The Carnivore Diet Gave Me My Life Back! | Dr. Nelson Vazquez

welcome to the plantree MD podcast with Dr Anthony chaffy where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the planfree MD podcast I'm your host Dr Anthony chaffy and today I have a very special guest Dr Nelson Vasquez who is joining me uh from the east coast of America so uh thank you Dr Vasquez for for coming on at such a late hour really appreciate your time you're welcome I'm happy to be here with you very good so uh you have quite an incredible story about uh your life and how you came to uh changing your diet and changing your health in a lot of ways and actually very interesting story on how you came to Medicine in the first place and how that eventually LED you um to to what you're doing now for people that haven't come across before can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to uh a carnivore ketogenic carnivore diet so I'll give you the the shortened version then we can talk about details but uh this year later in the year it will be 40 years since I graduate from medical school I did my residency Family Medicine uh went to medical school in Puerto Rico did my Family Medicine Residency in New York then lived in Massachusetts and I've been in Florida for 28 years I'm a family practitioner I have done a lot of uh temporary work over the years so I've worked in I think like 90 to 100 different places different military bases I've never served uh done emergency medicine uh Internal Medicine Pediatrics but I'm a family physician so I most of my time has been in Primary Care um how did did I decide to be a doctor goes back to my childhood uh had a brother who had epilepsy and uh from the age of three I used to tell him I was going to be a doctor to cure him he died when he was eight uh I was not quite six years of age I was introduced to death and dying I think at an early age uh with that but I kept my promise to to be a doctor so that that's why I do what I do and I'm 64 now and I still work in impatients I'm in a primary care practice setting right now uh I've always I've heard that if you choose to do something that you like you'll never work at day your life and most days I feel like that nice but I was 320 lbs I don't know 31 35 years ago uh my weight has fluctuated over the years developed diabetes hypertension I had a stroke six years ago uh lumbar Spanos stenosis with an orogenic clarication A couple of years ago I was almost in a wheelchair was falling and using a cane and using electric cards every be where I went and uh about a year about 20 months ago now uh I decided okay we I got to do something I've been familiar with uh ketogenic diets uh since the 90s when I read my first Dr Atkins book I think probably a lot of us were introduced that way and I was so hook Li and sinker I gave for 30 plus years since then uh I've given low carb advice but I wasn't following it myself uh all the time I was born in Puerto Rico our diet growing up was mainly rice and beans every day and then there will be other Roots little bit of Chicken Little Bit of steak uh but that was primarily it I eat ate a lot of Veggie Meats fake Meats uh growing up uh and over the years the amount of processed foods in my diet increased exponentially I think there was Burley and McDonald's where when I was growing up and of course we have one in every corner so I've always struggled with with the weight every time I wanted to lose some weight I I knew how to do it I just cut the carbs and you know lost 40 pounds and then regained them when I abandon the the way of eating so one and a half years go I said no I I got to do something not even the stroke was motivation Enough by the way I even after the stroke I was still uh 305 to 310 lbs and uh so I started with going low car and then became more Street Kido I lost the first 40 some 40 5 49 PBS I think with that but after June 12th uh when my eye doctor told me I had develop macular edema which by the way was not from the diabetes even though you could blame in the diabetes for 29 years being diabetic uh I had had my eye exams regularly and I did not have that at that time I had been already a and a half on trulicity which is one of the gp1 drugs same family asmic and wobi and all those I believe jic is dagai uh it's one of the listed side effects of all of them acular edema retinal problems it also gave me gastroparesis or gastroparesis depending on where you're from on how you pronounce it but uh my A1C before I started that medication and almost 2 years later had not changed it was the same so it didn't help me for for my diabetes it was 6.7 which you know few words below seven you're okay which not exactly true but uh before and after the trulicity 6.7 uh uh it had not helped me with the weight because it wasn't until I changed my amount of carbohydrates per day uh when he started started losing the weight but after that uh diagnosis uh my daughter-in-law was pregnant and I said no I I want to see my my grandson so just two weeks later after that I I said I'm going carnivore uh I was perip peripherally aware that um some people have done that uh I knew about Jordan Peterson and his daughter and Joe Rogan and at the time I thought those people are crazy I didn't know about Dr chaffy or Dr Baker then uh following that uh lifestyle and when I started to this is right after my my diagnosis with the iMac Dema uh started looking for information you know YouTube and online I said I'm GNA do that I ran across a video from K man Homestead how on YouTube uh where he was interviewing someone uh who had lost a lot of weight but he had also improved mental health depress anxiety and all those things and I didn't take me much cuz I was already eating very low carb when I took it seriously it's a simple thing you have a plate you have some some meat and some vegetables and you