Why Moms’ Health Is the Key to Healing Kids’ Eczema

Welcome and Thanksgiving Reflection 0:00

Hi team, welcome back to the X-Men Kids podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so thankful that you're here. This week as we head into Thanksgiving, I just want to pause and remind you, you're doing so much. You're fighting for your child's health. You're researching and you're cooking and you're praying for sleep and you're trying to keep it all together. And maybe no one tells you this enough or at all, but it matters. What you're doing matters so much. You're changing the trajectory. of your family's health and that's exactly what today's episode is about.

What happens when we finally slow down and start taking care of the person that's holding it all together and that's you mama. My guest today is Dr. Clint Carter. He's a family physician who decided to do things differently. He left the red tape, the rushed visits, and the quick fixes behind so that he could help families actually heal and he's living proof that when you take time to look at the whole person, the whole family unit, not just the symptoms of one person in that unit, everything starts to change.

And here's what I know, when you come into the eczema elimination method, everyone in your family starts to get better. The tide sincerely does rise all chips. You're cooking for your family, you're supporting digestion, you're clearing out the inflammatory junk that's been keeping everyone stuck. And in the process of healing your kids, you start to heal yourself. the peace, the energy, the clarity, it all comes back. So take a breath. Let this conversation remind you that you're not crazy for wanting something different and you're not alone in finding your way there.

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. Dr. Carter, I am so glad that you're here. I've really been looking forward to this conversation because what you're doing, walking away from a system that rewards prescriptions and these 10 minute

Dr. Carter's Shift to Direct Primary Care 2:00

visits is exactly what the families that I work with are craving. And they need real connection and real answers and the space to actually get their child to a place of wellness. So Thank you for leading the charge here and being willing to have this conversation. Oh, it's my pleasure. This is great. I love what you're doing and I'm super interested in all that. So this is great. Great. Well, tell us what pushed you to make that shift from the traditional medical system into direct primary care.

Sure. Yeah. So I was family medicine trained in like, I guess we graduated in 2007 and I got out and I started looking at jobs and they were like, hospital-based clinic jobs and they were, you know, I walk in and the people in the waiting room are miserable. I walk up to the desk and the people behind the desk are miserable. And then I meet the doctors and they pretend like they're not miserable, but you can see it in their eyes. And so I said, okay, I'm not doing this. I'll go do ER. So then I did ER for 10 years or, you know, better part of it.

And then somewhere towards the last half of that, I came home and I was like, So is it a job if it steals your soul every shift? Like, is that really a trade I'm willing to make? And I was just, you know, I was burning out. We were having to go faster and this is pre-COVID, right? This is just regular ER. And so it was around 2015. I just kind of decided I was like, well, okay, I don't want to be a clinic doc. I don't want to be an ER doc. It's just all I'm doing all day is seeing primary care patients who can't get a hold of their doctor.

And then when a real emergency walks in, I don't have time for that. I got all these people I got to take care of. And I didn't have a doctor-patient relationship, you know? It's just like, hey, can Miss Smith have more morphine? You know, like, who's Miss Smith? Oh, the gallbladder in room six? Sure. It was just not fulfilling. It was nights, weekends. It was missing stuff with my kids. I was just like, you know, I'm not going to do it anymore. And so we had been acted as the builder for building our home and my dad had helped my brother build his.

And so we were like, I was like, you know what I'm going to do? I've been watching TV and that tree house builder guy, on TV looks like he's having a blast. And he's in Oregon or Washington or something, and I'm in Texas where there's plenty of trees. I'm gonna start a tree house building company and get out of the doctor gang. And Steph, my wife, who's a PA, was like, mm, you know. I mean, maybe she was very cool about it and was like, you know, you are a doctor. And so God sort of had an email hit my work email that was a concierge medicine conference in California.

I was like, well, hell, let's get out of here. Let's go to California. And so Steph and I went and we were like, I don't know. I think we could do this. So we felt God called us to start it. And I was like, okay, God, fine. I'm all in. But when it goes out of business, I'm going to build tree houses. So it didn't, he blessed it. I had a friend of mine who had done it a year ahead of me. And so I franchised in with him. And so we've been partners ever since. And so we are, you know, Been since around 2015, 2016 been doing this membership based medicine that it's now called direct primary care.

