Radical Health Rebel
Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel Podcast, where Leigh, a renowned Functional Medicine Practitioner, CHEK Practitioner, CHEK Faculty Instructor, Active Release Techniques® Therapist, Emotion Code Practitioner, author, and podcast host, takes you on a journey to achieve optimal health, wellness, and happiness. With his extensive training and years of clinical experience, Leigh provides a truly holistic approach to health that has proven effective even when other methods have failed.
Join us every week for insightful discussions and expert interviews focusing on chronic pain, gut health, and skin health. Leigh's diverse background and passion for holistic healing brings you valuable knowledge and practical tips from leading experts in the field. Whether you're struggling with persistent health issues or simply looking to enhance your well-being, the Radical Health Rebel Podcast is your go-to resource for achieving a vibrant and healthy life. Tune in and start your journey to radical health today!
Radical Health Rebel
121 - Healing the Gut to Reverse Female Hair Loss with Saril Vasquez
Discover a groundbreaking connection between gut health and female hair loss with our esteemed guest, functional medicine practitioner Cyril Vasquez. Gain insights into how imbalances in the gut microbiome can influence hair health, as Cyril shares her personal journey of overcoming hair loss. Learn about holistic approaches that target the root causes of hair loss, and understand why this condition deserves the same level of attention as chronic illnesses like type 2 diabetes. We'll unravel the complexity of hormonal factors such as DHT and estrogen dominance and discuss the power of a personalized plan involving diet, supplements, and lifestyle changes.
Uncover the hidden health issues often overlooked by traditional medicine, such as mold toxicity, heavy metals, and candida overgrowth. Cyril and I discuss alternative approaches to these challenges, sharing practical solutions like Matula tea and Pylori X supplements for tackling gut health issues like H. pylori. You'll hear personal stories that highlight the dramatic impact of environmental factors, such as water quality, on health, illustrating how targeted lifestyle changes can make a transformative difference. We emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing root causes, rather than just treating symptoms.
We discussed:
0:00
Female Hair Loss and Gut Health
Water Quality and Gut Health
Healing Hair Loss Naturally and Holistically
Reversing Hair Loss Naturally Through Wellness
Investing in Health for Wealth
Healing and Nourishing Diet for Health
Uncovering Root Causes of Hair Loss
Empowering Women and Optimizing Health
You can find Saril @:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/reversinghairlossnaturally
https://www.bellechanics.com/quiz
https://www.bellechanics.com
Don't forget to leave a Rating for the podcast!
You can find Leigh @:
Leigh's website - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/
Leigh's books - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/books/
Eliminate Adult Acne Programme - https://eliminateadultacne.com/
Substack - https://substack.com/@radicalhealthrebel
YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@radicalhealthrebelpodcast
Rumble Channel - https://rumble.com/user/RadicalHealthRebel
If somebody is presenting with a lot of hair falling out, for instance, if you're a female, the first thing I would be thinking is do you have any allergies in your home that could be making you sick? Is there an exposure to mold? Is there an exposure to dust? And do you have feathers in the pillows in the comforter, because those things degranulate into dust? And also, how old is your home?
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, lee Brandom. This work started for me several decades ago when I started to see the impact I could make on people, helping them to identify the root cause of their health problems that no doctor could figure out, including serious back, knee, shoulder and neck injuries, acne and eczema issues, severe gut health problems, even helping couples get pregnant after several IVF treatments had failed, and it really moves me to be able to help people in this way, and that is why I do what I do and why we have this show. In this episode, I sit down with functional medicine practitioner Cyril Vasquez to discuss an important topic for many women the connection between gut health and female hair loss. Together, we explore how imbalances in the gut microbiome can influence hair health and how addressing gut health may be a key factor in reversing hair loss. Naturally, if you're seeking insights on hair health or looking for a holistic approach to female hair loss, this episode is packed with information on finding solutions by starting from within. Stay tuned to learn how addressing the root cause of female hair loss can lead to healthier hair and overall wellness. The root cause of female hair loss can lead to healthier hair and overall wellness.
Speaker 2:Surreal Vasquez. Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast that's coming on the show.
Speaker 1:It is absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really great to have you here. So, surreal, can you kick off the show by sharing a little bit about your educational and professional background? What motivated you to study functional medicine and where did your interest in helping people with hair loss come from?
Speaker 1:Well, I'd have to share a little bit about my personal story, because I had hair loss and thinning which started at the age of 24. And I was working in the medical field for about a decade at that point and the doctors were my friends. I had built relationships with gastroenterologists and dermatologists and I went to them in full confidence saying, hey, I bought you some cookies, it's time to help me now. So I made a binder of labs that was probably about this thick it was two or three inches thick and I learned how to read labs to help them help me. But I was already very familiar with that because of the nature of my work. So when they told me that there was nothing that we can do, all we could do is slow down the hair loss and thinning and there wasn't much available and they gave me the medication. They gave me spironolactone, which gave me horrible side effects. It was horrid. I realized that I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. So I went back to school, I studied functional medicine and I spent in my trial and error trying to figure out how to reverse hair loss naturally and going to school about $75,000 in two years. But the difference this time was I wasn't just randomly throwing crap at the wall trying to see what sticks because I just wanted relief with sticks, because I just wanted relief. Instead, I was being very practical in my approach, very thoughtful with every attempt that I made, and whenever something did work temporarily, or worked a little bit, or didn't work, instead of being disappointed, it was data. It was something that was catapulting me to the next part of my journey. That eventually got me to where I am now, and so my hair loss and thinning was part of the journey.
Speaker 1:What actually really got me started was my dad's prostate cancer, but the thing was I put him on some herbs to increase his health and his PSA, which is the marker for inflammation in the prostate it decreased almost by a whole point in less than a month, and I got super curious about herbs at that point, and so I started taking them myself and they really helped with my hair, and that's what started me on the journey of going down that route when trying to help myself, especially when I saw that the traditional realm of medicine that I was already involved in didn't really have much of a solution for me.
Speaker 1:So now I have a practice where I help women reverse hair loss naturally using the right diet, using personalized supplements and using lifestyle practices to help them manage the condition in a way where they don't express the symptom right. So my goal is to help women understand that hair loss and thinning is rather similar to type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure, because if you make the adjustments that your body is needing to avoid expressing the condition, it's almost like you can stop yourself from having the disease state because you're managing it so well. It's not an issue. So that is the good news that I have to bring to people that are struggling with this, and some of what I teach, of course, can also apply to men, but I do typically work with women because I have a group coaching program and it's just easier to be vulnerable when there's no men when there are no men around, yeah, but I guess what what we're talking about is not, uh, like male pattern broadening.
Speaker 2:It's. It's not that it's hair loss, it's not. You know, like with men with, quite often it's higher the um, hydrotestosterone, so dht, uh, high levels. That often causes male pattern baldness. But we're not talking about that, are we?
