The Story Behind Hope for Healing: Dr. Paula Kruppstadt’s Path to Functional Medicine

Introduction and Sponsor Message 0:00

In this special episode, Dr. Paula Krebstadt opens up about her own journey, from personal health struggles to discoveries that not only changed her life, but also the lives of the patients she serves. Her story is a reminder that healing begins when we ask the right questions and never stop looking for the root cause. As a reminder, this podcast is for education and encouragement. Please consult your healthcare provider for personalized medical advice. Let's dive in. But first, a word from Dr. K herself about our sponsor.

Every story is unique and so is your DNA. As you'll hear in today's episode, discovering genetics was a game changer in my own health journey and it continues to transform how I care for patients. Through our partnership with Legrand, we use advanced genetic panels that reveal the root causes behind conditions like brain inflammation, anxiety, addiction, and behavior change. We're grateful to Fagran for sponsoring this podcast and helping us provide personalized care from the inside out. Learn more in the show notes.

Hi, Dr. K. So glad you're here. We've talked about Pan's Pandas, and I know that's near and dear to your heart for so many different reasons. And in hormones, we kind of touched on your story a little bit. I thought now would be a great time to really How did you become a doctor? Why did get into functional medicine? And I just think unpacking the why in your heart behind a lot of what you do will encourage a lotta people who may feel stuck in their life right now. Well, you know, that's kind of a fun question.

When I was in second grade, my dad went to Vietnam for a year. And during that time, he would send us back pictures of an orphanage that he and other service members would go to. There was just a longing in my heart to do something. The other thing is, the summer that he was gone, I almost drowned. I was in a friend's pool and I kept slipping into the deep end and all the adults were talking and nobody was listening and i was able to push my head up and go, help. And so in my mind as a child, iI was like, people need to listen to kids.

Dr. K's Early Life and Medical Career 2:25

Somebody needs to advocate for kids and so Everyone has different gifts, but I felt like I had the gift of mercy and compassion. And I wanted to cultivate that. I'm also a problem solver and kind of a little bit of rebel. But I never stepped out on my own. By the time I had eighth grade, I knew that when I hit ninth grade I have to make good grades because I wanted to go to medical school. And so then I went to college and I obtained a medical scholarship through the United States Army and became an Army physician.

So I did my internship and residency at William Bowman Army Medical Center. And one of the benefits of doing a military internship in residency is that it wasn't just 100% pediatrics. I also cared for adults and soldiers that came into the emergency room with all kinds of things. Medical school equips you to see birth to geriatric patients, but then when you do an internship and residency, and so when your military officer, you could be deployed. And so trauma care is important. So anywhere from heart attacks to gunshots, stitches, those kind of things.

We had the wonderful experience of learning in internship and residency. And then I went and I was an attending physician at Fort Hood, Texas. Now, I passed my pediatric board certification in 1993 when I finished my residency impedes, but my own challenges started showing up in residency. I had met my husband, he was a field artillery officer right before I started my internship. He was deployed, went to the Persian Gulf War, came back, and we were married less than four months later. And we've been married 34 years now.

And yeah, and we have four kids and one grandson and another grandbaby do literally any minute. So a lot of water under the bridge, but I started having my own health challenges. I reflected back. In high school, I was like, why do I sometimes feel sad? Then when I went to medical school and you had all the pressures of med school I struggle with depression. I thought it was normal to cry every day. We figured out our course load and it would be equivalent to taking 36 credit hours our first semester of Med school.

It was nuts. yet there was this resiliency. So made it through. And what my passion was, I loved getting with people, hearing what was going on, and then putting together the pieces of what's happening in their life. But when my own depression started to surface, my second year of residency, shortly after I was married, I wasn't like, this should be the happiest time of my life. I'm newlywed. Um, um, past my internship, learning, and it was just this gap. And so there were problems. When I went to Fort Hood, Texas, I had my first miscarriage and then clinical depression.

