How YOU Can Optimize Your Health w/ Dr. Hilary Rutledge (Wilmington Functional Medicine)

This week we introduce Dr. Hilary Rutledge, owner of Wilmington Functional Medicine. In this episode we talk about the differences between Functional and Western Medicine, slowing down to help your health, and the importance of good sleep and a healthy diet.

How to find Dr. Hilary Rutledge 
IG: @wilmfxnmed
Office Number: 
(910) 444-9438

Transcript

Chris: 0:32

welcome back everybody. As per usual, you have the amazing team of whiskey and wisdom. It's your boy Chris, and the constant co-host. I'm Tyler y'all. This week we bring on someone who has way more education than both of us combined, And her name would be Dr. Hillary Rutledge. Who? I, I'm like, I like the doctor. Yeah. It's first doctor we brought on Yeah. First for everything fun. This week we are talking about health and being better in life. Wellness. Getting

Tyler: 1:02

better wellness. There you go. Yeah, all of it. We had Sarah Aldo with Upper Health, and we thought it would make more sense to bring a doctor who's been a little bit more holistic in nature and talk about that and what it means. And with that being said we are not drinking whiskey this morning cuz we're talking about wellness and I guess today we will be drinking Blue Cup coffee from the cargo district. Recording studios

Chris: 1:26

and water. Yes, I'm drinking water. We did the open for CrossFit yesterday. Mm-hmm. And I am just so sore. I'm like, let me just drink more

Tyler: 1:36

water. Yeah. I'm gonna have to flush out those toxins though,

Chris: 1:40

Gosh, it's so ridiculous.

Tyler: 1:41

And something else we gotta shed out too is you will notice that our social media has been upgraded by the time this goes out. And we have partnered with Sway Creations and they are now taking over part of our Instagram and some of the short form video that you're seeing. So I just wanna give them a shout out and thank them for all of the help that they're providing us,

Chris: 2:02

for sure.

Tyler: 2:04

But without further ado, Dr. Hillary Rutledge, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dr.: 2:10

Thanks you guys. Thanks for inviting me on. This is absolutely this really fun. It's really cool to talk about what I do and what I love. So I, I practice functional medicine. That was not my first career. This is my second career. Mm-hmm. My first career was as a chiropractor. Okay. My initial thought was not that I was even gonna be a chiropractor. I'm gonna take you back down that road a little bit. Yeah. I was actually, I'm from California. I was in nursing school. I was in nursing school. I already had a degree in public health. And I am the youngest of five kids and my middle sister, who is also a nurse who is my idol mm-hmm. was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Mm-hmm. and died. the year after I graduated with my public health degree. Oh my goodness. And so that completely changed the trajectory of my life. And I dropped outta nursing school because medicine had failed her. Mm-hmm. And it had failed me and it had failed my whole family. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, I just didn't know what I was gonna do at that point. I still had this wantingness to serve people. I still had this wantingness to like really be in medicine, but I was, you know, I was pretty injured by having my sister die at a fairly young age. I was 23 when she died. Oh. Oh, yeah. And it was pretty tough. And I, I had quit school and I had moved back home to help my parents you know, take care of her before she died. Mm-hmm. and I wandered around this world, totally lost for about three years. As luck would have it, I actually got in two car accidents within three weeks of each other. Oh my goodness. Which I say is lucky.

Chris: 3:56

were they your fault is the question neither. Oh, okay. So that is luck. It was leading you down the right

Dr.: 4:01

path. Right. Okay. Absolutely. I don't think there's any accidents. Not at this point in my life. Right. I don't know if I would've subscribed to that earlier in my life, but certainly now I don't think there's any accidents. Mm-hmm. So that landed me in a chiropractor's office first time ever. Mm-hmm. Well, I had already done all the science that I would need for chiropractic school cuz I was in nursing school. Yeah. Right. So, okay. All of those pre-reqs are pretty much the same. There's one class I think I had to take a physics class and that was it that I had to take. But my chiropractor that I started seeing ended up writing me a letter of recommendation and I started chiropractic school within a year of first becoming a chiropractic patient. Mm-hmm. So I did that. I graduated, I met my husband in chiropractic school. Oh, nice. It changed the trajectory of everything for me, of my whole life for sure. So, fast forward we graduate 2000, June of 2000. I have a really long chiropractic career. I really enjoy it. I love helping people. I love the holistic piece of it. Mm-hmm. I knew I would never go back to mainstream medicine, not because it's awful, but because it didn't work for me. Mm-hmm. and I just, I had too many bad feelings about it. So I moved forward and I was able to really pick up all of those things about my life and put them into chiropractic and into natural healing and into helping people in a way that worked really well for me. Mm-hmm. another piece of that is that I also realized as a young person, and maybe my dad realized this well before I did, is that I don't take orders. Well, We understand that even a little bit. And so, you know, there was a time where he had asked me several, my dad was very very present in my life growing up as far as like guiding me and telling me I can do and be and have all the things I want if I worked for it. Mm-hmm. We, being the youngest of five kids, there was never enough money. There was always love, there was always unconditional love, there was always acceptance, there was always support. I got all those things whenever I got the lion share of those things. Being the youngest too. Yeah, that's for sure. So, you know, as I was kind of fun figuring out like, what am I gonna be? How am I gonna work that out? Before I even started chiropractic school, I ended up thinking, well maybe I'll be an industrial hygienist. You know, I can do chemistry, I can do like this kind of thing. Yeah. And my dad in his wisdom said, you wanna work for Exxon or the government And I was like, well, neither. He said, then you better. Start 10 years ahead and figure out where you wanna be and let's work backwards. Mm-hmm. Okay. After start? Yeah. Yeah. After I had my mind about me again after I could start thinking about what I wanted to do. And then he said, why don't you just talk to Tom? Talk to him about being a chiropractor. You seem to like going there. Hmm. And that's kind of how that happened. So about 15 years into my chiropractic career, I kind of got itchy. Mm-hmm. like, I could do more, I could do more, I could be more, I could serve in a different way. Yeah. I always had an inkling, you know, for natural health. I still had that piece of me that was like, oh, I was gonna go to nursing school. I was gonna be a little bit more mainstream in that way. But right around that time, I guess that was 2015 I started to look into different fellowship programs or diplomat programs. What could I add onto my degree? What else could I do to. Take it to the next level to be more dynamic in my practice. And so that led me to a seminar, which at the time I didn't even realize was going to be part of a diplomat program, but it was. And I ended up earning a diplomat from the American Board of Chiropractic internists over two and a half years. Oh, wow. Took another national board. Woo. That's something you wanna do twice in your life. Oh yeah. I'll tell you And I was awarded that diplomat in 2018 and was practicing really chiropractic and functional medicine, both for a period of time. And that was really hard. Yeah. As my dad would say, he's from Texas. It's hard to ride two horses with one ass. Yeah. Yes, true. And so eventually I had to change and I had to pick, and I felt like I had given chiropractic a really good run. Right. And I had done very well, and I was successful and I felt like. Okay. I need a new challenge. And so I hopped into it with a little bit of blind faith and the support of my husband for sure. And my friends. And it was pretty scary. Yeah. But as soon as I dove in, the amount of people that showed up at my doorstep was shocking to me. Yeah. The amount, the amount was shocking. The people were amazing. The amount of people who need help, the amount of people who don't feel heard I didn't realize we had such a huge need for that. Just here in Wilmington. Mm-hmm. This is a small place, right. It really is. Right. I'm from California. This is a tiny place. Consider, doesn't consider

Tyler: 8:59

say, especially considering where you're from.

