5 Signs Your Child’s Eczema Is Being Driven by Toxins, Trauma, or Thoughts w Dr. Elena Villanueva

Introduction to Eczema and Chronic Illness 0:00

What if itch isn't the problem? What is the it's just your child's body waving a big red flag and then everything that you've been doing and treating is just the flag. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Elena Villanueva. She's a functional medicine physician and founder of Modern Holistic Health. She breaks chronic illness into three root causes, toxins, trauma, and thoughts, And every single one of them shows up in eczema. When you know you, know this conversation is going to change how you see what's happening in your child's body.

And before we jump in, if you are done guessing, done starting over, Done trying random things and hoping something finally sticks, I want to invite you to apply for an alignment call with me. We will walk through your child's history, what you've tried, and what actually needs to happen next. The link is in the show notes or you can head straight to xmakids.com and sign up for your free call there. All right, friends, let's get into it. Is your child struggling with itchy nights and endless flare-ups?

I'm Andra McHugh, mom of four and host of Eczema Kids. Here, you'll find natural solutions that actually work so you can heal your children's eczemat without steroids, without the overwhelm, and finally see calm, healthy skin again. Let's get into it. Dr. V, welcome to the show. It's so good to be here, Andara. Before we go clinical, I'd really love to start with you and get to know you a little bit better because most people don't arrive in this work by accident. So what was the first thing that started to pull you into studying chronic health conditions?

Yeah, you know you're absolutely right. Most people do go into it because their parent or their spouse or they're kid or somebody was suffering. In my particular case, I had always had an interest in this type of work. But back when I have an interests I think I was just really ahead of my time. I wasn't using the term integrated and functional medicine back before anybody knew what it was back in like the early 2000s, 2001, 2002, 2003. But for me, you know, when I really took a heavy dive into it and knew that, that this was my purpose to be here, to help people around the planet, find real answers and solutions that were going to change their life was when i got sick myself.

And around, it was like around 2009, I just got really, really sick. I lost my memory. It was, had like symptoms of like advanced Alzheimer's, I was in my 30s. I lost my ability to speak, didn't know my son's name, how to get home.

Dr. Villanueva's Health Journey 2:34

And that was just the top of a list of many, many really severe symptoms that I having. Thought I had a heart attack a couple of times, had strange hemorrhaging, all kinds of weird things happening from all directions. And I was a single mom at the time running three of my own clinics in Austin, Texas. And, you know, it was real wake up call for me. But through that process, I, was able to rediscover a passion that I had had from the, time that was young and become a real expert in these areas because It, you know, I was able to find answers for my healing, but through many different doctors and through different avenues, and I had to piece things together.

And it was because I have a background in medicine that I am able piece together and look at the bigger picture and see how all of the different causes were correlated to each other, how they were exacerbating other systems in the body. Then I'm able find solutions and it's through that that you know, that I was realigned with my original passion and that i knew that this was something that was here for and i was hear to teach people and help people. It's the legacy that have to leave here. That's beautiful.

But, oh my goodness, I mean, Alzheimer's like symptoms when you're 30. How scary and I'm sure once you, I shattered my leg a few months ago and you know like once, you do something like that then people find you and they're like oh this happened to me too and this happen to be too, and i had to have surgeries and blah blah and so I imagine that kind of stuff started popping up for you but Why do you think that we're seeing such a dramatic global rise in chronic illness? Well, I teach about this actually because I have seen the common denominators in disease.

And what we have been able to see through working with thousands and thousands of people around the world in over 18 countries is we see the three common denominator And those three common denominators are toxins, trauma, and thoughts. And within those 3 categories, I teach on all of it, but I also teach very heavily on the toxins. So when I say toxins I'm talking about the environmental toxic load. that we are being exposed to on an everyday basis, in our water, and our food, our air, clothes, personal products.

There's no way around it. The planet has become so toxic and it's truly at the root of these chronic diseases that were seeing in adults, children, across all categories of disease, including neurodegenerative disease mental health disease metabolic disease I mean, everything, pretty much. And so, when it comes to that, what's easy to show people are the statistics. You can line up, for example, you can overlay on a chart the rise in the use of glyphosate since the 1970s. And you can overlay that with the rise in deaths from Alzheimer's, the raise in debts from Parkinson's.

