S2 E10: The Power of Mushrooms for Holistic Healing with Tonya Papanikolov

Amy Gordinier:

Total Skin Nerds is brought to you by Skinfix. We're clean, clinically active, and on a mission to deliver healthy skin.

Welcome to Total Skin Nerds. I'm Amy Gordinier, founder of Skinfix. Total Skin Nerds is where I get to nerd out with some of the world's foremost experts in skin. We deep dive into issues related to skin disease, skincare ingredients, diet and lifestyle modifications to support skin health, and even spiritual practices and their skin benefits. It's season two, episode 10 of the podcast, our season finale. For this episode, I'm delighted to speak with Tonya Papanikolov, the visionary founder and CEO of Rainbo, a certified B corporation born and bred in Canada. Rainbo takes sustainably cultivated medicinal mushrooms like reishi, cordyceps and lion's mane, and turns them into potent tinctures for the body and mind. An array of skin issues and health concerns, including digestive imbalances, led Tonya on a journey to explore eastern and western therapeutic systems from meditation and yoga, to food and nutrition. Her path to healing connected Tonya to her own Eastern European heritage and family traditions of using herbs, flowers, and mushrooms as medicine.

Before we dive in, I want to take a moment to thank everyone for listening to the podcast. The Skinfix Team and I would love to hear more from you. Please take a moment to leave us a review and let us know what you'd like to hear more of. We would really appreciate it. Stay tuned, skin nerds, this is going to be an exhilarating and eyeopening conversation.

Speaker 2:

Nerds.

Amy Gordinier:

Tonya, welcome to the Total Skin Nerds podcast. We're so excited to have another Canadian female entrepreneur.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. This is always one of the best parts. I feel like you can maybe agree, but it's like you get to chat with people and go deep. It's just like some of the best parts of my day, so I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

Amy Gordinier:

It is the best part of being an entrepreneur, is to have this opportunity, as you say, to talk to, in my case, experts in their field who are doing some really cool things in the wellness space and to just really learn a bit more about what you're doing. So Tonya has a company called Rainbo, which I'm obsessed with, and I'm holding up the product now for anyone who's watching on video.

So my daughter found 11:11, which is her sort of multi-mushroom tincture at a little shop in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia called Fiends, and started taking it and swore not only did her skin look great and she felt great, but swore that it was helping to keep her healthy. It was during COVID and all, we were starting to open up and everything was going around, and I started to take it. And I travel a lot and I catch everything. I legitimately, knock wood, haven't caught anything this winter, and I credit it to 11:11. I also spike it with some extra lion's mane. We'll talk about all these wonderful things and what they're all for. So tell us a little bit about, Tonya, how did you become so interested in fungi and mushrooms and specifically the healing power of ingestible mushrooms.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well, thank you. It's so cool that your daughter found it and it's at which store which is fitting for us.

Amy Gordinier:

And me and my daughter.

Tonya Papanikolov:

It's fitting for all of us. That just kind of takes me back to just the ancient uses and the more traditional uses of these herbal medicines and the way that our ancestors, my ancestors from Eastern Europe. I recently learned two years ago that I come from a lineage of healers, on my dad's side, and medicine women who would go into the mountains of Macedonia and gather flowers and herbs and get contracted by Germans to go into these areas. They had such deep knowledge of herbs and mushrooms and flowers. I was just like, "You know what? It's so cool the way some of these things run in our blood, I feel." To bring it back to how I found mushrooms, and it's really like I can never really tell the story without kind of going back to my healing journey and my curiosities ultimately with my body and why just feeling comfortable, feeling well.

As somebody who's dealt with a lot of chronic conditions from when I was a teenager, that really directed my interest from high school into science and nutrition and food. So that was kind of my starting point and the beginning of this whole journey for me, which has been just so layered and little pieces added on as I've gone through a different stage, a different age, and just building and layering on different tools and knowledge. So for me, it started back when I was as young as 15, 16, 17 and started to progress from there. So I would say fungi specifically I was introduced to in 2011. And talking about the way that wisdom and knowledge can kind of hit you and land in you in certain ways, I feel like it's a resonance of truth when you hear something and it's beyond reason. You just kind of know something is true in your blood and in your bones and body.

So there's been a lot of those interesting moments and just listening to those and letting my curiosities guide me into learning more as I've gone down those paths and had that experience, those experiences. But in 2011 was really the first time I was introduced to the therapeutic potential of chaga mushroom. Never forget it. I was at this little conference in Toronto for health people. I had just graduated from my Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Nutraceutical Sciences, and it was really, really a formative time. So that was when I first started learning about adaptogens and learning about the intelligence of plants, and that there were more than just grasses and shrubs and weeds growing to your side when you took a walk, but that there was deep knowledge and healing power and medicine that we made out of this, and that was the basis of pharmaceuticals and drugs and nutraceuticals and all these things.

