Latest / Love Your Gut / Ep. 132: Why we use HTMA Testing (Often Before We Touch The Gut)

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Ep. 132: Why we use HTMA Testing (Often Before We Touch The Gut) · Love Your Gut

• 1:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast.
• 1:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm your host, Dr.
• 1:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist.
• 1:57
  Dr. Heather Finley: I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain.
• 2:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues.
• 2:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: And now I'm here to guide you.
• 2:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort.
• 2:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good.
• 2:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back.
• 2:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief.
• 2:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: You are in the right place.
• 2:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the love your gut podcast.
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: So Sarah came to us after six SIBO protocols, antimicrobials, an elemental diet, low FODMAP, the whole list, everything that you think you would try for SIBO.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: She also had been struggling with constipation for over 10 years.
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: She had spent who knows how much money trying to fix it between functional doctors, different GI doctors, protocols, supplements.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: When I finally got on a discovery call with her, she was honestly expecting us to just hand her the next SIBO protocol, and we actually did the opposite of that.
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: We did not touch her gut at all at first, which I know sounds so weird, because we are a gut health practice.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: So I wanna walk you through why we did what we did, how we were able to actually help her resolve her symptoms for the first time in 10 years, and what the process was.
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: If you are a practitioner listening to this, you're gonna love this episode.
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: This is more targeted towards you.
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: This is part two of the practitioner series.
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: And if you are not a practitioner, I still think you're gonna love it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: So You might see yourself in some of this and know what to look for next time.
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: back to Sarah.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: Within two weeks of working with us, her bowels were actually moving more regularly than they had in years.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: So what did we see that those six protocols missed?
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: I am so glad you asked, because I'm gonna tell you.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: But first, I want you to think about your own Sarah, or maybe you are Sarah Because if you're a practitioner, I know you have one, maybe a few.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: She is the client who has done everything that you have asked.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: She has done the antimicrobials, she has done the diet, she has been taking her supplements, and yet she is still constipated, bloated, exhausted.
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: And every follow-up that you have with her, you feel yourself reaching for, like, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing.
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: And here's the thing, is when you become a practitioner that is not steady, you're, like, scrambling for the next thing, that's how your clients feel.
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: Your clients are a mirror to your nervous system.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: You know how babies will be a mirror to their moms?
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: This happens in the practitioner-client relationship as well, where if you have nervous, anxious energy, your client is going to have nervous, anxious energy also.
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: So welcome back to this series.
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: This is part two, like I said.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: Last week, in episode 131, I talked about what to do when low FODMAP stops working.
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: Today, I want to talk about why the very next move is often not the gut at all, and I wanna tell you why HTMA, or hair tissue mineral analysis, is one of the very first tests that we run in our practice for most of our clients.
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: And I say most, because obviously, this is not a one-size-fits-all.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: Nothing in health is.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: This test single-handedly has shortened the timeline for so many of our clients.
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: Why I think jumping straight into a GI protocol doesn't work for most of the people who end up on our caseload is there's so many reasons.
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: and I also wanna talk about why, honestly, if a client could afford only one functional test, most days I actually would pick this test over a stool test.
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: I know that last one might have you scratching your head or ruffle some feathers, but just stay with me.
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: So let's start with something that I think a lot of practitioners believe without even ever saying it out loud, is that minerals are basic.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: They are boring.
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: Just take a multivitamin.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: Add magnesium.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: We get minerals from our food.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: Maybe put a little salt on your water.
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: You are covered.
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: Then let's get to the cool stuff.
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: Let's get to the gut.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: Honestly, I used to think about minerals and all of this that way, too.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: But when I noticed when I looked at my own practice, sometimes I was guessing.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: I was giving almost every client the same magnesium, the same electrolyte, the same eat more salt advice.
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: And for some of them it helped, and for some of them it did nothing.
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: And that's what had me scratching my head.
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: Why does this work for some people and not work for all the people?
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: How can I actually give more specific recommendations that actually work?
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: And it bothered me because a guess with a nice label on it still feels like a protocol, but it is still a guess.
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: And when you have HTMA, the question that you're asking actually completely changes.
