COVID

[00:00:00] I’ve told you this before, but 90% of the thoughts that we think of the same as the day before. So what is going on in your mind and is it supporting health care or is it supporting sick care?

Hi there. Welcome to the field better now, podcast. I’m your host, Jackie Balca. And if you’ve arrived here, no, there is something in here to spark yourself to create a bit of future in your health, in your. In your relationships for both yourself and for those around you, just one small action step at a time with so much love and gratitude to be your guide.

Let’s get started.

Jackie back. Uh, experience with K there. Yay. Welcome to [00:01:00] this. Week’s mini dose. This week is a special episode. Our family has all just experienced COVID. So I thought it may be helpful to share our experience with you and what we did during the virus and what we are doing now to rebuild our immune system and to make sure that we are.

Possible health going forward. So please know, obligatory disclaimer, I am a practitioner, but I may not be your practitioner. So this information is for your use only, and it does not substitute medical advice or information that you share with your primary care. Physician and primary care team. So during the month of January a COVID went through our house, there are four of us.

And what I found interesting about the whole experience is that all four of us had a really different experience. And that makes sense, right? Because we’re all unique bio [00:02:00] individuals, but it was so interesting because not only did we have different experiences, but the timing of the virus was different for each.

So I had heard that the symptoms could come on really strong when you got COVID and that’s exactly what happened to me, but that’s very different to what happened to my husband. So there’s my husband and I we’ve got two children, a seven-year-old and a ten-year-old. So this happened to me, midweek. I woke up in the morning with a sore neck.

That was the first sign, but I just thought I might’ve slept funny. So I. A bit off, but not exactly sure what was going on. I had a few clients to see, and after that I took my son down to the local shops and on the way home from the shops, less than a 10 minute walk away, I could barely make it home. So that’s really unlike me.

I’m a brisk Walker. I’m an action taker. But I really struggled. So that 10 minute walk, I felt like I was walking like a hundred year old lady. I got home, barely made it into [00:03:00] the shower, got into bed and it felt like I was in bed for almost the next seven days straight apart from to get out and go for a PCR test the next day.

So it really did hit me like the last time I had the flu, I had the flu about 10 or 11 years ago now. And that was, uh, I had a really bad flu. Felt the same severity as that, I was really knocked around. I’ve had the flu a few times in my life and each time has been particularly bad. So what I would say is that I had a fever when those symptoms came on very strong, I had a fever and I knew I had a fever because we live in a very warm climate and I was sleeping with multiple doonas and blankets, and I was absolutely soaking the sheets through.

So. What I want to talk about with that experience is that I really welcomed that favor. I really welcomed the sweat and anyone that works with me knows [00:04:00] that one of the questions I ask you is, are you able to sweat? So sweat is one of our key ways that we can eliminate toxins from the body. And that system is very important that.

Detoxification drainage system actually is working properly. So I was celebrating, even though I was in pain, actually, I remember I could barely move. I could barely turn over in my sleep. Often. I rotate from the right side to the left side, back to the right side and I was dreading doing. Because the pain in my lower back and in my body was so bad.

So very flu, like symptoms with the muscle aches. So my body was obviously very inflamed and defending itself, so fighting it, but amongst things, so. Sikh and barely able to move. I just remember bringing in all the principles of my holistic practice, which is really utilizing, [00:05:00] trying to master my mind. So in this pain, I remember my mantra, my body knows exactly what to do to heal itself.

I’m so grateful for my immune system, and I think that’s a really important point. So it’s not a bad thing for. To have an immune challenge and to ensure that our immune system is working properly, that’s what it’s been designed to do to defend against invaders. So also was incredibly incredible. Pedro was having a pretty rough time to be honest, but I do remember her saying this manager over and over again, everything is perfect.

Everything is perfect. Everything is perfect. So I suppose I would summarize my situation to say, I was experiencing quite significant flu symptoms at this stage. I was the only one in my family that had gone down. About three days later, my son woke up after a full night’s sleep. So about 11 hours sleep and he woke up and he said, I am so tired.

And, but [00:06:00] I found this virus to be such a sleeper. I slept day and night. About a week. And I haven’t done that in so, so long. It was, it was like that feeling of just not being able to open your eyes. Whereas my husband, when he finally went down a whole week after me, he was just very much resting, like fatigued and needing to be in bed, but binge watching Netflix.

Whereas I couldn’t keep my eyes open to watch a show. So my son had, he, he woke up extremely tired with a fever. He again, slept with blankets to keep him. Warm, even though he was shivering and the two of us slept in the same bed together and he slept all day, woke up, intermittently asked for an ice water, went back to sleep, woke up again, independently, asked for an ice water.

