The Root Cause Revolution with Craig Mullen: When you treat the root, not just the result— healing and beauty becomes inevitable.

Today’s guest is someone who truly understands that healing is not just physical—it’s emotional, neurological, and deeply human. Craig Mullen is redefining what it means to care for the whole person, especially those who’ve been told they’re “fine” while feeling anything but. His work—and his story—will change how you think about health, trauma, and what real healing looks like.

As the founder of Remedy Functional Health Solutions, Craig blends cutting-edge functional and regenerative medicine with deeply compassionate care—helping high performers reclaim energy, mental clarity, metabolic resilience, and hormonal balance. His work goes far beyond symptom suppression, addressing root causes through peptide protocols, hormone optimization, metabolic restoration, gut healing, nervous system regulation, and advanced diagnostics.

Craig’s mission is deeply personal. His approach was shaped not only by frustration with the limitations of conventional medicine, but by his own journey through chronic inflammation, neurological challenges, and the lasting effects of severe trauma. That lived experience transformed how he understands the body—especially how trauma, stress, and unresolved inflammation imprint themselves at the cellular level.

In this episode, Craig shares why “normal” lab ranges often miss the real story, how trauma and chronic stress quietly disrupt hormones, metabolism, and the nervous system, and what Cellular Medicine 2.0 reveals about healing from the inside out. Whether supporting a driven executive through burnout recovery or helping a woman feel like herself again after hormonal disruption, Craig brings science-backed strategy—grounded in empathy and lived wisdom.

Because when you treat the root—not just the result—healing becomes inevitable… and beauty returns from within.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

When you need advice on beauty, we are gonna call Beauticle with Janice McGwin. Janice is easy and loves to have casual yet informative conversations on sex, beauty, love, fashion, work life balance, diet, fitness, nutrition, relationship, and life's ups and down. Join the Beauty Call Podcast and learn inside secrets to true beauty.

SPEAKER_02: 0:34

Hi everyone, welcome back to Beauty Call Podcast. This is Janice McQueen, your host, and today we're going to talk about a topic that I think many of us want to know more about. It's how we're feeling. And, you know, it's it's been tough. I mean, for me, a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today are things that I've been feeling. So hopefully I'll get some answers too. So I'm really excited to have Craig Mullen on the show. He's the founder of Remedy Functional Health Solutions. And he really blends a cutting edge summance with compassionate care to help people like ourselves, high performers, reclaim that energy, that mental clarity, and hormonal balance, which is something that we are all fighting. It's not an age thing, it's a life thing, right? And so the practice goes beyond symptom suppression offering. It's really helping get to the root cause. We're not just putting band-aids on this, y'all. We are helping find the solution. And Craig can tell you much more about himself, but I just wanted to give you a nice little introduction, what we're going to talk about today. So welcome to the show, Craig. How are you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

Dennis, I'm doing very well this evening. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. And I am excited to have this conversation with you. You touched on a lot of great points. Um, you know, these are issues that we all contend with as we age. You know, how do we maintain our vitality? How do we feel rejuvenated and energetic as we uh, you know, advance with our age? So um all of these very important questions and uh so many things that we can do just from a functional standpoint, from a lifestyle standpoint to really optimize our health status. Uh doesn't always have to involve prescription medications, the band-aids that you're referring to. So uh got a lot of information on tap for you, and uh I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02: 2:32

There's so much to talk about that, you know, I wasn't trying to make it general in the introduction, but there's just so many things that we could talk about and the the effects of how we feel, they they determine how we function in life with our jobs, with our loved ones. Uh, if you don't feel good, it can lead to other things, relationship issues. There's so much. And I fear, because I watched my parents age, and then of course I'm aging. Well, we're all aging, but I'm really noticing a shift in my health in the last couple of years. But I watched my parents age, and what was the number one thing that I noticed was the less they did, the less they felt like doing, the less they did anything, and the more that they aged. And it was just, it just spiraled, which is sad to see, because I think you know, my generation and and generations after me are really fighting to find that formula that you seem to have found that really helps people get their vitality, their youth back. I I I really believe that we are as young as we feel. So let's talk about how you got into what you're doing now because you come from a more, more conventional background, right? Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

