Joe Rogan - Carnivore Diet Fixed Mikhaila Peterson's Arthritis

So you and your dad are both on this wacky diet. You're both on this wacky carnivore diet. And this is probably one of the most controversial things in relationship to in relation to food today. When people discuss diets, you know, there's a lot of people that are vegetarian or vegan or trying ketogenic diets or paleo. But when you say carnivore, that is one of the ones where people just universally seem to like step back, roll their eyes. Most people don't think it's a good idea. They don't even know why they don't think it's a good idea. And then you tell them about people like you or my friend Chris Bell who has similar autoimmune issues. And he's had hip to hip replacements. He's only 36. Wow. And I think he had both of them done by the time he was 30. Right. Pretty sure because he's had them for quite a few years. You know, massive joint pain, all sorts of issue. And you when did you you got a hip replacement? How old were you? 17 and an ankle replacement 17. That's crazy. It's a rough year. That is crazy. Um, what do you so your whole life you've had arthritis issues or? Yeah. So I started walking kind of funny when I was two, according to my mom, and she brought me to the doctor and they said just having growing pains or something. When I was seven, I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and I had like 37 joints affected. And then I was put on immune suppressants in grade four. So I was actually the first kid in Canada to be put on this biologic called Enbrel. So I was on Enbrel and methotrexate forever, like leading up to the hip and ankle replacement. And they did help reduce some of the pain, but I still ended up with no cartilage in my joint and hip, my hip and ankle when I was 17. And this is just from the effects of arthritis and the inflammation and swelling and just chew the cartilage up. So I wasn't even particularly swollen. I didn't have a very like inflammatory, visually inflammatory arthritis. So my rheumatologist who'd been at SickKids for 20 years said that I had the worst arthritis she'd ever seen. So it was very severe. It wasn't particularly like swollen. My joints just disintegrated. Wow. What do they think causes something like this? They didn't know. So it was eventually after the hip and ankle replacement, the diagnosis was changed to juvenile idiopathic arthritis. So it was literally like we don't know. Wow. And how did you go from these medications, pharmaceutical medications, to getting into this carnivore diet thing? What was this this path? Well, okay, I'll give you a background of the path. We were very like science-oriented, especially dad. So even though mom kind of wanted to delve into diet and was like, we should go sugar free or stop eating, you know, whatever, make sure you'd whole grains, like all that stuff. We never gave diet a chance because there was no scientific evidence for it. So I basically got sicker and sicker and sicker and I ended up by the time I got to university, I ended up with arthritis. I was severely depressed. I was on antidepressants as well. I had idiopathic hypersomnia. So I was sleeping about 18 hours a day. My whole body was itchy all the time. That started when I was about 14. And so that was when I started university and then my diet just got disastrous in university and I was like drinking all the time and eating like pizza and beer and I gained like 30 pounds in the first year and ginger ale, a lot of ginger ale. Anyway, I gained about 30 pounds in the first year. My mental health declined even further and I didn't really know what was going on. And then I started getting skin issues. So I started getting rashes, cystic acne, and I was like, okay, I can deal with like four really awful health problems, but I can't deal with things affecting my skin on top of that. There's too many things. I went to dermatologists and they basically told me I was anxious and like causing these rashes by itching. So that was the dermatologist's opinion, which was very unhelpful. Anyway, I spent a lot of time. I was eventually prescribed Adderall for the hypersomnia. So I spent all my time googling, reading papers, trying to get a background on skin disorders. And eventually I came across this celiac disease rash online. And that's what I had. It looked exactly the same. So I cut out gluten. I read a whole bunch about like the effects of gluten on the gut and thought, oh, there's actually some evidence that gluten isn't good for people. Why aren't people being told this? Like why didn't my doctor test me for celiac disease? Because celiac disease couples with autoimmune disorders all the time. Like they test type one kids for celiac disease. But for some reason, they don't test kids with arthritis for celiac disease. So I cut out gluten. And that kind of helped maybe like 20%. But it was hard to tell because it was the summer. I was like, maybe I'm just