Deconstructing Conventional

Dr. Kelley Reis: Challenging Conventional Medicine: Mammograms vs Thermography and the Pursuit of Holistic Wellness

• Christian Elliot • Episode 39

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Discover the fascinating world of alternative health practices with our guest, Dr. Kelly Reese, a board-certified naturopathic physician and functional wellness expert. Dr. Kelly challenges conventional medicine, advocating for thermography as a promising alternative to the traditional mammogram. Join us as we uncover the intricacies of this method, which not only detects inflammation but also offers insights into health issues that often go unnoticed with standard medical examinations.

Dr. Kelly's journey from pursuing a master's in zoology to becoming a pioneering force in naturopathy is nothing short of inspiring. Her transition from Portland to rural Florida, navigating the regulatory landscape, and embracing a self-sufficient lifestyle, paints a vivid picture of determination and passion for patient-centered care. Learn how she transformed her practice into a Private Membership Association, a bold move to protect her clients and herself from governmental oversight.

Stand up for your health decisions confidently and build a wellness team aligning with your values. Dr. Kelly shares the power of combining emotional, mental, and spiritual components into healing, highlighting the importance of health coaches and a supportive network. Whether you're curious about thermography or seeking a holistic approach to wellness, this episode offers fresh perspectives and practical insights. Prepare to be enlightened and inspired to take control of your health journey.

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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, welcome to episode 39. In this interview I had the pleasure of sitting down with another naturopathic physician this time the lovely Dr Kelly Reese. I had been wanting to find someone to interview about the topic of thermography. So I not only accomplished that, but in researching for this episode it also took me down the rabbit hole of mammograms. And I guess I should stop being surprised at this point. But I found mammograms to be a much uglier example of medical manipulation and harm than I had imagined it to be. I suppose serendipitously, before recording this episode introduction, just yesterday I was talking with Dr Heather Gessling, who some of you may remember from the other two interviews I've done with her. She is a medical doctor and she was telling me that it is not uncommon for her to hear patients say that they have been refused services by physicians if they won't get a mammogram. And after you hear Dr Kelly and I discuss mammography, you might see how unconscionable it is that mammograms are even considered standard of care today. So if you or someone you care about has ever considered one or have had one, this would be an episode to not miss.

Speaker 1:

Two other fun nuggets I'll mention about this interview. Is that first, in prep for the discussion, I drove up to Dr Kelly's office to experience thermography myself and, as I find anything new that might be worth suggesting to clients wherever possible, I always like to try to talk about them from experience. So I am delighted to report that my results are pretty standard and, I guess you could say, boring. So while I don't have any new cool insights into my health to tell you about, instead I got Dr Kelly to tell you about some amazing insights thermography has helped her find in other people she has worked with. The second thing I'll say is that in this episode I think anyway that you'll find that it does a great job of delivering on the promise to deconstruct conventional and see if we can find a better way.

Speaker 1:

So Dr Kelly and I discussed the six core principles of naturopathy and I think you'll hear how they stand in sharp contrast to how the medical world operates. When you hear the principles you'll probably say, oh, that's what a doctor is supposed to be. It's just refreshing to know that this kind of approach to health exists, and I even asked Dr Kelly if she were to put together her A-team to create a holistic approach to helping people. The first thing she mentioned was having a health coach on the team to help people with all the lifestyle, diet, exercise and mindset work it takes to heal. So if you have found a good doctor but you're still struggling to get well, you might consider adding a coach to your team. You can find out more about the work I do by clicking on the links in the show notes. Coaching might be exactly what you've been missing. Now I'll let you find out who else Dr Kelly mentioned on her shortlist as you listen to the conversation. The last thing I'll say is, if you appreciate this episode or this show in general, please share it. I'd love it if you'd be so kind as to leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps expand the reach of the show, but also helps expand the mission to create a much better model for how to heal the body, mind and soul.

Speaker 1:

Okay, without further ado, enjoy my conversation with the wonderful physician, investigator and thinker, dr Kelly Reese. All right, hello everyone. Welcome to my conversation with the lovely Dr Kelly Reese. So a few things about her. She is a board-certified naturopathic physician, a functional wellness expert and a Kentucky native. She graduated from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, oregon and has been in practice since 2004. Her passion is helping clients do what she calls fact find to uncover root health issues and imbalances within the foundational systems of the body. That she calls gut health, hormone balance, detoxification and inflammatory responses. She works to resolve the underlying inflammation and stress that causes the breakdown of health. Go imagine that. Like what a concept. So you all can probably tell why I like her already. But it gets better.

Speaker 1:

So Dr Kelly's functional approach focuses on the whole person. While she does utilize nutritional supplementation in her practice, she does not just manage patient symptoms with supplements and, like me, she believes you cannot supplement a person back to health. You need an individualized, comprehensive approach to treat the whole person. So I love that. So she also has this quote on her website. I just wanted to read you to give you a sense of how she thinks. So it says I believe that all physical disease has an emotional, mental and spiritual component. Therefore, healing must take place on all those levels. It involves a strong commitment on the part of my client because all healing occurs from within, utilizing a comprehensive approach based in functional medicine, full diagnostic testing, lifestyle planning and common sense. I partner with my clients to educate and support them on how they can truly improve their health and life on all levels. So fantastic you and I are cut from the same cloth, dr Kelly. So welcome to the show. Thanks for taking the time today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, Christian. I really appreciate the invitation.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome, all right. So I remember when my wife first sent me your website, she said you were interested in joining our homeschool co-op and I was like, oh cool. So I checked out your website, I found out that you're a naturopath who does thermography. You have a private membership association. And then I checked out your social media and I thought, oh, this woman's bold. She's not afraid to call out the medical industrial complex or the treatment of our freedoms Right, and I just knew I needed to interview you.

Speaker 1:

So, before we get to some of that, rewind your story a bit and give us some context of who you are.

Speaker 2:

Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor and of all the different disciplines you could have gotten into, what made you settle on becoming a naturopath? You know, epiphany, to say the least. So I was in 1996 to 99, I was at the University of Florida getting a master's in zoology with an emphasis in paleontology. So yeah, in my spare time, for fun, I would look up herb books and people would ask me how do I handle menstrual cramps? How do I do this? Because it was just my fun pastime. I do this because it was just my fun pastime. So, you know, fast forward a little bit. Finishing up, you know I was a little disenchanted by academia, to say the least, and was, you know, still looking at getting a PhD in Austin, texas, in geology, and went there to interview, woke up in the middle of the night and went, what am I doing? Like this is not the direction I want to go and thought I would be, you know, an herbalist or something that you know sounded really just grounding, and found out I could be an actual naturopathic physician. I didn't even know what a naturopathic physician was at that point and I'm an overachiever. So I was like, why be an herbalist if I can be a naturopathic physician and be the doctor part two.

