Dr. Jessica Peatross is a well known medical doctor who is passionate about teaching others how to find and correct the root cause of disease. Listen to her discuss her journey away from traditional medicine and give helpful advice on simple things you can do at home to kickstart your healing.

Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm starting with a quote by Ruth Messenger: It's not rebels that make trouble, but trouble that makes rebels.

I'm speaking to a kindred spirit, an online celebrity and fellow rebel, Dr. Jess Peatross. Dr. Jess is a former hospitalist internal medicine based medical doctor and a certified Gerson practitioner. She's an expert in the areas of stealth infections, environmental toxicity, regenerative medicine, ozone, and cannabis. Her passion lies in uncovering the mystery behind chronic illness, whether that be stealth infections, heavy metals, stress, trauma, or other environmental toxicities. These are most often the real root answers for why the body may be malfunctioning in the first place. Dr. Jess, you are also a well-known social media presence with 265,000 followers. What you have to say obviously strikes a chord with many people. Welcome.

Thank you so very much, Dr. K. I've never had anyone use that quote for me before, and I'm actually quite honored. So thank you.

It really strikes a chord with me too. And somehow the second I met you, I just thought, yeah, I have so much in common with you. So I'm so excited to have you on today.

I'm really excited to be here. Thank you.

I had holistic training, Dr. Jess. So the belief that the body can heal itself is deeply ingrained in the chiropractic philosophy. You however, were schooled in a mechanistic philosophy where pharmaceuticals rule. What made you turn away from the allopathic medical model?

Great question. You know, I was born and raised in the little state of West Virginia. And so I wouldn't necessarily call that a mecca of root cause or integrative healthcare. And when I was younger, I didn't know that you could help people holistically. I only knew of the conventional medical model and both of my parents were in medicine. My mom was a dietician. My dad wasn’t a doctor, but he was head of nuclear medicine at the hospital. So I kind of grew up around the hospital and understood science and health. And I really wanted to help people, but I didn't know there was another way. So I went through regular medical school training and went through internal medicine residency. And I became a hospitalist where I helped people admitted for everything from heart attacks to strokes, to diabetic comas in the ICU or on the floor.

And you know, Dr. K, I worked there for almost seven years before there started to be cracks in the system for me. I'm very stubborn and hardheaded. They kind of had to hit me over the head with a hammer a few times. But you know, I started to say, why are they feeding this processed sugar and seed oils and factory farmed meets to cancer patients in the hospital? And, you know, I got really brazen and wrote in the chart. One time, you know, this patient has been on a proton pump inhibitor, like Prilosec for six years. The primary care doctor put them on that and sent them to the hospital. And the package insert clearly says no longer than six months to a year for these patients on a PPI. And the primary care doctor called the hospital and complained about me and said I was a liability for what I wrote in the chart.

Possibly so, but I don't like unethical behavior, especially when people's lives are at hand. They labeled me a disruptive physician. And it sucked when it happened, but you know what, I said I quit. I'm not gonna sit here and pull my heart out of line anymore when I'm not aligned. I'm misaligned with this process now. And had I known how scary it was – and how there isn't a ready-made system for people who aren't raised in conventional medicine, you have to be a business person and a healthcare practitioner and a doctor. So I had to learn the hard way by falling on my face and being broke, how difficult it is for people who aren't trained in the medical system.

And so my second question, Dr. Jess, you may have just answered, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What were some of your biggest frustrations while treating people in a medical setting day to day?

You know, that's a great question. I don't know if I I've been directly asked that before. And really it was the energy of everything. Dr. K. I started to see that they had, you know, poor lighting in the hospital that was messing up people's circadian rhythms. The elderly people were sundowning and confused every night. I saw the food, I saw the 50 different medications that we, (me) as a hospitalist, discharge people on and I didn't feel good about it after a while. And during this time I was on social media and just starting out. And so people would make outlandish claims and I would go research it and say, gosh, I'm humbled because they're right. And I wasn't taught that in school. And so all of this became very frustrating for me over time. And I really don't mind people making mistakes, but when you bring it to their attention and you become the disruptive one, even though you're correct and they know it, that is where I cannot work in that system.

So Dr. Jess, a criticism I face often, I, I actually face a lot of criticism as I'm sure you do as well, because we are rebels and we're going very publicly against the status quo, is that if what I do is so good that medical doctors would know about it. How do you feel about that statement?

