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
Katie's Clear Skin Journey: How we healed her gut.
What happens when conventional medicine fails you and acne becomes the visible symptom of a much deeper health crisis? This raw, eye-opening conversation with Katie reveals the hidden connections between gut health, hormones, and persistent skin problems that dermatologists rarely address.
Katie's journey begins with a single cyst that erupts into years of suffering after a prescription for doxycycline triggers cascading health problems – severe digestive distress, hormonal chaos, and debilitating fatigue that halts her life and career plans. For four years, she navigates the frustrating maze of specialist appointments, inconclusive tests, and treatments that only provide temporary relief while the root causes remain unaddressed.
The turning point comes when Katie discovers naturopathic medicine and eventually connects with Dr. Stacey Shillington's targeted approach for acne patients. Through comprehensive testing that reveals bacterial overgrowth, parasites, and microbiome disruption, Katie finally finds answers to her mysterious symptoms. The episode delivers fascinating insights into how seemingly unrelated issues – from food sensitivities to nervous system dysregulation – directly impact skin health, and how healing must address these foundational imbalances rather than simply suppressing symptoms.
Most powerfully, Katie shares her transformation from patient to future naturopathic doctor, driven by her own healing experience to help others avoid years of unnecessary suffering. Her story offers hope and practical wisdom for anyone battling chronic skin issues who suspects there might be more happening beneath the surface than conventional medicine recognizes. If you've tried "everything" for your acne without success, this episode illuminates a different path to clear skin and vibrant 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. I'm a naturopathic doctor.
Speaker 1:For the last 18 years, I've been helping women heal their acne from the inside out from the inside out and I'm really excited about this session today because I am going to invite one of my patients onto the podcast and she is going to share her clear skin journey and I think this is really important for you guys to hear, because I know so many of you out there right now are suffering with acne. You've tried so many different things and you feel lost, and Katie is going to share what she went through, how she ended up solving her acne, and hopefully this will inspire you guys to just really dig in, understand the root cause of your acne so that you can really embark upon your healing journey as soon as possible and get your skin clear and get your health back. So, without further ado, katie, welcome so much to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, dr Stacey. I'm so excited to be on the podcast and I'm really excited to share my story with anyone who's suffering with acne or anybody who's just having a terrible time with their health. I just want them to know that you don't have to suffer for years like I did. There's help out there and it's going to be okay and there is definitely a way through naturopathic medicine. But I just want to give some some sorry, I lost my train of thought, so I just want to start with where my health was prior to having health issues. So, basically, my health issues started in 2020. It was the end of 2020, and I was 24, almost 25. And I was 24, almost 25.
Speaker 2:But prior to that, I really had had great health. I didn't have any problems. Sometimes on my blood work I would come up with low vitamin B12 or whatnot, but there weren't really any problems and I was healthy and I was fine and I had some of the best looking skin ever. I was completely clear. I was still a hormonal young woman and I still got some pimples here and there, but overall I was healthy. But I remember in December of 2020, right before Christmas, I had this huge blind cyst that popped up on my chin and I'd never had anything like it and it was super painful and I didn't know what to do and I just put heat and salve on it and I was like, oh, it's going to go away, it's just a one-time thing. But little did I know. No, it was not.
Speaker 1:And so did you have any other symptoms that came up with this one blind cyst, or it was just this cyst on its own that came up?
Speaker 2:It was just the cyst on its own that came up, and it was really odd because I also started to notice I would get these I don't even know what to classify them as like these water-filled bumps above my eyebrows, and I would just have to apply some heat and they would go away, but those were like the only things that were happening. I was just getting a blind zit and some bumps that I didn't know what they were and I would heat them and they'd go away and that was it, but nothing like internal at that point in time. Okay, but by the end of January 2021, my entire chin was just covered in these bumps that weren't really surfacing and it was just all over my chin and it really hit at my confidence and I just felt really self-conscious of it. And so I grew up in a family where my dad's a doctor and my mom was a nurse, so the most natural thing for me to do was to just go to the dermatologist, which is what I did, and the dermatologist put me on the antibiotic doxycycline and within about a week of taking that, I ended up having to go to the emergency room for fecal impaction and urinary retention, and because that happened. I ended up consulting the dermatologist and she told me she did not feel that the impaction and the retention were caused by the antibiotic, doxycycline. So I was instructed to retake the antibiotic. So I was instructed to retake the antibiotic. So I ended up retaking the antibiotic and I only lasted like a little bit less than a month retaking it and that's when the stomach issues really started.
Speaker 2:I was dubbed over in stomach pain. It hurts so badly to just eat, so eating was just it was. It was a hassle for me. I hated to eat and I started to really hate food and I had a really hard time eating fruit. I could not stomach fruit, it just burned and my stomach was burning all the time. I was nauseated, I was bloated, there was gas. I just felt so terrible and I ended up developing more GI symptoms. I would have diarrhea like three to five times a day, which was just embarrassing. I felt like I was living in the bathroom and that was really the GI fallout after the doxycycline. I fall out after the doxycycline and so I stopped.
