[00:00:00] Kara: Sick of the fatigue and fog? Fed up with the unpredictable flares? Hangry from the super restrictive diets?
Hello, and welcome to the Crunchy Allergist Podcast, a podcast empowering those who like me, appreciate both a naturally minded and scientifically grounded approach to health and healing.
Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Kara Wada, quadruple board certified pediatric and adult allergy immunology and lifestyle medicine, physician Sjogren's patient and life coach. My recipe for success combines, the anti-inflammatory lifestyle, trusting therapeutic relationships, modern medicine, and mindset to harness our body's ability to heal.
Now although I might be a physician I'm not your physician And this podcast is for educational purposes only.
Welcome everyone. I am super excited to welcome Dr. Alexis Hugelmeyer. She is a coffee drinking wander- lusting wife, mama of three, like myself, and board certified family and osteopathic medicine physician. She has spent most of her 13 year career taking care of the sickest hospital patients, knowing that most of them are suffering from preventable, even reversible conditions in her practice.
Dr. Lex focuses on nine fundamental pillars of health and provides patients the education support and accountability. They need to set and achieve their health goals. And today we're going to talk a little bit about. The role of OMT, which for those of you who are not aware is osteopathic manipulation.
And so maybe Dr. Lex, can you share to our listeners what that means? What is a DO compared to MD?
[00:01:50] Lexi: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. First of all, this is fun to meet up again. I always love chatting with you. So if you are a patient or if you've ever been a patient, chances are, you've had either one of two types of doctors, an MD, which some medical doctor or a D O, which is a doctor of osteopathy and fundamentally the two.
The processes of training are fundamentally the same at their core, but the philosophy of practice between a Dio and an MD varies greatly. It's very different in terms of where the practices and principles come from. And then in addition to the traditional training too, so that one can become a physician of either background, osteopaths spend an additional amount of time in the lab studying and learning hands-on diagnosis and treatment, which is called OMT. And so fundamentally the philosophy for osteopaths is that the body is a unit that you cannot separate out its parts. And that most importantly, the body has the intrinsic ability to heal itself.
And if the structure is functioning optimally, then you should be able to heal yourself. You should have most of the things that you need to be able to heal your body. When there are structural impairments or barriers to your body's own normal functioning, then osteopathic somatic dysfunctions.
And that is what we utilize our hands on diagnosis and treatment techniques to try to address. So OMT really is a hands-on treatment that osteopaths learn in medical school and their training programs. And the goal is to address those structural barriers to your body's own intrinsic healing capacity.
[00:03:40] Kara: I wish that all medical school at a minimum come from this idea that we are, that we are so much more than the sum of our parts. I was actually reflecting just before we got on about, this recurring thing. I hear all the time from auto-immune patients, which is playing this game hot potato. Being bounced around from specialist to specialist, trying to figure out, who's in charge of what and who's really leading the ship. And what I always come back to is it really can be so powerful to have a great primary care physician.
[00:04:20] Lexi: Osteopathic physicians historically practiced primary care specialties like pro like family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, OB GYN.
We tend to come from a more preventive background and our approach tends to be more preventive. But also when we're looking at the whole patient, because of that grounding principle, that the body is a unit, we really do. We are much less systems based in our approach. So when you come to me, for example, as an autoimmune patient, immediately, the light bulb is going on that there's inflammation.
And you might present to me with inflammation in your, in your knee or your hips or your low back, but as a, as an osteopath practicing true. Osteopathic principles and practices. The thought process is coming at you from a whole person perspective and looking not only at your low back or wherever the pain or inflammation is originating, but looking at the whole body really, truly from head to toe.
And also not just looking at your structure, but digging deep into. Background and your lifestyle, what are you putting in your body? What kind of energy are you expending? How are you sleeping? How are you managing your stress? Because we know that all of these things are deeply rooted in how the body functions they are.
Impairments in those aspects of your life, or if you're not following the healthiest diet or not getting sufficient high quality sleep, we know that's going to contribute to your inflammation. So I might not even put my hands on your back where it hurts initially. We might start with a really good history and take a look at your lifestyle.
And then as we start to diagnose and treat your body, your back will probably come up at some point in time, but there's a good chance that your osteopath will be looking at. All of your structures, including your joints, your autonomic nervous system, your fight or flight response or your rest and digest response, your lymphatics, your fluid, and the mechanisms that your body uses.