And then I have my 1st child and I was clinically depressed and the military retired me medically. I spent 27 plus years off and on various antidepressants, 11 to 13. And it wasn't until my late 40s, early 50s that I found functional medicine and how it can help. I really love, thank you so much for your vulnerability. I think it's really beautiful, especially I feel like as a doctor and really where your journey started, which was you as child understanding that children's voices matter, but all the while and the caring and you even just said it, I loved hearing people's stories, and I love engaging with them and that was beautiful.

But I whether you're a doctor or you are in a field that you frequently the caretaker, I think as moms and parents, they feel that same thing, right? Where it's like, no, there is this thing that I'm going through and that's almost like the line of my story, but my kids need me. my client see me, my patients need me. And we almost like dim that voice that we need to be taken care of. So what was that kind of, I mean, and clearly you still sought people, you've still got medications, You were still trying to take care it.

But what is that breaking point that led you not only to functional medicine, but to think outside the box of the pill that people were giving you? Yeah. Well, you know, I've been there and done that with a lot of the shame and the guilt, but I had four children and I was 42 when I have my last one and my cholesterol was elevated and being the Western medicine trained person I thought, well, with my family history of cardiovascular disease I'm going to go on a statin. And I chose to formula feed my And so moms, dads, all that guilt to breastfeeding formula, feeding all of that.

It's like. Don't go there. You can beat yourself up and drag yourself through the mud. So it's extending grace to yourself. The straw that broke the camel's back was I took a statin and within six weeks I was suicidal. I literally was seeing images of how I wanted to harm myself and I saw no way out. And I missed a memo. did you know that postpartum depression tends to worsen with each subsequent pregnancy? And I'm like, heck no, nobody ever taught me that. And then the next thing was, based on my family history, and this is where a lot of people come to us, they say, I have MTHFR,

Depression, Statin Reaction, and Finding Functional Medicine 9:20

And that is a genetic vulnerability that actually about 48% of the population has that, so I had done 23 in me, And I looked it up, and sure enough, I had that. And at the 20-year mark of our marriage, because I'd seen the psychiatrist, he said, you know, we might have this MTHFR thing. I want you to try this stuff called methylfolate. So I showed him these results. The first thing spontaneously, involuntarily out of his mouth was, You mean there's hope. So we've been married 20 years and he had resigned to love me and care for me in our family, being faithful and loyal, but he saw It seemed hopeless because of this depression that just exacted this, this it sucked the life out of you.

And then there's also anxiety and panic and insomnia. So that began the journey. and when I went to my internist about six weeks into this taking a statin and it's in the one to 2% of side effects, suicidal ideation. He said, really? And you know, there's so many times when we go to a medical provider and you're being vulnerable and your sharing from your heart, but then they don't believe you or they question you. And so at that point in my heart and mind, I'm like, i'm never coming back here again and I am pursuing another way.

Do you think like you are a Medical Professional? who I can assume the vulnerability of being like, hey, I am capable of doing my job, but something else is going on. And to be vulnerable in front of another doctor, do you think sometimes those bad experiences, instead of what you did, which was ultimately fire that provider because they did not need to a part of your life, Do you sometimes people just stop and don't pursue any further because, well, the doctor said I was crazy, so that's fine. Yeah, I think it stops people all the time because you look at your medical provider and they don't know what they Don't Know So, you know, there were so many things that I didn't and I'll never know but that medical Provider out of the goodness of their heart, You know They never meant any harm to me, but they didn't ask open-ended questions and they did not affirm me saying, you know, that must have took a lot of courage for you as an MD board certified to say that you're having these images of harming yourself.

And so my encouragement to parents and my encourage to moms and dads is that if you go to a medical provider and you have seemingly unrelated symptoms, And your doctor wants to send you to multiple subspecialists, and they're not really sure how to put it all together. That's where seeking medical care with a functional medicine provider will really, really help. I think that's why people kind of stop, right? They hear the one provider or worse, they've heard six or seven providers, you've gone to all the specialists, You've done all of the things and it feels so incredibly hopeless especially because even I think even in the unknown right you said that like I may not know all the things right so even In the Unknown you can be empathetic and that is what was missing It was just like oh you're stressed and let's just put it to that and give us a pill and I Think so many people could relate with that so I just wanted to dig in that again But okay, so you had that experience you fired the doctor and then where does that come next?

