31: Navigating Chronic Illness & the Road to Reclaiming Health with Alyssa LaScala

Hello and welcome to the Keeping It Breast podcast with Dr. Jen. The show dedicated to empowering women through knowledge, tools, and resources to take control of your breast health journey. I'm your host, Dr. Jen Simmons, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this insightful and inspiring journey. As a breast cancer surgeon turns functional medicine physician, I'm on a mission to empower women to live their breasts and need best lives. This podcast dives deep into all topics related to breast health, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and holistic approaches to support overall well being.

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Hi, it's Dr. Jen, and welcome to another episode of keeping abreast with Dr. Jen. I am your host, Dr. Jen Simmons, and today I have a new friend with me. We had the great privilege of meeting at an event called disrupt. I was honored at that event, which was really special, but this is a group of healthcare practitioners and providers who are really thinking outside of the box and changing the world, making it a better place and approaching people and medicine from a truly holistic standpoint. And a lot of them, and our guest is highly representative of that, have come to their healing place through a very personal path. So with that, I'm going to welcome Alyssa La to the show today. Alyssa, welcome.

Thank you for having me. Dr. Jen. I'm excited to be here and yeah, it was beautiful to see you get honored at that event. It was well deserved.

Thank you. So Alyssa is an integrative health practitioner and on a mission to help individuals learn how to identify and address their true root causes of their health challenges. And it's really through your own health journey that you got on this path. So I would love it, if it's not too painful and traumatic for you, I would love it if you could take us through how you got here.

Yeah, it started when I was little. I actually had a very long health journey, and I didn't realize that some of what I was dealing with was abnormal until I got into this space. I think that happens to a lot of us.

Oh, that's so interesting. You were normalized. All your things were normalized.

Of course, you know, from the time that I was a child, I had IBS symptoms, and I remember taking my first Stool test when I was 4, 4 or 5. And I just looked at that as normal.

Really young.

Yeah, yeah. So it started then. I dealt with gut issues my entire life up until I was about 20. And then that's when more health issues started. So I had gotten breast implants. I had many signs of what they would label as breast implant illness. I started dealing with HPA access maladaptation or adrenal fatigue as some people may call it. And then I was dealing with Lyme disease and co infections and then later found out mold toxicity was part of that as well. So it was. I am now going to be 33 next month. And so literally as long as I could remember my entire life, I've always had something. But again, we're gaslit into thinking that it is just common and normal.

So I'm curious and I know this is a touchy subject for so many people, and I hope I'm not triggering you, but I'm curious as to what your symptoms of breast implant illness were and how they were explained away.

Yeah. So I didn't make the connection until years later. It was probably about seven years later when a friend of mine brought it up to me. But I had gotten them when I was 20. Now, you know, I'm, I'm absolutely an advocate for understanding that we have this perfect like constellation of issues are going on or root causes that contribute that. I don't personally think every one of my symptoms was solely due to breast implants. I do think for some people that can be the case. But I'm not so ignorant to say that there weren't other things at play because I was also in college burning the candle at both ends, drinking more than I would have, you know, just being in my college years and went through a very emotional breakup, all within a couple of months of each other. But I just found it insanely ironic that my body had the capacity to deal with a lot of these things and greater stressors than that in years before. And within six months of me getting my implants, I really started to go downhill with chronic fatigue being my major symptom. I mean, it didn't matter. I would sleep at least, at least, you know, eight or nine hours a night, most nights. And then also just feel this endless need to nap for at least once, if not twice a week, two to three hours at a time, skipping meals, skipping classes, and then the brain fog kicked in. And those are my top two major symptoms for years.

When you, when you would sleep for eight or nine hours, would you Wake and feel rested or would you? Yeah, I think that is a symptom that people miss so often in that if you slept for eight or nine hours, you should wake up with all the energy in the world. And if you are not, there is something wrong. And you cannot let a practitioner who doesn't feel like thinking about it or doesn't know how to think about it, you can't let them normalize that away for you.