It wasn't really called that back then. And then we just called it concierge. And now that concierge technically means you take insurance and you charge extra for access. That's a little bit yucky, but to me, it's like all of a sudden. I get to spend an hour with my patients. I get to dig in to what's going on. And I thought, okay, I am going to take care of people. This is going to be life-changing. And it was, except that there was this subset, I was still doing in the box family medicine. And so then there was this subset of people, I just couldn't get better.

And so, you know, I'd get these 45 year old women, they're rocking right along. They, they're working out, they are eating right. They look great and they feel like death inside. And I was like, well, Crud, I don't know how to fix them. And so what happened was my partner was like, when are you gonna go do hormone training? And I was like, when I'm not a weirdo for being the direct primary care guy in town. So I finally gave in, figuring it was a cult. It opened up, obviously it went along with everything I already knew, plus a lot more.

And what had happened was it helped a lot of people, because hormone replacement is an important part of longevity, but it opened up the world to the outside of insurance medicine that I had not been taught. And then I was like, oh, so there's peptides and hormones and functional and, you know, lifestyle medicine and all of these things. Cause you know, up to that point, I had time to offer my patients, but I was still technically a drug dealer. I mean, that's all I really knew. Um, and so it's been really exciting to, to get out of the insurance box.

And now there's like no box. We can kind of, we go all over the place. That's so interesting.

Why Kids Are Seeing More Inflammation 7:00

I come from the dental world and I resonate with that. It's just like, wow, this is such a soul sucking experience. I mean, it's so, so miserable and I'm being exposed to so much radiation and you know, toxic chemicals and all the things like, you know, deleterious field. And I just resonate with that story. And have you heard of new health? No. It's like a community health share is what they call it. Oh, OK, yeah. And that's what we do right now. And I just have to say, it's been going great. It's just like one of those, it sounds a little bit like you, like you can go ahead and get your stuff done and then you kind of know beforehand.

Like I recently shattered my leg and you know what it's gonna cost beforehand. It's just like, you know. Yes, no, absolutely. Yeah, and that's like really reassuring. Yeah, my family does a health share. We're big health share supporters. We're not against people having insurance. We just don't take insurance. So the people that get insurance through their boss, I'm like, okay, great. Get a low deductible, I mean, a high deductible, you know, low out of your pocket policy. And then I'll make you never need it unless of course you shatter your leg or you get appendicitis or One of those things, in which case we can help be your, at that point I can be their navigator, their, I can check on, I can make sure they're going to the right docs, I can make sure they're getting the right care, I can be their advocate, you know?

So like the GC. Yeah. Yeah. Really actually involved in their care, even outside the walls of my practice. Yeah. Yeah, that's so helpful. So everyone listening today is a parent of a child who's, you know, experiencing eczema and diabetes and it's an autoimmune condition, right? It's like really multifaceted. It's really complicated. Why do you think there's just been such an explosion of inflammatory conditions in kids right now? I guess it started with, you know, all the autoimmune stuff in adults.

And it used to be that adults were autoimmune nightmares, obese, all over the place. And then it just, you know, our lifestyles, our exposures, all of it just, you know, it was inevitable that the kids at a younger and younger and younger ages were getting exposed. Now skin stuff and asthma and Allergies, that's always been in the kid brown, right? I got two out of three kids are peanut allergies. You know, one of these days we'll figure that out, but it's gonna be on the same lines as a lot of this other autoimmune junk.

And we're just exposed to so many, we'll call them toxins, environmental, chemicals, the stuff in our food especially. So, you know, I'm with you. It's sad that we've let it get this far. and that modern medicine has really no preventative strategy. It's all, you know, let's give you medicines to decrease your immune system because your immune system seems to hate you. That's all we've got so far. Right? And that's just setting you up for failure when you're just in that mindset of like, of why me and like, how body failing me, like that is so defeating and it's especially defeating.

