Bladder Issues in Menopause - The Hidden Bacteria You Need to Know

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. If bladder issues in menopause are keeping you from jumping for bone density or jumping for joy for that matter, or if laughing and sneezing or give you a need for, uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm Debra Atkinson and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond. Before you know to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert and international speaker to founder of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve. Okay, never did I really think that the word pond scum would come to my mind while I was doing a podcast interview, but today, for the very first time ever, it did. Now, I didn't say it out loud, but I did think it, and you will know exactly the moment that I'm referring to. I want you to stay till the end in this episode knowing that I I have a female guest. She's a physician, but she is also a daughter. And for all of us who are and who have gone through caregiving, we've watched our moms or are watching our moms get older and feeling maybe helpless for what we can do. I want you to listen to the story about her mom and the experience that she went through and what Maybe your daughters won't have to, based on the knowledge we now have. My guest is Dr. Kelly McCann. She's a board-certified internist and pediatrician specializing in functional integrative and environmental medicine. She graduated Brown undergrad, Tulane med school, fellowship in integrative medicine at University of Arizona. Her medical practice, The Spring Center, is located in Southern California. She hosted virtual summits on MCAs, MCAS, so mast cell, by the way, and can be found on many podcast summits and at Dr. Kelly McCann. That's D-R. Kelly McCann, M-C-C-A-N-N. And all those links and spellings will be in the show notes for you. I can't wait for you to listen and really listen. This is one where you don't want to be multitasking, by the way. You've been warned. Dr. Kelly McCann, thank you so much for being in the house.

Thank you, Debra, for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Okay, so, you know, obviously we're talking about bladder control, and, you know, I liken this back to career day in elementary. I'm guessing you didn't say, yeah, I want to go to the talk about bladder control. How did you get here?

Definitely wasn't in kindergarten. Yeah, actually, I didn't I didn't even know I wanted to be a doctor until far later than most of my peers. But, um, and it's not the only thing that I do. However, I will say what I've found with a lot of people, men and women, is that as we age, we tend to have more bladder issues, bladder frequency, bladder urgency. And especially with menopause, we see a lot of women who, if they choose not to do bioidentical hormone replacement, or even if they do, they can have bladder issues. And what I've been finding is that there is a world of microbes in the bladder and the vagina that I had no idea about. So I'm really excited to share this information with you.

Yeah, and this is such a different— kind of a different lens, a different angle than we've ever talked about.

Great.

Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?

So you—

I may preclude this, but there is a— this is funny— there's a burning question, which is kind of humorous. I did not do that on purpose.

All right, every once in a while it happens for me.

But there are a couple questions I think people will say automatically, so I would love for you to say, you know, truth, myth, um maybe, you know, whatever the answer is. Sure, a lot of people will blame bladder issues on, well, I've had 3 kids. Truth, myth, what, sometimes maybe?

Yes, absolutely, it can be true, but not every woman who's given birth has bladder issues because of a structural problem. Only some women do tend to get structural issues, and and that's not my forte. I'm not a urologist. And so I do think it's important for women who have a suspicion that they're having bladder issues, they should see a urologist, urogynecologist, to take a look at the anatomy of the bladder and whether everything's falling. Now, if, if, you know, one clue might be if you were the type of person who was hypermobile when you were younger, if you were a gymnast, if you were a ballerina, and you're hyperflexible in your joints, you may also have some lax connective tissue in your pelvis. And so that would be a person I'd say, yeah, absolutely go to your urogynecologist and make sure that structurally everything is okay. Um, but there are many people who don't have structural issues that will have bladder issues.

Great answer. Question about Have we potentially, or are we conditioning our bladders to signal us at kind of early satiety? They're not actually full, but we're saying, try before you go, try before you go. I'm going to try because there's a bathroom now. I don't really have to go. Are we making the problem worse by doing that?

