Paisley's Eczema & Alopecia Healing

In this episode, Brooke shares the inspiring journey of her daughter Paisley, diagnosed with alopecia in 2022. After discovering mold in their home was worsening her condition, the family took action with renovations, air purifiers, and a complete diet overhaul. Immune therapy soon followed, leading to remarkable hair regrowth and better overall health. Brooke also reflects on the incredible support from their daycare and family throughout this challenging but hopeful experience.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hi, you're gonna be okay. I'm your host, Elizabeth May, and my functional health practice helps people heal when they've exhausted traditional options. When no one can figure your health challenges out, my team helps you resolve symptoms and restores your health. You're listening to my podcast where we'll hear stories of healing chronic illness from a root cause effort. Today we're gonna get to talk through a fun little case for a little gal. Her mom Brooke is here with me, and we're just gonna kind of walk you through what the experience of addressing eczema for aloacha. We dealt with mold at certain points. We um had a little bit of empatrico even, and just kind of a run-of-the-mill skin um case with a side of uh of hair issues. And that was really kind of the presenting piece that started us. So, Brooke, I kind of just want you to tell me like where you had been, how you came to being open to this line of like dealing with your daughter's health concerns and and really where she was when we started.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah, for sure. So she was diagnosed with alopecia in 2022, um, when she was two years old. And um we had noticed um it's like, you know, one day she had all of her hair, the other the next day she had like a quarter size perfect circle of no hair. And um she was always our bald baby. She didn't have a lot of hair whenever she was born in her first two years of life, you know, it just took her a while to kind of, you know, get her hair growth, um, which we, you know, seems normal. Um, and then when that first kind of bald circle popped up, we're like, okay, like, you know, this isn't normal, right? For you to lose, you know, have a bald spot on a two-year-old's hair. So we did go to the um pediatrician who referred us to the dermatologist, and then we got the alopecia diagnosis. So that's um, that was really our care at the time. We received, you know, your typical topical steroid creams to put on the um spots on her hair that did not have hair. Um, and that was really our treatment. We saw the dermatologist. Um, they wanted to see us every six months just to like check the progress of it. I eventually stopped going to those appointments because there wasn't anything new. They weren't giving us, you know, anything new to treat it with. Um her first spot did the hair did eventually fill in, and then, you know, until a new spot popped up. So um, and that's just kind of the cycle. Um, a spot would appear, it would eventually grow, you know, grow back hair. Um and then in I believe it was around January of 2023, um, I noticed after giving her a bath one day that she really just didn't have like her hairline was super receded on both sides of her face. You know, she didn't have like the typical like sideburn area hair. It was all kind of pushed back, just making her forehead look really, really large. Um and you know, that was definitely concerning to me. So we did end up going back to the dermatologist. There still was, you know, nothing new, just continue with the creams. This is how alopecia is, you know, she might lose all of her hair, she might not. Um, and at the time, that's all we knew. So we just continued with the creams. Um in March of 2023, I started my own um, I guess adventure, we'll call it, working with a nutritional therapy practitioner for my own health concerns and just wanting to make myself feel better and you know, getting my body to where I felt like it should and could be. And um I saw a lot of success in um in the process I went through. And then I found um you Elizabeth, I was listening to a podcast and you were a guest on the podcast. And I I don't remember the specifics of what the topic was, but um at the time, you know, I didn't really realize that going the nutritional therapy route was an option for a child as young as three years old. So that's really never like a consideration for me until I started that podcast. Um and so yeah, it reached out to you and you know, just given my own successes and I had been in it for a couple of months, and I was really starting to like learn and truly understand that, you know, what you put into your body, how you treat your body, you can you can start to heal things without medication, without, you know, the traditional um means of treatment that your doctor's, you know, a typical provider is going to give you. And so I was really just convinced that we didn't have to live with an alopecia diagnosis for Paisley and that there may actually be um something, you know, going on in her little body to cause the hair loss. And I was um yeah, pretty, pretty interested to get started and see what we could uncover to try to heal her and you know not have to deal with questionable ongoing hair loss for potentially the rest of her life.