0105 - Brain Health Secret - Bipolar Relationships

0:00:00 - Temple
Today we're gonna be talking about the brain, and I have a special guest, Dr David Stephens. Dr Stephens, you here. 

0:00:10 - Dr. David Stephens
I am here. I don't know where I went, but I'm back. 

0:00:14 - Temple
Okay, just reminding people that the last time we had an event together, I had to represent you, so I'm officially calling myself Dr Temple now. So perfect, just just me, just for myself in the mirror. But for you, you officially are a doctor and I'm so glad that we had a chance to find each other. I think that that was very much divine timing, and I want to introduce a little bit about Dr Stevens, but before I do that, I just want to tell you a story About why he's here and why it's related to this group in particular. Because you know we are here because we, we all have a loved one with bipolar. I mean, or you, you know of somebody and we come here week after week for the last two years just looking for Resolve, for some type of guidance, for some type of rest, but something to give us some hope that there's going to be better ways for people to live with bipolar. And that's how the room started, because I have been married to somebody for quite a long time that it's been living with a very severe case. Most of you know me, but if you don't know my husband's story, he has schizo affected bipolar, but he's been For at least eight years had a major psychotic episode that came out of six months of Ultradian Psychotic mania, with psychosis every single day, and then he went mania on the run and then when he came back he had a full psychotic break that turned him to basically the cognition of a five-year-old child and I had the the duty to help him recover and Kind of re -raise him. 

He had to learn everything, a lot of things, all over again, just changing his clothes and brushing his teeth and Just all the basics, your daily essential living stuff. His executive functions went to put, which means he couldn't, you know, pay his bills. It was very, very scary and I was desperate and lost and was getting little to no guidance from the mental health system. So I really had to take it upon myself to keep looking to my peers, to keep digging and looking, digging and looking. Is there anything else? Is there any way else? 

And one thing that chris did respond to uh, my bipolar loved one, chris was when I started giving him smoothies and jute scene and I was excited about that because I went to college For addiction education. So they talked about the brain. You know not a lot really, doctor stevens, it really did not talk about it enough, but just the basics of how the brain functions. And you know, right on the top of the textbook it says that the brain is fueled by glucose. And I thought, oh well, that is fabulous news because I can google what is glucose food and just give him a bunch of smoothies and bananas all day and Juicing every day, so many boxes of celery, and just on and on and on trying to pump him full of glucose nutritionally, you know, nutritionally steamed potatoes and all that. And he seemed happy to have. That Put him in a better mood, he had better energy, but his symptoms weren't reducing. So as a matter of fact, they stayed the same. Uh, just just, mood-wise he would change a little bit, but it always went back. It seemed like the symptoms always broke through. 

And at this point my husband is in an assisted living facility Because he does need 24 hour nurse, nursing assistants, med techs and all that have taken over my job. So of course I'm still very much obsessed With finding relief and recovery for people that are living with bipolar, because I don't want I don't want any other Families to have to go through what chris and I have gone through. So I think I'll probably live with this passion for the rest of my life, um, and because of that I'm meeting people that really are coming up with ways. So, and saying that this is a long intro, but believe me, I'm gonna get to you, dr Steve, is that's all right? The thing that was very challenging All these years with the glucose plans right, because there I follow many doctors about that, about the brain, you know, and there's a lot of plans out there how to help the brain, but they're so complicated and difficult to keep up with. 

The keto diet alone, especially the medical keto diet, so complex. And for all of you that have a bipolar loved one, you know that whatever they need to do, it's for you to do. I mean not everybody, but I know a lot of you in here that if something is Uh, if it's an executive function, if it's a diet plan, if it's a medication plan, if it's a supplement plan, it's for the partner. You have to coach them and support them through it. So it's very taxing on the spouse or on the partner to try to implement any type of recovery plan, even their medications. Right, talking to their psychiatrist and getting their meds to them three times a day For me. That was a daily task. I just kept really praying for something else. Something else that wasn't so complex, something that could get to the brain and give him some relief, that wasn't going to take everything out of me to do it, something that he could wrap his head around, something that was simplistic in nature and simplistic in results. 

Okay, now to, Dr  Stephens. So I found Dr  Stephens on facebook and he was talking about using glucose for brain repair. So Dr  Stephens has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Denver and he's trained specifically in neuropsychology during his doctoral studies. He has been involved in multiple Neuroscience research projects, including the national jewish center in Denver, Colorado. He's a member of the association of neuroscience for architecture, which is very interesting. I don't know if you'll get to that today, but very interesting that he's does that and is an expert in neuroscience, correctional mental health okay, people in prison and dual diagnosis or co-occurring disorder treatment. So that's a. That's an amazing title that you have, Dr  Stephens. He began his current work in brain rehabilitation in 2017 and, as a result of working with people with concussions, traumatic brain injuries, tbi's, mood disorders and developmental disorders such as autism, he's now presenting courses All over the world, in eastern europe, lithuania, estonia, finland. He is the author of a book called Glucose 101 the Brain Dysfunction Reclamation and Recovery handbook. Okay, I did it, so welcome. 

0:07:47 - Dr. David Stephens
Thank you, so glad to be here. So I'm going to start with kind of a comment about treatment, the treatment community in general, and then talk about how and why I started the glucose program, how it's helped people, and then talk about brain function specifically. But this will really be focused on glucose and using glucose for our brains to recover. Glucose is what I call a macro Intervention or a macro treatment. All of the things that you've done in your journeys, either yourself or with a spouse or partner, has been really focused on what I call micro interventions, meaning various psychotropic medications or dietary adjustments or Even things like making sure your physical health is in order. All those are micro Interventions that address a specific cell or a specific organ or a specific body system. But glucose, because it is fuel for the brain, is a micro or sorry, is a macro intervention. So using glucose to address brain function allows all the other bodily and brain systems to function the way they should, and I'll go into more detail about that in a minute. 

This really is, and temple has mentioned God and prayer a couple of times. It's a really interesting story. That is kind of a marriage between god and science, and those things can seem really antithetical and opposite. I think various religions can be antithetical to science, but I don't think god is, and so he is kind of at the Center of the story, even though science is equally at the center of the story. 

