Mental Health & Heavy Metals – with Dr. Mindy and Rachel Galloway

Mindy: Okay. Resetters Dr. Mindy here, and I have brought you a lot of guests over the last year. I’ve interviewed a lot of people on Resetter TV, and I have to say that these next two may be the most near and dear to my heart. Because of the journey we’ve been on together. Let me start off by just welcoming Rachel and Rosemary Galloway and I’ll tell you a little more about them. But let’s start off by just welcoming you guys. Thank you so much for being here.

Rachel: Thank you!

Rosemary: Thanks for having us this is so cool.

Mindy: It’s really fun. And it’s really fun to share your story because Rachel and I have been on a journey together. And, what I love is that once Rachel became educated on toxicity and how to detox properly, you really turned around and looked at your daughters and like how can I detox them? So why don’t we start off with this and to give you guys a little bit of a background. Rachel, you and I have been working together. How long.

Rachel: Almost two years.

Mindy: Two years. Yeah.

Rosemary: It’s been that long.

Mindy: I know. This morning I was like, Oh, it’s been like a year.

Rachel: No.

Rosemary: That’s what I was thinking.

Mindy: Yeah. It’s pretty funny how that works.  So you originally, this was my memory of it, and then Rachel, you tell me your memory of it, but my memory was you really hit a wall with trying to solve your thyroid problems, and that’s how you found me in the detox work.

What you’re doing is, is that right?

Rachel: Yes. So basically, I mean, I grew up really healthy and my mom. Fed us extremely healthy, home cooked meals every day. So we never struggled with poor eating habits or anything like that. So after I got married and came to California, it was my pregnancy when I was 26 years old.

That basically, my health just. Immediately began to decline. It was, it was pretty immediate. And it was the pregnancy with Rosemary right here, who is now 19.

Mindy: We’ll talk about this in a moment. I don’t mean it, but, it’s times of hormonal change that toxins revealed themselves and pregnancy is one of them.

Rachel: Yeah. So, it was a pretty traumatic pregnancy. I had put on 60 pounds very quickly, and this is coming from a very small fit. You know, a place in my physique. Then I developed severe cystic acne, depression, lethargy. I had no motivation to do anything in life. And it was  pretty traumatic because this is coming from an opposite place of you know, I’m a doer. I like to get things done. I like to be out in the world with people and, and I just stopped. The result of whatever was going on in my body, it completely shut down my thyroid. So my thyroid was no longer working properly.

Mindy: This was post-pregnancy. So this continued on after the pregnancy.

Rachel: Yeah. So, we didn’t even find out that my thyroid stopped working for a couple of years. Because none of my doctors tested my thyroid function. And it was only until my sister in law recommended, she’s like, you know what, Rachel, you should really get your thyroid tested. And when I finally did, and I basically said, please test my thyroid. Even though they were like, yeah, you don’t need to, you’re fine.

It was. Basically there was zero function. So that kind of started my process of going to doctor putting me on different thyroid medications. And it started out on Synthroid, which is the common medication that my body rejected because it was a synthetic and it wasn’t working for my body.

So the result of that was just giving me more and more medication. And, which, you know, going down the rabbit hole, was not working. In the meantime, I’m getting more depressed. I’m gaining more weight. Like there was nothing I could do. And in the meantime, on the other side of this, I’m eating as well as I can.

I’m trying to exercise in the midst of depression and you know, anxiety and my body not working like I’m trying all the things, counting the calories, doing the exercises. And yet my body just was fighting me and I just kept gaining more and more and more weight. And then you start to internalize and you’re like, it’s my fault. So, this is a rabbit hole that happened for 18 years.

Mindy: Long time. Oh my God.

Rachel: Share some of that of what you saw as a child.

Rosemary: It was a lot of going into doctor’s offices and just sitting in the waiting room and seeing my mom come back drained cause she just like got her blood taken like all the time.

This was constant. We’d always like, she’d pick us up from school and right away would need five-hour nap. it was, it was really hard because anytime we like need mom, she’s sleeping, she’s tired, she’s sick, she’s not doing well mentally. And it was really hard to witness her, trying so hard, so many diets, so many exercise routines.

She did everything and we were all still confused on why she wasn’t getting healthy because she was doing all the right things, going to the doctors, like taking the medicines as she was supposed to, like we’d have to give you shots and your thighs sometimes

Rachel: the B shots for energy.

Rosemary: Yeah. Scary because everyone hates shots like she hated them.

Mindy: It’s funny because as you’re describing that person. I don’t, I mean, that’s not the person I know Rachel to be like. I’m like, did miss that person? I never met that person.

Really interesting. And you know, a point that I really want our listeners to understand is that there is this misbelief that you can solve everything with lifestyle. And although lifestyle is really important, many times you’re going to have to do more and dive into detox, which is what we did with you.