Speaker 1:And I want to mention that you know doxycycline is a very, very common acne medication. It's prescribed to so many people with acne and it can be really damaging to the gut. So you know, I don't know if anybody else out there has taken doxycycline and then experienced stomach symptoms, but this is this can absolutely happen. Yeah, Go on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what was. What was definitely upsetting to me was that I ended up seeing a different dermatologist later on who actually told me that one in four patients will fail doxycycline. So I actually shouldn't have been instructed to restart it because I was showing failure on it at that point with the stomach issues that had arisen with the impaction, so I should have not gone on it. But I didn't know that at the time and so after lasting about a month on it again, I stopped it. I was also using topical adapalene on my skin and Dr Stacey's seen just how sensitive my skin is, I'm probably one of the most sensitive people and I really don't tolerate products or topicals at all. My skin does not like it. I get eczema to pretty much everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, when the stomach is really sensitive, it's not surprising when the skin's really sensitive as well, because the connection between the gut and the skin is the microbiome, and if the microbiome and the gut has been disrupted, the microbiome in the skin is going to be disrupted and your skin is just going to have heightened sensitivity. So you know that's that's a big correlation.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I was definitely seeing a lot of the skin sensitivity and I was trying to moisturize my skin from the adapalene because it had started to dry me out and I started to see like striations where skin should be healing and so it looked like it was starting to scar places I had had things pop or I picked at, and so at that point when I was trying to moisturize, I was getting I reacted to CeraVe cream. That was like the first thing I tried and that's the most common thing a derm will tell you to use is CeraVe cream and it just turned my face and neck orange. I just looked orange from the eczema reaction to that. So at that point I was just really struggling with the topical part as well, because there was really nothing I could do. So I just decided to let my body see if it could heal itself, take a break. So unfortunately, things just started to get worse and the next symptom to start was the menstrual problems. I had such bad menstrual issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean this is a good thing to know. If you have health problems, often we need to step in and we need to heal the body. The body is a miraculous organism and it will heal itself beautifully, but sometimes we need to give it what it needs to heal and we take away things that are inflaming the body. So you know we need to be proactive when it comes to healing, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the so the menstrual issues were terrible. I would be in so much pain when I would get my period and I would just literally fall asleep from how much pain I was in just from clutching my body and it felt like my periods would be trying to start. But there's this weird sensation where I felt like I was getting it, but it would not start and it would not let down. And I tried everything. I tried heating pads, and I tried everything. I tried heating pads, epsom salt baths, I took Motrin and it was just a nightmare for me and I'd always had regular periods up to this point, but I was starting to get a bit of irregularity and unpredictability, so anywhere between 24 to 30 day cycles, and I just couldn't predict it in that time span anymore, and so it was just really stressful, not knowing you know what was happening in my body, and I was just starting to see issue after issue arise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and I just want to know that, when you're experiencing hormonal issues and I know so many women with acne do have menstrual issues, and you know often they wonder how those menstrual issues arose. And I think what happened to you is a really good illustration of that, because first you have the gut that starts to break down and there's a lot of inflammation that's going on in the gut and it's that inflammation that is going to start to impact the levels of hormone. So you know it's there's a direct correlation between the gut and the hormones. So you know it's there's a direct correlation between the gut and the hormones. So you know, when we go into balanced hormones, we want to heal the gut first. That's always the first step.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it was around this time I ended up seeing so fast forward a few months. It's about September of 2021. I end up having a hemorrhagic ovarian cyst rupture. I see an OBGYN.
Speaker 2:The OBGYN was reviewing the blood work that I had done with my dermatologist and it pretty much showed the same trends that I had actually known that I'd had in my teenage years. So I was someone who had a history of an elevated prolactin and an elevated DHEA sulfate. So basically, even in my teenage years, I had been checked for. If you have a high prolactin, you're going to get checked for the possibility of a pituitary adenoma or a microadenoma, which is just a benign tumor that sits on the pituitary and you get excess hormones secreted. So I'd been checked for that in the past when I was younger. But I'd seen that hormone really high again during all this acne experience, this acne journey. So the prolactin was a problem, the DHEA sulfate was a problem, but at that point the OBGYN had just ruled out endometriosis and he said to me I can offer you birth control for the elevated hormones. And I'm thinking, yeah, I'm not taking another prescription after what happened with the doxycycline. I just I can't mentally deal with that. I think one of the hardest things when you go to the doctor is deal with that. I think one of the hardest things when you go to the doctor is you know it sounds so simple oh, I went to the OBGYN. But just the emotional side of all of this, where you're struggling so much and your entire day is disrupted, you know, like just the GI issues, the hormonal issues, my whole life was getting very, very disrupted and I was just so afraid that if I took another pharmaceutical I didn't even know what could get worse. I mean, because I knew it could get very worse after my experience with the doxycycline. So I just was very afraid and I just decided that was not for me. And you know, I'd had scans from um, my endocrinologist as well. So I had done a lot of scans later on that had ruled a lot of conditions out. So because I was ruling medical conditions out, I just didn't see the need to take a pharmaceutical if I didn't really know what was going on.
