The "Secret" Strategy for 3% Interest Rates (And Why the Market Isn’t Crashing)

Are you waiting for a real estate "crash" that isn't coming? While national headlines scream about falling sales, the reality in markets like Stephenson County is a complete stalemate. In this episode, Vanessa Torres and Aubra Palermo reveal why local inventory is so low and how savvy buyers are securing 3% interest rates using Assumable Mortgages.

We also sit down with functional medicine expert Laura Dickerson to discuss why your "healthy" routine might be making you tired. From the toxicity of drugstore vitamins to the critical role of bioidentical hormones in longevity, we explore how to treat the root cause of your symptoms instead of just masking them.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

Assumable Mortgages 101: How to take over an existing FHA, VA, or USDA loan at a fraction of today's rates.

Local Market Reality: Why Stephenson County home prices have doubled in the last decade, and why buyers shouldn't wait.

The Supplement Scam: The "other ingredients" in your vitamins that are actually toxic.

The Nervous System Fix: How to get your body out of chronic "fight or flight" and finally start healing.

Longevity Secrets: Why bioidentical hormones are a "game changer" for brain and heart health as you age.

Connect with our Guest:
Laura Dickerson, Prime Revival Health & Wellness
📞 815-708-2808
🌐 primerevivalbyron.com


📌 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Introduction

04:15 – National Headlines 

08:48 – How transit-connected and walkable neighborhoods are becoming the new premium.

12:28 – The Build vs. Buy Dilemma

14:08 – Assumable Mortgages:

22:45 – Regional Market Update: Deep dive into Stephenson County stats

28:15 – Guest Interview: Laura Dickerson: Prime Revival Health 

32:15 – Root-Cause Healing: Moving beyond managing symptoms to treating the whole person at a cellular level.

37:05 – The Truth About Vitamins: Why drugstore supplements often contain heavy metals and "junk" fillers.

45:52 – Stress & Sleep: How chronic fight-or-flight prevents healing and the non-negotiable need for deep sleep.

55:10 – Hormones & Longevity: De-mystifying bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) for aging gracefully.

01:13:50 – Chemical Awareness: Using tools like the Yucca app to scan toxins in your daily skincare and food.

01:21:28 – Final Tip

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Owning a home teaches you patience, humility, and to pronounce the name of every tool you don't own. You will own soon.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to the Listed Podcast. I'm Vanessa Torres, a real estate agent with Remax Unite's Golden Girls team.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

I'm Aubrey Palermo, your local Illinois and Wisconsin real estate broker with over 25 years of experience and the managing broker of the Remax Unites Golden Girls team. Listed is all about real agents talking real estate in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and beyond. If you're interested in real estate in our region or in general, you've come to the right place. I know, it's crazy. I don't know where the time has gone. I don't remember most of last month. It seems like it just blew back.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Well, then we got a fast month this month, so yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

And I know that days run together, but we've been out showing houses again. Like I'm seeing more buyers getting out there again.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Starting to see houses coming on the market again.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Finally.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Right. Finally, I know. Like I looked at the stats and I think we have like 80 some houses for sale, and I was like, wow, that's awesome. And I went, well, that's really still not enough. But getting up there. Right. When 80 seems like a big number is is crazy. Right. But it is wonderful because finally a buyers that are, you know, out there looking and sellers who are starting to get their houses on the market as spring is finally starting to spring. So it'll get better. Cold weather is over with, hopefully. Yes, knock on wood. Hopefully. At least by the time this airs anyway. Yeah. So I know some of the things, you know, we've been experiencing is the difference between national headlines versus local, what's going on. And I know you've dealt with this and I see this regularly. And working a client through a buyer who wants to make a low offer.$10,000 low,$20,000 low, even lower. How many times how many times would you say this is happening to you?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I feel like almost every client.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Like almost every client they want to lowball. Um, even if it's new to the market. Right. And that's when, you know, we go ahead and pull up the the stats of last month's and see how much was selling for what was it?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

List price versus sale price, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Um, kind of give them an idea of the actual market. Right. Because again, they're thinking of the low or the national headlines and everything and not what's here.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Um we've pulled comparables for people too, saying, you know, this other house you looked at over there sold for this price, and that really helps sometimes if they can see that, oh, well, these houses are selling for what people were asking for them. Right. Um, but it does, it happens all the time. But I really think that so much of it is people are seeing what's on the national news. Yeah. And and you know, I mean, and I don't know what that's what they're saying to you, but they'll say to me, Well, the market slowed down. I hear the market's bad. Yeah. I hear people are backing out of deals.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

No, not really. Not so much here. No, only if it's like required from their loan or personal financing or some something regarding the money, but like just willingly back out, not really seeing that.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Um, I know once we get into the spring market, I mean, we might get multiple offers again. Right, right. It was crazy last year.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Right, right. And I expect we'll be that way again because even like I said, right now, sitting at 80 homes on the market, still not enough. Right. Last year, I think it was 40 or 50 homes sold every month. So that's a couple of months of houses. That's not enough to keep us going.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah. Right, right. How many buyers do we have that have been looking for years? Years. Yeah. It's not a year, it's a years plural now. I'm myself included, like been trying to find a condo and can't find one that just fits, or somebody else goes and buys it out from under me beforehand.

unknown 3:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

And again, there's not enough houses though. There's not enough houses, there's not enough condos. We daily get calls about rentals. There's not enough rentals. Yeah. We just don't have enough housing available in our market. So it's definitely, definitely been a thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Let's get started and take a look at this month's National Real Estate News. Home buyers are backing out of deals at the fastest pace in nearly a decade. Home sales are facing serious headwinds as buyers grow more cautious amid ongoing affordability challenges and economic uncertainty. In December, more than 40,000 home purchases agreements were canceled, representing 16.3% of all homes under contract, the highest share since Redfin began tracking the data in 2017. Inventory is rising and sellers now outnumber buyers by a record margin of nearly 47%, giving buyers more leverage and more willingness to walk away from deals. Some markets, such as Atlanta, Jacksonville, and San Antonio, saw cancellation rates above 20%, while pending sales also dropped sharply month over month. With cancellations rising and buyer confidence shaking, closed sales at the start of the year are expected to be notably weak.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

And this is what we were just talking about. Right. And this is why buyers feel like they can write a low ball offer. Yeah. Right? Just it's not the timing right now. Right. Well, and location, right? I mean, it's so cliche to say location, location, location. Everybody, you know, they don't want to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

They're focused on the big markets and not the small one that we have.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Right. You know, you those were Florida markets and Texas markets and New York and California and places where the market is very different. And, you know, and I think that's part of the reason why we kind of have some of these discussions. It's like, this is not our local market. This is here's what's going on here.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, I was kind of amazed when I was looking back at last year stats. It needs to be talked about more because yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Right, right. And and it's it is such a thing because everyone's listening to the national news. And so there's not enough local news talking about why is it different here and why can't I make that offer$20,000 low and get it accepted? Well, if we were in Jacksonville, Florida, as they said, probably so. Probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

But then if you do it now, the seller might feel disrespected. Right. And I've been explaining to people, you know, if you started off that way, you might not even get a counter. Right. And I had a conversation with someone and they kind of felt offended. Right. I was just like, that's the seller. The seller's gonna feel offended. Right. Um and unfortunately it did go through and you got rejected with no, no, no counters.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

It's kind of a hard conversation, right? Right, right. Buyers will say that to me. They're like, well, why didn't they counter? Because they were offended.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

And they literally feel like you're so far apart that you're not ever gonna get there.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

And our goal is to get you to write an offer that we get a response, not just a no. Right. We want we want something. Even if they counter$10 off, yeah. It's still at least something somewhere. Right. Yeah. It's still something because it also gives us a good idea of where that seller is thinking. If they do make the counter and only come down ten dollars, well, they've just said to us, look, we're not coming down, you know,$500, maybe. You know, so it gives us a good starting point, but just a no is no, you've now offended me. I'm now completely done. Don't even talk to me. Right. Don't come back unless you write a full price or above offer. Exactly. Yeah. And now we have no negotiation. So, and so now you've lost maybe a little bit of negotiation that you might have had. Now it's gone. Right. You're not even gonna get a couple thousand dollars, probably.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