I hear that a lot too. It's so funny you just brought that up. I used to be that doctor, Dr. K. I used to be that doctor that said that to people who worked in fields like you did, and once I was blind and now I see. So I hold space for these doctors who don't know right now. And, you know, that's the thing. Humans are so innocent. Look how innocent that is. “People wouldn't lie to us. They wouldn't turn us the wrong way or lead us the wrong direction in our health.” They're so innocent. They don't believe that the powers that be could be dishonest. And that's how, when I look at them from that perspective, I can have grace and forgiveness because one day they'll be like me, and not long ago, I was like them. And so I give them grace, I don't try and argue with them. I say things like “you would be surprised about how much the industry doesn't tell you the truth in lieu of profits.” And I keep it very vague like that because the position they're in, they really can't hear any more a lot of times.

That is such a great answer. Dr. Jess and you’re wording so eloquently what I'm often feeling. Another criticism I get is that if it was so good insurance would cover it, but it is my experience that if you work for insurance companies, and if you're a physician that files insurance, you're essentially their employee, and what is best for the patient no longer becomes the primary decision maker, but rather what is most cost efficient. Would you agree with that?

I do agree with that and I can actually prove that sentiment. You know, the VA paid for a lot of my residency. So we had to do a lot of rotations at the veteran's administrative hospital, right? The VA where they treat veterans. And you would think that we would have the highest class healthcare for our sweet veterans who've taken a sacrifice, but we don't. The VA pays for the most affordable medications, not the most efficacious. And they have no secret in telling you that.

Such a broken system. So Dr. Jess, you teach that the root cause of disease is usually not just one thing, but a combination of environmental toxicities and pathogens. Can you please explain that for our audience?

Correct. I'd like to make a distinction here that people will say, oh, it's in my genes. And that's half true, because genes are very fluid. They're very multidimensional. They can change quite easily with trauma, pathogens, or toxins. All these things have the potential to slow down and speed up enzymes, block pathways, and change our genes epigenetically. And so, yes, I believe that most things are multifactorial for why people are chronically ill. And most of that is in four categories. For me, that is heavy metals stealth pathogens, namely industrial, manmade toxins, like phthalates, parabens and pesticides. And finally, the most overlooked one, which is trauma. And I find that it's usually a combination of those, maybe one or two that stand out the most, but a combination of those things for each individual, along with their genetic predispositions that may have been pinged due to what is inside their toxin bucket.

Yes. This is exactly what I teach my patients about the genetic factor as well, because we have many chronic pain patients that will have another family member that also suffers from chronic pain, but it is not necessarily a life sentence, right? I mean, that toxin is the key that unlocks Pandora's box of horrors. And if you can unlock it, you can lock it again and keep that stuff locked up safely. Mm-Hmm

Correct. love that you said that pain is not a life sentence, because people, when they're in the pain, they can't imagine not having it. It's almost like depression. And so it's so important that you tell people that's not who you are and you don't have to have that.

Love it. And they face a medical system where I mean, pain is a big money maker, you know, and the money unfortunately is not in solving pain or making it go away. You've got a captive audience of billions of people constantly needing medication, needing spinal cord stimulators implanted. So I think that our system being broken does not support people getting rid of pain, but rather accepting it and living with it.

There's so much chronic illness like that too. Just give people a label and accept it, you know?

Yes. You just have to turn your TV on or, you know, see the pharmaceutical ads that we've become numb to. So Dr. Jess, how does a patient get started with your program and what should the first step be?

So, like we just talked about each person is very bio individual and unique. And so the most important thing that I do with people is I start out and I talk with them if I'm gonna give them a consult, which sorry, everyone out there listening, I don't do one on one consults anymore. I have my Wellness Plus membership where I teach the same tenants to a larger audience because I believe that people can learn their bodies and be their own best doctor. But going back to when I did do consults, I would say, you know, the first thing I do is spend an hour to an hour and a half with each patient because there's no way in six minutes that the healthcare system allots for doctors to see patients a lot of time, there's no way you can find out hardly one of their issues.

So, it's very important to me to get to know that person, to know their history, their triggers, their traumas are very important to me to understand. And then from that point on, I can figure out where I need to focus on more, where I need to figure out maybe their diet needs to be reeled in or their trauma needs to be treated first. And what I find most Dr. K, is that most people need their limbic system readjusted and that they need brain retraining and an autonomic nervous system reset because almost everyone I see is stuck in flight fight or freeze. And so that's definitely something that I think needs to be addressed first. The other thing that is the main tenant of environmental medicine is avoidance. So those are usually the two things I do first get people's brains, retrain their autonomic nervous system balanced. And then after an hour of speaking to them, we talk about where they might be exposed to toxins continually. And the first tenant of environmental medicine is to please avoid what we can, if we know it is damaging your body. So that's usually where I start out with people. Obviously there's a whole slew of other things we have to do and figure out, but just to stereotype, that's probably what I do first.