Right.

It is not normal to be tired after a full night's sleep.

Yeah. And then they'll just go and put you on Adderall. And that's what happened to me, you know, Or. Or let's try a different antidepressant because sounds like you're just depressed. You're not tired, you're depressed. And I see that in and day out with my clients as well, and they get stuck on antidepressants and anxieties and stimulants because of that.

Yeah. So what. What changed for you? I mean, what clued you in?

Yeah, I went down the conventional route for a while, especially with Lyme disease. It was, you know, three weeks of doxycycline and then take a break and then, you know, go on how many more rounds of that when it was quote, unquote, reactivated. I mean, I. I dabbled in that for years, and then eventually I ended up to other people that were in my town, because I'm originally from Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania typically goes back and forth with Washington state of like, the number one state with Lyme disease cases. So there's actually a lot of people in my area.

I had no idea.

Yeah.

You talking about western Pennsylvania? Southeastern.

Oh, yeah. But I mean, it's, you know, I'm a silly girl. Yeah, I know. I know. We had that. We touched on that briefly when we were talking in the airport, but I had no idea.

High as compared to national standards for Lyme disease?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I became very familiar with that. I actually got connected with my old preschool teacher where her entire family ended up having just debilitating Lyme. And I got connected with a functional MD who was also an LLMD or a Lyme literate medical doctor. And so I worked with him for several years, and I ended up realizing about five years into that I was still. I was kind of band aiding in a way. I mean, they put me on, you know, hydrocortisone tablets to try and support cortisol production. I was on thyroid medication. I was on different things to support.

The adrenals because did everything just kind of crash.

Well, I was crashed beforehand, but I felt like any improvement that I saw it was only because I was falsely medicating. Not that there isn't a time and a place for medications, but it just. We were addressing adrenals and addressing a lot of things that, as I realized down the road, we weren't looking at mold toxicity, we were not looking at parasites. We were not deeply and accurately looking at environmental toxins or heavy metals or things like that, and the nervous system disregulation that goes along with all of that. So there he was helpful. And I truly believe, you know, we just have to be so grateful for each practitioner and their role in our journey. Not really hold resentment because they couldn't solve all of the issues. You know, we all have these stepping stones, But I got to about five years in and I'm like, I need to. To look elsewhere. I need to figure out what else is missing. And that's actually when I ended up coming across Cellcore. And so I came across them several years ago. And not only the education that you would receive from that company and how. How dialed in it was for practitioners to truly understand some of these root causes, but to actually products that worked way better than anything I had used in the past. That was significant for me over the last several years.

So was that really what freed you from all those diagnoses?

It was huge. To be able to not only know what drainage pathways were and why I needed to address them and how to do that, but to also go and address things that I was told I didn't have my entire life, despite all of my gut issues and whatnot. So parasites didn't come up on a stool test. So I was told that it wasn't a thing.

Yeah, that's a huge problem because parasites are not that easy to identify.

Right.

But that doesn't mean you don't have have them.

Right, Right. Right. I mean, 70% of them you can't even see with the naked eye. And they're not just in the gut. Right. So even if it wasn't found in a stool test, doesn't mean you can't have Babesia. Blood parasite goes right along with Lyme disease. And so it's because this testing is just unfortunately so flawed. I mean, we're doing the best that we can, but we really have to go off of symptomatology and case history. And once I started doing that and addressing the issues accordingly, it took couple years in order to be able to heal my mitochondria and, and get through a lot of those issues, but that was significant for me.

Yeah. So I think there are a lot of people out there suffering from chronic disease and they don't have a name for it and they don't have a practitioner that's really able to help them beyond. You know, I know you're tired. Take Adderall. I know that, you know, maybe this is depression. Take an antidepressant. So can you help kind of walk down the things that should make you think that maybe it's Lyme. The things that should make you think maybe it's mold and like, how do people go about addressing these?

