#399 Ultimate Guide to Hair Loss with Danielle Kepics, PA-C

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, we’re diving into the surprisingly emotional (and super frustrating) world of hair loss, stress, and scalp health with the one and only Danielle Kepics, PA-C.

Danielle is a certified fertility educator, functional medicine practitioner, and former PA with a unicorn-level background in women’s health—and she’s sharing her real-life, two-year journey through post-COVID hair loss, scalp breakage, mold scares, and what finally helped her regrow healthy, strong hair (spoiler: it wasn’t just about shampoo).

We’re talking about why your hair might be falling out even if you’re “doing everything right,” what role stress, nutrient depletion, and medications play, and how to support your scalp like you do your skin. If your hairbrush has been looking a little scary lately, this conversation is going to feel like a deep breath and a game plan. 🙌

💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Why “poverty calories” stall healthy hair growth (and how to fix it)
• The hidden role of post-viral infections, mold, and chronic stress in hair loss
• The meds that quietly contribute to hair thinning (think birth control, SSRIs, thyroid meds)
• How to treat your scalp like skin for better hair regrowth
• Why patience, persistence, and a microscope were key to Danielle’s recovery

ABOUT GUEST:
Danielle Kepics, PA-C, is a functional health practitioner, certified fertility educator, mental health therapist, nutrition coach, and former personal trainer — earning her the title of "unicorn" in women’s health. After a decade in conventional medicine, she founded Empowered Mind + Body and now helps women optimize their health through lifestyle and clinical deep dives. Danielle is also the co-founder of Unconventional Collaborative, a mastermind for health pros. Outside of work, she's an adventure-loving Enneagram 8w7, passionate about movement, connection, and living authentically. 

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://www.empoweredmindbody.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielle.kepics

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife

SPONSOR:
Thanks to Jigsaw Health for sponsoring this episode! Struggling with dry, cracked hands? Try their Alaska Cod Liver Oil for omega-3s + vitamins A & D to support skin and immune health. Use code LESSSTRESSED10 at JigsawHealth.com for 10% off—unlimited use!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: like super important. Listen ladies, like you're not gonna grow healthy, beautiful hair on your head.

[00:00:04] If you're like eating poverty calories, it's not gonna do it for you. 

[00:00:07] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common that we're both in pursuit of a less stress life. On the show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high performing health savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life.

[00:00:36] One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want. So let's see what's out there together.

[00:00:53] All right. Today on the Less Stressed Life I have Danielle Kepics, who has a unique background for which she's known as a unicorn in the women's health space as a certified fertility educator, a master's level mental health therapist, a certified nutrition coach, and in a prior life, spent five years as a personal trainer.

[00:01:10] I. After 10 years practicing conventional medicine, she shifted her focus and pursued her functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, where she now helps women and some men optimize their health through lifestyle and deep dives into their health. I think I forgot the other piece, which is that you're a physician's assistant.

[00:01:25] I just. Missed that in there. I think that's right here. So I just, yeah, I'm still, 

[00:01:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: yeah. You're good. I'm still technically licensed. Yes, but not practicing. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:01:34] Christa Biegler, RD: She specializes in helping women understand where they are and helps guide them to see the steps that they need to take to where they wanna be and feel the way they want to feel.

[00:01:41] And today, I can't wait to talk to her about. Her own hair loss journey. Something that makes women crazy. I work with women with skin and I will tell you, skin and hair makes women crazy, right? 'cause there's a lot we have tied up into that. So welcome to the show, Danielle. 

[00:01:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Thanks for having me. I love when other people have me on their podcast and I get to I don't have to think about asking the questions or anything yeah 

[00:02:02] Christa Biegler, RD: I 

[00:02:02] love it.

[00:02:03] I was just complimenting her on how good her hair looks. She's I figured since since we're talking about hair, I probably should do my hair today. If you get to watch this on video, congratulations. But this is not how things were. You went through a hell of a journey. I know.

[00:02:16] It was like making you crazy. Tell us your story about why you did such a deep dive on hair. 

[00:02:21] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: dude, so this was quite the journey. So I've always been I don't wanna say healthy on accident because I wanna say I've been healthy on purpose. I've dedicated a lot of my life to continually being a healthy human.

[00:02:34] And I've never had any hair issues. I've never struggled with my hair falling out like nothing. No issues. And so the lead up to this was really that there. My whole life has been stressful. Like I swear it's just was, it's been like one thing after another from childhood and trauma and just a lot of things and which is just important to know what the backstory about the hair.

[00:02:53] But really the last two years leading up to before the hair loss started, I was working on starting my business to get out of conventional medicine. So really I was working like two full-time jobs if anyone out there has ever. I've been working full-time at a 40 hour a week gig as a healthcare practitioner and also working on like building a program and building my way out of conventional medicine and building my business.

[00:03:16] I am very much a self-built human, like no one handed me anything kind of thing. So there's been a lot of hard work and dedication, as with a lot of us. So lots and lots of stress leading up to that. And then the last day at my. Old job at my job in conventional medicine, I was working in family practice as a PA and I was like, man, I'm not feeling good.

[00:03:38] I'm just like, I'm sweating. Like it's just like everywhere. I'm like, I have back sweat. Like what the hell is going on here? this is not normal for me. And so I had told my medical assistant, I was like, can you like swab my nose? I think I might have covid or the flu. This was circa like.

[00:03:53] 2023. So she's you're just trying to get outta here be done with your job early. And I'm like, listen, I ain't complaining. Send me home kind of thing. But anyways, they swabbed my nose and I was positive for covid and flu, so yay. I was like, I'm going out with a bang. Peace out guys. See you later.

[00:04:12] And I left my job that day and. A couple of months later I started noticing that my hair was just falling out in droves, which aligns with that post febrile, which just means after a fever post febrile hair loss. I was like, oh, okay. Like I've never, I never actually had a fever in my whole life.

[00:04:30] Like fever, like if I ever got sick, it was like 99, like real low grade. But I had 101 point something, whatever degree. Temperature. And so I was like, all right, like this is just post febrile hair loss. But then it just persisted for a long time. And then I started to notice that it wasn't just hair loss, it was this weird breakage.

[00:04:49] It was, strand like one half an inch long, four inches long. It, I'm like. Oh my God, my hair just cannot survive. Like what the hell is going on? And so that was where that journey all started. I don't know how much you want me to go into or if you have questions that you want to probe at within that 

[00:05:07] Christa Biegler, RD: carry on.

[00:05:08] Let's actually talk a little bit about some of, so you had flu and covid, but there's some other things. Pneumonia, UTI, et cetera. Like anything. 

[00:05:15] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, 

[00:05:15] Christa Biegler, RD: I think I was going through, Danielle has a hair loss guide. It's. Lovely. And so I think that UTI is definitely something we could accidentally overlook as a potential Yeah.

