Content provided by
Kent Holtorf, MD
Guest experts
Amy Derksen
Dr. Amy Derksen is a clinical expert specializing in Autism, immune dysregulaiton, chronic illness, and detoxification. Dr. Derken is one of the first Naturopathic Physicians to become a Fellow with the Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs and will be discussing how peptide therapy can, in theory, be used to help the most challenging patients.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Okay, It’s Kent Holtorf for another episode of the peptide summit. And today we’ll be interviewing dr. Amy Dirksen and she’ll be talking about peptide therapies for the immune driven conditions, including autism lime, and that hyper sensitive patient, so that the patient that everyone hates it has the hardest time treating. But, uh, dr. Amy, thank you so much for being on the summit. Uh, I appreciate you taking the time and looking forward to hearing, um, you know, all your tricks and, uh, and then how you approach these very difficult patients. But, um, there’s just a little bit of background. Um, uh, dr. Amy Dirksen, she’s a former competitive athlete and naturopathic physician. Uh, she did, uh, hurdles for what college for Western Washington, Western Washington. Very impressive. Um, and, but also did, uh, studies in biochemistry and, or medical post-graduate training with dr. Klinghardt. Um, as most people know, well-known, uh, Lyme physician really cutting edge for over two years. She’s one of the original doctors with him.Â
She specialized in working with both autism, uh, you know, pans, pandas patients, chronically ill. Uh, she’s been involved in teaching various topics with dr. Klinghardt since 2004. Uh, she looks much younger, so whatever she’s doing very good. Uh, she’s been all speaker at autism one, um, uh, Kenny of comprehensive integrative medicine, American Academy of restorative medicine, um, uh, with, uh, uh, Scott Forsgren, uh, the form for integrative medicine. The thing, if I am, um, and hope to heal Lyme conferences. So she’s just really spoken and, and goes to so many conferences. Uh, she went the first naturopathic physicians to become a fellow with the, uh, medical Academy of pediatric special needs. Wow. That’s, that’s really nice. And is board certified in integrative pediatrics from the American association of integrative medicine, which is typically limited to dos and MDs? Uh, congratulations.
Uh, she’s also a member of the international peptide society, uh, AAM, a cam B also environmental she’s kind of basically A nurse has been Everywhere. So name it, she’s done it. Uh, she’s working on really those most difficult patients, the most sensitive, the toxic patients that react to everything where we’re going to get into that, um, are typical patients tend to be those that seek by multiple doctors and specialists. And I, I think, uh, you may agree more and more like we did our study 15 or 16 years ago. Uh, we published our data. People saw an average 7.2 physicians before seeing us now it’s like 15. Um, and it’s everyone just goes through the, you know, basically specialists. Everyone looks at one little part and they don’t get better basically. Um, our greatest passion is working with pans, pandas patients, um, and those are, are very tough and you have the parents and they, uh, the kids, but I imagine getting them better feels so good. Uh, she feels that the more we can understand about our kids, the more we’ll understand everyone’s health.Â
I totally agree with that. And my heart goes out to you and the parents of these, uh, you know, autistic kids and, um, this, the stress that they, they have to go through. And, and even the kind of the, the courage to go find a doctor like yourself, because they’re told, Oh, there’s nothing you can do. And, and how, uh, doctors treating autism are maligned like quackery. It’s like, well, here’s 400 studies showing you this, you know, but anyways, I haven’t gone on welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time. Um, and she’s very good friends with, uh, Scott Forsgren and the better health guy. Uh, it was awesome. And it sounds like she was instrumental in getting, uh, Scott better. Uh, so I, I, I think that’s great. So, um, yeah, what, uh, we kinda talked about, you know, how you got involved in this so-called integrative or alternative space, but what, what, w when did you find peptides and how did, how did that happen?
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah, so I would go back a little bit for back in 2014, I started working with a low dose antigen therapy. So a little bit about me is I have, Hashimoto’s a lot of mold sensitivity, a pretty sensitive kiddo, but yet I was a competitive athlete. I feel pretty Hardy. And so I don’t like it’s these two dichotomies, right. Of like, okay, I’m more sensitive than I want to believe. And so, you know, I think with any of our patients, it’s all about the cup is full and it’s, what’s that tipping point that tips them over whether it’s autism or someone who’s exposed to Lyme disease. Um, and so I started working with low-dose antigen therapy through the AAM Academy. Yeah. So low dose androgen therapy, um, essentially the whole thought of that. And I’ll get into that a little bit later too, but, um, it is all about retraining the lymphocytes to become more tolerant to the environment and to whatever you expose them to. So it’s done as, uh, just a little intradermal injection, usually every seven weeks. And as time goes on, you can spread those out further apart.Â
The nice thing is you don’t have to do, like in the office, you don’t have to do as much testing. You don’t have to keep as many antigens there. Cause like the food makes us 300 things mixed together. Um, the environmental mix has, you know, molds and pollens and animal dander and all of that same thing, about 300 things together there. So in one little injection you can do all the foods and all the environmental factors, you know, it hurts for like a second, but it’s amazing. And for me, it was one of those things. I had a goiter for over a year, it was hard and enlarged, I kind of ignored it. You know, I’ll figure this out. It’s gotta be weed or it’s gotta be heavy metals or something. And, but it wasn’t changing. And my thyroid dose was really inconsistent. And I did my first injection of that.Â
Not thinking anything, thinking, okay, this is another thing I’m excited, but you know, I haven’t seen it work and I’m kind of scared of it. My Gwadar got soft and it shrank within 20 minutes. It was remarkable. And it hasn’t come back since then. And so, although it’s actually my brag a little bit, if I now at this point sometimes go three or four months in between doses, just because I get busy and I forget, um, sinuses cleared up right away. It was interesting. I almost felt like I had cold air rushing through my sinuses. Cause that’s been always my area. Right. You’re like, wait a minute. I can breathe. I was like, Oh my God, that’s what it feels like to get air in your sinuses. You know,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
The difference too. Do you think it was more of the foods or the inhalants? Yeah,
Dr. Amy Derksen
It was interesting. I think it’s the inhalants, but the foods for me uncovered a gluten sensitivity that I had suspected because I had seen the connection with Hashimoto’s and all the literature, but it was always this, like, I wasn’t sure that I was really reacting. And the whole, when you first do your you’re exposed to your antigens and there’s an enzyme in your system, you can be a little more sensitive for a couple of days. And I, I actually ate some gluten and it made me throw up, I thought, Holy moly. Right. And so it was really telling for me, and at that point, um, it’s become pretty clear. I also suspect I have a little reaction to potato now over time, um, that it just wasn’t so clear before, but going off that it just, it really stabilized everything for me.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I think that’s such a great treatment and so safe. And it, I don’t know, you may find this too, especially of practices that you owe with other doctors, like kind of great treatment, but they kind of get away from it for awhile, you know? And, uh, and it just something you use on almost everyone,