So in 2015, I began doing what are called pre participation assessments of kids before they participated in athletics. So I did a neuropsych screening with them to identify if they had any difficulties, but also primarily to serve as Information that if they got a concussion or a head injury, we could compare their testing before the injury and then what the testing said Following the injury to see how severely injured they were. So I was doing these assessments and found some very interesting things. So I would do a questionnaire with people before we did the testing and ask the kid and the parents has he or she had any concussions? Have they had any traumatic brain injury? Have they had any falls, all those kinds of things and probably 95 or 98 percent or something of them said no, no, no. My kids never had a concussion, my kids never had a traumatic brain injury, never had any falls, nothing. So then I did the testing. A total of probably seven 800 kids 75 to 80 percent of them had clinically significant deficits on neuropsychological testing, even though the parents and they themselves said no, never had an injury. So I thought that was pretty curious. So when I got the test results I would go back to the parents and I would say I know, you said he or she has never been injured, but the test results, we don't get these kind of results unless there's been a fairly significant concussive or traumatic brain injuries. 

Then so did you maybe not remember some things or what? What do you think? And then I mean, the events were not funny at all, but the stories were kind of funny. So I would hear things like Well, he fell out of a second story window when he was two and landed on his head. Could that have been a concussion? And I would Not laugh, but I, yeah, I would say, um, yes, that one was definitely a concussion. Or the most dramatic one was a woman said Well, um, my daughter, which she was 16, she was in a car accident and went Headfirst through the windshield and was unconscious for a few hours. Could that have been a concussion? And again I would say yes, that was a concussion, but even with that, probably 40 or 50 of them. Even upon showing them the test results and saying the test says there's been injuries, they would say no, no, no, no injuries. So I thought that was very strange and curious. 

So I started researching what's going on, really from the moment of impact to the head, and then following through the symptoms. So I was doing that research and then, in 2017, was awakened in the middle of the night With what I call the inspiration. It wasn't an audible voice, but I'm a person of faith and Interpreted it as inspiration from God. But the message was try glucose. And I thought, well, that's a really weird thing to wake up with and I'm not just going to run out and start Suggesting that people take glucose. So I did the research and getting a little ahead of ourselves, nobody has to have any kind of belief in God whatsoever to recover from well, again, getting ahead of ourselves to recover from what I call glucose limiting events and you know, none of the treatment that I do requires anybody to have any specific faith or any faith at all, but it is very much a part of the story and I I know temple and I know she's very, very much a person of faith and receptive to that, and so I assume there would be other people that are in that same place in life, but if you're not, that's okay. I'll tell the story and you know it is certainly open to interpretation, but for me. So I got this awakened in the middle of the night with this try glucose. 

So I did the research and this is a very important point found out that glucose in any amount Is not dangerous in any way to any brain or body tissue, to any brain or body organ, to any brain or body system. It is not harmful in any way, cannot harm you. And so I found that out. And so, after doing that, I had a new guy coming in and this was a 41 year old guy. He estimated he'd had 15 concussions in his life and I was doing testing with him and there was a particular part of the test where he had to fill in numbers that went with symbols. I showed him that paper and again a 41 year old guy and he just started weeping and when he was able to collect himself he said that looks like somebody took a box of jigsaw puzzle pieces and turned it upside down. I can't make sense of it at all in any way. So he did the best he could without we finished the testing and so I said to him um, you know, I put on my very best salesman's hat and said I have some glucose tablets. I have no idea if they'll help you. I know for sure they won't hurt you. Would you like to try? And strangely enough he said sure, I'll try. So I gave him four or five glucose tablets. He took them and probably 15 seconds later turned to his wife and said you know that pressure that's always in my head and she said yeah, he said it's gone and, being a good supportive wife, she said no, it's not. And he said no, really it's gone. So he took glucose in the way we'll talk about in a little bit for roughly six months. 

And I don't know how many of you know what standard deviations are in statistics, but it's kind of like letter grades in school, groups of scores above and below average. So in school a C is an average grade. It's usually 70 to 80%. If you go up one letter grade, or like one standard deviation, that's to a B which is 80 to 90%. If you go down one letter grade, or like one standard deviation to 60 to 70%, that's a letter grade down. So standard deviation is like that On post cognitive testing, and the test I use when I'm working with people in person has multiple versions, and so I gave him a different version of the test. 

So the results weren't simply that he was better at taking that specific test. The results revealed actual improvement in brain function and he improved by three full standard deviations, or letter grades, so like going from a D to an A, and it takes four tenths of one standard deviation to be clinically significant. And he improved by three full standard deviations, which is incredibly dramatic. And so the next person comes in and I said the same thing to her again. Being a great salesman, said I have no idea if this will help you. I know for sure it won't hurt. Would you like to try? So she tried some glucose tablets. She said I have this headache behind my eyes when I came in and it's gone now. So she continued to glucose for about six months. She improved by two and a half full standard deviations on cognitive testing. 

And so I tell people I'm a little bit of a slow learner, so I kept giving glucose to people as they came to meet with me, and after about a hundred people who took the glucose and fully recovered, I started saying I think this will help you. 

I don't know for sure. I know for sure it won't hurt you. Would you like to try? And people just kept taking it and recovering from a wide range of conditions, including mood disorders like depression or bipolar anxiety disorders, memory problems, brain fog, headaches, tinnitus or ear ringing, lots of different conditions. So after about another hundred or 150 people recovered so we're up to like 250 by now I started saying I'm pretty sure this will help you. Don't know completely with certainty, I know for sure it won't hurt. Would you like to try? Everybody that tried it, everybody fully recovered, that completed the treatment. So when I got to probably about 500 people having fully recovered, then I started saying I know this will help you and to this point I've treated over 1200, I don't have the exact number, but everybody that's completed the treatment and it usually takes around six months, can be a little longer than that, but kind of in that ballpark people fully recover. And so, again, like I said at the beginning, glucose is a macro intervention. When the brain is fueled it will function the way it should, and when it's functioning the way it should, it regulates mood and memory and attention and learning and all of our bodily processes appropriately. 