And the most tricky part is when they want to um offer it less and then ask for concessions as well. Right. And so trying to have the conversation, well, you know, if great, if you want to, if you need those concessions, because sometimes they do for the lender, right? Maybe add it on top of it, the your offer. Right. So the seller sees on their end, you know, oh, maybe I am getting full. Right. But they're, you know, they're getting the concessions.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Right. Yep, because that's I had a discussion with a seller recently about that, and they said, Well, we're not gonna pay those closing costs, the concessions that they're asking for. And I said, Yep, we we will. We just put it in the dollar amount, right? I mean, at the end of the day, it's all about the bottom dollar. And so what's your bottom dollar? If the buyer needs to add those closing costs to that, that's that's their choice. That's their loan between them and their lender. Right. So, you know, so that's but yeah, if you ask$10,000 below and then you need another five or$10,000 in closing cost concessions, and and then buyers don't realize the cost that sellers have in general either, which I mean it's not their job to to care about that, but there are costs. And so, you know, doing that math, it does make a difference, absolutely. But but it was so it was so funny to me. You know, we had this discussion about buyers making offers low, and then here's these headlines. This this is this is why that we have this struggle on a daily basis because buyers are hearing this every day. Well, we're not Florida. I wish we were too. It would be nice, it would be lovely. Right. But maybe not so much right now while it's you know, but it's also the difference in is it a buyer's market or a seller's market? We are still in a seller's market. They in Florida are in a buyer's market. Right. Very different.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Americans hit the brakes on driving, and it could shift the housing market in reverse. A growing generational shift is quietly reshaping housing demand. Americans are driving less. Younger adults are delaying both homeownership and car ownership, while older adults are aging out of driving altogether. Even as demand rises for walkable transit connected neighborhoods, most new housing is still being built in car-dependent areas, creating a major mismatch. Data shows vehicle travel per capita is down, transit ridership is rebounding, and homes near transit are seeing outsized price growth in places like Phoenix and Austin, largely because supply is so limited. Economists argue this makes transit-oriented development a critical affordability strategy, especially as car ownership costs top$12,000 a year and aging population need alternatives to driving. Without zoning reform and more housing near transit, walkable living will remain a premium instead of the norm.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Well, and you think about the cost of building here in our area versus near some transit in the Chicago suburbs. Just that cost of building alone is different. So that's why people are building out in the rural area, more rural areas than in those transit already housing dense zones, because there you've probably got to tear some stuff down to build some stuff. So I I could see, but I think also like we've always kind of seen this because we are rural to such big cities. Yeah. And so, you know, for a long time, people were, no, I don't want to drive, you know, an hour out of the city. Well, then they sat for an hour in par in traffic. So they said, oh no, we'll we'll come out an hour because it's more affordable. And then fuel puss went up to$4 a gallon, and people said, Oh no, wait a minute, I'm not gonna drive again. And so I feel like we've kind of always seen this up and down being outside of bigger cities like we are, um, and being in the business all these years. I think we've kind of always seen this in our area. Um, but I do definitely think, especially as we have an aging population, that this is something that's gonna be more of a factor. Um, I think too, maybe that's why sometimes we're seeing some multi-generational homes again. Yeah. Where people are, you know, living with their parents or parents living with them, or vice versa, whatever, however you want to say that. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

And that might be the reason why people are waiting to get married, start families, and purchase a home as well. Right. Because of the affordability and all that.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Right. And so, you know, they're staying in the city or in a bigger population area where it is walkable until they are ready for the house with the family and the kids and the dog and the picket fence and all the all the perfect, you know, picture that that is the American dream, right? Um, you know, because there are people who stay living in a downtown building or in a in a loft or an apartment or something like that until, you know, they're ready to have the kids and want a yard and want all the maintenance that goes along with that. Yeah, but I think that that's you know, it's interesting. And I think also real estate is always shifting too, right? You know, gas went to fuel went to$4 and$5 a gallon. Well, that's gonna make a difference again versus, you know, affordability of building and construction and availability of housing in general, too. Right. We don't have enough housing as we were talking about earlier. We don't have enough housing available, period. Do do you see more people building? It's starting in other areas, not as much here because we are still so much lower per square foot, price per square foot, than it is to build. But I am starting to see it further east of us and north of us because where the prices, again, if you can build something and it's gonna cost you$200 a square foot, but where here you can maybe buy something for$150 a square foot. Well, why would you build? But in other areas, let's say closer to Madison or closer to Chicago suburbs, and it's gonna cost you$200,$250 a square foot to buy it anyway, well, you might as well just build it then.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

So again, it just depends on the location and the affordability in that area. We are still so affordable here that it doesn't make a lot of dollars and cents for people to build. Some people still will just because they want what they want or they can't find a house. Um and they financially can. But some people just they see that price sticker. I mean, Christy and our team, that she went through this, you know, discussion of do they buy something or do they build something or do they add on. And just better to add on. Yeah, and then they decided to just add on rather than starting to build from scratch with the whole thing. Yeah. Um, not sure it really comes out a whole lot cheaper, but you start off with part of the house anyway.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, one piece at a time.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Right. Um, but the you know, the building a whole house or finding a a good location. Contractors too, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

If I heard that sometimes is a struggle.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

It is very much a struggle. I mean how many times we have that discussion on the team of does anybody have a painter? Does anybody have an electrician? Does anybody have somebody to clean? Does anybody have, you know, just handyman? Yeah. It's very difficult.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Could assumable mortgages end the housing market stalemate? As of early 2026, the average rate on new 30-year fixed rate mortgages hovered around 6.16%, significantly above the 4.4% average on existing mortgages. Roughly 20% of outstanding loans carry interest below 3%, discouraging many current homeowners from selling and constraining housing inventory. Loans backed by FHA, VA, or USDA are assumable, compromising about 23% of the approximately 52 million outstanding mortgages. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Avra, what are you thinking about this? Right. I mean, so first of all, one of the reasons I think this is a great topic is because we're getting people talking about this more. And I think that is really going to be an added feature that buyers need to start thinking about or asking about because it really, really could make a difference for a lot of buyers. Um and and it also could free up some sellers who really aren't wanting to, you know, sell because they're in this great mortgage, but maybe if they could go buy a property that was also at a decent mortgage for at least part of it, right? Maybe they could motivate them to sell. Yeah. Um yeah. So I didn't realize that 20% of the mortgages were out there that are around 3%. I mean, that that's a lot of mortgages out there, which is no wonder why sellers don't want to sell.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah. I mean, I think I ran across someone who said they had a two-point something. Right. So I mean, I don't blame them for wanting to stay.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Right. Exactly. You know, I think my last refi was at 2.75.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

And and that at that time was like, why not get a refi rather than take that money out of an investment at 2.75% interest rate? I mean, it's not quite free money, but it's pretty gross. Yeah, definitely. And so, and I think that's where too a lot of sellers are going, but now I gotta go pay 6%. Right. And I have to pay the price that property values are now. And so they're really struggling with both of these factors. And I think a lot of sellers, not that we're we're already in a seller's market, but I think that it would really help some sellers to start marketing their home saying, Hey, I have an FHA loan, I have a VA loan, I have a USDA loan. If you qualify for any of those, this loan's assumable. So I and I think also, too, people don't really understand how it works because they say, well, okay, their loan is$100,000, let's say. But the seller wants$200,000 for their house. The market, not the seller wants. The market now says the house is worth$200,000. So you get a mortgage still for$200,000, but$100,000 of that is at that existing rate, whatever that is,$2.75, 3, 4, all of those sound better than six.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Right, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

And then the other$100,000 is at the six or six and a quarter or six and an eighth or whatever we're averaging right now. So they're saving some money. Right. So you're saving a substantial amount. I mean, that$100,000 at 3% less, let's say, or 2% less, that is a substantial savings over a 10, 20, 30 year, 40 year, whatever you know, the mortgage is. That's that's a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Um, and so I had talked to my daughter and and kind of coached her through this of when she was looking at buying in a very VA probability high area, because she was moving back to DC area. And I said, you know, you need to start asking if, you know, you might be able to assume somebody's loan. And she's like, what? Huh? That's a thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

You know, I mean, I never knew it was it was a thing until now.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Right, right. And and so, you know, for her, same thing. She was struggling with, well, you know, a couple of years ago when we talked about buying a house, we could afford this much house. And now we're looking at this interest rate, and that means we can only afford this much house, or we only want this much house because we don't want to be house poor. So I said, well, if you could assume somebody's loan and they're at whatever 3%, and she's also in a much higher price point area, you know, where houses are double and triple what they are here, you know. And so it's also a even more substantial difference. Um, in an area where a lot of people move for military, um, she had somebody who had bought a house a couple of years ago, had a VA loan, they were able to then go apply to get the VA loan and to assume that mortgage. Now they end up not buying that house due to some inspection issues, but that was the path they were going down was to be able to assume that person's mortgage and then just take out a small mortgage for the difference of what they were going to need. Or if you were putting that as your down payment, maybe that's just your down payment, you know, if if it's just a small difference, if the people have only been there for a couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

So, how exactly does that come about? Like, does the seller have to advertise, hey, you can assume my loan? Absolutely. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So it's really something we as agents probably need to start asking our sellers more often or looking at do they have an FHA, VA, or USDA loan? Um, they're very commonly used around here and we go through different phases. USDA was very popular for a lot of the last like five, 10 years because it was 100% financing. Um, and then FHA now is more popular because it's a lower interest rate. Um, but there are a lot of people with those loans. Now, VA, you have to be a veteran, you have to qualify for the VA. So that's not as common in our area because we don't, we're not right next to a military base or military installation. We do have some, but not as much. Um, but so really you have to start with a seller and know that the they do have that loan. And then next you need to know where that loan is because you're gonna go apply for a loan at that lender's bank, whatever that company is. So you're gonna go, let's say it's US bank. You're gonna go to US bank and say, okay, Vanessa has a loan, I want to assume that loan, and I'm applying to US bank as a mortgage as a buyer, but I'm also applying to assume that loan. It's a little bit different of a process. Takes a little bit longer typically. Um, but it also can be lower in cost for the buyer because a lot of times they won't make you pay for an appraisal.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

But they'll make you pay for like a credit report and some of that stuff. So you kind of have some costs up front just like you would, but you're maybe not paying for an appraisal or waiting for an appraisal to get done.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Oh, that's interesting. Would they have to get their other loan like let through US bank?