Yes, I do. Yep, absolutely. So I've been a nurse practitioner for coming up on a decade now. Um, my background is in uh hospital-based medicine. So I still actually work part-time with a hospitalist team at a local community hospital. Um, it has its rewards from a career standpoint, a lot of you know, challenging cases. We're dealing with a lot of sick people on a routine basis. Um, the area that really captivated me and you know made me realize that maybe this wasn't the direction or the trajectory that I wanted to take my career was the fact that so many of these patients ultimately they filter into the hospital, they get treated, um, and then they get discharged. But then, you know, within weeks, sometimes uh, you know, or months, maybe next year, they find themselves back in the hospital. And it's unfortunate, and it's due to the fact that there is such a heavy burden of chronic disease uh amongst that hospital patient population. Um, and we really, if we extrapolate that out to the population of the United States, you know, there's a large burden of disease here in this country, unfortunately. And so um, you know, that became the crux of what I wanted to address. It's it's great, it's as I said, very rewarding to meet these people where they're at in their health journey, help them feel better in the acute scenarios that they're facing at that time. And sometimes it can be very dire. Um, but I, you know, noticed that these people had very limited quality of life for the most part, and and I see it all the time. And I just was invigorated by the idea of trying to help people um, you know, achieve a state of health, achieve a state of balance where they're not developing these chronic conditions, whether it's diabetes, congestive heart failure, um, you know, all of the uh negative aspects that follow from metabolic syndrome and uh dysfunctional energy metabolism and strokes and any number of things, you know, and so that became the real impetus behind me saying, hey, what can we do? How can we help, you know, meet people where they're at um and either uh you know stop and and thwart chronic disease from setting foot in someone's life to begin with, or if it is already present, what are the things that we can do to really reverse those processes? How deep can we dive a lot of times, you know, to the level of the cell, really, to understand some of the mechanics that underlie that dysfunction and that disease process, and then really target those areas for healing and treatment. Um, and so um, you know, over the past five years or so, uh, been doing a lot of research, a lot of trainings that are based in functional and integrative medicine. Worked with uh Dr. Deb Matthew, who's world-renowned in um bioidentical hormones and functional health, uh, as well as completed trainings with uh Dr. Seeds and the SSRP, which is a peptide uh therapy organization, as well as uh A4M, which is the Academy for Anti-Aging here in the United States, uh big functional medicine organization. And um uh about a year and a half ago, I decided um after experiencing a little bit of a family tragedy, actually, that now is the time. Now is the time that I'm going to take my career and you know, launch this opportunity to help people really start to thrive. And the whole goal of that um has always been if on a micro level we can heal, you know, one, two, twenty, a hundred people, um, I want to expand outwards and improve the overall health of the community on a macro level so that we can be more innovative uh and more able to help each other. A healthier community is a more vibrant community. Uh, we're gonna come up with new and better ideas, new ways of doing things and working for each other. And that is the real goal.

SPEAKER_02: 8:01

Wow. Yeah, I that's amazing. That's you you said a lot of really wonderful things. And I feel that, you know, I want to break it down just a little bit for our listeners because we cover you covered quite a bit. And I think it all comes down to the the advocating for your health. And you're advocating for not only the health of your loved ones, but advocating for others because of your background and your your you know, empathic ability to want to help people and just your your natural, you know, your your background wanting to help those feel better about themselves. And a few things that I thought of while you were sharing was that I hear so many people say, well, you know, my my parents were on cholesterol medication, or my my parents uh had high blood pressure, so I do too, or my parents were pre-diabetics, so I am as well. And as part of my my heritage, um, and I know that's just one part of the topic. I feel like that happens even earlier on in life, these conversations that people are having with their physician, their nurse practitioner, whomever they're they're speaking with, they're automatically following either the bad habits that their family, their parents did, and it's causing the root cause of what's happening. And instead of trying to find out that reason, or because they don't want to shift their eating habits or their physical activity, they don't want to change their lifestyle. They're stuck in this generational habit of not taking care of their bodies. I feel like that's the one thing that I heard that you're trying to change how people think. When they come in with certain ways of feeling, they're finding out the why behind, you know, what you can, you know, I know for a fact that I've seen my husband change his pre-diabetic generational potential that's in his family by changing the way he eats. And I, you know, I feel, but there's some things, there are some things I feel like that are harder. And I don't know if it's because I myself have battled them. And you said you had a tragedy in your family. I'm so sorry about that. But I feel like that tragedy or trauma or things that happened to us shift who we are and make us better people and make us want to help others. I don't know if you want to share what happened to you, but I would be happy to, if you do that, I mean, I hope you do, if you feel comfortable, and then I will share the things that I'm going through. And then I want to walk through a scenario and then talk about some of the other items that you mentioned in your sharing. First, let's talk about you. What tragedy happened and how did that change who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01: 10:56

