Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas
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Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas
Transforming Health with Emily: A Holistic Approach
Emily Duhon, a pioneering nurse practitioner and owner of Renewed Vitality, joins us to share her transformative journey from conventional to holistic medicine. Her personal experiences have fueled a passion for addressing health issues at their core, rather than just managing symptoms. Together, we scrutinize the limitations of traditional healthcare practices, such as inadequate testing for hormones and toxins, and outline alternative approaches that promise a more personalized and preventative path to wellness. Emily’s insights reveal the often-overlooked potential of functional medicine, with its emphasis on comprehensive testing and individualized care that seeks to uncover the root causes of chronic conditions.
In our conversation, the spotlight is on the profound impact of nutrition and lifestyle changes in healing, especially for women navigating perimenopause. Emily explains how these shifts can alleviate common concerns like stress, anxiety, and low sex drive by tackling hormonal imbalances head-on. Beyond hormones, we discuss the significance of avoiding endocrine disruptors in daily personal care products and suggest resources like Yuka and EWG to guide safer choices. By prioritizing holistic health practices and spending quality time with patients, Emily demonstrates how this alternative approach can offer meaningful improvements to overall well-being, challenging the status quo of American healthcare.
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Koa
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All right, well, welcome to Coffee Talk with the Cajun Mamas. Today we have a special episode. I'm so excited about it. My little cousin, emily, is with us and we're going to be talking about holistic health, not so much, you know, super duper crunchy. So like, stick with it. I promise you're going to like it's going to be really fun, a good conversation and you might learn something.
Speaker 2:And you might learn something, and you might learn something you didn't know you wanted to know.
Speaker 1:That's right. So but first let's talk about our grand sponsor, long's Products, our favorite janitorial supply out of Alexandria. They are a family-owned and operated Louisiana business since 1950. They're in their third generation of operation so y'all y'all know shopping with a family is so special to them. They actually do a happy dance when you shop small and they actually have their own brand of chemicals, the Pelican brand chemicals, so popular on TikTok. You get them on TikTok. Amazon at Long's products is their handle on all the socials and longsproductscom has everything you need to get that house clean, or any any place clean really your business or house whatever?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. And then all their stuff is super concentrated too, so it lasts a really long time. You can get free delivery to commercial accounts if you're in their area, and if you're not, they'll still deliver to your house, right, huh, huh, go to the website they send stuff to my house at church, point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, it can be done, all right. So this is exciting. So this is my cousin, emily Alamo. She is the owner and operator and receptionist and all the things. Nurse practitioner at Renewed Vitality. Y'all have heard us talk about Renewed Vitality several times, but we actually were blessed with the opportunity to have an appointment with her recently and our minds were absolutely blown.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it was different than any other type of doctor visit. The questions, the questions that you asked, were just more it more resonated more with me than just like normal doctor questions and they just like kind of how you feeling, how you doing, you okay, how you doing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was like well, I don't know.
Speaker 2:What do we get asked usually at the doctor? When was your last cycle? Yeah, any pain, any issues and that's it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she asks specific questions that I wouldn't have been thinking about. You know, when you go to confession and you're like, uh, this is what I did, this is what I did and anything else I forgot. But anything else I forgot could be a lot, you know. So you know this was like more specifically, you know to, and so I guess what I want you to do right now is tell us about Renewed Vitality. Tell us about it.
Speaker 3:So Renewed Vitality is my business. I just opened it in February of 2024. And so it is my practice, as in the state of Louisiana, I do have to have a medical director and a collaborative physician, which I do have. It's Dr Edward LaFleur and his practice is in Youngsville and he's more of an integrative functional provider. He's MDVIP, so he doesn't accept insurance. But you do find that a lot of the functional providers it's not typically covered by insurance the functional labs, the supplements, so that's why they don't typically accept your insurance, right, because your healthcare insurance is going to cover the bare minimum. And so what we do is we do offer that I like to call it more of that functional and kind of meet y'all as well with that conventional side.
Speaker 1:With my background, you know.
Speaker 3:Exactly so. I do offer comprehensive hormone replacement therapy, you know. Comprehensive hormone testing, comprehensive stool testing, heavy metals, mycotoxin testing, those types of things that you're not going to get in your conventional office visits, you know insurance doesn't cover those labs.
Speaker 1:I could just go down the rabbit hole, but why?
Speaker 2:Why don't they?
Speaker 1:Why don't they Because?
Speaker 3:we can really find out a lot about ourselves. It's true Talk about.