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yes, yeah, they would do the whole package through them. So that way it's all one signing and one, you know, that lender has your whole package against that one house. Otherwise, you're kind of doing like a first and second loan, and yeah, and that lender doesn't want to be a second mortgage to another lender, and yeah, so it gets gets powerful.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

So does that mean FHA gets a little easier?

SPEAKER_01 20:46

It could be, but the the process of the application for an assum assumption is a little bit longer than just going and getting a regular mortgage, even if you're just getting an FHA mortgage. So just that assumption part is a just added few steps.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

But yes, that absolutely could be something that really could save a lot of buyers some money. It could maybe get some sellers to say, okay, you know, if I could go do that in buying, that would really help me in buying. So I'll give my buyer that option and I'll also go take that option on another house. Right. So I really think, and some of these markets too, where we're talking about where some of these markets are struggling with buyers not buying or a lot of homes for sale, they could be marketing those homes maybe in that fashion in those areas to really get their house marketed and sold faster than their neighbor next door's house that's for sale with a conventional loan.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah, I think some sellers are curious, but again, it's just the interest rate that's kind of like keeping them in their home. But I know for sure that they're still out browsing.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Right. They're still they're still looking, waiting to find that right thing, waiting to find the right deal because we also don't like the prices have gone up as much as they have. That's another argument. On one end, right? Happy about it, and on the other hand, we're not. Right. My house is now worth this much. Yay. But I don't want to pay that much. Right. It is a daily struggle. So, but I've been in the market long enough to have been on the other side of that fence where I was going to sellers and saying you're now upside down. So, you know, which it's a good thing now. Yeah. So we have this better conversation. Right. So now I don't have to go and say, okay, yeah, you bought your house 10 years ago, but it's still worth the same or less than what you bought it. So that is a real horrible discussion to have versus this one. I'd much rather have these problems. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

So we'll be right back with a look at our regional market updates. All right, let's jump into the regional market update. Today we're diving deep into Stevenson County, Illinois. Last month, 31 homes sold with an average sale price of$156,319. An average 91% list price to sale price. There was a few deals out there. To recap 2025 in Stevenson County, 584 homes sold in 2025. That's an average of 49 properties each month.$95,410,211 in total sales. Wow. Oh my goodness. Right. Can't even imagine that.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

There's too many numbers there. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

In Stevenson County.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Right.

unknown 23:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

An average sale price of$167,502 up to 2% from last year.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

So wait, the market's still going up? Yeah. Yeah, we just talked about market going. Buyers wanting buyers wanting a lower price and it going down, and the market went up 2% again last year. Probably 2% more this year. Right. I would guess so, actually.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Average 95% from list price to sales price. This has been slow, steady, stable, and sustainable growth over the last 10 years. Not the massive swing some markets see. Twice as many homes are selling compared to just 10 years ago. Home prices have doubled over the last 10 years. Currently, there are 87 homes for sale in the county, which sounds like a lot, but it's still a seller's market.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah, so we were just talking about 87 homes for sale. And last year, we averaged 49 homes selling every month. It's again not enough houses. Not enough houses, not enough houses, not enough houses. How many times can we say that to people? And the fact that prices have doubled over the last 10 years, I know is part of the struggle that we have in why people don't want to pay the prices that there are now because people are seeing the prices and going, well, five or ten years ago, I could have bought that for half that.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

And I think that's maybe why they want to still offer less because they're not used to it, or they haven't been in the market looking for however 20, 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Right. Right. So right. Most people in our area stay a lot longer than the national average. Right. So, like you said, they've been in their home 20, 30, 40 years, and now they're looking at the market going, they want what for what? Well, no, they're gonna get what for what? Right. It's just a matter of whether or not you're the buyer or not. Right, yeah. And and I mean, I even struggled with that the first time I looked at a condo that I liked and was like, they're asking what for this? Like five years ago, I could have bought that for blah, blah, blah. I sounded like every one of our buyers, right? And now I kick myself for not buying that condo for that price at that time. Yeah. And I don't want my buyers to have that same, you know, regret. But sometimes we all kind of have to learn the hard way too.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Right. And that might be the discussion well, maybe, you know, now is a good time to buy because kind of looks like it's just gonna keep going up. Right. You know, and you know, like we always say, you can always refinance the interest rate. So Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

You're not married to the rate, you're married to the house, not the rate. And so that is definitely a thing of, you know, wouldn't we all wish that five years ago we could have bought all those houses at that at that price, or 10 years ago, or two years ago? And so, you know, what about next year? Are we all gonna say, Well, I wish I'd have bought that last year at that price? Because now look, now they're gonna get this price for it, or one comparable to it. Uh, you know. But yeah, it is definitely a thing when our market just doesn't turn over as quickly. Either people haven't been buying for 20 years, or I've had lately where I had one client who their parents came, and their parents were like, There's no way you should pay that price for that house. It's got this wrong with it, and this, and you know, that house should only be for this price. And but again, they haven't bought a house themselves for 20, 30 years. And so they're just not attuned to where the market is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Same ones with the home inspections, everything is falling apart.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Right, right. I wish every house was perfect.

unknown 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah. And how many times we tell clients that, you know, they say, Oh, well, I want the seller to fix all that. And how many times we have the discussion of do you really want them to fix it, how they're gonna fix it? Right. Is that gonna be acceptable to you? Right. We you know, the DIY. Do you want that? Right, right, because we see the DIY way too often.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah, definitely. It's always better to get the credit.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Yes, yeah. If you can at all, do it yourself, you know. Find the find the we'll help you find the local handyman. We'll help you, you know, get in touch with those good contractors and hopefully you've got somebody handy in the family too, and things like that. So absolutely. Yeah, it it's it's shocking to me to think about, you know, half the homes selling 10 years ago and half the price. And, you know, it just so the fact that not only have the number of homes sold doubled, but also the price doubled. So, you know, I think about having been in the market back then.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I wish I would have bought a house when I was 14.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Right. Don't tell us how young you are, because I feel really old. Yes, I wish I'd bought all those houses when I moved here in 1998. And actually, no, I wish I'd bought them all when the market crashed here in 2010, 11, 12. Yeah. Bought every single one of those, and now I'd be sitting on all of them. So isn't that a you know, coulda, woulda, shoulda. Right, yeah. Can't we can't go back and do that.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

We're gonna take a quick break before Abra is joined by our community guests of the month.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Today we're joined by Laura Dickerson, founder and owner of Prime Revival Health and Wellness. Laura is a doctorally prepared, board-certified family nurse practitioner specializing in functional medicine after years in acute care nursing. Laura began searching for deeper, more sustainable ways to help patients truly heal beyond just managing symptoms. That journey has led her to functional medicine and ultimately to launching prime revival health, where the focus is on treating the whole person, mind, body, and soul. Her work centers on education, root-caused healing, and personalized care with a level of attention that often means spending hours digging into a patient's story to find the real answers. Welcome, Laura. I'm so excited. Thank you. It's wonderful to have you here because this is so personal to me. We're gonna talk about some of that journey, but I also want to talk about your journey into this because I know it's been a very interesting, long journey in this process.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah. So let's start off with what pushed you into the acute care functional medicine.

SPEAKER_04 29:26

Yes. So um, well, it's functional medicine. So I used to, prior to me becoming a nurse practitioner, I always say um I was born and raised in surgery. So that's kind of where my medical career took um took off. It was I started in surgery. And then um the reason why I say I chose to to branch out into functional medicine, it ultimately um comes down to. So I have a daughter, she's 13 years old. Um, when she was three, she ended up getting bit by a tick.

unknown 29:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

And so, long story short, I'll save it for another day. Um, about nine months worth in time. Um, it took us uh that long to figure out essentially like what was wrong with her. Okay. Um, working with conventional docs, that type of thing, we kind of all scratched our heads, so we're not quite sure. Um, and it really was because none of her symptoms really fit into a box. It was like she would spike a random fever here or there. Um, she would just throw up, but then she would be completely fine. Um then towards the end of that nine months, and and she ended up getting extremely tired to where she was just not a functioning four-year-old, I say, at that point.

SPEAKER_05 30:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:30

Um, so then I, of course, being the mom, you know, dig deeper, dig deeper because I want answers, right? I always say, I want to know why. Right. I want to know why. Right. Um, so looking into um the fact that she was bit by a tick and she was treated um acutely post that tick bite with a uh like a couple week course of antibiotic. Um, then we so with that per CDC, right? They say, okay, that's great, that's all you need. Right. Well, I ended up finding a um Lyme literate medical doctor, so they call them like LLMDs, okay, to figure out let's get some little bit more extensive testing here. Okay. Um, because per the Western blot, which is what you see in conventional med, um, she was negative. So it looked like she didn't have Lyme disease.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

Well, uh, she did, in fact, have Lyme disease. So she was she was tested more with like more uh comprehensive testing. So she had Lyme, she had spotty mounted uh uh Rocky mounted spotted fever, she had Bibecia, so she had quite a bit of the madness. Oh my gosh. Um yeah. So And as a four-year-old trying to fight all things.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

And can't really vocalize all the things either or understand herself.