The rise and mental health disorders, The raise and metabolic diseases, rise from deaths of intestinal infection. I mean, we could go on and on, and if you overlay the rises in all these diseases and deaths, Yeah. Along with the rise in use of glyphosate, organophosphates, plastics. I mean, we could go on and on. You can see a direct correlation. And so, you know, once we show that to people, they're like, oh my God, like a lot of us know that we have a rise But they don't really understand the

The Three Root Causes of Chronic Disease 6:38

correlation between the rise in toxins and the arise in disease of virtually every kind that we're seeing now. And so it's really important now that in government mandates even, like taking the toxins out of the foods. I mean, that's huge for these kids in school and it's not going to happen in five years. It's happening this year, you know, in 2026. Like I was doing the happy dance, right? We know that food causes so many brain related issues in children and the parents have no idea. They think their kids, you know, have these defiance disorders or ADD or all these different things.

When the reality is that it's the food they're eating and parents had no ideas. And I've been teaching on this for years when it comes to kids. But now that these mandates are coming down, changing the food and the schools, we're going to see huge changes in the kids' behavior. Hopefully they'll change a few other things, like kids need at least two recesses a day, plus PE every day. Like they need to be moving their bodies like every hour and a half, two hours, they needed to moving around. But yeah, it's really exciting to some of these changes coming on the line because it makes all the work that we've been teaching for years you know, now even more validated because now they're talking about it as well.

Right. I mean, like you said, it's so in your face. We just can't ignore it anymore. So for the people that are raising kids, and that's pretty much everyone listening today, what are those everyday exposures that really worth paying closer attention to? Because that is a big part of what we do too. There is this environmental component. Like you say, you have to do it. And for kids what is the big needle movers? big needle movers for kids is your personal products and your laundry products at home.

Change all of that out. The skincare, the shampoos, and the laundry detergents. Get rid of all the crap that's out there and start using clean stuff. You can go to the environmental working group, EWG, you can get an app online and you see what's clean and what is not because they haven't sold out to Johnson & Johnson like some of these other groups have. So personal product, your water, Stop using bottled water because it's not cleaner. It's full of plastics. it might be filtered, but it is full plastics, and so that's just as bad.

But invest in a countertop reverse osmosis system like Aqua True. Or if you have a house where you can't, like with a basement or house, where can do a water filtration system, add that. not just the RO water for the drinking water that comes out of your fridge or your faucet, but for whole system you can do like one step below RO so that the shower and the bath water and all the other stuff is still clean. And then also huge, huge needle movers for kids. are stop these five major brain allergens, which is dairy, gluten, sugar, corn, and I forgot what the other one was and soy.

So stop those and then obviously don't use anything that you can't pronounce. If there's any kind of dye in there, if there is any MSG, there are like 10 different There's like 10 different words for MSG. That is a huge problem in kids' brains. If I take it, I have a horrible response even to this day. I'm in my mid fifties. MSg causes me, it's almost like I took an amphetamine. And my mind is racing so fast. I have anxiety, I can't sleep. If I were younger, i would be bouncing off the walls with it and like losing it.

i Would be having tantrums and just losing It because my Mind goes so Fast and that's a genetic thing. There's nothing wrong with It. It's superpowers if you know how to address your genetic blueprint, you can really bring out superpowers in yourself, but your blueprint can mean that you have a different operations manual. And so for some people, You really want to be even more careful than others with these certain foods like with MSG. But take those five things out and then any additives or preservatives like we don't need that.

The kids need clean food. Start your kids off like the new food pyramid. Thank God. They're like proteins and fats. Our bodies can live without carbohydrates. We can actually live with out a single carbohydrate. But Dr. V, we don't want our kids to starve. I mean, when you're in a pattern and you are surviving and your child has these clear inflammation signals going on, what can you do to start changing your diet? Like some of these kids, they're so picky, right? And their parents are doing everything, but what you can do like to expand their palette?

Well, we're getting into a couple of different things here. I mean, first of all, going back to what I was saying, I wasn't at all saying that we should not give our kid any carbohydrate.

Reducing Toxic Exposures at Home 11:46

But when we look at the old food pyramid that was literally killing people, right? Seven to nine servings of carbohydrates. Are you kidding me? That's going to kill people. It's gonna make them fat, and it's not giving them sustainable energy, nor is it giving any of the ingredients for regeneration of cells. Protein is the building block of cell, tissues, organs and your DNA. That means amino acids. When you break protein down, it's amino acid. Fat is also super necessary and super healthy. It protects our brain, our nervous system, and our immune system.

Interestingly, that's the biggest part of the new food pyramid. These things are going to be changing. I think the key with kids is that, and we're not talking autistic kids yet or kids that have, because I mean they've got a lot of texture things, they got these other things going on, but with the kids in general, the worst things that you can do and that many of us have done as parents unknowingly is we give them the processed foods. These processed foods were designed by chemical engineers to be addictive to the nervous system and to brain.