stay away from the from the grains the potato the roots and uh the sugar it's it's simple uh probably until not too far away back I was one of the those doctors that would say well you cannot never reverse diabetes uh you can manage it right I am sold completely on not that you know that not being the case uh so on the third day or fourth day when I started eating mostly meat my main the thing main thing I eat is beef uh sometimes I buy some goat and some lamb and I eat fish maybe once a month uh uh I buy a liver every couple of months and I cut it in pieces that's my multivitamin uh but after three or four days I woke up one day and I'm not hungry I said I'm not gonna eat today 48 Hours went by and then I had another meal but I haven't looked back I I don't get hungry I don't have cravings uh I do I do drink coffee sometimes uh so we wearing NOS Texas I told you not to take my card away for that I've had a couple of pickles and some avocado sometimes very rarely I mean it's mostly being uh beef some chicken sometimes in my wife and my older son uh who lives with me still uh prefer to have more chicken but they they they eat the beef um usually they cook so when I cook it's usually beef and o some chicken uh but I have lost about 120 pounds since my heaviest yeah wow and my A1C by the way which had not changed for years it was about the same level it's 5.4 I just bought a an A1C at Walmart because you can buy them over the counter uh the kid that I bought had two so my wife and I both did the A1C last week it was 5.4 it's been 5.4 now I had that done in December it was 5.4 it's been steady there uh I had been using 300 units of insulin a day wow and I I know that even endocrinologist who deal with this stuff every day don't have many patients on 300 units a day I I manage diabetes all the time and I can rarely I mean I know I had one guy one time who was really having to have almost that much but if I wanted to eat even if it was not uh junk food if I wanted to eat my typical PR Rican diet and I wanted to have some Roots some Yuca Malanga yaa you know all those roots that we eat in the Caribbean I wanted to have my rice and beans even if I had some meat with it or I had to to to use it wasn't everyday 300 but up to 300 very often uh cuz I would adjust I knew how much something was going to increase my blood sugar so I'm down to I went down to zero I have gone months five months without insulin uh not a problem but my C peptide is low and think in December my insulin was one so I'm not excreting or injecting a lot of insulin but the C peptide was low so my my pancreas is tired of of this business so I use 10 units of long acting a day still but hypertension which was the cause of my stroke in 2018 I was using up to 300 milligrams of metoprolol [Music] and most patients don't don't even get to 200 usually you start at 25 and then you you adjust it well I was using 300 milligrams of metal and I was using 40 milligrams of lysil which is the maximum uh dose and I had to slowly taper off that as well my blood pressure the last time I checked that I think it was 115 or something like that one day I was not feeling well so I got to work and asked the nurse to please check my blood pressure and I wasn't feeling well it was 1:30 which still normal number but uh so I don't need that anymore uh had surgery 37 years ago uh and haven't had complications from the surgery by the way NE neurosurgeon said I'm going to do a simple lactomed to do a Fusion thank God he didn't uh so I haven't had complications from the surgery but of course carrying that weight my back as always you know hurt me and I did have some damage in one of my roots and I can't remember if it was L5 S1 but I always if I got a lot of back pain sometimes I will get some radicular pain uh anti-inflammatories muscle relaxing use them often uh p last year and a half I fed maybe twice some diclofenac and maybe twice backen uh early I mean I'm playing free I I have severe I have a C6 uh and I knew it was a six I started having numbness in my my thumb uh and in my shoulder not in my neck but it it severe arthritis C6 severely pinched I have no pain so neck and back are bad but um asymptomatic from that osol pyos santac throughout my lifetime pepid I don't need medication for for reflux planta faciitis for over 30 years don't have it anymore I I always wear an insert on my shoes been doing wearing them for over 30 years because it will come back frequently MH and when that thing hurts it hurts uh completely gone nice uh I've gotten things that sometimes I oh I had a toenail fungus for a few years out of my tenos one of them always the same you know had some distrophy and uh I even had taken some pictures to send it to a podiatrist friend of mine so I I went back and checked and compared to now completely gone uh Tel fungus a little bit of eczema I there are things I can't remember they they have gotten better yeah nice that's really good and then and so when exactly did you make the switch and what what was the sort of the the Catalyst to say okay you know today's the day because obviously you you'd been exposed to Dr Atkins and all this you'd actually seen it work in your patience and what was that what was that light bulb moment for you and said okay I need to do this for myself so two things from what you said uh had always been my for a long time when I have patients especially I've always worked in areas where I had a lot of patients that were Hispanics wanted to speak to speak to someone who spoke uh their language my ADV had been the same cut the rice the beans the potatoes The Roots uh Central Americans use a lot of tortillas Mexican and everyone in central americ and you know it's like uh saying a bad word to to us I should say what do you mean I can't have rice and beans or I can't have tortillas and yeah you got all that