I don't, I don't think so. I really don't think so. Um, You know, I'm my own patient number one, right? So when I find that if I get a good night's sleep, I actually don't have to get up and go to the bathroom. But I have to be in like the ideal situation for me. I've gone to the bathroom before I go to bed, I haven't had too much to drink in terms of fluids, and my supplement regimen is dialed in and I sleep well, I don't get up. But many nights I do, and that is mostly because I think my bladder says hey and I have enough alertness. In terms of like, there may— I don't know actually, Deb, truthfully. Is, is it that We have the sensation of a full bladder and we don't like that, and so we just go and we condition ourselves to go. Um, what I will actually share with you about these, um, these organisms is I find that we won't know the answer to that question definitively until we actually start treating. And when we treat people they will notice a difference. So I've had patients before we started treatment, they're getting up 3, 4, 5 times a night, and after treatment it's down to like 1 or 2 times, or sometimes even none. And so it's possible that it's not just our brain saying, oh, we should go to the bathroom because of the bathroom here, but there may be some irritation from these microbes that is precipitating that, uh, frequency or urgency.

Great. I think you're about to become a lot of women's new best friend. So here we go, you popular person, you. All right, so we alluded to this in the title, hidden bacteria. So what are we talking about? And I know that you speak into a bacterial biofilm, and honestly, this is the first time I've heard it. I work with these women all the time, so I'm guessing my Audience members also are— this is new.

Yeah.

How does this relate to bladder issues? And first of all, what is it?

Okay, so a biofilm, think about it like a mucus structure. It's not just mucus, it's a structure, and the bacteria live in that. Okay, let me give you examples. You all know what biofilm is. You all hopefully go to the dentist on a regular basis and they work on the plaque on your teeth, right? That's biofilm. When you see a little snail go across the sidewalk and there's that little, like, shiny streak that follows them, that's a biofilm. When you leave your glass of water and the water evaporates and you see that, like, ring around the glass, that's the, that's the structural part of the biofilm. Scum on a pond, You know, those stagnant ponds that you see, there's that scum in the pond, those are all biofilms. The nature of bacteria is to live in a biofilm. Biofilms have been— we've known about them since the 1970s, but the amazing thing is that hasn't really translated into modern-day medicine practice. I only learned about biofilms when I learned about Lyme disease. I had no idea that they existed, and yet the PhD scientists have been talking about biofilms in terms of bacteria for decades. So we have biofilms in our mouth, we have biofilms in our nose, we have biofilms in our GI tract, biofilms in our bladder, vagina. We have biofilms everywhere there's bacteria. 'Cause the bacteria create the biofilm.

Okay. So a bacteria film or biofilm colonization, is this good? This is bad? We know we need some bacteria, right? Some are good, some are bad.

Exactly, yes. So the way that I think about it is biofilms and bacteria are not innately bad or good. It, you know, whether a biofilm is a bad thing is dependent upon who the inhabitants are. You know, if you have nasty neighbors who party all the time and make lots of noise, those are not going to be— those are not going to be nice neighbors, right? We don't want them. But if you have a good, healthy microbiome wherever those bacteria happen to be hanging out, great. Then we don't have to do this work. And this was another like shocker to me too in learning this. There are actually bacteria in the bladder on a regular. Like we used to think— I was taught in medical school urine is, is sterile. Like you can pee on something because it's so sterile, right? You shouldn't have a problem with it, right?

Yeah.

That's actually not true.

Something I kind of told me I didn't want somebody peeing on a jellyfish sting personally, but yeah, exactly right.

It doesn't really sound appealing, but yeah, I had no idea. So there are what we call commensural or normal bacteria that exist in the sinuses, in the vagina, of course we know that. But even in the bladder, even in, of course, in the GI tract. So yeah, the bladder can be colonized with some good guys. Woohoo! That's what we want. And they actually prevent the bad guys from taking over.

How do we know if we're out of balance and the bad guys are taking over? I mean, I would assume there's another lab test that we need to be doing, but potentially this is not done just on your routine Urine analysis.

