Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Understanding Hair Loss and Health: Expert Insights with Misti Barnes
Ever wondered why your hair seems to be thinning without any clear reason? Join us as we demystify the complex relationship between hormones and hair loss with our esteemed guest, Misti Barnes. A trichologist and physician, Misti shares her groundbreaking research and drug-free solutions, shedding light on conditions like menopausal hair loss and female pattern baldness. Learn how the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT) plays a crucial role in hair follicle health, impacting both men and women, and gain a deeper understanding of the term "alopecia" and its various manifestations.
But it doesn’t stop at hair. We dive deep into the pivotal role of nutrition in overall health and how dietary choices can profoundly influence your well-being. Through a powerful personal story, we highlight the transformative effects of a balanced diet rich in core proteins, alongside the challenges posed by GMOs and chemical pollutants in modern food. Discover how adopting a Mediterranean or pescatarian diet can not only improve hair and skin health but also aid in overcoming severe illnesses, emphasizing the importance of educated food choices and personal accountability in health management.
Wrapping up, we explore innovative, holistic treatments for hair loss that sidestep medications and surgeries. Learn about the benefits of peptides, microneedling, ozone therapy, and the exciting advances in regenerative medicine. Misty shares inspiring case studies, including significant hair regrowth in patients with autoimmune conditions, and stresses the importance of gut health and the endocrine system. Finally, we touch on the emotional journey towards confidence and empowerment, sharing stories of patient successes and the vital role of compassion and scientific validation in the medical field. Join us for an episode packed with valuable insights and transformative knowledge!
Find Misti:
Instagram: @misti_barnes_cellustrious
Website: https://www.cellustrious.com
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Welcome back to the Against All Odds the Less Than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds, and my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the Less Than 1% Chance.
Speaker 2:Hey, hey, welcome back to, against All Odds, the Less Than 1% Chance podcast with your host, maria Aponte. I am so excited to introduce you to this week's guest. Her name is Misty Barnes and she is a trichologist, physician, trainer and researcher who treats hair loss with a patent drug free treatment. She formulated Celestrian hair rejuvenation with biochemist, l'oreal and Aveda, with 40 plus hair patents. That's amazing. I am so excited to get in this and, as we were talking earlier, I'm postmenopausal, so all of this is so interesting to me and I'm learning so much as I am really feeling the effects of this postmenopause. What you're doing is right up my alley and I can't wait to learn more, so welcome. Thank you for being on.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thanks for having me. This is a really important subject and I think it's often neglected, especially in the area of hair loss. I'm going through it. Most of us don't really discuss it. We were talking about that earlier. It's a source of shame for people, so I say let's shine a light on it and talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. It's twofold right? We don't want to talk about hair loss, because I remember when I was dealing with my own little piece of hair loss, it was just like this random circle in the middle of my head. I like did everything to cover it and I'm like, oh my god, I was freaking out and I didn't ever put it together that it was hormonal and postmenopausal. So this is all down my alley and I am so excited to learn some more. So just to get some idea, how is menopausal hair loss different from, like, female pattern baldness? Great question.
Speaker 3:So both. So I'll just back up a little bit. When it comes to female pattern baldness, it's more of a rarity than people think. Where we're seeing, where I see, female pattern baldness is usually related to menopause situation, medication, pcos, which is that goes right back to hormones as well. A lot of female based hair loss is hormone related. It's hard to separate the two out. When I have someone come into my office. It's really rare that it's just traditional female pattern baldness that is related to what's called dihydrotestosterone, which is DHT we all know.
Speaker 3:So when you look at the categories of male pattern hair loss and female pattern hair loss, generally they'll put them in the category of both of those are considered DHT related androgenetic, which ultimately means that it came from some of our genetics. In most instances right Well, most genetic-based hair loss, it's really only 30%. A lot of this is related to behaviors, lifestyle, toxicities, inflammation, hormones, medication. So we have a lot more control over our hair loss. But strictly androgenic androgenetic alopecia, which is called male or female pattern hair loss, is related to how the dihydrotestosterone, the testosterone that's at the follicle base, is being absorbed and how it's affecting the follicles. So they are two separate diagnoses but a lot of times they get wrapped into the same diagnosis, if you will.
