If Two Kids Live in the Same House, Why Does Only One Get Eczema? with Functional Medicine Dr. Paula Kruppstadt

Introduction and guest background 0:00

Hey team, welcome back to the Exficits Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Paula Kruppstadt. She's a board-certified pediatrician, a certified functional medicine practitioner through the Institute of Functional Medicine, and the founder of Hope for Healing. She's spent years helping kids and adults get to the root of stubborn issues like eczema and allergies and asthma and all autoimmune conditions, especially when the creams and steroids and though grow out of it advice just has completely failed and in this conversation we get into why some kids are practically born with a weaker detox system and the big glutathione gene GSTP1 she sees in almost every eczema case how constipation eczema and that hangry behavior are all connected and when it actually makes sense to look at genetics and when you can skip the testing and just start supporting the body and simple, practical ways to start putting the fire out without wrecking your child's microbiome.

And don't worry, friends, this is not a scary doom and gloom conversation. This is quite the opposite. Dr. Paula's whole message is genes are information and not at all a life sentence, which is 100% what we believe here. And once you understand the blueprint, you can finally know where to focus your effort. So 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 child's eczema without steroids, without the overwhelm, and finally see calm, healthy skin again.

Let's get into it. Friends, today we are going deeper than we ever have into why some kids develop eczema in the first place and why two kids can grow up under the same roof, eat the same food, breathe the same air and have totally different skin stories. And I brought on someone who lives right at that intersection of genetics and environment and real world healing. Dr. Paula Kruppstadt is a board-certified pediatrician, a certified functional medicine practitioner through the Institute for Functional Medicine, and the founder of Hope for Healing.

And she has helped countless families uncover the root issues behind stubborn chronic eczema and other autoimmune conditions, and especially in cases where the usual creams and prescriptions just aren't cutting it. And that's why everyone is here today. And what I love about your work Dr. Paula is that you could talk about genetics in a way that's empowering, not paralyzing, because absolutely genes matter, but that's not our destiny, right? Like everyone's here because we know we can do better for our kids.

And this is more like a child instruction manual, and I love that you're able to translate it. With that, Dr. Pala, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Andra. Our pleasure. I'm so excited for this conversation because you've been a pediatrician for decades and now practice functional medicine at the highest certification level. And I was just curious what sparked your curiosity about the genetic side of eczema. Yeah, really good question. And I think that this is the case for many, many practitioners who go into functional medicine.

It's their own health fails. And so for me, my weight had ballooned up to 300 pounds. I knew in my mind what to do. I had lost countless pounds, but also I struggled with depression and I took antidepressants off and on for 27 years. And we did some genetics, but it wasn't until I learned how it applied to me in real life that that allowed me to give my body the ability to heal. you know, I'm sure that you believe the same thing that our bodies are meant to heal if we give it what it's supposed to have and we take away what it

How genetics shape eczema risk 3:34

doesn't have. So that was my journey and I'm a whole different person because of that and that is the foundation of my practice. So we see uber healthy children that their parents bring them in and they're like, you know, our older son is autistic or our daughter is, and we don't want this brand new baby to have that. And we're like, okay, let's get a roadmap. And then we do a proprietary panel that Fagran Genetics has allowed me to develop called the Wellness Blueprint, because that's what it's all about.

Our lives, our bodies are like a symphony and you give it what it needs, you take away what it doesn't. And these are not what we call epigenetically modifiable. Some of that, yes, but these are like hardwired into us. So it's like you get what you get, you don't throw a fit, but you give it what it needs so that yucky things don't develop like eczema. So can you go into that a little bit more? Like how do you explain that genetic component to parents without scaring them? Yeah, so we're not looking for diseases.

We're not looking for what we call deletions or additions that they do in genetics departments. And a lot of times when they do that, they just go, okay, you've got this syndrome, this problem, sorry, there's nothing we can do. This is different. In our bodies, there's multiple systems, like I mentioned, kind of like the symphony or the orchestra. And the first thing is inflammation, hot, red, swollen and painful. So when we think about eczema, you look at the skin, you look at the gut, you look at just, you know, a child's emotions when they're suffering.

So you put the fire out first. And then what you want to do, and this is done with supplements and very few medications, like we don't prescribe too many medications here. It's only things that can modulate certain genes. So for example, something called low dose naltrexone, which a lot of people use in autoimmunity, And there's creams and there's liquids. And we even start that with little infants that can be put on their skin, like over a pulse point, you know, even as young as three months of age.