Speaker 2:

So came home back to Florida and found out about NUNM in Portland, flew probably a month later, flew out there to check it out and the rest is history. I was like, wow, I can be a doctor and do all of this too. So went out there. I was in naturopathic medical school from 1999 to 2004. So five years of naturopathic medical school from 1999 to 2004. So five years of naturopathic medical school. And you know we're very highly trained. So you know it's four to six years depending on the track you take. So that's my story, how I became a naturopath, Nice.

Speaker 1:

Well, we'll get into the principles of naturopathy and what attracted you to it in a second. But the other part of your story that I thought was fascinating is similar to me and my family. You and yours are COVID transplants. So you went to school in Portland and you went to North Carolina, had a practice there and then you ended up in Florida. So give us your COVID story and what kind of moved you around, what was going on in your mind?

Speaker 2:

Well, thank goodness I moved out of Portland, oregon, in 2017. Like, I don't even know if we could have survived Portland through the COVID scam, Right.

Speaker 2:

So we were in Raleigh. I figured, well, let's. I'm from Kentucky, so you know, let's get closer to where I grew up. My husband is from Eastern Europe, so that wasn't an option. So it was let's get a little bit closer to the Southeast US, I can travel and see my family more. And so I picked, we picked Raleigh and it opened our eyes to how, you know, not conservative, and how Portland-like Raleigh North Carolina is. So you know, going through the COVID era, I call it the.

Speaker 2:

COVID era in Raleigh was very eye-opening. I was blown away by the just sheep, the followers, people not stepping up for the most part. There are a handful, but yeah. So then we thought, boy, we really need to start to homestead, we really need to take this into our own hands and be able to grow food, raise food and live as rural in a conservative area as we can. So city people, you know now we're rural Florida. We love it, we love every bit of it. So we feel much more with our people here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I bet no similar sentiments. For us, it's just like wait, this is not how I thought things were going to go in terms of freedom and that being able, the tyranny being able to be put in check, and so I was like we got to find a place where we can flourish, and Virginia was not it, so I can relate to you.

Speaker 2:

We actually looked at Virginia for a second and went what are we doing? Like? This isn't the direction we want to go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, All right. Well, so there's so many things we could talk about, but from someone who isn't afraid to speak truth, I wanted to zoom in on two things before we get to one of your specialties, which is thermography. So the first one is just to ask you why did you set up your practice as a private membership association? So tell us the story behind that and what makes a PMA special in your mind.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I've been harassed. I've been in practice almost 21 years and you know, when I practiced in Oregon, we're very equal to MDs. We're equal to MDs in about 20 states, but we're very regulated in Oregon. And so, moving to Raleigh, we are not licensed, and what I mean by that is we can't practice to the full scope of our training, we can't prescribe, we can't diagnose.

Speaker 2:

So once I got to Raleigh, I had you know, over those five years, I had two interesting experiences. The first was the FDA calling me about my thermography business, threatening to shut me down based on what wasn't written. A disclaimer wasn't written on my website, so that was the first thing that if I don't put that on there, they will make sure I'm shut down. Um, the second was the North Carolina board of nutrition decided to come after me and claim I don't care if you're a naturopathic physician and have extremely you know comprehensive training well beyond a nutritionist. We want to harass you as much as we can. And it was a legal battle for probably nine months, which I did win, did win. However, that made me say you know what I need to protect myself and my clients from any type of I'm going to call it governmental intervention and need to make sure that I am able to do what I do best.

Speaker 2:

I don't do anything illegal. I am able to do what I do best. I don't do anything illegal. I do everything by the book in the state that I practice in. However, I need to make sure we are protected and at PMA I am legally a health church and that is because I do believe so strongly in the spiritual aspect of health. I'm not going to be someone's preacher, pastor, rabbi, anything like that. However, it's such a crucial component to healing. It fits so well with being a PMA so it is a non-negotiable. I do not take any client outside of my PMA now and it is a constitutionally protected entity. So it should be. You know, air quotes should be protected from government overreach, but yeah, yeah, no, that's great.

Speaker 1:

We set up Healing United as a PMA for that same reason. We just need a protected space to speak freely and do what we can do to help people, and so that, yeah, similar journey you had there. That's fantastic. Well, that's. And for those of you who didn't know what a PMA is, now you know.

Speaker 1:

So, okay, the second thing I wanna go over before we get to thermography is just really the six principles of naturopathy, because I think it's so timely. The more the mask slips off the medical system lately, the more the core principles of naturopathy just stand in sharp contrast to the principles of Western allopathic or so-called conventional medicine. So to me they're just a great introduction to how doctors like you think and really, I think, a reminder of what doctors should be in the first place. So we'll just kind of briefly go over those six. But the first one is that the medical system would claim they follow this one, but it's first do no harm. So tell me how a naturopath frames that or where it may not be. So such a truism in the medical world.

Speaker 2:

I mean two words, big pharma. So first, do no harm. You know, the goal is to remove obstacles, not add obstacles, and I think that's missed in conventional medicine, every day, all day long. It's even missed in naturopathic medicine. Not all naturopaths truly follow. First do no harm. But it really is removing obstacles and making sure that we are allowing the body to move forward in health without getting in the way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yep. So what are a couple of examples of harm that are just kind of defaulted to? You mentioned big pharma. Is there anything else that stands out to you?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think people are over-supplemented. I think that is harm. I think, you know, while I appreciate the functional medicine movement, I believe it's also adding some harm. This may not be a favorite, you know, for me to say, but I think it's. For some it's become a racket to figure out how to have supplement sales and there's a lot of harm. Yeah. Um, I think that's a big one. I think it's overlooked a lot. You know, you shouldn't need thousands of dollars of supplements to be healthy.

Speaker 1:

Right, exactly. We proudly claim we are supplement minimalists and try to give people a few things they actually need and there's just so much waste that you get a suitcase full of supplements with so many of these naturopathic or other big coaching programs and it just baffles me that that's. It's like eat this way and take a whole boatload of supplements as if that's the cure and so much more to it.

Speaker 2:

So much more to it.

Speaker 1:

Cool, okay. Principle number two is the healing power of nature. So talk to us about that one. What does that mean to you?

Speaker 2:

So, you know, I would base this more kind of um herbs, healing herbs, um food as medicine is probably my favorite. It is designed, you know, divinely designed to help us be healthy, and it's truly, in my eyes, all the healing we need is is through, through nature and um, it's just sitting out there for us. You know, there's when there's like um, an herb that can make us sick or something, the, the counterpart, the healing or the antidote, is right next to it in nature. It's. It's pretty cool, you know, when you, when you think about how it's all designed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, and it stands to me. It's in sharp contrast to the way that medicine thinks there's a hubris, that it's one. They just kind of neglect the idea that the body's the one doing the healing. But two, it's the healing is from there's nature's bounty, rather than some sort of chemical cocktail or pharmakia, which literally means witchcraft or sorcery, which is where we get the word pharmaceutical it's. There's the idea that we, as the wiser people, can dictate and tell the body what to do, rather than recognize that it knows how to do in our job. To your point, just get out of its way. So yeah, okay, yep, okay. Number three is identify and treat the causes, which, if you know anything about the medical system, you know they don't do this. But talk to us about what that one means to you.