no bread no pasta stick with the vegetables green leafy vegetables and non- sty vegetables eat whatever me you want and I and I've seen results from 15 A1C go down to six in three months yeah I mean it's not even Tak in years just in three months but only when they have followed that by so I wasn't following that as strictly as I should have so it was when they diagnosed me with the uh maula and my daughter-in-law was pregnant I said I want to see my grandchild and it's not it's not going to be because of this and I knew what I needed to do so that was the incentive and the why I had had a stroke already at the time was five years before that and I'm a little bit ashamed to say not even that had make me do it you know I my neurologist by the way he said your A1C 6.7 I need it I want it lower I want you to go below six that was my neurologist my cardiologist both great doctors but my C just just keep your LDL under 70 you'll be fine uh yeah see probably probably that was what turned the switch yeah good hey everyone really happy to announce a new sponsor for the show and for everybody down in Australia stop Stockman steaks who are delivering highquality grass-fed and finished pasture raised beef and other meats flash frozen and vacuum sealed toor something I've been enjoying a lot of myself recently as well they also have a great range of specialty items such as high fat keto mints and carnivore beef and organs mints with liver kidneys and beef art as well so use code chaffy today for free order of beef mints or another specialty gift along with your order at Stockman steaks.com Au and I'll see you over there thanks guys yeah that's that was the thing uh you know you mentioned that you knew which foods were going to make your your blood sugar Spike and so you need more insulin you know the information is right there in front of us because a lot of people have to do that and you can sort of like reverse engineer a diet that's going to keep your blood sugar low and keep your insulin demand pretty low as well and and we don't think about that because we're we're taught as doctors and then as patients doesn't matter how much carbs you need just use the amount of insulin and U and of course that's a recommendation coming from insulin manufacturers because they want you to they want you to eat a whole bunch of carbs so you take a lot of insulin because that's their product that they're selling and so no no no that's totally fine you want to take just just eat any carbs you want you don't have to change anything just make sure you get enough insulin and that would be that would be fine uh if it were only the case that that if if insulin only drove energy into cells but it has over 100 different effects over 100 different processes in the body and so when that goes up because you you're injecting 300 units of insulin a day you everything's getting out of balance and um and obviously that's not necessarily something you want and so it's it's so interesting that we have this information right in front of us and yet you know we eat certain things and Insulin demand goes down hb1c goes down diabetes goes down and yet there are people still saying has nothing to do with diet you can't control it this is just this is just a disease it it um it's a progressive disease doesn't go away and it and it's the information is right there in front of us is that it's I think and my my new analogy in the past year year and a half with patience is well imagine you have a bathtub and you are filling it with water and the water is let's sugar you know glucose and you fill the bath up but starts overflowing that's diabetes and most patients when I ask them what causes the diabetes the F 100% of them tell me oh you know how much sugar I eat well everything turns into sugar mostly uh but they are pretty clear that they the diet is important so I have a bathtu is getting full starts to overflow and I have about 10 different tools because we have like 10 different groups of of medications for diabetes that can be used when I graduate from Medical School it was met forming wasn't even in the market it was only the oral hypoglycemics the second Generations cu the first Generations were in the 60s but I only had the first generation the second generation hypoglycemics available but forming came a few years after I think I finished residency and after that you just had insulin but nobody told me in medical school that diabetes type two was a problem with too much insulin already so what I tell patients is now I have about 10 different medications or groups of medications I can give you it's said better to start poking Hol taking a drill poking holes in the bathtub to empty it mhm or maybe it's it better just to turn the faucet off yeah true and they they get it you know okay like you know it's kind of simple you stop eating what's causing the blood sugar up uh to go up and eventually things come down and we still need to have a little bit of of glucose but but is there's no essential carbohydrates MH there are essential fats and essential proteins but no essential carbohydrates your body will make what it what it needs yeah and so that that's been now my Approach with with diabetes with with the patients I unless you get a patient that when they walk into the office you do have L Ser it's 400 500 mhm usually I get them with doing a fasting blood sugar it's maybe a little bit over 200 or it's not even that but the A1C is already 6.5 or seven and Studies have shown that even on males once you hit 5.7 that curve starts to go up of complications from diabetes and on the same study on women 5.9 started to spike it the number of diabetes complications so you're not diabetic only when you get to 6.6 6.5 you're diabetic really before that yeah so hopefully it will have better impact than there starting someone I mean I will