In April 2018 my life changed in a big way. After over a decade of dealing with illness after illness (Lyme, mold, food allergies/sensitivities, chemical sensitivities, neurological problems) I began the Dynamic Neural Retraining Systems program (DNRS) to help alleviate specifically my Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS). Within a short amount of time, I was noticing huge changes with my tolerance to chemicals, and within a month and a half of consistent daily brain retraining, I was back to eating every single food I had lost over the years.
I have been posting about my journey on my blog, my Instagram page, and on my YouTube channel, but I wanted to make this post so that I could have everything I’ve made about DNRS in the same place.
If a year and a half ago you had told me that I would be THIS healthy, happy, and completely fine with chemicals and food…I would have said you were nuts! I didn’t realize that after years and years of chronic illness, my limbic system had been greatly affected. I didn’t know that my reaction to chemicals wasn’t me needing to detox more, or needing to practice avoidance. It was in fact a messed-up signal being sent to my brain. A signal I had the power to change.
I didn’t know that by doing this program, I would completely get off ALL supplements and medications for the first time in 14 years. That it would allow me to stop all medical treatments, except for the occasional chiropractic appointment. And most importantly, that it would end the vicious cycle that constantly kept me in some sort of health crisis. (Lyme → co-infections → mold → CRVO (going blind in one eye due to an extraordinarily rare eye condition for a young person to have) → hyperthyroidism → serious food allergies/sensitivities → diabetes insipidus → multiple chemical sensitivities → dysautonomia and losing the ability to control my left arm → body-wide seizure-like convulsions ….the list goes on and on)
The need to constantly fight bizarre new health issues consumed my whole life. I spent so much time chasing each individual symptom, that until DNRS, I didn’t see that so many of them were linked! Because my brain had been screwed up by everything I’d been through, it sent weird, faulty signals. By learning how to rewire my brain with DNRS, I could finally put an end to that awful cycle, and start LIVING.
After DNRS, I became someone who was actually healthy. Like, legit consistently feeling awesome. (Who knew that was even a thing??) I took up hiking, krav maga self-defense, aerial fitness, and paddleboard yoga. My family even traveled to India last November to attend a wedding. (That would have been out of the question before.) And I’m now planning another adventure out of the country with my husband!
I not only regained the ability to eat anything I wanted and be around chemicals again, but I also got something I didn’t know was possible. I finally put a stop to that endless loop of health challenges that I’ve faced for more than a decade. I’m 27, and for the first time since I was 12, I experienced a year without any mystery health issue popping up and calling the shots.
DNRS has given me so much more than what I originally asked of it. It’s given me my freedom and my future. I’ve never worked so hard for anything in my life—you need to be fully dedicated to retraining your brain or you won’t see results. As an instructor at my DNRS seminar told me, “you can’t stop watering a seedling after just a couple weeks and expect a tree to grow.” It takes time—at least 6 months of dedicated brain retraining, but oh wow…it’s so worth it! ♥
Below are all the blogs and videos I have made so far about my experience recovering with DNRS:
To read my first blog post about DNRS, click here!
To read my 6-month update post-DNRS, click here!
To watch my incredible transformation after just one year of DNRS, click the video link above!
After I returned from the in-person DNRS seminar in spring of 2018, I felt compelled to write a rap song about DNRS.
Recently, after celebrating my one-year anniversary of doing DNRS, I made this song where I changed the lyrics to the song “You’re So Classic” to “Your Brain Is So Plastic”. Neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, refers to the brain’s ability to change throughout life. This concept is a big part of why DNRS works!
So often people (myself included!) just talk about how amazing it is to get your life back after retraining your brain with DNRS… But what is also just as true is that it can be insanely overwhelming once you do. I wanted to make this video for those going through that specific stage of their healing journey.
I made four “DNRS With Rachel” videos, where I do the back-to-back memory parts of the round. I went in and added in sound effects after the fact, to show how I imagine it. It’s not the full round, but it gives an idea of how I like to go into detail during my rounds to make me feel like I’m really there.
This is my very first DNRS video, back when I had only been doing it for about a month! The video shows a big WOW-moment, when I was able to enter Goodwill, a place I was never able to go before, due to the harsh chemicals they use.
