Season 3 Episode 9 of Quiet the Diet Podcast with Michelle Shapiro, RD and Jaban Moore, DC
Exploring Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and Our Nervous System with Dr. Jaban Moore
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In this episode, Michelle sits down with Dr. Jaban Moore, a renowned functional dietitian and expert in holistic healing. Join them as they dive deep into the benefits of sound, light, and color therapy, and how when combined with EEG brain monitoring, can help coax our brain waves into a normal pattern transforming conditions such as depression and anxiety.
Dr. Moore shares valuable insights about mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) and histamine intolerance, shedding light on how these conditions turn typically beneficial things, like exercise and healthy foods, into triggers for the body. You’ll hear advice for how to choose the right health practitioner for you and the importance of understanding life experiences and mindset in relation to bodily ailments. Healing is a multifaceted journey that requires a holistic approach.
In this episode, Michelle and Dr. Jaban discuss:
- Sound, light, and color therapy
- Understanding the body’s reaction to supplements
- The three-tier approach to managing mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS)
- What should you do if you experience an increase in symptoms?
- Building trust and advocating for oneself in practitioner relationships
- The importance of evaluating progress and self-care
Dr. Jaban’s Resources:
Website: https://drjabanmoore.com/
Instagram: @drjabanmoore
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgCDI1l6SF-q_wNG8czQ0nA
Podcast Links:
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Episode Transcript
Exploring Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and Our Nervous System with Dr. Jaban Moore
Michelle [00:01:38]:
I am so excited to have Dr. Jaban Moore on the podcast today. I’m just an Instagram fan of yours, to be honest with you. And I feel like with a lot of these complex issues like mold toxicity, learning about our detoxification pathways, mast cell activation syndrome, you have a very nuanced take on these topics that have recently become very popular that I feel like people are not honestly talking about properly. And I feel like you do them justice and really understand the mechanisms. So I’m so excited to have you here today.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:02:15]:
Well, thanks for having me. Say, it’s a topic of mold and Massell that’s come on so strong over the last couple of years. But I was fortunate, we could say that. Fortunate to have the clients walk into my office before it was cool to talk about these things that were dealing with them. Before we had some of the tests we have today. Before we had some of the interventions we had today. And I got to figure it out the old school way by running all the different labs, trying all the different things but that was seven, eight years ago.
Michelle [00:02:47]:
Absolutely. And I’m so grateful. Like you said, the fortunate part of it is that we had practitioners who were already working with these conditions many years ago. So you already had the experience and intricacies and nuances to understand what clients needed. So I’m very grateful. I’m very not happy that people were encountering these symptoms, but I’m very happy that you were there to walk with them through it.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:03:07]:
Yeah, I can tell you the story. My first client that walked in was a 30 year old guy, and this was back in, like, I don’t even know, 2015, and he was on a walker, couldn’t make it down the hallway of my office. Prior to this, he was working full time, writing scary books for kids, which was fun. To work with him through all of this journey, I think we gave him some new content, and he reacted everything. I mean, literally everything. Horrible reactions. He’d been to all the big box medical facilities that I’m not going to name right now, but the really big ones, they gave him tons of labs.
Michelle [00:03:45]:
And I’m sure functional ones, too. Yeah, integrative functional ones, like, everything, I’m sure, at that point.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:03:50]:
And I pulled a drop of blood out of him, and I saw more bacteria in his blood than I saw red blood cells, and I was just like, this could be something else. And as we worked together, I didn’t have a name of mast cell. I didn’t talk about mold. Those weren’t on my radar. But we found mold in his jet tub, his jet hot tub that he used to soak in. We found elevated immune response markers. I, at the time, wasn’t doing hair tests and organic tests, and since then I’ve been now I can identify these likelihoods out of testing, but I was able to come up with what I call the pulse method. And in the long run, because we’ll get to all the fun details of what we’re doing, but in the long run, he, after six months, went from couldn’t flap his arms in bed to move his length to jumping up and down, flapping his arms and clapping under his leg.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:04:43]:
He sent me a video, literally brought tears to my eyes.
Michelle [00:04:45]:
Oh, my gosh, Jamie, that’s wonderful. And really, for you, again, you kind of ran one test with the hopes of finding out what was going on. And it seems like throughout the process of working together, you were like, oh, this is what’s happening. And you kind of learned more and more during that process. And was this one of the kind of precedents for you and how to work with people who have complex immune conditions?
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:05:11]:
You have to keep an open mind, a small ego, and just realize that you’re in for a learning curve. So the entire time I work with these clients, even today, after, I think, my staff, we had 9000 patients in our database with all of our doctors, even after working with so many and then teaching docs every single day I tell a client, a new client, hey, for the first few months I’m getting to know you. I’m learning how your body responds, what it likes, what it doesn’t like, what you’re willing to do, what you can eat, what you can’t eat. You can tell me all the things, you can tell me what you’ve experienced, which helps me tremendously. But I’m still getting to know you for a few months versus here’s the plan, take these supplements, go.