Um, so actually, yeah, there's there's been a few things uh that have happened to me. I mean, you know, going way back, if we look at, you know, trauma and and um, you know, unfortunate things that happen in people's lives. And of course, you know, everybody's story is unique and and my story is no different than somebody else who um undergoes, you know, something. But I going way, way back as a 16-month-old, um, you know, I lost my my house uh caught on fire actually on the night before Thanksgiving. I lost my mother and my brother and my sister um in the house fire. My dad and I survived. Um and so we grew up very, very, very close, my dad and I. Um, and he got remarried, you know, once, twice, um, and had, you know, relationships that uh also were very impactful and influential on my growth, my development. Um, but throughout that period of time, uh my dad and I just had the tightest relationship forever. Uh and he was one of those individuals who um, you know, never he had some lifestyle habits that didn't really support wellness overall. He, in fact, was an oral surgeon himself, very successful in his practice, cared for a lot of people, um, but was on his feet all day and, you know, was self-medicating with um, you know, medications, corticosteroids and stuff to try and reduce inflammation that I guess he felt in his joints and so forth. Um, and ultimately basically gave himself, you know, a form of drug-induced diabetes. Um, and this ultimately led to um, you know, some unfortunate but serious medical, unfortunate and serious medical event uh in uh 2015. And and you know, he sort of had a long uh drawn-out spiral in his health over the past 10 years, and unfortunately passed away this past December. Um, you know, and that has also been a very driving force, you know, someone very close to me, perhaps, you know, besides my wife and kids, the one person who meant the most to me in my life, um, to see them, you know, suffer from some of the changes that happen when we don't really clue into um, you know, where we might be going wrong metabolically, uh was very, very difficult, uh, but also really lit a fire under me, so to speak, in the sense that uh, you know, I'm able to be that much more impassioned when I speak to my clients because they all have families that they want to be around for, that they want to support, that they want to see grow and develop in the way that I know my dad wished he could in his um, you know, the end of his life. And so uh that that's one aspect. The the one that I think that you were referring to um was actually uh my brother-in-law was a lifelong um struggled for his entire life with bipolar, entire adult life, um, and unfortunately committed suicide a few years ago. And that was a real major challenge for um my wife and I, and continues to be a major challenge. But um, you know, looking, and this ties into what you were talking about about, you know, some of the familial aspects where we get trapped. And as you were talking about that, um I started to think about uh, you know, other things like social, the social determinants of health, you know, and and access to care and how affordable medical care is, and um, you know, the level of compassion and empathy that you get from provider to provider, you know, is widely variable. And uh we ultimately, my wife and I felt that he sort of got lost to the system and had a little bit of a disservice that he um, you know, the it was like the traditional medical model sort of did a disservice to him and was constantly putting him on various antipsychotic medications that have, you know, myriad side effects. And um, I thought that ultimately, you know, that could have been problematic for him. And um, yeah, so that that was that was a major driver again in in just you know trying to meet people where they're at, um, especially when it comes to access to care and and how we're um you know speaking to clients and all of those things.

SPEAKER_02: 15:20

Yeah, wow, wow, that is a lot that's happened to you. And I mean I know it's a handful, I'm sorry. No, no, because I, you know, so many people don't really share of what's happened to them, and we don't definitely don't want to feel as if we're comparing trauma comparison, because we all have our traumas and the things that have happened to us, and it changes who we are, I think, for the better. And I it's never never good to to lose people that you love. And I'm so sorry you had multiple traumas at different varying times in your life. And I feel like that that is a really hard thing to overcome and you have, but it it adds to the topic of the things that layer on us that cause us to have health issues. Because stress is one of those, stress is one of those, trauma is one of those, the things that we have happened to us, our body feels it, it internalizes it, and it can react by being sick. There's things that do happen to us. And what I love that you're doing is you're answering some of the questions. And I I want to shift it just a little bit because I feel like the the main thread of conversation, especially for our listeners, you know, even though we're beauty inside and now, we we are really talking about what we can do to feel more beautiful, what can we do to feel more handsome, what can we do to make our lives better, what can we do to be anti-aging, to live the life that we were destined to live as individuals. And part of that is we're we're waking up exhausted, you know, as a whole, I feel like we are as a world waking up exhausted as we get older, and I will be honest about myself. I have found myself in the last few years. Maybe it's a culmination of dealing with the traumas that are in had happened in my life. Then I wake up, and a part of that is, of course, is aging, and I am, you know, the post-menopausal age, which is no fun at all. So I have like the fogginess, I have the exhaustion, I have the fatigue, and I'm lucky in that I have access to great health care. But let's talk about when you have someone that you're helping that walk in and they have the fogginess, they have the fatigue. What are some of the underlying reasoning reasons for all of that?

