Be Organic Season 3 – Episode 04 – Lupus: How to Recognize it and How to Fight it

On today’s episode, Kat and Landon sat down with Margaret Romero, a Columbia-trained Functional Medicine Nurse Practitioner with expertise in lupus, to discuss her impactful story and more. Once severely ill and diagnosed with lupus, Margaret overcame this life-threatening diagnosis by singlehandedly finding the culprit for her illness: gluten. This immense discovery transformed her life and brought her to where she is today.

Listen to learn all about lupus, mold, herbal remedies, and healing your body from fatigue and pain.

TIME STAMPS
8:00 Kat’s experience with bone broth for gut health (jump to section)
9:00 When to look into your symptoms instead of thinking they are “normal” (jump to section)
11:04 Particular age groups that are diagnosed with lupus (jump to section)
12:39 Lupus diagnosis tests (jump to section)
15:19 Gluten and the impact it can have on testing (jump to section)
16:39 Parasite herbal treatment (jump to section)
19:00 How to find the right specialist or practitioner (jump to section)
26:18 Practical steps to help with pain, fatigue, weight gain, and more (jump to section)

Transcription Below

Kat Eckles: All right, Margaret. Thank you so much for joining us today. We’re so appreciative of your time and your vulnerability. This topic we’re going to discuss, I know is super personal to you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Margaret Romero: Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor.

Kat: Awesome. Well, let’s talk about lupus. Let’s talk about what it is, your journey to how you were diagnosed, and what that looked like for you. I’m sure everybody would love to hear about that.

Margaret: Sure. Lupus is an autoimmune condition and it varies. It can sometimes attack the skin, or it can sometimes attack the kidneys. At times, people will have a rash on their face called the butterfly rash, so it can present differently. Overall and in general, most people will have full-on muscle pain and joint pain. So lots and lots of inflammation is happening in the body. For me, it was about the year 2007.

I started getting random joint pain: wrist pain one week, then it would be knee pain, and then my ankle. It was very fleeting, so it would come and go and attack a different joint. At the time I was like, “Maybe I worked out too much.” Eventually, it became worse and I had blood work done. Lo and behold, I was diagnosed with lupus. It progressed very, very quickly for me. It went from fleeting joint pain to an inability to walk due to so much pain in my joints and in my muscles, just so much soreness. It was ramping up to the point where it went from one day to the next day with me waking up with a shortness of breath.

My boyfriend at the time drove me to the hospital and I was Medi-flighted to another hospital in Arizona. I was living in New Mexico at the time so I was totally alone. They were telling me about my results and I already had known what was happening, but it was so fast that it was just hard for me to wrap my head around it. At the time I wasn’t into autoimmune conditions, that was not my thing. As I was making an appointment to see someone about it, the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital. When all of this was happening, my brother, who was a doctor, came out to Arizona and flew me out to Boston, which is where I was hospitalized again. They do kidney biopsies to just check what’s going on there.

So, I had all of that done. I was hospitalized for a couple of days, and when I got home I was put on twenty medications. I still felt horrible, nothing was really working. I was still inflamed, I was still in so much pain, I had put on almost thirty pounds of water weight, and I did have the rash on my face as well. My hair was falling out and it was just a time of my life that was so painful and I felt so alone. Of course, I now had a kidney specialist and my rheumatologist who deals primarily with autoimmune conditions, and I never really felt very supported by them.

It was just sort of like a doom and gloom type of thing. “You’re going to have this for the rest of your life. You’re going to be on medication for the rest of your life. I’m sorry. How was your mood? Are you depressed?” It was just not a good experience overall not only because of what I was going through physically, but what I was going through emotionally. I really didn’t feel very supported by my specialist at the time.

Kat: That totally makes sense. Do you think this is something that a lot of people deal with and is undiagnosed? Do you think this is more rampant than we know about?

Margaret: There are so many women that I talk to and even when I read on Facebook autoimmune groups, I’ll often hear women tell me, “Nobody knew what I had.” It took years to know what was going on in my body. Sometimes it’s underlying. Sometimes it’s not caught necessarily in blood work, but you still have the symptoms or it’s low level. It shows up as they’re diagnosed with fibromyalgia or joint pain. They’re put on Prednisone or pain medication.

