What If Chronic Pain Isn't the Problem? The Missing Piece Most People Never Consider with Daniel Esposito

What happens when you refuse to accept that chronic pain is simply something you have to live with forever? In this episode, I sit down with Daniel Esposito to explore his journey through chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and the discouraging prognosis of future joint replacements. We talk about fascia, inflammation, collagen, oxidative stress, hydration, castor oil, red light therapy, fasting, and other approaches that led him to ask deeper questions about healing. Daniel also shares his unexpected journey from atheism to faith and how reconnecting with God changed the way he navigates fear, uncertainty, and life’s challenges. This conversation offers plenty of food for thought for anyone seeking hope, answers, or a fresh perspective on health and healing.

Daniel's contact info:

Website - undu.me

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the Hope Unliked podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy IV of hope for your soul. Please help me welcome Dan Esposito to the show. Very excited to have him here today. We had a chance to chat beforehand. I've never met him before, but we have a lot of connections, so it's beautiful. So before we get into your story, would you just be open to sharing a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Sure.

From Diagnosis To Championship Sprinting

SPEAKER_01 0:40

So, you know, the main purpose in my life is to help others figure out chronic pain and strategies to put themselves in better health and re really remove what's causing the chronic pain, which I think a lot of people don't think is possible. But you know, I'm a former NFL player, former atheist. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, degenerative arthritis. I was told I needed both my shoulders and both my knees replaced when I turned 50. And I just did not want to accept that. I was like, you know, how did I go from being so flat flexible, so fast, to literally any movement or even lack of movement was causing me just so much chronic pain, which also caused anxiety and depression and you know, just not in my, you know, right place. And so my second son was about to be born, and I it was about three months away, and I was at the gym just struggling. And I just said out loud, I'm gonna figure this out. And it was from that point on that my just my mission was to figure out chronic pain. And then so I think I was he's eight, so whatever eight years ago was, and whatever my age was eight years ago, I think about 44, 45. I I was like, I'm gonna figure it out so well, and I'm gonna get back to competition in terms of track. I ran track and played football in college. So at 50, when I was supposed to start with the joint replacements, I became a two-time United States track and field masters national champion in sprint events. Last year I was ranked 15th in the world in my age category. And then a few months ago, or no, a few weeks ago at Penn Really's, I came in third in the men's 100-meter dash. And it's in my age group. So the way USATF Masters works, it's all five-year increments. So and I'm at the higher end of that five-year increment. So yeah, so I knew that as I was creating this method and not even knowing that I was creating it, that in if people were going to believe me, I would have to exceed expectations. So as part of my nature, you know, I, you know, was like, well, where's the top of the mountain and that I can reach? And, you know, it became track and field. And so, yeah, so I I love competing in it. Doesn't mean I'm completely free of pain yet. I know that day is coming, but you know, I if I would go for a run, it used to be two weeks of depression and anxiety and muscle soreness and flares and whatever you want to call them, to where it's like, you know, if it's like typically a few hours after that I'm sore, and then I kind of pop back to my, you know, better state. But yeah, and that's it. That's my and I think I mentioned, you know, former atheist.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

So that's we'll definitely go there.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah. There's definitely a few things that I'm seeing where we can go on this journey today, of course. But I just want to really highlight like how you were just like, I kind of refuse to listen to what you're telling me about having to get my joints replaced. And yeah, I I would just love to hear, like, at that point, were you kind of all in with the medical establishment, or were you kind of like on the edge of going, what are you even talking about?

Why He Stopped Trusting Easy Answers

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah. Yeah, I was starting, yeah, totally. I I was starting to lean into the other direction. So the interesting thing is, is my stepmom has her doctorate in nutrition, and you know, she was always, you know, kind of opposite of the medical establishment. And I thought she was so crazy. And, you know, as an athlete, you know, you're around physics, you know, your PT crew and your trainers and medical doctors, and they're all telling you this is the way to do things. And I was like, well, obviously they wouldn't go to school for all these years and lead me down the right wrong path.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

And, you know, I it really started turning around as you know, I had seen a display at the Franklin Institute here in Philadelphia, and it was the body display or body series, and I saw a cadaver that had a knee replacement. And this is before I was having all my my problems. I was like, gosh, I'm never gonna get one of those because you know I had a rod jammed into your you know shin bone and one one up through your femur. And I had already been through, I think, 10 to 13 surgeries at that point, you know, with just you know, general football, quote unquote injuries, but they weren't. They were, I could explain them, but that'd be boring. And and I was just like, wow, none of that's working. And I even, my surgeon who prescribed the shoulder replacements, he I said, you know, after my last sort of clean out surgery, I said, What's going on in there? And he goes, Oh, your muscles are just tangled. And I was like, What? Is that even a thing? Like, that doesn't sound medical. And another doctor had told me previous to this, and this was really the catalyst that started making me wonder if doctors knew what they were talking about or surgeons. I had a elbow pain that was just persisting, and it was my left elbow. And I said, I said to the doctor, I said, you know, why is this happening? And he told me wear and tear. I was like, Yeah, but I'm right-handed. Like there's more wear and tear on my right side, and there's no pain there. Right. And it's it's exactly the opposite. Without movement, these proteins build up and they build up around your joints. And without building them properly, you're not gonna, you know, without the raw materials, you're not gonna build this fascia and collagen in a way that serves your body. It's actually working against you. And without movement, when those things are created, the chemical bonds set in. And that's just think of like glue, super glue comes out as like a you know, a liquid. And then when the chemical bonds set in, it becomes sticky and gluey. And you know, that's what happens internally in the body almost exactly. And and so I went to YouTube, a buddy of mine said, watched this one video, and it was just some guy breaking down the scar tissue. And I was like, all right, let me try that. And then within a few weeks, that pain went away. I was like, huh. And I wasn't into the whole, you know, chronic pain thing just yet, because it was just my elbow that was hurting at that point. But it it was the first thing that made me think that doctors really don't know what they're talking about when it comes to pain and injury.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah. So I'm curious, you know, just for even the listeners who are wondering, like, what exactly did you do for your elbow then?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Oh, I just jammed. Did you take care of it yourself?

