Functional Medicine Cases | Week in Review 50

In this conversation, Dr. Beau Beard, DC and his team discuss various aspects of functional medicine, focusing on musculoskeletal health, hydration, allergies, and sensitivities. He shares case studies, including a young athlete affected by medication and a baby with digestive issues, emphasizing the importance of understanding the underlying causes of health problems. The discussion also touches on the role of hydration in overall health and the misconceptions surrounding allergies and dietary sensitivities.

Full Transcript

Beau Beard (00:00.978)

No, he went to his haircut. I went to my haircut. They just happened to be at the same place. I did. He went to see Laura. Nope. This is a new one. It's a new one. they opened another. No. Lauren is, I think, moving. Wait, what's her last name? Where's your own? I guess Hunt now. The guy you saw? Yeah, yeah. I think she's moving to Louisiana in November.

because that's like where her family or his family or something heads up. We're recording by the way, just so you guys know. The last time I was in she was just like, just let me know and I'll try to get you on board. I thought you guys went to two different places.

Beau Beard (00:45.902)

was until I decided this time not. Welcome to the podcast episode 50 talking about doggies, high and tights, doggies. What are some other get your ears lowered? What are their analogies we got? All of your hairs. All of your hairs. Dropping down a race weight. Yeah. So.

We, Seth and I went and got our hairs cut at the same place and Alex was trying to figure out the logistics of why we went to the same place and did we see the exact same person the exact same time? It was a double, double hand haircut. She cut your hair here? Nope. Oh, see I was confused. Nope. I thought that's only reason she came. She goes, I get haircut on race week. Yep. So you got always like race week or a wedding. It always falls. Cause I go like once a month. Is this on purpose or are like a show pony?

He just always falls once month. gets his tail trimmed. Horson main shampoo and curry combed. All right. Well, yeah, I was going to try to make some segue from that into functional medicine. Let's just make a hard right. Yeah. So on today's podcast, I just want to talk briefly, not super in depth about any one functional medicine case, but

We've talked about it a lot. We talked about it a little bit last podcast with the Lyme disease episode, which I haven't heard from the Lyme disease awareness society yet about anything we said wrong. yeah, I got a thought there. So yeah, I wanted to talk about a little bit of functional medicine and how it's played into musculoskeletal case in particular. But before we go into cases, I actually saw a post from a past patient's mom yesterday because yesterday was national

I don't peanut day. Well, there was something else. It was yeah national flora quinolone Victim day I want to appreciate yeah. There's day for everything so Let me make sure I'm saying that right one day

Beau Beard (02:58.037)

figure it out.

sorry, fluoroquinolone toxicity awareness day was yesterday. So it does play into what we're about ready to talk about. So this patient won't say his name. You could probably find this out by research or we're about ready to say, but that's okay. And, you know, they post on social media about its history, but was basically the Gatorade runner of the year, his junior year. So it was set to be a stud. It already signed with the school to go run there.

and was given, per his mom, went to basically an urgent care clinic after a race out of town, still in his singlet and stuff, or in his running gear. And she was making that a pertinent point here of the doctor knew he was a runner, there's a black box label on this thing. I didn't realize they had tried to sue the doctor and then the company that makes this drug is a generic drug, so you can't sue generic. That's veil of.

coverage that we've allowed through the FDA here in good old United States. anyways, he never ran in college, never ran again after that. So basically got knocked out and I didn't realize he like, again, would he have gotten there but like thought he was gonna run the Olympics one day, which I mean, not saying he could. He was fast. He was fast, yeah. So brought that up. His kind of insight in the clinic was I just remember him coming in and he's like, dude, I go out and run now and like my quads burn. I feel like I just can't run very fast and.

I mean, I checked everything that we could musculoskeletally and I'd never seen a case of this. Like in person, I was like, I don't know, man. And I think I tried a few things thinking maybe it could be like, know, extension based, ridiculous stuff, almost like spondy based stuff. Cause it was like anterior thigh burning. And then I saw him next visit. He's like, yeah, it's no different. was like, you gotta go, you know, we gotta go back to your pediatrician and pediatrician referred them. They talked about that. He had done I think two rounds or maybe just one round.

Beau Beard (04:56.418)

And then he ended up doing like IV therapy down at Mobile like every four weeks for a couple months. Yeah. So that was one functional medicine case. If you guys have any to weigh in on here, but one that was just kind of interesting, I've seen a lot more babies as of late, just kind of something we do in here in terms of like usually check-ins, like check-in at about two days old and then six weeks, 12 weeks, six months, nine months a year. And then, you you should be fairly good to go, maybe two years.

But this person was referred in just because their friend has been a patient of mine and then they told them what we do. But then this person was like, do you think they could help with like gas and stuff for a baby? She's like, I've heard chiropractic can help. And even my patient was like, I don't know if that's what they do, but you should still go see them. So she brings baby in and honestly, the baby had a little bit. So the baby was just turned two months old, like the day before she came in here. like neurologically developmentally.

Pretty normal, like still a side predilection, which we worked on a little bit, because that should be going away. Troy was in there with me and we saw that from a sagittal stabilization standpoint, a little bit behind, right? So it still looks like you're a 70 year old man with stenosis, like diastasis and lateral protrusion and kind of cleaving, which at that age should be going away, but it's not in common that it could still be there. So it's like right in the middle. I even told my mom, like, I can't say this is correlated.

