The Walk Family Podcast
The Walk Family Podcast is a show focused on biblical parenting (what the Bible says about parenting) and reaches all stages of life. Whether you are a new or experienced parent, we all make mistakes and wrestle through what being a godly mom or dad looks like in daily life. This podcast provides hope and encouragement through the Bible's teaching about being the parent God desires you to be.
The Walk Family Podcast
From Coma to Comeback: How Faith and Functional Medicine Transformed a Life
A devastating fall down a flight of stairs left Scott with a fractured skull in three places, unable to walk or talk, and doctors offering no hope for recovery. His remarkable journey from severe traumatic brain injury to complete healing reveals powerful insights about neurological health in our increasingly toxic world.
Scott's background as an international educator in functional medicine positioned him uniquely to understand his own recovery when traditional treatments failed. Through connections with pioneering neurologists and his own determined research, he discovered specific compounds that rebuilt his brain function when conventional medicine had no solutions. The spiritual dimension of his healing journey proves equally compelling—finding profound faith precisely when he lost everything else in his life.
What began as a personal recovery story has evolved into an urgent warning about environmental toxins. Scott now treats numerous patients exhibiting traumatic brain injury symptoms despite never experiencing physical trauma. The culprit? Our daily exposure to approximately 2,000 chemicals that can breach the blood-brain barrier, creating neuroinflammation that mirrors concussion symptoms. Many of these substances—banned in the EU but still permitted in the US—are hiding in everyday items like plastic containers, processed foods, and personal care products.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as Scott explains "leaky brain" syndrome, where toxins compromise the brain's protective barrier, triggering immune responses that attack neural tissue. This inflammation manifests as brain fog, anxiety, concentration problems, mood swings, and cognitive decline—issues increasingly common yet frequently misdiagnosed or dismissed.
Whether you're recovering from a brain injury, struggling with unexplained neurological symptoms, or simply want to protect your cognitive health in our chemical-laden environment, Scott offers practical, accessible strategies anyone can implement. From understanding plastic safety numbers to selecting specific brain-protective supplements, his approach empowers listeners with actionable steps toward better brain health.
Visit mybrainmechanic.com to learn more about Scott's work and free Thursday consultations for those seeking neurological health support.
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Fell down a flight of stairs, fractured my skull in three places, was in a coma, couldn't walk, couldn't talk, memory messed up, nothing that you know Western medicine can do. I knew everything kind of from the neck down and ended up through just being in the industry. There were a few practitioners One was a fellow at Harvard Medical, the other, dr David Perlmutter, is very famous were the ones that kind of gave me the compounds and the formulas and the roadmap to come back and I came back.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, it's Tony and welcome back to the walk family podcast. I am bringing you a series titled seasons of despair, which focuses on different experiences of life, such as marriage, raising kids and loss of loved ones, and how people navigate those hardships. Laura and I bring to the table conversations from our own home, as well as introduce some guests sharing their stories. Everybody goes through trials and tribulations in life. Sometimes it feels we can't ever escape the pain that that brings. We can't ever escape the pain that that brings.
Speaker 2:James 1, 2, and 3 says Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. This is easier said than done. Despair, by definition, is the loss or absence of hope. As a believer in Jesus, there is always that eternal hope we have, but sometimes we don't always feel like it exists. It's an incredibly challenging thing when we feel despair in this life, when we think there is no hope and all we experience is hurt and pain. My hope and my prayer is that this series will show that you are not alone in your moments of despair. Thanks for joining me, man. I'm excited to have this conversation with you. Where are you from?
Speaker 1:I'm from California. I live in a town called San Clemente, kind of in between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Speaker 2:Okay, How's the weather?
Speaker 1:Weather has been nice, so can't complain. Got a good surfing yesterday, beautiful weather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's surfing. Sorry, I know we get snow here, that's all right. My wife and I lived out in Arizonarizona for a year and it was beautiful, so we know kind of like that southwest feel where it's sunny every day it gets to you sometimes, but uh, but it is pretty nice yeah, so uh, how long have you been in california?
Speaker 1:my, my whole life. Uh, well, I was think three when we moved out here. So I've been here 55 years, okay.
Speaker 2:All right. And where did you I mean age three? Where were you located before that?
Speaker 1:I was born in New York, oh, interesting, yeah, in New York with an Italian family. I had a new yaka with an Italian family and, yeah, my dad moved out here and then kind of grew up here, went to school here and then, when I started in kind of what's called functional medicine, I got this crazy idea I wanted to see the world. So I started international for a company called Metagenics that also owned the Institute of Functional Medicine. So, long story short, over 17 years I started opening distributorships and sales reps in 23 countries and back in that day they didn't want to send a doctor and myself and pay the cost to send them overseas. So I'm one of the only non-MDs to kind of hold that position and educate physicians for a good almost 20 years.