No, no. And this is where it gets really juicy because we have in medicine, we've been doing urinalysis and urine cultures for decades. This technology is probably at least 100 years old, if not older. That is our gold standard for Western medicine in 2025 when we've got AI and quantum computing right around the corner. Huh? We really need to be asking these questions.

Wow. Okay, so who is doing this, Kelly? I mean, if I've—

yes, I've—

I'm a woman who's been going to an OB-GYN for over 40 years. Who tells me that I need to do this, or this might be something we should look at?

Well, that's one of the reasons why I'm talking about it, because there are companies that do it. It used to be in academic settings, but now there is a commercial company, there may even be more than one, that does what's called next-generation sequencing. So I mentioned that culture technology is kind of what we do. You say, oh, I've got this urinary frequency, or I think I'm getting UTI. You go to your doctor, they do a urinalysis. If it shows that you have leukocytes or nitrites or white blood cells or blood, then yeah, we probably have a UTI and we'll send the urine for culture. And then what they do with the culture, they literally take the urine and they put it on a petri dish and they watch it grow. So if, say, there is a fungus in the bladder or a bacteria that has a very rigid food requirement for growth, and it's— that food requirement is not in the medium that you're trying to grow it on, that bacteria is not going to grow. And not only that, um, Western doctors will say, okay, but if you get only 10,000 colonies growing, and then they count them, you know, um, that's— that doesn't meet criteria. So you have something there, it's a bacteria, but it's not 100,000 colony-forming units, so you don't have a UTI, we're not going to treat you. Like, wow, but I got this burning pain, what the heck is up with that, right? So if I could draw you a picture, the biofilm looks like, let's just say it looks like mucus or Jell-O, right? And you've got the bacteria in there. And then occasionally what happens is the biofilm erupts and it breaks open, and now you've got the little bacteria swimming around the bladder. And now we can capture them in a urine culture because we've got more little free-floating bacteria as opposed to the ones that are stuck in the biofilm, and they will actually grow. So when you get an official UTI, it's that you have enough free-floating little bacteria swimming around in your bladder that when they put them on a culture petri dish, it will grow 100,000 colony— or yeah, 100,000 colony-forming units. And then you have the criteria, and then they, they test those bacteria to say which antibiotics are going to be best for you. Okay, it's sensitive to amoxicillin and Bactrim and nitrofurantoin, but it's resistant to, you know, whatever. Penicillin. So we're going to give you nitrofurantoin. Um, but there's so— just in how I'm describing this, you can see, okay, well, if I only have 5 or 10 colony, you know, colony-forming units and I have symptoms, they're not going to treat me.

Yeah.

What? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. So in the '50s In the 1950s, another technology came along called PCR. PCR stands for polymer chain reaction. And what they would do is they'd look for the DNA and they'd have this little probe, and then the probe would— you could have a strand of DNA and say we had E. coli DNA as a probe. We had, you know, Klebsiella, Enterococcus. We have a bunch of different organisms and we could ask the question, okay, we've got this urine specimen. Now we're going to take these probes and we're going to say, is this in here? Is E. coli in here? Is Enterococcus in here? Is Klebsiella in here? And you could identify in your urine specimen specific organisms. It's cool, right? It's much better than our culture technology. It's only as good as the number of probes we have. You only have 20 probes, you can only look for 20 things. Guess how many organisms are out there?

100?

Tens of thousands of organisms are out there. So, so many organisms are out there. We're going to miss something.

Wow. So is this another example of I have to be sicker in order to get treated? I just have to wait? Okay.

No, you don't know if you can get somebody to order this test for you, which is next generation sequencing. That's the gold standard now from my perspective. Right. So PCR is here's the strand of DNA. Ask the question, is it in the specimen? Now we flip that on its head and we say, let's look for all the DNA in the specimen. And match it against the library, because they've been mapping the DNA of organisms for decades now. So they have libraries of tens of thousands of organisms. So all we have to do is find the DNA, which we can easily do with this next-generation sequencing in the specimen, match it to a library, and then you get a printout that says Mrs. Jones, you have 10 bacteria in your bladder, and there's, you know, E. coli and Enterococcus and this Klebsiella and this other one that I can't pronounce, and this, you know, a couple other ones that I can't pronounce. And not only that, they can tell us the percentage of the bacteria that are in the specimen, and then the best part, they tell us the antibiotics that will kill those organisms. Based on the medical literature.

