Naturopathic Beauty's Clear Skin Sessions
Clear skin and aging beautifully conversations, trainings and challenges by Dr. Stacey Shillington ND.
Naturopathic Beauty's Clear Skin Sessions
The Power of Functional Medicine Testing for Clear Skin with Dr. Stacey Shillington ND
Ever wondered why your acne treatments just aren't working? Tune in to uncover how advanced functional medicine lab tests can revolutionize your skincare routine. In this episode of Naturopathic Beauty's Clear Skin Sessions, Dr. Stacey Shillington, a seasoned naturopathic doctor with 18 years of experience, reveals the hidden root causes of chronic acne that conventional methods often miss. From hormonal imbalances to gut issues and mold toxicity, discover how personalized testing like blood work and GI mapping can provide actionable insights for targeted and effective treatments. This isn't just about clear skin—it's about optimizing your overall health.
Dr. Shillington also dives into the vital role of functional medicine testing in tackling gut infections, nutrient deficiencies, and thyroid imbalances. Learn why customized consultations are crucial for determining the right tests and protocols for your unique health needs. And the best part? These comprehensive solutions are made accessible and affordable, so you don't have to break the bank to achieve lasting skin clarity and well-being. Don't miss this episode filled with invaluable information that could transform your approach to both skincare and health.
Check out my new FREE Training: Clear Skin Mastery, where I share the different types of acne and how to treat each one. Click here to watch it now.
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Welcome to Naturopathic Beauty's Clear Skin Sessions, where we heal your acne from the inside out. Hello, beauties, and welcome to the Clear Skin Sessions. I'm Dr Stacey Shillington, a naturopathic doctor. I'm really excited about this podcast, because this podcast is going to teach you a little bit about the functional medicine lab testing that I do as part of my one-on-one advanced clear skin program. So functional medicine lab testing is at the root of my program and really it should be at the root of any healthcare program, because we have advanced testing now that is able to help us determine what is going on at the root of any issue, any chronic health problem, and when we understand what's actually going on, then we can put together a protocol that's very specific in how it addresses the root causes. So functional lab testing is amazing. When I first started working as a naturopathic doctor 18 years ago, we did not have the same testing that we do now, and I will tell you that the new testing that's been available for quite a few years now has actually changed the face of the way that we treat and heal people. And I want to share this testing with you because if you're having a hard time with acne, if you've been suffering with chronic acne. Utilizing this testing is going to really help you discover the root cause of your acne and solve it faster. And not only are you just going to really help you discover the root cause of your acne and solve it faster. And not only are you just going to solve your acne, but you're going to solve any other accompanying symptoms, whether it's hormonal symptoms such as PMS, painful periods, pcos, even gut issues such as constipation, diarrhea, energy issues, nervous system issues. This testing really is very valuable and I want you to know about it.
Speaker 1:So when I welcome a person into my one-on-one advanced clear skin program, the first thing that we always do is we do a full intake. We understand your health history, symptoms, what you've been going through, what different things that you've tried on your clear skin journey, and based on that, we determine the best testing for you. So we don't always do the same testing with everybody. However, it's usually fairly similar because I have to admit I do have my favorite tests that are very actionable, but some people may have more GI symptoms than other people. Some people we may suspect there's a mold toxicity. Other people we may be like, okay, well, there's definitely a thyroid issue, maybe there's some PCOS and we do testing that specific based on the patient's symptoms. So it's very important that you have a consult with a healthcare practitioner prior to doing testing so that they are administering the correct test to you.
Speaker 1:I do have my favorite tests and after years of helping women heal acne, I do have an idea of what may be going on, depending on how their acne is presenting all their symptoms. So I do have an idea, but the testing always confirms it and often the testing will surprise me as well. You know I will be thinking, okay, this person probably has mold toxicity. And then I'll be surprised and I'll learn that no, that's not it, it's all. It's something else and if I hadn't done the testing, I wouldn't be able to treat them appropriately. And I think that's really important to understand, because even somebody like myself, a trained naturopathic doctor that's been licensed and practicing for 18 years I've worked with thousands of patients I'm still sometimes surprised by test results and I would never trust your health to somebody that's not doing testing, that's not doing individualized testing and exploring all the different avenues, because if you've been chronically ill for a long period of time, there's something going on, there is a root cause and if the normal protocols are not helping you, we have to do some investigations. So there are some tests that I really love, and my top tests are blood work.