Michelle [00:05:56]:
Exactly. And I think the world that we’ve seen functional medicine turn into concerns me for that reason. It’s something I talk about a lot on the podcast, which is that we now have a lot of practitioners who you walk into their office and you get a protocol and supplements, and you walk out of their office or you walk out with a really expensive test that doesn’t really tell you much and a bunch of supplements. And it really takes what you’re saying and what I just so deeply resonate with is it takes an understanding of that person’s body, not just the human body in general and understanding of biology, because everyone’s body reacts so differently. I know I’ve seen that in my practice, have you seen that too? Where you notice the same protocol works totally different on two different people, without a doubt.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:06:39]:
And every person that comes to my clinic gets a custom protocol top to bottom from I have basically a three tier approach where it’s do you live in a safe place? So we got to go through all of that. What do you feel like inside? Do you feel safe? And how do we address that? And then of course, the detox drainage supplement therapy side of things, which I combine into the third part, but I do the first two first because people are so used to walking out with a bag of supplements and so used to being told go home and do this, that or the other. But for me, those things are easy to get clients to do, especially ones that are mass sell. Like those people are go getters. They are motivated, they are researching. I’m their 20th doc and I always tell them, I go, look, this is not where I want to be your next doctor. I want to be the last one in this journey for you with this problem. But we have to work together and this is something where you are going to be asked to do things maybe a little differently.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:07:40]:
And some of the things I ask people to do is, you know those 50 supplements that your last ten doctors have told you to be on and you’re holding on to them like crutches. We’re going to let them go. Now, if there’s one that you have to have, that’s okay. But I guarantee you don’t need all 50.
Michelle [00:07:57]:
I find this conversation so important. I think people just want to throw supplements and hope that into the body and hope the supplements do the work for them. And I think a lot of practitioners also do that and hope for that, too. And then when it’s something like mast cell, when you really don’t know what is coming from where and how your body’s reacting in different ways, you really can’t pinpoint what is driving a flare, what is driving degranulation. You can’t pinpoint it. Can we just also walk, like, five steps back and just briefly talk about what mast cell activation is in the first place? And some people might have seen this written as MCAs. Other people might have heard it in the context of histamine intolerance. And famously, people now are learning so much about MCAs or histamine intolerance because we also learned that long haul COVID had a lot of interactions with mast cells interfacing with mast cells, and that a lot of the symptoms people were experiencing were histamine intolerant symptoms.
Michelle [00:08:53]:
So can you walk us back to what is mast cell activation syndrome in the first place? What mast cells even are?
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:08:59]:
So mast cell is an immune cell, but I’m going to just completely go a different route than what you just asked me to do, because my opinion of a mast cell person is different than that of the mainstream situation. I look at it so differently. I also don’t talk in medical terms. So, yeah, I learned basically Latin going through school. But here’s what I see when a person’s body is pushed to the brink, whether that’s COVID mold, toxicity, working 100 hours a week, childhood trauma that’s never been dealt with, your body now gets stuck in what I call autoimmune PTSD. It is stuck in a situation where it becomes overreactive. So I explain to clients all the time ago, I’m a little bit of a history buff. If you look at D Day back in World War II, there’s 400,000 people going at a beach all at the same time.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:09:49]:
If you’re the machine gunner sitting at the top of the hill, you’re not shooting at a person, you’re shooting at the beach. This is what happens with your immune system. Your immune system starts attacking absolutely everything, not because it necessarily is bad for you, but because it can’t take the time to identify what’s going on. So now you’re reactive to any and everything under the sun, including the sun. I’ve had people actually attack water, the sun, and every food supplement homeopathic, red light therapy you can imagine. So instead of going into the deep science of it, I just say that’s what’s happening. So these people have histamine reactions, which is an immune particle that’s released to try and help defend you. But it looks like reddening of your skin, reddening of your ears.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:10:36]:
Itchiness it happens when you get a little bit of that drainage in your nose. So that could be a little bit of histamine reaction. We call it allergies. But the definition of an allergy would require us to have a protein to attack. So if you’re attacking light or if you’re attacking water or if you’re attacking a stressful situation, like the thought of taking a parasite protocol, then what are we attacking? Well, then it becomes nervous system oriented. So with the last several years, what happened, we got isolated. We got pushed into putting tons of toxins onto our bodies that were called, like, I don’t know, antimicrobial soaps and cleansers. Every store you went into, I’m like, no, I’m good with that stuff.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:11:24]:
Don’t touch me with that cancer stuff. Yeah, I’m a Midwest boy. We played by different rules out here. And so not only were you isolated, you were made fearful, you were put toxins on. You were also left inside buildings with mold toxicity. So all of this drove your system into a shoot first, ask questions later. That’s what mast cell is to me. So I know that’s not the scientific definition, but it makes it palatable.