Without really looking deep enough or trying to figure out why this is happening to begin with, which was definitely the case for me, it was like, “You have lupus. Here you go, here are your pills. I’m sorry. You’ll always have this. Good luck.” I brought up to my rheumatologist that every time I ate, my joints would get so swollen and red, especially my knees. My cheeks would get really red and my face would get a little bit swollen. I said, “I want to get checked for celiac disease. Is there a way we can do this? I know there’s a DNA test for it.” She said, “No, just save your money. Take the medication. You don’t need to do that type of test.”

Being a Nurse Practitioner at the time, I decided to just go out, get my own test, and do it. Lo and behold, it came back that I had two non-celiac gluten-sensitive genes. The moment those results came back, I became gluten-free. The trajectory of my health and life changed in such a big way because once I knew that I needed to be gluten-free, I went all in. I eliminated my diet, bought cookbooks, and attended gluten-free cooking classes. At this time, I was living in Colorado, so that was readily available, thank goodness.

Within a week’s time from becoming gluten-free, my joint pain started going away. It was remarkable to see, after a couple of months of being on twenty pills per day, how that did nothing for my vitality, my health, or my pain. This one simple thing that the rheumatologist had told me to just forget was really one of the things that started the healing process.

Kat’s Experience With Bone Broth For Gut Health

Kat: Unbelievable. My son had a kind of autoimmune disorder from his infancy in a couple of different medical things. The same kind of thing happened. They wanted to do all these treatments on him, and I just started giving him bone broth. I literally gave him a bone broth three times a day, just flooding his body with it. It started to heal his gut and his symptoms went away. So, it’s so crazy to me how lifestyle just plays such a big part in making us better or sicker, unfortunately.

Margaret: Bone broth is amazing. It is amazing for gut healing, especially drinking it first thing in the morning. It’s typically what I like telling my patients to do: before your coffee, have a cup of bone broth. It does wonders.

When To Look Into Your Symptoms

Kat: You talked about the symptoms you were experiencing, which were predominantly a rash and joint pain. I applaud you. I guess you got into so much pain that you couldn’t live. Some of those things, like the joint pain, I get here and there. So, at what point do you start to kind of really take those things into consideration and go get tested versus writing it off as, like you said, “I lifted too heavy that day”, or “It’s just a little pain”? What point do you suggest that people start to really look at what’s going on?

Margaret: Yes, that’s a great question. Yes, people work out and they have knee pain, this or that. If it’s something that’s out of the ordinary, you suddenly get a lot of pain, let’s say, in your knee. Then the next day or a week later, it’s now your knee and another joint, and then another joint or you’re having any sort of muscle achiness. That’s another thing, achiness. The other most common thing is if you’re having sores inside your mouth. Cold sores, or any type of sores, are a really big indication of lupus in the beginning stages. Well, in all stages, but during flares especially.

Kat: I’ve never heard that, that makes total sense. My brother has a lot of sores in his mouth. Not to out him on a podcast, but maybe I need to get him in there to get tested.

Margaret: Well, one of the common things for gluten sensitivity (so many people have gluten sensitivity that they’re not aware of) is having recurring canker sores. I used to get them and don’t get them anymore, but having gluten sensitivity can sometimes trigger recurring canker sores.

Kat: Totally. Well, that makes sense with autoimmune because gluten impacts autoimmune. So it totally all goes together.

Margaret: Yeah.

Particular Age Groups That Are Diagnosed With Lupus

Kat: Do you see an age group that predominantly is getting diagnosed with this? Is it something that usually comes out in your twenties or is it something that at any point in life can flare up?

Margaret: I would say, there are teens that have lupus anywhere through their sixties. For the majority of women (men and women get it, but I work primarily with women), it’ll be in their thirties. Mid-thirties to mid-forties is, for some reason, the biggest time when women get diagnosed, and it could be due to so many different factors. One of them being stress or environmental toxins. There are just so many things that can trigger it, even genetics.

Kat: Probably childbirth and, like you said, just stress, different points in life, and probably lifestyle buildup. It’s funny, I just said to my husband last night, I don’t eat whatever I want, but I’m not uber strict. I turned thirty-five this year, and it’s like I have five to seven pounds that came out of nowhere that I can’t get rid of and I’ve never had to deal with before. I feel like when your body starts to hit thirty-five, things just change and it’s almost like your lifestyle in the last fifteen years of adulthood has kind of caught up with you. So, that kind of makes sense.

Margaret: Yes, so many things change in the body. Our hormones shift and there are just so many things going on, so, yeah, that’s true. A lot of women do complain about that.