So once these kids have a little bit of it, all they want is more of. And it shuts down their satiety chemicals in their body to help them understand that they're full or that don't want anymore and they just want to eat more. It's like crack. They just wanted more, right? These foods have literally been designed as drugs for our children. These chemical engineers knew this. This should have been illegal in our country. We should've been on top of this years ago. But we've be screaming it from the rooftops as functional medicine doctors for years going, don't let your kids eat it because it's poison and that's all they're going to want.

They're not going want anything else. So once you expose your kids to that, it's a harder change. But the only thing that you can do is hold your ground. Because once we know as parents that it is literally poisoning our kids, we have a duty to make the change! It doesn't matter if the kids are screaming, if they're kicking, like whatever they are doing, the first week is going to be the toughest. Yeah. But the good news is, is that there are so many recipes out there that can provide so different textures and flavors that closely mimic the foods that our kids are used to, but now we're giving them the healthy versions, that's there's no excuse anymore.

Like 10 years ago, it was hard. I mean, yeah, It was harder to find a good recipe for a cake or a pancake or something that was like that comfort food but it wasn't full of toxins for our kids. Now there's just zero excuse. The thing is it does take more work but as parents it's our duty to take care of our children the best that we can and once we know better we have the duty do better. And now that the food pyramid has changed and now the government is talking about it For those parents who didn't want to listen to it, from us, you, me, all the doctors, guys, it's time for you to shape up and do what you need to do for your kids.

Because at the end of the day, doesn't matter how upset they get, how much they scream, hey, You didn't want to learn it before, or you weren't exposed to it, before. But now you can't ignore the truth. Now the true has come out. It's time for us to make those changes. We share recipes all the time. Especially around the holidays, we share recipe.s We even have a course, a gluten freedom course that teaches moms all about that. Because you cant go 99% gluten free if a kid is having brain and immune allergies and eczema and all these problems from gluten.

Two crumbs of gluten! Just inhaling the dust from gluten can keep your kid in a chronic state of sickness and disease. And so we have a course that teaches parents how to actually like decontaminate the house from that. Then what recipes can they do and what products are already out on the market that kids tend to like the texture, that we as adults tend like, the taste and the flavor of it. That if actually you eat it and you go, man, I can't believe that that's actually healthy for me. So there's a lot of options out there now.

Yeah. I mean, we share a lotta recipes too. There's just no excuse anymore. And really, honestly, this is the silver lining. If you're listening today, it means things aren't going okay at home for yourself or for your kids. You're forced to change, right? Honestly, everyone is going to have this day of reckoning. It's gonna be now or later, and nobody gets to avoid just you know, dealing with this stuff. You have to eat healthier diet, you have eat fewer processed junk. And, my goal when we were really going through it, I had two kids with severe, severe eczema and we're going to it.

My goal was just to be able to cook anything from like a healthy cookbook. Because with eczema, there's just these extra layers. And the same with the brain stuff, it's like there are other things that are in traditionally healthy cookbooks, like nuts and eggs, that for the time being, while you're really healing, they're off the table. So I just echo what you said. It's worth it. buck up, but it's not even that hard, right?

Helping Kids Eat Cleaner Foods 17:18

You're still feeding your kids. You are still having to do the things day in and day out. Using different flowers, maybe going about it with a little more intention, which I would argue, honestly, lowers your stress anyway, like if you come into the day with the plan and you know what to put in their lunchboxes. For me, it is mom that helps me a lot. Well, and when your kid stops misbehaving at school, when you're a kid doesn't have emotional mental breakdowns anymore, When they're sleeping at night, they no longer have rashes, They no long keep getting sick all the time.

And you see that your child is actually thriving and healthy at home and in their social relationships. Isn't that worth it? I mean, you know, I we want our kids to be healthy. The fact is, is that like we've got like, six out of eight kids or eight out 10 kids now that are super unhealthy, that're having mental health issues or metabolic issues, skin issues GI issues autoimmune issues. They're a combination of all these issues guys, this isn't normal. This is not normal like, I don't know how many are mothers that listen to your podcasts that in their 20s versus 30s, versus 40s but I'm in my 50s.

And when I was a child in the South, None of us were sick, right? We were running around on our bikes until the sun went down. Parents didn't know where we were. We we're totally fine. Like, it was just like it, was those days. It was very, very different times, but nobody was sick back then. it Was so rare for children or adults to have any chronic illnesses. You just didn' see it. And so, for those of you who are younger, who maybe don't remember that, and maybe I'm the age of your mother or close, Just a quick remembrance of something that you didn't know, but that we grew up in.

People were not sick. This is not normal. And we want our kids to grow up being healthy, or else they're going to be able to ever get out of the house. Like, you're gonna be raising your kids until they die. Until they're 60, 70 years old, like, they may outlive you, and then what's gonna happen to your kid when you die? And they are still living at home because they were never able to make it in society, never be able get married, to have healthy relationships, be social with people. I mean, that's what a lot of us as parents are looking at right now.

