Dr. Joe Tatta: Welcome back to the Healing Pain Summit. I am your host, Dr. Joe Tatta. Today we have a great topic and it’s going to really help you connect the dots between mood and people’s pain. So we’re talking about how balancing neurotransmitters can alleviate both pain and anxiety. And I have a really special guest here. Her name is Trudy Scott. She is the food mood expert. She’s a certified nutritionist and her goal is to educate and empower individuals worldwide about the effect of food on your mood. Um, she’s the author of the anti-anxiety food solution as well as the host of the anxiety summit, which is now in its fourth season. We’ll talk about that later. She’s passionate about sharing the powerful food mood connection because she experienced firsthand the complete resolution of her own anxiety when she started implementing proper food along with targeted supplementation. So Trudy Scott, welcome to the healing pain summit today.
Trudy Scott: Thanks, Joe. It is an excellent pleasure to be here and I’m excited to have all the other great speakers and to share this information as well.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Great. So I’m excited to start to connect the dots between anxiety and pain. Um, tell us, is this something you see normally in in your practice?
Trudy Scott: It’s really common and you know you are an expert in pain and this is why we’re doing this summit because it is such a common issue that so many people face and a lot of people will come to see me because of the anxiety issues because I’m known for for my expertise in this area. But then they will say I also got pain issues. I, you know, I’ve had proper myalgia for years. I get neck spasms, I have you know, well you know any kind of pain issues, stomach pain, PMs, cramps, you know that type of pain issue. So pain very, very common. And often when we start to address the biochemistry and bring people back into balance, the anxiety goes away, the mood improves and they start to see some term resolution in terms of their pain symptoms as well. And I’m not saying the balancing neurotransmitters is the only solution for resolution of pain.
Trudy Scott: It is one of the many solutions that I think, you know, is what we need to look at. We don’t want to just look for one solution. And the other thing is we all have this own unique biochemical individuality. So something may work for you, something may work for someone else. So I just think it’s really good to have the amino acids, which we’re going to talk about a little bit later in your toolbox as a possible option to help with the pain. And then of course they’re amazing for alleviating anxiety, depression, why we obsessive thinking and everything else and knows that the anxiety.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. That’s a great intro in to today’s topic. Um, you know, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on this summit, because I think the challenge with anxiety is we think, okay, if I want to treat my anxiety we go see a psychologist or we go see a, um, what I love about your approach is it’s kind of a food forward approach and you’re a nutritionist, which is so fascinating. So tell us how you have come to really kind of combine these two specialties.
Trudy Scott: Well, I got into this because of my own anxiety. So in my late thirties I was amazed. I had adrenal fatigue. I was burned out from working in corporate America. I discovered I had sensitivity a head. I was getting very menopause. And out of the blue I suddenly started to get really, really anxious. I had panic attacks. I would wake up in the videos with the speeding of dude. And it was crazy because I’m a rock climber. You know, I met my husband on a cliff face and we had our honeymoon in Kilimanjaro and clam big walls and zine. And I’ve done these crazy things on rough faces and to suddenly be struck down with this terrible anxiety. And these panic attacks was just Turkey out of character. And I thought, well, there’s gotta be something else. It’s not, you know, there was nothing in my life that was causing this.
Trudy Scott: And growing up in South Africa, we ate real whole foods. We didn’t go to the doctor a lot. And I just started to look for solutions in food and nutrients and worked with a wonderful naturopathic doctor and found this very powerful connection between what we eat and how we feel. And long story short, after of gluten, I added some of these amazing amino acids. Gabba was a fantastic amino acid that really, really helped me and I used to fan as well and my anxiety completely went away. The panic attacks stopped and that was a long journey. It took many, many months, actually a number of years and I’m still working on my house. I think we always always be on our health, but the amino acids gave me immediate resolution while I could figure out all these other things and it was really, really powerful and I just decided this is a message I need to share. And I went back to school, but my job became a nutritionist, write my books, I could share the message with more people and that’s where I am today sharing this message. So I’m really pleased to be here to share this. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. Congratulations. That’s a great story of recovery, which is the reason why I’m doing the summit is to show people that there’s always a way and there’s always a path to, you know, get yourself recovered. So. Well I really, I’m fascinated about the amino acids cause obviously protein, amino acids help your body heal. They help with muscle tissue generation. Um, so I want to talk about that, but before we do that, can we dive into medication a little bit because it’s fascinating cause I’ve taken, you know, as a physical therapist and we’ve taken pharmacology classes and you know, most people have in healthcare. Um, but it’s interesting cause the pain medications affect both pain and anxiety, but they can also have pitfalls or downfalls to them. Can you talk to us a little bit about those and you know, what you’ve experienced with your clients?