Kat: Are the lupus diagnostic tests pretty straightforward, something that you can find pretty easily? Or do you have to really dig in to find it?

Lupus Diagnostic Tests

Margaret: Rheumatologists have their pretty standard testing panels for all autoimmune conditions. Pretty much where they start is testing all of that and seeing the results. Then they move forward and will give the newly diagnosed medications and Prednisone depending on where they are in their flare or in their diagnosis. What unfortunately is not checked is trying to figure out what the triggers are to lupus, M.S., or any autoimmune condition. Why did this happen to begin with? It’s that exploration that, unfortunately, conventional medicine does not do. I think conventional medicine is amazing in acute care and emergency situations. I think that they lack in treating chronic illnesses.

Kat: When a patient comes to you and they’ve either been diagnosed or you diagnosed them with lupus, what does your treatment plan look like versus what a conventional plan would look like?

Margaret: Well, one of the first things I do is testing. I do a little bit of further testing when it comes to blood work. Sure, I’d like to see the panel that they get from the rheumatologist. I’d like to see all of that. Typically, all my patients come in with a diagnosis already, so we already know that they have all of that. What I want to know is: What are your hormones like? Do you have vitamin deficiencies? Are there any toxins or do you work in a place where there are a lot of toxins? Hairdressers are notorious for having autoimmune conditions because of the toxins they’re around every single day. Those are the things I look for.

I also do stool testing. The majority of individuals with autoimmune conditions, I can’t tell you the number of times they tell me they have gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or reflux issues. So, it’s really looking closely at that because they could have parasites, Candida, an overgrowth of really bad bacteria, and/or H. pylori. All of these things contribute to stopping an autoimmune from appearing. It’s not overnight, these things happen over the course of many, many years.

Gluten And The Impact It Can Have On Testing

Kat: Absolutely. With your treatment, is gluten something that you recommend all of your patients stay off of?

Margaret: Initially, yes. While we’re doing testing, I just have them get off the gluten, but sometimes it’s hard to get off gluten. I will say, a lot of people will really feel like there’s nothing to eat, but there actually is so much to eat. Gluten and dairy are at the top, but there are seven total top allergens, including eggs, soy, gluten, dairy, and nuts.

There are foods like that. Now for everyone, it’s different. Sometimes I’ll do a food allergy panel to see, “What does your body not like?” When I get back the results of people who have so many food sensitivities, that is a clear sign of gut issues and permeability issues. So, we take the time to look at those stool sample results and go from there. We need to heal the gut. We need to get rid of the pathogens, parasites, or worms that could have triggered this autoimmune condition.

Parasite Herbal Treatment

Kat: What do you do for parasite treatment? Do you like colon cleanses or do you have a product you like?

Margaret: There are so many different ways. I usually will do herbals and we start there. Before I put anyone on anything, I need to make sure that they’re going to the bathroom every single day, right? I need to make sure that they’re able to detox and put them on supplements to support that. Because just taking all of these things, “You have yeast. You have parasites. Let’s just give you everything all at once.” It’s too much depending on the person and how long they’ve been ill, you know what I mean?

Kat: Absolutely. Yeah, I think that’s such an important thing to note: how people can recognize if their detox pathways are open. We have an infrared sauna in our house and, of course, sweating is one of the ways that you detox, but I don’t love cardio. I’ll do some pilates and weightlifting, so I’m not ever busting a huge sweat. When I first was getting in the sauna, it would take me a good ten or fifteen minutes out of a forty-five-minute session before I could actually start to sweat. Now it’s almost like I open that door and I’m sweating before I’m already in there.

It’s just because my detox pathways are so much healthier from training my body to be that way. I think it’s important that people are sweating and, like you said, going to the bathroom regularly. There are things you can look for in your urine to see if you’re detoxing correctly, and I think that’s something people probably don’t even realize is important.

Margaret: Definitely, yes. I love the infrared sauna. I don’t have one in my home, though. I wish my place was big enough to have one, but I do go down the street to one and I think that’s critical. If people can get into an infrared sauna, I think that would be amazing. It helps to get rid of toxins and heavy metals as well. I think it’s super important.

How To Find The Right Specialist Or Practioner

Kat: Yes, I love that. How can people find the right specialist? If they’re not in your area or if they only have access to or only ever thought about going to a more conventional medicine, what are some practitioners they can look for to help them through this more natural lifestyle process of having lupus?

