The Sensitive Nervous System: Rethinking How We Treat Complex Patients with Dr. David Traster | E74

Dr. David Traster: 00:00 And like I love TMS, I love neuromodulation. But if you take someone who's got like a massive autoimmune condition or a massive energy crisis because they have very little, their brain is hypoperfused, they have very little blood flow in their brain, or you take someone with like a movement disorder, or someone who's got like PNES and seizure disorders or migraines, and you do a protocol for depression and you blast them 30 sessions every day for 20 minutes with no respect to their metabolic capacity. I can't tell you, as much as I love TMS, how many people I have a patient right now who's throwing up every day. She wasn't before TMS. She's got hyperadrenergic pots, it was misdiagnosed, and now she's throwing up every day. All from just poor diagnostic capabilities. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 00:48 Welcome to Life After Impact, the Concussion Recovery Podcast. I'm Dr. Ayla Wolf, and I will be hosting today's episode where we help you navigate the often confusing, frustrating, and overwhelming journey of concussion and brain injury recovery. This podcast is your go-to resource for actionable information. Whether you're dealing with a recent concussion, struggling with post-concussion syndrome, or just feeling stuck in your healing process, know that you are not alone. This podcast can be your guide and partner in recovery, helping you build a better life after impact. Dr. David Traster, you are the co-owner of the Neurological Wellness Institute. You are the host of the Neurological Wellness Podcast and the mastermind of a fabulous Substack that I enjoy reading on a weekly basis. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Yes, and you're also a faculty of the Car rick Institute, where I had the opportunity to spend many hours with you in your vestibular rehabilitation course. And I'll be honest with you, that from that day forward absolutely changed the way I looked at every single patient that walked into my office. Dr. David Traster: 02:01 I appreciate that. I'm glad you took the time to do it. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 02:04 Yeah. It made me realize that our perception of the world, we often think that what we perceive is real. And I think that what I really recognized in that course is that we are constantly constructing our own version of reality. And the more that that version gets distorted, the more our entire hierarchy breaks down. Dr. David Traster: 02:29 I think that's a good point. Because I think people think vestibular as like shaking your head, or like Meniere's disease. And what I tried doing with that course was saying, let's take a step back and let's try to understand what the brain really does, how the brain constructs reality, and then now how does gravity fit into it? How does the vestibular system centrally fit into it? How does the peripheral and your ear fit into it? You know, and try to understand that our brain is really guessing what's really going on around us. It's really guessing what's going on inside of us. And then it's got a lot of feedback to figure out whether it's right or wrong. But it's really an imperfect system that has high computation to constantly try to be better every second. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 03:15 Yeah. And so when you see people come in, and I know this is a loaded question, but obviously you're doing a very full comprehensive neurological assessment. But when you do find that perhaps people's perception of reality is skewed because their sensory information coming in is either getting skewed because of some kind of peripheral nerve issue, or maybe their interpretation of it is inaccurate. Where are you diving into this kind of math equation to try to correct it? Dr. David Traster: 03:44 It's a good question. Um, everyone's different, right? And so we kind of look at it from multiple ways. The first thing we're gonna look at it is say, are you getting input into your brain? Like you mentioned, are the receptors and the nerves intact? Can you feel vibration? Can you feel pinwheel? Can you feel temperature? Can you see? Can you hear? You know, do you have an inner ear that's working, giving you a reflex that moves your eyes and head opposite? You know, we kind of just look at the big picture. Can you get input into your brain? We then take a look and say, how is that calibrated? How's your balance? How's your eye movements? How's your cognition? How's your memory? And we kind of how's your movement? How's your walking? And we kind of have to look at the output. Right? Is the input how well is the input getting in? And then how well are you moving? Whether it's moving your heart, moving blood through your blood vessels, moving your hand, you know, what's the output? And if we have a guesstimate of what the input is like and what the output is like, we could start making some assumptions on the central processing. Right? Now we do QEEG testing, we're about to add some like F NRS testing to look at more brain activation, we're gonna add some more blood flow testing to look at vascular health and things like that and blood flow analysis. So we're looking for always to get more data, but the reality is, is an exam kind of tells a big story. And one of the things we really weigh a lot on is kind of your balance and your walking, right? Because balance is really a very big multi-sensory processing task using your vision, your inner ear, your body. So we look a lot of balance testing on a flat surface, on a foam surface. Can I push you to the left? Can I push you to the right? Can I push you forward? Can I push you back? How well do you respond from like a motor system, adaptation and response? Um, so we're kind of looking at the whole sensory motor system. How good is your memory? How good is your reaction time, et cetera? So we try to look more from the brain level, that aspect of it. And then we try to appreciate like your internal organs and your internal system of your body. Dr. David Traster: 06:00 So most of my patients have a ton of blood work already, but I'm never afraid to look at blood work. I just have a love-hate relationship with blood work. Where I feel like, I mean, I've had patients who have enough money and we've run the same tests in multiple labs, and they've come back different all the time. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 06:16 Um I've heard that from other people too. Dr. David Traster: 06:19 All the time. And you know, we do repetitively, they come back different sometimes. Um, we run auto like autoimmune testing, antibody testing, and they'll come back inconclusive all the time. Um, there's molecular mimicry that could be happening. There's validity of the labs, every lab does it differently. Um, and so it's it's becomes a chalice. We do do blood work, we obviously don't want you to be anemic. Blood sugar. There's certain labs that are pretty black and white. But when you look in the functional medicine world, there's a lot of gray in these labs. And by the time you run labs, you've already spent how many thousands of dollars. And the question is, does it really alter your care? Sometimes it can, you know, but a lot of our patients have lab work. But I want to look at metabolic health. I want to look at, for me, I like looking at blood sugar. I like looking at anemia. I like looking at liver and kidney function. I like looking at any inflammatory markers that might be there. We've tried looking at more cytokines and other advanced inflammation. I mean, I don't know. I haven't had great success translating that into what's going on with the patient, you know, and so we try to deduce it as much as we can. Dr. David Traster: 07:27 Um, so what it's turned into, we then look at biofeedback. So we do also to coordinate with their blood work that we either run if we need to run it, or blood work that people have already run usually before they come into our clinic, because we'll get like a book of blood work, 30 dot. You know, most of what I'm sure you've realized with you, most of our patients seen a ton of people before me. I'm usually not the first stop. So my benefit is I get to see a lot of blood work, a lot of MRIs, imaging, etc. Um, so it helps me kind of see the big picture. But then we do biofeedback and we kind of look at different technology that we have that kind of is based on nerve endings and in a weird way up your alley, kind of on acupuncture meridians. So we look at like at least 14 different points on each hand, and we actually measure electricity on each point. And so we sent like a volt and a half electricity into a meridian point, and then we get feedback. If we send a volt and a half in, I want a volt and a half back. And I asked, and then the feed tells us do we get more than a volt and a half? Do we get less than a volt and a half? Does the volt and a half get there? But then it starts to degrade and decrease and kind of fade away and drop. And so we get a lot of these interesting metrics on nerve conductance. I call it like an alternative nerve conduction study. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 08:41 Okay, and are you translating that into matching up with certain organ systems? Dr. David Traster: 08:46 100%. So when you look at from your standpoint, you know, and there's different points. Like obviously the Chinese have a bunch of points looked at, and the Germans have like 800 and something points that they've looked at. And so what we've done is we pick out about 12 to 14 of the ones that are most interesting on the hand, you know, because I'm just not really opening up people's shoes and socks and going to their feet yet. Um just for me, I'm not an acupuncturist. I'm not, I can, but I'm not going there. And you can measure any point, right? And what's interesting is you take these probes and it's only gonna really read the acupuncture points, the nerve endings, right? If you go anywhere but a nerve ending, it doesn't read any electricity. So it's really looking at where the conductance and you know where it's gonna conduct. Um and so typically if I look at my hand, I'll start on the thumb and there's a lymphatic point I use. I look at the other side of the thumb, there's a lung point I use based on the Germans. Um, the Chinese might look a little differently. I look at my index finger, there's a large intestine point I use. I look at the other side of the index finger, and there's like a peripheral nervous system point, and by the knuckles, there's a central nervous system point. I look at the middle finger, there's a vascular health point. I look on the other side, there's a chemical sensitivity and an allergy point. I look at my ring finger. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 10:00 How often does that thing uh light up? Dr. David Traster: 10:03 It's everyone's different, right? So it's interesting, but yeah, it lights up, you know, and then you know, on the ring finger, you get a cellular metabolism point, you got an organ degeneration point. On the other side of the ring finger, you have an adrenal point, you have an endocrine point, and then by the knuckle, you have a thyroid point. And on the pinky, you have a heart point, and the other side you have a small intestine point. So it gives me like a pretty, it's not everything, but it gives me like a pretty big window just to assess the they're not we're not looking directly at the organs, right? But you're looking at electrical potential on these meridian lines. And you're just saying what stands out. Right. And so that gives me a good point of saying what stands out. We do like an electrodermal scan, which again, I think is overinterpreted. But we do an electrodermal scan, it'll scan thousands of things, and we just say, again, are there patterns? Right? I don't I tell my patients I don't drill, I don't believe any of this stuff. Like we're gonna double and triple check over and over again. Like I think all this is overinterpreted and I think it's misused. But if I can find multiple tests that all point to the same thing, I'm gonna start believing it. And then if it matches your history and it matches what's going on, I'm gonna start using it. And so what we end up doing, which is interesting, is we can take that electrical conductance and we could actually put frequencies in electricity. And we can start running different frequencies of electricity through the points, and the electricity will change. And so I might have a certain I might have a certain conductance on one of the points, but if I change a frequency of electricity, it might change the reading. And so what we do is like a biofeedback and all these points to try to figure out what kind of I tell people we look for autonomic immune and limbic triggers. Right? And those are the things we're looking on. We're like, what type of triggers are bothering your autonomic nervous system? What type of triggers are bothering your limbic system? What type of triggers are bothering your immune system? Because in our brain, we have like a three-prong approach. We want to make your brain and your brain connections as healthy and functional as possible. We want to make your environment around your brain as healthy as possible. And the way we do that is we look at the health of your immune system, we look at triggers to your immune system, we look at the health of your limbic system and triggers to your limbic system and health of your vascular system, and then triggers that might be causing vascular irregularities, and then we match that with our neuroexam and all our diagnostics. All right, so it gives me a nice, and again, that's just what Florida, I've got four clinics. From the neuroside, they're all pretty similar. Um, my background, like this stuff we're talking about, this is why I got into school. You know, I got into all this acupuncture, energy medicine, all these things, functional medicine. That's why I went to chiropracole, and then I randomly fell into chiropractor neurology. I knew nothing about it. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 12:51 So that was you battled Lyme for a long time, right? Dr. David Traster: 12:55 I battled Lyme and I went everywhere, right? And it was a chiropractor I didn't believe at all who actually helped me doing this type of thing. And so I actually went to school to say, this is what I want to do. I want to work with chronic infections, chronic disease, I want to work with acupuncture and acupuncture meridians. I want to work with energy medicine and like look at like frequencies and energy medicine and how I can modulate the body using different types of electricity, different type of light, different type of all everything but drugs and surgery. And then a guy named Dr. Carrick showed up and got a famous athlete better in like three days when no one could help him. And that just kind of blew my world around because it was my world was hey, take this supplement. Come X times a day for an acupunct. You know, it was much more of a traditional model. And I wasn't used to, hey, let's spin you in a chair and do some eye movements, and three days later your concussion is going to go away. And so that kind of threw me for a loop. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 13:47 Yeah, you were kind of on one path, and Dr. Carrick shows up, and then you took this massive diversion into functional neurology and applied clinical neuroscience. And then it sounds like, what are we now like 15, 20 years down the road? You're like coming back full circle. Dr. David Traster: 14:04 Yeah, it was kind of like when I got involved with Dr. Carrick, I said, look, I'm gonna take a year or so. I was actually about to go through like acupuncture programs. So I was about to jump in this acupuncture program. Um, you know, I was doing applied kinesiology pretty heavily and muscle testing and all those things. And I said, All right, I'm about to start acupuncture because part of my technique was an acup acupressure. And then Dr. Carrick showed up and said, All right, cool, I'm gonna take a year and learn this. You know, and it turned out to take longer than a year to really learn it. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 14:32 A little bit, a little bit longer. Dr. David Traster: 14:33 Um, but it yeah, but it took a few years to kind of get my head wrapped around how I can apply it. Obviously, watching Dr. Carrick in person for years gave me a good head start because I saw how he applied it. And so I got a real good idea of what he's doing versus what you learn in the classroom. And then I start teaching more, and I got my I got pretty good experience doing the brain rehab, neuroplasticity work, and you know, I got good repetition and good results doing that. Um, to answer your question, what changed was COVID. Dr. David Traster: 15:04 Well, to be honest with you, COVID changed everything, right? The things I was doing with my patients before COVID, for many patients, not everyone, it just wasn't that I have a pretty high bar, right? So I just wasn't getting the level of outcomes that I expected doing what I was doing post-COVID and pre-COVID. I don't think I know a lot more than I do than 15 years ago, because I like studied for years before I got into chiropractic school. So I know some more stuff of biophysics. I use different metals and geometric shapes and all types of weird quantum type devices that work in interesting ways that maybe I wasn't as familiar with in the past. I'm a little more familiar with maybe Ayurveda and some different types of Ayurvedic techniques and different theories about the stars and the planets and the energy and when you're born and you know, different concepts of health and life, which I find interesting that maybe I didn't know 15 years ago. But as far as chronic infections, as far as biofilms, as far as quantum kind of sensing and kind of all the all the different communication of bugs and all the microbes and all the inflammation, I don't know if I know more. I just think that people became sicker and became more inflamed, and I think the immune system shifted. And I think a lot of times things that people had in their body before COVID that they were able to deal with, all of a sudden, a chronic viral issue they've had their whole life now became a big deal. Some mold that they've had in their body now all of a sudden seem to scream. Um, you know, all of a sudden some parasite or bugs or bacteria that are good bacteria now are overpopulated or now are in the wrong place. You know, so I just found that what was happening is people's objective brain and neurological testing was getting better, but their symptoms didn't correlate as much as it used to. And it was like, cool, yeah, my dizziness is better, my headache is better, but I still have hives and showers or I still get lighted in in the heat. Where historically, before COVID, I felt like I, even though part of me was like still wanted to do other things, I felt like this is amazing. I don't have to sell very many, if any, supplements. I don't have to do a lot of blood work. I could just really change brain connections, and people respond really well. That still does happen, but my experiment, most of my patients, is dysautonomia, dizziness. You know, a lot of them have histamine or mast cell responses, a lot of them have genetic ailers, danlers, or functional EDS. A lot of people are just having a really hard time with their immune system. I've given see tons of FNDs and functional neurologic disorders, which who knows, right? Yeah, I got my theories, but like we really don't really have an idea of why people are presenting so prevalently with it. You know, my guess is it's probably an immune underlying disorder for a lot of these people. You know, I don't think it's all psychiatric, but we really don't know, right? And so that's what made the full circle is saying, I've done this for 15 years, I have pretty good experience on neuroplasticity side. How can I complement it? You know, and yes, we're gonna do more blood flow analysis, and yes, we're gonna do more EKGs, and yes, we'll do more brain scans, and we'll do more live brain activation scans and all these things, which are all gonna be amazing and help. But what I've found is because I see like everything else, we all have patients that go back and forth. And just as people see maybe people that I couldn't help fully, I see people that they couldn't help fully, and it just screams a lot of the people that are not getting better from neuroplastic type therapies, whether it's functional neuro or other people, have these massive immune disorders. You know, and they have underlying Lyme or underlying inflammation or underlying viruses or underlying emotional issues or just underlying immune dysregulation. Right. And that we really try to work and just make people healthier, and then the brain therapy works better. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 19:04 Yeah. And I would agree with you. I feel like COVID happened and all of a sudden the things that used to work stopped working in in the same way. And I had to completely say, like take so many steps back and say, okay, what is happening? Why are the things that I'm doing now not working? What do I need to do different? What changed? And um, as an herbalist, I think for me, I, you know, I did feel like I had some really, really good tools in my tool belt from an herbal perspective. But at the same time, we kind of live in a country where people are so suspicious of herbs. And uh it's like people will take supplements all day long. But the second you start talking about Chinese herbs, people are like, whoa, wait, where what? I don't know. I'm not sure about that. Dr. David Traster: 19:46 And uh it's like a lot of homeopathy, so it takes a step further. I gotta try to explain, forget about herbs. I gotta try to explain why people are taking homeopathy because a lot of my patients are so sensitive. I can't even give them an herb, right? So a lot of my patients, they actually start with homeopathy, and after a month or two, they then could do herbs. But like some of my patients, I've tried giving them anything and just what I found is by doing biofeedback, I'm able to match better what people's bodies can respond to. And it's less of me educationally guessing. Hey, this is what I think is going to happen. You have mast cell, you have histamine response, you have headaches, you have migraines, let's give you quercetin, let's give you luteolin, let's give you nettle, let's give you PEA, let's give you all these things in the research. But what if there's an underlying infection driving it and you're suppressing the immune system when there's an underlying infection? Right? And that's where using some biofeedback is, or let's say I want to use wormwood. I've got like five different companies of wormwood. Which company are you gonna respond to better? You know, or you're, or maybe you can, maybe you're better off at the homeopathic, and I've got tons of homeopathics that all are antiparasitics. Right. And so it's kind of like, or maybe we've got to support some colon health or liver health, or can't, you know, like what using some biofeedback, I'm able to kind of ask the right questions to your body and get an objective electrical nerve conduction reading that I can't manipulate because I love muscle testing, but again, not everyone is open to muscle testing. Muscle testing can be manipulated indirectly or, you know, inadvertently through the practitioner. And so I find doing these nerve conduction studies a little more objective, takes me away from it. And the people that are open to muscle testing, I could always do that, you know, just to double check and triple check if they're open to it. Um, but to your point, yeah, people seem to be a lot more sensitive. Um, and so I, for about a year and a half, was just really frustrated. It took a few years, but finally I just decided that I had to kind of do for me what was the best thing for me and my patients. And you know, that's why our clinic in Florida is a little different now. They're all very similar. But no doubt there's machines that we have now in Florida, no other clinic has, because I just it's why I went to school. I've done this for young knowing about certain things for 20 years. And it's kind of like once you know something and you see a patient, it's like you almost feel handcuffed. And that was my problem in school, going through a lot of functional medicine programs, is I just felt with my background, with biofeedback and what got me better, I'd go to these in my first even before first quarter, I was arguing with really smart people in functional medicine programs because it was kind of like, yeah, I see this blood work, but what about X, Y, and Z? And it just seemed like a lot of smart people trying to predict what their body, the patient's body is going to do. And honestly, I think a lot of functional medicine is really the medical model using herbs instead of vitamins instead of medication. And so I found for myself, and again, it's just myself, my opinion, I found that if I want to go to a medical doctor, I want them to practice medicine. If I go to an alternative medicine practitioner, I don't want them to practice medicine. I don't want them to replace the same pathways that are as, you know, like and medicine's great, but there's people that fail it. And they just sip through the cracks and doesn't help them like they want. And so if that model hasn't worked for chronic disease or chronic infection or you know, chronic fatigue, whatever it may be, chronic Lyme or migraines, then don't use the same model and just replace a drug, which is well research for supplement, which isn't. And use the same pathways in teaching. Because I went, my dad's a pharmacist when I first went. Like, look at this program I'm doing. It was really cool. It was a lot of blood work, a lot of supplements, and it was really informative. I'm like, I think they're not talking about Lyme or infections at the time, but look at all this cool research. And my dad looked at me, he said, but that's all the research we use for medicine. Why don't you just use a medicine? Like, where's the why, you know, like all there's tons of research using medicine for that pathway? Where's the research using a vitamin for that pathway? And I said, Oh, you're right. There's not really a lot of research for that, you know? Um, and so that's where I've learned that if you're gonna do alternative medicine, you want an alternative practitioner who sees the body differently, you know, and can view the body differently. You know, we've talked about that using acupuncture. Uh, if I'm gonna go to an acupuncturist, I want someone that really understands a different way to look at the human body. I don't want an acupuncturist that's gonna treat me like a Western medical doctor. And for some people that might work, but the reason I'm here is that system didn't work for me. So give me a different approach. Give me some different eyes, give me a different understanding of the human body works. And I find the more alternative people practice in a rational way, sometimes it helps people because you're taking a different approach to how the body works. And obviously, acupuncture is a good model, Ayurveda is a good model. Um, these are things that have been done for thousands of years, and whether it works for people or not, they look at a human being in a different way than Western medicine. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 24:57 Right. You know, there's somebody that I've been following more closely. His name's Dr. Tyler Panzer. Have you heard of him? Dr. David Traster: 25:03 No. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 25:04 He's a a pharmacist a pharmacist, and he basically just teaches a lot of classes talking about how all these different supplements are actually like counteracting each other and counteracting different pathways. And, you know, things like even like resveratrol and turmeric can actually make anemia worse. And so it's like the more I learn about, you know, how different supplements actually are like potentially interfering with each other or interfering with other pathways, it kind of opened my eyes to the fact of like, oh yeah, like, you know, if people are taking L-theanine and magnesium and they're both activating the same pathway, like maybe these people's brain fog at this point is actually from their supplements and not from the concussion that happened two years ago. And it's 100%. Yeah. And so I've kind of gotten like, wow, like, okay, people are taking so many things, so many supplements. Some people are really in tune with their body where they'll be able to kind of say, something's not right here. But a lot of other people are just taking things and maybe not even realizing that their supplement that they think is healthy might actually be making their anemia worse or making their brain fog worse or interfering with something else that they're taking, trying to accomplish another thing. And I also, back to your point of like people seeming to be more sensitive ever since COVID, I've had so many people having very paradoxical reactions to their supplements too, where it's then doing the opposite thing that it's supposed to do. Dr. David Traster: 26:28 Very much so. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 26:29 Yeah, it's just speaks to this idea of like how dysregulated people have become and how once you throw inflammation in the mix and infections in the mix, it's like the body just starts behaving in very bizarre ways. Dr. David Traster: 26:42 Without a doubt. And even when I do my biofeedback, as I do for all of a lot of my patients, or even in my patient, or some of my doctors, and historically do like one thing at a time. So we know what's gonna work. If something bad happens, we re-replace it. But a lot of times, the biofeedback, we're giving people a protocol that balances each other. Like, do it, you gotta do them together. Because, you know, if you don't do it one at a time, you might not have a counteract of a different supplement, you know, because this might do this, but we're the whole protocol is together. You know, and like what so I had my first patient the other day who actually in three months had a poor response to the supplements I gave. And I said, that's weird, because usually I don't see that. And I went to the doctor and I was kind of like, well, what happened? She's like, Well, I started just one thing, and then we're gonna work it slowly to make sure she wasn't sensitive. I said, But yeah, but that's not how this works. Like, you can't do the one thing without the other thing, and you're gonna tip the scale one way, but that's why this is over here to tip it back. Right? And so a lot of times, like, you gotta do them together in a cohesive way. And I agree. I mean, I used to use more single herbs, whereas curcumin, resveritrol, things like, and I don't I find I don't use that stuff as much anymore. You know, I don't use a lot of things that people talk about as much anymore. Um, I find that anti-aging is bled over into chronic disease. And I think if you're healthy and you say, I want to make my cells healthier, that's great. But if your cells aren't healthy, I'm not sure blasting NAD and glutathione is gonna be the best solution for you long term or short term. Or I think there's a reason things aren't healthy, and I think just trying to make your cell healthier is a good idea, but you've got to probably look a little deeper. And with my background in chronic Lyme and chronic infections, I can give you 10 different ways, if not more, of how the mitochondrial could be affected. And maybe the cell should have less energy because it can't make as much energy. And if you're boosting an energy in the cell that has an energy crisis, maybe that's gonna push it too far and eventually kill that cell. You know, and so I think the anti-aging movement, which I have no problem with, is really becoming such a big business model. I see really good medical doctors and really good people opening. I'm in Florida, right? In Boca Ratone, anti-aging is like the biggest thing down here, right? It's everywhere, right? And so it's by far the most profitable thing. That's what everyone wants. Everyone wants peptides, everyone wants NAD, everyone wants to live longer, healthier, et cetera. Um, but at the same time, because of that, you now have OBGYNs, you have pediatricians, you have gynecologists, you have oncologists, you have every doctor under the sun opening up these med spas. And it's easy, it's protocoled, they take a weekend seminar, and it's profitable, right? And it's just a really higher nurse, you don't have to be there, you have some protocols, you have some infusions, and it's a really easy business model to sell and to do. But I'm just not sure that really is what people with chronic disease need. All right, versus someone who's pretty healthy and says, I just want to be healthier. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 29:47 Yeah. No, you make a great point. That whole concept of trying to apply anti-aging to people with chronic illness. Uh there's a lot that gets lost in translation there. And you know, a lot of things that you you hear, oh, I took this supplement, I took X, Y, and Z, and it I it it made me feel amazing. You know, I think that people's but people's bodies are so complex. And when you're trying to, you know, just like you said, pharmaceuticals push certain pathways, supplements are doing the same thing. So it's like if you push that pathway on everybody, some people are going to be responding great, other people not so much. And you don't know that uh when you're just kind of guessing or having protocols where everybody gets the same thing. Dr. David Traster: 30:31 Sure. And then you can use the same herb for two different intentions. Right. And I think that's the big thing is you might have one person who uses a certain supplement for a more Western medicine inflammatory approach. And you might have someone else use that same supplement for a much different reason. And they can, you know, they can work different ways. If there's one thing Dr. Carrick is really good at, it's making a correct diagnosis. Right? As good as he is, he doesn't help everyone. No one helps everyone, but I've never seen Dr. Carrick like miss a diagnosis. I've never seen Dr. Carrick not understand the physiology and the neurology and everything about that person's condition and understand all the treatments that are there for them. And I realize that is the art of medicine today is can you make the correct diagnosis? Can you understand what that person is going through, what the options are, and where where they fit in healthcare? Right. And that was interesting with Dr. Carrick because he kind of fit in this gray world where, you know, it wasn't like he was competing with chemotherapy, claiming he's carrying cancer. It wasn't he was trying to treat Lyme for longer than two to four weeks and competing with the insurance companies and blah, blah, blah. He was treating concussions and dizziness and movement disorders and all these conditions where there really wasn't a medication for, right? There really wasn't a black and white answer in the healthcare, and it was this like gap of research where it showed that neuroplastic therapies can help, but no one in the medical model, especially at that time, 15 years ago, was doing it. No one was treating concussions. People were very rarely treating dizziness outside of BBBV. Right? You know, it was just you had this gap of people, and over the last 10, 15 years, it's massively changed. Everyone now treats concussions. Right? Everyone's a dizziness expert. Now everyone knows everything about dysotonomia. Dr. David Traster: 32:33 And I can tell you from my perspective, we've seen an influx over the last two years of people pretty much being disabled using TMS for dysotonomia migraines. And like I love TMS, I love neuromodulation, but if you take someone who's got like a massive autoimmune condition or a massive energy crisis because they have very little, their brain is hypoperfused, they have very little blood flow in their brain, or you take someone with like a movement disorder or someone who's got like PNES and seizure disorders or migraines, and you do a protocol for depression and you blast them 30 sessions every day for 20 minutes with no respect to their metabolic capacity. I can't tell you, as much as I love TMS, how many people I have a patient right now who's throwing up every day. She wasn't before TMS. She's got hyperadrenergic POTS, it was misdiagnosed, and now she's throwing up every day. All from just poor diagnostic capabilities and poor translation over off-label therapies. And TMS is really powerful, right? And so I've seen more people than I'd like over the last two years that come in and said, Yeah, it wasn't great. But after TMS, like I can't do anything. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 33:48 How do you walk them back from that? Dr. David Traster: 33:51 It's really hard because they just got hyper excited in their brain through, like, you know, I love TMS. I think there's a lot of good reasons to do it on label and off-label. Um, but direct current, alternating current, PMF, that's one thousandth the strength. It still works pretty well. So TMS is a thousand times stronger than these other neuromodulation devices, right? It's really powerful. How do I back it down? I mean, sometimes it's just like, okay, like you might have been a little sensitive to dairy. We need to get off dairy. You're throwing up every day. Let's just start with some diet modifications. Let's start with some biofeedback, looking at your immune triggers, looking at your autonomic triggers, what are the underlying things that were in your body before DNS, but now it really just are screaming. And then we start doing some, depending on the person, you know, if you're hyperangric pots, we start doing some light vagal nerfs, then um, we start doing as much light brain activity as we can, but we might be stuck with red lights for a little bit. You might be stuck with like electric sim on the body for a little bit. And we just, it's a little bit of a waiting game, right? And so it's really hard. You know, we might do some neurofeedback, we might do some alpha kind of red light laser, you know, and do things that are gonna do our best to slow the brain down, slow the immune system down, reduce any triggers. Um, but it's really, really hard and took it takes time, right? Like I really, it's frustrating for everyone. You know, I'm sure it's frustrating for the doctor who did TMS because he thought it would work, and it obviously didn't. It's got way worse. Um, and but they kept doing it for whatever reason, you know, and I see that a lot. You just have to do it more, right? Or for any therapy, you know. I've done this 10 times. Well, do it more or doing hour therapy, do two hours at home, right? And then kind of blaming the patient for not getting better. And I see a lot of patient blaming for not getting better over self-awareness of, hey, maybe dysotonomia is like a very fragile patient. Maybe TMS isn't the thing, or if I'm gonna use TMS, maybe I've got to modify the protocol and do a lot less in a patient with depression, right? Or not do the whole brain. I've got three people right now who did TMS, or I got one patient that wasn't even TMS. They did shock wave on the body, but instead of over the body, they did the whole scalp using a off-label body-based shock wave on the brain. And that patient who was already pre-Alzheimer's is now fully Alzheimer's. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 36:21 Oh my gosh. Dr. David Traster: 36:22 Right? And the memory, and it was, you know, and it was, you know, it's an older patient, and you know, and we're trying to get her back as much as we can, but like her balance is better, her walking's better, but her memory is, you know, it's almost like you have so many connections to work with as you get older. And so if you're 95 or 98 or even 70 sometimes, and you have these connections holding on for dear life, and you use some strong electric therapy that that kind of overrides their metabolic ability to handle that therapy, where you fall and you hit your head, or you do certain things that just affect the connections that are left, there's not much you can do to get those connections back. And in a hyper-excited brain, for a younger person who might have dysotonomia or migraine, which a lot of these are hyperactive brains due to hypoperfusion or due to inflammation, if you increase the electricity of the brain that's already increased, you're taking the connections that are already altered and you're making them further connected. Right? You're not changing the connections in a healthy way, you're creating negative neuroplasticity. And now by the time they come to your clinic, if the TMS failed, and again, I love TMS, it's not a knock in TMS, but there's a time and place for all therapies, including what we do, right? We're not the right fit for everyone. We don't accept everyone. And so when that brain gets so hyper-excited and these connections become so plastic, it's hard to do anything in the brain. Right. And we just got to kind of figure out how to not move these. They look left, they look right, then move their eyes, they throw up. They stand up, they throw up. Um, and it's kind of like, all right, well, let's just start with your gut, let's start with your immune system, let's start with your autonomic system, let's start with the stationary, let's start doing some nerve stimulation, let's start doing some red light in specific ways, and let's see if we could just slow things down, start with some neurofeedback, reducing beta activity. Let's just see what we can do to chill your brain out. Um, but a lot of times it takes time, right? It's not something that happens overnight, and it's kind of like, okay, you're gonna see me, not for this week, maybe, or you know, we'll try different things, but I might have to give you some supplements or some breathing techniques or some bagel nerve stem or a gladiator device. I'd have to give you something for the next month or two at home. And I might have to see you. Like a lot of my patients are coming in now like once a month for the biofeedback scan and for like nutrition advice and for metabolic work before I even do neuro with them now. Some patients, I don't do any metabolic work. All I do is neuro. It really depends. I see so many, you know, I have a girl I recently saw since she was born, she was having these like seizure-like episodes at least like once. It used to be a few times a year. And over the last few years, it's been like every five weeks on the dot. Right? And it's kind of like, and it's it's and it's like a seizure disorder, you know, it's kind of like and it's F N D. So we took the approach of, hey, before we just massively stimulate your brain, um, why don't we start metabolically? Because there's some obvious metabolic issues going on. And knock on wood, she just came in after the first month and she hasn't had one in eight weeks for the first time in years. And now does she feel much better yet? No, but she hasn't had an episode yet. But if you have this cycle where you're always passing out or vomiting or having a seizure, until we break that cycle, I might not be able to get further down the line because once you have another episode, you're gonna kind of get re-back in that loop. And so we just gotta start breaking patterns, you know? And so everyone's a little different. Um, but that's what we're seeing more and more. I see so many FNDs, and it's like a coin flip. Half of them we do really well with, and the other half are like really, really tough. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 40:03 Well, and when I'm hearing you talk, it it just reminds me too of kind of like in my own mind how frustrating it has become being a clinician when we now live in a world where there's too much information, some really good information, some really bad information, so many devices. It's almost like I was really excited when this whole like biohacking thing came around. It's like, let's all figure out what's going on in our own bodies without having to go to the doctor. But it's almost like we've gone too far down this path where people are just trying to like self-diagnose, self-assess, self-treat. And then they walk into your office and it's kind of like they want help, but they also are in a mindset of, well, I've already done all my own studying and training and I think I know a lot. And so now you're telling me that we got to like stop everything and go over here and and just do, you know, these small little changes first. And it's like sometimes working with people's mindset becomes the biggest hurdle to actually helping them. Dr. David Traster: 41:10 100%. And I just had a conversation with this. I was on podcast with like a Lyme disease podcast with a friend who's got a big Lyme disease podcast. And we talked about it because we both were sick in like the early 2000s. And we kind of talked about it how, like, like I said, if your doctor is all over social media all day, every day, that means they're probably not seeing patients. Right. You know, and and that's a challenge, right? And it's not no knock on anyone else. But like we talked about, I'm in the clinic nine to seven nonstop of patients all day every day. I wish I could be more on social media. Not really, I hate social media, but I really do. Like, I wish I can give better information or, you know, like be out there a little more educating. I don't have the time. And a lot of people I know that are in social media a lot are no longer seeing patients. They charge way more than I charge, and the patient ends up with a doctor who graduated from school like a year ago. You know, and that's in all professions, not just our specialty. And it's not a knock on anyone or how they make their money, how they run their business, whatever. But at the same time, there's so much bad information on social media. Everyone is an expert, and it's really hard for a patient to decode that. But having said that, the conversation I had with my friend was like, I asked her, would you rather be sick in 2005, where there was like very little information and you had to like search the library at Amazon for like the handful of books that were there? Or would you rather be sick in 2026 where there's too much information and most of it's crap? And we both agreed we'd rather be sick today. Right. And have that responsibility to kind of figure out what's true and what's not. It's just a different dilemma because, like you said, it's social media. If you get your doctor off social media, it might not be the best place to find your doctor. But that's where the majority of people find their doctors nowadays. You know, like even with us, like our company, we had to start doing more social media the last six months. I'm the reason we didn't do it because I hate social media. I'm at fault. You know, I probably should have been doing it the whole time. A lot of it was on me being like, I don't want to do it. No one else was doing it, you know. So I was kind of like, I don't want to be another social media doctor. But I have friends who have a million followers, make half a million followers, and make a lot of money off social media and they help a lot of people. Um, but I see other people who now are experts in certain conditions, and they don't, they'd no experience being that. It's just like, like, for example, there's a lot of clinics right now, and they're very expensive. People fly in for months at a time, and they target complex regional pain syndrome, mast cell, dysautonomia, um, elers, danlos, like some really, really hard conditions. And it's like, I don't know how good the results they're getting, but those are really desperate people. So from a business model. They've found people who are desperate, there's not a great answer for, and they're selling a hope and a dream they'll get better. And I'm sure percentage of people get better in these clinics, but I see the ones that don't. Because, you know, if they get better, they don't come to see me. So I see people, and Lyme disease is a good example. I always say people, more people go broke treating Lyme disease and never get better than actually get better. And the people that get better, I promise you, are no longer on the forums anymore because those forums are really depressing. And you don't hear the success stories as much, right? You hear all the failures and you hear all the bankruptcies and all the everyone cashing out their savings and mortgaging their home for these clinics that are six figures to go to. And you they're set they they promise they'll get you better, but they no one could promise you that. And a lot of people are promising success that they have no business promising, selling patients a hope and a dream that they'll get better. And they think the doctor is being honest, and the doctor thinks it's the patient's responsibility to choose the care. And if they come, it's almost like it's not like I was a patient for a while. I got a different perspective. I've been to too many clinics who either didn't care or tried their best and didn't work, or sold me that I get better and did it. So we don't do that. But the fact is, a lot of people, my undergrad is in hospitality. And I like hospitality because whether you're a hotel, you're a restaurant, you're a nightclub or a bar or an airlines, your business revolves around customer satisfaction. Right? And so you could promise whatever you want. If the food sucks, the food sucks. Right? You could say it's the best hotel. If the rooms are dirty, they're dirty. Right. And so it's different than other things where it's product-based. Like you got to deal with people. And so I find that a lot of people run their business from a business-centered approach that says, hey, I offer TMS, I offer infusions, I offer acupuncture. I'm going to tell you everything that can be good about acupuncture. I'm going to tell you every condition that acupuncture can help, or TMS can help, or infusions can help. And now it's your responsibility to figure it out if that's good for you. But I'm going to promise the world because I'm offering this service. And yeah, some people with TMS, maybe it can help certain conditions, but maybe not everyone. But I'm going to create a blanket statement and say it's going to help this condition. And then it's up to you, and the onus is on you. And I think that's unfortunate because once you have that, you have no real need to make a diagnosis anymore. You're now selling a product. You're not a healthcare practitioner anymore. You're a salesman. You're selling a product. You have no differentiation of who gets that product. Everyone and their mom is getting ketamine and TMS. And