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In this episode, I share the story of a client who had broken sleep for seven years, tried nearly everything, and was skeptical I could help. I walk through the exact labs we ran and the supplements that finally fixed it.


You'll learn:

  • Why his cortisol looked fine on paper but was still keeping him up at night

  • What his mineral levels revealed about just how burned out his body really was

  • The surprising gut findings that were connected to his sleep the whole time

  • Which neurotransmitters were depleted and how that changed his sleep and his mood

  • The exact supplement protocol we used, and how long it took to see results

  • What his life looks like now that he's finally sleeping through the night


00:00 Bill’s Sleepless Struggle

00:34 Health History and Symptoms

02:17 Jumpstart Sleep Changes

04:34 Early Supplements and Detox

05:10 Test Results Overview

05:33 Cortisol and Hormone Clues

08:18 Neurotransmitters and Minerals

12:40 Mold and Gut Findings

16:52 Personalized Protocol Plan

20:51 Six Month Transformation

22:33 Final Results and Next Steps


Episode Transcript


[00:00:00] 


Martha Lewis: Bill was waking up after two hours every single night for six to seven years. He was getting four to six hours of broken sleep despite trying everything his doctors suggested, and he came to me with a serious health history layered on top of it all.


I promised him there was a reason his body couldn't sleep and that we were going to find it.


I'm gonna show you exactly what we found, what we did. And how a 70-year-old man with a serious health history is now sleeping solidly through the night with twice the energy he had before. So let's get into it.


Before, he was waking up after two hours of sleep and he couldn't get back to sleep for hours. He had chronic gut issues, so he had bloating, he couldn't pass gas, he had loose stools. He was restricted by radiation scarring from having prostate cancer, and he already knew he had celiac disease.


So he came to me for sleep, he was very skeptical that I could help him with the, with his gut too, even though [00:01:00] looking at gut health and helping with gut health is part of what I do because it is so related to sleep.


So he had low energy, a foggy mind, and he was feeling older than he should have. His sleep was affecting his mental health, how he treated others and his spiritual life.


So he had been struggling with sleep for six to seven years. He was taking 10 milligrams of melatonin, plus magnesium and still waking up at 3:00 AM. He was using Ambien and then had switched to Z Quil most recently, but he still needed it every night to sleep.


He had tried eliminating foods, taking digestive enzymes, multiple supplements and nothing fully worked. His sleep score. So I do a sleep assessment at the beginning and the end of my program and his was a 19 out of about 29, and his gut was affecting his life every day. He had waited till things got pretty bad [00:02:00] before reaching out. So I had actually worked with his son-in-law and so he had known about me for a little bit, but, again, he wasn't sure that I could help him, but once we talked, he was ready to try it. He was skeptical this would work and especially that his gut could get better.


So the initial lifestyle changes we made. So as soon as I start working with someone, I give them what's called a jumpstart plan in the first session, and then the first couple sessions while we are waiting for their test results to come back.


I have them fill out some intake forms so I can see a lot of their habits and diet and total lifestyle. And so I can start to pinpoint things that might help them sleep better right away. 'cause my goal is to help people sleep better as quickly as possible.


So. I recommended that he stop watching the clock at night. So a lot of people who have trouble sleeping do this. They wake up, they look at the time, they always know what time it is. And the problem is that can create a lot of anxiety because [00:03:00] it's never a good time, no matter what time it is.


I recommend getting outta bed when he can't sleep.


He was drinking a lot of carbonated beverages and this is not gonna help with bloating and gut health. Luckily he was ready to just do whatever it took, so this was not a problem for him.


We also talked about not watching screens as much before bed and having more of a wind down breathing routine as well. And I wanna say. You know, screens are not the reason why people have chronic insomnia. So there are plenty of people who watch screens every night and sleep just fine.


But you know, screens are stimulating and they, of course are emitting blue light, which tells the body to release cortisol and not melatonin. And so this can help someone get more sleep while we're working on the root causes in the body of why they aren't sleeping. I.


And having him increase protein at [00:04:00] breakfast. I think I've said this for every case study so far is most people are not eating enough protein, and that's really important to get the amino acids and minerals and other nutrients we need to actually make our hormones and neurotransmitters. And it also really helps stabilize blood sugar as well. , He added Chail t before bed to help with relaxation and he said the breathing helps the most already noticing a difference in my sleep habits. He did start improving right away.