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, I just took care of the getting after after the fascia and stuff in there.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, yeah. I just jammed my thumb into my elbow and started you know pumping my arm up and down my elbow back and forth, and it helped break it down. So fortunately, it didn't set in so bad that it wasn't fixable at that point. But yeah, it was very simple. I mean, it was literally like just a couple of weeks of doing it, yeah, and not even that consistently.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Wow, I love it. So you're you're starting to wake up, you're like, nope, I'm not doing this. What what was the next part of your discovery with like I like to say bucking up the medical bucket up against the medical system?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah. I mean, the next thing was when the doctor told me that the muscles were tangled. And right, you know, it really, you know, and even from that point on, I wasn't completely against it. I would have like I would daydream about me just pulling my skin back and reorganizing my muscles. And so but you know, that didn't account for all the cracking and clicking and you know stuff that was going on. I was like, that it just doesn't make sense. And you know, I kind of just shelled it for a long time. I mean, I didn't even think about it that much. I I really honestly thought it was just part of the aging process, and I thought everybody's going through this at my age, and it just turned out it wasn't, you know, it wasn't true. It was, yeah, it it it I mean, you know, what it when it really started to take over my body, it's you know, I used to be in banking with Washington Mutual, and then that mortgage industry fell apart, the banking crisis happened, and I got into the energy business. I started a commercial energy brokerage, and during that time, like I obsess about all the things I want to be successful at. I was like, I'm just gonna sit at home and learn this business and try to find clients. And I was eating like three times a week, two dominoes pizzas a day. And that's really ramped up the inflammation in the body. And looking back, I was like, oh, that's what that feeling was, you know, that I was feeling that I thought was just this passing, passing thing that was going through. But, you know, as you become inflamed, it lays down these fibrins, which are hard proteins, and then a few other processes within the body that just start causing a very quick escalation into stiffness and chronic pain. And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Oh, but then another thing, you know, going to chiropractors, I must have spent five thousand or so dollars on chiropractors, and at some point they just couldn't do anything. Like it was just like I was frozen solid, and I was like, well, these are like the professionals that should at least know about it. And they really focus on the skeleton system, and that's not where the pain comes from whatsoever. Your skeleton hangs like a Venetian blind, right? It's all tethered from what's above it. And you know, without your fascia being compromised, it's gonna continue to just hang in the place that it's supposed to hang. The problem is, is all the fascia, that's where all the pain receptors are, and they're seven times more sensitive, and that's where your joints are. So we just automatically assume our joints have gone bad, and it's really the the fascia that that's going bad in that area.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah. So so you you just you started experiencing healing, obviously, when your elbow, and then like, did you find somebody to like help you kind of loosen up the fascia throughout your body, or like what did you do next?

Childhood Trauma And Losing Faith

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah, so well, let's go back. I want to I want to go back to my childhood to touch on a couple things because I think there's a really interesting story here that leads into a lot of this stuff. So uh, you know, my mom had been married three times, and then my father is amazing, he's the greatest guy in the world, but she left from Philadelphia when we were about four and moved back down to Florida with the three kids. And so then she eventually got married to two guys, you know, kind of, you know, yeah, when I was younger, and they were both alcoholics, and they were very abusive. And, you know, I talk about this because a lot of people say that childhood trauma is the reason you have chronic pain later. There's actually no scientific evidence for that. And if you understand the physiology of the body, the body doesn't store pain, it can store thoughts, and then those thoughts can cause anxiety, right? But when your diet is not right, you can't control that anxiety because you have anxiety basically comes from these mast cells. I don't know if you ever heard of mast cell activation syndrome. So the mast cells require an enzyme to regulate the amount of histamine that goes off. Histamine puts you in fight or flight and causes inflammation, which you know can leave behind that hardened protein. And so, because of folic acid in our diet, which is supposed to mimic folate, it's blocking our body's natural ability to utilize folate to create those enzymes. So that makes you have a dis basically a poor histamine response or an over-response of histamine, which you know, once we get into that anxious fight or flight state, we always start trying to figure out who the enemy is, and we always like to point to our parents. And, you know, prior to all my mental health and chronic pain issues that I was suffering, I never blamed my parents for anything. But during that time, that's the only people I blamed. But anyway, so going back to that, because of all that trauma in my life, I thought there can't be a God, like God would not do this to me. Like I did, I did nothing wrong. And and I even, you know, there were two passages in the Bible that basically solidified my disbelief. And it was, don't eat swine for it's unclean, and don't mix linen and wool. So I thought, how arbitrary are those two rules that they don't make any sense. And that just points to the fact that this book is just this made-up set of instructions. Well, the only two reasons that made me disbelieve turns out to have massive implications in chronic pain.