He slept all that night. Woke up fine, probably operating at 90%. So aren’t children just so amazing. They’re so resilient. That’s not to [00:07:00] say my heart goes out for the people that are struggling. There are obviously people that aren’t doing well. I’m just explaining my, our family’s experiences. I want to make that really clear.

So we had a fever, lots of sweating, aches and pains. Uh, headache and I developed what I now know is a thing called the COVID rash. So my whole back was covered in a really bad, very itchy rash. That is some, I’ve still got it now. And it’s been three, three and a half weeks later. So it’s significantly. And my skin has cleared a lot.

I’ve just got to the last of a few bumps, but that was unexpected. And at first I thought, oh, is it because I’ve been sort of lying in my to be gross? Like. But for so long, but then I found out it was, it was a thing that was really, really HGN, painful, and covered my entire back. Quite amazing. The other interesting symptom that I had that I haven’t heard before is that [00:08:00] my, the skin on my feet completely started peeling off.

And in my studies in functional nutrition, the skin peeling on your feet is a sign of Libra, gold butter imbalance. So, and often relates to the inability of you to do. But, so I found that really interesting because obviously my liver was working really, really hard, which is a key detox location channel.

So as soon as my symptoms got better, as soon as I got better, that skin was, it was like night and day was absolutely perfect. It was the most miraculous, one of the most miraculous observations of my own body I’ve ever seen personally. So it took me a good two weeks to get over this. And it’s. Things, I think in the last few days of that two weeks, when you try and do something and you’re just not operating at your normal pace.

So I try and go for a walk and I’d be drenched in sweat and everything was just so much harder. I try and have an infrared sauna. Because you recreating that internal heat, like [00:09:00] recreating the fever to try and get the body to eliminate and sweat and eliminate the virus. I was unable to go in the sauna for probably nine days, and that is very unlike rate.

And the first one I did have was a lasted five minutes. It was so hard and I’m in my sauna like four times a week at really, really hot temperatures. So. I found that really interesting life was a struggle for a couple of weeks that’s for sure. So I thought it would be helpful to talk about what we did during and after in terms of supplement and lifestyle tips and tricks and hacks.

So as a function in nutrition, I use supplements in my practice. And so we were prepared. I had purchased my own advanced immunity bundles. So interestingly though, for the first few days I was so unwell, I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t even take a supplement, which is very unlike me. I’m very onto my, uh, my nutrients, my therapeutic grade nutrients.[00:10:00] 

So my son and my husband, they, I was straight onto their protocols that the appropriate dosages, which we pushed right up during. Challenge, but it took me a few days before I could even go near anything I didn’t eat for four days with sort of in amongst other practitioners were joking around a bit about it, but this is COVID diet.

So I lost about three and a half kilos, seven pounds in the time that I had it, which is so interesting to me, the dehydration. So intense. I was drinking probably three to four liters of water a day. I just could not get enough on a notice, the same in my son, but just couldn’t stomach a thing. And I remember the first thing I ate.

I don’t eat a lot of fruit in my diet, but for about a week afterwards, all I wanted was fruit. And then the second week, all I wanted was made was protein and I don’t eat a lot of meat. So I found that. Fascinating as well. And I’ve heard that comment as [00:11:00] well, and I just couldn’t stomach vegetables and I absolutely love my veggies.

It was really, really interesting to watch the absolute hunger for fruit. And I wonder if that’s the sugar, because I hadn’t ate in a few days, but I was eating as many like dragon fruit, pink, dragon fruit. I couldn’t get enough of pink lady apples. Just things that I do. A normally melon. So all of these sweet fruits are lots and lots of berries.

So my husband mark came down with COVID exactly seven days after I did. So our PCR tests were a week apart positive to each other. So that was very interesting in itself. Given we live together. Uh, we didn’t stop kissing. We didn’t isolate from each other or anything like that during the experience. So that latency period is interesting.

Isn’t it? So when he came down with it, his experience is very similar to what I’ve seen in a lot of my clients and a lot of the families that I work with and friends all over the world, [00:12:00] he experienced what I would describe as a mild flu. So he had what he described as he felt, and this wasn’t through drinking.

He felt hung over all the time and he was fatigued, but just in bed doing a lot of resting. Now we were right onto his supplements. So it’s good to talk about his protocol. Cause I was not onto mine at all until after I could sort of manage to get out of. We really pushed his doses of vitamin D of fish oil of Kakuma longer.