Interesting. I mean, it's like, why put things in you don't need? And then body's ability to take sugar from the bloodstream, bring it into the cells, give the cells fuel, but also to give the cells fuel to break down toxins. That's called autophagy. People think intermittent fasting, but you're not going to have a, you know, we're not talking about that with kids, although kids, if they sleep 10 or 12 hours at night, that's what they're doing. Then what we call detoxification is where those toxins are in the bloodstream.

They go to the liver, the kidneys, the skin, the lungs. So you sweat it out, pee it out, poop it out, and breathe it out. And that's where we start. So we lay that foundation, get everything working like a smooth old machine. Then when that's addressed, then we move into systems like methylation and mitochondria. Methylation is the delivery of vitamin B9. which help mix dopamine, then mitochondria, they're the batteries or the powerhouses of the cells that make ATP. But we also have on this cool panel certain vitamins and minerals that people don't have receptors for.

So when we think about eczema, what really is a very common thing that we see is there's a lack of the ability to absorb fat-soluble vitamins, K, E, A, and D, and also omega-3s. So a lot of people do well on plant-based oils instead, like borage oil versus omega-3s. And there's neurotransmitters. There's also brain regenerative. But it's all good news. It's all actionable intelligence. There's nothing to live in fear about. It's all about Yay. How can we as healthcare providers empower you as mom and dad to help your child grow up to be healthy instead of being stuck in the family?

Oh, there's a lot of cancer. There's a lot of Alzheimer's. No, no, no. We are not bound by that at all. The body can heal. And so, you know, that's the beautiful thing about the way God's made our bodies to do that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's what we do here. I mean, it's like no matter who you're working with, you're the one implementing, right? This is the parents, right? And the parents have to be informed. And then they're the ones that are in the trenches doing it day in and day out. And it's only through those types of like, consistent small actions that you're going to, to see any progress.

And you know, you were talking about like, just how going through this process in a way we're like the lucky ones right like that's the silver lining is that especially if this is presenting early on we can catch it we can start to reverse it and and change the entire trajectory of their lives because when we're suffering in this way like there's certainly worse things right there's childhood cancer there's like there's really horrible things that can happen but you know thankfully this is reversible but the suffering is so real if you're up all night and you're watching your kid suffer and itch and you can't put them down if they're babies and all the things that come with that is just, it just wrecks your heart.

Yes. But good news, once you're past this, they'll feel so much better off and Parents, are you exhausted from battling your child's eczema? You've tried the prescriptions, the creams, the elimination diets, and the flares keep coming back.

Building the eczema foundation panel 9:20

I'm Andrea McHugh, mama for and host of the eczema kids podcast. Two of my children suffered with severe eczema and I know the sleepless nights and the nonstop itching and the frustration of feeling like nothing works. That's why I created this podcast to share what actually does from natural solutions that calm the skin to practical everyday tips that make healing actually possible. You'll find hope, clarity, and a path forward here. Follow eXimaKids wherever you get your podcasts and head to eXimaKids.com for free recipes and resources to start your child's healing journey today.

I wanted to go into a little bit more about those three steps that you outlined. What are some things that you can help to do to put that fire out? Yeah. Well, I would say, and you've probably seen this using the various things that you implement. A lot of children and adults, but children will get better quickly. But if there's stubborn cases and you can't figure out what the problem is, what we've created, well, my big panel, it's called the Wellness Blueprint, but we have just started creating some small little panels called their little mini eczema panels.

And the first one, just like you build a house, is called the foundation. And so that people don't guess and they're not just buying things. But we know foundationally looking at the diet, looking at histamines, looking at vitamin D, and then looking at some inflammatory markers that when those are abnormal, it's like it's hard to put the fire out. But the commonality is our body makes a substance called glutathione. And glutathione concentrates itself. There's different types, but the big gene that drives eczema is something called GSTP1.

And that glutathione is the body's master antioxidant. And so you can make it, but it's faulty. The end step in the gene, you don't make a powerful gluten. So it concentrates itself in the gut, the lungs, the sinus, the respiratory tract. And so that's why you hear a lot of times with kids with eczema, they've got allergies, they've got asthma, they've got ear infections, sinus infections, but also the bladder wall. And so those places where we wage wars, you can give oral glutathione but also you can use it topically but when you do that of course you want to fill all the cracks of the skin so that there's no pain which you know about obviously and then use little spots.

