Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / 197 // How Parasites Wrecked My Gut for a Decade and What Finally Worked ❘ Interview with Dr. Kate Davis

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197 // How Parasites Wrecked My Gut for a Decade and What Finally Worked ❘ Interview with Dr. Kate Davis · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

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What if the thing wrecking your gut health had nothing to do with your diet?
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My guest today is Dr. Kate Davis. She's a chiropractor and functional medicine doctor.
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She spent nearly a decade suffering from a whole bunch of things that stemmed
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from chronic gut issues, but then she discovered she had a massive parasite
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infection. And I said massive.
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She's going to tell you what that means, why parasites are more common than
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you think, and most importantly, what you should do before you ever touch a parasite cleanse.
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Welcome to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast. This is where you will find
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clarity and simple, sustainable strategies to feel better.
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I want to help you figure out your root causes.
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My name is Esther Yunkin. I am a registered nurse. I know how exhausting it
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is to live with fatigue, brain fog, and the ups and downs of Hashimoto's. And that is why I'm here.
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I'm here to cut through the confusion and to give you practical steps that support
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your body, calm your immune system, so that you can regain your energy and feel like yourself again.
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Dr. Kate Davis is a licensed chiropractor and functional medicine doctor who
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personally battled chronic gut issues for nearly a decade, only to find out
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that she had a massive parasite infection.
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Leveraging her healing journey, she has since helped hundreds of women to overcome
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chronic gut conditions from constipation and bloating to IBS and acid reflux.
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Dr. Kate, welcome, welcome.
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I've talked a lot about gut health
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on the Health with Hashimoto's podcast because it's a huge root cause.
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So tell us your story and a little bit about why gut health matters.
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Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on here, Esther.
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It's definitely, definitely excited to be on this one.
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I love, you know, talking to other, you know, Christian podcast hosts who are
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doing good in the world and really helping people.
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So yeah, I really started, you know, back in my 20s. I was 24,
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had horrible gut issues.
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I mean, it came out of nowhere. And I was a vision of health,
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right? I was a former D1 athlete. I didn't look unhealthy. I took care of myself.
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Maybe I didn't have the best diet at the time because I was one of those skinny
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fat people, you know, where like you eat everything and you never gain weight.
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But it was, you know, for the most part, like I was active. I exercised all
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the time. It didn't make any sense.
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And I was in so much pain. I actually went 13 days without a single bowel movement.
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I had really severe constipation.
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And I was on Miralax for 11 of those days and it did nothing.
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And so I was in a lot of pain. Couldn't even sit up straight in class because
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my stomach was so bloated. And I couldn't eat like, you know,
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more than a small amount of food at a time.
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Like it was really uncomfortable, really painful.
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And I did what everyone does. I went to a GI doctor and they did some testing.
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They diagnosed me with gastroparesis, which is kind of a useless diagnosis like
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a lot of them are, where it just means stomach paralysis if you break down the Latin root word.
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And it just means you're not moving food from your stomach into your small intestines
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in a reasonable amount of time because your body can't digest the food.
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And so all he offered me was
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two terrible options he was like number one we can give you a drug
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that you have to take the rest of your life but one of the common side
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effects of this drug is permanent facial twitches and I
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was like I'm 24 and single I'm gonna say no um do you have any other options
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like I'm not taking that drug and he's like well we can remove your intestines
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and I was like okay I'm gonna go see someone else and never went back to that
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doctor I was like that's insane like those your only two options was drugs or
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surgery to remove like a really important organ in the body.
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And so after that, I was just, you know, I went back to school. I asked around.
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I was like, hey, do you guys know anyone who can help with gut issues naturally?
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Because I haven't been able to go to the bathroom in like two weeks.
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And they referred me to this doctor who luckily had an opening like,
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you know, the next day, which was awesome.
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Like he had a cancellation, which he never had because he was always really
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booked up. But he was a chiropractor who had a background in massage therapy
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before I went to chiropractic school.
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He's a functional neurologist. I don't know if you know anything about that.
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But he did this myofascial release in my abdomen, which for those of you who've
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ever had myofascial release.
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It doesn't feel like anything. It's very gentle, just moving around that layer
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of tissue that surrounds your muscles, your skin, your organs.
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And he did some organ manipulation. And I remember leaving thinking to myself,
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what the heck did I just pay for?
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Because I didn't know what he was doing. He's just like doing very gentle release.
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And I was like, okay, I hope I feel better.
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I had like four or five bowel movements that night, which was crazy.
