She's In Progress by Alexandra Lourdes
She’s in Progress is a podcast about the everyday journey of balancing life and work. Each episode dives into real conversations, honest reflections, and practical insights on how to grow personally and professionally without losing yourself along the way. Whether you’re chasing big goals, navigating challenges, or simply trying to create space for what matters most, this show is here to remind you that progress is not about perfection but it’s about showing up, learning, and evolving.
She's In Progress by Alexandra Lourdes
The Most Common Hashimoto's Triggers You Might Be Missing
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Dr. Redd’s bloodwork guide:
https://drjoshredd.com/free-guides/
Have you ever been told your labs are normal, but you still feel exhausted, inflamed, anxious, dizzy, or unlike yourself?
In this episode of She’s in Progress, Alexandra Lourdes and Dr. Josh Redd discuss what standard blood work can miss, especially for people navigating Hashimoto’s, autoimmune symptoms, hormone imbalance, low blood sugar, and chronic fatigue.
Alex shares the three major red flags found in her labs: an estrogen to progesterone imbalance, low blood sugar, and methylation issues. Together, they explain why symptoms matter, which blood tests to ask for, how to better understand your results, and why looking deeper can help uncover possible triggers behind how you feel.
If you have ever been told “everything looks normal” when you know something is off, this episode is for you.
Subscribe to She’s in Progress, leave your questions for Alex and Dr. Redd in the comments, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
This episode is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalized guidance.
Welcome back to She's in Progress. I'm Alex. And if you're new here, I've spent years trying to figure out my own health after being diagnosed with Hashimoto's. One thing I've learned is that getting blood drawn is only half the battle. Understanding what you're looking at, that's a completely different story. So today I'm joined again by our season two co-host, Dr. Red.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me. I'm Dr. Josh Redd. I own one of the largest functional medicine clinics in the world. I see so many different patients throughout the last 16 years of my clinical practice, and we're here to help.
SPEAKER_01So this is probably the biggest question that I get is why do people feel bad when their blood work is showing normal?
SPEAKER_00It's a great question. First, is doctors aren't running the labs that they should run. They're running really basic labs. So a lot of times when we see really sick patients, we ask them to send over their labs. And most of the time it's just really basic labs. And so there's way more extensive labs that we could run to really uncover the mechanism driving this patient's problem. So that's that's one. Second is we have a lab range, which is a pathological range versus an optimal range. This lab range is based off of six months of patients getting their labs done, which is a really big problem because as this country gets sicker, these lab ranges get bigger and more broad and more broad. So lab ranges compared to what they were 40 years ago are a lot more broad now. And so we could have somebody with severe pathology and significant imbalances, and it would appear like it's within that lab range. That's a huge problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a huge problem. I think a lot of a lot of uh women especially experience that. I mean, I know I did with my labs. Because I remember when I had my lab work and I sent it to you for the first time, and you're like, and I was, but everything was showing normal. But you're like, there's a trigger here, a trigger here, a trigger here. Like, and there's so many red flags that you saw that um maybe an another doctor, I I mean, I know that three of my other doctors did not see. They're like, oh, this is all normal. But I was like, but I don't feel normal.
SPEAKER_00100%. So from a biochemistry standpoint, if we can understand optimal ranges versus sick ranges, and we can go through and identify what are imbalances that would be just outside of that optimal range that can cause inflammation, trigger the autoimmune response, create symptoms and problems that wouldn't ever be detected by a doctor, we're smooth sailing, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So do you think that should we teach people what the like is it hard to explain what an optimal range is because everyone is so different?
SPEAKER_00We can have a guide that explains optimal ranges versus non. So how could somebody look and say what I suggest we do is hey, at the end of this podcast, we created a guide so that you that you literally know what optimal ranges are versus pathological ranges.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you can take that to your doctor and you can assess what your lab ranges are and it will be way easier for them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, perfect. Cause I feel like a lot of times My gal's making that right now as we speak. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. Okay. So at the end of this episode, you will be able to download a PDF that tells you what optimal ranges are versus what the ranges are on your blood work. Because when you get your blood work, your PDF, and it comes to you, and it's like, I feel like doctors just quickly scan for like something that's out of range, right? Totally. That's what they do. And then they spend a few minutes with you and they're like, everything looks fine. But they're not really going deep and examining if that that are you on the high end, or should that not even be? Like you should be kind of on the low end here, right?
