The Five Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue: Insights from Dr. Jenny Tufenkian
Chronic fatigue, long COVID, and other complex chronic conditions can feel like an endless maze with no clear way out. In my recent conversation with Dr. Jenny Tufenkian, a naturopathic physician with over 20 years of experience in treating complex chronic illnesses, she shared her framework of the five root causes that often contribute to these conditions.
What makes her perspective especially valuable is that she has traveled this road herself, overcoming debilitating chronic fatigue during her medical training and again later in life. It’s a journey that I’m also on, and the conversation we had here was incredibly validating.
Understanding the Root Causes Approach
Dr. Jenny emphasizes that healing from chronic fatigue is not a one-size-fits-all journey. Through her practice and personal experience, she's identified five key root causes that often work together to create these complex conditions.
"It's not a one-size-fits-all situation. I'm all about helping people uncover what are their root causes and what are the health foundations they need to focus on."
Her approach involves identifying which of these root causes are present and addressing them in the right order. Most importantly, she believes complete recovery from chronic syndromes is possible, having experienced it herself and helping countless patients heal as well.
The Five Root Causes
1. The Hormone Triangle (The Gateway Root Cause)
Dr. Jenny describes this first root cause as the "gateway" because it often creates vulnerability to the other causes. It involves three key components:
Adrenal/HPA axis: Your stress response system
Thyroid function: Often compromised in chronic fatigue
Sex hormones: Testes and ovaries
When one part of this triangle becomes imbalanced, it tends to pull the others out of balance too. Many of us arrive at this imbalance through what Dr. Jenny calls "the stress express" - pushing ourselves too hard for too long.
In her own journey, Dr. Jenny experienced flatlined cortisol levels, requiring physiological doses of cortisone to help recover. For those in perimenopause or with hormone fluctuations, she notes how decreased estrogen (a natural anti-inflammatory) can increase vulnerability to inflammation and fatigue. This highlights for us just how individualistic this experience is from person to person, and why it’s so important to work with a competent and experienced provider.
2. Chronic Infections
The second root cause involves infections that can contribute to fatigue:
Reactivated viral infections (like EBV, herpes viruses)
Fungal infections
Bacterial infections
These infections can be present in various parts of the body, including the sinuses, gut, and even organs like the thyroid or liver. Dr. Jenny shared how she diagnosed one patient with a reactivated viral infection based on how they described their fatigue:
"There's kind of a 'walking through molasses' feeling... I have cement in my legs... We talk about tired like wine sommeliers talk about wine."
The specific quality and pattern of someone's fatigue can provide important diagnostic clues about which root causes are at play.
3. Toxic Overload
The third root cause addresses how toxins impact our health:
Environmental toxins like glyphosate and plastics
Heavy metals like mercury and lead
Mold and mycotoxins
Dr. Jenny explains that while we all live with some level of toxicity in today's world, our individual capacity to handle these toxins varies based on:
Genetic detoxification abilities
Daily habits that support or hinder detoxification
Total toxic burden from all sources
In her personal experience, black mold in her home and office significantly impacted her health. While she was able to make improvements even while living in the moldy environment, removing that exposure was crucial for her full recovery.
4. Mitochondrial Dysfunction
The fourth root cause focuses on cellular energy production:
"The mitochondria, the powerhouse in all of your cells... This is something where people who have post-exertional malaise, where you do a little bit more one day and then you are just flat-out exhausted... That's a definite sign that your mitochondria are not functioning well."
Dr. Jenny shared a powerful personal story about how addressing her mitochondrial function allowed her to hike three miles and stay up late without experiencing the crash she expected. She emphasizes that if mitochondrial support doesn't work, it may indicate heavy metal toxicity blocking the nutrients from reaching the mitochondria.
5. Limbic System Dysfunction
The fifth root cause involves the brain's alarm system:
"Looking at that emotional limbic ring... The limbic brain is the emotional brain in the subconscious mind. They're finding the amygdala-insula is a really huge part of this as well, and it connects to the vagus nerve, which is the longest nerve in the body that connects to all the organs."
This system can get stuck in a "danger" mode, amplifying symptoms to protect you. Dr. Jenny explains how chemical sensitivities can be a sign of limbic system dysfunction. After trying various approaches, she found significant benefits from limbic retraining, which helped eliminate her need for daily naps and reduced her chemical sensitivities.
Importantly, she acknowledges there are different approaches to limbic retraining that work for different people, from DNRS to the Gupta Program to more somatic approaches.
The Individualized Healing Journey
What stands out in Dr. Jenny's approach is how she treats each person as an individual:
“I’m always about highly individualizing the process for the person that I’m talking to because I think that’s what needs to happen.”
She uses multiple strategies to identify which root causes are present:
Careful listening to symptom descriptions
Reviewing previous lab work
Ordering targeted tests only when clinically necessary
Using treatment trials to see how the body responds
Hope and Persistence
Perhaps the most powerful message Dr. Jenny shared is to maintain hope:
"The one thing I would say is to just maintain that hope. I know you have days where you're really down and you feel like you're just banging your head against the wall and it's not going anywhere... but what do you do after you have that cry or after you feel down and disappointed? What's the next thing? Because I know that if you keep trying, if you keep knocking on doors, there's gonna be one that opens up."
Her journey illustrates the importance of persistence. Even after achieving full recovery once, she had to navigate relapses and find new solutions as her life circumstances changed. The toolkit she developed through this process is something she encourages all her patients to create for themselves, so they're prepared if symptoms return.
Conclusion
What I appreciate most about Dr. Jenny's approach is her combination of scientific rigor and genuine compassion. Her framework provides a roadmap for those navigating the complex terrain of chronic fatigue, while her personal journey offers proof that recovery is possible, even after multiple setbacks.
For those struggling with chronic fatigue, understanding these five root causes might just illuminate the next step in your healing journey.
If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Jenny Tufenkian's approach to chronic fatigue, join the waitlist for her upcoming summit, Brain Fog, Chronic Fatigue, Long Covid, Memory Loss and Pain Breakthrough Summit, running April 11-18.
Connect with Dr. Jenny on her website, on Instagram @Dr.jennytufenkian, or Facebook @Dr. Jenny Tufenkian.
Disclaimer: Everything we discuss here is just meant to be general education and information. It's not intended as personal mental health or medical advice. If you have any questions related to your unique circumstances, please contact a licensed therapist or medical professional in your state of residence.
Want to listen to the podcast interview? Click here for Episode 87: The Five Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue: Insights from Dr. Jenny Tufenkian.
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Episode transcribed with AI and will contain errors that are not representative of the actual word or meaning of the sentence.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: [00:00:00] Thank you so much Dr. Jenny for being here. I would love for you to share a little bit about your practice and where you work and what you've been working on as of recent.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Oh, thank you so much for having me, destiny. It's been great. It's just great to be here. So I am a naturopathic physician. I'm licensed primary care doctor in multiple states in the United States, and I see people all around the world right now, mostly through telemedicine and really guiding them through this journey of dealing with complex chronic illness.
And I think, you know, you and I both know, and everyone listening really knows too. It's not a one size fits all situation. And so I'm all about helping people uncover what are their root causes and what are the health foundations they need to focus on. What's their individual, you know, what it was their individual setup so we can get them, you know.