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And I swear I lost like five to 10 pounds because I was just so backed up and
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I felt so amazing. It was such relief to be able to go to the bathroom again.
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And he was actually the first person who said, you know, maybe you have parasites,
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but I just didn't listen because the stool test was negative.
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So I actually did order one of those tests, but I completely overhauled my diet,
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went paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free for about a decade. And as long as I stuck
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to that really restrictive diet, I felt okay.
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But anytime I strayed off of it, all my symptoms would come back.
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And so even though I had avoided a lot of the symptoms, I never really fully
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healed until my friend was in town.
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Because all my symptoms had come back, even on the clean diet,
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because of a stressful life event.
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So I know you talk about that a lot on your podcast about stress and how it
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triggers a lot of these health issues.
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But yeah, I had a really, really bad, you know, car accident.
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And all these symptoms came back. And they were worse than they were before.
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And I was on the verge of an autoimmune disease. I was getting swelling in certain joints.
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Fatigue was really bad. I'd never had energy issues my whole life.
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And I was just, you know, a mess. And she did some testing, found a massive
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parasite infection and a lot of other issues like leaky gut,
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gallbladder dysfunction.
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And she put me on a, you know, really specific detox plan. And after being on
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that detox plan for, you know, about a month and a half, I passed a three foot long parasite.
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It was gigantic, like massive.
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And I was blown away. I was like, where was this living in my body?
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Because it was thick. It was like a centimeter wide, like half a centimeter thick.
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Like it was disgusting. And but after that, I started pooping on my own two to three times a day.
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Like consistently, I passed hundreds of other parasites that were smaller,
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all different shapes and sizes.
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I mean, I had so many different parasites in my body that at one point I just
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called her and I was like, am I like half human, half worm?
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Because they keep coming out. And it's been like four or five months.
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She's like, oh, yeah, you were just super infested.
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So, yeah, they'll probably keep coming out for a little bit longer. but all
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of my health issues went away I mean the swelling went away the
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bloating the acid reflux the constipation was completely
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gone I could eat dairy and gluten again which I didn't even
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think was possible I just thought once you have a sensitivity it just never
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goes away and I just felt like a new person and so I started treating all my
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chiropractic patients they started getting phenomenal results and you know ever
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since then I've been able to help you know hundreds of women really resolve
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you know bloating constipation acid reflux IBS all those those chronic gut issues Wow.
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A three-foot-long worm? That's so gross. It was really disgusting.
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Yeah. And I was curious. So I had, like, gloves. I had, like, a long shoe.
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Because I was like, I'm going to find these suckers because I want to see them
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come out so that I'm justified in all the pain I went through.
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And yeah, no, I like, you know, I tore it open.
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It was hollow on the inside. I was like, this is not mucus. Because a lot of
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people be like, oh, it's a mucoid plaque. And I'm like, no, that was a legit worm.
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Wow. So where do you think you got that many parasites? How did you get infested?
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You know, I don't know, because I'm sure you learn this in nursing school,
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but in America, they always teach you, oh, it's okay.
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Parasites only exist in third world countries, which is total garbage.
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I've seen a lot of people who've actually never left the United States who have
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parasites come out when we're detoxing.
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So they are in the United States. Now, granted, they're not as severe and they're
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not as common as other countries like Southeast Asia and Africa,
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but they do still exist here.
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And it's not so much being exposed to the parasites that causes the issue.
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It's a reflection of your internal environment and your immune system's ability
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to fight it off that really determines whether or not you're going to get infected.
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And so for me, I think I got some of them from my mom because some of them can
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actually pass through the placenta while you're pregnant.
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I don't know if people know that, but let's always recommend trying to detox
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before you get pregnant. Otherwise, you could pass those suckers on to your kids.
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And I'd also been to a lot of different countries. By the time I was 18,
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I'd been to at least maybe like six different countries at that point.
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A lot of them were in the Caribbean, like, you know, maybe not the cleanest
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water and food in that area. and I was born in Europe as well.
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So it's hard to say where I picked them up. I never ate fish as a kid.
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I always hated seafood. So I think that probably saved me from getting,
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you know, more gut issues sooner in life.
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But yeah, I don't know where I picked them up. They're just,
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they're so common and they're everywhere.
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But, and it's not to be afraid of them, right? It's if you have a good immune
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function, if you're producing enough stomach acid, if your gallbladder is working
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and producing enough bile salts, you should eliminate those parasites as soon
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as they enter your system from food and water.