Dr.: 9:01

Yeah, absolutely. Right. I got my doctorate in the Bay Area, like that's, you know, right. This is a really small place considering that. So I had a lot of trepidation, but I just went for it. I just went for it and I couldn't be happier. I, I can't tell you the amount of satisfaction I get from treating patients. Right, and from seeing people get better. And it's a completely different environment than chiropractic in that way. Not better or worse, just different. And I was really ready for a change. Yeah,

Tyler: 9:30

that's perfect. Just to go back a little bit, so how did you end up in Wilmington from

Dr.: 9:34

California. Oh, okay. Well, so my husband is a chiropractor as well. Mm-hmm. And so California is incredibly expensive. Have you guys been there? Just once. Okay. For

9:46

like,

Chris: 9:46

all of two hours.

Dr.: 9:48

Okay. Well, it's my home still. Mm-hmm. I don't know if it'll ever not be my home. Right. I was born and raised there, but it is so expensive to work and to live and to own a business. So, I guess it would've been different. I would, we wouldn't necessarily have considered leaving if we weren't both self-employed. Right? Yeah. Right. Because when you're self-employed there, that's a self-employment issue. Right? Exactly. Yeah. No one is actually saving for you except for you. Mm-hmm. And we have two kids and we could have a standard of living and maintain that, or we could save for our kids and for ourselves, but it was really tough to do both when you're self-employed mm-hmm. and have employees. California is a tough place to be an employer. Right. As well as be self-employed and be responsible for all of your people and your things. And we just thought we could do it easier somewhere else. Yeah. And it turns out that it let us here. I never thought I would end up on the East Coast, let alone in the south. Right. very different. Right. Very different from everything I've ever known before I moved here. Yeah. And, and the other thing was I, we waited until after my dad died. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. I wasn't willing to leave. Right.

Chris: 11:00

Makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. Totally semi on the path. What's a diplomat?

Dr.: 11:05

So it's an advanced degree. So I'm, so my, my degree is a doctor of chiropractic. Okay. It's a DC and so whenever you get, you can have a fellowship, you can have a diplomat, you can have, it's just an advanced post-doctoral degree. So I already have a doctorate. Okay. So I don't know if, I don't know how they name these things. Tyler, do you know anything? I don't know anything about. I don't, I

Chris: 11:52

only, I've heard of fellowships cuz I, cuz I've seen things on TV and I've talked to people who are like, oh, hey, you know, I've finished this and now I'm doing a fellowship. So I've heard of fellowship before. I had never heard of diplomat, so. Mm-hmm.

Dr.: 12:05

So a fellowship I think is more almost like an internship fellowship. Mm-hmm. like that kind of thing. Okay. Only like at a postdoctoral level. Right. I think, I'm not an expert on that. A diplomat is actually just a whole nother level of degree. So sometimes you'll see people have one set of letters behind their name and then like two other sets of letters behind their name. Right. It's just an added Okay. Set of letters behind the name.

Tyler: 12:29

Well, since we were talking about the difference between West Coast and East coast, can you tell us the difference between more of a naturopathic medicine and western medicine?

Dr.: 12:38

So, naturopathic me, so I'm not a natural path, so, oh, okay. Right. I'm a chiropractor. That's my base license. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, it is. Right. So you can kind of go into functional medicine, whether you're a natural path or you're a chiropractor, see, or you're an md or you're, and you could be a pediatrician and go into functional medicine, or you could be an ob gyn and go into it, or you could. A nurse practitioner and go into it. You don't have to be any particular type of doctor to practice functional medicine. It all has to be within the guise of what your license allows in the state that you live or whatever states you are licensed in. Can we

Tyler: 13:16

start there first then because that, that'll help me a lot too. So what's the difference between functional medicine and naturopathic

Dr.: 13:22

medicine? Hmm. Well, I'm not a natural path again, right? So I can't totally say that. Right. So, and, and I think a lot of it has to do with laws in states. Okay. In some states, natural paths are allowed to order labs. In some states they aren't allowed to order labs, so that would really impede their ability to, to practice functional medicine on any level if you can't order labs. Right, right. So I'm not super sure about that. Natural paths, much like myself, I will say don't use medications, they don't use pharmaceuticals. Right, right. It is all nutraceutical based. And diet and lifestyle. Okay. So it is very similar. Naturopathic medicine is very similar to functional medicine in that way. Okay.

Chris: 14:06

Okay. Yeah. So the, so functional medicine is different than western medicine?

Dr.: 14:13

Yes. Okay. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about that. Yeah. Oh, please do. Let's go into that Okay. So functional medicine is looking for a root cause. It's looking for a root cause. Like, say for example, Chris, you come to me and you have high blood pressure and you have psoriasis mm-hmm. And so we could just give you a blood pressure pill and we could give you some cream for your psoriasis, or we could actually investigate and see why you might have those two things. So I like to investigate. I like the puzzle. It's really fun for me to figure those things out. Yeah. And so I look to see, I, I look up. and I say, Hey, why does Chris have high blood pressure? Mm-hmm. what's going on in his life that's causing that? Is it something he's eating? Is it something he is experiencing at work? Is it his car is too small for him? Is it that he has unresolved trauma? Is it that he has a really tough experience every single morning on the way to work, driving through a neighborhood that triggers him for something? I don't know. Right. Why? Why does he have high blood pressure? Is he, is he drinking electrolytes with too much salt in them? I don't know. Hmm. Right. Yeah. So we wanna look at all of those things. And then with the psoriasis, same thing. Well, skin reactions typically have to do with your gut. They don't really necessarily have to do with your skin. And so the skin is where it comes out. The skin is your largest organ. So if you have psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, which is also in the autoimmune family, then we're gonna look. all about autoimmunity, right? And we're gonna check and see what's really going on with your gut. But I really tend to treat those things in a more holistic way. And there's a systemic approach that I use. Mm-hmm. And I would say that it is developed in the way that it is in order for me to get long-lasting sustainable results with a patient instead of here, just take this pill and then we don't have to talk about it anymore. I'll see you next year, Right.

Chris: 16:13

It's very interesting cuz you're, you were talking about looking upstream, which reminds me of what you said your dad said. It's like, Hey, you know, if you want to do this in life, all right, think 10 years ahead and then work your way back. Which to me is like, that kind of ex is a really good explanation of how you help people. It's like, so this is what you're, what you've seen as like an external factor. How do we get and fix that? Mm-hmm. which is better than what I've heard explained by so many other people. Thanks. It's like, oh, hey, let's, here's a pill. And I know almost every pill has a side effect and you're like, well, this has another side effect, so you have to take more pills. Which is so annoying, which is also why I don't take medicine.

Dr.: 16:57

Right, right, right, right. And I'm not, and I will say, I'm not anti-medicine. I understand why we need it and when we need it. And you know, if you're gonna have a root canal that could be an infection and a tooth that's really close to your brain, yeah. You might need to take, you might need to take a, a four day, five day antibiotic for that. Mm-hmm. I understand that. But I think that it is widely overused in today's system and not to our advantage any longer. As I was just reading last night I don't know what website, no, I don't know, a news website about a new cha. Resistant bacteria. So CHA is a really infective gut agent. It's a really infective, and they've just found a brand new antibiotic resistant shakeela. Wow. That's not, you know what that means? That means that when MDs are checking for cha and they wanna give antibiotics for it, that's not gonna work. Mm-hmm. and it's gonna land more people at my door. Yeah. Cuz it won't work. Right. Right. So then we have to take a different approach. Hmm. Yeah. So regarding functional medicine you know, it's based on biochemistry. It's, it's actually based on biochemistry. And in my office I have charts all over the walls to show people that. And I feel like sometimes when they come in and they see that, they're like, oh, okay. She knows what she's talking about. Mm-hmm. this is cool. We all learn biochemistry in school. Yeah. Right. But I don't follow the same. Protocols, you know, that I would if I worked for a big conglomerate of, of medical doctors, right? Mm-hmm. So I can look at you, Chris, and say, oh, I think that you're gonna need this type of test. You know, maybe you need this one for your hormones. Maybe you need this one for your gut, and you need this one for mitochondrial function because you're looking to perform at a higher level at CrossFit. Yeah. Right? Maybe that's what you need. And so then we run those tests. I take all of that information, I then layer it one on top of the other, create the sequencing that makes the most sense for what your goals are. Yours. Not my goals. Your goals. Mm-hmm. which is what I focus on as a doctor. Not what I think should be correct, but what you would like, how do you wanna feel? Right? That's really important. It's important to not lose sight of that. And then we create a treatment plan that's gonna get you there. Huh?