Very cool. So let me ask you this, to any woman who's listening and thinking, I think I've needed this for a long time, but also who is— but I've become so anti, you know, taking a medication. And if I take the antibiotic, then don't I have to start over with my gut health in that relationship? What does that look like and how soon? Does a woman begin to notice things improve if she's got the nail on the head hit? Hey, this is Debra Atkinson. I love creating the Flipping 50 podcast for you, and I have for over a decade. I also love helping midlife women shift not only their physical energy, but their beliefs about what effective exercise looks like and how much it can positively and powerfully impact your life. How you menopause and exercise in menopause determines how you will live, not just now, but decades from now. If you're not exercising right now, you're getting tired, not stronger, or you think you don't have time or the energy to exercise, do a 5-day flip with me. I'll send you one short video a day for 5 days. It's just 15 to 20 minutes long, so you can see exactly how I plan out a fitness plan for myself and for thousands of clients I've worked with. You can get this at flippingfitness.com. 50.com right now. What are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 together.

Good questions. Everyone is different, of course. I have this one woman, she was, uh, on disability, a nurse in her 40s, like 42, and she was like my typical patient. She had Lyme and she had mold and she had mast cell activation and she had interstitial cystitis and she completely debilitated. She could not work. And I said, well, hey, let's do this test, this next-generation sequencing test. We found— I think she had a couple organisms, not a lot. Um, and then, um, and then we did one round of antibiotics. Oh my goodness, this is not usual, but she was 80% better. She was so much better after one round of antibiotics that she was able to go back to work because all of her other inflammation reduced substantially.

Wow, that's pretty amazing.

Yeah, it was really amazing.

It was really amazing. Oh my gosh. So what else? I mean, you indicate here, and I wouldn't have known to ask this, that, you know, this can be related to an increased risk of heart disease. I mean, What is this? How is this integrated and what's the interplay?

So let me back up a little bit before I answer that question.

Yep.

Um, here's how I think about it. Our bacteria like to travel just as much as we probably do, right? And so where do the bacteria that are in the bladder for the most part come from? They come from the colon, they come from the vagina, and they go on holiday. And they end up in the bladder. Um, and that mucus biofilm layer that I talked about, it's a little bit more like a lasagna. It's not, it's not a single layer, it's multiple layers. And I think what happens is, you know, we get organisms and then we get more biofilm and more organisms and more biofilm, more organisms and more biofilm. So, um, we can have a lot of biofilm to go through. Most of my patients, particularly, you know, 50-plus, menopausal-plus, they may take more than one round. That one round was very unique that she got so much better, but over time, as we chip away at the biofilms and we kill the organisms— and we can talk about antibiotics versus herbals. But as we chip away and we kill the organisms, the symptoms get better and better and better. And people find that even the symptoms they had no idea were related to their bladder got better.

Yeah, I want you to— let's talk about those. I mean, what else would be there if it wasn't this? What signs and symptoms Are we not connecting?

Well, again, I think it's very unique for each individual, but we now understand that inflammation drives so much chronic illness, right?

Right.

And then the question is, where is the inflammation coming from? If somebody has a low-level bacterial colonization that their body is not liking, you're going to have an inflammatory response. And it can manifest as just urinary frequency, but honestly, it could be your migraine headaches. It could be— stop it— no, seriously, it could be your joint pain. It could be these weird rashes that you get that you just don't understand. It could be, you know, this irritable bowel syndrome that you have. Um, it is really truly astounding. I have this one woman, she's probably 78 now, and she has had a lifetime of like joint pain and fatigue and these weird rashes. And every time we do the test, she gets better and better and better. All these things that we had no idea were related to a biofilm colonization in her bladder. It's It's just been, it's been really awe-inspiring to witness the transformations that are happening as we like chip away at these biofilms for people.