Speaker 2:But at this point I kind of was fed up with the allopathic mindset of just taking a prescription because it wasn't helping me and so the acne had gone through phases of clearing itself up. So at that time, the acne had actually cleared up. I had pretty much hand extracted everything on my face, which I would not recommend. It was painful and I mean, thankfully I didn't scar anything, but I did get a lot of pigment that I had to heal after that. So basically, I fast forward to March of 2022. And this is where I was actually out to lunch with my mom at a local restaurant in our area and there had been a pamphlet for a naturopathic physician and so my mom picked it uplet for a naturopathic physician. And so my mom picked it up and she was like I think we should give this a shot. And I was like I've got nothing else to lose. Like what, what else? What else do I do at this point?
Speaker 1:And I mean things were getting worse. Exactly that's exactly what happened to me too. You know you're just at the end of your rope. You know the the conventional medical model is not helping. So that's when I found naturopathic medicine as well, and I know so many women have the exact same experience that we had too. We're just not being helped.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think the worst symptom for me at this point in time was the fatigue. I was so tired I was working as a medical scribe at the time and I was just exhausted all the time and I could not move myself from the couch when I'd come home from work up to my bed. It was just, it was all. It took all of my effort just to do that. It was just so debilitating. I felt debilitated. I wouldn't even want to eat dinner. I just want to come home and sleep. That's all I wanted. And I had these feelings.
Speaker 2:It was very hard to just stand for long periods of time. I constantly felt like I was just going to collapse and go down. I was always dizzy and that was really scary because I couldn't really exercise and walking was like you know, it was like running a marathon for me. So that was very frightening to me. So, because things were bad enough, I was like, yeah, I'm going to see a naturopathic physician and give this a shot. And that doctor her name is Dr Jennifer Hampton.
Speaker 2:She was back home in Pennsylvania and I decided that I would give it a shot and she started with my hormones. So that was really where she started things, and she started with the most obvious things, which were the prolactin and the DHEA sulfate, and so she tried to inhibit prolactin production using a dopamine assist capsule, because dopamine inhibits prolactin production, and she had given me magnesium to increase the dopamine production, and she also gave me chase tree berry, which she said would help me with the DHEA sulfate, and then she had also given me a probiotic for the gut and she also gave me a list of herbal teas to include. I remember doing dandelion root and chamomile and raspberry leaf, and there were a few more. I also did spearmint with her, and that's all I can remember off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:And I'm listening to this prescription and I think that this prescription would be excellent, you know, for a person that doesn't have extreme acne. But you know, one of the herbs that I really want to caution people against taking when they have a lot of acne is vitex chase tree, because you know I will never run. You know um prescribed chase tree because you know I will never run. You know um prescribed chase tree until I've run certain hormone levels, specifically LH and FSH levels. If your LH is high, chase tree is just going to make your acne worse. So, you know, women with acne definitely need special consideration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I was instructed to see an endocrinologist, which I did. I saw an endocrinologist and I ended up being put on Synthroid, which I ended up experiencing heart palpitations around this time and I thought it was the Synthroid, but it ended up not being the Synthroid, but there were so many symptoms I just was like, oh well, synthroid's the newest thing, so maybe it's causing this now. But I did get put on the Synthroid and the endocrinologist had ordered a CT scan for my adrenals to make sure I didn't have any benign tumors in the adrenal glands that could be causing that elevated DHEA sulfate. And at some point during this process I did a repeat MRI to make sure there was no pituitary adenoma present, and so all of my scans were coming back clear. I did ultrasounds for the bladder and the pelvis to make sure that I didn't have any cysts on my ovaries and just to see how those things were doing as a result of my history, and the scans were coming back that everything was okay. So at this point, I had actually been applying for graduate school and I had to defer graduate school because of my health, and so I deferred. Instead of starting in September of 2022, I deferred until the spring of 2023 and I was moving to Arizona.
Speaker 2:So when I moved to Arizona in March of 2023, I started to see a naturopathic physician here and I would say that this is when things did start to take a more positive direction and that physician had ordered a gut sensitivity test. So the food sensitivity tests I think it's like 94 common foods that they test to see if you're sensitive to. I did that and I did come back sensitive to a lot of the foods on that list and I was instructed any foods that I came up highly or moderatively sensitive to to eliminate for 90 days, which I did end up doing. I ended up doing it more than 90 days, but I did do that with this new physician that I had. I ended up getting a SIBO breath test, which did show that I had SIBO, and then I ended up doing a complete stool analysis as well, which had showed that my good bacteria was very low. So these were all the starting points for my treatment with this new naturopathic physician that I was seeing. So, basically, where she started me was do the diet, do the elimination diet for the foods you're sensitive to? I did SIBO herbs, which I ended up doing somewhere between six to nine months. Those are the despiicide and the FC-Cytol. And then I did take a probiotic to replenish the good bacteria. But also I did show signs of leaky gut so I did leaky gut powders. So I did SBI powder, so secretory IGAs, and then I also did like a it was the ortho molecular brand of the Glutishield, which I think has vitamin A, zinc, glutamine. I think it has licorice root, so I did those powders.