When you're first learning that for the first time, I think we forget that there's so much we don't know. So that feeling of when you're a teenager, when you're in your 20s and you're coming to really understand the world, and sometimes it's as basic as really understanding where your meat is coming from or what a hamburger is, we do start there at some age. So it was these really big aha moments of like, "Oh my gosh, that's the way. There's that, and why I've never learned that before?" So fast-forward, I kind of had this reverend attitude about fungi and was lucky enough to kind of become friends with a mentor who was really knowledgeable and who took me foraging quite a few times. And I got to learn. He was a very prominent figure that actually was a big spokesperson about medicinal mushrooms.

So I got to learn a lot from him and forage. So that was in Ontario, my backyard, not exactly my backyard in Toronto, but Northern Ontario, Nipissing, and starting to really come home to a deeper understanding of myself as nature, myself in nature, how to take care of myself through food, through the environment, through a deep appreciation and a more intentional way of living. And then enrolled into the Institute of Holistic Nutrition, started learning more about mushroom zen. And then in 2016, I started using reishi therapeutically. So in pretty high doses, on an eight-week protocol, that was meant to support my liver.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

We can get into some of that stuff later, but that was when I had the firsthand experience of how truly powerful, how much transformation happened in my body in eight weeks from a high dose of reishi. It still wasn't like, "Oh, here I go. I have started a mushroom company." Still took a couple years, but there was no rush. It was just like I was passionate about fungi, I was passionate about medicinal mushrooms, and I kind of had this other health thing happen in 2017 or '18 where I was just given time. I had to do a lot of resting, and I was given a lot of time to just dive into research in my books about mushrooms.

That was where the idea started coming up where I was like, "You know what? I want to create something with impact." I love mushrooms. I was calling a lot of different mushroom manufacturers, just asking for some transparency. Couldn't really find it. And was also so passionate about Canadian building a Canadian business and a local business, and also something that could embody the values that I felt I had and that I felt a generation of people wanting to devote themselves to work with purpose could really resonate with. So it kind of started to form after that point in 2018.

But yeah, there's so many stories in between that as well with how I've kind of convened with them, my relationship with them. It is truly a relationship in terms of I feel like I am in some form of a communion and a relationship with an intelligent species that have given me so much and who I aim to represent in the truest way and in an honorable way. That was also a really big part of it because I've always kind of considered myself more of a healer. Before Rainbo, I was doing one-on-one client work with chronic, anything really. It was whether it was psychological which I would help with nutrition, but I had my limits, or lots of gut issues, IBS, Crohn's, eczema, just tons of different things that people would come to me as a holistic nutritionist. I would work with them with food supplementation and lifestyle and kind of bring it together holistically. And I would create a healing kind of protocol for them.

So to then move into a stage where I'm a business person was a little bit of dissonance for me where I was like, "Oh, I have this, what's that going to be like for me?" Because I felt like I was called into this and that I had to create this. And not that I had to, I wanted to, but that the calling was so strong that it was happening with or without me, and so might as well just do this the way that my vision of it is. So that's been a continual journey in stepping into this new phase and what that looks like, such an initiation in so many ways, and also a big realization and expansion that I can be all of those things. It's not just one or the other. It's my long-winded answer, I guess.

Amy Gordinier:

I love that. It's interesting. I feel like, not to sound like the old wise woman, the crone, but I do feel like-

Tonya Papanikolov:

I love the crone.

Amy Gordinier:

But I feel like your generation is changing the way that we can reconcile capitalism with a sense of purpose. And it's so beautiful to see. I love your website and how you talk about your purpose, and I love the story that you just told because it's like you had a knowing and you went with the intuition and it led you to the mushrooms, but it ended up being a business, but that wasn't the intent. You weren't connected to that outcome. And yet, I totally believe that the founder's energy infuses the business and very much drives the business. And I feel that with Rainbo. It's just your energy, and that integrity and that intention is just so alive in the brand.

I see this in other brands as well. I saw the founder of Sol de Janeiro speak at a conference last week, and I was like, her energy is incredible. No wonder the brand is so massive. I think it's super powerful. So, very cool. I know I read an article about you that said you're first-generation Canadian, your parents are Macedonian, and you talked about how you think that the Western diet, your lineage was not used to this processed Western, sort of grain-forward diet, and that may have also affected-

Tonya Papanikolov:

I think so.

