A case of mistaken identity
Fingers crossed you have managed to overcome the massive hypoglycemic slump induced by all the easter eggs the Easter bunny left for you and have enjoyed the pleasure of a 4 day work week.
I have loved seeing the new Vitamin D TRIAD product (it has vitamin D and two forms of K2 MK4 & MK7, hence TRAID…..obvs) being sent off.
We have sent out over 10% of our initial stockroom out to happy practitioners.
So we have already placed another bigger order to keep up with demand and are getting ready to launch new products.
Now to this weeks newsletter, back in 2019 when the world wasn’t bonkers, my wife and I were out for dinner, enjoying asian fused cuisine.
The food was excellent and while we were alone we had company.
The couple on the table next to us were very, very loud and very, very chatty.
The lady is twisted 180 degrees in order to talk at the couple behind them.
It really wasn’t a two way conversation, more a broadcast of opinion at a fellow diner who didn’t seem that interested in chatting with her.
At this point I am starting to get nervous she will try to and talk to us, especially me.
I am not in the mood.
I have a mouth full of teriyaki, I use up most of my polite chit chat in clinic and when I am out with my wife on a rare occasion without the small people we made, I want it to be just us.
And then she locks her eyes onto my wife and says something remarkable (in thick south African accent)…..”do you know who you remind me of?”.
Awkward silence.
“Mary J Blige”.
Now for those that are not fans of Ms Blige, here she is.
Of course most of you will not know what my wife looks like, so here she is.
At this point your finely tuned powers of observation, honed by years of patient assessment, are going into overdrive trying to see the similarity.
In my humble opinion, there isn’t one.
What we have here is a simple case of mistaken identity (and a p***ed up south African feeling chatty).
As it happens I am something of an expert on mistaken identity.
For many years my immune system was convinced that our sacra-iliac joint cartilage was going to get me and so took drastic action and tried to kill them.
You could drive a bus drive my SI joint line on x-ray, it’s one of the reasons I walk with such a provocative sashay, a bit like those people that do the walking races in the Olympics.
Turns out my immune system was going for bad bugs in my gut but my SIJ cartilage looked enough like the bugs for mistaken identity to occur.
Klebsiella specifically if you are interested.
Over the years I have spent a lot of money on consults and tests with many practitioners.
Ironically the two that had some of the most profound effect on my health were the world leading researchers (in ankylosing spondylitis and psoriasis), phoned me personally after I emailed them, and charged me…..nothing.
Not a penny.
Plus they both sent me all the research they have ever done, for free.
Sometimes, a small amount of time with gold nuggets of information to educate and empower patients for life can be profound.
Dr Alan Ebringer who discovered the link between Klebsiella and AS, and Dr William Rosenberg who published the article below in 1994 on psoriasis and microbes, changed my life with a little time, compassion and humility.
You can do the same with your patients with vitamin D.
It has been linked to auto-immunity aka mistaken identity, for many years.
We have the table from https://www.grassrootshealth.
You can download it here:
https://www.grassrootshealth.
The research is not perfect but given it is a natural substance we make when UVB hits the skin, and we have a evolutionary mismatch with our lifestyle, do we really need perfect RCT’s for every condition?
I know what optimal would be if I lived in a summer climate year round I want to mimic that, end of story.
The benefits will be multiple and varied, with outcomes complex depending on many other factors. But can we justify leaving patients in deficient status given what we already know?
I would strongly argue no.
ACTIONS TO TAKE:
– Send your patients to these free patient education videos on vitamin D on my personal site, they are 5 minutes long and answer all the questions they have on vitamin D.
https://integrativecare.co.uk/
– Grab some vitamin D TRIAD and give your patients what they need, an evolutionarily congruent supplement.
– Try to avoid p***ed up diners who are clearly drunk and need their eyes tested, they are really annoying.