Speaker 2:Got it. Follow up question on that. So regular, let's say female pattern baldness, that's testosterone or low testosterone.
Speaker 3:No, ah, that's a great question. So how it works is this we all have our own regulated estrogen and testosterone levels, progesterone, estradiol all of the things that make us females. We have our own sort of chemistry and it's very unique to each person and the same with men. They make a lot of the same androgenic hormones, which are all related to sexual functioning and the certain, the basis for who we are as male or female.
Speaker 3:What pattern baldness says is that there is a way that the testosterone is being impacted by something at the follicle base called alpha-5 reductase. So basically, what we're saying is that underneath the follicle, in the follicle, which is the dermal papilla layer, we have our follicle and what's happening is around that follicle there's blood, so the blood vessels are actually being intercepted. The testosterone that's floating in that blood supply is being intercepted by something called an alpha five, which is an enzyme, and when that happens, over time the hair starts miniaturizing and what they call that is what that interception is called is dihydrotestosterone. So it's testosterone that's been interfered with by the alpha-5 reductase, which is an enzyme, and that's occurring in the follicle base. So, just to separate that out even further, we have testosterone going through all of our body.
Speaker 3:Right, it's not just in our blood that's called serum-based testosterone but we also have it in our tissues. That's called tissue-based testosterone. So a lot of times people will say, oh, I have too much testosterone, that's why I'm losing my hair. That has nothing to do with it, because the amount of testosterone we need for our blood supply for males or females versus in our tissues is very different. What happens is there's an imbalance. And when there's that imbalance and when the follicle itself gets interrupted because of that imbalance, that's when you go to what's called genetic or testosterone based hair loss. Dht dihydrogen.
Speaker 2:Got it, got it. That is so interesting, and so is alopecia in that.
Speaker 3:So alopecia is just another way to say hair loss. There are different types of alopecia. There's universalis, totalis. There's traction alopecia. So there's different types of hair loss. There's a few categories that are pretty broad and a lot of times I don't think they're that effective. They don't really help. They don't really help the patient. It's very vague, right, but I think what you might be talking about is something that might be alopecia areata where you have a spot or a bald, like a bald spot or a balding area.
Speaker 3:That's almost always attributed to some type of an autoimmune condition.
Speaker 3:And it's got a psychological or a physiological trigger. Most well, actually all hair loss, whether it's male or female, can ultimately be triggered. It can be defined as some kind of trigger that's created imbalance, right. So it's either a psychological trigger or physiological trigger. That's with any disease in the body. I tell everyone that hair loss is really not a diagnosis. Although you may get diagnosed with it, it's really a symptom of something else that's going on in the body, which is why I do what I do. It's sort of like being a detective. I want to go in and find out what's happening and all usually find in most cases. There are those cases where you have a strict male pattern baldness or strictly female pattern baldness. That is the issue of testosterone and how it's binding at the follicle base. Usually it's a combination of things. So it's rare that someone has one kind of hair loss symptom. It's usually a couple.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Maybe four.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a huge believer is when your body is in dis-ease, it creates disease, and I experienced that myself, so I definitely can see how that can happen. So interesting. I love the whole research part of it. I want to take it all in. Okay. So how can diet and lifestyle affect your hair loss? Oh, it's a big component.
Speaker 3:I would say that it's. I would say that of the people that I see every day, it's almost 80%. So bodies, yeah, our bodies are homeostasis. We want to be in a state of health, right, and where everything is even, and diet is one of the first things to go off kilter. When we are under stress, right or if we're in, if we're taking certain medications, it affects our system, right, and the one thing that we have a lot of control over is our diet.
Speaker 3:I do see that many people are lacking the right kind of proteins. Now I'm going to say something not everybody's going to be happy with. I'm not a big fan of veganism or vegetarianism. From the viewpoint of a tripologist and someone who treats hair loss, the core proteins that we need can do come from things like fish products, whole fish products, eggs, some steak, some meat. So not everybody loves that answer, but the truth is that it's anecdotal in terms of all the patients that I see. There's a lot of research on it, so I tend to steer my patients towards a Mediterranean or a pescatarian based diet.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You've got to watch out what you're eating. Right, like you don't want a lot of you know that. But if you can find and I'll usually give I will give my patients a kind of a plan, food plan, to help them. But I do see a lot of people that are missing core proteins and with a lot of the things that are and don't get me started on this one but what's going on with?