Speaker 1:it's a different, different type of yeah, we are yeah we are talking about dht, we're talking about estrogen dominance, we're talking about the type of baldness that spreads. Hair loss is one part of the solution and typically that's triggered by allergies or hormonal imbalances. But that thinning, that spreading that thin, that causes the miniaturization, that's mostly scarring in nature and that can also be addressed and we can have some success with that as well just using the right modalities, the right supplements, the right diet and whatnot yeah, I know, when I used to commute into london to work, I'd quite often see a handful of women each day actually, and you know, you look at their hair and you think, wow, what's what's going on?
Speaker 2:there's definitely something internally going on and you know, I've I've never had someone approach me to help them with something like that, but I've always been thinking I'd love to help someone like that because I'm sure I could probably help someone. And quite often again, I don't know if, if this is your experience, but when I've seen women with hair loss, quite often they look generally unhealthy as well. They're quite often overweight and they might have dark circles under their eyes and things like that as well. Is that kind of your experience?
Speaker 1:Yes, actually I had a picture that I wanted to show the audience of what I used to look like when I had hair loss and thinning, when I was at my worst, and you can clearly see the dark circles under my eyes.
Speaker 1:I had thinning hair all over, and it wasn't just from hair falling out, it was from a pattern of thinness that started in the middle and then spread all over my head and it just became very see-through all over. But there were a lot of issues that I was going through that I was unaware of. There was mold toxicity, there were heavy metals, estrogen dominance, candida overgrowth, h pylori a lot of different things that compromised my health that are happening to people quite chronically, yet they're unaware of it because there are medical conditions that regular or I should say traditional medicine doesn't recognize. There's no diagnosis code for estrogen dominance. There's no diagnosis code for candida overgrowth. They do have H pylori as something that they treat with antibiotics, but some of the testing that they use is not always the most accurate, so that is something that gets in the way of them having the resources to actually effectively help someone with these conditions, whereas someone in functional medicine would know how to approach that.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned H pylori and antibiotics, because quite often the antibiotics don't work anyway. With H pylori they used to do triple therapy, which is three different antibiotics, and now they do quadruple therapy because they're becoming less and less effective. I don't know about you, but I've found Matura tea works really well with people that have, you know, too much H pylori. Don't know if you've ever used Matura tea at all.
Speaker 1:No, no, I haven't.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I typically don't talk too much about supplements on podcasts, but this one I feel like you should definitely try. It's called Pylori X. That is a supplement that I use you have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I find that.
Speaker 1:I get a lot of benefit as well as helping clients increase their stomach acid, especially with the hydrochloric acid challenge. That's super helpful as well, and, of course, addressing the gut microbiome and supporting the immune system, just to make someone generally more healthy. All of that, I think, is very helpful in getting someone to a place where they don't have a reoccurrence of it, and sometimes it can also be their surroundings that contribute to it. There was a time where I was doing the hydrochloric acid challenge. Do you think your audience is familiar with what that is?
Speaker 2:Some of them will be, some of them won't be. If you want to share what that is, Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:So the hydrochloric acid challenge is something that practitioners in functional medicine use to help increase the stomach acid of a human being, and so you would take one pill with a meal, and then the next meal you'll take two, and the next meal you'll take three, and you will keep doing that until you reach a saturation point where you feel a little bit of a burn when you take that pill count. For me that number was nine. I had to take nine pills with one meal to feel the slight burn, and it's not in your esophagus like you feel with acid reflux, but instead it's in the pit of your stomach, and if you continue eating or you drink more water, that will go away. But once you get to that count, then that means the number below is where you really want to be. So I kept taking eight pills every time I ate until eight gave me a burn, and then I took seven and then six until I got to the point where I didn't have bloating every time that I ate and even one or two pills would give me a little bit of a burn, and then I didn't need it anymore and then I only would take it if I had some kind of bloating. And so after doing that, I'm living on with my life and I'm noticing I'm getting bloated every time I eat again and I said, my goodness, like what's going on here? Maybe I have to, maybe I have a reoccurrence of H pylori, maybe I have to do a little bit more work. And so I started doing the hydrochloric acid challenge again and I got stuck at five pills. I was just like why can't I get past five pills? I don't quite understand what the difference is. This time my diet is very clean, because I do know that eating too much sugar and too many carbs can have a negative effect on how much stomach acid someone's producing. So just eating too much of that can in and of itself lower your stomach acid. So I wasn't eating too much of that. I was eating pretty clean and I was stuck at five coats.
Speaker 1:At the time I was still working full-time in the medical field and I was calling on gastroenterologists and, ironically, my offices start telling me we are having a huge breakout of H pylori. Everybody has H pylori. Every time we do the process, people have H pylori. And I'm like, well, that's quite interesting that a lot of offices in this immediate area are saying that, and I happen to live in that immediate area. I wasn't that far from it and I did recall that the city of Lake Worth had mentioned that they had some kind of spill in the water, but everything was going to be okay and it only affected, you know, this little area, this, that and the third.
Speaker 1:So next thing I know I'm at the gym and I ran out of water. I was filtering my water from my sink. I was using a countertop water pitcher that I even. I would test the water and I would see that the total dissolved sediments were low. So in my mind I thought, oh, this water must be clean, it tastes good, whatever the case. And I have a whole water filter for my home as well, just through regular carbon and also a water softener, not reverse osmosis or anything of the sort, but still it was filtering the water. And then, on top of that, I was also filtering that water through the countertop pitcher.
Speaker 1:And so I went to the gym and I ran out of my water. So I went to go get the gym's water. They have a fountain that has a filter in it, and when I drank that water I got bloated and I said that's strange. Why am I getting bloated from water? So I started noticing that when I drank the water at my home I also would get bloated and I said I think it's the water, I think the water is getting me bloated and the water is making me sick. And so I switched to bottled water. And guess what, as I continued to do my hydrochloric acid challenge, I finally was able to break that five pill count that I was stuck at and I made it back down to a point where I didn't need the pills anymore.
Speaker 1:And so sometimes it can be our water that's creating that constant reoccurrence to a bacteria that maybe could make us more susceptible, because it is thought that H pylori is potentially a commensal bacteria, just like Candida is. Well, we all have it to some degree, and if it's behaved and it's in a small amount, it's not going to do anything to us. But when our immune system is either busy with herpes or Epstein-Barr virus or COVID or whatever the case is, and we're just inundated with toxicants and just having a hard time being resilient overall because of everything our body's trying to filter, that's an opportunity where these bacteria that are commensal say oh you guys, she can't do anything anymore. Let's go crazy.
Speaker 1:Like the immune system's not going to hurt us, and so they take advantage and they overpopulate and so they take advantage and they overpopulate.