Wow. Now come back because I interrupted you. Now come back to heart disease. And of course we do know that's related to inflammation, but is there more there?

You know, I think we're only beginning to scratch the surface because the technology is fairly recent, and I would probably have to go into the medical literature and double-check that. But we know that the bacteria from our teeth, when we brush our teeth, can end up in our coronary arteries. It would make sense too that the bacteria that are, you know, kind of festering in our bladders have the potential to do the same thing.

Yeah, so true. Oh my goodness. Okay, I'm a little blown away for sure. I mean, at, you know, this is like listeners, I would recognize that potentially you may be saying this is both good and bad. Like, I still feel it's a black hole. Like, if somebody suspected, okay, I have this, would they go to their Western practitioner? If that's as far as they've come, they're not working with a functional doctor, what would they do? Because I can imagine a listener might feel still like they're like out out in left field and they're trying to explain something they barely understand to a, to a doctor who isn't doing it or maybe open to it yet.

So my suggestion would be, um, go to the test company's website and find a practitioner who is using their test. Um, and, um, there may be other test companies out there. The one that I am currently utilizing and not getting paid for. Like, I order the test. I'm not a spokesperson for the company, but the company is called MicroGenDX.

Okay.

And so people can go to the website, and we're just mostly talking about bladders, but they can culture anything. So they— I mean, the owner of the company, when I've talked to him, he's just— he's not a scientist or a medical doctor, but he's a wealth of information. And they've used this technology to identify weird organisms. So there was this one young man, I think he swam in a lake and ended up in a coma. They couldn't figure out what the infection was. They did a spinal tap and got some cerebral spinal fluid and sent that for next-generation sequencing and were able to identify what organism was there and treat him with the appropriate antibiotics and he recovered. Um, other examples, I've had some patients with some weird dental stuff like thick saliva, just weird sensations, burning tongue. We find that they have a dysbiosis in their teeth with a dental specimen and treat appropriately, and it just it gets better. It's really cool. Um, and then for people who have, um, diabetic foot ulcers or wounds that don't heal— most wounds that don't heal, it's because there are multiple bacteria and/or fungus there, and the antibiotic, antibiotic regimen is not treating all of them. And that, that's the whole, that's the whole beauty of this technology, right? So say you're getting, you know, an E. coli infection, E. coli infection, they keep giving you the same antibiotics, but you also have these 5 or 6 other organisms that don't show up on your culture, and you're not getting treated for the ones that are actually causing the symptoms. They're just treating the one that grows best on the culture medium that they're looking at, right?

Yeah. I— so I want to ask you this because you mentioned this earlier, and I would be remiss to listeners if I didn't. You mentioned there are herbals. So is that an instead of, or, uh, before you go to antibiotics, you might want to do this? And I want you to follow this, or lead with it if you'd prefer. If we were asking you personally you got back a positive and you needed to do something, what would be your first course of action?

So the trick with the herbals is the company does not yet have the database to be able to say this particular organism will be treated by this particular herb, right? Or this combination of organisms will benefit from be treat— being treated by these herbs. So we know a lot less specifics about the herbs. Additionally, we know a lot less specifics about the duration of time that you have to take those herbs in order to treat the infection appropriately. So that would be where a conventionally trained urologist, urogynecologist who is ordering the testing may not have the clinical acumen to be able to say, okay, based on the medical literature and my understanding of herbs, we can do this, right? And it's tricky for me. I'm not an herbalist. I'm a medical doctor who's functionally trained. You know, it may be that a naturopathic doctor would be better if you really wanted to avoid antibiotics at all costs. And I think I can speak to myself because you asked that. The very first time I did the test, nothing showed up. My vaginal flora was normal, and, um, and I didn't have any—