Speaker 3:our food supply glyphosates, Roundup, just GMOs. There's so much toxic and so much chemical pollution in our foods, so the more that we can take in, that's going to be just pure source. You don't want to get everything from a supplement and you don't want to get everything from a shake. You want to get it from a whole source. You have to be really educated now. You have to really take your own health into your own hands. You cannot walk into anybody's office and expect them to prescribe the thing for you until you've done your own research. It's just not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. So about nine years ago, I was diagnosed with cervical cancer and I was overweight, I was depressed, I was dealing with cancer and so I needed to get healthy and I needed to find a way to do that. And so I'm from a Hispanic household and we didn't know what any type of vegetable was kind of vegetable. So let's just say that our eating was not very healthy, and so I had to learn how to properly eat. I started moving my body, I started doing at-home workouts, doing a very balanced nutrition plan, started eating more protein, more vegetables, more fruit, like healthier carbs all the things that that I was not accustomed to at all, and I do drink a shake, but I did my research because, oh my gosh, there is so much crap out there, for lack of a better word.
Speaker 2:There's so much crap out there and so many shakes that had, like, GMOs and so many things. And so, coming from again the background that I was dealing with cancer, I was like I don't need additional GMOs in my body. If I'm going to drink this shake every day, it's got to be something that's all natural, that has all the things, and I did. I found something and it was, and it literally changed just, I think everything. I think the whole lifestyle. That shift that I made changed my entire life. And it is so crazy, Nine years later, that I could look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, I cannot even believe that, like nutrition, I had zero clue about it. I didn't drink enough water, I like it was. It's just so many things that I'm like who was I and what did I do before this? Like before this became my lifestyle. It saved my life. I can say that.
Speaker 2:So, four months later, I had just started my health journey in like end of August, and October was when my follow-up appointment was well, the cancer had come back and I was devastated and I wanted to quit, but my accountability group was like no, you're going to keep doing this. You'll check in. I ended up opting in for the hysterectomy and that was a lot take on as well, because I was. I had three kids and one about to be a teenager dealing with her mental health and and I'm gonna go through menopause. It was just a lot.
Speaker 2:So everything changed when I continued that path of eating right, moving my body, drinking enough water, drinking good supplements. Knowing what was going in my body, I started to read personal development and everything in my brain was so much it was just growing. Everything was growing and when I had my hysterectomy, the pathology report a week later told me that I had zero signs of cancer. And I can't say enough how nutrition, like that lifestyle, completely Wow, and I think that you're right. People give it such little importance when it could make such a huge difference in your life.
Speaker 3:Well, I had a cousin when I was 21 who had non-Hodgkin's and she was treated at UCLA and one of the first things that the doctor said was I want you to go on a macrobiotic diet. And this was. This was like late eighties, early nineties, and at that time I we didn't really know all that we know now. There's so many books out about it now.
Speaker 3:But, dr Gerson, there was a movie, a documentary, called the Gerson Cure, where he talked about how even and he wrote this, I think, in the 70s or the 80s, I think in the 70s or the 80s it's about how you can use food to basically heal the body and re-trigger the cells back to health and I know this isn't a medical podcast. People need to do their own research and really take a look at what, because there are GMOs in just about everything and the labeling on foods today is non-existent. You really have to be a detective to figure out what you're putting in your body and it gets limiting, but it does, and and it gets easy to. But, like aspartame, all the things that are being put in our foods these companies know exactly what they're putting in it and absolutely the reason they're doing is because they want you to drink more of it there. It's addictive, right yeah?
Speaker 3:So we have to. My part of my whole goal is to help people educate themselves so that they make intelligent decisions and don't just take a drug or take a pill or take a potion. And it's harder. People come in to see me and sometimes they're well, why is this any better? Or why is this different? And I'll say because this is you taking your own health back in your own hands and we can get results and we will.