SPEAKER_01: 18:01

Yeah, absolutely. There can be so many. And um, you know, that I like to try and simplify things for my clients when they first come and see me a little bit. And so I always tell them that there are a few core elements to wellness. And those are how are we sleeping? Sleep is one of the major reparative stages of our um life cycle of our of our you know circadian rhythm and and day uh night cycle. Um, you know, it's an anabolic state. Uh, if you think of the daytime as the period of time where we're breaking things down, we're breaking down, you know, amino acids, we're utilizing glucose, we're uh basically breaking things down for energy sources. And then at nighttime, we're repairing all of those processes, uh, all of those tissues. And so it's very um, you know, uh anabolic. And so we need to sleep, we need to make sure that people are sleeping appropriately. That's key. That's number one. The other aspect um is of course, we hear it all the time: nutrition, nutrition, nutrition, and our approach to diet and our relationship with food, right? What you are what you eat, we are what we put in our bodies. It's not just uh, you know, an energy source for our we got to think about, you know, how it's impacting uh the microbiome and the trillions trillions of microorganisms that are uh alive inside of us and dictating how we feel from moment to moment, day to day. Um, so nutrition. And then the third aspect is really movement, mobility, staying vital in that sense, maintaining and building and preserving muscle and bone density as well. But movement and exercise. We always need to be able to have some component of our uh activity that puts a stress on us, right? And we call it hormesis, where we have a little bit of a stressor that. Helps our cells to adapt to that stress. If you think about, you know, uh going to the gym and lifting weights and somebody's, you know, creating these micro-tears in their musculature, which then allows for new muscle fibers to uh develop. That's how the muscle hypertrophies, that's how it gets bigger, that's how people lift, you know, stronger weights and whatnot. So those three components sleep, nutrition, exercise, I think, you know, that's one of the best places to start when it comes to um both inner beauty, outer beauty. Um, and we can extrapolate from there and uh, you know, from uh, you know, moving back to your question, I don't I don't want to veer off from your main question, which was somebody comes in with brain fog. There's so many other things, you know, low energy brain fog that uh that may be um you know caught driving those processes. Um a big one that I'm seeing all the time now is uh post uh postviral syndrome. So especially in the wake of COVID-19, we've all had three, four, five infections, and we know that this uh creates rampant inflammation throughout the body that um can really you know change DNA structure and it can drive mitochondrial dysfunction, which is where we have um, you know, the vast majority of our energy or really all of our energy production in the body. Um, and then autoimmunity. If we're having chronic inflammation, if we're dealing with chronic inflammation from stress and what's called, you know, the allostatic load, um, then we are ultimately um, you know, potentiating the mechanisms that can drive autoimmunity, uh, where our immune system goes into a hyperreactive uh and overreactive state where it's actually attacking our own tissues. Um, you know, a lot of organs uh can be prone to damage the brain, central nervous system, thyroid tissue, liver. So um, you know, these are all things that can absolutely precipitate and exacerbate uh chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue, brain fog, nutritional deficiencies, right? So, you know, so much of the food that we have access to, either because it's cheap or because it's what's close by, when we go to the grocery store, so much of it is is absolutely devoid of really the nutrients that we need for true sustenance and uh you know, true um, you know, uh, I can't think of the word vitamin. All the things that we need.

SPEAKER_02: 22:36

Ah, no, I get it. I have felt like a huge I'm vegetarian, um, formerly vegan, have been for 21 years, and I have noticed a shift in the the nutritional benefit of some of the the fruits and vegetables I see in the store now. And I've changed how my purchase versus purchasing for purchasing for an entire week of fruits and vegetables. I only get for like a day or two, and I I prefer to get them at the farmer's market, cut the middleman amount, a fibolomic, even though it's maybe a little more expensive because everything is right now, it's more nutritionally dense. And I find that when I have nutritionally dense food, I don't need to eat as much, but yet I still have the energy. Um, you know, I think we just when we're lacking in the energy, we're not getting the right nutrition or we're not getting the best nutrition. And, you know, we'll talk a little bit about supplements that you recommend in just a minute, but I wanted to perform every gum, but we talked about the three main things, of course, sleep, eat, exercise, components that we all need to follow. Do you believe then sleep is so important than you would recommend? And this might not be something you want to answer, but I just I want to know my minds want to know. What do you recommend for those who are having difficulty because of anxiety or um of you know a stressful work environment or stressors at home, and they're having a tough time sleeping. And as we age, that becomes more predominant. Sadly, it does. What do you recommend? I mean, because again, we talked about not putting the band-aid but the root cause. But how do you get over that threshold?