Back onto that road recovery, you know, really starting to feel better. And I'm all about people being empowered in their own healthcare. So I work in Portland, Oregon, but like I said, I'm, because of this amazing technology that we're [00:01:00] meeting here, we can now work all around the world, which is great.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: Yeah, absolutely.
That's right. It is, it is really complex and so people have been through all, like in my audience, have been through all types.
Of care from, you know, western medi meds, have western, um, medications and doctors have failed me to even like the rabbit hole of functional medicine, naturopathic medicine, and mm-hmm. It can feel like that a rabbit hole. And then from my own personal experience, you can sometimes then you, you come up for air and you're like, oh, it all actually makes sense.
What I was just doing for the last five years, that felt like rabbit hole. So both experiences can be true. How do you, how long do you typically work with, I mean. I'm trying to ask in a way that gives a clear answer, but I know you work with many different illnesses and many different types of people, but I'm like, how, what is your kind of beginning thing that you do with people that you helps you start to get down the right?
Mm-hmm. Like, okay, this is what we're looking at. Mm-hmm.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Yeah. So it really depends on what their previous journey has been and, [00:02:00] and that depends, and I'll kinda share a couple different patient. Experiences, so you kinda have an idea. Um, again, I'm always, I'm, I'm about highly individualizing the process for the person that I'm talking to because I think that that's what needs to happen.
So for some people, they've been on this wellness journey for a really long time, and for some of them they have gotten answers along the way and things have worked. And so they've already worked on lots of stuff and they come to me because. I, I work with people with these complex cases that have often been to the 15 doctors for 20 years and have the huge stacks of treatment, of chart notes, and they come to me and honestly, a lot of the other work has already been done.
You know, because they were good doctors. They did a good job, they did work up, they had great protocols, and they've already got, they, they do know what they should be eating and they do know how to kind of. They have gotten some of their other infections down or something, and something was missed, something I pick up something that was missed, and so we get to work on that.
So an example would be a patient that [00:03:00] came to me who was a yoga instructor, and she'd been on this journey for about 10 years. She came to me and. Um, I listened to her, I took her history, and there are certain ways that she was describing her fatigue that let me know that this was most likely, uh, a reactivated viral infection.
There's kind of a, I'm walking through molasses feeling I have cement in my legs. There's like, you know, we talk about. I talk about my patients can talk about tired like wine, somalias talk about wine and, and it's like one of my patients said, yeah, I'm a Somalia. I'm tired when I told her that, so you know, there's different kinds of tired and I'm listening for that.
What are they saying? When does it show up? I. Is it always there or does it come and go throughout the day? These are cues to me as to what root cause might be happening and which health foundations they need to address first, second, and third, again, some. This person came in, she'd already, her diet was amazing.
Her sleep was incredible. She had all this stuff dialed in, like just, you know, picture perfect lifestyle. [00:04:00] Mindset was good. She's not stuck in her limbic brain. She was doing great. Like I could tell all this, and yet she's like, I'm still tired. I'm like, got you girl. It, I mean, honestly, it was super fast. It was, you know, we put her on an antiviral protocol, a three-legged stool approach.
I do, I. And she was way better in two weeks and substantially better in six months. Like, you know, she didn't need to take the protocol anymore in six months. That's unusual because she had already done all this stuff before and that was fast. Just being honest, you know, for her to be two weeks in, like, thank you doctor.
Like I feel great. I'm like, you're welcome. But I also feel like the credit goes to all the work you've been doing and all these other people too. I had the easy job of the last person here, right? Compared to somebody who has been 15, 20 years doing this and has been hitting brick walls every place and has not really gotten the right kind of answers for them.
We're starting at a different place as we are with the person who is new to this. [00:05:00] I mean, I'm seeing these kids who are 18, 19, I am, you know, young adults, 23, 24, 25, who are, have gotten hit by Covid. And it's activated some probably genetic stuff that was in their body anyway, so they're now triggered with some autoimmune conditions and all of a sudden they were active, intelligent kids who are now like on the couch back at mom and dad's.
And their case is a little bit different because we need to kind of, you know, start from the beginning. They haven't had any treatments yet. The more complex patients it and, and I would say it, it's the same no matter what. Um, I'm really listening for those. I'm so listening for five root causes and I'm trying to rule those and rule those, rule those in or rule those out in my head as I'm listening to that first history and as I'm taking the intake notes.
And then I'm looking at labs they've already done to confirm, to rule in a rule out what I'm thinking. You know? And, and then I'm ordering other tests if I feel like I need them [00:06:00] or we're doing trials because sometimes some, a lot of the stuff you can't even test or the test isn't reliable. And so I'm only testing the things that make a difference.
You are gonna make a difference for us clinically. And, um, and then we, or sometimes we're just doing like a set a treatment as a trial, and that lets us know how the body responds. So,
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: yeah, I even, the way you're explaining it now, I feel like it's so much more clear than, um. A lot of people that I've talked to, so, um, yeah, and I've talked to a lot.
I tell me, there was two things I wanna ask you about. The three legged approach and then the five root causes that you tend to be looking at.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Sure, absolutely. So the, so the five root causes that I'm looking at for people who are struggling with long covid, chronic fatigue, mye encephalitis, or really any of the other complex kind of mystery illnesses, things that don't fit into.
Neat tidy boxes because frankly there's massive overlay with all of these, including the autoimmune types of, [00:07:00] you know, stuff. So, um. Is, I'm looking at the first is what I call the gateway root cause, which is that hormone triangle. So I'm looking at the adrenal hypothalamic pituitary axis. Your stress response.
Are you stuck in a hyper response or are you flat lining low, or is your circadian rhythm flipped? Are you, do you wake up and you're at. Your cortisol is way down here. You're exhausted all day. You go to bed and you can't because then your cortisol's high at nighttime when it's not supposed to be. So I'm looking at that.
Your thyroid. Looking at all the different things that be going with the thyroid and then what's happening with your, uh, testes of male and ovaries female. So looking at that triangle that needs to work together, if one of those is outta balance, it's gonna pull the others outta balance. I call it a gateway root cause because a lot of us got here by being on the stress express.
I'm not good enough. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. I gotta take care of everybody. I gotta do all those things. And we pushed ourselves so hard, we threw our [00:08:00] adrenal gland, um, hypothalamic pituitary access out. Early. Yeah.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: Yeah. And that set us up. Yeah. Right. Which is why I think we kind of started to talk about this a little bit too.
I'm really big on, um, when people are, especially like online, uh, you'll hear a lot of people like advertising their services and they'll often sound like I've got the answer. Yeah. And as you said earlier, it's like you, they probably really believe that too, because whatever they found that was the answer for them was the last missing piece.
Right.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I was really sick. Um, in my second year of medical school, I had to take a whole year out. I had multiple miscarriages. The second one was 17 weeks hemorrhaged. I mean, it was just a whole big thing, you know? And, um, and I. As I got back to medical school a year later, like I was in bed with IVs in my arm, like sick, sick, sick.
Like people thought I was gonna die, kind of sick. And then I got out of [00:09:00] bed to the couch, was on the couch for a year, then I was able to crawl back to medical school and kind of struggled, you know, went, made it, but it was not easy. And then through halfway through my residency, I totally figured out what I needed to do, but it was always felt like pieces of the puzzle to me that whole way through.