Speaker 2:I'd gotten switched on to desiccated thyroid hormone. At this point in time I was very resistant to take bromocriptine for the high prolactin levels, which is a pharmaceutical, but my doctor had insisted. So I relented and took the bromocriptine, which I ended up later realizing it was causing a lot of brain fog for me. So I really just did not like that drug at all and I ended up doing a lot of supplements. I had a multivitamin, I had omega-3 capsules, I had calcium magnesium, I had an adrenatone capsule by Designs for Health which had a lot of B vitamins in it and it has ashwagandha. I ended up taking a separate ashwagandha capsule. I mean I shouldn't have been taking the ashwagandha. Dr Stacey has taught me that that's not a good thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, acne patients are very sensitive. There's a lot of things that can actually make acne worse, and these are supplements that really work for a lot of other people that don't have acne. But when acne is present, oh, you have to be so gentle with the body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of my supplements that I was taking, especially like the adrenatone that's full of B vitamins. And then I was taking a B12 capsule, which we know excess B12 worsens acne. Taking a B12 capsule, which we know excess B12 worsens acne, so I was also taking I can't even remember what was in them because one of the doctors in the practice he had created his own supplement line so I was taking. He had these things called stress packs. I know one of them had GABA, one of them had lemon balm, but you know, I was just I was taking so many supplements that I actually felt overwhelmed. I think I was on all these supplements for around nine months and I actually felt supplement overwhelmed.
Speaker 2:My stomach started to hurt from the number of supplements I was taking and I also was getting nutrient IVs and IV iron at the time because I was told that I had anemia. So at this point in time I knew hypothyroidism, anemia, the SIBO and all the gut issues and they told me dysmenorrhea. So yeah, so those were basically the conditions that I was dealing with at this time and that was all that I did with that doctor. But I was sort of getting, I was getting fed up as a patient because I would feel like I was almost doing what the allopathic route was doing. I actually felt that in naturopathic medicine, doing what I was doing, I was bandaging things, so like I would get the IV iron and I would feel fantastic. I would have so much energy like a few days later after it. But then I'd crash and the stomach was better. I was really happy that I was starting to be able to tolerate more foods. That was the biggest takeaway from that for me is that I could eat food now and it wasn't painful. So I'd solved that part of the equation where I wasn't in pain to eat anymore.
Speaker 2:But I was just getting fed up because, yes, the acne was purging but there were still acne issues and I had tried topical spironolactone, but that did not work for me. It didn't do anything except create a rash on my skin and I don't even know why I tried the topical at that point, because I tried so many and nothing had worked. But I did get a rash from that and at one point during this process the doctor had recommended an esthetician to me. So I went to an esthetician and I started to use face reality products to wash my face. They have a cleanser and they had a cran peptide moisturizer. So I was using their products and that was helping, and I was doing enzyme masks and things seemed to be okay. Those were helping, or giving me a bit of an emotional help, I think, more than a physical one.
Speaker 2:But during this process I actually really struggled to wash my face because I was so sensitive to products. And then I ended up being given an SPF at the esthetician and that was when I had a major eczema reaction. It took a month for this eczema reaction to clear, so my entire face was just red and irritated. And so then started that internal battle of again where I was like, oh my God, I'm so afraid to wash my face. Um, yeah.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:Katie, I'm listening to your story and it's just like my gut is just like wrenching, because you've been through so much like and I know you're not alone. I know so many women listening to this are are understanding what you're saying, cause they've been going through the same thing, like it's just one thing after another.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's. It's so sad because you know, I'll say to somebody like, oh, it was so hard to wash my face and if they didn't have that struggle, they almost don't know how that feels. But like my mom said to me once, she's like oh my gosh, your acne, it looks so clear. I'm like no, mom, you do not understand, I can't wash my face. There's so much dead skin piled on my face. It what I was allergic to and I just ended up coming back allergic to, honestly, pretty much everything. There's only one surfactant that I'm not allergic to, so I carry my own hand soap and there's only one soap brand that I found on the market that I can buy for, like hand soap and body wash, that I'm not going to react to. And the dermatologist explained it to me like this Once I fill my cup, I get an eczema reaction.
Speaker 2:So if I wash my hands with something that, yeah sure I'm allergic to, I'm not going to get eczema right away. Once my body has decided, oh, we've had so much of this toxin, yeah, we're upset, we're going to produce an eczema reaction. So it's very much like that for me. But obviously I'd like to avoid an eczema reaction. So I had to like change my hair products. I wasn't washing my hair with conditioner for the longest time because they all have. A lot of them have essential oils in them. A lot of them have so many things that I'm allergic to, so it was just washing my hair and my face were such a hassle.