Speaker 2:And actually address the root cause instead of masking the symptom of it With medication, with medicine.
Speaker 1:And that's what we wanted to achieve with this podcast episode specifically was to let people know that there are other options if you don't want to go the traditional route Not that there's anything wrong with the traditional route, but like if you're a person who's kind of skeptical about medicine, like this was just such a breath of fresh air, or if medicine is kind of like you want that to be your last resort.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, resort, resort, resort and so I started this because I mean I've been practicing and doing the conventional route. I mean even from my training in our in school. Um, very, I was at one point very conventional minding, like you know, sending your kid, all the things right and so I guess COVID burnt me out and a lot of other providers. And then also seeing the state of our health care system, our country in general, the state of Americans we're a sick country, yeah Right.
Speaker 3:The amount of chronic disease diabetes, autoimmune disease, I could keep going. Cardiac- yeah. Right, um, and then link that to our food supply oh yes um, some of the other things. So I guess just getting burnout on, okay, I'm seeing these people not really helping these people. I'm just like prescribing these medicines. You know what I mean, and I guess it took a personal even in my own personal health journey. I'm very like opposed to medicine. You know, even though growing up I feel like my mom brought me to the doctor a lot and.
Speaker 3:I was on a lot of antibiotics as a child and all the things I just don't, I don't want to tell you. I don't want to do medicine but I've always been more holistic and health conscious.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? Yeah, you really always have been.
Speaker 3:And so when I just I had my own issues and I just felt like there's another way, and so I started reading more about functional medicine and looking more into holistic and alternative options and then I just fell in love Like this is what I really need to do to help people.
Speaker 1:You know To help people. When she said that, like when you go into that kind of profession, like to me, you go into it to help people right, Really any profession.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like think about, always think about this, Like what did we do before medicines? Like before you could get a pill for your cholesterol, before you could get whatever. What were the options? Like natural things, like herbs, um the food, certain foods with higher vitamins in them, and for certain things that you carrots. They good for your eyes?
Speaker 1:didn't they tell us that, yeah, vegetables they didn't tell us that, for no reason.
Speaker 2:You know, I know. So I mean, why did I mean? I don't know why we've come so far from that as a people, as a world, but there's probably what other parts of the world that still are more of that natural than the United States, do you feel?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I feel. I mean, obviously we're very modernized here and all the additives they're putting in our food and you know, those red dyes and all those artificial dyes have been linked to hyperactivity and ADHD, right, and so now I'm very happy that RFK is going to make America healthy again and ban some of these things in our foods.
Speaker 3:I did not hear about this In Europe, and in other countries, Like if you look at what's in our products, like food in europe and in other countries. Like if you look at what's in our products like they ban that in other countries even in our, doesn't say a lot even in our cosmetics, our household products, right, and so I was listening to rfk this morning and he's like our kids are living in a toxic soup. And it's true, and not just our kids.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad that this is being brought to light, I know. I mean, I'm so interested in this.
Speaker 1:I can see how the joy on your face right now is so, oh man. But just the other day, okay. So we went to Renewed Vitality. She saw us. I'm going to just open up about this. Then she, she saw us, I'm going to just open up about this. Um, then she called me and said you know, you have hypothyroidism. That not surprising to me, because my mama, you know, my mama has this. We have thyroid problems. And then she said, I said okay, but what can I do about this? She tells me you know the kind of diet that I can go on and we're going, we're doing better. And then she says there's this medicine and, um, but it's not FDA approved. And I was like that in and of itself tells me that it probably works. You know, I'm just like I don't really care, you know. And but my husband was like you're right.
Speaker 1:You know, like, if you say it's going to help, you know, if she says it's going to help me, it probably will, because they don't want you to know you know Well, it's FDA approved for certain conditions, just not for that. Oh.
Speaker 2:We'll put it that way. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:But it is an alternative treatment.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I'll be putting it. What specifically was more of like an autoimmune thyroid condition is what it is. And then a lot of autoimmune is linked to gut dysbiosis and gut health If you remember at your first one we were covering a lot about. Okay, we really do need to work on your gut health, because there's some triggers here and it's not normal, you know, to have to take a medication every day in order.
Speaker 3:Yes, you know, and so there are ways that we can naturally support that. Right and so a lot of what I'm. The whole it's like the functional medicine and it's it's all cause, but it's not like in conventional medicine.
Speaker 3:Medicine, let's say it's all like disease system like it's acne, it's kidney disease, it's heart disease, but really it's all interconnected, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, um, and then what is causing it? You know, um food. We look a lot at food as medicine and how your body can heal itself with nutrition. That's how come people don't want to turn to this way too, because it's a big commitment.