So, of course, we know that eliminating gluten and dairy from the diet are huge. And then optimizing vitamin D3 with K2, not alone, because if you give D alone, you pull calcium from the bone and that's deposited in the arteries and the kidneys. So, you do the two together. And that's an immune modulator. That little foundational panel will tell us also about the omegas, and it also tells us about gut lining enzyme, where there's a sweet substance that attracts good, healthy bacteria into the gut.

And if you lack that substance, then you need a certain type of a probiotic because not all probiotics are going to be helpful. Histamine-releasing probiotics are something that I highly discourage. So, swore-based probiotics are excellent. Then there are these immune-modulatory things, and one of them And see, if you've got like a four-month-old that has severe eczema, if mom is breastfeeding, she can take something that's called palmitoyl ethanolamide, or PEA. It helps. And this is, so this little eczema panel, the foundation of a house, That's all outlined on that.

And it's very reasonably priced. But then we've got like the walls of the house. And so after the initial things are addressed, then you can layer in the rest of the things that unpack a little bit more about histamines and more inflammatory markers. And then there's a third eczema panel that's like the roof of the house that has to do with hydration of the skin and some markers that show if you don't have the ability to retain moisture. And then I also really encourage people that if they've done everything and maybe things get better and then they don't, to highly consider testing their house for water damage.

And within the interior of a water damage building, it's not just mold, but it can be bacteria. especially what we call gram-negative poopy water bacteria is what I call it. Think about toilets that overflow or bathtubs that overflow. And then there's also another bacteria that's what we call gram-positive that's very causative in eczema called actinomycetes. It's a whole class and family that you can test for. So we look at that and, you know, wherever people are, depending on what kind of access to care they have, good up-to-date dermatologists would know this, but a good functional medicine doctor would have it.

And when people partner with us too, there's something called biofilm testing you can do on the skin. It's a DNA test, and it tells you specifically what's growing on and in the skin, especially if it's been uber stubborn. So that's just another layer as we talk about restoring skin integrity. Things just aren't falling into line. But what I love about nailing it with these genetics is, number one, they never change. Number two, you know beyond a shot of a doubt, what things look like, and you know what you need to give to your child, what you need to avoid, what you need to incorporate and or apply to their skin.

And that can move the skin so far when you layer all those things in. I'm curious, if you take a sample of the biofilm of the skin, what else are you seeing besides staph? Because 10 out of 10, right, there's going to be a staph overgrowth. What else are you testing for? Well, there's all kinds of bacteria and fungus. The particular test that we use, I have never seen viral genetic material on the skin, but we see these gram-negative bacteria in really bad cases where like it's E. coli and Klebsiella and just disgusting stuff.

And then, you know, for cases that are really, really bad, We will sometimes compound with a compounding pharmacist, a topical antibiotic, a topical antifungal to put on the skin. However, I will tell parents that azole like fluconazole, itraconazole, ketaconazole, we try to avoid those at all costs now. And the reason is this, with any type of medication, you can develop resistance. And if you're using it for fungus, it translates into bacteria. But using antifungals that are not in those classes is really important because we now know that azole antifungals literally cause destruction of something called tubulin in the brain.

And that covers our axons where we're trying to make new memories and things. So putting those things up our nose, taking them orally, that's very controversial.

Biofilm testing and stubborn skin infections 17:28

A lot of doctors are unaware of that right now, but there's documented proof of that on brain biometric studies. So typically, Andra, we see these other nasty little These are like bacteria that don't necessarily survive in oxygen either. I mean, they're hiding in these disgusting little layers. And so we put in things that break the biofilm, but we like to exhaust everything unless someone comes in and their child's skin is weeping. And it's horrible. One other thing we do here too is sometimes we'll incorporate ozonated oils, but you must use small areas because when those organisms die, a patient will have what we call a Herxheimer reaction.

I'm sure you know what that is. And a lot of stuff is dying and it's like a bomb goes off where all these things die and you want to control that. So we have some nice little herbal drops that help with that too. What kind of things are in the herbal drops? Because that kind of reaction is really common. I mean, even if you're not using pharmaceuticals to the skin, it's like there's a lot of bad stuff going on on the inside, right? Start to disrupt that. A lot of kids experience that. What kind of herbs can counteract that?

