Healing chronic illness by rewiring the brain and restoring the gut

Well, come to the untold, take it deep breath, take the higher road, that's why they always say, as if they know the way, they won't take it from me.

But don't ever doubt yourself by swiping just a drain, you made your own so kick and scream.

The people will lie with a never-ending force, you never have the chance, so watch your waiting for it.

This is come my friend, cause this is one.

It's time and this is one.

Hello and welcome to the Nurses Report on America Out Loud Top Radio.

This is your show host, Melissa Shridefetter.

I love both the Functional Nurse Academy and the Christian Functional Medicine Academy.

Welcome everyone. I have another great guest lined up for you today.

She has such an amazing background and she really is doing God's work in this world.

Today I am joined by one of my Functional Nurse Academy graduates, Karen Bettison, who is a board-certified functional medicine practitioner, with her own virtual private practice, the red stone, into great of health.

She is also a part-time surgical nurse.

She has been a nurse for 39 years, holds a master's degree in nursing education and is also a board-certified wound care nurse.

She formerly served for 19 years in West Africa as a nurse, Bible translator and literacy specialist.

She has authored numerous linguistic books in five different languages, as well as a missionary memoir of her faith journey through fear,

depression and trauma entitled, I will fear no evil.

She and her husband have four grown children, two of which are adopted from Guatemala and two grandchildren.

She lives on her homestead and rural Missouri with her husband, who was a pastor, teacher and editor.

Welcome Karen. It's great to have you.

Thank you for having me.

I was so impressed when you sit over your bio and all of your links and the book that you have out.

I can't wait to post all of this in the show notes because I think that your story is so incredibly inspiring.

I just love to hear about all of the great work that our students from Athenae are doing.

I know that you really went through the ringer with your health and you were so much better today through Functional Medicine.

You know, you know, a little bit about what exactly were you struggling with and how are you doing now today?

Okay, yeah. Well, my health journey, I guess, began back when I was about 19 years old.

I started having stomach pain and, you know, I went to a doctor and they said, oh, you have an ulcer here to take Xantac.

So that was kind of the beginning of it and I just did what they said and I about the same time I was studying in a Bible college.

I was also going to nursing school under a lot of stress and I was working my first nursing job when I actually I got sent home from work from having severe abdominal pain and that's when they really just said, hey, this is something going on.

And so I trusted that and then I went overseas as a missionary and of course you probably know in third world countries or developing countries like I was in West Africa.

There are so many diseases and parasites and they impact the debt and so I really struggled with that for years.

I cannot tell you how many episodes of amoevic dysentery I had as well as different types of parasites that were diagnosed in the laboratory.

And so being a nurse, I was working as a nurse overseas and I was able to get my own laboratory, my own microscope and learn how to diagnose parasites like malaria and roundworm and different simple parasites including Miba.

So I was not only able to identify it and treat myself but also my colleagues.

But we used conventional medications and of course that would get rid of them for a while and then they would come back.

And of course there were bacterial infections and so what did we do? We gave ourselves antibiotics and so years of that I think had its effect on my gut.

But what I didn't know all those years was that I also had celiac disease and so that was not diagnosed until I was 44 so I went all those years without a proper diagnosis and finally when we did come back to the US after serving in West Africa for 19 years.

A gastroenterologist did a scope and he said I'm 99% sure you have celiac disease and my head just you know I just want oh no you know what that means.

So then you know I went on the gluten free diet and started feeling better but was still having issues and then they took my gallbladder out and over the years of course I struggled with anxiety depression and of course was in a very stressful environment.

But little did I know that my gut health also impacted my mental health as well.

So as I've learned functional medicine that is one area that has really improved is my mental health after I was able to address my gut issues.

Turns out I had leaky gut turns out I had two different dysbiotic bacteria also had candida and so after addressing all those things with a functional part.

I was able to really start feeling better eating foods that hadn't been able to eat for a while.

And I did a food sensitivity test on myself and was lactose intolerant, egg intolerant and other things that were causing inflammation my gut.

So when I eliminated those things I was able to improve.