Michelle [00:11:56]:
It does. And I joke that clients who have mast cell activation syndrome and I also have experienced mast cell activation syndrome is like, you almost have an allergy to stress and in some ways almost like an allergy to being alive. That’s just like you just become in a state of defense, essentially, where, like you said, it’s like you’re in a war with everything. And for each person, that totally depends. And what’s so weird about mast cell activation syndrome and so weird about histamine intolerance is that things that are generally very helpful become not healthful or can create symptoms, right? So doing some exercise can then cause anxiety and numbness in your feet, and you’re like, what? I was just running last week and that felt fine. What the heck? Avocados are high in histamines right strawberries. These things that are objectively healthy become threats to your body. And I think that’s the message.
Michelle [00:12:52]:
And so what happens is a lot of times this population gets grossly mistreated because they might be going to personal trainers who are like, push your body to the brink. They might be going to doctors who say, take a million supplements to heal this. But if the body is perceiving things that are healthy as threats, it becomes a very unsafe situation where symptoms seem to be coming almost out of nowhere.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:13:15]:
Absolutely. And that’s why when you come in and start talking with me, we talk about let’s just take a step back, let’s look at the big picture, and let’s do a little bit of a reset on everything, including your mindset and what you’ve been through in life so that we can really get an understanding for why your body’s doing this, from the perspective of life experiences, more than what was that one infection that got into my body that caused this problem? Because here’s the deal. I had Lyme disease and I went into practice and I wanted to help people with Lyme disease. Lyme disease is not that hard to beat if you can understand the big picture. And it’s only one single bacteria and it’s never, ever alone. mast cell. When something comes into you and starts taking over, I will guarantee anyone with mast cell has ten root causes, not one, because their body no longer can defend itself. So it’s sometimes like, let’s just take an opportunity to breathe.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:14:18]:
I’ve literally told a woman with mast cell that would not do things that I wanted her to do because she felt like she was too busy or she didn’t have the finances or whatever was going on. I said, Please stop everything, walk outside and stare at a tree for 20 minutes in the morning for the next week and then give me a call back and tell me if you feel better. Can you imagine what she said?
Michelle [00:14:42]:
I hope that she did it. She did it.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:14:44]:
She came back.
Michelle [00:14:46]:
She did it. Exactly. I’m glad. And I believe she did feel better. I was just hoping that she did it. That was the cliffhanger of the story. So I’m glad that she, you know, Dr. Jaban it’s know.
Michelle [00:14:57]:
So I split my client plans up into two parts. The first part is always lifestyle, breathing, gentle movement, sunlight, like those foundational pieces which are specific for the person, but also those foundations of being a person are what we have to regain and get back before you have the fancy supplements. And we love our fancy tests and supplements, by the way. There’s a place for them and they’re wonderful. But I think that especially with something like mast cell, especially when you find yourself reacting to a lot of things, you have to pull back and get back to those foundations because you really don’t know what’s impacting you at that point. And it sounds like you’ve seen that exact experience with clients before. So you very smartly. Say instead of, let me slamming you with a protocol, let’s pull back to nothing.
Michelle [00:15:44]:
Assess, create a game plan from there, and also just create that rapport and safety with one’s own body seems so important.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:15:54]:
Exactly. And something that I will say, that I’ve experienced in my practice is this everything you do, good or bad, requires effort and energy. Taking a supplement requires you to remember to do it, put it in your mouth, let it go into your digestive tract. Your digestive tract then has to absorb it, figure out what to do with it and excrete it. Right. That’s for each supplement. Now do that times 50. Why are you tired? Why is your body stressed out? Okay, add to that that you’re doing seven therapies every single day, but you have kids and you don’t have time to do it.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:16:30]:
Add on top of that, you feel like you don’t look the way you want to. So you’re worried about what you’re eating and getting back into the gym. Every single thing that you do, whether you consciously are doing it or unconsciously doing it, requires effort and energy. So when I talk to clients, I say, look, I get that that therapy that you’re doing, coffee enemies is phenomenal for you, and taking vitamin C, de, B, zinc, and every other thing that you’re doing are all good for you. However, you only have so much energy to use and you’re already fatigued. So I need to optimize and make your body efficient at doing what we needed to do, which is absorb these three things that’s going to move the needle much more than those 50 things, so that we can get to an endpoint, where if you want to bring some of those back in once your body is better, no problem. They’re great. Put them back on the shelf.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:17:24]:
We’ll get to them later. Because it really, truly matters. Also, if you don’t have a great digestive tract and you’re trying to take 50 supplements, do you know what you have? Expensive poop.
