09/06/2025
Vaccines!
This post is prompted by the following long reel I just watched:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/14MHc9QYiEa/
First of all, I really liked the concept of addressing vaccine concerns like this. So many times when you go to the clinic with your health questions and you are just one person without a medical degree and you're talking to someone with a medical degree, there is often not enough done to make the person without a medical degree feel safe enough to bring up questions that might challenge the medical authority. I'm even talking about people with PhD's who don't feel safe. I do my best in my clinic to make it a very safe environment for my patients, but I even then sometimes it's not enough. That's one thing I liked about the reel.
Another point about the reel: I have no idea who the physician in the video is, but I don't always agree with him. First of all, no offense to these entities but I don't agree with drawing analogies to birds or Uber drivers or airplane pilots. There are better ways to show logical fallacies, and it goes back to somewhat minimizing the issues the people are bringing up (see paragraph above).
Now, onto the issue about vaccines. I first need to say, I love them for everything they've done for humanity and reducing human suffering. I have done a medical trip, and I have seen a person with polio. It is a devastating disease. I also think vaccines are not all created equally (literally speaking, they are not created equally), and they are too politicized.
Let's get on the same page. I care about your health. You care about your health. We all care about your health. I am never going to say or do anything that implies you don't care about your health. Therefore, everything you're saying to me about vaccines is because you care about your health. I will treat you as such. I also do not want anything bad to happen to you.
1. Autism - easy one. Unless they link the onset of autism to a specific breaking point in the level of inflammation that the brain can handle, then vaccines are not related to autism. Even if they link those things, vaccines do not directly do anything to cause autism.
2. Vaccines do what they're supposed to do to increase immunity. In order to do that, in most people, they do increase inflammation. If you look at any vaccine side effects you will note that they are all related to increased inflammation. This is also why I am adamant that my kids will NOT get a sugary treat right after vaccines. They just had something inflammatory. I don't want to pour gasoline on a fire.
3. There are 3 buckets of people who are given vaccines:
- healthy
- unhealthy
- people who think they're healthy but really they're unhealthy
In healthy people, an increase in inflammation is usually small and temporary. Therefore, the vaccines are well tolerated.
Now, most vaccines create such a small bump in inflammation while still doing their job super well that no matter which bucket they fall into, most people will be totally fine. That said, with children whom we don't always know all their underlying issues yet, it's always good to space out vaccines if you're at all concerned.
4. The main issue is when you have a more inflammatory vaccines combined with unhealthy people or people who think they're healthy but are not. The goal should not be to not get the vaccine. The goal should be: what do I have to do in my lifestyle to be as healthy as possible so I can tolerate the vaccine. Because if you're too unhealthy to get the vaccine, then you better hope you also don't get whatever the vaccine is preventing. That said, there are some people who are not good candidates for these highly inflammatory vaccines and there's really nothing they can do about it. These are times when the benefits did not outweigh the risks. I never mandate vaccines. I will always give you my honest assessment on a case by case basis. I will always work with you on your health goals as you see fit.
5. There have been bad vaccines. Usually that means, the vaccines worked but the side effects caused equally bad things as what they were trying to prevent. Usually those vaccines never made it out to market, but some have. Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine is a good example.
6..For the patients who have come to me with long-term symptoms after getting the COVID vaccine, I have been able to help them tremendously by understanding that their side effects are not from the COVID vaccine but from an inflammatory cascade that was triggered after getting the vaccine. These can happen in healthy people as well. What I try to do is break the inflammatory cycle. Typically, these symptoms are most pronounced in the head and neck area. I have seen these symptoms in "healthy" people as well but if you dig down there's always some reason that it was triggered. For example, a very young, healthy patient who received the vaccine within a couple weeks of contracting COVID. They were normally healthy, but their body was still at a heightened level of inflammation from COVID and this person suffered for a year with constant side effects until we solved it. All this to say, even if you get side effects, I can help you.