And I don't know how the parents feel, because I'm not in their age range, I am older, That would be terrifying for me. I want my kid to grow up, I mean I've got grandkids, they're coming this Saturday, right? I got grandchildren that are coming to visit. They're happy, their healthy, there being raised with non-processed foods, you know? And so like that's what I wanna see for our future generations because if we don't take care of our generations, what's gonna happen to our governments? What's going to happen our countries?

what gonna happened to us in the future? Like we need to leave a better legacy. Yeah, so well said. That was beautiful. Thank you. I'm really interested in going into this trauma piece and specifically with kids and oftentimes small kids. What kind of patterns are you seeing there? And also, could you say something to the parent listening that's like exhausting themselves like they're literally turning themselves inside out just worried about you know their child stress or the baby stress are all the things and it's, like, goodness what else can I possibly do and I feel so bad and and they are just running in circles and their left in that spiral.

Yeah, well, so we actually have done a masterclass on trauma, a five-part series, and it teaches people how to understand what trauma is, what it isn't, it kind of breaks it down as to how unresolved trauma or un-resolved heightened emotional experiences can turn into chronic pain. As an adult, there's research out on that, how it shapes into a chronic illnesses in people when they get older. It literally changes the biological blueprint in the body when we hold that resonance or that energy from the emotion or from that event or the story, the trauma.

inside of our bodies and we never resolve it. It actually manifests into these chronic diseases and chronic pain. There's a ton of research on that. And in my five-part series, we go through all of this to really help people get a better understanding of the human mind and how it works and emotions and Trauma isn't the event itself. Traum is how we perceive the heightened emotional experience or event. It's how perceive it. it's the story that we create from it and how were able to process that or not process it to get resolution.

Yeah. So, you know, trauma can be something that, like a kid at school bullied another kid. And the recipient of the bullying, you know, experienced trauma as a result, both, from the verbal experience from that person that was bullying and maybe the physical. So, I'm not talking about like a physical blunt trauma, like you fall off your bike and break your shoulder. I am not taking about that. But I talk about heightened emotional experiences, right? That can include some physical altercations, but not necessarily like where you end up in the hospital from a broken, shattered, whatever, And so, as parents, you know, how we respond to our children is huge.

How we teach them to process emotions and feel them is big. Oftentimes, the first thing that we'll tell kids, and I remember doing this with my son when he was little, is if he would get upset about something, I would say things like, it's okay, It's Okay, You don't need to cry. Or, you know, it's okay. Like, let's get over it. Let's pull up our socks and like, It's OK. You're a big boy. We can do this. Or like I would even like hand him a tissue as if to say like. I never thought about it this way until I went through my own personal development courses so that I could learn how to help people was like when you're handing someone a Tissue when they're crying, that's almost like saying underneath like your tears aren't OK, wipe those tears like Let them cry, let them get snot all over their face.

If they ask for a tissue, give them a issue, otherwise just hold space for them. And so what I noticed like with my son and my daughter-in-law through the courses that we've all taken as a family together to really deepen our personal

Trauma, Emotions, and Parenting 23:58

development and understanding of the human psyche and language modeling and you know, and all the things is, now I see them with their children. And when little William gets upset, he's six now, but they've been doing this from the time he was like, you know, a year old. If he gets up upset about something, they hold space. They're there to hold him if he wants to be held, and they're just there just to let him feel his feelings. They're there to let him feel his feelings, they're not trying to fix it.

They are not telling him that it's okay, you can stop crying. You know, like they are, not, trying, to, fix anything. And they, are there at a whole space and then once he, once, he calms down, They may ask a few questions, you know, how, do you want to tell me how that made you feel? What kind of emotions were you feeling? You know? Where did you fill those emotions? Were you filling it in your heart? Did it make your hurt hurt? you Know, were your feeling it your tummy? did it made feel like sick in you tummy, was making your tummy hurt, Was there a color to it?

Helping them explore their emotions so that they don't grow up thinking that emotions of anger or rage or impatience or anything is bad, because the reality is, is that emotions are not bad. None of the emotions were bad but we were raised, you know, to believe that it's not appropriate to feel anger, it is not to appropriate feel agitated, so we hold it in and then it just explodes out and when we're kids that can explode out very easily as we get older we learn to contain it. because it's the appropriate thing to do.