To clear toxins from your body and clear inflammatory cells. And also the fascia, which is basically the connective tissue that kind of holds it all together. So those are the things we're looking at when we treat a patient from an osteopathic perspective. It's funny when people say, oh, my, they come in with an something like my wrist hurts.
They always say, why didn't, why did you get to my wrist last? And it's your wrist is hurting, but I guarantee that the source of the problem is not at your wrist.
[00:06:52] Kara: Yeah. And I think that's interesting because we're really starting to realize as well. For instance, like with food allergy, for instance, many of those little ones will have a history of skin barrier issues. So eczema. And so there's this thought that perhaps, some of the science is pointing towards if you're exposed to those foods and your immune system is seeing them initially through contact through the skin, as opposed through contact to the gut that, that shifts our response.
And so it's this idea of yes, the problem may now be food allergy, but it may have started elsewhere or,
[00:07:29] Lexi: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you bring up a good point about how, sometimes organ systems we talk a lot about, especially in auto-immunity we talk a lot about the musculoskeletal pain, the inflammation that comes along with a lot of auto-immune disorders, but so many of them have organ system dysfunctions and part of osteopathic manipulation that I didn't touch on really is, structure and function are reciprocally interrelated. So like I said earlier, if your structure is impaired, the function of the organs systems contained within your structure will be impaired as well and vice versa.
If you're an asthma suffer and your lungs are impaired or struggling during an asthma exacerbation, Your structure is going to react and respond accordingly. So when we're looking at a patient, for example, with asthma allergic asthma allergies, sinus congestion, things like that, the problem may be lies within an organ system, but it is reflected.
In our exam, it reflects through the structure. And so when we can feel for those changes, we can feel for those responses and then treat accordingly. It's pretty amazing actually, to treat like the asthma is a great example. If you're breathing really fast and really hard because you're struggling to breathe, because your airways are constricted because you have a lot of mucus, the muscles of your chest wall are going to become hypertonic.
They're going to become spastic and therefore they're going to limit. How wide your rib cage can travel. It's going to therefore limit how well your diaphragm travels and therefore how well your lymphatics are moving your your body's clearance mechanism for toxins. So if you treat the upper chest of an asthmatic and you improve the muscle spasm, you change the way that patient's rib cage travels, you change the work that they feel.
That is required to breathe deeply. You change the way that their diaphragm travels and therefore how they clear their mucus. It's remarkable. And the fact that you can just put your hands on a patient and effect these changes without medications typically painless without side effect. It's an, it's a wonderful, minimally invasive intervention. It's a tool that we use that is I think, widely underused. There's, there's probably less than 5% of osteopaths were actually practicing osteopathic manipulation, but the utility is tremendous can be applied to most conditions and is very well tolerated and highly.
[00:10:13] Kara: I know. I think one thing I had mentioned to you before our conversation when we were setting this up is I had a particular patient with very stubborn, you stationed to disfunction. So her ears would always feel full, popping uncomfortable would feel almost like she had an ear infection though. Thankfully, was not developing infections yet. Which can happen when you have ongoing sinus inflammation. And we were doing the best we could from like a medicine immunotherapy, kind of standpoint. But I sent her to one of my colleagues who is known to have very well-trained hands in OMT. And this patient had a really remarkable response and it was truly life changing with her quality of life of being able to hear better and not have this pain and pressure in her face and really remarkable.
[00:11:09] Lexi: I love that you bring up that example because it's one where I personally, and I know a lot of my colleagues as well have been able to treat children with chronic recurrent ear infections and prevent them from having tympanostomy tubes or T tubes placed in their ear.
As a child develops, if you think about. The child's face elongating as they get older. When they're younger, their eustachian tubes are more, let's say parallel to the ground, which makes it more difficult to drain the head and neck and the ears of lymphatic congestion and fluid. As you get older and your face elongates that you stationed tube tips down.
Which is why adults are less likely to have ear infections. And so manually moving that fluid through the head and neck to help with lymphatic clearance of infection regularly, or as needed for patients who are experiencing infection. Can prevent young babies and children from having surgery, which anytime you can avoid a surgical procedure it's preferred.
So I love that example because it really does impact quality of life. And it's just a great example of mechanically of how OMT can help with a situation that will naturally improve as you get older. But those kids who are prone to ear infections, those are some of our most grateful patients, the parents.
[00:12:28] Kara: Absolutely. There's nothing. I think more like heart-wrenching and seeing your little one suffering and pain or with the fever or so being able to have relief is really remarkable and in it's interesting to see, or even reflect on how. Care for ear infections has changed overall in regards to like more acceptance in watching and waiting and not necessarily always pulling the trigger on antibiotics as quickly, under certain circumstances.