some people might get better with that. But other people might get really worse. And you know, it's my job as a healthcare practitioner to try to do no harm first before I try to get someone better. And there's, you know, I haven't helped everyone. I've helped a lot of people, but there's very few people I've made worse. Right? And the few that I did early in my career, that stuck with me about, man, like that was too aggressive on that dizziness case. I didn't appreciate triple PD of how sensitive they were. We did too much motion therapy. Or man, that dysotonomia case was really sensitive. Like, there's not many people I've made worse. I wish there were people I could help more than I've helped, but I think a lot of people get worse when they get into the healthcare model from both Western medicine and alternative medicine. And I'm not sure how many, what percentage of doctors really appreciate the injuries that they can cause, knowing that the third leading cause of death is like medical injury, right? And medical error. Right. And so there's a huge problem across the board on every type of healthcare of people getting worse from care. And there's a large pop, or there's a percentage, I should say, of doctors who might not even be aware that their care is doing that. And that the patient leaves, there's no concern of why did they leave? They just, you know, we learn in school, if patient leaves, just assume they got better. It's like, well, that's not the best thing. That's not right. Yeah, that may be good for your psychology, but like maybe they left because you messed them up. And if you don't appreciate that, you're gonna mess the next person up with that same condition. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 48:30 Yeah. And I mean, that again brings it right back around to what you were saying about what makes Dr. Carrick so brilliant is that he always knew the diagnosis and he knew what the pathophysiology was. And you make a really good point that now you have healthcare providers with devices just selling a device as a service and not actually really doing like the differential diagnosis workup to say, is this device right for every single person that's now walking into my clinic to get the device? Dr. David Traster: 49:01 100%. I have a kid who I love with MS. And, you know, there's a parent who's convinced that he got it from a moldy house. And that might be true. He's got progressive MS. And for about two years, working with me and another function neurologist and working with like an immune specialist doing these like very unique stem cells, which were extremely expensive but very unique, he was regulating his T reg cells and the immune system was at bay. And we got him pretty much from a wheelchair and like to running around the block. But it was almost like, okay, he's doing better, let's do more. And one of the parents really wanted to treat him for mold. And we tried to explain, like, look, even if mold, I can't tell you that mold causes MS. But let's just say theoretically mold did do it. That doesn't mean treating his mold is going to help him. In fact, if you start treating his mold and release all those chemicals and all the byproducts of mold into his system, it could actually flare his immune system more. He's doing great, right? Progressive MS. Like, this is a miracle. He hasn't progressed in like a year and a half, and he's actually getting better. Like, I don't know how much he'll get better. I don't know if he'll relapse. I don't know how long this is going to go, but like this is a win. Right? You know, why rock the boat? But because he was doing so well, it was like, let's get more, let's get him 100%. And a lot of us said no, and they found doctors that said yes. Mole specialists with probably a poorer understanding of mass, or maybe a good understanding of mass, but really just felt that treating the mold was indicated. His mold levels are really high. Right? You run mold testing, they're really high. But what happened is they started treating mold, his IgE went through the roof, his immune system got dysregulated, and all of a sudden he went through a major relapse, and they kept doing it over and over again because the mold doctor said it's just the hercs. At some point, the mold will be gone. And he went from being in a wheelchair to running around the block to back being in a wheelchair, really from that mold therapy. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 51:04 Yeah. Dr. David Traster: 51:04 Um and so even if mold was the cause, which I can't say it was, treating it isn't always the solution. And that's a hard thing to understand as a human being, because we're told to treat the root cause. But what if the root cause is going to create a byproduct that's going to make your disorder worse? So it's not just finding these root causes, which sounds nice and makes re makes sense. If you don't understand the diagnosis and the pathophysiology, you treating the root cause might be the worst thing you can do. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 51:38 Yeah. And I think that's honestly good, you know, this idea of everybody's become so much more sensitive. It's almost like I have become more cautious and also a little more scared anytime I say, well, let's do X, Y, or Z, because of that very fact. It's like, I don't want to make people worse. I understand the potential to make people worse is kind of at an all-time high right now, with just how sensitive people have become due to COVID, whatever, environmental toxins, molds, you know, infections, you name it. Um it's almost made me so cautious that it my job feels like walking on glass. Dr. David Traster: 52:23 It has. We spent a lot of money in Moonie Machines just because of that. I don't want to tell you how much this costs because it's gonna make you sick. But we spent a lot of money in this new biofeedback machine because 100%. It was like, all right, like I'm really conservative. We're doing all neuroplastic therapies, we're not using any chemicals. Some of the supplements we're using are fish oil or creatine or vitamin D or, you know, like simple things, magnesium, L-theanine, simple things. But how much is that really moving the needle on these people? Right? You know, for some people more than others. And so to your point, I now am doing a ton of homeopathy, right? Because I patients are so sensitive. Even that can go wrong, but my patients are so sensitive, I find good results using very specific homeopathy. We've got a company that's micronized herbals, meaning that they were a homeopathic company. They want to be FDA approved. The FDA does not like homeopathy, and so they'll never be approved as a homeopathic company because there's no particles in it, right? Based on Newtonian physics, it's it's there's nothing there, right? It's just a scam. And so they'll never be approved. So what this company did is they took an herbs and they broke it down to the smallest particle. And so like they're micronized herbs in like a liquid formula. unknown: 53:44 Okay. Dr. David Traster: 53:44 And it's like, okay, we're not a homeopathic company anymore. Now we're an herbal company, and the FDA approved them. They just can't make any claims, you know, realistically, but they're FDA approved because now there's even if it's very tiny, there's something in that bottle. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 53:57 Sure. What company is this? Dr. David Traster: 53:59 This is a company called New Human. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 54:01 Okay. Dr. David Traster: 54:02 And New Human has a micronized herbal. And it's interesting. Again, I have tons of companies here. I don't really love them all or hate them all, but I find my sensitive patients do pretty well with homeopathy. Um, they do pretty well with micronized herbs. And then we have other herbs too that are more like typical herbs, but a lot of my patients, they're just not ready for that yet. You know, we kind of have to work that I find, okay, after a few months, now all of a sudden the herbs test well. unknown: 54:26 Right. Dr. David Traster: 54:26 And I kind of take myself out of it, use biofeedback, and kind of say, it's got to make sense, right? I'm not just gonna give them something that doesn't make sense, but you I always tell me it's a weird machine, but it's weirdly accurate. And we find flower essences that match people's. I've had a patient the other day, that thing came up with a heartbreak, and I didn't know that she broke up with her boyfriend the day before from like a five-year relationship or 10-year relationship. You know, like so like I we it's weirdly accurate. Um and so like we just try to match what people kind of come in with for the day. Or I'll find like for some patients, everything that comes up is digestive support. And I look at them like, all right, we're gonna give you some digestive support, but this might mean you're eating something that you're not responding to well. Right? Because everything is screaming digestive support. I don't know if you really need all those digestive support. Maybe you gotta get off dairy or get off gluten and we'll work on it for the next few weeks of digestive support, but you need to take some real diet changes because there's a good chance there's other things going on, but your body is not ready for that yet. You know, we can't do anything for your liver or your kidneys or an infection right now. Like you're in pretty much poisoning yourself with your food. Right. And so we've got to like really figure out where people are at by the time they come in and come up with a game plan. Okay, like I tell people all the time when it comes to supplements or medication, you gotta give someone at least three months. You know, three to six months is a nice window to see if it changes. A lot of cells turn over three months. So three months from now, you'll have a new cell in a lot of these areas. So you got to give it a little bit of time. When it comes to changing your brain, we could change your brain in a minute or two, right? We just have to do it repetitively to make it more permanent. And so we try to find where people are at, you know? And then some people, like I'm