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: You stop asking,"What supplement should I try next?" And you start asking,"What is this body actually short on?
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: And what is getting in the way of using it?
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: And what does the body need instead?" Those are totally different questions.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: The second one is the question that the client is actually paying you to answer.
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: So if you want the science of how the test works, the tissue versus serum, the ratios, all that, go back and listen to episode 116.
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna repeat that today.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: Today is about why it matters in your practice And I would for sure be leaving something out if I didn't talk about the other elephant in the room, because I know that so many people are saying,"Heather, HTMA is not validated." I get it.
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: I hear it all the time from colleagues, professors, and it's totally fair.
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: The first question I'd ask back is, validated for what?
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: HTMA is not a diagnostic test.
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: I have never diagnosed anybody with anything off of a hair test.
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: And as a dietician, I can't diagnose you anyways.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: We use it as a screening tool.
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: It shows us mineral patterns at the tissue level, and we also use it alongside blood work a lot of times, alongside symptoms, alongside everything else that we know about the client.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: And if you think about it, a lot of what we lean on every single day isn't validated or diagnostic either, right?
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: Like symptom questionnaires, food and symptom journals, a client telling you her bloating is worse at night.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: We use those because they help us make better decision.
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: That is the job of a screening tool.
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: The other piece is that you get to validate this tool yourself in real time with your clients.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: You can retest.
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: You can watch the pattern on the second test shift.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: You can watch her symptoms shift right along away with it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: That's the kind of evidence that changes how you practice.
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: The caveat is the risk with HTMA isn't really the test, the risk is the person reading it.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: There are a lot of people out there handing clients a list of supplements off of a computer-generated report that they don't actually understand.
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: That is what gives the test a bad name.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: The test is only as good as the interpretation.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: And also, you cannot, please hear me when I say this, you cannot take the mineral levels on an HTMA at face value because HTMA is so much more about the symphony of minerals and how they are working together versus individual mineral levels themselves.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: So just kind of keep that in mind.
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: So let's talk about the gut real quick because I think that's where most of us go first.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: A client comes to you, maybe they're bloated, maybe they're constipated, maybe they've had a positive SIBO test.
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: The logical move or what seems like the logical move is to address the SIBO, right?
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: That's what they came to you for.
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: That's where the symptoms are.
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: That's what we were trained to do.
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: So you start a protocol.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: And I know some of you have seen what happens next, right?
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: You start the antimicrobials, the client flares, or they're white-knuckling their way through.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: maybe they feel better for a little, couple weeks, and then it comes back.
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: Maybe you try a different protocol, another one.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: Somewhere in there, it's very easy to start thinking that the protocol was the problem or that maybe they didn't follow it well enough What I know and have come to believe after seeing this pattern so many times is that a GI protocol asks the body to do work.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: It asks the gut to move, to digest, to repair, to clear things out, and every one of those jobs runs on minerals.
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: Motility needs minerals.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: Stomach acid production needs minerals.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: Bile flow and enzymes and the energy your cells need to repair the lining of the gut, all of that needs minerals.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: So if your client is depleted, your gut literally does not have the raw materials to produce what the protocol is asking the gut to do.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: So the way that I like to explain it to clients is this: doing a gut protocol on a mineral depleted body is like renovating a kitchen in a house where the power is out.
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: You can put the brand-new fridge there, the oven, the lighting, but you flip the switch, and nothing is going to turn on.
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: The appliances are fine.
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: You just don't have electricity.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: And I understand that.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: This is, like, a whole new way of thinking.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: Going to the gut makes complete sense.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: It's the obvious move.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: It's just very often the second move instead of the first move.
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: So in our practice, we look at the foundation first.
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: We support the minerals.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: We get the body some electricity back.
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: Then we go after the gut And then when we get to the gut, the protocol actually has something to work with.
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: Many failed protocols are sequencing failures, the wrong thing at the wrong time.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: So before I tell you the rest of Sarah's story, just a quick note.
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: If you are a practitioner and you have had a Sarah or you are a Sarah, on your caseload this year, I am hosting a live training Friday, November 6th, called Your HTMA Edge.
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: It is for practitioners who want to stop guessing at the foundation and learn how to actually use HTMA with their clients.