I Well, a sweet friend of mine shared with me about a medical provider in the Austin area, Dr. Kendall Stewart. He runs Neurosensory Centers of America and he was hosting a workshop in February of 2015. And I went and attended his workshop and it was life-giving and I asked him at a break, I said, Do people tell you that they become suicidal on statins? And he says, I hear that at least once a week. And so we have in our conventional medicine toolbox what we think will help. the mom with diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome, she goes to the gastroenterologist and gets her linses and she's having trouble with insomnia and get her sleeping pill.

She has trouble anxiety and anti-anxiolytic. And she has aches in pain so she is on ibuprofen. No one is trying to put all the picture together of what's happening in the body. And so we... Or Dr. K, because you talk about this a lot and I think there... or we've just said that all of these pills are in and we use some of things sometimes and then we have to layer, but nobody's giving her the, okay, well, that's a lots to detox. Like, how are we supporting your detox pathway while we figure everything out?

So it's not... What I've loved about you and people will hear this in all the episodes we recorded is that you're like, I'm not throwing out anything. timely, important, and then also supporting your body as you take all these things is so important. So no one's being like, hey, we put you on an antibiotic, like here's this probiotic, or hey you've had to take something and now you need to detox this out of your where you kind of see the best of both worlds having been an MD and in the conventional world and really knowing that you bring a whole nother spectrum that I just would hate for people to miss when they're listening to your functional medicine approach.

Well, and you know, the thing about functional medicine is that most medical providers that pursue it have a reason. Either their own health has failed them or their child's health or spouse, or they're looking for something outside the box or beyond what conventional medicine offers. And I appreciate what you said, Lauren. You know if a person has a bacterial infection, By golly, we're prescribing antibiotics here at our practice, but we support the gut, like you said, with the probiotic. So to rewind, one of the things that my husband and I did was we did 23andMe on all four of our daughters and ourselves because my husbands mother died of metastatic breast cancer.

And sometimes it'll skip a generation. And breast cancer or cancers of any kind is not just one thing, but we were looking for some markers on 23andMe. So I had that basis, and that's what this doctor in Austin was using to go through and create reports to partner with patients. He was a surgeon, a neurosurgeon, called a neurotologist, and he thought that if he could recover the function of a nerve instead of to sever it, then he would not be doing harm. And so the approach was so encouraging to me.

And then it's also the approached that allowed me to get off the conventional SSRIs. Now, there's health challenges that we all face. When you've been sick a long time, weaning off of certain things, you have to do that under the care of a provider. Don't just stop something abruptly. But anyway, then Dr. Stewart opened his own lab and then he sold that company. And the company is called Fagran Genomics. I've been to the lab a couple of times in Austin, and it is a lab where we utilize precision genetics to help figure out what is causing imbalances and dysfunction in people's body.

I started the practice in 2015, looking at precision genetics because that's what helped me. But then I didn't want to stop my bread and butter, which is what I love is pediatrics. So I still see adults. but I'm trying to focus more on children. So it's a case-by-case basis. But I don't function as the primary care provider for adults because that's not my board certification. However, functional medicine providers and medical doctors know their limitations. And so I practice within the scope that I know is appropriate.

Precision Genetics and Root-Cause Medicine 18:40

And on our staff, there's a family medicine doctor that if I have questions, we can put our heads together and work collaboratively. So the journey is that out of my own brokenness, And the thing is the U.S. Military Code of Justice has a clause that if the medical doctor stops practicing medicine for a medical reason, they have to put that on paperwork for seven years. So for 7 years it followed me and I had to say that I have clinical depression with pregnancy and could not take a sabbatical. I had to either work or stop working.