feeling better from the summer. My rash kind of went down, but it was still there. And then so September 2015, my mom dragged me to a natural path. And they gave me this sheet of foods and like try this elimination diet. And I looked at the sheet and thought, this doesn't make any sense. Like why can I eat lemons and not oranges? And why are almonds on there, but other nuts are off. So I cut. So I thought, okay, if I'm going to do an elimination diet, which I didn't believe in at all, I'll cut down to what I considered safe foods. And I had no idea what I was doing. So I just thought, okay, vegetables are pretty safe. I'll get rid of nightshades because people talk about them being bad. Nightshades. What is nightshades? Nightshades, like tomatoes, eggplant, those kind of foods for some reason there. I just knew that they were them referred to as nightshades. I feel like literally everybody has heard them referred to as nightshades. No, have you heard them? I've heard the term, but not. I couldn't tell you what it was. I wouldn't have been able to say it was made as an eggplant. So I don't think maybe it's just Canada. I don't think I don't think so. No. Okay. Let the YouTube comments decide. Don't let them decide. Okay. It's like calling demons for help. Anyway, go ahead. Anyway, I cut down. So I was eating mostly like green vegetables. I was still eating rice at that point because I thought everybody eats rice. Rice is safe and meat, but I cut out like dairy, most grains, soy, sugar, processed foods. And then in the next month, my joints got way better and my skin healed and my skin never healed. Like for a couple of years, I'd always have these flare ups. It never went away. And that was just on a like relatively low carb diet, just like, just less. I don't know. I was still eating rice, right? But it was still mostly meat and vegetables. And I thought, okay, maybe there's something to this. And then I made almond flour, gluten free, sugar free, dairy free, almond flour, banana muffins. And I ate a bunch of those one night and I woke up and the next day my wrists were sore. And I thought, okay, maybe that's weird. And then I had a bunch more of the muffins because the muffins were good. And then I went away to a cottage that weekend and I couldn't walk because of my knees. And I never had flare ups that badly. Like I used to get my shoulder was always sore when I slept. So I took Tylenol three at night for sleeping. And my wrists were stiff, but I never had like a flare up like I couldn't walk. So that was that weekend. So then I went back to the diet and got really strict with it. And then things were better, like my skin was better. I lost, this was weird, I lost five pounds, which wasn't a lot, but I went down three pant sizes. So it was all bloating that I didn't realize was bloating because it never fluctuated. So that was the first month. And then 2015, and then I started trying to reintroduce foods because I was having cravings and I missed going out to eat with my friends and everything. So I tried to read the first thing I tried to reintroduce was Sour Patch Candy because I was having really intense sugar. Don't look at me like that. I was having really intense sugar cravings. And I looked at the packet and I thought, okay, no one's allergic to thick sugar. There's no dairy, there's no gluten, there's no soy, this will be fine. And I really wanted to eat them. And I had those. And the next day, my whole body was itchy again. And it was like, like mosquito bites everywhere itchy. So I thought, okay, maybe, maybe that was a bad idea. So I waited a couple of weeks and I tried to reintroduce almond butter, organic almond butter, because I wanted something fast, protein fast. And then I had, it's like abdominal cramping, diarrhea, then this itch came back. Jesus Christ. Yeah. So for the next year, well, I'll slow down. We've got some time. So that was the almond butter. So then I waited a while and I felt pretty good. And this was November 2015. And then I started feeling really good. And I went off with my antidepressants. And I had been taking antidepressants since I was in grade five, a really high dose of an SSRI, which had been very helpful. But did you wean yourself off? And did you do it under a doctor's supervision? No, I didn't. You didn't wean yourself? I weaned myself down. So I went down to half and then I went to a quarter and then I went to an eighth and then I stopped taking it two weeks. It was nothing really. Over two weeks. It was two weeks. Yeah. I didn't have withdrawal symptoms. Like, I think maybe I was lucky that way. And so you died at this point was so at that point, I was eating rice occasionally, but it was mostly like broccoli salad, chicken, beef, fish, you know, olive oil, apple cider, vinegar, salt, pepper. At that point, I was also eating pears and apples. So it was kind of like paleo, kind of kind of very restricted paleo, dairy free. And so you're