Yeah, I mean, that's a very, very loaded question because there's so many different symptoms that can be indicative of different root causes, but they also can overlap. Right. So we have a toxic load assessment that, that we offer to our community where you can answer specific questions, rate certain sympt and what your scores look like can be helpful, be insightful as far as what root causes are probably primary issues for you. But it is so important in the end, if someone can afford to do that, to link arms with a practitioner that has worked within these areas because it is overwhelming, it's hard to hear that fatigue can be a sign of. I mean, someone could maybe not be sleeping well. Someone could be being exposed to EMFs while they're sleeping. Someone could be dealing with a lot of emotional trauma or mold or parasites or Lyme, and fatigue could be at the root of a lot of that. So I think in order to reduce that overwhelming, get clarity. To link arms with a practitioner is going to be one of the smartest things that you can do. But there are tools and resources out there that can help you to at least start to get some root cause clues, if you will.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that these problems, you know, maybe you can solve them on your own, but it's going to take you a really long time. And I know for me, you know, it took me years to heal and I don't know that it would have been different in the hands of someone experienced, but I'm assuming it would have been, but because I was trying to figure it out on my own. And yes, I do come with a lot of knowledge, but I didn't have a lot of knowledge in the functional space. I really didn't learn about the functional space, but till I got my own diagnosis and had to figure it out for myself.

Right.

And I was kind of learning along the way and saying, oh, does this apply to me? And should I Try this. And there's a ton of experimentation. So you know, there's a lot of value to working with someone who's already done it and already been there. And I know that you spend a lot of time thinking about parasites, so I would love to dive into that a little bit. Because from my perspective, parasites and occult dental infections, especially in the breast cancer world, are a tremendous source of inflammation that is never talked about and wholly unrecognized. So let's start with parasites and talk to me. You know, why, why are they there? Why do people have them, why do we need to worry about them and what do we need to do?

I'm so glad that you asked this because it's important that we talk about this in conjunction with dental infections or other toxicities and whatnot because truly parasites are there for a reason, right when we have or bacterial overgrowth or whatever it may be. So I want to make it super clear that just because parasites are there doesn't mean that's all that we address. I think we get caught in this like whack a mole. Health care nowadays is, it's like, you know, whack. We have to address the parasites and then bam, now we're going to address mold and then bam, now we're going to address this. And it's like it's so compartmentalized that sometimes we forget to ask, like how are these working together integratively so that we can do it in more of a strategic manner. So when it comes to parasites, we all going to have them. I mean, we deworm our cats, our pets, our, you know, our dogs. And we don't think twice. We think it's weird if we're going to deworm ourselves, but yet we will do it to the things that live with us and experience the same environment. So when it comes to parasite cleansing, for me I'm a huge advocate of doing what a lot of other cultures do we just don't pay attention to is we cleanse, you know, once a quarter or you know, once to twice a year to stay on top of that anti parasitic load. And then you'll have a lot of people come back and say, well you have, you know, a liver and at least a kidney so your body detoxes for you. I'm sure you've heard that time and time again. So why should you need to do it? You and I both know that what we're being exposed to these days is not what it was years and years ago. I don't believe that we were designed to be able to withstand the stressors that we're exposed to anymore. So no, I think it should be.

A regular practice even, even beyond that is that all of these stressors at the same time are having this profoundly negative effect on our immune system.

Yeah.

So if you're relying on your immune system to protect you from these parasites, but the our world is so toxic that the immune system is basically taken out of the picture. Yeah. How is it going to do that?

Exactly.

Right. I did see like this Instagram post of someone taking a banana and like slicing the banana and looking at the slice under a microscope and seeing the parasites kind of crawl in it. So I've seen that in salmon.

I haven't seen that in a banana.

Yet, but God, actually since I watched that. What was that documentary about the fish? I don't know. I'll think of it. I like the thought of salmon is so vile to me because they showed that the salmon farms.

