Foundations of Functional Medicine
Kingdom Wellness Conversations #1- Pilot
Dr. Halie Elchos (00:01.673)
Hello I’m Dr. Halie Elchos and welcome to the Kingdom Wellness Conversation Podcast. I’m here with…
Dr. Kate Davis (00:08.586)
Dr. K. Davis.
Dr. Halie Elchos (00:10.501)
And we’re going to be discussing all things health from a functional medicine perspective. So we’re going to talk about maybe what inspired us to get here, Kate. How did we end up here?
Dr. Kate Davis (00:22.348)
Yeah, that’s a great question. mean, it’s kind of a, I think for most people, it’s kind of like a long journey or it’s like one specific event that kind of happened in your life that.
that really just kind of changed your whole perspective on health and medicine. And just for me, like I really got kind of started on this path at a pretty young age. I had a really bad concussion when I was 18, like a month before college, which was kind of a bummer. had, you know, Dory syndrome for all freshman year of college where I’d meet someone and literally introduce myself to them the day, the next day and not remember that I had met them.
But yeah, I got t-boned by a motorcyclist when I was riding my bicycle. My heart rate, my heart almost stopped, had to get life flighted. It was a whole big thing. But, you know, I was very, very blessed in that situation that, I didn’t have any more serious injuries besides, you know, bone bruise, concussion, but that kind of got me on the path of realizing that the medical system couldn’t help me. You know, every neurologist I went to had told me that, you know, there’s nothing you can do. Once you have brain damage, you can’t fix it. And that’s just completely false.
you look at research nowadays, there’s decades of research showing the opposite of neuroplasticity, which is basically the field of how you can actually change brain function by just understanding what’s wrong and giving people simple vision, vestibular exercises to really just kind of rehab the brain and fix it or up-regulate certain parts of the brain, like the brain stem, which is what I had severe damage in, which is why my heart almost stopped. So yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (01:53.855)
So where did you get help? Like how did you find out about an alternative?
Dr. Kate Davis (01:59.022)
Yeah, well that was actually…
I was very blessed to have all these doctors kind of put in my life. At a young age, I shadowed a ton of doctors. I wanted to go to medical school. I wanted to be an MD and do infectious disease like Dr. House. And I thought that was fascinating. And it’s kind of cool that my whole journey kind of came full circle back to essentially infectious disease just from a functional medicine perspective versus a Western medicine perspective. But yeah, I had all these doctors who I was shadowing who were basically telling me like, hey, medicine is not what it used to be.
especially as a woman, if you want to have a family, I wouldn’t recommend going into infectious disease. You’re never going to have a life. You’re always going to be on call. You’re always going be at the hospital. And, you know, really helped me re-examine what I was doing with my life. And, you know, I canceled my MCATs my senior year of college. So going through all that schooling just to realize I wasn’t going to go to med school was definitely a bummer at the time. But, you know, I just kind of trusted that there was going to be something good that came out of it. And then my chiropractor at home, because I never thought about going to chiropractic school, I just thought, you know, the
bones. It’s kind of boring. There’s not really much to do there. you know, that was, you know, so far from the truth. And he introduced me to what’s called functional neurology. And he actually, you know, he had me drive up to Atlanta and meet him at this functional neurology seminar. I had no idea what Dr. Kerrick was saying. You know, I maybe understood 5%, but he was showing all these videos, you know, people who are really messed up neurologically, like they couldn’t even walk down a hallway without support because they had really bad vertigo, or know, kids who had had concussions playing sports in high school.
Dr. Halie Elchos (03:04.809)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (03:29.607)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (03:33.104)
who had to wear like those big glaucoma glasses because they couldn’t handle any sort of light in their eyes. It’s just so, you know, traumatizing for these people and just seeing how he was able to rehabilitate them and completely, you know, change the course of their life. I didn’t even know that was possible because every neurologist I went to is like, I guess you’re stuck this way, you know.
Dr. Halie Elchos (03:50.173)
Yeah, and he wasn’t using medication, right? He was using eye movements, vestibular movements, chiropractic adjustments, right? To completely turn these people’s brains around.
Dr. Kate Davis (03:54.622)
yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, and that was the first time I ever really thought about chiropractic as a career. And so once I went to that seminar, I was totally sold into it. And he was like, once you get to school, you need to go find a functional neurologist and get treated. Because I had had so many issues. Memory was terrible. As I told you, had basically Dory syndrome all freshman year of college. And luckily, it got better. And I would just start telling people, hey, my name’s Kate. I had a concussion right before starting college. So if I forget this conversation, just remind me and the memory will come back.
Dr. Halie Elchos (04:05.342)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (04:18.92)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (04:31.212)
probably introduce myself to you the next time I see you. And so people are just, you know, you just kind of have to start speaking up for yourself at that point. know, it eventually got better, but I still struggled to pay attention. couldn’t handle auditory anything. Lectures in college would just put me to sleep. Like just listening without a visual cue was really, really difficult for me. But yeah, I met this chiropractor my first quarter of chiropractic school. And I remember the first time he worked on me, he me do just these really simple exercises. He’s like, look,
here, now track here, now look over here.” And he did that for maybe 10 minutes and I left thinking, what the heck did I just pay for? Like it was, it was wild, but the next day I woke up and I felt like a new person. Like it was the first time I could actually go to class for nine hours. I paid attention the entire time, didn’t zone out, didn’t lose focus, took great notes and actually remembered conversations I was having with people. And it just completely changed, you know, my whole outlook on what health actually is and that there are other alternatives out
there for whatever problem you may have. Now that was obviously where I started, but I’ve had a lot of crazy health issues throughout my life as you know, since you’re the one who fixed my gut stuff. yeah, that was basically like my short way of just saying, you know, there’s always a solution out there. You just haven’t found it yet, but don’t ever listen to a doctor who tells you there’s nothing you can do because there’s always something else you can do. So that’s kind of when, you know, my whole path changed in terms of healthcare and medicine.