Food, Fabrics, And Hidden Inflammation

SPEAKER_01 13:52

So let's just talk about swine real quick.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yes, please take away.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

So when you eat swine and some other foods, but swine is the worst, it causes a process in your body called glycation, right? So it's a bit it's a it's similar in how it affects your body to inflammation. But what it does, it's when you have a sugar molecule and it interacts with a fat or a protein, it causes glycation. And that's basically the thick film you get when you barbecue something. That's glycation, right? So your body can handle 15,000 of these, we'll call them events per day. If you eat one strip of bacon, it's 30,000. So it's double that effect. So yeah, so people who are on these keto diets eating a lot of bacon, they're causing all this glycation inside their body. Now, glycation feeds inflammation or causes inflammation and feeds reactive oxygen species, which is basically oxidative stress, a free radical going around doing damage. Now, that free radical causes more inflammation, so it becomes this soup of responses within your body that's contributing to chronic pain. So, plus pork has cysts in it that harbors parasites that can't be cooked out, and it's a never-ending decaying meat. So rule number one that I started back right away as I cut out bacon out of my dog.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Okay, you're like, the Bible actually has something good to say here.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah, yeah. And then the other one was, you know, don't mix linen and wool. Well, you know, it's interesting. I'm in the energy business, and it turns out that everything is energy, everything has energy. Our body resonates at a frequency of like 85 to 100. You know, they sometimes they call it megahertz, and sometimes they're a different, we're just gonna say megahertz for simplicity. So when you wear linen, it's 5,000. So what it's actually doing is constantly donating electrons back to your body, stabilizing those free radicals, stopping the oxidative stress. When you wear wool, it's 5,000 plus megahertz doing the same thing. But when you mix these two together, these two fabrics, it creates a dead field of energy. So now it's pulling electrons out of your body constantly, and not only doing that, which causes oxidative stress, it also is causing glycation, which is what we just talked about with the pig. And so when you wear polyester clothes, it's 15. So still a lower frequency than your body, causing disease within the body constantly. And the interesting thing is, is if you go ground or go earthing with these fabrics on your body, it actually causes a worse reaction. So it's not counterbalancing one another. And there's a really interesting study by Dr. Heidi Yellen, who talks about the frequency of fabrics, who did this really great study. And it's um, you know, so it's yeah, it's a really good read. It's a it's an interesting woman to follow. She's very religious as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

So I you know, it's interesting because I feel like I've gone down a lot of rabbit holes and I'm just kind of being I mean, I've I've known that like certain fabrics are better for you, but I'm starting to be like more aware of it now. So maybe for listeners like me, like where do you like what kind of clothes do you wear then? Like, where do you buy your clothes? Because a lot of you know, I work out a lot, so I'm I've I think most of the workout clothes that I'm wearing are polyester.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, task is a really good one. So I've got some clothes from T A S C. Oh gosh, there's a few of them out now, you know, and it's interesting. I do see some religious themed workout gear that is polyester, and I don't want to yuck their yum and reach out to them and be like, hey, this would God wouldn't approve. But yeah, there's a bunch of, I mean, they're a little more expensive, but you're gonna feel the difference. I mean, so what happens when these fabrics are pulling these electrons out of your body? Your body now needs to use up more ATP to create new electrons. So instead of just giving you general energy or doing other things, you know, ATP, it's now consumed with the process of trying to create more electrons. So, you know, a lot of people with chronic pain have, you know, they're lethargic all the time. They're they have low energy. And part of that could be coming from from your clothing, your bedding. I mean, look around. Like, tell me what around your home that you sit on or where it is not a polyester fabric. So, yeah, but you can get them on Amazon. I mean, linen pants on Amazon are like 25-30 bucks, and you know, I wear them around the house, just cotton in general would be good. It, you know, uh inorganic cotton is about the same frequency of your body. Um, I don't wear a lot of wool, but the cap I have on my head is wool. Okay, a major reason for losing hair is oxidative stress because you have free radicals up there, and a lot of people are dealing with neuroinflammation, right? So that's causing free radicals as well. My hair health has improved drastically since I've been kind of consistently wearing this wool cap on my on my head.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Fascinating. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

But yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of places. You just gotta Google it. I mean, on my website, if you went there, I have a little store there that has Amazon affiliate links that you can kind of click through and and find some stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Well, we'll for sure get your website later. But if somebody's like, well, what's his website? We'll we'll get it now, and then I'm of course gonna have it in the show notes. But what is your website? So they can look at it.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

It's yeah, it's it's www.undu. So undo.me.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I love that. That's so good. So let's let's take it back a few a few years.

The NFL Path And Injuries That Wouldn’t Heal

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I heard you mention you were in the NFL. That's a pretty big accomplishment. Not not many people get to walk that road, right? What was that road like for you? How did you end up there?