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: You can visit the link in the show notes to, secure your spot.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: It is October 29th when this episode comes out, and so there's early bird pricing through November 2nd.
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: So$29, then it will go up to$39.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: There's one CEU pending through the academy.
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: There will be a replay, but you will only get CEUs if you are there live.
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: So back to Sarah.
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: By the time she found us, she had done six SIBO protocols over, like, about the last 10-ish years.
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: She was still constipated.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: She was tired in that, like, bone tired kind of way, where sleep just doesn't fix it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: And she told us on her first call, I just feel like maybe my doctor was right." And I asked her,"What did your doctor say?" And she said,"My doctor said that SIBO is just something that you have to manage.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: SIBO is something that just keeps coming back." Which, by the way, is not true You can get rid of SIBO.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: So we did things a little different.
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: We ran her HTMA, and what we found was that she was in a pattern that is called four lows.
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: Her calcium, her magnesium, her sodium, her potassium were all low.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: These are the four main minerals.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: the four big macro minerals.
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: So in plain language, what that means is her body was running on empty.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: There was no reserve.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: It had been under stress for so long that it has drawn down everything it had, and it doesn't have anything left to respond with.
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: So when I saw that, my first thought was,"Well, yeah, no wonder.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: Of course, these protocols didn't stick." She was being asked to rebuild a gut with no building materials.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: her body wasn't resisting the protocols.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: It just could not afford the protocols.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: So we actually didn't start with her gut.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: We started with her minerals.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: We worked on replenishing through food and targeted mineral support, low and slow, because a depleted body can be very sensitive.
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: These are also the clients that are like,"I cannot tolerate antimicrobials." So nothing fancy, nothing extreme.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: You don't wanna do that here.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: Within two weeks, Sarah's bowels started moving more regularly.
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: Two weeks.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: After, like, 10 years and six protocols, we still had not done a single thing.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: Nothing for her gut.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: Then, once she had that foundation back, she actually was able to tolerate the next interventions for her gut that we recommended.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: So then we got into more of a targeted gut protocol to address her SIBO, and really, like, a big thing that we saw is her enzyme output was low, her secretory IgA was low.
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: Like, all these things that help you digest food, help defend your immune system, help with gut lining support, all that was depleted.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: So we had to work on almost backwards first.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: I wanna be clear that Sarah is really not a rare case.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: We see a Sarah all the time.
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: One of the most common Sarahs that we see is a constipated client who's taking a high dose of magnesium every single day and is still constipated.
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: Typically, you're gonna see something pretty crazy on an HTMA.
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: You're gonna look and you're gonna see that magnesium actually might be low, but it also might be high, meaning the body is burning through a lot of magnesium.
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: But when the other minerals like sodium, potassium, boron, cobalt, all those things are low, magnesium can't do its job.
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: So you have to zoom out.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: You have to look at the bigger picture, often lower the magnesium, and then things start moving.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: So that's what I mean when I say that minerals collapse time.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: Collapsing time isn't just like, oh, we're throwing more at the picture.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: We're doing targeted things in the right order The other thing that I wanna talk about a little bit is the idea that HTMA is basically a supplement list, that you get the report, you see what's low, you order those minerals, and then you are done.
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: That's actually, like, the least interesting thing that the test does.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: For me, the real value is that it's a map.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: It tells me which system to look at next, which tests might be worth running, which question I should be asking that I wasn't asking before.
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna keep this high level today because that's what we'll get into in the training, but here's a taste of what minerals can point you towards.
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: They can show you where someone is on the stress spectrum.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: So whether they are pushing hard, running on adrenaline, or whether they are already past that and burnt out.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: Those two clients need almost opposite support, which is why the same protocol can help one and totally do nothing for the other.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: They can also give you a clue about thyroid and energy.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: You know those clients whose TSH comes back perfectly normal, and yet they're so exhausted and cold and constipated?
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: The minerals often give you a hint about what's going on that the blood work isn't showing, like whether, potassium is really low, calcium's really high.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: This is going to affect how thyroid actually is working on a cellular level.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: Then you can even look at iron and copper.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: So if you've been listening to any of the iron episodes, you know how many clients come to us with ferritin that just won't budge no matter how much iron they take.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: Sometimes HTMA shows us that the problem is less about iron and more about copper and how iron is being moved.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: That totally changes what you do next, right?
