Change Your Brain Every Day - The Secret Causes of Psychiatric Symptoms with Dr. Mark Filidei

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

It’s no secret that diagnosing psychological problems can present a challenge. It’s often the case that psychiatrists go looking in the wrong places and as a result, patients end up with an inaccurate diagnosis. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen are joined by functional medicine specialist Dr. Mark Filidei for a discussion on the secret brain burglars that are often the hidden causes to these brain issues.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome to a very special week. I am here with Dr. Mark Philiday. Mark is the Director of Integrative and Functional Medicine at Amen Clinics. Mark is a physician. He went to UC Davis, then got his medical degree at the University of North Texas, did and I met, goodness, over a decade ago when I was teaching at the American Association of Anti-Aging Medicine.

And we realized our practices were across the street from each other. And Mark had a big interest in the medical aspects of psychiatric illness, and we decided we loved each other, and he's been here at Amen Clinics. How long now? Six years, I think. Six years. And I refer probably half of my patients to him. And what we're going to talk about this week in these four podcasts is the other reasons that can steal your mind. And I started doing SPECT, goodness, almost 30 years ago. And I didn't learn one thing in my psychiatric residency that was going to prepare me for what really looked like a toxic brain.

And when I first started, I was the director of a substance abuse treatment program. And so the awful brains I saw, I just assumed they were from self-harm. But then I would see these toxic looking brains of people who didn't drink and who were not using drugs. And I had no explanation. And then all of a sudden, I remember this one woman, Carolyn. I loved her. She's like, I have brain fog. She had a terrible brain. She worked at a Christian university.

There was no drugs, no alcohol. And it turned out she had mold in her house and when her kids were in the house they couldn't do their homework and she was yelling at them and when they went to their friend's house they could actually do their homework and then I'm like oh my goodness so we're gonna spend some time and talk about when you're not right, what are some of the medical causes of that? Things like mold, Lyme, toxoplasmosis, other infections, mercury, arsenic, candida. That's a long list. And I remember you telling your story, I think it was early on when you were doing SPECT, about that couple you were counseling.

And they were really at each other's throat. You didn't even want to go see them. It was such a tough environment. But you found his brain looked terrible. And then he worked in a furniture factory. And he was inhaling these vapors, which were ruining his brain. So that's a story I always remember where you just wouldn't know that without SPECT. So for me, and I work up all the quote toxic brains that we see.

And as Daniel was mentioning, it's a long list of possibilities. That's where the history is critical. So I'll ask patients all these really weird questions like, you know, do you have a water leak in your house or did anything start after foreign travel? Do you have a lot of fillings in your teeth? Do you eat a lot of tuna? You know, these are, you're not going to get that from a psychiatrist anywhere else. They're not thinking that way. They don't need to because they don't see the scans, right? So if we see a scan that doesn't look good, why? And that's where I come in and start my sleuthing. So people ask me kind of what, what kind of doctor are you? And I really think

medical detective is the best description. Yeah. It's almost like mystery diagnosis, the show, except we do it day in and day out with real patients. So often people who come here they come here Damon clinics with anxiety depression ADD addictions and when we see that their brains clearly aren't healthy it really begins to trigger for us the toxin or the infection what what got you interested in looking at this for mental health? So it was interesting because before medical school, I actually did brain research at a UCSF affiliate with EEG. And so I've always been interested in brain before med school. And then you go to med school and things happen um and i knew about the amman clinic while

i was at the whittaker clinic for years but there was just no connection so at the whittaker clinic i treated everything else diabetes cancer heart disease we didn't do much brain stuff in fact when i saw psychiatric patients i'm like you know go somewhere else that's that's not my thing until realizing how huge of an impact biology and these things have on mental health and the brain. I had no idea. And so connecting AIM and ClinXpect with what I'd been doing was unbelievable. And it's still to this day, I'm learning new things all the time that are causing mental health issues. So if somebody's brain's being assaulted by a toxin like mold or an infection like Lyme, what are the physical and emotional

symptoms they tend to report to you? Really depends on what the culprit is, but brain fog is a real big one. I just can't think straight anymore. I have brain fog all the time. My memory is going. And these, you know, 30 year olds. Fatigue. So physical symptoms as well that really have no explanation. So stomach related issues. So it turns out yeast candida can cause brain fog and anxiety and insomnia i lecture a lot on this and i'll show all these psychiatric symptoms where you could be given 20 different drugs for each one of those things and each one is caused by candida so again people aren't thinking that way. So multiple symptoms, physical and mental, brain fog being a real big one, weird neurologic symptoms.