Dr. Halie Elchos (05:39.014)
Yep.
Dr. Halie Elchos (05:53.012)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (05:58.461)
Yeah, and so that’s what Dr. Kate and I are really here to share. That’s our purpose in doing this podcast is just anyone that is kind of at a loss of words of where to go next. We just want you to understand that you’re not your illness, you’re not your disease, your body is perfectly created, and it can heal. And are we always saying that you can get to 100 % healthy? I mean, I think it’s possible, but…
Dr. Kate Davis (06:13.87)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (06:18.542)
on.
Dr. Halie Elchos (06:26.066)
We can definitely make improvements and give you a better quality of life through a holistic approach to your health, through a functional medicine approach to your health. We just always have to kind of come from that perspective and say, what is stopping this person from healing? Let’s kind of remove those barriers out of their life, right? So their body can facilitate its own healing on its own.
Dr. Kate Davis (06:43.041)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Halie Elchos (06:49.254)
And so for those that don’t know, Dr. and I are both chiropractic physicians and we practice now functional medicine, but always come up from the philosophy of that chiropractic background. so Dr. Kate, how does that chiropractic background, like how does it play a part, you know, when people were just like, you know, you’re, just a chiropractor. You’re not a real doctor. what, how, how does this play a part into like how you treat patients now? Like how does it change your perspective?
Dr. Kate Davis (07:09.646)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (07:18.764)
Well, it’s, it’s kind of interesting because you know, my roommate and I, which you, know him too, because we all went to school together, but we would always talk in chiropractic school about how going to, you know, kind of grad school and an alternative medicine field like chiropractic or acupuncture, naturopathy, all those things is kind of like waking up from a dream and realizing that everything you thought was right about medicine, completely wrong. And that there’s a lot of, you know, we don’t have to go down this rabbit hole in this podcast, but
Dr. Halie Elchos (07:33.492)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Halie Elchos (07:42.184)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (07:48.64)
but there’s a lot of money and power and control in the medical system and it makes it difficult for people to even navigate what’s real information and what’s not because there’s just so much confusion and you know that’s kind of I guess where you can get into more of the you know Christian perspective on you know the world being very power hungry and control and money and all that stuff but it’s just
Dr. Halie Elchos (07:54.056)
We’ll get there eventually.
Dr. Kate Davis (08:18.134)
Yeah, it’s just tough, you know, to kind of get people to look at the other side of medicine. I think the world is shifting, though. I think people are really starting to realize how broken our system is, how there are more natural ways to heal. know, like even just thinking from a common sense perspective, food that was grown in the ground, you know, by nature, is definitely better than chemicals made in a lab and put into a food product. Like that should just be common sense for a lot of people.
Dr. Halie Elchos (08:27.977)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (08:45.46)
Well, that’s my thing here. It’s like when people get put on medications and stuff I’m like guys like man is not that smart like that medicine was synthetically made from something in nature So like let’s find what’s in nature that they created that medication from I mean man man’s not that smart God figured it out a long time ago and People kind of would just take that perspective But you know in chiropractic school is the one that we attended You know, it’s the power that made the body heals the body and well, we believe that that
Dr. Kate Davis (08:49.902)
Okay.
Dr. Kate Davis (08:55.96)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (09:00.727)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (09:07.395)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (09:15.39)
Power is God, right? We’re perfectly made, perfectly created. And our bodies can heal themselves. So coming from that approach, when we’re looking at someone’s health, we’re always just asking the question, why? Right?
Dr. Kate Davis (09:17.896)
Thank
Dr. Kate Davis (09:27.958)
Yeah.
Yeah, and it’s not just, you know, giving a diagnosis that means nothing. Like if you, think the best thing anyone can do is take the diagnosis their doctor gave them and go look up the Latin root words for it. You know, gastritis, inflammation of the gut, colitis, inflammation of the colon, fibromyalgia, muscle fiber pain. It literally tells you nothing, but the root of all of that is inflammation. But nobody ever asked the question of, why are you inflamed? You know, like when I was treating people who had head injuries, like I’d gone through all this. So I knew that, you know, the
Dr. Halie Elchos (09:49.885)
Yeah.
Correct.
Dr. Kate Davis (09:58.688)
the of healing the brain could affect your physical body because your brain controls everything. But it was just…
It’s just kind of crazy just to see that, you know, people don’t really look past the diagnosis or the symptoms and they just are like, well, this is what it is. Here’s a drug and it’s not their fault. It’s just what they’re on medical school. But you’re right. Like most people don’t know that most medications are actually derived from the herbs that natural medicine doctors give their patients, you know, like berberine. That’s what metformin, which is the type two diabetes medication is derived from is they took that herb, they made it extremely potent and added a bunch of other stuff to it so they could patent it and make a product.
Dr. Halie Elchos (10:37.172)
Yeah, but without the side effects, right? You know, people with metformin, people that take metformin, I mean, you know, it leads to like numbness of the legs. It leads to like all these side effects. It’s like, just take the berberine. It’s cheap. It’s affordable, you know? Not only that, it’s great for your blood sugar and diabetes, but it’s great for digestion. You know, it’s actually anti, know, antibacterial. I take it almost like for as antibiotic, you know? So, yes.