Speaker 1:And I want to point out that acne patients were very poor detoxifiers in general. In the 20 years that I've been doing this, I can not remember a single patient that was a great detoxifier. So you know, we really need to support the pathways of detoxification, you know, so that you don't exceed that toxic threshold and just start, you know, expressing all this toxic overload through your skin.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So at this point in time I was pretty much growing exhausted with the naturopathic route, just because I kind of felt like, other than eliminating the stomach pain and being able to eat foods which I was super grateful for I did feel like, yes, I had purged a lot of the big pustules that I'd had and I was super grateful that that came about. But I started to notice it starting up again. So I was just becoming so frustrated. I was taking like I don't even know 20 capsules of stuff a day and I just had hit my limit mentally, where I was like I just can't keep taking this anymore. You know, I try to be as regimented as possible. I really like discipline and structure, but it was just getting to be emotionally too much and physically too much. So I just took myself off of everything. At that point I was like I'm done, I'm done. And the doctor the naturopathic doctor I was seeing at that point wanted to give me Xifaxin for SIBO and I was really against that. I did not want to take an antibiotic and I was like, okay, what if we explore other things? At this point in time I'd taken myself off the bromocriptine and I did realize the acne was flaring when I came off of that. So when I stopped the SIBO herbs and the bromocriptine, specifically, the acne flared and I was like bromocriptine, specifically the acne flared and I was like, okay, let's just try a few new things.
Speaker 2:At this point in time I was convinced that I had parasites and I just felt I had a lot of the symptoms. So teeth grinding, I have swallowed a piece of my retainer because I've ground out pieces of my retainer and I'm not happy to have swallowed it in my sleep, but I've done that and you know, rectal itching, um acne on the body. So I have had areas of my back and my butt get acne and even sometimes my arms, and so I was definitely seeing the symptoms of parasites. And I just decided at this point, like you know, I asked my doctor can we do parasite testing? And I was like I don't even know if it's worth doing parasite testing because it's not very accurate. But I was so striving for just a direction. I was still so fatigued and so tired.
Speaker 2:I was in school at the time and I was just trying to get through school and I was, you know, I wanted, I wanted to get on in my life because this was very, very disruptive to my life. When you're at the doctor, you know, two times a week and that goes on for months, that's just. You know. My life was trying to heal myself and it was just. It was just clutching to get results. So I ended up doing a parasite test. I can't even remember which company I've used, but I did do a test. No shocker, it didn't come up positive for parasites and at that point it came up positive for candida. So then I ended up taking the. Is it pronounced Saccharomonas filardi? I'm going to probably pronounce it wrong Saccharomonas boulardii. I'm going to probably pronounce it wrong.
Speaker 2:Saccharomyces, yeah, yeah. So I ended up taking that probiotic for candida and this, honestly, this all took me to about March, april of 2024 of this year and I was just so. I was so over it at that point, like because the acne was coming back and so I was like it's going to get worse, like I hadn't seen it fully flare as bad as it had in the past. But I was like I'm headed that way, I know I'm headed that way. And that's when I had found you, because I was researching on YouTube acne and parasites and I found your video. I think it was like a six-year-old video and I was like, oh my gosh, like this has been here for like six years and I'm just getting some old videos of mine on YouTube and some are a little cringy, but they're there, yeah.
Speaker 2:They're so good, they're so good. I've watched a bunch of them, they're so helpful. And so then, because I found your video and then went to your website and I was like debating, I was like do I do this? And then I was like you know, I had that gut feeling I don't know, like I just don't know what to do. And at this point I was like just go take spironolactone. Because there was a point in this process where I was offered spironolactone and I literally held the prescription bottle in my hand and just could not make myself take it.
Speaker 2:But I found you and I did the clear skin program and you know I just got to the end of my six months doing this program and what you have in the program has truly worked for me and I am a patient who does require longer than six months to heal. My body is slow and it's you know it goes at its own rate. My body is just slower. It's you know it goes at its own rate. My body is just slower and I respect that. And you know I've made great progress in the past six months with you. We, we worked on the lymphatic drainage using the UNDA numbers, the homeopathic UNDA numbers and the diet that you had really worked for me with eliminating foods that are known to cause acne.
Speaker 2:I had obviously been dairy-free and gluten-free for years, but I never thought that that little teaspoon of maple syrup I was putting in was enough to disrupt my body, because my body was not in a state to be able to tolerate that. So I was using natural sugar. I wasn't really eating that much added sugar. I mean, there were times where I was don't get me wrong and I wasn't realizing it, but it wasn't all the time. I wasn't someone who was going to go out and get Dunkin' Donuts or McDonald's. I was a very healthy eater and I was very healthy prior to all of this and I was always conscious of what I was putting in my body. But yeah, you know eating I would always eat dates after dinner. Nope, shouldn't do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Sources of sugar and sometimes you think that natural sugar is okay because it's natural. But you know, sugar is sugar is sugar. Once it's in your body, it metabolizes the same.
Speaker 2:Yep, yes, sugar is sugar. Yeah, if I eat a grape or if I eat a candy bar, it's still sugar. So, yeah, so I was really doing things wrong with my diet that I did not realize. You know, I would start my day with a cup of bulletproof coffee and put oat milk in it, and you know I don't think I knew that, probably not.