And so this would definitely be just another, like you said, a tool in the tool belt of what else could we maybe try in these circumstances where you have a little bit of time to maybe wait, but you also don't want your child suffering.
[00:13:15] Lexi: Yeah. Yeah. That's why a sound approach, being as proactive and preventive as possible with all things, using antibiotics, certainly when necessary, but in conjunction with other treatments like osteopathic manipulation, outcomes can be really great.
And in some studies, like some of the pneumonia studies some of the pain management studies, osteopathic manipulation patients have been shown to require fewer days of antibiotics require fewer hospital days require less pain medications. So it definitely is a tool that can be used in conjunction with other treatment modalities to optimize or enhance treatment, if not being used as a standalone.
[00:13:58] Kara: What what does OMT look like? What would could you describe? What that may look or feel like for a patient in in maybe an example?
[00:14:09] Lexi: Sure. Absolutely. It depends really on the setting that the osteopathic manipulation is being used.
Now, keep in mind that dos can enter into any specialty. So a Dio can be a neurosurgeon or a cardiologist or a general surgeon, even though historically we tend to enter into, or have historically entered into primary care specialties. So for example, if you're in the emergency depart, when you come in because you've hurt your knee.
And one of the residents or osteopathic physicians was working in the ER. Is wanting to do osteopathic manipulation on you. They may, while they're talking to you perform a series of techniques, applied to your knee or while they're examining you and making sure that your hips, knees, and ankles are all intact, they might be also doing some hands-on treatment techniques.
A surgeon for example, can perform osteopathic manipulation for their post-op patients. One of the most common complications there is. When the bowel slowed down after surgery because of anesthesia or pain medications, or just the fact that the body has just gone through the trauma of having an operation.
And so hands-on OMT in a post-operative patient would probably be very gentle would probably be done to a patient who is in a hospital bed and would probably in that case, for example, be focused on the abdomen and move, helping to move the bed. In my practice where it's not an emergency, patients are coming in typically for a particular reason, it's a standard office based procedure.
I do tend to spend a lot of time with patients because I like to try to examine and treat the entire body to try to find possibly compensatory mechanisms or reflexes say for example, you have pain that starts in your. In your hips, but you might actually end up having hip pain because you have knee issues, for example.
So you'd like to try to treat the whole structure, but the patient is typically laying down on their back. We have a quiet space and I start at the head and work my way all the way down to the feet performing techniques. There are varies. There's a the techniques vary greatly between practitioner. Although we do learn the same techniques. We do learn the quote-unquote cracking techniques that you may have heard some chiropractors using like a that's called high velocity, low amplitude they're thrusting or cracking techniques. Those can be. I don't utilize them often. I find that I find that I can be as effective with other techniques that are not involving any thrust, although they are appropriate in some cases.
Some of them are gentle techniques that are intended to reduce muscle spasm. So they might look more like a massage type technique. Some of the techniques are active, which mean, which means. I will ask the patient to help me, for example there is a muscular reflex where if I put a patient's muscle into a particular position and then have that patient push against my resistance, it can initiate this reflex relaxation in the muscle fiber.
So some of the techniques I asked for patient's participation, some of them involve range of motion. Our. Helping a patient improve their range of motion by placing a joint into a particular barrier repeatedly. And some of them are very still techniques where for example, I will put a patient into a particular position and then just hold it there for, 90 seconds or so to try to wait for that particular segment or area of inflammation or spasm through release. So there's a number of different treatments. Typically it's not painful. Although if I think that something is going to hurt, I'll warn the patient, this might feel uncomfortable for him. But typically the treatments are very gentle, very well tolerated.
Sometimes we use heat in order to get the muscles to relax before the treatments. I love to combine massage with my treatment. So I'll have patients get a massage right beforehand, make sure that the muscles are nice and loose and pliable. And. Then I can feel the structures a little bit deeper.
I can get a little bit more in depth with my exam and my treatment. It's yeah, it's pretty, pretty straightforward. You probably know. Could we, there, you can definitely use utilize OMT applications in any medical setting. But typically if you're seeing a doctor for osteopathic manipulation, you're going to be in an office on a regular exam table or a table that goes up and down.
[00:18:39] Kara: Awesome. Are there, is there an easy way for listeners to find someone who does OMT, if they think that this would be helpful in there, it sounds like it'd be helpful for pretty much everyone, but but if they're interested, find someone who is practicing these techniques.