Michelle [00:17:35]:
Yeah, exactly. Right. Or expensive not poop. And just a build up of things in your body that your body can’t get rid of. Exactly. Yeah, it’s so true. I think what you’re speaking to is so important and it’s so startling for people who really don’t understand functional medicine or don’t understand true functional nutrition, because I think their perception is, again, you go in, you get all these supplements, and then you slam the body with them. And I need people to understand that if a practitioner is doing that, they’re not actually practicing functional medicine and they’re not actually practicing functional nutrition, which seeks to learn the root cause before intervention.
Michelle [00:18:12]:
That is what’s so, so important. And I think symptom management is just as important in functional medicine as root cause treatment. You still have to be comfortable in the meantime while you’re healing and doing all of these things. So in ways of you said something way before that I want to go back to in ways of COVID and just the virus itself and the environment that we were all living in of fear and isolation. Would you say that it really was that kind of perfect storm for a mast cell activation syndrome, for histamine intolerance and for those symptoms to come up?
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:18:45]:
For a lot of people? Yes. If you experienced COVID and it triggered you by stressing you out in whatever way, again, whether it’s fear or isolation or toxicity of being in your home that had mold, all of those things continue to just add burden to your body. Right. So all of us are walking around every day, and I’m a weightlifter. I love going to the gym. So if you’re not a gym person, hopefully this analogy still can make sense. Take and put the squat bar on your back. It’s 45 pounds.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:19:20]:
Now, that 45 pounds is just the stuff that weighs you down every single day, whether that be you don’t love your job or you had a fight with your spouse, or you got a few extra pounds that you’re doing, or you don’t eat perfectly. It’s just weight. Well, then let’s add the fear of COVID on that. So let’s put on 45 pounds on each side, right? Every person has a different ability to work out. There are different strengths. So if that 135 pounds is now on your back, is more than you can walk around with, you got knocked down, and you can’t get back up until you take some of that weight off. But for the next person and this is why everyone’s so different, you’re fine. Like, I back squat 600 pounds.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:20:04]:
So you throw that on me, I’m like, okay, I’m slowed down, but I’m fine. So we put on another plate, and now we’re at 225 pounds. And that secondary plate is the fact that we were socially isolated. That’s actually pretty heavy for me. I’m an extrovert. I love talking to people. So then we put on another plate, right? And that’s the toxicity. Maybe you’re living in a moldy place and another plate, maybe childhood trauma and another plate of whatever it is that you’re dealing with, lyme disease, because that was my story.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:20:33]:
So now I’ve got 500 plus pounds on me. I can still move, but I’m really dragging. I’m fatigued. I’m not broken down. I’m just walking through sand. Unfortunately, if you throw another plate on there now, we’re to the max that I can hold. And when I go down, I’m not coming back up now, for me, because 600 pounds is what I can handle. If I can take one of those plates off, I can get back up a little bit.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:20:58]:
Still not good, but I can get back up. But if you have 600 pounds on you and your max is 200, sometimes it takes us a while to dig you out. And that’s what COVID did for so many people, is it just overwhelmed their system. It was too much. It dropped them to the floor. They’re stuck in that squat position. They cannot stand back up. And even though they made changes, and they eat a little bit better, and they went to a therapist, and they talked through a couple of problems, it’s still not enough.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:21:26]:
They’re still struggling. So that’s why when I earlier said we have to make sure you live in a safe place, it’s me removing weight from you. So food, water, air hygiene, dental issues, implants. We’re talking about is your body in a place where it is capable of healing? And then after that, when I have created this, or you’ve created this through some of the instructions that we’ve given, are you now feeling safe in that environment? Because if it was fear that triggered this trauma that triggered this, now you have anxiety. You have irritability depression. Your shoulders are up at your ears, you’re jumping when someone talks to you, you always feel unsafe and overwhelmed. This means that you don’t feel safe. So if you’re not feeling safe, even in a safe environment, now, that’s a whole nother problem we need to deal with.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:22:15]:
So I take people through limbic somatic and vagal nerve retraining. One of my favorite courses is Primal Trust.
Michelle [00:22:21]:
Yeah, it’s awesome.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:22:22]:
And that’s before we even get to the toxins and infections, which is probably what I’m most known for, at least, like, instagram wise. I’m always talking about parasites and Lyme and mold and all of these other things. But that’s like, down the list of what I have to get.
Michelle [00:22:39]:
Exactly. And by the way, we had a show Gupta, who created the Gupta program on this podcast earlier this season, limbic System Retraining program, similar to Primal Trust, but they’re both unique and wonderful and have their own assets. But I completely agree. I’ve made a joke historically, which I say that at the bottom of all root causes is either mold or trauma because it’s like and the combination of two is, for most people, something like that. But it’s whatever the things that will fill that bucket. And I love this weightlifter analogy. I love this weight analogy. What I think was happening post COVID, like the actual virus, caused a huge inflammatory response for people that was like, maybe that was like 100 pounds for some people of that weight visual you had.
