Untitled - May 13, 2026
00:00:00 Speaker: Hormones, imbalance, pre-menopause all of these fabulous things. AM I right, ladies? Hi, it's Denise and you are listening to the Working Moms Redefined podcast. And so many of you enjoyed our previous episode with Functional medicine doctor, Doctor Kim that we brought him back. He was not nearly, he was not given enough time to share all of his wisdom and his thoughts and honestly, the value that he brings to the conversation to help us feel better about ourselves. So we've brought him back. Doctor Kim, thank you for coming back. We so appreciate you, Denise. I'm so grateful for your Re-invite. You're so welcome. We are good. We were we talked last time a lot about what's happening hormonally inside a lot of us. And yet what else is going on? What else are you seeing in a lot of female patients that you're like, we need to be educated on this. So I think that, um, my, one of my mentors, very famous physician, his wife. And he was really great because whenever he presented, she had like about fifteen minutes and she was a bit of a comedian. So she would have all kinds of jokes. And one of the jokes and her jokes were not true jokes. Because if you really think about it, they did. They had a truth to it or teeth to it. And one of the things is that behind every successful man, there's a very, very tired woman. So I thought about it. And in Chinese medicine, they say that if you can treat women effectively, you can treat ten men effectively and has to do with the complexity of women versus men. And, um, and like the old book, older book men are from Mars, women are from Venus is really true. Women have more complexity. And this is also confirmed by a psychologist who used to work in mental health hospital for boys and girls. And he said that boys, boys are that easy. You just tell them what you expect and they will forget. You just remind them very gently, consistently and firmly. They can accept girls. They're a different game altogether. They will. They will say, oh, they will say, do you have any questions? They have none until that, like a deadline for sleeping comes. They say, I want to talk to um patient advocate. I feel like my rights are being violated. So and if you have a daughter, I think you can kind of understand what I'm talking about is that, um, so women are just more complex, uh, from biology from, from psychology and, um, and, and the immune and, and there's a cost of being complex. What I see is that, for example, autoimmune diseases target women more than men. Women gain weight more easily in midlife than men. Now men show it more because men don't care usually. Uh, but for women to lose one pound probably takes two to three times more effort than men. Um, the other part is that why is Autoimmune disease is so common, uh, for women. I think that it has to do with the fact that we're finding out that there are a lot of hidden infections these days. And, uh, and especially we're, we're beginning to draw a conclusion between lupus and Epstein-Barr virus. So one of the things I did want to talk about was hidden infection. We do live in the Midwest and ticks, um, are everywhere, but as, um, the weather appears to be warming, the ticks are moving north. Uh, this, this year I think that e.R. Is saying that the visits due to tick bites has like tripled. And Wisconsin has put a note, note, notice out because, you know, Wisconsin or some parts of Wisconsin, many parts of Wisconsin, you get Canadian summer, which is very cool. But they put a warning out that this this summer, they're expecting Lyme or tick bites to go through the roof. And what happens is that the initial tick bite, if it makes you ill, you're lucky because you can treat it very easily with an antibiotic. And usually that's the end of it, thirty days to six months depending on your or your health care thing. But if you're a healthy person, six months, that's it. And so what happens is that it's a reactivation of Lyme that is a problem. So what it what it doesn't if people have like this, this just the usual, um, RA traveling bullet shaped rash. No one's going to miss it. Usually it doesn't turn out that way. So first you get some reaction. It comes down and then it hides and it likes to hide. And it's very good at hiding when the conditions are bad for it. It it hides. And then when the conditions are good, it comes party. How do you know that when you're fatigued, when you have unexplainable fatigue. Um, and once you have the fatigue, then you, you also have a joint pain in the next one. And then cognitive loss is a third one. Those three one, two, three is Lyme. um, until proven otherwise. So I, I do testing for it. Unfortunately, testing is very expensive. Um, when you go for the best testing and so, and when you have the tape, it's multi-dimensional. So the approach has to be comprehensive sleep hormone hidden infection, nutrition, um and