The Type A, Perfectionism Trap: the Invisible Stress Response & It’s Impact on Your Health featuring Dr. Lesley Allen

In this conversation Dr. Lesley Allen and I dig into the possible side effects of the Type A, Perfectionism Trap! 

The Type A overachiever is often celebrated — driven, disciplined, and endlessly productive — yet beneath that polished surface, the body may be quietly crying out for rest. Living in constant “go mode” keeps the nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight, gradually wearing down your adrenals, gut, and immune function. The problem? Traditional lab markers often miss the subtle shifts that signal imbalance long before disease sets in. You can look “perfect on paper” while your body is whispering for help. That’s where root cause medicine steps in — to listen to the story beneath the symptoms, to understand the why behind the what, and to restore balance before burnout becomes breakdown. True healing begins when we stop pushing and start listening — when we allow our worth to be defined not by how much we do, but by how deeply we are. 

Dr. Lesley Allen
With over 20 years of experience in healthcare, Dr. Lesley Allen is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and a leading Functional Medicine Practitioner specializing in personalized, root-cause-driven care. Her expertise blends advanced testing, integrative lifestyle strategies, and cutting-edge genetics to empower clients to optimize their health, reverse chronic conditions, and pre

My book, 29 Days: The Self-Love Leap is your guide to making 29 meaningful, healthy lifestyle changes - one per day - that will help you unlock the best version of yourself.  These aren't overwhelming, unrealistic goals.  They're practical, empowering steps that fit into your daily life and help you create habits that promote self-love, balance, and optimal health. 

PURCHASE ON AMAZON HERE. 

Get Patched! 

Start Breathing & Find Your Flow! 

Become a Subscriber 

As a subscriber, you'll receive exclusive content: behind-the-scenes moments, extended episodes, guided practices, and other offerings I've created just for you -- things I don't share anywhere else. 

Your support helps sustain this mission, and I'm so grateful to have you on this path with me. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:19

Welcome to today's episode of Unapologetic Living. I'm Elizabeth Elliott and I'm your hostess. And uh as always, I um look forward to bringing uh really um interesting guests to my show who are talking about I don't necessarily things outside of the box, but looking through the world through a more holistic lens. And uh today I have the privilege of sharing space with Dr. Leslie Allen. She is a doctor of physical therapy, certified integrative lifestyle medicine, and then certified functional medicine practitioner. And she's the founder and owner of DNA Doc.

SPEAKER_00: 2:02

Elizabeth, thank you so much for allowing me to come on and uh be your guest and talk about some fun stuff today.

SPEAKER_01: 2:12

Yeah, no, I found you as I know we were talking a little bit uh before through your brother, who um is an oral surgeon locally. And um, I really appreciated the fact that, you know, when I shared my concerns over my daughter's Lyme disease and an implant, that he uh was familiar and did not look at me like I had three heads when I was trying to talk about how we can approach her um oral health um through a different lens, especially having the Lyme disease component. And he mentioned you, but I think I'd heard your name before. Don't you do also something with like yoga therapy?

SPEAKER_00: 2:53

So I am a certified professional yoga therapist. And um I opened the Center for Holistic Healing back in 2014. Unfortunately, we closed the doors on that chapter during COVID. Um, kind of hard to keep it open. And um, at that point, I was already full-time functional medicine doing a virtual base program, so serving clients across the US. And so that's where I said goodbye to the professional yoga therapy and the integrative lifestyle medicine and went. I was already full-time in functional medicine at that point, but I had other professional yoga therapists that I hired.

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

Gotcha, because I think that was originally how I heard about you through another gal. I don't know if this name will ring about Monica Sweeney. Oh, yes, yeah, and that was like years ago, and I can't remember what I was like. No, so long ago, I'm like, how do I know her?

SPEAKER_00: 4:01

Maybe through Beauty Counter.

SPEAKER_01: 4:03

I don't know. Maybe, yeah, I don't know. I just remember that I think she sent me, I don't know, or maybe it was Paige Pierman who sent me your information, but yeah, but somewhere on Page. Yeah, where I know that you're local like me, but different county, I think. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 4:18

Yeah, yes, and now I'm 100% virtual based. So I I do get a lot of clients from word of mouth referrals from Oldham County, but um really my largest um I I treat clients from California all the way to Boston. So some in New York.

SPEAKER_01: 4:40

So what made you make the shift from the yoga therapy and then integrative lifestyle medicine into, I guess it sounds like mostly predominantly functional medicine?