And I was put, I have to stop and I voluntarily surrender my clinical privileges. So that was a very devastating time because I am like, am I any less of a person, any lesser of the doctor? No. Because I didn't harm any patients. but it also was very traumatic. So I gained wonderful experience, but I'm here to say that functional medicine can help you get your life back. On my journey, I ballooned up to almost 300 pounds. And early on, had obstructive sleep apnea, required CPAP, and was very hypertensive.

If I went ahead and I chose to have a permanent Roux-NY gastric bypass, Well, I still didn't know why food was my drug of choice. So I started to gain my weight back. I got down to like 135, and less than that now, you know, feel good in my own skin. But it's I started to balloon up again to like 190 and then I found Dr. Stewart and that helped me show that when you struggle with addiction there's two major processes or systems in your body that can be impaired and it's inflammation and methylation.

It's a symphony. There's all kinds of other things, but those are the two areas that made the most profound changes in me and who I am and in my mental health and wellbeing. And we all struggle. with the things that are thrown at us. But that's why I am so gung-ho on Get Your Wellness Blueprint Done. That is a panel that we ask people to partner with us, and they can be anywhere in the world to have a genetic review, as long as you're not establishing medical care with this, have your genetics interpreted.

And it gives you this beautiful roadmap You can do this preventatively. If you have a child and you want to know what to give them in order to prevent things. Now it doesn't tell you diseases per se, but it just tells you how to optimize your body. And then if you are struggling and your really sick and if been to all these sub-specialists and just want know where to start, genetics are step number one. Well, because genetics were such an impart to you to be able to kind of unpack and really see what was going on in the systems that needed to cool down and the fire to put out.

And so this comes from, and this kind at least the second question is when many patients, I think, Many patients will find comfort in knowing that their doctors have been there too, right? That they have done that, they've seen, and they will learn. How do you feel like your own experience helps you connect more deeply with the people that you serve, having been gaslit by doctors? Nobody wants or chooses to be overweight and struggle with addiction, so you really get to see a lot of that when you unpack genetics.

So how do think that's helped you to serve people? It helps me to know how people feel. For example, someone who's struggling with morbid obesity, they cannot buy clothes off the rack in a store unless it's plus sizes. Many times, if you find something that fits the waist, they're way too long, you want to know what it's like to walk down a hallway without your thighs rubbing together. You want know know it is like walk up a few stairs and not be so winded. Want to be able to lean over and tie your shoes and to see your feet.

And you feel dumb. People think you're dumb when you are obese. We judge people by the outside, but God looks at the heart. So how dare we judge by people outside? So we're seeing more culturally where, you know, they'll have plus size models, which I think is much more realistic, You know, let's face it, we have our own prejudices. We judge people by the outside and we need to look on the inside. And we cannot take our mindset, which many times we may have what we call a scarcity mindset and you know out of our.

Where we've been, but. Empathizing and knowing how people feel goes a long way because I know that if we address inflammation first, that can help calm the mind And then, you know, looking at all the other factors, your biochemistry, look at your vitamin D, zinc, copper, micronutrients, where you live, what struggles that you have. Um and I feel like because people didn't do that with you right they found a little silos for you to fit into of your need for this you can kind of I can see even in your conversation right now see how this has been well we can't exclude blank happening over here and we do have to look at all the different pieces which I really feel is the functional medicine approach like you were saying earlier which is seeing this symptom, not as this isolated thing, or like what I think you were also like leaning into is like this symptoms is not my identity, right?

This is who I am, which I also think is a part of that kind of conversation you get to have with people. which is this isn't who you are. This is something you're struggling with. And so I'm going to treat you like an intelligent human being who's going be able to make their own decisions while I can give you the best medical advice that I. Can and I really appreciate the way you dive into that through just hearing your life story of how it wasn't given to you and how that wasn. But then you can talk about this brilliant like Dr.