Amy Gordinier:

... your IBS and other things. I'm wondering too if that knowledge, as you mentioned, if mushrooms are something that you had a knowing about, if you're just really going back to what your lineage has always known.

Tonya Papanikolov:

I can't help but think that as well. When I've been diving into some kind of ancestral healing, and not that it's specifically around food, but just forming a deep connection with who were these people that I came from? I know a little bit about them and I've been asking more questions and doing deep meditations and healings around it, but I really think you tap into something in your DNA when you start to ask those questions. Find out from your family members, connect with their names, know what their names are. I have them all in a note in my phone. Periodically, I'll just say them out loud. There's this beautiful kind of saying about how we keep people alive on earth. Just by saying their names, just by talking about them and telling stories about them, we keep their spirit alive in us.

Yeah, it's been a really fascinating kind of process to dig more into that. And also, it's kind of like a bit of this reassurance as well that you're doing what you're doing for a specific reason. Of course we're going to do the things we do regardless potentially of where that comes from. But I think for me, as I've progressed and gotten older, it's just been more passionately wanting to be the truest version of myself. There's so many layers to that, and it looks so different in so many different phases.

But, I think so many of us just want this deep permission to be ourselves and to be accepted as that truest version of ourselves and to be able to be big and use our voices. And for women, that's extra hard for a lot of different reasons. So it's a very rich experience, and it's just I think the inquisitive nature of curiosity and wanting to ask those questions and find their answers. Even if we're finding the meaning and we're making sense of it through some logic, some intuition, and whatever else we might mix in there, it's still such a valuable endeavor, I feel.

Amy Gordinier:

Totally agree. Totally agree. So when did you actually launch Rainbo? What year was it that you actually launched the product?

Tonya Papanikolov:

So we're actually coming up on our four-year birthday on-

Amy Gordinier:

So not very long.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Not very long, but it feels like it's long, but not long. 11:11 was the first product I launched on May 24th, 2019.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay. Bob Dylan's birthday.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Oh, good. Good energy. I love that.

Amy Gordinier:

Yeah, good omen.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Mm-hmm.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay, amazing.

Tonya Papanikolov:

It's been a wild ride. And I really like what you said about just being so unattached to outcome. I cannot truly emphasize enough how true that was for me, because what I try to remind myself of as a founder and with my skillset, so somebody else is going to have a completely different skillset who this may not resonate with, but I am a more product-based founder. I love creating. I love putting all of my time and love and energy into product development and our products and the innovation. So my desire was really just to create a product that I felt people needed, but that ultimately I was going to let the market decide that I didn't have a business plan. I didn't say like, this is where we'll be in one year from now, in two years and five years. So I think that's a really... And then you just kind of continually get surprised along the way.

It's not to say that now we don't have more strategic plans, and we've kind of grown into parts of that at this stage, but at the beginning it was pure passion, and I still really find my fuel in coming back to that. But I love just the ability to detach from outcome and just say, I am creating this because it needs to come out of me. And there is some creative, passionate force that I think the best products really come from. When we can detach from the outcome, we can just let ourselves be surprised, go along with the flow of whatever the energy is that's going to be behind this and fuel it with the right people and energy and these kinds of things, but potentially be surprised, not disappointed, all sorts of great things that come from it.

Amy Gordinier:

I love that I am also a product person. In fact, I've been told that that's sort of been the sole focus of the business for the last 10 years and that maybe there are other areas of the business that we could or should develop. And I actually brought a president on board almost a year ago and an investor on board a year and a half.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Congrats.

Amy Gordinier:

Thank you. But it's allowed me to really focus on what is wanting to be born of my creativity, my intuition. I don't know why I put the things together, I put together similar to you, and they just sort of come out of me. But I am now more able to really be in that space and not as much associated with the day-to-day, which has been really great because that is the... It's important to separate those two to some degree because the creative process is so important. And if you truly believe you're putting something out in the world that can help heal people, which I think both of us are trying to do or successfully doing, then it's so important to focus on that. I mean, that truly is important.

So let's talk a little bit about, I know there are so many, but maybe what are some of the things that you feel mushrooms can really address? You talked a bit about gut health. I'm also just personally interested in any ADHD or depression. What are some of the things that you've found have been really helpful and which mushroom is most associated with which condition?

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah. So I guess two answers I'd like to go into are, gut health has been pretty much a primary focus of mine since I was quite young. And that's just because of my allergies or intolerances, allergies, those kinds of things. So I find it interesting. I actually just wrote a research paper on IBS and hypnotherapy and the gut-brain axis.

Amy Gordinier:

Oh, wow.