Michelle [00:23:21]:
And it was just such a huge load on what already they didn’t realize was a teetering on the edge weight load at that point already. And people don’t realize when they’re close to that edge because we’re so used to living in constant discomfort, constant fight or flight, that we truly don’t know when we’re burnt out. We truly don’t know when we’re reaching that level. And especially, you said before, you’re a Midwest guy, I’m a city girl. And those both come with unique nervous system dysregulation things, right? Like, everyone has their unique patterns and their unique things that are going to add weight to them. And I think what was happening post COVID was people had the weight that crushed them, let’s say, and it shattered their knees. And they were on their knees, like you said. And I don’t know why I’m being so graphic today, but they were taken down by it.
Michelle [00:24:09]:
And then what happens is we take the weight off and you would say, okay to your client, go for a walk, but now they have to fix their knees too, because there’s the stress as it happens. And then you have to deal with the impact of that stress and what was happening during COVID and after and why. So specifically, all this has been coming up for people is that we are not only dealing with what the attack was, now we’re dealing with the after effects of how our body is trying to make sure that never, ever happens again. And that’s where that immune involvement comes into play, because our nervous system interfaces with our immune system and will say, please constantly respond to these threats. So it’s not only the stressful events that happen, but as you’re saying, now we have to clean up the response from the stressful events too.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:24:56]:
Yeah, and if you don’t clean up the response, then the next time you walk into a moldy house, you way overreact. Clients will clean their house up. They’ll feel great. Then they walk into a store and they have stroke like symptoms or they get migraines for way no reason. I mean, there’s just this over response. But it’s the same thing that’s happening to somebody who’s a veteran who ducks and covers when they hear a firecracker go off or a door slam because they previously needed to do that. Now they no longer need to create that type of reaction. So your body has to be retrained out of it.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:25:33]:
And Goopt is another great program. I referred different people to different programs. Right. I’m like, let’s see. Are you somebody who needs a female who’s really soft and nice? Are you someone who needs a male? That’s very analytical. Where do you want to like, I don’t care. We just need to do the work.
Michelle [00:25:51]:
And it’s also know, and I’m joking about it when I say it, but it’s like, yeah, you’re a Midwest guy, I’m a New York City girl. We need different voices speaking to us, and our nervous systems also respond to familiarity. And what we feel is, you know, this is something that I talk with clients a lot about, but basically, when they’re in a panic state and I work a lot with clients with anxiety and panic disorders, and when they’re in that panic state again, they have this voice that comes up, and it’s like, oh, just calm down. Everything’s great. And I’m like, but if that voice doesn’t speak to you and that feels fake or like toxic positivity, you’re going to shoot it down. I can tell you if someone came up to me when I was in a panic state and was like singing and all jolly and like, kumbaya, everything’s fine, I’d be like, I’m going to beat you up. This is not how I respond to things. This is not how we do things.
Michelle [00:26:37]:
So you also have to pick I love that you’re saying this because you really have to pick the tool for the client, and you have to pick the voice for the client, and you have to pick that kind of relationship. It is so sick that you’re a functional medicine practitioner and that you sick in a good way and that you are working with clients on so many different levels. When did you start getting into this vagal work or limbic system retraining work? When did that really. Become part of the work that you’re doing too, or even referring.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:27:06]:
So we do a little within the clinic. We refer a lot because there are so many tools that we need to customize programs for people. But for me, I’ll tell you, probably five, six years of practice. I’ve been in ten now. It wasn’t a big deal when it was Lyme disease and parasites and gut issues and brain fog. There wasn’t a ton of need for limbic retraining, at least that I noticed, because I’d get people 90, 95%. Well, they probably started to move on with their lives, and they were just like, I’m good now. You can’t even get started until you do it because there’s so many people that are coming in with this mast cell histamine situation.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:27:48]:
So of course, as I started running into that, I’m like, what am I doing? Because I have 50 companies that I ordered supplements homeopathics from. I had every therapy you can think of that I would recommend that could be done virtually, and some that I had in office. I did neurofeedback in the clinic, and I think I really ran into this when I don’t know if it was three or four years ago, I had a client come in and they were mast cell, but they also had just significant anxiety. And I had been doing neurofeedback with anxiety a little bit, with OCD, a little bit, because I’d bought it for an office manager of mine. It worked phenomenally for her. So I was like, I buy it, whatever. And it was just kind of sitting there in the office as a tool, but what do you have? She used it for herself.
Michelle [00:28:31]:
You had like an M wave or one of those, like something like that?