Trudy Scott: Yes. And I think it’s important to think about that, which is why I love the fact that you’re doing this summit because you are providing alternatives to some of these medications that can have some ramifications. So we know of a lot of the problems of the often see and I actually had to go and do it a little bit of digging for some of this information because my expertise is anxiety and I know that these nutrients help with pain. But to actually see these connections between some of these medications and mental health side effects, it’s pretty scary. So one of them was um ha, blue decode, court beautify quoted medication like hydrocortisone, which is very promenade described. Um, the, the adverse consequences for some people can be psychological, cognitive and behavioral effects. So you may get on a, uh, what does that mean, for example, for pain.
Trudy Scott: And then you might start to experience some mood problems as a side effect from the cortisone. So that’s just something to think about. And then the other one that I’m really, really, totally opposed to, I’ll be into that as a beans as they are very commonly prescribed for anxiety, for insomnia that also commonly prescribed for pain. I heard someone recently say she had dental surgery, so he had some nerve pain. She was given benzodiazepines and then suddenly she went into this whole mess of addiction tolerance, building up anxiety that she had never experienced and who laugh before panic attacks. So it can actually cause these mood problems. Very addicting, very difficult to get over for a lot of people. And you know, the physician’s desk references a maximum two weeks short term and people are put on them for long term. So I’m really, really against the beans that are as if things, and I had you speak on the anxiety summit talking about the effects that these beings that…have on us as well, you know, from a physical therapy point of view. And it was very, very interesting and scary to think what they do it.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Yeah, I think the challenge with them is, you know, we like, like you said, we can refer to the physician desk reference, um, and you know, read some basics about it. But I think those of us who are clinicians see that when people are put on these drugs for long term strategies, it really affects their health in not a positive way. You know, the, most of the medications we have are meant to be somewhere between, you know, seven days and maybe a max of three weeks after that. You know, we’ve got to look for other natural healthy solutions for people.
Trudy Scott: Right? And even, but even with benzodiazepines, even though they saying two weeks, some people get problems within a week. So I just think it’s, look for other options. Let some of these options that you’re talking about on the summit, if we can use those first, it’s not jumped to…as a first option. And I interviewed Dr. Catherine Pittman on one of the anxiety summits and she sees so many doctors are not even away, that it’s causing these problems, that people are not being given information when they’re being prescribed these medications. And if someone is listening to this and they on beans, those don’t just stop them politic, you know, do you need to be stopped really, really slowly, really, really slow type allotments and mans for some people and be aware that you may have some, you know, side effects withdrawing from him. So I just say it’s not the people on them in the first place.
Trudy Scott: Excellent. Excellent. And then the other one I wanted to mention, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Keep continue. So inside it’s like ibuprofen, very commonly prescribed for pain. A lot of people will, you know, just use them a lot, you know, take them for years and years and years for pain issues, back pain for example. And we know that there’s this connection between Gatos that can cause damage to the GED. But I actually saw a study that came out just this year showing that antidepressant combined with insights like ibuprofen are linked to a higher risk for a brain bleed. So that was very concerning. So the other things that we need to think about with medications is these are studied one at a time. They’re not often studied combined. And if you on two or three medications, do we even know what the effects are going to be? So that was a little bit concerning to me because so many people are on antidepressants as well.
