Show #287 – Dr. Gary Kaplan: Why You're Still Sick And How To Get Better

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And on this week’s show!

Have you or someone you know, been sick for a while now? Today I interview someone who’s been in the business of helping people heal from chronic pain and chronic illnesses such as autoimmune conditions, chronic fatigue, tick infections and mould to name a few. Dr. Gary Kaplan is the medical director of the Kaplan Center in Mclean Virginia the first integrative medical center in the Washington DC area. He is a clinical associate professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine and the author of the book WHY You Are Still Sick: Infections that break your immune system and how you can recover. His expertise includes the following: chronic illness, Lyme disease, ME/CFS, chronic pain, mold toxicity, sleep disorders, PANS/PANDAS, neuropsychiatric disease secondary to autoimmunity from infections, and longevity medicine. I hope this show brings you a deeper understanding of what’s going on when we become chronically ill and how we might start making steps towards real healing.

Questions I asked Gary:

When did you realise the immune system was going to be your baby, of all the things you could specialise in?
Did you and your family grow up well or were there constant infections/illnesses growing up?
A lot of people are sick today, not necessarily with a life-threatening disease, while tragically there are many of these people too, but what I’m interested to ask you, given your specialisation, is about people sick for long periods of chronically below-par illness to varying degrees: What are some of the reasons for this?
Can we have a 101 on what makes up the immune system from cells to locations within the body?
And when something is a threat – what happens differently depending on the threat or is it all contributing like a soup of ingredients to a collective weakening/malfunction? (Ie allergy response, bacterial infection response, viral response, parasite, and as you importantly share in your book environmental/psychological toxins…)
And so autoimmunity: again, beginner’s mind: What is happening when we have an autoimmune issue?
What is the history of autoimmune – have all these diseases always been there and we now just know what to call them because of diagnostic articulation advancement or are they increasing in frequency/severity in the modern world?
Is there something worse about the mould today we’re exposed to? Worse about the ticks when we get bitten? Other environmental assaults that are shown in the research to contribute to more and more immune dysfunction?
You’re passionate about neuro-psychiatric disease that appears secondary to autoimmunity – I’m sadly no stranger to this as someone who has all but recovered from CIRS – can you share what you’re seeing in the research/in clinic and how someone might know that they need an integrative physician perhaps before assuming it’s ‘all mental health related’.

About Dr. Gary Kaplan

Dr. Gary Kaplan is the medical director of the Kaplan Center in Mclean Virginia the first integrative medical center in the Washington DC area. He is a clinical associate professor at George then University School of Medicine and author of the book WHY You Are Still Sick infections that break your immune system and how you can recover. His expertise includes the following: medicine chronic illness Lyme disease ME/CFS chronic pain, mold toxicity, sleep disorders, PANS/PANDAS, neuropsychiatric disease secondary to autoimmunity from infections, and longevity medicine.

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