SPEAKER_01: 24:24

It starts from the time we wake up in the morning, and it's got to, because again, this is all circanian rhythm. It's the diurnal pattern day and night. Uh, so I always tell my patients when you wake up in the morning, try to get up at the same time every day of the week, around the same time, within you know, 15, 20 minutes of the same time every day. Uh, within, you know, the first 10 minutes, try to get your feet on the ground outside, get a little bit of morning sun exposure. This enables us to have that initial um spike in our cortisol level, which drives focus. It drives a little bit of gluconeogenesis, we'll reconvert um, you know, some stored materials into blood glucose to give us energy and helps us get on with our day. Uh, so I always recommend that. I say, you know, listen, if you're going to be active that day, if you're planning to go to the gym, try to do the active um phase in the morning so that your dopamine spike, your cortisol spike is in the morning as opposed to the evening. Um, you know, limiting caffeine after 1 p.m. is always a great idea. Having the largest, yeah, yeah. Caffeine has a long half-life and tends to stick around. So um, you know, doing what we can to sort of limit it in the latter portion of the day is always a great idea. Uh, same, I, you know, same goes for eating your larger meal generally. I think midday is a better time for that. And then the calming aspects of like sort of settling down into the routine at nighttime. So um, you know, what that could look like is breath work, yoga meditation, all the things that we hear about so often. Um, and but even also like uh, you know, getting in a hot shower with 30 to 45 minutes before bedtime, a real hot shower, and then the rapid cooling can actually induce drowsiness. So that coupled with um, you know, if somebody wants to use melatonin, that's fine. I always uh suggest a little bit of L-theanine, magnesium glycinate, or magmalate is a great option. Um, you know, valerian root, uh, saffron, holy basil, these can all be very effective. There's a supplement that I um really, really enjoy and recommend. It's called Honochiol. Uh, it's been used in Eastern traditions for millennia now, probably, or at least hundreds of years. Um, and it comes from the bark of the magnolia tree. And it acts on GABA receptors, which we know are very calming, um, and just help to induce a little bit of uh anxiolytic or calming effect at bedtime, uh, which can really be beneficial for sleep. Um, and then, you know, if somebody's really having a challenging time, there are various peptides that I use in my patients, you know, sermarellin, um, other uh peptides that act on growth hormone. Growth hormone and sleep are very interconnected. And so if we can optimize growth hormone, a lot of times we can uh dramatically improve sleep as well. Um, but again, so much of it is lifestyle, so much of it is the choices we make. We need to put away the blue screens, you know, cut the TV out of the room almost entirely. Um, and uh, you know, try to do the activities that are going to lower stress, not spike our dopamine and cortisol later in the day.

SPEAKER_02: 27:44

This is why we sleep so much better when we're on vacation, right? Because we are not totally not in front of the screen, we're having not on our phone as much, we're outside, we're with people we love and we're having a good time.

SPEAKER_01: 27:55

And you know, as long as we're not trying to post our selfies and our stories from our vacation.

SPEAKER_02: 28:02

I know that I mean you're promoting the podcast, but I'm so like over them kind of stuff as much anymore. Yeah, it's fun, but it's also really, really hard on the system if you continue to do them. And plus, just keeping up with the Joneses. We don't have to do that. We really just need to take care of our symbols. Um, I love that you're talking about peptide therapy because I'm really intrigued by that. And I don't know if everyone quite understands the benefit of peptide therapy. So you use that a lot with your patients, and you just talked about it. So, can you share maybe a little bit more the the benefits of peptide therapy and when you would recommend it and why you would recommend it?

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

Absolutely. It's actually, in my opinion, it's the most fascinating aspect of my practice. Uh, it's the area that I enjoy working in the most. Um, and so basically, peptides are chains of amino acids and they are smaller than proteins. If you think of proteins as larger chains of amino acids, then proteins, uh, I'm sorry, peptides are fragments of those. And uh they are cell signaling agents. So they help the cell perform various functions in the body. And uh if we go back to the 1950s, the first peptide that was actually uh implemented and started um we we started utilizing it in the practice of medicine was actually insulin. So uh insulin itself is a peptide. And um, you know, over the past 75 years, the science has dramatically expanded and we've now identified, you know, well over 7,000 naturally occurring peptides that are um, you know, worthy of exploration. And uh for the past, I'd say 20 or 30 years, research in Europe, research in Asia, research in Russia, and also here in the United States, but perhaps to a little bit of a lesser extent, uh, has been very heavy into the therapeutic benefit of peptides. And so um one of the ways that our listeners may um, you know, relate to peptides is we hear so much nowadays about GLP1 therapeutics like semaglutide, which is Ozempic or Wagovy, and Mounjaro, which is terzepitide, as these weight loss peptides, but really they're, you know, they are so much more, they're systemically beneficial, meaning they can really help us feel better uh throughout our body in different ways. Um, and just as those peptides are very effective for metabolism and weight loss, and uh there are other peptides that actually act in different ways, peptides that can help to reduce neuroinflammation and uh repair nervous tissue, which you know, the the old school way of thinking has always been nervous tissue cannot be restored. It cannot, once it's damaged, it's damaged forever. You can't repair it or replace it. Well, it's not not entirely true, uh, actually at all. And so uh there's peptides for that, there's peptides for improving sleep, there's peptides for um muscle protein synthesis and building out a leaner composition, um, peptides that we can use to heal the gut and help improve the integrity of the mucosal lining, um, heal peptic and gastric ulcers and inflammatory conditions. And then perhaps most exciting to me is that there's peptides that work on the mitochondria. Again, these are the energy-producing organelles inside of all of our cells. Um, and they become defunct, they can become dysfunctional uh from inflammation and insulin resistance if we're you know leaning towards prediabetes or diabetes. Uh, and so we can use peptides to help repair those mitochondria. Uh, we can also use peptides to treat autoimmune conditions. Um, and so, you know, those two, yeah, those two areas are very exciting for me. And I love working with patients. And uh it's gonna be a burgeoning area of medicine, especially in the cellular medicine space over the next decade. It's uh anticipated to have this massive uh explosion of research and uh implementation. There's several peptides that are FDA approved now. Um, and uh, you know, it's it's an area that is worthy of watching and paying attention to.