What I absolutely love is something called Berber Pennella. And this is also in my practice little Shopify cart, but it's made by Nutrimetix and it's very inexpensive and it's this beautiful blend of herbs. You know, we've had herbs for thousands of years and then, you know, in recent decades, Proled studies reproducible have been done at Johns Hopkins for treating like vector borne illness like Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia. But for Herxheimer reactions, we put a certain number of drops in water in a glass container and have a child or an adult.

drink that. And even for little infants, you can use a certain number of drops. I would say from, you know, like zero to 12 months, it would be safe to put five drops in about an ounce of water, not for any child less than four months of age. They really shouldn't have free water. But for four months and on up, you could do an ounce in the morning and an ounce in the evening of about five drops of that berber panela. up until about a year. It's based on weight, but it's very safe and using that to give to your child and that will dial down the reaction.

Now, you could even do like a quarter of an ounce of water if you're just putting five drops of the River Pinellas. Yeah, that works really, really well, but also doing oral glutathione and going up with that too, even about six months and up because little infants can take that. Yeah. The supplements that we do is focused on the glutathione production rate. It is a natural process and giving those precursors, but you're saying some of the glutathione that kids can make if their body is under duress is not actually as detoxifying and helpful.

Can you talk to us more about that? Yes, Andra. That's a great point, and that's why I put that marker on this panel, because you can give all the precursors in the world, but if your body doesn't have the enzyme for that last step, you can't make functional glutathione. You might be able to make some, but what if you get that bad gene from both parents? It's like you need to go straight to the end product. So a couple of those precursors, one is called N-acetylcysteine, and a lot of times you'll go, we'll eat a lot of onion and garlic.

You know, it helps you make glutathione. You know, those kind of things are brassica vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, cabbage. But if you don't have that enzyme for that last step, you can do all that till the cows come home, but you're not going to give your child what they need. And you don't want to guess, you want to know. And that's the beauty of that little foundation panel. What is that enzyme that you're talking about? It's called glutathione S transferase pi 1 gene, GSTP 1. And you want that to be green.

Green is good, not yellow or red. And we see that I can't think of any child in my practice. We've been doing this 10 years. I can't think of anyone with eczema that does not have that snipped. It may be SNP. It means single nucleotide polymorphism. It just means a variant. And so that won't change. It's like you're born with it. But if it's half production, you can improve. But if it's red, it's like you're really stuck many, many times. That'll be like your tough cases that you can't quite cross the finish line.

The other is when we were talking about, you know, if someone lives in a water damaged building, about 21 to 24% of the population has an inability to

Glutathione, autophagy, and methylation 22:48

take those toxins from those bad guys in a water damaged home and rid their body. So they may need a special kind of a prescription binder. to pull the bad guys out. And that may be what helps a child or an adult cross the finish line. You know, let's say using the products that you use and I use, it's like we're just spinning wheels and we're like, what's the problem? And then that's really what's at the core. That's what we recommend here too, is like everything else you can in line first, right?

Because a lot of times you can save yourself thousands of dollars and heartache and all the things that come with the testing, right? So like, get it all in line, because yeah, you need to do that anyway, and you will undoubtedly see improvement. And then, yeah, if we're not quite there, if we're not where we need to be, then you can look a little closer into all of these things. Yeah. You're doing everything right. You've cleaned up the diet. You've swapped out the soaps. You've put air filters in every room.

Maybe you even live on an organic farm. And still your child is scratching, bleeding, awake all night. The flares won't stop and no one can tell you why. No parent should have to watch their child suffer, especially when you're already doing everything in your power to fix it. That's why I created the eczema kids podcast. I'm Andrea McHugh, mama for health coach and the founder of eczema kits. Two of my own children battled with relentless eczema and I know firsthand how heartbreaking and exhausting it is.

Here we go beyond surface level fixes. You'll learn how to uncover hidden triggers. Prepare your child's gut and calm their skin from the inside out. You'll hear the real stories of families who found freedom and insights from practitioners who are rewriting what's possible. Because eczema isn't just a skin condition, it's a message from the body. And when you listen, you can heal. So follow eczema kits wherever you get your podcasts and start your child's healing journey today. Can you talk to us more about the like methylation and what we can do to help increase our ATP?

Yeah, I'll start with the first thing, the autophagy. So you can kind of guess if you or your child has impaired autophagy. First, look at your family history. If there's a lot of cancer, if there's a lot of sensitivity to candles and scents and smells, that's, you know, multiple chemical sensitivities kind of a thing. And you can be coasting along until you hit like 35 and then all of a sudden you can't stand perfumes. So many of those have so many disgusting things in them. and you know like lead and arsenic and cadmium and they're adulterated with those.