feeling good, you're off your medication, your joints feel better, no more rashes. No more rashes. Yeah. So everything seems to be improving. I was shocked when the depression lifted because I thought that runs in my family, that's familial, we have some sort of brain chemistry problem that can't possibly be diet. I thought I thought the skin maybe that was diet because of this gluten link. And then maybe because of the celiac gene that I got tested for, maybe the arthritis was part of that. But I never thought mood was associated with it. So that was a surprise in November. Anyway, I went off of the antidepressants. And then about a month later, I tried to reintroduce soy. And this is when things started getting really weird that year. So I was having why you were reintroducing things if you're having all these positive benefits, I was having cravings like crazy. And I would miss eating out. And I thought there were probably like four or five foods I was really sensitive to. And I if I could just figure out what they were, I could eat pretty normally. I didn't realize like I didn't know what was going on. Okay, if I had known I would have done it much differently. But I tried to reintroduce soy because at that point, I still thought soy was a health food. So I ate a huge meal of like, edamame beans and bean sprouts and miso soup that I made myself so it was gluten free and soy sauce and tofu, I literally ate soy in every form. And I had the same kind of reaction with almond butter I had immediately got bloated a diarrhea, like within maybe 20 30 minutes of eating it. And I thought, Okay, that sucks. I guess I can't eat soy. And then about four hours later, my legs got itchy. And then my whole body got itchy. And I was like, Okay, that sucks. I'm clearly I'm reacting to soy. And then the next morning, the depression came back. And it came back like, that was the worst depressive experience I've ever had. I was medication free. And it came back in the morning and I got in the shower and I just like I balled in the shower and thought, how could I be so naive to think that my horrible autoimmune disorder and the depression and everything was caused by food? Like what an idiotic thing to think? How could I be that hopeful? And then I had to remind myself, okay, no, you ate a whole bunch of this food, then you had this like digestive distress, then you got itchy. And now the depression is back. There's clearly a pattern here. But it was hard to think like that when I got that depressed. So that day was like I spent a lot of that day crying, then the next day got worse. And this is this is when it gets weird. So that night I went over to my parents and I was just like, I don't know what's going on, right? And they're like, well, do you want to take a car back to your apartment? I said, I don't think I can drive. Like I can't, I just can't think I don't know what's going on. So my brother drove me home. And I was like on the verge of having a panic attack for no reason, right? It was just like my heart rate was increasing. I was trying to find my keys and I turned around to look at my brother in the car. And his head was a like a kind of a demon. This I know how this sounds. But he had like a demon head for about a second and a half. And he looked at me and then he turned and then it was my brother again. So I was standing at the hallucinating for like, yeah, about a second and another hallucinations. That year? Yes. Before that? No, that year. Yeah, after this. I'll get into it. So you ate soy and started tripping? Yeah, two days later. I know how it sounds. That's how it sounded to me too. Have you found comparable stories? So, so obviously I did as much research as I could possibly do. To soy no, to gluten to people who are schizophrenic from gluten. Yeah, there are people with celiac disease who have schizophrenia induced by gluten. So I found that but I didn't find anything for other foods. But does schizophrenia include hallucinations? Rarely visual, but I did find a case study of a woman who was seeing demons from her celiac disease gluten. Now, when you say you looked over and you saw your brother and his head was a demon head, like describe it. Like, no, I found, no, it was like, you know, when it's really dark in a room. And I don't know if you've experienced this, but it's really dark in the room. And then you kind of see things in the dark. It was more like that. It was dark at night. And it was like, I was so anxious. So you're so distraught, you're a mess. And maybe you just caused yourself to, well, something's idea. Okay. Yeah. I mean, and I saw it, like I can remember what it looks like, but it wasn't a vivid demon or something. It was like, but it was there. Okay, so you're freaking out. So I'm freaking out. So I'm like, okay, that's not good. So I find my keys and I go upstairs. And then I went into my bedroom, like shut the blinds, turned on all the lights. And then like