1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000
Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions

2
00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:12,300
with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.

3
00:00:12,300 --> 00:00:15,000
Now, here's Dr. Todd.

4
00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:19,500
Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board certified doctor of non-force chiropractic

5
00:00:19,500 --> 00:00:22,500
and practitioner of functional medicine.

6
00:00:22,500 --> 00:00:27,500
Functional medicine means identifying earlier signs of stress on all of your organs and tissues

7
00:00:27,500 --> 00:00:35,000
so that you can fix them with natural solutions like good food, gentle exercise, and supplements

8
00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:40,000
where necessary as identified on proper testing.

9
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:49,000
So, most disease conditions are caused by stress and lousy food, lack of exercise, and general neglect.

10
00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:56,000
And you can identify how you're doing and someone you love is doing by getting proper testing.

11
00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:02,000
And I'd be truly honored to help you restore true health and longevity.

12
00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:09,000
I'd be delighted to help you identify all of the areas where your heart or your kidneys or your lungs,

13
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:16,000
your immune system, your digestive system, your pancreas, your liver, any part of your body

14
00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:20,000
is silently struggling and could use a little help.

15
00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:25,000
So, that's what happens. You know, these things, they don't, if they had glaring symptoms,

16
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:30,000
if there was a flashing red light or a siren, you'd do something about it immediately.

17
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,000
But if you just feel a little off and you think, you know, I'm getting older,

18
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:37,000
it feels like I'm getting older, it's probably fine.

19
00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:40,000
Or you've already been to your doctor and they've tested everything.

20
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:42,000
No doctor ever tests everything.

21
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,000
But you've had some tests and been told that you're fine.

22
00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,000
If you don't feel right, something's wrong.

23
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:53,000
This is, there's no other way to say it. If you don't feel fine, you are not fine.

24
00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,000
And just because 10 doctors told you they couldn't find what,

25
00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,000
they don't tell you they couldn't find what's wrong with you.

26
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,000
They say there's nothing wrong with you.

27
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,000
If you go to any doctor who said, you don't feel good,

28
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:08,000
and you walk out of there after the whole process and you still don't feel good,

29
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,000
and they say there's nothing wrong with you, that doctor's an idiot.

30
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,000
Or they're lying or they're just misinformed. I'll be generous.

31
00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:19,000
They're just misinformed. They don't know what's wrong with you.

32
00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:20,000
That's what they should say.

33
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:25,000
If you go to any doctor and you walk away without a solution that's working for you,

34
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:30,000
and they say there's nothing wrong with you, that's not good.

35
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:33,000
They should say, I don't know what's wrong with you.

36
00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,000
I say that to patients sometimes. I don't know what's wrong with you.

37
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,000
I don't know what's wrong with every single patient.

38
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,000
Well, I can usually figure out what's wrong with most patients that come to my office.

39
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,000
But sometimes, once a year, maybe.

40
00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:51,000
I refer people out when I usually refer people out because I know what's wrong with them

41
00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:56,000
and I know they need to go to a gastroenterologist because they've got a raging inflammatory condition in their gut.

42
00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:59,000
Or I identify a cancer on their blood test. They've got leukemia.

43
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000
They need to go to a hematologist.

44
00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:07,000
But the point is, far too many doctors, especially in Western mainstream medicine,

45
00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:11,000
tell millions of patients every day that there's nothing wrong with them

46
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:15,000
when there is something wrong with them or they wouldn't be there.

47
00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,000
And they refer them to a psychologist or they say they're a hypochondriac.

48
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:23,000
And, you know, hypochondriacs exist in people with mental health issues

49
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:28,000
that mimic other symptoms, exist also.

50
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,000
But far too many people are dismissed when they have a real problem

51
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,000
that that doctor couldn't figure out.

52
00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:39,000
So anytime some doctor tells you or someone you love there's nothing wrong with you and you don't feel right,

53
00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:45,000
walk away or run and find a doctor who can figure out what's wrong with you.