[00:18:55] Lexi: Yeah. It's funny that you say that because people will always say, do you use OMT to treat, fill in the blank. And my answer is always, yes, my answer is always either. Yes, I can treat that or, yes, I'm happy to try because chances are, there is a structural basis to, to, to most complaints.
There is a great website. It's from the American osteopathic association, it's called find a D O. And what you'll do is you'll enter in your zip code and your, the radius that you'd like to travel or that you're willing to travel. And then there's a drop down for all the different types of specialties. And the two that you would want to search for in that dropdown are osteopathic manipulation, OMM, or OMT, and the other one it's called neuromuscular medicine and, that is, that indicates that the physician that has been fellowship trained with an additional year beyond their residency program to to diagnose and treat utilizing osteopathic manipulation. So you could search for either of those. And that'll give you all the names of the doctors who are registered with the AOA, who practice osteopathic manipulate within your region.
[00:20:10] Kara: Awesome. Where in what ways have you found OMT to be most helpful with your patients who have autoimmune type conditions?
[00:20:21] Lexi: Most, mostly it's been joint pain symptoms. And when we talk about joint pain, like most auto-immune most doctors who approach auto-immune issues, we'll talk a lot about diet and lifestyle, but hands-on osteopathic manipulation really helps with inflammation, stiffness, spasm, anytime your body is compromised, there is going to be your body's going to react.
In an attempt to protect that area and that protective mechanism can then become a secondary source of pain. And so sometimes you're not even necessarily treating the problem, but you're treating the body's reaction to that problem. So maybe you're reducing spasm around a painful joint and just by treating the body's response to that painful joint, you're helping to improve range of motion, mobility, decreased pain. I would have to say that the most significant impact that OMT has had in my practice on auto-immune patients would be with respect to their joint symptoms, especially the fine the small joints, the hands, the toes physical therapy, all of the. The non-interventional kinds of approaches massage feet acupuncture.
These are great techniques and should be incorporated as part of the treatment plan for an auto-immune patient who suffers with pain. But sometimes there are second. That you just can't get to it by stretching. You just can't you can't achieve a stretch or you can't achieve, the relaxation of muscle spasm in a particular location because you can't stretch that way.
And so being able to get into those deeper spaces is a really effective way to help patients with joint pain. Similarly, gut health and patients who have digestive issues related to auto-immunity the osteopathic manipulation. It's highly effective. There are there are a significant number of techniques that we can use on the GI tract addressing the nervous system, that kind of innervation to the GI tract.
And also the lymphatic con congestion that exists in the abdomen and the abdominal cavity can really help with the GI symptoms associated with automating. Probably the most impactful case that I've ever had in my career, let alone with an auto-immune patient. I had a patient who was, he actually had rheumatoid arthritis and suffered with chronic joint pain, but he was being seen in my clinic as a medical student for dry mouth.
He actually was diagnosed with stage four head and neck cancer. And he had undergone multiple rounds of radiation to his head and neck. So it was interesting because at first I thought, okay, he's got rheumatoid arthritis. I'm going to come in, I'm going to treat his joint pains. And we're going to help him become a little bit more mobile and help with, decreases pain.
But he was being seen for his dry mouth. And so he said, okay, my, my joints feel great, but is there anything you can do for this dry mouth? And. Of course, I said, sure, I'll try. And I spent a good 45 minutes working on his head and. And this man had tried everything under the sun for his dry mouth.
Essentially the radiation has called it had caused fibrosis of his salivary glands, which essentially made them trapped in a spiderweb. The scar tissue from the radiation encased his salivary glands and made them essentially non-functional he had been hospitalized for water intoxication.
He had lost weight. Socially isolated, because he was embarrassed by his dry mouth. He was, he would drink Sprite all the time. So he had all these cavities, because he didn't want to drink too much water. His life was severely impacted by his dry mouth. So I treated him for 45 minutes. I addressed all of the lymphatics of his head and neck opened up all of his diaphragms and really tried to get the juices flowing.
And he left the clinic. And about five minutes later, after years of not having any saliva, he came back into my office with puddles of spit in his hand. And he was, and he had tears in his eyes and he was like, what on earth just happened? I was like, okay, this is great. Let's, see where this goes.
Let's see how long this lasts. He came back about a week later and I retreated. And then after that, we said, we're going to treat them as needed. Once he started to feel his dry mouth come back and he was a patient of mine for six years after that, I would treat him our maintenance schedule ended up being about once every six months, where he would require that, hands-on treatment to maintain the flow of his salivary glands.