0:19:30 - Temple
Let's take a break right there, Dr  Stephens, because I mean, we're not doctors or clinicians all of us so we're going to have to take this in a little slower. So I just wanted to kind of let everybody reflect on what you just heard. Think about what your loved one experiences as symptoms. Give me a thumbs up if any of your partners have had, maybe, a concussion of some sort, a car accident, a fall of any kind. My husband had a major car accident. I had a major car accident. 

Give me a thumbs up if any of your partners have trouble with short term memory, like they walk around looking for their keys 100 times a day. Where's my wallet? Where's my phone? What about brain fog? Do they walk into a room and forget why they're there? How about you, any of you? How are you all doing with your brain fog, short term memory? Do you walk into a room and forget why you're there? Do you watch movies and remember all the actors and actresses that you used to? I want to turn this just a little bit on to us, dr Stevens the spouses, the partners, because we are very similarly affected, because of the time we've spent with somebody living with bipolar. 

Many of us have become physically, mentally diagnosed with things due to the anxiety and the stress, and our trauma responses have been highly escalated. We'll talk more about that with the group that we just did and I'll give you guys the testimonial on how it's helped me and Davina and Bridget, because we've all been in this treatment. I wanted them to just think about this how are you doing, how is your brain doing, davina, lisa, monica, from the trauma and the stress of your spouse running away or your spouse being in lockdown with you while manic? Everybody in this room probably has some form of effect on their brain from anxiety and or trauma. It could be a lot of things, not just a physical. But think about one more thing. Let me ask you, give me a thumbs up if any of your spouses or partners had a very dysfunctional childhood where they were physically, mentally or psychologically abused. That's all going to be relevant here and Dr  Stephens is going to tell you why. All right back to you, Dr  Stephens. 

0:22:13 - Dr. David Stephens
Great. I'm going to tell you a story about brain function. This story and I think you'll see what I mean as I talk about it relates to, or applies to, every single person that is living now, every single person that's ever lived, every single person that ever will live, because this is how brains function and this is how brains respond to like Temple said to trauma and to difficult events. You'll probably be a little surprised at how little it takes for there to be a traumatic response in the brain. I've already referenced glucose. Glucose is the fuel for your brain. If you Google what's the fuel for your brain, you'll find that glucose is the answer. If you Google what's the role of glucose in the brain and in the body it's not just the brain what you'll find is it's the fuel for the brain and the body. Humans will die faster from lack of glucose than they will from lack of water. It's that important to your brain function. It's that important to your bodily function. The normal way our brains get glucose is a portion of everything we eat. Our bodies convert to glucose. Again, there's not a literal pipe and valve, but there is a connection between our stomach and our brain that, once the body and the gut produces glucose that goes to the brain. That process is called glycolysis. So again, every time you eat anything, a portion of that gets converted to glucose and it goes through that pipe that is regulated by a valve up to your brain. 

Probably most of you know the term either sympathetic nervous system or fight or flight or freeze system. Those are exactly the same system. We talk about that a lot. It doesn't take very much to activate your sympathetic nervous system or your fight or flight or freeze reaction. Everything is simple as bumping your head on a cabinet or if you ever had a sibling or a friend that jumped out of a dark room to scare you. Those things will activate your sympathetic nervous system or the fight or flight or freeze system. The valve that I was talking about that's connected to that pipe that takes glucose from the stomach to the brain. The normal setting before any fight or flight or freeze or sympathetic activations. It's set at about 70%. 

With the very first activation of your sympathetic nervous system, that valve opens to 100% flow so the brain can get all the fuel it needs for you to fight if you need to, for you to run away if you need to, to protect yourself. That valve can only remain open at 100% for about 20 minutes. If it was open longer than that, your brain would drain your body of glucose and that would kill you. The brain's biggest, most important job is to keep us alive. The brain opens the valve to 100% so it has enough fuel to protect you again, to fight or flight or to flee, to protect yourself. It also can't let the brain drain the body of glucose. After about 20 minutes it turns the valve down, but it doesn't turn it back down to 70%. It may turn it down to 65% and it leaves it at 65% from then on until the next sympathetic nervous system or fight or flight or freeze system activation. Then the brain reopens the valve to 100% because it needs all the fuel it can get to protect you. It can only leave it there at 100% for about 20 minutes because otherwise it would drain the body of glucose. Then it turns it back down, but not back to 65%. This time it may turn it to 62%. It will leave it at 62% from then on until the next sympathetic nervous system activation, when it reopens it to 100%, leaves it there for 20 minutes, turns it down not back to 62, but maybe to 58, and leaves it there from then on until the next fight or flight or freeze or sympathetic nervous system activation. 

In that way we progressively lose fuel to our brain throughout our lives. The appearance of symptoms brain fog, headaches, like I said, ear ringing, light or sound sensitivity, difficulty concentrating, forgetting names of people you just met, anxiety, depression, mania all those things happen because the brain doesn't have enough fuel or glucose to regulate those functions. All of that is the bad news. What has been happening as long as humans have been on the earth is there's been these sympathetic nervous system activations Each time that person's brain loses a little bit of fuel and after three or four of those, then you start to have noticeable symptoms. Even if you've never been diagnosed with any kind of mental health issue and you've had mostly trauma from dealing with your spouse or partner that has bipolar, you've had and I probably all of you know this very clearly. You've had multiple sympathetic nervous system or fight or flight or freeze system activations that have resulted in progressive lowering of fuel. 

One of the very interesting symptoms that people talk to me about is either they think they're lazy, or maybe their partner's spouse has said they're lazy, or maybe their parents said they were lazy. To me, there's no such thing as laziness. It's simply lack of and loss of fuel to your brain. When I'm working with kids, I'll say to them do you have a cell phone? Of course they all do. 

I'll say has your cell phone ever gotten low on battery? They say, of course. I say, well, what happens when your cell phone's low on battery? They say, well, maybe the screen gets dark or maybe it doesn't run as fast or problems like that, or maybe it shuts off altogether. I say to them well, is your cell phone lazy? They look at me like I'm an idiot. They say, well, no, of course not. I say why? They say, well, it's just low on battery. I say to them exactly what you or people important to you have labeled as laziness in you is simply that your brain doesn't have enough fuel to carry on all the functions it needs to carry on. That's just one symptom. All the symptoms that people experience come from progressively losing fuel to the brain. 