Dr. Kate Davis (10:44.27)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (10:50.988)
Mm-hmm. Yup.
Dr. Kate Davis (11:04.737)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (11:06.708)
1000 % and that’s just one example.
Dr. Kate Davis (11:09.184)
Yeah, and it’s just crazy because you always get like, man, I would get this so much because I would treat a lot of chronic pain, but I would use the brain to do it. I’d be like, OK, based on the way you’re walking, your symptoms, the fact that you can’t move your shoulder, let’s try a vision exercise, see what happens or let’s try to stimulate your brain stem or your vagus nerve or, know, whatever the case is. And I remember there were several people who their doctor told them you’re going to need surgery for this issue without doing imaging. They didn’t know what was wrong. They’re like, I can’t lift my arm. They’re like, well, you need surgery.
Dr. Halie Elchos (11:24.596)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (11:39.04)
I would see them a few times and incorporate neurology, which is what chiropractic is, at a base level. It’s just activating different parts of the brain, strengthening the brain to function better. But I would just add a little bit extra and get into more of the functional neurology realm. And people’s pain would completely go away. But the thing that baffled me was they would go back to their doctor and the doctor would say, don’t go see that chiropractor again. They’re like, but they fixed me. What are you talking about? Look at the results. You know what I’m saying? It’s it’s crazy.
Dr. Halie Elchos (12:04.706)
my goodness.
Dr. Kate Davis (12:08.944)
Because there’s also just that ego and pride aspect in medicine too that you kind of have to Go around and like like you said earlier like people like you’re just a chiropractor. It’s just like what does that even mean? Like we went through grueling school like it was rough. We had to take five exams Five national board exams guys five like and it’s just it’s wild like we learn way more about the musculoskeletal system the brain the spinal cord we learn more neurology the nutrition
Dr. Halie Elchos (12:23.102)
Yes. Traumatic.
Dr. Halie Elchos (12:37.01)
Nutrition.
Dr. Kate Davis (12:38.864)
is huge in chiropractic. That’s why all of us are crunchy hippies. We love eating real food and we tend to gravitate more towards the functional medicine realm because of that, because we’re more natural based. If food is coming from nature, it’s probably better for me than this thing that’s in a package that’s food shaped but not real food. I think it’s just kind of navigating that. We talk about all the time, you kind of just have to lean on God and just understand that people
Dr. Halie Elchos (12:44.308)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (13:08.854)
people, they’re gonna act the way that they do and it’s not a reflection of who I am as a person. It’s just, hey, if you want my help, great. If you don’t and you want to be stuck in this mindset of, well, I don’t know, I think I need to see an MD, I’m like, great, go see an MD. Like you’re probably not getting your results but it’s okay. Like I’m not trying to convince you to work with me. I just, I have another way that’s different and I’ve helped a lot of people navigate that just as you have, you know.
Dr. Halie Elchos (13:21.768)
Yep, same.
Dr. Halie Elchos (13:29.545)
Yeah.
Well, and well in that conversation is just a little different too, because it’s like, I mean, you could go to the MD and they’re going to offer you steroids and they’re going to offer you, you know, a pill solution my way. It does take a little bit of time. It, you know, there are, there is some accountability on your part as a patient. However, I promise you like, yeah, we’re going to get to the root of what you have going on and get you off of medications for the rest of your life. You know, the only, the only difference is like, you know,
Dr. Kate Davis (13:43.021)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (13:48.526)
Thank
Dr. Kate Davis (13:56.949)
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (14:00.648)
there is a bit of accountability on the patient aspect. But our bodies are a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. It is a temple and we are called to steward it well. There is some accountability on our part, just like we keep our homes clean and we keep our vehicles clean. We also should be doing the same for our bodies.
Dr. Kate Davis (14:05.291)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (14:22.912)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think that a lot of people also have that idea of the, know, because they’ve been ingrained in this for so long, the one size fits all solution of like, well, I have this, how would you fix it? And it’s like, well, it depends, you know, it’s, you’re, you’re individual and you’re unique. And I’m sure you get that question a lot from people who are coming to you for functional medicine. So how do you kind of navigate that, that conversation?
Dr. Halie Elchos (14:38.516)
Wolf? Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (14:49.426)
Yeah, my it’s always I mean that conversation I mean that question is like everyone right? It’s like I had that going on with what’s going on well You know I really need it It’s but more beneficial if we can kind of do like an intake process or if I can like see what’s going on specifically with you Because it’s different for everyone like you may be having the same symptom mentality of someone but it could be coming from something completely different and the you know first and foremost step of like
Dr. Kate Davis (14:55.725)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (15:17.812)
sitting down with a patient and I think also what makes us maybe a little bit different from the conventional system, I’m not going to say every doctor, is that we actually want to sit down and listen to you. I want to know what you do on a day to day. I want to know your emotional health. I want to know where you’re at spiritually, physically. I want to know all those things because all that is just information on how we can treat you better and get your health optimized and get you to wellness.
Dr. Kate Davis (15:27.234)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (15:44.238)
Yeah, absolutely. And would you say that, you know, if somebody comes to you with, you know, let’s say an autoimmune disease, like rheumatoid arthritis, if you were to line up, you know, like 10 people you’ve treated with rheumatoid arthritis, do they, do any of them have the same care plan?