Speaker 2:

So you know the, the cause I see this all the time in conventional and holistic medicine is we're treating blood pressure, we're treating high cholesterol. Is we're treating blood pressure, we're treating high cholesterol, and what we really need to look at is why is the body creating high blood pressure? Why is the body creating high cholesterol which is not a problem, by the way but why the why? So I use that a lot in my practice. I want to look for the why, not the what. The what is caused by the why, and it's important to truly search out the foundational issues that are broken. I call them broken pathways. It might be estrogen detox, it might be poor liver function, it might be all sorts of things that are happening that are missed, and once again, we're throwing meds or supplements on top and not using supplements or nature to address those broken pathways in the deepest foundations.

Speaker 1:

Right. And if you ask a medical doctor, if it sounds funny to you the idea that medical doctors don't identify and treat causes, just go ask them the simple question why is my body experiencing this? Or where is this coming from? And you're going to get probably one of five answers it's genetics, it's stress, it's aging or I don't know, or it's all in your head and you probably should talk to a shrink Like. That's the closest they get to identifying any sort of cause.

Speaker 2:

And they throw stress around like it's not a big deal. Oh, it's just stress. I hear that phrase all the time Stress, high cortisol will take you out, it'll damage your DNA, it'll cause all sorts of disease. Yet it's thrown around like, oh, it's in your head or oh, you have too much weight on, you need to diet and lose weight. And there's so many excuses given. I tell my clients you know, if you have a crack in your wall and you keep, you know, smearing spackle on your wall on the crack and you don't, and it's due to the foundation being off, you're always going to have a vulnerable area where that crack keeps showing itself until you fix the foundation. So if you don't fix the foundation and really get to that cause, you are just chasing your tail non-ending.

Speaker 1:

Right yeah, so I love that one as a contrast. Okay, principle number four is doctor as teacher, which I think is brilliant. So explain what that means to you. So explain what that means to you.

Speaker 2:

If I had a favorite out of all six of these, it's this one docer. Doctor is teacher. Where this has gotten, you know, like sent down a pathway of, the doctor is the pill pusher. The doctor is the supplement giver. The doctor is we are teachers. First and foremost, we are teachers and I tell every client that I accept, because unfortunately I can't take on every client who wants to see me. But every client I take on, I ask are you willing to learn? Because my job is to educate you. You should not need me. If you need me long term, I haven't done my job. You shouldn't need any doctor. We should really be back to this old school where we learn, relearn how to eat, we relearn how to be healthy, truly healthy, and that's why all the levels spiritual, mental, emotional, physical come in. But we, my job is to train you, not to need me.

Speaker 1:

Right, love, that yeah. And we we describe ourselves as teachers as well. We are not even healers, like the body's the one that does that. We just teach you how to get out of its way and empower it. And to me this stands in contrast to the almost doctor as God kind of persona that the medical system, we are infallible and we are primary and we have we hear, we have consensus.

Speaker 2:

Well, the beauty of the COVID scam is, I think I think boy did that shine a light the light flipped on and the roaches are scattering and we got to see a lot of them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the proclamations from on high, just that doesn't seem to work anymore and we need people who can teach us. I love that that's wrapped into how you think. So okay, Principle number five is treat the whole person. That may be my favorite one, but tell us what that means to you. You've already hinted at it a little bit, but expand.

Speaker 2:

Well, think about conventional medicine. We have our gastroenterologist, our OB-GYN, we have our cardiologist. They can't see past their system that they are trained in. Right, and we, those systems, interact on a daily basis.

Speaker 2:

We're not just a gut, you know we're not just a brain or a throat or you know we, those are all connected and how it got to the point of specialties baffles me, because it's it's not the way the body works. We have to treat the whole body. You know I'm a big believer. Hormones, gut detoxification, inflammation, like those are very foundational in you know, as far as the whole body is concerned. But you know you have to look at how the brain connects to the gut, how you know your joint pains, you know, connect to your diet and how you know every aspect has to truly be, you know, looked at to get a better understanding of how to help someone correct it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, and it's not the world that the medical system likes to stay in. They've created this and I had to finally break that spell, the specialty idea I'm a specialist as if there is a special, simple answer for a complex problem, and so I made up the word partialist to describe it. And it's like okay, now we can have an honest conversation, because you're looking at a part of the body and a, you know, a zoomed in part of a system, but unless you can zoom out, you're, you're ignoring this, this fifth principle of treat the whole person, and you're just, you're playing whack-a-mole at that point. So absolutely love that one, okay, uh. Number six is prevention, which you would think would be a thing doctors would be into. But even the alternative or the restorative world is still not great at this prevention thing. It's typically mostly reactionary. So where does doctor as teacher and prevention come into your practice?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I can't talk about it with talking about the medical mafia. To be honest, that prevention creates healthy people. Healthy people don't pay the medical mafia's bill. And what I mean by that is conventional medicine, big pharma, big ag, insurance companies they're one big conglomerate and if, if disease is prevented, their money goes away. And so prevention is everything Like if I can help my clients. Rarely do I get the client. I get them, but rarely do I get the client who's like. You know, I just want to prevent disease.

Speaker 1:

I love it when I get that client.

Speaker 2:

I'm like oh my gosh, you are such the unicorn. Right, you know but. But I get the people who may be in the first stages or in the late stages, but prevention we can prevent when I get those teenagers, or you know, early 20 year olds, which I do a lot actually, that I can really help them move forward in their health by preventing all of this chronic disease down the road. Unfortunately, a number of them come to me with already chronic diseases that young. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But prevention is key. But, boy, I mean even you know insurance companies fight against it all the time Because it you know insurance companies fight against it all the time because you know they don't want to pay for any type of preventative care.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, it's funny. There's got to be a way for any of you thinkers out there who like to deconstruct conventional things. There's got to be a way to show the insurance companies the math, the money they save and don't have to pay in treatment if we could just find and fund some simple preventative things. So any of you thinkers out there, do it. But yeah, I love that that you're and I'm right there with you as a coach. I have to. It's rare to find somebody who's like I. Just I'm okay, but I want to make sure I stay this way and learn what I don't know about health, because there's health classes in high school and college are a joke.

Speaker 1:

They don't teach you anything about what you should actually be doing, and they are in.