SPEAKER_04 31:33

Absolutely. Yeah, so um we ended up being treated, uh, or she was treated essentially functional. So she was treated from a functional aspect. She really didn't have medications, it was it was purely dietary lifestyle changes, what you could do for a four-year-old at that time. Um, and then uh supplements, you know, and kind of just but it was two years worth of time to to say that she kind of was on the like beyond that, beyond that phase. Uh she's still, I say to this, to this day, she uh she's pretty fine, you know. She don't have real issues. If anything, she has a little bit of GI issues. Um, but I say uh who that lives in America, yes, does not have GI issues. Yes, right with the things we eat, the things we put in our food, everything else these days. Yes, right. So that really kind of piqued my interest. It it wasn't it wasn't that um I just decided, hey, I I'm I want to just try functional medicine. It was more of like I had that personal experience with it. Um and because of that, I had the tr she was healed, like essentially healed through functional medicine, versus in the conventional world, they had question marks and there was no answers for it. And so I say because of that, I had that experience with my daughter, and that's essentially where my passion started. Right. Um, because it is truly taking care of and healing people.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Right, right. Because the body is amazing, and if you give it the nutrients it needs and and the things it needs to work properly, right? So that is amazing. Yes, yeah. Yeah, and I remember mentioning to you that I had a friend who their son was diagnosed with Lyme disease, and you were like, there are other options. Yes, there are. There absolutely are other options.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

It it essentially is a long journey. So, um, meaning because you usually were conditioned with here's a medication to just manage a symptom, so it kind of masks that symptom. Therefore, you think that you're better when really you're not. Um, and so uh there is a that takes a lot of patience when it comes down to wanting your healing to be done through functional medicine, just because it is you're you're truly healing um though that from that cellular aspect. Yeah, absolutely. Um, versus covering up with a med.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Well, but I think that's a lot of our traditional medicine versus functional medicine is we're treating the symptoms. Yes. We're not actually treating the issues going on. Absolutely. And I think we'll get into some of that other discussion later, but also like I think that is just part of our whole system in general that we're absolutely battling in general. So when someone comes to you frustrated and out of answers, where do you usually start?

SPEAKER_04 33:53

Yes, I I think that this is great. Um, because usually most of the time people are coming to me after they are frustrated and they've been years worth of time and no answers in in the conventional world. And and please understand I'm not I'm not saying anything bad towards conventional med. I do say that we do need it when it comes to health, like acute management, surgery, that type of stuff. Like if there's an emergency and some people are so sick that they do need acute hospitalizations.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

Um, however, what I say when it comes to like chronic disease management, um, when it comes to wellness prevention of disease, conventional med is just not the key. Right. Um, ultimately. Right, right. Um, so back to your question, where do I start? So I say I start with the basics, and the basics being because if we don't have the basics, um, then our body can't do anything from there. Right. So essentially I just run my functional panel. So I look to see kind of the basic aspect of what are your micronutrients look like, um, you know, any inflammatory markers. I I look at um, you know, of course, getting the patient history. So, like, say if they are their primary symptoms are more in the GI aspect, I may run a stool study um to see what's going on there. Um, but I don't uh I I say it's it's um, you know, depending on the need of the patient, uh, will kind of determine which way I move with it, but I ultimately start at the base. Right. At the base.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Like, because you're wanting a baseline of like vitamin D and iron and and not just your regular, like, what is it, CBC or whatever panel. You're wanting more of like, like you said, your more nutritional type of things, your magnesiums and your irons and things that a lot of times aren't on a typical like C B C panel. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 35:27

And I always tell my patients, um, they they think we think of vitamins as being so basic, right? Right. They are so basic. However, um, we don't think about our bodies from a cellular aspect. And the the those vitamins, essentially, they are mate, they are necessary for cellular function to work properly. Therefore, if you're deficient across the board, those cells cannot do their job. Right. Therefore, you feel lousy. Um, not saying that that's the only reason why you feel lousy, but sometimes people just that they're just micronutrient deficient and they need to optimize their vitamins. And they come to me three months later and they say, I feel amazing. That's all that was wrong with them.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Right. So that's starting with the basics. Right, right. Yeah, because that's I had a friend who went through severe vitamin D deficiency. And she had been to doctors for years, thought all these things were wrong, you know, could not find an answer. And finally somebody said, Why don't we check your vitamin D?

SPEAKER_03 36:14

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

And oh my gosh, she was so low. And of course, you know, we live in a climate where we don't see the sun all the time.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

We all put sunscreen on all over us, yeah, you know, and so she hadn't even thought about it. Yeah. And and she had just she had hurt everywhere, she was miserable, she was tired, she was, you know, just so many things. And and everybody just kept kind of, oh, well, try this, try that, try this, try that.

SPEAKER_04 36:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

And and it was just some doses of vitamin C. And after about six months, because they were giving her high doses, yes, she finally started feeling better. And just it's it's amazing. Yeah. Again, it was basically the little things, you know, that make a difference. And there was some meme I just saw the other day that was like, well, if you don't take, you know, calcium with this, and if you don't take, you know, vitamin D with this, you know, a lot of these things just don't even work right. Your body doesn't even absorb them right.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

So what's one of the biggest misconceptions people have about functional medicine?

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Ooh, that's a good question. Misconceptions, I think, is more of what we've been, I I believe it's more of like a conditioning, meaning we've been conditioned in our uh nation to believe that functional medicine is is witchy or um not it's it's the that's that's a whack whack way of thinking about medicine. Right. Um when it's actually not, and I love to bring this up, whether it is relevant to somebody or resonates with them or not. I in this, I I will keep the politics aside. However, um, conventional med is what we they call it Rockefeller medicine. Do we do you know of what Rockefeller? Yes. So prior to Rockefeller medicine, medicine actually was what I do, meaning it's healing, it's curative. Um and and with that that Rockefellers, you know, come along and then they restructure med textbooks and that type of thing, and then kind of can can condition or teach, you know, ways of of disease management, right? Right. Ultimately leading to um a business. Right. Right. Right. Not that there's anything wrong with that, right? Business owner myself, right? Um however, it is been we've been so far removed from actual what medicine, healing medicine is that now us that do f practice functional medicine, um, it's it has not been widely accepted because of that. Right. Um, but actually it is true healing. It's healing medicine.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Right. And and because again, like you said, I'm not against taking a medication for certain things that I need a medication for and stuff like that. Or maybe that extra step because maybe I can't get my cholesterol level or my blood sugar or whatever, you know. But again, are there certain things I can look at that I can do some other things to, you know, to take care of that on a bigger scale? Some things we can't do anything about genetics, some people are just predisposed to hire this or hire that just with genetics and things like that. So you might not be able to totally fix it. Yeah, but absolutely it would help.

SPEAKER_04 39:02

I I I say this too. I it's nothing that I completely do not shut out conventional med. There are times that depending, I see maybe I see like uh somebody's lipid panel, and it is way beyond what we are able to do in a diet lifestyle aspect. Meaning, this is more um the risk of you writing this out is not okay. Right. Therefore, I will direct them to see their primary care to for more of like an intervention at this time. Um, and then we can then work together behind the scenes to get things better. Right. But right now we have to get control of this, but you need to see your primary care for that.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Correct, absolutely, and absolutely. And maybe long term you can cut back on taking some of those other prescription medications. And but I also think too, sometimes some of that misconception is people hear vitamins and they think, oh, well, first of all, they're just a bunch of junk. You're just gonna just gonna run through your system and you're spending a lot of money. And but there are differences in vitamins also. And that's I remember one of the things we talked about initially, and you were like, no, you need to go take the methylated version. You need to go take this one, not this one.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

So there are definitely differences in what you're just gonna buy off of a store shelf. You got it. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 40:06

And so I I love that you bring this up because I say um part uh 95% of my job is education, right? So if I educate and my patients get the right information, they ultimately are gonna make better decisions outside of me. Because I always say their health ultimately is not determined just by our time sitting down. Right. It is what they know and do outside of our visits. Right. Um, so if I can educate them at that time, then they can make that choice and make the right choice, right? Right. So I never ever recommend buying vitamins off the shelf at Walgreens Target, whatever it may be. Right. Um, I always say there is quality, quality matters, just like in anything, right? Quality matters. Um, and and really it comes down to it's not you can read ingredient labels. So for example, um, you may have you're you're going to get vitamin D. You want your vitamin D. So you go to the drugstore, you say, hey, this is vitamin D. Perfect. It's right there on the label.

SPEAKER_05 40:54

Right.

SPEAKER_04 40:55

But what we miss is that that below that ingredient label, there is a little um spot that says other ingredients. That ultimately is what you should be focused on. I always say my my my standard rule of thumb is if you um have more than three ingredients to that supplement, it is garbage for you and do not waste your money. Right. Um, because you essentially, a lot of these companies that are poor quality, they do use uh like heavy metals, they use like chemicals, compounds, and whatnot to make those supplements, um, which ultimately, yeah, you may have that vitamin D there, but you also are adding to the toxin burden in your body because you're putting all this poison in there. So you want to make sure that quality equals clean.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Right. Well, and I remember having this discussion with you because initially I was taking vitamins in a pill form and it would bother my stomach. Yeah. And so I started taking the gummy form, and you were like, but then Aubur, that's a whole lot of sugar, and you know, and a whole lot of other like syrup and gelatin and you know, and things, and you know, and it was like, okay, but the pills bother me. And you're like, well, try these and see. And guess what? They don't bother my stomach. Now, of course, everybody's different, but you know, it was like, oh, okay, I was just putting crud in my stomach, and that's why it was going, don't do this. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 42:04

And so, and that kind of uh brings up kind of probably what you said at the beginning of this question, um, the bioavailable form. So there's many um vitamins that are out there, you know, your B vitamins, even your iron. So they're not bioavailable. And what bioavailable means is that your body, it's already broken down into the form that your body can absorb and use. Your body doesn't have to go through that extra step of now absorbing it, breaking it down, turning it into the bioavailable form. Right. It's already done so. Right. Um, because oftentimes your body can't. It doesn't have the the ability to be able to turn that into the bioavailable form. Therefore, you're taking this, but your levels aren't changing because you're it's it's not there. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

It's just going right through you. And what's the point? So absolutely. Yep. So how do you explain root cause healing to someone who's never heard that term?