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But it's when those organ systems break down, it's when your immune system breaks
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down, that's when they become really detrimental to your health.
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And that's when they can really start to overgrow and start taking over.
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Because I'd had gut issues since I was in my teens.
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You know, like I just ignored it because it's, you know, you're a kid,
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you're eating garbage for food and candy and cereal.
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Especially if you grew up in the 90s, you're eating a lot of cereal for breakfast.
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So not the best diet to really promote good immune system function.
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So I think a lot of it was definitely self-inflicted. But I also had a really
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severe head injury when I was 18, too.
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And that's a huge trigger for a lot of gut issues in people.
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And because your brain communicates with your immune system,
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it can also mess up immune function as well.
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So if somebody is listening, they have Hashimoto's, so they know their immune system is not optimal.
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And Hashimoto's is always linked to a gut issue. They're listening.
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They're like, oh, my goodness, Dr. Kate, maybe I have a parasite.
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What do they do next? Do they just like get the next parasite cleanse that comes
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across their Instagram feed? Because there's a lot of them.
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No. So that's such a good question because it's such a popular thing nowadays.
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Like everyone is talking about, oh, I need to do a parasite cleanse.
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And I'll just ask them, I'm like, have you done any testing to see if you even have parasites?
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Because maybe you don't have parasites. Maybe you have mold toxicity or heavy
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metals or a really poorly functioning liver.
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And that's creating a lot of digestion and, you know, hormone issues in your body.
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And so it really depends on the person. I never recommend starting with any supplement, any detox.
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Like number one is you've got to get some testing done to know what you're targeting
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because otherwise you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks and also,
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if your body's not ready for detox you know if you have really poor drainage
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in your body you can't get toxins
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out efficiently or you have leaky gut which you know we all know that
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autoimmunity starts in the gut with leaky gut. If you have leaky gut that's
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been prevalent for a long period of time and you haven't focused on healing
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it at all, when you start dumping a bunch of those toxins and pulling them out of your tissues,
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a lot of them are going to recirculate back into your bloodstream and put a
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lot of stress on your liver and that can create a whole host of detox reactions for people.
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So you've really got to be careful. You've got to know like,
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hey, we've got to really focus on healing up the gut lining.
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We've got to focus on supporting gallbladder liver function because those are
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your three main organs that remove toxins and waste products from your body.
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And then also 80% of your immune system lives in the gut. So you've really got
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to focus on with any autoimmunity, you got to start with gut health because it all starts there.
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Like there's so much research showing leaky gut is the precursor to autoimmunity.
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And I've seen that in a few of the Hashimoto's patients I've worked with,
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where once we start healing their gut, you'll even see like those autoimmune
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antibody numbers on their blood work start to go down or even go back into regular normal levels.
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And they're like, wait, I didn't think that that could happen.
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And I'm like, yeah, well, we healed the root cause.
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That's why your numbers went back to normal, but you still have to maintain
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this and not just go put a bunch of garbage food into your body.
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We still got to manage stress, manage sleep, all that stuff,
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all the basic lifestyle things as well.
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Because, you know, just because you get out of that range doesn't mean you can't go back into it.
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And so it's really just knowing that even when the symptoms are gone,
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there's still a lot more healing work that needs to be done because that leaky
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gut didn't pop up overnight. It took decades to get there. So sometimes it might
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take a few years to fully heal.
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And that was the case for me. Like even though all my symptoms went away after four months,
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I still my leaky gut was still popping up on testing for about a year and a
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half After that and so I really had to just focus on okay continue healing the
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gut continue focusing on all this stuff so Testing is number one if you're going
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to do any sort of detox You've got to know what you're going after Because you're
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either going to go after the wrong thing or you're not going to pick up on
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Drainage issues and then you're going to get a horrible detox reaction.
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So You know getting full testing done, you know blood work Getting something
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done to check for infections toxins organ function is really going to be the best place to start it.
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And how does somebody know if their leaky gut is healed and if their detox pathways are open?
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She said both of those things before you do a parasite cleanse or any kind of
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detox. But how do they know those two things are ready?
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Yeah, well, there's a lot of symptoms that can kind of tell you that.
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So obviously, I go off symptoms plus labs because, you know,
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labs are not infallible. They do make mistakes sometimes. So we kind of have
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to do our best detective work with both.
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But signs of gut, I mean, any sort of gut issue, bloating, diarrhea,
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constipation, acid reflux.
