← Realfoodology
Realfoodology
Environmental Toxins, Mystery Illnesses + My Personal Test Results | Dr. Kelly McCann
01:11:03
Loading summary
Transcript163 lines
- [00:00]
Courtney Swan
On today's episode of the Real Foodology.
- [00:02]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Podcast, why do we have to wait and why do we have to push? Why do we have to sacrifice our bodies when they're just doing what they're trying to get our attention?
- [00:14]
Courtney Swan
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Real Foodology Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Courtney Swan, and Today's guest is Dr. Kelly McCann. I've had the pleasure of actually working with Dr. Kelly McCann, and this is what's so cool about this particular episode is we go over some of my test results, what they mean and what I'm doing about it. One of them has to do with glyphosate, so you're going to want to listen to this one for sure. Dr. Kelly McCann is a functional, integrative, and environmental medical MD she also has a practice in Costa Mesa called the Spring center, which is where I have been seeing her. And I got a bunch of testing done, and I'm doing a bunch of detox right now because, as you all know, I'm currently on a fertility journey. I'm trying to prep my body for pregnancy. And one of the things that I'm doing is making sure that I get as much of the environmental toxins out of my blood as I possibly can. We are living in a situation right now where we don't have a lot of control around the environmental toxins that we're being exposed to. But what we can do is empower ourselves, learn about these things and where we're getting these exposures from, and then learn about things we can do about it. Right? And what's really cool about Kelly and the work that she does is she is known as one of these doctors that helps people solve, quote, unquote, mystery illnesses, meaning that maybe somebody has bounced around to a lot of different specialists. They've had a lot of signs and symptoms that have gone undiagnosed. Maybe they've seen doctors and gotten blood work done. And the doctor has said, well, your blood work looks totally fine. You must be fine. You're great. But they haven't been able to find a doctor that has been able to get to the root of it yet. And Kelly is one of those amazing doctors that has a track record of having those types of patients. That's like, I've seen all these different specialists. I don't know what's going on. And she just is a wizard in finding these things out. So I really hope that you get a lot out of this episode. I hope that you love it. If you could take a moment to rate and review the podcast. It helps me so much. It helps the show grow and it takes about two seconds to do so. I appreciate your support so much and if you want to tag me reelfoodology if you're loving this episode. I try to get back to all of them and repost as many as I can. So thank you all so much for the support. I love you. Thank you for listening. One of the ways that I have been defending my immune system and supporting my whole body health to fight oxidative stress with antioxidants is using something called propolis from Beekeepers Naturals. Propolis is the defender of the beehive, a powerful combination of plant, plant and tree resin and enzymes that's made by bees. It's high in antioxidants like polyphenols and flavonoids, which help fight free radicals and oxidative stress. Studies have found it to be antibacterial. It also has anti inflammatory effects in addition to its ability to fight germs through its antimicrobial and antifungal properties. I also love Beekeepers Naturals because they have a commitment to bring you the most potent bee products. No other propolis comes close to this level of identification and consistency and standardization of bioactives. They also also don't use any natural flavors, any additives, any fillers. It's just clean, simple ingredients that you recognize and a lot of ingredients from the beehive like honey and propolis. It's amazing. If you want to try any of their products, they have so many things. Make sure that you go to beekeepersnaturals.com Real Foodology or enter code Real Foodology to get 20% off your order. That's beekeepersnaturals.com real foodology or just enter real foodologykeepersnaturals.com they're also available at Target, Whole Foods, Amazon CVS and Walgreens Greens. You know that feeling after a big meal when you're bloated, tired and you really just want to take a nap? Or when you're sore for days after a workout? I used to think that was normal until I discovered what was really happening. Our bodies naturally produce digestive enzymes, but by our 30s that production starts declining dramatically. The result? Bloating, gas, fatigue after meals and slower recovery from exercise. That's why I'm obsessed with mass zymes from BiOptimizers. It's 30% stronger than ever with 100,000 units of protein digesting enzymes per capsule. Since I started taking mass zymes My post meal energy has skyrocketed. My recovery time has been cut in half. I really don't get sore for my workouts anymore. It's actually really wild and that uncomfortable bloating feeling is gone. What makes Mass Times different is its comprehensive formula not just for proteins, but for carbs, fats and fiber too. Plus it works throughout your entire digestive tract, not just in one spot. For an exclusive offer, make sure that you go to buyoptimizers.com real foodology and use promo code Real Foodology. They even offer a full 365 day guarantee so there's zero risk to try it. And if you subscribe, not only will you get amazing discounts and free gifts, you will make sure that your monthly supply is always guaranteed. Stop wasting nutrients and start feeling amazing after every meal. Go to bioptimizers.com Real Foodology Dr. Kelly McCann, thank you so much for coming on today. I'm so grateful to have you.
- [05:08]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Thank you Courtney. I'm so happy to be here.
- [05:10]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, we recently got actually got connected through a mutual friend of ours because I was looking for very specific care which we are actually going to go deep into today. And I had my first appointment with you yesterday, which I'm allowed to talk about, right?
- [05:22]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yes, of course. It was your appointment. You can talk all you want about it.
- [05:26]
Courtney Swan
Okay, great. Because I never know, you know, with the confidentiality between Dr. But that's on my side. Okay, perfect.
- [05:33]
Dr. Kelly McCann
I can't talk about you behind your back basically.
- [05:35]
Courtney Swan
Right, perfect. But I'm giving you full, I'm giving you a microphone to talk about me right now, so it's fine.
- [05:40]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Exactly.
- [05:43]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. So one of the things that I love to do with my podcast actually is I'm very open and transparent with my audience as I'm going through things as I'm getting testing done. Because my hope is that they will learn and then be inspired either to go get that testing done for themselves or maybe they're they might recognize some symptoms that I talk about and go, oh, maybe they can connect some dots for themselves. And then hopefully if they live anywhere near you in California, maybe they can come see you as a patient as well if they're dealing with similar things. And one thing that I really love about the work that you're doing is you are known for solving mystery illnesses. Meaning that if someone has seen, maybe have seen a ton of doctors and they've gotten all these testing done and they're having these symptoms that they just can't the puzzle pieces are just not fully coming together. And I would love to hear your thoughts on this. But what I understand is a lot of times what's happening is there's probably some sort of, like, underlying infection that maybe is just not. It's going undetected. And there's signs and symptoms that are showing up. And then when you get certain blood work done, if you don't know the exact blood work to look for, a lot of that can go undetected because some of your blood work will look fine. And they're like, oh, you're fine, but you're clearly not because you're dealing with these symptoms.
- [06:50]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Right? Yeah. It's a deeper dive with functional medicine than what you would get at a conventional medicine doctor's office. So you go to a conventional medicine doctor, you tell them your list of symptoms, they run a complete blood panel looking at your white blood cells, your red blood cells, your platelets, you know, maybe look at your kidneys and your liver, do a TSH for your thyroid. If you're lucky, you get vitamin D. And they say, oh, you look fine on paper. Well, you didn't actually look at very much, you know, so there's many different ways to look more deeply in things. We can look at inflammation just in conventional lab work, but I can look at something like uric acid. Uric acid gives me a little kind of clue into the function of the mitochondria, which is super important because many people are coming in with fatigue. And so then we can look at things like that. We can look at hormones. But oftentimes I'm getting clues from the conventional labs as to where we need to dig deeper. And for all of us living on this planet, we know that we're getting exposed to chemicals on a regular basis. And the number of chemicals in the environment is just escalating. There are hundreds of thousands of chemicals in the environment today, and we can't avoid them. So when people start to get sick, oftentimes it's because they have a bucket, their bodies that are overflowing. And they can also have chronic infections, too, which are complicated by the environmental toxin exposures as well. As I see a lot of patients, especially in Southern California, with mold exposure. It is a rampant problem. And it's not because we're near the beach. It's because the construction is not great. Um, we don't build for. For snow and cold weather, so people will throw up houses overnight. And oftentimes they're not built with. With enough regard that you can avoid things like pinhole leaks or slab leaks and stuff like that.