Dr. Amy Derksen
You can almost everyone. So, you know, we’re all exposed to foods. We’re all exposed to the environment. You can do a chemical mix. Strap is amazing, especially for kids on the spectrum. Like whenever they get agitated or start picking at their lips until they’re bleeding or like fighting it themselves, the strap or cluster idea can be great. And then I’ve gotten into the LDI, the low dose immunotherapy, which is more for, you know, some of the bugs and you can look up type incense and the work that he’s doing with that. So he’s really gone in a great direction with that. And so, you know, that’s a huge part of my entire practice. Um, I have three other physicians that work with me. Um, Christopher Wakeley will be another speaker for this. So he’s in my practice as well. And he does a ton of LDA LVI. And so,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
So with LDI it’s well adopters, like one people love it or say it doesn’t work. I don’t know if it’s how they’re using it. I’ve been trying to figure it, figure it out or if they’re have enough patients, you know? Um,
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah, I think it’s probably how they’re using it. And are they using enzyme or are they not? What sort of education are they giving people? What are they watching for? Are they, what kind of doses? Because that’s the thing is there’s a wide variety, especially when you get into treating the Lyme organisms, you know, there’s a wide variety of
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Complexity is so much more LDA. Just, you give it
Dr. Amy Derksen
Right. But when you get into LDI and you know, I’ve seen some wows with it. Um, some of my Lyme patients, you know, especially like the Bartonella, the burning gut kind of stuff has been great autologous to school, school, autologous stool could be really great for the chronic gut issues. And for me, so, you know, learning that, then it just hit home, like what an immune component is going on with so many of these infections. Um, until then I was pretty heavy on antimicrobials, whether it was prescription or herbal. And so that really shifted my practice, just seeing how it played out in myself and then trying it with a few of my regular patients was like, Oh my gosh, this is where you have to start calm down the immune system response and then see what’s left.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And I think that’s, you know, what happened with myself, I didn’t see with patients is that, you know, I was in the, you know, massive antibiotics. I’m not giving enough and doing, you know, five, seven at a time and do this bigger dose. If I’m fixing the immune system. First, I also noticed is that like, when I would do peptides or any treatment, when I was sick, I would get huge flares, which looked like allergic reaction. And then, but if I wasn’t, there was no problem. Right. You know? So it shows that that in this problem is the sickest patients, the ones that react negatively, you know, the ones that needed are the ones that react negatively, which, which makes it tough. But yeah, it shows us all the immune system screwed up.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. Yeah. So we integrated that into our practice. And then, um, all of last year and kind of late 2018, I was called in, uh, like probably 25 of us from around the country were called in to work on one case in particular. So someone that could afford this, but that was very sick, a young man who, um, his symptoms were escalating to the point that he was bed bound, um, blindfolded, earmuffs, like laying in a bed. And so he called all these doctors in to start to brainstorm about that. And I was fortunate enough to end up being his managing physician. Um, but there was a group. I was co-managing him along with the neurologist who was fantastic. And
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
That’s a, usually an oxymoron.
Dr. Amy Derksen
No, I know. Right. So, I mean, it was so fun. I was, I, it was like my, my nerdy dream job.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
So that’s nice when you said 25 positions.
Dr. Amy Derksen
So there were 25 of us, and then it was narrowed down that, not that we were like
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Eric Gordon group, the I’m forgetting the name, uh, uh, whatever it was, the guy gave a donation to put all the doctors together was that, was that, that group or the setup,
Dr. Amy Derksen
A separate group. And I can’t disclose actually, cause it was for a private patient. Um,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
So
Dr. Amy Derksen
There were some great doctors involved and I think that was nice. And so doctors from all kinds of genres talking about this thing, but then it came down to, there were six of us that were really meeting regularly to talk about this case. And, you know, we had done all the things we knew, you know, you treat the infections, you look at the labs and, Oh my gosh, he’s nervous is a problem. What is it? And um, then one of the doctors proposed peptides and I had never heard of peptides and he laid out a few things and what they could do and how it fit with the labs. And I got so excited and the international peptide society happened to be having their conference, you know, two weeks later. So I got myself on a plane, I got so excited about it and how they started working in this patient who was so sensitive, you know, I mean the thought of just doing injections and some of these things, nothing was working.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Absolutely. It is getting 25 doctors. Usually it’s a battle, you know, so, Oh gosh, well, right. And you know, you’re afraid to do something like LDI because you know, it’s tough, you know, you’re doing a little bit of a dance, but we started the peptides and we saw some things, you know, and we discovered some other things going on with the patient, but it really helped to clarify. And just the fact that we noticed something was so exciting in a patient like him, who was so immune activated,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Where, where you can’t do anything and this allowed you to at least try something to calm down enough to that’s awesome.
Dr. Amy Derksen
We saw some changes. And then, um, the other three doctors in my practice also got on board and I’m really spoiled. I have a group there’s four of us. I trust all of them. We all bring a little bit something different to the table and we meet every week. So we’ve gone to a bunch of conferences, but we meet every week and we get to talk about, you know, especially as we were just getting into this, you know, what were we seeing with our patients? What are we trying on a dose what’s working? What backfired on us? Like, oops, okay. This is what it looks like when you do too much. You know, I put myself, you know, I don’t like to think of myself as an auto-immune patient. I put myself on five peptides at once as injections just to start with, because I can and, you know, flared the heck out of myself. It was kind of fun. Right.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I love that model. You know, it’s that collective brain. And you know, and people see this and, and uh, you know, doctors that can extrapolate, which I have found. And probably if I was hiring doctors, so many doctors coming out, they don’t understand concepts. They memorize, they can memorize anything, but Hey, I saw this. Maybe that means this is going on. You know, but meeting with the doctors, that’s like an exponential brain and experience. That’s, that’s amazing.