SPEAKER_00: 4:55

Absolutely. Um, so my health, the journey. I think that's many of us. It was it was quite the journey through my health experience. But I originally, for many years as a doctor of physical therapy, I worked in home health, transitioning patients from the hospital setting back into their home. And so really reconciling a lot of medication and making sure that they were capable of, you know, really being able to live independently in their home. And that's what we're there for to help them to make a safe transition. During that period of time, I had a child, I had a near-death experience, unfortunately, and it really was really hard. So newborn kid, um, you know, postpartum, all the things, my first child, and I was sent home on 24 per cassettes a day. So with a leg, a left leg that was paralyzed due to a massive blood clot, and um put on bed rest for over 30 days. I mean, it was really hard. I went from being incredibly healthy to now all of a sudden, like, what in the world? This is not how I envisioned my three months of um leave to look like, and it really just disrupted my entire life. And in mindset, I was always an avid yogi yogi, and mindset was my dog decides to say hello. Mindset was always um, you know, I I knew it played a large role, but didn't really realize until there was a day when, you know, 30 days in and I'm on so many um pain meds because all the things my my clot became infected, it was no one could give me answers. And so it was a really kind of dark time in my life. And that is when I transitioned into integrative lifestyle medicine. So I did a two-year certification program, and as part of the certification program, you um had to do three one-week on-site intensives, and you had to like live the life of integrative lifestyle medicine. So we wake up in the morning to meditate to sunrise, we would eat anti-inflammatory and according to our dosha, which is you know an Ayurvedic term, and um, you know, just practice what you preach. So you get this immersive experience. And during that period of time, I am very much, you know, a type A recovering perfectionist, and so an always an overachiever, very productive human being, taskmaster. And at that point, you know, when we were forced to sit and meditate, it was like, oh my goodness, how can I, how this is such a waste of time, right? So even as a yogi, it's like I could do my five minutes of lying there at the end, my breath work. But to put me in a position of not doing anything for over 30 minutes, to me was kind of a waste of my time. I could get a lot more achieved during that period of time. Nonetheless, um, so after I got certified, I started the Center for Holistic Healing. And at that point, you know, getting a business off the ground, I had um two young kids at this point. So um, and working literally 24-7, my husband's in corporate America, and it was, and and I am literally practicing what I preach. I'm teaching yoga, I'm doing my yoga, I'm doing my meditation in the morning. I had been organic since my first pregnancy, but I unfortunately woke up one day with two different autoimmune conditions diagnosed the same day, right then and there. Like, how does that happen? How can it happen when somebody? So, anyhow, getting the runaround, I sought lots of different providers in the area, um, worked really hard, but I could not get the autoimmunity under control. So that's when I decided to throw in the towel, go back, do a residency in functional medicine to get certified myself. So that's really it's been my journey through my own experiences and not really getting the answers that I needed, um, you know, mindset. Um and I feel like in the integrative space for me and with my treatment that I was doing, it was, it's great. Like those are all the tools that you need in your toolbox to really heal the body. But where functional medicine came in is that I didn't actually know the why behind my condition and what was going on. And so, you know, after seeing several providers and they're just throwing supplements at me or, you know, putting me on these extremely rigid meal plans and things to that nature, I became anxious and depressed. And, you know, why is this happening to me? All the things. And so that really is my story and how I got to functional medicine.

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

So just to step back a little bit. So did that initial um was that during like a childbirth experience when you go back to the blood clot? Like that was I'm not gonna say medicalized birth, but yes, but the birth.

SPEAKER_00: 11:08

Okay. It was. And I I have a genetic clotting disorder. Um, I'm fortunate in that most people aren't able to conceive naturally and carry the birth to full term. That's that's how most people will find out that they have this condition, um, is that they'll have multiple miscarriages, and then finally they'll do genetic testing on them. For me, I had a perfectly healthy pregnancy, and I I attribute all of that to my lifestyle and exercising up until the day that I gave birth, and you know, just be being really healthy. But during the pregnancy, I also gave birth to a nine-pound baby. Huge, a very large baby boy. And um, so there were some complications during that pregnancy that I think with his head being so large that it was kind of jamming into a blood vessel. And then that led to um the the clot developing.

SPEAKER_01: 12:13

Gotcha.

unknown: 12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:15

So okay, so now the focus, and I what I heard was type A perfectionist, overachiever, productivity, do everything right, right? And yes, um, and I I think like just seeing some of the clients that I know, um, and then just hearing, you know, and being inundated on social media with with individuals talking about very similar scenario, um, doing everything right, can't lose weight, can't uh gain regain energy, tired, you know, fatigued, um, hormone disruption. I know that two years ago, three years ago, they started throwing around the word hypothyroid for me, and somebody else said maybe Hashimoto's, it's leaning towards that, and no one can really decide whether it is or isn't. And um I think we are living in an incredibly stressful world. Um, and I don't want to say some of it's self-induced, but I think that and just being a fascial stretch therapist, like people don't know how they feel. Like they don't they're not even that connected to their body to know, like, do you feel a stretch? I don't know. You know, no, I'm not saying I'm serious, but like seriously. Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 13:45

Oh, I totally agree. And I it's one of my largest patient populations, and I think part of that is because I am a cash um provider now. I used to build insurance, but so I tend to attract the people that are willing and um to really invest in their health. But they are largely the people that are doing everything right, you know, and they're exercising, they're doing the high-intensity intervals, they're eating so strict. I don't know, should I not be eating this? Should I be eating this? And that alone is just that that just activated a stress response. Um, and so, you know, we one, I feel like we have been programmed and conditioned as a society to think busy equals success. And in order to be successful, you have to live this incredibly busy, hectic, you know, life in order to reach those goals. And so, and I really feel that we've been trained and programmed to trade our time for money, so that hourly payment schedule, rather than really what trying to work smarter and allowing a little more free time for true self-care. And the other thing that I think people that are very holistically based will get into is that they're doing all the self-care to where it actually is more of a chore on their list than true self-benefit. And so I think that's what you get into. Um, and again, this was my story as well. I'm not pointing the finger at anyone else. It's just the story that I hear so often and can relate to. And I think too, we're operating in a system currently, we're so unbalanced. Um, I'm so grateful for, you know, holistic and functional and natural providers. But I think at the same time, we can be equally guilty of like the extremism of like traditional, the traditional setting versus the holistic. And it's like a battle, and it doesn't need to be. And so I think everybody has their own place and their role. But, you know, you've got some traditional providers that I used to go head to head with because, you know, I I initially, when I first started in functional medicine, I was solely working with autoimmunity. And I would do, you know, run genetic panels, I would run two-day comprehensive stools, I would run full hormone panels, I would run a lab that's called an organic acids test. And so I would have this full picture of their underlying root cause. And yet I would have a uh, like let's say IBD, you know, um irritable bowel disease, and I would have a GI doc that's putting them on uh an immunosuppressant that's targeting a specific inflammatory pathway that I can show them that's their only working pathway. Like, don't target that one. Like, you know, this pathway is working efficiently, that's not the problem. And so, anyhow, but the inability to be able to work together was always very difficult. Now, and then they would tell my client, oh, it doesn't matter what you eat, just go and eat McDonald's, it's fine. That doesn't, this is an autoimmune condition. It has no, you know, what you're eating is not gonna have any influence on your autoimmunity. It is what it is, it's genetic, you've got it, you're always gonna have it, which is not true. But then you've got the other extreme, and it's the providers that are like, no, you have to be on this strict diet, and you've got to do, you know, all this breath work and all this exercise, and you know, and it creates that creates stress because now all of a sudden, for me, I was being identified as this condition that I had. And if I didn't do this strict diet, I'd beat myself up if, you know, I wanted to go have dinner, and then all of a sudden I became the person that was like, oh, well, I can only have lettuce and your chicken. What are you seasoning it with? Okay, can you bring me some lemon so I can, you know, that's not fun. It's not fun to be that person. So, anyhow, I think that we've got these extreme situations, and then you you put that, like from a natural perspective, you put that type of extremism to a perfectionist and type A, and they're like, I'm doing everything perfect, but it's not working. And what they're not doing is relaxing. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 18:44