The only thing that was kind of interesting from the musculoskeletal side is I had her breastfeed her, A, to calm her down, but also to be able to palpate her abdominal wall while she had just eaten to see if like anything, you know, like transit and stuff is normal. But like we put her in the three month supine loaded cause she kind of hangs out a little bit legs below as normal. And you just basically like approximate her, know, spine to the table and kind of put her in three months supine. just like calm completely down from screaming. was like, man, it's kind of interesting. I have no clue if that correlation or just whatever.

But anyways, with her, I just, you we directed everything to the mom. was like, you know, do you have any dietary, you know, allergies, sensitivities or anything that you know of? And she goes, it might be slightly lactose intolerant, which would want to be one of the more common pass along things from breastfeeding to a baby where they could have digestive upset. But the really the interesting thing to me was on her paperwork before she even came in, I think I was telling Troy, I go, she has vitamin D drops that she's given to the baby.

Beau Beard (07:18.178)

you why do we do that? I don't know. So then I went in there and knowing that like one of the main side effects of vitamin D drops for kids can be gas. So I just asked her, you know, why are you doing that? She goes, our pediatrician said that since I'm breastfeeding, she needs to be on vitamin D drops. I was like,

That's news to me. So we're basically a baby's drinking a fat and sugar concoction that's heavy and basically like sterile hormones like vitamin D and it's a lot of fat. So I asked my mom, go, do you take vitamin D? She goes, yeah. go, it should be okay here. So I go, that could be overkill. That could be causing it. And then it could be, you know, maybe a food thing. Maybe it's not dairy, but I would eliminate that. So I go, let's take the vitamin D out for three days and just kind of see, cause it should be fast.

She was giving it to her in the morning. The baby's pattern was she would get more more gassy as the day goes on. So that doesn't just seem like digestive issues. It seems like something you're eating. Like if I woke up and I'm like, I feel pretty good. And then like later in the day, I'm like, God, I'm kind of bloated and gassy. I'm like, what am I eating breakfast or lunch? That's like upsetting my stomach. So it gets worse through the day. And then I was like, if after three or four days, you don't see any change and then you need to remove dairy from your diet.

should be really fast to see symptoms removed from the baby because it's not like you have to remove the like casein A1 protein from your system. It's just basically you're not conjugated into your breast milk. So it should be fairly fast. So we'll see. So that was Ken. So she is lactose intolerant, but she does get dairy. know. She just said I might be slightly lactose intolerant because I get like maybe some upset stomach or indigestion stuff fight dairy, but it was a maybe and it's not like I'm having diarrhea and bloating and gas and stuff. eat dairy. So that's like a lot of people.

not uncommon and then my question with that is, is that true lactose intolerance or is it like other dietary stuff you've done your whole life and you can't, you know, digest dairy very well or the type of dairy you're eating all that stuff, I don't know. What are your thoughts on someone going to like an A2 protein? Yeah, I mean I'm fine with that. I would say we still want to knock it out first, especially if you're trying to have a fast result and then you can go back onto that.

Beau Beard (09:28.814)

Because there's other things in dairy, know, we say case in A1. So A1 and A2 are the two different proteins. Supposedly older forms of milk before we started genetically modifying cows and feeding them grain and stuff had more A2, goat is A2, things like that. But there's other things that can bug people in there. So that's what I just get rid of it for right now. Unless somebody is completely opposed to it and then it's, yeah, that's better than, you know, something else. This might be a broad question as well. Like I have a patient as well, like,

I just don't know enough. don't guess on like the breastfeeding side of stuff. like she mentioned that her baby is lactose intolerant and also allergic to eggs. And how old? Just turned a year. And the pediatrician said that he could be growing out of that potentially, but like, I don't know like enough on like why those two. Cause I feel like I've heard that a decent amount from like, patients is their child is like allergic to eggs and.

So there's there's certain foods that you're not supposed to introduce at an early age for a variety of reasons. They're either high histamine response foods or the thought is, which I think is absolutely ridiculous because it's opposite, that you'll build an allergy to it if you feed it to them to really because of like basically introducing these proteins, which is idiotic. I mean, what do do for allergies with people that have allergies? Desensitization shots with lower levels of basically the protein is what causes a histamine response.

So think that's absolutely ridiculous. I think a lot of it is, you know, what the person is doing. So the other thing is there, I mean, let's break this down for a sec. So when somebody comes in and they don't have a true allergy, so a true allergy is basically signaling from an immunoglobin that like, hey, you can't have, you don't have a proper response to this protein versus the sensitivity is a conglomerate of, you know, your gut and like your immune response. It's not.

really an allergy. It's just like the way your body's operating, you don't handle this thing well, which is, there's a ton of reasons. It's not just, I have a sensitivity to it. That's kind of like Sloan with gluten. She doesn't have a true allergy. doesn't have, you know, Crohn's or Celiac or, you know, crap her pants when she, you know, eats gluten. She just has slight histamine responses, itchy legs, stuff like that, that she's been like, yeah, it's a one-one. Like I will have this. And then, you know,

Beau Beard (11:50.03)

you can be tested for it, which one of our mentors, Brett Winchester, brings up. There's genetics that will predispose you to this, and then there's also testing for it. And if you have both, it's like, oh yeah, you for sure are basically celiac, right? And that's him. So then we go into all of these things like eggs and why are people more allergic to peanuts and eggs? It's probably exposure rates. So if you think of what's in our diet the most, right? And you're like, why are all these kids allergic to peanuts?

