Two Guys One Testicle: A Cancer Story with Louie Helmecki

WELCOME TO EPISODE 227

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Beautifully Broken Podcast.
We're here with Louie, Hellmucky Louie, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Freddie.
1:08
Thanks for having me.
Excited to chat with you today about our similar stories and.
Yeah, me too.
Me too.
You got a LIVESTRONG yellow bracelet on?
Always do.
Yeah, I have been.
Lance is a polarizing individual with everything that went down.
1:23
But I still think what he did for overall cancer, the awareness, the money raising for families, for research, for treatments for people outweighs, you know, the little extracurricular supplements he took when he was riding his bike in in France for those years.
1:41
This outweighs that and I still support what he did to start this.
Me too, man.
My surgeon, as I was rolling into surgery for my primary tumor, he, he took his book and he slapped it on my chest.
He's like, when you wake up, you're going to read this book and you're going to get through this.
1:57
You're not going to die.
And that's all he said to me.
And I was like, it was literally like he handed me this golden glowing grail.
And when I woke up, man, I didn't do anything.
I didn't do anything for a day and a half, two days, however long.
I think I flew through that book in like probably 24, but every word, I was just on the edge of my seat and I remember crying at times and I remember being I can't believe I had this book because this is what I'm going through right now is very special to me.
2:24
And I have I have my long sleeve shirt on for people not watching this on video.
I have a Livestrong tattoo on the inside of my arm.
I think yeah, 100%.
So he's he's definitely on my list.
He's in Austin.
I keep messaging him through Instagram.
That would be great if you can get him on to talk about your story.
2:42
If you do, I'm going to have to ride your coattails and say, hey bro, can I come in and join the conversation?
But I think the overall good that he did for the awareness and let's be honest, love him or hate him, who gave a crap about the Tour de France before Lance Armstrong came along?
3:00
It's like Tiger Woods years ago with golf, other than some guys that golf, you know, he made golfing cool.
Lance made, you know, riding road bike cool and made it popular and people were following it and rooting for him.
I don't care what you say, you know, I think and plus everybody else was doing it in that cycle era.
3:16
So it's one of those things.
But I think this stuff right here, I need to go as far as the tattoo.
I may have to get my first one and maybe I'll do something like that.
But I don't have any tattoos.
But he I still wear this.
I have extras, they break occasionally.
I have a little back pile stock that I got before they were kind of turning them out from Nike when they were kind of getting out of that business.
3:36
But yeah, I still support it.
Amazing.
I, I was going to say that I definitely had my share of, of bracelets.
There's always this article that comes up in my mind when I see people canceling something online.
You know, they want to take somebody and you know, they want to absolutely destroy them and their family and and just forget about them, put them in a corner forever.
3:55
And man, if you wanted to look at some of the stuff like Ford Motor companies invested and funded in through World War One, like not not in a cute way with the literally the Holocaust.
Like these are people that funded like some of these camps and some of the like, literally like built the ovens.
4:16
And I'm like, I had no idea where money was changing hands.
And now these are American companies.
But you know, it's before the conflict really got going and started.
So I think if you want to dig deep, but enough, I mean, you can find dirt or malice or a shadow on anyone.
And for me, it's the black and white cookie of the universe.
4:33
This is this is what it is to be human.
People have a light and they have a dark.
And the people who never deal or talk about the dark, they scare me the most.
Yeah, yeah, it's they, they bitch about Lance because like I said, he took some extra supplements there, there in the Tour de France.
And meanwhile they're driving an Audi and Mercedes and BMW.
4:49
We all know what they funded in the Second World War.
So it's it's crazy, some of these companies and especially in the society that the last, let's say 5 to 10 years of the cancel culture, you do one wrong thing and some stuff is just honest and some stuff is just, hey, I screwed up.
I made a bad decision.
A. 100%.
5:05
And then they try to burn you down for it. 100% I'm always aware of it I'm cautious of it.
I try to be non polarizing as I can and usually I I will start out most podcasts and I'll say that, you know whatever this guest offered forward in their moment of transparency and raw honesty.
5:22
It doesn't mean I hold all those opinions is my core values, but I'm making a space for people to speak.
So I want to, I want to transition to that.
Louis and I just, I want to talk about your cancer journey.
And I'd love to, you know, I, I know we can easily, I'm sure you could talk for four hours about your story and the, and the nuance and the details, but I'd love to hear about the time before you were diagnosed, when you first realized something was off or something was wrong.
5:50
Yeah, So I'm going to leave this with this is the first time I'm talking this in depth about it.
Only because you went through the similar diagnosis, surgery, all that.
I've touched on it some other podcasts that I've been on for my business Central, I'm sure we'll talk about.
If we don't, that's OK.
6:06
I touched on it briefly and the reason I don't dive and I'm open and honest about it, but I don't, I've said this before, I don't leave with it.
Being diagnosed with cancer three times doesn't define me.
I don't you know, you sure, you know some people and it could be the worst thing that possibly happened there if they have a little skin ball.
6:24
Oh, I have skin cancer.
It's like, oh, I had cancer too.
I had cancer too.
I'm like, you know, you and I know would like to have a huge scar from the cyphoid down to lower pubis and not having, you know, normal function going on down in the bowel area, healing and your complication with the bleeding you told me about, it was crazy.
And, you know, there's different levels and there's people with, you know, terminal brain cancer and they're way worse than what we've had.
6:44
And like, there's all levels.
I don't let it define me and I always don't.
I talk about it.
I'm open, but I don't lead with it.
And it's not the only thing that I am because I have a pretty damn good life otherwise.
Other than those 3 little hiccups I've had over the last 22 years. 3 or 4?
No, actually longer than that, 26 years now.
7:01
So, yeah.
So we'll get to that.
So I'm 45 years old and it started when I was 19.
So obviously it was testicular cancer.
So you had the similar situation.
You felt the pain, you feel a lump.
It felt weird.
You felt like you got kicked there.
You just turn a little bit and like, oh, it felt like somebody gave you, you know, a shot.
7:20
You're playing a sport, Got hit there.
Get it checked out.
Ultrasound, 19 years old, most likely this what it is common for that age.
And that's what it was.
So I had surgery, had the orchiectomy, had it removed and that was that.
7:35
Two more markers, beta HCG, alpha fetoprotein, all that stuff was kind of normal.
Luckily it hadn't spread to my retroperitoneal lymph nodes, my lungs and my brain, which happened to land step and my lymph nodes and lungs we'll talk about a little bit later.
I think that's what happened to you.
And I was fine for say three years when I was 22, started feeling like crap, feeling off.
7:54
I was still going to get my checkups, my scans, you know, that first five year period with everything, you got to stay up on it.
And, you know, I just knew something was off, went there.
And when my oncologist comes in the room and I actually asked my parents to go to that appointment, usually they wouldn't, it would just quit blood work.
I was 22 at the time.
8:10
Just go in and you know, my scans, everything's cool.
I just knew something was off.
And then when the oncologist came in with his wife, had a different like, look, it wasn't, hey, Louis, what's up?
Hey, how are things?
You just knew because I knew something was probably going to be sad and then came back and my tumor markers were elevated.
So that Levy down the path of, OK, let's get the scan now and let's see where things are.
8:29
And then it showed up some spots in my retroperitoneal lymph nodes and my lungs, and then I went down the whole pathway from that.
I would love to know, yeah.
For people that aren't aware with, you know, testicular cancer is very unique.
I would tell people that in, you know, in, in 1975, if you were diagnosed with testicular cancer, it was often terminal if you caught it too late because they didn't have the chemotherapy agents that they do today.
8:57
And it spreads very quickly.
You know, it's an aggressive tumor.
So I'd love to know.
And there's a bunch of different type of cancers.
I'd love to know what type of cancer you were diagnosed.
It was specifically seminoma, non seminoma and how the progression of disease dictates like what chemotherapy regiment you're going to do.
9:17
So it was germ cell tumor, non seminoma germ cell tumor.
And you know, the first time around with the orchiectomy, there's no, there's no spread, there's no tumor markers, tumor markers were not elevated.
There was no reason to do anything.
And then when the spots came back in my lymph nodes and lungs within that first five year period is always the the waiting game with a lot of cancers, no matter what it is, came back spots in my lymph nodes and lungs.
9:41
And then so you know, think you went through the cycles.
Did you go through the cycles of gleomyosin, atopicide and splatin?
So I did 2 chemotherapy regime.
It was atopicide and cisplatin.
I always say them in that order.
EC even though it's a like the acronym is often CE, it's atopicide and cisplatin was what was what I did.
9:58
I did 4 full rounds and basically for people at home that what chemotherapies.
Every single cancer is different.
So I was basically in the infusion room for five hours a day, five days in a row, and then I would take two to three weeks to recover and then I would start another cycle.
10:14
And you really needed those recovery weeks.
And so you were doing bleomycin, which is an agent that primarily helps with the lung mats, the lung metastatic tumors.
Yes, but it also causes some lung damage to this day and I have a little pulmonary sclerosis and you know things.
I think that's why Lance did not opt for that because he wanted to get back onto the bike, so he switched it up a little bit.
10:34
So yeah, I did that.
So I did the four cycles of that.
Mine was a little different.
I was five days in the hospital.
We did inpatient, just kept it because it's a long infusion.
It's a long, you know, you're there for a few hours to get into chemotherapy.
It's not just like, oh, I go blew myosin as simple as more of a push.
I would go in on the off weeks and get that done.
10:51
That was quick just in the office.
But the others you're infused and then I don't know how you felt, but the first week I was like, oh, this is nothing, no big deal.
Second week, couple days in, I was like, that's when the wall hit you.
I don't know if you could agree with that.
It was like, and I use this analogy.
11:08
It was a cold, flu and hangover combined times like five.
It was the worst.
At least four days of throwing up, sick, weak, nauseous, that Spacey feeling you kind of get when you get a head cold.
And I have one a little bit now coming on.
11:23
My whole family got it.
So I kind of get that spaciness.
It's yeah, awful. 4 cycles.
We did it that it was one week on, two or three weeks off.
I did two weeks off.
It was kind of your own protocol depending how you were doing.
But after the first time I was, you know, really getting in shape and eating right and working out.
11:41
So it was a good physical condition.
So I just wanted to get it over and done with because I also wanted it done before summer.
And we're here on the East Coast.
I was 22 years old at the time.
I'm sure everybody sees the TV show from back in the day, The Jersey Shore, You know, we come here from eastern Pennsylvania.
11:58
Everybody goes down the shore for a couple weeks in the summer.
And I wanted to have my summer.
And if I did the four week cycle, it would have taken me to still getting infusions at some point in June.
So I finished up, I think right at the end of May, beginning of June, have like a month recovered in July and August.
It's beach time.