Mind you, he didn't have any additional radiation after that his cancer was stable. It wasn't in the presence of ongoing scarring or radiation and induced. But when I tell you this patient, like I said he I, he was definitely the patient who had the most impact. And that was when I really knew that osteopathic manipulation had a special place in the treatment of.
When it came to chronic medical conditions and quality of life type conditions. I just want to encourage your patients. I know that there are many Sjogren's patients out there who suffer with dry mouth. And I know that many of you have tried all of the above in terms of getting your symptoms under control.
And I just want to recommend or suggest that you look for a deal and see if there's anything that can be done with respect to, the lymphatics of the head and neck to see if it could improve quality of life when it comes to dry mouth, dry eyes in a patient with Sjogren's. So I'm glad you asked because I wanted to get that in there.
[00:25:49] Kara: No, and I find it fascinating, even just thinking about, Some of those techniques that, that the ear nose and throat we'll even talk about. If you end up with a stone, like an air salivary gland, like part of it is like trying to milk the gland. It makes sense to at least give it a
[00:26:03] Lexi: whirl.
Exactly. Yeah. That was an extreme case, his dry mouth may have been exacerbated by the fact that he had RA an underlying auto-immunity. But it was just a really he thought it was a miracle. And I was like, I was a third-year medical student. I was sold.
I was like, this is changing people's lives. And that was when I decided it was definitely going to be part of my career and I haven't stopped practicing ever since.
[00:26:24] Kara: That's so cool. I I don't know if I ever shared this with you, but I was very close to. Being a Dio instead of an MD. And it was a last minute decision.
And I think of it a little, like that's, I try not to live with regret, but with a little bit of sadness, because it really came down to the DEO school that I was accepted to was more expensive than the state school that I was accepted to. And so I ended up deciding that last dash that sounded better, but I have a few colleagues who have maybe we can give you an honorary DL, just from the philosophy standpoint, but I'm like, yeah, but I don't have, obviously any background at all in OMT.
[00:27:06] Lexi: But there are courses out there that MDs and non Dios can take to learn some simple strategies, and you can learn strategies that can be applied to your particular patients that, you know so there's definitely CME classes out there that you could take.
I know a lot of people. When I counsel my pre-med students on which way to go, to be honest, I didn't, I went to the medical school that accepted me, which was an osteopathic school. I didn't go to an osteopathic school intending to be a Dio because I love the philosophy have looking back now. I wouldn't, I would never, I wouldn't changed my path. And I really do encourage patients, especially I'm sorry, encourage med students and, young people who are wanting to go into medical school to really take a look at the difference because osteopathic school might be a better fit for the type of medicine that you want to practice. And it really is, it's truly a phenomenal experience when it comes to taking care of patients.
[00:28:05] Kara: It is. It is funny how sometimes life just has this way of working at working its way out. You know that like you wouldn't have chose or, maybe didn't choose something, but it shows you is sometimes how I envision or see things.
[00:28:23] Lexi: Absolutely.
[00:28:25] Kara: Do you have any parting words or other advice you would love to share with our Crunchy Allergist community?
[00:28:35] Lexi: Yes. I know that you provide such important information. You give so many free advice and free information that's really valuable to your listeners. And one of the things that I just want to echo, I know it's a common thread that runs through your episodes, but I just want to stress the importance of, finding a practitioner who really hears you and is aligned with your goals for your health care.
Because if you are a patient who maybe wants to take a more holistic or non-interventional approach and your doctor is very traditional, you're both going to end up frustrated. And conversely, if you're want to take meds, but your doctor is trying to get you to do all kinds of, alternative remedies or things like that, you're just going to end up hitting a wall and you're both going to end up frustrated. So it's important to make sure that you're finding a doctor who's aligned with your health goals and someone who really spends the time to listen to you, especially when it comes to symptoms that may be vague or difficult to diagnose.
You want to make sure that you have trust in your relationship with your physician, that you feel like you're heard. And. Of course as a Dio, I encourage you to visit with an osteopath who performs osteopathic manipulation, lifestyle medicine, and or functional medicine, because root cause, especially when it comes to autoimmune disease can be can change or save your life.
And so I know that's a common theme in your podcast and in your philosophy. So I just want to echo that. I think that you're doing phenomenal work bringing light and awareness and information to our auto-immune community. And I you're just so appreciated. So thank you so much.