54
00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:48,000
And I'd love to be that doctor for you.

55
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:54,000
And, you know, just kind of a context to consider, something I always like to remind all of us

56
00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:01,000
is that the condition of your body is far more important than any disease you've been diagnosed with.

57
00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:07,000
So I'm taking the time and covering the cost of this program every week to teach you how you can improve your health.

58
00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:10,000
I'd like the opportunity to help you do that.

59
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:16,000
But I also love it if you just get some information you can use to take better care of your health on your own.

60
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,000
I figure, you know, what goes around comes around.

61
00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,000
I believe if you do good things in the world, it will come back to you.

62
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,000
And so I really appreciate you listening to my show.

63
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:32,000
I hope you share it with other people and that everyone that listens to it gets some benefit from it.

64
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:39,000
On that note, all the past episodes of this show are available on Apple Podcasts.

65
00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:43,000
If you have an iPhone or an iPad and like to use the podcast app,

66
00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:49,000
just punch in Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions or my name, Todd Binkley, and it will come up.

67
00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:53,000
They're also available on Spotify and YouTube.

68
00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:55,000
On YouTube, you have to put in the whole thing.

69
00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:03,000
You have to put in both the title of the show, Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions and my name, Todd Binkley, for it to come up.

70
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,000
And they're a little bit out of order. But if you like YouTube, they're on there as well.

71
00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:13,000
And most easily to find, they're on my website, binkleyhealingcenter.com.

72
00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:16,000
All of the past episodes are on my homepage.

73
00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:21,000
You just punch in binkleyhealingcenter.com and scroll down and they'll come up.

74
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:26,000
So last week I was talking about anemia from heavy menstrual flow.

75
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:29,000
And this is just really important for people to understand.

76
00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:38,000
You, everyone knows probably has a woman in their life that they know or love who, you know, might have,

77
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:46,000
know that they have millions of women know they have iron deficiency anemia and think they can't take iron because it causes constipation

78
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:52,000
or some other kind of abdominal pain. And as I mentioned last week,

79
00:05:52,000 --> 00:06:05,000
if you take the bisglycinate form of iron, B-I-S-G-L-Y-C-I-N-A-T-E, bisglycinate iron,

80
00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:09,000
doesn't cause any of those side effects. I've been giving it to thousands of women for 30 plus years.

81
00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:11,000
No one's ever had a problem with it.

82
00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:18,000
But most people still don't know about it because 99% of the iron supplements on the market are ferrous sulfate.

83
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:25,000
Any medical doctor who identifies a full blown anemia will, if you don't need a blood transfusion or some other kind of medication,

84
00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:30,000
they'll tell you to take an iron supplement and give you a prescription for crappy ferrous sulfate.

85
00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:38,000
If you go to GNC or Trader Joe's or any Costco or any store and look for iron supplements,

86
00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:43,000
it's virtually guaranteed that all of them are going to be ferrous sulfate. No one should take ferrous sulfate.

87
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:48,000
They should take bisglycinate iron. And it'll fix the anemia.

88
00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:55,000
So just a little recap there. I mention that again because anemia is undiagnosed, especially anemia,

89
00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:59,000
is one of the most common causes of fatigue. How do you really know?

90
00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:07,000
Most people find out they have anemia when they have fatigue, when they have tiredness, when they have lack of energy.

91
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:11,000
Different people express the sensation in different ways.

92
00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:18,000
But from a functional perspective, lack of energy, fatigue, tiredness, they're all basically functionally the same thing.

93
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:22,000
They have similar causes that overlap, let's put it that way.

94
00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:30,000
And so today we're going to talk about fatigue. And the most important thing, fatigue is one of the most common things people come to me for.

95
00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:39,000
I strongly suspect it's one of the most common symptoms people present with to any functional practitioner and a lot of mainstream medical doctors as well.

96
00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:43,000
You know, I just don't feel right. I'm exhausted all the time and there's no reason for it.