And it’s at that moment where you start to think you’re going crazy cause you’re like, I’m eating well, I’m doing everything that like textbook says I’m supposed to do. Right, but my feel like crap. Like why do I feel so bad? And that’s where toxicity is an issue. So, okay, take us to, I know you were in and out of doctors. You finally went before me. You actually went to a doctor who discovered your heavy metal load.

Rachel: Yes. So, I basically. Fired my current doctor after just going back and forth once again with medication. Cause I’m sure there’s other people out there where you go to the doctor and you just, you’re their Guinea pig.

And that’s what was happening with me where. Like my, my test result, my thyroid test results were not lining up with the textbook results that they’ve been taught in the thyroid dosing that they need to give. So my thyroid hormone has always been suppressed. If your thyroid is suppressed, doctors are taught that you need to lower your thyroid hormone.

However, my body actually needed more thyroid hormone, so every time they would lower it, I would gain another 10 pounds in a month. And it’s just like it was this crazy thing. And then, you know, within a couple of weeks, cause it takes a little bit of time for thyroid to come in and out of your body in a couple of weeks.

Once again, I’d be back in bed, not able to get out of bed for a couple hours and I’d be calling my doctor is saying, please, I need more, not less. And it was this back and forth. And finally I was like, all right, this is not working. I talked to my husband, he was so supportive and I went to, this naturopath doctor, a little North from us who was cash only, super expensive, but we were so fed up.

I’m like, I need something. I need answers. And I went in there and within a couple of months, he found out that I had an extremely heavy lead load. So, toxicity in the form of lead in my body. And so what he wanted to do, because like my levels were very dangerous. he wanted to do IV chelation on me, which I didn’t even know exactly what that was.

So, I started to do research and, when he said to me, we need to do this, it’ll force the metals out of your body, and then that way you’ll get, well. I didn’t have any, knowledge behind that, but I had a bad gut feeling and I couldn’t explain it, but I was just like, no, I don’t feel good about this.

And I didn’t know why. So I went home and actually I took the whole summer. I went back East to visit my family and I just did a lot of studying. And actually my sister in law, Erin had let me listen to wellness mama podcast and she was like, Oh, someone’s on there talking about thyroid. I think you would enjoy it.

So I listened and I really liked Katie Wells. I kept listening and it was only maybe two episodes later. You came on and I don’t even remember what you talked about. I don’t even know.

Mindy: I talked about Generational toxicity, which is your whole family, right? Like what I talked about was like, what you guys are all going through.

Rachel: so well, whatever it was, it completely like went right inside me. I was like, have to contact Dr. Mindy. I just knew, I was like. She can help me. And, so when I came back to San Diego, I called the office and, and then that’s, you know, that was the journey. That was the start of the journey.

Mindy: and one thing I want to point out, because that natural paths did a great job testing you. Yeah. One of the big concerns that I had.

When I first chatted with you was that he just wanted to start pulling the metals out. And I think we’ll even see this a little bit in Rosemary’s story. Like you don’t just start detoxing metals. There is a very specific process that you want to go through and you want somebody to guide you through it.

It’s not as simple as just taking a supplement and pushing it all out. So, talk a little bit about, I mean, you’ve been detoxing now year and a half?

Rachel: year and a half. Yeah.

Mindy: Talk about, What’s your experience been, as you’ve got moved through this, and then we’ll, we’ll dive into what you discovered about your girls.

Rachel: Okay. yeah, so actually it was really, really good not to do the IV chelation for lateral reasons, but when you and I started, digging deeper into testing, especially with the Dutch test, we found out that I am a poor methylator. And I have several, you know, genetic mutations that make it very hard to methylate and therefore detox stuff out of my body.

Mindy: That’s a good point. Cause our, our listeners may not know that either, is methylation is just a fancy term for how the, how well can the cells detoxify and people who have like an MTHFR gene that became really fad for a while, they know they’re poor methylators.

Other people discover it through like Dutch test. But what it means is you are going to hold onto those toxins more than somebody who’s a good methylator.

Rachel: So, yeah. So, when we started the detoxification program, I normally people will go through prep phase for about a month, and that gets your body ready to be able to detox the metals, which makes so much sense.

If you were doing the IV chelation, you’re just trying to force metals out of your body, and in my case, they wouldn’t have been able to come out. Yeah. Which means we would be pulling them out of my bone and tissue, but now they’d be swirling around and causing more damage. so, but at the end of the day, I ended up needing to be on prep phase.

It was at least three months, so it might’ve been three and a half months. To be able to get my body to be able to detox the metals.

Mindy: I want to stop there for one second because we just started a new group of detoxers today, and Rachel was on that call and, if you’re detoxing and you’re struggling with detox, it may be that you didn’t open up your pathways enough.

You haven’t supported the liver, the kidney, the gut, and so whatever program you’re on, if you’re struggling, you need to stay in that prep phase. We’ve kept people months. I mean six months, eight months, I have people we go back to prep because that’s such a crucial misstep of detoxing.