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Yeah, so uh growing up, I was really a baseball player. And then, you know, through you know, I don't want to bragging, but as a child, you know, I tested very high on all the standardized tests. But as you go through life and nobody sits down to do homework with you, and you kind of grow up like a feral cat, you know, you just kind of roam in the streets, you know, grades start taking you know a back seat, especially because you know, I was in five elementary schools. And so what was where where you know my energy was is I I want to make friends, you know. And so I knew that I was very athletic. I was always sort of winning the presidential physical fitness award and you know, doing all this great stuff. So sports became like my refuge. So but as I got into high school, you know, my middle two years, sophomore and junior year, I was not eligible to play sports because of grades. And I was in three different high schools, right? So all the curriculums are different, and you know, all this stuff's going on. But and then by my senior year, I moved back to Philadelphia to live with my father and went out for football. So it was the first time I played organized football was as a senior in high school. Yeah. And I didn't, I got a couple scholarship offers from some really small schools, and most of them were further north than where I was already, and I was not doing that. And so I walked on to a small school here in Pennsylvania, Millersville University, always ranked in the top 20 in terms of Division II schools. And I did not start or even get much playing time until my senior year. I actually earned the starting. Position my junior year by a landslide. But the head coach vetoed that the day before the first game because I was a walk-on, and the two scholarship athletes that I had beaten out were his preference. And so I thought, okay, well, Wednesday I was a starter. Saturday I'm third string, but I'm sure I'm going to get my carries. And I would get like one or two carries a game. I'd have like a 50, 60, 70-yard touchdown and then never see the ball again. And then senior year, kind of first first game, same thing happened. I got zero carries. Second game of the season, I the two starting, the two, you know, the first and second string running back, you know, couldn't get anything going. So they put me in basically in the second half. I had like 136 yards. And then I finally started the fourth game or the third game of my senior year. I was offensive player of the nation that game. And then, you know, I just I had over a thousand yards in like six and a half games. And I was very fast. I ran a 4-2-7-40. You know, 4-4 was like my average or was like my standard time, but I had been timed in the 4-2-7 time, and the scouts were coming around, and the Redskins signed me to come in as a rookie to try to earn a contract. I earned a contract in camp. And then the first game of my professional football career, the first play, I broke my jaw in two places. So yeah, I played the whole game though with a broken jaw in two places. I was not coming out of the game. So yeah. And they released me, they had released me earlier in the year when they signed a veteran running back and then called me back right before mini camp, right before camp. And things were going really well in camp. I was doing really well. And then the broken jaw, I got an injury settlement. Then next year, here's an interesting thing, religious-based, sort of. So in between my first two years in the NFL, I went to get pizza with an ex-girlfriend of mine now. And I said, Next, like there was a helmet, like a bubblegum machine with helmets in it. And I said, Whatever team comes out of here is who I'm going to pay play for next. And the Saints came out, right? Which is a religious theme. And two weeks later, or maybe even a week later, my agent called me and said, Hey Dan, the Saints want to work you out. I was like, Whoa, like that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

And um, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah, yeah. It was it was sort of one of those first things. I was like, that's serendipity or something else. And so I was with them. I broke my jaw in camp again. I got punched in practice by a guy that had been beaten all camp. And I came back, they released me the day I came back, and then they signed me back the first week of the regular season. But it was at this point where injuries were not healing for me. My shoulder, especially, I think it was my right, I don't remember which shoulder it was, but it just would not heal. I could barely do a push-up, but I wasn't gonna tell anyone that I was hurt because you know, you're kind of last guy in camp and you want to make the team. And but I also think maybe this was this was the path for me. This was I gotta put this NFL stuff in front of, you know, on my name in order for people to listen to my story, you know. And you know, and then slowly over time, I guess the next, you know, probably gosh, 15 to 20 years is when the pain just kept getting worse and worse and worse. Probably about five or six years after my last NFL play is when it just, I was like, what's happening to my body? Like, what's going on here? So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Well, I I just had to I was reminded of a movie I watched last year. Have you seen the movie Greater?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

No.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

It's about a football player. I highly recommend it. So you watch it and listeners go watch it. Yeah, it's so good. It's so it reminds me a little bit of your story in a in a different way, which football is the the highlight. So yeah. Um well, thank you for sharing that part of your your story. I just really feel like you know, you've you've overcome so much, and and similarly to me, like I grew up moving a lot and a lot of trauma in my family, and it's cool that we're sitting here talking today. You know, I I didn't know you before today, and we have overcome a lot and we're helping people. So so God obviously was weaving your story together, right? Obviously. I always say, like your moment with the bum, how's it say bum gall? I'm verbally dyslexic sometimes, guys. Gumball machine, the saints gumball comes out. It's like you, I I have this phrase, like you can't make this stuff up. Like you literally can't make this stuff up. So you you have some of these moments along the way, and you know what what started to shift your perspective? Obviously, you had those moments with the Bible that you were like, those are actually true. Like, yeah, what came next for you?