Yeah.

And they are disgusting. They are teeming with parasites teaming.

Yeah.

So anyone who is thinking of eating farm raised fish, I would seriously think about. Think again. Sea spiracy, something like that.

I haven't heard of that but I'm gonna have to check it out now.

Oh well, if you ever want to eat fish again, I would not wash. Watch that.

I do wild caught Norwegian salmon. So I'm hoping that that's actually what it is.

It was a very, very disturbing documentary. I mean listen, it's really important work and the message is really important. I tend to be someone that once I see that I can't unsee it. And so like literally all I can think about when I think of salmon is those. I mean they just show them with all of the infections and the pus and. Oh yeah, it is so disgusting. But it was a brilliant movie. So thank you whoever made seaspiracy. And I, I don't mean to. To yuck your yum or whatever and I mean listen, documentaries are meant to be emotional and be provocative and all of that, but this one really got to me. So you were saying that parasites are pretty much everywhere and that's why I gave that banana example and that you think people, people should go on a cleanse, a parasite cleanse once or twice a year. So what does that look like?

Yeah, and it can look different for people depending on what resources they have available to them and also what they feel comfortable with. Technically someone can pass parasites just from a long fast. People will go and do a two or three day water fast really starving any type of pathogenic, you know, feeding that could happen from food and pass parasites from there. Someone could go ahead and do anti parasitic foods. It could be different herbs like oregano or garlic or onion or things like that. And pass parasites. You can give a dog graded carrot and ground up pumpkin seeds and that will or papaya seeds and that will help pass parasites. You can do things like that. I have really fallen in love with the cell core line primarily because that's just what I've seen the most effectiveness with. But there's so many different anti parasitic properties that you could find, whether it's foods or whether it's other proprietary blends that you want to have anti parasitic effects from. I just found that if someone just goes and does like a one off garlic or oregano or wormwood or whatnot, you can pass things. I like to take a more comprehensive approach. When I'm working with clients who are just like myself and they're really sick, I don't want to just go and do a little bit of wormwood. I want to do a couple of different proprietary blends. And so yes, you could go ahead and do one or two cleanses a year for maybe seven days, ideally around the full moon, because that's when they're the most active. That would be great. There are parasites that will have life cycles in the body and reproduce, you know, hundreds of thousands of eggs that you go and you hit them one time during a cleanse. Well, those eggs weren't necessarily, you know, hatched yet or, or produced yet where that cleanse didn't hit those. So I'm a big fan of cycling that. And so when I'm working with clients for parasites, we'll be addressing them daily for at least a solid 8 to 12 weeks. For some people it may be a bit longer. And doing it in cycles.

And what does that mean, doing it in cycles?

So going and cycling specific products where you may do something three weeks on, one week off, or you may do one type of product for four to six weeks and then move on to the next product. And if you have to go back and revisit, you can. But like I said, if you have something like stranguloides that'll have a full life cycle within the body, you want to make sure that you're addressing it strategically for a long enough period of time so you actually eradicate every phase of that, of that specific parasite in the body.

Yeah.

And you mentioned something about treatment and proximity to the full moon. Why?

Yeah, so when you end Up. And I used to think this was so woo. I thought it was so woo. But then I started to learn more about the scientific side of things. When you have the decrease in melatonin and the increase in serotonin around that time of the full moon, that's going to clearly affect the parasitic activity. So it's typically about three days prior to the full moon, which we are. We actually just started a group one on a couple days ago because we have the full moon coming up. I believe it's tomorrow. And then we'll do it on the full moon in about three days afterwards. So typically we'll do about seven days.

Yeah. I, for every single person that I work with, we always start off with a parasite cleanse just because I think they're so ubiquitous. Yes. And I find the treatment to be fairly harmless.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't really know anyone who has had terrible adverse effects. I do have some people who experience some constipation and we, and we worked through that. But I, and some people do get tired and I think that that's part of the die off and the detoxification. So, you know, fatigue isn't, isn't unusual. Although I haven't had anyone with debilitating fatigue. Yeah. If you get a lot of die off, I can imagine that might be hard for you. But you know, in the end I think about like, thank God, because can you imagine if we had left them there?

