Living A Full Life
Welcome to the podcast designed to empower individuals and families on their journey to better health. True wellness isn’t a mystery—it’s built through consistent daily habits that fuel vitality, energy, and longevity.
Each week, we break down the latest health research, debunk myths, and provide practical, science-backed strategies to help you thrive. Whether you're seeking answers to improve your own well-being or support your family’s health, this podcast is your trusted resource for living a full, vibrant life.
Living A Full Life
The Invisible Drain: Chronic Fatigue Explained
Feeling exhausted beyond ordinary tiredness? That persistent, debilitating exhaustion that rest doesn't fix might be chronic fatigue—a condition affecting 2.5 million Americans yet frequently misdiagnosed or dismissed by conventional medicine.
Dr. Dolcecore takes us on a comprehensive journey through the five scientifically-validated root causes of chronic fatigue. From post-viral syndromes (including long COVID) to mitochondrial dysfunction, HPA axis dysregulation, environmental toxicity, and circadian disruption—each mechanism explains why standard medical tests often come back normal despite profound symptoms. Most revealing is how these systems interconnect, creating a perfect storm that conventional medicine struggles to address.
The episode highlights the striking limitations of traditional testing while offering hope through functional medicine alternatives. Rather than accepting normal blood work as the end of investigation, Dr. Dolcecore advocates for deeper testing: salivary cortisol rhythms, organic acid panels, comprehensive gut assessments, and environmental toxin screening. The most powerful aspect is his practical, evidence-based approach to recovery—from mitochondrial support (backed by 2022 research showing CoQ10's effectiveness) to nervous system regulation techniques and precise nutritional interventions.
Whether you're personally suffering or supporting someone with chronic fatigue, this episode delivers transformative insights with scientific backing. Chronic fatigue isn't laziness—it's a complex condition with identifiable causes and effective solutions. Ready to move beyond being tired of being tired? Connect with resources at fulllifetampa.com and discover how true healing becomes possible when your body receives the right support.
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We've all felt tired, but what happens when tired becomes your normal? When you wake up exhausted, drag yourself through the day and feel like no amount of sleep helps? That's not laziness, it's often chronic fatigue. I've seen patients who've had every test come back normal, yet they could barely function. Today we're digging into what happens and what you can do to reclaim your energy. Thanks for joining us this week. I'm Dr Enrico Dolcecori, and welcome to another episode of Living a Full Life.
Speaker 1:Chronic fatigue is no joke, and it becomes more and more difficult to deal with as time goes on. Chronic fatigue is persistent, debilitating exhaustion that doesn't improve with rest and lasts for at least six months. It's often accompanied by cognitive issues like brain fog, muscle pain or weakness, unrefreshing sleep, sensitivity to light noise exertion, light noise exertion. The reality to check about is that it affects up to 2.5 million Americans every year, according to the CDC. It's often underdiagnosed, especially in women. Many sufferers are misdiagnosed with depression, anxiety or just being run down, and they're left in the dark afterwards, which is no fun because the fatigue remains. So what we're going to do today is we're going to dive into chronic fatigue, the medical portion of it, what it is, how it happens, how it affects us and maybe even how we can try and help ourselves to finally turning the table on the fatigue issues. We've got to get down to the root causes of this. So there's a few different things on here. I'll give you five that the research supports and that I've seen as a clinician in my office trying to help people, you know, with musculoskeletal issues. But also guess what their secondary stuff is Fatigue, they're just tired.
Speaker 1:So number one is the post viral syndrome. Chronic fatigue syndrome is now called myalgic encephalomyelitis, so it's muscle pain that is inflammatory. It falls into the muscular conditions of myelitis and often triggered by viral infections like Epstein-Barr, covid-19, and these types of viruses that have happened over long periods of time. A 2022 review in Nature Reviews Immunology found long COVID shares features with ME CFS, including immune dysregulation and mitochondrial dysfunction. So not only can it become painful, but the chronic fatigue definitely wears you down in many different ways. So post-viral so viruses that are affecting us, typically affecting our mitochondrial production of energy within our cells. Then there's number two the mitochondrial dysfunction. That can happen not just with viruses, but just for many different reasons.