- [09:10]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. When I moved to California over the years, I just started having more and more friends that were saying, man, we just found I have molded toxicity. So many of them, in fact. And. And I was lucky when I lived in California that I actually wasn't really shine showing signs of mold toxicity because I got a bunch of blood work done, which. But it's interesting because I'm trying to remember actually now, because there was a lot of stuff in my blood work that came up, and one of. What did it show that I had mold toxicity? Because I actually don't remember.
- [09:38]
Dr. Kelly McCann
In the blood work that you did most recently. No. Okay. But there were definitely some things that were a little off. Like your white blood cells are low, your platelets are low. What is going on with that? That's not normal. In fact, Quest recently, well, probably within the past 20 years, lowered the reference ranges because everybody was lower. So they decided to just, rather than investigate this, lower the reference range.
- [10:04]
Courtney Swan
Wow.
- [10:06]
Dr. Kelly McCann
And unfortunately, a lot of the environmental chemicals, some of the mold toxins, can impact the bone marrow, which is where your white blood cells, your platelets, and your red blood cells are made. And it's causing a problem there that you're seeing in your blood work. But this is never something that conventional medicine doctors are taught. It's something that even functional medicine doctors don't know as deeply unless they've really gone and specifically studied environmental medicine or dealing with mold patients.
- [10:40]
Courtney Swan
For sure. And I will tell you, just in my own experience of working, because I feel very fortunate that at a pretty young age, I started to learn about functional medicine, integrative medicine. And I had started seeing doctors in that realm for. For almost like 20 years now, I would say, just because I became very awoken to that realm. But it hasn't been until very more recently that more and more doctors have been talking about things like Lyme mold, glyphosate exposure, heavy metals, like, all of these different things. And I want to be very careful and just remind the listener that we're gonna give you tips and tricks on how you can combat all this. It's never my intent to have someone leave a podcast just being like, oh, my God, everything's just, you know, screwed up. But it is just something that's a reality. So I'm sure my listeners, when they hear about that, some of my levels are really high. They're gonna go, what if she has it? I probably have it, too. And that is part of my Point, actually. Cause this is the last couple days I've been having conversations with friends. Me and my friend that I'm staying with right now literally said that to me yesterday. She goes, man, if you have it. And I definitely have it. And it's becoming more and more concerning. And the one that really made me the most concerned was the glyphosate.
- [11:51]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yes.
- [11:52]
Courtney Swan
This has been something that I have been on a crusade about for the last at least 10 years, because when I started learning about it, I was incredibly concerned. So I've always had my levels checked. And when I was living in California, my levels were. At the time my doctor told me they were some of the lowest she had ever seen. And so I was like, oh, great. Everything I'm doing is working well. I moved to Colorado last June and I got this testing done in January or February and my glyphosate is through the freaking roof.
- [12:16]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah, yeah, it was a 95th percentile or something like that. Really, really scary.
- [12:22]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [12:23]
Dr. Kelly McCann
And so what that tells us is that before when you had control over your environment and your diet, you did great. When you move to another environment and your diet stays the same, because obviously that's going to stay the same. Right. It's the environment. And so we had this conversation yesterday. My question to you was, do you have dogs?
- [12:50]
Courtney Swan
Yep, I got two.
- [12:52]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah. And do you walk them in the grass? Yes. And do they go in your bed on your sofa? And with that answer being yes, that's probably the source of the elevated glyphosate. Many communities will spray, many neighborhoods will spray. Your neighborhood right next door might be spraying. And you don't know. And many people who are not involved in functional wellness don't realize that that Roundup that they're spraying on the weeds in the sidewalk that they really don't want is potentially killing people or at least causing some, some challenges for people. So it's really important to know about.
- [13:41]
Courtney Swan
And that really was an eye openening moment for me because I've thought about it in the past. And in fact, actually right when we moved to our house in Colorado, because we have a house at the yard and we have with our landlord, we have a guy that just comes and takes care of the yard. And that was the first conversation I had with him. The very first time he came, I said, look, I have two dogs. I'm incredibly concerned about their health. Please do not spray Roundup or anything toxic. And I literally told him, I said, I will buy you something if. If it's like out of what you use that's non toxic. And he goes, oh, no, no, you don't have to worry. Like, I don't use roundup or anything like that. He's like, I have dogs, I'm. And he actually knew about it. And I was like, okay, great. So then I just never thought about it again. But then when you told me that yesterday and I started thinking about. So there's a park that I walk to. There's two different parks near my house that I walk to almost every single day with my dogs. And we throw the ball for them, we like let them run around and we walk through the grass to get to a path that goes around a lake. My golden retriever, I don't even know how, like I called my fiance afterwards and I was like, I don't even know how we're gonna, what we're gonna do because he is so obsessed with getting in the grass that he, he runs around and then he full blown goes like this on his back. I mean, this dog is 70 pounds. Like, if even if I try, I could not keep him from doing that. Like, it's just what he does.
- [14:54]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Right?
- [14:55]
Courtney Swan
So now we have to try to figure out, okay, do we just take them somewhere else for walks or do I just strictly take them on hikes now? Because I know they're not gonna be swimming, spraying up in the mountains, you know. Yeah, a problem.
- [15:05]
Dr. Kelly McCann
It's a huge problem. And I'm sorry, now you have this problem with your dog.
- [15:09]
Courtney Swan
No, I mean, I'm grateful to know it, you know.
- [15:12]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Right, yeah. For some people or for other dogs who you could just put booties on or. I mean, it's very impractical to give the poor dog a bath every time you take him for a walk. Right.
- [15:22]
Courtney Swan
I mean, it would just be like with my little dog, we, I, we also have a little 12 pound dog and I mean, he's so easy. I just throw him in the shower with me and it's two seconds. But the golden retriever, it is a whole thing.
- [15:32]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Oh yeah, I had a golden. Oh my gosh. I remember getting like practically naked hopping in the shower with my dog. Oh, yeah.
- [15:41]
Courtney Swan
Oh, yeah. No, it is like a whole, I mean, it's just a whole process, so it's like not even possible. But I'm grateful to now know that because now we're gonna, we're gonna just try to figure out. Because the other thing for me was I was racking my brain trying to figure out where that would have come from because I have water Filters. I eat organic food. I'm just very conscious in the way eat. And so it just made me really concerned. And just for those listening, we're going to get into like, what I'm doing about, like detoxing everything, but I also want to kind of talk about more things that we found.
- [16:10]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sure.