I get weird pains. I get weird sensations. Could be mold. So it's kind of a long list, but the whole idea is to have some curiosity. As you always say, if you don't look, you're not going to find it. And the SPECT really helps that. curiosity as you always say you don't look you're not gonna find it and the spec really helps that so on the scans what we often see is when they're first being assaulted so at the acute phase there's actually a spec study on the

Cunningham panel so it's one of the panels we look at to see if there are antibodies. So what antibodies are your white cells produce these compounds that go and attack foreign invaders. And sometimes they mistake your body as foreign tissue. And so that's why it's called an autoimmune disorder where your white cells are attacking it itself and so it's it's just so interesting to think about well what could trigger your immune system to actually see you as the enemy, right? It's the ultimate what I think of in friendly fire. Yeah, it really is. And again, people are aware of autoimmune disease with rheumatoid arthritis and things like that,

but there's also the similar thing for the brain, and people aren't thinking about that much. You can have an autoimmune encephalopathy where it's a severe hospitalized issue. There's a famous book called brain on fire which was a reporter that had this similar thing going on out of the blue nobody could figure it out took a while so that's the kind of thing that we're looking for here all the time okay so we'll see it on spec'd and those of you listening most of you will never get a scan, you know to suspect it if you have mental health issues, anxiety, depression, attention deficit, hyperactivity, symptoms, insomnia, and the standard things you do for it don't work. And so how do you begin to work someone up if, for example, I've sent you hundreds of people, and what are the things that would begin to give people a clue that toxins may be part of what's happening in their mind?

So that's a great question. And again, I ask this of every patient. One of the most important things for me is when did things change? So if you were normal, whatever your normal was, and then you're not, what happened around that time? Did you go to school? Did you move into a new apartment? Did you have foreign travel? Something happened before. So we see plenty of folks that have ADHD from day one. Always been that way. They're just wired that way. That's one thing. If you were, quote, normal, whatever that happens to be, and then you're not, it's that transition I really focus on. And patients don't really think about that. When I take them back through their history,

all of a sudden a light bulb goes off. Oh yeah, I do remember I did have XYZ happen around that time. So changes in your situation are critical for me to work it up. So when did it start? When did it start when did it start what was happening what were your surroundings and I just thought another patient we share she actually grew up right next door to a chemical plant and they had a spill and so other patient had this fascinating patient. He was seven. He tested with an IQ of 63. His brain looked awful.

And he was from the San Joaquin Valley. And he grew up in a farm where there was lots of pesticides. So he was basically being poisoned, if you will. So when did it start? Where did you grow up yeah your surroundings so that that can be key for the toxicity part and again with SPECT so one of the great things about SPECT is you know when you come in if you come in here with whatever your issue is let's say you're 30 and you have bipolar OCD what have you uh if your scan doesn't look healthy, there's a brain problem. And so that's where we can really

delve into what's the cause instead of just saying, I have a mental health problem. You have a brain problem. Yeah. No, in my new book, The End of Mental Illness, I so go after that. And especially bipolar disorder. So many people are diagnosed with bipolar disorder where they don't really have the classic symptoms they are irritable and moody but they don't have the classic sort of manic psychotic episodes and then cycle into normal or depressed it's they're always struggling but they end up with a diagnosis of bipolar and i often find it's either head injuries or toxins or infections. And so when we come back, we're going to begin to go through some of the most common

causes, and we're going to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.