SPEAKER_00Totally. So, like, for example, blood glucose. This is a really common one. The lab range is 70 to 100. If our patients have blood sugar levels under 80 on a consistent basis, they have all the signs and symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia.
SPEAKER_01That's what I have.
SPEAKER_00Fatigue, depression, dizziness, all those different things, just by having blood sugar levels under 80. So it's that simple, right? Uh, whereas most doctors wouldn't catch that. If we see that a glucose serum is at 74, that's a severe problem. That patient's gonna have really severe reactive hypoglycemia symptoms, but that's quote unquote normal on a lab.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So within my blood work, what were the main red flags for you?
SPEAKER_00You had three really big ones, and these are really the three biggest triggers for Hashimoto's or autoimmune conditions. You had a problem with an estrogen progesterone ratio. So your estrogen was actually really high compared to what your progesterone was. We want it to be a 10 to 1. Yours was a 200 to one ratio. When this happens, you're gonna have a ton of symptoms and problems leading up to your menstrual cycle. But on top of that, it will trigger the autoimmune response tremendously.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's what it was happening to me.
SPEAKER_00This is often caused by your liver not functioning well and by your liver not being able to detox your estrogen, which is really important. And so we see this a lot with our autoimmune patients. This becomes one of the biggest problems. If somebody was taking birth control, for example, this is one of the biggest triggers because it increases estrogen. So, of all of our patients that we've ever seen, the biggest autoimmune trigger that we see is actually birth control. That's interesting. One of the biggest ones because it spikes estrogen like crazy.
SPEAKER_01Like I feel like oftentimes doctors are prescribing uh birth control to help with inflammation or to help with someone with like PCOS, for example.
SPEAKER_00For sure, for sure. Then on top of this, so you have an inability for your liver to detox properly, clear the estrogen properly. Then you had really low blood sugar levels. And with you, you're so stressed, right? You're cost, I mean, you don't feel stressed. If what we ask you, say, no, I'm not stressed, but you're clearly stressed in your labs. Like physiologically, there's stress there. Yeah. And when that happens, you end up having cortisol defects, which is a really big trigger to flare up the autoimmune response. And then you end up having blood sugar imbalances.
SPEAKER_01So my blood sugar was low, right?
SPEAKER_00Really low. But you think about this if your adrenal glands are constantly just burning like crazy, then eventually they don't function as well as they should, and then blood sugar level starts to plummet, and then we have issues. Plus, you're going extended periods of time without eating, and that puts a ton of stress on the adrenal glands, and then that flares up the autoimmune response, and we have lots of issues.
SPEAKER_01But according to my labs, my labs, um everyone always, every doctor for so long would be like, oh, your blood sugar is great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And this is where we talk about if your blood sugar is 73 and the low end is 70, that's a severe problem, and you have lots of symptoms and issues. And just the amount of stress that happens with low blood sugar levels, it flares up the autoimmune response so much. It's one of the easiest things we can do to get things to function properly just by stabilizing glucose. And so for the most part, we have a lot of our patients that will wear a continuous glucose monitor. And our goal is to keep your blood sugar levels between 80 to 130, regardless of what you eat. If we can do that consistently for 30 to 60 days, you will feel significantly better than if you don't.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I wore that. And I remember when I first started working with Dr. Redd, I was like, oh, why do I need a glucose monitor? You know, but it it he explains it so well. I feel like if you look at your blood work and you do see that number, what's the specific test number that they would should look for?
SPEAKER_00Glucose serum. So glucose serum. Normal is 70 to 100 on here on these labs. Really, in in a fasting glucose, we want it to be in between 80 to 85 realistically. Anything above that is a sign of insulance. Anything below that is actually signs of a reactive hypoglycemia.
SPEAKER_01And is this a normal blood test that people that this is an easy $2 test.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Everyone should do it. Everyone is probably doing it. Your doctor's doing it, they're just not reading these lab ranges properly.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So the first thing you guys could do is go look at your blood work and pull this number up. And if it's low or high, the best thing you could do is buy a glucose monitor and start monitoring your own sh blood sugar and keep it between 80 and 130.
SPEAKER_00130. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So what I what was happening to me is that I didn't realize because I work at the donut shop so much that I would just go six, seven hours without eating. I would just like work through the entire day and my blood sugar would just drop dramatically. And I was like, I didn't know to I didn't know I was doing that. And then I would eat something fast and I'd probably eat something that wasn't the best. And then my blood sugar would go really high. So that's why my body was just like all over the place and my Hashimoto's was flaring up like crazy. But it was just because I wasn't eating good quality food every three hours. So when I started working with Dr. Redd, he's like, right when you wake up, eat a meal. Like because a lot of people talk about do fasting, you know, that what is the intermittent?