Stewart and who someone came in and said, hey, I want to look at that a little differently. Um, you said something that I really want to address though. You said that, I think it would be a little helpful, like precision genetics to kind of describe what the difference is where we're not going to say you will have sickle cell anemia or you'll have this type of thing. Can you describe a bit about what it is and how it's different and what we are going look into? It unpacks various systems of your body and shows you what your vulnerabilities are.

Because just because you have a certain gene doesn't mean that certain things are going to happen. However, These are what we call non epigenetically modifiable genes, meaning there's only so much of a substance that your body can make. And when we look at these enzymatic pathways, we can predict that, hey, if you don't start doing this, you're going to be at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Or based on all these inflammatory markers, there's a high chance of autoimmunity developing unless you layer in non-inflammatory food plan, these lifestyle modifications, and certain targeted supplements for what you have your vulnerabilities in.

And so, for example, if someone brings a sibling of a patient, a child of theirs that has autism, but the sibling's born and the parents noticed that, hey, around 15 to 18 months of age, the siblings with autism regressed, and then that was very frightening to have this brand new baby and they're like can we do precision genetics on our new Baby that so far is doing fine and can you partner with us to help us make a path forward giving our body what they need giving our baby's body what it needs or some through mama, some with or on or in the baby.

Inflammation, Methylation, and SIRS Discovery 28:30

And to help these things have a much less chance of developing this. So there's broad categories. like because you mentioned that the two pathways that were really helpful for you and not that there weren't many because there are so many pathways, but could you break down maybe your story with like either the inflammation pathway or the methylation pathway and what you said why it was so informational and important to you? You know, one thing I failed to state was that when I was a child in third grade, I developed migratory joint pain and I given the diagnosis of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, but I never fit all the criteria and it turned out that I had a medical condition that we discovered around 2017 called chronic inflammatory response syndrome and I was living in water damaged military homes.

When we talk about inflammation, just imagine hot, red, swollen, and painful like a big yucky bug bite. There's different systems in the body. The endocannabinoid system, the toll-like receptor system. the JAK-STAT system CB2 receptors. And on our precision genetic panel, we can identify what you don't have available to you and we can give you things that you can put in or on your body to lower the inflammation. And then, for example, you look at your family history and you see polycystic ovary syndrome and lots of cancers.

Well, cancers are an inability to clean out your cells and then impaired detoxification. And PCOS is impaired autophagy. You could develop type 2 diabetes. So we want to prevent that in you. So autophagy, we address with several different things, but your autopathy could be normal. Right. And then for detoxification, think liver, kidneys, skin, bowel movement. How does your liver function? What's going on with your white cells? Does your skin break out? Do you chronically have respiratory tract infections and ear infections?

And as a kid, my gosh, I had double ear infection and pneumonia. But I would smile at the doctor and they're like, she's sicker than dog snot, but you would never know because I was smiley. There's this process called methylation. There's seven different enzymes in that pathway, and they're at different places in the body. It's not just MTHFR, but it's folate receptors on various organs of the and also in different parts of the cell. So to be able to absorb enough vitamin B9 in the right amount, to have good focus and concentration and organizational skills and be I didn't have that.

I had some, but I was fulfilling my dopamine reward system with the food that I ate. Right. And then when I started giving myself the proper type of methylation, orally and topically, I started to lose weight when I was 190 pounds and my desire for certain things went away. So when you love your milk chocolate like me, it was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Twix bars. The desire went way and when started change my food plan. The weight started to come off even after the gastric bypass. You've all met people who've had a gastricular sleeve or a gas bypass and they've ballooned up.

That's because the root cause of inflammation and methylation for morbid obesity is not being addressed. And the answer is, not a GLP-1 agonist. I mean, it's like you have to address what the dysfunction is. So that really, really helped me. And because it changed who I was in March of 2015, I went to my first applying functional medicine to clinical practice. It's like the foundation course. for the Institute for Functional Medicine. And I remember talking to my husband, I was 50, and I said, this is what I want to be when I grow up.