Margaret: Yes. If you’re newly diagnosed, or even if you’re not, I would say absolutely find yourself a functional medicine practitioner. A lot of us are doing virtual consults now, so they don’t have to necessarily be in your town, though if you want one, certainly even just a Google search. We’re just expanding more and more, so I don’t think it’ll be that hard to find.

Kat: What I love about treating in this way is you don’t really need to see your clients face to face. Of course, that’s always nice and great, but you really can look at their testing and talk to them about different things that they need to do in their lifestyle. It can all be done virtually, which is amazing.

Margaret: Yes, absolutely. I love doing the video, especially for initial visits because seeing someone’s face really gives me a lot of information about their thyroid, if they’re anemic, or with their hair texture if it’s thinning. It gives me a lot of information just by looking through video.

Kat: Absolutely. I know you treat other things besides lupus, but you really focus on women and women’s health. What are some of the other things that you treat or issues that you’re seeing becoming more predominant with women in general?

Margaret: Well, there’s always the hormone imbalances. I have women transition from perimenopause into menopause. Lately, that’s been the topic of choice, but I would say even bigger than hormones (because hormones have been around forever, women are always transitioning from peri into menopause) is mold.

Kat: Wow.

Margaret: It’s a big one, yeah. It’s everywhere. It’s in almost every building that most people live in, it’s in their homes, it’s in the schools, it’s in the buildings that they work in. It’s everywhere. So, when nothing shows up in blood work, check for mold.

Kat: What’s so interesting is we bought our forever home. I had started following someone on Instagram that really was talking about mold, so I was like, “We should test our house.” I did the ERMI test and, of course, we had it and it was in our HVAC. It’s a fairly big house and we had to replace all the HVACs and it was this huge, huge expense. I’m like, “Why in the world would they not do this on home inspections? Why would they not test for mold? It was a $200 little test I did.” They said, “No houses would sell, every single house would come back with mold.”

Margaret: Oh my goodness.

Kat: Yeah. It is such an epidemic and nobody is dealing with it like you said. I thought we’d be having allergy attacks all the time, or unable to breathe, but it’s not that at all. It was the weirdest symptom. One of my daughters was four or five at the time and obviously had been completely potty trained and everything like that. She started having accidents every single night and I was like, “This is so strange.” Then I happened to be watching one of the doctor’s videos and she said that bedwetting is one of the symptoms of mold, so that’s why I tested for it. It’s these symptoms that make absolutely no sense. Then you find out a lot of these molds aren’t even causing respiratory issues, they’re causing liver issues and all these other things that we don’t even think about. Like you said, it’s a really big issue that I don’t think enough people talk about.

Margaret: Oh my gosh, nobody talks. No conventional doc will ever say, “Do you have molds in your home?” I mean, almost never because my brother’s a physician and my parents had molds in their basement. I was like, “Oh my God, we gotta get rid of this asap.” I called mold people, they came, and they tested it. It was in all of their walls, but all the mold was taken out. My brother didn’t blink an eye when I said that there was mold in the basement. Hello, my parents are having cognitive issues. Yes, they’re older, but still, it also affects the brains of children and it’s rampant in schools. It’s crazy.

Even while they’re doing remediation, they’ll still have classes happening with all those chemicals and everything in the next room with the children there. You don’t know. Then, your kid has a runny nose all the time or is always sneezing and it’s just allergies. People always think it’s just allergies. It’s most likely mold.

Kat: Right. You’re allergic to mold. Yeah, I know. The problem is too, you can’t really heal from it until you’re out of the environment or it’s out of your environment.

Margaret: Exactly.

Kat: Yeah. You really have to deal with it and, of course, it’s expensive. It’s just a huge hassle, so it’s really a problem.

Margaret: It’s huge. An infrared sauna is amazing for mold, it’s hands down one of the best things.

Kat: Yep. I know there are some practitioners that call for a kill-by-sweat protocol.

Margaret: I do. Yes, the binders. Depending on the mold, it’s really important to get really good mold testing too if you think you’ve been affected. There’s a test on Quest labs called the C4a that gives you one number that tells you if you’ve been exposed to water-damaged buildings. I think that’s really great, but that won’t tell you which species of mold. There is a urine test that tests for mold, which I love. Then you kind of know which binder to use for which mold.

Kat: Okay, that’s great advice. Isn’t it true that something like 30% of people are very sensitive to mold? It’s a protein or some sort of antibody that you have that indicates that you’re much more susceptible to mold versus other people.