You build up that but the big thing with kids is that they get hangry if they can't eat frequently. So that's your clue as a parent if your child has impaired autophagy. So there's a substance that when you've done the precision genetics for it, it's called D-chiroinositol or DCI. And it allows insulin to bind to a cell, then glucose comes into the cell. And it's easy. It's naturally a little sweet. It's a mirror image of one of the B vitamins. You can't just do inositol. You have to do this mirror image because inositol won't work on this receptor, plain inositol.

And the cool thing is, it's naturally, I said this, naturally a little sweet. So even for a breastfed baby or a toddler, It can go straight onto their tongue. You can open up the little capsule and put it on their tongue. My grandson is five and like I get to watch him on Monday nights and my husband gets to on Tuesday nights and it's like open up, just dump it out, put it on his tongue and he swallows it, drinks it, you know, drink some water and there you have it. But he truly is one of these little kids that it's like if he doesn't eat, he gets mean.

And one of my, one of my kids, my kids are all grown up now, but she was so funny. We're like, she, she would eat and it was almost like clockwork. She'd say, mom, I love you. After she eats and she still does it and she's a mom of her own. You know, she's sitting with us and she goes, I just love you guys. We're eating a meal. Oh, I'm sorry for the things I said when I was hungry. Yeah, it's like the good sugar gets into the cells, starts cleaning things out. It's like, oh, I have energy. I'm so happy I can eat.

And then I kind of like to use another illustration. What do you do when your house is burning? So let's say the house is burned up. You go back into the house, you gather all the debris from all the rooms into the foyer of the house. First, you put the fire out and then this autophagy, you stand in the foyer and that process allows you to kind of dig through the debris, recycle the good used parts, but then you have the dump truck pull up to the front of the house and you empty out all the junk from that foyer.

That's detoxification where you take it out of the cell, goes into the bloodstream, goes to the liver, gets processed. You get your kidneys, your skin, and your lungs. So let's go to the skin. If the skin lacks glutathione and the gut lacks glutathione, then you build up all those toxins and the skin is showing you help cleanse me, help get rid of this. And then if it's all weepy and it's got the staph, the strep, these gram-negative poopy water bacterias and that actinomycetes, you've got to give the body that working glute.

Now you asked about the methylation and the mitochondria. That comes later. You got to get the autophagy. Well, first, the inflammation, the autophagy, and the detox. You do not want to throw in methylation. You hear people say that, and it's like they get anxious or whatever. It's like you have to work with someone who knows what the heck they're doing. So we do these genetic consults internationally. But if you want to see a medical provider, you got to be in Texas or Florida, because that's where we have licenses.

We have one provider who's moved to Colorado, so we'll be opening that up too. She still sees folks in Texas too, but you need to work with someone who knows what they're talking about. And for children, you know, when you talk about methylation, there's like topical creams, there's oral squirts. Yeah. Things like that. And you want to do that usually twice a day because a lot of B vitamins, especially vitamin B9, that's necessary and for focus and concentration and sleep stability and mood stability and hormone regulation.

When we think about our little ones that are suffering with eczema, like you said, the very beginning, you know, sleepless nights, they're itching to death, they get irritable and cranky, they're chronically suffering, and we want to add these things back in. As far as ATP goes, there are certain supplements that have just all these things that fuel the mitochondria. One thing that we do here at our office for adults, but even little ones, is we do a therapy called ozone. And you can put ozone in the ears and if a child can hold their breath, they can hold their breath and we can shoot it up the nose.

That's not usually until six or seven when they can hold their breath going underwater kind of a thing. You don't breathe ozone in, but ozone is a triple oxygen molecule that's very unstable. But when it hits fat or protein, it becomes a very stable molecule. And the beautiful thing about ozone or ozonides is that they can break apart the bacterial cell wall.

Constipation, vitamin C, and practical support 30:48

It'll break apart viral envelopes. It'll break apart candida. It can break apart multicellular fungus. And it can break apart parasites. membranes and your body can work to get rid of those bugs and then we can also do that IV where we take blood out, put the ozone gas in it and put the blood back into the body through and it cleanses and heals and makes more ATP from within. There's lots of nutrients that will fuel the mitochondria, but you want to look at your genetics so that you're not dumping money where you don't need it.