Yes.

And you know, these are a major source of inflammation. What have you seen in terms of tolerance of these parasite cleanses and side effects?

It can really vary, of course, depending on the person and where they're starting, but also the products that they're using. So there are some people where they may need to just do something like a general wormwood like we were talking about, and that will give them their comfort level before they can move into something a little bit more comprehensive. But I see a major difference if someone's making sure they work on addressing their drainage pathways, get their bowels moving, their liver moving, their kidneys are supported, you know, everything is draining because that's going to be one of the biggest things that causes more detox symptoms is that you're purging stuff that cannot be properly evacuated.

Yeah.

So it really is different. I always want to make sure I set up proper expectations. And I tell people the first time they're doing it. There's nothing wrong with erring on side of caution and making sure that maybe you do a shorter cleanse. Maybe it's three days versus a seven day. Maybe you're taking something once a day versus twice a day and it's one or two products versus if you're doing something a little bit more comprehensive. Bioactive carbon binders are also a big deal and make a huge difference in mopping up, you know, the toxins, the byproducts, etc. So I've seen that make a big difference versus someone just going and, you know, whacking something with an anti parasitic. Do you have the catcher's mitt for everything that's being released? That's a big deal.

That's, that's a, that's a great point. So you've talked about detox pathways a couple of times. Can you go more into that so that people understand? Because people here are cleansed. They're, they're, you know, they're, they're very shy of that word. Yes, and I get it. And I'm not sure that people understand our detox pathways. And there's a lot of thought that like, oh, the body's just taking care of it, it's taking care of it, but there are some there. Our body does need some help and assistance, especially when it's overburdened with toxins.

Yeah. So you have detox, which is the act of like pulling the toxins or excreting the pathogens or whatnot from the body. And then you have the drainage pathways themselves. So it's kind of like, it's like the pipes, it's like the roadways in which all the trash is being cleared. And if you don't have those properly functioning, at least as best as you can before going and purging mold, purging heavy metals, purging parasites. It's kind of like if, if you were to constantly be trying to flush your toilet and the pipes are clearly clogged and everyone in your house keeps going to the bathroom in there and clearly it's going to fester, it's going to cause a lot of issues. And that's exactly what happens within our system. We're not priming the pipes, cleaning the pipes as best as we can before we try and move this stuff out of the body. So again, the colon. So your bowels, are you pooping your liver. So your liver, gallbladder health, your kidneys, your lymphatic system, your skin, your mitochondria, you know, these are all the drainage pathways that are going to help to remove this stuff from the system. And that was a big thing that was not properly emphasized. To me for years. So, number one, it can absolutely make you more sick when you're detoxing. But number two, you're going to not have as effective of a detox because it's so stagnant.

Yeah. So I would love to talk about some of the ways that you can open up these drainage pathways. So, first of all, I don't think we talk enough about colon health. I don't think that people know what it means, what constipation means. And, you know, you can ask plenty of people if they have problems with constipation, and they say no. And you ask them how often they move their bowels, and they say, you know, at least twice a week, Right? Yes. So what. In terms of what. How. What is normal? Right. In terms of colon health.