Speaker 2:No, I got. I eliminated that at the beginning of the six months with you. I remember telling Holly like, oh my gosh, I love my, my coffee. And Holly was telling me, oh, you can still have your cup of coffee. And I'm like I think I need to eliminate it. I think it's bad for me. I think I think it's really. I don't think I tolerate coffee well, and coffee would make me very jittery, but I was so exhausted that I was surviving off of coffee. I genuinely, actually physically needed the coffee to just get myself functional.
Speaker 1:And it's a vicious cycle, because the more coffee you drink, the more overstimulating it is to your adrenal glands, the more fatiguing it is to your adrenal glands and you're just trapped in this cycle. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I just was like I'm one of those people I'm all in or I'm not. So there's just, there's no in between with me. I'm either going to do it and I'm all in or I'm not. So there's just I. There's no in between with me. I'm either going to do it and I'm going to really do it or I'm just not going to do it. So I was like no, the coffee's going to go, because I'm not taking a chance.
Speaker 2:So eliminated the coffee, cleaned up the diet with your clear skin diet plan and within the first three months of just doing the diet, I did see the skin improve. Now it wasn't all improved because I definitely had some deeper things to heal and we saw that. And when we did the GI mapping and we did the Dutch test and we did the oat test, we ended up seeing that I did have issues with the gut and you had told me I had H pylori, prevotella, pseudomonas and Streptococcus overgrowth, and so you gave me antimicrobials to treat those and I also. At the time we had both suspected parasites. So we decided we were going to parasite cleanse me and I've gotten a ton of parasites out. I've done three. In Western medicine we really don't.
Speaker 1:But they exist and they're there and you know we they're better out than in. We have to. We have to address parasites. We really do. They can be a strain on our health.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, I'd also shown that, um, I needed to eat less oxalates, so I was consuming less oxalates, so I was consuming less oxalates. So I was seeing a lot of improvement with the program, just with the lymphatic drainage and the diet, the parasite cleanses, the antimicrobials. That was really helping me, and it was at this point in time where you had also looked at the topical regimen I was doing, which was non-existent. At this point. I was still struggling to wash my face, but I ended up finding a facial cleanser. I used the Untoxicated brand and that's pretty much the only cleanser I don't react to. And then I used the Malesia 5% urea moisturizer, and so that was helping me immensely. I was just so happy that I could actually wash my face and not feel disgusting. And, yeah, so that's really where I'm at right now with my skin and I barely have any active acne on my face.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have a few things.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have one cyst that is not resolved, but I go out in public and I talk to people that I haven't met and you know it'll come up.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I had like bad acne and they're like, oh, my God, like your skin is so beautiful, it's so clear and I'm like wow, like yes, it, it is clear. And and I'm like wow, like yes, it is clear. And you know, I'm someone who I do struggle with pigment, I'm very fair skinned, but you know, like I've had to heal my body internally first, like if you heal internally first, like you're going to heal from the inside out. And the interesting thing to me was a lot of the naturopathic physicians I was seeing. They were telling me don't worry about your skin, we're not going to treat the skin, we have to treat the insides. But what I like that you say, and you say it in so many YouTube videos, is that there's so much science behind acne, so you have to target it from the acne. And it was almost the reverse with my other physicians and I was like no, no, you got to target it through the acne because there's just so much evidence out there for how to treat the acne.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. You have to go within, you have to understand the root cause of what's going on, because you know, for years you were like not, actually nobody was helping you drill down to understand what was going on. You know there was some severe gut damage that had been done. You know that had to be repaired. There was a lot of inflammation going on and we had to calm that down and we had to support your detox pathways as well, because I find that the detox pathways are actually the most foundational thing and you know the core detox pathways, combined with insult and injury to the gut, is just, you know, that's that's what I see again and again and again, with patients that suffer like you suffered for sure.
Speaker 2:And I think I did also like that in the program. You do talk about calming down the nervous system. I was very much in fight or flight mode during all of this point and I don't think I realized how much I felt in fight or flight until I feel so calm now compared to how I was, that I was reading a scary book the other day and I'm like, oh my God, now I actually feel my heart rate go up. The other day and I'm like, oh my God, now I actually feel my heart rate go up. I wouldn't really notice that change throughout this entire experience because I was just in such fight or flight mode I didn't even know it. It felt like my natural mode to me and yeah, so I was really happy that with you.
Speaker 2:You say to meditate. As you know, I'm an overthinker, so meditation was just I would sit there and I would start these negative thought patterns. And so you told me, just do yoga nidra. And so I did yoga nidra and I did guided meditations. So anytime there's a meditation where there's visualizations, they'll tell me like picture, you're in a garden, you know what type of flowers do you see, so on and so forth. That was super calming to me. So I know you say, find something that calms you down. So like when I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep, I do some visualization meditations and that's what helps me. And I do like to read other novels other than scary ones that elevate my heart rate, but I would sit and read novels that I would get really into and that would just I would pass an hour and not realize an hour had passed because I was so into reading this novel and it was very calming. And so, just, you know, your body can't heal unless you're in a calmed state, and I did not realize how anxious I was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think you know I've obviously dealt, you know helped thousands of women over many years and I would say that acne patients are very similar in that we all tend to be very type A personalities. You know we all tend to be very hard on ourselves, we tend to be go, go, go. We want to accomplish things, we want to do things. We tend to be more in our sympathetic nervous systems. I see this again. It's very rare that I, you know, meet an acne patient that's really calm and relaxed and nothing really bothers them at all. We seem to really be similar.