Dr. Joe Tatta: That’s fascinating. I, you know, I think when we deal with people who have, you know, chronic persistent pain for a long time and obviously there are multiple causes, multiple symptoms. Oftentimes they’re put on multiple medications and this kind of, you know, poly-pharmacy starts. So you have one medication for the pain, one for the anxiety, one for their headaches, one for their gut. And you know, I can, can you go back and just tell us, so the two drugs that they saw in this study were ensades and what else? Right. What’s your, what’s your antidepressants, which a number of people who have chronic pain or put on antidepressants cause there was a link between the amount of serotonin and your perception to pain basically. Excellent. I love that. You know, one of the things I love about your work treaty is that, you know, you take the time to obviously go into the research and pull the data out and you know, give it to us in a way that we can digest it and apply it to our clinical practice, which is powerful. Talk to us about the amino acids. I know you use a lot of them in your practice and it really helps people.
Trudy Scott: Amino acids that can help with both pain and anxiety. And two of them are tryptofan Oh five ATP, you just mentioned serotonin. So the tryptofan or the five HTP raises serotonin. And then that helps with anxiety and it can help with pain as well. These a number of papers talking about the connection between raising serotonin, five HTP and reducing fibromyalgia pain. And then the other one that is directly related to anxiety and pain is Gabba at gamma aminobutyric acid. It’s a calming neurotransmitter and also very effective for pain. And then the other one that I really wanted to talk about today is D P a deepen or alanine. And this raises endorphins. And although this doesn’t have a direct correlation with anxiety, if you are someone who eats for comfort or eats for a ward or you eat because you feel like you deserve a treat, um, this could be related to learn orphans. And when you raise your endorphins with this amino acid called DPA, okay, is one of them being depleting you of certain nutrients? So in that way it may. So those three areas are very powerful in terms of helping to balance your neurotransmitters, to reduce your anxiety and also improve your pain.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. So let’s talk about five HTP for a second. So what are the, you know, what’s the lowest dose? Someone may start on, um, to see an improvement in their anxiety.
Trudy Scott: The last day is four. Five HTP is 50 milligrams and then the equivalent, um, in terms of tryptofan is 500 milligrams. So that’s just sort of starting recommendation and then we’ll go out from there. That not with, remember with serotonin we have the often in an evening cravings and we typically as someone take five HTP or trip to friend mid afternoon and evening because it helps with insomnia. It helps with a fibromyalgia top pain, TMJ as well. It can help with it as well. Um, the other symptoms of low serotonin, the, you know, the worry of course, the ruminating thoughts, the reprocessing in your head though the low serotonin symptoms in terms of anxiety and the hate, this sort of worry, the ruminating thoughts, excessive thinking type of behaviors. Sleep problems are also very common. Anger issues. And then of course the depression and the winter blues as well. So doing the five HTP or the trip to fan mid-afternoon.
Trudy Scott: Now you’d ask what’s the starting dose? I do have a few fear of my clients that are called pixie desk plants and they are very sensitive to very small amounts of the amino acids. And if they tell me that they are very sensitive real stock, they want something really low. So they will actually open up [inaudible] just take a dab, you know, with their finger, take a day if that. And that’s going to give them the benefit. So there’s no one size fits all. Some people need a very small amount, some do fine on the sort of average and insomnia at high amounts.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Great. So that’s excellent information. I want to just pull something from what you said about insomnia because people who have insomnia often have, or they’re more likely to have chronic pain type syndromes. So can you take us kind of through the, you know, central nervous system and talk about the cascade that happens when you take five HTP and how it helps you get to sleep better.
Trudy Scott: Well, what does the five HTP or the trip to fan and I know you lack five HTP as a first. I mean as it to track someone’s got lesser serotonin symptoms. I prefer trip to fan. And as practitioners we all have our lacks and the slacks. So where they use to field trip to fan at both of both of those will help to raise serotonin. So, um, and when you, but low serotonin you can have insomnia, I will see problems and then it can pop, you know, if you’ve got the pain issues that could possibly help with those pain issues as well.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. So obviously, you know, you wrote the book called the anti-anxiety food solution. Um, talk to us just a little bit about food. Where should someone start if they have anxiety, where’s, how do they start looking at their diet and saying, okay, maybe there some things I need to improve?