Speaker 2:It's a big commitment on the person when you can just take a pill or you got to change a lot of other things, but what is more important to you that's what you really have to come down to is how bad do I want this issue fixed or do I just want to Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, just think about a car that runs. You want to say, like my daddy, you want the one with the trash and the gas, or you want the good, you know the good gas? Well, I used to say all the time when I was really on my my nutrition, I would say I got to keep this machine running optimally. Well, that's nutrition. What are you putting in your body? You know, and I know, I know y'all thinking, but fool you is just making a tasso pizza. I know, but you know, that's just that's, that's just a small thing of what you might see, especially now since I went and she's got me back on track, Back on track.
Speaker 3:Even if we can do an 80-20 rule or like a 90-10, to where you can still enjoy some of those things but the bulk of your diet. Yeah, and it does take discipline, and then some of the supplementation and even some of the functional lab testing can be a little bit pricier. But it's like trying these things first, right Before we go into expensive testing and doing it only when necessary.
Speaker 3:So that's why it's very important for me to ask okay, how are you sleeping, getting your seven to nine hours, or are you only sleeping like four hours? Because before I even order any, we need to work on that right.
Speaker 1:Did your doctor ask you how you're sleeping Like?
Speaker 3:how much water are you drinking? Are you getting the amount of water you should be drinking? How is your stress level? You know what I mean. Like how are we? I feel like everybody's stressed.
Speaker 2:We all feel stressed. We all stretch ourselves way too thin, you know. But yeah, you even have tips on how to manage that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, what are you eating?
Speaker 3:You know, what is your diet consisting of? Like, tell me what, specifically on one of my intake forms what did you eat in the last 24 hours? How many fruits or vegetables do you think you get in a day? How much protein do what did you eat in the last 24 hours? How much? How many fruits or vegetables do you think you get in a day? How much protein do you think you get in a day? Because all these things are important. Yeah, and then I do just feel you know, with insurance dictating health care providers on how much you know, how many patients they can see a day in order to be profitable and to sustain their practices, they kind of do the model is set up that you do get reimbursed by the amount of patients.
Speaker 3:So I think the average office visit is about 15 minutes. But they do have providers, they do take time with their patients, because that's one thing that I noticed too.
Speaker 1:Like you spend your time with us, you know like and that's not everybody, sometimes they in and out and that's here you go bye. And here you go bye and then you are Constantly going back. You know, like A simple sinus infection. You know that could have been dealt with by, just you know, maybe Nasal rinse.
Speaker 2:Nasal rinse.
Speaker 1:You know something really simple.
Speaker 2:A neti pot.
Speaker 1:A neti pot. You went and got all kinds of antibiotics.
Speaker 3:What's triggering that allergy to you? Know, you know.
Speaker 1:So I guess, yeah, I just wanted people to know there are other options, because that's what struck us and when we got in the car I was like that was so good, I think people need to know about this, you know, and so there are, this is out there, you know, this is out there. This is a thing, yeah, and I'm so glad it is. Let's go ahead and take some time to talk about Sure, title and Abstract.
Speaker 2:Yes, so Sure Title and Abstract. You can choose them for all your title needs. Sure Title offers services such as residential and commercial property closings, business setups, title transfers, donations and successions. Attorney Maria Petrie and the team at SureTitle are ready to help you make your property transaction as smooth and easy as possible. You can contact them at 337-451-5959 or visit their website thesurechoicecom. Make the sure choice choose SureTitle for your closing. The sure choicecom. Make the sure choice. Choose your title for your closing. Do you find that there's um a commonality, like a common thread for women specifically, that feel like um very stressed, like no, like anxiety? Um, well, this is probably two separate issues, but like no sex drive or low sex drive.
Speaker 1:I was hoping you would bring that up, because she did.
Speaker 2:I mean that's very important, especially as women. Men too, you know. But like we and we usually attribute it to well, I'm just so busy all the time like I don't have time to even think about that, much less want to do it, you know what I mean so, but there could be underlying causes like hormonally that are making you feel that way?
Speaker 3:yeah, and so I do get a lot of women. They're in perimenopause and I just have one of my girlfriends actually she was texting me last week she's like I don't feel right.
Speaker 2:Is that pre-menopause? It's the perimenopause. Because I've been hearing that word a lot lately, that time before actual menopause.