97
00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:51,000
Okay, I'm getting a little bit older, but I'm still eating right. I'm still exercising. I'm still doing all the right things.

98
00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:54,000
And I'm exhausted. Why? Why?

99
00:07:54,000 --> 00:08:03,000
Especially if it's, you know, suddenly appeared just out of nowhere last week or six months ago, or even if it's been going on for a couple of years.

100
00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:09,000
If you haven't figured out why and no one else, no other doctor has been able to figure out why, there probably is a solution.

101
00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:14,000
There probably is a reason, but it's never it's never a single reason. Fatigue is never caused by one thing.

102
00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:21,000
I'm just going to say that I've never seen a case of significant fatigue that had one cause. It's never one thing.

103
00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:28,000
It's always a number of things, often almost always half a dozen things, minor things contributing to it.

104
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:33,000
And that's why no one can ever find out truly what's causing their fatigue is because it's not one thing.

105
00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:36,000
It's a half a dozen things or a dozen things or more.

106
00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:45,000
And I see this so often that I even set up a separate website that you can go to called FatigueFreeLiving.com.

107
00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:53,000
I set up that website just to talk about all of the things that can contribute to fatigue.

108
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:58,000
It starts with the dozen most commonly overlooked causes of fatigue.

109
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:07,000
And there's a really excellent case study that I present there of a woman who had a forty forty seven year old woman hairdresser with fatigue, which I'll come back to.

110
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:16,000
And if you go to the bottom, you can sign up and receive my report on these dozen most commonly overlooked causes of fatigue.

111
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:25,000
And as a little secret, when you get that report, it includes another dozen because I could easily come up with twenty four

112
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:33,000
commonly overlooked reasons that causes of fatigue that just people just never really figure out.

113
00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:41,000
Most doctors don't test for most patients are unaware of. They are identifiable and they are correctable.

114
00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:47,000
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. You're listening to safe, effective, natural solutions to almost any health challenge.

115
00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:52,000
We're talking about fatigue today, one of the most common things people come to see me for.

116
00:09:52,000 --> 00:10:00,000
And so here we go. Here are the dozen most commonly overlooked causes of fatigue that I see and my practice.

117
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:07,000
Number one, we've already talked about iron deficiency anemia. Huge, huge and almost always overlooked when it is present.

118
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:15,000
Number two, pre diabetes. Have you had an A1C test? So lots of people know about the blood sugar test.

119
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:20,000
Most doctors, if you get any routine blood work, they will test your fasting glucose level when you get a blood test.

120
00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:26,000
If you have to fast, you have to do a 12 hour fast. You're not you're not you have to fast for all of those tests.

121
00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:31,000
The main ones you have to fast for to get an accurate reading are your glucose and your cholesterol.

122
00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:36,000
There are a few others, but those are the two most important ones that if you don't do a 12 hour fast,

123
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:42,000
you won't get an accurate reading because your blood sugar and your cholesterol might still be high from the last meal that you had.

124
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:49,000
So you need to give your body 12 hours to get rid of the finished finished processing that meal so that you get a good baseline.

125
00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:55,000
So pre diabetes. So getting your your blood sugar tested, just your fasting glucose level is an important test.

126
00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:04,000
Your morning glucose level shows you what is your blood sugar still like after you've had 12 hours to, you know, process the last meal.

127
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:10,000
Is it totally back to normal or not? If it's elevated, if it's above 99, then you have pre diabetes.

128
00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:23,000
If it's above 125, you have diabetes. The diagnosis of diabetes is two on two separate occasions of a blood sugar fasting blood glucose reading of 125 or more.

129
00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:36,000
Alternatively, you can also diagnose it with the A1C test. A1C is short for hemoglobin A1C because blood sugar binds to your red blood cells.

130
00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:45,000
The hemoglobin in the red blood cells bind sugar, your sugar and your blood stream sticks to hemoglobin and it accumulates over time.