- [16:11]
Courtney Swan
I started putting honey in my morning coffee and I've got to say that it's been a total game changer for me. I love Manukura Honey. It's rich, it's creamy, it's honestly the most delicious honey that I've ever had. And it's also Manuka honey. So it comes from the nectar from the manuka tree in New Zealand. This nectar is packed with bioactives and the honey that is produced has three times more anti, antioxidants and prebiotics than your average honey. It has a special antibacterial compound called MGO that also comes from the nectar of the tea tree. Manukura honey. Third party. Test every single harvest for MGO and make sure that these results are available through their QR system. Now it's easier than ever to try Manukora Honey. So head to manucora.com realfoodology to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the starter kit, which comes with an MGO850 Plus Manuka Honey Jar PL5 Honey Travel Sticks, which are my favorite, a wooden spoon and a guidebook. That's Manukora. M a n u k o r a.com realfoodology to save 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts. If you have been listening to the podcast, you know that I'm a huge fan of Timeline. I've been taking their Urolithin A for years, something called Mitopure. There's so much amazing science behind Urolithin A. And if you wanna go back and listen, I actually had the founder of Timeline on my podcast. We go into the clinical research around it and it's food for the mitochondria. Now, y' all know that I've been super hyper focused on my fertility. I really wanna make sure that my fertility is on point. I'm just really trying to take care of my overall health and part of my journey means that I'm really focused on taking care of my mitochondrial health. And what's really exciting is Timeline has actually created the first ever longevity gummies powered by Mitopure. So it's a more delicious, easy way to put more energy into your day and Just take care of your overall health and your mitochondria. It's only clinically proven urolithin, a gummy for strength, endurance and healthy aging from the inside out. So if you want to try their new gummies or the timeline pills that I take every single day, make sure that you go to timeline.com real foodologygummies to get started. That is timeline.com real foodology gummies. Your cells will thank you. There was something else that you said to me that was pretty high, and you said, you know, that it's often found in glues and like flooring or maybe beds or like couches.
- [18:40]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah. So there were a couple things that we found. There were metabolites, so metabolic processes. Metabolites of two volatile organic compounds, styrene and ethylbenzene. Think about flooring. Polyvinyl flooring. Most people these days have that kind of flooring. And the glues and the backing of the polyvinyl fluorine Polychlori. Oh, God.
- [19:10]
Courtney Swan
So hard to say.
- [19:12]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah. Vinyl chloride flooring can off gas can have a bunch of chemical toxins that were very high in your blood. I mean, think about Styrofoam cups. Right? So Styrofoam cups, Styrofoam food containers. And I know you're not eating out of those or eating off of those. So where is it coming from? It's coming from our homes. You know, we can do the. A great job with our food because we know about that. A lot of people know about their personal care products and even your cooking utensils. Right. So nonstick pans to avoid the parafluorinates like pfos and pfas. But it's the building materials that are really very toxic and the indoor air that's probably the most toxic. And the things that we don't necessarily have control over, like the flooring or the glues or the, you know, some of the other markers were in the glues, in the foam in most of our furniture. And I don't know about you, but I priced an organic couch. It was, like, ridiculous.
- [20:24]
Courtney Swan
I did. We looked at them too, and we were like, this is insane.
- [20:27]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah. And then my organic couch was in a moldy house and I lost my organic couch.
- [20:34]
Courtney Swan
No.
- [20:36]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So. So all this to say we're really trying to arm you with understanding and arm you with some tools. So. Absolutely. If we know that the air in our homes is a place that can get contaminated air, filtration is going to be important. If you have the means to Build your own home. There are, there are people who know how to build healthy homes. They're known as building biologists. If you're not that wealthy, then you do the best that you can. You make sure you filter your water, you filter your air, you vacuum a lot. A lot of the chemicals end up in the dust. So think about all of our plastic things, right? And even just our computers, our TVs, sound systems, vacuum cleaners. Like there's so many things that are plastic in our lives. Those plastics end up in our dust.
- [21:37]
Courtney Swan
Makes sense. Yeah. They're breaking down.
- [21:38]
Dr. Kelly McCann
They're breaking down. So now we've got microplastics and nanoplastics in our dust. And if we're not vacuuming on a regular basis, we're inhaling them in. And then for our little ones or pet babies, they're close to the floor inhaling that dust. So vacuuming on a regular basis, not wearing your shoes in the house, that's a big one. Super important to really try and avoid contaminating your space.
- [22:05]
Courtney Swan
That's a really big one. And I'm glad you brought that up. So in my home, at home in Denver, we have a rule that people can't wear shoes in the house. And we just pile our shoes up by the back door because, yeah, I think it's disgusting. Everything that gets tracked into the house, like, and then we're walking around barefoot and then it's just getting. But you know, it's interesting. I think about that though and I think about my dogs all the time. I'm like, oh, but my dogs are just wearing their shoes everywhere.
- [22:29]
Dr. Kelly McCann
I know all the dogs need little.
- [22:31]
Courtney Swan
Booties, they really do. But you know, and it's like I, I want to share this with the listeners so that they are hopefully also inspired to, to, to be this way. I'm trying the best that I can and I'm taking note of all of this and I'm more hyper focused on this than normal because I'm hoping to be pregnant by the end of this year. But I don't want people to feel like they just, they have to live in a bubble because it's just not reality. And this is also why we're having this conversation because I want to just share like, okay, this is what we found. This is what I'm doing about it. I'm going to try the best I can. And I literally tell my, I literally told my friend Krista yesterday, I said, look, I'm going to do all the suggestions that my doctor has. I'm going to up my sauna game. I'm going to do all the supplements, we're doing these detox IVs that we're going to talk about. And then I'm just going to let. God. At some point it's like you just have to like, do the best you can and try not to just. Because I'm not going to live in a bubble.
- [23:26]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Well, yes, you don't want to live in a bubble and especially if it's plastic, but yeah, very true. We live on the planet, right? We live here and we have to figure out a way to navigate and do the best that we can. I will admit when I did my fellowship in environmental medicine, I think I had an existential crisis because it was pretty overwhelming. All the Alphabet soup of all the chemicals. But. But what I have learned is that we can make slow, incremental changes over time and take ownership of our health and take ownership of our bodies as best we can. Right. If you don't have the money to build your own home that's perfectly green and EMF free and all of that, don't sweat it. I don't either, but I do the best that we can. We filter our water, we have air filters, we eat organic. And then at the end of the day, you know, you just. That's all you can do.
- [24:29]
Courtney Swan
Exactly, yeah, yeah. And I'm grateful for utilizing things like sauna, for example. And actually that's something we can talk about. So now knowing this, that I have some of this stuff in my blood. So let's talk about some of the things that, that I'm going to start utilizing. So one of them is sauna. And you want me to take a binder when I go in the sauna? Can we talk about a binder? What is that?
- [24:50]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sure. Let's talk a little bit about sauna first. Right. So why is sauna so great? It heats up the body. It enables many of the toxins, not all, but many of them, to get flushed out of the body through the skin. And the skin is the largest organ. So it's a great organ of detoxification. The key with the sauna is you have to sweat. You actually have to break a sweat. So if you're not breaking a sweat when you get in a sauna, then that gives me a clue that you probably need to keep doing this. Right. Keep doing this until you start to sweat. And then you want to make sure that you shower afterwards because all those chemicals are in the sweat. There was a Canadian physician named Dr. Genois and he did a ton of research on sweating and the chemicals that could get out with sweating, including heavy metals and mold toxins, most pesticides. And then the plastics. Not the microplastics, but the chemicals that go along with the plastics, like phthalates and the bisphenols. The one thing that doesn't get out with sauna or really much else are the. We call them parafluorinates. So the pfoss, the forever Chemicals. The forever chemicals, yeah. That we really have to avoid because they're not coming out unless you're going to do a phlebotomy and like ozone.
