Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness
Toxic is a book of hope for these individuals, their loved ones, and the physicians who provide their care. Over many years of helping thousands of patients recover their health (even after their previous doctors had given up on them), Dr. Neil Nathan has come to understand some of the most common causes for these debilitating illnesses, which allows for the utilization of more precise and effective forms of treatment.
The goal of this book is to shed light on these complex illnesses so that suffering patients and their families can get the help they so desperately need. Inside, you will find:
- Information about how extreme sensitivity and toxicity develop in the body, how sensitivity and toxicity differ, and how they often overlap.
- Detailed descriptions of each of the five major causes of extreme sensitivity and toxicity: mold, Bartonella (a co-infection of Lyme disease), mast cell activation, porphyria, and carbon monoxide poisoning.
- An outline of the cell danger response, a revolutionary model developed by Dr. Robert Naviaux that explains how the body essentially gets "stuck" fighting a threat even after the danger has passed.
- A system-by-system plan for "rebooting" the body to break the cycle of illness and allow healing to begin.
- Information about coping with stress and embracing an emotional and/or spiritual awakening on the path to wellness.
Reviews (179)
On the road to recovery, thanks to Dr. Nathan and the information in this book.
As someone who has been given back my life by Dr. Nathan, after close to two decades of being ill, I am extremely grateful that he has gathered all this knowledge for those of us who have become sensitive and toxic from Lyme and mold illness. I am one of those patients who spent years floundering, trying to get well and failing, while not being believed and being told that “it is impossible” for that small dose of X to have made me worse. Thank you to Dr. Nathan healing us, as well as championing us in this book. “Toxic” covers the missing areas that prevented me from healing after treating for Lyme. These were mold illness, mast cell activation syndrome, and the fact that I was what Dr. Nathan defines as a “sensitive” patient who couldn’t follow the usual protocols for treatment. Taking the small dosages that Dr. Nathan recommends has made the difference for me. I’ve gone from being completely housebound to feeling well. In this book, he covers his definitions of “toxic” and “sensitive,” covers mold, bartonella, MCAS, and porphyria, then spends the bulk of the book discussing “rebooting” the body’s systems that have gone awry as a result of these illnesses. These include rebooting the “cell danger response,” the nervous system (a lot of fascinating work being done!), the immune system, the endocrine system, the digestive system, the methylation pathways, and our ability to detoxify. He also discusses genetic predisposition to impaired detoxification, as well as the effects of illness on the mind-body connection. The appendix also includes helpful information on mold remediation and effective cleaning. “Toxic” is a good mix of readability and technical information, and he also provides references if you are interested in learning more about any topic. I certainly wish I had this book years ago, but I am so glad this information is being made available to patients and doctors now. It is also a beautiful book! I also like his message that if you are impaired in any of these areas, or have a genetic predisposition, and are currently unable to treat, it doesn’t mean that you’ll never get better. He provides a treatment order, so it is less overwhelming for your body. There is much to learn from this book, and I would encourage anyone interested to also check out Dr. Nathan’s website and the radio interviews provided at his site.
Excellent cutting-edge book
Excellent book on Mold Toxicity, Bartonella, Lyme, Rebooting the Nervous System, Methylation, etc. Cutting-edge information that is well written. One small caution. Although the book looks excellent, I initially found it impossible to read in its physical form. It outgassed in such a way that it made me feel sick. Within 20 minutes of opening it, I had a headache, nausea, and a runny nose. I am suspecting that it was the inks that were used on the shiny paper. [I have not experienced this before from a book, and I read a lot. I am NOT super-sensitive.] The book is physically beautiful, but I wish they had used a different printing process. This all seems so ironic, especially for a book titled "Toxic". Fortunately, after a few days of leaving it out in the open, I was able to read it for brief periods of time as long as I was in fresh air.
Who Should Read This Book?