Speaker 1:The mitochondria is your body's energy engines. They're on every single cell in the human body. Fatigue often results when mitochondria can't produce ATP efficiently due to oxidative stresses or toxin exposures. Another research study in 2023 from Frontiers in Physiology linked chronic fatigue symptoms with reduced mitochondrial respiration and increased inflammation. Another one is adrenal fatigue APA axis dysregulation. You may have heard of adrenal fatigue, but I don't think we address it very well. Adrenal fatigue, but I don't think we address it very well. Chronic stress alters your brain's messaging to your adrenal glands, leading to low cortisol output and poor energy mobilization. It's often referred to as adrenal fatigue, but more accurately, hpa axis dysfunction. This is one we're going to dive into a little bit through the podcast.
Speaker 1:Number four is toxins, molds and heavy metals. Environmental toxicity can burden the liver and mitochondria, suppressing energy symptoms. So this one, I think, is the underlying cause for some not all People. They're being chronically exposed to something in their environment, typically their home or their workplace. Toxins can be anything. It can be chemicals from cleaning supplies, it can be construction material, it can be paint material, it can be whatever Flooring, it can be a whole bunch of carpet. It can be a whole bunch of things there Dust, bunnies, dander, mold, heavy metals and if we're chronically exposed to this stuff.
Speaker 1:Some of us may have mild allergies to some types of animals and we have them as pets in our home and don't even know it. We don't have the classical itch or rash allergic reactions to the dogs, cats, birds, bunnies, whatever we have, but we may have this underlying condition there too. And then, lastly, sleep dysfunction and circadian disruption. And then, lastly, sleep dysfunction and circadian disruption even if you're asleep. Poor sleep architecture means no true restoration and over time can lead to chronic fatigue. So I think those are the big five pinpoints to fatigue and chronic fatigue in general, and we're just going to go over these and see medically what we can do for ourselves and the ones we love to help them maybe get out of this, which is pretty amazing. Part one is the diagnosis how fatigue is medically evaluated. We need to really just review this. It's kind of lackluster. You're not going to get too excited on this portion of the podcast because we really don't do much for it, but we need to and you need to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1:So traditional medical testing is, you know, blood testing, thyroid panel. We check the TSH, the T3, the T4, come back normal CBC to look for anemia or infections. We look at these centophils, the lymphocytes, the monocytes, see if you're finding a chronic infection typically come back normal CMP. We want to look at the liver, kidney function, vitamin D, b12, iron, ferritin. Now these tests for some people do come back with some stuff. People are either vitamin D deficient, low B12, maybe have some ferritin issues, red blood cell size issues, almost like an anemic issues where those things can be worked on. And then autoimmune markers like ANA, crp, checking these things. That's the typical medical blood work that sets out come back. But what happens if that all comes back normal?
Speaker 1:These do mostly come back normal, making patients feel dismissed, saying, hey, this just happened to me a month ago. I went for my testing. I told him, hey, I'm feeling a little fatigued, can we run some tests? She said nothing about the fatigue, sent me for the same exact panels and came back. But luckily I can help myself and go dive deeper into that and order some other panels that may be useful. A 2021 article in the Lancet urges more comprehensive metabolic and inflammatory profiling for fatigue patients. So when patients come in with fatigue, medical providers should be diving a little bit more deeper into the metabolic and inflammatory panels, doing more than just the ANA and CRP.
Speaker 1:So we want to get into more of a functional medical approach to this. We need to dig deeper, and it's funny how functional medicine has become a word in medicine where if you do more for the patient to dig deeper, it's called functional medicine. It's no longer medicine. So medicine is not even really a thing that you go for for your wellness anymore. It's really to look for pathology. And if pathology doesn't pop up right away, like cancer, heart, heart disease, diabetes right off the bat, then you need to look into functional medicine and I think that's the majority of people need to find a functional medical provider that looks at their overall wellness to keep them well. I think that's the best part of it. And then if a pathology is found, guess what? You're bounced back to medicine and they get to do what they do best and help with pathology. So that's the thing.
