Special Replay: Toréa on GabLab | E059
Join us for a special replay of the captivating episode of the GabLab Podcast as Toréa dove into a thought-provoking conversation with Michael Wilson. In this fun interview, we explore the intersection of chronic illness and autoimmune disorders, while delving into unexpected territories such as flying jets and the profound learnings aviation can bring to healing..
Discover firsthand what transformation truly means as we unravel the fascinating journey & unique perspective on personal growth that Torea has developed over the years.. Brace yourself for an enlightening discussion on the use of psychedelics in both transformation and wellness, as she shares her experiences and insights on this intriguing topic.
Whether you're seeking inspiration, knowledge, or a fresh perspective, this episode promises to offer a profound exploration of chronic illness, the pursuit of transformation, and the potential of psychedelics in shaping our well-being. Tune in now to the replay of the GabLab Podcast.
In This Episode
00:00 Special Replay: Toréa on GabLab
04:31 Toréa’s Professional Journey
11:24 What is Hashimoto’s and why is it a common issue among women.
18:21 The path of healing for people with Hashimoto’s
26:31 Neuro Linguistic Programming
31:53 Mental Health should be your number one priority
38:18 Trust in your own healing ability
43:56 Psychedelics and Quantum Healing
53:48 Putting the rubber to the road and putting things into action
1:02:19 Does Psilocybin Increase Neuroplasticity?
1:07:59 Toréa’s awesome retreats
1:16:03 ATLA Water filtration system
1:19:11 Pandemic and the stagnant pond
1:42:03 Growing up with mental illness in the family
1:46:36 The Wellness Curiosity Collective
1:54:17 The Transformation Academy
And if you enjoyed this, be sure to keep an ear out over the next two weeks for the rest of our Elements series: water and fire!
Resources Mentioned
Connect with Michael
GabLab Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/6yC8OmbDuFcdsASWgSyxqj?si=00e4f486079e4ec6
Michael’s Social Links:
@gablab.show
@harmony_acres
@all_things_amanita
Michael’s websites:
www.allthingsamanita.com
www.harmonyacresfarms.org
Connect with Toréa
Website: https://www.torearodriguez.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torearodriguez/
Connect with Evie
Website: https://holisticallyrestored.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holisticallyrestored/
Join the Optimized Wellness Community: https://torea.co/Premium
Submit a Question for the Show: https://www.torearodriguez.com/podcast-question
Transcript
Toréa Rodriguez 0:08
Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. I am your host, Toréa Rodriguez. And I’m joined by the lovely co host, Evie Takacs. Both of us are Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioners and we love working with women from all over the world, through our virtual programs, helping women not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves, they’ve been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Now, please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you like what you hear today, we would love for you to hit that follow button, leave a review in Apple podcast, share with your friends, and keep coming back for more. Let’s start today’s adventure shall we?
Toréa Rodriguez 1:08
Okay, welcome back, everybody to the wellness optimized wellness podcast, we have a lovely guest who I have met in Bend, Oregon. And she and I were talking about a completely different topic. And then we stumbled in on long COVID. And her story was so compelling that I wanted to invite her onto the podcast and share with us her experience with long coven. So Helina, welcome to the podcast and please introduce yourself and let us know a little bit about you and then we'll just go from there.
Halina Kowalski 1:39
Sure, thank you, Toréa so much. It's just an honor to be here. I definitely. I haven't done a lot of speaking out on my journey. But I've wanted to I've definitely shared with a lot of people close to my circle who you know, and I've started to kind of put out feelers just within my networks of like, hey, if anyone's dealing with this, like, I'm here to help. Because I definitely, I think it was an important journey. And I think it's one that is hard to navigate. And I think I had certain skills that helped me navigate it in a way that ultimately led to, you know, healing that I think others haven't found yet because they they just don't have the resources, or know what to be looking for. So that's ultimately I think, kind of part of how we got started talking about this. My background. I am a marriage and family therapist and training and a licensed professional counselor in Oregon. So mental health therapy, but I've been doing mental health clinical research with the VA, primarily in the areas of post traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries for 15 years or so. So I have, I'm very, very well versed in, in research and what makes quality research and you know, the things you kind of be looking for there, which is one of the pieces I think it's important, and that's helped me along my way. But I also we got talking because I also run locally gathers on a house. It's a mobile sauna woodfire traditional experience. And that's a that's a whole nother topic. But it also dovetails into this as well, just as, as far as how thermal contrast therapies can really help with chronic chronic illness.