I mean, you know, everyone who's listening, their heart is just aching because their child is suffering so greatly. Like there's certainly worse things, you know, there's childhood cancer and there's like really horrible things out there. But if you're really in it and your child isn't sleeping and they're just waking up, you know, constantly because they're in pain and they're itching so greatly, like, you know, that weighs on your heart so much. And when you take on people, like, do you take on the family?

Like, do you monitor? Yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah. So if I can get ahold of the whole family, I mean, I can treat everyone better because I have a well-rounded view of what's going on in their lives and what they're exposed to, their mental, emotional traumas, their physical exposures, if you will. And I'm super interested in what you're doing in that I'm a little bit stuck that I'm functional friendly. I'm not even completely functional trained. I've got my partners functional trained. I've got people in my practice going through the training now.

But even then I have a high suspicion that what you're doing is not something they're going to learn in their functional training, right? So I do think that having root cause priorities and perspectives on the medical care side of these kiddos is what really matters, because then you can really start digging in with mom, you can start digging in with dad, the kids can give you some insight at a certain age, and you can start trying to figure out, okay, what the heck is really going on here, right?

And some of it's, there's genetic predisposition, like, well, okay, I had a little eczema as a kid and now my kids have it bad.

Healing the Whole Family, Not Just the Child 12:00

Okay, well, there's some genetic predisposition, but why do they have it so badly and you did not? Things like that. you know, a pretty good indicator of like mold or something, financially environmental, you know, going on with your house is like, multiple members of the family are gonna be experiencing autoimmune. Yeah, it would be lots of different autoimmune. It won't always be eczema, right? But it'll be, you know, I've got so many 20 and 30 somethings that are like, their bodies are, autoimmune like crazy and it's just it's almost as sad as your kiddo who is suffering at home suffering at school you know summer comes around they don't want to wear the swimsuit or whatever and they've got all they've got all of the the psychological and physical stuff that goes with that but you got this 20 30 year old adult who's supposed to be in the prime of their life and they come in hurting all the time and they can't do anything they want to do and they can't be there for the kids like they want to be and it's like this autoimmune epidemic that comes from being exposed to a bunch of stuff that we ought not be.

It's really sad. It is, I know, it's heartbreaking. And I know that's why both of us do what we do, right? Because it's just, there's so much unnecessary suffering going on. And I mean, good news is like, it's within our control. And I know as a mom, when I was going through it, like two of my kids had severe, severe eczema. I have four now. But you know, it just, I had to let go of the why. Like once I ruled out, like we were already filtering our water, And then I did mold tests throughout the house.

And I did whatever I could to shore up what I could environmentally in our home. Anything that I had control over, I got a new washer ring from my clothes washer. I was like, that looks like mold. I don't know. And I eventually had to let go of why. It's like, you know, what I, all I could focus on was really is like, what can I do from here? And what can I do to, you know, help their cellular turnover so that every round of cells is just healthier and healthier and more and more. Oh, that's brilliant.

Yeah. I mean, I tell people all the time, like part of what we do is we get ahold of these, you know, late thirties to mid forties females that have just been just committing all of their time and energy to their families, and their bodies are sort of crying out for a little bit of attention, and they feel like crud, and they're perimenopausal, and they've got all this other stuff going on. And I'm like, yes, but my kid this, and I'm like, yes, yes. Mom guilt is indeed the strongest force on the planet.

That is a thing. You do not get between a mama bear and whatever she feels guilty about. But at the same time, what your kids really need is a healthy mama. And fortunately, we have the time to sit down and go over that with them. But kind of going back to where you're at is like, you gotta get past the, am I doing something wrong part? as the parent, even just like behavioral stuff. Like I wish I had known about, you know, the dyes and some of the stuff when I was raising my oldest son. He was a tough kid, man.

Oh my gosh. I could not wait to be a parent. I thought, you know, give them some structure and give them, you know, just love and, you know, tell them about the Lord and give them all this perspective. And that, I was like, I told him at some point, I was like, you know, he's like, I mean, when am I not going to have a four-year-old anymore? Why do we have to play cops and robbers all the time? You know, all this because we're just always out of control. And it's like, first we had to figure out that we weren't necessarily doing anything wrong, but also we were just surviving.