And the last piece was like. Here I am, I'm back like 150% back, like could work these crazy long days in open clinics and had another kid and was not tired at all, ever. You know, and it was just amazing. And so that, you know, but for me to go around and proselytize that last thing would be a mistake because I'd been working on it.
For all those two years, throwing everything I knew as a young naturopathic student and then doctor with all of these amazing professors around me, and then we were able to get, okay, now we're at this level and we can treat this thing. And then that was it.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: I love that story. That's so, um, when, when did you have your last kid?
How many years ago was that?
Jenny Tufenkian ND: [00:10:00] Oh, that was that, well, I was a resident in 2000. Okay. And it was, I remember walking down the hallway before I figured out that last piece, walking down the hallway with my, the doctor who was our dean. She was the dean of the residence. And she's like, I, I wanna live to 125 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I just remember in my head I was like, early thirties, and I'm just like, kind, why would you want to do that? Like, I already feel like I'm 92 and it is so much work just to get through the day and to walk my body down this hallway. I just can't, like, I literally could not identify with what she was saying and then.
You know, I, I was in my forties and fifties and going, I have so much more energy than I did when I was 30. You know, like, yeah. I don't, like now I feel like, you know, even with the, I still have a little vestige of the long covid. I'm moving out, but even now, like I just turned 60 and I feel like I, [00:11:00] I mean, I don't identify with any age.
I feel young and. Side, like I feel wiser, which I love, but I feel young, like I don't feel old at all.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: It's like I love that. So after you basically got better, like what were the ebbs and flows like? Yeah, like did you have bouts of something but it wasn't as bad?
Or was it just linear progression from here on out? Like what, what does that look like at the,
Jenny Tufenkian ND: it's such a, yeah, it's such a fair question and I think it's such an important question to have because I do believe that, um, a hundred percent remission is possible for these conditions. 'cause I experienced it and I say it was 150% better and I was.
Like, you know, there was none of that energy budgeting, none of that fear. I literally was up in the morning meditating, working out and doing all that stuff. So I did all that. Um, I had a second kid. It, I mean, I had nine years of secondary infertility. It was not overnight. So I had kind of was dealing with that stuff.
But I, let's see, how many years was it? [00:12:00] So between, so that was 2000 when I was got all the way. Well, and then it was, um, I was really well until about 20, I'd say I started, if I'm honest, it was probably around 2012 that I started to not have as much energy, but I was in denial. If I'm honest, and I think that's true for all of us.
It's kinda like, it's like any kind of denial of slipping back into anything, any kind of habit or anything. I think it was a little bit in denial, but I did start noticing some stuff that where I. Um, was wanting to do a little bit less in certain situations. Mostly I was teaching at a teaching clinic, which meant that you had, I had 12 students and we would have four rooms every hour, and there would be two students in the rooms.
And I was overseeing all the patients and all the students and I loved it. Like, I loved being a clinical faculty. It was so much fun. And I remember. Sort of towards the end when I was thinking about putting, I did it for seven years and I was thinking about putting in my notice and part of it was like, I don't [00:13:00] feel like I am, like this is work now.
I don't have that same energy to be present in all these different places at the same time, like my brain loved it, but it was getting, and that was like the first sign looking back, that the super high level functioning was a little bit more challenging for me. And then, um, I had an injury and that injury was, I injured my knee playing soccer really badly, and I was in, and I had to change my workouts.
I was the most fit I'd ever been in my life and loved being strong, was lifting weights. And felt amazing and was more athletic than I'd ever been, and I didn't wanna lose any of that. And so I kept working out. Woke up one morning with a crick in my shoulder and my neck. In my brain, I'm thinking, I'm 24.
I'll keep working out. Went to the gym, did my swimming, did my upper body weights, did my core, and that pain just kept getting worse. This is also the time I was going through perimenopause. Which we now know [00:14:00] is, makes you way more vulnerable to all kinds of inflammation. This developed into frozen shoulder, had a very, very, very severe case of frozen shoulder.
My knee was continued to be really problematic. Um. I was not as smart as I should have been. I did some, I did some, I did climb a mountain while that my knee was injured and it made it much worse. Not recommended. And you know, I was like, I was dumb, but it was, and you know, there're just these things that I did and, um.
Anyway, I would, basically, the whole left side of my body was in severe pain. I had my, because my hip and my shoulder out, I couldn't do the yoga I usually did. So a chronic hip issue came back that I was completely gone. And so the left side of my body was in severe pain. This was so bad. I could sleep 45 minutes at a time if I was lucky.
It was like having, and so my sleep deprivation became severe. I had seven pillows to sleep and I was trying to sleep, and I'd sleep a little bit and I'd wake up in severe pain. [00:15:00] So. What it made me realize, like I was, I was literally waking up in the night going, I don't know how I'm gonna function. And I started seeing that big, huge, gaping hole of chronic fatigue, bedridden, chronic fatigue, like right there in front of me.
It was terrifying. And what was terrifying was how quickly I relapsed and it. Kind of made me realize this thing about chronic fatigue syndrome, that my check encephalitis that I didn't realize was relapse was so easy to happen. Like once that's set up, you can go right back into it. Which is now something I tell my patients and clients on day one, not as a way to scare you, but as a way of, as we're experimenting to see what works for your body.
What are your root causes? What are your health foundations, what treatments resonate with your body that goes in your toolkit because. You know, five years from now you might be doing great. And there might be a trauma that triggers a stress response in your body that your immune system isn't responding in the same way to those chronic viruses or whatever your root [00:16:00] causes are.
And you might have a flare if you got that toolkit, if you remember, oh, and I worked with Dr. Jenny, this helped. You can pull that back out and use it and not slide down that slide. So I was sliding down that slide and I was in. Absolute fear because my family was a hundred percent, um, dependent on my income at that time.
I had a clinic, I had overhead, I had employees, you know, I had the kid, I had all the stuff, and it was all on me, and I was really scared. Like literally for me to go back to bed was bankruptcy. Like literally no joke. So I got up, I couldn't sleep, so I just got up and I started researching the heck. So, because it was so many years later, there was a lot more information at that time.
It was still, everybody was looking for the one thing, you know, is it parvovirus? Is it EBV? Is it this, is it that? And I was like, you know what? I don't think it is. And I thought everybody was gonna leave my clinic practice at that time because I was in such a wreck. And 'cause I'd always, um. Felt universally [00:17:00] supported by my schedule if my schedule.
Like, you know, ever since I started seeing people, if, you know, my schedule would be full and then the, my schedule would empty out. I'm like, what's wrong? And I'm like, oh yeah, Jenny needs a little more self care. So it's like, yeah. You know, it's like, okay, thank you universe for taking care of me. You're right.
I need to take care of myself. Thank you. And so I thought my schedule would empty out 'cause I was a mess. But I still showed up at work and the opposite happened. I actually got. Really packed, like insane. Like I, it was crazy. I was booked out like, you know, four or five months with these crazy long waiting lists for people to come see me.
And they all had chronic fatigue. And so I was able to kind of look at these things that I was studying and I started to see these different patterns and that's how I got to these fibro causes. And it was in the process. I was literally working with patients who were not quite as sick as I was. They were getting better.