[00:30:07] Kara: Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing and teaching me even so much about OMT and role of Dio.
And I just, I can't echo that enough about just that need for that therapeutic relationship is so paramount. And the only, the little thing that I'll add is, I was talking with a patient earlier this week about the idea that sometimes your labs are normal and that can be the, can sometimes feel as like a blow, right?
That oh, we haven't figured out what's wrong with me. If you have that good trusting therapeutic relationship that you're going to stick with, that, stick with that person in partnership. I've viewed it as you're, you may be on your way or showing some signs that things are headed towards autoimmune or an inflammatory process, but you haven't had enough tissue destruction yet to call it something.
So now's the time to work with, some of those lifestyle medicine techniques turn that ship around or at least slow down the progression to, Hopefully in the meantime, improve your symptoms and quality of life.
[00:31:25] Lexi: Yeah, you don't have to wait for a diagnosis or for somebody to give you a name for what's wrong.
You can always start working on your health. You can always start improving your quality of life and your longevity by optimizing your nutrition, your sleep quality, your exercise, your social relationships, who you're hanging out with is important to your health, whether you're spiritually connected, whether you're taking time to experience joy and fulfill your potential.
Those are all direct determinants of your health. So don't minimize those and make sure that you're paying attention to those now, whether or not you have a diagnosis.
[00:31:59] Kara: So we didn't, I didn't ask you this beforehand, but do you have a favorite book or resource that you tend to share with, or that you've learned from.
[00:32:10] Lexi: One of the best resources, to be honest, that I love to give to patients. There's two actually. And they're not related to osteopathic medicine. One is called Prescriptive Stretching, and it's a great diet, like a diagram based book that kind of is like an encyclopedia of stretching for particular injuries or conditions.
It gives a great overall. I can't stress the importance of flexibility in overall health and long-term functional capacity. Yeah. And the other one is booked. That's written by our colleague. Her name is Dr. Leslie Koenig's. She's a an emergency department, physician and combat veteran, and she wrote a book called stress stress relief handbook.
And it is it is incredible. It's a really step-by-step kind of workbooks to help you teach your body how to get out of fight or flight easily and to manage your stress effectively, which we know, uncontrolled stress leads to and contributes to all kinds of disease can predict in particular exacerbate the inflammatory response.
So those two books for sure are books that I encourage that my patients by and leaving by their bedside.
[00:33:18] Kara: Adding those to my my order today. Thank you so much. It's interesting that some of that research on medical students back in the day actually took place at Ohio state with doctors glacier, the a couple in saw how med students, when they were so stressed out. There are white blood cells doing all sorts of funky things.
So thank you so much Dr. Lex. And if you want to, I would encourage everyone to follow Dr. Lex at Dr. Lex lifestyle med on Facebook and Instagram, and we'll link to that in the show notes. And then where is it that you practice? If we have listeners who are a little more local and want to establish care with you?
[00:34:02] Lexi: Sure. Sure.
My practice is a small practice in chapel hill, North Carolina. That's where I physically see patients, but I do have licenses to practice and perform lifestyle medicine consultations in five states, North Carolina, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. And so we'll be happy to address patients virtually in any of those states.
[00:34:24] Kara: Oh, great. That's awesome resource to share with everyone. And thank you so much for your time, and I hope you have a great rest of your week.
[00:34:33] Lexi: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you. Take care.
[00:34:37] Kara: Thank you so much for tuning in to my conversation. With Dr. Alexis this week. If you enjoyed this episode, as much as we did recording it, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Google play. So you don't miss any future episodes.
I also wanted to share about an upcoming event. I'm hosting with my partner, Jennifer, we are hosting a free two part masterclass series called Nourish your Body and Mind.
This series is for anyone struggling with a misbehaving immune system. Maybe you find yourself struggling with fatigue or pain or dealing with brain fog that inability to focus or having trouble finding the right words at the right time. On day one, Jennifer is going to help you consider what to think about when you are trying and buying supplements.
What supplements are backed by science and which are just marketing hype. Oh, and by the way, we're going to do this without sharing any affiliate links or giving you any sales pitch for specific supplements. D two, I'm going to tackle why our brains always lead us to be our own worst critic. And how to break that cycle in order to build an effective self-compassion practice.
We really are so excited to share this information with you. And if you want to register for this free masterclass series, head over to bit.ly/nourish-webinar, or visit www.crunchyallergist.com and we'll have the link available there too.
We look forward to seeing you there. And until next week. Take care
