Igor Pershin, the Founding Director of Natural Filters, has faced numerous challenges. From being drugged, robbed, and left for dead to losing all his hair overnight, Igor has learned that having an attitude of gratitude and optimism is key to overcoming adversity.
As spoken to: Emma Lodge
I love hearing inspirational stories that overcome adversity and then use the experience to inject into something good. Igor you’ve got quite a story to tell!
Igor: Yes, 15 years ago, I was embarking on a round the world trip with my first stop in Malaysia, where I spent time in Kuala Lumpur exploring the city. I was in a bar in Chinatown last night, due to fly out the next day to meet a friend in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo. Unfortunately, I never made the flight. I was drugged and robbed at the bar (although I have no recollection of this). My friend raised the alarm with the Australian Consulate when I didn’t show up, which then set off a search throughout all the hospitals until I was found in a coma in Kuala Lumpur general hospital.
Someone had found me unconscious on a construction site; apparently, I had fallen between four and six stories high. I had been robbed, so I couldn’t be identified; however, I matched the description my friend gave. My mum was told I had a 5% chance of waking up from the coma because of the injuries I suffered and the severe loss of blood.
Somehow, by the grace of God, on the fourth day, I woke up. I had twelve operations in total, including two brain surgeries. I had a ruptured liver, stomach, punctured lung, smashed wrist, elbow, and knee, five skull fractures, and minor brain damage. I not only survived, but I went on to make a full recovery.
That is incredible! How on earth did you pull through all of that and not have some physical injuries today?
Igor: I’ve got no peripheral vision, so I’ve got optic damage, and I’ve lost my sense of smell as they had to sever the olfactory nerve during the brain surgery, but apart from that, I made a full recovery.
That is astounding. What do you think helped with your recovery?
Igor: The head nurse in the ICU said that for all the people she treats, she sees people who are either resigned to their fate or who are optimistic and grateful. The ones who are optimistic and grateful are usually the ones who pull through. I was very upbeat, grateful, and perhaps even oblivious to the severity of my condition.
And then, 10 years later, you faced another challenge?
Igor: Yes, in 2018, I was in the midst of my travels in South America, living the digital nomad life and experiencing Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, which sounds amazing; however, I was carrying a lot of stress that ultimately led to burnout. I had a lot of family stuff going on at the time and was dealing with too many things. I also had some health issues that I was suppressing with pills and injections.
My body was calling, “Slow down, start looking after yourself,” but I wasn’t listening until I lost all my hair literally overnight. That’s when I realised there was a problem.
That is pretty drastic; what a shock to wake up to!
Igor: I lost my eyebrows and eyelashes within the week. So I put the brakes on my travels and came home to figure out what was going on. I didn’t know much about alopecia and its causes. Fortunately, at that point, I had heard a lot about functional medicine, so I found a functional medical practitioner who went through every aspect of my life, from birth to how I eat and sleep. He assessed the whole picture. We did a bunch of different tests to find out the imbalances, and one by one, I started fixing them. Stripping my diet back to autoimmune protocols, even changing to filtered water, was really strict but good because it brought me back to a baseline.
Water is often overlooked but could also be part of the root cause. Chlorine in tap water can disrupt the gut microbiome, especially if it’s already compromised.
Igor: Chlorine is terrible for the gut; the gut is an ecosystem, and we’ve really shrunk the biodiversity of bacteria. Once I was able to rebalance my gut, I then started looking at my sleep, sun exposure, and cortisol levels. That’s when my move to Cairns happened; it ticked all the boxes my functional medicine doctor was recommending – more time in nature, more grounding, and more vitamin D from the sun, so I followed my heart.
When did your interest in charcoal water filters begin?
Igor: My functional medicine practitioner recommended many lifestyle changes, including limiting my exposure to plastics due to the synthetic estrogens that leach into food and water. So I decided to cut plastics out of my life and replace everything with glass and stainless steel.
We really don’t give this enough attention; plastics are in everything, even the packaging for health products. It’s a bit counterproductive when you think about it.
Igor: Yes, plastic water bottles especially pose a significant health risk due to the leeching of microplastics, and harmful chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and even BPA substitutes are just as bad. There are 240,000 nanoplastics in a 600ml bottle of water that can end up in your body and that’s just from the first time you drink from it. If you reuse it, it is even more, and if you leave it out in the heat, it’s more again.
So grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge at the shops is a risk, as you don’t know how it was transported or where it has been stored, so those chemicals and plastics may have already leached into the water.
Igor: Yes, and those chemicals have been linked to various health issues, including hormonal imbalances, reproductive problems, cognitive function, and cancer.
Well, that’s a very good reason to go plastic free!
Igor: I scoured the internet looking everywhere for plastic free water filters and couldn’t find anything until I came across Japanese binchotan filter sticks.
I thought my stainless steel water filter was plastic-free until I remembered the plastic screws on the filters. Plastic is everywhere.
Igor: The Japanese binchotan filter sticks are totally plastic free; you just pop one into your water bottle or jug.
How do they work?
Igor: The charcoal draws in impurities just like a sponge. The porous structure of the stick contains millions of tiny holes, giving it the ability to absorb and trap toxins commonly found in tap water, such as chlorine, fluoride, and heavy metals, effectively removing them from the water. What I also love about the filter sticks is that at the end of their life span, you can crunch them up and put them in the garden, which is amazing for soil health.
And the life cycle continues… So any sign of your hair growing back?
Igor: Maybe I’ve had some spurts here and there. I’m not too fussed; I’ve learned to live with it. My wife is funny because when I do get a little bit of hair back, she shakes her head because she likes me bald!
Haha, well that’s good. Lastly, do you have any tips to share with our readers for cultivating an attitude of gratitude?
Igor: I firmly believe that gratitude is the muscle whose repeated flexing leads to happiness. This daily practice has led to my unshakeable optimism and positive energy, which translate to resilience during hard times. The habit of gratitude only takes a few minutes and can completed first thing in the morning or just before bed. Simply whip out your journal or phone and write down three things you are grateful for. They can be major or minor events, from the beautiful sunrise to as simple as not missing any fingers or toes—anything really.