Rachel: Yeah. So, I was on for about three and a half months, and then I moved over to the body phase, and the body phase is when you start to pull the metals actually out of your body.

And so, I was in the body phase for. Probably four or five months and it was, I’m not going to lie. It was hard.

Mindy: I was going to say word. Where’s the part where, well,

Rachel: the whole part was tough for me actually. I feel like I, I was one of those very difficult candidates.

Mindy: You we’re definitely an extreme detox for sure.

Rachel: Definitely. So basically, body was very difficult. I had a lot of lethargy, anger. Actually, I’m not really an angry person. And as we were pulling the lead out, I would just have these burst of anger and you know, it would go towards my children or my husband, and basically my result, like what I needed to do for that was I’m going to my room, I’m shutting the door, and I’m going to go in bed and I’m going to warn people.

Rosemary: Mom was like, don’t come in.

Mindy: Yeah, this is why we coach people through it. You know, this is why we not just throw supplements at you and some videos and say, good luck. We actually coach you through it.

Rachel: yeah. And it was really important. Yeah. Because as I was struggling with things, Dr Mindy and Jessica would switch up my protocol, to make it easier because you don’t need to suffer while you’re going to see the detox.

Mindy: No,

Mindy: Agreed. I absolutely agree. Yeah. But then, but then there was a turning point in the brain phase, and I remember getting a message from you and you were like, Oh my God, yes, I remember this woman. And that’s how all of us that go through detox. It’s like you’ve been reunited with a friend that you forgot.

You didn’t know. Yeah. It’s really weird. Like your brain starts working in a way that you go is familiar and you go, Oh, I remember was this happy? I remember I had this great mental clarity. So it’s really crazy. So talk a little bit about that. Cause we did, we did get you to a good place.

Rachel: Yeah. It was funny cause I was struggling so much on body that finally we were like, all right, we’re moving on to brain. I feel like I was on a brain for awhile. Maybe even four or five months, and that was pretty difficult as well. But like you said, near the end, something just kind of clicked and it wasn’t just, Oh, it clicked over and now that’s where I’m at forever. It clicked over maybe for like. Two days, but it was so dramatic where I just felt, I don’t know, I just felt like, like my eyes were clear and I was able to tap into this joy and hope and seeing that person who I am.

You know what I’m saying? That I couldn’t access. And I was able finally to tap into that person. And, it was amazing. So when I kind of went back into the difficulties again, the physical difficulties of pulling this stuff out, and believe me, you know, you’re pulling it out because you’re kind of stinky.

Mindy: Yeah.

Rachel: you have it on your skin and it’s the weirdest thing. You can taste it. You can taste it in your mouth.

Rosemary: My eye is like my eyes would dry out and get like red and like sore, which was so weird. And so I would just like be in class and then my eyes would start like not focusing anymore. And I’m like, please work.

Mindy: It comes out every orifice, right? And you know, to your point is like, this is why we take people through it in a very specific process because the end result is life changing. And you’ll hear with Rosemary as well. It’s like you gotta do it properly so that works the way that you, and we got to educate you on it.

It’s not, my goal is that we shouldn’t be dependent upon any doctor. We should have enough information. That we can now detox for the rest of our life. And before we move on to your girls, what was, cause you’ve had some incredible, other than the joy you’ve lost weight, energy. Like give us a rundown of how you’re different now because of the detox.

Rachel: Yeah, I mean I feel like overall just my whole being. I’m a different person in that I am my real self. I get choppy, you know, my, my natural wellbeing is, is I’m actually a pretty positive person. I love to give to people. I love to encourage, I love to lift people up. I love to get things done.

You know, my husband. We kind of laugh at each other because if you give me a task, I will do it and do it really well. But he’ll have like 50 tasks and he’s just kind of slowly do all of them.

Rosemary: Mom cannot,

Rachel: well, I cannot multitask, so give me one task at a time and boom, I’m done. And it’s awesome,

Rosemary: but you’re so good at it.

Mindy: she’s really talented. I’ve discovered that about her

Rosemary: so talented.

Rachel: that used to be my job. So, but yeah, it just, I would say the biggest change. And, here’s the side, the side effects is finally able to lose weight while doing all the things like my body is finally, as I’m releasing the metals, I’m releasing the weight because it no longer feels that it has to protect my organs, which is, you know, it’s so crazy. Like people don’t realize a lot of times you could be holding onto weight is because your body, yeah. Does not want to release metals into your body. Especially cause we’re not designed be able to detox them. We have to help ourselves to detox metal out of your body.

So now that my body doesn’t feel threatened anymore, like, Oh no, my, my organs are going to get destroyed by all this, you know, led, floating around and damaging things. It’s feeling safe and it’s, it’s starting to release and it’s still slow. It’s a slow process. I’m still in process.

Mindy: we all are.