12:14
And I still was like drawn out look like crab, no hair.
But at least I wasn't having to go to the hospital and and all that stuff.
But yeah, it's, it's different.
Some chemotherapies now they have the cold caps.
You know, the hair I didn't think was going to fall out.
It didn't after the first week, the second cycle, that's when it started to fall out.
12:30
So then I just buzzed the hair kind of like how I have it now.
I just took it a little lower.
What's your experience that you?
Yeah, I mean, I again, back to the, you know, the severity of the cycle.
I would say cycle 1, you know, I was like, OK, I can hang, you know, I didn't feel good.
But I would say it was cycle 2-3 and four where, you know, I couldn't get off the couch, just really nauseous, didn't feel like a human being.
12:53
I looked terrible mainly, you know, some of the steroids that they give you while you're doing the chemotherapy, which nobody really talks about, the adjunct drugs that are gonna make the chemo tolerable.
So to bring down levels of inflammation in different areas.
Like my face look like a bowling ball if I look back in my pictures, like that was just a round bowling ball.
13:14
And it really, it's really interesting how the structures change throughout that.
The other thing when I went through, you know, I was dancing 8 shows a week.
I was in New York City, you know, doing a show.
I was ripped.
I had like an 8 pack and by the time I got done with that four cycle, I had so much body fat.
13:32
You know, my movement was down, right?
Because you got, you go through the period.
They're like don't go outside, don't go to the store, go, don't go to the gym, don't touch anything.
You know, you don't have an immune system right now.
There are a couple times where my treatment was delayed because I went neutropenic.
Like they're like, you have no immune system right now.
13:48
It remind me, it's been so long since I talked about this.
You know the shots that you get that that stimulate your bones start making the white blood cells again.
I forget it's I, I was.
I can't think of it either.
I know what you're talking about.
Man, what is that called?
14:04
Somebody.
In the audience is like saying it from the car.
Right now they're like screaming.
They're like they're saying it right now.
They're saying it.
They're oncologists and they work in the oncology field and they.
Know yeah some of those things like my bones hurts like I hurt in the middle of my bones aching pain I still remember this awful feeling I was like Oh my God this is a powerful powerful drug what's ever happening right now but what it allowed me to do was get back on schedule and you know cuz you're watching I don't know about this the thing I was always doing I was watching my numbers so when you do a cycle and then you come back in the two weeks sit down before you start the next cycle we'd sit down we'd look at my labs so we're looking at like alpha Theta protein and BCHGI think are the markers we we tracked for me yeah maybe a luteinizing hormone.
14:47
I I don't quite remember so I don't if I'm off on any of these, sorry.
Those are the ones, yeah.
OK, yeah, my brain still functions pretty good.
So we're looking and I'm watching the numbers crash, right?
Like we're going down.
And I think I got to my third one and my numbers were zero.
They were normal.
15:02
And I'm like, I'm cancer free.
I was like, we don't have to do the chemo anymore.
And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, you gotta.
Make sure it stays down.
You gotta make sure it stays down South in the in the fourth.
The fourth round was just was just brutal.
I always say, did you ever if you watched ET and when they find ET, when he's when he's not been picked up by the ship and he's get washed up in the river and he's just white and like just it looks like a dead piece of flash.
15:26
That's kind of what I look like.
And I just felt like that.
Yeah, very pale.
Not like I'm the Tanis guy, Yes, not like I'm the Tanis guy to begin with.
I look nice now 'cause I got the light on me and everything, but the skin tone, you just look that grayish pale color.
And it's the first week I said like I said, I'm like, oh, this is nothing, hair's not falling.
15:43
I feel good.
I could do this, I'm going to be OK with this.
And yeah, sure enough, then the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and it's rough and then it takes a while to come back.
But yeah, it's not fun.
And that aching is what I talk about flu like symptoms with it.
So when I said it's like the flu in a hangover kind of sickness, that aching you have that deep like when you have the flu real bad, you're sore everywhere.
16:04
And that's what we're you're talking about your experience with it.
It was just not not fun, but it worked.
My levels came down.
And for the listeners that don't know what beta HCG and alpha fetoprotein are, they're typically markers for pregnant women.
When guys have them, you typically have a certain form of cancer and primarily to stick it.
16:23
There was a few others that the stills will spike as well.
But guys aren't supposed to have this because women like, oh, my beta HCG was high.
That's good.
Well, yeah, if you want to be fertile, have a baby and you're you're pregnant.
But when you're a dude, you don't want to have high alpha feta protein and beta HCG.
It's a tumor marker in guys.
16:40
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
So when you're going through this and you get through your 4 rounds and then what?
So you're 22, you make it into the you know, you're, you're qualifying for Jersey Shore, you look good, you feel good, you're ready to rock out over the summer.
Well, I didn't look good.
16:57
I, I didn't feel good and look good, but I was, I was functional and I have to be in the hospital and I could have fun with my friends that year at the Jersey Shore and Ocean City and Maryland and whatnot.
But so yeah, everything's fine.
And they talked about an RPLND after they talked about it before, I opted not to because I still have the lung mat.
17:14
So it was like they had to do something.
So the RPLND is something called the retroperitoneal lymph node dissection.
I know you know it.
Well, just talking to the listeners where they basically cut you down from your xyphoid, which is the bone right below your chest bone right before it gets soft.
And then right down to the lower pubic area around the belly button.
17:32
They open you up, they put your guts, literally your small and large intestine in something called a gut.
It gets a medical device.
You could buy it in the bag.
They throw it on your chest and then for the next 4-5, six hours, they clean out all of your lymph nodes on the backside of your retroperitoneum, which is your kidneys.
17:51
And they go around all the vascularity, but they have to get the intestines out of the way.
So all my connective tissue when they clean everything out really on top and literally they sat here, I don't know if you know this for our surgery.
Did you know that they kind of put them right on top in a bag and staple and hold them above the chest for most surgeries and not clean around them?
18:09
I do and I, I love that we have a guest on not only have you been through testicular cancer multiple times, but you were in Med tech, you're in medical sales.
So you actually know the apparatus cause 'cause I say that in stories and I've had people say, no, that's not, they don't, they don't put your guts in a bag.
18:24
And I was like, no, no, no, this is my surgeon said we're gonna put your all your intestines in a bag.
And then I'm like, how do they?
Disconnect them.
They're connected 100%.
They're still connected to the main plumbing, but where they kind of hang out in the abdomen, they put them there.
And I know this especially since I've been in the urology world the last five years in the Med tech space.
18:43
I was in GI oncology for the 1st 12 years in my Med tech career and then the last five have been in urology.
So I have a lot of urologists that know the surgeon that operated on me and son Kevin, they trained on there.
They talk about it.
It's funny because I'm there to talk about one product or we're helping them through another procedure.
And then he just asked me because they don't see a lot of people post RPLND that's either four or five years, one year, 2 year.
19:03
They're like they just see you in the quick follow-ups and then they're out of their fellowship and on to the next one and where they're at now in the community setting.
A lot of urologists don't do that surgery.
It's one of the most major surgeries, if not the most major surgery that they can perform.
And if you're not going to do a lot of them, you're not going to do that.
You're going to make your bread and butter and BPH stones, kidney cancers, things like that.
19:22
You're not going to just solve them and start doing RPL and DS.
For the one you see a year.
It's a pretty major, major surgery.
So yeah, they put it in the gut bag, they throw it right on top, they clean you out, they take all the lymph nodes out, and then they put you back together again.
So I opted not to have that.
I eventually had it 13 years later, but I opted not to have it.
19:41
At the time it was 2002, surgery wasn't quite protective nerve stirring, all those issues you could possibly have with it, not only ejaculatory, not only erectile issues, it was just like just other complications.
I decided not to have it, did the chemotherapy, would look at some of the data and I said, OK, what would I have?
20:00
It's very curable with this.
It's not mandated.
I only had a couple lymph nodes were hot or a PET scan and I still had to deal with the lung.
That's anyway.
So it was like I had to do something, so I did not.
After that, I decided to, hey, we're going to do the chemotherapy.
And then it worked out fine for 13 years and 13 years later, I back from my honeymoon and we're in Bora Bora for a few weeks and I'm Anthony Bourdain meets Andrew Zimmerman type eater.
20:31
So when we came back, I started feeling bloated and I'm like, I wonder if I have a parasite.
I was eating this raw fish.
I was just eating like local stuff.
The guys in the main island of Bora Bora, like they were cooking fish on the side.
I just like like stuff.
So I'm like, I probably picked up something.
I bet I'm really like bloated and gassy And it was weird.
20:47
And I kept feeling this like I thought it was nothing and it kind of bowel movements to normal that they weren't.
And I'm like, yeah, whatever, But I was still going to see my oncologist anyway.
Even though it was post 13 years, I would still see him for every six months.
21:03
I would still get a blood panel.
And then we stopped doing scans at 10 years because it's OK, there's nothing going to happen here.
But I wanted to keep an eye on it just in case there was something that ever popped up.
And yeah, we just did that.
I went to see him and he felt around, always did the feeling around here, lymph nodes, feeling around.
21:20
He said, you feel that?
I said, yeah, I did.
And I was in GI at the time.
I was talking to some of my GI docs.
I'm like, I think I have a parasite.
He's like how the bowel movement say dire stoolies, you don't have parasite, probably just gas.
It's probably just bloated.
Sure enough, did a scan, they found this 9 centimeter like fluid filled cyst in my retroperitoneum that was adhere to my kidney.
21:39
So it looked like a cyst like a lymphocyl or something.
It was there.
I said, OK, so they decided we'll drain it.
There's just a fluid filled sack.
It's probably nothing.
It's probably just a cyst developed somehow.
So they drained it, went to the procedure done percutaneously and interventional radiology.
21:56
And I know the, I knew the interventional radiologist at the time because of my other Med tech job.
You did a lot of biliary work, a lot of liver stents for liver cancers and things like that.
And he's like, hey, Louis, with your history, I see some nodularity in the bottom.
After we drained it, it came out like a fatic fluid look, almost like chocolate milk.
22:12
It was just came out in this docutainer.
They put this bottle on the side, so they put the access port in just like a needle, a hollow needle, a little trocar.
They go in, they hit it, they go under CT, in and out multiple times.
They hit the spot, they hit the cyst and then they put this vacutainer on, which is like a pressurized reverse pressure bottle.
22:29
They put it on there, it sucks out the fluid collapsed on the middle of.
I felt the pressure because I'm not a big guy.
If you look at me, I'm not a huge dude.
So a 9 centimeter mass in my abdomen, I kind of feel it.
If I was 285 six, I probably wouldn't even have noticed that I was bloated and feeling it.
22:45
So they drained it, saw the nodularity in the bottom, and he's like, hey, just because your history, there's some stuff that I don't like The way it looks, it's probably just necrotic tissue.