- [26:18]
Courtney Swan
Would ozone help with PNLsis?
- [26:20]
Dr. Kelly McCann
No, no, you literally have to do like a blood exchange.
- [26:25]
Courtney Swan
Wow.
- [26:26]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Plasmapheresis. So, yeah, throw away all of your nonstick pans immediately, please. And then, you know, get. I use cast iron. I love my cast iron pans. So anyway, back to sauna. Fabulous way to get out many, many of the chemical toxins. And then you want to shower, use your glycerin soap to bind up those chemicals.
- [26:55]
Courtney Swan
Oh, yeah. Okay, let's talk about this for a second, because I'd never heard this before. So you want to use glycerin soap after to make sure that it binds to the chemicals to get them out?
- [27:04]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yes, that's what I learned from my teacher, Dr. Walter Crinian, who was a forefather of environmental medicine. And so that's what he always taught us. So you can buy your glycerin soap scented, unscented. Doesn't really matter.
- [27:22]
Courtney Swan
I would say unscented because of the endocrine disruptors, but yeah, absolutely.
- [27:27]
Dr. Kelly McCann
And then in terms of taking a binder. So when you heat the body up and the chemicals start moving around the body, hopefully some of them are getting out and. And the sweat, the other ones might get filtered through the bloodstream, through the liver, into the gallbladder, if you still have one. And then they dump in the bile. And when they're in the bile, the body actually recirculates bile. It's kind of expensive to make bile energetically in our bodies. And so we want to preserve that hard work that we did to make the bile. The bile is used to digest our fats. The bile and our toxins get dumped into the gastrointestinal system, and then they get recirculated, which we want to avoid. So you want to have more in the toilet than what's coming back into your body. And we do that with binders, things like activated charcoal, bentonite, clay, zeolite, chlorella, et cetera. So those there's a variety of different kinds of binders and different binders have different affinities for environmental chemicals. You don't need to know all that but usually a good combo binder like GI Detox that has some charcoal, some clay, some few other things are great to take maybe half an hour or so after your sauna.
- [28:54]
Courtney Swan
A lot of non stick cookware still contains harmful chemicals like Teflon PFASS which are forever chemicals and these can leach into our food, the environment and our home. I'm so happy to announce that there is an amazing company called Our Place that creates cookware that's non stick that isn't loaded with forever chemicals. The study by the Ecology center in California found that 80% of nonstick pans contain Teflon which is a PFAS forever chemical which can be released into your food, home and your body. So this is why it's so incredibly important to get something like Our Place that makes high performance toxin free cookware without the forever chemicals like PFAS and ptfe. These and they have this four piece cookware set which is the best way to overhaul your kitchen with multi functional high performance space saving pots and pans. Stop cooking with toxic cookware today and upgrade to our place. Visit fromourplace.com Real Foodology and use code Real Foodology for 10 off site wide With a hundred day risk free trial free shipping and returns you can experience this game changing cookware with zero risk risk. I get asked a lot about how I stay hydrated with minerals and electrolytes and one of the main ways that I stay hydrated without the sugar, food dyes and other dodgy ingredients found in popular electrolyte and sports drinks is actually through element. Electrolyte deficiency or imbalance. Can cause headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, weakness and you feel the difference when you actually get it right. Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix and sparkling electrolyte drink born from the growing body of research that reveals that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels two to three times. Government Recommendations each serving delivers a meaningful dose of electrolytes. Element is formulated for anyone on a mission to restore their health through hydration and is perfectly suited for athletes, folks who are fasting or those following keto, low carb, whole food or paleo diets. They do have an unflavored one that's my personal favorite. I love that one. They have a lemonade salt squeeze the most out of summer with elements new limited time lemonade salt. It's salty, tart and refreshing and it brings you the best of summer. Wherever you are, you can try Element totally risk free. If you don't like it, give it away to a salty friend and they will give you your money back, no questions asked. So if you want to try Element today, make sure that you go to drinklement. So that's drinklmnt.com real foodology chlorella. I wanted to flag that because I've been taking this from this company, Energy bit bits, and I stopped taking it for a little bit. Would that be something that would be good to take just in general?
- [31:33]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Potentially. Potentially. You really want to be careful of the sources. Where are they growing that? Ideally it's like not in, it's in a. It's in a facility, not in a. A place that could potentially be contaminated.
- [31:49]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, that makes sense. And what about spirulina? Would you put that in the same kind of boat or is that. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, because I feel like I need to start taking that again, but I need to check on my sources. Okay, so basically what you're saying with the sauna is that like majority of that kind of stuff that as a population right now that we are getting exposed to, we can mostly get out, except for the forever chemicals, which is a really good sign for everyone listening. Oh, this is what I wanted to remind people of. If you do not have access to a sauna, like I get it, saunas are very expensive. There's a couple different options that you have. First and foremost. Most, if you can't do a full blown sauna, there's the sleeping bag saunas now that are great. I have a lot of friends that just have gym memberships that just have access to a sauna. I actually, I'm in LA right now and I went on class pass and I found something through class pass and I can go use their infrared sauna. So there's a lot of different options. And then if you just really don't have the resources for that, I would also say an Epsom salt bath where the water's hot enough, where you work up a sweat. Would you say that's like a decent, like, workaround?
- [32:49]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yes, absolutely. And then the magnesium sulfate that's in the Epsom salt also has supportive detox qualities too. As we talked about. When you're trying to support your liver to help with the detoxification of a number of these different chemicals, there's a process in the liver called sulfation. And so it's helpful to have the enzymes I'm sorry, the Epsom salt bath.
- [33:15]
Courtney Swan
Okay, that's awesome. So that's good to know. And then, look, the tried and true, like, get a good workout in, and it makes you sweat, you know, and that will also get your lymphatic system moving. So there's a lot of different options, and I always like to provide people with that because I want to be sensitive of, like, where people's budgets are and all that. Okay. So the other thing that I really wanted to talk about that we found was the. The kind of, like, mystery underlying potential infection that I might be having, because you'd mentioned that I had low white blood blood cells, which is also something that really concerns me. And we did a test, which you're gonna have to remind me again of what it was. I know we were testing for Babesia, but that came back negative. Right, Right.
- [33:51]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So there's a general immune marker called CD57 that ideally is run through LabCorp. Sorry, Quest. You don't do it properly. But LabCorp does it properly. There may be other independent labs that do it too. And it's an immune marker. A CD57 is a tag that goes on a special kind of cell called a natural killer cell. And we have lots of natural killer cells that have different markers on them. But this is a specific class of natural killer cells that tend to get suppressed when people have chronic infections often associated with Lyme disease. It's not a perfect test. The medical literature is split on this, whether it's good or it's not. I learned about it when I first started learning about lyme disease probably 18 years ago, and I found it incredibly helpful as a screening test. It's $130, as opposed to some of the lab testing for infections, which can run in the thousands of dollars. And so it's a great screening to see is this an issue or not? The reference range that they look at is between 60 and, like, 300. I would say optimal is around 200. Less than 60 is a little bit more concerning that there might be an infection. Yeah.