training a lot of different techniques. I got people that come in and they're like, put the balloon up my nose. I want an endonasal balloon technique. And I got other people that are like, no way. Don't go, you know. And so I've got people, yeah. So we have fighters that come in and do different things. Yeah, so we have all these different techniques that we try to, you know, like I went to school to try to find no drugs, no surgery, nothing wrong with them. But what can I do without that? And so we have everything from a gyrostim to eye exercises to nerve stimulation, vagal nerve stem lights, lasers, neurofeedback, neuromodulation, AC current, DC current, herbs, homeopathy, vitamins, minerals, um, endonasal release, you know, cranial facial release. Um we've got sacred geometry on specific metals that do all different biophysics. Like we're doing everything we can with the approach of first do no harm and figure out what we can do to help people that doesn't put them in a risk of getting worse. Dr. David Traster: 57:10 And there's always that risk of getting someone worse. But like, how do we start slow and light and build up? And how do we appreciate if I do something, because I'm not perfect, if I do something that's not right or make someone worse, how do I reverse it right away? You know, if I do a therapy that's not good for them, how do I stop that therapy right away? And that's why it's important I'm in the clinic every day, because I can't just tell a therapist to do X, Y, and Z. Because if they do the therapy and something doesn't go well, they're not trained enough to observe and adjust. So at the end of the day, it's um, I look at everything I do in my clinic as biofeedback. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 57:45 Right. Yeah. Dr. David Traster: 57:46 Whether I do a therapy and look at a eye movement and see your eye movement before and after therapy, that's biofeedback to me. If I watch your walking, we do a therapy, I watch you walk, that's biofeedback. I look at your balance. So everything I do in my clinic, I want an outcome measurement, whether that's a nerve conduction study, whether that's electrodermal scan, whether that's a gait parameter, whether it's a balance parameter, whether that's whatever it may be. And it's my job to do therapies and consistently evaluate you and make sure these things get better. And if they get worse, as quick as possible, change them and put things in that will make them better. Right. And I think that's the art of healthcare that's kind of lost. Is, you know, a lot of people either aren't in the clinic anymore, because as you know, seeing patients is not easy. It's not easy to get people it's harder than ever, in my opinion, to get people better. It's easier than ever to make people worse. And people have a lot of trauma with their family, with themselves, with the healthcare system, with physical trauma, with whatever it may be. People have a lot of baggage they bring to you, and they might have been sick for 20 years and they think they're gonna get better in a few days. And to your point, it comes down to the psychology. How can you communicate with someone about why they're in your clinic, what your role is in their health, and kind of diffuse any false expectations the first minute so that we're on the same page. I tell my doctors all the time the key to health care, especially in the clinic I work in, is communication. The second you can't communicate well with your patient, you're dead. Right? You gotta communicate, you gotta be on the same page because even if you're doing something well, if they want something else, they're gonna badmouth you, they're gonna leave, they might give you a bad Google review. Um, even if you help them, they didn't that's not what they wanted. It's like, what do they want? Are you the right person? Can you communicate? Can you create goals and expectations that are reasonable? And can you track them? And can you adjust and modify? Because as they get better, they're gonna want more goals. And if they get worse, they're gonna be the first one to call you up and want an answer of why they're worse. unknown: 59:57 Right. Dr. David Traster: 59:58 Right. And so it's really hard to be a healthcare practitioner in any specialty today. And it's taxing, it's stressful, especially if you care. And it's not easy. And so this is why you have burnouts, and this is why you have a lot of doctors on social media marketing their clinic and not seeing patients anymore. unknown: 01:00:17 Right. Dr. David Traster: 01:00:18 It makes sense. I don't blame, I honestly don't blame people. If I wasn't a patient for how long, I don't know I would be a good doctor or I would fit in healthcare. Right. It's really, I think a benefit from my case is I'm very empathetic with my patients because I've been in their shoes. And that's the main motivation to do what I do. And that's like if I have one skill I tell people is I'm my empathy is by far my best trait as a doctor. I wish I got more people better. I wish I had more tools, I wish I knew more, but there's no doubt that there's not a patient that I can't understand where they're at and can't communicate with them. It's very rare. When that happens, I don't think I'm communicating well. I have to dismiss them because if I don't dismiss them, we don't communicate well, it never ends well. Right. And so that to me is my strength as a doctor is the which seems like simple. It's really not. How many doctors are empathetic to their patients nowadays? I'd argue more doctors have no empathy for their patients, go to work, are stressed about their job, stressed about their life, do what they do, leave, and then do whatever they play golf, or get a drink, or go to their, you know what I mean? Like want their, like they separate that, and I think it's very hard to be empathetic and engaged in your clinic, but then detach from that when you're outside your clinic. It's really difficult. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:01:39 So how do we end on a good note? Dr. David Traster: 01:01:44 I think on the good note is there's never been more information available for people to understand more what's going on. There's never been more awareness of doctors out there who are very specific on their condition. So I think um to me, not to get too esoteric, I do think that the world we live in is supposed to be difficult. I think throughout history, I think 2026 is one of the best times in the history that we know. And it's still really hard. I don't know if there's ever been a time that we're aware of. You know, I don't know about Atlantis and the theoretical places like that, but I don't know if there's ever been a time where life isn't really hard and doesn't kind of suck. And I do think that there's a purpose world here, although it may not have been proven, I do believe in a soul, and I do believe in this like everlasting soul, and I do believe our body is this like temporary place that we have our own little virtual reality. And I do think over the next 10 to 15 years, I do think there'll be more appreciation for quantum mechanics and quantum physics, and I think we're gonna start appreciating the fact that we live in this like virtual world that's based on information. Information around us, information inside of us, information in our ear when I turn my head. Information homeopathy, right? There's no particles in there, but there's information and energy in it. And I do think we're in this information world, and I do think all of us are here for a reason, and I do think there's learning lessons of why we're here. And so from my perspective, while it's not easy to live in 2026, like the world's never been better, but we probably have never been more depressed. And I think in the positive side, I think this is a huge opportunity. And I think the next 10, I think it already happened with COVID, there's been a shift, but I think we're gonna see this continued shift of consciousness, of kind of a better appreciation, asking more important questions than what am I having for dinner or what's on TV? Right? Or we don't, I think as AI happens, as jobs get displaced, as all this chaos happens, things are gonna get worse, right? It's gonna happen. People are gonna be financially stressed because things are gonna take over their jobs. It's inevitable at some point there's gonna be less jobs, and we're gonna have to create a new financial system. I think the benefit of being sick, of being traumatized from finances or from life, is it creates a dichotomy of a learning lesson and it creates challenges that you have to solve. And I know I've had a number of things in my life that really sucked. Like really sucked, probably harder than a lot of people, maybe not as hard as other people. Um, but it always takes time. But at some point, I'm always a better person because of it. I always had better perspective because of it. I'm always more empathetic because of it. And it's never I've never had anything negative in my life happen where it might have taken a decade or two. You know, it might have taken time, right? I didn't want to be sick at 16, lose my college basketball scholarships, be sick throughout college, be sick throughout my 20s, and finally get healthy in my late 20s, early 30s. But it's how I met my wife. It's how I have great kids, it's how I have better perspective. So there's learning lessons and everything. And so I think that in the next 10 or 15 years, we're gonna continue to see a shift of consciousness, especially the younger kids, of better understanding of why we're on this planet, a better understanding of what's important. Most people's value in their life is their job. And as much as I love my job, I don't love it more on my kids and my purpose as a father. You know what I mean? Like, and again, and you don't, your kids, you might have a different purpose to educate and to teach and to help you know, there's there's real reasons to be here. And I look at my real purpose to help people have their purpose. Because I learned as a Patient, if you're sick, you can't fulfill your dreams in life. And so the way I the what makes me up every day going to work is the opportunity to get people back into