Speaker 1:Of course, blood work is essential. There is nothing like blood work to really understand the different organ systems in your body that are being affected, and when I do blood work, it's always using functional medicine lab ranges. So often, if you get your blood work done with your doctor, your doctor will take a look at your blood work and tell you everything's normal Most of the time. That's the truth for acne patients, because most acne patients are young, they're quite vital and so a lot of their blood work numbers are going to be within the typical normal range. However, when myself and my team look at blood work, we're looking at the functional medicine reference range. It's a much narrower range, and by utilizing this range we're able to determine where there's anomalies in the blood work, where some areas of the body can be optimized. So we're always looking at optimizing health. We don't just want you to fall in the normal reference range, because these reference ranges are based on people that are sick. We want you to fall within the reference range of healthy people. So blood work is definitely a gold standard testing methodology that we use with all our patients. It's definitely great to look at the complete blood count, see what's going on with your immune cells, with your red blood cells, with your ferritin and your iron levels. Taking a look at hormones, we want to see your free testosterone levels, dht, dheas, which is an adrenal and a stress marker. I'm going to do a podcast just on functional medicine blood work at some point to go over some of these parameters in a little bit more detail with you. But just know, functional medicine blood work is potentially life-changing. We've picked up so many great clues for our patients by doing blood work and it really does change the way that we treat our patients.
Speaker 1:The second test that I really love is a GI mapping test, and this test is really super close to my heart. I really run it on all my patients because the gut and the skin are so very closely related and I truly believe if you're healing acne without doing a GI mapping test, you are going to be chasing your tail a little bit and you are not going to be able to get the long-term results that you really require. So the GI mapping testing really gives us a look at your microbiome and that is what we need to assess in order to really get clear skin. So it's going to tell me if there's any pathogens, if there's any bacterial overgrowth, viral overgrowth, parasites, protozoa. It's also going to let me know what's going on with your beneficial bacteria. So for many of my patients, they not only have overgrowth, but they have deficiency in beneficial bacteria, and that absolutely needs to be addressed as well. Then it also shows me intestinal health markers, so how you're actually digesting your food. This is important to know. Also, if there's any gluten sensitivity, this is also very important to know. So there's many different clues that I get, and one of the most important things about the GI mapping is that it tells me about specific strains. So if I see an overgrowth in Klebsiella, for instance, I'm going to use different herbs than if I see an overgrowth in Citrobacter or Pseudomonas or M morganella or staph or strep. So I really have to understand what strains of bacteria are potentially overgrown in order to do a proper antimicrobial treatment.
Speaker 1:So the other test that I use very often is organic acid testing. Now, where the GI map testing really shows me what's going on in your gut, the organic acid test gives me a more systemic picture, and one of the reasons I really love this test is because it lets me know if there's yeast or mold overgrowth, and this is so important to properly treat chronic acne, especially if patients are very sensitive. It also gives me a look at your mitochondrial function, fatty acid metabolism, your neurotransmitters, your nutritional status, toxicity, your amino acid metabolism. It gives me insight into so many different functions in your body that often I'm able to identify certain things that are going on in your physiology, deep within your metabolism, and when we support those functions, we're able to really make a big change in how your body is functioning.
Speaker 1:Another test that we really like to do we don't do it as often as the other tests is the Dutch test, and the Dutch test is a hormone test that utilizes urine and saliva, and the one reason that I well, there's a few reasons why I really love this test, but one of them is because it shows me how estrogen is metabolizing, and this is super important because often estrogen detoxification has to be supported when acne is present, but different supplements are utilized depending on what metabolism looks like, so this is really important. The Dutch test will also show me methylation and sulfation. It will show me different phase two detoxification pathways and whether they need support or not. And then the Dutch test also gives us a complete overview of the adrenal glands of cortisol metabolism of cortisol levels overview of the adrenal glands of cortisol metabolism of cortisol levels. So we can assess if your cortisol levels are elevated or if they're low, because that is going to really affect the way that we treat your acne as well.
Speaker 1:And then there's also the mycotoxin test. I really like doing the mycotoxin test If on the oat test there has been mold exposure. This just gives us insight into which mycotoxins are present, at what levels, and it can direct our treatment a little bit further. So these are the main tests that we look at. There's other testing as well that's always available for us, depending on the patient's individual situation. But I highly recommend you to work with a practitioner that's well-versed in reading these tests, so that we can fully understand what's going on in your body and we can treat it properly in a step-by-step manner to get you the very best results in the shortest period of time.
Speaker 1:And I do want to mention here that often when we are healing the body this way, when we are taking a look at all the different factors that are contributing to acne. It does take time to heal. It's not a quick fix, especially if there's a lot of deep infections, especially if we see candida, we see mold, we see bacterial overgrowth, we see H pylori. When we see those types of things, we know that it's going to be a couple months at least, sometimes six months, to really get the body back to where it needs to be. But when you think about it, six months isn't that long to fully revitalize your body and to get your body to a place of optimal health, not only where you feel amazing, but your skin also looks amazing.