What's in a peanut, how it's grown underground, aflatoxins that are associated with it, but the protein, mean, we eat a ton of peanut butter. mean, peanut stuff is used everywhere, peanut oil. We eat eggs, eggs are in everything. mean, baked goods, so it's exposure. And then people's bodies aren't adept. So I don't think there's a lot of allergies. There's a ton of sensitivities that are run amok. True allergies, you're going to anaphylactic shock. It's not, my tummy's upset and I don't feel good. And I think people,

They just don't know the difference. say, I'm allergic. It's like, you carry your EpiPen around in case you eat an egg? No, so you're not allergic. And then you can transfer, not transfer, if you have sensitivities, because again, what are you getting in breast milk? You're getting fat and sugar and a lot of immune response, basically information is basically passing immune messages to the baby. So if I'm having a slight immune response out of the five immune responses, one of them is an allergy, right? Then we have other ones that are gonna be,

slightly into the sensitivity realm. It's like, yeah, that baby's gonna pick that up too. So then that again goes back to the case we talking about, eliminate the things that you know bother you, whether it's you get bloated, gassy, skin issues, you know, whatever, and just see if your baby does better. And then there's a whole other side of the parenting thing that you're supposed to give them this stuff early to literally like sensitize them to it. So it's like, I just think kids are supposed to eat like healthy food like adults and not crap. So it's like, do I wanna sensitize them to cheese? It's probably not.

There's a of crap in there that might bother them, but it's not, oh, let's get them used to that. It's like, you know, peanuts. mean, peanuts are a debatable one just because of how they're processed and things like that. It's not really not. Yeah, that's a hard one, but eggs is a little bit different. I did have a question on the vitamin D with the pediatrician. Was he assuming, or do you think that he was assuming because the mom is

Beau Beard (14:17.506)

deficient in vitamin D. How is he making the correlation between that and the baby? So I asked, so I don't think I'll make sure, I don't think the pediatrician had asked the mom if she's taking vitamin D from when I asked mom, because mom was like, do you think that's like, it's okay. That was never addressed. I didn't ask that point blank, but when I asked mom, here, you taking it? She goes, yeah, she goes, do you think that's enough? I feel like the pediatrician would have like answered that question for her. So I just think.

That's a question they didn't ask because they're treating the kid and not asking about the whole thing. Yeah. This is a blanket. They, she told me they told her because she's breastfeeding, she, they need to be on vitamin D like kids that are breastfeeding or vitamin D always. That's how I took it. I will clear that up a hundred percent. It's your question. But, and I was like, that's absolutely ridiculous. And maybe they're running on the assumption. Most people are vitamin D deficient. then, you know, a plus B equals C.

And if they knew she was, but didn't ask if she was taking it. That's no different to me than saying, everybody needs vitamin D because most people, how do you know? Right. If you don't and you take a bunch of it, I mean, there's bad effects of taking too much vitamin D. it's like, it's not just, everybody's deficient, take it. No, you might be. It's not like just taking a vitamin C pill and it being fine. But even vitamin C, again, I've kind of like, do we need to just be like smashing a bunch of vitamins all day?

No, and people would say, why, you know, it's not bad. It's water soluble. It goes back to the B vitamin thing we talked about before. it's water soluble. You're gonna get rid of that. Everything you eat is signaling something, right? And I think we don't think about it like that, that if I took 500 milligrams of vitamin C every day, that your body's getting a signal. And it's like, who's saying, I'm not saying this is correct. Who's to say that if you wanted that slight uptick in immune response by taking vitamin C, that you have like eliminated that response by just basically taking it every day. So then go to take it when you're sick and your body goes.

I have any. Yeah. Cool. I do this all the time. Like I'm not going to up ramp, you know, cytochrome P activity or anything based on, you know, it's like, I don't, I have no clue if that's true. I just don't think if you don't need it, why are you taking single form supplements rather than being like, I like to try to get vitamin C from like, you know, potatoes and oranges and stuff. They got other stuff in them. Yeah. I think about it. Like, I mean, we were feeling, I know I was feeling a little sick a couple of weeks ago and took zinc and vitamin C for like a few days and then

Beau Beard (16:40.294)

Outside of that, I'm just going to eat stuff. we were talking about vitamin D with this case, I was like, well, we're going to do labs. I'm going to do labs at some point to see just generally what the rest of my health is looking like. But vitamin D would be one because we were discussing how it's getting colder and it's getting darker outside. We've been busier in the office for like more time in the office itself. And you may think like, well, you're not outside, you're not getting as much vitamin D, but there's definitely truth to that. So if I was to supplement it.

how much and is it even worth it if you're like right below a normal value versus. And this is a bit woo woo but even think about like high dose vitamin C that they've used in like cancer treatment and stuff and is a conjunctive therapy like that has or adjunctive therapy that has like been studied. We're not saying just do that alone but if you're doing like chemo or something but which is probably a lot of what the offset of what chemo and radiation are doing you have a.

major antioxidant that you're pushing at 10,000 I use or something and it's like, yeah, that's going to help you. But no different than imagine if you had to eat as much food as you needed to get like 500 milligrams of vitamin C if you felt sick, maybe crushing so many like peppers and white potatoes and stuff. Which is like very, you know, and the things that people think have vitamin C in it, like one of the high, what's one of the highest foods like broccoli, right?