Chris: 19:23

I'm like, I like. It seems a lot better and more functional, like you say, obviously I

Dr.: 19:30

know. No pun agenda. That's

Tyler: 19:32

gonna say like how it all comes together now,

Chris: 19:34

and because my brain is super crazy. You say you have a bunch of charts around your office, so your office doesn't look like a typical doctor's office. No. No, no, I love that. I mean, you were saying that and I looked up and I'm like, yeah, our, our studio kind of looks like a doctor's office, somewhat. Super on one side. Super white. Yeah. One side is like super, like plain white with a little bit of green. It's like Mm.

Tyler: 19:58

And the other side looks like a studio. Yes. Yeah. With all the liquor included. So my next question would be, what would the value be for someone that would come into your office that wouldn't necessarily have anything wrong with them now, but would want to I guess. optimize their life. What kind of yeah. Benefits or what would you say to that type of client that would walk in?

Dr.: 20:20

I would say, thank God you're here because you're gonna live for a really long time. Yeah. So that is interesting, and I'm gonna get to that question. But one of the things that I do tell patients really frequently is that we are starting to outlive our, our organs. Mm-hmm. right? Ugh. And so, and the easiest, I mean, the easiest example of that is menopause, right? Women are outliving their ovaries. Mm. By 30 years. Yeah. At this point, 30, 35 years. And so that didn't used to happen. And so, you know, 250, 300 years ago, by the time you're 55 mm-hmm. I mean, people are dying of infection. People are dying if they had a root canal. People are dying in childbirth, people are dying early on. Right? Okay. It's not happening. And it's not because they're, people are killing them. They're just dying. Right. The life expectancy wasn't what it is today. There was too much. Infection, disease, et cetera. Right. So if you are, if you start going through menopause and your estrogen falls and you experience all these changes in life in your ability to sleep, in your ability to be happy and have stable moods mm-hmm. and not look like an old hag sitting on the front porch. Right. Right. Because when your estrogen leaves, then collagen changes in your skin and all these other things happen as well. Well, people really care about that now. Mm-hmm. people never used to care about that because you're basically just sitting around waiting to die. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. And so that's no longer the case. And our technology has brought us to a point where we are living well past what biologically our bi, our, our biology will never catch up at this point. I can't imagine it will. Not during my lifetime. Right. Not very likely. During your lifetimes. Yeah. Where our biology will actually evolve to a place where it's going to catch up with technologically how long we're living. Oh, wow. Right. That's interesting. So back to the biohacking. Yeah. Right. So your question was if, I don't really necessarily think I have anything wrong with me, but I'd like to optimize myself. How do, how does my office serve you well? Mm-hmm. Well, what we do is we actually would look at several different panels. We would do a complete blood panel to actually make sure, and when I see a complete blood panel, I don't mean the kind that you would get run at your yearly physical, because that is not complete in my mind. Mm-hmm. that is a snapshot. Yeah. Okay. That is, that is a snapshot that is not even close to what I look at for what I call a super panel. Right. I just supersize it. That's how I got that. I supersize it. That's great. I like it. So we would definitely run that because we're checking for a lot of biomarkers that you have no idea how that might be affecting you or not affecting you, because people never look at them. You would never, and I hear it all day, every day. I've never had that check before. I've never had that check before. I've never had that check before. Why did you check that? Mm-hmm. Right. I would also look then at your adrenal glands, your cortisol output, and see about your ability to handle stress. Okay. A person's ability to handle stress is their number one biomarker for how well they're going to age and how well they're gonna handle aging. Oh, wow. How do you handle stress? How do you recover from stress? Are you in a constant state of cortisol heightened in your body? That's gonna be tough. Mm-hmm. that's gonna lead to weight gain, that's gonna lead to brain fog, that's gonna lead to being diagnosed with things like fibromyalgia. Mm-hmm. and that type of stuff. Right. So if you can't handle your stress Right, we start there. Okay. Then we go to the gut and we see if you have any infections. Even if your gut doesn't feel bad, some people don't have any gut symptoms at all, but have panic attacks. Mm-hmm. Well, that's probably starting in your gut. Yeah. Wow. So then we go to the gut. That's, that's the second place that we stop on our tour and we handle that. If you have infections, we fix the infections. If you don't, then we just optimize your gut. Yeah, yeah. Everything, everyone should have a certain amount of good bacteria. You need a certain amount of different enzymes and tcrt and different things to be coming out in a stool sample that would say that you're really, really doing well. That you're digesting, absorbing and assimilating your food in the best manner possible. The liver's doing the job, the small intestine, the large intestine, you have a lot of pieces in here Yeah. That nobody ever thinks about that are constantly working on your behalf. Right. Yeah. And then we go to organic acids, which is the most exciting part because that's where we get to look at the cells and how they're actually operating, how they're talking to each other, and if your mitochondria are working properly. Oh, wow. Yeah. And when you're talking about longevity, you're talking about mitochondria. Mm-hmm. That's it. Mitochondria has to do with almost every disease process, just like inflammation does, because inflammation's going to happen when mitochondria shut down. Okay.

Chris: 25:12

Learn something new. Yeah.

Dr.: 25:14

That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Not to get too sciency on you guys, but I thought that was pretty good. Yeah, that was great. That

Tyler: 25:19

was just enough. That

Dr.: 25:21

good? I don't wanna go any further. It's

Chris: 25:23

too much. I'm weird. I liked science in school, like I loved biology. My teacher hated me because I never did homework, but I'm like, I just absorbed all of it. I'm like, this is super cool. And then I got to college and I'm like, yeah, this is too much. But that's a whole nother story. Second question, or I guess first question, what is cortisol? Because I, I've been seeing this lately and this could just, like you say, there aren't any accidents but it just started popping up and people are like, oh, you've had high cortisol levels or this, and I'm like, I've heard the word before, have zero idea what it is. or what it affects, I guess.