Dr. Amy Derksen
And medicine is an art and we, you know, we deal with pretty sensitive patients. So majority of our practice, so I’m up in the Seattle area, but most people fly in to see us. And so, you know, we’re not a first stop. I don’t have the common goal coming in. I don’t have a brand new diagnosed case of autism. We have people who’ve been through it and they want something. And so it’s, it’s fun to have that, you know, and just to have people you trust, because this is not easy medicine to do. Right. And it’s exciting when it works. And it’s, you know, when you question everything when it doesn’t, so yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Or it’s, I love, um, when we talked about, uh, Eric Garner loved one of the lectures, we had, everything works for somebody or, you know, and, and it is, it’s like, and the patients go online. They, and you can see it. They’re just almost paralyzed. And they have, uh, some, uh, basically testimonial this earth, not this patient and better. And other people say, don’t do it. It’s, it’s tough with all these complex patients. And then they go to their doctors as, Oh, it’s it’s quackery. And, you know, uh, so it’s, it’s, uh, yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Oh, you can do is believe in what you do, practice with integrity, do your best to help people.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And I think explaining it to the patient. And I tell the doctors, I think first you have to convince the patient in the right spot and let them understand why you’re doing this and why their Dr. May say, Oh, that doesn’t make sense because they don’t use that model. But what are some of your favorite treatments? So you’re not, not peptide wise.
Dr. Amy Derksen
So, um, I love so LDA, LDI, um, I like low-dose naltrexone. I think it’s fantastic. Just if you’re looking at something to kind of calm things down yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Immune, you know? Yeah. And it’s been like, yeah, try that very safe.
Dr. Amy Derksen
We’ll do it as a cream. So if it’s a child, you can put it on topically. If you want one less pill or things you have to mix in. So that’s been great. Um, I do a lot of focus on the histamine mass cell piece. So really looking at the variety. I love Cantata fin. Um, if you use some Chromelin, but just looking at the variety of the H one H two blockers and kind of seeing if you can calm things down and also using some of the natural treatment, some of the, yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Um, just the bioflavonoid, uh, [inaudible] I was looking at, uh, uh, study con you know, like all the mass cell guys, like mass cell mastermind guys, Afrin. Oh my God. That he must do nothing else, but, but answer those questions. But, you know, they’re kind of stuck on direct mass cell inhibition where I might look upstream, you know, and in module the demean system. And once I looked at, you know, um, they all have, Chromelin, it doesn’t absorb well, it’s pretty weak. And just like, um, if I set in or be pronounced differently, the bioflavonoids are much more potent, you know? Um, and so it’s a mass cells are huge, but it goes along with that whole immune discipline,
Dr. Amy Derksen
It goes with the whole immune thing. And I think, um, everyone needs to be looking at the guts, you know, so, so much, I mean, they know so much now about the gut brain barrier, but you know, 80% of our neurotransmitters come from the gut and think of all this stuff that goes in there and the food qualities that have gone down, I’ve just seen the changes in stool testing over the last 15 plus years. You know, I’m seeing dysregulation of IGA levels. Now I’m seeing a lot of use. NFL’s not seeing things that I would rarely see before you’re running food allergy panels and it lights up like a Christmas tree. So you’re seeing people that are just over-activated their, every food. And it’s not, you know, they had solutions not taking away every food. It could be, let’s start some LDA and let’s try and heal that gut.
Dr. Amy Derksen
And, you know, peptides can be great for that. The BBC I’ll talk about that a little bit, but that’s amazing for helping to heal that up. But a lot of times, you know, we’re having to do some parasite treatments or some herbal antimicrobials, something broad, um, Rifaximin prescription is, is helpful. It’s not the end all be all, but it can be a really nice end, um, to your treatment. And then trying to explore, like, I like the spore based probiotics. I think they can be good. I’m not a huge probiotic fan in general, just because a lot of them can be triggering. Um, but I think there’s some newer products coming out that are, um,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And I think that’s, you know, we’re trying to say, Hey, the microbiome, but when you start looking at the virome, you know, and I was looking at some studies where, um, it’s basically, you know, you get these, you know, good bacteria where they’re making butyrate, which is good, right. But if that Buterin level gets too high, it activates a bacteria phage, which is a virus that starts killing that, that basically bacteria that’s making the butyrate. So the butyrate level doesn’t get too high. It’s a computer program, you know, it’s, it’s not so wait until we get into the by and everything, but yeah, gut gut is, is huge.
Dr. Amy Derksen
But the thing that’s been interesting and I mean, I, you know, none of us have it figured out yet, but you know, so many of my colleagues and no, no bashing of them, but as a natural path, you know, we’re always taught, Oh, you do some apps that off listed bifidus and you do some food stuff. And you know, that doesn’t always work and you can give, you know, all the fancy probiotics in the world and all of this other stuff, and you run a stool test and it still looks terrible, but I’ve got to say either doing like oral immunoglobulins, like a product that has IgG and IGA in there ordering something like BPC. I have seen some things really significantly change where we’re repeating stool tests, but also just looking at symptoms more than anything that things are stabilizing. People are able to eat more food. The other thing to think of is, you know, the mental, emotional level and that neural programming. So something like DNRs, Annie Hopper’s work could be amazing. And I’ve had people when they’re ready to do it. It’s a hard sell, you know, people want a pill more than a time commitment.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Oh, that’s very true. And that’s what I am talking about. The gut brain access, but I think people forget, they have, they, you know, talked about how the gut influences the brain, but the brain also influences the gut. And so that’s where a lot of the studies you have, they give all these probiotics, but as soon as you stop eating, it goes right back. Right. Because you know, the brain, which is kind of like why I like BBC and, you know, TB for frag where it’s affecting both sides and you can kind of get, um, generally a little more long-term, uh, changes, but, uh, and stress, you know, stress is a killer. Um, and now it affects, you know, that sympathetic nervous system and causes immune modulation and, um, all that people kind of think, Oh, you’re stressed, uh, you know, stressed out what man know. Now it feel physically,
Dr. Amy Derksen
I think. And it’s tough because once you’ve been ill, your ability to actually make cortisol and handle the stress is less and less and less. And then there’s also the internal stress of the, the bite microbes or the toxins themselves that are stressing you. And it just really, you know, taxing,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
It’s a vicious cycle. Right. And I, I think if people aren’t stressed, they like, I think some people have Lyme, but you know, whatever you call Lyme can be a lot of things. But, um, if they’re not stressed or have these other things, they’re probably never going to have symptoms. You know, the body just suppresses it. But as soon as you get layering of all these other things, which often, you know, I’m sure you’ve seen this, it’s like death in the family divorce, or some trauma sets everything off. And then all of a sudden everything just goes,
Dr. Amy Derksen
Well, that’s what I’ve seen. I’ve been in practice now long enough to know that people that we treated for Lyme before and not to say, there’s, there’s never a bug load. Cause a lot of times there is, but we’ve gotten them better. And then some sort of family trauma happens. A parent dies, you know, a child is sick, something, a divorce, all of a sudden, all those old symptoms come back. Or what I see with my autistic children is maybe we dealt with heavy metals and all these things. And they were stable when they were younger. They’re coming back to me now that they’re going through puberty and all the hormones and other feeling different. And like a lot of those old symptoms tend to come out of the woodwork again. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I, I totally agree. And what, what, uh, I was thinking, what kind of testing you like to do? And, you know, we, we like to do a lot of tests that I’ve noticed that, you know, especially in the Mune sense, like the Lyme patients, chronic fatigue syndrome and the autistic kids, their lab work looks very, very similar, you know, it’s like, damn, okay. There’s like a very similar underlying issue going on.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Right? Yeah. So they asked sick the autistic child or the pans pandas kid, or the post Lyme syndrome patient, or your chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia patients, they’re all pretty similar. So a lot of the labs look good, like pretty darn normal. But if you really look at it, you’re seeing a lot of similarities there. I think the simple thing to look at with the CBC is the MEB. So you add up the monocytes, eosinophils basophils, if it’s over 10 and especially if it’s over 15, you know, the immune system is overactive and screaming at you. Um, everything’s normal. Everything’s normal to be normal, but man, give me someone’s chem panel and CBC and you can learn quite a bit from that.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. It’s just, yeah. Looking a little deeper and, and, but wait a minute, your CVC and your chem panel, your cholesterol or your cholesterol is a little high, that’s your problem, right?