Probably nothing.
It's probably just a lymph node that's this hardened and built in the cyst.
So let's take a biopsy.
23:00
OK, No big deal.
Goes down with a bigger port.
They dilated it because they have to put extra extra access devices down.
It's like basically a biopsy.
Forceps, they're like little jaws on the end of a corridor cable to open and close the pinch to take pieces of tumor.
They do it in the lungs, they do it the GI tract, the airway, the urologic tracks, even outside of the skin, they'll take little pieces and so they take a sample.
23:22
So he goes down with this device, took a couple samples and pulls and comes out with it, goes back in a couple more.
I started feeling the pressure again.
I'm like, that's weird feeling it and it was bleeding.
So knowing what I know how tumors are very vascular.
Even when you take in GI at the time you take a tumor of AGI sample, it's friable, it bleeds.
23:42
So you see the tumor, you take a colon mass, you take a biopsy and it's bleeding.
They're very vascular sort of filling up.
And immediately I'm like like it's filling up with it would stop because it filled up in the sack like so it couldn't really go anywhere.
I put some pressure on it, everything was fine, but it filled back up to where it was at 9 in centimeter and change mass sent it out. 3-4 days later I get a call 637 o'clock at night from my oncologist on his personal cell phone.
24:11
And immediately I know he's not just calling me to say everything's all cool at 7:00 at night.
And I just heard the voice and he's like Lou, I, I got to talk to you.
I've never seen this before.
And you know, he's at the tail end of his career and he's probably early 70s now at this point in my whole career.
24:27
That biopsy came back positive and at the time it was read wrong by a poor pathologist.
He wrote his germ cell tumor, which he thought was kind of impossible because of the cycles of chemotherapy.
Why would this still be germ cell tumor Plus the lymph node where it was located were not the ones that were hot back in 2002.
24:48
So in 2002 I had lymph nodes on my left side.
This lymph node that was filling up was on my right side adhering to my kidney.
So he made a couple of phone calls beforehand.
He's like, hey, I balanced this off of some folks at Fox Chase, etcetera, but we're going to send you to Sloan Kettering.
25:06
There's a guy out there that has seen this once before, someone that was 16 years post, but he's like, we're not going to handle it here.
No one's going to handle it.
You got to go there.
So long short of it is I went to Sloan Kettering and I was confused by the whole situation too.
25:23
Germ cell tumor.
This is strange.
This is odd.
Here again.
Anyway, the slide was read wrong by a local pathologist.
It was just laziness.
Saw my history, saw what it was.
Oh, it's germ cell tumor.
Boom, boom, boom.
Looks sort of similar.
Sloane got the slides, We did them.
25:38
We looked at them and they showed this is adenocarcinoma, so another soft tissue kind of cancer.
So it's like, that's strange.
OK, nothing.
It's my liver, lungs, esophagus, colon.
Very strange.
But they said, hey, this has happened before a gentleman 16 years post.
25:53
So you don't have the record.
It's 16 years post orchiectomy, original diagnosis that he had no chemotherapy anything like that before.
And it just kind of that's that's popped up 16 years later he goes, here's a different situation.
And of course some Kettering being what they are, the leader in oncology, one of the leaders in the world had people that specialize MDPHD is that their whole life is to study certain types of cancer.
26:16
So they have people like, you know, someone studies an adenocarcinoma of unknown primary.
And so they bouncing things around and their best guess and then we can talk about the surgery, but their best guess was this was a germ cell tumor that was chemo resistant that mutated into this teratoma like cyst structure.
26:36
And then for some odd reason, I make the joke because it was a couple months after I got married.
I said it was the party in front of single life.
I get married and then I go to settle down and my wife gave me, you know, turned it on.
I guess it was kind of my joke at the time because we were only married a couple of months and that was our kind of best guess.
26:54
It was germ cell tumor chemo resistant mutated over time into this teratomous cyst like and what it was doing and which pretty much saved my life of me being a normal BMI, being healthy was the lymphatic fluid was going into this cyst and acting as a one way valve almost for lymphatic fluid going in.
27:16
So the tumor was there at the base and the the lymph node was there.
So it wasn't kind of letting fluid out and it was fluid was going in and it blew up into this balloon like mask.
It was in here to my kidney.
I have a picture that we could I could show you later.
I could send them to you if you want to cut it in so you can see this, this mask that was right here.
27:35
And yeah, so then it was like, OK, you're going to need to have this surgery called an RPLND.
I'm like, know it, know it well, said no to it 13 years ago.
But let me see what we can do.
So I had an appointment with the surgeon like the following week.
27:51
So I know with the oncologist first, we kind of saw what it was.
Here's what we're going to do.
Here's how we're going to attack it.
Here's what we're going to do.
Great.
So I meet with the surgeon, one of the guys that actually perfected this surgery, along with the doctor that operated on Lance Armstrong in Indiana, Doctor Foster.
These two guys are like one and two in the world have done the most of these surgeries, perfected, kind of invented it, if you want to say, or perfected it.
28:14
And I met him.
But in between then I was like, hey, could we come with this approach?
Could we come with a laparoscopic, a robotic?
And I kind of came educated being in the Med tech world.
I know some people do RPL and DS robotically so your intestines stay intact.
28:30
They kind of get the ports, they work around the intestines.
They could get to the backside.
And he wasn't happy with that.
I'm a very strong personality as well, but dealing with surgeons every day for my day job, I get it.
They're a little bit of a straight mind, straight shooter.
28:46
And he was not.
Nope.
You've got to have an open.
That's the only way to do it.
Can't do those fancy new robots.
You can't do this.
Open's the way to do it.
You get everything.
You get good margins, clean surgery, if you don't want to do it, you don't like want your life or something like that or you're going to die or something like move straight to that.
So I'm like, OK, so then I left that office and said, all right, told my wife.
29:03
I said, we're getting stuff.
So I called some friends.
There's a big robotic company out there, the number one robot in the world.
I called some friends that work for that and I said, hey, who's the biggest slinging cowboy that can do this type of surgery?
So in the Med tech where we get a lot of calls, sometimes some people in California, hey, my aunt needs to see a neurologist in Scranton.
29:20
Who would you, who would you send your dad to or something like that?
You get these calls or who's doing this procedure here or whatever it may be.
So I found a couple people.
I talked to people all over the country either via phone, send the records and the scans.
They kind of the Rep would talk to the surgeon.
29:36
It was kind of all like non console kind of based.
There was a guy in Philadelphia so I could drive to him.
He's a big cowboy, kind of operates crazy.
And then all of them said the same thing.
And even Doctor Foster, I talked to his office and him for a little bit and then they basically said opens the way to do this.
29:55
Even the robotic guys, like I could get there with the robot.
I can get out what I need to get out like your mask.
I want to make sure I have good margins.
If it's adhere to the kidney, you may have to get in the front.
There's a lot going on.
You may have to get opened up anyway.
30:11
And this guy is the best guy in the world that does these surgeries.
He's the number one dude, number two, number one A1B, whatever you want to call it.
Even like Foster's like, hey, you know, Joel's strong personality, whatever it was, his office said like, hey, when you're done with us here, you're going to have to get back on a plane and fly and be uncomfortable and be miserable.
30:31
And, you know, the recovery, it's not fun.
It's your whole abdomen slice down the middle.
So I went back and I talked to Doctor Shine Fell, that's on Kettering.
And I said, I'm back, let's do this, let's sign up.
And he's like, oh, you did your research, kind of made a joke of it.
And yeah, I had it there because New York's a two hour drive.
30:49
It's like my family can come and wife.
It's not putting people out.
I don't have to get on an airplane and fly back and go back for follow-ups.
And it's some Kettering.
It's not like a local Community Hospital doing it.
These guys do tons of these and that's what they specialize.
So I had the RPLND post chemo, which makes it much more different, difficult as you know, from the surgeon standpoint.
31:09
And yeah, it was starting to spread the AD no of unknown primaries.
It's kind of the formal diagnose.
We had no carcinoma was spreading to the adjacent lymph nodes.
So they took out 51.
They saved the kidney.
I had the consent for a nephrectomy first.
It was 2 surgeons.
31:25
This guy, Doctor Allen and Doctor Scheinfeld did it for five hours and 50 minutes.
I think it was.
It was a long, long time, difficult to get into.
You know, the lymph nodes are all hardened a little bit from the chemotherapy.
They have a harder, they're harder to, to cut out safely.
31:43
They're adhered to everything, but I had the surgery, I had the recovery, got out in 11 days, forced myself to get out.
Like once I said I was going into this, I was in pretty good shape.
It wasn't like I just kind of let myself go.
I still into the health and Wellness.
We could talk about that stuff later.
31:59
So I, my goal was to get out of that surgery before my out of that hospital before my 36th birthday, which was December 22nd.
And I went in on the 7th was the surgery.
And then I was out 11 days later.
I was out on the 17th.
I stayed in the city a day just in case because they really didn't want me to go, but I was OK to go.
32:17
And I kind of said I'm walking out of this and I walked out.
My mom was there and dad like, Oh, I got a wheelchair on my horse and just let them go.
My brother's like I just, I, my goal was I was walking out because they make you walk.
You know how it is, dude.
They make you walk around the floor with the thing every day.
32:32
You've got to keep moving as you know the clock.
So what's the difference if I walk to the elevator, go down and walk out to the front and get the car like I was?
You know what I mean?
I'm just trying to negotiate at this point.
I'm like, it makes no sense.
Make it make sense.
I can walk around the hallway all day, but I can't walk down the hallway into the elevator and out.
32:48
What are you talking about?
They let me walk out.
They had to walk with me of course.
And I said I'm not looking to go by myself.
I'll wait till I get off your property so I don't fall and it's on your watch.
I get the whole legal issue, but I'm not getting chair.
So got out.
Stayed in the city at night in a hotel because I just didn't want to be in a hospital.
33:07
Came back and then four weeks later, 5 weeks, went back to work.
Looked like crap was drawn out.
You know the weight you lose post RPMD, you're not eating right.
And we could talk into to that experience.
But yeah.
And then, knock on wood, now it's been 9 years, it wasn't December.
33:25
Amazing, amazing.
Louis, I want to timeline some of this.
So your reoccurrence was when you were 22 and that was 2002?
Yes.
And so your reoccurrence was like 2015?
2015 yeah.
So starting October, started feeling bloated, got married in August, September, October, started feeling this bloat, this weirdness going on for a while.
33:45
And I thought I just kind of had something.
And then I was diagnosed mid-october, late October, out slowing first week in November, bouncing things back and forth around the country for, you know, 2-3 weeks, talking to different surgeons, different people, weighing out my options, thinking about, OK, I'm going to be doing something in the next, you know, before the end of December, 31st of 2015.