I was gradually getting better as well as I was applying these different root causes to myself. And as I go through them, I'll kind [00:18:00] of, I'll kind of do it this way 'cause we just started with the one root cause. I'll kind of talk about a little bit of my experience if I want to weave that in. I've never done that before, but if that's okay.
So we can go through the root causes. I would love that. Yeah. And since you asked about my history, I kind of started, went in there. So yes. So that first root cause, adrenal fatigue, um. Thyroid ovary stuff. So I was in perimenopause, so my estrogen and progesterone were all outta whack. And that estrogen is a natural anti-inflammatory.
And so that was not there, which made it a lot easier to get the frozen shoulder. And it, and it also really significantly alters your, how your immune system functions and the progesterone does all kinds of things and one things that can really help us sleep. And so, and this was in the era where? All hormones were supposed to be really bad.
Now, I never believed that as a naturopathic physician, but this is that era. Like I'm at that generation where they had just yanked all these women off of HRT. I always felt like, you know, small doses of bioidentical hormones would probably be okay. And so I went and [00:19:00] saw some of my colleagues and we did micro microdosing like baby, baby.
Doses of estrogens and things like that. I was flatline cortisol, like literally had no cortisol in me at all. Flatline, you are so tired when you're flatline cortisol. So I did something that I've only had to do on a small handful of my patients, like literally a small handful. I took a cortisone and I took a physiological dose, like 10 milligrams in the more under 20 milligrams of cortisone, not prednisone, cortisone diff.
They're different. They're different strengths. Is, um, so the normal amount my body would usually make, I took that and it was a lifesaver, like a lifesaver. That, and the estrogen were incredible in terms of helping me, like, and I'm talking like you guys can relate who are listening to this, like I'm talking about.
Like I, if I had not been financial, if it had not been all in my me, I probably would've just like taken time off. If I'd had a corporate job and could have gotten leave, I would've taken leave. I was riding leave for people who are not as bad as I was. Like, so just, just like this is like a woman who had to [00:20:00] work.
Yeah. Protocol
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: and Dr. J. You are I gonna be so vulnerable here. I also, my blood work came in recently and I'm literally in that right now. No cortisone, no premol alone, no anything. And I am like. Just fighting to, I mean, I have care, right? I have care. So I'm not getting in the doctor's seat, but it's just hearing you talk.
And I'm postpartum too. Like my kids are three and one, so I'm like. Okay, this is, yeah, it's just great to hear your story. I'm appreciating this.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Yeah. And, and I wanna, you know, like my heart goes out. Like I can feel, I really appreciate your vulnerability there because, and what you, what it feels like when you're in that state, that postpartum state, especially, you know, if you've, you've gone through pregnancy, you're breastfeeding, you're up at night, and then if you have any of these other, you know, pieces going on, it's like there's no, you're drained.
Like there's sort of this nothing. Under you, holding you up kind of energy feeling. Right.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: And it's really interesting too because, and this maybe we can speak to this as part of one of those, either the, it might come up in the root [00:21:00] cause or the three-legged approach or what, however it comes up. But the day, the, the, not the day, but like the couple of weeks where I finally reached out to my own naturopath and my functional medicine, um, nurse practitioner, they're like the two in, mainly in, in charge of my care.
Yeah. Before I even started the supplements and like I already started to feel better, like there was already more energy. I'm still tired, I'm st. But like it was just knowing that there was support and someone's got me like totally, I can't even explain to you like there's still a part of me that is like scared to say it out loud because I'm like, it might go away.
Don't say it out loud. Yeah,
Jenny Tufenkian ND: yeah,
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: yeah, yeah. It's important. At the same time, like. I think the, the physiological care is so important, but there's something about the psychological component and the the emotional social support.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Well, there's a huge piece to that for this for sure, but I think people are told right and left that there's no answer for you.
There's nothing you can do. Of course, it's mostly women and so they don't get as much respect for talking about what they're [00:22:00] feeling, just the way the system's set up. I mean, to just even explain your symptoms takes more than the five minutes the doctor has scheduled to see you, let alone get to, you know, why is this showing up in you versus the next.
Patient, and frankly I think a lot of doctors are tired and so they don't really know how to, you know, they're not taught how to understand this. It's just not part of. They're training and, um, so there's lots of reasons, but I, you know, you say, I, I can't tell you how many times I've had people come to me and say, I, I have hope again.
Like, you know, I, I, I, I, you know, you were my last shot and now I have hope or I do feel better just talking. And I think there is something to just being seen and feeling like there's somebody that's gonna kind of help hold you in that space. For sure. It's very powerful. So, yeah, and to be
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: clear, for the therapists that might be listening to this, um, I, 'cause I'm on kind of a, I just think it's so important.
There has to be the compassion and the validation and the being seen with a competence [00:23:00] of we can try things. We do have a plan. We might not know exactly what's gonna get you there, but there is a treatment plan that we can look at and try. And I'm, you know, we have some, a level of confidence in that. I think that's the other.
Important part it. It can't just be, well, sometimes it can be depending on how depleted you are from like that emotional validation or fe. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Especially if there's some deep childhood stuff around that. But for me anyway, like knowing that somebody else gets it because they also have some answers is yes.
So critical,
Jenny Tufenkian ND: right? Absolutely. That, that, that you're not at the end of the road here in terms of options. I mean, there's so many things you can do to treat address these, uh, these conditions. It's crazy. I mean, it is just really funny. And what's the right match for you, um, at this time, you know, and for what we're, we're addressing, so, okay.
So that first root cause Yeah. Which you're in right now and, and it's so great you're address. Seen it because that's gonna reduce your vulnerability to getting some of these other root causes. I mean, that's when they start to travel together is people [00:24:00] may have 1, 2, 3, or all five of these root causes.
And it just depends on where your body's at. But I call this the gateway because it's such a setup to being vulnerable to the other ones. And people may be in this kind of, this first phase in their twenties and thirties for a long time, you know, before some of the other stuff might hit them. So the second one is looking at infections.
And these can be chronic reactivated, viral infections, fungal infections, bacterial infections. They can be in your sinuses, they can be in your. They can be in your vagina, they can be in your mitochondria, they can be in your thyroid, they can be in your liver. They can be anywhere in your body. And we have, and so that's one of that can really pull on people's energy a lot.
And the third one is looking at toxic overload. So this can be all the things that we're breathing in our air. We live in a more toxic planet right now. And I just think that that's just something we just have to accept as real. And then take on the ownership of, okay, how do I support my body given the situation, you know, what are my daily detox habits [00:25:00] that I do?
What's the tea I drink that helps me detoxify every day? Or what's the, you know, just simple things you could do. We can talk about that more later if we have time. But these toxins, the, there are certain metals. Like Mercury and lead that have this particular charge that can really impact how the energy system in our body works.
There are things called glyphosates, which are in Roundup, which are in, you know, in all of our foods, unfortunately, even in a lot of the organic, that really mess with how our body produces energy and it can in, you know, impacts the gut and the microbiome, which is 80% of our immune system. And so really looking at these toxins is important.
I would say that I assume everybody has some level of toxicity, and I'm not a fan of testing, doing all the functional medicine tests in the world around toxicity, because I think you're always gonna find a positive. I'm more interested in listening for certain things that, that give me an idea that maybe for you, this is one of the root causes [00:26:00] that needs to be addressed sooner than later.