Speaker 1:

You know, medical schools too honestly, yeah Well, you guys don't even study nutrition in medical school. It just baffles me Like the engine, like the gas that runs the engine. You have no clue how that works at all. Yeah, nope, so okay, well, so those are the six principles of naturopathy. I'll read them again, just for the listener. So we do no harm the healing power of nature. Identify and treat the cause, doctor as healer, treat the whole human or whole person, and prevention. So those are the six principles. So the other thing I wanted to ask you about is, just, like you know, we're getting into thermography here, but, just like chiropractors or functional medicine doctors or a lot of other doctors, there are so many adjunct modalities or specialties that you could have picked to add to your practice, but you picked thermography. So first tell us what thermography is, let's define it, and then tell us why you picked it as a tool in your toolkit.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So thermography is truly, you know, the study of heat as it's emitted from the body, and it's incredibly subtle. So I don't want you to think like you know, you can feel it, it's, it's not, it's so much more subtle than that. So I mean they were, you know, I think it was like 400 BC, 500 BC, somewhere around there. They were putting mud on people's bodies and watching where it dried and say that's where you have issues, that's where you're, you're diseased probably the word you know, um. So thermal, you know, temperatures have been used forever, truly forever, and um, it's been obviously refined and fine-tuned over the many years, but it is a concept that has been around for very long, and so there's a thermal, very subtle energy that's emitted by the human body.

Speaker 2:

And thermography nowadays is a camera like I use the MediTherm equipment and I can explain that in greater detail. It's a camera that only is sensing. It can pick up just the first five millimeters of skin temperature, so it is reading the temperature on the first five millimeters of skin temperature. So it is reading the temperature on the first five millimeters depth of skin. Okay.

Speaker 2:

And it can. It is incredibly sensitive to the 100th of a degree. Wow. And so thermography. You take an image and there it's pixelated, of course, as any image, and each image has up to 307,000 pixels, each with its own temperature measurement. Wow, up to one one-hundredth of a degree. So that's how sensitive thermography is. One hundredth of a degree. So that's how sensitive thermography is. And so the human body. It's kind of known that it will emit more warmth in areas of inflammation or disease, but it will also be cooler with other types of disease, like neurological, for example. So it's not always. A lot of people think you're taking a picture and looking for hotspots, like the white with the red around it. That's not exactly the case. It's more of a it's it's a finer, uh, more detailed science than than looking for hotspots, um, but that's the basis that it's reading the temperature that's emitted infrared heat. So it's also known as digital infrared, you know. So thermal imaging, diti, or thermography.

Speaker 1:

Wow, fantastically effective, or just I didn't know it could read at that small of a level. But and until now I hadn't put it together that nerve damage or nerve neurological issues makes it colder. But it makes sense to me because that's where the blood flow goes through and that's what brings the energy and the life force to the body. And if it's not happening, it would that area would cool down. That's. That's fascinating.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you did ask me how I. So you know, being in practice, like I said, now 21 years I've done thermography. For 14 of those I found myself needing a tool to give me more information about a client. The more valuable it became to me that something that I can have in my office that I could image someone and get detailed information about where to look. So, oh, I have leg pain. Well, is it vascular, is it bone, is it joint, is it muscle, is it nerve? I mean, there's so many layers in the human body.

Speaker 2:

Oh wow, that looks nerve. Okay, let's get this kind of imaging on top of that to see if we can you know, nail down what we're dealing with.

Speaker 1:

When it fits the frame of identifying.

Speaker 1:

Well, you're looking for causes, you're not trying to just treat a symptom.

Speaker 1:

And, interesting, as you're talking, I'm thinking back to my time as a personal trainer where it became apparent to me early on that where someone has pain isn't necessarily where the problem is. Like you could have knee pain because your foot or your hip or your abs can't fire or any number of symptoms, and you can have shoulder pain because your abs can't fire or any number of symptoms, and you can have shoulder pain because your abs can't release or they're not strong enough to stabilize your arm when you move it. And it really made me think much more holistically in a biomechanical world initially and I was like, wait a minute, it's all these systems. They all have to be able to work together and it's just fun to interact with somebody who thinks that way and I can see why thermography kind of jumped out. Somebody who thinks that way and I can see why thermography kind of jumped out is it's it and it I understand it correctly there's an earlier ability to find or see things often than other tools that peek into the body. Is that correct?

Speaker 2:

absolutely so. It's a physiological um screening tool more than an. It's not an anatomical screening tool. Okay, so we're not looking. Once again, it kind of goes with my philosophy. We're not looking. Once again, it kind of goes with my philosophy. We're not looking for the what, we're looking for the why. So it, you know, although sometimes we do find the what with thermography, like a stress fracture or, you know, a dental abscess, things like that, but it's looking for processes that are happening.

Speaker 2:

So that's why it's physiological. But it's looking for processes that are happening. So that's why it's physiological. So it's a process versus. You know, we'll talk about breast thermography and mammograms, but it's not looking for the tumor, it's looking for the angiogenesis, the formation of blood vessels that will feed an area that may later become a tumor. So that's why it's a physiological test and it really provides so much insight. You had mentioned that sometimes the knee may hurt. Well, the left knee may hurt, but on thermography we find it's a right sacroiliac issue and you're overcompensating on the left.

Speaker 2:

And here your left knee pain. We need to address your right SI joint.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's so much more fun to be able to go upstream and investigate what would be contributing to this. Why is the knee being punished right now?

Speaker 2:

Right, it's not even the knee's fault. And here we're wrapping the knee, icing the knee, and we need to be focusing on the right SI joint. Right, exactly, we didn't even know until we were able to use this non-invasive tool that provided direction. So I did it solely for providing direction, for helping me help my clients.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. One other nuance I want to make sure I get on the record is the difference between. You describe it as an assessment, not a diagnostic. So what's, what's the difference there?

Speaker 2:

So there are, I would say, few diagnostic tools, and I'm going to use the breast for an example. Okay, so screen says oh, area of concern. So thermography area of concern, mammogram area of concern. Then the next step is an MRI or an ultrasound. Ultrasound's a much better choice. Ultrasound, yes, there is an area of concern. The biopsy pulls cells out. They look at the pathology. That's a diagnostic tool. The biopsy. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So the screening tools are once again providing location suspicion that. So we can't diagnose from something that's just looking for the suspicion, we can isolate it, identify it to then look at it more from a pathological standpoint.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, well, and I just that documentary you sent me that we'll mention in a second. That mentioned biopsies and the risk. I never put it together, but the idea of, like, you puncture the skin, you scrape it and then you pull something out and you're basically creating this vacuum, this suction where that was. And if you've, if you've hit a tumor and you pull that fluid out of that, you could be spreading it more than you're actually getting the insight you need. There's risk here, whether it's microtrauma or bigger, there's trauma that's going on in the body in that process as well. So just something else to think about when you're thinking about diagnostics and the ways that the medical system wants to probe you.