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:28:34]:
No, so it’s sound, light and color therapy that actually you put it like an EEG on the brain, and then you changes based off of your brain’s response to it. And what it’s trying to do is help to coax your brain waves back into a more normal pattern by, let’s say, if you are super high and it’s trying to bring you down, when your brain waves the electrical conductivity of your brain when the waves come down, it lets you hear and watch TV or the music that you’re wanting. And when you go high, it cuts it out and you can’t hear it anymore. So your brain eventually, like the carrot on the end of the stick, comes back into sync. So it’s like training you back in. Anyway, she used it for herself and ended up getting off of some of her depression medications, anxiety medications was feeling way better. So I had it in the office, had a person that was massive and anxious. I’m like, let’s try this out.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:29:25]:
So we did it really rapidly because she was in town and I’d gone and trained, and some people were doing it with a more rapid pace. So I was like, all right, sure, we can do this. Her mast cell symptoms dropped like 50%.
Michelle [00:29:37]:
Wow.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:29:38]:
And I go, wait a minute. You can take a ton of supplements now. You’re okay with foods now. You can go do whatever you want now. What just happened? So I was like, I’m going to do this again. So I had a client come in out of the Northeast, up in New Hampshire. One fourth of a capsule of a Lymph supplement would trigger her major reactions. She was eating two or three foods and that’s it.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:30:09]:
Then we do neurofeedback. We did twelve sessions in like, six days. And she goes home. She can take four capsules of the Lymph supplement. She added, like, a new food every other day. She still was fearful because she wasn’t used to this, so she was going kind of slow. And we still work with her today. It’s been a couple of years, and she’s like a completely different person.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:30:36]:
She’s hiking and exercising and in college and loving life. So I was just like, okay, fight or flight? Nervous system Dysregulation is a massive, massive, massive part of this autonomic problem, the subconscious autonomic immune dysregulatory problem that we refer to as mast cell, which is why I don’t even talk about the immune system and all the intricacies of degranulation and histamine. I’m like, yes, but that’s the side effect.
Michelle [00:31:13]:
Exactly. That is such a powerful story and such a good example of the right tool for the right patient at the right time. That’s exactly what she needed. And other things would not have done well, because what I love so much about this biofeedback that you were doing also is that it was retraining the brain without having tremendous input and effort, like you said. The problem is that a lot of the efforts that people have to put into their health, they don’t have the capacity for in the first place. So if there’s things that you can do on any sort of low effort, high payback way, that’s very safe. And low risk is the best case scenario for mast cell. And I will say there has been nothing more humbling in my ten years as a functional dietitian than having mast cell activation syndrome symptoms myself, because it’s such a game of okay, like you said, all right, people, when I first became a functional dietitian, I’m like, all right, great.
Michelle [00:32:11]:
People are coming with leaky gut. We’re going to heal up that gut lining. We’re going to give probiotics, we’re going to give supplements for anxiety. This will help bring down that kind of high cortisol response, adrenal, HPX, Dysregulation, and then the playbook just goes out the window. And with my mast cell clients, the same thing. When your body’s reacting to everything, how do you create that safety? So I think those methods that are very low input on the client end that don’t exhaust them and don’t trigger them at the same time are so valuable and this is such a beautiful story and example of that. So I just also want to thank you for sharing that story and I’m so excited for your patient. That’s wonderful.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:32:54]:
That’s the biggest thing is, as I said earlier, you’ve got to remove your ego, your protocol, your thoughts, your biased toward whatever supplement company therapy and just say what does this person need and how can we help them? Sure, you need to take all that information that you have, all those biases, and you have to use them to try and learn and understand and direct. But I learn from my clients every single day and we work on each other.
Michelle [00:33:27]:
Heck yeah.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:33:28]:
And it’s just a fun team up because they know their bodies better than I ever will. I just know what’s worked for 1000 other people. So I can kind of direct the game, I guess. Direct the game. I can coach through this so that we can possibly and likely have a significantly better outcome faster just because I’ve got the experience. But it’s so much based off of that person.
Michelle [00:33:57]:
I love it. Thank you for mentioning the word ego so much. It’s my favorite word in healthcare and one that makes me so cautious of certain practitioners and so excited by other practitioners. Let’s say someone is going to a practitioner and everything that they’re doing is making them feel worse. But the practitioner is saying this is a herc’s reaction. You got to kind of hang in there and it’ll get better. When do you think people should start advocating for themselves? How much should people be taking in ways of hits to the body and ways of not getting better? Symptom wise? This is a very theoretical question. So you can go in any direction you want.
Michelle [00:34:34]:
Obviously I don’t mean an actual timeline or something like that.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:34:37]:
So I work with clients every single day. That hurts. So I’m guilty of making people not always feel better first, which is part of healing.