Yeah. So the colon is so important because it's right at the bottom of that drainage funnel, if you will. Right. If the bowels aren't moving, everything else above it is backed up. I will have the same thing with clients that will say, you know, or they'll say they'll go once a day. You know, for me, once a day is the minimum. Two to three times a day, especially when detoxing, is typically what I see is going to bring clients greater results. But it's also important to say, what type of bowel movement is that? Because you can absolutely have one bowel movement a day. And I apply and say, well, it's. It's kind of like rabbit pellets, or I don't feel relieved. It's fully voided. So for me, it's a full release, full void at least once a day, ideally closer to two or three. And there's a variety of different ways that you can support that you have. Hydration is going to be super important. You know, regular physical activity clearly is going to help to move magnesium sufficiency within the body. A lot of people are deficient in magnesium, which is going to affect the ability for that to move. And then a lot of people just are not that intentional about fiber intake. So when you're looking at trying to get to at least 25 grams a day for women and closer to 35 for men, like, for me, that's my. That's my minimum. That's my priority. And some people just need to make sure they're eating enough vegetables and stuff with fiber in it, and it would solve a lot of the problem instead of doing, like, Metamucil or things like that.

Yeah. And, you know, lots of people don't know where fiber comes from. And that's a huge problem in that fiber comes from vegetables. And there is no fiber in a meat diet at all. None. No fiber at all. And vegetables, fruit, even nuts, things that. Yeah. Things that grow in the ground, fell off a tree, those kinds of things. That's where, that's where fiber is coming from. And, and the amount of fiber that we consume is like minuscule to the, to what our ancestors consumed. Yeah, yeah. And I love that you said how the importance of physical activity, because the truth is that you have to move to move, and if you're not moving your body, your bowels aren't moving either.

No.

So that, that is absolutely important. And it should be a habit like anything else. Like you should train your body that it should be doing this several times a day. And so lots of people get busy and avoid. And it ends up being a huge problem. So that is a pathway that must, must, must stay open. Because if we do not evacuate the toxins that way, we're just reabsorbing them into our system.

Yep, you're exactly right. And even when it comes to, like, liver health or, you know, hormone health or things like that, when the bile is going to be binding on to fiber to be evacuated out of the stool, you know, it plays into liver health, hormone health and whatnot as well.

Absolutely. Because as we break down our hormones and as we convert them from something that's fat soluble to something that's water soluble that we can evacuate in our stool, and the, the part of the process of it becoming water soluble is attaching it to a bile salt, but that's not a permanent attachment and if it sits around too long, they're going to dissociate and we're just going to absorb that hormone back into our system. And this is a problem. It's a problem with breast cancer.

Yep.

And people think like, oh, it's my ovaries and it's my estrogen or whatever, and it's not, it's way further down the line in that if you are, you can, you can do everything perfectly. And then if you don't evacuate the toxins and the used hormones and stuff like that from your body, it's just going to cause problems.

Spot on.

So what about liver? So how do we improve our liver health? Improve the throughput of our liver, improve the detoxification processes of our liver?

Yeah. I mean, for every drainage pathway, I go over this so extensively in my free drainage clinic because there really are so many different single herbs you can use, different practices different therapies, different protocols. So I'll just share a couple of my top ones. Bile salts are one of my favorite things to leverage and I think they're highly underutilized. So I whether it's like cell cores advanced tadka or you have some other type of good bile salt that you like, those are one of my favorites. I am a huge fan of therapies like castor oil packs and coffee enemas. I think that the benefits of sticking coffee up your butt are highly under discussed and I wish that it would be a little bit more normalized because you're not only helping with the liver, you're helping with cleansing the, the kidneys as well. Like a 20 minute enema, you're going to get the, the blood filtered about six to seven times. So the benefits of doing something like that benefits numerous drainage pathways there. So those are some of my favorites. But of course then you can have different types of herbs and whatnot. Milk thistle, we know all those common ones for, for liver.

But for coffee enemas, do you have any concerns about electrolyte imbalances?

You absolutely can do that. You can overdo that. I have seen that for sure. I will like to add either like trace minerals in there and or even some like black organic blackstrap molasses that's going to have the minerals in there that can help to replenish. And I'm a huge advocate of making sure that you're actually drinking electrolytes as well prior to honestly even during and then post enema and just being very conscious about getting higher amounts of that in there in addition to the rest of the day. And I tell people to also err on the side of caution if you're stacking therap because some people will try and do stuff back to back like coffee on my men's sauna and I'm like okay, listen, we're a lot more than you can probably handle right now.