Speaker 1:Most of these conditions we deal with most of the time are not pathological. They're not going to end up with death being the final result of it, but they can lead us down a road, like chronic fatigue can lead us down a road to other conditions and diseases that could become pathological Make sense. So a functional medical approach is the way to do this. We have to dig deeper. Salivary cortisol rhythms looking at cortisol rhythm can give us a real test on what's going on. If it's hormonal, cellular or digestive causing the chronic fatigue can tell us. If it's hormonal, it can be sleep related. We can try and affect sleep. If it's gut related, we then can try and help heal the gut.
Speaker 1:Organic acid testing for mitochondrial markers, gi testing for dysbiosis or candida, so having a stool test to see the biosis of bacteria and viruses in the gut, mycotoxin testing for mold exposure and nutrient depletion panels to see if we're truly depleted. Usually that's done last because we want to fix the underlying things first. When we fix the diet and all these things, if we're still having nutrition depletion then we've got an absorption issue with the gut and it all leads back to the gut. So doing the gut stuff first is really the primary panel. For majority of patients with fatigue and chronic fatigue is the gut. That's typically number one, I would say 80% of the patients. The other 20% is what I just mentioned here the salivary cortisol rhythms and looking at other deeper markers to see what is going on.
Speaker 1:So what truly helps? What truly helps these patients get better and I've seen it in my practice. My wife, dr Haver. She does a lot of this in-depth work with patients and we see the people who do it get better. It's amazing the ones that are like yes, I'm in, tell me what to do, let's do it. They dive in, they do it, they get better. They all do. There's no failures. Uh, you heal the mitochondria. That's what needs to happen.
Speaker 1:Nutrients coenzyme q10, magnesium b complex nad nad precursors. Um. This podcast in no way, shape or form, is a solution to any of your issues. If you're listening right now, you do not take this information and go like, okay, he said coenzyme q10, magnesium b complex and you go buy this and you take this stuff. You don't know the dosages, you don't know the medications that you're taking. Do not take this as any advice to heal yourself If the only advice is it's who to go to to dive deeper so that they can manage your blood work and help you in the right way. That's just a side note, just so you guys know, because I know you're writing things down Antioxidants, glutathione, alpha lipoic acid and then remove mitochondrial toxins like alcohol, mold and heavy metals immediately you got to get out of those environments in order to heal. So another research study from the Journal of Clinical Biochemistry in 2022.
Speaker 1:Coenzyme Q10 supplementation was shown to improve energy and mitochondrial markers in fatigue patients almost everyone. That is something you probably go out and take just by listening to this podcast because it's pretty safe. But again, dosage we want to know that, based on your age, height, weight, all those things Get the right help for that for sure. If you need any help info at fulllifetampacom you reach out to us saying, hey, can you help me? No matter where you are in the United States, no matter where you are in the world, this can be done virtually as long as we can get you the right things at the right time. These things can be done virtually by any good doctors and if it comes to fatigue or gut, dr Hafer is probably one of the best. And if it comes to fatigue or gut, dr Hafer is probably one of the best.
Speaker 1:Reset the circadian rhythm. So we want to reset our circuit. Wake up with sunlight, limit screens one to two hours before bed, keep consistent sleep and wake times. Use magnesium, glycinate, l-theanine or GABA for nervous system support. We've got to go back to our sleep. I think we've done three podcasts on sleep. Go to the search bar on Spotify, put in sleep under living a full life podcast and you'll see two or three episodes pop into there. One is called the circadian rhythm. Listen to that one. We dive deep into what the circadian rhythm is and then how we can regulate that and what things we can do to improve our sleep. On that one, that's a great podcast as well. Support the HPA access that we talked about. The adaptogens rhodiola, ashwagandha, holy basil these are adaptogens that we can take. You can take an all-in-one mix. Again, this is stuff you want to be advised with Balance blood sugar, no skipping meals or sugar spikes. We want to support this axis.