Speaker 1:And then I had a brain injury in 2014, and it was the work of a few neurologists or people in what's called functional neurology, not neurologists that brought me back and I just put six, seven years of my life into researching brain injuries, researching brain injuries, and as a result of that, well, I started my own practice this year. I started realizing that some of the symptoms that people have from brain injuries I was getting other clients or patients that had similar symptoms and that kind of led me down the path at looking at our toxic environment and what's happening with kids and some of the chemicals that we have in use right now and what they're doing to our brains, and it's pretty dramatic what they're doing to our brains and it's pretty dramatic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is interesting and that's really what I want to talk about most. But we're going to kind of take it into pieces. So this passion for neurology you know you said you started this just close to 20 years ago. What was the starting?
Speaker 1:point. Well, it's been 30 years total.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, all right. So what started this? Where did this passion come from? What kind of started your journey?
Speaker 1:Well, the passion in functional medicine. I had an export company and my background is more Western medicine pharmaceuticals and through a friend of a friend, I got introduced to this company called Metagenics and they were talking about probiotics and gut health and the microbiome and this is back in the early 90s, so people hadn't really heard of this and I went oh my God, this is healthcare and I've always had a passion for helping people. So as soon as I listened to a lecture on that, it turned into a passion. And 23 countries later and several other careers in functional medicine, and then the accident I had really got me to look at what's called functional neurology, which is kind of like a subset of functional medicine, really focusing on the gut and the gut-brain access.
Speaker 2:So what happened? You had this accident in 2014.
Speaker 1:Fell down a flight of stairs, fractured my skull in three places, was in a coma, couldn't walk, couldn't talk, memory messed up, nothing that you know Western medicine can do. I knew everything kind of from the neck down and ended up through just being in the industry. There were a few practitioners One was a fellow at Harvard Medical, the other, dr David Perlmutter, is very famous were the ones that kind of gave me the compounds and the formulas and the roadmap to come back and I came back, a roadmap to come back and I came back and then I started speaking for one of the companies and training doctors more in neurology then for about four years and during that time I just immersed myself in in neurology and in the gut brain access.
Speaker 2:Sure, the uh, so the accident, right you, you said you go into a coma. How long, how long did the recovery process take? Like obviously you're knocked out for a while and then you have to, you have to gain back everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good question, Cause a lot of people don't come back or they don't get the right treatment. So I was a mess for about a year and then it was until I found. You know, I went to all of supposedly the right people and they couldn't help me because there is no drug to rebuild and we can get into it. You know the blood brain barrier or immune modulation or no drug to rebuild and we can get into it. You know the blood brain barrier or immune modulation or no drug to fix the gut brain access or to reduce neuroinflammation, and these are all the things that happen from a brain injury. So it was about a year and then, within about three months of finding this, I came back and it was just amazing and you know, people sometimes come back very quickly. Sometimes people never come back.
Speaker 1:My job or what I do now, is try to bring people back 100% if possible or as much as possible. But it's just been really interesting because it started to get harder for me to treat people and I was wondering why am I not getting the same results? I was four years ago, five years ago, and I had to up some of the things that I was doing and as I started looking at the toxins that we have out there and what they're doing to our brain. We're exposed to something like 2000 toxins a day and know causing. I mean stuff that's banned in europe, that's causing neurodegenerative diseases, lowering the iq of children, um, so I I just started to see people coming to me that didn't have a brain injury but had all of the symptoms of one.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's, that's fascinating. So 2000 toxins a day and you have a traumatic brain injury and then you get a whole bunch of clients or people that are coming for help because they have those symptoms. Who, who was kind of your before we jump into like the medicine, but who's kind of your support system through your recovery, like at least the first bit.
Speaker 1:It was really myself and then probably really finding God more than I ever had, because my wife had left me. You know I couldn't work, I don't have any brothers or sisters, so you know I was really on my own and uh, uh, you know there was a strong faith component there, and is that?
Speaker 2:yeah, can we talk about that? So? So you have nobody like, you're on your own. And how did uh? How did God show up?
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, I think you know, when you're alone and you lost everything and you start drinking way too much to numb yourself and that just causes more problems. Sometimes, you know, you just look up and you're like, are you there? Are you there? And just the more I started to kind of talk to God and I was angry, and but then things started to happen. Where I come back, then I get a job where I'm talking and I'm educating physicians again and I'm like I shouldn't have come back the way. I was really bad. So you have moderate, mild and severe brain injuries. I had a severe TBI. I fractured my skull in three places. I should have never come back.