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. But the thing that’s tough with a lot of this too, is, you know, you may have a lot of elevated viral antibodies, which are also normal because it just means you were exposed before, but what, what is normal and what ha what, when does that tell you that that’s actually something they’re still dealing with? It has to be treated or killed versus it’s a healthy immune response. And that’s where, you know, kind of the, the art of medicine comes in.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Well, it’s like, you know, a word and I don’t, you know, with Epstein BARR or Leanna gin or HHV six, they have like zero to 10 is normal. Everyone’s abnormal, but
Dr. Amy Derksen
Normal or, or there’s degrees of that.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And nine was normal. Yeah. But it’s strange how hell or with hormones, like some of the, a levels are like estrogen zero to something.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah, I know. Right. So you’re like, okay, I’m 0.1, but the normal range goes up to 60. So I’m normal. Oh, you’re normal. I know. No, it’s crazy. Um, I do find like an organic acid test. So a urine organic acid test is really telling, it gives you a lot of information about glutosiome your urea cycle and ammonia pathways, all your B vitamins, gut health. So yeast, bacterial markers, serotonin dopamine, um, really helpful just in a single, you know, morning urine sample. I also do a lot of stool testing. I do find, it gives me quite a bit of information. I like the GI map, but I also like the Genova GI effects. Um, I find they like they have their strengths and weaknesses. Um,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
What do you like assuming, I mean, you probably see the same thing. Well, it depends. Some people have been to every doctor, they have tons and tons of labs, but a lot have the same labs over and over and over. Um, with, let’s say you, you have a difficult person that, okay, what tests they can’t afford every cast. Um, but what do you kind of not insist on, but really encourage? What do you think are some of your key?
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah, so especially if it’s an adult and drawing blood is not traumatic, there’s a lot we can get, um, that would be covered by insurance if they have insurance. So, you know, your CBC, your chem, uh, homocysteine histamine level, um, you can look at some hormones, you can look at a TGF beta one, which will give you an idea. Is there a mold exposure or is there some sort of acute inflammatory response happening? You can run your viral titers. You can look at some vitamin status. So in a red blood cell zinc, a red blood cell, magnesium, those are so helpful because that’s looking at what’s inside the red blood cell average life span of that is three to four months. So that’s giving you a nice average. That’s not just, you know, a supplement that they’re taking in. A lot of times, those two minerals are really low and really impact a lot of other things.
Dr. Amy Derksen
A methylmalonic acid is really helpful to know that intracellular B12 level, you know, if you run a serum B12, everyone’s going to be high if they’ve ever taken a B12 supplement. Um, but the methylmalonic acid could tell you a lot, trying to think what else we put in there. Put all kinds of stuff. Um, I do quantitative immunoglobulins. So IgG, IGA, IgM, IgE to know some portion, right? Because some people are low and some people are sky high. And the way that you’re going to approach treatments for those patients is going to be a little different. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And that’s what, you know, I think our average panel for a sick patient and I was like 35, like quest tests, you know, the, uh, phlebotomist at the, at the draw station, we used to draw her office, but it was us. But, uh, they go crazy. And I remember I went in to get my blood drawn, like, Oh, this is that doctor, that orders all of them. And I’m like, Hey, I heard he’s awesome. I’ve heard he’s really good looking too. Uh, but it’s, it’s, uh, it’s funny and they screw up some of the tests. You really want natural killer cell function. And he went to his brain growth factor, beta CFRA. They tend to screw it up. But, um, yeah. And then I think they’re even better, like now that like, you know, quest, they’re doing the immuno blot instead of the Western lot, uh, picking up a lot more, but they’ll tend to be nor like, you know, negative, but they got a band that is only in 0.1% of normal people like hello.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Right. And so that’s the thing is you have to learn how to really read those labs. It’s actually something that the doctors that I work with and I have been wanting to go back to best year to teach graduating students of how do you navigate all these, all these labs, right? What can you learn from it? I’ve presented in other lectures. And one thing that I’m going to upload kind of after this is just a PowerPoint on some of this stuff. And I can also put those in there too.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
So you’re offer that, uh, forever.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. And I plan on recording it too. So if you’re a visual person, you’ll have the slides and then
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
That’s great because it is, it’s like that within this range, you know? And, and I think you get such a good picture when, when this is high, but they can all be normal, but you’re like one glance you’re like, hello,
Dr. Amy Derksen
You don’t see that it’s messed up. So the other thing is, you know, I do autonomic response testing. So I trained with dr. Klinghardt and that’s a skill that he’s developed and I’ve taught for him, gosh, for a long time now. And so it’s, it’s another, it’s a second opinion. You know, what is the body having to say? How do you navigate through all this stuff? When someone is sitting in front of you and everything’s normal, but they still feel really horrible. You know, what’s the priority. Where do you start? It can be a great way to know, especially if someone’s really sensitive, what can they tolerate? So it helps us. The other thing is we also look at environment. So, um, if they’re suspected mold exposure, especially, you know, we’ll do a detailed intake. And I think taking a patient history is the number one. There’s so much there and learn from the mistakes of the past, learn from what helped them in the past. What made them worse? There’s so many clues there and you know, don’t assume someone else has already figured that all out, you know, they’ve come to you, you need to look at it with another fresh set of eyes. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And I think, you know, after the history is that I like to do a lot of tests, then I pretty much know what it’s gonna look like, but I feel I have to show the patient that look because everyone else said you’re a normal, but you know, people go, what if you don’t find anything? Well, it doesn’t happen yet. But, um, yeah, where you can paint a picture, you know, and then decide together what’s you know what direction.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. And it’s also how you present it too. So get excited with someone when you find some abnormals rather than, Oh no, you know, it’s all about how you frame it. So we found some things here. We’ll have some explanations for why you’re feeling so bad. This we can work on this easier.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I would say I got good news. I got bad news. The bad news is you’re hypercoaguable good. News is you’re hypercoaguable, you know,
Dr. Amy Derksen