Like, are you just going to go crush a whole head of broccoli, a bunch of bell peppers? like, yeah, I'm good. might in that scenario, I'm get your vitamin C, whatever, make sure it's a good source. Vitamin C. Cool. Do that for a couple of days. You get that, that response and then come off of it. Because again, like, I don't think you need to be running around like that all the time in my opinion, but maybe I'm wrong. don't know. Uh, so yeah, that was just in her case. We'll see what happens. I I told her to basically wait a week and change and kind of see what the fallout is.

Um, yeah, I just thought that was kind of interesting cause she's bringing that baby in thinking chiropractic. We've heard that, you know, probably adjusting can help with like bowel movement stuff, which I'm not saying it can't, but like there was nothing with this baby that I'm like, Oh, I was like, yeah, maybe we can correlate some of the stuff we're doing, you know, and here without that'd be, I lean on that side much further. Um, and what would you have seen? Let's go scotally. That would have told you, okay, this is probably more, I mean, literally, I mean,

Beau Beard (19:03.106)

babies. So this gets in, I know there's probably somebody out there that's going to listen to like, bullshit. like, I mean, from using basic technique on like our kids, if they were constipated, it's like, well, why the kid get constipated in the first place? And is it a chronic thing? Or? I don't know. They, you know, the mom ate something that would constipate her. I mean, downstream effect, the baby's constipated, and you're like, well, you want to help them out? I mean, the mom's doing all this stuff we would do, right? Like stomach massage, you know, basically moving the pelvis around.

Cause if you looked at a lot of like pediatric chiropractic, like it's not high thrust. It's, you know, if we're going to say activator, snap them with a rubber band. I'm going be honest on here. I the F and activator like stupidest thing in the world. And I'll just, if you like it, you're an idiot. I'm just saying that because the idea that snapping somebody is adjusting, is it doing something? It's giving you a for an input. It is no different to me. And you're like, it's specific. No, it's not. It's I could do this.

and I guarantee you I'm getting the same response. You're getting appropriate receptive feedback through a fair input through your skin, which is no different than like me tapping you or poking you with a nail or something. That's what's happening. I guarantee it and you can't, good luck, whatever. But does your nail fix a PD? What?

Hmm. I don't even know what talking about. Someone didn't pay attention to try four and five. I'm glad I didn't. I must have been reading a real book. Where are we going with that? Oh, it's like gentle adjusting, which is like holding a position, right? So it's like a static mobilization. Sounds like like McKenzie. It's gentle mobilization, like moving them through a position that might be stiff because babies can get like stiff in areas. In my opinion, a baby that is a loosey goosey bag of jelly.

motor control is gonna trump mobilization by far. So this baby, I showed Troy, hey, when she's just on her back, she's kinda hanging out and a little bit of, not extension, but not kinda sacrum to the ground, legs are lower than we would expect. Because again, a newborn, if we just put a six week old baby on its back, what are the points of contact if we have that baby on a glass table? What would we see in terms of points of contact?

Beau Beard (21:22.998)

EOP. So just like on their back, like what's touching the ground? What age? Like six weeks old.

Beau Beard (21:32.381)

EOP scapula. No, I think it's just like whole like T spine. There's a big old flat pile. Yeah. Right. I it should be. They're just flush. This baby is now hanging out like a little bit like you can like slip your finger almost under lumbar spine. Not normal, not abnormal per se because like she might be three days away from starting to like crank her.

Well, because when they, you know, the angle of their legs, where their hands can kind of touch down their body, all these things matter. But like, she just might be in this little phase where it's going to connect. It's like, do you do? you that or not? That's what I the mom, like, you can do this. You're kind of doing it already. I would just basically put her legs up in like three months supine and kind of approximate her ribs, her pelvis and just kind of let her be in this position, which could seemingly what? Help function around here if you're not hanging on a bunch of tension. I just can't say like, yeah, that's causing your gas. I mean, I can't say that.

I'm sure somebody would. Yeah. Maybe if she didn't have, if none of the vitamin D stuff had been. Yeah, none of that works, go, yeah, I'll work this stuff. Cause like I said, she had a side predilection that I think shouldn't still be there at that age. Besides that, it was just kind of that pattern of like, you know, concavity around the lower abdominal wall and a little bit of like lateral protrusion and a little diastasis, which diastasis can persist up to six months, like normally. So I'm not worried about that, but again, I would never.

I think it would be me telling a lie if I was like, hey, let's go home and do this and then expecting the gas stuff to get better. Now, if they want to do that with it, cool, but I'm also like, let's try to figure it out instead of doing like five things at once. So I'm curious, do you guys have any, whether it was just like, you know, was ancillary to the case or anything that like sticks out maybe in the past, you know, three months or so where you're like, man, I had to really...

use a little bit of functional medicine stuff or have a conversation with somebody about something that did play a part in a maybe primary musculoskeletal thing or somebody that came in, like, this isn't musculoskeletal at all. Mine would be very short and simple. feel like any, I think I've had three cases of young females that have had chronic headaches or migraines that seem to be doing everything to try to change it. And a couple of them were on multiple medications.