Speaker 1:And you know, when we're stuck in our sympathetic nervous system, you know our body is in a state of survival. We're constantly looking for a threat, we think that we're under threat, so the body is not going to heal when we think we're under threat. So we have to teach the body that it's actually safe, you're okay and doing something that calms you down, we're able to just relax and not be so vigilant. That's the first step. And I know, you know I love meditation. Meditation is great for me, but I've been doing this for a long time. I think I tried to meditate unsuccessfully for 20 years. You know it took me that long to learn that I actually needed to calm down my nervous system before I could start meditating. So, yeah, I understand what you're going, what you experienced, and you're right, you know, just doing something where you're able to calm yourself down, and I think that's something a lot of people can probably, you know, identify with for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think you know I do just want to touch on that. It was highly disruptive to my life. I was in my 20s and I was applying to graduate school at the time and it was just a very, very stressful time in my life. But when you're in your 20s, that's the time when you have major life changes. You're going to school or you're getting a job, some people are trying to date and I just felt like my life it came to a halt. It just came to a halt. I felt so ill and it terrified me because I thought is this ever going to get better? And there's people who they go through it for longer times than I did.
Speaker 2:You know I've only been at this for about four years and you know I can finally say like, yes, I'm healthy now. Is everything perfect yet? No, everything is not, you know, fully perfect yet, but I'm finally functional. I don't wake up completely fogged and exhausted. My stomach doesn't hurt, I can enjoy food, I can eat, I don't have acne holding me back, I'm not self-conscious about my skin, I don't feel gross, feeling like I can't wash my face. So you know it's very debilitating and I think that unless you've been through a health journey. It's sometimes very, very hard for people to understand. I was just talking to someone the other day about my health journey and the person commented to me but you're so young and you know it's really hard when you're young. There's more and more young people getting sick today. But you know, I looked around and my peers they're you know, they're pretty much like all healthy not all of them but it was very emotionally hard for me to see my peers progressing in life and I wasn't. I was just so sick and it just halted everything. I had to defer school, I had to take medical leave, which is, you know, I'm someone like, I'm not a quitter, I don't like stopping. So my parents knew how serious it was when I was deferring school and I was taking medical leave, because it's just very out of character for me, I don't do those things. And so you know it wasn't just acne, and that's what's so sad, because, yes, acne is a sign of so many internal things, but the internal things were so debilitating.
Speaker 2:But I think that for anyone out there who's suffering, like I have suffered, and I know the emotional and mental toll that it takes on you on top of the physical one. There's so much help out there and you will find it and I'm so grateful to have found Dr Stacey. I'm really grateful to Dr Stacey and, as well as Holly, grateful to have found Dr Stacey. I'm really grateful to Dr Stacey and as well as Holly, who works with Dr Stacey. They've helped me immensely and I want to give credit where credit is due their skills. They are very skilled and the program works and so if you're suffering, just try something new.
Speaker 2:If you haven't tried naturopathic medicine, you know, just you know, try something new. If you haven't tried naturopathic medicine, I'm a firm believer in it and you know, sometimes like you might get frustrated. It is not a linear process. That's what Dr Stacey told me in the beginning when I was super upset. She's like it's not linear.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you flare up and you know, but if you stick with it you will definitely get results.
Speaker 2:And if you went on something like Accutane or Spironolactone, it would take you like anywhere between three to six months to see results anyway. And if you just do the clear skin diet that Dr Stacey has, you start getting results in three months and a lot of people can see amazing results in six months with the deeper healing work that she does. So you know I mean, if you're weighing your options for whether to take a pharmaceutical or do the natural route, you're looking at the same time frame but you're going to feel so much better. I can't tell you the number of people I've talked to who have taken Accutane or Spironolactone and they've regretted it, mostly because they do have high relapse rates and they do cause long-term damage, especially Accutane. A lot of people complain of like dry lips, dry eyes, dry skin as a result of Accutane. So and it's very damaging to the liver. So I mean everybody to each their own, but you know, if you're looking for a new route, you're definitely going to be in good hands if you choose the naturopathic route.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that so much and there's nothing that compares with healing your body from the inside out, and it's so empowering as well, because you have the knowledge, you have the skill, you have the understanding, you have the skill, you have the understanding of your body, so you can keep your body healthy for the rest of your life. It's not a quick fix, it's. This is like. This is your life, this is your body. This is like 20 years down the road, you are going to look and feel amazing and have the energy and the vitality to. You know, live your purpose and do the things on this earth that you're meant to do, and you know it.
Speaker 1:Just, it makes me want to cry when I just think about it, and I think about how so many of us have lost our health and we are struggling to regain it and we haven't been taught. You know how to do this, you know, but this should be something that we all know how to do. You know, this is our fundamental human right is to be healthy. So you know, thank you so much for sharing that. And you know, one really amazing thing about Katie is that she is going to become a naturopathic doctor too. This is your, this is your path, right Katie?