Speaker 2:Interesting, so what would you say are some of the common misconceptions about natural hair regrowth? Julie, a 47-year-old who works in computer sales, came to see me complaining of lifelong irritable bowel syndrome, which included severe abdominal pain and bloating, loose and very frequent stalls, along with hot flushes, menstrual brain fog and low energy, which affected her work performance. After taking a comprehensive history, plus running some labs, I discovered that Julie had a parasite infection which may have been causing the loose stalls, a methane producing bacterial overgrowth that was almost been causing the loose stools. A methane producing bacterial overgrowth that was almost certainly causing the abdominal bloating and pain, a leaky gut, low levels of digestive enzymes, as well as eating too many high oxalate foods on her vegetarian diet. So Julie reduced the high oxalate foods from her diet. Plus she took a broad spectrum antimicrobial supplement to help with the parasites and the bacteria in her gut, probiotics to increase her good bacteria and help repair her gut lining. She also took prebiotics to help feed the commensal bacteria, digestive enzymes to improve her digestion and herbs to help clear the toxic lipopolysaccharides from her system produced by the overgrowth of gram-negative bacteria.
Speaker 2:At the end of the program, julie reported that her health had never been better. In her own words, the improvement is staggering. The abdominal pain and bloating was gone, her stools were back to normal, her energy was up, she no longer had brain fog or hot flashes and her immune system had improved, as she no longer suffered from frequent bugs and colds. If you're suffering like Julie was and you want to get to the root cause of your problem, you can arrange a consultation with me at bodycheckcouk. That's B-O-D-Y-C-H-E-K, and if we're a good fit, I could help you achieve the same kind of results as Julie. Now back to the podcast.
Speaker 1:I love this question because what I always hear is no, but you know what? It's just genetics. I have my mom that is almost bald. My dad has been bald since he's 40 years old and I'm just going to be bald when I get older because genetics say so. And what I want to say is just because you have the gene for it doesn't mean that it has to express. As I was saying before. Same thing with type 2 diabetes. My dad had type two diabetes but as I'm managing his healthcare and I'm giving him herbs and I'm helping him with his diet, he is no longer expressing with typical diabetic symptoms because his glucose level is below 120 in a fasted state, which means he's typically not diabetic. So we manage that with lifestyle change.
Speaker 1:We can do this thing with hair loss and the way that that looks like is if somebody is presenting with a lot of hair falling out, for instance, if you're a female, the first thing I would be thinking is do you have any allergies in your home that could be making you sick? Is there an exposure to mold? Is there an exposure to dust? And do you have feathers in the pillows, in the comforter, because those things degranulate into dust? And also, how old is your home? Do you have a home that is under a construction code that favors saving energy versus your health? Because what they're doing as of late is they're creating homes that are more airtight, and it makes it so we're living in an airplane and dust is accumulating and there isn't healthy airflow and we're exhaling out carbon dioxide and it's not leaving the home, or we're cooking and we're not turning on the vent, and so our home has become more toxic, and so that is another problem, even on top of the allergies, right? So that is something that I would say is to be thought of, to be managed in someone who's trying to be healthy overall, but especially if you want to grow healthy hair. It's not just genetics, it's not just hormones.
Speaker 1:For people that are thinking, oh, I have DHT that's elevated, I had blood work that showed that I had that. When I looked at it wasn't blood work, it was a saliva test. When I looked at the patterns of my hormones, it showed that I had elevated DHT, but I also had estrogen dominance because of how little I was producing progesterone in relationship to estrogen, even though my estrogen wasn't necessarily as high as I wanted it to be, and that's the thing. A lot of women have estrogen dominance, but they have low estrogen. And it's just possible because estrogen dominance is categorized by the relationship between estrogen and progesterone. And so in those two instances we would say, could this be a genetic thing? Right?
Speaker 1:But if someone has, for instance, high DHT, new science is extrapolating that potentially the reason that's happening is because DHT is a form of testosterone that cannot be broken down into any other hormone. When we create hormones through the process of aromatization, our hormones can be broken down into different types of hormones, but if it's DHT, it won't be broken down into anything else. It's true testosterone. And so testosterone has the ability to be an inflammatory modulator. So could it be that someone is chronically inflamed and they're using excess DHT to help their body deal with that inflammation, to help their body?
Speaker 1:deal with that inflammation, and new science is even saying that it's not essentially the DHT that's causing the miniaturization. They're starting to extrapolate that it's more a correlation versus the cause, because they're noticing that prostaglandin D2, which comes onto the scene with DHT, is what is causing that constricting effect, which prostaglandin D2, which comes onto the scene with DHT, is what is causing that constricting effect. Which prostaglandins can do that they can constrict or contract in an effort to help you heal. And so they're finding that that's actually what's causing the miniaturization to happen. But so in that case, if we can create a body that is able to be in the parasympathetic state more often, releasing healing hormones more often, if we can create longer periods of fasting, if we can incorporate intentional massaging and strategic supplementation, strategic food choices, we can create an environment where the body can break down scar tissue.
Speaker 1:We're supposed to create scar tissue as part of the healing process. That's why, when we get a cut, we get the scab, but the scab is supposed to fall and the skin is supposed to come back intact. When that doesn't happen, it's because, you know, because we're just having a body that's not as resilient, having a harder time regenerating itself, but it's because it's not in that healing nervous system state as often as it should be, or there are things that are compromising its ability to do that. So we can reverse engineer a body that can regrow healthy hair. What we're doing is reverse engineering a body that is in a healing state more often and that has all of the different components that are necessary for detoxing and for healing.
Speaker 2:So it sounds to me like one of the main misconceptions is that people are just victims. Right, it's just circumstances, there's nothing I can do, I've just got to put up with it, right? Whereas really what you're saying is no, no, you can play a role in this, you can empower yourself and you can not only slow down your hair loss, but potentially you can you can regrow that hair.
Speaker 1:And the best way I can explain that is with a story, Because when I look like that in that picture that I showed you, guys, I had just broken up with my ex-boyfriend that I thought I was going to marry.
Speaker 1:I broke up with him because he was cheating on me with a girl that was 10 years younger than me. So eight months later I end up looking like that and I said to myself, wait a second, so I leave this guy who cheats on me and then I go and age like this there's, there's no way that's going to be my story. So I got very aggressive about trying to find the answer and in my quest, I went to a personal development event with this guy you may have heard of. His name is Tony Robbins, and he says during the speech, as he's trying to help people that are typically getting in their own way of a breakthrough, he asks them you know, like, why can't you, why can't you figure this out? And the person typically says I've tried everything. And I mentioned that because a lot of women feel this way they don't want to try anything because they're so hurt, they're so disappointed and they're literally believing They've tried everything.
