 Hey, we are live Dr. Shackleton. It is always a joy to talk to another friend, and we've both been in Boulder for a long time. I think you've been here longer than I have, but welcome to our live show, and I'm so glad to talk to you today about environmental toxicity. Before we start, just a few housekeeping for everybody listening, and then I wanna introduce Dr. Shackleton. Basics are, you can find me on my website, JillCarnahan.com, tons of free resources there. Dr. JillHealth.com is the retail store, and if you need any information or questions, those are always available. We also have a brand new YouTube channel. If you just search my name under YouTube, you'll see all of these videos and more, lots of fun stuff with friends, and lots and lots of great topics, it's all free, so go there and just subscribe if you like. But today I have an awesome friend, and just someone I respect so much, because we just have such parallel practices in Boulder, Colorado, and a lot of the types of people that we see, and we both have a few stories around some of this environmental toxicity that we'll share today. This will be recorded, so if you miss the first part or wanna share it later, you can, it'll be on the Facebook page as well. So Dr. Shackleton, I wanna introduce you first. She is a naturopathic doctor who practices environmental medicine with an emphasis on women's health. She's a member of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, with a focus on chronic disease, conditions associated with environmental toxic exposure, and chronic hidden infections, such as Lyme, mixed bacterial infections, and immune dysfunction. She has a blog in which she writes about her passion for the environment and its impact on human health. Where can they find that? What's your website, Dr. Shackleton? MaryShackleton.com is where my blog is, and then they can also find me at HolisticCare.com. Awesome, very good. And we'll mention that again at the end, and we'll talk about what she's been up to and what's upcoming in her life. Well, here it is. She's just completed writing a book on the impact of environmental toxins on neurodegenerative disorders in the unborn fetus. I am really excited to get to that topic because a lot of people don't really think they just, oh, I'm pregnant, this is great, but think about that pre-care. So we will dive into that as well. I love to start though with kind of story, and I'd love to hear a little bit about your background and how you get interested in medicine and your path to this career. Well, that's a good question. It was circuitous for sure. I started kind of dabbling in medicine, didn't feel like it was the right course for me, ended up getting a master's in public health. That never felt like the right fit for me at the time either I was working in the wrong public health department, I'm not sure, but then literally when the lightning bolt strikes and you go, that's it. I saw a poster on a phone poll really, and it was advertising Southwest College of naturopathic medicine, doctorate degree, four years, and I never knew you could get a degree in naturopathic medicine. And so for me, it was a slam dunk. I had all my pre-rex done, I couldn't wait to be done, and it really started for me the love of my life which is practicing naturopathic medicine, and it really has been, it was made for me. So I love going to work every day. I'm always much more energized when I get home from having seen patients, and I love the complexity of what's happening, and that's part of what inspired this book, was realizing that there's so much happening in the environment, and it's impacting women's health pretty significantly. So it's like, what can I do about this? And this book was born from that kind of question. Wow, I love that. And you've been in, if you've been in Boulder your whole life, did you? No, I moved here in 99. So I've had my practice here for about 22 years, and it's wonderful working here with people that are extremely knowledgeable about their health and interested and motivated, and then there's a lot of people here that are not well. So it does, it's a great place to work and live. I couldn't agree more. Gosh, it's so exciting to be here among, again, most of our patients I always joke because in Illinois, to have people on three, two liters of Diet Coke per day and McDonald's and I rarely see people that aren't already doing 80% of what they need with healthy diet and lifestyle. So that makes it easy because the foundation, there's definitely tweaks, right? Cause some people need a little help with, they still diet's kind of a core of what we do. But a lot of times at least they have the basic like healthy lifestyle there. And I have to beat the internet to a lot of that. You know, there was a time that the internet wasn't as accessible. And I was really teaching a lot of basic foundational stuff. Now people have, they know so much before they sit down. I used to have a talk, a live talk radio show and the questions that would come, this was 99, 2000. And those questions were really from educated healthcare consumers. And I loved it, but even more so now people can access anything online. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? Any given analogy they come. So right now, first of all, let's go through what's happened recently a little bit. How has that affected your practice, your patients that are coming in? You're probably doing more virtual than before. Tell me just a little bit about how the shift in your practices happened through this pandemic. Right, so touch and go in the beginning, we have a lot of cancer patients that are some that are getting their chemo through our office and really immunocompromised. So we decided to stay open only for those folks and really not let anybody else in the clinic. So those were big decisions in late March, early April. And then everything went online, all patient appointments. And I realized, wow, we really can do a lot online. But you have IVs, so tell us more about, so you offer what different types of IVs are you offering? We have, goodness, Myers cocktails, amino acids, alphalopoic acid, IV curcumin, phosphatidylcholine, glutathione, ozone, and we also have a laser. So we have a lot of different things. I might be leaving a few things out, but we do a lot, we can address most things with that complement of IVs. So we stayed open for really only a handful of cancer patients, not even the folks that wanted to do immune support, we just said no because we couldn't control everyone's exposure. So now we are still pretty much online, seeing some patients, but really have to keep the clinic to less than 10 people. And we have one IV per room, where we used to have three in a room. So we're spreading it out and getting people in as we can. Good. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing how with the IVs, because you got to have them in person, right? We did this thing, well, we both mostly went virtual and just didn't do a lot of IVs. We didn't have people that had critical needs. So we were able, and we have a much smaller IV population than you do. So, and we did all Zoom for a while and then got back alive and it was really no big deal. Now, same thing, there's a limited amount that come in the office. One thing I wanted to talk to you about for sure was, gosh, the impact we've talked about the virus and the impact of that on human health and everything, but what people are not talking about. And I think is maybe a bigger issue is number one, social isolation and that effect on the immune system and health. And then mental health of our kids and our young adults. I mean, even our adults, what are the effects? Are you seeing people with more issues with mental health or more issues with anxiety? Yes, I'm actually kind of surprised because I started to really get curious with patients to just ask every single person, how are you doing and how has this impacted your life? And I was shocked to understand the depth of anxiety that people are experiencing. And I think part of it is the isolation. I think I didn't even realize the full impact of social isolation on my own self. And I imagine that everybody's experiencing their own thing. So I think that people are actually really terrified of getting this virus. And there are so many different sides of this entire experience that it's very complex. And so, they might have had chronic asthma as a kid and been fine for 20 years, but this is a real trigger for them. So they're triggered around their health and they're isolating. I have a patient that's living in the mountains by himself because he's so afraid of contact with other people. And then to answer your question about how it's affecting our immune system, our immune systems learn by contact with viruses and bacteria. And so, you can take a certain amount of supplements, but that doesn't create antibodies to infection and that's what we need. And so kids are good at that. They're getting exposed all the time and their immune systems can be fairly robust. And yet adults, our immune systems are not getting exposed or seeing any infection. So we're not giving it the chance to learn how to respond. So, and yet it's very complicated. We do need to stay home for a little bit longer and we do need to wear masks and we do need to wash our hands. And the whole concept of hand sanitizer, I've written so many blogs about, don't use hand sanitizer because we want these microbes. Now, the tricklesan, which is actually related to reduced fertility, I just keep seeing these hands on it, gallon size hand sanitizers. And it's like, we just are all on a point of surrender for now. We have to surrender. You bring that up, because I can't even say it. Tricklesan? Yeah, say that again. So over here. Tricklesan. Thank you. Tricklesan. So this is toxic. Tell us a little bit more about that toxicity. So they found that this was responsible for infertility in a lot of women. And tricklesan is an endocrine disrupting hormone that's found in most major brands of hand sanitizer. So, endocrine disruptors are things that get into our bodies. They look like hormones. They confuse hormone messaging. And the daily use of a hand sanitizer is just gonna contribute to this complex, hormonal, confused messaging. So, but I keep telling patients, you know what, we're gonna just follow the rules for now. We're gonna wear our masks and use our hand sanitizer. We're gonna wash our hands and just do it. It's not forever. So that's kind of the pep talk I've given patients, is just do what you need to do to protect yourself mentally and emotionally from this. And be as careful as you can. I love that balance. So because that's where I'm at, I'm not saying that any of the regulations are wrong or bad or any of that is we need to do what we need to do. I'm washing my office down between patients. I'm doing the precautions like you are. But the truth is I know that our microbiome live in habits, our space and our body and our skin and our mouth and so there's all of these places. And I just wonder, I saw a commercial day of the day for United and Chlorox. And they were so proud of this collaboration between United and Chlorox. And they showed these people, and they were fuming the pillings and they were just pouring the Chlorox. And I thought, oh, for our chemically sensitive patients, this is going to be an area to start to travel with the chemicals right in the planes. And again, they're doing, they're trying to do the right thing. But for example, you have a two-year-old in the garden grabbing a