SPEAKER_00Fasting can be really beneficial for you, but it could be like rat poison for you as well. For you specifically, if you were to fast, it could be a severe problem. Once your adrenal glands start to function really effectively, then people can fast. But when they're not functioning well and they can't adapt to the stress from not eating, it's a severe issue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because there's so much stuff out there, like you should do intermittent fasting, you should do this, this, this. But like you have to know, you have to use the science. Like you have to look at your blood sugar and see what you should be doing, as you know, because that's what we're trying to educate on, is like the labs are really what dictate what you should be doing. So I I started wearing a blood uh blood glucose monitor. Yep. I wore it for about a month and I got kind of the I got a I got a really I got it dialed in where I know what time I wake up. I know I need to eat right away. I do heavy protein, like in the morning and I do a lot of sweet potato. I actually cut out white potato completely because it was white potato was actually making my glucose spike. And then um I just eat every three hours, nothing huge, just smaller meals. But yeah, it was, it just definitely helped my glucose balance at least.
SPEAKER_00A continuous glucose monitor is great too, because there could be something that's really healthy that normal, that in a normal person wouldn't spike blood sugar levels, but would spike that individual.
SPEAKER_01Like you would think potato is fine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And the reason why is because when a person eats something that causes inflammation, it spikes their blood sugar levels. And so what spikes yours might be different from the next patient. So it's kind of like a science project for that individual that I love for my patients to do. Yeah. It educates them in incredible ways.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00The other problem, though, is when your blood sugar levels are consistently down and your cortisol defects are consistently problematic. What happens is that it steals away your progesterone and converts it into cortisol.
SPEAKER_01Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00Just to survive. And so then your estrogen-progesterone ratio gets even worse. And now we have a ton of severe problems from a hormonal standpoint.
SPEAKER_01That's great. So, what was the other trigger? So we talked about my progesterone. We didn't really talk about how to fix that, though. I think like the what how what did I do? Because I I know it's been better. Like my last labs, you said my estrogen progesterone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So one of the next things that you had wrong was a methylation problem. So your homocysteine levels were really high. Yeah. Homocysteine should be below eight. If it's not, it's really common that you have a methylation issue. This flares up the autoimmune response tremendously. It also causes a ton of different problems from a liver standpoint. And since you had an estrogen-progesterone ratio, anyways, your liver was clearly not clearing the estrogen effectively. And so we went in to help improve that. One of the best things that you can do is take a methylation supplement. Uh, we have a supplement called advanced methylation, which is awesome. We have a supplement called advanced methylated B, and it helps your body methylate properly so that homocysteine is lower. So we can test your labs, put you on the supplement, retest your labs, and homocysteine is lower, which is fantastic.
SPEAKER_01That's what happened to me. Yep, that's a supplement I never miss, actually.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's just such an easy thing that you can do every single day to minimize one trigger that flares up the Hashimoto's, but then it also helps estrogen clear more effectively. There's a number of other things that it does that's really important for you.
SPEAKER_01Well, um, I think you should talk about the type of methylation B supplement and like what makes because the one that you guys make is different than the one that if someone just goes to buy it off a shelf, right?
SPEAKER_00100%.
SPEAKER_01Because I think it's so scary nowadays with supplements.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Here's what's important is most of the time you're gonna get a supplement that has methylcobalamine in there. And that's really important. That's a the active form of B12 that your body can actually use. However, there's two other ones that most supplements miss, and that's cobamamide and hydroxycobalamine. And so ours has all three, but on top of that, it also has settri glutathione, which helps the liver detoxify more effectively and helps the estrogen clear more effectively as well.
SPEAKER_01Should you take glutathione on top of the methyl?
SPEAKER_00If someone has a severe case, I'll give them a higher dose of glutathione on top of that.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So obviously you don't want to just go and buy random supplements. You have you should definitely have your doctor do your blood work first and see which supplements you need because there are so many different, so many different things out there. And so for me specifically, uh that supplement made a huge difference for me.
SPEAKER_00It's one of the most common supplements that will prescribe a patient because most of America has a methylation problem.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Just give you an idea, there's research that shows if homocysteine is higher, the more likely you are to have Alzheimer's and dementia, too. Oh wow. So not only that, but it coincides with brain imbalances. Because it's literally inflammation in the brain. 100%.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So and that the methylation, it happens in your liver, right?