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Yeah, I love that you and your mothering like have approached this whole thing with curiosity. I think a lot of times we as moms like don't take the liberty to be curious and to maybe involve ourselves or question because one motherhood is overwhelming, two small children are overwhelming. And if you're working and like all those things can just feel like a lot. And a lot of times it's easier to take the advice of professionals, which we should be able to trust and like get really comprehensive help from. But the fact of the matter is all professionals are people and we included can miss things and not know things. And I just appreciate that kind of when you came in, you were like, I'm just kind of convinced that all peach isn't something to have to live with. Like questioning one of those, like they're small. It's not typical that you have major hair loss or lack of hair growth when you're a small person. Let's just try to figure this out. Like there has to be an answer. And I think that's one of those through lines that I see parents kind of coming to conclusions with that, like whatever this odd thing in that my child has, that we could we could explain it away or think of reasons that it could be there or try to rationalize it. Like the moral of the story is it's not typical for children. We see more and more of that these days. But the difference I think is when a mom or a parent is willing to be curious. And um, when we started with Paisley, we we worked through the GI healing package, we added a mycotox, I think shortly. No, we started with a mycotox, I think, because we had talked through how there was water damage. You guys live in an older home, um, an old farmhouse. And so we just kind of talked through, okay, what are things that can contribute? I want to rule that out. Um, and when her testing came back, I think it started to explain a lot of the symptoms because some of the things that were going on too were there was a lot of picky eating. I remember going through maybe pre-care or the very beginning of care and you kind of feeling like overwhelmed, like, how am I gonna do diet change? Because this kid was like pretty rigid about what she eats. So, what was that part of her life like at that point?

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah, so I mean, she was just, you know, as you said, super picky. Um, we at that time, you know, ate the typical, you know, processed kids' food. She could live off of the, you know, little Debbie muffin packages. Um, that was her favorite thing. And um she was just, you know, very picky. She ate tacos. Um, you know, we did a lot of like the store bought chicken nuggets. Um we did uh like frozen waffles. Um, and then you know, she would eat pretty much everything she um that did go to daycare at the time. And so, you know, the typical craft mac and cheese, you know, chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, um, also what I feel like is a typical diet for a two-year-old. But I, on the other hand, like, you know, I personally have always tried to eat healthy. So, you know, the the fresh, not processed, you know, foods, um, you know, chicken breast, or, you know, here's a hamburger, you know, she would not not try those things. Um, she luckily had always had a couple of, you know, she'll eat any fruit for the most part. And she had her, you know, kind of go-to vegetables. Um, so from a fruit and vegetable perspective, I feel like she was okay. Um, it was just really the the meat, the protein that we had trouble um kind of experimenting with with new things. So, and one of the other things that really was eye-opening to me when we went through our intake process, we had to, you know, track her, not only her food intake for a week or two, but also her bowel movements. And, you know, since she had, you know, was at daycare most of the day, Monday through Friday, I always was just assuming that she was, you know, having her bowel movements somewhere else. Yeah. Because she really wasn't, you know, not very often would would she have a bowel movement at home. And in tracking that, we realized I think she might have had a bowel movement one or two times that whole week that we tracked. I had no idea that she was constipated like that. And um, so it was really eye-opening, just like going through that intake process and realizing, oh, there's clearly some digestive, you know, work that we need to go through.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Um, and that was another um thing that we worked with you on to heal and get her back to, you know, daily bowel movements. So that was just an unexpected um win for us.