Now. The initial supplements. One thing I screen for is mold toxicity or cs, which stands for chronic inflammatory response syndrome. And one of the most common causes of CS is mold. So I recommend these cell core supplements right off the bat for some of my clients, if they're checking off a lot of these symptoms to really help with detox, supply some nutrients like minerals, [00:05:00] um, and a binder that's going to bind two toxins and safely pull them outta the body. So we started on that right away as well.


Now let's get into what his results showed. It does take about a month to get the test results. Um, once someone signs up for the program and I order the tests, you know, they get the tests at home, take the test, send them back to the lab, and then it takes the lab up to two weeks to get the results. But like I said, we're starting to work together right away throughout that month while we're waiting for the test results.


He showed high cortisol at night, and this is kind of hard to see that red line is his values, and you can see the black low range and the black high range.


So ideally, cortisol should be lowest upon waking and in the middle of the night, and then spike to its highest level within two hours of waking up, and then gradually go down throughout the day. Now this waking sample here, I hope my head isn't blocking it. I'm [00:06:00] gonna move this way, is actually representing the middle of the night because it is urine that's collective first thing in the morning that's been, uh, accumulating throughout the night.


So again, it's in range, but. It barely goes up in the morning and then it barely goes down, and then you can see it's in the high end of the range at nighttime. So even though his cortisol looks low overall, and as we'll see down here, he is actually not making a lot of cortisol, but it's still relatively high at bedtime and even in the middle of the night compared to the rest of the day and what it should look like. So cortisol is a factor for him.


The Dutch test looks at two different kinds of cortisol. So metabolized cortisol is how much the body's making free cortisol is how much is available to be used, and these should match each other, be pointing in the same direction.


So you can see his body is barely making. [00:07:00] Much cortisol at all. The free, what's available to be used, which is what is measured in the graph above is a little bit higher. So he's not making a lot, which happens over time when the body's been under chronic stress, is that it runs out of the resources it needs to be able to respond correctly to stress and inflammation and make that cortisol. But then, you know, his is sticking around a little because he does have stress and inflammation and so it's there to help him deal with the stress and inflammation. But yeah, this is kind of a depleted state here where his body is not making much anymore.


Alright then if we look at his sex hormones, so all of these were very low. So estrogen, barely within range. Testosterone way below range, DHEA, below range, um, progesterone, also low end of the range here.


And then there are some different ways to look at liver detox in the [00:08:00] Dutch test. And so his glutathione marker, which is the master liver nutrient, is pretty low here as well.


So you know his body's not making a lot of cortisol, not making a lot of sex hormones. The glutathione for the liver is also depleted.


Now we also have some depleted neurotransmitters. So serotonin is low here and we think a lot of serotonin for mood, but it's also super important for sleep. And he wasn't having any mood issues.


When I finally tested my neurotransmitters, my serotonin was low like this as well, and I don't have any mood issues fortunately. But once I started supplementing with five HTP to improve that serotonin, my sleep got a lot better. And so that happens with a lot of my clients as well.


Dopamine, super low here, I mean. Not even a third of what it's supposed to be. And dopamine is [00:09:00] our reward neurotransmitter, but it's also important for regulating our sleep cycles.


Norepinephrine and epinephrine. I grew up learning these as noradrenaline and adrenaline. These are our other stress hormones along with cortisol. These are also depleted. So, just like cortisol, these have also become depleted over time. And then this gives the ratio of norepinephrine two epinephrine, which kind of the higher it is, the more stressed and burned out someone is. So his is pretty high here.


GABA also low, so that's our anti-anxiety neurotransmitter. This is super important for sleep as well.


And glutamate is, I'm more concerned when this is high because it is a stimulating neurotransmitter, but his was also low. So again, we're just seeing this depletion across the board of so many of these key neurotransmitters needed for sleep and to help deal with stress as well.


[00:10:00] Now, I also was testing for minerals at this time. I used a test called the Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis. The first thing I'm looking at are what are called these primary minerals on the left here. Calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium. Ideally, these would all be in line with each other in the white there.