[00:05:24] Fever reason. So I just wanted to point that out. So how long did you deal with this and where before you were like, 'cause , there are some times where people lose hair, where it's a little more normal, like a little bit after giving birth, right? There's a lot of changes going on like yours was, you had not given birth, right? 

[00:05:42] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: No. And so no checks and 

[00:05:44] Christa Biegler, RD: yeah. And so what happened next, you're noticing this two months after this and then what happened? 

[00:05:50] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. So the issue with this is that there were a lot of factors converging all at once.

[00:05:55] Like for one, I was not going to work anymore and I was spending more time in my home. So I'm like, is this environmental? And then my boyfriend, because he does jujitsu and stuff, had tinia and my head was itching. Like the itch that my head had, it was, my hairdresser was like, you have excoriations all through your scalp.

[00:06:11] Like I was. Digging. Like it was awful. So is it tinia? Is it, do I have a mold toxicity in my house that like, I just wasn't spending as much time here and I'm super healthy. So did that kind of overshadow things and like compensate for it. I don't know what you think, but to me, like sometimes mold can present differently in like really healthy people.

[00:06:31] Yeah. So I was like, okay, is it mold, is it tinia? Is this post febrile stuff? Is it, this, is it. Whatever. And so I'm running all of these text tests. Like total toxin, GI map. Full blood work panels. I am going to the dermatologist. I had to beg to have a biopsy of my scalp done because this doctor was like but your scalp like looks normal.

[00:06:52] And I was like, okay, you wanna throw a steroid at me so something's not normal. So let me just tell you, my butt is not leaving your chair until you cut it. Piece of my scalp off and send it out for pathology. And it just stinks because I'm very forward and I'm very blunt and I can be very aggressive.

[00:07:09] And so for me, doing things like that and works in that, in healthcare, yes. 

[00:07:11] Christa Biegler, RD: So you're capable of advocating. 

[00:07:13] Yeah. You're like, actually I know you have, if I'm persistent enough and I know what a request, I know you're going to, right? Yes. 

[00:07:19] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. And so that was like a whole other story in and of itself.

[00:07:22] I just can only imagine being a human who doesn't have that knowledge and background and. Also my personality traits to be like, listen here, dude. So the biggest thing for me was determining, okay what is this? So I had decided it, I had done some research and found out that you can actually have tinia on your head, tin capita, which is just, it's a fungal infection.

[00:07:43] It's ringworm for people who know the term, you can actually have ringworm on your head with no rash. Which was bizarre like. I'm like, how did I not know this? First of all, I never worked in dermatology. It's not my thing, but I was like, this is very strange. So I treated myself with eight weeks of an oral antifungal, which that's a long time.

[00:08:01] To get to the head, you have to, that's the prescribed duration typically. And to preface all this I do not like to take medication. And I'm also not one of those people who is so far like into the holistic space that I'm like, I'm never taking a medication.

[00:08:16] I will die like that is also not, I'm very much in that gray and nuanced space, but if I can avoid it, I really will. Like I'm not taking an antibiotic at the first sniffle kind of thing. And so I was like, screw this. I'm taking the antifungal. And I would say my itching reduced by about 70%.

[00:08:31] And by this time, I had lost probably half the hair volume on my head. It was, you can, like I have healthy, I have very healthy hair. It was just like dry and dull and it looked scraggly and, it's, it was very distressing and I didn't realize, I sound very vain and I don't think that I'm necessarily like a super vain person.

[00:08:49] I don't wear a ton of makeup. I don't like I don't get my hair dyed. Like lot, lots of these things, and, so anyways, I had 80% improvement in this itching, but I'm like, it's still breaking. And the thing with hair and skin and anything really with health, it's like you have to wait.

[00:09:04] So I would try something and then I would have to wait to see if it worked. I'm changing products, I'm doing this, I'm putting filters on my shower head. I'm making sure we had our water softener changed because our water softener had broke somewhere in that process. And, anyway, so about at the point that I had the biopsy on my head, it was about 18 to 19 months into this journey.

[00:09:25] Wow. I really did not wanna take oral steroids. Number one, they make me feel like garbage. They give me very awful anxiety, and I'm not a very 

[00:09:32] Christa Biegler, RD: anxious person. 

[00:09:33] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I'm just not like that. Like I'm very high energy, but I would not call my, I don't have trouble falling asleep, like none of that typical anxiety stuff.

[00:09:41] And so I started working with a psychologist who actually just applied to join the collaborative, who's friends with Laura. And, I was like, listen, I don't know what's going on. And so simultaneously she was finishing her studies as a tologist and she's presented my case and I had got the biopsy, I had got the results.

[00:09:59] They're like it's normal. You just, there's just some per follicular inflammation and a little bit of bacteria, but normal result. And I'm like, those things don't say normal to me. Can you explain it to me? And doctors don't really like when you question them. About things like that.

[00:10:13] And this guy did, I don't think he liked me very much but I was like, this doesn't sound normal to me. And so Jess and I, the, my tologist, she had me buy a, I should have got it for this episode, but like this little microscope that you take pictures of your scalp. And I had all, it was red, an angry, and the amount of sebum that was there, she was like, this is your scalp is not healthy. And so what we had decided, what people are like, okay, what was actually causing it, lady? So what Jess and I determined between the biopsy and all of the information is that through years of stress being someone who was a every five day wash, girly which was not, is not good for my scalp personally with how much I sweat and the things that I do and the climate that I live in, et cetera.

[00:10:56] And then the fever was like the straw that broke the camel's back. And so I had all of this inflammation going on. I probably also, I still think I had tinia just because of how much the ringworm, because of how much the antifungal really reduced. That itching at first about it did something right.

[00:11:10] So it was like. I got like steamrolled, man, it was so awful. But we decided to finally do the steroids. Laura will tell you, she calls me full send CapEx, and when I do something, I do it. Listen, we don't do things 50% over here. Okay. And so I got a topical solution steroid. And then I also took oral steroids as well.

[00:11:30] And I would say 

[00:11:31] Christa Biegler, RD: this is 

[00:11:31] after the oral, 

[00:11:32] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: this is after 

[00:11:33] everything. 

[00:11:34] Christa Biegler, RD: After the oral antifungal. 

[00:11:35] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. 

[00:11:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Because I was thinking you would've taken the oral antifungal. After the biopsy as well. But you said the biopsy was 18 months? 

[00:11:42] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Big 

[00:11:42] difference in time. Okay. So there's about a year between when I took the antifungal and when I went to have the biopsy done.

[00:11:48] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. 

[00:11:48] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So this is a long deri. Yeah. Yeah. I get what you mean. But no, I had taken the antifungal, had the biopsy done about a year later, trying things all in between here, screwing with the water softener, the different pellets or whatever it is that you put in those. My boyfriend installed a filter on the shower head.

