Changing the World of Pediatric Medicine

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin and welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where I talk nutrition, exercise, mindset and lifestyle with some of the coolest pieces in the world. Plus I give you tips that you can put into fast action to up level your health so you can go out there and live that big life you're meant to live. Now if you've ever struggled with what to feed your kids or your grandkids or you've got kids who seem to keep getting the same thing over and over again, ear infections, skin problems, etc. And you know that the medications aren't the answer because they're not fixing the problem. I've got the perfect person for you today. I am super excited to share Dr. Sheila Kilbane with you. When I first met her I thought, oh my gosh, if you were going to draw the perfect pediatrician, it is hard to say all these P's. If you were going to draw that perfect pediatrician, you would draw Dr. Sheila Kilbane. She is just super cute, super smart and super approachable. Like kids would feel instantly at ease with her. She's kind of their size as she'll say to you in this doc with a stethoscope on. She's just awesome. But she has really bridged the gap. And I know back when my kids were little and I was going to the doctor, I kept getting the same the same treatments and they weren't working and I was so frustrated. And as you know, with my son Grant, I went outside of traditional medicine, which saved his life initially, but then I was able to save his life long term by going in and bringing in some of these other things. And she's going to share some of these other things and how she came around to this in our interview today. So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Sheila Kilbane. She's a medical doctor, a board certified pediatrician, and she also trained with Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona Integrative Medicine department. She works with families in what we do in functional medicine, which is to get to the root of the problem. And she uses natural nutritional therapies whenever possible. So she's taking on all of the things that, you know, if you've been a parent, you've dealt with some of these eczema, reflux, constipation, asthma, asthma, allergies, sinus infections, ear infections, GI issues. But she's turning these around in no time again by using nutritional and natural therapies. She's going to tell you about some of the stories during this interview today that will blow your mind by some simple shifts that she made that made all the difference and got people off of their chronic medications. So this is just a fantastic thing. She's out there now changing the world of Pediatric medicine Incorporated, incorporating integrative medicine into it. And she's been creating online programs so that if you aren't in North Carolina, you can get help from her as well. She's got a great book, Healthy Happy, A Step by Step Guide to Improving Many Common Childhood Illnesses. So again, Today's guest is Dr. Sheila Kilbane. So let's do it. Dr. Sheila Kilbane, welcome to the show. I've got my favorite integrated pediatrician on. I'm so glad you're here with me today.

Yay. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here and to talk with your listeners.

I know if I wish they could see you, I never do video, but in this case I wish they could because you are the perfect pediatrician. Oh my gosh, when I met you, I was like, oh, where were you when I was a kid? I would have been so like any kid walking to your office must be so happy to see you. Like you're, first of all, you're kind of kid size. You know, I'm six feet tall and you're what, like five, two?

Yes, yes. I throw them off. They don't think I'm one of them. But then I pull a stethoscope out.

That's a big kid with a stethoscope. So you're just so non threatening and so darn smart and so sweet. So it's like such a great combo. So let's dive in. Because you, when I met you, I'm like, oh my gosh, the whole world needs to know you because I've never seen the approach. I know that when My kids were little. I could not find one of you. And I went to the doctor. Gosh. When one of my kids, the minute I stopped breastfeeding. Grant, take him to the doctor. He's got an ear infection. Of course they want to give him the pink stuff. So I know that I'm not the only parent out there looking for better solutions than meds for everything, but it seems like that's really what's out there. What is going on?

That's such a good question. And a lot of what we train for in conventional medicine is we train to treat symptoms or to treat the disease. So if you have an ear infection, we are great at picking the antibiotic and how many days and what's the dose, but we really don't study how can we prevent that ear infection to begin with. And that's where integrative medicine is so powerful, because is. It's really. We look at nutrition and stress and all that kind of thing to optimize the child's immune system so that when they get exposed to something, which we're always going to be exposed to viruses and bacteria and things like that, that their body is really robust and has a much better chance of fighting it off without having to resort to an antibiotic.

I know. Which I remember after the fact, finding out that I just destroyed my kid's microbiome. I'm like, ah, you. It was like, why didn't I know this stuff back then? So how did you go from. Because I know you had traditional schooling and, you know, what. What made you do this transition? What happened?