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Yeah, and it's one of those things too, that until you sit down and track it, it's not something that we notice because once kids are independently party trained, or even if they're not and they're in care during the day, you're not picking up your kid asking like how many bow moons they had today, or if they did, like it just becomes not an issue until it's an issue. And it can go along chronically like that, and it can add to that picky appetite, which we'll kind of expand on that later, or that preference for brown foods that always say like pizza, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, chips, those kind of things, and call them my brown food kids, which we definitely wasn't that entirely. But when you have that backup inside, that can lead to a lot of like, I don't feel awful, I'm not miserably constipated, but there's a lot of trash inside of me that's kind of shifting how I feel. But that also is another clue for me to like, hey, there's probably some fungal bacterial issues going on. So when we got back the mycotoxin test, definitely wasn't wildly shocking, okre toxin was very elevated, which kind of suggests some aspergillus overgrowth in her environment, which aspergillus mold is very prevalent in the air, like it's around a lot of mold. We get in this mold conversation. Well, every house has mold, a lot of people say to me. And like maybe that's possible because there is mold in the air. But what should not happen is mold growth. There should not be material in a building where mold can come make a home. We should be able to breathe in mold in the air like normal and interact with it. But when it be able, when it's able to make a home on some water and some building structure, then we have an issue. But if we had elevations of citronin, my golphenolic acid as well. So it's definitely like a sizable mold situation. And then looking at her germa, so mycotoxic urine, super easy to collect for a kiddo for the most part. And then when we look at the stool test, which again, really easy, not invasive, there's a lot going on. She had a lot of bacterial overgrowth, even of good guys. We had way too much of everything, basically. Several families of different unhelpful bacteria, which really, when that body's constipated, some of that stuff can kind of build up and they can feed off of the stool that's hanging out. And then she had a big candida overgrowth. So that was kind of our clue to say, like, okay, now we have to start looking for maybe some mold involvement. And the mold is an immune trigger. So it's going to basically lay the foundation for the body's bacterial, fungal, like normal balance to get out of wax. So what was it like moving into the mold remediation and finding process? Because that is so overwhelming for so many families. Like, what did it look like for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, it definitely was a lot to take on. So um we um knew, as you had said, we knew that we had water damage in the kitchen just from previous leaks. And so we essentially just, you know, it was we didn't really have that many options. We knew we had to either fix the kitchen, right? Um, which would include um just how our kitchen was decide. Look, it includes basically taking it down to the studs um and rebuilding it back up. So that was an option we could move or we could do nothing. Well, doing nothing is not an issue, and moving also, you know, wasn't an option either. So um, yeah, we just um started a big project of renovating our kitchen and um tearing down the ceiling, the walls, where all the water had just kind of been festering for a while. Um, and we essentially just rebuilt. So we did, you know, that was a few month process. Um so it was it definitely was overwhelming. Um, on being on the other side of things now, um, I'm glad that we, you know, it's an investment, obviously, and it wasn't something we were necessarily prepared for. But at the end of the day, I mean, there's nothing more important than the health and safety of not only our kids, but like my me, you know, me and my husband as well. So we want to make sure that we are in as clean and healthy as a of an environment as possible. So we're all, you know, we can be as healthy as possible. So we got through it. The kitchen, you know, um, we got rid of all the moldy stuff. We did have um a mold remediation company come in and take down all of the um, you know, molding materials. So they essentially started the demo um and and just continued until they didn't find any more, and then we took it over from there and had everything put back together. But um, yeah, it was a lengthy process. Um, but again, I just it was a necessary step to make sure that we, you know, have a healthy and and safe environment for our family.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yeah, and thinking back, I know we paused care when she really got deep into the remediation, but even before we got there, because we started working together in April of 2023, and I think we went all the way until that fall. I think we kind of like stopped in November, maybe, and paused till I think early the next spring. Um I'm curious about two things. Did you feel that you had support needed here to at least kind of direct you in some ways with the mold? If so, uh or if not, obviously either way, um, sharing about that because mold is such a thing where like information is so conflicting and you can read a thousand things online and it can feel like you have to move out and burn your house down. And then it can feel like you could probably live there and be okay if you just remove visual things. And then also, did you continue to see progress with Paisley before um everything was really fully taken care of? Or did it feel more like a you had to get the mold before we saw movement? What was that part like?