But CoQ10 is one of those things, but it's usually a cocktail because that's just how we're made, just beautifully made where there's multiple nutrients that go together to do that. So there's a lot of talk about phylogerin mutations, you know, in the axon community. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. So that is on my third little the roof of your house. So that has to do with the barrier. And there's certain things you can do to support that. But I think before you look at that, you need to look at all the other things that you you add to the body.

So it's that moisture and you don't just want to guess. So That can be where you've got like a really devastating case of eczema. So it's how you hold moisture in. So it's like a combo of certain things. You know, when you mention that, and you have probably talked about this on your podcast, but a lot of times people hear about certain B vitamins, hair, skin and nails, like using collagen or biotin, vitamin C, which is an antioxidant in conjunction with the other things like glutathione and putting the fire out.

Right. You definitely want to layer it in and not just focus on that one thing. So yes, that is something that for these devastating cases. So I would just highly encourage people to find out by layering that in. Yeah, absolutely. It's like low and slow is the way, especially for this pediatric population. Correct. Yeah. I just see, you know, people come in and they're like, oh no, is there a problem with their philagorin? You know, they hear these words and like the people like tout them on the internet and then they get the glycine or whatever, you know, that supplement person is selling.

Yeah, that's the end. Yes, you're right. You're right. Build the foundation, support the foundation. And I'm sure you do this. Remove the gluten, remove the dairy and, you know, clean up. You know, that's what I love. 80% of the power of change is in the kitchen. You know, and it's like get your kid pooping for Pete's sake. A lot of these kids are constipated and that's because they don't have enough glutathione in their gut to functional glutathione. So yeah. I mean, if that's what you're experiencing is like an itchy kid who's also constipated, what are some other things that you can just like start to incorporate right away?

Wow. I'm so glad you asked that and that's on another little panel. I'm building out a little constipation thing because it's tied in with what we eat and also our mitochondria. Because when you think about peristalsis of the gut, it's just beautiful how everything works together. But when you think about eczema, You know, there's so much inflammation and that impaired detoxification. So I think one of the biggest needle movers for constipation is a little bit of glutathione. The oral glutathione, you know, anywhere from 200 to 400 milligrams once or twice a day to really get a kind of poopy dooping.

Another really great tool is using vitamin C because vitamin C puts the fire out. It's called an antioxidant and many, many, many children don't have and see a lot of these little genetic variants are on my genetic panels for this. So I see how, you know, using topical and oral what you guys do and then adding that layer of genetically what they're missing, how it could be this really beautiful little symphony. But there's a type of vitamin C that's used that I love. It's called PERQ, P-E-R-Q-U-E, potent C guard.

Depending on the size of the child, I don't use the FDA allowances of vitamin C, but you can start vitamin C on little ones that are even just getting breast milk, like even around, you know, six months of age. But I like the powder and it can be mixed with a little bit of breast milk. It can be mixed with a little tiny bit of like almond, almond coconut milk. It can be mixed with water. And you put that in and you stir it up and you wait until the effervescence goes away and until the white powder at the bottom goes away.

And it needs to be used within four hours of mixing it. And you just sip that and you do that twice a day for about two weeks. And what it does is it naturally draws water into the bowel, but it goes into the bowel and where all that inflammation is at puts the fire out and you start having nice poop-de-doops. I also recommend the squatty potty. You know, that a child is on the toilet, off the toilet. And you don't ask your kid, do you have to go potty? You lead them to the toilet. You're like, OK, it's time to go potty.

And they get their little feet on that squatty potty so that their knees are above hip level. And they just poop to do. They try. You get them on, get them off. And it can be such a traumatic experience when kids are clogging toilets or it hurts their bottom. And so that little bit of vitamin C will help. For children in our practice, and even adults that come to us, sometimes we'll even prescribe a glutathione suppository. You can get that from a compounding pharmacy, slide that booger up there.

And also, you know, Designs for Health makes a glutathione powder. A parent could actually kind of make their own with shea butter, you know, or coconut oil, freeze it with a little suppository kit, you know, and slide that up their booty tootie. And that's very, very helpful. helpful. When my baby was suffering from severe severe eczema, she had like a long bout of constipation and it was really hard and she was exclusively breastfed, right? And I was on this like eczema clearing diet, like there's like no healthier that she could possibly eat and we did the same things.