Good news is we can treat that. The other thing is you have to make sure, I mean, it’s not a lab, but to ask your patient, if they’re pooping every day, um, it is not uncommon that the gosh, I was working with a family last month and I asked about their daughter and they’re like, Oh, she’s the best grouper in the family. She goes every three days. And I thought, Oh my goodness, like what a lot to do. And so it’s not uncommon, you know, a lot of that sort of bowel laxity and the lack of Paracelsus happening because you’re stuck in that fight or flight mode, one of these illnesses that you’re dealing with, and you’re not in that nice parasympathetic mode. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And it is, I’ve never seen so many people happy when you tell them they have line. It’s like, thank God. You know, because they’re just, they want some diagnosis, something to work on. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
But the other thing I would say too, because I know this is going out to other doctors is even if you don’t know Lyme, if someone comes to you saying they’re Lyme patient, it doesn’t mean you can’t help them. It’s just, you know, the Lyme organisms, Lyme and all the co-infections are very inflammatory. So they may need someone to help them kind of know the things to treat that, but you still know the, and how can you work on drainage and detox support and how can you deal with them, your modulation and all these things that’s going to help them tolerate those treatments.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Absolutely. Cause it doesn’t mean we, you know, we used to be okay, you got this, let’s just go after it now. Like, they’re like, why aren’t you giving me antibiotics? No, we’re not. We’re going to cause other things first. And you have to get from a to B, we get there much faster by not doing that first.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Absolutely. If it’s an acute exposure, of course, you’re going to jump to antibiotics. It’s not, it’s not our first thing out of the gate. So I’m glad to hear that you’re in the same camp.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. I mean, he’s a cute, a very aggressive within and they say, well, that’s overkill. I said, if it was me, cause I know how horrible the fricking illness is. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy that if I can prevent that. But once you have it, there’s better ways of going about it to get to that final.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Sometimes people need to reduce that load and that’s where
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And then they have their place, everything has its place. Right. And um, let’s see. What, what are your favorite peptides? W what, what do you want?
Dr. Amy Derksen
Oh gosh, we’re going to jump down there. All right. So favorite peptides, I’m going to scroll down. Sorry. I have notes in front of me. It’s been a long day. So favorite peptides, thymus and alpha one. Love it. Um, tea before and the tea before friends,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Uh, of the other times now, for one, you know, it’s a big key H one booster boost, natural killer cell function. It’s approved in 30 countries from cancer to auto, uh, to, uh, in fact, Sharon’s, uh, approved as an orphan drug in the us also for melanoma. Um, but, uh, yeah, it’s it, it’s one of the immune, the timing peptides all similar, but a little different. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. So I can talk a little, I have some notes here, if you want on that 5% alpha one. So, you know, usually it’s an injection, it’s a subcutaneous injection, tiny little needle. Um, really no documented side effects or negative side effects with that by missing alpha one. And I would say it’s probably your first go-to in your chronic patients or the patient who shows up and is saying, Oh, I don’t tolerate anything. I can’t do that supplement because of that ingredient. I can’t eat this food. I can’t do anything for more than a couple days, five minutes, an awful one can be fantastic. And I would also say that it’s one of the only treatments where more sometimes is better in that patient. You know, usually that’s the patient that we want to be really careful with, but I actually find if right off the gate, you actually go a relatively high dose. So even up to a half a CC per injection every day for a total of two weeks before you back off, you know, see if you can get things to calm down. And that may be something that you revisit later in treatments to, whenever they’re flared, you can go back to that high daily dose there for a couple of weeks and it can be really helpful.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And I think with that comment is because things with the immune system, we’re kind of a teeter-totter. So if you raise that teach when you’re lowering the inflammation, and, but as if you asked the chef how to bake a cake during it, you know, five shares in six different answers. I mean, in general, I mean, there’s so many ways to do anything like, well, we’ll use you as BBC first kind of calm it down, then, then add the diamond sins, but there’s no right or wrong. It’s it’s whatever works. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
So the time is set up for one. The other thing I would say is this has been great. And the pans pandas patients, when they’re flaring, um, you know, the you’re not going to inject for the very first time in the middle of a raging flare, but it is something when they’re more calm. Um, I am a huge believer of talking to my patients, even if they can’t communicate that well, to explain, Hey, we’re going to do this, the shot with you. And here’s why, you know, this is why I want to do this. This is why I think it’s going to help you. And why don’t we don’t have a better option. And like, Hey, I’m going to teach mom right now, how to do the shot. She’s going to do it on me. Do you want
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
To scratch so tiny, tiny,
Dr. Amy Derksen
And it really doesn’t hurt. Um, a lot of kids are actually preferring to have it in their upper arm just to do a little pinch it’s subcutaneous. So you can just do a little pinch there, um, belly the bottom, um, actually,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Have you tried? [inaudible] I have not. Yeah. So I would, and some of your patients use where we would use the timestamp one [inaudible] it’s a much more, uh, immunosuppressant lowering inflammation and, uh, I’ll, I’ll shoot you some studies
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. With you. Is it a prescription or is it,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s a injectable, um, we’re working for ways to get it orally, but, uh, um, yeah. Uh, but yeah, I would, I would try it out and see, see what you think.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. And I just switched compounding pharmacies and the new pharmacy I’m working with has it as a nasal spray that I’m about to try for myself. So I asked them,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
So it’s, it’s interesting with, you know, people are throwing this stuff sublingually and nasally, um, some are outliers. Um, uh, but we’ve spent a lot of money like with, with some of the big pharma CRMs, which, and they actually have these programs that will tell you can this absorb and a lot of the ones that people are using, you know, sublingually, Oh, sublingual, it’s going work. It’s like 0%, you know? Um, and you know, you even look at, you know, like the GLP ones from big pharma, actually, they got absorption up to 1%. That’s the big breakthrough. So a lot of these things are very tough to get to absorb. Um, and, uh, but look for clinical outcomes.