Speaker 1:But, in that moment when he said that, I said he's right. I am lying to myself. There is absolutely no way that I've tried everything in every single combination, at every single time, in every single way. What about the things that haven't even been invented yet? It's not humanly possible. And that was the point where I decided to go and stop throwing money at the wall, but instead learn right. Learning is the only way that you can stop yourself from being a victim Questioning things, thinking critically.
Speaker 1:Seek wisdom above everything, right, even though it costs you everything that you have. Seek wisdom, and so the reason why that's such good advice is because now you're able to be your own leader with your health, instead of just relying on other people to fix the problems for you. Because you can start making intelligent inferences about what you're experiencing and what it means for your health, like people should be able to know. Oh, when I eat corn, I get inflamed. As a matter of fact, that's one of the five foods that I ask my clients not to eat. I ask them not to eat sugar, gluten, dairy corn or rice, because when we take people off of these foods, they tend to live with a lot less symptoms.
Speaker 1:People off of these foods, they tend to live with a lot less symptoms and just people are so used to feeling sick so often that they normalize their symptoms and they've been indoctrinated to think well, if it's not showing up on the blood test and you don't have a critical diagnosis, where it's literally too late, almost right, then you're normal and it's just getting used to it. This is what it feels like to be old, and so they get used to feeling that way. But what I like to empower people with is the idea that that's not normal and if you're having those symptoms, it means something and you are in control of whether or not those symptoms express, whether you have the gene or not. So if you take on the victim mentality of I've tried everything, then there's nothing left for you. You're waiting for someone to save you. But if you start taking responsibility of I'm causing this, I'm doing something that's making this worse, now you get to be the hero of your own story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting listening to you say that, because I I also help people with acne, right, and that's and that's my story going back a long time. And I hear so often people say and I've tried absolutely everything, and then when I look at what they've tried, they haven't tried anything that I would recommend. Right, it's such a, it's such a flip in paradigm to go from. Again, it's going from a symptom driven solution to a root cause driven solution, right. And it's quite interesting that you mentioned spironolactone earlier, because I didn't know that that's given to women who start losing their hair, but I know of spironolactone because it's often given to women with acne, right. So that's that's really interesting, that those two, those two conditions, kind of really mirror each other in many ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because of the hormones, the hormonal component to it. That's why they would give that. But you know, if you're a woman and you're on spironolactone, you can't even get pregnant. The label says there are Category C risks of birth defects and I don't know what your patients have been through that have been on that medication. But for me my breath was so rancid I could not do my job. People would not talk to me. It's like do you want to date looking bald or do you want to have breath when you can't speak? So I knew if I wanted to have kids like that was definitely not a solution for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, interesting. So what would you say are some of the non-negotiables to reversing hair loss?
Speaker 1:naturally, oh, I have five of them. I'm glad you asked that. So one of the things that I tell my clients as they're working through the program with me is that we vehicle that can sustain them for the ride and to prepare that vehicle for the ride. We are addressing circulation, not just of blood, obviously, because hair needs blood to grow. What you need for hair to grow is very simple you need blood that is rich in nutrients and oxygen, arriving at the follicle. You need a follicle that has nothing obstructing it, no calcifications, no scar tissue, and so if you have that, hair can grow. So blood circulation is important, but more important than that is lymphatic circulation. We want a body that is able to detoxify appropriately, and one way that people can tell if their lymphatic system is working appropriately is if they have pits or puffs. And I got that from another functional practitioner, kelly I forgot her last name, but I know her first name is Kelly and she's famous for this. Kelly I forgot her last name, but I know her first name is Kelly and she's famous for this, where she tells people to check their armpits and to see if they have this inundation here, and you can even tell in me I probably have a little bit of work that I could do, but you should have this, should be as hollow as possible, and having that hollow is one indication that you have a lymphatic system that is working well. Another thing is, if you have rings and your rings aren't feeling as loose as they were before, then your fingers might be swollen. So that's another thing. Or maybe you feel like your stomach feels just a little bit bigger, but it's not bloat, but it just feels a little swollen. That can be something else. There are several symptoms, but the thing is that if you're not having the detoxification process fluid within you, that's where you create an environment that is hospitable for parasites, for fungal overgrowth, for bacterial overgrowth, because you just become more acidic in nature and your body becomes one that can support that. So you want to get the trash out of your body almost as quickly as you get it in, to create that parasympathetic state. So that's one.
Speaker 1:Another one is sleep. When we are sleeping at night, our cranial area is detoxifying through the glymphatic system, and the reason they call it the glymph with a G glymphatic system is because we have glial cells in our brains that shrink by 60%. So that kind of creates our brain to become smaller in the process, so that what is around there can drain out. And it also helps if you're sleeping in a way where your head is a little inclined, so maybe a pillow that's high, so it can drain easier. But on top of all of that, your liver is detoxing in the middle of the night as well, and the liver is what is responsible for balancing your hormones in part as well. So we want to make sure that your sleep is in sync with the circadian rhythm, that you're getting optimal sleep, because that's going to help with the healing process.
Speaker 1:We also want to help with gut healing and make sure that your gut is working well, and there's a range of different things that we're looking at with gut health, like the gut lining and how much stomach acid you have, the microbiota, if you have any low-grade infections, are you having regular bowel movements?
Speaker 1:But all of that is helping because the colon it's where you get the nutrition, it's where you get rid of waste, it's such a lifeline to the body. There's also that gut brain connection, and so if you're creating an environment that's hospitable for some kind of fungal overgrowth and then this thing invades other organs in your body. It can find its way to your nails, it can find its way to your scalp, and so it all starts in the gut. That's why Hippocrates says all health starts in the gut. So we definitely want to make sure that we've done some gut healing work. Another thing that we want to address is inflammation. There's so many of us we're walking around with low-grade inflammation and we just think it's normal. We have no idea it could be from leaky gut. That's a condition where your gut is permeable and food that is supposed to be nutritious enters your blood way too soon, and then your body interprets it as a threat.
Speaker 1:Chronic inflammation as well as many other things. And lastly, it is oh, I feel like I always forget one, oh blood sugar balance. That's the last one, because blood sugar is a precursor to your hormones, cortisol, the hormones. Insulin is a hormone and if you have elevated blood sugar or low dips and high, you know, and high climaxes of blood sugar, then that's just not healthy, it's not stable, and so you're also creating an inflammatory environment and you're also creating a scenario where your hormones are in disarray. So you definitely want to normalize the blood sugar response. When we are fasting, our blood sugar should be between 85 and 100. When you wake up, you haven't eaten for eight hours. If you test your blood sugar, that's where you should be. If you're over that, then we're looking at prediabetes. If you're over 120, then you're diabetic and then that's a real problem because you're doing free, radical damage to yourselves and you're literally aging yourself at that point. And that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to look like this when we're 75.