Speaker 2:

I mean biopsies, have an absolute risk. There's a lot of data out there showing, and you know, that there are, like tumors along a line, microscopic tumors along the line of the biopsy needle.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and they just, they, just, you know, flippantly prescribe them as if that's oh, that's not the next thing we got.

Speaker 2:

We have to do this and you know, kit, I would love just to digress for a moment. Go for it. Informed consent. So what was hammered into me in naturopathic medical school was informed consent. It's gone now. You know, I know, you know that I know that informed consent is a thing of the past and it's criminal, but informed consent is what's required in it and it's criminal, but informed consent is what's required in it, is what's called a PAR-Q, p-a-r-q and P stands for this. Is true informed consent. Was the procedure explained in detail? And this goes for anything, whether it's a jab to the arm or a mammogram. Was the procedure explained to you in detail? Were you given alternatives to such procedure, safe alternatives? Were you explained the risks detailed and did you have an opportunity to ask questions? It is a thing of the past. No one discusses. There's no informed consent anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm trying to think back to any doctor visit I ever had where those four things were done. I can't think of one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so women who are getting biopsies breast biopsies do they do a PAR-Q? We used to have to document it. The P the A yes, do they do a PARQ? We used to have to document it. The P the A yes, I did a PARQ?

Speaker 1:

Wow, it's not. Yeah, it's just a fairy dusted platitude at this point.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I just wanted to mention that because it's an issue for me that in this era that is significantly lacking and people it's like boiling the frog People aren't realizing that that's even gone because they didn't realize it was there before. Only we knew it was there before.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, and it's just. I try to think like when did this become the norm? It kind of crept in as this residue from the era when doctors were put on such a pedestal and science was worshipped. As it's going to tell us everything and we're still kind of at the coattails of this doctor, as infallible doctor knows best. My intuition can't keep up and we should just trust everything, and they've just almost weaponized that against us now that they have the veneer of informed consent.

Speaker 2:

but it's really not there they have the veneer of informed consent, but it's really not there. Well, and they've created all these annual visits to show you what's wrong, so they can put you on a med. I mean, they've created this. This is designed on purpose.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're about to get another dose of that in a second. So before we get there, I want to just kind of whet their appetite for how cool thermography is or can be. So, without divulging any personal information, give us a story or two about where thermography may have helped you find something that other doctors were missing and you mentioned one already with dental problems. But give us a couple of stories to kind of help people see some of the potential here that may be helpful to them.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. One client came to me after with back and it was becoming more and more severe. 55-year-old woman, in good health overall and worked out all of this. She went to the ER. Her pain was getting so bad. They barely examined her and they sent her home and said you just have low back pain. Here's some pain meds.

Speaker 1:

So yes, Thanks, I already knew that Dismissed.

Speaker 2:

Right, that is just muscle pull. No exam, no, no imaging. Um, the next morning I did kind of I'm going to call it kind of an emergency with a stat. I asked for a stat interpretation.

Speaker 1:

What does that mean for somebody who doesn't know?

Speaker 2:

So real quick. I'm a thermographer, like a photographer, so I take the images, I always submit them to board certified thermologists, so think radiologists. They are MDs who are highly trained in interpreting the thermograms, the images, and so they take the medical history, they look at the images and they interpret. So I asked for a stat like within an hour, getting this report back, because her pain was building and they said you really need to send her back to the ER and have them look for diverticulitis. And lo and behold, she had diverticulitis and they missed it, sent her home. I mean, she could have had a ruptured colon from diverticulitis. They sent her home because they're like you're 55. It's back pain and they would have missed diverticulitis.

Speaker 2:

So, that was a fantastic one. I didn't mention the dental abscess but there was a really good case where a client she had chronic sinus infections and she tried everything the nasal sprays, antibiotics and that were very sinus-based. And she was so frustrated and I said you know what, let me just do some images of your head and neck. And she happened to be a dental hygienist, so this was kind of perfect, you know, for this. But I said did you ever have a root canal like bottom, you know, left molar? And she goes I do, I do have a root canal there. And I said they, you know, have them do a little more angled x-ray and a little, you know, see if they can do like a more specific x-ray. And they didn't. Lo and behold, she had a dental abscess and that dental abscess was actually causing we treated directly the dental abscess and that dental abscess was actually causing we treated the directly the dental abscess and it fixed her sinus. Um, sinus infection, chronic sinus infections was, which wasn't a sinus infection to start with.

Speaker 2:

Right, it was her sinuses reacting to the the abscess tooth.

Speaker 1:

Right, Love it. It's just something people don't think to um investigate. Okay, Any other stories you want to mention?

Speaker 2:

Carotid arteries. You know they show up a lot in people. It's a really good assessment of carotid arteries. I've picked up occlusive disease. Like you know, blockages and carotids. Thermography is a little more sensitive so we can pick things up at about 20% when, like a Doppler ultrasound at a 60%. This person just had unknown occlusive disease that was greater than 60%. I sent her for a Doppler ultrasound. This was in Oregon where they let me do that. I sent her for a Doppler ultrasound and she absolutely had like 90% blockage in her carotid. So we were able to address that. So we were able to address that and she was forever grateful because you know she was. She was headed for a stroke or or something for sure down the road.

Speaker 1:

Right on, ok. Well, one of the places that thermography really shines is as breast cancer and or screening or assessing the breast in some way. So it's in my mind. It's such a great replacement for mammograms, which we'll get into in a second. But where does how does thermography shine when it comes to the breast? And feel free to mention the documentary you told me to watch, the Breast Kept Secret.

Speaker 2:

That one blew my mind, so yeah, so you know, thermography it's apples and oranges when it comes to a mammogram and thermography they are not the same. As I kind of mentioned before, mammogram is looking for a what it's looking for? A pea size or larger structure. A lot of times they'll look for calcifications, but this is the sad part Calcifications, about 90% of the time are benign and they will use the word calcifications. It looks suspicious. We need that biopsy. Now we're jabbing a needle into a woman's breast. So they're not equal.

Speaker 2:

It's hard to say replacement for me, and that's not just because the FDA, you know, hates thermography makes me not say it, but they're really not the same. So thermography is always going to look at the process, sometimes eight to 10 years before a structure the size of a pea could ever grow. So's very, you know, it's very preventative and um, that's you know. One of the main things that I like about it is how preventative it is. Like we can get on. It can assess for estrogen dominance. There's patterns that will give us like hormone dominance, estrogen dominance. You know, runaway estrogen is very dangerous for breast health and it's very common, especially with the, even the bioidentical hormone.

Speaker 2:

You know gurus out there, everybody's jabbing pellets and and rubbing creams on, and it's not without risks as well. But for you know, a mammogram is just not the same. There's no danger risks with thermography. It is non-invasive, no radiation doesn't touch a person, so there's no trauma, physical trauma, I tell people. The least comfortable part for some people is, yeah, we have to see skin. So when I image, you have to be nude and I have to see skin. I keep my clients draped as much as possible, but when I have to image breasts, I have to image breasts though. So, but other than that, like a mammogram is horribly archaic.