Speaker 1:So then there's also tests that I don't really love that much, and one of the tests that I don't love at all is the HTMA test, the hair tissue mineral analysis test. So I have tried to work with this test many times. I've read books on it, I've taken courses on it and you know, I know a lot of practitioners out there use this test and it's a very inexpensive test to run. You know, it's less than a hundred dollars whereas some of these other tests are more expensive. But the results are incredibly vague. They're like well, there may be hypothyroidism. There may be you know cortisol elevation, there may be this, there may be that, and there is controversy as well in terms of what the sample is like if the hair has been washed, if it's not been washed. There's too much controversy, there's too much vagueness in the results for me to feel really comfortable using it.
Speaker 1:I'm used to testing that gives me very specific results. I'm used to seeing exact levels of different strains that are overgrown and I'm used to seeing functional medicine thyroid lab ranges and when I see a test that's just vague, it just doesn't resonate with me because I have tools that give me very specific results. So that's probably why I'm not a huge fan of the HTMA, just because I can't get the specific results that I'm used to. So those are the tests. That how I feel about the basic. You know major functional medicine tests and overall I love testing and I think even doing an HTMA is better than doing no testing at all. But if you are going to do testing, I would go with the gold standard functional medicine testing that most regulated healthcare practitioners out there are using and a lot of people are using these tests and this means the reference ranges are just becoming better and better all the time, and our knowledge and our understanding is becoming better and better all the time, and our knowledge and our understanding is becoming better and better all the time, and also keeping an eye out for new tests that are coming out on the market as well. So what are some of the things that we miss if we don't do proper testing when we're treating chronic acne?
Speaker 1:So, when we're treating hormonal imbalances, it's very important that we understand the specific levels of hormones. If we treat hormones without testing, chances are pretty high that we could make a mistake and we could make hormones even worse. For instance, a lot of people think that chronic acne is a function of estrogen dominance, and this can be true many times. But when we actually do testing, we realize that estrogen dominance may actually increase, not be there. Instead, it could be low estrogen. It could very well happen. It could be low progesterone. It could be PCOS. We could take a look at the LH and the FSH levels. It can also be high androgens, such as high DHT, high free testosterone, high DHEAS or overactivation of the 5-alpha reductase enzyme. These are important things to know because if you're treating estrogen dominance without testing, chances are you could drive low estrogen levels even lower, and this is going to make somebody feel awful and it's not going to help acne at all. In fact, it's going to make it worse. So definitely test hormones before taking any hormone supplements at all.
Speaker 1:The other thing that we miss when we don't do testing are gut infections, and there's so many bacteria that I often see elevated H pylori, staph strep, pseudomonas, morganella, citrobacter, klebsiella. I also can see a lot of candida. I can see a lot of protozoa. I can also sometimes see parasites. However, I don't often see parasites. Usually I treat for parasites based on clinical symptoms because parasites are difficult to treat.
Speaker 1:But if you're not testing for gut infections, you don't necessarily know what you're treating and you can give a broad spectrum antibiotic herb which for some people will work well, but for other people it's not going to work because you need specific herbs to target specific organisms. For instance, if there's high Morganella, you have to use clove. There's little tips like that that are really important and you could be struggling for a long time. For instance, if you're treating for bacterial overgrowth but you actually have candida, there's things that you can use that are so specific for treating candida, and same with H pylori. There's things that you use that are specific for H pylori, and broad spectrum antimicrobial herbs are not necessarily going to give you the results that you need.
Speaker 1:The other thing that can be missed a lot if you don't do testing is deficiency dysbiosis. This is when the Bactrodetes and the Firmicutes strains are lower than we need them to be and we need to actually build up the phyla, build up the beneficial bacteria, in order to reduce inflammation in the gut. And then there's also keystone strains such as acromancia and Fecalibacterium, and we have to understand if those strains are low, because there is supplementation that we can do to really help boost these levels. The other thing that you're not going to know unless you do testing is gluten sensitivity. Now, true, you can just cut gluten out of your diet and I did that with my patients for many years, and it can really help a lot of people. But sometimes knowing that gluten is actually a problem is the impetus people need to actually take gluten out of their diet, and it's important to see. It's important to see in black and white that gluten is actually causing inflammation in your body.