Speaker 1:So we got to make sure that we protect the blood sugar. So those are the five things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome. Again, it's really interesting. As you were speaking, you know the key things that I tell people if they want to overcome acne. Number one is blood sugar balance. Inflammation is is another key one. Gut healing is another key one. Um, probably, I mean stress is one, and you could put sleep in the same category as stress, because if you're not sleeping enough, you're going to be stressed. And then the other thing for me that's important is detoxification. But you need good circulation in order to detox right. So there's quite a lot of similarities between the two on so many different levels. It's quite interesting because, you know, as I said at the beginning or a little bit earlier on, I've never worked with someone that's come to see me because they've got hair loss, so I've never really, you know, never really done a deep dive into it. But it's quite interesting that there's so many similarities between hair loss and acne. It's quite. I'd never, you know, I'd never even kind of thought that, but it's very, very similar.
Speaker 1:And maybe throughout your tenure in your profession, maybe you've seen women that came to you with acne issues, but maybe their hair also improved as well from some of the work that you were doing. I'm sure May have done. Yeah, no-transcript, it's just hair, it's no. It's just the giant clue that something's going wrong. It's something wrong in your body, and if you keep ignoring it, the problem is going to be more serious.
Speaker 2:And if you keep ignoring it, the problem is going to be more serious. Yeah, absolutely yeah. And again, that's the message I give people with acne. I say to them you can treat the symptom. If you want, you can take Accutane or birth control pills or Spironolactone or all these other things that generally don't work very well, but let's say they do work and that clears your acne up. You've not dealt with the root cause of the problem. Now you might feel fine about that, but when you look at the potential side effects of some of these medications, so just take the oral contraceptive pill, right? Some? Some of the side effects include breast cancer, cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, endometriosis. It's like I don't know about you. I've had acne than cancer I know that's right so.
Speaker 2:so you're kicking the can down the road and not dealing with the issue, right? So whether it's your hair falling out or a skin condition, or or you're in pain or you've got no energy, your body's trying to tell you something. It's saying look wakey, wakey. There's something you need to address here, right, and you know what you're suggesting is let's find out what the root cause of the problem is and let's deal with it from day one, and then you haven't got to worry about anything 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the line, and you know you can get to your 60s, 70s, 80s and still be very functional and still have a good quality of life.
Speaker 1:Yes, it makes me a little sad sometimes when women come to me and by the time they get to me, they've already had the hysterectomy, they're already wearing wigs, they've already have taken out their gallbladder, taken out their tonsils, and they've done a lot of cutting things out and making changes. And even though I've still been able to successfully help them at that point, I know that because they waited so long to try a functional approach, they're going to have a certain level of handicap that they're going to have to deal with and we all do to some degree. I mean, I had my tonsils taken out when I was five years old, so I know I'm going to have to support my body more aggressively with lymphatic drainage and other people for the rest of my life because I have a little bit of a handicap. But when you let it get to that point, like I said, it's not impossible. I still help people and they're very happy.
Speaker 1:But it's a lot more work and a lot more money because you're spending more money on supplements, more money on food, like you need more things to help move the needle. It's absolutely still worth it because you only have one life, so you want to make sure that you get the most out of it. But what I think is that sometimes people they don't take action until they're in dire circumstances. And the new token of wealth is health, because the world is becoming so much more toxic by every minute of every hour of every day that we're going to notice as time continues on, it's the people that are able to still be functional, still look healthy. Those are the people that are going to be the wealthiest because they're going to be able to function.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, yeah, definitely, Definitely yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it takes a certain level of investment in your health to be able to create the vehicle that carries out your other dreams. So investing in your health is the best decision that you can make when you are figuring out where to invest your money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think the thing I would add to that, what you've just said, just to summarize what you've just been saying there is you know, if you're someone your hair is thinning or your hair is falling out, the time to deal with it is now right. And when I say deal with it, I mean deal with the root cause, not try and treat the symptoms right. So you know, if you're listening to, listening to this, watching this, and you're suffering from those symptoms, the time to contact surreal is today right. Get get on a program and help not just get your hair back, but get your health back yeah, and I I'd love to offer something to your listeners, if that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean we've got. We've got a while to go yet, but feel free, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess, for those of you who don't make it to the end, I'll just say it now. But there is a a quiz on my website that helps people understand what their potential is for natural hair regrowth. The vast majority of cases are able to see very obvious results, even if there is scarring alopecia or endogenetic alopecia. But take the quiz and at the end there's an opportunity to have a 30-minute symptom decoding session. So normally there's a cost of that, but if you use the discount code consult C-O-N-S-U-L-T, then that fee is waived and then we can go over your symptoms tracker for 30 minutes. You can tell me a little bit about your hair loss and I can give you an understanding of what is going on on a deeper level, and so you would just go to my website, belcanicscom.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we can put that in the show notes and the quiz will pop up, or you could just go to the top and click on quiz.
Speaker 2:Awesome, that's great. That's great. So someone comes to you one of the things they need to do. They need to heal their gut. What would be some key advice in terms of things to eat to try and optimize gut health?
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Speaker 1:Well, we talked about what not to eat, and I find when people ask me that and I give them that list, they're like surreal you just took away everything that I eat. I don't know what to do with my life anymore, and it's interesting because I'm going through a challenge right now. I periodically host these for my community, so, as a group, for 21 days, we're not eating the foods that I mentioned before sugar, gluten, dairy corn and rice but we're focusing on what we can eat, which is something that should be focused on instead, and so foods that are great with balancing your hormones are cruciferous vegetables, sulfur-rich vegetables. So we're speaking about onions and shallots and cauliflower and broccoli and broccoli sprouts. And if someone is feeling deprived because oh my gosh, I love tacos and you took away corn, well, guess what? They make tortillas out of almond flour. Did you know that? If somebody's like man I love eating sandwiches but you took away gluten, guess what. They make gluten-free bread out of buckwheat and gluten-free grains or out of nuts and seeds. Did you know that Right? So we don't have to feel that surprise they make pasta out of lentils.
Speaker 1:So, typically, the food categories that we're looking at when we want to eat a diet that does not have those foods is nuts and seeds. So, like I said, we have tortillas and breads made out of that. We have milks made out of nuts and seeds. We're also looking at root vegetables, so we have rutabaga and sweet potato, potato. The important thing is to tomatoes, eggplant. But the important thing is to know your body by observing the symptoms as you eat anything, because even if I'm mentioning something, you might know that when you have tomatoes, you get acid reflux or your joints hurt, so maybe for you that's not okay. So that important thing is to definitely still be cognizant of what's causing these symptoms. It might be the food, it might also be your environment, but if we don't clean up the diet, we'll never know.