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, so um I feel like you great, like you gave great insights and resources as far as like, you know, contacting an IEP, an indoor environmental professional who can, you know, do testing, come and take a look. Um and we um I had originally called a couple of um like IEPs in our area. And you know, I I got conflicting information from them too, I feel like. Um a couple of the people I talked to, um, you know, were some essentially said, you know, every house is have mold in it because we did buy those little like petri dish tests and just to do ourselves and like sit out in our room. And to me, you know, those results looked gross, right? Like there was growth, there was obvious, you know, um, on the petri dishes that we set out pretty much everywhere. Um, and so I was trying to explain that, you know, over the phone to these individuals. And um some of the the feedback was, well, you know, like those tests um aren't super reliable, which okay, maybe they're not. I I realize the tests that they do when they come in with their special equipment is, you know, probably is much more um detailed and specific. But um, so that was kind of you know frustrating a little bit that the people I'm reaching out to for help um just you know didn't really seem to tell me what I wanted to hear, I guess. Um but I feel like you know, you you obviously I feel like you are you have a lot of knowledge about mold and what it can do to a body. And so I have always trusted, you know, the information that you have provided us. And um, it's nothing, you know, I've I've learned a lot about mold and just you know, constantly like breathing it, you know, uh is it's it's a toxin and it's a stressor for the body, which makes sense, but until you actually sit down and think about it, it's not really a thought that you have. Um so um and I and you gave great like suggestions for like one of the easiest things we did was just incorporate like the air purifiers in all of the bedrooms that you suggested, um, just for you know, a quick quick fix, really. Um so that was one thing that we put into play.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Um do you feel like you saw progress with Paisley before all of the mold was gone, or did it feel like that piece had to be done before we really saw any movement for her?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah, I I don't really feel like I noticed any hair growth until kind of like we picked back up after um after the the remodel was over. Yeah, digestion-wise, like everything we kind of treated in that first phase in the fall, like absolutely like I feel like immediately, you know, her digest digestion and bowel movements. Um, once we, you know, kind of got into a rhythm with um with supplements and detox and things like that. I feel like um like her gut health, we saw just waves of improvement um right off the bat. Um, but I do feel like it took us kind of into the second stage before I noticed any of her hair growth.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Yeah. How did it feel to kind of implement because she was a little bit rigid in her food choices and also like you were taking her to daycare where food I think was provided and that kind of had to that change things for you guys? How looking back now, like how did the effort part of it feel? Did it feel like something that was manageable or really difficult? And was there any mood for change or you know, working with a small person who's very opinionated to that stuff? Or how was it to to work against that? You know, a lot of times feeling uh suggestions, recommendations we make can feel like a lot from my end, even I'm I'm saying we need to do all these things. But how did it feel on your end in that early phase working with Paisley to get some change where she was she was not big on change, she liked her tacos.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Yeah, and she saw that said um I remember feeling extremely overwhelmed because you know, you're looking at the the tests that we did and all of her like um green, yellow, and red foods that we um need to not eat for you know the 30, 60 day period. And I'm like all of her favorites seem to be on this list that we cannot eat right now. So it was it was really overwhelming at first. Um, but you know, we focused more on the foods that she liked that she could eat versus what she couldn't eat. And um, yes, with with the daycare. So I started um just packing all of her food. So um breakfast, lunch, snacks. Um, we purchased your cookbook, and to this day she still loves those muffins.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