And in addition to all of that during all those years I was also developing some pre-cancer tumors I had one in my thyroid had 10 in my gut in my large intestine.

And so I also had some benign tumors like why am I growing tumors why is this happening and again now I know a lot of that's driven by inflammation.

And so once I was able to address that inflammation I felt better about it, but it also sent me on a journey looking at natural ways to treat cancer or prevent cancer because I didn't want to go down the cancer road.

We had seen my husband and I had seen multiple friends, multiple family members not only died cancer but die horrible deaths with suffering from chemo and radiation and the effects of that.

So we did not want to go that route we thought well we're going to do things different we're going to look and see how to do things naturally.

So that also set the stage for me going down this functional medicine road.

Oh I just love to hear that you are so much better now and and again like using that I'm a big believer that God can use our suffering to do good in this world and he can turn something.

Something you can turn our suffering into a blessing on the other side and I love that you're helping so many clients now with these issues but I do also want to touch real quick on mental health because again as many of our listeners know I used to be a psych nurse.

And psychiatric care in this country it is so incredibly outdated it's terrible there's really no thought into nutrition or how they don't even recognize a microbiome as being a factor there and what is so important is that so many of our neurotransmitters are actually produced in the gut and then also when you mentioned cancer.

So cancer is basically immune system gone wild and the immune system cannot get control of cancer cells whereas a healthy person.

If cells become cancerous the immune system goes in there and cleans house but then also if you work on the gut over 70% of the immune system is right outside of the gut and we know everything is so interconnected.

So I also you don't want to share to so you mentioned the mental health issues and I feel like this is a very common and it for nurses to have issues with anxiety and depression and we work in such high stressful jobs we are exposed to so much human suffering and could really really impact our mental health.

But I also used to struggle with anxiety and mine is completely gone no no medications I can literally just go anywhere by myself just talk to anybody and again I can also go live on all these platforms and I just feel fine and I could have never done that you know 10 years ago.

So but yeah yeah can you I would love to hear because I really have not covered I eventually would like to do a whole show where we talk about mental health and I would like to touch on the mental health I also want to chat about the cancer and the gut and how that's all related but could you give me.

Some insight about you know what were some you know targeted interventions that you did to help with your mental health.

Okay well yeah that's really a good question so initially before I really knew much about the functional medicine.

Due to some of the traumas that I had been through in West Africa I actually developed PTSD and when it came back to the states you know obviously getting away from the cause of it helps a lot but time heals that but there's a certain degree to which those triggers would come back you know 15 years later.

And so I explored different modalities like EMDR and trying to you know take those really hyper vigilant reactions to the back part of my brain where it wasn't going to be so much in the forefront of my brain.

And that did make a difference but I still found myself being triggered by things that had very little to do with the original trauma but it's just those similar chemicals in your brain can be a trigger in themselves.

And so I started exploring as a Christian really you know did a lot I do a lot of Bible studies with women and I had actually started a group a support group for women with depression and we were looking at Scripture and really developing kind of like a curriculum where it's just like renewing your mind and learning how to use your faith as a way to address the anxiety you feel in the depression or you know what I mean.

And so I learned a lot in that and then later in my functional medicine journey I've come across a lot of people who talk about this thing called limbic system rewiring and it's a kind of fits into the category of functional medicine but it it all made sense because that's kind of what I'd already been trying to do.

So there was one side of it I like to address with my clients if they're open to it is is that whole renewing the mind renewing the way that you handle stress handle anxiety and how you respond.

But then on the functional medicine side the physical side I do believe the gut like you said is you know 80% of the problem and so I found that my biggest challenges were in the areas of.

My gut health my stress the way I was handling stress my cortisol levels and also my sleep and so I wasn't sleeping well my mind was racing all the time and so I did some different lab tests on myself I did the Dutch boss found out that my cortisol levels were.

Hi, but burned out as well i found that.

I did a DNA test and came to find out that I had us little calmed in a and to fr so that combination can sometimes result in high anxiety and I was actually taking some supplements that I thought were helpful to myself but actually were potentially increasing my anxiety and stress so.