Speaker 2:but you have to be in charge. You have to be a willing participant in your own health.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's easier to say I'll give you a pill, cause that's what people like, but yeah, it's, hair is related to your body and the rest of your health it's. I say I don't know if I already said this, but hair loss is not a diagnosis, it's a symptom. So, it's telling me there's something else going on. Just we got to parse it out and figure out what that thing is and a lot of time. To answer your earlier question, it is related to diet, that's just.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy that you said that, because I try to help people all day long with their health, and that is the resistance as well, like I'm a picky eater or whatever.
Speaker 2:I'm of the thought and I have three kids that are teenager 20 to 15 age range and suck it up buttercup. Normally when'm talking to adults, you're adult, you're an adult. You need to, like, forget about the taste or forget about the pickiness or whatever, and just do what's going to be good for your body. Like, if your body is hurting, it's obviously screaming at you. This is like a Mack truck hitting you and you're like well, why did that happen? I, that happened to me. I had cancer and it was like my wake up call and so I love that. You said that it's like taking. You have to take ownership of your health, and if hair loss is a symptom of that, then, like, you just have to do what you have to do to make things better.
Speaker 3:And yeah, it's a common. I'm a big, like I said, advocate of pescatarian diets because I think they're fantastic at help with endothelial, the lining of our vessels, our muscles and hair and skin. And I will get people come in and go. I hate fish and I'll say, well, what fish have you tried? Salmon, I didn't like it. So I say, well, let's work on it. And it's really interesting because preconceived notions and I hate vegetables and I tell people, actually I want you to cook your vegetables. You don't need to be a rabbit. It's actually there's more nutrients when we cook them or steam them a little bit. But yes, food is super important and people just they want to let somebody else decide that for them. So it's not a faint of heart to make those changes that you made when it comes to diet. So, yeah for you, and you have to stick with it too. It's hard, yeah.
Speaker 2:Believe me nine years later and I'm like and you have to stick with it too. It's hard. Yeah, believe me Nine years later and I'm like, oh goodness, now I'm struggling even more with my hormones for other reasons, but it's so hard to just okay, I'm just going to stick to this and I'm not going to let everything else take over my life, and including my nutrition. So it is definitely a mindset shift that you have to just make it your lifestyle and it's just second nature. So how can we effectively treat menopause, talked hair loss, without drugs or surgery? I want to hear more about that.
Speaker 3:So the approach that I use is one. So I approach it holistically myself. So I approach it through diet. I work with people to kind of help them manage their stress or to look at how they can affect their stress, and I do. When I work with someone, I look at the medications that you're taking, that they're taking A lot of times. If you're in menopause, many women are taking BHRTs or pellets or bioidenticals, and that's par for the course. It can be HRTs or pellets or bioidenticals, and that's par for the course. And then sometimes it can affect the circulating androgens, the testosterone and estrogen levels, and that side effect of that can be hair loss.
Speaker 3:So what, I'm not going to tell someone. I'm not a medical doctor. I can't tell someone to get off of a medication, but I say, how can we support this person? So in my own practice, what I say, how can we support we support this person. So in my own practice, what I use are peptides, and peptides are small proteins and they each in this case each peptide has a different job. They're signalers, so what they do is they communicate with the cells. And what we know now from epigenetics, what we've learned, is that the body has the ability to regenerate itself and we want to turn certain cells on and turn other cells off. And so, without getting too deep into the woods, what I did is, along with the biochemist that I work with, put together a combination of nine peptides and other amino acids in a formulation that I apply to the person's them topically and then I'm combining that with a microneedling device so that I'm getting penetration and triggering what's called the wound growth response, which helps with the body to open up vessels and to turn the cells over. To open up vessels and to turn the cells over. But each peptide has its own job and its job is to either reduce toxins on the scalp or to reduce inflammation, to inhibit the DHT that I spoke about earlier, to help with cell proliferation. So they all have different jobs.
Speaker 3:And so I treat the person in the office with the peptides and the microneedling, and then I work with ozone therapy, which is high level oxygen, which everybody's now on board with hyperbaric and oxygen. It's a newer, it's more of a newer device. They've been using it for years for diabetic patients that had wounds that weren't healing. So I took that concept and I work with it with the patients that have hair loss and what I've seen is just more growth, actually with the hair. So it's a combination of looking at the diet, stressors, medication and then treating them topically.