Toréa Rodriguez 3:37
Yeah, so yeah. Awesome. So tell us a little bit about your background as a clinical researcher, and how did that really play a pivotal role or an expedient role in you getting the information that you needed, because we are what you're for kind of getting into year four of this pandemic. And there are still people who are not able to put the connect the dots in a way to understand that long COVID is a thing for them. So how did clinical research and your skills as clinical research and then we'll talk about your story of putting those together? But how did that kind of play a role?
Halina Kowalski 4:20
Yeah, I mean, I think that was one of the most important pieces just because you know, if well, just by nature, if I've got a problem I am I going to be researching, researching, researching, researching my way out of it. I mean, I just do that fundamentally. With things in my life, if you ask my husband, you know, he down some rabbit hole researching something. And that's in the broad sense of research, you know, but yeah, I think so. I got COVID for the first and only time that I know of so far in August of 2021. So it was little bit later than some folks who have, you know, some 2020 folks who got exposed to COVID and are still struggling with long COVID. Yeah. Are, you know, still trying to piece this out? One one thing when it comes to COVID, when it's COVID, long, COVID Anything is early treatment is paramount. And that's something that, you know, so early, early intervention in COVID, the que COVID leads to better prognosis leads to better outcomes as far as avoiding long COVID I, you know, at that point, I did not know that.
Toréa Rodriguez 5:40
I don't think any of us knew that.
Halina Kowalski 5:43
Right. And part of what we initially talked about Toréa when, you know, was just, you know, being a part of sort of the VA system for so long, and my brother's a doctor, and I'm in mental health, I had a lot of trust, I think it was the one last institution that I had a lot of trust in being the medical, you know, medical complex, but the medical and our healthcare systems, I just kind of blindly trusted there. And I think overall, my journey would now inform me in a different way, knowing more the the realities of what just even primary care doctors are faced with, and the fact that they're not really paying attention to, you know, the most recent clinical research, even in the wake of a novel pandemic. And so, this, this kind of led beats down this pathway of learning about functional medicine, which is I just, this is all just a frame, like I have such a deep respect for what you do, and, and the fact that you're sharing it, and that there are we're getting more and more, you know, naturopath and in functional medicine practitioners who are really trying to look at root cause, and it bring up root cause because as a researcher, I'm always most fascinated by the mechanisms of why something works, or why, you know, what are the what are the important clinical underpinnings that inform this particular way of treatment. And I think that's the piece that I came into this with, because I just, I really started just, you know, when I had acute COVID, I was definitely really worried about long COVID, I didn't know what it was totally at that point at all, I just had heard some kind of horror stories like we all had, and I was just like, wow, that's something I really don't want, I really didn't think I would be one of those people. And I didn't really know a lot about what I do now about how I would intervene, what kinds of supplements and, and even medications I might take now to intervene in acute COVID. But when, when my symptoms, new symptoms started coming on, some symptoms didn't go away, and then new symptom started coming on within about a month. I knew instantly that it was long, COVID and I and they kept getting worse. And I just did what I do. And I just went down my hole of research. And I just think that I found my way to certain resources, which we can talk about explicitly, but certain resources that I was able to evaluate pretty quickly like this is, you know, this makes sense. And this treatment that these people are doing that I can tell is very hard. You know, I've found my way to the right resource, it's telling me about this resource. And I know, and then looking at their whole theoretical model behind what they're doing, which is not mainstream at all, they're not going to get the research and the university and all the kinds of different NIH support that they need. Because it's not mainstream. And in fact, it's a bit experimental. At least it was at this point. I mean, I think it would still be judged experimental at this point. But that's, that's a whole nother thing with how research is done in this country and all that. And where funds are actually being put right now towards these things. But yeah, I, I basically was able to evaluate these treatments that I would even say now feel really risky that I ended up doing. But I could but they had really sound mechanisms behind it, and they had developed their own biomarkers for it. And so I was able to take a blood test show that I you know, that prove that my cytokines, my immune system was totally over inflamed and out of whack. And then they had specific treatments that they targeted towards these, you know, my particular cytokine panel, and I just it made it there's there's a whole theory behind this particular treatment I did initially. But I just think I was able to evaluate that in a way that most people will just I mean, even when I tried to talk to my own family about it, they're like, you've lost me. But I'm glad you found what? You know. So, sorry, that was a long winded way.