0:29:29 - Temple
I just want to take a little break right here too. For everybody, I can feel the bells going off in their head about these things, and especially around the sympathetic nervous system. Again, for the spouses and partners. We already know that our bipolar loved ones are oftentimes stuck in the fight or flight response. We forget that we get stuck there too. Especially what I have seen through my coaching, Dr  Stephens, is that most of the partners are relying on their adrenaline response to keep going. They are the ones like oh, I just keep going, I just keep going. They're high functioning with anxiety. 

It's just amazing how much resources and power these partners pull from to keep their families together and keep going to work and taking care of the kids and keeping all the appointments together and monitoring symptoms. It's just layers and layers and layers. It's usually just them. It's rare that you get to a point where you can have a caregiver like I've been able to have with my husband towards the last couple of years. Think about you. Think about your body and how much you've been relying on your adrenaline response, your stress response, to keep you charged up, and how adrenaline is the greatest drug for us. It masks the pain, it gives us energy when we don't think we have any, but it is causing us to stay in our sympathetic nervous system and to stay in that fight or flight response ourselves. I was going to ask you, Dr  Stephens could you explain the difference between glucose and sugar? Why do people think it's the same thing? 

0:31:31 - Dr. David Stephens
Yes, glucose is a form of sugar, but it's a very specific sugar. It's what's called a monosaccharide. The chemical formula and I'll try to not go too deep in the weeds because this is certainly not chemistry class but the formula is C6 H12 06. What that stands for is six atoms of carbon. The human body must have carbon to stay alive. Carbon is kind of the foundation of life. So there's six atoms of carbon in the chemical formula, Then H stands for hydrogen. There's 12 atoms of hydrogen in the chemical formula of glucose and then O stands for oxygen. So it's C6 H12 06, six atoms of oxygen. And because it's so simple chemically and because it's composed of the three things that we need to stay alive carbon, hydrogen, which is water, and oxygen so it is light enough and simple enough that it passes the blood-brain barrier and can get to the brain and fuels the brain. 

0:32:55 - Temple
Other sugars, like sucrose Uh-huh, because that is the one that's the question that we get a lot is I can't drink sugar. Right, it's going to hurt me. 

0:33:07 - Dr. David Stephens
Right, and I said at the beginning, glucose will not hurt you in any way. Glucose, which is what's in pie and dessert and soda and candy, that is twice as chemically heavy. Its formula is C12H22012. And so it will not pass the blood-brain barrier and so it doesn't provide any kind of fuel or benefit to your body. 

0:33:40 - Temple
But glucose will, and that's why, when they are highly manic, they go for alcohol and candy and snacks. 

0:33:53 - Dr. David Stephens
Right, because when they're manic, it's when their brain is lower on fuel and it isn't regulating the mood appropriately. And so the brain knows the carbohydrates are the thing that's most easily converted to glucose, and so it sends cravings for alcohol or sweets or carbs or whatever, in an effort to get more fuel, to get more glucose. 

0:34:20 - Temple
Right, okay, so everybody has some bells go off. For that one, give me a thumbs up. We have so many partners that Mania equals an alcohol binge, and it's been so dangerous, so tragic really to see what happens when their brain runs low, super low on fuel because they've been rapid cycling and they just can't get enough glucose to the brain and so next thing you know they're on a binge and then they're in trouble, big trouble. So my husband and I have both been on this glucose recovery program and Dwayne's here, and Dwayne has also been on the program with me. So has Bridget and her husband and a couple other people agreed to go through this with me. So, as you know, I always try things out myself first to see. I even try things before I give them to my husband, which probably isn't the smartest thing. But you know, I know that I need support. 

I've had tremendous anxiety throughout the pandemic and I'm a very high functioning person If you haven't guessed that by now. From the neck up, you know I can still get a lot of things done. But living with my husband during the pandemic, with his rapid cycles of psychosis, was really like the scariest thing I'd ever been through. They wanted to put me on anti-anxiety medications and I had tried them in the past and it just didn't work well to where I could function at the level I wanted to. So I didn't take any medication and it wasn't until the pandemic and I went to my doctor and I said, please give me something. I'm not going to make it here. There's nowhere for him to go, there's nowhere for me to go. You know, literally if you've read my book, you know I've had to call EMTs and everything to try to get my husband helping. It just wasn't going to happen. So the only way for me to survive it was to be able to function and just to control my anxiety and be with him. So in starting Dr Stevens' program, once I found him, I said, hey, this is definitely worth me giving a try. I've done all the juicing, all you know, we've eaten so many Steve Potato. I'm in, I'm going to give this a try. 

I learned so much about the brain and myself, all those bells going off in my head about the car accident that I had. I had two major car accidents. I've constantly had ringing in my ears and you know, because I'm a spiritualist, people say, oh, that's your download from God. I'm like, oh gosh, I must be so smart. But no, it's tinnitus, it's a brain problem. Plus, I also have trauma, physical trauma, emotional trauma. 

The bell that went off when Dr  Stephens said you were on the right track, temple, with the glucose. What you didn't know was that your glucose transport system is not working. You're trying to eat your way to repair and you can't get it that way. It's not. By the way, my digestion is incredibly challenged. How about any of you? So, trying to get the amount of glucose that my brain needs through diet was not working. It was just a little bump. A little bump, but could never cross the bridge. So we started the program and it must have been, I would say, my ninth or tenth week, I think, Dr  Stephens, maybe earlier than that and I significantly, viscerally, felt a switch shut off for the anxiety that I had been living with me and I had called you each week and said I was a total asshole to my husband and I'm really mad at myself about it. I'm just feeling bad, I'm losing it. And what Dr  Stephens said to me is but temple, you're not an asshole, not even close. 

0:38:23 - Davina
They're not. 