Speaker 1:So we want to focus on that. We want to focus on gluten-free grains. So, like I said, buckwheat, quinoa, those are two of my favorites we want to focus on. I feel like I said, buckwheat, quinoa, those are two of my favorites we want to focus on. I feel like I'm missing something. Oh, and then lean meats, so protein that doesn't have a lot of fat in it, because fat is a cesspool for toxicants. So grass fed, organic meat and I wouldn't eat meat every day either, because it is acidic. So you know I would, I would make that part of my diet, but not a huge staple. I would make it mostly a plant-based diet but I would still have some protein that is, wild-caught lean meat, organic, grass-fed thrown in there as well. But that's essentially what we're looking at. We're looking at nuts and seeds, root vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, sulfur vegetables, all the kind of vegetables, and we're looking at the gluten-free grains and we're looking at the lean proteins. So that doesn't feel that restrictive does it?
Speaker 2:yeah, what about things like you know? This is again one of the things that's spoken about a lot with the kind of acne community is bone broth for gut health. What's your thoughts on bone broth?
Speaker 1:I like it. Yes, I'm okay with that. I think grass-fed bone broth can be a very healing modality, especially if you want to extend your fast. Let's say, I'm having people shorten their eating window but they can't quite get as low as I want them to. They can break their fast with bone broth and that kind of helps because it's something that they can introduce into their diet first thing in the morning that isn't negatively impacting their blood sugar, whereas most breakfasts do so, and I've done bone broth fast before as well.
Speaker 1:So I think that's good, as long as you can sustain it and your blood sugar isn't going crazy from not having enough of food that day. We have to.
Speaker 2:We again, we have to be mindful of how is our body responding to this always, but definitely a good food to incorporate yeah, yeah, just uh, also be aware that you know again, because this is something that I hear all the time I've tried bone broth. It didn't work. It's like it's not about working, it's part, it's just part of the puzzle, right? We know that it does help to heal the gut lining. That's, that's why it's often recommended. So don't think oh, I tried, I tried it, it didn't work. There's probably another. There could be many, many other factors that you need to incorporate at the same time for it to work, right.
Speaker 1:Of course, and that's the thing that I think people are struggling with. They have been so disappointed trying to figure it out themselves, and they are so confused because one person says you need to be eating whey protein every day between every workout, 20 minutes after your workout. And then someone else is like don't nothing that is anything with dairy in your body ever is what you need to do or you will die, right. So what do you believe? Who's telling the truth? And that's why it's so important to number one partner with a functional practitioner, at least until you get into a cadence of what is working, under the guidance of someone that knows how to put all these pieces together body and be able to use that as a guide as far as what's working and what isn't.
Speaker 1:When it comes to healing the gut, we know that bone broth has a positive effect on the gut lining, but nobody can tell that they have leaky gut. It's not like you walk around with a pain. Oh, there's a hole in my gut. Nobody knows, unless it's an ulcer, right? So how do we know if someone has leaky gut? Well, typically they take a food allergy test. They've been allergic or responsive to everything they ate that day, or maybe they have a lot of food allergies, they have an autoimmune condition. I mean, that's typically how we would know, because in order to have an autoimmune condition, you need to have leaky gut, a gut microbiome that is off and not the way that it should be and the genetics for that autoimmune condition. So people with autoimmune conditions typically have a gut. So that's the way that we are figuring this out, but it's not like someone is telling us typically right, and so how is someone going to know if bone broth didn't work for them?
Speaker 2:You won't even know, the only way you're going to know is, you are avoiding the foods that make it worse.
Speaker 1:Right, that's important. You are also incorporating the leaky gut. Maybe you're also adding in other things I'm sorry the bone broth, but maybe you're also adding in other things Slippery, elm, aloe water. Maybe the bone broth alone is enough. Maybe you have high blood pressure and you need to watch your sodium. There's all these different things that you wouldn't know to think of unless you worked with a practitioner that got you to the end line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So earlier on you mentioned there's a questionnaire on your website. Is there any other way that someone might be able to work out if reversing their hair loss naturally is possible for them? Is there another way, or is that kind of the only way that you use?
Speaker 1:Well, I mentioned the quiz and that's just so that they have that opportunity to book the. That's the I'm sorry symptom decoding session with me, but the onboarding process includes an 85 question intake form, which is very intricate. I'm asking everything from where you born, vaginally or through a C-section, all the way to did you get the virus and that medicine that they were giving for it right?
Speaker 1:So that is how I onboard my clients. I actually don't do a lot of testing. I really take a close look at their symptoms and then I use that information to understand what were all the trigger points in her life that set her up for the fall for that genetic expression.
Speaker 2:I first met Amelia at a health club where I was hosting an event offering back screenings to the members. The first thing I noticed about Amelia was a dullness in her eyes, which I later realized was due to extreme pain, and I noticed that she was unable to turn her head and had to turn her whole body if she wanted to look in a different direction. Amelia informed me that she had a history of repeated shoulder and neck pain for the last two years and was diagnosed with spinal stenosis at C45, c56 and C67, and a stenosis is a blockage which, in Amelia's case, was in the spinal canal of her neck, irritating her spinal cord. She had extreme tenderness over her neck and trapezius muscles on both sides and she suffered from severe neck pain continuously. Amelia informed me that she'd been advised that spinal surgery was the only option, but the surgery came with great risks, including potential paralysis and no guarantee of success, which made Amelia fearful. Advised that spinal surgery was the only option, but the surgery came with great risks, including potential paralysis and no guarantee of success, which made Amelia fearful of the surgery. In addition to this, amelia suffered from continuous exhaustion, painful intestinal gas and bloating, even though she felt she was following a healthy diet.
Speaker 2:After a thorough evaluation, I designed Amelia a corrective exercise, nutrition and lifestyle plan plus. I referred her to a new chiropractor for specific adjustments to her neck. After following the plan religiously, amelia is much stronger and much more flexible than she's ever been before and no longer suffers from repeated neck pain and has full range of motion in her neck. Amelia also reported that her energy was maximized and that she no longer suffers from the gripping stomach pains that had dominated her life for a very long time. If you're suffering like Amelia was and you'd like to find out more about getting to the root cause of your pain, go to wwwbodycheckcouk that's B-O-D-Y-C-H-E-Kcouk to request your consultation.
Speaker 1:For some clients I saw it was when they moved into the moldy home, when they started the vegan diet and started eating a lot of sugar. As a matter of fact, that picture I showed you of myself that was when I was eating a raw food diet that I got that bad. I was just eating way too much sugar and it created a lot of scar tissue for me. So that was one of my triggers. But there were a lot of other things. For other clients they had a death in the family, so there are different things. But then, if we look back in the history, we have what set us up for it. Right, there was the tonsils being taken out, the amalgams in the mouth. So I'm looking at all of this and I'm creating a timeline of the timestamps that set her up to express the gene.