Yeah. So I can remember this case like it was yesterday because. Right. I knew I wanted to be a doctor forever from the time I was little and, you know, did all my training and was out of residency practicing. And I realized that I was. First of all, I was running from room to room, just stressed out, you know, sometimes not able to go to the bathroom for, you know, many hours. And I was seeing the same kids over and over. It was kids with recurrent ear infections, eczema, chronic runny nose, allergies, asthma, constipation, and they were in the office once a month. So I would give them an antibiotic, a steroid, whatever they needed, and then we would put their symptoms at bay. But then the issue would return or the eczema would flare up again, you know, after we did a course of a steroid. So one of my patients, he was about six or seven months old at the time, and I've been seeing him since he was an infant. And he was having recurrent ear infections and eczema. And around that six or seven month visit, the mom said to me, you know, Dr. Kilbane, I took him off of dairy, I took myself off of dairy because she was breastfeeding. And his eczema improved. And, and I said, I don't know what that is and I don't know why that is, but let me figure out how we're going to make sure that we're getting enough calcium and fat and vitamin D in him and in you, but stay off of it because, you know, if it worked, it worked. So we, we kept her off of it. He still, he continued to get ear infections, so we ultimately had to refer him to go get ear tubes because that's just, with ear infections it's really important to treat them. Or if you have fluid in there, it's important to pay attention to that because that can cause problems later on. So anyway, we referred him to get ear tubes, but there was a snafu with her insurance and they had to cancel it. And so several months had gone by and right before his one year WellChild check, she had a big omelet and he had a huge eczema flare. And so we said, huh, okay, so if dairy and eggs are flaring up, his eczema, let's take him completely off of them. And he still, he had some fluid in his ear at that one year well visit. And so I said, come back in a few weeks, let me recheck his ears, but keep dairy and eggs out of both of your diets because she was still breastfeeding. So she kept, she did that. His eczema completely cleared up. The fluid was gone from his ear three weeks later. And he did great. We never had to do ear tubes. And so I knew that I needed to pay attention to that. I didn't understand the whole concept of systemic inflammation at that point in time, but I knew I needed to really pay attention to that case and learn from that and study how profoundly food was impacting my patient's diet or my patient's health.

I'm just so excited you didn't do the typical, oh, it's an anomaly because I know this has changed your entire approach. So when you saw that, then how did you go and get the, that you needed? Because I know you've gone through now and done some extra education and training for this. What'd you do?

Yeah, so that I, at that point in time, what I would do is I would call my friends who are Naturopathic doctors. And they would say, they would tell me, okay, do this and this and this, you know, and then I would go research it and study it. And so eventually, once I. Once I really started implementing this and seeing these things melt away, and I had no idea the link could be so powerful that I decided to go do an integrative medicine fellowship with Andrew Weil through the University of Arizona. He's that guy with the big white beard, Santa. Yes, yes. And he's got an incredible program. And so I studied for two years about nutrition and herbs and supplements and mind body therapies. And you want to scream it from a mountain time the first time you see a child. Profound. So improvely, so, so profoundly just with nutritional changes. And, you know, jj, it was listening to an interview that Joe Polish did with you when you went through your approach with adults. And I went, oh, my gosh, that's the same thing I'm doing with kids, a little modification. And I just thought I saw how you were able to take it to a bigger audience. And it really made me realize how, you know, there are many ways to get this information out there, because there aren't that many pediatricians trained in this.

I've never met one. And, you know, it's. I can't tell you how many times, Sheila. And this is why when I met you, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my God, get this out. Because so often I'll work with adults on their diet and they go. They'll go, okay, I can do this, J.J. but, you know, I still have to cook for my family.

Yes.

And I'm like, but wait a minute. Don't you like them? Like, I'm totally confused now by this. Like, this is what they should be eating, too. As if. As if, like, you know, it's not healthy for them to eat healthy food. Right. It's just bizarre. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. That is what I have found, is that a lot of the adults, they may have figured some things out for themselves, but they don't know how to translate into their kids, how to do it with their kids. And then, you know, as pediatricians, we're trained to say you have to drink two to three cups of milk a day. And so that. That's where I do a ton of education. I recently finished a book, and there's a whole chapter on dairy just to help parents understand that there are other ways that we can get calcium and vitamin D and fat.

Gosh, that's just crazy stuff. So for all of those people Who. And again, you go to the. The best example of all is the restaurant. Children's menu, Right? Children's menu. Oh, my gosh. But then I hear from so many people about my child will only actually had client who said, my child will only eat microwave bacon. Now, her child was three. And I'm thinking, he doesn't have a car, a wallet, you know, he doesn't go to the grocery store. So explain this to me, because exposure equals preference. What are just a couple tips that you can give for getting your kids to eat healthy? Because I know this is such a big one, and there's just. I think there's almost like this lockdown in people's heads that they can't get their kids to eat this way. That somehow kids have to eat chicken fingers and Mac and cheese, right?