SPEAKER_00Methylation happens in your liver, helps methylize hormones, helps methylyze blood sugar levels. If homocysteine can't turn into cysteine properly, then homocysteine builds up in the blood, and that becomes like shards of glass. It becomes really problematic and inflammatory for your body.
SPEAKER_01Crazy. Well, this is so that to me, this is so interesting. I hope it's interesting to everyone else. But okay, so my major trigger was the hormones that were way, way out of balance. It was the methylation problem and then my low blood sugar. So those were the my three red flags in my blood work that no other doctor actually saw because my labs were normal, but Dr. Red saw those immediately and made we made changes, and now my blood work is significantly better, right?
SPEAKER_00Significantly better. Your antibodies are going down tremendously, inflammatory markers are significantly lower. Everything has improved dramatically, and obviously you feel way better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously we want the blood work to reflect it, but my symptoms are significantly better as well. So on the last podcast, we asked everyone to ask us questions because the reason the whole reason we're doing this is so you have direct access to me and Dr. Redding, because honestly, it's so hard. You actually don't even take any patients right now because you're so busy. Because there's so many people in the world that have autoimmune diseases.
SPEAKER_00And I mean, my my Red River clinics, though, I have eight doctors and they dominate. They've all been trained under me and they do really, really well. But yeah, I don't, we don't see patients.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So but with the podcast, you have direct access to him. So if you want a question answered, the easiest place, so we don't look in too many places, is to leave a comment on the YouTube long. So that way we can we'll we so Dr. Redd and I specifically will go in and read all the comments. So you ready for our SIP family QA? Ready. Okay. Question number one What are the labs to ask for if you want to learn the extent of your Hashimoto's? Like what are the basic labs?
SPEAKER_00That's great. So when it comes to Hashimoto's, you want to check to see if you have TPO antibodies and an antithyroglobin antibody. That's important. If those come back positive, it's typically Hashimoto's. And then on top of that, there's triggers that we want to look for if you have an autoimmune condition or Hashimoto's. And so these are the really basic labs that I'll run. We run what's called the comprehensive metabolic panel. That's super easy. Uh we run a CBC with differential to check for iron anemia and immune dysfunction. Some more specific things that most doctors miss, though, are inflammatory markers. So the easiest one that we went over is homocysteine. That's an easy marker. You can do what's called Cretoprotein that checks to see if you have inflammation. You can check something called ferritin. If you have low ferritin, that can cause iron deficiency symptoms, which you know of. That was also another thing with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's number four.
SPEAKER_00Yep. But if it's high, it's actually called an acute phase reactant. And if it's high, it's from inflammation. Another thing that's really easy is just checking for vitamin D. Vitamin D, really, really low, can cause lots of problems. And vitamin D in of itself is what's called a negative acute phase reactant. So when somebody is has high inflammation, it's almost impossible for their vitamin D to increase, which is interesting. In addition to that, vitamin D will help calm down the autoimmune response by increasing what's called regulatory T cells. And so just checking vitamin D is such an easy thing to do that would help provide a patient therapeutic benefits.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of stuff I've been seeing on T cell therapy lately, which we can go into later. Lots of? Yeah, because there's a lot of new, like I feel like I know at your clinic you do a ton of new therapies too, which is so cool.
SPEAKER_00We want to be extensive, right? Like another thing would be to just check your estrogen and progesterone. Like if you're female, an estrogen progesterone ratio is really, really important for us. And if we can see that your estrogen and progesterone ratio is off, then we have problems. If you're male, testosterone, we check testosterone in females as well with what's called luteinizing hormone and something called FSH. But then you can even dig deeper and check for antibodies of, let's say, one of the most common autoimmune conditions with Hashimoto's is sea light disease. Another really common one is antiprietal cell antibodies, where your immune system is literally destroying the stomach tissue. That's really common. 50% of Hashimoto's patients have that.
SPEAKER_01Crazy. Have you tested me for that?
SPEAKER_00Yes, we have. She's like, oh crap, but I have it or not.
SPEAKER_01And you don't.