Speaker 1:And then we had the triggering event. For me it was when I got off of birth control. Getting off of birth control is what made my hair stop falling out like crazy, and so that triggering event is important. And then, when we have all that information, then we can create a roadmap to healthy bill by looking at what are all the different symptoms that are attached to a system the endocrine system, the nervous system, the digestive system. So we have a cluster of symptoms in every person that pertain to a system that is screaming I need to be supported. And so that is the road to healthyville matching the symptoms to the system that needs to be supported, and that's how we reverse engineer the body that can regrow healthy hair. But knowing that history and identifying the triggers all of that is important to create the puzzle that we're putting together the puzzle that we're putting together.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, hopefully that answers your question.
Speaker 1:But that's how people work with me, how they start working with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. So I've got one more question, or one more big question. Now you've probably kind of answered it, but there might be something else you want to add to what I'm going to ask. There might be something else you want to add to what I'm going to ask. What would you say are the true root causes of hair loss and thinning and?
Speaker 1:how can someone uncover them, versus looking for a diagnosis? Yeah, so I did when I was talking about the five non-negotiables for reversing hair loss. Naturally, I would say some of the usual suspects would be mold toxicity, candida overgrowth, estrogen dominance, h pylori, covid, long-haul COVID, an immune system that is very busy with Epstein-Barr virus or herpes, I would say just a history of overexposure to toxicants, I would say an inflammatory lifestyle.
Speaker 2:I would say an inflammatory lifestyle. I would say Sorry when you say inflammatory lifestyle, can you just share what some of those things might be?
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, all of these recreative activities of that, yeah, that are harmful to the liver and the kidneys, yeah, that would be something, although that's not enough. That one thing it's not enough, I can say. I'll give you this example. So one thing that I do with my clients in my program is I teach them what I call the damage protocol and what it is is. It's a standard operating procedure for what to do that day that you're going to go out and drink or you're going to go eat cake or you're going to go on vacation.
Speaker 1:And when I did the damage protocol, I went on vacation for five days to Dominican Republic where my family's from. I went to an all-inclusive resort and I didn't get drunk, because I'm Christian, so I don't get drunk, but I did drink every day, drinks were included and I did have rice. I mean, I was in Dominican Republic and I'm Dominican, so I had rice every day and I had corn and all of the things. And I applied my damage protocol, which it's like things you put on your head, you know fasting periods, water, different supplements, things like that, nothing too crazy. And so I was able to avoid recreating more damage as I was doing this, or it was like I was creating less damage than I would have, as I was participating in this lifestyle where I wasn't being aware of what I was eating or how much I was sleeping and you know, maybe there was, there were cigarettes around me, I was drinking alcohol all of these things they have an effect, right?
Speaker 1:So, uh, I was being intentional of preparing my body for the blow so that I could not feel deprived and still live a life that made me happy, but give my body extra support when it needed it. So I wasn't making a lot of scar tissue that would thin out my hair and make it look like it disappeared, because the picture I showed you showed thinning all over, but I also had bald spots. Right here in the center there was a huge gap that was widening, and I had a right here also a big spot, and so I was getting that pattern, and above my ears too, it was very thin. I was getting that pattern of thinning all over, which is from scarring. That's what the hair miniaturization process does. But an acidic lifestyle or an inflammatory lifestyle is a lifestyle where you're feeling all these symptoms but you don't care.
Speaker 1:You're just living life and you're eating what you want and doing what you want, and your body's trying keeping you alive and doing, you know, just doing its best, but it's screaming at you like you're hurting. So that's what an inflammatory lifestyle is yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm just thinking I I kind of stopped you mid-flow didn't I?
Speaker 1:so the reason I don't do a lot of labs in my practice is because and it's so funny dr josh axe Axe, who's famous on YouTube, just came out with a commercial on the internet where he was saying that symptoms are a better marker for health than blood work, because some things we can't test for in blood work, but symptoms don't lie Like. They'll tell you something's wrong or something's right, whether you think it's wrong or not. And so the reason I I use symptoms as a better marker, and then I and then I moved to blood work if I'm not getting anywhere or I want to get even better results, is because I have the usual suspects that I'm going after, which, which I was mentioning to you, Like I'm, I'm looking for what's the quality of the water that she's drinking. I had a client that she was telling me like, oh, I'm having a hard time getting results and I don't know why. And I said, okay, let's think about your situation.
Speaker 1:She was working at a light fixture place. She was working at a place where they sell the fixtures that hang on your ceiling, and the place barely got clean. There was dust all over the place, the AC was up on the ceiling, and when they took off the cover they said they had changed it two months ago. It was covered in film, this thick of dust. There was just so much dust there. And then they had water for the employees. That was in one of those devices where you take the five gallon jug and you, you know, pour it upside down. They were never cleaning the thing. There was bacteria in there. You could even see the bacteria on the bottom. You know where there's that holder that catches excess water, and so you know her air quality is poor, her water quality is poor and she's in there 40 hours a week. So that was part of the problem. So that's one of the things that I'm not even going to look at blood work. If I'm dealing with that, it doesn't make any sense. So one of the root cause things that I'm looking at is like what's going in the body, what's the environment like? How many exposures does she have? Does she have amalgams in the mouth? Because that's heavy metals that's leaching in her system chronically, and so it's just really a matter of looking at exposures and rate of detoxification.
Speaker 1:In functional medicine we have this concept called the allostatic load, and so that is what I tell my clients the invisible line that exists in all of us and it's different for all of us, but the line represents the threshold that your body can withstand before it starts expressing symptoms. So when you get your tonsils for me, for instance, right, this is my allostatic load I got my tonsils taken out. I lived in an old building in New York where the pipes would get it would just like bleach brown water sometimes. So we were doing that. What else was there? Amalgams in my mouth at one point. Then they were improperly removed, which caused more damage. Got on birth control. I had an eating disorder. That certainly didn't help, but I kept below until I took out the birth control patch. Once that happened until I took out the birth control patch. Once that happened, I'm now above my allostatic load.
Speaker 1:And this is the area where genes turn on. They turn on to help me survive. They give me side effects I don't like. But my body's not worried about what I like and what I don't like, it's just trying to keep me alive. So this is the area of genes compensating.
Speaker 1:This is the area where DHT elevates to modulate inflammation. You know, this is the area where scar tissue is formed on the scalp to stop the spread of candida overgrowth. You know, this is the area where people have elevated cholesterol because their body's creating more cholesterol to deal with little tears in their arteries and they're using that to plug in the tears and then when there's not enough good cholesterol to come and pick up what's left over, then they have that plaque build up and now they have blood flow that is compromised. But that is a gift, that your body's creating more cholesterol to help your artery that has a tear. But nobody sees it that way. They're like oh, I'm going to get all these pills right.
Speaker 1:So that's the area where the genes turn on. So when I'm trying to work with my clients, I'm looking at how do I get them back here? How do I close this gap and get them back here? Because this is where we were when we were teenagers. Close this gap and get them back here. Because this is where we were when we were teenagers, when we were able to do whatever we wanted and eat whatever we wanted. We broke a night, we were up partying all night, went to work the next day, didn't miss a beat.