endocrine autoimmune. Those have to be all looked at. So um, and you know, there's integrative medicine. Usually we can do things without testing functional medicine. We are operating from the blind. Um, like, like asking our soldiers to not have night goggles at night. But integrative medicine, we're used to doing that. So we can, we can get by. Um, so the other thing that I see a lot these days is MCAs or mast cell activation syndrome. What happens is that the, the newer illnesses like Covid or long Covid or chronic fatigue syndrome, and then Lyme disease, uh, mold exposure. What happens is some of these conditions are so intelligent, so tough, that they put a shield on them. And the shield is called MCAs. Mast cell activation syndrome. What that means is that your your immune system is so riled up, it just reacts to anything and everything. And when you try to treat the disease again, it's intelligence. It's like, I don't like this. I love I found the perfect host. I want to be here together. I don't want to kill the host, but I do want to make that. I'm going to take everything from that host. And treatment is making it difficult. So mast cells get activated, get get angry so that whatever, whatever you do, and this actually springtime is an excellent time for mast cell activation in the Midwest because of the pollens and everything. And what happens is that what the allergists that was not a big deal becomes a big deal. And what I would say is that last several patients I've had all have MCAs underlying all different conditions underlying mold underlying um dysbiosis. Underlying underlying just a lot of different things that, that I just didn't see even five years ago. So my practice today is completely different than several years ago. Um, most of the people who came to me five years ago was autoimmune diseases. Now it's autoimmune diseases, uh, MCAs, uh, Lyme disease, MCAs or MCAs. And it's, it's really and MCAs is not something you just take a pill and it gets better. It's, it's probably five years. And the reason why I'd say five years is because of clinical experience. And also it's an immune disorder and any kind of immune disorder, um, like cancer. What did it say? After five years, you reach remission. Why is it that allergy allergy treatments, um, including allergy drops that I do, why do I say five years? Why do I say that? Even for low dose naltrexone, you need to do it for five years for autoimmune diseases. Because any time you touch the immune system, it's it's like that. It's really, really. But that's I would say that's what I see the most. And it's really heartbreaking because you have all these gifted people in my practice, um, who are it experts who are maestros in music, uh, and, and professionals and they, they are all, uh, their life has been destroyed. And even, even with all the tools I have, what I can say is that it's about seventy percent. They're better. So I can restore their functionality about seventy percent. And I tell everyone that because once you lose it, it's not it's not easy. And chairman of Coca-Cola companies used to say this, that, that we we are juggling crystal balls and just one rubber ball. So relationship. Well, that's a crystal ball. You drop it, you shatter it or you scratch it, you can see the scratch. Um, the only rubber ball you held is the same thing. The only thing he said, the rubber ball is your career. If you drop it, it'll bounce. And this is the chairman of Coca-Cola company talking. And that really made a big impact. So, uh, ladies, I know that, um, you know, there's a reason why airline companies say put the mask on yourself first. Um, you want to save your, uh, your children, you want to save your spouse. But if you're not saving yourself, then, um, who's the metric in the family? Who does everyone in the family call when they're distressed? At least in my family, I love my son, but it's not it's not me. My wife usually will tell me. I'll say that. Oh, uh, our son has this, this, this, uh, you should call him. So I think that, uh, women are. Yes. They're complex. And and yes they are more um, more, more. What do you call a susceptible. And part of that is built into the equation. Pregnancy is a life threatening condition. Pregnancy in the on the past days claimed many women's lives. What women don't understand is that in pregnancy you are induced into auto suppression. Immune suppression. So after you give birth. So many women nowadays will display our immune system going haywire. And that's MCAs. I've had a woman giving birth, couldn't eat strawberry any any fruits for a year until we did the treatment and do the testing. Figure out what all the. She was. She she became allergic to. And then use allergy drops to address the root cause. So it's a very complex condition, but it kind of fits my practice because that's what I'm looking for. That is so interesting. I have some follow up questions. Let's