Do You Have FLC (Feel Like Crap) Disorder?

DESCRIPTION

The Taming Your Flame educational course is an online course consisting of 5 classes culminating in a Certificate of Completion. It is a self-assessment and self-therapeutic experience. It is pragmatic and allows students to advance at their own pace. It outlines the progression of chronic disease from chronic inflammation to its culmination in named diagnoses such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, obesity, heart, thyroid, and auto-immune disease. This chronic inflammation usually starts with dietary food allergies/sensitivities and stress, in combination with toxins, both internal and external. It always involves the GI tract and imbalances between our external environment and our internal environment, or the Microbiome. The research is challenging and data-driven. It is the author’s goal to break it down into bite-size chunks for easy digestion and assimilation.

CERTIFICATION

A Certificate of Completion will be issued upon successful completion of the online classes signed by both doctors.

Class 1—Taming Your Flame-The FLC Disorder and Why Symptoms Matter

DESCRIPTION:

This class is the first in the 5-part series Taming Your Flame; an online study course emphasizing the connection between chronic inflammation and chronic disease.
The FLC Disorder is an epidemic and underappreciated disorder.. It stands, of course, for “Feel Like Crap.” Chiropractic doctor, Louis Scoma, DC, is a world famous expert on FLC Disorder. He is, of course, from New York City.
Symptoms are the body’s way of telling us something is amiss. We are well advised to pay attention to them. They are the harbingers of things to come.
In this course, you will learn about the origins of FLC, and how to assess and monitor its insidious symptoms, of course.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• The student will learn that symptoms precede disease by years to decades.
• Symptoms identify our weakest link, be it organ, tissue, or system.
• The diagnosis is not the end-all; it is the beginning of understanding.

NOTES:

Class 1—Taming Your Flame–FLC Disorder and Why Symptoms Matter

Most people do not come to understand the significance of their medical condition until it is too late to be of any benefit to them. This is because they are not aware that disease in its early stages is easy to treat and extremely difficult to diagnose, and in its later stages is easy to diagnose and extremely difficult to treat. This is why symptoms matter; they presage overt disease by usually decades. This is called the prodomal stage of a disease.

The main driver of chronic disease is chronic inflammation. This is a low-grade state of mild inflammation which left unchecked, over time, becomes a roaring fire. As doctors, we are charged with helping our patients better understand how health and wellness morph into illness and disease. The first step is awareness, and that starts with education. This class elucidates the origins of chronic inflammation.

Class 2—Taming Your Flame-Eating Can Make Your Sick and the Elimination Diet

DESCRIPTION:

This class is the second in the 5-part series Taming Your Flame; an online study course emphasizing the connection between chronic inflammation and chronic disease.
Now that we are more aware of our chronic symptoms, we have to do something about them before they become a full blown disease. Many of the symptoms that do not resolve with standard medical treatment respond to an elimination diet. Certain foods or foods eaten frequently may be related to health conditions such as digestive problems, headaches, depression, low energy, joint pain, and mood swings, just to name a few. Removing them first, and then reintroducing them, identifies them as the likely suspects causing our chronic symptoms, again, in turn, the result of chronic inflammation.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• Distinguish between dietary allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances.
• Understand how gluten contributes to leaky gut and chronic inflammation.
• Understand why elimination diet plans require 30 days to complete.

NOTES:

Class 2—Taming Your Flame-Eating Can Make You Sick and The Elimination Diet

In many instances, people may suffer from chronic symptoms for long periods of time without realizing that the symptoms are connected to what they are eating. Making these connections requires eliminating common foods from our diet for a certain period of time.

When the burden on the immune system is reduced, the body has an opportunity to heal. Once the 30 day Elimination Diet is completed, the eliminated foods are re-introduced one at a time and any adverse symptoms are noted. Foods that continue to “trigger” symptoms are avoided for several more months and then re-introduced again.

Many “trigger” foods can then be tolerated because the gut has healed. This Elimination Diet plan helps to identify our food allergy “triggers,” reduces chronic inflammation, has absolutely no caloric restrictions, reduces total toxic body burden, supports a healthy microbiome, and helps us to become more aware of how food affects us, good and bad.

Class 3—Taming Your Flame-Fat Is Your Friend and the Keto-Diet

DESCRIPTION:

This class is the third in the 5-part series Taming Your Flame; an online study course emphasizing the connection between chronic inflammation and chronic disease.
Now that the student has learned that symptoms matter, and the importance of identifying one’s food “triggers” through the Elimination Diet Plan, it is time to address the (most) optimum of food eating plans. There is no dearth of studies in favor of the Mediterranean Diet, and by extension, diets higher in healthy fats/oils rather than grains/ carbohydrates. This is essentially a more ketogenic dietary approach.
Diabetes and obesity are probably the most primary of all drivers of chronic inflammation. Sugar is a poison in levels beyond our daily capacity. Our daily capacity is actually quite low (about ½ one can of soda). In other words, simple carbohydrates will kill us, albeit slowly. This is a challenging class because we have been brain washed into thinking that “fat” is bad for us. Good healthy fats and oils are good for us. This class tells you why.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• The student will learn about the origin of the myth “fat is bad” for us.
• ½ of personal bankruptcies are due to the staggering costs of diabetes.
• The difference between nutritional ketosis and keto-acidosis is explained.