As someone who has suffered from mold toxemia and multiple chemical sensitivities and whose wife has suffered through chronic Lyme and its coinfectants (with the usual cascade of effects: chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, brain fog, anxiety, etc.), I have a deep stake in the research presented in this book. Most practitioners today have little understanding of chronic/complex illness and the protocols for diagnosis, much less for treatment. Mainstream allopathic medicine has no sure solutions of its own and, worse, remains occasionally suspicious of several of the techniques and technologies outlined herein. After all, these lie for the most part “outside of the paradigm” of mainstream medicine. My wife and I live where some physicians, thankfully, are open to new treatment possibilities; at the very least, they admit that they don’t have all the answers themselves. So, I return to my initial question: Who should read this book? Those who suffer from chronic/complex illness, of course, and those who care for them: that part of the answer is obvious. More importantly, it’s the practitioners across the country who treat you and yours who need this book. I address my fellow sufferers in mold, Lyme, MCS, etc.: give copies of Dr. Nathan’s book to your family physicians and to others who have tried to help but, lacking information on this latest research, have done little more than address symptoms rather than causes. Until the medical community comes to understand what a handful of researcher-physicians have discovered in their joint efforts at diagnoses/treatments, we’re doomed—doomed to an unrelenting suffering and loss of quality of life. And that “we,” those of us who have endured chronic/complex illness, grows with each passing month by the tens of thousands. I am not unfriendly to mainstream medicine, which has its dedicated professionals. What we need, desperately, is to expand the parameters of what is deemed “mainstream,” so that the techniques/technologies outlined in Dr. Nathan’s book become more widely understood and available. Information is key: since most practitioners lack the depth of information presented in Dr. Nathan’s book, how can they be expected to help? Put simply, they need to read this book, and someone has to put it physically in their hands. You should do it, gentle reader. Passivity on the part of patients contributes to the crisis. We need to advocate on behalf of our own medical needs. I suspect that most of us, at some point, came to realize that our family practitioners and even the local specialists were of modest help with our chronic/complex conditions, which caused us to become researchers in our own right. Likely, this urgency to self-research led you to Dr. Nathan’s book. When you read it, you’ll discover that it does not promise an easy fix: months and (for me) years of hard work may lie ahead. What it does promise is a coherent protocol for diagnosis/treatment that has proved capable of curing many who, otherwise, had given up hope. Toxic does not replace Dr. Nathan’s earlier work, Healing Is Possible. That previous book provides a protocol for rebalancing body chemistry in a world of depleted nutrition and environmental degradation/toxicity. Still, this latest book is so far advanced over previous discussions that it inhabits a universe of its own. That’s a bold claim, given that Toxic is a fairly slim volume written for an educated lay audience. (It wears its research lightly, in other words.) And, as Dr. Nathan’s list of “Suggested Reading” shows, most of the protocols were developed independently of each other. But that, in point of fact, is the brilliance of this book: having found a common thread in the dozen or so protocols that successfully treat mold, MCS, fibromyalgia, anxiety disorders, etc., Dr. Nathan demonstrates the underlying neurophysiological processes that each previous protocol addresses, in part, in its own way. The body is a self-regulating system: hence, its aim is homeostasis. But, as Dr. Nathan observes, the body is also self-protective, with specific defensive mechanisms operative in each level of organization, from intracellular to cellular to tissue to glandular to organ/organ systems to the whole organism. The parasympathetic nervous system is implicated in this continuous self-protective activity, which is largely “interpretive”: that is, the body “interprets” some agent or stimulus as invasive or threatening, which elicits a defensive/protective neurophysiological “response.” The body “sounds an alarm,” leading to changes in heart rate/blood pressure, hormonal balance, inflammation, etc. In each chapter within each discussion of specific conditions and treatment protocols, Dr. Nathan asks: What happens when the body can’t “turn off” its defensive “alarm” mechanisms—when a system gets stuck in fight-or-flight mode and can’t relax/restore itself? The first step in each case, as Dr. Nathan argues, is “to reboot” that specific system, restoring its sense of wellbeing—that is, of being “safe from harm.” In this respect, the “complexity” resident in treating chronic/complex conditions rests in retraining each system (neural, endocrine, gastrointestinal, etc.) to stop attacking itself, after which—given the right sorts of help—the body can restore its own healing response. Stress comes in many forms: emotional, nutritional, chemical/environmental, physical/traumatic. An invasion by mold or Lyme can push an overstressed body “over the edge,” from which it cannot restore its natural balances without an initial neurophysiological “reboot.” When you think about it, this concept is elegant in its simplicity. Stealing an Einsteinian phrase, one might call it “the grand unified theory” of chronic/complex illness. Note that Dr. Nathan’s book does not give the various protocols in full: rather, it takes readers through the first stages in gathering these protocols together, in explaining how and why they work, and in giving the resources for further reading and taking action. By the time you’ve worked through the whole of Dr. Nathan’s combined treatments, you’ll own a small library—and, one hopes, you’ll have shared that library with friends, family, and as-yet uninformed practitioners. For the record, I should add that I was under Dr. Nathan’s care more than a decade ago, when he maintained a private practice in Missouri. Several months before the writing of this review, a recurrence of symptoms led me to visit him in his clinic in California, where he gave me my personalized reading list. His book, Toxic, had not yet been released, but now I’ve read it and can give my response. Let me say, finally, that Dr. Nathan speaks and writes in the same voice. What you’ll get in this book will be as good as “a visit to the doc.” James S. Baumlin, Ph.D.