add things like met forming and uh probably start with that and other medications uh but the main emphasis is on the amount of carbohydrates that you put through your mouth yeah absolutely so at this point is that your sounds like this your main approach how many patients have you treated in that way and uh what have your results been so the right now I might see I mean it it's an epidemic it's a pandemic really when you look at the numbers of diabetes fatty liver which not all patients are diabetics but they they've gone up diabetes obesity fatty liver and about 30 other things that can can be blame on the carbohydrate and hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance and whether you believe on insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia being separate entities or the same thing uh it all depends on the patients's wanting to do it because the moment I mentioned to patients uh but you have to really remove this food group and they happen to like that food group whatever it is whether it's the bread or the pasta oh my God I have to stop eating that I'd rather die I've had that that's the option I've had that at least twice to that extreme I rather die I said well then get ready for that because you're going to make it easier yeah uh uh so the success basically has depend on who listen I I continue to have patients who come back and they are much better but uh it all depends on the degree to to what you do is where you go with the restriction and a lot of people talk about it being a restrictive diet whether you're trying to do 20 or 30 grams per day or I've had p i don't tell my patients I'm carnivore from the moment they walk in a few of them get that information as they're walking out because our conversation got us there but I always be you know for most things uh tell them about a low carbohydrate diet and and why uh I've me recently a patient had lost 30 40 pounds I said wow that's good how you do that and he says I went cardor I said okay good yeah and everybody doesn't have to do the same uh yeah I've been listening to to you for a while now and I know what you eat and what you recommend to a lot of your patients but some patients don't want to go where I've gone and okay well let's let's try to do it this way I try to meet them where they are I've had uh as as a matter of fact I have a cousin right now who is in a low car vegetarian diet well at least at least she's trying to to be low carb uh and it's interesting because she is a physician she's been an obstetrician for longer than I been the doctor as well and uh she was doing an Atkins diet when I was like 18 that's the first time I actually that exposed to that I just didn't know why years later I did read the Ain uh one of his books but uh right now she's at least she's being low carb uh yeah but yeah no the the advice if I not how how well the patient takes it believes it or what complications have they had I've had patients come to the office with amputated toes and I you know the approach now includes this listen before before I tell you what I'm going to say I'm not trying to uh shame you uh but I want show you where I was and where I am right now and I'm still you know considered by BMI tables I'm think I'm 31 still considered obese but I'm still wearing the same belt that I was wearing 20 months ago MH and it happens to have holes all around the the belt right now it's reaching the middle of my back but can show them that and on my phone I have my pictures uh so you know I'm not trying to shame you but all this could have been avoided with a different diet so if you're willing to do this uh then we can work on that if not you know I also use traditional medicines uh there are some patients who just want to get a pill and go home yeah yeah and continue to eat garbage whatever they want and they cover the meal with whatever you know the medicines or uh so I'm more selective on choosing medication for patients there I think this week I even offered to put someone on OIC oh wow okay special circumstances but uh you know he's A1C was like Sky High and his even his fastings blood sugars were over 200 and so I was going to actually switch him off from some of the medicines he had including insulin to anyways so I can use still some medications but in for particularly for fatty liver obesity diabetes uh I'm not an obstetrician but as a family medicine doctor I do have training in In Obstetrics and Gynecology actually I between medical school and and residency I deliver over 50 babies yeah ni so I deal with Women's Health and bcos and so you know I I also advise on the diet and the why I explain why because so you know you go to the doctor and the doctor doesn't tell you anything and writes you a prescription for something very often the patients walk out and they have no idea why he gave me that medication or why he wants me to do this lose weight and move more and go home it's frequently the advice we get right so I try to explain to the patients why I'm I'm suggesting what I'm suggesting and you know you can go home and do it or not then I'm not your daddy I'm not going to follow you home until tell you you have to do this or that but I do explain why I if they don't do it well I told them why this was better and what they could avoid and how they can improve they don't do it then it's up to them yeah and that that sort of you know brings us to the other other sort of point that this is it's not just diabetes and and you know SE from diabetes like PCOS that this can help there's a lot of other things that can help as well what has your experience been with other sorts of illnesses and issues chronic disease issues and your patients and how has this or has this helped in in in what ways well again when I went to medical school uh they told us 95% of patients with hypertension we had no idea