Yeah, and really taking that time to restore. Right. Yeah, I know that um, you know, having struggled with eating, so I don't know, I will say I would I'll just call it disordered eating, like in high school. And then a little bit later, I mean I would still say I can struggle with some disordered eating. Um and but in high school, I can clearly remember, you know, writing every single calorie down and exercising like a maniac, just over exercising, you know. And you know, I sought uh professional help with a therapist who focused on some of this, but just the stress, I I would be so upset if I did not meet my self-created goals. Right. Um exactly. Yeah, to the point which, you know, I I I would physically harm by hitting myself. Yeah, you know, and so I but but you know, just the stress alone of creating that, and it can be stressful when you're trying to do every single thing. I I think I've f found a little bit more of a way to like live in that moderation. Um uh even though like knowing like I feel better off the gluten, but when you're told hypothyroid, like get rid of all gluten and dairy, it's tough. I don't always eat gluten and dairy free. As a matter of fact, Monday night I went out and got pizza, you know, because we were gonna watch my son's first basketball game, and that's what we were gonna do because I wanna enjoy because you're a human being. I'm a human being, that's right.

SPEAKER_00: 20:30

You're a human being, and here's the bottom line, and the and honestly, it's the hardest thing to teach people that, especially people that when your personality is part of the problem, that is who you are, right? But like try and again, this is where the yoga comes into play because there's the you know, the first obstacle to growth is ignorance or the lack of awareness. And so really trying to teach them how they are playing a large role in this, and I think that um it's important to recognize Duke and Aetna paired up, they did a wonderful study. It was a long time ago, but it is a great study, and they looked at the relationship between health, happiness, and productivity. And they found that it's not just a direct, it's indistinguishable. You cannot have your health without your happiness. It's impossible. And so when we start to get into the healing process, I think that it's really important to consider that, you know, as a provider, I know that I do. Luckily, I had to walk the walk to recognize I'm never gonna put my clients on a strict and rigid treatment or meal plan. I was 52 days in and I ate organic and I ate incredibly healthy. But even like you're saying, so I had I had Hashimoto's, and that was one of my conditions. And then I also had Vitaligo, that was another. And so the thing of it is is that once I went on that strict meal plan where it's like you can't have nightshade, you can't have all these things, you know. I was literally depressed and anxious, and I've never been depressed and anxious a day in my life. But it literally it took my happiness away. Because while I had very few vices, I think we all have vices, and that's what gives us our happiness. And so when you strip that away from someone, you take away their happiness and who they are, then it's really hard for them because now everything's a trigger. Everything, like every little thing, is creating a stress response, even more so. So I tell all of my clients at the end of the day, I'm gonna personalize your care plan for you. But I can have you on the best meal plan, the perfect supplementation regimen, the best exercise protocol, we're breathing, you know. If you're not managing your stress, it doesn't matter. If you're stressing over whether this is the right thing for you to eat, is this compliant with my meal plan? It doesn't matter because you just activated your sympathetic nervous system. You're stripping blood flow away from your gut. It's not a time to rest, relax, digest, digest, and absorb. It's a time to run or fight. You don't have blood come into the gut. So it really doesn't matter what you're eating, you're not going to properly digest and absorb it the way that you need to. So, and then you throw happiness in there. So for the people that are really doing everything right and still not getting results, you know, my my question then is, are you happy? And most of them, that's like the you know, the moment of tears.

SPEAKER_01: 24:22

So right, you have to, yeah, and I think about that, and then you have to be willing to even acknowledge that there is maybe that unhappiness there. You're going, going, going, you're doing all the correct things, you're super mom or super dad, everybody's you know, uh PTA this, uh you know, softball coach here, whatever, right? Baseball, dad, whatever. I'm just throwing, but you get my drift, right? Like all the running from pillar to post and all these other things, and then, but still, and and that's you know, I see a lot of parents doing it. Like I was talking to a dad today. My kids are grown, they're 20 and 23. We didn't do as much of this stuff, and if I'm honest, some of it was because we couldn't afford it, so there was no travel ball for us. We did what was available through school. There was not a bunch of extra. So whatever was in included at school was what they got to participate in. So I don't feel but like I like my sisters are having, you know, it's this, it's that, it's all over the place, it's extra private coaching, it's um, you know, like I said, PTA mom, brownies, brownie troop leader, you know, all taking on every role you can while trying to do all of these things. And then I also think it which, you know, for me, yoga, I think I I teach a little bit of yoga still. You know, when when I tell people it really the definition means to unite with source. And it has nothing to do with being flexible at all. At all. Um, and those movements are just one one, you know, limb of the eight limbs. I still don't think it's been so westernized here. I think things, I think it's you're exactly right. Um, but that you can't be aware when you are that distracted and that producing, if that makes sense. It's almost like constant distractions, so that you don't even know what's going on internally.