- [35:22]
Courtney Swan
And so we're wondering now if maybe I have some sort of infection. And so we're going to have another test done to see. So I guess, like, what would be the other possibilities outside of Lyme that it would be. Or does it just mean that it probably is Lyme?
- [35:36]
Dr. Kelly McCann
No, there are a variety of other infections. So Lyme is actually one. Is what we call a variety of different Borrelia burgdorferi. So Borrelia is the genus, and then the Species is Borrelia burgdorferi. So it was named for the guy who identified it in the 70s.
- [35:59]
Courtney Swan
It usually is, I think. I feel like it usually is. Like the names for those things usually come from the people.
- [36:04]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah, I found it. I get to name.
- [36:06]
Courtney Swan
Exactly, I claim it.
- [36:09]
Dr. Kelly McCann
But then there are other species of Borrelia too. There are some called tick borne relapsing fever Borrelia. So they're related. But if you ran a test through commercial lab, it might come back negative. Even though you have this other Borrelia, there are infections. There's a bacteria called Bartonella which is also known as cat scratch fever. Some of you listening may be old enough to know the name of the song. Cat scratch fever. That's okay, I date myself. But it can be transmitted by more than just a tick, right? That's what it's called.
- [36:50]
Courtney Swan
Literally get it from a cat scratch. Yes.
- [36:52]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So a cat can scratch. Oftentimes they're not sick, but sometimes they can be sick themselves. The cats that are carriers, it can come from a scratch or a bite from a cat. It can come from a flea that was on the cat that's infected that bites you and then you can get Bartonella. There are a variety of other species of Bartonella. It can come from lice and mites and all sorts of different places too. So we call it like a co infection with Lyme. But it's not always in that same tick that would transmit the Lyme. And then yeah, there's Babesia, which is a blood parasite kind of similar to malaria. And that too can be transmitted by a variety of different insects. And you know, honestly, I don't know anyone who's never had a mosquito bite.
- [37:43]
Courtney Swan
Exactly.
- [37:45]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So.
- [37:45]
Courtney Swan
Well, and I'm glad you brought that up because I was just thinking, you know, if this conversation is new to people, I'm sure some people are going, okay, I'm. My mom was this way when I was trying to explain this concept to my mom where she was like, what do you mean you could have an infection but you didn't know you've had like, you didn't even know that it was. That it was a bite or like anything. And maybe if you can explain that because I have a hard time even explaining that because a lot of people are like, what do you mean? Like, wouldn't you know that you have an infection? And it's like, well, you could be having just these low grade symptoms that you like weren't able to correlate to that.
- [38:16]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sure. So some of the Medical literature says that only about 50%, maybe less, have a recollection of a tick bite. Number one, I think the studies for the bullseye rash, the classic hallmark bullseye rash that's associated with Lyme disease, is even less, 10 to 30%. I actually think it's probably lower on the lower side. So you can be somewhere, get a bite. And then the other thing to think about too is these ticks are tiny. The baby ticks called nymphs, they look like a poppy seed, you could miss it easily. And then it bites you and injects the infections and falls off and you don't even know you were bit. Or if you get sick with what looks like the flu, feels like the flu looks like the flu. It's that time of year in the fall or the a spring, and you just assume that you got sick with something else. You think it's a virus, so you have no idea that it's a bacteria. And then on top of that, many people's immune systems are resilient enough to fight it off to the point where the immune system can wall it off. So I think about it really simply, like if your immune system is here and the infection is here, your immune system is going to keep it in check and you're not going to have a lot of symptoms. But if your immune system gets depleted because of toxins or mold exposure and then the infection starts running rampant, you develop more and more and more symptoms.
- [39:53]
Courtney Swan
Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because it's interesting. I just feel like I'm not going through the day feeling like I have some sort of infection. But then, you know, we look at these numbers and I'm like, oh, wow, okay, what is going on there?
- [40:08]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Right? And then, you know, many people, you're in a different situation right now. You're looking at your health, trying to be preventative and conscientious and make sure that you're the optimal state of health so that you can have a really healthy baby. And that puts you in a different category. If somebody was in your situation and felt fine, we might not be doing this deep dive. Or conversely, if you didn't feel fine, then you should be doing this deep dive, right?
- [40:38]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's how all of this started is I started on my self proclaimed maybe six months ago of like, okay, I'm really gonna start getting my body ready to get pregnant. And I started doing all this testing and you know, it's just kind of an onion, right? It's like as I Peel back one layer, it's like, oh, there's another layer to pull back. And, you know, and I'm. I feel hopeful. Like, I. Honestly, when I first got these results back, I was so bummed and, like, defeated and just like, oh, my God, where's this coming from? And then when I saw you yesterday, I was feeling a mixture of that, but also feeling hopeful in the sense that, like, we have a great plan. And also, too, that you found that really low number, which is probably correlating to some infection. You're the first doctor that has ever found that for me. And I have seen a lot of doctors, and I'm sure you hear that story all the time. And a lot of people, functional doctors and a lot of integrative doctors and a lot of people that are doing a lot of testing, but for some reason have never tested me with that. And you're the first doctor to be like, I think you might actually have something like Lyme or something going on that we need to get, you know, hold of.
- [41:44]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Right?
- [41:45]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:47]
Dr. Kelly McCann
It's important because if. If there is Lyme there, if there are these infections there, then we can do something about it before you get pregnant, whereas if we don't know about it, it's very difficult to deal with it afterwards. And, you know, Borrelia lyme is a spirochete, which is a form of a bacteria. It's related to syphilis. They're both spirochetes. And so we know that syphilis can be transmitted from mom to baby Lyme, and these different infections can be transmitted from Lyme to baby, mom to baby. So it's important for women who are looking to get pregnant to check that box, too.
- [42:30]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, absolutely. And also, I think all the environmental toxins, too.
- [42:33]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah, absolutely. By far, because. Super important.
- [42:37]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. Well, because we know that an overburdened mom that has just a ton of this stuff in her body, it can be past a baby in utero. And then it can be. You know, there can be a lot of. A lot of issues down the line for baby. And too, another thing that concerns me is that, like, once I'm pregnant, we can't really do detoxing. Like, we can't be doing. And much about it after that.
- [42:56]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Right. Yeah. Dr. Crinian used to say the fastest way for women to detox is to get pregnant.
- [43:02]
Courtney Swan
Ooh.
- [43:03]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Which is really bad.
- [43:05]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, that's terrible. Because then you just detox it into your baby. Right.
- [43:08]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Or a lot of the chemicals can cross the placenta, cross into the placenta and go into the baby. So, you know, preconception work is key. Finding out what you have and doing something about it is key if you want to have a healthy baby.
- [43:25]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. Oh, man. So just in the vein of talking about finding these underlying infections and just helping people with their mystery illnesses, is there a story or two that maybe you can tell where you just had this, like, aha moment of maybe someone was really struggling and they'd seen a lot of people and nobody really could give them answers. Maybe they were struggling with symptoms. They were being told like, oh, you're blocked. Blood work looks great, but actually you were able to find something and help them through that.
- [43:56]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sure, anything.