Michelle [00:34:45]:
And that’s normal. Of course.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:34:47]:
My stance on is this if your symptoms go up by more than ten to 15%, then we need to evaluate if this is the right direction. And typically if it’s more than ten to 15%, we’re going to slow down, change protocol, do something else. Because if I just bury you, I’m doing the same thing that COVID did to people, which is overstimulate the system, trigger a stress response that’s going to make us worse. So the funny thing is so many people want to be so much better that they’re willing to deal with 2030 40% increase. I’m like no, stop that. They’ll report back to me after a protocol. I’m like, oh yeah, I was real bad here for a while. I’m like, Why did you not talk to me? Your body can only take so many of those hits.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:35:32]:
We can’t do that all the time now. It’s not to say that we’re going to stop or that you’re a quitter. It’s to say that we need to make this custom for you and for your body’s response. So I came up with a pulse method protocol for mast cell clients where we don’t stay on something five days in a row. We go one day on, five days off, one day on, four days off until we reach every day because it allows their body to make that adaptation without the significant side effects. And a lot of times it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we need to do the titration thing. But that wasn’t working.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:36:02]:
So that’s where I came up with the pulse method. That first client, the 30 year old that was on the walker, that’s where I came up with it because we had tried everything. We spent a year titrating up different products from different companies, trying different B vitamins, trying exercises and coffee enemas, and he was a trooper. We were getting nowhere.
Michelle [00:36:22]:
Thank you. Times a million. Yes. Because again, first of all, if you want to ask me who are the toughest, baddest people you’ll ever meet? I’m like, meet someone with chronic illness for 20 years. That’s one of the toughest people you’ll ever meet in your life. I think people have this perception of people who are chronically ill as being very weak. And I’m like, no, they’re the strongest people. You could not live a day in their shoes and still do the stuff that they do to take care of themselves.
Michelle [00:36:45]:
And that’s the honest truth. And I just love that there’s still this softening that needs to happen too when we’re experiencing chronic illness of, yes, you have to do certain things and no, they might not be comfortable, but at the same time, it should not be a torturous journey. And you certainly shouldn’t continue to feel worse for weeks and months on end in the name of detox or in the name of just hope that it’ll get better. That’s when you do tap in and listen to yourself and do communicate with your practitioner. And what if someone know they can just go to you, but let’s say, Dr. Jamin, they are going to a practitioner who is pushing things on them and is continuing to kind. How will people know when it’s the wrong practitioner for what they’re working? How when do you want people to start advocating for themselves or just getting out and getting a new practitioner like you?
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:37:41]:
It’s partially a gut thing. Are you being heard? Are they talking to you? Does it make sense? Does it feel right? Are they slowing down and making changes? Sometimes certain clients that are in a really bad spot, like, we’re pushing kind of hard, but then I’m like, okay, you’re going to take a week off after this so your body can rest and relax and recover. Is your baseline getting better? Did they do their due diligence at the start. And do they double check as you’re going through things where you can just feel that they’re at least trying not to push you there they are paying attention because there are a few clients where it’s like, it’s kind of a bad spot. We’ve tried everything else. Let’s give this one a go. And that’s where I was at with this client that I’ve been talking about, this 30 year old guy. I was like, you know what? I got this crazy idea.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:38:37]:
We’ve tried everything else and we had built a really good rapport. There was trust because he knew that I was doing everything in my power, searching every way I could to find a way to help him. I get this crazy idea, you’re going to take a full dose tomorrow and then you’re not going to take any for seven days. What do you think about that? And then we’re going to do it 6543. And he’s just like, you know what, man? Sure. He’s like, if you think this can work, let’s do it. He did it. It worked.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:39:03]:
And now he’s full time working, writing books again. His Ms wife was like, I’m doing this too, so now she doesn’t have any of the drop foot or numbness anymore. And it was just incredible because there was a confidence and a trust, which is hard. So many of my clients probably don’t even trust me at first because they’ve been to 20 other people. They’re like, yeah, sure.
Michelle [00:39:27]:
Why would they why would their nervous system believe you? Exactly. Their nervous system believes what they’ve experienced. So of course they wouldn’t believe that.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:39:34]:
But I, you know, I come forward, I come through and I’m I’m very direct. I’m very analytical. I’m very like, this is our plan. This is how we’re going to do this. And we’re going to do it for a month and then we’re going to figure out how you respond and we’re going to go to the next step. I’m always leaving space for them to give me feedback. They literally fill out a journal and send me a journal before every appointment. I’m like, look, I want all your analytical symptoms, so zero to ten, I want your feely symptoms, so how are you feeling? I want everything else in between and let’s figure out what we can do.
Michelle [00:40:07]:
Exactly. And I feel so grateful that your patients have been able to find you and find awesome practitioners like you. I love that you use the word intuition. And I always know my clients or even friends when they’ll ask me, do you think this friend is like a good friend, Michelle? Do you think I should keep this person in my life? Should I date this guy? And they’ll say, I’m just not sure if they’re going to do right by me. And I always say, if you have to question if someone is on your team or not, they’re probably not on your team. And that’s the truth. Like that gut feeling that intuition around, is this person going to ride with me and listen to me? I think that’s kind of the most important thing with any practitioner. And I say about my friends, I’ve had the same friends since I’m two years old, three years old.