Okay. One of the things with mycotoxins Yeah,
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: go ahead. What were you gonna say? Yeah, I have a question about this. So like with toxic overload? Yeah. Um, 'cause I know that it's a bit tricky and a bit iffy on like who says what around the research, and I know I myself don't. Down such a rabbit hole with like trying to get everything clean, everything.
I mean I only cleaned with vinegar. I eventually stopped doing that 'cause my bathroom just wasn't getting clean. Like Yeah. Things like that. And so, um, but you mentioned something important, like you are always gonna find something with these tests because it is the world we live in. Like it just is. And so that tells me then that pro, you correct me if I'm wrong, like there is a certain level that is okay for one person that might not be okay for another person.
And it really is about. And again, so maybe we can talk a little bit about this, or at least just if we don't have time, then we can just plant the seed that, um, I'm wondering about, like, it's sometimes your body will tell you, I don't like the smell of this, or I don't, and sometimes it's a sign that it's not [00:27:00] good for you and sometimes it's just our fear and it's not, and it really is okay for you.
And so, mm-hmm. I find hard to differentiate. But is there any thoughts. What thoughts do you have on that?
Jenny Tufenkian ND: I do. I have a big thought on that. I'm gonna save it because it's tied in with the fifth root cause. Okay, great. So I'm gonna tie that particular thing, what I would say about the toxins in general.
Yeah. Let me, I'll, let me loop back to that in the fifth 'cause and when I talk about the fifth root cause. Perfect. And um, and I would say that in terms of toxins, mold and mycotoxins are a huge issue for a lot of people. And because it's so dis disregulates your immune system. And so if you are one of the people that's sensitive to mold or mycotoxins and you have that right now in your home, that's something that we need to pay attention to and do something about so that we can get things that happened to me.
So part of the reason I was tanking during that time when I had the perimenopause and the frozen shoulder is that. We have this house that was built in 1905, and there was [00:28:00] this really fun thing that I would watch with my kid every once in a while, live in Portland, Oregon. Sometimes it would really rain and there'd be a waterfall in our basement, and it was so fun.
We would go watch it and it would be a waterfall. All the water would come in the side door and go all the way down the carpeted stairs, and then it would circle around and go down to our laundry room drain. And I was like, no. Okay. That's just happened. And I, you know. And, but sure enough, underneath those stairs, all black mold, another place where there had been a leak, all this mold underneath, this carpeting in our, in our basement, and we had been living in that for a long time.
I. Found out that also my clinic basement had had a leak and there was mold in my basement, and then we found there was mold in my car. And so I had all of these things now when I had somebody. So anyway, we ended up having, doing just this massive remodel. But, and though we moved out for a year and that was huge for me to get that taken care of.
Now I really have to tell all of you who are listening to this, I was able to [00:29:00] still improve my health while I stayed in the moldy house because it took us about a year to get the plans together, the engineers to say okay to, you know, get the funding to do all the things. 'cause we did a massive remodel in our house and we.
Decided to remodel instead of move. That was also on the table, and we decided to just do the thorough remodel and so. You know, but I was able to still improve, but I could still kind of within my box. Like I wasn't able to break to have the breakthrough experience that I wanted to have. That was my, I was still holding onto that, like I was 150% better before.
I want 150% better now. Like, I don't accept this ceiling stuff. I don't like it. So
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: thank you for saying that. I think that's, yeah. So important. Yeah. As we, as we talk about this stuff, the fear that people have. Yeah. Yeah.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: So I figured all this stuff out about my house and we were figuring this out. I was still working in the clinic, seeing these patients that I was talking about, figuring all these root causes out in that clinic, and the mold was all in [00:30:00] the basement anyway.
Um, so the other root cause is looking at mitochondrial function now, the mitochondria, the powerhouse in all of your cells, and. This is something where people who have post exertional malaise where you do a little bit more one day and then you are just flat out exhausted. So for you, it might be doing the dishes and the laundry for somebody else.
I can do a three mile walk, but if I go five, I don't know what's gonna happen to me tomorrow. And these are. That's, that's post exertional malaise, and that's a definite sign that your mitochondria are not functioning well. And so we know there's something going on there for most people. Most not all people with long covid have some kind of mitochondrial dysfunction.
I'd say most of them do, and have some kind of post exertional malaise. Um, this is one of those things where we, we can do a trial of this, what I call mito foods and see how it improves. This is one of those things I. Ordered a book from Dr. Re Mayhill in [00:31:00] Britain, and I waited for weeks for this book. This is me up at three o'clock in the morning, PubMed, reading everything, following little trails, all the stuff.
You've done it, you're smiling, you know what I'm talking about. And then I found this Remi Hill book and I'm like, oh my gosh, can't buy it in the United States. Have to ship it from Britain. Have to wait weeks for this book to come. The book comes and I read it three times and she talks about the mitochondria.
And she talks about these different things you can take for it. And so I put together my own little protocol and did a trial. Now. Dr. Dati Ian, who is an amazing, brilliant teacher, highly recommends you for all of you doctors out there to listen to him. He's incredible. And he was coming to town and teach in a three day seminar that I really, really wanted to go to, but I, there was no way I had the energy to go, like even if I took my nap kit, which was how I survived, by taking naps every day and I drove with my nap kit in the car.
I always had a pillow and a blanket in the car. I could always pull over and sleep. Even if I took my nap kit and I was in the back of the [00:32:00] hotel room lying down on the floor, which I thought about doing, I'm like, I still don't, I, I still can't. I'm like, I don't have the energy even to do that. Like I just can't show up every day for this workshop.
So, super sad. I couldn't go. Found out my cousins were gonna come to town that weekend, that same weekend. And, um. My, all this stuff had just arrived from my mitochondria, so I started taking it about two days before they arrived on Saturday, they wanted to go up to Mount Hood and go for a hike. And I was like, I'm feeling a little bit better.
I'll just go up with you. I'm gonna sit in the car and do my, I'm gonna sit outside and do my artwork and just hang out while you guys hike and I'll see you back, you know? But it'll be nice for me to get outta the house. So I go up there and I go up there and I'm like. I still feel, I dunno, I feel like kind of wanna hike a bit, so I'm just gonna go for a walk with you guys a little bit.
I'm gonna walk a bit, I'll come around when I'm ready, you know, ended up doing a three mile hike and got back to the car and they, we started really late. And like they were really late showing up. So we, it was like late and so we ended up [00:33:00] getting back from the hike and it was dinner time. We waited for food at the, at the little resort there.
Took 'em forever to get food. We ended up getting home at midnight. I mean, this was, ended up being just like the worst day for anybody with chronic fatigue, magic encephalitis. Right. And it was long I hiked, but I was taking all this stuff that I was taking from my mitochondria and I was just like. I was driving home and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be like in bed for 10 days for this.
Like, I don't know what's gonna happen. And I woke up the next morning and I was fine, and I never had a crash from it, and it was all because of this MIT mitochondrial stuff that I was doing, and my mitochondria were responding to this treatment. Now, I'm, I'm happy to share what this is, but this treatment is one of the things that I'll give to some patients if I feel like they're mitochondria messed up from what they're telling me as a trial.