NOTES:

Class 3—Taming Your Flame-Fat is Your Friend and the Keto Diet

The Ketogenic Food Plan supplies a different source of fuel for our mitochondria to utilize in the production of energy. Mitochondria are the “factories” inside each cell that produce energy for the body. We are familiar with the three macro-nutrients of protein, fats, and carbohydrates. We could easily include a fourth; ketones.

Ketones are derived from fat, and the body can burn them as fuel, just like glucose. However, where pro-inflammatory glucose/sugar supplies “dirty” fuel to our mitochondria, healthy fats and ketones supply “clean” fuel to our mitochondria and are anti-inflammatory. Damaged mitochondria lead to chronic inflammation and the increased risk of diabetes and neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and multiple sclerosis (MS). We are born in a ketogenic state and should return to it.

Class 4—Taming Your Flame-Adrenal Fatigue and Stressed Out Wired and Tired

DESCRIPTION:

This class is the fourth in the 5-part series Taming Your Flame; an online study course emphasizing the connection between chronic inflammation and chronic disease.
Stress is ubiquitous. It leads to chronic inflammation, and, like chronic inflammation, it is a silent killer.
“Stress is the salt of life.”–Hans Selye. Dr. Hans Selye’s pioneering work on “stress” created a new medical model for disease arising out of dysfunction.
The adrenal glands sit atop the kidneys and .produce the stress hormone cortisol, essential for life. However, prolonged cortisol production contributes to chronic inflammation, which, by now, the student recognizes as a driver of chronic disease.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• While some acute stress is normal, even desirable, chronic stress is not.
• The assignment of meaning determines our definition of what is stressful.
• Cortisol hormone, prolonged, leads to sex hormone and thyroid dysfunction.

NOTES:

Class 4—Taming Your Flame-Adrenal Fatigue and Stressed Out Wired and Tired

The relationship between stress and disease is now well established, but was not always recognized. It was Hans Selye who first incorporated this term into the medical lexicon to describe the “nonspecific response of the body to any demand“. Further, he put a physiological mechanism behind the concept that “it is more important to know what kind of person has the disease, that what disease the person has.” Dr. Hans Selye, who is known as the ‘father of stress research’, disavowed the study of specific disease signs and symptoms, unlike others before him, and instead focused on universal patient reactions to illness.

Short term stress is normal and life affirming; distress is not. The quality of our social relationships predicts our general health and mortality and our adjustment to stress. Unfortunately, our current social distancing has diminished this buffer against stress.

Class 5—Taming Your Flame-The Gut Affects Everything!

DESCRIPTION:

This class is the fifth and final in the 5-part series Taming Your Flame; an online study course emphasizing the connection between chronic inflammation and chronic disease.
Fittingly, this class on the gut connects all the dots the student has been exposed to up to now. Every person, every living system, has three prerogatives essential to their survival: bring in substances for energy; remove resultant waste; and protection of self. These capacities are dependent upon a healthy GI system, or gut.
Over a lifetime, a person will consume over 25 tons of food; digesting, absorbing, and protecting him/herself in the process. It is no wonder that 80% of our immune system is associated with the gut—the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT). Clearly, the gut affects everything!

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• The student gains a functional medicine appreciation for digestive physiology.
• The proper diet is just the beginning; digestion and absorption matter too.
• We are dependent upon our microbiome for life sustaining processes.

NOTES:

Class 5—Taming Your Flame-The Gut Affects Everything!

The GI mucosal membrane surface is the largest interface between our body and the outside world. It is about 200x the surface area of our skin. It protects us from ingested toxins and infections from viruses and bacteria. From a functional medicine perspective, the GI tract is the first and best place to look for the harbingers of chronic inflammation, the driver of chronic disease. All systems of the body are affected by disruptions in our GI tract; from cardiovascular, immune, mental, respiratory, skin, musculoskeletal, to gastrointestinal, and genitourinary.

Are we humans having bacterial experiences, or, are we bacteria having human experiences? Our bodies contain more microbial cells then human cells. They contain more microbial genes than human genes. Many of our brain hormones are actually produced in the gut. Pesticides and herbicides are deleterious because they kill our beneficial bacteria; bacteria we can not live without. Roundup’s glyphosate is one of the worst and should be banned from commercial and residential use.

The common thread weaving throughout these classes is that of chronic inflammation. Although known to physicians in ancient times, our modern understanding of inflammation is undergoing a “paradigm shift,” to paraphrase Thomas Kuhn. We now know that our health and wellness is not “hardwired” into our genes, but rather is an expression of our own unique story of interacting with our environment, ourselves, and each other.