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There's probably something going on with your liver and your gallbladder and
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your gut. So you got to make sure that we fix those issues first.
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In terms of testing, you can do, you know, gut zoomer test is amazing.
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And they'll show zonulin levels. That's probably one of the best tests for leaky
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gut. Because when that gut lining breaks down, you release this protein called
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zonulin that's found in extremely high amounts in people with autoimmune disease.
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So if you're seeing that zonulin level continuously go down on stool testing,
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that's usually a good indicator.
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I know there's other ways to test it as well. and then but
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any sort of testing that's just going to show leaky gut or gut dysfunction
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there's a lot of tests out there now one of my favorite ones
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is a hair follicle test that can actually pick up on pretty
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much all this stuff in one test it's not as specific as gut zoomer or total
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tox burden testing but it really does show you a full picture of you know do
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you have gallbladder issues popping up do you have liver dysfunction do you
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have leaky gut nutrient deficiencies you know all this stuff that can tell you
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a lot about organs because a lot of your nutrients can also tell you if you
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have gallbladder or liver issues, depending on which ones you're deficient in.
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So yeah, that's probably the best place to start is just, you know,
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looking at testing, but also looking at symptoms.
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And constipation, the biggest gallbladder symptom I see with people is constipation
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issues, because that helps stimulate that peristalsis motion in people.
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And I've also seen a lot of people who don't have their gallbladder anymore,
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and they have Hashimoto's, and they didn't realize the connection between gallbladder
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function and thyroid function. They're very interconnected.
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So there's a lot of different things to look at.
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For liver, I usually see a lot of skin issues with liver dysfunction and then
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hormone issues, obviously, because that's where a lot of the hormones are,
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you know, recycled and broken down every day.
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Everything's connected. Yeah. Yeah. You can't divide the body.
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It's just, it's not possible.
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You know, gut issues a lot of times are liver and gallbladder issues.
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It's not actually the gut.
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Or there's sometimes brain issues. You had a head injury that never got healed.
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You never went to anyone to actually, you know, work on balancing the brain
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back out to restore that brain-gut connection.
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It could be, you know, insulin resistance.
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Like, especially because you work with Hashimoto's, you know,
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thyroid hormones are one of the downstream hormones, but the master controllers
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of those hormones are insulin and cortisol.
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So if you don't manage stress, if you don't get your insulin and your metabolic
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health under control, your thyroid numbers are never going to go down.
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So it's really looking at the whole picture, right? Like when someone comes
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to me, yes, they're coming for gut issues, but I'm still going to look at metabolic health.
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I'm still going to look at thyroid function if I think that's an issue based
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on their symptoms that they're telling me.
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I'm still going to look at, you know, HSCRP, you know, total inflammation in
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the body, see if there's maybe some other issue going on.
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And I want to see those numbers go down and get back into normal
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ranges as we're going through the detox to make sure we're on the
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right path right so if somebody's
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listening they're like okay she just listed like seven different things that
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i need to work on like what is the first thing if somebody's listening they
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can't do testing today but they're listening to you like okay i clearly need
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to work on something what's something that she can do today or tomorrow to start
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start feeling better yeah can i give you two things.
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Okay, cool. Stress reduction is number one. So the easiest way to calm down
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your nervous system at a physiological level, regardless of what's going on
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in your external environment,
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you know, you can be in a season of crazy stress and you can still physiologically
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get your body back into that rest and digest that parasympathetic state is breathing.
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You know, there's so many breath work exercises out there. One of my favorite
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ones is box breathing, but doing an exhalation focus where basically normal
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box breathing is you breathe in for four seconds, you hold for four,
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you breathe out for four, you hold for four.
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I like to breathe out for eight, so twice as long as you breathe in because
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exhalation-focused breathing has been shown to actually activate that parasympathetic
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nervous system a lot more.
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It actually allows better dilation of the blood vessels, better blood flow,
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better oxygenation so that your body can heal and repair better as well.
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And so if you breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for eight,
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hold for four, do that for three to five minutes.
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Honestly, if you're in a full-blown autoimmune state, probably three times a day.
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If you're just someone who just wants general good health benefits once a day, you know, is good.
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It's just good to start your day like that. So that regardless of the person
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who cuts you off in traffic or, you know,
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the person who just irritates you throughout the day, your nervous system is
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already in a better state where you're probably not going to overreact and it's
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not going to put you in that, you know, sympathetic fight or flight. So that'd be number one.
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And then number two is going to be really focusing on sleep.
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I feel like people underestimate the power of good quality sleep.