Speaker 3:It can happen eight to 10 years before you officially go into menopause. But some women start having symptoms even in their 30s. I had a good friend of mine. She started having symptoms, she was 32. She having symptoms, she was 32. She was having severe anxiety just out of nowhere, panic attacks, and so they were like you have anxiety, let's give you this Anxiety miss. You know this SSRI and she's like but wait, I'm like the happiest I've ever been.
Speaker 3:You know, like I'm not stressed, I don't know where this is coming from you know, and then, sure enough, her doctor did a hormone panel and she had no low progesterone, you know, and I do think at that time which she was going through Perry, cause her last cycle was at 39. Right. So women do experience these symptoms and can go into like an earlier menopause than your average age of 55. Oh wow, so yeah and can go into like an earlier menopause than your average age of 55. Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I mean, if you're feeling run down, if you're feeling, like you know you have a lack of that desire or you're also getting like this new onset, like anxiety or mood changes and not feeling yourself it's definitely worth taking a look at that hormone panel and seeing you know what's going on and you know for ways to optimize your hormone health right would be to get adequate sleep.
Speaker 3:Definitely avoiding alcohol if possible, because that's going to affect your sex hormones. Making sure you're getting the adequate dietary fats for hormone production. What else I could go on about the endocrine disruptors and how that's affecting women's hormone, health, skincare and all those things huh. Yes, yeah. And gut health too, because if our gut is not working, because that's how we get rid of that excess estrogen, ah, you know it's detoxified in the liver and we're getting rid of that through our bowel movements.
Speaker 3:If we're struggling with our gut health. We're definitely going to have. We're holding on to all of that. Then we keep putting all these toxins in our body that's increasing that load. The dangers of that with too much estrogen over time could lead to breast cancer, you know.
Speaker 1:Okay. This is so interesting.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you use any apps on your phone to help you find the best products or groceries or?
Speaker 3:There's the Yuka app, and then there's the EWG app. Okay, I have the Yuka one I've heard of Yuka.
Speaker 1:yeah, I haven't used it yet, but I have it on here. That's what I do.
Speaker 3:tell my patients to do? You can scan your product and it'll kind of tell you.
Speaker 2:Man. It about broke my heart whenever I scanned I had some Bath and Body Works shower gel.
Speaker 1:Probably the worst.
Speaker 2:Anything. Bath and a gel, probably the worst anything bath and body work. I mean, I'm sorry to say this, I love it because it all smells so good.
Speaker 1:Yes, but like anything with like artificial fragrance is so not good for us, y'all I know, yeah, and it's like it's going in, like it candles it, it putting it on your skin, it's all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, but we don't think about how fast that gets absorbed into the blood stream and we kind of I mean that's kind of one reason we like our limelight skin care, because that's it doesn't have none of those hormone disruptors and stuff in it, but if you don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 3:So now you know, now you know to check your, yeah, your makeup check up, check your deodorant. Deodorant, oh my god, but do you know like what it's?
Speaker 1:uh, we'll talk about tell me fertility, and like ed and men and like the low testosterone tell us okay, I wanted to, I wanted to talk, to speak to our men too certain deodorants are even, you know, affecting their testosterone. Oh my god, so high heavy metals in it, you know.
Speaker 3:And like an aluminum free.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my husband and I have been using aluminum free.
Speaker 2:That's something I never thought about, because for me I know like our arms are so close to our breasts. It's like a no brainer for me. I'm like I went all natural several years ago, but the men, like I, didn't think about that you know that it can be harmful for them.
Speaker 1:Their deodorant too, their body wash, yeah, yeah, yeah, their body wash. But, um, but just thinking about it, for our kids too. You know our kids get to a certain age. You want to you, if, what if we started it now? You know what I'm saying we started it with this new generation and they, they just don't know any different. Yeah, just like we would rub on our teen spirit. They have a different option.
Speaker 3:You know also the sweet pea and the cucumber melon too we would douse ourselves oh yeah, can imagine in our pre-teen teenage years.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, I wonder what that did to us, you know?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, for lathering up the tannin lotion and laying in a tannin bed, if you really want to talk about how much damage it really did to our bodies.
Speaker 1:You just don't know.
Speaker 3:You know they're saying what's in our kids school lunches. You know how can we know? And we're paying out the wazoo for them.