Tonya Papanikolov:

It's really interesting because our understanding of the gut has evolved so much just over the past 20 years. And in the early 2000s, IBS was really known as an intestinal motility issue, meaning that it's really just an issue of motility and mobility within the gut itself. I love science because it's not stagnant and everything really evolves over the decades. So where we've kind of landed now and what's widely accepted is the gut-brain axis, and that's basically this bidirectional relationship between the brain, the nervous system, and the intestines.

That's so fascinating to me for a lot of different reasons in terms of what you mentioned about kind of ADHD and the mind, and that's kind of a big focus of mine right now, is this mind body connection. But yeah, just digestive conditions as a whole have been a really big focus of mine, and the mushrooms have been really integral in that process in that I see them as more of an assistance to any root causes of disharmony in the body. So I think there are connections that mushrooms can come into the body and help forge those connections because it's just one system and we forget that. The systems are all kind of working together, whether it's the immune system, the lymphatic system, the circulatory system, the nervous system, all of those are converging and we're kind of helping to bring them online via various practices or tools or mushrooms or herbs or nutraceuticals, whatever we're using to help forge that connection.

What's so cool about fungi in general is, if you look at what they do in nature, which is acting as connectivity and this connective tissue within a forest, within the soil, and allowing for the transportation of nutrients, the transportation of communication between allowing a mother tree to speak and pass nutrients to its tree baby, its sapling, that's incredible. So I was having this discussion with an ND friend of mine who sees the same thing. She works with a lot of autoimmune patients, and really sees mushrooms come in and have the ability to turn on the immune system and the nervous system and get those communicating to each other. What they do in nature, which is really similar to what they do in our bodies, which is they act as the earth's immune system, the forest's immune system, they are fending off the same viruses and bacteria that humans are, which is what makes them so powerful at helping us do that as well.

So there is this ability to forge those connections between networks. That has been this missing link for me, and I feel like probably not talked about as much as it could be or should be. And for me, it's funny because there's the symptom, of course that was maybe eczema or acne or anything kind of coming out of the skin or anything else that could be tons of different symptoms that we're expressing. But then my work has really been to understand what the expression of that is coming from and to find a root cause. With a lot of digestive symptoms, and in my own case and lots of others, there's a few main things that are at play and a few main kind of targets that I always look to, which is the liver, the immune system, the nervous system, and helping to activate and kind of harmonize those organs and systems so that they can perform at their best.

When you do that, it's kind of like everything else falls into place. The body is so brilliant, so wise, knows how to self self-heal. Our ability to just activate self-heal is the only response that we should be really being taught, because it can be fairly simple in terms of good water, some sunlight, maybe refraining or trying to correct some lifestyle factors that have negatively contributed to liver stagnation. And I can share a bit of my story around that. But when it comes to... Yeah, my gut healing has really been... And I still have some IBS flareups. That's just a sensitive spot for me, so I have to be careful. But in terms of the chronic diarrhea, the bloating, the gas, the acne, the food intolerances, a lot of that stuff has cleared up. Reishi and lots of mushrooms and tools have been very instrumental in that process.

So that's kind of the one part I wanted to mention. Then I guess in terms of the mushrooms and what they do, across the board, all mushrooms are really well known for their ability to enhance the immune system, or I guess rather modulate the immune system, because they can up-regulate or down-regulate. So they kind of harmonize and have a regulating response on the immune system. And the immune system is going to have an effect on any other system in the body, whether that's the organs, the nervous system, the heart. It's a pretty central system within the body. So all mushrooms, because of the way that they're built, they have this cell structure called chitin, which is chitin makes up the cell membrane, and that's indigestible to humans, which is why you have to create an extract of mushrooms.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

So that's going to actually break down that cell membrane and allow us to access the health promoting compounds that we're after, like the polysaccharides, the triterpenes, the phenols, there's antioxidants, there's tons and tons of different health compounds. We've only really studied two very well, but there are so many more that we have yet to really dive into.

Amy Gordinier:

So if we eat the mushroom, we won't be able to access them in the same way because we can't get through that membrane? Is that-

Tonya Papanikolov:

Raw? Yes. We don't suggest eating mushrooms raw for that reason, is they do cause a lot of digestive upset and the body can't really break that down. We need some help through heat to do that process. So that's why just even a light cook on mushrooms helps make them more actually digestible. Sometimes they can cause some just upset or they'll just kind of sit in your belly and won't digest in the way that they could. So a little bit of heat, a saute, something along those lines or an extraction if you're after the medicinal compounds. So they're all really health-promoting in terms of immune benefits.