Rosemary: Milestones. And it’s like crazy to see. Like, I don’t know, my mom used to only wear, like feel comfortable in dresses, like really long dresses, and now she wears pants all the time and she’s okay. Just like wearing clothes that she used to and like, I don’t know. It’s a small thing.

Rachel: A lot, a lot of small things.

Rosemary: small things, and it just makes you so happy to make some difference.

It makes me so happy to see, like the first time I saw her wearing pants, I like almost cried. I was so happy for her. It had been so long. You know.

Mindy: it’s awesome. So there was a light bulb moment. I remember when you asked me, wait, if I have this load, what am I kids have. And should we test my girls. So let’s talk a little bit about that and then what Rosemary experience, because Rosemary is the first born and the first born gets mom’s most toxic load, you know?

Rachel: Yeah. So, I mean, from working with you and studying, Most of the time that the majority of the lead that people have is passed down through the mother’s microbiome. And, it’s just interesting and sad for the first born that they get the biggest load and then it goes down consecutively. So I decided once I was kind of in a better place, I wanted to get my girls tested, because since they were young, while living, they all actually present completely different.

They struggle with different health things as a result of the lead, which is really interesting. And I think it’s, it’s good to point out because it’s not a cookie cutter thing. Yeah. Like just because I struggled with this one thing doesn’t mean that you will, if you have. A high lead load, right? Yeah.

Mindy: One toxin gives all these different symptoms. We have that my family too, like my mom was osteoporosis and chronic pain and digestive issues. My sister was thyroid and restless legs and mine was peri-menopause symptoms. So you know everybody, it’s the same toxin that’s getting passed down, but it’s exhibiting different and, and each body.

Rachel: Well, it makes sense to. Settling in different parts of your brain and in your body that it would affect different organs. Like for me, it was my HPA axis. It’s completely clogged up.

But this is really interesting. I liked the science part of this. So I got all three girls tested, and of course Rosemary is the worst. And then Esther a little bit less. And then there was a huge gap between Esther and Eleanor. My youngest, and I realized this later, I actually lost a child between Esther and Eleanor. And if you added up the numbers, that child got exactly the load of lead between Esther and Eleanor. If you went down. Yeah. Isn’t that crazy?

Mindy: Yeah. So we’ve done a heavy metal test on all you guys, and you can see that the lead is in descending order, so you have the most Rosemary’s next and it goes on down. So, so, but Rosemary is more than just your, you’re like officially diagnosed lead levels. Like you knew something wasn’t right for you. So talk a little bit, because I think your story is also impactful because so many people can think that anxiety, depression, anger is just a teenager and that’s not what it was. So talk a little bit about what you noticed.

Rosemary: Yeah, so I developed depression when I was very, very, very young. 12 which is absolutely not normal, but to me it was, and I just thought that I was an angry person.

I had convinced myself that I was a bad person, and that’s just how I acted. but it was, I was just, I had no energy. I was tired all the time. I was sad all the time. I was hurt and angry for no reason. And then it was kind of just like, I felt nothing for a long, long, long time. I had kind of lost sense of who I was and like how happy I could be. So, after starting the detox, it was like you said, it’s like seeing an old friend again. It’s so crazy.

Mindy: And, what did Rachel, what did you notice? Like did you kind of start to put two and two together, or was it an aha moment when you got her test? Like did it, was it a like, let’s try it and see what happens?

Rachel: Well, I kind of already knew. I mean, once I got my test done, it’s like, well, if I have this, my kids have it right. and so with Rosemary, like she had some very specific things. Definitely the depression and the mood.

Rosemary: I also have my period cycle, so it was really debilitating. I had asked my mom a few times to go to the doctors to go on birth control, which I don’t know.

I’ve thought that was the solution cause that’s what my friends were all doing to fix it. and I, I would have periods cycles that would be short. They’d be like five days, but three of them, I would be in crippling pain. I would be stuck in bed. I just wouldn’t be able to move. I couldn’t leave a heating pad.

It was just, and I had to miss a lot of school because of it. And I had just accepted that that was part of my reality and I was trying to fix it in the best ways I could. I would just like take Advil and I would, you know what I mean? I would do all the things you’re supposed to do and it’s nothing really helped.

So for years, ever since I got my period, it was awful. And it was. It. it was not something I was able to deal with on top of the mental issues because then it’s not like I’m choosing to be in my room. I have to be in my room. There’s no other. Options and it sucks. It sucks to have to miss out on stuff because you’re in pain all day you know?

Mindy: Yeah. And that’s another one of those things that they say, Oh, well that’s just normal. Like, you know, normal teenage PMs.

Rosemary: It shouldn’t be.

Mindy: I know. Like if I go back to like when, when I was a teenager. Yeah, I mean, PMs has always kind of a new thing. You’re trying to learn how to navigate, but you’re not debilitated like that.

Rosemary: I know a lot of friends who were like that.