Dr.: 25:59

Okay, so cortisol is a hormone. Okay. And we have a lot of hormones. Yes. Cortisol is the stress hormone. Cortisol lives and is excreted from your adrenal glands. Your adrenal glands sit on top of your kidneys, and cortisol naturally raises when you wake up in the morning, it's called a cortisol awakening response. You wake up and your body goes, okay, time to get up, and then it comes back down again, and then it goes throughout the day and it kind of, you know, ebbs and flows depending on what happens in your day. You're gonna have a cortisol spike. If you are driving to work and you see a car accident in front of you, your cortisol's gonna spike and you're, and you're gonna feel like the adrenaline and you're gonna, maybe you start sweating or maybe you're like, mm-hmm like something like that. You'll feel the cortisol spike that's completely normal, but it has to come back down again. So a lot of people can't make it come back down again. A lot of people have lost their ability to self-regulate their cortisol. So that's really damaging because then you get stuck in fight or flight. Mm-hmm. And so here's something that people will say to me. A lot of patients will say to me as they are looking at their cortisol test and it's off the track, it's, it's literally off the scale. And they say, but I don't feel stressed. That's because they've been this stressed for so long that they don't know what normal feels like anymore. Wow. And let me give you an example of that. So we live in a pretty fast paced culture. Mm-hmm. in society especially, and I have a lot of women patients who fit this particular description that I'm gonna say. And so you are working as a teenager to get to where you wanna be. Right. Took it to where you wanna be. So you start grinding pretty hard somewhere in high school. Mm-hmm. whether you're doing sports or grades, or a combination of both curricula or extracurricular activities, start grinding pretty hard. All of a sudden you're not getting the sleep you need. You're an adolescent. You're brain, nor your body, nor your hormones are fully formed at that time, but you're grinding already. Mm-hmm. But that's, and this is where we live. This is no one, I'm not blaming anyone. Right. I'm saying this is what happens. Yeah. So then you get to college and you're like, well, hard work is what got me here. And so I just have to keep grinding. I know how to do this. I'm a grinder. Right. You'll hear people say it. Yeah. I'm a grinder. That's how I get it done. I'm a grinder. I don't really prepare. I wait till the very end. I'm a procrastinator, and then I boom. I just do it. That's a huge cortisol spike right there. Mm-hmm. Well then they just train their bodies to function that way. They train their bodies to not work in any other way. And so, especially I find for women in our culture right around age, 38 to 45, they crash. Hmm. They crash. And here's kind of the pattern that happens as they started grinding early, many have eating disorders of some sort, or disordered eating doesn't have to be an eating disorder. Okay. But Cosmo says we're supposed to look a certain way. And as an adolescent female in our culture, I don't know anyone who hasn't ever felt something from that. So that comes into play. Were they starving themselves during high school? Were they taking diet pills during college? Were they doing speed all night? Mm-hmm. I, I don't know. Maybe, maybe all of those things. Right? Yeah. Right. And then you're working forward, your body's resilient. Right. But it, it all takes a toll. Most of them are also on birth control at some point. Mm-hmm. which is a whole nother plethora of weeds to get into. Right. And so, and so they get to this point where they. are so exhausted and they're so burned out and they don't understand why other people can function and they can't do it. They can't even make it through the day without feeling complete fatigue. And they start going to the doctor and asking for help. What's wrong? I, they've run all the tests. That's what I hear all the time. they've already run all the tests. They don't know what's wrong. No one knows what's wrong. They've run everything okay. Right. They've never run a cortisol test. Salivary cortisol is the best way to run your cortisol because it actually gets what's really happening as opposed to blood cortisol. It's a little bit of a different, you can get cortisol and urine, blood or saliva. Saliva is the best way to get it. And so these women are exhausted, they're fatigued, and now they're full of self-loathing because they don't understand why this is happening to them. No one told them this was gonna happen. They just said, keep working, keep grinding. You get married. Then you have kids. Don't have one kid, have two kids have two, or. I guess we're gonna have three. Okay, well, here we go. Mm-hmm. right? Mm-hmm. and you worked really hard for a career, and then you put that career on hold and no one ever asks you how you feel about that because now you have kids, which is supposed to trump everything else. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. That's literally a patient who walks into my office five days a week. Wow.

Chris: 30:47

I'm not even surprised.

Dr.: 30:49

Yeah. Just think about our culture and how it works. Yeah. Mm-hmm. and then layer the hormone part on that. They're just exhausted from the cortisol piece of it, right? Yeah. It's the up and down and up and down. You have to grind pretty hard to be successful at 29 in Washington, DC or Atlanta. Oh yeah. Or New York City or San Francisco. Right. To be able to live independently, pay your own bills, all of those things you, you've been grinding for a while if you're at that level. and then you're like, oh my gosh, now I've got these kids and I'm chasing them around and I can run board meetings, but I cannot handle this, right? Mm-hmm. because you didn't train yourself for that. You trained yourself for the other, and then you just assumed that parenthood would be easy because people say that that's what you should do. That's a good point, right? Yeah. I don't know if it's easy. I, I don't know if being a parent was easy. It's the best job. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's the easiest. Very true. Right? So they come in and their cortisol is whacked, and you know what they say? I don't feel stressed. And that's the person that I've just described to you is who says, I don't feel stressed.

Chris: 31:52

Hmm. You've been doing this the whole time. Their baseline

Tyler: 31:55

is so much higher.

Dr.: 31:56

Right? They've been doing it since they're 15, so they have no idea what that feels like. They don't know what it feels like to not be stressed. And this is a person, here's, here's another thing that I wanna add into that piece of cortisol. the person I described comes from a very solid foundation like myself. My parents were married until they died. Mm-hmm. my, I never had a broken home. I never wondered if I was gonna have food on the table the next day. I never wondered if my dad was coming home at night. I, that never happened to me. Right. I can think of 10 people that I know that that did happen to mm-hmm. who are my age and the younger generation has a whole lot more than that, right. Than I do. Right. When you don't have safety and security in your childhood, your cortisol is flipping out by the time you're seven. Oh wow. You hear keys jingle, you hear a door, cortisol spike. Is he home? Is he alone? What does that mean? Right. To a kid. And so you can start with this type of dysfunction really early on, and that is something that a lot of people don't realize. and they don't know why they're like that. Mm-hmm. and, and I'm not a mental health practitioner. I'm talking about biochemistry. Most of these people also need help through therapy of some sort. Sure. Whether it's talk therapy or EMDR or group or I, you know, there's so many great options out there right now with mental health. Yeah. And I recommend any and all of them because this life is not easy and we make it harder. In our particular culture, we don't ever give time. Mm-hmm. no, we don't give time. And let me just go back to that scenario. After my sister died, I took time. I took three years. It was three years before I started chiropractic school, after my sister died, I was broken. Yeah. I was broken. And I was wandering around this world working. I mean, I was living, I was Of course, yeah. I had friends. I was going bowling, I was going snowboarding, I was doing things mm-hmm. but I didn't have any purpose. Right. But I took time. Mm-hmm. I was also. as my dad would tell me later, young enough to make some mistakes after that happened. Mm-hmm. he said it hit us all really hard. But you were young enough that you weren't already on your path and you could you you could change it. Yeah. Right. You had the opportunity to change it. Not everyone does. Yeah, that's true. Right. If you were afforded more time to grieve for your husband who was killed in Iraq, for example. Mm-hmm. maybe you wouldn't have to have such high cortisol. Yeah. Right. If you were given a better opportunity to like, there's just so many opportunities that there are for healing that would help physiologically long-term, our entire population that are not talked about. Meditation, daily exercise. How about getting enough sleep? Yeah. How about getting enough sleep? I'm like a princess when it comes to my sleep. my whole family is doing something and I'm like my. My phone goes black and white 15 minutes before my bedtime and I'm like, oh, I'm out. Yeah, that's it. I just close my door. I'll put in earplugs if I have to. It's over. Yeah, that's

Tyler: 35:07

cool. Okay. That was one of the things that I started focusing on a couple years ago too, was the, the sleep aspect of it. And I wake up early too, but I also go to sleep early as well to, to get it angst. I just know there's a huge difference. Especially when I started working out and doing m m a and stuff too. I knew when I got at least that like six and a half, seven hours of sleep that I was able to push more weight. I was able to just get through life a little bit easier that way. I

Dr.: 35:32

mean, there is a Tyler, six and a half hours of sleep is not enough. It's not enough. It felt like enough it felt like enough maybe cuz it was more Yes.