So for example, green tea i've been drinking it for years it's great but if you drink too much and if you have too much caffeine with a slow calm it can accelerate that anxiety and build up too much because your body is unable to get the drain unplugged so to speak.

And then there was the fact that you know I did have mthr I didn't know anything at earlier years about methylation so once I got on a good be vitamin I think that helped a little but also then.

I found out from my genetic profile and from my I did a metabolic test and I found out that my neurotransmitters were really high and so I just learned a different ways in functional medicine how to mitigate those.

Modify those levels and i've used a combination of trying to improve my sleep taking different supplements that helped me handle stress avoiding other supplements that were counter productive and just the right combination just for me in my genotype and then of course fixing the gut and all of that came together.

After about four months of doing this master plan on myself I was like my goodness i'm sleeping so well and i'm so chill and i'm not worried about anything and I just felt great and I think that I don't even know which of the one which of those things worked better than the others but I think it was a combination of things because we're we're complex individuals were our bodies are not just one thing and it all comes together and I think that's the whole.

Science of functional medicine it's all the different systems functioning together and weaving together and how they all impact our whole and so when we're addressing something.

I cannot tell you how many times I see people posting in a Facebook group I've got anxiety what can I take and I want to say it's not just about one thing.

You got to look at root causes you got to look at what's going on in your body what's you know what's not working are you having inflammation are you having what's your genotype what all these things come together do you have gut disposes and then you fix those things and 99% of the time I really think the vast majority of problems get better even the ones you didn't expect to get better because you're fixing the root causes.

Yeah I just love that testimony so much and you know I just see so much and I remember when I used to be a psych nurse these people they go on one drug and they go on more and more and more and then no one is really working with them on their stress response on their gut issues on nutrient deficiencies and a lot of these drugs deplete essential nutrients.

And then they also cause other dysfunctions in the body and it's just so sad to see because I would see people that have mental health issues that then we're going on to develop diabetes or liver issues or other conditions because of the medications that they are on and this other component that functional medicine addresses.

It's just completely left out of the equation and it's so heartbreaking and it really just it's very sad because I feel like these individuals are not given proper informed consent they're not even told that there are these alternatives and I also do want to touch on limbic system.

Yes but last time I massively upgraded the program I added in some content on limbic system and then I also added in like elective biblical material because what we are seeing is there are these concepts that the Bible repeatedly teaches that is now being confirmed by modern day research and one of that is neuroplasticity and limbic system training to our listeners that are not familiar with this.

So the and we know good and well in medicine that when people happen exposed to trauma per the adverse childhood event study early trauma trauma in general that kind of stress that occurs can cause health issues the Bible says repeatedly over and over that our thought life influences our physical body.

And then so a couple of got my Bible verses out anyway Romans 12 to be transformed by the renewing of your mind one of my other favorite verses Philippians for eight finally brothers whatever is true whatever is honorable whatever is just whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is commendable if there is any excellence if there is anything worthy of praise.

Think about these things and the thing is when we dwell on what is true what is lovely that can retrain the brain and I remember I also had some chronic stress responses.

For a long time and for me personally I had a lot of forgiveness and forgiveness that I was holding on to and a lot of ruminating about that things that happened and it really was working through this with Christ that transformed my mind and you know we used to think that like okay you have certain neural pathways and this is just how you are but we're learning that that is not true.

The study of neuroplasticity tells us that we can actually change those pathways and and we know that like you know anger resentment and forgiveness grief all of these things if it's not resolved it can contribute to chronic health conditions and absolutely mental health conditions and again you know I always tell my students I'm like this actually is.

Scientifically confirmed that when we because we know it's mind body spirit okay we have a soul and you know we need to address that part of health however when we talk about anything spiritual or religious we always need to ask permission first because again you know I'm one thing that is that I just love about the Christian faith is God does not.

He gives us free will he does not force us to do and he doesn't force us to follow him that he loves us and he wants us to follow him and read his word but it is our choice to come to him so we can just like as practitioners if we have that faith based background we you know I see it all the time that I see more tremendous results with people when they're incorporating their faith base but again like I you have to ask permission.