go back to Lyme. How do you go about treating something like that? Yeah. So, um, in the beginning, it's really easy if you got bitten by, uh, and then you have the rash or if you got bitten and you don't want to ever deal with Lyme, I would say probably one to six months of, uh, antibiotics of which is very, uh, relatively safe, uh, is probably the best way to treat it. The guidelines say maybe about two weeks. Uh, what I find is the line is a very difficult because it doesn't multiply fast. It multiplies very slowly. So what once you get infected in the beginning, I think before it goes into the cell and lives there, um, if it's in the blood, I think it's best to deactivate it, kill it, eradicate it. After that, we're not looking at eradication. We're looking at, uh, control. We're looking at, uh, creating a terrain that is very difficult for Lyme. Usually the I optimize the Optimize immune system through low dose naltrexone. And then I optimize mitochondria using methylene blue. But at some point, I will increase the dose of methylene blue so that they are antimicrobial there. One that's one Lyme usually requires three different anti-microbials for it to work. So then I have the second and third. The important thing is that if you treat it too aggressively, and I still make this mistake sometimes is that the host looks really healthy, but then the immune system will, um, the MCAs will kick in and then and then it'll just punish patients. I've seen patients who say I can't see anymore. I can't move my neck or so it's it. And that's the great pretender. It can do different things. So, uh, and the diagnosis really is difficult because not too many people are going to shell out three thousand dollars for competent lab. Chances are they're, they're all the labs that lab, the primary things that it's not as accurate. But but if it's not affordable, they're not going to test. That doesn't help either. So I think Lyme disease is clinical because the CDC has made it so impossible to meet the criteria. So the best way I come up with is use one of the cheaper tests. Don't believe CDC that you need the five bands to get it declared that it is. It is Lyme disease. If even one of them is positive, talk to the patient and give them a copy of all like cited. Like what does chronic Lyme look like? And I tell them, go home, highlight everything, and then give it to me. And then that's how we catch it. It's really by science, but also, um, and like, we can start with fatigue. You optimize sleep and that's cheap. That's free. Uh, you optimize hormone, that's about maybe four or five hundred dollars. You can check everything and optimize everything. And then nutrition again for five hundred dollars, you can optimize everything. Infection. Now we're talking about three thousand dollars. So even the shine says I is in the middle. I do that last because of that. And at that point, then I'm also looking for autoimmune. And the last one that I do is infection, because that workup is probably several thousand dollars. If they want to really know, if they don't want to really know, they want to handle it. And a lot of times as we are correcting different things, it's not one hundred percent, but they're like fifty percent better. And then they're like, you know what? I can deal with this. Yeah. Then like, like fifty percent better, five thousand dollars. And then the other thing is that the, one of the tools I use methylene blue in high doses, it supercharges the mitochondria, low doses, medium doses supercharges serotonin system, which they give them. They can just function better. And then the last is that it suppresses all antimicrobials. And that's what our government used on our sailors and Marines during Pacific War of fifty milligrams two times a day. My dose is less than that, so that it should be safe. And I only do it five days a week because Lyme does not require seven day treatment. That is so interesting, and I appreciate how you work with the patient, because you understand that these tests and supplements add up quickly. And that's one thing I've really admired about you, Doctor Kim, is that you understand that, okay, we might have to do this in a little bit. Let's try this for a while. And so if you're thinking, okay, I can't start because I'm not going to be able to do it all, that is not the case. You can absolutely get started, see what comes as a result. And for me personally, and I think a lot of us can relate to. We hear a lot about cortisol and cortisol is really good. It's it's a good thing for our body, but it kind of gets a bad reputation. Can you kind of explain the difference between healthy cortisol or maybe what's problematic cortisol, or where we should even look or how we should look at cortisol? So the cortisol, like the conventional doctors do one, one, one time test, two time tests. And I've seen so many times those fail that if you get several