So you might know it as . So these are all acumen and the fish oil are massive. Antiinflammatories when you can use them at high doses. So we were straight on to. Supplement protocol. We also use an antiviral. That’s got beautiful antiviral herbs in it, like Andrographis and we use highly concentrated zinc as well.

So we’ve got an immune support that has Andrographis. And [00:13:00] zinc included some medicinal mushrooms Austraila Vera. So all of which are antiviral and it’s important that whilst we were symptomatic, we use things at high dosages, so, and magnesium as well. And vitamin D I want to talk about vitamin D in particular, because what we’re seeing now in the research is that vitamin D.

So protective. What we know about vitamin D is that its role in the body is absolutely incredible. And as an antiviral, what we can do is push the levels up whilst you’re asymptomatic to help reduce the symptoms. So there’s a study that’s been done in a hospital in Spain that showed that 80% of their COVID patients were deficient in vitamin.

Day. So that’s a really big number. You can increase the levels of vitamin D safely without having to worry about toxicity. We’ve seen that in [00:14:00] other research studies as well. So what we know is that vitamin D reduces the risk of acute respiratory infections. And so given that we know that the COVID virus attacks the respiratory system, vitamin D.

Hormone that we should really be paying attention to normally 80 to a hundred percent of the vitamin D that we need comes from the sun. However, that means that we need to get enough sun. So when we’re in a country where we’re going into a winter or something like that, it’s really important that we supplement with vitamin D and we see fantastic results.

From when we do supplement. So we see decreasing inflammation, inflammation being the leading cause of disease. We see increase in mood, it eases muscle aches and fibromyalgia. Very, very good for building bones. You probably know that one essential for the immune system and it’s been shown to prevent cancer because what it does is actually increases [00:15:00] cell differentiation, which is an anticancer state.

Just a phenomenal vitamin hormone. And I love, love, love talking about vitamin D because we’re seeing some real deficiencies and functionally what we see on a blood test. First of all, I think it’s really important that you know, your vitamin D level to start with. And second of all, I strongly recommend you use a functional level of vitamin D.

So I like to keep my clients at about a hundred and if you’ve got any sort of autoimmune condition, you can really push that level up. But on a laboratory tests, what those markers that we see, I have a really wide range and that may not be where you feel optimal. So for example, on a blood test, you know, if you’re showing a level of 40.

That may fall into the normal category, but you don’t feel normal, you know, something’s not right. Maybe your mood, and if we push your vitamin D up and it [00:16:00] gives you all of those protective measures, especially I find you can really notice a difference with your mood. Another thing that is. Commonly known about antiviral measures is breathing.

And I’m excited because in a few weeks, we’re having a special guest on the podcast who is a breathwork expert, but you may know the difference between mouth breathing and nose breathing. When we breathe through our nose, what actually happens is that we make something called natural. Oxide and nitric oxide has been shown to be a natural antiviral.

So very, very good for the COVID virus, which is attacking that respiratory system. So breathing through the nose is really important, but a lot of humans are actually mouth breathers and you may be a mouth breather. And not realize because you’re doing the mouth breathing at night. A lot of mouth breathers are also snore it.

So it’s a good time to [00:17:00] check. If you are breathing through your nose or through your mouth. There’s been a study in Canada that has shown the nitric oxide is very, very good for reducing the symptoms of COVID so much so that you can actually buy it in a pharmacy, in a bottle. The human body makes it. So my recommendation is to ensure that you are breathing through your nose and not your mouth.

And there’s some really inexpensive ways to do that. If you’re not sure there’s some great tape that you can buy, there’s some other bits and pieces, and we can link some things in the show notes for you. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it is important that you have that awareness of yourself. Are you a mouth breather or are you a nosebleed?

So go and take that out. It goes without saying as a functional medicine practitioner, that one of the best things you can do when you’re unwell is to listen to your body, to stay really hydrated. And that means that you may need to have salt to make sure that you’re actually absorbing the water [00:18:00] that you’re drinking, especially with this virus, I’ve found from people that I’ve spoken to and our own experience.

It is very, very dehydrating. So. Lots and lots of rest. We use things like broth or chicken, homemade chicken soup, which is really good for the minerals. Minerals are the spark plugs of the cells. So that they’re, they’re a really good way that we can get what the body needs to heal itself. Food wise, there’s some fantastic antiviral foods.

You can even make a tea out of ginger. Golly cayenne pepper. So that may or may not be appealing to you, but a lot of people do lose their taste and their smell. I never lost my smell and my taste did something very strange. I’m the only person, of course, of course I have to be different in some way. I’m the only person that this has happened to that I know, but everything.