If that is okay with them that way we're respecting their choices. So and tell me again I like to ask this question just to kind of I think it gives a lot of hope to our audience with your health issues that you were struggling with because I mean you had Celia and the mental health concerns and things like that about what percentage would you say that you're better now today.

Oh you know it's funny because I just turned 61 a couple weeks ago and I was at someone asked me they said do you feel 61 I said you know what I feel better now I'm going to have my entire life which is so crazy and you know you have the occasional aches and pains after you've over exerted yourself and things like that but I remember oh my goodness was it about 15 years ago we were doing this major project or our farm.

And I was out there I can barely do 30 minutes and I was exhausted for the whole day and I just you know had joint pain and aches and pains and just no energy at all and I can do so much more at 61 than I ever could do on the farm I can push will barrels and throw bail the hay and stuff like I never could do.

Not to that degree and so yes I feel better and in my stomach feels so much better my mental health feels better I would say maybe 85 to 90% better than I was.

You know I just leave that little margin because there's some days that I you know you go out to a restaurant and you eat something you shouldn't you have your bad days.

But you know you know why and you know how you can fix it that's the beauty of it so I really I just and I'm sure you know there's so much more to learn something else I didn't mention was you know before I went on this journey my I'm not overweight but my anyone see was rising and my cholesterol was super high.

And again I believe all these things go back to inflammation and dysfunction in the guts etc and once I fix that and reduce that inflammation those numbers came right down just amazing.

And so yeah it's like well you know people ask the question I don't want to go on a stat and what can I do for my cholesterol well you know what.

Chances are it's your inflammation in your body it diets probably not the greatest but there's a lot we can do and if we can find out why your body's got inflammation whether it's a food sensitivity or whether it's gut dispiosis or whether you're under too much stress you know your your cortisol's off there's so many things probably a multiple things it's rarely one thing but when we target that and we fix it

those numbers they come down they get they get better and so we don't have to go on all these crazy medications that have all these side effects and you know of course I always tell my clients talk to your doctor about it I can't prescribe you this medication or tell you to go off of it but if you want to get better if you want to be healthy naturally

functional medicine is the way to go you know and one thing that you said that also really resonates is that you feel better and you look fantastic by the way not not not that you know 60s is old now I feel like like 60s is like the new 50s right but anyway so I I have a similar story with that too because I'm also being a nurse you know I remember being told by my preceptors like well you know mental health

and chronic diseases they tend to get progressively worse and I believe that but I believe like well this is just the you know the hand this person's been dealt and every time you see your patients they're a little worse but then being on the other side of it being on the functional medicine side of it and then also I also had a similar testimony to that like I I'm almost 41 and I I cannot I think back to like how I felt

eight years ago in my early 30s and I remember like we had our sign I feel like I missed out in the first three years that took me that long to find a good functional medicine provider that properly diagnosed me but anyway anyway so I remember it would be like 730 and he wanted a book and I remember just being like oh no not a book like like almost like like I'm so exhausted like I like I was so tired

like I would have to just lay down in the middle of the day I remember I had some days where I had maybe like two hours of sustainable energy and I and you kind of learn to adapt because that's like you know your baseline you live with it every single day but now I like don't even have to think about like laying down in the middle of the day and by the way I did feel so amazing that I you know I did

have to back to back babies and even now with my back to back babies like it's busy in my house but like I'm good you know I've got it you know so but it uh yeah and I always tell myself it's to I'm like you know these functional medicine modalities

they love testing all of these things you can do this on yourself like I have so many nurses that go through the program and they use it also wellness plan for themselves and their families and then they have that experience and that

has to money because when you're going to work with clients that are sick and suffering you know I mean they want to work with someone that genuinely cares and is going to do the research and work with them to make sure that they have a bio individualized plan and I would love to

I'm really chat about what you're doing and your practice because I am just so excited for your success and that you are just like booking clients

laughter right and but before we get into that we do need to pause just for a moment or break I do want to let all of you know if you are a fed up nurse you do not need to be