But the reality is that it is not the right thing. We have evolved as humans and we recognize now the consequences of learning to manage these emotions and even label them as bad or inappropriate or whatever. Now, there may be times like if we're in the corporate world or whatever. You know what I'm saying? There can be a time and a place. But for our kids, I believe we need to allow them to express their emotions, allow to fully explore their emotion, and get curious about their emotional. There are books on it.

They're videos you can watch on people that teach about all of this. And so if can help be better facilitators as parents for children. We can help them explore the emotions they have and then we can guide them on different perspectives around those heightened emotional experiences that brought those emotions so that we could help understand how they are empowered to create the story that they want. around that and we see them creating a story around like they don't like me because I'm xyz or whatever you know a, story that's going to create a pattern in their life that is going create an emotion of it is gonna change how they see themselves in the world as parents we can help them.

understand that there are many possibilities on how they can create a perspective, and we can help them create different perspective and help the gain the wisdom and the learnings from why that happened with them, why they had that experience, so that they could let it go and not create new perspective on they see themselves in the world around them that's going to alter their human experience as they get older. You know, like creating problems with relationships in the future. Creating problems now they don't see themselves as beautiful and smart and all the beautiful things.

Now they start seeing faults in themselves because of the story they created. So I like to get curious with the emotions, help our children to be curious and then And then help them explore their stories that they're telling themselves and then give them other alternatives. So like, what? Well, if this happened so that XYZ, you know, so they can learn that there are many perspectives and they learn how to play that game of chess a little bit better so then they make better choices in the stories they want to tell themselves.

Love that. If you, in a moment of high emotions with your kids, maybe did give them a tissue before hearing this, do you recommend bringing it up later at a calmer time or do wait for the next one? I guess the difference between big T little t stuff but like little T stuff say you you did just say oh it's okay don't worry don' cry we have to go and then then like recognizing that later and should you go back to the child and say, hey, we should talk about this or? I think you could be a wonderful conversation starter and it can help you develop, help your child develop trust with you and know that you're a safe, nurturing mama for them.

You know, because when you say that and you don't recognize how they feel, which we were raised that way too. Like we are raised. That way. My dad never recognized, you know my mom, like don' cry. I mean, our parents did the best that they knew with how they were raised. But now, like, that could be a really great opportunity to go back and say, hey, honey, you know, in a calm, quiet atmosphere, when you can look at your children, don't do it when your driving, let them see you, your eyes, see your heart, face them so they can see and feel your energy and know that you're present and nothing else matters but them.

Say, Hey, do you remember when this happened? Remember? And mommy said, you know, well, like, it's okay. Like we need to go or like. Well, I've been thinking about that. And I've been wondering if you've be thinking about that some more and how you're feeling around that incident or how your feeling that day when that happened to you. Are you still thinking that? If you are, I just wanted to take the time to talk about, you know, how did that make you feel? And how does that makes you now? Let them just talk.

And there's no good, bad, right or wrong. We can't do that as parents. Right? We need to let them express themselves. You know, even if they use the word, like, I hate blah, blah blah. That's a strong word. But the kids don't know that. They're learning. Let them feel it. And then just as a mama, we can use metaphors. We can you stories to help shape their beliefs. So we don' have to say, well, you this, You should change this. What if you did this? That kind of puts them on the spot. Little kids can learn really well from stories.

Continue to feel it deeper, like asking them where did you feel, it how did it make you, feel where in your body were you feeling? If you think about it now, are you still feeling it? Where do you feel it, now? Does it have a color? What words come to mind when you're feeling that? And then we can start getting into the deeper questions and just exploring and making it light and where they feel comfortable and they know that they can express themselves. So I feel like, yes, we totally can go back at a later date and sit down and talk with them because it's very likely that Yeah, those are beautiful language patterns.

Thank you so much. And, you know, for these kids, it just helped soo much, that just adds in this nervous system stability in their home environment, which, I mean, propels their healing tenfold. So, really powerful stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine this ties in pretty well with the way, like the thought pillar of your framework. Can you go into a little more about that? It does. It absolutely does Our thoughts are so powerful. Our thought literally can change our biochemistry at any moment, either taking our biochemistry and our biology in the direction of healing and regeneration, or taking out biology and the directions of sickness and disease.

and degeneration and so, but then we can take a step into that. Like, so what has created the thought patterns that we have and the ruminating thoughts that have? Well, typically it's our life experiences. Right? Yeah. Good, bad, right, wrong, whatever, but just life experiences and creates what we believe about ourselves and the world around us.

The Power of Thoughts and Consciousness 32:48

And so our internal representation, we call it IR, our Internal Representation or IR really shapes how we move throughout the word in our life. Yeah, and so I think it's really important for us to become conscious of our thoughts. You know, our mind is a tool. As humans, you know I think we forget or we don't fully embody the fact that we're a mind, body, and a spirit. We're not humans that have a Spirit or soul, we are a light being. And we're embodied in a 3D avatar, like we are in body suit, we in human suit.