[00:12:03] I changed my hair products like twice I think. And then we had finally just decided that it was just all of this like lifetime of stress, not washing my hair enough. The fever is the thing that like kicked everything overboard. And I. That's when I decided to do, I was like, okay. Like between Jess and I, she's not a doctor, but she was like, you might wanna consider something for that information kind of thing.

[00:12:26] I did the topical, I did the oral steroids in about six to eight. It was, might've been longer than that, but I was getting my hair cut. There was one point where it was gr and it was growing, like it was growing like three inches every six weeks. So I'm like, my hair is, something's healthy.

[00:12:40] And I would say about two to three months. It was about three months after I started in three haircuts later I started seeing a lot of reduction in the breakage. And now I'm seeing like, like one to two pieces when I brush my hair. Christa, I had sink fulls of hair. It was so stressful and the microscope was very interesting. Jess had me doing all this, I have a 12 step scalp routine now, and she had said, women don't really realize like you need to treat your scalp like you treat your skin. And most people are not doing that. And so I'm doing this exfoliation and moisturizer and deep conditioning and all of this stuff.

[00:13:15] With the products that she had recommended. 

[00:13:17] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh, 

[00:13:17] it would be a to be a woman, right? 

[00:13:18] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. Yes. Two years later, I finally feel like we are way over the hump at this point and on the other side. But man I don't know that, I've been through a lot of stressful things, but as far as distressing to my health because I'm like, okay, why is this happening and why am I not healthy enough to keep my hair on my head? Like I feel good. I'm sleeping. I eat more than enough nutrient dense food. Like key point, all of these. Yeah, like super important. Listen ladies, like you're not gonna grow healthy, beautiful hair on your head.

[00:13:46] If you're like eating poverty calories, it's not gonna do it for you. 

[00:13:50] Christa Biegler, RD: Sorry. Some of the terms, good stuff. Good stuff. 

[00:13:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I have 

[00:13:54] a lot of analogies. I love an analog 'cause most people get that. That makes sense to them. Oh, poverty calories. If I'm dieting, like I'm not gonna grow hair on my head.

[00:14:02] Yeah. And so that was, I think the most distressing part to me is what's wrong with me? And then I, at one point I really started freaking out about my home do we have a mold illness? 'cause there was also, 

[00:14:10] Christa Biegler, RD: yeah. What did 

[00:14:10] you find on your testing? 

[00:14:11] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So I did have some like stuff show up on my total tox test, which like most people have something.

[00:14:16] Yeah. I've not seen anyone with a total. If listen, if you have a totally clean total tox burden, I wanna talk to you. What are you doing? Yeah, no one. And then what are your cortisol levels like to achieve that zero tox burden? Like I had some orca toxin and some other things, like there was no black mold and like some.

[00:14:33] Higher I can't remember which heavy. I can't remember at this point. I don't have the test in front of me, but, 

[00:14:38] Christa Biegler, RD: It was a reasonable rabbit hole because your boyfriend was also dealing the fungal stuff. And I'll mention as you already said, and so I wanna ask about the biopsy because of things I've heard from interviewing other practitioners.

[00:14:48] Okay. So what we generally agree about in the research is that. Most from the shoulders up is fungal origin, right? Like this, there's specific fungal strains that really thrive. Malthe overall, as a fungal family, really thrives from the shoulder up. 

[00:15:02] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Interesting. 

[00:15:03] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. So like usually when you're itchy on the head and I work with skin, I wouldn't say like hair.

[00:15:08] Accidentally gets folded in here sometimes. I am not a hair expert. I have been on my own hair journey, which is why this conversation is more fun for me. Don't worry, we're getting there. All the things. And it, I'm still learning a lot and so I'm gonna share some of the things that I was dealing with and so anyway, I love that you said, Hey. And we can recap this timeline a little bit too. So you just did eight weeks of, and you have this prescriber feedback, which is really cool because I've seen, I remember this one case that kind of haunted me. She was definitely leaving something fungal where she was losing her hair on her head, but.

[00:15:42] Until she got the exact right medication, it was like, it did not work at that time. And this was years ago. So I've gotten better. There was a time where I used to refer out more for prescription antifungals for different reasons, and now I will typically use herbs. And you just gave me a time that's like.

[00:15:58] Very similar to herbal, to be honest with that medication and it's just interesting. 

[00:16:02] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. 

[00:16:02] Christa Biegler, RD: I just find it interesting and supportive because it's like, yeah, you didn't really have something that was like, yeah, I have fungus on my head necessarily. But you were like, I'm gonna try this. Yeah. And you actually had to stay the course.

[00:16:13] I'm wondering how long it took you to see reduction in Cheeta. I'd love to ask timelines because I have feelings about timelines. When do you think the itching reduction started? I know I'm asking you to go into the recesses of your mind right now, but 

[00:16:25] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, I would say about a month after I completed the antifungal.

[00:16:29] So 

[00:16:29] Christa Biegler, RD: that's a really 

[00:16:30] long time. That was 12, three months, weeks later. That was three months. Because usually I feel like you can start to see a little improvement after about a month of being on enough protocol. And so I'm just curious what yours was. Okay so that was all before you did the biopsy.

[00:16:42] Apparently you can do and more. And so this is fun and it's been years, but when I've interviewed different derms, they will say usually the. Bacterial biopsy is more accurate, but the fungal biopsies are really not accurate. So when they biopsied, were they looking at just bacteria?

[00:16:57] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I think they looked at everything. 

[00:17:00] Christa Biegler, RD: I wonder, honestly, I would be so curious. I would to know, if, did they actually even look at fungus? But, and I've discarded what, how much it matters because I was told by a specialty derm the fungal biopsies are not accurate.

[00:17:12] And this is all fine and dandy, but what I'm also gathering is like you did a bunch of testing and you still had to go with like your history and how your response was no matter what. Okay. So curious. I was curious about the biopsy. I wanna talk more about breakage. And so you did the antifungal your itching is better after about three months, but really you're still having breakage for a while.

[00:17:31] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. 

[00:17:31] Christa Biegler, RD: You do the biopsy. When do you start working with Jess? The person who's finishing her trichology, which we've had one or two trics on the show over the years. We'll try to make sure we're linking those in the show notes because we talk in those episodes. I know specifically about the hair phases, which Danielle and I said not her jam, not my jam.

[00:17:48] But that's would answer. You know why someone loses hair a little bit with postpartum and different growth phases and things. But anyway, back to breakage. When did you start working with your tologist in the timeline? 

[00:17:59] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I wanna say it was August of this, of 2024. Sorry. 

[00:18:03] Christa Biegler, RD: So after the biopsy. 

[00:18:04] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. I had the biopsy about four weeks later, so it was like almost simultaneous. 

[00:18:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, got it. Yeah. So then we're doing breakage. So we're gonna talk about breakage and then we'll jump into some other things that people could consider. Yeah. Meds, some other functional causes, which you've highlighted in your story.