Speaker 1:I shouldn't be talking today, and so that was, you know, that was my miracle and I'm like there's no other way that could have happened and I could have met the people in the way that I met them if it wasn't for God and Jesus. And so it just really grew my faith, grew my faith and you know, you kind of, as a Christian, you want to figure out what is it that God wants you to do with your life, and every time, you know, when I started this business it's been hard because I've been in the corporate world and you know, I kept going should I do this, should I not do this? And then each time somebody would pop up needing help, and then they get recovered and it's like, okay, this is where I was supposed to be, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and so you navigate that and now is your relationship with God a key component to I guess I can call it your practice.
Speaker 2:I know you're not a medical doctor, but you're kind of you're in there, I'm a certified functional medicine practitioner.
Speaker 1:I'm a clinical nutritionist. Even doctors they get about 15 minutes of nutrition in school, of nutrition in school. So even a doctor has to go and get a functional medicine certification, which takes several years, and I had to become the lead educator for that institute outside the US. So I have a knowledge base that I'm very blessed to have. That very few people do because a lot of doctors just they have drugs, they treat symptoms, yeah, they.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And so how do you take like your expertise and then your experience with your brain injury, your recovery and your relationship with God? How does that all kind of mesh together?
Speaker 1:Well, um, I have a lot of people to pray for now, every night, as I'm getting more patients. Um, it's it, you know it's every morning going what? What do you want me to do? These are the people I'm trying to help. I just have a very strong, you know, connection or dialogue all the time, either walking, talking, praying, whatever it may be, just on how to, you know, help these people better and looking for solutions.
Speaker 1:And in the weirdest, strangest ways, these certain things pop up, like I have a patient that we got everything down. Like you have, like kind of zero to ten ratings for cognitive health, emotional and physical, the three areas of a brain injury. And, as a result, I've been working with this one patient for several months. Everything came down except their speech. And then, through a friend of a friend, I get introduced to an ingredient that is relatively unknown to the practitioner market, unknown here, and I start researching it more and more and, sure enough, it has a correlation with affecting speech and helping with speech therapy. Or people with a brain injury have a a disbalance of sialic acid sometimes, and that it's to be seen yet whether this will help this patient. But finding this ingredient after searching for months and months. You know, it's little things like that that just keep popping up. The the more I talk to God, the more I pray about it. That just makes me feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2:Do you find that most of your patients have some sort of I wouldn't say an injury? But you had mentioned before that you had people coming to you with like brain injury symptoms, but without the TBI.
Speaker 1:Um has that and that has increased over time, where you just have people what brain fog, inability to concentrate, I would say brain fog, stress, anxiety, inability to concentrate, mood swings and sleep disturbances would really kind of sleep disturbances, but it would really kind of encapsulate people with symptoms of a brain injury, or people that are coming to me and you know, you realize, wow, okay, well, this person's working in a nail salon, they're exposed to these toxins every single day and we have what's called the blood-brain barrier and I'm sure you've heard the term leaky gut. So as I started to research more, I realized that a lot more people now have what's called the leaky brain and I don't know if you want me to explain that right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take 30 seconds, kind of walk through it briefly.
Speaker 1:So our body has its own immune system and our brain has its own immune system and this wall kind of protects the two from interacting. And it was thought, and still a lot of neurologists don't even understand this. But when you have a hit that wall gets broken. But toxins and oxidative stress can break that wall down as well. So our body's immune system gets into our brain and it doesn't recognize things. There's inflammation there. So it starts to attack the brain and starts to code things as foreign invaders, just like an autoimmune condition. Then the brain has its own immune system, which is primarily glial cells, and they start to release different proteins and and things to clean up the damaged neurons or protect them, and then the body's immune system doesn't recognize those either. So it's a cosmos for an invader. So you get this kind of double wh whammy hit and it's creating a lot of inflammation and you've got two immune systems that are out of whack and attack the brain. Wow.
Speaker 2:And kind of stepping further. I'm assuming that most of the people that come to you are adults.
Speaker 1:How have go ahead Well no, I mean, I'm getting a lot of kids and I just did a YouTube on it. I'm getting a lot of kids from e-bike accidents and 60% of e-bikes accidents are brain injuries and they're more severe than a bike accident, and it's something that I'm trying to spread the word a lot more, because there's tons of kids now riding around on these e-bikes and they're like little mini motorcycles and they fall and they're getting brain injuries. So I have a lot more teenagers now with brain injuries.