Dr. Amy Derksen
I’m curious, I’m gonna try it with myself first and kiddos that are kind of tired of doing injections.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And, and there’s some that don’t like the AOD. Yeah. It’s pretty long, but in absorbs, um, we just, uh, tested, uh, testing on some, uh, techy peptide, some for, I mean, no acids and got no absorption with just kinda, uh, standard stuff. So people just putting these things sublingual, uh, it just wasting your money, but yeah, but so data’s tough. It’s not cheap were doing the test. So it’s, it’s taken a little while and, uh, and, uh, it costs a lot, but, uh, uh, some of these things are tough to absorb, but anyways,
Dr. Amy Derksen
If I miss it off, one is good. It helps with, uh, senescence. I’ll just put that in. Let’s
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Talk about that. Cause I think that’s a important topic.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. I’m going to go to my notes cause it’s a tough topic. So I’m trying to simplify it because I’ve been to many conferences talking about this and it sort of makes your head spin. And my background was in biochemistry, want to kill the cells. So I’m going to simplify it in a way that makes it, I don’t think I’m oversimplifying it too much, but just that makes sense that because I’ve always wondered, like why is it that someone could get exposed to Lyme disease or a moldy environment and you’ve treated the infection. You’ve got them out of that space, but yet they continue to be stuck in this sort of depleted state. Right? The stamina’s not there. They’re still so tired.Â
They’re still not sleeping. Um, you know, struggling to put on weight and some of those things and having so much mitochondrial deficiency going on, it’s like, there’s not enough gas to run the car. And the senescence piece really makes sense for me. I’m going to throw my glasses on so I can see this. Okay. So cell senescence essentially there is, it’s a cell response to DNA damage. So which is typically oxidative stress. It could be infection, it could be a chemical exposure. You could just be normal aging. So if that in the right environment, sometimes these cells can go into a senescent state. So basically the cell has lost its ability to divide and it’s stuck in the state of arrest. And the problem with that is, um, it has abnormal cell growth. There’s a lack of that apoptosis. So the body can’t clean it up and kill off that toxic cell
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Apoptosis
Dr. Amy Derksen
That pre-programmed cell death. So it’s not able to. So what you have is you have a damaged cell, um, that’s stuck, so it’s not dividing, it’s not proliferating. And that’s how our body is protecting us from like that. We’re not making tumors with every little exposure that we have, but what’s happening is inside the cell. There’s some damage. So the DNA repair machinery isn’t working, right. It starts to excrete, some cytokines and some chemokine basically these chemical messengers that are making more reactive oxygen species. And it’s going down this lactate cycle rather than the pirate cycle, which is resulting in this depletion of NAD, which is a big source of energy, especially for the mitochondria. So the mitochondria are getting more damaged. That cell is, is not functioning properly. And it’s greedy. It’s like, Hey, I need more NAD. I got to take my easiest pathway to do that. And so it continues down this pathway. So it gets out of kind of the phase of,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah, it’s wasting all that energy. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
The energy. And then it essentially starts to poison the cells around it. So even in the absence of the infection, once that’s been treated or the absence of the mold exposure or the chemical exposure, you have these toxic cells that are now over time, poisoning the rest of them and making the cells around them now more damage creating mitochondrial dysfunction. So you’re depleting all that NAD, which is a lot of why a lot of our patients need the NAD and why they’re so dependent on Dennis Hill B12 and B12 shots and all this methylation support. But yet you do the methylation support and it completely tanks them. And so it explains to me how these kinds of secondary mitochondrial issues are coming up. And that’s really the big thing. Once someone’s been sick and they’re sort of on the road to recovery, they’re stuck, right? They want to exercise, but they’re too tired to do it, or it makes them feel worse.Â
And so you really have to start at the ground level. And that’s where the senescence was kind of the cause of that. And one thing that’s nice as like T before NTA one are really good at the TA. One will kind of re remove this camouflage from those cells. So the body can start to clean that up, but both of those can help to repair those senescent cells. Other things that can help with that would be fasting. So that’s why intermittent fasting is actually such a great thing. If you can have someone fast for 14 to 16 hours of every day, um, really helps to reduce that senescence reduces aging, you know, helps you feel better. Um, exercise is one thing that can reduce that. Not always a possibility for our sick patients, but for the rest of us, you know, exercise is fantastic. Um, one reason why ozone works so well, is it actually activates NAD inside those cells? So the NAD that it’s needing so much to function is actually getting activated by that, which is why that therapy is working so well.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah, it is. It’s like they got either cells got to heal or die, you know, you gotta, you gotta get them out of there. And, um, and do you have, do you use some of the mitochondrial booster peptides? Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Use a little bit. I haven’t played with that as much as I want to yet. And I, I’ve got to say probably that I’m ready to play more. It’s tough. Um, some of the other doctors in my practice have used that in other doctors I’ve worked with have, have used that. I find a lot of times people are depleted. So I use a lot of acetylcarnitine co Q, 10 other antioxidants and Ady, um, yeah,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I’ll all those again, back to basics, you know,
Dr. Amy Derksen
And I find that they need that. Um, sometimes first or in addition to a lot of times I’m still dealing with people who are pretty flared. Um, so I’m trying to calm that down first, but yeah, I’m to try that, you know, my first peptide conference, probably the wisest words that came out of that word, get to know a few peptides really well before you expand the peptides that you use because you know, peptides are, are a big deal. They’re expensive. So that’s going to be one thing that you have to justify to yourself into your patient if they’re repairative. So I always think of these of these are actually healing. So if you do three months of a peptide, it’s not like you come off it and you haven’t had any gains that you’re going to continue on. You know, I could do three months of curcumin and nothing against curcumin, but as soon as I go off curcumin or ibuprofen, I’m back to the same inflammatory state I was in before I just put a little bandaid on it, but the peptides are healing and repairative, yeah,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
It’s like the studies on a battalion, you know, basically they did it, you know, one time a year, once or twice a year. And they got great results in longevity reduction in cardiovascular disease, mortality, morbidity, um, all these things. So it really affects the genes that perpetuate. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Um, should we maybe talk about TB for, yeah. I, you know, a lot more about T before that I do, but I, I love tea before I actually love the integrated peptides TB for frog plus, um, has been pretty awesome for a lot of my patients. Um, it seems to be also really good with people who don’t tolerate things that wise, um, that one’s been really helpful. And also for people where I don’t trust them to do injections on their own at home. Like, I don’t know that they’re going to do that in a enough of a sterile environment or it’s just too much for them to kind of think of, or it’s too scary.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. For some people it’s a big step or a training, a doctor, how to give a shot, so that’s gonna be, but, uh, yeah. I mean, people think it’s a much bigger deal to do a shot, you know, they don’t realize it’s so tiny, but it’s like the biggest man usually freaked out the most, but yeah, it’s, it’s, I think very complimentary to BBC, you know, that the four TB before frag will heal the tight junctions. Um, and it’s similar, uh, times now for one, but maybe more rejuvenating, uh, factors.