Probably worth reading
I am disappointed that with a topic like this, and considering his reading public, the choice was made to print on shiny, treated paper with toxic ink, when there is untreated paper and soy based low impact ink available. I am reacting badly to touching and breathing the book. I love Neil Nathan for the fact that he gets what low doses of supplements and IV's some of us can use, and that he starts VERY slow and does not shame the patient into enduring terrible "herxes", which may very well be an inability to detox and causing harm. Lots of good info on porphyria, mold, bartonella. He says very little about how a chemical injury can cause MCS and refers to it as a nervous system problem. It has been know since the 70's that toxic exposures can sensitize people permanently to the chemical that caused the problem and other chemicals. Very little research has been done to learn how to help people recovery their respiratory, endocrine, immune, and neurological function after a chemical injury. I was hoping this book would do more to address this issue.
An Excellent Book Based on Experience, Not on a Medical Fad
I have interviewed well over 100 integrative doctors and practitioners in my work as a medical researcher and writer, and I believe Dr. Nathan to be among the most wise, well-studied, experienced and humble. He is also honest and truly cares about his patients. What I love about Dr. Nathan's most recent book is that it isn't based on a fad theory in medicine, but Dr. Nathan's extensive experience in working with some of the most challenging chronically ill people around the world. The book is easy to understand and presents only the most vital and evidence-based information for those looking for better answers to the rampant problems of environmental illness, mold toxicity, Lyme disease and related conditions. It is backed by science but brain-fogged readers won't get stuck trying to wade through pages of research and scientific terms. Dr. Nathan writes succinctly, providing only essential information, and that I love. The work is also comprehensive, addressing every aspect of illness in people with mold illness, Lyme disease and related conditions. Yet it is not overwhelming, and the solutions Dr. Nathan provides are clear and easy to follow. What's more, he gives readers hope that they too, can overcome sickness caused by infections and toxins, because he has had incredible success in treating many sick people that other doctors had given up on, and the book contains testimonials of such people. Finally, and one of the things that I love most about this book - is that Dr. Nathan discusses WHY many chronically ill people fail to heal, despite apparently having received the best treatments, and provides some amazing cutting-edge tools for getting past the roadblocks to full healing. For instance, he describes how the body can get stuck in a protective mode called the "cell danger response" which occurs when a person has been sick for a long time, and how, by rebooting the various systems of the body after the toxins and infections have been removed, health can be fully restored. This is a novel topic that I haven't heard discussed much elsewhere, and it provides a solid reason for why people who have received years of treatment for Lyme, mold and related illnesses fail to fully heal. Oh, and the book contains lots of beautiful and informative diagrams, which makes for a delightful reading experience. If you battle a toxicity related illness, or undiagnosed chronic health condition of any kind, I highly encourage you to check out this book - it will change your life. - Connie Strasheim, Author, New Paradigms in Lyme Disease Treatment
A Roadmap from Toxicity to Health
This book came as a pleasant surprise and exceeded my expectations. Most books with a topic such as this, come with all text and leave you to picture the rest. The color, layout and infographics give a complete and complementary explanation to the topics being covered. It draws you into a conversation that Chronic Environmental Illness is something that can be understood and treated rather than labeled "as too complex to understand." Dr. Nathan clearly respects and honors the unique biology of each patient and has set out to learn from, and dedicate his life work to identify and treat mold toxicity, lyme disease, bartonella infection, mast cell activation syndrome, porphyria and carbon monoxide with the mind of a seasoned detective. With this approach, he uncovers and discusses a plethora of practical tools and treatments with results that give hope to anyone facing these often overwhelming illnesses. Speaking from first hand experience, I would not be today where I am without Dr. Nathan's persistence, compassion and determination. This book is the fruit of his tireless dedication to so many patients who have experienced healing and life under his care. This is not just another book on toxicity or environmental illness but a goldmine that any medical professional or patient will find as a game changer.