34:05
It's like, what am I going to be doing?
Yeah.
And then I went back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I applaud you for, you know, your tenacity and kind of following your gut with this.
I mean, the only thing I'd, I have to share is like, man, I, I think back to the 26 year old me.
34:21
You know, I, I don't think I question anything there.
There were a couple things I did put my foot down on.
They wanted to give me a port for chemo and I, you know, like you, I was like, I want to be able to go to the gym.
I want to be able to work out while I'm doing therapy.
So I did actually, they did intravenous chemo and it was brutal on my vein.
34:37
So every single day they hit a vein do the chemo is brutal on my veins.
I mean, my veins, I don't think they've ever really come back.
But I opted out of the port and but everything else I was so I didn't know anything about anything.
I was so scared and I did have a wonderful medical team at University of Rochester.
34:57
Strong memorial.
Great, great.
You know, again, talk about big swinging cowboy doctor Ganesh Palapattu was my urologist and he was just he was incredible, man.
He was incredible.
My RPL and D was 8 hours.
You know, he he was my parents like he was toasted Freddie when he came out there, like he walked it literally they like he looked like he ran a marathon.
35:19
He was like, so out of it.
But I'd be really interested just to again, pick this apart for some people.
There's a lot of people that I've had three or four people reach out in the last six months that are going through testicular cancer.
And it's one of those things you can always do this thing to monitor closely monitor with scans.
35:36
Just talked to a kid two weeks ago, which in retrospect, you know, when they got in and they did mine, it was necrotic.
They cut everything out.
They sent the tumor to pathology, came back, it was all dead, but it was all burnt down like a little marshmallow.
There's no way to know without taking it out that there couldn't have been a cell or a modified tumor cell that was resistant to the chemo that wouldn't one day turn into dot, dot dot.
36:03
So that, you know, the choice I made.
I think again, I don't, I wouldn't change it.
I wouldn't change it.
But my complications from surgery were arguably, you know, worse than my cancer.
I mean, I was 5 surgeries of lysis of adhesions and small bowel obstructions from scar tissue and terrible pain for over a decade.
36:23
I mean, terrible pain, not able to go to the bathroom, you know, neuropathy down my legs.
You know, you're talking about the ability to like retrain your penis after they cut through all the nerves.
And like you, I signed a form.
They're like, as I'm 26, they're like, what am I signing?
Oh, like, oh, we might take a kidney.
36:39
Well, what, what's this one?
Oh, you might not ever have an erection again.
Oh, what?
You'll probably not have kids.
You know, you're just signing things and you're like you, you know, you're trying to be calm and positive as, as as you're going into the procedure.
I mean talk about, I really would question that timing around those forms and but it felt all to me.
37:00
Was yours?
When did you have it?
What year was yours?
It was 2006 I started treatment.
OK, so the nerve nerve sparing was not out.
So that was before the nerve sparing.
So when I came around nerve sparing, RPL and DS are out so they spare the nerve.
So the ejaculatory erectile issues are kind of a non issue, but in 2002 I was the same way.
37:20
And that's I'm like, no, I'll take my chances to chemo.
And like you, I did IV chemo.
I didn't do the port.
And then of course the veins are scar.
Even when I got, I've had blood work dozens and dozens of times.
And obviously what I do now is my side project, even when the girls are like, you feel the scarring.
37:37
I'm like, you know, it's not, it's not drug use, it's the chemotherapy, it's the blood work, it's the multiple venous access because they could feel that good IV nurses can feel. 100%.
Scarring on, yeah, yeah, from the damage to the veins in the AC area and forearm where they would put it.
Yeah, yeah, People always comment when I go and get, because I'm, I'm pretty low body fat right now and you know, I have veins and striations everywhere and they're like, why can't we see your why?
38:00
Why is it hard to get a vein?
I was like, ah, chemo, you know, that's, that's one thing that's never really come back.
Although I, you know, I do a lot of things to train the vasculatory circulatory system.
Most recently I've been doing the saga bands, which are Bluetooth blood flow restriction.
38:16
And I do notice an improvement in vascularity in the quality of my veins in my arm.
So I'm kind of stoked to have this guy on from that company and interview him.
Obviously, I knew nothing about sauna, cold plunge, detoxification, lymphatic support, you know, none of the therapies like the pulse, electromagnetics or IV therapies any of the time I'm doing anything to do with cancer.
38:39
And that's always the big question.
People are like, oh, you're, you're like, you know, you, you did all this stuff to curious.
Absolutely not, did as much chemo as you can do.
Did this retroperitoneal lymph node dissection the tech and all the things I talk about Or would I use to return my body to full functionality to regain full quality of life?
38:56
The ability to poop just for to the podcast knows I I have a wonderful erection.
Yeah.
All the things just.
Yeah, I just want to put that out there to everybody.
I mean, all joking aside, it's like I'm really proud of all those things.
It's like I know these things that we talk about in this world have regenerative properties, but the world's that we're talking about right now, they don't meet like the surgical center right now.
39:22
They are not going to have.
You're not going to get out of surgery and do like a flopresso.
You're not going to get out of surgery and they're not going to put a red light therapy pad on your scar to accelerate healing.
Or, you know, they're not going to show up with a shockwave after you've had a tendon resection and like go through and blast and change the pliability and blast the calcium out of that tendon.
39:41
There's no overlap here in the this like really cutting edge shit.
And right now it's it's just more, it's triage, which is not bad.
It's great, it's life saving, but I want the world's to start communicating together.
I'd love that.
I think it will as of a couple days ago.
39:58
I think I'm very bullish on the new administration and you know, Health and Human Services and what they want to do and RFK what he wants to do.
People can say what they want about him with the vaccine issue, but he also was some of the complimentary therapies that may not be made by a big big Med tech company, big pharma company, but hey, they work.
40:17
It's not going to cure it like you and I talked off the podcast and the surgery we talked about now.
Cut it out.
I always thought because I see it in my Med tech where especially when I was in GI cancers, like people, you know, cut the colon tumor out, cut the esophageal out, cut it out of you get it out and then do it.
40:36
But these other therapies on the back end help with the recovery to complement it.
And then there's the people that eat like nuts and berries and eat like certain herbs.
I think it's going to cure their whatever.
It's not they're, you know, I'm saying it won't help, but they're like, I'm not doing chemo, I'm not doing surgery, I'm not doing radiation.
40:54
But I think eventually, and I think in our lifetime we will see it and definitely in my kids lifetime where the alternative stuff and alternative is a terrible word.
I hate it's the worst because sometimes it yeah.
Because people think, oh, it's just like another option that we have.
It's quack stuff.
41:09
It's quack science.
And trust me, there is that quack science out there.
People like eat this root of this vegetable only on the second Tuesday when the moon is full and the energy from the moon attracts to the Earth does it stop talking stupid shit.
But hey, red light, oh, it works.
We know it does.
Pressotherapy for lymphatic drainage, all that stuff.
41:27
It works.
IV high dose, vitamin C, things like that to complement it.
I think all has its place and I'm hoping over the next four years, no matter what political side you lean on with the other foreign affairs stuff, but the healthy, the Make America Healthy Again movement or the additives and foods and chemicals, I don't care if you're left, right, center or whatever.
41:49
Everyone should want that like.
Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's a political Yeah, I, I tend to generally, you know, there's not politics on the podcast, but I don't, I don't think health is a political issue.
I, I really don't.
I think that, you know, it's everybody's, this is the thing.
You never have to.
42:04
There's no legislation that has to happen.
There's no permission slip to take radical ownership of your health in your story.
And those are the big things that I think it's so easy to get caught up in story and then to also just reside to the, you know, what it is to be healthy.
42:20
Like you have a responsibility to understand your circulatory system, your lymphatic system, to be in touch with the body.
You know, I waited a long time.
I found a primary tumor and then I wasn't, you know, I found a primary tumor in August.
I didn't go.
I waddled and dragged myself into an emergency room in November.
42:38
You know, I should have been more responsible.
You know, I but I was like, not, I was like, I don't like doctors.
I don't have time for that.
Life's going on.
I'm like, so I'm, I have a little pain in the testicle.
So what, you know, I just didn't listen to the signals that my body was giving me.
And as a result, my life has been very different now.
42:55
I would not change a thing.
I think it's my superpower.
I've learned so much and I'm able to guide and facilitate really is like a a Wellness concierge for people because I've been through Lyme and cancer and mold and all these different surgeries and then put in the body back together just gives me a unique area of discernment, just like you have a unique area of discernment.
43:16
As someone who works in medtech, I'd love to.
Where are you at today?
Like you went through cancer three times, chemotherapy, a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection and orchiectomy, which is removal of a testicle.
What should we title this podcast by the way?
I'm like 2 guys, 2 testicles.
43:32
You have one testicle or no?
Yeah, yeah.
And I have the artificial, which I always talk about.
It's funny.
I just joke around about it because when you're 19, you're still out there on the scene.
Like now it could happen.
I'm married.
Oh my God.
Just leave it out because they make, there's a company and a medical device company that makes the artificial implants and stuff.
43:50
So.
But yeah, so I don't know what we'd call this.
Also go with the RPL and D2 guys that probably haven't taken a solid crap and you know, in in several years.
That's another thing that people don't understand that first couple years, that's where I first knew kind of seed oils were bad for me because they would go right through me.
44:08
You go to a place and like I'll never forget first kind of going out my wife six weeks after surgery, but this hibachi place we'd like to go to and you know, vegetable oil and crap.
Now what we know about seed oils, you know, 10 years later, it's toxic garbage.
But I'm like, oh, the coconut oils that we use and olive oils we use kind of don't bother me.
44:27
Like certain things that are deep fried in certain oils, wings, certain things like got to make sure I'm home to eat because it's and still to this day, dude, nine years later, don't want to gross your listeners out.
There's certain things I eat and I don't eat because of I know what they're cooked in.
44:42
And even if it's a guilty pleasure, I can't.
It's a little cheat meal.
I know it's fried and you know, canola crap oil.
But I like the way it's this place.
It's great.
It's you got to be careful.
I can't be out.
I can't do certain things.
It's just because that.
47:32
Louis, do do you ever, I'm just super curious, do you ever look at things like have you have ever done like a functional stool diagnostic or a Genova test or looked at the quality of your microbiome after going through chemotherapy?
I have I have done company Biome.
47:49
You ever hear Biome?
I know Biome.
Yeah, so I've done that and then I forget the other one I did.
That's the fun part.
Tell your listeners when you do a stool test, you have to get your own stool.
You have to catch it and scoop and send it.
You do.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not the sexiest.
It's like, oh, what is it?
Like you just go to there and like, what do you do?
48:06
Like swabbing them?
No, it's a stool test.