SPEAKER_04 42:51

Yes, I I love this question too. Um, I always give this example, and the example is um, you know, you can you will um this again goes back between the difference in conventional and functional. So um I somebody comes to somebody goes to their conventional doc and they have a headache, headache, headache, headache, that's their problem. Um their conventional doc is typically gonna say, here's medication, and you'll be on this medication for the rest of your life, and then slap you with that diagnosis of headaches. When they come to me because they just can't get over this headache, but they've had it for years, it's going on since childhood, yada yada yada yada. Um, I figure out why that headache's happening. There's a reason why that headache's happening. Right. Whether it is a food that they're eating that they're that they're intolerant to that they don't know, um, whether it's hormone imbalance that they're just maybe it's presenting in that way. Um maybe it is a high toxin burden, which we all have to some degree. If you're not detoxing, you have a high toxin burden. Um, maybe it's a chronic illness, like such as a virus that just is laying a little bit active, but not enough to come out to where you're fully symptomatic. Um maybe it's that. Maybe there's there's all different reasons of why that headache may be happening. And the fact that if it's not happening because you were drinking in a Hung over, so you can essentially say, Okay, you're dehydrated. Um, we're gonna figure out why that's happening, not give you medication and say, Here, go ahead and have this for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Again, kind of the covering up the symptoms versus let's finding that root cause.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

So, because there is something going on. And I remember also talking about that going through the hormone discussion journey of like a lot of women have migraines, and that's a lot of their symptoms of hormone changes. Yes. Where you know, you you think you know, you hear the hot flashes, you hear the you know, moodiness, irritability, you know, kind of things. Nobody ever said migraines could be a symptom of hormone shift and change. And so I remember seeing that on your questionnaire one time and going, migraines, what's what what does that have to do with hormones? Yes, yeah. But like you said, everybody presents, everybody presents differently too. So how our bodies react. What's one small change that you feel like makes a big difference for your patients?

SPEAKER_04 44:55

Um you're saying, like, as far as what I offer them, my time. My time.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

And your education, I think, really just the education factor of helping them. Like you said, even reading a label on a vitamin bottle, who would have ever thought? Yes. You know, I mean, I grew up with my mom telling me to read labels on food products.

SPEAKER_03 45:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Didn't think about reading labels on a vitamin bottle, or would I have even known what I was looking at if I did? Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, oh sure, it says there's vitamin D in here. Okay, okay, great. That's what I want. That's what I'm gonna get. Right, that's what I'm gonna get, right? Absolutely. Didn't know that it was Credit Vitam D or that it was there was a better one than another. Absolutely. Yeah. So no, I I think I feel from as a as a patient of yours, I feel like that is part of the it's it's the education you've given me of what to go look for and and what to ask questions for, even going back to your primary cares of, you know, okay, this is can we try this or what about this and other things like that?

unknown 45:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Yeah, absolutely. How do stress and emotional health show up physically more than people realize?

SPEAKER_04 45:59

Oh, this is so good. Um, we again don't we we I say I go back to this word conditioning because we are conditioned as a society, right? So we oftentimes don't think we think we're machines and we we need to do this and do that, and we have 24 hours in a day and we don't know how we're gonna get all this in. We forget that we're human, right? And so oftentimes I say not that we cannot function in like uh high stress moments, but in isolated incidents. I say it's never something we're that that the chronicity of it is ultimately then what tears down your immune system because we're not meant to do that. We're not meant to be um on the go all stressed every day. Yes, yes, whether it's physical, mental. Um, and and so I say I say with that, um it will break down your immune system over time. It's certainly not something that maybe happened in like a a day or two, but over time you're gonna notice, and then it it's it I see people present differently, meaning it depends what your immune system decided it couldn't handle because you now have lived this last five years worth of high stress and you don't know why you're sick.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Right. You know? Right, right. And I think because I think it's a very common thing for women, especially that we just push through so much. Yes. And we just keep going and keep doing, and I'm gonna go run and do this, and I'm gonna go run and do that, and I'm gonna squeeze one more thing in. And then the body suddenly just says, No, you will stop. In one fashion or another, it makes us stop. Yes, whether you end up, like you said, very sick or God forbid you get some cancer, chronic disease, something like that. So I think the body eventually just says, I've had enough.

SPEAKER_04 47:31

Yes, absolutely. I'm done. You didn't listen to my warning signs. Yes, absolutely. So, as you had mentioned early, how kind of uh unique and and actually actually like amazing the body is like your body knows what to do. However, if you don't put it in its environment or you don't allow that, and that is not necessarily like, yes, uh, the physical environment can play a role in your health, especially if it's poor. Um, however, your internal environment. So when we are running like that all the time, our nervous system is in chronic fight or flight. So I always describe this to my patients as more of like your body, your nervous system doesn't understand that you're not being chased by a bear right now. It is wired to think that you are constantly being chased by a bear. When you know that it's not, but your nervous system is is is feeling that way. So then ultimately your body is not in a healing state. It will not heal as long as you're in that essentially fight mode. Absolutely. So that's where I always, always, always encourage um, whether it's more ritual or like a habit or whatnot, to at least even give yourself 10 minutes, 10 minutes of just no stimulation, uh, whether that's laying in a bath, whether that's laying in a dark room, no phone, no nothing, no noise. Um, and and just allowing deep breathing, just allow your body to go back into that parasympathetic state to say, I'm safe. Right. Um, so it can it can know that it's safe because that does play a big role in our ability to heal or be well.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Right. And I remember you and I talked early on in my journey about like I just couldn't get my brain to shut off. I lay down at night and I can't go to sleep. I'm just laying there thinking about all the things I gotta do tomorrow. And I keep a piece of paper by the bed because I gotta write it down and so I can get it out of my head, and so maybe I can go to sleep eventually. And and you were like, you know, well, try magnesium. And I was like, okay, yeah, sure. And the magnesium was worked amazing to give me a chance to get my brain to shut off so I could actually sleep a decent night because you were like, okay, first you need to sleep. Yes, yes. Four hours is four hours a night is not enough. Yes, you know, because my constant amount of sleep anyway, not that I wouldn't be in bed longer than that, but my actual one sustained sleep, you know, real what you would say is healing sleep was really only about four hours a night. And you're like, Hubbard, that is not enough.

SPEAKER_04 49:37

And I'm like, See, you have been listening to me because you just prefer to sleep as healing. And that's what I tell my patients. So, yes, if we're not sleeping, we're not healing. That's really a true thing. Um, and so just as you had mentioned, you are in bed, but you're you were not having those kind of like those that sleep, that deep sleep state. We have to have that. Um, so that does go back to kind of those basics that I work with my patients. Um, we have to think about sleep. We we need to be sleeping because sometimes symptoms they might be going through and experiencing these symptoms every day. And and it's because they're not getting sleep at night. And so now we will fix those sleep patterns and they're like, uh, I feel amazing. Yeah, it's because you're getting sleep now.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Right, because your body can heal and my brain can heal. Like my brain can shut off and go, okay, I can rest now. Yes. You know, like you said, you're not in that fight or flight mode anymore. You can actually finally shut down. You know, it's amazing what you can do when your brain is actually functioning, then suddenly you can do other things because now it goes, it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 50:28

It knows what to do, it just needs the right environment.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Right, needs the right ingredients, the right mix. And so if you you deny it other things, you know, and then at the time I was like, Oh, I sleep really sound for four hours, not a problem. And I can function just fine on that. And you're like, really? Yeah, you're functioning, but are you real? Exactly. Yeah, you know, it's like, okay, well, maybe not, you know. But again, we just as women, I think, and and maybe just as a culture, we just push through. Yes. And we just like, oh yeah, I'm functioning fine. Yeah. No, really, I'm not. But you know, I think I am. Or in my head, I'm telling myself.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

I guess that you are. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Absolutely. Yeah. So who do you feel like tends to benefit most from the approach you take at prime revival health? Certain age groups, certain women, certain men, certain, you know, what do you feel like?