0:38:26 - Temple
I'm like, you're right, I'm not. So what's going on? He said you are out of fuel, go drink some glucose, get your glucose in. And it did change my mood. It changed my response, my patient's response when my husband have his symptoms, and me being able to not have an anxious reaction to his symptoms was a clear defining moment in my head. I felt a change and I've been feeling better ever since. I think I've maybe had anxiety one or two times since then in the last four weeks, so that has been a major transition for me. 

If you want to know about Chris his major transitions that I've seen now, I told you about how extreme his case is, so we're very early in the process. He still has quite a ways to go. However, I will been watching him like a hawk right, I'm already a helicopter wipe, but I watch every single move and what I noticed that Dr  Stephens told me was that your vision is a big glucose burner. Right, your visual responses. And I always wondered why my husband couldn't find food in the refrigerator. He'd open it and just be lost, and I've been labeling food for years, okay, and he has a very hard time making eye contact with me, looking at me in the face when we're talking and Dr  Stephens said that's his visual processing. He doesn't have enough glucose to use his visual processing all the time, so he's looking away. He can't read your face. 

Well, just a couple of weeks ago about four weeks ago I noticed that he looked right at me while we were talking and he usually tries to be polite but he's not always following along with the conversation. I know he's getting lost, but I physically saw his eyes change and look at me and have a visible response to me that he understood what I was rambling on about, which I'm usually just rambling on to keep the conversation going. But he actually heard me, took it in, said something back that was on topic and responsive and kept eye contact. So to me that was a major, major testimony that we were on the right track. So I'm going to give ThuyVi a chance to ask a question here and then I'm going to give Bridget a chance to talk about her experience. ThuyVi, how are you doing? I'm going to give you just a minute to ask a question. Okay, go ahead and un-mic Hi. 

0:41:21 - ThuyVi
Thank you so much, Dr  Stephens, hi Welcome. Thank you, hello. I know that I'm very reactive I get flooded and I just feel like my system is shot. Four months ago we had an episode and it was very traumatic and I did flee, so I do want to take care of my system and my husband's. So grateful to hear about the six months recovery, and do you think after six months that we should just continue the treatment to keep at optimum health? 

0:42:03 - Dr. David Stephens
brain health. It's a great question. Just a quick comment that your system is not shot, it's just low on fuel, and so as you get refueled, your system will reboot and get back to being fully functional. And so six months is the average amount of time it takes people to recover. It can't take a little longer, but I did the treatment myself and I've been doing a maintenance dose since August of 2021. And that has been a very helpful thing for me. 

I just don't get low on fuel. I don't have any kind of symptoms. In the past I would have taken some glucose before doing this talk, but now I take a dose in the morning and I take a dose at night, and that keeps me from having to do additional amounts like before doing a talk like this. So people that I work with some of them want to stop taking it regularly after the six months or after they've recovered, and then just take it as needed. Other people decide that it's a good thing to take a maintenance dose. One of the things I found is part of it for me was experimental that I wanted to see if my brain would keep improving in its function beyond what I thought was full recovery. And sure enough, I continue to see increases in creativity, increases in analytic ability, increases just in my general brain function. 

0:43:39 - ThuyVi
Thank you so much. That is huge, and about two years ago I thought I was situationally depressed after my spouse's episode and I just had so low energy. That was the main thing. Thank you so much. 

0:43:55 - Dr. David Stephens
You're so welcome. 

0:43:56 - Temple
Absolutely, you know. That's why we're here, that's why we're talking in the I married bipolar room and we're not in the hacking bipolar room, because we need to start with us. Okay, I know that everybody's bells are going off on how they're going to help their partners and spouses, but we need to start with us. If we go down, the whole ship is going to go down, right, so you have to stay healthy, or, you know, for some of us, really, their spouses could severely fail in life if you weren't there, right, Right? So we know that then this room is some of the most critical situations. So I want to make sure that you all start thinking about yourself and doing this program for you first, If your bipolar loved one wants to do the course, you need to be here. 

Okay, We've already done this with a few people, with couples, and it's very much a challenge to keep somebody that has active bipolar symptoms engaged right. It's difficult to even keep them on their medications that their psychiatrist gives them, much less a diet plan or, you know, an exercise plan or whatever. So if you think I'm going to just send my spouse into Dr  Stephens' group and they're going to figure it out, I'm going to tell you for this one, if I'm the moderator, you need to be here because you're going to be the one that's going to be the accountability partner and you're going to need it just as much as they are, and we're all in recovery. I want to pass this over to Bridget, because my ride-and-fly Dr  Stephens she like it's a champ researched it and she's like I'm in. 

And I was shocked because Bridget, to me, is a conservative person and she just said I'm in, let's do it. And I was so excited that I had Bridget because she's I really respect her intellectually. For her to go on this journey with me was just so exciting and for her and her husband to both get in it together was just amazing to me. So, Bridget, can you share a little bit about some of the things that you've seen, some of the testimonials you've seen? 

0:46:26 - Bridget
So, yeah, I mean, I think going into this I think a lot of you know I work in healthcare not as a clinician, but in communications and writing, and so a lot of what I do I have to look at resources and trusted sources. And so, you know, I came into it like a little bit cynical or questioning, and so I did a little bit of research on my own and I did find that there was an emerging area in bipolar research, actually looking at glucose and looking at insulin and how it affects mood disorders and mood. So I thought, well, seems like there's something here. And also the fact that you know there's so few medications out there that work for our loved ones and that a new medication specifically for bipolar hasn't been developed in, you know, 50, 60 years, if even that, I thought, well, you know, we need to try something, because I don't want to live the rest of my life like this and my husband doesn't either. So I jumped on and it's been fascinating. So I'll just talk about myself a little bit. 

After I had a very traumatic year with my husband, having kind of a psychotic episode and a separating, I just never regained my energy that I had or my excitement for doing my job, like I would think about things that I love to do and I would just get this like heavy and tired feeling and I was like you know and I just couldn't figure out what was going on. 

So now, you know, if I think about all these things, it makes a lot of sense, like what happened to me was probably the most traumatic thing that's ever happened in my life, in addition to like a car accident and just normal things. 