Dr. Amy Derksen
It can help with bone growth. So that’s really good. Like MCCI patients or, um, I have some patients with a [inaudible], um, TB four can be really helpful there.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I don’t know if we should get into into that, but yeah, that’s such an interesting, uh, condition and, and I really think a lot of the people have the genetics of it, but cause they all have lime. Right. You know, and then I think the immune dysfunction and infections actually epigenetically activate those genes. That’s my sense. Yeah. So then all those, you have the genes and then there, how
Dr. Amy Derksen
Are they phenotypically expressed and that’s all based on environment and exposures for sure.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And, and so it’s, it’s like, they are just, uh, you know, a massive, they get, you know, cerebral spinal leaks and uh, and yeah, I think it all is the, the epigenetics of it, like why I was thinking, like, why would those people be so prone to getting Lyme? You know, are they all hikers, you know, or something, you know? But yeah, it’s, it’s interesting stuff. And I think you probably find this and the more you dig, the more you realize you don’t know, and it just, you go down the rabbit hole, all of a sudden, you know, I’m reading studies and it’s the sun’s coming up and I’m like, Oh my God, I gotta be in the office in an hour. So yeah. You probably go through the same.
Dr. Amy Derksen
I saw you emailed me at three 30 last night, so,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Oh, did I? Yeah. Yeah. Early. Yeah. It’s when, usually I can catch people because they’re getting up and I’m going to bed, but
Dr. Amy Derksen
So yeah, the TB four, you know, works really nicely along with the TA one or you can use them in tandem, you know, before you should. So the way that it’s always been taught to me, and what I’ve seen is that you should take a break from that where the TA one, you can stay on long-term but T before you should cycle. Um,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And I think there’s, there’s no great studies on that. And I think just out of abundance of caution, uh, you might as well cycle it, you know? Um, and by miss and alpha, one has more studies. It’s been FDA approved now. Um, but yeah, most stuff, uh, patients tend to cycle themselves anyways. Like, they’ll go off of it, go back on it. But yeah,
Dr. Amy Derksen
You’ll find if you you’re doing this yourself, like I noticed with CA one, I loved it, loved it, loved it. And then I was like, man, I don’t, I wasn’t, it was funny after about three months, I just, I had to take a break. I didn’t, I don’t know why it wasn’t that it was doing anything bad and it works a lot better when I went back on it. So, yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Or also like supplements, you know, I can give you a thousand supplements that are great. And I take a ton. If you were to scan down, there’s like a whole desk is full of supplements, but it’s just like, I realized it, let me just do my core ones and it’s like 50 and you know, you just get tired of it, you know? So, uh, it’s it. Yeah. It’s tough. Which I like peptides because they’re, they work in such small amounts,
Dr. Amy Derksen
But I’ve seen the tea before can be a little more triggering than the TA one. So in a really reactive patient, I go TA one, um, TB.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
No. And have you found that with the full length tea before?
Dr. Amy Derksen
So I found that what the full length TV for more so than with the frag.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. So the full length T before there’s a domain, there’s multiple domains on T before. And so the frag that, uh, we have out, uh, does not have the domain that stimulates mass cells.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
So T before overall it’s to be good for mass cells cause the mean modulation, but there are some people go, Oh my God, I just totally flare cause as a,
Dr. Amy Derksen
Tell me how to ease them, ease them into it. If that makes sense, because I was using the TV for frag Moore where, um, one of the other doctors in my practice was using the injectable tea before and she was having to be really careful with dosing and I was just jumping into twice a day dosing and having,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. Yeah. So it eliminates that. And it also that frag won’t grow hair. There’s a different frame that grows hair. So, um, although you look at the TB for frag, lots of studies on it, it has the same, uh, immune modulatory, antifibrotic, uh, you know, anti-inflammatory effects as the full length, but eliminate some of those negatives. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Okay. So if you want the hair growth help with it, you have to use the full tea before. So no,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
There’s separate five because the problem is the TB four 43. I mean, it’s not
Dr. Amy Derksen
Okay. So the TB frag that still help with the hair,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
We, uh, uh, separate different frag, we will, should be available in.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Okay. I’m excited.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And then, uh, do you like to verbalize, did use verbally
Dr. Amy Derksen
You cerebral license? So, yeah,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
So that, I, I love I do myself. I mean, I had in general cause I had Lyme. I noticed since I was born, like the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever met, unless it’s a medical study and that’s, unless I can make connections, you know, or if I go to dinner with someone that I don’t care too much about and someone asks me about it, I’m like I never went there. It’s a little scary, but if it’s medical, I can cite all this and that, you know, and have the, those connections. But, um, the problem is that you can’t get TB, uh, cerebral ice and injectable anymore, but it is bioavailable orally. So, um, the capsule one capsule equal about TCCs. Okay. Um, so that should, should have been out a month ago, but with COVID, uh, I think two weeks,
Dr. Amy Derksen
Well, I’m excited about that. So a lot of the kiddos were doing really great with this yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Before for the autistic kids. And you know, we have one, uh, autistic kid out on, just so excited about, cause the mom gave a video of him playing basketball before he came in, which was him standing there and the basketball just went by him. And he came in, we had to see him before office hours, you know, cause it’s bombs go in and he couldn’t touch. Uh, I had to be, um, now he comes in, he’s actually sarcastic, joking says, can I have a hug? He does his own injections. Um, it’s he, Oh, he’s playing basketball. He’s doing gymnastics. Uh, just total know. I mean, those are the
Dr. Amy Derksen
Things that are amazing and the kids that aren’t talking and then the next visit they come in and they’re like, Hey, dr. Amy, and they’re reading off everything that they can see and the parents like, can you get them to be quiet? Sorry, we can’t turn it off once we, it out.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
That is, so it is. And I just get, you could not get near them any site, can I have a hug? Wow. You know, it just like, damn, you know,
Dr. Amy Derksen
That’s the thing. And you’ll get these little glimpses, even in the really reactive kids or even in your, you know, any of your chronically ill adults, there’ll be these little windows where they feel normal and they act normal. I mean, for lack of a better word. And that’s always assigned to me that, you know, there’s not permanent damage that we have that we can work for to get there and stay there.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I, I think it’s key and I, you know, trained doctors say, okay, really work to get them some improvement. It doesn’t have to be permanent. So they have hope because they’ve been told all these things and nothing ever happens. And, and people say, well, that was probably placebo. Not with these patients. Everything’s a no CBO. It’s like, they don’t expect it to work, you know? And, and so if you can get them feeling better, even just for a little bit, the glimpse, okay. We made it there, you know, and usually you’re probably gonna relapse a little bit, but it’s never as bad and the next time will be shorter. You’re gonna feel better longer. And it’s just, they just totally different mindset.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. But also prepping that they can flare and how that can be a positive, you know, if you’re doing antibiotics or you’re starting LDA or LDI and you feel worse, I’m sorry. You feel worse, but that’s awesome because we found some organisms that are triggering all these reactions in you. So we can work with that. Right. Doesn’t mean I’m shit. Yay. Okay.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Oh great. You know, um, but I think less and less, we’re kind of yeah, because we, you know, as you, we’ve learned to mitigate that, you know, feeling horrible, but it’s like when I did sot therapy, I didn’t do any of this stuff to mitigate, um, a flare because I want to see if it works. And then I’m like, I thought it was pretty cure and I’m like, damn, I’m getting, this is a perks. I’m like awesome. You know? Um, yeah. So, uh, it’s it, it’s interesting. And, and, uh, I’d rather see a new treatment flare someone cause you know, it’s doing something right.
