Category: Mental & Emotional Health

  • Fibromyalgia Is NOT All in Your Head: Tami Stackelhouse on Symptoms, Remission, and Hope

    Fibromyalgia Is NOT All in Your Head: Tami Stackelhouse on Symptoms, Remission, and Hope

    Do you live with widespread pain, persistent fatigue, poor sleep, or brain fog—even though medical tests keep coming back normal? Or is someone you love struggling with symptoms that other people cannot see or understand? Fibromyalgia can be physically debilitating and emotionally isolating, especially when patients are told that their suffering is exaggerated or “all in their head.”

    In Episode 152 of The Dr. Haley Show, Dr. Michael Haley speaks with Tami Stackelhouse about what fibromyalgia feels like, how it is diagnosed, what other conditions can resemble or accompany it, and why meaningful improvement may still be possible even when the cause is uncertain.

    Tami shares her progression from years of unexplained symptoms to disability and, eventually, what her physician described as fibromyalgia remission. The conversation explores sleep disorders, thyroid disease, trauma, medication, nutrition, pacing, mindset, faith, and the different roles that doctors, coaches, and patients can play. You will also hear an important distinction between findings supported by published research and conclusions drawn from Tami’s personal and coaching experience.

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    Quick Takeaway

    Fibromyalgia is a real condition, but it does not look identical in every person. Pain, fatigue, poor sleep, and brain fog may be influenced or amplified by other problems, including thyroid disease, sleep disorders, migraines, ME/CFS, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or unresolved sources of pain. Tami’s central message is that a lack of answers from one provider does not mean that no answers or helpful options exist.

    Her approach emphasizes listening to the body, improving sleep, pacing available energy, addressing coexisting conditions, building an appropriate care team, and making manageable changes consistently. Outcomes vary, and Tami distinguishes her personal and coaching observations from conclusions established through clinical research.

    Episode Timestamps

    00:00 Fibromyalgia is real
    00:45 Could these symptoms be fibromyalgia?
    03:56 Tami’s fibromyalgia story
    08:19 How is fibromyalgia diagnosed?
    09:04 What causes fibromyalgia?
    10:28 What fibromyalgia remission means
    13:00 Conditions that mimic or overlap with fibromyalgia
    16:56 Physical, emotional, and medical trauma
    20:51 Are you the expert on your own body?
    25:02 The patient’s role versus the doctor’s role
    27:24 Hashimoto’s, sleep disorders, and hidden contributors
    30:07 Can medication help break the pain cycle?
    33:22 Why Tami recommends a doctor and a coach
    34:44 Pacing: budgeting your limited energy
    36:09 What does a fibromyalgia coach do?
    41:21 Mindset and treating your body with kindness
    43:54 Fibromyalgia, faith, and finding purpose
    46:00 How many people can substantially improve?
    47:52 Why aren’t researchers studying remission?
    50:02 What people who improve have in common
    51:34 Protein, nutrition, and practical food choices
    58:30 Tami’s books, podcast, quiz, and coaches
    1:01:32 Final words of hope
    1:02:47 Scientific evidence that fibromyalgia is real

    Medical Disclaimer

    This podcast and article are provided for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. The experiences and opinions discussed are those of the speakers and should not replace diagnosis or treatment from a qualified healthcare professional. Do not begin, discontinue, or change any medication, supplement, diet, or treatment based solely on this episode.

    Full Transcript

    The transcript has been lightly formatted for readability. Because it was created from the recorded conversation, it may contain minor transcription errors.

    Read the Full Transcript

    00:00 — Fibromyalgia Is Real

    fibromyalgia is a real condition, like it’s a real thing where things are actually going wrong in your body.

    It’s not something that you just created yourself in your mind,

    You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life.

    Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition Dr. Michael Haley.

    This is the Dr Haley Show podcast. I’m Dr Michael Haley, your show host. Do you live with unexplained pain or persistent fatigue or poor sleep or brain fog, even though your medical tests keep coming back normal? Or perhaps someone you love is struggling with symptoms that other people simply cannot see or understand? Today’s conversation can help you recognize the patterns of fibromyalgia, understand how it overlaps with conditions such as chronic fatigue, and learn practical first steps that could help you regain some control over your health and daily life.

    My guest is Tami Stackelhouse, an award winning author, fibromyalgia wellness expert, and founder of the International Fibromyalgia Coaching Institute. Tami was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2007 and eventually became disabled by her symptoms. After working with a health coach and developing a more individualized approach to manage her health, she says her fibromyalgia went into remission. Today, Tami trains fibromyalgia coaches, hosts the

    Fibromyalgia podcast and helps people better understand and manage this complex and often invisible condition.

    She’s also the executive producer of the fibromyalgia documentary Invisible Tami Welcome to the Dr Haley show. You know, I usually really, truly vet my guests. And this is true. I popped up a video to find out more about you. Instantly fell in love with you. I love your energy and I think I know where it comes from. I think I know where you get your your your secret sauce behind the energy and happiness you have in your life.

    I perceive there’s something special in there that gives that to you. But welcome to the show. We are going to be talking about fibromyalgia. And yes, you know, I would love to start with probably something that might be the most offensive thing someone can say to someone

    that has fibromyalgia. Just just deal with it. Get over with it.

    Suck it up. Come on. It’s in your head. Oh, God.

    You’ve probably heard that before. Yes, very much so. In fact, it’s so funny. We’re talking about this. I actually got an email from actually a teenager yesterday who was fighting that exact problem from her mom and from her doctors. And, you know, that is the thing that will set me off. Okay. Like, you want to make me mad.

    Let’s get this show started with a bang.

    03:56 — Tami’s Fibromyalgia Story

    Well, it’s just it’s just so hard. Yeah. Tell us your story. When did you find out you had fibromyalgia? When did you notice symptoms? And how did you figure out exactly what it was? And what’s your background? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So if we go all the way back to the very beginning,

    I was that little kid that had issues all the time.

    And, I mean, my parents used to joke that they would take me to the doctor for maintenance. Right. Not so much that something happened. And now she, you know, needs to go to the doctor. But like, I was at the doctor all the time, there were always things

    going on. And I don’t know, like looking back, how much of that would be fibromyalgia?

    But it’s also not surprising that I, you know, ended up with fibromyalgia later in life. I would say I really started noticing symptoms and really started thinking myself that this might be what I was dealing with. I was in my late 20s and I was, you know, reading all the books, doing all the research, not getting answers at my doctor.

    And then after I got married in 2006, my husband’s insurance got to switch, you know, doctors out of an HMO. I will just say that. And that’s when I finally started getting answers and was finally diagnosed in 2007. But I personally had thought that that was what I was dealing with for, I don’t know, five years maybe before I finally got a diagnosis, you know, let me drift outside of the fibromyalgia discussion for just a second because you mentioned HMO.

    So I’m going to help people understand what that really is and why things may have changed. Because I am a physician. And in well, it was around 1995, I was actually working in another doctor’s office at the time, because we have to do so many hours, like an internship type setting, and this won’t reveal which one it was, because I actually split up among a couple of different doctors, but I was seeing his patients, and this one guy took more time than, you know, he was acceptable in the office.

    And when I came out, he said, what are you doing? You were in with that patient for 15 minutes. He said, get them in, get them out. They have this HMO and we only get $6 for that visit. Get them in, get them out. That was yes So how can we possibly if I’m going to get you in and get you out?

    How can I possibly do anything beyond maybe write a prescription? Okay. You got pain. Okay, here it is. Gotta go. And then you got real insurance where doctors could actually maybe dig a little deeper. And how important was that? Oh my goodness. So important. I mean, the HMO that I was part of and I’m not naming names here, but they were really, really fantastic.

    If you had a problem that fit inside their box. So I had been diagnosed with TMJ issues and they had a whole program they put me through for that and it was fantastic. But then getting a diagnosis of fibromyalgia or even suspecting I had fibromyalgia, like I had actually messaged my doctor and said, hey, I think I might be dealing with this.

    And her assistant that wrote back said, I’m not sure what that is, but why don’t you come in and we’ll help you? I did not make that appointment. I’m like, if you don’t even know what I’m talking about, how are you going to help me? You know?

    but you’re so right.

    I think there was a study done that showed Kaiser had an average of, like, six minute doctor visits.

    Right? And I mean, fibromyalgia is so complicated. People will notice just our conversation today, right, is going to be more than six minutes. And so sharing

    your history, telling your doctor like what is going on, especially when you have something that is invisible, it doesn’t show up on blood tests. It’s not going to show up on an x ray that conversation.

    08:19 — Diagnosis, Causes, and Remission

    Let’s explore that a little deeper here. So in other words, there’s not a test for it. No there isn’t. I mean

    there is one out there, but it has issues. So does that mean we’re looking at markers more like, you know, you’re likely to have higher this or higher that or something like that. Yes. But also looking at the actual symptoms themselves.

    So how long have you felt this way. What’s your pain like? Do you have the brain fog? Do you have the poor sleep? Do you have the fatigue? Is there something else that can explain this? And fibromyalgia is not a diagnosis

    of exclusion. Meaning you can’t have anything else to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It can be a both and.

    But we also don’t want to just stamp a label fibromyalgia on there when maybe you’re just hypothyroid Right What causes it? Good question that we actually don’t know the answer to, which isn’t such a bad thing for someone hearing this, you know, and saying, you know, this sounds like me. I have, you know, fatigue and pain and stuff.

    Not knowing what causes it does not mean there’s no help for it. a hundred percent. I like to use the parable of the blind men and the elephants. Right. The blind men come across an elephant and each one is touching different parts of the elephant, and one says, elephant is like a wall, and another one gets the tail and says, no, no, no, no.

    It’s like a snake. And that’s kind of where we’re at with fibromyalgia. There are a lot of people out there who are saying, oh, this is what fibromyalgia is. But the reality is

    we actually don’t know and we don’t totally know what the disease process is. Right? So exactly what is causing the pain, exactly what is, you know, is are these symptoms all cause from the same thing or as one causing the other?

    Like, there’s just so many things we don’t know. But to your point, just because we

    don’t know doesn’t mean you can’t feel better. Yeah. Like, well. So if we don’t know what causes

    What is remission? Good question. I want to be super clear up front here that I did not choose that word. That was actually something my doctor told me, that she considered me to be in remission. It’s a medical diagnosis. So it’s not just, you know, Oh, I’m healed. I don’t like that word either. It’s not that. No, I don’t like that weren’t either because it kind of sounds like, oh, it just it disappeared.

    But it’ll probably come back and get me later. And it takes away your power. It’s almost like saying you have no choice in this. You have no say in it. Yep. And so I don’t like that word. Exactly. No, no. Me neither. So remission is really. I mean, you could think of it like we use the word with cancer, right?

    Like, it’s a

    ending of the symptoms. It’s, you know, you’re not finding

    any issues. Right. So I haven’t had any fibro pain since 2018.

    It’s been almost ten years now. I have the energy to do the things I want to do. My brain works. I’ve written a couple of books. Right? Like

    that’s what remission means with fibromyalgia.

    And I think it’s also important to I have to stop you. I gotta because I love the title of your book, Take Back Your Life. Yeah, that’s what it’s all about, right? That is totally what it’s all about. And

    remission can happen even on medications. So I think sometimes we look at all the options and we feel like it only counts if we don’t use any tools.

    And some of those tools might be medications. Some of those tools might be certain therapies. Epsom salt baths, like there’s lots of tools,

    but it’s really all about the symptoms. But you’re right,

    it’s also all about taking back your life.

    this is one of the problems I see in the fibromyalgia world is that we get so caught up in how do I manage my symptoms that we forget that managing symptoms is not the same thing as being able to live your life.

    And I am all about the second, right? I mean, yes, learning how to manage your symptoms and learning how to listen to your body and all those things are important

    but we do that so that we can go live our lives. And if we forget that second piece, then, you know, I’m just going to bed on time to go to bed on time.

    That ain’t happened. You know, it’s we have to connect that to why am I even doing this in the first place? And we’ve got to have those lives that are actually worth living. Yeah. Tell me about some other diagnoses that might be around or might mimic fibromyalgia

    13:00 — Overlapping Conditions and Possible Triggers

    or that kind of go hand in hand or are confused with.

    So I already mentioned one. Hypothyroidism. Thyroid disease is something that I go over in all my classes and talk to all my clients about, because if you look at a list of symptoms from having a low functioning thyroid, they look an awful lot like fibromyalgia, right? Joint pain,

    brain fog, you know, all those things, right? Low energy.

    So that is for sure. One, Things like chronic fatigue

    syndrome, ME/CFS, that can have an overlap, though there are differences. Things like EDS, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, I see a lot of overlap with that

    there’s really just a lot of things. And I think something that happens in the body, especially when we have something with chronic pain, is there’s a certain point where there’s like this switch that gets flipped and we sort of like flip over into fibromyalgia.

    Like,

    I personally believe

    that there’s a pretty big genetic component, right? Because you can have two people, one person ends up, you know, same car accident, one ends up with fibromyalgia, one doesn’t. Right. So I think there’s a genetic component, but then there’s a trigger. And that trigger is usually some kind of physical trauma mental emotional trauma, chronic stress like

    there is a thing that sets it off, right?

    Like maybe the car accident. And so

    there can be a lot of overlap with other things because those other things come first and then that switch gets flipped. So the way that I like to explain sort of the difference, like let’s say you have rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, the fibromyalgia part is the amplification of everything. Fibromyalgia is an amplifier.

    So if you go to the doctor and the doctor says you shouldn’t hurt that much, that is a fibro thing, right? Or if you maybe you have arthritis in your knee from an old injury, but now you’re hurting everywhere else too right that that expansion of the pain to other places. That’s a fibro thing. So fibromyalgia will take whatever you’ve got going on and amplify it.

    So I think anybody who’s dealing with chronic pain sort of has this I don’t want to say risk exactly. Potential, let’s say potential

    of developing fibromyalgia if we don’t learn how to manage that pain.

    Yeah, so the ACEs score is something that has been used a lot in adverse childhood experiences, and they have associated a higher ACEs score with chronic illnesses like fibromyalgia. And what’s interesting about your question is that my ACEs score is zero. However, however, however, one of the things that’s not measured on the little ACEs quiz is medical trauma

    And I had. So I mean, I mentioned at the beginning, right,

    I was seeing the doctor all the time, but I had a surgery to open my tear ducts when I was not even a year old. And back in the early 70s, we thought, you know, babies don’t really. They’re not going to remember. So we don’t have to give any pain management.

    My mom has always said that watching that happen was the hardest thing she ever did, right? So, I mean, I don’t remember it, but I think the cells in our bodies do. So I do think there is some trauma, but it was trauma done in the name of help, right? Like good medicine. Like I don’t think I was abused medically or anything like that.

    They were just hard things. Right? Right. And so yes, I would say there are some of those kinds of things,

    but like traditional trauma. No, I never

    associated myself with that at all until I started thinking about the medical side of things and all the things I went through as a kid there. Yeah. The reason I think it’s important, though, as a chiropractor, I noticed that there are triggers for people’s pain.

    Certain emotional triggers will cause people to have sciatic pains as an example. They’re often related. It’s not necessarily just physical. And, you know, you might sit with your feet up while watching TV, putting stress on the ligaments in the back of your knee. And now you have knee pain. So you know, it’s a trigger or standing wrong could cause back pain.

    Or sleeping on the couch sideways watching TV could cause a neck pain. There are things we do that cause our pain and problems, and if we don’t identify them and stop doing them, it keeps on coming back because we’re, you know, pulling the trigger. Yes, yes. And it’s such a hard thing to like, explain that to people without also crossing the line into blaming the patient for their illness.

    Right. Like there is our own agency, right? Like there are absolutely things that I can do that will help me, you know, get better. And things that I will do that will help me get worse. But most people are walking around out there and they have no idea. Right. And so can we totally blame someone for the things that they just don’t know any better?

    And also like, some bodies just are wired a certain way and have issues and are more sensitive and you know, all of those things. So it’s like it’s a complicated conversation. Yeah. For the people listening. And we’re going to get to some of the things you can do to help yourself. But I got some other things I got to get out of the way here.

    20:51 — Becoming an Expert on Your Own Body

    I need an explanation here. And I think we’re going to find that we think very differently. This is a Tami Stackelhouse quote. There is no one that is more of an expert in your body than you. What did you mean by that? I mean that there is nobody else that lives in your body that knows what things feel like, that knows how you are experiencing life.

    So specifically, since we’re talking about fibromyalgia and talking about things like chronic pain and fatigue, nobody else knows how that feels, right? Like, not for real. Like you. Maybe you’ll talk to me. And I’ve had fibromyalgia too, and I know what fibromyalgia felt like for me. And so I kind of know, but I don’t really know because I don’t live in your body.

    Same thing with fatigue or brain fog or anything else like that.