Beau Beard (23:48.032)

of which all of them side effect was headaches. One even told me, she goes, before you say it, I know all my medications have a side effect of headaches. Okay. granted she had been having headaches longer than the medications, but all of them that I asked about their hydration, most of them weren't drinking enough to none of them were doing any sort of electrolyte supplementation and all the ones that started their headaches got better.

Like one of them had had headaches for eight years and she's 17 or 16 or 17. And she was getting them almost every day of the week and then started using elemental electrolytes and hasn't had one in like a week or two. So I just feel like, I mean, we use it all the time and for training purposes and we live in a hot States. People understand like you sweat, you lose things, but even when it's not hot outside and you're somewhat active, like you're losing that. And it's, it's like a.

When we're out running, if we don't supplement that and we get into a hole, it's hard to build it back up. Like same thing can be had whenever you're, when you're not doing that at all. And then maybe you're not drinking enough or your diet doesn't look great. and people may not be super bought into changing a ton of things about their diet, but if you just supplement some water and it tastes a little better, cause they maybe don't like the taste of water. I found that that's, didn't give them that unflavored element. Sure. Flavor. Yeah. Yeah.

Only did that once, I don't want to it again. yeah, it's just salt. It's just straight salt. And then the other thing is, let's say somebody's drinking a decent amount of water, then you can have the whole conversation about the water system itself and filtering out everything to the point where it's like there's nothing really in it that your body can pull from or help absorb. does that mean you have to have a thousand milligrams of element and water? No, pinch sea salt or something, which we talk about all the time.

Yeah, it's drinking water and that's like, it's still not going the way it should like helping people absorb it better sources and then, you know, the chain if you're exercising and being active. Yeah. Cause I feel like a lot of times they, they expect there's a musculoskeletal component to it, which there can be. They can certainly have trigger points and suboccipitals that radiate to their forehead, but why not work on both? Cause they also hydration status of like tissues. mean, that's the other thing here. So like, yeah, it probably is concomitant of.

Beau Beard (26:15.488)

what are you actually changing, know, physiology, not just like from how your kidneys filter and things like that and hydration around your brain, but like the tissue tension and like sliding gliding surfaces, which again, I've, I've got an air of like, I'm not the, the fasciitis, you know, that's like, yeah, you gotta have like perfect hydration all the time. Cause you're whatever the liquid crystal system, I don't know, whatever goes a little bit far, but.

Yeah, I think it is important for dehydrate. can literally feel people's tissue. Like that's like that's different. Start leaving it on the table. What about you, Seth? Got anything that sticks out or themes? I guess I was more theme, you know, had some cases behind it. Not, not really. Watch me have one a day.

Mine would be probably on the same vein as the hydration. mean like, it's just something I just like easily talk about with my patients because they come in and most of them complain about having just either like cramps like whenever they're doing some type of like exercise or if they're up walking around or they just like get to the end of the day and they're like, yeah, my leg just kinda like ache or cramp or I'll wake them up at night. I know there's a whole like other side of like labs you could look at with that but most of the ones that have had that I'm also dealing with some type of like tendon injury.

They have – so it's just hydration of tissues. just like a stiff tendon and they're wanting to do this like big like a golf. They want to do like a high like impact sport like either like a jumper or something like that but they're just not drinking water. I'm like here's putting a lot of like stress on like a very stiff tendon already that's supposed to stiffen when it needs to but it doesn't have the like chemical properties to be able to handle that. So it's like you start adding supplementation and I feel like I've seen just like the

stuff that we do in here, the treatment and what they do outside of here is handled a little bit better. Just because it just sets them up for a better success in that area. I feel like that's pretty blanket, but I feel like a lot of my tendon injuries have been from people who just are not hydrating very well. And we don't, I mean, we're pretty lucky that we're labeled a sports chiropractic business, so we don't get a lot of like grossly unhealthy people, right?

Beau Beard (28:26.19)

We're not seeing like a ton of obese people, people with A1C through the roof. And we see a lot of people like that because it's just kind of more common than not. like overall, fairly healthy people are young athletes, which just because you look healthy doesn't mean you are. like that's not something we're having to address quite as much, right? Even though we're in Alabama and it is prevalent. But I mean, there's been people where...

you know, whether it's like just the adiposity itself, or you can tell they're not the healthiest person in the world and you get a couple visits in, the response isn't whiz bang. And whether you bring it up or not at that point of like, hey, I mean, most people know, but when you think like, this response is terrible because of like what you're eating or you're crushing sweet tea all day or whatever. And like, hey, if you really want to get over this. And I mean, I've had to bring that up and I'm not like, hey, do a functional medicine visit with me and get labs. we would.

your blood's 90 % sweet tea, like we know we're gonna find. That's Seth, yeah. But I've also had way more people sign up for the like functional management program without us, we don't really market it. mean, a little bit, but not, and I think that's just because again, like we said last time, it's getting more popular to talk about it. think people are curious about it. But again, like somebody that signed up yesterday,

I don't know if they're a patient line. I don't think anything's going on other than like maybe they want to drop some weight or something. It's like a guy a little bit younger than me. So again, it might be hard. It's like that conversation might be a little bit harder because it's like somebody comes into here with back or headache and you're like, I think it's actually you're not just drinking water. This guy might come in for a functional medicine visit. And I'm like, nothing's really wrong, right? On your labs, like pathologically, it's just you eat like a five year old.