SPEAKER_04 51:14

We think about it from um the functional aspect itself. So functional, those that are invested and they want to change their their health, right? And when they understand that it's not a uh, we're we're greedy Americans, right? So we want that overnight success. Functional medicine is not where you're gonna get that overnight success when it comes to health. Um, and so when they have the patients, they're invested. So they understand that um what we're doing in the visit is is essentially I'm I I I never wanna I want my patients to have the power. They're the ones that have the power to change. Right. I'm there to help guide them. I'm there to walk with them, to teach them the medical aspect of it, educate them. However, I'm not the one that's gonna change their health. They ultimately are right. So I think in in empowering them, if they're open to that, also um, you know, they have to be in that mindset to want to do it. Um, I have gotten uh some patients that sit down and we're in that consultation, and you know, they will mention here or there um in different ways that they just want to try functional medicine. And um, I then go back to my education to the basics of functional medicine, and it there's nothing trying about it. This is whether you're you're invested or you're not. If you're not gonna be invested, then then this obviously isn't the type of medicine that you're probably looking for.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Right. And it is sad because no many of us want that just quick fix pill, right? I mean, all of us do, right? You know, if I could just click my heels, Dorothy, and you don't want to do the work, yes, something else. But it's no difference than going to the gym, you know, or any any other type of fitness journey, health journey. Like I tell people all the time, like, quit talking about a diet, it's a you know, it's a it's what you eat, it's it's not a diet, it's a life, you know, right. And so this is no different. It's very much of how you are living your life day to day and how you identify, right? You know, I identify as wanting to be someone who is healthier. Yes. I want to be my business coach even talked about when his kids were younger. He was like, Look, I don't identify as someone who's a gym rat or anything. Yeah, he's like, I identify as I want to live as long enough as to enjoy my kids and my grandkids and you know, still be able to wrestle with my boys when they're teenagers and you know, things like that. Like whatever your motivator is. Yeah. But you know, it's it's that long.

SPEAKER_04 53:18

It's an investment into you, right? Truly investing into yourself. And we just, I think as a society, we forget to do that because um we don't we don't invest in ourselves. We think that we're just well gonna live forever when no, you're not, right? None of us are, despite but we can have a good quality of life as we age, or we can have one that is gonna show every poor decision that we've made in life. Right, right. That includes food or whatever, you know. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

No, absolutely. I mean, that's I meet people and they're like, you know, you can see somebody who is 40 years old, let's say, and you're like, oh, they have not taken care of themselves. Yes. And, you know, or even 50 years old, you know, and then I see other people who I'm like, they're 50, they're you know, wait, uh they look like they're 30 or 40. You know, I mean, and so it's it's very much, especially like you said, as you start aging, it starts showing and it starts catching up with your skin and you know, and everything, your hair, all of it.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

And one of the other things I I also say too is as we age, as much as we don't want to believe this, we are less resilient than what we were when we were younger. Therefore, we could get away with a lot of things when we were younger and we still look good the next day. Um today, age. Um, you're you're gonna show it a little bit more, therefore. Um, but I think that goes back to uh kind of your identity, understanding that yes, I used to be able to do this. However, my life right now or my body right now is just in a different state of life and therefore can't tolerate that. Therefore, I need to make different changes.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

Right, right. Used to be you could go out and do crazy things and sleep for a couple of hours, no big deal. Now I'm gonna pay for it. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm know a couple things we've talked about, but one of the things I wanted to mention was, you know, really talking about women versus men. I mean, I think some people, you know, we've kind of mentioned a couple times of aging, but I know it's a factor for us as women as we age, is suddenly your bodies are changing. And again, your primary care says, okay, you know, you're just at that age, you know, it's it's okay, this is normal, whatever. And I grew up in a generation where no one got treated for hormones and you know, and it was take this for a hot flash and you don't just deal with it kind of thing. And and so, but again, back to that functional body of looking at okay, there are things you can do to help age better. Yes, I guess kind of as we were talking about a second ago. Yes. You know, there are things you can actually help with, I mean, moisture in general. Your body becomes drier as we age. Yes. You know, you're not drinking enough water, you're not using the right lotions. I mean, I I told my team somebody this a while back. She was looking at, she's like, you know, Aubur, your skin's so good. And I said, look at the ingredients on your makeup. Look at the ingredients on your facial cleaner. Absolutely. Sometimes the first ingredient's alcohol. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:59

Like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_01 56:01

Drying your dry face. I'm gonna dry my face out so I can put moisturizer on it. And so I can put some more moisturizer on it. Hold on. You know, so sometimes it's also starting back at those basics of what are you using, you know, people don't think about your skin as an organ.

SPEAKER_04 56:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Your skin is your biggest organ.

SPEAKER_04 56:16

It is, absolutely, and it's one of your biggest detoxing organs organs. Um, and so I I think skin is great. Uh, but going back to kind of what you were mentioning as far as like, you know, like longevity and being youthful and that type of thing, um, hormones. Hormones. Right. It is, of course, uh, you know, we we and myself included, obviously didn't didn't understand the value to hormones until I got into this arena medicine and and learned, you know, of course, there's a difference between synthetic versus bioidentical. Um, I offer bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Um, and I think the the biggest thing that I say, you know, we've been conditioned to believe that hormones are harmful. Um, so there is a difference. The safety profile on bioidenticals versus synthetic is is vastly different. Um and so the with synthetic drug drugs, right? It's a drug. Remember that the compounding agents are ultimately what are toxic to your body. Right. It may not be the actual testosterone or esterdiol in that synthetic drug. It's what they make to bind that. Right. Um, versus your bioidentials are all made derived from like plant-based compounds, meaning we're organic beings, we're made from the dirt. And so we like those things. We don't like things that are not essentially poison to us, right? Um, so with that, I always say, you know, I FDA just came out and they they remove their black box warning from estradiol, um, as far as it being harmful to women. Um, but I also love to plant this seed. I tell everybody that they say, Oh, doesn't estrogen cause breast cancer? And I say when it's done appropriately, right? Um, so you have a greater risk of estrogen dominance with cancer, right? And that's just more of your body's inability to metabolize out estrogen. Those are approached differently versus when you are in menopause and you have zero estrogen, you also are at risk for cancer, right? Um, so there is a from a bioidentical aspect, there is a uh, you know, a goal that we're shooting for that actually is therapeutic and is health protective to you. Um but I also say going through McDonald's will cause cancer. Therefore, pick your poison, right? You know, right. Um and and so under understanding though, I say it depends on your approach. If you want the synthetic aspect, that's fine, but know that your safety profile on that type of hormone replacement therapy is vastly different than your bioidentials.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Right. Um and again, it's about monitoring the levels. Like I'm someone who suffered from endometriosis, and so I have another friend who also has been through endometriosis, and she's like, oh my gosh, Auber, you can't take estrogen. Like, well, first of all, at certain levels I can, and I had none. Yeah. And so my body needs something, otherwise, I feel awful in general anyway, which is also not good. You know, and so so yeah, back to that. The body needs levels of everything. We are built a certain way for a reason.

SPEAKER_04 58:57

Yes, absolutely. And so I always say, because there I'll get some females that say, Well, am I now gonna not have my menopausal phase? Are we are we not? No, we're not, we're not um disregarding that or allowing your body not to naturally progress into that. However, we are supporting your body and giving you these nice therapeutic ranges of this esterdiol because this is what your body wants. It's not that that menopause isn't happening, because it does happen and it's there, right? Um, and it's not that this reverses menopause, nor does it recreate ovulation. Therefore, if you're deep into menopause and you go on hormone replacement therapy, you are not gonna get pregnant, right? We're not gonna recreate ovulation. Um, so your ovaries are still shut down. Um, so it's it's really, I say every patient is different. And if you have a provider that is thinking that everybody fits into one box, you know, that's that's ultimately, I say, um may work for you, may not, but I say from my experience and what I've seen, I really don't have a strict blanket protocol that I treat every single female in menopause the same way because everybody is so individualized and so very different.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

Right. Well, and I know that um a lot of people, there's a huge misconception as well for women that they don't need testosterone.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

And I remember having that discussion with you like testosterone, like I have testosterone, first of all, didn't even think about it, didn't even know that. You know, of course I don't come from science background. And so it was like, what do you mean you're gonna give me testosterone? Yeah. And it was like, yeah, you're like, well, no wonder you feel tired because you have none.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:22

Give you a little bit of this. Yeah. Yeah. So I always say, of course, like our um fem as females, you know, our primary hormones are estradiol and progesterone. Testosterone is icing on the cake for us, meaning if you come maybe in like a perimenopausal phase and and whatnot, you know, balancing that progesterone and estradyl is gonna be my priority. Um, and it's not necessarily that I'm just gonna smack testosterone on you and say, okay, fine, this is gonna do you well. Yes, it will give you a little a little bit of help and you'll feel a little bit better, but that's not your primary issue. So balancing that first and then bringing on that testosterone, postmenopausal gal, uh a little bit different just because they have zero hormones across the board. Therefore, I'm I I'm more um uh inclined to support all those hormones at one time from the get-go.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:03

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:03

Um, but yeah, so I say testosterone is we have a little bit of it as uh as females, but also men have a little bit of estradiol as as men. It's just their their primary hormone is testosterone versus ours is our estradyl.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Right. Yeah, right. And so and I think a lot of people also think of all of this as, you know, again, an aging thing. But I know you've mentioned to me before, and like I said, I know you can't talk specifics about a specific client, but in general, I know you've mentioned to me before that you've had clients who even in their 30s or even after having a baby or things like that that have come to see you because again, so frustrated because they just feel awful. I mean, you know, I mean, if I had been WebMDing all of my symptoms, I'd have thought I was chronically dying of cancer tomorrow. Like, you know, yeah, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:48