SPEAKER_00: 26:50

Absolutely 100% agree. I feel so we were the parents that were doing it all, and not the PTA. I I tried. Oh yeah, I mean, I I I was there back there a little bit trying to be involved at school at like the parties and yeah, yes, back elementary school, yes, but then um, however, though my my kids were um, you know, involved in a lot of the sports. And uh we stopped participating. We we did the club ball, we did the national level teams, we did the gymnastics and the cheerleading and um and we decided as a family, and it it it just kind of synced up naturally, but both of my kids stopped participating at the same time. And the amount of creativity that exploded in both of them, we had them so maxed out that they didn't have time. But by the time that you spend eight hours at school and then, you know, two hours at practice, and then you've got homework, I mean, they didn't have any extra bandwidth to have a space of creativity. And so when we said you don't have to play sports, and in fact, I mean, we there came a point where it was just like, you know, we're we're just doing this for fun. Like, we're not trying to do this for, you know, a college scholarship. We're just here to have fun. So when you're not having fun with it, it's time to step away because we're spending buckoos of money, and we would rather not do that. So we'd rather spend money and and to see both of my kids pick up other activities like you know, guitar and golf and you know, all the different things, but also to just have the ability to sit down and not feel guilty about sitting, sitting out on the back porch and just again connecting with nature. So we're trying to instill a little bit more of those type of behaviors because I think, again, there's a certain level of programming that I think that we've all gotten into to where that busy equals success. And you're trying to keep up with everybody else. And I know, you know, I'm sure you kind of feel this way too. On my days where I'm not busy as a business owner, I'm like, I gotta find more clients. Like, I've got time. I could go for a walk, I can soak in the tub if I want, but like my brain goes fear, like, you know, you're you're not doing enough. You should be doing more. And so it's really it's it's a certain level of conditioning that I think that we've grown up in to recognize that, you know, often the best medicine is stillness and presence when you're in constant inertia and movement.

SPEAKER_01: 32:02

So yeah, yeah. And I think that um I I've you know, I've had more time to do that, you know, with the kids older for sure. Um than when they were smaller, right? But yes, I can absolutely go into that space of fear. And I do think so much of it is about the programming, that productivity, whether you're, you know, a high-powered attorney or someone, you know, in the corporate world, or whether you're, you know, a mom or dad at home. It's just this constant need to be busy that um creates, and I guess you probably see this, this just like underlying right. I think I remember um in a course I took, the the gal was talking whether it's a wedding or whether it's a death in the family.

SPEAKER_00: 33:05

family right the physiological responses is the same correct right right um but and so i think and then you know because so many people will tell you they're not stressed but then i've also heard that you know certain foods alone could create a stress response in the body if your body is not i don't know your thoughts on that um i i'll be honest with you this is this is my thing um i so okay we're we get we have to also talk about like our food supply has been greatly contaminated all right so let's preface it with that however i don't think that food is usually the problem and so i'll i'll share with you like a a client that has been working with another provider and they run food sensitivity test all the time but they don't run any other test and they just by the time that they get to me they're only eating five foods and they've got so much anxiety about what is gonna happen if the next test, I can't now eat this one. The problem with that is that that's just a sign of leaky gut and you still have or the permeability of the gut and you still have to get to the underlying root cause it's usually not the foods I will say the foods when you are in an inflamed state or you have permeability of the mucosal cells, then of course you're gonna have food that's not digested appropriately and flows over through those open gates, flows into the bloodstream, your immune system's gonna do its job. It's gonna tag it with an IgG antibody because it doesn't belong there. And so all of a sudden you're now sensitive to that food and it can create you know whether it's a mast cell response um it it can create some type of inflammatory response. So it happens but it's usually not the problem. I think too many people put weight on this food's bad oh you got autoimmunity no nightshades for you and I disagree with that i eat you know again I've healed my autoimmunity I had full blown Hashimoto's um I'm no longer on any type of thyroid medicine they said you can't do that I also healed my vitiligo I did all the light therapy in the beginning spent thousands at a dermatologist it did nothing but blister my skin they told me oh you've got to keep all of your vitiligo spots coated in sunscreen and it can never see sunlight I healed mine through sunlight and allowing the sun to burn the skin the same way that their lasers were burning my skin and it naturally started to repigment. So you know I think that food is typically not the problem. I think it's the glyphosate that we've sprayed all over the food. I think it's all the chemicals and the heavy metals that we've dumped into our soil so you know our plants are cellular living things and when they absorb the arson the arsenic or the mercury or the lead from the soil now the plant is contaminated. And so I think it's just a very confusing world that we live in. And I think that we're living in also unfortunately I mean I think to date the US still only bans 30 chemicals I mean that's just it's it's gross. I mean like the you know the fact that there's um so much you know even the personal care products that that we use and they can hide anything behind the word fragrance or natural and that's the thing there's so much greenwashing going on and you're spending extra thinking that you're you've got a high quality product but then they've hidden some of their ingredients that are known carcinogens or what have you so anyhow typically I mean I have a garden which I'm fortunate enough to grow my own food for the majority of it because I got sick of buying spending so much money in the grocery store and if you buy organic then half the time like your berries are already molded and they've sat there for so long that they're just you know so depleted in nutrients themselves. So I think if we could get back to like community farming and growing our food that we would find that we've got a lot less issues.