what it cost it right and most of those 95% are because of hyperinsulinemia and I've had the greatest example because I was using 300 millions of metoprol which is a very high dose yeah 40 million so Cil gave me a stroke yes in combination with having my trly I went back and checked what my trig liards were just before the the stroke like the year before I had a lap test they have always been high uh they fluctuated from 16 150 to to 300 something and yeah myeras have always been on the higher side my HDL had never been past 40 it was always in the 30s and my LDL was also a little bit high but looking back through my laps and the what I had recently um so my tricerat are in I think 70 my HDL for the first time in my life over 40 at 49 still haven't had a 50 but I'm hoping oping we'll get there uh so my triglycerides are low ACL it's uh higher than it's been my LDL I'm making my cardiologist happy because it is under 70 but but uh yeah the numbers are are pretty good and uh so we have to treat patients for hypertension but if they understand that diet it matters and we've always given the advice of the low salt which is interesting because I was a low salt eater since the age of probably 10 because my mother had hypertension and her doctor told her low salt and my mother followed to the detriment of her health and unfortunately I you know she passed away 20 one years ago she should she should not have died at 67 of a heart attack uh with uncontrolled diabetes that yeah that's another story but she cooked low salt in the house so I was used to not eating salt not adding salt uh now I see some I I was just uh cooking a beef belly by the way which I uh I did in the oven uh low and slow so that's tomorrow's meal uh because it's too late to eat now all right but I put a bunch of salt on on the meats I cooked and I have no problems it used to be that if I had a salty Meal which would have been probably a french fries with too much salt or other Foods my blood pressure would go up so the advice the advice is good if you're having a huge amount of carbohydrates in your diet well you have to adjust something to help with the blood pressure someone has congestive part failure you don't want them to eat too much salt but all these things do improve with a low carb diet and then you can add the salt uh other yeah things like reflux uh that develop by the way by the way B12 deficiency M cuz I was for a long time using ppis and uh you know Theo and lanoo uh santex I mean I've used them all from the moment they came out uh so low B12 because it wasn't getting absorbed and on top of that metth forming also causes B12 absorption problems so uh uh even though I've always most of my life I I've had a good amount of uh meat turkey chicken beef it wasn't probably as much as I do it now but I was consuming enough vitamin B12 in my diet just having two medications that were blocking the absortion yeah so I ended up having I have n and tingling from the stroke on my right side I had on the same side numbness and tingling from my pitch pinch nerve I had uh worsening neuropathy and then we discover was because the B12 was low and I also had a diabet diabetic neuropathy so I had four different reasons uh causing to this day I still still have a little bit of numbness and tingling but it's a lot better good so having been through many of those things of course uh I think it helps the patients know you know you've gone through it okay so tell me what you did uh so I have lots of stories about different things that I use with I tell my patients I don't have any problem uh but I should have probably never gotten any of those things if I had heard better things in medical school uh I was taught what at the time was uh the supposed evidence at least um anyways I so I I use I use a lot of for a lot of different things of course more than half the patients I see are diabetics and more than half half diabetes and hypertension and so those those two are the most common things and nowadays the fatty liver I 15 I would say 15 years ago the only liver problems I saw were the result of alcohol and maybe 15 maybe 20 but not even not even 20 years this has been past 15 to 18 years the amount of fatty liver has skyrocketed and the only patients I've seen in the past 10 years that had any liver transplant not even not even from viral hypo is which can cause damage and and you could end up having to need a a liver transplant but the only liver transplant patients I've seen which I never see any a lot anyways uh are from fatty liver nonalcoholic fatty liver alcohol and sugar and fructose cause the same damage in the liver so uh but used to be that I could assume the patient was drinking if those pensant were elevated and we saw changes in the liver it was always alcohol not for the past 15 to 18 years it's the numbers I think those are real pandemics diabetes obesity fatty liver and a bunch of other things that come along with hyperinsulinemia hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat for those times that you're out hiking road tripping or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat fat and salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option so I like this product not because it's just pure meat but also because I want the carnivore Market to thrive as well and the more we support meat only products the more meat only products there will be available in the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10% off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25% off total all right thanks guys yeah yeah well that's great that you've been able to help so many people with that as well and and the neurological issues are something that's that's particularly interesting because these are things that that we get taught and then we we teach our patients and tell our patients that uh