So I started taking it and a few weeks in it was, like Temple said, like I felt like this rush almost, and it's been sustained. So it's not just a sugar high guys. It's like I had that energy back and I had like a drive to do things that I had let, like pictures that have been sitting on the floor for months that I didn't hang, like I suddenly was like, oh, let me like in my break go hang that picture. But then also, just like with my memory, word recall and doing the tasks of my job that were previously exhausting me, I have like that renewed energy back. You know, for me it's been a lift, but for, like, I felt a lift and I feel like I'm functioning a lot better and my anxiety symptoms have gone down and I also just sleep like a rock I can take. You know, I can take the glucose before bed, which I think a lot of people would say is counterintuitive and I sleep so well and it's amazing, you know. 

So that's been my experience, in a nutshell, for my husband, he also very cynical about this, but I think the thing that really excited him was when talking to Dr Stevens. He's really had a lot of loss of, like his memory and just he has a super stressful job, as a lot of you know, and he just didn't have anything left at the end of the day for anything outside of really being high functioning at work, because he was just burning through it. He was like, you know, maybe this will help me. So a few weeks then, maybe a few weeks after, I started to notice differences. He came home one day and he said I think there's something to this. 

So he, you know, talked about just how his memory and just mine seem to be working better at work and I've noticed, just like Temple said, like with not making the visual eye contact or even just a lightness in his mood that wasn't there before. That, you know, used to be how he was, and so we're about three months into doing this. So I'm really hopeful about the changes, that they feel sustained and that it feels like, you know, it makes a lot of sense from his childhood and just a lot of things that have happened that he would have been very depleted. So I'm very hopeful and excited about where we are and you know where the next three months will take us as well. 

0:50:58 - Temple
I love it. I love it. I'm so excited for the two of you. Your energy has continued to just be more and more vibrant and bright and you know I told Dr  Stephens, as I said, bridget's personality has really come to life. I always felt like you were holding back a little bit and then in the last few months, bridget was just like sending me Marco Polo videos of for no reason at all, like just look at the same thing and you know where we four shoes, I think really just focused on work and that was it. And I see you enjoying your life, bridget, and it's really beautiful. So happy for you guys at this point. I'm excited to see what's going to happen in the near future. 

0:51:41 - Dr. David Stephens
If I can jump in for just a second, one of the things that Temple and Bridget are describing, which happens so often, is, through a variety of life circumstances and traumas, people get into a mode of just existing or surviving and not really living. And one of the things that happens as your brain recovers and gets refueled is people switch back into really fully living. And I think, again, temple and Bridget are describing that. 

0:52:14 - Bridget
Yeah, and I'm so thankful to Temple for introducing it to me and to Dr  Stephens, and it's just been a great experience. 

0:52:23 - Temple
Let me ask a question from the audience, Dr  Stephens, that everybody is curious about. I know this is when you get a lot, so why is it okay to take glucose for somebody that is diabetic, and how does this affect weight gain? 

0:52:41 - Dr. David Stephens
Yeah, and I'll try to give it. 

0:52:45 - Temple
Let me also, after you answer it, I'll tell them what my experience was, because I did test my blood sugar along the way. 

0:52:52 - Dr. David Stephens
Yeah, so I'll give you kind of the short version. 

Really, the brain is what regulates blood sugar, and so I've treated over a hundred people with glucose who have type one or type two diabetes. 

And every single one of them, as they take glucose, their blood sugar lowers. And it's because when the brain gets limited in glucose like we talked about, with that valve getting turned down, the brain then starts activating the liver to release stored glucose into the blood, because the brain knows, so to speak, that that's a way it can get more glucose, but because of that valve it doesn't get all of the glucose that's being released by the liver, so it's still short on glucose. So it activates the liver to release more glucose into the blood and then more glucose into the blood, and that's what raises blood sugar level. As you start getting your brain fueled by taking glucose, then the brain doesn't have to activate the liver to release stored glucose into the bloodstream and the blood sugar level lowers. And we can do things as part of the treatment, as part of the process that allows people to not gain any weight and even, if you want to, to lose weight while you're taking glucose. 

0:54:18 - Temple
Yes, and I can verify. I did get a glucose monitor during this treatment. I actually started the treatment I'm sorry the other way around. I had my blood drawn and it was at 87, which was very good, and then I started the treatment and within a couple of weeks I tested and I was still under a hundred, fasting without any food. And then I tested myself after I had drank a full dose, like within minutes, and it was still under 150. We weren't even close to being anywhere near alarming or even problematic. I don't drink at this point. I mean a 99% alcohol-free and sugar-free things like that. So my diet's pretty clean anyways. So I definitely would have noticed if I would have had a spike in blood sugar. Bridgette, you want to say something? 

0:55:18 - Bridget
Yeah, I was just going to say that was one of my biggest concerns also was just my blood sugar, and so I checked my glucose and my husband has two and we're both in the normal ranges for fasting and for post-eating. 

0:55:36 - Temple
I think an important question that could relate to this group, Dr  Stephens, is they have told us that bipolar is affected by dopamine, that that's what induces the mania. So why is it safe to take glucose? Does it affect dopamine or does it raise the neurotransmitters in any way that could cause them to be more manic? 

0:56:02 - Dr. David Stephens
What happens when the brain is under-fueled is it can't regulate any process, including emotional processes, appropriately, and so things are either under-regulated or over-regulated, and mania is the emotions that are under-regulated and kind of running out of control. Mania is over-regulated and so that you don't have enough energy. But glucose does. It is necessary for the creation of neurotransmitters, but when the brain has enough fuel it regulates the amount and function of neurotransmitters, which doesn't happen when the brain doesn't have enough fuel. 

0:56:49 - Temple
Okay, so I just wanna kind of wrap up some things that you said to make sure that people were following along there. Some of the major points here is that when drinking glucose supplementally in the powder form, rather than juicing apples or eating a smoothie, drinking it in supplement form uses the other glucose transport systems besides your digestive system. So that's why your pancreas isn't kicking out insulin, right? You correct me if I got this wrong, Dr  Stephens. 

0:57:28 - Dr. David Stephens
No, you're right. 

0:57:29 - Temple
So I'm getting it right, So-. 

0:57:32 - Dr. David Stephens
You are. 

0:57:32 - Temple
You are all over it. No. 