SPEAKER_01: 38:18

We've got you know we're sugar I mean sugar is terrible yeah yeah I know this year it seems like because we do love blueberries um and when the kids were smaller we would trek up to Bryant's blueberries and try to you know pick our own and I would pick quite a few and um and I know that you know we picked apples this year and we did go to Huberts.

SPEAKER_00: 38:46

I I know they spray but still my kids have this experience we had a dehydrator and when they were small you know we would bring them home and dehydrate or freeze or you know make different products um but I mean I yeah the berries have been in terrible shape terrible um I mean I tell my clients don't waste your money on it like go buy the frozen organic you know because I mean with berries you do want to buy those organically and yeah so it's like buy them frozen they're flash frozen you're gonna get more nutrients from that and throw them in smoothies because it's really hard to find good good quality yeah it is um that's so that's been a little bit disappointing. I know I've been uh you know we we buy a half a cow at a time oh that's nice and so you know it's you know I feel really good about that and then we go to the market you know the farmer's market when we can we did grow a bunch of tomatoes we had a big we had a lot of success with tomatoes this year but um unfortunately we rent and our landlord sprays no matter what I mean you know so it's just I mean my neighbors do so I I I feel you I'm like out there I want to put a tarp up yeah because we're on the garden but I mean you know that that they've been you know vine ripened yeah so you've still got the electrical you know the that's another big thing that I um kind of can geek out about is the um the grounding quality but like when you grow your own food and eating food that's in season with where you live so it's matching the same sun that you're getting in the circadian rhythm and the electrical charge of all of our cells because I think that we are all very um our cells are lacking a lot of charge and when they get like that where they don't have enough charge now they can't absorb it doesn't matter sometimes how many supplements you take if your cells aren't correctly charged and you've got enough polarity there it's not going to get absorbed into the cell itself. So and then people are walking around for me it was my my issues with my autoimmunity never came in the form of inflammation it came in the form of oxidative stress. So free radicals that are floating around and not having enough hydrogen ions to neutralize those free radicals to get them converted into the form of water to get those processed out. So I think that even being vine ripened and trying to control the the system as much as possible is far better than eating like a non-organic tomato.

SPEAKER_01: 45:01

Well and one that's been sitting on the grocery store shelf for who knows how long right and got shipped over from China right yeah so kind of I know I I want to talk uh if you're okay with it a little bit about um like I know that it's difficult to I know that you look you can run some labs right you can request labs oh yes and I know that um like it can be difficult to get labs drawn at at your doctor's office oftentimes it is yeah um but then also and this is something I hear a lot is I got my labs drawn everything looks great other time and they walk away but they like I feel like crap they're fatigue they have digestive distress um they can't lose weight but the doctor said I'm fine my labs look great now I have a little bit of functional medicine just enough to be dangerous but I do know that you know there are markers that can should suggest right potential downstream or you know down the line absolutely things coming that we could potentially like maybe even stop or reverse in their tracks before we get a full blown diagnosis. So um can you just talk a little bit about that because I know you all look through a different lens. Absolutely social medicine looks through a different lens and I I guess I really want the audience to understand that like that their doctor may be missing pieces. I I'm sure their doctor's good it's just that their doctor can't like our like Joe has MS that's my partner and um that that neurologist refuses to run any real labs she will only do B12 and vitamin D. Despite you know talking with various people about MS and what labs should we request but unless he's taking their drugs which he isn't they won't run them and so to me it's mind blowing and then his PCP wouldn't run vitamin D at all I I say that's what blows me away.