And we found a lot of good resources in your cookbook. Um, and then you provided us as well some like recipe links to recipes. So I started making, you know, homemade chicken nuggets. Um, so they're just with the resources that you provided, and then once I kind of learned the types of foods that she could eat that wouldn't fall in like the the red and yellow categories, I found some other recipes myself. So it it took a little while, but um she I honestly I've I've always been so proud of how she adapted. Um she was always a trooper. I honestly think, you know, living, well, having the healthy, you know, food choices as she now that she's in kindergarten and and she sees her her friends, you know, eating um other things. I think it's going to be more challenging now that she's getting older than it was, you know, a year ago. But um overall, I feel like she did really the transition was really good. Um and once we kind of got into the routine and she got used to it, um she did fine. Um it's really tough to break her of those many muffins that she could eat, you know, one to two packs a day of. But um again, we we leaned on your muffins and as a new muffin.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah, that like replacement stuff with kids um is wildly powerful. Like I always joke, you know, if your kid likes a carrot in one shape, try to cut him a butternut squash in the other shape. And people make faces at me on calls, which I would too. I would be like, whatever, lady. But it literally works. Like they're not that complex being sometimes they really just need they're similar. But for a listener too, we did do a food sensitivity test, which there's lots of debates and discussion around. And I don't use it as a holy grail, I use it as a healing tool to remove inflammation. So we're never doing that test and looking for foods that the person would have to remove forever. We're looking for foods that are really pushing the inflammation at the time, and we want to bring that inflammation down so the body can use inflammation rightly to heal, as opposed to using it to be confused against certain foods. And when an immune system is confused, a big part of what it does is it attacks certain foods. So, like a lot of her favorites were on there. Bell peppers, I think, were one of the things that she was super into. Um, butternut squash, not that that was necessarily favorite, but broccoli, beets, asparagus, apricots, honey, kale, grapes, very common kid food, green beans, you know, dates, which maybe she wasn't pounding dates, but dates are in so many paleo and like healthily sweetened kid foods. But removing those really helped us. And I don't always do it, but if we've got major skin stuff or if we have lots of immune threat going on, I really want to like help calm that body really quickly. And so sometimes it's worth the work. Or if a kid's really at a critical place with allergies, um, I'll bring that in to just help take a burden off the immune system. But we kind of did that. We worked through test results, we worked on some gut stuff, you guys worked on mold, and we reconvened in the spring. And at that point, I kind of brought to you like, hey, we've got the mold out now. I think at that point, where were we on hair regrowth? Like once we were picking up after remediation, nothing had started yet, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Maybe little bitty bits, or was it Yeah, and I think it actually had maybe gotten slightly worse. So she still had the um like the receded hairline on on the sides of her face, but she also um was um her hairline like at the back of her neck was receding and kind of like creeping up towards you know, closer and closer to her ears. So it was essentially along like the entire, you know, outer circle of her scalp, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah, yeah. My notes, I kind of see we had some hit and miss eczema, that was a lot better, and it would kind of when it would come, it would be a little bit more clear on its own. But I kind of brought to you at that point the idea that the chronic strip um that we had seen on her GI mat, but then we also kind of just going through her history, you know, she was a kiddo had had tubes in her ears. She'd only had solo ear infections, she hadn't necessarily had like a big typical strep presentation where her throat hurt and she had strep all the time. She had more of the ear issues and they had since fallen out. Um, she'd done some antibiotic use, and we kind of worked backwards too that she'd had some rash responses, maybe a little bit of allergy response to some of that antibic use, and that also the first, you know, amoxicillin really didn't help at all in the ear. So we kind of walked through some of that history and connected some dots and worked at the alopecia and kind of clearing some of the gut things by addressing her immune system. One of the big things that I've discovered as we work with more chronic clients is, and kiddos, that immune system is really developing quite a bit under the age of six or seven. And so if it grows up in an environment of like mold, a constant immune threat, it's going to be a little confused. If it grows up with a regular immune burden of something like strep that we never really get all the way away, it can show up in lots of ways. Some kids have a lot of picky eating with strep. They can have um separation anxiety, they can have regressions, they can also have um strep can infect lots of parts of our body. It can get in our hair follicles. So one of the things we need to work on was how the immune system was regulating strep for Paisley. And so we worked at strep and candida through the immune therapy lens. And I think that's when we really started to see some more change around that second time we worked together. So kind of just covering like, was that process difficult? I know you still had food kind of locked and in a really good place. We were just adding a new therapy, but how was it to work through that? And what kind of change did you see and maybe timeline stuff too?