    I’m not saying we’re all our own doctors, you know. It’s not, it’s not. But we kind of are. But what we but we yeah, you’re right. We kind of are. And

    we are the ones who I mean, how many times have you heard somebody say, I just knew something was wrong, right?

    And then maybe they end up diagnosed with cancer or whatever. Right. And they just I knew something was wrong. I think we have to listen to that. And all too often we are sort of talked out of that. Yeah, right. Like

    oh there’s you know where we started, right. Oh there’s nothing really wrong. Yeah. You know, and I actually think there’s more to what you’re saying there than what you just said.

    You know, there’s no one that is more of an expert in your body than you. And we have this source of knowledge, I’ll say, a source of knowledge. We have this life that’s in us that somehow takes the food we eat and knits it into more tissue and replaces dead bad cells with new ones. And that’s, you know, my doctor in me doing those things and my doctor in me can’t do those for you, only your doctor.

    in you can do those things for you. But your doctor needs certain things, and they’re probably different than my doctor. My body needs certain things. And

    when we pay attention to our body, I think we’re really given the information about what we need. We just don’t always listen or we choose to disobey. I know this isn’t good for me.

    I know this is not going to make me feel good, but I really want it.

    You know, the

    flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these things are contrary to each other so that you cannot do what you want. But if you pay attention and make the good decisions and disobey your flesh sometimes because you know it is good and you’re making a good choice, you are probably going to do better and your doctor is probably going to work better.

    But that’s right, if you choose to do the things that your flesh desires and you know, I really I really want to eat this. I love ice cream. I really, personally, I haven’t had ice cream in about five years. Not because, you know, I’m any, you know, spiritual giant and I can say no to everything that’s bad. I would just rather eat meat and potatoes.

    Yeah. And I think

    some of all of that is learning how to pay attention to our bodies again

    and noticing how different things make us feel. Right. So I have a lot of clients who try going gluten free, just, you know, it’s about 50/50, I’d say, whether it helps or not for people, but it’s definitely worth trying.

    And at a certain point people realize, oh, you know, yes, that bread looks amazing, but I kind of like feeling like this more than I like how I’ll feel if I eat that. Right? But

    if you’re not paying attention, if you’re not making those associations, if you’re not like connecting the dots. And I think

    that’s where people outside the doctor’s outside the coaches outside your body can be helpful with that, connecting those dots.

    Right.

    then we make different choices, like you said. Yeah. Well, how much of getting well from fibromyalgia well and how many people can get well from fibromyalgia, but how much is up to them and how much is up to the doctor.

    I can’t say everybody can get to a place like where I am because there

    are other issues, right.

    Like other things come alongside. And if you’ve got, you know, maybe you’re in a bad car accident and you’ve got like damage in your body, like some of those things, there’s only like a certain point we can get to. But fibromyalgia itself, I help people all the time get to a point where fibromyalgia is not bothering their lives, and I don’t want to say like zero, because of course there’s always other things.

    But getting to a point where you can live the life that you want to live, and that’s what it’s all about. But as far as like what your doctor can do for you versus what you can do for you, I’ll actually quote my doctor. I had gotten a lot better and was telling her about it, and she’s like, you did the really hard 98% and I did the easy 2%.

    And, you know, I think that’s probably about right. Like

    even if you do have a fantastic doctor, even if you have the full support of an amazing team, at the end of the day, you go home and you’re the only person who can take care of you, right? You are the one who has to go to bed.

    You’re the one who has to make the choice about what you’re eating. You’re the one who has to listen or not listen to your body. It’s like if you only went to the dentist to clean your teeth and you never brush your teeth at home, right? There’s a country comedian redneck. He does this redneck bit, and he was talking about going to the dentist, and the dentist asked me, when’s the last time you floss your teeth?

    He said, last time I floss my teeth,

    he said, you did it. Yeah. You got to take care of your own teeth and brush daily. And going to the dentist and having your teeth cleaned once every six months probably isn’t going to do it. And it’s the same, like you just said. It’s the same way when it comes to your health and the other things that you’re doing, I completely agree.

    27:24 — Sleep, Thyroid Health, and Medication

    What are what was the 2% that the doctor did for me? It was uncovering some of the other things that were going on that we didn’t know were contributing. So figuring out that I have Hashimoto’s autoimmune thyroid, and I have learned that I have something called upper airway resistance syndrome, basically like

    sleep apnea. I was waking up 45 times an hour every 80 seconds is how that math works out.

    So of course I was tired and not getting sleep is going to interfere with getting well and cause more pain. How did you fix that? Yeah. CPAP machine. Yeah. I wouldn’t even take a five minute nap. Wow. Without my machine. Yeah, it just for me, it made such a difference. I mean, think about it. Difference between waking up every 80 seconds and maybe waking up once an hour, or maybe not even that much.

    Yeah. And, you know, I’ve always told people that there’s certain things you can do for your health, and one of them is getting proper rest. Yeah. If you don’t get that, like, that’s the foundation for everything. And, you know, for me,

    the last two times that I have had any fibromyalgia pain, it was because I slept on a bed that was too hard.

    I was traveling, I was in London. The penthouse we were staying in just had this really, really hard bed. And the first day I woke up, I was like, oh no, I think I’m coming down with the flu, right? I was just like achy all over. I was tired and then I was like, oh, that’s my old friend fibromyalgia.

    And so

    what I actually had to do on that trip was we folded up some extra blankets, made some extra padding on the bed. I actually had to take pain meds before I went to bed to manage the pain from the hard bed so that I got good sleep, and when I did those things

    I felt normal again.

    But that to me was such a perfect example of if that had been my bed right, I would not be in remission. Yeah, something as simple as that. A lot of times I, you know, speak out against using medicine. And my take has always been that we use too much medicine, but there is a trade. You probably knew that taking a pain reliever isn’t good for you, but it is because it was buying you rest, which you needed.

    So it’s a trade off and there’s definitely a time and place for it. Absolutely. And one of the things I like to say is sometimes we have to take medication so that we can not take medication, right. With fibromyalgia and with this switch that gets flipped in our nervous system, we have to break that pain cycle. And if we don’t break the pain cycle, we can’t get out of it.

    And often that means medication temporarily, temporarily might even look like a couple of years, right? There are things that I was on for. I think one of them I was on for maybe six years total that I am not taking now, but I also believe if I hadn’t taken it, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Right? So sometimes we have to.

    It’s a tool. well it supports another thing that I often say, and that is the purpose of medicine, is to buy you time, but it should be accompanied with a plan to get off it. You’re doing you’re making changes to fix the reason that’s causing you to need it. Yep, yep. And sometimes there are things that like, I am always going to be on thyroid hormone.

    My it’s just it is what it is, you know.

    but that doesn’t mean I can do all the things that make that worse. Right? I can’t like put all of my whatever into this medicine is going to fix everything, right? There is definitely a time and a place for it, but it has to come with me taking care of me, right?

    The medicine can’t take care of me. I’m the one who has to take care of me, and the medicine might be part of it. It’s a

    a mental shift. I think that a lot of patients need to make and a lot of providers need to make. Really? Yeah. But I personally and I wouldn’t say stop taking your medicine, but I would still look at it and say, okay, is there a way that I can better support my,

    thyroid and what’s causing the thyroid issue?

    Can I make changes to my nutrition, for instance? Are there supplements that I can take that would stimulate this or that or, you know, is it related to a leaky gut? Can I improve that

    33:22 — Doctors, Coaches, and Pacing

    when we’re getting well from fibromyalgia? Do I need a team of doctors? Do I need a coach? What’s what’s your from your experience, what do you think the best path is?

    Honestly, the absolute best path is, I believe a coach I had had and you need a doctor. We’ll talk about the doctor separately though. I had been working

    with honestly a great doctor for about two years and wasn’t really seeing much improvement. She was telling me all the things to do and I was really struggling to do them right, like to actually make the dietary changes she was recommending, to actually go to bed on time to learn pacing, like all of those things.

    And that’s where my coach was helpful. I would meet with her once a week. Can we back up? Yeah, yeah. So in other words, the doctor was telling you the right things to do, but you would only have so many doctor visits. So there wasn’t maybe like an accountability. Is that the difference? Yes. Yes. And the time spent too.

    Right. So you know traditional doctor system. Right. 15 minutes and you’re not seeing them weekly. Okay. My coach I saw weekly and we usually met for about an hour. And you said something about pacing. What’s pacing, how you use the energy that you have. It’s budgeting your energy. Yeah. Like you would budget your money. You only have so much.

    How do you want to spend it? Right. And being conscious of those choices, I mean, I could give you a more medical answer,

    that’s really what it’s about, is making those choices on how you want to spend your limited energy, because if you exhaust it, what happens?

    Well, I like to say that healing takes energy, right? So if you’re falling into bed at the end of the day and

    you have used every shred of energy that you have, there isn’t anything left for your body to actually improve, right? So you are going to basically be treading water or maybe even sliding backwards

    if you do that.

    The other thing is, if we’re not conscious about how we’re spending our energy, we’re going to be

    spending it on things that aren’t as important.

    Like all the demands on us, right? We end up giving our families and ourselves the leftovers.

    And pacing is really about being more intentional, being more purposeful, making sure you’re spending your energy on the things that create the life that you want to have, and that it’s different for everybody, right?

    Sure. What’s important? Sure. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So I find a coach, and I know that we can find them through your website. Right. Okay. Yeah. That are actually specifically trained and certified in coaching through fibromyalgia. What are some of the areas in if I have fibromyalgia and I find myself a coach, what are some of the areas in my life that are going to be addressed?

    So it does depend a little bit on which coach that you choose. I mean there’s a certain amount of training that I

    give all of them, but they also come with their own backgrounds right. So one of our coaches, Dr Robyn, she was a psychotherapist for 25 plus years. Right. So what you would do with her is different than what you would do with me, because I don’t have that background.

    So depending on the coach, you know, we’ll just kind of set those things aside. There might be extra things, but we’re going to be looking at how you’re spending your energy,

    how you’re living in the body that you have.

    So I think of a lot of these things as sort of the lifestyle piece of stuff.

    How are you? What are you eating? How are you moving all of those things? How do you sleep? We’re also going to help you figure out what those other things are that are going wrong in your body. We’re not doctors. We’re not diagnosing, we’re not treating. But we can say, you know, that thing right there? That sounds like something else.

    Have you had your thyroid checked? Have you had a sleep study? You know, that’s not a typical fibro symptom. You need to talk to your doctor about that so we can help you figure out the things that might also be going wrong in your body. And then the third, like large group of topics is up here, right? Your mindset, how you relate to the body that you have.

    So how do you think about your body? How do you think about your illness? How do you, you know, relate to all of that? We really need all three of those pieces and everybody it’s going to look

    a little bit different, which things get addressed within those three areas right. Some people will, you know, need a thyroid situation.

    They’ll need help with their thyroid. Some people will need help with their sleep. And other people are doing pretty good.

    but the big things are we are going to look at diet. We are going to look at movement. I don’t want to say exercise because some people, depending on where they’re at, they actually need to not exercise.

    Let their body heal a little bit and then exercise. We’re going to be looking at sleep. We’re going to be talking about, you know, pacing, right. How do you use your energy?

    a lot of different things. What I do in a coaching call is I basically walk through my clients lives with them. So the first question I always ask is, so how did last week go?

    Right? And we kind of talk through the week. And my goal there isn’t so much to fix them but to help them think differently. Yeah. Could I have done anything different in that situation. Yeah. Maybe I’ll try this next time. Or you know what I really couldn’t. So it is what it is and move on. Right. And then doing the same thing looking forward.

    So for your week coming up is there anything we need to strategize about. Is there a doctor visit we need to talk about. Is there something that’s going to be happening at work. And we want to make sure you’re prepared, right. Both physically and mentally prepared for whatever’s going to happen. So

    it really is individual. Really. What about in the book Take Back Your Life?

    What are the things that I might identify in my own life that need help by reading that book? Yes. So

    the chapters are really about

    the primary fibromyalgia symptoms, right. So how do I manage my pain? How do I get better sleep? How do I clear the brain fog? How do I have more energy?

    So those are like the key topics there.

    I do talk a lot about how you can help yourself. The word self-care gets used so much that sometimes I think we kind of forget what it means a little bit,

    but really, it’s just how can you take better care of yourself? How can you support your body in its healing work? That’s what it was made to do, is heal itself.

    So we want to give our bodies the resources and the opportunity to do that. And there’s also a chapter on how you can work with your doctor better. So some suggestions on ways to have conversations.

    like prioritizing if you only have a because I used to do this when you only have a six minute doctor appointment, you can’t save the important thing for last.

    That comes first. Tip number one have your priorities straight when you get that six minute visit,

    41:21 — Mindset, the Body, and Faith

    right? Very, very good, very good. Let’s talk about the mind from your experience. How much of it is mindset?

    For me, I think mindset is the foundation that everything else grows out of more than it’s like a separate category of things,

    Because at the beginning, I really saw my body as this defective thing I was stuck inside of. And I remember one day raging at God,

    if my body was a car, I would have qualified for the lemon Law by now, right?

    I’m glad you can laugh about it. We all have defective bodies, but some are more defective than others. None of us is perfect. But. But that idea, though, of the real me, is stuck inside this defective body that is a lemon caused me to treat my body in unhelpful ways.

    I would force myself to do things when my body was begging for sleep, right?

    And we would have these projects at work where we had to, like, turn things around super quick. And it was like I would be sitting at my desk for eight, ten hours, barely getting up to go to the bathroom or have something to eat.

    and that is if we flip that around and we think about somebody else doing that to us, or us doing that to somebody else, that’s abuse.

    But we don’t we don’t call it that when we’re doing it to ourselves. And so that mindset is that foundation that says, oh, you know, okay, buddy, we’re on the same side. We’re on the same team. What do you need? I’m going to treat you with kindness so that you can support me. Yeah, right. And in my classes, I often will talk about the body using

    pronouns.

    And I very specifically, I mean, most of my clients are women. So I often am using feminine pronouns, but, you know, guys use your male pronouns. It’s more effective, I think, than the gender neutral pronouns, because when we hear

    somebody talking about their body, she needs this. That is so much better than they need this or it needs this.

    It becomes a thing. And when we can like give it

    that connection to your body is a person and that person is you. Right? It’s absolutely. Yeah. Have you resolved your anger issues with God? Oh yes. Oh yes. Fibromyalgia is the best gift I ever received. There’s so many things in my life like my best friend, I never would have met if it wasn’t for fibromyalgia.

    I wrote two books. Guess what they’re about, you know, and so

    it doesn’t always seem like a gift, these things that come to us, but

    sometimes they are the greatest gift. And

    I will fully admit that is like,

    level 20, you know, experience that I’m not expecting somebody newly diagnosed to be like, oh, thank you for this gift.

    No. But after,

    20 years of living with this and all of that, it’s fibromyalgia is a friend. The gift that keeps on giving but doesn’t have to. Yeah. Well, I guess it could, because, you know, once you figure it out and know how to make your body work like it’s supposed to, or more like it’s supposed to, then you have this to give to others.

    That’s right,

    And

    mean, you and I wouldn’t be talking if it wasn’t for fibromyalgia, right? As a little girl, I did not dream of growing up and having fibromyalgia. Absolutely. But it has brought so much good into my life, so much joy into my life. I think it’s made me a better person, a more compassionate person.

    And I think it just it is the gift that keeps on giving. You know, there’s no joy. Like someone saying, you helped me. I’m you know, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be where I am at this point. For instance, in your life, who would you say that about? Oh, my coach. Absolutely. Bonnie. If it wasn’t for her, I

    would probably still be stuck.

    46:00 — Improvement, Evidence, and Common Patterns

    Yeah. And now. And I’ve had some amazing doctors too. But like we talked about, you know, it was really her coming alongside me that helped me do all the things that my doctors have been telling me to do. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So what percentage of people and we talked about this at the beginning. What percentage of the people can overcome fibromyalgia.

    if we limit the answer to fibromyalgia itself, not all the other things that it can go with, I would say a vast majority. I don’t want to say 100%, but I easily would put it way up there like 80/90. I think fibromyalgia is very, very solvable

    for me, it’s like I mean, I do this every day, right?

    But I do think it’s a solvable problem where some other things are less solvable. Is there research on it that maybe gives an answer to that, or is it purely from your experience and through the people that you’ve coached? Yeah, that’s

    purely my experience and the people that I coach, I will say the you won’t hear that most places from a medical perspective, it’s, you know, it’s either it’s either in your head and doesn’t actually exist or or this is now life as you know it.

    Fibromyalgia is not something that’s doctors are taught in medical school, right? I think it’s something like an average of nine hours of pain management total for all kinds of pain. So it’s like you’re not going to get that answer there. And I was at a conference. This is so interesting. I was at a conference. One of the doctors was, you know, doing his thing, and another one of the speakers was in the audience, and he raised his hand and he said, why aren’t we studying the people who got better?