their life. And I wish I could be better at it. Right. I'm better than some, probably not as good as others, but I work hard to try to get better at it because it gives me an opportunity to help people. And when I help that person, who knows the effect of that? And so it's a big long story. I do think the benefit in the world we live in and the world we're going into is a shift of consciousness to more important values and more important things in life, because I do think that the soul is here to learn and to evolve. And I think the materialistic world is the antithesis of that. And I think video games and drugs and alcohol and all these things, which are wonderful, they're a lot of fun for people, um, are not great. Right? I mean, being drunk or hired playing videos every game gives you maybe a very quick satisfaction. But that's not why we're here on this planet. I think it creates this opportunity to really look inside and say, who am I? And I think COVID was a first step of that. Where it gave people a breath. As terrible as it was, it gave people a breath to stop going to work and say, like, what am I interested in? What do I want to I've all this time, what do I want to read? What do I want to do? What's important to me? Maybe I want to get a new job, maybe I want to read something more, maybe I want to go back to school, maybe I didn't learn anything. Um, but I think these challenges give us opportunities to grow. And I think at the end of the day, I think that's what we're about, and at some point we're all gonna die. And it's my opinion that it's the growth that matters for whatever happens after that. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:07:50 So are we in a simulation? Dr. David Traster: 01:07:53 I think so. I really do. I do. I think it's an interesting way to look at the world. And I think it's not about we're in a simulation like the uh you can create your future, but I think the world is probabilities. And I think, you know, working hard, being sober, having good values, karma, I believe, is real. I think if the more you do things uh positively, the more opportunities you'll get positively. It doesn't mean bad things won't happen, and it doesn't mean that you're gonna be successful thinking the way you think you're gonna be successful. But I do think the world is a mathematical equation of probabilities. And I think your job is to make like when you look at consciousness, there's people's theories on consciousness that it's awareness and decisions. If you have awareness and you can make a decision, in some ways you're conscious. And there's different levels of consciousness. So I think the idea is if you're aware of your surroundings, you make your decisions, and based on those decisions, you create probabilities of future events. And we're all kind of stuck in the simulation together. But I do think that I've seen enough weird things in healthcare practices, and I've seen enough weird things in life where it's hard for me not to believe that, you know, I tell patients all the time, if we knew everything and if Western medicine was perfect, no one would be sick. Right? We'd all be healthy. And so as great as Western medicine is, there's a growing population of chronic disease. And if there's a growing population of chronic disease, then someone is missing something. Right? And I don't have all the answers, but I do know that the idea that Western medicine has all the answers is wrong. They have a lot of answers, but if they had all the answers, we wouldn't get sicker all the time. Healthcare costs wouldn't be going through the roof. People could afford their insurance, you know, people could see their doctor if they wanted to. And so I do think we're in a simulation, but I think the game and the goal of simulation is evolution. And I think we're all here for a reason, and your reason is different than my reason. But I do think unless we work on ourselves and kind of continue to learn of why we're here, um, I don't think um, you know, then I think we're we're gonna be in trouble. And I do think that there's more evidence that we can get trauma passed down from future from previous generations, you know, if your grandparents had trauma, that can get passed down epigenically. And I think we're gonna see more and more awareness of it's not just about your life, it's about the life of your ancestors, the life of people before you, the life of your neighbors. Um, there's research on like monks that all pray together and like for that period of time, the world is great, you know, and or if you have negative things on the new. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:10:38 I've seen that. I've seen that. You know, there's a saying that I've always loved, and it says, I think it was Mark Nepo, and he said, What's not integrated gets repeated. And that has been very true in my life. I feel like there have been life lessons that I needed to learn. And when I didn't integrate that life lesson the first time, then things kept happening and they got more and more painful until I finally was like, okay, I'm hearing the lesson. I get it. I will change. And so it's like, I just I that is kind of my motto of like, what's not integrated gets repeated. And if these things keep repeating in your life, it's like, what is that lesson that you are being so stubborn that you don't want to learn? Dr. David Traster: 01:11:22 I completely agree. And I'd add to, first of all, I think that's a great line. And I would add to that and say, usually the most ironic thing that can go wrong will, you know, it's not, it's not the thing you want to go wrong. It's like the exact thing you don't want to go wrong, or whatever the most ironically terrible thing that will happen will happen. And in my life, I've realized that it's almost like I always like my job, I'll never retire. Um, but anytime in my life I was doing something that was not being toward healthcare, whether it was before I got into healthcare, and I've had people tell me I'm gonna go into healthcare. I said, No, I won't, you know, or whether it was me thinking five, six years ago, maybe I do something different, or maybe I'd try something else, you know. Like anytime I stray away from patient care, terrible things happen to me. Very bad things happen. Okay. And I've realized that like for me and my purpose, and just, you know, people have told me different things in my life and things that end up being true, which is very strange. I've come to terms with my purpose and why I'm here and kind of a goal of what I'm trying to do. And my purpose is helping people and raising my kids. Right? And being a good husband too, for my wife that's watching, maybe. Um but realistically, it's the w right now, it's helping people get as healthy as they can be in a world that's getting unhealthy. Yeah. Dr. David Traster: 01:12:52 All right, where can people find you? I work at the Neurologic Wellness Institute. I'm in the Boca Raton location. Um, we have four clinics, we have two in Illinois, we have one in Wisconsin, we have one down here. Um they're all relatively similar, but obviously within my background on Lyme, chronic infections, inflammation, um, we have some things other people don't have. All Chinese medicine, a little German medicine, a little biophysics, a little Indian medicine, a little homeopathy, some herbs. Um, but that's all about just it's all congruent with how to get your brain healthier. Um, you know, I have a Substack, um, Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity, where we post Substack articles like every day. And then um, yeah, I think that's um yeah, we have the Neurologic Wellness Podcast. Um but obviously if you want more information of me, you can contact us at the Book of Ratone um Neurologic Wellness Institute in Florida. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:13:45 Okay. Well, I will share all those details. Dr. David Traster: 01:13:48 Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. It's always a pleasure. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:13:51 It is, yes. Well, will I see you at uh ISCN next year? Dr. David Traster: 01:13:55 You should see me at ISCN. Um, I'll be doing a synapse session for the Carrick Institute on Gravity and Gravido inertial acceleration using tilt translation rotation therapies to reorient the perception of gravity. Um, you know, I'll have a seminar in Boca Raton, Florida in December at my clinic. That'll be all hands-on clinical applications. Um few months ago, I went to the French ICIK program and I taught in Paris, which was great. Um, and next year we're looking at Italy and maybe Asia to teach out there. And now my kids are getting a little older. I might get back on the surrogate. Um, but for sure, I'll probably see you at the next um ISCN. That'd be amazing. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:14:35 Yeah. Or maybe I'll come down in December. That sounds fun. Dr. David Traster: 01:14:38 I figured last year we did Chicago in the summertime because I figured Chicago's summertime is great. But everyone had a lot of people have plans summertime. So this year I said, why don't I do flower in December? Speaker 2: 01:14:48 Yeah. Yep. People come to Florer in December. Dr. David Traster: 01:14:51 Let them make make a vacation out of it in December, the first week in December, away from the holidays, and let people get some good weather. Come hang out for a few days. Let's do some clinical apps and get some sun. You know, get some pool time. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:15:04 That sounds great. All right. Love it. Dr. David Traster: 01:15:06 Awesome. Thanks so much. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:15:07 You're welcome. Have a good night. Dr. David Traster: 01:15:09 Have a good night. Dr. Ayla Wolf: 01:15:13 Medical disclaimer. This video or podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and materials included is at the user's own risk. The content of this video or podcast is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and consumers of this information should seek the advice of a medical professional for any and all health related issues. A link to our full medical disclaimer is available in the notes.