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah, so I feel like the transition with the immune therapy, I mean, went probably as good as it can be. Um I feel like I pretty quickly I remember reaching out to you and saying, hey, like, you know, I'm seeing new little fuzzy hair on the sides of her face. Um so um I just have nothing but good things to say about the immune therapy. Um, I think that was definitely, you know, a perfect plan of action. And we're still seeing, um, I think we're oh, I don't know, it's September, so we're maybe four months in, not three or four months in. Um but yeah, I mean we we're seeing great hair growth along um the the sides of her face. Um the shape of like the back of her neck in that area where their hair was um lost um is is slower to grow, but I am seeing some new hair. Um so overall, I mean, I feel like it's definitely doing its job, and I I didn't really see any notable um like side effects in her um personality changes, her you know um emotional outburst or anything like that. So I think like overall it's been it's been great for her and for her hair growth.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah, how's what about the eczema? We still holding where there's little to no eczema issues, and um, okay, I'm glad you that just triggered a thought.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

So I one of the um one of the things that we did see when she started the immune therapy was kind of like some pimpley spots on her bottom. And I know you had mentioned that that was um like a normal response. Like that's a little crash. Yeah. Yep, yep. So um we do still have a little bit of occasional um like just irritated skin on her, just mostly her bottom, really nowhere else. Um, but that's yeah, that's really the um only skin issues that we've been seeing lately.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

I think in the beginning, too, it said to me like there were there was maybe a little spot behind her ear on the neck, maybe that it wasn't a huge deal, but for me, um, that is an area where we can see skin stuff that's related to strep, where there's rash, eczema, uh, skin oddities over some of those really limp, concentrated areas around the ear nose throat area where like strep loves to hang and hang out. So that I think was something else in the beginning. But by and large, for sure, she seems to have just kind of like, which is my favorite part, honestly, of addressing the immune system of a child versus working through traditional eradication protocols where we try to kill things and brain. And it's just it's profoundly different when an immune system hasn't learned what it needs to do, which is that's the whole reason we toss our kids in the dirt, want them outside, and we want them exposed to all sorts of things, because it challenges the immune system to develop, which we still want to do that. But sometimes when a body has existed with either these chronic immune threats, which I think in her case was just, you know, the low level of mold exposure just kind of weakened her body as it would anybody's. Um and she's not able to kind of develop tolerance against strep that was appropriate or against the fungal stuff that was appropriate, then you end up with symptom load. But as soon as you start training straightening out that immune system, they just kind of like rise up, like they stop. I think you mentioned too a little bit ago, she had a stomach bug and you were chatting and you're like, but also she's not been sick at all since we worked together. So, you know, like that piece, I think is always telling too that the body is able to stop being confused. Um, removing the mold was a big step, but then re-rerouting that immune system to to address when it needs to instead of being confused and and not doing what it needs to do, um really, really made a big difference for her. One of the last things I kind of want to cover is, you know, one of the things I always ask is chronic illness, which I think paisley, I would maybe call it chronic issues, chronic irritations. Um you know, she there were little inconveniences for sure, but she wasn't, you know, alopecia is not cool and we do not like it. And as females, I really don't like it. I would love for Paisley to have a full head of hair, but it wasn't, you know, like super crippling necessarily. Um maybe some of that food pickiness and things like that was, but um walking through the season of chronic healing, what's one way that someone has supported you or your family um or just helped like the process of working through this journey for Paisley be easier?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Um I gosh, there's I guess a few people people like me recognize. So she um was in preschool whenever we started um our care with you, and so we just had a lot of help in ensuring that she is consuming good things for her body. So um, you know, her daycare provider was on board with me, you know, packing her food and making sure she wasn't getting, you know, the heavily processed things that the other kids were getting. Um, I her teachers um all last year in preschool um were so helpful in making sure that she was, you know, eating the right things and what we wanted her to eat. Um they let me, you know, pack snacks. If there was ever any special treat, they would, you know, text me right away saying, hey, the rest of the class is having this. Can she have it? Um they, you know, when they were on their Sam's run or on the weekends, you know, stacking up on snacks for the class, they would text me, like, hey, here are some things, can Pastor any of these? So they were just so great to work with. And I know that it really helped Paisley feel like included because you can feel like the oddball when you are the only person who chooses to eat healthy, yeah. Um, you know, especially in today's society. So I was really appreciative of that. Um, and then, you know, my family as well. My um my stepdad lived with us for over three months. He essentially was our contractor renovating our kitchen. So he um did so much for us. Um, you know, my parents helped out financially with the kitchen. Um, you know, as I mentioned, it wasn't something that we necessarily expected um and had planned for, um, but we needed to make it work. So um, you know, our family was key. Um, and then just those outside sources kind of helping Paisley um take care in school, those are top of mind um for me, kind of as we've been going through this process.