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, it is my path. I think it's very funny because when I was starting all this, you know, with all this health stuff going on, I was actually applying to allopathic medical school. I had no idea naturopathic medicine existed. So I was like, yeah, I want to be a doctor, I want to be an allopathic physician. It was really upsetting. My dad went to the University of Pittsburgh for medical school and I was like I want to go there too. And you know, I kept getting waitlisted and so it was a very hard time for me because I was sick and I was taking the MCAT and I was studying and I was applying to school and I actually applied for two rounds of applications, so two cycles, two consecutive cycles for allopathic medical school, and I just kept getting waitlisted and I was really frustrated because I was like I'm working hard, I'm intelligent, I don't know what else I can do, and it's very difficult to get into medical school in the United States. It's very hard.
Speaker 2:And at that point in time I just felt like nothing is coincidence. I don't believe that anything in life is a coincidence, and so when I found naturopathic medicine, I was thinking I think that God's showing me that there's a different way and the way that I'm going is not the correct way for me in my life. And yeah, so I definitely think that all this happening you know, if I hadn't had poor health, I never would have switched my route to naturopathic medicine and I just remember feeling, you know, so failed by the allopathic system. I felt so failed, and my dad's a doctor in it and he's upset with how insurance based it is and he's just like you know, I used to love my job and now I just don't feel like I'm getting to help the patients as much anymore because I have so many insurance protocols. And you know, my dad's a great doctor and I feel badly that that's the way that the path is turning and he's an he's independent, he's not an owned physician and that's starting to become very unheard of. But yeah, but I switched my route to naturopathic medicine because I feel like it's the true healing path.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm not shy in saying that I'm very against taking pharmaceuticals, mostly for my body. Now, there might be a different option for somebody else. They might feel differently and I respect their beliefs and their decisions, but for me it was making me sicker and I was so afraid of the damage I was causing to my body and I just felt that naturopathic medicine was truly the way, and I honestly I'm super excited to start up in medical school again in January. It's been a long time coming.
Speaker 2:I've had just a really really long journey and it upset me that it took over my life and it derailed my ambitions. But I, you know, I wouldn't be a naturopathic doctor in the future without this, and it's going to have made me a better doctor. And I just really, really want to spread the word about naturopathic medicine because if I had known about it, I would have definitely come to it sooner. So I'm super excited for the future, for what it has to hold for me, and I just really hope that, you know, I get to see patients like myself one day and help them so that they don't suffer like I did.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, thank you so much. You're gonna be such a wonderful doctor. It's gonna be so great to, you know, have more of us out there. You know helping people heal out there. You know helping people heal, truly heal, so it's it's really the greatest you know calling. I love what I do so very much. You know I wake up every morning just grateful that I'm able to help people. And you know, one other thing that I want to mention is that you know, being on a clear skin journey, being on a healing journey, it is a gift journey. Being on a healing journey, it is a gift because it is going to take you to a place where, you know, number one, you just become a more empathetic, a more compassionate person and you know it does take you to a greater place. You know going through a healing journey. So everybody out there that's feeling frustrated, that's feeling down that they have to, you know. You know experience acne and yes, it's awful when you start, have to.
Speaker 1:You know, you know experience acne and yes, it's awful when you start to heal. You know you never know what's going to happen in your life. You know and it's a journey and you're just going to be better for it. So I know my clear skin journey changed my life and made my life so much better. So you know it happens for all of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. It's improved my life so much and I'm so, I just am so passionate about it. I find myself like at the grocery store or if I'm in a lift, I just end up talking about it. And yeah, and I'm really passionate about parasite cleansing. I love parasite cleansing. I think it's the best thing ever. I know that probably sounds weird to say, but I just I feel so great on parasite cleanses that I just am so passionate about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, parasite cleanses are pretty exciting. Once you do a parasite cleanse and you actually see, you know what was in you and now it's out, you're just like, okay, yeah, this is a part of my life now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, I'm super grateful for the experience and yeah, so anyone who's out there, you're not alone and there's a there's a path for you. So don't don't lose hope, because I almost did, and then I found Dr Stacey and it put me back.
Speaker 1:It put me back on track, so yeah, Well, thank you so much, and thank you so much for being with me today and sharing your story and for everybody out there. If you've loved this episode, please, you know, give a positive review. Give us a positive like, because that's how we're able to reach more people and, you know, teach them about healing their body from the inside out so that they do not have to suffer and they can regain their health. So, thank you so much. If you want to learn more about what I do, click the link in the show notes. You can book a free call with my team to understand more about my program. But thank you so much, Katie, for being here, and this has just been such a delight. You are amazing and thank you so much. I just I love you so much. Thank you so much, Dr Stacey.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate all of your help and thank you so much. I just I love you so much. Thank you so much, Dr Stacey. I really appreciate all of your help and thank you so much for having me on this podcast to just share the word my pleasure. Thank you, Thank you.