From Addiction to Healing: A Naturopath’s Wake-Up Call Dr. Kaila

Introduction and Background 0:00

My name is Dr. Kayla and I'm a naturopath here at the Nutritional Healing Center. Cool. Where'd you go to school? I studied at Trinity School of Natural Health. Nice. Let's talk about your history and why you got into natriopathic healthcare. So what was the moment that you decided in your brain? Like there's usually a moment where people have where they're like, yeah, I want to help people using natripathic principles. Okay. Do you want the real story? Yeah. I don't know if you know the real story.

I probably don. Okay. So, gosh, back in maybe 2006, 2007, around that time, I was living a life that was not a good life.I was doing things that you shouldn't be doing, putting things in my body that shouldn t be there, using pharmaceuticals in a way that I also at that time watched Super Size Me.

Turning Point and Career Shift 0:58

And in that documentary, they refer to their fast food consumers as users, like drug addicts. So at the time I was using drugs and I eating a lot of fast foods. I watched this documentary and immediately got pissed off that I'm a victim of the system. you're not going to have me as a victim to your system. And I basically, I just got really pissed off and I said, something's got to change. So I did a lot of changes, cold turkey, which I wouldn't recommend if you know, you are doing things like that, but I didn't.

I'm not really helping people get off of those things. You know like I don't necessarily want to help a bunch of drug addicts personally. overcome that. But truly, it was drug addiction and fast food addiction that got me pissed off when I realized that they were basically using me and they knew that I was a user. And I got I just got pissed of the system. I realize that's when pharmacy and food was in bed with each other. Yeah. So from that moment, how'd you get into naturopathic school? Well, from that moment, I decided I was actually going to go to school at Eastern.

I knew that I needed to remove myself from my hometown in order to really focus on what I need to do to make big changes. And so I decide I'm going go dietetic school and teach people how to heal with food. I thought that's what dietetics was at the time. I knew I wanted to make a more holistic approach or take a holistic more approach to that but I didn't really know how to at that time so I though if I go to school for dietetic at least I'll have the foundational education and if the holistic thing doesn't work out for me I can atleast fall back on that and still work in a hospital and have a good job.

And then I moved to Michigan and I put all the steps in place. I lived here for a year. Got my license. Changed my address. Did all of the things I thought I needed to do to get in-state tuition. And I registered for classes and they sent me a $15,000 bill for the semester.

Trinity Training and Final Exam 3:14

No, I'm not doing this. Like this is asinine basically that you want to charge this much. I realized at that point I was never going to get in-state tuition, that I got bad information from an advisor and I had to course correct. So I actually was working in a restaurant and one of our regulator regulars knew you. And so she got me a job here with you or got my interview here. And I think that was in 2012. I started here as a patient advocate. And so through working through your office, I met other people who went to school through Trinity.

That's kind of how I found the naturopathic end of things. Cool. So your training was four years at Trinity? At Trinity, Trinity is a self-paced program. At the time, things could have changed by now. At the time they allowed you up to four years to complete all that coursework. I don't think it took me all four. Years. Um, I think I went through it pretty quickly, but yeah, you get four, years. To complete that. Okay. Let me ask the question that we can delete it. Your answer. There was like the final exam, you went to Indiana or something for a final example.

You had a hard time with one of the professors. I did. So I want to hear about that. Okay, so we had the option for our final exams to either write a dissertation or to go for an in-person practicum, I think is what they called it. And at that in person, they basically test you live on all of these modalities that they were teaching. And so you're in a group and no one in my group wanted to demonstrate muscle testing on stage. And I thought, no problem. I've got this, you know? And so I'm up there, I am doing the muscle testing and the instructor that I was testing, her arm keeps flapping, arm keep fapping, and I lost at this point.

I don't really know what to do. So I calibrated her and arm kept fopping. And what I didn't do was I did not ask her what arm she would like to use. She claimed she can't hold a candle to the wind. with this one arm. And so she flunked me on that part and I had to retest, I think, two other times over that weekend before I actually passed.

Clinic Experience and Returning to Practice 5:48

But yeah, she gave me a run for my money and she kind of knocked me off my, you know, my ladder or whatever. She knocked my down and it stuck with me for a long time. Yeah. So do you think she was just being evil or was she just been technical with the procedure? I as you and I know, there are many ways to muscle test, everyone seems to have their own technique. And so I was very experienced and well trained in what we do here at the office. That's not how they teach it at Trinity. So I think it was just a matter of, hey, this is how we're teaching it, and this how were going to grade you.

I just missed a step and that was it. What did you learn from that? Okay. So when you get your final pass, you ended up working at another clinic, right? I did. Yeah, for like a year or something. You kind of ran it. I kind Yeah. so I worked with another practitioner for about five years, I think it was and then I started seeing clients at her office and eventually was more or less running it with another, uh, office manager, you know, so it was like the two of us that would run it when she was out of town and then she would come back and see her clients in practice.