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Yeah, I love to hear about the school thing too, because that's a place where sometimes we have to step in and help navigate or even validate, which drives me crazy, because we should not need me to have a phone call with a school to say, hey, this is legitimate and this is what this child needs to thrive for a season. But I love when you're not met with tension there because our kids are smart too. Like they know in an environment they're in isn't supportive. And they also know and they can wiggle through something they don't want to do because there's not support, but also just to make that easy and inclusive. And I also think it's just a place where a lot of us haven't been exposed. Um, I know when my boys went to school and I introduced the idea of a classroom snack bag, their teachers were like, okay, so we just use this when there's like a party or and I was like, yeah, anytime there's like a fun food, I don't want my boys to be left out of fun foods, but these are fun foods they can always have and they can grab it from there and that'd be that'd be easy, no big deal thing for you. And that has created ripples in communities that we've been in where other kids can do the same thing. And sometimes I think it's just those simple ideas that um we just need help inventing because other people don't who haven't experienced either chronic health issues or healing processes, you just you don't know. You don't know what you don't know, I think is very, very pertinent here. But I love that you guys kind of had that support. And I didn't know about your stepdad moving in. And I think too with mold remediation, I've heard so many fun stories of family members and friends helping along the way or taking kids for a weekend. So mom and dad could help with demo stuff and keep kids out of that environment. There's mold remediation should be done well and it should be done correctly, but also it is expensive. And there are parts that sometimes you can have people help with and you can kind of I wouldn't say piecemeal it, right? Because it's always got to be done right, but to be able to kind of bridge the gap where you guys, you know, had help with demo and like the more dangerous part, but then the rebuilding piece um you had support with. So I think that's so great and and just an encouragement for folks who are facing mold because it does feel like a big giant trap and you can't get away from it. But there are creative ways to think through it. Um, and sometimes it just involves talking with someone who's done it before to give you ideas or or having help of of folks in your community. But I really appreciate you sharing. Um, I think Paisley's story is is not necessarily unique, but is a bit different because the alopecia was a piece of how her body was manifesting um the infection slowed and and the mold was kind of like enabling all that stuff to kind of show up, but maybe not a typical way that we would think like, hey, there's there's more help out there for me than steroids in the usual Durham process. And I think I enjoyed so much reading through like your end-of-care survey about how just the education piece pay dividends for the rest of the family. And there's some like that's my goal. When we create content, you all have video access to a lot of teaching and we ask you to go through it. A lot of people do or don't. And I point to specific videos that are more helpful. And I think those things are really designed. My goal is that we empower you to take better care of your family overall. If you've been in care for one kid, I want you to leave feeling more empowered to tackle anything else that comes your way. And um, it's just always nice to hear that because we do spend a lot of time trying to trying to simplify all of this content and all of this nutrition information that's out there that the internet has only blown up more. But I love I love Paisley's story. I love that we were able to kind of like pause and and meet you guys where you need to be too through the remediation and that her hair's growing and I can't wait to see more. Um, and kind of see how that shifts for her over time since she is so small. And I would say, would you agree? A full head of hair isn't something she's quite had yet in her lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Yeah, that's a excitement.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Yeah, but hopefully we're on our way there. So I appreciate it, Brooke. Um, and for our listeners too, you know, if this is something you're dealing with, any parts of this constipation, picky eating, the alopecia piece, allergies, eczema, all of those things are things that we work at from a different perspective without employing primarily steroids and and really do support families to get success, um, successful results, and also not lose your marbles in the meantime, teaching your little kids how to eat differently. So reach out, grab a clarity call if that's something that would be of interest to you. I hope you're leaving encouraged, curious, and hopeful. If you learned something, I'd love for you to share this episode with a friend. Hey, we're all healing together. You can learn more about my practice, our team, and what it's like to work with us at heyhey may.com. I teach lots on Instagram and answer questions each Monday. My Instagram handle is at Hey Hey Elizabeth May. And my cookbook, Hey Hey Everyday, is available on heyheymei.com and Amazon. Happy healing.