We weren't, you know, controlling the junk in his diet and that kind of stuff. We didn't have, we had no idea. We were just a doctor and a physician assistant. What do we know? So yeah, just the, the parent parental guilt of first, It's not my fault. I'm not doing anything wrong. And then, okay, well, cred, what are we going to do about it? 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.

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.

a lot of the people that I see had the same experience that I did at the pediatrician, right, was where you go and your children are unwell and they're prescribed steroids. That's step number one for eczema, right? That's just like step number one. And the last step, like that and, you know, a hope and a prayer, cross your fingers and some bleach baths is like the plan. And that's what was given to me, but there's so many that are really like, you know, we took the advice because what else are we going to do?

My child is- You know, you went to the expert. Right. Of course you did. Right. And so you're kicking yourself later. And I've had four Caesareans, of course, like I think about how I could have done things differently, but yes, it's just part of the game. No, yeah, no. You can let the Caesareans go. Yeah. Focus on what you can get from here. Yeah, let it go. Yes, it is. It's so real. They just borrow our nervous systems, right? And if we're regulated and calm, it just, it makes the biggest difference.

No matter what you're trying to do to actually heal, like overcome an autoimmune condition or just get out the door, right? And time for school or. Is it just survive? No, we're surviving. And it's, it's the, I love the functional medicine sort of strategy in general, no matter who you talk to, no matter if they're gut fanatics or they're,

Root Causes, Nutrition, and Environment 18:00

you know, where they are on that, whether they're sort of generalized, whatever the whole strategy is here is, give the body what it needs to heal itself. And I'm like, that's such a beautiful baseline strategy to wellness is start giving the body what it needs to heal itself. Like you said, let every turnover of cell, every generation of cells be a little healthier than the last mitochondrial, all the things. In your professional opinion, what are those core things that the body needs to heal itself?

Oh gosh so you put me on the spot with all your viewers that probably already know the answers because they're following along with you. You know I think that an area of developing science in the medical community right because that has not been. As a doctor, that is not really the approach I was taught. I was not taught, this is what your body needs to be healthy. I was taught, when this goes wrong, do that. And when that goes wrong, do this. So they get diabetes, you give them diabetes meds. When they get high cholesterol, you give them high cholesterol.

And lip service given to, exercise and diet for weight control, but no one really believed that people would change. So they immediately went past that. It was like, you know, after diet and exercise, then blah, blah, blah, blah. And then after a while you realize, oh, what you mean is, skip the diet and exercise part and go to the, the pharmaceuticals that can fix their problem. So you're actually asking me a trick question. What does the body need to, to heal itself, to be healthy? And the, the level that we're learning about mitochondrial health as an important part of whole body health in the mitochondria, the way they play a role in chronic disease immune system is, you know, it was designed, you know, I'm a creationist, if you will.

I'm a God's in charge kind of guy. But if you look at it from the evolutionary aspect of, okay, there was a time when these immune systems were fighting off all kinds of badness and the people that had those strong immune systems lived and some of the other ones didn't. And that's how we propagated some genes, that kind of stuff. Well, those same immune systems are losing their minds about all the stuff that we are exposing our bodies to. And so if you can get Relatively good nutrition. Minimize the amount of junk that gets through your GI tract and your skin, as probably the two main ways things are getting in your lungs, as far as getting in your body.

And you can give the vitamins and the nutrients and the things that your body needs to be healthy at the cellular level. Then cells make organs, organs make systems, and that's where that body comes from. I tell people all the time, they're like, fatigue is the complaint in the adult world. And I'm just like, well, we have to control what we can control. We got supplements to help with your energy production, but also mitochondrial health. And you've got to exercise. You've got to eat right. You've got to get outside and get some sunlight.

You've got to be a part of this creation. You cannot hide inside in the UV light, eating potato chips and watching TV all day and expect. to not feel like crud. And that's, while most people aren't being that extreme, you know, you take that example and you kind of get the idea. Yeah, I mean, but that's what's so wild. And that's where I was too. It was like, what, we eat vegetables? Like, you know, and I certainly would never buy a Cheeto and we filter our water and I haven't had gluten for a decade.