Tyler: 35:42

Right. Yeah. It was more I mean, but there's what is the perfect amount of sleep then?

Dr.: 35:46

Good. Okay. So sleep cycles actually run in 90 minute cycles. Okay. So you're gonna want to get. in order to not interrupt a sleep cycle in the middle. Cuz that's kinda when you wake up and feel really groggy. Mm-hmm. Right? Even if you're like, God, I got, I got, maybe I got too much sleep. Do you hear people say that? Right. So you would go for six, you would go for seven and a half, or you would go for nine. Ah, gotcha. Okay. My minimum is seven and a half.

Chris: 36:12

Good to know. I was gonna point out, there's a difference between sleep and rest because I will fall asleep sitting on the couch with my wife and she'll be like, ah, how did you fall asleep? I'm like, I just do. Then I'll get up and I'll, I can do the dishes, go lay down and pass out before her. But then showing up today, I still have bags under my eyes and I look and I am so tired. And I still got six hours of sleep. Like I always get minimum of six.

Dr.: 36:43

Six, six hours. That's not enough sleep. You said,

Chris: 36:46

you said hour and a half increments. So six, seven and a half,

Dr.: 36:51

but six is really not enough. Do you get six on a regular basis? Yeah. I'm gonna suggest seven and a half

Tyler: 36:59

See, there's your challenge now because always likes to dish out challenges. So he,

Dr.: 37:03

he's a new challenge now. Oh, fun. Let's talk about nutrition. Mm.

Chris: 37:07

We have gotten a lot better. Okay. So, so everyone I, I definitely suggest doing research, finding a doctor or someone who can help you learn more about yourself because not everybody, I consider myself a pretty intelligent person and can read my body for the not as well as a doctor can. But I know I was being stupid for years and I was like, Hmm, pizza, lasagna. Like I knew I was eating stuff that was horrible for my body and my body was reacting. And just being intelligent enough, I was like, mm, we should probably, my wife wanted to be better and eat healthier. So we changed her diet. So initially it was for us to lose weight and in that process we were like, let's find foods that react better for us. And so we changed a lot of the, like we cut out cheese almost completely, and my body was like, oh, you feel so much better. And I know that cheese is not good for you. It tastes so good. So does ranch like I love some ranch but I understand I cannot eat that. So every meal, so

Tyler: 38:17

to play off that little bit too. So full disclosure, you know my mom pretty well. I do I do. And one of the things my mom has always said is, your gut is your second brain. Yeah. Can you go into that a little bit more too, and why it makes such a big difference of what you're eating and how it plays into basically being your second brain. Sure,

Dr.: 38:37

sure. So just starting with basic nutrition. Yes. Right. The standard American diet is atrocious. Mm-hmm. and pitiful. Oh man. you know, there's nothing good for us in Cheetos or Doritos. If it has a o's on the end, just don't eat it. Really. It does spaghetti os anything with an O'S

Chris: 38:56

at the end of Doritos? Well, os

Tyler: 38:58

o's, o's was trying, he was trying to find a loophole. I know.

Dr.: 39:03

No loopholes here. So it does really start with nutrition. And there's a great book called The Blue Zones. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you guys have heard about that book, but these are areas of the world where people on a regular basis live to be over a hundred. And it looks not only at their daily activities and stress level going back to your cortisol mm-hmm. but to your point, Tyler, what are they eating? Yeah, they're eating food that they grow in almost every single case. Grow or catch. One of them was Okinawa. Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh. And then there, there was one, I believe it was Insan in Sicily. Anyway, so the gut, boy, that's, it's a big, it's a big thing. So if you're eating good food, say you're eating grass fed organic vegetables, very little processed carbs, anything that's processed right, doesn't grow that way. So that means basically everything that comes in a box or a wrapper mm-hmm. like that, right? Mm-hmm. So if you're eating very little of that, like maybe 10% of your diet is only that, and the rest of it you're eating really regeneratively grown animals and fruit and vegetables, you're probably gonna have a pretty good microbiome. Hmm. Okay. Microbiome meaning the, Mu mucosa in your large intestine, that mucosa is responsible for a lot of things. It's responsible for your immune system. Mm-hmm. it's responsible for it's ins, it's responsible for how you feel. It's responsible for your neurotransmitters. Making it to your brain in time to determine how you wanna respond to a situation, or are you gonna react to the situation? Can you take the time to do it the right way, the way that you wanna show up? Or does something else show up instead? Right. All of that happens inside of the gut. So if you don't have all of the right precursors in the gut, all of the right nutrients, and so that comes from like fiber breakdown. Mm-hmm. for example. Mm-hmm. you have to have enough fiber in your diet. Well, fiber is one of the things that a lot of Americans don't have much of in their diet. You know, for whatever reason they think fiber's bad or they read something about it, or they, or there's a different diet that they're doing this week or this month or something that has to do with that. Exactly. And there's so much opportunity for that because I think that space is so full, right? The space is so full of different information of hacking this or a quick fix for that or something like that. Mm-hmm. or something like that. Mm-hmm. there's just no quick fix. Your microbiome started when you were little. It starts with nursing. If you weren't nursed as a baby, then you didn't get exactly what you needed from the get-go. It actually starts with birth. If you were c-section versus born vaginally, you didn't get exactly what you needed from the microbiome of your mother through the vagina when you were being born, which is in, which is actually inoculating you with the correct. Starting for your microbiome. Oh, wow. Right. So a lot of people aren't born that way. No. Mm-hmm. A lot of people aren't nursed. right? A lot of people are given formula, right? So they're starting behind the eight ball. And then if you think about the amount of antibiotics that kids have, that just destroys your microbiome and it, and sometimes they're necessary, and maybe not all the time, maybe they're given too often, but sometimes they're really necessary. I had pneumonia as a four year old. I needed some antibiotics, right? I don't think I had them again till I was like 12. Mm-hmm. but, but when I was four and had pneumonia, I needed those antibiotics, right? Sure. Well, that wrecks your gut as a four-year old. So you have all of these things that are happening, and then you have like pudding at school. You wanna talk about school lunches at all? We shouldn't. Oh yeah. It's not good. No. Well, it's industrialized food. I don't know how much different it is than what they get served in prison. Yeah, right. I mean, we could, you could maybe do a show about that, I'm not sure. But yeah, that

Tyler: 42:59

Aramark truck shows up at the school and the prison, so

Dr.: 43:02

Right. I'm not kidding. I mean, it's really bad what they're served at school and I don't know the, the, anyway, it's not helping any behavioral issues at school. It's not helping anyone pay attention. Certainly. And how much of it is actually nutritious food? Right. Right. So when you go back to what you should be eating versus what we're being fed as children, that's where it starts. Right. And then kids have stomach aches. Kids have some sort of problem, you know, doing, going to the bathroom, say something like that. they're just told to eat dates. Yeah. Oh gosh. Just eat dates or prunes. Mm-hmm. right? Something like that. Mm-hmm. Well, chances are that they have some real other things happening already. And I've got, I've got a lot of kids and I've got a lot of patients actually who started their digestive problems as kids. Wow. I will say a southernism for me, when I moved to the south, I had never met so many people who did not poop on a regular basis. Really? So, oh, this just a southern thing. Interesting. Well, I did not have that. On the west coast, we tend to eat a little bit, you know, we eat a lot of greens. We eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. Okay. In California in particular, I can't speak for the whole West coast, but the diet tends to be a, a little bit cleaner in that way. Right. We don't have like for example, not being southern, I don't eat fried chicken. I don't eat biscuits. I don't eat, I don't eat that stuff. I don't even crave it. Have you had it