Speaker 3:And then I also developed a home routine that I put patients on and a person can do the home routine without having to come see me, because I can't not everybody can afford to come see me or isn't where I am in Florida. So I developed a home routine, which is a line of products that people can use at home and they're actually pretty effective. They're very effective, especially if a person takes to heart the things that I'm talking about in terms of what we're eating, what they're ingesting, the toxins in their environment, what their environment's like, their stressors, and if they take that to heart and they follow through the protocol, they'll get results. So awesome, yeah yeah, and it's male and female, not just I was gonna.
Speaker 2:That was my follow-up question on that because so like, if someone's had hair loss that's been gone for a while, like years, male or female is that reversible?
Speaker 3:ah, that's a great question but really depends on the person one. It depends on their age and depends on how much they've lost. So, for instance, in my practice I'll see people that have. I had someone the other day that came in and he's had. He's in his late sixties and he's had hair loss since his thirties. But I will tell him once we've gotten past like 10 years, now we're the results are going to decline, right? But just because I love what I do and I want to try to see what we can accomplish and some people can afford to do that, some can't but I've treated 70 year old patients that have had a hair loss for 15, 20, 30 years and they've gotten results.
Speaker 3:The thing is that, yeah, it's, how healthy is the body?
Speaker 3:How committed is the person to the regimen that I'll give them, because sometimes it includes, you know, scalp massage, deep massage how committed are they to doing the protocol at home and changing their diet and changing some of their environmental factors? But I have about a 90% success rate in terms of regrowth and I tell them what I think we can achieve In a case where a male or a female has had hair loss for, say, 20 years, depending on the cause, right. If with a male it's strictly male pattern baldness and it's been caused by the dihydrotestosterone, our chances are lower. Maybe we'll get 10, 15, 20% new growth and in some people that will really make a difference. So, for instance, if a guy's presenting with a pattern like this and he gets some growth and I have plenty of guys like that to get that filled in a little makes them happy and so it's all the expectation of the person. I find that women do better on my protocols, and I don't know if it's because we're more compliant where we're generally like.
Speaker 3:Just tell me what I got to do, They'll do it, Whereas men not, so not always as much Men can rock the ball to head. It's funny because it's not an age thing either. But there are some people, some males, that no matter how old they are, the fact of growing bald really truly is traumatic, and I see it every day. But for a woman it's just it's just it's part of her identity.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's like I have. I'm blessed with a ton of hair, to the point that I shaved half of my hair off. I had like an undercut for the longest time because even with that it and having short hair, like when I dyed it, it was like tube tube. I have so much hair. I'm blessed, but my boyfriend's bald and so he just shaves it. But I know that he would air started growing back. I know that like he lost it early and I think it was probably like his late 20s and so probably about 10 years now.
Speaker 3:That's why prevention is important and I I the youngest patient I have one right now who's he's just 18 and he's an athlete and a lot of times I do see that that they're they are producing a little more testosterone and again, it's not that you have so much testosterone that gives you the loss, it's your balances right. Yeah, to your system. But I will say that I really have a heart for younger men who are losing their hair and wanting to help them with prevention, because I find once they go down the path of drugs meaning they start using finasteride, they start using dutasteride or they start going down the surgery path it's you're in for life. You cannot stop, because once you start taking those drugs, you will have to continue or you'll lose the hair that you've gained.
Speaker 3:And that troubles me because now a cycle of young men that are on these drugs and I go in the chat rooms and I see what they say and everybody's giving everybody else unsolicited advice about what they should be doing and they're telling them things like, yeah, use a microneedle and throw minoxidil on it, and then you take the dutasteride and the finasteride and you mix it and I'm thinking this is yeah, it's going to affect their sperm counts, their erectile dysfunction is a common one.
Speaker 3:And then they, of course, the manufacturers, say it's very, very, very low percentages. It could be that the population I treat is a higher. The fact that they're coming in to see me means they do have those side effects. But I will tell you that I see it a lot and it concerns me that these drugs are never really it doesn't feel as if there's a real discussion about it. I have people come into me all the time and tell me oh, I went to the dermatologist, even women, and they're prescribing finasteride for women and Rogaine, and we know some of these can have cancerous effects on women.