timelines, even they may start out low, they may start out or end low in the day. But in the mid day, you don't know what they're doing. So what I like to do is I test known as Dutch test. And then you can measure multiple times throughout the day. And it's kind of a pain in the neck because you have to keep sample multiple times a day. But the thing is that you get that data. Once you get that data, what cortisol is supposed to do is a stress hormone. So what, what it's supposed to do for you is to work on get you ready for the next day, because getting up is very stressful for the body. So about three a m. Um, four a m. Even two a m cortisol will start and build up. Get you ready. So if you have low cortisol in the morning, it's very difficult to get up. And so that's our cortisol support is one of the ways to do it. Another way is to um, secondary cortisol support, which is to suppress that, prevent that in the beginning. And so, uh, one of the symptoms of not having enough cortisol would be fatigue or just feel like you can't get up. Some people have, uh, high, low cortisol, um, and in the morning and they can't get up some people very high cortisol and they're very irritable in the morning. So they have the energy, but they're, they're, they're more likely to just yell at you, but not your head off. And then on top of that, they take coffee. And there are people that shouldn't have coffee in the morning. There are other people who need like three shots of espresso in the morning. Low cortisol, high cortisol people. Um, that's not, that's not really going to help them. And then let's say it crashes after lunch. These are people who basically feel like they have to take a nap or they can't keep their eyes open. Me. So there are two ways to deal with it. I tell them to fast during lunch. Um, and then, uh, and that will shift the cortisol curve. And then the last one is that usually at night your cortisol should drop, then you sleep. The worst is when cortisol goes up at night. And so, you know, triggering a two two, you trigger it at or before that. So I've been doing biohacking. I'm wearing a device now and I'm, I'm um, the secondary measurement of cortisol is blood glucose spikes. Blood glucose spikes happen with insulin and cortisol. And since I know biochemistry and physiology By tracking my blood sugar throughout the day, I can kind of guess where my cortisol spikes are. And based on that, I can hack when to eat, man. So, so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm hacking my own body metabolism. And it's very easy these days. You don't need a prescription. You just go to the website dot com, order it. And then whenever blood sugar spikes, that's your cortisol insulin release. And when you eat during that time, you're going to gain weight. Guaranteed. It doesn't matter what you eat. You're going to train. If you eat fat, it's going to turn into fat. If you eat protein, even you eat keto, it's going to turn into fat. So if you avoid those spikes and you eat during a low blood sugar level, and there's a doctor called Berkman, um, that basically talks about Digmann who talks about this, uh, now. Benjamin Bickman and, um, and that is my like last, uh, my latest hack before my hack was, um, by doing full keto. The second level hack was limiting food intake to once a day. And then the third is fasting three times Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then other days eating. And it's all doable, but fasting is really difficult for some people like me. Not eating is really difficult. So what I found out with this hack is that, um, eating at different times is different. It's if you think about it this way, when your loved one is really pissed off, that is not the best time to say, honey, I love you. Let's plan for vacation. I mean, that's a pretty good way to get yelled at, probably. But if you just wait and then, oh, he's relaxed, he's in a good mood. And, um, and then you say, you know, we haven't. Last time, I can't remember the last time we took vacation. And then you said you were volunteers. Oh, let's take a vacation. That's much better than, um, you know, he's all riled up and you say, oh, let's we haven't took a vacation anytime. Let's go and take a vacation. You didn't say it that way. But that's what he's hearing because he's already his brain is irritated. So it's the same thing with the body. If I just can't figure out when or I can eat and what I can eat because I know what I, what I, I should eat is keto. When I should eat is determined by my blood sugar. So and then and that way I've been playing with this and I'm eating the same amount and I'm losing weight. Wow. What are some symptoms of when you have a blood sugar spike? Like what would. That's the worst thing. It's the weight gain. Weight gain is the best way to know that you. You have insulin resistance. That's that's a symptom that there's no symptom because of high