And in the interim, I would see your clients while also building my own clientele. Yeah. So with, um, a variety of cases that you've seen over how many years now of seeing patients. Well, Probably about two years at that office and then I actually took a couple years off before I decided that this was truly,

Patient Success Story and Healing Philosophy 7:34

you know, the right fit for me. And then, I came back and that's when I August of 2024. Okay. So it's been a year and a half plus two years. Three and half years of seeing patients. Is there one particular case or person or visit with a patient that sticks out where you learned a super valuable lesson regarding procedure, health improvement, what the body can do, whatever? Well, I do have one client right now who came to me with, I guess, kidney issues, gout, very inflamed, just very sick. And I feel like we kind of chased things with supplements for a while and we weren't really touching fasting and ketosis because of the concern of kidneys.

This client decided to just do that on their own. and is having remarkable success to the point where I don't see him weekly anymore. I see them maybe every couple of months now because fasting and ketosis is doing more for him than anything that we've done so far. So yes, I love supplements, but I think it's a good testament to going back to foundations and the basics, you know, like diet and lifestyle is number one. You cannot out supplement a bad diet in a by bad lifestyle. So what kinds of people do you like to work with?

I like work to with people who are ready to do the work. I don't really care to to many people that want to use this as a quick fix. This is a long term diet and lifestyle change. Not a Quick Fix. Nice. What's your overall philosophy about healing the human body from chronic illness? So my overall, philosophy for healing, the body would be nature first. Um, so if it is in accordance with nature, go ahead and do it. I really like working with whole food products and anything that gets the, body back to its normal kind of rhythms of nature or circadian rhythm.

Okay, good, give me some examples. I would probably go with fulvic and humic acid. They're naturally occurring in nature. A lot of people know it as shiwiji, I think that's the most common or commercial fulpic and human acid supplement that people find.

Testing Methods and Lymphatic Health 10:12

And we work with more intelligently designed products that also contain fulsic in humica. Cool, why, what are they and what does that do? They are, also concentrated minerals. Great detoxifiers, usually very concentrated in the carbons. Okay, good. What diagnostic tests or assessments do you commonly use to evaluate a patient's overall health? Prior to January of 2025, I would have only used muscle response testing. Now that we have MVX available, that is my starting point. So if you don't have NVX, i don' do the muscle testing until I have that.

It's just a great guide and lets me know if you're working more towards immune issues or toxicity issues, or if your body has drainage dysfunction, myocondrial dysfunction. So I like to start there. Nice. Speaking of drainage, dysfunction what's your favorite body systems? The list goes on for that. Right. What kind of conditions and results do you get when you are dressing? the lymphatic system? Like what it indicates to you that somebody needs work with their lymphotic system. I have seen, even in myself included, I used to get dark circles under my armpits when I would be toxic.

And so I will do things like clay masks on my arm pits or products like lymphenus, Spanish black radish. those would probably be the most common. I see a lot of itching. People get itch in the groin or it on the bottom of the feet, itchy armpits, lumps under the armpit, swelling under tonsil area. So those will all be very common indicators. Nice. What specific lifestyle interventions do you recommend for patients with chronic inflammatory conditions? Um, well, I always go back to the basics with people, so it's always going to start with diet and lifestyle change.

So making sure that they have a strong foundation to stand on before you even do something more intensive, like deep cellular detox. If they're eating a standard American diet, on a gradient, remove the junk and at the same time, replace it with the good stuff.

Lifestyle, Hormones, and Gut Health 12:24

I tend to teach more of an animal-based approach to nutrition. an animal-based approach to nutrition. So I want people eating meat, mostly red meat if they can. I like to eliminate most vegetables unless they're technically considered a fruit. A cucumber is a food, a pepper is fruit, tomato is food. When it comes to vegetables, I usually teach the vegetables that are technically fruits. Distilled water is the big deal. And I guess that would probably be where I start with most people. Okay, sounds good.

How do you assess and treat hormonal imbalances, particularly in conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome or thyroid disorders? Well, with conditions like PCOS, I consider that an insulin issue. And so it's often referred to as diabetes of the ovaries. So it all goes back to diet and liver health with PCOs, teaching people how insulin works in the body when it is most sensitive and what foods that they can eat to achieve better insulin sensitivity. How do you address gut health issues such as dysbiosis or leaky gut within your practice?

So I would remove toxicity and clean up the immune system first. Immune challenges leave their own wastes behind and so cleaning up their waste, your toxic waste while also working to heal and seal the tight junctions of the gut using products like mucosigenic from Alimentum Labs and maybe even some diet changes like drinking more bone broth and incorporating foods that can help heal the gut as well. That's nice.