And then the mushrooms, I mean they all truly have so many different properties and health benefits, so it's kind of hard to lump them into categories. But I would say, as a whole, reishi, and there's a lot of traditional knowledge that backs up this and also a growing body of evidence around the scientific kind of studies to support this, but reishi is known as the mushroom of immortality. So this is a mushroom that helps to calm and connect the mind-body system. So it's known to support the mind. It has calming effects on the body. It's a known adaptogen. Not all mushrooms are considered known adaptogens, reishi and cordyceps are, and it's going to support HPA access, cortisol response. It's very effective for promoting just liver support in terms of some of the antioxidants it provides and the oxidative stress support that it helps the body counterbalance, and also has amazing anti-inflammatory effects, as does chaga. Reishi and chaga have also been, there's a good amount of studies around some of the DNA protection that they offer on the skin. So topically, that's growing field.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

But in Asia, reishi is extremely popular extract that they use in skincare products, less so here, but there's a lot of mushroom extracts used in Asia for skincare products, for hydration, plumping. There's an amazing mushroom called tremella, which we do use in our skin salve. And that has a similar effect to hyaluronic acid in terms of helping to draw moisture and provide some plumping and antioxidant support. There's lion's mane, which you mentioned, just very, very popular mushroom with great research to back it up in terms of what it can do to support our neurons, nerve growth factor, brain and cognitive support. And it is needed. A lot of the clinical studies are showing that it's needed in relatively high doses of two to three grams per day.

So with any of this stuff, it's so exciting because there's a lot of literature to show its support, and we know that there's 2,000 years of traditional use in Asia of a lot of these mushrooms. It's so cool for me because I love the merging of those two. I think there's so much wisdom that we gather from traditional knowledge, and to see that really supported and backed by science and seeing the safety and efficacy is really exciting because a lot of us in the West are really like, that's a really good proof point for us. There's cordyceps as well, which is this energizing mushroom, also great for stress support, non kind of stimulating energy, but really supportive in helping to boost overall energy of the body at a cellular level. And then there's so many more, this turkey tail, I could go on. Yeah.

Amy Gordinier:

It's fascinating. So to your point on, you had mentioned when you were treating your liver, you went on high doses of reishi, and then you just mentioned with lion's mane, there've been some studies at higher doses. I used to actually work for a company that we manufactured and sold fish oil to the supplement space, omega-3s. There was so much incredible clinical efficacy, but at pretty high levels. And I think we're always so concerned in the western world about the dose and taking too much. So can you really take too much. I mean, I guess it depends on which strain I suppose, and what you're treating. But with reishi, for instance, when you're treating your liver, how much were you taking to treat them?

Tonya Papanikolov:

I was taking about four grams daily.

Amy Gordinier:

So what would that be in terms of your tincture?

Tonya Papanikolov:

In terms of tinctures, I mean, if you're taking eight milliliters of that, you're at a 1.6 gram. And that I say is a good maintenance dose. I mean, I was taking 14 capsules a day, so you're going through a bottle. And for me, it was like if I'm taking anything therapeutically, capsules are pretty easy for that because you can just take a bunch of them and just swallow them. And that's something I do want to really consider, is capsule-based products for just our single mushrooms, for people who are looking to take them in higher doses. But I mean with Health Canada, there's recommendations of turkey tail up to 12 grams daily for certain immune conditions or chronic diseases.

So I think with that, it's like you don't want to take 12 grams of turkey tail every day for your whole life. That's probably really unnecessary. We haven't really done a study on that, but it's not to say that the body can't excrete it through urine or different metabolites. But, those are just more acute conditions where you might have something chronic that you're working through, or you might be using it in tandem with another cancer therapy, which turkey tail is known for if you're doing any chemo or anything like that. So I think there are maybe 8-week, 12-week periods where you're going to really use a high dose of something.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

But for the most part, a maintenance dose of one to two grams of a lot of these mushrooms is more than enough for a daily basis, and it's a very safe amount as well.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay. So how much would that be in your tincture dropper then, would you say?

Tonya Papanikolov:

So if you do a double squeeze of the white lid, that's one milliliter there, and so I would do four to eight of those daily.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay. Okay. Great. Great. And then if you're taking the 11:11, which is this great combination of all the different kinds together, which I absolutely love and swear by, I do four of these full squirts in the morning and then four at night, and then I add my lion's mane, but you can add, you boost-

Tonya Papanikolov:

Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

Amy Gordinier:

... 11:11 with other things.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yep. I love to do that as well. 11:11 is, when I was creating that, I was so excited about the ability that mushrooms work. They're stronger in groups, so they have a synergistic effect when they're combined, which means that one plus one doesn't equal two, it equals four because they help enhance each other's effects, which I was like, "This is teamwork. This is so fascinating." So 11:11 has that power of the synergy of all 11 mushrooms. And then I would say the kind of main effects of it are definitely immune system. I didn't get sick for four years using our products, and then COVID came and I eventually got COVID, but-

Amy Gordinier:

It's probably a good thing, I suppose.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah. Yes.