smoked as much weed as I could possibly smoke to try and calm myself down and then hate under the blankets all night. I don't think that would be the worst thing to do after you see a demon. You'd think that, but then if you smoke, that's what I've had that comment before, but enough. And it calmed me down. Okay. So then I spent the next couple of weeks, basically stoned because I didn't know when it was going to end. I didn't know what was going on. And I couldn't find anybody on the internet who had had the same experience as me. And then about two and a half weeks later, it started going away. And so you say it, you mean the depression, depression, the arthritis, it wasn't just the depression that came. That's just the worst. No, I didn't go back. I mean, I didn't eat soy again, but I went back to the initial diet I was eating. So essentially just this one meal, this one great meal of soy threw you off for a couple of weeks. Radical. Yeah. Like almost four, like three weeks, but after two weeks it started getting better. But the symptoms were like, so this deplorable, the itching started, I had bloating and then the depression came back. And then about a week later, my skin started breaking out. And then maybe 10 days later, my arthritis came back. So I wrote all my symptoms down every day because I was going crazy and I didn't know what was going on. And I wanted to write it down to see what was going on. Okay. So then it started lifting and I started feeling better again. And I was like, okay, thank God that's over. And then waited a while, things were good again, my symptoms went away. And then over the next year, I tried to reintroduce foods over and over and over again. And I was making like I tried whey protein powder. And that did nothing ever got to as bad as that soy experience. But I had a number of other experiences where it was the worst depression I've ever experienced. And it was on the verge of seeing, like, I don't know, seeing faces in things. Okay. So you're having all these health issues. How do you get to the carnivore diet? So I decide about a year later, I decide, hey, maybe I don't want to keep cycling in and out of a horrible autoimmune and mental problems. Maybe I'll just stick with the original diet. And then I got pregnant. And so then my autoimmune symptoms flared again. During the pregnancy? Yeah, like right away. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, it was like before I found out I was pregnant that my autoimmune symptoms came back. So my legs were itchy again. I was, my joints were stiff, my skin was breaking out. My anxiety was back and it was hard to tell, well, what part of this is pregnancy and what part of this is an autoimmune disorder. Um, so throughout my pregnancy, I cut down on all the carbs I was eating. So I cut out fruit. I cut out sweet potatoes. I went down to meat and greens. And I think dad was on here one time and he was on a meat and greens diet. So that was during that part. So we're both on a meat and greens diet, mostly because we didn't realize you didn't need greens to survive. So we were eating meat and greens. And then I had to say mostly because we realized you didn't need greens to survive. We didn't realize only meat was an option. Yeah. Yeah. We hadn't realized that. We didn't know that. So it was meat and salad. And it was a very simple salad with like olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, cucumbers, lettuces, spinach, pretty simple salad, right. And then meat and fish. So we did that for about a year. And then I had my daughter and then I didn't get better. So then I found out, okay, so these symptoms aren't really pregnancy related. It's just me now. And for some reason I've lost the tolerance to these foods I used to be able to eat. And in. You're just eating salad and meat. Yeah. And I'm still having autoimmune symptoms now. The same symptoms that you used to have when you were eating everything. Not nearly as bad. Not nearly as bad. Like my fatigue wasn't back. My anxiety was manageable without medication. But you hadn't achieved the levels of health that you had when you were eliminating things from your diet earlier. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like I reached a really good point and then I got pregnant and I couldn't reach that point again. Okay. So then this is 2017. So it's like November and I'm getting really frustrated about being itchy. I'm just randomly itchy again and randomly arthritic. And you're just eating meat and vegetables. Just meat and salad. Yeah. And I thought, okay, maybe I just have an autoimmune disorder and I can't control it with diet anymore. Maybe this, maybe I'm just stuck like this. And so I Googled like out of desperation, I think I Googled allergic to everything food wise, something like that into Google. And I found this story about Charlene Anderson, who's been mentioned a couple of times, and she'd been diagnosed with Lyme