Chris: 44:33

before though? Oh,

Dr.: 44:33

I have had a biscuit. Oh, okay, okay. Okay. I don't know if I've had fried chicken, like an actual, like something that someone would be proud to say, I've made this fried chicken. But I don't ever crave that. So the diet does have something to do with it. Biscuits and fried chicken are gonna make you constipated. Mm-hmm. Right. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It, it's not good for you in any way. It's a lot of oil and it's a lot of dough. Mm-hmm. well that, that's just gonna, that's gonna block up your sink, let alone your colon Right. That's a very good point. Right. So, what you eat really matters in that way, and then you take into it the antibiotic effect that almost everyone, probably the three of us in this room have had at some point in our lives. If you're not re inoculating your gut after you have antibiotics, then it doesn't just necessarily regrow them all on its own when it is not given the proper building blocks in the food. So if you are eating that grass fed, regeneratively raised and grown animals and plants, your body can actually recover pretty well. Yeah. Right? That's not what we Americans eat. Not in our culture of fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. You gotta get there, you gotta make it, you gotta get to the next level. You gotta get the raids, you gotta get the promotion. When are you gonna have the baby? Mm-hmm. Then you're so stressed out, you can't have a baby. Yeah. Hmm. But no one feels stressed, Right? Right. So with the gut, when you have long-term dysfunction in your gut, you are going to have issues with brain fog, you're gonna have issues with cramping, you're gonna have issues with elimination, you're gonna have toxicity buildup inside of your body that causes systemic inflammation. Inflammation is the root of all disease, right? So if you can't eliminate properly, and you can't get the things going on in your gut. Like there's a whole living microbiome in there and they're communicating and they're talking and they're pulling the strings on your puppet show Right? So think about it like that. And if you've got four days worth of excrement built up on your puppet show, how do you think you're gonna feel? How do you think you're gonna show up that day? Yeah. Nothing's gonna go well. And by the time I see patients, maybe they've been constipated for 10 years. Geez. They have constant headaches, they have allergies to everything. Mm-hmm. they can't open the windows in their house. The pollen kills them. Wow. I can stand in the middle of the pollen cloud. I'm good.

Tyler: 46:56

That's crazy. I didn't realize there was so much that was connected through that.

Dr.: 47:00

Oh yeah. And this is just a smattering, right? Right. Mm-hmm.

Tyler: 47:04

So I guess my next question for you, with that being said then is for Chris and I just not knowing what we don't know, so we can't ask the right question. What's something else that Because I know you came very prepared too. So what's one of those things that you have there that you would want the majority of our listeners to know? So most of our listeners too are gonna be a younger professional that is doing exactly what you said, right? That's grinding, grinding, grinding. Yeah. So what's the one thing that you would tell them that they could do other than showing up on your doorstep? Right. Because I'm sure that would help a lot. What's something they could do

Dr.: 47:34

now? Sure. And I think, and I just wanna go back to the grinding. I resemble that remark. I didn't get to where I am with all the degrees on my wall and all the years of school without grinding. Absolutely. I get it. Yeah, I get it. Which is why I see it now and I'm like, okay, you're gonna have to, it's okay if it takes another two years. Mm-hmm. you, you can still get there. You don't have to do it by June, I promise. Right. The goal will still be there. I think that that is one thing that is lost a little bit on the younger generation in that way. Yeah. Is that you can do it. It was certainly lost on my generation. No one ever told me. maybe you should slow down, right? Oh, no. Once I actually got moving, once I actually got the fire under me mm-hmm. I wasn't slowing down, I don't think I would've listened anyway. Right. I'm not always open to suggestions. Right. So I would say there's a couple things. One, you know, functional medicine is very low risk. Interventions around food and lifestyle, cellular repair. You're not gonna hurt anybody doing that. Right, right. Nutrition, there's two things that I wanna say about that. One, most of our food is contaminated and don't practice nutrition by comparison. I call that death by comparison. Yeah. I eat better than Chris. I'm, I'm fine Yeah. Right. That's what I hear. I eat better than most of my friends. I eat better than everyone I know. It doesn't mean you eat the way that you need to eat. Exactly. It doesn't mean you eat the way that your biochemistry needs. It doesn't mean that, that you're doing what you need just because it's better than what other people, just because he's eating it. Doritos and Bojangles and. I don't know. What's the other chick-fil-A? Chick-fil-A? Yeah. Chick-fil-A. I can't eat Chick-fil-A. I've never been to Chick-fil-A.

Chris: 49:11

I mean, it's okay. Like every once in a while, but like I've, I've had it and my body was like, eh, not the best And I, I understand. I'm like, no, don't eat that anymore.

Dr.: 49:22

I'm so glad you're listening. Yeah. So many people don't listen. Oh,

Chris: 49:26

it only took me 33 years,

Dr.: 49:29

32 years. You know what, some people don't listen. Yeah. Doesn't matter how old they are. They never hear it. They're never gonna hear it. So nutrition, death by comparison is the worst thing you can do. If you know you shouldn't eat something. Just actually don't eat it. Don't say, well, I deserve it. I work so hard. It's a special occasion. I'll poison myself. Mm-hmm. that's what you're doing when you're eating that cake, or the cookie or the whatever it happens to be. Right? Right. Yeah. I think the next thing is that, so question.

Chris: 49:59

Yeah. On that. because you were talking about nutrition and treating yourself, cuz everyone wants to do that. Oh, to treat yourself. Yes. Yeah. Treat yourself. Oh, Nutritional wise, what would you suggest as like a treat? Especially if someone's like, mine has already been, we will say, conditioned to be like, oh, hey, you should get a dessert of a cookie or a brownie or ice cream. What's a good, what do you suggest would be like a better alternative?

Dr.: 50:26

Hmm. Well it always depends on the individual. Okay. Because some people can have dairy, not that many. But some people can have dairy and be fine. So in, I can tell you what we have in my house. Yes. In my house we have dark chocolate covered almonds. Mm-hmm. we have dark chocolate, chocolate bars and if we have ice cream, it's made of cashew milk. Okay. Hmm. That's what works for us.

Chris: 50:51

Yeah. That's good. I mean, it's better than me just going out and buying like Ben and Jerry's and like

Dr.: 50:56

Ben Jerry. Oh, right. Cuz they have the cat. Yeah. I mean, in my former life, I love Mason, Ben and Jerry's

Chris: 51:01

Yeah. I love that. Sorry, I was just distracted. I was like, you know, how would you treat yourself? Yeah. Because I hit that point. I was like, Ooh, you know, I lost like eight pounds. Let me treat, they're like,

Dr.: 51:12

Hmm, hmm. I'm undoing my work. Yeah, right. also, smoothies are a great way to do it. Okay. Because you can get so much great stuff. So I always put really fat stuff in a smoothie. I put coconut milk and smoothies. I put almond milk and smoothies. I put cacao chips, blueberries, bananas. But when you're putting coconut milk in there, and I put in some collagen and I put in some protein powder. Mm-hmm. But it is so delicious. And you can make like a peanut butter cacao, like cocoa powder smoothie. Mm-hmm. And it's like, I mean, it does sound good. It's like a Reese's. Yeah. So there are smarter ways to do it. Yeah. Right. And you can make like really delicious, creamy, like with coconut milk, yogurt, I make that. I don't, I don't have dairy. So when I'm saying coconut, I, I don't drink any replacement. Yeah. I don't drink any dairy. Or you know what happens to me, Chris? I get eczema all over my legs. Huh? Because my microbiome says what? No, thank you. Yeah. Not interested. Yeah. No, thank