dirty carrot and eating that. That's how their immune system is trained as to what's dangerous and what's good. Like our contact with dirt as children is actually training for our immune systems. And then as we get to be adults, the contact with germs on a constant basis is how our immune system detects good versus evil, right? Well, I agree with you. I'm like, how in the world in a year or two or more, maybe a decade, probably a lot less than that, we're going to see the manifestations of this trial of sterilization of our environment, which is really, really quite unhealthy for us. It is. I think it's also an opportunity to really talk about, you know, there's a lot being taken away from us right now, but I think there's also a huge opportunity to have a conversation about what is in our control. And what's in our control is what we put in our mouth, how we choose to eat. And, you know, there's no substitute for a good diet. You cannot take supplements and have like superimpose that on an unhealthy diet. So I think, you know, as we all have read that the comorbidity, the patients with comorbidities are the ones that are highest risk from dying from COVID. And so this is an opportunity to get, you know, to rein in our health, to lower our inflammation with good diet, to exercise, to reduce our weight, to reduce our hypertension. This is the best time that we're ever going to have and the best reason that we have to ever do, to enact some personal changes in our own behaviors because it's protective. Yeah, I love that because a lot of times they talk about, you know, the germ theory was years ago and it's still real, there's germs and they call this but the new theory is terrain because if we have a healthy terrain that we live in and inhabit and we choose to do things like clean air, clean water, clean food, weight loss or appropriate, you know, food intake and all those kinds of things that we can do we really do have more control than we think. And it's fine line between fear and between taking control of what we can control. One thing you mentioned that I think is important too is like you said that the mental health of isolation we're seeing, at least for me, I'm seeing younger kids and stuff and the whole school debate. I won't get into how I feel about that. I have a lot of compassion for those of you who are parents and dealing with decisions and all of that. And you mentioned you're gonna take your kids on the road a little bit more. Yeah, I mean the last 10 weeks of school were a disaster in my house watching, you know, my son is 17 and he had one screen with his video game and one screen with his teacher. Unbelievable. I, you know, total disengagement, nothing I could do about it. I was busy trying to keep my own business afloat. My husband was doing the same thing. So I just knew when I knew the schools were not gonna start in person learning because just watching the numbers rise. And so we really kind of have planned to do some online classroom time in the outdoors. And again, I feel like the outdoors are very healing for us and great for our immune system. So if you can walk outside barefoot, you can actually absorb the vibration of the earth and that's the counterbalance to EMFs and being on a computer. So I'm going to really hope that we can find some good adventures where we can also do several hours of classroom time. I'm gonna try to figure out how I'm gonna work it for my schedule, but I'll figure it out. But that's kind of our strategy. And while not everyone can do that, I know, but I really wanna say to parents, I've had this conversation over and over with my best friend who's a social worker in high school that every parent is struggling. If you feel like you are failing at X, Y, or Z right now, just know every single mother and father are feeling the exact same way. This is so unprecedented and nobody really knows what to do. And I just really believe that everybody's doing the best they can. And that's kind of been the refrain in my mind when something feels frustrating or I don't understand it or I can't tolerate it. It's like everybody really is just trying to do the best they can. And some people need to give themselves a lot of permission to not be perfect right now and just to get the other side. I love that. I think that's something just to pause on, like we are, we're doing the best we can and whether you're anxious or sad or overwhelmed or depressed or there is this, we really need for compassion instead of judgment and instead of all the stuff that's happening on the other end, I think that's so important. And even for people just to create a space where they can be where they're at. And it's funny because there's a lot of, I've talked about this before, but the things that raise cortisol are novelty, unpredictability, threat to ego and sense of control. And we're kind of engaging all four of those right now, right? So it's definitely stressful on all of us. I think just the unpredictability and the unknown, right? Yeah, humans don't do well with uncertainty. I'm certainly one of those people. Right, me too, I like to play them. Well, let's talk about, so you wrote last year and hopefully that'll be published very soon. But I know how this goes with COVID and my own book and writing, things are a little up in the air with the publishers. Tell us about your upcoming book and a little bit more because I wanna dive into that topic. I think people will find it really interesting. Okay, so I wrote a book on environmental toxicity and how to prevent having a baby on the autism spectrum. And the genesis of the book really came from seeing woman after woman plop down in my chair in my exam room and say, I wanna have a baby next month and I wanna do a detox this month. Wow. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. So the thinking is that, if we think of like having a baby as a marathon, the first 18 to 20 miles really should be planning for conception. So detoxing, looking at your personal environment, what can you do to clean out what we've stored and then not put any more in? And that's a process and it takes some time. So if you get this, I also think of the detox machine like a wheel, if you get it spinning and then get pregnant, that baby will be exposed to everything you've now unrooted or pulled out of hiding. And so the goal really is to have a good year, 12 months to detox before you get pregnant. It will increase your chances of having a healthy baby. It will increase your fertility, increase the chances of the baby's brain being neurologically intact. So it's a concept that I really want women in their early fertile years to grasp because their fertility is affected greatly by what's happening in the environment. And what's happening in the environment is happening so rapidly that it's impacting our genes, it's impacting the way we are actually having babies. I think there was something like 20,000 babies born to IVF in 1998 and in 2012 went to 60,000. So that's not gonna change. And part of that is the environment, of course not all of it, but part of that is due to environmental changes. So this is so interesting because I can go back to a little bit of my story which is a 25-visual breast cancer. And there's no doubt that I had in utero exposure to toxic endocrine disruptors on the farm. So atrazine and organo-operates, right? I mean, classic. And if I looked, I remember, this was like 10 years after my diagnosis when I was in remission, but I remember looking up atrazine, really understanding it and then realizing it's banned in Europe, but in Illinois and in United States it's still being used and being like, oh my goodness, how in the world is this chemical which we know is so toxic still being used? And then I'm like, well, let's see where the concentration of use is. And I looked up map of the United States and atrazine use. And I literally fell off my chair, Mary, because right in the hottest red spot of the use was where I grew up. Like a little bubble of red that was solid, as solid can be. Just got the chills. Yeah, right in the central Illinois farmland. And I was like, oh my gosh, there's no doubt in weed a well with well water. So there's probably, there's so many things I could talk about, but talk about in utero. So I have no doubt. My mother had migraines, chronic fatigue, Hashimoto's therbiditis. And I remember being really depleted five children and I was a second. So yeah, there's, I mean, there's so many things now. And I also, one little thing that I also didn't put together a lot recently was I had precocious puberty at five, which means breast bud development went away. Pediatrician was like, no big deal. Duh, that's when the breast tissue had this estrogenic effect. And I think it was probably starting in utero. So you had my mom know, she didn't know any better and she was doing the best she could. And now my family is one of the first families in Illinois that is organic soy and corn and all non-GMO. So I'm excited that my experience is actually transmitted, you know, to the farming community and changes there. But does it make sense as you're talking about Texas D and my own breast cancer in what you're talking about? Oh yes. And atrazine in particular is interesting because they've studied frogs with exposure to atrazine and they exhibit both male and female reproductive characteristics. So males can actually have ovaries. Males can have babies. So it's confusing the entire hormone messaging system. And so how can we really even expect to have a baby on the first attempt or a healthy baby if we don't really try to reduce our exposures somehow? Yeah, so important. And again, my mom was doing the best she could. Yeah. Nowadays she's done detox. She knows all about that. But I think if we could have caught a young mother like that and had her go through a year of detox like you're recommending, it might have made the difference in a cancer of a 25-year-old woman, which doesn't seem possible but totally related in my mind. Oh, mine too, for sure. And the other thing that you mentioned, which is interesting is that multiple children in one family, that last baby, unless the mother is very intentional about putting nutrients back in, that last baby gets the least amount of nutrients. So in terms of essential fatty acids and minerals and all these things that are really important for neural development. So that's another thing about preconception planning is this your first baby or your fourth if it's your fourth, you really need to, these nutrients that we take orally are really critical. Was, is there any recommendations if a patient, if a woman is planning kind of her family about timing between pregnancies or tips on that? Well, I don't know about that. I think it's more, I mean, certainly a year to get your body to recover. And in that year, definitely stay on your prenatal, vitamin D, probiotic, fish oil because those are all really important nutrients to feed your cells, get your cell membranes back to being really resilient. Those are the big ones. And then dietarily, absolutely dark green leafy vegetables, eggs if you can tolerate them, grass-fed protein, animal meat if you can tolerate them like that. So those, those nutrients are really, really important to, to replenish. I mean, it's not just like you have your baby, but that takes a lot out of a woman. It takes a lot. And then you nurse, I mean, that's a 600 to 800 calories a day that you're expending to keep another human alive. So you really have to be intentional and get some support around that. Yeah, gosh, I