Well, what do they do?
Well, you got to, you know, poop the thing and you got to scoop it out.
You got to put in a container.
You got to send it out to the lab like, oh, my own.
I go, yeah, you do.
It's what you do, but you want to know about your insides.
So yeah, I've done it.
Surprisingly, it's not really unhealthy.
It's actually pretty good.
48:22
I'd have to look at the results again.
I haven't done it in probably four years or so, but it was pretty decent.
I didn't do it immediately after obviously, because this stuff, you're saying it wasn't cut out in 2006.
None of this stuff was.
And even with the chemotherapy in 2002, like peptides or certain peptides will protect your lungs from the bleomyosin, the lung toxicity and things like that.
48:41
Copper peptides are one of them.
I would have taken, you know, sub Q copper peptides to kind of help protect the lungs a little bit more, but it wasn't out, didn't know about it.
And still in 2025, people aren't talking about it enough, enough in the allopathic method of medicine.
48:58
And I, I never want to bash it, never bash.
It's my livelihood.
I, I see a lot of saves lives.
But I think the other stuff that you're into that I'm into has to, like you said, meet at some point to work together and realize it's not always about profit and big money and big Med tech and big pharma because some of this stuff that's kind of cheap, slash free, inexpensive.
49:20
But I know it's not insurable billing, but people need to understand our bodies of vehicle.
When you take your car for an oil change, brake job, tires, air filter, that's not covered by insurance.
But if you smash it into a guardrail, slipping on black ice, it's all over the place here in the Northeast right now.
49:38
It's, you know, your insurance covers the bigger stuff.
So people need to realize, and there's got to be some sort of way.
And it's way above my pay grade and way too hard to think about from a global or national perspective.
But there's got to be a way for it to make it work for what we have in our traditional medicine.
49:53
And then the, I don't know what you call it.
What do you call it?
I say complimentary therapies.
I I don't really call it alternative because that gets that weird vibe to it.
Yeah, I'd say complimentary medicine, you know, lifestyle medicine, you know, anything.
That lifestyle is another one.
Of you lifestyle medicine, I would say anything that I got a big give, a big shout out to my girlfriend, Cynthia Pakluta.
50:13
She just got her.
She just got through her boards for her lifestyle medicine certification.
So she's rocking her ready to go.
Yeah, he said the.
I know, dude, that seed is planted many, many times.
I know now I got medical under my wig under the roof.
50:29
Yeah, we, we, we talk about it.
You know, I, I think I talked to so many business owners and it's so hard.
You know, I, I, I sure, I, I, there's a couple people that knock it out of the park, but for most people struggle.
I think people jump into it with this intention.
It's like you get a taste of what something like a shockwave therapy on a tendon or a presso flopresso could do for your lymphatic or something like contracts therapy between cold and hot.
50:54
And you're like, this is medicine.
And you get so stoked.
You're like, I'm gonna open a business.
I'm gonna help.
And not everybody shares your passion or they haven't all shared your experience.
And there's something in that transition from the idea to a business, which I wish.
51:09
I wish people would slow down and truly think about.
I have friends killing it and they have no problem.
They're like, oh, we're weightless said we don't need more clients and it ain't through Facebook ads.
It's because they're delivering an experience and they're good at creating results for people and they share the results like that's it.
51:27
But there's a lot of people that struggle and they'll look to, especially in our space, you know, they'll look to the tech is be like, oh, I'm going to buy this tech because this tech is going to beg people through the door, which is I, I don't see that happen all the time.
Once in a while there's an outlying product that people are hunting for.
51:44
Most of the times it's practitioner, it's results.
I don't know if you, so you're in the, you're in the industry on both sides a little bit.
So, Louis, can you tell me, Yeah, tell me about like elevation, Wellness and what you're doing?
Here we go.
So this is a business I started about 3 years ago, still holding down my kind of W2 day job because one, I'm not a healthcare provider.
52:05
I'm like you, I've been eyeballs deep in this world for a long time.
I know a lot about it, but I don't have MPMD, all that stuff after my name, but I know a ton about it.
So I have a physician, nurse practitioner, a bunch of nurses that work with me, soon to be a second physician coming on board MD.
Yeah.
So we put the plan together.
52:22
I was going to do some franchises and they weren't kind of good fit of restrictions.
You wanted to do like some of the IV kind of recovery center type franchises that are out there.
And then I was going to this place for a while doing IV vitamin drips, NAD, things like that.
And then, you know, he's been around forever and helped me with the process, connected me with some folks, connected me with a couple of physicians and one with the guru of peptides and NAD in South Carolina, Doctor Craig Conover.
52:48
Got connected with him, went down to his office for a few days and kind of got the protocols and put this whole thing together.
So we do IV vitamins and you know, vitamin drips, custom drips.
We do stuff like plaque X, which is helps with phosphatidyl choline, which helps breakdown arterial plaque, methylene blue, NAD, lots of NAD peptides.
53:09
So peptides been in this weird area the last year.
FDA said no.
Are they banned?
No, but you just can't do it.
Oh, why they're like this naughty list of not well studied.
So FDA compounding pharmacies that make real medications could make them.
And then I took them off back in October, like overnight.
They added a bunch back now.
53:25
So we're back in the peptide business again, I see.
That I see that.
Yeah, and they're supposed to be releasing more.
They said there was a notice like hey, the the 10 or 11 they put on this naughty list, They released most of them except like 3 or 4 and then they were supposed to release more and then the election happened.
53:41
So they're now it's kind of in window.
I'm hoping they do it.
I hope they just open it wide to a lot of different peptides because peptides are just nothing.
They're short chain amino acids.
There aren't quite proteins that signal the body to do XYZ, whether it's fat loss and cognitive enhancement, muscle recovery, healing, repairing BPC 157, TB 500, things like that.
53:59
So we do peptides, but we also have a whole like we do the medical weight loss, we have the compounded weight loss GLP ones, We have the branded we get.
We'll go be pens, Ozempic pens, all that stuff as well.
You see a consultation with our nurse practitioner physician online or in person depending where you are.
54:16
And then we do a lot of recoveries there.
We have red light panels, we have sauna, we have cold plunge, we have lymphatic drainage.
We have the Pagani machine.
I know you're a Flo presso guy, but we have a very similar.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not a, it's not a norm attack.
I know it's not norm attack.
54:31
It's it's a true lymphatic drainage suit.
And then what am I really missing?
Oh, hyperbaric.
I'm like, I'm trying to think of like, Oh yeah, we just got a hyperbaric chamber.
I'm probably going to bring PMF in.
I'm kind of toying around.
You know, our mutual friend, you know, Jimmy Martin talks about the higher dose stuff.
54:47
Jimmy hooked us up, you know, like the the lower, not lower end ones.
Like that's saying that's lower end.
But I mean there's like 5 thousand $4000 and stuff that's $40,000 for pimp and it's like I have a business to run.
Cost money ROI.
I'm also in Wilkes Barre, PA, so I'm not in the hotbed of Austin A. 100%.
55:05
So you got to kind of weigh things out.
Yeah.
So I have to kind of figure out what we're going to do with that.
If we're going to do kind of like a basic one that's still going to provide some value, but not going to, you know, make me.
It's a cost of a new car, I guess.
So we're doing that.
And then we're looking to do some more.
We're going to get in the hormone replacement therapy.
55:22
My nurse practitioner is going to be running that program.
I have a physician under one that's coming on board is going to do some of it.
But yeah, we're trying to bring something different to the area and not.
And then it goes right through me and I'm changing this logo.
Eventually I'm changing this into the middle and I'm going to put like a mountain peak and stuff because a lot of stuff we do goes to the IV, but a lot of people think, oh, you like the hangover IV place.
55:43
So when I'm hungover, I'll come see you guys.
It's like a weird dynamic.
We do have AIV called the after party.
We don't really do that many of them, but it's annoying.
So I think I'll probably cheat rebranding come next year.
I think this is stay the same, but I have a different just a couple different designs.
56:00
So people realize that, you know, we're there to take to help people take a preventative and proactive approach to their health care with different newer therapies.
Not cutting edge because they're not like red lights.
Not cutting edge.
Let's be honest, it's red light panels.
And as long as you have a good panel that starts at whatever the five 6580 nanometers to buy, I don't know the diverse always getting confused, But as long as you have a full spectrum LED panels, you know, it's that's good.
56:25
It's not really cutting edge, I don't think.
And I so I don't want to say cutting edge therapies.
I want to say modern therapies is what I like to use.
But yeah, we do that.
We launch the full like telehealth kind of platform just recently.
So we do the medical weight loss, the compounded versions of the branded hormones, some peptides, some peptides don't jive with the online with certain States and restrictions.
56:48
We do some of the topical hair stuff.
We do some female hormone replacements.
If you get blood panels, you see someone virtually do a third party service that I have with physicians in every state.
So we're growing new technologies that I want to bring in.
I don't know.
I know you and I almost like you talk a bunch over the next year here and you, you're in the forefront.
57:06
So when you have stuff, Louis, I got something for you.
Check this out.
Yeah, there's, there's so many.
I, I really, I really into this stacking like two or three things and just having a dictated experience.
Like I would have something for pain.
Like I'd be like, OK, we got a tendon.
57:21
The tendon's creaky and achy.
It's got a lot of calcium in it.
And how are we going to move that?
How are we going to initiate like I want to say the inflow of stem cells to that area, how we're going to move out the debris with lymphatics and then how we're going to like really change?
Like what is the mechanics that's driving energy not to flow through that joint?
57:38
So there's like a 123 that I think you do for pain.
There's one for weight loss, there's one for skin health, you know, But I think if people aren't like, if you come into a clinic in my brain and I look at, oh, you've got like 20 things, Well, I don't want your staff spending 45 minutes guessing with me on what I think I need.
57:56
I rather meet your body on where it's at.
And then we'll probably peel away other layers.
I would love to ask you, Louis, what are some of your favorite peptides that you just see be so impactful?
Because I, I love Craig Conover and he's definitely, I love that you did training with him.
58:13
I mean, I don't think there's anybody better in the world, arguably from his body of work and experience.
You guys if you want, yeah. 100% let's get him on the show.
I'll.
Connect you guys after we'll talk offline yeah, yeah, A. 100% so.
My favorites are it was Termarella which is a growth hormone.
58:28
Secreted God releases growth hormone signals to pituitary to release a little bit of growth hormone.
It helps you sleep better, but it doesn't help me sleep better.
I just I sleep apnea mask.
I sleep on.
I just do too much crap.
My wife loves that she sleeps great on.
We have so many people that sleep great on it, but it's good for lean muscle mass.
58:44
It's good for leaning out and you will get some fat loss with it.
Soft tissue repair.
That's a good one.
But one of my favorites, I'm actually on it now is Tessa Morale.