Follow me on Instagram and YouTube for more current updates on what I’m doing! ♥
Resiliently Rachel 
Hi Rachel! Thank you for sharing your story. I’m curious about the impact of DNRS on your mold sensitivity. Do you feel that you are less reactive to mold? Do you feel that say, if mold were in the school you worked at, or got a leak in your house and noticed mold and had to remediate, that you could be around it without it making you sick because of DNRS? I am healing from mold exposure, and while my sense of smell has definitely heightened and gut has been affected, I wouldn’t say I am full blown chemically sensitive. My main symptoms are related to mold and I experience extreme depression and brain dysfunction after exposure (though once I experience it it is usually too late as I am already poisoned) I’m wondering if you think the program would still be worth it for me. I appreciate any insight, thank you.
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Hello! I have definitely noticed that my sensitivity to mold has gone down. I used to not be able to handle being in my parents’ upstairs or their garage, and now I am totally fine to do that! I also used to really struggle with older buildings, and historic buildings, and now I don’t have this problem. 🙂 I definitely think you could benefit from DNRS! I know of many success stories where they have found they are able to stop their body’s negative overreaction to mold, and go on to live normal lives. When we are dealing with serious issues such as mold, it really screws with the wiring in our limbic system, and I have found that at least for me, I’ve seen a huge difference between my pre-DNRS and post-DNRS self in terms of being able to be in older buildings, or potentially water-damaged buildings. I would still not choose to live or work in a place that was obviously moldy, but a little mold is everywhere, and what I’ve learned with DNRS is that if normal people can be around it and not experience symptoms, then I should be able to do so too!
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So very happy for you! Dealing with Lyme and all it’s co-infections with my seventeen year old. He was infected at age three (multiple ticks over 3 year life span) and then re-infected. Love to hear stories such as yours❤️❤️❤️. May you remain forever healthy!
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Hi Rachel,
How does DNRS compare to neurofeedback? I’ve done the latter and it was very helpful but also expensive and time consuming (driving 1 hr each way to a practitioner for a one-hour long session 2-3 times per week for 10 weeks). And neurofeedback requires periodic tune-up sessions.
Thank you for the information!
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Hello! So I never actually did neurofeedback, so I can’t really compare them. But in terms of the expense and driving time, that’s what makes DNRS so wonderful. You do it for an hour a day for 6 months, but you do it from the comfort of your own home, and you can break it up into four 15-minute brain retraining sessions. And other than paying for the DVDs to be able to learn the program, you don’t pay anything else. It was so empowering to have a program that allowed me to heal myself. We get so used to relying on others to help, so it was incredible to learn the program and then put in the work myself and see the amazing results.
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Hi Rachel – I’m dealing with some similar issues to you; I was wondering what your routine was with DNRS, in terms of rounds and proclamations? I was also wondering if you have any other tips. Whenever you have a pop did you always do a round, etc? Thank you!
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Hey! So I was in sort of a weird situation where I really truly didn’t have time to do rounds throughout the day, with the way my job and life was at the time. But I knew how important getting the hour of rounds in was, so I woke up every work day at 4:00am to do my full hour from 4:00-5:00 before going to work. I wouldn’t specifically recommend that though, if you have more flexibility in your schedule… On weekends I would often do my first two rounds first thing in the morning, and then try to get another one by noon, and another by 2:00 or 3:00 pm. I didn’t like having them hang over me all day, so I preferred to get them done sooner rather than later. I didn’t do a round every time I had a pop, but I tried to redirect it. Even if the redirection was just me smiling and saying to myself “I feel fantastic!” to combat the pop or IT.
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Thank you for the reponse. I am very grateful for you taking time from your schedule! 🙂
Few more questions:
1 – how often did you write proclamations?
2 – wow! You did 3 rounds per a weekend? How many times would you do visualizations per a round?
3 – did you do the strip excersizes?