SPEAKER_01 27:05

You know, then so the next thing, so well, I'll lead into it with sort of my discoveries along the way, but so because of all the pizza was causing all the inflammation, it you know, part of the inflammation process is when the white, and once again, inflammation by the way, is healing, it's not your body attacking itself. So I just want to like get that out of the way. It's this body was made to heal, it's not made to be in disease. So I was having all this inflammation, and part of the cycle of inflammation is the white blood cells are basically killing the thing that shouldn't be inside of you, and it gives off waste, which is lymph, right? And so because I had so much inflammation, I had so much lymph happening in my body, and my lymphatic system wasn't keeping up. And so I was like 265 pounds. My face looked like a bolt, you know, it was a pumpkin. It was so heavy, I'm losing hair, I can't think, I had no motivation, I'm sweating all the time. But you know, I have a son, and you know, and I was like, I gotta keep pushing through.

Castor Oil, Hydration, And Red Light

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And so I was at this event, and a friend of mine had come up to me and she saw that I was limping. My knees were swollen, like a couple softballs on either side, and for eight months, and she said, You should rub castor oil on your knees. And I was like, Oh Lord, here we go. Like another person with these natural remedies. And so, and then, but I had just started with my I am gonna fix this, you know. It I had already said it, and the the thing that I was doing was just stretching and foam rolling. And I thought I was progressing because I'd felt some something happening. So I'm telling everyone, you gotta foam roll, you gotta foam roll. And she's telling me, you gotta put little castor oil. I'm like, all right, she's telling me with the same conviction that I'm telling other people. So I have to listen to her for people to listen to me.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

That's good. That's a key right there. Like, say that again.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

I have to listen to her in order for people to listen to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah, and this is the first advice that I've ever taken from probably anyone in my entire life. And so I really, I mean, I was feral, you know, everything was done on my own. I'm a child of the 70s and 80s, and you know, and it was rough. But so I went home, I got the castor oil from the pharmacy, and I put some in a in a pan, I heated it up a little bit to thin it out, and I applied it to my lymphatic areas, my knees, the whole thing. And I had tried probably 15 or maybe 10 other things prior to this with zero success. So I went to bed, woke up the next day, the swelling in my knees was completely gone, and then I just started blowing stuff out of my nose for the next three days. It was just consistent.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Really?

SPEAKER_01 29:51

The pumpkin face came down, like all the puffiness in my body went away. And I went from having like maybe one clear head day a month to like half the month was clear. And I was like, wow, what that that's just amazing, right? And so I still wasn't on a real healing path at this point. I had no idea which direction I should go in. So that next that was in March, and then a few months later, the Phillies were playing, and a bunch of friends went and I had a beer, and I don't hardly drink, but the beer made me feel really off. And I thought, gosh, maybe I'm acidic because I've been hearing these things about acidity. And so I got two bottles of like high pH water. Now there's some debate on the effectiveness of this stuff, but all I know is it made me feel better immediately. And so I said, I need to find a podcast on proper hydration. So here's another interesting thing. It led me directly to Dr. Mercola, who was labeled the first quack on Facebook, so you knew he was doing it right. And his say that again. Yeah, he was labeled the first quack on Facebook, so you knew that there was some industry trying to shut him down for profit. But the interesting thing is his guest that day was Dr. Zach Bush. Dr. Zach Bush is a very spiritual Christian, former modern medical institute, you know, guy who's now gone to natural healing. Okay, and he was talking about hydration at the cellular level. And I, you know, a guy who got a C in college biology by cheating off the guys in the front row, I was like, I think that cells make up everything. So maybe if I make all my cells healthy, I can make the rest of my body healthy. And so I started looking at other ways, and so that water, you know, just doing more good spring water just made things more clear. And then so the next thing in his podcast about cell health was doing red light therapy, right? So the sun has a range, a wavelength that is near range, infrared, and that wavelength penetrates deeper into the skin. And so, once again, an energetic response happens. That is basically that photon energy is helping break down the things that are causing chronic pain under the skin. And so I would go to a place and I would sit in a red light room for you know half an hour and I'd walk away and I'd hear and feel a click and a little bit of looseness. It was just very slight. It was one or two would happen each time I would do it. I eventually bought my own red light and uh didn't know any of the science behind what was happening. I was just, you know, and then, but then of course I had to go research everything. So, and so I was like, great, this is another thing I can put into my toolkit. And from there, you know, I got lucky. A friend of mine told me you should try MSM, which is sulfur. And what it turns out I'm highly allergic or sensitive to sulfur. Many people are not, but it was causing a lot of click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. And so I was like, okay, great. And so unfortunately, it also caused me a lot more anxiety than I was already dealing with because my body wouldn't clear it out. It would also cause depression because they're both associated with one another. So, you know, it got lucky, sort of lucky with that. And then, gosh, what was the next thing that happened? Oh gosh, I can't remember. But I do know that one of the things in the in the series was on oxalic acid. And I had been juicing spinach and beets, and it turns out those plants have a defense chemical in them called oxalic acid that creates a kidney stone. But when you juice them, they leak out through your gut and then they get into your cells, they depolarize the cell, turn it into a bone-producing cell. They also are basically kidney stones all throughout your soft tissue, causing tearing within the muscles and a bunch of other bad things. And so I was like, oh my gosh, this is what I'm feeling. Oh, when I acupuncture myself, I had started acupuncturing myself, which, you know, acupuncture is expensive, and I wanted to mitigate those costs. And I would come across these little something that I didn't know what it was, calcium or you know, what whatever it was, but it was so painful. And so I was not gonna listen to that podcast, and something told me I had to listen to it. And so I did, and then I did the cleanse, which is basically five bags of lemons squeezed and adding some binders like calcium citrate, and so it drew all of these stones out of my body through my pores, through my skin. It's pretty wild once you do it.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Yeah, five five bags of lemons.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Yeah, you get, and that'll make about one pitcher of pure lemon juice, and you can add some water to it as well, but you really want that citric acid in there because that's what's helping disrupt the bonds that hold the oxalate together. Super stress.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

And are you drinking it like all in one shot?