So Testimarone is also another growth hormone releasing peptide.
Both of these are actually FDA approved as medications.
59:00
They have AFDA indications, but Testimarone, you're going to lean out a lot more.
So guys, we always kind of hold it here.
So I noticed I lean out a little bit lean muscle mass.
I don't notice I gain as much muscle mass with growth hormone.
Peptides are not growth hormone, so if you think you're going to get jacked by the growth hormone that you bought from the guy after the gym and college or high school, it's not it.
59:20
It's not going to go.
I didn't gain anything from it.
You will gain muscle mass.
You have to work out with it.
They're more of a natural based treatment, so it's not growth hormone like guys that took HGH and you walk around, you see them a month later, they're huge.
It's not the same thing.
It's a growth hormone releasing peptide, so it's signals your pituitary.
59:36
So I like tessarillin because I have a nice lean muscle mass built up.
I lost a little bit.
Guys are always could lose.
You guys are always want to lose a little bit of body fat around the avenue, just how we are.
That's one of my favorites.
BPC is a classic BPC 157 very good healing anti-inflammatory peptide.
59:53
TB500.
There's some pharmacies now doing blends of framus and beta 4.
Framus and beta 500.
It's great for healing, recovery, soft tissue.
There's another side of it.
Post RPLMDI now have a huge incisional herniac.
Have to get fixed and Sloan Kettering I've been putting off for the last few months.
1:00:10
I have to go back and I already have my TV 500 DPC, 157 something they won't offer.
And then I'm also going to pound the red light because I have a huge keloid star down the middle of me.
It's like this wide.
It's a huge right down the middle.
It's a good conversation piece when you're at the beach and people, they always see them when you're walking by, they look down because it's huge, obnoxious, you know, half inch wide scar down the middle.
1:00:31
It's very noticeable, yeah.
But yeah, TB 500 is great right now.
But yeah, those are my kind of favorites.
I've played around with some cognitive ones like C Max and slang and they're OK.
But I think NADI like me personally, the best for that light switch is on NADI think does that for me.
1:00:49
And and that's difference on a peptide.
Yeah.
Have you played around with them?
I have.
You know, it's so funny.
I and I would just say this to anybody listening because this is another one.
I get a lot of questions on my DM on Instagram, lot of people message me Freddie, I want to be on peptides.
I want to do peptides and I love peptides.
1:01:06
But it's like I am a fishbowl of either really clear, clean glowing water or I am a dirty tank.
And if you inject really expensive peptides into a dirty tank, from my experience, the results are minimal.
And I hear this all the time from people.
1:01:22
I did that, I tried that, it didn't work.
I didn't get the results.
I was like, well, you know, what's your hydration like?
Are you moving and lifting heavy things?
What's your nutritional profile?
Tell me what you eaten a day.
Write down your last four meals for me.
And a lot of times I'm like, well, dude, you're must be inflamed, you know, just by eating that.
1:01:40
And then the other one I would love to see people do.
I'd love to have a much clearer picture on what's going on in the gut because some of these peptides can really flare histamine responses.
And Dr. Grace Lou talked about that with me.
And she really talked about something as simple as a high dose bifido strain that will lower your histamine response in the large intestine.
1:02:00
And Louis, I got to tell you, I'll tell you, ma'am, I take a lot of probiotics.
There's one probiotic that's ever changed.
I am so thin right now.
It's called Bifido Maximus and it's in the beautifully broken store.
There's a code beautifully broken, but I just, I got up to four pills a day and literally my middle it went in and quality of bowel movements, everything.
1:02:23
I do that with a thing called gut repair from Mother Earth Labs and it's like the most beautifully formed stool and consistent, the best I've ever had in my life.
And this is only this is in last year.
I mean, it's really like, it's really wild.
Wow, OK.
1:02:39
And, and so I think you change that environment.
My long answer is shift the environment if you think that could be an issue.
Like a lot of times it's people reaching out with brain fog or lime or mold.
And I think they can play a role, but you got to be guided by a physician or a Doctor Who knows what they're doing.
1:02:55
Don't get these things online because you can and really take you, you will get the return like exponentially if you invest in somebody who can look at some of these bigger pictures before you go start spending a couple grand on peptides and they do nothing for you.
So that's and I hate when that story gets perpetuate that they may be good or maybe bad.
1:03:15
I was like, well, what was your sample set?
What was your one?
What were the other cofactors in that experiment, which we're very unaware of in America?
We want to treat these things like drugs, and they are a drug.
And you know, when we look at the results of something, it's like how many other cofactors are leading to this good or bad experiment, turning out the way you want.
1:03:36
You could have not said it any better.
So, and I say like, you know, we, I mean in the team, the nurse, the nurse practitioner, physicians, you know, the people that come to us that, you know, the clients you've seen by them, we say the same thing.
And me, I always tell them, tell people no, because you're going to come in and spend 500 bucks on a couple peptides.
1:03:53
And I always use the analogy because it's Chick-fil-A up the road 1/4 mile and now there's a burrito place next door.
I'm like, if you're just going to go buy a couple 100 bucks here, you're not really exercising, You're going to go to Chick-fil-A and get like free garbage processed chicken sandwiches and, you know, not really do anything for it.
1:04:10
The peptides are like the fine tune at the end of your healthcare.
You know, your, your Wellness venture of OK, I got my sleep right.
I got my diet eating clean six days a week.
I still have my cheat day on Friday or Saturday, pizza and whatever it may be.
1:04:26
I cut out most alcohols.
I don't drink the sugary drinks and the quote, you know, the, the healthy.
I'll just drink water with lemon, you know, I supplement the right way.
OK, Then it starts working.
Don't come in and think, you know, I'm starting to work out at the gym again.
I want to lose weight and kind of come up with a peptide for fat loss.
1:04:45
You'll lose fat quicker on your own.
And then when you get down to those last 1015 lbs, you want to cut out like the Tessmarilla that I'm on now.
Like you really want to tune in a little bit then get on the peptide.
Like there's so many people that would come in to us and we, they would like do these peptides and kind of had these special stacks he used to do before the peptide market went kind of haywire.
1:05:05
And the cognitive enhancing peptides, they're expensive.
I'm like, do NAD vitamin drips, do whatever we have that we have them do that first.
Get the house in order because one, it's going to save you money.
As much as I would like to take your $1000 a month and three different peptides you want to do and all this crap and it's not worth it because you're going to get more bang for your buck of hay.
1:05:26
Even if you do ABS vitamin drip like a Meijer cocktail, you're going to feel exponentially better if you've never taken any vitamins, any kind of minerals, anything before.
And that's the thing.
And we're a Thorn supplement retailer.
I've been taking Thorn since 2008, Navy 789, somewhere around there.
1:05:44
So I've been with them forever and I just wanted to sell them in the place we have.
I think that's the best, cleanest quality.
Yeah.
Start with that, start eating right, cut out the garbage, then come back and see us in three months, do an IV.
Yeah, do a drip, come in, stuff like that.
Then hey, maybe do some NAD.
1:06:01
It's going to turn those lights on.
Energy levels better, mental clarity better.
Didn't get into peptides.
Peptides are not meant for hey, I haven't worked out since college.
I'm 38.
I'm looking to get started.
I come here for some real and growth hormone peptide and I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow.
1:06:17
I'm just getting my new membership.
It's not.
That's the best way to say yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, I just I want to frame it for people and and the the only caveat I'll say now I'm going to contradict myself is that, you know, some of the GLP one antagonist, the semi glutide or the trizipatide, the peptides that are for weight loss.
1:06:36
Now I do see those if you want to kick start weight loss, I do see those be quite effective.
I just said this to my trainer today at the gym.
My my doctor actually wanted me to try trizipatide on the low dose.
And I mean, like, you know, 7 to 12 clicks on an insulin needle, just low, low, not enough, not a weight loss dose.
1:06:57
Just to see what would happen with my body with inflammation after going through Lyme disease because I'm always playing around.
He's like, you might want to try this.
I've had some people report less joint pain, less achiness.
And I was like, Oh my God, I'll totally try that.
The first dose I didn't sleep for four days and it didn't poop for five.
1:07:14
I mean, it stopped, you know, and you know, you cut intense intestine, you change your transit time.
I mean, dude, I, I could feel my intestine clothes like an hour after I shot it this little dose and I didn't sleep for four days.
And in my nervous system, it doesn't matter if I do 2 clicks on the insulin needle, it does not like it.
1:07:34
And the other thing that I pause over is the amount of people that are not looking at the deep data, the data on those weight loss drugs.
A lot of the loss of weight is from muscle.
And if you're not pushing weight, if you're not involved in a gym program, you really got to be cautious.
1:07:51
You can't just shoot this thing and it's not a miracle.
So we're having this thing that slows down transit time of food.
We're already undernourished because our food doesn't have the same nutrients, and now we're going to eat half.
For me, for me, I think in 10 years there will be a cost to pay from this.
1:08:08
And that's all I say is like just you can't bypass the rules of nature.
That's it.
That's my soapbox.
With that being said, here's how we do it differently.
And people don't like it because everybody wants the quick fix.
So in house, you have to see our nurse practitioner, you see how we do a full blood panel on you to see if there's any underlying conditions.
1:08:28
You definitely don't have to in a lot of places, a lot of physicians don't, they will do a full blood panel.
We use LabCorp for it.
We do a full panel, see what's going on, making sure everything looks good.
And there's some people that she has had to say no to.
They didn't realize they're diabetic or pre diabetic and like, hey, we can't manage.
1:08:44
You got to see an endocrinologist, your A1 CS, like a like, do you notice anything different in your life?
So there's a couple and then there are we have to, after you do that, you pass the blood work.
OK, now you're going to go see our dietitian that we work with.
She doesn't work for me, She works with me.
She started out at the same time and she was using my place for a bit.
1:09:01
We have a great partnership.
She has three dietitians now that work for her and they're dietitians, not nutritionist, but they also do in body scans.
So every three months you go, I know it's not as good as a DEXA, but it's just kind of close and convenient as you're going to get.
So initially you get a scan, you get meal plans, you kind of follow along with her name is Brooke.
1:09:20
You follow along, she gives you meal plans, you could do her app, you could switch over her full time if you have insurance.
If not, she gives you a very deeply discounted cash rate to pay.
If you're a client of ours, we do a scan and then the scan and then they're on the GLP one branded, unbranded for three months.
Then they have to go back and before they can get filled, they see Allison.
1:09:39
We do another blood panel, make sure everything is looking good in the blood, making sure you're following Brooke, you see the meal plan, everything good.
And no, yeah, you're getting the in body scan.
And some people actually get fatter, they lose weight.
But like you said, it's muscle.
And Peter Tia talks about this and his practice.