Michelle [00:40:55]:
And I say to them, would you ever wonder if I was going to do something wrong by you? And they’re like, no. And I’m like, well, you should feel that way about practitioners, friends, relationships. You should feel like even if this person doesn’t know every single answer, which we can’t, because we’re human and we don’t know everything, the question is, are they willing to find out? And do we trust that they have the goodness of heart to do that? I think it does come down to intuition and that’s as simple of an answer as any. And your willingness as a practitioner to say, I don’t know, but I’ll find out, I think, is that total ego drop in the best way possible. And that total teammate partnership, which all of these relationships have to be, especially when you’re dealing with MCAs. You got to find someone who’s going to ride with you because it is not like this. It’s going to change every day. It’s going to move and you need to move with it.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:41:43]:
Exactly. And that’s where custom, no ego has to come from. Because I promise you, if you are truthful and you’re a practitioner and if you work Massel, it has blown your ego out because exactly everything you thought you knew is not right. And you’re just like, okay, well, a.
Michelle [00:42:07]:
Condition where lemon water can create a three day muscular reaction, literally, these things that are so objectively healthy. And I think I love the wisdom of mast cell too, because it forces you to connect with your body. It forces you to connect with your practitioner. I hate it for my clients, obviously, at the same time. But it is the ultimate mirror, I feel like, and is the ultimate humbling, experiment and experience. And it’s so funny because the more you’re a practitioner, like you’re saying, in some ways we feel really confident and the more as time goes on, we’re like, do we know anything? Because everyone’s body works so differently. And I felt Massel was an extremely humbling, not clear cut experience in my personal life and with my clients, for sure.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:42:51]:
Yeah, well said.
Michelle [00:42:53]:
Exactly. Tell me, how do you work with clients? How can people work with your amazing clinic? What states can they be coming from if all great otherwise? And tell us what services you provide so that people can find you because they already probably found you, but they want to now work with you.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:43:10]:
So we work with people around the world all over, and we are mostly virtual, about 99%. We do have a few people that like to come in, shake my hand or hang out, do some neurofeedback the old school way, brick and mortar, right? We offer several different options within how we work with people. So whether it’s Massil and longer stent or appointment to appointment visits with my docs. So we’re primarily just providers. We just serve people and do the best we can to lead them on a path, coach them through whatever difficulties they’re working on.
Michelle [00:43:47]:
As far as finding me, yeah. Oh no, we’re going to find you. How many doctors do you have that work? Tell us about your team. A little bit too.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:43:55]:
So I’ve got myself we’ve got a nurse practitioner, an Acupuncturist, two Cairos, and we’re hiring a couple more right now because people are blessing us with referrals. So we’re just constantly trying to train and teach people because where did all of these mass sell people come from? Like, it was not prevalent.
Michelle [00:44:14]:
Dr. Jaban, I’m telling you. And I also feel like your prices are more affordable than a lot of functional medicine doctors. So I just want to send you gratitude there too. You can work with patients in any state in the United States. Oh, that’s so dope. That is so wonderful. And then how do people find you? I’m going to link your page in the show notes and I think people are following you on Instagram already.
Michelle [00:44:35]:
Your instagram’s hot. You have a lot of people like me who are like, yes, at every post you make, but how do people find you? And we will put in the show notes, but I want to hear from you. What’s the best way for people to learn from you and find you?
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:44:48]:
You just look up my name, So Dr. Jaban Moore. Instagram. Facebook TikTok sort of YouTube, but Website for sure. And we’re putting a lot of stuff out in email too, but we constantly are putting content out. I’ve got a great content coordinator who’s like, I need this video on this topic, I need this on that.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:45:10]:
And then she edits it down and puts it on in a reel and I’m like, I’m so glad I don’t have to do the actual editing of that thing. I’d rather just be doing the research. But we’re putting free content out every day because when I had Lyme and couldn’t get an answer, the hardest thing was just not knowing it wasn’t doing the work, it was not knowing how to.
Michelle [00:45:30]:
Exactly. And I think you post information on environmental toxicants detoxification. And I always say this to every one of my guests. The reason I have the specific guests I have on is because you always speak to mechanism. You don’t say, here’s a fix for this thing. You say, here’s what’s going on in your body and how this influences this and this influences this. And course, you’re always talking about the nervous system, which I think is so helpful for people, and you give really tangible tools on your instagram, so I thank you for that, too. And I’m so grateful you came on today.
Michelle [00:45:58]:
Thank you.
Dr. Jaban Moore [00:45:59]:
Yeah, well, thanks for having me. It’s been fun.