Toréa Rodriguez 10:12
It's great to understand. Because, I mean, here you are you do clinical research, you and I have also talked about your other projects where you're involved in writing grants. And so you know, how all of this stuff works. So that gave you that perspective to be able to look at some of the findings that you were finding in 2021 and beyond, to really understand like, okay, is this like grounded in like, some pretty solid research mechanisms? Or is this really primarily anecdotal, or people are just kind of going off of? Well, I think saltwater is the cure, or whatever it happens to be, you're able to sniff out snake oil from real legit stuff in a way that a lot of people don't just don't have those skills to be able to do.
Halina Kowalski 10:57
Yeah, to, to an extent, I think a lot of long COVID. interventions and treatments have been really trial and error, because we've had to be, because people don't have the time to suffer. And truly, they don't, because this ongoing rampid chronic inflammation is has the potential to do long term nerve damage. And that's going to be harder to treat as you go along. I somehow intuitively, and also just, you know, some of these resources I picked up, I just really felt like I've got to get something that works fast. And I did get on this treatment within two months of my acute infection. And I think that has everything to do with my prognosis. Or the, you know, so far I'm, you know, I feel like I'm pretty much like 99.9% healed, I think, you know, there's, I'm more susceptible, like, I'm worried about reinfections. And but I have a lot more tools. And then, you know, there was this sort of initial more pharmacological intervention that I did based on. And then I really after that have gone into a lot more functional medicine and holistic, you know, healing ways of just working on inflammation in my body in general and understanding that as a key underpinning for what's going on in long COVID.
Toréa Rodriguez 12:18
Well, since both Evie and I practice functional medicine, you are welcome to go into the rabbit hole here with us, I would love to know, you know, you mentioned a cytokine panel. That's an uncommon panel, especially for functional medicine. So I would love to understand what did you learn? And what kind of markers were you pulling to discover that you had this kind of inflammation, because when we look at inflammation, typically it's like a hscrp, or an A1C, or we're looking at maybe, and fatty Omega six, Omega three panel, like, those kinds of things. We're not really looking at the cytokines and the way that you were unless we're looking at chronic inflammatory response syndrome, which has its own set of markers associated with it. So we would love to hear like, what did you discover in terms of markers, and what did you start tracking?
Halina Kowalski 13:15
So, yeah, okay, so, so I found my way to this, this group called Intel dx. And it's, it's run, led by Dr. Bruce Patterson, and Dr. Bruce Patterson. He is a shoot. It's patho. immunology, I don't know if I'm saying he's worked in the pathology of the immune system for you know, decades and was really got his he kind of came up in his medical career in the height of HIV. And it's just a total expert in in that and then innovative diagnostics for for these kinds of, because I mean, the world of immunology is really, really it's pretty what's the word I'm trying to say? It's pretty new. I mean, there's a lot we don't know about the immune system and how it works and functions. So
Toréa Rodriguez 14:20
Wow, it was the same way 25 years ago when I was doing my undergrad, you know, it's like, you take immunology and there's like, oh, there's so much we don't know. And fast forward. There's more we know more. But we're still in that stage. Like there's so much we don't.