Speaker 3:So I think, a bigger discussion about these drugs and how they impact young men and women and not being so easy or so ready to just throw a pill at the solution. Not being so easy or so ready to just throw a pill at the solution. Now, because I work in what I do, I think well, why doesn't everyone know this? But people don't know about? Yeah, they have no idea. Yeah, so sometimes this is a lonely fight. I have like up there Rocky Balboa going, hey, let's get rid of the drugs. But people don't know that there's other options.
Speaker 3:And I truly discovered this after working with I was working with a cosmetic surgeon and I had learned about microneedling and I was working with, I was trained by someone who worked at the Grossman burn center. So we were doing it for post surgical scar revision. And then I started noticing that in areas where there had been hair growth and we use the microneedling in the right way, with the right peptides, hair started regrowing. So that set me on the path of like well, how do I figure this out? And I had a lot of women clients coming to me saying I'm losing my hair, what am I going to do? And it was just those. Well, how do I help them? How do I help them? I have to help them. So that was what put me on my path of discovering this and then just continuing to educate myself and then getting more trainings and then ultimately developing this.
Speaker 3:But my goal was always how do we get, how do we get to a point of where we can reach the expectations and make the patient happier right, without affecting the androgen levels, without affecting inputting toxins or drugs or things that are going to affect us long-term, or not just doing stuff that doesn't work. We can all go online and buy junk. That's just gonna. It doesn't do anything. There is scientifically valid evidence that shows microneedling is helpful for hair regrowth and there is scientific, there are clinical trials behind peptides and what they do. So it's science-backed, evidence-based, and we know that. Ozone therapy, while it's still one of those, it still has a little controversy around it. Anecdotally, and with the doctors I've worked with regenerative doctors, I work with bariatric surgeons, cardiologists all of them agree that ozone therapy has been just a complete game changer, especially for people with autoimmune conditions.
Speaker 3:So when you combine, that you've got a real powerful factor and we're hitting, targeting. All I target. I call it the kitchen sink. Yeah. For the hair loss.
Speaker 2:That's so amazing. So it can be reversible if you get to it within a good time frame, which I think is amazing and it's hopeful because, again, it's something that not a lot of people talk about and it's like this shameful process that you could be going through and have no clue that you are doing the work for that, and I love that we can talk. And so what kind of things have you done? Because I know that you've spoken at different conferences. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Yes, so how I discovered what I work with now this particular formulation is I was actually asked to participate in some clinical trials with a company in California that was using growth factors from bone marrow and they asked me to participate in their trials, which is how I develop my protocols. So how often I see a patient, what I do for them? And I started developing my protocols and they came back to me and said your results are better than any of the medical doctors or surgeons. What are you doing? And I started developing my protocols and they came back to me and said your results are better than any of the medical doctors or surgeons. What are you doing? And I said, well, I'll share it with you. And then they said would you be interested in training others in the protocol? And I said, well, of course.
Speaker 3:So I went down that path and while I was doing my research, I was asked to present my research at Boston Biolife Regenerative Medical Conference. At Boston Biolife Regenerative Medical Conference, and they were mostly regenerative doctors all spectrum, but medical doctors who had more of a regenerative path. They were more interested in prevention versus just allopathic let's treat the crisis or the acute problem right. So I presented my research there and I've done that for the last four years. I didn't do it last year. And then I presented my research at AMSPA and A4M, which is anti-aging management, and I keep refining the formulation and refining the protocol, because I want to continue to make it better.
Speaker 3:Really was just how can we yeah, how can we help people? How can I show the protocols, show the value to it and show the research, because you're not going to stand up in front of a bunch of medical doctors and you have to show. I really like this idea no anecdotal evidence, clinical trials behind it and then also third-party trials, so the ingredients I use have all that backing. And then what I did is I've now treated probably about 1200 to 1500 patients, and so because I document everything I'm very strict about my documentation and I take photos so I know exactly where we are, because people want to see their results right, yeah, it's the before and afters.
Speaker 2:Those are powerful. I'm in health industry and I tell all of my customers, take a before picture. I know you don't want to see it. I didn't want to see mine. I didn't ever want to show mine, ever, ever, ever, ever. I didn't ever want to show mine. Ever, ever, ever, ever. And now I feel like it's the most powerful picture. Is that before and where you are now, and it's yeah. So pictures all the time I love to see ourselves there.