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forward slash out loud with code out loud hello and welcome back to the nurses report on America out loud talk radio

this is your show host Melissa Shripe batter and I am joined today by Karen Madison who is another functional medicine nurse

and she is also the owner of the redstone integrative health and we are talking about her health journey and how

she is using her experience to help clients across the country welcome back Karen thank you

so I would love to chat about your business so now I know that you mentioned that you do have expertise and cancer but then you also work with all kinds of other health

conditions so can you tell me about the type of services that you're offering in your business well you know I've kind of changed it over time

I started out with a you know a coenzyme program which is kind of like this big lump sum and I'd order your lab test for you

and you know just do this comprehensive test on everybody comprehensive testing on everybody

and I started that way and then you know I was I had a niche that I chose but I wasn't

particularly really getting a lot of clients in that niche if any at all and I was doing a lot of advertising

on social media focusing a lot effort on that I frankly felt like I was losing a lot of money on advertising

in the end I just trusted my gut instinct and I did what I knew I had worked a lot of over the years with cancer

now I talked a little bit about my own you know fears about getting cancer and the journey that I

husband and I had been on and wanting to prevent cancer so about 10 years ago started hosting

information in a Facebook group I call nutritional healing and it was kind of like a my clearing house

of information on things that fought cancer naturally and the time it was more herbal and you know just

and that's what a lot of the supplements are is their botanicals their natural substances and then

of course there was nutrition brought that into it as well and so I just kind of put it on there

and I invited friends to the group and as that grew it just seems like more and more strangers

started joining the group and wanting information whether it was from word of mouth or it was just

filling out there in social media so that was sort of a free type of advertising but then I you

know I had quite a sizeable list of friends in my Facebook world and Instagram and so I thought

you know what just gonna start there it's really hard I think in today's environment to earn

people's trust who don't know you especially in this space when there's so many people out there

it's like kudia trust who you go to and so I really felt like something you said in your training

program was start with people you know and build the confidence and the the reputation

by word of mouth and I just kind of ran with that I said forget the advertising I'm just going to

do that and so I've adapted my program a little bit you know I've had a lot of friends that were

for example missionaries and they didn't really couldn't afford the big program so I offered it

to them at half prize for you know a discount I tried different pricing things and I think

right now I'm kind of I have a one little lump sum and then a subscription I think people

could afford that more more people are signing up now that I have that model but basically it's

the same thing it's you know I do an intake I have intake forms we have an initial interview

which can take up to an hour and then maybe more in depth one after we get the test results back

that we decide to run sometimes that can take two hours and we go into all the details of the

findings what can you do we go over the wellness plan you know I recommend supplements I have

several e-stores including full scripts account so just whatever works for the client and their

finances I really want to make it something they can afford something they can do because that's

the important thing um you know I've chosen to continue working on a side part time

because I do want to stay in the field of nursing but I don't want to

um hold back on helping people because they maybe they can't afford it so um so I have you

know we all offer a program to the family and friends sometimes at a discount so I have done that

but I feel like I have a fairly affordable program and I do think that as I get clients you know

it seems that they come to meet each one with their own unique issues and I I feel dedicated to

being their detective helping them find the problem that they're having a get to the root cause

and solving that problem so I may not have all the answers going into it but I have the tools

and I have the skills that I've learned in my training and so I'm confident that we can get

you to feeling better and that we can get you to a place where you know you're at a you're

you're further along in your health journey and you're you know we're going to find those answers

together so is it a hundred percent effective I would say that in no functional medicine practice

out there could probably say it is a hundred percent but I've had good success um I've had

patients that or I should say clients that have gone off of their blood pressure medications and

um I had one client who did all the things I recommended and out of sympathy her husband decided

to do the same thing and he wasn't even my client he just did what she did and he his arthritis

went away his cholesterol went down he lost 15 pounds and I mean he just started feeling better

himself just by doing those things in sympathy with his wife so a hundred percent across the

more these things help you feel better um get to a better place and in many cases um you know

you're you're just you know if it's cancer we can't always say anything can cure cancer but we

can do a lot of things they get our bodies to the place where they're going to fight cancer better

we know that and that we have a better odds at beating it and so that's how I I try to explain it