Mindy: Right? and the thing that like shocked me when my daughter went through high school was like, how many kids and teenagers are struggling with anxiety.

Mindy: there’s gotta be toxicity to that. So yeah, it’s an epidemic that makes sense.

Rosemary: Cause of biomagnification like it absolutely makes sense why our generation is so toxic and we don’t know about it.

I had no clue why I was depressed, why all my friends were sad all the time. And it’s, it’s just, it’s something that is very much societally normal now. So I didn’t think. There could be a medical issue underlying. I just thought that this is the way my brain is. This is the way it will be, and I have to be okay with that, and it was a very hard reality to accept that you’re just going to be sad forever.

Mindy: Especially you started feeling depression at 12 is that what you said? Yeah. Most 12 year old don’t get depressed. That’s not a normal thing, so, okay, so we tested all three girls and then we got, I think we got Rosemary on the detox right away. I think you were like. Project number one.

Rachel: Yeah, I think I got her started and then I was just like, you know what? I’m just going to do all three at the same time.

Rosemary: I was on the prep phase for a really long,

Rachel: Rosemary can confess about her prep phase.

Rosemary: I can confess I was very inconsistent with taking the supplements because. I don’t know. My mind was, it’s the prep phase, so you’re not getting any of the let out. So my mind was still very much in a very chaotic state, I guess.

so it was very hard to keep any sort of routine. I think taking my supplements fell under the umbrella of taking care of myself. And I was really not good at that. Yeah.

Rosemary: It’s still, it’s still a struggle sometimes, but especially, especially before I started detoxing, it was really hard. So even though I knew it was good for me, it was just difficult to bring myself to do it because I didn’t really care about my wellbeing, you know? But once I got through the prep phase,

Rachel: I’m like if you can’t get through a week, you’re starting over.

She kept starting over and over and over, so by the time she got on board, the other two were already through two or three weeks of prep. They were ahead of her.

Mindy: We had a little competition going. Yeah,

Rosemary: yeah. We started keeping a little tracker, right? I had done a whiteboard on the fridge right? If I took my pills.

Rachel: I said, every day you take your pills, you get to go to star. I see all the stars you get to go to week two.

Mindy: Like back to the chart. That’s something shifted. And you’re so talk a little bit, once you got through prep and we, you went into body and brain, like talk about what shifted because there could be a lot of parents listening to this and going, yeah, that would be my teenager.

They wouldn’t follow them through. And what we really want people to understand is that it was life changing for you.

Rosemary: Yeah. So. You want me to talk about like after

Mindy: the, yeah. Well, so body and brain were those pretty smooth or did you bump through all?

Rosemary: I think they weren’t super difficult for me because I was going a lot slower than my mom was. I was taking less supplements less frequently, but just I was kind of being babied through the process.

Rachel: That’s important to say for the kids because they have to be able to function go to school and do their work. They’re on what’s called the low and slow detox. I had to mentally just say, listen, you just take these supplements first thing in the morning, just think of them, you know, like vitamins. And then at night they take their binders. So that’s Apple. They had to do.

Mindy: and we’ve done that for a lot of them. A lot of kids, regardless of their age. I actually have an adult right now. He’s a CEO of a company and he’s like, I can’t be off and I need to have some kind of, slow and slow. So, there is a low and slow, it just takes us a little longer, but that’s okay.

That’s fine. But you can really move through your life, so, okay, so you didn’t, did you know, you’re on low and slow?

Rosemary: yes, my mom definitely made me aware. She was like, you’re going slower than me. So, you’re going to be, you’re going to be okay, you’re going to be able to go to college, you’re going to be able to pay attention, you’re going to be able to, you know, still function.

And for me, I could function better, which was crazy cause it’s just like during the detox. It’s not even like after the results are complete or anything like I’m definitely not done. I’m not clean yet. But I’ve already felt so much better. And the difference was like when I would go senior year high school, I would wake up and I would just feel like a deep tired in the pit of my stomach and I wouldn’t be able to like have any energy to go throughout the day to just pay attention to my classes, which sucks because I love school.

I love learning. And to have that kind of taken away. Was really difficult. but I was able to focus a lot better. I was able to have, I have time after school and still be awake. I was very used to coming home from school at 2:40 and just going straight to sleep, waking up at 5:00 PM doing all my homework, going back to sleep because I needed.

And you did like 14 hours of sleep, which is insane, and you should not need that much sleep.

Mindy: And that’s another thing that we say, Oh, you’re a teenager. Yeah, you need a lot of sleep, but that’s not normal. Yeah. It’s really interesting

Mindy: sleep. Yeah. So energy went up. What about mental health?

Rosemary: What mental health was. Tremendously impacted. I had been, I had told you I’ve been like depressed since I was 12, so I was very used to this. Just being who I am and my mental state is just always like that. I was always kind of on the verge of breaking down, which you shouldn’t feel always on the burg.

