He Forgot Something and Jogged Through the House. No Way That Could Have Happened Before.
Three real patients. Three different stories. The same pattern.
This Week in Practice
About this email: These are pulled from real visit transcripts at our practice. Quotes are verbatim. Cases are de-identified and minor details are changed to protect privacy. None of this guarantees results. These patients probably did what we recommended. Many people don't.
All three started with the same step, an Inflammation and Autoimmunity Assessment with myself or a member of my team.
Jogging for the First Time in Years
He came to us with progressive neurological symptoms that were crippling him as a husband and a father.
Foot drop - imagine catching your toes on every step or even on an unlevel side walk
Declining coordination - he was losing his ability to walk and perform routine daily tasks
Cognitive decline - poor memory, comprehension, and word recall
And this despite being a man in middle life, with young kids and a wife to support.
Failure is not an option in cases like this. So we take an aggressive approach.
Hair testing showed extreme elevations in:
Cadmium
Lead
And modest elevations in mercury. There was a clear source - an occupational exposure.
We started mineral balancing, sauna, bioidentical hormones, MSM, vitamin C, and iodine, along with the rest of our framework for diet and lifestyle.
Then we escalated to high-dose vitamin D. He started taking over 80,000 IU of vitamin D daily.
At two months, his wife reported:
“The other day he forgot something and he just jogged through the house - through multiple rooms, coordinated, at a normal pace. No way that could have happened before.”
The foot drop? “Like disappeared comparatively.”
He was doing 30 minutes of sauna daily at 140°F, finally sweating the way you need to - heavily. His cadmium and lead dropped dramatically. He’s holding up to the heat of sauna better and better, whereas before he struggled to tolerate even short sessions.
This is what our practice looks like at the highest level - and this is the kind of results that keep our team going.
His new goal? Playing soccer with his kids by Autumn.
The Inflammation and Autoimmunity Assessment is where we figure out whether someone is a candidate for this and how aggressively we can be in their care.
When What You’re Taking Is the Root Cause of Your Gut Issues
She had interstitial lung disease, chronically elevated glucose, and new GI problems. She’d been on 500 mg of metformin twice daily for over twenty years.
If you’re taking the same dose of something year after year, it might be worth talking to a practitioner about it. We often find patients are being over-dosed.
She realized this when she got a continuous glucose monitor.
“My blood sugar was going into the 60s, into the 50s at night. I said, wait a minute. I’m taking Metformin and then going to bed? How stupid have I been?”
She stopped the evening dose. In two weeks her energy had improved and GI problems had been “reduced tremendously.”
Metformin’s most documented side effect is GI distress. She hadn’t thought to look at whether the nighttime dose was a problem, because her fasting glucose still ran high enough in the morning to justify the prescription.
That’s not the only thing that was troubling her gut.
She was on an experimental medication for her lung disease. One of the side effects was loose stools. She cut her dose in half and the last of her GI symptoms resolved.
Never settle for one culprit. Sometimes there’s more than one.
This is why we aggressively de-prescribe medications. In this particular case, I suspect she can stop the experimental medication entirely. That’s what we’re working towards. This is always a shared decision between myself and the patient - there is always risk. Where there is risk, there must be choice. My goal is to help patients understand the risk, so they can make an informed decision.
Eliminating unnecessary medications is one of the most important parts of our process, but it has to be done carefully and thoughtfully. There’s a time and a place for medications.
We start the process of de-prescribing in our Inflammation and Autoimmunity Assessment.
Two Weeks Off the Protocol - and She Felt It Immediately
She was in her early thirties, managing fatigue and thyroid issues, doing the right things.
Then she went to Texas for Easter. Her daily routine fell apart. She missed multiple doses of supplements.
Within two weeks, her fatigue had returned. When she tried to restart, she got nauseous and badly bloated.
“I got super nauseous. I was taking [personalized mineral and vitamin supplements] and vitamin C together with a meal. I think it’s the vitamin C.”
This is common. Vitamin C tolerance fluctuates. The calibration dose you build up to early in the protocol often declines as the repair deficit comes down. She’d worked up to a high dose, gone off for two weeks, and had restarted at the same level. It turned out to be too much.
But she had made real progress despite this.
Her zinc had jumped 17 points across four months - a significant improvement. TSH had declined to a more optimal level. Her IGF-1 had risen by 10 points, which matched her improved sleep and increased protein intake. One thing that hadn’t moved - her magnesium was stuck at the same level despite three months of magnesium supplementation.
Her gut health had improved too.
“Once I was on the full [dose of personalized mineral and vitamin supplements], I had a daily bowel movement for the first time. I think I was just constipated most of my life and didn’t realize it.”
Our plan?
Pause all supplements for three days to reset. Then restart one supplement every three days. We added choline citrate to improve magnesium absorption, given the fact that we hadn’t moved the needle with our initial protocol. We continued the personalized mineral and vitamin protocol - it was clearly working. She’ll re-calibrate her vitamin C dose and go from there.
Sound overwhelming? That’s why we break the process down into multiple visits. The process starts with an Inflammation and Autoimmunity Assessment to get clarity on whether or not this is the right path in the first place.
A Thought Before I Go
Most of our patients have already tried a lot of things before they start with us. They’re conscientious, driven people. And they are surrounded by people who care about them.
The secret for them isn’t more random protocols, biohacks, or supplements.
It’s a calm, structured system that’s been designed based on hundreds of cases like these.
What we do doesn’t fit in an Instagram carousel or reel, or a YouTube short.
It’s a process with many permutations and endless variety.
It keeps us on our toes.
And successes like this keep us going despite the fact that it’s hard work, with a high-level of complexity.
Our patients keep coming back and referring their friends and family because they know we care, and because they see results like these.
If you see yourself in any of these stories and you’re tired of guessing and going it alone, let’s talk.
Book your Inflammation and Autoimmunity Assessment today.
As always, discuss any changes with your own licensed clinician. Read our full disclaimers, disclosures, and our position on health freedom here.
Until next time, be well,
Dr. Stillman
Educational content only. Not medical advice. See full disclaimers.