Chris: 52:12

you. Sorry. That was just like, if I didn't ask that, my brain would've forgot all about

Dr.: 52:17

it. No, it's good. It's good. And if you're not a chocolate person, then I suggest baked food. Like I love to make, I make like a apple crisp. Mm-hmm. or a blueberry crisp, something like that with like a gluten-free topping. Mm-hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Good baked fruit is a really great way to get like a sugary type of sensation. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yum. Mm-hmm. Yu. Back to the question. Yeah. I think that, back to Tyler's question, I think what can people do? So I think that there's a couple different things. Educating yourself is really good. It, it can get a little bit sketchy because what I have, what I experienced is people who have researched and researched and researched and researched, and then they've tried all of these things and then nothing's worked. So now they believe that they're not gonna work at all. But ultimately, oftentimes people do them in the wrong order. And so that can be really frustrating. And there's kind of a top 10 things that people will do in functional medicine that they'll try for themselves. They're gonna take more vitamin D, they're gonna take a probiotic, they're gonna stop eating gluten and or dairy, depending, right. One or the other. Or one then the other. Mm-hmm. or they'll quit one and then start the other one, or however they wanna do. They'll get more sleep, they will exercise and they'll try to cut out sugar. But then they don't know that carbohydrates count as sugar. Yeah. So, or they cut out all carbs and then they are not having enough fiber in their diet because they're also not eating vegetables or fruits. Right. So then you end up in a real sticky wicket because people will research themselves into a hole. Yeah. And so there's no balance in that. And that becomes dangerous. You know, you, that becomes like eating a really, really limited diet for a longer period of time than is therapeutic, which is typically no more than three months is considered disordered eating. Oh, okay. And so you have to be careful about that. Yeah. Because your body needs what it needs, regardless of whether your mind tells it that, right? Mm-hmm. or what the research says. And people who are just researching on their own don't know what their body needs because they haven't run any tests. And everything should be based on individual biomarkers. Right. Individual biomarkers. So, so someone said to me when I was. kind of thinking about this, I think it was my sister. She said, well what are you gonna talk about? You don't even have a, you don't have a way that you treat all the people Like you don't have a way that everyone gets treated. I said, that's the whole point. Exactly. Yeah. that's actually my whole point, right? Is that everything's based on individual biomarkers. A lot of the testing is the same. Mm-hmm. pretty much everyone I see is gonna have a cortisol test. Cuz if you can't handle your stress right, your physiology can't function properly. Right? Yeah. But there's different reasons for that. So we have to walk down that path. So I think that educating yourself, but not over educating and not going too far off the deep end. Mm-hmm. is kind of a cautionary tale in this because there's a lot of information out there in that sphere right now as far as health self-help, how to hack your health. Mm-hmm. how to make it better, how to perform better, how to think better, how to sleep better, how to do all of those things. And some of them might work for an individual without getting any information. Some might not. Yeah. I'm not sure. there's a difference between optimal and normal. Yeah. And I just think that that's a really important thing to consider. What's normal, what's common versus normal. Mm-hmm. what's accepted versus normal. Versus common. Mm-hmm. and optimal sits at the top. Yeah. So then you have to kind of figure out where you wanna be in that,

Tyler: 55:49

that, that reminds me of something else my mom was always mentioned too, is the blood work that's typically done at a normal doctor's office is very limited. And what you all look at is beyond the scope of what they consider normal. Which the normal range is based off of a bunch of sick people. Right. Yeah. So I guess, can you describe that a little bit better than what I did

Dr.: 56:14

Yeah. So when we, so when we order labs, when we order blood labs, we get the results back and we do a much larger panel. Mm-hmm. like we talked about a little earlier. And then the other thing is our ranges in functional medicine are optimal. They're not standard. So, for example, an insulin range, so like MDs in most cases, primary cares don't run insulin. They will run glucose, they'll run hemoglobin a1c, but they don't run fasting insulin. I always run fasting insulin because I wanna see what your insulin is doing. Are you recovering after you eat? Yes or no? That's a, that's really important, right? Right. Or do you have insulin swimming around in your veins causing insulin resistance? Mm. Causing fatty liver, causing metabolic syndrome. All those things that are gonna walk down to chronic disease processes. So insulin for the standard range is from. Two to 19. That's a big range. Eye range is two to five. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's two to five. That makes more sense. Yeah. And so if you have insulin of 12 and a half, well one, one thing is if an MD ran that right, if an allopathic doctor ran that right and saw it was 12 and a half, they might say, oh, okay, well you need to cut down on your sugars, et cetera, et cetera, whatever that is. Whatever their advice is. Yeah. And it's probably very accurate, but not necessarily is there ever any follow through done. Sure. Right. Because you don't see them again for a year. Mm-hmm. Right. Or maybe six months if this is a diabetic patient. And they just let them go. But at 12 and a half I'm gonna be like, hold on, stop everything. We can't do anything till your insulin's under control. Right. This is code red. We've got blinking lights going on right here. Mm-hmm. So again, that comes kind of into the order of operations, which is why the blood labs. Along with the other functional tests, I kind of look at all the things and determine what's the most important, because there are certain things that are like gatekeepers in your body, and if you have one of those gatekeepers is closed, you're not gonna make any progress. And I think that you, I don't know if you guys have heard this, I hear it all the time. Based on what I do, I'm doing the same thing I've always done, and I keep gaining weight. Mm-hmm.

Chris: 58:31

Mm-hmm. I mean, that makes sense because if you're doing the same thing and the gate's closed, right, then you're like, well it's, it's not right. You haven't opened up a path to actually get to that. Right.

Dr.: 58:41

Or I've never had a problem with this before, or everything changed after my second kid or after thing changed. After my third kid, I had that third kid and everything fell apart. Well, it's almost like there's a circuit breaker in your body and it's like, man, it just got flicked and we have to figure out how to actually turn it back on again. And there's no telling what gate that is. So you have hormonal gates, you have metabolic gates, you have gastrointestinal gates. Right. You have all of them in that way. And there's no way to tell exactly which one it is without the correct data.

Chris: 59:15

Yeah. And you and your blood work ask the right questions. Cuz like Tyler said, we don't know, like a normal person doesn't know the right questions to ask. Or I would assume like most allopathic doctors are gonna be like, okay, you know, well we're only asking these questions, but you open it up and you go optimal and you ask more questions, defined the answers that can get you to the next

Dr.: 59:37

step. Yeah. I'd just like to look at the whole picture. Mm-hmm. more so, and that's just not the way that the allopathic system is set up. It's just not set up that way. It's set up to be very cookie cutter. Mm-hmm. you know, and very mechanistic so that they are doing really. like cursory information at a general practitioner. And if there's anything outside of that, you go to a specialist, right? Mm-hmm. and then you go somewhere else, or you go somewhere else, or you go somewhere else. Or even, I've had several patients recently who feel like they need to see rheumatology, but because their rheumatology numbers are negative, rheumatologists won't see. Oh, wow. Right. And so this is a system. Yeah. It's not based on what people need or what people want or what people are asking for. It's a system that's set up for management of a population. It's population management. Mm-hmm. Right. It's not really helping people be well. Mm-hmm. and medication one after the other. After the other, after the other. Built one on top of the other. On top of the other, on top of the other by a different doctor every single time in that Venn diagram, right. Is making people sicker because then you end up just being like a Petri dish with all these things thrown in. Mm-hmm. and they're like, okay, good luck. Yeah. Right. Does that make sense? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's pretty cool. Oh, I

Tyler: 1:00:53

love that. So kind of what you were describing, the or the system like that's kind of what people talk about when everyone's always saying that the system's broken. Yeah. Right. It's kind of what you're talking about when they're talking about just throwing stuff together and saying like, well hopefully that works

Dr.: 1:01:05

now. Right, right. And I think there are really good parts to the system. You know, if you're appendix burst, you're gonna go, right, I'm gonna go. You should. You need to take me, if I get stabbed, I definitely need to go. Yeah. I'm pretty risk averse, so I don't think I'm gonna get stabbed, but if I do, I'm gonna need to go to the er. Right, exactly. There are definitely parts of that system that work and that work really well. Emergency medicine, I think is one, is an exemplary piece of that. Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's, it's the people are aging and people are sick and they are eating sick food and they're practicing sick habits. They're not going outside, they're not getting outside, they're not actively involved in things that are important to them or give them purpose. Especially after a certain point in life and they start to decline. And unfortunately the allopathic answer to that is just giving them medication. Yeah. Just one after the other. And these are very highly educated, well-meaning people. Mm-hmm. but that's the system within the, with within which they work.