Because you're gonna know in five days if it works or not. If it does, great, we now have a platform, a bridge. You have more energy that you can now. Eat better. [00:34:00] Look at some of the other root causes, have the energy to keep healing your body and um. And that's helpful now for the people that it doesn't work for.
That's also a clue to me because that lets me know there's something going on. Either I was wrong and it's not the mitochondria, or there's something that's disallowing their body to get that nutrients into their mitochondria. And that number one thing that I found time in and time timeout are heavy metals.
And so because the, the lead, the mercury, those metals tend to block that. The inner membrane of the mitochondria, and that's one of the main things. So that's when I'll choose to do like a heavy metal urine test and see if that helps them, you know, if, if, if it flares up and then we'll do a heavy metal detox and then often their body responds better to the mitochondrial treatments.
Does that make sense?
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Yeah, so, so I'm kind of looking, I'm thinking about which are the root causes, and I'm kind of ruling in, ruling out, and sometimes it's by [00:35:00] trial, by treatment, like I did for myself. And I'd say, you know, that works out of 10 patients that probably for like four outta 10, it's like an absolute gift.
You know, like, oh my gosh, the other six, it's like, I can't tell, or no, it didn't work. It's like, okay, great. That's great. Thank you for the information. Thanks for trying it. Let's do the next thing. What
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: I love about this approach is that when something doesn't work, it gives you more data, whereas exactly.
Unfortunately in Western medication medicine, it is a lot of like. Totally lifesaving. I'm all for it. One mix of it. But oftentimes it is like, oh, the surgery didn't work. Oh, like this pain is now anxiety induced in your head. And like I just, yeah, yeah,
Jenny Tufenkian ND: yeah. It, it's so different because I always like, again, I know the body knows how to heal.
I know the body can do that. I know there's something blocking your body's a. Ability to be normal and what is that thing? We have to keep finding it. And so I think this is important. [00:36:00] I know this is how I work as a practitioner and I think it's great when practitioners do work this way and there are a lot who do, and I also think it's really great.
For those of you who are struggling with this condition, you know, myself included, there are times when it's just like, oh my God, you know, I just feel like I'm trying all this stuff, and how come it's not working? You gotta keep going like you really do. You gotta just keep going because there's gonna be something that will work for your body.
You just haven't found it yet. You just have to keep hang in there. So that's the, like the, that's the supportive speech. Yeah. So, let's see, where was I? So the other root cause, the, so the fifth root cause is, so we've got, so we've got the um, hormone triangle, we've got the infections, we've got the toxins, we've got the mitochondrial dysfunction, and they overlay.
I know that. Um, and the last is looking at that emotional limbic ring. Right, which is what you're alluding to with the stress piece. Right. And so we know so much [00:37:00] more now. I mean, back then when I uncovered this, nobody was like, everybody was like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, it was really in the beginning of people talking about this stuff, about how the brain has all this neuroplasticity and there are things that we create.
And um, it made a lot of sense to me because I was. Early on, aware of the power of the subconscious mind and was an early advocate for subconscious healing and the power of doing therapies where there's somatic therapy like you do, or different things of getting to those things that happened before we even verbal, like how can we talk about something that happened before we even verbal or that we inherited, right?
How can we talk about that? That's in the subconscious mind. So a lot of us who have these complex chronic fatigue. Complex conditions, I think have stuff that's going on on that mental, emotional, or energetic level of the body. We have the physical, mental, emotional, and energy, and it's happening on that level, and this limbic brain is really one of the places where a lot of that gets connected.
The limbic brain is the emotional brain in the subconscious mind. They're finding the amygdala. Insula [00:38:00] is a really huge part of this as well, and it connects to the vagus nerve, which is the longest nerve in the body that connects to all the organs, and there's information going up and down all the time here, letting us know, are we safe or are we not safe?
Are we safe? Are we not safe? If you had childhood experiences that made you feel less safe, you are biased to seeing things are less safe. You had. Genetic trauma, you're biased to seeing things is less safe. It probably got you here, probably got your ancestors to survive and it's why you're here. And now we need to learn to communicate and experience things in a different way.
But if that ties in with also having, uh, dysbiosis, gut inflammation, or these chronic viruses or these toxins, it starts sending information up to the limbic brain confirming this. We're not okay. We're not okay. We're not okay. You end up in a vicious cycle where. Your whole immune system, hormonal system, everything can be thrown off and out of a desire to save you.
That limbic brain amplifies the experience and basically [00:39:00] says, I don't know what's going on there. It's not safe. I want you to stay well, so please, I'm gonna amplify your fatigue and your pain. So you go hide. I want you to go into your bed. I want you to go in behind the rock. I want you to hide 'cause it's not safe out there.
And that's kind of what's happening in some of these situations. Uh, chemical sensitivity. Chemical sensitivity is a sign of limbic brain dysfunction.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: Yeah. This is such a. It's such a hard one. Okay. I like, so I'm always very like anti DN s if anybody, like, because of how harsh the program is and it like, and it was thrown at me by a somatic therapist who basically wasn't able to help me and then she's like, I don't know, heard of DNS.
You should try that. And like, yes. So, so automatically it wasn't gonna work for me because it grown at me. But a chemical it. I guess it feels contradictory of like toxic overload and then like chemical sensitivity being in your, in your brain, like, so is it toxic or is it not? But I know it's not black and white like that, so maybe you can [00:40:00] give a, a more nuance.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: It's not, they're, they're, they're kind of, they're separated out. So, so, um, and let me, let me just talk about the, so in terms of toxins in our body, like when you talk about like an element coming into your body, that's not natural to our body. It's impacting everybody. Like plastics are hormone disruptors.
They're affecting all of us. We all have plastic in our brain now like everybody does, and that that's not good. That's a problem. But you have a garbage can. You know, I can grab my garbage can. You know you have plastic in your, you have plastic that's like here, and then you add this and it's here, but you start adding up and it overflows for one person, plastic.
It's not that big of a deal for somebody else. It's like. Causes this huge problem. Right? So there's that piece. When you also talk about elements of toxins in the body from the physical level, like not just on the physical level. How good is your body at moving stuff out? Some of us are genetically better at detoxifying than others.
Just what? What our [00:41:00] blueprint is of what we're born into. And then you can add on. If you also have a lifestyle where you're not supporting your detox pathways day in and day out, then you're more likely to get things to back up and then you add onto that. Some other things and then that becomes more of a problem.
Again, these toxins become more of a problem for you if you don't detoxify regularly and or you have a bad lifestyle for you that where it adds on. So that's kind of, and there are some toxins that are worse than others. Like there are some mycotoxins that are worse than other mycotoxins. There are some, there's some.
You know, other elements that are worse than others and dosage is huge in all of this stuff. So there's, I mean, there's a lot just from a biochemical level that's going on in the body around this. And I think, you know, I don't wanna, I don't wanna overcomplicate and I don't wanna over simplify it, but it's, that's kind of, that's kind of there.
Now those of us, I've been chemically, like all through medical schools, chemically sensitive. In clinic, I'd be [00:42:00] like, yep, I'm with you. This back in the nineties, I'm with you. We are canaries in the coal mine. Like I, you know, this woman, I had this patient who, she was in a wheelchair and if she was outside and somebody was using Tide or bounce.