disease and has been eating nothing but like red meat for 18 years. And there are pictures of her family online. And I thought, okay, I know I'm not. I think I Googled allergic to everything except meat. So I found her. Then I found that Sean Baker episode you did, and he'd been doing it for two years. And I think that night I thought, screw it. I literally have nothing to lose here. I'm only cutting out salad. So that's when I switched over. That was December. And then I switched over. And the itching got better pretty quickly, like within the first couple of days. But then my digestion just got totally screwed up. So like bloating and diarrhea every time I ate. And after about a week, I thought, okay, this is a bad idea. Obviously, diarrhea every time you eat meat, just meat, just meat, and salt, yeah. So I thought this is a bad idea. Obviously, this isn't working. My body doesn't like it. So I reintroduced salad again. It was literally lettuce, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper. That's what I reintroduced. And I woke up the next day and the itch was back and my joints were stiff. And I thought, okay, if I have to choose between itching and arthritis or diarrhea, I'm going to choose the diarrhea. I was in a rough place. I guess. So I stuck it out. And at six weeks of just doing this, my diet, the bloating went away, the diarrhea went away, and everything started to improve. So that was mid January. But I was still pretty skeptical because I thought, I thought maybe the reason the carnivore diet worked for people was because they just accidentally cut out everything that wasn't working for them. Processed food, sugar, you know, grains, all that. So I tried to reintroduce olives, like organic olives in olive oil. That was February. And then I had this itching came back with the depression. My skin broke out and it was minor in comparison to like soy. So you think essentially, to give us the cliff notes, you're allergic to everything. Yeah. That's fucking crazy. It's crazy. But then here's the thing. I started this blog. So the blogs don't eat that. And I started this blog because I thought if for some reason there's someone else out there like me, and they're googling these things, it'd be nice for them to know that they're not alone. Right. And I found other people like this who are equally as sensitive. I'm sure. I mean, look, if you exist, there's probably quite a few people that have that issue. Yeah. It makes sense. It makes sense that we all have different tolerances and we all have different allergies. I mean, some people are allergic to cats. Some people have no problem with peanuts. Some people eat a Brazil nut and they die. This is just we know this. So the idea, this is one of the problems with diet is that people want to think that a diet that works for them works for everybody. And it doesn't work that way. And people want you to follow their diet, no matter what it is, whether it's vegan or paleo, people are very ideological with that. They would love you for you to do exactly what they're doing. So to reinforce what they're doing is correct. There's a lot of pushback against this carnivore diet idea, but I don't, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that someone like you might actually really be allergic to everything. Yeah. I mean, I was like very sick and from coming from that place to now, I can see how sick I was. And it was like, I was dying a whole bunch of medication. Did you ever do anything with probiotics? Yeah. I can't tolerate probiotics. You can't tolerate them. No. So the original idea was heal my gut, repopulate with bacteria that maybe I'm missing and then maybe incorporate more foods. Right. So what happened when you tried to do that? Same auto immune flare up. Okay. But this is the same autoimmune flare up that you got when you ate salad? No, not quite. Not quite as bad? Not. It was different. It was like with salad, there's more of the arthritis and like body pain. And then with probiotics, what'd you get? Mood issues. So like really volatile and itchy. Right. So I still got the itch. Yeah. So I think it was, I probably had leaky gut. And so the probiotics were just going everywhere. One of the things your dad brought up to me when he was here was emulsifiers. Yeah. Yeah. And then I started reading up on it after he discussed it with me. And it's something I never even considered before, but fast rising yeast and all these different emulsifiers that they put in bread and various foods. They're terrible for you. Oh my God. Yeah. Terrible for your stomach. And they're so prevalent. They're everywhere. Yeah. Soy lecithin. It's in everything. It's in everything. Yeah. And then I started really paying attention to it and I've read several articles on it and a couple of studies. It's crazy how this is something that's never even discussed and it has all sorts of negative effects on your gut and your gut lining. It's awful.