Dr. Halie Elchos (15:51.006)
Yep. Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (15:59.861)
No, that’s just you know things aren’t necessarily protocoled at least I choose not to treat patients that way and Again, because you know we do testing testing results things are going to show up differently different people are going to have different resistance markers Some people are going to have you know different Different things going on right that is that are causing inflammation in their body that’s resulting in the RA And I think that’s again. What makes it different. It’s like
Dr. Kate Davis (16:08.023)
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (16:26.764)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (16:29.716)
If you go to the conventional system with we’ll use RA as an example. You’re going to go to a rheumatologist and they’re going to put you on an immunosuppressant and steroids for the rest of your life probably. You know what chronic steroid use does? It burns out your adrenals, you gain weight, you form all other types of issues and thyroid issues and diseases. Again, it is just a plethora of
Dr. Kate Davis (16:43.106)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (17:00.146)
No answers, no results.
Dr. Kate Davis (17:02.264)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think a lot of people who come to see doctors like us who do functional medicine or naturopaths is they have that same complaint where they’ve been on these medications. They started with one and now they’re on seven or eight or 10 medications because of all the side effects that were created by the first one. Another drug to cover the side effect. And then that one created side effects. So then they were given more drugs and it was all about treating the symptoms instead of actually trying to understand, okay, well, how can we cut off this inflammatory response or, you
Dr. Halie Elchos (17:19.655)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (17:33.074)
You know what? Go ahead. Go ahead. You know what my hope is actually? We’re sitting here talking like my hope actually like to come of this is and for just a worldwide perspective, but like that we become people’s first choice for health. You, you,
Dr. Kate Davis (17:34.064)
I think it’s like,
Dr. Kate Davis (17:44.942)
Yeah, yeah, and think that’s changing in America. I think people are really waking up and seeing that, you know, it’s a much more fruitful experience to work with someone like one of us than it is to go to a Western medicine doctor. And just like you said about people who actually listen, you know, the average amount of time a doctor spends with a patient in a room is seven minutes. And, you know, we do one hour consults. so.
Dr. Halie Elchos (18:05.224)
Yeah. Hours. Hours. you know, there’s nothing actually, there’s nothing more heartbreaking to me. Like, I mean, I’ve sat with patients and I mean, literally, you know, I’ve cried with them just because like, I have the, I’ve had the experience where I’m a lot of times people’s like, you know, last effort or like their only hope. And you know, we want to be the people that give people hope, but I also want people to know that there are other options.
Dr. Kate Davis (18:30.392)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (18:34.42)
first and foremost, and we don’t necessarily need to be like people’s Hail Mary and their only hope. Getting you in that prevention aspect or getting to you before you’ve been on steroids or medications and all these things for years and you’re fed up with it. Save some people some time and heartache. And mostly like a younger generation, you work with lot of gut patients.
Dr. Kate Davis (19:02.434)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Halie Elchos (19:03.092)
But there’s nothing that hurts my heart more whenever I get a patient that’s 14, 15 years old and they’ve been diagnosed with autoimmune issue like Crohn’s and their doctor has put them on immunosuppressants and a depressant and all of these things with no solution. It’s pretty easy. Just get off the processed foods. That’s a fairly easy solution, truly.
Dr. Kate Davis (19:12.238)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (19:19.234)
them.
Dr. Kate Davis (19:28.27)
Yeah. Especially for teenagers, because they just eat junk. I’ve never had a teenager.
Dr. Halie Elchos (19:33.488)
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Well, that they just eat junk, but like also, you know, you can, as a kiddo, you know, you, you heal a lot quicker as well. you’re a more resilient in that aspect.
Dr. Kate Davis (19:44.736)
Yeah, yeah, and not to say that, you know, if you’re someone watching this and you’re in your 60s or 70s, not to you can’t get results, but yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (19:53.417)
no, you’ll definitely get results. It’s just with younger people, know, they have 16 years working against them of trying to reverse them like 60 years.
Dr. Kate Davis (20:02.41)
Exactly. They’re way more resilient. The body bounces back faster. You know, the skin bounces back faster than my wrinkles. It’s all good. part of the H. I just I choose to look at it from a positive light of like, no, it just shows how much I laugh because I have the laugh wrinkles. Mm I just shows I’m a happy person because I got the little laugh wrinkles.
Dr. Halie Elchos (20:04.935)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (20:10.292)
I’d have some wrinkles, gray hair, but that’s okay. Young at heart,
Dr. Halie Elchos (20:24.126)
smile lines.
Dr. Halie Elchos (20:29.78)
That’s where I’m at. The best is whenever you’re like out in the sun and then your face gets tan and you stay white. It’s… Yeah, was just laughing all day in the sun.
Dr. Kate Davis (20:35.358)
Yeah, like little laugh whiskers coming up.
Dr. Kate Davis (20:42.328)
That’s awesome. Well, yeah, how did because obviously, you know, I work with gut issues. You’re actually the one who fixed my gut. For those of you watching, like Dr. Halie was the one who pretty much saved me from going into a full blown autoimmune disease because I was pretty much a virgin. Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (20:54.622)
Yeah, tell us your story, Kate. How’d you, how’d that happen?
Dr. Kate Davis (20:58.348)
Well, I mean, I think it was definitely God that made you visit San Diego at that time because I hadn’t reached out to her and told her like, hey, I’m having all these health issues because I didn’t really understand, you know, what exactly she was doing at that time. Dr. Halie is very modest. If you guys ever meet her in person, like you probably won’t know how insanely intelligent she is and how much she really cares about people because she just is very humble, which is one of the reasons I really I really love talking to her. And obviously doing this podcast is going to be super fun. But yeah, I was really
Dr. Halie Elchos (21:20.02)
Thank you.