I use this analogy the 10th roof in Africa we had 10 roofs and so it's a great for me it's a very

real um analogy because we had holes in our roof sometimes well with cancer it's like you got a 10

roof and you got 37 holes in your roof and when you got 37 holes in your roof you can't stop

the house from flooding if you had two holes in your roof you might be able to stop it but with

37 holes you can't and so you have to that's the way cancer is sometimes it it's because you've got

37 contributing factors not just one sometime and so we had to find out what those contributing factors

are and one by one plug those holes so that your odds are your house isn't going to flood or if it's

going to flood your body's going to be able to overcome it now our bodies were made to heal

naturally but not necessarily with the onslaughts that that they are exposed to today like toxins

and the poor diet that we live on and the stress that we live under in our culture and you get this

combination of things that just assault the body and it can't keep up and so cancer takes over

and gets an advantage so if we look at it that way we can start turning the tides of the

battle so to speak and win that battle naturally if we flood those holes you know and this is

really one of the reasons why functional medicine has been proven to overall improve health

outcomes and reduce health care cost and we know that there's a lot of industries that are threatened

by functional medicine so I really do think that online especially within social media there's

a lot of pushback you know even on Wikipedia it says which you know Wikipedia is not exactly a trusted

source of information but Wikipedia says that somehow you know looking at the root causes and

environmental lifestyle factors somehow that's quackery you know but these things are real and it

makes sense and I remember one of my dearest friends got diagnosed with and she's she's in

remission now she's doing great but she got diagnosed with stage 3 porous cancer you know I believe

in her 30s and you know the nutritionist that she worked with the the nutritionist at the hospital

told her it didn't matter what she ate as long as it was low fat and you know but then again we know

that we don't and I do think that there have been some steps to improve it which I'm very grateful for

but for a long time there have been a lot of regulatory loopholes that are allowing

known carcinogens level one class one carcinogens and our personal care products to be sprayed on

our food you know there are even heavy metal adjuvants such as aluminum being injected into people

there are so many things that were exposed to and it is just unbelievable that an individual will

get a cancer diagnosis and then again they're offered the standard of care you know for cancer

treatment but then no one is working with them on what are you what are you eating what are you

being exposed to you know what about your stress response are you sleeping God designed the body

to heal when we are in deep restorative sleep are you getting deeper stored sleep God also designed us

to heal in parasympathetic nervous system mode are you constantly in fight or flight like there's

so many things we can do and and and again like there are even many exercises that we can teach the

clients we work with that are free helping people to you know helping people throughout the work

exercises helping people with limbic system retraining circadian rhythm retraining there's

so many things that we can do that don't involve this like crazy expensive wellness product and I

also did want to kind of circle back around to the business side because I know I know a lot of

nurses listen to this and they're just so that they want to hear the success stories of other

nurses that have been through the program and I do agree with you and I like that you you took

my recommendation to kind of start with people that you know because we know online especially on

social media you have access to so many people it really opens up the doors but there are a lot of

people that are not practicing with integrity and there's a lot of people selling stuff so people

are just stressful and word of mouth is king it is absolutely king if you serve your clients well

they're going to tell everybody about you and then I know for me if I have someone that calls and

doesn't discover recall that they were referred then the client I have I know that they're going to

sign up with me because they already know someone that have the experience they already know what

the investment is and that person is as serious and committed but I like that you know in the

beginning like when you're a brand new functional nurse people don't know don't really know what you

doing yet you're still working on your social proof I think that that is a very very wise business

move is to kind of look at okay what is competitive in your area and then to discount your programs

from there and then as you get a stronger referral basis you can move up to what is you know competitive

in your area if you choose to and I also am hearing from you know I do also like to hear because I

do really work to try to help nurses get out of the system and get their businesses set out but I'm

also hearing about so many committed nurses that love they love being a nurse in the hospital and