Just, I kind of think of it like this. I was just making it through the day. Over and over and over again. But once I started the detox, I was able to not just make it through the day, but look forward to the next one, which I know that’s not like a huge concept, but to me it was because I’d never, never been able to look forward to the future, and I’d never wanted to.

Like, keep looking forward to the future. I think it really impacted everything because I would just, I would be able to get up in the morning and I’d be happy. And, my mom still drives me to college, but I don’t want to give that up because it’s a little time we get to spend together. So,  I’d be able to wake up in the morning and we’d make our coffees and we’d drive and I’d just be happy and be talking to her and it would be a nice day. You know,

Rachel: you could see a light kind of come on in her eye.

Rosemary: Yeah, it was. It was finding myself again. It was kind of waking up from a really long.

Mindy: Oh my gosh, I love that we get people, a lot of families in our clinic that will bring us their kids of all different ages.

And when they, you know, we know they’re coming in and when they walk in, you can look at their eyes and I always say to my staff, like, lights are off. Do you see that? Like their lights are off.

Rosemary: lights are off when you’re like looking at the floor and you’re just trying not to be present. I think for me.

Mindy: there’s a look and then all of a sudden you go to detox and boom, the lights are back on.

It happens to adults too, but especially to kids, we’ve seen it with concussions, like some of our families will bring their kids in post-concussion and I’ll be like, Oh yeah, lights off. Let’s. We got to do this, this, this, and this. So I love the lights on lights off because I think it’s a really important thing for us to realize is that when the brain is packed with heavy metals, it does not function normally.

And with those metals, what can the anger and the anxiety and all of the reactivity that we would call a teenage years. Can be heightened because of those metals stimulating the brain so deeply.

Rosemary: Yeah. There were a lot of like little things too. Like I noticed I would look people in the eye instead of looking at the floor all the time, which again is little, but like, to me that was something

Rachel: and confidence, confidence,

Rosemary: and I stopped kind of. I very much had this anxiety where I over analyzed how people would look at me all the time, and I was super scared of how people would decide who I was because of, I don’t know, just seeing me and I stopped really caring about that as much and I kind of dress how I want now, and I kind of present how I want now, you know?

And it’s just taking that power back is. Tremendous, and I’ve kind of felt like a whole new person. It’s, it’s really incredible. And I want people to know that, like if, if your kid is not the person who they really are right now because of mental health, it’s not, it’s not their fault. They don’t want to be mean.

They don’t want to act like that. It’s, it’s really just they’re in the fog and it’s going to take some work to get them into the light, but they want to be there. They want to be there so badly. It’s just hard for them to force themselves there because you know when you’re in it, you can’t see the way out.

Mindy: Oh my gosh. So beautifully said. So beautifully said. You know, I, when my daughter was going through high school, I and I kept hearing of all her friends that would like drop out of school for anxiety and art were really medicated. I remember asking her like, this doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t like our generation didn’t have that.

Like what is going on? And then, yeah. You know, you go to look at it and you say, okay, well maybe it’s social media, and sure that could be a part of it. It’s a part. Maybe it’s getting into college right now is more difficult. Maybe that could be a part of it. And we have a generation of kids that are really struggling.

And I think that it’s the, the pressures on them mixed with social, social media. But it’s the, it’s that you’re dealing with a toxic brain and the toxic brain. And by the toxic, I don’t mean their thoughts are toxic. I mean, like literally toxins in the brain. And you’re putting them in this intense environment now called high school.

Mindy: Yeah. And boof, you like, now you’ve got a kid that’s not themselves. So that was so well said.

Rachel: Dr. Mindy, do you mind like just talking really quickly about, how it works when the metal comes into the brain and how it can cause, anxiety or depression in our children? Like, what happens?

Because I feel like most people have no idea if you’re just like, Oh, there’s metal in the brain that causes anxiety. Well, why.

Mindy: Yeah. Well, it really depends on where in the brain it goes to. So, if it goes to the areas, the first place, typically it goes to is the area that controls hormones. So pituitary, hypothalamus, pineal gland, because there’s no barrier, there’s no protective barrier.

So even in Rosemary story you hear that she said, like her periods in her PMS was really off. So the led was stored in the bones. She goes through this big hormonal swing. It goes up into the brain and it starts to impact hormones even more because it goes to the part of the brain that is, doesn’t have this protection.

But as those, the led keeps coming out, now it goes into places like the, the hippocampus, which is memory and mood. So, it starts to affect mood. each metal acts a little differently. So, mercury, I was thinking of mercury as like, it’s a stimulant. And so, these kids are just agitated already, and now you put them sitting in class, you put them in a social media situation, and they’re.

Easy to like the angry you talked about. They’re easy to get their nervous system riled up because they already are in a place where the, where the neurons that the den writes, the part of the brain that is carrying information is already overstimulated. So, and then led.