You know, like, and that might be a hard conversation to have, but it's like, it's not supplements, it's not the specific plan, it's like, just eat better, right? And that's hard because people are like, I want a plan, it's like, if I give you a plan, what do we know is gonna happen? You're gonna fall off of it when you can't like stick to it, and then you'll be back versus you trying to figure out a repeatable process that's like something you can do with your family, not just yourself. And yeah, we try to help guide them, but it's not like, hey, here's our farm diet to help you lose weight.

Beau Beard (30:46.712)

That's the other one with going back to the hydration. Like I don't want anyone that's like listening to us to be like, you got cramps, you have like hydration issues. Cause the other one I see a lot of times is like, get cramp or I see people that have like cramping on someone who comes in with like a low back complaint or maybe like a hamstring complaint. And you just like, again, we talk about like approximating some hips. You put them in like a really good, like three months supine position, their back starts to like cramp and spasm just cause it's like a new motor pattern they haven't done before in their bodies. Just like not wanting to let go of that.

Same thing like a hamstring. I can't tell you how many times you have somebody just do an easy little hamstring curl and it's just like, you have to put your hand on their mid hamstring because they're fixing to come off the table, they're cramping so hard. Yeah, like active facilitation if you don't know a new motor pattern. Then also, fasciculating and cramping. Fasciculating in particular was like stenotic cases, neurologic irritation, then cramping at night and our 50, 60, 70 year olds, a lot of that.

has nothing to do with hydration, but what's the thing that gets talked about now is magnesium. And then these people are always, I think everybody asks, I'm taking magnesium and doing all this stuff and it doesn't change. And you're like, we're literally proving to yourself it's not a like electrolyte, like hydration thing. So we try to have the conversation. You see how your calf just looks like it's got like stuff rolling around. Like that's your spinal cord basically getting like pinged around due to stenosis, which is good for them to know of like, oh, that's been going on for two years. It's like, yeah.

I know you came in here last week. Stuff was going on way before. yeah, like Seth said, multiple reasons. And even the research behind hydration and cramping, it's kind of showing it's right now, from what I've seen, split down the middle on hydration electrolytes, but then basically neurologic confusion for the most part. So you run a motor pattern in the ground, your brain starts to try to create that same motor pattern, whether it's from energy production or whatever.

And that's the thing that's running out, which has nothing to do with electrolytes, right? And that's where you see these drinks like hot shots and stuff. That's like cayenne pepper and mustard and stuff to basically give a neurologic like smack in the face. And it's like, Ooh, I get rid of my cramps temporarily. But most of those people are just not training enough. Right? So then they get into the throws of, you know, 25 miles into a 50 K and like, I always cramp when I hit that. And it's like,

Beau Beard (33:07.19)

that might be hydration, that might be you're hitting your training limit and your body's like, can't support that same motor pattern for that long. And like basically your nerve endings are just like zero or a hundred, cause you can't titrate it anymore. Cause it's like bombarded. That's what I was about to say. was like, I feel like whenever anybody tells me like, they're like, I feel like my hydration is on point and it's always at the same mile marker every time. And the course really hasn't changed. Like it's not just like this astronomical change in elevation compared to what they had already been doing before. It's like, I don't think the

I don't think that eating is the problem. I think you're literally just running into like you cannot keep doing that thing anymore, right? Like no different someone who comes in and like you have a runner who needs good hip extension. Just have them do a glute bridge on the table and you'll see those suckers light up like a Christmas tree on their hamstrings. They have to come out of it and you're like and then you expect to do this for 50 plus miles. It's kind of like you're not getting dehydrated on my table. You've been here eight minutes. Which is a good point and

Again, what if somebody came in and they're like, man, I always just hit the wall at mile 22 of a marathon. Like if they said that, you'd like, oh, I think it's your training, right? Like if it was always, like, I don't think it's the weather that day. I don't think it's your hydration. We'd be like, oh, I think it's how you're training. But like, we don't see cramps the same way. Now you can have it the other way. We had a patient that, you know, at the end of our race last year, he's like, dude, I've been falling out of every race I've done. We got him wearing a sweat sensor and he didn't realize how

He needed double the amount of fluids and then about a quarter more of the electrolytes and he has like had zero to almost no issues since then. So you can have it both ways. He's a bigger guy and just didn't know like sweat ratio stuff. all of that kind of leads back to what? Trying to figure out what's going on instead of just like throwing stuff against the wall of, I'm going to drink more water. I'm going to take more electrolytes. I'm going to do musculoskeletal treatment. I'm going to take vitamin C. It's like, well, you can test it.

you know, and try to figure it out. But also sometimes you don't need to test stuff. like testing somebody that needs to lose weight for a lab panel, I think is like lying to them. Like what are we going to figure out on there? Like, taking vitamin D and improving your cholesterol gets you to lose weight. No, you know how to lose weight, which could probably improve your cholesterol. And then like, you know, if you've got refugio, vitamin D might go up. instead of looking at it first, like we kind of know how we got here for most people. Now, if somebody comes in and they're

Beau Beard (35:29.57)

you know, 7 % body fat, they're eating an immaculate diet and you know, doing all the good stuff and they're like, I'm having headaches every day and I'm waking up with low energy and stuff. They're like, that doesn't sound normal. Same reason if somebody came in, they're like, man, I sit and my, you know, pain radiates down my leg. I'm like, that doesn't sound normal. Versus if somebody's like, my back hurts every time I do a squat and their squat looks abysmal. I'm like, well, I don't think that's an injury. It's probably a hard squat. So it's just, again, most likely across the board. So yeah, that's.