SPEAKER_02: 32:30

Yeah. It's like the next step in in health is to be able to make sure that you're functioning properly. And we've just been not we've been dysfunctioning, you know, we've not been not been taking care of ourselves just because the environment and it's just next step has evolved. And I'm I'm really intrigued about peptide therapy. And of course, I um have had some experience, some with with trying semi-glutide, um, lost, you know, and I really wasn't probably the in the category for that, but I just wanted to try it just to lose like five pounds or so. And I don't know if that's necessarily anything I would recommend to anyone. Um, I think it's mainly for weight loss, it's there if you you are um needing to lose weight, you're on the border of obesity. But I think the other peptides, I love the fact that they're there to help heal you, to help you make you stronger, less fatigue, build muscle mass, do all the things that we need assistance with, um, that we don't get from our food. We don't get proper nutrition from our food or even with our supplements. Sometimes it's just hard to know the ratio that we're supposed to take. And, you know, when I myself fluctuate in feeling good, not feeling good. And I know that comes from I have hypothyroidism. I've had it for 15 years now, and I would love for that to be something that I don't have, but I don't know if there's something that you can treat to the point of where you no longer have it. It might be just something that you have to live with. And you know, that's very minimal compared to what most people are wanting or needing. But I think where you help that maybe people are in need of, especially in need of, is they go to their regular doctor, their general practitioner, which they do great work too. And it's their normal blood work, their normal tests, and it comes back, your blood work looks normal. You're in the you're in the normal range, and you're like, hmm, okay, but I I still don't feel great. I don't feel like myself again. I don't feel, I mean, I don't feel like myself. How do I feel like myself again? And so I think that's something I know that I have, when I was first diagnosed from hypothyroidism, I had to advocate for my health because I'm like, something's wrong. There's no reason as to when all of a sudden I would gain 10 pounds when I haven't changed my lifestyle. My lifestyle is very healthy. I'm exercising every day, I'm sleeping well, and I'm I'm eating right, I'm doing all the right things. What happened? And I had to advocate and go to quite a few specialists to figure out what was wrong. I feel like it's the same thing now. I'm myself and mine's not bad. I'm I'm just using it as an example because I'm a real person talking about real problems, is I have days where I'm fatigued and I'm doing all the things, I'm waking up at the same time, I'm exercising, I'm eating right, but I still have a little bit of all the stuff you talked about. So I think that's where peptide therapy would help me and what you're stating. But when people have those normal diagnoses happen because their blood work looks good, how do you, how are you different? How are you able to tell what they need, what that person needs?