And yeah, we don't get conventional dairy. And like, I literally have clients who live on an organic farm, you know, and we're still talking. It's just so wild. So, but it's also just a reminder of those things that are free and available to everyone, right? Just going outside. It just makes the biggest difference. It does. But then you've got your folks that are like, you know, you go to their allergist and they're like, well, your kid's allergic to all this stuff. So you really need to protect them from all those allergens and you need to keep them inside with a bunch of air filters, you know, so maybe you can keep them from all that stuff.

And it's a, I'm a little disappointed to hear that you got folks on organic farms that are having those same conversations about their eczema and other allergic stuff. Because there was data in med school that did speak that people that are exposed to a bunch of pets or farm animals and whatnot had fewer allergies than people that were in these super controlled environments. But it's still a thing. That's what's so frustrating is, yeah, you can be doing literally everything, right? Like unmedicated, home births, all things, you know?

And it's just okay. It's just like, that's gonna be, that's the Achilles heel and we can reverse it. It's all right, again. You know, your listeners probably already know, but for my benefit, tell me kind of a little bit about your approach. I'd love to banter about that for a second if we have the time. Sure. I mean, we really approach it like these are parents, right, that have to heal their children because ultimately, no matter who you work with, it's like you're the one that's actually doing the implementation and actually gonna get your child across the finish line.

And so we start with diet and it's obviously needs to be anti-inflammatory and needs to not have any seed oils or just any processed junk whatsoever. And then there's a lot of eczema-specific foods. If you just think of eczema, the condition as it is, it really helped me wrap my mind around it when I looked at it, the properties of eczema. It's a very hot and mobile and fiery and dry conditions. So what could you then introduce and eat that would balance those, counter those properties? cooling, easy to digest foods.

Ultimately, everything has to be digestible. That's really the name of the game because these kids aren't absorbing the nutrients from the food and maybe never have. So we shore up the diet. Everything that goes on the skin has to be bioavailable and non-toxic. It has to be edible. Not that it would taste good to eat it, but you're honestly digesting it just the same. Everything's circulating through your system. Which is funny because everything that your doctor gave you has a warning on it, do not ingest.

Just topical only, call your poison control immediately if it gets in your... It's poison. That's what the doctor said when he gave me two prescriptions for my month old and my two year old and he said put gloves on yourself before you administer these because these are 100% caustic. admittedly, but yeah, so you know skin care because you got to deal with the the here and now and then you do everything we can for your home and your environment and then we focus on on supplements and you know really dialing in the you know opening up the detoxification systems and.

Hormones, Moms, and Family Health 25:00

enabling them to digest properly and then filling those nutritional deficiencies that are obviously there if you're experiencing eczema. So that's what we do. And for this specific condition, a lot of the parents are told, oh, they'll just grow out of it. Like, what do you want them to know if they've heard advice like that? I would do they watch football games on Sundays because every commercial break is some new stupid, expensive immune modulating pharmaceutical for eczema or, you know, all of these other skin conditions for adults.

So obviously that's not true because these drug companies are spending billions of dollars on adult eczema and other autoimmune skin and joint concerns. You know, it's the immuno modulating, you know, emerging market, not that it's new, but it's like where all of the money's going right now. Because you can control symptoms that way and that's all that they know how to do. So obviously outgrowing it is not going to work. And if there's a, you know, if there is a percent of kids that do get better with age, It's, it's not, that's not the strategy.

Um, you know, just cause they're a little less picky and they, they eat something besides Cheetos, uh, now and is a little less bad. That obviously that can't be, that can't be a, uh, the longterm strategy here. I know, I know. So how does lifestyle and nutrition and environment, how do all those things fit into your practice now? Well, so, you know, because I have an hour with my patients, I get the time to really dig in. So we do a pretty big lab panel. I mean, nothing, nothing crazy, nothing.

Like once you pay me a membership, I'm personally offended by every healthcare dollar that's out of your pocket. So I'm not also going to then say, okay, you need this $1,000 functional test and this, like, I'm gonna be pretty picky. But at first, I can get, for under $100, I can get most of the hormone and vitamin and basic labs that I know how to interpret. And then we can sit in here, go over that, we can talk about what I see. And so often, they look pretty good. I mean, most people that come to me are like, hey, I feel like crud, but my doctor says that my labs are normal, so help me.