He had never heard me say, because I hadn't been a risk taker, but it's like it was in me, cause I always was this rebel. God's faithfulness, out of my own brokenness it has allowed me to partner with people. So I love that. Thank you for kind of breaking down the sputal thing. So all of this kind happened in, you said 2015, where you got the precision genetics. You started to understand and kind really start to get the beauty of, this is the inflammation down, right? Not only the information in the physical body, what people could probably see, but the inflation in your brain.

The reason why I want to transition into this, is because you touched on SIRS. And I want to unpack that a little bit more because you said y'all find out that about 2017 is when yall started to understand, okay, there's probably more and then you can start piecing together your childhood like military housing probably was not the cleanest environment or and you didn't really have a choice, right? So you just are being put wherever so you couldn't see that. So the kind of this transition that I'd like to make, especially because we serve so many people with SIRS.

And if you are on a SERS journey right now, which could also be called mold illness, biotoxin illness. People call it many names. We call at Sirs because it's what it is, Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. Let's talk a little bit about, because I think when people are in that journey, it feels incredibly hopeless. You've talked this beautiful arc of hope that precision genetics gave you. And also, I feel like what a beautiful God order of things, right? So you got the inflammation down in your brain through the precision genetics, and then you really had to unpack this very new big diagnosis of SARS.

Can you talk about that journey? Yeah, you know, I started my functional medicine practice still on an antidepressant. And I kept working with a functionally-minded psychiatrist in the Houston area who I just love. We refer people to that practice all the time. I couldn't figure out why I could not wean off and neither could this other provider. Chronic inflammatory response is a syndrome, meaning that there's not just one ICD-10 code. But when you are exposed to the interior of a water-damaged building, or if you have gotten SIRS from Borrelia, which is Lyme disease, that's called post-Lyme syndrome.

then what happens is your brain has difficulty telling the body that you're not on fire. Okay. So you have all these seemingly unrelated symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, pain. migraine headaches, abdominal pain, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, peeing all night long, parched. So it's just all kind of unrelated. But when I found out that I had that, I tested my husband all for my children. We haven't even talked about my kids and how this you know, pulls us into my story. That was what allowed me to wean off of antidepressants.

Still working on some of the sleep because when some the hormones in your brain have been low for a long period of time, it takes time for those to go up. And so As far as sleep goes, get early morning sunlight, early-morning sunlight and that will help your sleep at night. Okay. So I think the other thing. Lauren, and maybe you were going to ask this, is that three out of my four children developed autoimmunity. And as I mentioned, my last child developed juvenile idiopathic arthritis and I blame myself because I didn't breastfeed her.

But lo and behold, it was so much more because we were living in a water damaged building, a home when she was born. All four of my children, who are now adults, all got what we call vector-borne illness, either Lyme disease, Bartonella, and or Babesia, with co-infections, mycoplasma, And that was quite the journey. And two out of the four with Pan's Pandas. So as a pediatrician, as mom, As a functional medicine provider, My desire is for all these kids and even young men and women who've been given the diagnosis of autism, brain inflammation, they may not fit the strict criteria of Pan's Pandas, is that utilizing the foundation of lifestyle with the precision genetics, you've got to remove inflammatory foods from your food plan.

I mean, that's part of our lifestyle. We call it, you know, the foundation. But leaning into what your genetics show that you need and at the right amount, at Well, what was what impacted you? This is as your story that you know that to be true because you've lived it and I think that's what's so hard about inflammatory response syndrome or mental health conditions that are unexplained or weight gain or a lack of being able to lose weight. I mean, you talk to people all the time that kind of feel that.

that like I am eating healthy. I have removed, I haven't eaten dessert in like a month. Why is my weight not going down? Like this doesn't make sense. And you're the beautiful like piece that comes in that says it doesn' make since if you don't know this side of things, which is where I think you operate with kindness and grace with providers that just don' know. So when you are talking to someone who is either a mother struggling with maybe they don''t physically have something but their children does.