[00:18:19] And then scalp also, we'll just kinda run through those because Yeah. One thing I'm taking from this conversation as you're talking about your hair story also, is that I always I find this with skin, it's like we want it to be so easy, we want it to be really topical and it's really double the work.

[00:18:35] It's like topical and internal and your story a hundred percent validates that statement, I would say. And hair is really slow 'cause you're waiting as you say. Oh. You're waiting. Yes. So it's tough. So yes. Thank God for psychologists anyway. Yeah. Okay. So you're having breakage. 

[00:18:50] I also did not realize like how significant this was for me.

[00:18:53] And I have extremely hard water and I have lots of basically you start to like com. Figure things out very slowly on your own. You're like, Ooh, maybe this hard water is creating this, and this. And I like watch my daughters. Also like one daughter, I have one daughter in college. She's living abroad now, but it's like she's growing out her hair, so I'm like.

[00:19:13] Anyway, the hard water, meaning what does hard water mean? Maybe high in calcium. Yeah, maybe high in manganese. For me, I was seeing obscene amounts of iron in our hair tissue, mineral analysis between my husband and I like to a concerning level, honestly. 

[00:19:27] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Interesting. 

[00:19:28] Christa Biegler, RD: And I think it comes from our cabin is in a place where the soil is red and the water.

[00:19:33] I haven't gone down this summer. I'm gonna spend a deep dive on water testing. 'cause I started it a while ago. And you know how you can't focus on all the things and it's, 

[00:19:41] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: oh yes. 

[00:19:41] Christa Biegler, RD: And it can be so much. And it's if I just had an unlimited budget to try, but it's really what do I want to know?

[00:19:47] I wanna know the hardness, I wanna know the microbes. There's layers of what I wanna know. So how can I figure that out? 'cause I've done straight up water testing on my home in the past, and it was like anti-climactic. It was like your biopsy results. It's looks normal-ish.

[00:20:00] There's a little something here but looks normal. And I'm like, I actually need to know like what the iron level is compared to these in these two different places. Anyway, so I share that because. That's been part of my breakage journey as really hard water. I wanna hear some of the things that came up, and I know you had some of the same exact experiences and people are gonna wanna know Danielle, what water filter did you put on?

[00:20:21] And I wanna offer, before you even reply that I have I've been looking like as this iron issue. I'm like, there's not really a water filter besides a water softener that filters iron that I can find. 

[00:20:32] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Interesting. 

[00:20:33] Christa Biegler, RD: That sucks. 

[00:20:34] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. So to answer your question about what water filter, I'm gonna have to look at my Amazon account, to be honest with you.

[00:20:39] My boyfriend purchased it and he said it was just the one with the smallest, like that, that fil that filtered the most stuff. 

[00:20:45] Christa Biegler, RD: Did 

[00:20:45] you feel like it made a difference? 'cause I have a few brands. Brands 

[00:20:48] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I do. 

[00:20:48] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. 

[00:20:48] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes, 

[00:20:48] Christa Biegler, RD: I have a few brands and you could notice just a little bit, but. 

[00:20:52] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah I also live in the desert, so I live in St.

[00:20:54] George, Utah. I should preface that. So Dr. Sahara dry, so dry here. So I do feel like that made a difference replacing our water softener. So if you have a water softener, make sure it's working. And then also I know that there are like. People have different types of pellets or whatever the chunks are.

[00:21:12] The people, the actual, so water softener materials, I don't even know what they're called. That's so terrible. 

[00:21:17] Christa Biegler, RD: Usually it's salt. That's why it's interesting. So I don't know. I don't have that. I have some weird filter for the whole home now, but, yes. And that's I won't talk about it 'cause it's like I'm still discerning all the things around it.

[00:21:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. And that's where I would like to go with our home is just like having a whole home water filter. To be really honest with you. That's probably the next step. But as far as the breakage goes, the water softener, I feel like made a difference. I feel like everything I did made a difference, but it wasn't until I took those steroids, unfortunately that everything just stopped.

[00:21:47] But the breakage was, I don't know what you want me to talk to exactly. Go in with that, but it was so distressing because I was like, why isn't my hair healthy enough? And the other thing that my psychologist and I had thought too was like. Maybe I would've been someone who was losing my hair, but because I was so healthy and I take such good care of myself that it's like how we say people who do that, like mold looks differently in them because they just don't feel as, as shitty as like some other people.

[00:22:13] Might, right? 

[00:22:14] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:22:14] It's a whole bucket theory, 

[00:22:15] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: right? And so my hair was able to grow, but then it just wasn't able to, it was like. I'm gonna let go now it's Jack and Rose with the Titanic or like Mufasa on the ledge. It's just like there's a point of no return where it was like, we're out.

[00:22:29] Bye. Kind of thing. Yeah. So I do think that was I. Something that was actually going on in that process. I don't have any evidence for that. Neither does Jess. You know what I mean? Yeah. But we're, yeah, in, in what we postulated, we just thought, hey, could this actually be, I was still actually suffering from post febrile hair loss.

[00:22:46] Like it just wasn't recovering because of how inflamed the pictures like. I started to learn because I continued to send Jess pictures of what my scalp looked like. And when I say my scalp, you could see the individual hair follicles. This microscope's $30 on Amazon.

[00:23:02] If people are wondering like, where did you get this like high tech thing and Nope, it was just a $30 microscope on Amazon, y'all. She started telling me like what the difference looks like. And you could actually see at the beginning like. An inch down like my hair would, you could see the splitting starting to happen.

[00:23:16] I would have. Oh, so 

[00:23:17] it was really? Yes. Okay. Oh, that's why you could see the reach point. It's usually 

[00:23:21] Christa Biegler, RD: you think about it being a topical thing or something that were your products or where That's why I was thinking about the hard water even washing. Yeah. Would really make, and obviously usually the suggestions you will get was like silk pillowcase, loose hair tie, like all these things because you can break your hair really easily.

[00:23:37] Yes. With force. 

[00:23:38] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And I did all of those 

[00:23:39] things also to record, 

[00:23:40] Christa Biegler, RD: but this is way down at 

[00:23:41] the beginning. 

[00:23:42] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, I mean it was at various points, but when I would stick the microscope on my head you could inadvertently see like other things in there and she would circle it and send it back to me and show me like, this is what's happening to your hair.

[00:23:54] This doesn't look normal. This is what looks normal kind of thing. And you could just see like the hair was like narrowing. It was really very interesting to see. Super interesting and also interesting, distressing. 

[00:24:06] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. And what I'll mention is you did the steroids. How long, what was the timeline on that?

[00:24:11] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So I did a Medrol dose pack. So it was five days, I wanna say 

[00:24:13] Christa Biegler, RD: short term. 

[00:24:14] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. And so I did an over the counter topical, it's called Scalpels or Scalps. Sacin or something like that. I. Listen, a little bit of dyslexia. I pronounce things awfully but you can buy it over the counter.