So Dr. Jess, I know that here we do IgG food sensitivity testing. And so we know exactly what people are sensitive to in their diets, but not everybody has access to that. So are there some big, common culprit where we talk about avoidance that people should try and avoid if they are in trouble?

Correct. Yes. So by the time most people come to see you, they are having symptoms, they may have a label. And so we have to kind of really dump out that toxin bucket. It's sort of overflowing at that point. And so anything else that we add in that might be inflammatory is gonna be a problem with that bucket overflowing. So we try to remove anything in life that is inflammatory and those things would be things like a water damaged home, mold spores in the home, toxic bacteria that can grow in water damaged homes. Other things would be the teeth, you know, root canals, mercury fillings, those are continual problems that I often see as the roadblocks to healing. Another thing with diet, you really want to avoid the standard American diet, which is no good for any of us. So things like processed gluten, processed sugar, a lot of fillers, xanthan gum, all those different things that they put in the food to preserve it. Those need to be watched and really observed. Processed dairy is another one, factory farmed meats, farmed fish, which contain a lot of heavy metals. I'm trying to remove all of those exposures from a person whose toxin bucket is already overflowing.

Thank you. Those are some great pointers. And you know, all the things you mentioned are things that I commonly just take for granted. I don't eat those things. I don't eat tilapia because comes from a farm and those fish are fed just awful things. I think we forget sometimes that most people don't have this knowledge just because it's now organic for us. So what is the very first step in your system? If they have the Wellness Plus membership and then they have their path forward, first I believe you make your body ready to start detoxifying.

So, after avoidance, after I have their sympathetic versus parasympathetic and their brain kind of retrained and balanced, the next step is I don't wanna throw anyone into a detox or, you know, binders or killing things off in the body, if the body's not prepped and ready. And this is something that I feel like integrative and holistic practitioners in the years past have possibly missed and now it's sort of coming to the forefront and I can't get enough of it. I'm such a nerd about it. And that what we're talking about here is drainage pathways. And that's how to prep and prepare the body before we go or eradicating pathogens or anything else like that. And what opening drainage pathways means is that you want to screen the patient. This is part of my initial intake an hour with them to see how their drainage pathways are working, to screen their energy, their bile, their bowels, their liver, their lymph, their fascia.

And so I’ve sort of become a tedious expert in the minute changes in the drainage pathways and where people are clear and where they're stagnant, because I want everyone listening to understand that stagnation breeds disease. So if you're stuck somewhere, we have to unstick that and get you freely flowing - all the bodily fluids freely flowing. So that way, whatever you're exposed to even on a daily basis can be released from the body. If I start killing things off and you can't release things, that can cross the blood brain barrier and make you feel drunk. If you have yeast, it can stop you up and constipate you, which will make you feel even more like you have the flu or brain fogged. So it's very important to be sure that the patient is prepped and ready for a detox before you go killing things off in the body.

Yes. Because the side effects from detoxification can be quite severe. Is that correct?

Oh yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the things you really want to avoid with people, especially we've been taught that you take a pill and you immediately feel better. That's what we've been taught and brainwashed with for years, but the body doesn't exactly work that way. It misses things. And when it misses things, it reels from it just like you do, if you miss something in life. And so, you know, it's not good to kind of throw the body into chaos when it's not ready, people will feel like they have the flu. They might get nauseous and queasy. They might have migraines. They might feel so tired. They can hardly get out of bed.

Yes. And for our audience, if you suffer from chronic pain, we have noticed even in our office where we go about this very cautiously, if you start detoxifying, it is going to initially usually increase your pain. So that's another side effect, if you will. So on that topic, since our audience can be quite sick and fragile, Dr. Jess, just the ballpark how many months can this process take?

Oh, that's such a good question. It varies so much from person to person, because really it's about, you know, the physical and energetic body - letting things go. Because I'm a subtractionist. I believe people are sick because of things that are inside their body that don't belong there. If their diet is correct, rarely is it they're missing something. It's usually inflammation is causing them to miss something because there's something in their body that doesn't belong there. And so with these chronically ill fragile patients, you really want to be careful. Like you mentioned, they are quite fragile. The worst thing you can do is send their body into chaos where they wanna quit the protocol cause they don't feel well. So I really like to use things sometimes for people. And I don't know how you feel about this, Dr.