0:57:37 - Dr. David Stephens
Dr Temple is here. 

0:57:39 - Temple
Is in the house. Yeah, that's right. 

Because we're gonna win this, so we don't get our blood sugar spiked and also, just like the mucous membranes in your mouth can transport the glucose to your brain. And they were asking about the blood brain barrier. The blood brain barrier protects the brain from pathogens and other things. So what Dr  Stephens was saying is that dextrose the powdered dextrose is what we take it easily goes through the blood brain barrier. It's not seen as a pathogen and so the brain actually gets to use it as fuel and the-. 

0:58:17 - Dr. David Stephens
And just to quick, if I can just jump in quickly Temple, the glucose and dextrose are different names for exactly the same thing, so go ahead. 

0:58:26 - Temple
Yes, thank you. And the other thing I wanted to highlight was the trauma part that, recognizing the trauma responses that everybody has been through, has caused a slowdown of your use of how you use your glucose. So you might think, well, I've gone to therapy for something, I've gone to counseling for something, I've got medication for something, but your transport systems haven't completely opened back up. The trauma part that, recognizing the trauma responses that everybody has been through, has caused a slowdown of your use of how you use your glucose. So you might think, well, I've gone to therapy for something, I've gone to counseling for something, I've got medication for something, but your transport systems haven't completely opened back up to receive the glucose yet. Does that sound accurate, Dr  Stephens? 

0:59:36 - Dr. David Stephens
I'm close. Yeah, I mean you're not getting all the glucose via the normal dietary pathway, that hype and valve system, and so there are eight different glucose transporters and when you take glucose or dextrose it gets primarily mucosally absorbed and goes directly to your brain, bypassing the limitation of that valve. So that's why your brain is able to get refueled. 

1:00:07 - Temple
So the last question I want to talk about they're psych meds. Most everybody that we're with are on psychiatric meds, anti-psych meds and various forms of medication for bipolar, of course. But why is it that the medications aren't giving them enough relief for their glucose transport system to open back up? 

1:00:34 - Dr. David Stephens
The medications really don't have any connection to glucose, and so I said at the very beginning that psychotropic medication and other things are micro interventions. So they artificially manipulate and I don't mean that in a bad way. They just artificially alter some brain chemistry, and the truth is, nobody really knows exactly what's happening or how it happens. But the medication is that micro intervention that alters some type or some aspect of neurotransmitter function, whereas glucose provides fueling for the brain, and so the brain in totality is functioning the way it should. 

1:01:25 - Temple
Right. 

1:01:26 - Davina
OK, I wanted to say the biggest and scariest thing for me is like am I going to break out Because my skin is angry at lint and barometric pressure changes, and am I going to gain weight? Neither one of those things have happened. I think I just gained weight because I have PMS. It's been like 1.4 pounds and I'm pretty sure nobody needs to be that hyper focused and I have been taking it for, I think, like a month and a half. So I don't know. I'd have to go look at last time I ordered on Amazon and add them together. But I finally got to the therapeutic dose today because Temple knows the stress level I am under and she was like just go drink more glucose, just do it Because you look. She said a little peaked, which was the nicest way I've ever heard of saying you look like shit. I didn't know those were sermenims. Yes, they are. That's the nice lady-like way of saying it and you know I'm not one of those, Dr  Stephens. 

So, it is a lot. When you go to measure it out, you're going to be like mm and don't do what I did, which is try to freeball it and just eat some glucose tablets, because I made myself ill. There's a bunch of modified food starch in there that can cause digestive upset, like it's really just a powder and it's only 70% as sweet as regular table sugar. So you're literally just drinking a mountain dew really fast. If you think about it that way, it's much more palatable. So Weird. 

1:02:56 - Temple
So, Davina, was there anything in the chat that you thought we didn't cover? There was one last question. I saw Jennifer said why would supplementing get to the brain if food can't get to the brain? 

1:03:10 - Davina
I think that's because he explained that it's more concentrated, it's faster and it doesn't go through your digestive system, so it doesn't get stucked up. You get the fuel like immediately. 

1:03:19 - Dr. David Stephens
Yeah, and it's getting to the brain via a different transporter. Yep, exactly, Davina. 

1:03:25 - Davina
And you don't need a prescription for it. You just order the dextrose on Amazon. It comes in bags That'll last you a week. Then you got to buy a bucket and then you're getting into temples. She's got like a baker's bag and a basket and her kitchen. 

1:03:40 - Temple
I have a toddler size. 

1:03:42 - ThuyVi
I'm going to go. 

1:03:44 - Temple
Here's the thing. Listen, let's do a caveat here. I don't want everybody just to run out and buy glucose, to start drinking glucose like crazy. We are offering workshops. It will be better for you and for your bipolar loved one to work with us. Dr  Stephens has coached us week after week for 12 weeks. 

It takes a while for all this information to sink in, to figure out what are your glucose burners. Do you even know what a glucose burner is? I did not until I took the workshop. Can you measure what's going on with your own symptoms and with your partner's symptoms? We had endless questions Every week. We were chock full of questions, and think about how hard it is to maintain anything on your own, like a new diet. You have things that are going to stop you If you start traveling. What do you do if you travel? What if you start having stomach aches? What if you have headaches? What's going on? What if you start yelling at your husband like I did? Just having that support is imperative. So we are offering workshops for all of you. You just need to message me directly through Instagram that you're interested in the program and I will send you the details of the amount of time and the costs that it will be, and what you'll get is Dr Stevens every week explaining how the glucose is helping you, what, answering any questions, and you'll also have me as your sideline coach for the emotional changes that you're going through as well. Like Damina said, there's things that come up, or that she was like what's we didn't even know. Drink some more glucose. It's okay, you're actually not an asshole. Everybody, just for the record, we are good people under an intense amount of stress and this may be a way for us to have relief and for our partners to have relief. So I feel good about it. 

Duane has been down at the bottom just listening and he can't come up, but Duane is one of our loved ones with bipolar and he went through this program with us. And let's be clear this isn't a one and done. It's not a magic pill. Okay now, bridget and I and our spouses we all had a significant moments where we were like, oh wow, that's different, that's different, that's different. My husband is still very sick. Okay, it's only been 14 weeks. He has a ways to go. 