1:09:55
When they were doing it, people were losing some muscle.
So yes, you're getting way less, but you're getting your body fat percentage went down a little bit too, but it's actually higher to the ratio to your muscle than when you started.
We've only had a few people where that kind of happened to.
And then you have to dial in the diet.
1:10:11
So Brooke will give them a new meal plan and then we will be like, OK, let's give it three more months.
Let's see if you maintain the muscle, you're going to have to work out.
We also give workout plans.
She's a personal trainer and we have connection to some gyms that we connect people with.
A lot of people already work in the gym kind of getting started, but we make sure the muscle stays there.
1:10:29
And if not at six months, we're like, hey, sorry, we can't do this.
It's not going to work for you.
It's going to be more of a problem losing muscle for you.
We only had one or two people kind of not go along with it.
We talked about the protein, but I'll sure as I'll tell you, there's a lot of people that don't like the, the way we do it in house locally, there's some local places that will just kind of, oh, how are you doing?
1:10:53
OK, wait, what's your BMI?
Cool, Here you go.
And here's your compounded version.
Or here's your script to get a Rite Aid.
Well, that's not in the commercials, you know, it's not in the ads that I see, you know, for during every single football game.
It's, it's, there's no conversation around that.
They show people, you know, having fun playing pickleball, playing cornhole, stab themselves in the leg, and then they're back to life and they're just thin.
1:11:16
Yeah, so we, we, we do that differently knowing it because I was reluctant to bring these into the practice.
My MP want to do it, my nurses, all people want to do it.
And I was like, no, I was an old school guy and I had a different mentality of it.
And I was like, screw it, shut your mouth, move a little more, eat better, have some willpower.
1:11:32
But then some people talking to Doctor Conover at one of his Zoom classes he had for his provider network, talking to my other medical, my medical director, talking to other physicians that I know from my Med tech world.
And they said some people, they all kind of said the same thing.
And even my medical director doesn't his own primary care practice.
1:11:50
Like some people just need that jump start where they could get that first 10 lbs off 15,000,000%.
I could do this.
And then their mentality is like, hell yeah, I'm going to the gym.
And some people need that jump start.
So I'm like, OK, if we're going to do it, we have to do it, you know, a certain way.
1:12:08
And then technically I'm not the healthcare provider here.
So I always have to tread lightly.
But it's also my business, my money, my capital.
And I said, hey, if we're going to do this to my MP and the medical directory kind of went back and forth and some things and we really made it a little more robust than other practices.
But people love it that are with us and then we also get them off of it.
1:12:27
That's another thing too.
Other places locally around me have these people on it in perpetuity and they're just like down to their weight and they have their dosing or maintenance dose.
And we've had some people, we titrate them down and they go down and eventually get off.
Some people cook cold Turkey.
1:12:42
One of my buddies said I thought he gained like 3 lbs back.
And he, that was like 7-8 months ago.
So everybody's different because he also altered his lifestyle because he was used to eating less, eating better, and it became his new norm.
And so now it's like, I didn't gain the weight back.
But if you're going to stop that and then go back like I, you know, the Chick-fil-A analogy, go up the Chick-fil-A and go get, you know, couple waffle fries, chicken sandwiches and shake back to that routine.
1:13:07
It's going to eventually creep back up.
So that's our program.
I know the muscle thing is huge, and it's funny you brought that up because I didn't think of talking about that.
But a lot of people don't realize you're losing muscle.
And as you get older, you need that muscle more than anything because it gets harder to put back on.
1:13:25
Yeah, you really got to have.
You guys might have to, I might have to connect.
You might have to carry Saga bands, the blood flow restriction bands because you know, some, especially some of the women that I've talked to personally that are over 70, I mean, just guns jacked and just it's unbelievable.
1:13:42
I think it completely is occluding and I got I'm a novice on this.
It's completely occluding venous flow into the muscle.
It's partially occluding arterial flow.
Arteries are deeper.
That's right.
And so it's, it's just, it's a lot.
The workload feels way more intense.
1:13:58
Like you could be pushing, you know, £45 on a sled where I'll normally have 8 plates on.
I could have 2 lbs on and I can barely do, you know, 12 reps.
So there's not that strain on the tendon, but the muscle belly is getting this crazy workout and you know, it's, I think it's a 30151515.
1:14:16
You get this amazing hypertrophy.
This is like a $500 device which.
I would love to learn more about this.
Yeah, we'd have to talk offline.
I'd definitely love to learn more about this and see how it works, your experience with it.
Yeah, they're great because you don't eat again, you know, if you don't, if you're in a hotel room, you don't have a wait.
1:14:32
You could coil a curl a soup can, you know, if you had the BFR on and you get this crazy hypertrophy yeah, it's a really good anytime I hear the program and I'm hearing what you're doing and then my brain is just like, Oh my God, they got to add this and then this would be so great because this could be a home rental thing you don't need to come in for this, right You could really amplify these results they're.
1:14:52
Really cool.
Yeah, we could talk offline about that.
That's interesting.
But yeah, so that's my venture.
So I got into the whole this space is because of, you know, the cancer that you're always looking for an edge, looking to take prevent it, looking to see what I can do to minimize potentially getting it, you know, a fourth time or whatever it may be.
1:15:08
And then one thing led to another and then I said, you know, there's nobody doing this in the area.
It was closest place was like an hour or so away.
And now there's a couple places that do Ivs and stuff and every there's a dental offices that seem to do GLP ones now.
It's crazy, like some of the places that pop up.
1:15:25
Making.
That Yeah, you want to do something?
Yeah.
Completely different.
You talked about stem wave with the calcium.
There's a lot of chiropractors, certain ones that you know they send, they do more than just crack the back.
Chiropractors, we're not into that whole thing, but there's probably actually active release.
They're almost like physical therapists, but they have a chiro delegate, so it's like a little hybrid works well with some of those.
1:15:46
They talked about stem wave.
We might bring that in.
I have a call.
I've been back and forth with the company with Stem wave over here with stem wave, the actual company STEM.
So they're all the big trade shows that I go to with either, you know, and I go to Flopresso or amp, you know, I know everybody.
1:16:01
I get to try them all.
I get to hear the pitch.
I get to see you know they've got this great projected RO I I think they're very similar and like you I would always just be aware of where I'm at why what is my financial market at do does my economy support $100,000 seventy $5000 device?
1:16:21
Maybe, maybe not.
So it just depends on where you're at in the country.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I tend to pause around those numbers unless I've got a really wild practice, it has great inflow.
Or if money's not a thing to me and I'm independently funded, I don't care about money, but I'm like, oh, go buy that one.
1:16:39
That's the one you want.
Yeah, exactly.
No, that's something we may look at as another alternative kind of therapy, complimentary therapy, STEM way.
We may get into that.
Don't know yet.
We don't know where it's going to go.
It's like I said, it's always evolving and there's new stuff.
As you know, you've been in this world more than I kind of your main kind of world you live in now.
1:16:59
But yeah, we'll see it where it goes.
Like so today, Louis, you know, going back to the conversation around cancer and oncology and, and really early detection, Like do you have any pillars that you're trying to hit every year?
Are the things you're testing for aside from the normal blood markers?
1:17:17
Are you doing any of the early liquid blood biopsy tests or doing any scans like a pernuvo or an Ezra scan to kind of see what's going on in your body?
I might do a pernuvo.
I haven't done one of those yet other than just the traditional labs and stuff that I get from Sloan.
1:17:32
The chest X-ray, the MRI every year that hold the on the one year program now.
So we do MRI, so we do the whole scan.
I'll probably never give that up for life just because of out of caution, just in case something pops up and being an ad, no unknown primary, you just never know if something's going to pop up.
1:17:50
I haven't gotten into any of the liquid stuff yet.
I know there's some companies out there, there's some other places doing these.
You know, they say it detects 200 different types of cancers.
I don't know what the specificity and sensitivity is on some of those yet, but that's the problem.
Like take it.
Oh yeah, it's like a 12%.
So there's an 88% chance it's not going to if I have it.
1:18:09
I don't like those odds.
So I don't know the liquid biopsy stuff and knowing of that from my Med tech side and there's a lot of companies out there that are getting into this.
I don't think I think it's good.
I don't think it's quite there.
It's my opinion.
There probably is.
There is something I don't know about.
1:18:24
I can't learn everything.
I have two young kids.
I have a job, I do a wife and business and I'm busy, so I can't read and see everything, but I might start getting into that stuff.
But then the problem is, dude, then you get it and show you something and it can be a false positive and your mind's going crazy.
Like I'm part of a study at Sloan that they do and genetic component study to it.
1:18:45
And like the whole panel, all this they said, do you want to know about anything?
I don't, yeah, yeah, I might one day.
I don't because then what happens is you're going to be stressing out over, I'm like this risk of like, you know, this coming in to a 10% chance and when am I going to start getting forgetful that, you know, dimensionally start setting in?
1:19:04
I don't want to deal with that and it's just me.
I may think differently about it, but I don't do any of those BS, you know, online genetic screening things and of like to find out, you know, and then you see what's happening with all that data now in 23andMe and other companies and I don't do any of it.
1:19:22
So the long winded answer, I haven't done any of the blood testing yet.
I haven't done any of the genetic kind of screenings for your predisposed to certain cancers for genetic screens I have on file.
So it has it all and I fill out my paperwork every six months for part of the study and the data they need and all that crap I have to fill out.
1:19:40
But yeah, I haven't.
How about you?
You know, I'm in the process of interviewing all these companies, you know, so I'm, I'm in this season we're looking at a company that's coming out with a liquid biopsy test.
You know, I'm talking to multiple companies who do the full body MRI.
1:19:55
You know, one has a unique device.
The other one is just using software on a standard MRI machine and it's I think they're all great conversations.
I think the more.
Science that comes out about what it's telling us and what we're going to do with the information.
The better right now for me, for most people, it's very cost prohibitive because you're going to do it every year.
1:20:14
You can't do one right.
You're going to want to check this every year.
So it most people in the USI always forget what the figure is, but how many people like don't have 1000 bucks on their credit card, like 60% of America.
It's a lot, it's a lot.
So a lot of the things I talk about on the podcast, you know, there's, I'm always slightly apologetic.
1:20:35
I realize people don't have extra money to do the maintenance on what is my human garage, my human car.
But I think as they hit critical mass, I do think cost drops.
I do think we find a test, you know, the liquid biopsies from my understanding so far showing like an abnormal methylation pathway, not necessarily where could be pancreas, could be large intestine.
1:20:57
And not every company gives you, they don't give you all that data.
They just say, hey, go get a PET scan, right?
They're going to say go get high, high resolution imaging, you know, check this out.
So, and for my understanding, it's one out of 100.
So it's rare and it's not perfect.
1:21:14
You know, it's not perfect.