SPEAKER_01: 35:50

Great question. And you know, it's uh again, multifaceted answer. And and I think that you know, the a part of the workup that we go through at your standard primary care visit is highly dependent on insurance. So, what medical insurance will and will dictate, you know, that you're allowed to have covered X amount of times throughout the year or within a certain time interval, that's one of the obstacles that we face. So, you know, in my practice, we don't work with insurance, so we're not, you know, beholden to some of those things. And be as a result of that, um, and in other cash pay practices or concierge medical practices like mine, where we're we're not working with insurance, um, we are able to dive a little bit deeper. And uh yeah, exactly. We're or or much deeper, really. And so what I tell people is that listen, when you when you work within the constraints of insurance and what is and is not covered, um, you're like basically going to the you know the used car lot and looking at all the cars, um, you know, just walking around the lot. But when you come to a practice like mine, we're actually popping the hood, we're looking at the components of the engine, uh, we're hearing what it sounds like when you rev the gas a little bit, and we're taking it for a test drive. And so it's a much deeper level. And so that involves some additional um biomarkers and uh assessments in serum labs, which we look, you know, again at all the nutritional factors that somebody needs to have optimized. B vitamins, zinc, copper, selenium, which is uh pivotal for thyroid health. Vitamin D is absolutely uh paramount when it comes to immunomodulatory activity, keeping our immune system balanced and healthy, um, keeping our hormones at the levels that they need to be, um, keeping inflammation low, keeping us um, you know, free of certain risks for certain cancers. Uh and vitamin D is like everywhere. It's ubiquitous. I see uh vitamin D insufficiency, rather, is I see it all the time. And people, you know, are walking yeah, very common. And so, you know, optimizing levels of vitamin vitamin D above 50, you know, making sure B12 levels are closer to a thousand, making sure that we're, you know, getting 200 micrograms of selenium a day, um, you know, and other micronutrients, whether it's zinc, copper, chromium, boron, all of these things that can really support, you know, overall wellness and cellular health and function. Um, so we're looking at the nutritional aspects very deeply. We're looking for inflammation, right, with markers like C reactive protein and homocysteine. Um, and then we're also looking for uh metabolic, some of the earliest changes of metabolic dysfunction. If you go to your primary care and you're wanting to be worked up for blood glucose management, of course, we're looking at uh a fasting glucose level and a basic metabolic panel. But we're also looking at a hemoglobin A1C, which is an average of blood glucose over a three um, you know, month, uh three to four month time span. Um, and then, but that is only just a snapshot. And it's much better if we actually take a deeper look and look at fasting insulin levels. And so um, you know, that's one of the things that we do where we can really see the earliest stages of insulin resistance, uh, which means that, you know, it's going to be harder to bring the blood, the glucose in from the blood into the cell, and that can create inflammation. That's obviously the root of uh diabetes and whatnot. So we look at things like that, we look at yeah, you know, deeper into lipid profiles to really assess risk beyond your standard uh lipid panel that you would receive. And then, of course, the hormones, you know. So we we do a deep dive into someone's sex hormones, um, their adrenal hormones, and their thyroid hormones, and and that thyroid panel is. Often, as you had mentioned, you know, you had to go to multiple providers. A lot of times, in order to get that full robust uh thyroid workup, you know, you need somebody who knows what they're doing and is specializing in that area of practice. And so we're happy to provide that at Remedy.

SPEAKER_02: 40:16

So you're like, you're really a one-stop shop for making sure that you're healthy. And and throughout the show, you've you've mentioned a lot of key words that are a little over everyone's head, over my head for sure, which is no, no, no, no. I mean, I need to be able to do it. My wife tells me that all of the things. I know what they mean, but you don't ask me to repeat everything. But what that what I guess the point I'm trying to make in a very trying to trying to be funny, and I guess I'm not funny, is that you're the expert. And I really want to drive home to everyone that taking care of your health is paramount in being able to have a good life and to be able to take care of others. And it all starts at how you feel and how could to have that longevity. It you really do have to do these tests. It's not just forcing yourself to go to your general practitioner once a year because as wonderful as you know, I love my GP and she's sweet as she can be. But if it comes to really how I feel, I'm gonna go to a specialist like you. I'm gonna go in and say, hey, I'm not feeling right. You tell me. You know the steps to take to figure out what might be causing the brain fog, or might what might be causing the, let's just put it out there, the sexual dysfunction that a lot of us might have as we get older, or we might find out that we're in perimenopause younger than we should be. And it's because of maybe the elements of in our diet and our lifestyle, and these are these are factors that you need to know so that you can you can change and you can get better. I I'm a really a big believer in that it's never too late to take care of your health. And I have patients too early to take care of your health.

SPEAKER_01: 42:17

That's a big that yeah, that that's 100% right on the money there. I mean, I've you know, I see patients who are 17, 18 years old through their 70s, and um, you know, exactly, it's never too early, it's never too late. The changes that we implement today are really going to dictate the future of our lives and the quality of that time that we have. And uh, you know, I want to emphasize to the listeners that so much really does start with just the lifestyle stuff. Um, if you can lock in those elements of sleep, nutrition, exercise, maybe you do it with a coach, maybe you read a book, maybe you YouTube it, or you know, you read a blog on the internet, all of those things, you know, there's such great information out there. I mean, you know, as as uh prevalent as it is nowadays, and and people have thoughts about it, but just even just using something like Chat GPT and AI as a resource to you know generate healthy meal plans can be absolutely uh life-changing. And so um, you know, there's there's so much that we can do. And if if we lock in those elements, sleep, nutrition, exercise, that's 85, 90% of the game right there. Everything else, the hormone balancing, the nutraceuticals, fancy peptide therapies, you know, that's uh icing on top of the cake. And and um, you know, we can make so much ground, make up so much ground for our health when we focus on those core elements.