I have many nurses that choose to stay in there like on a part-time basis because they love the

patients that they work with and again you know there's an impact that nurses can make if we want

to completely exit the system and go full in on our businesses but you also can still make an

impact if you are still even you know part-time or PRN in that system because there's also an

opportunity to transform that system from from the inside you know because when we go to work and

you're in the hospital setting and you're talking about these like you know holistic functional

medicine based things with other nurses and with patients that can also spread the word about

the functional medicine and I did want to ask you so I'm just curious since you're still part-time

in in the system do your co-workers like know what you're doing with the functional medicine

business and are they supportive yeah actually it provides a great opportunity to share with people

what you're doing and open their eyes to it I've actually had a few nurses take down your

information and think about signing up so I don't know if they have yet but you know I've talked

about the program I've talked about you know I've looked at a lot of different programs I was in a

different program before I joined yours and it was very expensive I went into debt very fast

doing all the you know like I said advertising all the things and the cost of the program

but then I found yours and it was so affordable and reasonable and I think the foundation was

just solid and so I've been recommending it as a great place to start not that any of us should

ever stop learning because we all should continue learning beyond our training but it's great

foundational and it's super affordable and it's just right I think for the nurse you know and I

started you know like I said in another program and I just felt like I was just spending my

wheels spending so much money and when you're starting out you don't have that much you gotta start

slowly don't expect to just boom overnight and honestly I like the pace that I operate on you

know I have two grandkids I spend time with them every week I my husband and I have this small

harby farm out in the country we like to spend time doing that I don't want a business that is so

busy that I have to be a full-time social media influencer I need to have just my clientele that's

me that's my choice but if you wanted to do those things go right ahead but I really felt like

I need to find where what fit in my personality my my pace and you know taking on you know

two to five clients a month is plenty for me I stay very busy with that plus everything

else I'm doing but there's some people that want more than that so that's up to them but again

I don't want to get to the place in my life that I'm so stressed out that my health declines again

so I need you know especially I'm 61 this is kind of when you start thinking about retirement

and that was actually one of the motivational factors of why I went into social medicine

I couldn't work full-time anymore I needed to start slowing down and wanted something I could do

from home this fits it perfectly I can fit it around my schedule I block off my schedule and I

owe you know time slots for people to sign up for a consultation or a meeting it's it's my schedule

and that flexibility is is priceless so that's it's kind of how I'm I'm I'm landed where I'm at

right now yeah yeah and and again you know I hear this a lot that when nurses start their

businesses they have more time to actually live their life and and one of the models I teach

and and again like you know we know that this model does not work when you are you know seeing like

you know 30 clients per day like a you know average primary care provider office they may be seeing

30 patients per day and they could have four patients booked in a one hour time slot and you

cannot provide good quality care that way it's set up to fail and the the system that I like to

teach is you know really you can exceed your income from what the hospital could pay you

doing functional working within functional medicine programs and then like for my model what I

did is I I worked about you know 20 hours a week from home and I would sign about 10 full-time

clients quarterly and then that really made it to where I wasn't overwhelmed with my work load

and I was able to do a good job and I was also able to spend time with family and things like that

so now but yeah I'm so glad that you've been able to master this work life balance and it is

so wonderful that you were able to spend time with your grandbabies because I you know it's just

there's so much work lately when you're able you know you don't want so I feel like some of these

positions that people are in I mean I know so many people that their job is consuming way too much

of their life and you know it's not good for the soul so well I would love to hear a little bit more

I'm so glad you had a good experience with the functional nurse academy and this was one of the

reasons too why I hear it all all the time nurses that well I don't want to speak poorly

of any other program but there are a lot of programs out there that are really really expensive and

when I went through the ringer as a functional medicine client myself I saw that there were such

a push for me to take very expensive functional medicine tests that were marked up and also a push

for me to be on all of these supplements every single month that were also marked up and I

think that that was happening because so many functional practitioners go into a tremendous

amount of debt so then when they're starting their business they in a way are reliant on their clients

having to buy so many wellness products and whatnot from them and it's really diminishing the

quality of functional medicine care so that was one of the reasons why I wanted to offer an