Environmental triggers and immune overactivation 37:48

We had to like implement some enemas to start getting her going again and then vitamin C played a vital role. in her recovery. So absolutely, if that's where you are, do those things. But I've never heard of like a glutathione suppository. That's amazing. That's next level. Yeah. Yeah. We use that for desperate times. Yeah. Yeah. That was a desperate time. We all know how terrible we feel when we can't poop. You know, you feel awful. So these three panels, or I guess there could be more, but what are you looking at financially if you move forward with those?

They are $215, and you get the first one, and that's actually on our Hope for Healing Shopify account. And it's direct to consumer, and a parent can purchase that. And it has guidelines based on age and weight. Well, age. And we have it for adults and children. And then after they've implemented those things, after about a minimum of one month, but usually two, because it's a lot of inflammation, some of the things I mentioned, the diet. And then after they've implemented that, then if they haven't crossed the finish line to go ahead, get panel two.

And we haven't released panel two yet because we want people to get panel one. Today, our podcast dropped on all the different platforms, you know, Dr. Talks and Apple, and iHeart, and Spotify. But then the third one, the roof of the house, has the silicon, you know, some of the little links there. But it has, as you layer it in, like vitamin E, vitamin A, a different level of anti-inflammatory markers. So if people have kind of been floating around the functional medicine world, there's pathways.

There's one called the NRF pathway and tumor necrosis factor alpha, and there's things called toll-like receptors, and there's that allergy side of the house versus the way that our innate immune system is made. So we started with what we call broken off switches where the immune system just can't turn itself off because as I alluded to earlier and as I'm sure, Andrea, you know that so many children with eczema, atopic dermatitis, have that triad of allergies and asthma. And so there's a lot of unknowns in that, not to functional medicine providers, ways to help your children that might be like a turmeric matrix that's liquid or topical CBD that doesn't have THC in it, and we have for various ages.

And so those things that are tools that parents have, that the power is in their hands to help their child, because, you know, you go to the dermatologist and As you know, all they want to do is slap a steroid on and then before we know it, we're influencing the brain and the adrenal gland and you just have just this terrible inflammation. Yes. Everything that you just said, you know, like that's what everyone is experiencing, right? It's like, oh gosh, there's environmental allergies and they're on Zyrtec.

And of course they have eczema and let a topic triad that you mentioned, right? Like they, I feel like when doctors say they'll hopefully grow out of it, right? And you don't address this, it like, it's going to morph. It's going to maybe, maybe you'll just have eczema your whole life, but, or it morphs into, you know, allergies and hay fever and, and so on. And so when you're seeing that combo when they're presenting with full-born environmental allergies and eczema simultaneously? What do you look to next?

That's a great question. So when I was talking about the whole inflammation piece and kind of layering things in, there are what I kind of call broken off switches. None of us are broken. But when genetically you can't turn off inflammation, that's that explosive stuff. So that's on like one of our first little panels. And then as we go, we've added in some of the other broken off switches. So, you know, we've all seen just explosive allergies, explosive asthma, our kids get sick, they get sick and they're sick.

But then what is more worrisome is when your body can't turn off the inflammation. And that's part of a lot of what we call our innate immune system, but it's also adaptive. It's just there's kind of two sides to the house and they meet in the middle and there's crossover. So that's more worrisome and that provides more of a vulnerability down the road to develop autoimmunity And so this is why this whole grow out of it thing. I hate that. It's like you do not have to live with this. But it's just a clue that we've got systems that are not working like a symphony.

And gosh. $215 to get the foundation, $215 for the walls and $215 for the roof. It's a small price to pay when you think about copays and medicine and just the suffering alone of what a child or an adult goes through. We've been there with Sleepless Night, one of my kiddos. I remember she was two and I didn't know any better. We lived in a water damage home. We didn't know about it. And then she, every time she got dairy, she'd sit on the toilet moaning and groaning. And then she broke out with eczema and then she got secondary molluscum, which is, you know, a wordy kind of a thing.

She had over 200 of those. And then it was, it was just awful. And I didn't have anything in my arsenal other than steroids. And oh, I guess we're going to go to the dermatologist and they're going to use cantharidin, which is what we call beetle juice. to get rid of it. And it's like all of a sudden all those molluscums over 200 flared all at the same time. Thank God and went away. But you know, I didn't know about homeopathy, which we use all the time in our practice. I didn't know about glutathione.

And so there's just so many people out there suffering that have no clue that they don't have to follow the party line of what allopathic medicine is talking about.