    And I loved that question because we’re studying the people who are sick. And that’s important to write because we want to figure out, like, what’s going on there. But nobody’s studying people like me.

    And I think the answer is here. Right. What makes me different? What did I do that was different?

    that means that I’m in remission now, where maybe somebody else isn’t like.

    I think that’s where the answer lies, is in the difference between those things. And we don’t really need to know the disease process. We just need to know how to get better. Right. That would make complete sense. You know, how many of you changed your diet? how many people got acupuncture or chiropractic, or did you lie on a PEMF mat

    Or did you get red light therapy? Or did you start sleeping better? You know what? And you could probably see some real commonalities in how people got better, I would imagine. Yes, yes. I mean, it’s what I do in my work,

    So

    we talk about their thyroid, we look at adrenals, we look at sleep issues, potentially sleep disorders.

    You know, we look at what other conditions aren’t being managed. One of my clients improved her fibromyalgia impact questionnaire score by I don’t know, it was like 80%. And all she actually did was work on getting her migraines under control. And once those migraines were under control, the fibromyalgia came down—like an 80% improvement.

    sometimes it’s the fibromyalgia, sometimes it’s all the other things that fibromyalgia is now amplifying.

    You really need somebody who can sift through that with you. But yeah. To me it’s a solvable problem. So from what you’ve seen to the people that you’ve coached and the people that you have coached, coached. what are some of the commonalities?

    For the things that they’ve done to for the ones that got well? Yeah, yeah. Sleep definitely. That is it’s a tricky thing, right, to tell somebody who is getting terrible sleep that you’re not going to get better if you don’t get good sleep because you’re getting terrible sleep. But there are, you know, like working on that, getting that improved as much as possible,

    not just being passed out for eight hours, but like actual quality sleep.

    There are some things that are unique to fibro sleep. We don’t get REM sleep. We don’t get deep sleep like so working on those things. Sleep is definitely

    a commonality there. I already mentioned like thyroid and adrenals. Those are usually part of the equation for almost everybody. Not everybody, but almost everybody. Tuning back into your body. I mean, this is going to be kind of vague how I say it, but like learning to listen to your body, because when your body says, I need to sit down and rest, and then you sit down and rest like that gives your body the opportunity to get better,

    To heal, to not be pushed to the limits all the time.

    so that is a big thing like

    that self-efficacy to right of being able to do the things you need to do to take care of yourself. Yeah, diet for a lot of people is an issue, but it’s not usually diet the way that you think.

    Like I said, it’s about 50/50. Whether going gluten free actually helps someone, but almost everybody comes in not having enough protein, not having enough healthy fats. And those things will directly affect pain, brain fog, sleep, you know, energy, all of that.

    is that basically stepping back looking at their diet and just saying okay, are you getting a balance of fats, proteins and carbohydrates or how do you know that they’re not getting enough protein?

    Yeah. So the first step that I actually do with people is I just have them track their protein. So like don’t do anything different, just like write down and then calculate out how much protein you’re actually getting for the day. And most people coming to me are like 20, 30g maybe. And it needs to be more like 80 to 100.

    So we don’t even worry about everything else. We’re just like, okay, let’s see how we can increase your protein and get to that level. I mean, your protein stores are in your synovial fluid in your joints. So if you don’t have enough, your joints are going to hurt like it is a direct, you know, connection between how much protein you have, how much pain you’re in, how much energy you have, how much brain fog you have like

    that’s low hanging fruit, right?

    Where something like going gluten free, figuring out food allergies, like changing your whole diet, maybe to be healthier, that can feel overwhelming. But one thing, my protein levels, that’s

    low hanging fruit. That’s easy. The other thing that’s a challenge with all of this is sometimes with fibromyalgia, it’s like, okay, this is how I know I’m supposed to eat, but my choices are I can either go to the store and get the stuff, or I can put the stuff away when I get home, or I can cook something, or I could clean up like it’s not an and it’s an Or.

    And so starting with sometimes we don’t start where you think you should start because we have to get enough better to have the energy and to have the pain levels be low enough that we can then do other things. So just starting with something as simple as making sure you’re getting 80 to 100g of protein can give enough of that boost that now other things are possible.

    Yeah. Where do you get your protein from?

    what do you eat? What do I eat? So I honestly like left to my own devices, I would probably be one of the 20/30 people because I really don’t like meat, right? Like I could easily be vegetarian just or pescatarian, really, I do. I do love seafood. I like cheese too much to be vegan, but like, meat is just kind of gross to me.

    not like any philosophical thing, but just like I don’t like it that much. And so I can do it occasionally, but most of my protein, honestly, I do use protein shakes because I know that’s a hard thing for me. And I will do, you know, eggs, cheese, nuts. Sometimes I’ll do, you know, meat, red meat or chicken or turkey.

    I do a lot of seafood, those kinds of things. Yeah, but it’s something that I have to be conscious of and consciously choose because like I said, left to my own devices, I’d be eating like fruit and bread and cheese like that. That would be like my perfect meal. Yeah. Same. And, you know, it’s on a previous podcast that was the one.

    Last one we did was about bread. I believe it was the one before. But his take on it and I kind of agree with this, is the bread is so much different now and that’s what makes it bad and so inflammatory. And he was talking about how you need to ferment it, I think he said for two days before making it and fermentation, things change and break down and it becomes a different food

    But I you know, I probably eat more like you do as well. And I get my sources of, you know, animal protein, we like our eggs, not necessarily store bought,

    but, you know, as close to real as they can be. And when it comes to beef, you know, we want it to be grass fed and not filled with hormones and pesticides and herbicides and fungicides.

    Yes.

    the study God,

    this would have been, what, ten years ago or something like that. The study where they looked at beef and grass fed beef

    not being inflammatory, that it was actually anti-inflammatory when it was grass fed and if not, not. And I was like, well, yeah, of course, like if, if the cows eating well, the cow is going to be healthier.

    And so then when I eat the cow, that’s healthier too. I just found it so fascinating. Yeah. This guy Jordan Rubin said something along the lines of, you know, you’ve heard it well said that you are what you eat. But when it comes to animal foods, I say that you are what they ate. Because if yes, you are what you eat and

    they are what they ate.

    So it’s definitely a different food source. He would look at foods from three main perspectives. One is traditionally, you know, where did the food come from or what would traditionally beef, you know, the cows were in the pasture. They weren’t in these confined animal feed operations.

    Scientifically, we know that it is, you know, higher in omega-3s

    less omega-6s and it’s more anti-inflammatory than inflammatory.

    So we have, we have tradition and we have science. And then the third one that he looked at would be biblical for him. You know, if you’re, you know, you can eat beef, but you can’t have pork, you know, would be an example. Right. And it just so happens to match up scientifically that they’re very different meats and different on your body.

    But that would be his criteria. It’s not necessarily going to be acceptable to everyone that’s listening to this. Some people are going to be vegans. You’re going to have to find your sources of protein and work hard to make sure you’re getting your B12 and all those other things.

    It can be done. You just have to be, yeah.

    58:30 — Resources and Final Encouragement

    Purposeful, conscious. Yeah. Tammy, make good choices. Give us some selfish plugs. Tell us where to get your books. Tell us about your podcast,

    your social media channels and everything else. How to find a coach.

    So you can grab free copies, free downloads of my book Take Back Your Life that we’ve been talking about, and you can get that at takebackyourlifebook.com

    It is the whole book. So it’s a free download of the whole book there. The podcast, the fibromyalgia podcast we have been running since 2019, I think, and I’m just about to record episode 200. We’ve got

    a full range of things there, everything from me teaching and coaching to experts coming in, patient stories. So whatever it is that you need, there’s a ton of information there.

    That’s at fibromyalgiapodcast.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. I am fibro coach on almost all social media. So if you just, you know, facebook.com/fibrocoach, you’ll find me Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn is my name. And then as an easy place for folks to start, I would actually recommend my Fibromyalgia Wellness style quiz. It’s a personality quiz, but we connect personality with how you manage your fibromyalgia.

    Each of us has different, I don’t know, challenges, right? Like natural instincts that help us in natural instincts that don’t so much. And so that quiz will kind of point those out to you and tell you how to work with your strengths instead of, you know, trying to fight your natural instincts. So that would be a great place for folks to start.

    That’s at fibroquiz.com Super easy. And then if you’re looking for a coach, any of those links that I gave you will also have a find a coach thing

    in the menu. You can also go to findafibrocoach.com And we have got a whole range of coaches, everything from, you know, people with experience, like I mentioned Dr Robin, all the way to brand new students who are needing to practice.

    Right. And of course a full range of

    prices and experience and, you know, all of those things. But we’ve got and all over the world, to be honest. So we’ve got a lot of coaches out there. You can go to findafibrocoach.com fill out an application, choose the coach that looks like the best fit to you.

    We do have photos, bios, things like that, so you can learn a little bit about them. And yeah, we can we can help. Excellent. I’ll make sure I have links to all those things in the description on whatever platform you’re consuming this content. Is there anything that I should have asked but didn’t that we left out and this just wouldn’t be complete?

    And if not

    or and maybe that and some final words of encouragement for anyone listening.

    Yeah,

    I think the two things that I want people to leave knowing is that fibromyalgia is a fixable problem. Right. We talked about that. You can feel better. You can feel a whole lot better than you do today. How much depends on a lot of things.

    But like, there’s no doubt in my mind, every single person listening, including you and including me, can feel better than we do right now. So that is

    the number one thing. Fibromyalgia is a fixable problem. The second thing is just because you haven’t found answers, or just because the people you’ve been asking don’t have answers, doesn’t mean the answers don’t exist.

    And just because they can’t help you doesn’t mean nobody can help you. So I want to make sure people are leaving with that hope and that understanding

    that

    you can feel better. There’s so much that can be done to address fibromyalgia symptoms. You can have your life back. And that’s not some kind of, you know, pie in the sky, toxic positivity.

    I mean, I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years and I see it every day.

    So yeah,

    those are really the two things that I want to make sure that

    people know. We didn’t really get into, like all of the science behind fibromyalgia, I know we talked about we don’t know the disease process, we don’t know what causes it. But there are also a lot of things we do know. And so fibromyalgia is a real condition, like it’s a real thing where things are actually going wrong in your body.

    It’s not something that you just created yourself in your mind, like there are physical things that are wrong that need to be addressed and corrected. So don’t think it’s all in your head. Don’t feel like a hypochondriac. Don’t let anybody tell you that it is real. And if you have a provider that is telling you it’s not real, go somewhere else.

    And I guess there are certain things you could measure, like inflammatory markers or something like that, that show this is real. And here’s how we know. And that’s probably maybe some of the signs you’re referring to some of that. But they’ve also seen things like mitochondrial dysfunction they’ve been able to measure in research. Interestingly, ten different areas of the brain light up when someone with fibromyalgia experiences pain versus only two areas of the brain.

    For someone who doesn’t have fibromyalgia. So very clearly there is something physical

    that is happening.

    there’s actually a bunch of different studies that show pieces of that elephant. Excellent, excellent. Tami, thank you so much for sharing your expertise today.

    Thank you so much for having me. This is very fun and it’s been a great time.

    I hope you enjoyed that episode today on the Dr. Haley Show. Make sure to hit subscribe on whichever platform you are listening to this. If this episode made you think of someone, go ahead, take a screenshot and share this exact episode with them. You can catch the show notes for this episode on drhaley.com. If you want to geek out with Dr. Michael Haley on other radical health topics.

    Be sure to check out his YouTube channel where he posts exclusive video content. All the details are at drhaley.com and we can’t wait to hang out with you on the next episode.

  • Prostate Cancer Education: Knowledge Reduces Fear with Michael Bovarnick

    In this episode of The Dr. Haley Show, Dr. Michael Haley speaks with Michael Bovarnick, founder of The Prostate Education Project, about his personal journey through prostate cancer, recurrence, treatment decisions, and the emotional challenges that often come with diagnosis.

    Michael shares what it was like to hear the words “you have prostate cancer,” why education became such an important part of his own healing journey, and how his experience led him to create a resource for men, spouses, caregivers, and families facing similar questions. The conversation covers PSA testing, Gleason scores, prostate cancer recurrence, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), ADT side effects, intimacy and relationship challenges, and the importance of having a loved one present during medical appointments.

    Dr. Haley and Michael also discuss Michael’s long history with Haley Nutrition’s Aloe Vera Gel Health Drink as part of his personal wellness routine, while making clear that aloe vera is not being presented as a cancer cure. Rather, the episode focuses on education, preparation, supportive wellness, and helping men ask better questions before and during treatment.

    If you or someone you love is navigating prostate cancer, this episode offers a thoughtful, personal, and practical conversation about why knowledge reduces fear, understanding builds confidence, and education empowers patients.

    Key Takeaways

    • Prostate cancer diagnosis often brings fear, uncertainty, and unanswered questions.
    • Michael Bovarnick created The Prostate Education Project to help patients, spouses, caregivers, and families better understand the journey.
    • The episode discusses PSA testing, Gleason scores, recurrence, ADT therapy, ADT side effects, intimacy, and emotional resilience.
    • Michael encourages men to take PSA testing seriously and to ask better questions before making treatment decisions.
    • The central message: knowledge reduces fear, understanding builds confidence, and education empowers patients.

    Timestamps:

    00:00 PSA Testing and False Positives
    00:11 Welcome to The Dr. Haley Show
    00:39 Meet Michael Bovarnick of The Prostate Education Project
    02:50 How Dr. Haley and Michael First Connected
    03:14 Michael’s Prostate Cancer Diagnosis and Aloe Vera Story
    05:37 Important Disclaimer About Aloe Vera and Cancer
    06:51 Aloe Vera, ADT, and Supportive Wellness
    08:05 Why Prostate Cancer Can Return After Prostate Removal
    09:53 Haley Nutrition Aloe Vera Message
    10:54 Life Today After Prostate Cancer Recurrence
    12:18 Prostate Cancer Awareness and Rising Diagnosis Rates
    13:36 PSA Testing, Screening, and Dr. Haley’s Personal Story
    16:59 Hearing the Words “You Have Prostate Cancer”
    18:46 Intimacy, Relationships, and Emotional Challenges
    23:10 What Doctors Explain — and What Patients May Miss
    26:22 Advice for Newly Diagnosed Men in the Panic Phase
    28:33 PSA, Gleason Score, and Treatment Decisions
    31:06 What Is ADT? Androgen Deprivation Therapy Explained
    32:45 ADT Side Effects Doctors May Not Fully Prepare You For
    34:01 “Cancer Changed My Diagnosis, Education Changed My Journey”
    34:51 Why You Should Bring a Partner to Appointments
    36:06 July 2026 Haley Nutrition Coupon Code
    36:39 What Is an ADT Holiday?
    39:27 PSA Testing Advice for Men Over 40
    40:36 Urinary Symptoms, Enlarged Prostate, and Getting Checked
    42:49 Prostate Cancer Symptoms Beyond Urinary Problems
    43:52 Exercise, Diet, Bone Health, and Muscle Health During ADT
    44:25 Genetics, Family History, and Prevention Questions
    45:00 Exploring TheProstateEducationProject.org
    45:41 The Newsletter and “Living Library” Vision
    46:47 Spanish-Language Resources and Community Outreach
    48:32 Final Thoughts: Knowledge Reduces Fear
    49:46 Closing Remarks

    RESOURCES

    Medical Disclaimer

    This podcast episode and accompanying blog post are for educational and informational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. The information shared should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, including prostate cancer.

    The views and personal experiences shared by Michael Bovarnick reflect his own prostate cancer journey and should not be interpreted as a recommendation for any specific test, treatment, medication, supplement, or health protocol.

    Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about PSA testing, prostate cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment options, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), medications, supplements, diet, exercise, or any other health-related matter.

    Aloe vera is discussed in this episode as part of Michael Bovarnick’s personal wellness routine and experience. Haley Nutrition Aloe Vera Gel Health Drink is not presented as a treatment or cure for prostate cancer.

    If you are experiencing symptoms or have concerns about prostate health, speak with a licensed healthcare professional.

    TRANSCRIPT

    Michael Bovarnick: Fight with your doctor to get a PSA test because I would rather have a false positive and go through the testing than end up with prostate cancer.

    Intro: You are listening to The Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode will feature an interview or message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life.