Tyler: 1:02:05

Yeah. Right. And they were also educated eight years the exact same or over more than eight years in that one way of only doing it. So they, they don't know any better.

Dr.: 1:02:15

Right, right, right. Although functional medicine has a lot of medical doctors who say, flat out, I just see my patients getting sicker and sicker and sicker and I had to stop. Yeah. I had to do it a different way. I had to do it a different way. And you can't make everyone. Not everyone wants to be well, right? I mean, some people come to me and they just want me to fix them. Well, that's not how it works in functional medicine. It's really teamwork oriented. Yeah. They really have to do the work. I just tell them how they can be and reach and have the things that they want to if they really want it. Mm-hmm. right? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: 1:02:52

Which leads to my question what would you describe as like success with a patient,

Dr.: 1:02:59

So on a follow up visit, I have a list of questions that I ask them, and it starts with, based on your initial complaints, I'd like you to tell me which ones are better, and if you can give me on a scale of one to 10, that would be helpful. If you can't, that's fine. And I just asked a woman this past week, so the same question, right? She said everything's better. Every single thing is better. I can't believe it took me so long to find you. I'm so pissed about it. that's pretty successful right there. I'd say for sure. And she's not done. Everything's better. Or another way that I can gauge success is someone where they've gone through a treatment protocol with me and I've said, okay, you're good. You're on maintenance. And then in six months, four months, whatever, they call me back and they say, I have something going on. So I think that that's the other thing that is really rewarding for me is building relationships with people. And I did that a ton as a chiropractor, but with chiropractic, you see people much more frequently. Right. You know? Oh, for sure. But now it's a little bit harder to build long-term relationships because I don't necessarily see people as mm-hmm. often. But when I get these same patients coming back or then bringing in their kids, or then bringing in their husband or their mom, or referring people and creating that network of sustainability and like-mindedness. Mm-hmm. it's really. That just makes me know that I'm doing really good work. So that makes me feel like I'm being successful with patients as well. Yeah, because if you actually think that I did a good enough job with you that you're gonna send me your mom, there's not much higher praise than that. Right? No. People will bring you, your kids before they bring you your mom. Hmm.

Tyler: 1:04:41

That's

Chris: 1:04:41

interesting. Mm-hmm. That's why I will say the look on your face when I ask that question, like, she truly like means this. Mm-hmm. like her finding success is just like her face lit up. Like she's been smiling all day and I asked that question. She's like, it was, it was just heartwarming, I guess.

Dr.: 1:05:01

Yeah. It feels really good to help people be better, especially because a lot of my patients come in and they say, I've had all the tests run. I've been to all the doctors. I don't know what I think this, I, I've been exposed to this. I might have Lyme. I, I worked in a moldy office. I, you know, and they have a litany of things. Mm-hmm. and I say, okay. and they're like, oh, really? You're gonna listen to what I had to say about that? Right. Yeah. My, my initial visit is 75 minutes. Oh, wow. 75. Your initial visit with even a, even a specialist isn't gonna run you more than 10 or 15? No, not at all. Right. 75 minutes. I sit there and listen to them and I let them tell me their story. There's a lot of information in that story if you listen to it. Mm-hmm. I pick up a lot of different things and I ask very specific questions on their paperwork, all about their history as well, which is gonna gimme information about their cortisol right, about their stress, about their family environment, about their support, about their job, about all the things that are gonna make a difference in how well and how quickly they're gonna get there.

Tyler: 1:06:10

We ran up on an hour pretty quick here. So that's always good when we get surprised about the timing. But we do have one last question for you and that question is if you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?

Dr.: 1:06:20

Wow. Hmm. Slow down. Yeah. Mm-hmm. brings it all together. Slow down. You're gonna get there anyway. That's true. Slow down.

Tyler: 1:06:32

I think that's very important for a lot of the listeners that we have on too. Oh, for sure. Mm-hmm.

Dr.: 1:06:38

Yeah. Thank you. Sure. My pleasure. Oh yeah, this has been really

Chris: 1:06:41

fun. Yeah, I feel like I was meant to hear that like this past, like since we started the year, we've had a lot of people on and a lot of them have been like, huh, you know, I should, I needed to hear that. So it's been interesting. I. I'm always rushing. Mm-hmm. everyone's like, oh, you know, where are you going next? Do you wanna do this? And I'm like, you know, it's time to slow down a little bit. Rest, reset, then go forward.

Dr.: 1:07:08

If you're in it for the long game, that's the way to get there. Yeah. Yeah. And we're gonna live a long time. Mm-hmm. our life expectancy keeps increasing. Yeah.

Chris: 1:07:18

Yeah. Question for you. Where can people find or reach out if they would like to, they're more interested in using you?

Dr.: 1:07:26

So my practice is Wilmington Functional Medicine. Okay. You can find us@wilmingtonfunctionalmedicine.com. We're on Instagram at Wilm, I'm gonna have to say it. W I L M F X N M E. Okay, perfect. And our, you could just call the office at(910) 444-9438. And one thing that we offer is actually 15 minute discovery calls. Okay. These are complimentary, and so you can schedule a call with someone in our office to determine if what it is that you are seeking is something that we can actually provide for you. We certainly don't want anyone to come in with unrealistic expectations. Mm-hmm. or come in thinking that we're gonna give them something that no one else has been able to. Yeah. Give them the same thing. Give them, I don't know. I mean, people, a lot of our patients have been through the ringer, Yeah. Through the ringer. Right. And so some things I absolutely can't handle. And if you need medication management for something, I'm gonna refer you elsewhere. But that can also happen on the discovery call. Hmm. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So we offer those complimentary for people.

Tyler: 1:08:40

Perfect. We'll add all that in the show notes too, so if anyone needs to see it physically, we'll have it down there for you too. Yeah, yeah. Don't worry. It's a lot of words,

Chris: 1:08:49

so, we'll, we'll let Tyler type it out and add it in there. Okay. And then I'll edit it. Yep. But I just really wanna say thank you for coming on. It's been, yeah, thanks. Amazing. Thanks for

Dr.: 1:08:59

having me. It's super fun. Absolutely. I love to talk about what I do. I love to talk about what I'm passionate about and I really like helping people.

Tyler: 1:09:06

That's great. Yeah. You can definitely feel it for the, through the podcast too. I appreciate it. Yes.

Dr.: 1:09:10

Awesome. Thanks you guys.

Chris: 1:09:11

Yeah, I love you guys. Follow us on all the social media ads. Leave us a five star review and if you have any questions about how to leave the review or just any questions in general, hit us up on Instagram. Yes sir. Cheers. Cheers.