SPEAKER_00But Brian Johnson, if you remember, has and then the last one, which is really common, is Epstein Bar virus. If we can see that somebody has Epstein Bar virus, we can treat that patient so different.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We can treat that patient in a way that will significantly improve their autoimmune response. Most autoimmune patients stem from a bacterial infection or a viral infection. And in reality, about 50% of Hashimoto's patients ended up stemming from Epstein Bar virus.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember I've I've seen a lot on that too. And yeah, you have to really figure out the cause before you start treating something.
SPEAKER_00100%. Yeah. The other thing, the last one as well, I'll share. Lots of people will do a lipid profile where they look for like cholesterol. That's one of the worst markers to depict to see if you have cardiovascular disease or if you have a risk of cardiovascular disease or cardiovascular event. One of the best ways to check for cardiovascular disease is actually called APOB. It's a great marker. If that comes back high, then we have issues.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow. I think what we'll do is we'll uh we'll give you guys a PDF of all these tests. Yeah. I think that would be easy. So that way they can just take this paper and say, go to your doctor and say, like, I want to run all these, please.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So here's what we'll do we'll link the guide. You can download a full guide. It shows what tests we actually run.
SPEAKER_01Perfect.
SPEAKER_00It will show what they do, what they mean, and then we'll have the lab range that's optimal range versus the actual laboratory range. So you can kind of depict that as well.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. Okay. So now you guys are going to really be in charge of your own blood work. You ready for this? You got to really commit, though, to your own health because it's it's a journey. Obviously, we're all a work in progress, you know. Okay. Question number two. How often should we run labs?
SPEAKER_00I'll do extensive panels once a year on my patients, on Britney and I, our kids, all that as well. Then I'll do smaller panels based off of the imbalances that we found pretty consistently every two to three months. I'll recheck labs based off of the problems that we found and make sure that they're improving.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. That's a good answer.
SPEAKER_00If they're you, we do them monthly.
SPEAKER_01I'm crazy though. I like to do them so much because I'm like, I try a new supplement or I do something different, and I'm like, I want to see if it made a change.
SPEAKER_00Which is so cool. Like from a mechanistic standpoint, how crazy is it that we have all these symptoms, all these issues, and for the most part, we don't ever check under the hood. Yeah. It'd be like our car engine lights on, and we just pull in there. Doctor's like, hey, let's get some tape and let's just slap it right over that car engine light. And let's not even look under the hood. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_00It's like, holy crap. No, let's look under the hood. Yeah. Doing a simple blood test and actually understand what labs say what, what are the optimal ranges versus the laboratory ranges, learning what actual labs to actually run. It's huge. It's simple.
SPEAKER_01I know, but I don't think a lot of, I mean, the training that you had is so specific to autoimmune diseases, you know, that I feel like some people, like the amount of labs that you just explained, you'd have to go to five different doctors, if you think about it. Yeah. An endocrinologist. Like, and you know what I mean? Like all the different specialists would order those labs and be able to interpret them. They don't connect them all and then say, oh, this is your trigger for your autoimmune disease. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Totally. Totally.
SPEAKER_01So that's like one of the biggest problems that I think happens a lot of times here. And then they want to say, oh, you're not your insurance isn't covering that, you know, that one.
SPEAKER_00And then for the most part, these labs are really inexpensive. You could do a full panel for $250. You really can.
SPEAKER_01How do you get these labs? Like, how could somebody like we just want to pay cash price and just get these?
SPEAKER_00Your doctor, if they run a lot of labs, can do cash pay, whether they say it or not. So and it it's way less than if they actually bill the insurance. If we build the insurance, it's going to cost $3,000. If we just want to deny the sum of the tests, they'll deny some of the tests and the patient's stuck with the bill. Whereas if they pay cash up front, it could be $250 and they save themselves a lot of heartache and a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So you heard him. You can say, I want all these tests done and I want to pay cash because I want to make sure I get these tests done.
SPEAKER_00And we'll put it all in the guide for you so it's really easy to follow. You'll know more about blood chemistry than most doctors do.
SPEAKER_01They're gonna be like, who are you? Where did you learn this information?
SPEAKER_00They have the handout in their hands. Can I run this? Doctor, this is off. This is off.