Duane has had major traumatic brain injuries several times. He has the same level of symptoms that my husband does, and DeWayne has been not able to travel. He has been not able to go out to dinner with his family. He's highly sensitive to light and sound. He wasn't able to be in groups of people or even work. He recently went back to work and those things are very challenging to somebody with that level of bipolar. 

But if DeWayne was up here, he would tell you. The things that came through for him was that he was able to go on vacation with his wife and with his family, and his wife was on the Zoom call with us and she said Temple, he was in the bedroom. Last year he came with us and he never left the bedroom, and this year he was there, he was present, he was having dinner with the family. He enjoyed himself. I mean, I couldn't see a cuter grin than the two of them that moment. Right, I made him kiss and everything. He was so sweet. So listen, I'm not trying to sell you any snake oil Neither is Dr Stevens but this is something for you to truly consider and investigate. If you are interested in learning more, message me through Instagram and I will gather the information for you and let you know how you can make it happen. Okay, is there any closing words? You have, dr Stevens. 

1:07:49 - Dr. David Stephens
No other than you know. Like I said at the very beginning, this is a combination of inspiration from God and science. This is the best of science, the best of our understanding of the brain, and really does make a huge difference. Temple said it a couple of times, but people will know that they are infinitely worthy and that all of the difficulties they've had have just been due to low fuel and energy. And that's such a powerful, powerful thing. 

1:08:22 - Temple
You know what that you say that Dr  Stephens, my bipolar loved one, said something to me. You know, halfway through the treatment he said I've conquered, I'm conquering these demons, temple. And I said, chris, you never had any demons, you were low on glucose. 

1:08:41 - Dr. David Stephens
Right right. 

1:08:43 - Temple
Oh, yeah, you know we need to dispel this. We need to stop making people feel like they are filled with some kind of something wrong with them. You know, spiritually or inherently Like this is a brain problem. Let's be kinder to our loved ones and not make them feel that's where the shame comes from. Right you might, the devil is after you. There's a demon inside of you. Please stop that language. For somebody with psychosis, what do you think that sounds like to them? Right, but if you tell somebody you know what your brain is just not fueled properly what a light that brings. I saw his eyes just light up when I said that. So I'm so happy that we met, really excited about the future and what you're bringing to people with any type of mental health challenges at this point. It really could not be more divine timing. Leticia does have a question. Dr  Stephens, do you have time for one more question, or should we close it out? 

1:09:47 - Dr. David Stephens
Yeah, I have time for another question? 

1:09:51 - Leticia
Yes, so I wasn't gonna come on tonight, I was gonna watch the replay. I had a case management call with the client at six and got off at six thirty. I'm like you know what I'm gonna join late and I did, you did. I'm glad I did too. It was like I felt the pull and I know we've talked before and you know, both times it was like like temple reassured that for many of us and our bipolar loved ones. But honing us back in first and it does feel selfish to me. But the refocusing on me is what I've got to do because we've been going through an unmedicated, undiagnosed rapid cycling for over three years now. But my question is for myself. I have a diagnosis of reactive hypoglycemia from an endocrinologist years ago when my symptom started, with my physical health and everything Like my blood sugar is always normal. 

My insulin has been high at times and I know we've touched on the blood sugar topic before and it might take me time taking the plunge to understand all of this but just that feeling of when I don't have protein sometimes with meals, and you do have a pop every once in a while that reactive feeling of what my endocrinologist told me years ago your pancreas shoots out too much insulin. 

Can we debunk that myth? I'm also a lot like Bridget, I'm an optimist, but I'm a researcher and then, like the flight, flight or freeze that really does go on In our lives for years is very paralyzing and it's like that also helped when temple said it isn't one and done, we can't expect to take. I mean, this is, this is real and this is why we're here, learning from professionals like you that have experience that can help, if that makes any any sense. And then I do have more questions, but I want to schedule with you maybe another time to get something set up. But that was one of my main things is like this the symptoms that I've had for years, the diagnosis that you have, is that all part of the fuel? I mean? 

it is because my endocrinologist said you could, I could be at 140 or 150, as he calls it. The post-prane deal Is that right after you eat, post Okay. 

Yeah prane deal. Yeah, he said, which I haven't been to him in years because I wasn't getting anywhere. He was wanting to put me on a medicine to slow my sugar glucose coming out of my pancreas. He said it shoots out too fast so I guess I could go from like 140 to 90 in a matter of minutes and that's why I feel the symptoms. But you're telling me you can help me, like everyone else, like, help our brains, and over time our brains will be able to understand this. 

1:12:51 - Dr. David Stephens
Right, and what will happen is your brain and this happens with weight as well. But what the brain will do is regulate your glucose levels. So you're neither hypoglycemic or what gets called hyperglycemic, which isn't really a thing, but people say you can have too much glucose, which you can't. But being in the middle, kind of like Temple talked about right around 100 is the kind of ideal range of glucose in your blood and your brain regulates that. So it will bring low blood sugar up and it will bring high blood sugar down, bring both of them to the middle, to the range where it should be. 

And one quick little story so I'm working with a woman right now and she has been underweight her entire life, never been able to gain weight. She's also been hypoglycemic, meaning low on blood sugar, and I was talking to her just yesterday and she said she is now gaining weight and is just about in the ideal weight range. And so people that are underweight, when the brain is regulating everything appropriately, you'll get to a good weight for you and then also, like I said, be really in that, no pun intended, but that sweet spot of blood sugar. 

1:14:21 - Temple
Oh, there it is. 

1:14:23 - Dr. David Stephens
Okay sweet spot. 

1:14:24 - Temple
I'm glad we got one sugar broke in there. Okay, I think we did it, Dr Stevens. We completed it. This was a fantastic interview. You did a great job and I think we are chock full of information to take home with us. Like I said, if you need to know any more about the program, please find me on Instagram. You can message me there. Thank you very much, Dr  Stephens. 

1:14:51 - Dr. David Stephens
You're welcome. So glad to be here. 

1:14:53 - Temple
Bye everybody.