Overview
In this episode, Rachel sits down with Dr. Gary Kaplan, DO, clinical associate professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine, founder of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine, and author of Why You Are Still Sick: How Infections Can Break the Immune System and How You Can Recover. One of only 19 physicians in the country board certified in both family medicine and pain medicine, Dr. Kaplan has spent decades working with people whose chronic illness has been dismissed, misdiagnosed, or inadequately treated. This conversation covers long covid, the immune system disruption that underlies post-viral syndromes, hidden infections, the role of mold and heavy metals, sleep architecture, and why finding the right physician and refusing to be written off may be the most important thing a chronically ill person can do.
You’ll Learn
- Why roughly 20% of people who have had covid continue experiencing symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, pain, paresthesias, and heart involvement, and why this post-viral pattern is not unique to covid but has been seen with influenza, Lyme disease, strep, and other infections for decades
- Why the soil matters as much as the pathogen, and how genetic predisposition, heavy metals, mold toxicity, adverse childhood events, and PTSD all increase the likelihood that an immune system will fail to reset after an infection
- How Dr. Kaplan’s two-hour intake process works, why the first question is always when was the last time you were in excellent health, and why patients frequently underreport longstanding symptoms they have normalized
- Why sleep apnea goes undiagnosed in 85% of those who have it, how to do a quick self-screen, and why narcolepsy is an underrecognized autoimmune disease that looks like fatigue
- Why the architecture of sleep matters as much as the amount, how slow wave sleep is essential for brain detoxification and pain resolution, and why certain sleep medications interfere with the stages that actually restore health
- The role of cytokine panels in diagnosing post-covid syndrome and chronic fatigue, and how identifying specific immune fingerprints guides targeted treatment
- How IGG subclass deficiencies create a baseline immune vulnerability that leaves some people susceptible to repeated infections throughout their lives
- What post-treatment Lyme syndrome actually involves, why co-infections like Bartonella, Babesia, Anaplasma, and Ehrlichia are frequently missed, and why vibrant Labs and Igenex are among the more reliable testing options
- How IVIG, plasmapheresis, and low-dose naltrexone are used in severe cases, and what recovery actually looks like for patients who have been bedridden for years
- Why vitamin D levels of 50 to 80 nanograms per deciliter are the target for immune health, why sunscreen blocks vitamin D production entirely, and why testing seasonally gives a more accurate picture than a single annual check
Resources
Connect with Dr. Gary Kaplan:
Website- https://www.KaplanClinic.com
Get proper sleep. It is the foundation of everything. If sleep is not right, nothing else works the way it should. Fix that first, and build from there.
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