And I'm like, well, they're not checking everything. Let's check a little extra and let's sit down. Let's, let's get into it. But so often we get way past the labs. We get, you know, we can check their med list because some they've been trying some, most of them have been trying something before they get to me. And then we just start going, okay. Let's just get back to the basics. We need, you know, a certain amount of exercise and then the information on longevity. We thought exercise is important, but it's stupid important.

I mean, it's 10 X what we thought. So the ability to sort of just gradually take the patient where they're at and move them a little bit closer to ideal with their diet, their sleep. Sleep is. so big, their exercise, their other exposures, and you know, are they getting any? And we'll call it grounding for lack of a better term. Are you spending any time? And then we also get in some spiritual, you know, I love that I have time to get in spiritual conversation, right? We got mental, emotional, physical, and then spiritual health.

And it's like, you know, everyone was born to worship something. And those of us who, of the Christian bent, feel like we know what the answer is, but you're gonna worship something. And so being able to make sure that they have a spiritual approach to health is also super important and fun. And I live in the Bible Belt, so we just sort of, I mean, unless it's obviously not true, I just sort of impute spirituality and usually a Judeo-Christian view. And they just talk about how important it is to have that belief in a higher power.

Working all the way through all of those pieces takes longer than an hour. It's amazing how fast an hour goes when you're actually doing a physical exam and looking at some labs and an EKG and going through what's really going on in their life. So the first visit, an hour is not nearly enough, we end up having to come back fairly soon, but it's the hour visit every so often pretty soon you really know what's going on when they call with a sick, because I'm also available 24 hours a day. So when they call me, Hey, I'm really sick.

I'm like, Ooh, you can't be sick because you've got this trip coming up in a week. And, you know, some of that sort of relational side is so gratifying for me and it's gratifying for my patients. And, you know, just kind of like pull your audience back in. It's, it's, it's a, a situation where you're like, hey, the mom is, you know, we have an app where they can communicate with us 24 seven. And, you know, the mom is, you know, this kid is this, this kid is that. Oh, by the way, the house is coming down with a GI bug.

Plus the, you know, all the things that are going on with the individual kiddos. It's a very gratifying way to practice medicine. And we spent a long time with the pediatric visits as well, but so much of that is handled without the kid in the room, because you quite frankly don't need the kid in the room to have a lot of those conversations, unless they're breaking out or they're asthma attack or some other musculoskeletal thing. Kids are mostly rubber, they bounce back pretty quick. It's what we're exposing them to and what we're doing about the way their body's responding to the world around them that's really the more interesting part.

You end up needing a lot less medicine, you end up referring to specialists way less, and people are, in general, they feel better, they're healthier, they're happier, to the point that we even have some aesthetics type things that we've added to our practice over time because we get these people You know, their hormones are replaced, their vitamins are replaced, they're active now and they feel great and they walk by a mirror and they go, huh, but I still look old. And so then they're going to my friends in town and spending, you know, three X what they're spending with me for their, you know, their aesthetics.

I was like, well, I don't want to be a Kardashian meds ball, but. We have a relationship when I just take you to that next spot and so we just we do a little no we do what we call functional aesthetics we rebuild the muscle of the face we rebuild the muscle in the in the areas we help you know with the fat loss and you know we do a little botox a little bit of that stuff. But for the most part, we try to minimize that. We don't do fillers. We're not trying to put a bunch of foreign substances inside your body.

I don't feel like that works. Because wellness and aesthetics is kind of a continuum. If you look great but feel bad, like those 45-year-olds I mentioned earlier, you're not well. And if you feel great and look bad, you're not well. If you feel comfortable in your own skin, you feel well, and you're reasonably happy with how you look for your age, that's a pretty darn good spot. 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.