blood sugar. We have euphoria. You feel good. I mean, just imagine like when you eat chocolate, right? Do you feel what's what are the symptoms? It feels great. Valid. Valid. And then if you if you eat that amount of chocolate every day for one month, what happens. The way it goes up. What impacts you say you're watching when your blood sugar spikes and I'm assuming. So what impacts when it goes up. Basically um cortisol is going to be high. Okay. And insulin is going to be high when insulin is high. Insulin is a fat building protein a hormone. Insulin is a growth factor. Insulin says turn everything into fat. Interesting. So insulin gets sugar into the into the cells. And then once you have excess sugar, the way we deal with is fat. And where this happens the most is the liver. And that's how we get fatty liver disease, which is also very common, that this goes right in part with your desire to find root cause. Yes, absolutely. This better explains what is happening and why it's happening. That's so interesting. Very well done. So for example, GLP one or people don't know about half of the weight they lose is muscle weight. About thirty five percent is muscle weight. People also don't know that as soon as you quit it, within one year or so, people came back most of their weight. So in the way that I look at it is that, um, I'm a professional and I want lasting results. I want, uh, because weight loss is so difficult anyway. So I think it's cruel to say, do this and you'll lose all the weight. And then, um, but I'm not going to tell you you're going to gain it all back as soon as you stop this. So what do you call that? That's dependence. Right? Whereas if I teach them how to eat right, and then give them all these different tools, guess what? They will. They don't need me. That's the I mean, they can graduate my services. Like recently there was a woman that graduated my services, um, actually in the tri state area for MCAs and person's like, I feel so good. I feel like I don't need services. So I feel really proud that that, that happened. And, uh, you know, I have had patients with inflammatory bowel disease who says I don't really need you anymore because you taught me how to deal with it. Mhm. So that's a compliment. Yeah. And because doctor means to teach doctor, that means, uh, doctor. Teacher. Amazing. Some lightning round questions before we part ways today because you've done phenomenal. What is your best suggested breakfast for winning? Best thing. Really? Well, it depends on the blood sugar. Uh, fasting. Fasting, uh, is, uh, there are two ways to look at it. Either either protein and fat mixture with low sugar. Um, would be, um, would be ideal. Um, but if you're going to take a high sugar morning would be the best time to take it because you can burn it off. And that's why they say exercising in the morning is the best time because, um, and, and then the worst time, the so best breakfast would be egg, avocado, uh, if you like bacon, bacon and you notice all of them are whole food and all of them are bacon has some processing, but, um, it's, I think the closer the food is to God made, the further away it is from human made. I think it's better food. So, um, if you argue that, um, maybe some protein source, uh, plus the, um, the avocado plus egg, I couldn't argue with that. Uh, or egg and avocado. I can argue with that because I think the more we get involved, the more processed the foods are. I think we have really, really big problem. And they have pictures of seventies, uh, beach versus twenty twenty beach. And it's not like they were health conscious salad eating. I think silent eating actually is more popular now than then, but no one was really obese today. It's the opposite. What changed is our food has changed. It's more processed. So I tell people that if you eat whole food, it's going to be. So even if you're going to eat sugar, I'd rather you eat, um, nature close to nature. One of the things that we don't know about is that our, our, um, fruits have been poisoned through our genetic modification or selection for sweetness. So if you can, um, and so I think that people's taste has been reintroduced to sweetness, but if you're going to eat sweet, I think morning is best time. So like eggs, berries, um, avocado would be excellent. If you are into nut, make sure you get the best nut available because most nuts will have mold in it. So in the country of where we live in the tri state, unfortunately. Um, I mean, Hy-Vee is pretty good, but better than Hy-Vee would be. Fresh market. Fresh market is um. Uh, is it harvest? And it's called harvest. It's in Springfield and oh, harvest market. Yeah. Harvest market that, uh, when I lived in, in, um, in Urbana-Champaign that I, I went there every day after work and then I would select my dinner. Oh, and they have, they will probably have the cleanest nuts in the mold. Free is key because mold will