Dr. Kate Davis (21:28.272)
I had gone the diet route and I think a lot of people get stuck in this and I see this all the time where I had completely overhauled my diet. I’d seen the functional neurologist who was actually able to do some myofascial release in my gut to eventually get me to go to the bathroom. I’d gone almost two weeks without a bowel movement when I was 24.
You know when I was on Miralax, I was listening to the doctors, they gave me two terrible options of, you can go on this medication that has a very common side effect of permanent facial twitches. And I was like, I’m 24 and I’m still single, so I’m gonna pass on that one, thank you. I don’t wanna just be twitching the rest of my life, you know? And that means that even if you go off the medication, the facial twitches never go away.
Dr. Halie Elchos (22:01.074)
Ha ha!
you
Dr. Kate Davis (22:10.83)
you’re gonna have to get your intestines removed. And so I never went back to that doctor, you know, I was very blessed. Yeah, it was wild. And this was my first quarter in chiropractic school, you know, like I just started a doctorate program. So I’m sure the stress probably kind of drove that gut stuff, but head injuries are also a big cause of severe gut issues. And so I think that it was a delayed reaction to the head injury that I’d had when I was 18, but I was, you know, lucky enough to meet that doctor who fixed my brain, fixed my gut. I overhauled my diet through, went home through
Dr. Halie Elchos (22:15.092)
Goodness.
Dr. Kate Davis (22:40.884)
everything away, started eating a whole foods paleo diet, so like no grains, basically just meat, fruit and vegetables for, you know.
I eventually got to the 80-20 rule, but for the first few years I was very, very strict. And it got rid of like 90 % of my symptoms, you know? Unless I ate bread or dairy, I never had constipation, never had bloating, never had gas, never had, you know, acid reflux or any of those issues that I was having before. But then I had a really stressful life event, you know, like, what was it, like eight years later? And luckily you were in town and, you know, I had known that she had, you know, gotten into functional medicine, was helping a lot of people with this stuff. So I was just like, hey,
This is kind of what’s going on. I’m not really sure what it is, but all of a sudden, you know, after almost a decade of keeping my symptoms at bay, because that’s what people focus on in medicine is, if you don’t have symptoms, you’re probably good. That’s not true. You know, it’s the last thing to show up and the first thing to go away. So I just had all this stuff kind of bubbling under the surface. And then I had a really bad car accident. And I think that stressful event just brought it all to the surface. But everything came back, the constipation, the bloating, the acid reflux. I was super fatigued. I was getting major energy crashes throughout the day.
I was getting random swelling in different joints and I was telling Dr. Halie all this and she’s like…
Yeah, I think you might have parasites, Kate. I think that might be something you’re dealing with. And I was like, no, I did a stool test when I was 24. It was negative. And she’s like, yeah, most of them are. And I didn’t know this. You know, I didn’t know that stool tests weren’t very accurate. So if anyone’s watching this and they’re like, oh, I don’t have parasites. I got a stool test done. It’s not usually going to pick up on it. But luckily, know, Dr. Halie uses, you know, an awesome test. It’s actually hair scan, which is pretty cool. That can pick up, you know, it’s frequency medicine that picks up on infections, toxins.
Dr. Halie Elchos (24:19.336)
Yep. Yep.
Dr. Kate Davis (24:24.592)
So we discovered I had all sorts of issues, leaky gut, parasites, fungus, mold, gallbladder dysfunction. And she was able to put me on a plan that got rid of everything. I passed a three foot long parasite. was super thick. It was probably at least a centimeter wide. I remember I called her. was like, oh my god, Halie, you’re never going to guess what just came out of me.
Dr. Halie Elchos (24:39.486)
That was a good day,
Dr. Kate Davis (24:47.63)
And I hundreds of those come out. And so you fixed my gut. And so I was just totally sold on functional medicine after that. And I just, you know, I eventually got to the point where I closed my chiropractic practice because I was getting really great results with my chiropractic patients. You know, I trained under Dr. Halie for six months and still reached out to her if I had a complicated case. But yeah. And then I watched like every webinar and seminar I could find on, you know, parasites and mold and detoxing and all this stuff, because I’d had such a profound, you know, impact on my life. Like I was definitely on the.
Dr. Halie Elchos (24:54.216)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (25:17.584)
verge of getting an autoimmune disease. Like I’d never had random swelling pop up in my joints before and that’s kind of scary when you’re in your early 30s. Like I think I was 30 at the time.
Dr. Halie Elchos (25:24.852)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (25:25.422)
And yeah, it was just crazy. I know that, you know, I truly believe that God was just like, you need to go to San Diego so you can go help Kate because she’s struggling. And yeah, it was just it was such a blessing, you know, to to have friends who are really into this stuff and very knowledgeable and just, you know, obviously has a faith. So, you know, we were able to kind of dig into that part of the healing process, too. But yeah, that’s kind how I got into this. And yeah, I know you you typically deal with a lot of metabolic health.
and autoimmunity and things like that. How’d you get into that? I think everyone would like to know your story too.
Dr. Halie Elchos (26:01.04)
Yeah, so I mostly do with autoimmune metabolic and been kind of helping with some infertility patients as well because at the end of the day it all kind of stems from the same place. you know, as a chiropractor, mean, just with adjustments I’ve seen miracles every day. Like I don’t discount the chiropractic adjustment at all. I love it. I still practice and I have a physical practice I love.