Amy Gordinier:

Your immune system probably needed to get it at some point, possibly. I mean, we don't know, but-

Tonya Papanikolov:

Totally.

Amy Gordinier:

Interesting. I mean, I have to say I was the person that got everything going always because I tend to have a lot of anxiety, and I work myself up into a bit of a stress frenzy at times.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah.

Amy Gordinier:

And travel really kind of, especially the older I get, the harder it is on me. Honestly, this has just changed my life. 11:11 has changed my life. I love the lion's mane. I just feel sharper. So let's talk a little bit about skin health because similar to this gut-brain nervous system axis, there is a definite science to support the gut-skin axis. And as you said, eczema, or eczema as we say in Canada, and acne and all of these other skin concerns are the symptoms. And with Skinfix, we're trying to get at the root cause by actually healing the barrier itself on a physiological level. But what can mushrooms do to support that gut-skin axis? And what specifically have you seen, if anything, in patients that have had issues with eczema or acne? What has helped them?

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah. So in terms of, I guess, my process with the acne that I was experiencing after getting off the pill, I had a lot of dysbiosis buildup on my chin and cheek area. So my target for that in terms of balancing hormones and healing some gut issues was to support the liver. So that was part of what we did with reishi, which is a really widely known liver support mushroom in traditional Chinese medicine. It's also recognized in the NHPD when you're getting your license in Canada to sell any natural health product. Reishi and chaga are both very well known for their liver supportive properties.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

So that could be via, there's antioxidant properties, anti-inflammatory properties. The antioxidants are going to help to regulate and boost some of the oxidative stress that we're experiencing. There's of course stress that plays a role in our liver. So at the stage of life I was at, I feel like I was kind of needing to do a bunch of healing from some of my lifestyle tendencies and practices when I was in university, drinking, alcohol, drinking, I don't know, 10 cups of coffee a day, high stress, zero tools to really balance and regulate. So reishi, that was when I was using it therapeutically and also going through an emotionally turbulent time. I mean, within eight weeks, I would say my whole system was so much different in terms of how I was responding to stress and my ability to just let things roll off my shoulders a little bit more. I was in school at the time and I was going through a breakup and all of these hard things, and I genuinely felt like a different person at the end of those eight weeks.

Amy Gordinier:

Amazing.

Tonya Papanikolov:

It was remarkable. It was probably the first time also with any specific supplement where I've been like, "Wow, that worked." It's a really big difference. My skin started to clear up in that process. And there was a lot of liver supportive, other kind of things I was doing in terms of drinking a lot of clean water, spring water, avoiding processed foods, which I had been doing for a long time. But those were all kind of pretty instrumental in the process.

Amy Gordinier:

Amazing. And then did you migrate to a maintenance level of reishi? Do you take reishi daily now?

Tonya Papanikolov:

I did, yep. Actually, I think I took a pause for a little bit right after. It took me a little bit of time, probably until I started Rainbo, where I was really using our mushrooms every single day. And now reishi is my absolute go-to. The cool thing is that even if you're dealing with any other root causes that might cause flareups or anything in the body, there's a lot of different exposures and things that our liver has to process every day from literally pumping gas at the gas station to stress, to environmental toxins, pesticides, foods, processed foods, really, the list goes on and on. And the liver has such an important role in the body with over 500 functions that it's doing on a daily basis. One of those major ones being detoxification. And I will say that mushrooms do also aid in that detoxification process.

What is really cool in terms of some conditions like candida or parasites or mold, all of which I've gone through and have done testing on, so it's not just like I'm taking a guess and doing this protocol, but I have my mold test or my parasite test done that show that I'm going to eradicate this. The really cool thing is that in a lot of those conditions, mushrooms, especially edible ones, because they're quite yeasty in the body, they can produce yeast, they can sometimes be told to refrain from eating these mushrooms for an eight-month period or whatever the case may be. The cool thing about reishi is that it is so nutritive and supportive that you can eat it through any of those conditions, and it's not going to contribute to yeast in the body. They've done studies on it for candida. It's not going to contribute to candida overgrowth. It's going to support the liver in that process. So I've been grateful that I can continue to use that mushroom specifically while going through any kind of eradication protocols.

Amy Gordinier:

Amazing. And what about in pregnancy, would you say?