bragger—

I didn't have any bacteria in my, in my bladder. But, um, what I've also learned is that there is an interplay between the bacteria producing biofilm and the human biology that can lay down what we call fibrin mesh or a clot. So it turns out that people who have a genetic predisposition to making clot, try and deal with the presence of the bacteria by reinforcing it with clots or fibrin mesh. And because I test myself on my own guinea pig, I did all the genetic testing and I found, yes, I have this one gene that predisposes me to making clots. And so I'm— I did the test and I was like, well, I bet I have— I bet I have a biofilm and I bet I'm reinforcing it with my, you know, predisposition, and I have to do something different first before I repeat the test and see if there's actually anything there, right? Yeah. So I mentioned that biofilms are this matrix, this mucopolysaccharide matrix. And so what we need to do is specific enzymes that will break down the biofilm. And these are over-the-counter supplements. You might have heard of some of these, like nattokinase or serrapeptidase, or combinations of these things. And basically they digest the biofilm. Um, and then for me, I added what's called a fibrinolytic enzyme, which will break down that fibrin mesh or that clot that I talked about. And then I repeated the test. So I did that for like a month or two, and then I did the test again, and sure enough, there was some bacteria there.

Wow. Okay, everybody's gonna want to know this because, you know, when you get away from your Western You know, Western tests that are no good. I'm so sorry I said that. Covered by insurance, they're not.

They're not sufficient. They're not sufficient. They're not good.

Okay, that's— there we go.

We'll edit that.

Not okay. What's the cost of the test to those who are wondering?

Um, so for the women's test kit, which includes a urine specimen and vaginal swabs, it's $279. Um, if you are on Medicare, you can do a urine specimen kit and you can do a vaginal specimen kit, and they will be covered by Medicare. Um, if you have a PPO and you want to try and submit them separately, they are trying to get more PPO coverage. It's still lacking. Um, but yeah, some people are able to get those covered.

Does that include the pre and the post? Because one without the other, right, a single test is not much use if you're trying to do something, change and see, right? Right.

No, it's just the one test. So, okay, what I have my patients do is I have everyone take one of those biofilm busters for 5 to 7 days, no matter— like, I might not know their genetics yet, but everybody gets a Biofilm Buster, um, which is just a supplement. And the, this, the instructions would be, because we want these enzymes to digest the biofilm and not your food, take it away from food and supplements.

Very cool. Thank you so much. Can you tell me, educate me in this way, is there a question, knowing we're talking to women over 40, is there a question I haven't asked you that I should?

Um, you've been a very good interviewer, and I think we covered everything. I think my suggestions, um, I can, I can sort of encapsulate and make some suggestions for the listeners. Um, Let's see. Um, so one question would be more on the clotting piece, like how would you know if you might have a genetic predisposition for clotting? And would that— because the way that I think about it is if you have a predisposition for making clots, you might have a higher likelihood of having a biofilm colonization in your bladder because it's being reinforced, right? So if you have a family history of somebody who's had a DVT, deep vein thrombosis, or a pulmonary embolism, or you know a family member has a genetic predisposition like Factor V Leiden, protein C, protein S deficiencies, Or if anybody in your family has ever had a heart attack or a stroke.

Oh geez. Okay.

Well, that's not anybody who would that be, right? I know. Well, that's where I looked at my family history. I'm like, hmm, okay. Both sides. Whoops. Shoot. Both sides. Uh, yeah, I, I'm pretty sure I have this right. Um, and I did, it's called plasminogen activator inhibitor 1. Okay, um, it's not very commonly checked, but even so, those biofilm defense, biofilm busters— I mean, if you find a doctor who knows anything about Lyme disease, they'll know about biofilms usually, and you can get some biofilm enzymes and start taking those and then contact the company. So even if the urologist doesn't know about biofilms, you do now.

So good. Okay, so Dr. Kelly, you've done both a service and a disservice, and I know anybody listening is probably going to ask me this. So first of all, always the question is how can they follow you and learn more? Because if this is the first pass, we sometimes have to hear things again before we're ready to take action. But somebody is also going to wonder I heard it from her, now I trust her. Can I work with her?