But we existed before we came into this 3-D existence and we will continue to exist after. We're made in God's image. I mean, what does that make us, right? Like we always were, and always will be. And that energy was neither created nor destroyed, it always has been. Right? So through the scientific perspective, through their religious perspective through, the spiritual perspective like we are that, but I feel like, we forget we, are not embodying that this experience. And so, We are inside of a machine.

Yeah. We really, it's a biological machine, but we are inside a machine. Like, we're inside this, and we have this human experience where we can feel, smell, have a brain that's this tool. But just like a hammer, It can be used to create, or it can use to destroy. And when we aren't living a life of consciousness, where were living from our hearts, which is the true innate intelligence that we were born with. If you want to hear what your deeper wisdom has to say or what God has say to you or spirit or the universe, connect here in your heart.

The brain is just this, it's a machine. It's computer. It does not know all. It's very finite in its abilities. And the way that the brain was designed, it's like AI. it is constantly learning from its experiences. However, It doesn't have the vast knowledge that AI has. to actually look from different perspectives. It can only see the perspective through the experiences that it has had, because it's not connected with infinite information. And so the brain is designed to protect and to help guide us along the way, but it is a tool.

Right. And so most of us lead our lives from our brain. We're not living from intuition, from place, our hearts. So we're living not from that, we are living form the brain and so the brains gets in the way all the time and it's like a hammer. It's so destructive. creating these inaccurate stories about how we see ourselves in the world around us, that creates these patterns of destruction around, us when our relationships and our careers, you know, and how, we choose to take care of ourself or not take, care our self is just so destructive.

And it's not until we become conscious and start living from a place of coherence, living, from our heart, learning to listen, like as mamas, we have very strong heart intuition or we call it intuition, whatever you want to call, there's a different part of us that thinks. And if we can learn to be grounded in that and teach our children that. And if we can, if can really learn to understand how the brain actually works, which in my trauma masterclass, I actually teach this, then it's easier for us to kind of come from a different place where we.

Witness ourselves and what we're thinking and how we are acting and all that instead of being in it and just walking around blind and not recognizing that we were like, you know, we in the and where, where living from the mind and a lot of people suffer when they live from mind. Once we can free ourselves from the mind and learn to live from our hearts, we could live a completely different life. And I'm hoping that our future generations, which I am seeing this a lot with our younger parents, they're much more conscious in many ways than we were.

It's a blessing to see it because I think that their children are going to come into this world and are coming into the world, and they are gonna be raised by much conscious parents than our previous generations. Yeah, agreed. Those are some really great reframes. I literally just heard this morning is like, what if you approached, you know, the difficulties in your life with You know, if I chose this, this was part of my like soul curriculum, not saying I did, but if did choose this. What do you think the lesson might be?

And you know it could be about anything that is difficult in your life. But if your child is old enough to ask that question of them, or even you can ask it of yourself if you're child as a baby. you might get some really helpful answers that could help you cognitively deal with this. But I also wanted to ask you, for the kiddos that are really sick, right? And the endotoxins and the gram-negative bacteria that run in the show, and obviously that affects your thoughts a great deal, how can they recalibrate when all that's going on?

Well, and that's the fun part that I love to do in our clinic. And that is just do the testing. You know, there's testing out there now that you're not going to find at your traditional like family practice or pediatric place. Why? Because they are in corporate medicine. Corporate medicine means that they're following the Western allopathic model. And they are typically with insurance companies and the insurance company's are not going to allow them to really go in and find what the real root cause is because they don't practice root-cause medicine.

They practice symptom management medicine, that's all it is.

Testing for Root Causes and Hidden Toxins 39:18

That's why your kids aren't better. If you've been following that model, your kid's aren' better, thats why. out of the cycle for a minute and look. And you'll see that how long have you been doing this? They're not better. They are probably worse than they were before. So pop out that and do something different. Like don't keep doing that. There's a time and a place for allopathic medicine. Absolutely. I'm not saying that there's not. But when it comes to chronic disease, allopathy medicine has failed.

It's root cause medicine that's where it's at. and it's your functional medicine doctors that understand root cause medicine. Some of them understand it better than others. There are functional doctors out there that are practicing basically symptom management medicine, but they're doing it with natural things, homeopathic remedies and supplements and all that. And it doesn't have the side effects, But at the end of the day, it is still not fixing the root causes of a problem. So find yourself a practitioner who knows how to use these advanced labs that that can check your child's microbiome and see what's going on in there.