Dr. Amy Derksen
And you know, it’s doing something right? Yeah. Cause we have a lot of people with no reaction.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. So, uh, I don’t, I just love speaking with you. I keep feeling when you just keep going on.
Dr. Amy Derksen
No, I did not BBC one 57, which is one of my favorites. Okay. So, you know, and integrated peptides offers a great capsule option. That’s a good price point for people.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And, but the main medication it’s available, many other places
Dr. Amy Derksen
It’s available in many other places. Um, I have it compounded, I love the injections as well. Um, personal issue. I had a pretty severe Achilles tendonitis, um, so bad so that I was having a hard time walking around the office. I was meant to be doing this Ragnar relay race. That was eight miles. A lot of moms, depending on me, you know, and it was what I just said. It’s like a relay, but it’ll go overnight. Yeah. And so it was two days away. I was having a hard time even walking around and I didn’t want to bail on this and took my VPC, injected my own Achilles twice a day for two days, pain was gone and yes, it flared after my, you know, I crossed the finish line. I was ready to be off that, but pretty amazing just to see firsthand something that like Achilles tendonitis, my shoe couldn’t even touch it. And it’s a stubborn, you know, with plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis is a bad thing. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
The other alternative. Okay. Do steroid injections put it as split plan. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Right. And I mean, there’s still other things to do with it, but just to see firsthand how, how healing it could be. And like even after starting injections, I had an old snowboarding injury of a shoulder that I couldn’t lift my arm. I had done all kinds of stuff after just doing sub Q in my abdomen for a month, I realized I went to pay, uh, like a parking meter. And I was like, Oh my God, my shoulder doesn’t even hurt. And I hadn’t even, it wasn’t even on my radar that it could be working for that. And so it’s, you know, it finds its way to wherever the district, like, wait a minute. Now I can do this tie my shoes. So great for injury prevention. Great. For those old entries, the other thing I’m really loving with the BPC, which, you know, I’m preaching to the choir here, but, um, is for the gut repair, you know, that’s been probably the biggest wow.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Cause when I first learned about it, you know, that it was all like sports medicine sort of driven all the lectures on that. So I was really thinking the athletic sort of piece and then sort of feeling better in your body, but, and it was sort of a side note that it could help the gut. And what I was seeing with so many people is after years of us being on this train of like, Oh, you know, a couple times a year, we’re having to do some sort of parasite protocol or whatever. Like the gut is healing up. Like it really is, which is also translating into them feeling better. So I using it a lot now with my autistic kids. Um, I’m using a definitely a lot with a lot of my adults and the people who were sick before and aren’t a hundred percent well, but are on their way and trying to get stronger. I find the BPC is excellent for that. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yep. I, I agree. Uh, it’s kinda, it’s, it’s basically a core for us now. Yeah. That and the T before, too, before frag, uh, and uh, you know, it, it is, we do a lot of other things and um, it’s even like, you know, we love horror. I love hormones and all the thyroid, uh, you know, there, there are so many great things, but it’s, we start what most people get better with, you know? And it’s the safest yeah. And become the car. Well, awesome. You’re obviously doing so many great things with some of the sickest patients and, um, you’re, uh, having to run a practice with other doctors, which in my eyes,
Dr. Amy Derksen
That’s good. I’m lucky I have a work in progress. Always. You know, luckily the person I’m dating is that actually a management coach. And so he’s helped me through some big office transitions and things just, you know,
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
It is tough. I don’t know, this is kind of off, off topic for the thing, but you know, we’re doctors want to see patients, but you end up managing and I don’t know, I’m a, I’m a bad manager. I’m too nice. I am, you know, and that’s not what I want to do. And it’s taken away time from seeing patients. But, um, yeah. It’s like, you only see so many patients, so you’re branching out, you’re teaching all these other doctors and I just love the fact how you guys are collaborating together. Um, that’s what medicine should be.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Yeah. It’s fun. It’s awesome. Yeah. So Christopher Wakeley, he’s one of the other doctors in my office. You interview him tomorrow, so have fun with that.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Oh, great. Great. Yeah. Looking forward to, he’s really nice.
Dr. Amy Derksen
Oh my gosh. He is super nice. And he is like, if you ever need research, he’s your guy. He’s a fantastic clinician, but Oh my gosh. He’s like always hitting the books and looking at the studies.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
That’s awesome. Yeah. That’s like me. I ended up spending all night to find one little piece of information that I can maybe use, you know, but, uh, that’s awesome. I mean, you’re, you’re just doing great work and uh, thank you for taking time. So I met you, I met so many great people doing this, this summit, you know, and, uh, uh, which even at conferences, you don’t get to you. Don’t get to sit down and talk to people.
Dr. Amy Derksen
No, not yet. Yeah.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. It’s a pleasure. Just the, your passion just exudes. So
Dr. Amy Derksen
Thanks so much. Keep up the good work tonight.
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