So yeah, yeah, I know that detoxification is a big buzzword. You, you started to, you spoke about castor oil packs of the enemas. What are the other go tos for detoxification and how often do you think people should be doing these things?

Things do you mean more like different types of therapies like that like you'd be looking at sauna or like sauna.

How often do you think people should be doing that?

Yeah, I don't think it's cut and dry. I mean you can definitely say hey this could be a great healthy practice for Anyone. But how someone's body responds to coffee enemas, to Castro packs, to sauna looks different and depending on the stage of your healing journey. So I would never want to make it seem like it's a blanket statement and say everyone should be doing sauna five days a week. Week. Some people, that's incredible for them, like that's the only way we can get them to be able to sweat to that degree because they don't have the mitochondrial capacity to exercise to the point where they would ever sweat that much. And so for them, that's the most important. For other people, I mean, it just may be too much to really do anything other than a castor oil pack and that's more gentle and it works for them. So I've had people do castor oil packs daily. I've had people do coffee enemas. You know, typically I'll do maybe once to twice a week. It really can depend on the client. I don't like putting a global statement on that one. You have people that will be going through cancer treatments that will do them four times a day. You know, with the Gearson therapy protocol, sauna, you know, people could go up to five days a week or so. And we know from studies that, you know, two days a week versus one day or three days a week versus, you know, one or two days for sauna can make significant differences in the benefits there. So. But more isn't always better. It really depends on the person.

Yeah. While we're on the topic of detoxification, I kind of feel obligated to talk about sleep because sleep is really where the healing happens. And if you're not sleeping, you're not healing. So I think it's important to note that you can do all of the detoxification practices in the world and if you're not sleeping, you. They're. They're not going to be effective.

Exactly. I love the phrase where it's like, if you're going to skip over sleep to do X, Y or Z, it's like stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. You think you're winning, but you're not. Yeah, 100. And people will go and invest so much time and energy and money into all of these other things, and yet they're staying up till, you know, 12. 12 scrolling tick tock Instagram and they're tired the next day. But it's looked at as me time. And, you know, I don't know if you hear of that from your clients or if that's a Common struggle. But especially for the women out there that feel like, I just want the time where no one needs me, but then they're sacrificing their sleep.

Yeah, you're. You're so right. You're so right. Yeah. So in my practice, we actually, like, don't give people the option of, of. Oh, I, you know, I have. That's my, that's my mean me time to go on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook. That's not your me time. Right. That is you being hijacked by someone else's agenda. And listen, I'm as guilty of it as anyone else. I mean, I run a Facebook group and I want to be there for people. I want to be a resource for people. But anytime that you are on social media, you are not on your agenda. You're on someone else's agenda. And that is not your me time.

Spot on. And it's so easy to get stuck in that scroll hole. And before you know it, you lost how much of your own time.

Yeah, for sure. So listen, there are people really, really out there suffering with chronic disease. So as someone who has been there, who has seen the abyss, what advice can you give to these people who are suffering on how to start to turn things around?