To me, I kind of like that it got to this point of like functional medicine seems extremely complex. I listening to podcasts on it, go to a functional medicine practitioner that's going to just like word vomit, you know, every genetic predisposition and supplement and bio longevity thing. It's like, are the fundamentals in place? And if they're not, put those in place first. If they knock down dominoes, awesome. But the hard thing that or for that process for most people is what?

Patients, they don't want to wait that long. So they want to crush 10,000, I use vitamin C. They want to go take, you know, Monjourno. They want to XYZ. And it's like, I can't blame them, but it's like, that's not going to last or it's going to have ramifications. that's my takeaway. And it's like, you also want it to be like as easily accessible for like patients to get out the door, which like, again, I have no problem with you doing, is it going on like a, like a three mile run or something like that? You're just like, yeah, I just wanted to pick up running. But at a certain point it's kind of like, okay, well let's just take a look at just like,

some general like sweat rates, laps that way, like upfront costs, like maybe slightly up, but you don't have this backend cost of injuries and then you're not able to get out the door and then you get this whole cycle of like, well now I've got to rebuild the discipline to go back and start again, knowing that you also just got injured and they may have done this two or three times already. It's the most common on the musculoskeletal side. Yep. Somebody gets in running and just, I did pretty good. Did pretty good. Wow. Go crazy. And you're like,

And then we try to always say, yeah, there's probably a training up ramps there that didn't match, but also like, can your body withstand that from how you move and like how strong you are? like nine times out of no. mean, whether that's a seventh grader or a 70 year old and it's like, no. And that's hard for him. they're like, well, I've been running, I was running fine. It's like, yeah, you hit a wall and you keep hitting that wall. I mean, I think of a guy that I saw.

Beau Beard (37:52.238)

identical time last year, three weeks before the exact same marathon for almost an identical issue on the opposite side. When I asked him, hey, you been doing any the strength stuff we kind of talked about? The more I ran, the less I did. And he knew, right? It's no different than somebody that's like, I eat cheeseburgers every day and I know I'm 30 pounds overweight. He knew. Then I asked, why aren't you doing it? He goes, just, you know, kind of time and everything.

But literally with him and most people in here, have the conversations, we exit care with like a runner. Hey, when you up your volume, you have to kind of go harder on the things that tend to come out with that's, know, hip instability or tightness someplace, whatever, because when you volume up, like your body's getting beat to hell or it's going to rely on old patterns. I mean, perfect example, like absolutely perfect. And I hate that he's hurting. I think it's going to be easy. I'll see him I think tomorrow. So hopefully it is. But

We just don't think about it like that. And not that you should, mean, nobody teaches you like, you need to be able to your ankle and your hip this way and stuff before you can run. It's just like, everybody's running, I can do it. yeah, same thing with go back to functional medicine. Well, this guy eats like that and he looks okay and is healthy. It's like, yeah, you.

maybe don't realize he's exercising 30 more minutes than you each day, or his genetics are different than yours. So that does matter and you have to do, like, that's where it can matter when you get specific, but like, are you doing everything that they're doing first versus like, what? So, I mean, I've heard that a lot from like a lot of our female clients hell in the gym, like, I'm doing all the same stuff I was and I'm like not able to lose weight. It's like, hey, you're a different person, right? But are you as healthy as you could be

Or are you a different person that's doing the same stuff you were five years ago? So you're like, yeah, I drink a couple times a week and I eat 80 % healthy. It's like, different person. So those same things may not work with this person. So you might have to get more healthy rather than thinking, what pill do I take? What drug do I take? What do I do? I know that's, I'm not beating anybody up that's doing that stuff, but like that stuff has a shelf life. If we're talking like, you know, GLP one or whatever, it's got side effects. know what doesn't usually have side effects? Healthy food.

Beau Beard (40:02.446)

Yeah. Usually, mean, can get GRD for me. Be a look on the social media because we're going to post here soon. were just talking about it. That probably one of the biggest things that hurts me when it comes to runners is like not enough load when it comes to the strength training and in the actual session, not enough weight, um, thinking that it's somehow going to hinder the running. And yes, as you get into more running, you said, you know, far for him, it might've been time.

It takes longer to go run 10, 12 miles than it does to lift weights. Now, do you have to have the amount of mileage that you're assuming you need to have for the race? That's problem. And that's probably, one of the biggest, because that's the controllable variable. To get faster, you run more miles. Maybe. That's different for, we've talked about it before about the pro runners, how that is really a good indicator for them, but not necessarily for everybody else. And I feel like

even just building up to the longer races that I'm doing. I'm not running a crazy amount, you know, 30 to 40 miles a week total. Now we'll see what happens on race day, but, able to strength train two to three days a week. I feel pretty strong when we go out and some of those longer runs and hit Hills and going down Hills, which like, that's a big one. I like nobody thinks about, not, should say nobody. Most people, a that are

doing their own programming or following an online training plan or even with a coach, they don't think about workload versus just volume. So what I mean by that is, like you the other day when we working out, you went and ran three miles, then you worked out. The workload there is bigger, right? You could equate this somehow from energy expenditure, but if we looked at like, okay, somebody's gonna go run six miles, but Alex went out and ran three miles and then did a 45 minute to an hour weight training session, the workload's probably higher from you.