Speaker 1:

Tell us why.

Speaker 2:

Well, so you know, if you look at the, you know what tissues are the most sensitive to radiation. So there are some studies in Japan, nuclear reactors, and you know, after Chernobyl in Europe, what tissues are most susceptible to like radiation toxicity, radiation damage. That's what ranks at the top.

Speaker 1:

Breast tissue yeah.

Speaker 2:

Breast tissue. Thyroid. What do we do? When we get x-rays for dental, we cover our thyroid. They have thyroid flaps because glandular tissue is so sensitive to radiation. When we get dental x-rays, they cover the thyroid, they protect the thyroid and here we are smashing. They say just trauma, getting hit in the breast can cause injury. That you know, is very damaging. But now we smash the breasts in different ways, with what would be the equivalent of three bowling balls on a breast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, three bowling balls. I didn't know that part. I knew about the radiation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 44 pounds smashing a breast. Yeah then let's, let's, let's send a bunch of radiation into that. Now traumatized tissue. So trauma to the breast is a risk factor for breast cancer. Radiation it's definitely without the trauma. Radiation just in general is a risk factor for breast cancer. Now we just traumatize and sent radiation through a breast and they say, well, it's low, well, it's not as low when you isolate it onto a breast. It's very concentrated on a very particular area, and then 3d are magnified um. It's even more radiation yeah, well and that.

Speaker 1:

So if you guys have not seen the documentary the breast kept secret, I would encourage you to check it out. It's another one of those that, to me, just it started making me angry. It's egregious how harmful and dehumanizing these mammograms have built and I kind of just watching it I wanted to. I started feeling like gosh. This is almost as bad as statins or mercury fillings or vaccines or even psych meds. It's almost like everything the medical industrial complex touches they have to find a way to. I wish I was. I felt like I was overstating this, but I feel like they find a way to weaponize and create fear-based or harm-based interventions or medicines and it's like everything else is just a nut that might make you well, they, they don't talk about that, but they talk about this, and so I I guess I'm grateful that you're here to keep me from getting too hot under the collar.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's hard not to right. I mean it is, it's archaic, it's. You know, if you really look at the studies, the ones that promote it and say, oh well, it prevents sometimes. Well, I think, I think it's one in 10 might benefit. One in 10 might benefit from a mammogram. That means 90% of people don't yeah. And the longer you're getting it's the cumulative effect. So, just like the thyroid, it's the cumulative effect of the radiation, year after year. So what?

Speaker 2:

they just did with the FDA lowering what they, you know, just did with the FDA lowering it. Now you know forties and no, you're 35. You have a risk for breast cancer because your mom had it. So we need to start mammograms at 35. Well, you have a lump, you're 25. Let's do yearly mammograms at 25, the cumulative risk of this radiation and trauma.

Speaker 2:

And then they say a diagnostic. This one frustrates me. They will do a screening mammogram. Then they'll send you back if they see something for a diagnostic mammogram. As I said before, there's no such thing. You can't diagnose. But what they're doing is they're trying to look at a specific area. And guess what they do? They push harder so there's extensively more pressure and then they're radiating it again and all they're doing is creating more breast cancer in my eyes.

Speaker 2:

But something I want to say I am a medical freedom diehard. People should be able to choose what they need or want to do with their body. So if a woman asks me, you know, should I get a mammogram, I'm like that is a very specific choice for you to make. But here are some things you need to read on both sides. Here are things you need to read to make sure you are educated. Once again, the par Q, but you need to know the risks and benefits. Does it benefit you more than there are risks? But I would never say no, don't do that, because who am I to tell someone? And that became even bigger in the last four years. But I think if you have informed consent and you're educated, you get to make the choice of what you want to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, and a couple of things I want to highlight relative to your comments. There was a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2022. So recently where they examined women over 10 years and found that there's a 56% chance you're gonna get a false positive. 56% of the time, there's a good chance we're gonna freak you out over something that totally was nothing and sends you into who knows how much emotional trauma to deal with that, and then, on the flip side, there was a 38% chance of a false negative. So what's the point? What are we even doing? You're right At this point. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2:

I mean, aren't we a more advanced culture that there's got to be something better than putting three bowling balls on a woman's breasts and then throwing radiation in there and saying this will help you not get cancer. That's caused by radiation Right. I mean it's absurd's absurd yeah, and it gets worse.

Speaker 1:

A couple weeks ago, two, three weeks ago, the fda put out a new requirement that any woman receiving a mammogram has to be told about her breast density, and it relates to health. So then I so I'm reading through this, the new guidelines, and I'm trying to be fair but admittedly cynical about anything the fda touches at this, and their guidelines just look to me like another reason to give women something to be anxious about. And so, for the case you don't know, the recommendation is, if you have dense breasts, the idea is that they may not be able to see the cancer. So if that's you, then we suggest you do more testing. You can do the ultrasounds or MRIs, or you can go genetic testing or all the way to biopsy. And it's just to me it was like oh great, another example we're testing, just like COVID is now weaponized against us, and in this case it's just weaponized against women.

Speaker 2:

It's scare tactics. So you fall in line and you're the good little sheep falling in line, doing what they say, when the whole time I believe it's designed to make us sicker and sicker and more reliant, and more reliant, until we don't even realize, oh my gosh, back in the day we used to be healthy and we ate real food and we didn't do all this crazy stuff. And it's, you know, dense. So thermography excels in a few areas because they cannot see tissue well when they're implants. I mean they're going to pop implants.

Speaker 2:

You know it's just not not a good match. Um inflammatory breast cancer that's not detectable on a mammogram because it's an inflammation process. That's something very um clearly seen on thermography and um and so that you know I think that's really important. But dense the density of breasts, it doesn't matter in thermography like the density of the breasts.

Speaker 2:

So they say, on a mammogram, if you have dense breasts, it's all white and what they're looking for is white. So it's like trying to find a snowball in a snowstorm and I'm like then why are we doing it? Are you just going to push harder, apply more pressure, just irradiate more? Or I'm not opposed to ultrasounds. I have sent many women for breast ultrasounds to assess an area like a lump. So let's do thermography and then I think a breast ultrasound is not a bad idea. Because I think it really, because that's what they do. After they do their screening mammogram, their diagnostic mammogram. Then they send them for a breast ultrasound. I'm like, why didn't you do that in the first place? Because it's cheap.

Speaker 1:

They don't make money on it, they don't make money on breast ultrasounds. Yeah, and just another window. They're safe and cheap. Yeah. Why would we want that if we're the? Medical cartel Right.