We are in an epidemic of chronic illnesses, and there is a solid way forward
We live in an ever-changing and increasingly complicated world that contains chemicals and technology that didn’t exist a couple decades ago. Commercial food production has changed drastically. Accordingly, patterns of illness change as new symptoms and syndromes appear. We are now in an epidemic of chronic illnesses that have in common various features of inflammation. This book describes how sensitivity and toxicity may result from a combination of genetics and the environment, and the cumulative and synergistic effects of the environment. In “Toxic: Heal your body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental illness”, Neil Nathan, MD presents valuable and new information about symptoms and causes of chronic illness. Many people have been ill for years not knowing why. This book is for them, their families, and their doctors. He ties together features of clinical scenarios with biochemical processes, which can become impaired due to toxins. He attempts to show what can be done to return these processes to approach normal. He refers to and draws from a groundbreaking paper from 2013 called “The Cell Danger Response”. He illustrates how basic biochemistry at the cellular level can get “stuck” due to toxins, and then relates that to what we may see or experience clinically. And how to think about fixing a chronic and maladaptive response. “Rebooting” is a concept he uses to address a feature of chronic illness that is central. Often the original triggering event causing the illness is no longer operative, yet the patient still suffers with symptoms. We begin by dealing with the toxins and infections, and then we find that the body has “somehow lost the ability to turn off the process that started the illness”. So, he looks at rebooting via systems such as the neurological, immunological, gastrointestinal. The sweet last chapters of this book deal with the importance of addressing mental, physical, spiritual and emotional issues to be addressed in conjunction with getting better. They “can promote or inhibit healing”. And the appendices and suggested reading are helpful. As both a physician, and a patient who deals with mold and other toxins, I am thankful to have this book to clarify and tie together the basic concepts of these complex issues. This is so far off the radar of what I learned in medical school; everything I know about this was learned 25 years post-education, and I believe it should be widely shared.
Not helpful!
I gathered that my symptoms were mold, but the book is full of interviews and the solutions they give you for Mold are The Shoemakers Protocol which are high priced prescription drugs like Cholestyramine. He doesn't give any clear cut solutions. Just basic stuff you can find on the internet and tells the reader to basically try these methods with your Doctor. Save your money on this book!
Overwhelming
Overwhelming. I do a lot of research and as someone treating Lyme and tissue damage, this book had a lot of information. Too much. So confusing. My problem was theres no way to know what pertains to you. Do you get expensive genetic testing maybe only to find out your normal? Do you automatically try one thing at a time? Forever? All of the chemical diagrams were impossible to understand. Do we really need to see those? It definitely wasnt user friendly. There was a lot of information about how to combat your disease but which do you do? How do you even start? Even a doctor would have to do a zillion tests to find your sensitivities and treatment. That would take years! And a zillion dollars. I just want to know how to detox my body and heal. This book is so complicated it stressed me out. I returned it.
Empowers Those Searching for Answers to Regain and Optimize Their Health
"Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness" is the book I wish I had when my personal health journey started almost 22 years ago. It articulately discusses key factors in chronic illness such as mold illness from water-damaged buildings, Lyme disease and co-infections such as Bartonella and Babesia, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and many other key topics. As our environment becomes more toxic, we as a society become more and more unwell. This book offers an explanation for some of the most challenging health conditions. It further offers a broad toolbox of potential interventions that may support health recovery. The book empowers those searching for answers to regain and optimize their health. I can't remember that last time that I was as excited about a book as I am this one. Dr. Nathan is an incredible doctor who cares deeply about finding answers for his patients. He has spent his career exploring potential solutions, and he has so beautifully shared his knowledge and wisdom with all of us in his brilliant new book.
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