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: The other cool thing is that it can point towards hormone and hormone patterns before you go reaching for hormone support.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Now remember, minerals make hormones.
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: So I actually got this message the other day from someone who, is gonna start working with our team, and she said,"Do you ever run Dutch testing?" And I said,"That's a great question.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: I'm so glad you asked because, yes, we do run Dutch testing," but we actually don't run it very often.
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: Because the thing is, once you support minerals and then you support elimination of hormones through the gut, because the way that we detox them is through our stool, a lot of hormonal symptoms will resolve with mineral and gut support.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: So the times that you actually need to use Dutch testing actually very much decrease.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: they can show you what the body is holding onto in terms of toxic metals, which can definitely change the order and pace of everything else that you do.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: So the shift for me before HCMA is I was choosing the next test or the next step based on what I had been taught.
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: Now minerals tell me where to look, and those patterns actually like on the report, they give you insight into what is next and what you can do.
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: That is what I will walk you through on November 6th Okay, the other objection that I hear constantly is,"I love this, but my clients are tapped out.
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: They're not gonna pay for another test." I get that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: A lot of your clients have spent thousands of dollars before ever getting to you and to your practice.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: But here's the thing, HTMA is by far the most affordable test that we run.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: An HTMA is less than$100, and a comprehensive stool test can be anywhere from 350 to 550.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: That is a big difference.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: And I'm gonna say the thing that I teased at the top.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: If a client can only afford one functional test, most days I would choose an HTMA over a stool test.
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: The reason why is because a stool test is gonna tell you what's living in the gut, which of course is very valuable information.
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: We do stool testing all the time.
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: But HTMA tells you whether the body has what it needs to respond to anything that you do that's actually living in the gut.
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: So if I only get one piece of data, I want the one that tells me whether my protocol even has a chance of working.
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: I also think we need to reframe what's expensive.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: Testing is not the expensive part, guessing is.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: Think about Sarah.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: Six protocols, 10 years, thousands, thousands of dollars.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: Compare that to one test that pointed us in the right direction within the first couple weeks.
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: It's also just an easy test to say yes to because it's a small hair sample.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: There's no blood draw, there's no stool kit sitting on the bathroom counter.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: less friction means more clients follow through.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: And then, of course, the retest, which I think is the most underrated part.
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: When a client sees their second HTMA, and they can see in black and white that their minerals are shifting, that builds so much trust.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: You know what's working, what's not.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: you can then make it even more specific.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: It keeps the clients engaged.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: It keeps them working with you.
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: And then quick note on the business side.
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: You don't have to sell HTMA as a standalone.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: Most practitioners build it into their packages with follow-up support, so it becomes part of the value of working with you instead of just another thing to pay for.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: So let me bring it back to Sarah one more time.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: So six protocols.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: She was in four lows.
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: Within two weeks, she's going to the bathroom more regularly than she had in a decade.
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: That is the whole episode, right?
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: Like, the answer was not another probiotic or SIBO protocol.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: It wasn't another elimination diet.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: In four lows, the last thing that somebody needs is another elimination diet So if you came into this episode thinking like minerals are a nice extra, the thing that you add, you know, maybe I would ask you to do this one thing.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: Pull up your most recent stuck client, the one that you keep reaching for, and ask yourself,"What do you think their minerals would say?" Now, knowing that minerals matter is step one.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: Knowing how to read an HTMA is the actual skill.
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: So understanding the patterns, knowing what to support first, what to leave alone, knowing what pattern is pointing you somewhere else, that is the part that most practitioners never get trained on, and it's the part that makes the difference for your clients.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: When you know how to use this test to its full potential, you will get results with your clients, and that is exactly what I'm teaching you on Friday, November 6th in Your HTMA Edge, 12 o'clock noon.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: I want you to walk away from this training feeling like you can be the practitioner who finds what those six protocols missed, because it's, not even just about that.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: It's about the change that you can create in somebody's life when you're able to do that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: So I will put the link in the show notes.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: I would love to see you there, and then I will see you next week on part three of this practitioner series.