Speaker 2:How do you find the like, the balance, the difference right? So you have these, these brain injuries with teenagers, like their brains aren't fully developed yet, and so is there a level of where you have to be almost extra cautious or extra sensitive with how to treat that cautious or extra sensitive with how to treat that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very, that's a really good question. You know you always have to be cognizant of a developing brain. But we there are at least foundational things that seal that barrier back up, reduce neuroinflammation. Then there are more advanced compounds and when you get into that stage then you really want to be careful on dosing and you know what you're going to do. But foundationally, kids are able to recover a lot quicker and if you get them early enough you can do a lot and the foundational components are pretty well clinically studied both in children and adults. But it is something that you have to be very careful and cautious about. That you have to be very careful and cautious about and I do a thing where I really take a lot longer to get them up to full dose and all of the things that they're taking and then looking at the drug-nutrient interaction. So it is something you have to be a lot more careful about, sure.
Speaker 2:And then some of your studies include links to learning disabilities and dementia. So I was wondering if you could elaborate on that a little bit, with having having those issues not just in adults but also kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I IQ, memory problems, neurodevelopmental issues with children, and there are a lot of. I mean, there's an insecticide called chlorpiphorus and it just got banned in 2022, and then they introduced a new one and it's just a slightly lesser version of a neurotoxin. And then you've got herbicides. Then you've got BPAs, which are in a lot of plastics. You know, like if you go and get your coffee and you stick the plastic you know lid on top of it, your coffee and you stick the plastic, you know lid on top of it, Well, it's got BPA in it, or a lot of them do.
Speaker 1:You can always check on the bottom and the numbers will tell you. And so if it has like a number three or seven, then it's got BPA in it. And again, that's linked to ADHD, parkinson's, alzheimer's, you know, and people are drinking those all day. Or they've got their plastic water bottle and it sits out in the heat. You got infants and babies with you know formulas that they're taking and they're heated up in plastics. And if they're the wrong types of plastics, they can you, they can be very detrimental and damaging.
Speaker 2:So there's a wide range of issues with. I mean, this is daily life. This is not like a rare occurrence, no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the EU, I mean just in, like cosmetics alone, they banned 1,300 chemicals that we're still using. We're just exposed to things in furniture and daily things that we use, and then to our food, to water, to everything else. So there's a lot of. Yeah, we're exposed to a lot of different things every day. Yeah, we're exposed to a lot of different things every day.
Speaker 2:So I mean just hearing the fact that there's 1,300 different chemicals that we're exposed to, that other countries aren't a little overwhelming. So you take your typical, you know American. What do we do Like? How do you fight this?
Speaker 1:How do you combat that? Yeah, it's hard because you know we're all facing, you know everybody's talked about with forgetting what side you're on politically. But you know we're paying a lot more for food these days. But if you buy something organic, you don't have to worry about those pesticides or insecticides or herbicides. And even if you do, some of those fields are next to each other so you always want to wash everything off If they're plastics. There's numbers on the bottom of all plastics, plastics and I think if the numbers are two, four or five, they're pretty safe. If they have three or seven, then you've got BPA and it's something to worry about. You know, finding the brands that really make cosmetics or different hair products, whatever, um, you know daily things that we use and looking at the brand to see what they do, I think is important. Water purification Um, you know there's just the plastic water bottles, um, just the BPA, um, and sitting out in the heat and the things that we put on there. That's another area where you can do a lot.
Speaker 1:Antioxidants you know the brain is the most susceptible part of our body to oxidative stress, so there are compounds out there like glutathione, astaxanthin it's an antioxidant that is 6,000 times more potent than vitamin C, and so I think, when you, I don't feel anymore that we can get all of our nutrients from food. So I do believe that people need to look at supplements and especially ones that are reducing inflammation in the brain. I think we have to be very careful about the water that we intake when we go to the supermarket. You know everybody talks about fad diets, but if you kind of work the perimeter of the supermarket and you stay organic, you can really significantly reduce the amount of toxins from processed foods and different pesticides and different things and be a lot safer that way. So you know, it's being aware of what you're using daily in household goods to the food that you're intaking, and then just being more aware that, because we're exposed to these things, there are compounds out there or supplements and I sort of hate the word supplement because people go, oh well, it's a supplement, and you know a drug is a drug and a supplement. But there are supplements that just do absolutely phenomenal things.