And so they do think there's a lot of shame that comes from, they came from me, so it's probably my fault. Where do you think you could just give a glimmer of hope to a parent who is blaming themselves? Yeah, you know, therapy is good for everyone. So I participated in a lot of therapy and it was unpacking my emotions, how I felt. Shame says you are bad. Guilt is what you did was bad and I had to remove the dialogue that I am bad, and realize that with my relationship with Christ that every man and woman

Hope, Advocacy, and Closing Reflections 40:40

is a new creation in Christ. The old is gone and the new has come. That is what I hang my hat on. And that is, you know, we pray for our patients because that was the only way I asked for wisdom to impart love and grace, but also to tell the truth. You know, as moms, we cannot go there and we need to reframe what we say and not blame ourselves. Cause you start thinking, oh, I did this when I was pregnant. I this before I pregnant and I lived here and lived that. You can't do that, you have to stop.

So it's telling yourself the truth, not made up things. So that's number one. I love that. And then next up, I really want to break down because like as we close just kind of that arc of hope that you have for anyone, someone who is being told that maybe their symptoms are in their head or it's just stress or what is that? What is the arc hope you had to process and go through within your story that would give them a glimmer of I think advocating for yourself or your child, and if you ask an open-ended question of a medical provider, are you aware of any other thing that could be causing this?

Could unknown water damage in my home, like you may not see you may not see water damage at all, you might not smell musty smells, but if that's the case, then you really need to try to find a functional medicine practice that can help you with that. Right. Once you kind of hit a point where you've tried all the things, which is honestly what a lot of people come to us, right? They've try everything, they've asked the questions, and the conventional approach just doesn't have the answer. to the questions.

It's not that they're not great providers out there, it's just they themselves literally do not know some of the things that these functional medicine providers have trained to know. Right. So it's you don't know what you dont know. Right? And you only function with what your toolbox is. I would say that when you partner with us here at Hope for Healing, I just, if you choose to, or any functional medicine practice, we are for you. we believe you or you wouldn't be on our doorstep. And because most functional medicine practitioners have been gaslit themselves medically and by their family, their families don't understand what's wrong with you, or why are you the only person in this household that's sick or there may be only one person that is well in a whole household.

So you need to surround yourself with people that are supportive. I love that. And then lastly, the SIRS journey is a very long journey that, again, we do have hope for remission, which is super exciting. We are going to have a whole entire podcast series about SERS and really getting to the root and discussing all of that but for those who are listening to your story and who just feel the weight of the journey, what is just a glimmer of hope that you could give them as we close out this podcast.

That chronic inflammatory response syndrome implies chronic, but you can move it into remission and you have a very vibrant, healthy life. And so don't give up hope. If your kids are sick, they get well uber quick. So, you know, getting out of a moldy environment is step number one, but you can start to get well living in a multi environment. So it's getting partnering with someone who believes you and can evaluate you. And if you're interested, we have a discovery call that you can have with a medical provider.

We always start everything with the coach because we think everyone needs someone to go along with them for behavioral modification. But if you want to have a 15-minute discovery call to just meet a provider, find out based on, you know, that's not establishing a physician-patient relationship, but it's basically meeting the person, seeing if gel with them if they're a good fit for you and what their approach would be based on some questionnaires and I would just say hang in there. Anything and everything is possible.

Honestly, I think I wouldn't be here on this earth if I hadn't chosen conventional but then moved into functional because the answers are looking the 40,000 foot view and that's where functional medicine is so beautiful. I love that. Well, thank you, Dr. K, for sharing your story, seeing how it has very clearly interwoven in what you do at Hope for Healing, not only for your patients, but the way that you lead Hope For Healing and the ways you ask every part of Hope 4 Healing to kind of integrate in to this beautiful flow.

So thank Thank you, Lauren. Thank for joining us for this episode of Get to the Root with Hope for Healing. Dr. Paula Kruppstadt's story is a powerful reminder that healing starts with curiosity, faith, and a willingness to go deeper. If her journey resonated with you we hope it encourages you to look for answers and keep pursuing your own path to healing. To learn more or to explore our resources visit the links in our show notes. And remember there is always hope for healing