love that. And what, so say someone does come to you and say, I wanna get pregnant in a couple of years. What should I do now? What would you do? What can I work up or testing or what would you do for that woman? That's great. I would do genetic testing for sure. I would look at their MTHFR status because if that were a problem that we'd know we have to kind of back up and do maybe even a little bit extra detox for this person that shuts down phase two detoxification in the liver. I would do a nutrient panel for sure, just to see where is it looking? And then I would kind of do a clinical intake with them and figure out what their risk of exposure is. Did they grow up on the farm? Did their grandmother grow up on the farm? We do know about transgenerational toxic exposure. So your grandmother also probably had some toxins that she gave to your mother that she gave to you. So doing an entire family history is often really illuminating to see where are your potential risks and what can we do now? Heavy metals, stool testing, depending on how they're doing, because the microbiome really is critical and that we share, women share that with their babies as they come through the vaginal birth canal. So knowing if your microbiome, and I don't know about you, but we probably rarely see anybody with an intact microbiome these days, but it's a good teaching tool for people to see, this is why diversity in your diet is so important. This is why avoiding all of the things that deplete the microbiome are really important. So that's kind of, and certainly blood work. And I love the gut that you talked about because it really is inoculation of the baby through the vaginal birth canal and C-section babies. A lot of midwives and holistic practitioners are actually inoculating with vaginal fluids in the babies that are newborn because it's such a key to get that ingestion of the microflora. Yes, I really encourage people. I mean, if they have, the goal is to have a baby, right? So whether you can have a vaginal or not, okay, you have to surrender at some point, but if you don't to really advocate for yourself to do a vaginal swab for the baby's mouth, because that's really, really important for life. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's incredible if you think about how we're designed. I mean, that is like such an incredible design. It really is, it's crazy fascinating. And the studies that I've done, looked at on C-section babies, they may never completely, now first of all, granted there's emergencies and we wanna have a healthy baby. So I had no problem with C-sections, but if it's scheduled around the OB's golf schedule, maybe that's not a good idea. Because what we see is we see these C-section babies have a different flora from birth and it may never completely regain to that of a vaginally born infant. So there's much more like skin flora like staff and strep and those in the baby's gut versus our typical bifidobacter and lactobacillus. Yeah, I usually see like a lack of lactobacillus with a C-section baby for life. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? So I always ask, I'm sure you do too when you patients, I think they could be eight or 18 or 80 and I'm like, so how were you born? Was it vaginal or C-section? Were you breast or bottle-fed? Because those are important even if they're in their 70s or 80s. Yeah, I know, it's fascinating. Yeah, so you would do the testing and then you would probably get them on some nutrition if they wanna do detox and they're not trying, would you tell them to potentially wait to actively try to get pregnant while they do the detox? Tell us more about that. Yes, I would, I would. So first I wanna always make sure that there are five pathways of elimination are open. Are they sweating when they exercise or if they sit in the sauna? How long does it take them to sweat? If it takes more than 20, 25 minutes, then they say, okay, then your sweating mechanism is weak. How are your bowel movements? One a day is a minimum, ideally three per day. It's a major way of getting toxins out of the body. How's the liver looking at certain genes potentially that govern phase one, phase two detoxification? Kidney, are you thirsty? Do you have a lot of urination? And lymphatic. So if they don't exercise, then we know that that's a hindrance to moving toxins out of the body as well. So always make sure those five pathways are discussed and addressed. And then what was your question? Sorry. So that's perfect. That was kind of it is like, how would you start with someone who was in, say you were gonna take them through detox, you obviously check those pathways and say, let's not plan on trying getting pregnant for the next six to 12 months. You said ideally 12 months, right? Ideally, yes, if they have the time, which is why I really wanna get this book in the hands of young women so they can plan, because they're already planning, they're planning around their fertility by using birth control. And so they can plan to wean off of that and detox and give themselves enough time. Cause there is a, these women are educated, they've gone to school, they've created a career, they wanna have a baby when they wanna have a baby. And I'm always saying, I wanted you to have a baby when you have a baby, but not if it's not safe for you. And you might not have as much control over that if you're full of toxins, actually. Yes, is there anything in particular you've seen? I mean, I've seen different things and I'd love to, but I wanna hear you for autism is on the rise massively. And there's definitely, I loved in your bio because you said something I've always thought, toxic load infectious burden is at the core of what we do, right? Yes. We talk about autism. It's that those systems that are like the weak