131
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:56,000
And your red blood cells have a lifespan of about three months, three and a half months. And so during the course of any red blood cells lifespan,

132
00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:03,000
sugar sticks to it in accordance direct proportion to how much blood sugar is floating around in your bloodstream all the time.

133
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:09,000
So this is a much better test. It's basically the standard for evaluating diabetes now.

134
00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:18,000
If you have, so when you eat a meal and your blood sugar spikes and then it goes back down and then it spikes again after your next meal,

135
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:35,000
especially if you're eating sugar or refined carbohydrates and all this stuff that a lot of people eat for breakfast like pancakes with syrup and waffles and hash browns and, you know, grains, starch and sugar, wheat, flour, potatoes, corn,

136
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:43,000
anything with sugar or flour in it is going to spike your blood sugar. Most people know this. Most people have heard about low carb diets.

137
00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:57,000
So anyway, those things will all raise your blood sugar and consequently elevate your hemoglobin A1C level, which so that A1C level tells you what your average glucose is for a three to three and a half month period.

138
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:07,000
Well, how does it do that? Well, your blood sugar is going up and down all the time, but whatever it is, whatever you've consumed, whatever effect that has,

139
00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:18,000
whatever sugar is coursing through your bloodstream over that three month period will stick to your red blood cells in accordance with the level that's the result of whatever you've been eating.

140
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:37,000
So it's a very accurate measurement of your average blood sugar over a three month period. So anything above 5.6 on your A1C test is a diagnosis of pre diabetes and anything above and anything above 6.4 is full blown diabetes.

141
00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:46,000
So pre diabetes used to be 6.0. It's been progressively reduced to 5.8 and now 5.6 and that's important.

142
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:54,000
Numerous studies show that damage to your blood vessels and your nerves starts to occur when your blood sugar is above 99.

143
00:13:54,000 --> 00:14:00,000
But when your A1C, and so diabetes isn't diagnosed until it's 125, but it really should be lower than that.

144
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:08,000
And the A1C that is now the cutoff for diabetes 6.5, that's an average blood sugar of 140.

145
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:19,000
So that amount of blood sugar is wreaking havoc on your blood vessels and your nerves when it's averaging 140, which is an A1C of 6.5.

146
00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:28,000
But the cutoff for pre diabetes 5.6, that's still a blood sugar of about 115, way above 99 obviously.

147
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:43,000
And so even if your A1C is 5.6, you know, there are other ways that your body can mitigate the effects of that. But just know that your average blood sugar when your A1C is 5.6 and you're still below pre diabetic,

148
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:49,000
depending on how much grain starch and sugar you're eating, you still could be doing some damage to your blood vessels and nerves.

149
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:52,000
That's easily preventable by just changing your diet.

150
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:58,000
Pre diabetes is a is number two on my list of a common cause, overlooked cause of fatigue.

151
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:05,000
Because if you have elevated blood sugar, it tends to cause a spike in your blood sugar and then a crash.

152
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,000
You don't just get the spike, you get the spike and then the crash.

153
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:21,000
Because your body, if you have you have if you have a spike of blood sugar, your pancreas pumps out insulin to try and shove that sugar into your cells and get it out of circulation so that it won't damage your blood vessels and your nerves.

154
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:26,000
And that lasts much longer. The insulin lasts much longer.

155
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:32,000
That insulin hit carries on in your bloodstream for a lot longer than that spike you got from that candy bar you just ate.

156
00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:42,000
So you get a crash. Have you ever experienced this? You eat some sugar, you feel like there's no energy in sugar. Sugar does not give you energy. I'm going to come back to that.

157
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:52,000
But you don't get a sustained energy from eating sugar because mainly because sugar doesn't give you energy, but also because insulin response causes a crash that lasts much longer.

158
00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:58,000
You know, 45 minutes, an hour, sometimes two or three hours, depending on what you ate.