    Intro: Your host is none other than the founder of Haley Nutrition, Dr. Michael Haley.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Today I’m joined by Michael Bovarnick, founder of The Prostate Education Project. Michael is also a longtime customer of Haley Nutrition Aloe Vera Gel Health Drink, and over the years he has generously shared with others how aloe has supported him in his own life. We first got to know each other through phone conversations when he would call in his orders. Then, probably more than ten years ago, we met in person when he came to our location to pick up his aloe.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Michael’s work with The Prostate Education Project grew out of his own experience with prostate cancer. Like many men, he entered that world with little preparation for just how medically, physically, and emotionally complex the journey would become. Along the way, he began building a structured collection of educational and wellness resources to help himself stay grounded and informed.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That personal effort eventually developed into a larger mission: helping patients and caregivers better understand what to expect, what questions to ask, and what practical tools may help them navigate diagnosis, treatment decisions, side effects, recovery, and emotional well-being. Rather than overwhelming people with more medical jargon, Michael focuses on providing clear explanations, realistic guidance, and useful resources for men and families facing prostate cancer.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Michael, welcome to the show. I want to start by saying, this episode is for people with prostates, people who used to have prostates, and people who know people who have prostates or used to have prostates. As I studied your website, I realized this just isn’t about someone who has a diagnosis with their prostate because so many other people are involved. It really is a journey.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Let’s go back before we talk about The Prostate Education Project. How did we come to know each other? I think you were using the aloe before I had taken over that product line. Is that correct?

    Michael Bovarnick: That is correct. It’s a long story, but if you want it, I can give it to you.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Well, yeah. Why did you start drinking aloe vera to begin with?

    Michael Bovarnick: The story began 23 years ago, Mike, when I was diagnosed with a pretty advanced case of prostate cancer. Going back a little bit beyond that, we had a friend whose sister had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. She was 36 years old at the time, and I’m going back 24 years now. She was basically told to go home and that she had six months to live.

    Michael Bovarnick: A friend of hers told her about this crazy product called Stockton Aloe. She said, “Well, I have nothing to lose. Let me try it.” The protocol then was three 8-ounce glasses, three times a day, for four months.

    Michael Bovarnick: She started drinking the aloe, and we talked to my friend. The cancer started to shrink. Anyway, long and short, when I was diagnosed, we said, “Hey, what the heck. Let’s give it a try.”

    Michael Bovarnick: I had made a decision to have my prostate surgically removed, but I also told my surgeon that I wanted four months and that I would sign any agreement to hold him harmless if something happened to me. My choice, my problem.

    Michael Bovarnick: At the time, my PSA was elevating and my free PSA protein levels were dropping dramatically. After drinking the aloe during the four months, it was like a religion. I never missed a day. My PSA dropped and my protein levels increased. Now, I can’t say one way or the other that it worked, but when the surgeon was ready to go in, he had booked me for four hours. He was in and out in an hour and a half and performed, at that time, a revolutionary procedure in the United States: a laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, which was unheard of back then.

    Michael Bovarnick: Anyway, long story short, when the pathology came back, the cancer had one centimeter to go before it broke out of the prostate. So again, I always tell the story. I can’t tell you that the aloe helped because there’s no way of testing it, but I can also say I think the aloe certainly did help.

    Michael Bovarnick: I’ve been drinking aloe ever since, every single day. Now, 20 years later, I have a recurrence, and I absolutely am a firm believer—not putting everything on the aloe—that the aloe has kept me healthy at 83 years old. That’s also having gone through major open heart surgery ten years ago.

    Dr. Michael Haley: So here we go, and we’re going to do a little disclaimer because aloe vera is not a cancer cure. In fact, there’s really no cancer cure outside of what’s in you. You have the ability to cure cancer, and sometimes you can use things to help strengthen that process so that your body does it better. There are certain things that will get in the way of healing cancer, and there are certain things that will help you heal from cancer.

    Michael Bovarnick: Well, I don’t disagree at all. Again, not to make it a commercial, but I’m absolutely a firm believer that for both my wife and myself—my wife also drinks this—it has helped us maintain a quality of life that probably wouldn’t exist.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah, I see it as one of those things that’s beneficial to me. It helps me. It helps my immune system work more like it’s supposed to, but it’s not a cure for cancer. That’s okay, because I have a cure for cancer, and that’s my own immune system working optimally.

    Michael Bovarnick: I’m a firm believer, and again, I can’t prove it. Being on androgen deprivation therapy medications now, I absolutely believe that the aloe is helping enhance that drug. But again, I can’t prove it. It’s just my own feelings.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Well, you know, it’s not so out of the ordinary to think that, considering there is science that would actually support that. There was a chemotherapy company, I believe, behind this particular project because 240 people with stage four cancer all got chemotherapy, and 119 of them were given one ounce of aloe a day. The 119 that got the one ounce of aloe had more than three times the number of people in what they considered the complete response group.

    Dr. Michael Haley: So that is statistically significant, and they were only getting one ounce a day. Can you imagine if we said, “Drink three 8-ounce glasses a day” during that study? What would the results be? We don’t know. It should be done, but science certainly suggests there’s a benefit. Their conclusion was that their chemotherapy worked better with the aloe. They believed the aloe somehow starved the cancer cells, making them weaker and easier for the chemotherapy to kill. So we need to study this more.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Mike, years later, why do you think the prostate cancer came back, especially if you did not have a prostate because it was removed?

    Michael Bovarnick: In my research, the potential or probability, from a statistic quoted by Johns Hopkins, is that the potential for a long-term survivor is about 1 to 2% in that population, especially as we age, that the cancer will come back. There may have been dormant cells somewhere in the body and they just popped up.

    Michael Bovarnick: Not to get political, there is some discussion today about the COVID vaccine also having lit up some cells that were lying in the body. For me, and again, not to make a political discussion out of it, my fourth COVID booster was very coincidental. March of 2022, I believe it was—sorry, March of 2023—was when my PSA started to elevate. I can’t prove it, but it was just a coincidence. But again, Johns Hopkins quotes statistically that there is a 1 to 2% chance that long-term prostate cancer survivors will have a recurrence. I’m one of them.

    Dr. Michael Haley: No, I think that’s fair.

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    Dr. Michael Haley: How is it affecting your life today? Are you still playing golf?

    Michael Bovarnick: I still play golf. Honestly, Michael, I consider myself one of the very fortunate few because I do a lot of reading and studying, having developed The Prostate Education Project, about so many young men—and I mean much younger men in their late 40s and 50s—who are now being diagnosed with severe metastatic prostate cancer and some dying at a very young age.

    Michael Bovarnick: For me personally, I keep asking why me? Maybe I have been so lucky from what I’m dealing with compared to what other men are dealing with. Mine, I consider a minor situation. So to answer your question directly, fortunately, I’m still able to maintain an active lifestyle.

    Michael Bovarnick: Yes, the medication has some negative impacts, which we can talk about—the sleep deprivation and the sweats. I understand what a woman goes through with hormonal adjustments. But all things considered, at my age, I’m not doing too bad.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Did you come across anything that gives you an idea how many men have either benign prostatic hypertrophy or prostate cancer at some point in their life? I’m guessing it’s a high number.

    Michael Bovarnick: I can quote you from the American Cancer Society. Last year, 2025 estimated—and this is one of the reasons I really got involved with education—the American Cancer Society estimated in the United States that roughly 360,000 women would be diagnosed with breast cancer. They also estimated nationally that 350,000 men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer.

    Michael Bovarnick: The numbers, again per ACS, of deaths annually specifically to breast and/or prostate are equal. That was the motivation because people just aren’t aware of it. Again, with all due respect to women and breast cancer, men are just lost in the clouds, so to say. They’re just not aware of it, and/or for whatever reason, doctors stopped doing PSA testing. But that’s another whole discussion.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah. It’s not like it’s easy to palpate and diagnose. I’ll be so transparent to say I haven’t had my prostate examined. Dare I say this, this is a bad story. I was in college, and someone put something in my drink, and I didn’t realize it. I didn’t know that whatever drug was put into my drink, what I experienced was like something I had never experienced before.

    Dr. Michael Haley: So I went to the hospital. I took myself there because I just did not feel right. Unfortunately, it was a teaching hospital. I don’t know why they decided to check my prostate when I was drugged, but it was a perfect opportunity because I had no idea what was going on. There was just this line of doctors: “I don’t know. What do you think?” “I don’t know. Let me see.” “Well, why don’t you have a check too?”

    Dr. Michael Haley: It was probably some kind of date rape drug I was given, and I was raped by a bunch of medical professionals instead. That was the last time I ever had my prostate checked. At this point, I’m almost 60 years old. I probably should have been examined again since then. Maybe I have a little.

    Michael Bovarnick: Hopefully you’re getting your PSA testing. But again, the question has become, because of the “false positives,” PSA is not necessarily the benchmark.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah, and this is where we do the medical disclaimer. This is not medical advice. Don’t do what Dr. Haley does. We’re providing information here that could be of benefit, and if anything we say raises questions, discuss it with your doctor. This is just good information.

    Dr. Michael Haley: But you had given a number like 300-and-some thousand, and that had to do with cancer. I would imagine prostatic hypertrophy or precancerous-type conditions are probably way higher. The reason I think that is because I remember years ago watching Robin Williams do a comedic bit where he was talking about difficulty urinating. That would be from an enlarged prostate, where you just don’t have the powerful stream anymore. The audience thought it was hysterical, and the only reason they could be laughing so much is because so many of them could relate to it.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I would imagine that this is a much bigger problem in people over 40 years old than what anyone is really talking about. What do you think?

    Michael Bovarnick: I don’t disagree with it. Again, not practicing medicine, but certainly an enlarged prostate may be an indicator. I just come back to the fact that either men aren’t going to the doctor and they’re not being checked for it, or whatever it is in their world today—the foods we eat—the numbers of cases are just growing rapidly, sadly. The numbers of younger men with severe cases are just incredible.

    Dr. Michael Haley: A lot of people probably don’t want to know and don’t necessarily want to have this experience. What was it like? What did you feel? What did you experience when the doctor said, “Michael, you have prostate cancer”?

    Michael Bovarnick: You hear those four words, and honestly, initially your mind goes blank. I write this on my website. You hear the words and you hear them talking, but you don’t really hear it anymore.

    Michael Bovarnick: It creates so many questions. Again, going back to The Prostate Education Project, one of the reasons I did this is because people hear those words and it creates so many questions, either for the patient or the spouse or family, that they don’t know how to react in that moment.

    Michael Bovarnick: I can talk about my own personal situation, but you change and you think your life is over because of the sexual aspect of it. The ego takes over. You’re not the man you think you are. That is totally unrealistic. There are ways to get around all of these things. The biggest thing, if I would put a number on it, is that the mind takes over. If you can get through the mind aspect of it and not let the mind control you, then you’re on your way back, if that helps.

    Dr. Michael Haley: It does. When you mention intimacy and the effects it can have there, the emotional strain it can take on a relationship for those who are in a relationship, is there something they can do to help decrease those emotional challenges? If so, what?

    Michael Bovarnick: The way I say it now—and you may have to edit this out—my comment today is, unfortunately, I consider men to have two brains: one in the head and one between their legs. I say that somewhat jokingly, but too often most men think with the one between their legs. If their manlyhood is gone, they can’t function. There are ways to get around that. The emotion is still there. The intimacy can still be there. The fact that you may not be able to function sexually is another whole discussion.

    Michael Bovarnick: The sad part to that, quite honestly, Michael, is that in many cases it is the woman who becomes the problem because she feels left out. The intimacy is gone, and depending on how the man responds to that—because again, from what I’ve read, so many men become withdrawn because they think their sex life is gone, their intimacy is gone, they can’t function, and they’re not the man they thought they were.

    Michael Bovarnick: That’s one side of it, and that relates to the woman and the relationship changing. That’s another problem with cancer, whether it be prostate cancer or other cancers, but specifically prostate cancer from the male side of it. From the posts I read from women talking about their own relationships and how it affects them, and how the man reacts to it, intimacy changes. There are still ways to get around that and make the partner feel comfortable, but it’s a major factor. There’s no question about it.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Personally, I think one of the keys to intimacy is honesty and vulnerability. I think that’s what makes it so special. Opening up communication in that area makes yourself vulnerable to your partner. I don’t know if that’s helpful or not.

    Michael Bovarnick: In talking with people, what I find is that women who have cancer seem to be, in my opinion, more open in talking about it. Men don’t want to talk about it. That does change the whole dynamic of how you have a conversation. Again, I’m not practicing psychiatry, but so many men, I feel, just feel that they now have a problem. They can’t relate anymore, and the spouse relationship becomes a problem. I don’t know if that answers the question.

    Dr. Michael Haley: It does. There are people who specialize in this area, and it probably would be good to get some professional help. Don’t ignore it. That would make sense.

    Michael Bovarnick: Yeah, but most men won’t admit it though. That’s my experience.

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    Dr. Michael Haley: You mentioned that when you were given that diagnosis, you were present, but you weren’t hearing anything. You were overwhelmed, and you probably don’t know what the doctors explained well and what they left out, or what you had to learn on your own, because maybe they did explain things, but you weren’t able to receive it at the time.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Do you remember what doctors presented to you or what was left out? With everything you’ve learned since then, what would you say was really left out?

    Michael Bovarnick: I can go back, again remembering that I’m 23 years into dealing with this, and the protocols certainly have changed over the years. Initially, I’ll go back to the fact that my father died from prostate cancer, so I had some life history with this and the effects of it that he went through, which were horrible.

    Michael Bovarnick: When I was first diagnosed, realizing the age that I was at the time, I had to make some choices. Knowing what my father went through, I immediately made the choice that I was going to have it out.

    Michael Bovarnick: Again, I’m going to come back and say I did the protocol for four months. I was very fortunate that the surgery happened. No nerves were taken, so my nerves were spared. I was pretty lucky. During the 20 years, I always had the key. Being a paranoid hypochondriac, I maintained doing PSA testing throughout the entire time.

    Michael Bovarnick: Too many doctors, unfortunately, and I’ve had this in my own experiences, have said to me, “Oh, a few of my patients at the 15-year mark, I would not have done any more PSAs.” Well, guess what? I probably would have been dead.

    Michael Bovarnick: That all said, coming back now 20 years later, the protocols have changed. The cancer was different, meaning that my PSA started to elevate, and I knew what needed to be done. I immediately went to my primary and said, “You’ve got to get me into a PET scan.” The PET scan came back with two nodes on my left pelvic wall. I immediately knew I needed radiation or some form of treatment.

    Michael Bovarnick: Fortunately, I have a son-in-law, so to say, in the medical business, and he got me in to see the right people immediately. Five days of pinpoint radiation. Three months later, the cancer elevated again, which necessitated going back for ADT treatment, androgen deprivation therapy, which is another whole discussion.

    Michael Bovarnick: Again, as I said earlier, the effects of ADT can be worse than some of the actual problems. That also necessitated another round of radiation. So I was aware of this. It affects you, and how do you deal with this, especially now going on medications that definitely are going to change your life? I don’t know if that answers the question.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah. So for someone who is newly diagnosed and needs to make good decisions, but they’re in that panic phase, what would your recommendation be for them?

    Michael Bovarnick: Just try to read as much as you can. Hopefully what I’m trying to do with my own project is an asset to somebody, because yes, it raises so many questions. Unfortunately today, and I don’t know if there’s any straight answer to that, Michael, because as you know and I know, and most people know, doctors or clinicians just don’t have the time to sit and talk and explain things as they used to.

    Michael Bovarnick: That opens up the question, “What do I do?” I don’t know if there’s any straight answer to that except people now go on Facebook and social media sites and try to find some information—not necessarily the best. I would say try to do your own research. Make up your list of questions.

    Michael Bovarnick: Again, that’s exactly one of the reasons why I had this higher calling, so to say, to develop The Prostate Education Project. I hope that through that project, I’m answering a lot of those questions from a lived experience.

    Dr. Michael Haley: One of my favorite questions to ask the doctor is, “If this was you or someone you love, if this was your child, what would you recommend for them? What treatment would you recommend for them? Would you do this to yourself?” Also, “What are the outcomes? People who get this procedure, how many does it work for? Are we just buying time, or is this working toward a real cure?” These are some of the things I want to know before jumping into a treatment.

    Michael Bovarnick: Again, I can only speak to protocol. The choices when you’re first diagnosed are: what is your PSA level? What’s your Gleason score? Do we watch and wait? Do you do immediate treatment? Whether that be surgical removal, does it mean radiation? What are the numbers? The numbers will dictate the treatment.

    Michael Bovarnick: I’ll go back 23 years ago when I was diagnosed. My primary care was very aggressive in making sure I had care. Our local pharmacist in the town where we were living—he and I were diagnosed at the same time. His doctor told him, “Let’s watch and wait.” He was dead in two years.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah. What can you tell us about the Gleason score?

    Michael Bovarnick: It’s a biopsy pathology. How do they determine the aggressiveness? It’s a test, unfortunately, going through the rectum, where they insert what are referred to as plugs or cores into the prostate at different locations within the prostate. Then, based on the results of where the cancer is within the prostate, it’s a two-tier number. That two-tier number will dictate. Generally, the highest score is nine. It could be 3+6, 5+4, or various options. Those numbers will generally dictate, from a clinician standpoint, the course of action.