at a certain point you you do the surgery and you're going to get recovery up till maybe a year or two on the outside and after that it's just whatever is there is permanent it's never going to get better and a lot of the times it Dam is permanent because nerves are very very delicate structures and they they may not be able to recover and heal and yet you know you've had these neurological issues for a number of years and very good reasons for them you know like the neurogenic fication from the spinal stenosis where the nerves are just too tight and bunched up so they're getting undue pressure on them and they can get permanent damage and pain from that and and then all of a sudden it's not a problem and like you said you may not have had those problems in the first place and may not have suffered with those issues at all or needed surgery at all but the great news is that even though you have you're able to recover from that and that's something that is just really unheard of in in spinal surgery circles it's just like that just doesn't happen you know after uh couple you know after a year or two you know that's that's thought to be that's your going to be your permanent neurological status and it might get worse but it's certainly not going to get better it's just that that's that's what your your lot is and now all of a sudden we're seeing people recover from very long-term chronic issues without surgery or even after surgery they have still have lingering symptoms and then they get resolution of those symptoms I've even seen people uh Dave Mack is a gentleman I had on my podcast he has a YouTube channel as well talking about carnivore he had a subarachnoid hemorrhage 30 years ago so you know a form of stroke hemorrhagic stroke 30 years ago and he had had so permanent neurology he had a right-sided weakness quite severe to the point that he walked with a limp pronounced limp had a lot of weakness in his right hand and very unstable on his feet had a lot of Falls very difficult for him to go up and downstairs he had to really cling onto the rail with his left hand uh his good hand in order to go up and down stairs safely without fall falling and he had done Atkins he had done sort of versions of Keto diets early on and we do know now that ketogenic diets are very beneficial for neurological recovery especially from things like traumatic brain injuries and concussions and but just injury to the brain and nervous system but now 30 years later he goes on a carnivore diet specifically not just ketogenic but carnivore and in a couple months he starts seeing resolution and improvements in his motor function of his of his right arm and leg and now all of a sudden he's not limping anymore he's walking normally his wife points this out and they say oh really like you know videotape me and he's just walking normally he's like I can't believe it I'm walking normally now he runs up and downstairs and he and he's just he was just so blown away by this this condition he lived with for 30 years is now gone and he still has some residual weakness it's not it's not exactly as strong as his left side but functionally it's there you can't you can't see a deficit unless you did a focus neurological EX so my stroke was five six years ago now uh in September will be six years but I still had some weakness on my right side I'm right side I'm right-handed it was a left left side of stroke and I always had since the stroke I've had weakness on the right side improved a lot uh in the first few weeks not with medicine by the way it was an electromagnetic frequency machine that I bought which had very good results basically the improved circulation but uh I still had weakness initially for a few weeks until the EMF treatment started uh I was walking with a walker and I had video and pictures of that and then after that it started to improve but I still up until last year I still had weakness on my right arm and leg I can notice any difference anymore now I can run uh if I try to run I was I I would notice a little bit of a limp and the this week and uh in Orlando Dr kils and I and and other people were going to go and eat and you know Dr Kilz hyperactive and he's always running and you know so he's he's trying to run through the lobby I said hold on I can't run as fast as you but I don't I don't feel the difference in between between my right hand and my left hand anymore the strength has improved has definitely improved uh oh uh I'm sleeping without my seatat machine for the first time in 30 years yeah wow and my son the other day I was taking a nap I got home from work and still was early not but I I laid down in bed and fell asleep without my machine cuz he was in the in a suitcase I didn't want to open it and he came to tell me to use to because everybody in the house knows if I fall asleep and stop breathing it end up not not being good for me uh so I I probably have had besides this past few weeks I probably have had only five nights in 30 years I didn't SL sleep with it Without The Machine wow because I can't it's just it it just I would wake up basically oxygen deprived didn't sleep well anyways and he came close to me and he noticed I wasn't even snoring I said okay he he left he then he told me afterwards what happened so I'm able to sleep without my Seath machine for the first time in 30 years oh the brain you know there's still a scar there where I had the stroke and I still have a little bit of balanc problems but I no longer need to use even a cane I I'm able to bend down and not fall which has happened in the past uh so that is better and yeah uh the brain need seems to need even more carbohydrate restriction cuz like said when it's when there are ketones around right uh so I I wish I knew that in the 60s to help my brother and yeah then come to find out that people did know doctors didn't