SPEAKER_02: 43:46

Yeah, and it's it's I think I love the fact that you sort of have the ratios of what you should have. And that is part of your advice. I hate to say the word prescription because if you're talking about supplements and taking care of yourself, it's not like a again, I always go back to the word band-aid, but I I really love the idea of healing your body with putting the things in your body that you need to to get better versus taking something that's going to, and I don't even know like a prescription. Sometimes we do need prescription medicine to get better, to feel better, to get over, you know, get over maybe a flu or whatever, but I don't I just hate the idea of people having to be on medicine and popping this pill and popping that pill and and taking medicine to sort of feel better, but not really finding out why they feel the way they do. And that's what you do. You help them feel better and find the why behind it, which can help heal yourself from within, which which I am all for. To me, that truly is being a beautiful person inside and out because you're you're doing all the right things that we're supposed to do to feel good, and it's hard, it's not easy. That's why we have to do it. Oh, it's very hard. Yeah, it's hard, you know. And it it probably changes based on you know our the decade or where we are on our stage in life. So, Craig, I would be remiss if I did not ask you to tell us how we can reach out to you. And obviously, you work with people not just in person but long distance as well. I think that's sure.

SPEAKER_01: 45:25

Yes. Um, from a you know, coaching standpoint, absolutely, from an actual treatment standpoint. Um, I'm licensed in the state of Maryland. So uh, you know, somebody actually has to visit me if they're in another state, they have to come, you know, for a consult to the to the state of Maryland for me to be able to treat them once they go back to their home state. Uh, but that is possible. I can do telehealth across the state of Maryland, and of course I treat uh people here regionally as well. Um, but um my um uh website is www.remedyfunctional health.net. Um we have uh Instagram that's uh at remedy.functional.health. Uh the number for my clinic is 443-342-4141. And uh, you know, I'm happy to respond to any inquiries or anybody who's interested if they heard a little bit of something I said tonight and you know wanted clarification or just some general info. Um, I really love engaging with patients and I love hearing their story. And um, you know, that's uh always a joy for me to be able to, you know, try and help somebody or just lend an ear and listen to somebody as well.

SPEAKER_02: 46:39

So I think that's important is is obviously you you can help coach them, coach someone through the steps they need to take in order to get better, to feel better, to be better. And we all need help. We all need a little bit of help. I know I too.

SPEAKER_01: 46:55

Definitely, I know I need it.

SPEAKER_02: 46:57

Yeah, we we all need a little bit of help to feel better and to take care of ourselves because life is not it's just not easy. And we want to do all the things. We want, we want to, we want to do all the things, you know, be on all the social media platforms, you know, have have a business, have a family, have a social life. And it does take a toll. So thank you for giving us some steps in which to take better care of ourselves. And we'll, you know, I will make sure that in our show notes we have the way to reach you. And just remember, everybody, you to call podcasts. Um, you can definitely reach out to Craig for coaching. And if you're in the state of Maryland, you can even do more or you can fly there. You know, that's that's always the goal is to be able to see you in person because you're absolutely contagious with your knowledge. So thank you very much. That so, is there anything you want to add before we close the show?

SPEAKER_01: 47:51

Uh, you know, I will say uh just real quick, you know, so consistency, consistency is key, right? And uh that's it tends to be one of the hardest things for people building routine, building habit. Um, and you don't always have to go, you know, 100 miles an hour out the gate, baby steps, baby steps to build the consistency, to build the habit. Maybe today that's you know, 10 push-ups uh or a walk around the block, but maybe next month that's a one mile jog. Um, and so it's just about doing what you can in the moment and then making a habit of it. Uh, anybody that's dealing with a health struggle, you know, consider um pairing up with a with a personalized health coach uh or clinician, mentor, what have you. And uh really, you know, taking this time now is the time to optimize your health. And um, you know, I'm happy to be here on the show and thank you so much for uh your time today. And uh this was awesome. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02: 48:54

Yeah, you're so knowledgeable. I definitely will reach outwards for some advice. So thank you, Craig, for all that you do.

SPEAKER_01: 48:59

Anytime. Anytime. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 49:05

Thanks for listening to Beauty Call Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, I would love for you to review my show and share this with your friends and family. If you or someone you know would like to be on my show, just contact me at Janismacle.com. Until next week, stay beautiful, inside and out.