I call it a dumber downer. I mean, I, I say that with love because that was my, my metal, but led. It’s at the, sits at the end of these dendrites that are carrying information and it stops the information from going across.

Rosemary: It stops the signals from passing. Okay.

Mindy: Exactly. So, so you see it in people when they’re like talking to you.

Mercury is usually the people that are like talking, talking, talking, talking in circles. Cause they’re super wound up led or the people that are talking to you and they’re like, what was I going to say?

Rachel: I literally would be driving down the freeway and forget where I was going and I’d have to pull over and look at my calendar. I mean, that’s so bad.

Rosemary: Moms memory. It was not good. Like ask her one thing the day before and then the next day she’d be like, you never talked to me about. Yes, I did.

Rachel: That’s true.

Mindy: And, so mine was, mine was lead and my family used to always say like we’re waiting for you to finish the story.

I realized that I would say it, I just be telling the story and then I just stop in the middle of the story and they’re like, we’re still listening to you, mom. We’re still listening. And I’m like, sorry. I like, it’s really interesting, but once you get those out, like you just start to see that they’re, Oh wow, that wasn’t me that wasn’t like, yeah. It was the metals,

Rachel: so, Oh, Rosie, you should talk about now how your cycle is. She’s been, yeah, she’s been low and slow for six months, so it’s only been six months, but these are some of the changes.

Rosemary: So now I think it’s, I’ll be in bed for like one day and it’s not as cripplingly painful. It’s still painful to where I’m not up and walking around, but it’s not like where I feel like I have nausea the entire day and if I would stand, I would like get vertigo and throw up, but it’s not that way anymore.

Definitely now it is. it’s more manageable and even though it’s not perfect yet, it’s so much better, and I’m very, very thankful for that.

Mindy: that’s brilliant. And what about your mental health? Do you feel like, I mean, the thing I think that people should understand is you probably still get depressed.

You probably still get some anxiety, but it comes in, does it come and go quicker?

Rosemary: okay. So if we’re being very honest, this like situation currently has been very difficult for my mental health. Definitely because we lost our routine. And routine is very, very good for my mental state. It kept me focused on the little individual things I needed to get done for that day.

And then I had kind of the reward times where I just would get to see my friends and I’d go to shows and I would get to. Do fun things like go to road trips up to LA and like stuff like that, which is really fun for me. But now that’s kind of not there anymore. So, my mental health is definitely not where it was before all of this situation, but I’m not going to say that.

I don’t know if the decline is because of the detoxing. They’re completely,

Mindy: you know, just so our listeners don’t, we’re in quarantine

Mindy: I think my mental health has been going a little arise.

Rosemary: yeah,

Rachel: yeah. It’s definitely been a weird time.

Rosemary: excusing this weird time.

I think my mental health has been a lot, I don’t know how to say it except clearer. It’s as if I can see and function in a way that I wasn’t able to for years and years and years and years. And so it felt like I was a very different person for awhile, and then I just realized I was happy.

Yeah. And that was a very strange. Concept to me, like I could be happy for short periods of time when I’m doing fun stuff, but this was just my existence is happy and I realized I’m a positive person. And for years I had had this identity in my brain where I was just a negative, sad person, and I was angry all the time and I didn’t deserve to have friends.

Now I realize I do deserve to have friends and my body issues have gotten a lot better. Like my, my self-image. And it’s, it’s crazy how many little things your brain can affect. I actually like suffered for a really long time with an awful body image. Like I would look in the mirror and I would see one thing and then the second I’d turn away, it would like morphed in my head.

And I would think that I looked completely different. And now I look in the mirror and I look away and it’s the same person and it’s so crazy that so many things can be affected by the lead in your brain, but it makes sense, like if, if the dendrites can’t send out their signals, like how are you supposed to get the happy hormones?

Mindy: Yep. So, there’s something called Mad Hatter’s disease, which was two years ago with mercury. They say that people will go as mad as a Hatter, and you know, that’s exactly right. Your story is incredible. And you know, one of the, one of the things that your mom and I are really passionate about is that if we can get to the younger generation.

What we do is we detox you now and we stopped the passing on of toxins as each generation goes on.

Rosemary: I think there just needs to be more education because no one in my age group understands about like blood toxicity and poisoning by metals because you understand in mass amounts like, Oh, if you live next to a bunch of, I don’t know, you live next to a mine and then there’s like the remains of the metals.

Of course, you’re going to get sick. It’s in the water, it’s in the food. But people aren’t realizing that because of like biomagnification that the tiny amounts that like our ancestors got through the led pipes and stuff. Well now they’re ours and we still have a lot and you know, and there’s microplastics within us because of our toxic environment.

There’s just, it makes sense if you really think about why we have all of this? but no one has really pondered it yet because we’re just told the conventional doctor routes, like you go and you try and put a bandaid on a deeply rooted cause, you know, a deeply rooted issue. If you try and just medicate, like let’s say I went on birth control, that wouldn’t have fixed.