Speaker 1:

Right Right for the medical cartel, Right right. Well, you mentioned breast implants. I wanted to just highlight something there for a second. So thermography can help, whether or not. Obviously a mammogram would crush and explode, whatever the implant is, but thermography could help in that sense. But I think there's a lot of women who don't know back to your Par-Q comment, they don't know the risks associated with implants and the number of. Go search for some online forums where you find women talking about the health impacts they have had having the implants over time and then the health return they get when they finally have them taken out.

Speaker 2:

So anything you want to say about that, Um, I do see and work with a number of women with breast implant illness. It's much more common than people would ever realize and you know, do we see? I would never want to say we can see something like that. On thermography we can see inflammation. Breast implant illness is more. Wow, my health went downhill after I got them. Or I have silicone breast implants and now I have adhesions and I'm like you're leaking silicone and silicone is poison. So of course, you have breast implant illness now. So it's, it's something, um, that's a real factor right now with implants, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, let's give the listener some insights into the process. So I came and had it done, just to be able to experience it, and I was surprised to find out I couldn't have caffeine, I couldn't have breakfast. There's a few things that you might not think of, so talk us through what a typical experience of having thermography done is like Sure so the prep.

Speaker 2:

Um, we can't image any woman who is nursing until at least three months after. I kind of jokingly say your breasts are reason not to get it from a dangerous standpoint but from an accuracy standpoint, post-surgery. So if a woman had a node removed, a lump, ectomy, anything, we need three months to until that heals, months to until that heals. Um, my preference is often free surgery, three months after surgery and then three months after that. So we can kind of map because the physiology you know physiology will change after there's a surgery. So kind of mapping the changes. Um, so those are things. Any type of surgery.

Speaker 2:

So chiropractic, at least 24 hours, cause that's. You know it's very physical, it there is inflammation that's created. Massage there's inflammation. Just from the physical. It's not bad inflammation but it's inflammation that we might read like an overlying um layer from somebody getting a massage. And so caffeine will definitely make people warmer in general. So that is avoided. We avoid deodorant lotions because we don't want anything on the skin. We want to see the skin in its purest state. So we always do a pre-exam questionnaire or it's really informative that we make people sign before they come in. So I make sure yes, you've read it Now. I mean people could sign it and maybe not read it, but then I turn them away and say you don't want to pay me today for doing thermography because you're not going to get the most accurate. So prep really matters.

Speaker 2:

When they come in they actually have to cool down and acclimate to the room. So I will usually have my. I'll step out, have my clients remove their clothing, their jewelry, depending on what we're imaging, and sit in a gown for 15 minutes in a room that is 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. That you know they can't fold their arms, they can't be rubbing areas People are famous for like oh, it hurts here, and then they'll rub the area. That will actually create friction on the skin, which they'll even the waistband. They'll have a rim or a red ring around where their waistband is. So I have them pull their pants kind of down far enough, depending on what we're imaging.

Speaker 2:

If it's breast only, they don't have to worry about that. But you know I do a lot of screening that is full body, so literally every part of the body. I do female and male screens which are pelvis up to the head, we. We include thyroid, the carotids, um chest, breasts, abdomen, pelvis, all of that and then breast only or region only. Sometimes I'll just do hands or knees and and the prep depends on what they're getting.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so tell us about. So you've taken the photos, you send them off to a professional, they look them over and then you go through it with somebody. So what's the that process or the frequency of the tests that somebody might get with you?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So when, when we image our clients, we don't automatically go over the results. Now, people are not. Everybody wants to see that, Believe it or not. We probably have. I feel we have more repeat clients who just want to read. The report is very detailed. The thermologists send back a beautiful report with their interpretation, all the images attached, and so I stand at the ready if somebody wants me to go over it, like I'd like you to go over this. So I don't include that in the imaging price because I don't want people to pay for something they don't even want. Yeah, so I do that kind of you know, a la carte, Okay, and so I'll go over it as a naturopathic physician and say you know, I think you should get this, do this, think about this and that. And so the thermologists are quite quick, very thorough, very detailed, and I get that report. I always say within seven business days. It often gets, you know is sooner, but I always like to say seven business days.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, anything specific. Someone might ask if they're searching for a thermographer or someone to do that for them. Is there anything they might not think to ask about when they're calling around?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they're not all created equal. The equipment I will only use MediTherm. It is like you know, if Cadillacs are still the top of the line, it's the Cadillac of the imaging, the thermography equipment. There's other companies that sell it, so MediTherm is medical grade only. There are many, many, many, many cameras on the market that are industrial and then they fine-tuned their range to make them pick up just the human body. Or you know, we also image horses, so I'll say mammal body, and so that is really important.

Speaker 2:

Meditherm has superior thermologists. In my eyes, the American College of Clinical Thermography is the group. They're highly trained. They're very, like I said, detailed, but they're in 48 countries. So you may go to someone non-Meditherm and then you go to somebody else non-meditherm. Maybe they have the exact same camera. They can't compare your first to your second. Something very important to say about thermography Thermography is more valuable the more imaging you get. So when a woman comes in for breast thermography we image, I always recommend they come back in three months. So three months breast cancer cells will double in a three-month period. Really.

Speaker 2:

So if we see something suspicious, I often recommend an ultrasound. If there's a lump, you know, first off, but if we see something that's you know suspicious concerning, three months later it would be magnified like more as I use the term angiogenesis, more blood vessels. It's very webbing looking like you can literally see the blood vessels. They're like orange blood vessels sometimes that they're so obvious. They're like orange blood vessels sometimes that they're so obvious. So three months later that those two established the baseline. If there's no change or positive change, then then we go once a year after that. So your first thermography, I say get one. Then get one three months later. If we're looking at breast, okay.

Speaker 1:

And then once a year thereafter, fantastic. It's good and helpful just to be able to picture what that process is like. So I know you've got to get going soon, so we'll start wrapping up. But a couple other things I want to ask you. So I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the listener, and obviously I'm not female, but if I'm imagining I'm trying to tell my doctor or family member or somebody that I'm just I'm going to decline the mammogram. So give the listener some confidence to kind of reason with or stand up to their doctor. What might they even say to deal with kind of the emotions or opinions of other people in their life who might question their decision to skip that.

Speaker 2:

And what would you say to them?

Speaker 2:

People many people, unfortunately, are people pleasers and I think these last four years, people are starting to stand up a little bit and I think that there was a line drawn in the sand, really, and it's the no, I'm going to stand up for myself or no, I'm going to do what you want. People need to start standing up for themselves. Nobody else is going to stand up for you, like you've got to stand up for yourself. So if you've had pressure from family members or from a doctor, fire the doctor. I mean, people are firing their families over the last four years. Fire the darn doctor, like there is no point. Go to somebody who will honor and respect your medical freedom. They are coming out more now, um, but I don't trust all of them. I'm not going to lie. I'm like you know everybody's jumping on the bandwagon. I was always. I'm like no, you weren't.