Everyone can start at a little bit of a different spot. And some people will need to dabble. Some people will need to focus on foundations. They're not even prioritizing sleep yet. They're not eating whole foods. They're not maybe staying cognizant of fiber or moving their body or just drinking enough water. And I know, it just seems so simple that I feel like so many people see the shiny object. Objects. Right. And they want all the sexy things out there and they would rather go and put all this money into the parasite cleanses and this and that, and they didn't do diddly for the foundational worship things. Yeah. So if I'm being honest, I'm like, if you want the most out of it, can you focus on the foundations first? And maybe they can do that by themselves. Maybe they need to get plugged into a group. Maybe they need to get plugged into some type of group program or just work with a practitioner one on one for accountability. And I can't necessarily know what's going to be best for them unless I'd be talking to them about that. Some people know they need that. If you feel like you've tried to do this over and over again on your own and you haven't been able to stick to it, it may be time where you actually need some additional accountability. And I'm proud of you for being honest with yourself about it. You know, other people may be able to say, you know what, I'm working with a budget or I'm trying to be as financially savvy as possible. Awesome. Cover your foundations and then get plugged in wherever you need to. For us, what we do, because we talk about so many different potential root causes is that free toxic load assessment that we have can just really be eye opening for someone to even just see. After that assessment, where does it look like I should start? Where does it look like some of my major red flags are? And then someone can decide, do they want to do some self navigating, do they want to do their own research, do they want to look at more of the content that, you know, we have about a topic? Or are they just again, trying to accelerate their rate of healing and say, I'm not dabbling in any of this on my own, I just want to hire someone, work with someone hand in hand. Because I wish I would have done that early on and, but I was like you, I had a journey where I was just, I was just trying to figure it out and I hired someone when I knew how to. But it's amazing that just in the last several years on social media alone, if, if social media would have looked then, how it does now, the information at your fingertips for free is just insane that we just didn't have 10 years ago.

It is. The thing that's still confusing is like, well, does this apply to me, right, like what we talked about from in the beginning, there are lots of things that cause debilitating fatigue. So what's my thing? And that's where working with a practitioner is always helpful. And you know, in the world of breast cancer, it's always breast cancer. And like, you know, breast cancer itself really is the result of chronic inflammation from a number of other things. And the things that I think about all the time are what's happening in the mouth, what's happening in the gut, are there parasites, are there chronic infections that we're missing? You know, is there yeast, is there mold? Is these kinds of things. And of course I'm always also thinking, is there trauma, what are they going through, what does their environment look like, what does their history look like? Like, we're always taking a comprehensive view, but here, but like you said in the beginning, it's not one thing. Yeah, it's not one thing. And these things, these co infections go together and so too do these co burdens, these co environmental toxins, this, this total toxic load that we are all suffering under.

Yeah.

So it was so wonderful to have you here and I know you're doing really, really great work and helping a lot of people to recover their health. Where can people find you? Where can they connect with you?

Yeah, Our clinic is called Biohacking Bombshell. We are on Instagram. That is our primary platform where we educate. Well, thank you. We're always looking to, you know, hack the body's biology, but, you know, Bombshell, being just like strong, powerful women is always what we were going for. So. Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah. Biohackingbombshell.com as well. And then we're on Facebook also.

Yeah. So if you are suffering from chronic fatigue, if you suspect, you know, if anything analysis story resonated with you, definitely check her out, connect with her on Instagram and if not her, figure out someone that can help you. Because the stress of being sick often doesn't allow your brain to think in the way that it needs to think to solve this. And maybe, maybe you're just not even up for that challenge. And believe me, I get it. Right. Like, I'm a healthcare practitioner who struggled to figure out her own stuff and I had lots and lots of education under my belt, so it's hard to figure it out alone. And that's where partners in this become so important. So, Melissa, I'm so grateful to you for coming on today, for your recovery from sharing your recovery with the world and for making that into a mission.

Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me.

Jen, of course. It was great to see you. It's Dr. Jen. I hope you enjoyed this conversation and I will be right back here next week with another episode and until then, it's bye for now.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Keeping abreast podcast with Dr. Jen. I hope you found the discussion informative and empowering. Remember, rest, health is health. So by staying informed and taking proactive steps, you have the power to optimize your well being. My team and I encourage you to apply the knowledge gained from today's episode to make positive changes in your life and share what you've learned with others. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback Feedback and support mean the world to us and help us to reach more people who can benefit from these conversations. Stay connected with me on social media where I share additional resources, advice, updates and announcements related to breast health. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Dr. Jennsimmons. And remember, my Jen has two N's. So until next time, remember to stay proactive, informed and confident in your breast health health journey. The key to your health is you.