[00:24:25] And so that did help. And so that was another kind of clue in the puzzle that maybe I should be doing, like the full strength prescription topical. So I did a topical solution for two weeks and then I did the five day Medrol dose pack. 

[00:24:36] Christa Biegler, RD: 'cause I work with people who are on or trying to get off or whatever, steroids all the time.

[00:24:41] So I'm intrigued by the timeline. And the exact what you did, the over the counter, we do that with skin too. It's if you need to sleep we use the tools at our disposal 'cause I'm like you, I'm right in the middle. And and what I.

[00:24:51] Offer there. One good thing is you'd already done a lot of work. What happens for a lot of people that show up in my virtual office is that they come off steroids and like obviously they're not really seeing a change because it's just taken matters out of the fire alarm. In your case, you had done a bunch of other things, so I'm guess it sounds like maybe after that fact you were actually able to draw a little bit of a line in the sand or see maybe some changes.

[00:25:11] I don't know as far as we can tell. It was a long journey. A long journey. 

[00:25:14] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. 

[00:25:15] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, so breakage, we'll come back to Scalp Health a little bit, but let's talk about bigger picture. So this story hopefully has been super helpful, just hearing about things for me. And actually I wanna share a little bit about some things I had discerned through as well.

[00:25:29] I know this is years in the making because you talk about getting haircuts a lot. I would cut my hair like twice a year and I wasn't super particular about it. I was like very like whatever. And so I would get my haircut and I remember someone, it was like my neighbor's sister who was home from a Aveda school in Arizona.

[00:25:46] She came over to trim my kids' hair and then she trimm my hair and she's wow, whoever cut your hair recently, cut it really uneven. This was years ago and long story short, I started going. In more often to do different things. And what I found was like I actually was growing unevenly out the front like four years.

[00:26:03] And my hairdresser's I have no idea. And I'm like, I probably have a brain tumor obviously is what my brain thinks. And I'm like, I'm not going down that road. I'm not going to get a per uvo scan 'cause I'll. Inevitably have something based on my family history. 

[00:26:16] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I like how you went straight to Pvo also by 

[00:26:18] Christa Biegler, RD: I was talking to a past client who had just done it, so it's fresh on my mind. And I have mentally decided I'm not gonna do that right now. 'cause I know, I, I think when you go looking for things, we're always gonna find things. And I'm like, there are things I just don't, my mom literally had a brain tumor and it was huge.

[00:26:35] And the doctor was like, wow. I've never pulled out such a large brain tumor before. It was years ago. I was like, so I don't really need this. Of course, that's why my brain goes to that. So anyway, ultimately I learned more about like lymph congestion in this area, and I start really? And could I do a lot better?

[00:26:50] I like really did have done a lot around like scalp congestion that I didn't realize needed to be done. With different, like exfoliants as well, and I'm like, oh wow. It's finally like evening out and every time I go to the hair salon now my hair isn't two inches longer. On one side I was like, oh, thank God.

[00:27:07] I think we're making progress, two years in Similarly. Yes, so I'm a hundred. I'm also full cent already gonna get the microscope ordered after this and ring up Jess to get started because I'm like, I feel like I could really learn some extra cool things. But I think also I Scalp health this whole topic.

[00:27:26] Okay. I know I wanna come back to Scalp Health. 

[00:27:28] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: No, you're good. 

[00:27:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Just sharing. You don't realize what you don't realize. Yeah, that's super interesting. 

[00:27:32] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And also, like the scalp is so vascular too, so people don't realize like you need to promote blood flow to that area. There's a reason why like when you get a cut in your head, you only have to have your sutures in for, three to five days as opposed to other areas of the body.

[00:27:46] The further you get away, the less blood flow there is there, the longer, because it just takes longer to heal, right? 

[00:27:50] Christa Biegler, RD: NY you bleed like a. Michael Myers movie, 

[00:27:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: yes.

[00:27:53] Christa Biegler, RD: I recommend, I remember my oldest ran into, she was in a water balloon fight at a summer camp one time and ran into the side of the building, and I came to the scene.

[00:28:03] I was like, oh gosh. Can't so much blood. This is hard to look at right now. Like someone else help, please. Okay. So Scalp health? 

[00:28:11] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. 

[00:28:11] Christa Biegler, RD: I wanna circle this out at the end with some tactical things. A couple tactical things around scalp health, but I wanna talk about some other areas that you're a special list in, which is I'd like to think so, because you prescribed medications.

[00:28:24] You wanna cover a little bit about meds and secondary hair loss. Like what meds do we see hair loss as a potential side effect, and at what timeline the most? 

[00:28:33] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah.

[00:28:34] I don't know the timeline off of my head. I'm not actually sure of that. And I would think that it might be different with different medications, of course.

[00:28:40] So one of the biggest ones that stands out to me is like anti-seizure meds, like valproic acid, phenytoin. I actually had a client who I was working with probably six months ago. It was like right around the time that I was going through a lot of this, and she had been put on. I can't remember which anti-seizure medication, but for headaches, 

[00:28:59] Christa Biegler, RD: I was wondering, I was like, what are the other indications for these medications?

[00:29:02] Yeah, because this sounds familiar, but not for patients. 

[00:29:04] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Headaches, nerve pain. There's all kinds of off-label use type things for this. And so she was having all of this hair loss and she was still having a little bit when I had last talked to her, but I was like, when did you stop that medication and when did your hair loss start slowing down?

[00:29:19] And she goes, oh my gosh. It's like the light bulb just went off for her. But some of these anti-seizure medications can also like a lot of the times medications can play a role in like absorption of nutrients too. And also just have interactions that cause can cause or contribute to nutrient deficiencies, right?

[00:29:38] Like I don't want to create like fear around things for people either. But folate vitamin DB vitamins are some big ones that in general some of these medications can cause problems with, which also play a big role in our hair and, even skin, which, we can talk about that in, in relation to scalp, but other popular ones birth control.

[00:29:59] Is a big one. And part of the reason for this is because most people don't know this, but there are five different generations of progestins. So when you take a combined synthetic hormone birth control pill, there is ethanol, estradiol, which is a synthetic form of estrogen, and then there is a progestin, so this is not progesterone.

[00:30:15] And so what the progestin is it's a synthetic form of progesterone, but. Many of these generations, and I can't remember. I think it's three through five. I think it's the newer generations. I think Le Sterol is one, which is I think what is in the IUDI think.

[00:30:30] Don't quote me on that because I don't wanna put out misinformation out there. So check and look. If you're listening to this and you're curious, but they are more chemically similar to testosterone than they are progesterone. You know when gynecologists are out there being like, let's give you.

[00:30:44] The birth control pill to treat your PCOS, which is a high androgen state for many women. Not all of them, but for many of them, right? 

[00:30:53] Christa Biegler, RD: Meaning higher 

[00:30:53] testosterone. 

[00:30:54] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. And now we're just like making it worse by giving them this medication that is chemically more similar in their, in the organic structure to testosterone than it is actual progesterone.