SPEAKER_01So funny. Okay, last question. This one's interesting. So it says, What about kids? My daughter is 11 years old and has had polyarticular arthritis since she was two. Um, are there are the same labs recommended? The doctor said she will most likely always have her condition and be on medication. Still to this day, I have to look up lab definitions and feel like there's more I can do to help her. We've made changes to her diet, stay active, but I'm always happy to learn more to help her.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, these are some things where when somebody has an autoimmune condition and especially at a young age, it's heartbreaking, right? Kids are so resilient. If you put them into the right environment, they improve and heal so fast. So checking for inflammatory markers, checking for other autoimmune responses, checking for food intolerance tests, uh, checking for food intolerances is really important, checking for mold. And other environmental toxins could be game changing for them. So viral infections, bacterial infections, mold, these are some of the things that will trigger an autoimmune response. And if you can remove those or improve those, then their autoimmune response comes down quite dramatically.
SPEAKER_01Do you think that there's specific tests that they could like are there specific like if I'm like, okay, I want to check for mold, how do I do that?
SPEAKER_00Uh you can check a mycotoxin test and see if you have mold present. You can have someone come to your home and actually check for mold. There's mold dogs, which are incredible. Uh, a lot of really cool things that you can do there. And most for the most part, it's really inexpensive. But if somebody has an autoimmune condition and they have mold inside their house, they're not going to improve. We'll treat them in a variety of different ways. They will not improve until the mold is completely gone.
SPEAKER_01I'm just laughing because I remember when we were traveling together and you're like, I smell mold. You can smell it. He's like so sensitive to mold.
SPEAKER_00I teach on environmental toxins across the country to medical doctors, DOs, chiropractors, nurse practitioners. I know the detriments of mold. And so when I go into a hotel room, if I even smell even a faint hint of mold, I'm like, I'm out of here. I'm not waking up with an autoimmune disease tomorrow morning. I gotta get this in check, right? But yes, I'm really picky about the smell of my hotel room for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Rip makes fun of me all the time. She's like, babe, does this smell like mold? Like she doesn't know. Like I'll be like, no, it smells pretty good. I think we're good. And then I'll go to another room and be like, babe, this doesn't smell good.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh my God. I was actually um, we were in Miami for our donut shop pop-up, and we had um an Airbnb. And there, it's yeah, I could tell it smelled it was like mold, and then I look up at the vents, and there was literally mold, like black mold all around the vents. It's terrible. I'm like the bed's right under that. And I was like, Michael, I'm not sleeping here. I literally told him like we had to leave. Like, there's no way.
SPEAKER_00One of my major league baseball players, they travel so much, right? He started to have heart issues, like his like missing, skipping heartbeats, and it was causing tons of problems for him. We do his extensive labs. His mold profile is out the roof. We got rid of the mold, we improved his mold exposure. He got an air doctor everywhere he travels now, and within two weeks, it's completely gone. But we wouldn't have seen that, and they're traveling all over the place, and it's it causes tons of symptoms and problems.
SPEAKER_01What are what are the specific tests like for to see if you have that in your blood?
SPEAKER_00Uh you can do mold antibodies for uh you can. Yeah, we do a full mold profile with mold antibodies, but then we also do a mycotoxin urinalysis as well.
SPEAKER_01I don't think I've done that. Yeah, we need to do that.
SPEAKER_00That's really important. It's good. But what if you have mold in your house?
SPEAKER_01Then I'm moving.
SPEAKER_00Then I'm moving as well. That's what I'm okay.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna do that, and I'll give you guys the results next time. Do you feel like you covered everything on blood work?
SPEAKER_00I mean, there's just to give me an idea. This is a lecture that we do for three short days, 24 hours over a weekend to doctors. So we could be here all day, all weekend if you wanted to, but I think it's a great start. Yeah. And to make matters even better, we'll we'll put the guide, get it all set up to where you can download it, take it to do your doctor.
SPEAKER_01And any of those other tests, too. I feel like the mold test we could add on there, some of those other tests that you said are, you know, I think are really important. So people know where where to order them, you know.
SPEAKER_00I love that.
SPEAKER_01I think that'd be great. Well, thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00Make sure you subscribe and follow Alex Lourdes, Dr. Josh Red, and if you have a specific question that you want us to answer, leave a comment below.
SPEAKER_01As you heard today, lab work isn't really about chasing perfect numbers. It's about gathering information. Your labs tell part of your story, but your symptoms tell another part, and neither should be ignored. If there's one thing that we hope you take away from this episode, it's that asking questions isn't being difficult. It's being involved in your own health. You deserve to understand what your own blood work means. Thanks so much for spending time with us today. If this episode helped you, send it to someone who's ever been told that everything looks normal, even though they didn't feel normal. And if there's a topic you want us to cover next, let us know. And don't worry, you're not behind. You're in progress.