SPEAKER_00: 47:37

And like so actually with MS, so vitamin D is not necessarily the functional it it's definitely important and he's gonna want his to be way high because the functional marker for MS is parathyroid hormone. And when you drive vitamin D really high you drive parathyroid hormone low and that's what will activate interleukin and spit out those T helper 17 cells that are creating the immune system confusion. But aside from that I hear what you're saying um we deal with this all the time because I am cash based I luckily um have access to all labs at this point through a third uh a company called Rupa which I use because they've got physicians on staff in all states. And so I can put a request in and have a physician sign off on it. And then my clients get direct access labs. So it's their labs. And I think we're getting a little bit more freedom in most states there are some that are controlling that. However when it comes to blood work that it's my biggest complaint because what I do is I like I mean my goodness when we what we were talking about before we jumped on this podcast is the cost of premiums for insurance you're paying most on average most families are paying roughly 20 000 to 28000 in premiums per year for that to literally cover very little so it's like you're putting a big bulk of your income into the system for it to not really pay for anything and usually that's a high deductible plan that you don't meet. So technically you're paying for everything out of your pocket anyway. And then when but what I do is because I'm cash is I tell my clients like hey if you want to go through your primary care provider and get insurance to pay for this ask them for a full let's say thyroid thyroid workup they will come back to me and they will have one lab marker and it is TSH and TSH measure measures pituitary not thyroid so yes it is the stimulating hormone to have the thyroid release it but it does not tell us whatsoever what the actual active thyroid hormone is doing. And um so that's kind of my biggest complaint is the the limited it's like they don't want to do the full picture and so you're missing pieces. And um you know same same situation with this you know with diabetes or prediabetes. They have to you have to look at the whole circadian rhythm and you know including a fasting insulin that never gets ran including leptin leptin is really the the precursor to all of the situations. So leptin is stored in your fat cells and it's what when we're sleeping at night it's what triggers the hypothalamus and says hey we're safe we can go into fat metabolism mode but when you've been in fight or flight or you're constantly starving yourself your body says nope we're in a famine we got to hold on to all that fat just hold on to it store it around the waistline because that's where we can access it really fast. But they don't look at the full picture they'll just run you know a fasting glucose an A1C and depending on what those numbers are which just shows you a very small small picture but what we have to remember and I build insurance for years what we have to remember is that our system our traditional system is not designed to cure or heal we don't have a single CPT code. So first you've got to have an ICD 10 code in order to run labs. So you've got to have a diagnosis to run labs and then to do the treatment but our treatments are only for management of symptoms. So they don't really care. It's not that they don't care and again I wanted to I'm I don't I this is not attacking the traditional docs because they really have their hands tied. There is no tort reform in the United States. So therefore if they deviate from a plan they literally can get sued for malpractice. So they have to follow the rules and that's how the system is set up. So it's not really their fault but the system is not designed to find the why behind your condition. The system is designed to manage the symptoms to give you a name for it like IBS that's one that I lose my mind over IBS is BS it it it's it's non existent. IBS is literally the can the diagnosis you're given when all of your labs come back fine normal but you have chronic constipation or chronic diarrhea it is literally uh I don't know so we're gonna call it IBS so anyhow um I like to do other tests aside from blood work though um I think that blood work is good for monitoring downstream after you really understand the why behind what is really going on. So ideally um and and I try to work with everybody you know whether you've got a limited budget or whether you've got a large budget. So I try to be very conservative when it comes to lab testing now I've done enough labs throughout my career to know um the likelihood of what I'm gonna see but ideally my favorite lab to run is an organic acids test. And this is easy to administer but basically it gives you the biggest bang for your buck if you want to see really all the systems and blocked pathways. And so so many providers will go you know after they're seeking to rule out or rule in a specific diagnosis. Whereas for me the healing actually occurs by what pathways are the most involved and blocked how do we support that for the healing process it doesn't matter about the label that it's given. So that's why I like I I for most of my clients I'm gonna start with an oat and it gives you a full panel of gut dysbiosis all disease starts in the gut you cannot heal hormones without addressing the gut period. If you're not properly digesting and absorbing your amino acids your micronutrients you know you're gonna have imbalances your little puppy. Yeah yeah now so is this considered the Dutch no I I do love the Dutch that's a hormone it does the Dutch pulls some organic acids at the end of it but a Dutch is a great way to look at hormones why I love it and where traditional medicine will usually only pull like if you wanted to take a look at your hormones you know you you go to your OB and you say I not having a consistent cycle or I'm I'm constantly having a cycle then you know they're gonna run um your E2 your progesterone your testosterone your DHEAS um maybe an LH and an FSH and that's gonna be it. So that shows you production right that shows you what that hormone is in that moment in time. And whereas the Dutch it's going to show you production and metabolism so is it a production issue or are you metabolizing the hormone too quickly because the treatment process for those are vastly different. And it even breaks it down on the Dutch it'll break it down liver detox phase one, liver detox phase two. So that way you really know where where the leak in the system is and how to support that. So I love the Dutch it's in my opinion it's an expensive lab. And so for someone like me um I'll so when I finally got to the root of my problem of my two different autoimmune conditions I had flatlined my adrenal glands and I would have not even told you I was tired or fatigued. I had no cortisol output. And when that happens you lose what's called your cortisol awakening response. And that is 30 minutes after waking you get this spike in cortisol and that spike is what triggers your thymus gland to start self-filtering. And so it will say okay which immune system cells have become confused and are targeting yourself and which ones are still working appropriately. And so when that you don't get that cortisol awakening response it's you're you're a ticking time bomb until you get autoimmunity because you know you're you're putting your body under a lot of stress. Now in addition when you're when you flatline cortisol which is a pretty not a good scenario because you know now all of a sudden your blood pressure is going to plummet your brain's not going to get the oxygen that it needs and you're gonna essentially die right so your body which is designed just it's a marvelous design I mean it's pretty spectacular it has a it has a backup mechanism and it says it's not time for you to reproduce you're not thriving as a human being I'm gonna come up here I'm gonna steal from progesterone I'm gonna shut off your sex hormone production so at age 35 I had flatlined I had no estrogen I had no progesterone I was flat and um but then again like even backing up even more the other thing that I had going on was a terrible case of SIBO so small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and I when I mapped that onto a timeline I had had that since I was eight again going back to personality going back to the and and to bring a little genetics into this equation is that I have a um polymorphism it's comp our comp gene and mine is slow. And so what that gene does is it neutralizes norepinephrine and epinephrine our stress response from our sympathetic nervous system. So once I activate my stress response I have a slow turn off switch. So stress stays active in my body for a longer period of time. Then also I'm a looper because of that slow comp. So I'm gonna worry and loop back through past conversations. And so boom reactivating I just keep it going not even recognizing so all the while blood flow is stripping away from my gut it's just setting me up for dysbiosis. So I had that starting at the age of eight just chalked it up oh I'm just a gassy kid that's all it is at eight they were they hospitalized me they were going to do exploratory surgery didn't know what the pain in my gut was coming from. But regardless I had gone most of my life without properly digesting my proteins so I had so many amino acid deficiencies and you know um and that was the one thing with with my first functional medicine provider that I started to work with when I got the autoimmunity I was like I I'm taking over 30 supplements but I'm always deficient every time that you run my blood why am I not absorbing and that that was the answer. So I like to run I really like to look at the full picture when I'm working with someone however if I'm working with a limited budget we're gonna run an oat and then we're gonna follow up with some blood work which is very affordable. So that's a benefit most of my clients now if they have a high deductible plan they'll just opt to run labs through me because we can get them so much cheaper. I don't I don't charge them extra for it and um and they don't have to pay an office visit and they just you know go right go right into lab core get their blood or quest and get their blood drawn and that's it. So then okay so the organics the organic acids test is that a urine test is that a that is a urine test okay it is so it's um metabolites that spill over into the urine that you wouldn't typically see and so an abundant well an abundant amount so that means with any chemical reaction you have like A plus B equals C, right? And so you would expect C to spill over into the urine, but if you've got B flowing over you know you've got a block that that's not occurring the way that it needs to and that's from a typically from an intracellular perspective. So it really gives you a lot of good insight. So the other thing obviously I do a lot of gut and mind work and so it shows you real-time output of neurotransmitters. So we get to see what norepinephrine epinephrine are doing what dopamine's doing what serotonin is doing so then that way we can say okay we really have to get control um a lot of times most neurotransmitters are converted in the gut and through the methylation pathway and so that's uh you know methylation is one that's often overlooked and then that makes us much more uh susceptible to like chemical toxicities and things like that if you have like an MTHFR uh genetic mutation but um with the oat you get to see all these you get to see liver detox methylation you get to see real-time neurotransmitter output you get to see nutritional markers from an intracellular perspective so vitamin C, your B vitamins, different things like that. But you also get to see the way that your cells so are actually metabolizing your fats and your carbs and the inside of your mitochondria and exactly what's happening because a lot of times we have mitochondrial dysfunction and if your mitochondria can't produce ATP or energy to drive any cellular process then that's going to create a whole systemic effect and eventually it's gonna lead to a disease.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:15