know in the 60s about ketogenic diets for for epilepsy for nothing else yeah yeah especially for when the drugs came out they stopped using that yeah yeah that's pretty unfortunate um well that's that's yeah it is a shame that you know that with pharmacology you know and and you know I I practice you know Western medicine as well and I I I prescribe things for my patients when it's necessary but it's so much less necessary than than we realize um and that these medications can be very beneficial and life- saving in many cases but they shouldn't just be the first line treatment and and the only line of treatment that it's just medication medication exactly doesn't have to be the only line like even if you have to use them and this applies also to the the new found knowledge on Psychiatry metabolic Psychiatry right some of those medications still will need some uh some of those patients will still need some medications but this is a powerful tool I mean for many things and it seems everything brain related nervous system related responds even better than than other systems to to carbohydr restriction yeah absolutely um yeah it's it's it's something that I'm really glad to see you and other doctors coming on to this and understanding hey this because I I think vast major majority of doctors do actually want to help their patients and and want to use the best tools available but it's just that you we have this idea that if it was worth knowing about it was taught to me in in medical school or residency and that's not always the case and it's maybe it's people's best effort but maybe it's not actually always the best thing and you know that's you know the famous Harvard uh graduating address to the graduating class in the 1930s where they said Dr Osler was it Osler saying that um uh yes yeah okay it's been I've seen it attribute to the two different people but uh yeah it if you search also it's attributed to Dr osair but go ahead I'm sorry I do no no you're fine yeah well just that you know just that statement that you know half of the thing you know half of the things that you learned here are going to turn out to be wrong but no one's ever going to tell you which half you have to figure that out know which have don't know exactly so we taught you because we thought it was right but it's not and we're going to we're going to move on from there and you know and which is funny to me that we forget that and they say no no no but this was taught how can how can you say something different than what everybody else is saying I was like well we we know that most of our understanding is is a work in progress and so this we have to build and and work on these sorts of things and then some of it's just going to be wrong I mean this it's so funny people say well if if if it if it were wrong they wouldn't have put in the guidelines then why do they change the guidelines every five years think about that so so the guidelines are are in infallible so but we changed them from last time and then we changed them time from the time before that and the time before that and the time before that if they were right at the beginning then it was right it was right couldn't have been changed or maybe yeah we always come to a new understanding that's the way science should work yeah okay without mentioning the topic we were talking off camera about exactly that I mean yeah that's the way science works we have no understanding all the time and we need to be flexible with that's it that understanding just look at the numbers and the signs don't don't get offended if what your position was five years ago or a year ago happens to be wrong we need to accept it's it's a human nature not to want to accept that you're wrong right yeah well and also that you may have been doing something that could have harmed people you know obviously you because that that that goes against our it's like no hold on I'm helping people I'm doing it it's like yeah well look you are and you're using the best information you had available to you at the time but things get better and if you if you don't accept that things can get better and improve then you're going to continue doing what you did before which may not have been as good it maybe was the best thing at the time but it's not necessarily the best thing of the time now and so we need to reme remember remember that and just like you know you wouldn't you know when when other things come out and you say oh this is the new technology this is the new surgical procedure this is the new medication okay well I'm going to change that because that's better that's an improvement on what we were doing before well this is the same thing this is just an improvement on what we were doing before and it helps people get off medications and not need the medications in the first place and so it's it doesn't have to be an attack or an assault on on you know us as clinicians or even as patients it's just hey you know we have we have more understanding now and it's great to see more and more people becoming aware of that and and applying this to their patient base as well it's great to see well at least it it is a little bit easier nowadays because of social media and platforms like this because when when I was in medical school a long time and probably even when you went to medical school if you wanted to find information about something you didn't open Google YouTube or shat GPT you had to go to the library yeah and pick up a book that was already 10 years behind yeah right because it wasn't you know off the press even off the press a year it you know a book was two or three years behind nowadays you have a lot more information so I don't mind people coming and saying doctor I found this m uh sometimes the interpretation of this uh may not be what the patient thought it was but you know I don't