Yeah, GPT says, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:50

Um, yeah, so I I will say, and I think what I have seen, and and this is just kind of my my clinical, I suppose, um observation, maybe what I've seen over over time with these gals in their late 30s, um, in their late 30s, and and they are coming in there now, all of a sudden they have these huge, all these symptoms that maybe are cyclic around their hormones. Um, what has happened, and what I've concluded is that um many of these females were on birth control for decades of their life, which that's not here nor there. Um, however, that essentially their hormone imbalance has been there for quite some time. However, it was never uh, they were never presented with it or experiencing it because it was masked by that birth control. And then they went through their childbearing years, had their babies, whatnot, don't wish to go back on birth control post-babies, right? Now they're in their mid to late 30s and they're like, I have all these hormone problems, which was likely a problem long ago, but they never knew about it. Right. Um, but even in those gals, I treat them a little bit differently too, because I say that I am not as um, I don't necessarily go straight for the hormones with them. Um I focus more on diet and lifestyle in that regard because one of the things um what we're eating, um, especially I say that at that generation, um, we kind of we're just naturally uh I say they just eat highly processed foods. And and that that going back to basics, right, can just purely disrupt your hormones. Right. So I don't support them from the get-go. I say we work more from a uh like a diet, dietary aspect first nutritional aspect to see let's make these basic changes first and then let's see what what else is is lying there.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:26

Right. But I think a lot of us too wait until we're we're later down that road of we're so you know frustrated or so, you know, burned out, so you know, done, and like, okay, what are my options? And then I I mean and I've talked to a lot of women about this in general of like so many women just don't even know what to do, know where to look, you know, know where to start. And you know, and I'm like, okay, start start researching in your area, because I have friends all over the country, and I'll start researching in your arrow area bioidentical hormones, functional medicine, functional nurse practitioners. You know, and I had somebody even recently said to me, you know, I said, well, typically it's it's amazing how a nurse practitioner is taught a lot more about treating the body in general than in treating the symptoms, where doctor medicine is a lot more treating the symptoms and the condition, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

Yeah, and I think that um, yes, I um not we need doctors, right? So medical doctors are very um important to our medical, I say in general. Um, but it's just a different approach. We are say, just kind of goes to the difference there. Medical doctors are trained on a medical model versus nurse practitioners are trained on a nurse model. We ultimately were also nurses for many years of our lives prior to being in this role. Um, so I say there's more of that nurturing aspect, and it's nothing that is uh discounting the MDs because we need them.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:42

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:42

Um it is more of just it's just a different approach. It's a different um approach, and naturally I say because we have the more nurturing. Most of us are female. So we're we're we're female, we're gonna nurture, right? That's what we do. That's at our core of our being. Right. Um, so I think that that plays a role too.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I think kind of talking about we've and we've hinted on a few things, we've talked about a few things, but you know, most of you know that I'm a positive person. The sun comes up and I'm ready to go. This time in my life when I met Laura had me to the point where I did not want to get out of bed. No motivation, no satisfaction, nothing made me feel, and I don't want to say good is the right word. Nothing made me feel whole, nothing made me feel right, I guess. And I've mentioned this before, as women, we push through. This had been going on for over a year. My former primary care said, you know, you're at that age. I just love that statement. This is normal. Kept offering me medications to treat symptoms, to deal with hot flashes or to deal with just, you know, moodiness and you know, and and not quite depression, but just lack of motivation. And and I knew those all have other symptoms and other issues. And I also felt like there were other things going on. It wasn't just I'm tired. You know, like I mentioned. If I had been WebMDing my my symptoms, it would have been okay. You've got some chronic whatever, you know, and you're gonna die tomorrow because everything was just so off. Um, at the time I was spending a lot of time in Kansas City with an aging grandmother with several friends who had also recently been through this journey and had were at that age in their life and had had doctors that they'd started asking and learning and going through questions. And several of them had found bioidentical medicine and different nurse practitioners. And so I said, okay, I'm in Kansas City right now a lot. Um, I will go see some of their doctors and start asking some questions, start trying to find, you know, what are my options? Mood swings, hot flashes, you know. People hear about those things when you think about aging and hormones and different imbalances, but it was like I mentioned, like hair loss, hair thinness. I don't have a lot of hair to begin with, skins being so dry, you know, and I know when I finally got to see you, it was everything. You were like, your iron is low, your vitamin D is low, my vitamin B was low, my magnesium was low. You know, you're like, you're no wonder you feel awful, you know. And it was like I had no idea that those things, you know, just alone. I mean, even the other day I woke up in the morning and was like, okay, it's been, you know, been kind of a week, really don't, you know, tired. And I took an extra vitamin B that day. I don't take them every day, but I took vitamin B that day. And then like an hour or two later, I felt better. You know, it's a lot of people's caffeine version. You know, I'm not a caffeine person, but it's, you know, it's that natural, okay, give me a little bit of boost, help me get going, help my brain to start, you know, functioning. Um, and some people again mask that with caffeine and alcohol and you know, other things, you know. And so whether we're medicating or we're medicating, right? We're medicating in one fashion or another. Um, and so this, I had really not started looking at all of this, and I don't think I would have made it through that year of losing my grandma and that next year of some of the things that had happened with me at work and things like that, if I had not been on this journey, thankfully, the year before of starting to ask questions and starting to look at, and because after about six months of you and I starting to look at, okay, all these things, I started feeling so much better. And it wasn't a prescription thing. And again, you know, like I said, some things, you know, like I said, you're you're predisposed to higher cholesterol, for example, or you know, whatever, like you mentioned, some things you just can't take care of, diet and exercise. I also know I'm never gonna exercise enough to eat all the things I want to eat. I learned that a long time ago. So, you know, it's it's not, it's it's not that I'm on a diet, it's that I'm just trying to eat sensibly because I don't want to go work out for four hours tomorrow. Exactly. Because I know I'm not going to. You know, so things like that. But I think, you know, a lot of people just don't talk about this enough. And that's really why I wanted to bring you on. Cause I think as as a population in general, we just kind of, again, let's just take a pill, let's just fix it, you know, no big deal. And so many of us, I think, are running around just trying to mask the symptoms.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:55

Yeah. And so I I always say this that, you know, you, yes, you from your conventionals, you'll hear them say, This is menopause, these are your symptoms, and this is normal. I don't disagree with that statement. Right. Um, it is very normal. Menopause is normal, it's natural. Um, and and and symptoms are there. I say it is your choice how you want to outlive that chapter of your life. Right. You can ultimately live by feeling awful, or you can choose to support your hormones because they are key ingredients to our recipe, right? Our body, our well-being.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:26

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:27

Um, and and so that ultimately, it's not going to uh, you know, I say, you know, disrupt your menopausal aspect, anything like that. It ultimately is just gonna give you that those key ingredients back to make you feel better, to give you that best life that you ultimately want and deserve and deserve to live at that time. Um, I always wish this was possible and this was never ever, ever be possible. Um, if you say, like, say, you know, on your hormone journey, we took you um at that beginning and we fast-forwarded you 10 years with bioidentical hormones on board and with them not on board. And then we could look back and reflect and compare those two, um, you being the same person with or without. And I guarantee your health, you, your physical self, as well as your health, um, would look vastly different between the two. Okay. Um, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

Yeah, just percent.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:13

Just that year or two, I had already been struggling. Yeah. I can compare, you know, the difference of how I felt then versus, you know, now and and the things, you know, what would I be like or what would my life be like? Because, you know, when you're miserable, guess what? That comes through and a lot of other things in your world. Absolutely. And so, you know, and and this aging thing is not for the weak. Yeah. And it it is not-prepares us for it, right? Nobody prepares us for it. Yeah. And you know, and we have aging parents we're caring for, or, you know, or other things, or grandparents, or, you know, whatever it is. And so if we're not taking care of ourselves in as much of a fashion as we can, obviously, I'm not saying I eat the best every day and I, you know, don't have a drink and you know, and all the things. But at the end of the day, you know, what else am I doing to try and keep the rest of me in in the right level and the right ingredients?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:01

Yes, absolutely. And I think just understanding the value of sex hormones, you know, we we think I I I always say this, uh, we we we have sex hormone receptors on every aspect of our body. Meaning there, though we have receptors on our brain, on our heart, on our muscles, on our bones, everywhere. And so I always bring up the example of a plant. So you slowly start to take away water from a plant, what happens?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

Slowly dies.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:23

It slowly dies. Right. That's your quality of life without sex hormones on board. Right. Versus you bring sex hormone on board, you that plant's gonna look amazing until it dies, right? Right. Um, look amazing, feel amazing, all those little things. Um, so it it really is. It just ultimately is a choice. I I also say, too, that it's not as if we're using sex hormones or bioidentical hormones to actually treat a condition. We're treating your, it's more of like longevity wellness prevention, right? So there are anti, uh, I say like they're they're they're um health protective for lack of better terms, right? Um so it protects your body, it has anti-inflammatory properties, it gives you those, those receptors and that those cells, the food that they want, um, ultimately helping them age gracefully.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:05