So he has a common pattern that I see in many of my clients, and that is when calcium, magnesium is super high compared to sodium and potassium. And this is called the slow oxidation pattern. And what it means is that the body is stressed and burnt out. The adrenals especially need sodium and potassium. So. Um, the more stress it's been under, the more those minerals become depleted over time, even if you're getting enough from the, from your diet. And a lot of times we aren't getting enough either because, you know, it, it's actually hard to get enough [00:11:00] minerals in our food this day and age because the soils are so depleted. And if the gut isn't healthy, it's not absorbing these minerals very well.


Now magnesium looks really high, right? This is actually on a hair test, usually a loss, which means the body isn't absorbing it at a cellular level, and so it's pushing it into the soft tissue. So this actually suggests that he needs magnesium, not that he has too much, and when the body's stressed, it burns through magnesium five times as fast as usual. So. You know, this is again, indicating the stress state.


And ideally, all these other minerals would be in the white here in balance with each other, but a lot of them have become depleted as well.


And there are some toxic elements. Just showing up a little bit. Um, uranium arsenic. You know, there are different ways to measure heavy metals. You can measure it with hair, with blood, and with urine and some heavy metals show up better. And [00:12:00] you know, different ones of those tests and others.


The hair test is showing how much the body's able to get rid of right now. So it's not actually showing how much is in the body, it's showing how much it's able to push out. So a lot of times when we retest after working on balancing minerals, then the heavy metals show up even higher, and that just means they were there all along and now the body's actually getting strong enough to, release them. So I don't ever recommend any kind of collation therapy or anything like that. I work on balancing minerals first, giving the body the nutrients it needs to then be able to detoxify the heavy metals as it's ready.


He also did a myco to test, looking at mycotoxins, which are from mold. So because I suspected mold toxicity based on his symptoms, he wanted to go out and take this test. And sure enough, two showed up here and this okin is super high off the charts here, [00:13:00] so.


When someone is testing positive for mycotoxins, you know, I want to help their body get rid of them in a very safe way by supporting detox, but also make sure they aren't being exposed to mold, mainly that would be living in it or working in it or something like that. Now Bill did not wanna test his home. And he got better without having to, so that is always great. So he likely isn't living in it because it's really hard to get better if you're living in mold. But we did see some mycotoxins there.


And then looking at his gut health. So first of all, we definitely saw some pathogens here. C Difficile showing up is very unusual to see, and this is at a high level.


And then also h pylori, which is a kind of bacteria that lives in the stomach and really affects protein digestion because what it does is it [00:14:00] raises the pH of the stomach and makes it less acidic, so it's harder to break down protein. I see h pylori in about 80% of my clients. So it's highly correlated with sleep issues that I've seen.


And then this measures some different enzymes. Elastase is the enzyme that digests protein, and this has also become really depleted. And that tends to go hand in hand with h pylori because h pylori keeps the stomach from being able to digest protein well, and so then the pancreas keeps pumping out more elastase to help digest that protein. But over time, it's just not able to keep up with that. So we want to address the h pylori, support protein digestion, and also support overall gut health.


So we can see here that his secretory IGA, which is what's called an immunoglobulin. It's the first line of defense in the gut against pathogens. And when this [00:15:00] is elevated, suggesting pathogens, it could be reacting to certain foods. Um, for him, we know pathogens are here. So that makes a lot of sense. This just means his body is having an active immune response at this time.


And then his calprotectin, which is a marker of inflammation, was also super high here. This isn't surprising, knowing his gut issues. And even though this anti glyadin IGA is looking for gluten sensitivity, so he's not having a strong reaction to gluten 'cause he is not eating any, which is good. Um, but yeah, we're seeing some definite things to address in the gut, and this was a big part of it for him.


Now also looking at his bacteria. So lots of actual overgrowth here. These commensal or keystone bacteria are the good guys. And he has plenty in the green. If anything, you know, they're high end and this e circ [00:16:00] carrier here is super high. This firmicutes viola super high. So instead of not enough good bacteria, we're actually getting to see too much.


And then all these opportunistic ones. So these are a normal part of our gut flora, but under the right conditions they can overgrow and they cause a lot of inflammation. So here he is, got five that are flagged high here, as well as this good one, and then these other two that are borderline.


So instead of being a lack of good bacteria, it's actually too many of all kinds of bacteria. This is why I believe the testing is so important because, I wouldn't recommend a probiotic for him that would just be adding more fuel to this buyer. He already has plenty of bacteria, so we don't wanna add more.