Now, yeah, you have to do certain types workouts for running and stuff. And I know it's kind of taking a running turn here, but what we don't think is somebody says what? Well, my plan says I have to go out and do this pace run for this. And then they think, well, if I lift weights either before or the day before, I'm not going to be able to that pace. That's the problem. And versus thinking, well, no, program weight training, reduce the pace, the workloads the same, and you're actually better for it because mechanical efficiency goes up, power output, maybe even neurologic like output while you're running.

Beau Beard (42:21.166)

based on how you program your workouts into it. Nobody thinks about that. It's just like, hey, we're lift weights and then it's like poorly planned maybe around it. You get to the Olympic level and stuff, sure. People are data aware and recovery times and decreased force production during like a big strength phase and like where you put those in. Like that stuff matters but for the lay person, there's like, I'm not gonna be able to do my run at that pace, that distance because of this versus, well, how do you change the run with the weight to get the same exposure?

And that's hard, I get that, because I'm like, well, how would I do that? First, you could just start by the same thing. If you're going to eat more healthy food, could be like, I'm just going to run a little bit slower and do the same amount of miles and still have weights. Or I'm going to run a little bit less miles at the same pace and still have little bit of weights. I guarantee you, for 90 % of people, because there are a subgroup of people that like volume, they can just crush it and it will help them to run faster. But I would also want to look at the injury rates of those people that perform well, right? With these, you know, we have volume runners and neuromechanical runners.

aerobic runners, how they do long term with injuries if they're not doing, you know, general movement strategy, strength training stuff for somebody that regardless of how they respond to aerobic training. The other thing is like, your body doesn't know pace and those like stress. Yeah. Right. So like the stress you put on it, right? You have outside life factors on all on top of also like, Hey, did you do a hillier run versus like a flatter run? Like

paces is gonna look a little bit different, but this hilly run may actually been a lot harder on you, but it might've been a minute per mile slower than this. And it's like, when I go out and run, like everybody in this room right here might have a different feel of what 10 minute pace feels like, right? And like, you can't just be like, hey, you're a hundred percent like a 10 minute mile per bit, a 10 minute mile guy. It's like, well, that might hit you less than it hits one of us, right? Or vice versa. And it's just like that.

You gotta be able to recover from that. Like it's not gonna be like, oh, my body doesn't wake up and it's like, yep, seven minute pace is today what I have to do. Yeah. And it's also a day like, you know, if you go work 12 hours, like should you, should you still go do the same program run versus like, I don't know. I think like, and that's tough. I mean, it doesn't get tough. It's like, I went and did that run the other day after eating, you know, pasta and stuff that I, before I was like, I felt sluggish and it's like, could I have pushed through that? Yeah. I was just, I'm not.

Beau Beard (44:39.918)

training for the Olympics. It's like, I'm just going to run the pace, I definitely felt off. And then I think it's very popular now to be like, regardless of how much you slept or feel or whatever, just like hit your goal, run more maybe like, yeah, not everybody's true at Haynes. Yeah, we could see, we could see a, we could see a benefit if the running community embraces the, new wave of the hybrid athlete, because they'll be like, this is what weight training should look like. But we call us to could, it's good to see that. Or they just, I'll just do more. Yeah. I'll just.

keep doing my miles and I'll add that on and I'm just gonna be fine. Also if you look less sleep, smoking his gig. saw what Truett Haynes put a post up that got back from Norway or Iceland somewhere where he was and he goes, I'm gonna go out and run before he went to bed, like he went out for like a day and a half. It's like also realize that is a different guy than you. Whoever's looking at that post for the most part. Like he is trained for a long time. Yeah and just be like, his ability to absorb that stuff.

in the face of like sleep deprivation or whatever is probably a lot better because of his physiologic like set up before versus like, yeah, I kind of just smash beers and eat cheeseburgers. And I think I'm jet lagged. I'm gonna go crush 10 miles. Like you might blow your knee out. Like, I don't know. It's some pretty good epigenetics too from old pops. Well, hey, we finished it on a functional medicine. We said epigenetics. So we took a running detour there. Ran and came back up. Somehow on the runway.

Anything else on that before you jump off here? No? No. Cool. And then I do have a podcast coming out because this will come out next week. This is like the 23rd or something. Where I go over Sloan's genetics labs and we go over her whole functional medicine plan. But if you listen to that episode, realize I go through all the high level stuff and watch how fundamental we come out with what are you going to do? What are you going to take home from this? And we reiterate that of like,

It's not 20, I mean, you look at the AI generated plan, the three by four genetics plan of what she's supposed to do. I mean, she would literally just be doing wellness stuff all day, taking supplements all day, probably not even able to eat. She's taking so many supplements, like this is ridiculous. like getting those tests are great. The pumped out plan of like, well, just do all this stuff, virtually impossible and probably not beneficial to be honest with either, just too much. So look for that coming forward. See ya.