trigger MCAs, among other things. MM. I don't know about anybody else, but I think I've purely convinced myself that I have Lyme disease and or mold within my body. Good thing that you're in involved, Doctor Kim. Yeah. And but having said that, the LDN can help the I like one tool that can do multiple things because that way I think that it's it just is easier for patients for LDN. It it modulates the immune system. It modulates the nervous system. It reduces inflammation are three big things it does for methylene blue. It supercharges mitochondria for energy, supercharges serotonin for energy. Uh, and then, and then it, uh, it kills things I call methylene blue, poor man's, uh, IV vitamin C and I say, poor man, because IV vitamin C can be two to three hundred dollars and there's risk of puncturing your skin, whereas, uh, methylene blue is not. And one thing about methylene blue people should know is that they cannot be on anti depressant because they can theoretically can have a reaction. I haven't found one single instance but um it's theoretically possible. Such a great conversation. Good advice Doctor Kim. If people are ready to move forward and have a personalized one on one call with you. How is the best way for them to get in contact with you? It would be the website or they can go to my website. My phone number is there. They can text me, they can call me or they can fill out contact me. I used to be more rigid, and before I met Denise, I said everyone had to contact me. And then the Miss Doctor Denise doctor. Because Doctor Lee's doctor means to teach. So my teacher, Denise, her job just kind of dropped. And she's a lady, so she doesn't show it. But I can see that clearly. The jaw has dropped to the floor and and she's like. And she's stammering. I've never seen her stabbing her all the time. And she's trying to figure out, how do I say this? Um, like in a diplomatic decorum way. And I saw from that reaction, I said, I saw my error of my ways. I've only seen it a couple of times when she saw my website that came out. Um, and then, um, when I told her that everyone has to contact me and contact me so that I dropped that, you know, if they text me or I or I have a service that is a secure chat for text and secure phone and secure video. So they can they can use that and it's in the workflow. If they contact me, I put them in the system. If they call me automatically, they start out in that system. Mhm. So Denise, you're so smart. Oh, if you know anyone who has small business and marketing is a problem, should contact Denise. Denise is really a genius, and my hands are sweaty now. Doctor Kim, you're so kind. She's really supercharged my practice. And she gives me advice on things that, uh. It's not in her direct area, but because of her, I learned how to program and how to, uh, put up new website that looks really nicer than before. So true. Good advice, Doctor Kim, and thank you for the kind words. If you are all interested, we will have show notes and details to reach Doctor Kim on the website Working Moms Redefined dot com. We will. I'm gonna have to go get some better breakfast because my protein yogurt could be better improved. I just know it. I think the issue is that most yogurt, low fat. And what they tell you is when you see low fat or put insert it with high sugar. I'm going to go check right now. Yeah. The reason why is, uh, sugar is the cheapest. Protein is the most expensive. When they, when they increase protein, they, they use tricks like hyper allergic or allergenic products like casein or, um, gluten, gluten, they just spray spray gluten and casein to everything. And, you know, like, especially in cereals that it has, then it looks really good. It's like before it's all sugar. It's like, no, we need more protein though. Humans demand this. So they spray all these allergic things and then they come back to us. And then and all of a sudden, like they have allergies, they have autoimmune disease. They're saying, why is it do we have epidemic of autoimmune diseases? It's because of what we eat. Why is it that our young people will live like our children will live shorter than us? How's that? I mean, it's not a good thing. So I think, you know, what's sad is standard American diet that that that is are sad or too funny. Well, I'm gonna go down in my pantry and trash everything. But truly, Doctor Kim, thank you so much and thank you for empowering us to do hard things. Thank you for listening to the Working Moms Redefined podcast. It is not lost on me that you chose to spend time together. Thank you. Let's connect outside of the space on socials. We'd love for you to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest. We've got it all to connect with you. If you feel as if someone in your life could be impacted by this message, feel free to share it. That is the biggest compliment. As we part ways together, remember you can do hard things.