Practical First Steps for Families 33:00

That's a good far. I'm so curious with these moms specifically that you see that are in their 40s and a little tired and yeah, but their labs look fine. Are there any like patterns that you that you've seen? For the most part, we do a hormonal evaluation as a part of everyone's first evaluation. 35 and over probably. Maybe younger if they have a specific complaint. But really, God designed women to lose their testosterone at age 40-ish. little before a little after somewhere in there because their childbearing years are mostly over and then things get harder right like the body kind of is not responding how it wants periods you're in that perimenopause area periods start getting weird you're you're not quite mentally as sharp your memory your memory is not quite as good you're a lot more tired you're not sleeping as well everything's just a little bit harder but women are amazing and they just keep plowing along right and their doctors say their labs look good so i guess i'll go to the gym six instead of five times a week and maybe that'll make the difference and then i'll god forbid they hit menopause you know 50-ish and then it's like the wheels fall off and and so many women just push through that because their gynecologist said hey welcome to being old and the women's health initiative study from 2001 with a bunch of fake synthetic hormones said that hormones are bad for you.

So you don't get hormones anymore. Even though last month, before we decided your menopausal, I had you on full birth control with all these other synthetic stuff. But now the least amount of hormone for the least amount of time. And you're like, what are you? Do you hear what you're saying? But so we do bioidentical hormone replacement. We try to do hormone mimicry during that 40 something phase. We like testosterone if they're symptomatic, which every, all those symptoms were really testosterone symptoms I went through and then, but also progesterone is great for sleep and it sort of bounces out of some estrogen dominance that you find.

Yes, there's a ton of things we can do, but also there's, like I said before, there's so many women that are, they have a healthy home. Their kids are eating a certain way and they know everyone's probably eating kind of the same things for the most part, but the mom's not otherwise spending any energy on herself because she's trying to drag her no good husband to do a little something healthy and quit, you know, eating out at lunch and come home and eat healthy and all those things. And our kids and all of those, everything they've got going on, she's running that she's the CEO of the household.

She's got, she's in charge of the finance. She's the CFO of the household. She's in charge of the finances. she's in charge of everyone's health and so that's I mean when we do if we do marketing we market to that person because that person needs help they just need help they need me to come along and tell their slap their husband around a little bit and be like hey you want you want to feel better you want this and this and this and here's your labs and you know it has to be his idea but I'm you know I'm his co-pilot I can help get in there but also she needs to start taking care of herself a little bit and usually you know, the women that, that I'm dealing with a lot, they're just so amazing that they just keep plowing and just don't look, just don't pay attention to it.

Much like the guys who don't care. They aren't held to a higher standard. They don't have to look good. It's okay to be fat if you're a dude, all those things. So yeah, they, but their wives are watching them going, man, he's going to freaking dive a heart attack in like five years. And then what, you know, But the wives, the moms, they, you know, between hormones, other diet and exercise things, and just basically giving themselves away for the last 30, you know, ish years. Yeah, it's, it's helpful to get together and just talk about what being healthy looks like and why it's important for her to be healthy now and later.

So helpful, I know everyone that's listening is just like leaning in. So even if they're in the traditional system, like what are those first steps that families could take to start just reclaiming their child's health and their own? I mean, listening to you is a good start, right? So what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If it's unhealthy for your kid to do it and eat it, it's unhealthy for you to do it and eat it. It's unhealthy for your husband to do it and eat it, right? And so, you know, this is a philosophical discussion we're having.

And so if they see that the philosophy that you guys are expounding on this podcast and on your other channels is true for the kids, then that philosophy needs to be extended to everyone in the family, including mom. And so when you go to the doctor, your doctor needs to know your philosophical priorities. You're like, hey, like I'm not saying no to every medicine on the planet just because it's made by a pharmaceutical company. Like I'm not gonna be, you know, like kept my nose off to spite my face.

However, my philosophy is I wanna be healthy from the inside out. I wanna prevent disease. I want some hormone mimicry, right? Like I need to be healthy going into it. And what you're gonna find is You almost can't get that in the system. You're asking preventative questions to someone who was trained to put out fires. It's not a thing. Like preventative health, it's a punchline in the regular system. So I'm not saying you have to find a concierge doctor or a direct primary care doctor or even a functional doctor.