[00:31:05] So that is how birth control can do it. Birth control also causes, we know a number of nutrient deficiencies, specifically B vitamins, and the other big one I would say is actually serotonin plays like more than I thought in our hair health. I was so surprised.

[00:31:16] This was something that I learned when I was researching for the hair guide. I was like, this is bizarre. But selective serotonin, reuptake inhibitors, antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds can potentially, contribute steroids levothyroxine, which is a thyroid medication. And it's so many people who struggle with thyroid stuff are like losing their hair.

[00:31:33] Christa Biegler, RD: Why? Why does that, what's the mechanism? 

[00:31:37] Think 

[00:31:38] it 

[00:31:38] has to, that's fine. 

[00:31:39] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I think it has to do with the potential nutrient deficiencies that I can contribute to. I'm not sure off the top of my head, it's in the hair guide and I researched it for the hair guide, but I don't know off the top of my head.

[00:31:48] But steroids were another one. Long-term steroid use, which. I'm not sure of the mechanism there, but I'm sure, steroids just re wreak havoc on your entire body when you stay on them long term. So these people with, like autoimmune dis diseases that are on like higher dose steroids and things like that, I can only imagine what that's causing.

[00:32:04] And there, there were some other ones too, like Coumadin, which is a blood thinner beta blockers, which is a hypertension medication. We see beta blockers given for anxiety also as well, which is a whole other topic of conversation of like, why are we doing this to people? And a lot of them are, thinner women who don't have very high blood pressure to begin with. So now we're getting dizzy and we're passing out anyways. I'm like opening a whole other, you're like, oh, that's, 

[00:32:26] Christa Biegler, RD: that'll be part 

[00:32:27] two. Part two of ways we're screwing over women with anxiety. Carry on. I was actually just looking at the levothyroxine and it may be associative because when you said low thyroid function impacts your hair and some of the other co, so one.

[00:32:43] Underrated conversation. Is nutrient co-factors related to the thyroid? Yes. Yes. And that's a whole other episode too. But I'm pretty passionate about this topic and I always have to be careful when talking about it because for me, I like to, and probably you now too, I'm guessing. I like to catch people.

[00:32:59] I. Way before they have blood, their blood is off of thyroid. Yes. And I would just say look up thyroid symptoms. They're very common and in general, we shouldn't support. My approach is can we support function of this system by supporting nutrients and co-factors first? And I have found that to be quite impactful and very good return on investment there, but.

[00:33:18] Yeah. Whole nother topic going off on thyroid. Sorry I won't even 

[00:33:21] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: No, you're good. 

[00:33:22] Christa Biegler, RD: You're gonna try that. But you do bring up water pills as a potential as well. And I do find that one thing, and you didn't write this one down, and maybe it's just because I don't know, every med generic versus, what's the ever what the other name? For 

[00:33:37] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: the, yeah. The brand name versus brand. 

[00:33:39] Christa Biegler, RD: The brand name, exactly. 

[00:33:40] But I always cringe when I have someone come in who was on, wants to get off spironolactone. I want them to get off Speral Lactone, but I'm like, oh, this is not fun. 

[00:33:48] No, it's not fun.

[00:33:50] No. '

[00:33:50] cause one of the reasons many people go, OnOne

[00:33:53] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: acne 

[00:33:53] Christa Biegler, RD: yes, absolutely. They go on for acne and then also. I see a fair bit of like water retention as well. Yes. And so going off of that, they're gonna see like a complete rebound as well. And I've just seen, I don't know about you, but there's supposed to be often potassium sparing and I see that they deplete potassium.

[00:34:08] I see. You write it like that. 

[00:34:09] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Interesting. 

[00:34:10] Christa Biegler, RD: That's what I see on nutrient results also. It's like what's supposed to happen versus what we really see happen. Yeah. Seems. 

[00:34:16] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. That's so 

[00:34:17] interesting. The amount of potassium that we also need, I just think is so high that I think when I wonder if what happens when people get on that they like, look up potassium, high foods, high in potassium, then they start to avoid them, or Yeah, I don't know.

[00:34:29] Who knows? But that's super interesting. 

[00:34:31] Christa Biegler, RD: I never really thought that as a prescriber people do that good of a job to tell people don't eat these things like they do with, blood thinners, right? And that's in nutrition school. We learn. This is what I remember learning, and I think this is noble.

[00:34:44] It's like actually you're not really supposed to restrict all your vitamin K foods. It's just that you should eat a consistent amount. And but they're like, it's easier to just tell you not to eat them instead of to just eat a consistent amount of greens. Whatever's easier. We're all working with different, yes. There's reasons that they've arrived at that conclusion probably so I'll just say that. Yes. Okay. So lots of meds can result in hair loss, and the reason I asked you about timeline is because I might consider that it would be latent.

[00:35:09] Right is what I would guess after the fact because it's gonna kick in and then hair's gonna be really downstream. You describe it as like hair's luxury as like disposable income, so it's not a priority and I feel that way pretty much about a lot of function. I feel that way generally about sex hormones too.

[00:35:23] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I say 

[00:35:24] that about, yes. I say that about ovulation too. It's a luxury item. 

[00:35:27] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. It doesn't have to happen if your body is I actually need to preserve your life instead. Yes. And, to your I just will highlight before we go on to just listing some functional causes of looking at what we need to look at inside the body. And we might look at as clinicians. But even in your story, it's so hard to reduce when you're sitting here oh, stress is the cause of so much. And here I am in this very stressful state of hair loss. It's real cute. It's a real beautiful, it's catch 22, we have, isn't it?

[00:35:56] It's super great. Yeah 

[00:35:57] it's a fun time. It's a fun time and also makes you a better clinician when you have been there. You just almost yeah, understand things a little bit. 

[00:36:05] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I also think real quick about like the causes, like with the medications and stuff. I do think, like all of this is a bucket, right?

[00:36:10] Like if your life is going great and you don't have a lot of stress and you're not getting sick all the time and you're using great products and your water's great, like your medication probably isn't gonna affect you. The way that it, you know, for my client who had thyroid issues and like all this other stuff going on and potential toxins and things like that, it really is a cumulative effect in my opinion, and at least in my personal experience and also what I've seen with the women that I work with. 

[00:36:37] Christa Biegler, RD: Totally. Totally. And there's a lot to your story. I think probably the most important thing is that you had to do a lot of trial and error too, and it sucked.

[00:36:45] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Oh dude, it did. And that's why, like I tell, I'm sure you do the same thing. You tell people that you work with. Listen, like this is not an overnight journey. And it's not even a three month journey. Sometimes, often most of the people who come to me are in a position that after six months they're doing pretty darn good if they're doing the work.

[00:37:00] But, sometimes it is, it's trial and error and it's frustrating. As the practitioner on the other end, we're like, totally, we're pulling out our hair, we're asking, we're talking to other practitioners. We're doing the research, we're doing the deep dives. And we're like, man, why is this person still suffering?