So you um help people I don't want to let would be a good word dig to the deeper root cause of that's right said symptoms or list of symptoms versus you know I mean some really want a diagnosis but I don't know how often that's truly needed.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:40

I I honestly I can tell you I mean and I'm cautious as I say this I I just want to say I've worked with a lot of clients like with MS and um and one in particular was I was very was non-ambulatory when we started and she had a special special needs child and I mean it was a really hard bad situation and um she had you know she was diagnosed by the plaques in the brain and um now we did a major we get we got to the underlying root cause for her we had to do a major detox I mean months and months and months and months it was hard it was hard um and in the end her symptoms resolved she's now ambulatory living a very normal life if she goes and gets a MRI CT scan it's gonna show plaques in the brain or MRA it's gonna show plaques in the brain and so that's where I think that it's very important to look at the cells and the cellular patterns rather than just trying to get a label. Because even at the end of the day just re supporting those cells and giving them back what they need is so important. So for me, yes, I'm never diagnosing anything. Um, what I'm doing is I'm evaluating symptoms, I'm doing advanced testing to find underlying root causes. I'm supporting the body, you know, whether there's always some level of detox, whether it's gut dysbiosis that we're trying to get rid of or toxins, and then resupplying the deficiencies and also reconnecting, reconnecting like sunlight, good clean water, grounding with nature. It's it's really, I think that we've evolved a little too quickly. We've got these vents in our face 24-7. Like, you know, we've dumped a bunch of chemicals that we did no safety testing over from a health perspective into our environment, and we live on fast food and well, and so many people spend so much time inside. Yeah, yes, under LED lights and yeah. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:24

So I know that you have um, I want to make sure you have some a program online. I know you see people virtually, so yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:33

So I've been treating clients virtually since 2018, and I I operate in several different ways. Um, kind of our our hero program, so to speak, is an eight-week program, an eight or a 12-week program, just depending. Um, if I sense that there's a lot of detox that will be involved, then that's more of a 12-week time frame. And uh what we do is we do lab testing to unveil what your underlying group causes. Um, then we personalize and and we're we're set up, I'm set up in a way that gives my clients a high level of access to me. So as you're going through the process, you don't have to do it alone. You we have we have weekly group calls where you're in a community setting, um, but you also have your individual sessions and we have a chat feature too. So many of my, you know, especially my younger crowd, they love the chat. Like they're like, oh yeah, I'm just gonna text you. And so, um, but it's basically just a HIPAA compliant way that we can communicate back and forth. And that really helps because when you're going through the healing process, a lot of times you've got questions that are like this symptom popped up. And rather having to keep it in your brain space and worry about if it's significant or if it's not, they just get to drop it right in the chat and and we answer. So that is, yeah, and we really, you know, focus on results and um it is it's where we need to go as a nation. I'm not sure how to get there, but I'm definitely determined to to try to help pave the way for it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:24

Yeah, I love that. I um I think it's really important. I definitely uh I mean, we need to see some something shift uh um in the health of our general public. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:40

Um at this stage, we should be reversing backward. We should literally be aging in reverse. Like we and yeah, we're seeing the opposite. We're seeing our youth are getting sicker quicker. Um, you know, we uh it's it's uh we have to start asking questions. There has to be reform. Like we have to make healthcare more affordable. It's it's it is uh it's it's insane, but we have to also give doctors the ability some autonomy back and away from the insurance. I mean, there's just so much to it that it's hard to really break it down. I think that if we can get back to community is where we start, you know, um, community co-ops and um trying to like if we don't start with our food, then it's it's hard to help everyone, right? And so making food more accessible and affordable, good food, accessible and affordable and not contaminated. I mean, there's just so much to it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:59

Yeah, I know it is, and it can feel a little bit overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:02

I I get very overwhelmed when I start to think about it all and a little sad, a little sad.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:09