See if there's a lot of endotoxin buildup because there is an overgrowth of different bacteria that really don't play well inside your ecosystem. They literally will change the neurochemistry in the brain of the person and it will Absolutely. Remember, we have more bacteria in us and on us than we had human cells, and those bacteria are a part of us. We can't live without them. Like we would cease to exist physically in form, but they actually give us our personalities. Just feeling happy and having a really beautiful experience.

we are literally a apart of an ecosystem like the movie Avatar. Were apart an eco-system.We can live out our eco system and that takes me back to the planet is It's kind of dying. I mean, we're having a really hard time and people don't recognize what in bad shape that we are. That's another conversation, but as the planet gets sicker, so do we. So there are things we need to do, like we have to take extra precautions. plastics and other chemicals that are in your child's system looking for heavy metals, looking at their GI or their microbiome, and then having somebody who knows what to do with all that information so that they can help restore health and vitality and happiness and longevity in their child.

It's not hard to do, it's a process, but it is not that hard. You know, I can honestly say, Andrea, like every single child case that we've worked with over the years we had wild success with. Every single case, every, single, case. And so it isn't something that, you know. It isn' not something like, well hopefully my kid can be, y'know. I don't like to use the word cured, hopefully this can result in my kids. Like it' common place. But we need to be looking in the right places and we to stop facing after symptoms.

So agree. And that is the best part of working with kids, right? They can turn it around so quickly. Their cell rejuvenation is so fast. They do. Get better. You put these inputs in place and they get better even when you have done this advanced testing and you know, okay, the gram-negative bacteria, that's what's running the show. And it makes the moods even more difficult and it make the feeding even difficult, and the compliance even harder. I just say, you're Q, I guess, Q100. You've got to help you gotta let them borrow your calm for a little bit.

I mean, just do the best you can to be that piece, because their insides aren't experiencing that. Yeah. And I pathogenic bacteria issue, they can cause so many problems in a child or an adult. What a lot of people don't realize is, you know, that they're just looking at the GI and they are looking the bacteria and going, well, let's kill the bacterial, kill a bacteria, and then they'll kill bacteria get temporary temporary relief because, you know, now they've killed the bacteria, they manage the endotoxicity during the process of the dying off of bad bacteria.

But then it comes back and they're like, well, why is it coming back? Well, what a lot of people miss is that they are not looking at the environmental toxins. So, oftentimes, it's the environmental toxins in the body that's causing the bacterial imbalance in first place. So I like to use the analogy of a garbage dump versus a really clean neighborhood. My neighborhood? Super clean. There's no garbage anywhere, there's nothing, and it is just super clean, but if you go, I don't know, drive and find the trash dump somewhere where those landfills It's going to be full of disease in there.

It is full because it's full just of toxins and rotting this and then chemicals and who knows what, right? And it is just messing up the whole ecosystem of the environment where the landfill is. you know, 5, 10, 15 different environmental toxins in your body, which anyone who's chronically sick, I guarantee you 100%, you're going to have at least three of them that show up at high levels in our body. And when you do your research, they're directly correlated to the issues that your child or you are having.

Hands down, and I've done all this research. I collected all the data. You know, if you've got chemicals in your body, you got mold, plastics, glyphosate, other organophosphates, and who knows what else in the body. There is no way that you're gonna have a healthy ecosystem inside your GI tract. No way. I don't care what you do. It's going to kill off the good bacteria, allow the bacteria that doesn't play well in our body to overgrow, And then you're going to have candida on top of that, and you are never going get rid of the candita.

You're never gonna get the bad bacteria like temporary. It's gonna come temporarily down, they're gonna feel better, then it's going come back again and they are gonna be scratching your head going, why? Well, you never looked at the environmental toxins. We have to look at environmental toxins because that's what's causing this change inside of our ecosystem that is causing these secondary and tertiary issues. I'm curious like what percentage of people that you work with have like a mold issue in their home?

70 to 75 percent of People that are chronically sick. Yeah with anything across the board anything doesn't matter what it is, but they've been sick for like more than a year Yeah, right 70, 75% of them are going to have at least one mold showing up on their labs that's inside their body that is directly related to their symptoms, conditions, and disease. And, you know, anytime that we have someone's labs come back with mold, we tell them this, look, You could have been exposed in that farmhouse you grew up in.

You can have had exposure in your college dorm. Or you could've had an exposure to your first house, your second house or your current house. It could be at work. We don't really know. But what we need to find out, since mold came back showing up in your labs, and this is one of the causes of why you're so sick, I need you to have your house tested. Yeah. And while you're at it, since you've got these chemicals showing up in your body too, I want you to have your house tested for these chemical and I wanted to your have house test it for, you know, for heavy metals.