You know, if you listen to the marketing, it's the perfect task.
Why wouldn't you do this?
It's very alluring.
But if you're doing all the lifestyle things and you're really tapped in your body, if you're tapped in sleep, nervous system regulation, hydration, if you're moving weights, if you're eating clean, if you're having an attachment with something bigger than yourself, I think you're pretty darn covered.
1:21:35
I think you're, I mean, I'm not saying you can't.
I, I think part of life is getting sick, but I really do.
I think the best thing that have ever happened to me is as a result of cancer and Lyme and all these surgeries.
But that's because of the education that came with dealing with those challenges, Not that they were amazing.
1:21:51
It's how I learned to handle them over a long, long time.
But I, I think there's a lot of stuff out there.
There's a lot of information coming really fast.
And most people, I'm sure you feel this.
Louis is someone who owns and runs a clinic.
They're overwhelmed with information.
They're really struggling for a good guide or a good coach.
1:22:08
Which man, I can count him on my left hand.
I don't when people ask me, I'm like, here's the you can go to this guy, you can go to that girl.
Other than that, you know, I'm sure they're great.
Good luck.
Yeah, everybody is different.
Like what works for you may not work for me, but like me just personally stepping outside of it, just personally, it's like eat well most of the time, 8090% of the time you can't live like, you know, can't have that piece of pizza.
1:22:34
You can't have you got to eat well, be clean.
You know, we're my wifes into all the whole glyphosate free flour we get and makes our own sourdough and all this crazy stuff.
Like you eat healthy and then you get organic and then you get to the next level of like your own way.
Got a hydroponic garden.
1:22:49
Now we're getting up and running and for certain, very it's a whole thing, dude.
You get on this wormhole, you know how it is.
It's like then it's like plastic eliminating the extra, extra plastics.
They're going to use obscure salt and stain that like the mineral content is better, but there's no lead in it.
1:23:05
It's like, dude, you just go down this rabbit hole of everything.
You don't have to get there yet.
The biggest thing for everybody is E clean moo and you don't have to work out like a maniac.
Park away from the grocery store at the end of the lot and walk further.
1:23:20
Walk a little bit.
Go for a walk in the middle day.
Get sunlight exposure.
Sun is not your enemy.
It is good.
Too much of it is when you're walking around looking like a leather suitcase the beach gives you.
Go back everyday.
Get a red light panel.
Something simple and cheap.
Not a huge big commercial $140,000 bed.
1:23:37
Get a $400.00 tabletop red light panel.
Get a sauna, cheap pop up sauna.
Get like a low EMF.
You have a portable where your head sticks out.
We have one of those.
Also the the big one you sit in heat exposure, hot showers, cold showers, cold plunge.
1:23:54
You don't even need to be a big huge commercial $4000 plunge.
Buy yourself a couple $100 chiller like the Nuvo chiller.
I just got one of those.
I think it's great.
We have a commercial one in the building in our business, but like at home goes in a huge soaking tub we have and I have the barrels for outside, but outside right now it is, oh, it's 22.
1:24:13
It's the hottest it's been in four days.
It was single digits for five days in a row last year when it got this way.
I'm busting the ice on the top like this thick.
I get in, I get in the barrel and I'm like, oh, this is too cold.
If I don't get out now, my wife and kids have been cold and see me.
I mean, you froze and my legs are shutting down.
1:24:28
Keep it like 45°.
Get in it couple minutes a day.
It's it's cheap and easy.
And then when you get that house in order, then talk about all the technology that costs a lot more money, but you can do all the other stuff for basically free except like the red light panel, because if you can't get out in the sun every day or whatever it may be, that's my kind of two cents.
1:24:50
Yeah, no, I was saying I would join with you at Northeast Corridor.
I think, I think, you know, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, PA, it's just grey and overcast and sad in the winter.
And if you can get into some extra light, you will be happier.
And that's a relatively, you know, especially those like I love light path, LED, you know, paying overtime.
1:25:10
Most people can afford that to do a payment plan on those or whatever.
However you do it, they're quite affordable.
And yeah, it really helps with pains, microcirculation, but most of all that seasonal depression.
You're just not as sad with the red light.
That's what I've noticed.
Yeah, when you do red light, it's a huge difference.
1:25:27
I love it.
There's a lot of different things, but like you said, all the crazy stuff that you're into way above my kind of level, because that's kind of what the world you're living in with the podcast to talk to all these people.
That's crazy technology, new devices, but it's expensive right now and I'm hoping in 5-10 years it gets cheaper.
1:25:42
Like the flat screen TV's you remember in, you know, early 2000.
Yeah, my first one I got was $3800 from Circuit City.
That's how long ago it was.
Circuit City is not even in business anymore.
And I saved all my money for this and I got this for my apartment.
I was living in New York at the time.
1:25:58
I got this nice flats.
It was 42 inches old.
It was so expensive.
And now I can go get like a Samsung for 300 bucks to get a Vizio for like $150.00, a big 50 inch.
I know TV and Sam's Club or Costco.
So I'm hoping one day the medical complementary therapies get to that where, hey, we could buy a red light panel for home for 250 bucks a full stand up, Yeah.
1:26:20
Yeah, it's, it's happening.
You know, the, the desire and the drive is going up.
It's happening.
People want, they want to feel better.
They do, they do and what whatever, you know, whatever means they can, they can afford and are accessible to them.
You know, just closing it out, Louis, like I just want to be mindful of your time and we'll definitely, we could tap in.
1:26:38
We could do do another one.
Just we could pick like 1 little topic, you know, as a as a cancer survivor, what would you say is your if there is one, what's your biggest gift from that experience?
To realize that there's other more important things in life and and don't in my diagnosis, like we talked about in the beginning, doesn't define you.
1:26:58
Look at all the other stuff you have going in your life.
You can either take that diagnosis and be woe is me and be depressed about it and miserable and shitty about it and just think the negativity.
But then you can look at the outside like, oh shit, I'm still here.
Again, beautiful wife.
1:27:14
I got a great job, I got a great family, my kids, I got 2 little cute little dogs like this big.
It's awesome.
You know, you can look at things at the positive of it or I can still be like, oh, I got cancer with my stomach.
I you know, this big scar, it's ugly.
I've not hurt.
I don't look at the negativity.
So I think the biggest thing from it is just don't focus on the negative side of what happened.
1:27:34
Face it, deal with it and move on.
And look at all the positive and look at the other things you have the next thing you all have other bad things.
There's other stuff that I honestly think is probably worth and sometimes if you look into things like Oh my God, like you look at something and it's that's my biggest thing is I look more on the positive side of things of what I have as opposed to what kind of I don't have or was taken away from a health perspective.
1:27:59
Yeah, and if you could go in your your primary diagnosis, remind me you were 19?
19, yes.
You were 19 years old.
If you could go back and give any advice to your 19 year old self after your first diagnosis, what would you tell that person?
What would you tell little Louis?
I would say start a complementary Med tech company that offers red light sauna, cold plunge, presa therapy and get at the forefront of this when people back in 1999 are wondering what the hell are you talking about red light, what are you doing?
1:28:32
I would say no.
What I would tell myself is that was going to be funny, but not also not like I wish I would have had the knowledge of what I know now, the complementary therapies to ease the recovery, especially the chemotherapy side of things.
And then the surgery.
I wish I would have known some stuff, but I would just go back and just tell myself like, OK, it's a bump in the road.
1:28:51
You're going to, you know, deal with this.
It's not the end of the world.
So there's probably going to be other bumps, but just keep your head down and be ready to push forward because you know it's it's not going to be an easy Rd.
I think that's it.
I don't think that's the best answer.
I.
Was yeah, that's great.
1:29:08
Spot for that.
I'm trying to think how to describe it.
I know what I'm trying to say but I can't say it right now at the moment, if that makes sense.
Oh, it's clear.
It is clear.
Where can people find you or the clinic online if they want to follow?
Me, I don't have personal social media, but you talked about people reaching out to you.
1:29:24
I could just be reached at Louis Lou i.e. at elevationhyphenwellness.com.
I'm more than happy.
I've talked to one of the nurses that I work with in my Med tech job.
Her son was going through it.
I've talked to people like you have.
They reach out, think chemo, post chemo, RPL and D, They're all young kids of like reach out.
1:29:43
I'm more than happy to talk to anyone about it, about my experience side of things.
That's kind of my e-mail.
I don't have a personal social media footprint just yet.
Our buddy Jimmy Martin's probably the kind of start one, but I'm just like, yeah, but Elevation Wellness 172 is our social across all platforms, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
1:30:02
We're on there and I'd be happy to talk both, you know, cancer stuff with folks going through it.
Anybody just wants to reach out, shoot me an e-mail.
Anybody that wants to talk what we do, I'm more than happy.
Or if you're involved in somehow adjacent business is this, I'd be happy to talk about some stuff.
1:30:19
Amazing.
So that's Elevation wellness172.com.
Yep, Elevation Wellness 172 is my screen name, my handle for all the social OK, great website, iselevation-wellness.com and then my e-mail is [email protected].
1:30:36
Got it.
Awesome.
We'll put all these in the show notes, guys.
Louis, it's been a pleasure.
Can't wait to meet in person.
We'll definitely be talking more in 2025.
We'll talk, buddy.
Thank you, Freddy.
We'll talk soon.
Have a great day.
Big love, thank you for sharing your story.
Thanks, ladies and gentlemen, here we are with Season 9 of the podcast.
1:30:58
We're about to Crest into year 6.
Can you believe it?
I'm so glad you're still here.
And I just wanted to remind you, if you like the show, please head over to Apple or Spotify and give us a five star review.
It really expands the listenership.
1:31:15
Now, there's one big way you can continue to learn and deepen the relationship that we started in this very episode.
You can go to Beautifully Broken dot world and you can check out our brand new website and store.
Listed are all the technologies, the supplements, the self quantification, the products, everything that I love, I personally use and I've curated for this audience.
1:31:39
Most of the items have a significant discount just by using the link or our code.
Beautifully broken all one word and they do support the podcast through affiliations.
Now if you want to see the faces of our guest and you want to watch me unbox products and see reviews, you can go over to YouTube at Beautifully Broken World.
1:32:00
Now this next message is from my vast team of Internet lawyers.
The information on this podcast is for education.
By listening, you agree not to use the information found here as medical advice to treat, diagnose or cure any medical condition in yourself or others.
1:32:17
Always consult your guiding position for actual medical issues you may be having.
Now, in my closing, we are truly in a paradigm shift.
We need you at your very best.
So use these conversations as a jumping off point for further exploration.
1:32:37
Always listen to your own body and remember, while life may be painful, how we put the pieces back together is a beautiful, beautiful process.
I love you so much.
I'm your host, Freddie Kimmel.