Dr. Kate Davis (26:13.518)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (26:25.55)
Thank
Dr. Halie Elchos (26:29.766)
I love that part, but in practice I was just noticing that I was taking care of patients who were chronically inflamed just internally and just realizing, hey, I can adjust you until I’m blue in the face and it’s going to help momentarily. But until we get to the root issue, until we find an understanding of what’s going on internally, adjustments are only going to do so much. Now, do chiropractic adjustments facilitate the healing process? Absolutely.
Dr. Kate Davis (26:55.982)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Halie Elchos (26:59.604)
Is that part of my functional medicine program with people? Absolutely. But just understanding there’s more. not from a pompous way, but just like we’re the only people that are gonna help others. And just because we’re coming from that holistic background, in chiropractic school we’re trained very well in diagnostics and like…
Dr. Kate Davis (27:00.27)
you
Dr. Kate Davis (27:07.222)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (27:26.076)
Again, asking why and seeing things systemically. don’t come from just the cardiovascular aspect or just the hormonal aspect. We put everything together. This isn’t everyone, but sometimes even MDs with functional medicine too, if they start to dab on that, it’s like, you’re having this symptom, here’s a supplement for it. Again, they’re just not addressing the root cause. Again, that’s not everyone or anything like that.
Dr. Kate Davis (27:51.244)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (27:55.797)
You have to get a practitioner that asks the questions, the big questions, and that big question is why. But that’s essentially what really got me into that, what motivated me. I had a young girl, one time she was in her early 20s and she came in and she was on metformin. 24 years old, on metformin, overweight, on lots of antidepressant, all these things and my heart just broke.
Dr. Kate Davis (28:01.399)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (28:23.878)
I was in a place where I needed to do something about that. That was a catalyst to get me practicing. I’ve always been interested in the functional medicine aspect. I’ve dabbled in it, but not to the degree that I am now. Like Dr. Kate was mentioning earlier, I came across a great resource. He was an MD naturopath from Australia.
Dr. Kate Davis (28:28.066)
Yes.
Dr. Kate Davis (28:41.186)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (28:51.196)
And I had actually gone to him and he was using the hair scan technology that we use and it’s frequency medicine. It’s German made. They use it in other countries. It’s incredibly accurate. I don’t know if you’ve had the same experience of like when you get blood work and you put it side by side with that. mean, you know, it’s, spot on and it’s, it’s not invasive. You get results in 15 minutes. Well, in person, if you come to an office in person, you do, but, but same thing, even with, even with doing the male and hair scans, you know,
Dr. Kate Davis (29:06.227)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (29:11.64)
Yep.
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (29:19.892)
If you’re back to back, know, four or five days where a lot of these other testings, know, mold tests, parasite tests, the stool test, it’s three, four weeks out. And this, you literally get it, you know, in a week time and you’re under care and you’re getting answers. Yeah, it’s so accurate. And like you said, and like I was saying, it’s non-invasive, you know, we’re not having to break the barrier. You’re not having to go wait somewhere and get testing done. mean, it’s an amazing, I’m super grateful for that technology for sure.
Dr. Kate Davis (29:27.766)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (29:32.728)
Yeah, so accurate.
Dr. Kate Davis (29:48.558)
Yeah, me too. And we’re only pulling out the gray hairs, so you don’t have to worry about losing any of good ones.
Dr. Halie Elchos (29:53.491)
That’s it. Or the eyebrows. Whatever you need done. I always love when my wives are like, how do I get my husband’s hair? He’s bald. Go for the eyebrows.
Dr. Kate Davis (30:03.34)
Yeah
It’s a good question because that does happen. You someone coming in with baldness, eyebrows, arm hair. I’m sure you could use a lot of different things. But yeah, it’s phenomenal technology. I’ve seen, just for myself, it was the best test I’ve ever used for picking up parasites. And I treat a lot of people with parasite infections. And they’ll have it pop up on the hair scan, but their stool test was negative. And then once we start detoxing them, they have all these crazy parasites coming out and they’re like, what the heck?
Dr. Halie Elchos (30:34.152)
I mean, you see them. Yeah, you see them. always encourage patients to be an inspector of your poop, you know? Like, please.
Dr. Kate Davis (30:40.59)
Yeah, I get some gloves, get some long Q-tips, dig in. Like that’s how I found that three-footer. I was shocked. Like I was just like, there’s something sticking out here and just, my, God. my God. This thing is huge.
Dr. Halie Elchos (30:53.876)
Hey, those guys make people very sick, you know? So, so Kate, wrapping up, tell me like a great testimonial that you have. Just tell me like a win. We’ll always do this, but you know, what’s one that comes to mind?
Dr. Kate Davis (30:58.146)
Yeah, it’s wild.
Dr. Kate Davis (31:06.825)
yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (31:11.982)
Yeah, there’s a really phenomenal testimony. This woman actually works for me now because she had such good results. But yeah, she’s awesome. And it was when I was just first starting out with functional medicine and Dr. Halie was kind of training me in it. And I’ve been seeing this woman for five years as a chiropractor at that point. And…
Dr. Halie Elchos (31:18.289)
All right, I love that.
Dr. Kate Davis (31:30.542)
like five or six years. And she had dealt with so much, you she had had IBS her whole life and she was in her 60s. So for those of you who are a little bit older and you’re like, oh, can I actually heal? Yes, you absolutely can. You know, she was in her, I think she was around 65 at the time and, you know, dealt with IBS her whole life, you know, 50 plus years since she was a teenager. And
You know, she had lots of joint pain and swelling. would see her every probably every two weeks in the chiropractic office because she always has something that was just bothering her. And she was, you know, struggling to lose weight, even though she worked out all the time, you know, lots of different issues. And depression was a big thing. And I think the thing that surprised me the most was that after detoxing her, her depression that she dealt with her entire life, completely gone, like zero. Like she was a new person and everyone who knew both of us
would come in and be like, oh my god, she’s a different person. Like have you seen, you know, I’m not gonna say her name on the podcast, but have you seen her recently? She’s so happy and full of joy all the time. And she was always a happy person, but you know, she had her days where you could just tell that she was maybe like struggling a little bit with.