Sure. So I have a brick-and-mortar practice in Southern California. I'm licensed in like 10 or 11 other states, so you could check with my staff to see if you could become a patient. Um, the website is thespringcenter.com. I also have an online presence, Instagram, blogs, etc. And you can usually find those either through the Spring Center or DrKellyMcCann.com.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing this.

You're welcome, Debra. Thank you so much for having me. And I know I, I blew a few minds, but I think it's all, all in the service of good because this technology is amazing and it can really change people's lives. And so that's what I hope for, for you and your listeners.

So good to be empowered. Okay, listeners, so you know we love to hear from you too. So if you're not already in a program with a private group, you can find us on Facebook at Flipping 50 Insiders, 5-0 Insiders, and ask a question there. If you want to share that you just loved the podcast and got some support from it, insight you never had, love to hear that too. What are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 today. Do you have a question for a podcast? A question you'd love to ask, or maybe a story you want to tell? Did you know we have a special group just for podcast question roundups and the answers? My community coaches and I provide answers daily inside of this group, but it's also where I go when I occasionally say, Okay, open call for podcast questions or tell your story. Would you like to be a guest? So if you're looking for a community of women who are also interested in optimizing their health, strengthening their mindset, and looking forward to every new year, join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50 Insiders on Facebook.

I'd like to share a story about my mom. So obviously apples don't fall from the tree. So part of, you know, my inspiration is learning from her. And what happens is, oops, she tends to get urinary tract infections. And, um, in fact, she got one right before, uh, she got COVID, got a UTI, fell, broke her pelvis, you know, poor thing, um, ended up in a, um in the hospital. And then we got her better, got things under control. I, I did one of these tests and I found out, yep, sure, she's got a biofilm. I treated her once and then I kept her on the Biofilm Busters. And then she got another cold about a year and a half later, and she got another urinary tract infection. So I brought her to the hospital again, then this time it was a resistant bacteria. And so they put her on IV antibiotics, and she looked terrible. She was feverish, and, you know, she was in the hospital for IV antibiotics. And then, and then it actually had gone into her bloodstream, so she was septic from this bacteria. And this is one of the reasons that I like to talk about this, because I think it's important to empower women that they don't have to go there, right? This doesn't have to be our elderly destiny is to get a UTI and end up in the hospital and go down the drain. So my, my mom gets the IV antibiotics, and I'm trying to tell the doctors, um, there's this other test that we need to do, and they're not listening to me. And so then, you know, she clears the bacteria from her blood, she clears the bacteria from her urine, and they're They say, "Oh, she's fine. We can't find anything. There's nothing left." And she looks terrible. She can't get out of bed to walk to the bathroom without additional assistance. She uses a walker from her stroke, but, you know, she is exhausted. She has a flat affect when I come to visit her. She can't even break out into a smile to express that she's happy to see me. This is not my mother, right? I know that something is really wrong, and I can't get the doctors to order this test. So they eventually discharge her to rehab, and on my lunch break, I said, okay, Mom, I gotta come over, we're gonna collect some urine specimen. And she's so cute, she gets—

fun daughter, fun daughter.

I know, she gets herself— if somebody helps, puts her on the toilet, and I run in and I like collect the urine specimen and send it off. And she gets back into bed, and 3 days later I get the results. She doesn't have a bacteria. She has Candida albicans. She has a fungus in her bladder. And so I again talk to the doctor, explain how it works. I prescribe— I get him to prescribe fluconazole, which is a an antifungal for this Candida that it's sensitive to. 4 doses later, 2 days later, she's back to normal. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So I think this, like, these poor elderly women and men too in rehab who have the dwindles— yeah, they don't have the dwindles, they have an infection that's not being identified and treated. It's crazy.

Yeah.

So thankfully I have my mom back.

Yeah, well, thankfully she had you. Yeah, I mean, I can look back at my own history of my mom and exactly what happened, you know, and I'm guessing we didn't know what we didn't know, but right, yeah, now we, now we know we can do better. Thanks so much for sharing that.

You're welcome.

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