- [43:57]
Courtney Swan
You're like, maybe one that was just like, wow, this was such a cool story that.
- [44:05]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah, they're all pretty cool. But I had one woman, this poor. This poor woman, she probably suffered for, like, I don't know, 10, 15 years before she found me. She would have these weird dizzy spells. She would feel fatigued, her heart rate would skyrocket, and she just felt awful. She got headaches. And this went on for such a long time, and nobody knew what to do with her. Nobody. And then eventually she got a new primary care doctor. And this is after, like, a decade of suffering, right? And she would go to the emergency room feeling like she was dying, and people do her blood work and say, oh, you're fine, you're fine. She's like, like, what? I know I'm not fine. I know deep down inside I'm not fine. Right. But she didn't know where else to go, and nobody had any answers for her. And then her primary care doctor said, you know, sounds like you might have pots. Postural orthostatic tachycardic syndrome. She was so excited. Oh, I have pots. I have something. Right? And she managed to put herself on a waiting list to be seen at Mayo because nobody else knew what. What to do with her. She waited two years to be seen at Mayo because now she had this label. And she gets to Mayo, and he's like, we're going to put you on a beta blocker to slow down your heart rate. And, oh, I think you have mast cell activation syndrome. And he sent her home. That's it. The best that conventional medicine has to offer.
- [45:38]
Courtney Swan
And after two years of waiting for.
- [45:39]
Dr. Kelly McCann
It, after two years of waiting for it, and he gives her a beta blocker and sends her her home with another label. And she's now like, okay, I can figure this out. I can figure this out. And she keeps Trying different practitioners, trying this guy, trying that guy. And she gets into my office finally. She's pretty struck by the fact that I was down the street all this time. And what I said to her is, well, I didn't know all these things that I know now when you were struggling. So I'm glad you came now.
- [46:09]
Courtney Swan
But.
- [46:09]
Dr. Kelly McCann
But, yeah, the poor woman couldn't sit through our first appointment. She had to lie down during our first appointment because she was so dizzy and lightheaded. And I put her on a better medication for pots. Explained more about mast cell because nobody had touched mast cell activation syndrome the entire time that she had this label but was searching for answers and put her on a bunch of things that helped calm her immune system down, her mast cells down. And found that she had Lyme and was in a moldy house and was in a marriage that wasn't really serving her. Eventually, her husband decided to leave her. And although that was devastating, she has now blossomed. Like, she's exercising now. She works full time. She's just. She's alive in a way that. But she was not for a long, long time.
- [47:11]
Courtney Swan
Oh, I'm happy to hear that there's an ending, a good ending with that story. And you mentioned two things, actually, that I did want to talk about. So let's start out first with the. I always call it IM cast, but is that the right way to say it? Okay, mcast. So I have in my little pocket of the Internet, I've been seeing so many women talk about it because a lot of women who have been on botox for, like, 10 years are now starting to have this, like, MCAS reaction. And a lot of them are starting to get off of it because they had this reaction to it. And then actually, you know what? Funny enough about the Lyme, I also have a very good friend in my close circle who has been struggling with his health for a long time and finally got got to a doctor that's really been helping him, like, get to the bottom of all this. And they were like, oh, you have IMCOs. Like, you have, like, this histamine reaction happening. They're like, but why do you have histamine reactions happening? And then turns out he has Lyme.
- [48:04]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yes.
- [48:05]
Courtney Swan
So what is that? Let's talk about the MCAs. And why is it happening for Lyme? Why are women seeing it when they have too much Botox? Like, what's going on there?
- [48:13]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sure. So mast cells are what we're talking about. They're a certain kind of immune cell, and their job is to seek out and fight foreign invaders. So it makes sense that in some people, their mast cells get turned on and there's a genetic predisposition for people who have a tendency towards mast cell activation, Oftentimes they're kind of allergic kids. They might have asthma or eczema when they're younger and they grow out of it and then they develop into something else. Not always, but sometimes. And. And the job of the mast cells is to line the areas of what we call interface. So your upper respiratory tract, your mouth, your GI tract, your lower respiratory tract, they're on the skin, they hang out around the nerves and the blood vessels, and they're constantly seeking foreign invaders. And when they see these foreign invaders, they're filled with all these chemical messengers called mediators. They release all their mediators. Remember the cytokine storm? That's mast cells degranulating, dumping all their inflammatory mediators calling to the rest of the immune system, hey, there's a problem over here. Come here. And so that's what we want our mast cells to do. And then in the unfortunate, roughly 20% of the population who has a genetic predisposition, their mast cells can get turned on and then they don't turn off. And so it's an activation syndrome where the mast cells are activated all the time. They're hypervigilant. And the most common triggers for MCAS that I've seen are mold, bartonella, which is that cat scratch fever, lyme, environmental chemicals, emf. So it's not surprising that women who get botox, it's a toxin, are getting MCAs. A lot of long haul. Covid is actually MCAs. Many people end up with POTS and MCAs after Covid. And there is a histamine component, but there doesn't have to be. So histamine is one of the chemical mediators in those mast cells, but not in everybody. And it turns out that the composition of the chemical messengers, the cytokines, chemokines, histamine, they're different in every person. And not only that, they're different in every tissue in a person. So some of the mast cells can have lots of histamine, some of them don't. Which is why mast cell activation looks so different across the board. Some people will have histamine neurological symptoms, some people will have cardiac symptoms. Lots of people have GI symptoms. There is no mast cell patient looks the same.
- [51:19]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, that's so interesting. And it's, it's interesting because I feel like more recently than ever I've been hearing about MCAs. Like, I mean, I just feel like I see it all online. I have multiple friends that have been dealing with it, and I'm just wondering if maybe part of it is that just we are. Again, like, what we've been talking about this whole episode is we're just being. We're in a toxic soup. Like, I don't know how else to say it, you know, we're just getting, like, annihilated, for lack of a better word, by all these toxins in our environment that we can't always avoid.
- [51:47]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So I think there's a really great analogy using a sink. So some people have huge sinks.
- [51:56]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [51:56]
Dr. Kelly McCann
And really narrow. I'm sorry. And big drains. Right. So they can take in a lot of time. Toxins. It can take in a lot of infections, and their body is very resilient. And then there are some people who have these really shallow sinks and really narrow drains, and you put in a few things, and they're overflowing. That overflow is the development of symptoms. And, yeah, I think the world is really toxic. Covid didn't help even if you chose not to get vaccinated. Just the infection itself wrecked. Havoc. I don't know about you, but I had terrible brain fog after that.
- [52:33]
Courtney Swan
I don't know. I didn't have any lingering symptoms. I got really lucky. I lost my sense of taste and smell for literally a day and a half. It was so weird. And then it came back like that, and I never had any lingering, but I know people that did, you know, so it's just weird how it affected everybody so differently.
- [52:49]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yes, definitely. A tribute to you, draining your bucket and working really hard to eat healthy and live as healthy as you can.
- [52:58]
Courtney Swan
Can.
- [52:58]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So good for you.
- [52:59]
Courtney Swan
Well, I hope so. Yeah. I hope. Because I'm like, man, I do. I do a lot. I hope it's helping in some ways.
- [53:05]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Absolutely.