Halina Kowalski 14:36
Yes, and I think COVID and long COVID has really brought that really to the forefront again, you know, just like HIV did at the time. But anyway, Bruce Patterson and he was the former, like chief of Hatha immunology, or I again I'm not saying it right but at will now I'm not even I think it might be Stanford anyway, a premier university at one point but he went off and so it his own company in cell dx. That primarily focused on these, you know, really innovative diagnostics and innovative technology around diagnostics. So, his group, you know, he really started working on this with his group at the beginning in 2020, you know, and he had a really interest, he has his own really interesting story about how he got into it, because, you know, he's been on this other path, and but there's so much overlap of what's maybe going on a little bit with HIV and long COVID. At least there's some and there's definitely overlap in some of the markers that are elevated. And so anyway, he, he went to her work early on, and trying to figure out a way to biomarkers for long COVID What's going on, so he, using machine learning, and you know, some really complex statistical and technological, technical technologies, they were able to basically come up with, and I can't remember their initial sample, but it was really large of, you know, comparing acute COVID people, long COVID people and I think, normal controls. And with machine learning, they came up with this, what they're kind of, they call the immune signature of long COVID looking at, and so they were they showed this the certain subset of cytokines that were more commonly elevated in long haulers. And not only that they developed an algorithm that actually like gave you a long haul or index, which I think they've since refined because they're learning more and more all the time. But yeah, so and they, I with like, 98% confidence, this algorithm, went through this blood test can predict lung COVID via these particular cytokines. One of the big ones in his theory is Randy's CCR five, which is commonly elevated in HIV. And their theory of let me make sure I mean, I haven't talked about this a little bit, but let me so I might be slightly off. But their theory that really made sense to me is that you know, the toxic thing here, because they see now a lot of people who are vaccine injured as well. And there's similar things going on there. Because really the toxic thing here spike protein, and their theory here is that what's happening, and they were able to show it, they're able to show this now, and they have a new test for this that shows basically spike protein remnants that are stuck in monocytes, which is another piece of the immune system. But basically, they believe that pieces of Spike not replicating competent pieces of virus but just pieces of the spike protein. Because these monocytes, these nonclassical monocytes. Their job in the immune system typically is they're the garbage trucks, and they come and they want to viruses come through, they come in, they eat that up, and then they go kill themselves. And that's how it clears these pieces of virus, it clears them from the immune system that way normally, what they found is that these nonclassical monocytes, which by the way, these nonclassical minus monocytes. They monitor, they move all over your body traveling on the endothelial traveling on the blood vessels. So this is another piece about how symptoms can be all over and all these different systems. But what they found is that these monocytes are eating spike pieces of the spike protein or the remnants and but under these pathological conditions caused in COVID, they're not they're not getting the programming to go kill themselves. So instead, they're just roaming around the lining of the blood vessels, saying I've got inflammation, I've got inflammation in me, and you know, and they're attracting all these inflammatory cytokines to different sites that can be in it, they move us why long haul or symptoms can be here, you know, they can be in all these different systems and travel and move. And we know that exercise increases that because exercise increases these monocytes their activity and their movement. So basically,
Toréa Rodriguez 19:19
A lot of long haulers who have issues with post exertional malaise because they go and they exercise and then their body reacts abnormally to that and therefore the fatigue is a much longer on a recovery profile. Yeah,
Halina Kowalski 19:35
Yes. Yep. Exactly right. And an increase increases their action and increases their movement. And so now you've got increased symptoms and more inflammation. So that's kind of the base, you know, and I was like, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, and, and then, so those, the increase of so and now they're able to actually test and show spike protein and those monocytes. So, by the end of my treatment, I was able to take another test and show like, oh, I don't have any more spike in my, in my monocytes, which is great. That's amazing. And and that matches the fact that my immune panel went back to normal. Okay, which is great, because the biggest thing among COVID It's like, there's no, we have no biomarkers, we have no biomarkers. We can't study this, but we do. It's just that the things that are working are out there are not being platformed and not being funded appropriately. However, Bruce, and his group finally did get funding, and they're about to start a clinical trial finally, and they've been working on that for a really long time. That is amazing. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, and so what was I gonna say about? Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, if there's a lot more complexity to it, but the treatment that I was on, so I definitely have really high was CDL 40, what is that one, it's a clotting, it's, it's basically an indicator of clotting, and they were some of the first to know that micro clotting what's happening. And there's also more to their theory about factor pain pathway and, and what's going on there with, with some of these elevated cytokines, and so that basically lend themselves to why one core of their treatment is a statin, a short term statin, not long term, you know, that's generally not in line with that, you know, a more functional or holistic way, but it's short term. And it's, it works. The statin tends to work really synergistically with the one of the cores of their treatment, which is, I was on maraviroc, which is that affects directly the CCR five, the grantees elevated cytokine that's really kind of at the core of all this. And it's an immuno modulator. But it's an HIV drug. And it's, it's not, again, it's unusual model modulator. It doesn't depress the immune system. But it helps basically, it helps fix that signal that then the monocytes can go, Oh, I've got to go do apoptosis and go, you know, take this debris and go kill myself, like I should clear from the body. So, you know, all of that made sense to me, like, Okay, I've got, I've got a biomarker, I've got, you know, this justification of, or, you know, this underpinning of what they think's happening, that's them lending itself directly to the treatment that they think we'll modify this particular you know, so it's precision medicine, in that sense.