    Michael Bovarnick: Along with that, depending on having a PET scan today, that’s the PSMA prostate-specific PET scan, which will show up any—not microscopic cells—but it will show up any larger cells. That’s how we found mine.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I got you. Do you wish you had done anything different?

    Michael Bovarnick: No. It is what it is. I tried to maintain, during the 20 years, a quality of life. We watched our diet. Fate being what it is, it is what it is. I can’t say, for me personally, that I would have changed anything.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Okay, well, that’s nice to hear. You mentioned the ADT therapy. I don’t know what that is.

    Michael Bovarnick: Androgen deprivation therapy. Prostate cancer loves testosterone. Prostate cancer feeds off of testosterone. The goal of androgen deprivation therapy is to reduce the amount of testosterone in the body.

    Dr. Michael Haley: How is it administered?

    Michael Bovarnick: In the past, the only options were injections. One of the common ones was Lupron that is being used. That’s, I believe, a three-month injection, with varying side effects that go along with it.

    Michael Bovarnick: Six years ago, Pfizer came out with an oral medication called Orgovyx, and that changes the approach. Bottom line, ADT will reduce the testosterone in the body from wherever it is to almost nothing. That creates hormonal changes.

    Michael Bovarnick: You end up with hot flashes. Sleep deprivation becomes a problem. It is not atypical to have weight gain because your metabolism changes and the processing of insulin changes.

    Michael Bovarnick: In my own situation, I will drink fluids, and the fluid goes to the bottom of my legs, which can cause swelling. But that fluid, when I go to sleep at night, comes back up. So it’s not uncommon to be up three or four times a night to urinate, all part of androgen deprivation.

    Michael Bovarnick: Everybody is different. I consider myself very fortunate with the side effects that I’ve had compared to others. I deal with it. It’s not fun.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Were you prepared for that? Did they tell you those changes would happen?

    Michael Bovarnick: No. Again, the clinicians don’t have the time to really go in-depth. They can gloss over it, but unless you’ve done it, you don’t know it. So they can talk about it, but my personal feeling is that unless you’ve dealt with it and know what it’s like to go through it, it’s a totally different discussion.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah. So it’s making your sleep difficult, and if it’s making your sleep difficult, it’s probably crossing over into other areas of your life.

    Michael Bovarnick: Well, you need that afternoon nap.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I kind of like that anyway already. Is that bad? I think there are some cultures where that’s just something you do. You have lunch, and then a little while later you take a power nap. I think that’s a good practice in life. I’m not going to give up my naps.

    Michael Bovarnick: I’m just reading some of my notes here. You asked a question before, and maybe this will answer it. I was quoting, “Cancer changed my diagnosis. Education changed my journey.” My hope is that The Prostate Education Project can help change theirs—or yours.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s a good word because I do understand that the doctors don’t have the time. As you had already mentioned, when you are there and you’re hearing some shocking news, you’re not necessarily going to hear it anyway. So it is good to have another source.

    Dr. Michael Haley: One of your recommendations was to have a loved one with you at your visits. Tell us a little bit about that and the why.

    Michael Bovarnick: Absolutely. In my own case, my lovely wife has been my partner for years, and she hears things that I may not hear. It’s a partnership. Having a spouse or partner with you in dealing with any cancer, not just prostate cancer, I think is critical. If you have any kind of relationship, it’s an understanding that both of you are going to go through this. It’s not just an individual.

    Michael Bovarnick: One of my other notes says patients don’t just need treatment. They also need understanding. Having a partner with you who also understands what you’re going through and dealing with—you can’t put a price on that.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I agree. Absolutely. Not that you want to burden anyone, and that’s not what it’s about. It’s about just being honest. Here are the facts of life: I’m not who I used to be. I can’t pick up that automobile anymore. We want to be, you know, we love competition. We want to win everything and be the greatest. That doesn’t last.

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    Dr. Michael Haley: I want to go back to the ADT because I saw something about an ADT holiday. What is that? What does that mean?

    Michael Bovarnick: The ADT holiday, again, I’m now speaking of my own situation. I was on Orgovyx, the oral medication, and I chose that primarily because the injectables are typically either one month or three months. If you have any kind of side effect, you’re stuck. Whereas with the oral medication, the life within the body is 25 hours. So if you have a bad reaction, that’s it.

    Michael Bovarnick: Anyway, I was on the oral medication for seven and a half months. During that time, I had repeated PSA and testosterone tests, and each one of those—four of them—the numbers were all the same. My PSA went to undetectable, and my testosterone essentially was less than three.

    Michael Bovarnick: The decision was made, because I tolerated the medication well and appeared to be doing well, having gone through the second round of radiation, that we would take a break off of the medication. This would be the ADT holiday. It’s initially a 90-day trial, if you will.

    Michael Bovarnick: My first PSA, six weeks into that, my numbers remained where they were originally. My medical oncologist was pleased with that, and also said it could take up to three months for the testosterone to start to regenerate, especially at my age. Hopefully the PSA remains where it is, undetectable.

    Michael Bovarnick: I started May 1st, and I’ll do another PSA test at the end of July, and we’ll see where we are. Hopefully, if the numbers maintain where they have been, we will continue the holiday and just continue with the PSA testing. That’s the benchmark.

    Michael Bovarnick: If the PSA starts to elevate, if the PSA doubles within a three-month period of time, we know the cancer is back. Then you’re starting all over again: PET scan, where is it, going back on the medication, and hopefully it hasn’t hit any of the organs or lymph nodes or any of that kind of stuff.

    Dr. Michael Haley: All right. Give advice to men who are 40 and don’t have any symptoms. What should they do?

    Michael Bovarnick: Fight with your doctor to get a PSA test because so many don’t want to do it. Again, part of it is that it has come down from the almighty government above saying you don’t need it because you get false positives. But my argument is I would rather have a false positive and go through the testing than end up with prostate cancer.

    Michael Bovarnick: It may be uncomfortable doing tests or whatever. If you have to go in for a Gleason test, there are so many other options today. I ask that same question, Michael: why are so many young men being diagnosed? Part of it is they’re not getting tested. Again, not practicing medicine, it just appears that the cancer is hitting younger men, for whatever reason. So I can’t emphasize enough: PSA, PSA, PSA.

    Michael Bovarnick: When the doctor says every year, my argument is, no, every six months. It’s a cheap test, even if you have to pay for it on your own.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah, and I know your answer is going to sound very similar to that first question, but for the man who is over 40 and is having symptoms—difficulty peeing, getting up frequently in the nighttime, not emptying completely—they are having symptoms of prostatic hypertrophy and they haven’t been to a doctor in years. I’m asking you for me because I haven’t been to a doctor forever. What do you say to someone like myself who just doesn’t go to the doctor?

    Michael Bovarnick: If you want a PSA test, go to a lab and get a PSA test. I think anywhere you are, it’s a hundred bucks. If you can afford it, get a PSA test. It’s critical.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah. Go to the doctor. Get it done if you can. Go to a lab. Not everyone can go to the lab because they probably require a prescription. I might be able to write my own prescription, but I don’t think anything.

    Michael Bovarnick: I’m not sure. That’s a good question. I’ve talked to guys who said they’ve just gone to the lab and said, “I want a PSA.” But the key is, yeah, get it. Get a test.

    Dr. Michael Haley: You can probably get a prescription from Amazon. I think they have doctor visits.

    Michael Bovarnick: Well, it’s a doctor. Your doc-in-the-box. Nothing wrong with that. Dr. McCullough was on TV, and you can call up his 800 number and get his all-inclusive medical care kit with all the prescriptions and so forth.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s right. I did see that on the news channel.

    Dr. Michael Haley: It is true, too, that you can schedule a doctor’s visit. This is probably the one good thing that came out of the whole COVID shutdown: doctor availability online became a lot more popular. You don’t even have to take time out of your day to schedule an appointment. I could do it from sitting in the same chair I’m in right now. As soon as we’re done with this call, I could be on a Zoom meeting with a physician who is asking the right questions and writing the right scripts, and I go to the lab and get my blood test.

    Michael Bovarnick: Let me go back to something you said because you’re talking about somebody with an enlarged prostate or having difficulty urinating and so forth. Yes, that is a common sign. But again, not practicing medicine here, one of the common problems that men will all of a sudden discover is they have pain in their shoulders or they have pains elsewhere in the body that have shown to be a sign of prostate cancer.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Oh, interesting. So it’s not just urine or urinary problems.

    Michael Bovarnick: Especially if it’s metastasized. Again, this is from what I’ve read, not speaking from experience, but there is so much out there that there are signs of prostate cancer that has metastasized because it will affect, obviously, organs and the bones. It will attack the bone and muscle.

    Michael Bovarnick: By the way, that’s one of the side effects of ADT also. It will affect, and does affect, bone and muscle. So staying active, having a proper diet, and exercise are critical when you’re on these medications. Absolutely critical.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yeah, and I’ll say critical for maximizing general health anyway, so why not all the more so when you really need it?

    Dr. Michael Haley: Do you think you could have prevented prostate cancer to begin with, or do you think it was kind of programmed in you because your father had it and it was in your genes? Could you have turned that gene off?

    Michael Bovarnick: I have an older brother. He doesn’t have it. He’s had other cancers, but prostate-specific, again, from my own reading, yes, genetically it’s a high probability. So whatever it was, could I have started something to prevent it? It is what it is.

    Michael Bovarnick: Doctors will tell you the chances of most men having some prostate issue and ending up with prostate cancer sometime in their life is not too unlikely, unfortunately.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I visited your website, TheProstateEducationProject.org, and for anyone still listening, if you’re listening this far, then there’s definitely an interest. I would encourage you to go check out that website. The resources on it are extensive. My goodness, what a complete resource there.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Well, it’s never complete, right? Because if it was, you wouldn’t be adding to it. It’s going to be a growing database of content. But it is rich, and there’s a place to subscribe. If I subscribe to the newsletters or to the website, what am I getting?

    Michael Bovarnick: That’s coming down the road. We’re working with some doctors now. One particular urology group here where I live gave me a tremendous validation.

    Michael Bovarnick: The newsletter ultimately will be from doctors and clinicians talking about it in more general terms. We want to talk about more patient, lived experiences, and any trends. We want to do things from a lived experience. As you mentioned earlier, we want to hear from the spouse or partner and talk about their experiences and how they’re dealing with it.

    Michael Bovarnick: So keeping current, trying to get more clinicians involved, can get us all down the road. For us right now, we’ve kind of changed the whole model of this thing, and we’re no longer really considering this a website. The goal is to make this a living library that will go beyond when I’m not here.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s great. I noticed that you’re also already getting recognition. There was a post shared by Urology Nevada, which is a large organization of physicians and people you can get appointments with to get your urology issues evaluated and treated.

    Michael Bovarnick: One of the key things that we haven’t talked about, and what I’ve done with this project, is that we have converted this project to 100% Spanish, and it’s universal Spanish.

    Michael Bovarnick: In our work, the people I work with doing this in the Hispanic community have found that, statistically, the Hispanic community has more problems with prostate cancer than the Caucasian community, interestingly enough. They’re not getting the proper treatment.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Interesting. I’m verifying that. I went to the website as you said that, and there is a dropdown box in the top right.

    Michael Bovarnick: That’s correct. It instantly converts the website from English to Spanish. The whole website is in Spanish. It’s a universally medically accepted Spanish.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Awesome. I know that would be important here where I am in South Florida.

    Michael Bovarnick: Absolutely. Spanish here where I am in northern Nevada, 37% of the population of this county is Hispanic. Going back to Urology Nevada, 30% of their patients are Hispanic.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Great. One of these days I’m going to learn Spanish, at least well enough to order food. I know what I like. I can get a hamburger. I know how to do that one.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Mike, I want to thank you for taking time to educate people. There were so many things we could have covered. For anyone listening in, check out the website, TheProstateEducationProject.org, and subscribe to the newsletters. Eventually you’ll be getting great content.

    Dr. Michael Haley: More importantly, if you look at the big menus on the top—I’m doing that right now—there’s a section for patients and families, and then the educational library is just jam-packed, well-organized, with all kinds of great content. If you need to learn more about this, check out the website.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Mike, thank you for all you’re doing. Any final parting words?

    Michael Bovarnick: Yeah. Again, just looking at my notes, we’ve come up with some taglines. We’re talking about all of this stuff of education: knowledge reduces fear, understanding builds confidence, and lastly, education empowers patients.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Beautiful. Thank you.

    Outro: I hope you enjoyed that episode today on The Dr. Haley Show. Make sure to hit subscribe on whichever platform you are listening to this. If this episode made you think of someone, go ahead, take a screenshot and share this exact episode with them. You can catch the show notes for this episode on DrHaley.com.

    Outro: If you want to geek out with Dr. Michael Haley on other radical health topics, be sure to check out his YouTube channel where he posts exclusive video content. All the details are at DrHaley.com, and we can’t wait to hang out with you on the next episode.

  • Can AI Connect the Mind, Body, and Root Causes of Chronic Illness? with Haresh Patel

    When Symptoms Don’t Tell the Whole Story

    What happens when medical tests, specialists, and symptom-based treatments never explain why someone is sick? Haresh Patel joins Dr. Michael Haley to discuss his 55-year diagnostic journey, the possible influence of stress and unresolved grief on physical health, and how artificial intelligence can help organize a patient’s complete story for more productive conversations with healthcare practitioners.

    About This Episode

    For decades, Haresh Patel lived with symptoms that doctors could identify and manage but could not fully explain. His journey included suspected food allergies, chronic urticaria, sleep and oxygenation concerns, repeated specialist visits, and treatments that controlled his symptoms without answering his most important question: Why was this happening?

    A turning point came when practitioners spent more time asking about his entire life rather than focusing only on his current symptoms. Questions about childhood stress, the traumatic death of his mother, emotional expression, medical history, and major life events revealed patterns that had never been considered together.

    In this episode, Haresh explains why he believes a patient’s story can contain important diagnostic clues. He and Dr. Haley discuss the relationship between the mind and body, the limitations of brief medical appointments, and the importance of recognizing that physical, emotional, environmental, nutritional, and spiritual factors may overlap.

    Haresh also introduces Sanare Health, an AI-assisted platform designed to help people organize symptoms, medical records, treatments, life events, and health timelines into a practitioner-ready summary. The platform is not intended to diagnose or prescribe treatment. Its purpose is to help patients communicate a more complete history and help practitioners see connections that might otherwise remain hidden.

    The conversation also explores tinnitus triggers, pattern recognition, hidden ingredients in processed products, alternative approaches to healing, emotional expression, and why patients may benefit from becoming more active participants in their own care.

    Key Ideas From This Episode

    • Complex health problems can be difficult to understand when medical records, symptoms, treatments, and life events are viewed separately.
    • Stress, trauma, grief, and emotional patterns may be relevant parts of a health history, although this does not mean that every illness is psychological or emotionally caused.
    • Artificial intelligence may help organize a patient’s story, but it should not replace qualified healthcare professionals or emergency medical care.
    • Patients may receive more productive care when they understand their history, recognize patterns, and communicate their complete story clearly.
    • Managing symptoms can be valuable, but Haresh encourages patients and practitioners to continue asking why the symptoms developed.

    Resources

    Disclosure: This page may contain affiliate links. If you purchase through one of these links, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

    Timestamps

    00:00 – Why modern symptom checkers may miss the mind-body connection
    00:42 – Introducing Haresh Patel and his 55-year health journey
    02:23 – Chai, green tea, black tea, and an early-morning conversation
    04:26 – Why complex health problems are so difficult to diagnose
    06:12 – The limitations of a 13-minute medical appointment
    09:18 – Building and carrying your complete health story
    10:08 – A suspected food allergy becomes a diagnosis of urticaria
    13:10 – Meeting an Ayurvedic doctor in Costa Rica
    14:23 – Gathering decades of scattered medical records
    15:04 – Asking when stress first began
    17:32 – Childhood bullying, emotional disconnection, and losing his mother
    18:51 – A spiritual explanation for Haresh’s physical symptoms
    19:58 – The recommendation to travel to Bodh Gaya
    21:28 – A disappointing ritual and an unexpected result
    23:13 – Three and a half years without another injection
    23:57 – Physical, emotional, and spiritual components of health
    26:02 – How Sanare Health uses AI to organize a patient’s story
    28:15 – Connecting fragmented medical data
    28:57 – The doctor who looked at the whole person
    30:52 – Is Sanare Health designed for patients or practitioners?
    31:17 – Why asking the right AI questions matters
    32:01 – Different ways patients can build their histories
    33:16 – Helping practitioners identify appropriate patients
    34:01 – Where to find Sanare Health and Haresh Patel
    34:32 – Can health-related AI remain open to alternative approaches?
    36:28 – Tinnitus as an example of root-cause investigation
    38:22 – Injury, stress, displacement, and the development of tinnitus
    40:09 – Dr. Haley’s Diet Coke and artificial-sweetener experience
    43:10 – Using pattern recognition to identify symptom triggers
    43:32 – Why ingredient labels may not reveal every processing aid
    45:21 – Aloe vera, natural products, and plant-based healing
    46:27 – Addressing causes while supporting the body
    47:26 – The long-term cost of managing chronic disease
    49:53 – Haresh’s call to become the CEO of your own health
    51:16 – Building your story when memories and emotions are buried
    52:43 – Learning to express emotion later in life
    54:03 – Laughter yoga and training yourself to laugh
    55:16 – Final thoughts

    Full Transcript

    Below is the full transcript of Episode 144 of The Dr. Haley Show. Dr. Michael Haley speaks with Haresh Patel about Patel’s 55-year search for health answers, chronic urticaria, the possible roles of stress and unresolved grief in physical symptoms, and how Sanare Health uses AI to organize a patient’s history before a medical appointment. The conversation also explores the limitations of brief medical visits, tinnitus triggers, alternative medicine, pattern recognition, and why artificial intelligence should support rather than replace qualified health professionals.