Thanks again, your story is very motivating. My story is similar to yours minus the lyme. Started with gut —> Nerve pain due to environmental toxins —> then mold hit me and now I’m dealing with ES. But I know it’s all up hill from here 🙂
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I wrote my proclamation 10 times every day for the first month. Then after that I would write them down ten times whenever I felt I could benefit from it. For your rounds question, I would do four rounds every day (to make up my hour) so on the weekends I did 4 rounds each day as well. And they were just normal rounds, so I did the past and future visualization in each 15-minute round. I did do the Stroop exercises. I found an app that I could do on my phone for free, which was fun and a good way to challenge my brain. 🙂
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Hi Rachel! I’m so glad that you are doing so well. My issues are very similar yours…MCS, possible Mast Cell, sensitive to most foods/meds/supplements etc. I have been having the DNRS videos sitting in my closet for about 2 years. I think I haven’t viewed them because of the time commitment and fear of another treatment failed. However, I have decided to take off of work next week for 3 days and just get it done. My question for you is do you think the in person seminar is necessary or propelled you to faster recovery than just doing the videos. I’m so ready to be the person I used to be. Thanks so much!
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So for me, I started with the DVDs because I had to finish out my school year before I could do the in-person seminar. So I did the DVDs for 1.5 months, and then 2 days after school got out I was on a plane to Canada for the seminar. I saw a LOT of progress with just the DVDs. I was the healthiest one at the seminar because I had already benefited so much! But I learned SO much from the seminar that I didn’t from the DVDs. It was a big game changer, because I learned exactly what I was doing wrong while doing my rounds, and I had support with me for a week to set myself up for success. Plus I made a bunch of friends who became my support system for the rest of my DNRS journey. So I felt that the seminar was a very valuable experience. That being said…I had already seen great progress with the DVDs…so maybe I would have gotten just as better without them! We’ll never know. But if I was not able to go to a seminar, my choice would be to do the DVDs and book DNRS coaching sessions to make sure that I got what I needed to out of the program.
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Hi Rachel… I was wondering if you think that doing DNRS before your year of mold detox would have have worked for you as well as it did now. Also who was the mold dr you worked with? I’m having trouble finding one. I’m so glad for your recovery… your journey has been long!
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P.s… I long to eat again.. like really eat! Did you get dizziness and terrible stomach pain when you had a mold reaction? Brain fog, depression etc..
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I did get dizziness and brain fog with mold reaction back in the day. Now, after DNRS, I don’t get those symptoms when I’m exposed to places with mold.
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Hi Rachel! Your story is tremendous and very happy that you’ve found your health. You come off as a seeker and someone without give-up and surely those were vital things in your recovery. There are some parallels with what I’ve been going through and your story. I discovered the root of some chronic illness for me seems to be in relation to mold exposure and have upped my baseline health from 20% to about 50% through detox methods over the course of 4 months, however feeling a bit stuck so I ordered DNRS. Another issue has been while I moved environments to live with family for a bit to get out of the triggering environment I’m having a reaction to the HVAC system as well as some chemical sensitivities (thus DNRS thought) funny enough I’m in the Phoenix area and was wondering if you knew of an apartment setting that is good with chemical sensitivity/mold environment. If you’d find email more pertinent to discuss that please let me know, very appreciative.
-Ryan
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So when we moved to the Phoenix area, we purposely moved into an apartment building that had just recently been built a year or so prior to us moving. That was important for us, because then we could know that the mold really shouldn’t be a problem. So I recommend looking around for recently built apartments, if that’s an option. I know Chandler has a bunch of newer apartments because they’ve been constantly expanding. So that worked for us.
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I have to tell you THANK YOU for sharing your story. I have been looking at this for years and just bought it. Blessings to you! Are you still doing really well??
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Yay!! DNRS helped me SO much!! I’m still doing great!! I hope it does the same for you! Give it your all, and really commit to it. 🙂 It’s very worth it.
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Can you make a post to help/ tips for visualizing?? I’m so stuck
Even making them up.
It’s also hard to actually see and feel?
What do I do?
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I would recommend listening to other people do their rounds, to get ideas from them. That helped me a lot. I have a number of the memory parts of my rounds in this blog post at the bottom, so if you didn’t listen to those, I would definitely say give those a try. There also might be others that people have posted on youtube. That was really helpful for me to get ideas back when I first started doing DNRS. Also, I always struggled to really get into the rounds, so to combat that, I would do my best to just over explain everything. Try to put myself there and imagine what I would feel, such as the sand going between my toes, and it being warm from the sun, and wind dancing through my hair. I would just try to explain everything in detail, to help feel like I was there. It takes practice though.
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