mind people telling me Dr Google said this oh yeah but nowadays there's so much more information so much easier to find uh to maintain your license you have to have a certain number of continued medical education credits right and you you're always trying to make sure you have enough I you I usually have more than what is mandatory because I like finding more information but 99% of that information is usually sponsored by yeah pharmaceutical company so it's sometimes difficult to even if you're ethically grounded and you're not being paid to say something if I go to medical conference and I'm being paid by someone else for the medical conference but I have five 10 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies sponsoring you know that I might not talk too much about the negative problems with the medications or you know it can slant your view tremendously yeah and I'm trying to be polite with yeah yeah uh the Staten problem I not too long ago I I I said let me read the package insert again I always like to read them but let me write the package in surgent the landmark study they had to get the medication approved it did show benefit 3% of their 10 I don't know what the number was was a huge number over 10,000 in each group I think 3% on the placebo group got the cardiac events that were tracking and with one of the statens 1.9% M got they events so it worked right that means over the next 10 years I need to put a 100 patients on the stattin and instead of three of them getting heart attacks two of them will get heart attack so 1.9% but you you're not a 1.9% person right so but basically three heart attacks on the placebo group and two heart attacks on the medication group because it was 1.9 and 3% you divide that is 36% so that particular drug we have a reduction of 36% andh the heart attacks you're going to have if you put this amount of patients right when you explain to a patient that yeah there is a risk if you don't take this medication and I was just watching your Premiere that was happening just a moment ago be uh on YouTube uh and you mentioned that the effect of the statins might not be just the lowering of the cholesterol but uh a little bit of an anti-coagulant effect so do they help maybe but it probably it's not because of the lowering of The Collector the point is some people might not be willing to take the chance there's probably more chance of getting diabetes and Alzheimer's from using them yeah that's yeah well perfect so that's sometimes we don't see that you know that even our continued medical education is heavily influenced about what the pharmaceutical company wants uh used to be many years ago I had an office for few years and you know drug reps would love to come and and talk to me and always told me about all the great things of their medications they really never talked too much about the negative side effects or if I wanted to re to find something negative I would have to actually go and search it and read on my own because they were not going to point it out MH so even if you don't want to sometimes you are influenced by the information you're getting you have to consider the sources yeah yeah definitely well Dr Vasquez it was absolute pleasure talking to you and seeing you again it great to have you on hear your your story which I think will help a lot of people um where can people find you and uh and follow you and are you active on social Med Media or uh do people get hold so I don't I don't have a big social media presence uh I am starting to post some videos on my YouTube channel so hopefully a few things will be coming I already have uh a couple there uh about three weeks ago four weeks ago uh there was a live uh for diabetes uh we were fundraising uh for the American D society that Dr kimberry and others are trying to put together so there was a a panel that included Dr Tony Hoffman Dr Eric Westman Dr Barry and the Very less well-known Dr Vasquez uh although I'm older than all of them I've been a do longer but I I don't have much of a uh media social media presence but my Channel at uh in YouTube is uh at the real Dr Nelson okay it's the real Dr Nelson the word dror spelled out okay perfect so we'll put that in the I also have a don't have a lot posted on Facebook uh uh it's called metabolically healthy again uh hopefully I'll be adding some stuff there I'm sorry that was on Instagram I don't have inst Instagram yet and so where's the metabolically healthy again um in Facebook Facebook perfect yeah Facebook metabolically healthy again perfect well I'll put uh links for those in the description people can find those below and and see more of your work and hopefully uh you're you keep putting putting out more and more and more it's always great to get uh more people putting out videos and talking about their experience and especially when they're uh treating patients and saying hey this is what this is the results I'm getting with my patients so thank you for doing that I hope I hope to see more and more of you in the thank you thank you and thank you everyone for watching it's been an absolute pleasure as always hope you found this useful and helpful and if you did please do uh hit the like button and leave a comment and also share this without share this out with anybody who you think would benefit from it thank you all and we'll see you next time hey guys thank you very much for taking the time out to listen to what I had to say if you like it then please like And subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcast and if you're on YouTube then please hit that little bell and subscribe and that'll let you know anytime I have a new video out which should be every week if not more and if you could share this with your friends that would help me get the word out and let me know that you like what I'm doing thanks again guys