159
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:03,000
So that's why pre diabetes and obviously full blown diabetes can cause fatigue.

160
00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:16,000
So number three of the dozen most commonly overlooked causes of fatigue, low protein. I see this all the time. This is one of the most common things I see when I do my complete blood panel on people.

161
00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:23,000
And this is a common test. Most doctors, if they order any blood tests, they're going to order a metabolic panel.

162
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:27,000
Even if it's a brief metabolic panel, it's going to include your serum protein level.

163
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:36,000
But again, the problem is they don't use the proper range. They'll say it's fine if it's above five point something up to, I don't know, eight point something.

164
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:46,000
You want your total for most people, it is very slightly by age and gender, but you want your blood sugar level to be somewhere in the sevens for most people. Seven point something.

165
00:16:46,000 --> 00:17:00,000
And most I see lots of people all the time they come in and it's six point eight, six point six, six point three. You know, anything below seven is usually too low and low enough to contribute to fatigue and also impair healing and repair.

166
00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:05,000
Protein is the basic building block for nearly every tissue in your body.

167
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:19,000
Most of the structure of your organs and tissues is collagen and other proteins that your body has to make from food. And if you're not eating adequate protein, then that's obviously not going to happen.

168
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:27,000
But even if you're eating adequate protein, if you're not absorbing it, if it's not entering your bloodstream, then it's not going to enter your cells.

169
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:43,000
And the only way you can know if you're getting adequate protein is to test it. And I see this all the time. People who are eating meat, fish, chicken, every day, large amounts of protein, their serum blood protein still shows up low.

170
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:50,000
How can that be? I'm eating, I eat a big steak or piece of chicken or fish, something every day, and it's still low.

171
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:59,000
Well, because you're not what you eat. You're not what you swallow anyway. You are what your body is able to digest and assimilate.

172
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:09,000
And it has to at least, it has to go beyond your stomach after you swallow it. It has to be digested into your bloodstream and be escorted into cells.

173
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:23,000
And that's what's missing. So a lot of people eat plenty of protein, but lack sufficient hydrochloric acid in their stomach to digest it, or sometimes other enzymes, or sometimes they're just not eating enough protein.

174
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:28,000
So low protein, very common cause of fatigue. Number four, dehydration.

175
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:44,000
Most adults really need to drink two quarts, maybe even a gallon of water a day to flush out toxins and keep their brain and their joints and their kidneys and their cardiovascular system functioning properly.

176
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:54,000
Water is the basic solvent, the solution that is required for everything to flow in your body. And people think, oh, if I'm not thirsty, then I don't need any more water.

177
00:18:54,000 --> 00:19:02,000
Well, that's not true. Water is so important that if you're not giving your body enough water to do everything it needs to do, then it will prioritize.

178
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:14,000
It kind of does a little triage and it will use the water that you are giving it. After a while, it will use whatever is available to keep important things like your heart beating and your liver and your kidneys functioning.

179
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:30,000
It's much less important functions like maintaining hair growth and skin and nails, much less important. And then after that, your joints start to go by the wayside and eventually even your muscles become dehydrated and you feel stiff and achy all the time.

180
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:42,000
So you can survive with minimal amounts of water. But there's a really great book came out a few years ago by I think it was a well, it was some kind of it was maybe an Iranian doctor or some doctor that was in.

181
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:52,000
Yeah, I think it was an Iran. A doctor was the book is called Your Bodies, Many Cries for Water. Your Bodies, Many Cries for Water.

182
00:19:52,000 --> 00:20:04,000
And it's about a physician that was a political prisoner in some horrible country and he was thrown in jail and thrown in prison and said, OK, we can kill you now or you can become the prison doctor.

183
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:16,000
And he thought for a moment and he chose to become the prison doctor and then was immediately sort of dismayed to find out that there was no drugs, no equipment.

184
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:22,000
The clinic in the prison had nothing really to treat anybody for any medical condition.