links of one in a thousand kiddos that have poor detox and you load them with toxic load and you see this weakness and it can manifest as this communicative disorder with autism. But tell me more about what kinds of things do you see that contribute to that diagnosis? Definitely the mother's history. And so I think the MTHF bar gene is really key. It is really key for phase two detox. It's one of the four steps. And if that is, if that's working at 70% or even 30% with a double snip, then that is a huge risk for autism. So we wanna address that and give a lot of folate and B12 for neural development. And autism is modifiable. So once somebody has a diagnosis, that you can actually change that, but you have to really work hard to get that brain to be less inflamed and to actually let that brain detox. So yeah, definitely look at all those factors that are involved in autism. So the other thing that's really related to autism is exposure to glyphosate. And so Stephanie Seneff has done a lot of work on this topic and she works at MIT in the AI department and I just love her. I'm so grateful for her work because she has documented what we all see in our clinics that we don't have the time to document ourselves. And her documentation really is solid around exposure, the use of glyphosate and the rate of autism, it's parallel. And glyphosate is very toxic and it's spread over the entire globe at this point. So we have to be very active in avoiding that. And that's part of the educational process. And that doesn't happen overnight either, which is why we ideally would like several months to get that out of our houses, out of our bodies. And glyphosate goes away pretty rapidly actually when you avoid it, it can be gone, not detectable within a week. Yeah, gosh, I love that and the encouragement because there's some things like MTBEs, which are like, you know, some of these things are fairly quick to get rid of if you just don't get exposed, right? Like at the core, decreased exposure is one of the principles versus we often, if you're listening, you might think, oh my gosh, what's my toxic load? What do I have to do? It's super complex. Yes, but just clean air, clean water, clean food can be huge. Little interesting story about glyphosate too, because I remember after my mold exposure, I was like, oh, I gotta test my glyphosate and see what's up. I had been eating organic for probably a decade, like almost 100%. And I thought, oh, I'll be super clean and great. And I remember, you might have heard me tell this, I was three times the level of a study with farmers on application day, meaning they had just applied it. So I was like, what in the world? Like it was really high. And this was before we had standardized access. It was a lab that was just doing research. So they compared the levels of the people who put in their urine samples to different studies. And so I was like on the dots on the graph, I was three times higher than any of the study levels. Wow. Yeah. So, and of course I got that out of my body, but I really think I have two dogs. I'm in a condo where I don't control the lawn care and they scream. Oh yeah. And the dogs sleep with me. And the spray, we found out organic wines in California have traces of glyphosate. So it's not safe to just have organic. So I think the dogs were part of it. So taking your shoes off when you enter the house. Right. The dogs are clean and not walking on glyphosate grass. But it's amazing, right? Because I would have thought that I would have been the role model of someone who had low glyphosate. And here I was, not at all. And probably my detox pathways were not great either. But was that from what they were spraying where you were living? Not from your diet? I don't think, I mean, it's hard. I really don't know. I don't think I had much dietary exposure because I was really careful about organic. The dogs were my first thought. Could it have been past exposure? Because I grew up on a farm where glyphosate was everywhere when I grew up. Now, like I said, they're GMO-free. So they don't spray glyphosate at all. But at the time, I don't know. Do you know how long it lasts in your system? I think it's out pretty quickly. So that must have been an ongoing exposure, maybe from the grass and the dogs. Like you said, I think that's all. Maybe I happened to test right after they sprayed. But it might have been just timing thing. Because ever since then I've been like zero undetected. So it's been good. Oh, that's good. Yeah, so that is, I mean, what I really want to impart to people is as heavy as this information is. Trust me, I was a little depressed writing this book. It's kind of heavy. It's kind of overwhelming. But the truth is, there is a lot in our control like this. And this goes away quickly. Heavy metals take a long time to come out. Mold is a little in between, depending on how healthy you are and what your genetic landscape looks like. But some of this stuff really can shift quickly. And I walk through personal care products and what we can do about that. And really, it does take time to go through a home and identify the things that are putting you at risk. And there's now, compared to 20 years ago, there are so many amazing products available, astounded. So there's almost no excuse. And these are not expensive anymore. They used to be really out of reach financially for a lot of people. And now, we also know that vinegar and water are really great tea-cleaning supplies. So I try to give people really manageable suggestions and things that will work for every person. I love that. I can't wait for this book, because it's going to be such a big deal for patients, for my patients, too. So I'm excited. And right now, there's no for sure the timelines a little bit. No. I know how this goes. I