    Haresh Patel: That’s the biggest myth of modern medicine. Even ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude—all the symptom checkers—they’re just repeating the same mistake. They are not connecting mind and body.

    Narrator: You are listening to The Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode, there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you in living your best life.

    Your host is none other than the founder of Haley Nutrition, Dr. Michael Haley.

    Dr. Michael Haley: This is The Dr. Haley Show podcast. I’m Dr. Michael Haley, your show host. Today, we are going to be exploring one of my favorite topics, AI, in a unique way as it pertains to healthcare.

    Today’s guest is Haresh Patel, the founder and CEO of Sanare Health, an AI-powered platform connecting patients who have been failed by conventional medicine with root-cause practitioners who can actually find answers.

    He built it because he lived it: 55 years of suffering through a complex constellation of symptoms that the conventional system could never explain or resolve, until root-cause medicine finally gave him his life back.

    Before Sanare Health, Haresh spent 40 years in Silicon Valley building technology companies that changed industries, including Mercatus, a private-markets fintech platform that scaled to $1.5 trillion in assets under management before being acquired by State Street in 2021.

    His memoir, The Ghost in My Body, documents the 55-year diagnostic journey that inspired it all.

    Haresh, welcome to the show. This is a fun discussion and a fun time to do it. I understand that it’s 5:00 a.m. where you are and 8:00 a.m. where I am, so this is great. We have two early birds. The only thing I’m missing is my cup of coffee. Do you drink coffee?

    Haresh Patel: More chai. Being Indian, more chai.

    Dr. Michael Haley: What is chai?

    Haresh Patel: Chai is tea.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Like green tea?

    Haresh Patel: No. It’s black tea boiled with water, ginger, and milk altogether. It’s a big concoction.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s interesting, because one of my favorite concentrates that I like to make is fresh-squeezed ginger with lemon. I put a little stevia in it, and we leave that concentrate in the refrigerator and pour it into things. I like pouring it into my green tea to give it a little spice and a little health boost.

    Haresh Patel: I didn’t realize green tea and black tea are from the exact same plant, by the way.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I didn’t know that either.

    Haresh Patel: We were visiting a plantation in Sri Lanka. We saw the tea plant and stayed on the tea plantation. At the top of the tree are the youngest leaves. That’s green tea.

    Dr. Michael Haley: No way. We learn something new every day. That is interesting, especially when you consider the different health benefits from it.

    When we think of green tea, we think of all the catechins, or however you want to pronounce it, that are so good for things like dental health. We have different focuses on the benefits of black tea. There may be a little more caffeine, but it’s the same plant.

    Haresh Patel: It’s the same plant.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Interesting. I want to dig into your AI platform, but not yet, because a lot of people have had an experience like yours. They have a health challenge and no one can figure it out.

    A lot of times, people come to me after they’ve been to a dozen doctors, and no one can figure out the cause of their symptoms. A lot of people have the wrong diagnoses, and they’re spinning their wheels and going nowhere. They’re spending their money and not getting results.

    From what I understand, you had a similar experience. Years later, you received a more accurate diagnosis, figured out the root cause, and were able to do something about it.

    Let’s go way, way back. Tell us a little about your story.

    Haresh Patel: I’ll tell you the story, but just to echo what you said, there are 133 million of us in the same boat. We have an average seven- to ten-year journey, ten to twelve doctors, and no answers.

    Those are around five clusters of symptoms. It’s 5:00 in the morning, so you’ll have to excuse me if I can’t remember all five, but they include sleep issues, fatigue, chronic pain, and headaches. Those are the main areas. The other one is inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. There aren’t any good answers.

    I built this platform, Sanare Health, because there are answers, and the answer is in your story. It’s as simple as that.

    The reason we don’t get to the bottom of it is time deprivation. Thirteen and a half minutes is all you get with a doctor. It’s not his fault. It’s not their fault or her fault. It’s just the way the system is set up. They have to see a lot of patients.

    You can’t diagnose something in 13 and a half minutes that probably started decades ago. Somewhere in that story, something happened that created a butterfly effect. If you can figure out what that story is and share that story, the doctor is going to have a lot more lights at the ends of different tunnels to explore. That’s the problem.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Can I jump in just to drive that point home?

    When I got out of school in 1995, I didn’t jump right into private practice because I needed to do an internship. Before starting my practice, I worked for a few different doctors, number one, to learn.

    One was an internship. Then I tried something on my own, which failed miserably. I realized that I had learned how to be a doctor, but I didn’t yet know how to run a business. I worked for a couple of other people.

    Early in that experience, I remember spending 15 minutes with a patient. When I got out of the room, the person I was working for said, “What the hell are you doing? Why were you in there so long? Get them in and get them out. We get six dollars for that visit because of their insurance.”

    I said, “Six dollars for that visit? Why are we even seeing patients on that insurance plan?”

    The answer was, “Because their insurance might change, and someday they might have better insurance. But get them in and get them out. We’re losing money after you spend more than a minute with them.”

    What you are saying is exactly true. To survive in business, doctors cannot spend time with you in the current health-insurance model. I wanted to drive that home.

    Haresh Patel: Doctors are burning out too. They didn’t join the industry for that. They joined because of passion, right? They wanted to heal people, and they’re frustrated because they can’t.

    That’s the dilemma we’re trying to solve at Sanare Health: How do you make the 13-and-a-half-minute visit into two hours? We’re not going to change the system, but you can build your story and carry it with you.

    That requires you to become the CEO of your own health. It’s not easy to build that story. It’s not easy to pull all of that data together. Without that, you’re shooting in the dark, and your doctor is shooting in the dark.

    They look like heroes if they’ve seen a patient with the same problem before, but the likelihood of that happening is very low.

    I’ll tell you my story. I got lucky, some of it serendipitously, because I got two hours with two doctors. Actually, I should say one doctor for one hour, and then two doctors in a row for two hours each. That just doesn’t happen.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Sometimes it does. How did they get paid for the visit? Were they doing it out of passion and love, or was there some kind of compensation outside regular insurance?

    Haresh Patel: The first doctor was an immunologist. I had a terrible rash. For over ten years, it had been diagnosed as an allergy to paprika, which is in almost everything in Indian food.

    Dr. Michael Haley: It’s in American food too, by the way. Those golden French fries are soaked in paprika water to make them golden.

    Haresh Patel: I like paprika. Luckily, I don’t have to avoid it. It’s basically food coloring. It’s not even the spicy stuff.

    She spent an hour with me, and the art is in the questioning. Sometimes it isn’t that the patient doesn’t want to say something. You have to ask them.

    At the very end of the hour, I looked like the Elephant Man. I was suffering because she had taken me off antihistamines, which were the only things controlling the rash, because they needed to do the allergy test.

    At the end of the hour, she finally said, “Haresh, I forgot to play doctor. I didn’t look at your nostrils, eyes, or ears. Let me do that quickly.”

    She said, “Small nostrils. You might have an oxygenation problem. That might be one of your root causes.” Let’s remember that point.

    Then she said one more thing: “I forgot to listen to your heart.”

    I said, “Dr. Choy, I forgot to tell you. When I unbutton my shirt, all my hair stands up. I get goosebumps.”

    She slammed the table and ripped the tissue paper. She said, “You are not allergic to anything. You’ve been misdiagnosed. You have urticaria, which is an autoimmune disease.”

    For your listeners, urticaria is a mast-cell disease. Mast cells float under the skin, and when the hatch breaks, all the antihistamines escape. You don’t have the ability to fight inflammation, so anything can trigger it. That’s why it camouflages itself as an allergy.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Is it histamines or antihistamines that escape?

    Haresh Patel: Histamines. I’m sorry. Histamines. The antihistamines help offset that. My mistake. I’m showing that I’m not a doctor.

    That was the start of understanding what I had correctly. The question of why I had it was not answered.

    The why is the most important part. When you’re looking for a root cause, you can’t fix something unless you know why it happened. These 133 million people are floating around without knowing why.

    Getting to why requires you to be curious. It requires you to remain open-minded. Those are two important things. You need time, curiosity, the ability to be open-minded, and an understanding of your whole story. You have to be able to tell your whole story. Those are the ingredients for getting to how you cure yourself.

    The two doctors I got two hours with were doctors I paid. It was very nominal because it was outside the country.

    The first time was in Costa Rica. It was a random trip to a random wellness center. Dr. Vinod was praised by everybody as if he walked on water.

    I said to my wife, Veena, “We’re this Indian couple. There’s this Ayurvedic doctor from India running the wellness center. Let’s at least have chai together.”

    We did, and he piqued my interest. I had no knowledge of what he did. As I said, it was a random selection of a wellness resort. He piqued my interest, and now I was curious. I said, “I’ve got to get to why.”

    I was living on these shots that cost $3,000 apiece. The only two solutions for urticaria were to suppress it. You could take steroids, which are very bad for you, or take Xolair, which was invented for asthma patients. You have to take it every four weeks, and it is very temperamental.

    There was only one place in the world where I could receive it because they knew how to administer it. I was living on that. Luckily, insurance was covering it. Otherwise, it was $3,000 per shot every four weeks.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Wow.

    Haresh Patel: I was tethered to coming back every four weeks.

    We met Dr. Vinod, and he piqued my interest. I said, “I’ll sign up for your program.” It was very nominal. I could afford it, and I wanted to find out.

    He made me do a couple of things. He scheduled two hours, from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. It was the only time slot he had, ten days away. He said, “I want you to gather all of your health records.”

    That was clue number two. I found out, first, that I didn’t have them centralized. It was also really hard to get them.

    I was arguing with doctors’ offices. They were saying, “HIPAA says we have to fax them to you.”

    I said, “I’m in a hotel. How is sending a fax to the lobby more private than sending it to my own email?”

    They said, “Okay, we’ll make a one-time exception. Don’t do it again.”

    Painfully, I would get my records and email them to him. By the time I met with him, clue number three was that he had manually plotted everything on a chart.

    He spent one hour examining all the records, and then another hour asking the same questions differently. Just a slight twist.

    Everybody always asked, “Are you stressed now?”

    What’s the answer? Yes. Life happens. I’m the CEO of a company. Once in a while, we run out of cash. I get stressed over payroll. I have a wife and kids. We have our own squabbles.

    But he asked a different question: “When was the first time in your life that you were stressed?”

    I said, “Middle school. That’s easy.”

    I was in New Hampshire, the only brown kid among 2,000 students, with a little smelly lunchbox. I got picked on a lot.

    Dr. Michael Haley: The lunchbox was smelly because it had flavor?

    Haresh Patel: No, it was just different food. Nobody was used to curries and things like that. It probably smelled different and looked different. It wasn’t rotting or anything.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Essentially, what you’re saying is that you grew up with real food and flavor.

    I grew up with a very bland standard American diet and a lot of fast food. Now I understand what real food is. It sounds like you actually got a lunchbox of real food, and that was probably what was unusual.

    Haresh Patel: Probably. Regardless, I was going to get picked on. My name was different. Everything about me was different.

    The doctor said, “You probably had dry skin and dandruff.”

    I said, “Yes.”

    He said, “Let’s go back further.”

    Now I was in a psychologist’s chair for about an hour, and he took me back to age six. He asked, “Tell me about your emotional levels.”

    I said, “That’s the joke in the family. My dad says I’m like my mom. I have no emotions. I can’t laugh during a movie. I can’t cry during a movie. When my mom’s brother passed away, she didn’t shed a tear.”

    He said, “Tell me about your mom.”

    I said, “She passed away in a car accident.”

    He didn’t express any sympathy. I explained that we were in a single-car accident. We were going east while everybody else was going west. My dad had gotten his first job after college, so we were moving to New Hampshire. He was a professor at Saint Anselm College.

    The doctor didn’t give me the usual, “I’m so sorry.” He stoically continued. He asked, “Did you bury her? Did you cremate her? What kind of final rites did you perform? Was it Hindu? Was it Catholic?”

    He wanted to know all the details.

    Then he closed his book at the end of the two hours and said, “Bad news. I have no cure for you medically.”

    I wasn’t surprised. I had heard that from the last 12 doctors.

    But he said, “I do have a prescription that I think will heal you.”

    This is where things get weird.

    He said, “People who die tragically have a high propensity for their souls to become stuck. In your case, your mom is holding on to you so tightly that you can’t breathe.”

    Remember what I told you about the immunologist and allergy specialist? She said I had small nostrils and that something might be affecting my oxygenation.

    The other 12 doctors had also connected things to low iron, low oxygenation, or sleep apnea. Somewhere, there was not enough oxygen coming into the body. It was the same diagnosis, but from a different angle.

    He said, “We’ve all watched the movie Ghost with Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Swayze.”

    Dr. Michael Haley: Yes.

    Haresh Patel: Remember, he hangs around for a long time. In my case, she had hung around for 55 years, holding on so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. That was the source. That was the why.

    Being an engineer, a Notre Dame electrical-engineering graduate, a Silicon Valley technology executive, and the son of a physics professor, I wasn’t ready to believe it.

    He did hit me on the head. I saw stars floating around. He opened a wound involving buried grief and trauma, but I wasn’t ready to believe.

    He said, “You have to go to India. You have to go to this place called Bodh Gaya, where Buddha attained enlightenment under the tree. Hindus built a temple on top of that place. You have to go there and perform this particular prayer. Your mom’s soul will be released, and you will be cured.”

    I said, “Okay,” while rolling my eyes.

    But there were two Hareshes. One was saying, “Okay,” and rolling his eyes. The other was saying, “What if?”

    That’s the story. I ignored it for three years.

    Then I finally had a chance because I sold the company, and we were having my going-away party. We had about 60 employees in India, and they held a nice celebration for me leaving.

    Afterward, I was noodling around in the hotel room and looking at a travel website.

    Veena, my wife, knew the story. She said, “Do you want to go to Bodh Gaya?”

    I knew she was supportive but not ready to believe it.

    I said, “Yes. We’ve tried everything else. I’m going to remain open-minded. It’s a one-hour flight and relatively inexpensive.”

    Domestic flights in India are very cheap. We could spend two nights. There was only one flight going in and one flight going out.

    She said, “Okay, I’ll take care of it.”

    She worked with our travel agent, who found a priest and negotiated how much money we would have to pay.

    We went there, and nothing spiritual happened. I can guarantee that no clouds parted. There was no rain and no rainbow. It was not a pleasant experience.

    We finished the rituals and left feeling bummed out.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Can I jump in?

    I understand how that would feel if you were expecting something. You used a rainbow as an example. You wanted a visual sign or something.

    At that point, were you thinking nothing had happened, or was there a small question in your mind: “I wonder if anything is different?”

    Haresh Patel: It was the overall experience. The town was dirty. The temple was dirty. The priests were crooks.

    We had pre-negotiated a price, and then you had to visit seven smaller sub-temples. The money was supposed to cover all the individual priests in those smaller temples.

    There were arguments about the whole thing. They would ask, “Where’s my money?”

    I would say, “I already paid.”

    They would say, “Yes, but they don’t pay us.”

    It was not a fun experience. When you go to a church, you expect tranquility and spirituality, and none of that happened.

    That was the disappointment. I was thinking, “How is this supposed to let my mother’s soul rise?”

    We still had two more weeks left. We took our trip to Sri Lanka, where I learned about green tea and where it comes from. Then we went to London to visit my daughter, who was doing a semester abroad.

    We went home. Precisely three and a half weeks later, I did not feel the urge to make my appointment.

    I called and asked, “Can I delay it?”

    They said, “Sure. We have it frozen here. You just need to call us half an hour before. There’s a default rate because people get stuck in traffic. Call us, and we’ll put it back in the refrigerator.”