affordable program to nurses and then we're able again we're able to do that because we are a small

business we work from home and we get a ton of like word of mouth referrals but yeah we didn't

want our students to like start off in their business in a crazy amount of debt like we wanted to

offer a good value because you know the lower your overhead is the more likely it is that

you're going to be successful in business but I would love to hear about you know how functional

nurse academy helped you with your business well one of the things that I really liked about

the program personal again was that it was less expensive and there was a I could achieve my goal

of completing the program within a given time I think you know you said minimum six weeks up to a

year and so there was flexibility there I ended up doing it maybe in three months I think and that

I wanted to get my board certification and I know not everybody values that equally in different

programs but I valued it I felt like it would increase my credibility and I wanted to have that

on my website I wanted people to know that this is you know especially again in this world where

we don't know who to trust I felt like that was a mark of approval that you have the credibility

that you need so I really wanted that so you guys offer that I think that's fantastic there's

different options in that as well and I think it's it's a mate it's really great that your program is

receiving recognition like that because that also validates the training that we all get so where can

our clients go to find you okay well my website is www.redstoneintegrativehealth.com if you get to

the website there's a tab where you can click on and there you know you can book a free discovery

call there and that's where I listen to whatever your concerns are and we decide together if

it's a bit fit so that's a good place to start and then after that if you decide you want to move

forward we can sign you up and then we'll we'll have more set more appointments I had a calendar

link to my website so you can book a there and also you know once you're my clients then I

get easy for you to contact me you can contact me by email or I have a phone number that you can

reach me in an emergency so I want to be available I want to make it so that you're not left hanging

I mean there's nothing more frustrating in my mind when you know you're you're going to do this

home test and you don't know how to do it and you're having you know confusion reading the instructions

and following them through so I want to be there to walk you through that no matter what so

or whatever it is I want to be there for you and so my my commitment is you know once you're my

client and you know your subscription client I'm there for you whenever you need it and so I

find that it works really well I don't feel like people have used that so it works well and then

I'm available I love that and that is the number one reason by the way that people are not

successful with functional medicine programs it's are not getting enough support and you know I

remember my first functional medicine experience which is disaster they just like I just gave them

a whole bunch of money they sold me a bunch of stuff and then they made me worse but anyway it was

like oh you know here's a four month protocol of like probably a thousand dollars of supplements

per month it's crazy and then there was no there was no support you know like if I had an issue

I would call the front office and I would get someone that didn't know what I was talking about

and so I love that if they're because it is again you know when we're working with people through

lifestyle nutrition making those changes people feel so much more secure when they have that

support system and and another reason why I love these you know concierge functional nursing

practices is like if you need to reach out to your functional nurse you can reach out to them

directly and they will help you through it so and also another question so we have listeners

from all over the country are you working with individuals do you have multi state access?

yes I'm working everywhere except in New York New Jersey and Rhode Island

okay wonderful um cool so I will make sure so for our listeners if you would like to reach out

to Karen I'm going to put all of her links in the show notes I also will put a link if you want

to get on a discovery call with her and see if that's going to be a right a good fit for you

I'll put that down there as well because again it's so important to have someone that like truly

cares and is knowledgeable and has expertise in your corner so and um one other thing okay so if

you are ordering labs I know you have access to order lab testing um are you able to do that for

clients out of state as well yes awesome yeah so that's another thing like so many people are

they're just not getting the correct labs word and with nurses we know how to read those labs we

may not be able to use it to diagnose and treat but we can use it to educate and then to

advocate and there's so much you can learn about um potential dysfunctions from your lab test day

yeah so yeah and I do work oh sorry I was going to go ahead with three different three different labs

and I had a physician service that I work with as well so wonderful it was so great to have you

on the show I'm so happy for all of the great work that you're doing and again um you can learn

more about hearing at thread stone integrative health dot com thank you to all of our listeners

for tuning in the nurses reports plays on i heart radio through america out loud talk radio

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are on any major podcast app and until next time be safe be well and god bless it's time in this

six one

it's time in this six one