Tonya Papanikolov:

That's always a tough one, because we of course can't test on pregnant women.

Amy Gordinier:

Right.

Tonya Papanikolov:

So there's just been no safety studies that show that you can do it either way, to say it's not safe or safe. So we get that question all the time. And I will say that now after all these years, we know so many mothers who choose to continue taking mushrooms through pregnancy and breastfeeding and others who stop, and both-

Amy Gordinier:

It's so hard. It's not really a fair question because I understand, because from my perspective as well as a skincare founder, we can't really advise, frankly.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah.

Amy Gordinier:

It's like when in doubt, leave it out, I guess. But I hear you. I was told when I was pregnant, my daughter's now 19, not to take fish oil. And a few years later I realized that that was really the wrong decision at the time. I suffered postpartum, and that might've helped and all the things, but it's hard. It's a hard question to answer as a founder. So, curious to know what your regimen is daily with respect to Rainbo, and does it change with what's going on with you? What do you take?

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yes, it does very much change with what's going on in life. Right now I am on reishi only. Only.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah, and that's because I am on a parasite cleanse, and that's been really crazy. I don't know if you've... I mean, I'm going to have to do an episode on that at some point, but it is next level wild.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay. Is it a specific parasite? Have you identified what the parasite is?

Tonya Papanikolov:

Nope, but I've been seeing them come out.

Amy Gordinier:

Okay. Okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah. And it's interesting because so many of my health friends are going through the same thing. I feel like it's something like Pluto upgrades, something going on. I mean, I'm getting married in four and a half weeks.

Amy Gordinier:

Oh, wow. Exciting.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Thank you. I'm so excited. But I would never recommend anybody to be doing a parasite cleanse before their wedding, but here we are. It's gentle, and I'm feeling really good on it. But right now I'm taking reishi, and otherwise it just really cycles through what I'm going through. Before that, I've been really loving reishi and lion's mane together for their nervous system support of both calming, adaptogenic, kind of general stress support, aligned with that nervous system, neuron health, brain health. That was really nourishing me for quite a few months. We're going to be launching our nervous system bundle together with reishi and chaga together really soon.

Amy Gordinier:

Oh, okay.

Tonya Papanikolov:

So I'm really looking forward to that.

Amy Gordinier:

[inaudible], especially four weeks before a wedding.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yes. They say it's one of the most stressful times of life.

Amy Gordinier:

It is. It can be, I suppose.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah, there's a lot. It's been really enjoyable.

Amy Gordinier:

Lot of things happening. Well, I'm glad it's been enjoyable. Have you come across any H. pylori cleanses with mushrooms?

Tonya Papanikolov:

Not specifically, but what I can say that I feel like jump started this, and I'm just curious explorer of my body, but I started to take HCl, digestive enzyme hydrochloric acid, about three months ago now. And I'm not sure if you've heard of the HCl challenge?

Amy Gordinier:

No.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Okay. So it's basically a hydrochloric challenge that you... So hydrochloric acid is an extremely important acid indigestion, and it's supposed to be produced in the stomach and kind of help the body, help the stomach break down food, and it decreases as we age. And with chronic digestive conditions, it is often a root cause of digestive health, and it decreases with every decade of life quite substantially.

Amy Gordinier:

Wow.

Tonya Papanikolov:

So I started an HCl challenge, which is very easy. You just kind of, you're testing your limit to see what elicits, how many hydrochloric acid capsules can elicit an acidic feeling. And you have this with meals. It is interesting to me because I just started the Hcl, and the detox that started to happen in my body that followed that was very, very fascinating because it wasn't my intention to start this cleanse, and yet stuff started to come out.

Amy Gordinier:

Right.

Tonya Papanikolov:

So my intuitive sense is that there was some stuff in my stomach, which is kind of where a lot of H. pylori lives, where it can. And I think there's a lot there. And I really do also believe in things working in tandem as well in terms of some of these nutraceuticals in combo with detox support mushrooms like reishi and chaga. So yeah.

Amy Gordinier:

Well, I don't think any podcast about mushrooms would be complete without a question about psychedelics.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yes, of course.

Amy Gordinier:

I'm sure you get this all the time. But just curious to know if that's an area that you might explore, I suppose, when the regulatory environment allows for it. I'm not exactly sure where we are with the regulatory environment on that, but is that something of interest to you as well?