Speaker 1:There's one called sulforaphane. It was discovered at Johns Hopkins and Professor Talalay was a scientist there and he wanted to find out why eating broccoli reduced cancer. You know people used to say, oh, if you eat your broccoli it'll reduce cancer. Well, after studying things for a number of years, he isolated sulforaphane from broccoli and there are over 800 clinical trials on it now and it's got great attributes for brain health and reducing inflammation and cancer. And you can get it on Amazon, so it's that easy to get now. Um, where before it was you know kind of unheard of eight years ago, 10 years ago?
Speaker 2:That's. That is fascinating. The um. I want to kind of jump back a little bit, uh, kind of to to the part where your accident. So was there ever a low point, like a lowest point, that you hit your company? Is doing well and then you have this accident and then you're alone. I was just curious if you'd be willing to elaborate on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I drank way too much and you know, alcohol became a numbing agent for me. You know I'd lost my family, my wife had left me, I'd lost my home, I wasn't able to work, able to work and you know I had some, some things you know happen. As a result of that and after getting hit on the head figuratively, not literally a few times, I was like you know what, god, I need you and and it's been a process, you know, because I went from an incredibly, I had everything, you know, I had the family, you know, the house, everything, and then losing it all and being by yourself and having a brain that wasn't functioning. If you talk to me, you would think that I was mentally disabled just by the way I talked. I was arrested for being drunk in public, but I wasn't drunk, I was just my brain injury. I was just my brain injury.
Speaker 2:So you know, yeah, I mean I was at the lowest of low you could get. How long did it take to?
Speaker 1:get through. That was saying it was about a year of just kind of like aimlessly wondering the uh, you know the, the world or the where I lived or didn't live, um, and then I started to come back from you know these compounds and meeting certain uh practitioners and coming back and then being able to go back to work again and just going. Thank you God, I think. When that happened, I remember one day, walking out of, I was renting a room from a house where I was and I was bitter because, you know, I'd lost my home and my wife and everything else. And I opened the sliding glass door and I saw the sun and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm walking fine, because I had a kind of a weird gait to my walk from my brain injury and I realized that I was coming back and I just was like, thank you, thank you God. Oh you, thank you, and um, and then that just started the path of going.
Speaker 1:How blessed you are and how much worse people are. I mean, look at what's happening in Syria and the Ukraine and in the Middle East, and you know all of these things and going. You know you're complaining because you lost your house and now you've got your brain back and you can work. Shouldn't you be a little more thankful? And so, yeah, there was a particular day that that kind of happened and I just a weird feeling came over me and I don't know. It was a god moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how to describe it the you've continuously said coming back, um, you're obviously talking about like regaining kind of your brain function and everything In comparison. It's kind of difficult to analyze but in comparison to where you were before your accident, to the low that you hit, to where you're at now, how much do you think that you've recovered?
Speaker 1:I would say, okay, so I was. You know I've mentioned alcohol. I, you know I lived in the corporate world. I worked in 23 countries. It was very common to be taken out drinks, parties, all kinds of things. So I would say, now I don't drink, now I'm very, very aware of my physical and mental health because of what I went through. So I feel like my brain is sharper now than it's ever been.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. All right, scott, so kind of a closing question. For people that want to connect with you or to hear more about your research or your company or anything to do with the brain neurology when can they go?
Speaker 1:is mybrainmechaniccom. My Brain Mechanic is also my YouTube channel. I just try to do educational videos. I do free consults on Thursdays. Still, I used to do them when I was first starting because I needed the business, but now it's gotten harder to do. But on my website, my Brain Mechanic, I still do free consults, which I'm one of the few that does that, and I mean I'll just talk to anybody, whether it's the emotional thing that they're going through or wanting to just get help. You know, I feel like I'm here to not just give compounds but to really help people, so always available.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thanks, Scott, for joining me.
Speaker 1:And thank you so much. What a pleasure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for tuning in to the Walk Family podcast today. If you haven't realized already, laura and I are switching the format of our show. The primary difference is that we have changed our releases to fit more of a serial format, which means we will be sending out episodes throughout each week for a season. Then, once the next season begins, another series will come out. Each series will contain around 10 to 12 episodes give or take. For the winter season of 2025, seasons of Despair is our series.
Speaker 2:We still release an episode on Tuesdays, but you may see another episode pop up later in the same week as well. Also, be sure to hit the little bell to subscribe. It gives you each episode instantly once it's published. You can always connect with us at our website, thewalkfmcom, and, if you are really interested, a link in the show notes below allows you to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Our letter contains updates on the Smith family to stay connected with us, while also providing tips, tricks and challenges we are experiencing. If you sign up, you also get a free sneak peek to the first chapter of Prayer and Promises, which is a book that I'm writing and will hopefully be publishing this year. Thanks again and be blessed list.