Speaker 1:We you know, we had less damage at that point yeah and we were below our threshold of what our body was able to withstand. So I had a friend I love telling stories, as you can see I have a friend that was having symptoms and he decided that he was going to adopt a paleo lifestyle to get rid of said symptoms. And he did so for six years. Then, all of a sudden, he says you know what? I am so tired of not eating donuts, I'm going to live my life. So he begins to start eating donuts again and guess what happens? Nothing. You know why? Because he abstained religiously, to no fault, like very, very, very intently for six years, did not eat anything that he couldn't eat raw for six years. And then he undid so much of the damage that now he was more resilient and he can occasionally eat the donut, occasionally eat gluten, and not get a problem. But of course, if he starts eating that every day, he's going to be right back where he started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, awesome, awesome. So what's next? What's next for you, surreal?
Speaker 1:Oh, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:You can answer that however you want.
Speaker 1:What's next for me? What's next for me? What's next for me is to create a world where we do not have a stigma around hair loss and thinning.
Speaker 1:I try to be as forthcoming as I can with all of my pictures where I had hair loss and thinning. I want to remove that shame, that stigma of shame that women feel around hair loss and thinning, where they're hiding it and they're ashamed of it, because they only feel that way when they have the narrative that it's only going to get worse, there's nothing I can do. I failed as a woman. Once they feel empowered, knowing that there is something they can do. It actually is, in a way, their fault, but now they get to fix it. They're not a victim. Then they get to create before and after pictures that they're proud of and they don't have to feel ashamed anymore and feel so traumatized by it. Because I mean, with men it's not a big deal. I mean, you know men can have less hair on their head. You know some women prefer men that have shaved heads. It's like a thing you know. But with women it's just so traumatizing. You feel like you've lost their identity and your, your ability to be confident.
Speaker 1:I remember women bullying me, so to speak, because I cause they knew I was subconscious about that.
Speaker 1:I remember one day I walked into a doctor's office and I had a treat to give away, but I wanted to give it away to the lady that I needed to talk to.
Speaker 1:It was like my way to get her attention, like it's like, oh, tell her to come on, I got a donut for her or whatever. And the girl that was wanting to go get her, she wanted something too. And I was just like, oh, I'm so sorry, like my budget is low this month and I had at the time, a huge gap right here. Like my hair was see-through right here and I didn't hide it that day. And she started doing this and she was staring at it and drawing a lot of attention to it to make me feel uncomfortable, to punish me because I wasn't doing what she wanted me to do. And I remember thinking to her like what you don't know is that I'm growing it back. I would love to give women that opportunity to have that in their arsenal and to, you know, to not feel so ashamed and debilitated by the condition. That's where I'm going next, just spreading out that message of hope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I mean, women do tie in their sensuality to their hair, don't they? I mean, look at me, I just don't care. You know, I've been receding for about I don't know 13 years. I'm just not bothered at all. You know, I've got, I've got a couple of nephews, but actually got less hair than me and well, certainly the older one. It definitely bothers him and he's been talking about getting transplants and all sorts and, uh, I always offer him my, my clippers, because then you just don't have to worry about it, right, just just get rid of it. Yeah, and I recently had a conversation with a woman that always offering my clippers, because then you just don't have to worry about it, right, just get rid of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I recently had a conversation with a woman that is on a mission to empower other women to feel free to cut off their hair. She's African-American and she cut off all her hair and then she just did the hyperpigmentation therapy and she's like it's so liberating and I was just like, yeah, I respect that she's going down that route. I know firsthand that it's not easy to deal with hair. Sometimes it's especially with my type of hair or African-American hair it almost can be a job trying to make it look good and doing all these things. So I kind of get where she's coming from and I applaud her for being brave in her own way, wanting to go down that route. You know, but it looks good on her.
Speaker 1:It just doesn't look good on, I would say, most women, you know. So that's the thing, like if it looks good on you and you feel comfortable with it, you know that's the more power to you, you know the one less thing to spend money on. But but if you, if you're a woman, like for most of us, it doesn't look good. And and you know there's just other things to take into consideration with estrogen based cancers, right, if you have estrogen dominance, and that's the reason why your hair is falling out. Look into it, because maybe you're at risk for, you know, estrogen based cancers or there's different things that are. And plus, when people are working on that, especially, let's say, with the acne thing too, maybe they're noticing that not just that one problem is resolved, but their libido comes back and they're able to lose weight and their mood is better. So there's a lot of benefits for exploring and investing in the health in that area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. There's a lot of benefits for exploring and investing in the health in that area. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. In my, in my acne book there's a whole chapter on, uh, the side effects of the medications that are often used for acne, and at the end of the chapter I say, for complete transparency, I have to admit my clients have told me they get side effects from my program too. They include weight loss, more energy, sleep better, no food cravings, you know, and there's a whole long list of other things that they've reported to me that you know.
Speaker 2:And you know what I have a saying that health and disease cannot live in the same body, right? So if you optimize your health, you know, I firmly believe, if you optimize your health, you can't be, you can't be diseased, you can't be unhealthy, right? You can't have health and unhealth at the same time, right, right, and yeah, and any symptom is just a sign that your body is out of balance in some way and that you need to take part, you need to correct it, and only you can do that.
Speaker 1:No one can do it for you. Putting it back in the person's hands is the best gift we can give anyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And where can people find you online?
Speaker 1:Just to remind the listeners again. Yeah, well, actually I have a Facebook group if they're interested in joining that. It's called Reversing Hair Loss, naturally. So I do go live in there once a week answering community questions and I'm always posting in there and people are asking questions and besides that, there is my website, of course. So there's a blog there, there's a quiz, there's opportunities to work with me, whether it's the symptoms, the coding session that I was talking about, or the whole root cause resolution roadmap, whatever the case may be, either one of those are a good way to start getting some more information and having a conversation with me. Having a conversation with me. But, yeah, I would feel honored to support your listeners, endeavors and speaking healthier lifestyles in whatever way that I can.
Speaker 2:Awesome, great, and yeah, I'll make sure that those links are in the show notes as well. Awesome, cyril. Thank you so much. It's been really enjoyable. I love the way you tell stories as well. It's not only just been educational, but it's been entertaining as well at the same time. So thanks very much for your time oh, my pleasure.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you enjoyed them. It was. It was such an honor to share the mic with you. Thank you for allowing me to pour into your audience and I hope that, if anything, at least the people that are listening to this can walk away with that understanding that, wow, there's hope. That would be the biggest blessing to be able to have people understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great message to end on that there's hope. So that's all from Surreal and me for this week, but don't forget to join me same time, same place next week on the Radical Health Rebel Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Remember to give the show a rating and a review and I'll see you next time.