Dr. Halie Elchos (32:25.854)
Wow. Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (32:37.8)
Yeah, and that’s like she came to you for IBS, however, her quality of life, who she was as a person changes, Because all that stuff affects you. Your gut is the second brain, right? It’s constantly communicating to your brain. It’s giving it feedback and input.
Dr. Kate Davis (32:41.28)
Yes.
Dr. Kate Davis (32:45.614)
yeah!
Dr. Kate Davis (32:53.006)
Yeah.
And a lot of people don’t know that you’re the happy chemicals that make you joyful and full of life, dopamine and serotonin. Ninety five percent of serotonin is produced and stored in your gut. About 70 percent of dopamine is produced and stored in your gut. So if you have any gut issues, if you’ve wiped out the good bacteria with antibiotics, birth control, other medications, things like that, it’s really, really hard to have good mental health. And a lot of people, they just they never look at that aspect of the mental health journey. And so I think that was the biggest thing.
Dr. Halie Elchos (32:58.226)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amen. Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (33:25.38)
over 40 pounds while we’re working together. Easily, it just came off and she’s been able to keep it off. She put in the work, she, you know, she changed her diet. She did all this extra stuff and, and yeah, her IBS was gone, having normal bowel movements again. She rarely ever had to see me in the chiropractic office after that. It like, it went from like every two weeks to once every maybe six weeks because her joints were less swollen, less inflated. She felt better. She’s still doing great to this day. She’s like, yeah, I go for walks all the time and I have like no joint pain. It’s, it’s wild. And you know, someone
Dr. Halie Elchos (33:53.682)
Amen.
Dr. Kate Davis (33:55.232)
in their 60s, you know, a lot of people think like, I’m not, you know, younger. I don’t know if I could heal from this. I’ve dealt with it for so long. You know, just don’t let those doubts kind of take over your thought process. Like there’s always hope and there’s always a solution. But that was probably the most profound, you know, thing that I’ve seen in practice because it got me down that journey of realizing like, oh, gut health actually affects mental health because I didn’t know that I was I learned all this stuff after she got better. I was like, wait, your depression went away. How’s that possible? Like, what are you talking about?
Dr. Halie Elchos (34:17.512)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (34:25.136)
It was just why and I’ve seen that so many times, you know healing people’s gut their anxiety and their depression gets You know 60 70 80 100 % better without Like we’re not addressing it. We’re just healing the gut, you know, healing the liver getting rid of infections and toxins You know, it’s it’s easy like how much people
Dr. Halie Elchos (34:41.416)
Yeah, I actually had a coaching call with a patient today and she just started with me. This was our first check-in. She just started doing the first parts of the detoxification process. She’s coming to me for autoimmune issues and whenever I ask her how’s she doing, her first answer was, I just feel so much at peace and calm.
Dr. Kate Davis (34:51.188)
Thank
Dr. Kate Davis (35:06.081)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (35:07.668)
We’re helping the internal stressors exit the body and that’s what she’s feeling first. For someone that is anxious, that always feels scattered all the time, just doing something as simple as detoxing the body can make a huge effect. I love that.
Dr. Kate Davis (35:15.65)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (35:27.028)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, because you’re removing those stressors that are driving the inflammation. You know, a lot of people are like, yeah, have an inflammatory disorder. It’s like, OK, great. Well, what’s causing it? I don’t know. It’s like, what, did you get any testing done? No.
Dr. Halie Elchos (35:34.793)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (35:38.974)
Yeah.
Yeah, we’re going to get into all this fun stuff in this podcast. can’t wait for the conversations to happen. But, but yeah, I would say like one of my, I’m just trying to think of like one of my bigger wins. I’m going to use this patient just because we haven’t really talked about it, but I would say that this patient, for instance, she came to me and she had a lump in her breast. I’ve probably shared this with you before. She was a chiropractic patient and she definitely had like a holistic mindset and
Dr. Kate Davis (35:46.851)
Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (36:12.436)
She went to the doctor, she had a lump in her breast, they wanted to do the mammograms, all that. I kind of shared with her, I would go get an ultrasound. Mammograms are full of radiation and talking and all fun stuff. But we did a hair scan and heavy metals came up. I asked her she had amalgam fillings and she was like, yes. I said, it on the same side as the lump in your breast? She said, yes. I suggested that she go to a biological dentist that I referred her to get the heavy metals, the amalgam fillings removed.
Dr. Kate Davis (36:27.534)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Halie Elchos (36:41.21)
and let’s detox your body. As she’s going through the process, you know, they wanted to do a biopsy and all these things. And again, I can’t tell someone what to do with their medical care. can just say, Hey, like this is what I’m going to recommend. You get to do what you choose. However, you need to be sure that like it’s what that you’re so sure in what you’re doing moving forward. Right. But I’m just recommending like, Hey, let’s just keep an eye on it. We’ll get an ultrasound every three months. As long as it’s not growing, you know, you’re totally fine. I’ll making sure that the borders are closed, all that fun stuff.