Trudy Scott: Well, we want to be eating real whole food. So bang back to basics. Eating back, our grandparents say towards your grandparents didn’t eat too well. Maybe your great grandparents. I was fortunate as I stayed in South Africa, we ate real food. We didn’t even have McDonald’s when I was growing up, so I had a really good start. But eating real whole food. Um, I’m a big fan of protein. You mentioned the amino acids ODN being official protein. So I’m a big fan of crossfade red meat and wild fish. You going to get all the beautiful and mega threes, which is wonderful for both mood and for reducing inflammation and pain. When it comes to things like processed foods, you’re getting trans fats, which have been shown to was increased anger issues, uh, in police information. Uh, we’ve got additives in foods like colors and artificial flavors and things which can have a direct impact on your mood.
Trudy Scott: And then the other thing that we’ve bought is his two sides and his quite a number of studies showing a connection between high F foods containing high levels of pesticides and increased anxiety and depression. A lot of the studies are looking at farmers and you would expect it to be a lot of problems because they are exposed to a lot of pesticides. But even in studies where they are low levels of pesticide residues in foods and we see a connection and interesting study looked at kids and with ADHD and when they took out the non organic foods out of the bat and gave them organic foods, their symptoms are juiced. So that’s a very small amount but a really big impact. And then we can see some of the things when it comes to me. So real whole foods, healthy fats, plenty of produce, uh, fermented foods are great, bone broths are really heating up the digestive system.
Trudy Scott: And then the big one is gluten. Gluten is a big factor. Gluten sensitivity is a big factor with many of my clients and real have. Obviously paying can be affected if you’ve the gluten issues. We know rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, um, any kind of autoimmune condition, removal of gluten can definitely help. A lot of people don’t make the connection between gluten and mental health, but there’s a lot of neurological and mental health symptoms. We can see if you’ve read to do the sensitivity. So removal of gluten and for some people all brands can be problematic. So it’s really individualized to each person’s own unique back chemistry. But that’s the premise adding in lots of liquids. Roybal S T is one of my favorites. It’s a Southern African herbal tea, no to the caffeine. Caffeine is dehydrating. It’s got the caffeine which can make you more anxious. And oil was taken actually help with the cortisol balancing. So I’m a big fan of word was tea and filtered water, fermented beverages. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.
Dr. Joe Tatta: No, that’s it. I think we had a whole tour of the supermarket. Right? Yeah. Um, excellent. So obviously you run the anxiety summit, you’re in your fourth season now. Um, it was a pleasure to be on your summit, but you also work with clients one-on-one. So tell us, uh, you know, give us an example of someone who you work with where you saw their anxiety and their pain change and how did you get them to that point?
Trudy Scott: So one plant that I had was a gentleman, um, who had actually had a really big sugar cravings. He also had really bad anxiety and it was the anxiety and the head kind of anxiety that he also had really stiffened muscles. He was also on pain medications for a construction injury. You’d actually fallen off a ladder and he had, um, he was on some pretty heavy dose, high dose pain medication and we, but I’m on some of the, you know, made some dietary changes, made some recommendations and everything that we just talked about. But in order to get off some of the foods that he was addicted to, which was the braids and the cookies in the case, the aminos were very effective. So right away adding in the tryptophan help with the afternoon and the evening craving, the Gabba helped with the stiff and tense muscles. Now I talked a little bit earlier about people needing smaller, smaller man.
Trudy Scott: Sometimes now with GABAA, the starting amount of fat typically uses 125 milligrams. A lot of people will go to the store and they’ll buy seven 50 milligrams, which is often way too half a lot of people. This gentleman needed the very high amounts so that, you know, it can be a very big range depending on your, you know, what’s going on with you. And I think it was because of the actual injury that he had and he was able to reduce his medication substantially, um, and feel less different things in the muscles and sleep better because of the trip to fan, which was helping insomnia and the pain and the cravings. And then they gave her, which was very effective for some of the pain that he was having. Now the other one that we added was the DPA and I quote DPA, you know, acupuncture in a, in a pill because you know, we now have acupuncture raises the endorphins and DPA can do the same as well. And, um, I found the DPA to be very, very effective for a lot of my clients with pain issues, myself included when I’ve had any kind of injury. Um, the DPA and the Gabba have been fantastic for me. I just love it.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Hmm. Excellent. So how fast can someone experience symptom relief once they start getting these, you know, essential aminos into their diet?