[00:37:14] Like it. We know that it's your life, but it bothers us too. Yeah, 

[00:37:17] Christa Biegler, RD: for sure. I'm an Enneagram three, so like I used to hinge all of my worth on results and it was my own stress. And I, you were sitting here talking to Danielle and Enneagram eight, who's like going to, she's gonna halfway yell at the doc, but I'm, my butt's not leaving this seat until you give me a biopsy.

[00:37:34] Like I'm gonna get literally I'm what I came for. And always. I always attract certain Enneagram threes and eights because of our similar personality traits. I'm like, I just wanna acknowledge these. We have these personality traits, and I'm gonna be real honest with you because I know you can handle it.

[00:37:47] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. 

[00:37:48] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm not gonna sugarcoat stuff for you. Sorry, girl. 

[00:37:50] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: No, please don't. Please don't. It's annoying. 

[00:37:52] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Okay. Let's just cover a few things. Yeah. As if someone came into us, these would be the, usually the things that we are typically looking at, or these are things I would typically lead with.

[00:38:02] And you're going to see that these are an overlap of many conditions, right? It's Hey, when you support this, everything gets better. So what do you wanna say about some functional causes? Yeah. Or loss that you also worked. 

[00:38:13] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I love this. 

[00:38:14] Christa Biegler, RD: Sure. 

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[00:39:29] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: My first and favorite thing to preach about is eating enough nutrient dense food and by eating enough nutrient dense food.

[00:39:35] I don't mean like that. You have to be perfect with your diet. I don't. Advocate for that. For myself or for anyone else, if you've ever looked at my Instagram, you can see videos of me eating chips. I did a whole series on that, but like I said before, hair. We don't need it to survive, so your body's not prioritizing it.

[00:39:51] And if you are giving your body poverty, macros, poverty, calories, it's just not gonna thrive the way that you want it to. And I attract myself as a client, which is great, and also a pain in my ass too, where it's like they're highly successful. Type A high functioning women between the ages of 30 and 50, and.

[00:40:08] 80% of them also work in healthcare. I know my ideal client like 100%. And a lot of them grew up with almond moms or Weight Watchers or dieting, or they were told they were fat and just all these awful, horrible things that I read on people's intake forms, right? And so I understand why people struggle.

[00:40:24] Also society really has pushed the 2000 calories is enough. And for most the women that I work with specifically, they're running hard. They're pushing heavy weight, they're doing big badass things and big lives and hiking on the weekends and all this stuff. And I'm like, 2000 calories just isn't enough.

[00:40:41] And so if you are losing your hair and you're wondering why, and. You're eating less than 2,500 calories a day. I would challenge you to look at that. And not advocating for people calorie counting their entire lives, but most women are undereating. I feel very passionately about that one.

[00:40:56] Christa Biegler, RD: Same, 

[00:40:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: so as far as looking at like medical causes, I would want people to have a full panel of blood work. So full iron panel, full thyroid panel hormones. So do you have A-P-C-O-S type picture? Is there an autoimmune?

[00:41:07] Autoimmune is not my first line of things that, that I would look at, but if we're really pulling our hair, pun intended after so long, it might be something that I suggest we look at. Chronic infections, EBV mold, Lyme. Nutrient deficiencies are in that same bucket of eating enough. Stress is a big one.

[00:41:24] People, I know Lauren and I are like the queens of like minerals and stress regulation. It really makes a huge difference. If you are chronically under even low grade stress and your hair is falling out, like your body feels that and it doesn't have to be, Sarah Godfrey does a really great job of talking about the difference between like real stress and perceived stress and talking about how our bodies don't know the damn difference.

[00:41:44] And so even if it's something that you are worried about that isn't happening or it's not a quote unquote real thing going, your body still feels that, so stress is such, it is such a huge one. And also undereating is a stressor on your body. So I'm just tying that back in. Gut health is a big one.

[00:42:01] So if we are unable to absorb the nutrients that we're taking in, I've seen. I do a lot. I do, I've done hundreds and hundreds of GI maps at this point. So if you are a hot girl, IBS, girly, number one, not normal. And number two, like it's probably contributing to your nutrient absorption and contributing to that bucket of like, why are you losing hair?

[00:42:20] Medications we talked about. And then the other thing is just how you're treating your scalp. So is your scalp actually healthy and are you doing the things? It's funny, my ordering now, like when I'm in the shower, because I'm doing so much scrubbing and I'm bending over it actually, it, it thinks that I'm doing yoga.

[00:42:34] It's did you just do yoga? No, I was in the shower scrubbing my scalp, man. 

[00:42:38] Christa Biegler, RD: Sorry. That's really funny. 

[00:42:40] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: It's hilarious. I literally, I screenshot and send it to my psychologist all the time. She's this is what I like to see. 

[00:42:46] Christa Biegler, RD: Your aing confusing you for doing yoga while doing yourself. I just think that is a hilarious picture, so I appreciate you putting that into our heads.

[00:42:54] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: You're all welcome. 

[00:42:55] Christa Biegler, RD: It's free. 

[00:42:56] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. 

[00:42:57] Christa Biegler, RD: Free picture. 

[00:42:58] Free picture 

[00:42:59] of Danielle doing hair, yoga in the shower. Okay. I think we've covered a little bit of scalp health, but we'll round it out right there. Yeah. Around scalp health. So what we talked about, water filter. Talk about why you feel so passionately about haircuts every three months.

[00:43:16] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Oh my God. It like, it's just the health of your hair. Like you, it weighs you down that all that dry, damaged hair and also some of the hair length is also a predetermined genetic thing. To an extent. I don't wanna say, it, it's not all of it. So like your hair gets to that point and it's just, it's not going anywhere.

[00:43:33] But just keeping hair healthy is really, I don't really have a deeper reason for that besides I wanna keep my hair healthy. I don't know if you have other things that, how haircuts contribute to scalp health. 'cause I don't know that actually 

[00:43:44] Christa Biegler, RD: no I am not sure sometimes we look for the people in our world, which is why I'm like, I should uhhuh.

[00:43:49] Work with your psychologist because Yeah. when I talked to my hairdresser, who I love very much, she's really chill and neutral. She's I don't know what will help. And I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna keep on this journey. Of trying different products and different hair. Yeah. You can let me know if you wanna be on our water filtration deep dive this summer, which I have not here for it organized but it seems like you might be interested in this topic as 

[00:44:10] well.

[00:44:10] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah. We tested my water too. As a side note, we did do that. 

[00:44:13] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Who did you use? 

[00:44:15] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: it was just, honestly, it was an Amazon test that Jess recommended. So it wasn't like anything like super, it was just like a quick scan to see is there anything like major off yeah. 

[00:44:24] There wasn't, 

[00:44:24] it was anti-climatic, just like you said.