Toréa Rodriguez 22:47
Interesting. And did you get a chance to work with Dr. Patterson directly? Or were you working with somebody in a clinic of his like, how did you end up navigating what what they were doing from a research standpoint? And you been able to apply that clinically, in your own situation? How did you end up navigating that?
Halina Kowalski 23:10
Well, yeah, so they haven't, they have a pretty streamlined for how they work with people. And it's all on there, you know, it's COVID, long haulers.com. And when you go to that website, you know, they work with these particular labs, that they worked a really long time to basically validate these initial diagnostic tests. And so there's particular labs, you have to go through and you go through and sell the x. So it's not yet something that like a functional medic, you know, mesh medicine practitioner can just order at any lab. But so their processes, you know, basically, once I kind of read through the research, and I watched a number of different interviews with them talking about this, and talking about this through Bruce himself, I did not work with Bruce himself. He has, although some people do, it's just kind of a lottery of whether you end up but he has a trick he's trained. And it's a growing list of doctors now, and they act as consultants, actually. So. So you, you sign up for telemedicine, but first, you first get your panel done. And you get your panel done, and, and you pay for that. And they've worked really hard to with insurance companies on trying to get reimbursement and a lot of, you know, I got part of my unreimbursed in the end, I could have worked a little harder, probably gotten a little more, but in any case.
Toréa Rodriguez 24:33
The fact that you got anything reimbursed this early in the game is pretty amazing. So well done.
Halina Kowalski 24:41
Yeah. But and that's, you know, they've worked really hard on that piece to instill the X because they really, I mean, they've gotten a lot of criticism for being so experimental. And just in terms of like, you know, oh, people are desperate and they're just trying anything and they're going on these crazy HIV drugs, but it's like, well, they have I mean, they have rapidly expanded, they have now, you know, telemedicine going on and all over Europe. And they've seen like 40,000 patients, and at this point, and a vast majority of those people are getting better, at least to an extent where then they can maybe shift to a more functional and holistic, you know, side of things to be continuing to work on, you know, the overall systemic inflammation, basically. But yeah, so. So you have to find that the hardest piece, I think, because you have to find, and this was, I just lucked out, to be honest on this part, because you have to find a doctor who is willing to go along with this plan, and willing to be consulted, buy and sell the acts and prescribe these drugs in an experimental sort of way. So that is one of the biggest roadblocks for a lot of people however, in cell has been working with so many people now that they usually are able to recommend doctors that will do it. And at the time, that's what happened. There happened to be a doctor in Portland, who was willing to do telemedicine with me, who, you know, had kind of gotten approval from the institution he was working on to just work with blanc COVID People in this way. And I lucked out on that, because he was, he was a big piece of this too. And yeah, so So you get your panel back. And then you get on telemedicine with your prescribing doctor, and one of their consultants and you talk about what the panel indicates. Now it's even much more sophisticated they have you know, they figured out that not all long COVID has just gone COVID A lot of it has reactivated EBV, or reactivated line, but they've diagnosed tons of people and they're able they've actually further they've got further papers that with algorithms that are able to again predict with pretty high confidence 98% or something, whether you fall more into the like the immunological pattern of someone with pure long COVID Or someone with like EBV reactivation or online, they've diagnosed a ton of people with previously unknown line. That just probably wasn't that was just lingering. What's the word dormant in the body without being terminated? Yeah, thank you, yes, normally in the body, and then was reactivated by COVID. And they had no idea. COVID is a huge for that it's hugely reactivating a ton of these hidden pathogens. And so now, you know, that's what's differentiating some of these clinical outcome patterns, like some people are healing really quick. Some people have other co infections going on that needs to be addressed. And that's bringing in more and more I think of functional medicine practitioners who've been treating those things, again, for a really long time, because mainstream medicine pretty much ignored them, because research has completely ignored them. So
Toréa Rodriguez 27:59
And So I'm curious, after you were done working with the immunomodulator, and the prescription medication, or the Western medications, if you will, did you also incorporate functional medicine as part of your overall protocol, as an after effect, or it layered on top of it? Or has that not been part of your journey?