- [53:06]
Courtney Swan
I know it is. I know it is. It's just, you know, it's like there was that level of feeling super defeated when I got all these labs back, because I just, you know, I've been following a lot of this stuff for a long time. I mean, you know, some of the stuff that we tested more recently, like I said, the co infection kind of stuff, like, I had never had that tested, but all the. The glyphosate, the BPAs, the BPSs. Like, I've been following those numbers for years. So it just was really. It was a shock. But it's a good lesson, you know, It's a good lesson that even if you're doing, like, everything, you know, quote unquote. Right. There's still so much going on that it's like at a certain point, you're just. You're. You're in your. The environment you're in and, like, you're doing the best you can.
- [53:46]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Exactly, yeah. And I don't mean to say that people who have long haul Covid are doing something wrong.
- [53:51]
Courtney Swan
Oh, no, yeah. I don't think you're saying that at all.
- [53:54]
Dr. Kelly McCann
But I think that. But what it tells me is that there was something underneath that needs to be addressed. And oftentimes Covid completely depletes the body of nutrients. And I find that for a lot of people, they need a whole bunch of different kinds of vitamins and minerals to really replenish things and to start working on their cell membrane health.
- [54:19]
Courtney Swan
Oh, my gosh. Which we need to talk about that. Yes. Okay. Because I got so focused on the sauna. Okay. So this is probably, I would say, is the number one thing that I'm doing for the glyphosate detoxing. That, I think is the most important. Which I'm taking something called phosphatidylcholine, which I've talked about before in the podcast. In fact, I had the founder, Jess Kane, on of this company called Body Bio. And I'm not only taking Body Bio PC every day, and just so people know exactly what I'm doing, I'm doing a full tablespoon a day. I want. I was initially just like, licking it off the spoon. And it tastes so bad.
- [54:54]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sorry, Jess. It's really bad.
- [54:56]
Courtney Swan
I know. And it's so stinky, and it's like sulfuric kind of. And so I figured out a little hack where I just do a tiny little bit of water, juice or whatever, and then I put it in there and then I just take it back like a shot. And then you don't taste it. You don't even notice it.
- [55:11]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah.
- [55:11]
Courtney Swan
So I've been doing that every day. And then I've also been coming to you to get these PC pushes with glutathione in there. So can we talk about what's happening with that phosphatidylcholine that's helping your body get out? It's not only gluten or. Sorry. It's not only glyphosate that it gets out, but it's also heavy metals or mold. Mycotoxins.
- [55:30]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Absolutely. So phosphatidylcholine. I'll take you back to, like, high school Biology, cell biology. So every cell in the body has a lipid bilayer. You might remember that lipid bilayer. If you don't, that's okay too. And then on the outside of the lipid bilayer, actually, the whole lipid bilayer layer is made up of multiple different kinds of phospholipids, but PC is the one on the outside of the cell. And so if you have a toxin sitting in your cell, sitting on your DNA, you can take phosphatidylcholine as a supplement, and it will clear out the toxin from that cell and literally move it outside of the cell. We used to have an amazing test that's no longer available out of Germany that was able to identify exactly what environmental chemicals were sitting on the DNA and where they were sitting. So what this is called is an epigenetic or DNA adduction. So as an epigenetic insult, we talk about genetics, as in the DNA. Epigenetic means on top of the genome. And so when you have an epigenetic insult, it's not changing the DNA, but it's changing how the DNA gets transcribed and translated into proteins, which is a huge issue. Right. And the body biopc can wash that away. So we would be able to do before and after test, looking at people before they started their PCs, their supplementation, the oral and the IV, and then do it after. And we would see that, literally they would be washed away. It was amazing.
- [57:23]
Courtney Swan
So cool. I've seen, I've talked about this on the podcast before, but for those that have not heard this yet, Body Bio sent me a chart from one of their patients, which obviously they didn't give me the, you know, the patient. Patient's information or anything like that, but just showed me that where their markers were in the beginning, before they started taking PC, and then where they were at, you know, after they had tested again. And I, I was like, blown away. I've never seen anything like this before. The glyphosate went down, the mold went down, the BPs went down, heavy metals went down. It was wild all across the board.
- [57:54]
Dr. Kelly McCann
It's like magic. And not enough people are talking about it. Quality is important. I will say that you can go to, you know, Costco probably and buy some phosphatidylcholine. Please don't, don't waste your money. It is soy lesin and it's not going to help or have the impact that you really need. I'm a big believer in the Body Bio company and their products, and I really stand by their products. At one point, I was in a moldy house, and I was getting muscle twitching on my legs, so my muscles were literally twitching. I would take about eight. This is before I. I learned how to do the PC Liquid. I took eight capsules, and within 15 minutes, the fasciculations would stop.
- [58:36]
Courtney Swan
Wow.
- [58:37]
Dr. Kelly McCann
God, this stuff is amazing.
- [58:39]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. Yeah, it really is amazing. And I'm. I'm excited to see. Hopefully we'll do testing maybe, like, after I do this, these next IVs in June, because I want to see if, like, please let the numbers be down.
- [58:52]
Dr. Kelly McCann
I'm sure they will be.
- [58:53]
Courtney Swan
Oh, I hope so, too. Well, before. Okay, before we go, I do want to talk because you're writing a book right now.
- [59:01]
Dr. Kelly McCann
I am working on it slowly.
- [59:04]
Courtney Swan
And you were telling me a little bit about it before we started recording. And you were talking about how. Which, I mean, you were just speaking to me, and it was really resonating in the sense that you're writing this book about how you're sitting with your patients. And please correct me if I'm wrong, this is what I understand is you're helping them reframe, that your body is not against you.
- [59:21]
Dr. Kelly McCann
You.
- [59:22]
Courtney Swan
So can you tell us more about that?
- [59:24]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sure. I think that when we start to not feel well, people get up, they get upset, they get frustrated. I hear a lot, like this idea that my body is so tired, or my body hurts, or my stomach is not working properly. I feel bloated and gassy, and I can't figure out what to eat. Eat. And there's this antagonism, this fight between the body and what your will. Right. What you want. I have to drag myself out of bed. I have to do these things. And oftentimes in our culture, especially as women, we push. We push ourselves to do what we think we need to do, want to do, et cetera. And we're ignoring the messages of our body. And I would liken it to maybe, let's think about our body as a toddler. So if you had a toddler saying, hey, Courtney, Courtney, pay attention to me, right? What are you gonna do? Oh, honey, what do you need? You're going to, like, love on that kid and pay attention to it. But what do we do instead? We say, get away, kid. Don't bother me. I don't want to hear what you have to say. I've got to do it my way, or, you know, I'm going to ignore you. And why are we doing that? It seems when we think about it that way, like, Our bodies are on our side. They always have been on our side. And I think this really hit home for me when I was in the ICU during my training and trying to understand why people would get so sick in septic, you know, and they would nearly die and their blood pressure would bottom out and their body would get flooded with fluid because they were in a cytokine storm. Their body was doing everything that it could to keep them alive. And I think, you know, when we're walking around not feeling well, our bodies are doing the same thing, and they're sending messages. And what happens when you don't listen to a message? It gets louder and louder and louder until you can't do anything but follow that message. Stay in bed. Go see a doctor. So why do we have to wait? Why do we have to push? Why do we have to sacrifice our bodies when they're just doing what they're trying to get our attention?