Trudy Scott: Well, when I’m working with someone, I will have them do a trial in the first session, so I’ll have them use my, my amino acid questionnaire and we’ll see which category they fall into. Do they fall into low serotonin, like ever loaned orphans? And there’s two other categories that we haven’t talked about it, no blood sugar in the low catercorner means, but we looking to see which area that they fall into. We’ll decide are there pixie does person or not. And then we’ll do a trial there and then in that first session, and I’ll have them open up the capsule, put it on their tongue and we’ll get feedback within five minutes, have their symptoms gone from a nine to an eight out of 10 with 10 being worst. Had they gone from a nine to a six, that’s a good result. So we’ll get results really quickly.
Trudy Scott: And then over the course of the week, they will be trying it throughout the day, right? They symptoms at the end of that week. If they’ve seen substantial improvements sets. If we know we’ve, you know, we’ve hit a home run, if not the mil increase until we get no more benefit. So if the amino acids are needed and they’re not needed by everyone, but if you are low in these particular neurotransmitters and you use these amino acids on the urn at targeted for your unique needs, you can get results within five minutes and within a week you’re going to know if they’re going to work. If they’re not working within a week, it’s the wrong brand, it’s not enough or you don’t need it. And then you stopped. So it’s not something that you have to take for Manson Manson then and say, well, you know, are they working on their notch? Should I take more? The other thing is some people say they don’t feel so good on name or they feel dizzy or that should not be severe. Should I continue to take them? No. If you don’t feel good on them, it means that you don’t need them. And then you want to stop.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. Great, great powerful take-home solutions right there. So you and I have spoken, I know you had your own kind of grapple and um, issue with pain a couple of months ago. Can you share your story with us and how you got over that?
Trudy Scott: Yes. I was actually rear ended, um, in a motor vehicle and had whiplash and uh, I’ve never had a whiplash before, but I have experienced pain back pain problems over the course of, you know, my last, and I’m a rock climber, so I’ve had injuries and so I kind of knew how to deal with back pain. It wasn’t a totally new thing to me. So I did what I always did. I went to a physical therapist, which is exit the amazing, I think anytime you have any kind of physical injury or pain, go to physical therapist, it’s just going to speed the healing. So much quick that, so I love what you do and I just think, you know, physical therapists are just amazing. And then I, you know, I started to use some of the amino acids and Gabba high levels of high amounts of GABAA was amazing just to help with that stuff.
Trudy Scott: Contains muscles, the DPA Defaynl MNN I used as well. And that really just takes the pain levels down, you know, quite a few notches. And uh, tryptofan helped, uh, to help with the sleep and the pain that I was having at night. And the other, the other thing that I use always went up a lot of pain issues getting on his magnesium and I found that to be very, very helpful. And then of course, you know, the other things, heat and ice and everything else that goes with it. But all of that together was just amazing. And you know, this accident happened when I was inside. I forgot I had to fly back to the U S and I was worried about sitting in a plane for 24 hours. And um, all of these combined with an eighth brace while I was flying was amazing. And um, you know, as good as new again, which is wonderful.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. So there’s your fully integrated approach, finding your physical therapy along with your aminos and neuro-transmitters. Um, so tell us about your next summit that you have coming up.
Trudy Scott: The nix summit is seasoned full. It’s going to be in November and folks can go to the anxiety summit.com if they want to get on the notification list. Um, just have, you know, I just love doing them. I just love bringing experts like yourself and other experts in various different areas that can help with people with anxiety. And it’s uh, people love it. They say it just, it’s a, a lack of bouquet of hope is some feedback I had from one of the other summits and I know that that’s why we do these summits so we can share this information. And, and educate and empower people because I think we all deserve to feel our absolute best all the time. And there’s an answer out there for everyone, whether you’ve got pain issues or whether you’ve got anxiety issues, it’s just a matter of finding out what the root causes or the root causes. There may be a few of them and getting to those, solving them so you can feel on top of the world again.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. So just one more time, share with us the, um, the website for the anxiety summit,
Trudy Scott: the anxiety summit.com.
Dr. Joe Tatta: Excellent. So I’ve been speaking with Trudy Scott, who is a certified nutritionist. She is a food mood expert. Read her book, the anti-anxiety food solution, as well as sign up for season four of the anxiety summit. I want to thank our for being with us today and sharing some powerful solutions and we’ll see you soon on the Healing Pain Summit.