SPEAKER_01 35:18

No, no, it's over three, four days. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Like, wow, that's very tart.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Aggressive, yeah, yeah. And oh, so the other thing was that's I skipped over was fasting. So the the friend who told me this is another biblical one, right? So the friend that told me to rub castor boils challenged me to do a three-day fast. So I was like, oh, if this guy can do it, I can do it. And she's challenging me to do it, so I'm gonna do it. So at day two, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, like all over the body. I was like, oh my gosh, what is this? Now, fasting is very hard, but I'll tell you what was happening during

Oxalates, Fasting, And Enzymes That Unstick Pain

SPEAKER_01 35:52

that process. So your body has enzymes that are stored in the liver, and so those enzymes' main function is to help digest food, right? Break down the proteins and stuff in the food. But when the body is starved or fasted, those enzymes still need that protein. So it's gonna release from your liver at like day one and a half and start looking for proteins in the body to cleave the chemical bond, which is how it's held together. It's like the glue of the protein. So it cleaves the chemical bond of fibrin, which is, you know, you have fibrin is, you know, you can kind of call it scar tissue or fibrosis. They more attribute that to collagen, but those two things work together. Anyway, so I'm feeling all this clicking and loosening happening in my back. And so at that point, I was like, okay, I need to read the Bible now because there are all these health things that are actually working within the Bible. And the CIA has on their website that this is a container that needs to stay healthy for what's inside. That's what the CIA says about the human body. So I went, you know, started listening. I started with the Old Testament and would put it on, you know, you know, my headphones at night, and I would listen to it. And the funny thing is, if you are if you can't get to sleep, for for me at least, the Bible puts me to sleep all the time. And I don't mean in a bad way, my mind stops racing. Like you know, you're listening to these stories and you're comfortable, and for some reason I fall asleep very quickly. Yeah, so you know, I just yeah, just started getting into the Bible, but the real change came, like the real thing where I was like, okay, this is undeniable, this isn't just accident. So at this point, I had been focusing on collagen and fascia. I didn't even know what a fibrin was. And so I'm at this event that one of our suppliers in my energy business, Shell Energy, invited us to because we qualified for it. They held it up in the Ozarks and everyone got food poisoning. And I was like, gosh, well, and you know, throwing up everything. And I was like, Well, gosh, why did everyone get food poisoning? And I started, I said, I'm gonna figure out what everyone ate yesterday. I knew that they served pineapple, it was the first thing I thought of, and I was and something inside of me told that that little voice that told you not to go and get that procedure or whatever. It was the same kind of voice. It said, pineapple contains bromaline.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Bromoline, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

And I was like, okay, what is what's bromaline? Like what what who said that? You know, and and so I immediately googled bromaline, and it said bromaline is an is something that farmers use to get rid of fibrosis in farm animals. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's I you know, I was like, I that's crazy. I need like how how did that all line up perfectly? It was the first thing I thought of. I heard that voice, it brought me right to that article or whatever it was, and I came home and you know, if people could see behind me, I have two spice racks filled with supplements, right? And I kind of microdose a lot of them, but I knew nothing about enzymes at this point, right? And so I added pineapple powder into my regimen, and I noticed a lot of clicking. And so these enzymes in the pineapple uh mimic the enzymes that your body has in its liver, and basically does the similar thing where it's cleaving those chemical bonds of the couple of the things that are causing pain, you know, scar tissue, fibrins, fibrosis, whatever you want to call it. And it's also part of a protocol that is very well known that helps get rid of the side effects of the shot that a lot of people got, because what's happening there is most people are getting these blood clots, which is becomes a fibrin. And so now it helps the body break those downs. But it's not actually removing them, it breaks the bond, which then makes it soluble to the body, and then the body sends different resources there to now, like little construction workers called mechanoreceptors and other things that now move that stuff out of the body through the interstitium and then eventually through the lymphatic system.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Wow.

From Atheism To Asking God For Help

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah. And so it was at that point I was like, this is undeniable. Yeah, it's like there's no doubt. And then I just had to really get in touch with God at that point. And I think that the grounding and the earthing and the meditation and then the eventual praying and asking the universe for things, and they were delivered to me, it it was just like, okay, just it is I my father is going to be very happy because he's been telling me he's been praying for me for so many years that uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

So, how long ago, like, did you have this, like I guess you could say the beginnings of what I would call like an encounter with God where He's just kind of leading you along the way. And when I hear click, it's like click in, click in. It's like you're clicking out, but there were some things clicking in for you too.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Yeah, a hundred percent. It was gradual. I mean, I it I think it's probably I'd say we're probably about two to three years into where I just completely accepted it, not to where I was just seeing signs that that that it was like, okay, this is obviously the way to go. And then after that point, life just became so much easier. You know, worrying stopped. You know, me trying to force the world in a specific direction stopped. You know, it's it just became an ease within my mind that uh was long overdue.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Yeah, and how many people need that prescription?