Halina Kowalski 28:23
It has been and it's and a lot of it is more I will say I'm more aware now in my kind of just like continued healing journey, and just my quest to sort of head these things off in the future. I'm more aligned with a functional medicine, you know, functional medicine options now. I have, like, I'm ready to pull the trigger. If I were to get sick again. I'm ready to like get right to functional medicine, you know, practitioner, and at the time when I got my panels done, they didn't know as much about like these other In fact, I would go right to you know, see, do I have reactivated EBV do I have reactivated Lyme, my pattern might have had some indicators of Lyme, and I've never known anything, so I would go right to somebody that could start really working through that with me, I think I just I've learned more but but I also you know, I did sort of my more pharmacological, more early intervention with Intel dx, but and I did that for about five months, which is not not typical. A lot of people are on this protocol for like two to three months, but then some people who've had like 2020 infections that have just crossed you know, a more they've had a lot more long term damage potentially to organs, I think, you know, some of them are on it for longer. It's it really varies a lot just like long COVID varies a lot. but a lot of people are doing functional medicine stuff in tandem with this now or they're, you know, for me, I think it was really more like, past, I was doing more of that kind of stuff after my initial treatment, because when I got done done and I actually tapered off all the meds, I still I felt like I was like 98% better, but I really felt I really felt like I was like any little like, if I would get a cold and even now sometimes, like if I'm exposed to certain viruses, I can feel my immune system ticking on in that long, COVID way more readily. And I'm really aware that okay, something's inflamed here. So I'm kind of I kind of shifted to wanting to work on just my overall systemic inflammation, any potential infections I have going on in my body that could have made me more susceptible to this, I started, I really started doing a lot of coal plunging was huge, huge, huge for my overall inflammation, I felt like that was an in the beginning, you know, I run a sauna business, traditional wood fired sauna, it was really hard, because in the beginning, I could not do that. Because at a certain point in this disease, not everybody, but if you really do have the indicators of, of vascular inflammation, you get into the sauna, that's just going to that's vaso dilating. Right, so that's just going to increase that. That inflammation of the blood vessels in the endothelium. And it's not going to be good, that's gonna increase symptoms. But I started bringing sun in kind of once I'd done some of the calming of that, you know, those blood vessels, because otherwise, it is really good as a sauna and cold plunge that that cold exposure is really good for the endothelial, which is the lining of the blood vessels, and the blood vessels themselves, just for their overall strength and flexibility. And, you know, their overall health. So when I got to that point, and the cardiovascular, I mean, sound in itself has so many increasing immunity and cardiovascular benefits and all that and then cold plunges, well, and the cold punch, of course, does that vasoconstriction, which is really good when you do have, you know, initially when you have that, like, overall inflamed system going on. So, you know, I really incorporated a lot of that. And now that I've kind of gotten that baseline inflammation down, I know that like the sound and the cool punch of some of the best things I can be doing for my, all of those things I just mentioned, and, and I also started doing a lot of vagus stimulation I went to, I don't really know how to how to categorize this particular practitioner that I see. But I get a lot of just hard to find supplements. And I mean, she's definitely like, kind of a naturopath and does actual manual vagus nerve stimulation, which is also one of the key areas that gets affected with long COVID. That vagus nerve seems to be really affected. And then, you know, a lot of people that have pots and a lot of that the neurological symptoms, it seems to kind of really stem from that. So I think that's been really key for me as well, just in my continued healing in my, and then also just trying to be preventative, trying to work in a preventative way. But if I were to get it again, I might not have as I might not have as high of a baseline level of systemic inflammation.
Evie Takacs 33:38
Yeah, I am really enjoying listening to the things that you did to take care of yourself and really combining a lot of different modalities. A question that I have is in regards to gather sauna house, like, is it something I'm assuming this was already established? And then you had you got sick? And so then you started implementing it? Do you see that? This is like, is there more of a connection now of people like you who might have long COVID, or any other virus that they've been affected by? Is this something that you have been able to help them with? Of like, Hey, this is my experience. This is some stuff that you can incorporate into your protocol to get you back on recovery.