My mood that wouldn’t have fixed my body image, that wouldn’t have fixed anything. It just would have put more hormones into me and that would have overwhelmed my body more. I think there just needs to be more awareness. People need to understand that there is, there are rooted causes, and that our environment really, really, really affects us because our bodies take in everything and our cells, we’re not program to be able to take out like metals out of ourselves like plastics. Those substances are far too dense for our cells to be able to destroy in the lysosomes. Like we can’t, we can’t do that. It’s too much. So I wish, I wish people, I think there needs to be more of a social media movement where people are aware.

Mindy: Yeah. I need to get you with my daughter. Cause we, we’ve been saying that for a long time that, you know, we, your mom and I are on a mission to get this information out. And there I do see the younger generation taking it to their own generation and teaching them. So, so incredible. And you’re so articulate.

I’m like sitting there, I’m like, Oh my gosh. We’re going to turn her into some kind of holistic doctor.

Rachel:  The Overman is just said she needs to be a chiropractor.

Rosemary: but currently going to major in biology and literature, so.

Mindy: It’s the first step because we need forward thinking people in the world of healthcare. So, you go get that biology baby. We’ll talk in a couple of years.

Rosemary: like four to six years, you know.

Rachel: you know, Rosemary is going through this process and she does talk to her friends about it and basically you don’t get a lot of positivity back. It’s just like even living in California and you know, be in a crazy Californian and it’s just even, this is too crazy.

Mindy: You know, Rosemary, I had chronic fatigue when I was 20 and so I had a whole it, it was horrible and I had a holistic doctor put me on a gluten free diet, which back then was like, you might as well have like.

You know, walked around like you were an alien. Like nobody wanted me over for dinner. Nobody understood me. People thought I was crazy. So, you’re just, you know, so what we are now, 30 years later, three years from now, everybody will be detoxing because they’re going to be forced to, to just understand.

Yeah. So, give it time. It will be normalized. And your guys’, both of your stories that are incredible. So, okay, so let’s finish up with this. I love all my podcast interviews. I love to finish up with. If you had one message for the world, one message that you could shout from the rooftops, and it can be on anything.

It doesn’t have to be on toxicity. What would it be?

Rachel: Do you want to go first or me?

Rosemary: I think for me, especially for. Girls my age. Stop comparing yourself to other people because then you’re going to be the harshest critic on yourself because you are the observer and you are the object. And if you observe yourself with the same harshness, you’re judging and observing others, you’re going to feel so bad about yourself, so, so bad.

So just try and watch what you think and try to, Silence yourself if you’re saying something negative about someone else because you’re going to just put that negativity back onto yourself and your own self-image and then everyone’s going to feel horrible. So that is my message.

Mindy: Great message. I love it Rachel, what’s your message?

Rachel: Okay, so my message specifically directed towards women and mothers. I feel like as women and mothers, we just give so much of ourselves to everyone around us. And, okay, so twofold. Number one, your health is important. And, regardless of all the people you take care of, it’s okay to take care of yourself.

It’s more than okay. Like you need to take care of yourself so that you can live a long and healthy life and be there for the people that you love and care about. You need to be very proactive about that. And then the part two of that is that there’s hope. There is absolutely hope. And that has been the light in my journey. And in fact, one year my brother Andrew gave me a little pin and it said, embrace hope and that became like my motto for the year because if you’re going from doctor to doctor to doctor and you have no hope,

Like that’s what keeps you moving forward. And so my encouragement is there is hope. There is a root cause.

There is a deep issue and you can find it and you’re going to have to be your own. Doctor, you’re going to have to be your own person. You’re going to have to read what you can, embrace, what you can, and just research where you can, you know, and, use other people with, with stories like ours and see if it relates to you in some way.

And I mean, that’s how I found Dr. Mindy to begin with. And once you have that spark of hope, then you can move forward. And the second thing in regards to mothers, and they see their children who are struggling at young ages with, you know, extreme eczema, dental issues, mental health issues, you know, all of these things, there’s a reason.

And it’s not because you’re a bad mother and it’s not because. You know, they’re lazy in school. Like there’s, there’s a reason nowadays our children are suffering at much younger and younger ages. And so, I want to give you that hope and that capacity as well to dig into their health and to release them of, of those health issues as well.

Mindy: Oh my gosh, you guys are so articulate. I just love the way you put words together. Do you know that my, I named my daughter’s middle name is Hope? My grandmother’s name was Hope and I just loved the concept, but I love the idea behind hope because if you don’t have hope, you know you have nothing.

And it all starts with, that’s that first step is hope.

Rachel: It’s living. Hope is a living thing. The energy is alive.

Mindy: Awesome. So, thank you so much. And Rosemary, thank you for coming and just being so, yeah, being so transparent is really important because you will, you can speak to your generation differently than your mom

Mindy: Yeah. It’s beautiful. Okay. I love you guys.