But if your doctor is just plain old in the box, you know, hey, you look good and paper and you know, you're not morbidly obese and you know, you know, maybe, you know, how's your exercise? Okay. Yeah. You know, how you sleeping? Okay. Well, see you in a year. You know, it's like. But I'm tired and I feel like crud and I can't think and my life is so hard and my marriage is falling apart because it's just,

Closing Thoughts and Where to Find Dr. Carter 39:00

you know, it's like, hey, you probably could use a little functional medicine in your life. You could probably use someone who knows what a bioidentical hormone is and you at least have those discussions. That's kind of the area I would go because. Yeah, your insurance covers this other guy or girl, but they don't know and it's not their fault. They weren't trained in it and they get eight minutes with you and insurance doesn't pay for that stuff anyway. So what would be the point for them? So you, obviously you guys are amazing at being advocates for your kiddos and you're going to have to try to do the same thing for you to get into a place that has a philosophy that matches yours.

Well, Dr. Carter, thank you so much. This has just been a really eye opening and hopeful conversation, honestly. Like it just, I really, I love your story and I love that you stuck your neck out there and are starting to make a change. So thank you. Well, I will say it helps when you're so desperate, you can't keep doing what you're doing. Right? Right? I mean, how did you end up where you're at? You ended up where you're at because you were so desperate and no one else had any answers. You're like, well, gosh, darn it.

Let's go get new answers. So kudos to you for, you know, just from the ground up, figuring out, doing all the research yourself. Thank goodness we're in the information age where that stuff is at least accessible. And you and your listeners for fighting for wellness in a world that doesn't seem to care. So hang in there. And, you know, if I can be of help, you know, I'm in Northeast Texas, so I'm probably not right next to most of your listeners. However, Do you do virtual? If you look up direct primary care, look up functional medicine, look up bioidentical hormone replacement, look up some of those things.

Obviously, I can't add much to the childhood eczema thing compared to what you can offer other than those same kiddos need a healthy, vibrant mom, their husbands could use a healthy, vibrant wife, and life on the other side of feeling like a human being is pretty darn awesome. and then everyone sort of benefits, right? So you guys are rocking it. Keep it up. I'm really impressed. I look forward to hearing more about what you're doing and I'm gonna get you on my podcast here soon and let you just deep dive and see how much of that I can extract and take it to my practice and to my listeners and kind of move on in that direction as well.

That's gonna be awesome. I can't wait for that. Tell us where everyone listening can find and follow you. I'm at My MD Select. If you look at mymdselect.com, I'm the Tyler location, or you can just go mymdselecttyler.com. And then, you know, the other My MD Select docs are great too though, like Dr. Smith and the other guys there, you know, got a lot of functional trained folks. So if you just, we would all be happy to reach back out to you, give you some advice, that kind of thing. Obviously we have social media channels and all those things as well, but.

I trust that whoever's monitoring those are doing a great job, because I have no idea what's on them. However, if there's anything we can do to help you out, just reach out. And someone don't know how to get ahold of me. My email is just drcarter at mimdselect.com. Just reach out directly. And while I am awful at email, I'll get to it eventually. That's super generous. Thanks so much. All of that will be in the show notes. All right. Well, hey, thank you so much for having me on. It's great to meet you.

Keep it up. That's awesome. Likewise, take care. Bye bye. You know, listening to Dr. Carter, I kept thinking, this is what healing really looks like. It's not just about eczema. It's about remembering that your family's health starts with you. The calmer you are, the safer they feel, and the more nourished that you are, the more that they can thrive. So as you go into this Thanksgiving week, I hope you take a moment to honor how far you've come, even if it still feels very messy, even if you're still in the thick of it and very, very, very tired.

Because this work that you're doing is changing generations. And if you're ready for real support, for structure, for recipes, for a clear path forward, come join me, friends, inside the eczema elimination method. It's where parents learn how to heal their kids naturally, but it never stops there. You'll start to notice your own energy shifting, your skin clearing, your mind quieting. Healing your child is the doorway to healing yourself. And you can get started at eczemakids.com. Take care, friends.

I'm so grateful for you. Have a beautiful Thanksgiving 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.