Halina Kowalski 34:15
Thank you for that question. I would really, that's my like, in my heart of hearts, I'd really like to work more directly in that direction. So I've had for a while kind of this dream of partnering with, you know, local naturopath and, and functional medicine clinics. And basically, because we're mobile, or we have the ability to be mobile, we're actually working toward a permanent location as well, but sort of setting up these mobile clinics to work in partnership with them so that they can incorporate you know, because it's I mean, const thermal contrast therapy is just has so much potential for all kinds of chronic inflammatory diseases. I mean, and, and has historically already been working on those things. And I think we're just beginning to realize its actual potential and why it's stood the test of 1000s and 1000s of years as a wellness practice and cultures that aren't the US. And so why is having a renaissance in the US right now? You know, just like, I just think it's fascinating how, you know, these, we kind of get these fads here in the US of these cultural traditions that have been around forever, that just finally make their, their way into our culture. And I think we're really in the middle of that right now. I think we're really having a pretty big sauna and cold, cold exposure. Traditional sauna has always included cold and sport exposure. They're not. They're not mutually exclusive. They're one in the same. So you, traditional sauna is all about those cycles of thermal contrast. And so coal plunging is really all the rage right now. But it really has always been done in the context of traditional sound as well. So. So that is my heart. Yeah, I would love to start working with clinics where they can really write this into treatment plans, and then we can be there providing it. You know, however many days we need to providing these clinics that can be part of their client's treatment plan. That's just one way. But there's, I mean, there's a lot of ways I would like to, to maybe start working in that avenue and, and yeah, use it, use it for this. Now, it's become a pretty hard guide admission for me to help other people heal from this, because I mean, it was truly awful. It was, it was really, really awful at times. And I can't imagine some of the people that are continuing to live with it like I, you know, by the time I started getting on treatment and getting better. It was just, it's so much shorter than what most people are experiencing. Because, again, it's just so hard for them to find access to treatments that work.
Toréa Rodriguez 37:01
So, wow, that is such an amazing story and Helina, we really really appreciate you coming on and sharing that story here. And we're hoping that it will find its way to other people. So if anybody listening, if this applies to you fabulous, look into all the resources, we'll have them in the show notes. If you know somebody who has long haulers or suspects, they have long haulers. Please share this episode with them because I think it's important information to get out. Especially now that we're starting to see true clinical trials and a lot of research being published in this area. We're starting to really understand what's going on. So Halina, tell us a little bit about where we can find more information about you and Gather Sauna House.
Halina Kowalski 37:47
Sure, yeah, I'm probably just you can find us on our website, W, you know, gathersaunahouse.com. And we do a lot just on Instagram we're @gather_saunahouse. People that are interested in learning more you know, about myself and the journey or just have particular questions about anything while they're navigating the long haul journey. I think yeah, you can just reach out to me on the websites, you could go to gather and reach out to me through info@gathersaunahouse.com
Toréa Rodriguez 38:23
Fabulous!
Halina Kowalski 38:25
I would like to help steer people to, you know, to resources.
Toréa Rodriguez 38:29
So awesome. Thank you so much for offering your services in that way. And if anybody wants to experience gathered on a house, they're going to be part of the retreats that are we're having this year in Oregon so you can find out about that also in the show notes. So thanks again, everybody. Thanks again Helina.
Evie Takacs 38:48
Thank you so much
Halina Kowalski 38:49
Thank you for having me and allowing me you know, just a platform to talk about this more widely and hopefully reach where people that need help.
Toréa Rodriguez 39:03
Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you’re ready to dig deeper into your health, stop playing the Whack-a-Symptom game, start testing to get better guidance, you can find more about Toréa at torearodriguez.com and you can find Evie at holisticallyrestored.com. Want a peek into what it’s like to work with us? Come join us at our Optimized Wellness Community. You can find the invitation link in the show notes below. And if you have a question for the show, you can submit your question under the podcast section of torearodriguez.com. Finally, if you found something helpful in this episode, don’t forget to leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. They’re gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, see you outside