    I never went back. It has been three and a half years.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Interesting.

    Haresh Patel: In my book, The Ghost in My Body, where 12 doctors couldn’t find an answer, I still say that I don’t know whether it was a placebo effect. I don’t know whether it was just timing. Will it ever come back?

    But my epigraph says it all. It’s from Einstein. I forget the exact words, but it says that we have to believe in the mysterious.

    If one of the smartest people in the world could say that, I can believe in the mysterious. We all can.

    We’ll leave it at that. That’s the journey. That’s the story.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I like that. It’s also interesting coming from a Hindu perspective because there is recognition that our health is based on more than what we eat, how we sleep, or whether we exercise properly.

    It recognizes a mental, emotional, and spiritual component to health. When people address that, there may be a different level of healing.

    The question becomes: Could the spiritual component be involved in my cancer, my weakened immune system, my autoimmune disease, my skin rash, or my gut problem? When I eat something and my gut and skin flare up, could that be healed emotionally?

    We know there is a mind-body connection. Going from mental and emotional to mysterious and spiritual is one of the things I love about this discussion.

    In response to your experience, and recognizing that a doctor who spent time with you was able to figure things out, you’re looking to compress time and get more done in less time. Now you’re bringing that alternative approach into it using AI. Is that correct?

    Haresh Patel: Absolutely. Let me explain that.

    The compression of time, as we said, is the root cause of why we can’t get to the bottom of these problems. The story is the answer.

    The homework is done before you see the doctor. AI allows us to understand more than one modality, and no modality is completely right or wrong.

    We’re stuck in our beliefs. Some people say, “I’m only going to believe in acupuncture and Chinese medicine.” A billion of us may say, “I’m going to believe in Ayurveda.” The Western world says, “I’m going to believe in conventional medicine.”

    The answer is all of the above. They’re all right. It depends on the story.

    The story is no different from a matching engine. It matches you to the right modality, and it’s up to you to decide: Door A, Door B, Door C, or Door D. Which door do I want to explore?

    Remember what I told you: Remain open-minded and curious. Open all the doors and look at all of them.

    That’s what Sanare is. Sanare is a place where you build your story. AI helps put lights at the ends of the tunnels where there are doors for you to explore. We don’t try to push you through any one door.

    Think about the time before we had the internet. We had libraries. People would go to the library and find some unique therapy because they were stuck.

    When the internet came along, it made things easier. AI makes it infinitely easier to identify those options.

    We’re a two-sided marketplace. We help people build their stories to find the appropriate practitioners rather than shooting in the dark. They can have multiple door options and conversations to explore.

    That didn’t happen until I had my aha moment about a month before my final doctor visit. I also had to go through my business journey.

    My prior company, Mercatus, had the assets under management that you mentioned and was sold to State Street. I had to go through that journey to connect the dots here because what we did was connect data.

    Our customers were investors in assets such as airports, bridges, toll roads, supertankers, and many other things. They couldn’t make heads or tails out of something they had owned for 20 years because the data was scattered everywhere. Financial models were everywhere. They couldn’t perform scenario analysis. They were flying blind.

    They wouldn’t admit it publicly, but privately, some of the largest fund managers would say, “We’re flying blind.”

    It was because they couldn’t see the whole story. They couldn’t see the whole film.

    When I saw the last doctor, Dr. Reddy in Sacramento, he did something very unconventional.

    It began with the same process: the lobby, the forms, the nurse, the vital signs, and the folder at the door that he brought into the room.

    But he said, “I don’t want to open that folder. I don’t want to know why you’re here. I want to know you. Tell me from the beginning.”

    Again, he was building a story and traveling through time.

    When I told him everything about my mom and that journey, he simplified it. He went to the whiteboard and said, “I’ve been quizzing you for a couple of hours and peppering you with questions because every doctor you saw was right, but they were also wrong. Each doctor reached behind the curtain and felt only one part of the elephant. I’m taking the whole curtain off. I’m taking a Sherlock Holmes approach. It’s all interconnected.”

    Everything I told him about my mom—call it whatever you want—could be called energy or mind.

    That is the biggest myth of modern medicine. Even ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, and all the symptom checkers, are repeating the same mistake. They are not connecting mind and body.

    That’s not to say everything starts with the mind, but it certainly can’t be missed.

    Then there is the interconnection. When he drew those eight quadrants, I said, “My God, this is exactly what Mercatus did. I can solve this with technology.”

    It’s a systematic diagnostic methodology that connects mind and body with all the functional parts that are interconnected: the gut, brain, pancreas, and liver.

    They have to be interconnected.

    That aha moment occurred a month before I went to Bodh Gaya. The light went off: I can solve this at scale.

    That became my mission and passion. This whole 55-year journey, and the 12 years of painfully building a business that ran like a roller coaster and had a couple of near crashes, were all worth it because all the dots connected.

    I said, “I can solve this at scale, and if I can help one person truncate that journey, it will all be worth it.”

    Dr. Michael Haley: Is the end user of Sanare Health the doctor or the patient?

    Haresh Patel: Both.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Both?

    Haresh Patel: The patient has to start the journey. They have to build the story.

    The system systematically helps you build the journey. It gives you the option to answer questions, just as you do on other AI platforms that we use every day, but it asks the right questions.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Talking to AI, the key is how you talk to it. If you don’t know how to talk to it, you’re not going to receive the full advantage of AI. In this case, the system is prompting you to provide the proper information.

    Haresh Patel: That’s where we built what I would call the secret sauce: the art of questioning and questioning properly.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Is it a platform where people create an account online?

    Haresh Patel: Yes. I’ll be providing you with a promotional code.

    We are just launching the platform, so we’re looking for early users to give us feedback because customers make it perfect.

    You asked whether it works for both sides. For the patient, obviously, they want to get cured. Hopefully, they’re going to invest the time, as I did, to build the story.

    Some people don’t want to do that. We’ll give them options. For one fee, we can do that for you.

    If you sign a consent form, for another fee, we can have you speak with a live person who is compassionate, wants to listen, and can help build your story. It is a dialogue.

    If you’re more comfortable doing that, it’s an upsell opportunity for the doctor.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I think you said it earlier. I was good at what I did, but my business skills were not where they needed to be. I’m repeating your words.

    I have no pride in my accomplishments or lack of accomplishments. I recognize that I’m a flawed human, like everyone else.

    Haresh Patel: Almost every practitioner I have talked to says, “I know what I do really well, but building my Instagram page, Facebook page, website, billing, and insurance is overwhelming.”

    We can help practitioners too.

    On the practitioner side, we can solve some of those problems by giving them tools because they have to operate on our platform.

    What they’re most interested in is more business, but they want the right business. They view the platform as a qualification engine.

    When they can see the story, they can say, “I can help that person,” or, “I cannot help that person.”

    A bad review or no review can be equally bad. Good reviews propel a business. Their interest in our platform is receiving more qualified patients.

    At the end of the day, we are a dating engine. It’s as simple as that. Or we’re like Airbnb.

    You may want a vacation in a particular country, with a certain number of bedrooms and a particular type of swimming pool, or no swimming pool. The homeowner lists all the features available. Airbnb matches you together.

    We do the same thing.

    Dr. Michael Haley: What is the web address?

    Haresh Patel: SanareHealth.ai.

    The best way to reach me today is through my email, haresh @ sanarehealth .ai

    HareshPatel.ai is my personal website. I’ll provide all of those links so you can include them.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Great.

    I want to talk about one of the problems with AI, probably because of what came before it, which was Google Search, Bing, Yahoo, or whatever platform you used.

    One of the big problems with searching online is that it can be very anti-alternative.

    We know that from COVID. I couldn’t even say that word in a video because the video could get banned from YouTube simply for saying “COVID.”

    People had to talk in code because the algorithm was against it. We were told the information had to come from the CDC, which had its own slant. The algorithm was against us.

    If you posted a video and it appeared anywhere, there might be a big warning below it saying, “Click here to get real information.”

    Everyone says they’re afraid of misinformation, and no one wants misinformation, but sometimes they were calling good information misinformation.

    How do you get around that while creating a platform that remains open to alternative ideas?

    Haresh Patel: We may face similar challenges. I can’t guarantee that we won’t.

    One thing we’re doing is building the education component. Remember, I told you that people used to go to libraries and spend hours, days, or weeks doing research. Then the internet arrived and sped it up. It still takes a lot of time, even with AI.

    I’ll give you one example: tinnitus. Twenty million people have it. It’s a ringing in the ears.

    The same problem applies. There’s a story behind it, but our first reaction is to go to an ENT specialist.

    In my view, that is the wrong specialty about 80 percent of the time. Tinnitus may have little to do with the ear itself. It can have to do with hearing loss.

    Someone might tell you, “You’re 64. Your hearing is about where it should be.” But that’s still hearing loss.

    There is a particular part of the brain that processes sound. When it doesn’t have sound, it goes crazy and creates sound. That’s tinnitus. You have to figure out how to calm that down.

    People who have gone outside conventional medicine have said that the questions are not being asked correctly. The doctor may not have been trained to ask them.

    Here is what you may need to ask: During the last 12 months, did one of three things happen?

    Did you have a slip or injury in which your neck or jaw was displaced? You have to examine that. Remember, it’s time travel. You’re building the story.

    Did you experience severe trauma or stress? We’re back to the mind-body connection.

    If any one of those three things, or all three, happened, there may be a high likelihood that you develop tinnitus. You have to unpack it. Only then can you consider an appropriate therapy.

    In my case, in December 2024, we had a roofing company that decided it couldn’t handle the project properly. The storm date never changed, and the house became the Titanic.

    I slipped and fell and injured my back badly. At some point, that fall displaced something in my neck or jaw.

    I mentioned it to my chiropractor because I was seeing him for my back. He said, “We’ve been trained on that.”

    He started working on my jaw and neck, and the tinnitus slowly started dissipating.

    On top of that was the trauma of seeing my home completely destroyed in one storm, being displaced for ten months, and dealing with the financial stress because the insurance company wasn’t going to play nicely.

    I had all three things happen, so no wonder I had tinnitus by February or March.

    We do the research. I spent ten or twelve hours finding that needle in the haystack. We’re creating content so the engine can feed you that information as you build your story.

    As I said, it’s all about building the story.

    If you simply say, “I have a headache,” the system is going to say, “Take aspirin.”

    But if it starts asking, “Why do you have a headache? Did you fall down?”

    You might say, “Yes, I fell and hit my head.”

    Then it can say, “Maybe this is a reason to discuss an MRI.”

    As you build the story, you have more options. It’s about building the story and traveling back through time.

    I didn’t answer your question, though. I’m sorry.

    I believe the world is changing dramatically. As much as we may agree or disagree with today’s administration, it is lowering many barriers around optionality. People are curious, and the world is changing dramatically.

    So many walls are cracking and crumbling that I believe there is a breakthrough opportunity.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I agree with that.

    As someone who uses AI quite a bit, I am seeing a shift. I’m seeing an ability to sway AI with the information we feed it.

    There is a lot of evidence showing how natural things can be beneficial for restoring health.

    It’s funny that you mentioned tinnitus because I’m someone who had tinnitus. I may never have gotten down to its root cause, but I know what my triggers were.

    For people listening to this podcast who know me, this might be shocking: Years ago, I used to drink Diet Coke.

    I haven’t had Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, or any soda like that in years. It was probably one of those treats for me when I was in school. I probably gave it up around the year 2000.

    I didn’t initially realize that my tinnitus had gone away.

    A few months later, for whatever reason, I decided to have a Diet Coke. I didn’t realize my tinnitus had returned until maybe a day or two later.

    I thought, “This is weird. I have tinnitus again.”

    Eventually, it went away, and I started questioning whether Diet Coke could possibly be the cause.

    I tested it. Yes, if I had Diet Coke, which has an artificial sweetener in it, the tinnitus would return. That chemical must have been affecting my nervous system and triggering the tinnitus.

    I haven’t had a Diet Coke since.

    How many people have taxed their children’s Halloween candy? I did. Every now and then, I would slip—or not really slip. You think, “I have such a good, healthy diet. Why not? Is this really going to kill me?”

    Your kids come in with bags of candy, and why not have some with them?

    Then, all of a sudden, there was my tinnitus again.

    There must have been some chemistry in the junk I was putting into my body that caused the tinnitus to return.

    I haven’t had tinnitus in years now, mostly because I eat a clean diet. Those foods were the trigger for me.

    What the original cause was, I don’t know. Maybe it was chemistry.

    Haresh Patel: You were doing pattern recognition. You were connecting the dots by looking backward. It’s the same thing as building a story.

    You may not have gotten to the exact cause. But all of the foods that triggered it may have had something in common.

    AI could help you enter all of those foods and ask, “This chocolate, this chocolate, and that chocolate—what is the common ingredient?”

    Some ingredients aren’t required to be listed, so you may never get to the bottom of exactly which ingredient is triggering it, but it could still be an interesting experiment.

    Dr. Michael Haley: It’s funny that you say that.

    As someone involved in manufacturing both cosmetics and things that people consume, I know that when you purchase a raw material, that material can contain other things.

    Let’s say one ingredient you need is cocoa. The original supplier may have preserved that raw ingredient. Whatever they used to preserve it doesn’t necessarily appear on the ingredients list of the final product. When you manufacture your product, the label may simply say “cocoa,” not everything that had previously been added to the cocoa.

    There are definitely things in cosmetics and food products that don’t appear on the ingredients label.

    I learned this initially when we made this product. It’s funny—I have it on my desk right here.

    For people seeing this, I’m sorry. We’re out of stock and waiting for new tubes to come from China so we can make it available on our website. I have my secret supply.

    I’m sorry for showing it because we’re getting so many calls about this stuff.

    The first time we reformulated it after I took over the brand, we wanted to make it paraben-free.

    Technically, it was paraben-free. There were no parabens on the label. But one of the ingredients I sourced was itself preserved with parabens.

    I realized there are subcomponents that never make it onto the final label.

    You don’t really know everything you’re eating or putting on your skin when you buy processed products.

    Haresh Patel: Your product is aloe-based, right? That’s the specialty of your company?

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s our secret.

    Haresh Patel: My wife has an aloe plant. She cuts it and rubs it all over her face.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s the best way to use it, by the way. You definitely have the right core ingredient.

    There is something about aloe vera. Just like we mentioned black tea and green tea, these natural things are gifts from God. Plants can be your medicine.

    Over the years, we have damaged that philosophy and understanding. We’ve created man-made medicines and chemicals, although sometimes their ingredients still come from plants.

    I like what you’re doing. I like how you’re bridging these different approaches and how Sanare Health is going to bring in alternative perspectives.

    You’re also getting to the root cause because there is always a cause.

    I always like to look at both sides of the equation. What is causing the problem? Let’s remove that. Then, what can I do to support the body?

    In your case, we might look at the skin rash and ask what caused it. What mental, emotional, or spiritual component needs to be addressed? Let’s take care of that.

    Then we might also ask, “How do I support an autoimmune condition? What can I do about an immune system that is overreacting?”

    Maybe by working on a gut-healthy diet, removing inflammatory foods, and consuming gut-supportive foods, I can support my health from an alternative perspective rather than only taking medicine that suppresses the symptoms.

    Haresh Patel: I’m glad the medicine is there. I’m glad we have those options until we figure out what to do to actually get well.

    I did the math for a patient with diabetes.

    If you add all the quarterly visits to the endocrinologist, the laboratory work, and the slow progression of insulin treatment, it adds up.

    First, there is diet and exercise. Then metformin is added. Then insulin is added in layers.

    Then someone says, “There’s a new study showing that you should get ahead of cholesterol and blood pressure.”

    By the time you’re finished, you may be taking five or six medications.

    Over 30 years, including the time you’re away from work, the cost can exceed $500,000. That’s only to manage diabetes.

    But if you investigate how diabetes might be treated or reversed, there is a whole world out there.

    You have to be careful about how hard you explore that world because you might get banned.

    There is a whole mind-body connection. Is the mind speaking to the liver? Is the liver speaking to the gut, or vice versa? Is the liver speaking to the pancreas? The pancreas is producing insulin, but something is off in the signals.

    It’s only when you step back and ask, “Why do I have diabetes?” that you begin looking at the whole system.

    That question is not asked.

    Imagine if, three years into it, you could figure out why. You would save the entire system and yourself years of suffering.

    The employer, who might be self-insured, would save a lot of money.

    But the system isn’t set up to cure.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Well said.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if your math was off and the damage was actually much worse.

    Haresh Patel: I said that assuming there were no complications.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Because diabetes can cause vision problems, arterial issues, high blood pressure, and kidney disease. There are many additional costs.

    Haresh Patel: I didn’t add the insult-to-injury part. I was only describing someone who kept their A1C at 6.5 and was considered a good citizen.