K, but things like low dose TracONE, which can definitely help pain and moods. I really love to start gently with lymph movement. Things like that, which can cause a lot of pain for people many times, as you know, it's not the bones, it's the fascia, the, the joints, the the lymph system that, that keeps those muscles and, and bones in place that make people have physical pain. So I like myofascial release. I love breathwork. I usually start with activities with them that are gentle castor oil packs, things like that. And maybe something like low dose Naltrexone. I don't want to give them a whole bunch of supplements. I'd rather do gentle activities first with them.

Love your approach. So Dr. Jess, once you are clean, you go through the process, certainly it's not our goal to then have you turn around and go mess it up again. And so what are three things that you would want people to do as part of a lifestyle every day?

Ooh, that's so good. Three things every day, you know, honestly, I cannot stress enough how important it is for people- It's such a simple thing and people don't wanna do it a lot, but to get up with a sun and, and take a walk in the sun to recharge your mitochondria, your little energy makers, and to look at all the different frequencies of light. Yellow, red, orange, our ancestors are meant to see that. That is a spectrum of light that is healing. And then to watch the sunset every night, this helps to reset the circadian rhythm, which is extremely important in a healthful lifestyle. So that's the first thing I think I would have people do. The second thing, because I'm Dr. Jess, I have to ask people to please, if they're not constipated and their drainage pathways are open to take a binder every day. I personally take a binder every day just because I know how much is stuck inside us. And they are molecularly sticky and they pull things out that don't belong. So, and then finally, I really wish people would try and eat something healthy for them every day. It doesn't mean you can't have a cheat day, but try and get, you know, some high-quality meat, some high-quality veggies in every day, especially with the sun exposure. Cause that's how our ancestors lived.

Thank you. And this, I mean, this stuff is except for the binder, this stuff is free. Anyone can do it, just go outside and be barefoot and watch the sunset.

And move your body, you know? Yes. It's so powerful.

Dr. Jess, seeing that you're a rebel now, how well are you accepted or not accepted by your old medical world and colleagues? Do you face a lot of headwinds?

You know, I think much more so when I wasn't as big on Instagram, I kind of think people are afraid to say things now because people say a lot of stuff to me on TikTok, and on social media, you know, there's a lot of keyboard warriors that would never say things to your face, but they'll say this thing to you online. So I get a lot of that, which is fine. What's interesting is yeah, there are certain colleagues of mine, I went to school with them and they don't agree with me and I'm sure they call me a quack and that's okay. But you know, the other people, the other people I went to school with, there are colleagues who have reached out to me and resonate with me more and have said, I know what's going on with this pandemic. I can see straight through it. Look at this information they're giving that's backwards. I can't believe you're doing this. I'm so interested in holistic medicine. And these are some of the smartest people that I graduated with that are now seeing the truth and had I not had the bravery to stand up and be a rebel as you called me, they wouldn't know to reach out and say, I see something too.

I am so proud of you, Dr. Jess, because you know, it was easier for me to step out and do something different because I mean, I trained to be a rebel. I got my degree as a chiropractor. And you went to complete 180, and I think it's going to take fighters like you, people standing up against the system to change our future in healthcare. What do you think is going to happen with how we approach chronic pain and health and cancer in this country? Where are we going?

I think, you know, the cracks are where the light enters. And where the cracks are right now, are mainly in the food industry for a lot of people who are just beginning their awakening journey. And I can speak from experience in that my awakening journey was also surrounding the food in the cafeteria at the hospital. So I think people are starting to realize that what you eat makes you feel better or not. It is either medicine or a form of poison, depending on what you decide to put in your mouth. And I think people are becoming aware more and more of that. And people are starting to say, why is that food in the hospital? Why don't we have healthy, fast food? Why don't we have fruit stands on the side of the road? Why don't we have fruit trees on the sidewalk so homeless people can eat? And I think people are waking up asking those questions. And that's the first step where there's a crack in the dam. And so I can't wait for that dam to burst.

You and I both

Dr. Jess, thank you for fighting the same fight as I'm fighting, and thank you for being on today and being brave. I am so honored to know you.

Same Dr. K. Thank you for being brave and being a rebel too. It's no small feat.

Thank you. So make sure you go follow Dr. Jess on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is @dr.jess.md. Her program is called Wellness Plus, and her website is www.drjessmd.com.

Let me end with two quotes today. “Your body can heal itself. It can do so because it has a healing system. If you're in good health, you'll want to know about the system because it is what keeps you in good health. And because you can enhance that condition.” And the last one by anonymous, “Your body can heal itself of anything if you provide it the right environment to do so.” Thank you for being on today.

Amen. Thank you. I love those quotes. Thank you for having me.