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But, you know, a lot of your hormones are produced at night.
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You know, your liver detoxes at night, your brain detoxes at night.
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If you're trying to go to bed by 10 that's
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like ideal like try to be asleep before 10 p.m
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because your liver detox is between 10 and 3 a.m something around
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that time frame and if you're not asleep in that area that that
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time frame you're kind of losing a lot of those detox abilities and in terms
17:34
of hormones like Hashimoto's issues you know your liver helps regulate a lot
17:38
of hormones in your body and so they all and they all interconnect we all know
17:42
that so it's just a great way to just reduce inflammation and just allow your
17:46
body to fully heal so like sleep and stress are probably They're the top two
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I would start with. And they're free.
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You don't need to buy any crazy biohacking machines or anything like that.
17:54
You know, you can do if you live in a nice area that's not snowing all the time,
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you can go outside and do grounding for like 20 minutes a day.
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It's really, really beneficial for inflammation in the body.
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So there's all these simple things you can start with. But those are my top two.
18:07
That's awesome. And who do you work with? How can somebody work with you?
18:10
Do they have to be in California or tell me about that?
18:14
Yeah, so I work with people all over the world, actually. So I started working
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with people out of the country recently, which has been really fun because I
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didn't realize you could actually ship all these great labs,
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like the gut zoomer and the total tox burn and like all the way to Europe and
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get the result or Australia.
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And I was like, oh, I can't actually work with people in those countries now.
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So yeah, I work with people all over the country, all over the world.
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The only restriction is New York because they pretty much don't allow any labs
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to go in there. So sorry if you're living in New York and you're wanting to work with me.
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I cannot, unfortunately, talk to their government. It's not my fault.
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But yeah, I work typically with, you know, women who are struggling with chronic gut issues.
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They've tried diet, they've tried supplements, nothing has fixed the issue yet.
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And a lot of times it's really just because they've got those chronic infections
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and toxins that nobody's ever addressed.
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And removing those safely is really like the last missing piece of the puzzle for them.
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So that's who I work with. And then in terms of how to find me,
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the best place would be Instagram.
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So I have a lot of free information on there. It's at Dr. Kate Davis.
19:11
So D-R-K-A-T-E-D-A-V-I-S. And if you just go on there, just,
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you know, hit that follow button, just look at all those videos I already have uploaded.
19:19
It's a really great place to start. And if you're someone who hasn't even focused
19:23
on the diet piece and want to start cleaning up your diet, I've got a little,
19:26
you know, a little highlight reel called Trash or Treasure, where I go through
19:29
like those healthy brands of food that and tell you if they're actually good
19:32
for you or if they're not.
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And I go through like the ingredients and tell you kind of what's good, what's bad.
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So it's a great place to start for somebody who's just wanting to clean up diet
19:39
a little bit and actually get their health on the right track.
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Yeah, if you want to work with me, you know, just I do offer a discount for
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people who hear me on podcasts.
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So if you just DM me the number 100 on Instagram, I'll give you $100 off an
19:52
initial consult plus labs package.
19:54
So if you're someone who's, you know, really struggling, really wanting to get
19:57
their gut health back on track, and you haven't really found any solutions yet,
20:00
I'll definitely start there.
20:02
Awesome. And I'll have those links down in the show notes so everybody can just click over there.
20:06
Dr. Kate, thank you. You have given us so much to think about.
20:09
So if there's one thing, like somebody's a little overwhelmed,
20:11
they're going to remember the stress and the sleep.
20:13
It's the biggest thing that you want them to remember about anything that we
20:17
talked about in their health.
20:19
Yeah. I mean, number one is get testing done.
20:22
Get like functional testing, not your yearly blood work,
20:25
not what the MD is going to order, but get something done that's
20:29
actually going to show you the root cause because I've seen so many people who
20:32
have done you know all the SIBO breath tests and you
20:35
know all those standard colonoscopy everything's clear nothing's
20:38
showing up and then we do functional testing and we find
20:41
parasites and mold and heavy metals and you know
20:43
liver and gallbladder dysfunction that nobody's ever addressed so number one
20:48
is work with someone who can get that functional medicine testing done for you
20:52
you know functional medicine doctor an integrative md a nurse practitioner somebody
20:56
who can really just dig deeper and find out the root cause because otherwise
20:59
you're just going to waste a lot of time and money trying to fix yourself and
21:02
you're not going to see the results that you want.
21:03
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21:07
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21:10
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21:17
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21:23
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