Right. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:06

The other thing too, I want to bring up just briefly, um, men also go through what they call antropause. And so how I always most men, and I get it, they they are, um, men are more stoic in nature in general, which is is nor here nor there, versus women. So we know as menopause and we know women in menopause and all of that lovely stuff, right? So we outwardly show it much more differently than men do. Right. I do say women are more complex, they are naturally. Um, but there's nothing wrong with that. But testes in in a man are just equivalent to ovaries. So I always ask the question to my guys, I'm like, if my ovaries can age, why can't your testes age? And they'll be like, oh, right, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:47

However, their symptoms are usually much more subtle. Right. Um, it they're there's kind of just they're they're just more subtle and they happen over a longer period of time. Right. Versus some with women, they're it's like a light switch. They one day they're great, and the next day they're like, I have no idea where this came from, but I'm not the same person.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:02

Next day I'm having hot flashes of what the heck just happened. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:05

Yeah, nobody, nobody warned me. Nobody prepared me for this.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

The only thing I ever you know remember about my mother going through this, and and my whole family, all the women is looking back, I now realize went through it at an earlier age too, which a lot of people think, oh, well, it's not until you're this age. No, no, everyone is different, and every family is different, and every genetic is different. And so looking back, realize that, oh, they all went through it at an early age. The only thing I remember being that teenager with my mom being like, it's so hot in here, it's miserable. Yeah, I'm not sure. You know, that's the only thing I remember.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:34

Yeah, yeah. And then you would have thought, I mean, because hormones actually, bioidentical hormones have been around for eons. They just haven't, there's such a trend, you know, and I don't want to say a trend. It's not really a trend, it's more of an awareness. And I think that awareness uh started happening, but ultimately, I think with the you know, um pandemic, ultimately kind of started opening some people's eyes up. And so they're like, wow, there kind of is a different aspect of medicine and things you can do. And so I do think um that started like surged it a little bit more of having people having more of an awareness. Um, but because they haven't been around forever. But like, for example, you're talking about your mom having those hot flashes when you know she was younger. They were there, they were around then. It was just that nobody offered them right to the degree of what they're offered now.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:17

Well, and again, it was very, you know, you're not supposed to take estrogen and you know, and things like that, because that's gonna cause you cancer, and you know, so don't do that because that might kill you. But you know, but I don't know, my mom on hot flashes might have killed us.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:28

Yes, well, very yes, that's a very good point, very true.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:31

Yeah. But yeah, and I think also we are actually now getting to a time, maybe more in the last decade, where people are really wanting to be more aware of what they put in their bodies. Yes. Food. I mean, you know, I see that with farmers' markets, I see that with local grown farmers in general, where people are caring about the ingredients that, you know, went into their foods. And so I think that has also filtered into from our foods. Now it's starting into our medications, you know, again, where people are starting to look at, okay, why am I, you know, having these things? You know, why do we suddenly have more of this disease or that disease or whatever? And so looking at, well, maybe it's what we are putting in our bodies.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:08

Yeah, it's it is, it absolutely is. And so I I say this, and and this is something I stand firm on. Five percent of our genetics ultimately determine our outcome in life. Wow. It it purely comes down to your choices, your dietary and your essentially your environment, um, meaning what you what you're doing. Um, because our bodies, this is where I go back because they are truly fascinating, they know what to do. Your cells are programmed to do their job. And oftentimes when a disease, a symptom, or some I don't like the word disease, condition, when a condition is happening, um, you know, or symptoms are happening, is because your body's protecting yourself. There's something it's not happy with. Um, and so it's protecting you when we ultimately think that it's a bad or a negative thing. Right. Um, but when our bodies are or all our cells are programmed to do their job, when we have toxins in the way, such as all the chemicals that we eat, if we're eating highly processed food, all those chemicals, that's not food. It's just not food. And now over time, that that toxin burden has built up in your body. Right. And so ultimately, the higher your toxin burden, the top your toxin burden, your the the inability your body can heal. It just can't heal. So I always say, if you're not detoxing, you're not healing. Um, if you're not sleeping, you're not healing. Um, so doing routine detoxes, um, of course, that goes back to yes, watching what you put in your mouth, of course. Um, but making sure that you're kind of being mindful and doing just some routine detoxes is going to be important to get that stuff out and allow your body or your cells to be happy again and saying, hey, right, I know what to do and there's nothing in my way. I can actually do my job.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:41

I can actually do my job. Well, and a lot of times we don't pay attention to those things too when it's when it's hit raising the flag, going, yes, hey, I'm I'm not happy. This is not good, you know, and we don't pay attention to the little things until it gets to be a big thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:53

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:54

So you know, absolutely. Yeah, and that's you know, that's definitely something with, like you said, about what you're what you're eating. You know, I mean it's it's it's a thing. And I think, like I said, I think now people are starting to look at that in their medicine as well as not just what they're eating and you know, skincare, health care, all of those things, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:11

I always um, you know, like I had mentioned at the beginning, um, I have a 13-year-old daughter. I think education, right? Education is so important. So I love to inform her. So one of the b things, uh, I don't know if we've talked about like the Yucca app. There's an app there's apps for everything, but I I favor the Yucca app. I think it's great. Um, one of the things that I is a firm rule, like she loves to go, she's at that age, so she loves Sephora and Alta and all that wonderful stuff. So she will bring me, you know, her basket. Mom, can I get this? Can I get this? And my first question to her, I said, What does Yucca say? And so she'd be like, I didn't check. So I say, Well, let's check. So we get the phone out, we check, and she knows if it's like a 70 or below, the answer is no. And she's uh fine with it. She's fine with it. So I say that just goes the more we know, right? The better off our next generations are gonna do by us educating them to you know with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:01

Right. Yeah. Yeah, like I said, because that's what I started that journey after talking to you at one point of realizing, well, gosh, I've been looking at, you know, food labels and you know, box labels and things like that, but I've not looked at that in in my own skincare and you know, and hair and things like that. And and I've always known that like you buy some of the better products and like my hair would be happier and things like that, but I didn't really look at the ingredients of them and why. And so yeah, that was that was an amazing journey to start looking at better lotions and better, you know, facial care and things that was like, oh my gosh, I'm using all of this, you know, horrible chemical on my face. You just didn't know, like you don't know what you don't know. Right. Yeah. But again, you think you're buying a quality product or you're spending a little more. And you know, and that's like, or it's a brand that you're like, oh, I really hear, you know, that stuff's great. Well, not so much. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Gosh, Laura, I think we could probably keep going for hours. Absolutely could, yeah. But I think our listeners would love if we, you know, maybe continue this another time. And we would love for you guys to message me or, you know, comment or something and let us know if there's other questions that you want to have us come back and talk about.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:04

Yes, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:05

Um, you know, so if people want to contact you or reach out to you, um, find out more, come in for a consult, whatever, phone call, website, both, either.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:14

Um, phone call, I feel like it's best to just call the call the office. Um and you can call the office 815-708-2808. Um, and we I I always say, this goes back to me trying to practice and be um, you know, have that good healthy balance with myself. Um, I am a small business, therefore I am not open five days a week. And that is ultimately because I deserve my own time, my child deserves my time, my family, all that wonderful stuff. Um, and so understanding that I am not open five days a week, but we will we get back to you the best that we can um in and look basically screen. So depending on what you're what you're interested in, we can kind of go over some questionnaires and whatnot and figure out if our services are a good fit.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:51

Yeah, and and I think, you know, I really appreciated when you started your own business that, you know, you really set the ground rules at the beginning and you were like, you know, I'm not gonna kill myself, Abraham, and work, you know, 80 hours a week. And I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to, you know, win the marathon of, you know, I have a thousand clients and you know, and that stuff. It like quality of life is important at the end of the day. Our time is all we have.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:15

You're absolutely right. And and we don't know how much we have, right? And so I I always say we're here one time, and um, I could, you know, you can sell your soul to whatever you want to do, but but really do you, if you ask yourself, are you is that a way to prioritize yourself and um your spirit just in there? And the answer to that, well, if you ask me, is no. Right, right. It's not worth it. No, no, no. No, absolutely. And then I I always say if I'm burnt out or not enjoying my job anymore, then ultimately that reflects then on my patient care. And and I care and I'm too passionate about what I do. So I don't ever want to be that person. I want to always love what I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:46

Right, absolutely. I had a client one time who didn't understand that I was taking care of a family member and I could not see them for a couple of days. I'm like, I'm sorry. If you don't understand that, then I can't help you. Because if you don't understand that my family comes first, then you know, this is this is where we draw the line. You know, that's life is too short. And, you know, yes, I love my clients and and God knows we need our clients. Absolutely. However, I I have to take care of my family. And you know, at the end of the day, that's all that matters. So you're absolutely right. So yeah, if you want to look up more or contact Laura, she gave you the phone number, PrimeRevivalByron.com, um, 815-708-2808. And we will definitely do this again. I'm sure we'll come up with some other topics. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much, Laura. Thank you. So, my tip of the month with all of this discussion between the market and my discussion with Laura, is do your research and ask questions. It's okay to ask questions of your medical professional, it's okay to ask questions of all of your professionals if you're hiring us for a reason, right? And so um look at all of the options or do a little bit of digging and see what is out there for you and what is best for you because we are all different. And I do think that we are now in a culture of people looking at more of the ingredient labels on everything. And so it's okay to think about that not only from your food, but from your vitamins, and how we learn to what's in your skin care, to what's in your health care, all of those things. So read the labels, uh, ask some questions, get educated, do some research, and I hope to see you again.