[00:44:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Another thing for another day. And that's the thing is that you did a lot of trial and error. You did a lot of really good trial and error and some of it. With the fungal thing, it was like, Hey, I see this itching, I see this in my boyfriend, so maybe there's something there. Yeah, I did some testing, but at the end of the day you still had to use your clinical brain to say, here's our best case explanation.

[00:44:45] And yeah, the good news is we're a hundred percent better than we were. Yeah, and I do love that the febrile thing, I just think that's really interesting and I think it is quite timely. It's hard to feel timely anymore post covid, but like it still feels timely five years later. Just tells us how slow we move.

[00:45:02] Dude in medicine, right? It's like it's still timely five years later to talk about how hair loss post infection, 'cause it still happens, right? Yeah, it's still happening. It just seemed like it was happening at a much higher rate at that point. And I think, to that end, I. Covid was such a kind of straw that broke a camel's back for a lot of people.

[00:45:21] It was just like a little aggressive on the body causing an inflammatory process in the whole system, which in inflammation in general, just uses up a ton of nutrients as well. Yes. So that's the bottom line is like most things just use up nutrients, most good and most bad things. So the bad things will, when things are out of balance, it like steals the nutrients and then you're not putting enough nutrients in or you're not even digesting, absorbing them.

[00:45:42] And then the stress and the other things coming into your life, use those up essentially. So the stressors look like lots of things. So I always say we're just trying to bring systems back in a balance and yeah, fill in all the gaps that have been caused that you don't know are there.

[00:45:54] And that's the thing I think in these like highly healthy women, which is usually my client base as well, is you have a very clear. Picture of health, but there's some things that are off. Yeah. It's like we operate a little bit more in subtleties and so I always say I feel like I operate in symptom specialty.

[00:46:09] Yes. Instead of I appreciate blood work, and you've had some really cool, I know, 'cause you've shared online, you've had some really cool stories of where blood work was really supportive. In fact, you had a client recently who, had cancer, didn't you? Like you sent her for something.

[00:46:24] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: So that wasn't recent. That was a patient who I saw in conventional medicine. She was a PA student. And she just did not feel right and she was burned in the candle hard, like she was working full time during PA school, which you're not even most programs don't even allow you to work.

[00:46:37] And working out like twice a day. And I'm like, listen, you gotta cut this shit out. Like I str, I. I am who I am and I Oh, sugarcoat this 

[00:46:44] Christa Biegler, RD: Are you crazy? What you think is gonna happen? Yeah. 

[00:46:49] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: And so she came back 12 weeks later and she was like, I still don't feel right. Her thyroid antibodies were through the roof.

[00:46:54] Her thyroid function, totally normal. It never, it would have gone on and on. Had someone not checked her thyroid antibodies. And she had to fight to it was a whole mess. She had to fight to get a biopsy and we're like, 

[00:47:06] Christa Biegler, RD: and she had thyroid cancer, right?

[00:47:08] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. She had thyroid cancer. She had a complete thyroidectomy. 

[00:47:12] Christa Biegler, RD: That's crazy. And I'm always a bit shocked by, you probably have seen this coin flip too. I used to ask people when I would send them in to have their blood drawn and I don't have this problem too much anymore just because we can support facilitating it for clients.

[00:47:25] But it's if client, if we were gonna help facilitator help connect people to getting their blood drawn for thyroid and. Thyroid, a full thyroid panel, maybe 50. I'm probably being a little conservative, but 50 ish dollars. $10 for antibodies. And I've had people say they've been, their insurance has been charged $2,000 for a full thyroid panel.

[00:47:43] What is this noise like? Big healthcare it's not even fathomable. I'm like, I, how do we get from $50 to $2,000? I just don't have, 

[00:47:51] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: I have had 

[00:47:52] people who have insisted on using their insurance while we're, and I'm like. You can go to your PCP and have this bloodwork done, but don't come back to me and yell at me when your bill is $4,000.

[00:48:02] And it inevitably is. And I'm like don't say it in. Don't say it in warn. Yeah. 

[00:48:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. It's absolutely crazy. Yeah. Okay, cool. If you could tell people three things Yeah. For loving their scalp, what would you say? 

[00:48:14] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Oh. 

[00:48:15] Christa Biegler, RD: Just 

[00:48:16] made that, 

[00:48:16] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Wash your hair probably more frequently than you think you need to.

[00:48:19] I was, like I said, I was an every five day hair wash, girly for over a decade. And my tologist was like, you need to wash your hair more. That's not everybody but for me. So I. It might be worth working with someone to see what hair wash frequency you need to be using. Number two, get an exfoliant.

[00:48:35] I use this, it's actually a men's product from Euphoria, E-U-F-O-R-A. That's the, I have no affiliation with them, but it's a product that Jess had recommended to me and I exfoliate my scalp for 15 minutes every week. And it is the most, it's what I'm doing in the shower just like scrubbing and scrubbing.

[00:48:51] And The last thing I would say is, ooh, for scalp health I would say put a filter on your shower head. 

[00:48:58] Christa Biegler, RD: I really do think that enough. You might wanna put that one. Yeah. 

[00:49:00] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yes. Also, always eat enough food. I am the perpetually saying that to people.

[00:49:04] So yes. Eat enough nutrient dense food. 

[00:49:06] Christa Biegler, RD: I ran out of my scalp exfoliant a while back and I'm really missing it. And I used one from. B-R-I-G-I don't dunno how to say it properly. Or whatever it had it had, and it had coconut oil in it, so you'd think it would be, and then like charcoal, it was so good.

[00:49:20] And like afterwards it just so soft 

[00:49:22] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: feels so good. 

[00:49:23] Christa Biegler, RD: I know, I'm just, I'm actually missing it. Yeah. And I was contemplating between the tiny bottle or like the giant mega, mega bottle, but maybe I'll try a new one. So I have this, yeah. And then the this problem where I always wanna try new things. 

[00:49:35] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: The EU four also has it's part of the men's line, but it's a moisturizer, but it's like this fresh, like it's more than peppermint.

[00:49:41] And I put that on after I exfoliate and it gives you like a little tingly. It just, it, oh, it feels so good. It's amazing. Their product. I've really enjoyed their products. I'm still using them yeah. 

[00:49:51] Christa Biegler, RD: Cool. 

[00:49:52] Yeah. Where can people find you online? 

[00:49:54] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, so I hang out mostly on Instagram. It's just at Danielle Kepics.

[00:49:59] Nothing fancy. You can find pretty much anything that you want that's linked to me there at my link in my Bio or just any of my pin posts or anything like that. 

[00:50:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Cool. Thank you so much for coming on today and sharing this saga of a hair story, which is actually, I feel like we learned so much from stories, so hopefully all of our listeners find that. I think we identify with others through stories, so thanks so much for sharing your story today. 

[00:50:22] Danielle Kepics, PA-C: Yeah, thanks for having me. I had so much fun.