Speaker 3:It's called body dysmorphia. We get it with hair too, right, you look at it every day. You're the same person, or even the people with you, but someone doesn't see you for a long time and the best compliment wouldn't be hey, did you get a hair plug, or did you get hair plugs, did you get a surgery? But it would be like you look really healthy. Did you lose? What did you do? It's like with plastic surgery, right, people just look really refreshed and that's generally what we can expect.
Speaker 3:I've had people that have gotten 50% of their hair back and that's a great outcome, right, and it's not going to always happen. But for the most part, I usually I'm not going to take a patient on if I can't help them, but I I'm treating someone right now who had breast cancer. She's a survivor. She's been off all treatment for eight months and she's grown. I've been treating her now for about four months and she's gotten just about 80% of her hair back. So she's responding nicely.
Speaker 3:This is it's very, it's very rewarding to to see that. So it can be any kind of hair loss. I think it really again goes back to how do we treat you internally, how do we look at what's going on inside. One thing that we didn't talk about that I'd like to touch on is gut health. That's another really critical element to all this. Hormones are important and the whole endocrine system obviously is key to the health of the body and gut health too. So I'm a big fan of probiotics and prebiotics and we can see there's research on now. There's a lot of research on how the gut is tied to.
Speaker 2:It's our second brain, it's probably our first I was gonna say the same thing. It's probably our first. It tells us, like, what to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah and we don't. I don't know any medical doctors that when someone walks in, it says they have hair loss. The doctor says what's your eating like? Do you have constipation? Are you incontinent? These are all really important things for me to. One of the first things I ask people is do you have any issues with constipation or do you have irritable bowels and leaky gut? This tells me that there's. We got to really look at what they're consuming. Right and all trickle. It's trickle up, trickle down, trickle everywhere. Because the hair follicle is an organ. It's a mini organ and it's highly inefficient. Takes a lot of lactic acid for a for hair to grow right. So if the body's focused on healing other parts, it's going to put hair last. Most important to us we want to always look good. The body says that's a secondary issue to me. I want your body to be healthy. So the more we can support it internally.
Speaker 2:I find this fascinating because, like it's so crazy, Awesome how much our body just can heal itself knows what, where it needs to target it's just it blows my mind Every time someone talks about that. I'm like, yeah, absolutely so interesting, so incredibly interesting how powerful our body is.
Speaker 3:Beautiful. It's a beautiful magic. It's like majestic and God given just one of the most beautiful thing there is. You can't, ai cannot touch this, and yet we take advantage of it. But it can. It will heal itself. It is regenerative and that's why it is such a beautiful time right now to be able to integrate new methods, new regenerative methods with, and hopefully get a lot of allopathic doctors on board with. Prevention versus just taking acute care, but it's a long path right Because there's other agendas at play with a lot of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Which is what's frustrating, because I especially for people that truly want to make a difference. And there's road, these roadblocks, right. So, speaking of roadblocks, I feel like, okay, so what is either a limiting belief or a roadblock that you had to overcome in order to get to where you are today?
Speaker 3:Wow, that's. I didn't expect that and I like that. Well, I think probably the belief that, because I'm not a medical doctor, people would not take what I had to say seriously. And there are some people that think that way, but it was in my own head, do you? Know what I mean.
Speaker 3:The first time that I spoke in front of a group of doctors, I was absolutely just terrified. And it turns out they were lovely because I knew my stuff right and they knew when they talked to me that I wasn't just. But I think for. So for me I think, well, I've got more than one. I think it has more to do with the medical community as a whole and what they will, and won't really matter what the initials are. At the end it's a mindset and I'm finding more and more of them, part of not having the MD after my name to say hey, I have scientifically validated evidence I can prove to you, I can show you the results, see them in the people. And it's something that comes, still comes up, but it's. But I now have the time behind me that shows that. But it still comes up and I still have to deal with. It's like a nagging doubt that we all, you're not gonna. It doesn't ever go away. The little committee, the little noise, but now you have you have ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that the way that we flip confidence in ourselves is that we need to continue to show up right and prove like we've already conquered this. I'm already doing the thing, self. Let me do the thing, yeah, because I, we all have it. It's our fight or flight, it's our protection against the bad thing, the saber-toothed tiger, whatever and we just have to continue to remind ourselves like, hey, self and I'm speaking to myself at this point too- yeah, like I'm not the old brain anymore.