Speaker 2:

I saw what you posted a long time ago when you were all for like making people do stuff. So do your research. Do not do anything blindly. Make sure you get that park you Do. You know the risks? Do you know the benefits? Do you have questions to ask? If that doctor can't answer them, go somewhere else.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Yes, I have used the phrase fire your doctor for a long time and it's like people are like I can't disobey my doctor.

Speaker 2:

I know like yes, you can and you should.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that person is supposed to work for you, that's right. You are the one giving them a job, and if they're not doing it, well then fire them. Like it's not hard to find somebody else, like Dr Kelly, who could help you. Yes absolutely All right. So what I appreciate about you is just that you have your. You broadens the naturopathic principle of treat the whole person even more than the definition you. You included mental, emotional and spiritual. So talk to us about how that plays out in your work with clients.

Speaker 2:

So I do ask my, my clients about their spiritual health and and I have to admit you know well I see. So, just so you know, I see clients from all over the country so it's not just local and my naturopathic side so.

Speaker 2:

I kind of have two sides. I have my thermography side, which obviously I have to be in person, and we do that in Raleigh, north Carolina still, and we do it in Florida, um, but it is, you know, super, super important that people are finding kind of a, a like-minded community and, um, searching out what makes them tick from a spiritual level. And I, you know, to each his own. I'm not going to be there to define what that needs to be. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

You know I I am a believer in God and I believe that, you know, spirituality is a very crucial, probably the top of the tier in importance, and too many people are lacking it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I as a coach, I love that because my my work is I'm I'm used to being in the trenches with people and once you kind of clarify a plan of action and you set out to do the hard work of lifestyle change, right, because at some point we have to address the lifestyle and habitual ruts that make you sick. But if we don't have a worldview that holds water, if we have a gross wound of inadequacy or lack of purpose or unworthiness, or if we have a, all of this is just cruel and we don't have hope to anchor to that. You cannot separate mental, emotional, physical, spiritual from each other.

Speaker 2:

You can't.

Speaker 1:

They're so intertwined to your physical health and you can see your point you swallow all of the supplements every doctor will take and be no better off because.

Speaker 2:

And I see that all the time because I'll see people after they've been to six functional doctors and. I'm like well, how are we addressing these other levels? And I think we're addressing the physical level wrong. So you know, and they all have to be a player. But I have found that that if the spiritual component isn't there, it's like it's an uphill battle. Really. Is Flounder or you did flounder, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, Okay. So finally let's just wrap up. So how to help the listener think holistically here, because this is you're, you're so aligned with how I think and what what we try to do for people. But where might a good coach or other practitioner be an asset or maybe a linchpin that they might not think of to really help them find success? That would otherwise elude them. Or I guess what I'm saying is, if you had to, you know one or two other types of health gurus. Basically, you're working at putting together your own, A team to kind of fill out the approach to the whole person, right, Because none of us knows everything. Who or what do you think might make the biggest difference for people that they may not be considering?

Speaker 2:

So you know I can't be there for my clients as much as you know they may need and I do my best and I'm very accessible. But you know, a health coach, a like-minded health coach, like I said. Like I use like-minded because these last four years really have changed everything. So a like-minded health coach. If there's somebody who can literally make it easier for you to be successful and hold you accountable, it's everything. It's everything you accountable.

Speaker 2:

It's everything, it's everything I do my best, but I you know, having like a dedicated health coach is so important, is so important, and whether it be nutrition, whether it be, you know, exercise, whether it just be lifestyle in general, like reducing stress, you know all of those giving them actionable items on a day-to-day basis.

Speaker 2:

So, that's my number one. Number two, you're welcome. I believe heavily in health coaches, and so my husband is a trained health coach. He is also a medical massage therapist, but he specializes in craniosacral. So that's all part of you know our interest and importance in our, in our work together. But the next is an acupuncturist. I love Chinese medicine. I think it is so. I think it gets into people. That may not be the right term, but it gets into their deeper levels that maybe they can't access so easily and kind of loosens things up, whether it's hormonal imbalance or blockages of. I think a good, you know master of science in oriental medicine, msom, is fantastic on the team and I love a good, like-minded MD. They are hard to come by, no kidding by, but someone who will honor my training which is, you know, surpasses most of theirs, but someone who truly wants teamwork.

Speaker 2:

You know, it's not about stepping on toes, it's about filling in where we're needed and knowing we're all working for the same goal.

Speaker 1:

Yep, no, I can hardly agree. That's why I'm tickled to death to be able to work with Dr Gessling. It just finally. It's somebody I trust who values aligned, who gets it, who sees the medical industrial complex for what it is and wants to help people. Yeah, it's, it's so nice. That's a, that's a great, well-rounded A-team. I like the acupuncture frame too, because often they're I still don't even understand it that much, but they're trained in reading the pulse. Like there's so many different levels at which they have developed, like it's amazing what they can tell you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the tongue, the pulse. There's like ways they can read things about what's going on in your body, Similar to thermography. It's like there's actionable information waiting for you if you just know how to read it. So great, great answer. Okay, well, let people know where they can find you, follow your work, all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Easiest is my overall business is Liberty Natural Wellness, and that's the literal website, wwwlibertynaturalwellnesscom. That talks about thermography. I do have a separate website for my thermography because I like it to be shown as a. It's a standalone. You do not have to be my naturopathic client to do thermography and vice versa. I keep them very separate.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I have a number of clients that do both, but I like to keep them very separate. But um, northwest Florida thermography and it's nwfloridathermographycom, and I do free 15 minute Zoom calls for my naturopathic side. Or if somebody has questions about thermography I'm happy to do it for them too. So I do free 15 minutes to. I give no medical advice in those, that's just to see. I call it medical speed dating. It's like are we a good match for one another? Let's see. Like are you someone I am willing to accept Because I'm I'm kind of a stickler for who I accept?

Speaker 2:

Like you've got to be ready, motivated and and really be, you know, ready to move forward, cause we move kind of fast but um, but I want to give people that opportunity. They should also be interviewing me. Am I the right fit for them, just like are they the right fit for me? So people can schedule right on my website for those.

Speaker 1:

Well, and one other thing I'll highlight that you guys may have picked up by now is that she never used the word patient. She always referred to her customers as clients, which I love. So tell people why you do that.

Speaker 2:

So they need to be accountable. In a patient, it has been ingrained in people's heads that patient doctor, you fix me. And my goal is no, you fix yourself. I'm just giving you the roadmap.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, love it. Okay well, Dr Kelly, thank you so much for taking the time today. It's been a pleasure to spend time with you and I'll look forward to talking to you again soon.

Speaker 2:

This has been a blast. I appreciate the opportunity. Christian.

Speaker 1:

All right, talk to you later.

Speaker 2:

Okay, bye.

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Christian Elliot

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