Make sure that that's not, in you water because this one heavy metal showed up. Let's make sure you are not currently getting exposure. And sometimes people have the ability to get their workplace tested because it's their own workplace.

Hope for the Future of Chronic Disease Recovery 46:58

So we have them do that. But the thing is, is that, you know, chemicals and mold have accumulation in the body and the buddy can't get it out. You have this bioaccumulation over the course of years. And so we just need to make sure you're not currently getting any more exposure now because if we're going to start to detox you, But you keep putting it back in your body because you're going back into the house or the work environment or whatever. You're putting in in body as we're trying to detox it out.

When we retest you in six months, we are not going to see the 30% or better improvement that we expect to in 6 months. And we aren't going see 80% improvement than we expected to by month 10. So it's really important that you make sure you are getting current exposure now. So before we wrap up, because I've taken a lot of your time, I can talk to you forever. It's so fun. What gives you optimism right now when you look at the future of chronic disease recovery? There's a few things. Number one, what gives me optimism is seeing the results that we can get with people over and over again with diseases that they say there are no cures for and being able to teach doctors.

We are teaching practitioners now all around the country and we're making it accessible. Were teaching them in a way that can go out and start this process on Monday. So the workshops that we're doing with doctors, we want them to go out and start on Monday. And then we are following their cases throughout the year. So to make sure that they're getting, you know, a 90%, 80 to 90% success rates, which is unheard of in the medical industry, but we know that it can be done. And so we're like right there holding their hand to help them collect their own portfolio of case studies so they can go out and fly on their and actually make a difference.

We're ready to pass the torch. So we are teaching practitioners and that gives me a lot of hope. because there are doctors that are wanting to leave corporate medicine, like they want to lead yesterday, because they finally woke up and they realized that they're not helping people and their wanting learn. It also gives me hope that what we're seeing, you know, some changes happening from government level, that gives hope. Also, and then finally, it gives me hope that we're seeing more and more people waking up and realizing that what they've been doing has been making them worse or it made their parents worse.

And they don't want to continue that pattern with their children or with themselves. There was an article last year that came out that's saying over 30% of the population in the US are leaving Western medicine and they're looking for alternative, like they are looking a functional medicine practitioners that can do root cause medicine. So, you know, seeing the shift, all of these different changes happening all at the same time is making me super hopeful and excited for the future of our kids. Yeah.

Love it. Dr. V, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your perspective today. Everyone listening has gained so many. Where can everyone find and follow you? Follow us at modernholistichealth.com. We have a newsletter, so if you just browse around through our site, you'll see where our newsletters are. You can sign up for our newsletter. I'm always sharing beautiful information. And we also have Modern Holistic Health on Facebook and on Instagram. And I mean, we don't do a ton of stuff on social, but we do post.

Feel free to follow me on my personal page on facebook as well. It's Dr. Elena Villanueva. But yeah, I mean we'd be happy to share. We're always wanting to show information. And whenever we launch our master classes for viewing, which we'll typically launch, we have three different masterclasses that are all five part series. They've been seen by over a million people around the world. Whenever we launched those, We typically talk about it in our newsletter, our monthly. we send it out once a month.

and we typically will send out maybe a couple of emails a week and it's just really sharing from our hearts. things that can help people from recipes to stories to just inspirational stuff or any wisdom that I want to share or that anyone from my team wants to show.

Closing Remarks and Resources 51:18

So you can find us online at our website or you could find this on social. Perfect. All that will be in the show notes. Dr. V, thank you. Thank you. Have a wonderful day and keep up the good work educating those mamas out there who are looking for help. I'm super proud of you and what you're doing to help other mammas out. Oh, thank you! Yeah, you are welcome. She's so great, right? Families who have been living this cycle of eczema for five years, five months, and five weeks, it's not because you aren't trying hard enough.

It's because nobody helped them connect it all into one clear plan. And that's exactly what today was all about. And it's what the eXima elimination method does. If you are ready to stop living around exima this summer, I want you to apply for an alignment call. It's free, it is personalized, and we map out exactly, what is driving your child's eczema players and what we should be doing next. No more piecing things together, no more second guessing, No More Staying Up All Night. The link is in the show notes or you can go straight to eczemakids.com and sign up there.

Dr. Elena Villanueva is at modernholistichelp. com and all her links are there too. I'll talk to you next week, friends. Take care. Thank you for helping with my exema. Love you. Thank you for listening today, friend. I know healing your child's skin isn't easy, but you're doing it one smart step at a time. If this episode gave you a little hope or a better night's sleep, leave a quick review so more exhausted parents can find eczema kids and finally rest easy too. Follow, share, and let's help more kids heal.

Take care.