    But that good citizen was a nice ATM machine.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I enjoyed the conversation, Haresh. Where should people go to find out more?

    You mentioned your website. Is there a specific call to action?

    Haresh Patel: My call to action is to become the CEO of your own health.

    Build your story on our platform. You get to share it with whomever you want. It’s your vault.

    Even when we use LLMs or other forms of AI, we don’t send your name and everything about you. It is your information. You get to decide which door to open.

    We give you the doors you may want to open and the ability to have conversations.

    But it has to start with owning your own health, being curious like you were with your Diet Coke story, and keeping all the options open.

    When you do those three things, you will get closer to a cure. A cure means you become a happier person. It’s as simple as that.

    Hopefully, our platform at SanareHealth.ai will become a gold standard for the 133 million people living in perpetual diagnostic limbo.

    Dr. Michael Haley: Thank you. That’s wonderful.

    Not knowing you previously and not knowing much about your platform, I don’t know whether I asked all the right questions.

    Is there anything I left out that is important? Is there anything where you’re thinking, “I wish he had asked this,” or, “I wish we had mentioned that”?

    Haresh Patel: I think you did a good job of teasing out all the salient points.

    If you hadn’t asked the final question about where to find us and what people should take away, I would have summarized it this way, and I’ll repeat it one more time: Take control. Build your story.

    Building your story is not easy. There are things buried deep that you may not want to discuss. There are things you don’t remember.

    There are different ways to bring those things out. That’s what hypnosis and past-life regression are about. Those are options for building the story.

    You’re going to find that pearl under 20 mattresses if you keep digging and removing each layer.

    It is about building the story and then leveraging today’s technology to find the right path and the people who might be able to help you.

    We don’t diagnose on our platform. We connect you with people who are experts.

    Dr. Michael Haley: I have a little personal question to ask you. I’m going to relate it to some of the things you said about yourself.

    When I was young, I had very little emotion.

    I could be watching a movie, and the person next to me could be tearing up. I would think, “It’s just a movie. What’s wrong with you? Why are your eyes leaking?”

    Something changed.

    For me, I don’t know when the change happened, but I learned to actually have emotions. I felt like I had been missing out.

    You might think, “How could you be missing out? Who wants to cry?”

    But I knew something was missing.

    I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but something in my life changed. Now I have a hard time not crying when I watch the evening news.

    Do you cry now?

    Haresh Patel: I think there is something about age that brings it on.

    My dad was exactly the way I used to be and how you described yourself. I never saw him cry.

    Now the same man, who I never saw cry, cries over the smallest things.

    I’m catching up.

    It is very therapeutic to let everything out, in both ways: crying and laughter.

    I learned to laugh. I needed to go back to a wellness center in India called Jindal.

    One of the yoga sessions involved looking at the person to your right and the person to your left, making funny faces, and making each other laugh.

    There is a whole practice called laughter yoga.

    I stayed there for about two weeks. When I came back, I started laughing at jokes. I started laughing during movies.

    Before that, I would think, “Why is everybody laughing? It’s funny, but it isn’t worth a laugh.”

    You have to train yourself to laugh.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s another good emotion that I probably didn’t express much. I was just very unemotional.

    It’s nice to watch a movie with my wife and know when she’s becoming emotional because I’m feeling it too. If I’m feeling it, she probably is as well.

    I can’t always cry yet, but I get choked up or get goosebumps. I’m making progress.

    Haresh Patel: There’s healing there.

    Dr. Michael Haley: That’s great.

    Haresh, this was an interesting podcast. Thank you so much for sharing.

    Haresh Patel: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.

    Narrator: I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of The Dr. Haley Show.

    Make sure to hit subscribe on whichever platform you are using to listen. If this episode made you think of someone, take a screenshot and share this exact episode with them.

    You can find the show notes for this episode at DrHaley.com.

    If you want to geek out with Dr. Michael Haley on other radical health topics, be sure to check out his YouTube channel, where he posts exclusive video content.

    All the details are at DrHaley.com, and we can’t wait to hang out with you on the next episode.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Who is Haresh Patel?

    Haresh Patel is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author, and the founder and CEO of Sanare Health. In this episode, he describes a 55-year search for answers to chronic health symptoms and explains how his experience inspired him to build technology that helps patients organize their complete health stories.

    What is Sanare Health?

    Sanare Health is an AI-assisted platform that helps people organize symptoms, medical records, treatments, life events, and health timelines into a practitioner-ready brief. It is designed to improve communication between patients and practitioners rather than provide a diagnosis or treatment plan.

    What does the mind-body connection mean in this episode?

    The mind-body connection refers to the possibility that stress, trauma, grief, emotional patterns, and major life events may interact with physical and biological factors. The episode does not suggest that every illness is psychological or caused by emotions.

    Why can a patient’s complete health story be important?

    Symptoms and medical findings may appear unrelated when viewed separately. Organizing them chronologically alongside treatments, injuries, diet, stress, and major life events may help patients and practitioners recognize patterns that were previously overlooked.

    Does Sanare Health diagnose illnesses or replace a doctor?

    No. Sanare Health organizes information and produces a patient-approved, practitioner-ready summary. It does not diagnose medical conditions, prescribe treatment, replace a qualified healthcare professional, or provide emergency care.

    What is The Ghost in My Body about?

    The Ghost in My Body is Haresh Patel’s memoir about his decades-long diagnostic journey, the loss of his mother during childhood, his health challenges, his exploration of emotional and spiritual healing, and the experiences that inspired his vision for improving healthcare.

    Can unresolved grief or emotional stress cause chronic illness?

    This episode explores the possibility that unresolved grief and prolonged stress may contribute to or intensify physical symptoms in some people. Haresh Patel’s experience is personal and does not establish that emotional stress is the cause of every chronic condition. Persistent or unexplained symptoms should be evaluated by a qualified healthcare professional.

    Medical disclaimer: This episode is provided for educational and informational purposes only. It does not provide medical diagnosis or treatment. The experiences and opinions discussed are not a substitute for individualized care from a qualified healthcare professional.

  • How Real Food Helps Heal the Body: Lexi Noel on Eating Disorders, Gut Health & Processed Foods

    What happens when a young woman recovers from an eating disorder not by embracing more packaged food, but by returning to real food? In this episode, Dr. Michael Haley talks with Lexi Noel about eating disorders, ultra-processed foods, faith, gut health, and why learning to eat simple, whole foods may change the trajectory of health for an entire generation.

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE

    In episode 139 of The Dr. Haley Show, Dr. Michael Haley speaks with Lexi Noel, a social media creator and real-food advocate whose personal healing journey began after being diagnosed with anorexia as a teenager. Instead of accepting the idea that processed junk food was the answer, Lexi began asking deeper questions about what the body is actually designed to eat.

    This conversation explores the connection between real food, mental well-being, gut health, and recovery. Lexi shares how moving away from ultra-processed foods and toward simple, single-ingredient foods helped transform her life. Dr. Haley and Lexi also discuss how grocery shopping has changed, how children are being shaped by modern food culture, healthier food swaps, faith-based motivation, and why the younger generation urgently needs better nutrition guidance.

    If you are concerned about eating disorders, processed foods, gut health, food ingredients, or helping your family make healthier choices, this episode offers practical perspective and strong motivation.

    RESOURCES

    TIMESTAMPS

    00:00 Intro clip: eating disorder recovery through real food
    00:46 Dr. Haley introduces the episode and Lexi Noel
    02:13 Lexi’s story: anorexia, bad advice, and questioning junk food
    04:18 Real food, recovery, and the gut-brain connection
    05:11 Why this message matters for kids and the next generation
    07:13 “Buy or Bye” and what happens when the gut is fed chemicals
    08:57 Divine Treats, food created by God, and nutrient-dense eating
    10:12 What “real food” means
    11:37 Haley Nutrition break: raw aloe vera and gut health
    12:39 Building a message online and dealing with criticism
    15:24 Lexi’s future plans, daily posting, and opening a storefront
    16:27 Is eating processed junk food a sin?
    18:43 How Lexi feels now compared with the worst of her eating disorder
    19:45 RFK Jr., food guidelines, and “eat real food”
    20:50 Shocking food ingredients, dyes, and label concerns
    21:38 Lexi’s biggest message to young people
    22:31 Energy drinks, honey, dates, and natural energy
    24:58 Best real-food swaps for cookies, cereal, bread, crackers, sweets, and ice cream
    28:58 Messages from followers and lives changed
    29:50 Bad nutrition advice from health professionals
    32:23 Faith, prayer, healing, and Lexi’s favorite Bible verse
    33:38 Final thoughts on reaching the younger generation
    35:08 Outro

    EPISODE’S FAQ’S

    What does Lexi Noel mean by real food?
    In this episode, real food refers to simple, whole, single-ingredient foods such as meat, eggs, fruit, and vegetables rather than ultra-processed packaged foods.

    What does this episode say about eating disorders and healing?
    Lexi shares that her recovery from anorexia involved moving away from fear, focusing on nourishment, and filling her body with real food instead of ultra-processed junk food.

    How does gut health connect to mental and physical health in this conversation?
    The episode emphasizes that gut health affects the whole body and may influence mood, energy, and overall well-being.

    Are there healthier replacements for common junk foods?
    Yes. The episode includes examples of healthier swaps for cereal, cookies, crackers, chocolate, bread, and energy drinks.

    Who is this episode for?
    This episode is helpful for parents, young adults, people interested in real food, and anyone concerned about processed foods, eating habits, and gut health.

    KEY TAKEAWAYS & HIGHLIGHTS

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Most people think healing starts with detox. But if your liver, kidneys, colon, and lymphatic system aren’t supported first, detox can actually make things harder—not easier.

    Lexi Noel:
    When I was diagnosed with anorexia, I was told to eat processed foods like Pop-Tarts and cereal to recover. That didn’t make sense to me. I started asking: how can junk food heal the body?

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    That question alone changes everything.

    Lexi Noel:
    It led me to real food—simple, whole foods—and that’s when my health began to improve, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Your gut plays a major role in how you feel.

    Lexi Noel:
    Exactly. When you feed your body ultra-processed foods and chemicals, it affects your mood, energy, and overall health. When you switch to real food, everything starts to shift.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    You’ve simplified this with your “buy or bye” concept.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes—if it’s not real food, it’s a “bye.” Stick to foods created by God—whole, natural, single-ingredient foods—and your body knows what to do.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    So what qualifies as real food?

    Lexi Noel:
    Foods without labels—eggs, meat, fruit, vegetables. If it came from nature, it’s real.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    You’ve built a strong following online sharing this message.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes, and while there’s criticism, I’ve also seen so many lives change. That’s what matters.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    You’ve also connected this to faith.

    Lexi Noel:
    Our bodies are temples. It’s not about guilt—it’s about awareness. Taking responsibility for what we put into our bodies matters.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    How do you feel now compared to when you were struggling?

    Lexi Noel:
    Completely different. I have energy, clarity, and peace. Healing isn’t just physical—it’s mental and spiritual too.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    What’s happening in the food world right now?

    Lexi Noel:
    People are waking up. They’re starting to question ingredients, labels, and what’s really in their food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Some of those ingredients are shocking.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes—dyes, additives, preservatives. Things that don’t belong in the human body.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    What’s your message to young people?

    Lexi Noel:
    Take control of your health. You don’t have to follow the crowd. Choose real food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    What about energy drinks?

    Lexi Noel:
    You don’t need them. Use natural energy sources like fruit, honey, or dates.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Let’s talk about food swaps.

    Lexi Noel:

    • Cereal → eggs or fruit
    • Cookies → homemade with simple ingredients
    • Bread → sourdough
    • Sweets → fruit or honey
    • Ice cream → simple-ingredient versions or homemade

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    You’ve had a lot of feedback from people applying this.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes—and it’s incredible. People are changing their lives just by switching to real food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Have you seen bad advice from professionals?

    Lexi Noel:
    Unfortunately, yes. A lot of people are still being told processed food is fine.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Final thoughts?

    Lexi Noel:
    We need to reach the younger generation. They’re being influenced early, and they need better guidance on food and health.

    Below is the full transcript of Dr. Haley Show episode 139 with Lexi Noel on eating disorders, real food, processed foods, faith, and gut health.

    TRANSCRIPT

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    We focus a lot on preparing the body, supporting the key organs and glands designed to help eliminate toxicity—your liver, kidneys, colon, and lymphatic system. Because if we go straight into trying to detox someone, whether it’s heavy metals, chemicals, or hidden infections, it can be a little more challenging.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Welcome to the Dr. Haley Show. I’m Dr. Michael Haley, and today I’m joined by Lexi Noel. Lexi, thanks for being here.

    Lexi Noel:
    Thank you so much for having me.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    I’m really excited about this conversation. You’ve built a strong message online around real food, and I think it’s something people need to hear—especially younger people.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes, absolutely. I started sharing my journey because I went through an eating disorder when I was younger, and I realized how much confusion there is around food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Tell us about that.

    Lexi Noel:
    When I was diagnosed with anorexia, I was actually told to eat things like Pop-Tarts, cereal, and processed foods to gain weight. That never sat right with me. I started asking: how can junk food be the solution to healing?

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    That’s such an important question.

    Lexi Noel:
    Exactly. That’s when I started looking into real food—whole foods—and everything began to change. My relationship with food improved, and I started to feel better physically and mentally.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    There’s a strong connection between what we eat and how we feel—both physically and mentally.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes. Your gut is so important. When you’re feeding it chemicals and ultra-processed foods, it affects everything—your mood, your energy, your health.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    You’ve talked about the “buy or bye” concept. Explain that.

    Lexi Noel:
    It’s simple—if it’s not real food, it’s a “bye.” You don’t buy it. When you stick to foods created by God—whole, natural foods—you’re giving your body what it was designed to run on.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    That’s powerful.

    Lexi Noel:
    And it simplifies everything. You don’t need complicated rules. Just eat real food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    How do you define real food?

    Lexi Noel:
    Single-ingredient foods. Foods that don’t need a label. Things like eggs, meat, fruit, vegetables—foods that come from nature.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Let’s take a quick moment to talk about gut health. At Haley Nutrition, we focus on supporting the gut, and one of the ways we do that is with raw aloe vera gel—minimally processed, whole-food-based support.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Back to your message—you’ve built a large audience online. How has that been?

    Lexi Noel:
    It’s been amazing, but also challenging. When you speak truth about food, you get pushback. But I’ve also seen so many lives changed, and that’s what keeps me going.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    What are your plans moving forward?

    Lexi Noel:
    I want to keep spreading the message, posting every day, and eventually open a storefront focused on real food options.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    You’ve also touched on the idea that eating processed junk food could be considered a moral or spiritual issue. Can you explain that?

    Lexi Noel:
    I think our bodies are temples. When we knowingly put harmful things into our bodies, it’s something to think about. It’s not about guilt—it’s about awareness and responsibility.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    That’s a strong perspective.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes, and it’s helped me stay committed.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    How do you feel now compared to when you were struggling?

    Lexi Noel:
    Completely different. I have energy, clarity, peace. It’s not just physical—it’s mental and spiritual too.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    There’s a lot happening right now with food policy and public awareness. What are your thoughts?

    Lexi Noel:
    I think people are waking up. More people are questioning ingredients, labels, and what they’re feeding their families.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Some of the ingredients in modern foods are shocking.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes—dyes, additives, preservatives. Things that don’t belong in food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    What’s your biggest message to young people?

    Lexi Noel:
    Take control of your health. You don’t have to follow what everyone else is doing. Choose real food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    What about energy drinks?

    Lexi Noel:
    I always suggest natural alternatives—like honey, dates, or fruit. You don’t need artificial stimulants.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Let’s talk about swaps. What are some good replacements for common junk foods?

    Lexi Noel:
    For cereal—try eggs or fruit.
    For cookies—make your own with simple ingredients.
    For bread—look for sourdough.
    For sweets—use honey or fruit.
    For ice cream—look for simple ingredient versions or make your own.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    You’ve received a lot of feedback from people.

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes, and it’s incredible. People tell me their lives have changed just by switching to real food.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Have you seen bad advice from professionals?

    Lexi Noel:
    Unfortunately, yes. A lot of outdated or harmful recommendations, especially around processed foods being “fine.”

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Let’s talk about faith.

    Lexi Noel:
    Faith has been a huge part of my healing. Prayer, trusting God, and aligning my life with His design—it’s all connected.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Do you have a favorite Bible verse?

    Lexi Noel:
    Yes—something that reminds me to trust God and take care of what He’s given me.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Final thoughts?

    Lexi Noel:
    We need to reach the younger generation. They’re being influenced heavily, and they need better information about food and health.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    Lexi, thank you so much for being here.

    Lexi Noel:
    Thank you for having me.

    Dr. Michael Haley:
    And thank you all for listening to the Dr. Haley Show.