know. I wish I could say, maybe I come back when it's ready. I don't know. I wish I could say it was ready. But the other reason I wrote this book was that I've been seeing, I'm sure you have too, so many people in their 40s and 50s with cognitive decline and they're otherwise healthy. And that, to me, is if I had one tattoo, it would be why. Why does this 40-year-old have cognitive decline? That doesn't make any sense. And I really backed it up to, well, they probably came in with a lot of this. And so if we want to change the generation coming behind us, we want them to come in healthier. And so it's an educational process. And we'll get there. And I'm sure you talk about the cord blood studies that showed the babies being born into the world. Is it greater than 200 chemicals able to be detected in their cord blood? And I think 180 of those were neurologically toxic. Oh, my goodness. So I mean, and we don't know how they act together. So maybe you studied that. And so we used to think of this placenta as this magic gate. And the placenta is just as porous as the brain barrier. So we have to assume that anything that we are exposed to or have stored will be shared with the fetus at some point. And so that's a big motivator for a lot of people to think, OK, I can't just get away with this because it's going to get to the baby where they say, you know, this drug is a classy drug and it's pregnancy-safe, but it still gets to the baby. Right. Exactly. So you have to really be thinking about that. In our last few minutes, I'd love to just briefly talk about mold, because you and I both have stories. I won't go into mine, but I had in my office totally had to leave and start over and get something similar. Tell us just a little bit about your story. It's very similar, very similar. I was in an office in Boulder that I was in for six years. And every day that I don't work every day. And so it wasn't like I could track it. And I thought, oh, I just have low blood sugar, but I would have these visual changes. And at the end of the day, I couldn't read my own writing. It was so impaired. And I would often drive home feeling like I had been drinking and then couldn't sleep and anxiety, depression, insomnia, which none of that is normal for me. And so this was 2017. And we did an air sport trap test in the office because all of our patients that are mycotoxic kept coming in saying, why am I dizzy in here? I have had a headache for three days since being in your office. We're like, that doesn't make any sense. This is clean. The air sport trap test was negative. And then we did a dust sample and it was off the charts. So then we had it cleaned. And I couldn't go back in after it was clean because I would get dizzy every time I went back in. And I'm pretty healthy. Previously this, I have been very strong and resilient and healthy. And like I have exercised, you know, I've been a runner for 30 years and came in fourth in the Boulder Boulder years ago. Like, you know, I've been pretty strong, but I went down hard. And, you know, I had tested my HLADR in 2015. And I said, oh my God, that's funny. I have that gene. I blasted off. And then I was like, oh my gosh. Now I see, you know, in my MTHFR, I have one SNP. And so, you know, you put all these pieces together in the review mirror when you're sick and you think, oh, okay. And then, you know, I do believe there's a gift in every single illness. I mean, look what your gifts have been, this journey that you're on and where you are. Would you ever chosen that? No, but it has, you know, really honed my skills at working with mycotoxic patients and detox in general. And so, you know, I got through it. I still have a little bit of residual. I've just been lazy. I need to clean up. For the most part, it took six months to find a spot in Boulder that didn't have mold in it because we had a flood here and there's, you know, so many- Lots of properties. Yes. Yeah, I know. And so, yeah, we have a clean office which, you know, I'm super happy about and- I love it. I have to come see your new space. Yeah, yeah. To do it. Well, yeah, very similar story that everybody's heard of my own as well. And what I think that was interesting is I've had a lot of colleagues who, they're mostly colleagues, a few friends, a few patients that have had infertility or miscarriages and we later found out they had massive mold exposure. So, as we're talking about fertility and that, this could be an issue too if you're having infertility issues or if you've had multiple miscarriages. Mycotoxins are teratogenic so they can cause birth defects. And they look, it's funny because a lot of the studies because they affect grain production and then like livestock really. Right. A lot of the studies around mycotoxins and mold are done in cattle and in pigs but it's super clear that it has a fertility effect and it has an effect to the fetus. So, this is a really big deal too and this is one that you may or may not know. So, one thing I've seen with COVID is as people are at home more when their home is toxic, all of a sudden I've seen people are like, oh, I'm getting so sick, right? No, I'm so worried about this. Yeah. Have you seen people who are noticing because they're always in their home and their home is moldy? Yes, yes, yes, yes. And early on in the pandemic I thought, oh no, all these people are gonna be stuck at home. Yes. And this was, you know, still winter so the windows were closed and I was really worried about that. And did you have people who got work? I mean, I saw tons, maybe 10% or so of people that really got sick but it was kind of interesting because like, well, what changed in March? Oh, and so they would kind of, the buy-in for them was easier because like, oh yeah, I've been home a lot. Yeah, I've