Yeah. You know, the first thing we typically start off with is a smoothie in the morning, because I always say, just change one thing, just change breakfast. Because a lot of these kids are eating a bowl of cereal and milk, which is a huge load of carbohydrates from the milk and the cereal. And so we start off with a starter smoothie, and we do a few leaves of spinach, about a half a banana, a cup of frozen berries and water. And that's going to be really sweet. And the goal is to decrease the sugar content of that because that's going to be a lot of sugar as well. So what we end up doing then is we go to a cup of spinach, maybe a little, you know, a smidgen of a banana, like an inch of a banana, and then, you know, five or six frozen berries so that we're upping the greens and we're decreasing the sugar. And then we start to add in some chia hemp or flax seed. I love to get coconut oil in the kids this way, especially for the kids two years and under, because if we're taking them off of dairy, we want to make sure we're getting a lot of good saturated fats in them because their brain and their nervous system is still developing.

That is fantastic. And it is. It's something easily. Anyone can do these things. It's super easy. And I love the way that you're tapering them. That's really critical, too. That was one of the biggest things that I saw out there. And the adults that we were doing wrong is not tapering them. So that is fantastic. You know how I feel about starting the day with a smoothie. I love that it's such an easy one. I'd love to hear a couple success stories, especially like, let's pull one out, because so many of these like the story you started with the beginning. You know, if you think ear infections is just chronic use of antibiotics, and if that doesn't work, getting tubes or eczema, which again, with elimination diets, I've seen miracles happen with skin problems. But how about another success story that you've been able to. To solve through nutrition and supplements?

Yeah. Another great example is constipation. So I will see kids who have been on Miralax for years, and we do this same approach. We just. We take the dairy out, we give them good, healthy bacteria in the form of probiotics into their gut. We increase their omega 3 fats. Often we'll do that with fish oil. We will typically do a whole food supplement, possibly some magnesium. And it's like magic. I mean, I've maybe had five patients over 10 years that we weren't able to get off of Miralax. And often those are kids who have some underlying neurologic issue or maybe a G tube or something like that. But Miralax is a laxative. And that's usually. I think about constipation and eczema and recurrent ear infections as sort of the canary in the coal mine. And I love to take care of those early on so that we don't continue with that just systemic, that inflammation that gets left unchecked. And it's the same thing. I'll do one more quick one of asthma. A patient, he was about seven, seven or eight, he was actually, you know, little fella, and they were on an inhaled steroid and albuterol. And all we did was take him off of dairy and do that same approach, reinoculate his gut, good omega 3 fats. We did do a little bit of magnesium with him, and he actually went off of his inhalers. Sometimes we don't fully go off of them. Sometimes we decrease the doses and things like that. But that's another very typical scenario is with asthma.

So for someone listening, because it sounds like some of the current. The things I'm hearing common are getting them off dairy, getting them on probiotics, little bit of magnesium. Where can they go? Because I know you've written a book that's fantastic. I love the title, Healthy Kids, Happy Moms. But on your website, do you have resources, some of the things that they can grab on? Because I know when you get some of these things happening, you're sitting online and you don't know who to trust and what information to do. And a lot of the stuff out there. It seems like pediatrics is like the last place that integrative approaches haven't hit yet. That's why you're leading the charge out there. So what do you have on your website? I'm going to tell everyone your website name is sheilakilbane.com. let me spell it because it's a little bit, a little bit different of a last name. So it's Sheila S H E I L A. Kilbane is K I L B A N E. So sheilakilbane.com so what sort of resources do you have available for people?

Yes, so we have several online courses and we make those really easy so that you can get some great information really quickly. We also have like a one hour Q, Q and A that I have up there about just all about ears where I'm answering people's questions about ear infections. And we have lots of other resources. I have a blog where I write about a lot of different cases and we have a supplement store. And I don't have many things in my supplement store intentionally because I just have the few select products that I have vetted for kids. So if you go on there and you're thinking, I want a probiotic, there are only two options. So it's not like you're going to be wondering which one to choose. So we tried to make it really simple and we're always refining. So if people have any questions, they can always email us through the website.