Where to find Dr. Paula and final takeaways 44:24

And, you know, so they can really help heal their kids' eczema. So, you know that. I know that. Absolutely. Yeah. And then everything gets better. Like, as you mentioned, you know, the gut-brain connection and all of it, right? Like, the behavior gets better. They just feel better and just everything. This has been incredible, Dr. Paula. Thank you so much. You've taken a lot of what feels really overwhelming and genetics and mutations and your environmental load and made it a lot more understandable and actionable for parents who just want to help their kids feel comfortable in their own skin.

That's why everyone here is listening. So thank you. I really appreciate your time today. Well, thank you, Andrea. I can't wait to have you on my podcast, and you can tell us about some of the things that you do and hear a little bit about your story. So I really appreciate the invite, and thank you so much. My pleasure. So where can everyone find and follow you? Yeah, so our practice is called Hope for Healing, but our podcast is Get to the Root. It's Pound Get to the Root, and I will have that in the show notes.

But we also have our Hope for Healing Shopify store. Hope for Healing is in Texas, but that's where in our Shopify store, there's our little eczema panel. And then we also have in that for each podcast. I think our eczema podcast, it's number six out of, we just started, but that today, that episode dropped. It's November 13th, 2025. that has all of the supplement bundled there for if your child has that genetic panel. So you can go on there, order it. It's very reasonable, 215. and then get your results.

It'll take about you know 10 to 14 days once you send it in. It's just a little cheek swab. It looks like a little mascara wand and you just ask your kiddo to open up and it's like you're painting circles on the inside of their cheek. This is at a protected HIPAA compliant certified lab. It's not like 23andMe or Ancestry.com where somebody can hack in. It would be like a HIPAA violation if somebody broke into it. It's in Austin. I've been to the lab. And then also a really great place to collect DNA on your children.

They just need not eat or drink for about 30 minutes before the swab. So even for a breastfed baby, If they've eaten and you've got them awake for 30 minutes after they finish nursing, another good place is to pull the upper lip up. There's that little piece of tissue right there and you take the end of that little swab like a mascara brush and you just kind of rub it right there because the body collects DNA there. And it's just such a beautiful gift. to give your child or your family. You know, I reflect back when I was a child if my parents knew.

I mean, I could have been saved all these years, all the years of being clinically depressed and losing babies. I mean, miscarriages and what drug made a functional medicine. You know, there's just so many life-giving tools if you know what your DNA says and how to use it, not overwhelming and icky. So thanks. That's how to do it. Great. All of that will be in the show notes. Have an amazing day, Dr. Paula. Thank you. You too. Thanks, Sandra. Appreciate it. If your brain is buzzing a little after that conversation, you are not alone.

But here's what I want you to walk away with. Your child does not have to have bad skin. They have a body that's trying really hard to detox and to put out the fires and to keep up with the world that it wasn't designed for. And sometimes the skin is just where that struggle shows up. And that's what Dr. Paula laid out so beautifully today. And many of our kiddos have this real measurable issue with glutathione and detox. especially this GSTP1 gene, constipation and eczema and allergies and behavior, they aren't separate problems.

They're different expressions of that same overloaded system. And there are very real, doable ways to support autophagy and detox and digestion and the skin barrier without living at the pharmacy. and genetics. So whether you do testing or not, you can absolutely start working with your child's body instead of constantly fighting against it. And if this episode hit home and you're thinking, okay, I need a clear plan to actually implement this, that's exactly what we do inside the eczema elimination method.

We walk through how to remove the biggest inflammatory drivers, how to support detox and autophagy and digestion for real, and how to rebuild the skin barrier from the inside out and the outside in, and how to do it in a way that works with your real life as a busy, mere mortal parent. And you don't have to piece this together from a hundred podcasts or Instagram posts or internet articles. You can learn more and join us at eczemakids.com. Just look for the eczema elimination method or check the link in the show notes.

And if you loved what Dr. Paula shared today, just go follow her work. Her practice is Hope for Healing, her podcast is Get to the Root, and her eczema genetics panels are the tools that are linked for you in the show notes as well. You are not stuck with this just how it is, friends. Your child's body is designed to heal and we give it what it needs. and we take away what doesn't, you are absolutely capable of leading that change. Okay, I'm cheering for you and your itchy kiddo and I will talk to you next week.

Thank you for helping with my eczema. 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.