SPEAKER_01 41:52

So many. Right? So yeah, I mean, fortunately, most of your listeners are Christian, but like I could debunk evolution. I mean, we talked about it like so easily, it's very easily debunked, and most scientists don't even accept it, but it's been persistent for so long that you know, people just buy into it because you know it's you know just a message that we hear constantly.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Constantly. I mean, the school systems, the education, you just it's pumped into you, just like the medical system. It's like, here's here's what we're gonna feed you. You need to listen.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

Boris Mayan, who invented the modern day education system, homeschooled his children.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Really?

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

I did not know that. Maybe I did. If I did, I maybe forgot. It's very interesting.

The Undo Method And Flexibility Fuel

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Well, I would love for you to share. I know you'd mentioned to me that you have a supplement that you created that could help somebody that did get the shot, because I'm very passionate about I had a very strong voice during that time. And you know, we're talking about the COVID shot. And if I get thrown off because of saying that word, go for it, Laura. Like whatever. But you you did have something that you helped. I I feel like obviously God probably gave you help with this formulation because there's so many people that unfortunately took it. I actually interviewed somebody, the the interview hasn't launched yet, but she actually was injured. And so I'm always I'm always like open ears to to things that people have created or have found different resources. So would you just tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Yeah, so so the undo method, which is like the blanket, right? It really consists of two things. It's an educational piece that I created, which is the undo method playbook, kind of fits the football theme, with the offenders in there. And then there's the supplement, which is kind of part two, or sometimes it's the way people get interested in the actual method because the supplement is working for them. But so I just want to talk about the undo method first, real quick. It it so what I do is I break down What are the major causes of pain for the majority of people, right? I'm not going to, this isn't a panacea. It's a different perspective, a natural perspective to looking into what is more than likely actually causing pain. So I'll just want to talk about those painmakers real quick or the offenders, real quick. Obviously, diet is one of them. You know, what you don't eat and what you do eat is super, super important because you need to have the foundation for your body to be able to have all of its processes working correctly. And there's 90 things out there. There's 12 nutrients, six, no, 16 nutrients, 12 amino acids, three fats, and a whole bunch of minerals. I think it's like 18 or something like that. So that should be the foundation for anybody's diet. Outside of that, you need nothing else. Literally, need nothing else. The body will synthesize the rest of what it needs. But because of our 75% of our food is highly processed, every bite you take is inflammatory, right? Which causes inflammation. So that's offender number one, really, physical offender number one. So that leaves behind a clot, which becomes a hardened protein, which medicine will tell you is insoluble. Well, it is insoluble until it's cleaved at the chemical bond, and then medicine will tell you, oh, yeah, then it's soluble. Every inflammation response comes with a collagen response, and you need four amino acids and four cofactors. The cofactors tell the amino acids to build the collagen correctly. So every time you have an inflammation event, you have a collagen event. And collagen is living inside your body, resynthesizing constantly. If you don't have the four cofactors, it's going to turn into glue, right? Your collagen will become glue. And those strands of muscle fiber, that thickened muscle fiber, is all glued up together with unhealthy collagen, right? So that's one and two. And then there's oxidative stress, right? We talked about that before, where inflammation can cause it, your fabrics can cause it, smoking can lots of different things can cause it. And then there's calcification, right? And that's basically a mineral management problem where you calcium gets into the soft tissues, is not directed to the bones, and then there's glycation, which we talked about, and then there's the oxalates. So I break those down very in-depth. Everything is backed by scientific studies. It's not me just reading a bunch of articles and saying, hey, you should try this, right? And then it talks about some natural ways or practices that you can employ, like earthing. Like, why does earthing work? Why does breathing through your nose work to slow down inflammation? Phototherapy, you know, sunlight or near-range infrared and you know, a few other things. So that's all that stuff. And then I tell you which foods you can get these catalysts from, right? The catalyst is the thing that's uh ungluing, quote unquote, the thing that's causing the pain. So the supplement itself is called flexibility fuel. And so it's uh it's a it's an essential amino acid-based supplement, but then there's a bunch of different other compounds or nutrients in them that address uh each one of these uh offenders um at the chemical bond or through their electrostatic interaction. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