Speaker 3:Right. Not me personally anymore but I know people who are. I know you're homeschooling now, but I think people are opting to pack lunches, but it's still. I know as a working mom it's stressful to try to figure out. Okay, I got to get X, y and Z ready, get the kids ready for school. Now I got to worry about what I'm going to pack them for lunch you know it can be overwhelming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh it's, and it's so much more expensive, you know, to eat healthy than to eat crappy, cause you know you can. You can buy a whole meal, you know, in a brown bag for way less than what's going to be something good putting in your body and a salad or some vegetables Like y'all.
Speaker 2:They have made it so impossible, not impossible, but so hard to go. You go buy groceries in the fresh produce section and you got $300 worth of groceries for just a few meals. But you can go get the frozen, the frozen foods all day long, you know, and it's yeah, are you making it? But you pay that. Are you going to pay a doctor bill, right?
Speaker 3:you know that's what I look at healthcare cost and like the cost of being on some of these prescription medications for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:they're not cheap, you know, it's true. So even making small switches, you know, is going to benefit you in the long run. I feel like you know beneficial.
Speaker 3:Small changes.
Speaker 1:So Renew Vitality. In Lafayette, louisiana, my cousin Emily Alamo. She offers a personalized, holistic approach to your health and wellness, as you've been hearing us talk about. She offers services from primary care To hormone replacement therapy. But y'all, it's not just for women. Okay, this is men too. She can see the men as well as the women and you can be on your Way to optimal health. Naturally, you can book an appointment with her At renewedvitalcom, and she said that's the best way to get to her, you know to to book online and then you're going to get all these wonderful questions.
Speaker 2:And if they not around here, Emily, you do telemed style. If they're in the state of Louisiana.
Speaker 3:I am currently working on getting my compact or in licensure and then applying for nurse practitioner licenses in other States.
Speaker 2:Okay, wonderful. So currently Louisiana residents, correct, gotcha since it's in other states, okay, wonderful.
Speaker 1:So currently Louisiana residents, correct, gotcha Wonderful. So revitalize your health and reclaim your life with Renewed Vitality. That's renewedvitalcom, all right. Well, I mean I'm trying to think of any other questions.
Speaker 2:We could have a whole topic on. We could probably just dive into one little aspect.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, All the different avenues, but yeah, I guess it just. It's so interesting to me, it was, it was. It was an epiphany moment for me that there was this. You know that this was available, but people really don't know about it. You know, and so it can't just be you like, even in other states there's gotta be.
Speaker 3:You know, there's also more. There's other providers too in Lafayette that do offer, like there's naturopaths.
Speaker 2:And you know, like I said, for your health. Um ask around to try to find you a, a doctor that um is going to really care about solving these issues for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and getting to the root of the problem, you know, because I think that's important, that's really. You know really what you want in a provider. You want somebody who's going to take the time to see about you and not just focus on the issue and like be like, okay, let's pass something over that real quick. But anyway, I just thought it was interesting and I thought y'all would like to. We thought y'all would like to. You know, maybe listen to that and and um, find it as interesting as we did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hope you learned something about um the options that you have.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that, like if you just like I was just curious, like honestly not having a whole lot of symptoms, but just curious to know more about my body and what it's doing, you know, and see if there's any areas to improve upon you know. So if you just curious like that too. You know that's an option for you.
Speaker 1:You got to do a physical at least once a year, so you might as well see what your options are. That's right, all right. So thank y'all so much for hanging out with us Say thank you for hanging out with us today and, um, so you can all, like we said you can, you can get with her at renewedvitalcom. But you know uh, know uh that that is. That was a fun one um and we'll talk about our longs products, our grand grand console sponsor.
Speaker 2:Longs products um y'all. They are a family owned and operated company out of alexandria, louisiana. Uh, they do janitorial and cleaning supplies, um, but not just that y'all. They have stuff like uh, they have cleaning, cleaning chemicals, obviously, but they got mops and brooms, trash bags to go plates, uh, your foil films, gumbo bowls and all kind of cleaning stuff um, and household items. You can check out their website at longsproductscom or all the social media channels, um, especially tiktok. Go check that out because they have some funny ones there. Yeah, um, all the handles for their social is at long's products, um, and their chemicals, uh, their pelican brain chemicals y'all. They just went viral on tiktok. They're good stuff.
Speaker 2:It's very concentrated a little goes a long way yes, and that means it stretches you down, it stretches your doll. It stretches your doll. We like a bargain around here. We do so check out Longs Chemical sorry, longsproductscom for all your janitorial and cleaning needs.
Speaker 1:Thank y'all for being our grand sponsor too.
Speaker 2:Yes, Thank you.
Speaker 1:Longs, all right. Well, we'll see y'all next time.