been, I've been the worst. So, they kind of put it together because part of the issue with mold is for the patient to actually believe there's a real issue, right? Oh, for sure. For sure. And, you know, I think you've probably seen the same number of people with mycotoxicity and cancer diagnoses. Yes. And when they're really trying, when they try to unpack like, why did I get this? Why, why, why? And it's like, well, let's look, let's just do a little dust sample of your house. I mean, we not need to look too far. Right. So yeah, it's, you know, mold is insidious and quiet and it touches every area of our lives, quite honestly, I think it does. Ashley, I know, don't you, I remember at the very beginning, I'm like, well, not everything's mold but then as I would dig, I kept finding these cases that were presenting with autoimmunity or neurodegenerative, like we said, Alzheimer's or dementia or they were massive chronic fatigue or migraine headaches and kept finding like, gosh, is everything mold? And it's not, but there's an awful lot of it that goes in that dust, right? Gemma, I'm actually kind of glad when I see somebody with MS and like, oh, you might not have MS, you're presenting like that, but it might just be really treatable mold, which I don't, I don't mean to take it lightly because it's very destructive to your house or your office or whatever, but at least it's treatable. At least it's not something that's happening to you that nobody has an explanation for. So I love, at least it's a layer. It's absolutely a layer, if not the top cause. That's kind of how I get it. I totally agree. And then fertility, say you have a woman, young woman comes up, hey, Dr. Shuckleton, I wanna get pregnant, I've heard you're great at this, I wanna know what you want me to do. And then as you talk to her, maybe just do some testing and you find out she has mold in her home, how would you, would you treat that pretty similar as far as detox for a year? What would you do with that patient for a pregnancy? I would say we wanna retest and get a negative mycotoxin test before you conceive. Yeah, so take all the steps that we do to clean the house, remediate in every way possible, and then treat for six to 12 months, depending on the burden and see how she's doing. But I think it's, as we both know, you can clean it up, you just gotta know how. Yes, absolutely. So that's one of those things that as a blessing in disguise, like, oh, this is what it is. It's super treatable. It's just gonna be a pain for about a year. It is a pain in the butt, but it's very painful. Yeah. Like you said, it's a huge blessing because all my knowledge comes from, I mean, not all, there's a study afterwards, but as far as my interest, I was joke because I was like, I'm not gonna treat Lyme or mold. Well, guess what? We kinda have to treat both and that might be the majority of my practice because there's so many people who aren't doing those two things, probably similar for you, right? I remember reading the word stackabotris. So my master's in public health, we look at, I took a toxicology class, but they really were talking about environmental disasters like the Minamata Bay, mercury contamination, and then subsequent mercury poisoning of the people in Japan. So we looked at that kind of stuff, but never this like in low grade environmental exposures, chronic exposures. So, wait, where was I going with that? Sorry, the brain. Oh, no, yeah, with exposures and toxicity and I think I'm not gonna remember what happened. Friday, we were talking about women getting pregnant and chronic low-lying exposures. Oh, you were talking about your public health and just how it's so insidious and you were seeing, oh, stackabotris is the word. Oh, thank you, thank you. So I remember reading that word thinking, oh, I don't ever want that and boom, got it. Where's the other one in here? That was one in my office too. Yeah, I was like, ooh, I don't think I'm ever, am I just associated with East Coast? You know, that's a big myth is that you can't have mold in Colorado because it's so dry here. Well, it's an epidemic here. So yeah, you know, whatever you don't want, be careful because you're gonna attract that on some level. Yeah, I always say I never chose to treat mold that chose me. I was like, I gotta do this thing. This is so fun, I love it. Tell us a little bit about what we talked about where they can find you, but go ahead and repeat those websites for everybody. So the clinic website is Holistica, care, H-O-L-I-S-T-I-C-A-C-A-R-E dot com. And then my blog is on maryshackleton.com. Awesome, I'll be sure and share those links. Any last words of wisdom? I mean, people are still amidst a little bit of chaos. The kids are starting to go back to school, some of them. What's the, any bit of advice you'd like to leave us all with? I think right now, and this is just my personal feeling because I love summer and spring so much, but to be outside as much as possible right now. I mean, we do have a pretty big forest fire here right now, so the air quality is not great. So if you have asthma, don't listen to me. But, you know, to be outside as much as possible right now because it helps recalibrate everything about us and to counteract the wireless exposure that we're having. And that's kind of, you know, the things that, do the things that you can do and then be really gentle on the stuff that you don't feel good about right now and just be kind in your mind. Those are my kind of words. Oh, I love it. You're kind in your mind. Yes, I love it. Thank you, Dr. Shackleton. It has been a treat to talk to you today. Thank you, so fun to see you. And we are literally just a few miles apart but we never see each other, so hopefully that'll change. Sounds good. Thank you for having me. You're welcome.