I ate tasted or drank, tasted hyper sweet. So I found that really fascinating. And [00:19:00] when you do tests, functionally for zinc deficiency, quite often, you can give a, we use an aqueous zinc solution. So zinc in water to see how deficient somebody is in zinc. So one of the functional tests we do in the clinic, To measure a zinc deficiency is the zinc tally test.

And that’s when the client drinks and acquiesced solution on zinc in water. One of the things I find so interesting about my response is that on that scale of how. Sufficient or deficient you are in zinc. Sometimes that solution can taste sweet, which indicates that you’re quite deficient in zinc. And so everything to me was tasting, tasting so sweet.

So my theory is that it has something to do with what was happening with zinc in my. So we’ve talked about vitamin D and the importance of this very special hormone that you can get through the sun. Supplementation [00:20:00] is really critical to ensure that your levels are optimal and that you feel good where your levels are at.

So I highly recommend that we’ve talked about some homeopathic herbs, like Andrographis and Astro bloggers, which have been shown to be antiviral. We’ve talked about. Food’s antiviral foods like garlic and ginger cayenne pepper, which you can make into a tea. And then there’s. Also beautiful real foods, which whole unprocessed unadulterated foods and what they do is that they feed the gut and really support your immune system.

We know that 60 or north of 60% of the immune system sits in the gut. So the lasting thought I will leave with you is Hippocrates said all disease begins in the gut. So. Always a great place to go back to. There’s a famous quote in Ayurveda. [00:21:00] If your guts not healthy, you’re not healthy. If you want to fix disease, heal your gut.

And this is way back in the 19 hundreds. So we’ve known. For a very long time. So even after we’ve been through all of this and I was able to tolerate supplements again, my first go-to was to go straight to my gut and to work on that. So to heal and seal the gut lining ensure there’s no leaky gut to make sure that I was eating, I am eating lots of foods to feed.

Good guys in my gut to make sure that we don’t have any critters that are there, that aren’t supposed to be there, or that aren’t supporting me at the moment. We can use lots of prebiotic foods like garlic, asparagus cooked, and called. Um, green from bananas are so resistant, starches fiber, fiber, fiber, fiber, through non starchy veggies through other [00:22:00] beautiful nutrients like flax and chia seeds, which are also awesome for our hormonal communication system.

So really going to the gut and feeding the gut. What it’s so. Desperately needs, which is real food, fruits and veggies are full of color. That color has nutrients and polyphenols in there that we know the gut just laps up. So it’s really important to make sure that you’re feeding your gut. That is where your immune system sits.

So recover. You can recover and re bill. And above all really master your mind. And one of the things that if you know me you’ll know that I loved to talk about psycho linguistics. I’m absolutely passionate and a specialist in ensuring that you master the language, the words that you use to support health, to support healthcare, not sick care.

So out of the, all the experiences that I was going [00:23:00] through, even when. Feeling terrible and really hanging out in these flu like symptoms. I was focused on being grateful, having gratitude for my beautiful body, my beautiful immune system, how miraculous the human body is that it has the ability to know how to heal itself.

And I was incessant about that and the repetition of that and repetition, if you repeat something longer, It will become a belief. So we’ve got affirmations that we want to turn into beliefs. So, and the mastering, your language is a really good way to do that. I’ve told you this before, but 90% of the thoughts that we think of the same as the day before.

So what is going on in your mind and is it supporting health care? Or is it supporting sick care? I know what I’d prefer. So my beautiful [00:24:00] lasting thought with you is to really think about the language that you’re using to support yourself. So you can share that very special gift that only you have. I hope you’ve enjoyed this mini dose on the Balca experience with COVID and that it helps you in some way, sending so much love and light and blessings your way.

Please let us know if any of these tips and tricks are supported you. I read every DM, every email, and I love hearing from you. And don’t forget if you’ve got a question. For us, send it through and I can answer it in this mini dose for you so that the world can hear the response to your beautiful question.

Thank you so much. Have an amazing day, Bubba. If you made it to the end of this episode, celebrate your stealth because it means you are truly dedicated to feeling better in your. In your career in your [00:25:00] relationships. And I am so proud of you, and if you want more of the feel better now, so tune in every Monday for new episodes and join our community on Instagram at Jackie batter for all the behind the scenes action and more.

Hey, why don’t you sign up for a chance to have your question? At field better institute.com/signup. That’s feel better. institute.com/signup, but most of all, please keep reaching to feel better because the world needs you to feel good. So you can share that very special gift that only you have. So with that said you soon here’s to feeling better now.

Buh-bye. Jackie Bowker.