- [62:01]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, and that's a great, great. It's a great learning lesson because I think, you know, especially in our society these days, I've been having a lot of conversations recently about this where I just feel like we've normalized everyone just not feeling well. And so instead of people and. And, you know, there's obviously there. There's this whole new resurgence of health happening, and I think more and more people are waking up and asking questions. But. So maybe I should talk about it in the. In the past. But, you know, a lot of people still haven't woken up to this yet, where they just. They normalize it. You know, it's like, oh, you know, my. My parents are on all this medication, and that's just what happens when you're older in age or, you know, their joints are bothering them or, oh, they have to get into a wheelchair now because they can't walk, you know, as well anymore. And. And I'm not saying that some of that stuff doesn't come with aging, but, like, it. It's happening on such a crazy level now with people. And even, like, in my generation, it's like, you know, oh, I just got diagnosed with diabetes, or, I mean, my mom just texted me a couple weeks ago, like, one of our friend, One of. One of my friends from childhood has a kid who's like, two and just got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And I'm like, what is happening here? Yeah, like, stuff like that, where I'm just like, this is not normal. And we've normalized, basically ignoring all the signs and symptoms of everything. Right. And where can we get to a place of honoring, listening to our body, loving our bodies, and recognizing that, like, a lot of these symptoms, that we're all just, like, going through life with just being like, well, that's just how it is. It's just what aging is like, actually learning to recognize, like, no, I need help. My body's trying to tell me something because I'm of the mind, and I'm assuming that you are, too. That our body really wants to be well, yes. And it's designed and meant to be well, absolutely.
- [63:44]
Dr. Kelly McCann
And given the amount of environmental chemicals we have that we're exposed to on a regular basis, is we have to do other things to help it along, and we have to listen to the messages that our bodies are sending us. So that's a little bit about the reframe, and that's where we need to start, really. But then I also think that the symptoms can sometimes supply the key where we need to go. So, for example, I had a woman who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
- [64:20]
Courtney Swan
A.
- [64:20]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Couple years prior to coming in to see me. And she was British. And so she had that very proper, I'm not going to step on anybody's toes idea. I'm not going to speak up for myself. I'm not going to make a scene, be loud, anything like that. That was not part of her Persona. And she was in business with a woman who basically destroyed her. Destroyed her business. And she said nothing isn't interesting.
- [64:51]
Courtney Swan
The thyroid, too.
- [64:52]
Dr. Kelly McCann
That's what I'm saying.
- [64:54]
Courtney Swan
Yeah.
- [64:54]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So she said nothing for so long that I think that that really impacted her thyroid. And as we're talking and I throw out this idea, like, would you consider that there might be some issue here? It was like a light bulb went off in her head, and she was blaming all of her health issues from the thyroid cancer and why she didn't feel very well. But I think it was much bigger than that because she really wasn't being her authentic self. She wasn't speaking her truth in a way that was in alignment with who she needed to be. Right. She didn't have to be a jerk, but she had to speak up for herself. She needed to stop being a doormat. And hopefully she went and took care of that. And I think that since she's done that, her health has gotten better, her fatigue has lifted. I mean, so many people are suffering from fatigue. It's very tiring to live a lie and to not speak our truth. Yeah.
- [66:06]
Courtney Swan
Oh, my gosh. Yes. That is such an amazing example of. I mean, it's horrible and devastating. But, like, an amazing example of how sometimes symptoms or diseases can manifest in our body based off of things that we might be withholding in ourselves.
- [66:21]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Sure. I mean, I know a lot of women have cardiovascular disease, but men are notorious for holding onto their emotions and to blocking the flow of their emotions. They're taught in our society, men don't cry. It's not okay to cry. And what do they end up with? Cardiovascular disease. They literally are blocking their heart.
- [66:46]
Courtney Swan
Oh, my gosh. Wow.
- [66:49]
Dr. Kelly McCann
So, you know, sometimes our symptoms can not only mean that we need to pay attention, but how we need to pay attention where? It's like the map. Right. Where is the issue that you need to deal with if you're having inflammatory bowel disease, are you giving all of your energy away? Most of the people that are patients with inflammatory bowel disease, they're people pleasers. They're all about taking care of everybody else. And you just keep giving and giving and giving, and all of a sudden, well, you've got nothing left for you. Yeah.
- [67:27]
Courtney Swan
It's interesting, and I would argue that many in the allopathic, conventional medical space are not making these connections at all, which is really unfortunate.
- [67:37]
Dr. Kelly McCann
I'm not sure functional doctors are either. Honestly.
- [67:40]
Courtney Swan
That's fair. I was trained, so I have my master's of science in nutrition and integrative health, and I was very much trained in this kind of thinking in this kind of world. Because this is what they call it, the integration. Right. Of the. The allopathic way. But also this holistic whole body, mind, spirit. It's the molding of the two that really helps you get to the root of whatever it is that you're dealing with or trying to uncover. And I think it's. In my opinion, I think it's just the best way to practice because you're so right. I'm very spiritual, and I believe that there's unseen things happening around us. Us that manifest can manifest in different ways in our bodies, and we may not always make the connection consciously until someone else helps you have that aha moment. So it's so cool that you're not only practicing that with your patients, but also writing the book, because I think it's incredible and just super helpful for people.
- [68:31]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Thank you.
- [68:31]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. Because sometimes somebody else needs. You know, I'm that way. We're. I mean, with the dog, this is a perfect example. The dogs and the glyphosate. I needed someone else to start digging around in my life and go, okay, what do you do? You have dogs. And then I was like, oh, yes. You know, and that's like a more simple connection, but it's just like sometimes people need help to kind of dig into those kind of things, you know?
- [68:52]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [68:54]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. Well, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on today. You're amazing. You're helping me so much. I'm so grateful to be working with you also and help. And you're so grateful for your help in uncovering all these things that I've had a hard time figuring out. So thank you for that.
- [69:09]
Dr. Kelly McCann
That. You're welcome, Courtney. So happy to be of help.
- [69:12]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. And I also just want to give the listeners a moment for you to share where they can find you, where they can find your work, maybe where they can stay in touch with you about your book and. Yeah, all that.
- [69:22]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Okay. I have a brick and mortar practice in Southern California in Costa Mesa. The practice is called the Spring Center. You have to put the T H e in front of that.
- [69:32]
Courtney Swan
I learned that.
- [69:33]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Yeah, the Spring Center. And I also have a website, Dr. Kelly mccann.com where I have blogs and you can find me on Instagram @. Dr. Kelly McCann. I have a gut health program coming out in June and I'm not sure when the book is coming out, but please stay in touch and I'd love to be able to share that with everyone.
- [69:58]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. And if you guys are near California or able to travel there and you're dealing with something that we were about talking, talking about today, maybe reach out and. And see if she can help you. So thank you guys so much for listening and thank you for coming on.
- [70:08]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Thank you.
- [70:10]
Courtney Swan
Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more for more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. If you struggle with bloating, gas constipation, digestive issues, yeast overgrowth, well, you may already know about about digest this. It's the podcast hosted by me, Bethany Cameron, also known as Little Sipper on Instagram. I dive into gut health, nutrition, the food industry, and drawing from my own experience, I break down what's good, what's bad, and what's the best for your.
- [71:12]
Dr. Kelly McCann
Gut, your skin, and so much more.
- [71:14]
Courtney Swan
I even offer gut friendly recipes. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Produced by Wellness Loud.