So and I'll even I'll tell you the ingredients since it's you know, if someone can't want to buy it from me, they can easily go get these things on Amazon. They're all natural. So bee propylis, right? That's what the bees build the honeycomb with. That helps break down scar tissue, the collagen. It also prevents it from sticking together. There's the enzymes in it from pineapple, right? That helps helps the body. It's a catalyst for the fibrin. There's alpha lipoic acid, which is the universal antioxidant, so it's going to help repair or you know, add an electron to that free radical. There's rutin in it, which breaks down, helps the body break down glycation. There's uh malic acid in it, which is really used as a sweetener, but it has another effect which helps break down or carve off those oxalates that we talked about. And then there's benfodiamine, which is the precursor to the protein, the myelin protein that's around the pain receptors, the nerve, you know, part of your central nervous system are nosoceptors, right? That is where all pain comes from, are nosoceptors. And so when those are aggravated or that myelin sheath is worn down, you're going to experience more pain, more consistent pain. And then there's a thing called PEA in there that mitigates the cytokine release, which is the basically the beginning stage of inflammation, which then leads to the C reactive proteins, which most people are, you know, when they have a lot of C reactive proteins, they're given a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. So, which, you know, just because they're only measuring that doesn't mean the rest of the cycle isn't going to complete itself. It's going to still create a fibrin, it's still going to create lymph, it's still, you know, it's still going to go through the entire cycle. But yeah, and it's very easy. I mean, it's a fruit punch-flavored supplement. I've got, you know, a whole bunch of former NFL players taking it with really good results. You know, people who have fibromyalgia, people have just general joint pain, stiffness, et cetera. It's it's really helping them quite a bit. And it's the reorder rate is great. It's just that the struggle is because there's so many people out there, and I'm not promising anything. I'm just promising you that the ingredients in there are shown to do certain things to the body, right? But getting people to try it because there's so many things out there that they've tried and had no effect whatsoever. My supplement seems to have a very quick effect for most people within a week or so. And even sometimes their first drink, they're like, I heard some clicking. And you know, once again, it's not a cure treatment, you know, diagnosis for any disease. It's you know, it's helping the body make these things happen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

And what is the name of it?

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Flexibility fuel.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Okay. And you you told me before we got started and hit record that there's a label on there that I loved, like part of the label.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Oh, yeah. You know, so so in my in the method, in the the educational program, I talk about potential side effects that any of the supplements can cause. And so I always list the last side effect as hope.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

And that's why you're here today.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

I believe part of it, not just that part of it, but I love that. Well, I just want to say, like, I don't know if you watched the Kentucky Derby. I didn't, but I saw some clips of this horse, the golden trophy. Is that the name?

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Was that the one that won?

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Yeah, he's like last place. Last place. Yeah. Last place. And and there's a verse in the Bible, the last will be first. So, you know, you've overcome so much. And I just feel like just because I've I'm just I love overcomer stories. I love the underdogs. I love the ones that, you know, you said I got a C in you know, science class because you were cheating. And now you guys are listening.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

He's he's obviously this is kind of beyond a natural ability. Like, I believe that God is giving you, and he's gonna continue to increase in you as you lean into him, right? Because he gives you the wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah. An interesting thing at the beginning of all of this, I was like, I'm so brilliant, I'm so smart. And then it's changed to like, wow, I did none of this. Like, this was like obviously God's doing because I'm not, I mean, I'm smart, but like I like the way that the questions came to me that I was able to then research was like I rarely went down the wrong path. I think sulfur was the only one, it was only the wrong path for me. For other people, it's probably you know gonna be amazing. It's just that if you do notice that you have a reaction, then don't do the sulfur. But yeah, it was, I mean, I just was able to formulate the right questions that led just led me to this discovery.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Yeah, it's so beautiful. Well, we're gonna close up today. Thank you so much for having just your heart to share your story. And as we close, you know, I do this podcast for the one, and the Lord's actually called it a seed cast. So if you could just think of one person who's listening in today, do you have any other like words of just hope or encouragement for them? Any words of wisdom on their journey?

Omega-3s, Earthing, And Closing Hope

SPEAKER_01 52:51

So well, one, you have to ask for God's help, right? I think you have to be vocal about it. I I do want to talk about one thing though that I think is going to help tons of people because a lot of neuroinflammation and just inflammation in general, and this overused term of autoimmunity. Autoimmunity in most cases is a guess by doctors. To actually have an autoimmune uh diagnosis, you have to have a biopsy and find a T cell in healthy tissue, right? And that's rare. So they just say, yeah, we don't find it there, but you're presenting as autoimmune. Well, if immune if your immune response starts at the cellular level, it's really important to make sure that you have a one-to-one ratio of omega-3s, which are not pro-inflammatory, to omega-6s, which is pro-inflammatory. And fatty fish or an omega-3 supplement is a way to change that because the body will naturally displace the omega-6 with the omega-3. The average American, instead of a one-to-one ratio, has a 15 to 1 ratio of highly inflammatory omega-6s. So if you're looking to just start with your first supplement or your first sort of strategy, incorporate fish, Jesus, into your diet and and you know, touch your feet on the earth. That's so important, you know, is to do those two things. I mean, you know, touching your feet on the earth is free.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

So, you know, free, free, free always fits in my budget.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Yeah. And fasting, fasting is better than free because you're not eating anything. You're actually saving money as fasting. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Somebody might be wondering, like, and you don't have to, but do you recommend a specific omega-3 for somebody to try? Like a specific brand? Because just because there's so much out there and you've you're well researched, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:50

So I don't have a brand, but you want to make sure that it's wild-caught fish. And you want to make sure that they've taken the vitamin A out of there because if you take like cod liver oil, right, they haven't taken the vitamin A out of there and you can do too much of it, and it's toxic for the liver. So most supplements, just omega-3 supplements, have already done that, but you just want to make sure you find one that's ocean-caught, not farm-raised, you know, fish, because that's just disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Yeah, that is disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Well, thank you so much for coming on today. I am gonna close with the Hope Unlocked anchoring verse, which is may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And that's Romans 15, 13. So thank you, Dan, for being a brave voice who's setting others free. I'll be back with another episode next week. Thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Thank you.