Speaker 3:I'm not out hunting, but the brain does like to have things to worry about, and those of us with more active brains find a lot of things to worry about so I find I just keep myself busy and I work, then the noise shuts down a little bit you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you're taking actions towards the things that you're working on and that you feel passionate about. So what do you love about helping people work through all of this?
Speaker 3:Well, I love getting results. That's important because if they're not getting results, people they will tell you if they're not happy. I've had a few people that didn't get results and I was the one that pulled the plug first and said I don't think we're getting where I want us to be. And that's actually rare, because most doctors will not do that. They will continue to see you as long as you'll come in and pay that copay or whatever it is. So for me, the results matter. It really does matter. And what I put my name on is really important, that it works. And if it's not, like what did you do? Okay, tell me how you did it, why isn't it working? Because I'm constantly curious. I want to know what's working and how we can re-trigger it or change it to make it better. But results matter. But to me it's that just when they get their confidence back, when someone comes in.
Speaker 3:I was thinking of a woman that I just adored. She was a Los Angeles patient of mine and she had not gone out of the house other than she was a teacher and she was in her late sixties and would not go out of the house under after school. So she had little kids preschool kids She'd stopped going out, she wouldn't do anything. And then she came to me and I treated her. In about seven months she got about 45% new, she got new growth right and she came in and she didn't have topics in her hair, she didn't have the sprays anymore and she was so excited she goes Misty. I'm going with my son, he's treating me on a trip to europe, but she was now wearing her hair down, not afraid, and to me that's like the most rewarding to see people come in and go. I can walk outside, I can, I can be myself again. I feel like I can date or I can.
Speaker 3:That, yeah, oh goosebumps I know, I know, it gives me that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it. I, yeah, I know I understand that feeling of like, of just like. Seeing somebody's confidence grow back and just seeing that transformation. It's just the best feeling ever. And you gave them the tools. They did the work and it's working. Gave them the tools, they did the work and it's working. That's like the best thing. And again, I speak from just the experience that I've had. But I can only imagine that's the same Like. You created this and you're giving them the tools. Now it's up to them. And when they make that decision of like okay, enough is enough, I need to get this done, I need to make a change and that happens. It's just the best. So, for you, what daily rituals do you say have helped you reach the level of success where you're at now?
Speaker 3:Okay, let's see. So for me, I am well, I'm active in a recovery, so I go to, usually I have a morning meeting, prayer meeting in a meeting, and then I think for me, just knowing that I'm able to be of service, and that is a really important part of my own recovery, is to be in service to other people. And I think just there are days when I don't want to do it, I don't want to show up, I don't want to have to explain why this works and why it is different. I just want people to just do it, shut up and listen and just do it. I, I have to always remember that I'm dealing with people that are. This is a pretty big problem. You know what I mean. It's very painful. So to try to remember to be compassionate and be compassionate with myself and to be compassionate with them. But I think my certainly my spiritual condition is the first thing, that that's the thing that has to come first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, it's putting our oxygen mask on first right, absolutely. I love to travel and that is every time I hear that I smile because it was what I had to do for myself. I had to stop putting the kids and everyone else before me. I had to come first because if I didn't take care of me, who was going to?
Speaker 2:take care of everybody else, right, so you facilitate that. The tools and that passion is it just? I love it. It got it gets me all emotional because it's so awesome to see women like focused on something, that know that they're making a difference, and it's like helping people, and it's so powerful. I love it. I just I love women that are empowering and that's empowering to me. So I just thank you for what you do. I think it's so important and thank you for all of this information. I'm so excited for this to come out. This was awesome. Thank you, really. Just it blows my mind the things that we don't even know. And until you know better, we could do better, and so now it could be out there more. And I, you know better, we could do better, and so now it could be out there more, and I just I'm so, so excited Listeners, I will put all of her information on the show notes, so thank you so much for listening. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day. Peace out guys. Love your life. Bye-bye.