Speaker 1:Another thing that we would miss if we didn't do this proper testing is nutritional deficiencies, and we see a lot of nutritional deficiencies when we do the blood work. We see a lot of nutritional deficiencies when we do organic acid testing and often certain nutritional deficiencies can give us a clue that maybe there's parasites or maybe there's a bacterial infection. So we take a look at all these numbers and it's like putting together pieces of a puzzle to really understand what's going on in the body. The other thing that we would miss are thyroid imbalances. We run a full thyroid panel on every single patient and we are often seeing thyroid imbalances. A lot of time we're seeing autoimmune thyroid conditions and when we know that's going on, we can take certain measures just to calm the fire initially, while we really treat the root cause of the issue and candida infections.
Speaker 1:So it's important to know if there's a candida infection in the body and this is one of the reasons why I really love doing the OAT test, because often the GI mapping test there's a candida infection in the body. This is one of the reasons why I really love doing the oat test, because often the GI mapping test will not show candida. Yet when we do the systemic test, which is the oat test, candida will appear. That's a really important thing to understand, because if there is candida, we have to treat it systemically. It has to be treated step by step and it does take a long period of time.
Speaker 1:And mold and mycotoxin infections often we see this in patients that are very sensitive and when we're seeing this in our patients, we need to really take a different approach with our very sensitive patients and we really have to manage expectations and allow these sensitive patients to know their treatment is going to take time. We have to go low and slow with these patients so we don't make them even sicker. This is really important Testing. If we don't do testing, we could miss a glutathione deficiency we see that a lot with our patients and toxicity exposure to different toxic elements we can see that a lot in our patients. And toxicity exposure to different toxic elements we can see that a lot in our patients. Something else we see is poor methylation we see that a lot in our patients poor fatty acid metabolism these are things you would never know existed if you didn't do the testing. And the other thing we can find out is if there's insufficient digestive enzymes or if fat is not being broken down properly, and this can be a big contributor to acne as well. So, as you can see, functional medicine testing is worth it If you are struggling with your health and you want to get to the root of it, if you're struggling with chronic acne.
Speaker 1:Doing this testing is going to give you so much insight into what is going on. It is going to help you on your clear skin journey. It's going to help us put together a very specific protocol for you to help you really achieve optimal health and clear your skin. So this is the work that I do and I love doing this work and I want you to know how very important this work is, because if we don't have our health, you know we don't have a lot. I know how much acne can really get in the way of our lives and by doing this work, you know it just frees you up so much. I've been there, I've suffered with chronic acne. I've done all this testing myself, I've done all this healing work myself and I still continue on this healing work because I'm always learning new things and I think that's the exciting thing about being in the healthcare space, especially right now. We are learning so much and a lot of this we're learning from each other too. We try different things. I was just at the biohacking conference and there are so many great technologies out there. There's so many brilliant minds that are coming up with fantastic inventions to help us achieve optimal health even easier and even faster. All right, so hopefully this has given you some insight into functional medicine testing and what it can do for you If you want to be part of my Advanced Clear Skin program, which is my one-on-one program.
Speaker 1:First of all, we meet with you, we understand your health history, we take a look at previous test results that have been taken in the last six months and, based on that information, we recommend the testing that we think is right for you. And then, right in that appointment, we put you on an initial protocol just to help things get ready for healing, because once we get those test results, we are starting to heal. So within four to six weeks we get the test results, we meet with you again, we put you on your initial protocol and we also let you know how much time we think it is going to take for you to heal. So my one-on-one program is six months. Many women heal within that six-month time frame.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to be honest If there's a lot of infections. If there's a lot going on, it's going to take longer than six months to heal, and we do our best. We give you everything that we know what to do and how to do, but we just can't rush the body's healing. So you know that, unfortunately, is the truth. It can take longer for some people, but you know what else are you going to do? Are you going to continue to suffer? Are you going to take steps to heal, even if it does take a couple months?
Speaker 1:So if you're interested in working with us, you can watch my masterclass and understand my strategy in more detail. You can book a call. And also, if functional medicine testing is not in your budget, I do have a group program that will introduce you to my healing strategy based on the results that I've seen over many years. So this is a general program. If you've been suffering with chronic acne for a very long time, you've tried all the things. Nothing's worked. You may just want to jump in and invest in the functional medicine testing Now. I've kept this program as affordable as I can.
Speaker 1:Functional medicine testing Now. I've kept this program as affordable as I can. It is expensive to run online programs, but I really want to keep it as affordable for people as possible. So hopefully this has shed some light for you on testing on how to heal your chronic acne. Chronic acne is a complex medical condition and when you dive into this testing and see what's going on in the body, you understand there's a lot going on. It's a complex medical condition. It's not something you want to play around with. It's not something you can likely heal yourself if you've been suffering with chronic acne for a long time. So, sending you lots of love, have a wonderful few weeks and I will be back with a new podcast episode soon. Have a long time. So, sending you lots of love, have a wonderful few weeks and I will be back with a new podcast episode soon. Have a great day.