185
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:37,000
And so he just started giving everybody water because that was all he had available and he knew how water, how important it was. And he records this amazing book, he records literally miracles happening in these poor, miserable people who knows why they were there.

186
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:55,000
Probably a lot of them deserve to be there. But the bottom line is it's a great example of how important water is. You can literally save people from conditions that might otherwise cause death by just giving them enough water for their body to flush out toxins and heal and repair basic tissues.

187
00:20:55,000 --> 00:21:05,000
So that's number four on our list. Number five on the list of the dozen most commonly overlooked causes of fatigue is subclinical hypothyroidism.

188
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:18,000
Why do I say subclinical? That's kind of a technical term. Well, because lots of people go, especially women over 50, I think probably half women over 50 have subclinical hypothyroidism.

189
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:25,000
What does that mean? It means they go to their doctor, they have fatigue, they go to the doctor, they get their thyroid tested and they don't even test their thyroid.

190
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:37,000
They do one test which is called TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone. TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, isn't even a thyroid test. It's a pituitary test.

191
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:47,000
The pituitary gland makes this hormone to tell your thyroid to make more thyroid hormone if it's low. And it's a great test, it's an important test, but it doesn't tell you the whole picture.

192
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:59,000
It can be fine and you can still have functional low thyroid. So to really know if you have low thyroid, you need to test, among other things, your free T3 level.

193
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:13,000
So you may not need a prescription for levothyroxine or synthroid, the most common form of thyroid hormone medication, but think of the thyroid as the furnace of the endocrine system.

194
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:22,000
It kind of keeps everything else cooking at the proper speed and temperature and a slight deficiency has profound long-term effects.

195
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:30,000
Number six on our list of the most commonly overlooked causes of fatigue, chronic subclinical infections.

196
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:40,000
Well, everyone knows what an infection is, at least when you have an acute infection. If you have a fever, you have aches and pains, you have cold or a flu, people are familiar with that,

197
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:51,000
but most people are not familiar with a chronic infection. That's something that means you have some kind of a bug somewhere in your body that your immune system has never been able to completely fight off.

198
00:22:51,000 --> 00:23:00,000
And so it persists and creates a constant strain on your immune system. Three most common places that this happens are in your gums, your sinuses, or your gut.

199
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:05,000
Well, you usually know it if you have a gum infection and you usually know it if you have a sinus infection.

200
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:16,000
You usually often don't know it if you have too many bad bacteria in your gut, that too many bad bacteria and not enough good bacteria that are constantly straining your immune system.

201
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:26,000
So this shows up as a diminished white blood cell count. When you do a complete blood count, your white blood cell count will be low as opposed to high, like when you have an acute infection, a cold or a flu,

202
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:32,000
your white blood cell count will go down because your body is unable to keep up with demand.

203
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:37,000
So most doctors ignore this because it's not an acute infection that requires antibiotics.

204
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:42,000
There's no medical treatment really for a subclinical chronic infection.

205
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:50,000
There are numerous natural treatments, just eating better food, taking some supplements that are essential for boosting your immune system.

206
00:23:50,000 --> 00:24:01,000
Something as simple as just getting adequate amounts of vitamin D can often cure a chronic subclinical infection and fix your fatigue.

207
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:07,000
We're about to run out of time. I've been talking about the 12 most commonly overlooked causes of fatigue.

208
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:13,000
We've gotten through six of them this week, so next week we'll go through another six, perhaps even more.

209
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:20,000
In the meantime, check out my Fatigue website, FatigueFreeLiving.com for more information about this.

210
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:26,000
And as always, thank you for tuning in. I look forward to speaking with you right here next Friday at 2 p.m.

211
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,000
Have a wonderful weekend.

212
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:34,000
Thank you. You've been listening to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.

213
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:43,000
If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.

214
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:51,000
Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved ones because our health matters.

215
00:24:51,000 --> 00:25:00,000
Join him next Friday at 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The Word, KDAR.