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah, I mean, it's always been of interest. I feel that it's hard to be a huge proponent of mushrooms without inevitably having awoken to what their power is. There's so much healing power, but there is so much therapeutic psychedelic, the level and the ability for that level of deep healing and deep inner work. What's so fascinating about psilocybin and a lot of different psychedelic experiences is the ability for that default mode network to turn off, which is our sense of self. And when you dissolve that ego and sense of self, there's emerging that happens with other and with nature. Through that experience, it's so profound. For somebody in their... I mean, it's hard to say. Ideally, your first experience is going to be profound, but there's so many important things like set and setting and just your mindset and your diet and a lot of things that go into the preparation and aftercare of a psychedelic experience, because they can be no walk in the park. They can be absolutely blissful and beautiful, but they're also going to present their challenges and show you your mirrors and facilitate that inner growth.

But the effects of this afterglow, of that whole mode, that whole habitual side of the brain turn off for whatever it is, a six-hour timeframe, anywhere from five- to eight-hour timeframe is so profound, so profound in rewiring the body. So I think it's such a massive topic. I'm so passionate about it because it was pretty instrumental in Rainbo's birth story as well, was my experience with a powerful and very therapeutic psychedelic experience. Of course, there's the therapeutic mushrooms alongside that, but where I kind of stand on it is just waiting to see what happens in that regulatory space. And I'm also very conscious of not wanting to necessarily just capitalize that whole market like we saw with cannabis.

Amy Gordinier:

Yeah.

Tonya Papanikolov:

So I think there needs to be a lot of access, ability to grow on your own, a lot of education around it, and not just this other kind of money grabbing industry, because the potential and the power for it is just so massive for how it can touch people who it can help. The conditions, eating disorders to traumatic events, PTSD, treatment resistant PTSD, addiction-

Amy Gordinier:

Veterans.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah, the list goes on. So it's a very, very exciting area of therapy.

Amy Gordinier:

Yeah. And it's interesting, I mean, I think one of the Netflix series, Michael Pollan, I think was the one who said it's really therapeutic, not recreational. So there's that whole bit about how one supports that process, as you said, with set and setting and diet and aftercare and all the things so it needs to be thoughtful.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Yeah, yeah.

Amy Gordinier:

But, look forward to seeing what you do in that space eventually, once the regulatory environment allows. This was fascinating, Tonya. I could talk to you all day.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Likewise.

Amy Gordinier:

But I'm cognizant of the fact that I've talked to you for an hour and I'm like, "Oh, she probably has a lot she needs to get to." But, really, really love what you do. Love, love your brand, and not just the product, which I think is phenomenal and powerful, but also just the whole journey that you're on as an entrepreneur and as a business person, and the intention with which you've created this line. I love it, and I feel the energy that you've put into it. I tell everyone I know about it. Love listening to your podcast and following you.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Thank you.

Amy Gordinier:

And just hope that we can stay in touch, and really appreciate this conversation.

Tonya Papanikolov:

Thank you so much for having me.

Amy Gordinier:

You can learn more about Tonya's company at rainbo.com, and you can follow her on Instagram at @TonyaPapanikolove.

I want to thank Tonya for nerding out with me and for all her remarkable and inspirational work. Here are three things that really stood out for me in our conversation. One, learning about Tonya's natural medicinal journey and the deeper understanding she gained about herself, her place in nature, her ancestral history of healing, and how she learned to nourish and nurture herself through a more intentional way of living was impactful and thought-provoking. Two, it was refreshing to hear Tonya talk about creativity, authenticity, purpose, and intention within the entrepreneurial framework. These values energize Tonya and her company Rainbo. Three, it was so interesting to hear Tonya talk about how mushrooms act as the forest's immune system, protecting the earth from the same viruses and bacteria that we face, making mushrooms integral to our own health and well-being.

Thank you for listening to our season two finale of Total Skin Nerds. We'd love to hear from you, and we'd be so grateful if you could take a moment to leave a review. Please follow the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify as we get ready for season three. Total Skin Nerds is produced by Rob Corso, Casey Kahn, and Howie Kahn for FreeTime Media. Our theme music is by John Palmer. Special thanks to Samara Cooper, Lauren Fonda, Megan Collins, and Karen Tela-Eid. And I'm your host, Amy Gordinier. Till next time, skin nerds.

Speaker 2:

Nerds.

Speaker 4:

Total Skin Nerds is a podcast created to educate. It is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical advice. If you are looking for help with a skin concern, we would encourage you to seek the advice of a board-certified dermatologist, functional medical practitioner, or other qualified healthcare provider.

You can find a registry of board certified dermatologists in the US at find-a-derm.aad.org, and in Canada at dermatology.ca. For a registry of qualified functional medical practitioners, you can visit ifm.org. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode. We hope that you enjoy listening to Total Skin Nerds as much as we enjoy making it.