Dr. Kate Davis (36:43.406)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kate Davis (37:01.038)
Thank
Dr. Kate Davis (37:08.494)
you
Dr. Halie Elchos (37:11.252)
So anyway, we detoxed her and every three months she was going to get an ultrasound just to be sure and nine months later, completely dissipated. And it’s like, how many people, and it’s because of the lymphatic drainage, well, the lymphatic drainage, I gotta figure out how to take that off the recording. You know, but, surprise.
Dr. Kate Davis (37:20.611)
one.
Dr. Kate Davis (37:26.05)
Got some fireworks going on. It’s okay. Nice little lola. Again, the first podcast.
Dr. Halie Elchos (37:37.487)
There you go. But you know, like just the lymphatic drainage from the body always having to clean up the, you know, the, the malignant fillings are very toxic and the body’s always having to like clear that out of the system. And there’s lymphatic drain, that drainage system goes all the way down your neck, right into your breast, you know? And, and so for me, that was like a really huge win and just another example of how the body heals itself, but you just kind of have to take away the resistance markers on the, on someone’s system, right?
Dr. Kate Davis (37:53.998)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (38:06.444)
Yeah, and going back to what you saying earlier about, you know, there are a lot of, you know, integrative doctors and functional med doctors who just give people supplements. Instead of adding to their system, you need to take stuff away that’s driving those nutrient deficiencies and the oral dysfunction and all those things.
Dr. Halie Elchos (38:20.54)
Yes. Yes. Why are they deficient in those things? What’s causing that? It’s like someone goes and gets blood testing, right? They’re low on B12 and they just want to give them a B12 shot. Okay, great. if their gut microbiome is unhealthy, which is what produces B12, you’re only going to get so far. You’re not getting to the root, right?
Dr. Kate Davis (38:37.942)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. Or if you have any issues digesting proteins, you know, it’s like, um, and animal products and things like that, cause that’s where, you know, B12 is, is found primarily is in a lot of animal products, which is why vegans are so deficient in it. It’s like, you can’t digest and break down your food. Then you’re also going to be deficient. So why not fix the organs that digest your food and that allow you to absorb the nutrients in the gut and then see if that deficiency is still there instead of just giving people a bunch of supplements and with no end date in sight on when they have to stop taking them. It’s just like, Oh, just forever. You know, just.
Dr. Halie Elchos (39:12.242)
Yeah, yeah, and it’s usually like 30 pills at a time and just just the mess just the mess but
Dr. Kate Davis (39:16.014)
Oh my god, Yeah, there’s been like $500 a month on all these supplements that instead of just getting to the, you know, the root cause. So I think taking away from the body things that are, like you said, like the mouth and filling, you know, once you took that away, it’s like, oh, all of a sudden the body can heal itself. Imagine that, you know? So.
Dr. Halie Elchos (39:35.07)
Well, Kate, I don’t know if we’re going to solve all the problems of the world, but we are sure going to try on this podcast. Hopefully in future episodes, we’re going to be talking more specific things on gut health, know, hormones, lifestyle changes, our favorite biohacks, all that fun stuff. So Kate, if anyone wanted to work with you, how’d they find you?
Dr. Kate Davis (39:49.442)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (39:55.138)
You can me on Instagram. It’s just at Dr. Kate Davis. So D-R-K-A-T-E. Davis is D-A-B-I-S. Somehow nobody had that handle taken. I don’t know where all the other Kate Davises in the world are, but they did not come doctors. I like, I don’t even need any dots or hyphens or anything. I was like, wow, this is amazing. This handle hasn’t been taken. So yeah, just reaching me through there is probably the best way. Yeah.
Dr. Halie Elchos (40:07.518)
They were missing the doctor part, that’s right.
Dr. Halie Elchos (40:19.604)
perfect. Yeah, we’ll put that in the show notes as well and then I’m not necessarily on Instagram yet. However, you can always find me at drhailey.com drhailey.com and you can always contact me there. Kate, how about we do something different and how about you you pray us out of here? Since you’re a prayer warrior, huh?
Dr. Kate Davis (40:41.134)
All right. All right. Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you, God, for just bringing Dr. Halie and I together to just do this podcast and just bring hope and healing to people, not just in the medical world, but also the spiritual healing realm of just knowing that, you know, healing is a promise given to us by God and that if we just, you know,
Dr. Halie Elchos (41:03.924)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (41:04.588)
rely on his word and seek him that he will give us the desires of our heart and he will heal us and that, you know, that is a promise that is in the Bible. If know Jesus’s stripes, we are healed. I just thank you so much that anyone who’s watching this show who’s maybe, maybe fallen away from their faith or maybe it’s just kind of getting back into it that we can just bring so much light into their life of, you know, not only how to heal their bodies, but how to heal their mind and how to heal their spiritual self as well. We just thank you so much for these blessings and for just
Dr. Halie Elchos (41:13.427)
Yeah.
Dr. Kate Davis (41:34.562)
being able to just have great conversations and hang out until Hailey moves to California. Just gonna keep putting that out there.
Dr. Halie Elchos (41:39.304)
you
And we’ll be together in the studio.
Dr. Kate Davis (41:47.084)
But yeah, until that time, just thank you so much for just these awesome conversations we’re gonna have and just being able to help people navigate the medical world and just finding the solution for them that is specific to them and to just completely shift and change their outlook around healing and how the body functions. And we just thank you for those blessings, God. Amen.
Dr. Halie Elchos (42:07.388)
Amen. Well, I think that sums it up for our pilot episode of Kingdom Wellness Conversations, and we will see you next time.
Dr. Kate Davis (42:12.525)
Yes.
Dr. Kate Davis (42:16.95)
Yes. See you guys later.