Speaker 1:So sometimes in weight loss programs you'll hear like fasting. If you're in chronic fatigue mode, fasting is horrible. I was there probably a year and a half ago into fatigue and I'm like man, I've got to a point. I put on a lot of muscle. I was trying to lose a little bit more fat. I'm like I'm going to start intermittent fasting. That was the worst thing I could have done at that time with my workouts and work. I was just crashing really fast. I'm like what's going on? I was eating a lot of protein doing all this stuff, but I was cramming it between 12 and 8. And I was like but five years ago when I did do a 35-pound weight loss, I was intermittent fasting and I felt fantastic as I was decreasing inflammation, decreasing, but I wasn't working out. I wasn't working out as hard as I was.
Speaker 1:So see, timing and where we are in our life all matters on how we do these things, and that's why functional medicine comes in. They become your coach, your doctor, your sidekick, your partner, your in health. It plays a big role because they dive into your life. They're like listen, this is what's going to work for you and how you live. That's the missing key in all of medicine is having a provider that sits beside you, not across a desk from you. So support the HP access by balancing blood sugar and limiting stimulants like caffeine to avoid cortisol swings. So insulin balance that's what we're talking about is more of a hormone balance in there.
Speaker 1:And number four is the nervous system regulation Daily breath work, yoga, cold exposure, even chiropractic adjustments can reduce sympathetic dominance. We've seen in our practice that when the spine is adjusted and the nervous system calms down, energy often rebounds as the body shifts from survival mode to healing mode. So even chiropractic getting put in there can help with energy and fatigue. And then nutrition I don't know why this is number five. It should be number one, but it's here. Anti-inflammatory diet, whole food-based diets. Remove gluten, dairy sugar at least temporarily, as your body adapts to you, trying to heal, and then emphasize on healthy fats, clean proteins and colorful plants. It's just a whole food diet that we always talk about. That's the big stuff there. Chiropractic can actually help, I think, because we have functional medicine and chiropractic in our office and we integrate them both, we get such great success. Adjustments improve the nervous system regulation, it reduces flight or flight drain on adrenals, it restores the brain-body communication via spinal cord alignment and it may increase heart rate variability and parasympathetic tone.
Speaker 1:From the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine in 2021, chiropractic adjustments shown to improve sleep and reduce fatigue symptoms in patients with chronic pain and tension was universal across the board for all the patients that came in with those types of chronic pain and tension complaints. So there is hope. If you're fatigued and you feel like you're fatigued all the time, it may be chronic. If it's been bothering you for more than six months, it could be adrenal, it could be hormonal, it could be mitochondrial, it could be a whole bunch of different reasons, but the point of this is trying to find out exactly what it is.
Speaker 1:Chronic fatigue is real and it's complex, but it's not hopeless. Start by tracking your energy patterns, cleaning up your sleep and nutrition, and seek practitioners who look deeper than just basic blood work, and then you don't have to. You don't have to live tired. Healing is possible, and when your body has the right support, it remembers how to thrive. Remember that as you're seeking this stuff, and use not just this podcast or me or anything, but use the guidance that you receive in life as beacons of light to just adapt to and to respond to.
Speaker 1:This might be a calling at the right time for you to just send that email info at fulllifetampacom. It may not be us, it may not be Dr Hafer, it may not be anyone that we, you know, practice with or in our network, but we'll find you the right people that are experts in the field, because Instagram is is, you know, a source of entertainment and sometimes a source of information, but it's not exactly the best in the industry out there. So let us help you. That's the whole point of this this is the whole point of the podcast is to reach more people and help more people. So come out to us, reach out to us. Info at Full Life Tampa, any questions you have, just send them to us and we'll be more than happy to help you. Stay well, stay healthy, take care.
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