And they're dryer. And she got a waft of it. She was back in bed for two weeks with a severe flare of her fibromyalgia and that, and I'm just like, I would get so mad at people for like using this stuff. I'm like, you're making my people sick. You know, like for me it just annoyed me. But it's like, you're making my people sick.
You're not, this is not good for you. Stop doing this. And I felt really upset about it. And um, but I knew as a canary, a coal mine 'cause I was just a sensitive human being. And I could tell it was a poison and nobody else could. And it made me mad. So I was kind, yeah. Yeah, that was,
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: that was how I, I mean, I never got as bad as it giving me a full on flare up.
It was more like, it annoyed me. Maybe I'd get a headache, but not a full on migraine. And so I always was a little bit confused because I would hear some people being that extreme. And then other people, like my husband who, [00:43:00] yeah. Didn't, he didn't even notice it. Like he can't even Right. Smell melt it. I ask him if it's there,
Jenny Tufenkian ND: what smell, right?
Yeah. Okay. So, so my, so the fifth root cause looking at that limbic brain that yl insulate, so I, um, heard about the limbic retraining and I heard about the couple different programs out there. I actually ended up, I bought, um, Annie Hopper's, DNRS training and got the DVDs and I was like. It was sort of, there's like, I'm just not gonna, this isn't gonna work for, like, this isn't gonna work for me this way.
'cause, and, and. And I won't go into time as to why. And I thought the only way that this is gonna work for me, and at this point, at this point in my health, I was much better. I remember walking up the hill behind our house with a friend and explain she's also a doctor and explaining to her and kind of going, I'm so much better.
Like, I'm so, like so many people with this condition would be so happy to be as well as I am. I can function now. I need a nap every day, but I function otherwise beautifully. And I, um. But I, [00:44:00] but I know there's further for me to go and I said, I can feel that I have to go further so I can lead more people, is basically what I told her.
I really feel that, and, and for a whole year I knew about the limbic retraining and hadn't done it. 'cause I felt like I knew so much about the subconscious mind. I treated so many people on the subconscious level in my clinic that surely I could do this myself. I should figure this, be able to figure this out by myself, which, if that resonates with you, this is part of the condition is the sense of I should be able to do this on my own, I should get figured out.
And you kind of feel bad that you're not better. Right. And so, and especially as a practitioner, I think that's there, but I think it's there for all of us. 'cause we're all smart people. We feel like we've invested so much. Oh yeah, we've done so much. I should be there. So that's kind of a thing. Anyway, so I was, and I, and I remember saying, I, but, and I know what I need to do and I needed to go invest this, you know, what felt like a huge amount of money at the time to me to go away for a week and to go do this treatment.
Now I'm [00:45:00] gonna tell you my brain, when my mindset, when before I went to go work, do Annie's retreat for a week up in Canada was, I looked at the picture of the hotel room and I thought. Well, if nothing else, I'll have a nice week in that hotel room. And I took a stack of books and I took my art projects.
'cause I was basically like, if I don't like it, I'm just gonna sit in the hotel room for five days and hang out. That's my attitude. Right. I'm hearing
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: a lot of mental flexibility also as you're going throughout this and I think that that's. A critical piece in everything that we're talking.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Oh, interesting.
That's that. Thank you for reflecting that. I appreciate that. So I went, and I, I went, and then the first day I'm in the elevator with somebody who's just an absolute, having an absolute anxiety, panic attack and has her scarf like this as we're going down the elevator. She's like, yeah, I thought it was gonna, she's like, I thought it was gonna be not chemical in here, and all this stuff.
And I'm like going, oh my gosh, what am I into for a week? Like, you know. And, and I, and I also felt, I really, I honestly felt [00:46:00] kind of like a failure that I had to go there. Like I felt like I'd been bad. Like I felt like I was the bad, you know, the bad student. I had to go to bad student camp, you know, and get fixed.
And I, you know, I was like so funny, like my attitude was just. So we get in there and the first day they're just like, well, you're gonna be here. We start at eight in the morning. You're gonna be here all day. And I'm like, no breaks. And like, well, we break for lunch. I'm like, what about my nap? Like, I can't function, like you don't understand.
I turn into a pumpkin. Like I don't, I'm great until one. And then I have to sleep for two hours. I don't function like my whole life for the last year has been in the schedule. Like, like I don't, you know? And they're like, yep, nope. You, you just have to be here. And, um. And they, but we're sort of beginning to, but they taught us enough concepts that I would start to practice some of the stuff during that time when my body's like, I know I wanna go sleep.
I started doing some things and it was really interesting. I had a huge, it really did have, it was really helpful for me and it really helped me. Help me understand the power of that limbic brain in a [00:47:00] different way. And it's different than some of the other subconscious stuff that we are working on.
It's a different thing. It really is a habit of the brain that's there for survival, and I don't think that this program is right for everybody. All the time. And yet I say this is a fifth root cause because I do see a lot of people get stuck in this place. Like I was where I had done all the other things and this, this time, that was the last piece of the puzzle for me was that, and I was able within, like I came home, I didn't need naps anymore.
My husband's like, he didn't say anything, but like after two weeks they like, I think I'm better. And he's like, yeah, I can tell. I was like, you don't have to nap anymore. I'm like, yeah, it's great, huh? And as I started to do things, but the thing was so hilarious. Was. Going into bathrooms and getting the soap and going like, God, that smells kind of like the perfume grandma gave me when I was eight years old.
That's kind of sweet. And I'm like going, wait a second. What just happened? Like, my sense of smell has actually shifted. Literally has shifted. And [00:48:00] I, you know, I'd be in the airport and my like, oh my God, that perfume. Are you okay? I'm like, what perfume? What? What are you talking about? I don't even smell it.
And, and now that's a sign for
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: me. And was this, was this you the week long trip? Was it, it was Annie Hopper's, DNRS, but it was in person, is that right? Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Yeah, it was in person and um, and I did the exercises. And I did all the stuff and I really, and I was still, but I was still doing all the other things too.
Right. You know, I'm still doing all the things and. The sense of smell has been a nice kind of thing for me. I can tell when my limbic brain's a little bit in dysfunctional state because of how sensitive I am to smell, and that's one of the pieces and that's one of the pieces there. I would say to your point of having it RAM rotted down your throat or being a, because this person couldn't figure it out, they told you to do this.
I see this as a real problem in my field too. I've had a lot of people come to, I feel like people because they don't understand what this limbic retraining really is. And there are different people who diff different kinds of limbic retraining, have different styles and approaches. You know, Annie's is very [00:49:00] NLP based, so it's very great for those left brain analytical types.
Um, Ashok Gupta, who I've become friends with, he's a lot more in the somatic based, you know, looking more in a somatic. So that works. Meditative process that works a lot better for a lot of other people. And it's more gentle and, but they both get there in the same place. And honestly, you can get there in other ways too.
It's like we understand now more what the physiology is and what that is, but I put that as a fifth root cause for people to understand the power of our emotional body and, and how this is inter. And it doesn't mean that it's a mood thing. It doesn't mean you made it up. It means that it's, it's physiologic, it's literally physiology trying to protect you, trying to.
Save you. It's a dysregulated system and there are ways of reregulating it, and you can find the tools and that way to access that in for yourself, you know, with the help of somebody else so that you can find that switch. It could be doing somatic therapy for you. And so I just think that the power of our mind is so strong and sometimes we, um, believe our minds [00:50:00] when we shouldn't.
