As the crunchy leaves start to fall, I would normally make a more clever intro to tie everything together. Since my brain isn't giving me anything on the creative side that isn't Kpop Demon Hunter lyrics, I'm just going to jump right in today.

Public Health & Neuroinflammation: 
I've been excited to see Oregon, Washington, California, and Hawaii come together to continue working on evidence based public health recommendations. With RFK jr's main goal as the head of Health and Human Services apparently to destroy health and human services, there's been a lot of fall vaccine controversy in the air. The West Coast Health Alliance released normal vaccine guidelines on 9/17 which you can see here. I had been writing prescriptions for vaccines for anyone who needed a script, but it sounds like starting today, 9/18/25, you should be able to get vaccines with no issue. 

      I am still recommending covid vaccines. While I’m mostly doing mental health work now, covid can absolutely cause mental health symptoms- most frequently insomnia and anxiety; but I have seen new onset memory loss, post covid psychosis, new or worsened obsessive compulsive disorder, and depression too. Covid has a neuroinflammatory process- and we could tell that from the beginning in 2020 when people lost their sense of smell and taste. The olfactory nerve (cranial nerve 1) took damage from this virus, and if one nerve can take damage, they all can.

     Covid isn’t the only germ that does this- a couple of other examples include streptoccocal infections which can cause tics, obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety, and other neurological symptoms that sometimes are put under an umbrella label of PANS or PANDAS; syphilis which in it’s late stages cause psychosis, mood problems, and cognitive impairment; and toxoplasmosis which seems to increase schizophrenia rates.

    Brains, like every other organ, don’t love being soaked in inflammation for long periods of time, though the initial inflammation helps you get rid of germs and damage. Prevention of severe inflammation by getting vaccines is helpful, and if inflammation is already around there’s a lot we can do to reduce that.
   The gut brain axis is getting more attention as being part of that regulatory system, and treatment modalities emerging from this field beyond probiotics I mentioned in the last newsletter/blog include fecal microbiota transplants. I’m probably not going to get trained in fecal microbiota transplants for the near future- the studies are neat but I can’t get past the yuck yet.
     Some of the things that I have been working with extensively are metabolic regulation and reducing oxidative stress.
As an herbalist, one of my favorite plants for metabolic regulation include Oregon Grape (mahonia aquafolium in the dark ages when I was learning plant latin names, berberis aquafolia now) which is very likely hanging out somewhere close to you. The berries are edible, but they’re bitter and sour and not very fun to eat. The medicine is in the inner bark of the roots, which is a bright, bright yellow. As a tea it’s also bitter, so most of the time people opt to get the active component- berberine- from capsules. This can cause blood sugar to go low, especially if other blood sugar lowering conditions or medications are part of your health picture, so make sure we chat about this.
My favorite thing for reducing oxidative stress is fruit anthocyanins, which in contrast to the berberine are delicious. I keep fruit anthocyanin syrup in the office intermittently based on interest, and sometimes when I want some. I eat this on waffles, throw it in my coffee, add it to smoothies- I love this stuff.
There are plenty of other ways to work on reducing neuroinflammation, like turmeric or pycnogenol, as well as ways to build coping skills to work with the way your brain works- feel free to schedule so we can talk about a specific plan for you.