Margaret: Right. With some people, you can have a partner that is completely unaffected by it and then the other person is just suffering horribly from it. So you do have that difference, yeah, for sure.

Practical Steps To Help With Pain, Fatigue, Weight Gain, and More

Kat: That’s awesome. Well, I’d love to wrap up by talking about some practical steps our listeners can take if they’re experiencing any of these lupus symptoms or just pain, fatigue, hot flashes, weight gain, or any other issues that are related to the female body in general.

What are some of your most basic pieces of advice? I know we’ve talked about a few of them, but if you could just kind of wrap it up with a few more, that’d be amazing.

Margaret: Okay, so for people that have been diagnosed with lupus, I would say number one, find a functional medicine provider. I also give steps. We can talk about that after, but there are some steps that you can do when you first diagnose. Definitely find a functional medicine provider.

You want to eliminate high-inflammatory foods, gluten, and dairy. I would start there and even look at some of the toxins you may have in your home. Are you using Lysol every day? Are you cleaning with bleach? What are you cleaning your dishes with? Your laundry? I would eliminate some of those things. Trying to get rid of or decrease the amount of toxins that you’re exposed to on a daily basis will definitely help the burden that your body is going through at this moment. With lupus and the flares that people get, stress is a huge, huge component. I can’t talk about this enough. I think women in general, we’re such givers, so all we do is just give, give, give. We never really leave enough time for ourselves, for self-care, for rest, for relaxation, or for time with our friends because we’re always taking care of everybody else.

I think it’s super important, especially if you’re going through a major health crisis, to take time for yourself, practice some self-care, give yourself some downtime, and not feel guilty about it. I think that’s really just a huge reminder because we just tend to be the ones that will hold down the fort. We’ve got a job or a business and we’re just doing a million things, so try to decrease the amount of stress in your body, I think in general, for women. I mean, really look at things that you’re consuming and how you’re eating. I’m just going to tell you right now, I am gluten-free, 100%. All of my vegetables and the majority of my food, like 95, if not 97% of all my food is organic.

If you are someone that’s consuming butter or cheese and you really can’t get off it, or you’ve tried and you really can’t, then at least switch to organic. Try to choose grass-fed beef and organic chicken. There are just these little changes you can make that will definitely impact your health.

Kat: Yes, it’s amazing advice. Well, awesome, Margaret. Thank you so much for your time today. I’d love for you to share with our listeners where they can find out more about you, your socials, and your websites. Any information you give would be great.

Margaret: Sure. I love hanging out on Instagram. I am on there every day, and if you’re interested in the types of foods that I eat every day, I am on there showing you just how simple it is.

My Instagram is Margaret Romero. My website is margaretromero.com. Today, actually, I am hosting a masterclass. It’s a free masterclass for women with lupus, but I’ve also got a couple of things on Instagram as well. There’s a seven-day Lupus challenge that’s totally free that you can find on my Instagram bio.

Kat: I love that, awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Before we wrap up, I always like to ask our guests: What is your one best tip for living life organically?

Margaret: I would say, just being yourself and being as authentic as you can. It’s just so important. When I hosted my podcast for the first time, I was really sort of coming out of the closet with how spiritual I am rather than the professional medical provider. I think that just really fuels your soul. So whatever feeds your soul, do that.

Kat: I love that. Awesome, Margaret. Like I said, thank you so much for your time today. This was great information, and I love that you can see patients from all over. I’m sure some of our listeners will be reaching out after they hear this. I appreciate all you’re doing for women, for wellness, and just helping everyone live their best life. So thank you for all you do, and thank you for sharing with us today.

Margaret: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Kat: Thank you so much for tuning in today to Be Organic. We’re so excited for you to become healthier in body and stronger in spirit.

Landon Eckles: So if you like what you heard today, please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode.

Kat: We’d love to connect with you over on Clean Juice’s Instagram. Give us a follow, and slide into our DMs with any suggestions for guests or topics that you might want to hear more about.

Landon: All right, y’all. Thanks for listening. Have a great week and remember to be organic.

Kat: Just a quick legal disclaimer, we are not doctors. While we absolutely love discussing wellness and nutrition with our expert guests, you should always talk to your physician or other medical professional before making any dietary or lifestyle changes. They can assess your specific needs and come up with a plan that works best for you.

In addition, this is for educational purposes only. Clean Juice Franchises are only offered by delivery of a franchise disclosure document in compliance with various state and federal laws.