And to this day. This day, to this day, I wake up. Uh, you know, I have things that you know will happen in my body and I'll wake up in that kind of early thing, and I'll feel anxiety or I'll feel ugh, or I'll feel worried about something or whatever. And I have this deal where I'm like, okay, do a check.
Anything I need to pay attention to. Mm, okay. No. Okay. Well then I'm like, I'm like. Um, let's see, let's see if we can find some love. You know, and I, I have a, I have a breathing meditation I do while I'm in bed before I get up in the morning. 'cause I'm like, I, you know, I'd rather be through my day in love than I would in fear.
You know, I love, and unless there's something I really need to attack, you know, with my fear brain, I'd rather be there. So I consciously still to this day, practice being how I wanna be when I can, you know, and I catch myself when I'm not there and I bring myself back and. I just think it's part of having a brain, you know?
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: Yeah, absolutely. You, it's interesting. It is. So I'm glad you gave more [00:51:00] context for the DNRS kind of, uh, the AP approach, and I know there is the Gupta program and then, um, primal Trust, which I think is even like softer than Gupta. So it almost feels like it's DNRS Gupta. And then, um, primal Trust with like a lit, with a scale of like.
Harsh to like rigid to fluid.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Yeah. Yeah. And it just depends. 'cause I have some patients who just, you know, some people who. They like the clarity of the DNRS, like that works for them. That's great. And then, and then I'll also say there are times when it's just not the right thing. I mean, I think you're all, if your law therapists are listening, you understand that like I, so for instance, my dad died and I was, it was a beautiful.
Death. It was, I midwifed his death. It was beautiful, incredible passing. And, and I was really sad and for, you know, grieving heavily for, you know, one or two years after that as you should. And, um, it was, or as I did, I, I know there's no shoulds in grief, right? No should, but you're, you're no, no shoulds. But I was grieving [00:52:00] and so doing the DNRS just felt so, like, there's no way.
And also a lot of my happy memories were with him, and it would totally trigger my grief. Right. And so I couldn't like, it was like this thing that it, and I was like it. It's like, oh, this system isn't like the way she built that. I couldn't figure out how to make it work for when I was grieving. Now I could have probably hired a coach to have them help me or whatever, and I did do that.
So I just wanna say that outta fairness. But I just think that there's a time and a place for different things. And I also think that, um. I've done a lot of stuff with Joe Dispenza and I've done some deeper, deeper, deeper subconscious work in other ways, and I actually felt like the DNRS super helpful for me, lifesaving as it is for many of my patients and, and or the Gupta program or any of these other programs.
There is also a level of that where it's kind of, you are remodeling the, you're repainting the room to make it so that you can be there and there may be another window or timing in your life when you actually wanna go down under the foundation. And that's what I felt like I've been doing in my own [00:53:00] personal journey since I got Covid.
It was an inter, inter, it was an invitation. For me to be like, okay, I know I need to do this work. I'm gonna try on this other thing and do this other work and see what happens. And like you said, I can now look back and go, oh, this makes sense because all of this journey that, yeah, I could say I've been nicer to not have, has allowed me to open up to a whole other level place of my, in my being.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: I love this. This has been so incredibly helpful. Um. Anything else that you, you wanted to say that we didn't get to yet? No, I feel
Jenny Tufenkian ND: like we, I
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: said a lot. Amazing. This so, so good and clear. Yeah, because I've been around, I mean it. It's clear. Like it's clear and I, I'll, I'll, yeah. Um, I'm gonna edit, edit this part out, but I'll do a blog post and it will have your five, like, it'll have, uh, basically a, a structured, it will make this interview into a more like structured blog post.
Um, and I'm really excited 'cause everything you were talking about is just gonna be Okay. Easy. Okay. That's
Jenny Tufenkian ND: [00:54:00] great. Yeah. Let me just, I will say one thing. Yeah. At the end, just here, like, the one thing I would say is to just maintain that hope. It's like, I know you have days where you're really down and you feel like you just.
You know, banging your head against the wall and it's not going anywhere. And I, you know, I honor that moment in you, but it's like, what do you do after you have that cry or after you feel down and disappointed? What's the, when you get up from that, that's the important point is like making that choice to still have hope.
Like what's the next thing? Because I know that if you keep trying, if you keep knocking on doors. There's gonna be one that opens up and allows you to get to that next level of health where then you get to go, oh, now I get it. I feel better. And it's just gonna make a world of difference. So hang in there and keep going.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: Oh, thank you so much. Um, will you please tell us about your summit that you have coming up?
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Oh, yes, I will. Yes. So I am doing an incredible summit. Um, it's, we're going for longest summit title competition. I think we're gonna win, and I can't even remember the whole title [00:55:00] right now, but it's, it's long, COD, fatigue, brain fog Pain, all that stuff.
And how you can, you know, we're really, literally. Because I'm hosting this myself, I'm bringing in all the aspects I see. It's the physical, the mental, emotional, and energetic. I'm interviewing these incredible researchers that I've been reading their papers for decades. I'm also, um, they're healers and there's all sorts of information there.
So if you're struggling with these conditions, highly recommend you check it out. I know there's gonna be something amazing in there for you.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: And it's in April, right?
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Yes, it's April 11th through 18th and it's absolutely free for you to come in and sign up for that. And then of course, like all the summits, you have a purch, you have the option to purchase it during the summit for pretty low amount of money for most people to be able to get those recordings to just go back to all the time.
So yeah, I'm really excited. IC I'm thrilled about putting this out there to get the information out. So if you know people who need this information, I highly recommend you share it with them. 'cause there's really gonna be a lot in [00:56:00] there for everyone.
Destiny Davis LPC CRC: Thank you Dr. Jenny.
Jenny Tufenkian ND: Yeah.
Listen to Dr. Jenny’s interview with me, Destiny, on Episode 87: The Five Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue: Insights from Dr. Jenny Tufenkian.
Dr. Jenny Tufenkian, a licensed Naturopathic Physician with two decades of experience, specializes in empowering health-conscious professionals to conquer long COVID and ME/CFS fatigue. Her personal battle with chronic fatigue inspired her to uncover its root causes, leading to the creation of a transformative system that addresses the five core root causes of Chronic Fatigue/ME. This approach helps those overwhelmed by exhaustion regain their energy and vitality, allowing them to fully embrace life once again. Combining a thorough functional medical approach with deep subconscious work, Dr. Tufenkian's method facilitates significant shifts in both physical and energetic well-being. She believes in a holistic healing process that integrates the physical, mental/emotional, and energetic dimensions, emphasizing the body's inherent ability to be vital. Dr. Tufenkian earned her medical degree and completed her residency at the National University of Natural Medicine. She is also a mom of two, happily married and loves her time outdoors and in the kitchen.
Meet Destiny - The host of The Chronic Illness Therapist Podcast and a licensed mental health therapist in the states of Georgia and Florida. Destiny offers traditional 50-minute therapy sessions as well as therapy intensives and monthly online workshops for the chronic illness community.
Destiny Davis, LPC CRC, is solely responsible for the content of this document. The views expressed herein may or may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Dr. Jenny Tufenkian.