I love that. And the kid friendly food approach is so big. So I hugely appreciate it. I want to remind everybody to go to sheilakilbane.com and also to grab your book, Healthy Kids, Happy Moms. And I just, you know, I know you weren't around when my kids were little because I think you're younger than me. So that wouldn't have worked. But I'm determined to get you out to everybody who's got kids now because whether you can get out to North Carolina or not, you've got a lot of great resources. So you no longer have to rely on some of that stuff. That's not going to set your kids up for success for the long haul because so many of these things, like setting up good gut microbiome needs to start when they're. They're babies.

Yeah, right.

So important. So it also will help you as a mom to feel better about the choices you're making because you know how much we beat ourselves up as moms. Yeah. Anyway, so thank you. I so appreciate it. I'm reminding everyone it's www.sheilakilbane.com. now, after the break, I'm going to be answering a listener's question. So stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. I love this time of the show. And today's question fits in perfectly with the subject. And it is from Marcy from Minnesota. How do you like that alliteration? And Marcy asks, I am having so much trouble getting my kids to eat healthy and I don't want to create a war zone at dinner. So find that I'm making two meals every night, one for my husband and I who like to eat healthy and then one for the kids. What can I do? So so often when I'm working with people on either the virgin diet or the sugar impact diet or just eating healthy in general, they'll tell me, okay, I can totally do this for me and maybe my spouse, but you know, I have to cook for my family too, so what am I going to feed them? And I'm always listening to this going, well, wait a minute, you know, don't you want to cook healthy foods for your family too? And I know the big challenge because I'm a mom, so I know what it's like to sit down to dinner. And let's face it, most three year olds are not going to be eating like Cajun grass fed salmon with, you know, asparagus almondine. However, I've got some simple tricks that I found over the years. I tested them on my kids myself that I can tell you will work well. The first thing is remember, exposure equals preference. While you don't want to turn your dinner table into a war zone, you do want to keep introducing things to your kids and let them try them. It could take you 12, 13, 14 times before they start to like them. So put them out there in bite sized pieces and just always say, you know, it's something I want you to try. You don't have to. There's no clean plate club, but this is something I want you to try. And what I found is that if you need to put a little bit of almond cheese or grass fed butter is great because it's like a supplement on something or a little marinara sauce so that the kids like it better. Super. Next thing is, look how you can sneak things in, like a morning smoothie. Like Dr. Sheila Kilbane was talking about sneaking in the spinach. They'll never even notice it. If you're making a soup, you can add in some veggies in there, they won't notice them. Same with, if you're making burgers, chop up some mushrooms. So there's plenty of ways you can sneak some stuff in. Next thing is, involve them. And there's so many things you can have fun with nowadays, like noodles. You can use a spiralizer to make noodles out of zucchini. How fun is that? You know what happens? Kids support what they create. So if you bring them in and have them help you make these things, they're way more likely to eat them. So there's all sorts of fun things like broccoli trees, like zucchini noodles, like making smiley faces that you can do that's going to make it more fun for your kids. And you know what I found is kids really want to do the right thing and eat healthy. So if you teach them a little bit but a fun way, they are more likely to do it. And the cool thing is that kids get full. So whereas an adult's full but still wanting dessert, kids aren't typically like that. So the big thing is you're teaching them. Now. What I did growing up was I did not have sweets in the house. If we were going to have it, it was a treat we went out for. And I kept a lot of stuff at eye level for them. You know, cut up celery and carrots and pieces of almond cheese and nut butters and nuts and rice chips so that they have those things at eye level that they can choose if they're hungry. I always had grilled chicken and salmon because they would eat those. They'd eat salmon, steak, chicken and grass fed beef burger patties. So find those things and then start to build on those things. But again, I never made a war zone. I kept introducing them. I'd find things that they liked. Like. Like I knew they liked romaine lettuce salads with olive oil vinaigrette. And I knew they'd do broccoli and asparagus and we just built from there. Again, exposure equals preference. And just don't bring those other things in the house. I'll never forget Bryce, my younger son. We were doing an Easter egg hunt and he ate a bunch of Easter eggs, candy ones, and promptly threw up because he wasn't used to eating sugar and he's like, I'm not doing that again. Good. Lesson learned. Alrighty. If you'd like to submit a question, just go to jjvirgin.com ask and you can leave a voicemail for me. I love hearing from you and I also love hearing from you on Stitcher or itunes. If you could leave a review for me there, I would hugely appreciate it. It helps me a bunch. And also be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. This is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you that you are worthy. Dare to live a life that matters.

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