Yeah, I and I, you know, I I get I feel blessed, I I guess, and grateful uh because I've been on this journey for so long and it's evolved and changed with you know new information because um for a really long time I was a vegetarian and then realizing I really needed to eat meat, I changed, you know, I I wasn't so set in my ways that I wasn't unwilling or open to the fact that that was no longer working for my body. Right. Um, and then you know, it's just been a slow process. And I think the birth of my first child, well, that that like um had a pulse in me forward, and uh, but it doesn't have to happen all at once. I remember, you know, we got the reverse osmosis, water at home, and and I had met this one mom, and and uh I guess Noah was like 18 months, maybe a little bit younger, and I was vegetarian. I thought I was doing all the right things at that time. I was eating this gif peanut butter. Little did I know it had, you know, partially hydrogenated oils in it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:23

And we tested. I mean, you know, I it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:30

Yeah, and I mean, I look back and I wasn't I was nursing and I wasn't sure about milk at that time. Um, we weren't veg we were not vegan. Um but I I was giving him, I cannot believe this to this day. Rice milk.

unknown: 1:13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:50

I I mean, I I literally am blown away that that's what I was doing. And then I found out about raw milk and I was driving to Carmel, Indiana to get gallons of raw milk because you couldn't really get it around here at that time yet. Yeah, but I just can't believe I just gave him nothing but basically sugar water.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:09

Oh, if I could go back, if I could go back, I would have and I thought that I was, you know, you just don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:17

And I mean, it's but there were so many things I was doing right to, you know, but then like um it's just been a huge learning curve. Um, but it it doesn't have to feel overwhelming. It doesn't have to, if you can just like for those out there, just give yourself permission to make the small changes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:41

That's a great 100%. That's what I tell everyone. It's progress. And again, going back, it's progress, not perfection. Yeah. So I remember I was doing a reel, um, I was doing a video and I was, you know, showing like batch my batch prep for the week of like I was making salads, um, making salads for myself and my husband. And I was showing people this is how easy one person was like, ooh, are you putting that in plastic? And I was like, Yeah, like I mean, this was yes, I am. I it's not more, you know. I mean, I'm doing the best that I can. Like, I don't have that much storage space for all glass. Like at the you know, I have since converted, um, do still have some plastic in my house, but you know, you do the best that you can. My biggest thing is we are not designed to live in a bubble. That's why I do maintenance. I mean, you know, I've cleared my systems, but I I still do, you know, a monthly parasite moon challenge. I still do a quarterly liver detox and additional support. And so that's really by the time that I have a client that graduates from me, the ultimate thing, if we've ran their genetics, that's amazing. Um, then I get to say, hey, these things that you are susceptible to given your genetics, this is what you need to make sure of in order to minimize that from a lifestyle perspective. So that's awesome. If I have, if if they can afford to run that, then that's great information. I can say, this is the best meal plan for you genetically. This is the best exercise regimen. This is how your body's going to respond best to exercise. Um, and so we can put them on a lifelong plan to then help minimize any future disease. Um, that's optimal, obviously. That would be great to do that with everyone. We should start with our children. That would be amazing. Um, but obviously that doesn't work for everyone's budget. Um, but I also put them on like you're gonna be on a quarterly maintenance plan. And and one month out of the quarter, you're gonna go back to your treatment plan because you're gonna assume that you have weaknesses in the areas of your underlying root cause. There's a reason that you ended up with those. So one month out of the quarter, go back and actually treat them, give them extra support and love because we're not meant to live in a bubble. We can't walk around being paranoid about every single experience and oh, this person, and we can't control other people, you know, our neighbor spraying or landlord spraying. We can't control that. That's out of our control. And you can't you can't spend your life obsessed and worrying about it either. So my thing is, do you know, I will, I mean, I typically stay on some type of binder just because I know that my body, how it responds to free radicals and to oxidative stress. So I'll use a little bit of a binder and um to make sure that it's getting any extra chemicals that I can come into contact with. I support my liver. I I enjoy organic red wine, you know. I I enjoy that. I like to sit out on my back deck and enjoy a glass of red wine. So everything in moderation, and again, it's about balance because you can't have health without happiness.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:36

So yeah, finding that vitamin Um J, the joy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:43

We have to it's missing for so many people, it really is missing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:48

Yeah, so yeah, definitely in that overachiever when you're just trying to go. I think sometimes we can forget that piece altogether. It's not as joyful as we think it is. Yeah. Um, so I know I'm so appreciative of your time today. I believe your website is dnadoc.com, right? That's right. Okay. Yes, easy and all that information can be found there. Now, are you on Instagram? I know you're on I am.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:13

Okay. I'm on TikTok. I'm on Instagram. I get a little overwhelmed by my TikTok account. It kind of I did a leptum video and it went crazy. And so, anyhow, um, I get a lot of contacts there and I kind of get overwhelmed by that because I don't necessarily love being on my phone. Um, so I but I am on Instagram as well. I can be found on either either place.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:41

Okay. Is that going to be DNA doc too?

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:43

Um, it's DNA doc fm for functional medicine.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:48

Okay, on on Instagram? Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I want to uh and maybe in another conversation we can dig into some of the other. I mean, I'm 47. Some of the um, I don't want to say issues, but challenges that arise as both men and women come into this middle age. Um, I don't know if you work with men too, uh, but I would love to um, you know, dive into both of those um topics, maybe on the topic too. Yeah, in separate conversations. Okay, cool. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:31

Thank you so much for having me on, and it was a great conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:36

Yeah, and I look forward to meeting you in person in the past.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:41

All right. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:49

Okay.