All right, so what did I recommend? I usually start with neurotransmitters, [00:17:00] and that's because these, this can have the biggest impact right away, especially in sleep. But also my approach is I want to support the body first and give it what it's missing before we work on getting rid of things like the pathogens and the mycotoxins.


So five HTP helps support serotonin. Liposomal gaba with L-theanine. This is one of my favorite supplements, and I recommend it to a lot of clients, but especially if they're low in gaba to take before bed. And then DLPA stands for DL phenylalanine, and this is the precursor to dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. So if you remember those being low in his neurotransmitter panel. So this is to support all of those.


Now recommended some liver support with a methyl B complex. This has folate methyl B12, some, um, milk thistle to support the liver.


I don't often recommend hormones for my [00:18:00] clients, and since I'm not a doctor, I'm not prescribing hormones, but there are very low dose hormones that you can get over the counter. So I did recommend some DHEA for him just to try and boost all of his sex hormones that were showing up so depleted because DHA is the parent of all the sex hormones.


And then for cortisol and stress support, I recommended something called nighttime HPA. This is really to support the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal access. So that axis that helps us, um, handle stress. And then it has some relaxing herbs so it's meant to be taken at night to help with relaxation and sleep. So again, supporting the body first, giving it what it needs first. And then getting into what we're gonna do about the gut.


So some digestive enzymes are supporting digestion. Mega mucosa is really supporting the lining [00:19:00] of the gut. Anytime there are pathogens inflammation in the gut, we know that the gut wall isn't healthy and it's likely something called leaky gut. So mega mucosa is one of my favorites for that.


And then Biocidin, I've talked about this the past couple case studies. But it has biofilm busting properties. So that means that h Pylori, parasites, bacteria, all kinds of pathogens have what's called a biofilm, or this protective shield that they put around themselves to keep things from getting and to kill them, including antibiotics. So the biocide starts to break down that biofilm. It also has antiviral, antibacterial, antiparasitic properties.


And then I recommend a candid specifically for him to deal with the mycotoxins because a mold and mycotoxins are a type of fungus like candida.


And then [00:20:00] I assess and see how someone does. So I actually didn't address the h pylori specifically because I wanted to start addressing the mycotoxins first, see how he's doing. If he hadn't gotten any better, I would've said, okay, let's address, address the h pylori as well. But he kept improving. He kept getting better, and so it wasn't necessary. It's likely that these two also help take care of the h pylori as well.


And you know, sometimes people ask me, well, how do you know? How do you know if these things worked? So some of my clients want to keep working together and retest and know for sure. Others are like, I'm getting better, I feel so much better, so obviously it worked enough for me to get back in balance enough to be able to sleep well. And so a lot of people are fine with that.


This was what his progress looked like over the six months that we worked together. He did those jumpstart changes that I talked about and noticed [00:21:00] a difference in those sleep habits right away, and that breathing exercises helped the most.


By month three, his gut was calming down. The supplements he knew were helping with digestion. His sleep was improving. He wasn't sleeping as soundly as he wanted to yet, but he knew things were trending in the right direction and he had started being more mindful about food.


By month four, he's sleeping well, seven to eight hours every night in just less than four months. His stomach was feeling so much better. His bathroom schedule had evened out and he was still using zl when he needed, especially when he would travel to his second home, but he was considering cutting back. So that was kinda the last piece we wanted to work on.


So by month five, he was sleeping well, not waking in the night anymore. He cut ze equal to half the dose. His gut had improved. He had more patience and empathy with the people around him.[00:22:00] 


By month six, he got off the ze equal completely. He was sleeping well. His gut was good. He had said he had twice the energy he used to, and he was feeling so good he decided to run for mayor. Even though he was retired, he did not think he would be working anymore, but he was really passionate about helping his community and he had the energy to do it, so that is so awesome.


He was even helping neighbors remove trees from their yard that had blown down during this windstorm. So he was more active than he had been in years.


If this is something you're interested in, in working together in my Complete Sleep Solution program, you can schedule a consultation at the link right here and then you can sleep well again, just like Bill, even though he was super sc skeptical that I could help, um, he was hopeful for his sleep. He wasn't sure about his gut, but it really changed everything. Even though he had had a history of prostate cancer, he had had celiac disease and all the [00:23:00] things that he was dealing with, so thank you for listening.

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